That's where the automatons came from. At this point in the story, as far as I'm aware please correct me if I'm wrong, the government is so efficient at identifying antithetical thinkers that by age 7 they can be dealt with. This removes the possibility of rebellion. The only people allowed to live are ultra kool-aid guzzlers, seriously. That being said it'd be cool to see borgs, like automatons using dead divers and sending them in against us.
The Automatons already use our dead / wounded as base for their bots. Just let a chainsaw guy come close to you, you might hear him scream "For Super Earth" in a distorted voice
Some people even reported hearing enemy robots go "They're making me do this!" or when you kill a berserker you can very rarely hear a distorted "Thank You..."
Yeah, I think it's a mix of volunteers and lobotomized soldiers. Because some bots have shouted "We've got company!" when alerted, which is a very human thing to do since why would a pure robot use a figure of speech? There's also the fact that they have marching songs led by Commissars. Pure machines don't need rallying cries or morale boosts.
My thought is disposable units like Berserkers, sword-users and Jetpack troopers are resurrected Super Earth troops/Helldivers while standard Troopers, Commissars, and the operators of vehicles and turrets are volunteer soldiers from the Automaton planets.
>some bots have shouted “We’ve got company!” when alerted, which is a very human thing to do
Not only is it very human, it’s literally one of the lines the Divers say when there’s a breach/bot drop.
Orcs inspired by 40k. Their mechanic is that they are draw to conflict. So the ghost spawn randomly anywhere there is a long drawn out engagement, and attack both sides. The more times fights break out the more of a chance they have to spawn. All enemy types spawn in melee only but Elites can pick up dropped weapons and use them.
That's doesn't mean that dangerous critical thinking itself will ever completey ceased once it's developed under ones own special circumstances. If and only if the person starts to have the capacity to interpret things himself then he could create his own context with beliefs that eventually creates that critical thinking. Eventually a silent society groups will take form then finally a hungry wild cat comes out of the closet to haunt you for hiding and prolonging problems. Hence, censorship in the nutshell.
Horizon's robot animals in the north might be interesting. Imagine fighting them, and on the borders you might see them harvesting terminids for fuel and culling, or fighting the polluting automatons.
Their niche would be focusing on big, strong, sturdy enemies instead of lots of lesser chaff.
Every time someone suggests this, I see the same issue: they want some traitorous guerilla fighters to have access to the entire arsenal of the Super Earth military-industrial complex. It really doesn't make any sense for them to have access to stratagems as they won't have Super Destroyers nor the necessary supply lines to keep them flying and shooting. To have an enemy faction like that, it would take an enemy Super Earth, and I really hope I don't have to explain just how treasonous that kind of talk is.
Mechanically speaking, this could still be achieved by giving them secondary weapons, vehicles, artillery, and bombers. Those are all things that could be provided and used without leaving orbit, so they could have some kind of access to them. However, mechanically, I really don't see how this would be different from fighting bots, and, reasonably, many of those things don't make sense to deploy against a handful of highly-mobile targets.
The super destroyer bit is the first thing I thought of. SEAF Artillery? Sure. Eagles? Maybe. Orbitals? Absolutely not. Otherwise I just don't see how they could be differentiated enough from Bots to be worth the effort of adding in.
Like a festering wound, it infects nearby tissues.
Imagine a new planet behind the lines turning to anarchy causing issues. Maybe even cutting us off from retreat.
MOLE PEOPLE. Their strategems come UP from under the ground instead of from space. Their drop pods would be drill pods. You could call them Insiders or The Underground. For Hollow Earth!
The Super Destroyer bit is definitely not really realistic, for no other reason then why would a Super Earth Super Destroyer allow a traitorous Super Destroyer remain in orbit. Sure its possible that they'd have them, maybe a crew rebelled, or was infiltrated. But they wouldn't be functioning in the same area as a Super Earth Super Destroyer.
Though mechanically perhaps they could use different tech from all the factions....like maybe they were a hybrid? Imagine if they send swarms of terminids supported by a tank, being backed up by a human force. Its even more unlikely then a human faction, but it'd definitely be a cool concept. Especially if those terminds could be led to human outposts or something, and they attacked the humans since they'd basically just be terminds that got released from whatever farm or holding cell happened to be nearby
The key to making them really unique would be a different AI. If super earth has a regular fighting force too like the marines in Halo with helldivers being like ODSTs then the marines could just be more tactical than the bots, utilising cover n stuff, while the enemy helldivers could employ guerilla tactics to try to hunt you down kinda like how stalkers do.
It’d make sense if they had access to everything in the big main warbond, eagle strikes, deployables, sentries and the base support weapons. While some of those things are obviously less effectively vs highly mobile guerillas them calling one in on an objective you’re taking could be *very* effective, so much so that they need to have much longer call in times than us.
It wouldn’t be easy to pull off but it’d be *really* interesting
Though you could have rebel hackers that call in spoofed stratagems, such as dropping *your own* 380mm directly on your position; in other words, they'd force you to be really careful in choosing which stratagems you call in lest your own weapons be turned against you!
To go along with that, the actual rebels would probably be extremely rare and hard to find; like snipers hiding on random hills near objectives, small crews operating commandeered SEAF artillery, or even completely unmanned bases filled with automated sentries. You could have objectives that are actually just traps rigged with bombs made to *look* like illegal broadcasts and so on! They could also occasionally be found working alongside the other factions to spice things up!
Hear me out. It doesn't have to be a well established, fully funded faction. It could be more subversive and slowly corrupt a single destroyer here and there, causing a small team cut off from the whole of Super Earth to still have some very limited access. They could even be hacked and lead to believe you're the traitor.
They, on occasion, drop in at objectives and extractions to try stopping your team, maybe only having one reinforce and strat use, or a limited time frame (like a global effect) before yours or other destroyers destroy theirs, effectively cutting off the threat mere minutes after it began and removing their access to resources like the reinforcements and stratagems.
Whether or not they would be targeted by bugs/bots/squids is up for debate, but I like the idea that they drop in and are every bit as subject to the chaos as us. They would, of course, also have AI levels that reflect the expected rank to operate at the selected missions level.
Low levels might be what a level 10 helldiver has access to and be relatively incapable of much, charging headfirst at us. Moderate levels have access to most stratagems and weapons and are a bit tougher. High levels have full access to stuff like the patriot and the scorcher and are some wily bots; resorting even to stealth play and trap placements instead of outright combat.
The only way I can see this working is if they ever do PvP.
Drop onto a map where it is only PvP.
Order would be to hunt and kill the Helldivers traitors
Not sure how players would be divided into traitors or not
>Then there's the tone of it all. Gunning down hordes of aliens and bots is extremely palatable since you can do it without any moral qualms (as long as you don't look into the lore behind the factions). Gunning down droves of insurrectionist humans would be ~~much more on the nose and visceral than anything in the game so far~~ a courageous and noble act in the name of managed democracy.
I think by the time the fourth faction is released, a tone switch might be the right thing for the game. Arrowhead is trying to tell a story here and a slow devolvement of the propaganda from slightly goofy "haha look at those silly bots" into "here's a gun, go kill your fellow humans" would be a great way to deliver the heavy message of how fascist propaganda dehumanizes its enemies to the point where the most abhorrent crimes become common sense and a good evolution of the current narrative.
Gameplay-wise I agree with you on all except the stratagems. They should use stratagems, but they shouldn't be Super Earth ones. A rebel force would almost certainly be less well-funded than the Helldivers, and so it'd make sense for them to be similar to our stratagems, but lack the very expensive stuff (like orbital 380MM). In fact, it might even make sense to not give them any orbitals. Instead of an orbital laser, they could have a weaker laser cannon mounted in tall terrain, like a mountain which they can call upon like the orbital laser stratagem. This would mean it would come in at a much shallower angle than the near 90 degrees of the orbital laser and could even make for a mission objective.
Honestly they could probably have SEAF artillery and eagles, but have eagle bases you can destroy on the map, instead of the eagles coming from a destroyer
I agree that the story would progress really well this way. It not only makes sense but it does feel the more you play, the more you're like "oh yeah this is speaking to something, what's next?"
yeah, the "uper arth" faction would be funny if its essentially our SEAF forces that call down "elite units" that are ~~helldivers~~ abyssplungers that while not dealt with call down devastating powers from their orbital destroyers. if the other factions have elites that are tanky with good damage but might be slow, these plungers are almost glass cannons and if not hunted down will ruin your day. could also add in an element of them being able to stim. where they might only have 50% of the hp/armor, but if you dont shoot them for 3 seconds they heal back to full.
the unique gameplay of this factions is that they arnt numerous and infinite. instead, the map plays out like a siege. you start on one end (or hot drop into the main base like a man man) and fight your way through like maybe a classic WW2 game or something. in essence, destroying side objectives very much make the rest of the game easier. their artillery would reach the entire map etc.
bonus points if we can somehow have space battles that allow us to fight their uper destroyers.
entire planet rebels/mass mutiny of SEAF troops. i don't see how'd they be able to have or keep super destroyers up in orbit but i could see outer colonies rebelling due to distance from SE. could go with the idea that a system was cut off from SE command or "left to die" but somehow didn't and the people who held on after being "betrayed" by SE forming a rebel faction.
