Pretty much.
Imho Killing Floor would be the perfect game for a true zombie "sim" (if that's even possible) as a TC mod, or perhaps even retail add-on, expansion pack, w/e. It seems to me that KF would be the baseboard to jump off of for a serious business zombie fps, and if done right (maybe not quite Project Zomboid in first-person, but awfully close) could be hell of a lot of fun.
I really want to hear your ideas, and no one likes a massive wall of text, so I'll leave the exposition somewhat vague: larger versions of the stock maps where the only goal is to survive, and possibly a much higher player limit (50 slots seems about right). Tweak perks so that they aren't completely combat focused and do a dynamic leveling system where all perks start out at level 0 and increase over time until one dies. Possibly remove the perk system entirely and have characters gain proficiency in various skills by simply using them (a la the elder scrolls system).
Finally it seems that this would be relatively simple to do as a basic mutator: Limit spawns to clots only and do one-hit kills, lock people out of the trader, and set it so that the spawns are endless (but not as common as in vanilla). Finally, add a bit of weapon sway and a few other simple things like that to make it so that they're actually a challenge. Oh, and maybe up the ammo crate spawns a bit, since there's no trader.
That's the gist of my idea. Thoughts? Suggestions?
*Edit*
So it turns out that people do like a massive wall of text, but rather than create a new thread and clog up the forums more I thought it preferable to necro this, as I'm not quite ready to let this idea die. With the new gametypes in the pipeline, this seemed just about the perfect time to revive the idea. Given the open maps, non-linear gameplay, and dynamic spawns we all love about the game, compounded with the vast amounts of community created maps and other content, KF screams to me "NEEDS ZOMBIES". In the hope of facilitating some serious debate and discussion I prepared a rough list of changes that I think could give KF truly great zombie gameplay, be it mod or officially implemented gamemode. Orange text is (imho) not essential to the experience, and potentially quite time-intensive.
Core Gameplay traits:
Trader is removed from the game. A simple barter system between players (I'll give you 30 shotgun shells for your machete etc.) could substitute it. To compensate increase ammo and gun spawns, perhaps scaled to difficulty and # of players?
All specimens are replaced with modified clots (the zombies)
Game is adversarial; players can freely kill or co-operate with each other, with no reward for either, save for the thrill of the hunt and the opportunity to get whatever goodies the next guy might be carrying.
All players are spawned in random locations on the map.
Instead of spawning in groups of 4, zombies are spawned individually throughout the map.
The syringe can only be used to heal other people and does not recharge; the only way to get more is to kill somebody. Max charge is increased to 200 to compensate.
Players have an individual pool of lives determined by the host, from 0 to infinity. In order to prevent the last guy left from holing up in the corner and doing nothing (or worse, going afk) players can easily map vote somewhere else any time.
The specimen counter is still present, but hidden from view by players; game ends when one of three conditions are met: 1. X% of players are killed or X number are left, 2. X% of the zombies have been killed or X number are left, 3. The players have gone X minutes without harming a zombie.
Adjust perk functions to more of an "ironman" style: all players start as level 0 in their selected perk and level substantially faster, to the point where one could potentially reach level 6 in a single game. One can only change perk on death, and every time he dies his level is reset to 0. Cut all perk damage and mag capacity bonuses so players are roughly equal with all weapons. Alternatively have only one perk that provides general bonuses and offer a single skill (slower fatigue drain, greater weapon accuracy, higher carry weight etc.) that the player can pick. Or just flat out cut perks entirely.
Player traits:
Players spawn with no hand grenades. Certain ammo crates exclusively stock grenades.
Remember the annoying as ****e fatigue meter from Morrowind? Bring it back as a handicap for players. Ideally, it would effect accuracy/muzzle sway, reload speed, movement speed, Swing speed with melee weapons, and depending on the degree of fatigue, and blur/darken one's vision, starting at the peripheral vision (corners of the screen) and gradually moving to closer to the center as one becomes more tired. Check out LURK 1.1 for Stalker for a good example of this. It would be effected by running, swinging melee weapons, moving while crouched or prone, carrying heavy loads, and being harmed in any way.
Increase the speed bonus of carrying nothing, and penalty of carrying everything, and additionally scale fatigue drain according to weight so there is a real advantage to traveling light. To compensate, perhaps return the carry limit to the 20 kilos of 2.5?
