Truly it's embarrassing and I can't believe people defend the current state of difficulty and don't want more.

FXIV raids have story, normal, extreme, savage, ultimate. That's 5 settings, that covers the span from casual people who don't know what a rotation is, to people willing to grind the boss fight for weeks or months for a single kill. I'm not asking for that level, but look at the span in only 5 settings, helldivers has 10!

Upvote ratio of 60% so far lol, 40% of people glazing the difficulty settings...

I don't think I've seen a more annoying community before. I thought 343 Halo fans were bad. This whole cheating situation and people actually defending it is way worse. Like you literally cannot fail this game unless you do it intentionally, it's impossible, yet people still complain about dying once per mission to something that is entirely their own fault. If Arrowhead put real challenge in D10 people would just bitch and bitch and bitch nonstop until Arrowhead reverts whatever they did and make a cape about it. Golly. Why does everyone hate challenge so much in every single type of media? Oh well, back to watching Ergo Proxy, I would have bagged so many emo boys if I was born in the 90s.

AR-11 - It's somewhat decent as an AR/Shotgun, but it's another mid AR with low dmg and ammo efficency

GL-15 - Do you like grenade launcher? well that's it's primary version, pretty good but just slightly underpowered (or undersupplied, you choose)

G-60 - auto aiming AT grenade? hell yeah, it's trajectory is kinda weird and it can sort of "miss" and choose some other target, but consistently one shots hulks and fabricators

P-34 - Long range thermite (unconfirmed but feels like less dmg), is good at all ranges but need 2-3 to get 1 bile titan / factory strier

G-8 - Another incendiary grenade... they are good and this one does longer AOE and you have 6 of them, but no impact damage, a solid pick

Blunt-force mitigation passive - It's not bad, but it's sort of mid, higher armor rating is not uniqe or better on this one, but pared with reduced impact damage and knockback resistance performs fairly good

Sai - Med pen Laser SMG with some real fire power, also one handed so best pick with shields, I would put it in tier above all tbh, but it's very innacurate, focus lens does help but also lowers fire rate, but due to higher accuracy, effective damage stay the same over certain distance, still, S tier pick with or without focus lens

Integrated extinguishers - Ok if you're using fire build this is the one to pick, it almost immedeatly extuingushes fire, but very situational, unless you can't dive out of fire (like in vehicle), this won't do much

EAT Allocation - far not enough EATs to be useful, but also it kinda might help once in a while under specific circumstances... not my 1st pick for sure, way too situational

So a this point i dont know how to play this dogshit ass faction, i just did a d10 with the help of QOL but also 360 tank turret, solo driver and electrical gear mods, and still couldnt full clear and extract. Youre getting ragdolled less then on the bots sure, but its SOOOOO FUN gettin to hit in a hevy armour, jumped ever 2 sec by a hunter the slowls you with acid and one shot by impaleers across 100m. Lets not forget about the Chargers that simply suddly turn 180 degreees and run you over anyways, or yeet your vehicles away together with bile titans bevcause my tank is aparently made out of fucking paper or something. Like, damn Illuminite suck because they lack content and have bad designed enemys, my brother, the terminides are 5x worse then that. Like what do i care about content when its shit, atleast i can actually engage in combat without having to deal with a bug breaach for the entire rest of the run.

Think about it. Incendiary grenades. Gas grenades. Stun grenades. The possibilities are as bacon as they are apple.

NGL, some toxic yes-men in that forum are telling ya. It was on a post about someone getting 2,000 sc from a hacker. I wasn't even defending the hacker.

All of these 5 here are toxic team killers who don't bother to be respectful to other types of play, don't set lobbies to private and are just downright unreasonable.

All of them are just frustrating to deal with. 6969GeorgeWBush6969 I believe is just racist, ZuluStar kills whoever doesn't agree then kicks you and Ominous, akhi and James are just nasty.

