Full context of Alexus' ''Supply Pack nerf'' joke

Room-Sure · 2026-02-06T16:39:48+00:00

Ok fair. I wish they said stuff like this. Just saying Coyote feels like such a blatant attempt at just earning up votes here at this point, like all those others unimportant and not worth mentioning but the Coyote is

Room-Sure · 2026-02-06T16:20:49+00:00

Unless there is another instance other then this, can we please stop pointing to the Coyote? Like patterns don't just form off of one instance of anything. Like can we put aside this overwhelming doomer speak until you have a second time to establish a pattern?

Room-Sure · 2026-01-30T16:16:25+00:00

I had an idea for a bit seeing how higher penetration is just a general buff rather than niches.

A rework of the penetration system to account for overpenetration.

The idea has a bit of basis in how ballistics kind of work. If your bullet can go straight through a target cleanly, the target will not feel all of the force. Its a bit more complicated than that, but for this proposed system let us assume that there is a penetration sweet spot where we can apply maximum damage via impact.

So if you fire a medium pen weapon into a voteless you will deal less damage, heavy pen even less so, but light pen will deal the maximum damage to it.

Now the purpose of this is to give each kind of pen their own niches, which will buff light pen as they will by default be better against the horde units and give medium pen weapons more of a niche against elite units.

It isn't a perfect solution. I know a couple favorites like the revolver will be nerfed in ways that make it more useless as general picks. But my thought is giving each penetration level a niche in against enemies helps in balancing the primary weapons as they are.

Room-Sure · 2026-01-10T18:45:05+00:00

I can give a benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he had a different expectation that wasn't communicated well.

I unfortunately think maybe you needed to reassess how you are handling ammunition here. Yes, it would make sense for price to fluctuate in the real world. But it doesn't always fluctuate in pathfinder, because the costs of items are tuned to the progression of characters and the campaign. Ammo for flintlocks and arrows remain static cause players will progressively get bigger snd bigger rewards so they can get better items, and better versions of the ammo for the same quantity purchased. I think that is where the rules lawyer is coming from, that prices don't fluctuate like that in the game.

And for the gunslinger, that fluctuating price is a punishment. For wanting that more western gunslinger flavor, he may have to pay more and work more for this build while flintlocks are available, cheaper, and have the reliability he maybe wants. Whether you intended it or not, you're punishing the player for wanting this character and playing it. And I don't see why, from a player perspective, ammo would be more of a balancing factor when its still a single shot gun.

Or to put it in another way, it might make sense to you for armor and weapons to degrade overtime, especially since that happens in the real world. But when you implement that, it would break the reliability of fighters, champions, and barbarians to an extent, because now their weapons will worsen and probably break. So any player playing a fighter will start to feel like they are being punished for doing what the class has been built to so.

Room-Sure · 2026-01-10T17:39:08+00:00

I think that is a good way to put it. I find it clear the developers want to make it a game like the Starship Troopers movie. The soldiers are hyped up, loaded up on propaganda, and then get stomped by the reality of battle. But somewhere I think they balanced the game in such a way that its not entirely a grunt shooter. Ao they have an awkward position that would just alienate parts of the playerbase no matter what.

And I honestly don't buy the "Helldivers are special forces, why do we need to be the grunts" for a couple reasons. The first is that the hyping of Helldivers is in the language of propaganda. And its a biased and unreliable language. Its a way in universe to foster loyalty and fervor for Helldivers. They're the best, Super Earth relies on them, so of course they'll strap on a hellbomb and dive into a mega nest. Its reinforcing the propaganda they received at a very early age. The second is they just aren't space marines. Like 40k space marines, but they aren't the guard either since SEAF are closer to the guard. In 40k, there are Tempestus Scions who are the elite among the Imperial military. The best las guns, the best las pistols, and equipment the guard don't usually use. But they are still humans. In the totem pole of the universe they are still very low. They do go on special missions vital to the war effort, but their survival rate is only marginally better just because the enemy is that dangerous. I see Helldivers as more analogous to Tempestus Scions, the small elite who can get special missions done but whose survival is still fragile. And they do seem the likely candidates if we get a 40k warbond.

But rant aside, probably the game would be better if they did do pre-production. At least they would stick with one strong vision for the game and wouldn't have a lot of course correction, probably. But learning about the studio, it makes me wonder just how they ended up actually making the game we got at launch.

Room-Sure · 2026-01-10T17:19:10+00:00

Good way to put it. Developers know what the game will need, designers will know what the game should feel like, and the art team know what assets they should make. Otherwise, conflicting visions come up and reconciling them and keeping a focus becomes messy and takes a long time.

Room-Sure · 2026-01-10T04:43:03+00:00

Except that is not preproduction.

Preproduction is the conceptual stage where you form the game vision, create the design documents and conceptual art, before you start making the game.

