The current state of balance in Killing Floor

[Undedd Jester]

This is my thread to assess the overall opinion of everyone as to the current state of balance in Killing Floor. In a word, its good... but its not perfect, and 1 word answers ain't the Undedd Jester Style.

This as it stands is my opinion as to the balance in Killing Floor. I have determined it based on my understanding of my own limitations on perks, the success other players have had, and the mathematical capabilities of each perk.

I'm sure everyone knows where my perk expertise lies, and that is the point. I understand how each perk should be applied, but I'm not an expert on every perk in the game. I'm consulting all of you to put forward the case for your own personal favourite perks to assess how good/bad they may be, and hopefully get them addressed within the next update... a little birdy told me there was one in the distant future

This is assuming level 6 on 6 man HoE, without people buying weapons for one another using discounts.

Field Medic

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Very good movement speed when carrying a knife, pretty capable movement speed carrying a gun (about the same as a regular player with their knife). Especially effective in wide and windy corridors to avoid both melee and ranged specimens
- Very impressive armour, easily capable of withstanding almost any attack while armour is still intact.
- Excellent healing capabilities for self and teammates with very fast recharge times.
- Can make good use of cheap weapons such as the axe, LAR, and even Mp7M used correctly without burning through huge amounts of money.

Weaknesses: -
- No weapon discount on powerful weapons such as Hunting Shotguns, Xbows, Nade Launchers, etc, and saving for such weapons can hamper the team.
- When alone is very much required to run and get away rather than stand and fight. This makes it quite easy to to get cornered, blocked or ambushed in certain types of maps.
- Extremely squishy without armour due to lack of offensive capabilities.
- Pretty succeptable to siren screams due to the nature of play style of the perk as mentioned above.
- Very succeptable to the clot grab. Without damage boosts it can prove very difficult to push paste a group of clots that spawn at the end of narrow corridors or doorways.
- No reliable way of dealing with Large targets such as Fleshpounds and Scrakes

Overall: The Medic has a credible number of weaknesses to his strengths. Although he may be able to survive a significant number of hits, and outrun a good number of foes, his lack of any real cost effective damage output makes surviving alone very challenging, and in some situations almost impossible

Verdict: Well Balanced (leaning very slightly towards Overpowered if anything, but no real complaints)



Support Specialist

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Large penetration with all shotguns to help conserve ammo and cut through large numbers of foes and mobs.
- Credible damage output with basic weaponry, further improved on higher tier weapons.
- Good stockpile of ammunition for weaponry, enhanced significantly when coupled with the ability to carry greater numbers of heavy weapons.
- Grenades are also buffed to offer greater spiking capabilities, especially against Scrakes and Fleshpounds.
- Ability to weld much faster than other classes and maintain a welded door alot easier even when alone.

Weaknesses: -
- Awkwardly long reload times on majority of weapons, increased by general inefficiency by killing lower level/common targets.
- Effective range is alot lower than other classes, making sirens and esspecially husks problematic.
- Weaponry can prove expensive to stock up on early on, requiring careful spending and money conservation.

Overall: The supports weaknesses are noticable, but are fairly easily controlled by location. Using advanced techniques he has the ability to take on any specimen within the game alone when used correctly and as such he is typically the favourite of the modern KF player. His available ammunition for each of his weapons is very respectable and it is not too challenging to be sparing through the course of the round.

Verdict: Slightly Overpowered (He is not gamebreaking, but he is a tad overpowered in the eyes of a good number of players)



Sharpshooter

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Very Credible damage upon successful headshots to all ranges of specimens
- Healthy variety of effective weapons, useful for various purposes.
- Can effectively dispatch of difficult or awkward threats to the team such as Sirens, Husks, Bloats and Scrakes, and when used properly can be a key player eliminating the Fleshpound.
- Reload and cycle times of weapons greatly improved.
- Healthy discount on his weaponry, and as such isnt too challenging to maintain.

