Detailed Survivalist Rework Concept, Mk.2

[TheWaywardKid]

Since the old "Ideas and Suggestions" threads were unfortunately lost, I felt compelled to repost my Survivalist rework with some new tweaks I've come up with after further thought. Again, I haven't spent countless hours of my precious life going over every single bit of math, so some of the balance might be a little off. (The point is just to get the idea across.) My goal with this rework is to try to make the Survivalist powerful through utility rather than raw numbers (brain rather than brawn), keep some of what is working, add some thematic elements, and give him/her some unique skills while still keeping the "perk sampler" FEEL of the character. This time around I'm going to do a lot less explaining of each choice; rather, I'm going to try to let the ideas speak for themselves! Enjoy!

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MAXIMUM PASSIVE BONUSES:
25% Heavy Body Armor
25% Global Damage Resistance
50% Weapon Swap Speed
15% Additional Ammo
Increased Dosh for surviving a Wave (difficulty dependent)​

STARTING LOADOUT:
Dual 9mm Pistols with full ammo.
Goreshiv
Noisemakers​

One complaint I've repeatedly read has been regarding the Survivalist's weird grenade situation. I recommend simply giving the Survivalist their own grenade to remedy this (like how they were given the Goreshiv knife). The grenade I came up with was the Noisemaker, a thematic utility-oriented grenade to make the Survivalist more about brain than brawn. A Noisemaker would do no damage but rather would draw the attention of ZEDs as though it were another player (EDARs, enraged enemies, and bosses would be immune to this effect). Noisemakers could briefly take some pressure off of the team and/or conveniently group some of the hoard for killing. A Siren could still deactivate Noisemakers, so you wouldn't want to draw their attention.


WEAPON HANDLING [5]:
[Dexterous:] Increase Reload Speed with all weapons.
[Run-N'-Gun:] You may reload, swap weapons, and use the syringe while sprinting.


SURVIVAL TECHNIQUES [10]:
[Home Remedy:] Increase the potency of all your healing 30% and decrease the cooldown of your syringe and healing darts 40%. Your healing removes any negative status ailments.
[CQB Training:] Increase melee attack speed 20%, inflict 50% more damage, and move 25% faster when using any melee weapon.


EQUIPMENT [15]:
[Calibrate:] Your 9mm pistols and Goreshiv deal 50% extra damage. You are unaffected by the weight of upgrades.
[Stockpile:] Increase carrying capacity by 5. Begin each game with a random Tier 1 weapon.


DESTRUCTION [20]:
[Spontaneous Zed-plosion:] Zeds you kill have a 30% chance to explode, damaging and knocking down nearby Zeds.
[Pesticide:] All flame, explosive, electric, and freeze weapons can also poison ZEDs, inflicting damage over time. Poisoned Zeds are slowed 10%.


SPECIALIST TRAINING [25]:
[ZED TIME - Respite:] During ZED Time, you move, reload, swap weapons, and use the medical syringe in real time.
[ZED TIME - Scavenger:] During ZED Time, your weapon recoil is reduced by 25% and you earn increased Dosh for assists and kills.

 

[Aleflippy]

Quite a good rework overall, but I do have two complains :

-Wouldn't the "increased dosh for surviving a wave" bonus be too much? I mean, it's already quite simple to get the higher-tiered weapons quite early if you manage your money pretty well. It would be ridiculous to run around with T4 weapons at wave 3...right?

-CQB Training is still too situational for my liking...You'd have to focus solely on berserker weaponry, which is not a very good thing for a jack-of-all-trades perk. Hopefully, we could find a skill that compliments more strategies.

 

[s5yn3t]

-Wouldn't the "increased dosh for surviving a wave" bonus be too much? I mean, it's already quite simple to get the higher-tiered weapons quite early if you manage your money pretty well. It would be ridiculous to run around with T4 weapons at wave 3...right?

But you gotta remember that survivalist is not as effective with weapons as dedicated perks are.

Even if he gets them early he still won't be dealing as much dmg as other perks, so the surv will always be hungry for money for upgrades, ammo and/or general uncertainty with which weapons to play with (and those eat dosh the most)

So i don't think that giving him a slight dosh boost would hurt.
Hek, swat and support could use a boost as well, as maintaining them costs a lot.

 

[TheWaywardKid]

Wow! Thanks for the critique! I was too wordy back with explaining my original version (before the forum wipe), so I rightfully never had somebody bother to point out any flaws on that one.

