Gormongous

Holy (Hell)Diver - Now Coming to PC!

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Having a lot of fun with Helldivers, but i feel like its balancing on a knife edge. Joined a 4 man helldive(edit: as in the difficulty 12 helldive) for the first time and actually almost completed it; feels like it might get very doable at the hardest difficulty pretty soon. Hoping the challenge will keep up on the long term, at least for a once a month kind of game.

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I think that depends on how easy it will be to "solve" the game.  Things can go from really well to really screwed in an instant.  But if a setup is found that's going to work almost every time no matter what the objectives are then yeah the challenge will be gone.  Right now I'm having fun playing on lower difficulty levels than I probably should be while testing out various strat configurations.  I will eventually wade back into the higher difficulty levels once I figure out my own setup.

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Btw are any of your guys playing this on a lower end system?

 

it looks it would perfectly fit a particular group of friends of mine but one of them has a bog standard laptop and refuses to think about ever getting a dedicated gaming pc. SO i'd be curious to know how well it scales its aesthetics and performance

 

I was just given a copy of this yesterday and loaded it up on my 2011 Lenovo y570 laptop with an Nvidia GT555M.

 

End result: it ran terribly at low settings, 1920x1080 resolution in fullscreen mode.  So, I kept the details low and ran it at 1366x768 in windowed mode, and it was much smoother.  I'm going to play around with some stuff to see if I can get it working a bit better, because windowed mode is difficult to follow sometimes when there's so much happening on screen, but that's how I got it running.

 

It's a fun game, but I find it very easy to get totally overwhelmed, between friendly fire, enemies that sound the alarm a second after coming on-screen, and just a general lack of spatial awareness on my part.  I'll usually deploy an M-94 machine gun right away and keep that with me, then deploy a turret whenever I'm searching for ordnance to defuse, and then keep one turret for the final extraction.  I'm only level 5 though.

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Ok well after playing a bit more forget what i said about the game getting too easy those cyborgs are relentless

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I've been experimenting around with weapons and strats and I like the toxic weapon against the bugs.  One spray will kill almost everything up to the medium enemies and it even hurts the tanks.  Plus the slowing lets you spray them and just run away knowing that they'll eventually die and be unable to catch you.  The flamethrower also works surprisingly well against the Illuminate, the main drawback being of course the close range.

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Has anyone else noticed scaling of difficulty with different numbers of players? Just did a helldive mission with only one other person, and there were a bunch of patrols but when we did get spotted not many bugs showed up... I asked him if it scales down (we had just done a difficulty 9 dive with 3 and there were way more bugs!) but he said it didn't. I am personally not so sure.

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Has anyone else noticed scaling of difficulty with different numbers of players? Just did a helldive mission with only one other person, and there were a bunch of patrols but when we did get spotted not many bugs showed up... I asked him if it scales down (we had just done a difficulty 9 dive with 3 and there were way more bugs!) but he said it didn't. I am personally not so sure.

 

It's generally agreed on the Reddit, Steam, and PS4 forums that there's some scaling in terms of patrol density and alarm spawns, but no one knows the exact details or is able to test it. There's also a general sense that killing some of a patrol before the alarm is sounded and killing all of a patrol before the alarm is finished reduces the subsequent spawns, but that is also not fully understood.

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It's generally agreed on the Reddit, Steam, and PS4 forums that there's some scaling in terms of patrol density and alarm spawns, but no one knows the exact details or is able to test it. There's also a general sense that killing some of a patrol before the alarm is sounded and killing all of a patrol before the alarm is finished reduces the subsequent spawns, but that is also not fully understood.

 

I'm going to posit the theory that there is a cap to how many enemies can spawn at once from patrols, and that changes with number of players. I've noticed in singleplayer if there's already a group or two of enemies active and a patrol spots me, nothing else will spawn from the alarm.

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I just soloed a lvl. 10 planet, three missions total, by myself, with the Guard Dog backpack, a bunch of Distractor Beacons, and the Cardio Accelerator. It wasn't hard, per se, but it was tedious, a lot of running away from patrols, setting up a beacon, and then looping back while they were caught up there. Like S.A.M. and I agreed, this game is so much like Monaco in its basic arc: a frantic "stealth" game that's fun and funny when you're failing but quiet and a bit slow when you're actually doing it right. Thankfully, Helldivers has the risk of teamkilling, even among good players, to flip the table entirely, but I can definitely see an endpoint where four experienced competent players watch four respective quadrants of the screen, make no major mistakes, and have a bit of a dull time with it.