Weaknesses: -
- Body shot damage is extremely ineffective against even the most basic of foes.
- Skill required for the perk is very high, as any kind of mistake can prove very costly, especially against Scrakes and Fleshpounds.
- Weaponry is generally pretty heavy, limiting available loadouts.
- Top tier weaponry has various limitations that make them less desirable either by intent or accident (Fleshpound Xbow resistance requiring 4 Xbox bolts, M14 with its wonky iron sight)

Overall: The Sharpshooter is still a powerful perk in the right hands, however the difficulty of using it (especially given some of the strange quirks in KF hitboxes) makes it considerably less dependable. He has very noticable weaknesses, but not huge stand out strengths. General foes pose a big threat at close range, and large foes are equally easy to make a costly mistake on. This does therefore make him a less popular perk.

Verdict: Pretty Well Balanced (although slightly leaning towards underpowered)



Commando

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Very large stockpile of ammunition on each weapon and the ability to carry 2 perked weapons means ammunition is almost never a problem for the Commando
- Weapons have easy to use weapon sights making distance fighting very managable. Headshots are fairly easy to hit, even at long range, so dealing with regular foes both close and far is pretty standard
- Large clip sizes means large pools of speicmens will rarely outsurvive a commandos current supply, greatly enhanced by a fast reload speed.
- Ability to see health bars and cloaked specimens means dark areas are rarely a problem, and the best times to finish of specimens are easy to calculate.
- Weapons are reasonably cheap and easy to maintain, making the commando a very good cost effective class.

Weakness: -
- Damage is relatively low for each bullet so getting damage down rapidly to prevent yourself sustaining damage can prove a problem for the Commando, espeically on larger specimens like the Scrake Fleshpound, and to some degree the Husk.
- Lack of real cutdown or spike power on the larger specimens can prove problematic when they are meatshielding a dangerous target.
- The commando requires alot of specimen predicition and understanding to play properly, specimens appearing round nearby corners that catch the commando by surprise can prove difficult to deal with.

Overall: The commando is very much set in his role. He excels at supporting the hard hitters of his squad by eliminating small threats around them. As a team player he is a very effective class, but as a individual he has certain situations where he is out of his depth. In public servers they are ratehr uncommon because of this, but played properly they are a well balanced class.

Verdict: Well balanced (No complaints)


Berserker

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Extremely fast movement speed with melee weapons, his weapon class of choice. Effective at keeping away form damage in most maps, say for ones with narrow doorways and very thin corridors.
- Very powerful damage reduction, even without armour, capable of withstanding strikes from Sirens right through to Fleshpounds.
- Pretty resistant to a number of major hinderances other perks face, such as clot grabs, fire damage and siren screams.
- Reasonable damage output across all weapons, with a number of advanced tricks to defeat the various specimens.
- Very cheap to buy up and maintain, making the Berserker a very cost effective class.

Weaknesses: -
- Slow movement without melee weapons, most notably when self healing.
- Severe lack of range, requiring a typically kiting style of play.
- In the wrong hands proves a very poor perk at cooperative gameplay.

Overall: The Berserker is very much a kite dependant class, and is exceptional at doing it. Although he can be used in a team capacity it is very rare for players to do so, and is typically seen going off alone and distracting majority of the horde alone. As such he has fallen out of grace with a number of players. For specimens he proves difficult to catch, and very difficult to kill as even when he makes a mistake his abilities typically allow him to escape.

On the other hand in a team capacity his exceptional survival abilities are much less prnounced as he puts himself at the front of the squad diverting damage off the rest of the team. This has as such created much controversy between the community as to whether or not the Berserker is overpowered.

Verdict: A little Overpowered (since his typical application in game is not within a team capacity, needs revising on how best to limit his solo abilities)



Firebug

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Is very flexible in how rapidly he can deal out damage to crowds of specimens. He can either help his team conserve ammo, or he can soften up targets to ensure his colleagues can cut foes down more effectively.
- Meatshielding is rather ineffective against the Firebug. Used correctly he can cut down very large groups of specimens all at once with little ammunition.
- The Firebug doesn't require headshots to get full use of his damage so strafing, jumping, or short foes (like crawlers) can be ignited with relative ease as soon as they appear.
- The crisp effect will stun and slow down foes in the middle of attacking or charging, thereby buying more time for the firebug or his team to kill the target specimen.
- The firebug is resistant to Husk fireballs, which not only means he can distract them, but also means unlike the rest of his team, he doesn't need to retreat to carry on dealing with the other specimens closing in. This makes it much easier for his team to hold the line. He is also immune to his own grendes, again meaning he doesn't have to retreat in certain circumstances.
- The Firebug is rather cheap to maintain, and alos spawns with armour, making him very money efficient.

