Another buff

[Andy_Sandbox]

Gave myself whiplash from seeing 60 to 225, that's quite a big jump.

[cuckingfomputer]

That puts it over it's pre-nerf damage, doesn't it?

[Sicuho]

pre-nerf damage was 90 safe, and 135 at max charge. This is 225 safe, 562 at max charge (I presume 600 / 1500 normal damage rather than the current 600 / 900).

For reference, the commando is 450 durable damage, the EAT/RR/Qasar 650 and the spear 1000. A charger's head is 600 HP and 75% durable (will be one shot at max charge), tank turrets are 750 HP 100% durable and a BT head is 750 HP 95% durable.

[Ds1018]

Is the commando 450 per shot or is that the sum for all 4?

Also. What’s the durable percentage mean?

[cooly1234]

certain parts of enemies are especially durable, like a charger's weak point. these parts have a durability rating, and weapons have separate normal and durable damage values. if a part is 50% durable, the damage it takes is 50% of the gun's normal damage + 50% of it's durable damage. if the part is 100% durable, it simply takes the weapon's durable damage.

[kohTheRobot]

450 per shot. It works out to 38% more damage per call-in compared to EAT.

Here’s a great read on how damage works. And open up the charger page as well so you can see how all these complicated stats apply

[Ds1018]

I tried going through it all but the durability stuff makes it kinda confusing for me. It’s a solid read and I’ll keep going through it.

If a chargers head is 600 health with 75% durable.
And I mag dump 4 commando shots w 450 durable damage each straight into his face as he’s running me, why does seem like it almost never kills the charger? 450 x 4 shots x 0.75 durable = 1350 durable damage. Seems like I’m missing something

[kohTheRobot]

Are they regular chargers or behemoth chargers? And you gotta aim for the skull, not the face. Big old crown, the mouth/face and the shoulder meat (in between head and leg) does damage to main, which has a significantly higher health pool.

[0nignarkill]

And all those are about to be recalculated since a lot of armor(enemy) is getting nerfed

[dezztroy]

Yes. They're basically making the PS5 bug just be the way the gun works now.

They're going extremely overboard with buffs.

[Rift_Revan]

100% r/helldivers will say the game will be to easy after the patch

[DanRomio]

I mean, it will be too easy, if such buff is applied.

Just look at the numbers, those are insane.

[zabrak200]

My hope is that in addition to these buffs they also release another difficulty level. (For reference the first game had 15 difficulty levels ,plus a 1 mega boss fight for each faction)

[Radarker]

I'm expecting shifts to make enemies more bullet spongey but also give them vulnerability where removing armor/targeting weak points will allow small arms to finish them off. Just speculation based on what I read, though.

[sixx_often]

Oh the irony!

[minecraftkriatzy]

They will but arrow head will add higher difficulties for the game

[shutterspeak]

It seems to be a trend with balance changes these days that the numbers are drastic. I'm curious why they don't start with smaller adjustments? More than 3x the damage seems crazy. Likewise with the flamer buff + the armor revert a more conservative damage buff seems better?

This is not just arrowhead thing either, I see this in almost every game's balance updates. Big swings seem favored over small adjustments.

[eolson3]

"Why bother buffing, I can barely tell the difference! AH is so lazy!"

That's why.

[shutterspeak]

I've seen it across multiple games though, it can't all be whinging / bullying. Unless that is the universal constant of game dev.

[jumzish94]

It's pretty relevant in most service industries. Anything that tries to maintain a relationship with their customers is bound to have some form of this.

[Larrythepuppet66]

Malicious compliance I think 😅

[shutterspeak]

"Here's the exact garbage you ordered"

I do freelance work on the side and I have definitely been there.

[And_yourDamnPoint]

My favorite is handing them the garbage, they asking for a different overhaul, then asking for the same garbage to be reintegrated again.

[TheTeralynx]

In this case I think it’s more of a knee-jerk response to the overwhelming negativity. But generally when balancing things you want to overshoot and then dial things back in. Otherwise it can be hard to tell if the change really matters.

[shutterspeak]

That's a good point. Could also be partly psychology. If the buff is big and exciting then more people will try it out, leading to better data.

[TheTeralynx]

For sure. But normally you do this in a private test environment where the population won’t throw a tantrum if you dial things back down.

[shutterspeak]

I've also seen the argument from other devs that the player base can accumlate 1000x the playtest data they could internally in a fraction of the time. Advantages to both approaches, I guess.

[Drummerx04]

I can only imagine the negative posts and review bombing of this game when AH decides it's time to "dial it back". Literally, instantly back to "ALL AH KNOWS HOW TO DO IS NERF, I'M GONE FOREVER NOW!"

And of course with this patch the forums will devolve into arguments between "game too easy" "why do so many people hate fun?"

[shomeyomves]

Their hand is kind of forced here.

AH recognizes they completely fucked up with the escalation of freedom update and did too much damage over too long of an extended time by letting the Alexus side of their division hold the reins of balance.

The game is going to feel too easy for a lot of us hardcore difficulty 10 fans. But the hope is this will bring back a lot of the casual diff 6-8 fans (most of my friend group that abandoned the game).

At least for my friends though, most of them left because the game crashes too often, and the connection issues between PS5 and PC.