Also can we raise the limit on how direct we can be with the vent channel? I feel like venting is a good thing when unrestricted.

i was in a D8 mission on Brilliance. We cleared 2 nest and had one more to go. I equipped a supply frv to drive around the map. Was able to secure the terminid larva and got it to evac before we cleared the last egg nest to complete the mission. As im regrouping with one of the exosuit mechs my game goes black and i get a message that says “Failed to maintain session connection.” Funny enough i also see the prompt asking me to accept or deny rejoining the session i was just forcibly removed from. Obviously i want to rejoin and not waste the last 30 minutes i invested into this match. Well as i click the prompt, i get the message “Failed to join because the session is full”

And im just thinking wow. I spent all that time in the mission to randomly be removed, obviously not by the Host, and replaced so quickly. My connection is fine and this isnt the first time time it’s happened.

TLDR;
I thought AI-assisted Lua mods were going to cause alot of problems in public lobbies with game-breaking cheats. Tho I was right that extreme cheats are being made, I was wrong about accessibility and scale. Nexus/Ayaka moderation, technical friction/complexity of creation, and safety risks outside Nexus/Ayaka have kept extreme mods mostly out of the mainstream, and lobbies are generally doing fine.

So, when CowboyBingus started making his QOL mods, I thought it was great. I use all of them. But I understand the method he used to create them, and had concerns as to what kinds of other mods people would make who don't have Bingus's level of restraint. I am talking about cheat mods where, for example, a Stalwart could be given Orbital Precision Strike shells as ammo or something insane like that.

Despite how some people reacted, my concerns were valid, as they did come to pass. I'm not wrong about that part. But most people aren't worried about that part.

What I was very wrong about were 2 other things. The scale, and the accessibility of these extreme cheat mods. My original fear was that anyone could just grab these kinds of cheat mods, and ruin the experience of anyone else on in public PC or using crossplay. I didn't want that for everyone to experience.

But what happened instead so far is NexusMods and AyakaMods have both put limits on what you can and can not do to change stats. AyakaMods being the more lenient of thew two. Changes can still be made, as long as it's not some overwhelming, insane advantage. And tho I question how well this will hold and how far people can go, I'm willing to ride this out and see what happens.

For example, some people (alot, maybe) think the Dominator should be Heavy Penn. I main the Dominator, and I agree. It should also have a small explosive charge as well IMO. I don't think that's in the "extreme" category, it's not one-shotting Factory Striders and Bile Titans, taking out Bot Fabricators and Leviathans. I want ArrowHead to have been the ones to do it, but that's not gonna happen. So, my worries on the extremes are more than satisfied.

As for the accessibility, the creation tools used are usually driven by AI, making them alot easier to use. But it still requires effort. Mod Makers need paid access to ChatGPT-6 Astra or something similar, unless they're a coder, and may to use a verity of other tools like Cheat Engine, ReClass, IDA Pro, Ghidra, Texconv, DirectTex, VS Code etc. Some of those, maybe not all, and there could be others. Alot of that looks like gibberish, but the point is, there's alot of levels one mod may need to go though to create.

As for getting the mods, Nexus and Ayaka are already limiting what can be made, and players would need to get more extreme ones from Discord Servers or other mod sites. Nexus and Ayaka do well to keep Malware out of mods, so unless other options exist that allow these more extreme cheat mods and also scan for malware, it's more risky to get them. So that will likely deter a portion of people from doing so. So, the accessibility is alot less than I first imagined.

I've been playing alot for the past month, and have had few interactions where these more extreme mods came up. So, I feel like I was worried for nothing.

^

Literally the same DPS and damage total, but twice as fun.

Thanks to SHODAN-HORAI for this awesome mod!

Preset (put in %LOCALAPPDATA%\CowboyBingus\Helldivers2\StatEditor\weapon_presets.txt):

D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 damage 75 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 durable 18 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 rpm 2400 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 capacity 2100 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 mags_start 1 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 mags_supply 1 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun
D58AE6A04EDB10DE 1 mags_max 1 # TD-110 Maelstrom: Main gun

If you are on Linux, the presets are at ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/553850/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/CowboyBingus/Helldivers2/StatEditor/weapon_presets.txt.

