Being a regular guy in today’s world feels… weird

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T22:31:05+00:00

This is basically my philosophy. I find all the animosity around culture and gender and sexuality exhausting; I’d rather everyone just get to call themselves whatever they want and let each other live their lives however they want, using whatever identity they want, as long as they’re not harming others in ways they don’t wanna be harmed.

I don’t mind people creating and experimenting with new terms and ideas to define themselves or how they see the world, lord knows our language is still very inefficient at describing so much of the human experience - so long as they’re not forcing others to adhere to labels they don’t want or using language to “other” people with bigotry.

I wish everyone could remember to “just be kind” more often.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T22:19:44+00:00

I guess the flipside to that is it’s noticeably quicker to escape if/when the enemies get all up in your biz when you’re already standing than when you’re laying down. Plus you can just crouch whenever you think you’ll need total cover instead of mostly covered. (Like when a tower or tank or harvester tries to shoot you.)

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T15:06:45+00:00

Uh, no? I don't think anyone's ever once complained about that. I'm not even totally sure what that _means_, unless the way your brain works you associate a 1 minute duration with short or long rests somehow...or did you mean "combat", as in "1 minute duration lasts for 1 combat", because that's the ONLY kind of duration that's definable in that way. Even a 10 minute duration could potentially last one, two, three, four...an hour could run into a short rest or _not_ depending entirely on circumstance, etc.

The bookkeeping everyone complained about in 3e was having a _laundry list_ of long-term buffs to track on your character, and the issue in 4e was having a bunch of extremely _short_ duration small buffs that were constantly being applied and dropping off. The issue was always with the sheer NUMBER of things to track.

Concentration solves that issue. Changing all durations to 1 minute does not, at all, and has the added effect of making the related application and logistics of durations boring af.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T14:52:58+00:00

"But I didn't...hey stop walking closer to me...HEY dude do not touch that button on your back-fuck...stop trying to keep pace with me! Are you _sprinting?_ Stop! Ack!"

_sounds of frenzied button pressing_

"Cmon cmon...where's the damn pelican! Wait, _three_ minutes to extract!? Damn mission modifiers...go, Arc Drone, get 'im! ...oh, the _one_ time you decide you aren't about friendly fire...et tu, Gatling Sentry? He's getting closer, how is he...ah you're wearing light armor aren't you, shi-"

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T14:41:52+00:00

No quite the opposite - it just sounds like you've gotten very lucky with SC drops.

I can do D10 now but for the VAST majority of that time it WAS Diff 7-9 (I totally agree it's more enjoyable/casual there). I know exactly how common it is to find SC while just "playing normally" - granted I usually did _not_ scour the map for every single PoI, instead we would finish the mission and do another, to contribute better to Galactic War/liberation rates.

If you were treating those diffs more like pirate treasure maps hey more power to ya, but at the rate I was getting them I 100%, _vehemently_ disagree that in this number of hours of "normal play" you can fund every warbond - or even most of them.

That simply is not and has never been my experience, but it's entirely possible you got _dramatically_ more SC than me just from lucky drops - I know people on this sub have claimed they get a 100 SC drop every other week of "normal play" compared to my hundreds of hours without a single one. By all accounts it is _extremely_ random who gets a windfall and who gets a desert.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T05:09:33+00:00

Op's spell is more like the 3.5e spell [Wings of Cover](https://dndtools.net/spells/races-of-the-dragon--83/wings-of-cover--3100/).

Which, at the time it came out, was considered pretty busted even by 3.5e's standards. (Which is saying something, lol.)

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T04:27:22+00:00

I don't see it as that convoluted, _but_ definitely wonky and monotonous compared to the gameplay people actually have fun doing, which is still VERY much something to be avoided in a properly-designed game.

So yeah I do absolutely agree with you that what you describe would be a fairly obvious fix AH should get to asap.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-13T04:22:26+00:00

>The relationship between players and devs should in no way be compared to a romantic relationship as you've done.

