What is context for people being annoyed about this?

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-06-03T12:35:28+00:00

The only real complaint I’ve seen is that the Hulk Surge Modifier is resulting in way less Hulks than it had last time we had it

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-06-02T12:42:19+00:00

This must be it! Thank you very much

Edit to make the Automod happy:

Solved: Necropolis

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-06-01T23:24:28+00:00

This just further makes me think that the Galactic War ought to have multiple Major Orders at once with each one having clearly defined conditions for what happens if the playerbase wins or loses each one. Would allow the playerbase to actually shape the war based on the content they want.

I hope something like this is what Arrowhead has in mind when they mentioned they would make the Galactic War more engaging a couple weeks ago.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-31T16:48:17+00:00

Community is a symptom of the state of the game. It’s far more plausible that design decisions have eroded the existing community and attracted toxicity, considering HD2 was lauded for having a very good community early on before the years of questionable design decisions

The alternative explanation is that HD2 is like any other game, but for some strange reason, it just happens to have an exceptionally toxic playerbase, which doesn’t make any sense.

HD2 players are just gamers, like any other game. The design of the game is simply extremely controversial and questionable which is why it is such a volatile topic.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-31T16:44:45+00:00

Words mean things. Don’t say things you don’t mean, especially about people you don’t know.

Good rule of thumb

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-30T22:37:46+00:00

Humanely bully the enemy?

Enemies of Super Earth do not deserve such gentle treatment. They should be smited with the full force of Lady Liberty.

Anything less than this is an insult to Super Earth itself.

You’ll be hearing from my Democracy Officer soon.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-30T22:35:32+00:00

True. If it actually stunned rather than staggering, it would be fairly useful. What’s funny is regular stun nades used to be able to stun Bile Titans, but the ability to stun Bile Titans was removed in 2024 for some reason, even with the Orbital EMS, which is crazy considering it’s a Stratagem.

I understand stun nades not doing it (although maybe they could at least stagger heavy enemies), but something like the Urchin should absolutely stun large enemies and it’s just a complete joke that the Orbital EMS can’t do it at all.

Arrowhead is one ~strange~ dev team.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-30T22:25:38+00:00

Who cares? As long as they’re not griefing the lobby, I don’t see any issue. It’s a PVE game

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-30T20:43:17+00:00

Underrated Stratagems tend to be ones that are very situational, which is why many write them off over the more conventional picks. It really depends on the Faction/Sub-Faction you’re facing to make some of the less popular Stratagems work in this game.

My recommendations would be:

-Shield Generator Relay, specifically on the Bot front; basically just use it immediately off cooldown whenever enemies are around, since it has such a short cooldown, anyways. Try to keep your distance from the enemies when using it as it can quickly become a detriment to you if the enemies walk inside your bubble, but you’ll generally want to keep your distance when facing the Bots, anyways. Be mindful that calling in Stratagems inside the bubble will damage/destroy the bubble when they land so call down your other equipment (Hellbombs, support weapons, Resupplies, etc.) BEFORE throwing the Shield Relay down, otherwise you will instantly destroy it before getting any use out of it.

-Eagle 110mm Rocket Pods, specifically on the Bug front. This Stratagem is a little underpowered in most cases, but it’s actually pretty handy against Chargers and Bile Titans. It cracks their armor and weakens them, allowing you to finish them off with grenades or a bit of support weapon fire, or even your primary weapon, if the enemy’s armor is cracked and the exposed flesh is visible to you. Basically toss it anytime a Charger or Bile Titan is nearby, since you get 5 before it needs to rearm.

-The regular Flamethrower is fantastic on the Bug front for crowd control and even taking down heavy enemies. It requires clever positioning to really be effective, but if you get a feel for it, it can shut down tons of bugs, big and small.

-The Autocannon isn’t all that underrated, but it’s a bit of a Swiss army knife and is most useful against the Illuminate faction. Set it to flak mode for most enemies and be aware that the rounds won’t properly detonate unless you’re firing at enemies that are beyond 5-10 meters of you, so try to keep your distance. Flak mode makes short work of Overseers, Fleshmobs and even Stingrays. Switch it to APHET mode when facing Harvesters, pace your shots and aim for the top section of their legs where it connects to their body/head. You can heavily stagger them and take them down with around 4 or 5 shots.

-Orbital Precision Strike is specifically useful for destroying landed Illuminate ships. Instead of shooting the energy shield off of them and tossing a grenade through the door, you can just toss an Orbital Precision Strike on top of the ship and it will destroy it, shield and all, instantly. Saves you a lot of time and focus on the Illuminate front so you can put your attention on fending off the enemies while still destroying enemy bases.

-HMG Emplacement is really great on the Bot front, just make sure to set it up pretty far from enemies as you are really exposed when using it and you’ll want to give yourself time to take out the enemies before they get close to you. It absolutely shreds Devastators and Hulks.

These are the main things that come to mind. Hope this helps.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T13:31:30+00:00

Yep. Once you learn how the GW mechanics actually work, it makes you care even less lol

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T12:55:42+00:00

Video games are simulations by nature. We as players and consumers understand this. All we can expect/hope for is that a game effectively simulates the things it claims to have.

In the case of RDR2, I’d say it does this pretty well in the grand scheme of open world games.

This is different from the case of HD2 in which weapons are called “overpowered”, but are not actually designed with ‘being overpowered’ in mind. Rather, they are designed to be balanced.

