Game improvement idea's: Bronzen/Benjamin

[Bronzen]

Better HUD design: The HUD is alright as it is now, but I think most people agree that the HUD from the mod is much better. They could polish it and make it a little smaller and add health/armor #'s next to the little bars.

Patriarch improvements: If he is welded in a room and is unable to get out to heal he should turn on the players and should go insane. He should be given slightly increased health and a new area of affect attack to prevent him from being easily killed every time he is welded in.

Fleshpound decapitation: The Fleshpounds are much too easy as long as at least one person knows the instant decap trick. They should be immune to decapitation until their health is below a certain percentage.

Fleshpound ideas: Allow their arms to be disabled or able to malfunction. The Fleshpound can run through teams of people who don't know the the decap trick, so make them a little easier to go against. We know they are supposed to be hard, but if this is implemented then maybe it would be feasible to bring more in later waves (5-7 instead of 2-4). Also maybe make critical headshots stun them for a second or two. Increased health would be nice if the above and below ideas are implemented.

Scrake improvements: Fixing the Scrake freezing bug should be a priority, one person with a fire axe or chainsaw and every Scrake that comes at the team is dealt with. They should rage when their health is a little lower compared to when they do as of now. Their run speed when raged should be about the same as a normal player knife running + 5%. An idea that would be nice to see implemented is shooting them in the head should stun them or cause them to run straight, provided their health is below a certain point and the headshot must be a critical kind.

New attacks on higher difficulties: I loved this idea when Benjamin brought it up, maybe make it so that on the easier difficulties (Beginner/Normal) the specimens attacks are limited to their less damaging ones and on the higher difficulties (Hard/Suicidal) not only do their attacks do full damage, but maybe new kind of attacks would be great. For example on hard the Fleshpound right before death should be able to shoot off one of his arms at his current target and on suicidal the arm should explode on impact. Of course the animation should be interruptable (like the patriarchs heal animation) and their health should be increased. The crawlers should be able to jump onto players (someone elses idea, but can't remember who's it was) and they have to be shot off. Bloat vomit on higher difficulties should remain on the map for the wave and be able to slow or damage the player. If anyone else can come up with new attacks that would be nice.

Player Collision: During trader time this should be off. Benjamin has a mutator that does this.
http://forums.tripwireinteractive.co...ad.php?t=34595

Most of these idea's are Benjamin's, but I threw in some twists of my own. Please do not flame anything here, you may however offer ideas of your own or improve upon the ones listed.

[jesters puppet]

everything here is 100% win! although all i really want is a user interface/HUD/server browser to be polished up, then maybe some work on the AI (specimns have better tactics, flanking, surrounding enemy, certain specimens teaming up to bring down enemy ect), and some better 3rd person animations. these things will make the game pretty much perfect, then all we need is the steady flow of TWi content patches and user made content . other than the main things above my only gripe would be the patriarchs design it seems a bit to meghhh compared t the spledid wor on all the other enemys.

[MotionLotion]

these are great ideas, good job you two. Maybe for the bloat we can make him a little similar to the L4D "Boomer" by making bloat bile attract specimens. For the siren, instead of your rockets and grenades disappearing in thin air, they could fly back towards you when she screams.

[Makino]

Originally Posted by MotionLotion

For the siren, instead of your rockets and grenades disappearing in thin air, they could fly back towards you when she screams.

Hahahaha that would be fun for a mutator.

[Benjamin]

Gorefast

Allow the player to parry its attacks with their knife, or weapons if melee attacks for weapons are ever implemented. If timed right the Gorefast should be briefly stunned, allowing the player to decapitate it with the knife. If timed wrong, the player should take damage as usual.

Bloat

When vomiting, it should swing left and right inside a small angle, rather than following the position of the player. This means you can actually dodge its attack, although perhaps its range or power should be increased to maintain the difficulty.

Siren

Have the damage of her scream depend on her angle to the player. If directly behind her you should not take damage, or at least only take very minimal damage. At the sides you should take more damage, and in front you should take most damage. This allows a Berserker more strategy - he can run up behind them and kill them even while they are screaming at other players. Make sure the camera shake/blur also depends on the amount of damage you're receiving, as the full effect when only taking minimal damage would be annoying.

Scrake

When raged, it should charge at you in a fairly straight manner that allows you to dodge its attack if you time it carefully. This allows you to avoid taking damage if you have the skill but let it get too close to you. Although it should be hard to dodge (it should be allowed to change its course fairly quickly), it should be possible to 'confuse' it for a few seconds by shooting it in the head, reducing its turn speed and thus making it easier to dodge. On harder difficulties it should be harder to dodge, but never impossible.

Allow the player to block/parry the swing attack for reduced damage and some knockback. This allows a lesser-armed player to defend himself while the rest of the team attack it.

