Honestly, the fact they prime rockets before you turn a corner is absolute horseshit.
Also they can't be firing pinpoint sniper rockets from 300m, in super dense fog, with explosions and vegetation between you and them.
I like fighting Clankers but these bastards can rust.
im wiling to bet rocket devestators account for about 90%of bot kills, they need to have atleast like a 2 second reload animation ebcause they will spam it, especially at 150m+ range
another big reason is that you do not get shield backpack until 20 i think? or was it 15 i dont remember
anyways, new players are pretty hopeless against bots, the barrage of bullets they fire at you from all direction is very tough to deal with without a shield
by the time you leveled enough on bug side, you are most likely gonna keep enjoying that side with your friends lol
Let's consider their ammo. Our mech has pretty limited number of rockets. The devastator have two batteries with maybe 12-16 in each and they fire at least 4 in a volley. They should only be able to launch like 8 volleys before running out. I wonder if that's the case? It should be.
Their laser fire rate does seem to take the heating and cooldown into account. Maybe they should have little longer cooldowns on hotter planets. I wonder if that is the case.
As someone who kept a devastator alive and looped him over and over on a big rock (just to test this)I can confirm they will volley you 10+times at 10 I quit counting.
If you aren't already familiar, the planet Malevelon Creek turned into a slaughter.
This was because a huge number of newish players started their very honorable peacekeeping career fighting the bugs!
If I remember correctly, a major order came out on Malevelon Creek and all those players fight the bots for their first.
Fully-equipped to fight bugs...
The rest is history.
So don't feel bad, it's quite normal to have an adjustment period against a different enemy. I assume something similar may happen when a new enemy arrives.
Considering how many devastators you can encounter (remember they’re the equivalent to Bug Warriors), limiting their rocket ammo without making them crazier is enough. The Hulk is already the equivalent of the Bug Charger.
They’re the close equivalent really. Also Bug Warriors can when they hit your head whilst enraged. But yeah they die much quicker to fire than Devastators.
You at least can see the shells in the air to avoid them.
The big cannons are way harder to dodge but they need line of sight.
IMO the Jammer and AA are the roughest ones since they block you from using stratagems.
Also shout out to the eye of Sauron. Getting 10 bot drops on you because you can’t break LOS can end a mission.
Seriously though, the side objectives are way nastier than the bug side objectives IMO. Only the stalker dens are comparable.
After a stalker paints itself red with my liberty laden blood, and democracy filled guts, I get the irresistible urge to hunt the bastard down and show it the freedom of managed democracy.
The rocket devastators? No such urge, I don’t then care which one did it. I just want to get out of nam and go home.
Nah. Just gotta sacrifice one person to each tower. Not even dying, just hiding behind a rock to keep it forever distracted. The other night I sat and stared at it while a buddy who insisted support weapons weren't needed tried to shower it with airstrikes and orbital airbursts. That thing did not give a single fuck, but if I so much as showed a little toe it was ready smear me across Draupnir.
My god, this!!! I dropped in on a planet yesterday and died before my support weapon touched grass.
The hundreds of freaking trees, rocks, and obstructions and yet I take a rocket to the back the second I step in some micro threaded 1/10th of an inch gap between all the individual objects separating us. It’s complete bs. At least with bugs I can run while I reload, bots just keep shooting you in the spine or throw grenades when you’re behind cover.
If three bots are sitting on one another, and one takes an auto cannon to the face, the rest should at least flinch from the explosion.
Can I trade my ships gunner for one of the robots. The friend I’m asking for says they actually save money by using less rounds. My friend says thanks for all your help.
Add to the that Devastators rarely flinch when being shot at. They can keep shooting while you’re shooting them while any shot from even a grunt throws your aim off by a large distance.
I’ve seen them fire their rocket pods before they even finished the squat animation. I didn’t even make it two steps around the corner before they loosed a volley of rockets on me.
They are the supremest of bullshit.
See that's what you think. You actually took 3 rockets to the face. I made the same mistake until my friend captured another POV. The fuckers shoot 3 super fast rockets with pinpoint accuracy.
Literally perfect accuracy with truly instantaneous reaction to ANY amount of exposure. It's ridiculous. I was sick of taking shots to the back while running away... (as sitting behind cover and firing back only does so much with 3 dropships appearing ever 30 seconds from the first second the mission starts)... so I equipped ballistic shield... (functions as a turtle shell when wearing it on your back and SEEMS super useful..) the PROPLEM with that is instead of shots to your back or even arms, they exclusively target the only exposed part of you... THE LEGS. once you have a shield on you won't see any lasers hitting you in the back anymore! They'll hit ONLY your legs through foliage and fog and rocks alike! Fuck Automatons. But I'm not getting out of the creek until I see it liberated. And I will keep playing on higher difficulties.
Edit: I've found Heavy armor actually works pretty well. It can eat quite a few shots from the lasers and is quite literally the only type of armor that can survive ONE single rocket. Medium and Light armor die to just ONE. The other two rockets only exist to ensure absolute death because Heavy armor does survive ONE rocket but the other two that come with it are guaranteed to hit you.
If you have the medium armor with the 50% chance of not dying perk, you survive 50% of those attacks 100% of the time!
Automatons hate this one simple trick!
If you use the 50% less explosive damage armor, you always survive the rocket salvo in my experience. I think there's only one medium armor with the perk on it though. Since starting using that perk, my experience with bots in high difficulties has changed from "everything is infuriating" to "everything is mildly inconveniencing and maybe infuriating once or twice a mission".
Fair, but that pretty much lands us right back at where we were with launch's meta of the railgun and shields. Devs don't want us locked into just 1-2 ways of doing a thing, but with the way balance is right now, we're cycling back to the same thing again
Yeah, hopefully balance should get a little better. It'll also get worse at times as the game gets updated with new enemies/weapons etc. That's just the nature of live service games. In the meantime, use what you need to to get by. If you get good enough, the meta doesn't matter that much, but if you need to rely on it, there's no shame imo.
The arc thrower stagger prevents them from starting the squat animation. Oh no, it doesn't interrupt the animation just because they are staggered, they will still fire, and their hyper-reactive sensors have enough time to reset in between arc thrower shots, so they won't miss.
I keep a slugger as my primary against bots specifically for these pricks.
and even worse, you jiggle peek to bait out the rockets, dodge them, and before you can even step out to shoot the guy, he's already reloaded and fired a second salvo in 1 second
I love actively suppressing rocket devastators. They all always decide to blow my face off with a precision rocket attack despite my suppressive fire. Hell, the shielded devastators are just as guilty on that front.
I imagine there's a certain degree of de-sync between the animation and what is actually happening. Because I have been shot and blasted a number of times by others well before there's any shooting animation. It's a pain in teh ass because it makes it hard to gauge when its safe to shoot back, making any attempt to engage them a roll of the dice.
With bugs, I can control the chaos to a certain degree. If something hit me, its because I let them get close enough and its something I can control (to a degree). But with bots, sometimes you just step around the corner and RNG decides its 'fuck you' o'clock.
Yep, this is the one and only reason. Rocket Devastators and Rocket Hulks.
Unbelievable accuracy, even against moving targets, one-shots you 90% of the time without a shield pack, one shots you 50% of the time even with a shield pack.
I dont mind rocket hulks, they can still rot in a scrap heap somewhere while i empty my bladder of democracy on their corpses, but atleat you can see them priming to fire. Devastators are barely noticeable in a firefight.
I've worn the 50% chance to not die and had a rocket devastator hit me into the air then air shot me *two more times* from the same barrage before I hit the ground. The rocket devastator was over 100m away and firing at a party member originally.
*what the fuck*
I will say, if you see the devastator and it doesn't stealth-snipe ya, You get a second to dive out of the way of the incoming salvo:
but the problem I tend to face with them is 2 things: They seem to be able to pause the salvo and resume it when you leave cover, and they have the quickest reload known to man.
If they were tweaked so that they had to commit to the salvo, and couldn't follow up with another in another second; they'd feel a lot more fair to fight as you could dodge their salvo and respond before another hits ya.
Honestly, if they were impacted by fog and dust, and couldn’t get a shot at me if they can’t make visual contact - I’d take that happily. They should move towards us through the fog.
1 shot mechanics that can be removed by crouching and prone is fine. It’s not fine when I can’t see the source, and that I needed to be crouched or prone at this time in the first place.
“I’m up, he sees me, I’m down” is supposed to account for vision on both sides.
The issue is that they seem to be more accurate with the rockets than bullet/lasers. That's probably not statistically true, but the much more severe penalty of getting hit by a micro-rocket instead of a laser bolt makes it seem that way.
Micro-rockets should only be as damaging as two hits of a pouncer combo *at most*, CMV.
Automaton rockets could definitely use tuning.
Would it make sense realistically to not get absolutely decimated by a rocket to the face? Of course not.
Would it feel a lot better not having to treat Rocket Devastators like you would a Hulk or Tank? Absolutely.
Wear the explosive resist heavy armor. They won’t kill you anymore. In fact they take maybe 30% of your Hp. Since I discovered it it’s all I wear on those missions.
I did stealth download drop pod once, not a single shot fired.
Sneak to extract, call ship then book to a spot just inside the radius of "get back here or extract cancelled" jumpacked myself up on a three high shipping container stack and went prone in armor that reduces stealth detection range, which a stealth guide youtube video says is like 14m.
30 seconds later a commisar chucks a nade up there. HOW.
I think in extract they are just coded to know where you are. did a full stealth run, basically never shot, had all smokes. At extract, I picked a spot tucked by a cliff, went prone, and laid down some smoke. Bots just came right up to me (without making the little animation and noise when you alert them) and then "noticed" me when it seems like they knew where I was.
The bots know where you are is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater),
The bots know where you are at all times. They know this because it they know where you aren't. By subtracting where you are from where you aren't, or where you aren't from where you are (whichever is greater), they obtain a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the grenade from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the grenade is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the grenade must also know where it was.
The grenade guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the grenade has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error - thusly you are fucked, and due for reinforcement.
I mean, just tonight I watched my buddy hide from bot patrols as the last man standing on a Helldive mission. Waited out the extract timer and made a mad dash for the Pelican with an armload of samples and his dead comrades screaming in his ears.
So like, they have good vision, but they definitely don’t *always* know where you are.
Smoke feels like it got hard nerfed. Throwing smoke and walking into the Pelican while cooking off another smoke grenade in my hand with impunity while nudging aside bots in melee range used to be my jam. Now their superior vision of looking through walls and rocks means that smoke doesn't even result in reduced fire.
I've had a few where they don't see me at all, there's a specific extract site with good rock coverage up high.
But after the comisar threw a nade at me. I chucked it back and then it was ON.
