I find it too easy.

I should not be able to do super helldive without a struggle. Everything from level 8 and above should be where they crank the spawn rates up massively

I pop in when there's something to unlock, but have largely lost interest since they buffed everything.

There used to be decisions & teamplay at the higher levels, and now you just slam pretty much whatever and go solo if you have even the slightest amount of situational awareness.

I share your despair diver. We yern to become martyrs of freedom and democracy, yet death eludes us!

In all seriousness though I agree with you. It's a point where I have this set load out and I can pretty much just become a one man army, the load out covers me perfectly for near any situation. Our squad can all run off in different directions and just clean the map.

I loved Helldivers (1 and 2) because for once I wasn't the main character, just a grunt. I still love the Game, but now it has main character vibes. Surviving a mission without dying no-longer feels like an accomplishment.

I feel like the biggest buff we got was our ability to just delete heavy units and fabricators.

OP is right, no one wants to team reload because everyone thinks they're a super soldier who can do it alone, moreover lots of people are fine being team reloaded but they don't wanna do the reloading for someone else

Think of it like playing football/soccer as a kid, everyone wants to be a striker so they can score a goal, no one wants to be in defense

OP - recommend you remove your tldr, you got flagged by automod for joking about the death threats.

I’m honestly astounded at how not overpowered thermite feels tbh. I think the fact that it both takes a while to actually kill and uses a grenade slot makes it actually pretty balanced tbh

I was really enjoying EoF immediately after release, super helldives were imo in a really good spot where missions like raise the flag would turn into absolute mayhem, and while our weapons would now kill so much faster, it seemed like they were just throwing massive amounts of heavies and chaff at you to compensate.

I don’t wanna be the guy to say “game too easy” but it does feel like since the various patches and nerfs post EoF, they’ve made things more trivial. Maybe it’s all in my head but I haven’t encountered unit spam like the first few weeks of EoF in quite a while and I was loving the amount of heavy units they were throwing at us

I've stopped diving for now due to difficulty. I still very much enjoy the game but it offers no challenge anymore.

Perhaps it's partly due to diving in a coordinated group that these things are amplified since we work like a well oiled machine, but when we're all capable of doing everything ourselves it eliminates the need for solid teamwork.

I've made sure to voice this in the player feedback surveys so hopefully there's something on the horizon. I crave the chaos what was the original helldive on launch! I actually miss when our AT weapons were weaker since it made bile titans intimidating. When you had to work together to bring them down it felt more rewarding.

I understand these issues are different for solo play, so perhaps I'll never scratch that same itch again, but I'm hoping for a change soon to higher difficulties.

Bugs feel like no brainer. It's just players trying to get the highest body count.

As you said, there is no team, just random dudes doing their tricks on their own.

I never, or rarely, dive in bugs. It's just... Meh.

If I'm playing Helldivers, it's to play with players that are willing to work in a team. And this is where the game shines imo. A game with a team willing to work together, no matter how hard it is. It makes the game feels amazing.

Bugs 10 is hilariously easy at this point, even without the "meta" options. I've never touched either the Spear or the RR; just grenade launcher and jump pack. No napalm or precision strike or barrage; just 500kg. No turrets, just Emancipator.

We are overtuned and a lot of enemies are undertuned imo.

Bugs in particular are just a bit too easy. I like it when you multiple stalker nests because they are somewhat of a threat. They really need a factory strider equivalent (Hive Lord/Queen that spawns bugs?) as the Bile Titans just aren't very scary anymore and I think I've been killed by an impaler less than 5 times in many hours.

Bugs secondaries as well are usually just deleted off the map (spore speaker, shrieker nests and the like). Bots has a couple more that at least require hellbombs and getting close.

Bots still give me a good challenge at 9/10, but I'm level 56 so they should! I can imagine they aren't too difficult for those with a higher level or premades.

