Don't get me wrong, everything we got was very high quality and I love all of it. It just doesn't feel like there was that much new content added for a major title update.

The update didn't feel that much bigger than the mid season Appropriators update. That too brought new missions, a new planet modifier, an out of game story with Steve Storms and even 3 new enemies.

But enough with the whining, what is my suggestion to improve things?
Maybe AH should switch to just one single title update per year, but in return really make them major updates.

Let me start by saying I really like the Mega City and Mega Factory biomes. Great work AH!

It makes perfect sense that if we or the Automatons hold a planet for an extended period of time that we or they would build Mega Cities or Mega Factories on them.

But Cyberstan shouldn't feel like there are factories on the planet. Cyberstan should be the factory. The factory buildings shouldn't be build in the dirt with city walls separating the wilderness from the factories. There should be no natural ground on the surface. The top most layer of structures should be build on top of dozens or hundreds of layers of factory buildings below.

Something similar goes for Super Earth. The Super Earth government doesn't strike me as one that would be particularly concerned with preserving the planets nature. Every bit of land should be covered in cities to make maximum use of the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Qiw7yGhKtvs

Honestly fighting the Spore Burst Strain has been a lot of fun. They finally created some tense and hectic situations when the game had become way to easy on CR10.

The one thing though that really sucks is how the hitbox of the Spore Burst Bile Titan's spew attack is like 50 times bigger than the actual visual of the attack.

Getting ragdolled by attacks that by any reasonable measure you dodged is just unfun.

I am not necessarily saying all Hive Guards should be replaced by Alpha Guards on the highest difficulties (as is the case with Alpha Commanders), but just sprinkle a few in on higher difficulties.

I think the reason the next Warbond is delayed is because the two new FRVs were actually supposed to be in that Warbond. Now that AH has pivoted to giving them out for free, because of all the Exo Experts backlash, they had to make a new Warbond, which wasn't ready in time.

Keep in mind, that's just a theory, a conspiracy theory. I have literally no evidence for that, but it would explain why this months Warbond is now already 2 weeks overdue. (that is if we assume a 6 week release cadence which the AH deves have mentioned before)

If true, I think this is a great move by AH.

Currently:
Oxygenator currently increases your movement speed by 10%.

My Proposal:
Increase Oxygenators movement speed increase from 10% to 20%.

My reasoning:
10% movement speed increase is not worth the opportunity cost of not getting 50 more armor rating (Extra Padding), being almost invisible to enemies (Reduced Signature), +30% reload speed and 20% ammo capacity (Siege-Ready), just to name a few.

Oxygenator is strictly worse than Extra Padding:
Heavy Oxygenator armor and Medium Extra Padding armor have the same armor rating* and move at the same speed, but the Medium Extra Padding armor has more stamina and faster stamina recovery.

See this for a demonstration: https://i.4cdn.org/vg/1777385318481673.webm
(On the right, heavy Oxygenator armor. On the left, a regular medium armor. Both running 50m in the same time, but the medium armor has more stamina left after.)

This means you get the exact same survivability* but worse movement with Heavy Oxygenator armor.

The exact same goes for comparing medium Oxygenator armor and light Extra Padding armor.

So Oxygenator is not only not competitive with other armor passives, it is also strictly worse than an already existing armor passive.

What my proposal achieves:
It makes it more competitive with other armor passives.

It gives Oxygenator a point of differentiation and unique identity from Extra Padding. With the change, you walk and run faster with Oxygenator, but you will have more stamina and stamina recovery with Extra Padding. Meaning you can run and melee attack more with Extra Padding.

It gives Oxygenator a unique identity as a counter to the Spore Burst Strain. AH wants us to vary our loadouts depending on the enemy we are facing, like how stagger and gas are very good against the Predator Strain. Spore Burst have the unique property of moving very fast, so a faster-moving armor would be a great counter to them. Oxygenator doesn't currently fulfill this role. Community sentiment seems to be that even with the fastest armor in the game, you cannot keep pace with the Spore Burst Strain.

See this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1sypoyd/hes_overtaking_me/

So my change would help Oxygenator build a unique identity as a Spore Burst Strain counter.

Additional remarks:
I am aware that Oxygenator also provides extra slide distance, not just a movement speed increase, but this is clearly more of a meme to make this armor more clearly a reference to Titanfall. (I am aware that this lets you move a tiny bit further when initiating a stationary reload.)

Even at 20% movement speed increase, this armor would not step on the toes of dedicated traversal tools like the FRV The FRV would still be significantly faster than even a light Oxygenator armor.

*no, just because an armor is classified as "heavy" does not mean it blocks more damage than a "medium" armor. The only relevant factor is the armor rating. 150 armor on a "heavy" armor is the exact same as 150 armor on a "medium" armor. Please see this for an explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1srqh93/comment/ohht4ez/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

In conclusion:
I think raising Oxygenators movement speed increase from 10% to 20%:

• makes it more competitive with other armor passives without overshadowing them
• provides it a distinction from Extra Padding
• gives it a unique identity as Spore Burst Strain counter
• won't make it encroaching on existing tools like the FRV

Please help sentries against Hive Guards, but also keep the new Hive Guard.

With the armor and health changes to their main body, you kill them super fast now.

For example, the Liberator used to take 12 shots to the body to kill them. Now with the reduces armor and main health it only takes 6!

I fear that all this outrage will only teach AH that open communication is bad. Had they never told us that all kinds of systems are still very far off, there would be no shitstorm right now.

We need to make it clear that we are happy with the fact that Piles did the AMA even though we vehemently agree with what was said.