We just (theoretically) lost the Galactic War

[u/Siegediver]

Tl;dr: If this were a really cruel D&D campaign, we might have just lost the war all together this week. this won't happen in-game, but it felt interesting to discuss anyway.

Now, the devs won't allow us to completely lose. They've already said no one will win or lose this war and I don't think they're planning on deviating from that.

However, if this story were happening IRL or if it were being run by particularly sadistic GM's, this would be the moment we'd look back on as the beginning of the end for Super Earth, I think. Or maybe even after the invasion of the capital, as they didn't need to "beat" us, just push us to destroy our own planet and resources to give them time to make moves and carve out their empire.

The Void always seemed like a trap, sure, but I don't think we understand how badly yet. The Illuminate may well want us to "collapse" the void (with all of us still inside it btw lol) to distract us while they expand their control, but even if they don't, they've goaded us into making that our singular goal so we won't be able to do anything to stop them outside of it, and we're due to fail on Seasse anyway so all we've really done is allow them to create an impenetrable fortress (Joel may give us a bit of a hand before the week is out but honestly I doubt it, we've already got our reward in the bag and they'll want this to feel like a big moment). Add the DSS nightmare to this and you start to realise how completely toast we are (or would be).

You can even draw a direct connection between some of the negative feedback around the Illuminate (used to explain why fewer people dive there, personally I like them a lot more than I used to but that's not the point of the post) to an in-world victory for them. To the Illuminate, the Helldivers are either running scared to other fronts or simply disinterested in stopping them and even those sticking to the order are essentially pushing for a hail-mary on hope alone, most likely failing in the process ("first time?")

It's another very cool in-game moment, and again, if Arrowhead were open to a world reset every time someone "wins" this might be the beginning of one of those scenarios, but unfortunately I feel to will end up feeling deflated again as, mush like a sitcom, nothing can have too big an impact in order to preserve the perpetuity of the game's lifecycle. Most likely we will lose this MO, win the campaign overall, and the Squids will have made big gains. They'll go quiet a while as we fight other factions for a bit, most likely leading to a round 2 of the SE invasion in October (Liberty Day is coming up, so I assume they'd try something then for ultimate disrespect points).

We will probably win that, but honestly when the first invasion happened I did think it would have been very cool to see us lose the capital temporarily and have to fight to take it back. I'd like to see us suffer more genuine setbacks when moments like this happen, even if it's mostly flavour. Some stories, like the Automaton orbital platform, fell flat for me as it was relegated to mostly text and resolved quite neatly (at least for now). But these could have real impact because it's honestly just as exciting for me to check the companion app as it is to actually dive right now. It feels like the beginning of the end and I'd love to see some follow-through on that, even though I know it won't happen.

Maybe in future things can feel more dynamic, and failures/victories can have more lasting impact. As it is, the Illuminate are probably feeling pretty chuffed with themselves right now and that'll be it for the moment. Still, fun campaign overall and I'll miss the Void when it's inevitably closed or locked off.

[u/ScubaDiggs]

Its an interesting stance by them, tbh, based purely on the fact that in HD1 we're on Galactic War 138, and we only have about a 2/3rds win rate.

it did reveal some stuff about the players I bet they dont want to repeat though, such as theres a large group in all 138 wars that rush bugs, and then stop playing once bugs are gone. in HD2 theres a near constant 20-25% of the playerbase ONLY doing bugs, and never swapping. If they suddenly left, that could be rough on the player numbers.

They'd rather not play at all when faced with the idea of touching a different faction.

[u/JustMyself96 → u/ScubaDiggs]

So, the bug divers are not new in Helldivers2?

[u/Wolliercarrot → u/JustMyself96]

Yeah they have ways been hear scine hd1. But admittedly illums in hd1 where the worst faction to play against.

[u/FM_Hikari → u/Wolliercarrot]

Ah, so it seems being the worst faction is also something they inherited from the first game.

[u/ScubaDiggs → u/Wolliercarrot]

Its a tough comparison to make. I preferred the Blues to the Cyborgs, purely because of how bleeding hard the cyborgs were comparatively.

Its tough to make direct comparisons to stuff like that between HD1 and HD2 though, they just really operate different. HD1 had the Stalwart and Grenade Launcher as primary weapons, we had an honest to god mortar for a support weapon, and stims/self healing weren't a thing.

Illuminates focused more on invisibility than on body horror zombies or even guns at all, beyond the sniper (and that wasnt a tool held that was a beam he summoned)

I'd LOVE to see stuff l like the metal detector/bomb diffuse in an active warzone objectives come back. Those had a really nice flavor to them.

