A bunch of Design changes I'd make to improve the game ~ For KF2 (or KF3?)

[xmrmeow]

I started playing in KF1, but I've easily racked up more than triple the hours in KF2. I usually play either Suicidal or HoE.
I also love game design and have a strong understanding on how a lot of aspects of programming in games works, so I try not to suggest things that are totally unreasonable.

I think KF2's gunplay and enemy design are some of the best I've ever seen in any shooter. The guns feel great to use, and the enemies being so responsive to a variety of different types of hits in different locations makes them uniquely fun to fight against compared to other games where enemies have 1 hit box and their behavior is limited to "attack player until HP hits 0".

I love the game at its core, but its replayability could use some work, and certain aspects feel a bit sloppy at times.

Here are the main things I think could use improvement:

• The game could use a more interesting game mode:
  The game mode in KF1 and KF2 is very barebones and leaves little room for variety. This hurts its replayability as playing on different maps essentially is limited to "is this an open or tight corridors map, and are there any good camping spots".
  
  Basically, the only thing different maps offer for the most part are which perks are the most viable, and aesthetic differents.
  
  I'd really like a new game mode that made the game more than just "find the best spot and kill the enemies". I think Left 4 Dead's game mode of "fight through enemies and obstacles to get to the checkpoints, with other randomized mechanics like equipment spawns and random/triggered hordes" would be a perfect fit.
  
  In my opinion, both of these games have something they lack. KF2 has fantastic gunplay and enemy feel, but lacks an interesting game mode, and L4D's guns and enemies feel awful, but the game mode more than makes up for it. Combining the two would be the dream zombie shooter in my opinion.
  
  
• Certain Perks feel less viable on cramped maps / Boss wave:
  I feel like the choice of perk should be more based on what the player feels like playing rather than whats the most viable for the situation. I think the main thing that prevents certain perks from being viable in certain maps is the lack of mag reload weapons. In my opinion, each perk should have a weapon that's good at clearing weaker zeds with the appropriate skill, but it feels like certain perks only have single shot/reload weapons or weapons that reload one bullet at a time, which makes them less viable on higher difficulties.
  
  Basically, I'd just give like Demo, Sharpshooter, and Support at least 1 mid tier (t2 or t3) gun that fits them while also reloading a whole mag at a time.
  
  The increase in multiperk weapons helps for this a decent bit in the recent times, but it'd just be nice to have some guns that were specifically made for that perk.
  
  I think the best way to fix this is by adding Upgrade Options. A few examples that I'd like are mag reload for the M4 Shotgun, Pump Shotgun, Centerfire, Winchester, and a revolver or mini-grenade launcher for the HX25 Explosive pistol (either would make it much better at clearing multiple trash zeds).
  
  
• Animations, Hitboxes, and Movement could be a lot smoother than it is:
  The animations themselves I think are completely fine and none have to be redone. However, I think the hitboxes of stalkers and crawlers in particular seem to be a bit too unforgiving, mostly during their attack animations. It feels like they're smaller than their actual body during their animations. I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but they're certainly the most annoying enemies to fight. Improving the hitboxes of crawlers and stalkers while they're doing their animations and slightly increasing their size normally would make them much more enjoyable to fight against in my opinion.
  
  Many enemies have movement that feels choppy too. This is because when they get within a certain range, they do a lunge attack, and the transition between running and lunging is a bit jumpy. Adding a small windup to lunge attacks and increasing the distance to compensate I think would go miles to improving how it feels to fight enemies when they get close to you.
  
  Pathing is also an issue. Due to the path node system, enemies tend to path in very rigid ways and seem to change direction or turn in very sporadic ways at times, which is especially prevalent on custom maps. I think the pathing by nodes is inherently a flawed system, but if it needs to be kept, I'd say pathing between nodes should be smoothed out by making zeds plan their path a few nodes in advance and instead making an arc that goes along that path instead of following them rigidly. Runescape of all things actually made an update like this recently, and I think it'd do wonders for improving the feel of zed movement in most situations
  
  (source for more info: https://runescape.wiki/w/Update:Dev_Blog_-_Movement_in_RuneScape)
  
  Another movement related thing that often frustrates players is Aggro. Classes like sharpshooter, commando, and gunslinger often rely heavily on headshots, and headshots are easiest to land when the zed is focused on you, so it often becomes frustrating when teammates nearby are drawing their attention. Some aggro changes or aggro related perk skills would be very nice for this.
  
  I think making zeds aggro on a per-zed basis would be very nice to fix this as well. Shoot a husk and all the other husks start facing you. Shoot a crawler and all the other crawlers come towards you. It would make niches feel more natural as the roles that are supposed target certain things can more easily focus them down. Perhaps have it be a % chance as well that increases with each of that zed you kill within a certain amount of time so things don't awkwardly all immediately change focus and split themselves up into lines of certain zeds going to certain people.
  