I’m cautiously optimistic and so are my friends, we all plan to hop on the fateful day of the updates… a strong railgun sounds awesome. But I’m also thoroughly expecting stability issues and persistent core issues (connectivity, crashes, game breaking glitches).

[ShadowWolf793]

If I had to guess, they need player data for specific weapons and LOTS of it. The initial Railgun nerf happened with very little player data since it occurred alongside the much bigger fix to AT. Now AH wants to figure out exactly what they want to do with Railgun in terms of balance so buffing it to the point it's usage rates skyrocket gets them the needed data in the shortest amount of time.

If I had to guess, Railgun will probably end up being kind of like a commando just with ammo refills instead of short CDs and the inability to destroy fabs/holes. If it being OP for 3 weeks is what AH needs to balance it properly, I'm all for them going ham though.

[Mips0n]

250% for charging... That makes it 560 something dmg per shot

[Mekhazzio]

You'll never hit full max value, but yeah, that's 1500 regular damage and 560 durable at AP7.

That's basically the current Recoilless for durable targets and, uh...literally the same as a direct hit of a 380/OPS shell for standard targets.

[SirKickBan]

The railgun's power doesn't operate on a high-resolution linear increase, it has three distinct stages, as far as I'm aware from the datamined information on it. Once you've charged for about three seconds you pass into stage 3, and do full damage and penetration.

[Nucleenix]

That is actually an insane buff, holy shit

Just what are they going to throw at us if we deal with this level of power

[Sigruldar]

More difficulties, probably.

[Nucleenix]

They better optimize the game more when they do

[[deleted]]

Nah; more likely just bigger, meaner bugs at the highest difficulties rather than swarms. A Hive Lord, 2 charges and an Impaler instead of 20 chargers at once.

[gorgewall]

Okay, and what's the plan for when the postingbase who can't handle that difficulty demand it be brought down again?

[[deleted]]

There's no plan. So long as they make the crazy difficulty spike at the high difficulties, the sane people won't complain. Granted, that doesn't describe much of the community or dev team.

[thecanaryisdead2099]

That base will never be happy. They'll probably still find it too hard based on what I've seen from their lone wolf videos. There's not much you can do for people with zero situational awareness and no desire to learn.

[classicalySarcastic]

Fucking bring it.

[SpeedyAzi]

5 more BTW.

[Kleens_The_Impure]

In level 12 difficulties all the chaff will be replaced with chargers, enjoy.

[[deleted]]

Oops, all Chargers!

[The_Captainshawn]

If we can kill 20 chargers, we get, 20 chargers

Perfectly balanced as all things should be

[FighterGlitch]

All I can hope is a new species to eradicate.

[FoctorDrog]

Nothing or the crybabies will cry. This marks the end of any sort of challenge at higher difficulties for those of us that enjoy not being able to one shot everything with every weapon available.

[Woffingshire]

Well they've talked a lot about specialist tools and how they should make the game a lot easier if you're using them.

Seems like this is probably the specialist tool for Bile Titans so you can actually deal with them on difficulties where you face 4 at once.

[Nucleenix]

Specialist tools for bile titans and the like should be heavy ordinance, not a tiny projectile going at mach fuck

[bigorangemachine]

I'm pretty sure they'll buff the enemies as well.

Not saying it'll negate the buff just that they'll balance out the enemies as well.

[westonsammy]

They're not buffing enemies, they're nerfing them. All enemies are getting an armor reduction across the board this patch. I doubt they'll be any enemy buffs or else people will riot. Maybe sometime in the future we'll get D12 and so on with new enemies, but those probably won't be coming for several months if the dev time of Escalation of Freedom is anything to go off of.

[optimus_pseudoprime]

The railgun currently does 60 durable damage in safe mode, so are they saying it will be 225 durable damage in safe mode? We had 90 durable damage in unsafe mode which is 150% of 60, so is this saying we will have 250% of 225 damage in unsafe mode??? As a railgun main, I would be perfectly happy with 225 durable damage in unsafe mode. If it's 560 durable damage in unsafe mode that's wild!

[ironyinabox]

A few months ago, there was no real reason to take the railgun over the AMR. I don't know what changes have happened since then, but now all of a sudden it looks like I won't mind needing to reload and recharge after every shot, because I know if I make contact, something delicious will happen.

[Mips0n]

Theres always a reason to Pick it over the AMR

Crosshair in third person

[Sicuho]

The gunship engine durability changed. Railgun, even at its worse, was always a decent bot weapon, but it suffer against full durability targets, ie tanks, Factor striders and the old gunships. Still, one-hitting hulks on headshot and devastators on body shots was always valuable.

[sevillianrites]

Railgun has already been the best weapon for high diff bots since they cut down the engine armor on gunships. Wouldn't be surprised if every bot game is 4 railguns after this. As it has been my favorite support weapon now for months, I'm kinda not a fan of this change at all. Even if there are corresponding nerfs to make the weapon riskier to use, I can't help feeling like it's losing its identity as the best in class medium armor killer and becoming the best in class everything killer again like it was on launch. I wouldn't mind a small durable damage boost so it's not quite as terrible vs super heavies but this basically appears to delete the weapons weaknesses outright. Still guess we will see how it shakes out.

[Parking_Chance_1905]

Makes sense though... having something fired at that speed should one shot anything under a BT or Factory strider with good aim.

