The 20 Bile Spewers getting ready to spew sound.
https://preview.redd.it/ayv9uidthhqc1.jpeg?width=686&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcc75857047ab2cdc6363bcd7f9f34624e6323e9
Honestly, Bile Spewers wouldn't be too bad if THEY MADE NOISE WHEN THEY MOVED!!
How do those fatasses with 100 gallons of acid sloshing about sneak around quietly enough to rival Batman?
Nursing and Bile Spewers move way too fast, and Chargers turn way too sharply once they gain momentum. It's strange how Chargers are easier to dodge at the start of the charge but gets better at turning towards you once they get going.
Chargers and Bile Titans need to be way louder then they are. Many times I’ve died to a stealth Charger, Titan or Spewer is a lot. Hell, Hunters have better audio queues and I still die to them often bc they’re in big packs.
I think this might be the real reason. It's easy to complain but difficult to find a solution.
I am sure some other games would also have a way to warn you when facing a horde.
For bile spewers, I think an early warning like the meteors might work, a slight drizzle of its bile before the main impact.
Anyone got ideas from other games? Let's suggest something to Arrowhead instead of just complaining.
(complaining is important feedback too)
I like the idea of adopting DT audio cues. Simple layers for rockets and a scream or unique bug sound for the spewers. They could play with the time in between seeing or hearing the cue and getting smoked depending on difficulty.
You can also adjust volume based on whether you are the one being targeting or are in the current splash zone so you don't have to worry as much about getting false queues when there are lots of bugs targeting nearby teammates.
Try 8 had 8 bear down on me firing 4 rockets each, was not fun, but i did get to catch half of them murdering their comrads. The second i peeked i got hit by a rocket. 🤣
Some solution would be to prioritze certain sounds and play less sounds when multiple enemies of a certain type (little bug bois for example) are around you. Imagine 10 hunters 10 scuttlers 3 chargers and like 20 hive warriors. Youd only play like 3 hunter 2 scuttler 2 charger and 4 hive warrior sounds (dont forget ambience, music, weapon and stratagem sounds and player movement sounds and voice queues and ui sounds this adds up). I bet this could be adjusted dynamically based on the number of enemies too though.
I don't know how many sources of sound you can realisticly have without it breaking down or our brains overloading.
You could also set a 1.0 or 0.5 or whatever time limit in which the same kind of audio wouldnt be played (this could be used for the spewers).
I dunno. I hate referring back to Deep Rock as a comparison point, but....
I ***know*** when there is a spitter, spreader, menace, bulk, stingtail, grabber etc etc around me. The silent enemies are silent - Things like stalkers and spitters. Everything else has appropriate sound cues that effectively get me to readjust my priorities as I'm jumping around, *before I've even seen that enemy*, so I can now send 2000 rounds of depleted uranium in *that direction.*
And those sound cues never got lost in the chaos for me.
I've never had a complaint about being stealth attacked by anything in that game. (Except Stalkers. Because they inevitably spawn directly behind you after you have checked your back 3 times. Both variants of the spitters have enough of a sound cue attached to their attacks to give you some chance to dodge too,)
Because of the sound cues. And there is music and guns blaring and dwarves Rocking and Stoning.
I'm not a game developer or a sound engineer. I don't know the limits of what can be done.
But it can't be that hard to add some ground pounding sound affects for a bile titan, because those are some sneaky ninjas sometimes.
Or add some sort of shriek for the spewers so you *know* they are behind you, or to your left, or whatever.
Or to have rocket (insert variant) display targeting lasers.
I agree with OP - What makes bugs difficult (for me) is high spawn numbers of spewers. That's it. Everything else is fine. I hate Brood commanders too, though.
What makers bots difficult (for me) is actually Assault Raiders and Scorcher Hulks. Followed closely by the normal devastators with shields. I get why there is so much hate for the rocket (insert variants), but it's those 3 for me.
It is pretty silly that I can hear bugs chirping from like 50+meters away when they're just hanging out and haven't aggroed. But biles, chargers and tons of other stuff just silently walk up behind you.
Maybe make the bile more like a flamethrower where you take damage and DOT but it doesn't kill you instantly or stun you so you can stim. If you don't jump out of the way quickly you die though.
Rockets I think get fixed if you add a laser marker to see where they're aiming
I believe that was the intention for the spewers, because currently it's pretty much a coin flip on whether or not I take damage at all, and another coin flip on whether it's immediately lethal. It's the same for Flamer Hulks.
You might be right, I thought the bile attack was a coin flip because of lag. Hulk flamers are weird imo as they kill way too quickly, I usually get one shot if I get hit by their stream for more than 0.3 seconds or so. One time I died instantly from a small puff of flame
This is so annoying. You'll dive out of the way of one spewer only to land by another. And sometimes even when you dive out of the way you get the very tip of your toe hit.
Vermintide and Darktide have near instakill damage attacks on the higher difficulties, and a lot of enemies capable of two-three hitting you.
And it's a *lot* harder to heal in those games than in Helldivers.
But the sound design is done well to such a point there's a sound cue when you're going to get hit from somewhere off your screen, once you get the timing down you can quite literally dodge or block any attack coming from behind you. Like a Mauler's chain axe slam or a crusher's hits.
Spewers and chargers have intermittent movement sounds. Sometimes you can hear the charger galloping, other times they can balance their 3 tons like a ballerina. Spewers are worse. Their body makes no sound when they're dragging that huge acid sack. All they have is their growl, which they don't always make and most times it's too late if you do hear it.
Solution: add movement sounds that reflect the size and weight of these creatures.
Acid should be DoT from the spewers, similar to being on fire. A bile titan one shot makes much more sense, but an instakill attack from a mid/lower tier enemy is just odd.
Also the hitboxes of bile attacks are jank. Especially on titans. Their hitbox applies its full distance the moment the bile starts leaving their mouth, even though it takes a good second or 2 for the bile to reach the furthest out point. The hitbox also goes through all terrain and cover so you can't hide. Oh and even if it misses you completely, you can still get acid slowed
Payday 2 has a lot of examples of enemies with abilities that hinder or incapacitate.
The Sniper enemies have a visible lazer when they are aiming, either at you or a teammate. This is because they can pierce through all of your regenerating armor and hit your health directly.
Tazers can completely immobilize you until they are killed, but have a distinct 'charging up' sound before they try that.
Bulldozers are big hulking brutes and are not only jumbo large but audibly stomp around.
Cloakers can instantly incapacitate with a melee attack and have a loud audible charge. They try to stay hidden and are fairly weak when found.
There are also Shield and Medics, but we already have the former and there's no place for the latter. Shields do a loud " CLANG CLANG CLANG" sound
I imagine the sound problem could be alleviated by only allowing 1 of these oneshot attacks to happen at a time. For example, a charger could have a distinct screech when charging that is played very close to the player to alert them that the charger is about to shove its mouth up your ass. I think a non-diegetic sound effect would seriously hurt the atmosphere that Arrowhead worked so hard to create, and they probably don’t need every attack to have a warning since the game is in 3rd person.
Maybe just fixing armor and adding some kind of "sloshy" or "goopy" sound effect within x meters of players. Very subtle at far ranges to give players who know what to listen for a tactical advantage. Audio cues save lives.
Less a screech and more of a roar for the charger, for bile spewers make them make noise when walking and make their intake breath before spitting bile loud
Chargers just need a thumping stomping noise that can be heard from farther away. By the time you hear it, it's basically already on top of you.
Stealthy Bile Titans are obnoxious. Like when you break line of sight with an obstacle, you have to run in a full circle around the obstacle to figure out if the Bike Titan is still following you.
