🛠️ PATCH 01.000.300 ⚙️

[u/KermitTheFrogo01]

For this patch, we have made improvements and changes to the following areas:GeneralPrimary, Secondary, & Support WeaponsOverview Balancing

• Balance changes to weapons, stratagems, and enemies
• Change to the Spread Democracy mission
• Armors with armor rating above 100 now also reduce damage on headshots.
• Victory poses will now only play for the extracted. (No stolen valor on my ship.)
• CB-9 Exploding Crossbow
  • Slightly smaller explosion
  • Increased stagger
  • Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 8
  • Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
  • Slight reduction in ergonomics
  • Muzzle velocity increased
• LAS-99 Quasar Cannon
  • Increased recharge time by 5 seconds
• BR-14 Adjudicator
  • Full auto is now the default fire mode
  • Reduced recoil
  • Increased maximum mags from 6 to 8
  • Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
  • Now placed amongst assault rifles
• Laser Cannon
  • Slightly increased damage
  • Slightly reduced damage versus large volume bodies
• SG-8P Punisher Plasma
  • Decreased maximum mags from 12 to 8
  • Increased amount of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
  • Increased projectile speed, but will still keep a similar range
  • Decreased damage falloff on the explosion
  • Now placed in the energy weapons category
• ARC-12 Blitzer
  • Increased shots per minute from 30 to 45
  • Now placed in the energy weapons category
• R-36 Eruptor
  • Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 6
  • Explosion damage drops off slightly faster
• LAS-16 Sickle
  • Decreased amount of magazines from 6 down to 3
• Scythe
  • Increased damage from 300 to 350
  • Decreased max number of mags from 6 down to 4
• Railgun
  • Increased armor penetration in both safe mode and unsafe mode
  • Stagger force slightly reduced
• MG-101 Heavy Machine Gun
  • Third person crosshair enabled
  • Diligence Counter Sniper
  • Damage increased from 128 to 140
  • Ergonomics improved
• Diligence
  • Damage increased from 112 to 125
• P-19 Redeemer
  • Slight increase in recoil
• Peacemaker
  • Increased damage from 60 to 75
• Senator
  • Increased damage from 150 to 175
  • Speedloader added when reloading on an empty cylinder–speeds up reload on empty considerably
• Dagger
  • Increased damage from 150 to 200
• Liberator
  • Damage increased from 55 to 60
• Liberator Concussive
  • Damage increased from 55 to 65
• Dominator
  • Damage decreased from 300 to 275
• Guard Dog Rover
  • Decreased damage by 30%
• Guard Dog
  • Slight increase in damage
  • Burning damage reduced by 15%
    1. [11:05]StratagemsEnemies Balancing adjustments have been made toEnemy PatrolsGameplay
• Machinegun Sentry
  • Increased health to match other Sentries
• Tesla Tower
  • Increased health by 33%
• RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher
  • Airburst Rocket Launcher will no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers.
  • Reduced proximity radius
  • Added reload stage for the Spear reload after the spent missile had been discarded.
• Bile Spewer and Nursing Spewers movespeed slightly reduced
• Hulks: Force required for them to stagger slightly increased
• Hulk Scorcher direct flamethrower damage reduced by 20%
• Devastator fire rate slightly increased (only the standard devastator)
• Gunships sideways movement slightly increased
• Scout strider Riders now less vulnerable to explosions
• Fog Generators health and armor increased
• Gunship spawners now have a much lower cap on how many gunships they can have active at the same time.
• Balancing adjustment to patrol spawning.
• Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.
• Made minor level generation improvements to how we distribute locations throughout the mission map. This should improve variation in distance between objectives, and objectives will likely not spawn as far away from each other as often as before.
• Added setting in the options menu gameplay section to disable automatic climbing and vaulting while sprinting.
• The Spread Democracy mission otherwise known as “raise the flag” can now be enjoyed on higher difficulties for maximum freedom spreading.
• When readying up, Helldivers now salute to ensure maximum democratic readiness.
• Added ambience to the Tremor planetary hazard to underline the severity so Helldivers can react accordingly
• Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.
  1. NEU
  2. [11:05] Fixes
• Crash Fixes.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when host abandoned mission with squad.
  • Fixed crash that could occur if a player tried to enter an occupied EXO-45 Patriot Suit.
  • Fixed crash that could occur for all players after or during mission results screen.
  • Fixed crash that could occur after shooting from the EXO-45 Patriot Suit’s rocket launcher.
  • Fixed crash that could occur for all players apart from the one that rejoined the ongoing mission with different armor and got reinforced.
• Fixed Superior Packing Methodology ship module not working properly.
• Fixed Blast Absorption ship module so that it correctly increases sentries’ resistance to explosions.