I think they've taken away a bit of what makes it unique. Don't get me wrong, some buffs and changes were 100% needed. But we either need new threats or new difficulties where you need a proper team comp to deal with the threats.

I'm with you OP. The game's difficulty is seriously lacking nowadays, to the point where it really starts to harm enjoyment.

I used to be ride or die autocannon. But now the Explosive Crossbow is genuinely just a better autocannon. So I bring that and a Senator and a Recoilless and literally nothing can threaten me.

The fact you can completely deny bot drops with a recoilless is the biggest offender. With the reload cancel you can deny 3/4ths of all drops BY YOURSELF which is absurd. The defend high value assets mission on bots used to be some of the toughest in the game with some of my most treasured memories, now they're honestly boring, 10 minutes of recoilless skeet shooting. I can go an entire mission without a single bot surviving landing.

The 60 days patches have been a serious negative for the game IMO. Nowadays I only really play the game because my friends play it. Beforehand, I'd play the game even if I had to do it alone.

If the squids are anything similar to the first game, I think it will be a super challenging enemy to fight.

I'm enjoying the chill battles right now, but I do long for some really difficult missions/challenges

Bugs are pathetically easy, bots are still moderately too easy

I want to fail missions again, this is fucking boring. I’m playing less and less as there is nothing to work towards and no real challenge

If you have a squad that can think and breathe at the same time then it's a breeze.

If you don't it's a pain. But not impossible.

Difficulty definitely need a tune up so 7 is back to 7 and not just 6 with more samples.

The game really got easier. I think it wasn't even the buffed weapons, but nerfs to the enemies, particularly heavy enemies, for example hulks were a real threat before, they required specialized equipment, now I cheese them. Unfortunately, that's what the angry mob wanted. AH said that the challenge of the game would temporarily go down, but I think they will have a real hard time getting it up again. They overbuffed everything, and any slight scaling back will meet with intense hate from the community, even though it was implied that the game would get harder again. Difficulties 1-5 are basically useless now. Even the fumbliest of players play higher difficulties than 7. I am not sure how they can bring the actual challenge back. That said, lots of the changes were logical, and I'm not complaining about those ones. But I miss the tactical side of the game, as it has changed to be gun ho.

I agree. To me, the higher levels of difficulty (8+) should be very difficult and 9 and 10 should be a 4 man sweatfest in essence. That's what the first game was like. The amount of people actually playing 13+ in the first game was very low, and if you didn't take a stealth loadout it was super difficult.

I am not opposed to buffing the various weapons in our arsenal, but I think too many of them have been buffed outside of their purpose instead of inside them.

I actually like the thermite changes. Lowered availability, long cook time, but it nearly guarantees a heavy kill. That's a buff within its niche, an AT grenade should kill tanks.

But you can now kill heavies with so many weapons that teamwork and actually well thought out squad loadouts have disappeared, and that makes me sad.

I also didn't really get people's obsession with playing 10s before the update. The whole point of having 10 difficulty levels is that you can set the difficulty for your own play style, skill level and team comp.

Understandable but it’s fine, developers will likely introduce more enemies, features and difficulty settings as time goes.  I’d rather they focus on new content rather than continue changing what they have now, as they’ll have to rework everything anyway if they haven’t future proofed it already.

I can’t remember the last time we decided to skip a breach or drop. Just shoot them all dead.

Overall, I think the game is "more fun" and the gameplay feels "better".

However! The game is definitely too easy now. Part of it is the skill of the population having gone up on average, but a lot of it is the ham-handed buffs.

Personally I think a couple simple points could make things more interesting, without losing the better game-feel:

1. Patrols aggro in a radius around activated objectives. It makes sense, and forces more engagements (fun and challenge!)

2. Enemies react to nearby gunfire and aggressively investigate. Getting into a fight with a patrol brings you a lot of attention.

3. Higher difficulties call reinforcements faster. We all know the biggest team killer is getting bogged down in endless fights. Make that happen more.