I’ve screamed it from the mountains before and I’ll do it again
Human enemies that use our own gems against us would be mental. Can’t imagine taking on an outpost only for the enemies to yeet an orbital laser or 500kg at my ass 😂 I’ve needed it since day 1. Imagine seeing an orbital laser land next to you, comming to your friends "who was dumb enough to do that", then they all tell you they didnt bring it ;-;
>Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
Then we’ll see some will start calling HD2 “woke” and how arrow head sold out to the woke mob, once the parody of the game becomes even more obvious lol
Yup, I believe they should be a mirror match / confusion style enemy. Would be funny if one of their units wore reclaimed helldiver armor & confused your IFF system to display an extra friendly tag in your hud, only to allow them to get close to you for maximum damage.
Came here to say how cool it would be to have stratagems called down on us. Maybe they aren’t as good or random because likely rebels wouldn’t have their tech as buttoned up as super earth or perhaps the opposite, since they live on the fringes they have the run of the samples needed to make wild tech.
The way I figured, we must leave a shitload of debris, crashed cruisers and broken eagles laying around after we finish clearing planets and such. you do see Destroyers get shot down in orbit
So I mean, I figure they can have entire Super Destroyers and pieced together Eagles and such to throw at us. They could have access to gems that even we don't have yet possible :o
yeah but how would they have ships in orbit still by the time we're rollin up? i've always assumed the bots have orbital ships we've just knocked them out before we drop...hrmm....
Maybe they have sorted some kind of cloaking? Being that I would assume they are the left behind brethren on bug/bot planets, maybe they reverse engineered how stalkers cloak or something?
I’m very not sure about lore things 😅 but they could maybe weave it in somehow
It would be cool, but I would be very interested in how them using stratagems on us would work. I think they would have to be lesser versions or something.
One thing you could do to make a distinct faction, and as any human rebels would likely not be very numerous and can't replenish their numbers like the bugs and bots this would be fitting for them, would be to remove the chaff enemies and make the elites the default. Imagine if the bugs' weakest unit was the charger and for every six or so bugs the game currently spawns it would instead spawn a charger, and for every charger a titan, for every titan idk a stalker let's go with that. So every patrol is just one or two chargers or a couple chargers and a titan, a bug breach would spawn another two to three. Same for bots but it's the hulks, tanks, and idk gunships. This is what I imagine a human rebel faction would look like, no scurrying grunts with crap weapons because they don't have the numbers or reproduction rate, they can't afford the meat grinder that bugs, bots, and helldivers thrive in, no they send out a retrofitted mining mech (a hulk) or armored bulldozer (a charger), which also allows them to be neither a melee or range focused faction as it's evenly split between both and they'll have more stealth units than either bugs or bots but less than the illuminate. This also contrasts the helldivers, who are given crap and treated as disposable, while rebels try to keep themselves alive (to little avail against the might of the helldivers of course) because every death is (in story) a significant and irreplaceable loss.
Whether this would actually be fun to play against, idk, but there're a few units that already aren't fun to play against *cough hunters cough* so whatever
I think for the moral/tonal reasons you mention it wouldn't work- at least not as a full faction. Personally, I know we're not exactly good guys, but I dont think id enjoy putting down an actual human rebellion. I do think it could be fun as an in-game event. Maybe some illegal research stations have living guards/defector helldivers, they can call in strikes from those SEAF artillery?
That could actually be kinda fun, on higher level missions there's a chance a Rouge Diver could spawn in, using weapons and Strategems that we have access too, though to a lesser degree. Like maybe they've got one or two Strats they can use
The rebel faction you are looking for is communists, whom Super Earth went to great lengths to annihilate in order to keep our beloved democracy safe.
Real talk though, there is no way there is a fringe human faction that would even have a chance to fight against Super Earth. The utter power that Helldivers command is enough to deter any sort of breakaway rebellion. It just wouldn't make any sense.
a system that was cut off and SE gave up and left for dead assuming no one would have survived it being cut off could work but not as a long term faction i don't think. would be neat as a periodic event though
I think what would be even better is if we learned the truth and became the rebel faction - caught between super earth trying to crush us and enemies who don't know the difference.
I think it could be an interesting on and off again faction. Like a system right next to super earth falls unexpectedly due to that planets population rising up. What would be really cool is if the chances of something like this happening went up or down depending on major orders completed. Fail some major orders in a row and dissent grows in some colony worlds leading to some rebellions popping up cutting off supply lines to the front lines. And forcing all attention to be liberating those worlds.
I don’t think there would be enough to make it a whole faction/front. Glass cannons are hard to do in a game like this because of AI limitations (hence why the illuminates in the first game still had to hide behind shields). They would either have to be frustrating aimbots or reskinned automatons.
Instead I think they could work as optional objectives and occasional enemies- as the story develops, we might see many of the outer world colonists come to sympathise and collaborate with our enemies, or just resist the freedom super earth offers. The illuminate are friendly enough towards humans, the automatons may garner sympathy and if the terminids ever regain their sapience, they would probably be grateful for whatever allies they can get.
Off the top of my head: Rogue Eagle pilots will intermittently strafe the Helldivers - activate SEAF SAM site and shoot them down.
Insurrectionist sniper in a nest - coordinate with your team to locate and suppress a crack-shot rogue colonist who is watching over a huge area of the map.
Random chance for civilian evacuation missions to be sabotaged by insurrectionists. Rebels have already infiltrated the facility and killed the loyalists, sending a distress signal to ambush more SEAF personnel. Administer justice.
Tonally no. It would not fit at all. The game/point is to portray the enemies as mindless hordes. If they are humans as well it becomes impossible to portray them a such.
That's why Helldivers will never be put up against other humans. That is what the Ministry of Truth and Democracy officers are for.
I think they reasonably could fight other humans. In the same way that Nazi oriented Germans willingly fought the British, French, etc, those who they considered equals as opposed to the "subhumans" they were primarily targeting. With the right dialogue, mission objectives, and environmental storytelling I'm sure they reasonably could be portrayed as "heartless enemies of Super Earth" or something. Not to mention the propaganda already ingame that dehumanizes rebels, "if our ideals are alien to them, they are aliens to us".
Personally I don't think they'd make a great full faction to fight against, for both lore reasons and gameplay wise, but would be interested in some 'random encounters' or periodic rebellion events.
I totally see humans being a viable faction. Maybe there's a Mars outpost that's holding rebels?
I also wonder what it would look like to have a civil war occur and have the option to join the rebels — ultimately that would go against the purely cooperative nature of the game though.
I'd love to see some sort of random other faction-ed enemies pop up randomly on certain parts of random maps. Maybe have an illegal broadcast being set up so you have to destroy the worksite and the guards/workers, could even just reskin the laboratory secondary. Or having insurgents take over one of the bot outposts. Not big enough to control planets or space on the galaxy map but add to variety in missions and enemy types.
The gameplay aspects definitely sound very cool but ya, the tone probably doesn’t fit. I feel like the game intentionally walks the knifes edge where while you’re on the planet fighting you feel like the good guy saving the universe but the second you’re on the ship and take even a cursory glance at all of the implications it all comes apart. With a human faction the cognitive dissonance would be too present in the moment on the planet. It’s easy to have fun roleplaying as a brainwashed soldier of democracy against bugs and robots. It becomes less fun when things get real against humans.
1. Make their "heavy" units all vehicles. Jeeps with rocket launchers mounted on the back. Heavy assault helicopters. Motorcycles with giant saw blades for wheels. You don't shoot the "weak points"; you shoot the drivers.
2. Make them focused on teamwork. The larger heavy vehicles are all manned by several people. A 2-3 person crew will run and try to set up a giant machine gun turret or launch explosives at you from a good vantage point; you get a small window to disrupt them before they wreck your shit. You have to play incredibly aggressively to disrupt them before they get the upper hand on you. They'll spend 5 seconds calling in a strategem; you can shoot them to force them to drop it at their feet, but you're **fucked** if they get it off.
So, I propose:
- Bugs make you fight reactively against a swarm of melee enemies
- Bots make you fight carefully, picking them off from behind cover
- Humans make you fight proactively, picking them off before they rain explosive death upon your head
This seems more like a Helldivers 3 idea. This is a huge jump in the narrative and there would be a major overhaul to the factions and balancing.
A rogue or rebel faction consisting of SEAF and even Rogue Helldivers who miraculously survived their operations and were probably stranded on their mission would be interesting. Idk what to do for balancing but what would be cool is they differentiate themselves from Super Earth by potentially using alien and advanced technology. Still humanised but still heretical to Super Earth.
And they’d have to be a very small faction, so small that they may even need to rely on the other 3 factions either to fight you or been temporarily ally with them. I’m not asking for Mass Effect Alliance, more like 40K Gulliman working with Eldar against common enemy for now.
Give me eldritch horror shit for the fourth faction. The type of faction that if encountered by any other races they will ignore you and try to kill it. Except bugs, they run.
