@honkalot: Have you been mostly soloing or something, though even then you're looking at 250ish kills in a 20 minute mission so 750 an hour. Actually I'm pretty sure it's not even possible to get 45k kills in 8 hours, no matter what you do (you could maybe average 1500 an hour doing the easiest missions with cardio boost, which would still wind up being 65ish hours of raw grinding). Did you misread 4.5k?

@quirkwood: I was wrong about armor, it's definitely one of the best for soloing but in a group on tougher missions the auto injector and especially the self-teleport you get at level 19 are quite a bit better; though there are times when armor can do better than either of those even in higher level missions.

I mean I'm pretty sure at least, but I'll check when I get home. Just went by memory. I certainly haven't been min/maxing it though.

Me too! Although it is often hard to tell if you are with a bad group until deeper into a mission, often the second time into a mid level mission (6-7). Things tend to work out best when at least two people have voice chat going because at least two people can work together.

I'm going to start this by saying, this was the game I actually was going to get my PS4 for, that's how much I was looking forward to it. We play a lot of 4 player couch co-op/multiplayer stuff in the house (Dungeon Defenders and Speed Runners still seem to be our most popular go to games) so this seemed like it would be fun and in our ballpark. As it happens my GF got me the PS4 for Xmas so we've been playing through some other stuff until this was released mostly the lego games so I don't feel quite so bitter about the following.........

It has to be said I'm a little disappointed over all. The grouped up mechanic is a pain in the butt(unless I'm missing something and it can be changed somewhere) but being forced to share the screen with the other three people even when online makes me a little irked/frustrated as people don't seem understand that if you want the most available 360 degree image for defence you all need to be close together not all at different edges. I understand why they did it, It makes sure people stick together (although you always get one person who wants to go a different way) and it adds to the oh so fun friendly fire screw ups, but I still don't like it. When the crew did the QL (Or might have been no UPF) Jeff said something along the lines of multiplayer will be more appealing playing on your own console/screen and I agree and I'm kinda sad they didn't get a chance to try that as I would have put some more thought into buying it. I also don't like the lack of customisation in the difficulty and friendly fire aspects (Again I understand why, because of the online contribution to a global goal) but two of my house mates aren't as au fait with controllers or games like this to make it a good experience out of the box without a lot of frustrating friendly fire deaths, it really shouldn't be the case that I can solo a mission easier than we can do it with 4 people just because they make it artificially harder due to limiting screen space than using actual game mechanics. I'd have been happy with an offline local mode that allowed us to do our own thing for casual gamers (sorry, I'm not a fan of the term either but I couldn't think of any other phrase that would sum it up)

I'll just finish by saying I have had fun with this online, its just not the game I was hoping for and for me has really limited play time, I'm just glad I borrowed two more controllers rather than buying 4 out of the gate for this or I'd be really pissed. End of moan.

People do tend to learn from mistakes which is something I noticed. I was in a group where we wiped twice on the first mission of a planet - an obvious sign that things might not go well. I'm by no means the leader type and never aspire to be a leader as I rather hang back, but I started to aggressively pull the team in certain directions, take point, and make liberal use of the "Lets move!" call. It wasn't as smooth an experience as some other people I played with but we ended up doing all missions on that planet and in a way it felt more like an achievement for having struggled along the way rather than steamrolling through it.

The one pet peeve I have is people stopping to kill everything. You don't get extra experience for more kills nor is there any incentive to kill more than you need to so stopping every few seconds to get into an all out war is just suicide on higher difficulties when tank bugs and such start showing up with increased frequency. Also when you need to nuke out nests and people refuse to move up so as to actually reach the bomb can be maddening.

I will second all of that. I find it the most fun when you're just getting by by the skin of your teeth. Like one yesterday we were down to one man but his last minute respawn call-in made three of us drop on top of a cluster of enemies including two tank bugs that were killing us. People not watching objectives is infuriating though. Spent 15 minutes at a bug nest just trying to get back to one of the hellbombs but my team wouldn't move before the bomba were destroyed. Another time a guy who was like level 11 didn't understand we were detonating a nuke next to him, was on a mech on the wrong side. Just couldn't get him to understand so we ended up just blowing him up.