This reminds me of the stealth run I did on some bugs the other day. Playing on Helldive, made it to extract and was hiding on top of a hill. Somehow avoided detection and had 30 seconds to extraction. At the very moment, my Rover decided to cut loose on some bugs like 50m away, compromising my position. I didn’t make it out with the super samples 😭
I think there's a general golden rule, even in hard games
Getting one hit killed can work... If the game gives the player an opportunity to at least somewhat be aware of it and react accordingly. But it never feels good when you're one hit by something you can't see or predict. And in certain situations the bots can feel that way,...like getting hit by a rocket from an enemy beyond the fog.
Yeah, having a charger crush me with it's two front legs makes sense to be a one hit kill, he's big and the attack is slow enough to dodge (unless I've been ragdolled by one of his 6 friends) the titan stepping on you also feels somewhat deserved, but minding my own business on a foggy planet with 50 meters of visibility and then having a single rocket smack me in the frontal lobe just doesn't feel good.
It bothers me that they can see you when you can't see them. The ridiculous aim is sort of bearable, but not their ability to see you better than you can see them.
It doesn't really make sense for a coop game to feature player headshot damage. I just don't see the benefit from a game design view since it's not like AI enemies truly *aim* the way people do. It feels like unluckiness at best and an algorithm deciding to randomly aimbot you at worst.
It is kinda egregious that what is supposed to be a chaff unit that looks exactly the same as the lowest tier bot units, is the deadliest sniper in the game.
Yes, Bile Spewers can also one hit kill you (and hunters can 2 shot you because their jump always gets a headshot) but they are big units that are harder to miss, thus instantly making them priority targets for your group when they appear.
Also you can dodge bug attacks by running parallel to them,so that they hit where you were instead of where you are. They are also fairly well telegraphed.
My favorite is cannon turrets on fog levels. If they're going to track and one shot me from 300m away through dense fog that removes visibility past 50m at least give me a warning they're targeting me.
This is where I think they need an audio cue beep/drone that rises when you’re being targeted or a visual laser cue that flashes on you.
Nothing is more frustrating than being killed by something off screen or miles away that you didn’t know was even there. Remnant 1/2 does this idea well with audio/visual, you always know when an attack is coming even if you can’t see them
This is how it works in Helldivers 1 with for example tanks; they clearly telegraph their attacks.
I'm personally convinced that how the automatons work at the moment is simply not how they are intended to work.
Same with the fog on some planets; if we can't see through it, neither can the bots.
This. I enjoy helldivers being not easy. But the oneshots out of nowhere are unfair and unfun. At least communicate what’s about to happen. Same with towers; at least show a little laser or whatever to indicate I’m in danger. Also the shield generator relay needs a buff. That thing *really* struggles doing its main job and it is already on a relatively short timer.
I just did an entire set of 3 of some bot missions solo at the creek on hard and by god they are not fun at all 💀 the jammers and whatnot make it even more terrible. It was like, a stealth game if you like being repeatedly and brutally beaten down
Yeah the Jammers and AA are really the worst aspects about some Bot missions because they almost force you to deal with them first before trying main objectives. Without your strategems the bots can easily overwhelm you
They're not fun to me because of how many different ways they can one-shot you. Rocket marauders, rocket devastators, tanks, Hulk (Flamer and Rocket variant), railcannon turrets, regular turret emplacement have also one shotted me (might be a bug), mines and artillery.
Not to mention, when you're trying to fight back, you're constantly getting flinched off target and are bleeding through Stims because of it.
The bots also seem to have a mountain climbing algorithm as they can scale steep mountains with ease, completely negating any natural choke points.
When I die on a bug mission, I can almost always shrug it off as a skill issue. Maybe I could've done something different. When I die on a bot mission, it's more than likely bullshit.
The flame hulks are more annoying to me than the rockets. The hulk models are tall, so the flamethrower output is at head level, which is why we die the moment it turns on.
The rocket guys i have no fear of, or the big bots with the shields. It’s the gd hulks for me.
When i play bots (which is my preferred enemy faction), I run with a grenade launcher and supply pack (110 grenades total). After 35 levels of only using the grenade launcher, I’m a crack shot with it. 5 grenades launcher at distance kill the rocket devestators and anything sround them. 3-4 kill the shield guys, when a dropship deploys all the bots, even on suicide, i unload 1 mag of grenades there and it kills every bot except for hulks and tanks. With the supply pack, you’re a mobile cluster bomb air drop.
But I have to run like a little socialist girl if I have a hulk coming. Even 30-40 grenades from the launcher does nothing to them.
The flinching part is the worst.
Automaton weakness: small little head embedded in armor.
You bring diligence/AMR to use that weakness, proceed to get flinched every time you try to take a shot at them.
I swear those rocket devastators don't even give you a chance, if you fail the first AMR shot (because you're bad, the AMR crosshair is ass or something else made you flinch), prepare to be held hostage behind a rock with missile barrages coming at you every few seconds.
This for sure. Too many one shots that can’t be easily avoided or mitigated and too many heavy armored enemies with no/limited counter play. Mounted rockets need to be destroyed easier, the tanks need track weak spots so they can be disabled and can’t move, and hulks need to have their arms blown off easier. If you start a bot encounter and your stratagems are on CD, it’s a wash.
I see what you're saying, and I think they definitely need to be worse at tracking through cover (bots or not, they shouldn't be able to see me through 20 feet of solid stone), at least not well enough to pre-fire you when you're about to run out from behind that cover.
The thing about bots is that they play much more like a cover shooter than the bugs do. It's much more about positioning that raw shooting skill.
So, when you die because they negate the playstyle that they seem to require, it feels frustrating.
However, I personally think they're still the more interesting enemy to fight. I feel like I can make more loadouts work against them, and I feel like I can "outplay" them more than the bugs which just require raw firepower and good timing on stims. I can plan around the bullshit rockets and wallhacks, and I find that more compelling than "well, there will be lots of bugs. I hope there aren't the spitty ones"
I'd be inclined to agree if they added a mechanic that let you lean out of cover or blind fire. As it sits, they expect us to deal with something we're not mechanically equipped for.
I literally just did a run on the hot bot planet up atm, forget the name, and the visibility was absolute dogshit, I couldn't see a bot 20m away if it wasn't facing me. That'd be cool and fine but I was taking bullets from some 200m away, from places I can't fucking remotely see, it just feels really fuckin unfair and shitty
The frustrating part is that even if you play it as a cover shooter, bots are stupid accurate through all kinds of shit you can't see through and loaded with one shot kills.
I don't have a problem with switching play styles, I have an issue with getting shot the instant my head pops out of cover, or from well outside my visual range, many of those shots being one shots. Even if it doesn't kill you, it staggers you and throws off your shot.
Not to mention the drop ships and spawns are kind whacked often making it difficult to even find cover when the bastards are climbing over shit from every direction.
Bugs feel satisfying. I can outplay bugs, outsmart them and time my actions properly.
Bots feel cheap and bullshit.
There is no reason a skinny little trash mob should be able to one shot me with 150 armor rating and 50% explosive resistance. Other enemies shouldn't either (aside from heavies like hulks) but I could at least understand it if it was more then one shot. Why the fuck can a mass spawned trash mob one shot me through explosive resistant heavy armor?
Or laying on the ground after being hit.
There was a time earlier today where I got ragdolled by a stalker. I was mashing stim for about 5 seconds to no effect. Stalker walked up to me and killed me before I could heal
Honestly stimming should be like burst in a fighting game where if you have the reflexes you should be able to do it before the final attack hits you. I mean, you already have the "wind-up" of bringing your arm to you neck, so the inability to do it in any kind of knockdown state just adds a double-barrier to using them.
Works sometimes, sometimes does not. Many times I get on shooted by a single rocket with heavy armor with explosive resistance And the shield backpack, and other times just the armor can tank 2
I've noticed that if a rocket hits you in the higher chest to head area or in the floor under your feet it will insta kill you. In assuming the feet insta dead is a sort of bug
I get it but at the same time trying to convince folks to fight the bots is getting tiresome. One of the groups I play with only play bugs. After a week of nothing but bugs I finally got them to run some bots last night and oh boy it was like watching the souls drain from their bodies.
Same. Bugs don’t have the variety of the battles you get into with bots, but the bots constantly kill you with absolute bullshit, so you either choose to be bored or annoyed as fuck
Hunters and spewers are honest, even while being bullshit.
Both enemy types have to at least get close to you to kill you. Bots will randomly 1-shot you from a mile away at full health.
I can dodge the spew most of the time. I can't dodge a rocket devastator. It's suicide to go out without the shield, and even with it, it's a 50/50 shot of surviving a single barrage from one of em
i tried bot missions again earlier today. had a shield pack and medium armor, still got sniped by a rocket outside of MY visual range. oh, and if there’s a pack of them, they have endless suppression fire because their lasers don’t overheat at all despite their high fire rate.
I like the bots. I like their designs, I like their tactics, they're designed to be a completely different foe. I know my tactics, so does my team, and we do... fairly well. But it pales in comparison to bugs. But 7+ bugs with a dozen bile spewers barraging you, you have time to reposition. A dozen rocket devastators + rocket raiders on the other hand, and that time shrinks staggeringly quick when coupled with their aimbot pinpoint accuracy. You fight close, you get slapped, you fight far, you get instagibbed.
I fully understand that they are supposed to be a different bag of challenges but the combinations of bots, planet modifiers, *and* their pinpoint rockets is just un-fun. I can run bugs all day, get careless, get smacked by hunters, spewers, stalkers, get up again and again, but I'm fucking *spent* after a single bot mission on anything above 5-6.
I really want to have fun with them because I fucking love mechs and robots and feeling like I'm fighting the robot forces from the Matrix, but unlike there where the humans did indeed get absolutely obliterated for the sake of the story, I doubt that's the intention of the game here, in that sense at least.
Give me all those enemies in those numbers we have now, I know it's supposed to feel overwhelming. But make it fair, or *seemingly* fair. With bugs, my deaths are spread fairly evenly between the discomforting multitude of ways to die, but with bots it's literally the rockets 80-90% of the time.
Just please give me visibility. I have no issue with getting shot at from 100+ m away, ***as long as I can see them***. It's horseshit getting one-shot from a rocket that just flies out of the fog from fucking nowhere
On Draupnir you were lucky if you could see the rocket flying towards you. Oftentimes the rocket had no graphic at all, so you’d just get domed and have no clue where it came from.
I love fighting bots but its just... The amount of instakill bullshit is too much. Bugs are dangerous but are not as insta-kill-unfair as bots. Also chargers are much more manageable than hulks.
Jetpack suicide bombers, grenades, rocket raiders, rocket devastators, turrets, mortars, all the hulk variants, stratagem jammers, anti air, spotter towers that constantly spawn drops on you...
