Also, I'm not sure how much this applies to helldivers specifically, but from what I've seen, teams didn't really teamwork. Because they didn't have to.

This can be very bad because if it follows these steps:

game is easy, no teamwork required, players learn to play the game without teamwork
game gets harder, but some people can still manage solo, complain about "newbs" and tell them to "git gud"
game gets even harder, now it's impossible to play "quasi solo" but the environment is no longer fit to learn teamwork in the context of this game. "How" to work together effectively.

Then people will complain, justly, that they don't have the tools and methods to beat the challenge. Which is correct. They don't. But you can't just tell people to "go play easy mode and learn the game", when they are "max level" and put 40-100 hours into the game.

Of course the synergy tools still have to exist and I'm not knowledgeable about helldivers whether they do.

There is no good choice to "encourage" teamplay, except via creating "natural" funnels that people will "end up at" "organically", and putting a challenge in front of them that they can only work with teamwork. But that means the challenge has to beat them, until they get it. And that may never happen.

One game I have found exceptional as a case study for what is "overpowered" and what isn't, and why, is magic the gathering. All the "code" is public. The complaints are public. The bans are public, and explained. So if anyone here wants to nerd out about balance and doesn't know mtg yet, there is a rabbit hole for you.

[–] Katana314 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I remember an incident in Red Orchestra where we were on a tank map. A teammate hopped in a tank. So, I did too. He jumped out of the tank and into another; so I joined. He jumped out and started shooting at me, basically insisting I get my own tank. Apparently, his level of tactical sense and reflexes in a tank vastly outweighed the value of having a second player in the gunner’s seat; even though the game was realistically meant to depict tank crews cooperating.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

It's a common issue with lots of team play games. The other player decided that it was better to have two people operating separate mortars than to have one of them provide small arms cover on the flanks of the tank.

Helldivers 2 has a similar problem where some players can help other players reload their larger weapons at a much faster rate than typically; however the player base decided that it's better to fan out and each operate the weapon solo because shots do not need to be made so rapidly and clumping together increases the odds both players die.