Same guy later "rescued" our AT rifle but didn't take the resupply pack. Then he wouldn't move so I could reach the resupply pack. So we had one AT shot for the rest of that mission, which didn't work out great. I don't get how you're level 11 but don't understand those two things.

Edit: @litation I can see the constrained screen not appealing to everyone, and like in my example above it can be really frustrating in situations where people don't understand why you need to go a specific direction in order to pick something up. I think it's something they absolutely had to do though. Being able to roam free would all but negate the friendly fire aspect among other things. Both Gauntlet and Magicka were the same way so it's like how I expected it to be. I can totally see being disappointed in that aspect though.

@honkalot: I hear you on all of that, experienced all of it myself. In defense of the AT guy, the game doesn't do a great job in explaining how some things work, like strikes or whatnot. I'm about level 11 and I never used that AT rocket as I usually take to mech suits instead, so I also have no idea how they work. Recently I read someone say that it requires some sort of coop to work it which kinda blew my mind.

This. A million times this. I much prefer to play with people I can communicate with. Everyone in the Giant Bomb community I have played with have been absolutely excellent.

I also put the intro to the game up on YouTube for everyone to enjoy. Arrowhead did a bang up job with this one.

I have to admit this game was nowhere on my radar before the QL, I don't buy that many games a year any more and I usually don't play a lot of online multiplayer, I think the last online game besides GTA online (I got the ps4 bundle over the hollidays) I actually got way into was "the last of us"on ps3. I don't usually enjoy being in high pressure situations and having to hold my own in a conversation in a language that is not my mother tongue, and having all that paired with the singular joy of being colourfully berated by a 13 year old kid.

The premisse of the game and the whole persisten galactic war is what actually got me interested. The idea of a 4player smash tv game set in a starship troopers type universe with a persistent chrome hounds type of war sounded pretty interesting, and the 16 Euro ps+ price seemed reasonable enough. All that and SUPER EARTH is just the bestest dumbest thing in my life at the moment. I had to re-watch starship troopers sunday morning to remember all the great quotes and propaganda.

I started out playing some solo stuff just to get the hang and not ruin other peoples games while I was getting my bearings (which is somthing I frequently worry about and another reason it's hard for me to commit to a predominantly online game). Then I tried to get into some online games only to run into the version missmatching issue and the only people that seemed to be in the lobby where solo's AFK or people who had spawned multiple copies of themselves onto their bridge!? What the hell is that all about?

After about 90mins of trying I finally managed to join a group of guys who all had their mics off and I was fine with that, I usually have the thing plugged in so I get chat audio through it but keep the mic off, so I had a couple of these games and they were so so. Then I ran into a group of 3 friend who were actually comunicating with each onther and I was able to comunicate on a basic level through the d-pad commands, and progression was a whole lot smoother and quicker when all 4 people are actually working as a team. I finally manged to group up with some guys from the GB comunity last night and decided to take the plunge and turn my mic on and guess what? Turns out comunication is pretty clutch in this game who would have guessed. I actually learned a lot playing with those guys about the higher level missions and strategies and had a blast doing so.

I do wish the game would explain itself a little better as far as strategems and progression goes but I'm getting there now.

I was wondering about a few things though, I was watching some pre-lauch footage where they had an onscreen indicator for map markers and objectives. Is that just broken right now?

Also, I hear the guys talking about the galactic war and it resetting and becoming harder after the war is won? wouldn't that severly disadvantage people who come to this game a little late?

Okay I'll stop rambling now, Cheers...for SUPER EARTH

I dont have much to say about Helldivers other than the fact Ive had some of the more memorable co-op experiences in a while from it. Despite some of its current problems, its so good. The fact that I only paid $18 doesnt hurt, either. I fucking love this game.

