Helldivers 2 is always-online cynical trash which people buy and can't play... and that is going to mean EVERYONE a few years from now when they INEVITABLY kill the servers.
I have the extra medal tab (battle pass?), as well as a store helmet, all from in game currency from the medal tree as well as finding Super Credits in game.
Finished a challenging level alone. Died a lot. Used SOS and nobody came to help. Missed the timer, cursed everyone online out. but made it back to ship and seen it was set to friends only. 🤡
First time I completed a mission solo on medium was because my entire team either left or crashed. I just went full rambo and blew through robot bases like tissue paper. Cleaned out nearly the entire map and launched an ICBM solo. After that the game just feels much easier, and I'm up to blasting through challenging/hard missions.
A battle pass which you can unlock for free by playing missions and looting the premium currency, sometimes upwards of $2 worth per match. Yeah name another game that did it in the same manner.
Difficulty levels was a huge thing for me. On Easy or on Suicide Run, the same bullet, always kills the same bug, in the same amount of time. You never feel like you get weaker, but that the enemy has a better foothold there. Also the only game where I want screenshake maximized, all the Depth of Field, kick up the Blur, make the Bloom blow out my eyes. All of that adds to the feel that you are both incredibly valuable, and expendable. It is a game where you are supposed to die, a lot.
Yeah, the motion blur doesn't feel bad at all. I think it might only occur when you take an injury or other effect. I usually turn it off straight away.
That boot AFKer system seemed to have really done the trick. I got in last night instantly and didn't even have cross-play problems. There seems to be some level of irony that the people that were going AFK to avoid the ques were the actual cause of the ques.
They doubled the server size at the same time the AFK boot updated. So the combination of AFKers ( am one to blame, not 24/7 AFK but I would fire the game up in the morning and leave it run until I logged off for the night) and the 800k from 450k server cap helped immensly. Longest part of getting on HD2 now is the initial boot load. But arrowhead has stated that the issue with the servers was coding issues, that the game was not programmed to handle that many people at once, which caused game crashing issues so they capped it at 450k to keep those issues to a minimum while the reworked the code, at which point they were able to raise the cap to 800k.
Idk why Ubisoft gets so much flack. Siege is 9 years strong. I don’t think they’ve had a stack of good releases recently but I don’t see how they’ve become such villains in the eyes of many
That would be due to the aggressive monetization post purchase of products, the poor quality coding in released games, antagonistic behavior over what players can own and play, and the invasive practices of interfering with how people choose to play solo games. There are multiple facets of how they have chosen to destroy their reputation that have resulted in their present predicament, but in short, its due to them being run by non-gamers, arguably, by people who hate gamers.
gonna see a lot of similar games in the future with no real originality that does everything worse and charges more for, both, the game and the extras. Because we must like that part, not that the game is actually good.
@@pfcblint3171yep. I can’t wait for IRL travel time between planets, ship/base upgrading like mobile games, energy required to launch missions, and paid single use boosts that give you buffs. It’s gonna be great🤮
Like Larian's Sven Vincke said "Just make a good game - it will sell." Don't spend two-thirds of your dev capacity on monetization schemes. That's two thirds you're not putting into the game's quality.
@@lycanwarrior2137 I see folks say this a lot, but they never give really good examples. For example, Titanfall 2 was a good game that failed, but anyone with half a braincell knows why this was the case, hubris during its release window. Compared to most industries, good fun products fare much much better in gaming to the point that indies are things people live off of. Thats not the norm in the rest of most industries like cinema and music. Edit: Not saying it doesnt happen, theres no absolutes, but youre more likely to succeed than fail with a good game in this industry.
One thing to add: the premium "battlepass" warbonds are also purchasable through in-game currency, not money. They could have made the armors cost super credits and force you to pay upfront for the premium warbonds, but they don't. The fact that you can get the battlepass without spending a cent more than the cost of the game is huge. Personally I really enjoy earning stuff in games, and the feeling of buying something for premium currency that I've earned myself is it's own reward... At least , it is when it's not clearly designed as a scam to say they did it while making it so slow that you inevitably give up.
When my friends described it to me, I went "that's not a _battlepass._ We call that a 'progression system!'" Games used to have those! I'm so happy to see one back.
I agree it's great. It's also not difficult to earn currency, I've had the game for 2 days (during the week) and already have more than half the super currency needed for the battle pass
using real money to unlock the warbonds doesn't even really make much sense since you'll still need to play and earn medals to unlock the rewards anyway. I had enough super credits from just playing the game to unlock a premium warbond before I was halfway done with the standard pass.
Helldivers 2 is that friend that goes out and does fun stuff with you. You have a great time hanging out and he never pressures you to grab the check or pay for gas. So of course you end up throwing him some money, because you have had so much fun together and he asks so little of you in return. You start to feel bad if you dont chip in a bit, if nothing else to say thanks. Other live service games are like that guy you know, who asks to borrow a couple dollars EVERY time you see him. He never pays you back but always promises that he will get you back, just as soon as that next big idea comes through. He's deep into some multilevel marketing scheme and every time you are around him, he tries to sell you some useless product you dont want or need. The stuff he sells is sub-par yet he charges premium prices for his sometimes unfinished or non functional products.
True true, when I learned that the battle passes simply stay and you can unlock them at your own pace and not really pay to win either, I decided to upgrade to the deluxe game and will likely buy future battle passes as long as they keep adding some mission and biome variety
@@Perjoss Hell divers is £35 in the UK. If bought at launch you got a small discount making it £32. To upgrade to Super Citizen it's an additional £15. You spend £32-50 on what is easily a £60 game and they don't even force you to pay extra in game with reasonable paths to obtaining exclusive weapons, armours and content. It's actually blissful.
How they handle difficulty also plays into how well life service is tied into the game. Enemies don't just become bullet sponges or do more damage. You don't get higher and higher level weapons that in the end just feel the same to deal with that. Instead they introduce more and more new enemy types, make the missions more complex and introduce modifiers to mess with you. Also of course the reason it's so good is as usual that this is a private company and they don't have stakeholders they are beholden to.
bungie is a private company that kept their independence from Sony and they still scammed their players for years, making them pay for yearly expensions with no content, make them pay for dungeon keys, for basic features and with constant aggressive seasonal fomo exclusive weapons and story content being independent doesn't guarantee anything, arrowhead is blessed
Well... The railgun + shield backpack combo dominates in helldives, you see 3-4 of them picked on the regular. Weapons are certainly not balanced currently. However the enemies not getting more HP is a great boon, it makes the game a lot more grounded in reality - a tank is not suddenly more resistant to bullets just because you turned the difficulty up.
bro the modifiers! the stratagem scramble is absolutely hilarious! priceless were the times i tried to call in a sentry only to be greeted by a red beacon of death followed by a nuke promptly delivered at our general location. It really adds novelty to the missions.
@@Iaotle That I think is for a few particular reasons. Difficulties past 7 spam heavy armor enemies like it's going out of style and Railgun has fewer negatives then other AT options, likewise the shield pack is picked often because it gives a lot of benefits against both bugs and bots and only takes up a backpack slot. Combine the two, and suddenly the game is significantly more manageable. Same for why the Breaker is the most used primary, Railcannon is the most used orbital and all Eagles are generally better then orbitals. Arrowhead could stand to do a few runs on the balance of the game.
There is also another aspect coming from the Coop Experience. Every reward that one individual makes is shared with the group. The probes, the Credits, the medals you find in the world. There is no " my stuff " feeling. You fight together, you win together. So being in a team with someone who has already more powerful equipment and goes an extraroute for a secondary objective or an interesting place, is beneficial for you.
@@INoIFearIGaming people are still toxic about it on occasion, seen a couple people go off the rails after someone picked up their samples when they died, got reinforced then killed said player and took the samples back.
@esrage8497 I have met such a guy once. And even after described him how the Gameplay works, he just told me to shut the f...up. There are always Morons.
I was playing a solo match, hunting one of the medium-sized bugs, and out comes the swarm. I'm gunning them down as they emerge from the fog and haze, and the big one arrives. I'm unloading my machine gun into its legs to slow it down and i think I've finished it off when it raises its one remaining leg and proceeds to drag its broken body towards me willing my destruction with everything it had left... I killed it but it left a huge impression on me.
To draw the eight billionth comparison to Starship Troopers, that feels a lot like the end of the Klendathu Drop scene where Rico guns down a Warrior Bug, only for it to get one last surge in and stab him in the leg.
Dude i had a bile spewer lose all its legs AND its head, lay there for a few seconds, and as soon as someone ran by it, IT WAS STILL ALIVE. It screeched one last time and blew itself up. In game fluke or by design? Either way we were all left with our jaws on the floor.
@@RANDOMhandleDL It’s by design. The medium and large bugs run on a sort of adrenaline system where they can still move and attack for a little bit of time after being dealt lethal damage unless specific things happen. If a bile spewer’s butt is blown up for example, this system won’t trigger, or it won’t trigger or be cut off short if you deal enough overkill
If you think the premium warbond weapons are p2w, you've never used the Breaker shotgun you unlock by lvl 5. That thing is best in slot 95% of the time.
@@drsawma the incendiary breaker is less potent but spreading fire is quite handy for bug control. Everything has a niche. The weapon at the end of the same warbond is great for long range killing of tankier enemies, Except the magnum, thats just for style.
@@thomasallen9974 the incendiary does far less damage in a pinch especially at level 7-9 when hordes of bugs are literally jumping on your face, does far less damage to medium armored bugs including the stalkers and its completely useless against the bots. It takes a long time for the tick damge to take down or break down the bug armor. So yes its a viable equip for hard and below difficulty. The breaker is effective against both bug and bots even at medium range at helldive difficulty. Edited:spell check
I just went outside and screamed Liberty and Democracy at a swarm of ants. I also threw a couple profane words at my handheld communication device. I'm doing my part!
I love that the War bonds don’t expire. There’s no manipulative use of a deadline to keep people playing. And, ironically enough, that makes me want to give my money to them. Because they aren’t forcing me to pay them. They’re just saying “hey, you can get these items at your own pace and we won’t force you to pay us. But payment options are there if you want to.” As a musician that makes it directly clear that I will take requests for free but people can tip me if they want, this is so refreshing to see. Absolute win for Arrowhead.
Also, they don't make the game impossible if you don't grind a ton. A bit overwhelmed? Knock the difficulty down a notch. Just as fun, just a bit less chaotic. Also, the lack of bullet sponge enemies. Every enemy is the same at every difficulty, it's just there are more of em at higher difficulties
@@AHHHHHHHH21 You can also take a break from the game and get Major Order rewards long after they were completed to spend on whatever you want to try new weapons out. Been playing other things with my friend and we came back to a couple hundred medals just like that to buy some neat guns. Then you can go in and give your new toys a spin and go back to playing it regularly. Very chill game.
5:41 I like how you phrase this, players didn't pay more to play a couple days in advance, they were paying more to play day 1. They were not paying more for an added benefit, but for avoiding punishment
"That weird tab in your video game that feels like salespeople infected it" is so accurate a description that it's making me exhausted just thinking about
With how much I have been playing this game, I have found enough super credits in missions to be able to buy the armors in the shop and have also found enough to buy a premium war bond if I had to... (65.2 hours) This game is addictive, and the fact that you can actually get the super credits by playing is a nice touch that shows the lack of predatory money-grubbing you see from other games. Also, from the first Premium Warbond, the weapons feel the same in power. The extra abilities are muted by less ammo capacity, raw damage or fire rate. I am unsure how the boosters and weapons in the future would be in the premium WB but as long as Arrowhead keeps the stuff like they have now, I feel that it has a nice variety, like said in the video, but not an advantage.
Give it about 6 or so months and I can almost guarantee progression is going to be reworked to make the microtransactions a lot more necessary. That's why I've been hesitant to jump in even though this game is right up my alley - I've been burned way too many times by games being one thing at launch and then radically switching directions after they become successful.
@@qu1253 In that case it's even more reason to jump in soon so you can enjoy the game with lots of people while you still can. Then tap out if you feel the system is reworked later down the line.
It's refreshing because the devs seem to be focused on gameplay first. Charging less than full retail for a game that feels more complete than any full retail + cash shop game I've played in the last few years. It's amazing.
It's fun to think that the recent times in gaming has the suits in a scramble since we got some HUGE singleplayer games with BG3, ER, AC6, etc. making them think that the "trend" is now singleplayer games. Then here comes Helldivers 2 with the live service win which balances the scales a bit. Hopefully what they do learn from this is that making good games gets you sales instead of trying to copy the success by creating a clone of the successful thing.
I think the trick is devs that actively participate and do stuff for and in the game. I mean, what other online games can you think of like Helldivers with gamemasters and a storyline that evolved and changes based on the player base? It's like a massive DnD campaign
The biggest clincher for me is that I was able to buy the premium pass, a helmet, and am most of the way to an armor set... _Without spending a single penny._
I passively farmed the Super Credits for the premium warbond in a week of casual play. No real money spent. But...I WILL buy the next premium warbond that's coming out in the 11-th of April... because it looks dope 😊
To be fair presentation is also a big factor but many live service games instantly kill that by putting generic shop windows in your face or make the shop prompt as attention grabbing as possible while making you unable to ignore it. In HD2 I when I read the Aquisition prompt or how it's called I think unlocking progression and the the 2 shop pages (1 for currency and 1 with 4 items) are an afterthought. It doesn't even start in the shop pages but on the free warbond. Many games would force you to go through the shop in a situation like this in hope you see something you want. You can play Helldivers without ever opening either of the shop pages and so far there have been no pop ups of any kind for bundles or other shop items.
