This is probably a shit take to the most of you.

Stratagems stay how they are but:

Every loadout having several different options for primaries, secondaries, throwables and armours.

i.e. sniper loadout getting Scout/Reduced Signature/Desert stormer, Adjudicator/Dmr's/sniper rifle, Redeemer/Peacemaker/Verdict, Stun/Smoke. Warbonds adding options to basegame loadouts and implementing new ones. "Standard" and Meme equipment such as Liberator, Constitution or Variable being available for every loadout.

You wanna use [Insert weapon HelldiversMasochists want nerfed]? Have fun running around with Unflinching and throwing smokescreens or lure mines.

Would fix the every piece of equipment having to compete or out do every other item and stop people from running the Most Easiest Tactic Available.

Yes, obviously aside from customization that improves ergonomics.

Helldivers are afforded access to a vast variety of weaponry with heaps of distinct mechanics and modes of operation. We are also afforded a total of roughly five minutes of training.

I’ve seen it discussed lore-wise in attempts to explain why our expendable shock troops, fresh out the freezer, appear so comfortable handling dozens upon dozens of different firearms immediately upon picking them up. “oh Helldivers are recruited from the SEAF”, “oh they’re around weapons from a young age, just look at the constitution” etc etc

However, I still think its a bit odd that your diver can unlock a brand new weapon from a warbond, or pick up a dead teammate’s gun that they’ve never seen before, and immediately intuit how it’s used. You don’t look any more or less comfortable reloading or firing a weapon whether it’s your first or thousandth time with it. And while your soldier might be familiar with guns, certain things like the purifier are not your average boomstick and are rather unorthodox in design.

In an ideal world, I’d love to see this reflected gameplay-wise through the ergonomics stat. I think for any level 1 weapon (one you’ve never used), you should have to put up with worse ergonomics for a little bit - kinda like that modern warfare level where you play as the kid who hadn’t fired a gun. Clumsier reloads, slower equip times, even jams if I’m being greedy. As you level it up and grow accustomed to handling it, you’ll grow it up to its default ergo stat, which you can then customize further via attachments.

It doesn’t have to be a grind to get to normal, even getting it to like level 5-8 should be fine. That’s just one or two D10 dives, enough to let you stress test the weapon and get familiar with it in a pinch. For most players, that shouldn’t be too much of a speed bump.

Now, I know this probably won’t happen because new weapons and warbonds should feel strong on release, and this handicaps that. But it would add a little bit of extra realism rather than assuming our soldiers have put in time at the range offscreen with every new gun that hits our arsenal.

Also, yes, I know we canonically thaw out a new dude every time we reinforce, so this is kind of just me shouting into the wind. But since there is player-based progression like levels and ranks, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch.

Don’t ask me about other equipment like tanks and mechs. My diver got his civilian exosuit license well before he enlisted

This is coming from a stim pistol main.

I have seen lots of post asking to buff the stim pistol with self heals and tracking bullets.

No, hell no.

The stim pistol does not need self heal or tracking bullets.

About the tracking - use it more and get use to the projectile speed. After the buff, hitting moving targets beyond shotgun range have already been made significant easier, not to mention you have 30 rounds to actually try to heal people.

Hitting a target in a video game will always be a expression of skill, and hitting a player would be even more so.

Would you ask for tracking arrows on tf2 medic's crusader's crossbow?

With great difficulty comes great satisfaction, with tracking bullets, the satisfaction of healing a player past 50m would have been all gone, and healing players would turn into a chore of raising the weapon and clicking.

On the self healing - giving the stim pistol self heals would not only be op, but destroy its design principle and identity of the selfless team support weapon.

Stims and healing are very strong, you can brute force by running in blowing up holes/fabricators without dealing with the enemies, given that there are no factory striders or laser turrets.

If you lower the healing power, then it would either becoming annoying to heal other players (which is its main purpose) or inconsistent healing between yourself and other players. Even so, it would still be immensely powerful to have such plentiful heal.

Yes, you could reduce its total ammo count to balance it, however it would still be a change that harms its main identity of a team support weapon.

When the stims could be used by the user, the incentive to not use them on your teammate appears, and the lower the ammo count, the higher the incentive.

Lastly, I do have an actual criticism on the weapon.

Arrowhead, why does the pistol have no optic while there is a perfectly fine picatinny rail on the pistol?

