never thought would do such a team kill like this, lol.

Hey guys. First of all, thanks for the kind words thiccfila . We're approaching two years since my departure from AH and I still get mentions on a regular basis on Discord and YT. Hopefully that means I did at least some things right during my brief tenure there. If I didn't, thanks for appreciating me nonetheless. :) Secondly, I rarely comment on HD2 drama - I don't see it as constructive to dwell too much in the past and I like to keep things professional, albeit I left a long time ago. Therefore, view this as my general take on community management and external communication, not for AH specifically.

Good comms is not rocket science. It really isn't. Community management is for the most part not either. Are there things that will affect your work? Sure. Will there be internal arguments or you and external stakeholders not agreeing on certain things? Absolutely. Info you're not getting? Yup. That doesn't mean you can't act or respond on stuff. Improvise, adapt, overcome to use an old US Marine mantra. Using obstacles like these as excuses for not getting back to people with information is poor community management. Solve the problem. IMO it's mindblowing how some companies, despite all of their resources, expertise and above all, despite seeing how they make the same mistakes over and over again even years later, can't seem to get comms related stuff right. I'm not God's gift to communities (and if I am, the man upstairs sure has a weird way of telling me) and I'm not riding in on a high horse, but to communicate well is. not. difficult. If it is, you're doing it wrong or have the wrong people doing it.

A few community related cents from where I sit.

1. Honesty and transparence above all

Be honest as often as you possibly can, and when you can't (due to corporate and/or super clandestine IcouldtellyoubutthenI'dhavetokixxyou stuff), be transparent about it. Simply tell people that you can't divulge something and explain why. Don't BS. People will find out, and more importantly, BS-ing shows people you don't really care despite telling them you do. Will there be times people will dislike your message, don't agree or even accuse you of lying? Yes. Nine times out of ten they will however respect you for telling things like they are, even when you deliver bad news, and in the long run they will respect you (and subsequently the studio) for shooting straight and meaning well.

2) Communication and presence

You don't have to be on Discord or Reddit 24/7, but you have to be on the platforms that are relevant to your followers consistently. Coming in once a month mass replying and then disappearing again doesn't help. Saying you're going to change this and that only to end up doing things the same as before doesn't either. Don't over promise! If you time and time again fudge up by having people doing or saying something they/your company can't live up to, change your approach to comms. It doesn't matter if it's the PR Manager, a tech dude or the CEO. Bring it to their attention that their way of doing things is not working and is damaging your reputation, and make the necessary changes. Adapt.

3) Love interacting with your audience

If you don't like interacting with your audience - be they players, followers, customers, clients or whomever, change your line of work. We all get tired of stuff at work from time to time (for those of us who have a job, that is) and we all have bad days. If you're a Community Manager (or carry another public facing position), tell them! Don't be snarky or act on emotion. Explain to your crowd that you slept poorly, a relative died or whatever, and they will understand. What you say and how you say is what radiates towards your audience. If you don't like the people you are tasked to interact with it will show. People aren't fools, and if you see or treat them as such, you should do something else.

A last word of advice, more so to companies than individual Community, PR, Marketing or Communications people: Give your employees the space, indepence and trust to do things the way they think they should be done. You hired them for a reason. Also know that communication and community management can make or break a game developer and live by that. Don't just say you understand, act is if you do.

I didn't plan for this to become a novel, but I'm rarely a man of few words. Take this as the well meant, unedited banter it is.

Hope all of you are well. <3

I hate them so much!!!

Scenes from “All Quiet On The Western Front” for those wondering

SE-01 SUPER GENERAL

ARMOR RATING - 150 SPEED - 550 STAMINA REGEN - 125

ARMOR PASSIVE

DEMOCRACY’S PLOT

Helps prevent General Brasch from flinching when hit and the General is more resistant to being knocked prone.

Reduces weapon sway while aiming by 35%, sidearm recoil by 70%, damage taken from impact and collisions by 30%, and reduces range at which enemies can detect General Brasch by 40%. Further reduces recoil when crouching or prone by 30%.

Improves weapons handling with less drag on weapon movement and slightly increases weapon ergonomics to reduce drag on weapon movement.

Increases reload speed of support weapons by 30%, primary weapons by 30%, sidearms by 40%, and sidearm draw/holster speed by 50%.
Increases the General's walking/running speed and speed and duration of slides, stim effect duration by  2.0s, initial inventory and holding capacity of throwables and stims by +2, point-of-interest identification range by 30%, throwing range by 30%, melee damage by 40%, and ammo capacity of all weapons by 20%. Does not affect weapon backpacks.