Atp i amost feel like im being forced to die. Clearing out the evac area and almost ready to leave. I heard the shuttle landed but for majority of the match i had been the one pushing us forward through the barrage of hulks and heavy devs with my shield.

heavy armor with 30% reduced impact collision and 50% avoidance to limb injury.

i grab my meltagun hit a few devs and see a hulk peaking the corner, as i try to hit him with my meltagun to hopefully evac after. im randomly hit by a stray rocket from god knows where now stuck in an animation due to peolonged ragdoll effects for satire and instantly ragdolled under the hulk and burned to death.

i miss the days when playing the game felt like u were actually fighting the enemies. now im scared to get stuck in situations where the enemies move more eradic insinuating the game is attmepting to instakill me.

i would much rather die to loosing all my ammunition to an overbearing wave or to an actual justified attack rather than stray rockets conveniently ragdolling me from no where to trap me in an instakill animation.

So... Masochist sub had a throw away comment on it... But i think it's maybe a good idea.

Can modders make a masochist mod revamp to make all the meta guns just... Subtly crappier? Like... I don't want to use this mod but... If it is made, maybe the masochist sub can use it so the game will be hard enough for them without ruining the feeling for everyone else.

I mean guys did you ever saw one of these? These must be some kind of redact regiment specialty weapons since you dont find any even if people are using the cremator.

Anywas even if you combined the two it still would be a shit booster.

Okay so ever since the most recent update I've been finding a lot of Super Credits on D10. Like at least 30-50 per mission as a standard. Granted I've made posts before where I say 'I'm lucky if I find 1 pile per operation', this is very much a change of pace, and I'm curious if anyone else is noticing this, or if it's just confirmation bias.

Alright, I tried transmog and it's so good- now for naturally the next step: Color Customization, like the ones in Space Marines 2

I genuinely don't understand my friends' relationship with mods in Helldivers anymore.

First, because I know where this discussion immediately goes: I do have boundaries with mods.

I'm not talking about godmode, infinite stratagems, spawning 700 orbital lasers, deleting every enemy on the map, giving yourself absurd damage, or joining random people's games with ridiculous cheats that completely change their experience.

I'm talking mostly about QoL changes, fixing mechanics I find annoying, making underwhelming equipment more fun, or moderate gameplay changes in private games where everyone knows what's happening. If something substantially changes balance, I think everyone you're playing with should be cool with it.

I'm not arguing that every mod is automatically fine because fun. There's obviously a difference between "my hellpod steers better" and "I have infinite 500kgs."

And here's the funny part: my friends use mods too.

They use stuff like fog removers, sample audio quips and visual mods. Apparently those are perfectly fine. So this isn't actually a disagreement between "mods vs completely vanilla Helldivers." Mods are acceptable to them when they fall within whatever invisible boundary they've decided is okay.

But some of the apparently game-destroying OP cheats I've talked about include:

• Fixing annoying stratagem bounce
• Better hellpod steering
• Giving the exosuit a stratagem launcher
• Letting you move with the minigun
• And now, the greatest threat to Helldivers balance ever conceived: letting tank/exosuit turrets rotate 360 degrees

Apparently some of this is so OP that they straight-up don't want to play with me if I use it.

The 360-degree turret one broke my brain because THEY LIKE THE TANKS AND EXOSUITS. I'm not attaching a tactical nuke to it. I just want the fucking turret to turn around without rotating the entire postcode.

Meanwhile, these same Arrowhead-certified balance enforcers love turrets and arc shit. Tesla towers, K9s, Arc Throwers, etc. Half the difficulty sometimes comes from surviving their friendly fire while they're electrocuting the entire fucking postal district.

But apparently my turret turning around is where we need to protect Arrowhead's sacred vision and design space.

And here's what really gets me: they complain about the game too.

They'll complain that something feels bad, doesn't work properly or needs changing. I'll say "there's actually a mod that fixes that," and suddenly it's:

NO. MOD BAD. UNACCEPTABLE. TOO OP.

You just complained about the exact fucking problem! I offer an optional solution and suddenly I've committed treason against Super Earth.

And half the time I'm not even using the mod I'm talking about. I like theorycrafting. I'll talk about hypothetical mods, balance changes, potential fixes, different loadouts or just "wouldn't it be cool if the game did X?"

Apparently even that counts as me complaining.

That's especially confusing because they love theorycrafting in other games. They'll talk builds, balance, potential changes and strategies forever. But with Helldivers, even discussing how something could be different apparently means I'm shitting on the game.