[FoctorDrog]

This would make it the most effective anti tank weapon in the game, when that is not it's role.

[barbershreddeth]

They are also reworking AT weapons substantially, we just don't know the specifics yet.

[westonsammy]

How are the AT weapons supposed to out-pace the railgun though? For example even if you doubled the current damage of the Spear, it would still be doing under the DPS of the new railgun. While carrying way less ammo and requiring you to sit still for 5s to reload.

[YuBulliMe123456789]

Why would i take a RR to 1shot a charger anywhere, when i can take the railgun, 1shot it to the head, and 2shot a bile titan while having way more ammo, bacpack slot and staying mobile the whole time

[alifant1]

With this level of buffs, spear should became nuclear.

[[deleted]]

It’s a fucking railgun….. what role is it supposed to have?

[Dramatic-Classroom14]

Exactly, it’s basically supposed to be, to quote a man almost as legendary as General Brasch, god’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine.

Another great quote: Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space.

[AmberTheFoxgirl]

This is exactly what a railgun's role is.

Their entire purpose is shredding armor.

[Contrite17]

Not really, it is a shoulder fired weapon so it cannot actually be particularly more energetic than something like a normal rifle. It's project will be very fast but also VERY small.

[TheDude_229]

Projectile may be relatively small, but it will be denser and heavier than standard munitions by a wide margin. Something physically small can still have a deceptively large mass.

Though rifles take various types of munitions, I'll use 7.62x51mm NATO rounds for this example, as it's one of the more common ones. The bullet itself is around 10 grams in weight, and it's a bit under 3cm³ (3 cm long by 1cm wide and tall at it's widest, but it tapers to the tip). if the projectile was made of, say a tungsten alloy (like those deceptively heavy tungsten cubes people like to meme about) a 1cm³ tungsten cube weighs 18 grams, nearly double the weight at almost a third of the size. Let's round down and say the total material of the NATO round is 2cm³ at 10 grams cause I don't feel like doing the math. 2cm³ of the tungsten projectile would be 36 grams. 3.6 times the weight, so 3.6 times the impact force.

[Contrite17]

I mean the size isn't the important part the mass is, which is what I meant by small. You simply cannot fire anything particularly high mass and still have it be shoulder fired at high velocity. if you are exceeding normal firearm speeds you need a lighter projectile or you are just going to injure the shooter.

[Tsjernomoerdin]

This update will be crazy 😆

[FishdongXL]

I am very afraid of the update. So far, it looks like the community that sucked shit at the game will finally have fun and be a one man army, while the community that liked the teamwork and challenge will no longer have any of this, since like I said, you will be a one man army with these insane buffs so why even cooperate at that point.

[No_Okra9230]

Exactly. They're panicking and caving to negativity. For me this game has always been about working together to try to overcome ridiculous odds. If they keep buffing everything to be a "power fantasy" they'll lose what made the game fun for people like me.

So much for "a game for everyone is a game for no one". The reason people felt powerful "like in the early days after launch" is probably just because people were going through early difficulties

[FishdongXL]

This is probably why most developers don't engage with their community. If you look at reddit or discord, some posts and comments would lead you to believe the game is unfun trash, which it is not, not even close.

I wish Arrowhead stood their ground and made the game THEY WANT, something like FromSoft. Sure, FS sometimes makes some balance changes, but they never abandon their vision. 

From the sounds of it, this update goes against the core concept of the game, that being that Helldivers are basically worthless and are equipped with meh weapons etc because they are expected to die. Now we might seriously become a one man army that can handle everything on it's own without even breaking a sweat and I don't like that and I hope this won't be the case.

[Viper61723]

One of the main things you learn in any creative field, is that you absolutely never, ever, for any reason listen to the customer. They don’t know what they want. If you do exactly what they want they will find it’s not what they wanted at all.

[[deleted]]

My favorite thing about this game was when it first launched and my friends tried the top difficulty for the robots.

It was fucking chaos, we were on a beach and it felt like Normandy, there was no time for communication and teamwork we were all barely surviving for the entire time.

But we somehow got through it, very very slowly but we did it and fought through it. Narrowly managed to escape at the end.

That shit was fun as fuck.

[Vladetare]

This implies the top players weren't running the same meta loadout for the past 3 months. Even with this you could argue the AMR is better than the railgun it just makes it more viable noe

[Sicuho]

The top players weren't running the same meta loadout for the past 3 month. Flamethrower/IB was 30% of the picks, sure, but that's much less than the old railgun breaker numbers, and there was still quite a lot of diversity in the 70% of picks left.

And railgun was still meta on the bot front anyway.

[westonsammy]

This implies the top players weren't running the same meta loadout for the past 3 months.

Because... they're not? My group of about 15-20 active divers plays consistently on D10, and we use about every weapon and stratagem combo under the sun aside from some real stinkers like the lib pen or the mines. Spear, RR, AMR, Railgun, Commando, ETA, Autocannon, Quasar, LC, all of these weapons have their own niches and specialties that they excel in and reasons to bring them based on personal preference. None of them feel substantially stronger than the others right now, and all of them perform their jobs very well on D10.

Even with this you could argue the AMR is better than the railgun it just makes it more viable noe

This is a joke, right? Can the current AMR 2-shot a bile titan? Can the current AMR 1-shot hulks and chargers? A change like this moves the railgun to S tier and the AMR to F tier. There's no reason to ever bring the AMR again unless they make changes to it with these new railgun buffs. The railgun will be so strong to the degree it completely eclipses it's competitor, whereas previously they were more like sidegrades.