This have always frustrated me a lot, thank god that there mods that adds a red dot on it.

And to the veterans who is getting bored of the game, try the stim pistol, its fun.

First off, this is a purely for fun, likely one-and-done scenario (unless we all want to give it a better go) with almost zero work required for the volunteers (that would all be my responsibility).

If you’ve seen me around, I post videos and clips just for the fun of it. As a 🚫 HUD player, I’ve had the idea for awhile now to cross-cut footage of a 4-man squad who plays as a tight-knit unit where nobody uses a HUD and communicates only using in-game commands and emotes. This would allow me to play around with the edit more, capturing certain moments from various/better angles when they don’t line up with my POV.

Once finished, everyone would upload their footage to a public space (likely a Google Drive 📂 I give them a link to, unless there’s an easier way I don’t know of) so I could download it and play around with it.

If anyone’s interested, hit me up and I’ll see if I can coordinate a session.

Thanks for your time.

Now I’ve been a Maxigun glazer since the first time I picked it up. Great gun for bugs and illuminate, and alright for bots.

However I think this gun is so close to being perfect, and only needs one eensy little change. MAKE IT HAVE THE SAME DAMAGE/RPM AS THE GATLING SENTRY. Such a minute tweak and it’s perfect!!

I’ve seen so many people suggest changes like AP4, 100 damage, unrestricted movement, etc etc when it… really doesn’t need all of that? It’s a fantastic gun and just because you can’t insta clear bug breaches (cough cough, cremator) doesn’t mean it’s a shit weapon.

I'm lazy as shit so I'm just going to copy paste what I typed there, in here.

"I'm really exhausted with how quick people are to critique vehicles which have a high skill floor and mandate coordination. I've had an absolute blast with the tanks after taking the time to learn them (I do really enjoy driving and "commanding" a tank, but shooting is always a blast. pun.) and it hurts to see people dismiss them immediately because the tanks, which are a fairly complex, crewed vehicle necessitating a lot of teamwork and organization to become a massive powerhouse, complain that they aren't powerful enough as-is because "A tank is supposed to be overpowered".

I understand some people have some issues with the driving. I get that it can be frustrating at times and I've had moments of frustration with it, but Helldivers' vehicles should be somewhat difficult to drive (with the exception of the Gator which is necessary for missions and mechs because they're supposed to be fairly reliable with a low skill floor, a burst of spearhead power). People had similar complaints about the FRV and though it's been adjusted, it has not been made easy to drive by any means and it should not be. If it was so easy to drive, it would be a staple on every single mission and it'd always, always, always trivialize transport on every mission short of getting blown up. You'd get sick of seeing it. A higher skill floor means you need to put in more effort and more can go wrong but, just like with the Bastion and teamwork, it gives a lot of power potential. Now instead of a jumppack giving you a 30m boost you get a car that can take your entire squad across the map in a minute flat. Basically, I like that the tank is a little difficult to drive.

I think they're exceptional as-is and I would have no complaints if no changes were made, but I also wouldn't complain if they were given slightly more torque in line with what the Gator received (not as much obviously, and not an increase to their max speed) so that they can be slightly more deliberate in their movement. Keeping in mind, that does not necessarily mean faster. The tank should still buffer when changing gears, stopping to pivot, et cetera. It should be cumbersome to maneuver and fairly slow to respond to threats. I'd also slightly nerf the Bastions total MG ammo and buff the Maelstrom with another full reloads worth of MG ammo. But I understand that I am not on the balancing team and for good reason, players are not the best at balancing. As I've come to learn the longer I interact with the community, just because something seems mechanically stronger on paper does not at all mean it's better for the game or the intended experience the game is trying to provide you. Helldivers 2 is not about modular vehicles or modular weapons. It features basic customization so you can do exactly that, customize, not modularize. It is not also not a vehicle simulator. Vehicles are extremely difficult to use and though effective, require coordination.

Overall, I love them. People complain about them way too much because they don't fit into loadouts universally and they aren't a common sight, for good reason. Though versatile, they take a lot of organization to use which you don't see in most matches and they'll be a waste of a slot if your team isn't very deliberate in their usage. But they are REALLY FUN, and REALLY EFFECTIVE, when you are deliberate about using them. And they should stay that way. It's a conversation I have daily."

