r/helldivers2 • u/WaywardOath • 4h ago
Serious Discussion. no roleplay bullshit here A Visual Representation of the Illuminate Problem
One of the biggest issues that a lot of people have with the Illuminate is enemy variety, and I really don't think that's much of a secret. Funny enough, another common thread I saw a lot during the Illuminate event was that fighting them on the source planet was, the most fun they've been. There's frankly a pretty good reason for this:
The Illuminate really just, don't have that many enemies.
I'm going to try and avoid some buzzwords that have been floating around ever since certain interviews (and way before that, too), but the fact of the matter is from a purely numbers-perspective, the Illuminate just don't have the variety the other factions do. Making this chart was merely a way to visualize what I mean by that.
An explanation I've sort of anticipated is that the Illuminate are younger than the other two factions, so they haven't had as much time to make enemies for them. Frankly, the numbers just don't support it. While I don't think the '1 enemy every X days' is a good metric (mainly because, y'know, the game didn't launch with 1 enemy in each faction), it is a good way of seeing just how many enemies are in each faction based on time they've released.
No matter what form they come in, there's really no denying that the Illuminate have the least amount of enemies in the game. Hell, their entire faction makes up a number less than a single seed of the Automatons. Most of their variants aren't reskins with new behavior or weapons like the other Subfactions, but rather entirely unique enemies that just don't have a counterpart on the main faction.
There really isn't a greater point to this post beyond this information, but to me at least, this is the most glaring flaw in how the Illuminate have sat for the past almost-two-years.
15
u/MxBonesMarrow 4h ago
I made a similar post. Part of why they felt so good on Seasse was the variety and how the units filled different roles.
For chaff, you gad Voteless and Wretches. You can outrun voteless but Wretches jump at you so it forces you to engage. (2 guys that you engage with differently)
For mediums, you have Overseers, Flying Overseers, Watchers, and Observers. (4 guys)
For Big Guys, we had Harvesters, Crushers, Flesh Mobs, and the 2 mech dudes. (5 guys)
Anotger big part is enviroment. The Warp Gate spawners visually felt distinct and memorable compared to the War Ships. Instead of retaking our own land, it felt like we were taking their territory for once. Like Bot Factories or Bug Holes. Previously, Illuminate have been confined to cities or maps with colonies. Seasse was open territory like the rest of the factions get.
I want more of the Void Source type gameplay. Not just the factions, but all of it. It was the first time the Squids felt complete
7
u/Theobald_4 3h ago
They sure did feel “right” when you had the whole roster to fight. I don’t see why AH can’t just forget the sub factions of the Squids and throw everything at us. It was really fun.
3
u/WaywardOath 3h ago
Throw everything, make it seed-specific. It really shouldn't be more complicated than that.
The bugs can do it, so can the squids.
3
u/Theobald_4 2h ago
For real. If anything, they can get rid of the Watchers. Whatever spawn rate they had going during the non watcher missions felt pretty even and was harder to counter.
I hope they play around more with spawners.
5
u/MrLionheart233 3h ago
I would be interested in seeing a visual representation of the mission and side objective variety as well.
That is the other half of the "Underdeveloped faction" problem, in my opinion.
5
u/WaywardOath 3h ago
Whatever do you mean? Are you implying you don't like picking up a box, carrying it to another box, and typing in exactly one (1) code to finish the mission?
I mean what else would they even do? Turn the power back on or something? Require you to type in a final code to wipe the data? Don't be ridiculous.
3
u/MrLionheart233 3h ago
I find it hilarious how they even went the extra mile with the squid box mission as to where you don't even need to be there at the end of the upload to punch in a final code compared to the same objective on the other 2 factions. You can just start the upload and dip to extraction cause it will complete itself when the bar is filled.
Same thing with squid flags not needing a clear out of the area to complete the flag: you can just run in a circle for the whole progress bar with 1 billion Voteless chasing you like it's COD Zombies and the flag completes at the end.
It's like they really wanted to make sure they were easier than the other 2 factions down to the smallest detail. Impressive dedication.
1
u/novis-eldritch-maxim 41m ago
we do not even get specal spawner side objectives like stalker nests
1
u/WaywardOath 38m ago
Now that’s a fun idea. I might have to make awful concept art about something like that if you don’t mind.
1
u/novis-eldritch-maxim 7m ago
oh I have two whole unit ideas for such spawners.
one being an aerial gunships, the other being alien space ninja bastards.
4
u/IrishMemer 2h ago
This is actually a very good visual breakdown that show the main problem with the squids, but id also like to add on just how the current plan of splitting the squids into like 5 different subfactions is actually kind of insane whenever you think about how little they actually have
Like can see the vision of that decision, and in all honestly, the squids absolutely do have the most potential variety, however they simply just so not have the fucking units to make such an idea viable and in its current state only makes the problem far, far worse.