Weaknesses: -
- The Firebug has a steady damage output but no real spike damage. This makes foes like Fleshpounds and Scrakes nearly impossible alone, and even gorefasts can be problematic.
- Used incorrectly the Firebug can restrict his alies view, and also cause graphics lag on other players lower end machines.
- Used incorrectly the Firebug will burn thorugh his ammunition very quickly, and given the nature of his damage type, he can be left pretty much defenceless without his primary weapons.
- Although resistant to the husk, he cannot kill him with fire based damage. This can mean he finds himself forced to use an off perk weapon to deal with it. This problem is greatly magnified by a slow wepaon swap animation.
- The Flamethrowers available ammunition in his tank is a large percentage of his overall supply. This can mean keeping track of your overall available ammuniton is very difficult.

Overall: The Firebugs weaknesses are well known, however his strengths are much less obvious. Used correctly he proves to be a credible asset to the team, used incorrectly and he becomes a bigger hinderance than a help. This makes him a very unpopular class in public games, however in reality he is rather well balanced.

Verdict: Well balanced (if anything slightly Underpowered, but I would personally say he is fine)



Demolitions Expert

Spoiler!

Strengths: -
- Impressively powerful weapons of choice that don't require headshots to be effective, with the Pipe Bomb being one of the most effective weapons in the game.
- Large AoE on all weapons making crowd control quite simple, especially against meat shielding.
- Big spike damage available to deal with dangerous foes comfortably. Especially effective against the much feared Fleshpound.
- Large stockpile of grenades and explosives in general to have a fair amount of options when daling with foes.

Weaknesses: -
- Very poor close range abilities, making team tactics and specimen prediciton very important.
- Large obscuring dust clouds making use of explosives a risky choice.
- Very expensive weaponry requiring alot of time spent saving money instead of spending it.
- Sirens and Husks destroying/exploding nades and pipe emplacements proves costly in both expense and damage output, as well as causign great risk to the player.

Overall: The Demo Expert is a class with very well defined weaknesess, but also well defined strengths. It is a difficult class to play well, and an easy class to play badly, as such it is rather unpopular in public games. If the player using the demo expert on the other hand knows what he is doing, and can overcome the classes weaknesses, he can really show off what the class can do, and show the class is most certainly not underpowered.

Verdict: Well Balanced (Although the skill required is very high.)




Remember these are my opinions. This is not a rage match, this is an attempt to provoke responses to aid the game in getting closer to nailing that perfect balance that has been lost in so many other class based games (mentioning no names.)

If you disagree with my assesment of each perk, I relish your response, as I am certainly no Commando, Demo, Zerker, etc expert. All I request is you back up your opinions and help me and everyone else understand WHY a class is/isn't overpowered.

Thanks for your time

 

[vealck]

My opinion:

SS on hoe is underpowered. Frankly, the only thing that bothers me is the fact that 9MM is not capable of killing a clot on headshot. But it bothers me quite a lot.

 

[C_Gibby]

My main problem is the fact that "handcannon" doesn't seem to live up to its name at all on HOE.

 

[9_6]

Support is kind of a backwards berserker.
Easy to use and effective only if you got your back covered and don't move too much but then, everyone can be effective, even in a team full of shotblocking morons thanks to the penetration.
It's the perfect pub-perk as long as you stay in the team.

Demos are only as effective as your team is stupid.
A team full of linedancers can completely negate a demo, especially one carrying a LAW.
It can be extremely powerful in a good team though.

Berserkers are not fixable.
Deemed "underpowered" before, actually nerfbatted pretty hard in the last update and now deemed "overpowered".

Commandos are pretty much the benchmark of a balanced perk.

Sharpshooters are hard to use and most of their weapons can be blocked by a bad team which makes them even more situational.
Their only distinct use is stunning scrakes at a distance.

Firebugs suck.
They suck. Their fire consisting of a brazillion of particles still makes my pc lag. I hate them and I'm happy someone plays one only once in a while.

 

[Steeps]

Here is my opinion, it sounds good to me but nothing is tested so I

 

[Yoshiro]

Now this is the correct way to make an opinion suggestion thread

 

[Uk1t4k3]

In my opinion, the only perk that can't hold it's own ground are firebug and commando. The rest of the perks are fine on their own in the hands of a skillful player. I'm sure a little buff to commando and firebug will not hurt especially HoE is putting both the perk down to their kneels.