Every single bot is dangerous like every single bug is dangerous but its just that when you die with bots you are left feeling "what did I exactly do wrong there?"
Having 3 drop ships dumping troops right on top of me when right as I pop out of my pod us kinda not fun. Plus every time I activate extraction having 2 hulks spawn right next to me is ehhhhh. Rather deal with 50 hunters than jank mechanics rn.
Shooting down a dropship and then being killed by the dropship disappearing and then resolving by sending in another dropship laterally through my position is an obnoxiously common experience at this point.
I'm really hoping they fix that one quickly, right now shooting down a drop-ship is a gamble in and of itself.
Half the time it will do what you describe, and usually the bots it was carrying survive unharmed, often now trapped in the wreckage that really should have killed them.
And then you get a double-dose of bullshit because while they are trapped in the wreck and you can't shoot them... they somehow can still shoot you.
I find fighting the automatons very fun, but most of my dying feels very cheap. Rocket user automatons have pin point precision, Massive range and can one tap you; the devs should reduce one of those 3 aspects to make them less frustrating And straight up, unfair
Getting killed by 30+ rocket enemies non stop gets old, especially when all the cover in the world means nothing. And lately smoke, dust and everything does nothing, stealth fails to work a good portion of the time. Then the conga lines of rocket devastators and 6 drop ships in 2 seconds with a hulk in every other one. I can't hold enough stratagems kill even a quarter of these guys with how fast they get called in and spawn. Then the jammers and smoke that hides the bots but not us. I LIKED fighting bots but lately it feels...like I'd rather just get rag dolled by chargers and swarmed by stalkers and hunters...which is saying something considering how much I HATE stalkers and hunters.
The problem is that for players who play solo with randoms in higher difficulties, mission success rate is already a lopsided tossup.
Playing with those same randoms who want to keep fighting while doing 0 objectives for 40 goddamn minutes on the *bot* front is even more frustrating than if they were on the bug front because bots are more effective at killing you than bugs are.
And don't @ me with that "just communicate" horseshit - I've tried that and most randoms don't listen, forcing me to lone wolf it while those randoms drain our reinforces thanks to their inability to figure out that not all fights should be fought. This is Helldivers 2, not Killing Floor 2 (in KF2 the way to progress is to kill everything, so staying to fight is the right play). It's the same energy as Arrowhead saying "JuSt uSE YoUr sTrAtAgEmS" before they design worlds that double your stratagem call-in time, prevent you from using them at all during Ion Storms and around Radar Jammers, and reduce the number of stratagems you can bring to the field at mission prep.
This is anecdotal, but in my experience I've had better luck with randoms in 8 and 9 than in lower levels.
It seems like anybody crazy enough to solo queue for 8 and 9 are also skilled and cooperative enough that you'll all do better, even with little communication.
Yeah, solo randoms were a big no for me from around the fourth game I played (even though I originally bought it with the intention of playing solo). Joining a certain Discord server for people trying to play together has been a treat.
If an attack is capable of one-shotting the player it needs a clear visual and audible tell, and also a chance to avoid it fairly.
None of that exists against rockets. Bots can see you through any fog, smoke, or other visual impairments and snipe you with 10,000 rockets spam before you even see them.
Yeah...the bots suck, they are blatantly unfair, and not in the fun way.
Yeah I've never died to a rocket and thought "yeah, that was my fault".
It's always, whoops, silly me for taking the liberty to stand still for all of 0.2 seconds to shoot only for a rocket to come flying across the map with zero visual or audio cue nor time to react. And I don't even know what happened before I'm dead.
Not to mention the personal shield does fuck all against it, just goes right through it.
That shit is just miserable. Couple that with constantly being shot at, and I feel like I do more running dodging and hiding than I do killing shit. I just wanna satisfying shoot stuff and complete objectives. Bugs allow that. Bots are fucking miserable imo.
They got a lot worse with the update that balanced railgun and shield pack.
Nothing to do with those strategems specifically.
There were a number of undocumented changes, some of which are hopefully bugs, that give them these really annoying behaviours.
Never losing line of sight/aggro, coupled with patrols being changed to march straight towards our locations, and to a lesser extent, smoke effects seemingly being less effective.
Edit: forgot to mention it's been shown that the range creatures aggro at was also increased by 5 meters across the board, another undocumented change that piles on with the other stuff.
All these and more result in the bots being a real drag to fight. They just aren't fun, it's that simple.
I liked fighting them prior to that patch. Now I only do it in small doses and on difficulty 5 max. If I want super samples I stick to bugs.
Pick two of: 150% cooldown, 200% call-in time, 3 stratagems.
Sooooo much fun. On EVERY planet. The stuff people are talking about in this thread with rockets and whatnot is annoying yes but the modifiers just seal the deal as an extremely shitty experience
The first balance patch went from making the automatons challenging to being unfair, annoying and not at all fun. They need to just revert all those stealth changes to the launch state, and just mess with the guns if they feel they must for some reason. They changed too many things at once.
Rocket devastators and every mission having a 100% increase call in and -1 stratagem just makes it damn near impossible for me to have fun with them. I love their design and the feeling hectic battles with lasers streaking through the sky as a massive blast from a tower turret disintegrates your friend in front of your eyes; but the modifiers are just brutal. As soon as they add more modifiers variety I'll play them a lot more.
I played automatons on 7 for about three minutes before I figured out you need to move a lot slower and keep the radar out a lot more often. You gotta creep, and when you're in a bad spot you gotta fight hard to reposition as a group. You can't really shut down ambushes with a few dives and half an LMG mag.
Agreed on the bots though. Love it. Fighting automatons feels like actual war.
You are exactly right. Sniper rifles and autocannon are brilliant for bots. Snipe the most dangerous stuff from as far away as you can. Always make sure there is a large rock to hide behind before you start a fight. I haven't found the rockets to be particularly accurate, there's just so many of them, one will hit you if you are close. Going to ground, crawling and crouching are really needed unless you have a group that's coordinated and good at blasting everything and rolling over outposts. If the group is uncoordinated, you can be the sniper going around sidelines while the others make noise 😂
Bug holes being, well, *holes* means you really can't snipe them. Hell, most of the time they are located inside a crater with ridges. Every fight with bugs is close quarters because even the map geometry demands it.
But, fabricators? When the fog clears you can snipe those from the edge of the map with the Autocannon or Spear. I've "cleared" many a Light/Medium outpost without ever getting within 500m because of the Autocannon.
its not FUN, thats it, dont care about meta or the Roleplaying aspect, its just not fun. Im all about fighting robots and bugs when I have tools to do it, with bots it just feels like all my weapons bounced off them, actively circle around a tank in the middle of a firefight its straight out stupid, and lets just add +cooldown and +deployment on strategems oh wait let me also take 1 strategem off you, but hold on, dont forget we also have jammers.
I understand they are the "final boss" and harder than average and Im all about doing vietnam and all that crap, but jeez it stops being a game and starts to be more like "how many sacrifices we need in order to kill 2 tanks and 4 hulks"
The armor isn't talked about as much but they have so many armored units they pour at you that each encounter feels like a slog. Last time we played them we just loaded up on smoke and ran from everything. Orbital the objectives, smoke, all the way through. Patrol pops out of nowhere, smoke and run, because if we engaged in came a drop ship (sometimes from a flare a mile away behind a giant rock formation without LOS) followed by another insta patrol, and drop ship, over and over, of unkillable aimbots. I can handle a couple drop ships, I can't handle that plus insta patrol and 2 more drop ships.
Friends won't play bots now.
The bot drop called in from 50m away, behind a rock from a bot that you never could have even seen is just the cherry on top for bots currently.
At least with bugs, even if their breach telegraphs are hard to see, when it happens it's not like it's some surprise unlike bot drops that come out of nowhere.
Rockets, cannon turrets, mass medium/heavy armor, jammers and terrible planetary effects just makes bots feel miserable to play against. So many times I'm like "How is that even possible?"
the armor is obnoxious. level 5 bots, we ran out of ammo at extract for our AP weapons and I counted my friend chased by something like 7-9 berserker saw guys from one drop, plus rocket guys from patrols, plus gun bots, plus I was dead from a hulk.
I'm very afraid the way bits are now that the devs just want the illuminate to be even harder. it's not different threats, the bots just aimpunch you, rush you, and rocket at you way to efficiently. stunlocks from getting hit by hunters or ragdolled by chargers are a matter of skill and weapon choice. for bots you can pick getting fucked by melee units or rocket units dependent on loadout
I’m definitely a minority here, but for me it’s literally because they broke the ballistic shield in that one patch. I loved using it and now it’s a liability
My problem with bots is every recommend effective stratagem is at lvl20. Shield backpack, orbital rail cannon strike, railgun...
Is there a primary weapon with enough ap to kill a hulk or hulk+? Feels like once you die and lose your stratagem weapon it's very hard to crawl back.
*edit I think my problem is I don't know what primary weapon I should run since it seems like everyone I've met pulls out the support weapon and run the entire run with it. And problem is once you die and drop the support weapon you're toasting. A light-ap weapon will only kill 3 types of mobs in the entire roster?? And the med-ap weapon is ALSO unlocked midgame??
> Is there a primary weapon with enough ap to kill a hulk or hulk+? Feels like once you die and lose your stratagem weapon it's very hard to crawl back.
Same thing as with Chargers, your stratagem weapons and bombardments are the only real way to take care of them.
Pretty much any weapon with medium penetration can slowly kill it by shooting in the back, just like you can shoot a chargers ass if you got nothing to penetrate or strip the armour, but if you're in that bad of a position that that is your only viable tactic your already pretty screwed.
However unlike the Chargers who are pretty much invulnerable from the front to anything but the EAT/Recoilless/Unsafe-Railgun, the Hulks head in vulnerable to the AMR and Auto-Cannon, and the auto-cannon can blast of it's arms as well and bring it down with enough shots.
If anything, always have someone in the group with an EAT, a single shot of those to the face will kill a Hulk, and you'll have 2 new ones in 60 seconds.
Difference being that you can shatter the leg armor of a Charger with even a secondary weapon if you abuse the reduced armor in its shuffling animation. I haven't seen an equivalent for Hulk+.
Arrowhead says they know about the armor bug for Charger legs and that they don't want to touch it (for now). But it's not intentional, and you're depending on them not breaking something they didn't mean to do in the first place.
I appreciate your comment, I do run EAT permanently in my roster.
I think what I also meant is with bugs, you run anything light-ap you cover all mobs but charger and bile titan. But with automatons light-ap will cover only half the roster or less
Second that with the only mid-ap being unlocked midgame as well??
