Every game has a box, and two kinds of players who think outside of it: the best, who know where the box is and how it works so they can safely leave it, and the worst, who have no idea where it is and wander about arbitrarily.
A game can be flawed by making the box too big, which makes things confusing and directionless, or (as far too many games are nowadays that aren't explicitly marketed as "sandbox") too small, leaving only a few pre-optimized paths to follow and player discretion being mostly limited to cosmetic choices and outright exploits.
I happen to think KF's status quo has a perfectly decent size.
And now, a few less abstract points that suggest to me what the implicit box size in KF is, in contrast to what you think it should be:
- Everybody spawns with a pistol, a knife, grenades, and a syringe and welder.
- There are no hard limits to any equipment purchase, merely discounts and bonuses. (EDIT: In fact there is one, but it's a generalized encumbrance system which underscores the point even more.)
- Most of the maps do not have obvious "the sharpie stands here to snipe, the spec needs to weld doors A and B within this time frame to protect the medic, etc." spots, but are generally open-ended and much is left up to interpretation.
- You can switch perks between any two waves without any notice to anyone else.
- When you switch perks, you keep all the equipment you had acquired before the switch.
- Perks are not bound to any character appearance, so a player can keep their look and maintain a generally continuous visual identity throughout a game however often they switch perks.
- You can level up a perk without actually playing it.
- They're called Perks not Classes.
