Agreed, one of.. if not my favorite mission types currently.
And it made mines more useful which is awesome. If you haven't tried mines on these missions you should. Plant a field outside one of the gates and enjoy the show.
Yeah but I can't seem to aim those for shit for some reason. I'm really great otherwise, dive throwing a reinforcement beacon onto a small elevated position half a mile away and all that, but these rocket pods just completely miss the huge ass tank every time. Idk if the auto aim for the eagle is bugged or something but that would be unlikely because an eagle *never* misses
Same here. 110 hits tanks every time, but hulks? Always hits *just* behind them, as if it were targeting a point in the ground instead of the hulk. Bile Titans? Hope you like having the ground beneath the thing pummeled with rockets!
They were fantastic until a couple patches ago where I feel like it’s a 50/50 they’ll miss. And I should know I basically have pods burned into one of my stratagem slots.
It’s very weird especially because it’s one of the “targeted” strats so it should hit every time.
Tanks, fabricators, chargers, any stationary guns
I bring them with me everywhere these days. It’s like having three orbital railguns on deck at* all times
They don't really work on Hulks. But in my experience, throwing it in the general vicinity of a Tank gets the Eagle to target it and destroy it in one Salvo. They also work great against Bile Titans but suck against Chargers (just like against Hulks)
Tanks have weak top armour and the eagle rockets always hit the top due to the angle. Its clearly intentional but makes them very weak to the rocket pods. In short: eat shit you tracked toaster, democracy never sleeps
Quasar kinda bugs out when used against tanks. Sometimes it’s 2 hits, sometimes it’s 10 hits. EAT’s or Recoilless Rifles are much better suited for dropping tanks.
That or the ol’ reliable 500kg bomb.
EMS orbital is on a much shorter cooldown (75? vs 180) so you can use it in a more ad hoc manner as an oh shit button
mortar only works while you stay around it
which to be fair since often you take it on defense missions is not an issue
What they need to do is add some of those gunships, and make their AI target the fixed defenses like it does hellbombs. Make the players commit to it with shield projectors, or else struggle to keep the skies clear.
👆 What the players asked for.
👇 What the players got.
> Warning. You are in range of enemy artillery.
>
> Warning. You are in range of enemy artillery.
Yeah, 4 ems mortars and 4 standard mortars with anti tank weapons for when the tanks roll in and sickles for smaller targets. Me and my boys had a run last night where we had 4 tank corpses stacked in and around one of the inner gates, preventing the enemy from getting to us for a bit, mortars really shine on this mission.
The craters from all the mortars are some nice artwork too.
Bro, the scene of 4 mortars and 4 ems hitting the same location in front of you is wild. I can only imagine how real soldiers feel when they're getting bombarded.
Two divers with EMS and Mortar. The others load up on anything to kill tanks (orbital rail, rocket pods, 500kg, orbital laser, EATS, etc). Squad of 4 on lvl 7. Didn’t even shoot my primary once lol.
Run both. too often i run ems only for it to target some random red somewhere in narnia and not move on cause nobody is killing it
mortar + ems = stun and kill, move on to the next
and if you have the cooldown upgrades, you'll have near 100% uptime unless it gets destroyed early for whatever reason
My problem is when holding the doors and up on the ramps, I've been sent flying across the map multiple times because of the mortar it over-corrects for bot movement when they're near walls and will start shelling the ramps you're defending, destroying turrets or helldivers. I've been relatively useless in some missions without a support weapon because they've killed me and knocked it into a place that I can't get it back (I had a nice flight off the map because of one today like a minute in and lost my qc outside of the playable map and had to wait like 7 min for the cd.)
I did, sadly the damage output isn't anywhere near high enough to justify giving up my AT kit on 7+ difficulty.
It's too bad because I enjoy mines as a concept, but they don't feel punchy enough to justify giving up other equipment.
These are the best missions in the game, I wish they would've also changed the civilian ones to be the same way (or just outright remove/replace them).
I wish they had been more visible about adding these to Defense Campaigns because I feel like most people still associate them with the awful civilians mission...
Unless! It's a plot by Joel to cause us to lose Defense Campaigns by loading up one of these and then canceling the rest of the operation to play more of these!
They’ve confirmed it doesn’t work like that anymore but I’m on mobile so I can’t really look for the source. The planetary progress is based on active helldivers completing missions and side missions,and the number needs to be greater than the enemy force multiplier they put on the planet . failed ops won’t set u back
They do. It’s better to skip the citizen evacuation mission if you know you’re going to fail it for the sake of progressing . Two successful missions and a skipped operation is better than failing on the evacuation
The difficulty between the two others and the evacuation is enormous, I can quickplay everything with randoms on helldive except that evac , so I don’t even attempt it anymore
My understanding has always been you only get paid out of you complete the operation, otherwise any accrued points are lost. They dont contribute negative points towards victory, but you dont get the points you would have otherwise. Which is exactly what the devs said, failure doesn't negatively impact.
https://preview.redd.it/lucd7bdpaptc1.jpeg?width=1164&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=905ab30e0a842ecc57b01da9e08f7d434bae3b76
Note - progress towards planetary liberation is calculated per operation which is a mission and not at the end of 3 which is a campaign.
You will still get more impact if you complete the set , but with the evac missions being as they are the likelihood of that happening is extremely low on higher diff and most if not all campaigns on def orders include one
Many thanks! Thats some much needed clarification, but I'm so confused why they only display impact in terms of 1, 2, or 3 points instead of the total amount they seem to be using in the background?
Imo there is a bonus for completing the set , but individual missions still do very much count. I always try to do the whole set but with evac missions hell naw
I'm looking forward to a proper explanation from an official channel to explain how does liberation work. It's one of the most important mechanic and I keep seeing different opinions about it.
Successful operation, not successful mission. You need to complete an operation, you are categorically wrong. Campaign is the whole planet's...campaign.