I'm really enjoying it. I do wish that you could see it when your online friends pull up their maps and supply drop window

I also wanted to say that like the VA in Magicka the cyborgs in this game speaks some sort of half-swedish/simlish. The only basically unbroken sentence I've been able to discern is "I'm gonna kill ya!" in swedish as one of their combat callouts. Other than that it's mostly words mixed with made up ones. Pretty fun to listen to when you know the language.

@skullpanda1: You can you just can't see the inputs, the map has a visual indicator (on the mech its a panel above the supply tube) on the player and whatever supply drop they're holding shows up in the upper left as well as on the lower portion of the screen.

This is probably the first time in a while I'll really get into a multi-player game. I love the style and the difficult ramp gets fucking nuts. My only real complaint, as of right now, is how the red dot sight blends in so much with the red planet. I wish they had a different color option for the red dot sight.

@fredchuckdave: I guess I just wish it was visually represented the same way as my local coop friend(s). Although I can see how that might anger Vita players.

@fredchuckdave: Guess who were right - you were :P

I had 4500 kills. Dammit :(.

I did have 42000 shots fired though. :)

@sarahsdad said:

I was tempted to say that the game works best with four but the most fun I had today was in a 2 man mission so have at it. Granted you'll have to get better at the game over time and all that but I'm sure that will come even in the absence of 4 player; albeit not being able to join random planets is a bit of an issue.

@honkalot: Well I'm still not closed to being bored at 30 hours so maybe 200 hours isn't so bad.

I wrote a few tier lists on the reddits since that seems to be the closest thing to an official forum that this game has if people are curious. The game has a remarkably large playerbase considering not that many people are talking about it/it has no twitch presence whatsoever, had over 6500 people online today. Still having fun 55-60 hours in.

I'm glad, considering like you said there hasn't been much talk about it.

Went on today after about a week hiatus and had no trouble finding a game, looked like a lot of people were online as well. Connecting to games were 2 for 2 successful for me today, hopefully it was that patch! Earlier I could connect to about every 5th game I tried or something like that. I also appreciate that I can keep the trigger pressed on the Mech minigun for about 1,5 minutes before it runs out of ammo.

It looks like we're going to be sieging the bug homeworld within a couple days if people are curious what that looks like, hopefully its a 12-24 hour event and not a 4 hour one.

Brad mentionned it was 48h

Was just looking through the HK PSN Store when I found this:

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-hk/helldivers-add-on-bundle-1/cid=HP9000-CUSA00631_00-0000000000000001

Some new DLC on the way:

The Commando Uniform, a cosmetic helmet, armor, and cape

• SMG-34 ‘Ninja’: A silenced, compact, sub machinegun

• MLS-4X ‘Commando’: A multiple missile launcher system

• The Defender Uniform, a cosmetic helmet, armor, and cape

• CR-9 ‘Suppressor’: A semi-automatic rifle

• AD-334 ‘Guard Dog’: A backpack drone system

• The Support Uniform, a cosmetic helmet, armor, and cape

• LAS-16 ‘Sickle’: A carbine based on laser technology

• AD-289 ‘Angel’: A backpack drone system

It's three separate packs + a bundle with all three. Hopefully we'll see it later tonight for NA when the store updates

Another really nice thing with this game is that with 15-20 minutes I can start it up and play a mission before heading off to work in the morning.

@teddiebearsona: All of those weapons sound fun as hell.

I started doing multiplayer missions from level 1. So far it has been lots of fun. Though you will die in various painful ways in this game.

The one thing that annoys me is that some people tend to put up several turrets which makes getting away from stuff pretty painful at times. Usually one turret is fine but having several turrets is just a fast
way to cause player deaths to happen.

@nardak: Turrets in close proximity to one another will often kill each other, however if you feel a turret isn't particularly useful for your team just destroy it, they take far more damage from Helldiver attacks than from the aliens.

Until this thread popped back up, I had forgotten that I own this game.

It's been a fun game to just bullshit with friends. Also the walkers are amazingly effective.

Wow this game is amazingly fun, even just with randoms as it's pretty easy to get some strategy going if you're using a mic.

Anyone wants to team up? My PSN ID is skabias4.