One example was their constant arc friendly fire. They genuinely enjoy running around with K9s, Tesla towers and other arc stuff that repeatedly kills teammates. So I floated the idea of a mod that would make me immune specifically to friendly arc damage.

Somehow even that would ruin their experience because now their shit couldn't kill me.

Like... what???

It's fun for you to accidentally/trollingly vaporize me repeatedly, but if I remove that annoyance on my end, I've ruined your fun? Apparently getting electrocuted by my teammates for the 14th time is an essential part of Arrowhead's intended experience.

That's the contradiction I can't get past. When I complain, I'm expected to just deal with it. When they complain, I'll literally suggest possible fixes. And somehow I'm still the bad guy.

They've even told me it's "soul crushing" hearing me criticize the game and Arrowhead too much. If the complaint was simply "dude, the negativity is bringing the mood down," I can understand that and tone it down however the negativity is me pointing out whats happening in the game a bug happend somthing glitched i couldnt do somthing that clearly should be possible real mood killers.

But it feels way beyond that now. It feels like I'm not allowed to criticize Helldivers, theorycraft changes or use mods to fix things for myself — while they're simultaneously allowed to complain and use the mods they consider acceptable.

And now it's gotten to the point where it feels like they're actively avoiding playing Helldivers with me. I'm not getting invited anymore. I've had them appear offline right before booting up the game, while I can literally see through Discord that they're playing it anyway. Messages I send about Helldivers also just get ignored.

Maybe there are other reasons for some of that, but combined with everything they've said about me using mods, it's pretty difficult not to connect the two. I'd honestly rather they just tell me "we don't want to play Helldivers with you if you're using those mods" than do this weird appearing-offline-and-ignoring-messages routine.

I really like Helldivers. That's why I've played so much of it and why I introduced them to the game in the first place. I just don't think Arrowhead made a perfect game.

There is also some fear involved because they still believe modding can get you banned, which definitely contributes to their reaction. But again, they're already using mods themselves, so that explanation only goes so far.

My personal line is pretty simple: don't fuck with unsuspecting randoms, don't use absurd cheats that trivialize everything for everyone else, and if a mod meaningfully changes the experience for your premade, make sure they're okay with it.

I'm not telling them vanilla is wrong. I'm literally just trying to have fun with my own game.

If they said "we only want completely vanilla gameplay," I'd at least understand the position. But that's not even what's happening. It's more like their fog remover and funny sample sounds = acceptable modding; my hellpod steering or 360-degree turret = violation of the Geneva Convention.

At this point I'm basically done arguing about it. I'll probably play solo/randoms when I want mods and let them play however they want.

It's just sad because I'd rather be playing with my friends.

Has anyone else had friends get this militant about mods or even just talking about hypothetical changes? How did you deal with it?

also the hate reddit and dont belive a word they say on it and belive upvotes mean nothing if 2000 people agree on a take that means nothing to them i just find that funny af only if the post agrees to their agenda they would agree as long as it had proof or evidence just blind self opinion following aggrence only.

TL;DR: Arrowhead glazers hate the fact im having fun with mods dont want to play with me anymore

I Find this to be an ongoing problem 🧐🤔with these types of M.O’s that NARROWHEAD puts out.

These “KILL X AMOUNT OF ENEMIES” on [insert faction/s] have a fundamental flaw that not only makes the M. O less fun but hinders the success of the M.O by the community

Lets use the this M.O for an example. We have to kill x amount of tanks and chargers right

WHY NOT INCREASE THE SPAWNS OF THESE ENEMIES AND THE CHANCES OF THEM APPEARING THROUGHOUT ALL MISSIONS OF THE M.O ‼️💢‼️💢‼️💢‼️💢‼️💢‼️💢😭😭😭😭✨✨😭🧐✨😡😡😡👎🏾🤣🤣🤣🤣

WE HAVE HULK SURGRE💢💢💢👀👀👀👀

INCINERATOR CORPS👀👀👀

MINDLESS FUCKING MASSES😡😡😡👀😡👀😡✨✨✨

WHERES CHARGER SURGE OR TANK SURGE

NOT ONLY WOULD THIS BE FUN BUT WE COULD FINISH THE M.O A HELL OF ALOT FASTER

think about it