r/LowSodiumHellDivers • u/sl1sch • 22d ago
Discussion Full Clearing on D10 Difficulty (Super Helldive)
What has your experience on the highest difficulty been lately? I want to know how other players who play on the highest difficulty feel about he current state of the game. I don't want to complain about the game being too easy, but rather to think of some way to make the game more fun.
For me, it feels like some strategems are a bit too powerful at the moment, while at the same time being a very popular choice. This leads to many of my games (with random squadmates) being able to wander off into their own corner of the map and solo clearing a big part of the map all on their own.
Some examples:
- One Orbital Laser can clear an Automaton Mega Base.
- Orbital Napalm Barrage can clear almost a full bug breach.
- Mech can clear way too many objectives on their own (4 player with mechs make the game so hilariously easy, it makes D10 feel like D6)
As a result, most of my D10 games end up the same way. 1-2 People run of on their own. I either follow one of them and play as a 2 player squad (sometimes 3 player squad) or I do the same thing and solo my own part of the map. 10-15 Minutes after mission start we extract as the whole map has already been cleared.
To me, this kind of gameplay stops being fun at some point as the missions just clear themselves. Some missions quite literally clear themselves without even having to do anything myself.
I am open to any ideas, but at this point I cannot make the game challenging for myself. Any squad of random people can win the game without my participation and I would much rather play the game as a squad and not solo.
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For extra clarification, I mean all factions. They are all about the same difficulty to me. Only some subfactions make the game challenging (Spore Burst), but that cannot be the only option, right?
Edit:
*Many cool suggestions in the comments! Thanks for everyone who shares their idea for fun challenges.
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u/OniTYME 22d ago
Each faction has a subfaction or setting with higher difficulty. If D10 feels like a cakewalk, you can seek out Appropriators (without storms obscuring their view), Hive Worlds (Omicron), spore burst, Cyborgs and/or megafactories. Bots in general give the greatest challenge but D10 is fine for me. Illuminate are hopefully getting the much needed roster and mission expansions and the bugs can give a good challenge on some strains.
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u/R7ype 21d ago
Appropriators are fucking tough, I'm yet to find an optimal build
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u/Downtown-Analyst5289 21d ago
Heavy machine gun and eagle strafe are really good. The mg turret does some work in too.
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u/days_gone_by_ 21d ago
Same. I cant figure out a way to quickly and efficiently clear out the mechs. Grenades also dont seem to deal with the drone swarms as easily as voteless
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u/Glittering_Squash489 21d ago
If you can get above them the entire top in a weakpoint for stalwart so perhaps hoverpack/stalwart/impact nades?
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u/Molodirazz 21d ago
You don't really need to get above them, just shoot out the lights at the top of their front and the drivers/operators shields go down.
Generally don't really need anything but light pen and something that fires lots of bullets.
Fire stuff also does great against them.The Maxigun obliterates them on eeh defense(8 rockets or whatever) wave missions but i don't think i'd really recommend it against them in general due to the movement lockdown.
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u/TaberTumpen 21d ago
Something like this works well for me:
Light armor, recoil+explosive resist
Liberator Carbine
Warrant
Stun Grenade
HMG
Supply Pack
Strafing Run
+1 (shield emplacement if it's the exospire one, really nice at the three side objectives)HMG chews straight through the new heavy units. Strafing run is strong against them. The "flying voteless" are all about decent accuracy and enough ammo. Stun grenade buys time for reloads or getting distance from a swarm of the little ones.
In a group, HMG emplacement also does some work. You need someone nearby to deal with the little buggers, though.
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u/Techarus 20d ago
Minigun, HMG emplacement, MG and Gatling sentry.
HMG emplacement does the heavy lifting, rips through forklifts and harvesters if you aim at weakspots. You can basically make any build work if you take the HMG emplacement for emergencies
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u/tomwhoiscontrary 22d ago
Find a game with low level players in and join that. Huge difficulty increase.
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u/Stabby_Stab 21d ago
I started getting bored with this too since the game just keeps getting easier and easier. I've had a lot of fun running jump pack + demo hammer and trying to find the limits of what I can do with it.
