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A few things I would like to see moving into Killing Floor 3

Breadsticks_

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 5, 2018
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The main basis of this post is to say what features I like about Killing Floor 2, and those I would like to see evolved on. Because since there is a lot of features, they really could be made a fantastic aspect of the game going forward:

Weeklies: I really do want to like weeklies, they are a nice game-modifier that gives you an exclusive reward you can't get elsewhere. I just wished that there were more of them (I do look forward to the new ones coming out this year btw). I would also improve its interaction with the Vosh Vault, but I'll get to that later.

Dailies: Same deal here imo, but I do wish that it rewarded you similarly to the objectives you encounter in Endless/Survival; whereby it gives you dosh and bonus XP depending on the class you are playing or weapon you are using.

Seasonal Tickets: With my experience with tickets I've been generally quite lucky, I think there should be a tier system with what you can buy with seasonal tickets, the more you spend on a single purchase the better your chances of getting a rarer item and non-duplicate from that season.

Upgrade System: It would be nice to have the upgrade system move away from just a damage buff, because it doesn't work on all weapons (flamethrower e.g.) perhaps a tailor suited buff for the weapon that makes it perform better in its area of expertise (SWAT weapons increase in fire rate) plus the weapons that had attachments on them could be equipped this way (UMP-45 + Holographic)

Prestige System: I would love to see this come back, but with a more incentivising reward. Perhaps a specific cosmetic such as a Fireman's Hat when you prestige the Firebug, Night Vision Goggles for the Commando, or a bandolier/ammo vest for the support.

Experience: This is mainly to get an idea across, but working similarly to the Upgrade System idea, if you play a specific weapon for long enough you can get cosmetics or optional attachments, just so it makes your arsenal feel unique (It isn't particularly original but it works for what it is). Also if you are max level in a class and you are using it, it could convert excess XP into dosh vault money.

Dosh: In a large majority of survival games at the trader before boss wave, you tend to have a lot of spare dosh on your person. Why not introduce a mechanic where you can choose to deposit your dosh into the Dosh Vault via the trader. (And bring back a human trader).

Dosh Vault: This could be a lot more than what it currently is in my opinion. Alongside the usual earn 'x' amount of dosh and get a crate, include a feature of if you have a stockpile of spare dosh, you can spend it at the "Vault Store" to get exclusive cosmetics and skins. Any scrap from recycled vault cosmetics/skins/crates can be converted back to crates, but you can also choose to instead convert it to dosh for the vault.

HRG: Ah yes the infamous HRG, since it is taking advantage of weapons that exist, I think that what this could have been is the option to equip a weapon kit, its basically a full cosmetic face lift for weaponry.
Using Monster Hunter as my example, you can take the original weapon (Bone Shooter III: Bowgun) and give it a wrap (Usurper's Crime: Bowgun). What this achieves is extra weapon details that go beyond a vinyl print or neon colours.
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Would love to hear everyone's feedback or features they'd like to see implemented into the next tite.
 
Hey Bread, it's ya boi, Ale...

I'll just begin by adding an extra category you didn't really touch : perks !

I have three wishes for them :

1) A proper rework of most of them. Not only to make them feel fresh, but also to rebalance the very good ones (the medic, maybe the gunslinger a little bit) and the sadly underpowered of not very fun ones (SWAT, Survivalist, Sharp...)

2) To go even further than the rework, I believe we should go back to a much simpler time when perks had ROLES to fill. Basically, we shouldn't go back to themes (like the zerk being the "homemade weaponry" perk, or the firebug being the "sets things on fire" perk) and instead go back to their usefulness within a team. Sure, I understand that they tried both to make the game playable and enjoyable when playing solo AND to bring more content as time rolled by, but I think there's a point where perks just become a shadow of their former selves. As it is now, you can fill nearly any role with any perk. The medic can play both Demo and Sharp, the main nukers of the game, with his Mine Reconstructor and Incision respectively. The firebug is meant to be a crowd control/trash-cleaning perk. Now he's a fleshpound nightmare with both his Helios and Microwavegun. You can't just take a random weapon, give it flames, and be like "boom, firebug weapon". And let's not start with the cryo weapons (why did it start as a sharpshooter thing? Why is it spread to others perks now?) nor about the fact the Survivalist is pretty much the weapon-dump now.

I'm not saying that perk should be one-trick-ponies. In fact, I like the idea behind HRG and crossperk weapons ! In fact, I believe respecting such roles would allow for greater versatility in weapons (instead of being the "SMG-perk", the tankier SWAT could also get a shotgun or a flashball launcher for example, not only staying "in-theme" but also "in-role"... Similarly, we could give a pistol to the Commando to make its fallback skill more interesting. The gunslinger laying a rain of bullets with the G18 is also quite fitting). Basically, having less weapons, but more related to their perk would be great.

3) I think we should maintain the tradition of adding perks with each new installment, but it's becoming increasingly harder to do so... I believe we should now get a proper Martial Artist (polar opposite of the Zerk : the latter being tanky and agressive, the later being nimble but a real glass cannon). As well as a scientist perk to give all these futuristic weapons the survivalist is getting. He could become the other "full-support" perk along with the medic, except the latter would be focused entirely on healing and the former would be all about buffing his allies and debuffing his enemies.

Those two perks could either be game-sellers (and thus be included at launch) or be added later down the line just like the demo was in KF1. I doubt it would be doable to have TWELVE perks at launch, each with four (or even five now) different weapons each. Yet, I also don't think we should remove any of them. Sure, one might say that it was unnecessary to divide the sharpshooter into "sharp/GS" , or that we could improve the skill trees as to either turn the zerk into a tank or a melee glass cannon... That is true. And both ideas are sound. But I would personally stand my ground and improve on my ideas rather than go backward. Maybe the Early Access option would be, once again, the best?

-Weeklies : I personally always thought of them as "mutators" and I believe they shouldn't be called weeklies at all. I believe they should be game modes you can access whenever you want, just when you want to have an extra challenge or play the game differently. You can obviously keep the rewards (or, shocking I know : make them even better : unlock guns, characters, maps, modes... Make it worthwhile for players to invest their time and try their luck at something difficult ! ). As such, I believe you should also be able to choose the difficulty and length of the game. But I agree that weeklies should be both more numerous and more interesting. I'm glad we'll have a grand total of 16 of them however. I believe KF3 should make it easier for people to create their own set of rules, and thus release their own "weeklies".

-Dailies : I believe the whole system needs to be reworked, but to be fair : it's a problem plaguing many games trying to keep people playing. Most objectives are simply not interesting to complete. Sure, they're called DAILIES so they can't be something too crazy like killing the Patriarch with your knife or anything. But honestly : killing X clots, dealing X amount of damage with Y gun or completing X map gets old very, very quickly. It is also very unequal : some challenges are completed within the first two waves, while other might require multiple playthroughs (mostly the ones about killing Rioters of EDARs for example). I believe they should be more akin to the achievements from the first Killing Floor (truth be told : achievements should also be more interesting than "complete this map on every difficulty") like : kill a zed with a fully loaded .500 without missing one shot. Kill 15 crawlers with the M79 as they're in midair. Heal all six of your allies with a single healing grenade. Etc.

Because as it stands, it's even more obnoxious than events : I tend to pop back KF2 every three months to try the new guns and get my reward, but when dailies where first implemented : I pretty much played once a day for like 30 minutes to get some XP, then quit the game and did something else. Hence why I'm not that fond of "dailies" to begin with. It's much harder to come up with compelling things to do each and every day. I believe making better achievements AND tying them to rewards (even if it's just basic XP) would be much more engaging.

-Seasonal Tickets : Call me crazy, but I think you should actually be able to CHOOSE what you want to buy with your tickets. Kinda like in... a carnival. I don't know if it's the same elsewhere, but in Belgium : depending on how well you did at the carnival game, you earn a certain amount of points or tickets. With them, you can claim a prize. The better the prize, the more tickets you'll need. But... You can CHOOSE. And that's something that's truly lacking in KF2 (and many games using lootboxes). It is rare that I get more than 2-3 items per event. And even then, if I get maybe one decent one I'm lucky. For real, I believe you should be able to claim your rewards depending on the amount of tickets you got. Even if you have to bump it a little bit to make it fairer (like you need to have 5 tickets for a common item, 10 for a uncommon, 15 for rare and 20 for ultra-rare or something like this)

-Upgrade system : As I said quite a few times in the past few days, I believe we don't need a very deep and complex system akin to the latest Modern Warfare... But we definitely need more than that simple +DMG/+weight tradeoff. I also though of specialties, but more related to the guns themselves than the perk using them. In fact, most of the HRG weapons could have been such unique upgrades. Like for the boomstick : you can increase it's number of barrels, you can increase it's damage, it's range etc... And boom, unique upgrade : explosive shells. For the compound bow, unique upgrade : fire arrows. You could definitely go crazy. And this would be the way to "spice up" weapons considering I asked for them to be less numerous and more "tailor-made" to each perk's role. That way, if a Commando wants to become a sharpshooter wannabe, he could take the "DMR" upgrade for the FAL which would remove the full-auto capability of the gun, but make it far more accurate and deal more damage on headshots (for example). I believe it's the way to go.

-Prestige system : I personally always saw prestiging as a piss-poor way to keep people playing, but admittedly => I'm not very fond of grinding at all. Farming a game forever isn't my cup of tea, and I admit that I like when games actually "end". I'm cool when I can say "I've done everything the game had to offer, I beat the game, I've completed it". But maybe not everyone is like that (and, in the end, my love for fighting games and roguelikes which often have no real "ending" is my downfall ! ) Still, if we keep that system (because I know some people DO like prestige), I'm totally with you : we should bring more fulfilling rewards. Personally, I would go even as far as to say that every post-launch gun should be tied to a prestige level. Let's say that upon launch you get said weapons for the commando : Varmint, SA80, AK12, SCAR, Minigun ... If you wanted to unlock the Stoner, you have to prestige.

That may seem a bit "unfair" but the thing is that KF2 is a PvE game (although the versus mode exists I guess?), so it's not as game-breaking as you'd think. Meanwhile, you still have a gun for each and every tier, meaning that it's still very doable to complete a playthrough. And thus, it would make not only prestige more attractive, but even keep players hooked for longer (because not only would you feel rewarded with new skills as you play, but with new weapons once you reach the level limit !)

Maybe it should be a bit less grindy however. As we see that some perks got 6-7-8 guns since their inclusion, it could prove to be too much for people to prestige EIGHT TIMES to get everything. Maybe you could earn two guns with each prestige? Or don't go back to square one but actually to "25+" and instead of unlocking new skills every 5 levels, you earn a gun? Dunno.

-Experience : I'm personally more attached to the idea of upgrading guns, so you don't jump into the game with a fully battle-hardened toy. But I agree that having extra cosmetics for your favorite guns should be implemented. That would be very neat (and again : more rewarding that crossing your fingers you'll unbox/loot something cool for that Lever-Action-Rifle that keeps showing up in your hands). Excess Vosh money? Sure thing. But again : the system is in dire need of a rework. More accurately, it should provide less duplicates AND have better rewards (receiving pajamas once is already annoying enough, but five times is downright insulting)

-Dosh : I mean why not? It is true that there's a point when dosh becomes meaningless since you're basically swimming in it. I personally also believe that money management should be a bit tougher in KF3... A bit more punitive, so to speak. Obviously I'm not saying you should stick to your T1 up until wave 7 or some ****, but I'm often fully stocked by wave 7-8... Which includes at least some upgrades along with two guns. That's a bit too easy and makes the latter waves hardly feel like true "ascending difficulties". T5 made it even less of a hassle... I believe it should still be possible to end up with a mere T3 to defend yourself against the boss if you're not careful with your spendings. Sharing money should also become a viable and even necessary tactic once more. But I don't think we should go back to the discount and varying price we had in KF1... It wasn't very fair to have perks already top-notch halfway through the game only to have the demo be a sitting duck up until he gets to the M32. Plus, high-level perks could pretty much obtain their best guns in the first third of the game, while low-level perks had to wait up until Patty's wave to get the cream of the crop. So that should definitely stay within KF1's field.

