Frustrations with this game

[Quadruplesword]

Let me preface what I'm about to write with this: I'm actually really starting to like Killing Floor 2. I think it's really starting to come into its own after early access (still not quite as good as KF1 in my opinion, but I also understand KF1 has had 6 years in the oven) and I imagine with patches and content updates coming in the future, I'll probably end up putting as many hours into this game as the original. There's just one major annoyance that's keeping me from enjoying the game to its fullest potential, and it's unfortunately not something that can be fixed with a patch: Terrible players.

Granted, every online game has terrible players, but it honestly feels like around 30-40% of the matches I play, there's at least 2 or 3 buffoons ruining everyone else's good time by being the worst, and sometimes it's a whole lobby of buffoons. These are the types of behavior that annoy me the most and that I've seen most frequently in these matches:

Glory hogs. Doesn't matter what kit they're running, they want their name at the top of the scoreboard by any means necessary, even if it's to the detriment of the team. There are a lot of times where I'll be holding a lane with not much going on, but the moment a few zeds appear, a hail of bullets will cut them down and suddenly there's 2 or 3 people next to me who have abandoned their posts. After that, hordes of zeds will start pouring in from the unattended lanes and it then turns into a disorganized, chaotic melee as everyone panic fires into the oncoming horde.

People who don't use common sense or basic game sense. Tell me, if you're a sharpshooter and you see a scrake or fleshpound chasing down another player, wouldn't it be a good idea to freeze it with a cryo nade first, then start shooting it in the head? It honestly amazes me how often I see sharpshooters mag dumping their M14s into the chests of large zeds and completely forgetting that the class they're playing is called sharpshooter. I've also seen plenty of berserkers who think they're invincible because they can regenerate health, only to die from a siren screaming in their face because they forgot about the half-dozen trash zeds clawing their back side.

People who refuse to heal others or share money. This one really aggravates me the most. I can't tell you the number of times I've had people stand in front of me and whip out their medical syringe only to jab themselves with it. And then they act surprised when the team wipes because people simply refused to do something as simple as pressing the 4 key, then pressing M1 to heal their injured teammate. There have also been many times where I joined a server mid-match or was just a few hundred quid shy of my next weapon (or just needed some for ammo and armor), got to the trader pod and asked for money, only to be met with either radio silence or a reply like "get your own money noob". Usually when I check the scoreboard, the person who insulted me has around 1500-2000 dosh that they simply refuse to share with their teammates.

IF I'M PLAYING SHARPSHOOTER AND TRYING TO SNIPE A LARGE ZED, PLEASE STAY THE F**K OUT OF MY LINE OF FIRE AND QUIT MAG DUMPING THE MOMENT YOU SEE THE S.O.B. GOD.

It honestly feels like these types of players make up almost 80% of the people I play with in pubs. There were plenty of dimwitted players hanging around in pubs in the first game, but they didn't seem as prevalent. When I fire up KF2, I usually just walk away feeling more frustrated than I was when I started because I get into a match, realize it's another lobby full of half-wits, and I just don't even want to be there anymore. I don't get it. What happened to the community in this game? Did all of the good players stay behind on KF1? Am I just having terrible luck?

 

[MrLinh]

So you have problems with some bad players and you come here to complain about the problem that always exist in any KF2.

 

[Radio4ctive]

You heave "terrible luck" of course there are bad players like in other games. I play lot of games with randoms on HoE and 60% of this games players know what to do. Just maybe find some friends to play with you, KF2 is 110% better if you play with your BFF.

 

[s5yn3t]

Just get friends, or if you can't.. Adapt.
Git gud and try to play the playstyle you know you can handle with which you can survive alone if team fails.

I have low expectation of pub players and if they suck on 1st 2 waves, i just switch my playstyle and go more for more of an one man army style... Or FFA if you will.

Call me a glory hog but i always end up withmost mvp awards.

Just..... Be less salty and play the game with clear head and youll have more fun, if you have one good player in your team that has same or higher skill than you, stick with him and youll both create a bond for the game where you both help each other and go through the game with a victory.

 

[imnrk]

Like the others have said, you're just expecting too much. This is always a peril for online games. Just know that other players, like you, are just there to kill zeds and have some fun. They aren't always going to perform how you want them too. Go into a game expecting the worst to happen and live with it. This is the mindset I always use when going into games, when I'm not doing solo, and I have a decent experience, as far as these things go.

