Support Specialist : Balance

[ph30nix]

im assuming people are looking at Support on HoE.

that in mind

Melee weapon stun Hunting trick
- to me if this is a glitch it should be fixed
- if its not a glitch i have only seen this succesfully done once, and it has caused far too many moments of uncontrollable giggles for me to want to get rid of it. (always hilarious when they forget about additional specimens and get destroyed by sirens or husks) (and yes i said giggles damn it)

Weapon Pentration
- to me its fairly well balanced by the low ammo count and cost of his ammo and if you tweaked their penetration shotguns would lose alot of appeal because they would no longer be very cost effective vs trash specimens

Carry weight/speed
-would make the additional weight slots more of a hinderance then a help i usualy use them to pick up spawned weapons to give to new players or those who die (or ill buy a LAR or something cheap to share later)
-also this would kill support for teams that dont camp they would fall too far behind everyone else unless you want to use them as bait for spawns

Nade count/damage
- nades are i belive 40 a piece thats alot of cash to use just to solo kill a FP especialy if there are other people in the group who can do it cheaper or easier. which if there are the support should be making sure weaker specimens dont overrun the group before helping with the FP i say that because

Support VS FP (HoE 6 man)
maybe im doing it wrong but its very hard to kill a FP without getting hit at least once (if trying to do it solo) all well and good to say oh just spam nades and shoot him, but your relying on no one else enraging him until your in position, that no sirens burst your nades and such. And even if you do it well you just spend 120-160 in nades and if he hit you another 300 in armor 420-460 to kill him too risky to me.

i might be wrong on that part, but personaly im stingy with nades so i dont spam them that often unless i have extra cash

 

[starxpilot]

Tbh, I think this thread turned into a bunch of Hypocrites trying to make KF more like L4D.

 

[outofrealman]

im assuming people are looking at Support on HoE.

that in mind

Melee weapon stun Hunting trick
- to me if this is a glitch it should be fixed
- if its not a glitch i have only seen this succesfully done once, and it has caused far too many moments of uncontrollable giggles for me to want to get rid of it. (always hilarious when they forget about additional specimens and get destroyed by sirens or husks) (and yes i said giggles damn it)

Weapon Pentration
- to me its fairly well balanced by the low ammo count and cost of his ammo and if you tweaked their penetration shotguns would lose alot of appeal because they would no longer be very cost effective vs trash specimens

Carry weight/speed
-would make the additional weight slots more of a hinderance then a help i usualy use them to pick up spawned weapons to give to new players or those who die (or ill buy a LAR or something cheap to share later)
-also this would kill support for teams that dont camp they would fall too far behind everyone else unless you want to use them as bait for spawns

Nade count/damage
- nades are i belive 40 a piece thats alot of cash to use just to solo kill a FP especialy if there are other people in the group who can do it cheaper or easier. which if there are the support should be making sure weaker specimens dont overrun the group before helping with the FP i say that because

Support VS FP (HoE 6 man)
maybe im doing it wrong but its very hard to kill a FP without getting hit at least once (if trying to do it solo) all well and good to say oh just spam nades and shoot him, but your relying on no one else enraging him until your in position, that no sirens burst your nades and such. And even if you do it well you just spend 120-160 in nades and if he hit you another 300 in armor 420-460 to kill him too risky to me.

i might be wrong on that part, but personaly im stingy with nades so i dont spam them that often unless i have extra cash

Actually back then EVERYONE with axe can stun scrakes. And machete stun lock (interupt his attack) his attack.

Then katana was introduced, and people start to use it, and found it it can stun lock scrakes one pri-fire and stun on alt-fire(no one even try the machete). And for this long peroid of time, they say support was balanced.

And suddenly people know how to let nades explode right under a fp's feet, then they found "OH!? That fp's dead!!!!!"

But it is actually doable since day one of lv6 is introduced. Back when the max level is 5, you cant do that, the fp just having really little health left on suicidal (dont need 3 nades, dont need to jump, just nade>huntty>nade>huntty) but fps dies 90% of the time because any one helping you shoot it the fp will die (and back then xbow can one-shot fp). You only need to notice shotguns do less damage at close range. Yeah, but nobody notice that untill lately.