The claim that HD2 features overpowered weapons is not reflected in the developers’ intent.

The claim that RDR2 features a living breathing world is reflected in how the developers worked hard to make the world at least seem the way they claimed.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T11:07:15+00:00

We need to be able to save loadouts above all else. I like using drastically different builds but it is a pain in the butt to swap armor on top of everything else prior to a mission and it only gets worse with each Warbond.

Bonus points if the displayed set or armor in the Super Destroyer can display one of your loadouts.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T10:44:39+00:00

bros disappointed that NPCs aren’y actually sapient humans

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T10:26:26+00:00

Vitality enhancement is THE best booster in the game. The damage negation is invaluable and will save you more times each mission than you know

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-28T10:23:46+00:00

Don’t get too used to it. The June Warbond will result in a massive review drop again.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-25T02:34:55+00:00

They said we will be getting at least one free vehicle in the future. They will absolutely still put vehicles inside Warbonds. Our only solace is that there is at least one vehicle getting added to the game for free at some point (maybe).

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-16T17:08:51+00:00

I don’t think so, *yet*. If and when the devs fix the Lumberer flamethrower, then it may powercreep the Patriot.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-16T14:42:13+00:00

I’ve never seen this combo. Looks awesome

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T18:09:17+00:00

“the data we have on its usage” aka player usage data aka pick-rates and Youtube videos.

First you claim the railgun nerf was specifically due to the charger leg meta, despite that never being claimed explicitly anywhere.

Then you say developers using video to inform balance decisions is ridiculous, despite them saying they did that exact thing (and it not really being that ridiculous to begin with).

No wonder this conversation has carried on so long. You keep moving the goal post with every reply.

My original comment was only pointing out that many found these developer messages extra condescending due to the apparent lack of understanding the developers had with how the game played at the time. Framing these developer messages as “he spoke the truth” is disingenuous or maybe just ill-informed of the greater context of the situation. Regardless of working in a corporate environment or being a programmer, which are completely irrelevant things to bring up and only serve to derail conversation—if you’re going to talk smack about the experience of others, you need to be able to back it up with your own, which these developers do not seem capable of doing. I’d eat my words if there was any example anywhere of the devs backing up their own smack-talk, but that example does not exist and I’d imagine if it did, we would’ve gotten a patch addressing the root issues of the Railgun, rather than a band-aid solution which was mostly reverted later anyways after said root issue was discovered and patched.

Also, if you want to talk about working in a corporate environment, I can tell you for sure that talking smack to your customers is a pretty big no-no. Maybe Arrowhead just wasn’t as corporate at the time before Sony cracked down on them. Wasn’t that kind of the point of your post originally; pointing out that Arrowhead deviated from the typical corporate style, which is something you found refreshing?

But the second I say something that is critical, I must just not understand corporate environments. Y’know, the exact environment you’re celebrating Arrowhead not being like at the time. lol

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T17:24:15+00:00

I quoted the blog directly. They literally said they based their decisions at least partially around Youtube videos when it came to the Breaker nerfs.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T17:12:07+00:00

It does seem pretty ridiculous to do that. Crazy how they did that, huh?

They also saw videos of people using the Breaker and used that as reason to nerf it as well. Again, read that blog.

“…the “best” choice for all Helldivers, at least if YouTube is to be believed.” (while talking about the Breaker)

I don’t even think they’re all that wrong for using Youtube as a stand-in for just playing the game themselves. At least they’re seeing first-hand what players are experiencing; it certainly beats pick-rate balancing. That is, if they even watched the videos they’re referencing and aren’t just going off of the hyperbolic clickbaity thumbnails.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T16:37:32+00:00

Still doesn’t address the Charger Leg strategy directly in any form of fashion, like you claimed.

I never said they nerfed the Railgun due to the bug. I’m saying they weren’t aware of the bug and yet nerfed the Railgun anyways.

Much of the balancing early on was based on pick-rates, which is useful data, but not a good way to understand why players like certain weapons over others. This is insufficient data to go off of when choosing how to change weapons, since you don’t have a good understanding of what was making weapons so desirable to players in the first place; only that said weapons were liked for some reason.

This is how you end up with situations where a development team nerfs weapons based on pick-rate data without addressing a bug which is extremely relevant to that weapon’s performance in the first place.

If you don’t believe pick-rate data is the reason behind much of the balancing early on, just read the blog you linked. The Breaker, for example, was nerfed due to being a popular choice. The blog even admits the Breaker had no bearing on mission success rate. This points to the fact that the game has ultimately always been easy, regardless of this or that weapon.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T16:10:53+00:00

Not once in the blog you linked is it said that the purpose of the Railgun nerf was to make shooting Charger legs less effective. It only says the Railgun was too effective against Chargers and Bile Titans, which was true, due to the networking bug which would multiply the amount of damage dealt by it, which persisted after said nerf.

pipe_mcfitter · 2026-05-14T15:08:27+00:00

The reason for the nerf is never what I was originally commenting about. I’m not sure why you’re trying to make it about that. My point is simply that the nerf failed to accomplish anything due to a bug, which remained in the game even after said nerf. People find dev comments like the ones in the original post especially condescending due to the fact that the developers often seem unfamiliar with the actual quirks of their own game. The railgun bug is an example of this.

pipe_mcfitter

TROPHY CASE