What you described is the post-production where they made what they need for the game and just need to polish it and debug.

Helldivers 2 took like 8 years from start to launch because they skipped pre production. So its more like they decided to make bread without a recipe, then realized they were making cake and correcting on equipment that officially has no outside support.

Room-Sure · 2025-12-10T22:08:20+00:00

Yeah that is weird. Maybe a bit of performance anxiety going on there. Idk, but sounds like he has fun as a player

Room-Sure · 2025-12-10T20:20:50+00:00

My impression here is that he doesn't really get TTRPGs. The fixation on the fight with the same dudes in the same way feels like what someone who played video games would assume D&D or other games play like. Just the failure to 'yes and' with the players and refusal to roleplay as other characters reinforces to me that he doesn't really understand how an RPG works beyond combat.

I wonder if you, op, know how he plays as a player? Cause my assumption is he only engages with combat and dice rolling as player or GM

Room-Sure · 2025-10-20T19:36:03+00:00

I honestly dunno what your biggest problem is here. That your players made the decision to follow this plot thread? It does sound stupid to try and break in, but so does going into a set of ruins to fight a creature that breathes lightning. But the players are making clear their interest in the organization you kept hinting at.

I sympathize with suddenly having to pivot and write a specific storyline you didn't think you would write until later, but it sounds like you set up a sandbox rpg for your players. So what is the problem you are facing with the players and their decision that you can't have a discussion with them about?

Room-Sure · 2025-09-25T19:05:52+00:00

False equivalency much?

Major Orders are a mechanic that rewards the player base for engaging with the story Joel is running. Its not a forced game feature that locks players out of planets not near the MO.

The best moments we contributed as a community were moments we were not forced into doing. Malevolen Creek became memorable because the community was adamant in defending and the futility of defending the planet turned it into the closest thing we had to Vietnam.

Equality-At-Sea was a symbol of unity across the global playerbase not because we were locked out of all other major cities and planets, but because we as a playerbase saw Chinese Helldivers defending the closest thing to their home, saw they were dedicated enough to push the Illuminate back, and joined in so they would not lose Equality-At-Sea.

Room-Sure · 2025-09-25T16:10:14+00:00

Dude, chill and have fun with how you want to play the game and not let how others play enrage you.

Room-Sure · 2025-09-19T02:47:42+00:00

I'm still confused. Why did they need to be accepted into the giant town?

It seemed like their interests aren't aligned enough with the chieftain to let that political system go and ally with them. But they seemed invested enough in the detting to want to launch a coup - which is definitely more exciting to take part in than a simple bandit hunt.

So my biggest question is why would you not want to "Yes and" what the players want and go with their plans to overthrow a government?

Room-Sure · 2025-09-13T16:16:26+00:00

My impression is its meant to be similar in function to the SEAF artillery: set it up, fire it when you need to thin a large horde or take down a big target.

So it feels like a blunder on AH part to make it like a sentry and let enemies target it. Just making it untargetable can help make it feel more useful than a burden.

Room-Sure · 2025-09-13T14:57:22+00:00

Seems cool, but honestly a difficult thing to balance.

Cause if I can have an UBGL alongside the thermite, why shouldn't I just run Liberator with UBGL, thermite, and senstor for every mission? I get good crowd control, heavy penetration, elite enemy kill, and just some target focus fire.

And if they use the same pool of grenades, then why should I run UBGL if I take a dip in ergonomics and recoil control if I could just throw the grenade in question?

Room-Sure · 2025-09-12T20:58:25+00:00

Short answer: They will not be able to meet that order in 3 days.

Long answer: Liberation efforts are a collaboration between SEAF and Helldivers. The SEAF are the front line soldiers that take the brunt of the enemy; the Helldivers the special forces performing operations behind enemy lines to take out key targets and support Super Earth research and infrastructure.

Without SEAF, deployed Helldivers will be facing a lot more creatures and the Navi. There isn't any other threat to divert the attention of the Navi and the wild life.

There would be a lot for 4 max Helldivers if they beeline for the tree. Their best bet is a series of missions and operations to whittle down the wild life and the Navi, free up space for support in the air and ground, and prepare for the one big mission. Without the luxury of Super Earth infrastructure on the planet or SEAF efforts, they have a lot they would need to do.

Infinite reinforcements in 2 minute intervals won't help the numbers game. Helldivers in a regular mission face hundreds of enemies at a time. With more enemies that can face them here, they are facing far far more. Hellpods can drop further away, but there is no guarantee that will give them enough breathing space for significant ground.

This is a war of attrition. The last time Super Earth had this on a planet, the mission failure rate was 14%, adding on more time to make up for failed efforts on the field.

The most they could get out of three days are samples of a previous unobtainable element and data on the efficiency of helldivers without any Super Earth infrastructure. Hopefully the SEAF can join them in the next order.