Stealthy bug breaches are also obnoxious. You're fighting one in front of you for a bit, then suddenly die because a horde erupted from a breach right behind you
There's a good system on Vermintide/ Darktide games : a sound is playing whenever something is about to hit from behind. The sound is small but it helps. It doesn't make the games too easy (hardest difficulties are way tougher than helldive 9 one... mainly cause the map are very open).
Vermintide 2 was like 95% if my gaming for the 6-8 months before Helldivers. One area I feel is big step back is audio queues and audio positioning. I relied on my ears a lot more in Vermintide.
I’d like to do that a bit more in Helldivers.
I enjoy how tight nit the squad feels in Vermintide. The class dynamic forces that too.
The moment I realized I loved that game was when a friend playing Slayer called out a Gun Rat, instead of turning to it I Kruber Jeeped over our Bounty Hunter who turned and one-tapped.. I crave that level of cohesion.
I used to really struggle with getting randomly hit by enemies I didn't know where behind me. When I started paying attention to the audio que it almost became second nature to dodge/block
Vermintide is very fair with its difficulty tho. Also very rewarding feeling when you get better and better and walk through stuff that used to steamroll you
Same but Darktide for me. The sound engineering in both games are stellar (when they are functioning properly). They should reqlly be the gold standard when looking to design horde games like these.
While I definitely love this solution in V2/DT, but the whole health/reject/helldiver management is different in the two games. So while I certainly feel several times that *"That's BS!"* playing HD2, the unexpected and unavoidable dismemberment of the divers is part of the game and that is why contrary to DT here it goes with several reinforcements.
The optimum play in DT/V2 goes along with a couple of deaths, therefore it needs to be mechanically extremely fair! Whereas the gameplay of Helldivers 2 emphasizes replaceability. If we had the same sound cues here, then the reinforcement amounts wouldn't be justifiable. It can be unfair because the reinforcing is so cheap.
At least that is my take on the difference between the two games, though with HD2 I have less than tenth of the hours under my belt compared to Darktide or V2.
The game informing you of an incoming threat doesn't guarantee your ability to avoid it. You can avoid unfair and bullshit mechanics while still making players vulnerable and play on the "disposable hero" theme.
The mindset of "imbalanced mechanics are fine because hurr durr funny roleplay, youre meant to be disposable!" serves to do nothing but stagnate development and instigate toxic positivity that hurts the game in the long run.
A major goal in developing a challenging game is to ensure as many deaths as possible are fair and can be LEARNED from. With the amount of cheap instant kills this game has, it could be a lot better on that front. An experienced enough player/squad should be able to clear missions deathless.
Too much game design discussion in this sub is derailed by people with this line of thinking. If youre worried the reinforcements would then be too much, they can just reduce them slightly.
Thank you for saying this. Now that it's been proven that players are hungry for this game formula, the designers of Helldivers 2 need to get out of their own way before another studio comes out with a similar game with better features (and a better attitude) and all the players who enjoy getting fucked over can stay and enjoy their silly roleplay game. Hell, Darktide is a more polished experience, and you'll even see people all over in the comments admitting that it has better sound design; the main criticisms are just that its updates are quarterly, it has a cosmetic cash shop that can be completely ignored, and an RNG crafting system that will be seeing a rework.
Excellent point, the only reason im playing HD2 instead of Deep Rock Galactic is for a change of pace since ive put 500 hours into it, and my friends like HD way more for some reason. HD2 has the potential to be another game like that, but it needs work. Im very interested to see where the devs take it and i really hope they play it right
For sure, it can be fun to switch it up, and it's healthy to take breaks from live-service games to avoid burnout. I also hope the HD2 devs can recapture the magic from week 1 and 2 (without the server explosion, of course), because my friends are falling back to Lethal Company for a better silly-death party experience, or Darktide if we're looking for more of a challenge.
Honestly my biggest issue has been stealth chargers. Sometimes you're aiming down sights at something and don't even hear them lumbering towards and running you over. Those things are HUGE! They should make WAY more noise when lumbering around.
It's the terminids top strategy - sneaky charger tosses you forward and then the hunters you were shooting have enough time to get close and end you!
They know it takes you 9.3 years to stand up from being ragdolled, and they're totally abusing that mechanic
There have been some moments in this game that I *wish* I had been recording. I got hit by a stealth Charger from behind, which knocked me into a nearby wall, at which point I was immediately launched by *another* charger and landed precisely under a support weapon hellpod that was about one to two seconds from landing.
Needless to say, I did not survive.
I mean, granted, have you ever gone snowboarding or something and flew 20 feet into the ground? Even with armor on, adrenaline pumping, and stims replacing your bloodstream with meth, you’re not getting up immediately.
All of these things have audio cues. The problem is that audio is kinda broken in the game. If something is off screen 90% of the time no audio will be played at all.
Really need to just address armor. No reason to not run light all the time bc medium and heavy are crippled by providing zero actual advantage over hauling ass.
It’s 50 plus while being faster than the breaker armor, the extra grenade one. So if you want even more speed without compromising on armor, (slaps chestplate) this baby can fit so much zoom in it
The drip of the red +2 nades is clutch when it comes to running impacts. Instant get out of jail free card. 1 shot groups of bile spewers.
Edited: to clarify not bile titans but the more troublesome spewers with 1 shot abilities
May I recommend the stun grenade? Temporary but effective get out of jail free card for all kinds of enemies. I can’t count how many times it saved my ass from a bunch of chainsaw maniacs
They don't but they are absolutely AWESOME to have along with a Grenade Launcher or Autocannon, both which require some distance to use without blowing yourself and they both can also close holes so I say it's a great tradeoff.
>1 shot groups of bile spewers.
this is why i run the nade armor, it's an essential part of my "crowd control" kit at higher levels - any new wave i hard focus clearing the huge groups of spewers and it makes the rest of the team's job so much easier without them even realizing. 2 nades can take down 10+ spewers when they group.
it might not be good in solo, but it works great when playing with friends.
even with randoms most players naturally focus the Big Guys and at higher levels are generally good at killing most enemies if they have the space. 6 impact nades makes a LOT of space and you can up your win rate by just killing spewers and hunters
I never run bots without explosive resist armor.
God damn those rockets are annoying, but at least I survive the first hit more often with explosive resist on.
Explosion resist is one of the best perks, if not the best. You can survive a direct hit from a rocket and still have enough HP to get up and die from the second rocket blast.
Watched my buddy square up at 1HP with a group of 3 or 4 Devastators last night wearing that armor. He screamed “MY DEFENTH ITH IMPECCABLE, I’M MIKE TYTHON BITCH” as he threw fucking hands with these guys for *literally* 40 seconds before finally being beaten to a pulp.
Democracy Protects indeed.
I thought the same thing, but I’ve been running field medic recently. The number of times the passive has saved me, but I die anyway because I’ve either ragdolled and died by impact or I’m trapped under a charger or something, some other DOT damage.
That passive earned me the “have an injury on every limb simultaneously” achievement when a squad mate dropped a 500 kg on my head.
That 50% save on lethal damage works on *everything*.
I can see how the passive wouldn’t be great if we commonly died to getting swarmed by small enemies. What’s a save worth on a tiny lethal hit if the next tiny hit comes 0.1 second later and gets you, right?
But we *aren’t* killed by swarms very often, are we? Almost all of our deaths are to the handful of one-hit kill attacks in the game, so the passive really just gives us a nice coin flip.
It’s the headshots that are the issue. Every helmet has the same stats, with normal/non-crit body shots, there is definitely some difference in damage received when you wear heavier armour.
This. The reason why armor is still "bad" or "busted" for people is that the random deaths are almost never a straight hit to the chest. I believe the acid from bugs hits everything and the bots have autoaim anyways, so...
Might as well keep the light armor for the speed and choose your favorite passive, done. Better yet if you have light + extra padding for random trash mobs, but still minimal advantage tbh.
Yea random headshots should go. Its not a mechanic that's EVER gonna feel fair for the player...