Plus, if there is a player that I really can't stand playing with (yelling at the team for not healing each other, for example) I just leave the game and
1. find/start a new game
2. play solo
3. do something else

 

[mikkou]

Its pointless complaining about bad players in this game, because they exist in every game and will continue to do so. If you are looking to win some games, only solution is playing with friends or joining a group/clan.

 

[Quadruplesword]

Admittedly, I may have just been in a bad mood when I made this thread and needed to vent. I don't mean to sound like I expect every player to be an expert at the game, but it aggravates me when I see players defying common sense or endangering their team just so they can have their name at the top of the scoreboard.

To be honest, this type of behavior doesn't annoy me as much in hard difficulty, because it usually only takes 1 or 2 good players to make up the slack for a handful of mediocre ones. It's when I start playing suicidal and above that this starts to get on my nerves, because at that point, everyone needs to pull their weight in order to survive.

 

[s5yn3t]

Well..... You cant expect much from players that may only have 20 hours clocked, so they have to start somewhere, or just straight up aholes.

just enjoy the game and if you stumble with a player that knows what to do, send him a friend req.

If you still decide to go solo into a pub, expect worst, git gud and try to have some fun at being a glory hog yourself
It's an open game and players are free to do whatever they want (even when they deserve a ***** slap for being so dense)

Also, believe it or not kf2 hasa karma system, i had some games where there was a player that took all the cash (note random ppl at random servers) and refused to drop money which he no longer had use for.... Each time the fcker was first to die in phase 0

 

[Gregs2k2]

Its pointless complaining about bad players in this game, because they exist in every game and will continue to do so. If you are looking to win some games, only solution is playing with friends or joining a group/clan.

Exactly. We have our own server and generally play with friends. The odd person jumps on and is either constantly begging for cash/dying and/or just generally playing badly. It's the nature of multiplayer games, sadly.

 

[]Bagheera[]

Well thats just the thing...there dont seem to be any defined "Roles" in this game like in KF1. In KF1 screwing with a sharp while hes trying to line up scrakes can get you votekicked. Thats the Big game killing class and screwing him up by raging a scrake or FP at a bad moment can wipe teams. Now? Its more handy just to shoot bullets at scrakes than fps than to set up any combos or let specified classes IE sharps or Demos deal with them. Ive got dam near 1500 hours in KF1 and most of it was maining a sharp and in here none of the rules seem to apply, and I find sharps incredibly unreliable at doing their job. Even getting cryo grenades to actually stick at the right moment is a pain, and evne then. half a mag into a scrakes head and its still up and staring at you when it thaws.

It may not be that the players are generally bad...Cept medics that refuse to heal and go for damage over healing, but its just the way the game seems to play out. I have much more success playing a commando when dealing with scrakes and FPS by just waiting for beserkers to wear them down and burst firing the AK12 into thier head on low health. THen i go murder all the trash zeds..more kills more xp.

 

[pie1055]

TLDR; I'd place blame of some of this behavior on certain aspects of this game's design promoting them to act this way.

Why should you rely on your teammates to heal you? Just use your own syringe. -This is the kind of thought pattern I expect most pubs to have as there's no clear indication why healing others is beneficial. Yes there's a tip on the loading screen, but many people ignore those. In KF1 it was a bit more obvious when you lost all your charge when healing yourself and only half when healing others. When it's the same regardless in KF2 it's hard to expect players to notice healing others recharges the syringe faster when OMGFLESHPOUNDTWOSCRAKESANDASIRENWTFBGBGSWODLLFLL.

• I have a hunch the change in syringe mechanics is part of making Field Medic more important going from KF1 to KF2 so they probably can't simply be returned to the old method. Maybe additional feedback would help to better show that the syringe is recharging faster from healing a teammate- recharge meter changes color or plays a sound or *ENTERING BOOST MODE* *syringe begins vibrating intensly as if about to take off like a rocket*.

Killing the most stuff makes me the best player because I'm on top of the scoreboard. -Once again, kind of hard to blame people for thinking this way when that's the way the scoreboard orders players. Ordering players by how good of a team player they are would be best but is rather nebulous and would probably be fraught with issues worse than the current version.

• Maybe it'd be better for the scoreboard to simply order players by time spent in the server? It would at least do away with too greatly incentivizing player behavior through the scoreboard's ordering(I don't think pushing players to stay on a server longer would be that big of an issue).