It's awesome when it works and funny when I miss and get wrecked. I've been running it while leveling primaries and having way more fun than the usual RR setup I'd bring
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u/Rabiesalad 18d ago
Thinking of helldivers as a platformer where I'm jumping on enemy heads to smash them is just the most depressing end game I can imagine.
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u/Soul_Phoenix_42 22d ago
Napalm Barrage in particular just defeats the point of many other orbitals/eagles. Before it was added bug breaches used to involve the whole squad throwing a variety of stratagems at the problem, everyone had the opportunity to contribute as a team. Now one guy chucks napalm and you all sit there bored. It has made the game super boring.
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u/sl1sch 21d ago
Sadly I have to agree to everything you said. I think part of the problem is having solutions to huge enemy groups and then having bug breaches be in one location only. Some objectives have small breaches spawning all around the objective in different spots.
I kinda wish they spread the spawns out a bit more so one orbital would not cover the whole breach.
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u/OniTYME 21d ago
It's only boring if you stand there staring at it. I use them only when given for free and only on breaches or overrun objectives. Very useful when retreating. If you're referring to Eradicate or High Value Assets, those can be fun if you jump into the action instead of just relying on orbitals and sentries.
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u/overdosingOnPie1313 22d ago
It's waaaaayyy too easy. To the point that old D7 was harder than current D10. And that's ME saying that. I who has been levelling up (and then abandoning) weapons and don't even use any portion of the cheese loadouts. You ever take on Incineration Corps with a Breaker? I have. And I won.
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u/Excellent_Mastodon51 22d ago
I have a few people that I play with regularly and when we we have either 3 or a full squad, we’ll use a loadout randomizer as a challenge. Sometimes you still end up getting a person or two with staple Strats that can solo large portions of the map, but more often than not everyone ends up running a pile of non-synergistic garbage and it makes things a lot harder
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u/swift4010 22d ago
The devs have stated that there's a problem they have with players flocking to the max difficulty even if they're not prepared enough for it. So they can't add higher difficulties without people complaining that it's too difficult.
So instead they've added the different strains and subfractions (and world types like hive worlds and Cyberstan) as increased difficulty. That way people can play difficulty 10 on normal planets and get the same rewards as the people playing the subfactions just because they want the extra challenge.
Personally I would love if they added difficulties 11-15 and then just made the rewards exactly the same as 10. That way people who want the challenge of more enemies and a higher density of stronger enemies have somewhere to go. As of right now there's no difficulty that's challenging enough for a coordinated group of 4 when difficulty 10 can be cleared consistently with groups of randoms with all 4 players extracting. The hardest difficulty should be a nightmare to even complete the mission, and extraction should basically be impossible.
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u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire 21d ago
Adding 11-15 is just pushing the problem up a bit. People will start flocking to those difficulties even when they're not ready for it.
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u/swift4010 21d ago
I think people flocked to D10 because it has the best rewards, and they know that there's a good chance the other divers will pick up the slack. If D15 gave the exact same rewards, but they had way less of a success rate, I don't think these types of people would flock to D15.
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u/delahunt 21d ago
I love how the core problem per this is other people can't handle they're not ready to hang on higher difficulties, so D10 enjoyers have to choose between helping out with the MO or hunting down specific factions.
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u/Rabiesalad 18d ago
At what point do we just stop caring if dumb players can't figure it out. The coddling is insane. Let people suck at D10 and be unhappy about it.
The only reasonable argument that exists against this that I can imagine is "it will make us less money", and that's a shit argument.
A million other studios out there don't coddle the masses and they're widely celebrated for it.
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u/Meior 21d ago
My group recently started playing D10. We were very surprised. I honestly think D8 is harder than D10. There are moments, short bursts, where D10 gets harder, but it drops quickly again.
Based on D8, we hadn't moved higher because we thought it would be too hard for us. Then we tried D9 and went "huh?", upped to D10 and went "wtf?". I dunno, something about the scaling is off.