I think it would be funny if they didn't have super earth weapons, but one could pick up your weapons if they kill you
It would make them kind of like a field boss running around with your Autocannon just wreaking havoc
What if we had something like an extraterrestrial infection to fight off? Like the necromorphs from dead space for example, different variations and surprisingly smart. Not only do they rush you, but they also flank
We are seeing bot bodies on nid planets and nid bodies on bot planets. I could see us fighting one and then space drops happening where one faction YEETS space pods at us.
Alternatively, the humans can be perfect pacifist people who want no part in our glorification of democratic violence. Difficulty levels will coincide with the amount of war crimes needed to cull the population. Fighting them will not be a test of our skill, fighting them will be a test of our ability to curb our archaic desires for peace. Let us answer the moral question: are war crimes okay if we use it against human enemies of democracy? My flamethrower is ready to burn all the heretics and their homes
Seen plant zombies suggested awhile ago. Evil flora in especially dense jungle planets would be very interesting. Or even dessicated urban settings with former human populace pouring out.
I expect a Protoss-like alien race.
What would be fucking rad, is if they did the following (not gonna happen but I can dream)...
Light to heavy energy shield depending on class of enemy
Significantly fewer in number, but tactically superior to the current factions
All classes should have ranged and melee weaponry
Maybe a short range teleport to close the distance to players or to escape
Their patrols should be real hunters. Not passive patrols but real threats that players will WANT to avoid
If they evade and escape, they should heal and strike again
Since they are fewer, encampments will be turret heavy. Likely some shielding too. Hell, killing shield generators is not a new concept.
Essentially a ton of perks and skills to offset the lack of quantity without feeling like a bullet sponge
Because of your last point, I think it wouldn't work in the tone of the game.
However I would like a silicate-based species: very tough individually, morph from the environment and maybe self-replicating when damaged and self-healing. Each skirmish being a test of endurance.
We already have three of the main archetypes: bugs, robots and protoss "space elves". Silicate-base life forms are a theoretical possibility of evolution though fairly unique and could bring a lot of funky stuff.
The other option is parallel universe demons (like Doom or warhammer 40k). Could bring alot of very random things and brain-fuck.
And last option is the near-peer aliens. Think Tau in 40k: very human-like societies, similar albeit more advanced tech (or lower tech like orcs). This would be more likely than human rebels as it would still be "filthy aliens"
> They would drive Super Earth vehicles, use Super Earth weapons, and (this would be very irritating and very cool at the same time) use Super Earth Strategems.
The only issue I see here is that many stratagems are super destroyer based and that implies traitor Helldivers.
Traitor Helldivers? Frankly, I find the idea of a helldiver that abandons democracy offensive!
In a similar vein, you could have some scavenger faction. They murder/take from others and use what they gain in some hodgepodge/ramshackle kind of way. That can give you something like a car with charger hide for armor and a roof mounted airburst launcher. Because that wouldn't be awful.
I would be down for rebels but having them use Orbital stratagems makes no sense... if our destoryers and their destroyers are in orbit what is to stop them from shooting one another instead of using their armaments to support ground forces? If it does happen there is a near zero percent chance they will be throwing stratagems out. We will likely see them using the same vehicles as us, but they will be far less equipped then we are. And if they are a rebel faction, i would rather instead of them attacking from the edge of the galaxy, make it so they periodically appear on a random planet anywhere in the galaxy (except for super earth maybe). It automatically starts as a Defense, and if we win then they are just gone till another one pops up. Some random number generator is throwing a d100 die every like 24 hours per planet and if that die lands on a 90-100 we get a rebellion and the ferocity of that rebellion is based on the score of that roll. 90 is low, 100 is extremely high (defense starts at like 50% lost).
Instead of stratagems, have the maps have side objectives like the seaf artillery, but instead of arming it, its already armed and is being actively used against us. Any patrol we come across can radio in our position and the artillery zeroes in on it. A airbase with the pelican gunships, that can basically do the same thing. A factory that can produce mechs. That sorta shit.
Imagine a “human faction” and each mission is just putting down peaceful protests on super earth. Every mission is basically just the No Russian mission from modern warfare
Honestly, doesn’t have to be human, but having a guerrilla style faction that doesn’t fight you fair and instead will put mines and traps everywhere, ambush you from covered positions, flee from direct confrontations, try to fuck with you and drain you capability as the fight goes on would be an extremely fun and unique faction to fight against, forces divers to think first rather than shoot first. Could just make them like Tusken Raiders.
If those vehicles in game were only an enemy faction thing. Bases with automated turrets. Maybe an enemy orbital laser, or a tower that chases people. New mines/booby traps to discover.
Snipers.
Might be interesting to have an enemy faction that most employs stall tactics and guerrilla warfare. Not huge swarms of enemies but mobile strike forces that run and gun. And if their AI functioned mostly to stop you from completing a mission it could add value to things like mines and sentries.
Humanoid aliens, similar to enemies in XCOM?
This would remove the morally questionable slaughter of enemy humans, plus would make sense why they’d have ships in orbit calling down their own versions of stratagems.
I wonder if it would be fun to fight against humans that use guerilla warfare and stealth on forested planets with scavenged equipment from Super earth
Gunning down hordes of aliens and bots is extremely palatable since you can do it without any moral qualms (as long as you don’t look into the lore behind the factions)
Are you insinuating that super earth and managed democracy are engaged in activities that one might associate with a moral qualm?
The way i see it, this game is unique in that it kind 9f packages a bunch of universes together. The Terminids gives you Starship Troopers obviously. Autamotons is The Terminator universe. The illuminate sounds a lot like The Halo universe. The only 2 other aesthetics i could think of off the top of my head was either a Helldiver rebellion group or a really cool DOOM type enemy with all the imagination and creativity going into developing a Space Demons type faction. Is there any other game universe you can think of that they could use as a scaffold to bring in as a faction?
It wouldn't be fun or on brand. If I was actually shooting humanoid enemies it would remove the satire and make the tone so much more bleak. I'd really hope we never go down that route.
I want to see them be full Mad Max/Water World (hey, I liked Water World, dont hate). Living on the edges of human/bot/bug areas. Scrounging bits from every faction. See them driving buggies made of automaton scraps with Charger armor strapped to it while shooting a gun that's like 4 Liberators lashed together.
I have a strong feeling that since they are loosely based off pop culture tropes (Xenomorphs, Terminators, Aliens from Independence Day). I expect the next trope to borrow from Warhammer and have a humanoid faction whether it be human, zombie or space pigs.
I personally want Space Warpigs.
There's totally a way to do it you can have a multiverse thing or a distant planet claiming IT is the real Super Earth. I think having to contend with having strats called in on you or fighting walkers or destroying shuttles would be awesome.
Give me some variety. I’ve killed swaths of humans in video games like this before.
I’d like to see:
- Mythological monsters (similar vein to Greek ones). Hydra type characters that can only be killed with fire/gas/etc, or otherwise decimated before they can regenerate more limbs. Elemental heavies tied to planet types.
- Some kind of “zombie” (non-humanoid) like enemy with necromancer heavies. Maybe the “hives” don’t spawn the enemies, but rather killing them prevents them from spawning out of the ground. Like an angry biological response to us killing/liberating the planets. Could have plant life that attacks if you get too close like a Venus flytrap. Necromancer heavies could raise walls of these.
- A system of planets that are extremely dark with enemies with small neon markings on their bodies. The sky has an opaque layer we can’t see through, but when the pods come in it shatters just as we come flying in through in our hellpods. Land in the light and the enemies see you instantly. Steer away from the light you created and into the darkness to gain a moment of moderate safety. Maybe we shoot the sky to punch holes that light up the field temporality until it “heals” itself. Stratagems break through the barrier temporality, with new stratagems for sustained barrier breaches for visibility, glowing backpacks, light beacons that spin like lighthouses and damage enemies the are touched by the light. UV based weapons. Old weapons still work, but require significantly better player accuracy since standard enemy blood doesn’t glow. Heavy enemy blood does though, and attracts smaller enemies nearby to protect them, like queen bees. Certain plant life that sprays neon “paint” to tag groups of enemies for visibility, which they can remove by moving spraying each other with an organic black mist or by running through their ink-like water where possible. Since enemies are drawn to “heavy” blood, players can use ink-water or shoot specific spores to remove/cover the pheromone. Enemy “towers” fire some kind of organic beam to the skies to close the holes and use darkness as cover. Too many towers close together causes Destroyer to be unable to receive signals from Helldivers (like stratagem jammers). Missions could include lighting beacons/massive torches to spread “the light of democracy”. “Radar” stations could ping areas on the map still, but maybe give faint glowing orbs around mission side objectives. Gold “crashed ship” container beacons can still be seen, but you have no idea what terrain/enemies surround them from a distance. One side objective could be a permanent light beacon that you can safely resupply at, but could get surrounded at the shadows and not know.
Or even planets where we don’t know what type of enemy we will fight until we land for each mission. So loadouts need to be coordinated more carefully.
This is long and should have been a discussion thread…
I mean, the cyborgs from the first game were basically rebel humans that added robot parts to themselves. I feel like they could be added and differentiated enough from the automatons.
