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The Terminid swarm has long been the preferred enemy type for most Helldivers. There is something simply iconic about facing the bug hordes. Meanwhile, the Automatons have been a notoriously difficult enemy, with their thick armour and the ability to shoot as they approach. While many Major Orders revolved around thwarting the bots, the bugs remained most players’ comfort zone.
The sudden rise in Automaton popularity
More often than not, Automatons have been the chosen foe when there’s a Major Order in play. At other times, they would be overwhelmingly unpopular, with the ratio ranging between 60-70% in favour of the Terminids. However, more recently, this trend seems to shift. According to the Reddit user cmgg, there are 52.4% of Helldivers facing bots, while 44.2% are waging war against the bugs. The remaining 3.2% are somewhere around Super Earth. This statistic was gathered using the Helldivers Companion app that tracks activity across sectors.
Some players believe this shift happened due to the recent minor bot nerfs, combined with the buffs to many weapons that proved effective against Automatons. This is especially pinpointed down to the reduced rate of ragolling that can happen when one of their missiles hits your vicinity. To take you back, before the nerf, we’d spend a lot of time simply being blown around by their incessant barrages. Cover wasn’t enough, counter-fire wasn’t enough – especially on higher difficulties. Now, while you can still get ragdolled, the frequency is largely reduced, allowing the Helldivers to actually fight back.
Of course, the current Major Order still plays a large part in this rise of anti-bot activity. However, where before we’d see around 30-40% of Hlledivers actually taking part in beating back the threat, now we’re finally seeing that percentage rise to over half. That seems like a major improvement, and hopefully a shift in player mentality. This might be the first sign that the players’ apathy towards the robot threat has begun subsiding, thanks to the game’s recent updates. Have you checked out the Automaton front recently and taken part in fulfilling the current Major Order?