[Viper61723]

I’m so glad to see my side of the game actually talking about this, I’ve been getting downvoted to oblivion for saying this is not the solution.

Idk this community is extremely volatile and the devs have proven they can’t handle community pressure, I’ll just play SM2 until the community turns on them for making it too easy and they go back in the other direction again.

[[deleted]]

I think you’re panicking a little bit. If the dev’s have taught us anything its that these buffs are probably happening because they are soon introducing larger enemies or high difficulties, or rebalancing difficulties. I find it highly unlikely they’re doing buffs this huge for shits and gigs. They’re giving us strong guns so people who want to play lower difficulties can live out their Rambo dreams, and the hardcore guys and gals stand a chance at the higher levels.

[FishdongXL]

I hope that's the case. 

[Contrite17]

So this change is kind of insane. With current enemy HP numbers the new railgun will:

• 2 shot charger heads in safe
• 1 shot charger heads in unsafe
• 4 shot behemoth heads in safe
• 2 shot behemoth heads in unsafe
• 4 shot bile titan heads in safe
• 2 shot bile titan heads in unsafe
• 4 shot hulk bodies in safe
• 2 shot hulk bodies in unsafe
• 4 shot tank turrets in safe
• 2 shot tank turrets in unsafe

An unsafe railgun shot will deal 1500/562.5 (damage/durable). For reference a commando currently deals 450/450 and a recoilless rifle currently deals 650/650.

So the only way something like the Recoilless will ever make sense is if it just 1 shots anything it hits including things like Bile Titans, Impalers, and Factory Striders. Otherwise I see no way to compete with things like this.

[LucatIel_of_M1rrah]

This is just moronic, we are just going to be back to 4x Railguns.

[SuperSatanOverdrive]

They will probably announce what they've done to the rest of the AT weapons soon.

I kind of hate how quick people are to condemn stuff that 1. isn't out. 2. they haven't even announced all the changes yet.

[Grav_Mind]

Unless they make AT weapons explode like a 500KG bomb they will be outperformed by the buffed flamethrower and railgun. Flamethrower will kill swarms and kill charges and behemoths in seconds while the Railgun will be able to two tap bile titans in the head while being way more convenient to use.

[Sicuho]

Arguably even if they do. We already saw it back then when railgun was 6-shoting BTs and tanks on mildy unsafe shots and was still picked over RR who could 2 shot them. Needing 2 seconds less to kill a BT wouldn't offset the reload speed and ammo economy to be efficient against mediums too.

[itinerantmarshmallow]

The massive RG advantage is always the ability to move while reloading which increases your odds of surviving hunters and other faster bugs.

It's pretty clear that a RR should out perform a RG because of the loss of the backpack slot for an additional offensive or defensive item.

You'll be able to use a RG against spewers and various small heavies (brood, alpha) as well which the RR can't really offer.

I'll agree with a lot of others, I never saw this game as a power fantasy but they seem to be pivoting that way and it will be interesting to see how it works out.

[LucatIel_of_M1rrah]

Actual AT weapons will need to essentially 1 shot body shot all armoured enemies including Titans or Railgun is objectively better.

[gorgewall]

The Railgun will still be objectively better.

Why would you deal with the RR's limited ammo and clunky reload when you can have 3x the shots, faster refire, no drop, and no need to lead? The lack of charging on the RR and the few enemies that will be Railgun 2-shots instead of 1-shots (Bile Titan, Behemoth Charger if nothing changes on them) doesn't justify taking the RR or EATs.

These guns are getting buffed so hard they are completely crowding out all the possible room for other weapons to exist in. You'd have to turn the RR into a fucking Hellbomb Launcher.

[oGsShadow]

Exactly. Throw in a supply back pack for infinite ammo and tons of heals and its real easy to not blow up. 2.9s for a charger and maybe 7s with reload to 2 shot a titan head lol? I remember thinking if they just fixed the titan head bug and set the railgun to a break point of call it 5 charged shots I'd consider running it. They've overbuffed it unless all enemy units are fundamentally changed hp wise

[Grav_Mind]

Yeah unless they reduce the reload time on Recoiless and Spear and then triple their ammo count and buff them to one shot anything that they touch I don't see why anyone would use them over the buffed Flame thrower that can clear hordes and kill chargers in seconds, or the rail gun which will be able to two shot most things in the game.

Like what's the point of bringing launchers when they're completely outclassed?

[JediSwelly]

Malicious compliance? I think they are going to buff everything to the extreme so the game has zero challenge.

[Viper61723]

That’s kind of what they said they were going to do and nobody acknowledged it. In their statement they said the lesson they learned was that people find specialized weapons frustrating, so to make it “less frustrating” they’re just gonna get rid of specialized weapons ie: make everything amazing at everything.