-Dosh Vault : well... By now you probably know my thoughts :p I believe anything that allows more choice from the player is a good thing. Being able to choose what you wanna get instead of always praying that you won't get yet another golden skin would be great, even if it means getting rewards less often. That's a tradeoff I would appreciate.

-HRG : as I mentioned above, I'm both a fan of the HRG system...and yet I think it could be recycled into a new upgrade system. But I also believe it should have visuals that tells that THIS weapon has been modded (even with simple stuff : the addition of a scope, a longer/shorter barrel, a bigger mag that sticks out, shells that have a "high explosive" stickers on them etc.) This or we could simply allow such guns to have skins too, and you couldn't have the same skin for the boomstick AND the kaboomstick for example (to be able to tell them apart in a mere glance)


(Also extra thing : I believe it would be neat to bring a few extra zeds for KF3, just to keep things fresh. But I have no idea as of right now besides maybe a Crawler Queen boss... Also, maybe they could expand on the objective mode and make a full PROPER story mode instead? But then I believe it should become a spin-off rather than a sequel. And personally, I don't really care for Killing Floor's story... Knowing that labs tried to make supersoldiers and ended up creating flesh-eating mutants is more than enough for me)
 
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Hey Bread, it's ya boi, Ale...

I'll just begin by adding an extra category you didn't really touch : perks !

I have three wishes for them :

1) A proper rework of most of them. Not only to make them feel fresh, but also to rebalance the very good ones (the medic, maybe the gunslinger a little bit) and the sadly underpowered of not very fun ones (SWAT, Survivalist, Sharp...)

2) To go even further than the rework, I believe we should go back to a much simpler time when perks had ROLES to fill. Basically, we shouldn't go back to themes (like the zerk being the "homemade weaponry" perk, or the firebug being the "sets things on fire" perk) and instead go back to their usefulness within a team. Sure, I understand that they tried both to make the game playable and enjoyable when playing solo AND to bring more content as time rolled by, but I think there's a point where perks just become a shadow of their former selves. As it is now, you can fill nearly any role with any perk. The medic can play both Demo and Sharp, the main nukers of the game, with his Mine Reconstructor and Incision respectively. The firebug is meant to be a crowd control/trash-cleaning perk. Now he's a fleshpound nightmare with both his Helios and Microwavegun. You can't just take a random weapon, give it flames, and be like "boom, firebug weapon". And let's not start with the cryo weapons (why did it start as a sharpshooter thing? Why is it spread to others perks now?) nor about the fact the Survivalist is pretty much the weapon-dump now.

I'm not saying that perk should be one-trick-ponies. In fact, I like the idea behind HRG and crossperk weapons ! In fact, I believe respecting such roles would allow for greater versatility in weapons (instead of being the "SMG-perk", the tankier SWAT could also get a shotgun or a flashball launcher for example, not only staying "in-theme" but also "in-role"... Similarly, we could give a pistol to the Commando to make its fallback skill more interesting. The gunslinger laying a rain of bullets with the G18 is also quite fitting). Basically, having less weapons, but more related to their perk would be great.

3) I think we should maintain the tradition of adding perks with each new installment, but it's becoming increasingly harder to do so... I believe we should now get a proper Martial Artist (polar opposite of the Zerk : the latter being tanky and agressive, the later being nimble but a real glass cannon). As well as a scientist perk to give all these futuristic weapons the survivalist is getting. He could become the other "full-support" perk along with the medic, except the latter would be focused entirely on healing and the former would be all about buffing his allies and debuffing his enemies.

Those two perks could either be game-sellers (and thus be included at launch) or be added later down the line just like the demo was in KF1. I doubt it would be doable to have TWELVE perks at launch, each with four (or even five now) different weapons each. Yet, I also don't think we should remove any of them. Sure, one might say that it was unnecessary to divide the sharpshooter into "sharp/GS" , or that we could improve the skill trees as to either turn the zerk into a tank or a melee glass cannon... That is true. And both ideas are sound. But I would personally stand my ground and improve on my ideas rather than go backward. Maybe the Early Access option would be, once again, the best?

-Weeklies : I personally always thought of them as "mutators" and I believe they shouldn't be called weeklies at all. I believe they should be game modes you can access whenever you want, just when you want to have an extra challenge or play the game differently. You can obviously keep the rewards (or, shocking I know : make them even better : unlock guns, characters, maps, modes... Make it worthwhile for players to invest their time and try their luck at something difficult ! ). As such, I believe you should also be able to choose the difficulty and length of the game. But I agree that weeklies should be both more numerous and more interesting. I'm glad we'll have a grand total of 16 of them however. I believe KF3 should make it easier for people to create their own set of rules, and thus release their own "weeklies".

-Dailies : I believe the whole system needs to be reworked, but to be fair : it's a problem plaguing many games trying to keep people playing. Most objectives are simply not interesting to complete. Sure, they're called DAILIES so they can't be something too crazy like killing the Patriarch with your knife or anything. But honestly : killing X clots, dealing X amount of damage with Y gun or completing X map gets old very, very quickly. It is also very unequal : some challenges are completed within the first two waves, while other might require multiple playthroughs (mostly the ones about killing Rioters of EDARs for example). I believe they should be more akin to the achievements from the first Killing Floor (truth be told : achievements should also be more interesting than "complete this map on every difficulty") like : kill a zed with a fully loaded .500 without missing one shot. Kill 15 crawlers with the M79 as they're in midair. Heal all six of your allies with a single healing grenade. Etc.

Because as it stands, it's even more obnoxious than events : I tend to pop back KF2 every three months to try the new guns and get my reward, but when dailies where first implemented : I pretty much played once a day for like 30 minutes to get some XP, then quit the game and did something else. Hence why I'm not that fond of "dailies" to begin with. It's much harder to come up with compelling things to do each and every day. I believe making better achievements AND tying them to rewards (even if it's just basic XP) would be much more engaging.

-Seasonal Tickets : Call me crazy, but I think you should actually be able to CHOOSE what you want to buy with your tickets. Kinda like in... a carnival. I don't know if it's the same elsewhere, but in Belgium : depending on how well you did at the carnival game, you earn a certain amount of points or tickets. With them, you can claim a prize. The better the prize, the more tickets you'll need. But... You can CHOOSE. And that's something that's truly lacking in KF2 (and many games using lootboxes). It is rare that I get more than 2-3 items per event. And even then, if I get maybe one decent one I'm lucky. For real, I believe you should be able to claim your rewards depending on the amount of tickets you got. Even if you have to bump it a little bit to make it fairer (like you need to have 5 tickets for a common item, 10 for a uncommon, 15 for rare and 20 for ultra-rare or something like this)

-Upgrade system : As I said quite a few times in the past few days, I believe we don't need a very deep and complex system akin to the latest Modern Warfare... But we definitely need more than that simple +DMG/+weight tradeoff. I also though of specialties, but more related to the guns themselves than the perk using them. In fact, most of the HRG weapons could have been such unique upgrades. Like for the boomstick : you can increase it's number of barrels, you can increase it's damage, it's range etc... And boom, unique upgrade : explosive shells. For the compound bow, unique upgrade : fire arrows. You could definitely go crazy. And this would be the way to "spice up" weapons considering I asked for them to be less numerous and more "tailor-made" to each perk's role. That way, if a Commando wants to become a sharpshooter wannabe, he could take the "DMR" upgrade for the FAL which would remove the full-auto capability of the gun, but make it far more accurate and deal more damage on headshots (for example). I believe it's the way to go.

-Prestige system : I personally always saw prestiging as a piss-poor way to keep people playing, but admittedly => I'm not very fond of grinding at all. Farming a game forever isn't my cup of tea, and I admit that I like when games actually "end". I'm cool when I can say "I've done everything the game had to offer, I beat the game, I've completed it". But maybe not everyone is like that (and, in the end, my love for fighting games and roguelikes which often have no real "ending" is my downfall ! ) Still, if we keep that system (because I know some people DO like prestige), I'm totally with you : we should bring more fulfilling rewards. Personally, I would go even as far as to say that every post-launch gun should be tied to a prestige level. Let's say that upon launch you get said weapons for the commando : Varmint, SA80, AK12, SCAR, Minigun ... If you wanted to unlock the Stoner, you have to prestige.

That may seem a bit "unfair" but the thing is that KF2 is a PvE game (although the versus mode exists I guess?), so it's not as game-breaking as you'd think. Meanwhile, you still have a gun for each and every tier, meaning that it's still very doable to complete a playthrough. And thus, it would make not only prestige more attractive, but even keep players hooked for longer (because not only would you feel rewarded with new skills as you play, but with new weapons once you reach the level limit !)

Maybe it should be a bit less grindy however. As we see that some perks got 6-7-8 guns since their inclusion, it could prove to be too much for people to prestige EIGHT TIMES to get everything. Maybe you could earn two guns with each prestige? Or don't go back to square one but actually to "25+" and instead of unlocking new skills every 5 levels, you earn a gun? Dunno.

-Experience : I'm personally more attached to the idea of upgrading guns, so you don't jump into the game with a fully battle-hardened toy. But I agree that having extra cosmetics for your favorite guns should be implemented. That would be very neat (and again : more rewarding that crossing your fingers you'll unbox/loot something cool for that Lever-Action-Rifle that keeps showing up in your hands). Excess Vosh money? Sure thing. But again : the system is in dire need of a rework. More accurately, it should provide less duplicates AND have better rewards (receiving pajamas once is already annoying enough, but five times is downright insulting)

-Dosh : I mean why not? It is true that there's a point when dosh becomes meaningless since you're basically swimming in it. I personally also believe that money management should be a bit tougher in KF3... A bit more punitive, so to speak. Obviously I'm not saying you should stick to your T1 up until wave 7 or some ****, but I'm often fully stocked by wave 7-8... Which includes at least some upgrades along with two guns. That's a bit too easy and makes the latter waves hardly feel like true "ascending difficulties". T5 made it even less of a hassle... I believe it should still be possible to end up with a mere T3 to defend yourself against the boss if you're not careful with your spendings. Sharing money should also become a viable and even necessary tactic once more. But I don't think we should go back to the discount and varying price we had in KF1... It wasn't very fair to have perks already top-notch halfway through the game only to have the demo be a sitting duck up until he gets to the M32. Plus, high-level perks could pretty much obtain their best guns in the first third of the game, while low-level perks had to wait up until Patty's wave to get the cream of the crop. So that should definitely stay within KF1's field.

-Dosh Vault : well... By now you probably know my thoughts :p I believe anything that allows more choice from the player is a good thing. Being able to choose what you wanna get instead of always praying that you won't get yet another golden skin would be great, even if it means getting rewards less often. That's a tradeoff I would appreciate.