And that is where mechanically bad games like witcher 3 broke the mold and ruined it for the "good games". I would play anything (but 8-bit) with a good game engine. Witcher 3 required mods to be playable on pc with focus on hair physics..and copy cats came and games focus on cinematics and other "how can we waste time" where the actual gameplay was (probably) their last t hought behind live service and other crap.
2 things, at its most efficient rates, you can get 120 premium tokens an hour in hd2. This is by going on the easiest mission and equipping light armor and running around collecting granadeable crates. Using light armor you're able to scan the map before you even meet the points of interest making it easier to plot your run. With a grande launcher and jet pack, I was able at my best to get 50 premium tokens in just 10 min.
@@magma_fire_bagwan trivial missions, because the map is the smallest. Go in with fastest armor you have, stamina booster if u have, jetpack is sometimes nice to have, impact grenade to pop containers fast. Search the map for POI with super credits. Esc and return to ship until you find one which has 3-5 very close together. Then after collecting them, quit game and Relaunch. You can run the same map over and over. Best I found so far was 4 POI in a rectangle with 60 sc total. Starting the game to quit out took around 2,5 minutes. Oh yeah, preferably do this on planets with almost no liberation, because the mission will count as lost.
@@alicorn3924 of course it is repetitive, the longest I done this in a row was 1,5 hours. Just information for ppl who are tight on money like me and don't wanna miss out 👍
*20:10** I found a way to make around 1000 super credits an hour.* What the devs said was referencing if you play the game normally, if u want to farm them, it is much more :)
@@MephiticMiasma yeah, if you don't mind some grind you can get everything for free. For anyone wondering how I do it: Trivial missions, because the map is the smallest. Go in with fastest armor you have, stamina booster if u have, jetpack is sometimes nice to have, impact grenade to pop containers fast. Search the map for POI with super credits. (Light beams but poi with containers don't have them I think) Esc and return to ship until you find one which has 3-5 very close together. (Can take half an hour if unlucky) Then after collecting them, quit game and relaunch. You can run the same map over and over. Best I found so far was 4 POI in a rectangle with 60 sc total. Starting the game to quit out took around 2,5 minutes. Oh yeah, preferably do this on planets with almost no liberation, because the mission will count as lost.
People need to stop calling it a battle pass. A battle pass that does not expire is just progression. You don't call WoW skill tree a battle pass, do you?
You can actually get the 1000 you need to unlock the premium without spending a dime yes it takes a while but you can find the currency in missions and the free one gives you a 100 of the currency in each lvl
This game captures a feeling that I loved back in Star Wars Battlefront 2: you are not a super soldier special ops character who can get shot, crouch behind a wall for a few seconds to regenerate, and come out fine. In Helldivers, you are a soldier, part of an army. If you run out of reinforcements, you fail. It doesn't railroad you, it doesn't coddle you, it simply gives you some tools, an objective, and a flood of enemies and tells you to figure it out. It's chaotic, tense, has a sense of humor, and above all is fun. Remember fun? Games are supposed to be fun, exciting, tense, challenging. And that's what this is. It respects and appreciates you and the time you are putting into it.
It does feel extremely nice that difficulties in HD2 ARE more difficult. The only number that changes is how much chaff is being swapped out for elites, which just works. You feel compelled to actually get better to get more rewards and stuff as opposed to "I gotta grind THIS difficulty before I can even enter THAT difficulty" where they just bump up enemy damage and health values. (there is the prerequisite of completing an operation on the previous difficulty, but that's just to stop people rushing into missions at diff 8 and instantly getting mauled) It's called Suicide Run because of the amount of shit you gotta deal with, not because you peep your head out for a pico-second and instantly lose 95% of your health.
Honestly you can even go into higher ranking missions at level 1 and still feel like you’re helping. Pretty much everyone I know has been shoved into a difficulty 4-5 mission as their first mission cause one of us started playing early, it’s still the same enemies just more of them, and for any big enemy that you might have trouble with, well that’s what your friend who dragged you into the higher difficulty is for lol. Never once has someone gone in and rage quit because they had to face down a charger with just a MG their first mission, or got killed my random friendly fire, it’s always hilarious panic followed by “I’m so glad you didn’t let me sleep on this game”
The biggest thing for me with this game is the lack of FOMO: no dailies, no login rewards, the battlepass doesn't expire. That almost obsessive pressure like an ex who just won't leave you alone by most devs of similar games that you should treat the game like a second job just isn't here, and it makes the game so much more enjoyable. It's amazing that something like that makes such a difference, and that you can play solo: play when you want, how you want. Now if they can just fix up the friend request issue and allow solos to open friendship doors....
One thing about warbonds is that it doesn't feel like a battlepass per se, it feels like a tech tree with cosmetics (Doesn't expire, choose your progression, unlocks new cool toys)
Yer the war bonds feel like how you progress in the game. They are a tree like the stratigums and the SD upgrades. They don't feel different they feel like part of the game play
SC(super credits) are also earnable in game. just find a POI (which means point of interest) and blow open a container door, open a crate thingy, or have a teammate press one button while you press the other and you can find medals, sc, requisition, and supplies and weapons.
- Reasonable price at launch - Multiplayer co-op that feels like it is MEANT to be played as a co-op game - Great lore, all the promotional material is 10/10 and really draws people in - 3rd person / 1st person shooters are more accessible and generally popular than ARPGS and topdown view (based on all the gamers I know) - The supercredits are affordable to buy, they're not huge chunks of money like premium currency is on most other games with in-game stores - You can earn the premium currency (Super credits) in game, I don't know any other game that allows that. - The game has VISIBLE progression in the story based on the actions of the players (planets get saved or taken over by the terminids / automatons)
IMO, what makes this game better than others. 1. No coddling - Your choices make a difference. either instantly by PKing your fellow divers, or as a collective by succeeding, or failing a campaign with benefits or consequences. 2. Your Level doesn't make you a God. You unlock cooler weapons that can make it easier for you, but in the end. That same bug at level 1 can still chop your head off at Max Level 3. Your Level doesn't make you a God. That assault riffle you used to kill a small bug on Easy mode, can kill the same bug just as quickly on Helldiver mode (Very Hard). 4. Enemies don't turn into bullet sponges the higher the level. they stay that same, but more come at you grouped with bigger, badder enemies mixed in. (Add-on to #3) 5. A level 1 can join a Max difficulty game and still make a difference - simply because of #3. 6. You NEVER out level your enemies. Your skills and knowledge of the enemies will make or break you. 7. It's not Pay-2-Win. You can buy the game, and win every match and become the best without spending a dollar of real $, while earning game cash in game. 8. With an active 4 player team. You can have a TON of fun playing this game! Just last night I played with a Chinese man (horrible english) but we still had a TON of fun! He screamed in chinese, I screamed in English, but we knew what was happening and played many, many matches with just the two of us on Hard and successfully completed all of them!
Something I love about this game is with the premium warbond, I unlocked it a couple days ago after spending no additional money and just playing the game, the super credits are not a long and tedious grind as it might be in a other game. Also regardless of if I bought it or not, when the next warbond comes that one would have still been there for me to buy if I hadn't saved up enough. They're permanent and they stay there and don't expire. Meaning no one will be missing out on past content If you join the game later.
not to mention, that the Gamedevs themselves mentioned, that you DON'T HAVE to buy those Uber-Credits, because you can find them in a small amount in the missions aswell, but they give you the OPTION to buy those if you WANT and not forced, so you could go in the game for no additional spending then the 40 bucks for the Game itself. In addition, the "Premium" Battlepass Steeled Veterans is included if you purchased the Deluxe Edition (20$/€), which gives you a complete set of extra Armor (helmed, armor, cape) a new Title, a Module for your Ship, that helps you practicing the Support keycommands without being in a mission.
Just a couple of things to note. The cash shop has already cycled through its selections and started over again and it took about 2 weeks. I am interested to see how they handle adding more cosmetics in the future, whether the cycle will just get bigger and bigger or if they'll add additional pages for each "season." Also, the biggest argument against pay to win is that the universally agreed "best gun" so far in the game is a shotgun you unlock on the free battle pass on the 3rd or 4th page. The guns in the premium battle pass are neat and have their edge cases, but most people running high-difficulty games are 9 times out of 10 using the default Breaker shotgun.
Only real complaint about the game so far is really just that the servers aren’t ready for it to be this popular which causes a number of issues mainly just not being able to log in other than that the game is great and I’m not really a fan of coop or 3rd person shooters but I can’t stop playing it
something that doesn't seem to be strictly mentioned is how engaging the battlepass is by making you feel like you are buying what you want and ignoring what you don't instead of being forced to passively earn everything. It also makes it feel quite similar to an in game shop that I actually look forward to browsing after each mission to see if I'm close to an item I want or can buy it. Even though gameplay items are locked behind the BP, the fact it feels like I'm actually earning and purchasing them makes it feel almost as rewarding as earning new guns and skins in old cod games (MW2 and BO1, the only two I really played).
I think a big difference in the way they handle the premium track and some other games is that you use the same gameplay earned currency for both tracks. So, it's less paying for items, but instead paying for access to the track. You still have to earn the medals and choose to spend them on either track. In a lot of season passes, they will literally show you the premium track in parallel with the free track and show you items that all you have to do is pay for the pass and you immediately get all of the things you've reached the tier for. That's pretty manipulative. With Helldivers, unless you've completed the free track and are sitting on a stack of medals, you are gonna have to play a lot to earn everything. It feels more like how expansions work, where you pay for access to new content, but still have to play the game to get that content.
Have some good news for you about the Super Store, all the armors in the store always circulate back, which means, you cant acually miss those armors, the same armors are on rotation
From the free warbond you get 450 super credits. You get 10 to 50 super credits every 3 missions which takes 1-1.5hrs. Getting 1k super credits is easy by the time you clear the free warbond, and can buy the next elite warbond, which gives you 300 to invest in the next warbond. I've bought super credits $2, not because I needed the super credits, I have 1.2k saved up and the warbonds all unlocked, but because I want to help support them. I've also bought 2 armours and a helmet for like ~450 super credits. And still need somewhere around 300 medals to unlock everything. The downside is if are a hardcore player you've probably finished everything there is and now you're just waiting on content. All I need is medals, and just some super rares to max out, as Ive already maxed out 500 common and 250 rare samples.
Helldivers is a game with a few microtransactions added, that you can also earn by playing the game a lot. Like Bellular says, this is a system designed to keep some money coming in to pay for the live service. The prices are reasonable, the armors in the shop are VERY similarly themed to the ones in game or the Warbond and there's only a small selection at any given time that slowly rotates over time so that you can pick something you like every few days (which also gives you time to unlock more super credits from the warbonds or by playing the game). This is aimed at players like me who are willing to spend 2-5 $ every once in a while to get some cool armor set to enhance my gaming experience. Diablo 4 is a game selling items and bundles more expensive than the game and the best-looking mounts so far have been part of EXTERNAL Blizzard bundles (e.g. lightning horse from D4 convention bundle). All the armor in the main game looks like variations of ugly rags and players can select one of a few color schemes for them but this is a FALSE choice as you cannot individualize the rags into a color scheme that looks cool and you enjoy. No, no, the developers have DESIGNED a few ugly color palettes so that ALMOST EVERY CHOICE LOOKS UGLY AF. Then you have the armor from battlepass, which looks more decent but it's a 1-size fits all that only usually looks at home on 1 class, maybe 2 at most. Finally, you have the shop with 30$ per armor set, individually recommended to you. All of these have DISTINCT themes designed by professional artists and are VIVID and UNIQUE-looking. This is designed for WHALES, to make them go in there when they see someone else wearing/riding a cool-looking thing, get bombarded by shiny, beautifully-designed armors that MASSIVELY contrast with the rags you can unlock by playing the game or through battlepass and as a result spend as much as possible to stand out in game.
With the Helldiver's Warbond you still have to earn the items therein by playing missions. There's no way to buy or otherwise pay to unlock or accelerate getting those items. The items in the battlepass are double the price of some of the free pass items (with in game currency called medals, earned through missions) So it's a struggle, but I still feel like I've went and earned that set of armor which has stat modifiers, yes, but they are identical to some of the stat modifiers of free armor. The purchasable in-game currency called super-credits can also be found during missions, and by doing so I have bought myself a set of armor through the in-game store. Also-also you can purchase the battlepass with super-credits you have found in the game/unlocked from the free pass. So it'l be a bit of a grind, but considering the game is both fun, and all of the items are largely cosmetic with a few minor exceptions it sure as hell feels like you're being respected.
