Tripwire, do you have any plans on balancing (nerfing!) the Berserker in the future?

[Don]

Lets look back a year and ago. The game was pretty unbalanced due to the Sharpshooter being extremely overpowered, taking out the strongest specimens in the game (Scrakes and Flesh Pounds) with a single easy crossbow headshot, before they ever raged or became a threat.

Tripwire Interactive, you did good at balancing the Sharpshooter and making the game more challenging and thus fun.
Now how about doing something similar to the Berserker?

To be honest I'm not sure anymore how strong the Berserker used to be, since Sharpshooters ruled everything else. But right now, the Berserker is a bit like the Sharpshooter used to be.

The Berserker can solo everything by himself. He can easily kill Scrakes and Flesh Pounds alone in a 6 player Hell on Earth game without them ever raging as long as he has a bit of space to walk.
If he is good, he can do so without taking any damage.

How overpowered is that? I feel all the other perks are balanced well more or less, but the Berserker is a joke. I am not even playing him anymore at the moment because it's so boring. Whenever I join a Hell on Earth game I often see some Berserkers and a Medic, because thats simply the easiest way to win.

And don't forget that he can also kill everything else easily, just hit and run and heal and repeat all the time. Having unlimited ammo pushes this as well.

So please, do something about it. Change the Flesh Pound's raging mechanism, so a Berserker can't kill him alone anymore without the Flesh Pound raging. Have him get some help from his team to take him down, like it is supposed to be in a coop game.

Scrake is not that much of an issue, other classes can kill him without taking damage too, although you could reduce the stun duration from axe attacks.

Oh, and don't forget the Patriarch. Six Berserkers can kill him easily without any possible chance of a wipe. It makes the Patriarch and the achievements a joke when people choose that strategy.
Give him some kind of all around attack when he is surrounded, possibly hitting multiple players, pushing them away and freeing himself.


tl;dr:

• Make changes regarding the Flesh Pound's rage mechanism so experienced Berserkers (and potentially other classes) can't kill them alone anymore without them raging and thus without taking damage.
  • Only a successful hit from a Flesh Pound on a player should prevent him from raging over time
  • Maybe always make a Flesh Pound rage once when he reaches a certain percentage of his maximum hp, like 75%, 50% and 25%?
  • Maybe slightly reduce the Berserker's running speed bonus
• Reduce the stun duration from axe attacks against Scrakes (and possibly from other weapons too?). Also make it so you can really only stun a scrake once, and maybe only before he is raged.
• Make changes regarding the Patriarch, so he has a chance against a Berserker team, and in general when surrounded and unable to move.
• Possible others changes to stop him from being a one man army...

Thanks.



Edit: Quoting a good post from someone else into the opening post:

Thing is, most of us would only like some simple nerfs: Reduce the perks massive runspeed a little and make the Fleshpound unkiteable (removing the "exploits" from him, the LoS thing, the swing-and-miss thing etc), but keep him pretty much exactly the same as now otherwise. Also, make the Patty do something more effective when fighting multiple Berserkers around him (Rocket to the face anyone? )

We, like you, want the Berserker to have a use in the game. But we don't want the Berserker to be able to kill EVERYTHING alone / kill the Patriarch so easily.
The noobs will see no difference in the Berserker. But the pros handling everything by themselves will!

 

[E(rik)]

I believe tripwire put in something to stop saw rushes on patriarch, but it was borked and didnt work. But either ways, it's pointless cause I've seen rushes with everything as every class. AA12 rush, SCAR rush, Xbow rush, hell, I've seen firebug Mac-10 rushes!

 

[nutterbutter]

The Berserker can solo everything by himself. He can easily kill Scrakes and Flesh Pounds alone in a 6 player Hell on Earth game without them ever raging as long as he has a bit of space to walk.

Zerker has always been like this and since other perks can be held with Clot Magnetic Grip, it has gotten worse.

That being said, TWI has already rebalanced the game and the zerker does what they want it to do. While I will reply that the zerker is OP, asking TWI to do another rebalancing is unrealistic.