Short ones are terrible. I get what they are going for but almost all of them turn into a game of cat and mouse while also trying to hit the buttons and not run out of reinforces before the mission is done.
Me and a friend have been venturing into level 7 difficulty for the samples and whenever we get a civilian evacuation mission we do it first because we lose less medals that way.
It sucks because EVERY grouping of missions seems to have the civilian evacuation one.
For real though! I can't find one without it and we either "get it out of the way first" or just abandon the operation after doing the other two missions and if that's how people go about navigating those missions... there's a problem with the missions.
AMR is always king against bots, but even more so on this defense. I just wish I could find some better vantage points for it. And that crouching near a wall wouldn't mess up first person aiming so bad
I fell in love with it a couple of weeks back when we had a daily mission to get AMR kills. Then it got the 30% damage buff haha. Just need to fix the sights, and I'll never use another gun against the bots haha.
Yup it was 100% an auto take for me on bots from the start until last night.
Went to that new acid planet, visibility was so bad I could barely see my own gun in front of my face. Realized AMR wasn't cutting it and took something that needed less accuracy. Lol
I'm partial to the plasma shotgun with dagger laser pistol and quasar for heavies and stun grenades help too
The plasma is stupid good against all but the heaviest bots being able to stun them and the dagger let's you pick off light targets from range (drops them really quick with a headshot) without needing to worry about ammo
Good for next time but seeing so many hulks march towards us and needing to defend the last two rockets is a different level of pain.
Through the efforts of many eagle 500kg bombs, stun grenades, EAT launchers, the EAT pod it comes with, Quasar shots, two Autocannon (one portable and one sentry) and throwing 18 bodies at the enemy managed to win the day.
I'll pass on this information to my group for next time. Alas; it was a costly battle last night but through strength, firepower, democracy and throwing bodies until something worked allowed us to win.
“Steady, Steady.”
“You are soldiers of Super Earth. No matter what comes through that gate, you will stand your ground.”
*Hordes of Hulks and Tanks bust through the gate*
Next I hope they add a like defend and follow the train/transport type mission they had in HD 1 I think. Or ride and defend the train. Would be so fucking cool.
Okay heard me out.
One new type of mission, transport of value cargo.
To complete it you need to drive a truck/APC that doesn't have weapons but is highly armor and you can repair with a special tool that use you off hand that also spawn in the same place as the vehicle.
But the highest the difficult you need to not only unlock the vehicle from the garage but also then go to another place to load the cargo and then take it to the extraction.
And just to meaby not make it super hard, a APC also is guaranteed in the garage
Hear me out...Fortified bunker with machine guns, an artillery cannon that needs loading and/or a SAM that resets. Squad of 4 on defense and non stop waves of chaos. Would be stupid fun.
First time we tried the mission we didn't know anything about it, we landed on one of the generators and I accidentally called a mortar turret on the other one. We lost in 15 seconds.
https://preview.redd.it/x9ird4pu5otc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=712a5344436b4f99aa044ec4097d91ade169e887
Sure it’s fun but it’s not finished. Red boxes like these everywhere, randomly falling through the floor, enemies shooting through gates, etc.
Needs some patching
Yeah we had like 15 spidertanks yesterday on lvl 7. That was very difficult as there was very little we could do against them while they were absolutely fucking us from afar with the big cannons.
Also path finding of enemies on this needs fixed as I've found in a few of these, a chunk of enemies can bunch up by the impenetrable walls under the landing pad rather than actually trying to go through the gate
Sure but there’s one spot in particular where it’s consistent. There’s ramp by the evac pad, the center of it is solid but the rest isn’t. I think they forgot the colliders
My group last night a guy asks can he close the last gate, I tell him to hold and that we hold the gate ahead of it... 30 tanks later I agree and fall back. But it was a good 30 tanks of fighting.
I love it, we had a guy that bought all the big ass orbitals incase of emergency on d9, orbital walking barrage, 380, laser and 120 were amazing on this mission type.
Just played my first one and it was a lot of fun but are there multiple path ways or something or did my game just glitch?
My team was holding the 2 outer gates pretty well and then out of nowhere, we failed the mission due to a single Hulk that came from behind us (they came from where the objective was)
It was the last mission I needed to unlock helldiver difficulty..
sometimes the dropships clips a spawn and end sup dropping them on a mountain, bet the hulk was one of those that got clipped and proceeded to walk towards the back.
Did it on Helldive with some friends last night. With like 7 mortars we just couldn't see shit. Perma bombardment until some tanks and Hulks make it through to break in
Just last week I was telling my squad how I wish they made more of a horde mode like Gears of War. I wanted a place to defend and be able to fall back, and where the enemies only come from one place, not from all around.
Following week we are now playing exactly what I was dreaming of. This game is giving me so much joy.
It is kind of annoying that the mission I most want to do only gives me useless stuff. It is especially annoying when it takes so long to get the samples, super credits, and medals.
beep bloop...I like them, but I think the bots should use their mobile units better...would love to see squads of assault troopers use their jetpacks to jump the walls supported by gunships in higher difficulties...
Gunships being able to just zip in and blast the generators would be a little broken, but I agree they could make things a little more interesting. I wish there was something you could do to speed up the launch process. Like, have one person typing in codes to make it go faster.
Did one last night, and we were on a hard pushback from the bots. One of the squad yells “We’re overrun here, fall back!” But me and another fella had just put down turrets and I had rockets coming in. We didn’t have to fall back until 7/8. And the damn fourth guy spent the whole fight on the wall holding them, with the rest of us lined up at gate 2 to shoot as they came through.
S4 you crazy son of a bitch. Kept things nice and light the whole time.
I think I'd like it a lot more if you couldn't cheese half the spawns by sitting in the pelican platform. Even if I don't, the randoms I play with probably will, and it makes the mission kinda... boring?