Interesting to see the Overton window on this stuff shift even with Bellular. A non-F2P game with added monetization, and a battle pass with actual weapons on it that you can't get anywhere else - monetization done right! I think HD2 is way better than the lions share of games when it comes to monetization, but I think that's more a function of how low the bar is. I also think people are looking past this stuff because the game itself is fun to play.
My recipe for a live service. 1) Entry price lower than 60-70 (full price). Preferably F2P if you look at most others. 2) SIMPLE! A live service shouldn’t have the “movie stories” of modern singleplayer. Live service should be to hop on a few minutes and leave if you want… BUT also have enough content to let the long hour gamers play. 3) Community Support, let your community know they are being listened to. 4) Schedule. The number 1 question of the community now is “what’s next”. A roadmap promising something a month from now should be great!
Seems like the slippery slope is real, 40 dollars is still a lot for a game and having MTX in it is bs, and lets not pretend that the game isnt pay to win, just because you can earn the currency in game does make it less terrible that people CAN buy power.
You know that you get armors that are just as strong in the free pass and most weapons in the premium pass are worse than the normal variants also 40$ is not a lot for the games quality you get worse games for almost double the price in the current gaming landscape
I think the most massive thing is being able to get premium currency in game pretty easily. I've always been able to buy what I want in the shop every 48 hours with an average of 2-3 hours of game per day. Also very open devs/ceo
My main take on it is that AAA games companies need to understand that you are doing the game a service just by playing it. Helldivers 2 gives you an incentive to keep playing the game by letting you earn the premium currency and by playing the game a ton in order to earn that currency you are boosting the games active playerbase which in turn helps the game succeed. Likewise Fortnite was very successful on a system that heavily rewarded you for playing the game. Overwatch 1 used to have a system that rewarded you far more for playing the game which was dropped under the pretence of worry about gambling and replaced with a system far less rewarding and engaging and I think that contributes to the inability for the game to retain players. There's just less incentive to play the game when you are unable to earn things without opening your wallet and the fact that the incentive isn't to actually play the game is insanity to me.
Should do a followup on this. I bought the game the day this video launched watched the video while in queue. I don't feel the war bonds or premium currency cosmetics toe the line at all. They come up on rotation, have already seen them rotate a couple of times and they aren't pay-to-win. They have the same "game altering" bonuses that are in the free store that you can purchase with the regular war bonds, they just look different. And now that the new paid warbond is out and I've tested all the weapons out... Outside of 1 they all kinda suck and will stick with the starter weapons, and the armor while having a unique bonus, aren't game breaking or advantageous over those who don't. On top of that as long as you play the game you can get them without spending a dime. In fact, I had the currency save up to purchase it, but bought it anyways to support them and the hard work they put in to stabilize the game.
I often feel spiteful and want to be f2p to spite games with aggressive money hungry micro/macro transactions but with helldivers 2 I didnt feel pressured to pay so I decided to drop 20 bucks to just unlock both battlepass’s because I didn’t mind paying
I wasn't gonna get this game, but everything I've heard, and seen, definitely makes me change my mind. Tonight after work I'm gonna pick it up and see if I can get on the servers, even if I can't, the idea that they made their in-game purchase menu themed to the game, is just one of those things that you think should be an industry standard but isn't. Soo many of the stores feel like a separate entity entirely. I'm actually excited to play a game that rewards me for playing, not just forces me to accept the grind.
I'm with Morgan at 14:14. I have spent an additional $40 on HD2 to get the ultimate pack and some SC, entirely because I didn't feel pressured to and feel the game is worth the total $80 I've dropped. I have no doubt I'll continue getting more, but given you get SC just by playing the game I feel like I won't need to restock SC for a good minute. Which is such a weird feeling for a live service game lol. I can't wait to see what the future holds for HD2!
14:58 can confirm that armors in the acquisitions menu do infact rotate back into the shop, saw an armor i already bought pared with one i hadent yet less then a week after i bought it. So the fomo is present but at a very minor level, if you miss a set you got about a week to grind credits to get ut when it comes back around,
That said, it's a problem that'll only grow. It's fine now because there's very few things in the shop. But what about a year from now? You'll be waiting forever for that one thing you like to return to the shop. I still think this is one of the best live service handlings I've seen but there definitely needs to be a larger shop variety in the games future to accommodate the inevitable additions
@@BlaizeTheDragonto be fair, the items in shop last 3 days or so, and you can easily get enough for a single item in a few missions if you're looking for the Super Credits. Can get 100 in a pile
In regards to premium currency and the shop. I've noticed that the cosmetic items in the shop tend to have the same perks you could find pretty much anywhere else in the battle pass (free or premium) What's nice is you earn so much premium currency that when you check in the shop, it might have the armor with the perks you like BUT its a LIGHT armor, which is unlike the one you have from the pass! So I keep an eye out for the functionality. So far. I've only bought the super citizen upgrade (the base game was gifted to me by a friend) and I feel like I've voted with my wallet, that I really really enjoy this game and it deserves my support. (Hell I'm thinking of buying it all over again on PS5 because my pc specs aren't quite up to snuff to enjoy the high fidelity graphics on anything higher than low-medium settings) These devs put a lot of thought and polish into the systems and I respect it immensely. The gameplay is addicting and the game feels very balanced. I'm really hopeful for the future of AH and HD2 and look forward to enjoying and influencing the war as time goes on. See you planetside, Helldivers. Squish bugs, Spill oil. Addendum: I would like to note I also haven't spent a single dollar since buying the upgrade, and have still been making plenty of the premium currency to be able to buy the shop items without feeling any pressure! I look forward to collecting all the armor sets passively through gameplay as I work on other things! also: There's multiple upgrade systems that play into each other and how you play your missions affect which things you're grinding! Want levels or more stratagems? Focus on the main objectives and complete missions quickly. Want to upgrade your ship? Keep an eye out and scour the map for samples as you complete those objectives and make it all the way to extraction to do so! If you die, requisition slips, warbond medals, and Super credits are NOT lost! Even if you FAIL the mission! In short, the game allows you to still try your best and REWARDS you for it, even if your mission results in failure, you are NEVER punished for losing. You get rewarded, and if you play well, you get rewarded even better.
I think one statement that quickly sums it up is this: it feels like Arrowhead respects their players. To elaborate, there's no pressure to buy super credits other than your own impatience, as the armors and helmets in the shop rotate back in after just a few days. Also, the gear you unlock in your progression looks good and ins well-modeled... most games that let you buy cosmetics with a purchasable currency try to encourage you to get the skins by making the free stuff look bad. Nothing in the Super Store has stats that you can't get in the Warbond either, so there's not P2W aspect possible either. The game is also broken down into small enough chunks that even casual players can progress since multi-mission operations save your progress when you log off. Fun gameplay, no FOMO, no P2W, respectful of your time and money... These are things we once had as standard in the industry, but now when a game comes out, it makes it truly exceptional and deserves to be applauded every time. They tell consumers to vote with their wallets and that's why I upgraded to Super Citizen - I don't use anything it comes with (other than the title), I just got it because I felt that the extra money was earned by these guys for putting out such a wonderful product. Plus, it was the proper thing to do in the name of Liberty!
Was working on first finishing all the low hanging fruit projects with remodeling my office/game room/man cave but had to set 'build a new computer' as the priority because of Hell Divers and Pal World. I just realized that Pal World and Hell Divers will be the first games I've payed full price for (and payed over $25 on), in over 15 years (I usually buy games 1 to 2 years after release, and try to get them when under $10-20 bucks). But these games are just too good to wait!
You bring up something I didn't even notice in my time playing so far. The addons the different armours and weapons have. Not once during my time playing and looking at the items for sale did I even realize that you could be literally paying money to get items that do alter gameplay. Ive bought 2 items using super creds that I earned and it felt wonderful to be rewarded for playing the game. This could be bad in the future if they get super predatory with micro-transactions but so far it feels fine and completely optional on if you want to spend money on it. Its been a breath of fresh air coming from a game like apex, couple that with the amazing community and great gameplay loop and I can't get enough. I hope they keep up the amazing work so I can support them in the future. This is my first helldivers game and its made a fan of me already.
Helldivers is much like deep rock galactic mixed with Darktide mixed with Foxhole. Its co-op like drg and darktide, and much like those games if you hangout with someone way higher level than you it will accelerate your time leveling up. Its like Foxhole because of persistent actions that impact the game at large. This game is amazing. It feels modern yet it runs on smol PCs with weaker power. 40 dollars is pricy compared to DRG, but jeeezus it has way more content
Diagetic design is great and all, but the real win is that it's all earn-able in game. You get premium currency from playing. If you want to speed it up with irl cash, you can, but it's not necessary.
13:00 That makes a lot of sense. It's something that you feel, but not in a way that a lot of people, including myself, would have ever clearly expressed. It feels so naturally part of the game that it didn't stick out to me. The $40 price tag also makes me feel better about hopping onto the Season Pass thing with $5 or $10 bucks, which is totally optional. I think with just around 10 hours of play time you'll have probably accumulated enough in game credits through normal gameplay to get onto the seasonal pass without spending any money.
I would say the warbonds are about 1/3 of the progression system in game, with the rest being stratagems and then the ship modules. However I would still reserve judgement overall. As a live service game, they need to continuously add content at a reasonable rate. Ive been playing Helldivers for years, and the issue (for me) the original game had was content coming out too slowly. I still bought all the DLCs, but the way things are today, it’s going to have to be much quicker if they want to retain the current playerbase.
I don't know if it was mentioned at all. But the "premium" section is completely earnable by progression. If you max out the default pass you will get enough credits to buy the premium. You can also find credits in mission. Buying it just unlocks it quicker.
Drop in, collect all the things and have fun. I bought the base game, unlocked the premium pass, and made an additional 2,000 super credits just by playing. Couldn't imagine being able to do this with any other game with microtransactions.
Two things missing: 1. you can buy 1000cr for 9.99$ which is exactly what you need for the monthly warbond. so no funny "oh you have some over - spend it in our store"-stuff 2. If you finish the warbond you get 700cr. with 40cr/h gameplay you get the missing 300cr in 8h. So if you play only 8h the entire month and finish the warbond, you can pay for the next one without real money! Also: I never seen an item in the store which differs from the normal ones except visually. current me: I payed 9.99€ for credits and many items in the shop to support the developers. Currently I have >2000cr and all 3 warbonds that exists. So if I never buyed currency, then I still have enough to pay the next warbond which is comming in 3 weeks. This game is totally not pay to win and even if you play it casually, you will be able to buy the warbonds (they come out every 2nd thursday).
A HUGE thing for me personally was how they show what you can buy. In SO MANY GAMES, you launch the game. And BAM you've been asked to buy 3 different things, have 2 "limited time" bundle offers, and yadyada. It took me 2 hours to find the shop! I opened the warbonds like 4 times and just never noticed the shop!
I think a big part of the good outlook on HD2 is primarily due to the open communication and admonishing of rogue devs. Compared to other big name brands which seem to have no accountability on any level. If there's a bug players are informed of things that aren't working and told they shouldn't use items in order to improve gameplay experience. If there's a developer that isn't being as professional as they ought to be (though probably rightfully so) its communicated that it will be handled. They have built trust in their player base and are building a game that is really good at what its trying to do.
Hey hd2 player here, ive been playing since launch, right now the shop seems to be rotating back sets of armor that were around from day one, looks like they plan to keep them around for you to purchase if you missed out, Happy diving
That 10-40 super credit per hour is for regular casual gameplay. It's possible to solo grind 150-200 per hour on trivial. So it's even better than some people might realize. But, I would also point out that the server model for HD2 is very different than a lot of games; matches are hosted locally by the players and the servers act as more of a matchmaking and progress tracking service. That's going to be substantially cheaper than hosting the actual game on servers like you see in games like D4, Overwatch, LoL, Apex, etc. So while the HD2 model might be profitable enough for HD2 to continue, it might not be a profitable model for all these other games.
Something about Helldivers is that you could actually get the premium content for free by just playing the game. Super Credits can be found at points of interest in missions, and picking them up adds them immediately to your account so no risk of losing them if you die. But that also means you can speedrun a trivial map for all the P.O.I, return to ship, and then repeat to farm it. I got about 500 super credits in like 3 hours. If they were to add a daily/weekly cap to their spawn, then that would hamper this, but overall as of right now, there is no limit.
