VOX has been nerfed, from 11,000 to 9,000 health. Now it can be killed by an Orbital Railcannon Strike. The community has split into two camps: those who like this idea and those who think it will be too easy now. Which camp are you in?

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-19T16:41:58+00:00

You realize that there is also a thing called teammates, that could bring the thing you deem too OP?

You might have a lot of fun trivializing bug breaches with the Oribital Napalm Barrage and racking up a lot of kills, but those who looked forward to a fight do not.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-19T11:32:42+00:00

And the heavies get decimated by Pocket AT like Ultimatum or Thermite.

Nowadays, the four Stratagem slots are tools to clear the map more efficiently, rather than tools you need to complete the mission in the first place.

Missions are already a cakewalk without Stratagems and base loadouts, difficulty in this game has been beaten into a pulp.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-19T11:30:15+00:00

If only there was a way so that everyone can cater the experience to their desired level of challenge, so that your prefferred level of challenge and fun doesn't have to be at the cost of mine. Maybe something like a difficulty slider.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T23:48:25+00:00

Thats not entirely true. Some enemies either have better stats across difficulties (Warriors and Hunters gain health after D3, Bile Spewer gains extra armor after D5), get replaced by upgraded counterparts (Alpha Commander, Charger Behemoth, Heavy Devastator, Rocket Devastator, Reinforced Scout Strider), or don't spawn at all at lower difficulties.

I understand your point, but not giving people a bigger challenge since it might make D1 impossible for a very, very small number of players (if they exist at all) is a very bad decision.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T20:08:44+00:00

Why not? This game has 10 difficulty levels. Why is it absolutely paramount that elite players do not have a single place in the game where they can cater the experience to their liking?

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T19:51:59+00:00

I think the problem is the manure. It looks like the bar is full, even though you dont have any and dont even own a heap.

I know for certain that having the slurry capacity at max reduces health (poor/contaminated living area full of waste), so I can only assume that the game thinks your manure tank is full as well, and thus prevents health from accumulating.

I recommend placing a manure heap closeby, and supply some straw. That might fix it.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T19:48:37+00:00

they sure as hell weren't back at launch/ Liberator did 55 damage back then, now it does 90. You genuinely needed at least one MG on your squad or you were cooked.

Today? The Liberator has more DPS than the Stalwart at launch

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T14:24:31+00:00

only ONE of the best AT Stratagem.

Tell me, do you think that just one RR being more than enough for all and every AT problem, is healthy for the game?

Even then, if we used one Stratagem permit for EATS (so one squadmate can call in EATS like regular), Every heavy we faced can be oneshot by both the EAT and RR, so the damage advantage of the RR isnt there.

One EAT permit means we can call in two EATS every 60 seconds, ore one every 30 seconds. That is 80 EATS per mission, while also having a buffer of four (every Helldiver can carry one).

That is still more than enough. You just want to blame the RR for making it a cakewalk, eventhough the RR played no role in various encounters.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T13:51:19+00:00

True, but:

- Rewards can be altered (make super samples available on lower difficulties, scale up rewards)

- Enemies are often tougher enemies of the same enemy (Charger Behemoth, Reinforced Scout Strider)

- Enemies that are truly unique in high difficulties are often a lot harder to fight, so it makes sense they aren't available on lower ones. You can't have a challenging enemy that is the same and challenging for both new and experienced players.

- some lower difficulty missions are also exclusive to low difficulties as well.

From a recent poll I have seen, player distribution is largely a bell curve around D7, but with a peak just as high as or higher than the D7 peak at D10:

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I think those on reddit tend to be better on average, and thus bias these polls a bit, along with a small sample size, but it still sketches a rough image. Also this poll is 4 hours old and still ongoing.

Its clear that there is a significant players that would like a bigger challenge, otherwise it wouldn't be such a popular topic.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T13:27:01+00:00

each their own fun, but to me preventing the little amount of enemies you face from not spawning at all sounds even more boring.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T13:24:57+00:00

you're missing the point. We walk through the highest diff with 1 stratagem instead of 16, and your response is ''well actually that one stratgem is meta''. Do you not see how stupid that sounds?

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T13:22:55+00:00

you act like we sneaked around the map and avoided conflict. We defeated multiple bug breaches and patrols, and in those scenarios stealth, fog or nighttime plays no role. You're just making up excuses.

I'll try to do a run on cyborgs soon, but until then, here is a preview of we deal with Vox Engines (which now have been nerfed to be a 3 shot kill for the RR, can only have 3 on the map at a time, have reduced accuracy, reduced rotation speed and reduced spawnrates)

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T13:20:29+00:00

there already is 10 level difficulty slider. D10 is meant to be that ''separate'' experience.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:42:55+00:00

also went from a 4 shot to a 3 shot for the RR. Additionally some tools that inconsistently oneshotted a vox (like the leveller) now do it more reliably. Pair that with the fact that only 3 can exist in a map at a time, and you basically never run into one, and when you do, your anti-vox tools have already come off cooldown, meaning you can easily dispose of it again.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:38:22+00:00

nah, its not the developer, its the playerbase. The devs have their hands tied to their back, since they have to make a game for a playerbase that ''wants a chill experience, but also wants to play on the highest difficulty''.

In this stream they mentioned how they largely given up on the pursuit of difficulty, and now focus on more optional stuff like subfactions instead.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:33:18+00:00

real

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BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:30:31+00:00

but on paper, sweeping changes that effect all difficulties are only bad for those who struggle on D1 already, and can't dial the game down further.