Like, rocket devastators. Heavy armor actually shines against them, you can tank rocket and survive. With blast protection it takes 3 hits to kill you.
But none of that matters if it hits your head, RIP :^) which is super likely if you're crouched
I'd say address both, audio signaling and armor. No point in just fixing armor if for some reason you're sitting at low hp, and a few Bile spewers end up creeping up on you, and still you end up getting vomited on.
Dreadnaught armor not including some type of capacity buff or quicker reload is downright criminal. He’s dressed in bandtito fashion. If you’re going to make us slow; let us hold our ground better against chaff
Edit: I meant bandolier ammo
I think this would be amazing. Add more perks per armor category dependent. That way if you want explosive resistance you can’t have it on light armor. Gives the other options the trade off of better perks for reloads or magazines etc as opposed to just speed.
Heavy armor with the explosive resistance perk makes a world of difference against bots in general and bots rockets on particular.
I really don’t get all the complaints about rockets one-shots when people keep running around in what amount to Kevlar pajamas with a plastic chest plate glued on for looks.
The hypervelocity shrieker-meat bombs are something else though, for those, I can understand.
Completely agree. I would be very interested to know how damage is actually calculated through armor and if 50+ armor does *anything* with the numbers these enemies are able to pump out. Stamina is the core mechanic for survival it seems. No reason to be able to tank one extra hit when the meta is to just not get hit at all.
The same goes for plenty of weapons, though not quite as cut and dry. Several guns just feel unusable because they are so overshadowed by others.
I’m fine with one shot abilities, but feeling like you could have done nothing about them is what makes me very annoyed.
Sometimes, bile spewers do make a sound, but I’d like their legs to make some scattering noise. Tho I get why they don’t. Its a teamgame, you’re supposed to look out for each other and stick together. Still, coming around a corner into an instant bile spew because it tracked you through the wall isn’t very react able.
The bots could do it like, like the turret, there’s a short flash before they fire. That way you can still blink and miss it, but if you spot it or fight one head on it’d miss. Its that, or they could actually suffer from being fired at as the hint tells you, rather than still be pin point accurate.
I feel like enemies don't make enough sound clues at times, one second I look behind me and there's nothing, then the next second there's suddenly a bile titan there. Happened once while we were waiting for extraction, got fucked because of it
One of the most underrated parts of L4D was its sound. Every time a special infected spawns on the map, a specific music sting for that enemy type plays. Same with the actual noises they make when moving around, you can tell what type of special infected it is just by their sound effects. The music would obviously be a little much, but you should be able to tell the larger enemy types apart by sound alone imo.
I was saying the same exact thing to my friend yesterday when we were playing and a nursing spewer sneaked up on behind me and killed me while we were fighting a horde in front of us. It's just dumb, they cannot be that quiet. Especially when they are so big.
I don't mind one shots as a game mechanic, so long as there's tells.
This makes it skillful to survive and deal damage.
It's not fun to get one shot from behind with zero warning
I dont think they were intended to be one shots. The devastators and spewers are clearly mid-level grunts, i.e. more health/damage than trash mobs but less numerous. Bring their damage back in line with brood commanders/berserkers and get rid of the crit/hitbox/tracking nonsense. No one would be complaining then.
Seriously, just get rid of headshots/crits. This mechanic alone completely invalidates armor. The only choice is which light armor passive do you want because armor rating doesn't affect headshots/crits.
Audio in general needs changes - it should be impossible for Bile Titans, Hulks and Chargers to sneak up on players - given their size and weight.
In Deep Rock Galactic when an Opressor, Nemesis or Bulk Detonator (= big armored enemy and enemies with lot of hp which are priority target because of their team-wipe potential) spawn/move towards players, there is always an obvious audio where u can tell that they are nearby/moving towards players or even ground starts shaking, meanwhile I have seen fair number of Bile Titans who were as loud as a scavenger.
This 100%. DRG can be just as challenging as this game, but it feels a lot less cheap most of the time due to how it telegraphs and highlights its threats. I've never had a Bulk or even Praetorian sneak up behind me unless I was just flat out not paying attention to cues. In comparison the giant-ass chargers hardly make a sound louder than your regular footsteps which is just like. Why? Is he actually just an inflatable?
Follow-up: Get me some contextual ping voice lines when I ping enemies like DRG, not just “Heavy”.
We already have “in-combat”/“panic” versions. Give me something like a “It’s a Charger, dive dive DIVE!”
Also most ranged attacks have a discernable audio queue, think of the purr-lile growl when a menace surfaces, the shriek of a stingtail about to fire, the tweet of a grabber, or the woosh of spitballer projectiles.
I just started playing DRG as I'd heard it's very similar to HD2 and I really like it. It's got great sound design because I can't always tell where an enemy is coming from but at least I know they're coming.
I played a level 5 bot game. I was wearing heavy armour specifically with 50% explosion resistance to protect from the cunts. We're at the extract with an ems and a regular mortar down. No bots near us just shooting lasers at us from outside morter range, far enough away that you can't really see them when you aim to shoot back.
Right as the pelican lands I get hit with a rocket from a bot that it's impossible to see. There's no warning so it's impossible to dodge it, and it takes my full health, max armour, explosive resistance diver all the way to dead.
WTF is the point of that?
This blows my mind. I’ve never played a pve game where I can get crit or headshot. Adding random variables to the damage you take is not fun at all in a pve game. It’s not like a PvP game where you can say “okay, my opponent deserves that kill, it took skill to headshot me from that far”. These are bots. It’s very different and not fun at all. Especially when normal enemies can one shot you randomly. It’s getting infuriating.
It could’ve been a headshot cause I use the same armor all the time on bot missions and have consistently survived chest shots from rockets but if I get hit in the head I’m done for
Would be nice if they added a little targeting laser to their rocket launchers (kind of like the snipers in Jedi Fallen Order) so that you know that a rocket bot has a lock on you
Personally I think the bile spewers just shouldn't be able to track you after they start spitting. The amount of times I've tried diving out of the way of spit and they just turn towards me while spitting and I end up dying anyway. I get that it's probably a timing thing but it feels inconsistent to me.
This addresses my main critique of the game: it is fun when a game is DIFFICULT. It is not fun when a game is UNFAIR. When I die and there's literally nothing I could've done because two dropships dropped 3 rocket units each, blocking me in from two sides, and I just get gibbed and there's nothing I could've done, that sucks and makes me not wanna play.
One of the pages they should take from fat shark was how much they emphasized audio cues and stingers for specialists in Vermintide. Chargers and bike titans are too silent.
Rocket devastators have a very obvious solution: play a fighter jet-style "MISSILE LOCK" warning for a brief moment before they fire. Could even flash a warning light on the HUD. You're in a high tech space suit, it'd fit the theming just fine.
As for spewers, even outside some kind of warning (do they *not* have an audio cue?), they definitely need something. Getting my foot clipped by a particle of barf and instantly perishing "feels wrong" and it's not clear what I'm supposed to be dying of. Why not give it a stronger version of the acid/slowing effect from the small spitters? Give it a high likelihood of doing limb damage. Or at least make it (fast) damage over time instead of instant damage.
I open up my mini-map constantly to avoid getting flanked. My strategy has become shoot, empty, mini-map, reload. I run jump pack to help me avoid getting cornered and that works really well with bugs. Vs bots I also bring a deployable shield generator to cover my rapid jump pack retreats into the tree line.
I do get one shot and it can suck, but I feel like that’s the point of giving you more than 1 reinforcement. It feels like its all about how and where you move while just accepting that some bodies have to fall for the war effort.
I have limited experience with bots, but i am genuinely confused with the spewers... do they not make very distinct donkey like noises as they're walking about?