Flesh Pound

Alter decapitation behaviour so that it can only be decapitated once below a certain amount of health. If decapitated while raging, it should fall down dead. Currently it'll instead continue attacking a player (interesting how it can see the player without a head), possibly killing him. Allow its grinders to be disabled temporarily (or removed) by shooting at them. If disabled blacken them a bit to make it clearer to the players. Disabling the grinders will greatly reduce the damage it can do. On beginner, disable random enraging. On hard and suicidal, allow the Flesh Pound to fire its grinders if they have been disabled. On hard they should simply do blunt-force damage, but on suicidal they should explode upon impact.

Similar to a Scrake perhaps allow a player to block its attacks, however the damage should only be reduced by a minor amount, and the player should be knocked back further. Again, this allows lesser-armed players to defend themselves better, while the knockback will give them a little bit of distance.

Patriarch

When he needs to heal, make him more aggressive. When attacked enough by a certain player before having a chance to heal, he should fire his MG at said player. The amount of damage needed to trigger this should depend on the difficulty. Alternately, make the Patriarch invincible from when he performs the 'injured' animation (prior to healing), until he heals. I don't have many ideas on how the Patriarch should attack players, but he should have a teleport attack that allows him to teleport behind a player and melee them. It should be possible to dodge this attack, but only if you move directly away from him. This means that a player won't necessarily be able to just run away, and they'll have to pay attention to where he reappears in order to survive. His MG should be reduced in damage as it can kill you very quickly if you don't have cover, which is a very annoying part of fighting him. If he's still allowed to charge at you and melee you, give a cool-down period where he cannot melee you again until this time is up. Being killed from him hitting you with his chest penis twice in a row is annoying, and at least if he does a melee attack followed by an MG attack you have more of a chance. The fact that he can run faster than anyone (even a level 5 medic when on suicidal) is pretty unfair, so that's my motivation for this suggestion. Perhaps allow a cool-down period for each player, meaning he'll be able to melee all 6 players before having to wait again. If a player gets in his way, he should be allowed to melee them no matter what. When he fires his gun, shooting him should lower his accuracy and/or ability to follow a target. This means that if you have decent aim you should be able to fire at him while running to cover. Perhaps on the last heal instead of firing a single rocket, he fires multiple (not simultaneously though). The amount fired could be between one and three, and could be random, meaning it'll be harder to tell when it's safe to get out there and attack him.

I realise most of these ideas would be either rather tricky or time-consuming to implement (particularly those concerning the Flesh Pound), but I feel they would really add depth to the game. Some things such as being able to parry blade attacks I'd like to see someone try to implement, or perhaps I'll have a go at it myself.

I'll edit the content out of this post and ask Brozen to edit it into his when I see him online.

Maybe for the bloat we can make him a little similar to the L4D "Boomer" by making bloat bile attract specimens.

Or, perhaps have crawlers run faster at players that have been vomited on. This would even out the difficulty when used with my idea.

For the siren, instead of your rockets and grenades disappearing in thin air, they could fly back towards you when she screams.

That would be funny, although a little strange. It would be a nice little mutator though, shall I give it a go? Regarding the standard game itself, having her scream actually detonate the explosives when in range could be pretty cool.

[Anemia]

These are great improvements, like them alot. Even tho I think the "New attacks" is a bit overkill, since all zeds have their own "abilitys" already. But part from that I love it.

The last time ive been playing the mod2.5 more than the retail since I think this is going out of control, it's becoming more and more some kind of fast shooter. I like the mod where everything was moving in slower pace but was extremely deadly, like the scrake. "instantkill" 95% of the times. I would love to bring back some old gameplay.

"We know they are supposed to be hard, but if this is implemented then maybe it would be feasible to bring more in later waves (5-7 instead of 2-4)."
or maybe up to 20 fps to make them feared again give them instantkill-damage<3

[Soanos]

Originally Posted by Anemia

These are great improvements, like them alot. Even tho I think the "New attacks" is a bit overkill, since all zeds have their own "abilitys" already. But part from that I love it.

The last time ive been playing the mod2.5 more than the retail since I think this is going out of control, it's becoming more and more some kind of fast shooter. I like the mod where everything was moving in slower pace but was extremely deadly, like the scrake. "instantkill" 95% of the times. I would love to bring back some old gameplay.

"We know they are supposed to be hard, but if this is implemented then maybe it would be feasible to bring more in later waves (5-7 instead of 2-4)."
or maybe up to 20 fps to make them feared again give them instantkill-damage<3

I have a funny feeling this would put a lot of players off from playing the game and only leave the devoted hardcore players left. How many still play the original mod? How many switched over to playing the retail? Why are they playing the retail? I mean, there must be a reason of some kind for them switching over. How many new players are there? I think it is because now even a semi-casual player can survive a normal map on a good day. If the majority of players start feeling it is no longer fun they will simply stop playing it, tell all their friends who are thinking about buying it how hard it is and find something that they find more fun and enjoyable. Also, not everyone who plays this game is following this forum so they don't get their voice heard. I think this forum is consisting mainly of more serious gamers who are so exceedingly good at the game they find it boring. Let's not forget the average players here. It does no good to the community if only the highly skilled players are taken into account and rest just ignored.