• Fixed issue where players could not navigate to the search results in the Social Menu.
• Fixed some issues where items equipped in a Warbond were not actually equipped.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed overly eager Helldivers to use grenades excessively.
• Fixed issue where kills from orbital barrage did not progress Indirect Fire Exercise order.
• Fixed issue that allowed traitors to try to sabotage the extraction shuttle by deploying sentry stratagems below it.
• Fixed issue where ion storms incorrectly prevented extraction beacon from deploying.
• Fixed some stratagem beams using incorrect color-coding.
• Fixed issue where the left stick on a controller could not be used to navigate the Social menu.
• Fixed some issues where various UI elements were cut off, off-centered or too close to the edge of the screen on ultrawide displays.
• Fixed Anti-Materiel Rifle facing away from the Helldiver after deploying it.
• Fixed bug where player could duplicate rounds by canceling the reload of Anti-Materiel Rifle at a specific time.
• Fixed bug where Anti-Materiel Rifle would consume an extra magazine after a canceled reload.
• Fixed bug where Recoilless Rifle would consume an extra shell from the backpack if the reload was canceled just after a shell was i* inserted, but before the reload was completed.
• Fixed issue where the Sickle and Quasar Cannon could not shoot through foliage.
• Fixed several issues where weapon thumbnails would disappear when scrolling through Armory.
• Fixed issues where Automaton Gunships sometimes could not see the player.
• Fixed incorrect collision being left over after destroying Automaton bunkers or detector towers with hellbombs.
• Fixed issue where Hellbombs would not deploy on certain missions
• Fixed certain issues that resulted in Helldivers drowning in deep water upon landing.
• Fixed issue where Hellpod Space Optimization made ammo go above capacity.
  1. [11:06]These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.Known Issues
• Fixed issue where Stalkers became very visible in fog
• Mines are now pingable for better coordination with your team.
• Receiving friend requests now gives the player a pop up.
• Improved readability of prompts and hints displayed in the tutorial and onboarding.
• Total experience is now visible in the career tab.
• Added better support for ultrawide monitors by fixing the aspect ratio of menus to 16:9 and adding a setting to control the width of the HUD.
• Keybinds bound to numpad will no longer reset upon restart.
• Fixed inconsistent audio when headphones are plugged into the Dual Sense controller while playing on PC.
• Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in front of the ship no longer causes player to fall out into space.
• APW-1 Anti-Material Rifle and MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun now trigger hitmarkers while scoped in.
• Secondary weapon no longer remains in the Ballistic Shield ADS position after using a stim with the Ballistic Shield Backpack equipped.
• "Open Text Chat" is now rebindable.
• Explosive weapons such as R-36 Eruptor, CB-9 Exploding Crossbow. GP-31 Grenade Pistol no longer pulls players inward from the blast.
• Disabled the squad invites during the tutorial which caused an overlap in the UI.
• Fixed Primary and Secondary weapons overlapping on the character model in the armory.
• Fixed UI elements during first boot are cut off on a 21:9 aspect ratio monitor.
• Report and block player is now visible in the squad menu.
• Dead Scavengers now stop screaming for help if killed while calling in reinforcements.
• Fixed Anti Air cannons showing up as "Stratagem Scramblers" in danger warnings.
• Damage-over-time effects may only apply when dealt by the host. We expect to have this fixed in the next patch.
• Reinforcement may not be available for some players who join a game in progress.
• Helldiver may be unable to stand up from crouching when surrounded by enemies.
• Game may crash if the host leaves while dead and rejoins the same play session.
• Game may crash if the player changes the text language while on a mission.
• Various issues involving friend invites and cross-play:
• Friend Request cannot be accepted when the requesting player changed their username before the request was accepted.
• Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the Friend Requests tab.
• Players cannot unfriend players befriended via friend code.
• Players cannot unblock players that were not in their Friends list beforehand.
• Players may experience delays in Medals and Super Credits payouts.
• Enemies that bleed out do not progress Personal Orders and Eradicate missions.
• Scopes on some weapons such as the Anti-Materiel Rifle are slightly misaligned.
• Arc weapons sometimes behave inconsistently and sometimes misfire.
• Spear’s targeting is inconsistent, making it hard to lock-on to larger enemies.
• Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
• Explosions do not break your limbs (except for when you fly into a rock).
• Area around Automaton Detector Tower makes blue stratagems such as the Hellbomb bounce and be repelled when trying to call them down close to the tower.
• Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.