 

[SMIFF]

What's your point outofrealman?

 

[ChairmanMurder[Forge]]

If I'm reading it right, he's saying that Support isn't inherently overpowered or broken, it's just that people picked now to go on a witch hunt for the allegedly overpowered classes and/or tactics.

Can't say I disagree with him.

 

[SMIFF]

But he's talking about times where these tactics and tricks weren't really known, and then when Level Up came out, everyone was focused (rightly so) on the ridiculously incredible power of the Sharpshooter.

So Support was overshadowed, among other perks.

He's always bringing up the past as if it has any relevance, he seems to be complaining about nerfs being suggested now just because these tricks etc have been around for ages.

 

[Zoridium JackL]

the class wasn't as OP before because a lot of tricks weren't known then, but they are now, so at present it is OP, saying it isn't OP because it wasn't then and no real changes have occurred is wrong, because as you pointed out, new tricks have been learned.

 

[Skillzero]

2) Remove ability to stun scrake in melee, if non-berserker class

Are you saying it is possible for a lv. 6 to STUN scrakes with the axe alt-fire? Thought only it was berserkers that could do that?!

Well if this works, thanks for saying Gonna use that all future plays on MY level 6 supporter

 

[FSUBoo]

This arguments gonna go on forever, so this will be my last post in this thread. I don't feel like really having to go through this because we all know that supports gonna get nerfed, and probably ridiculously so. Supports are only really OP in the hands of certain players. Any run of the mill support isn't good enough to pull off those tricks in any situation, and most supports, when they try them and they fail, they usually end up dead. The OP only exists because some people are too good to not be. What are they gonna do about that? it's not like you can nerf a player themselves, just the classes they play. Who's to say people won't come up with new tricks that make a class OP even after nerfs. I mean come on, it's getting ridiculous.

 

[kablooie!]

1) Having 11 Grenades, he can take down fp in 3 seconds. 3-4 grenades is enough to blow up FP. So supporter can quickly handle up to 3 FPs on his own. Other classes can only dream of it. (Demolition has to set pipes and pipes are known not to be so reliable)

Uh... Grenades aren't exactly reliable either.... Especially when they kill you from a huge distance.

 

[Zoridium JackL]

This arguments gonna go on forever, so this will be my last post in this thread. I don't feel like really having to go through this because we all know that supports gonna get nerfed, and probably ridiculously so. Supports are only really OP in the hands of certain players. Any run of the mill support isn't good enough to pull off those tricks in any situation, and most supports, when they try them and they fail, they usually end up dead. The OP only exists because some people are too good to not be. What are they gonna do about that? it's not like you can nerf a player themselves, just the classes they play. Who's to say people won't come up with new tricks that make a class OP even after nerfs. I mean come on, it's getting ridiculous.

it's acctually not that hard to learn the tricks, and you don't even need them with a 6 man team of supports, as long as a couple throw nades and the rest just shoot, no fp's gonna get through that, and then you still have spare people for the trash, it may not be OP in the hands of a beginner, but anyone half competent will do nicely against pretty much everything, so really, it's an every perk, what needs to happen is not a major nerf, but something that brongs it down to it's specific role, if you ask me, it just needs it's nade buff gone, don't care about amount, but when it comes to extra weapon slots, it needs to actually feel heavy, not ridiculously so, but enough that you do feel quite slower when you have loads eweapons.

 

[ChairmanMurder[Forge]]

Finally got to do a HoE game again. So Bedlam, 5 players all from my semi-clan. They're all pretty good generally, but they don't know tricks/tactics (nade+HS on FP, flinch+HS on Scrake).

We had three supports, two sharpshooters. Supports (myself included) were all decked out in AA12s and hunting shotguns. One Sharp had M14/LAR combo, other handcannon/crossbow combo.

We were camping the long hall by spawn. We made it to Wave 10 with maybe three deaths between us. The two Fleshpounds spawn in that little room off the hall. I toss a grenade, Hs them both so that they rage, and toss three nades as I backpedal.

