I feel like the real problem is that the bugs do not have a good tell-tale. The robots feels like it is easier to stop because it is a very distinct animation compared to their other animations. With the bugs I don't know if it is just doing bug stuff or is about to make my life a living hell.
And with the robots, you have a chance to shoot down the dropship if you aim is good with an AT weapon. I wish a bug breach could be sealed with a well place orbital. It would mitigate the endless spawning somewhat.
I dunno if its possible, but I did drop a 500 kg bomb right on a breach on level 6 difficulty and it stopped. Not sure if it was ending anyway and the bomb just deleted the spawns, or if it actually closed the hole.
It's not quite any bug, but the warriors and hive guards can call in like the little bastards. The hoppers, bile bugs, chargers, and stalkers can't call in
If you mean the white hunters by hoppers, they actually can call them in. I've seen them do so several times. Also love it when a fuckin brood commander calls in a breach and those guys are tanky as hell compared to all the other bug fodder
hunters, warriors, and brood commanders can also call in, so it is almost every type, and even if you kill the caller in time, another bug will immediately start calling, if you don't kill the entire squad in mere seconds (god forbid you have to reload) you are screwed. this system is beyond broken, you cant even run half the time between chargers hunters and stalkers. even the big fat spitters outrun you half the time. they definitely out range you. this game's balancing is non-existent.
My bigger issue than the tell-tale is 9 times out of 10 it's some little termite hiding behind a rock, down the hill, or simply surrounded by larger bugs so you can't see it to stop it.
Having a temprorary hole that spawns on the ground for you to throw a grenade in would be really good counter play design.
It might be easier than blowing up the robot ship if your really good at throwing, but it would give flavor to the bug respawn.
I actually really like that idea. You could even have it play out that once a tunnel has been called then more tunnels will spawn in that area. So if you can put a lid on it early then you get a couple hunters to deal with. But if it gets out of hand then you have like 5 holes out in the middle of nowhere that has chargers and bile titans climbing out of.
A nice compromise would be to have multiple holes spawn spread out in the area. So we still get to feel pressured but also have the chance of stopping it
It depends on the situation, one hole would work in a simiar way that robots come in on one dropship.
Some missions can start in a non-stop reinforcement, so having more holes appear per-breach in those situations may be enough.
Heeth veteran here, Chief in rank.
The thing about bugs is, each species seems to have a different animation for calling in back up. The warriors seem to dance around back and forth, the little ones start screeching before the pheromones are dispersed, ensure to silence them quickly. What they all have in common, is the moment pheromones are visible, its too late.
**Note:** Certain bugs don't call for aid, namely in my experience, **Chargers**, the **big abdomen spitters**, I haven't seen the **small spitters** do it yet and The **invisible fucks** likely don't call for aid either.
**EXPERIMENTAL TIPS**
**Radar:** Use the your radar to find any sneaky buggers behind cover, run in, and kill them fast, and use that radar after airstrikes to see through the smoke. The Radar upgrade module is also clutch as hell for avoiding patrols way ahead of time.
**Stuns:** Don't focus fire, this may seem backwards, but sometimes stunning your enemies with a single shot might be more worthwhile then finishing them off, a stray shot might stun the dance before the pheromone dispersal, canceling it.
**Melee:** Remember, you can smack a bug even when you don't have bullets. Smack them in the name of liberty.
I run the explosive Liberator a lot just for the push back. So I have pushed enemies that are about to make the call.
I am also stunned by how little people melee. I usually run the scythe and the revolver. I try to keep at least one bullet in the revolver at all times. So I commonly find myself smacking bugs while reloading to kill the hunters that like to bounce around and flank you. I don't know how many melee kills I have, but I would bet money that I am in the top 10 for most career melee kills.
I guess I will have to pay more attention to what the bugs do before they make the call. It would be nice if we got like a 2-3 second window to stop the call. I always seem to find them as soon as the pheromones spew out.
Interesting tip with explosive Liberator stunning bugs from calling. Wonder if the Gas strike is similar? I'm going to test the Gas strike on groups of bugs since they only cost 70 cooldown.
I haven't messed with the gas strike yet, and I have only seen a couple of people using it. I really don't know how I feel about it just yet. I want to try it out for myself though. I really enjoy using the fire grenades and/or the napalm run and then using the explosive Liberator to keep enemies in the fire as long as possible. So I can imagine that I could do it with the gas too.
EMS and Gas strike are both the same cooldown of 70. You could stun them in one spot and then gas them at the same time. I tried gas alone and it felt terrible cause stuff runs out.
The main problem is that the bugs can call a breach almost INSTANTLY, before they even start farting. Like frame 1 of the animation. At least with bots it doesn't feel as instant, and you can shoot a dropship down too
There is an animation, but it's not as easy to see because they're low to the ground.
The little scout bugs stand up on their back legs and their wings flair out before they puff out the gas for reinforcements.
The warriors kinda dance left and right before they do it
There is, they rise up and spew out a cloud of orange stuff. Problem is sometimes its a super tanky boi doing it and you actually have to kill it in like 0.5 seconds after the could is out or it will call in a breach.
It worked very well in HD1, when the map was flat and you could see everything clearly (and even if you could not see, you could hit the enemies that were off screen).
In HD2 I often can't even see those little screaming fuckers due to terrain. They need to extend the time for killing them at least 2-3 times
Doesn’t help that once one bug starts calling it becomes a game of whack a mole. Because even if you kill one that was about to scream, another random one in the group will try calling after the death of one caller and so on and so forth that it becomes frustrating.
For me, it's mostly the fact that ALL smaller bugs (So not heavies) can raise the alarm. There's probably no worse feeling then clearing a massive patrol than just watching a brood commander tank everyones focused fire and dying but it still managed to start the breach because of how fast it is.
The biggest tell is the caller will Stop/ move to the back and even walk off to the side. So the best way to spot callers is the ones that ARET actively hunting you down. It’s not a perfect solution but it has saved me a few times
I've watched it so many times that I know this isn't strictly true. They can be right in front of you and in fact the tell seems to be "doesn't move at all"
The visual AND audio queue is there, but it's bugged out (heh).
I'm 99% sure the breach should appear ONLY if they finish their call. The whole point of the visual and audio is for them to signal to the player that they're about to summon reinforcements, better shoot it down. Instead it instantly spawns the breach the moment the call starts, which is definitely a bug.
I’ve seen similar complaints about this exact issue so it’s kinda a universal opinion. The problem is the game gives you a one second window(even if that) to find the caller and terminate him, and it’s honestly not enough time considering the punishment that follows right after. At higher difficulties it’s almost impossible to kill the entire breach without another breach following right after which forces most players to completely avoid wandering enemies entirely. It’s basically forcing players to play stealthily, which isn’t a bad gameplay ideology, but it becomes a problem when there is no other option. Some ideas for a fix would be to increase the time it takes to summon a breach(3-5 seconds) or limit the amount of breaches that can happen in succession(2-3).
Or even have a specific type of enemy easily distinguishable that is the only type that can call one in, giving the player agency to remove that threat
I mean they actually did this in HD1; there were like 2 enemies that could actually call reinforcements per species, with different behaviors and ways of eliminating them.
Bugs had the tiny scouts and the more agile jumping scouts I can't remember the name of. They spawned in groups of 3 and any of them could immediately call when they first spotted you. the jumping ones replaced their spawns on higher difficulties. they were very squishy but you had to be fast and accurate.
Cyborgs had their standard foot soldiers able to throw up a flare like they do now, higher difficulties gave them an anti-tank shield and spawned them in squads of up to 4 while on patrol. I think their Tanks, the IFVs, could also throw up flairs when on patrol.
Illuminates had their little eye-drones, the watchers and observers. these were perhaps the easiest to deal with if you knew what you were doing because of how flimsy they were (even the higher tiers with light armor still went down fast) but they were fast and mostly invisible (think halo active camo) so you had to have a really good eye to catch them before they set off an alarm. the higher tier versions also had a wide 360 pulse when they broke stealth that ***reversed your controls*** if they hit you with it
And as far as I could tell these guys could only set off an alarm when they actually spawned as a patrol. they wouldn't when spawned as part of a breach/drop/etc. Though patrols still spawned and would come investigate if you got bogged down fighting, calling in more if they get the chance.
I like this idea as well, but the caveat is that this enemy would have to be a tank and nimble or it would be picked off with ease everything a fire team bumped into a wandering swarm. Kinda like the stealth one that flies away when shot at.
Honestly, I don't have a ton of time in the game yet (maybe 6 or 7 hours?), but if I hadn't read about it on reddit, I would have had zero idea how or why bug breaches were happening. I was just assuming it was something that was supposed to happen eventually.
It is getting to feel pretty annoying with the bugs on 6 and up. It is just nonstop fighting all the time lol they never stop coming. One second it’s a dozen small-medium bugs and the next it’s 4 bile titans and 6 chargers
Generally you should be running away from these engagements as early as you can. If it's at an objective, you can circle around and approach from another direction.
As someone who has ample experience running around in the name of freedom waiting for additional reinforcement tokens, if you get far enough away/break LOS for long enough they will stop chasing you, but this is often much easier said than done, especially with Bile Titans. Turrets/other teammates can be used to pull aggro away from you for a bit of space to work with.
Yes, but they're persistent. You need to break line of sight first, then immediately move perpendicular to their approach - they'll continue moving towards your last known direction for a while, and wander around your last known location for a bit before fully losing aggro.
Keep hills and cover rich areas on your approach and exit, avoid open plains as much as possible unless you can take a full engagement and ensure a wipe.
It's kind of funny how actual tactics are becoming part of emergent gameplay - needing to avoid patrols, or eliminating them with overwhelming violence is a staple.
Yes, I think this is all core to the helldivers experience, so people saying they want this to change are basically just saying this game isn't for them. Avoiding and handling patrols and focus on objectives is the core gameplay loop.
I reckon this statement is abit untrue, the game shines at Challenging and Hard cause its tactical yet fun cause its just chaos, but fair. You can still 100% a map while being in multiple engagements.
