Some misc. suggestions

[Dastard]

Shop compass: Shows the direction of the shop, only comes up in down time between waves. New people to the game won't know which way their asses are, and I could see them being to afraid to vote for new maps out of not knowing where the shop is going to be, leading to a situation where the same 2-3 maps are played over and over and over again on any given server.

Auto-loadouts in shop: Like in CS:S have a customizeable "loadout" buyable from the shop, maybe 3-4 of them for different perks. A lot of people aren't necessarily the fastest of gamers when it comes to navigating menus (trying to introduce my dad to kf 2.1 comes to mind, he loves playing original UT with bots but KF kinda reamed him lulz), and if the shop autoboots you out like in Mod KF, these people are going to be turned away frustrated. Having a few auto loadouts with default loadouts stuck on them would help alleviate this.

Server optional team radar on easiest game setting: Won't show zeds of course, but just a little measure to make sure newer players aren't so prone to getting lost and raped in the *** by 12 burly fleshpounds.

Fleshed out grenade system: I remember there was originally planned to be a flash bang, a claymore mine, and other miscellaneous goodies in I think it was the 2.0 release, possibly the 1.1 release. I think it'd put a nice depth of gameplay if you could allocate 2 out of your 5 grenade slots or so to other items. Ideas that come to mind:

• Aforementioned originally planned items
• Bear trap or other animal traps.
• Phosphorous grenades or molotovs, any sort of incendiary grenade
• Barbed wire (would damage them very slightly, but would slow them down by 40-60% while traversing it)
• Can of motor oil. Would cause smaller zeds to trip and fall, and can ignite with the flamethrower or incendiary grenades.
• Glass jar full of bees. BECAUSE *****ES DONT WANNA **** WITH BEES.
• Mix motor oil and bee jar. FLAMING ****ING BEES.

Make the welder possibly part of a multitool or something: Mappers would be able to set up custom movers and triggers, and make control panels or computers capable of turning them on and off. For example, kinda ripping off RE5 here, but you could have an incinerator be a hallway in part of a map, and have a control panel to activate it, damaging any zeds that get trapped in it. Or you could have a 1 time activated blast door that once activated, cuts off access between 2 parts of the map, making zeds and players have to take the long way around, and changing the map flow, for better or worse.
The multitool can also explain how you "weld" wooden doors shut by having a nailgun element with relevent animations and sound. The whole "weld anything" thing always bugged me in original KF.
Perhaps the multitool can only be used if you're support perk.

Randomize the amount of ammo in found weapons on higher difficulties: Would be a bit more realistic, and would add a could work both for and against the players.

 

[PiX]

Very well thought out ideas I would say. Auto-loadouts and a multitool welder, why not. A little puzzled by some of the grenade-like weapon types you mentioned, but I get your point.

About the shop. Wasn't the shop going to be moving around in KF the game? Like, you have to look for it. An arrow pointing out the direction would ruin that a little.

 

[Noggin on Wheels]

no the shop would still move, and the arrow would mean you could find it, as long as people dont know where exactly it will spawn means people cant camp at the shop, but an arrow guiding players to the shop wouldn't damaged gameplay at all

 

[Raj]

Why make the game so complicated?

Shop compass: Shows the direction of the shop, only comes up in down time between waves. New people to the game won't know which way their asses are, and I could see them being to afraid to vote for new maps out of not knowing where the shop is going to be, leading to a situation where the same 2-3 maps are played over and over and over again on any given server.

Server optional team radar on easiest game setting: Won't show zeds of course, but just a little measure to make sure newer players aren't so prone to getting lost and raped in the *** by 12 burly fleshpounds.

It's fun when people get lost and can't find the shop. What's the point of making a horror game easy and boring.
Shop can easily be found when following teammates... no need for extra radar shizzle.

PS why only noobs are making suggestions? xx

 

[Gregs2k2]

Not so much fun when you're out of ammo or need a more powerful gun for the tougher enemies. Then you're faced with having to run around, scrounging for guns, ammo or armour.....that means separating from your buddies.... some people like to play that way, but others don't.

Some kind of shop guide is a good idea. Good suggestion.

 

[Sniperdragon]

Not so much fun when you're out of ammo or need a more powerful gun for the tougher enemies. Then you're faced with having to run around, scrounging for guns, ammo or armour.....that means separating from your buddies.... some people like to play that way, but others don't.

Some kind of shop guide is a good idea. Good suggestion.

Got it explained by rammjaeger.
for all the Kf oldies. Their system will work GOOD. Although we will need to adapt our playstyle.

 

[Dastard]

Why make the game so complicated?



It's fun when people get lost and can't find the shop. What's the point of making a horror game easy and boring.
Shop can easily be found when following teammates... no need for extra radar shizzle.

PS why only noobs are making suggestions? xx

I've been around since 1.1 KF. I wouldn't label people if you have no justification to if I were you >.>

Anyways, just want to point out something I said in my post that might allay your fears, since you missed it the first time around.