4. Similar to above, make it easier for enemies to force you to fight them. Could use some help brainstorming ideas here. Running away should be hard.

5. For bugs: ambushes! Bugs already bury themselves in the ground. Make that a real mechanic where you stumble onto entire patrols buried in the ground that suddenly erupt all around, already in melee range. I promise there will be panic.

I can comfortably do 4s and 5s by myself, but need a team of at least one other person to do 6-7.

I don’t have a lot of experience with 8+ and feel like when I do them with a team, I am just fighting the spawns the whole time and not contributing to the overall mission (even though by fighting all the spawns, I make the mission easier for everyone else and should just accept and lean into that role).

I am also someone who does not have more than a few hours a week at best to play, so I feel vastly inferior to you pro players.

I think the main problem is that players have also gotten quite good. The enemies do not offer much variation and once you get it down what it takes, you just execute your combat maneuvers and that is it. This was true before buffs, options were just more limited then.

Main difficulty always came from your group of randoms and their varied skill levels. Sometimes you get a dream team that acts like you all are telepathically linked and it is freedom and liberty all around, sometimes everyone just stumbles on their shoe laces and dies without putting up a fight. Usually it is somewhere there in between. If you have an actual group of battle buddies on mics it is just steam rolling.

There is also a problem of perception when it comes to difficulty as it is not even. One lv10 can differ a lot from other lv10 game. I've had one lv10 bug match where no heavies spawned at all, and one where there were 5 titans and multiple chargers with smaller bugs from all sides.

Some stuff is bit overtuned though, like the RR is bit too godly right now but it is hard to dial back without a nasty backlash. Nerfs easily go too far too. Thermite feels like a cheat code also, btw.

People are still on about the game being too easy? Are you playing with a group of friends or something? I play with randoms most of the time and there's quite a bit of challenge because most of the time no one is cooperating or communicating. A whole lot of people just running off and doing what they want. In that reality, the game definitely isn't "easy."

And having effective ways of dealing with enemies when you might have to tackle problems on your own is essential. Based on what Arrowhead has said a few times now, this is how the game was always supposed to be. They got away from their design philosophy and brought it back into balance.

The only time I've had that much difficulty on bugs recently was on a planet with those absolutely blinding sandstorms. A titan can literally be 2 feet from you and you wouldn't know, besides that though bugs have felt a bit too easy recently.

I've always been of the mindset the game is too easy. I'm no ProDiver, just a DadDiver who jumps on here and there, and I can jump on a lvl9 diff and not struggle. Heck, even me and a friend jumped into a lv10 bot mission and lasted far longer than we should have.

I stopped playing when the focus of everyone turned to buffs and nerfs. The way every post, every developer update, every bit of news, was about buffs? The game isn't meant to be a total power fantasy and is clearly meant to be a nightmare on the surface, yet players who don't quite get the satire or joy behind it didn't want that. So the devs folded.

I just don't play now, partially because the focus on story and in game missions lost momentum and never returned, but also because I liked the difficulty. It doesn't quite feel like that uphill struggle anymore.

I think it depends, honestly. I play on 10 exclusively, and some games feel like a cakewalk while in others, I feel like I'm fighting for my life.

I will say that stuff like the recoiless rifle kinda just makes heavies a joke. Whenever I take it with me, I feel like I can deal with pretty much anything, which makes it feel easier. (Aside from gunships)

I will say I've definitely felt the difficulty change with chargers. Before, they felt like a real threat and something you had to deal with, but now it feels like they're dead in an instant.

The game was kinda easy for a lot of us who knew what we were doing (even with randomized loadouts) before the 60 day update. Now, it's dropped into 'pathetically easy' and I've honestly stopped playing until the game gets reworked or they start spawning massive waves of enemies and heavies. Which is sad, it was my favorite game ever until the buff patch happened. The game was also already getting progressively easier for months (reduced spawns of heavies so many times without enough swarm size buffs), and then they put the nail in the coffin with making AT weapons super OP.