-HRG : as I mentioned above, I'm both a fan of the HRG system...and yet I think it could be recycled into a new upgrade system. But I also believe it should have visuals that tells that THIS weapon has been modded (even with simple stuff : the addition of a scope, a longer/shorter barrel, a bigger mag that sticks out, shells that have a "high explosive" stickers on them etc.) This or we could simply allow such guns to have skins too, and you couldn't have the same skin for the boomstick AND the kaboomstick for example (to be able to tell them apart in a mere glance)


(Also extra thing : I believe it would be neat to bring a few extra zeds for KF3, just to keep things fresh. But I have no idea as of right now besides maybe a Crawler Queen boss... Also, maybe they could expand on the objective mode and make a full PROPER story mode instead? But then I believe it should become a spin-off rather than a sequel. And personally, I don't really care for Killing Floor's story... Knowing that labs tried to make supersoldiers and ended up creating flesh-eating mutants is more than enough for me)
Perks: Yes, this I didn't go into for conversation just because it gets talked about so much; the idea of a scientist or martial artist (I'm not particularly onboard since I really enjoy the gritty nature of the older games) has been talked about so many times, and (for myself included) the amount of people talking about possible reworks. But I do agree with keeping the park true to its name. When I think of the SWAT, I wanna see big dakka dakka dakka, or the hybrid heavy armour tank. Or when I think of the Medic, I think of someone that actually struggles to kill things, but excels in healing. There is most certainly a limited number of weapons you can introduce before you either recycle existing weapons or you go down the rabbit hole to make OTT weapons (Killerwatt, Minethrower, Incision). Perhaps with the up and coming updates, instead of new weapons all the time (though I won't say no to them) have a hard focus on the different modes, cosmetics and events. Just update what already exists. Also with the idea of introducing new perks, that is very dangerous territory in my opinion, I think it needs some serious playtesting and when it comes out the weaponry they have access to is thematic, balanced and doesn't make other weaponry redundant (Such as the MP5 over the Tommy Gun, in a point-to-point basis you should never choose tommy gun). This ties in with the Martial Artist, what weaponry would you have to introduce that the zerk couldn't use? Your choice of weapons are limited in that sense, unless you go heavy in the lack of identity by constantly giving the zerk ranged weapons. Plus with the scientist, you will struggle to keep the "horror shooter" theme of the franchise when your weapons start to look like they came from Laser-tag.

Weekly: The idea of straight access to all of the "mutators" as you put them does seem nice, I think that the weekly rotation should be kept in so that you have the opportunity to earn your vault money, whilst just accessing a particular mode would reward you as if you were playing survival. I guess in a perfect world I would love for your concept to be implemented, but I guess the main problem would be the server side of things, a spin-off mode where you get direct access to any mutator, across 3 (maybe 5) platforms along with the other modes, thats a lot of server pressure. And people wonder why they have problems trying to stay in games.

Dailies: Yeah if you get too creative, you'll be in the making of a weekly mutator. The problem being that you can't have them too boring or 'grindy' like dealing damage with the knife, but being to extravagant does ruin the flow of the game when thats the only thing people want to do. But the idea of tying them to achievements is interesting, actually bring back getting collectibles to actually reward you for looking for them. I guess those that have played a lot know where they are, but if this were to be introduced to KF2 now, you have an entire legion of maps to choose from to give such a daily. Remember that with the rewards they give, they aren't supposed to be the main attraction. You can most certainly grind just to get them done, but just playing the game and having them rack themselves up as you play is just the right amount of dopamine rush to keep you playing.

Seasonal Tickets: ahahaha, yes that makes wayy more sense it isn't too disimilar to how we do carnivals in the UK. It would be interesting to have a "world hub" in the form of a run-down carnival like tragic kingdom where you can go to the game-master or the certain carnival attraction to claim a prize.

Prestige System: Its just a nice system to have in the game in its current form because you know you can do just fine without prestiging. You don't get any in-game advantage. Since it is just cosmetic rewards, what you get is merely a reward that you choose to claim compared to feeling compelled to claim. Like the way you put it, having the feeling of beating the game. It is perfectly achievable without prestiging as it currently is, but when you introduce weapons behind a "grind-wall" like the prestige system, it would feel lazy, irritating and dissapointing. Like bloating the amount of hours you put into a game.

Experience: Yeah I'm quite fine with the idea I am selling if it's pure cosmetic, just so that it can be distinguishable from the upgrade system. The upgrade system actually changes the stat (fire-rate, power, accuracy) and then the weapon levelling system actually provides attachments.

Dosh: Also very true about the difficulty tweak on money management, then again you should be rewarded for your ability to retain your money or at least earn more dosh because of your contribution; providing ammo/armour/grenade, healing teammates, assists, kills, welding.

Dosh Vault: It would be good to see this, and the inventory in general to have a far better UI to accomodate for it xD

HRG: Going from your idea, it would be great to see it incorporated into the upgrade system, if the weapon is compatible you can dump the price it costs (depending on which tier you are at; i.e. tier 2 boomstick upgraded into tier 3 kaboomstick). This both tidies up the trader UI for all the weapons you can see on screen, it adds depth to the upgrade system.

I would very much like to see something new in terms of Zeds aswell, but I think the only thing I actually want to see is the existing Zeds improved upon. The Siren gets the vortex ability from Vs mode and replaces the E.D.A.R Trapper so there's less Robot bullsh*t.
The Rioter actually does the inverted of EMP Grenades, if it interacts with a Scrake or a Fleshpound it temporarily enrages them.
Husk gets a cool variant that affects how his cannons shoot.
Without taking ideas from other games, I really can't think of a new Zed.
 
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Perks: Yes, this I didn't go into for conversation just because it gets talked about so much; the idea of a scientist or martial artist (I'm not particularly onboard since I really enjoy the gritty nature of the older games) has been talked about so many times, and (for myself included) the amount of people talking about possible reworks. But I do agree with keeping the park true to its name. When I think of the SWAT, I wanna see big dakka dakka dakka, or the hybrid heavy armour tank. Or when I think of the Medic, I think of someone that actually struggles to kill things, but excels in healing. There is most certainly a limited number of weapons you can introduce before you either recycle existing weapons or you go down the rabbit hole to make OTT weapons (Killerwatt, Minethrower, Incision). Perhaps with the up and coming updates, instead of new weapons all the time (though I won't say no to them) have a hard focus on the different modes, cosmetics and events. Just update what already exists. Also with the idea of introducing new perks, that is very dangerous territory in my opinion, I think it needs some serious playtesting and when it comes out the weaponry they have access to is thematic, balanced and doesn't make other weaponry redundant (Such as the MP5 over the Tommy Gun, in a point-to-point basis you should never choose tommy gun). This ties in with the Martial Artist, what weaponry would you have to introduce that the zerk couldn't use? Your choice of weapons are limited in that sense, unless you go heavy in the lack of identity by constantly giving the zerk ranged weapons. Plus with the scientist, you will struggle to keep the "horror shooter" theme of the franchise when your weapons start to look like they came from Laser-tag.

Weekly: The idea of straight access to all of the "mutators" as you put them does seem nice, I think that the weekly rotation should be kept in so that you have the opportunity to earn your vault money, whilst just accessing a particular mode would reward you as if you were playing survival. I guess in a perfect world I would love for your concept to be implemented, but I guess the main problem would be the server side of things, a spin-off mode where you get direct access to any mutator, across 3 (maybe 5) platforms along with the other modes, thats a lot of server pressure. And people wonder why they have problems trying to stay in games.

Dailies: Yeah if you get too creative, you'll be in the making of a weekly mutator. The problem being that you can't have them too boring or 'grindy' like dealing damage with the knife, but being to extravagant does ruin the flow of the game when thats the only thing people want to do. But the idea of tying them to achievements is interesting, actually bring back getting collectibles to actually reward you for looking for them. I guess those that have played a lot know where they are, but if this were to be introduced to KF2 now, you have an entire legion of maps to choose from to give such a daily. Remember that with the rewards they give, they aren't supposed to be the main attraction. You can most certainly grind just to get them done, but just playing the game and having them rack themselves up as you play is just the right amount of dopamine rush to keep you playing.

Seasonal Tickets: ahahaha, yes that makes wayy more sense it isn't too disimilar to how we do carnivals in the UK. It would be interesting to have a "world hub" in the form of a run-down carnival like tragic kingdom where you can go to the game-master or the certain carnival attraction to claim a prize.

Prestige System: Its just a nice system to have in the game in its current form because you know you can do just fine without prestiging. You don't get any in-game advantage. Since it is just cosmetic rewards, what you get is merely a reward that you choose to claim compared to feeling compelled to claim. Like the way you put it, having the feeling of beating the game. It is perfectly achievable without prestiging as it currently is, but when you introduce weapons behind a "grind-wall" like the prestige system, it would feel lazy, irritating and dissapointing. Like bloating the amount of hours you put into a game.

Experience: Yeah I'm quite fine with the idea I am selling if it's pure cosmetic, just so that it can be distinguishable from the upgrade system. The upgrade system actually changes the stat (fire-rate, power, accuracy) and then the weapon levelling system actually provides attachments.

Dosh: Also very true about the difficulty tweak on money management, then again you should be rewarded for your ability to retain your money or at least earn more dosh because of your contribution; providing ammo/armour/grenade, healing teammates, assists, kills, welding.

Dosh Vault: It would be good to see this, and the inventory in general to have a far better UI to accomodate for it xD

HRG: Going from your idea, it would be great to see it incorporated into the upgrade system, if the weapon is compatible you can dump the price it costs (depending on which tier you are at; i.e. tier 2 boomstick upgraded into tier 3 kaboomstick). This both tidies up the trader UI for all the weapons you can see on screen, it adds depth to the upgrade system.

I would very much like to see something new in terms of Zeds aswell, but I think the only thing I actually want to see is the existing Zeds improved upon. The Siren gets the vortex ability from Vs mode and replaces the E.D.A.R Trapper so there's less Robot bullsh*t.
The Rioter actually does the inverted of EMP Grenades, if it interacts with a Scrake or a Fleshpound it temporarily enrages them.
Husk gets a cool variant that affects how his cannons shoot.
Without taking ideas from other games, I really can't think of a new Zed.
-Perks : oh believe me, I'm not taking the addition or even rework of any perk lightly. It is the reason why we had so many debates over them ! I don't want them to add the martial artist because "****'s look cool" or because they NEED to put new things. I'm saying so because I genuinely believe it is possible to make the perk viable, interesting and balanced. This is also why I didn't mention a "machinegunner" perk, which has also been proposed numerous times. If that can make it clearer : I wouldn't sacrifice balancing for diversity or sheer numbers. If Tripwire struggles to make all twelve perks interesting, I'd rather have them keep them at ten (or even less... But no less than the base seven from KF1 !). If I proposed the scientist and martial artist, it is precisely because I think something could be done with them.

Three extra points I'd like to mention

-Playtesting is a given, and something I think fewer and fewer developers are doing. I can't really blame them : when you have a tight schedule, when your fans are crying for content... You might as well release a new update and patch what's need to be later (worst case scenario is when you do that with A WHOLE GAME...Cyberpunk anyone?). But yeah, to me it's a no-brainer : both the perks and their weapons should be tested very well beforehand. I understand perfectly that players will ALWAYS find exploits, bugs or strategies you didn't think of. And yes, it's entirely possible to rebalance something afterward ! But it's no excuse to release something broken and put some bandaid on the wounds afterward.

