u/slycyboi

I don’t know why. Not even D10 egodivers were complaining about it. Arrowhead keep doing this and I have no idea who it’s for. People want *more* complicated objectives not to gut them.

Edit: I didn’t elaborate enough, the newer lava planet missions have cut all their requires steps in half for some weird reason, making the missions significantly easier and shorter.

https://preview.redd.it/pnwnww6452fh1.png?width=324&format=png&auto=webp&s=32d334d1a55ab03841d78f7afcb38995fc7ab7f3

Ok so we have been asking for stratagems and gear to be rewards for community events like they used to be for a while, but I think two major problems have occurred since then.

1. MOs kinda feel like we don't have much sway in them anymore. Since the galactic impact modifier exists, liberations and defences are basically about whether a certain percentage of divers do missions on the MO planet or not. It doesn't feel like we're actually doing anything unusually difficult or overcoming a challenge to earn these rewards and it's just going through the motions.

I think this is a hard one to fix because a lot of this comes down to a veil that was pierced a while ago, and since the determining factor isn't that D10 is particularly hard to complete since the devs have no idea how to add good forms of challenge, and seem to patch it out whenever they *do* accidentally increase spawn rates or something, there's basically no sense of agency in the MO.

2. The second reason that I have actually figured out is more tonal I guess? This feels like the most bare-minimum way to implement the "we want rewards in the galactic war" thing people were asking, but here's the problem: rewards in the early game were *integrated into the story* - when we had the AT mines or airburst launcher we had to liberate planets that were specifically making them, liberating Tien Kwan for the Patriot exosuit was the point of the MO, rather than "reward: mech"

Hell they did this better with the supply and flame FRVs!

It just feels like these devs have no idea what made their game initially popular and everything good they did was entirely an accident.

- ARC-7 Welder: basically equivalent in a way to how the old flamethrower used to work where it was a short range high DPS machine, with no stagger or stun. I think putting it under the ARC category could work, and a smidge of light auto-aim would make it somewhat a threat to other divers. You could even do a torcher/crisper version of this too.

- Arc-15 stun gun. Something that can basically provide stun in that slot that isn’t a melee weapon

- Sonic cannon: cannon that shoots out sound waves that are very low damage but high stagger and push force. Big CC style tool. Bonus points if the sound it’s blasting is super earth propaganda music

- FPV drone: take control of a drone that has a GR8-Recoilless attached with several shots you can’t replenish. Can fire HEAT or HE rounds.

- Dirt bike: basically what it says on the tin. No sidecar, just a backseat your friend can climb onto and shoot from. Fast and nimble, but with low health and no built in weapons. Turning too sharply will dismount you and send the bike flying.

- Directional shield relay: exactly what it says on the tin. A sidegrade to the shield relay that is a single one way shield but only from the front rather than a bubble.

- Barbed wire: potential eagle deployed stratagem here that just coats an area in barbed wire that slows enemies and does a little bit of chip damage. Will be destroyed with explosives so it’s better to use fire gas and ballistics for the killbox

- Expendable autocannon, the PLAS-300 ravager: basically a 20 round full auto AP4 explosive cannon. But… when depleted, it has a timer where it will explode! Get ready to drop it when you expend the last round!

- Some kind of old-style WW2 MG like a BREN or BAR that has the same damage as the countersniper but full auto, with horrible ergonomics to compensate.

- some kind of las-style weapon that has a charge up to handle heavy killing

- something like a more powerful version of the crossbow (maybe an actual bow and arrow) that shoots bolts that stick to enemies then AOE detonate on a timer delay. If you gave it the right level of damage and fire modes it could work as a really high-skill heavy killer.

