Helldivers 2

Steam or Sony delisted every country outside PSN (and some territories that were in it) during the PSN fiasco, but I guess they missed the baltics and they just got added?

Edited by 4maskwolf on May 10th 2024 at 10:46:54 AM

Do we still know who decided to delist them before the deadline?

Arrowhead's CEO says they don't know whose decision it was and Sony and Steam aren't saying, so who knows.

Outside of As You Know taking cover because now most of everything shoots at you instead of runs at you, yeah bot enemies that are any bigger than the walking infantry troops will have at least medium armour. Thus, packing an Autocannon, Anti-Materiel Rifle, Laser Cannon, Grenade Launcher or (Heavy) Machine Gun will get a lot of mileage. Devastators can be taken out with headshots, but it's rather difficult to ensure that while they're moving and 10 of them are shooting at you so heavier-duty weapons are advised even if you are confident with your shooting. Scout Striders' front plate is pretty tough too, though where the joint meets the legs is a vulnerability for medium-armour-piercing weapons. The Impact grenade is also an easy solution to many of the aforementioned enemies.

Hulks' eye slits as mentioned by 4maskwolf are their main weakpoint, but you will need medium-armour-piercing weapons (the MG-43 Machine Gun and Grenade Launcher won't cut it, sadly) to damage them there. If you have any of the aforementioned weapons, instead shooting out one of a Hulk's legs will greatly slow them and make it far easier to shoot at their eye slit while stopping them from getting too close. You may also opt to shoot out all of their legs to kill them in the easiest-yet-time-and-ammo-consuming manner. But of course, the best method is TEAMWORK, by getting behind the Hulk while it's chasing someone to kill it by shooting it in the back by just about anything.

I would most especially advise getting into the habit of checking your map and minimap frequently since a Rocket or Heavy Devastator unexpectedly shooting you from behind can get lethal quick. The two mortars and Shield Generator Relay strategems have value against bots unlike the bugs, since the bot enemies are less likely to try to directly drown the Helldivers in their own bodies which makes it more feasible to stay nearby them.

Smoke is also a much more valuable tool against bots to help you do objectives or stay alive. Stuns and Impacts are great and all, but no other grenade can help solve being shot at from all sides like Smokes do.

Edited by VutherA on May 10th 2024 at 1:57:55 AM

The autocannon is probably the single best weapon to bring along during Automaton missions. It's capable of killing nearly all Automaton enemies, including Hulks, can destroy Bot fabricators from extreme distances if you make a ricochet shot into the vents, and even kills the gunships in a couple of hits on the engines. Only flaw of course is the stationary reloads, but that's less of an issue since most Automatons don't close the distance too quickly.

Yeah, that's what I said, I love playing Autocannons 2.

Bitches love autocannons.

I wanna go back to bugs. I get gunned down, air dropped back in, then get gunned down before I even finish raising out of my pod.

I don't even get controls back!

Yeah, that's totally someone dropping you in the wrong place. That can happen with the bugs too (dropping in the middle of seven+ spewers), but it's a tad more likely with groups of Devastator varieties and Scout Striders potentially stunlocking you if they hit you from a greater distance.

Edited by VutherA on May 11th 2024 at 12:48:49 PM

I've had bad drops with bugs but at least there I can move. Technically. I get stuck inside a Charger or something until the game decides to damage my hit box and ragdoll me into an open spot, maybe with enough health to survive.

I literally die before my guy is even done raising out of the pod. It's literally this vid.

Edited by Spirit on May 11th 2024 at 6:43:45 AM

It's so true

So, liberally ignore every single REINFORCE ME indicator you get when you're in bot land unless you really are doing nothing at all at the moment. Far better that you take a few seconds to figure a spot that will probably vaguely send your buddies into cover than getting them John Marstoned.

It's another thing I like about smoke grenades, it makes recovering from squad losses easier since you can pop just smoke by people's strategem equipment and generally drop them toward it.

After a day of trying I'm finally getting the hang of fighting the bots.

I still don't know how to fight tanks or their AT-A Ts, but I can at least fight back now.

Still think the bugs are the easier faction.

Tanks are actually pretty vulnerable if you manage to clear away their support, then just run to the back of their turret and hit it in the glowing orange vents with any of the medium+ armour-piercing weapons (including Impact Grenades). Non-AT weapons will take some more hits to do the job so you'll have to either be nearly directly behind the turret's facing before you start shooting to finish the job without moving, or be clear enough that you can reposition continuously around the turret. You can even run around on top of the things and they won't do be able to anything to you at all, but be careful of their coaxial machine-gun mounted on the front of the tank still.