Maybe with an organized party i can actually get past anything harder than level 8 :P

The attack on the bug home world, Kepler Prime, has begun.

Is it 48h?

Homeworld is ago, we need everyone to have some vague chance at success. There's slightly different terrain and the colors are more vivid and there's a shitload more enemies/science samples. If we can't beat the bugs we have no chance against the Illuminate; though obviously if we fail enough it will be patched.

Part of what makes this game work is there really does seem to be a worldwide audience, but that 4 am EST start time probably didn't help much (granted it doesn't matter for 48 hours).

@fredchuckdave: Iluminates are the easiest race. Sure, mind control is a huge pain but they don't have any armor at all so you can just do the whole mission in mechs. With a repair tool it's a breeze

@pyrodactyl: I think I might be slightly more qualified to make that judgment. The K/D ratio for Illuminate is 21.15, for Cyborgs it's 58.28, for Bugs it's 64.44; in general on a successful illuminate mission you'll wind up with about 60% of the kills that you would on a bug mission so there's a solid 27% discrepancy. The Illusionists are easily the most difficult enemy in the game and additionally we have never won a 4 hour Illuminate event even with a comparable number of players online. Mechs may be the brain dead way to play the game but they certainly aren't the best and people know this so while mechs are very common they aren't completely ubiquitous.

Let's just say it's relatively easy to deal with Illuminates without the decoy stratagem even on the highest tiers of difficulty. That is not true at all with the other 2 races. Cyborgs and bugs crush your defense line from all sides with heavily armored units. You can destroy the Illuminates if everyone is in a mech and a guy has a repair tool even if you're on high alert the whole time. You just gatling gun them all and stop for repairs once in a while. The only reason people are dying against Illuminates is because they try to engage them on foot.

Hey, people know how to play this game now so I wouldn't say any race is hard at all. That decoy stratagem kinda breaks the game and turn even hell dives planets into a cake walk. I had 7 or 8 stars hell dive planet including a mission where no one died yesterday

Let's spread Managed Democracy to the bugs once and for all *

* until the next war

Doesn't look like that counter is moving at all, ours that is. Not sure if this is just the devs sick twisted sense of humor or there's something more going on. Any thoughts?

@burgavo: It's either a bug or tuned for way too many players; I'm sure they'll fix it eventually (developers have been mum so far). Meanwhile never having to do a snow mission is pretty nice.

Allright folks, looks like the first bug war is over, AND WE WON, I wasn't awake at the time so no idea if they did anything special but here's the recap I got from Helldiver command:

Helldiver troops have finally taken control of the bug homeworld KEPLER PRIME, and while the goal of extermination has not yet been reached, a drastic change of tactics is employed.

Senator John W. Killjoy explains: "We have found through extensive research that the bugs generate the quantities of oil that we require for a sustainable future. To eradicate them from the galaxy just doesn't seem right from a moral perspective and due to this, we have collaborated with scientists such as the brilliant Dr. Henk Ploeg to devise a way where we can safely breed this rare species and, potentially, harvest more oil than we have done before.".

There have been minor concerns from leading moral experts saying that "The Bugs have no right to live" reffering to the rate at wich they spread through the galaxy.

Whatever happens next is up to the government, and we know they'll make the right decision.

So what do you guys think, has Super Earth Gov. gone soft? Should the Bugs be allowed to live just so some pollitician can roll coal on his neighbours? Do we really need all that oil? This is bound to go wrong and end up with them rising up again, the only good bug is a dead bug if you ask me.

Edit: I also love the name of their fake scientist Henk Ploeg (It's a dutch name meaning Hank Plough), It's such a stupid non-plus name it makes me smile every time.

Fair warning if you aren't on when the siege ends you don't get the trophy, which in this case was like 4 AM EST (might be more details other than this). Doesn't really matter to me since I play this game a shitload and even after Bloodborne comes out I'll still probably play at least a few hours a week, however it strongly implies that when the overall war ends you'll also have to be online which means you get 1-2 months between opportunities to get it, being on at that exact moment (instead of just waiting).