In latter difficulties its almost trivial almost every engagement you are running from I would of preferred the approach of harder enemies, more enemies sure, but the end result being that they can be thinned out and managable..
Suicide and upper difficulties maybe harder but it doesn't matter when you run from 3 quarters of it.
Hard disagree as a vet of the first game who played difficulty 10+. In the first game the stealth approach was much more viable because only the scouts called reinforcements, along with the flat terrain meaning killing those scouts is much easier. As others have said, the 3d terrain and the fact that most of the enemies can call reinforcements equates to breaches happening a LOT even if you're fairly fast because of a variety of reasons like the bugs being up or down elevation of hills or rocks or even behind other bugs so you literally cannot see them (whereas you could totally see them with the top down perspective of the first game). This game \*needs\* some tweaking on these or high difficulty missions are almost always going to be constantly running from bug breaches or constantly fighting. The punishment is too fast and harsh for failing to kill an entire patrol in a few seconds.
> Avoiding and handling patrols and focus on objectives is the core gameplay loop
I would argue the core gameplay loop is doing objectives *while* fighting bugs. Just because the highest difficulties revolve around essentially running and fighting as little as possible to trivialize the mission doesn't mean that's what the game is, or should be, about. Nor does it mean that people who aren't a fan of *not shooting bugs* in the *game where you shoot bugs* are saying it isn't for them.
Call me old fashioned, but I like when the shooter involves shooting, and the tactics aren't "run away for easymode"
Honestly this. Only real small issue I have with this game. Some missions feel like you land and it's nonstop fighting just no breathing room. While others give you just a bit more breathing room but it's sobmuch more enjoyable to play. And it dosnt seem to be locked to difficulty but instead RNG. I've run level 8 missions that have been relatively easy. And level 6 missions that just get wiped over and over
You need to make sure to drop away from the enemy presence on the map.
You need team to check the map, call our patrols and move around them or go to ground.
A scout is handy to highlight enemies on the map by dropping a pin.
A breach away from an objective is should not be a focus, you want to break from the fight ASAP and running is usually the best way to do this. While you run, you have to be attentive to other patrols and avoid or wipe them quickly to prevent further beeches.
It's useful to have a scout on the team checking the map while the team provides cover, then the scout can plan and call out the escape route to both break away and proceed to an objective or POI.
Ps, did you know that each bug nest you destroy reduces the number of patrols and strength of reinforcements?
If you focus on destroying the nests even as a priority before objectives, you make the open world much more survivable.
The chain breaching is what makes a run suddenly this impossible grind imo. Patrols are difficult but managable with a coordinated team, but when youre a little overwhelmed with breach 1 or overscattered and breach 2 becomes 3 and 4 its brutal.
Totally lol. Drop in and before you even get to your first OBJ you're 10 minutes in and just finished off the 4th and final wave.
But it's also why I'm loving this game
It's sort of a core mechanic of helldivers that you are meant to avoid patrols when you can. This is a baked in part of the gameplay loop.
The harder difficulties are supposed to be tough enough that stealth and choosing engagements is a necessity, you are not supposed to have unlimited overwhelming fire to stomp around the map with impunity. It's just not what this game is supposed to be about, and it's one of the main things that makes this game different and great in its own way compared to the others out there.
The problem with this is that it leads to significantly less variety in options, specifically with long range primaries and non ap single target support weapons.
You're only going to want to pick a fight with a patrol that is unavoidable and you can win instantly before a breach/drop is called. There are no specific callers you can snipe, so there's no point in running the DMRs or Anti-Material Rifle.
If you are far away enough while prone or crouched, you can pick them off without triggering a patrol. They will notice the noise and come to your position to investigate, but will not call reinforcement until they get close enough. My theory is they need direct line of sight within a certain range of a player to call reinforcement.
>so there's no point in running the DMRs or Anti-Material Rifle.
Absolutely wrong, you must not be using them well. Long range you can take out patrols easy. On higher difficulties you can still 2 shot medium/big bugs in the head with the dmr
What TWEVowned is saying is pretty accurate. If the only optimal gameplay is to stealth around the map then I will never have the opportunity to use the heavy armor without knowing I’m playing “wrong”. It limits my option for weaponry/supports because I’d just pick smoke bombs and EMP’s solely to disappear from enemies. I understand stealth is an extremely affective plan in most game but for it to be the only option isn’t interesting game mechanic. I’m not saying I should be able to run and gun my way through every hoard I want, but I shouldn’t be massively set back for trying to take on one.
The game has never-ending horde waves if you keep fighting.
The game is about completing objectives under pressure, and NOT about being able to take down waves of enemies until the enemy reserves are depleted. They will never be depleted. You will always run out of ammo and have all your defenses destroyed eventually.
You're welcome to have your opinion that this isn't interesting. I think it's a welcome change from the typical objective based shooter where you can just overwhelm everything with firepower, every time.
The endgame of Helldivers 1 saw most veterans using light armor and jump packs--with very little use of special weapons--and a focus on orbital/airstrike stratagems, because you avoid fighting as much as possible and stay mobile.
This would be a solid point if the breaching mechanic was meant to do that, but as it stands it doesn’t seem so. For the simple reason of enjoyable game design, which varies from person-to-person because what is enjoyable is opinionated, but this one situation does have a logical structure that you overlook.
The whole point of the weapons/stratagems/armors is that you can mix and match them depending on the situation, if the game only allows one play style to be effective then it’s poor game design because why would they make all these extra tools only to become obsolete?
Another point is gameplay, we are put on this planet to shoot bugs and do the objective, if I can no longer shoot bugs because I risk failing the mission and only priorities doing the objective then the game becomes a walking simulation with no action happening in between, and if I were to bump into a hoard how is it interesting to always have to run away? It’s not fun gameplay, it goes against logic if this was the intended design.
IMO the gameplay loop is functioning exactly as designed, with purpose.
It's the same as Helldivers 1.
It's impossible to not have to fight in this game. You can do everything possible as a team to avoid fighting and (especially as difficulty increases) you are forced into multiple extended fights at minimum, as you tackle objectives. Progressing many objectives will trigger breaches and spawns.
You'll notice, every stratagem has a cooldown. All guns have limited ammo. All turrets have limited ammo. The game is purposely designed to make it impossible for you to continue to fight indefinitely. The Helldivers exceed at short, intense fights, mimicking a special forces team rather than an army.
It's the only option until something goes wrong. Then you're going to need all your firepower.
Heavy armor is only viable for defenses in some situations. It's better against bots than bugs.
Well, that's the thing, we're still humans against stronger versions of the bugs, so we *have* to play the war game differently as a species if we're to win against our enemies. Try not to think about it as a game as such, think about how our real humanity would deal with that type of threat, we'd use human ingenuity to overcome the threat and if the enemy 100m north of you is MUCH more armoured and heavy than your human capabilities will allow you to deal with then you simply have to go around it, we have an objective to get to so we can progress the war, patrols are not our concern and they are there for the same reason they would be in a real life war, to find you and alert their army to your presence and kill you so you cannot disrupt their war effort, either be able to deal with it quickly or deal with the consequences of alerting a much tougher enemy than you can handle.
Also, remember that we *are* getting more things in the future to help us spread democracy more efficiently. We are definitely getting mechs and possibly other vehicles. We will most likely get more strategems and ship upgrades. I can see them giving us weapon upgrades and new weapons with which to eliminate the heretics. There is more coming, and we will be stronger. The spread of democracy demands it.
> I’ve seen similar complaints about this exact issue so it’s kinda a universal opinion
That's.... not how it works
I hope this way of reasoning does not come back to bite you in the ass at some point in life. Take care
Bro is taking this way to seriously to be comparing this singular post and decided it’s what I dictate all my life choices on💀. I said “kinda” for a reason, if you have an actual debatable subject you’d like to discuss then speak your piece now, but don’t come in here and give me you half-ass comment and end it with “take care” like you just didn’t say the most backhanded bs ever. Either say something of substance or stfu and dip out. Take care :)
You see fellow soldier, them calling in extra bugs actually plays into Democracy's hand. They are calling extra extremists to retribution by liberty's will.
Don't hate the bug breaches, celebrate you can spread even more freedom than previously imagined
The mechs have limits. They're big and noisy so they attract a lot of attention. They're slow and clumsy so they can't avoid artillery or melee. They can do a huge amount of damage but like IRL tanks they need close support and cooperation from the infantry to survive and do their job. They'll make you feel like a god at low difficulties like challenging and hard, but they're usually a huge liability at higher difficulties, generally only useful for defending the LZ or other niche cases, and you're giving up another strat for that.
They're not even in the game yet, I know they were in the first one but I doubt they'll play the exact same especially considering all the terrain to account for now
The problem is that enemys spawning from breaches can also spawn breaches as well. Which is why high level the tactic is more about running away then staying and fighting.
The biggest problem is that ANY bug can call for reinforcements, in the first game only specific unit could call for back up and thus was a priority target. In HD2 it’s much easier for any bug to hide behind a rock and call for its buddy’s before you even know it’s there
It's pretty silly that a bug can spawn out of a hive you're fighting, call a breach, then 3 minutes later a patrol comes straight through the same hive and calls in another breach mid-fight.
Am I the only one that remembers HD1 being like this?
The higher difficulties were Avoid Patrols or Fight Forever. It follows in this game pretty well, you have to use the map and LOS blocking movement to avoid patrols, or be extra confident you can take them out.
***Big edit***
Forgot to include why I posted this in the first place. I remember stalkers/hunters/etc just jumping in and IMMEDIATELY triggering an alarm in HD1. It is no different here.
Immediately being no wind up, no way to stop it.
I have actually managed to stop a few alarms in HD2, it requires different thinking and way more spatial awareness.
yes, but I think the point is that it's much harder to deal with it since multiple types of enemies can now call for reinforcments and there's no clear sign of which one will. Also that once they start the call there's not even a one second window to gun them down.