 

[bogospawn]

Zerker has always been like this and since other perks can be held with Clot Magnetic Grip, it has gotten worse.

That being said, TWI has already rebalanced the game and the zerker does what they want it to do. While I will reply that the zerker is OP, asking TWI to do another rebalancing is unrealistic.

A nerf for it is still required,even if its small.

 

[Quadruplesword]

To be honest, I fail to see how the berserker is overpowered by any definition. Because of the fact that he has to be within melee range to do damage, he is in danger of being hit all the time. Can you solo a scrake without getting hurt? Yes, but ONLY if there's nothing else around to cheap shot you while you're busy with the scrake, and that very rarely happens; the scrake is almost always accompanied by a mixture of crawlers, husks, sirens, gorefasts, what have you.

I've never seen a berserker solo a fleshpound. If he tries to, it usually ends with him dead or severely injured and needing assistance from a teammate to kill the fleshy for him. Honestly, if the berseker were to be nerfed now, I think he would join the Firebug in the land of perks that never see the light of day. As it is, I very rarely see zerks in public matches, and if there is one, he's usually terrible.

Personally, I don't find the berserker boring at all. In fact, one of the reasons I play berserker is because it's fun and challenging.

 

[sph34r]

Because of the fact that he has to be within melee range to do damage, he is in danger of being hit all the time.

The Husk has a ranged attack. Would it make sense for me to disqualify any argument for a ranged class being OP because the Husk can still "put the class in danger of being hit all the time?" No, that's silly. The more relevant aspect is how much danger the class is put into. A Husk can cause a sharpshooter to mess up a scrake, getting a teammate fatally injured or killed. If the berserker eats a gorefast attack, a scrake saw, or (if at full HP) even a fleshpound attack, he will not die.

Can you solo a scrake without getting hurt? Yes, but ONLY if there's nothing else around to cheap shot you while you're busy with the scrake, and that very rarely happens;

This is if you choose to hold W and mouse1 to kill the scrake, and throw away reasoning. Because the scrake is so slow, you can easily leave it until you want to engage it. That is, when the situation you just described is not occuring, and the scrake is alone. Because of the berserker's speed boost, he can easily do this.

the scrake is almost always accompanied by a mixture of crawlers, husks, sirens, gorefasts, what have you.

See the previous point.

I've never seen a berserker solo a fleshpound.

This hurts your credibility significantly. I don't mean to condescend, but have you ever played a berserker game on Hell on Earth? Unless your answer is no, then there's just no way this can be true.

If he tries to, it usually ends with him dead or severely injured and needing assistance from a teammate to kill the fleshy for him.

I don't think this is true, berserkers are more than capable of kiting fleshpounds unassisted.

Honestly, if the berseker were to be nerfed now, I think he would join the Firebug in the land of perks that never see the light of day. As it is, I very rarely see zerks in public matches, and if there is one, he's usually terrible.

No, that's a slippery slope argument. You don't have to assume that 'nerf' means 'nerf to oblivion.'

Personally, I don't find the berserker boring at all. In fact, one of the reasons I play berserker is because it's fun and challenging.

How boring or not boring zerker is was never the issue here. I, for example, find zerk boring, derp.

 

[Necro-71]

Berserker is ok imo, what needs a work is patty. I would sugest to give him some AoE attack that he does almost instantly when there are more than 2 targets (players) around fiew meters from him. Attack should do massive damage to him or similiar to Siren attack leave armor and do damage stright to the HP (pati's roar would be epic) around 75% hp should be takne from this from everybody who is in 10 meters radious. Pati should be able to spam this attack while he is in "death ring".
Same thing would help with AA12 rush. People will lern to not stick to close while fighting him

 

[Entangler]

I've never seen a berserker solo a fleshpound.

If that's true, then sorry to say, but you're not really in a position to comment on the Berserker's effectiveness. It's actually pretty simple to do, but you need to have at least a basic understanding of why it works to do it properly. My guess is the only Berserkers you've seen have heard that Berserkers are good at everything but have no idea why, so just charge headlong at everything, spamming away, and hope for the best - and all the damage resistance in the world wouldn't save them because they're doing it wrong. But a cautious Berserker with a good head for making snap decisions is in fact the most durable character in the game.