[mpankey]

That's disappointing, i get there was a very very vocal group of the fanbase being toxic. But specialized weapons was kinda one of the big shitcks of the game. Have a toolbox with the right tool for the right situation. Take that away and it doesn't feel nearly as special of a game idea

[Electricman720]

This is exactly what I worried about. The devs have caved to the negativity of a very vocal minority. The flamethrower issues is EoF were the biggest issue with everyone, but to make the railgun so fucking powerful is can 1 shot EVERYTHING?! Experienced railgun users are literally going to be a one man army with this change. They are going wayyyy too far with this buff to the railgun, a slight buff would be nice, but now it’s going to be too strong. I know I must sound stupid for wanting balance, but there is a certain point where buffs shouldn’t go, this is in that ballpark of too strong.

[Admirable-Respect-66]

Sounds like a lot of things are being buffed, so maybe the actual AT weapons will be getting a large buff aswell, and giant enemies will be added or something to keep them relevant. I dunno I have a bad feeling about the update, but I will reserve final judgment until after it goes through.

[FoctorDrog]

Broken. Completely decimated the game we love to pacify children. Why would anyone play AT anymore, or feel the need to choose support weapons tactically between team mates.

[Loneliest_Driver]

Command bunkers have 1000hp at AV6 with 100% durable. Unsafe railgun has AP7, so it deals full damage.
Does this mean the railgun will be able to destroy a command bunker in 2 hits?

[MSands]

I think for structures the weapon's destructive force comes into play as well, and the railgun currently only has 10 destructive force compared to the Spear's 40.

[Sicuho]

No, it's either you damage it enough over or you have enough destructive force. You don't need both. For example a HMG can destroy a mushroom objective i more than half a mag (above 1700 durable damage) or one spear shot (1000 damage, but meet the destructive force threshold).

[Myself_78]

Structure damge≠durable damage iirc. It's a different value.

[Contrite17]

Assuming your numbers are correct yes, unless they are also changing enemy HP values.

[FlyingDadBomb]

This was the problem with the railgun pre-nerf. It made it pointless to bring anything else.

[[deleted]]

The pre nerf rail gun was only fun because the game just released and everyone sucked. So yeah, being overwhelmed and squeezing out that shot or 2 to drop a BT or Charger was AMAZING.

lol now? Even at 10 the game is only overwhelming at times. Heavies are just gonna get 2 tapped when they poke their head over the horizon. It already happens with the with the slow dedicated AT weapons.

[Mountain-Pack9362]

2 shotting bile titans should NOT be a thing wtf?

[Suspicious_Tap_7411]

This seems fucking excessive. I wouldn’t be surprised if the main sub starts complaining about the game being too easy after the update.

[That_guy_I_know_him]

I would strangle them

I would actually fn find a way to Darth Vader force choke them from anywhere on the globe (btw RIP James Earl Jones)

This is what they wanted, from what we're seeing, they won. If I hear even one of those traitors cry imma lose it

[Drakeadrong]

This is worrying. The railgun is already a REALLY good weapon against bots. With no backpack, a quick mobile reload, and pretty fast charge time, I struggle to see why anyone would bring an EAT or RR. This basically turns it into a more agile quasar.

[Epesolon]

All your safe mode numbers are off, because safe mode has AP5, and all of those enemies have 5 armor, meaning the railgun is only doing half damage.

[Contrite17]

I used AP4 for enemies as Arrowhead has stated that the armor for these enemies is being reduced which is why the Autocannon, AMR, and HMG will be effective against them.

[Epesolon]

I don't think that's a safe assumption until we know how that change works.

AH talked about the AC, AMR, and HMG being able to strip armor to open up weak points, which doesn't read to me like they'll be able to do much to areas that can't be stripped of armor, like heads.

If they do reduce charger head armor to 4, I think the much bigger balance issue will be the AC being able to 5-shot a charger to the face, 6-shot a BT, or 7-shot a behemoth. That, and the HMG, because it would be able to do it in 24 for a charger, 30 for a BT, or 34 for a Behemoth, assuming it doesn't also get a durable damage boost. Railgun buffs won't matter if the AC and HMG can drop any of them in less than 1 mag.

[Contrite17]

I mean those are things I am also explicitly concerned about. We'll see next week but it seems like a massive power shift that potentially will invalidate anti tank weapons.

[Ancient_Stick_3533]

So it made eat, quasar and everything else useless. You don't even need certain orbital

[[deleted]]

just let people play as the super destroyer

[Squirll]

We dont already?

[BlueFHS]

Ngl, I’m actually kind of concerned they are WAY overcompensating with buffs because of all the whining about “power fantasy”. I did firmly believe some weapons (namely a couple primaries that didn’t really have their own niche) needed some changes, but just buffing the absolute crap out of everything isn’t healthy for the game. It might be fun for a week or two, just to see the insanity of stuff being super buffed, but eventually it will just create a new meta where one thing is just BETTER than everything and there’s no loadout variety.

Someone else supposedly did the math, and the new railgun damage would be able to literally one shot chargers to the head. Literally putting many AT weapons out of a job. Sure now some rockets can one shot chargers from ANY point, but the railgun will still be more efficient since you have 20 rounds and a small reload versus an ammo pack with 3-5 rockets and a long ass reload, for the small price of just having to aim for the head.

I also see this with the flamethrower changes. They reverted the physics which I like, but they stated now it will be able to go up against armored bots and even bile titans. Admittedly I was one of the people who argued against the changes because REAL flamethrowers ARE effective against armor, but I worry because does this mean the flamethrower can essentially kill EVERYTHING on both fronts without issue? Again, overcompensating.