You talked about how the game's warbond rewards premium currency. By simply playing, I had more then enough to afford the premium warbond before I was even 2/3 done with the free warbond, so I bought the super citizen edition. Because the game deserved it. You can get EVERYTHING just by playing. You also mentioned possible FOMO in the shop, that's not the case. All the shop items return within a week or two's time as of now, and while it might take longer as they add more, it's not FOMO at all. I think the pay for variety thing is misunderstood, all the cosmetics in the shop are just reskins of the things you can get in the warbond. Theres always an armor set that has that same perk, or armor rating, but you can just get in the warbond instead. The only exception is weapons, which you can only get in the premium (though again, its earnable)
If u purchase everything out of the normal warbounds, u DEFINETLY have played the game so much, that u have like premium currency for 2 premium warbound thingies. I play the game now for 5 days, and had enough currency to buy 4 armor sets out of the store. Which yes, have attributes on them but they are the same attributes as on the Armor sets u unlock in your warbounds. Maybe it is in another "armore class" but i have yet to find a armor u can buy for premium currency which has stats u can`t have otherwise in the game. Same with the weapons in the premium warbound. When u have finished the normal warbound stuff , u will have enough premium to bux the premium warbound. Can`t remember the last time gaming felt THAT rewarding :) Great video btw ;)
I bought the game, played it alot with my friends, just hit level 20 and 2nd level of the premium tier unlocks, and never spent any money other than the initial purchase. They THROW free Super credits (premium currency) at you on the easy and medium missions. The missions are so easy you can spend most of your time just finding all the points of interest on the map that can have credits/medals/resource points. Last night I made 90 super credits in one medium mission alone. Between the ones you find, and the ones you can buy for medals, this is by far the least predatory battlepass/cosmetic system I have ever seen. I managed to get to the 1000sc within 10 hours of playing (or less not sure) to unlock the premium tier. And guess what? None of the weapons in that area are any more powerful then the normal pass ones! Its just what you prefer to use! I'm guessing their main way to make money will be to keep pumping out cool looking armors to put in the store and people that want to get them without spending time to get sc can just buy them for cash. However one night of doing easy/medium missions focusing on the points of interest will usually get you enough to buy those items before they are gone from the store. SO refreshing to see these options.
The thing with the different mechanic weapons in the warbonds is, that it techanily can´t be "paid to win". This sentence is fully embeded into PvP. In Helldivers this just means you, the person who buys this weapon, is supporting the game, the overall community war and the company behind the game. You are an asset for other players, you can support them in missions. You are doing your part, but putting a bit more in it in service of everyone (because nobody have actuel issues or problems when you use such a weapon), they simple dont use it and thats it. You dont steal anything from someone, you dont overpower other players in an pvp layout, because the whole game is pure, coop pve. I REALLY love this idea, because you simple can decide do you want this or not.
On the topic of the premium currency armor sets: every armor set in the game has a named "passive" ability, and they can do things like granting extra meds, damage reduction against explosions, or reducing the radius at which the player is detected by enemies. I think that there are only about 10-12 such passives right now. As far as I'm aware, the premium shop armor sets are purely cosmetic and always pull from the same armor passives that the rest of the armor sets have. So while a given armor set might have a slightly more favored pair of passives, it will never be numerically superior to any others.
Just to give some info about the premium currency and warbond system: I have played around 80h now, i have only payed for the game itself, but i was able with all the "free currency" inside all the warbonds and the stuff you find on mission to unlock both "payed" warbonds for free, and 2 Items from the shop and i have already half of a possible new warbond saved up (they "cost" 1000 UC Premium Currency to unlock, but normally have UC unlocks in them, so technically they are cheaper). And all this came unplanned from playing, therefore i had never any need to buy any premium
One thing that you only briefly touched on but that I think is a great factor for the battle pass is the way you unlock things. Traditional Battle Passes have X levels, and then you progress through each level, get the same stuff at the same time, and have zero influence on it. It's static and not very engaging because there's no "gameplay" to be had here. The most you'll look at is how much XP you need to the next level and that's it. In Helldivers 2 the progression is page based, and you don't t have to buy it all, so deciding what to spend your medals on becomes an important choice in itself. Do you want to get an emote? Or the new weapon? The new armor? But the new armor costs 15 medals and in 10 medals you unlock the new page, maybe you go for something cheaper now so you have those 5 medals left for the next page for a small headstart? In Helldivers 2, the Battlepass itself provides player choice and a bit of strategizing, it's not just a static list. And that makes it way more engaging to me personally.
But as you go down the pages around 5 or 6 it require you spend x-amount, so they make you buy the stuff you didn't want just to get to that next page. Little devious but it's still free and just requires us playing more.
Holy fuck nobody talks about this. Im not able to run it so i cant even decide to try, plus the shitty kernel anticheat doesnt make me want to. The only thing comparwble to this is in warframe: (completely free) battle pass both a linear track and a shop for the currency. You will get a lot of then creds on first rank and if youre long term player as dupe protection and then for endless bonus ranks on top until they decide to release a new one.
What I also like is that you still have to play to unlock even the premium stuff. Which means that you can wear armor that is a status symbol. I unlocked the DP-40 armor and I’ve worn it with pride. Is it the most combat effective armor, not, but it looks cool and I’m proud that I’ve reached that point to unlock it
I'd say in terms of core MTX models one of the biggest differences is that Helldivers is not fishing for whales. There are no ultra-premium purchases, no $60 horse skins, no $80 'Collectors Edition' on release or any of that crap. Everything in it has been priced for a basic consumer and player, not to fish out thousands of dollars from a tiny segment of their player population. Needless to say, it makes the whole model feel a lot more approachable for actual players, and it doesn't dilute the gameplay experience in the way that model invariably does for other games. Will they make less money on their MTX service this way? Yes. But lets be clear, they already sold over 3 million copies and are likely to sell a couple million more, and because their MTX is far more reasonably priced, they're likely to make ongoing income from a decent % of that player base going forwards, as long as they don't stumble and let themselves be sucked into whale fishing - at which point they'll turn off a large segment of their player base from the pay model.
Worth noting this pay for variety seems like an evolution of the HD1 live service model - they kept releasing DLC with a couple guns and abilities (that you could then upgrade with samples). There was like 1 that most people needed, but then beyond that people purchased them based on what would be useful for them, not needing them all.
Something he didn't mention is that, from what I've heard, none of the cosmetics purchasable in the in-game shop provide exclusive buffs; the armor effects of the premium shop cosmetics are directly copied from armor sets you can get for free. You're only paying for a reskin.
The Game Master thing would be a fun idea for a year from now have it be a game mode. You’re a “commander” so you could control ALL stratagems for your hell divers on the ground. Or have an enemy commander that controls spawn points, etc. there’s some good opportunities to have limited time modes that a bunch of people would probably play.
- Cheaper entry price - Free Pass(es?) With some good content in them. - You can earn premium currency just by playing. - Battle passes never expire. - Gameplay feels great. - unapologetic. It's not sanitized to fuck - Working together is greatly rewarded and not just. 'There' Just another game that the AAA industry could and should learn from. but Ultimately wont.
helldivers 2 makes the micro transactions feel more like youre supporting the game rather than them trying to get as much money out of their players as possible like most other games. It gives you stuff at a reasonable price that arent pay to win and they dont make you feel like you need to. Without the pressure I definitely felt more comfortable spending a little because i felt more like i was helping out rather than being sold something. It's almost more like getting a free gift for donating.
The thing is, if your trying to buy any game not made in Canada or that doesn't have a Canadian IP. Us Canadians don't have to pay 70$ for our AAA titles.... no, we have to pay upwards of 90$+ depending on which province we live in. These are prices that people generally cannot afford to pay, especially in certain areas considering the current living situations in Canada.
You can just go to a planet, set it to trivial and then run around farming for SC and then abandon the mission. You don't have to extract since the SC is immediately added to your account. Trivial maps are extremely small and it lets you finish it around 3 - 5 mins when wearing light armor
The fact that in my first week of playing HD2, I have unlocked and farmed enough premium currency to buy not only the premium warbonds (1000 SC) but I got armor (250SC) and a helmet (75SC), and still have SC left over is the big reason why it is okay they have micro and no one cares. A good premium currency should allow players that like to grind and farm to stay on the same level as those that rather just spend money then time. Different gamers have different play availabilities and thus both options should exist. I have sometimes 40hrs a week I can game, so I don't mind grinding out medals and SC, but my buddy works so much, and only has weekends he buys the extras and bundles so he can keep up with me. I don't play games like D4 that do the whole premium currency store shit. 1 reason I like Fortnite over Apex, COD, PUBG, etc. is Fortnite lets you earn enough currency in the battle pass to buy the next battlepass (plus their paid tournements help. Only other game I know besides LTD2 that has paid tourneys.)
I like how I could buy the premium set just by playing and finding "super credits" in game instead of just straight buying it. Yes I could get it right away but the option to choose that route is what makes this game perfect
Worth noting from a Helldivers 1 player: The new Warbonds system for upcoming content(presumably the mechs and such too) seems fairly similar to how the DLC worked in the previous game(though old DLC was like 3 bucks for 3-4 things). Except you'd just buy the DLC and it'd give you a package of stuff. Sometimes it was stratagems, or armor, or guns, or a mix. Exactly how new stratagem unlocks will work with the Requisition system I'm not sure, but this is an interesting change to me. I'm hoping for a return of almost all old content at some point, from city defenses to the vehicles, though some of the vehicles might be poor choices for some maps, but hey, that's a strategy decision to be made then. What's bizarre to me is that thinking on it, I've never heard of a video game studio going on a 'fact-finding mission' or doing any proper research into 'why is this thing successful?' They all just seem to look at the vague elements, slap them into their games, and then hope for the best, or act confused when it doesn't work. I get the feeling if they take a good look into what made some of these recent games work, they might start to actually improve some of their own business practices.
I am hoping they return the old content too and i am sure they will i just hope they wont put it in a dlc but rather another free and premium warbond pass that would make it f2p accesible but faster obtainable if you pay so they still get finances but we can also just play
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Typo in the title: It's => Its
Helldivers 2 is always-online cynical trash which people buy and can't play... and that is going to mean EVERYONE a few years from now when they INEVITABLY kill the servers.
You mean comparisons to other AAAA games.
Really surprised you guys didn't immediately mention EVE online for this currency model
I have the extra medal tab (battle pass?), as well as a store helmet, all from in game currency from the medal tree as well as finding Super Credits in game.
Finished a challenging level alone. Died a lot. Used SOS and nobody came to help. Missed the timer, cursed everyone online out. but made it back to ship and seen it was set to friends only. 🤡
Feels.
Ahaha
Hahaha
You have no idea how much this makes me laugh ahahahhaah
First time I completed a mission solo on medium was because my entire team either left or crashed. I just went full rambo and blew through robot bases like tissue paper. Cleaned out nearly the entire map and launched an ICBM solo. After that the game just feels much easier, and I'm up to blasting through challenging/hard missions.
Logged in today, no queue, quickplay working instantly, and I'm happily dying to friendly fire repeatedly. Great success. FOR LIBERTY!
I think the update that just came out today had a hand in that, 15 minute afk timer probably helped a bunch.
LIBER-TEA
@@Dajudge06 so basically...the team made a good decision to help their servers....which.....sounds like a great success to me
Because now it kicks AFK
For me matchmaking works only at level 5 and below, is this intended?
1) $40
2) great foundation especially for live service
3) voice chat
4) dev team involvement
There you go!
40 and exclusive items behind a paywall and people still do the sealclap. gamers want to be ripped off
Day 1 battlepass with some game features not working. Battle pass weapons are also currently exclusive to it.
The most and only important part is 0) It's a good game
Because none of those things you listed would matter at all if it wasn't
A battle pass which you can unlock for free by playing missions and looting the premium currency, sometimes upwards of $2 worth per match. Yeah name another game that did it in the same manner.
That’s the main thing that startled me. 40 bucks is not what I expected to pay for a game I was hearing so much good stuff about
Difficulty levels was a huge thing for me.
On Easy or on Suicide Run, the same bullet, always kills the same bug, in the same amount of time. You never feel like you get weaker, but that the enemy has a better foothold there.
Also the only game where I want screenshake maximized, all the Depth of Field, kick up the Blur, make the Bloom blow out my eyes. All of that adds to the feel that you are both incredibly valuable, and expendable. It is a game where you are supposed to die, a lot.
the bloom in the game is obnoxious and I love it. Makes you really feel like you're in a over the top movie.
Yeah, the motion blur doesn't feel bad at all. I think it might only occur when you take an injury or other effect.
I usually turn it off straight away.
@@cheeseninja1115 queue orbital strike right at extraction for the cinema
Yeah I really hate games that use bullet sponges to artificially increase difficulty. They're so boring.
Yeah the AI and combat design is really good but I wish they'd stop spawning shit literally 2 feet from the player.
That boot AFKer system seemed to have really done the trick. I got in last night instantly and didn't even have cross-play problems. There seems to be some level of irony that the people that were going AFK to avoid the ques were the actual cause of the ques.
They did also increase max cpacity to 700k wich is bout their max peak with ps5 included
They doubled the server size at the same time the AFK boot updated. So the combination of AFKers ( am one to blame, not 24/7 AFK but I would fire the game up in the morning and leave it run until I logged off for the night) and the 800k from 450k server cap helped immensly. Longest part of getting on HD2 now is the initial boot load.
But arrowhead has stated that the issue with the servers was coding issues, that the game was not programmed to handle that many people at once, which caused game crashing issues so they capped it at 450k to keep those issues to a minimum while the reworked the code, at which point they were able to raise the cap to 800k.
Double server capacity had nothing to do with it 😂 I also quit playing altogether tbh I just got tired of trying and moved on still haven't went back
@@realname2490 would recommand trying comming back
@@realname2490 Sounds like treason to me.
Maybe if companies like ubisoft and EA made actual videogames and not just glorified [PRODUCTS], they would have more actual successes.