-I would say that even with similar arsenals, their skill trees would make the Zerk and MA nothing alike (but I would point you to the topic where I expressed my ideas in details !) But since I said that I want perks to have their own stuff (which I still think), I would say that the Martial Artist should be a perk fully-focused on melee. And since it would not be about speed or stunning or whatever, but truly about dealing plenty of critical damage, I believe its weapons should be strong and sharp. The katana is a no-brainer, but what about a guandao to give him so reach the zerk doesn't have? Or hookswords to allow him to parry easily AND snatch his opponents? Hell, I could even see a grappling hook, Scorpion-style, to pull either a zed to him or him towards a zed. He should all be about mobility and raw, painful damage. The most difficult thing would be to animate all that without inducing motion sickness OR making it look ridiculous... Meanwhile, the zerk would still be the tanky one, with sturdier weaponry that stumble or stun zeds. I believe its weapons should be more "blunt" like baseball bats, maces, hammers... To stay in-tune with its lower damage-per-hit, but more utility persona. Because I too believe that going back to the "homemade weaponry" trope wouldn't work. It would turn the perk into yet another Medic or Firebug ( I mean, by that logic, you could give it pipebombs or the caulk'n'burn...)

-The scientist would struggle to keep the "horror shooter" moniker........ Yell, no offense, but isn't that what Killing Floor 2 has been doing since the beginning? The Field Medic started with glowing weapons that look like 80s futuristic weaponry. The zeds looks more smooth than before, almost cartoony for some of them (the clot and bloat especially). So to this I would say two things : either KF3 takes a similar road (and then I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a scientist perk and his gadgets amidst the crowd). OR, they come back to the KF1 aesthetic, but then the Scientist could simply have "grittier" weapons. You don't have to make them full of colourful buttons and neon lights to make them appealing or "scientific". You could definitely go sci-fi horror (because that's obviously a thing). Think about Dead Space for example. Or even Doom. No need to get as crazy as the BFG or plasma launcher, but it's entirely possible to make guns that are futuristic-looking without going overboard. The Husk Cannon is there since the first game for example, I believe that could serve as a basis. The Killerwatt is a bit too much though.

-Weeklies : I'm obviously no developer. Hell, I could help on any level regarding making a game (I could promote it somewhat with by bachelor degree in communication, but that's it ha ha). My point of reference was mostly regarding the first game and quite obviously Left 4 Dead 2. So I genuinely don't know how difficult it would be to implement that? As for the weeklies themselves, I guess we could find a common ground by saying that all of them are on a weekly rotation at first... But once you beat a specific mutation, you unlock it permanently, so you can play it whenever? I suppose it would be the best way (and it would prevent the best players from unlocking everything in two days ha ha, although it's kind of an "artificial" way to keep people playing)

-Dailies : I think dailies as a whole already hinder the natural flow of the game you know... sure, when it's "kill X zeds" or "get X XP with Y perk", it's a walk in the park. But when you need to beat a specific map in Hell on Earth, that's just begging for newbies to swarm the servers and get themselves killed, making it harder for everyone. Same thing regarding weapons : sometimes it's a basic T1 so you just beat the first two waves and you're good to go. Or it's a very good gun so you're gonna complete it regardless. But at times, you have to pull up a weapon that's very ineffective or unbalanced. Not to mention that let's assume you got two commandos on your team... It's entirely possible that you'll choose to be that third commando just to get that daily reward asking you to earn 1500 XP with the perk. What I'm trying to say is that people obsessed with leveling already exists. So adding some extra fun to that could at least make it a bit more challenging and fun to the veterans. But I won't lie... Asking people to kill a siren with a dud rocket is begging for people to get killed. So I understand your worries too. As for collectibles... I also said in numerous other topics that I'm really not fond of them. To me, it's a cheap way of keeping people hooked (just like when you have to collect X stars or whatever in platformers. Screw you). Plus it's also easy to cheese that, the strategy in known since KF1 : keep one clot alive and a teammate to walk him around while the rest of the team look up for the collectibles. No, frankly, if we have to keep that in the game : at least make it so it's truly rewarding (like in the first game where you could unlock the Zed Eradication Device) and/or make it available in a few set maps only. All in all : I believe that no matter the challenge (achievements, weeklies, dailies) people will try to farm them... I remember the numerous "get achievements fast" maps in Team Fortress 2. It's counterproductive and not fun, but a lot of people are not fun.

-Seasonal Tickets : pretty much ! If we truly want to keep the theme of each events, I guess you could have Santa for Twisted Christmas and a bag full of candies (as in "cosmetics/skins") for Halloween Horrors (don't know about the spring event tho... Easter bunny?)

-Prestige System : Uh...Fair enough. I honestly see and understand what you mean, and at the same time I can't say I truly agree. I mean... on one hand I do agree that it's kind of a cheap way to keep people hooked to put weapons behind the "prestige wall", but at the same time I believe prestige as a whole is guilty of that lol. Hence why I thought putting extra stuff would at least make it worth my while. But I guess it's a very psychological thing. Mind you, I'm also a very big RPG and roguelike player, where it is quite common that after beating the game quite a handful of times, new stuff starts appearing (like in Binding of Isaac... beating mom is JUST THE BEGINNING !). Hence why I tend to believe that reaching level 25 wouldn't exactly "end the game" and just reveal whole new layers. But again : I can't speak of my own profile as a generality.

-Experience : Well, actually I thought the upgrade system would be more rich and complex if it included attachments... It would also feel a bit less arbitrary to have a gun be more accurate with no real "logical" reason to do so. Like, if you have a longer barrel to increase the range, it sorta makes sense. Same goes if you are more accurate thanks to a scope. To me, gun XP should really be linked to skins only.

-Dosh : not much more to say, we fully agree on that one !

-Vault Dosh : let's imagine something similar as the seasonal tickets then !

-HRG : we also agree on that one. I believe it's the only logical way to improve both the upgrade system AND the HRG idea (because while they thought of it as a way to keep bringing free weapons AND switch up the crossperk idea... Everyone and their mother complained about how the weapons look, and they are still making crossperk weapons anyway). Now however, that's a whole other debate... Considering what we agreed on about allowing more flexibility to each gun for each perk, and the fact that every perk should have weapons catering to its role... What should we do of the crossperk system? I personally would ditch it entirely, considering you could tailor each weapon to your playstyle. But I guess not everyone would agree... Plus, even saying so, you obviously shouldn't be able to turn a shotgun into a minigun that fires explosives and be like "boom, my support is now a commando/demolition !"

-Zeds : I won't lie, from the top of my head... I have no idea for new zeds either. I'm sure I could find some, but I feel it would be a lot of thinking for little results. I personally wouldn't ditch the EDARs totally, but they should indeed be cyborgs rather than robots... Hell, we could include your idea and make them some sort of "Husks Mk.II" in a way. Horzine wanted to have a clone army, I think it would make sense for them to improve of their designs. Even thinking of the "Brute" idea from KF1 (which was a great mod !), it more or less became the enraged Fleshpound of KF2... So yeah, I guess we couldn't bring any new zed without making them feel redundant (which is already kinda the case of a few of them : was it necessary to put two more "clot alternatives" ? Or a beefed-up gorefast? )
 
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-Zeds : I won't lie, from the top of my head... I have no idea for new zeds either. I'm sure I could find some, but I feel it would be a lot of thinking for little results. I personally wouldn't ditch the EDARs totally, but they should indeed be cyborgs rather than robots... Hell, we could include your idea and make them some sort of "Husks Mk.II" in a way. Horzine wanted to have a clone army, I think it would make sense for them to improve of their designs. Even thinking of the "Brute" idea from KF1 (which was a great mod !), it more or less became the enraged Fleshpound of KF2... So yeah, I guess we couldn't bring any new zed without making them feel redundant (which is already kinda the case of a few of them : was it necessary to put two more "clot alternatives" ? Or a beefed-up gorefast? )
A good way to come up with ideas for new enemies is to consider new gameplay opportunities. Say you want to make your scientist perk. Is the scientist too good or too weak against the existing zed types? Make a new one specifically to the benefit/detriment of the Scientist and the opposite for the other perks. Not only does this make a new, interesting zed it also validates the additional scientist perk and give it a reason to exist, even if it was a bit similar to an existing perk originally.

Maybe we think Berserker is a bit too strong. What about a zed that flies, specifically in a way that's difficult to reach with melee weapons? It'd be easy enough to have the zed's position "walking" on the floor while it's animations and hitboxes float above it. It could fly low enough to slip under door frames and the like, so it doesn't get stuck on low-hanging ceilings. Perhaps a melee user would have to wait for the flying enemy to swoop in and attack them and the optimal play would be to block the attack, to which the flying zed is stunned(something you'd be able to do anyway with things like SWAT's flashbang grenades) and vulnerable to melee attacks. Non-Berserkers would be better against this enemy because they wouldn't have to take a hit before attacking, saving them some health loss.

What about concept art and lore? We still haven't seen that leafy creature from the concept art. Well, kinda with the halloween crawler. But it existing as its own zed would allow you to ascribe it with unique properties. Since it's so leafy it could be weak to fire and ice damage sources but resilient to emp and blunt weapon damage(or whatever makes more sense). Maybe whenever a player looks at it the zed freezes in place in a manner that makes it look like a common houseplant doodad you put on all the maps.

As for lore, since the zeds are all clones what about a zed that's capable of cloning itself on the battlefield? Maybe there's a chance that when you kill it the zed spawns two more smaller versions of itself with less health that can then recursively do so until you're being swarmed by tiny versions of the original? I actually put this effect into a game mode I made once, hearing Scrakes scream with increasingly higher pitch and numerous spawn roars is both hilarious and scary.
 
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A good way to come up with ideas for new enemies is to consider new gameplay opportunities. Say you want to make your scientist perk. Is the scientist too good or too weak against the existing zed types? Make a new one specifically to the benefit/detriment of the Scientist and the opposite for the other perks. Not only does this make a new, interesting zed it also validates the additional scientist perk and give it a reason to exist, even if it was a bit similar to an existing perk originally.

Maybe we think Berserker is a bit too strong. What about a zed that flies, specifically in a way that's difficult to reach with melee weapons? It'd be easy enough to have the zed's position "walking" on the floor while it's animations and hitboxes float above it. It could fly low enough to slip under door frames and the like, so it doesn't get stuck on low-hanging ceilings. Perhaps a melee user would have to wait for the flying enemy to swoop in and attack them and the optimal play would be to block the attack, to which the flying zed is stunned(something you'd be able to do anyway with things like SWAT's flashbang grenades) and vulnerable to melee attacks. Non-Berserkers would be better against this enemy because they wouldn't have to take a hit before attacking, saving them some health loss.

What about concept art and lore? We still haven't seen that leafy creature from the concept art. Well, kinda with the halloween crawler. But it existing as its own zed would allow you to ascribe it with unique properties. Since it's so leafy it could be weak to fire and ice damage sources but resilient to emp and blunt weapon damage(or whatever makes more sense). Maybe whenever a player looks at it the zed freezes in place in a manner that makes it look like a common houseplant doodad you put on all the maps.