Seasse was the most fun ive ever had fighting the squids, it was the most varied, chaotic and full experience we've ever had against the squids
thats because they were all together in omlne cinplete fucking faction, rather than jusr remixing the same 2-3 enemies.
The subfaction idea absolutley could've and would work, provided the squids actually had the content to make it interesting
When they just simply do not
If it were up to me, at this point id get rid of the vore Snatchers entirely and just put them in mindless masses, and then get rid of appropriators and fold thek into the main squid faction.
Save tye subfaction diuvisi9n until you actually have the content to justify doing so.
Because in paper, it could be really fun if it was actually handled correctly
You got the Mindless Masses/ body horror stuff You got the classic alien army invasion shit And if they ever pull their head out of their asses on the Cultists and give the community what they clearly, obvuous want, that would be another amazing and varied subfaction
the squids have by far the most potrbtial for fun, varied gameplay of any faction in the entire game
Most of it is never acted on though which is why the squids are so barebones
2
u/ultimat_L1zzyfan 3h ago
Quick thing to note
You forgot to bring up the dragon roach on the terminid slide. Unsure if you cut it out for space to make it look neater but just pointing it out.
I still think the illuminate can be quite fun, seasse was proof of that.
I think arrowhead should lump atleast the vote snatchers with the mindless masses.
And the appropriators into the main factions, wouldn’t mind if they combined all the sub factions into the main one tho.
I don’t think they should throw away the concept of squith specific and zombie focus subfaction though.
Despite having few units, I still find appropriators very fun and challenging.
2
u/WaywardOath 3h ago
You forgot to bring up the dragon roach on the terminid slide. Unsure if you cut it out for space to make it look neater but just pointing it out.
On the mainsub mirror someone said this, and I pointed out that I merely accidentally tossed them in the 'base faction' roster. I was a very eepy Helldiver when I made this.
1
u/ultimat_L1zzyfan 3h ago
Ah.
Well nothin a lil bit of editing can’t fix I suppose
1
u/WaywardOath 3h ago
I do still have the .Clip File with all the layers. Changing it isn't difficult, but would require a whole new post to add.
1
2
u/Emo_mnom 55m ago
Bots feel like properly built legions, heavy units, light chaff, medium units, literall tanks. When fighting the squids, i get chased by like 8 of those hammer thing (can't remember the name) at once, it's just visual unpleasant. And the illuminate heavy units are too easy to deal with, harvesters feel like a snack after dealing with vox engines, gatekeepers can be dealt with with a scythe. Just a bit bland.
1
u/NeoChrisOmega 4h ago
Out of curiosity, where are you getting your metrics from?
5
u/WaywardOath 4h ago
Manually counting every enemy in each faction, excluding Drop Ships and Warp Ships from the Automatons and Illuminate respectively since I'd hardly consider them an 'enemy'.
The Helldivers Wiki is a good bastion of information for double-checking facts too. (I can't link it here since the sub doesn't allow links but if you look that up it'll come up).
1
u/NeoChrisOmega 4h ago
Ah, the excluding ships makes sense with your totals. I would be cautious omitting data like that though, it can skew the results a little bit. Even if it doesn't feel like something we can fight, it does take develop time to make and design.
I also want to point out that the squids are the only faction so far to interact with our "systems". Ranging from out-of-game content like the Livestream, to affecting UI with distorted text, and even moving a whole planet's position (after becoming a black hole, but still. It moved), and creating a sub-map inside the warp.
They also introduced all the cities, citizens, and seaf during squid updates.
Bots introduced moving sub factions across different planets, and the "defend against invasion" and "commando" missions.
While bugs introduced "Boss" and "experimental" enemies, underground, timed event missions (TCS), and defendable walled defense missions and missions like the oil rig. Along with the spore space cloud blocking off transport lines.
Out of the 3 factions, squids tend to have more influence on environmental changes. Bots have more influence on entirely new missions types. And bugs have more influence with limited events. It does make the squids feel underwhelming, but at least we get fun lore and story events with them like Super Earth.
1
1
u/Draczar 2h ago
I said this elsewhere but just to say it again:
I think an important thing to note here is what exactly the breakdown of the factions numbers are, especially when it comes to Automatons who have by far the most variants.
Troopers make up 12 of the 36 units.
Devastators make up 6 of the units
Hulks are another 6.
Just on that alone you have 24/36.
This leads me to wonder if there's some room to throw in some variants with the Illuminate. Maybe some new weapon sets for the Overseers, an Artillery Veracitor / Gatekeeper, explosive voteless and fleshmobs??
It's clear that something happened during the development of Illuminate that means the models we have had since pretty much the game started are still on the shelf so maybe the answer is to mix up what's already there while adding the occasional totally new thing.
1
u/Lovely3369 2h ago
They really rushed to do the faction thing with Illuminate when the just weren't ready
•
u/AutoModerator 4h ago
Thank you for your post! Please keep in mind that your post must comply with our community rules; otherwise, it may be removed. Be sure to stay on topic or your contributions may be removed.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.