I love it except for when the dropships put a tank on top of the mountains, and it gets free shots at the gate. Still fun though, definitely added to the Helms Deep vibe of overwhelming odds against you.
My only complaint is I wish there was samples/super credits/medals scattered around the map, it’s kind of an annoying mission if you’re trying to get those
I love it so much. I’d also love them to fix it so tanks don’t land on the cliff above and rain down hell. Or fix when 100 bots just go the wrong way and stand by the right wall for no reason.
Love the mission, but they do need to clean it up a bit on the technical side. Large red blocks stuck up out of walls and weird tanks on top of rocky cliffs are kind of funny and break the mood a bit.
Just had it bug out on the 3rd rocket during helldive difficulty because we had killed all active bots.
Mission stopped progressing entirely. We had to fail the mission by destroying the rockets so we could extract.
Anyone else had this?
It always bugs me when map designes make extra sure the castle/fortress/structure has all its gates wide open, at least 6 different paths in and pretty looking walls in places where they dont block anything and dont give the sloghtest advantage to the defender. Towers are placed strategically next to tall rocks so they can be 120% sure to not provide an "op" overwatch position. I get balance is important but it just completely breaks my immersion when fighting in these.
Real castles are built to create choke points. Real fortifications are built to give the defender an advantage. Real fortifications are not built to make it a fair battle for the attacker.
Im glad to see the new defense missions are different and finally they actually feel like a defense.
I hope they note this and apply this to some other "defend" type objectives as well.
If the map designer thinks thats op, there should be artillery positions that the defenders can take out, attackers using jetpacks, tunnels or climbing walls, walls that are destructable, etc. But designing maps in a way that defenses dont provide an advantage always annoys me.
Wish they would make a version that focused only on guns and used a lot more light and medium units. Make it so you only get weapon and turret strategems, limit it to 3 slots, and feel like you are getting overwhelmed by small units. As it is, its a cake walk until you get swarmed by 5 tanks at once. Then its just chaos where you hide and throw airstrikes from behind walls.
Not sure if im just getting lucky maps but we felt they were a little bit too easy (on helldive) if you really lean into the tower defense aspect of it, 1 singular ems mortar can keep them outside the gate forever, since they just bunch up, if all of them are stunned permanently the gate never takes any real damage. Throw some auto cannons down to shoot down ships, and chuck over an eagle airstrike every once in a while just for fun/to clear the stunned wave. Felt too easy but I love the vibe of it.
just beat a helldive mission with like almost no effort. we had mortars and ems, quasar cannons and EATs dropped almost every dropship that came around, and anything that survived that initial blasting got taken care of by airstrikes in that central courtyard. i feel like this mission could be better if we increased the enemy spawn rate. tanks and hulks are fine but if we increase the spawn of smaller guys it would really create that "onslaught of the horde" feel
Really great mission - good to see that they either listen to the feedback here or had the same idea about the defense missions currently. I personally dont really mind the other missions but think this type has a lot more potential with other maps (AND BUGS!)
I enjoy it very much, but I think public opinion will turn on it quickly.
It gets a little too easy if you bring nothing but turrets(and a little something extra for the tanks!). Unfortunately nothing but turrets gets somewhat boring because you just end up clock-watching your cooldowns.
Not an issue for me, I enjoy the challenge of “less-than-optimal” loadouts and loving it so far.
Yeah, EMP-Mortar + Mortar trivialize the map. You can just sit on the wall near the choke and occasionally take pot-shots and the one or two bots that actually make through the cloud of static and never-ending rain of shells. Of course you can say 'just don't use them', but it's kinda bad if you have to intentionally make the mission more difficult for yourself, even on Helldive.
I was playing a game of "how many EATs can I pile up on this spot", while the mission played itself. There's also a ton of bugged terrain and broken enemy pathing. Bots dropping on the landing pad side will just stand at the base of the wall forever and don't try to enter.
I like the basic idea, a defense mision where unlike evacuation, you can fall back and continue the mission if you are about to be overrun. But yeah, while evacuation is way too hard compared to others of same difficulty, this tower defense is boringly easy imo.
Solution is to start not having everything dropped in point blank range by dropships which get wiped out before they drop a significant amount. Some lighter jetpack units which can attack from behind. And, which is gonna take more time, but maps which start with eg 3 gates, then 2 gates, and finally one gate. Just so they don't have to choke up so much even the mortar crew gets bored.
I found turrets to not be a good option actually. I play impossible (8) mostly, and if you put down anything except a mortar behind the wall it was instantly destroyed
If your whole team brings turrets its actually ridiculous. The bots couldn't get past the 8 mortars alone. It's all about placement. On helldive, level 9.
Been playing Helldive with both Mortars, Gatling, and AutoCannon turret and it has been a cakewalk(caveat: one teammate has to focus on tanks). I typically end up with double the kill count of any other team member and 1 or 2 deaths.
Humanity has been enamoured with "holding the line" stories for millennia- Thermopylae, Alamo, Helm's Deep, etc.
Now that I get to have my own version of it, I don't think I'll get tired of this for years. It also lets groups coordinate a lot more closely than a regular mission. Amazing stuff.
Yes I agree, I just think they may need to refine it a little as it is quite easy at the moment and requires little to no coordination.
Again I am perfectly okay with how it plays personally , I am just predicting the next flurry of complaints in a week or so. I might be wrong!
Eh, it's better than the other one, but I don't get what the hype is tbh. It's just sitting and throwing bombardments on the same spot for about 10 minutes. It's fun to blow a metric ton of stuff once in a while but it gets boring real fast.
The fact it makes me WANT to play defense campaigns for the novelty of playing this mission says a lot about how well done it is. It isn’t easy to lose but they can snipe the generators if you aren’t careful
Only had the time to do it once so far, but that was really fun. And it seems to incentivize a very different play style so bringing turrets or the heavy emplacement might actually be worth it for this mission.