Idk why Ubisoft gets so much flack. Siege is 9 years strong. I don’t think they’ve had a stack of good releases recently but I don’t see how they’ve become such villains in the eyes of many
@@Tonypollyoly?
That would be due to the aggressive monetization post purchase of products, the poor quality coding in released games, antagonistic behavior over what players can own and play, and the invasive practices of interfering with how people choose to play solo games. There are multiple facets of how they have chosen to destroy their reputation that have resulted in their present predicament, but in short, its due to them being run by non-gamers, arguably, by people who hate gamers.
That and don't price the monetization to be so expensive or have so much monetization as well.
@@Tonypollyolythey just released a bad game called skulls and bones and your wondering why we’re criticizing them?
Like Hollywood, I expect the gaming industry at large to learn all the wrong lessons from this success story.
gonna see a lot of similar games in the future with no real originality that does everything worse and charges more for, both, the game and the extras. Because we must like that part, not that the game is actually good.
and like hollywood, they are starting to see a collapse. and i am so here for it lol
Hey, if the tide keeps turning we'll see what the AAAutomatons do next. Either they adapt or they flail madly in am amusing way.
@@isturbo1984 Its essentially "legacy" everything is dying right now due to their arrogance and complacency.
@@pfcblint3171yep. I can’t wait for IRL travel time between planets, ship/base upgrading like mobile games, energy required to launch missions, and paid single use boosts that give you buffs.
It’s gonna be great🤮
Like Larian's Sven Vincke said "Just make a good game - it will sell." Don't spend two-thirds of your dev capacity on monetization schemes. That's two thirds you're not putting into the game's quality.
Lots of "good" games don't sell and fade into obscurity.
@@lycanwarrior2137True. But Great games do succeed
@@lycanwarrior2137lots of good [insert thing here] fails and fades into obscurity. What's your point?
@@lycanwarrior2137 I see folks say this a lot, but they never give really good examples. For example, Titanfall 2 was a good game that failed, but anyone with half a braincell knows why this was the case, hubris during its release window. Compared to most industries, good fun products fare much much better in gaming to the point that indies are things people live off of. Thats not the norm in the rest of most industries like cinema and music.
Edit: Not saying it doesnt happen, theres no absolutes, but youre more likely to succeed than fail with a good game in this industry.
Helldivers 1 is a great game, it didn't sell as much as the second one.
One thing to add: the premium "battlepass" warbonds are also purchasable through in-game currency, not money. They could have made the armors cost super credits and force you to pay upfront for the premium warbonds, but they don't. The fact that you can get the battlepass without spending a cent more than the cost of the game is huge.
Personally I really enjoy earning stuff in games, and the feeling of buying something for premium currency that I've earned myself is it's own reward... At least , it is when it's not clearly designed as a scam to say they did it while making it so slow that you inevitably give up.
When my friends described it to me, I went "that's not a _battlepass._ We call that a 'progression system!'" Games used to have those!
I'm so happy to see one back.
I agree it's great. It's also not difficult to earn currency, I've had the game for 2 days (during the week) and already have more than half the super currency needed for the battle pass
using real money to unlock the warbonds doesn't even really make much sense since you'll still need to play and earn medals to unlock the rewards anyway. I had enough super credits from just playing the game to unlock a premium warbond before I was halfway done with the standard pass.
aint no way the game is a live service w/ how charitable SC is in game its criminal in contrast to other liveservice games 😂
The earnable super credits is my biggest selling point on this game
Helldivers 2 is that friend that goes out and does fun stuff with you. You have a great time hanging out and he never pressures you to grab the check or pay for gas. So of course you end up throwing him some money, because you have had so much fun together and he asks so little of you in return. You start to feel bad if you dont chip in a bit, if nothing else to say thanks.
Other live service games are like that guy you know, who asks to borrow a couple dollars EVERY time you see him. He never pays you back but always promises that he will get you back, just as soon as that next big idea comes through. He's deep into some multilevel marketing scheme and every time you are around him, he tries to sell you some useless product you dont want or need. The stuff he sells is sub-par yet he charges premium prices for his sometimes unfinished or non functional products.
That's is a FANTASTIC analogy.
It's all about roleplay, for freedom and democracy
True true, when I learned that the battle passes simply stay and you can unlock them at your own pace and not really pay to win either, I decided to upgrade to the deluxe game and will likely buy future battle passes as long as they keep adding some mission and biome variety
@@Perjoss Hell divers is £35 in the UK. If bought at launch you got a small discount making it £32. To upgrade to Super Citizen it's an additional £15. You spend £32-50 on what is easily a £60 game and they don't even force you to pay extra in game with reasonable paths to obtaining exclusive weapons, armours and content. It's actually blissful.
Brilliant analogy.
How they handle difficulty also plays into how well life service is tied into the game. Enemies don't just become bullet sponges or do more damage. You don't get higher and higher level weapons that in the end just feel the same to deal with that. Instead they introduce more and more new enemy types, make the missions more complex and introduce modifiers to mess with you.
Also of course the reason it's so good is as usual that this is a private company and they don't have stakeholders they are beholden to.
bungie is a private company that kept their independence from Sony and they still scammed their players for years, making them pay for yearly expensions with no content, make them pay for dungeon keys, for basic features and with constant aggressive seasonal fomo exclusive weapons and story content
being independent doesn't guarantee anything, arrowhead is blessed
Well... The railgun + shield backpack combo dominates in helldives, you see 3-4 of them picked on the regular. Weapons are certainly not balanced currently. However the enemies not getting more HP is a great boon, it makes the game a lot more grounded in reality - a tank is not suddenly more resistant to bullets just because you turned the difficulty up.
bro the modifiers! the stratagem scramble is absolutely hilarious! priceless were the times i tried to call in a sentry only to be greeted by a red beacon of death followed by a nuke promptly delivered at our general location. It really adds novelty to the missions.
@@Iaotle That I think is for a few particular reasons. Difficulties past 7 spam heavy armor enemies like it's going out of style and Railgun has fewer negatives then other AT options, likewise the shield pack is picked often because it gives a lot of benefits against both bugs and bots and only takes up a backpack slot. Combine the two, and suddenly the game is significantly more manageable. Same for why the Breaker is the most used primary, Railcannon is the most used orbital and all Eagles are generally better then orbitals.
Arrowhead could stand to do a few runs on the balance of the game.
difficulty?`the only difficulty in this game is the clunky slow ass shit movement.
There is also another aspect coming from the Coop Experience.
Every reward that one individual makes is shared with the group. The probes, the Credits, the medals you find in the world. There is no " my stuff " feeling. You fight together, you win together.
So being in a team with someone who has already more powerful equipment and goes an extraroute for a secondary objective or an interesting place, is beneficial for you.
Thank goodness it's group loot and not individual loot. There would be a ton of toxic teamkilling for the resources if it was personal loot.
@@INoIFearIGaming people are still toxic about it on occasion, seen a couple people go off the rails after someone picked up their samples when they died, got reinforced then killed said player and took the samples back.
@@genobeesrage8497 Yea I think there are a lot of players that just assume it's personal loot so they feel like someone stole their stuff
@esrage8497
I have met such a guy once. And even after described him how the Gameplay works, he just told me to shut the f...up. There are always Morons.
Even if a teammate fails to extract they get the samples (upgrade currency), medals (warbond currency), super credits (cash shop currency).
I was playing a solo match, hunting one of the medium-sized bugs, and out comes the swarm. I'm gunning them down as they emerge from the fog and haze, and the big one arrives. I'm unloading my machine gun into its legs to slow it down and i think I've finished it off when it raises its one remaining leg and proceeds to drag its broken body towards me willing my destruction with everything it had left... I killed it but it left a huge impression on me.
To draw the eight billionth comparison to Starship Troopers, that feels a lot like the end of the Klendathu Drop scene where Rico guns down a Warrior Bug, only for it to get one last surge in and stab him in the leg.
Dude i had a bile spewer lose all its legs AND its head, lay there for a few seconds, and as soon as someone ran by it, IT WAS STILL ALIVE. It screeched one last time and blew itself up.
In game fluke or by design? Either way we were all left with our jaws on the floor.
@@RANDOMhandleDL It’s by design. The medium and large bugs run on a sort of adrenaline system where they can still move and attack for a little bit of time after being dealt lethal damage unless specific things happen. If a bile spewer’s butt is blown up for example, this system won’t trigger, or it won’t trigger or be cut off short if you deal enough overkill
Just announced the cap is now 700k, get in there and fight for FREEDOM!
Will buy the game to fight for freedom
God I'd love to see the updates on this now
If you think the premium warbond weapons are p2w, you've never used the Breaker shotgun you unlock by lvl 5. That thing is best in slot 95% of the time.
Have unlocked all weapons (Both warbonds)..nothing feels better than the Breaker shotgun (free)
Reminds me of when the Izhma 12g was king in Payday 2
@@drsawma the incendiary breaker is less potent but spreading fire is quite handy for bug control. Everything has a niche. The weapon at the end of the same warbond is great for long range killing of tankier enemies, Except the magnum, thats just for style.
@@thomasallen9974 the incendiary does far less damage in a pinch especially at level 7-9 when hordes of bugs are literally jumping on your face, does far less damage to medium armored bugs including the stalkers and its completely useless against the bots. It takes a long time for the tick damge to take down or break down the bug armor. So yes its a viable equip for hard and below difficulty. The breaker is effective against both bug and bots even at medium range at helldive difficulty.
Edited:spell check
Wait that thing is still meta? I remember HD1 breaker being meta and then the trident came
I just went outside and screamed Liberty and Democracy at a swarm of ants. I also threw a couple profane words at my handheld communication device.
I'm doing my part!
Well done soldier
Those ants had it coming! Democracy be praised!
Democracy be praised.
I just have a cup of liber tea
I’m doing my part
For Super Earth!
It's the first game in a long time that was built to be a game, not an ATM
Yep the shareholder AAA games have been awful. More money for less effort and content. And the slot machine mentality.
Armored Core 6 wasn't that long ago.
@@Mnethnac6 isn’t a live service multiplayer game, which is what most people are referring too
@@Fiasco3Because those scumbags were hiring casino ceos to run their plot
This 100% couldn’t have said it better.
I love that the War bonds don’t expire. There’s no manipulative use of a deadline to keep people playing. And, ironically enough, that makes me want to give my money to them. Because they aren’t forcing me to pay them. They’re just saying “hey, you can get these items at your own pace and we won’t force you to pay us. But payment options are there if you want to.”
As a musician that makes it directly clear that I will take requests for free but people can tip me if they want, this is so refreshing to see. Absolute win for Arrowhead.
Also, they don't make the game impossible if you don't grind a ton. A bit overwhelmed? Knock the difficulty down a notch. Just as fun, just a bit less chaotic. Also, the lack of bullet sponge enemies. Every enemy is the same at every difficulty, it's just there are more of em at higher difficulties
@@AHHHHHHHH21 You can also take a break from the game and get Major Order rewards long after they were completed to spend on whatever you want to try new weapons out. Been playing other things with my friend and we came back to a couple hundred medals just like that to buy some neat guns. Then you can go in and give your new toys a spin and go back to playing it regularly. Very chill game.
yea it aint intrusive neither obtrusive, when in fact, its even charitable since its available each drop and rewarding based on difficulty
5:41 I like how you phrase this, players didn't pay more to play a couple days in advance, they were paying more to play day 1. They were not paying more for an added benefit, but for avoiding punishment
"That weird tab in your video game that feels like salespeople infected it" is so accurate a description that it's making me exhausted just thinking about
With how much I have been playing this game, I have found enough super credits in missions to be able to buy the armors in the shop and have also found enough to buy a premium war bond if I had to... (65.2 hours) This game is addictive, and the fact that you can actually get the super credits by playing is a nice touch that shows the lack of predatory money-grubbing you see from other games. Also, from the first Premium Warbond, the weapons feel the same in power. The extra abilities are muted by less ammo capacity, raw damage or fire rate. I am unsure how the boosters and weapons in the future would be in the premium WB but as long as Arrowhead keeps the stuff like they have now, I feel that it has a nice variety, like said in the video, but not an advantage.
Give it about 6 or so months and I can almost guarantee progression is going to be reworked to make the microtransactions a lot more necessary. That's why I've been hesitant to jump in even though this game is right up my alley - I've been burned way too many times by games being one thing at launch and then radically switching directions after they become successful.
@@qu1253 In that case it's even more reason to jump in soon so you can enjoy the game with lots of people while you still can. Then tap out if you feel the system is reworked later down the line.
@@qu1253 They don't have stakeholders, so not overly likely.
@@qu1253After the 35-40 hours I've gotten out of it already, if they did switch it... Damn I had fun
@@qu1253immediate womp womp energy. Pick your balls up off the ground soldier and get in the fight.
It's refreshing because the devs seem to be focused on gameplay first. Charging less than full retail for a game that feels more complete than any full retail + cash shop game I've played in the last few years. It's amazing.