As for lore, since the zeds are all clones what about a zed that's capable of cloning itself on the battlefield? Maybe there's a chance that when you kill it the zed spawns two more smaller versions of itself with less health that can then recursively do so until you're being swarmed by tiny versions of the original? I actually put this effect into a game mode I made once, hearing Scrakes scream with increasingly higher pitch and numerous spawn roars is both hilarious and scary.
I get your point, but in a way, the scientist would be the same way as what the medic should be : a supportive perk. Meaning that he should actually be weak against every zed type (safe maybe for trash zeds?), but at the same time : be a nuisance for all of them (the medic by keeping your teammates alive thus nullifying what the zeds are doing, and the scientist by constantly debuffing/buffing). It is however true for all the other perks, and the main reason why I'm mad that all perks can deal with everything nowadays. Back in the day, encountering a husk as a firebug made you crap your pants. You were like "oh f*ck no". Just like when you had a siren hidden behind a bloat or fleshpound as a Demolitions. Now, it's as if perks didn't have any natural enemies, while zeds have enemies within every perk category now.

I actually thought about a flying zed, but considering they already had troubles making the crawlers stick on walls and ceilings... Do you really believe they could make convincing flying zeds? Who knows ! Maybe with better technology and a more experienced team, they could appear in KF3 and truly bring chaos amidst veteran players. And indeed : as zerk learned to deal with crawlers, they would have to deal with these flying pests. Plus, it would actually make my scientist perk (and other debuffing perks like the SWAT or Sharp) more helpful.

That plant zed would definitely add some flavor amidst the zed legions. Hell, it would probably make more sense than EDARs (considering it's still an organic, living being). But the main problem I currently see is that I'm more sold on its appearance than any potential ability. What would its role be? Because being weak to fire and ice is already kind of the crawler thing... Maybe it could be kind of a "trap" zed that roots itself under the ground and suddenly appear to gnaw on the feet of incoming players? Or maybe it could develop just like rhizomes and basically "spawn" extra plant zeds. You'd need to kill all of them to prevent them from spawning more. Kinda similar to "mini Abominations" in a way. But then I realize it's quite similar to my Crawler Queen idea... Albeit on a much smaller (and easier to deal with) scale.

Ha ha... I actually wrote that idea before reading your last paragraph about cloning ! I like the idea, but not the idea of dividing them ad nauseam. I actually hate the Tiny Terror mutator... So I'd rather have a zed that can "simply" clone itself like an incubator or something, and you'd have to fight the source to finally get rid of the swarm.
 
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Some things I'd like to see added/changed for a potential KF3:

  • No longer seperate the headhealth from the bodyhealth (just have the head be a bigger damage multiplier to a single healthpool, similar to how the bosses work). This seperation of healthpools is a big reason why the precision perks don't mesh well with the chaotic perks. This would be my #1 suggested change, actually.
  • Scientist perk. If the Medic is the defensive support (i.e. healing), then the Scientist perk could be more of an offensive support (i.e. disabling enemies by attacking them). This way, all the fancy schmancy hi-tech weaponry which has been so wrongfully tacked onto the Survivalist would have a better perk to be placed on. Its grenade could either be a gravity grenade to pull in enemies to a singular point, or some kind of inhibitor field grenade, slowing and weakening enemies travelling through its area. A comparison to how it'd feel to play, I'd say something of a hybrid between Medic and Firebug.
  • Urban Ninja perk. If you think of the Berserker as the tanky brutish warrior, the Urban Ninja would be the agile and dextrous rogue. Could utilize a mix of exotic melee weapons (like Katana crossperked, Naginata, Kusarigama, Claws, Bladewave energysword) and midrange agility-weapons (like Shuriken, Bolas, Boomerangs, Blowdarts, Longbow, Crossbow crossperked - maybe even silenced guns?). Its grenade could for example be a lure grenade, to distract enemies. This perk could be more "stealthy" (more about that in the next bulletpoint), and opportunistic in its fighting style - which ties in a bit to the merging of head- and bodyhealth: The Urban Ninja could get the full weakness multiplier by attacking enemies in their back, for example. I think it'd be a rather unique perk, easiest compared to as a hybrid of the Berserker and Sharpshooter.
  • SWAT option 1 - Remove this perk? Just a thought here, but, SWAT is kind of not necessary imo. Most of its unique things could rather easily be moved elsewhere:
    • All the SMGs could be given to Commando
    • Battering Ram would fit nicely on Support (instead of the abysmal Penetrator)
    • Tactical Movement would fit well on Commando
  • SWAT option 2 - Expand it. Crossperk some shotguns to it (as they use those IRL, the SG500 and M4 fitting perfectly). Make its tankiness not rely on armor. Give it defensive options not only through a Riot Shield (like frontal shields, energybased if necessary, on some gun(s)). Right now, SWAT feels rather meager.
  • Active perk powers. Nothing ovely fancy, but small cooldown-based powers like; Berserker gets a charge to close the gap on enemies quickly and stun them, Commando getting a temporary supervision (including seeing enemies through walls), the Urban Ninja getting temporary stealth to do more opportunistic attacks and avoid attacks etc. Even with "small" powers, you could make the perks feel more differentiated.

A completely seperate, but bigger thought on perks, setting and objectives:

Currently, some perks are based on a role / damage-ish type:
  • Medic is about healing. Weapons are highly varied.
  • Berserker is about melee and tankiness. Despite mostly being melee weapons, there's some longranged options too, and some melee+range combinations like Eviscerator and Frostfang. Imo, quite varied.
  • Firebug is about fiery weapons. Weapons are highly varied.
  • Demoltionist is about explosive weaponry. Weapons are decently varied, but could be better.
  • Sharpshooter about precision / longrange / hardhitting weaponry, Weapons are quite varied (but slightly scarce, imo)
  • Survivalist is about using ANYTHING!
Then, there's perks baed on very specific weapontypes
  • Commando = ARs. Hugely repetitive, only a few weapons having interesting altfire options.
  • SWAT = SMGs. Hugely repetitive (althought the DLC with Riot Shield helped - but money should not be needed for that).
  • Gunslinger = Pistols. Not particularly varied (although the DLCs help a bit - but money should not be needed for that).
  • Support = Shotguns. Arguably the least problematic, as they often feel quite different, at least. But it could be better.
Imo, it would be nice the latter weapon-specific perks could be rethought to be more role-based as the former group, as I feel they could have more variety in them that way. And I feel 2 things could help out with that:

1) Setting - By making the game set a bit more in the future, one could expand weaponry to be more interesting. Personally, I love the weapons from games like Apex Legends, Deep Rock Galactic and Dead Space. Imo, there's more variety there, due to their futuristic settings, while still - to varying degrees - a lot of realism to them. And gun-purists: Look at the M1000 from DRG -> Looks sleek and stylish, has the M1 Garand ping reload and thus has a very old-style classical feel to it, despite being a highly futuristic gun.

2) Objectives - While the typical Survival style of the KF-franchise should be kept intact, looking at DRG in particular, having more INTERESTING Objectives could not only expand the fun and variety of the gameplay, but could also help the weapon-specific perks variety further to expand their design. Think about it like this:
  • There are now objectives where you have to disarm bombs, build or deconstruct things -> Evolve the Demolitionist into an Engineer perk. Keep it mainly oriented about Explosives, but also make it quicker at handling these objectives (disarming explosives, in particular). Similarly, the Support could instead become the Engineer perk, also being good at handling these objectives, and thus have more tools to deal with not just welding, but also UNwelding and building/deconstructing things. Just imagine a shotgun with a jackhammer-like battering ram underneath it, for example.
  • More environmental vision issues / enemy hiding spots -> Commando gets more and/or better tools to find / detect / highly call out enemies and other dangers, expanding the perk beyond just ARs as its defining feature. Similarly, Firebug could be dealing with light (like with flares) to aid with this obstruction as well.
  • Sciency objectives? Well, Scientist to the rescue!
  • Finding objects on the map? What if the Survivalist had ways to detect items more easily (to go with its kinda "scavenger" theme)?
I think you get the idea. I really think you could make the more stale perks far more interesting by exploring these things further.
 
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Some things I'd like to see added/changed for a potential KF3:

  • No longer seperate the headhealth from the bodyhealth (just have the head be a bigger damage multiplier to a single healthpool, similar to how the bosses work). This seperation of healthpools is a big reason why the precision perks don't mesh well with the chaotic perks. This would be my #1 suggested change, actually.
  • Scientist perk. If the Medic is the defensive support (i.e. healing), then the Scientist perk could be more of an offensive support (i.e. disabling enemies by attacking them). This way, all the fancy schmancy hi-tech weaponry which has been so wrongfully tacked onto the Survivalist would have a better perk to be placed on. Its grenade could either be a gravity grenade to pull in enemies to a singular point, or some kind of inhibitor field grenade, slowing and weakening enemies travelling through its area. A comparison to how it'd feel to play, I'd say something of a hybrid between Medic and Firebug.
  • Urban Ninja perk. If you think of the Berserker as the tanky brutish warrior, the Urban Ninja would be the agile and dextrous rogue. Could utilize a mix of exotic melee weapons (like Katana crossperked, Naginata, Kusarigama, Claws, Bladewave energysword) and midrange agility-weapons (like Shuriken, Bolas, Boomerangs, Blowdarts, Longbow, Crossbow crossperked - maybe even silenced guns?). Its grenade could for example be a lure grenade, to distract enemies. This perk could be more "stealthy" (more about that in the next bulletpoint), and opportunistic in its fighting style - which ties in a bit to the merging of head- and bodyhealth: The Urban Ninja could get the full weakness multiplier by attacking enemies in their back, for example. I think it'd be a rather unique perk, easiest compared to as a hybrid of the Berserker and Sharpshooter.
  • SWAT option 1 - Remove this perk?Just a thought here, but, SWAT is kind of not necessary imo. Most of its unique things could rather easily be moved elsewhere:
    • All the SMGs could be given to Commando
    • Battering Ram would fit nicely on Support (instead of the abysmal Penetrator)
    • Tactical Movement would fit well on Commando
  • SWAT option 2 - Expand it. Crossperk some shotguns to it (as they use those IRL, the SG500 and M4 fitting perfectly). Make its tankiness not rely on armor. Give it defensive options not only through a Riot Shield (like frontal shields, energybased if necessary, on some gun(s)). Right now, SWAT feels rather meager.
  • Active perk powers. Nothing ovely fancy, but small cooldown-based powers like; Berserker gets a charge to close the gap on enemies quickly and stun them, Commando getting a temporary supervision (including seeing enemies through walls), the Urban Ninja getting temporary stealth to do more opportunistic attacks and avoid attacks etc. Even with "small" powers, you could make the perks feel more differentiated.

A completely seperate, but bigger thought on perks, setting and objectives:

Currently, some perks are based on a role / damage-ish type:
  • Medic is about healing. Weapons are highly varied.
  • Berserker is about melee and tankiness. Despite mostly being melee weapons, there's some longranged options too, and some melee+range combinations like Eviscerator and Frostfang. Imo, quite varied.
  • Firebug is about fiery weapons. Weapons are highly varied.
  • Demoltionist is about explosive weaponry. Weapons are decently varied, but could be better.
  • Sharpshooter about precision / longrange / hardhitting weaponry, Weapons are quite varied (but slightly scarce, imo)
  • Survivalist is about using ANYTHING!
Then, there's perks baed on very specific weapontypes
  • Commando = ARs. Hugely repetitive, only a few weapons having interesting altfire options.
  • SWAT = SMGs. Hugely repetitive (althought the DLC with Riot Shield helped - but money should not be needed for that).
  • Gunslinger = Pistols. Not particularly varied (although the DLCs help a bit - but money should not be needed for that).
  • Support = Shotguns. Arguably the least problematic, as they often feel quite different, at least. But it could be better.
Imo, it would be nice the latter weapon-specific perks could be rethought to be more role-based as the former group, as I feel they could have more variety in them that way. And I feel 2 things could help out with that:

1) Setting - By making the game set a bit more in the future, one could expand weaponry to be more interesting. Personally, I love the weapons from games like Apex Legends, Deep Rock Galactic and Dead Space. Imo, there's more variety there, due to their futuristic settings, while still - to varying degrees - a lot of realism to them. And gun-purists: Look at the M1000 from DRG -> Looks sleek and stylish, has the M1 Garand ping reload and thus has a very old-style classical feel to it, despite being a highly futuristic gun.

