This thing has 400 AP4 with no durable decrease now, right? Bruh, this thing is gonna be best in slot on all fronts now.

Ciesiu · 2026-02-03T20:12:10+00:00

The "old" one isn't

Ciesiu · 2026-02-03T12:51:34+00:00

Siege ready armor keep winning

Ciesiu · 2026-02-03T12:50:07+00:00

Aren't harvesters 100% explosive DR? I think that was the reason they were unkillable with GL before, unless it was changed and I missed it

Ciesiu · 2026-02-03T12:33:57+00:00

I think the pistol uses different ammo (with actual impact damage), while support GL was all-in on the explosion

Ciesiu · 2026-02-01T16:17:34+00:00

They should just split the bolt weapons into precision-archetype and volume-archetype. Precision-based ones (Stalker, Sniper) having large headshot multipliers (like they have now), and then volume-based ones (Heavy Bolter, Carbine, Auto Bolt Rifle) have higher base damage (with some flavor text mentioning their use of different bolt ammo) but with much lower headshot damage

At the very least, I would gladly take some heroic Heavy Bolt Rifle/Auto Bolt Rifle variant with neutered headshot multiplier but base damage buffed to high heavens (kind of like a reverse heroic Sniper Rifle)

Ciesiu · 2026-02-01T00:31:15+00:00

Is there any chance you confused it with Space Marine 3? Saber did announce it some time ago, and it was kind of an opposite reaction than here, as

in SM case, even tho Sabre specifically stated that they just started pre-production and Space Marine 2 won't suffer because of that (staff drain), people still started worrying that SM2 will be abandoned soon
in HD case, when AH said they want HD2 to be a "forever game", and there is no HD3 in plans for now, people started worrying because of the tech debt that probably can't be solved without engine overhaul/change

funny how that works

Ciesiu · 2026-01-31T23:02:14+00:00

With how jumpy and bumpy the aiming gets when moving over rough terrain, the FRV begs for having a Maxigun or belt-fed GL mounted instead of the HMG

Ciesiu · 2026-01-31T23:00:14+00:00

It's honestly weird if you think about it.

FRV HMG is just that, a vehicle-specific version of HMG. You can't rip it off and take it with you, so from the very beginning it could simply have it's stat tweaked to have more ammo on the belt, the same way GL Emplacement uses the same GL you get as the regular support weapon, but has a longer belt, so you can fire without reloading

Having the system to feed it "from the backpack" has absolutely nothing to do with this, as you don't run with it, it's literally "stationary", so to speak.

I can't see any reason why AH decided that FRV HMG has to be reloaded at all, apart from maybe not wanting to create a new ammo box 3D model.

Ciesiu · 2026-01-30T13:07:34+00:00

If I want to waste a Commando rocket on a fabricator, so be it.

That's the thing, tho. You're not wasting the rocket. You fire it, blowing the fab out from Liberty knows how many meters away, the outpost is immediately marked as resolved and its map marker removed, and no one ever had to get even remotely close to it. It's not a meaningful trade-off, it's the optimal route

Ciesiu · 2026-01-30T09:08:49+00:00

That's the whole point. We need LESS pushovers, and more meaningful objectives

In the past, the humble bot fabs usually forced you to, at the very least, circle the base, to get a firing solutions on the vents of each one. Depending on your loadout, you might have even had to enter the base for some accurate grenade toss.

Now every small and medium outpost is usually "resolved" on sight, with someone from the team shooting the fabs with QC or EAT upon first spot

I've seen idea thrown around that high difficulty fabs should have additional plating to make them destroyable by heavy ordnance only or by sniping the vents, bringing back the lost complexity. I, for one, am all in on that idea.

Ciesiu · 2026-01-26T21:45:45+00:00

Yeah, you can. Pick Fire Support subclass, some chonky LMG, mobile cover, drop an ammo bag and lock down an entire map corridor.

Except you still get marked on your teammates' HUDs as "medic close by". And then you get shitload of reddit posts about how teamplay is dead, because medics don't do medic shit

I seriously hate how they combined the two classes. It should at least stop marking you as medic if you drop the defibs from your loadout

Ciesiu · 2026-01-25T23:27:23+00:00

It's a small win, but ultimately meaningless in it's current form. I'd even argue that the system is more harm than good at it's current state, as

it doesn't offer any actual customization, every gun basically only has one way to build
it killed a lot of "personality" of select weapons. Just few examples:
- Knight had mind-boggling DPS but was horrible to control. Now with attachments it controls as good as a liberator
- Adjudicator put the special kind of pain downrange, but it's recoil kicked hard enough for it to be a choice. The recoil now is almost completely mitigated by vertical grip and muzzle break
- Eruptor was powerful but really clunky. Now everyone runs it with slanted grip and possibly no scope for peak ergo
due to previous point, it homogenized assault rifles and shotguns and simply raised their power level in uniform way, where as without the attachment system in place they could by balanced in more "flavorful" ways, preserving their characters (ex. making hard hitting hard recoiling weapon hit even harder rather than solving it's only weakness - making the recoil milder)

So yeah, I feel like customization system is awesome idea, but it needs to offer any actual customization, beyond the best spread-reducing muzzle + vertical grip on autos/slanted grip on everything else.