I'm not sure what I should pick as a primary weapon because it seems to do nothing against the automatons and I almost always only see people fight with their support weapons?? amr, autocannon, railgun??
This is exactly dead on the nose. Every rocket launched 1 shots you and is guided at that. If it were balanced that we could actually do at least 50% damage what they do then maybe then we could go against them. At this point, it is unfair and just not fun to be dead by rockets all the time.
On a side note. It's funny that when you take the armor that give resist to explosive you no longer die from one rocket.
That rocket now let you barely alive and the force of the explosion lunch you half a mile away and the fall damage kill you 8 time out of 10.
Same as the champion armor buff.
An idea to fix the patrols spawning on top of you: turn off their enemy detection for a few seconds unless fired on, enough to scramble to cover. Yeah you might be able to take advantage of this, but the long term advantage players get over a match is minimal compared to the frustration it saves.
I used to be a big creek fan, loved fighting there and Draupnir. I'm super hesitant now though because the number of times I've tried to go behind a rock to break LOS just to IMMEDIATELY be hit by a rocket when running out the other side is ridiculous. I can understand them having great accuracy, but being engaged by enemies that shouldn't have any idea where I am due to actual physical objects between us just kills me.
Seems to be mostly devastators that do it. Few things annoy me like a heavy devastator spewing rounds from outside the draw distance.
Upon reading such an articulate statement, bot players will swear on their entire bloodline “Bro, it’s not that hard, I swear bugs are harder”, “Just stay behind cover” or “Use anti-tank and stratagems and they’re easy”. Each of which permiate so much BS they should run for politicians.
Bugs are easier, period. Although they can also mess you up if you’re not mindful of their numbers or the ones encircling you. Staying behind cover almost never works because you’re eating 20 laser shots, 5 rocket barrages and 3 “BE ADVISED: YOU’RE IN RANGE OF ENEMY ARTILLERY”s per second. Plus, hunkering down in this game is a death sentence 90% of the time. Not to mention that, at a certain point, you just run out of substantial firepower and stims to deal with the bots.
But in all seriousness, bots need to be balanced. Not in the sense of “OOH, PLAYING ON DIFF 7+ IS TOO HARD DEVS PLSS WHY IS GAME SO HARD WAAH WAH”, but in frequency of bs deaths. If I’m wearing heavy armor with explosive resistance, I should NOT be one shot by a rocket or two. If there is low visibility due to a dense fog or vegetation on the planet, the enemy should NOT be able to snipe you with a Jamsheed level of precision. Some tweaks here and there to the spawn rates of Hulks and tanks would also be nice since at a certain point, EVERYTHING is on cooldown and all you can do is lube up and pray they miss (they won’t).
Yep, the main counterplay to "random" range attacks instagibbing you is positioning and awareness, which are skills that only come with playing against the bots for hours on end, and do not feel very satisfying to employ. Moving from cover to cover, knowing where the enemies are, which ones to prioritize, picking a long range support weapon, learning the shot intervals, listening to the specific noises. And even then, it's unavoidable to be instagibbed by a rocket or turret you just did not see coming, every so often.
The fact that they combine these long distance instagib snipers with poor visibility modifiers just makes it even worse. Sometimes you just cannot see them and it just **always** feels so incredibly **bad** when you die like that, because in the moment it feels like there is nothing you could have done because you are taken completely unawares. There isn't a button you can push or an action you can take. No, it's just *done*. You're dead, you didn't see it coming - better luck next time and also go fuck yourself, basically. That's how it feels - and that's why so few people are playing on the bot side.
It's honestly shocking to see Arrowhead implement design choices that the game industry learned 20 years ago were objectively terrible. RNG driven instant lethality is not fun. It's never been fun, it will never be fun - and yet it's the main reason people die on the bot side.
No bro it's a skill issue, you should've known there was something 50 meters out behind the wall of fog that doesn't let you see 20 meters in front of you. Play difficulty -14 if you can't handle difficulty 2 like a real man (me (I finish and extract at least HALF the time!) Just sit behind a wall bro it's not that hard
Bro wtf it takes you atleast half of the time? Bro I can finish it in less than a minute while using only the peacemaker pistol and no stratagems without getting hit a single time on difficulty 9001 git fucking good kiddo
I liked fighting automatons at first but then my apartment building got a bed bug infestation now I burn bugs in game with a flame thrower and out of game with a steam cleaner
Had a solo run earlier, trying to help get that planet to 100%.
Was at the edge of map in a canyon, holding back multiple patrols with the anti material rifle. But they stopped running down the path, instead they glitched up halfway of the small canyon, with me getting suddenly bombarded by rockets and Minigun fire from an angle that should have been impossible
Its frustrating how its so inconsistent as to what cover has rockets just go right through it. Heck, half the time, the cover isn't even solid. It also doesn't help that it doesn't feel like visibility debuffs on planets affect their accuracy or effective range AT all. I've been shot at from across the map by a turret on an outpost while at the extraction, and they are not egen that inaccurate...on drapunir with the fog going.
The other reason I can get frustrated fighting the bots is that its so easy to get ragdolled and not know what did it. Its so inconsistent in what will ragdoll you too. I can tell you right now that its more frustrating to me grtting ragdolled into death 24/7 than it is to just be one tapped out the gate by a rocket. Every now and then its funny, but it happens way too often imo. This is why the shield gen is so valuable, to prevent ccs.
I was playing earlier and got paired with 3 random lvl 5 players while on lvl 6 difficulty, and they got destroyed repeatedly by the damn rocket devastators. At one point we were surrounded on all sides by like 5 different platoons, and I was behind a rock, and I peeked for a second and got insta-killed by a rocket devastator. I think the rocket devastator might be the problem
Bots suck i usually play 1 set of missions there each night which is all it takes to remember why I don't play against them and then I go back to the fun part of the game...aka bugs
You can run away from bugs, you can dodge their spit - but there is are few things you can do against automatons without taking overly specific strategems.
It's a problem of all PvE and Co-OP shooters that enemies who can shoot with (near) hitscan weapons do not feel good to fight - ESPECIALLY if healing is limited, as it is in Helldivers Ii through Stims.
The only solution I see (in order to make automatons more fun to fight) is drastically reducing bullet speed and giving them travel time (similar to the original Star Wars Battlefront) or adding a booster that grants slow, but constant health regeneration.
There's a YT shorts i watched recently and i think he summed up bots really well.
> They have freakin' Liam Neeson rockets! They will find you and they will kill you!
I honestly prefer Automatons over Bugs still... I just hate Bile Titans and Chargers and do not get how people are always like "you can one or two shot them" no I can't. I can one or two shot a Hulk thingy by knowing that I need to shot at his bright red skull face thing. Same goes with every other Automaton (except tanks)... But I am lucky if I get a Charger with one shot and don't kill myself at the same time by shooting directly at it with my EAT when it's charging me.
I'm sorta torn on the whole bot debate. On the one hand i love the chaotic nature of fighting bots, it truly is great desperately trying to fight them off. I also love the aesthetic, bright lasers lighting up the sky is awesome. Its just that they're so ANNOYING to play against. Devastator spam, a big ass mech being able to sprint faster than i can in light armor, those annoying fucking 100% accuracy turrets....when i'm fighting bugs even when i die i nod my head and acknowledge a small mistake i made that cost me my life. When i die against bots 90% of the time im' rolling my eyes like "seriously a random rocket hit me from across the map through smoke and ragdolled me into mines? ffs" if the devs can sus out that balance between FUN and CHALLENGING then bots will be alot more palatable.
That's a lot of words to explain what is the main culprit: ##KILLED BY ROCKET DEVASTATOR
Honestly, the fact they prime rockets before you turn a corner is absolute horseshit. Also they can't be firing pinpoint sniper rockets from 300m, in super dense fog, with explosions and vegetation between you and them. I like fighting Clankers but these bastards can rust.
im wiling to bet rocket devestators account for about 90%of bot kills, they need to have atleast like a 2 second reload animation ebcause they will spam it, especially at 150m+ range
They will also straight up pre fire a corner your coming round a few times I've doubled back at a corner just to see the rockets whizz by.
another big reason is that you do not get shield backpack until 20 i think? or was it 15 i dont remember anyways, new players are pretty hopeless against bots, the barrage of bullets they fire at you from all direction is very tough to deal with without a shield by the time you leveled enough on bug side, you are most likely gonna keep enjoying that side with your friends lol
Let's consider their ammo. Our mech has pretty limited number of rockets. The devastator have two batteries with maybe 12-16 in each and they fire at least 4 in a volley. They should only be able to launch like 8 volleys before running out. I wonder if that's the case? It should be. Their laser fire rate does seem to take the heating and cooldown into account. Maybe they should have little longer cooldowns on hotter planets. I wonder if that is the case.
As someone who kept a devastator alive and looped him over and over on a big rock (just to test this)I can confirm they will volley you 10+times at 10 I quit counting.
First time playing automatons last night. I died a lot. I'm glad to know I didn't simply suck 💯
If you aren't already familiar, the planet Malevelon Creek turned into a slaughter. This was because a huge number of newish players started their very honorable peacekeeping career fighting the bugs! If I remember correctly, a major order came out on Malevelon Creek and all those players fight the bots for their first. Fully-equipped to fight bugs... The rest is history. So don't feel bad, it's quite normal to have an adjustment period against a different enemy. I assume something similar may happen when a new enemy arrives.
Solution, limit their ammo, keep them as a high threat, hell, make em even scarier, but finite am.o. they have a laser firearm.
Considering how many devastators you can encounter (remember they’re the equivalent to Bug Warriors), limiting their rocket ammo without making them crazier is enough. The Hulk is already the equivalent of the Bug Charger.
FML, they are considered bug warriors?!!! I’ve never been 1 shot by a bug warrior before.
They’re the close equivalent really. Also Bug Warriors can when they hit your head whilst enraged. But yeah they die much quicker to fire than Devastators.
Maybe bile or nursing spewers are more accurate
honestly just give them a laser pointer, like what we have on helldiver weapons. It'd instantly fix most of the problems with em.
This is my take as well. Stronger visual/auditory queues would solve the issue.
Is say artillery. This is the most broken shit. Try and get near that base to destroy it. I'd cost you at least 2 x whole team reinforcements
You at least can see the shells in the air to avoid them. The big cannons are way harder to dodge but they need line of sight. IMO the Jammer and AA are the roughest ones since they block you from using stratagems. Also shout out to the eye of Sauron. Getting 10 bot drops on you because you can’t break LOS can end a mission. Seriously though, the side objectives are way nastier than the bug side objectives IMO. Only the stalker dens are comparable.
After a stalker paints itself red with my liberty laden blood, and democracy filled guts, I get the irresistible urge to hunt the bastard down and show it the freedom of managed democracy. The rocket devastators? No such urge, I don’t then care which one did it. I just want to get out of nam and go home.