I'd say issues with players not sharing money would possibly be due to money being a bit tighter than in KF1. Not to mention it's not rare to be in a position where you have a nice stack of dosh that you're saving for buying big guns next wave. You don't know how much you're going to earn next wave exactly and I'm pretty sure we've all been in the situation where you're a few quid short of that shiny T4 beast. You wouldn't want to actively put yourself into that situation and it's hard to trust random people on the internet to not die to the first clot that rounds the corner.

• Like the syringe, the economy has changed in ways that simply giving players more money would probably undo. Maybe an investment system would do the trick. Something like giving other people dosh increases how much dosh you get per kill or for surviving the wave. Perhaps you avoid people cheesing the system by offering a maximum of 20%-ish bonus dosh per 500-ish dosh given.

As for people not sticking to their positions or not practicing proper trigger discipline with heavy zeds, I'd chalk those up to the players simply being inexperienced. Those mechanics are kind of hard to get across before you need to punish/reward the player for doing them incorrectly/correctly.

...Geez that ended up longer than I expected.

 

[]Bagheera[]

TLDR; I'd place blame of some of this behavior on certain aspects of this game's design promoting them to act this way.

Why should you rely on your teammates to heal you? Just use your own syringe. -This is the kind of thought pattern I expect most pubs to have as there's no clear indication why healing others is beneficial. Yes there's a tip on the loading screen, but many people ignore those. In KF1 it was a bit more obvious when you lost all your charge when healing yourself and only half when healing others. When it's the same regardless in KF2 it's hard to expect players to notice healing others recharges the syringe faster when OMGFLESHPOUNDTWOSCRAKESANDASIRENWTFBGBGSWODLLFLL.

• I have a hunch the change in syringe mechanics is part of making Field Medic more important going from KF1 to KF2 so they probably can't simply be returned to the old method. Maybe additional feedback would help to better show that the syringe is recharging faster from healing a teammate- recharge meter changes color or plays a sound or *ENTERING BOOST MODE* *syringe begins vibrating intensly as if about to take off like a rocket*.

Killing the most stuff makes me the best player because I'm on top of the scoreboard. -Once again, kind of hard to blame people for thinking this way when that's the way the scoreboard orders players. Ordering players by how good of a team player they are would be best but is rather nebulous and would probably be fraught with issues worse than the current version.

• Maybe it'd be better for the scoreboard to simply order players by time spent in the server? It would at least do away with too greatly incentivizing player behavior through the scoreboard's ordering(I don't think pushing players to stay on a server longer would be that big of an issue).

I'd say issues with players not sharing money would possibly be due to money being a bit tighter than in KF1. Not to mention it's not rare to be in a position where you have a nice stack of dosh that you're saving for buying big guns next wave. You don't know how much you're going to earn next wave exactly and I'm pretty sure we've all been in the situation where you're a few quid short of that shiny T4 beast. You wouldn't want to actively put yourself into that situation and it's hard to trust random people on the internet to not die to the first clot that rounds the corner.

• Like the syringe, the economy has changed in ways that simply giving players more money would probably undo. Maybe an investment system would do the trick. Something like giving other people dosh increases how much dosh you get per kill or for surviving the wave. Perhaps you avoid people cheesing the system by offering a maximum of 20%-ish bonus dosh per 500-ish dosh given.

As for people not sticking to their positions or not practicing proper trigger discipline with heavy zeds, I'd chalk those up to the players simply being inexperienced. Those mechanics are kind of hard to get across before you need to punish/reward the player for doing them incorrectly/correctly.

...Geez that ended up longer than I expected.

Yep. I personally dont CARE if im top of the kill feed. Its why I REALLY want to like sharp. If it could reliably drop scrakes like a ton of bricks similar to the way they can IN KF1, and make a serious dent in fleshpounds I'd only play that class. I keep my team alive and take out high value targets, they take out the trash, everyone lives everyone wins....fun stuff...

Agree on the Syringe changes. I think it needs to go back to the way it was in KF1 where it was more obvious when you healed someone else the syringe only halfway depleated, allowing you to give a teammate 2 quick heals and yourself only 1.

 

[Buzzkillinton]

ive been seeing more griefers of late..people welding doors with the intent to wipe the group...or getting mid game and leaving mid wave etc.

 

[Buzzkillinton]

Bagheera[;n2292618]


Yep. I personally dont CARE if im top of the kill feed. Its why I REALLY want to like sharp. If it could reliably drop scrakes like a ton of bricks similar to the way they can IN KF1, and make a serious dent in fleshpounds I'd only play that class. I keep my team alive and take out high value targets, they take out the trash, everyone lives everyone wins....fun stuff...