@fredchuckdave: Hmmm, that actually kind of bums me out, I don't usually go for achievements but this game has some interesting ones, also if I had known this before hand I probably could have woken up a little earlier, I'm not usually up on PSN at 9 in the morning, but I could have popped in had I known.

I lost an amazing gameplay moment because I lack understanding of the share button.

I went into the share clip twice in a row and I guess somehow that counted as a double click which scrubbed the 15 minutes prior and instead I only got a 2 second postgame clip. AWFUL!

@honkalot: Yeah that happens, just keep trying it out and you'll figure out how it works. Sometimes it will arbitrarily only save the last 40 seconds or something; no clue why. I've lost around 30% of my best moments thus far.

Just posting this here for posterity in case it gets deleted from reddit (titled "Tinfoil Hat"):

"So yesterday I finally got up on the top 8 overall influence ratings (thanks mostly in part to getting 400 bug influence during the homeworld event on the first day), only to wake up today to discover yet another mysterious person starting with a capital A had taken the spot, and by like 1000 points (Alchen3612) no less. Most infamously the player at the top magically appeared out of the ether after not being on the leaderboards prior to that and his influence hasn't moved at all since. Now, either these are mostly developers/QA guys (who for some reason all have online aliases that start with A) or they're just not actual people, at least according to my conspiracy theory. Thoughts? Feel free to mock me, this is intended to be amusing.

Edit: Actually Alchen got 3700 bug influence overnight as well, despite there being no bugs to fight.

Before: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAwWavyW8AAXzGP.jpg:large

After: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAywH-CWAAAY9ic.jpg:large

Aside: Disturbedsauce is almost certainly a real human bean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSVDcw6iW8).

Hopefully the A bastards don't come for my precious Illuminate influence: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAyyXKTWkAA-WNI.jpg:large

You can double check this one if you like (sometimes the friend search bugs out, wasn't for me this morning):https://twitter.com/fredchuckdave/status/580036026338422784"

So what does this mean? It could mean the vast majority of the ingame stats are total bullshit and we really have no idea what the actual playercount is, however I do have a random youtube video that has over 1000 views so I don't think the playercount is bullshit, but one thing's for sure the Bug and Overall leaderboards are fucked.

@fredchuckdave: It was the best wipe I've been a part of so far, though luckily it happens fairly frequently so it's bound to happen again. :)

Only the fact that the top 5 or more all have names that start with A sounds like enough of an improbability to me to make me think that the leaderboards must be borked. Like you said I would also think they're QA or devs or something.

@honkalot: I think it's not a hack or anything it's actually something that is in the game. There's obvious reasons for doing this to create way bigger numbers than are actually out there, also it means I'm probably number 2 in overall influence in actuality so that's cool. I think they thought that the game wouldn't sell particularly well so they had to create the illusion that it did to motivate the players to continue playing or something along those lines. Obviously the game did sell alright so now it just looks silly in retrospect. It doesn't matter to me since the game is fun and that's really all there is to it. However it does have some negative integrity implications. Also lots of hilarious Super Earth propaganda joke potential.

Game is a blast. So many stupid deaths.

Oh man, that leaderboard story reminded me of the "6'er"s in "ready player one"

@burgavo: Apparently at least some of these people exist but I'm still not entirely convinced, MagicAmy is real.

So close to completing the first Galactic Campaign now! Here's hoping everyone gets their trophy and there are no more off-putting bugs (lord knows we've had enough of those).

On a site note; playing against the Illuminate on higher difficulty levels with randoms is, to put it mildly, a herculean challenge in patience. Nobody seems to understand how critically important it is to swiftly defeat any Illusionist(s) and then quickly disengage and move away. People seem to just randomly run around, hoping to avoid the player-seeking spheres of death, when they could just stop for a split second and blow them up, and then engage and destroy the Illusionist. Even people who are level 23, 24 or 25 seem to have some sort of mental block when it comes to fighting the Illuminate. Most people just run around and never shoot the Outcasts, for example. Infuriating.

Sorry, just wanted to get that off my chest. Death to the Illuminate!