"...on easiest game setting"

People are easily discouraged from a game by feeling lost, not knowing what to do, or both. Not everyone is "1337 pr0 g4m3z0rs" when it comes to games. Since KF is going retail, we can't be afforded the luxury of having no allowance for easier modes of gameplay.

The suicidal difficulty will still be there, and will still be *** rapingly hard, but if we shut off all new people, then that leaves us with what, the 30 or so community members from old killing floor still playing?

Barring child prodigies, everyone was a "noob" once; that's an indisputeable fact. I'd rather have 500,000 newbs playing KF than have 100 pros and Tripwire unable to recoup any of its money on KF.

 

[Chicken]

I still don't like the compass idea, I enjoy being lost and walking around with a 9mm because it adds a thrill to it that a fully armoured squad camping a spawn doesnt. When your squad is communicating well and helping newplayers finding the shop is not difficult. I really liked the other suggestions though, particularly beartraps

 

[Angry Hillbilly]

I have to say I do like some of these ideas. The 2 that catch my eye are the pre-loadout for the shop and the radar idea. But for the radar I think that it should be a buyable item and it does show zed's (sept for stalkers unless ur a commando) and so on . But then again wondering around completely lost in the streets of london has always added to the apmosphere I MISS 2.11 WEST LONDON!!

 

[Dastard]

I still don't like the compass idea, I enjoy being lost and walking around with a 9mm because it adds a thrill to it that a fully armoured squad camping a spawn doesnt. When your squad is communicating well and helping newplayers finding the shop is not difficult. I really liked the other suggestions though, particularly beartraps

The problem is that there will not always be more experienced players to train the newbs, especially with the new release of the game. There's a community of 20-30 or so people that played old kf that might get the new game, and you can't expect those 30 people to teach the hundreds of new players where shops are, what different weapons are good, etc.

What happens if 3 completely new players who are all casual gamers join a server all in their lonesome, have no idea where the shop is, and then get gang raped? They're going to come off with the impression that KF is far too difficult if this is happening on the *easiest* game setting.

I can understand the preconception that there are only a few people that ever suck enough to get completely discouraged from playing a game that is too hard for them. For example, I play expert on guitar hero, and can pass every song barring stupid mistakes, and when I see people playing on easier and medium and having a hard time, it boggles me trying to put myself in their shoes, having difficulty holding up rythm on songs like Eye of the Tiger, or struggling with the transition from 3 buttons to 4 buttons on easy to medium, since they aren't used to using their pinkies.

However, I also know that 80% of the people playing guitar hero and rock band play on easy or medium. These aren't necessarily "retarded" people or anything, these are just people that play games for fun here and there and don't have the time or commitment to sit down and play dragonforce on expert until they can play expert. There's a reason in this statistic breakdown http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/im...9/rb_difficulties_graph_fullsize.jpg?3c016b4c of rock band dlc tracks, the smallest sliver is the hard tracks, and 0-4 star difficulties represent about 70-80% of the overall whole. Would I personally as an expert player prefer more rediculous difficulty tracks? Yes, but I know that they wouldn't sell at all. Thrasher, Constant Motion, and Sleepwalker all have fairly mediocre sales DLC-wise, and are among the hardest songs in the game.

I greatly enjoy the balls to the wall difficulty of original KF, but a retail product cannot be expected to survive if it doesn't make concessions for new players. The challenge in KF should be knowing where to defend, when to run, and how to play, not in finding the key gameplay components. Suicidal difficutly with only 5 bucks in starting cash will be there as an option, but there was a reason that RPG mod had the stranglehold it did on the servers for original KF; because not everyone plays games for the sheer difficulty of it. There has to be a middle ground that is reached where the game is easy enough to play but difficult to master.

 

[Gregs2k2]

Well said Dastard.

 

[fiftyone]

Well said Gregs2k2.

Not knowing where to find the dealer, nor having enough time to buy are really the only two things that stuck-out like a sour thumb when I went through the Mod.
I put my faith in the Dev's to sort the rest out...

What I would personally like to know is " how's the advanced bot pathing coming along ?

Even RO needs its bots to break the learning curve.

I'm not one to ask for anything but I've heard talk of a tutorial level, that sounds like very good sense to me, and my mate Harry

I will certainly be putting on my NOOB hat when the game is released.

Thanks.

 

[Alex_KF]

Yeah, dastard is on the money.

It's really easy if you're a veteran of KF (or a developer) to say "i enjoy the uncertainty of not knowing where i have to go", because you've already mastered all of the *potential* locations, and the game mechanics are second nature to you.

To a newcomer, it'd just be like

Newcomer: "where do I go to get a better gun" ?
KF Veteran: "You just run around until you find the shop "
Newcomer: Well i couldn't find it for the last three waves, and i've got no gun.
KF Veteran: You'll learn, noob.
Newcomer: Actually, this sucks. bye.
KF Veteran : That guy was a noob loloolol

In case you didn't get the joke, Newcomer is what all of us used to be, and it's how we get into a game in the first place. Not being able to access the shop is a big deal.

 

[Sniperdragon]

Once again. Even noobs will be able to find the shop. I've had a chat about this with Rammjaeger. I don't think he would like me to spoil the fun and tell how it works, but it incorporates both classical KF style tactics and some fresh ones. And even noobs will be able to find the shop, no matter how dumb they are.

