What Cinty isn’t saying is how much he carried me through that session. I can count on one hand the number of times I needed to throw down a reinforcement marker for him, whereas some missions you’d need both hands to keep track of how often he needed to do it for me. Still a good time, though.

That robot mission was insane. The only way I could see it working would be a team of four, each bringing turrets, and coordinating the timing of the turrets to ensure there’s always at least one running, defending a corner with tight access.

Just pretty much executed a flawless bug mission with 3 other randoms on extreme difficulty, my first go at that level (it unlocked suicide mission). Bile titans being thrown in for fun, giant bloody things that can shoot goo at you from a distance, it was all going off. I really love how the game changes so much the higher the difficulty. Same mechanics, but the expectations on the player are so much high (as is to be expected), but that’s not drive by more enemies, instead different ones. It’s such a superb game.

Got a couple of sessions in with Shabby and some aussie peeps (and then some randos) yesterday - was good times. Mix of bug and robot missions, with one particular Robot mission being an absolute meat grinder from start to finish. Dropped into the map in an area with stratagems jammed, had to grind a foothold in the map as the sky lit up with laser fire. 

Eventually managed to do so before hitting a wall with an assault on a major robot factory (after completing our main mission to launch an ICBM), defended by waves of big fuckers and tanks. We took it out, then went to extract. Was going ok and we were likely to survive until Shabby got knocked on his arse...while holding an Eagle stratagem in his hand. I tried to run. I was not successful.

Now it's 2 randos and no reinforcements left. Shabby and I have dropped a bunch of samples on the floor between us. One rando manages to collect them while under fire. The clock ticks down. 

The extraction is getting closer. But then the rando with the samples dies. Just one guy left. The samples are near where the bird lands, though...he can pick them up. He does not pick them up, prioritising his own extraction over dozens of samples of various rarity.

The rando who died right before extraction opens his mic and speaks Japanese. He does not sound happy. He leaves straight after.

Shabby and i just hanging out the whole time in party chat. What a glorious day for democracy.

Other highlights:

1. A mate of ours (Rob) repeatedly setting himself on fire with his own flamethrower
2. Shabby having to drop out of a mission for a bit...and managing to kill me 3 minutes later with a mortar he left behind. 
3. Getting dropped into an area near the end of the map by teammates and being branded a traitor, then being shot at by orbital cannons on my own cruiser. 
4. A breathless defense in a canyon, being attacked by waves of robots after being cut off from my team. 
5. Waiting at an ICBM silo while Shabby and a rando handled refuelling elsewhere, and watching the skybox light up above their location with flares and lasers.

Cupatay wrote:

I can do one if people think it's worth doing.

Well I do,
Hoping on new for an hour or so to swat some bugs.

b0r1s wrote:

Sony really know how to take a good thing and fuck it up. Forcing Steam users to connect to PSN was only going to go one way. Over 100k negative reviews in a couple days lol. Sony have backed down and seems to have mollified the frothing mob but I feel sorry for the devs who have worked hard to make this a positive experience. Turns out there are 170 countries who can’t access PSN but do have Steam.

Review bombing helldivers 2 and every other Sony published game (god of war etc) becouse of this is just silly.
Pc must stand for petty cunts!

digi wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

Sony really know how to take a good thing and fuck it up. Forcing Steam users to connect to PSN was only going to go one way. Over 100k negative reviews in a couple days lol. Sony have backed down and seems to have mollified the frothing mob but I feel sorry for the devs who have worked hard to make this a positive experience. Turns out there are 170 countries who can’t access PSN but do have Steam.

Review bombing helldivers 2 and every other Sony published game (god of war etc) becouse of this is just silly.
Pc must stand for petty cunts!

It's pretty shitty to know you'd be bringing in the requirement for a psn account, knowing it isn't available in certain counties, but selling the game in those countries anyway. If Sony had continued, you'd have people who paid full price for the game, able to play it for what, 5 months? And then they are just unable to play anymore.

How does the review bombing affect anything? Does it affect sales or anything meaningful?

They knew about it before launch, turned off account linking due to how popular it was and didn't want to overload the servers, and now decided to turn it on again:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/S7RvZeYhUY

That tweet is from head helldivers bloke

hylian_elf wrote:

How does the review bombing affect anything? Does it affect sales or anything meaningful?

I imagine the effect on sales would be limited to those whose sole source of criticism are the user reviews, which is likely to be smaller for a game as well publicised as Helldivers II. For smaller titles I’m less familiar with, I often use the user reviews as a barometer for what sort of discount will lead to me pulling the trigger.

Ultimately, though, it could have an impact on things like staff bonuses, or future inclusion in subscription services, which often have clauses regarding response. I’d like to think they would disregard user-reviews, but it seems feasible.