  The final movement related thing I'd like improved is related to the environment. A lot of things are very rigid, which makes both zed and player movement a bit sporadic. Stuff like stairs, little things like pillars and furniture along the walls, all that stuff makes movement a bit inconsistent. It'd be nice if the collision boxes of these things were smoothed out to be more rounded.
  
  Making stairways behaving like flat ramps, and making players slide along objects they're running into would be another huge improvement in my opinion for making player and enemy movement smoother. Often players walking back along a wall or even out in the open hit into something from behind and get stuck, so making them automatically slide along and around it even if its a flat surface would be very nice.

Thanks for reading!

 

[s5yn3t]

Tho idk if it can be possible to have l4d-ish game mode in kf2 without opting into the map package that would load next map after players reach their checkpoint.

Maybe combining Holdout with objective mode? where you have to complete a certain objective to unlock next area while the game is constantly live?

At the beginning you have cysts roaming around scavenging for the meat and that will only attack if they have you in their sight, With occasional but increasing frequency of alpha clots and/or slashers rushing in at your to get you moving.
With later areas having an increasingly more dangerous zeds that might heard the door or whatever opening and now are on the move to your area to get you, clearing them out and giving yourself a bit of breathing room to find the needed objective item to progress.
With ofc an occasional trap trigger like in l4d2 where you then forced to haul ass and get to the trigger that disables the alarm or you need to run to the save zone or have the trigger last a certain amount of time, while you have an endless amount of zeds rushing at you.

And during your play, occasionally a horzine care package will drop from a plane or a passing by helicopter, containing ammo refill and random weapons for each perk that is currently in the match.
(weapon tier will be higher the further you progressed in the map)

About everything else.
You basically wrote what i was thinking about the game aspects for the past 4+ years

 

[Obdimus]

Bumping this because I couldn't have worded any of it better myself. I'd just like to add that I've also thought about and discussed these things many times while playing the game since it first released into early access back in 2015. And just for the sake of contributing a couple more ideas here, there are a few QoL changes I think the game has seriously been needing:

Server Browsing/Favoriting
1) Add an option to favorite servers while you're actually IN the server. Too many times I've joined a server with good custom maps but not been able to re-find it again after leaving. If this option already exists, then I'm completely in the dark about where to find it. Speaking of custom maps...
2) Add an option to filter servers by including only those with custom maps. There's an option to filter OUT servers with custom maps, so why isn't there one to filter IN only servers that do have custom maps?
3) Add a search bar to the server browser. Sometimes I'm looking for a specific server by name, and it'd be much faster to just type the name rather than sorting alphabetically and scrolling up and down.

Dropping Weapons on Death
4) Change it so that you drop the most valuable weapon you're carrying on death (with upgrades' added value factored in). I can't count how many times I've died in a split moment while switching weapons only to have the gun of much lesser value get left behind instead of the one I saved up for with multiple waves' worth of earnings. At least guarantee I'll get most of my investment back if I get to respawn. Ideally though, all weapons should be dropped on death, since it doesn't make much sense that they'd be suddenly absorbed into oblivion just because I got cartwheeled to death by 18 stalkers and crawlers.
5) Add a UI marker for dropped weapons so they can be easily found. The last few zeds alive have UI markers, and so do teammates, and I also can't count how many times I've frantically ran around looking for my dropped gun and wasted precious trader time, or simply said screw it and ran to the trader to try to grab whatever low-tier weapon I could with the meager amount I was left with since my dropped weapon was probably going to de-spawn in a few seconds anyway. That brings me to the last point...
6) Remove de-spawn timers on dropped weapons. I really don't know why this is even a thing, but it seems like it's just there to make money disappear when bad luck strikes, especially considering spawn areas and trader locations can end up miles away from wherever I dropped my gun. This further incentives me to just not bother going to pick it up until after, but by that time it may be too late, and then the money's gone forever.

Anyway yeah, I agree with the OP.

 

[xmrmeow]

Tho idk if it can be possible to have l4d-ish game mode in kf2 without opting into the map package that would load next map after players reach their checkpoint.

Ideally if a different game mode relies on different kinds of maps, they would use a different file type.

For the game mode I suggested, I'd think it'd just be 2+ maps in one file that get loaded when all players reach the checkpoint.
This would improve performance a lot more compared to shoving all the content on one map and loading all at once even though you can't get past a certain point until everyone hits the checkpoint.


On the topic of game modes, it'd also be nice to have a few other more simple game modes thrown in, like one that gives you like infinite spare magazines, but the waves are much harder. I tend to enjoy maps a lot more when I'm on a custom map that gives plentiful ammo boxes that let me use any gun to my heart's content, so I think this would be a good way to incorporate that on any map.