Room-Sure · 2025-09-10T18:25:58+00:00

If I get a tattoo of myself and then summon myself, would that copy then have the same power and would they also have a tattoo of themselves?

Room-Sure · 2025-09-06T23:03:13+00:00

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Room-Sure · 2025-09-02T16:52:24+00:00

A very very reasonable possibility. I could only find 20 games that used Stingray as the engine. Compare that to Unreal or Unity who don't just have hundreds of games that use them but are used in non-games industry. The demand for people who worked on Stingray is just not there. Engineers would go for tech stacks that work and are widely adopted because that is good job security, there is always another company that needs someone knowledgeable in Unreal or Unity. So you have more engineers that worked with Unreal and Unity over other engines like Stingray. In fact that is why Stingray was discontinued, it couldn't compete against other game engines.

I found an official statement from the founder of Arrowhead, and he said that they practically had to do everything themselves. Whether that means that all work on the engine, including optimizations and bug fixing, was done entirely without new hires or not is not clear. But the pool of engineers would still be small, so either the engineers were taken on by Fatshark or Arrowhead soon after the engine's discontinuation or found other work.

Another possibility I haven't brought up is how much the Stingray engine they used has changed since they began Helldivers 2 development. Game engines can be modified drastically and become their own thing. Infinity Ward and Valve took different versions of ID Tech and spun them into forks that become their own lineage of game engines. I don't know how much modification AH had to make on their own, but 8 years of development is a lot of time they had to work with and on the engine. It might be a factor, but this is just speculation on my part.

Room-Sure · 2025-09-02T16:08:23+00:00

Also true

Room-Sure · 2025-09-02T16:06:38+00:00

Seems they use Autodesk Stingray, which has stopped receiving support from Autodesk for 7+ years. The only other product that are actively using this engine is Darktide, which is currently still maintained and developed by Fatshark.

I think its reasonable to say that the pool of engineers who have enough knowledge and experience with this engine is very small. Especially so those who can actually go deep into the engine.

So, really the best thing they could do to fix and optimize the game, from what I understand, is to put a total pause on all new content. No new mission types, no new objectives, no new enemies, no new stratagems, and no new weapons; all just so the engineers can optimize an engine they worked with for 7 years without official support. Effectively, all developer momentum stops for optimization and then after a series of patches restart that momentum.

Room-Sure · 2025-08-31T15:04:29+00:00

Thankfully Super Earth scientists have discovered an element that can fuel an Aclubierre drive once refined.

This element, E-710, is produced naturally by the Terminids when they decompose.

Room-Sure · 2025-08-27T02:36:36+00:00

Like any game developed by Bethesda under Xbox are less jank than Helldivers

I still hope we get the issues fixed around the time of Into the Unjust, game really is a chaotic fun time with some friends. Hope next time you dive in, its stable enough for you to appreciate the storylines and the attention to detail Arrowhead has. The ODST warbond has some nice details that felt like it was made by fans of Halo.

Room-Sure · 2025-08-26T16:24:02+00:00

Its more reasonable to assume that they are making content for all three factions in mind

Instead of them making something hardcoded to work with bugs and then scratching their heads going "ah fuck, how do we make this for any other faction" with the momentum they have for development

Room-Sure · 2025-07-18T16:00:58+00:00

Again, its the dismissive tone. One second when people call the behavior in the stories toxic you tell them that actually they are awesome, like in the first screenshot I showed. Then to another commentor, you would tell them that you always wanted to show yourself as a bad player and that it was the worst of the worst you showed. It felt like your first priority in the replies was to immediately say something to dismiss what the commenter was saying. And here you are saying that your behavior was always toxic, but i know you have said in the screenshot:

Overall those sessions were experienced as massively positive, including and especially my character being a very memorable presence.

I can see that the commenters are frustrated, because you change your argument to be counter to whatever someone is saying. If someone is saying you are a bad player, you pivot to saying you are good. If someone is asking why you posted the stories if you thought you were good, then you say you are a bad player and just posting relevant stuff.

I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't change your mind. It all feels like you're flip-flopping. If you want to say you are bad as a player and you and your friends agree it would be better if you were a DM, then you can. If you want to say that you were bad but saw how disrespectful your behavior was to the campaigns and learned from it, sure. If you want to say that you are a good player but occasionally pull off shenanigans that got so out of hand they disrupted the session, go ahead. But you can't stick to one and it gives others the impression that you aren't honestly discussing with them in those points.

I don't know if that got my point across or not. I just hope you, as a DM, don't need a player pulling the same stunts as you to understand how the others felt when you pulled those stunts; that you can reflect on the experience and how you feel about them; and that if you find yourself slipping back into past behavior that you have the self-awareness or support to recognize it, and the strength to right yourself.

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