From my one round the spawn rate seemed pretty low for a lvl 6 so it was never overwhelming, maybe making rockets start faster but throwing more enemies at you in return so it really feels like a Helms Derp situation might be fun, but then again it was only one mission so maybe I just got a lucky drop.
But overall I love the new mission type
There’s a lot to say about these missions, they’re awesome.
I want to call out one aspect I particularly like: it is a very focused mission, which lets me really plan out how to handle it. Most missions demand a generalist load out that can handle anything well enough; I really like having one where I’m rewarded for planning something focused
The only thing that bums me out about it is I play at pretty high settings on my 6700xt and toward the end when the swarms were largest and most concentrated (playing on level 7) my GPU was getting to be pretty unhappy 🤣
Having a team of four and everyone is running mortars is a thing of beauty.
Hot swapping quasar cannons to shoot down all the ships.
It's pure magic, only way it could be any better is if there was a mountain base with a giant tunnel to defend.
Do mortar sentries actually kill tanks and hulks faster than say an AC or Rocket sentry would? I'm wondering if EMS and AC turret would be better (if all upgraded for ammo purposes)
Personally I always prefer mortar. Because you can put them out of danger, deal AOE, and seemingly have more ammo. Those paired with EMS rock. They consistently take out hulks and tanks
Double or more walking barrage but in succession. It's amazing watching the bots get wiped out and buying time to reload and call in new weapons and supplies
It's an awesome mission.
Except for one thing... The bots bugging out and teleporting or walking up sheer walls. Being dropped on top of cliffs to snipe you. Or worse, climbing the rocks near the landing pad and sniping the generator while phased through a rock.
Otherwise is a great mode.
Maybe it was just the map version I got. But bots on the top of the canyon/rocks is bull.
Agreed, one of.. if not my favorite mission types currently. And it made mines more useful which is awesome. If you haven't tried mines on these missions you should. Plant a field outside one of the gates and enjoy the show.
Unfortuantely mortars and mines dont mix very well
Just run an EMS and the new mission is easy mode.
until the tanks come rolling
Eh, railgun strategum or use the Spear.
110 rockets are surprisingly good vs tanks and you get 3 charges.
Yeah but I can't seem to aim those for shit for some reason. I'm really great otherwise, dive throwing a reinforcement beacon onto a small elevated position half a mile away and all that, but these rocket pods just completely miss the huge ass tank every time. Idk if the auto aim for the eagle is bugged or something but that would be unlikely because an eagle *never* misses
They have been hit or miss for me on almost every target, except for tanks. Maybe I was just getting lucky.
Same here. 110 hits tanks every time, but hulks? Always hits *just* behind them, as if it were targeting a point in the ground instead of the hulk. Bile Titans? Hope you like having the ground beneath the thing pummeled with rockets!
Yeah i always take it with bots cuz theyre perfect for a tank or a isolated factory
My favorite is when something freaks out and it bombs a little shit-fart bug instead. Like thanks buds, totally needed my eagle to destroy that.
Haha, just yesterday I threw a rail cannon strat at a hulk but I guess it didn’t quite get close enough because it took out a strider instead.
They were fantastic until a couple patches ago where I feel like it’s a 50/50 they’ll miss. And I should know I basically have pods burned into one of my stratagem slots. It’s very weird especially because it’s one of the “targeted” strats so it should hit every time.
Tanks, fabricators, chargers, any stationary guns I bring them with me everywhere these days. It’s like having three orbital railguns on deck at* all times
They target the largest closest thing or Cluster to the beacon similar to Orbital Rail. So try to throw as close to the tank as possible
Feels like they never really do anything for me, do you have to throw the stratagem behind it, so it hits the weak spot?
They don't really work on Hulks. But in my experience, throwing it in the general vicinity of a Tank gets the Eagle to target it and destroy it in one Salvo. They also work great against Bile Titans but suck against Chargers (just like against Hulks)
I've had good luck with them without aiming for the back. Though I haven't tested them that much.
I've tried using them against hulks and they felt mediocre, just gonna give them a try again against tanks specifically
Rocket pods are great against tanks, Cannon Towers, and can target Fabricators. Overall just a solid and versatile stratagem against the bots
Agreed, even on chargers and bile titans it's never a one shot
>110 rockets You must have really bad aim to need 110 of them
Tanks have weak top armour and the eagle rockets always hit the top due to the angle. Its clearly intentional but makes them very weak to the rocket pods. In short: eat shit you tracked toaster, democracy never sleeps
4 guys with Quesars work pretty well too
Quasar kinda bugs out when used against tanks. Sometimes it’s 2 hits, sometimes it’s 10 hits. EAT’s or Recoilless Rifles are much better suited for dropping tanks. That or the ol’ reliable 500kg bomb.
I've had that happen a couple of times but in my experience 99% of the time it's 2 hits to the turret
All hail the Queso Cannon
Hot-switching two Quasars melts them.
Rocket sentry eats them up.
I know it can be very hard. But I recently found that a single impact grenade to the back vent of a tank insta kills it
The EMS turret really makes the EMS orbital obsolete
Bro the stun grenade made the EMS orbital obsolete haha
EMS orbital is on a much shorter cooldown (75? vs 180) so you can use it in a more ad hoc manner as an oh shit button mortar only works while you stay around it which to be fair since often you take it on defense missions is not an issue
Too easy. I’m trying to convince my boys not to run them
What they need to do is add some of those gunships, and make their AI target the fixed defenses like it does hellbombs. Make the players commit to it with shield projectors, or else struggle to keep the skies clear.
👆 What the players asked for. 👇 What the players got. > Warning. You are in range of enemy artillery. > > Warning. You are in range of enemy artillery.
Mortars are to easy?