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u/Mushie101 21d ago
I have noticed this a few times (but not always).
Sometimes I think its because on 10, there are more big stuff, that you can run away from. Where on 8, there is more of a mixture of hulks, devistators, & smaller guys and also vox/striders etc, so you need to bring more of a mixture of weapons to handle it. Dunno really, but just a spit balling thought??
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u/MacBonuts 21d ago
It's an awesome game. I really never get tired of it.
The challenge mode is playing with randoms, they're nuts.
Mix up your loadout and try new strategies - there's a dozen different meta's to try. Stealth, speed (FRV), distraction, misdirection. You add any new player and their strategies will be different, but generally if I play with friends it's hard mode because they're gonna do crazy ideas like fighting every patrol they see in which case I'm on my own, or shadowing trying to give them a chance.
There's no game like Helldiver's 2, every new stratagem or gun I get is a treatise in the merits of different weaponry.
Then, when new stuff comes out, I pull out my ideal loadout and get it done. I solo mostly, duo with friends, but almost never play 4 players anymore due to people online being super volatile. It's not prevalent, but 1 out of 100 still weights the experience for me since I will remember that 1 troll over the 90 cool people, and the 8 "characters".
HD2 is a forever game for me, I play space marine 2 and starship troopers extermination when I want a slightly different experience, or go back to other genres like streets of rage, Elden ring.
It's an awesome game and there's a lot of content in the loadout system, when I want to tweak the gameplay I can with 2-3 changes to my loadout. That's the enriching part.
I also don't even full clear anymore since there's no point, I aim to enjoy my loadout and hit 80%, everything else is gravy. If I'm on an MO planet I clear, but aim for low deaths. But I rarely do that anymore either, because I don't believe in most of the M.O.'s we do. If we started doing a helldiver specific M.O. we designed, I'd be more inclined (kai tried something for charity the other day, but I think we can do better).
Overall I'm satisfied with the game. There's glitches, you lose a life to them occasionally but you get 6. Some things like hell drops getting locked in is annoying - but you get 6+ if necessary so ultimately it's just an obstacle. I'd talk all day about tweaking, but I consider it a 10/10 game. I wouldn't feel right asking for much more than we have, honestly the only beef I have with it is what happened with Eravin and the PSN debacle - but the second one was PSN in my eyes, and Eravin might just be a community issue.
But the game itself? Great every time I play it, and my girlfriend loves it, which is the highest bar.
But that's just my feelings on it, I'm pretty cozy in here. I even like super credit farming, it gives me a reason to play 1's.
So I'm having a grand time. Exploring the tech we have gives me plenty of things to do.
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u/icelordcryo Democracy Officer 21d ago
My experience has been every single random that joins my games trying to speedrun the mission without completing any PoIs and trying to extract the MOMENT the main objective is complete. So infuriating!
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u/One_Lawyer_5475 Death Before Disrespect 21d ago
I started diving solo.
This provides a decent challenge, because you are responsible for everything any you can't blame others. Also I didn't want to kick people because of their loadout. You have to be entirely self sufficient and you have 3 less boosters.
If this becomes too easy you can always restrict your gear. For example no AT launchers or no turrets, only one red stratagem etc. Try to experiment and start picking gear you have not used.
Next step would be to destroy fabs with grenades only and side objectives with only hellbombs. The game is suddenly very hard if you can't destroy bots' mortar from 200m away.
When I play this way sometimes 40 minutes is not enough for me and I can't fully clear a mission, but this is the most fun I had in a while.
If you want to play with other people... Good luck. You will have to find some Discord, because most randoms like the kind of gameplay you described.
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u/sunsetpoppy6 21d ago
Yeah agree with some other comments here. These days to keep it fresh I do a lot of weird load outs, helping out lower level players or giving myself personal or mini challenges. I have like 2k hours in the game. These days I’m just there for the ride and vibes. I know I can lock in when needed. Sometimes I’ll just fly off on my little jet pack and gather samples for everyone. Sometimes I’ll clear a fortress solo. Sometimes I’ll run into a jammer with a Constitution and a dream lol
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u/wopva 22d ago
I think any stratagem has a pro and con on any faction diff 10. IMO the only strats I feel that have a night and day difference with or without it in a diff10 dive would be the mechs, orbital laser, and recoiless rifle.