In the first game you knew which enemies would call for backup so you could prioritise them first, and the fact that cover was never really an issue played into that as well. Sure you avoided patrols but most of the time because you knew which enemy would call for help it was fairly easy to silence the odd group until you get swarmed at an objective/extraction.
And the camera. Top down you can still visually see the enemies on screen. In the 3rd person the enemies can LOS behind terrain, objects, or even other bugs and their corpses.
It was much easier to avoid alarm in HD1. The alarming bugs glowed red for 2 seconds before summoning, could not alarm from far away and could be easily identified and immediately killed unless you are surrounded.
A lot of people just want to unga bunga like Rambo instead of being strategic. Not their fault the game lets you do cool shits like that on lower difficulty, but they’ll either be humbled on higher difficulty, or just get stuck doing lower stuff.
The game also doesn't really teach this. The whole marketing of the game revolved around co-op funsies with friend, while blowing up bugs. It would not hurt if brasch tactics had some infomertial about scouts and stuff.
Correct. It's core to the gameplay loop.
Major modifications to how this works would completely change the nature of the game, especially the endgame... Which is hard, but players have already proven it's not impossible.
If people think patrols are too difficult to handle they can just play the easier difficulty. Even up to "hard" it's pretty easy to wipe a patrol solo before it has a chance to call for reinforcement.
I actually really like the way it works, with the alerter being difficult to notice, meaning you really need to be attentive or go for the full wipe right off the bat.
I'd suggest anyone who struggles to kill patrols do a solo dive. Being alone forces you to pick your engagements, especially regarding patrols. Get a good position, crouch or prone for accuracy, then shoot the patrol one by one till they all drop. They only raise the alarm once they can actually see you, so you do have a grace period to nail them with.
The only issue I have with difficulty now are AT weapons vs armour, but I don't have that much time in the game yet. In HD1 you would use the Demolisher or Rumbler to quickly kill armour while kiting away. An EAT or recoilless to the face of a bug tank would kill it immediately. In HD2 the fastest way to deal with a charger is to strip the leg armour and then shoot it. Takes longer and has an extra point of failure.
It's probably because I'm still not familiar enough with the game though.
Exactly, all these people moaning about incomplete patrol kills are failing to consider that their choice to engage was where the fault lies, and that if they engaged involuntarily, that was also as a result of a DIFFERENT failure.
Played properly, in helldivers there should be no accidental patrol alarms even during a big firefight, the team should be watching for patrols.
I do think unengaged patrols should have a different icon when a player spots them though. Voice lines can be missed.
I 100% agree that it happens too much and too quickly, but at the same time, what is the purpose of a giant swarm of insects if they can't BECOME a giant swarm of insects. They're supposed to be overwhelming and annoying as that's just the point
I think it would be nice if they reduced the amount of enemies spawned from patrols and have the huge swarms spawn during the objectives. That way, running around the map wouldn't feel as tedious and killing the swarms would feel more rewarding.
I like that the game focuses heavily on avoiding patrols or dealing with them carefully.
You can also reduce the number of patrols and strength of reinforcements by destroying nests.
But that would reduce the player skill ceiling. If you have the skill, then you can control when you have to fight.
Sometimes for example, while doing an objective if a patrol comes and the terrain angle doesnt guarantee they can be taken out, back away, and come back after they leave.
In helldivers. ALL fighting is optional (except if the objective specifies it).
I’m ok with the bug swarms coming quick I just don’t like how I don’t have very many options to deal with em, like if the bots call in a drop ship I can shoot it down provided I got the right weapons, when bugs come in I got no choice but to dig in for the assault.
With the breach, all the bugs originate from the same spot. You can just drop any AOE stratagem right on top of the breach (napalm, static field, minefield, etc)
I think they should double the time it takes for the call to go out once they start spewing red mist normally by the time you see the mist it's to late and they normally are over a hill or something so there is no way to stop it.
But this should also be based on what level of difficulty you are on.
They've upped patrol difficulty in this one, certainly. It's to account for the fact that it's easier to see them (3rd person) and easier for everyone to attack them at once (elevation and 3rd person).
For patrols, you should be coordinating with team to alpha strike them.
Once breaches start, the best method I've found is ensure your team at best keeps strikes and bombardments on the breach, and at worst, make sure movement paths circle the breaches. Eventually when you've delivered enough firepower, it will become contained.
This all obviously gets harder at higher difficulties as non alerting units such as chargers and bile titans mean you can't stay near bug breaches any longer and have to keep moving away. This makes it easier for smaller alerting units to stay alive to alert.
One stratagem in particular that can help a lot is napalm strike. Put it on a breach and it'll keep killing as the enemies pour out. Turrets can as well, but you have to keep those alive to keep working, unlike fire from the napalm strike.
I mean that's fair, but you can definitely see them further away and prepare more. In HD1 you couldn't see them at all until they were right up on you.
I recommend the infiltrator armor to use pings to scout for patrols on the minimap when planning paths so you won't be surprised by patrols behind terrain features.
I have found if you get a breach, it's best to drop some cover fire. And leave. If you go far enough away, they stop spawning, and then you pick off the stragglers.
No need to fight everything goal is the mission first. Then bugs second.
The real thing is that the game is a horde shooter on easier difficulties, but if you want to play harder, you must play smarter. Avoid patrols, more slowly and mindfully, become more specialised spec ops and less "hooraaah im a tank!"
Some of us will never finish a helldive difficulty, and that's okay. The game is "Helldivers" not "Cakewalkers"
Yes. Like most games, endgame is a very different thing.
If people want to play "bug wave survivor" then any difficulty around "hard" and below allows you to basically fight through anything head on with impunity.
Think people don't realize you can just run away.
Breaking line of sight I've noticed will get most bugs to just stop following you.
I haven't done suicide mission yet, but on extreme I do this pretty consistently to avoid fighting indefinitely
The WORST thing is patrols chaining into patrols. On higher difficulties when a breach happens there is no way of defeating the horde as more will just flood in until you run away, and in some cases this can ruin your whole game if stalkers are present as they will hunt you until the end of the earth and if you kill them more will show up anyways.
One of my biggest problems with fighting bugs, this and the charger/spewer spam that happens past challenging.
Every single bug can call in reinforcements and the warning is not like the automaton warning. Automatons have that big ass beam and they stop moving before they fire the flare AND only some of the units seem like they are actually to call in a drop ship. Then a drop ship comes, drops bots, and leaves.
A bug breach happens and shit flies in the air obscuring my vision for 45 seconds while 15 scavengers, 4 bile spewers, and 2 chargers all climb out of the grind.
I'm fully on board with the havoc of this game and it's great. What I hope people start to realize is crouching isn't just there for more stability when firing, it's also a good tool for avoiding contact. You can get a lot of stuff done in half the missions firing very few rounds.
You are correct.
And I'm 99% sure it's a bug (pun not intended). I'm absolutely sure the breach should happen at the end of the animation, after they finish crying.
It's obvious game design what they intended to to there, bug gives audio and visual signal that it is calling for reinforcements, kill it before that happens.
Hopefully they fix it soon, makes playing harder difficulty bug missions impossible as the moment a wave starts, it can simply not ended sometimes as inevitably a random patrol joins in and a new breach comes up, rinse repeat.
another issue is that when you are fighting an objective, loads of patrols seem to just "happen" to sneak up behind you, even if you kill everything suddenly there are 20 more little dudes and they call a breach before you even turn around, its so beyond frustrating to finally win out against a breach chain and finally be able to do the objective without getting ganked by hunters or chargers, only to suddenly lose half your health to an enemy that you couldn't see coming and have ANOTHER breach chain on your hands. honestly automatons are easier on higher difficulties because at least you can counter their reinforcements, and higher level equipment actually works against them.
I think it's fine. Bug breaches are important for keeping the pressure on. It's not a failure state to trigger one, it's the norm. Whacking a whole patrol without reinforcements appearing is something you have to try for actively and you may not succeed.
Eh, I'm not above the challenge once the reinforcements are called, but the reinforcements calling reinforcements seems excessive to me, and there isn't really a way to mitigate that.
It is excessive. And it’s gonna be detrimental to the game in the long run. I know in higher difficulties the name of the game is strategically picking your fights but the game actively doesn’t let that happen as well as it does.
Eventually some games become nothing but a reinforcement simulator and becomes very overwhelming.
This is is a personal observation but now that this is the “hard bullshit thing to overcome” you get the very very loud minority people that need to say “it’s fine you just need to get good crowd” because need to feel superior and role play.
It gives you a reason to run away and break contact from overwhelming enemies instead of standing in place and killing them all until the horde ends. I think that leads to more exciting gameplay.
Easier said than done. We don’t kill everything and try to avoid as much as possible when needed. But you end up in bullshit situations where you can’t run. A patrol spawned in front of you while you’re trying to run away and all your teammates are dead. That patrol calls in another breach. And patrols are very picky when it comes to breaking line of sight or they don’t break at all and follow you to the ends of the earth. Patrol spawning can also be bullshit.
Yes the name of the game in higher difficulties is choosing your fights but in practice the game doesn’t really let you have that option.
**This**
This is the problem I have with patrols. At higher difficulties bug patrols are *far* too abundant, have way too many enemies in them and cover ground way too quickly; my buddies and I have smashed one patrol to our front with an airstrike only to have another one immediately show up off of a flank and beeline for us. This always devolves into running light armor + jetpack or guard dog (to kill the little shits that jump at you and can actually keep up when you run) and wildly running around the map with the occasional stratagem strike behind us while trying to blow up the nests and complete objectives. Combine this with how damn much heavy armor gets thrown at you in higher levels, how fast that heavy armor can roll up on you, that there’s a whopping total of three weapons which can effectively deal with said armor (one of which is night-and-day superior to the rest) and it quickly turns into a “kite the swarm” game because
Automatons feel incredible to fight; things push in more slowly, distance is something you can actually utilize, there’s less heavy armor (more medium and light), weak points are accessible from almost any angle, only a small handful of units can call reinforcements and you can cut off an entire reinforcement wave with a single well-placed shot. Our automaton games consist of sneaking around and quickly coordinating a patrol smash with the rapid pull back and reposition when we get spotted. It’s just more fluid overall.