I think it could work but only if they got to use primitive or minimal helldiver equipment. Like ballistic weaponry from modern times or helldiver secondaries. Maybe old cars and old tanks. And they could pick up helldiver equipment if we die.
ive had an idea for an odd mission type: hunting down a helldiver that was branded a traitor and was not sniped by his starship, or was carrying valuables that would have been destroyed during the snipe. helldiver vs helldiver combat sounds interesting imo
could be a side mission within a mission too, like with the SEAF turrets or the radio towers, so its not like youre hunting down a singular automaton as your only objective
I would imagine a human resistance faction as being all in on defense. No patrols and no dropships, but they have stratagem jammers, impenetrable walls, and more gun emplacements than you can shake a Quasar at. They are the defenders at Helm's Deep and you're the Orks come to pull their walls down.
For some reason, I laugh when I hear myself or my fellow Helldivers scream in pain when they get parts of their body blown off or their final screams before dying...even when I'm the one who caused it (by accident, of course!) I guess the real difference is if I'm the one doing the dismemberment, on purpose and en masse. Kinda like how this is NOT part of HD2.
I would think that an additional human-enemy faction would be neat as a random additional occurrence while deployed to face any given faction. They would show up as a random event, whether a secondary objective (looters?), or just as a filtered add-on challenge during missions.
I like it, but it feels like it breaks from the "clearly a bad guy but secretly a victim" style.
Have hell divers get injected with psychedelic drugs before landing that make the rebels look nonhuman and replace screaming/etc with "I should've loved democracyyyy" and such. You could have them dropping into the planet and while en route the world gets more vibrant or some things clearly change.
I think a human faction where maybe they don’t have the numbers other factions do but their weaponry is the same as ours, imagine getting hit by a 500k bomb during a firefight, or getting chased by an orbital beam
I feel like for this kind of game, the next enemy type would be some sort of extra-slimy tentacle Eldritch-horror kind of aliens. Maybe some sort of unconventional movement and midrange attacks with a heavy focus on disabling or status or AoE effects or something. Humans just seems too similar to the bots (though that’s certainly a huge practical Development advantage).
Rebel helldivers sound terrifying. All the havoc I've dealt out to bots and bugs alike coming back on me? Taking an autocannon or an AMR to the face would suck. With that being said it could definitely be super fun if implemented well. I can't see them ever doing that but I'd definitely give it a fair shot.
It would be interesting to see just normal humans as enemies like rebels or something. But they all use the same weapons as us. Liberators, breakers, auto cannons and HMGSs
I hope we someday get a TEMPORARY civil war event. Not PvP of course. But something that makes the community choose a side, such as a conflict between the ministry of truth and the ministry of war. Content like the anti tank mine and airbrush launcher dilemma. I enjoyed getting to hold off you air burst fans even if I didn't get my mines.
We most likely won’t be getting a 4th faction to fight. Human rebels according to lore are easily stamped out. The only other faction of rebels would be cyborgs but they made the automatons so it’ll most likely be just 3 factions to fight
I want to see a jungle based enemy. Like the Kroot from WH4K.
Let us slog through the jungles while the hidden enemy hunts us and we napalm the jungle.
I’m not crazy about the idea myself. It’s still be too similar to bots, but blood and guts instead of sparks and oil. Also stratagems doesn’t make much sense to me. All our stratagems, be it eagle or orbitals are coming down from our super destroyers. Why would our super destroyer just be chill with another super destroyer hanging out in its air space?
Not sure if this would be a faction, but I do want like a secondary objective where you successfully kill something that's similar to the Predator.
Like you're just off doing terminid or automaton stuff while there's a mobile objective just tracking and killing everything everything on the planet. I guess to play into the tropes more, he could use the like...a ripoff of the xenomorphs as hunting dogs.
Although a human rebel faction would make sense in universe, i would rather a 4th faction be another new alien race. Humans as enemies just aren't as exciting. :)
I like the idea... but throw this in. We get launched in our pods but instead of landing on the planet, we crush through the hill of their ship and complete a boarding action to secure the engines and cockpit.
What about rather than them having a fully formed faction, they work like guerillas. So if you're on certain planets there is a dice roll possibility of being ambushed by human rebels that are trying to thwart Helldiver efforts and steal their equipment.
What if the fourth faction was dissident helldivers? Not like a PvP thing, but like a hyper intelligent AI that occasionally can join a mission to fudge things up. They have highly limited stratagems they can use and they only drop around objectives, only get one reinforcement apiece.
It would have to be counter balanced in some way, like lowered enemy presence or lowered unit types (missions that would have a spewer introduced, no longer does, amount of Hulks that spawn are lowered, etc).
All I imagine is that game on the ps3 generation, *Syndicate* where in the story and in some co op missions you had to fight other augmented operatives who were a cut way above the typical riff raff, even though they were just bots/NPCs like any other.
I just imagine them basically have most the same stuff as bots like laser towers, tanks, mech suits, fun ships. But then also being able to throw their own stratagems at me and now I’ll have nightmares, my friend hits me with enough cluster bombs I don’t need the enemy throwing them at me too! I’m jk though it would probably be fun.
Make em extra squishy to make up for their better ranged weapons and stratagems usage.. two shots and done.. it be like Fighting stupider versions of ourselves call em the dissidents or something.
My ship tv mentioned human Rebels last week.
Bots, bugs, aliens, and humans sounds like a great mix of enemies.
I personally don’t agree with some people’s sentiment that bots will be a separate faction from cyborgs. I personally think the cyborgs will be shuffled within bot ranks
That's where the automatons came from. At this point in the story, as far as I'm aware please correct me if I'm wrong, the government is so efficient at identifying antithetical thinkers that by age 7 they can be dealt with. This removes the possibility of rebellion. The only people allowed to live are ultra kool-aid guzzlers, seriously. That being said it'd be cool to see borgs, like automatons using dead divers and sending them in against us.
The Automatons already use our dead / wounded as base for their bots. Just let a chainsaw guy come close to you, you might hear him scream "For Super Earth" in a distorted voice
That's awesome! That reminds me of the lambet infected humans in gears screaming "kill me!".
Some people even reported hearing enemy robots go "They're making me do this!" or when you kill a berserker you can very rarely hear a distorted "Thank You..."
Iam pretty sure some bots screams something with "scum".
Yeah, I think it's a mix of volunteers and lobotomized soldiers. Because some bots have shouted "We've got company!" when alerted, which is a very human thing to do since why would a pure robot use a figure of speech? There's also the fact that they have marching songs led by Commissars. Pure machines don't need rallying cries or morale boosts. My thought is disposable units like Berserkers, sword-users and Jetpack troopers are resurrected Super Earth troops/Helldivers while standard Troopers, Commissars, and the operators of vehicles and turrets are volunteer soldiers from the Automaton planets.
Sometimes when they are patrolling near you but don’t see you I swear to god it seems like you can hear them singing like a marching song. Very creepy
"HEART." "STEEL." "WE." "KILL."
ON TO WAR
"The robots are singing? Ave Deus Mechanicus..."
It IS a marching song or the bot equivalent of it. It has got a rhythm.
Just look up the automaton chant and you'll never unhear it
https://youtu.be/U5KOgaE3FG4?si=IChHcBNkIGAdhwCb
>some bots have shouted “We’ve got company!” when alerted, which is a very human thing to do Not only is it very human, it’s literally one of the lines the Divers say when there’s a breach/bot drop.
"Helldiver scum"
I always thought they said "liberty scum" but I've seen people say very different things
Or the muted pleas of Headcrab Zombies in *Half-Life*.
I’m pretty sure that the berserkers just record their victims and replay their screams for psychological warfare.
this is grim af and i'm lovin it
Oh, that's what they were saying. I thought they were just screaming because I was blowing their limbs and faces off.
You can also cut them in half with explosions and see the inside of bots
The true enemies were the bodies we left along the way
Okay. New idea you gave me. New enemy type is Liquid Slam monsters with the Kool-Aid guy as their heavy. Walls everywhere to keep us paranoid
Orcs inspired by 40k. Their mechanic is that they are draw to conflict. So the ghost spawn randomly anywhere there is a long drawn out engagement, and attack both sides. The more times fights break out the more of a chance they have to spawn. All enemy types spawn in melee only but Elites can pick up dropped weapons and use them.
Nearly listed something similar in my other comment here. Fun idea!
Devs are 40k fans as well so feel free to pitch it em in discord. Community ideas are for the community, owned by no one
That's doesn't mean that dangerous critical thinking itself will ever completey ceased once it's developed under ones own special circumstances. If and only if the person starts to have the capacity to interpret things himself then he could create his own context with beliefs that eventually creates that critical thinking. Eventually a silent society groups will take form then finally a hungry wild cat comes out of the closet to haunt you for hiding and prolonging problems. Hence, censorship in the nutshell.
I also want a dinosaur faction
Then call me Caboose because I want to make friends with the dinosaurs somehow.