Regarding the first complaint from Aleflippy.... you may be right. Like I said, I haven't done a ton of math. But s5yn3t grasped the general idea of the purpose of that money.
Basically, a common complaint I've seen about the current Survivalist is that it takes too much dosh to begin to compete with a "real" perk when it comes to effectiveness. The original 15% extra damage - which I took away from the perk - was pitiful, but if you boosted that number you would begin to steal the thunder of other perks. Whereas other perks boost their damage numbers more directly, the Survivalist catches up by buying better weapons or upgrades to compensate for their lack of typical damage boosts. The additional money is, in essence, a damage boost in disguise that forces the player to live to the perk's namesake - survival - in order to keep it (not to mention the potential to lose those weapons upon death).
In my first draft the skill was actually a reduction in the price of upgrades, but then I realized there was probably going to be some way that players would exploit that. Further, I felt that extra dosh would be more universal, and should the Survivalist happen to not need it all then they could contribute to the team. That all said, you might be right in that it could screw up proper match progression, so maybe it would need careful balancing or maybe there's a better way of accomplishing the same idea....?

Regarding the second complaint, the recent buff made that skill infinitely more satisfying so I think I was too hesitant to stray from it. I also wanted to make sure there is still something that benefits Berserker weapons. (Plus even without a melee-focused build it can still be really useful to switch to the knife for speed, or have a melee as secondary.) But you're right in that the skill isn't ideal. Hmmm.... Just throwing out a random new idea here, but what do you think of the following changes?

LV5 [Dexterous:] Increase Reload Speed with all weapons. Melee attacks are 20% faster.
LV5 [Run-N'-Gun:]You may reload, swap weapons, and use the syringe while sprinting. Movement speed is increased 15%.
LV10 [CQB Training:] Melee attacks deal 40% extra damage. Bashing has increased force and a larger area of effect. Bashing also parries.

Melee swing speed is essentially the "reload" of melee anyways, so we could just add that to "Dexterous". We could also make the running speed slower but universal, adding it to "Run-N'-Gun" to make that skill compete with "Dexterous" better (as well as being thematic). Improving bashing would also make for some interesting defensive options for any loadout while still keeping to the melee theme of the skill.

 

[OutlawStar26ep]

The extra money gain idea is really good as a unique perk feature for the Survivalist and it kinda works thematically as well. Like they scavenge the level for extra dosh to use.

Not only can it help the survivalist out, but you help the team out by generating more money that you can share when needed and it gives a reason to choose the perk team role-wise.

 

[makeitgood]

cool ideas but i don't think damage should be removed from his passive leveling

 

[TheWaywardKid]

cool ideas but i don't think damage should be removed from his passive leveling

Fair enough, but I honestly think that would depend on just how much extra dosh this version of Survivalist would get per wave. Consider that a single upgrade can roughly equal that missing 15%, if not easily surpass it depending on the weapon, tier, cost, etc.. Sure, you'd have to buy it on a weapon-by-weapon basis, but I'd argue that with proper balancing of the suggested dosh bonus you'd get an equivalent effect that is more unique compared to other perks and which requires more knowledge and skill to use to its full potential. (And, if you don't need that one extra upgrade for a particular weapon due to math or whatever, you can use that dosh to contribute to the team.)
A blank 15% damage bonus is just like every other perk, only worse. Being supplied extra money to cover the costs of upgrades, however, would reward players who bother to learn each weapon on a deeper level while simultaneously being thematic. Not that I'd be opposed to keeping the 15% bonus as well, mind you...

I'm glad you've revived all of these different Survivalist threads though! In particular I had missed seeing an idea people had for a skill that would allow you to revive another player once per wave, and honestly I feel it should be worked somehow into this rework as well (even though I cannot claim credit for the concept). How would people feel about eliminating "Spontaneous Zed-Splosion" and replacing it with the following...?
LV20 [Defibrillator:] Once per wave you can resurrect a fallen ally back to 50 health by interacting with their body.

 

[Sarcy]

How would people feel about eliminating "Spontaneous Zed-Splosion" and replacing it with the following...?
LV20 [Defibrillator:] Once per wave you can resurrect a fallen ally back to 50 health by interacting with their body.

I would not be a fan, prior to the recent tweak I wasn't keen on Zed-Splosion but seeing it in action I now see its merits.

Your suggestion is intriguing, I considered a once-per-wave/game ability where you can survive mortal damage followed by a few seconds of invulnerability allowing escape etc but quite often anything to do with invulnerability is an opportunity for exploitation so I'm not 100% it would work as intended sadly.