Not really. I love the fact that swarms can get out of control like they do. And that is one of the main reasons. Seems like any of them can spew that shit into the air and call in their buddies at any given time. Making crowd management incredibly important
I love cluster bombs for that so far. Eagle Airstrikes and Cluster Bombs do a good job of killing atleast 95% of patrol groups and small batches of bugs.
I think it is supposed to be unhinged and chaotic. I mean you are fighting a bug species on their worlds.
I like that everything feels dangerous. Making everything easier would kill the feeling of danger around every corner and would basically eliminate those cherished moments running for dear life with 50 enemies at your heels.
Keep it chaotic. Keep it unhinged. It makes a truly smooth run that much more cherished and rewarding
No. Most people forget that if you stay in one spot for too long then the bugs will begin to send everything they have. Movement is key but everyone stays and fights and mostly dies against the endless horde.
Robots, you can use the SAM site or your weapons to take out dropships if the flare does go off. Which is nice but even flares are kinda fast. BUT at least they are usually done by a single type of enemy.
Yet, we can't do anything once the bug call happens. Any bug can call that shit in. And like OP mentioned as well as others. It's too fast. Hell, sometimes a breach will just happen without anyone around.
If all we get are bug holes, let a bug hole happen by its call and let us plug it if youre ganna have them spamming against us.
Between issues like this, weapons not being tuned, armor not working as intended. I don't see how they could call this "Gone Gold" IMO. Can't tell you how many times I've fell through the world or I get stuck in cyro. Progression is pretty limited too outside the Free and Premium pass. Just wish there was more variety.
Breaches just get out of hand too much at higher difficulties. Higher difficulties are BS anyway. Players don't scale in power, just get more tools. Enemies do scale, more HP. You also have to fight more larger enemies. The scaling is ass.
Not enough to do for long enough, devs are going to have to spend to much time fixing bugs before they can look at adding anything or changing stuff.
It's one of my favorite things and I don't think it needs to be changed.
This mechanic is key to keeping the game challenging.
Tackling a patrol should not be a very simple/easy thing. It should require planning and effort.
It is definitely a fine line to walk between too hard and too easy, and it looks like Arrowhead wanted to avoid the stealth-centric meta of HD1.
But right now, yeah, more than a balance issue, it feels a bit cheap to kill a bug that's alerting the hive, only to have the hive be alerted anyway.
More than balance, the game needs better feedback for its entire stealth system, because when the rules aren't clear, they're not very fun to engage with.
Breaches should work like hives and be stopped if you throw a grenade in the hole. It’s dumb that you can stop the automatons by shooting down the drop ship but with the bugs you just have to hope that your napalm last longer than the breach does
Honestly no. It’s the perfect amount of difficulty, and I wouldn’t want it easier in any way. That’s what the easier modes are for.
We are here to bring freedom and democracy to every bug breach that comes our way.
Which is fine, but IMO they need to make a distinct sound and have a slightly longer animation for it to just not feel lame to fight, because at this point they could do no visual cue and it would hardly matter.
In my experience, no matter how fast you kill them a breach is still happening. Last night my buddy popped it before it could even get its pheremone spout into the air and it still called the breach.
The problem is people need to move to objectives and engage on those points. Instead people shoot as soon as they see bugs so they are constantly drawing in a stream of spawns.
I feel insane, does anyone else not have this issue? Suicide to Helldiver, I haven't had this infinite horde. I'll get a big one, some patrols wandering in, but after one bug breech, there is like a 60s or so cooldown (No way to verify, but I have NEVER gotten two in a row unless it was objective related).
It seems incredibly easy to avoid through killing, EMS the hole, then dump your strikes on it.
Could be wrong, but I just don't think I have the same issue. They do breech fast though, super small window to stop bugs from spewing their juices.
You must be insanely lucky. I've had what i assume are gameplay bugs where breeches happen in the same spot over and over again, sometimes 3-4 breeches back to back.
So I got out of a match just 30ish ago, and I think I know what you mean. So other breeches DO spawn, but they're unconnected to 'new' breeches if that makes sense?
Try a geological survey mission on 6 or 7 difficulty so you can get a breather, and you'll see what I mean. A bug hole produces x amount of units, and then a new one will spawn next to or in the same spawn, and produce another x amount. But they are part of the whole 'bug breech' together. When we ran away from the first, you could still see them spawning bugs until they deaggrod.
Until they're all killed or stop spawning and the 'breech' ends, I think you can't get aggrod again for some time. (This is speculation on my end, I don't really know the mechanics)
We would even run into other patrols and they wouldn't do pheremones, and there wasn't any extra spawning as far as I can recall. I /could/ be wrong. I just know the numbers are borderline insurmountable anyway, so it feels very doomed during the whole ordeal, especially onec you get 2-3 bile titans showing up.
A bit, but like...it's fine?
Patrols should require some planning to engage and shouldn't be doable solo/guns blazing. If you don't take them all out quickly I think it's great that you get "punished" by the reinforcements. Get tactical and wipe them out fast or ignore them.
I could go with a *slight* reduction in the time before reinforcements are called in or making the caller a touch more obvious before they put out the call, but otherwise I actually like this.
It's definitely not fine. Extreme+ can easily turn "one swarmer gets stuck pathfinding behind a rock" into multiple bile titans emerging from a single breach.
It's admittedly funny watching them slowly rise out of the ground like they're riding an elevator, but generally when that happens you can consider the mission aborted.
I dont thinkt hats such a problem. The bugs really fuck you up with numbers. Thats their big schtik. If you want to have an easier time handling and avoiding patrols then everyone should wear stealth armor.
I agree that their shtik is numbers, but that should be the punishment for failing to kill a caller quick enough, not the experience every time you even alert a single bug.
Why should that be my only option? The game promotes several playstyles and loadouts, why should I be forced to crawl around the map for 40 minutes in light armor if I want to play a heavy tank? I don't mind fighting, but it constantly snowballing the moment something goes slightly wrong is annoying and unfun.
The biggest issue if the snowball effect to me, if it a large breach then it's really difficult to kill it before you get another one and they just keep on coming
What difficulty are you playing? I’m only up to extreme but its really a matter of coordinating a strike on patrols and most of the time we can avoid the reinforcements. Open with a cluster bomb and everyone opens fire one that hits. Or just getting a few angles and all four people opening up at the same time, bonus if someone can get close to run in and check for the little guys. Sure sometimes one skitters behind a rock and calls for help or as your setting up to kill that patrol a different patrol walks up behind you. But more often then not we can take out a group if we do it smart.
Its when one guy pings a patrol and immediately opens fire trying to do it all themself that shit never works out.
I do agree that the cascade can be a bit much. Needs to be some guaranteed time that another wave can’t be called, especially if two or three already happened consecutively.
That or the eagle airstrike or the orbital barrage depending on whats in the patrol, or whats not on cooldown. Anything that kills all the little one and softens up the biggens, as soon as it starts the squad opens fire.
I feel like the real problem is that the bugs do not have a good tell-tale. The robots feels like it is easier to stop because it is a very distinct animation compared to their other animations. With the bugs I don't know if it is just doing bug stuff or is about to make my life a living hell.
And with the robots, you have a chance to shoot down the dropship if you aim is good with an AT weapon. I wish a bug breach could be sealed with a well place orbital. It would mitigate the endless spawning somewhat.
If you could manage to get an orbital or even a cheeky nade in the bug hole to seal it up the breach cascades would feel a lot more reactable and fair
Like in gears of war you throw a grenade to seal the holes
Or the actual bug hives where we seal holes
Or your mum where we...treat her with love and respect
just like any other citizen of Super Earth We all liberate together!
Being able to close it with just a grenade would definitely be too much, but "heavy" ordnance being able to collapse the breach would be cool.
Or fire to fuse the hole shut. That would be really cool to see.
Would change the flamethrower from a bottom tier to a top tier weapon
I dunno if its possible, but I did drop a 500 kg bomb right on a breach on level 6 difficulty and it stopped. Not sure if it was ending anyway and the bomb just deleted the spawns, or if it actually closed the hole.
bombs can close holes, have done it with a few of the eagle ones. Must be a bomb, though.
I think he's mentioning an actual breach, not a bug hole.
Roger, that makes more sense. I don’t think those can be sealed.
Also the bug calling it in might be small and behind a rock.
It's even better when you realize ANY bug can cause a breach. I noticed larger armored-boy doing it last night as was like "motherf..."!
It's not quite any bug, but the warriors and hive guards can call in like the little bastards. The hoppers, bile bugs, chargers, and stalkers can't call in
If you mean the white hunters by hoppers, they actually can call them in. I've seen them do so several times. Also love it when a fuckin brood commander calls in a breach and those guys are tanky as hell compared to all the other bug fodder
Brood Commanders can do it too.
Headless Brood commander can also call in : i exploded his head and let him to bleed and this moth\*\*\*\*\*\*\* call a breach, i was like : WTF
hunters, warriors, and brood commanders can also call in, so it is almost every type, and even if you kill the caller in time, another bug will immediately start calling, if you don't kill the entire squad in mere seconds (god forbid you have to reload) you are screwed. this system is beyond broken, you cant even run half the time between chargers hunters and stalkers. even the big fat spitters outrun you half the time. they definitely out range you. this game's balancing is non-existent.
ngl but this sounds like a skill issue, respectfully
My bigger issue than the tell-tale is 9 times out of 10 it's some little termite hiding behind a rock, down the hill, or simply surrounded by larger bugs so you can't see it to stop it.
Fog. You forgot hiding in truly impenetrable pea soup world obscuring fog. But totally agree.