2) Objectives - While the typical Survival style of the KF-franchise should be kept intact, looking at DRG in particular, having more INTERESTING Objectives could not only expand the fun and variety of the gameplay, but could also help the weapon-specific perks variety further to expand their design. Think about it like this:
  • There are now objectives where you have to disarm bombs, build or deconstruct things -> Evolve the Demolitionist into an Engineer perk. Keep it mainly oriented about Explosives, but also make it quicker at handling these objectives (disarming explosives, in particular). Similarly, the Support could instead become the Engineer perk, also being good at handling these objectives, and thus have more tools to deal with not just welding, but also UNwelding and building/deconstructing things. Just imagine a shotgun with a jackhammer-like battering ram underneath it, for example.
  • More environmental vision issues / enemy hiding spots -> Commando gets more and/or better tools to find / detect / highly call out enemies and other dangers, expanding the perk beyond just ARs as its defining feature. Similarly, Firebug could be dealing with light (like with flares) to aid with this obstruction as well.
  • Sciency objectives? Well, Scientist to the rescue!
  • Finding objects on the map? What if the Survivalist had ways to detect items more easily (to go with its kinda "scavenger" theme)?
I think you get the idea. I really think you could make the more stale perks far more interesting by exploring these things further.
Oh damn, food for thoughts ! I always love those, although I should definitely be working instead.

-I think you already talked about the difference between head and body health, but I can't quite remember what your point was? I believe it was about having a single health pool for both, thus making it even more worthwhile to fire at the head to make it go down even quicker. But I'd love to get your confirmation, even more so regarding the "accuracy/chaotic perks" comparison. I obviously think that both are important.

-Nothing much to add regarding the two "Scientist" and "Urban Ninja" perks (besides that I would still call it the "Martial Artist" :p) , we already discussed about them and while we're not fully okay with all our arguments (I picture the scientist more as a buff/debuff machine rather than a purely offensive perk, and I would introduce some even more specific mechanics to the Urban Ninja, but it's nitpicking), we can both agree that they would make for great additions to KF3.

-We also talked about SWAT, and funnily enough, I picture the gunslinger as more superfluous than the SWAT (and the GS is actually one of my favorite along with the firebug and demo !). I personally would be against removing perks at that point, as I love having extra choices. But I agree that SWAT should be more fledged out to be a proper CC/Tank hybrid. Hell, maybe we could think of the SWAT for his role rather than his arsenal (something that has plagued KF for quite a while now... Some perks have a bit of everything like the firebug and medic, while others are shoe-horned within a weapon class). As such, maybe the SWAT could also get things like shotguns or a tear gas grenade launcher for example. Maybe even a tazer pistol or something. But I see from your further comments that we think alike on that one.

-Active perk powers : I'm a bit less enthusiastic about that idea because I feel game devs went overboard with it as soon as Overwatch dropped. Suddenly, every game had "ultimates" for some reason. I wouldn't want it to copy the operators from Call of Duty with just a single capability that comes out every minute or so (the ZED-time and the related skills already have such a role, even if it's random) . However, I believe we should get more skills that truly change the pace of the game, or even how a perk is played out. I personally love Zed Shrapnel for example, I find it much more interesting than a mere "more ammo, more damage" bonus (although we need a few of them too). Similarly, skills like Rack'em Up or Parry are interesting because they deal with the perk's forte. It encourages people to get good with the perk. Sure, you could pick the easy way out and take "bone breaker", which is much easier to use. But it's also far less effective if you're a good shot. I believe we should at least choose to focus on such skills that truly adds some flavour. But I assume adding one or two active capabilities to each perks wouldn't suddenly turn the game into a MOBA of some sort.

-As for putting the game in an even more futuristic setting... I wouldn't think it's that necessary. When you see guns like the Helios Rifle, HMtech-501, Seeker Six or Killerwatt, there's not much else you could ban outright from the game. Hell, even if we think about the Frost Fang, HRG Vampire or Zweihander, we see that even outdated, weird-looking or downright fantasy weapons aren't forbidden either. So why would we need to push the game to, let's say, 200 years into the future? Even the zeds are already looking as if they were from the near future anyway (the EDARs, the Fleshpound, the Husk...)

I wouldn't want Killing Floor to go full space opera or cyberpunk. Even the most similar to KF's tone (Dead Space) is too much of a stretch in my eyes. To me, its near-future setting (like let's say 2050 max) is perfectly fine. I wouldn't want to control cyborg mercenaries, with only fictive weaponry. Not that it wouldn't be interesting, but just that it wouldn't bring anything truly valuable IMO.
 
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-snip-

-As for putting the game in an even more futuristic setting... I wouldn't think it's that necessary. When you see guns like the Helios Rifle, HMtech-501, Seeker Six or Killerwatt, there's not much else you could ban outright from the game. Hell, even if we think about the Frost Fang, HRG Vampire or Zweihander, we see that even outdated, weird-looking or downright fantasy weapons aren't forbidden either. So why would we need to push the game to, let's say, 200 years into the future? Even the zeds are already looking as if they were from the near future anyway (the EDARs, the Fleshpound, the Husk...)

I wouldn't want Killing Floor to go full space opera or cyberpunk. Even the most similar to KF's tone (Dead Space) is too much of a stretch in my eyes. To me, its near-future setting (like let's say 2050 max) is perfectly fine. I wouldn't want to control cyborg mercenaries, with only fictive weaponry. Not that it wouldn't be interesting, but just that it wouldn't bring anything truly valuable IMO.
- Head/body health.
Ah, let me clarify. Currently, health works like this:
Shoot the body = Deal damage to the enemy's body health.
Shoot the head = Deal damage to the enemy's head health AND body health. If the head is removed, the body health also takes a huge beating, potentially enough to make the target die immediately (if the decapitation brings the body health down to 0). If it doesn't die immediately, its body health doesn't matter, as the enemy will "bleed out" eventually, dictated by a set timer based on each individual zed type.

Now. This can lead to some serious anti-coop issues. For example: Imagine a Firebug is, trying to "help" kill a Scrake with the flamethrower (this only attacks body health). Then a Sharpshooter comes along and shoots, say, 7 headshots with an M14, outright killing the Scrake (due to destroying the head and decap-killing it). The problem with this kind of scenario is that - due to seperated head and body health - the damage which the Firebug did most likely contributed absolutely NOTHING to the Sharpshooter's ability to take the Scrake down. Unless the Firebug had been dealing tremendous amounts of bodydamage to it, it would've been 7 shots for the Sharpshooter regardless.

However, if all enemies just had a singular healthpool, the burndamage the Firebug did could've directly been able to reduce the number of headshots the Sharpshooter needed to kill the Scrake, maybe as low as just 4 or 5 shots. Headshots and weakspots would still be encouraged, due to higher damage multipliers, but now there'd be more synergy (or at least less anti-synergy).

-Scientist + UNinja/MArtist
Actually, i DO see the Scientist as a buff/debuff machine, not as a purely offensive perk! When I say "offensive support", I am referring to status ailments (like bleed, freeze, stun, slow etc).
Regardless, yes, there's definitely huge potential from these two perks.

-SWAT
It's funny you mention Gunslinger, because I've also been thinking about its potential obsoleteness. On one hand, pistols could fits as variable backups for any perk. On the other hand, a gungho pistoleero is quite a cool idea, and it is one of the more fun perks (along with SWAT, ironically). It all tracked back to keeping both the Gunslinger and SWAT for me as well, as you say; kinda no point in removing them now, it'd be better to expand them (along with potentially renaming them to allow for that). And for the Gunslinger I was thinking of evolving it into some kind of Special Agent or Officer, potentially tieing it into the whole "special objectives" thing I talked about in the end of my first post, to give it some kind of mission advantage as well.

Anyway, back to SWAT: Yes, we both seem to agreed that expanding it to a CC/Tank hybrid would be cool, adding some shotguns and tazers and whatnot would definitely be nice. As you also think; Going for themes rather than just a singular weapontype indeed tend to make perks far more interesting.

-Active perk powers
Oh don't get me wrong here! I don't want it to become a MOBA or anything like that! Just a small singular ability for each perk would be enough. On some perks it could be more impactful (like the Stealth on UNinja/MArtist), and some far less so (like maybe purely-for-illumination-flares for Firebug). But maybe that's still something you dislike?
Actually, I wouldn't mind if most perks DIDN'T have active powers, the main reason for this idea is due to the stealth-idea for the Ninja - giving it to all the others was more of a "what if?" kind of thing.

Also, while I agreed that having more interesting passive talents would be nice (I'm a huge fan of Tactical Movement on SWAT, for example), there's also the potential of "overdeveloping" them. With more elaborate "passives" (which I often people see suggest btw), they became almost too complex for their own good. But yes, a few more interesting talents are of course admirable to pursue.

-Futuristic setting
Yeah, I guess I like a bit more futuristc setting for a few reasons:
1) I'm just kinda tired of modern weaponry, mainly since they are often so limitted to "it has to make sense" kind of stuff. With a more futuristic setting, you don't have to worry about players saying "why does the FAL and M14 have such different damage values despite being the same caliber?!" and such things. You can have guns that look and behave similar to the FAL and M14, but now you don't get the same limitations as the actual modern version have.
2) You can get more creative with ALL weapons, not just the "scifi" guns, since they'd ALL be scifi guns, technically (just some more, some less). I know KF2 already delved quite heavily into futuristic weaponry, which I like, but (unless you modify the real-life guns with various attachments and whatnot) having for example the P90 shoot bouncing bullets or the UMP causing a stunning shockwave cone on altfire wouldn't make much sense, since we know how they operate in the real world. I find the restrictions that comes with modern weapons to be kinda boring, is all.
3) I had more points, but I forgot x) If I remember, I will add those as well.

-Objectives and perk designs
Just curious what you thought of this bigger paragraph?
 
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- Head/body health.
Ah, let me clarify. Currently, health works like this:
Shoot the body = Deal damage to the enemy's body health.
Shoot the head = Deal damage to the enemy's head health AND body health. If the head is removed, the body health also takes a huge beating, potentially enough to make the target die immediately (if the decapitation brings the body health down to 0). If it doesn't die immediately, its body health doesn't matter, as the enemy will "bleed out" eventually, dictated by a set timer based on each individual zed type.

Now. This can lead to some serious anti-coop issues. For example: Imagine a Firebug is, trying to "help" kill a Scrake with the flamethrower (this only attacks body health). Then a Sharpshooter comes along and shoots, say, 7 headshots with an M14, outright killing the Scrake (due to destroying the head and decap-killing it). The problem with this kind of scenario is that - due to seperated head and body health - the damage which the Firebug did most likely contributed absolutely NOTHING to the Sharpshooter's ability to take the Scrake down. Unless the Firebug had been dealing tremendous amounts of bodydamage to it, it would've been 7 shots for the Sharpshooter regardless.