Ninja Siren poofs all four nades. Two raging Fleshpounds with almost full health rip us apart.

It's all well and good that the trick works on controlled environments like Testmap, and maybe I'm just rusty, but the infamous tricks are difficult to pull off unless everything is perfect.

 

[FSUBoo]

Finally got to do a HoE game again. So Bedlam, 5 players all from my semi-clan. They're all pretty good generally, but they don't know tricks/tactics (nade+HS on FP, flinch+HS on Scrake).

We had three supports, two sharpshooters. Supports (myself included) were all decked out in AA12s and hunting shotguns. One Sharp had M14/LAR combo, other handcannon/crossbow combo.

We were camping the long hall by spawn. We made it to Wave 10 with maybe three deaths between us. The two Fleshpounds spawn in that little room off the hall. I toss a grenade, Hs them both so that they rage, and toss three nades as I backpedal.

Ninja Siren poofs all four nades. Two raging Fleshpounds with almost full health rip us apart.

It's all well and good that the trick works on controlled environments like Testmap, and maybe I'm just rusty, but the infamous tricks are difficult to pull off unless everything is perfect.

That's the thing that most in this thread won't take into account. I've done 5 HoE games successfully in a weeks time, and have yet once to see the FP tricks work perfectly. I know they'll say "oh, more than one person can throw nades" but like I said last post, it can get you killed if it screws up. Go check the Screen shot and video thread, and watch Fang's video "Teamwork", skip to around 3:20 mark, the FP trick got a raged FP almost wiping me out.

 

[Zoridium JackL]

implying that just because the perk gets ripped in that certain situation which is nowhere near the majority of the time makes it any less OP in most other situations. because lets face it, if the inly tme the perk is at a disadvantage is when you get double FP's and Sirens, than something is wrong.

 

[9_6]

because lets face it, if the only time the perk is at a disadvantage is when you get double FP's and Sirens, than something is wrong.

But moderately expensive ammunition and guns, long reloads, low range and easily running out of ammunition are disadvantages too.

 

[sverek]

But moderately expensive ammunition and guns, long reloads, low range and easily running out of ammunition are disadvantages too.

Guys, good supporters don't get their nades / ammo wasted, he times well when to throw nades at fp and rage him (so he charge his range standing still when nades going out).

Good supporter always successfully stun scrake and finish him with hunting shotgun. By stun I mean 1st stun with axe. Yes other classes can also stun scrake, but they don't have enough firepower to finish him after stun with axe/katana.

I think most people here are not very experienced supporters and never played with a really good supporter. There lots of tricks that supporter can do, and yet, I never seen any good tricks that other classes can effectively pull. I say again, Supporter is fine. But if we to keep his "tricks", I also want to see other classes being able to do some "tricks".

If crossbow could stun only on 1st headshot, that would already provide lots of possibilities to commando (SCAR + Crossbow), medic and other classes.

This arguments gonna go on forever, so this will be my last post in this thread. I don't feel like really having to go through this because we all know that supports gonna get nerfed, and probably ridiculously so. Supports are only really OP in the hands of certain players. Any run of the mill support isn't good enough to pull off those tricks in any situation, and most supports, when they try them and they fail, they usually end up dead. The OP only exists because some people are too good to not be. What are they gonna do about that? it's not like you can nerf a player themselves, just the classes they play. Who's to say people won't come up with new tricks that make a class OP even after nerfs. I mean come on, it's getting ridiculous.

While I agree with it. I don't call a supporter to be only nerfed. You can't nerf players, but I hope it possible to make other classes also being able to handle big zeds, like supporter can. What the hell can you expect from Commando if there scrake coming? or 2 fps? I know there difference in play style of classes, but it shouldn't make other classes less efficient. I know noobs and non-pro players won't get it. But I played KF for more than 200+ hours (since balance update) and I seen really good people doing really good as supporter, handling massive income and big zeds.
While the best commando I seen is killing small-middle zeds, leaving big zeds to supporter / demolition.

