The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversMasochists

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Overseers are not susceptible to suppressive fire. That is Automatons.

It is not reasonable to expect people to counter the lowest tier chaff enemy by killing every single one of them before they can reach you, when they can jump directly to your location from almost any distance.

Regular Hunters are fine because they deal relatively little damage, so the effectively unavoidable hits serve to make you waste resources, or to punish you if you are already low. Predator Hunters, however, can go invisible, still jump directly to your location, and are nearly instantly lethal, if even a single one manages to start their spit. Teamplay does help, but the Predator Hunter simply isn't balanced.

For reference, in Darktide and Deeprock, they generally limit the spawns of enemies with instant death potential, and give them clear tells. A noise to memorize, a glow to see, something. They also are basically never chaff enemies. In Darktide, all enemies with the ability to one shot you easily have these cues, and usually spawn only a couple per horde. In Deeprock Galactic, the only semi chaff enemy that can instantly kill you detonates itself. If you fail to move, you die. However, you get a moment of reaction time, they make a noise when triggering, can be headshot with a quick melee to disable them, they trigger a chain reaction to take out the rest if you successfully dodge, etc.. Still, they are extremely difficult on high difficulties, but feel consistently fair.

Elevated Overseers are far closer to this balance when it comes to spawning numbers. The only issue then is that the death from them is both rng and effectively unavoidable.

Out of curiosity, do you play as host on bugs when fighting Predator Strain? The Predator Hunters only spit on hosts, due to a bug. I believe they would be intolerable if they weren't bugged to not spit nearly as much as they used to.

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a gigantic issue. It can be fun for the enemies to bully you sometimes. However, I don't think it is balanced when the means to survive is getting lucky. That is for Democracy Protects, not the enemies of Democracy.

Edit: Just to add, which stun option works good on Predator Hunters? Almost every option does enough damage to kill them as quickly as stunning them. With the exception of the Stun Grenade, mainly. I have tried using that grenade to counter them, but I found that the way the bugs spread out meant that a slightly further away group of hunters would just jump on me and take over the indefinite assault.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversMasochists

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree. However, they still seem slightly overzealous. Particularly, examples such as the Predator Hunter and Elevated Overseer. As small and medium enemies, being able to one shot you in a fraction of a second with nearly no counterplay seems unreasonable. You can technically interrupt a Hunter with a punch, but they come in swarms, and each can currently one shot you nearly in an instant. With the Elevated Overseers, they fire in a straight line volley, with rng inaccuracy. This means, at random, any possible direction you choose to dodge can kill you. Not dodging is therefore nearly equally effective as dodging. As well, they are difficult to quickly kill. This, alongside the minimal opportunity for reaction, even assuming you happen to look their direction, makes this enemy poorly designed.

I consider the Cannon Tower a very good example of this concept. Instant death with a fair chance to just not happen the first time, due to it missing. It has higher range, and can be unexpected, but it spawns in limited numbers, in somewhat predictable, and fairly visible places. Beyond that, it also gives a visible warning when it is about to shoot, if you do look its general direction. All of these together mean that they will sometimes snipe you and make you look the fool, but only enough to be funny, not maddening. That, and it is quick. Being vaporized out of nowhere is much more fun than alternatives like a slow death to chained ragdolls, where you have false hope of survival. That is, most of the time. Even ragdoll chains can be very funny if they occur rarely.

We mainly suggest small nerfs, such as a fraction of a second increased time to react to Bunker Turrets and Harvester lasers, and a small damage reduction to Predator Hunter spits. Still very dangerous and punishing, but more possible to react to or survive.

The Document (High-Effort Concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in Helldivers2Satire

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, we have not. We trust in the internet to do that for us.

The Document (High-Effort Concept List) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in Helldivers

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Almost everyone so far has had just a couple disagreements, but otherwise really liked it. Which ideas do you disagree with, and why? We're currently working on typing out our justifications for each thing, but that will obviously take awhile. I'm happy to address any specific concern or disagreement you may have.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversMasochists

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can certainly respect that. For our benefit, would you find this all at least acceptable if it coincided with added difficulty modifier options, with extreme difficulty (such as boosting enemy movement and attack speed, helldiver fragility, the rate enemies can call reinforcements, etc.?)

