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Ok treading on a sensitive issue here... The Medic & The Zerker.

Theres a lot of opinions being passed off as facts in this thread...

in which discussion? There are several here, so be specific :p
I know that mine with Nutters is totally opinion based, but thats because its all about what the medic's tactics are and should be, as well as his role.
 
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Of course. As is every post in every thread except for the ones that are "The code says this..."

yes, and you didn't answer me, I want to know your opinion :p

No seriously, once I realized this wasn't a "kill ze medic" rant, I became much more reasonable. I still disagree, but I am much more willing to consider what you have to say, and think about it. There isn't enough talk about the medic anyways, I'm tired of this zerker discussion ;)
 
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I'll summarize this thread for everyone who is just joining the conversation:


  • Jester doesn't know much about berserkers, or how to fix them. However he hates seeing them solo waves after he dies. He has therefore supplied about 1/4 of the posts in this thread with the hope of lowering berserkers' effectiveness until they are forced to stay with the group.
  • 9_6 has used common sense and experience to refute many of Jester's posts, but has succeeded only in banging his head against a wall. He has advocated prudence in changing what could be easily broken outright.
  • Scary Ghost has, as usual, donated factual information to the discussion. Namely, that tripwire doesn't want to cripple zerkers ability to solo fleshpounds
  • Nutter has been using Jester's wave of rage and controversy to bring up his age old zerker gripes, and subsequently pass his ancient zerker "nerfing" legislation.
  • xebo likes shields
 
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Jester doesn't know much about berserkers, or how to fix them. However he hates seeing them solo waves after he dies. He has therefore supplied about 1/4 of the posts in this thread with the hope of lowering berserkers' effectiveness until they are forced to stay with the group.

Clearly he haven't really play berserker. He use the worst example... WHAT? USE THE TESTMAP TO PARTISE?

I cut crawlers in mid air more than 80% of the time. WHEN NOTHING's AROUND. When a hell lot of gorefasts and clot comming at you non-stop (WHICH WILL HAPPEN if you stick with the team) you wont have any timing to do any timing attack. Unless again, you give up you position.

I dodge husks attack 90% of the time. And what happens in mutiplay? 3 husks fire at you together with a bunch of crawlers keep jumping on you together with some sirens screams behind 10 clots. So you have no way to dodge. End of story.

So if you nerf berserker, you are asking them to rambo. Cos even good berserkers will die. ONLY TOP TEIR BERSERKER can stick with the team and still survive.
 
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Clearly he haven't really play berserker. He use the worst example... WHAT? USE THE TESTMAP TO PARTISE?

I cut crawlers in mid air more than 80% of the time. WHEN NOTHING's AROUND. When a hell lot of gorefasts and clot comming at you non-stop (WHICH WILL HAPPEN if you stick with the team) you wont have any timing to do any timing attack. Unless again, you give up you position.

I dodge husks attack 90% of the time. And what happens in mutiplay? 3 husks fire at you together with a bunch of crawlers keep jumping on you together with some sirens screams behind 10 clots. So you have no way to dodge. End of story.

So if you nerf berserker, you are asking them to rambo. Cos even good berserkers will die. ONLY TOP TEIR BERSERKER can stick with the team and still survive.

I'm not sure what you were trying to say, but I had a blast reading it
 
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You will never reach that goal this way because there will always be rambos and because it's not inherently a "speed" problem but a player problem.
If he wants to run off, he will, if he's "too slow to run off" as a zerker then you have just broken the perk.
Broken.

In the end, what you said is you'll never be content with any sort of slight adjustment because there'll always be douchebags, thus whatever compromise we can come up with will never be good enough because you simply want nothing short of the impossible.


This, I tried explaining that earlier. There are good players, and there are bad players. It makes no difference what perk they use.
 
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Jesus Christ...

Edit: In fact, forget it. I'm quite disappointed how people have interpreted my motivation for bringing this point to light. I have always had the games best interest at heart, and its pretty stomach turning to see such a gross misinterpretation of my point of view.

So whatever, I'm clearly in the minority. Just have it your way, I'll say no more on the matter.
 