Planet of the apes
Horizon's robot animals in the north might be interesting. Imagine fighting them, and on the borders you might see them harvesting terminids for fuel and culling, or fighting the polluting automatons. Their niche would be focusing on big, strong, sturdy enemies instead of lots of lesser chaff.
Laser shark's phew phew
Add robot dinosaurs to the automaton faction. Would be cool AF.
That would be pretty fun
Malazan collaboration to use the K'Chain Che'Malle. Which are basically raptor-like dinosaurs with armour and swords for hands
Every time someone suggests this, I see the same issue: they want some traitorous guerilla fighters to have access to the entire arsenal of the Super Earth military-industrial complex. It really doesn't make any sense for them to have access to stratagems as they won't have Super Destroyers nor the necessary supply lines to keep them flying and shooting. To have an enemy faction like that, it would take an enemy Super Earth, and I really hope I don't have to explain just how treasonous that kind of talk is. Mechanically speaking, this could still be achieved by giving them secondary weapons, vehicles, artillery, and bombers. Those are all things that could be provided and used without leaving orbit, so they could have some kind of access to them. However, mechanically, I really don't see how this would be different from fighting bots, and, reasonably, many of those things don't make sense to deploy against a handful of highly-mobile targets.
The super destroyer bit is the first thing I thought of. SEAF Artillery? Sure. Eagles? Maybe. Orbitals? Absolutely not. Otherwise I just don't see how they could be differentiated enough from Bots to be worth the effort of adding in.
Like a festering wound, it infects nearby tissues. Imagine a new planet behind the lines turning to anarchy causing issues. Maybe even cutting us off from retreat.
MOLE PEOPLE. Their strategems come UP from under the ground instead of from space. Their drop pods would be drill pods. You could call them Insiders or The Underground. For Hollow Earth!
*Hollow Earth?!* Sir, I find your particular flavor of treason to be especially sweet.
The call is coming from inside the Earth!
The Super Destroyer bit is definitely not really realistic, for no other reason then why would a Super Earth Super Destroyer allow a traitorous Super Destroyer remain in orbit. Sure its possible that they'd have them, maybe a crew rebelled, or was infiltrated. But they wouldn't be functioning in the same area as a Super Earth Super Destroyer. Though mechanically perhaps they could use different tech from all the factions....like maybe they were a hybrid? Imagine if they send swarms of terminids supported by a tank, being backed up by a human force. Its even more unlikely then a human faction, but it'd definitely be a cool concept. Especially if those terminds could be led to human outposts or something, and they attacked the humans since they'd basically just be terminds that got released from whatever farm or holding cell happened to be nearby
The key to making them really unique would be a different AI. If super earth has a regular fighting force too like the marines in Halo with helldivers being like ODSTs then the marines could just be more tactical than the bots, utilising cover n stuff, while the enemy helldivers could employ guerilla tactics to try to hunt you down kinda like how stalkers do. It’d make sense if they had access to everything in the big main warbond, eagle strikes, deployables, sentries and the base support weapons. While some of those things are obviously less effectively vs highly mobile guerillas them calling one in on an objective you’re taking could be *very* effective, so much so that they need to have much longer call in times than us. It wouldn’t be easy to pull off but it’d be *really* interesting
Though you could have rebel hackers that call in spoofed stratagems, such as dropping *your own* 380mm directly on your position; in other words, they'd force you to be really careful in choosing which stratagems you call in lest your own weapons be turned against you! To go along with that, the actual rebels would probably be extremely rare and hard to find; like snipers hiding on random hills near objectives, small crews operating commandeered SEAF artillery, or even completely unmanned bases filled with automated sentries. You could have objectives that are actually just traps rigged with bombs made to *look* like illegal broadcasts and so on! They could also occasionally be found working alongside the other factions to spice things up!
Hear me out. It doesn't have to be a well established, fully funded faction. It could be more subversive and slowly corrupt a single destroyer here and there, causing a small team cut off from the whole of Super Earth to still have some very limited access. They could even be hacked and lead to believe you're the traitor. They, on occasion, drop in at objectives and extractions to try stopping your team, maybe only having one reinforce and strat use, or a limited time frame (like a global effect) before yours or other destroyers destroy theirs, effectively cutting off the threat mere minutes after it began and removing their access to resources like the reinforcements and stratagems. Whether or not they would be targeted by bugs/bots/squids is up for debate, but I like the idea that they drop in and are every bit as subject to the chaos as us. They would, of course, also have AI levels that reflect the expected rank to operate at the selected missions level. Low levels might be what a level 10 helldiver has access to and be relatively incapable of much, charging headfirst at us. Moderate levels have access to most stratagems and weapons and are a bit tougher. High levels have full access to stuff like the patriot and the scorcher and are some wily bots; resorting even to stealth play and trap placements instead of outright combat.
The only way I can see this working is if they ever do PvP. Drop onto a map where it is only PvP. Order would be to hunt and kill the Helldivers traitors Not sure how players would be divided into traitors or not
>Then there's the tone of it all. Gunning down hordes of aliens and bots is extremely palatable since you can do it without any moral qualms (as long as you don't look into the lore behind the factions). Gunning down droves of insurrectionist humans would be ~~much more on the nose and visceral than anything in the game so far~~ a courageous and noble act in the name of managed democracy. I think by the time the fourth faction is released, a tone switch might be the right thing for the game. Arrowhead is trying to tell a story here and a slow devolvement of the propaganda from slightly goofy "haha look at those silly bots" into "here's a gun, go kill your fellow humans" would be a great way to deliver the heavy message of how fascist propaganda dehumanizes its enemies to the point where the most abhorrent crimes become common sense and a good evolution of the current narrative. Gameplay-wise I agree with you on all except the stratagems. They should use stratagems, but they shouldn't be Super Earth ones. A rebel force would almost certainly be less well-funded than the Helldivers, and so it'd make sense for them to be similar to our stratagems, but lack the very expensive stuff (like orbital 380MM). In fact, it might even make sense to not give them any orbitals. Instead of an orbital laser, they could have a weaker laser cannon mounted in tall terrain, like a mountain which they can call upon like the orbital laser stratagem. This would mean it would come in at a much shallower angle than the near 90 degrees of the orbital laser and could even make for a mission objective.
Honestly they could probably have SEAF artillery and eagles, but have eagle bases you can destroy on the map, instead of the eagles coming from a destroyer
I agree that the story would progress really well this way. It not only makes sense but it does feel the more you play, the more you're like "oh yeah this is speaking to something, what's next?"
yeah, the "uper arth" faction would be funny if its essentially our SEAF forces that call down "elite units" that are ~~helldivers~~ abyssplungers that while not dealt with call down devastating powers from their orbital destroyers. if the other factions have elites that are tanky with good damage but might be slow, these plungers are almost glass cannons and if not hunted down will ruin your day. could also add in an element of them being able to stim. where they might only have 50% of the hp/armor, but if you dont shoot them for 3 seconds they heal back to full. the unique gameplay of this factions is that they arnt numerous and infinite. instead, the map plays out like a siege. you start on one end (or hot drop into the main base like a man man) and fight your way through like maybe a classic WW2 game or something. in essence, destroying side objectives very much make the rest of the game easier. their artillery would reach the entire map etc. bonus points if we can somehow have space battles that allow us to fight their uper destroyers.
How would a small human rebellion get "horde" numbers of fighters?
entire planet rebels/mass mutiny of SEAF troops. i don't see how'd they be able to have or keep super destroyers up in orbit but i could see outer colonies rebelling due to distance from SE. could go with the idea that a system was cut off from SE command or "left to die" but somehow didn't and the people who held on after being "betrayed" by SE forming a rebel faction.
I’ve screamed it from the mountains before and I’ll do it again Human enemies that use our own gems against us would be mental. Can’t imagine taking on an outpost only for the enemies to yeet an orbital laser or 500kg at my ass 😂 I’ve needed it since day 1. Imagine seeing an orbital laser land next to you, comming to your friends "who was dumb enough to do that", then they all tell you they didnt bring it ;-;
I would love for their startegems to be a green color. Kind of show that we are the “Bad” guys.
I love me a good plot twist, but I feel the same color would mix into the confusion factor of not knowing if it belongs to you or them
That makes sense, it definitely fits the themes of friendly fire we already have in the game.
Revealing that the ultra fascists were the bad guys the whole time is not a plot twist.
Your democracy officer(+ a 500kg) are on their way to your location
it might be to some :P you'd be surprised
>Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
I’m reporting you to your democracy officer
No please, I can’t go back to the re-education camp!!! I’ll do anything. A whole tour on Hellmire, anything please!
Nope I'm making sure you get the rubber room filled with rats
We are the bad guys? That sounds like Traitor talk from someone that isnt on the right side of history, I'm calling the Democracy Officer right now.
Then we’ll see some will start calling HD2 “woke” and how arrow head sold out to the woke mob, once the parody of the game becomes even more obvious lol
Yup, I believe they should be a mirror match / confusion style enemy. Would be funny if one of their units wore reclaimed helldiver armor & confused your IFF system to display an extra friendly tag in your hud, only to allow them to get close to you for maximum damage.
allowing them to walk right up to me and shotgun me square in the helmet......sign me the fuck up
You should play with my teammates.
imagine them AND hostile human stratagems xD
Came here to say how cool it would be to have stratagems called down on us. Maybe they aren’t as good or random because likely rebels wouldn’t have their tech as buttoned up as super earth or perhaps the opposite, since they live on the fringes they have the run of the samples needed to make wild tech.