Add a prone ability. Simple, self-explanatory, just rip the code from RO1.
Players drop everything they're carrying on death. Weapons never disappear.
When a player falls below X HP movement is limited to crouch or prone and they cannot attack until someone heals them back to strength (they can commit suicide any time)
If a player is brought below X HP by a zombie (I'm thinking somewhere from 75-90) or attacked by one while below said HP they are infected and perish. The zombie encounter increases by one and a zombie spawns on his corpse. Alternatively, the infection takes the form of a steady HP drain and the player only succumbs to the infection when HP reaches 0.
Zombie traits:
Zombie size, strength, and speed varies per individual, as it did for the humans they previously were.
Zombies do NOT run. They walk at a variable speed from that of a clot normal difficulty to one of suicidal difficulty, depending on the individual.
Zombies do NOT home in on their target like in vanilla, but detect them based on sight and hearing.
Zombies can be killed not only by decapitation or a single headshot with any firearm, but by taking a severe amount of damage to the body (varying per individual, but roughly 6p HoE husk health).
Zombies retain the grapple ability of the clot.
Weapon traits:
The knife and 9mm can be dropped, potentially bringing carry weight to 0 kilograms.
Explosives do far greater damage than vanilla, but exclusively to the body.
Decrease accuracy while shooting from the hip, severely; the effect being variable per weapon type and increased while moving. Something along the lines of--from most accurate to least accurate-- Submachine guns > Shotguns > Assault/Battle Rifles > Handguns > Lever/Bolt/Single-fire guns (and crossbows!) > Incendiary Weapons ~ Launchers > Dual weapons
Add variable muzzle sway/shaking when using iron sights, which increases according to fatigue drain and zombie proximity, to the point where hitting a target closer than several meters becomes a real crapshoot. The effect is further magnified by the number of zombies in close proximity.
Guns jam (rarely). Less complicated ones have it happen less.
Cut the syringe launcher from all the medic guns. Replace it with a fire-selector, either between f/a and semi or f/a and 3-rd burst.
(?)All players start unarmed/only with a knife (not sure about this).
(?)Melee weapons have limited condition and have a small chance of breaking and becoming useless any time. Tougher weapons have a smaller chance of breaking (not sure about this).
Imho Killing Floor would be the perfect game for a true zombie "sim" (if that's even possible) as a TC mod, or perhaps even retail add-on, expansion pack, w/e. It seems to me that KF would be the baseboard to jump off of for a serious business zombie fps, and if done right (maybe not quite Project Zomboid in first-person, but awfully close) could be hell of a lot of fun.
I really want to hear your ideas, and no one likes a massive wall of text, so I'll leave the exposition somewhat vague: larger versions of the stock maps where the only goal is to survive, and possibly a much higher player limit (50 slots seems about right). Tweak perks so that they aren't completely combat focused and do a dynamic leveling system where all perks start out at level 0 and increase over time until one dies. Possibly remove the perk system entirely and have characters gain proficiency in various skills by simply using them (a la the elder scrolls system).
Finally it seems that this would be relatively simple to do as a basic mutator: Limit spawns to clots only and do one-hit kills, lock people out of the trader, and set it so that the spawns are endless (but not as common as in vanilla). Finally, add a bit of weapon sway and a few other simple things like that to make it so that they're actually a challenge. Oh, and maybe up the ammo crate spawns a bit, since there's no trader.
That's the gist of my idea. Thoughts? Suggestions?
*Edit*
So it turns out that people do like a massive wall of text, but rather than create a new thread and clog up the forums more I thought it preferable to necro this, as I'm not quite ready to let this idea die. With the new gametypes in the pipeline, this seemed just about the perfect time to revive the idea. Given the open maps, non-linear gameplay, and dynamic spawns we all love about the game, compounded with the vast amounts of community created maps and other content, KF screams to me "NEEDS ZOMBIES". In the hope of facilitating some serious debate and discussion I prepared a rough list of changes that I think could give KF truly great zombie gameplay, be it mod or officially implemented gamemode. Orange text is (imho) not essential to the experience, and potentially quite time-intensive.
Core Gameplay traits:
Trader is removed from the game. A simple barter system between players (I'll give you 30 shotgun shells for your machete etc.) could substitute it. To compensate increase ammo and gun spawns, perhaps scaled to difficulty and # of players?