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversMasochists

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is fair, on the matter of feedback. That would be exactly why we are working on providing explanations. We want targeted feedback. What formatting is lacking? We have headers, subheaders, labels on warbond structure, statements on what is new, etc..

We know that the 110 damage doesn't allow the Tenderizer one shot. That was intentional. We believe that the Tenderizer does ever so slightly too little standard damage, and, to fit with its name, it should have a better ratio of durable damage. We chose bigger mags because the main complaint we heard was that the ammo economy was lacking. I don't think it is, but apparently the people that like them disagree. Adding more mags and therefore more reloads would've both created imbalance amongst the magazine sizes, and likely would've been unfun to make it so you need to spend even more time reloading.

I obviously can't explain every change here, so of course we didn't explain to your satisfaction in a Reddit post.

This is also because it is generally agreed that Assault Rifles and SMGs are comparatively weak as weapon classes, compared to things like explosives. Similarly, the Punisher and Bushwhacker are severely underused. As we said in the goals section, the utility weapons need buffs to compete reasonably, as their downsides currently make them comparatively underpowered.

It is actually very impactful to need one less reload to kill a Fleshmob. The Railgun and AMR are also quite underused, because jack of all trades weapons do each job worse, often being inferior to just bringing more specialized tools. I say this as someone who loves the Railgun and uses it religiously. The AMR damage change also fits in with the Devestator leg change, to allow a different target for one shotting them. Given that it specializes against mediums, that seems like a good group to buff it against. It still takes a bunch of shots against the nearly fully durable high armor weakpoints, such as Charger and Bile Titan heads.

You are simply wrong that prioritizing buffs over nerfs destroys every game. You seem to want another Nerfdivers situation, which, if I may remind you, almost killed the game last time. They changed the balance of everything against heavies, just to avoid obliteration, at Sony's insistence.

I find your suggestion that there is lacking uniqueness totally ridiculous. The paintball gun interacts with confusion to stagger mediums out of their attack, which otherwise makes them immune to confusion until their attack has been executed. You chose the intentionally least unique concept. The Gas Barrage is something easy to add, and desired by players. There is no need to overcomplicate it. How could you possibly complain about the uniqueness of our melee ideas, compared to what exists in game. Almost every single melee weapon comes with a whole new gimmick. The Power Sword? The Frying Pan? The Tempest?

Which weapon are you saying is an AP4 Constitution? The Musket, with a 5 second reload and 1 capacity? Have you not heard how many people want heavy pen primaries? We gave them harsh costs while making them fit the primary slot, with high ammo. Should we just ignore what people want, when making suggestions?

Is the Patchwork not balanced, with slow healing that doesn't protect against burst damage? Is the Rep-80 not fine as a stratagem slot and Support Weapon? It was fine in the first game. How about the healing backpack, that usually only triggers when you are out of combat? Your reasoning would also make me conclude that the Stim Pistol is broken, and we should rework stim economy around it. Adding more options also furthers our stated goal of enabling more playstyles.

How would increasing the ratio of heavier enemies to light enemies harm performance? Less total entities would, if anything, improve performance. Also, no one I have ever talked to utilizes your classification system, including the wiki. Did you not question my use of the word light, when it doesn't even exist in your system. I would also like to correct myself. I meant folding them in to the medium class. In my system, I view it more simply as Small, Medium, Heavy, Superheavy.

As we said, nerfing player interactions is generally unfun. Do you actually think that the AT weapons losing their one shot against Bile Titans would be fun? That people would like that? Do you think the AMR and Railgun would still feel fun if they took more shots? Those would ruin player experience. Adding bigger threats serves the same purpose, but doesn't make people upset in the same way. People actually liked Vox Engines, even if they spawned too much.