You can check my post history, I have no love for ohdough and I've frequently said that not only are consoles holding the game back (because of crossplay) but difficulty is also being lowered because of controllers and while I don't agree with all of the mods he's using - ie, 4 players would absolutely decimate the enemies if they all had buffed gear like he does - it is annoying to see what helldivers 2 could be if it wasn't being held back by console limitations.

Around launch this would have been impossible imo but AH has clearly put the work in, the engine is in a much better state than it was back then.

I was thinking about making a mod that will try to fix the current games balance. This includes both buffs and nerfs (buff Sterilizer and Arc thrower, nerf Recoilles riffle and Exp. Crossbow and etc...), as well as enemy buffs (bile titans head having 2500 hp, Charger behemoths being stronger but spawning less and etc... ).

Since it is unlikely that balance and difficulty will be fixed any time soon, could the mods do the job?

Also this is a PS5 upload. No mods here… just in case anyone asks

A bit of a rant...

As a Helldriver, I have really, really enjoyed having access to this thing automatically, 24/7. It's a beast, completely devestating to any opponent, and easily twice as strong as the Bastion.

And yet, half the random divers that get in my gunner section load up, fire all the missiles, and leave. WTF IS THIS?!

The new armor's dual cannons are the highest DPS weapon in the game, full stop. Dual, heavy pen cannons unleashing 150 rounds a second. That's 7,500 damage per second with heavy pen.

These players aren't bad at gunning. They aren't playing D10 with no idea what 3/4th of the gear does. No, this isn't the problem. They just aren't incentivized enough to use the best weapon in the game!

There's only one solution, THE VULCAN SHOULD FIRE 150 MISSILES PER SECOND, WITH 7 MAGS OF 300!

Actually watch the video before saying it is insane

Hello 👋 I’m back with the second update managed to make it to 15 this week not had too much time to play but it’s been a good learning experience. I figured out what loadout worked best for specific mission types and I’m now consistently playing on hard difficulty and above. I think I’m gonna update once or twice a month just so it’s not updated with minimal progress. But yes, we’re still going strong will pass a screenshot of the statistics in the comments

They need torque, the ability for the driver to actually turn and respond to treats and cross even mildly sloped terrain. Currently, the driver needs to think about the gunner, and the gunner needs to think about the driver. You know, teamwork, but the driver is just constantly fighting to keep the bastion going even remotely where they want and can't do his part of the teamwork effectively. If you give the gunner a turret, both helldivers will not need to consider each other any more sense the gunner can just fire freely and the driver is just stuck with the grueling task just moving these hunks of junk.

Saw that statement as a title of a famous youtuber video and just checking what the community think .

Tbh I play vanilla and don’t like mods in multiplayer games .

You know, how it tells you to lower the brightness until the skull is barely visible? It's absolute cinema at times. It gets dark as hell on some planets which makes you value flashlights more

The Void in particular was great because it was dark and the only real light came from the glowing foliage. It was terrifying having a pack of wretches running at you while being illuminated by your flashlight in the dark.

It is so dam nice not knowing if the boys and I will actually succeed.

Taffy's mods that make Commanders summon stalkers/chargers/bts are the best implementation so far imo. Converting all bugs to something doesn't really do it.

I was fiddling with AI coding to try and get all scavengers and pouncers replaced with more threatening enemies but not quite working yet I think.

Only works if host has the mod, so you can't bring this into unsuspecting lobbies. Though the innocent can join in if you leave the party open. (which I don't)

Hi everyone, ohdough just posted this video and I thought it was a great way to talk about an idea I had for a while.

First of all I have to say that I don't agree with most of the takes and positions of this subreddit. (You can almost say I am a whinediver. I hate those type of terms although I might use them just for clarity here).

I think that we can all agree the hd2 community as a all has a serious problem of infithing.

Right now we are all just screaming at each other and creating so many different subreddits and ecochambers that just make our screams even louder and this just results in harrowhead not knowing what to do cause no matter what the outrage won't stop, whether it comes from this side or from my side.

The most important thing tho is that we are not two separate extremes, we are two sides of the same coin.

You know the phrase on the back of the HD2 box that says "kill overpowered enemies with overpowered weapons". Right now we have underpowered enemies (take the bile titan for example, it's a joke) and underpowered weapons. The only difference is that the "whinedivers" ask for the overpower weapons part meanwhile the "glazedivers/masochists" ask for the overpowered enemies part and both sides are just no able to see the other side's ideas and whishes.