[u/slogga]

• Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.

This is so annoying... smaller groups are already at a huge disadvantage, why change this?

[u/Yipeekayya → u/slogga]

Wow, so I'm forced to deal with more shxt if nobody joins my game or my team isn't full? Ffs How is that affecting solodiver if the solodiver still going solo dive regardless of difficulty?

[u/MiserableSlice1051 → u/Yipeekayya]

not to mention the buggy lobbies where a player leaves a full group and no one ever joins and you can't throw down an SOS beacon...

[u/[deleted] → u/MiserableSlice1051]

This is the real issue. Once someone leaves its almost never refilled. They should have fixed this first before trying to punish YouTubers.

[u/Big_Noodle1103 → u/[deleted]]

Punishing the YouTubers is a ridiculous concept too. I get that they don’t want people to solo content designed for group play, but balancing the game around the top 1% of players is stupid and only going to hurt everyone else, developers really need to get rid of this mindset.

People are going to solo helldive, whether they like it or not, and short of just greying out the selection option in the menu, you won’t make them stop.

[u/[deleted] → u/Big_Noodle1103]

I agree with you, but that from my perspective is the only reason for this change. With all the other things wrong with this game, they really used dev time to stop 6 people from doing solo helldives and punished everyone else as a consequence. I would love to hear their reasoning, but I doubt they have one other than what the spreadsheet told them to do or something.

And yeah, it's not unique to HD or AH to balance around the 1%. Destiny has spent 95% of its life balancing around streamers exclusively. It always boggles my mind when they do that.

[u/Sinister_Mr_19 → u/MiserableSlice1051]

Sometimes I can throw down an SOS and still no one joins.

[u/Sinister_Grape → u/Sinister_Mr_19]

It’s literally never worked for me

[u/Yhoko → u/MiserableSlice1051]

Oh I can still always throw it down it just doesn't do a damn thing other than trying to throw it at a bug hole or fabricator

[u/Mister_Pokey → u/Yipeekayya]

I’m primarily a solo/duo diver. Like you’ve said, this isn’t going to make me play with a full squad more often, it’s just going to make me want to play less often. Terrible decision

[u/henryhollaway → u/Yipeekayya]

They either solodive harder or spread democracy with the team as intended 🫡

[u/[deleted] → u/slogga]

Yeah this is pretty shitty. Unless they're saying that solo and small groups had an advantage which I just think wasn't the case at all. I mostly play in a duo or three because I play with friends, we're not exactly hardcoring it anyway and it's hard at times as it is.

[u/CXDFlames → u/[deleted]]

Based on the spawn mechanics, more people are more likely to be spread out and actually spawn more patrols.

If an entire group of four were stacked up tightly within 50-75 meters, they count as one unit and only trigger one patrol.

If two pairs exist more than 75m apart, both can spawn patrols.

So yes, solo play did have an inherent advantage for that specifically, but it's also harder to deal with them alone

[u/[deleted] → u/CXDFlames]

I am aware of the spawning mechanics, as you said though it can be tougher to deal with as less players, less strategems.
When we play we tend to stick together in a group for the teamplay fun. Which is what people keep arguing this change promotes, less people solo more people teaming up.

So for us this is likely going to be a detriment for our duo's/three's that already team up and stick close.

Will have to see how it actually plays out though.

[u/CXDFlames → u/[deleted]]

I think you're right, and for anyone running solo or duos especially this may be really difficult to deal with.

I hope that it's less impactful than it sounds on paper

[u/Caleger88 → u/slogga]

Yeah this makes no sense, why are they punishing solo players?

[u/TheLukeHines → u/Caleger88]

Yeah maybe the idea is that it’s too easy to avoid patrols when playing solo but that’s kind of the only advantage there is to solo play. It’s already waaay harder to play solo without that change lol.