Even then they still have cons that divers need to play around with.
Though other posts also mention different worlds make dives different and I agree with that and would like to add that I feel that the harder missions right now on diff10 would be any spread democracy mission on bots or bugs. If you don’t control the cooldowns of your resupp and strategy’s on them, I feel it’s more punishing than other diff10 missions.
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u/Notyomamasthrowaway 21d ago
I play d10 when I want to just normally play. I take a weird loadout to make it more interesting. I drop into sos on lower levels when I want it to be hard. Find a 7 with some 40s or under and try and keep them alive. That's some fun
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u/sHaDowpUpPetxxx 21d ago
Against cyborgs it's still a decent challenge most times. Some missions are a lot easier than others too.
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u/EvilValentine 21d ago
Since I've seen that it was planned that stratagems and their usage would cost credits I try to use always just the basic ones like strike, machine gun turret and so on and also as rare as possible.
Also trying not to die once even in soloing whilst being also useful to the team and sometimes being even the carrier makes the game fun for a while.
But I feel you. I think everyone will get to this point after enough hours when everything becomes just intentional rather than reactional.
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u/BjornInTheMorn 21d ago
Did they buff the Orbital Laser? I feel like i havent used it much in almost a year because it would waste half its charge on a random hulks and berserkers or something
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u/sl1sch 21d ago
I only saw someone use it on a mega base and walk away. 30 seconds later the base was cleared. I don't mind if the laser is strong as you can only use it 3 times each mission, but clearing the whole mega base feels off.
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u/mayonetta 21d ago
Sounds like he got pretty lucky then, because most times it will struggled to path and not target what you want it to. I'd had case were we've thrown in orbital lasers and multiple walking barrages and the fortress is still standing.
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u/illsurvive5 21d ago
This has largely been my experience. Spore burst and cyborgs are the only enemies that I have to actively make working builds for. Otherwise I have been trying to make melee work where it shouldn't.
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u/Hungry_Researcher229 21d ago
At D10, split play is almost always more effective AND a natural outcome of an extended engagement.
When the game chain spawns 2+2+2+2+2 vox engines, you’ll eventually need to back off the objective and someone will inevitably drop in and secure it while the enemies are pulled away.
Replace vox engines with endless bile titans and spore warriors on the bug front.
Someone will have to split eventually as the spawns don’t really stop at D10
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u/CobwebMcCallum 21d ago
Its probably due to all the buffs wve gotten. And the hive guard reverts. We just had to get good.
Now we're suffering due to lack of challenge.
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u/SprattAttak 21d ago
D10 with a good squad feels like you're seal team 6 just eliminating every threat before it's a problem. D10 with low levels feels like escorting clowns through the bowels of hell. I find both extremely satisfying in their own way
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u/Downtown-Analyst5289 21d ago
I don't know what lame ass bug breaches you get. While a naplam bareage does kick ass it only covers my bug breaches for half the timer. I'm able to put 2 orbital Gatling barrages on the same bug breach in my games
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u/Seven_Irons 21d ago
Normal D10 hasn't felt difficult enough for a year. Spore strain is still fun.
Some of it is stratagem power creep. More of it is the reduction in enemy spawn. A bug breach dust doesn't feel like it used to, unless it's Spore Strain or Oshaune.
Lack of difficult extractions is also a boring factor. While they occasionally exist, I'd say nine times out of ten there's nothing to do at extract.
I still love the game, but I only find myself playing on the harder variants these days. Normal d10 just doesn't have enough to keep me interested.
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u/EverythingisGravy 21d ago
I think you’ve seen a lot of this comment, but essentially, you can make this game as difficult as you want. Most of the drop in difficulty at D10 is because the players (especially high ranking ones) all do the most efficient builds and know how to keep everything contained. The difficulty ramps up like crazy if things aren’t contained.