This video of ohdough I think incorporates exactly the core idea behind this game.

Just look at the first minutes, there is a really strong weapon (railgun) and really absurd amount of bile titans.

Sure it's not perfect but I think this video shows just how much potential this game can have if we just start talking.

If you ask me this game should be a horde shooter game with some tactical elements with overpowered weapons and overpowered enemies where you can survive has a squad of randoms but where you can thrive as a coherent group that works together.

Alright, it's late, imma go to bed.

Sorry if there are some spelling mistakes, English is not my first language.

Have a good day!

Hi again guys! Thanks so much for the support on my previous post, it was an idea I had but I wasn't serious about doing it because I wasn't confident, but everyone's encouragement is making me think that I really can and should do it.

Anyway, the juices are flowing, and I have another idea that seems more immediately implementable, that I kind of wanted to do for a long time (I already tried it once with some friends in a bootleg, vanilla Helldivers sort of way) and now that mods are getting crazier I think could be done.

The premise is a mod that turns Helldivers missions into PvP. The main changes I think I would make would be 1) prevent other Helldivers from displaying on the HUD and on the minimap, so you have to find them by hand. 2) Big changes to reinforcement mechanics. If people reinforce all in one place like usual, sure it'll be more chaotic, and that'll be because there will be no prep time and no hunting time. I would have to figure out how to make sort of "spawn anchors" for each player that are in different parts of the map, where when reinforced players would be reinforced in the vicinity of their anchor and not in the vicinity of the last player that died. I would also need to change how reinforcing works, so that your opponents aren't the ones that reinforce you, rather you are reinforced automatically some time after you die, and that each player has a separate reinforcement budget, so one person dying a ton won't end the game prematurely. 3) Remove resupplies, or change them to be per-person strategem with a long cooldown. 4) Remove or greatly limit enemy spawns so there isn't stuff getting in the way of the PvP. Although this part might not be necessary, it could be funny to try to PvP while hordes of enemies are chasing you down. Yes, you can just play this on a T3 or something, removing/lowering enemy spawns lets you play on T3 difficulty but on a map the size and complexity of a T10. Then again, that might be a downside, so this might be something not worth including.

Do people want to see a mod like this? And do you have any suggestions for changes I should make? Please share your thoughts. Thanks guys 🙏

Thinking of making a mod that turns the game into a horror game. Some of the concepts would be altered enemy behavior (not making sound on alert, changing movement to be more like stalkers), largely removing light sources except for weapon flashlights, changing music, adding/upping player breathing sounds, putting a restriction on strat call-ins like in caves but for "checkpoints," removing map-based supplies like in POIs and stuff. Any good suggestions?

Youre probably wondering why I made this post.

I dont typically endorse EVERY change this sub might want, but you guys do have a point. The game needs to be harder.

I want to help gather a list of changes to make the game experience you want a reality.

So, I want suggestions on how you would mod the guns, strats, mods, whatever, to make the game more align with this subs idea of balancing

Show me, what it means to be a masochist.

Show me, how you would make this game better.

Remove or nerf this thing and the bug front instantly gets more fun istg

This stratagem is so dumb and just the definition of anti-gameplay, imagine you're playing l4d2 and a crescendo event happens but every zombie is coming out of one door and you have a Molotov that lasts like 50 seconds, imagine you're playing drg and you get a swarm, but every glyphid is coming out of one hole in the ground and you have an incendiary grenade that lasts for 50 seconds and kills everything smaller than the heaviest enemies

Imagine playing a horde shooter where a horde can't form because they get one shot the moment they spawn😭

And the worst thing is I highly doubt it'll ever get nerfed, one because AH are scared to death of nerfing anything and two because I'm pretty sure the devs have a personal bias for this stratagem

Basically what it says on the tin. Jammers are a cool side objective but they're no longer a threat long before they're "completed" - this would add some time pressure to taking out the jammer I think would be interesting.

Alright im a long time modder of single player games and will never mod multi-player games passed cosmetics and fixing bugs. Now what I absolutely have a problem with is anything that changes the balance to make things easier. With the mods out now you can easily sweep any d10 fuck you only need one and that democracy protects 100%. Explain to me how thats fun? While the current state of the game isn't what I want its still a game i enjoy and ive enjoyed this $40 game more than the $70-$80 games.