A rant on the The response to this post says everything about the community and AH's direction
The post is flaired as humour and it is funny (and very true) but the response it has generated completely highlight the issue with HD2 and the horrendous cooperative game it "tries" to be compared to HD1 (which I will be a glad Glazediver for).
Many of the responses are "splitting up is efficient" or "ohhh who cares he's having fun being solo" or "why do you have to control how other people play"?
The level of freedom given to the player in HD2 is a blessing and also its biggest most fucking annoying curse that caters to anti-coop casual players, and more importantly actively antagonises any semblance of teamplay, friendship between randoms and tactical depth.
For those wondering why the game is so anti-coop despite being a coop game, it's VERY VERY simple for why it's a FUCKING SHIT COOP GAME since LAUNCH.
The game has made no forced demands (or not ENOUGH forced demands) of players to actually work together or have mechanics that FORCE interaction. What do I mean by this? Well, lets look at the 2 main ways that game devs figured out coop gameplay in their games that both deliver challenge and power fantasy (in a coop setting).
There is no class or hero system, choose your own loadouts, build your build for anything. With randoms? Create a loadout that covers all bases. Congratulations, the game's meta has been optimised EVEN faster. DRG, Darktide, Space Marine have classes WORKING together with clear distinct weaknesses and strengths. The freedom of this game doesn't allow that.
The game does not hard punish solo activity or have convenient coop activities. Valve fucking figured this out years ago and so have other games. HD2, for some absurd Narrowhead reason, doesn't have a convenient healing system for other players except for the CRITICALLY low HP Stim or a Stim Pistol (via a fucking battlepass). It also doesn't have a DOWNED mechanic. To add further, L4D ANIMATION locks you if you are attacked by special infected like Jockey, Charger, Smoker, Hunter and a TEAMMATE MUST HELP YOU. This game doesn't even have the easy nostalgia grab of the flying shrieker bug kidnapping a soldier Starship Troopers style. I can think of another, Cyborgs grabbing you by the neck and slowly strangling you, forcing a friend to help you.
Mission design is bad, but we all know this.
It's just disheartening to see a COOP gameplay develop a community that not only us content with minimal coop but also a Dev team hard focussed on Warbonds that deliver on the INDIVIDUAL player fantasy instead of teamplay. I wanted a fucking repair gun from the Mech warbond, I didn't even get that mechanic despite it being in HD1.
And it also sucks more that nearly every Warbond MUST feature some big explosive device or fast TTK stratagem that doesn't promote coop gameplay.
Oh yeah, AH, will never rework team reloading despite that being the easiest thing to do to promote teamplay.