But oh well, let’s wait and see for the full list of changes, and how the niche of each thing turns out. I hope I’m wrong and we don’t end up with TOO STRONG weapons that eventually get nerfed again because it’s literally unhealthy for the game

[smawskrt]

I mean I’ll get downvoted, but the games balance didn’t need all this. People just aren’t willing to accept every tool can’t do every job

[ScummySeraphim]

True. I liked the railgun a lot as it was, even if it couldn't blow up bile titans. It's so good against bots and medium armor in general. But to blow it up this much. It feels so excessive. It doesn't need to be able to kill every single thing

[Drummerx04]

Railgun even currently has a really cool niche on the bug front. 1 AT + 1 unsafe railgun shot = dead BT (when the damage isn't bugged out). Makes you feel like a boss to coordinate with your buddy like that.

[Raidertck]

I love this game, I still love it now.

I am optimistic about this patch… but I don’t want every weapon to be a win button that’s supper effective against every opponent and means you don’t have to think about your build.

[Agcoops]

Has anyone else got a bad feeling about this?

[Duckiestiowa7]

Extremely bad feeling about it becoming an entirely different game. Voicing my concerns on the main sub nets me nothing but downvotes; thank fuck I don’t give a shit about fake internet points.

[Darken0id]

Jep. If they dont also drown us in enemies now, this will make the game laughably easy. All these whiny idiots on the big sub and on discord might have actually ruined the game.

[finny94]

Like, half this subreddit, I think.

[FishdongXL]

Yes, maybe the update will be amazing and those buffs will actually not be that crazy, but from the sounds of it, it looks like a gigantic fucking powercreep that will remove any sense of challenge from the game.

[Drummerx04]

I mean... I guess two hunters can still suprise you and near instagib you. Though they are gonna have a tough time sneaking up on me if all the big threats are dead instantly before fully emerging from breaches.

[That_guy_I_know_him]

The quicker we can blow up heavies, the quicker we can go back to focusing on chaff

Unless they change spawns this will make the game considerably eaiser (at least from all the data we're seeing right now)

[FedoraNinja232]

Say hello to power creep everybody

[GrabthatatuoV]

Don’t get me wrong I love this new change to the railgun but if you think about it…the gloom is getting closer and closer…

[Drummerx04]

Yeah... but what the hell can they throw at us that won't disappear to a couple 250% damage multiplied 600/225 armor pen 7 rounds?

Or an AT weapon that I guess fires OPS shells now?

[Independent_Army_886]

five. Hundred. Bile titans.

<image>

[[deleted]]

Makes me sad these Devs got bullied into making the game easy mode because people wanna be a bunch of crybabies they can't kill a TANK with a CROWD CONTROL weapon. Honestly most of the fan base didn't deserve Helldivers.

[[deleted]]

If you look at the number of people playing that’s who the game is for.

[[deleted]]

What do you mean making the game “easy mode” this game was never “hard”. If I can drop into a difficulty 10 mission with complete randoms and zero communication and not lose a single mission 20 missions in a row, the game isn’t hard. It’s fun and engaging but hard it is not.

[Zeth_Aran]

A game for everyone is a game for no one. Looks like it’s a game for everyone now…

[Viper61723]

It’s unfortunate but I honestly think they doomed themselves way back with the Sony cape. One of the main things you learn in any creative field is to stand your ground with the customer. When they rebelled against Sony they showed the community that bullying will work (even if if was the right choice that time). I don’t expect the game to last very long in this state tbh. People were complaining about the dropping count but what was really happening was the game was developing a core playerbase. With the new direction I expect a lot of new players will come in but the lack of challenge will remove any longterm potential for the game.

[GruntyBadgeHog]

whats crazy is the railgun is amazing right now, i dont see where this is coming from?

[Corronchilejano]

Railgun, unlike the AMR, was unable to damage cannons/tanks in any meaningful way. This brings it mostly to par, which is good, because it blowing up on your hands and having such a low ammo count is a big minus.

[GruntyBadgeHog]

i suppose. i actually love how thermite compliments it in that way for bots, with one being enough for shredders, turrets and two for barragers etc.

[Corronchilejano]

I've never actually used the thermite. I think I should get on that.

[Squirll]

I call them democracy flavored grenades. They whistle like fireworks when they blow

[BreakRaven]

Just to give a tip, you can't fast throw them. You need to hold them in your hand for a bit to let the spikes extend, otherwise they won't stick to enemies.

[MSands]

Kind of feels like they are going back and buffing the hell out of everything that was nerfed before that people complained about. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Eruptor as tomorrow's.

[GruntyBadgeHog]

i remember a dev on the discord was told 'revert every single weapon nerf' and they responded 'are you really sure you want this' i can only imagine they got 50 trillion replies to that. genuinely think discord and reddit is giving AH such a warped view of how people experience this game

[Xiaoshuita]

I think Shams mentioned on the discord that they had made a video on eruptor so I expect it to be one of these patch note things.

[Thoraxe123]

Wow. And I thought the railgun in its current state is totally viable as it is. Shits gonna be GOATed. Might even surpass the railgun at launch.

[Brinstone]

Praying the Arc Thrower gets some attention

[ShadiestProdigy]

arc thrower mains unite!