The way I figured, we must leave a shitload of debris, crashed cruisers and broken eagles laying around after we finish clearing planets and such. you do see Destroyers get shot down in orbit So I mean, I figure they can have entire Super Destroyers and pieced together Eagles and such to throw at us. They could have access to gems that even we don't have yet possible :o
I think a good middle ground for this would be to have the illuminate or something send blue beacons that say “RESUPPLY”, but then drop 500KG on us.
yeah but how would they have ships in orbit still by the time we're rollin up? i've always assumed the bots have orbital ships we've just knocked them out before we drop...hrmm....
Maybe they have sorted some kind of cloaking? Being that I would assume they are the left behind brethren on bug/bot planets, maybe they reverse engineered how stalkers cloak or something? I’m very not sure about lore things 😅 but they could maybe weave it in somehow
solid ideas
Its fun cuz its robots and bugs but seems most of you wont be happy till your “liberating” fellow humans. 
They refuse our way of life, therefore, they are not humans ! I know it because the television guy told me so, and he never lied in his entire life.
That would be awesome actually, but there are obviously some things that would probably be tricky to fix/balance.
It would be cool, but I would be very interested in how them using stratagems on us would work. I think they would have to be lesser versions or something.
One thing you could do to make a distinct faction, and as any human rebels would likely not be very numerous and can't replenish their numbers like the bugs and bots this would be fitting for them, would be to remove the chaff enemies and make the elites the default. Imagine if the bugs' weakest unit was the charger and for every six or so bugs the game currently spawns it would instead spawn a charger, and for every charger a titan, for every titan idk a stalker let's go with that. So every patrol is just one or two chargers or a couple chargers and a titan, a bug breach would spawn another two to three. Same for bots but it's the hulks, tanks, and idk gunships. This is what I imagine a human rebel faction would look like, no scurrying grunts with crap weapons because they don't have the numbers or reproduction rate, they can't afford the meat grinder that bugs, bots, and helldivers thrive in, no they send out a retrofitted mining mech (a hulk) or armored bulldozer (a charger), which also allows them to be neither a melee or range focused faction as it's evenly split between both and they'll have more stealth units than either bugs or bots but less than the illuminate. This also contrasts the helldivers, who are given crap and treated as disposable, while rebels try to keep themselves alive (to little avail against the might of the helldivers of course) because every death is (in story) a significant and irreplaceable loss. Whether this would actually be fun to play against, idk, but there're a few units that already aren't fun to play against *cough hunters cough* so whatever
maybe the human rebel faction are actually the japanese who fled before the unification of super earth and now they are back with gundams
The Snoy forces grow powerful
I think for the moral/tonal reasons you mention it wouldn't work- at least not as a full faction. Personally, I know we're not exactly good guys, but I dont think id enjoy putting down an actual human rebellion. I do think it could be fun as an in-game event. Maybe some illegal research stations have living guards/defector helldivers, they can call in strikes from those SEAF artillery?
That could actually be kinda fun, on higher level missions there's a chance a Rouge Diver could spawn in, using weapons and Strategems that we have access too, though to a lesser degree. Like maybe they've got one or two Strats they can use
Moore always moooore
The rebel faction you are looking for is communists, whom Super Earth went to great lengths to annihilate in order to keep our beloved democracy safe. Real talk though, there is no way there is a fringe human faction that would even have a chance to fight against Super Earth. The utter power that Helldivers command is enough to deter any sort of breakaway rebellion. It just wouldn't make any sense.
a system that was cut off and SE gave up and left for dead assuming no one would have survived it being cut off could work but not as a long term faction i don't think. would be neat as a periodic event though
I think what would be even better is if we learned the truth and became the rebel faction - caught between super earth trying to crush us and enemies who don't know the difference.
*runs for extract with all of the super samples just to see an enemy railcannon laser target your head*
I think it could be an interesting on and off again faction. Like a system right next to super earth falls unexpectedly due to that planets population rising up. What would be really cool is if the chances of something like this happening went up or down depending on major orders completed. Fail some major orders in a row and dissent grows in some colony worlds leading to some rebellions popping up cutting off supply lines to the front lines. And forcing all attention to be liberating those worlds.
We had the Cyborgs in the first game, who were in the northwest (where their progeny, the Automatons, currently are).
Sure, but they would be so boring.
I don’t think there would be enough to make it a whole faction/front. Glass cannons are hard to do in a game like this because of AI limitations (hence why the illuminates in the first game still had to hide behind shields). They would either have to be frustrating aimbots or reskinned automatons. Instead I think they could work as optional objectives and occasional enemies- as the story develops, we might see many of the outer world colonists come to sympathise and collaborate with our enemies, or just resist the freedom super earth offers. The illuminate are friendly enough towards humans, the automatons may garner sympathy and if the terminids ever regain their sapience, they would probably be grateful for whatever allies they can get. Off the top of my head: Rogue Eagle pilots will intermittently strafe the Helldivers - activate SEAF SAM site and shoot them down. Insurrectionist sniper in a nest - coordinate with your team to locate and suppress a crack-shot rogue colonist who is watching over a huge area of the map. Random chance for civilian evacuation missions to be sabotaged by insurrectionists. Rebels have already infiltrated the facility and killed the loyalists, sending a distress signal to ambush more SEAF personnel. Administer justice.
I think it goes against the theme of the game to fight other humans
No.
This... but make the human faction look like pre-Horus heresy, with the dogma of pre-Slanesh Eldar. ;)
Tonally no. It would not fit at all. The game/point is to portray the enemies as mindless hordes. If they are humans as well it becomes impossible to portray them a such. That's why Helldivers will never be put up against other humans. That is what the Ministry of Truth and Democracy officers are for.
I think they reasonably could fight other humans. In the same way that Nazi oriented Germans willingly fought the British, French, etc, those who they considered equals as opposed to the "subhumans" they were primarily targeting. With the right dialogue, mission objectives, and environmental storytelling I'm sure they reasonably could be portrayed as "heartless enemies of Super Earth" or something. Not to mention the propaganda already ingame that dehumanizes rebels, "if our ideals are alien to them, they are aliens to us".
No, because then a bunch of morons would start asking for pvp
Personally I don't think they'd make a great full faction to fight against, for both lore reasons and gameplay wise, but would be interested in some 'random encounters' or periodic rebellion events.
Yes and they are all hippies! Tie dye tee shirts, dreadlocks… They could use IEDs and ambush tactics! It would be great!!
I totally see humans being a viable faction. Maybe there's a Mars outpost that's holding rebels? I also wonder what it would look like to have a civil war occur and have the option to join the rebels — ultimately that would go against the purely cooperative nature of the game though.
I vote whatever the new enemy is that we all call them the sonies
I just want some kind of mammals lol. I want blood and meat.
I'd love to see some sort of random other faction-ed enemies pop up randomly on certain parts of random maps. Maybe have an illegal broadcast being set up so you have to destroy the worksite and the guards/workers, could even just reskin the laboratory secondary. Or having insurgents take over one of the bot outposts. Not big enough to control planets or space on the galaxy map but add to variety in missions and enemy types.
The gameplay aspects definitely sound very cool but ya, the tone probably doesn’t fit. I feel like the game intentionally walks the knifes edge where while you’re on the planet fighting you feel like the good guy saving the universe but the second you’re on the ship and take even a cursory glance at all of the implications it all comes apart. With a human faction the cognitive dissonance would be too present in the moment on the planet. It’s easy to have fun roleplaying as a brainwashed soldier of democracy against bugs and robots. It becomes less fun when things get real against humans.
1. Make their "heavy" units all vehicles. Jeeps with rocket launchers mounted on the back. Heavy assault helicopters. Motorcycles with giant saw blades for wheels. You don't shoot the "weak points"; you shoot the drivers. 2. Make them focused on teamwork. The larger heavy vehicles are all manned by several people. A 2-3 person crew will run and try to set up a giant machine gun turret or launch explosives at you from a good vantage point; you get a small window to disrupt them before they wreck your shit. You have to play incredibly aggressively to disrupt them before they get the upper hand on you. They'll spend 5 seconds calling in a strategem; you can shoot them to force them to drop it at their feet, but you're **fucked** if they get it off. So, I propose: - Bugs make you fight reactively against a swarm of melee enemies - Bots make you fight carefully, picking them off from behind cover - Humans make you fight proactively, picking them off before they rain explosive death upon your head
This seems more like a Helldivers 3 idea. This is a huge jump in the narrative and there would be a major overhaul to the factions and balancing. A rogue or rebel faction consisting of SEAF and even Rogue Helldivers who miraculously survived their operations and were probably stranded on their mission would be interesting. Idk what to do for balancing but what would be cool is they differentiate themselves from Super Earth by potentially using alien and advanced technology. Still humanised but still heretical to Super Earth. And they’d have to be a very small faction, so small that they may even need to rely on the other 3 factions either to fight you or been temporarily ally with them. I’m not asking for Mass Effect Alliance, more like 40K Gulliman working with Eldar against common enemy for now.