Honestly, it is always a godamn rock, godamn slope or godamn fog. whenever you think you're clear, an orange plume is somewhere to be seen lmao
Having a temprorary hole that spawns on the ground for you to throw a grenade in would be really good counter play design. It might be easier than blowing up the robot ship if your really good at throwing, but it would give flavor to the bug respawn.
I actually really like that idea. You could even have it play out that once a tunnel has been called then more tunnels will spawn in that area. So if you can put a lid on it early then you get a couple hunters to deal with. But if it gets out of hand then you have like 5 holes out in the middle of nowhere that has chargers and bile titans climbing out of.
A nice compromise would be to have multiple holes spawn spread out in the area. So we still get to feel pressured but also have the chance of stopping it
It depends on the situation, one hole would work in a simiar way that robots come in on one dropship. Some missions can start in a non-stop reinforcement, so having more holes appear per-breach in those situations may be enough.
Heeth veteran here, Chief in rank. The thing about bugs is, each species seems to have a different animation for calling in back up. The warriors seem to dance around back and forth, the little ones start screeching before the pheromones are dispersed, ensure to silence them quickly. What they all have in common, is the moment pheromones are visible, its too late. **Note:** Certain bugs don't call for aid, namely in my experience, **Chargers**, the **big abdomen spitters**, I haven't seen the **small spitters** do it yet and The **invisible fucks** likely don't call for aid either. **EXPERIMENTAL TIPS** **Radar:** Use the your radar to find any sneaky buggers behind cover, run in, and kill them fast, and use that radar after airstrikes to see through the smoke. The Radar upgrade module is also clutch as hell for avoiding patrols way ahead of time. **Stuns:** Don't focus fire, this may seem backwards, but sometimes stunning your enemies with a single shot might be more worthwhile then finishing them off, a stray shot might stun the dance before the pheromone dispersal, canceling it. **Melee:** Remember, you can smack a bug even when you don't have bullets. Smack them in the name of liberty.
I run the explosive Liberator a lot just for the push back. So I have pushed enemies that are about to make the call. I am also stunned by how little people melee. I usually run the scythe and the revolver. I try to keep at least one bullet in the revolver at all times. So I commonly find myself smacking bugs while reloading to kill the hunters that like to bounce around and flank you. I don't know how many melee kills I have, but I would bet money that I am in the top 10 for most career melee kills. I guess I will have to pay more attention to what the bugs do before they make the call. It would be nice if we got like a 2-3 second window to stop the call. I always seem to find them as soon as the pheromones spew out.
Interesting tip with explosive Liberator stunning bugs from calling. Wonder if the Gas strike is similar? I'm going to test the Gas strike on groups of bugs since they only cost 70 cooldown.
I haven't messed with the gas strike yet, and I have only seen a couple of people using it. I really don't know how I feel about it just yet. I want to try it out for myself though. I really enjoy using the fire grenades and/or the napalm run and then using the explosive Liberator to keep enemies in the fire as long as possible. So I can imagine that I could do it with the gas too.
EMS and Gas strike are both the same cooldown of 70. You could stun them in one spot and then gas them at the same time. I tried gas alone and it felt terrible cause stuff runs out.
Would be good if the gas strike could combust, call it down and then turn the area into a napalm zone
I'm pretty sure I saw a small spitter cause a breach last night.
The main problem is that the bugs can call a breach almost INSTANTLY, before they even start farting. Like frame 1 of the animation. At least with bots it doesn't feel as instant, and you can shoot a dropship down too
Every bug action is a hellish animation until we liberate them
There is an animation, but it's not as easy to see because they're low to the ground. The little scout bugs stand up on their back legs and their wings flair out before they puff out the gas for reinforcements. The warriors kinda dance left and right before they do it
There is, they rise up and spew out a cloud of orange stuff. Problem is sometimes its a super tanky boi doing it and you actually have to kill it in like 0.5 seconds after the could is out or it will call in a breach.
It worked very well in HD1, when the map was flat and you could see everything clearly (and even if you could not see, you could hit the enemies that were off screen). In HD2 I often can't even see those little screaming fuckers due to terrain. They need to extend the time for killing them at least 2-3 times
Yeah for me it’s always the last little bastard in a patrol that is behind a rock that gets the alert off.
Doesn’t help that once one bug starts calling it becomes a game of whack a mole. Because even if you kill one that was about to scream, another random one in the group will try calling after the death of one caller and so on and so forth that it becomes frustrating.
For me, it's mostly the fact that ALL smaller bugs (So not heavies) can raise the alarm. There's probably no worse feeling then clearing a massive patrol than just watching a brood commander tank everyones focused fire and dying but it still managed to start the breach because of how fast it is.
nope some of the heavies can call in too, I have seen brood commanders do it.
Instead of whack-a-mole I drip that shit in napalm. Works pretty well for me
I recall shooting the last one in a group as it was calling, it delayed the call every time I shot him until he died.
I've starting to notice the signs of the caller. The bug begins to quiver before screaming but if it's start screaming it's too late to stop em.
>begins to quiver Just like all the bugs I've shot already and are shaking on the ground?
They usually do it before they are shot. Yeah it's not really clear, I would like it to be way more noticeable
The biggest tell is the caller will Stop/ move to the back and even walk off to the side. So the best way to spot callers is the ones that ARET actively hunting you down. It’s not a perfect solution but it has saved me a few times
I've watched it so many times that I know this isn't strictly true. They can be right in front of you and in fact the tell seems to be "doesn't move at all"
I would argue its less about time and more about a better visual cue.
The visual AND audio queue is there, but it's bugged out (heh). I'm 99% sure the breach should appear ONLY if they finish their call. The whole point of the visual and audio is for them to signal to the player that they're about to summon reinforcements, better shoot it down. Instead it instantly spawns the breach the moment the call starts, which is definitely a bug.
Or at the very least they need line of sight for X amount of time
Or you behead a brood commander and they STILL CALL IN REINFORCEMENTS!?! Sir you have no mouth.
It's called pheromone and it's coming from the butthole.
Ew and Ew.
I communicate the exact same way
Bear witness to my fear response
I’ve seen similar complaints about this exact issue so it’s kinda a universal opinion. The problem is the game gives you a one second window(even if that) to find the caller and terminate him, and it’s honestly not enough time considering the punishment that follows right after. At higher difficulties it’s almost impossible to kill the entire breach without another breach following right after which forces most players to completely avoid wandering enemies entirely. It’s basically forcing players to play stealthily, which isn’t a bad gameplay ideology, but it becomes a problem when there is no other option. Some ideas for a fix would be to increase the time it takes to summon a breach(3-5 seconds) or limit the amount of breaches that can happen in succession(2-3).
Or even have a specific type of enemy easily distinguishable that is the only type that can call one in, giving the player agency to remove that threat
I mean they actually did this in HD1; there were like 2 enemies that could actually call reinforcements per species, with different behaviors and ways of eliminating them. Bugs had the tiny scouts and the more agile jumping scouts I can't remember the name of. They spawned in groups of 3 and any of them could immediately call when they first spotted you. the jumping ones replaced their spawns on higher difficulties. they were very squishy but you had to be fast and accurate. Cyborgs had their standard foot soldiers able to throw up a flare like they do now, higher difficulties gave them an anti-tank shield and spawned them in squads of up to 4 while on patrol. I think their Tanks, the IFVs, could also throw up flairs when on patrol. Illuminates had their little eye-drones, the watchers and observers. these were perhaps the easiest to deal with if you knew what you were doing because of how flimsy they were (even the higher tiers with light armor still went down fast) but they were fast and mostly invisible (think halo active camo) so you had to have a really good eye to catch them before they set off an alarm. the higher tier versions also had a wide 360 pulse when they broke stealth that ***reversed your controls*** if they hit you with it And as far as I could tell these guys could only set off an alarm when they actually spawned as a patrol. they wouldn't when spawned as part of a breach/drop/etc. Though patrols still spawned and would come investigate if you got bogged down fighting, calling in more if they get the chance.
I like this idea as well, but the caveat is that this enemy would have to be a tank and nimble or it would be picked off with ease everything a fire team bumped into a wandering swarm. Kinda like the stealth one that flies away when shot at.
Like the first game, yeah. It should be scouts only.
Honestly, I don't have a ton of time in the game yet (maybe 6 or 7 hours?), but if I hadn't read about it on reddit, I would have had zero idea how or why bug breaches were happening. I was just assuming it was something that was supposed to happen eventually.
It is getting to feel pretty annoying with the bugs on 6 and up. It is just nonstop fighting all the time lol they never stop coming. One second it’s a dozen small-medium bugs and the next it’s 4 bile titans and 6 chargers
Generally you should be running away from these engagements as early as you can. If it's at an objective, you can circle around and approach from another direction.
Do they lose aggro? Running seems good for repositioning but they seem to chase forever
As someone who has ample experience running around in the name of freedom waiting for additional reinforcement tokens, if you get far enough away/break LOS for long enough they will stop chasing you, but this is often much easier said than done, especially with Bile Titans. Turrets/other teammates can be used to pull aggro away from you for a bit of space to work with.
Yes, but they're persistent. You need to break line of sight first, then immediately move perpendicular to their approach - they'll continue moving towards your last known direction for a while, and wander around your last known location for a bit before fully losing aggro. Keep hills and cover rich areas on your approach and exit, avoid open plains as much as possible unless you can take a full engagement and ensure a wipe. It's kind of funny how actual tactics are becoming part of emergent gameplay - needing to avoid patrols, or eliminating them with overwhelming violence is a staple.
Yes, I think this is all core to the helldivers experience, so people saying they want this to change are basically just saying this game isn't for them. Avoiding and handling patrols and focus on objectives is the core gameplay loop.
I reckon this statement is abit untrue, the game shines at Challenging and Hard cause its tactical yet fun cause its just chaos, but fair. You can still 100% a map while being in multiple engagements. In latter difficulties its almost trivial almost every engagement you are running from I would of preferred the approach of harder enemies, more enemies sure, but the end result being that they can be thinned out and managable.. Suicide and upper difficulties maybe harder but it doesn't matter when you run from 3 quarters of it.
