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Flow-State in Helldivers 2

Flow state is colloquially, “the zone,” a state of ease/ smoothness of play that requires intense focus but no effort from the player to maintain that focus. A player can be in this state of flow from anywhere from a few minutes to hours, and often results in near perfect gameplay from the individual at their skill level.

For me, its when the outside world quiets down and my mind focuses on the game. Games with player-driven difficulties accomplish flow-state and Helldivers 2 is one of them.

Helldivers 2 is a co-op third-person shooter by Arrowhead Games. It's a satirical game that many have compared to Starship Troopers and for me, it's a giant parody of of post 9/11 Bush Era American Jingoism. Squads of one to four players battle against the squidlike Illuminate, the robotic Automatons, and the insectoid Terminids.

The flow-state for me comes from the endless enemies and the fact that the game requires full mental focus. I've been with my main squad since June with a rotating cast of squadmates [Ninja_925, Salty, UndyingRadish along with assorted subs] and we play weekly.

It's been a pleasure seeing the squad become a well-oiled machine and the flow happens because I can trust each of us to lock-in and play, and not grief if things become serious. Sometimes we loose and that's chill, or hilariousness happens thanks to things like me accidentally killing teammates with a well-placed 500kg. Or [Ninja_925] kicking me off a rock. Allowing Friendly Fire = A+ design, the levity of being able to troll friends is great. If I'm feeling overwhelmed or disassociating, I can trust my main squad to take things in stride and help me with the cognitive load. Salty pings enemies to avoid or heavies to shoot, and will often provide cover fire. One memorable time, they decided to act as a distraction for the bugs by running in circles. Max aka UndyingRadish and Ninja aka Ninja_925 have amazing synergy, like when they took out the meganests on Super Helldive 10. And then shot me in the face. At least for me, a good squad and good communication is vital to good flow in this game. It's much easier to get into the zone without having to worry if randos are going to grab samples or call extraction early. Or worse, grief.

It's one thing to laugh off some hilarious team-kills but malicious griefing is a mood killer. I remember when Salty was learning the game, I had a squadmate who kept throwing grenades at them and Salty didn't know where the explosions are from. As a co-op game, Helldivers 2 relies on more experienced squadmates teaching noobs. There is a tutorial but it's very basic. It doesn't cover things like how the various missions work or how to capture side objectives. There is a culture of much higher leveled players going down to the easiest difficulties and teaching the cadets, aka the lowest-ranking title. [Ninja_925] taught me the game and [UndyingRadish] got me started by buying it for me. As a noob, I remember the sense of accomplishment from learning the ropes, seeing the achievements rack up, and unlocking the various stratagems and weapons with earned in-game currency. Flow back then was basically following my friends around, and shooting stuff as they crushed the objectives. As I leveled up, the game induced a sense of flow by making it easier to pick difficulty level. Levels are unlocked as you finish the highest difficulty available to you even if playing on another player's ship. There are currently 10 difficulty levels available ranging from Level 1 - Trivial to Level 10 - Super Helldive. The earliest levels have you go after objectives that become side objectives in the higher difficulties, and more difficult enemies are introduced as you go up the ranks.

Devastators, Bile Titans, and Factory Striders are mainly high level enemies but are objectives for noobs to defeat on lower levels. This teaches them how to defeat them and builds up a sense of confidence.

Devastators are tanky robots with the head in a tight, hard to hit spot, Bile Titans are kaiju sized bugs that barf on players and Factory Striders are even taller, tanky 'bots that create more 'bots to take out Squads. Retrieving information from a crashed rescue pod and destroying rogue broadcasts are all early level objectives. But in higher difficulties, these are all side quests. Maps are also filled with points of interest, filled with samples to upgrade ships, super credits[premium currency] to buy war bonds, medals to buy more weapons, and requisition slips to buy more stratagems.

My squadmate, [Ninja_925] pointed out for him, this means games can be high risk/high reward. The game gets harder the longer the players are in. Players can just do the main objective and go, or stick it out and go do the side objectives for more rewards while dealing with more and more spawns.

For me, this can be extra risky , since staying longer will mean extra deaths and increased mission failures. It's extremely frustrating to spend forty minutes in a difficult mission, only to fall into a hole and permanently loose ten rare samples that can't be retrieved. For me, flow state is part of the gameplay loop, that addiction from collecting samples to the addiction of upgrading my ships. The game pushes you to go to higher difficulties since as you upgrade your ship, the costs get higher and the rarer samples are only found on higher levels. Highest level difficulties have the most samples and medals. Hence high risk/high reward. Though low level difficulties are also rewarding for high level players since super credits spawn the most on those small maps. Quoting, my squadmate again [Ninja_925], for him, the flowstate comes from the game being simple but doing it well. The game has pretty smooth controls, with movement being based off Metal Gear Solid 5, and he doesn't have to fight it.

I'm apt to agree with him, since despite all of Helldiver 2's flaws, flawed movement was never one of the flaws. (outside of getting stuck). Games without smooth accurate movement, would remove me from the game and render it unplayable for me. Weapon control is also buttery smooth and the sheer amount of stratagems and weapons, means different playstyles are supported. Getting into the higher levels is possible without mastering every single one. I've leveled up into the 70s and there's a lot of weapons I have barely touched despite them being very popular - (the recoiless rifle, the quasar cannon, etc.) For those who enjoy a touch of realism, reloading weapons before they are out of bullets, means the bullets are now gone, keeping detail-oriented players state of disbelief intact and therefore flow-state running. My playstyle requires weapons with the least cognitive load aka laser weapons like the Sickle. With careful management, no reload is necessary. Nothing ruins my flow harder like running out of bullets and then getting flooded by bugs. I do sometimes take on more explosive weapons like the grenade pistol or the explosive crossbow, but if I'm not careful, I'll either blow myself up or my teammates.

One memorable time had me accidentally shoot Ninja_925 when he wore the explosive armor, which led to him dying and blowing up, which led to me and Blood Hawke also blowing up and dying. Several weapons have different modes to shoot them, like the Recoilless Rifle's safe and unsafe modes and the Airburst Rocket Launcher's cluster and flak modes. I'm not the kind of player to take advantage of this, but I know my squadmates [Undying Radish, and Ninja_925] take this into account with their loadouts. Squad loadouts are important when it comes to missions. Loadouts in tandem = smooth teamwork = more smooth missions = smooth flow. Before Bile Titans were nerfed, someone would have to bring dedicated anti-tank weaponry while another person would clear out the swarms. During illuminate missions, my usual loadout was to bring the Wasp, long-distance cluster misslles against the flying overseers, while Salty would bring an HMG to provide covering fire and Ninja_925 would bring his flamethrowers against the voteless zombies. So in Helldivers 2, flow-state is achieved through a complex player-driven experience of custom difficulty level choice, the choice in going through the main objectives or/and side objectives as well, weapon choices and squad load-outs, along with squad cohesion.

This all leads to a very rewarding gameplay loop as the player's sense of accomplishment, trust in squadmates, and confidence grows.

Hence why its one of my favorite games.

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