Why Players Struggle against the Automatons in Helldivers 2 - Exploring Game Design

ooh friendlies yo boys I think you dropped this Liberty emerges Victorious yet again extract when ready and that ladies and gentlemen is what we call Liberty's Overkill enemy design is a key part of designing games for your players are only as strong as the enemies they fight there's a reason games like dark souls are known for their difficulty it's not just because of the mechanics but the design Philosophy by behind the enemies that makes those games a serious Challenge and this is an area held over as to excels in whether you're analyzing a particular enemy or the two factions overall hell divers 2 enriches its game with a lot of variety in its enemy design however when you play the game you'll soon notice that most of the player base favors a particular enemy faction over the other with most players settling for the relaxing turkey shoot that is the terminate front instead of the masochistic Slaughter that is the automaton front but why is that why do casual players find the bot so difficult fortunately the answer we're looking for can be found by breaking down the differences in enemy design in Hell divers 2o both the enemy factions have their own unique flavors of gameplay which on the Sur surface can appear quite rudimentary the bugs are the faster melee based Army whereas the Bots are the tankier more range-based army however these differences in design go much deeper than just how they fight as I mentioned before the Bots rely more on heavier armor and Firepower which puts more emphasis on the players to study their enemy to understand where and how to exploit the automaton vulnerabilities for it is not DPS but game knowledge that allows players to succeed on higher difficulties because they're basically an army of Tanks sometimes literally for example let's take the Scout strier it's a well armored piece of walking socialist scrap metal boasting a surprisingly formidable Armament at its front however due to the automaton incompetence they left the entire back of the cockpit unarmored which leaves the pilot quite vulnerable to flanking Maneuvers but that's obvious however what isn't as obvious is the fact that the legs are less armored which makes them a vulnerability for certain weapons and this is a common Trend we see in the bot's design as an enemy faction the more Elite automatons tend to have an obvious weak point which is usually located on their backs whilst also possessing a handful of subtler vulnerabilities that may kill them or disrupt their ability to damage players this emphasis on game knowledge is not nearly as prevalent with the design of determinate for the bugs don't give players the room to engage with Those portions of Hell divers too literally they swarm you with a horde of lightly armed enemies before you can establish a plan of attack which then devolves into relying on the simple strategic philosophy of Run Gun bring anti-tank the issue lies with the Staggering contradictions between the designs of both enemy factions for they are not equal at a design level the automatons demand far more from the player than the ter is do the Bots require good Target selection greater game knowledge and better accuracy to achieve an optimal time to kill which are skills that players do not develop as strongly when fighting the [Music] bugs another significant difference between the overall designs of the terminate compared to the automatons is how they Telegraph their attacks now telegraphing is when someone conveys a message either intentionally or not through Visual or audible cues in video games telegraphing is a core aspect for when designers are constructing an attack of any kind we want the players to know exactly what's coming at them and this is done by breaking up the anatomy of an attack into three stages the anticipation the attack and the recovery we can see a great example of this in held divers 2 with the charger before initiating its charge the undemocratic monstrosity rears its head upwards before barreling towards the player and when it concludes its Rampage the undemocratic monstrosity stops and recuperates before it starts trying to reacquire another Target this obvious telegraphing is a trend seen in many of the other terminats whether it's the bi Titan the Speers or even something as small as the hunters the players probably don't knows it too often due to the fact that are busy running for their lives constantly loud telegraphs are a key aspect behind the design of the terminate whereas for the automatons aead basically said screw it and chucked it in the bin alongside the ark thrower yeah the Bots are very much the opposite to determiners when it comes to telegraphing their attacks favoring a far subtler approach with very little anticipation before they strike at the player the flame variant of the Hulk gives players am easily what two frames before incinerating most of their health bar and the rocket Devastators have no recovery tell me has this Devastator fired its Rockets how about this one and what about this one can you tell no no you can't the automatons disregard most of the anatomy behind designing an attack they have very little anticipation and no recovery for most of their attacks so when swapping from fighting the bugs to fighting the Bots players are greeted with this serious clash in design philosophy and are then thrusted into a part part of hover two that rarely communicates with [Music] them the last point I'll talk about is how each enemy faction affects the players and how their different designs strike at two completely different areas of the players's Arsenal their movement and their power for determinat a core part of every strategy is to constantly be on the move so the devel Vel opers designed the bugs to use tools that disrupt player movement with many of them possessing some form of slowing debuff or Gap closer like the spewers and shriekers these tools are designed to compromise and alter how players move whilst fighting the terminats which at times can feel frustrating when you're busy being swoll by 20 bugs but what isn't present at all in the terminat toolbox is a proper challenge but more importantly debuffs or objectives that strike at the players power and every player was happy to keep it this way but then everything changed when the automatons attacked bringing along their AA defenses and strategy Jammers these devious socialist Contraptions are designed to strike where it hurts the most at the player strategems this is because the majority of the players power budget is found in their strategems for the power budget is definitely not found in the players primaries that's for sure especially if it's an AR but when the game presents the player with a problem and easy solution is to just throw a stratum at it and hope for the best so how does Arrowhead make the thoughts more challenging well they simply remove 1/4 of the plays power or all of it and yes I know they removed the AA defenses operation modifier in the recent patch but this was written and recorded before that patch so I don't want to see any of this um actually crap in the comments section all right we know your mother doesn't love you and then your dad left to get the milk 10 years ago deal with it this drastic contrast between where both enemies affect the player reinforces the disparity between their designs further emphasizing that the bugs and the Bots are nowhere near close to being equal with each [Music] other so to wrap things up why does the Casual player base find the automaton so difficult well at its core hell divers 2 provides players with a lot of experiences the different enemy designs have contributed to Hell divers success and Longevity for the players have the choice to fight between two very distinct armies but said armies are not equal on a design level and this is intentional games like hell divers 2 draw in a spectrum of players from all different walks of play and so the designers need to accommodate that and provide experiences that not only satisfy the Casual players but also the hardcore ones this means that players who want to switch from primarily fighting the bugs to the Bots are going to struggle the design philosophies behind each Army creat a significant jump in difficulty for the players which will deter them from migrating from bug to bot the brutality of the difficulty will scare them away from trying and from bot to bug the boredom will kill players faster than the termined can as someone who has spent his 100 plus hours in Hell divers 2 primarily fighting the automatons I can tell you personally it can get a bit frustrating when most of the player base leaves our front defend for itself but that's how design goes it will influence players decisions and encourage certain behaviors and unfortunately for us on the bot front our enemy is just not designed for the Casual player base nor will it ever be for the Bots are design designed to be a challenge to test the players's game knowledge and skill they are the option that arrowead developed for players like myself who seek to be challenged by inexperience and that's why the Casual player base finds the automatons so difficult to fight that's why the automatons are the tougher enemy it's supposed to be this way and it should always stay that way well until the squid show up but that's neither here nor there also one quick note before the video ends I've seen some people say that the bugs are somehow harder than the Bots which is like I'm sorry what are we playing the same game that's just not the case dude that's just a skill issue if I've ever seen one thank you for watching this video If you enjoyed what you saw then I implore you to subscribe to the channel I definitely didn't just use the same take from the previous video all right there's no evidence no evidence until then take care

Channel: G1beon Games

Views: 100,720

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Id: FSHlyBfqc4c

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2024