 

[Deafmute]

I agree with nearly everything you said but I don't think Support is overpowered. Balanced as far as I'm concerned. I think Zerker is overpowered in the right hands (no not every perk is overpowered with a good player so don't start) but not many people are good enough for it to be a real issue.

Demo is balanced. I love good Demos. LOVE. Unfortunately most people suck at it. Sharpshooter requires a lot of skill and luck to use effectively but it can be a massively useful perk. I don't understand why so many people think SS sucks. I hate Firebugs. The only thing they're good for is tanking Husks.

Everyone knows how I feel about Commando.

Edit: ^ Commando can absolutely hold its own on HoE. I play Commando on HoE almost exclusively and have never had any complaints or felt like the perk is underpowered. Sure he can't solo a Scrake or FP, but I'd be pretty pissed if he could. Not his job.

Forgot Medic. I adore Medic, but I don't understand the logic behind the speed nerf. I often find myself chasing and trying to heal a Zerker who's juuust out of reach. That bit is annoying but otherwise Medic is fine.

 

[Uk1t4k3]

(no not every perk is overpowered with a good player so don't start)

I strongly agree with this point as Deafmute's point could actually put a stop to debating which perk is good or bad. I think the veterans would agree on his point that only a good player could better utilise the perks without being too dependent on the weapons alone.

Thumbs up for your epic pointer Deafmute.

 

[brick_top1982]

After running around in the training room, I would say the support is most overpowered out of all the perks.

In the hands of Devante, Fang, (slowly I'm getting there) any one choke point can be soloed without too much effort, on any difficulty, with any amount of players. Supports can kill the scrakes the quickest, (alt fire katana/axe to crouching secondary hunting shotgun blast to the face) Fleshpounds, any 3 nade plus 2 hunting shotgun combo will do the trick. My fave: nade+alt hunting+two nades+hunting OR 2nade+hunting+nade+hunting.

Oh which reminds me, last night I was kicked from a room because I didn't "save" any scrakes for the zerker who was running around getting himself killed. It felt good to stuff those zerker players who think they are the only ones who can kill the biggins the quickest.

 

[Aze]

Here is my opinion:

Field Medic - Balanced
The perk works as it should: It is defensive and heals people well.
Like someone else said: The only thing i would like to see done to it is either increase its speed to Berserker levels, but i'd honestly rather put down the Berserker to Medic's speed instead. (And please make the speed consistant for all difficulties please, wether that would be +20% or +25% doesnt matter!)

Commando - Balanced
No need to touch this perk. It's probably the most balanced perk in the game imo. Only thing i can think of is to change the weights around a little, but it's far from necessary in the game's current state.

Demolitions - Balanced
I'd say this perk is well balanced and has a more defined "coop" sense to it than most other perks (you need your mates to make sure the lone smallfries don't get close to you, so you can focus on Fleshies and big crowds)
There is one thing i really dislike about it though: It's too expensive, at least the pipebombs are. I'd rather have a real hardcap on them (equal to how many pipebombs you can carry, so offperk you can only put down 2 pipebombs, while a level 6 Demo can put down 8) rather than limitting them by absurd costs. Might require some other adjustments for that to happen though (like giving the pipebombs a remote trigger, so you can remove undesired placed bombs, so you can put down a new one).
Handgrenades could use a discount for this perk too

Sharpshooter - Underpowered (mildly)
Not underpowered by much, but it has quite the issues that makes it not so desireable to play:
M14 - Needs a scope. Seriously. Lasersight can be attached to basicly any other weapon.
Xbow - Its more balanced in terms of power now, but it's too expensive for what it does. Increase its price to 1000, countered by making it part of the Sharpie's discount, reduce its weight to 8 and purely cut down the base price of the bolts by 50%.
LAR - Great bread n butter weapon versatility weapon for Sharpshooters and other perks too. I'd even say its too good for its price. Increase its price to 400/500, countered by making it part of Sharpie's discount.
Pistols - Needs to belong to a new perk honestly. They don't really fit with this perk (too spammy/crowdcontrol-ish weapons). In particular due to Dual 9mm's serious lack of usefulness.
I'd also go ahead (but i think a lot of people disagreed with this) and give back a small amount of bodyshot bonus (like 25% at level 6) and rebalance the other damagenumbers so the maximum power on headshots remain the same This bodyshot weakness REALLY shows on HoE.
EDIT: Regardless of my harsh tone towards this perk, it is still probably one of my most played perks ^^