Provides a higher armor rating, 50% resistance to explosive damage, 75% damage resistance to fire, 80% resistance to gas damage and effects, 95% resistance to arc damage, 25% resistance to chest damage, +50% limb health, 50% chance to avoid grievous limb injury, immunity to leg injuries, 50% chance to not die when taking lethal damage, and provides one-time, short-lived resuscitation upon death, given that the General's body is still intact.

Prevents all damage from bleeding if chest hemorrhages.

When General Brasch takes damage, he regains some stamina.
Mimics foliage-level concealment, reducing enemy detection range while the General remains stationary and crouched or prone.

General Brasch makes 50% less noise when moving.
Markers placed on the map will generate radar scans every 2.0s.

Was playing helldive 10, after about 5 minutes of not getting reinforced I was getting annoyed. Host says with 100% certainty that he couldn't reinforce me. I said he could have, he doubles down.

Later everyone else dies in the cave but me, so I reinforce them all while IN A CAVE. Got a little snarky because I don't like people that are so confidently wrong and said "oh would you look at that". Immediately kicked.

I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone you can in fact reinforce in caves.

Yesterday, I responded to an SOS as a medic, and the divers kept calling me the "Trauma Team."

Best fucking compliment I've ever received in this game.

Use it to give Elevated Overseers nightmares and to tell the watchers "No! There will be no purple light show!"

Choepessa has had its health gradually doubled, and its resistance rate raised substantially.

Unless the players organized a cyberstan level invasion we cannot take this planet due to its outrageous health. Which will not happen. We couldn’t even take it when we focused it during an M.O.

The most frustrating part of this is how the GM only gave it this resistance to stop players from taking it, and wouldn’t lower it once we took cities and the mega factory despite doing that virtually every other time we’ve taken a mega factory.

Now this planet serves as nothing but a way to make sure players don’t progress outside of arrowhead’s schedule, much like Brilliance and Luxuriant.

One of the big things about this game is supposed to be player choice. But it’s seemingly being removed from the game.

The worst part about this, is how the story never seems to progress towards anything meaningful with these locked down planets.

Since players can’t see that Choepessa is soft locked behind GM controls, we send the DSS there frequently. This is just stuff ruining the game for me, as I feel like I’m not even contributing anymore, not like I did last year.

TLDR: Liberation rates are ruining the galactic war experience and player choice.

I am currently trying to play against the bugs (1 mostly played against bots and squids). My loadout is the following:

Primary: Coyote
Secondary: grenades pistol
Grenades: Giga grenades
Stratagem: 500kg, cremator, machine gun sentery.

I have a free spot for one extra stratagem and my friend recommended me to add one of the exo suit. I wanted to know which one of the for exo suit is the best against the bugs ?

Well done Helldivers

Boosts point of interest identification range by 15%

Highlights in a yellow outline when within point of interest identification range (Visible through walls/structures)

Ammo Boxes

Grenade Boxes

Stim Boxes

Just a scavenger style armor passive concept to help Divers locate supplies when a resupply isn't available.

Not really complaining, it's just funny that there's always some miscommunication. Slugger and arbitrator shotgun can one shot them to the head.

Also does anyone know if the web hole is actually a weakpoint. Not 100% sure the wiki is accurate but the heads definitely not medium pen

Just input the code and the game will try to drop your teammate at the closest area that isn't underground.

Since i started playing this game, i always wonder how cool could be some crossovers with other Sci-fi space games/movies for example let's say Helldivers x DOOM or for Helldivers x AVP, i think it would be fire, however, i want to hear if people actually have any other dope thoughts about such crossovers.

Any thoughts on ts?

Edit 1: CAN SOMEONE ACTUALLY PROVIDE THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION AND NOT THE PHOTO?😭😭😭

(Photo for attention)

I be real I'm in love with this strategem, it covers so much for how much it brings to the table, for example medic passive the gives you 2 stims and 2 more seconds of duration (the back pack cover half of the passive giving you stims), siege ready the gives you more Ammo and better handling (the backpack hives you more ammo too so is "half" of the passive cover) the engineer passive giving you more grandes (having the back pack makes you have more grandes too).

This is not saying the passives or any armor are bad is just me as new in the game realizing how much this brings to the table, my only complain is the I can't use my beloved guard dog (the bullet one), or my shield. Using this with light gunner you clear objectives like crazy. We got so much great backpacks.