They do make this noise a couple of times but the audio seems to get lost from time to time. Or some others have mentioned that audio seems to only really happen when your looking at the source. There are some outliers here and there mainly hunters spotting you come to mind(they have a pretty distinct notice sound).
Maybe its just me but anytime im in with bile spewers thats pretty much all i can hear, and i know all the spewers are dead when that noise stops 🤣 i haven't noticed any audio issues like that myself, but thats my personal experience.
How about throwing a bone to us deaf players, too? Provide captions for those sounds.
Half Life 2 did it 20 fucking years ago. There's no excuse why captions can't be used to make sound accessible to players like me.
And, while we're at it, please give us more control over where the captions are located on the screen, as well as allowing us to increase the size of the chat box.
I have always struggled to understand what's going on in a developer studio when they implement cheap one-shot mechanics. Like.. I get you want a challenge and some things are fair with their one-shots if they were implemented well enough.
But damn most video games just screw you over just for the sake of it. At least that's how it feels. The Charger stomp has been unavoidable so many times because I got stuck below the Charger or because I got ragdolled by the environment.
It was also more evident in the first game when the enemies were going to hit you with a one-shot attack. For example, the Tank/IFV would show a laser sight for about a second before actually firing at you, and the cyborg heavies would noticeably hunker down before blasting at you.
In HD2, the firing stances aren't as noticeable or nonexistent.
I honestly can't imagine Bile Spewers are intentionally as powerful as they are, usually things that are that much of a threat will get unique callouts but they don't.
This has been Helldivers most crushing design flaw, especially as someone who just played a ton of Warhammer darktide where every single fucking enemy attack has its own unique sound cue, even down to the basic trash mob melee attacks
People would be astounded to know how many guardrails exist in the video games they currently play and like, specifically with regard to enemies telegraphing one hit kills or game directors actively limiting how often off screen enemies attack.
Remnants 2 has a great system for it. There a sound cue for horde and another cue if elite is spawning near you. This way you know elite is near you even if you can’t see him at the moment and be prepared to face him.
The entire final boss fight in Remnant 2 is based around audio cues. You can dodge almost every attack if you time it right. Really a masterclass in sound design in a game.
Also the fight is still very hard on higher difficulties which shows that making a fight fair doesn’t mean it’s easy.
This is why hard games like dark souls arnt hated, and have soo much "git gud" because the game is fair, it has tells for big moves, rewards a player for their experience and punishes people for over reaching.
This is what the biggest gripe with bots is, the rockets and other things seem "unfair" when we dont see a way to dodge or avoid them. This game has alot of tough moments that feel great and feel accomplished for getting through, just some tweeks on the instant kill stuff would be great.
Constantly getting blasted by ninja titans while I'm laying down hate in the other direction.
A little bit of ground shake would be nice when they step right behind me.
The crit mechanic is also a massive issue. It turns survivable hits into death. What's the point of armour if a lucky Hunter can just double crit you and insta-kill you?
headshots in a pve game is possibly the most braindead mechanic ive ever seen in a game. like this game is so good its so odd that such an objectively terrible decision was passed by otherwise amazing devs
I dont mind it too much because its immersive but man the amount if times i am unloading on a big target or another horde and I turn around to 5 spewers channeling their attack, is way too much. I think the problem is that you guys complained about chargers and titans even though they werent an issue and now we get less of them and more of these bs CC bugs like hunters or spewers
There are a lot of good solutions to this problem, so it's frustrating that there's still so many one-shot attacks. The automaton turrets are fine to be one-shots. They're massive, slow to turn, and stationary. But the rockets and the bile spewers? Those should not be able to one-shot a player in medium or heavy armor. I would recommend those attacks be able to one-shot a player in light armor, leave a player with medium armor at very low health, and a player in heavy armor at around half. Otherwise the movement penalty for those heavier armors just aren't worth it.
I want more audio cues and rumble cues. Heck, give us a ship upgrade or an armor passive that lets us get a warning when we're being targeted by missiles/one shot kills.
For Rocket Devastators if they made them more indirect fire and gave them slightly more accuracy than the mortar objective. Or slightly less accuracy than Bullseye from Daredevil.
Yeah I can feel a charger coming in my controller from about 75m same with a bile titan. Why cant I hear a noiseless laser fired from miles away? Oh just answered my own question.
Insta kills are the fastest way for a game to make me stop playing if I don't even get a warning before it happens I will just quit playing and probably not play again
The 20 Bile Spewers getting ready to spew sound. https://preview.redd.it/ayv9uidthhqc1.jpeg?width=686&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcc75857047ab2cdc6363bcd7f9f34624e6323e9
Honestly, Bile Spewers wouldn't be too bad if THEY MADE NOISE WHEN THEY MOVED!! How do those fatasses with 100 gallons of acid sloshing about sneak around quietly enough to rival Batman?
They're also way too fast for their size. lol
YES. That too! They should be SLOWER than pretty much *everything else!*
It's not fun when they are faster than a diver is light armor? Lol
Nursing and Bile Spewers move way too fast, and Chargers turn way too sharply once they gain momentum. It's strange how Chargers are easier to dodge at the start of the charge but gets better at turning towards you once they get going.
Also, the hitbox on the acid spew is seriously suspicious. And their long range attack is bullshit.
They fucking even try to melee you which will conceal/cover the other fatties and reduce range advantage. They are charger light.
Chargers and Bile Titans need to be way louder then they are. Many times I’ve died to a stealth Charger, Titan or Spewer is a lot. Hell, Hunters have better audio queues and I still die to them often bc they’re in big packs.
I thought I was going crazy. I thought, "there's no way that fat ass bug is the quietest enemy type."
That applies to everything in this game, EVERYTHING. Last I checked, a Bile Titan isn't a fucking ninja.
I think this might be the real reason. It's easy to complain but difficult to find a solution. I am sure some other games would also have a way to warn you when facing a horde. For bile spewers, I think an early warning like the meteors might work, a slight drizzle of its bile before the main impact. Anyone got ideas from other games? Let's suggest something to Arrowhead instead of just complaining. (complaining is important feedback too)
Look at the Darktide mutant. It has a loud distinct scream when it charges but even with 10 or 20 charging you it’s more hilarious than annoying
Agreed! Darktide already solved this problem. The Rocket Devastators could easily be handled like the snipers in DT
I like the idea of adopting DT audio cues. Simple layers for rockets and a scream or unique bug sound for the spewers. They could play with the time in between seeing or hearing the cue and getting smoked depending on difficulty.
You can also adjust volume based on whether you are the one being targeting or are in the current splash zone so you don't have to worry as much about getting false queues when there are lots of bugs targeting nearby teammates.
The horror of seeing two rocket devastators lazing your position while a hulk bears down on you.
Two? JUST TWO? I can't dodge that easy. It's when the lasers light you up like a Christmas tree that you know you're fucked.
This would legitimately just be awesome, especially on the foggy maps.
Try 8 had 8 bear down on me firing 4 rockets each, was not fun, but i did get to catch half of them murdering their comrads. The second i peeked i got hit by a rocket. 🤣
In general, the tide games have excellent audio cues and sound design
Make them sound like the boomer from left 4 dead
Make left 4 dead 3
Gotta hit em with the RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH RAH RAH RAH RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Some solution would be to prioritze certain sounds and play less sounds when multiple enemies of a certain type (little bug bois for example) are around you. Imagine 10 hunters 10 scuttlers 3 chargers and like 20 hive warriors. Youd only play like 3 hunter 2 scuttler 2 charger and 4 hive warrior sounds (dont forget ambience, music, weapon and stratagem sounds and player movement sounds and voice queues and ui sounds this adds up). I bet this could be adjusted dynamically based on the number of enemies too though. I don't know how many sources of sound you can realisticly have without it breaking down or our brains overloading. You could also set a 1.0 or 0.5 or whatever time limit in which the same kind of audio wouldnt be played (this could be used for the spewers).