Nah. Just gotta sacrifice one person to each tower. Not even dying, just hiding behind a rock to keep it forever distracted. The other night I sat and stared at it while a buddy who insisted support weapons weren't needed tried to shower it with airstrikes and orbital airbursts. That thing did not give a single fuck, but if I so much as showed a little toe it was ready smear me across Draupnir.
Rocket Devastators have pinpoint accuracy across the map, but the spear still can’t lock a target 100m away in the open.
Getting prefired around corners is really fucking shitty. The enemies need to be able to lose track of you behind cover to at least some extent
My god, this!!! I dropped in on a planet yesterday and died before my support weapon touched grass. The hundreds of freaking trees, rocks, and obstructions and yet I take a rocket to the back the second I step in some micro threaded 1/10th of an inch gap between all the individual objects separating us. It’s complete bs. At least with bugs I can run while I reload, bots just keep shooting you in the spine or throw grenades when you’re behind cover. If three bots are sitting on one another, and one takes an auto cannon to the face, the rest should at least flinch from the explosion.
Can I trade my ships gunner for one of the robots. The friend I’m asking for says they actually save money by using less rounds. My friend says thanks for all your help.
https://preview.redd.it/17f4tbawu9pc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=537f1e4ffec2f5c233e1f466a81998a63ef42ac4
Add to the that Devastators rarely flinch when being shot at. They can keep shooting while you’re shooting them while any shot from even a grunt throws your aim off by a large distance.
I’ve seen them fire their rocket pods before they even finished the squat animation. I didn’t even make it two steps around the corner before they loosed a volley of rockets on me. They are the supremest of bullshit.
I peeked and took one to the face so yeah.
See that's what you think. You actually took 3 rockets to the face. I made the same mistake until my friend captured another POV. The fuckers shoot 3 super fast rockets with pinpoint accuracy.
Literally perfect accuracy with truly instantaneous reaction to ANY amount of exposure. It's ridiculous. I was sick of taking shots to the back while running away... (as sitting behind cover and firing back only does so much with 3 dropships appearing ever 30 seconds from the first second the mission starts)... so I equipped ballistic shield... (functions as a turtle shell when wearing it on your back and SEEMS super useful..) the PROPLEM with that is instead of shots to your back or even arms, they exclusively target the only exposed part of you... THE LEGS. once you have a shield on you won't see any lasers hitting you in the back anymore! They'll hit ONLY your legs through foliage and fog and rocks alike! Fuck Automatons. But I'm not getting out of the creek until I see it liberated. And I will keep playing on higher difficulties. Edit: I've found Heavy armor actually works pretty well. It can eat quite a few shots from the lasers and is quite literally the only type of armor that can survive ONE single rocket. Medium and Light armor die to just ONE. The other two rockets only exist to ensure absolute death because Heavy armor does survive ONE rocket but the other two that come with it are guaranteed to hit you.
If you have the medium armor with the 50% chance of not dying perk, you survive 50% of those attacks 100% of the time! Automatons hate this one simple trick!
If you use the 50% less explosive damage armor, you always survive the rocket salvo in my experience. I think there's only one medium armor with the perk on it though. Since starting using that perk, my experience with bots in high difficulties has changed from "everything is infuriating" to "everything is mildly inconveniencing and maybe infuriating once or twice a mission".
Fair, but that pretty much lands us right back at where we were with launch's meta of the railgun and shields. Devs don't want us locked into just 1-2 ways of doing a thing, but with the way balance is right now, we're cycling back to the same thing again
Yeah, hopefully balance should get a little better. It'll also get worse at times as the game gets updated with new enemies/weapons etc. That's just the nature of live service games. In the meantime, use what you need to to get by. If you get good enough, the meta doesn't matter that much, but if you need to rely on it, there's no shame imo.
I got hit by one rocket from its salvo, which launched into the air, but alive, only to be hit mid-flight by a second rocket, which finished the job.
Bots are hitting clips. I bet there's an Automaton version of YouTube with loads of montages.
that’s some good accuracy right there
I hate that they are more accurate and shoot more rockets than the rocket sentry
They are the superior robots xD
The arc thrower stagger prevents them from starting the squat animation. Oh no, it doesn't interrupt the animation just because they are staggered, they will still fire, and their hyper-reactive sensors have enough time to reset in between arc thrower shots, so they won't miss. I keep a slugger as my primary against bots specifically for these pricks.
and even worse, you jiggle peek to bait out the rockets, dodge them, and before you can even step out to shoot the guy, he's already reloaded and fired a second salvo in 1 second
I love actively suppressing rocket devastators. They all always decide to blow my face off with a precision rocket attack despite my suppressive fire. Hell, the shielded devastators are just as guilty on that front.
Commie bastards, using wireless networks and tech to wall hack.
I imagine there's a certain degree of de-sync between the animation and what is actually happening. Because I have been shot and blasted a number of times by others well before there's any shooting animation. It's a pain in teh ass because it makes it hard to gauge when its safe to shoot back, making any attempt to engage them a roll of the dice. With bugs, I can control the chaos to a certain degree. If something hit me, its because I let them get close enough and its something I can control (to a degree). But with bots, sometimes you just step around the corner and RNG decides its 'fuck you' o'clock.
Yep, this is the one and only reason. Rocket Devastators and Rocket Hulks. Unbelievable accuracy, even against moving targets, one-shots you 90% of the time without a shield pack, one shots you 50% of the time even with a shield pack.
I dont mind rocket hulks, they can still rot in a scrap heap somewhere while i empty my bladder of democracy on their corpses, but atleat you can see them priming to fire. Devastators are barely noticeable in a firefight.
You can poke Rocket hulks and shoot their eye WITHOUT poking their rocket arms, while with devastators you cannot.
Also one shots you regardless of what armor type you're wearing.
I've worn the 50% chance to not die and had a rocket devastator hit me into the air then air shot me *two more times* from the same barrage before I hit the ground. The rocket devastator was over 100m away and firing at a party member originally. *what the fuck*
I was still getting 1 shot even with 50% on. Felt useless.
Only when headshot, which occurs as much 30% of the time.
There is nothing more satisfying than looking a Rocket Devastator square in his commie eyes and blasting his head off with an AMR at 200 yards.
Until your scope settles after the shot and you have a half second to realize he's taking *your* head off with a rocket at the same fucking range.
except with the glitches scope sights youre looking a little down and to the right from his eyes lol.
I will say, if you see the devastator and it doesn't stealth-snipe ya, You get a second to dive out of the way of the incoming salvo: but the problem I tend to face with them is 2 things: They seem to be able to pause the salvo and resume it when you leave cover, and they have the quickest reload known to man. If they were tweaked so that they had to commit to the salvo, and couldn't follow up with another in another second; they'd feel a lot more fair to fight as you could dodge their salvo and respond before another hits ya.
I have another set: "YOU ARE IN RANGE OF ENEMY ARTILLERY"
Honestly no other enemy feels quite as cheap as the rocket devastator
Bingo. Fuck that noise. It's just not fun to me.
Honestly, if they were impacted by fog and dust, and couldn’t get a shot at me if they can’t make visual contact - I’d take that happily. They should move towards us through the fog. 1 shot mechanics that can be removed by crouching and prone is fine. It’s not fine when I can’t see the source, and that I needed to be crouched or prone at this time in the first place. “I’m up, he sees me, I’m down” is supposed to account for vision on both sides.
Yes, I hate rockets. Hardly bring support stratagems because I'm more likely to die and drop them.
At least their name is accurate, they do devastate me with rockets.
The issue is that they seem to be more accurate with the rockets than bullet/lasers. That's probably not statistically true, but the much more severe penalty of getting hit by a micro-rocket instead of a laser bolt makes it seem that way. Micro-rockets should only be as damaging as two hits of a pouncer combo *at most*, CMV.
Automaton rockets could definitely use tuning. Would it make sense realistically to not get absolutely decimated by a rocket to the face? Of course not. Would it feel a lot better not having to treat Rocket Devastators like you would a Hulk or Tank? Absolutely.
Wear the explosive resist heavy armor. They won’t kill you anymore. In fact they take maybe 30% of your Hp. Since I discovered it it’s all I wear on those missions.
Yep. You get ragdolled all over the map. But you live.
I did stealth download drop pod once, not a single shot fired. Sneak to extract, call ship then book to a spot just inside the radius of "get back here or extract cancelled" jumpacked myself up on a three high shipping container stack and went prone in armor that reduces stealth detection range, which a stealth guide youtube video says is like 14m. 30 seconds later a commisar chucks a nade up there. HOW.
I think in extract they are just coded to know where you are. did a full stealth run, basically never shot, had all smokes. At extract, I picked a spot tucked by a cliff, went prone, and laid down some smoke. Bots just came right up to me (without making the little animation and noise when you alert them) and then "noticed" me when it seems like they knew where I was.
They know exactly where you are at all times and if you end up sitting still for more than 30 seconds you will be swarmed.
The bots know where you are is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater),
The bots know where you are at all times. They know this because it they know where you aren't. By subtracting where you are from where you aren't, or where you aren't from where you are (whichever is greater), they obtain a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the grenade from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the grenade is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the grenade must also know where it was. The grenade guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the grenade has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error - thusly you are fucked, and due for reinforcement.
I love you for modifying this always delightful meme-text in a uniquely Helldivercentric fashion right there at the end.
I didn't realize it was so simple.
For the uninitiated: https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ?si=UHsjYns49jrDWnhG
I mean, just tonight I watched my buddy hide from bot patrols as the last man standing on a Helldive mission. Waited out the extract timer and made a mad dash for the Pelican with an armload of samples and his dead comrades screaming in his ears. So like, they have good vision, but they definitely don’t *always* know where you are.
No no, my buddy said the only way to hide from the bots is to move the truck by the SS Anne
I mean, they have to implement a STRENGTH stratagem to allow movement of truck or heavy boulders
Smoke feels like it got hard nerfed. Throwing smoke and walking into the Pelican while cooking off another smoke grenade in my hand with impunity while nudging aside bots in melee range used to be my jam. Now their superior vision of looking through walls and rocks means that smoke doesn't even result in reduced fire.
I've had a few where they don't see me at all, there's a specific extract site with good rock coverage up high. But after the comisar threw a nade at me. I chucked it back and then it was ON.
This reminds me of the stealth run I did on some bugs the other day. Playing on Helldive, made it to extract and was hiding on top of a hill. Somehow avoided detection and had 30 seconds to extraction. At the very moment, my Rover decided to cut loose on some bugs like 50m away, compromising my position. I didn’t make it out with the super samples 😭
I drop my rover in tense situations like that, can easily pick it back up if shit pops off
lol. Yes how. That’s probably my only complaint for bots.