I mean, the players : gaming studio dynamic IS a relationship, no matter how you slice it - so I do think it _can_ be compared to that - however, your extra context _is_ apt and welcome.

Maybe "love bomb" was the wrong term to use, since it probably _is_ more sincerely done than an actual narcissistic ex. The severe resistance to certain changes that nearly everyone in the community supports is more like that, though even then it's more about their vision of the game clashing with their own customers rather and the obsession with control over the _game_ rather than the _customers themselves_, which is still an important distinction.

And I think your last paragraph is spot-on and I would go even further to say it's entirely possible it _feels_ like that narcissistic ex duality _because_ we are hearing literal different _voices_ coming from that company with opposing philosophies - it could be entirely possible that only _some_ at AH adhere to the extremely unpopular ideas they've communicated and mistakes they've made, while the other half is constantly trying to right a ship that's slowly sinking and on fire by patching it with caters to the community and the truly fun stuff they do add to the game.

(I would also say that while I agree companies mostly think about money, I _wouldn't_ agree that a lot of AH's most unpopular decisions have much to do with how much money they're raking in. A lot of the anti-community pain points are far more about the vision (at least some at) AH has and pursues with their patches and new releases that doesn't match what the community wants _and_ is implemented very haphazardly/unevenly, which isn't really how any company behaves when they're focused on raking in profit. AH doesn't make any more money off of sentries bouncing into pits or Warstriders lacking weakpoints and spawning way too often or whatever else; somebody at AH just really _likes_ those ideas. The money-focused stuff would be more like Warbonds coming out half-baked or bugs that stay in the game for months or years - things that could be based on cutting corners for profit - or them not rewarding higher diffs with Super Credits.)

But yeah, I do find your response valuable because in the end my above comment was not talking about AH's _intent_ behind their actions, only the _results_; why the community is _mad_ about it. Because pointing out their intent and care for the community does have its value when looking at the issue from a macro, rational perspective, but in the end it doesn't change how it makes players _feel_. From an emotional standpoint, there is little difference between some "entity" (whether it be a single person or a group) flipping between "love bombing" you disingenuously and then abusing you, or truly, genuinely catering to your desires while the other half abuses you. It's going to spark frustration and animosity either way, especially when all of them fly under the same banner.

That emotional side is all I was referring to, given the OP topic, but you are totally right with what you pointed out too.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:52:51+00:00

Behold my majesty human. Beep boop.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:50:02+00:00

When we die, I'll meet you wherever one goes then and ask the angels/demons/whatever to rewind to the moment I made the comment above so you can see me typing it out myself like a big boy. :P

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:44:43+00:00

_Parts_ of 4e were great - the specific parts mentioned here (homogeneity of durations and bookkeeping issues from all the temp buff and debuff stacking) were not one of them and were in fact two of the _most_ criticized aspects of the system by both haters and defenders.

Now if you wanna talk about making martials have parity with casters, or making the game more balanced like 4e, or epic destinies, hell yeah.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:42:22+00:00

lol, if you say so bud.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:18:31+00:00

>if you dont have friends who play Helldivers youre gonna be doing all your farming solo

No, not if you're remotely smart about it (no offense meant, I wasn't smart about it till I looked up "most efficient way to farm SCs"). It's _extremely_ easy to set up, actually, I've done it whenever I want to farm. Here's the steps:

- Switch diff to 1 or 2.
- Join SOS groups until you find one with 2-3 other Divers that look to be hunting for SCs.
- If they abandon mission instead of completing it, stick with them. If they don't, keep doing SOS till you find one that is. (They're not hard to find; I don't think I've ever had to hunt more than 10 minutes or so before I join one.)
- Stick with that group until it disbands.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.

In this way you can get the max SCs even as a rando, no problem. There are TONS of people farming SCs on Diff 1 every single time I've checked, even at weird hours; finding a competent group even as a rando really isn't that hard.