However, if all enemies just had a singular healthpool, the burndamage the Firebug did could've directly been able to reduce the number of headshots the Sharpshooter needed to kill the Scrake, maybe as low as just 4 or 5 shots. Headshots and weakspots would still be encouraged, due to higher damage multipliers, but now there'd be more synergy (or at least less anti-synergy).

-Scientist + UNinja/MArtist
Actually, i DO see the Scientist as a buff/debuff machine, not as a purely offensive perk! When I say "offensive support", I am referring to status ailments (like bleed, freeze, stun, slow etc).
Regardless, yes, there's definitely huge potential from these two perks.

-SWAT
It's funny you mention Gunslinger, because I've also been thinking about its potential obsoleteness. On one hand, pistols could fits as variable backups for any perk. On the other hand, a gungho pistoleero is quite a cool idea, and it is one of the more fun perks (along with SWAT, ironically). It all tracked back to keeping both the Gunslinger and SWAT for me as well, as you say; kinda no point in removing them now, it'd be better to expand them (along with potentially renaming them to allow for that). And for the Gunslinger I was thinking of evolving it into some kind of Special Agent or Officer, potentially tieing it into the whole "special objectives" thing I talked about in the end of my first post, to give it some kind of mission advantage as well.

Anyway, back to SWAT: Yes, we both seem to agreed that expanding it to a CC/Tank hybrid would be cool, adding some shotguns and tazers and whatnot would definitely be nice. As you also think; Going for themes rather than just a singular weapontype indeed tend to make perks far more interesting.

-Active perk powers
Oh don't get me wrong here! I don't want it to become a MOBA or anything like that! Just a small singular ability for each perk would be enough. On some perks it could be more impactful (like the Stealth on UNinja/MArtist), and some far less so (like maybe purely-for-illumination-flares for Firebug). But maybe that's still something you dislike?
Actually, I wouldn't mind if most perks DIDN'T have active powers, the main reason for this idea is due to the stealth-idea for the Ninja - giving it to all the others was more of a "what if?" kind of thing.

Also, while I agreed that having more interesting passive talents would be nice (I'm a huge fan of Tactical Movement on SWAT, for example), there's also the potential of "overdeveloping" them. With more elaborate "passives" (which I often people see suggest btw), they became almost too complex for their own good. But yes, a few more interesting talents are of course admirable to pursue.

-Futuristic setting
Yeah, I guess I like a bit more futuristc setting for a few reasons:
1) I'm just kinda tired of modern weaponry, mainly since they are often so limitted to "it has to make sense" kind of stuff. With a more futuristic setting, you don't have to worry about players saying "why does the FAL and M14 have such different damage values despite being the same caliber?!" and such things. You can have guns that look and behave similar to the FAL and M14, but now you don't get the same limitations as the actual modern version have.
2) You can get more creative with ALL weapons, not just the "scifi" guns, since they'd ALL be scifi guns, technically (just some more, some less). I know KF2 already delved quite heavily into futuristic weaponry, which I like, but (unless you modify the real-life guns with various attachments and whatnot) having for example the P90 shoot bouncing bullets or the UMP causing a stunning shockwave cone on altfire wouldn't make much sense, since we know how they operate in the real world. I find the restrictions that comes with modern weapons to be kinda boring, is all.
3) I had more points, but I forgot x) If I remember, I will add those as well.

-Objectives and perk designs
Just curious what you thought of this bigger paragraph?

-Oh I see regarding head/body health. Indeed, that sounds like a much better system. So much so that you have to wonder why they implemented the one we currently have in the first place. I believe most modern games actually have that "overall body HP" that just happens to go down faster upon headshots? Usually with the use of simple multipliers ( X1.5, X2, X3 damage or something...). Definitely something I can back up.

-I know you didn't like Breadsticks idea of turning the SWAT into a gung-ho speedster, firing rains of bullets upon zeds in the blink of an eye...But that's something I would love to see as some sort of "gunslinger/SWAT" hybrid. I guess it wouldn't be enough to warrant yet another perk (plus Killing Floor isn't exactly known for having a lot of mobility options anyway), but I kinda dig that idea, if we're gonna brainstorm some cool ideas. But yeah, CC/Tank hybrid sounds like the wisest and most reasonable option. As for the good ol' slinger, I gotta say that I'm not quite sure what you have in mind regarding an "Officer/Special Agent" perk? I currently portray the Gunslinger as a middle-ranged crackshot with more versatility and agility than the sharpshooter, but less raw damage and long-range effectiveness. It's like an "up-close and personal" variant of a pure sniper. I would assume it's possible to find another way to have a perk thrive at mid-ranges, keeping it's somewhat agility edge while keeping it true to the core idea. I'm currently thinking about flanking heroes in Paladins and what used to be "attackers" in Overwatch (so much for avoiding said examples...) I believe having it be somewhat similar to the UA/MA (albeit with guns...duh) could have potential. As in one of the weakest perks, but with fast DPS and more stamina to make it worthwhile (and dominance over the mid-range compared to the UA/MA tremendous power at melee range)

-Regarding Active Skills, I actually pondering a whole UA/MA idea without resorting to a stealth mod, so obviously I'm a bit less giddy about that idea. As for other perks... I'm afraid most would end up being fairly unidimensional and self-explanatory. Like a "creates extra smaller explosions" as a demo (or like, "create a big blast around you"?) or "increases the fire rate and mags of all your weapons as a Commando". It's not very stimulating. And it overlaps a lot with the ZED-skills. I believe I could like that idea better if you could bring some extra examples? Because even the illumination flares for the Firebug would be not only very situational (some maps are bright enough already!) but also a bit underwhelming. But then, having them as "gadgets" wouldn't work either, as we can already see that people never purchase C4... Maybe those could be skills ? Or part of skills. Like "As a firebug, gets ground fire... and spawn with three flares, that you can restock at the trader"

I guess it would add some much-needed utility to skills, make them just a tad more interesting and varied, and simply allow for potential helpful ideas to shine a bit more. C4 helped me quite a few times, but it's never the right time to buy it basically. Similarly, maybe we could have something like a "combat drug", Starcraft style, to shoot faster or absorb more damage as a commando for example. I guess having some sort of hybrid between active capabilities and skills could be found... But pretty much not something that activates at the mere push of a button. You'd still need to be creative as to when you use it ! But as I remember you weren't exactly fond of very complex skills either (and your comment does prove it once again ! ), maybe we'll have to agree to disagree. And yet, I would love some extra depth to the game... A way to expand upon the skill system introduced in KF2 (which was already a step-forward compared to the very basic perk formula of KF1)

-Ha ha ha, sounds like you despise the gun-nuts more than the modern setting then :p ... I personally back up that statement : not everything has to be hyper-realistic, even more so in a game with mutated clones. I know that Tripwire became known for creative top-notch in-game weaponry, but I believe that while that trademark is definitely welcomed in Red Orchestra, it isn't nearly as paramount in KF2 (mind you, they added a crosshair... Shockers !) I'm not against modern (or at least existing) weaponry, but it should, however, be somewhat obscure. Most people haven't heard of any guns outside AK-47, M16, MP5... So let's go crazy ! Find us some bonker guns created by some mad designer. Bring back that prototype that never saw the light of the day. Give us a weapon that was used in the trenches during WW1 (Hellriegel flashbacks). Anything but your sempiternal Colt 1911. I know it's beloved by many and it deserves respect for having served so long, but at some point... You just want to fire with something else.

Your second point is actually quite linked to the first : gun nuts who would scream HERESY ! But why? I'm no expert, but can any bullet-based weapon fire White Phosphorus projectiles? I apologize if it can, but I honestly find the Firebug's armory head-smackingly stupid at times. It's as if anything goes as long as it's burning. As such, I personally wouldn't exactly mind if they took liberties with it. In a way, having increased mags (as a commando or SWAT for example) is already a stretch in some way... So what should we do about it? Plus, your idea is quite clever but also cynical. If you design a gun that looks EXACTLY like the P90, but is named some other way just in order to let it have ricochetting bullets... Let's just have a P90, shall we? I remember Call of Duty did that a few times, at least with the M1 Garand, Thompson and the MP40.

-Objective mode is just like the active skills idea (sorry !) : I would need to see it in action or have more information about it for me to truly be sold on the idea. I guess I'm in the minority within the community, but I honestly never cared for objective modes...I tend to find them quite repetitive, very quickly. And it doesn't help that I feel like they slow the flow and pace of the game too. Then agaaaain... I'm also someone who keeps pushing for the game to become more complex, richer, deeper. Just as I'm someone wishing for perks to be more unique, more separated from each other. And I believe giving them proper roles (akin to CLASSES in other, well... class-based games) would be a step in the right direction.

By the way, that makes me think (and that's coming from a mostly solo player) : for the love of god Tripwire, please remember that Killing Floor is a TEAM-based game. It's definitely cool to make it so lonely players can enjoy themselves and win a match, with any perk no less, but it would be nice to avoid turning every single one of them into a versatile killing machine. I'm sure that veterans could beat any map, on any difficulty, with any team composition right now. One might praise the possibilities: I personally blame a lack of challenge and value within every perk.
 
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I made a wishlist for KF3 a couple years ago but I never shared it with anyone. I'm just gonna paste it here.

General:
Unreal Engine 4 or 5
NOT Epic Exclusive. I just know TW is going to make KF3 Epic Exclusive, though. NOBODY wants that.
Listen Servers
Mutators like in KF1
- Disable ZED Time
- Disable flashlight
- etc.
Weapon Attachments like in CoDMW2019
If there's an inventory, let it be user-sortable like Team Fortress 2 inventory.

Gameplay:
No teleporting
Zed spawns more like KF1 (Spawn points outside of player area)
Higher zed limit like KF1 (Zed limit and teleporting were compromises made for the PS4/XBOne console gen)

Zeds:
No robots / EDARs
 
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I made a wishlist for KF3 a couple years ago but I never shared it with anyone. I'm just gonna paste it here.

General:
Unreal Engine 4 or 5
NOT Epic Exclusive. I just know TW is going to make KF3 Epic Exclusive, though. NOBODY wants that.
Listen Servers
Mutators like in KF1
- Disable ZED Time
- Disable flashlight
- etc.
Weapon Attachments like in CoDMW2019
If there's an inventory, let it be user-sortable like Team Fortress 2 inventory.

Gameplay:
No teleporting
Zed spawns more like KF1 (Spawn points outside of player area)
Higher zed limit like KF1 (Zed limit and teleporting were compromises made for the PS4/XBOne console gen)

Zeds:
No robots / EDARs

I can agree with most of these. It is true that while UE 3 proved to be quite reliable and impressive at times (I'm still in awe looking at MK11 !), I believe that now that we're about to get the fifth version, an upgrade is in order. However since the technology is still quite new, I doubt they'll throw money at getting UE5... It's just too new, so to speak. But a UE4 version would be neat !

I personally don't really mind Epic's exclusivity, but that's probably because I'm mostly a solo player. I tend to use both Steam and Epic anyway (and even since Battle.net, I'm used to having my games spread out ... It's annoying AF, but you get used to it)

Listen servers and mutators are a resounding YES ! Same goes for Weapon Attachments as we discussed many, many times. I believe it would be a better compromise than crossperked weapons and HRG guns... Hell, it could probably work as a proper "reboot" of the upgrade system. I would love if some weapons had unique upgrades though.