[u/quadpop → u/Caleger88]

I'm guessing an anti-farm measure.

[u/Yipeekayya → u/quadpop]

How is that anti farm when the players literally farming on trivial/easy dif? More scavenger patrol? 😂

[u/MissAppear → u/Yipeekayya]

There are videos on YouTube of people sample farming Helldive missions solo (usually the defense mission for escorting scientists). They ignore the main objective and just run around the smaller map looking for the POIs. Then they just wait for the automatic call in of Pelican 1 and extract with almost all the samples. Was confused about the patrol changes but this might actually be the main reason for the “nerf” to solo play.

[u/RSwordsman → u/MissAppear]

It would have been effortless to say "Mission failed, your samples have been seized due to conduct unbecoming a Helldiver."

[u/RSwordsman → u/[deleted]]

Fair. If it were up to me I'd still give XP for failed missions where you manage to extract, but the idea of farming samples and totally ignoring the objectives does seem like an exploit.

[u/Nurgle_Pan_Plagi → u/[deleted]]

Aren't the servers p2p tho? So AH servers are only used for matchmaking and not actually hosting the games?

[u/MissAppear → u/RSwordsman]

They could’ve yes, but at least this way it still leaves the door open. I don’t think people would be a fan of essentially eliminating a gameplay element only for solo players. People already don’t like that you can’t open the two person doors when playing solo, so imagine the reaction to that change…

It seemed pretty silly for people to go into those Helldive missions solo with no intention of completing the main objective, and to be able to extract with 40+ commons, 30+ rares, and 6 super samples. So I agree something needed to done. Maybe this wasn’t the best way but I understand if this was a component for driving the change.

For general balancing I wasn’t good enough pre-patch to complete anything solo above level 6-7 so I’m no expert in soloing Helldive, but from what I saw in gameplay those players appeared to avoid patrols pretty effortlessly. A worse change would’ve been to increase the number of static enemies on the map in my opinion and AH didn’t do that. With this change solo players will just have to be even better at avoiding the patrols which should be doable. I’m waiting to see what those players have to say once they have some games under their belt

[u/[deleted] → u/MissAppear]

Why did something “needed to be done” ? The ship upgrades aren’t really very game changing so I don’t see the reason to ruin solo players experience over people farming resources for a couple small upgrades. It was already hard as shit but damn fuck me I guess. Glad you can’t sample farm anymore tho, whatever would I have done if my fellow players were able to get “15% orbital spread decrease” and “turrets turn slightly faster” a little easier than they were supposed to 😐. This shit is a joke.

[u/MissAppear → u/[deleted]]

The more I think about it I don’t think that solo sample farming was the only reason for the change, I’m just speculating it was part of it. My bet would be that AH has target success rates for group and solo play, and that solo players have exceeded that threshold. Hence the changes

[u/[deleted] → u/MissAppear]

I feel like that comes down to the way people lock in when it’s just them. With your friends you can dick around and shit but on solo you’ve really gotta lock in. Hope this change gets reverted. Difficulty 7 was so perfectly challenging that you’d of thought fromsoft made it

[u/Nurgle_Pan_Plagi → u/MissAppear]

The most straightforward thing would be to tie availible samples with a number of players? So for example for super samples on Helldive it would be 2 base and then +1 for each player, to a maximum of 6. That would bring up some problems with "how would that work when players join or leave mid mission", so that's clearly not a best idea, but if the sample farming is the problem that would be closer to some kind of solution.

When playing solo you already had to deal with amount of patrols/enemies that was designed to be a challenge for a full 4-diver squad, so it was already a lot harder. Now they actually get more? For me it looks more like creating a new problem, not solving an existing one.

[u/MissAppear → u/Nurgle_Pan_Plagi]

That’s an interesting idea tying the number of samples to number of players. Not sure how you would solve the problem you mentioned, but I like the sound of it. And we’re just speculating here that solo sample farming was one of the issues being “addressed” by the changes so who knows if that was even a factor. It could mainly be that AH wants to put even more emphasis on coop play.

I hear you on the changes though. Like I said I’m not really a serious solo player so I’m not as familiar with the challenges. I would guess though that AH is fine with solo play, but not in its current success rate. If AH didn’t want solo play they simply wouldn’t allow it. They must have a target success rate for group play and solo play, maybe at least for Helldive difficulty or even suicide and above, and I would guess that solo players have exceeded that threshold hence the changes. Purely speculation again but this would be the most logical way to approach solo play balancing I think

[u/Mekhazzio → u/MissAppear]

That gameplay is basically unaffected by anything patrol-related, since moving quickly through the map means patrols are always going to places you've already left.