Agree on the Syringe changes. I think it needs to go back to the way it was in KF1 where it was more obvious when you healed someone else the syringe only halfway depleated, allowing you to give a teammate 2 quick heals and yourself only 1.

shaprshooter with the railgun and proper perks 1 shots scrakes heads, even on 6 player..and really puts a hurt on fleshpounds.

 

[oldmidget]

how often do you expect to win in each difficulty?

its a team game where 1 slight mistake can get your entire team easily wiped. everyone will make that mistake every once in a while. in a game that can take over an hour each match. you are going to get a mix of skill levels regardless of what difficulty you play on or what their level is. im just curious what you would hope your odds are when joining a suicidal/hoe game full of randoms, when it comes to making it to boss wave/killing boss.

 

[2Clicks]

Exactly. We have our own server and generally play with friends. The odd person jumps on and is either constantly begging for cash/dying and/or just generally playing badly. It's the nature of multiplayer games, sadly.

Great if you have a private server. Or a group you can count on. Not so great if you havent - esp. if youre starting out.

You would think this would dawn on developers at some point, wouldnt you!? Ofc Im not asking you, its more a rhetorical question but if its true and "bad players" in whatever form they come in, spoil the experience for your customer, I would hope that to keep their player-base happy the devs would introduce some mechanism to alleviate this.

Specifically.... as the topic is well 'subjective', some sort of buddy list that can be used to filter out games where these players are playing, could be added quite quickly and be optional. This way if a player wastes their time with a given 'bad player' they can add this player to their own personal not-to-play-with-that-person list and avoid them in the future.

Maybe the devs dont want to to "split" the community, or they hope "better" players can "teach" bad players to become better - but in my experience you first need a mic, then a common language and you need so-called bad players to want to get better or not grief/or whatever. Things that sadly dont always align.

Anyways this sort of thing was happening back in KF1 and throughout KF2 EA. Its been asked for numerous times, several by myself IIRC and nothing was done. So I expect nothing will be done again. As a result I have a Steam blocked list in excess of 300. A large number of them "bad" players from KF. Of which maybe 1/3 - 1/4 were from other online games.

Infact the only game I can remember having a "working" blocked list as part of the server browser was NMRiH.... which was free to play!

 

[silverlighted]

Great if you have a private server. Or a group you can count on. Not so great if you havent - esp. if youre starting out.

I've never played on a private server, but I was never really upset. There are plenty of pubs out there.

Specifically.... as the topic is well 'subjective', some sort of buddy list that can be used to filter out games where these players are playing, could be added quite quickly and be optional. This way if a player wastes their time with a given 'bad player' they can add this player to their own personal not-to-play-with-that-person list and avoid them in the future.

I honestly think this is a poor attitude and poor practice. If a person is THIS upset, they really should be trying to find a private group.

 

[2Clicks]

I've never played on a private server, but I was never really upset. There are plenty of pubs out there.



I honestly think this is a poor attitude and poor practice. If a person is THIS upset, they really should be trying to find a private group.

Well as your answers dont actually take the points Ive made in the context of the general theme of the thread I see little point in actually answering. But hey ho Ill be brief...

The point of 1 is; playing in a private group gives you a different dynamic and experience to playing with randoms. I enjoy playing with both for many different reasons. Private groups give me a good base for grabbing new maps achievements fast without any hassle. Given the players familiarity with each other, the maps and the difficulty. The more you play with the same players, the higher the likelihood that you will begin to foresee what other players will do/act in a given situation. However playing on them repetitively gets boring eventually as you stop learning. So while I can shelter myself from bad players, I cant avoid the eventual result of getting bored.

Actually playing with inexperienced players is more fruitful if you want to learn how to stay alive and keep the team short on the experience they might need for a particular level, alive. Notice I did not say bad players. Bad players just spoil the experience.

I.e. I just played a game on sui/descent were one guy came on and asked if it was okay to be medic. Players were happy for them to be so and the team wiped the next wave because frankly he/she wasnt very good. I checked their profile and they had 60hrs game time. Thats an inexperienced player. Not a bad one. I told the team that they probably wouldnt make it with a 60h medic. I also suggested to the medic they needed to employ nades some more. In that one wave I didnt see one medic nade used. So not a bad player, just one that need to go back to hard for a few dozen more hours.

