Helldivers

[Hendo]

Everyone will be getting this for free this week so thought I'd boot it back up and make a topic.

You can tell it's made by the Magika people as not only is it (more or less) top down, you use button combinations to call in equipment, ammo, extraction ships, etc.

There's a bunch of levelling up to do and perks/equipment to unlock.

It's a very lonely solo experience and the game really doesn't like you playing offline at all but can be done.

Be warned in advance - friendly fire is on and is a bitch.

Plus be careful where you call in drops and extraction ships as these can squish you when they land.

Expect to see a lot of this.

[Hendo]

Been playing a bunch more, unlocked some cool stuff.

Here's some tips.

Stick with the absolute easiest levels you can do to begin with, go up very slowly. Even Medium levels are pretty tough (at least single player), enemies get much tougher, some can one-shot you. There's at least 10 difficulties that I've seen so stick with the first ones to begin with.

Probably best to do in couples to begin with and then get a team of 4 when you've got your head around what you're doing.

Upgrades to weapons and stratagems (the things you call in) are done via research points. You get one when you level up and one every 10 samples you find. Have a proper look through your weapons and stratagems list and plan ahead to what you want to upgrade.

I've gone all in on ammo so it arrives dead quick, turret so it lasts longer and turns quicker and fully upgraded the UAV which is dead useful for showing you hidden mines and pulsing samples on the mini-map. It's best to have one UAV guy on your team so you can scout for the samples to get upgrades. I'm not sure if samples are shared or whoever picks them up gets them.

There's so many stratagems to unlock and upgrade that it's best to work out a class system so everyone's doing jobs that suit their play.

I'll be focussing on UAV, ammo drops, a mech and a turret for now. Though multiple mechs and ammo drops are certainly not a bad idea.

One cool one I've just unlocked is the ability to heal team mates and machines so that could come in useful having a medic on your team.

Speaking of which....

The turret will automatically swing round to where the enemy is so more than one turret on the ground could get messy. Be sure to either stick behind it as it moves or press the square button to go prone so you can dive under the fire.

There's also some passive stratagems that will prove useful in a team, such as improving the cool downs and dropping in dead team mates quicker.

There's lots of times when a particular mission will involve one person manning a console or sweeping a metal detector for unexploded mines so you will need the others to be sticking to the sides and defending the poor bugger.

If you come across a mission that you're not sure what to do, check your stratagem list by pressing L1. There are some missions where they give you extra equipment just for those missions. One is the unexploded mines mission, where you drop in a metal detector. Another one had me puzzled for a while where you have to destroy enemy nests. Normal gunfire won't damage them, nor will tossing in a grenade. When you've unlocked a couple of the more powerful weapons or the mech, they can do it, but the default way is to call in a nuke strike that they give you.

Be warned - you call this in and when it opens up there are no button combinations like normal, you just press x and run like hell. Make sure everyone is ready to run when the person presses the button on them because you all have to get the hell away and you're all sharing the same screen.

[Sly Reflex]

Got a list of upgrades?

[Hendo]

Stratagems - http://helldivers.gamepedia.com/Stratagem_Codes

Weapons - http://helldivers.gamepedia.com/Weapons

Perks - http://helldivers.gamepedia.com/Perks

You only choose 1 perk.

Choose one weapon to go with your side arm. Once you unlock more side arms you can change the pistol to something more powerful.

You get 4 stratagems in your loadout. You can swap them in the lobby menu before each level if you need to.

Click on each stratagem or weapon to see what the upgrades do.

[Sly Reflex]

Typical, the ones I'm interested are DLC.

[Hendo]

I don't know how much the DLC is, but if you take to it, it's probably worth it. Especially as it's a free game for you.

I can't remember if I bought it all or not. It does say on the menu "including Masters of the Galaxy and Turning Up The Heat" so maybe?

[Duck]

Isn't the PS+ game the GOTY type edition?

[Sly Reflex]

Nope. I just checked and it's the vanilla section. I'm sure the base game stuff will work out good enough though. If we get people that get into it I'll maybe drop the funds on the extras.

[Hendo]

I just unlocked the ammo pack so you can dole out ammo from a backpack.

I'm thinking I might specialise in playing as a back-up guy. Ammo pack, ammo drop, UAV and medic. Perk either armour, run all the time or 40% off cool downs (solo only I think, not team affected).

I certainly think one person in a 4 man team should do this as 4 Rambos will result in a massive headache.