It's fun to think that the recent times in gaming has the suits in a scramble since we got some HUGE singleplayer games with BG3, ER, AC6, etc. making them think that the "trend" is now singleplayer games. Then here comes Helldivers 2 with the live service win which balances the scales a bit.
Hopefully what they do learn from this is that making good games gets you sales instead of trying to copy the success by creating a clone of the successful thing.
I think the trick is devs that actively participate and do stuff for and in the game. I mean, what other online games can you think of like Helldivers with gamemasters and a storyline that evolved and changes based on the player base? It's like a massive DnD campaign
The biggest clincher for me is that I was able to buy the premium pass, a helmet, and am most of the way to an armor set... _Without spending a single penny._
I passively farmed the Super Credits for the premium warbond in a week of casual play. No real money spent.
But...I WILL buy the next premium warbond that's coming out in the 11-th of April... because it looks dope 😊
Because gameplay is king. Nothing else matters for video games. 🎮
So many people overlook or underestimate this. The gun play, audio, mechanics and physics HAVE to be tight for the game to be epic.
To be fair presentation is also a big factor but many live service games instantly kill that by putting generic shop windows in your face or make the shop prompt as attention grabbing as possible while making you unable to ignore it. In HD2 I when I read the Aquisition prompt or how it's called I think unlocking progression and the the 2 shop pages (1 for currency and 1 with 4 items) are an afterthought. It doesn't even start in the shop pages but on the free warbond. Many games would force you to go through the shop in a situation like this in hope you see something you want. You can play Helldivers without ever opening either of the shop pages and so far there have been no pop ups of any kind for bundles or other shop items.
And that is where mechanically bad games like witcher 3 broke the mold and ruined it for the "good games". I would play anything (but 8-bit) with a good game engine. Witcher 3 required mods to be playable on pc with focus on hair physics..and copy cats came and games focus on cinematics and other "how can we waste time" where the actual gameplay was (probably) their last t hought behind live service and other crap.
helldivers 2 has terrible gameplay.
@@Dead_Goatur mum has terrible gameplay
I can confirm items do come back in rotation in the store, i saw the same set of armor that was released day one back in the shop yesterday
Yeah, its already fully rotated back around and started again in less than two weeks.
2 things, at its most efficient rates, you can get 120 premium tokens an hour in hd2. This is by going on the easiest mission and equipping light armor and running around collecting granadeable crates. Using light armor you're able to scan the map before you even meet the points of interest making it easier to plot your run. With a grande launcher and jet pack, I was able at my best to get 50 premium tokens in just 10 min.
rookie numbers btw, was able to get 60 sc in 2,5 minutes. just gotta find the perfect mission.
@@kayetan2487any recommendations on which types to do this on?
@@magma_fire_bagwan trivial missions, because the map is the smallest. Go in with fastest armor you have, stamina booster if u have, jetpack is sometimes nice to have, impact grenade to pop containers fast.
Search the map for POI with super credits. Esc and return to ship until you find one which has 3-5 very close together. Then after collecting them, quit game and Relaunch. You can run the same map over and over.
Best I found so far was 4 POI in a rectangle with 60 sc total. Starting the game to quit out took around 2,5 minutes.
Oh yeah, preferably do this on planets with almost no liberation, because the mission will count as lost.
@@kayetan2487 Not to be rude, but that sounds pretty boring, but people will always try to get stuff easier. Cool guide though.
@@alicorn3924 of course it is repetitive, the longest I done this in a row was 1,5 hours. Just information for ppl who are tight on money like me and don't wanna miss out 👍
14:40 the armours in the store have already rotating back from launch.
there is like 10 armours so far in the rotating store.
*20:10** I found a way to make around 1000 super credits an hour.*
What the devs said was referencing if you play the game normally, if u want to farm them, it is much more :)
so "this is what you get in credits without even trying" vs "max farmer go brrrr"
Nice 😃
@@MephiticMiasma yeah, if you don't mind some grind you can get everything for free.
For anyone wondering how I do it:
Trivial missions, because the map is the smallest.
Go in with fastest armor you have, stamina booster if u have, jetpack is sometimes nice to have, impact grenade to pop containers fast.
Search the map for POI with super credits. (Light beams but poi with containers don't have them I think) Esc and return to ship until you find one which has 3-5 very close together. (Can take half an hour if unlucky)
Then after collecting them, quit game and relaunch. You can run the same map over and over.
Best I found so far was 4 POI in a rectangle with 60 sc total. Starting the game to quit out took around 2,5 minutes.
Oh yeah, preferably do this on planets with almost no liberation, because the mission will count as lost.
@@kayetan2487nice work on the discovery
@@kayetan2487the red container do have a small chance to have war bonds in them, got them a few times
@@kayetan2487 Devs have confirmed that quitting missions early does not influence a planet's liberation percentage.
It all burns down to this...
The Virgin Cash Shop User VS The CHAD MANAGED DEMOCRACY LOVER.
People need to stop calling it a battle pass. A battle pass that does not expire is just progression. You don't call WoW skill tree a battle pass, do you?
You do need to pay for additional battlepasses, what we have currently is just the free one you got for buying the game.
@@whitewall2253 I guess that's one element. But still wouldn't call it an actual battle pass.
@@whitewall2253you can get the premium battlepass from base game missions in like 2 days. It's amazing
You can actually get the 1000 you need to unlock the premium without spending a dime yes it takes a while but you can find the currency in missions and the free one gives you a 100 of the currency in each lvl
@@TheAbomination123 I got the 100 needed by the time I made it even halfway through the regular warbond.
This game captures a feeling that I loved back in Star Wars Battlefront 2: you are not a super soldier special ops character who can get shot, crouch behind a wall for a few seconds to regenerate, and come out fine. In Helldivers, you are a soldier, part of an army. If you run out of reinforcements, you fail. It doesn't railroad you, it doesn't coddle you, it simply gives you some tools, an objective, and a flood of enemies and tells you to figure it out. It's chaotic, tense, has a sense of humor, and above all is fun. Remember fun? Games are supposed to be fun, exciting, tense, challenging. And that's what this is. It respects and appreciates you and the time you are putting into it.
It does feel extremely nice that difficulties in HD2 ARE more difficult. The only number that changes is how much chaff is being swapped out for elites, which just works. You feel compelled to actually get better to get more rewards and stuff as opposed to "I gotta grind THIS difficulty before I can even enter THAT difficulty" where they just bump up enemy damage and health values. (there is the prerequisite of completing an operation on the previous difficulty, but that's just to stop people rushing into missions at diff 8 and instantly getting mauled)
It's called Suicide Run because of the amount of shit you gotta deal with, not because you peep your head out for a pico-second and instantly lose 95% of your health.
Honestly you can even go into higher ranking missions at level 1 and still feel like you’re helping. Pretty much everyone I know has been shoved into a difficulty 4-5 mission as their first mission cause one of us started playing early, it’s still the same enemies just more of them, and for any big enemy that you might have trouble with, well that’s what your friend who dragged you into the higher difficulty is for lol. Never once has someone gone in and rage quit because they had to face down a charger with just a MG their first mission, or got killed my random friendly fire, it’s always hilarious panic followed by “I’m so glad you didn’t let me sleep on this game”
The biggest thing for me with this game is the lack of FOMO: no dailies, no login rewards, the battlepass doesn't expire. That almost obsessive pressure like an ex who just won't leave you alone by most devs of similar games that you should treat the game like a second job just isn't here, and it makes the game so much more enjoyable. It's amazing that something like that makes such a difference, and that you can play solo: play when you want, how you want. Now if they can just fix up the friend request issue and allow solos to open friendship doors....
Well, you do have your Personal Orders for a day. But they're just some Medals, which you can get from dozens of other things.
One thing about warbonds is that it doesn't feel like a battlepass per se, it feels like a tech tree with cosmetics (Doesn't expire, choose your progression, unlocks new cool toys)
Yer the war bonds feel like how you progress in the game. They are a tree like the stratigums and the SD upgrades. They don't feel different they feel like part of the game play
SC(super credits) are also earnable in game. just find a POI (which means point of interest) and blow open a container door, open a crate thingy, or have a teammate press one button while you press the other and you can find medals, sc, requisition, and supplies and weapons.
Not only are they findable in game: they're not tooth grinding, nail pulling hard to farm out. You can easily get a couple hundred over a few hours.
Also, every war bond tier has like 100
- Reasonable price at launch
- Multiplayer co-op that feels like it is MEANT to be played as a co-op game
- Great lore, all the promotional material is 10/10 and really draws people in
- 3rd person / 1st person shooters are more accessible and generally popular than ARPGS and topdown view (based on all the gamers I know)
- The supercredits are affordable to buy, they're not huge chunks of money like premium currency is on most other games with in-game stores
- You can earn the premium currency (Super credits) in game, I don't know any other game that allows that.
- The game has VISIBLE progression in the story based on the actions of the players (planets get saved or taken over by the terminids / automatons)
IMO, what makes this game better than others.
1. No coddling - Your choices make a difference. either instantly by PKing your fellow divers, or as a collective by succeeding, or failing a campaign with benefits or consequences.
2. Your Level doesn't make you a God. You unlock cooler weapons that can make it easier for you, but in the end. That same bug at level 1 can still chop your head off at Max Level
3. Your Level doesn't make you a God. That assault riffle you used to kill a small bug on Easy mode, can kill the same bug just as quickly on Helldiver mode (Very Hard).
4. Enemies don't turn into bullet sponges the higher the level. they stay that same, but more come at you grouped with bigger, badder enemies mixed in. (Add-on to #3)
5. A level 1 can join a Max difficulty game and still make a difference - simply because of #3.
6. You NEVER out level your enemies. Your skills and knowledge of the enemies will make or break you.
7. It's not Pay-2-Win. You can buy the game, and win every match and become the best without spending a dollar of real $, while earning game cash in game.
8. With an active 4 player team. You can have a TON of fun playing this game! Just last night I played with a Chinese man (horrible english) but we still had a TON of fun! He screamed in chinese, I screamed in English, but we knew what was happening and played many, many matches with just the two of us on Hard and successfully completed all of them!
Something I love about this game is with the premium warbond, I unlocked it a couple days ago after spending no additional money and just playing the game, the super credits are not a long and tedious grind as it might be in a other game.
Also regardless of if I bought it or not, when the next warbond comes that one would have still been there for me to buy if I hadn't saved up enough. They're permanent and they stay there and don't expire. Meaning no one will be missing out on past content If you join the game later.
not to mention, that the Gamedevs themselves mentioned, that you DON'T HAVE to buy those Uber-Credits, because you can find them in a small amount in the missions aswell, but they give you the OPTION to buy those if you WANT and not forced, so you could go in the game for no additional spending then the 40 bucks for the Game itself.
In addition, the "Premium" Battlepass Steeled Veterans is included if you purchased the Deluxe Edition (20$/€), which gives you a complete set of extra Armor (helmed, armor, cape) a new Title, a Module for your Ship, that helps you practicing the Support keycommands without being in a mission.
You forgot the best part, there's no timer for the battle pass.
It took me 2 days to get 1000 super credits JUST from missions, not from the free battle pass. That's fucking amazing
Just a couple of things to note. The cash shop has already cycled through its selections and started over again and it took about 2 weeks. I am interested to see how they handle adding more cosmetics in the future, whether the cycle will just get bigger and bigger or if they'll add additional pages for each "season."
Also, the biggest argument against pay to win is that the universally agreed "best gun" so far in the game is a shotgun you unlock on the free battle pass on the 3rd or 4th page. The guns in the premium battle pass are neat and have their edge cases, but most people running high-difficulty games are 9 times out of 10 using the default Breaker shotgun.
Only real complaint about the game so far is really just that the servers aren’t ready for it to be this popular which causes a number of issues mainly just not being able to log in other than that the game is great and I’m not really a fan of coop or 3rd person shooters but I can’t stop playing it
are you sure?
I have been playing a lot and so far I never had any real issues with the server, except a handful of times.
@@DatAsianGuy up until the last day or so i usually have to wait and sometimes I just couldn’t play I waited for 2 hours the other night
Yeah, if they add an actual first person view this game will be AMAZING!
My saving grace for it being third person is I can ADS in first person.
something that doesn't seem to be strictly mentioned is how engaging the battlepass is by making you feel like you are buying what you want and ignoring what you don't instead of being forced to passively earn everything. It also makes it feel quite similar to an in game shop that I actually look forward to browsing after each mission to see if I'm close to an item I want or can buy it. Even though gameplay items are locked behind the BP, the fact it feels like I'm actually earning and purchasing them makes it feel almost as rewarding as earning new guns and skins in old cod games (MW2 and BO1, the only two I really played).
I think a big difference in the way they handle the premium track and some other games is that you use the same gameplay earned currency for both tracks. So, it's less paying for items, but instead paying for access to the track. You still have to earn the medals and choose to spend them on either track. In a lot of season passes, they will literally show you the premium track in parallel with the free track and show you items that all you have to do is pay for the pass and you immediately get all of the things you've reached the tier for. That's pretty manipulative. With Helldivers, unless you've completed the free track and are sitting on a stack of medals, you are gonna have to play a lot to earn everything. It feels more like how expansions work, where you pay for access to new content, but still have to play the game to get that content.