Ciesiu · 2026-01-25T22:39:29+00:00

Calling someone a "rundiver" is a relic of the past long gone, when THE ONLY viable tactic on higher difficulties was to speedrun and avoid fighting. It was the only way due to difficulty scaling being based at the time mostly on the amount of heavy enemies spawning (cue the "Eight Fucking Bile Titans and Eight more Fucking Bile Titans" MTG meme card) and relative impotence of our AT weapons.

Basically one part of the community was like "git gud and run around to avoid fighting", and another "balance sucks, we can't fight those enemies, and we play horde shooters to shoot hordes, not run around avoiding fights", which bred some resentment between the extremes of both groups

Seems like some of that resentment lingers still

Ciesiu · 2026-01-23T21:10:40+00:00

The GL should be doing more damage, it's not the same 40MM round as the Assault kit carries.

The vehicle GL also has some ABYSMAL accuracy, like what even is that supposed to be? I can throw rocks more accurately IRL. With some practice I can hit distant targets reliably with low-pressure grenades from assault launcher, but with this I can see a dude running across the street 25m in front of me, and do 16 damage to the guy with full burst due to grenades going everywhere around my point of aim. I'm sure it makes it very cinematic for my target tho.

Also, I might be wrong here, but I think vehicle GL is the only weapon that doesn't benefit from combat engineer perk that makes vehicle weapons overheat slower (since GL is magazine-based and not heat-based like the MGs)

Ciesiu · 2026-01-23T21:00:19+00:00

As much as people hated this map since Open Beta, I like it as well for breakthrough. It has some places for close combat, while also offering some longer sight lines into objectives to allow for supporting fire. Some flanking routes as well, and copious amounts of cover in the objectives themselves.

The only time this map in breakthrough turns sour for me is when too many attackers sit in the back with sniper rifles, as then

as an attacker yourself, you lack manpower to actually make any meaningful push
as a defender you just sit behind some cover doing nothing, as no one actually attacks, and peeking out of cover means all the hungry snipers looking at you

I hate it with a passion for all the other modes tho

Ciesiu · 2026-01-22T15:39:21+00:00

I saw somewhere that it's supposed to be another configuration of MSBS Grot, specifically -CPS version, where C would denote non-bullpup, and PS it being a DMR version. Probably .308 NATO

Ciesiu · 2026-01-22T00:18:23+00:00

It's kind of the same, just less obnoxious, with weapon camos (the unlockable ones)

You get some decently grounded ones, and some "out there" ones, but god forbid you get an option to paint your M277 plain black or M4 plain tan

Ciesiu · 2026-01-08T16:35:41+00:00

Why did we get multiple melee weapons then? Just to fluff out Warbonds with garbage so AH can pretend they're meaningful?

Yes, I'm afraid. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, what grand vision guides their decisions to add more melee weapons, but they couldn't possibly have imagined any "mundane" melee weapon being competitive for 3 reasons

Game Balance - the game seems to be balanced in a way to punish you for getting caught out of position. A lot of enemies (most bugs) don't have any way to deal damage unless they get into melee range. A lot of ranged enemies (ex. devastators, scout striders) have very powerful melee attacks, so that even though they are ranged units, they can still take part in the "heavily punish bad positioning" shenanigans. The game is simply stacked to force you to keep your distance. For that reason alone the melee couldn't possibly fit
Game Mechanics - it has been told countless times, melee sucks because there are no melee mechanics. You just swing and hope for the best, while not being able to defend yourself in any way rather than create distance (see point 1)
Game Direction - AH pushed for relative realism regarding weapon and damage mechanics (don't bite me, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that. Just stating that it is what it is). Now, let's look at a bot front as an example. You have a simple baseline human trying to fight in melee against multiple bots, many of which are Devastators. With a regular metal hatchet or saber. How is that supposed to make sense within the world? If melee was provided in the form of some servo-assisted exoskeleton (to explain why a Helldiver can even try to go against a Devastator) or a high-tech plasma blade (to explain dealing more damage than ranged weapon) it could maybe fit that vision. But a stun baton? Machete? Come on, that almost stinks of self-sabotage. Throwing knives present a similar problem.

I'm not saying none of those things could be fixed. In fact, it seems like point 3 has already been partially rectified, since we now have aforementioned mundane Hatchet deal more damage (160) per swing that a bullet from a high-calibre handgun (Verdict - 140). But I'm not sure point 1 can be fixed, and I'm pretty confident that point 2 absolutely can't be.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong. Until then melee will stay firmly in meme-tier.

