Vehicles - Are they really part of the game?

Helldivers General
#1

Let’s talk about it, considering that the vehicles are classified as supply stratagems and some are only available in the various DLCs, the answer is yes, but the real question to which I refer is: Does their driving physics FITS with the gaming environments? For me the answer is no, and I say this as a lover of sim-arcade racing games, but this is just a personal opinion. In fact, what i’m not going to critize is the ratio of weapons/armor that I think is balanced in all vehicles (except in the TD-110 Bastion, which when compared to AT-47 Anti-Tank Emplacement, about a shot fired at something within the cannon, the TD-110 receives a serious damage, almost destroys the vehicle itself, but if taken individually it would make sense, perhaps it should be balanced imo) What is critical instead is the mobility, they in fact have a poor maneuverability, or if we wanted to see from my perspective, not adequate to the game environments (It’s as if the maneuverability of the vehicles was calibrated for larger spaces); and at the same time a generalized slowness both in the movements and in the speed of gait. For these reasons, the vehicles cannot be adapted for the more difficult levels, when a higher speed of action is required, not to mention the 13-15 levels where it’s practically impossible to use them.

Now, I would like to divide all the vehicles into two macro-categories (Exosuits and Shared Vehicles) of which this last category divided, in turn, into two micro-categories (4 seats and 2 seats) in this way we can see case by case.

Exosuits

From the name exoskeleton and the aspect of a MECH, one would expect to replicate the movements of a Helldiver, but it’s not. The clumsy movements of the machine body and the gait speed make them a burden for the rest of the team, especially when there is more than one in the field. In my opinion the Exosuits should have the speed of a running Helldiver or incremental: from standstill to 5 seconds walks, from 5 seconds onwards, runs.

Shared Vehicles

These vehicles should bring together the forces of the team, instead they are the bone of contention, let’s see why.

4 seats

The APCs are the worst vehicles in the game in my opinion (always from the point of view of mobility), because they have a very bad steering! The turning radius is so small that it is impossible to perform a 180 degree reversal without colliding somewhere. There is no synchrony between the movement of the analog and the wheels! It makes the perception of vehicle trend much more complicated, so you are always stuck with something, and don’t tell me it’s a question of skill because you don’t see where the vehicle will turn. I also noticed a slight asynchrony between walking speed and wheel rotation speed (but this could be spoiled by the PS Vita version)
I invite you to see how can be pushed an APC to “do a donut” in real life. I’m sorry if can hurts to someone, this video is just an example, any real life reference is purely casual. (you have to see just what the driver do, if you pick out from the situation it’s a bit fun lol) https://youtu.be/UtfL54BLV7s

2 seats

  • TD-110 Bastion

This vehicle faithfully replicates the commands and movements of a real modern tank, but the speed is that of a 2084 tank? And above all, is it adequate to the speed of the game? I don’t think so.

  • MC-109 Hammer Motorcycle

Same problem as the APC, the turning radius is very tight, it is really difficult to make a 180 degree reversal at low revs, while it seems to be reviewed what happens during a drift.

In conclusion, everything that is needed for vehicles is a balancing work (always from the point of view of mobility) with all the other elements of the game. The goal should be in my opinion to increase a bit maneuverability and speed of them, which would be compatible with the mobility of a Helldiver as a result is less frequent to get stuck in the surrounding environment. Probably these are just “words to the wind”, because that was how the developers designed the vehicles, but I think they have a lot of potential and deserve a better place in HD.

#2

This pretty much sums up my take on this; sure it would be fun to blaze across the deployment zone, but there are a couple of reasons why making vehicles faster is ultimately a bad idea:

  • This will become the go-to way of moving around for a lot of players

    • this is bad because this will make it easier for players to fall into playing the same way every time
    • at some point people ran cardio exclusively because it was a free and easy way of being fast (aside from glitches)

  • Griefing people by riding off into the sunset will be easier

    • sure it’s a free market and the victim can just shoot the vehicle but it’s better to avoid that situation altogether

Manouverability on the other hand, could use some adjustment, but I wouldn’t want the vehicles to become too useful, since they can squash stuff already, and some of them have big big guns.

#3

From my point of view the speed can be increased by a small percentage, slightly reducing the difference in the characteristic speed of each vehicle without mixing and without ruining the random public experience. The point is that vehicles are not used at all, Exosuits aside, they are a too small niche.

Now another question arises, what is the role of vehicles? apparently I can’t tell myself what the vehicles really are, are they self-propelled secondary weapons? taking into account only the Exosuits are stratagems with a high destructive potential concentrated in a relative period of time, reduced to the use of a single Helldiver. At this point it makes me think that the Exosuits are not vehicles but common stratagems and for this they are excellent weapons but should not be considered vehicles.

Exosuits and “shared vehicles” are two separate and distinct things.

What is troubling me instead are all the other non-Exosuit vehicles that I have temporarily called “shared vehicles”, whose main role should be to safely mobilize Helldiver troops for relatively long periods of time (go from side to side of the map), while it seems to me that they ARE weapons too. The only exception is the TD-110 Bastion, it’s a full-fledged weapon, a mobile version of the AT-47 if we want to.

So my doubt is: Are vehicles weapons or means of transport? Finding the right balance is difficult, but in my opinion the balance should be on the side of mobility. For example, someone here wondered if you need 2 uses or infinite uses with cooling of the MC-109 Hammer, the answer is to make an arcade motorcycle, hitting the nail on the head and not the finger, I do not care the verisimilitude with a real sidecar, Helldivers is not a simulation game after all. I would like to make the pilot a question, Why choose a vehicle instead of another stratagem?

«Unlike all the other weapons made available by the Super Earth command, they allow to improve troop movements in the field and increase the firepower in particular dangerous situations»
helldivers_vignetta

Exactly soldier, but I don’t agree about the movements part… I take another game example, Motostorm RC (PS Vita) the only thing I like about the game is the handling of the scale models: speed inversely proportional to the steering angle. I also wonder if the vehicles should have their own category, just as they have the defensive or special stratagems, in this way they would have their autonomy, but this brings me to the initial question, Are vehicles really part of the game?