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I'll summarize this thread for everyone who is just joining the conversation:


  • Jester doesn't know much about berserkers, or how to fix them. However he hates seeing them solo waves after he dies. He has therefore supplied about 1/4 of the posts in this thread with the hope of lowering berserkers' effectiveness until they are forced to stay with the group.
  • 9_6 has used common sense and experience to refute many of Jester's posts, but has succeeded only in banging his head against a wall. He has advocated prudence in changing what could be easily broken outright.
  • Scary Ghost has, as usual, donated factual information to the discussion. Namely, that tripwire doesn't want to cripple zerkers ability to solo fleshpounds
  • Nutter has been using Jester's wave of rage and controversy to bring up his age old zerker gripes, and subsequently pass his ancient zerker "nerfing" legislation.
  • xebo likes shields

hey, I may be late to the game, but I'm getting the feeling that a good bit of the conversation (more than "add riot sheilds" part, anyways) is being ignored
Anyways, the threads name specifically said "zerker and medic" not "zerker only":rolleyes:
 
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As for my take on the matter:

  1. All specimen should be killable by all perks. It's ok if some are much harder to kill, but the ability to kill/survive should ALWAYS be present.
  2. Turtle-based teamwork should be buffed - In HoE at least, there is more teamwork than ever. You either have turteling teams, or teams formed to kite. Since changes to SSs, and general zed mechanics, have made the big stuff harder for all teams, kiting is currently a preferred alternative to standing your ground against the hoards. When kiting teams are formed, perks with speed bonuses have precedence. This is a big reason why people see teams of berserkers/medics only now; They aren't that much better than they used to be, it's just that turteling is so much harder on HoE compared to simply running away, making speedy perks (zerk/med) preferable. In my opinion, making turteling consistently viable again is preferable to nerfing team-kiting.
  3. This is a tough one. I need to think about this. Refer to (4) for a slight change to kiting.
  4. I think berserkers should have two viable roles, neither overpowering the other. They should lead running teams, and act as "walls" in turteling situations. The second role is just stupid compared to the first currently. Here's my proposal (I've mentioned it before):
    • Lower zerker damage resistance by a large amount across the board, making it much harder to kite for the avg zerker
    • Institute a riot shield that lowers speed and hugely boosts damage resistance. Damage (from the front 180 degrees) should be a total non issue with the shield. Additionally, if it had some kind of creative secondary effect on "mouse click", like a push-back, it would leave a lot of room for the evolution of personal skill and shield-based teamwork. Bothersom husk? Knock away those firebolts with the shield! Raging scrake? Put him to sleep with a shield slam to the head. Headless bodies blocking the bullets of your teammates? Run through them with a shield to knock them down for good.

1. I tend to agree with this proposition, but there are no specimens that are literally unkillable by any perk. Perceptions that a specimen are unkillable are based on practical concerns - It's just not practical for a Commando to try and take on a FP or a Scrake, for example, even though they technically can fight them. Heck, on lower difficulties Commandos can solo Scrakes if they land all HS, but on higher difficulties you'll just get eaten up. Effectively, Scrakes are hard counters to Commandos. Right now I don't think there's anything that's a hard counter to the Berserker, though obviously it's soft-countered by being mobbed.

2. I agree "turtle-based" or "teamwork" tactics need a buff. Though I personally think kiting / 6 man solo should not be viable at all in the game, and I wouldn't object if runspeed bonuses were removed in general, or if there were some kind of "Morale Penalty" that penalized movespeed (and/or other attributes) if you're not within a certain distance of allies.
But your general point is correct -- I think it's kind of disgusting to see teams of 6 Berserkers running around. That is very, very degenerate to me, much worse than the Crossbow ever was.

4. I actually like your idea for the riot shield, but I don't think adding new items into the game is very realistic unless someone mods it into the game for Tripwire. Alternative suggestion: Lower Berserker Damage Resistance as a function of movement speed?
 
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Jesus Christ...

Edit: In fact, forget it. I'm quite disappointed how people have interpreted my motivation for bringing this point to light. I have always had the games best interest at heart, and its pretty stomach turning to see such a gross misinterpretation of my point of view.

So whatever, I'm clearly in the minority. Just have it your way, I'll say no more on the matter.

Welcome to my world. :)
 
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I started playing this game a couple of weeks before christmas. I started out as a medic being that in TF2 it was my preferred class. I quickly got bored with that perk. So decided to play as a support since blasting zeds with shotties seemed fun. Again got bored. It was not until I player zerker that the game started to become fun again. And it has stayed.


I am not familiar with all the changes and updates most on here have dealt with. Never played in the SS owns everything days. So what I write take it with a grain of salt.

I have never dealt with any players complaining that my preffered perk is overpowered. I always try to stick near my team unless they are completely asinine. For example I am taking on a scrake with my axe and a commando ignores the crawlers and gores that are surrounding me and shoots the scrake instead. If this happens and similiar things like my aforementioned example I will go rambo.