Berserker
Solo/kiting - Overpowered
Teamplay - Balanced
It's a hard-to-balance perk. Only minor tweaks should be done at a time, like, making it slower (so you can't outrun that healer that wants to heal you lol ) and fixing some of the exploiting mechanics (the Fleshpound ones in particular). But as a teamplay perk, it's certainly a good perk (Tanking, stun Scrakes, trashkiller etc). While the Berserker is on the overpowered side for sure, i still think the Chainsaw could use some redesign/buff so it's more generally useful (Give the Patty a melee resistance though lol.) Scary_ghost's Patty mechanic (he shoots a point blank rocket in certain circumstances, for example, when he gets mobbed ) would be better though, i guess.

Firebug - Underpowered
It's not incredibly underpowered (although it sure is the least powerful perk imo), but it's definitely unpopular for a reason: Low amount of weapon choices, heavy main weapon, and on higher difficulties has real troubles with ammo (even if you try real hard to be effective, unless you are Undedd Jester ). I'd say, to increase the perk's flexibility and FUN-level: Reduces the Flamethrowers weight to 8 or 9, make the FT faster to "sheathe", give the FT one more tank of ammo, reduce the perk's ammo bonus from 60% to 50%, but make it increase total ammo of the Mac10 by that amount too (So the Mac10 has a 50% larger clip AND also 50% more total ammo, just like the Flamethrower gets) and add at least one more weapon for the perk.
Some more things could be done to increase its teamplay viability and general strength:
1) Make the slowing of the movement effect start immediately as you burn a target (it doesn't at the moment, it only seems to kick in when a specimen panics)
2) Make the panic effect more useful and consistant
3) Make enemies that are on fire receive more damage from all sources (For example at level 6, you could get a 6% damage-multiplier (1% per level ) on burning enemies, really making the perk more useful for the team!)
4) Make the DoT shorter (cut it down to 7 or 8 seconds, down from 10), but keep the total damage, thus increasing its DoT efficiency.

Support Specialist - Overpowered
Not gamebreakingly overpowered, but definitely the strongest teamplay perk at the moment. I'd say, don't tamper too much with the perk except for one thing: Fix the "extra damage" bug (a pellet a can hit both the head and body hitboxes, making the damage sometimes quite a lot higher than it should be), as that might be one of the main reasons it seems so incredibly strong. Then, after that, further balancing can be done (if needed at all) which could be (for example) removing the handgrenade bonus damage.

 

[Rainydaykid]

Everyone knows how I feel about Commando.

Edit: ^ Commando can absolutely hold its own on HoE. I play Commando on HoE almost exclusively and have never had any complaints or felt like the perk is underpowered. Sure he can't solo a Scrake or FP, but I'd be pretty pissed if he could. Not his job.

I second this. I have even gone to wave 10 numerous times using an AK. As mentioned, the scrake and FP are the only specs I can't absolutely and instantly own.

 

[Entangler]

My opinions on balance in general are well-documented by now, so I'll spare everyone yet another sleep-inducing lecture and (for once!) get straight to the point:

Field Medic seems fine, insofar as I can't think of anything particularly wrong with it. People keep banging on about the speed nerf like it's a big deal, but for Medics doing their jobs rather than running off like attention whores, I haven't noticed any appreciable difference.

Support Specialist is the all-rounder who's a bit above average at everything. Stacking Supports can trivialise sweeping without compromising heavy hitting capacity on some maps, and that's an issue, but not one easily addressed; my only real suggestions for Support would be to:

• fix the pellet hitreg bug (not that that really counts as an idea) to at once reduce mysterious weapon malfunctions and get rid of that wtfridiculous Scrake one-hit-kill;
• get rid of the headshot damage multipliers from the pellet projectiles, leaving only the ones in the damage types, reducing the overall effect without significantly compromising damage output (considering that most pellets hit the body most of the time); and
• remove the explosives damage bonus, which was made redundant as of Level Up anyway and lets sweeping-geared Supports fare better against Flesh Pounds than they should.