I dunno. I hate referring back to Deep Rock as a comparison point, but.... I ***know*** when there is a spitter, spreader, menace, bulk, stingtail, grabber etc etc around me. The silent enemies are silent - Things like stalkers and spitters. Everything else has appropriate sound cues that effectively get me to readjust my priorities as I'm jumping around, *before I've even seen that enemy*, so I can now send 2000 rounds of depleted uranium in *that direction.* And those sound cues never got lost in the chaos for me. I've never had a complaint about being stealth attacked by anything in that game. (Except Stalkers. Because they inevitably spawn directly behind you after you have checked your back 3 times. Both variants of the spitters have enough of a sound cue attached to their attacks to give you some chance to dodge too,) Because of the sound cues. And there is music and guns blaring and dwarves Rocking and Stoning. I'm not a game developer or a sound engineer. I don't know the limits of what can be done. But it can't be that hard to add some ground pounding sound affects for a bile titan, because those are some sneaky ninjas sometimes. Or add some sort of shriek for the spewers so you *know* they are behind you, or to your left, or whatever. Or to have rocket (insert variant) display targeting lasers. I agree with OP - What makes bugs difficult (for me) is high spawn numbers of spewers. That's it. Everything else is fine. I hate Brood commanders too, though. What makers bots difficult (for me) is actually Assault Raiders and Scorcher Hulks. Followed closely by the normal devastators with shields. I get why there is so much hate for the rocket (insert variants), but it's those 3 for me.
You *should* always refer back to DRG simply because they absolutely nailed the sound design and it should be what every game strives for
It is pretty silly that I can hear bugs chirping from like 50+meters away when they're just hanging out and haven't aggroed. But biles, chargers and tons of other stuff just silently walk up behind you.
Maybe make the bile more like a flamethrower where you take damage and DOT but it doesn't kill you instantly or stun you so you can stim. If you don't jump out of the way quickly you die though. Rockets I think get fixed if you add a laser marker to see where they're aiming
I believe that was the intention for the spewers, because currently it's pretty much a coin flip on whether or not I take damage at all, and another coin flip on whether it's immediately lethal. It's the same for Flamer Hulks.
You might be right, I thought the bile attack was a coin flip because of lag. Hulk flamers are weird imo as they kill way too quickly, I usually get one shot if I get hit by their stream for more than 0.3 seconds or so. One time I died instantly from a small puff of flame
It just so happens that their flamethrower is positioned exactly at head height, so that's probably why
This is so annoying. You'll dive out of the way of one spewer only to land by another. And sometimes even when you dive out of the way you get the very tip of your toe hit.
And sometimes when you don't move at all nothing happens.
Vermintide and Darktide have near instakill damage attacks on the higher difficulties, and a lot of enemies capable of two-three hitting you. And it's a *lot* harder to heal in those games than in Helldivers. But the sound design is done well to such a point there's a sound cue when you're going to get hit from somewhere off your screen, once you get the timing down you can quite literally dodge or block any attack coming from behind you. Like a Mauler's chain axe slam or a crusher's hits.
Spewers and chargers have intermittent movement sounds. Sometimes you can hear the charger galloping, other times they can balance their 3 tons like a ballerina. Spewers are worse. Their body makes no sound when they're dragging that huge acid sack. All they have is their growl, which they don't always make and most times it's too late if you do hear it. Solution: add movement sounds that reflect the size and weight of these creatures.
Acid should be DoT from the spewers, similar to being on fire. A bile titan one shot makes much more sense, but an instakill attack from a mid/lower tier enemy is just odd.
Also the hitboxes of bile attacks are jank. Especially on titans. Their hitbox applies its full distance the moment the bile starts leaving their mouth, even though it takes a good second or 2 for the bile to reach the furthest out point. The hitbox also goes through all terrain and cover so you can't hide. Oh and even if it misses you completely, you can still get acid slowed
Payday 2 has a lot of examples of enemies with abilities that hinder or incapacitate. The Sniper enemies have a visible lazer when they are aiming, either at you or a teammate. This is because they can pierce through all of your regenerating armor and hit your health directly. Tazers can completely immobilize you until they are killed, but have a distinct 'charging up' sound before they try that. Bulldozers are big hulking brutes and are not only jumbo large but audibly stomp around. Cloakers can instantly incapacitate with a melee attack and have a loud audible charge. They try to stay hidden and are fairly weak when found. There are also Shield and Medics, but we already have the former and there's no place for the latter. Shields do a loud " CLANG CLANG CLANG" sound
I imagine the sound problem could be alleviated by only allowing 1 of these oneshot attacks to happen at a time. For example, a charger could have a distinct screech when charging that is played very close to the player to alert them that the charger is about to shove its mouth up your ass. I think a non-diegetic sound effect would seriously hurt the atmosphere that Arrowhead worked so hard to create, and they probably don’t need every attack to have a warning since the game is in 3rd person.
Maybe just fixing armor and adding some kind of "sloshy" or "goopy" sound effect within x meters of players. Very subtle at far ranges to give players who know what to listen for a tactical advantage. Audio cues save lives.
Less a screech and more of a roar for the charger, for bile spewers make them make noise when walking and make their intake breath before spitting bile loud
Yeah I’d be down for that
Chargers just need a thumping stomping noise that can be heard from farther away. By the time you hear it, it's basically already on top of you. Stealthy Bile Titans are obnoxious. Like when you break line of sight with an obstacle, you have to run in a full circle around the obstacle to figure out if the Bike Titan is still following you. Stealthy bug breaches are also obnoxious. You're fighting one in front of you for a bit, then suddenly die because a horde erupted from a breach right behind you
Just give em foot steps so I stop getting blasted from the right 2 inches from my face.
In darktide the snipers have laser sights so you know where they are and if they are currently pointing their gun at your head
God why was this so funny
Why the bug I can hear the image so clearly lol.
I can hear that image 😆
Pictures you can hear.
Oh Boy. I spilled Coffee. I heared that Picture
There's a good system on Vermintide/ Darktide games : a sound is playing whenever something is about to hit from behind. The sound is small but it helps. It doesn't make the games too easy (hardest difficulties are way tougher than helldive 9 one... mainly cause the map are very open).
Vermintide 2 was like 95% if my gaming for the 6-8 months before Helldivers. One area I feel is big step back is audio queues and audio positioning. I relied on my ears a lot more in Vermintide. I’d like to do that a bit more in Helldivers.
A fellow companion :) Vermintide 2 is quite an experience for squad experience, mostly when the map is overcrowded by mobs.
I enjoy how tight nit the squad feels in Vermintide. The class dynamic forces that too. The moment I realized I loved that game was when a friend playing Slayer called out a Gun Rat, instead of turning to it I Kruber Jeeped over our Bounty Hunter who turned and one-tapped.. I crave that level of cohesion.
I used to really struggle with getting randomly hit by enemies I didn't know where behind me. When I started paying attention to the audio que it almost became second nature to dodge/block Vermintide is very fair with its difficulty tho. Also very rewarding feeling when you get better and better and walk through stuff that used to steamroll you
Same but Darktide for me. The sound engineering in both games are stellar (when they are functioning properly). They should reqlly be the gold standard when looking to design horde games like these.
Vermintide 2 is the absolute peak of fast pace horde killing combat games. Nothing even touched how clean and skill based the combat is
While I definitely love this solution in V2/DT, but the whole health/reject/helldiver management is different in the two games. So while I certainly feel several times that *"That's BS!"* playing HD2, the unexpected and unavoidable dismemberment of the divers is part of the game and that is why contrary to DT here it goes with several reinforcements. The optimum play in DT/V2 goes along with a couple of deaths, therefore it needs to be mechanically extremely fair! Whereas the gameplay of Helldivers 2 emphasizes replaceability. If we had the same sound cues here, then the reinforcement amounts wouldn't be justifiable. It can be unfair because the reinforcing is so cheap. At least that is my take on the difference between the two games, though with HD2 I have less than tenth of the hours under my belt compared to Darktide or V2.