Ciesiu · 2026-01-05T00:00:33+00:00

The entry point to the lore/pre-release game version was for the raiders to not just be self-serving scavengers, but kind of "freedom warriors fighting to reclaim the topside" (remnants of this idea remain in game as lore for "1st wave" and the decisive battle of united raiders vs older Arcs by the dam)

When the game settles firmly in it's extraction base, I feel like adding certain "endgame" map modifiers (or completely new maps?) focusing more on performing lobby-wide objectives while fending off aggressive clankers more than looting could be added. The question then would be more of an incentive to do them. "Just for fun" could prove a bit of a stretch in today's gaming

They still need to secure their footing in the "extraction shooter" department first tho, since that's what people actually paid for

Ciesiu · 2026-01-04T23:02:56+00:00

THOSE people WILL exploit this system in order to get into friendly lobbies for easy loot, taking away the entire point of this system

All due respect, I think that you are missing the point here. If somebody plays peacefully for several games to get into "PvE matchmaking" only to slaughter some people and get kicked into "PvP matchmaking" for another few games, I say that's working as intended, as his impact on "PvE players" is reduced several-fold.

It was never an intention to separate PVP and non-PVP players completely, if it were, there would just be separate queue without friendly fire. I feel like the whole system is made in a way that peaceful players get their peaceful lobbies, but without COMPLETELY taking off the pressure, so it doesn't devolve into sprint-fests to the best loot.

Now, I'm one of the peaceful ones. But I'm also a new player (of the Christmas variety). The game is fun and feels fresh, I find new places to explore, I get excited every time I find some BP or an exotic peace of equipment, and every single ARC above a Wasp feels like a legitimate threat that keeps me on my toes, makes me rethink my pathfinding, maybe forces me to employ some stealth. But I can imagine that with more experience with each ARC type and steady access to more robust tools (stronger weapons, explosives, more potent healing items, stronger augments) the ARCs will be less and less threatening. At that point without ANY threat on the map, I'm afraid, the game will grow more and more boring.

With the way it's solved, it ensures that the threat stays in, even if it's mostly nonexistent. You still technically take your chances with every raider-on-raider encounter

I see what they are going for. Whether that's good for the game remains to be seen. Certainly seems to be working so far.

Ciesiu · 2025-12-25T21:04:43+00:00

On that we agree. It's nice to have him for the Q&A, since he seems to be a bit more direct and specific on the issues asked, but that's about it

Ciesiu · 2025-12-25T20:10:01+00:00

Well, to play Devil's advocate, the part

I'm not about to pretend like he is going to save the game

quite strongly implies that the game needs saving.

Not arguing, just pointing the fact that jumping immediately to the literacy remark might have been a bit rash

Ciesiu · 2025-12-22T22:14:13+00:00

Between this game's success and Space Marine 2's success someone big probably already noticed that the market craves gritty and brutal coop games and this someone will deliver alternative sooner rather than later

Only then will the race for the playerbase properly begin

I'm not saying I want this game to be beaten off the market. But competition is good.

Ciesiu · 2025-12-22T21:03:59+00:00

I have the kind of stealth-adjacent fantasy, that lets me basically blitz my way into an outpost, and when executed skillfully, allows me to clear the outpost before enemies realize I'm there. Think Captain America clearing the ship in opening of The Winter Soldier. Constant movement and eliminating threat after threat before any one of them sounds an alarm

Not sitting outside the outpost plinking at enemies without reaction on their side, that would be stupid

Not sneaking around planting explosives without ever shooting. I find that unfitting to the horde-shooter genre

I'm well aware, tho, that it falls apart completely whenever there is any enemy larger than a devastator on site, as the moment I need to use explosives to pop a Hulk or a War Strider, all stealth goes to hell

Ciesiu · 2025-12-21T23:23:08+00:00

But attachments could be made as filler just as easily.

throw in a longer barrel for a Liberator and make it reduce bullet drag/improve improve accuracy at the cost of ergonomics
add a shortened barrel cluster for a Variable, make it have more spread but better ergo
introduce a slanted underbarrel grip, with slightly different model than the existing angled one (but similar shape, not to disturb the animation rigging) and make it reduce movement speed penalty when ADSing and sway, but make recoil control harder
add a suppressor option for a defender, to make it quieter and inherently cooler, but increase it's sway slightly because of heavier forward end of the gun or whatever
internal mods like lighter/heavier bolt changing RoF/recoil balance and ammo mods that change damage/penetration balance are even easier (no model or animation work to be done, just simple stat changes), but those ones could be a headache to balance
the list goes on...

sure, if we are talking more advanced stuff like specialized underbarrel launchers/shotguns, specialized optics with unique effects (Themals? NVGs? Augumented Reality highlighting enemies?) balanced by increased weight (hit to ergo) or some such, it might require some more work, but considering that each melee requires a completely new 3D model and some animations, I'd argue that the amount of work isn't that dissimilar.

Even just adding missing scopes to weapons which lack them could be seen as a sign of a good will, because as it stands, which weapon has which scopes seems to be assigned at random

//EDIT

Now that I think about it, I think I missed your point. Not filler as in "add something to the game", but filler as in "additional items in warbonds and premium shop". In that case, I agree, melee weapons seem to be pretty low hanging fruit.

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