Nothing too outrageous, just enough to keep the all-rounder as exactly that.

Sharpshooter is a divisive one (o rly?). It's such a rare day that I see a Crossbow-wielding Sharpshooter anywhere other than cluelessly enraging Flesh Pounds in a team with five Berserkers that it's honestly hard to gauge their effectiveness in the wild. I still smell an opening for that old headshot damage multipliers suggestion of mine there but never mind that for now. I haven't used the M14 much myself since the balance patch, but I have (very rarely) seen it used well, so I'll go on record as saying it's more-or-less fine as-is. (Rage commencing in 3... 2... 1...) All in all, the Sharpshooter still has a place on the modern Killing Floor team, but if you're stacking Supports in cramped hallways or Berserkers anywhere else, you probably won't notice.

Commando is in a similar boat to the Sharpshooter. It's very good at its role, but somewhat overshadowed (through no fault of its own) by the generalist perks. My only suggestion for increasing the Commando's relevance would derail this thread.

Berserker.

Oh dear.

It is fixable, but probably not without changing some base mechanics. My ideal Chainsaw, for example, would decapitate Clots and Gorefasts in one hit without killing them, but that's currently impossible thanks to the way that damage modifiers are compounded on the decap bonus - and getting rid of that would introduce issues of its own. Meanwhile, the damage resistance buff still feels as unnecessary as it ever did, and the speed buff really ought to be conditional (I've previously posited having it decrease if you're carrying more than a certain weight, and I still reckon that'd work).

Chainsaw vs Patriarch is due to the Patriarch's AI not handling mobbings gracefully rather than the Chainsaw itself being too powerful. That too is fixable. See Scary Ghost's mutator for an intentionally over-the-top solution, and consider it a proof of concept.

But above all, I'd just like to play HoE games that aren't hour-long kitefests for a change. Balanced or not, Berserker becoming "flavour of the patch" has made my long-time favourite perk feel stale. Make it more skill-oriented again and watch the hordes of Badserkers scatter amidst cries of "it's useless now!".

Firebug is included in this list only for completeness, because I have nothing worthwhile to say about it. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw one in HoE except under similar circumstances to the aforementioned clowns pointing their inappropriately-begotten Crossbows in the wrong direction, and it's the only perk for which I don't have a full bar. Then again, if people are voting with their feet, that's a statement of its own. I suppose it could just be woefully underappreciated by the masses, similarly to how the post-Level Up Berserker used to be, but I wouldn't know. I'm guessing they work best with a Commando also present, but good luck getting both of those on a team without someone calling them noobs and demanding that they switch perks.

Demolitions is the perk you love to hate. It's devastating when used correctly, but you wouldn't know it from watching most who attempt it. Its reputation as forged by trigger-happy imbeciles precedes it, so it's rarely seen in serious games despite what good it can bring. Something's got to be done about that double-hit bug though, and admittedly there's a fair chance my perception of it would nosedive if that were fixed. Only one way to find out.


Apologies if the whole thing comes off as too frank for this civil thread; the (completely unrelated) circumstances just have me in that mood right now.

P.S. Further apologies for promising not to lecture. In retrospect, that was clearly a lie.

Edit: And in case the tone seems overly negative, let me just add that it's a hell of a lot better than 1014 was.

 

[scary ghost]

The one thing about support that I've wondered for a long time is why does he still have the frag bonuses when there's a demolitions perk? His frags are nearly as strong as the demolition's frags and he can carry 11 as well.

Like Nips said, support can make a 6 man HoE scrake and fleshpound instantly disappear with 1 alt fire katana + 1 alt fire HSG shot and 3 frags + 2 alt fire HSG shots respectively. He can kill a scrake faster than a zerker and sharpshooter and can kill a fleshpound almost as fast as a demo. Support can also hold his own against a mob of smaller specimens, does not lose any speed when carrying a full 24/24 kg of weight, and is lethal at close range. The one thing he can't do well is hit long range targets but only husks can take advantage of that. They're only a mild annoyance at worst.

Someone here made a mod to the fleshpound behavior where their rage timer doesn’t reset.