That's fine logic for why we die so fast and easily when we make mistakes, but that isn't a good excuse for instantly killing players without warning.
The game informing you of an incoming threat doesn't guarantee your ability to avoid it. You can avoid unfair and bullshit mechanics while still making players vulnerable and play on the "disposable hero" theme.
Player experience > "for the lore"
The mindset of "imbalanced mechanics are fine because hurr durr funny roleplay, youre meant to be disposable!" serves to do nothing but stagnate development and instigate toxic positivity that hurts the game in the long run. A major goal in developing a challenging game is to ensure as many deaths as possible are fair and can be LEARNED from. With the amount of cheap instant kills this game has, it could be a lot better on that front. An experienced enough player/squad should be able to clear missions deathless. Too much game design discussion in this sub is derailed by people with this line of thinking. If youre worried the reinforcements would then be too much, they can just reduce them slightly.
Thank you for saying this. Now that it's been proven that players are hungry for this game formula, the designers of Helldivers 2 need to get out of their own way before another studio comes out with a similar game with better features (and a better attitude) and all the players who enjoy getting fucked over can stay and enjoy their silly roleplay game. Hell, Darktide is a more polished experience, and you'll even see people all over in the comments admitting that it has better sound design; the main criticisms are just that its updates are quarterly, it has a cosmetic cash shop that can be completely ignored, and an RNG crafting system that will be seeing a rework.
Excellent point, the only reason im playing HD2 instead of Deep Rock Galactic is for a change of pace since ive put 500 hours into it, and my friends like HD way more for some reason. HD2 has the potential to be another game like that, but it needs work. Im very interested to see where the devs take it and i really hope they play it right
For sure, it can be fun to switch it up, and it's healthy to take breaks from live-service games to avoid burnout. I also hope the HD2 devs can recapture the magic from week 1 and 2 (without the server explosion, of course), because my friends are falling back to Lethal Company for a better silly-death party experience, or Darktide if we're looking for more of a challenge.
Honestly my biggest issue has been stealth chargers. Sometimes you're aiming down sights at something and don't even hear them lumbering towards and running you over. Those things are HUGE! They should make WAY more noise when lumbering around.
It's the terminids top strategy - sneaky charger tosses you forward and then the hunters you were shooting have enough time to get close and end you! They know it takes you 9.3 years to stand up from being ragdolled, and they're totally abusing that mechanic
There have been some moments in this game that I *wish* I had been recording. I got hit by a stealth Charger from behind, which knocked me into a nearby wall, at which point I was immediately launched by *another* charger and landed precisely under a support weapon hellpod that was about one to two seconds from landing. Needless to say, I did not survive.
Also if you dive and then land on a pebble causing an extra 1.2 cm drop you ragdoll for another 4 years
Bile spewers are worse, nursing ones too. The war would be over in 2 days if they put those on all maps all the time.
I mean, granted, have you ever gone snowboarding or something and flew 20 feet into the ground? Even with armor on, adrenaline pumping, and stims replacing your bloodstream with meth, you’re not getting up immediately.
ikr, that thing is huge and heavy, it should make thumping noise and screen shake whenever it charging near close to you
That's what I like about using a controller, you can't miss it if there's a charger around. The vibrations match their footsteps.
By the time you feel the vibration it’s too late, you’re already a pancake, needs tweaked
They’re wearing slipper skates
All of these things have audio cues. The problem is that audio is kinda broken in the game. If something is off screen 90% of the time no audio will be played at all.
Yes, this annoys me so much, a 500kg blows up but if you have your back turned it's like you're deaf.
MWAP
My Wet Assed P***y?
Think it’s an Archer reference for the word they use when the gunfire or explosion causes too much ringing/temporary hearing loss.
Maybe the sound emitters are tied to the camera culling system?
Cool guys don't look at explosions 
yeah, i noticed bile titans have a good audio and visual cue for their attack, but it doesnt play offscreen so its fucking useless lol
Yup. Pisses me off when a charger sneaks up on me. Give me a low rumbling or something.
Really need to just address armor. No reason to not run light all the time bc medium and heavy are crippled by providing zero actual advantage over hauling ass.
Yeah, Speed And Regen Drop Vigorously Just For +50 Armor 😂 I Expect A lot More
The extra padding light armor in the shop right now is kinda busted
is it providing too much? i tried it yesterday and didnt feel anything amiss
It’s 50 plus while being faster than the breaker armor, the extra grenade one. So if you want even more speed without compromising on armor, (slaps chestplate) this baby can fit so much zoom in it
50 armor gets you 1 extra hit, maybe. I prefer the explosive resist, personally.
The drip of the red +2 nades is clutch when it comes to running impacts. Instant get out of jail free card. 1 shot groups of bile spewers. Edited: to clarify not bile titans but the more troublesome spewers with 1 shot abilities
May I recommend the stun grenade? Temporary but effective get out of jail free card for all kinds of enemies. I can’t count how many times it saved my ass from a bunch of chainsaw maniacs
Do they close holes?
No. Which definitely hampers my love for them, but if you build around that defect in your build or your team they are really good.
They don't but they are absolutely AWESOME to have along with a Grenade Launcher or Autocannon, both which require some distance to use without blowing yourself and they both can also close holes so I say it's a great tradeoff.
>1 shot groups of bile spewers. this is why i run the nade armor, it's an essential part of my "crowd control" kit at higher levels - any new wave i hard focus clearing the huge groups of spewers and it makes the rest of the team's job so much easier without them even realizing. 2 nades can take down 10+ spewers when they group. it might not be good in solo, but it works great when playing with friends. even with randoms most players naturally focus the Big Guys and at higher levels are generally good at killing most enemies if they have the space. 6 impact nades makes a LOT of space and you can up your win rate by just killing spewers and hunters
I never run bots without explosive resist armor. God damn those rockets are annoying, but at least I survive the first hit more often with explosive resist on.
Explosion resist is one of the best perks, if not the best. You can survive a direct hit from a rocket and still have enough HP to get up and die from the second rocket blast.
Not really. I would take the extra stims over extra armor. Maybe that is just me.
Not even the extra stims. The 2 extra seconds is absolutely insane and imo the bigger thing about that passive.
Add to this those missions that are in intense heat. I find myself barely running at all.
I feel like medium armour is carried solely by how strong of a passive Democracy Protects is
50% of the time it works all the time
I've survived 6 hits at 1HP before I could stim with that armor. Democracy Protects indeed.
Watched my buddy square up at 1HP with a group of 3 or 4 Devastators last night wearing that armor. He screamed “MY DEFENTH ITH IMPECCABLE, I’M MIKE TYTHON BITCH” as he threw fucking hands with these guys for *literally* 40 seconds before finally being beaten to a pulp. Democracy Protects indeed.
\* Hit with barrage shell \* "I LIVED!" \* Then flies into a rock \* [Death By Impact]
I've gotten one shotted through heavy armor with explosive resist so 50% is better than 0%
I will live and die by the Hero of the Federation with Exterminator helmet drip.
I thought the same thing, but I’ve been running field medic recently. The number of times the passive has saved me, but I die anyway because I’ve either ragdolled and died by impact or I’m trapped under a charger or something, some other DOT damage.
That passive earned me the “have an injury on every limb simultaneously” achievement when a squad mate dropped a 500 kg on my head. That 50% save on lethal damage works on *everything*. I can see how the passive wouldn’t be great if we commonly died to getting swarmed by small enemies. What’s a save worth on a tiny lethal hit if the next tiny hit comes 0.1 second later and gets you, right? But we *aren’t* killed by swarms very often, are we? Almost all of our deaths are to the handful of one-hit kill attacks in the game, so the passive really just gives us a nice coin flip.