The Factory Striders "AT-ATs" are pretty bad stuff though, you should definitely try to pull out the Orbital Lasers, 500kgs and Rocket Pod stratagems to deal with them ASAP, and it'll take at least two of each to kill them. If all else fails though, medium+ armor-piercing weapons again can kill them by repeated shooting at their head's "eyes" and the red line joining them (this'll take a while) or into its belly (this is much faster). You'll probably want to also want to shoot out the guns mounted on their face to help you with shooting them more elsewhere later.

You can take out the walkers by targeting the hip area with a medium armor piercing weapon.

Hitting them directly with an impact grenade or having a grenade explode just to the side or behind them so it gets around the shield armor.

Most AT weapons will knock out walkers pretty easily.

You have a little elevation or you're a good shot you can usually clip the top of the bots head from behind the shield with focused fire.

If you're quick run toward the front of them and little off to the side and run around and shoot the bot out of the saddle basically.

The factory striders are a pain.

Rapidly hitting the top turret with anti-armor weapons helps a good bit followed by blowing off their chin turrets.

After that dump fire into the bellies or right into their face.

Tanks can also be knocked out by eagle strikes especially if the bomb lands right on them.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on May 12th 2024 at 2:16:09 PM

You can take out the walkers by targeting the hip area with a medium armor-piercing weapon.

They can be hit directly with an impact grenade or have a grenade explode just to the side or behind them so it gets around the shield armor.

Most AT weapons will knock out walkers pretty easily.

You have a little elevation, or you're a good shot. With a focused fire, you can usually clip the top of the bot head's hitbox from behind the shield.

If you're quick, run toward the front of them and a little off to the side, then run around and shoot the bot out of the saddle.

The factory striders are a pain.

Rapidly hitting the top turret antiarmor weapons helps a good bit, followed by blowing off their chin turrets.

After that, dump fire into the bellies or right into their face.

Tanks can also be knocked out by eagle strikes, especially if the bomb lands on them.

If you have trouble hitting the eye slit on a hulk from the front, Target their legs.

Once you break their knee, they slow down to a crawl, and you can pretty much run away at your leisure or, if you have the ammo and time, shoot out the other leg, which will destroy them. This strategy is really good with the Quasar, Recoilless Rifle, or E.A.T. launcher.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on May 12th 2024 at 6:21:09 AM

With the recent rename of Opening a Can of Clones to be more broadly about No Permanence No Stakes, it's gotten me thinking about how it could wind up applying to this game. II's story isn't like Helldivers, where everything is outright expected to go back to normal after a month; the devs are clearly telling a unique, constructed narrative day by day in response to the playerbase's actions. But this raises the question; what actually happens if we lose? Say that somehow one of our enemies somehow gets to Super Earth and wins a siege of it—is the game just over after that or do the devs try to just say "nuh uh, that didn't count" like a Game Master trying to undo a Total Party Kill and keep going? Neither option feels great, but the first one would be a super ballsy and interesting move from a commercial perspective, like "if enough people ever aren't playing this game then you'll permanently lose the ability to play it".

Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

I feel like a siege of Super Earth is one of mega-events the devs have in their back pocket.

How that works remain to be seen, but considering how we've taken the enemy homeworlds only for the devs to undo it, I imagine they'll let us try and retake Super Earth as well.

Apparently, that was actually a mission type in the first game. It was unique in consisted of urban warfare.

Kind of. Capital Defenses take place on Super Earth capital planets, so you have to fight your way through the ravaged concrete jungle to your objectives. If the defense fails you lose the sector, and if you get beaten back to Super Earth you get one more shot at defending and otherwise you lose the whole war. Given that in II individual planets can be won and lost rather than whole sectors at once, it makes sense that they would get rid of this, unless there are City Planet biomes we haven't encountered yet.

I'm hoping we get fights in cites at some point for a bit of variety. It seems weird that every Super Earth colony seems to consist of scattered outposts.

I'm worried we won't be able to finish this Major Order, we have less than 2 days left and we're only on 57% of the 2 billion bot kills. Not sure we'll be able to make it in time.

Bizarrely there's also 20000 players still fighting in the Terminid systems not helping out.

Yeah, that's basically normal. There's a large number of Bug players who don't go over to Bots when there's a Major Order targeting them. I'd expect Super Earth itself being under siege by Bots wouldn't even get them over.

We had 4 days to do 2 billion bots right?

Well, in just under 48 hours we already got something like 50-60% done. We'll be cutting it close but we should manage the remaining half in that time.

Wait, there was a Major Order to kill the bots?

We really dropped the ball yesterday. Only went up like 10%, now we have like 14 hours to kill the remaining 30%.

Yeah I don't think we are winning this.