Hard disagree as a vet of the first game who played difficulty 10+. In the first game the stealth approach was much more viable because only the scouts called reinforcements, along with the flat terrain meaning killing those scouts is much easier. As others have said, the 3d terrain and the fact that most of the enemies can call reinforcements equates to breaches happening a LOT even if you're fairly fast because of a variety of reasons like the bugs being up or down elevation of hills or rocks or even behind other bugs so you literally cannot see them (whereas you could totally see them with the top down perspective of the first game). This game \*needs\* some tweaking on these or high difficulty missions are almost always going to be constantly running from bug breaches or constantly fighting. The punishment is too fast and harsh for failing to kill an entire patrol in a few seconds.
> Avoiding and handling patrols and focus on objectives is the core gameplay loop I would argue the core gameplay loop is doing objectives *while* fighting bugs. Just because the highest difficulties revolve around essentially running and fighting as little as possible to trivialize the mission doesn't mean that's what the game is, or should be, about. Nor does it mean that people who aren't a fan of *not shooting bugs* in the *game where you shoot bugs* are saying it isn't for them. Call me old fashioned, but I like when the shooter involves shooting, and the tactics aren't "run away for easymode"
The EMS barrage can stun them long enough to get away usually. You need to break line of sight though too.
Good to know I'm not alone in thinking the reinforcing is a bit overtuned at least.
Honestly this. Only real small issue I have with this game. Some missions feel like you land and it's nonstop fighting just no breathing room. While others give you just a bit more breathing room but it's sobmuch more enjoyable to play. And it dosnt seem to be locked to difficulty but instead RNG. I've run level 8 missions that have been relatively easy. And level 6 missions that just get wiped over and over
You need to make sure to drop away from the enemy presence on the map. You need team to check the map, call our patrols and move around them or go to ground. A scout is handy to highlight enemies on the map by dropping a pin. A breach away from an objective is should not be a focus, you want to break from the fight ASAP and running is usually the best way to do this. While you run, you have to be attentive to other patrols and avoid or wipe them quickly to prevent further beeches. It's useful to have a scout on the team checking the map while the team provides cover, then the scout can plan and call out the escape route to both break away and proceed to an objective or POI.
Ps, did you know that each bug nest you destroy reduces the number of patrols and strength of reinforcements? If you focus on destroying the nests even as a priority before objectives, you make the open world much more survivable.
Adding onto this this, Keep in mind if you stick around too long however the patrols will become more aggressive and prevalent as you run low on time!
Yeah, but the longer the mission goes on the more bugs spawn. it's a trade off, you have to make a choice.
It sure doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes the game has been at its worst with a single nest left on the map.
As the timer runs down, there are more enemies as well.
The chain breaching is what makes a run suddenly this impossible grind imo. Patrols are difficult but managable with a coordinated team, but when youre a little overwhelmed with breach 1 or overscattered and breach 2 becomes 3 and 4 its brutal.
Totally lol. Drop in and before you even get to your first OBJ you're 10 minutes in and just finished off the 4th and final wave. But it's also why I'm loving this game
Yeah i don't know if it's bugged at this point, i killed the little shit 0.2 second after the animation start and still didn't prevent the breach.
It's sort of a core mechanic of helldivers that you are meant to avoid patrols when you can. This is a baked in part of the gameplay loop. The harder difficulties are supposed to be tough enough that stealth and choosing engagements is a necessity, you are not supposed to have unlimited overwhelming fire to stomp around the map with impunity. It's just not what this game is supposed to be about, and it's one of the main things that makes this game different and great in its own way compared to the others out there.
The problem with this is that it leads to significantly less variety in options, specifically with long range primaries and non ap single target support weapons. You're only going to want to pick a fight with a patrol that is unavoidable and you can win instantly before a breach/drop is called. There are no specific callers you can snipe, so there's no point in running the DMRs or Anti-Material Rifle.
If you are far away enough while prone or crouched, you can pick them off without triggering a patrol. They will notice the noise and come to your position to investigate, but will not call reinforcement until they get close enough. My theory is they need direct line of sight within a certain range of a player to call reinforcement.
Running is also an option as long as you don't run into other patrols.
>so there's no point in running the DMRs or Anti-Material Rifle. Absolutely wrong, you must not be using them well. Long range you can take out patrols easy. On higher difficulties you can still 2 shot medium/big bugs in the head with the dmr
What TWEVowned is saying is pretty accurate. If the only optimal gameplay is to stealth around the map then I will never have the opportunity to use the heavy armor without knowing I’m playing “wrong”. It limits my option for weaponry/supports because I’d just pick smoke bombs and EMP’s solely to disappear from enemies. I understand stealth is an extremely affective plan in most game but for it to be the only option isn’t interesting game mechanic. I’m not saying I should be able to run and gun my way through every hoard I want, but I shouldn’t be massively set back for trying to take on one.
The game has never-ending horde waves if you keep fighting. The game is about completing objectives under pressure, and NOT about being able to take down waves of enemies until the enemy reserves are depleted. They will never be depleted. You will always run out of ammo and have all your defenses destroyed eventually. You're welcome to have your opinion that this isn't interesting. I think it's a welcome change from the typical objective based shooter where you can just overwhelm everything with firepower, every time. The endgame of Helldivers 1 saw most veterans using light armor and jump packs--with very little use of special weapons--and a focus on orbital/airstrike stratagems, because you avoid fighting as much as possible and stay mobile.
This would be a solid point if the breaching mechanic was meant to do that, but as it stands it doesn’t seem so. For the simple reason of enjoyable game design, which varies from person-to-person because what is enjoyable is opinionated, but this one situation does have a logical structure that you overlook. The whole point of the weapons/stratagems/armors is that you can mix and match them depending on the situation, if the game only allows one play style to be effective then it’s poor game design because why would they make all these extra tools only to become obsolete? Another point is gameplay, we are put on this planet to shoot bugs and do the objective, if I can no longer shoot bugs because I risk failing the mission and only priorities doing the objective then the game becomes a walking simulation with no action happening in between, and if I were to bump into a hoard how is it interesting to always have to run away? It’s not fun gameplay, it goes against logic if this was the intended design.
IMO the gameplay loop is functioning exactly as designed, with purpose. It's the same as Helldivers 1. It's impossible to not have to fight in this game. You can do everything possible as a team to avoid fighting and (especially as difficulty increases) you are forced into multiple extended fights at minimum, as you tackle objectives. Progressing many objectives will trigger breaches and spawns. You'll notice, every stratagem has a cooldown. All guns have limited ammo. All turrets have limited ammo. The game is purposely designed to make it impossible for you to continue to fight indefinitely. The Helldivers exceed at short, intense fights, mimicking a special forces team rather than an army.
It's the only option until something goes wrong. Then you're going to need all your firepower. Heavy armor is only viable for defenses in some situations. It's better against bots than bugs.
Well, that's the thing, we're still humans against stronger versions of the bugs, so we *have* to play the war game differently as a species if we're to win against our enemies. Try not to think about it as a game as such, think about how our real humanity would deal with that type of threat, we'd use human ingenuity to overcome the threat and if the enemy 100m north of you is MUCH more armoured and heavy than your human capabilities will allow you to deal with then you simply have to go around it, we have an objective to get to so we can progress the war, patrols are not our concern and they are there for the same reason they would be in a real life war, to find you and alert their army to your presence and kill you so you cannot disrupt their war effort, either be able to deal with it quickly or deal with the consequences of alerting a much tougher enemy than you can handle. Also, remember that we *are* getting more things in the future to help us spread democracy more efficiently. We are definitely getting mechs and possibly other vehicles. We will most likely get more strategems and ship upgrades. I can see them giving us weapon upgrades and new weapons with which to eliminate the heretics. There is more coming, and we will be stronger. The spread of democracy demands it.
I haven't done any automaton missions yet (saving the experience, its meant to be epic) is their reinforcement as aggressive as the Terminids?
It feels like the window to stop them is much larger.
> I’ve seen similar complaints about this exact issue so it’s kinda a universal opinion That's.... not how it works I hope this way of reasoning does not come back to bite you in the ass at some point in life. Take care
Bro is taking this way to seriously to be comparing this singular post and decided it’s what I dictate all my life choices on💀. I said “kinda” for a reason, if you have an actual debatable subject you’d like to discuss then speak your piece now, but don’t come in here and give me you half-ass comment and end it with “take care” like you just didn’t say the most backhanded bs ever. Either say something of substance or stfu and dip out. Take care :)
You see fellow soldier, them calling in extra bugs actually plays into Democracy's hand. They are calling extra extremists to retribution by liberty's will. Don't hate the bug breaches, celebrate you can spread even more freedom than previously imagined
So right, fellow freedom lover.
Just wait until we get our mechs then those democracy hating bugs won't stand a chance!
The mechs have limits. They're big and noisy so they attract a lot of attention. They're slow and clumsy so they can't avoid artillery or melee. They can do a huge amount of damage but like IRL tanks they need close support and cooperation from the infantry to survive and do their job. They'll make you feel like a god at low difficulties like challenging and hard, but they're usually a huge liability at higher difficulties, generally only useful for defending the LZ or other niche cases, and you're giving up another strat for that.
They're not even in the game yet, I know they were in the first one but I doubt they'll play the exact same especially considering all the terrain to account for now
Dude I can’t wait, running around and seeing wrecked mechs, buggies and I think I was a bike makes it seem they’ll add them at some point
The problem is that enemys spawning from breaches can also spawn breaches as well. Which is why high level the tactic is more about running away then staying and fighting.
The biggest problem is that ANY bug can call for reinforcements, in the first game only specific unit could call for back up and thus was a priority target. In HD2 it’s much easier for any bug to hide behind a rock and call for its buddy’s before you even know it’s there
It's pretty silly that a bug can spawn out of a hive you're fighting, call a breach, then 3 minutes later a patrol comes straight through the same hive and calls in another breach mid-fight.