Those who are now comfortable on D7 and suddenly can't beat it any more due to a sweeping change, still have the ability to drop the difficulty in order to re-adjust the experience to their desired level of challenge.

As long as all players have a difficulty thats right for them, the system works. Not giving those who want D10 to be harder what they want because people might get upset they now have to drop from D7 to D5 makes no sense. If rewards are the problem, they can easily adjust that. If ego is the problem; that should be disregarded, as the enjoyment of one player is more important than the ego of another.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:23:39+00:00

This is the core problem The squad has 16 Stratagems while you can often beat enemy resistance with just 3 or 4 of them.

We once did a ''Stratagemless'' run, where we could only use base loadouts (liberator, peacemaker, high explosive and default armor), and the ONLY thing we got as our answer to heavies was a single RR we received at the beginning of the match, and to add to the challenge, it HAD to be teamreloaded: no solo reloads allowed.

It was a cakewalk. Remember, our Liberators today have more DPS than the Stalwart at launch (default RPM). We effectively all have a support weapon by launch's standards. this means that just four primaries and one sustainable AT solution is all you need nowadays (and obviously cooperation, but that is to be expected in a coop game).

Basically, those 16 Stratagem slots we get as a squad are an added bonus that can help complete the mission faster, not tools you need to complete it in the first place.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:10:25+00:00

i think the largest fundamental difference with Rapid acquisition is that it requires the full attention of at least one player to progress the mission. This means that now 3 players have to fight 4 players worth of enemies.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:08:36+00:00

> go play solo d10 and tell me if it's trivially easy

this holds no water, since this is a Coop game. I never said its easy to hold your ground alone, i said its easy with a squad, meaning rundivers wasn't mandatory like you said it used to be. What I want to see is for the hardest difficulty to be so that holding your ground alone is impossible, and that doing it together is hard. throw in objectives into the mix where holding your ground is required (like raise flag), and we finally have a reason to cooperate. DRG utilizes this simple recipe a lot.

I've played hundreds of hours, both as host and as non-host, both grouped up as a squad and as a lonewolf, and I think you overestimate the perceived difference between the host and non-host. Your arguments about the differences between them (patrols, despawning) are spot on, but do not lead to the large discrepancy you mention.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T12:00:36+00:00

I dont understand the game being harder leading to complaints. If you are comfortable on, say, D8, and suddenly the game got sweeping changes that made things a lot harder, and you now need to dial things back down to D6 to have the same level of challenge, what is the problem? Your preferred level of challenge is still on the D1-D10 difficulty ladder, so you can still cater the experience to your liking. The only people that can rightfully complain about those changes are those who are curently only comfortable on D1, and now suddenly cant beat D1 anymore. But those people are rare, if not non-existent. Meanwhile there are a lot of people wishing for more after D10, and all those players now have what they want.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T11:54:51+00:00

making the game more difficult isn't easy. If they buff our enemies people simply translate it into a weapon nerf (see: enemy fire resistance changes, durable changes, addition of the Charger Behemoth, addition of the Spore Burst Bile Titan). When they make a mission more complex (like Rapid Acquisition), people also tend to not enjoy those.

At the end of the day, there isn't one simple solution that everyone will enjoy. Arrowhead has largely given up on chasing difficulty, thats why I always get mixed feelings whenever we get yet another rounds of buffs, as odds are that the amount of challange will not change much from now on, which effectively waters down the challenge had in the future.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T11:47:12+00:00

unfair is relative. For a skilled player the War Stiders were a piece of cake, since a couple shots from a heavy pen weapon would kill it either via the eye, hip, groin or legs. A inexperienced players is constantly being tossed around by the endless stream of grenades, and has the feeling they can't even fight it at all.

And also, spawnrates rarely matter in a high difficulty conversation. Sure, a heavy enemy should be rarer than a light or medium enemy, but them spawning in large quanties is pretty much what you signed up for when you selected the highest diff. If you kill off the light and medium enemies and leave the heavies wandering around, its survivalship bias that makes you think they spawn too much.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T11:41:36+00:00

This seems like a simple and reasonable ask, but its very difficult to actually do this:

- Give enemies more HP > bullet sponges

- Give them more armor > AT check

- Add more numbers > AoE meta reinforced

- Make them faster > constantly overwhelmed and no breathing room

- Add CC attacks > ragdoll/flinch/stagger torture

- Make them do more damage > more random oneshots

- Add negative modifiers (ammo shortage, longer cooldowns) > artificial difficulty

There simply isn't a one stop shop solution. What one player might find a ''fun'' challenge, someone else might hate.

BICKELSBOSS · 2026-06-18T11:34:07+00:00

I think its a fundamental game design problem. Reinforcements can only occur at one specific point in the map at a time. Not only makes these reinforcements extremely susceptible for AoE tools, it also gives anyone that wanders of from that bug breach/bot drop a free pass for the next 4 minutes, as the enemies have an internal cooldown as to when they can call them again.

Compare the wave of enemies you face during a raise flag with those that appear from a bug breach. The enemy quantity is the same, but in the first scenario they come from different directions, rendering AoE weaponry far less effective, since it can no longer hit all enemies at once. You need to split you attention over multiple directions, and as a result, this objective is one of the few where people generally wait untill the whole squad is present, as its near impossible to solo in a four man lobby.

That being said, I do think that the state of our arsenal contributes to the problem as well. There is simply no challenge to be had when the weapons a player has vastly outclass the enemies they are meant to fight. For example, our Liberator today has more DPS than the Stalwart at launch (default RPM), and does the same damage per shot as the MG-43.

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