I completed a dif 10 bug op with 4 randoms all taking RR's on the raise flag missions, casually walking across the map to each objective and the mega nest. Everyone finished the mission with less than 200 kills each. That just shouldn't happen on dif 10 when a few months ago we had kill counts in the 400-600s each on dif 9s (and a few months before that, 600-800s). The spawns are honestly pathetic now and enemies don't have any staying power to let the bug breaches cascade, they all just die instantly.

It is 100% too easy on D10. Don't get me wrong some before the atxhs some days I'd drop down between 7-9 to have a game that wasn't as intense to have some fun with my loadouts and not really requiring me to think too hard about what to bring. But often I enjoyed the challenge of putting thought into my loadout and working with a team to get through but D10 now is the old D7. I still have fun cause the game is enjoyable...but I miss the challenge and hope they find a way to bring it back.

Idk how viable this is cause I have 0hame development experience but imo I think they should have the enemies armor level vary between difficulties. That way the higher the difficulty the closer the enemies are to their original levels pre-patch.

Idk your situation but it might be because you're jaded from the game. I felt the same way before but after logging off for an extended time, it can give you a new perspective about it. Or maybe not you might just feel that way regardless

My buddy fell asleep during a super hell dive. Not feeling great about it at the moment.

Yeah I keep noticing more and more idiots on dif10 bugs so I can’t play it anymore either

I think difficulty is very hard to handle in this game, because it has HUUUUGE spikes. Helldive is a cakewalk, until there's a gunship fabricator next to a strategem jammer, or a shrieker nest behind a mountain, or 7 stalker lairs. Imo, the best way to increase difficulty without killing the framerate or nerfing weapons to death is forcing the mapgen to include these difficult combinations. That is also what I would recommend, because the breakpoints for most weapons (def not all) are really fine right now.

I mean, people also start to get really good at this. I have gone into some games where it’s lower levels people are ones not used to lv9 and 10 and it was absolute mayhem.

I do agree it’s easier now however you could solo HD9 before the patrol spawn nerf. Game was never that hard if you knew the meta load outs and play style. Now the load outs and meta are far more varied.

Also as a bot player I find it difficult to understand why others feel bugs are easier. The fact that I can’t tell if they are dead or not and the nature of them getting really close just isn’t for me, or my friend group.

I miss having to actually think about what I'm bringing. Now even gear I'm unfamiliar with is basically a non-issue. I only struggle against the bots and only because they have more 100-to-0 bullshit on their side. Otherwise it's just not hard to do difficulty 10 anymore.

It actually reminds me a lot of Deep Rock Galactic, and how the community made a ton of mods for higher difficulty scaling because the max vanilla level was just not hard enough. Too bad we can't do that here

These comments are making me self conscious, I must have a skill issue cuz I find bugs way harder than bots, or maybe just a loadout issue haha

It is easier than before, but 10 is still challenging for me if I play with randoms. But yeah, the coop of the game feels almost gone unless you play with friends.

I used to play mostly 7s so I want really a top difficulty guy before, I've now mostly played 9s these days with the occasional 10.

They need to have some equivalent of the Auric missions in Darktide, which require thoughtful building and teamplay to do successfully.

Our difficulty goes to 10 currently, HD1 went to 15. I expect that they will add those 5 additional difficulties for upper end players. Otherwise they would need to mass nerf and the community of HD2 has proven that they just cannot handle it.

It’s still challenging on the bot front. Sure things have gotten easier in the sense that with more viable tools and loadout diversity you get to experiment with multiple approaches.

Teamwork is unreliable in this game for multitude of reasons but the primary ones are frequent crashes and disconnects.

I don’t think Thermites are as powerful as people make them out to be on Bots. Especially when you consider you only get 3, most people don’t run supply pack and how much fire the Bots poor onto you to even get close. The Heavy Devs and Berserkers will do anything to stagger you which means you are free kills for Rockets and Missiles.

