Patriarch

[Yoshiro]

Patriarch Goals: Our goal here was to make him harder to surround and just outright kill with melee weapons

Where we successful?

Also feel free to discuss the changes with your fellow testers in this thread.

[Compass]

Did not notice any crowd-melee when playing, but me and 2 other people kept our distances to manage him. Pat control is pretty simple with Hunting Shotguns at Level 3, apparently.

[Evilsod]

I've not seen any mobbing but he does seem to have started attacking Clots now. I don't ever remember him doing it before and in 2/3 encounters he's started attacking a clot and never managed to hit it. Could be that the clot would win eventually ><

It might just be because it was Normal not Suicidal but he seemed a lot easier to dodge than i remember too. He would frequently miss lvl3 Zerkers backing away at ranges i'm sure he normally hit at.

[Fel]

I think there should be Fp spawns during the pat wave.

ON mission maps, Fps during the Pat seem to own

[Stilkdog]

I do like the spread attack now but I would like to see maybe more or even stronger ZED's to spawn during the wave to make it harder as just a few Stalkers, Clots and Crawlers are easy to take out.

[nutterbutter]

I haven't tried to melee attack him yet, but the aa12 absolutely owns patty.

[Evilsod]

Theres no doubt about it tbh, it didn't work. Infact it made him even easier.

6 of us mobbed him on Hard lvl5 with Chainsaws. He did seem to be hitting multiple people but with the Zerkers higher damage resistance he only managed to kill 1 person before we raped him.

And with regards to him being even easier. His melee attack seems completely screwed up. I've gone toe to toe with him on Normal and Hard wielding an Axe and he just seems to keep missing melee attacks if you back off between hits.

[Xienen]

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Theres no doubt about it tbh, it didn't work. Infact it made him even easier.

6 of us mobbed him on Hard lvl5 with Chainsaws. He did seem to be hitting multiple people but with the Zerkers higher damage resistance he only managed to kill 1 person before we raped him.

And with regards to him being even easier. His melee attack seems completely screwed up. I've gone toe to toe with him on Normal and Hard wielding an Axe and he just seems to keep missing melee attacks if you back off between hits.

Thanks for testing that for us. I've added it to the list of things to look into for the next patch(due out next Monday evening).

[scary ghost]

Originally Posted by [TW]Xienen

Thanks for testing that for us. I've added it to the list of things to look into for the next patch(due out next Monday evening).

Here's a video of dodging the patriarch's melee attacks. Fast forward to to the 6 minute mark.

YouTube - Killing Floor - 1015 Beta Patch - Wave 7 + Patriarch on Solo Suicidal as Berserker

You've been able to do this for a while now though. High level zerker and medics could dodge the melee attack even on suicidal with proper timing and some luck long before this beta patch.

YouTube - Killing Floor - Soloing the Patriarch With a Katana on Suicidal

[HaTeMe]

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Theres no doubt about it tbh, it didn't work. Infact it made him even easier.

6 of us mobbed him on Hard lvl5 with Chainsaws. He did seem to be hitting multiple people but with the Zerkers higher damage resistance he only managed to kill 1 person before we raped him.

And with regards to him being even easier. His melee attack seems completely screwed up. I've gone toe to toe with him on Normal and Hard wielding an Axe and he just seems to keep missing melee attacks if you back off between hits.

Yeah I can confirm that being one of the zerkers raping him lol. He hit me twice or something and I wasnt even close to death.

[9_6]

Originally Posted by HaTeMe

Yeah I can confirm that being one of the zerkers raping him lol. He hit me twice or something and I wasnt even close to death.

Same except he didn't even hit me once despite me being right next to him and not even moving.

[THEDDLE]

Just played a round on Hard. FP seem to be ok. Killed one person while two of us tried to save him. On the Pat. He did not seem to Hard on Hard. I was shooting him with the medic gun and healing the guy using an axe on him.

I tried to lay down cover fire on all the other ZEDS to keep them off the guy with the AXE. Seemed a little easy.

[keldi]

Originally Posted by HaTeMe

Yeah I can confirm that being one of the zerkers raping him lol. He hit me twice or something and I wasnt even close to death.

Same here, same game. Was a cakewalk with 6 level 5 zerkers, chainsaw alt-firing.