Just read in the encyclopaedia that you can report or commend a player. If a player gets loads of reports this can put them in a "bad standing" which means they only get to play with other players with bad standings. So you get a lobby full of trolls trying to out-troll each other, which is pretty funny.

[Sly Reflex]

I was looking at the ammo backpack thing.

I'll probably go for a turret and a vehicle, if they're not buried miles into the game that is. Top the last 2 off with an ammo drop and a teleporter. I don't know, I will just end up using what I think suits me best.

[Hendo]

I'm level 10, 5 hours of playtime and the only vehicle I have is the mech.

Granted you will level up quicker though because you won't be spending all your time on the easy levels like I have, grinding little by little.

Some planets have equipment bonuses when you complete them, like the mech.

Once you've done that, the planet comes back but the bonus is extra xp.

I think there's 12 difficulty levels, 11 is currently locked for me but I can see there's got to be at least one more.

It goes:

Dive In The Park

Very Easy

Easy

Medium

Challenging

Very Challenging

Hard

Very Hard

Hard As Hell

Suicide Mission

Impossible

???

They're closed until you get to that specific level, so as a level 10 I can't do the 11th, Impossible.

Single player wise, I can't really go any higher than Medium.

[Sly Reflex]

Helldive is the last difficulty.

[Hendo]

Not as bad as I was expecting, but yeah, you need some pretty good gear upgraded for that.

I haven't seen those massive bugs yet, they look like they take a beating.

[Sly Reflex]

It's just basic holding a formation and only shooting when you have line of sight. I've plenty of experience of that by playing EDF. It's not hard to pick up, once people get familiar with the mechanics they'll be fine.

[AndyKurosaki]

I'll certainly give it a go,cant go wrong with a free game...

[RoboticMonk3y]

It's just basic holding a formation and only shooting when you have line of sight. I've plenty of experience of that by playing EDF. It's not hard to pick up, once people get familiar with the mechanics they'll be fine.

good fucking luck with that MP,

there's always one person who put down a gun turret right in the middle of the group, or arcs fire right across everyone taking them down.

I found myself in later levels pretty much holding down the duck button

[Sly Reflex]

Of course there's going to be friendly fire, but I think overall it'll be OK. The more it happens on the easier difficulties the less it'll happen on harder difficulties. I have faith that the people I'll play with won't completely fuck mission after mission up by doing stuff like that, simply because they fear the wrath of having a Yorkshireman shout at them for being fucking stupid.

[Hendo]

The more it happens on the easier difficulties the less it'll happen on harder difficulties.

That makes no sense. You know that higher difficulties adds more and harder enemies? There's gonna be more shots going round, more equipment dropping constantly.

I'm still chugging away.

Put some points into stuff I'm currently using like the mech (the standard ammo amount is pretty dire) and an upgraded version of my favourite weapon. Also putting points into stuff ready for when we team up - quicker respawns, healing beam, etc.

My internet date is now set for tomorrow. Router has arrived, just waiting for activation.

I'll be busy tomorrow day but should be about in the evening.

[Sly Reflex]

It does make sense. The lower difficulties are for making mistakes and getting them out of your system. It's called training. It's better to practice and get as many of the fuck ups out the way than carry them through to the harder difficulties.

It's up for DL now, as are the other games in this most PSN+ selection. There's a fuck load of DLC for this game, although there's a pack that i think contains all the DLC for just over £6. If I like the game I'm going to get that.

[Hendo]

I hope Tommy doesn't plan on playing this. I've met some pretty big, double hard spiders.

There's 3 factions to fight - bugs, robots and human-like. I've found the difficulty goes in that order, the human type ones are bastards and set dogs on you.

As you go up in difficulty there's new enemies and strategies to learn. I've mastered Medium on the bugs so I've moved on to Challenging which I've just made it through.

One of the medium robot levels I'm stuck on is like a horde level. Very small (about 2 screens in size) and the only mission is to kill a minimum of 180 enemies. I can nearly do it, got the ship to arrive to get out but then got squished by it when it came.

I've fully upgraded my reinforce stratagem ready for team play.

At this point, I'm certain that in a team situation I'll bring ammo, ammo backpack, healing beam and UAV. The run perk won't be much use in a 4 man squad as you're all on the same screen, unless you need it for a mission so then you should all bring it.

The armour or strat cool down perks would be best for me.

I've also changed my main weapon to a fully upgraded beam weapon. The turning circle is quite slow when firing but this should help against the friendly fire. As long as you keep an eye on it overheating, it should mean that I never have to touch the ammo, and that goes to everyone else.