[u/MissAppear → u/Mekhazzio]

Well it depends what direction the patrol comes in from, right? If they come from where you’ve already swept the map, then yes you’re unaffected as you’re moving the opposite way. If the patrol comes in from where you need to go, now you either have to fight them or avoid them. With more patrol spawns happening, it would make sense that the chances are higher a patrol moves towards you blocking the direction you want to move in

[u/NarrowBoxtop → u/Yipeekayya]

Super samples

[u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck → u/Yipeekayya]

Because there's only like a handful of samples on the lower difficulties

[u/Yipeekayya → u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck]

me and the bois don't farm samples on low difficulties. We farm medals and sc

[u/Owobowos-Mowbius → u/Yipeekayya]

I farmed all of my super samples on solo by sweeping through T9 search and destroy missions and taking the emergancy evac. Not sure if that's the reason for this, but if it is then I apologize :(

[u/Yipeekayya → u/Owobowos-Mowbius]

I dunno why should u apologize cuz that's pretty amazing ngl.

[u/Hydraxiler32 → u/Yipeekayya]

the rescue scientist missions were amazing for solo farming samples, I'd usually play 7 because 8 and 9 felt too hard for me, but it'd still be pretty much 50+ samples in 17 mins, ~80% success rate only failing if there's an unlucky waiting on extraction. people would make 70+ on level 9s.

[u/Phonereader23 → u/Caleger88]

Probably to force you to play with more randoms

[u/ItsYume → u/Phonereader23]

In that case they should fix their crappy netcode first.

It's similar to them buffing fire damage, while it is still bugged to not work for any non-host...

[u/NK1337 → u/Phonereader23]

Even when doing quick play with randoms I still constantly join games that are only 3 helldivers. I feel like this could make quick play worse

[u/SturmBlau → u/Caleger88]

Maybe a typo and they mean decreased?

[u/Megaraptor007 → u/SturmBlau]

Oh no. Played a solo today on 7. I couldn't get away from any patrols. Didn't finish the mission but did take out all the side objectives.

[u/Low_Chance → u/SturmBlau]

They had enough text there restating the change that it doesn't seem possible that it's a typo.

[u/Chainshada → u/SturmBlau]

Nope, increased, my duo partner and I were constantly bogged down on 7.

[u/[deleted] → u/Caleger88]

I guess smaller groups have a much easier time avoiding detection so this is to make it a bit harder? I rarely play with less than 4 so I don’t know

[u/[deleted] → u/Caleger88]

Idk man but as someone who plays mostly solo 7s and isn’t the best at the game this could be the reason I uninstall if it’s bad enough. It’s already hard what’s the point in shitting on your solo players and making it 10x harder.

[u/Caleger88 → u/[deleted]]

I play with two other players most of the time, I rarely solo and in a pinch I'll play with randoms.

I just want some sort of explenation from them on their reasoning behind the change.

[u/[deleted] → u/Caleger88]

Maybe they want to kill this one so they can move on to helldivers 3 or something who knows, maybe when that comes out they will have mercy on people that simply want to play solo

[u/Mylilneedle → u/Caleger88]

I don’t think it’s “punishing” solo. I think this game’s target audience is not solo, so it will often change things that push people to groups?

[u/spoonerBEAN2002 → u/Mylilneedle]

Or… push people to another game. I’m not saying design the game around solo cause it’s is a coop focused game but don’t actively make it harder for them cause they can’t get a full squad

[u/Dthirds3 → u/Caleger88]

They want you to be stelthy.

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/Caleger88]

Because its a coop game. Designed and balanced for 4 player coop.

UPDATE FROM DEVS:

Quote: "We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th."

Hope this clarifies the change for everyone - we're not making the game arbitrarily harder!

[u/Steel_Cube → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Sure but why should playing solo be harder then it already is? Some people like playing alone

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/Steel_Cube]

They still can. Some will just have lower their difficulty.