For you guys who want it to be "just like the mod", then what is the point of playing retail instead of the mod? It is a bit like going over to visit someone and saying "I live in a yellow house and yours is white. I don't like it. I want you to paint your house yellow!"

I for example play games to have fun, not to get instantly offed by something all the time. I think the game fun vs. difficulty factor is fine on most difficulty levels right now. For you guys who find it "too easy" go play suicidal with a custom mutator which prevents perks from loading.
Or just ask the devs to add a new difficulty level for you who want it to be impossible. Let's call it "Impossible", without a respawn between waves. Once you die it is game over for you for the rest of the game.

But I guess this is just my opinion.

[Nanostrike]

I gotta add the predictable comment that at this time, Tripwire hasn't said that the Skrake's Stun and the Fleshpound's Decap are actually glitches and not intended features...

In fact, from the way that said enemies would be near-impossible on Hard and up without those, it really looks more like it was intended. I can't imagine that they'd let the Skrake stunning (Which was present at release) pass through FOUR patches without being fixed... Same with the Fleshpound decap, actually.

That said, it could be tweaked a bit:

The decap with weak, pansy weapons like the Knife and 9mm is ridiculous. It should need BIG weapons (Shotgun, Fire Axe, Chainsaw). The 'Only decap at low health' doesn't work well because, frankly, when the Fleshpound is at low health, it's most likely in the middle of your team, raging and smashing everyone...

Similarly, with the Skrake Stun, I think it should be limited to Bersekers for melee stuns and HEADSHOTS with powerful weapons for everyone else. Also, the duration should be much shorter. Currently, a non-zerker can hit a Skrake with the chainsaw alt-fire and it'll stand there for a full 10-seconds. I'd like to see that stun be something more along the lines of 2-3 seconds. That'd allow a gun-user to stop a charge and it'd allow for a constantly-attacking berserker to still be able to safely kill one.

If you take away both the Skrake stun and Fleshpound decap, it pushes the difficulty level beyond the boundary of 'With good tactics the game is hard, but possible' into the territory of 'Certain enemies are just plain cheap and there's no reasonable way to beat them'

[Benjamin]

Or just ask the devs to add a new difficulty level for you who want it to be impossible. Let's call it "Impossible", without a respawn between waves.

I don't want a harder game by any means, I want a game that can be easier to play with individual skill when playing with a not-so-coordinated team. Right now the harder difficulties can only be played by teams that work hard together, which doesn't happen a lot on public servers. I'm not saying I want it to be possible to solo a large wave when your team mates have died, but I don't want it to be so easy to be mowed down by the powerful enemies just because your team sucks too much to get enough damage in before they reach you. The only tactic in this game is "kill it before it reaches you", and it's just bland.

Could you imagine the Antlion Guard in HL2 acting like a KF specimen? At the start of the battle it'd just run straight at you with no way to dodge it, and the aim would be to get enough rounds into it as possible before it deals you too much damage. But no, the idea is that you can dodge its charges and quickly turn and shoot. It's a simple mechanic but it's far more enjoyable. It's not about killing it quickly, it's about using skill to stay alive so that you can kill it.

[Soanos]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

I don't want a harder game by any means, I want a game that can be easier to play with individual skill when playing with a not-so-coordinated team. Right now the harder difficulties can only be played by teams that work hard together, which doesn't happen a lot on public servers. I'm not saying I want it to be possible to solo a large wave when your team mates have died, but I don't want it to be so easy to be mowed down by the powerful enemies just because your team sucks too much to get enough damage in before they reach you. The only tactic in this game is "kill it before it reaches you", and it's just bland.

Could you imagine the Antlion Guard in HL2 acting like a KF specimen? At the start of the battle it'd just run straight at you with no way to dodge it, and the aim would be to get enough rounds into it as possible before it deals you too much damage. But no, the idea is that you can dodge its charges and quickly turn and shoot. It's a simple mechanic but it's far more enjoyable. It's not about killing it quickly, it's about using skill to stay alive so that you can kill it.

I think Unreal Engine does include a "dodge" feature. For this thing to work properly, though, enraged monsters charging at the player should have to slow down and stop before changing direction again. Right now they just home into you facing towards you, no matter what you do and turn instantly.
But I will also support adding dodging element to the game.

[Bronzen]

Hey guys, I am at a friends house for the day. I must help him fix his computer. Benjamin I love the way you laid out the ideas and as usual they are all great.

To Nanostrike: I seriously hope TWI didn't mean for the Scrakes/Fleshpounds to be the pushovers they are now. I do agree the stun time on the Scrakes should be reduced, but I really do think that the Fleshpounds need to be decappable only if their health is below a certain point. Anyone that has one following them can kill them without taking any damage. The only time they are a threat is when you have an idiot on your team enrage it.