The Berserker's speed and damage resistance were quite adequate before they were buffed. The increases were made not necessarily because they were a good idea, but by popular demand - around the time of the balance beta, more people supported them than not. I was not one of those people, because I knew very well what the outcome would be, but there we are. The voice of mediocrity won the day, and the result was a Berserker with training wheels, popular as it is on HoE precisely because it is easy and forgiving. When people speak of nerfing the Berserker today, what they usually mean is returning its stats to those proven pre-beta values, which would work just as well in the current version as they did before.

I also support minor changes to the Flesh Pound's rage mechanics, but unfortunately I don't have time to go into detail about that right now. What I do have time to say is that I wouldn't want soloing Flesh Pounds as a Berserker to be completely impossible, but would like the rage mechanics to force the soloist to engage the Flesh Pound as soon as it appears, whether the circumstances are favourable or not. That combined with reverting the Berserker's stats would restore quite enough difficulty to the solo routine, I think - I'd only support anything more drastic if those measures proved inadequate in practice, which I honestly doubt they would.

 

[Deafmute]

Can you solo a scrake without getting hurt? Yes, but ONLY if there's nothing else around to cheap shot you while you're busy with the scrake, and that very rarely happens; the scrake is almost always accompanied by a mixture of crawlers, husks, sirens, gorefasts, what have you.

I've never seen a berserker solo a fleshpound. If he tries to, it usually ends with him dead or severely injured and needing assistance from a teammate to kill the fleshy for him.

Really?

...Really? Zerkers kill little specimens and save the Scrakes for last ALL the time. I can't count the amount of times I and I'm sure many other players have seen a Zerker solo an FP literally unscathed.

 

[nutterbutter]

Because of the fact that he has to be within melee range to do damage, he is in danger of being hit all the time.

Fact? You sure about that? Every zerker I have seen in the game carries a LAR, an HC, and often an m79. Zerkers don't need to be within melee range to do damage any more than any other perk.

 

[Dipsh]

I've never seen a berserker solo a fleshpound. If he tries to, it usually ends with him dead or severely injured and needing assistance from a teammate to kill the fleshy for him. .

Seriously? just play a game on suicidal/hoe. Any beserker or medic can do it. Usually getting hit only once w/o the fp raging.
Just grab an axe.

 

[Quadruplesword]

Okay, people, you've proved your points and can stop jumping down my throat now. I just don't think the berserker is overpowered, that's all. I admit that an extremely skilled player who has put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the game can be nigh invincible as the berserker, but think of it this way; anyone who has put that much time into the game is bound to find an exploit or a way to make the game easy with ANY class, it's just unavoidable.

Now, admittedly, I suppose a couple minor changes to the berserker would made the class more balanced and therefore more fun to play. I'm just worried that TWI will go over board and turn the berserker into a pointless class which has very little practical use in serious matches.

Just one other thing. I'm not trying to sound like an ***, but I think some of you over exaggerate the berserker's overpoweredness. Is the zerk overpowered? Perhaps, but not to an extreme degree like, say, the M16A4 in Call of Duty 4's multiplayer, to the point where using it will cause you to fall asleep while playing because everything is so easy. Unless all 6 people are playing as level 6 zerks, but in reality, having 6 of any class will make things easy. 6 supports armed with AA12s will be just as easy as 6 zerks with katanas, you just have to employ different tactics.

 

[Formless]

Just one other thing. I'm not trying to sound like an ***, but I think some of you over exaggerate the berserker's overpoweredness. Is the zerk overpowered? Perhaps, but not to an extreme degree like, say, the M16A4 in Call of Duty 4's multiplayer, to the point where using it will cause you to fall asleep while playing because everything is so easy. Unless all 6 people are playing as level 6 zerks, but in reality, having 6 of any class will make things easy. 6 supports armed with AA12s will be just as easy as 6 zerks with katanas, you just have to employ different tactics.

