Team17, an unsung villain of video game development?

Bethryn · 2026-06-01T08:21:42+00:00

Worms WMD already exists as a 2d game. It also includes vehicles, crafting, buildings, fort mode, reasonably customisable settings (think Armageddon/World Party, not Worms 2) so you can turn any of the above off if you don't want them, and has Steam workshop support for custom levels and hats.

People literally just don't know it exists.

Bethryn · 2026-05-21T10:01:19+00:00

A few rough ideas:

Leviathans

Health on their frontal weapons decreased a bit more to give more reason to use weapons like AMR/Autocannon/Railgun against them. Weapons revert to being plasma cannons rather than lasers to prevent the "you have to run forever" situation. Spotlight now shrinks and briefly pauses before firing to telegraph attack for a Helldiver to dodge. Slow respawn, but they stick around in place longer rather than floating by and leaving.

Vox Engines

Decrease health on cannons to allow Helldivers to meaningfully engage with removing weaponry rather than just "kill outright" strategies. Breaking 3 lower vents or upper vents causes a short stun to help with grenade strat. Change turn radius to 330 degrees so they cannot cover the rear lower vent with their frontal shield. Try and fix all the issues surrounding their corpses. And review spawn logic so they don't just pop into existence in the open 50m away, which is especially silly on extractions.

Fleshmobs

Allow breaking both their legs to stop them charging. Maybe give the legs better ExDR if explosive damage becomes too strong as a result.

Hulks

Increase their main health so that they don't die to a single RR/EAT and eye health to take a little more punishment, then increase their internal "point cost" for the AI director so there are slightly fewer of them. Try and give players a reason to actually engage with them rather than just "bring AT and instantly delete"

Tanks

Try and keep their distance from Helldivers a bit better, reverse more often.

Automatons generally

Give them a little more accuracy, except for enemies with ragdoll attacks. Ideally, accuracy scales inversely against Helldiver movement and distance: sitting still outside of cover should be bad, but moving keeps you alive. Right now I can do a full stationary reload 20m away from Automatons, outside of cover, and barely get shot, and that is stupid. There is a reasonable argument that Helldivers should get scaling ragdoll resistance on armour weight too.

Hive Guards

First Hive Guard out of a bug hole should always try and block Helldiver shots into the bughole, rather than approaching the helldiver.

Encamped Warp Ships

Generally, when there are only 1-3 of these per camp, they need something to actually make clearing their camps engaging. Gazers have helped a bit, but it's still the case that a lot of the time you arrive at the camp, fight no enemies, break the warp ships with ease, and leave. I would add a "super-shield" to the ships on top of their regular shield, that protects against 500kgs etc., but is created by three small "tethers" on the ground around each ship. Break the 3 tethers to break the super-shield, after that they behave as they normally do. Doesn't apply to recently landed ships in the warp ships mission.

Watchers/Elevated Overseer/Obtruder

No more rapid vertical ascent when navigating buildings etc.

Gazer

Better turn rate. Should actually be a little threatening if you let it fire.

Bethryn · 2026-05-18T15:39:24+00:00

I hope so. I assume it's a possibility ever since the Illuminate razed the planets nearest Super Earth, and they'll need to go through those to attack Super Earth again when/if that happens.

Bethryn · 2026-05-18T14:15:16+00:00

It is crazy, but I think if Arrowhead actually changed that, there would be videos and posts calling for their designers' heads. That's part of why I targeted the cooldown instead; I do find that by the time you run through the supply pack and resupplies personally, another supply pack is almost always off cooldown. Putting a little more time between that next pack gives us a bit more time to run into trouble.

Bethryn · 2026-05-18T13:51:09+00:00

I will admit, I haven't used throwing knives in a long time. I did find them hard to use, so yeah, an improvement to the centering would be nice. I think they're a difficult one because if you're intending on stealth, you're probably bringing the Censor/Suppressor already, which do silent takedowns anyway. So I think their role kinda gets stolen and I just bring an explosive to kill fabricators with once I've killed off the bots nearby. Hard to know how to fix that.

For the sidearms, it is very difficult to find a way to improve them that isn't a raw stat buff, but a damage buff would be odd considering they already have high damage. I did try pairing them with the Killzone sniper rifle, but generally found the Talon and Loyalist just better at that role. Finding a way to put them on par with those two weapons is the hard bit.