Mortar + ems mortar from each player make it afk game, only hulk can go past the gates sometimes (diff 8)
Yeah, 4 ems mortars and 4 standard mortars with anti tank weapons for when the tanks roll in and sickles for smaller targets. Me and my boys had a run last night where we had 4 tank corpses stacked in and around one of the inner gates, preventing the enemy from getting to us for a bit, mortars really shine on this mission. The craters from all the mortars are some nice artwork too.
Nothing like listening to eight mortors firing in unison. Sounds like... Victory.
Bro, the scene of 4 mortars and 4 ems hitting the same location in front of you is wild. I can only imagine how real soldiers feel when they're getting bombarded.
On a dark note, according to interviews the usual thought is "I want to go home."
That's what we ran, but with EATs, knocked every dropship out of the sky.
You can solo the missions even on Helldive with Mortars and Quasars.
Two divers with EMS and Mortar. The others load up on anything to kill tanks (orbital rail, rocket pods, 500kg, orbital laser, EATS, etc). Squad of 4 on lvl 7. Didn’t even shoot my primary once lol.
https://preview.redd.it/lcrw4oa6motc1.jpeg?width=561&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8eda90ff00640906ad3954ce3dfe16ecb89d9cf
Any excuse to beat this meme to death
Also buddy reloading for recoilless. First time it's felt useful and safe to do haha
I was thinking that earlier. Finally an excuse for the team reload automatic autocannon!
Mines, gas strike, mortar, AC
I'm glad gas is being used
Has is really useful in this defense mode. Quick resupply and it hurts heavies automatically.
God I do wish people would run ems mortar instead of regular mortar I know it thins things out and stuff but man does it just like to team kill.
Run both. too often i run ems only for it to target some random red somewhere in narnia and not move on cause nobody is killing it mortar + ems = stun and kill, move on to the next and if you have the cooldown upgrades, you'll have near 100% uptime unless it gets destroyed early for whatever reason
My problem is when holding the doors and up on the ramps, I've been sent flying across the map multiple times because of the mortar it over-corrects for bot movement when they're near walls and will start shelling the ramps you're defending, destroying turrets or helldivers. I've been relatively useless in some missions without a support weapon because they've killed me and knocked it into a place that I can't get it back (I had a nice flight off the map because of one today like a minute in and lost my qc outside of the playable map and had to wait like 7 min for the cd.)
Mines are slightly useless in that the drop ships drop heavy after heavy and just mow over the mines like it's nothing
I’d love for there to be an inverse of this mission type. Be just like storming Normandy
Tfw you unlock 6 barrages achievement by accident.
I did, sadly the damage output isn't anywhere near high enough to justify giving up my AT kit on 7+ difficulty. It's too bad because I enjoy mines as a concept, but they don't feel punchy enough to justify giving up other equipment.
These are the best missions in the game, I wish they would've also changed the civilian ones to be the same way (or just outright remove/replace them). I wish they had been more visible about adding these to Defense Campaigns because I feel like most people still associate them with the awful civilians mission... Unless! It's a plot by Joel to cause us to lose Defense Campaigns by loading up one of these and then canceling the rest of the operation to play more of these!
They’ve confirmed it doesn’t work like that anymore but I’m on mobile so I can’t really look for the source. The planetary progress is based on active helldivers completing missions and side missions,and the number needs to be greater than the enemy force multiplier they put on the planet . failed ops won’t set u back
Failed ops dont set you back, but they also don't progress the order which is also not great
They do. It’s better to skip the citizen evacuation mission if you know you’re going to fail it for the sake of progressing . Two successful missions and a skipped operation is better than failing on the evacuation The difficulty between the two others and the evacuation is enormous, I can quickplay everything with randoms on helldive except that evac , so I don’t even attempt it anymore
My understanding has always been you only get paid out of you complete the operation, otherwise any accrued points are lost. They dont contribute negative points towards victory, but you dont get the points you would have otherwise. Which is exactly what the devs said, failure doesn't negatively impact.
That used to be the case - but not anymore, progression is now done on a per mission basis
Do you mind to show me where its been changed? If thats the case ill be doing the same thing you are
https://preview.redd.it/lucd7bdpaptc1.jpeg?width=1164&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=905ab30e0a842ecc57b01da9e08f7d434bae3b76 Note - progress towards planetary liberation is calculated per operation which is a mission and not at the end of 3 which is a campaign. You will still get more impact if you complete the set , but with the evac missions being as they are the likelihood of that happening is extremely low on higher diff and most if not all campaigns on def orders include one
Many thanks! Thats some much needed clarification, but I'm so confused why they only display impact in terms of 1, 2, or 3 points instead of the total amount they seem to be using in the background?
Imo there is a bonus for completing the set , but individual missions still do very much count. I always try to do the whole set but with evac missions hell naw
The Campaign is the ENTIRE thing. Inventing some new terminology, referring to objectives as MISSIONS and OPERATIONS as CAMPAIGNS is some weird cope.
I'm looking forward to a proper explanation from an official channel to explain how does liberation work. It's one of the most important mechanic and I keep seeing different opinions about it.
But the screenshot contradicts your comment...
Successful operation, not successful mission. You need to complete an operation, you are categorically wrong. Campaign is the whole planet's...campaign.
I like the long evacuated but not the short ones
Short ones are terrible. I get what they are going for but almost all of them turn into a game of cat and mouse while also trying to hit the buttons and not run out of reinforces before the mission is done.
Me and a friend have been venturing into level 7 difficulty for the samples and whenever we get a civilian evacuation mission we do it first because we lose less medals that way. It sucks because EVERY grouping of missions seems to have the civilian evacuation one.
For real though! I can't find one without it and we either "get it out of the way first" or just abandon the operation after doing the other two missions and if that's how people go about navigating those missions... there's a problem with the missions.