 

I'm still miles away from that, though, and I've played a fair amount.

 

 

EDIT: And then a lvl. 12 helldive with Wooben and two of my friends. Maybe I am getting good...

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Just gotta lay off the thumpers and use riskier weapons. Paragon is a real crutch for me but I've been using the grenade rifle more and more, as its a super solid weapon, but has weaknesses (like the AoE that makes it suicidal up close) that are fun to play around, rather than the paragon which, while effective, is also effectively just point and kill. I like that mortar over the recoilless for similar reasons.

 

On a slightly related note, sorry about all those mortar team kills.

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I maxed everything out the other day.  I had all the things that I actually use fully upgraded a while ago and was slowly finishing off the rest.  Rather than get into the end game I've been joining lower level games to help people get gear and generally just mess around with things I wouldn't do in a serious run like bringing four Shredder missiles along and just nuking everything.  Some things I've learned from doing this:

 

I rather like the Commando (the homing rocket launcher).  It's effective on the bugs and Illuminate due to the homing and ability to fire more than one shot before needing a reload.  It's less useful against the cyborgs, specifically the tanks.  But if you couple it with a Recoilless it's a great combo.  The Recoilless can take care of the tanks and fully armored heavies while the Commando deals with the regular heavies since the rockets hit from above making their shield useless.  Plus they can reload each other since they both use support packs.  I think the most reliable anti-tank is the Demolisher.

 

The Scorcher is a fun weapon and I prefer it over the Suppressor due to the ignition attribute.  While I can appreciate the Paragon and Rail Gun, I just can't get into using them.  Normally I love precision weapons but in this game I find it works against me.  I'm actually finding the Patriot to be a lot of fun to use.  It's surprisingly effective against the cyborgs due to the high rate of fire and bayonet for the dogs, but also requires a lot of ammo.  The Knight is my favorite one handed weapon and is stronger than it looks due to the fire rate and stun.  The only shotgun I can stand using is the Breaker.  The arc weapons are terrible and not even that fun to use.

 

The Jump Pack is probably my most frequently used strat outside of ammo resupplies.  There's almost never a time I don't want one.  I like the Shield Generator as well (the bubble shield not the directional one).  It's got a number of neat side effects such as keeping cyborg dogs at bay (they won't charge you when the shield is active) and making you immune to both Illuminate control reversing and slowing (such as bug poison or the Static Field).

 

The Obsidian is fun to use even though I think it's really only effective against the Illuminate since anti-tank is unnecessary.

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Helldivers in on sale for $14, cheap enough to pickup.  What are y'all's opinions on how well it plays with just 2 people rather than a full squad of 4?  Most of the time we only play with one another. 

 

Also, if we were just going to grab a couple of the DLC packs, what are most useful?  It sounded like all the packs weren't really necessary.

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Helldivers in on sale for $14, cheap enough to pickup.  What are y'all's opinions on how well it plays with just 2 people rather than a full squad of 4?  Most of the time we only play with one another. 

 

Also, if we were just going to grab a couple of the DLC packs, what are most useful?  It sounded like all the packs weren't really necessary.

 

I play with just one other friend a lot of the time. It's hard going, just the two of you, at first because neither is an expert who's able to carry the other when needed, but you can grow into it.

 

It really depends on what your playstyle is. Very, very few of the DLC packs are must-haves... the Terrain Expert Pack for the All-Terrain Boots, maybe, and the Ranger Pack for the UAV. The rest are to taste and are probably best bought as you discover what you like to use the best! The complete list, with descriptions, is on the wiki here and is probably best if you want to go window-shopping. There's also a reasonably robust selection of YouTube videos themed around each DLC pack, showing the weapons and stratagems in action.

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I've had fun playing with only one other person so I'd say it's worth it.  There's only two things in the game that can accommodate 4 people and they're both vehicles (they're pretty much the same vehicle too).  One thing to keep in mind is the game supports simultaneous local and online play so you don't have to sacrifice a partner to mix it up with others.