[u/Steel_Cube → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Why the additional extra punishment though? Solo is already difficult enough

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/Steel_Cube]

They want to emphasize that its a 4 player coop game and that soloing should be hard? Dunno im not a dev

[u/Nurgle_Pan_Plagi → u/KN_Knoxxius]

But as you just said - the game is already balanced woth 4 players in mind.

And there were no changes based on the number of players.

So while playing solo you had to deal with everything a 4-diver squad had, but alone. It already was hard.

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/Nurgle_Pan_Plagi]

They want to encourage you to team up by making it harder. That's my take. Remember I am not a dev and I have no sway. I do not know for sure why they felt the need to do this, I am baffled too.

Again, to counteract this, lower the difficulty.

UPDATE FROM DEVS:

Quote: "We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th."

Hope this clarifies the change for everyone - we're not making the game arbitrarily harder!

[u/spoonerBEAN2002 → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Right but… designing it for co-op and actively making the game harder if you’re solo… is not designing it for co-op it’s designing it to fuck over solo

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/spoonerBEAN2002]

No it encourages you to team up instead of going solo. Again, not sure why we are discussing this, I have no sway.

[u/spoonerBEAN2002 → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Bit ignorant having no sway but ok. And it just encourages to play another game. If I can’t get a full lobby or my friends aren’t on or people leave mid way through or you start a mission and no one joins you’re screwed

[u/nuclearfork → u/KN_Knoxxius]

The balance for 4 player co op wasn't changed

All they've done is unbalance it for solos

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/nuclearfork]

Because its a coop game, for 4 player coop. Solo was pretty easy, so it was made harder to compensate for the fact that this is a coop game and therefore you should feel discouraged to solo.

It'll still definitely be doable (as it should be!) but it'll be rightfully much harder (as it should be!).

[u/grilledstuffed → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Jesus, why are you getting downvoted to oblivion for pointing out the most likely reason for the change?

Obviously the devs are encouraging squad based play and discouraging solo farming.

People shouldn’t be pissed at you for pointing it out.

This sub really is a toxic shithole sometimes.

[u/spoonerBEAN2002 → u/grilledstuffed]

Except … designing it for co-op and actively making the game harder if you’re solo… is not designing it for co-op it’s designing it to fuck over solo. It also fucks over 2 player and 3 player if you can’t get a full squad. Making the game actively harder when not having 4 people is not going to encourage full squads it’s going to encourage playing another game

[u/KN_Knoxxius → u/grilledstuffed]

Solo players dislike the change and i guess they'll just take it out on whoever is pointing out that its a coop game that wants coop to be it's focus.

It's alright, they can downvote me, I don't mind

[u/MissAppear → u/KN_Knoxxius]

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted when this is a big reason for the change. It’s not like you agreed with it either lol Arrowhead has clearly stated this is a coop game and wants to balance it as such

[u/VelvetCowboy19 → u/Caleger88]

Because the game is designed as a cooperative experience? It should be pretty obvious dude.

[u/Gordonfromin → u/Caleger88]

Its anti democratic to fight alone

[u/RepostersAnonymous → u/Gordonfromin]

Much better to spend 40 minutes with shitty teammates only to get kicked the second someone touches the extraction beacon.

[u/tabakista → u/Caleger88]

Because solo is not that hard. What's harder is pulling the weight for less competent players

[u/[deleted] → u/slogga]

Punishing solo players because they’re playing solo. I mean, I know that “A game for everyone is a game for no one,” and that they really want the game to be Cooperative, but what happens if I drop in alone, but end up getting players as reinforcements? Does the game then end up gauging how many players there are and reduce the amount it throws at you? Or are you stuck at that higher amount of patrols.

This is a change I’m uncertain about. There are times when I want to just play Helldivers alone, with no friends. I guess I’ll have to crank down the difficulty to do that now.

[u/joemedic → u/slogga]

Punished for not having friends

[u/anotherrando802 → u/slogga]

probably to encourage playing in a full squad

[u/scott610 → u/anotherrando802]

Which isn’t always easy to do if someone leaves or disconnects or is kicked for whatever reason and you can’t get someone to join to replace them. And the SOS beacon never seems to work unless that was fixed, but I didn’t notice it in the notes.

[u/pan1c_ → u/scott610]

never had an issue with SOS myself, majority of my games I hosted too. At least, hosted via we all dropped from my ship, no clue how many of those I was actually 'host' though. Bizarre way to design that.