- concussion grenades: all they do is stagger enemies and ragdoll helldivers but you get a tonne of them

- caustic primary: one of the cheat engine mods changes the breaker S&P to shoot gas infused rounds and honestly it’s really interesting and something like it should be considered for the main game

- something akin to the Needler from Halo. Shoot enough rounds into the same target and they detonate as greater than the sum of their parts

- flare gun, shoots small glob of fire at enemies

- more gauss/railgun style weapons, maybe a primary that ramps up to AP4 when you charge it to max

- Shiskebab: like the one in fallout, a fire-infused sword that adds fire damage to enemies

- Tomahawks: throwable axes that would stagger enemies on hit as well as do damage. You get fewer of these than the knives but still more than you do grenades

- Net gun: shoots nets that slow/stop enemies but doesn’t do much damage

I'm very much what people would call a "crydiver" but I'm not actually someone who wants the game to be easier. I think the gameplay loop just kind of has a difficult set of perverse incentives that aren't solved by increasing sponginess of enemies or making a gun take two shots to set one enemy type on fire instead of one, so more care is required in rebalances than are currently being enacted.

Here's my proposed "make things harder" changes that I think would improve interactivity, build diversity and make the game harder without being obnoxious:

• Eruptor: remove the heavy pen and make the ergo a tad worse. The shrapnel is enough on its own to give it a niche, it does too many things well for too few downsides.
• Crossbow: slightly reduce the AOE and make it rounds reload. This would slow the reload down a lot and make it feel more like a specialty weapon for its power
• Ultimatum: Ultimatum is too good as both an anti-heavy option and a horde clearer. The initial design had more of the damage in the projectile making it a pure anti-heavy, but now it's far too good at both. The new missile pistol is a far better designed anti-heavy option that feels more like a secondary slot weapon, but it's currently overshadowed by the Ult.
• Barrages: Barrages (with the exception of gatling) last too long and basically shut down entire enemy reinforcement brigades. Have them shoot the same number of shots, but at a higher rate of fire reducing their uptime. This would make them *feel* more powerful to average players, but covertly increase the skill gap in how and when to throw them effectively. This would also help turn Orbital Napalm into less of a "ignore that breach over there" for all the people on bugs getting carried by it, along with shortening when you can go and deal with that nest a dumbass random still thinks is a good idea to try to close bug holes with.
• Bot fabricators: remove their health pools. Sniping them with AT was fun at one point but it should be exclusively relegated to the role of the Spear and tank. Make bulk fabs also die to 40 demo so the spear and tank can shoot them too (raise the hammer to 40 demo as well). People barely use the vents now and it's sad. That should be the primary method of taking them out without stratagems.
• Command bunkers: Main health of bunker is removed and has 60 demo. You can still destroy the turrets on the bunker as usual but you are supposed to take the ground and call in a hellbomb, or charge in with a portable. Maybe a portable could be offered as a team stratagem.
• Shredder tanks: act as AA emplacements and will block Eagle stratagems within 100m
• Overship: shoots artillery at the player every two minutes or so, with a blue light on the ground warning akin to Stingrays. Gives enough time for slowed players or mechs to escape but instakills anything left inside the radius. Give this mission type to bots too with the same mechanics.
• Mortar emplacements: shoot more frequently, but also get a red light on the ground to indicate where they're going to hit.
• Spore spewers and shrieker nests: top surface of the nest is AP7. Now destructible with 40 demo. Can still shoot it with light pen from underneath the hood, but now you have to get close to do it.
• Enemy reinforcements: now tied to individual players rather than a global system. All of you can call hordes independent of each other. This would provide an actual benefit to sticking together, since running off on your own would no longer provide the safety net of the reinforcement cycle happening half a map away.
• Objectives: now basically every first activation of an objective terminal calls enemy reinforcement waves, ignoring the timer delay. This is a horde shooter, but the game heavily incentivises not fighting the hordes and sneaking around to do objectives.
• Extraction: they changed the way spawns work with enemy bases back during the 60 day patch so people can sample hunt post-mission which leaves lots of extracts completely devoid of enemies. Extract like other objectives now always calls enemy reinforcements, but this one is also a non-stop wave for the rest of the mission. For people who like kill farming this also offers a way to do it that isn't weird janky detector tower farming. Part of me would kinda prefer the infinite wave to start immediately as the main objective is completed, but I think this is a happy medium for anyone who does want to hunt samples, and it also makes calling extract a tactical choice rather than just doing it.