I don't quite get your point about the Inventory however... To me, it's one of the rare thing fairly clear and usable, considering you can sort out by quality, perk and items.

Totally agree with everything "gameplay-wise". Having more zeds spawning at once, even more so when playing with a full-team, would be nice. As for Zed Spawns... I don't know if KF1 is the perfect example. It still had some wonky spawns at times (I had my fair share of clots popping right in front of me still, but I guess it depends on the map)

As for no robots... I'm only okay if you still allow cyborgs to be a thing (I mean...most zeds are actually). I believe EDARs are a nice gameplay addition (adds layers of difficulty... AND grants you with a free EMP grenade if you're a crackshot !), but their appearance is a bit jarring.
 
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For some reason my KF2 inventory gets jumbled every time I get a drop in-game. Literally the whole inventory will shuffle. I just miss my old organized inventory from when I played TF2. It's obviously not the end of the world, but it would be nice to be able to organize it.

My problems with EDARs:
1. Trappers being able to move faster than you and grab you at a distance.
2. They just don't fit thematically with the zombie-like enemies.
3. The way they dodge with no cooldown.
4. Chest as a weak point kinda sucks, although I've gotten used to it.
 
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For some reason my KF2 inventory gets jumbled every time I get a drop in-game. Literally the whole inventory will shuffle. I just miss my old organized inventory from when I played TF2. It's obviously not the end of the world, but it would be nice to be able to organize it.

My problems with EDARs:
1. Trappers being able to move faster than you and grab you at a distance.
2. They just don't fit thematically with the zombie-like enemies.
3. The way they dodge with no cooldown.
4. Chest as a weak point kinda sucks, although I've gotten used to it.
I see. It is true that you can't really "sort out" your inventory the way you want. But then again, TF2 wasn't perfect either... As you crafted stuff, more often than not, you didn't choose which iteration of the item you crafted, creating holes within your inventory... Quite often filled afterward by whatever you crafted.

But again, with the various filters at hand, you rarely need a long time to find what you're seeking. Or you must REALLY have a ton of items.

"Trappers being able to move faster than you and grab you at a distance" ... I mean, that's the point. Otherwise they'd just be Clots. You see, that's exactly what I meant by adding layers of difficulty.

"Chest as a weak point" and "dodging" are similar arguments that just doesn't make much sense to me. Many people are already complaining that not even HoE is challenging anymore. I believe adding some versatility within the zeds legions is a good thing and as I said : although it requires you to relearn that NOPE, the head isn't the perfect way to kill EVERY opponent... You're rewarded with a free EMP grenade. And I feel like everyone keeps forgetting about that. It's a very, VERY powerful tool.

It's only annoying when you're a berserker... or a firebug/demo without hitscan weaponry. Otherwise, they ain't that hard to dispatch.
 
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-Oh I see regarding head/body health. Indeed, that sounds like a much better system. So much so that you have to wonder why they implemented the one we currently have in the first place.
Decapitations. And adhering to coding tradition in order to avoid producing new problems by changing systems too drastically.

Say you want to make a game where you can shoot the arms off zombies. What's the easiest, simplest, most naive implementation for that? Give the arm its own health bar, when it reaches zero disable the hitboxes and play relevant animations/particle effects, done.

Plus when heads have their own health bars it's super easy to make crawlers near-impossible to decapitate and bloats a complete waste of bullets when decapitated. To re-create those mechanics with a single health bar would take roughly as long as making all body damage deal a portion of damage to the head health bar and BOOM- fire suddenly helps sharpshooter headshots as requested. Only problem is both methods take more time and money than what TWI is willing to invest into KF2 at this point so neither are happening.
 
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To the point and somewhat short. Nice post Bread. Like the ideas too.
Wasn't about to read a novel tho like some posts.
GKXU4C.gif

*Just a graphic upgrade I'd like to see: firebug death animation; after final blow from energy wep, enemys flesh melts off and their skeleton is shown 😆.

*also death animations. Fleshie final blow; stabs you with both arms and camera stays in first person as he then raises you above his head and turns his spikes causing your body to be blown to bits in all directions.
 
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Well, as long as this topic remains semi-relevant with rumors of KF3 on the horizon and KF2 winding down major system changes, why not?

1) A proper rework of most of them. Not only to make them feel fresh, but also to rebalance the very good ones (the medic, maybe the gunslinger a little bit) and the sadly underpowered of not very fun ones (SWAT, Survivalist, Sharp...)

2) To go even further than the rework, I believe we should go back to a much simpler time when perks had ROLES to fill...<snip>
So perks and "defined roles" in the team are tricky to pin down because in a game where the base principle is "multiple specialized roles working together as a team", not all of them are going to be perfectly balanced, and not all of them are going to function as well as others. Simple as that. But let's start there: the "Scientist" and "Urban Ninja/Martial Artist/Dragon" perk roles that keep popping up in this thread and other similar threads.

The "Scientist," or rather, the "dedicated debuffer" idea is the one I have the biggest beef with, because it runs up against a problem inherent in, well, basically any first-person shooter that has both incaps and kills: where enemies are concerned, dead > not-dead-but-otherwise-indisposed. Unless they introduce something like the Arch-Vile from the Doom series (hold that thought!), a dead Zed is completely out of the picture. It cannot come back to life and hurt you, it can't resume what it was doing from before, it's gone for good. No matter if a Zed is frozen, panicking, stunned, etc., it's not dead, which is kind of the idea in a game where the objective is "make all the things that aren't your team dead." KF2 currently has that problem with basically any debuff that isn't freeze, which is a combo of freeze being very good compared to the other CCs as well as being very widespread by now, with at least 3 weapons off the top of my head being able to inflict it (the cryo nades should be the only one, but oh well...).

There's a similar issue in Deep Rock Galactic, another (excellent) horde-shooter game: One of the classes, the Driller, has two primaries; a flamethrower and a freezethrower. The freezethrower in that game had the problem of not killing things but instead holding them in place, and thus for a while it was quite inferior to the flamethrower, which was better not just at killing things, but it also combos with the perk's other sidearms (such as the pistol more damage to flaming enemies, etc.) where the freezethrower did not. So the freezethrower fell behind on any difficulties that actually mattered. The developer has since chosen to tweak this weapon by implementing death for frozen *tiny* enemies, allowing players to deal extra damage to frozen enemies, changing some of its alternate builds to focus on boosting direct damage instead of just having the freeze capabilities, implementing a temperature shock system (so frost and fire builds didn't completely run counterproductive to one another) and so forth.

My point is: for a class to be worthwhile, it has to bring actual killing power to the game instead of just being a debuff class. Otherwise, it'll have the same problem: a "cool" crutch class that falls off dramatically in usefulness as players improve.

As for "Urban Ninja/Martial Artist/Dragon": Unless something wildly changes in the engine, I'm not convinced that it wouldn't wind up with the same problem as the Commando/SWAT dichotomy. It's hard to make two perks that largely fulfill the same role meaningfully different. Both SWAT and Commando are long-range trash cleaners. It's just that Commando's kit is better suited for the game as players improve their skills. Given that we already have a "slow tank" and "fast tank(?)" option for the Zerk, what would Urban Ninja bring to the table that SWAT doesn't already do? (And doesn't just serve as an excuse to introduce shurikens or stuff like that to the game.)

The main thing I think of when I hear "urban ninja" would be a class that has the potential for parkour, or one that speclalizes in advanced movement techniques (double-jump, wallrunning, and so forth). Which would be cool in my head, but without a major redesign of the game's workings, it just wouldn't fit. Since the game takes place on the ground, a class that could literally outmaneuver the Zeds on verticality alone would be busted by design.

----

On to my other point:

The best way to cut down on overlap, or intrusion on a number of roles, is to stick to that design both in the perk kits and weapons for said perks, which Tripwire admittedly didn't do terribly well. The initial crossperking weapons were a sign of things to come, but the Medic weapons were mostly inoffensive. It's when the crossperking for competely opposite perks started that we got serious problems.

This is definitely one thing I wish TWI would do better on: just because enough people clamor for a weapon idea doesn't mean it's a good one, or that it's healthy for game balance. When considering ideas for new weapons, they need to take into account the perk roles and strengths. Which brings me to my next point:

Asking for weapons such as "Give SWAT a shotgun." SWAT isn't designed for shotguns, which are slow-firing, can pierce enemies, and pack a ton of punch. It's the polar opposite of "low damage, high rate-of-fire" that SMGs are famous for. Without changing how SWAT's skills currently work work, you'd wind up with a perk that can handle literally everything except super-long-range encounters with one SMG and one mid-to-high-tier shotgun. Being able to move full speed with crouching mitigates some of the shotgun's problems at close range when you can kite. You could have fast reloads, the ability to apply Cripple to crowds of enemies that don't die instantly, and--most of all--you'd literally be unkillable in Zed-Time with a Rapid Assault shotgun. (There's a reason Support doesn't get unlimited ammo with Barrage.)

True, it wouldn't hit as hard as Support shot-for-shot, but this is something you have to take into account nonetheless.


2) As it is now, you can fill nearly any role with any perk.
Well, yes, but also no, because the dedicated perks are so good at their roles that, with exception of the Field Medic, there's no reason to pick the others just because they can technically do that role, because they suck it at so much it to pick it for that reason is to the detriment of the team. (A.K.A. "why survivalist is bad.")

The Field Medic is the only real exception in that if the team is so good that nobody is taking anything past scratch damage, they can basically excuse themselves and play with a Railgun or Freezethrower to chip in on things.

But as for your other examples:


The medic can play both Demo and Sharp, the main nukers of the game, with his Mine Reconstructor and Incision respectively.
No. The MR is one of the biggest jokes in this game, and it's not even in the same zip code of effectiveness as a good Demo with the RPG+C4+.500 loadout at its job--killing large Zeds. (I'd kick someone in my games if they gave that excuse for running it...)

The Incision is closer, but you still won't reach the abilities of a Sharp that actually has any idea what they're doing. In fact, the Sharp is more ideal because they can just straight up delete actual threats with one shot instead of 4-5.


The firebug is meant to be a crowd control/trash-cleaning perk. Now he's a fleshpound nightmare with both his Helios and Microwavegun. You can't just take a random weapon, give it flames, and be like "boom, firebug weapon". And let's not start with the cryo weapons (why did it start as a sharpshooter thing? Why is it spread to others perks now?) nor about the fact the Survivalist is pretty much the weapon-dump now.
Firebug's good HVT weapons have all been nerfed over the game's lifetime because not having to aim while being able to handle all the game's threats is a recipe for a dead game. The Helios is less of an example because it got the smallest nerf and you actually have to aim it.

Cryo was just for the Sharp's grenades, because they were meant to emphasize Sharp's weakness at close-range and to allow good Sharps to use them offensively as a self-support and team-support tool. Then others got it because IDK, TWI can't balance.

Survivalist...ugh. It can't be good by design because it's not designed to actually be a dedicated role.
 
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Prestige System: I would love to see this come back, but with a more incentivising reward. Perhaps a specific cosmetic such as a Fireman's Hat when you prestige the Firebug, Night Vision Goggles for the Commando, or a bandolier/ammo vest for the support.

I'd like to see an increase in odds of getting rarer cosmetics, weapon skins, seasonal tickets, or rewards from unlockable chests. Another person mentioned a slight HP bonus, to which I'll suggests the ability to increase or decrease your stats and the number of zeds per round by 5%, 10%, 15%, etc. at any time to create new fun or challenges.
 
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