Have some good news for you about the Super Store, all the armors in the store always circulate back, which means, you cant acually miss those armors, the same armors are on rotation
D4 belike: I need all of your savings, and you better not complain.
this aged like milk.
From the free warbond you get 450 super credits. You get 10 to 50 super credits every 3 missions which takes 1-1.5hrs. Getting 1k super credits is easy by the time you clear the free warbond, and can buy the next elite warbond, which gives you 300 to invest in the next warbond.
I've bought super credits $2, not because I needed the super credits, I have 1.2k saved up and the warbonds all unlocked, but because I want to help support them.
I've also bought 2 armours and a helmet for like ~450 super credits. And still need somewhere around 300 medals to unlock everything.
The downside is if are a hardcore player you've probably finished everything there is and now you're just waiting on content. All I need is medals, and just some super rares to max out, as Ive already maxed out 500 common and 250 rare samples.
Helldivers is a game with a few microtransactions added, that you can also earn by playing the game a lot. Like Bellular says, this is a system designed to keep some money coming in to pay for the live service. The prices are reasonable, the armors in the shop are VERY similarly themed to the ones in game or the Warbond and there's only a small selection at any given time that slowly rotates over time so that you can pick something you like every few days (which also gives you time to unlock more super credits from the warbonds or by playing the game). This is aimed at players like me who are willing to spend 2-5 $ every once in a while to get some cool armor set to enhance my gaming experience.
Diablo 4 is a game selling items and bundles more expensive than the game and the best-looking mounts so far have been part of EXTERNAL Blizzard bundles (e.g. lightning horse from D4 convention bundle). All the armor in the main game looks like variations of ugly rags and players can select one of a few color schemes for them but this is a FALSE choice as you cannot individualize the rags into a color scheme that looks cool and you enjoy. No, no, the developers have DESIGNED a few ugly color palettes so that ALMOST EVERY CHOICE LOOKS UGLY AF. Then you have the armor from battlepass, which looks more decent but it's a 1-size fits all that only usually looks at home on 1 class, maybe 2 at most. Finally, you have the shop with 30$ per armor set, individually recommended to you. All of these have DISTINCT themes designed by professional artists and are VIVID and UNIQUE-looking. This is designed for WHALES, to make them go in there when they see someone else wearing/riding a cool-looking thing, get bombarded by shiny, beautifully-designed armors that MASSIVELY contrast with the rags you can unlock by playing the game or through battlepass and as a result spend as much as possible to stand out in game.
_"Live Service"_
::vomits uncontrollably::
With the Helldiver's Warbond you still have to earn the items therein by playing missions. There's no way to buy or otherwise pay to unlock or accelerate getting those items. The items in the battlepass are double the price of some of the free pass items (with in game currency called medals, earned through missions) So it's a struggle, but I still feel like I've went and earned that set of armor which has stat modifiers, yes, but they are identical to some of the stat modifiers of free armor.
The purchasable in-game currency called super-credits can also be found during missions, and by doing so I have bought myself a set of armor through the in-game store. Also-also you can purchase the battlepass with super-credits you have found in the game/unlocked from the free pass. So it'l be a bit of a grind, but considering the game is both fun, and all of the items are largely cosmetic with a few minor exceptions it sure as hell feels like you're being respected.
Interesting to see the Overton window on this stuff shift even with Bellular. A non-F2P game with added monetization, and a battle pass with actual weapons on it that you can't get anywhere else - monetization done right!
I think HD2 is way better than the lions share of games when it comes to monetization, but I think that's more a function of how low the bar is. I also think people are looking past this stuff because the game itself is fun to play.
Thanks for sharing the sponsor. I've been thinking about learning to code for a while
My recipe for a live service.
1) Entry price lower than 60-70 (full price). Preferably F2P if you look at most others.
2) SIMPLE! A live service shouldn’t have the “movie stories” of modern singleplayer. Live service should be to hop on a few minutes and leave if you want… BUT also have enough content to let the long hour gamers play.
3) Community Support, let your community know they are being listened to.
4) Schedule. The number 1 question of the community now is “what’s next”. A roadmap promising something a month from now should be great!
Seems like the slippery slope is real, 40 dollars is still a lot for a game and having MTX in it is bs, and lets not pretend that the game isnt pay to win, just because you can earn the currency in game does make it less terrible that people CAN buy power.
You know that you get armors that are just as strong in the free pass and most weapons in the premium pass are worse than the normal variants also 40$ is not a lot for the games quality you get worse games for almost double the price in the current gaming landscape
I think the most massive thing is being able to get premium currency in game pretty easily. I've always been able to buy what I want in the shop every 48 hours with an average of 2-3 hours of game per day. Also very open devs/ceo
My main take on it is that AAA games companies need to understand that you are doing the game a service just by playing it. Helldivers 2 gives you an incentive to keep playing the game by letting you earn the premium currency and by playing the game a ton in order to earn that currency you are boosting the games active playerbase which in turn helps the game succeed. Likewise Fortnite was very successful on a system that heavily rewarded you for playing the game. Overwatch 1 used to have a system that rewarded you far more for playing the game which was dropped under the pretence of worry about gambling and replaced with a system far less rewarding and engaging and I think that contributes to the inability for the game to retain players. There's just less incentive to play the game when you are unable to earn things without opening your wallet and the fact that the incentive isn't to actually play the game is insanity to me.
Should do a followup on this. I bought the game the day this video launched watched the video while in queue. I don't feel the war bonds or premium currency cosmetics toe the line at all. They come up on rotation, have already seen them rotate a couple of times and they aren't pay-to-win. They have the same "game altering" bonuses that are in the free store that you can purchase with the regular war bonds, they just look different. And now that the new paid warbond is out and I've tested all the weapons out... Outside of 1 they all kinda suck and will stick with the starter weapons, and the armor while having a unique bonus, aren't game breaking or advantageous over those who don't. On top of that as long as you play the game you can get them without spending a dime. In fact, I had the currency save up to purchase it, but bought it anyways to support them and the hard work they put in to stabilize the game.
Back in the day we called them always online games. Live service is a shitty marketing term to try to make it sound better.
I often feel spiteful and want to be f2p to spite games with aggressive money hungry micro/macro transactions but with helldivers 2 I didnt feel pressured to pay so I decided to drop 20 bucks to just unlock both battlepass’s because I didn’t mind paying
I wasn't gonna get this game, but everything I've heard, and seen, definitely makes me change my mind. Tonight after work I'm gonna pick it up and see if I can get on the servers, even if I can't, the idea that they made their in-game purchase menu themed to the game, is just one of those things that you think should be an industry standard but isn't. Soo many of the stores feel like a separate entity entirely. I'm actually excited to play a game that rewards me for playing, not just forces me to accept the grind.
I'm with Morgan at 14:14. I have spent an additional $40 on HD2 to get the ultimate pack and some SC, entirely because I didn't feel pressured to and feel the game is worth the total $80 I've dropped. I have no doubt I'll continue getting more, but given you get SC just by playing the game I feel like I won't need to restock SC for a good minute. Which is such a weird feeling for a live service game lol.
I can't wait to see what the future holds for HD2!
14:58 can confirm that armors in the acquisitions menu do infact rotate back into the shop, saw an armor i already bought pared with one i hadent yet less then a week after i bought it. So the fomo is present but at a very minor level, if you miss a set you got about a week to grind credits to get ut when it comes back around,
That said, it's a problem that'll only grow. It's fine now because there's very few things in the shop. But what about a year from now? You'll be waiting forever for that one thing you like to return to the shop. I still think this is one of the best live service handlings I've seen but there definitely needs to be a larger shop variety in the games future to accommodate the inevitable additions
@@BlaizeTheDragonto be fair, the items in shop last 3 days or so, and you can easily get enough for a single item in a few missions if you're looking for the Super Credits. Can get 100 in a pile
In regards to premium currency and the shop.
I've noticed that the cosmetic items in the shop tend to have the same perks you could find pretty much anywhere else in the battle pass (free or premium)
What's nice is you earn so much premium currency that when you check in the shop, it might have the armor with the perks you like BUT its a LIGHT armor, which is unlike the one you have from the pass! So I keep an eye out for the functionality.
So far. I've only bought the super citizen upgrade (the base game was gifted to me by a friend) and I feel like I've voted with my wallet, that I really really enjoy this game and it deserves my support. (Hell I'm thinking of buying it all over again on PS5 because my pc specs aren't quite up to snuff to enjoy the high fidelity graphics on anything higher than low-medium settings)
These devs put a lot of thought and polish into the systems and I respect it immensely. The gameplay is addicting and the game feels very balanced. I'm really hopeful for the future of AH and HD2 and look forward to enjoying and influencing the war as time goes on.
See you planetside, Helldivers. Squish bugs, Spill oil.
Addendum: I would like to note I also haven't spent a single dollar since buying the upgrade, and have still been making plenty of the premium currency to be able to buy the shop items without feeling any pressure! I look forward to collecting all the armor sets passively through gameplay as I work on other things!
also: There's multiple upgrade systems that play into each other and how you play your missions affect which things you're grinding!
Want levels or more stratagems? Focus on the main objectives and complete missions quickly.
Want to upgrade your ship? Keep an eye out and scour the map for samples as you complete those objectives and make it all the way to extraction to do so!
If you die, requisition slips, warbond medals, and Super credits are NOT lost! Even if you FAIL the mission!
In short, the game allows you to still try your best and REWARDS you for it, even if your mission results in failure, you are NEVER punished for losing. You get rewarded, and if you play well, you get rewarded even better.
I think one statement that quickly sums it up is this: it feels like Arrowhead respects their players.
To elaborate, there's no pressure to buy super credits other than your own impatience, as the armors and helmets in the shop rotate back in after just a few days. Also, the gear you unlock in your progression looks good and ins well-modeled... most games that let you buy cosmetics with a purchasable currency try to encourage you to get the skins by making the free stuff look bad. Nothing in the Super Store has stats that you can't get in the Warbond either, so there's not P2W aspect possible either. The game is also broken down into small enough chunks that even casual players can progress since multi-mission operations save your progress when you log off.
Fun gameplay, no FOMO, no P2W, respectful of your time and money... These are things we once had as standard in the industry, but now when a game comes out, it makes it truly exceptional and deserves to be applauded every time. They tell consumers to vote with their wallets and that's why I upgraded to Super Citizen - I don't use anything it comes with (other than the title), I just got it because I felt that the extra money was earned by these guys for putting out such a wonderful product. Plus, it was the proper thing to do in the name of Liberty!
Was working on first finishing all the low hanging fruit projects with remodeling my office/game room/man cave but had to set 'build a new computer' as the priority because of Hell Divers and Pal World. I just realized that Pal World and Hell Divers will be the first games I've payed full price for (and payed over $25 on), in over 15 years (I usually buy games 1 to 2 years after release, and try to get them when under $10-20 bucks). But these games are just too good to wait!
You bring up something I didn't even notice in my time playing so far. The addons the different armours and weapons have. Not once during my time playing and looking at the items for sale did I even realize that you could be literally paying money to get items that do alter gameplay. Ive bought 2 items using super creds that I earned and it felt wonderful to be rewarded for playing the game. This could be bad in the future if they get super predatory with micro-transactions but so far it feels fine and completely optional on if you want to spend money on it. Its been a breath of fresh air coming from a game like apex, couple that with the amazing community and great gameplay loop and I can't get enough. I hope they keep up the amazing work so I can support them in the future. This is my first helldivers game and its made a fan of me already.
Helldivers is much like deep rock galactic mixed with Darktide mixed with Foxhole.
Its co-op like drg and darktide, and much like those games if you hangout with someone way higher level than you it will accelerate your time leveling up.
Its like Foxhole because of persistent actions that impact the game at large.
This game is amazing. It feels modern yet it runs on smol PCs with weaker power.
40 dollars is pricy compared to DRG, but jeeezus it has way more content
Diagetic design is great and all, but the real win is that it's all earn-able in game. You get premium currency from playing. If you want to speed it up with irl cash, you can, but it's not necessary.
13:00
That makes a lot of sense. It's something that you feel, but not in a way that a lot of people, including myself, would have ever clearly expressed. It feels so naturally part of the game that it didn't stick out to me.
The $40 price tag also makes me feel better about hopping onto the Season Pass thing with $5 or $10 bucks, which is totally optional. I think with just around 10 hours of play time you'll have probably accumulated enough in game credits through normal gameplay to get onto the seasonal pass without spending any money.
I would say the warbonds are about 1/3 of the progression system in game, with the rest being stratagems and then the ship modules.
However I would still reserve judgement overall. As a live service game, they need to continuously add content at a reasonable rate.
Ive been playing Helldivers for years, and the issue (for me) the original game had was content coming out too slowly. I still bought all the DLCs, but the way things are today, it’s going to have to be much quicker if they want to retain the current playerbase.
I don't know if it was mentioned at all. But the "premium" section is completely earnable by progression. If you max out the default pass you will get enough credits to buy the premium. You can also find credits in mission. Buying it just unlocks it quicker.
Drop in, collect all the things and have fun.