Even Sharpshooter is nearly useless for fp (which is shame). Supporter or Demolition do much better job. I've seen good sharpshooter taking down fp with m14 on really big maps. But that's it. Most official maps doesn't have luxury for space, which making supporter the most efficient in most cases.

I only want to see cooperative gameplay, where whole team focusing on taking down big zeds, without having single supporter taking care most of it.

2 points to bring from here: nerf supporter or make other weapons or other classes combinations to be effective vs big zeds and make game even more harder (HoE getting easier and easier by each day btw as more people realize supporter tricks and think before spamming nades).

This thread went wrong direction and I really would love people to see, that I am not only telling to nerf supporter, but reviewing his abilities and share opinions on how to improve gameplay and make it more enjoyable.

 

[SMIFF]

Forcing the Hunting Shotgun reload animation to finish before you can change weapon might be something to consider, along with a slightly slower fire rate for the AA12 and Shotgun.

It'd make Support less effective with crowd control and may give a hoard half a chance of closing in and putting pressure on the team.

 

[C_Gibby]

You're forgetting that the Sharpie seems to have a role to take out the priority targets like Husks, Bloats, and Sirens, whenever it's not looking at FPs and Scrakes (and I've seen more than enough sharpies and combined team play to kill FPs and Scrakes, and even supports need some little support with the big guys, no perk should solo a 6man HOE zed in a realistic situation). It does it way better than any other perks, which is great.

It sounds like your main problem right now is the fact that the support can stun scrakes with the axe. If that's such a problem, remove the axe stunning and make it so only a zerker can stun with it. Problem solved.

I hope it possible to make other classes also being able to handle big zeds, like supporter can. What the hell can you expect from Commando if there scrake coming? or 2 fps? I know there difference in play style of classes, but it shouldn't make other classes less efficient.

There is just so much wrong in this statement I don't even- How could you have been here since 2009 like your join date says? Have you noticed that when the Commando was capable of taking scrakes out, it turned out to be downright overpowered? Do you realise that the commando is so much better than the support at taking out large waves of trash? Why do you think it'd be balanced to make another perk alongside Sharpie, Demo and Support to take out large ZEDs just because some can't? "Don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree," etc...

 

[Benjamin]

I disagree with modifying the support's weapons, since this simply makes it overall weaker rather than more team-orientated. It fits well as part of a balanced team, it's just that due to its design (lacking of any kind of weakness) that it's possible to have a team full of them and totally annihilate everything.

From playing support I've found him to be pretty balanced. The pump-action shotgun takes some skill to use since you have to time reloads carefully or you'll be left empty, the hunting shotgun has to be reloaded after every shot (unless you use primary fire), and in fact the AA12 is the only weapon that I think might be a bit too powerful, but the whole idea in the first place is for it to be powerful.

I'd rather see some changes that give it a real weakness in the game, like the berserker (if you could argue that the husk and siren are his weaknesses). At the moment it can handle everything just about equally, and making his weapons less powerful isn't going to change this. On the whole if the support was such a problem I'd like to see some real gameplay changes that give him a weakness.

I'm all for removing the Scrake stun and reducing the amount of grenades that can be carried, or even implementing a system whereby each consecutive grenade costs more, so it'd be very expensive to fill grenades.

 

[Rainydaykid]

This arguments gonna go on forever, so this will be my last post in this thread. I don't feel like really having to go through this because we all know that supports gonna get nerfed, and probably ridiculously so. Supports are only really OP in the hands of certain players. Any run of the mill support isn't good enough to pull off those tricks in any situation, and most supports, when they try them and they fail, they usually end up dead. The OP only exists because some people are too good to not be. What are they gonna do about that? it's not like you can nerf a player themselves, just the classes they play. Who's to say people won't come up with new tricks that make a class OP even after nerfs. I mean come on, it's getting ridiculous.

Well, any class is OP when you have a really good player though. You've seen what I can do with an AK. When I get bored, I play suicidal with a bullpup and dual 9mms. I don't think you should balance the class with the ridiculously good players in mind, that will screw over most of the playerbase.

A lot of people consider the sharp way overnerfed, but I can absolutely destroy with it on HoE in the right mood, and I have seen plenty of other people do the same thing.