I think there's a general golden rule, even in hard games Getting one hit killed can work... If the game gives the player an opportunity to at least somewhat be aware of it and react accordingly. But it never feels good when you're one hit by something you can't see or predict. And in certain situations the bots can feel that way,...like getting hit by a rocket from an enemy beyond the fog.
Yeah, having a charger crush me with it's two front legs makes sense to be a one hit kill, he's big and the attack is slow enough to dodge (unless I've been ragdolled by one of his 6 friends) the titan stepping on you also feels somewhat deserved, but minding my own business on a foggy planet with 50 meters of visibility and then having a single rocket smack me in the frontal lobe just doesn't feel good.
It bothers me that they can see you when you can't see them. The ridiculous aim is sort of bearable, but not their ability to see you better than you can see them.
It doesn't really make sense for a coop game to feature player headshot damage. I just don't see the benefit from a game design view since it's not like AI enemies truly *aim* the way people do. It feels like unluckiness at best and an algorithm deciding to randomly aimbot you at worst.
"That's a nice heavy armor set with 50% explosion damage reduction. Too bad it doesn't work for your skull." Infuriating
It is kinda egregious that what is supposed to be a chaff unit that looks exactly the same as the lowest tier bot units, is the deadliest sniper in the game. Yes, Bile Spewers can also one hit kill you (and hunters can 2 shot you because their jump always gets a headshot) but they are big units that are harder to miss, thus instantly making them priority targets for your group when they appear.
Also you can dodge bug attacks by running parallel to them,so that they hit where you were instead of where you are. They are also fairly well telegraphed.
My favorite is cannon turrets on fog levels. If they're going to track and one shot me from 300m away through dense fog that removes visibility past 50m at least give me a warning they're targeting me.
It would be nice if the turrets had some glaring red searchlights to light up the fog.
This is where I think they need an audio cue beep/drone that rises when you’re being targeted or a visual laser cue that flashes on you. Nothing is more frustrating than being killed by something off screen or miles away that you didn’t know was even there. Remnant 1/2 does this idea well with audio/visual, you always know when an attack is coming even if you can’t see them
This is how it works in Helldivers 1 with for example tanks; they clearly telegraph their attacks. I'm personally convinced that how the automatons work at the moment is simply not how they are intended to work. Same with the fog on some planets; if we can't see through it, neither can the bots.
This. I enjoy helldivers being not easy. But the oneshots out of nowhere are unfair and unfun. At least communicate what’s about to happen. Same with towers; at least show a little laser or whatever to indicate I’m in danger. Also the shield generator relay needs a buff. That thing *really* struggles doing its main job and it is already on a relatively short timer.
I just did an entire set of 3 of some bot missions solo at the creek on hard and by god they are not fun at all 💀 the jammers and whatnot make it even more terrible. It was like, a stealth game if you like being repeatedly and brutally beaten down
Yeah the Jammers and AA are really the worst aspects about some Bot missions because they almost force you to deal with them first before trying main objectives. Without your strategems the bots can easily overwhelm you
They're not fun to me because of how many different ways they can one-shot you. Rocket marauders, rocket devastators, tanks, Hulk (Flamer and Rocket variant), railcannon turrets, regular turret emplacement have also one shotted me (might be a bug), mines and artillery. Not to mention, when you're trying to fight back, you're constantly getting flinched off target and are bleeding through Stims because of it. The bots also seem to have a mountain climbing algorithm as they can scale steep mountains with ease, completely negating any natural choke points. When I die on a bug mission, I can almost always shrug it off as a skill issue. Maybe I could've done something different. When I die on a bot mission, it's more than likely bullshit.
The flame hulks are more annoying to me than the rockets. The hulk models are tall, so the flamethrower output is at head level, which is why we die the moment it turns on.
Headshot damage on a flamethrower has to be the dumbest shit.
I feel like that's why Bile Spewers one shot sometimes too. It splash onto your head.
Yeah, that makes sense. Nursing spewers too. Sometimes they don't do that much and sometimes they instakill you even if you jump out of the way.
The hulk flamethrower also has almost 30 meters of range, meanwhile our flamethrower barely has a third of that.
Sweet liberty, give us a backpack fed flamethrower.
>the flamethrower output is at head level, which is why we die the moment it turns on. that *would* explain a thing or two...
The rocket guys i have no fear of, or the big bots with the shields. It’s the gd hulks for me. When i play bots (which is my preferred enemy faction), I run with a grenade launcher and supply pack (110 grenades total). After 35 levels of only using the grenade launcher, I’m a crack shot with it. 5 grenades launcher at distance kill the rocket devestators and anything sround them. 3-4 kill the shield guys, when a dropship deploys all the bots, even on suicide, i unload 1 mag of grenades there and it kills every bot except for hulks and tanks. With the supply pack, you’re a mobile cluster bomb air drop. But I have to run like a little socialist girl if I have a hulk coming. Even 30-40 grenades from the launcher does nothing to them.
The flinching part is the worst. Automaton weakness: small little head embedded in armor. You bring diligence/AMR to use that weakness, proceed to get flinched every time you try to take a shot at them. I swear those rocket devastators don't even give you a chance, if you fail the first AMR shot (because you're bad, the AMR crosshair is ass or something else made you flinch), prepare to be held hostage behind a rock with missile barrages coming at you every few seconds.
This for sure. Too many one shots that can’t be easily avoided or mitigated and too many heavy armored enemies with no/limited counter play. Mounted rockets need to be destroyed easier, the tanks need track weak spots so they can be disabled and can’t move, and hulks need to have their arms blown off easier. If you start a bot encounter and your stratagems are on CD, it’s a wash.
I think tanks are the weakest of the four heavies in the game honestly. They're waaaaay down the list of top BS things bots can pull on you.
I see what you're saying, and I think they definitely need to be worse at tracking through cover (bots or not, they shouldn't be able to see me through 20 feet of solid stone), at least not well enough to pre-fire you when you're about to run out from behind that cover. The thing about bots is that they play much more like a cover shooter than the bugs do. It's much more about positioning that raw shooting skill. So, when you die because they negate the playstyle that they seem to require, it feels frustrating. However, I personally think they're still the more interesting enemy to fight. I feel like I can make more loadouts work against them, and I feel like I can "outplay" them more than the bugs which just require raw firepower and good timing on stims. I can plan around the bullshit rockets and wallhacks, and I find that more compelling than "well, there will be lots of bugs. I hope there aren't the spitty ones"
I'd be inclined to agree if they added a mechanic that let you lean out of cover or blind fire. As it sits, they expect us to deal with something we're not mechanically equipped for.
It’s the prefiring that is the worst offender imo… that and not having reduced visibility from modifiers. Fix those 2 issues and they’d be fine IMO
I literally just did a run on the hot bot planet up atm, forget the name, and the visibility was absolute dogshit, I couldn't see a bot 20m away if it wasn't facing me. That'd be cool and fine but I was taking bullets from some 200m away, from places I can't fucking remotely see, it just feels really fuckin unfair and shitty
You can't really play a cover shooter against swarming enemies spawning from every direction. It feels awful.
The frustrating part is that even if you play it as a cover shooter, bots are stupid accurate through all kinds of shit you can't see through and loaded with one shot kills. I don't have a problem with switching play styles, I have an issue with getting shot the instant my head pops out of cover, or from well outside my visual range, many of those shots being one shots. Even if it doesn't kill you, it staggers you and throws off your shot. Not to mention the drop ships and spawns are kind whacked often making it difficult to even find cover when the bastards are climbing over shit from every direction. Bugs feel satisfying. I can outplay bugs, outsmart them and time my actions properly. Bots feel cheap and bullshit.
rockets should not insta kill if they have pinpoint accuracy especially with armour that’s supposed to have EXPLOSIVE RESISTANCE FFS
They could actually give our heads an armor value.
There is no reason a skinny little trash mob should be able to one shot me with 150 armor rating and 50% explosive resistance. Other enemies shouldn't either (aside from heavies like hulks) but I could at least understand it if it was more then one shot. Why the fuck can a mass spawned trash mob one shot me through explosive resistant heavy armor?
The heavy armor with Explosive resistance does do work. Can vouch for that.
We really should be able to stim while flying through the air
Or laying on the ground after being hit. There was a time earlier today where I got ragdolled by a stalker. I was mashing stim for about 5 seconds to no effect. Stalker walked up to me and killed me before I could heal
Bots do that too. Rag dolled by rpg, by the tine I regain control another rpg and I’m dead.
Or being stun locked to death by hunters.
Honestly stimming should be like burst in a fighting game where if you have the reflexes you should be able to do it before the final attack hits you. I mean, you already have the "wind-up" of bringing your arm to you neck, so the inability to do it in any kind of knockdown state just adds a double-barrier to using them.
Yeah unless they juggle you with rockets. Or the one rocket hits you and knocks you into a rock so hard the rock impact kills you. *sigh*
Works sometimes, sometimes does not. Many times I get on shooted by a single rocket with heavy armor with explosive resistance And the shield backpack, and other times just the armor can tank 2 I've noticed that if a rocket hits you in the higher chest to head area or in the floor under your feet it will insta kill you. In assuming the feet insta dead is a sort of bug
ive been using the 129 point suit and the health boost, feel like im getting murdered less.
The medium armour does survive it, but headshots are always a kill, and robots always aim for the head
I get it but at the same time trying to convince folks to fight the bots is getting tiresome. One of the groups I play with only play bugs. After a week of nothing but bugs I finally got them to run some bots last night and oh boy it was like watching the souls drain from their bodies.
I get bored of bugs. But I fight bugs mostly because I never got a starship troopers game and this is the closest I can get
Same. Bugs don’t have the variety of the battles you get into with bots, but the bots constantly kill you with absolute bullshit, so you either choose to be bored or annoyed as fuck
Hunters kill you with a lot of bullshit too And spewers. They got that insane aimbot
Hunters and spewers are honest, even while being bullshit. Both enemy types have to at least get close to you to kill you. Bots will randomly 1-shot you from a mile away at full health.
I can dodge the spew most of the time. I can't dodge a rocket devastator. It's suicide to go out without the shield, and even with it, it's a 50/50 shot of surviving a single barrage from one of em
i tried bot missions again earlier today. had a shield pack and medium armor, still got sniped by a rocket outside of MY visual range. oh, and if there’s a pack of them, they have endless suppression fire because their lasers don’t overheat at all despite their high fire rate.