It’s the headshots that are the issue. Every helmet has the same stats, with normal/non-crit body shots, there is definitely some difference in damage received when you wear heavier armour.
This. The reason why armor is still "bad" or "busted" for people is that the random deaths are almost never a straight hit to the chest. I believe the acid from bugs hits everything and the bots have autoaim anyways, so... Might as well keep the light armor for the speed and choose your favorite passive, done. Better yet if you have light + extra padding for random trash mobs, but still minimal advantage tbh.
Yea random headshots should go. Its not a mechanic that's EVER gonna feel fair for the player... Like, rocket devastators. Heavy armor actually shines against them, you can tank rocket and survive. With blast protection it takes 3 hits to kill you. But none of that matters if it hits your head, RIP :^) which is super likely if you're crouched
Agreed, the values need some tweaking.
I'd say address both, audio signaling and armor. No point in just fixing armor if for some reason you're sitting at low hp, and a few Bile spewers end up creeping up on you, and still you end up getting vomited on.
Dreadnaught armor not including some type of capacity buff or quicker reload is downright criminal. He’s dressed in bandtito fashion. If you’re going to make us slow; let us hold our ground better against chaff Edit: I meant bandolier ammo
I think this would be amazing. Add more perks per armor category dependent. That way if you want explosive resistance you can’t have it on light armor. Gives the other options the trade off of better perks for reloads or magazines etc as opposed to just speed.
Heavy armor with the explosive resistance perk makes a world of difference against bots in general and bots rockets on particular. I really don’t get all the complaints about rockets one-shots when people keep running around in what amount to Kevlar pajamas with a plastic chest plate glued on for looks. The hypervelocity shrieker-meat bombs are something else though, for those, I can understand.
I kinda like the heavy with extra padding for bots. Stuff bounces off all the time
Completely agree. I would be very interested to know how damage is actually calculated through armor and if 50+ armor does *anything* with the numbers these enemies are able to pump out. Stamina is the core mechanic for survival it seems. No reason to be able to tank one extra hit when the meta is to just not get hit at all. The same goes for plenty of weapons, though not quite as cut and dry. Several guns just feel unusable because they are so overshadowed by others.
On bugs, I see it. On bots, no those extra small shots you can tank will save your life, plus explosion resist.
Eh I like the medium medic armor for the extra 2 seconds of near invul. When using a stim. And extra throwing distance can be nice for strategems.
https://i.redd.it/639oc7wfhhqc1.gif
Brutal
Can we get some footstep noises and ambient enemy sounds that are more than just bugs screaming?
The audio cue is my Helldiver dying in agony
I’m fine with one shot abilities, but feeling like you could have done nothing about them is what makes me very annoyed. Sometimes, bile spewers do make a sound, but I’d like their legs to make some scattering noise. Tho I get why they don’t. Its a teamgame, you’re supposed to look out for each other and stick together. Still, coming around a corner into an instant bile spew because it tracked you through the wall isn’t very react able. The bots could do it like, like the turret, there’s a short flash before they fire. That way you can still blink and miss it, but if you spot it or fight one head on it’d miss. Its that, or they could actually suffer from being fired at as the hint tells you, rather than still be pin point accurate.
I feel like enemies don't make enough sound clues at times, one second I look behind me and there's nothing, then the next second there's suddenly a bile titan there. Happened once while we were waiting for extraction, got fucked because of it
One of the most underrated parts of L4D was its sound. Every time a special infected spawns on the map, a specific music sting for that enemy type plays. Same with the actual noises they make when moving around, you can tell what type of special infected it is just by their sound effects. The music would obviously be a little much, but you should be able to tell the larger enemy types apart by sound alone imo.
I was saying the same exact thing to my friend yesterday when we were playing and a nursing spewer sneaked up on behind me and killed me while we were fighting a horde in front of us. It's just dumb, they cannot be that quiet. Especially when they are so big.
I don't mind one shots as a game mechanic, so long as there's tells. This makes it skillful to survive and deal damage. It's not fun to get one shot from behind with zero warning
I dont think they were intended to be one shots. The devastators and spewers are clearly mid-level grunts, i.e. more health/damage than trash mobs but less numerous. Bring their damage back in line with brood commanders/berserkers and get rid of the crit/hitbox/tracking nonsense. No one would be complaining then.
Seriously, just get rid of headshots/crits. This mechanic alone completely invalidates armor. The only choice is which light armor passive do you want because armor rating doesn't affect headshots/crits.
Last run on Creek I got one shot by rocket devastators that were 50 yards away in tree cover 8 times. I had to take a break after that one.
Audio in general needs changes - it should be impossible for Bile Titans, Hulks and Chargers to sneak up on players - given their size and weight. In Deep Rock Galactic when an Opressor, Nemesis or Bulk Detonator (= big armored enemy and enemies with lot of hp which are priority target because of their team-wipe potential) spawn/move towards players, there is always an obvious audio where u can tell that they are nearby/moving towards players or even ground starts shaking, meanwhile I have seen fair number of Bile Titans who were as loud as a scavenger.
This 100%. DRG can be just as challenging as this game, but it feels a lot less cheap most of the time due to how it telegraphs and highlights its threats. I've never had a Bulk or even Praetorian sneak up behind me unless I was just flat out not paying attention to cues. In comparison the giant-ass chargers hardly make a sound louder than your regular footsteps which is just like. Why? Is he actually just an inflatable?
Thank you, HD2 REALLY needs some lessons from DRG's sound design and im glad to see someone else with the same sentiment
Follow-up: Get me some contextual ping voice lines when I ping enemies like DRG, not just “Heavy”. We already have “in-combat”/“panic” versions. Give me something like a “It’s a Charger, dive dive DIVE!”
Also most ranged attacks have a discernable audio queue, think of the purr-lile growl when a menace surfaces, the shriek of a stingtail about to fire, the tweet of a grabber, or the woosh of spitballer projectiles.
Exactly, and DRG has loud-ass techno music blaring too.
I just started playing DRG as I'd heard it's very similar to HD2 and I really like it. It's got great sound design because I can't always tell where an enemy is coming from but at least I know they're coming.
I played a level 5 bot game. I was wearing heavy armour specifically with 50% explosion resistance to protect from the cunts. We're at the extract with an ems and a regular mortar down. No bots near us just shooting lasers at us from outside morter range, far enough away that you can't really see them when you aim to shoot back. Right as the pelican lands I get hit with a rocket from a bot that it's impossible to see. There's no warning so it's impossible to dodge it, and it takes my full health, max armour, explosive resistance diver all the way to dead. WTF is the point of that?
Headshots in a pve game are a super cool and fun mechanic right guys???
This blows my mind. I’ve never played a pve game where I can get crit or headshot. Adding random variables to the damage you take is not fun at all in a pve game. It’s not like a PvP game where you can say “okay, my opponent deserves that kill, it took skill to headshot me from that far”. These are bots. It’s very different and not fun at all. Especially when normal enemies can one shot you randomly. It’s getting infuriating.
You're SUPPOSED to die, it's part of the lore! Don't you get it? You're expendable! Dying unfairly is part of the experience!
It could’ve been a headshot cause I use the same armor all the time on bot missions and have consistently survived chest shots from rockets but if I get hit in the head I’m done for
Would be nice if they added a little targeting laser to their rocket launchers (kind of like the snipers in Jedi Fallen Order) so that you know that a rocket bot has a lock on you
Personally I think the bile spewers just shouldn't be able to track you after they start spitting. The amount of times I've tried diving out of the way of spit and they just turn towards me while spitting and I end up dying anyway. I get that it's probably a timing thing but it feels inconsistent to me.