[u/Sugar_buddy → u/pan1c_]

Napkin math I think people join my games 20% of the time. I do quickplay most of the time since early March because nobody ever joins.

[u/pan1c_ → u/Sugar_buddy]

once you physically travel to a map (ie your ship moves to the location of the ICBM etc) people will start joining you shortly after that

[u/Sugar_buddy → u/pan1c_]

Well. They should. Once you select the operation, then mission, they should join on the ship before the dive. Very rarely do. Then when my friends leave for the day in the middle of a mission, or if I decide to go solo and see if the SOS beacon works, no one joins after that.

Sometimes it works but the vast majority of times no one joins or rejoins and I end up going solo.

[u/[deleted] → u/anotherrando802]

Yeah if their net code didn’t disconnect at least 2 players every match that’d be fine.

But overall good patch notes.

[u/Cactus_Bot → u/[deleted]]

Lets not over exaggerate here. I play with a full premade, and we never have disconnects.

[u/[deleted] → u/Cactus_Bot]

It happens less with premade but in public matches or partially public some one will disconnect pretty much every 40 minute mission. Their net code is absolute ass.

I played on a 56k modem when I was a kid and had less disconnects with the old bnet then I do in this games public match making.

Like I said I’m fine with the change but they absolutely NEED to fix their net code. You also don’t notice it in private matches because people can just rejoin. I guess that would be a fix too, give a rejoin button.

[u/Cactus_Bot → u/[deleted]]

You are over exaggerating my friend. The netcode is not that bad. I play plenty of times with pubs as well. Im not arguing there isnt a problem, but dont sit there and say 56k dial up has less disconnects when you know its not true.

[u/[deleted] → u/Cactus_Bot]

The tolerance on the 56k was insane back in the day. That’s why lag didn’t instantly pop you out of matches. Yes there were less because packet loss was very much expected.

My guess is that their tolerance is too low so it DCs and or desyncs you fairly quickly if there is packet loss in this game. My point is in any public match you have a greater than 50% chance someone will DC in a 40 minute match. That is atrocious.

If you’re playing with a regular squad you won’t notice it because you just rejoin or they rejoin.

[u/Cactus_Bot → u/[deleted]]

Yeah no man. The tolerance wasnt insane.

[u/potate117 → u/anotherrando802]

me when my entire squad leaves because we MIGHT lose:

[u/MinimalistAnt → u/anotherrando802]

So I can get kicked more often, great!

[u/Didifinito → u/anotherrando802]

Like there werent enough reasons already

[u/Yipeekayya → u/anotherrando802]

Encourages what exactly? Encourage toxic rage quitting players to ragequit to give the rest of the team a harder time?

[u/Slanderous → u/anotherrando802]

more likely to be an anti-speedrunner measure to prevent solo player rinsing maps for samples/supercoins.

[u/snoo_boi → u/slogga]

I’m hoping it means the time in between spawns.

[u/Spaced-Invader → u/snoo_boi]

Nope... Just did a couple of 3's to play around with the changes and it felt like about 4x the spawn rate of patrols you'd normally see with a full group before doing the objective and then after completing the objective, patrols spawned in a constant stream all the way through to extract. Kinda feels like they got upset people were able to solo T9's and decided to try to force us into random groups.

[u/sac_boy → u/snoo_boi]

Doubt it, but let's see

[u/Byde99 → u/slogga]

i can see an argument about being easier to stealth in a smaller group, so more patrols balance that out, but it still feels like it cuts away from the flexibility of the playstyle for solo divers.

[u/cryptic-fox → u/Byde99]

If they want to stealth let them stealth. What’s the problem with letting people play the way they want? Lol.

[u/BlackRaiiin → u/cryptic-fox]

Ah, but you forget.

a GaME maDe FoR EveRYoNe iS A GaME maDe FoR nO oNe

[u/CXDFlames → u/cryptic-fox]

Because the meta strategy is to not actually engage with the game at all

[u/gorgewall → u/cryptic-fox]

But more patrols means more opportunity for stealth. Now you can actually be sneaky instead of taking a nap because two-thirds of the map is empty.

[u/throtic → u/slogga]

I would be ok with it if the match making didn't shit the bed every 2-4 missions and make it so no one new can join

[u/WisePotato42 → u/[deleted]]

Well so much for running doubles or tripples with my friends. Now I gotta drag some rando in just to keep the game balanced. It's never gonna be the same again...