Like 96 stated... I keep towards an area where my team will not get flanked and leave them to worry with what is in front of them. The times where everyone wipes and I am left to deal with 100+ remaining zeds I clutch that wave. No one complains, so far, since I try to help my team to not wipe. And if they do wipe it is noramally due to their own mistakes and not me running around like a rambo. Always get compliments when I clutch those waves. Afterwards I share my wealth with my team so what we can continue towards owning the pat.

I'd rather not solo a fp. If I have to it nice to know that I can.

Turtling to me is extremely boring. If I can I always let others players know I am gonna run a map and feel free to run with me. I will protect my team as best I can. Scouting ahead and doubling back to alleviate any pressure they may be undergoing.

I am a level 6 zerker now. So kill counts don't matter to me. And in the end for any level 6 perks it is survival which matters most. So if I see lower level perks in my game I will gladly let them get the bulk of the kills and do my best to protect them when they need it.

My favorite games are usually with players who like to run abit. Its a tactic not a degenerate form of gameplay. If this was real life I would be running my butt too. So I play the game to extract the most fun. And to me having fun is why I play this game. Nerf the zerker to a point, but let's not get carried with the zerker being overpowered. It ain't.

If a player wants to solo they are gonna do it regardless of nerfs. So why punish those who understand how to play beserker just because others can be arseholes?
 
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  • Jester doesn't know much about berserkers, or how to fix them. However he hates seeing them solo waves after he dies. He has therefore supplied about 1/4 of the posts in this thread with the hope of lowering berserkers' effectiveness until they are forced to stay with the group.
  • 9_6 has used common sense and experience to refute many of Jester's posts, but has succeeded only in banging his head against a wall. He has advocated prudence in changing what could be easily broken outright.
  • Scary Ghost has, as usual, donated factual information to the discussion. Namely, that tripwire doesn't want to cripple zerkers ability to solo fleshpounds
  • Nutter has been using Jester's wave of rage and controversy to bring up his age old zerker gripes, and subsequently pass his ancient zerker "nerfing" legislation.

Hang on a minute... those of you who know how I post know that I don't generally attack a player, but this time I'll make an exception...

I've just re-read my original posts in the first 5 pages, and remembered what I actually said for my original few posts. I have to say clearly you xebo and you outofrealman have not read either, or you haven't understood them, or have just been blatantly pig headed about the whole thing. I was gonna let it slide, but now I've thought about it I don't see why I should.

So before I begin, don't reply with one of these tl:dr arguements. This kind of horsecrap response that blatantly slaps me in the face warrants a complete unabriged response.

Firstly lets discuss these bullets points of yours

Spoiler!


THis post of yours genuinely pissed me off, to the point it was playing on my mind a good portion of my day. Now I've taken a bit of a break and gotten my focus back on track lets actually get to the business of this thread.

Spoiler!


As for the points as to why I've raised this issue, I'll list them below.

Spoiler!


So after all that. Finally I hope you can actually see where the problem lies. The small fixes I wanted was: -
- Fix the Fleshpound rage mechanics so that unsuccessful swings do not reset the rage timer, and losing line of sight merely pauses his rage timer instead of resetting it.
- Further make it so the Fleshpound rages continuously at a certain point of health, be it 50%, 33%, 25%, orwhatever. This would affect all kiting classes.
- Make the Zerker no faster than the Medic, whether the Medic is 25% speed on HoE or 20%. If the Medic, who has a real hard time keeping ZEDs off of him doesn't need this speed boost, a class that can punch a hole through and escape with ease sure as hell doesn't need it either.

Next time try and keep this professional. If you have a point of view fine, but don't rubbish someone elses, especially if you don't understand what they are talking about

J* out
 
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Clearly I can't play Berserker...?

You've never seen me 'actually' play, yet your already judging me.

Also um... isn't that was a Testmap is for? To learn and practice?


Clearly I'm not judging you man. Also, clearly, test map is GREAT for partise "how to solo" or "how to rambo", but not mutipalyer when you need to stick with the team.

Yeah, you may be extremely good berserker, but your vedio is used as an example for someone to try and proof berserker can "deal with crawlers easily" or something like that.

I clearly not good enough, because I dont even know a way to dual with a single one crawler when I'm facing two scrakes if I dont want my team get eaten by those them. Which happens all the time on mutiplayer. So, I dont know how those pros can do berserker's job well AND not getting hurt (again, not rambo or solo).
 