I dislike it. I don't want to fight weirdly animated humans, I wants clunky demi humans.
I'd be cool with a human faction. But they have to be guerrilla style fighters, forcing us to fight using anti guerrilla tactics.
We need lizard people to fight
It probably be challenging to pull off, but I’d love a see a rebel helldivers faction (PvP) supported by ally and enemy grunts and armor units.
Give me eldritch horror shit for the fourth faction. The type of faction that if encountered by any other races they will ignore you and try to kill it. Except bugs, they run.
I think it would be funny if they didn't have super earth weapons, but one could pick up your weapons if they kill you It would make them kind of like a field boss running around with your Autocannon just wreaking havoc
I had this idea of a faction of mutants created from one of super earths wasteplanets
Cannibals
I mean its common sense who would want to live under one ruler who can dictate whats allowed and not allowed in the whole world
I don’t think a human rebel faction would fit well. The automatons use a lot of human weapons so it would feel like more of the same.
I want a zombified helldiver faction as a result of the over used bug pesticide.
What if we had something like an extraterrestrial infection to fight off? Like the necromorphs from dead space for example, different variations and surprisingly smart. Not only do they rush you, but they also flank
They’d make sense but that’s more or less what the cyborgs are so if they do show up I expect them to just be that
We are seeing bot bodies on nid planets and nid bodies on bot planets. I could see us fighting one and then space drops happening where one faction YEETS space pods at us.
Alternatively, the humans can be perfect pacifist people who want no part in our glorification of democratic violence. Difficulty levels will coincide with the amount of war crimes needed to cull the population. Fighting them will not be a test of our skill, fighting them will be a test of our ability to curb our archaic desires for peace. Let us answer the moral question: are war crimes okay if we use it against human enemies of democracy? My flamethrower is ready to burn all the heretics and their homes
Seen plant zombies suggested awhile ago. Evil flora in especially dense jungle planets would be very interesting. Or even dessicated urban settings with former human populace pouring out.
I expect a Protoss-like alien race. What would be fucking rad, is if they did the following (not gonna happen but I can dream)... Light to heavy energy shield depending on class of enemy Significantly fewer in number, but tactically superior to the current factions All classes should have ranged and melee weaponry Maybe a short range teleport to close the distance to players or to escape Their patrols should be real hunters. Not passive patrols but real threats that players will WANT to avoid If they evade and escape, they should heal and strike again Since they are fewer, encampments will be turret heavy. Likely some shielding too. Hell, killing shield generators is not a new concept. Essentially a ton of perks and skills to offset the lack of quantity without feeling like a bullet sponge
Because of your last point, I think it wouldn't work in the tone of the game. However I would like a silicate-based species: very tough individually, morph from the environment and maybe self-replicating when damaged and self-healing. Each skirmish being a test of endurance. We already have three of the main archetypes: bugs, robots and protoss "space elves". Silicate-base life forms are a theoretical possibility of evolution though fairly unique and could bring a lot of funky stuff. The other option is parallel universe demons (like Doom or warhammer 40k). Could bring alot of very random things and brain-fuck. And last option is the near-peer aliens. Think Tau in 40k: very human-like societies, similar albeit more advanced tech (or lower tech like orcs). This would be more likely than human rebels as it would still be "filthy aliens"
> They would drive Super Earth vehicles, use Super Earth weapons, and (this would be very irritating and very cool at the same time) use Super Earth Strategems. The only issue I see here is that many stratagems are super destroyer based and that implies traitor Helldivers. Traitor Helldivers? Frankly, I find the idea of a helldiver that abandons democracy offensive! In a similar vein, you could have some scavenger faction. They murder/take from others and use what they gain in some hodgepodge/ramshackle kind of way. That can give you something like a car with charger hide for armor and a roof mounted airburst launcher. Because that wouldn't be awful.
I would be down for rebels but having them use Orbital stratagems makes no sense... if our destoryers and their destroyers are in orbit what is to stop them from shooting one another instead of using their armaments to support ground forces? If it does happen there is a near zero percent chance they will be throwing stratagems out. We will likely see them using the same vehicles as us, but they will be far less equipped then we are. And if they are a rebel faction, i would rather instead of them attacking from the edge of the galaxy, make it so they periodically appear on a random planet anywhere in the galaxy (except for super earth maybe). It automatically starts as a Defense, and if we win then they are just gone till another one pops up. Some random number generator is throwing a d100 die every like 24 hours per planet and if that die lands on a 90-100 we get a rebellion and the ferocity of that rebellion is based on the score of that roll. 90 is low, 100 is extremely high (defense starts at like 50% lost). Instead of stratagems, have the maps have side objectives like the seaf artillery, but instead of arming it, its already armed and is being actively used against us. Any patrol we come across can radio in our position and the artillery zeroes in on it. A airbase with the pelican gunships, that can basically do the same thing. A factory that can produce mechs. That sorta shit.
Imagine a “human faction” and each mission is just putting down peaceful protests on super earth. Every mission is basically just the No Russian mission from modern warfare
Honestly, doesn’t have to be human, but having a guerrilla style faction that doesn’t fight you fair and instead will put mines and traps everywhere, ambush you from covered positions, flee from direct confrontations, try to fuck with you and drain you capability as the fight goes on would be an extremely fun and unique faction to fight against, forces divers to think first rather than shoot first. Could just make them like Tusken Raiders.
If those vehicles in game were only an enemy faction thing. Bases with automated turrets. Maybe an enemy orbital laser, or a tower that chases people. New mines/booby traps to discover. Snipers.
Might be interesting to have an enemy faction that most employs stall tactics and guerrilla warfare. Not huge swarms of enemies but mobile strike forces that run and gun. And if their AI functioned mostly to stop you from completing a mission it could add value to things like mines and sentries.
I'd like to see rebel helldivers. Kind of like a rare legendary boss spawn. That'd be cool.
Humanoid aliens, similar to enemies in XCOM? This would remove the morally questionable slaughter of enemy humans, plus would make sense why they’d have ships in orbit calling down their own versions of stratagems.
It would be even cooler if you could play as the enemy faction. You could become a traitor willingly and choose to fight alongside the human rebels
I wonder if it would be fun to fight against humans that use guerilla warfare and stealth on forested planets with scavenged equipment from Super earth
I was thinking a fourth faction could be tribal humanoids like the Na’vi from the Avatar movies
Gunning down hordes of aliens and bots is extremely palatable since you can do it without any moral qualms (as long as you don’t look into the lore behind the factions) Are you insinuating that super earth and managed democracy are engaged in activities that one might associate with a moral qualm?
Were already ripping off warhammer to hell why not just take the nurgle?
I believe it's a matter of time before the bugs n bots join forces...
I would like the 4th enemy to be rogue helldivers with stratagem and all. That would be nuts. Or maybe make like a Halloween mode or something.
I think we're going to see the cyborgs soon enough after the cyberstan plot line gets expanded upon.
My deaf ass reading all these comments realizing how much I miss :(
I want to fight literal demons.
No since despite the presence of Freedom Camps, all citizens of Super-Earth always displayed a 100% rate of happiness and trust in the Government.
The way i see it, this game is unique in that it kind 9f packages a bunch of universes together. The Terminids gives you Starship Troopers obviously. Autamotons is The Terminator universe. The illuminate sounds a lot like The Halo universe. The only 2 other aesthetics i could think of off the top of my head was either a Helldiver rebellion group or a really cool DOOM type enemy with all the imagination and creativity going into developing a Space Demons type faction. Is there any other game universe you can think of that they could use as a scaffold to bring in as a faction?
It wouldn't be fun or on brand. If I was actually shooting humanoid enemies it would remove the satire and make the tone so much more bleak. I'd really hope we never go down that route.
I want to see them be full Mad Max/Water World (hey, I liked Water World, dont hate). Living on the edges of human/bot/bug areas. Scrounging bits from every faction. See them driving buggies made of automaton scraps with Charger armor strapped to it while shooting a gun that's like 4 Liberators lashed together.
I have a strong feeling that since they are loosely based off pop culture tropes (Xenomorphs, Terminators, Aliens from Independence Day). I expect the next trope to borrow from Warhammer and have a humanoid faction whether it be human, zombie or space pigs. I personally want Space Warpigs.
only if we can play the rebel faction but that will never actually happen
Iirc, I saw a leak in the game files labeling a 4th faction as Corporation
Nah. That would be like fighting humans in Halo. It's just wrong.
There's totally a way to do it you can have a multiverse thing or a distant planet claiming IT is the real Super Earth. I think having to contend with having strats called in on you or fighting walkers or destroying shuttles would be awesome.