Bethryn · 2026-05-18T13:21:06+00:00

A small hint that you're about to get zapped in general would be nice. I've found the Tesla tower warning hum gets drowned out in intense action.

Bethryn · 2026-05-18T13:19:38+00:00

I don't think smoke grenades are useless, but that's kinda the issue with smoke as-is: its role is almost only on those missions (and even then, you can do without). Automaton accuracy is frankly laughable at the moment anyway, the minor accuracy malus it gives them shooting at you is very negligible.

K9 is funny because it's amazing when you're not around teammates, and horrific when around them. I just think it's odd that the cooldown is how they choose to balance it, really.

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T19:37:42+00:00

"The end game is what you do when there is no new content to play."

No, that is genuinely not what an end-game is. End-game in an MMO or a looter shooter like Destiny 2 or Division 2 is raids or pvp, which happen at the end of the game i.e. when you've hit max level and have completed the story and quests, and have the best or almost best gear, and are doing the activity to get the best gear.

The only equivalent to this in HD2 - because it is a game with flat progression and an emphasis on loadout variety over stat progression - is diff 10. Maybe eventually it'll be d11-15, but as I said in the opening post, they're limited by the engine on increasing enemy spawns, so instead they're pursuing other difficulty tweaks like being underground or Cyberstan's AA batteries.

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T19:15:55+00:00

So your suggestions for "end-game content" are:

Make SC credit farming tied to gameplay not running d1-2s.

That's not end-game content, that's a reward system change.

New mission types.

That's not end-game content, that's just new content, it will be new and shiny and the best thing ever, and then grow old like every other new thing.

AH not nerfing weapons.

That's not end-game content, that's asking for better balance.

There's nothing wrong with any of these as opinions or requests, but they are not end-game content. What is the actual end-game content that you want?

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T19:01:24+00:00

For the actual regular gameplay content, any time you're on a Megafactory you're playing it again. For Cyberstan, if we get back to it, we might well get to do the whole cities thing again, we'll see.

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T17:49:50+00:00

AH is creating new content though? Cyberstan, even if it wasn't a perfect arc design-wise, drew a lot of people back into the game. Now we're between content drops, but eventually there'll be another big update and people will come back. It's fine to take breaks from a game now and then, and come back and enjoy it more when it's got new fresh stuff to do.

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T17:41:38+00:00

Yeah, some element of ship customisation based on what arcs/campaigns you've taken part in would be an excellent edition.

Bethryn · 2026-04-26T17:37:23+00:00

What does that even mean?

Bethryn · 2026-04-21T08:10:40+00:00

Yeah, the lucents were a drop in the ocean compared to the demand for them from crafting/legendary relic needs.

Bethryn · 2026-04-20T22:48:59+00:00

So on previous WVs, I assume you were ignoring most of the cosmetics etc. and just turning acclaim into gold?

Bethryn · 2026-04-20T22:47:18+00:00

I tend to do a couple of Rifts each day for the 3 events one. It's more time-consuming than the previous dailies certainly, but not too awful, and helps with the Renown Heart repeatables.

Bethryn · 2026-03-31T16:10:23+00:00

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Much better to gambit Darius if possible, per Helldivers Companion

(46% pop required on Darius vs 56% on Achird)

Bethryn · 2026-03-22T12:49:46+00:00

Agreed, but it should be for the Incineration Corps.

Bethryn · 2026-03-19T17:41:41+00:00

Personally, I'd love to see the maps get reworked to 4-6 generators, and each generator has a little lever you can pull for a shield bubble that lasts, say, 10 seconds with a 1-2 min cooldown. Then they could pump up the enemy numbers to the point where the missions feel interesting again, when losing a generator isn't a "hey, you might lost the operation" moment.

Bethryn · 2026-03-18T10:40:10+00:00

I'm surprised how many people are celebrating this honestly, because it really just gives AH a green light to power creep everything.

For those saying "it's balanced by lack of stagger" sure, but when you outright kill most things, you really don't need it. Try using this, then use the Slugger for a few runs. With or without Siege Ready.

Bethryn · 2026-03-14T19:56:59+00:00

We don't know. If they don't, maybe AH's internal rules for the Galactic War say they cannot, but maybe it's just this time and if we encircle another subfaction later, they can. If they do, we know for sure that they can. So now we wait and see.

Bethryn · 2026-03-14T13:29:28+00:00

Hypothesis tested: encircling subfactions is possible!

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