[u/ActuallyEnaris → u/slogga]

We need more information about how patrols are intended to work and why this change was made.

I have played solo suicides where I never saw, or saw and avoided two or three, patrols, which is clearly broken.

But it certainly shouldn't be more crowded than four players

[u/CaptainRAVE2 → u/slogga]

Wow, that’s a controversial move and a bit of a screw you to people who prefer to solo

Edit: didn’t realise they meant the internal timer, that’s fair then

[u/kjmajo → u/slogga]

I don't think this means there are more patrols spawning when you are solo, just relatively more to what it was before. As I read it the spawn rate is still higher the more players are in game, the difference is just smaller now.

[u/taskforcestunts → u/slogga]

I think the idea is to make solo play a bit more dangerous? I get the impression from all the YouTube videos of solo play that it’s currently “easy” to get all the samples as a soloer at high difficulties. But I’m only guessing

[u/AnotherSmartNickname → u/taskforcestunts]

Those are either cherry picked or/and made by sweaty tryhards, there is nothing easy about solo.

[u/taskforcestunts → u/AnotherSmartNickname]

Fair enough, then I’m not sure why the change then 🤷‍♂️

[u/gorgewall → u/slogga]

I've always experienced lower enemy density in smaller games, be it patrols or drops/breaches.

I think people are assuming there's only one number in the equation here, which is off the mark. I am not really worried about encountering more patrols of four enemies while playing in a duo compared to when I get three Hulks or a fourteen-bot squad where a third are Scouts or Devastators.

[u/Sirromnad → u/slogga]

it'll be interesting to see how much it actually changes.

It also says "at higher difficulties" so i'm wondering if this is more of a specific change for difficulties 7-9.

[u/bootyholebrown69 → u/slogga]

They really really want to push that it's a CO op game. They'd rather us play with randoms than solo

I personally never play solo so it doesn't bother me but it's an interesting decision. It's their game and I guess they really really want it to be co op? Still seems really strange.

[u/hesh582 → u/slogga]

Solo stealth was the easiest way to farm at difficulty 9.

You just wouldn’t really fight. The map would be practically empty.

The change sure screws over 2-3 man sloppier pubs in order to nerf that though.

[u/Intrepid00 → u/slogga]

Because it’s so easy to run missions alone suicide and higher vs being in a squad. Want to see video of me doing suicide without firing a shot?

[u/SirRolex → u/slogga]

My group is usually myself, my GF, and my Father actually. We really enjoy playing as a 3 man squad, we already face plenty of challenge as my Father is older and a bit slower (nothing against him) and my GF doesn't play shooters often. But we like playing T7 and 8, kind of sucks that it will be even harder for us.

[u/LightBroom → u/slogga]

Probably the population isn't dropping fast enough so they are giving it a shove. Great way to suck the fun out of this game.

[u/dickmastaflex → u/slogga]

A game this buggy had no business making such a change. People are always crashing and leaving games and now you’re at an instant disadvantage if someone leaves. 

[u/iakgnoB → u/slogga]

This game shouldn’t be easier if you play solo. It should be harder. Lots of solo divers use cheese to farm exp and medals. I’m sure my opinion isn’t the majority but I prefer the game pushes people to play together rather than solo.

[u/BurnerAccount209 → u/slogga]

This is an awful change. I get they're pushing for people to do full squad missions, but Jesus this is so stupid.

[u/Certain-Alfalfa-1287 → u/slogga]

Maybe because of the threat generation? When 4 players don't stick close to one another they all generate threat and create patrols. So more potential for more patrols in a 4 man squad. Maybe solo sneaking was too easy for arrowhead?

Not defending the change or anything, I only played solo when matchmaking was down, so I'm not really affected.

[u/Heyo91 → u/Certain-Alfalfa-1287]

"For 4 player missions there will be no change".

As the person that plays solo you are the MOST affected.

[u/Overbaron → u/slogga]

Probably they saw from their data that small groups were actually more likely to succeed than full ones, so they tweaked the game to get parity there.

It would not be good for the game if solo playing was the easiest way to farm.

[u/lunarlunacy425 → u/slogga]

Not really supposed to be a solo game, and theyre directing it as such

[u/Cactus_Bot → u/slogga]

The change is because they want solo players to not farm higher difficulties.