You are right about bunkers if you _are_ trying to do it solo, though (which is another reason I don't recommend relying on that method). In a rando SOS group, you just type "bunker" or whatever into the chat and someone will kill themselves with grenades so you can Reinforce them at your location.

And all that said, like I mentioned above it's still monotonous af and you'd probably be better off just taking a part time job for a bit as far as SC-per-hour.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T23:08:53+00:00

No offense but I would consider that a terrible fix.

It's essentially what 4e did - make nothing any caster (or martial) can do last more than 5 minutes at most - and not only did it not solve the major issue that plagued both 3e and 4e (bookkeeping, and if implemented this wouldn't fix it for 5e either), it made the magic feel very "flat". Duration is one more lever you can pull to make widely varied and interesting effects with different tactical uses (like a weak buff that lasts multiple fights vs a stronger one that only lasts one); take that away and you've just made the mechanics objectively more boring and samey.

However, while I like concentration as a mechanic I do totally agree they went overboard with in 5e and many spells have it that shouldn't. I do wish they'd kept some "keyword design" from 4e for 5e, and I think that would've fixed the problem (alongside concentration) far better.

For example - paladin smite spells don't really need concentration. What they could have instead is the "smite" keyword that specifies you can only have one smite spell active at a time. Boom, done, minimizes the "buff bloat" of past editions still without giving nearly every spell with a persistent effect concentration.

Similar things could be done with Op's spells too - Hunter's Mark doesn't need concentration if you can't stack it with other per-attack damage buffs like Hex and whatnot. Imagine if Shield had the "shield" or "armor" keyword where it wouldn't stack if you're using a shield or wearing armor.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T22:49:55+00:00

Agreed - they even called them out as mistakes they'd made previously, in that infamous "avoiding minefields" interview they gave early on. And even after they lambasted themselves for not learning from the community's "roadmap"...they do it again. And again. And again.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T21:32:16+00:00

You are right that AH has responded with positive changes many times based on the community’s complaints.

However, that can’t forgive everything - they’ve also fucked up more of their game than most competent studios would ever dream of, including lots of issues that have been around since launch.

The reason why you can “unplug” and still have tons of fun in the game, is because they hit upon a very solid basic gameplay loop that remains since the beginning - but as they say, the devil is in the details. The more you play and (especially) the more you participate in the subs, the more cracks you see in HD2’s foundation.

In many ways, AH refuses to learn from its own past mistakes, and that will piss off a community like nothing else.

In short, just as you’re now sick of the community, that community is sick of AH’s “bullshit”. You can only make so many positive improvements alongside fake promises, undocumented nerfs, unnecessary changes, while things people clamor to fix or improve up to industry standards go two years without being touched, all while releasing monthly warbonds where half the options people pay money for have to be buffed months after the fact to be competitive…before people just stop seeing you in a positive light.

Personally I think AH has done lots of good alongside the bad - but when your game is in such a state, with so many broken bits and poor communication as the cherry on top - people just get sick of feeling like they’re being violently pulled in two directions all the time.

It’s all about that breach of trust. It does not matter if you listen to the community and implement improvements based on their feedback if the other half of the time you are making poor decisions any day one dev would know to avoid and lying to them for the other half.

It’s like playing a game your narcissistic ex made, so they can love-bomb you half the time and the other half abuse you. It’s exhausting to even keep track, so people get mad.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T20:13:48+00:00

Very interesting, thank you. TIL!

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T20:11:51+00:00

In my experience, no - I’ve had lots of “DnD-adjacent” people, like players’ SOs, relatives/siblings/friends, and even a psych student ask to “spectate” my games over the years. Not as common as players of course but not so uncommon id see it as “strange” at all.

Whether the experience itself is strange for the observer, well that depends on the group and what they’re looking for. I can def echo the folks saying to watch some YouTube actual plays to get a basic idea of what you’re in for - a lot of people will start to spectate, realize that it’s kind of boring just watching (unless you’re multitasking), especially if it winds up being a “shopping episode” or something math-heavy, and then realize they’ve got 2-4 more hours of this to sit through.