Griefers on the other hand are another story. I dont want to waste time playing with these muppets and therefore am happy to know before I join a server. The point of 2 follow on from this. The only reason I keep such a list is that if you understand the gameplay dynamic then you can tell if a player is inexperienced or just bad.

For KF1 for instance I must have spent 400-500hrs playing vanilla version just helping new players to sui/hoe complete maps. Indeed I still play with some of those players who added me back then. A very few of them even play KF2.

Hopefully for you, you wont come across such players too often - but in my 1000+ hours Im afraid that I have.

So much for being brief....

 

[oldmidget]

Well as your answers dont actually take the points Ive made in the context of the general theme of the thread I see little point in actually answering. But hey ho Ill be brief...

The point of 1 is; playing in a private group gives you a different dynamic and experience to playing with randoms. I enjoy playing with both for many different reasons. Private groups give me a good base for grabbing new maps achievements fast without any hassle. Given the players familiarity with each other, the maps and the difficulty. The more you play with the same players, the higher the likelihood that you will begin to foresee what other players will do/act in a given situation. However playing on them repetitively gets boring eventually as you stop learning. So while I can shelter myself from bad players, I cant avoid the eventual result of getting bored.

Actually playing with inexperienced players is more fruitful if you want to learn how to stay alive and keep the team short on the experience they might need for a particular level, alive. Notice I did not say bad players. Bad players just spoil the experience.

I.e. I just played a game on sui/descent were one guy came on and asked if it was okay to be medic. Players were happy for them to be so and the team wiped the next wave because frankly he/she wasnt very good. I checked their profile and they had 60hrs game time. Thats an inexperienced player. Not a bad one. I told the team that they probably wouldnt make it with a 60h medic. I also suggested to the medic they needed to employ nades some more. In that one wave I didnt see one medic nade used. So not a bad player, just one that need to go back to hard for a few dozen more hours.

Griefers on the other hand are another story. I dont want to waste time playing with these muppets and therefore am happy to know before I join a server. The point of 2 follow on from this. The only reason I keep such a list is that if you understand the gameplay dynamic then you can tell if a player is inexperienced or just bad.

For KF1 for instance I must have spent 400-500hrs playing vanilla version just helping new players to sui/hoe complete maps. Indeed I still play with some of those players who added me back then. A very few of them even play KF2.

Hopefully for you, you wont come across such players too often - but in my 1000+ hours Im afraid that I have.

So much for being brief....

people get stuck on hard. they need to join suicidal and start dying immediately in order to learn how not to. keep up the advice, but dont tell them to leave or kick them unless they are very low lvl <10.

i always just see a weak link player(no offence) in the game as a challenge. makes it more interesting as opposed to just everything going flawlessly for 10 waves. when the chips are down is when the game is at its most fun.

 

[2Clicks]

people get stuck on hard. they need to join suicidal and start dying immediately in order to learn how not to. keep up the advice, but dont tell them to leave or kick them unless they are very low lvl <10.

i always just see a weak link player(no offence) in the game as a challenge. makes it more interesting as opposed to just everything going flawlessly for 10 waves. when the chips are down is when the game is at its most fun.

I have no problems with ppl who cant get beyond Hard diff. Or Normal for that matter. Its the players that go onto Sui/HoE far too quickly. Like they expect they will be given a pass. But what they really want is a team to carry them. This one is a little trickier than the inexperienced vs bad player argument I made above. It really depends on what sort of mood Im in.

I can safely say that Ive started a kick-vote for too low level players, maybe a handful of times in 1400hrs of play. So generally I dont mind playing with players who will likely need to be carried. Though alot of times other players will start the vote. However having to play with one or even two low level characters can be hit or miss. Generally if Im not the medic or I dont know/trust the medic then I will usually leave those sorts of games. Unless its a friend, or a friend of a friend.

And no I dont tell them to leave. I usually ask 'if they are lost?' Inferring that they should be on another diff. Answers vary from: no response, to verbal diahorrea, to asking question(s), to laughing, and/or leaving. Depends on the person I guess. Again success on getting further depends on what sort of medic we have. I agree that playing with lower level players on a given diff. can be challenging. And yes I do find it fun to do alot of the time.

Finally dont forget that just bc a players level is lower than 'it should be' for a given diff, doesnt mean they are necessarily a bad player. Ive seen many fails on sui these last few weeks with players above 20. It really depends on their knowledge of the game/map/perk/enemies etc. Sure they will be limited to what they can do on some diffs but thats another story.