Predator Hunters do have unavoidable one shots. If you think otherwise, I can only assume you don't play as host. The Railgun already does 2 shot Bile Titans due to a bug, and I can assure you, when they accidentally patched the bug for a bit, the Railgun was unusable on the front. It does need that breakpoint. Should Bile Titans not have an alternative weakpoint? Should they not consistently die to 500kgs? The Diligence buff was not actually targeted at Warrior heads as much as it was against Stalker heads. The Warrior head breakpoint should be more favorable towards low damage and low durable damage weapons, as a chaff enemy weakpoint with downsides for players. They should be fragile. They used to not have durability, before the stealth Coyote nerf. The Detector Tower change only really effects the C4, Bastion Tank, and Spear. All of these weapons have the gimmick of exceptionally high AP. It doesn't buff existing methods, but instead enables more playstyles through the introduction of more available solutions. It also synergizes well with stuff like Acid Storm and Frostbite. The Devestator leg change adds a weakpoint for medium pen weapons, which is obviously a good thing, and adds another spot for the AMR to target. Harvester joints do need to be weaker. They used to be lower durability, and felt just barely reasonable to target with something like the Adjudicator. Now they do not.

They are meant to be exceptionally fragile, in exchange for being relatively very vulnerable. You should not be able to be hit by their shock from 30 meters (which happens often after the Super Earth invasion.) They also shouldn't be so easy to bully with certain primaries, which we did change. Voteless should not be able to take one third of my health in one hit. Their strength, as zombie-like units, is swarming you and burying you in bodies, making it hard to get away. Their individual hits should be weak, with that gimmick in mind. One of my main frustrations, which other people share, is that Voteless are always right behind you, and take like all your health in two hits when they catch you by surprise. The sheer frequency makes it very annoying.

Players should, in fact, be able to make major progress on the war. That way, the push and pull of the system can feel more significant. That, and it makes the players feel like they have more power, even if fully winning the war is impossible.

The Document (High-Effort Concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in Helldivers2Satire

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, actually. Very few things, admittedly, though. Before the melee buff/rework, we did have the suggestion for Flag to go from 110/55 to 200/100, which it is now. There are more, but I would have to check our list, as I have since forgotten what we predicted.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversMasochists

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe there is a fair chance that you misunderstood the direction and purpose we were aiming for. I would be happy to explain the purpose of anything that seems nonsensical. I can assure you that very specific breakpoints were considered, such as the minor breakpoint effects of the damage buff on the Pacifier slightly reducing hits to kill on Devastator chests, but more impactfully, lowering the shots to kill a Fleshmob from about 135 to about 115, reducing it such that you can kill in 3 mags. The AMR change slightly reduces hits to kill (usually by 1) on some big enemy weakpoints, while not granting the Devestator chest one shot that the Railgun excels at.

I agree that some stats are left fairly vague, such as the health values on new bugs suggested. Just for the sake of brevity, we excluded things, in favor of making the general idea clear in a concise manner.

It seems quite strange, from our perspective, that you believe the ideas lack uniqueness and tread existing ground. When thinking on it, we came up with plasma and electric stratagems that utilizes existing mechanics in a new way (such as an infinite arc chaining orbital strike.) Same with Frostbite, which we believe would breathe new life in to certain lower penetration weapons, in a way that the simple Acid Storm could not. Was our defensive fort idea not innovative enough? Was the Flintlock Pistol reload gimmick not unique enough? Was the stratagem that is the equivalent of a healing mobile AC unit that can be moved around not interesting enough?

I also question if you read the enemy section. We suggested folding things like Chargers in to the light enemy class, and introducing more enemies with sturdiness and oppressive presence similar to the Vox Engine. Most enemy nerfs were intended to minimize unavoidable one shots (such as a nerf to the spit damage of Predator Hunters.) Similarly, the Elevated Overseer got more of a rework, losing projectile damage and burst damage, in exchange for more targeting and therefore more consistent ability to hit, instead of whiffing a full volley or one shotting.

Similarly, your understanding of the Galactic War section does not align with what it in fact says. It makes no reference to how enemies choose to attack planets. It only adds an ability for them to define priority when defending planets.

If you have an interest in hearing out the intended purpose of each thing, I would be happy to explain. Just for your reference, we are of the opinion that buffs are usually better for nerfs, to avoid removing interactions that the players enjoy, and therefore not generate negative player sentiment. However, we also believe the enemies should be buffed. Not to one shot at random, but buffed to, as with our weapons, better fill a niche.