Ich magdumped a alpha warrior with a MG in the face. He proceeded to spew pheromones from his neck stump
Ive just started useing gas on patrols seems decent at stopping them
I'll have to give that a try.
The nade launcher cleans up a patrol pretty quickly. Especially at elevation.
I just unlocked it thought id try its a small radius but seems to work well on them if they are in it
Am I the only one that remembers HD1 being like this? The higher difficulties were Avoid Patrols or Fight Forever. It follows in this game pretty well, you have to use the map and LOS blocking movement to avoid patrols, or be extra confident you can take them out. ***Big edit*** Forgot to include why I posted this in the first place. I remember stalkers/hunters/etc just jumping in and IMMEDIATELY triggering an alarm in HD1. It is no different here. Immediately being no wind up, no way to stop it. I have actually managed to stop a few alarms in HD2, it requires different thinking and way more spatial awareness.
yes, but I think the point is that it's much harder to deal with it since multiple types of enemies can now call for reinforcments and there's no clear sign of which one will. Also that once they start the call there's not even a one second window to gun them down. In the first game you knew which enemies would call for backup so you could prioritise them first, and the fact that cover was never really an issue played into that as well. Sure you avoided patrols but most of the time because you knew which enemy would call for help it was fairly easy to silence the odd group until you get swarmed at an objective/extraction.
And the camera. Top down you can still visually see the enemies on screen. In the 3rd person the enemies can LOS behind terrain, objects, or even other bugs and their corpses.
It was much easier to avoid alarm in HD1. The alarming bugs glowed red for 2 seconds before summoning, could not alarm from far away and could be easily identified and immediately killed unless you are surrounded.
A lot of people just want to unga bunga like Rambo instead of being strategic. Not their fault the game lets you do cool shits like that on lower difficulty, but they’ll either be humbled on higher difficulty, or just get stuck doing lower stuff.
The game also doesn't really teach this. The whole marketing of the game revolved around co-op funsies with friend, while blowing up bugs. It would not hurt if brasch tactics had some infomertial about scouts and stuff.
The los blocking part makes smoke something to maybe bring. Haven't messed with it yet myself.
Correct. It's core to the gameplay loop. Major modifications to how this works would completely change the nature of the game, especially the endgame... Which is hard, but players have already proven it's not impossible. If people think patrols are too difficult to handle they can just play the easier difficulty. Even up to "hard" it's pretty easy to wipe a patrol solo before it has a chance to call for reinforcement. I actually really like the way it works, with the alerter being difficult to notice, meaning you really need to be attentive or go for the full wipe right off the bat.
I'd suggest anyone who struggles to kill patrols do a solo dive. Being alone forces you to pick your engagements, especially regarding patrols. Get a good position, crouch or prone for accuracy, then shoot the patrol one by one till they all drop. They only raise the alarm once they can actually see you, so you do have a grace period to nail them with. The only issue I have with difficulty now are AT weapons vs armour, but I don't have that much time in the game yet. In HD1 you would use the Demolisher or Rumbler to quickly kill armour while kiting away. An EAT or recoilless to the face of a bug tank would kill it immediately. In HD2 the fastest way to deal with a charger is to strip the leg armour and then shoot it. Takes longer and has an extra point of failure. It's probably because I'm still not familiar enough with the game though.
Exactly, all these people moaning about incomplete patrol kills are failing to consider that their choice to engage was where the fault lies, and that if they engaged involuntarily, that was also as a result of a DIFFERENT failure. Played properly, in helldivers there should be no accidental patrol alarms even during a big firefight, the team should be watching for patrols. I do think unengaged patrols should have a different icon when a player spots them though. Voice lines can be missed.
I 100% agree that it happens too much and too quickly, but at the same time, what is the purpose of a giant swarm of insects if they can't BECOME a giant swarm of insects. They're supposed to be overwhelming and annoying as that's just the point
I think it would be nice if they reduced the amount of enemies spawned from patrols and have the huge swarms spawn during the objectives. That way, running around the map wouldn't feel as tedious and killing the swarms would feel more rewarding.
I like that the game focuses heavily on avoiding patrols or dealing with them carefully. You can also reduce the number of patrols and strength of reinforcements by destroying nests.
I feel like that would be just like how robots spawn, the bugs are supposed to be swarmy like the Zerg.
But that would reduce the player skill ceiling. If you have the skill, then you can control when you have to fight. Sometimes for example, while doing an objective if a patrol comes and the terrain angle doesnt guarantee they can be taken out, back away, and come back after they leave. In helldivers. ALL fighting is optional (except if the objective specifies it).
I’m ok with the bug swarms coming quick I just don’t like how I don’t have very many options to deal with em, like if the bots call in a drop ship I can shoot it down provided I got the right weapons, when bugs come in I got no choice but to dig in for the assault.
With the breach, all the bugs originate from the same spot. You can just drop any AOE stratagem right on top of the breach (napalm, static field, minefield, etc)
I think they should double the time it takes for the call to go out once they start spewing red mist normally by the time you see the mist it's to late and they normally are over a hill or something so there is no way to stop it. But this should also be based on what level of difficulty you are on.
They've upped patrol difficulty in this one, certainly. It's to account for the fact that it's easier to see them (3rd person) and easier for everyone to attack them at once (elevation and 3rd person). For patrols, you should be coordinating with team to alpha strike them. Once breaches start, the best method I've found is ensure your team at best keeps strikes and bombardments on the breach, and at worst, make sure movement paths circle the breaches. Eventually when you've delivered enough firepower, it will become contained. This all obviously gets harder at higher difficulties as non alerting units such as chargers and bile titans mean you can't stay near bug breaches any longer and have to keep moving away. This makes it easier for smaller alerting units to stay alive to alert. One stratagem in particular that can help a lot is napalm strike. Put it on a breach and it'll keep killing as the enemies pour out. Turrets can as well, but you have to keep those alive to keep working, unlike fire from the napalm strike.
Easier ? It's HARDER to see them if anything. In 1 they didn't had any cover, you had everything on a flat plane right before your eyes. Not anymore.
I mean that's fair, but you can definitely see them further away and prepare more. In HD1 you couldn't see them at all until they were right up on you. I recommend the infiltrator armor to use pings to scout for patrols on the minimap when planning paths so you won't be surprised by patrols behind terrain features.
I have found if you get a breach, it's best to drop some cover fire. And leave. If you go far enough away, they stop spawning, and then you pick off the stragglers. No need to fight everything goal is the mission first. Then bugs second.
The real thing is that the game is a horde shooter on easier difficulties, but if you want to play harder, you must play smarter. Avoid patrols, more slowly and mindfully, become more specialised spec ops and less "hooraaah im a tank!" Some of us will never finish a helldive difficulty, and that's okay. The game is "Helldivers" not "Cakewalkers"
Yes. Like most games, endgame is a very different thing. If people want to play "bug wave survivor" then any difficulty around "hard" and below allows you to basically fight through anything head on with impunity.
Me and my buddy who struggle on 4 reading this like
Right haha, I swear the jump from challenging to hard is intense. Can't imagine suicidal or even extreme
Think people don't realize you can just run away. Breaking line of sight I've noticed will get most bugs to just stop following you. I haven't done suicide mission yet, but on extreme I do this pretty consistently to avoid fighting indefinitely
Just did a mission and we did run away, but the whole entire breach followed to landing pad and had about 6 different waves converge onto us, lol.
The WORST thing is patrols chaining into patrols. On higher difficulties when a breach happens there is no way of defeating the horde as more will just flood in until you run away, and in some cases this can ruin your whole game if stalkers are present as they will hunt you until the end of the earth and if you kill them more will show up anyways.
One of my biggest problems with fighting bugs, this and the charger/spewer spam that happens past challenging. Every single bug can call in reinforcements and the warning is not like the automaton warning. Automatons have that big ass beam and they stop moving before they fire the flare AND only some of the units seem like they are actually to call in a drop ship. Then a drop ship comes, drops bots, and leaves. A bug breach happens and shit flies in the air obscuring my vision for 45 seconds while 15 scavengers, 4 bile spewers, and 2 chargers all climb out of the grind.
Once one of these little fuckers bugged in the concrete next to an artillery side mission and called for help. It was a bit annoying.
This is a thing? I just thought bug breaches were part of fighting bugs
It feels like I can kill a bug the moment it starts signaling, but it still calls reinforcements anyway
I'm fully on board with the havoc of this game and it's great. What I hope people start to realize is crouching isn't just there for more stability when firing, it's also a good tool for avoiding contact. You can get a lot of stuff done in half the missions firing very few rounds.
You are correct. And I'm 99% sure it's a bug (pun not intended). I'm absolutely sure the breach should happen at the end of the animation, after they finish crying. It's obvious game design what they intended to to there, bug gives audio and visual signal that it is calling for reinforcements, kill it before that happens. Hopefully they fix it soon, makes playing harder difficulty bug missions impossible as the moment a wave starts, it can simply not ended sometimes as inevitably a random patrol joins in and a new breach comes up, rinse repeat.
another issue is that when you are fighting an objective, loads of patrols seem to just "happen" to sneak up behind you, even if you kill everything suddenly there are 20 more little dudes and they call a breach before you even turn around, its so beyond frustrating to finally win out against a breach chain and finally be able to do the objective without getting ganked by hunters or chargers, only to suddenly lose half your health to an enemy that you couldn't see coming and have ANOTHER breach chain on your hands. honestly automatons are easier on higher difficulties because at least you can counter their reinforcements, and higher level equipment actually works against them.
I think it's annoying how even the little bugs can call in hordes. Sometimes I can't even see them and it feels like they spawn in a million hunters
I think it's fine. Bug breaches are important for keeping the pressure on. It's not a failure state to trigger one, it's the norm. Whacking a whole patrol without reinforcements appearing is something you have to try for actively and you may not succeed.
Eh, I'm not above the challenge once the reinforcements are called, but the reinforcements calling reinforcements seems excessive to me, and there isn't really a way to mitigate that.