I bought the base game, unlocked the premium pass, and made an additional 2,000 super credits just by playing. Couldn't imagine being able to do this with any other game with microtransactions.
Two things missing:
1. you can buy 1000cr for 9.99$ which is exactly what you need for the monthly warbond. so no funny "oh you have some over - spend it in our store"-stuff
2. If you finish the warbond you get 700cr. with 40cr/h gameplay you get the missing 300cr in 8h. So if you play only 8h the entire month and finish the warbond, you can pay for the next one without real money!
Also: I never seen an item in the store which differs from the normal ones except visually.
current me: I payed 9.99€ for credits and many items in the shop to support the developers. Currently I have >2000cr and all 3 warbonds that exists. So if I never buyed currency, then I still have enough to pay the next warbond which is comming in 3 weeks.
This game is totally not pay to win and even if you play it casually, you will be able to buy the warbonds (they come out every 2nd thursday).
A HUGE thing for me personally was how they show what you can buy. In SO MANY GAMES, you launch the game. And BAM you've been asked to buy 3 different things, have 2 "limited time" bundle offers, and yadyada. It took me 2 hours to find the shop! I opened the warbonds like 4 times and just never noticed the shop!
I think a big part of the good outlook on HD2 is primarily due to the open communication and admonishing of rogue devs. Compared to other big name brands which seem to have no accountability on any level.
If there's a bug players are informed of things that aren't working and told they shouldn't use items in order to improve gameplay experience. If there's a developer that isn't being as professional as they ought to be (though probably rightfully so) its communicated that it will be handled.
They have built trust in their player base and are building a game that is really good at what its trying to do.
Hey hd2 player here, ive been playing since launch, right now the shop seems to be rotating back sets of armor that were around from day one, looks like they plan to keep them around for you to purchase if you missed out, Happy diving
That 10-40 super credit per hour is for regular casual gameplay. It's possible to solo grind 150-200 per hour on trivial. So it's even better than some people might realize. But, I would also point out that the server model for HD2 is very different than a lot of games; matches are hosted locally by the players and the servers act as more of a matchmaking and progress tracking service. That's going to be substantially cheaper than hosting the actual game on servers like you see in games like D4, Overwatch, LoL, Apex, etc. So while the HD2 model might be profitable enough for HD2 to continue, it might not be a profitable model for all these other games.
Something about Helldivers is that you could actually get the premium content for free by just playing the game. Super Credits can be found at points of interest in missions, and picking them up adds them immediately to your account so no risk of losing them if you die.
But that also means you can speedrun a trivial map for all the P.O.I, return to ship, and then repeat to farm it. I got about 500 super credits in like 3 hours. If they were to add a daily/weekly cap to their spawn, then that would hamper this, but overall as of right now, there is no limit.
You talked about how the game's warbond rewards premium currency. By simply playing, I had more then enough to afford the premium warbond before I was even 2/3 done with the free warbond, so I bought the super citizen edition. Because the game deserved it. You can get EVERYTHING just by playing.
You also mentioned possible FOMO in the shop, that's not the case. All the shop items return within a week or two's time as of now, and while it might take longer as they add more, it's not FOMO at all.
I think the pay for variety thing is misunderstood, all the cosmetics in the shop are just reskins of the things you can get in the warbond. Theres always an armor set that has that same perk, or armor rating, but you can just get in the warbond instead. The only exception is weapons, which you can only get in the premium (though again, its earnable)
If u purchase everything out of the normal warbounds, u DEFINETLY have played the game so much, that u have like premium currency for 2 premium warbound thingies. I play the game now for 5 days, and had enough currency to buy 4 armor sets out of the store. Which yes, have attributes on them but they are the same attributes as on the Armor sets u unlock in your warbounds. Maybe it is in another "armore class" but i have yet to find a armor u can buy for premium currency which has stats u can`t have otherwise in the game. Same with the weapons in the premium warbound. When u have finished the normal warbound stuff , u will have enough premium to bux the premium warbound. Can`t remember the last time gaming felt THAT rewarding :) Great video btw ;)
I bought the game, played it alot with my friends, just hit level 20 and 2nd level of the premium tier unlocks, and never spent any money other than the initial purchase. They THROW free Super credits (premium currency) at you on the easy and medium missions. The missions are so easy you can spend most of your time just finding all the points of interest on the map that can have credits/medals/resource points. Last night I made 90 super credits in one medium mission alone. Between the ones you find, and the ones you can buy for medals, this is by far the least predatory battlepass/cosmetic system I have ever seen. I managed to get to the 1000sc within 10 hours of playing (or less not sure) to unlock the premium tier. And guess what? None of the weapons in that area are any more powerful then the normal pass ones! Its just what you prefer to use!
I'm guessing their main way to make money will be to keep pumping out cool looking armors to put in the store and people that want to get them without spending time to get sc can just buy them for cash. However one night of doing easy/medium missions focusing on the points of interest will usually get you enough to buy those items before they are gone from the store. SO refreshing to see these options.
The thing with the different mechanic weapons in the warbonds is, that it techanily can´t be "paid to win". This sentence is fully embeded into PvP. In Helldivers this just means you, the person who buys this weapon, is supporting the game, the overall community war and the company behind the game. You are an asset for other players, you can support them in missions. You are doing your part, but putting a bit more in it in service of everyone (because nobody have actuel issues or problems when you use such a weapon), they simple dont use it and thats it. You dont steal anything from someone, you dont overpower other players in an pvp layout, because the whole game is pure, coop pve. I REALLY love this idea, because you simple can decide do you want this or not.
On the topic of the premium currency armor sets: every armor set in the game has a named "passive" ability, and they can do things like granting extra meds, damage reduction against explosions, or reducing the radius at which the player is detected by enemies. I think that there are only about 10-12 such passives right now. As far as I'm aware, the premium shop armor sets are purely cosmetic and always pull from the same armor passives that the rest of the armor sets have. So while a given armor set might have a slightly more favored pair of passives, it will never be numerically superior to any others.
Just to give some info about the premium currency and warbond system:
I have played around 80h now, i have only payed for the game itself, but i was able with all the "free currency" inside all the warbonds and the stuff you find on mission to unlock both "payed" warbonds for free, and 2 Items from the shop and i have already half of a possible new warbond saved up (they "cost" 1000 UC Premium Currency to unlock, but normally have UC unlocks in them, so technically they are cheaper). And all this came unplanned from playing, therefore i had never any need to buy any premium
One thing that you only briefly touched on but that I think is a great factor for the battle pass is the way you unlock things. Traditional Battle Passes have X levels, and then you progress through each level, get the same stuff at the same time, and have zero influence on it. It's static and not very engaging because there's no "gameplay" to be had here. The most you'll look at is how much XP you need to the next level and that's it.
In Helldivers 2 the progression is page based, and you don't t have to buy it all, so deciding what to spend your medals on becomes an important choice in itself. Do you want to get an emote? Or the new weapon? The new armor? But the new armor costs 15 medals and in 10 medals you unlock the new page, maybe you go for something cheaper now so you have those 5 medals left for the next page for a small headstart?
In Helldivers 2, the Battlepass itself provides player choice and a bit of strategizing, it's not just a static list. And that makes it way more engaging to me personally.
But as you go down the pages around 5 or 6 it require you spend x-amount, so they make you buy the stuff you didn't want just to get to that next page. Little devious but it's still free and just requires us playing more.
Holy fuck nobody talks about this. Im not able to run it so i cant even decide to try, plus the shitty kernel anticheat doesnt make me want to.
The only thing comparwble to this is in warframe: (completely free) battle pass both a linear track and a shop for the currency. You will get a lot of then creds on first rank and if youre long term player as dupe protection and then for endless bonus ranks on top until they decide to release a new one.
Not to mention that the premium pass is only 10 bucks and honestly you can get the super creds you need just through playing the game
Helldivers 2 adapted the star system from Fortnite' battle pass. But I'm not complaining, cus it works.
What I also like is that you still have to play to unlock even the premium stuff. Which means that you can wear armor that is a status symbol. I unlocked the DP-40 armor and I’ve worn it with pride. Is it the most combat effective armor, not, but it looks cool and I’m proud that I’ve reached that point to unlock it
I'd say in terms of core MTX models one of the biggest differences is that Helldivers is not fishing for whales. There are no ultra-premium purchases, no $60 horse skins, no $80 'Collectors Edition' on release or any of that crap. Everything in it has been priced for a basic consumer and player, not to fish out thousands of dollars from a tiny segment of their player population. Needless to say, it makes the whole model feel a lot more approachable for actual players, and it doesn't dilute the gameplay experience in the way that model invariably does for other games.
Will they make less money on their MTX service this way? Yes. But lets be clear, they already sold over 3 million copies and are likely to sell a couple million more, and because their MTX is far more reasonably priced, they're likely to make ongoing income from a decent % of that player base going forwards, as long as they don't stumble and let themselves be sucked into whale fishing - at which point they'll turn off a large segment of their player base from the pay model.
Worth noting this pay for variety seems like an evolution of the HD1 live service model - they kept releasing DLC with a couple guns and abilities (that you could then upgrade with samples). There was like 1 that most people needed, but then beyond that people purchased them based on what would be useful for them, not needing them all.
Something he didn't mention is that, from what I've heard, none of the cosmetics purchasable in the in-game shop provide exclusive buffs; the armor effects of the premium shop cosmetics are directly copied from armor sets you can get for free. You're only paying for a reskin.
The Game Master thing would be a fun idea for a year from now have it be a game mode. You’re a “commander” so you could control ALL stratagems for your hell divers on the ground. Or have an enemy commander that controls spawn points, etc. there’s some good opportunities to have limited time modes that a bunch of people would probably play.
an interesting and informative video...
I nearly got an ulcer from you constantly pulling at the xlr-cable on you mic though
- Cheaper entry price
- Free Pass(es?) With some good content in them.
- You can earn premium currency just by playing.
- Battle passes never expire.
- Gameplay feels great.
- unapologetic. It's not sanitized to fuck
- Working together is greatly rewarded and not just. 'There'
Just another game that the AAA industry could and should learn from. but Ultimately wont.
helldivers 2 makes the micro transactions feel more like youre supporting the game rather than them trying to get as much money out of their players as possible like most other games. It gives you stuff at a reasonable price that arent pay to win and they dont make you feel like you need to. Without the pressure I definitely felt more comfortable spending a little because i felt more like i was helping out rather than being sold something. It's almost more like getting a free gift for donating.
The thing is, if your trying to buy any game not made in Canada or that doesn't have a Canadian IP. Us Canadians don't have to pay 70$ for our AAA titles.... no, we have to pay upwards of 90$+ depending on which province we live in. These are prices that people generally cannot afford to pay, especially in certain areas considering the current living situations in Canada.
You can just go to a planet, set it to trivial and then run around farming for SC and then abandon the mission. You don't have to extract since the SC is immediately added to your account. Trivial maps are extremely small and it lets you finish it around 3 - 5 mins when wearing light armor
The fact that in my first week of playing HD2, I have unlocked and farmed enough premium currency to buy not only the premium warbonds (1000 SC) but I got armor (250SC) and a helmet (75SC), and still have SC left over is the big reason why it is okay they have micro and no one cares.
A good premium currency should allow players that like to grind and farm to stay on the same level as those that rather just spend money then time. Different gamers have different play availabilities and thus both options should exist. I have sometimes 40hrs a week I can game, so I don't mind grinding out medals and SC, but my buddy works so much, and only has weekends he buys the extras and bundles so he can keep up with me.
I don't play games like D4 that do the whole premium currency store shit. 1 reason I like Fortnite over Apex, COD, PUBG, etc. is Fortnite lets you earn enough currency in the battle pass to buy the next battlepass (plus their paid tournements help. Only other game I know besides LTD2 that has paid tourneys.)
I like how I could buy the premium set just by playing and finding "super credits" in game instead of just straight buying it. Yes I could get it right away but the option to choose that route is what makes this game perfect
There is cash in the field. Most of the time stuck in emergency pods or metal doors
Worth noting from a Helldivers 1 player:
The new Warbonds system for upcoming content(presumably the mechs and such too) seems fairly similar to how the DLC worked in the previous game(though old DLC was like 3 bucks for 3-4 things). Except you'd just buy the DLC and it'd give you a package of stuff. Sometimes it was stratagems, or armor, or guns, or a mix. Exactly how new stratagem unlocks will work with the Requisition system I'm not sure, but this is an interesting change to me.
I'm hoping for a return of almost all old content at some point, from city defenses to the vehicles, though some of the vehicles might be poor choices for some maps, but hey, that's a strategy decision to be made then.
What's bizarre to me is that thinking on it, I've never heard of a video game studio going on a 'fact-finding mission' or doing any proper research into 'why is this thing successful?' They all just seem to look at the vague elements, slap them into their games, and then hope for the best, or act confused when it doesn't work. I get the feeling if they take a good look into what made some of these recent games work, they might start to actually improve some of their own business practices.
I am hoping they return the old content too and i am sure they will i just hope they wont put it in a dlc but rather another free and premium warbond pass that would make it f2p accesible but faster obtainable if you pay so they still get finances but we can also just play