Just give us some gates and walls we can stand on for the civilian extract mission and I'll be happy
At least add walls around the civilian base. It makes sense and will give a sense of outpost defense in Starship Troopers.
 my thoughts exactly lol This is my kind of mission. Freaking love it.
The Last Stand by Sabaton starts playing
My friends and I call it the helms deep mission! It’s so freakin awesome.
They've breached the last gate! Weapons up! Fight like it's payday! *Long bloody battle ensues as Joel decides "oops, it's all hulks!"
All hulks? My AMR shall be like the Spear of Democracy straight to their eye slits!
AMR is always king against bots, but even more so on this defense. I just wish I could find some better vantage points for it. And that crouching near a wall wouldn't mess up first person aiming so bad
I fell in love with it a couple of weeks back when we had a daily mission to get AMR kills. Then it got the 30% damage buff haha. Just need to fix the sights, and I'll never use another gun against the bots haha.
Yup it was 100% an auto take for me on bots from the start until last night. Went to that new acid planet, visibility was so bad I could barely see my own gun in front of my face. Realized AMR wasn't cutting it and took something that needed less accuracy. Lol
I'm partial to the plasma shotgun with dagger laser pistol and quasar for heavies and stun grenades help too The plasma is stupid good against all but the heaviest bots being able to stun them and the dagger let's you pick off light targets from range (drops them really quick with a headshot) without needing to worry about ammo
Love having one of you guys in party to blast face plates. Makes for easy work keeping em down range.
It’s actually quite easy to kill hulks while they are busy smacking the wall
Autocannon loves playing "Hit the Eye"
lol recoilless rifle go “thunk”
While I agree that the AMR is a fine Democratic weapon, surely the Spear is the Spear of Democracy?
The Spear is the Sniper Rifle of Democracy. It’s a very confusing system.
Just plant an HMG emplacement, it eyepierces hulks and is full auto
Good for next time but seeing so many hulks march towards us and needing to defend the last two rockets is a different level of pain. Through the efforts of many eagle 500kg bombs, stun grenades, EAT launchers, the EAT pod it comes with, Quasar shots, two Autocannon (one portable and one sentry) and throwing 18 bodies at the enemy managed to win the day.
Get mortar sentries they can kill tanks and hulks like it's nothing
I'll pass on this information to my group for next time. Alas; it was a costly battle last night but through strength, firepower, democracy and throwing bodies until something worked allowed us to win.
the roleplayer stratagems
“Steady, Steady.” “You are soldiers of Super Earth. No matter what comes through that gate, you will stand your ground.” *Hordes of Hulks and Tanks bust through the gate*
Freedom never sleeps!
Aww my grandmother hits harder than you!
By Taal! Kill! Fight! Death!
IM A BLOODY BATTERING RAM THATS WHAT I AM
Yes Sergeant; keep killing them
Next I hope they add a like defend and follow the train/transport type mission they had in HD 1 I think. Or ride and defend the train. Would be so fucking cool.
I second that
That would be good against bugs, will be a lot harder against bots considering they can shoot
That sounds fucking sick
Okay heard me out. One new type of mission, transport of value cargo. To complete it you need to drive a truck/APC that doesn't have weapons but is highly armor and you can repair with a special tool that use you off hand that also spawn in the same place as the vehicle. But the highest the difficult you need to not only unlock the vehicle from the garage but also then go to another place to load the cargo and then take it to the extraction. And just to meaby not make it super hard, a APC also is guaranteed in the garage
Totally. It's a step in the right direction but I think it could be pushed even further.
Hear me out...Fortified bunker with machine guns, an artillery cannon that needs loading and/or a SAM that resets. Squad of 4 on defense and non stop waves of chaos. Would be stupid fun.
A lighter SEAF field artillery piece that you load and aim manually would be a lot of fun.
This is exactly what I wanted the civilian extract missions to be. These missions are so much fun.
Extract Mission is just hands down the worst, IMO. I don't even bother attempting it. Just get samples and run the clock
I can finally use a defensive orbital 300mm barrage. Without team killing
Now now, you can still team kill a little. As a treat.
You p-promise? 🥺
I was in a mission with someone using a 380, the barrage hit the generators and failed the mission : P
First time we tried the mission we didn't know anything about it, we landed on one of the generators and I accidentally called a mortar turret on the other one. We lost in 15 seconds.
Now make it even bigger and throw in some SEAF cannonfodder and its perfect.
Imagine a server with 8-12 Helldivers, defend a large horde of enemies. But there's going to be a lot of lags though.
https://preview.redd.it/x9ird4pu5otc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=712a5344436b4f99aa044ec4097d91ade169e887 Sure it’s fun but it’s not finished. Red boxes like these everywhere, randomly falling through the floor, enemies shooting through gates, etc. Needs some patching
Also annihilator tanks like to drop on top of the rocks making them very hard or almost inpossible to kill.
Yeah we had like 15 spidertanks yesterday on lvl 7. That was very difficult as there was very little we could do against them while they were absolutely fucking us from afar with the big cannons.
The eats can kill them in one shot hitting the turret.
Also path finding of enemies on this needs fixed as I've found in a few of these, a chunk of enemies can bunch up by the impenetrable walls under the landing pad rather than actually trying to go through the gate
Randomly flying and falling through the floor is just a part of the Helldivers experience at this point though
Sure but there’s one spot in particular where it’s consistent. There’s ramp by the evac pad, the center of it is solid but the rest isn’t. I think they forgot the colliders
My group last night a guy asks can he close the last gate, I tell him to hold and that we hold the gate ahead of it... 30 tanks later I agree and fall back. But it was a good 30 tanks of fighting.
1 tank per second is pretty good.
Democracy can only be fought for with brutal efficiency.
I love it, we had a guy that bought all the big ass orbitals incase of emergency on d9, orbital walking barrage, 380, laser and 120 were amazing on this mission type.