All specimens are replaced with modified clots (the zombies)
Game is adversarial; players can freely kill or co-operate with each other, with no reward for either, save for the thrill of the hunt and the opportunity to get whatever goodies the next guy might be carrying.
All players are spawned in random locations on the map.
Instead of spawning in groups of 4, zombies are spawned individually throughout the map.
The syringe can only be used to heal other people and does not recharge; the only way to get more is to kill somebody. Max charge is increased to 200 to compensate.
Players have an individual pool of lives determined by the host, from 0 to infinity. In order to prevent the last guy left from holing up in the corner and doing nothing (or worse, going afk) players can easily map vote somewhere else any time.
The specimen counter is still present, but hidden from view by players; game ends when one of three conditions are met: 1. X% of players are killed or X number are left, 2. X% of the zombies have been killed or X number are left, 3. The players have gone X minutes without harming a zombie.
Adjust perk functions to more of an "ironman" style: all players start as level 0 in their selected perk and level substantially faster, to the point where one could potentially reach level 6 in a single game. One can only change perk on death, and every time he dies his level is reset to 0. Cut all perk damage and mag capacity bonuses so players are roughly equal with all weapons. Alternatively have only one perk that provides general bonuses and offer a single skill (slower fatigue drain, greater weapon accuracy, higher carry weight etc.) that the player can pick. Or just flat out cut perks entirely.
Player traits:
Players spawn with no hand grenades. Certain ammo crates exclusively stock grenades.
Remember the annoying as ****e fatigue meter from Morrowind? Bring it back as a handicap for players. Ideally, it would effect accuracy/muzzle sway, reload speed, movement speed, Swing speed with melee weapons, and depending on the degree of fatigue, and blur/darken one's vision, starting at the peripheral vision (corners of the screen) and gradually moving to closer to the center as one becomes more tired. Check out LURK 1.1 for Stalker for a good example of this. It would be effected by running, swinging melee weapons, moving while crouched or prone, carrying heavy loads, and being harmed in any way.
Increase the speed bonus of carrying nothing, and penalty of carrying everything, and additionally scale fatigue drain according to weight so there is a real advantage to traveling light. To compensate, perhaps return the carry limit to the 20 kilos of 2.5?
Add a prone ability. Simple, self-explanatory, just rip the code from RO1.
Players drop everything they're carrying on death. Weapons never disappear.
When a player falls below X HP movement is limited to crouch or prone and they cannot attack until someone heals them back to strength (they can commit suicide any time)
If a player is brought below X HP by a zombie (I'm thinking somewhere from 75-90) or attacked by one while below said HP they are infected and perish. The zombie encounter increases by one and a zombie spawns on his corpse. Alternatively, the infection takes the form of a steady HP drain and the player only succumbs to the infection when HP reaches 0.
Zombie traits:
Zombie size, strength, and speed varies per individual, as it did for the humans they previously were.
Zombies do NOT run. They walk at a variable speed from that of a clot normal difficulty to one of suicidal difficulty, depending on the individual.
Zombies do NOT home in on their target like in vanilla, but detect them based on sight and hearing.
Zombies can be killed not only by decapitation or a single headshot with any firearm, but by taking a severe amount of damage to the body (varying per individual, but roughly 6p HoE husk health).
Zombies retain the grapple ability of the clot.
Weapon traits:
The knife and 9mm can be dropped, potentially bringing carry weight to 0 kilograms.
Explosives do far greater damage than vanilla, but exclusively to the body.
Decrease accuracy while shooting from the hip, severely; the effect being variable per weapon type and increased while moving. Something along the lines of--from most accurate to least accurate-- Submachine guns > Shotguns > Assault/Battle Rifles > Handguns > Lever/Bolt/Single-fire guns (and crossbows!) > Incendiary Weapons ~ Launchers > Dual weapons
Add variable muzzle sway/shaking when using iron sights, which increases according to fatigue drain and zombie proximity, to the point where hitting a target closer than several meters becomes a real crapshoot. The effect is further magnified by the number of zombies in close proximity.
Guns jam (rarely). Less complicated ones have it happen less.
Cut the syringe launcher from all the medic guns. Replace it with a fire-selector, either between f/a and semi or f/a and 3-rd burst.
(?)All players start unarmed/only with a knife (not sure about this).
(?)Melee weapons have limited condition and have a small chance of breaking and becoming useless any time. Tougher weapons have a smaller chance of breaking (not sure about this).
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