That someone is me

 

[Undedd Jester]

Gotta admit the support does bug me, and was one of the main prompts for me to make this thread. Its a class I've never really played and yet I'm still rather capable with. Sure I got to level 6 with the perk but I would hardly call that "Expert"

With my only real experience being third person and that odd time I played a Shotgun Medic, I can pick my weapons and get blasting quite happily with little fear of anything on the field. Within a couple of tries I even half mastered that 6 man Scrake headshot kill (although admittedly I do cheat a little ), and got pretty solid at taking on FP's alone too.

I suppose its my sadomasochistic side that likes to have a specimen to fear really, but I just don't feel any kind of dread or worry when playing the perk, and that kills the enjoyment for me

As far as the Zerker is concerned.... yeah... I'm planning on going to bed soon

Its much easier to just say agree with Entangler

 

[Zoridium JackL]

i'm only going to comment on SS, seeing as that is the class i play the most, but i agree it is a tad underpowered, while it is able to hold its own, it struggles just a little to do so, it's skill ceiling is a little too high, and although it is meant to encourage head-shots, all other perks (excluding medic) get a damage bonus with their weapons, but the sharpshooters only applies to headshots, now you can argue that it is a class that needs to aim at the head, but on difficulties such as HoE missing the headshot is like spitting on them, i understand that the bodyshot bonus was removed for a reason, and a very good one at that, but i feel that unless you are getting headshots every time, it just isn't getting the damage output necessary to make it viable option for anyone that isn't near perfect aim, that being said, if you can aim well enough, the sharpshooter is a great class, i just feel as though it doesn't level with the difficulty, it is suited perfectly to the lower levels, but once you get a little higher, it just becomes to weak.

 

[jalex3]

I agree with everything, expect support and sharpy

high cost off huntingshotty ammo, high cost of aa12 and really he does not have huge amounts of ammo.
yes you have the high weight capacity but a Hshotty and aa12 take it all up.

I find sharpy a much less effort class to play and die less as never really have ammo worries.
Id say they where balanced or sharpy if anything was the more op one. but I myself feel its balanced enough.

edit: now if you could have slugs in the shotty id like that but it would need balancing. shotty they can be used in, price and number the main thing. still i thing it would be nice rather then say adding a new gun in.

 

[OCAdam]

I'd love to try adding to the thread, but since I generally only play solo or pub games on Normal difficulty and this thread seems specifically geared towards just 6 man HoE... not gonna help, is it? I'd play harder difficulties, but... well if you look at my YT account and check the CWarhead vid, you'll notice I think twice that my mouse does it's little freakout thing. I know it happens at least once in that vid (I randomly look to the sky).

Makes it hard to play high difficulties when that sorta thing happens.

Would you guys like to expand this to other difficulties as well, just as long as people post what difficulty they are speaking about?

 

[Steeps]

Oh sorry #14 I really should start paying attention to user names around here.

And #18 I wouldn't say this is for HoE only, or at least in my first post it was geared at pretty much anyone. I just think the reason everyone talks about HoE is because it is the standard in a sense. I mean if a weapon or perk is overpowered in an HoE chances are it is overpowered on every other difficulty as well. I still play hard sometimes when I want to use my lv 4 commando.

I agree with some of the proposed nerfs for support. I'd unperk the grenades (and possibly limit him to five, though I'm still not sure about this) and scale his weight normally. 15kg for him would be the same as 15kg for anyone else with default speed, and at 24/24kg he would move quite a bit slower. It would not make him such an obvious choice on maps with long trader runs such as bedlam and force players to think twice before deciding to carry two shotguns and a handcannon or katana.

 

[Deafmute]

I'd love to try adding to the thread, but since I generally only play solo or pub games on Normal difficulty and this thread seems specifically geared towards just 6 man HoE... not gonna help, is it? I'd play harder difficulties, but... well if you look at my YT account and check the CWarhead vid, you'll notice I think twice that my mouse does it's little freakout thing. I know it happens at least once in that vid (I randomly look to the sky).

Makes it hard to play high difficulties when that sorta thing happens.

Would you guys like to expand this to other difficulties as well, just as long as people post what difficulty they are speaking about?

Go for it. HoE isn't the only difficulty that exists, we're just old and have been playing KF for ages so we tend to look at the game from the perspective of HoE or Suicidal. I'd be interested to see what people think about the balance on Normal.