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I somehow lost focus of my point trying to express it to 9_6 who constantly blanked and didn't respond on 80% of my arguements. At least he had his own point of view, but the sheer lack of any acknowledgement of my arguements caused me to lose my point.

Interesting but just because there was no lengthy quote war doesn't mean I didn't read all your points.
Remember how you were so focused on the fact that I am "against" you to the point where you assumed that I was also against something I myself suggested earlier in this thread?
That which you refer to as "blanking", would that fit its definition?

I have been criticizing your motivation, not your direction.
Spoiler!
 
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Firstly, Undedd Jester, what I was saying is you use a really bad example, because solo or rambo have totally playstyle difference to mutiplayer. If this is considered personal attack, my apologize.


I'd also like to point out scary ghost has frequently been the voice of rationality, and he (if I understood him correctly) backed the notion that the Berserker was overpowered. He first raised the Zerker issue during the BETA, he was right, but sadly other poeple didn't see. Including myself for which I am now kicking myself for not properly testing the Zerker before the beta was through.

Nutter butter has at times been a little curt with his responses, I've had arguements with him before. However he always backs up his points with evidence, and my interpretation is he has little patience for people who don't return the favour. He did in that thread, and he has in his others. The only difference is I have to get really mad to make this kind of response.

Umm... so you think... players in beta are average players? You think 90% of players can do what beta players can do...? I see many 6lv berserkers try to take on fleshpounds, they either fail to dodge his attack, or axe them in the face twice/back stab them to rage them. And most berserkers fail to hit the head of scrakes. This is what 90% of players do.

What makes M14 "that overpowered" before is you can kill if you can shoot. And this is not what is happening to berserkers now. Sure they can kite, but ONLY WHEN the whole team dies OR they are not player the way intended, i.e. ramboing. Berserkers actually NEED to hit the heads now because damage is halfed. Body shot dont kill, and you will be surrounded.

Why we need to kill any possibilities to survive? This is the question I'm always asking. We even have an achievement for that!! Also, berserkers is only THE most possible perk to win, any other perks can also possible to do so.

The 2 main things I have pointed out are: -
- The Berserker is the only class that can solo any specimen in the game. This is due to the Fleshpound rage mechanics being exploitable and the fact that he is too fast to get hit by the Flehspound swing.

Sharpshooter... again... can also take down full health 6-man HoE fleshpounds with M14, and stun scrakes with LAR (and because not much people can do that, so this is called balanced by most of the people). Decap anything under bloat in one 9mm shot. And in fact medic can also dodge fps attack and keep kiting just like berserker, you just need double amont of strikes with melee weapons.

- His speed is akin to that of the Level 6 Level Up Medic who could run 30% speed. This speed was later nerfed since it was deemed overpowered due the medic's ability to Kite, EXACTLY what the Berserker is excellent at now.

I personally dont find that 5% really matter..., that 5% is only noticable when you are doing some long rage runing, aka ramboing or soloing. If you stick with the team, you dont really need to run for too long.

Lets make 2 things clear.
1) I don't have a vendetta against kiting perce', if the team can win from it then fair enough. The issue is born out of being able capably solo regardless of the enemy spawn. This is why the Katana nerf, the XBow Nerf, AND the Clot Jumping Nerf were all introduced to hamper the Medic.

2) No class is meant to be able to solo everything, that is what the whole purpose of the Beta was to sort out. It was also pretty much unanimously agreed that no perk, other than maybe the Demo should be capable of soloing a Fleshpound.

No perk is intended to solo everything "together on their own" I will add. Switching weapon is actually costing your time, especially on suicidal and HoE, because zeds are FAST. Sure old day sharpshooter can one-shot anything, however sometime they miss or get owned. Because teamated fail to kill those two crawlers closing in, which makes the sharpshooter need to switch weapon twice.

In one-on-one suituation, support is possible to solo fleshpounds. Why this is not happening most of the time is because support is also known as "trash cleaner" so if the support only focus on fleshpounds, trash will swarm the team. So most of the time supports is not doing full damage to fleshpounds. If a one-on-one suituation is there, meaning great team work is there, which is a good thing.


As for the points as to why I've raised this issue, I'll list them below.

So Ok fine, the Berserker is good at kiting, and most likely will always be good at kiting. This does not however mean we should make him an absolute God at it. He should still have an achilles heel, which every other class in the game has. Right now he only has things that cause him irritation, nothing that actually strikes terror into his heart.