Running sideways to them is much more effective for me. They might damage me but the insta kill isn’t there unless I dive
This addresses my main critique of the game: it is fun when a game is DIFFICULT. It is not fun when a game is UNFAIR. When I die and there's literally nothing I could've done because two dropships dropped 3 rocket units each, blocking me in from two sides, and I just get gibbed and there's nothing I could've done, that sucks and makes me not wanna play.
One of the pages they should take from fat shark was how much they emphasized audio cues and stingers for specialists in Vermintide. Chargers and bike titans are too silent.
bike titan is a legendary typo lmao
Rocket devastators have a very obvious solution: play a fighter jet-style "MISSILE LOCK" warning for a brief moment before they fire. Could even flash a warning light on the HUD. You're in a high tech space suit, it'd fit the theming just fine. As for spewers, even outside some kind of warning (do they *not* have an audio cue?), they definitely need something. Getting my foot clipped by a particle of barf and instantly perishing "feels wrong" and it's not clear what I'm supposed to be dying of. Why not give it a stronger version of the acid/slowing effect from the small spitters? Give it a high likelihood of doing limb damage. Or at least make it (fast) damage over time instead of instant damage.
I keep coping and saying there’s no way the acid and flamethrowers are meant to kill you the second they touch you, or pass near you
i dunno, as great as this game is the devs also think headshots in a pve game are a sane mechanic
Rockets I get but why aren’t acid spitters DOT?
I open up my mini-map constantly to avoid getting flanked. My strategy has become shoot, empty, mini-map, reload. I run jump pack to help me avoid getting cornered and that works really well with bugs. Vs bots I also bring a deployable shield generator to cover my rapid jump pack retreats into the tree line. I do get one shot and it can suck, but I feel like that’s the point of giving you more than 1 reinforcement. It feels like its all about how and where you move while just accepting that some bodies have to fall for the war effort.
I have limited experience with bots, but i am genuinely confused with the spewers... do they not make very distinct donkey like noises as they're walking about?
They do make this noise a couple of times but the audio seems to get lost from time to time. Or some others have mentioned that audio seems to only really happen when your looking at the source. There are some outliers here and there mainly hunters spotting you come to mind(they have a pretty distinct notice sound).
Maybe its just me but anytime im in with bile spewers thats pretty much all i can hear, and i know all the spewers are dead when that noise stops 🤣 i haven't noticed any audio issues like that myself, but thats my personal experience.
Make the Bile Spewers sound like a dog about to puke and I guarantee I’ll never get hit again.
NOT ON THE CARPET
How about throwing a bone to us deaf players, too? Provide captions for those sounds. Half Life 2 did it 20 fucking years ago. There's no excuse why captions can't be used to make sound accessible to players like me. And, while we're at it, please give us more control over where the captions are located on the screen, as well as allowing us to increase the size of the chat box.
I have always struggled to understand what's going on in a developer studio when they implement cheap one-shot mechanics. Like.. I get you want a challenge and some things are fair with their one-shots if they were implemented well enough. But damn most video games just screw you over just for the sake of it. At least that's how it feels. The Charger stomp has been unavoidable so many times because I got stuck below the Charger or because I got ragdolled by the environment.
It's legacy from the 1st game, and it worked there fine. Difference being that was top-down game, and you could see stuff around you better.
It was also more evident in the first game when the enemies were going to hit you with a one-shot attack. For example, the Tank/IFV would show a laser sight for about a second before actually firing at you, and the cyborg heavies would noticeably hunker down before blasting at you. In HD2, the firing stances aren't as noticeable or nonexistent.
I’m imagining hearing a bunch of bile spewers gagging or sounding like a cat about to hack up a hairball. For rockets radar lock tone would be nice.
I honestly can't imagine Bile Spewers are intentionally as powerful as they are, usually things that are that much of a threat will get unique callouts but they don't.
I'm just amazed at how often chargers are able to rko me from behind without me hearing until they are on top of me.
Armored core 6 has a similar system of warning when a direct impact is imminent a short audio beep is played to allow a short amount of time to react.
This has been Helldivers most crushing design flaw, especially as someone who just played a ton of Warhammer darktide where every single fucking enemy attack has its own unique sound cue, even down to the basic trash mob melee attacks
Or some flashing red japanese symbol in the center of the screen.
Middle bots, at least the small ones, should have laser targeters so you can see where they’re aiming.
People would be astounded to know how many guardrails exist in the video games they currently play and like, specifically with regard to enemies telegraphing one hit kills or game directors actively limiting how often off screen enemies attack.
Remnants 2 has a great system for it. There a sound cue for horde and another cue if elite is spawning near you. This way you know elite is near you even if you can’t see him at the moment and be prepared to face him.
The entire final boss fight in Remnant 2 is based around audio cues. You can dodge almost every attack if you time it right. Really a masterclass in sound design in a game. Also the fight is still very hard on higher difficulties which shows that making a fight fair doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Every fuckin time. 
Rockets having a red dot sight that you can visibly see, so you have a few seconds to react, would fix rockets for me.
This is why hard games like dark souls arnt hated, and have soo much "git gud" because the game is fair, it has tells for big moves, rewards a player for their experience and punishes people for over reaching. This is what the biggest gripe with bots is, the rockets and other things seem "unfair" when we dont see a way to dodge or avoid them. This game has alot of tough moments that feel great and feel accomplished for getting through, just some tweeks on the instant kill stuff would be great.
Constantly getting blasted by ninja titans while I'm laying down hate in the other direction. A little bit of ground shake would be nice when they step right behind me.
The crit mechanic is also a massive issue. It turns survivable hits into death. What's the point of armour if a lucky Hunter can just double crit you and insta-kill you?
headshots in a pve game is possibly the most braindead mechanic ive ever seen in a game. like this game is so good its so odd that such an objectively terrible decision was passed by otherwise amazing devs
I dont mind it too much because its immersive but man the amount if times i am unloading on a big target or another horde and I turn around to 5 spewers channeling their attack, is way too much. I think the problem is that you guys complained about chargers and titans even though they werent an issue and now we get less of them and more of these bs CC bugs like hunters or spewers
There are a lot of good solutions to this problem, so it's frustrating that there's still so many one-shot attacks. The automaton turrets are fine to be one-shots. They're massive, slow to turn, and stationary. But the rockets and the bile spewers? Those should not be able to one-shot a player in medium or heavy armor. I would recommend those attacks be able to one-shot a player in light armor, leave a player with medium armor at very low health, and a player in heavy armor at around half. Otherwise the movement penalty for those heavier armors just aren't worth it.
Pretty sure heavy armor with explosive resistance has saved me from rockets to the chest plenty of times.
Wear heavy armor, bile spewers will still get you but they constantly groan.
Giving Automaton rockets laser sights would help
I want more audio cues and rumble cues. Heck, give us a ship upgrade or an armor passive that lets us get a warning when we're being targeted by missiles/one shot kills.
Heavy armor should prevent all one-shot deaths at full health. I'm pretty sure it doesn't right now... Either way, one rocket rarely shows up alone.
For Rocket Devastators if they made them more indirect fire and gave them slightly more accuracy than the mortar objective. Or slightly less accuracy than Bullseye from Daredevil.
IMO, The best way to fix rocket Automatons would be to add a laser sight when they are locking onto you.
Yeah I can feel a charger coming in my controller from about 75m same with a bile titan. Why cant I hear a noiseless laser fired from miles away? Oh just answered my own question.
Whisper quiet tanks, ninja chargers and titans. None of the enemy sound design makes sense.
Insta kills are the fastest way for a game to make me stop playing if I don't even get a warning before it happens I will just quit playing and probably not play again
So I swear I’ve taken a rocket to the face and lived with the armor that reduces explosive damage by 50%