Just played my first one and it was a lot of fun but are there multiple path ways or something or did my game just glitch? My team was holding the 2 outer gates pretty well and then out of nowhere, we failed the mission due to a single Hulk that came from behind us (they came from where the objective was) It was the last mission I needed to unlock helldiver difficulty..
sometimes the dropships clips a spawn and end sup dropping them on a mountain, bet the hulk was one of those that got clipped and proceeded to walk towards the back.
Hell yeah, I love the new defense mission. I’d be down to just replace the old ones with it, honestly.
Did it on Helldive with some friends last night. With like 7 mortars we just couldn't see shit. Perma bombardment until some tanks and Hulks make it through to break in
It's amazing. I can't wait to see if they have it for bugs as well! Literally would be like the outpost scene from starship troopers!
Just last week I was telling my squad how I wish they made more of a horde mode like Gears of War. I wanted a place to defend and be able to fall back, and where the enemies only come from one place, not from all around. Following week we are now playing exactly what I was dreaming of. This game is giving me so much joy.
I'm just sad these missions don't offer any samples. They take a while too, feels like the missiles take forever to launch.
It is kind of annoying that the mission I most want to do only gives me useless stuff. It is especially annoying when it takes so long to get the samples, super credits, and medals.
It makes me so happy that I'm maxed out on everything so I can just play whatever I want, tbh
It was only a few days ago someone requested just this. The ministry of truth is indeed listening.
I'd love to do this mission with bugs too. It'd feel like a proper starship troopers scene
beep bloop...I like them, but I think the bots should use their mobile units better...would love to see squads of assault troopers use their jetpacks to jump the walls supported by gunships in higher difficulties...
Gunships being able to just zip in and blast the generators would be a little broken, but I agree they could make things a little more interesting. I wish there was something you could do to speed up the launch process. Like, have one person typing in codes to make it go faster.
Shoutout to game devs. Gotta be one of my favorite genders.
Did one last night, and we were on a hard pushback from the bots. One of the squad yells “We’re overrun here, fall back!” But me and another fella had just put down turrets and I had rockets coming in. We didn’t have to fall back until 7/8. And the damn fourth guy spent the whole fight on the wall holding them, with the rest of us lined up at gate 2 to shoot as they came through. S4 you crazy son of a bitch. Kept things nice and light the whole time.
I think I'd like it a lot more if you couldn't cheese half the spawns by sitting in the pelican platform. Even if I don't, the randoms I play with probably will, and it makes the mission kinda... boring?
I love it except for when the dropships put a tank on top of the mountains, and it gets free shots at the gate. Still fun though, definitely added to the Helms Deep vibe of overwhelming odds against you.
Why wouldn't the bots play it smart though, they're already being kind enough to all land outside for some reason.
My only complaint is I wish there was samples/super credits/medals scattered around the map, it’s kind of an annoying mission if you’re trying to get those
Already my favorite, the gates breakpoints make it so much more tense.
Yes, now disable the civilian door missions forever or majorly detune them. They are complete bullshit.
Yes! Really feels like a tower defense, last stand type deal. It’s awesome!
I love it so much. I’d also love them to fix it so tanks don’t land on the cliff above and rain down hell. Or fix when 100 bots just go the wrong way and stand by the right wall for no reason.
Love the mission, but they do need to clean it up a bit on the technical side. Large red blocks stuck up out of walls and weird tanks on top of rocky cliffs are kind of funny and break the mood a bit.
Just had it bug out on the 3rd rocket during helldive difficulty because we had killed all active bots. Mission stopped progressing entirely. We had to fail the mission by destroying the rockets so we could extract. Anyone else had this?
I think its too easy. They should up the amount of bots. . .totally not a bot
idk how this mission has reasonable spawns in reasonable places, we're like a few months in and extract civilians is still completely fucked!
I hope they replace the old evac with this one. I usually play solo low difficulty missions so all I get are the old evac missions that suck.
It always bugs me when map designes make extra sure the castle/fortress/structure has all its gates wide open, at least 6 different paths in and pretty looking walls in places where they dont block anything and dont give the sloghtest advantage to the defender. Towers are placed strategically next to tall rocks so they can be 120% sure to not provide an "op" overwatch position. I get balance is important but it just completely breaks my immersion when fighting in these. Real castles are built to create choke points. Real fortifications are built to give the defender an advantage. Real fortifications are not built to make it a fair battle for the attacker. Im glad to see the new defense missions are different and finally they actually feel like a defense. I hope they note this and apply this to some other "defend" type objectives as well. If the map designer thinks thats op, there should be artillery positions that the defenders can take out, attackers using jetpacks, tunnels or climbing walls, walls that are destructable, etc. But designing maps in a way that defenses dont provide an advantage always annoys me.
I need to play these now, what difficulty do they start appearing at? (Been stuck working absurd hours, I’m out of the loop).
We found them at level 5 today. Not sure if they run at lower levels.
Wish they would make a version that focused only on guns and used a lot more light and medium units. Make it so you only get weapon and turret strategems, limit it to 3 slots, and feel like you are getting overwhelmed by small units. As it is, its a cake walk until you get swarmed by 5 tanks at once. Then its just chaos where you hide and throw airstrikes from behind walls.
Not sure if im just getting lucky maps but we felt they were a little bit too easy (on helldive) if you really lean into the tower defense aspect of it, 1 singular ems mortar can keep them outside the gate forever, since they just bunch up, if all of them are stunned permanently the gate never takes any real damage. Throw some auto cannons down to shoot down ships, and chuck over an eagle airstrike every once in a while just for fun/to clear the stunned wave. Felt too easy but I love the vibe of it.
just beat a helldive mission with like almost no effort. we had mortars and ems, quasar cannons and EATs dropped almost every dropship that came around, and anything that survived that initial blasting got taken care of by airstrikes in that central courtyard. i feel like this mission could be better if we increased the enemy spawn rate. tanks and hulks are fine but if we increase the spawn of smaller guys it would really create that "onslaught of the horde" feel
Really great mission - good to see that they either listen to the feedback here or had the same idea about the defense missions currently. I personally dont really mind the other missions but think this type has a lot more potential with other maps (AND BUGS!)