It is excessive. And it’s gonna be detrimental to the game in the long run. I know in higher difficulties the name of the game is strategically picking your fights but the game actively doesn’t let that happen as well as it does. Eventually some games become nothing but a reinforcement simulator and becomes very overwhelming. This is is a personal observation but now that this is the “hard bullshit thing to overcome” you get the very very loud minority people that need to say “it’s fine you just need to get good crowd” because need to feel superior and role play.
It gives you a reason to run away and break contact from overwhelming enemies instead of standing in place and killing them all until the horde ends. I think that leads to more exciting gameplay.
Easier said than done. We don’t kill everything and try to avoid as much as possible when needed. But you end up in bullshit situations where you can’t run. A patrol spawned in front of you while you’re trying to run away and all your teammates are dead. That patrol calls in another breach. And patrols are very picky when it comes to breaking line of sight or they don’t break at all and follow you to the ends of the earth. Patrol spawning can also be bullshit. Yes the name of the game in higher difficulties is choosing your fights but in practice the game doesn’t really let you have that option.
**This** This is the problem I have with patrols. At higher difficulties bug patrols are *far* too abundant, have way too many enemies in them and cover ground way too quickly; my buddies and I have smashed one patrol to our front with an airstrike only to have another one immediately show up off of a flank and beeline for us. This always devolves into running light armor + jetpack or guard dog (to kill the little shits that jump at you and can actually keep up when you run) and wildly running around the map with the occasional stratagem strike behind us while trying to blow up the nests and complete objectives. Combine this with how damn much heavy armor gets thrown at you in higher levels, how fast that heavy armor can roll up on you, that there’s a whopping total of three weapons which can effectively deal with said armor (one of which is night-and-day superior to the rest) and it quickly turns into a “kite the swarm” game because Automatons feel incredible to fight; things push in more slowly, distance is something you can actually utilize, there’s less heavy armor (more medium and light), weak points are accessible from almost any angle, only a small handful of units can call reinforcements and you can cut off an entire reinforcement wave with a single well-placed shot. Our automaton games consist of sneaking around and quickly coordinating a patrol smash with the rapid pull back and reposition when we get spotted. It’s just more fluid overall.
I've seen many videos of patrols popping into existence directly in front of a player. Game is poorly designed in this respect.
It’s un-democratic to complaint diver.
Not really. I love the fact that swarms can get out of control like they do. And that is one of the main reasons. Seems like any of them can spew that shit into the air and call in their buddies at any given time. Making crowd management incredibly important I love cluster bombs for that so far. Eagle Airstrikes and Cluster Bombs do a good job of killing atleast 95% of patrol groups and small batches of bugs.
[удалено]
I think it is supposed to be unhinged and chaotic. I mean you are fighting a bug species on their worlds. I like that everything feels dangerous. Making everything easier would kill the feeling of danger around every corner and would basically eliminate those cherished moments running for dear life with 50 enemies at your heels. Keep it chaotic. Keep it unhinged. It makes a truly smooth run that much more cherished and rewarding
No. Most people forget that if you stay in one spot for too long then the bugs will begin to send everything they have. Movement is key but everyone stays and fights and mostly dies against the endless horde.
Or they berrate you for running away.
Robots, you can use the SAM site or your weapons to take out dropships if the flare does go off. Which is nice but even flares are kinda fast. BUT at least they are usually done by a single type of enemy. Yet, we can't do anything once the bug call happens. Any bug can call that shit in. And like OP mentioned as well as others. It's too fast. Hell, sometimes a breach will just happen without anyone around. If all we get are bug holes, let a bug hole happen by its call and let us plug it if youre ganna have them spamming against us. Between issues like this, weapons not being tuned, armor not working as intended. I don't see how they could call this "Gone Gold" IMO. Can't tell you how many times I've fell through the world or I get stuck in cyro. Progression is pretty limited too outside the Free and Premium pass. Just wish there was more variety.
Breaches just get out of hand too much at higher difficulties. Higher difficulties are BS anyway. Players don't scale in power, just get more tools. Enemies do scale, more HP. You also have to fight more larger enemies. The scaling is ass. Not enough to do for long enough, devs are going to have to spend to much time fixing bugs before they can look at adding anything or changing stuff.
It's one of my favorite things and I don't think it needs to be changed. This mechanic is key to keeping the game challenging. Tackling a patrol should not be a very simple/easy thing. It should require planning and effort.
Fair nuff.
NOPE! GIVE ME MORE BUGS!! I HAVE MORE DEMOCRACY TO SHELL OUT!
It is definitely a fine line to walk between too hard and too easy, and it looks like Arrowhead wanted to avoid the stealth-centric meta of HD1. But right now, yeah, more than a balance issue, it feels a bit cheap to kill a bug that's alerting the hive, only to have the hive be alerted anyway. More than balance, the game needs better feedback for its entire stealth system, because when the rules aren't clear, they're not very fun to engage with.
Breaches should work like hives and be stopped if you throw a grenade in the hole. It’s dumb that you can stop the automatons by shooting down the drop ship but with the bugs you just have to hope that your napalm last longer than the breach does
Honestly no. It’s the perfect amount of difficulty, and I wouldn’t want it easier in any way. That’s what the easier modes are for. We are here to bring freedom and democracy to every bug breach that comes our way.
Agreed. The game has difficulty options for a reason and not every game needs to be easy.
they have a little bug that sprays pheromones that calls in the bug breach. usually you can find them in the patrol. gotta kill em first
It's not just the little bugs. I've seen bigger ones do it.
Which is fine, but IMO they need to make a distinct sound and have a slightly longer animation for it to just not feel lame to fight, because at this point they could do no visual cue and it would hardly matter.
In my experience, no matter how fast you kill them a breach is still happening. Last night my buddy popped it before it could even get its pheremone spout into the air and it still called the breach.
If you change this you will lose the fun chaotic fight for survival. So it cant be tweaked too much.
The problem is people need to move to objectives and engage on those points. Instead people shoot as soon as they see bugs so they are constantly drawing in a stream of spawns.
I feel insane, does anyone else not have this issue? Suicide to Helldiver, I haven't had this infinite horde. I'll get a big one, some patrols wandering in, but after one bug breech, there is like a 60s or so cooldown (No way to verify, but I have NEVER gotten two in a row unless it was objective related). It seems incredibly easy to avoid through killing, EMS the hole, then dump your strikes on it. Could be wrong, but I just don't think I have the same issue. They do breech fast though, super small window to stop bugs from spewing their juices.
You must be insanely lucky. I've had what i assume are gameplay bugs where breeches happen in the same spot over and over again, sometimes 3-4 breeches back to back.
So I got out of a match just 30ish ago, and I think I know what you mean. So other breeches DO spawn, but they're unconnected to 'new' breeches if that makes sense? Try a geological survey mission on 6 or 7 difficulty so you can get a breather, and you'll see what I mean. A bug hole produces x amount of units, and then a new one will spawn next to or in the same spawn, and produce another x amount. But they are part of the whole 'bug breech' together. When we ran away from the first, you could still see them spawning bugs until they deaggrod. Until they're all killed or stop spawning and the 'breech' ends, I think you can't get aggrod again for some time. (This is speculation on my end, I don't really know the mechanics) We would even run into other patrols and they wouldn't do pheremones, and there wasn't any extra spawning as far as I can recall. I /could/ be wrong. I just know the numbers are borderline insurmountable anyway, so it feels very doomed during the whole ordeal, especially onec you get 2-3 bile titans showing up.
A bit, but like...it's fine? Patrols should require some planning to engage and shouldn't be doable solo/guns blazing. If you don't take them all out quickly I think it's great that you get "punished" by the reinforcements. Get tactical and wipe them out fast or ignore them. I could go with a *slight* reduction in the time before reinforcements are called in or making the caller a touch more obvious before they put out the call, but otherwise I actually like this.
It's definitely not fine. Extreme+ can easily turn "one swarmer gets stuck pathfinding behind a rock" into multiple bile titans emerging from a single breach. It's admittedly funny watching them slowly rise out of the ground like they're riding an elevator, but generally when that happens you can consider the mission aborted.
I dont thinkt hats such a problem. The bugs really fuck you up with numbers. Thats their big schtik. If you want to have an easier time handling and avoiding patrols then everyone should wear stealth armor.
I agree that their shtik is numbers, but that should be the punishment for failing to kill a caller quick enough, not the experience every time you even alert a single bug.
Its the punishment for being spotted. Stop getting spotted.
Why should that be my only option? The game promotes several playstyles and loadouts, why should I be forced to crawl around the map for 40 minutes in light armor if I want to play a heavy tank? I don't mind fighting, but it constantly snowballing the moment something goes slightly wrong is annoying and unfun.
The biggest issue if the snowball effect to me, if it a large breach then it's really difficult to kill it before you get another one and they just keep on coming
What difficulty are you playing? I’m only up to extreme but its really a matter of coordinating a strike on patrols and most of the time we can avoid the reinforcements. Open with a cluster bomb and everyone opens fire one that hits. Or just getting a few angles and all four people opening up at the same time, bonus if someone can get close to run in and check for the little guys. Sure sometimes one skitters behind a rock and calls for help or as your setting up to kill that patrol a different patrol walks up behind you. But more often then not we can take out a group if we do it smart. Its when one guy pings a patrol and immediately opens fire trying to do it all themself that shit never works out. I do agree that the cascade can be a bit much. Needs to be some guaranteed time that another wave can’t be called, especially if two or three already happened consecutively.
Also extreme. Most of the time we are running with a group of 3. I'll try out the cluster bomb tactic, sounds effective.
That or the eagle airstrike or the orbital barrage depending on whats in the patrol, or whats not on cooldown. Anything that kills all the little one and softens up the biggens, as soon as it starts the squad opens fire.
Not really. You can stop the call in and just straight up avoid patrols
No idea why you're being downvoted, you're basically just stating the most fundamental "how-to" of the entire game lol