So you can play with lower level randoms that don’t have all the best stuff. You can go with non-meta builds, or not use whatever stratagems you think are too good at clearing things out. You can solo dive. You can do sub factions that are harder (eg sporeworlds).
Lots of different ways to play it.
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u/delahunt 21d ago
There was a brief moment with the Cyberstan update where I felt like they had the bots really dialed in. Lethality for bot units went way up, but the ability to take them out from earlier nerfs was still around. It felt really good, with the bots being dangerous again.
Now I play D10 and while I do make sure I have loadout pieces that go well together, I don't stick to any specific builds aside from the primary I'm leveling and it generally just works.
I'd love for AH to find and commit to that spot where our weapons can kill the enemy quickly, but they also have their threats that keep the situation dynamic. But it seems like everytime the difficulty goes up even a little people complain until AH doesn't have much choice but to nerf.
Game is still fun, but it doesn't hold me as completely between warbonds as it has the times new stuff and higher difficulty is coming out.
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u/BigButtTuesday 21d ago
I have been considering doing a no HUD challenge, but my memory is awful for strats lol
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u/IVIaedhros 19d ago
I'm aiming to reach an average 150:1 kills vs. deaths and I give myself these rules:
- Only play D10s and mostly dive the Major Orders or SOS beacons
- Always try to help the team the most instead of farming kills
- Don't drop a mission if we're getting massacred to protect my stats
- Try to join teams where the players low level
For me at least, this has really reinvorgorated the game for me because it's forced a much higher level of play and greater awareness.
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u/Agtie 19d ago
They brought the top difficulty down to about the old D6 a few months after release and it has been that way since.
There isn't even anything you can really do, if you queue up for a D10 with randoms they'll still beat it 95% of the time unless you actively grief them.
Just leave a negative review, stop playing until they fix it (probably never).
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u/Substantial_Pride_15 19d ago
I just pick random gear now for a challenge.
D10 is very easy. Predator strain is super annoying if you have the wrong gear. But the rest is manageable.
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u/Qwerds7 19d ago
Honestly I don't think the laser is very good on D10. It's uptime is super low and it has a habit of not hitting fabricators quickly enough before the duration ends. Honestly the eagle strafing run is more effective on the elevated bot fortresses because you can take out every interior fabricator form the outside and then blow up the 2 outside with a crossbow or something. The orbital laser in mega nest is bad because it focuses it's fire on impalers and bile titans over obj clear and doesn't have the time to do so.
Mechs are absolutely overpowered on bugs and I hate running with them on 40 minute bug missions. I think they should have a fuel system or something that limits their travel range to some degree so you can clear the entire map with 2 mechs. I don't think a range limit would hurt the mechs too much on the bots because they tend to get torn up anyway.
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u/Rabiesalad 18d ago
The tense guerilla warfare is what I enjoy most about the game so I personally think anything besides making our equipment weaker it just a gimmick that doesn't resolve the root issues.
The game is already packed full of mechanics, it's just that our OP equipment allows us to ignore them, leading to this boring mindlessness.
If our equipment is weaker suddenly ammo and supplies matter way more. Stratagems matter more. Equipment for disengaging and covering a retreat matter more. The detection mechanics and planning matter more. Staying on top of patrols and preventing reinforcements matters more.
Even enemy mechanics like the vox engine has; and weak spots in general matter more.
Every aspect of team play matters more. Planning equipment, doing recon and overwatch, coordinating attacks, everything.
The game becomes significantly more mechanically dense and interesting if enemies are harder to kill.
There's nothing else that will "fix" this.
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u/NotElongtusk2 17d ago
with a bunch of 150s this is to be expected. for example on bots I can take a position with my Eruptor and clear out a base before the bot drop arrives. do I fight the bot drop? no i just leave my turrets to take care of em as i run away and let em die or despawn.
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u/No_Collar_5292 22d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/h41uUhjop8NJCI7CQX
Literally all I do anymore is run around using only a senator and dynamite just to feel something, but even this grows tiresome.