 

As for the DLC, almost all of them provide at least one thing that can be useful.  None of them are strictly necessary or provide you with a significant advantage, but there is some helpful stuff. 

 

Recommended:

Vehicles Pack (the tank and mech are useful, the bike isn't)

Demolitionist Pack (a machine gun primary, a useful explosive weapon, and some cosmetic stuff)

Terrain Specialist Pack (the boots perk is quite useful, the missile barrage is fun, and some more cosmetic stuff)

 

Useful but skippable:

Support Pack (good primary weapon, a support item some people like, more costumes)

Ranger Pack (really the only thing good here is the UAV which will help speed up leveling your gear)

 

There are a handful of other items I like using in the remaining packs but I'd say none of them are really worth getting.

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If you are purchasing it for the PC, the Ranger Pack is included. I did not purchase any of the DLC and got quite a lot out of the time I spent when I was playing intensely. Yes, what SAM said - 2 people local can still have a full 4 person group connecting online and it's completely seamless. Even on four separate machines you all share exactly the same screen real estate, so literally nothing is lost by playing same-screen and matching with other people (or staying a duo).

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It's really more about 1) our preferred style is just the two of us, even in games that support more.  Like even in Divinity: Original Sin, we have taken the perk that prevents us from having companions because we like the role-playing element of it being just our characters.  And sunglasses) our internet is usually laggy enough that we don't want to subject other people to a substandard experience (and at times even an unplayable one). 

 

Thanks for the feedback as well!  I'm sure we'll pick it up.  We've got a lot of ground yet to cover in Divinity, but not much else co-op in our queue after that. 

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One of the neat things about the game is with 3 factions and 12 difficulties you can nearly perfectly tailor the level of challenge and/or frustration you're interested in enduring with 2 people.

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Just got this to have an evening of fun with a friend and boy did it deliver. Coolcool Video game.

I don't anticipate ever getting fast enough at the calldown stuff to make things like the airstrike useful but maybe I just haven't run into the right situation yet. Difficulty 4 was giving us trouble already, for reference.

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Lately I've been considering resetting my progress and starting over.  I'm lvl 33 right now and I really don't have much interest in making it all the way to 50, but I greatly enjoy starting games I've completed over and doing them again knowing what's coming.  While it's not quite the same here, I'd be able to streamline my progression this time since I already know what works where.

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There was an update to the game today.  It added some cosmetic stuff and a new weapon, the LAS-13 Trident.  It's a laser shotgun, similar to the Breaker.  It follows the rules of the other laser weapons but it shoots out multiple beams with a spread.  It's fairly strong as you'd expect but it overheats quickly and doesn't cool down as fast as the Sickle so you can't feather the trigger as much.  It also costs quite a bit of research to upgrade, 16 total.  It's free, though I'm not sure if it has any unlock requirements like level.

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There was an update to the game today.  It added some cosmetic stuff and a new weapon, the LAS-13 Trident.  It's a laser shotgun, similar to the Breaker.  It follows the rules of the other laser weapons but it shoots out multiple beams with a spread.  It's fairly strong as you'd expect but it overheats quickly and doesn't cool down as fast as the Sickle so you can't feather the trigger as much.  It also costs quite a bit of research to upgrade, 16 total.  It's free, though I'm not sure if it has any unlock requirements like level.

 

As I understand it, it's treated like DLC, so it's available from the jump. I need to get into the game and try it out!

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As I understand it, it's treated like DLC, so it's available from the jump. I need to get into the game and try it out!

 

Yeah, all I knew was that I had it in my inventory right away.  I'm level 35 with everything unlocked and maxed and close to 300 research points, so if there was an unlocking criteria I figured I automatically hit it.  My understanding is the update is to celebrate the one year release of the game (on PS4 presumably).

 

I tried it out a few times on some difficulty 7 and 12 cyborg dives.  I feel like the Trident overheats too quickly, or maybe it doesn't cool down enough.  Without the penetrating power and rate of fire of the Breaker it's not quite as good at taking out groups, though still fairly effective.  Range and accuracy are what you'd expect from a shotgun style weapon, namely not great.  And of course since it's a laser weapon ammo usage is a nonissue if you're careful.  Personally I still prefer the Sickle.  I can the Trident being useful in retaliatory strike missions where things are more close quarters but outside of that I'm probably sticking with long range over short.

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