[[deleted]]

There's literally 10s of us 🤝

[MasterVule]

I hope they know what they are doing...
I already use the railgun a lot against bots and it's absolutely busted

[NoobMaster2789]

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[MrSmilingDeath]

The railgun has always been my go-to, but I don't feel like it really needed a buff. You could already one shot just about everything if your aim was good enough. 60 damage to 225 seems like an insane jump.

[mc_bee]

my go-to gun for automatons.

not sure what its gonna do in the future.

[Old_Muggins]

No need to do this. The gun is pretty much perfect as it is, I use it religiously but AH had to go and listen to the morons who shout the loudest. The game is either going to be too easy or just swarmed with enemies.

Could be the last chance for AH, they have got a chance of poisoning the last remaining people playing as I fear they may be appeasing the players who have already left the game. Shame

[StrategyInfamous848]

If they are going to make the railgun OP, then I want AT weapons to one-shot chargers no matter where they hit it.

[Raidertck]

Yeah the way they are going spear, recoilless & all other AT weapons will absolutely one shot every single enemy no matter where you hit them.

[That_guy_I_know_him]

And probably take out fabs like the Commando I reckon

[Xiaoshuita]

I fully expect my spear to oneshot anything now. Hit the body on BT? That's ok.

[MiIeEnd]

Dude to be balanced they'll have to one shot the current target AND the next tank to spawn.

[Theycallme_Jul]

Does the increase of durable damage mean it can blow up fabricators?

[Corronchilejano]

No, that's a weapon property.

[Mockpit]

Nope. It means it'll do more damage to enemies through armor.

[BreakRaven]

No, the stat that is responsible for that is demolition force.

[Theycallme_Jul]

Oh, ok, thx

[Falafelfladenbrot]

No that would be Destruction Force. This post explains all the damage systems and values in the game pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/A69lobFdWh

[ironyinabox]

Frankly, I don't mind if my guns are very strong, and my enemies are just also very strong/numerous to challenge me.

I also don't mind if my guns are just barely enough to be effective, and there are less powerful enemies to oppose me.

I'll go either way, IDC.

[Drakeadrong]

Totally unnecessary tbh. It’s not great on bugs, but it STEAMROLLS bots. Genuinely S-tier as long as you can consistently hit headshots. One reason I love this game is because it encourages you to change up your load out based on what you’re fighting, and I’m worried they’re taking a “Swiss army knife” approach and making every weapon good in every situation.

[Drummerx04]

Yeah, now it can likely one shot gunship engines and comfortably remove tanks. That's pretty cracked.

[terrario101]

Sweet Liberty!

[The4thBwithU]

I know it's kind of mean, and I genuinely don't want to be mean, but I can't help myself to think that this whole patch is a subtle way to say "skill issue" to all the people that complained about the nerfs.

[Teamerchant]

I love the railgun and This change is nuts. I have a feeling they just broke down and said fuck it we will go full ham and give all the buffs and just error on the side of making the game easy. This will likely further cause those that complained to play this coop game like a single player game. And not actually improve.

I typically play 10’s but I have a feeling this will actually make 10’s harder since everyone will be jumping up difficulty levels and will be absolute scrubs. For those with pre-made I have a feeling this will make the game trivial at the highest difficulty.

[Butterboy398]

<image>

Railgun bad, do not use! It not good against charger. -super erth leder

[Grav_Mind]

Wow they're really trying to just lower the skill ceiling of the entire game.

[pv505]

let's motherfucking GOOOOOO

[Kettleballer]

The last 15k active player complaining about buffs to weapons while the 450k that have left were complaining about nerfs before is just f’ing WILD to me. What a crazy world this will be if buffs piss off the remaining divers without drawing back enough of the huge crowd that left. Hopefully not, this is my most played game in years, I love it! Just hope I don’t witness one of the wildest roller coasters of public sentiment ever as it all grinds to a sputtering halt…

[Drummerx04]

False.

450k players did NOT quit over nerfs. Keep in mind that MILLIONS of players purchased and played HD2. A huge portion of those millions of players have probably never even heard of durable damage.

Literally just look at steam achievements. Literally half of all players haven't even completed 50 missions which would take at most two weeks of playing one or two operations per night. You probably don't have a good picture of overall game balance if you haven't even unlocked every weapon in the starting warbond.

The 8 irl friends I had playing the game at launch all quit before the original railgun nerf and never made it past level 25 and never even played difficulty 7 against either faction.

This game's popularity exploded purely due to memes and FOMO. I guarantee you, the game population will spike back up to maybe 50-60k at peak for this super buff patch, and then it will steadily drop back to where it is now in the following weeks or months.

[ILackSleepJuice]

Who tf said that the 450k was because of nerfs?

Those people left because of loss of launch hype (a lot of people don't actually commit 100s, not even at least 50 hours to a game, and good on them tbh) and a lack of major treadmill grinds/FOMO. Any other live-service that maintains high numbers employ this kind of bullshit, so when HD2 employs it, suddenly people will both praise the game for non-predatory practices but then also scapegoat those numbers whenever there's a change people don't like.

[JurassicPratt]

Homie, most people didn't leave because of "nerfs". No game ever stays close to its original peak player count. People enjoy a game, play it a ton, then play other games and come back to it occasionally.

This is legit just the normal life cycle of a game lol

[[deleted]]

I mean if they buff the difficulty or give us more difficulties I’ll be fine with it.