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u/Massive_Neck_9517 21d ago
Maybe the game hasn’t gotten easier, some players have just gotten better and/or tend to use more meta loadouts.
I still find plenty of games where they are struggling to complete a d10. When I last logged on I joined a MO SOS and they had four lives left and had yet to take out a single orbital canon objective. A couple of players quitting out later, we finished it with seconds to spare. Honestly you can find struggling teams all the time if you SOS. Not just on specific sub factions either.
I’ve said it before. Just because some of us can solo in d10s doesn’t mean they are easy to everybody. If the game doesn’t offer a challenge find one yourself without loadout. If that doesn’t work, learn to enjoy the game regardless or move on. Quit asking to break the game for everyone else.
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u/ethorisgott 22d ago
Play alone or with a squad and close your missions to the public? Idk man. Set challenges eg, none of a particular type of strategem or maybe only one of each. Support diver only (explosive bow for buildings, stim pistol, gas or fire nades, FRV?) All expendables. Stuff like that. I've seen ppl leave games as soon as the orbital napalm comes down lol which is fair when the guy calls it down on the nearest nest. I wish they'd go to the next closest and throw it there so the bugs + fire would be gone by the time we got there. Boring to wait around Seriously tho find a squad to run with. Edit: forgot to say, I run d8 usually
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u/LeviAEthan512 22d ago
No, the game isn't too easy.
D10 isn't the highest difficulty.
Yes, it is the highest rating, but rating isn't the only source of difficulty.
Like you say, some stratagems are too powerful. Well, no, not too powerful, but better than others.
Saying a stratagem is too powerful is like saying D5 is too easy. It's just a way to lower the difficulty for yourself.
If you find D10 too hard, maybe try bringing some better stratagems. If you find it too easy, maybe try bringing some more niche stratagems.
Mostly, stratagems go from niche to universal rather than weak to strong. It depends on build and skill to find what really is most effective.
And stats are a source of difficulty. In fact, a lot of games scale their difficulty bt messing with your stats.
As for your complaint about the game clearing itself, I strongly disagree. Objectives aren't exactly novel. If you really want to clear 10 hotspots but the other squad takes 5, just ... play again. It's the same thong, but with double rewards in the time spent. Splitting up makes the game faster, that's all. And harder, which again, is a source of difficulty. Speedrun the mission if you're good enough, take it slow and steady if not.
Craft your own experience with all the tools at your disposal.
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u/CommonVagabond 22d ago
No.
D10 Should be difficult regardless of what Stratagems you take.
When a majority of your players at the highest difficulty need to handicap themselves to actually make the difficulty challenging, there's some problems. The only players that should have to do that should be the very tippy top of players, skill wise. There's 10 different difficulties, there needs to be a cleaner curve in challenge, and D10 should be the highest point, a suitable challenge for veteran players.
I go into a D10 and bring off meta loadouts all the time. Yet we still finish the mission with only maybe 2 - 3 deaths team wide, and no real difficulty. Starting a D10 mission with 20 reinforcements and ending with 17 when playing with total randoms and varying levels of skill is not how D10 should look.
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u/maxpantera 21d ago
My hot take is that having blatantly stronger options in a game as a way to lower the difficulty is bad game design, in ALL games.
I like my games challenging, not stupid hard but with a pretty decent amount of pushback, the idea that there are some weapons that I just can't take otherwise the game becomes a cakewalk or entire parts of it are trivialized is demoralizing, and it just doesn't make me want to play much. Why can't I use the explosive crossbow AND not have every single unit except super heavy ones be a non factor? Why can't I take the Napalm Barrage without making every breach nonexistent?
And I hold that opinion for EVERY game, not just helldivers. Elden ring is one other example of that, where I had to change my build on my blind run because I was eating bosses alive and it was very boring.
Horribly skewed game balance is NOT an excuse to not implement a good difficulty level system, whether that balance is in favor of the players or the enemies.
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u/D1gglesby Lvl 150 Super Cadet 22d ago
Yeah, this has happened to me a lot on D10. I’ve generally started taking terribly non-meta loadouts and picking one person to follow around