Having 6 medics dont make things easier.

 

[sverek]

It been discussed over milions times now. There old threads, why start another?

Berserker is fine, I prefer to kill fp within 5 seconds as SS though, than kiting it with katana over a minute (HoE).
Any skilled player can dominate the game. It's CPU you against. Berserker is just the most common solution. There sh!tload of others.

 

[Spicy]

Not another one of these threads... :[
But, it's not another m4/m16 suggestion, so I can take comfort in that I suppose.

 

[sph34r]

I'd just like to say that the M16 in COD4 was not as overpowered as the AK47.

 

[Blockbot]

I would believe that Nerfing Berserker, is not a good idea. why? well I love it like it is now! but I could joined a compromise.

Give it a slitly boost with chainsaw, and give chainsaw fuel.

The nerf would be speed get cut in half or 1/3rd when holding a non melee weapon. like the medic thingy. (would make it way harder to kite since now you couldnt turn around and shoot the crawlers and keep running

EDIT: that berserker can kill fp alone by kiting it... well lol it not alone with that... use any perk you want with a lar. or scar or 9mm. would be the same...

and hey lets do a game together. I can kite like any perk you like to have me kiting (but that wouldn't made me a good teamplayer now would it?)

 

[Undedd Jester]

Meh, I'm giving up the fight for the Berserker and KF in general

Personally I believe fleshpound cheesing is beneath myself and most KF players (as a demographic, kind of like how most players in CSS or CoD would say the P90 is a noob gun), but sadly I'm in a very small minority. Most gamers nowadays seem happy to win any way they can, and tbh I can't really criticize them for it.

No use kicking a dead horse, let the Berserkers carry on the way they are. I hardly ever play KF nowadays anyway cause I have better things to do than watch 1 guy circle a map 100 times killing 1 creature every 20 seconds.

So whatever, RO:HoS will be out soon. It was fun while it lasted.

 

[Aze]

Okay, people, you've proved your points and can stop jumping down my throat now. I just don't think the berserker is overpowered, that's all. I admit that an extremely skilled player who has put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the game can be nigh invincible as the berserker, but think of it this way; anyone who has put that much time into the game is bound to find an exploit or a way to make the game easy with ANY class, it's just unavoidable.

Now, admittedly, I suppose a couple minor changes to the berserker would made the class more balanced and therefore more fun to play. I'm just worried that TWI will go over board and turn the berserker into a pointless class which has very little practical use in serious matches.

Just one other thing. I'm not trying to sound like an ***, but I think some of you over exaggerate the berserker's overpoweredness. Is the zerk overpowered? Perhaps, but not to an extreme degree like, say, the M16A4 in Call of Duty 4's multiplayer, to the point where using it will cause you to fall asleep while playing because everything is so easy. Unless all 6 people are playing as level 6 zerks, but in reality, having 6 of any class will make things easy. 6 supports armed with AA12s will be just as easy as 6 zerks with katanas, you just have to employ different tactics.

Thing is, most of us would only like some simple nerfs: Reduce the perks massive runspeed a little and make the Fleshpound unkiteable (removing the "exploits" from him, the LoS thing, the swing-and-miss thing etc), but keep him pretty much exactly the same as now otherwise. Also, make the Patty do something more effective when fighting multiple Berserkers around him (Rocket to the face anyone? )

We, like you, want the Berserker to have a use in the game. But we don't want the Berserker to be able to kill EVERYTHING alone / kill the Patriarch so easily.
The noobs will see no difference in the Berserker. But the pros handling everything by themselves will!

 

[buhen]

Hm, i just had weird idea about balancing berserker.

How about decrease his melee damage bonus to ~75% and increase chainsaw damage in ~40%? That way, berserker will no longer have high speed and high damage, he would have to choose between one of those. So, to go solo he would need chainsaw to kill scrakes, because it would no longer stun them and then again choose between ranged weapon for crawlers/husk or katana to kill trash. I think it's worth to think about it, isn't it?