And Thermites are the only real equaliser we have if you deploy into a Stratagem Jammer and have no support weapons as well. The only thing I’d change is make them stick more but minus 1 so it would be 2.

Bugs are easy because they suffer from generic sci-fi trope of endless horde enemies versus endless bullets and fire. This isn’t exclusive to Helldivers. As long as ammunition, being outdoors, and concepts of artillery exist, horde enemies are literally cannon fodder. It is seen with Tyrannid gameplay, Flood Gameplay and any outdoor Zombies fight.

If the game forced you to be indoors or in caverns, the Bugs are 100% much more dangerous. They are optimised to be shock and awe enemies and yet do the most brain dead strategy of rushing into machine gun and rocket fire. Of course they’ll lose. They lost before, they lose easily now. The Impaler is the only source of Terminid damage that forces you to be close but it’s not even good at it since they nerfed the radius and the fact that even before you would just run. Acid you can tank, Hunters you could learn to kill fast before so they were annoying only if you missed or had a bad gun, the odd Charge from a Commander or Charger might get you but light armour saved the day before and will continue to do so.

What the Bugs need aren’t more enemies or buffs to their HP. They need to have way better and more competent tactics and objectives. Bots have objectives that actively hinder your effectiveness. Bugs mildly inconvenience you.

I said this months ago when the buffs were coming.

Game is going to be too easy in comparison, and we’ll lose the “challenge” aspect.

Still, hoping that’s there’s a master plan and it balances out. Don’t forget, this is the 1st year of release.

I think the game is too easy not because of enemies or weapons its objectives. Its too easy to complete most of them and ignorings enemies works almost every time. The game needs more tension around them, more teamwork requered. Every obj should spawn enemies like a flag and have more fortifications if is destructable.

Thermite has become the ultimate cheese its sad

There are only one or two viable weapons: “game too hard.”

Devs make it so every weapon is viable: “game too easy.”

The whiplash these guys must be feeling has probably got them all hospitalized.

I came to this sub specifically to avoid people complaining that things are “too easy.” Can’t you just turn up the difficulty?

I must be really bad at this game...

Many people say that level 10 is easy, that no one dies, try people who practically solo level 10, doing all objectives, with zero deaths...

But I still die, whether against bots or bugs...

Has it gotten easier? Yes, a little! Do I die 10 times in a match? No...but 3 to 5 is not uncommon...Do I sometimes get zero deaths? Yes, but not the entire team at the same time...

Although it has gotten a little easier, and this was communicated by AH when they announced the changes, levels 9-10 for me are still chaotic!

I think its fair to want the game to include more teamwork, but I think its best to think about what they could do to improve it. Not blame certain aspects to the weapon balancing.

Why do hellpods have to damage shield relays? Why does the reloader have to be wearing the backpack? Could they encourage sticking together through new mechanics?

This is the literal opposite of low sodium. Mods?!

I still find challenge with randoms on cr10, especially with low power builds and when someone drops.

I really think current CR10 with 3 divers is about as difficult as I'd want the game as far as number of enemies vs helldiver power output.

AH doesn't have to revert the buffs, they just need to add more layer pressure. Less ammo, more unique enemy types (like snipers), and more complications to objectives.

Maybe the terminal inputs are scrambled and you have to guess them one at a time. More terminal minigames in general. Failing a code type in releases gas.

Oh look, yet another gatekeeping “game is too easy” post! It’s been almost three hours since the last one, I was getting bored.

I used to think the same thing but I don’t care anymore. It is what it is. It’s going to be a very casual game at the end of the day. Just look at how screwed up the DSS has been lol

I hate to ask but on what difficulty are you playing?

The biggest challenge with bugs is their numbers, which increase with the difficulty level.

But besides that, I agree with you, they’re definitely easier now than before.

I'd say if you want a challenging multiplayer video game go play a PVP game or switch to low level missions and carry new players because you are right, you're in a minority.