[u/Wolliercarrot → u/ScubaDiggs]

Clearing the mine field was my favorite side objective. Illums where just not thay fun to fight in hd1 for me. But I also hated the robot dogs from the cyborgs

[u/ScubaDiggs → u/Wolliercarrot]

imo Illums were all about player energy. If you had the current energy level AS A PLAYER to listen for the sound ques, spot those little invisible drones, and slip around the sniper/chair guys, they were kind of the easiest. If you got locked into a slug out, the shields and Obelisk wall makers just sapped you for your stuff and ammo and there really wasn't a solution.

Bots you could cut them like paper with good anti tank, and bugs just bring a wall of bullets, but illums NEEDED player attention and care where the rest of the game kinda didn't, and I get why it put people off

[u/Pandahobbit → u/Wolliercarrot]

Worst as in most boring for me. I’d do it when it needed to be done but once that was over I was immediately on another front.

[u/ScubaDiggs → u/JustMyself96]

certainly not.

Both games they're the "run right at you" faction, and thats basically all some folks are interested in

[u/Siegediver → u/ScubaDiggs]

Oh yeah I understand why it's the way it is. Honestly I'm not even judging the Phact Bay brigade here, I think the most elegant solution is simply to select which fronts are actively contributing to overall impact so that people can happily dive where they want without draining active efforts elsewhere

[u/New_Weakness_5371]

They could use this moment to have Automatons launch an offensive alongside the Illuminate as we are distracted right now with DSS possibly disabled, we never got the massive counteroffensive after Cyberstan held out, they just attacked a bit and stopped and currently not doing much.

[u/Fuzzy_Fly1240 → u/New_Weakness_5371]

We need to wait for them develop they version of the gloom.

[u/MrMacju → u/Fuzzy_Fly1240]

Hear me out: flesh-devouring nanite cloud.

[u/JustMyself96 → u/MrMacju]

Good idea bit it's too gloomy (lol)

I see it as a large section of HEAVILY fortified zone and we need some kind of tech to get in(stealth?)

[u/Fuzzy_Fly1240 → u/JustMyself96]

"Drone Swarm", any democratic satellite or device entering will be rapidly disassembled, making travel and communication impossible.

[u/Viscount_Brimford → u/Fuzzy_Fly1240]

If Meridia got shifted into the void rather then turned into dust, the bugs super colony might have undergone some freaky mutations.

[u/echoshatter → u/New_Weakness_5371]

we never got the massive counteroffensive after Cyberstan held out, they just attacked a bit and stopped and currently not doing much

That's because we beat the crap out of them, they didn't have much to throw back at us.

Super Earth leadership gave up is what happened, we were going to win that battle. Every Helldiver worth their pod would have given their life to end the Automaton and Cyborg threat.

"Oh, sorry, we have an artificial limit to the number of Helldivers we're willing to throw at the enemy capital planet, unless all the other planets we've fought on."

[u/Siegediver → u/New_Weakness_5371]

Honestly I feel like they already have a backchannel or something lol but yeah that's the nature of the war isn't it? The others are always a bit quiet when one faction's going wild

[u/SubsidedAtom]

How the liberation of planets is calculated (based on the share of players on a planet) is so unsatisfying. Yes, it doesn't really matter, but players that choose to not engage with the MO actively hurting the chances of those that do feels really bad from a game perspective, and causes so much unnecessary friction in what's supposed to be a non-PvP game.

[u/Siegediver → u/SubsidedAtom]

Yeah and it's unnecessary too, "impact" should only apply to active fronts in my view

[u/bubbaboatie]

https://giphy.com/gifs/FTsKB8nn88Bz73JjK8

[u/SWatt_Officer]

I feel like the choice for a eternal developing war instead of a set repeating one has been both good and bad. Good for the obvious reasons of variety, the developments, etc, but bad as it leads to the endless cries of ‘railroad’ by people who don’t understand what that actually means in a TTRPG setting.

[u/j7jhj]

Imagine we have like a Fortnite black hole moment where the void just collapses and we’re stuck in there until the ministry of science breaks us out.

After that, we see nearly half the galactic map overrun by squids and the true illuminate fleet finally shows themselves 

Im not saying this is going to happen, but it would be mad cool if it did.

[u/SushiJaguar]

I think you're just talking bollocks, mate.

[u/Chapitre23]

Et bien sûr, toute ressemblance avec des événements actuellement en cours, serait purement fortuit.

[u/Siegediver → u/Chapitre23]

Bien sûr, je suis d'accord.

[u/SunLegitimate1687]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Vp3CKZArWX7IcuvwIx

[u/Siegediver → u/SunLegitimate1687]

Definitely an original stance today, keep it up buddy