This ended up turning into a long post, so... tl;dr, the below covers three things:
#1: A post-stagger knockback for the Patriarch to prevent chainsaw orgy.
#2: Faster post-healing re-engagement of the players.
#3: Summoning mixed packs of zeds more often, for more dynamic fights.

Sorry in advance for the wall of text. Too much coffee. :P

#1:
IMO, he should do a wide-radius 360 degree knockback immediately after standing up from getting knocked down, with medium to heavy damage in a much narrower ring around him a split second before the knockback hits.

That'll force people away from him so he can run off. If the damage radius is thinner than the knockback radius, it'll induce people to back off some once he drops to one knee (to avoid the damage), while still pushing them back for his escape. Would add a bit more tactical maneuvering to the battle. Maybe make his "stagger" animation last a tiny bit longer in this case, so players with bad pings have a chance.


#2:
Also, after he runs away, he should do a fast-run every 5-ish seconds he goes without sighting a player, towards the nearest player. I've always thought the best advantage of the chainsaw orgy method was not having to spend 1-2 minutes searching for the patriarch after every heal.


#3:
Lastly... it'd be nice if the patriarch "summoned" zeds more often and in heavier quantities. Say, summoning them twice to three times as often, with larger mixed packs. As things stand, his minions are either an annoyance or never arrive at all. That leaves every fight a matter of blocking his line of sight, forcing him to close to relatively close range, and completely focusing on him.

If he summoned more zeds players would have to split their attention between killing the oncoming pack, and dealing with the patriarch. Of course, if he did summon more zeds, his ranged damage would have to be toned down a lot (from the near insta-kill it is now). That would make the fight more dynamic than "hide behind a wall until he's done shooting, then unload on him".


#4:
While I'm overly-caffeinated and posting a lot, I guess I should ask; should I post this kind of thing to the non-beta ideas board, rather than here? (I did look to see if any of the stuff I've posted today was mentioned frequently, but I didn't spot it...) If I should be posting this elsewhere, my apologies.

[Deafmute]

I can't comment much on the new melee ability, but I will say that on Hard Biolab he got stuck on the double staircase leading down to the U-room hall. HateMe and I were able to knife him pretty easily. Comical, but needs to be addressed as he's been getting stuck in that spot for a while.

[Evilsod]

Well we decided to have a go at the Pat on 5 (or was it 6?) man Hard using Machetes. Unfortunately he cheated and killed us all as there was no way such a plan could fail otherwise. I'm sure he hit me twice in the same attack which was odd but for the most part there didn't seem to be much difference in his fighting us.

And his melee attack is definitely messed up as far as reach goes. I can accept that maybe the Zerkers new speed boost was making it harder to hit him, but the last game on Lvl4 Hard i was a Firebug with Mac10/Xbow (so 15/15 weight) and by bunny hopping he missed every single attack he made which must've been about 5 of them at least. I'm sure it wasn't that easy to dodge him before.

[9_6]

We've just discovered a bug in the bug.
The whole team bought machetes and tried to kill the patriarch but he killed us all instead.
Outrageous.

Edit: beat me to it.

[Zonker]

I can confirm his melee attack is buggy. On hard West London I got cornered in that small space between the van and wall in the second tunnel by the Patriarch. He attacked me thrice, but missed twice, although I just ran around him and jumped (as non-Berserker / non-Medic).

He also seems more prone to pathfinding problems, at least that's what it looked like sometimes.

[timur]

Not from what I've seen, the patty doesn't seem one bit more difficult.
But very few people have tried mobbing him though.

Btw, the LAW is the new patty killer. Hits him whether you want it to or not

[THEDDLE]

I played a lot today. In some instances he was easy to beat. In a few he was not. I would say he needs to be easier then the last one but not this easy. Seems to be borderline if he is to easy or not. If you get him trapped where he can not get away he is through.

[slavek]

His new Area of Effect attack is nice. However we mobbed him tonight in manor. Locked the doors and beat him up. He needs more adjustments in my opinion.

Ideas:

1. When he is in retreat mode, let him attack doors without being interrupted.
2. Let him do more damage to doors.
3. Make him go berserk so if he can't get out, he will attack the players with machine gun/rocket/more damaging melee.
4. Give him damage resistance depending on how many players are within X feet next to him + the amount of time they are next to him. Don't make it instant +resistance or the straight rush achievement will not be obtainable.
5. Butt patty stats more.