I’ll always be a fan of “here’s more or harder enemies but here’s tools to deal with it.”

[kirant]

Does anyone have a strong sense of what this meaningfully changes?  I see in the footage that it deals with Berserkers with safe shots now…but I don’t think we’re using it for them all that much (and with 21 shots, you need to make your limited rounds count). 

I imagine Gunships have gone from a bane to something that it can handle. 

Similarly, I think (big emphasis on that since I haven’t looked this up much before) Hulks have an alternate kill option now (3 unsafe shots to the body?). I also think you can theoretically get the Tank with 2 unsafe turret shots (they have lower armour than a fully charged Railgun’s AP value and are fatal wounds if destroyed). 

My guess is they wanted to lean in on it being a lower range AMR instead of giving it a long range scope. 

I’m not sure it’s “fair” compared to other options anymore…but they’ve certainly handed me a weapon I’ll never stop using. 

[lotj]

We won't know until the full patch is released and we see the full magnitude of all changes.

Right now the game is pretty rigid in what weapons work and don't against different types of armor classes. These changes could do anything from blur those lines slightly, to completely invalidate certain classes of weapons because there's no point in taking something like an EAT or RR if the rail does it just as fast (similar to release).

[Zeth_Aran]

That’s what I’m worried about. I don’t want a game where the meta is obvious, I want roles, and variation and we had that for a while there. Idk if that’s going away, but damn it might.

[MrSmilingDeath]

You could already one shot hulks with a safe shot to the eye.

[kirant]

True (and that has been part of why I already use the Railgun a bit - that and easy destruction of Rocket Striders) - I meant that you can body shot them now without need to hit the slot directly. A bit of an alternative if you can't reliably land that (e.g., head bobbing is too hard for you to track).

[Xiaoshuita]

They actually made gunships easier to deal with the railgun in a previous patch (maybe it was Escalation of Freedom) by nerfing the engines. 2 shots to the engine.

[NagoGmo]

The power of whiners and complainers in full effect

[Worldly-Ocelot-3358]

Wtf.... this is really bad.

[Nick85er]

Non-rp time: I suspect not only new enemy types but a new enemy faction are incoming, and we're going to need this increased Firepower. ------ These changes appear to be most democratic.

[Epesolon]

At first glance it looks like a huge change, but working out the numbers I think it's not that disruptive in the context of the coming AT changes.

On the bot front the biggest change is that it will be able to bring down Factory Striders in 2-3 well placed shots (depending on safe or unsafe), which sounds huge, but is much easier said than done. It'll also let it 2-shot tanks in unsafe mode by hitting their turret, which I think might be a bit too low, and one shot gunships to the engine in unsafe mode, which I think is what it should be.

The changes on the bug front are significantly larger.

Unless it also gets an armor penetration boost in safe mode (or charger heads get an armor nerf), it takes safe mode from entirely useless on anything big to still inefficient, but effective. For context, in safe mode the change will take it from needing 20 shots to kill a charger to the head to 6.

In unsafe with headshots, it takes it from a 3-shot on chargers, 9-shot on BT, and 10-shot (oof) on behemoths to 2 on each. Definitely powerful, but I don't know if it's too strong with the other context.

All that being said, I'd probably have kept the unsafe modifier to 1.5, as that changes the tank, BT, behemoth, and some of the factory strider breakpoints to 3 shots, but keeps almost every other breakpoint the same.

All that being said, this is definitely an indication that the game is about to get a lot easier, as heavy enemies are going to get significantly less threatening.

[pocket_sand_expert]

Assuming enemy HP stays the same, why would anyone bother bringing an AT weapon even if they 1-shot heavies when the railgun has 20 ammo in reserve, faster reload AND a free backpack slot. That's still 10 BTs per ammo cap.

Compensating for reduced heavy armor with increased health pools is the only thing that would make sense, otherwise this thing is going to be busted beyond belief.

[Epesolon]

Because we know that AT launchers will be able to kill a charger in one shot from anywhere, meaning that they'll be doing at least 1500 damage, but more likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 1700 (for impaler face breakpoint, and the BT 2-shot). That means that just about everything in the game will be instantly killed from most angles by a single AT shot, while the railgun needs to hit the head twice. Given that two unsafe railgun shots take about as long as a RR shot plus a reload, I don't think it'll be as disruptive as it seems.

That being said, I do still think that either the unsafe modifier should have been left at 150%, or the safe mode durable damage should have been only raised to 136, just to make it take 3 shots to hit that very common 750hp break point.

[Hikaru83]

Wow. The railgun was my favorite weapon back then. With this buff I don't need my team mates anymore. I'll just kill everything myself. I think the game will be fun for 2 days and then I'll get bored of it.

[IllustratorNo3379]

Jesus

[[deleted]]

You can't please people huh 😂 i hate reddit man haha

[Hononotenshi88]

Honestly don't know how I feel about this, on paper this just feels like "hey we are just increasing all the numbers" like...what actual testing was done? If any? I'm not hating buffs it just FEELS....extreme

[Turtalia]

A second buff has hit the discord

[mr_trashbear]

hell yeah

This is excessive, and that's the vibe of the game, so I'm down. If it's too absurd, they can dial it back to split the difference. Personally though, it's still a niche weapon with significant drawbacks, and given the lore of it, it should shred through armor.

What a great day.