 

[Dastard]

I think the only question of any importance regarding the shop is whether or not it'll still be the crazy cat lady as the shop keeper.

 

[Raj]

Once again. Even noobs will be able to find the shop. I've had a chat about this with Rammjaeger. I don't think he would like me to spoil the fun and tell how it works, but it incorporates both classical KF style tactics and some fresh ones. And even noobs will be able to find the shop, no matter how dumb they are.

Yes... there's nothing hard in it. Just following others. Most of the players head to shop.

+ short buying time adds a lot thrill to it too

 

[Chicken]

Maybe i just fail to share the same sense of fun the majority of people have. If the compass is put in it probably won't affect me anyway ><

So can we go back to talking about beartraps?

 

[18Bravo]

Beartraps sound nice, though should they be reusable again after clamping down on a speciman or discarded once they die? Throwing some more ideas out there too, maybe some tripwire activated claymore mines as well? Perhaps claymores hooked into a clacker for remote detonation, should come in handy in those long hallways when a large group of specimen come down it. Don't really know about the abundance of them, but maybe placable propane canisters too. Place in a tight corridor, shoot, and take cover from the ensuing flames, gore, and heat.

 

[Angry Hillbilly]

Newcomer: "where do I go to get a better gun" ?
KF Veteran: "You just run around until you find the shop "
Newcomer: Well i couldn't find it for the last three waves, and i've got no gun.
KF Veteran: You'll learn, noob.
Newcomer: Actually, this sucks. bye.
KF Veteran : That guy was a noob loloolol

I find this comment quite insulteing to the current KF commnity. We help and support new players to the game all the time. And finding the shop IS half the fun becasue there are LOADS of cutom maps where u have to find the shop. Thats why wave 1 isnt ususly too hard

 

[Dastard]

I find this comment quite insulteing to the current KF commnity. We help and support new players to the game all the time. And finding the shop IS half the fun becasue there are LOADS of cutom maps where u have to find the shop. Thats why wave 1 isnt ususly too hard

The current community is small enough to oust any complete douchepricks, but think of when KF goes retail. If there's a massive quantity of servers and players, then you can't really trust the community any more since the shelter of anonyminity will inflate the epeens of everyone involved, and people who don't know where the shop is and therefor contribute less to the team will get yelled at, booted off servers, and end up discouraged.

Thusly, with a negative net gain of players due to the discouragement to new players from a large community of completely anonymous people, the community will dwindle, and the game will die off slowly and painfully.

People WILL be twats over the internet in a retail game. Look at Halo, look at CS:S. Look at ragequitters in Left 4 Dead. For every happy ending experience a new player has, there will be 16 others that get derided for being scrubs, especially if the core gameplay mechanics of a game are inherantly counterintuitive.

Having the main way to get any weapons past mid tier and more importantly armor and ammo (95% of the time found ammo isn't what you're looking for and the random spawn weapons don't spawn with enough ammo to sustain multiple waves) be in an unknown location with only 30-60 seconds to find it on maps with multiple paths, several dead ends, and in the case of Westlondon, pitch dark rooms (which forces new players to use the flashlight, which isn't an overt feature of the game) in a fast paced action shooter is inherantly counterintuitive.

The benefits of having directions to a vital gameplay feature far outweigh the slight fun of the exploratory gameplay of finding the shop. If you're playing solo and you're a casual (READ: Plays games maybe once every other day at most) player, even if you *do* find the shop, you don't have time to acquaint yourself with the menus, so you'll end up with 6-13 seconds to figure out both what you want and how to get what you want, and then because you probably aren't adept enough to have the gamer instincts to pack rat all of the miscellaneous **** lying around the map, you'll probably get raped to death in wave one.

Then the map switches to a completely new environment, and the whole process repeats itself, but by this time, the person already has a negative experience of the game. They are at this point a lot more likely to remember any negative experiences they have with the game then they are to remember the positive experience of the game.

While there may be an equal number of people that are able to find the shop and figure it out in time, if there was overt directions to the shop, the half of the new casual players that have the negative experience wouldn't have it, and the other half only miss out on a relatively small bit of exploratory gameplay experience that only a minority of players would miss in anything more than a passing notice of it.

People decide very quickly if they don't enjoy a game experience. It takes far longer for them to realize how much they do enjoy a game experience.

Yeah, when KF was a mod with 6 servers, if you ***** someone out on one server, every other server will hear about it, but when that grows to 400-600 servers as it will with a new retail steam release, people get driven to inflate their ego's. Because it's easy over the internet.

And I do understand the positives of having an unknown location of the map; I myself am very exploratory when it comes to games. I enjoy trying to figure out the boundaries of a game world, and if I can escape them. I enjoy finding all of the nifty hidden **** in a game, such as the machinepistol in original KF. However, singleplayer mode will be there and will be plenty enough for me seeing what the community does with maps for that. I'm sure that SP maps will have plently enough searching for ammo, guns, and red keycards to sate that gameplay itch.