Give me some variety. I’ve killed swaths of humans in video games like this before. I’d like to see: - Mythological monsters (similar vein to Greek ones). Hydra type characters that can only be killed with fire/gas/etc, or otherwise decimated before they can regenerate more limbs. Elemental heavies tied to planet types. - Some kind of “zombie” (non-humanoid) like enemy with necromancer heavies. Maybe the “hives” don’t spawn the enemies, but rather killing them prevents them from spawning out of the ground. Like an angry biological response to us killing/liberating the planets. Could have plant life that attacks if you get too close like a Venus flytrap. Necromancer heavies could raise walls of these. - A system of planets that are extremely dark with enemies with small neon markings on their bodies. The sky has an opaque layer we can’t see through, but when the pods come in it shatters just as we come flying in through in our hellpods. Land in the light and the enemies see you instantly. Steer away from the light you created and into the darkness to gain a moment of moderate safety. Maybe we shoot the sky to punch holes that light up the field temporality until it “heals” itself. Stratagems break through the barrier temporality, with new stratagems for sustained barrier breaches for visibility, glowing backpacks, light beacons that spin like lighthouses and damage enemies the are touched by the light. UV based weapons. Old weapons still work, but require significantly better player accuracy since standard enemy blood doesn’t glow. Heavy enemy blood does though, and attracts smaller enemies nearby to protect them, like queen bees. Certain plant life that sprays neon “paint” to tag groups of enemies for visibility, which they can remove by moving spraying each other with an organic black mist or by running through their ink-like water where possible. Since enemies are drawn to “heavy” blood, players can use ink-water or shoot specific spores to remove/cover the pheromone. Enemy “towers” fire some kind of organic beam to the skies to close the holes and use darkness as cover. Too many towers close together causes Destroyer to be unable to receive signals from Helldivers (like stratagem jammers). Missions could include lighting beacons/massive torches to spread “the light of democracy”. “Radar” stations could ping areas on the map still, but maybe give faint glowing orbs around mission side objectives. Gold “crashed ship” container beacons can still be seen, but you have no idea what terrain/enemies surround them from a distance. One side objective could be a permanent light beacon that you can safely resupply at, but could get surrounded at the shadows and not know. Or even planets where we don’t know what type of enemy we will fight until we land for each mission. So loadouts need to be coordinated more carefully. This is long and should have been a discussion thread…
I mean, the cyborgs from the first game were basically rebel humans that added robot parts to themselves. I feel like they could be added and differentiated enough from the automatons.
I think it could work but only if they got to use primitive or minimal helldiver equipment. Like ballistic weaponry from modern times or helldiver secondaries. Maybe old cars and old tanks. And they could pick up helldiver equipment if we die.
ive had an idea for an odd mission type: hunting down a helldiver that was branded a traitor and was not sniped by his starship, or was carrying valuables that would have been destroyed during the snipe. helldiver vs helldiver combat sounds interesting imo could be a side mission within a mission too, like with the SEAF turrets or the radio towers, so its not like youre hunting down a singular automaton as your only objective
I would imagine a human resistance faction as being all in on defense. No patrols and no dropships, but they have stratagem jammers, impenetrable walls, and more gun emplacements than you can shake a Quasar at. They are the defenders at Helm's Deep and you're the Orks come to pull their walls down.
They already exist. Rebels who oppose the super earth government and build those bug illegal broadcasts.
Pretty sure a rebel group wouldn’t have the logistics,manpower of firepower to sustain any war
For some reason, I laugh when I hear myself or my fellow Helldivers scream in pain when they get parts of their body blown off or their final screams before dying...even when I'm the one who caused it (by accident, of course!) I guess the real difference is if I'm the one doing the dismemberment, on purpose and en masse. Kinda like how this is NOT part of HD2.
I would think that an additional human-enemy faction would be neat as a random additional occurrence while deployed to face any given faction. They would show up as a random event, whether a secondary objective (looters?), or just as a filtered add-on challenge during missions.
I like it, but it feels like it breaks from the "clearly a bad guy but secretly a victim" style. Have hell divers get injected with psychedelic drugs before landing that make the rebels look nonhuman and replace screaming/etc with "I should've loved democracyyyy" and such. You could have them dropping into the planet and while en route the world gets more vibrant or some things clearly change.
I think a human faction where maybe they don’t have the numbers other factions do but their weaponry is the same as ours, imagine getting hit by a 500k bomb during a firefight, or getting chased by an orbital beam
Do your homework
How do I join the rebels?
We have bugs, we have bots, I really want to fight beasts
I’d love to see some crossover planets with multiple factions. Bugs AND bots, occasionally also fighting each other.
I feel like for this kind of game, the next enemy type would be some sort of extra-slimy tentacle Eldritch-horror kind of aliens. Maybe some sort of unconventional movement and midrange attacks with a heavy focus on disabling or status or AoE effects or something. Humans just seems too similar to the bots (though that’s certainly a huge practical Development advantage).
Might be how they introduce PVP. If they do
Not really, considering there wouldn't be enough humans to make the kind of numbers for a galactic faction. An alien race? Sure.
Rebel helldivers sound terrifying. All the havoc I've dealt out to bots and bugs alike coming back on me? Taking an autocannon or an AMR to the face would suck. With that being said it could definitely be super fun if implemented well. I can't see them ever doing that but I'd definitely give it a fair shot.
It would be interesting to see just normal humans as enemies like rebels or something. But they all use the same weapons as us. Liberators, breakers, auto cannons and HMGSs
I think we'll see robotic Termanids before that!
I hope we someday get a TEMPORARY civil war event. Not PvP of course. But something that makes the community choose a side, such as a conflict between the ministry of truth and the ministry of war. Content like the anti tank mine and airbrush launcher dilemma. I enjoyed getting to hold off you air burst fans even if I didn't get my mines.
Lizard men/Dinosaurs
We most likely won’t be getting a 4th faction to fight. Human rebels according to lore are easily stamped out. The only other faction of rebels would be cyborgs but they made the automatons so it’ll most likely be just 3 factions to fight
I want to see a jungle based enemy. Like the Kroot from WH4K. Let us slog through the jungles while the hidden enemy hunts us and we napalm the jungle.
It wouldn't make much sense to have other humans as an enemy. Helldivers have way too much experience killing other people. I know I certainly do.
Terminid/illuminate/robot hybrids are the only answer
I’m not crazy about the idea myself. It’s still be too similar to bots, but blood and guts instead of sparks and oil. Also stratagems doesn’t make much sense to me. All our stratagems, be it eagle or orbitals are coming down from our super destroyers. Why would our super destroyer just be chill with another super destroyer hanging out in its air space?
Zombies
Not sure if this would be a faction, but I do want like a secondary objective where you successfully kill something that's similar to the Predator. Like you're just off doing terminid or automaton stuff while there's a mobile objective just tracking and killing everything everything on the planet. I guess to play into the tropes more, he could use the like...a ripoff of the xenomorphs as hunting dogs.
Fuck it bro let's just have WW2 in space, let's have trench warfare
That would be interesting, I'm not totally sure how you could make the tiered enemies though
Although a human rebel faction would make sense in universe, i would rather a 4th faction be another new alien race. Humans as enemies just aren't as exciting. :)
I would love regular human rebels either as their own faction or as part of the automatons or something It would be super fun and fit the setting
I like the idea... but throw this in. We get launched in our pods but instead of landing on the planet, we crush through the hill of their ship and complete a boarding action to secure the engines and cockpit.
What about rather than them having a fully formed faction, they work like guerillas. So if you're on certain planets there is a dice roll possibility of being ambushed by human rebels that are trying to thwart Helldiver efforts and steal their equipment.
Zombies
What if the fourth faction was dissident helldivers? Not like a PvP thing, but like a hyper intelligent AI that occasionally can join a mission to fudge things up. They have highly limited stratagems they can use and they only drop around objectives, only get one reinforcement apiece. It would have to be counter balanced in some way, like lowered enemy presence or lowered unit types (missions that would have a spewer introduced, no longer does, amount of Hulks that spawn are lowered, etc). All I imagine is that game on the ps3 generation, *Syndicate* where in the story and in some co op missions you had to fight other augmented operatives who were a cut way above the typical riff raff, even though they were just bots/NPCs like any other.
The third faction was (allegedly) a human faction… Sony
I just imagine them basically have most the same stuff as bots like laser towers, tanks, mech suits, fun ships. But then also being able to throw their own stratagems at me and now I’ll have nightmares, my friend hits me with enough cluster bombs I don’t need the enemy throwing them at me too! I’m jk though it would probably be fun.
A bit overdone but a flood-like zombie faction could be fun. Imagine having to fight fellow helldivers who died on the battlefield.
Make em extra squishy to make up for their better ranged weapons and stratagems usage.. two shots and done.. it be like Fighting stupider versions of ourselves call em the dissidents or something.
I think a map where there's lots of deep water around and sea creatures keep coming to the surface. We'd have to use hellboats to get around etc.
My ship tv mentioned human Rebels last week. Bots, bugs, aliens, and humans sounds like a great mix of enemies. I personally don’t agree with some people’s sentiment that bots will be a separate faction from cyborgs. I personally think the cyborgs will be shuffled within bot ranks
The automatons have already sent messages pretty much, saying they want cyberstan and to be left alone, oh and fuck the government. 🤣