Recent reviews by LlamaNoLife

Was a great game on release that had a lot of promise despite some issues upon release. It had everything you wanted in a game: casual game, fun concepts, a different concept from other games on the market, coop experience, repeatability, community engagement, and being produced by a small developer instead of a AAA studio that only throws out cash-grabs nowadays. Yes, it had many aspects on release that negatively affected players, but the community was willing to forgive that as AH is a small studio that experienced unprecedented success.

Instead of focusing on addressing the bugs plaguing the game, AH has instead decided to continually push new content out, oftentimes not working the way as intended such as Superior Packing Methodology not working for like a week or 2 after release. Bugs that allegedly have been fixed are still plaguing the game such as corpses launching players halfway across the map, which can result in them losing the hard-earned samples they spent the past 30 minutes of a mission grabbing. Today while playing I literally fell over and died with not a single enemy near me. Did I get shot? No, I was against Terminids and at full health with no teammates around.

Additionally, the balance philosophy for the game appears to be aimed at punishing players for using weapons/stratagems that work. Want a reliable primary to use against hordes of bugs? Nerfed the breaker and breaker incendiary. Want to use a support weapon that can handle those crowds while also being somewhat reliable against heavies? Reworked and nerfed the flamethrower (which is literally only useful against bugs, not to mention it came DAYS BEFORE THE FLAME WARBOND). Want to use literally anything other than EAT, Recoilless, Quasar, or Commando? Good luck dealing with heavies on higher difficulties as your stratagems will be on cooldown nearly 100% of the time. Want to use a non-explosive grenade such as stuns? Need to bring the eruptor, grenade pistol, or crossbow to have a chance of dealing with nests/bases without wasting all your precious stratagems. Found a combination that works for you? Expect it to be nerfed next patch despite the devs saying they wont do nerfs.

AH did all this in the name of "realism" for a game where FTL travel exists (which is physically impossible by todays standards). F&%$ your realism, we don't get on steam and play a game to be "realistic", we could join the army or go touch grass if that's we wanted. We want to have fun while playing games and it seems that AH wants to punish the combinations that most players enjoy using instead of buffing combinations that they don't. Even by AH's realism argument, the flamethrower rework/nerf is stupid as real flamethrowers use a liquid such as gas or napalm to stick to and coat fortified positions such as MG nests and tanks to eliminate the threat. Mind you, this is using technology from WW2 and Helldivers 2 is set in the distant future, plus I doubt cooking a charger is much different than a real life Tiger 1 tank especially when the charger has EXPOSED FLESH BEHIND ITS ARMOR. Wanna try it? Wear one of those fire suits they use for stunts and set yourself on fire, see how comfortable you are after a few seconds. Now imagine instead you're wearing the Iron Man MK 1 suit that Tony built in the cave being blasted with a fully fledged napalm-spewing flamethrower and that's pretty much the equivalent here. Sure, it might take a bit because of the steel, but you'll still die from it because it will stick to the suit, heat it up, and cook you alive in there, especially since much like the charger, some of your flesh is still exposed.

I'm not saying I expect every weapon/stratagem to be good, but when 70% of the weapons feel bad and the solution is to nerf the 30% of weapons/stratagems that don't, there's a problem with the way you're balancing the game. I am by no means a subscriber to the "meta" and I personally like the LAS-5 Scythe with the Laser Cannon on terminids prior to the most recent patch, which resulted in a difficult yet manageable experience on difficulty 8 after the many buffs the Scythe has received. THAT is how you balance a game, by providing another option to do the same thing as what currently works. I'd love to use different stratagems, weapons, and equipment in my games, but the game just isn't fun when all I can do is run away because the other combinations either barely work or don't work at all. I'm forced to take only a few select stratagems (which I won't name cuz knowing AH they'll nerf them after reading this) just to feel like I have a CHANCE of success. Look at the Stalwart ffs, useless since day 1 since its basically just a primary weapon with a larger mag that uses a stratagem slot. It is outshined instantly by the MG-43, which does the same thing except it can penetrate/kill things that a primary/Stalwart isn't able to.


My advice to AH: Stop pushing out new content and focus on fixing and balancing the game for at least a month or two. Get some more time for devs to playtest content for release and send out more specific and detailed player polls about what is and isn't working. Asking people to pick the top 3 best and worst weapons in a poll is much more useful than "are assault rifles better than shotguns" and keep in mind which faction they are being used against more often when balancing too. Some weapons are just plain suited to take on automatons better, such as the scorcher and diligence, while others are better for bugs, such as the punisher and breaker. You should expect to see weapons like these used more against one faction than the other: it's just how the game is played. Punishing players for using a weapon that is good against the faction they are facing is a bad approach to balancing, especially when you add in mountains of armored enemies requiring you to take less stratagems for things like chaff clear and more for armor penetration.

Edit: Just tested out the new weapons, go ahead and try to dive backwards to dodge literally anything while firing the new flamethrower primary. You will die 100% of the time, so AH has released yet another weapon that does not function properly. Thanks AH for releasing a warbond I wanted from day 1 and making it absolutely useless to the point of actively sabotaging your game play for using the mechanics you specifically want people to use to avoid dying.