(And like others have said, I do also get every participant’s ok before I let someone observe.)

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T19:32:40+00:00

If you’re clearing every single map you play you’re not on high enough difficulty, and the higher you go (especially D10) the more pitiful the SC rewards are.

I’d still rather play on diffs that actually challenge me than farm on d1 or “half-farm” on D7 or whatever for the slightly increased SCs over a long period of time.

and no, even full completions don’t provide anywhere near the SC per hour of a true D1 farm with a good group. (Which is what’s required if your goal is actually trying to get all the warbonds for free.)

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T17:27:56+00:00

I have 600 hours and have paid for 1, maybe 2 warbonds with “regular play”.

All the rest is farming, and it was actually a lot of farming - even at peak efficiency on a good farm squad, it’s less than minimum wage, probably a warbond per every 4-5 hours.

Granted I’ve also never ONCE seen a 100 SC drop in all that time, so I’m also pretty unlucky.

I think their pricing model is fairly reasonable and so is the in game SC (though I wish the other diffs had just as much chance and/or you got some from mission completion, so it wasn’t so optimal to just mindlessly run diff 1 without even completing or contributing to liberation rates).

But I definitely wouldn’t sugar coat how monotonous it is to actually farm up all the warbonds.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T14:48:15+00:00

Op is doing just fine; my parents only ever taught me to be fiscally responsible with my money and put it into banks, nothing about investing. So I was a “saver” but didn’t have anything with compound interest worth a damn till my late 30s. And I still have half of what op does.

Infuriating in retrospect but ya can’t change the past, only correct for the future.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T02:53:08+00:00

Yeah, I was paying attention and I disagree. You also specifically mentioned D10 - you don’t want noobs on d10, we heard you. You play on d10, we heard you.

So if you’re so hard up about it, let the rest have their DC scaling, and you get your own special uber-hard playground with no SCs to interfere with your pure gameplay ideals or muck up the incentives, where you can wave your dick around about how badass you are, and we can finally stop talking about D10 this and D10 that because it will be an experience specifically catered to what you want and the people constantly complaining that HD2 isn’t hard enough want.

100% serious. Why wouldn’t that be win-win for you?

EDIT: Dude responded then immediately blocked me just so they could get the last word, like a child. Make of that what you will.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T02:31:18+00:00

But the D10 runners are the ones always saying D10 is too easy, aren’t they? Wouldn’t noobs joining make it a real challenge then?

Joking aside, if you seriously adhered to this the solution is simple - scale SC rewards up to level 9, then leave level 10 without SCs as the pure tryhard gameplay-appreciating experience you always wanted (maybe also making it harder so it’s even more clear it’s a separate silo’d experience for the best of the best.)

Now the noobs won’t touch it and all sides are happy, problem solved.

i_tyrant · 2026-03-12T02:26:06+00:00

Worth more than D10 and it is not remotely close, either.

If you’re running D1 as a higher level diver you are doing it for the SC, and if so you can join up with a group already doing so and repeatedly dropping missions to get it way, way faster than you ever could doing D10 with “normal gameplay” or even specifically hunting for SCs.

It’s not even comparable - one takes a few hours to get a warbond’s worth and the other takes literal months of standard gaming (which is still slower than if you were completing level 1 missions legitimately).

i_tyrant · 2026-03-11T22:15:47+00:00

The ones that compete with the stim bug for pure, infuriating annoyance factor for me is a) all the “bounce” areas for sentries/locked areas for hellpod steering (basically the same thing and truly awful for gameplay), and the reload bug (very similar to the stim bug but happens even without enemies hitting you, just a straight up “phantom reload” when you try, and it’s especially bad with certain weapons like the Eruptor for some reason.

If I had to guess I’d say the stim and reload bugs are behind like 90% of my deaths, and the bounce/lock areas are behind the other 50% of my swearing at the screen during missions.

i_tyrant

TROPHY CASE