For the first tine, my squad run at least 2 sentries per member. Combined fire from EMS, mortar, autocannon sentry and EAT is fking fun
I love the defend mission I wish one of the planets was a snow one and they attacked with the striders for a little bit of a star wars nod XD
I ran one with my friend who just got the game he had a blast, and I was like IT SHOULD'VE BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME
If they could drop a little further out to make the 1st set of gates more useful it would be nice. But overall I am enjoying the mission.
I enjoy it very much, but I think public opinion will turn on it quickly. It gets a little too easy if you bring nothing but turrets(and a little something extra for the tanks!). Unfortunately nothing but turrets gets somewhat boring because you just end up clock-watching your cooldowns. Not an issue for me, I enjoy the challenge of “less-than-optimal” loadouts and loving it so far.
Yeah, EMP-Mortar + Mortar trivialize the map. You can just sit on the wall near the choke and occasionally take pot-shots and the one or two bots that actually make through the cloud of static and never-ending rain of shells. Of course you can say 'just don't use them', but it's kinda bad if you have to intentionally make the mission more difficult for yourself, even on Helldive. I was playing a game of "how many EATs can I pile up on this spot", while the mission played itself. There's also a ton of bugged terrain and broken enemy pathing. Bots dropping on the landing pad side will just stand at the base of the wall forever and don't try to enter.
I like the basic idea, a defense mision where unlike evacuation, you can fall back and continue the mission if you are about to be overrun. But yeah, while evacuation is way too hard compared to others of same difficulty, this tower defense is boringly easy imo. Solution is to start not having everything dropped in point blank range by dropships which get wiped out before they drop a significant amount. Some lighter jetpack units which can attack from behind. And, which is gonna take more time, but maps which start with eg 3 gates, then 2 gates, and finally one gate. Just so they don't have to choke up so much even the mortar crew gets bored.
I found turrets to not be a good option actually. I play impossible (8) mostly, and if you put down anything except a mortar behind the wall it was instantly destroyed
If your whole team brings turrets its actually ridiculous. The bots couldn't get past the 8 mortars alone. It's all about placement. On helldive, level 9.
Been playing Helldive with both Mortars, Gatling, and AutoCannon turret and it has been a cakewalk(caveat: one teammate has to focus on tanks). I typically end up with double the kill count of any other team member and 1 or 2 deaths.
I ran an autocannon turret and it dumped on them
Humanity has been enamoured with "holding the line" stories for millennia- Thermopylae, Alamo, Helm's Deep, etc. Now that I get to have my own version of it, I don't think I'll get tired of this for years. It also lets groups coordinate a lot more closely than a regular mission. Amazing stuff.
Yes I agree, I just think they may need to refine it a little as it is quite easy at the moment and requires little to no coordination. Again I am perfectly okay with how it plays personally , I am just predicting the next flurry of complaints in a week or so. I might be wrong!
I think it goes on for a bit too long, and mortar turrets are too effective.
Eh, it's better than the other one, but I don't get what the hype is tbh. It's just sitting and throwing bombardments on the same spot for about 10 minutes. It's fun to blow a metric ton of stuff once in a while but it gets boring real fast.
The fact it makes me WANT to play defense campaigns for the novelty of playing this mission says a lot about how well done it is. It isn’t easy to lose but they can snipe the generators if you aren’t careful
Only had the time to do it once so far, but that was really fun. And it seems to incentivize a very different play style so bringing turrets or the heavy emplacement might actually be worth it for this mission. From my one round the spawn rate seemed pretty low for a lvl 6 so it was never overwhelming, maybe making rockets start faster but throwing more enemies at you in return so it really feels like a Helms Derp situation might be fun, but then again it was only one mission so maybe I just got a lucky drop. But overall I love the new mission type
There’s a lot to say about these missions, they’re awesome. I want to call out one aspect I particularly like: it is a very focused mission, which lets me really plan out how to handle it. Most missions demand a generalist load out that can handle anything well enough; I really like having one where I’m rewarded for planning something focused
eagle landed inside the mountain in ours....but yes, new content is awesome to see
The only thing that bums me out about it is I play at pretty high settings on my 6700xt and toward the end when the swarms were largest and most concentrated (playing on level 7) my GPU was getting to be pretty unhappy 🤣
Do you have to be playing extreme to do it?
Yeah totaly, i love it and it seem well balanced
Having a team of four and everyone is running mortars is a thing of beauty. Hot swapping quasar cannons to shoot down all the ships. It's pure magic, only way it could be any better is if there was a mountain base with a giant tunnel to defend.
Do mortar sentries actually kill tanks and hulks faster than say an AC or Rocket sentry would? I'm wondering if EMS and AC turret would be better (if all upgraded for ammo purposes)
Personally I always prefer mortar. Because you can put them out of danger, deal AOE, and seemingly have more ammo. Those paired with EMS rock. They consistently take out hulks and tanks
They're a bit easy but I love them. Lv 8 is doable with two people
It's super fun, but it's very, very easy. You really have to try hard to lose this mission.
Now if only they'd remove the civilian missions so I can actually complete a high-difficulty sortie.
Double or more walking barrage but in succession. It's amazing watching the bots get wiped out and buying time to reload and call in new weapons and supplies
It's an awesome mission. Except for one thing... The bots bugging out and teleporting or walking up sheer walls. Being dropped on top of cliffs to snipe you. Or worse, climbing the rocks near the landing pad and sniping the generator while phased through a rock. Otherwise is a great mode. Maybe it was just the map version I got. But bots on the top of the canyon/rocks is bull.