I’ve recently found the confidence to move up to missions on Hard difficulty in Helldivers 2 after a couple of weeks of noodling around on Challenging. I feel like my skills have improved, and more importantly, I’ve unlocked some sick stratagems to make operations easier. These things can only happen through dedicated playtime – because you can only earn medals and requisition slips through gameplay, you can’t pay real money to get a Quasar Cannon at level three. You have to put in the hours, and I’ve finally put enough in that I have the equipment to keep me alive against tougher enemies.
However, it seems a lot of new players aren’t getting the memo. While the majority I find on Hard missions are my level or higher, I’ve inexplicably come across entire groups of level sevens getting absolutely destroyed in Eradicate missions. If you’re really, really skilled, you might be able to skirt by in Hard missions with stealth alone despite the lack of higher-level weapons, but Eradicate missions plonk you in the middle of a massive battlefield with nowhere to hide as ship after ship of bots swarm you. I’m unsure these new players even know what they’re setting themselves up for.
Don’t get me wrong – I love to carry a squad of new players through their first few missions. It’s a calmer, low-pressure experience for me to play on lower difficulties, and it feels good to help people out because I know my assistance will reward them with more requisition slips than if they played at a lower difficulty on their own. I even love calling down support weapons for them to try, because they wouldn’t have access to those weapons otherwise. But I cannot do that on Hard difficulty.
No matter how much I try, at my current level, it is impossible to carry three Space Cadets who die the moment a Devastator so much as looks at them. Before long, we’re completely out of reinforcements, and I’m getting wrecked by a sea of bots. I kind of miss the bots, actually. Can we get them back?
This is not an ideal playing experience for anybody. They get wrecked, I get wrecked, we fail the mission, and we don’t even get rewards. It wastes everyone’s time. There’s basically no way for these players to succeed on their own because they don’t have access to weapons or stratagems that will work effectively against enemies at higher levels, so they have to bank on getting players at much higher levels than me to carry them.
I’m not saying that players have to stick to a community-approved meta to deserve a place in Hard missions, because I don’t believe that at all. I myself am vaguely aware there’s a meta, but I’m refusing to learn what it is. I actually got kicked out of a mission for it last week, so I would never enforce this on a lower level player. I’m not looking for people to use specific weapons, but they should at least bring a sentry with them.
Or a decent eagle strike. Any support weapon, really. I feel like I’m being a little harsh now. In the spirit of being fair, low level players are fine in a squad of higher level players, as long as there’s just one of them.
They can’t really contribute, and they’ll die a lot, but that’s not a big deal as long as they don’t mind their reinforcements not being prioritized in the midst of battle. Again, that’s the spirit of carrying. But please, if you’re playing with friends, don’t bring your whole sub-level ten squad into a Hard level operation and just pray that someone will come and shepherd you all through. Be realistic.
Helldivers 2 is the sequel to the third-person shooter from Arrowhead Game Studios. This time out, the Helldivers are deep in the Galactic War, and it’s up to you to bring Managed Democracy to the masses.