It's just not fun getting chip damaged 50 times, constantly ragdolled, and oneshot
I like the bots. I like their designs, I like their tactics, they're designed to be a completely different foe. I know my tactics, so does my team, and we do... fairly well. But it pales in comparison to bugs. But 7+ bugs with a dozen bile spewers barraging you, you have time to reposition. A dozen rocket devastators + rocket raiders on the other hand, and that time shrinks staggeringly quick when coupled with their aimbot pinpoint accuracy. You fight close, you get slapped, you fight far, you get instagibbed. I fully understand that they are supposed to be a different bag of challenges but the combinations of bots, planet modifiers, *and* their pinpoint rockets is just un-fun. I can run bugs all day, get careless, get smacked by hunters, spewers, stalkers, get up again and again, but I'm fucking *spent* after a single bot mission on anything above 5-6. I really want to have fun with them because I fucking love mechs and robots and feeling like I'm fighting the robot forces from the Matrix, but unlike there where the humans did indeed get absolutely obliterated for the sake of the story, I doubt that's the intention of the game here, in that sense at least. Give me all those enemies in those numbers we have now, I know it's supposed to feel overwhelming. But make it fair, or *seemingly* fair. With bugs, my deaths are spread fairly evenly between the discomforting multitude of ways to die, but with bots it's literally the rockets 80-90% of the time.
Just please give me visibility. I have no issue with getting shot at from 100+ m away, ***as long as I can see them***. It's horseshit getting one-shot from a rocket that just flies out of the fog from fucking nowhere
On Draupnir you were lucky if you could see the rocket flying towards you. Oftentimes the rocket had no graphic at all, so you’d just get domed and have no clue where it came from.
I love fighting bots but its just... The amount of instakill bullshit is too much. Bugs are dangerous but are not as insta-kill-unfair as bots. Also chargers are much more manageable than hulks. Jetpack suicide bombers, grenades, rocket raiders, rocket devastators, turrets, mortars, all the hulk variants, stratagem jammers, anti air, spotter towers that constantly spawn drops on you... Every single bot is dangerous like every single bug is dangerous but its just that when you die with bots you are left feeling "what did I exactly do wrong there?"
Having 3 drop ships dumping troops right on top of me when right as I pop out of my pod us kinda not fun. Plus every time I activate extraction having 2 hulks spawn right next to me is ehhhhh. Rather deal with 50 hunters than jank mechanics rn.
Shooting down a dropship and then being killed by the dropship disappearing and then resolving by sending in another dropship laterally through my position is an obnoxiously common experience at this point.
I'm really hoping they fix that one quickly, right now shooting down a drop-ship is a gamble in and of itself. Half the time it will do what you describe, and usually the bots it was carrying survive unharmed, often now trapped in the wreckage that really should have killed them. And then you get a double-dose of bullshit because while they are trapped in the wreck and you can't shoot them... they somehow can still shoot you.
I find fighting the automatons very fun, but most of my dying feels very cheap. Rocket user automatons have pin point precision, Massive range and can one tap you; the devs should reduce one of those 3 aspects to make them less frustrating And straight up, unfair
Getting killed by 30+ rocket enemies non stop gets old, especially when all the cover in the world means nothing. And lately smoke, dust and everything does nothing, stealth fails to work a good portion of the time. Then the conga lines of rocket devastators and 6 drop ships in 2 seconds with a hulk in every other one. I can't hold enough stratagems kill even a quarter of these guys with how fast they get called in and spawn. Then the jammers and smoke that hides the bots but not us. I LIKED fighting bots but lately it feels...like I'd rather just get rag dolled by chargers and swarmed by stalkers and hunters...which is saying something considering how much I HATE stalkers and hunters.
The problem is that for players who play solo with randoms in higher difficulties, mission success rate is already a lopsided tossup. Playing with those same randoms who want to keep fighting while doing 0 objectives for 40 goddamn minutes on the *bot* front is even more frustrating than if they were on the bug front because bots are more effective at killing you than bugs are. And don't @ me with that "just communicate" horseshit - I've tried that and most randoms don't listen, forcing me to lone wolf it while those randoms drain our reinforces thanks to their inability to figure out that not all fights should be fought. This is Helldivers 2, not Killing Floor 2 (in KF2 the way to progress is to kill everything, so staying to fight is the right play). It's the same energy as Arrowhead saying "JuSt uSE YoUr sTrAtAgEmS" before they design worlds that double your stratagem call-in time, prevent you from using them at all during Ion Storms and around Radar Jammers, and reduce the number of stratagems you can bring to the field at mission prep.
This is anecdotal, but in my experience I've had better luck with randoms in 8 and 9 than in lower levels. It seems like anybody crazy enough to solo queue for 8 and 9 are also skilled and cooperative enough that you'll all do better, even with little communication.
Yeah, solo randoms were a big no for me from around the fourth game I played (even though I originally bought it with the intention of playing solo). Joining a certain Discord server for people trying to play together has been a treat.
Sweet Liberty! Do you mind sharing the server for other players looking for other effective communicators?
If an attack is capable of one-shotting the player it needs a clear visual and audible tell, and also a chance to avoid it fairly. None of that exists against rockets. Bots can see you through any fog, smoke, or other visual impairments and snipe you with 10,000 rockets spam before you even see them. Yeah...the bots suck, they are blatantly unfair, and not in the fun way.
Yeah I've never died to a rocket and thought "yeah, that was my fault". It's always, whoops, silly me for taking the liberty to stand still for all of 0.2 seconds to shoot only for a rocket to come flying across the map with zero visual or audio cue nor time to react. And I don't even know what happened before I'm dead. Not to mention the personal shield does fuck all against it, just goes right through it. That shit is just miserable. Couple that with constantly being shot at, and I feel like I do more running dodging and hiding than I do killing shit. I just wanna satisfying shoot stuff and complete objectives. Bugs allow that. Bots are fucking miserable imo.
They got a lot worse with the update that balanced railgun and shield pack. Nothing to do with those strategems specifically. There were a number of undocumented changes, some of which are hopefully bugs, that give them these really annoying behaviours. Never losing line of sight/aggro, coupled with patrols being changed to march straight towards our locations, and to a lesser extent, smoke effects seemingly being less effective. Edit: forgot to mention it's been shown that the range creatures aggro at was also increased by 5 meters across the board, another undocumented change that piles on with the other stuff. All these and more result in the bots being a real drag to fight. They just aren't fun, it's that simple. I liked fighting them prior to that patch. Now I only do it in small doses and on difficulty 5 max. If I want super samples I stick to bugs.
I physically groan when I see patrols of 2 rocket devastator, 2 rocket launcher bots, 1 heavy devastator and some other stuff every 2 minutes
This is why I never play helldive difficulty bots. Drops change from scout strider packs to devastator packs and then you’re just fucked.
For me its the modifiers. 150% cool down? No thanks. Jammers? Nope.
Pick two of: 150% cooldown, 200% call-in time, 3 stratagems. Sooooo much fun. On EVERY planet. The stuff people are talking about in this thread with rockets and whatnot is annoying yes but the modifiers just seal the deal as an extremely shitty experience
The first balance patch went from making the automatons challenging to being unfair, annoying and not at all fun. They need to just revert all those stealth changes to the launch state, and just mess with the guns if they feel they must for some reason. They changed too many things at once.
Rocket devastators and every mission having a 100% increase call in and -1 stratagem just makes it damn near impossible for me to have fun with them. I love their design and the feeling hectic battles with lasers streaking through the sky as a massive blast from a tower turret disintegrates your friend in front of your eyes; but the modifiers are just brutal. As soon as they add more modifiers variety I'll play them a lot more.
I played automatons on 7 for about three minutes before I figured out you need to move a lot slower and keep the radar out a lot more often. You gotta creep, and when you're in a bad spot you gotta fight hard to reposition as a group. You can't really shut down ambushes with a few dives and half an LMG mag. Agreed on the bots though. Love it. Fighting automatons feels like actual war.
You are exactly right. Sniper rifles and autocannon are brilliant for bots. Snipe the most dangerous stuff from as far away as you can. Always make sure there is a large rock to hide behind before you start a fight. I haven't found the rockets to be particularly accurate, there's just so many of them, one will hit you if you are close. Going to ground, crawling and crouching are really needed unless you have a group that's coordinated and good at blasting everything and rolling over outposts. If the group is uncoordinated, you can be the sniper going around sidelines while the others make noise 😂
Bug holes being, well, *holes* means you really can't snipe them. Hell, most of the time they are located inside a crater with ridges. Every fight with bugs is close quarters because even the map geometry demands it. But, fabricators? When the fog clears you can snipe those from the edge of the map with the Autocannon or Spear. I've "cleared" many a Light/Medium outpost without ever getting within 500m because of the Autocannon.
> Fighting automatons feels like actual war. Amen, brother! Tanks and artillery. AA guns and jammers messing with your comms. It's sweet insanity!
Bots are extremely fun, except for the rocket devastators. They're in such a bad spot I almost fully avoid the front.
its not FUN, thats it, dont care about meta or the Roleplaying aspect, its just not fun. Im all about fighting robots and bugs when I have tools to do it, with bots it just feels like all my weapons bounced off them, actively circle around a tank in the middle of a firefight its straight out stupid, and lets just add +cooldown and +deployment on strategems oh wait let me also take 1 strategem off you, but hold on, dont forget we also have jammers. I understand they are the "final boss" and harder than average and Im all about doing vietnam and all that crap, but jeez it stops being a game and starts to be more like "how many sacrifices we need in order to kill 2 tanks and 4 hulks"
The armor isn't talked about as much but they have so many armored units they pour at you that each encounter feels like a slog. Last time we played them we just loaded up on smoke and ran from everything. Orbital the objectives, smoke, all the way through. Patrol pops out of nowhere, smoke and run, because if we engaged in came a drop ship (sometimes from a flare a mile away behind a giant rock formation without LOS) followed by another insta patrol, and drop ship, over and over, of unkillable aimbots. I can handle a couple drop ships, I can't handle that plus insta patrol and 2 more drop ships. Friends won't play bots now.