The Fleshpound is meant to be a game changer. Every class fears him, no matter what skill level, because if you make a slight mistake its pretty much game over. This isn't the case with the Berserker as there are ample abilities in place to protect you if you do make a mistake. Even if you aren't good enough to consistently use this exploit 100% of the time, you still survive the hit, heal up and try again. You are never truly punished for making this mistake, unless you amke another one. This means a perk is overpowered!

Even if my view on how the Berserker should be played is wrong (which I guarantee I have done myself, and I know a few poeple off the top of my head who can do the same) this arguement that the Berserker needs to solo everything in order to be useful is total bullcrap.

I only want the last one surviving at least "stand a chance" to win. It is a stupid idea to tell everyone to suicide when people start to die BECAUSE YOU ARE IMPOSSOBLE TO WIN already.

ANY class based game uses the same simple principle. Different classes are good against some things, poor against others. By making the Berserker capable of ramboing so efficiently you are undermined the entire point of a class based game. You might as well just strip the other classes out of the game if your gonna keep 1 class capable of killing everything.

Why keep talking about the playstyle not intended...? Ramdo is not the way intended, and you cannot stop people from doing that. Berserkers is only really killing every zed easily when he is alone. When you are restrict to a 10m * 10m square, you cant really be good against endless gorefasts and crawlers.


So onto this speed issue. The arguement that the classic rambo Medic could shoot guns while running at 30% speed whereas the Berserker needs a weapon to run is also a load of tosh. Firstly a gun slows the player down, whereas a melee weapon doesn't. Medics would most likely run at 25% possibly even 20% with a gun. Furthermore how many times do you no scope over a long range? You don't, you use ADS. So if you use the LAR on a Zerker, the same way the rambo Medic did, you run away with amelee weapon in hand, pull out your LAR and take a shot, swap back and run some more.

As I've said countless times the clot grab is a game changer. Without a headshot the rambo Medic gets stuck, and will usually get surrounded and beaten to hell at best, killed at worst. The Zerker however doesn't get stuck and furthermore can cut down clots or anything in his way alot easier. Admittedly The Medic should get punished in this situation, and this is where the Zerker should excel... but please explain to me why the Zerker needs this insane speed boost? The clot grab resistance is already an invaluable tool, what requires this 30% speed boost on top so that NOTHING can hope to keep up?

Answer: There isn't one. If your good enough to survive already, losing a little of this speed boost sin't going to change your game much... except when taking on Fleshpounds. See above.

Again.... I never consider that 5% really matter...


So after all that. Finally I hope you can actually see where the problem lies. The small fixes I wanted was: -
- Fix the Fleshpound rage mechanics so that unsuccessful swings do not reset the rage timer, and losing line of sight merely pauses his rage timer instead of resetting it.
- Further make it so the Fleshpound rages continuously at a certain point of health, be it 50%, 33%, 25%, orwhatever. This would affect all kiting classes.
- Make the Zerker no faster than the Medic, whether the Medic is 25% speed on HoE or 20%. If the Medic, who has a real hard time keeping ZEDs off of him doesn't need this speed boost, a class that can punch a hole through and escape with ease sure as hell doesn't need it either.

Next time try and keep this professional. If you have a point of view fine, but don't rubbish someone elses, especially if you don't understand what they are talking about

J* out

About those two rage mechanics change you mention: if you are the last one, fps spawns with one-man worth health. 5 alt-fire to the head he's dead. So berserkers can still kill it easily by dodge his first attack while axe his head, alt-fire again to rage, alt-twice when raging, and finish off before he even hits you.
On 6-man games, nothing really changed. If they go rambo, they can just kite the pound back to the team. (again, you will never be able to stop rambo players if they really want to rambo)

Speed bonus, i dont really care about that 5%... (but I always think medic should be faster than berserker in order to effectively heal them)

Again, I dont mean to attack anyone, I just think you used a really bad example. Solo has nothing like mutiplayer.
 
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So much text... Which is why I didn't read it, but would like to (politely) ask...

Was it agreed upon that Speed was the issue with Medic/Beserker? When I melee stuff, I can run forward, hit it, dash back to avoid the ones behind it and be unscaved. Yet, any other class without the speed bonus, I quickly get overrun...
Heck, with the Medic/Beserker speed bonus, Gorefasts can't even catch me... And sometimes Patriarch. (My Medic is level 5, too - So not the cap speed)

Medic and Beserker should be faster but I don't think fast enough to avoid Gorefasts... Well, maybe Beserker.
 
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