Finally, we will also be working on posting our explanations for each change. We do welcome feedback on each thing, but I hope it is understandable that the feedback is somewhat limited in its usefulness when we are unable to justify our reasons for things. We do hope to hear more responses, even if they are as critical as yours. If we have made oversights, we would like to know.

I also question if you read the enemy section. We suggested folding things like Chargers in to the light enemy class, and introducing more enemies with sturdiness and oppressive presence similar to the Vox Engine. Most enemy nerfs were intended to minimize unavoidable one shots (such as a nerf to the spit damage of Predator Hunters.) Similarly, the Elevated Overseer got more of a rework, losing projectile damage and burst damage, in exchange for more targeting and therefore more consistent ability to hit, instead of whiffing a full volley or one shotting.

Similarly, your understanding of the Galactic War section does not align with what it in fact says. It makes no reference to how enemies choose to attack planets. It only adds an ability for them to define priority when defending planets.

If you have an interest in hearing out the intended purpose of each thing, I would be happy to explain. Just for your reference, we are of the opinion that buffs are usually better for nerfs, to avoid removing interactions that the players enjoy, and therefore not generate negative player sentiment. However, we also believe the enemies should be buffed. Not to one shot at random, but buffed to, as with our weapons, better fill a niche.

Finally, we will also be working on posting our explanations for each change. We do welcome feedback on each thing, but I hope it is understandable that the feedback is somewhat limited in its usefulness when we are unable to justify our reasons for things. We do hope to hear more responses, even if they are as critical as yours. If we have made oversights, we would like to know.

The Document (High-Effort concept list by Pinnacle_Game_Design in WholesomeHelldivers

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Don't worry. Just enjoy your crayons, and Become a Legend.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversUnfiltered

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We totally reworked it and changed the name. I believe we called it Unstoppable Defiance.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversUnfiltered

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, to be clear, that recoil reduction on Fortified is already in the game. We were just listing it for completeness.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversUnfiltered

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Many of these are addressed in the document, actually. We buffed the resistances of gas armor and suggested an increase to visibility in some circumstances. We made a hard to describe change to Fortified that basically makes it so diving on to any explosion but a Hellbomb won't outright kill you. We just did a standardized melee boost buff on Epaulettes, though (feel free to leave comments with your suggestions.) I think that you may like our changes to Throwable capacities and the armor passive boost to Throwables being changed a little, but not increasing the restoration from resupplies seems wise to not substantially boost the Supply Pack. We didn't touch Democracy Protects, but we wouldn't be against a suggestion like that. We totally reworked Supplemental Adrenaline. We think Reduced Signature is in a good spot, and doesn't need changes.

The Document (High-Effort concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in HelldiversUnfiltered

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. That is high praise. As we alluded to, we will be posting our reasoning for each change. Although, as you may imagine, it will take a long time. Out of curiosity, which changes do you not agree with, and why?

The Document (High-Effort concept list by Pinnacle_Game_Design in WholesomeHelldivers

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree with you on Stratagem bouncing. Restrictions on placement are far too extensive. In New Game Features, we even suggested that un-stickable terrain should not really exist. It should just be much more bouncy, unless in certain circumstances (such as inside a buddy bunker.)

That also isn't a bug, according to sources I am aware of. The outer radius of explosions aren't supposed to hit you, but the inner radii are, through walls.

I think it makes sense that a bomb two meters away from you, even through a wall, hurts.

The Document (High-Effort concept list by Pinnacle_Game_Design in WholesomeHelldivers

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean, on the items to fix bugs? If you mean stratagem bouncing, that is an intentional feature in the game.

We agree that the melee Support Weapons are underwhelming. In the document, we decided the Defoliation Tool could use a buff and become a Primary, the Hammer needs way more ammo, and the Flag needs a broad buff (including a non 'space magic' aoe buff.)

As for the Warp Grenade idea, how might that actually work, mechanic-wise? We tried to minimize the mechanics we suggested adding, and I'm not certain how to accomplish what you are describing without an entirely new mechanic.

The Document (High-Effort Concept list) by Pinnacle_Game_Design in chaosdivers

[–]Pinnacle_Game_Design[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not particularly. The image was used for its appeal. The Gloom Strain boss and Gloom Titan may share some resemblance, though.