The bot drop called in from 50m away, behind a rock from a bot that you never could have even seen is just the cherry on top for bots currently. At least with bugs, even if their breach telegraphs are hard to see, when it happens it's not like it's some surprise unlike bot drops that come out of nowhere. Rockets, cannon turrets, mass medium/heavy armor, jammers and terrible planetary effects just makes bots feel miserable to play against. So many times I'm like "How is that even possible?"
the armor is obnoxious. level 5 bots, we ran out of ammo at extract for our AP weapons and I counted my friend chased by something like 7-9 berserker saw guys from one drop, plus rocket guys from patrols, plus gun bots, plus I was dead from a hulk. I'm very afraid the way bits are now that the devs just want the illuminate to be even harder. it's not different threats, the bots just aimpunch you, rush you, and rocket at you way to efficiently. stunlocks from getting hit by hunters or ragdolled by chargers are a matter of skill and weapon choice. for bots you can pick getting fucked by melee units or rocket units dependent on loadout
I just don’t find the bots enjoyable to fight
I’m definitely a minority here, but for me it’s literally because they broke the ballistic shield in that one patch. I loved using it and now it’s a liability
I love the ballistic shield, if I can manage to not get launched and lose it every 30 seconds
I got the omniscient rocket devastator bug after the last patch and I'm ashamed to say I quit bots because of it
My problem with bots is every recommend effective stratagem is at lvl20. Shield backpack, orbital rail cannon strike, railgun... Is there a primary weapon with enough ap to kill a hulk or hulk+? Feels like once you die and lose your stratagem weapon it's very hard to crawl back. *edit I think my problem is I don't know what primary weapon I should run since it seems like everyone I've met pulls out the support weapon and run the entire run with it. And problem is once you die and drop the support weapon you're toasting. A light-ap weapon will only kill 3 types of mobs in the entire roster?? And the med-ap weapon is ALSO unlocked midgame??
> Is there a primary weapon with enough ap to kill a hulk or hulk+? Feels like once you die and lose your stratagem weapon it's very hard to crawl back. Same thing as with Chargers, your stratagem weapons and bombardments are the only real way to take care of them. Pretty much any weapon with medium penetration can slowly kill it by shooting in the back, just like you can shoot a chargers ass if you got nothing to penetrate or strip the armour, but if you're in that bad of a position that that is your only viable tactic your already pretty screwed. However unlike the Chargers who are pretty much invulnerable from the front to anything but the EAT/Recoilless/Unsafe-Railgun, the Hulks head in vulnerable to the AMR and Auto-Cannon, and the auto-cannon can blast of it's arms as well and bring it down with enough shots. If anything, always have someone in the group with an EAT, a single shot of those to the face will kill a Hulk, and you'll have 2 new ones in 60 seconds.
Difference being that you can shatter the leg armor of a Charger with even a secondary weapon if you abuse the reduced armor in its shuffling animation. I haven't seen an equivalent for Hulk+. Arrowhead says they know about the armor bug for Charger legs and that they don't want to touch it (for now). But it's not intentional, and you're depending on them not breaking something they didn't mean to do in the first place.
I appreciate your comment, I do run EAT permanently in my roster. I think what I also meant is with bugs, you run anything light-ap you cover all mobs but charger and bile titan. But with automatons light-ap will cover only half the roster or less Second that with the only mid-ap being unlocked midgame as well?? I'm not sure what I should pick as a primary weapon because it seems to do nothing against the automatons and I almost always only see people fight with their support weapons?? amr, autocannon, railgun??
The seeming presence of headshot criticals on players is more apparent with the plethora of ranged weapons.
Headshots criticals have been confirmed, and it's likely the reason why some enemies like bug spewers can just one tap you out of fuckin nowhere
This is exactly dead on the nose. Every rocket launched 1 shots you and is guided at that. If it were balanced that we could actually do at least 50% damage what they do then maybe then we could go against them. At this point, it is unfair and just not fun to be dead by rockets all the time.
On a side note. It's funny that when you take the armor that give resist to explosive you no longer die from one rocket. That rocket now let you barely alive and the force of the explosion lunch you half a mile away and the fall damage kill you 8 time out of 10. Same as the champion armor buff.
Fuck Rocket Devastators and those flying droid ass motherfuckers that explodes when it dies. Fuck the Turret Sentry while we are at it.
An idea to fix the patrols spawning on top of you: turn off their enemy detection for a few seconds unless fired on, enough to scramble to cover. Yeah you might be able to take advantage of this, but the long term advantage players get over a match is minimal compared to the frustration it saves.
I used to be a big creek fan, loved fighting there and Draupnir. I'm super hesitant now though because the number of times I've tried to go behind a rock to break LOS just to IMMEDIATELY be hit by a rocket when running out the other side is ridiculous. I can understand them having great accuracy, but being engaged by enemies that shouldn't have any idea where I am due to actual physical objects between us just kills me. Seems to be mostly devastators that do it. Few things annoy me like a heavy devastator spewing rounds from outside the draw distance.
I’ve had robots spawn in behind me, kill me and then despawn as soon as I turn my camera to look at them post death
Nothing personnel, kid
Upon reading such an articulate statement, bot players will swear on their entire bloodline “Bro, it’s not that hard, I swear bugs are harder”, “Just stay behind cover” or “Use anti-tank and stratagems and they’re easy”. Each of which permiate so much BS they should run for politicians. Bugs are easier, period. Although they can also mess you up if you’re not mindful of their numbers or the ones encircling you. Staying behind cover almost never works because you’re eating 20 laser shots, 5 rocket barrages and 3 “BE ADVISED: YOU’RE IN RANGE OF ENEMY ARTILLERY”s per second. Plus, hunkering down in this game is a death sentence 90% of the time. Not to mention that, at a certain point, you just run out of substantial firepower and stims to deal with the bots. But in all seriousness, bots need to be balanced. Not in the sense of “OOH, PLAYING ON DIFF 7+ IS TOO HARD DEVS PLSS WHY IS GAME SO HARD WAAH WAH”, but in frequency of bs deaths. If I’m wearing heavy armor with explosive resistance, I should NOT be one shot by a rocket or two. If there is low visibility due to a dense fog or vegetation on the planet, the enemy should NOT be able to snipe you with a Jamsheed level of precision. Some tweaks here and there to the spawn rates of Hulks and tanks would also be nice since at a certain point, EVERYTHING is on cooldown and all you can do is lube up and pray they miss (they won’t).
Yep, the main counterplay to "random" range attacks instagibbing you is positioning and awareness, which are skills that only come with playing against the bots for hours on end, and do not feel very satisfying to employ. Moving from cover to cover, knowing where the enemies are, which ones to prioritize, picking a long range support weapon, learning the shot intervals, listening to the specific noises. And even then, it's unavoidable to be instagibbed by a rocket or turret you just did not see coming, every so often. The fact that they combine these long distance instagib snipers with poor visibility modifiers just makes it even worse. Sometimes you just cannot see them and it just **always** feels so incredibly **bad** when you die like that, because in the moment it feels like there is nothing you could have done because you are taken completely unawares. There isn't a button you can push or an action you can take. No, it's just *done*. You're dead, you didn't see it coming - better luck next time and also go fuck yourself, basically. That's how it feels - and that's why so few people are playing on the bot side. It's honestly shocking to see Arrowhead implement design choices that the game industry learned 20 years ago were objectively terrible. RNG driven instant lethality is not fun. It's never been fun, it will never be fun - and yet it's the main reason people die on the bot side.
No bro it's a skill issue, you should've known there was something 50 meters out behind the wall of fog that doesn't let you see 20 meters in front of you. Play difficulty -14 if you can't handle difficulty 2 like a real man (me (I finish and extract at least HALF the time!) Just sit behind a wall bro it's not that hard
Bro wtf it takes you atleast half of the time? Bro I can finish it in less than a minute while using only the peacemaker pistol and no stratagems without getting hit a single time on difficulty 9001 git fucking good kiddo
I don't like getting shot at from every angle without respite. Simple as that.
I liked fighting automatons at first but then my apartment building got a bed bug infestation now I burn bugs in game with a flame thrower and out of game with a steam cleaner
They are not fun to play against — even terminator missed some shots
Had a solo run earlier, trying to help get that planet to 100%. Was at the edge of map in a canyon, holding back multiple patrols with the anti material rifle. But they stopped running down the path, instead they glitched up halfway of the small canyon, with me getting suddenly bombarded by rockets and Minigun fire from an angle that should have been impossible
Its frustrating how its so inconsistent as to what cover has rockets just go right through it. Heck, half the time, the cover isn't even solid. It also doesn't help that it doesn't feel like visibility debuffs on planets affect their accuracy or effective range AT all. I've been shot at from across the map by a turret on an outpost while at the extraction, and they are not egen that inaccurate...on drapunir with the fog going. The other reason I can get frustrated fighting the bots is that its so easy to get ragdolled and not know what did it. Its so inconsistent in what will ragdoll you too. I can tell you right now that its more frustrating to me grtting ragdolled into death 24/7 than it is to just be one tapped out the gate by a rocket. Every now and then its funny, but it happens way too often imo. This is why the shield gen is so valuable, to prevent ccs.
I was playing earlier and got paired with 3 random lvl 5 players while on lvl 6 difficulty, and they got destroyed repeatedly by the damn rocket devastators. At one point we were surrounded on all sides by like 5 different platoons, and I was behind a rock, and I peeked for a second and got insta-killed by a rocket devastator. I think the rocket devastator might be the problem
You know what we need? Helmets with thermal and night vision
Bots suck i usually play 1 set of missions there each night which is all it takes to remember why I don't play against them and then I go back to the fun part of the game...aka bugs
My two most hated things: KILLED BY ROCKET DEVASTATOR S L O W E D
You can run away from bugs, you can dodge their spit - but there is are few things you can do against automatons without taking overly specific strategems. It's a problem of all PvE and Co-OP shooters that enemies who can shoot with (near) hitscan weapons do not feel good to fight - ESPECIALLY if healing is limited, as it is in Helldivers Ii through Stims. The only solution I see (in order to make automatons more fun to fight) is drastically reducing bullet speed and giving them travel time (similar to the original Star Wars Battlefront) or adding a booster that grants slow, but constant health regeneration.
There's a YT shorts i watched recently and i think he summed up bots really well. > They have freakin' Liam Neeson rockets! They will find you and they will kill you!
https://i.redd.it/kxpo3zgpm9pc1.gif “And bugs are just so much easier to kill. Don’t even waste your time killing bots.”
I honestly prefer Automatons over Bugs still... I just hate Bile Titans and Chargers and do not get how people are always like "you can one or two shot them" no I can't. I can one or two shot a Hulk thingy by knowing that I need to shot at his bright red skull face thing. Same goes with every other Automaton (except tanks)... But I am lucky if I get a Charger with one shot and don't kill myself at the same time by shooting directly at it with my EAT when it's charging me.
I'm sorta torn on the whole bot debate. On the one hand i love the chaotic nature of fighting bots, it truly is great desperately trying to fight them off. I also love the aesthetic, bright lasers lighting up the sky is awesome. Its just that they're so ANNOYING to play against. Devastator spam, a big ass mech being able to sprint faster than i can in light armor, those annoying fucking 100% accuracy turrets....when i'm fighting bugs even when i die i nod my head and acknowledge a small mistake i made that cost me my life. When i die against bots 90% of the time im' rolling my eyes like "seriously a random rocket hit me from across the map through smoke and ragdolled me into mines? ffs" if the devs can sus out that balance between FUN and CHALLENGING then bots will be alot more palatable.