Balancing Berserker by Improving Zeds

[Darox]

Personally I think the berserker is pretty well balanced, but while the zerker can kill any zed alone with ease given the right circumstances (Just like sharp, support, demo, and medic ) two zeds stand out as being particularly ineffectual.
The Bloat, and the Stalker.

Thanks to the improvement in the zerkers universal damage reduction, combined with his existing bloat resistance, means that even on HoE bloats can only just manage to hurt zerkers. It's embarrassing how little damage they do, and frankly shocking to see how lethal they are when you use other perks.
Greatly reducing the berserkers reduction to bloat bile would make the bloat modestly threatening again, forcing players to actually make decisions about how to kill them, rather than treating them as a fat clot. Failing to score a decap would actually hurt, in a similar manner to a siren, rather than just taking off 2 armour and giving blurry vision for moment.

The stalker has been talked about a lot as the least lethal zed in the game, and it's especially apparent against the zerker. Even though the Stalker is the only zed that can keep up with a full speed zerker constantly, they will never connect because their attack is terrible. Their only threat is getting in your way while trying to shoot husks or melee a FP.
The first change is the oft-suggested moving attack, which I personally think should always trigger. The second is a scaling slow attached to the attack. Either percentage based or a flat reduction to the base speed while carrying a gun, which harms kiting zerkers & medics most without making stalkers rapetrains when attacking the slower perks.

Additional Note: Although zerkers also basically ignore clots thanks to grab immunity, eliminating it would have far too much negative impact on low skill players without making clots any harder to deal with at high levels. Also, I despise modifying perk abilities based on difficulty.

 

[Lacedaemonius]

The second is a scaling slow attached to the attack. Either percentage based or a flat reduction to the base speed while carrying a gun, which harms kiting zerkers & medics most without making stalkers rapetrains when attacking the slower perks.

Wait, what?



In any case I like your other suggestions but rather, instead of the stalker automatically doing a moving attack always, do a 3-strikes system. If the first 2 attacks don't connect standing still, THEN on the third try do a moving attack. Believe it or not, some of us without a super intense rig actually have a hard time seeing the stalkers until they're clawing our eyes out.

Also may I humbly re-suggest this?
[url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=52719[/URL]

 

[ph30nix]

to me bloat/stalker vs a besker it wasnt about the damage they do but about the fact they screw up your vision allowing other specimens to surround you easier. (skip to end for an idea)

and the bloat still does enough damage to me to be dangerous.

i still think adding an acceleration to the beserker would help alot and when he is hit he slows down again for a second or so and has to build up movement speed again.

but the beserker itself encourages Ramboing people want kills but if a beserker sticks with the group the range guys will kill most specmens before they reach the beserker(this comment is more about the average beserker in a pub server, im sure TEAMPLAYER beserkers arent like this) they want to max their kills so they run foward and either get swarmed and die or if they survive they turn it into a kite fest then people start leaving their position and start getting picked off until there arent enough people to hold the position and it gets over run and then all thast left is the kiting beserker who depending on type of person they are, start raging at the team for being bad and dieing or just quietly finishes the wave kiting which can take forever.

hmm thats another possible thought, Longer the wave goes on for the faster specimens become, being resonable about it though but just figure the average time a wave takes by specimen # and difficulty then if it takes X minutes longer than that the specimans start geting say 5% faster movement speed ever minute or so until end of wave?

 

[Darox]

Wait, what?

The idea being, if you get hit by a stalker, your movespeed gets temporarily reduced to what it would be if you had no perk speed bonuses and were carrying a gun, regardless of your actual perk/weapon. So it would have no effect on a commando holding his AK, would slow him down slightly if he had his knife out, and would significantly slow down a medic or berserker.

and the bloat still does enough damage to me to be dangerous.

I've got to treat this as a joke. Bloats do pathetic damage. On lower difficulties, they cannot so much as dent armour with their vomit, and even on HoE, you take no DoT and only minor armour damage from the initial stream. I've actually afk'd the start of a round, come back a minute later, and found a bloat had been beating on me the entire time, only to have lost 25 hp, most of it due to his cleaver attack. Any other specimen and I would have been dead or dying.

It's stands out especially because if you get vomited on as a non-zerk/medic perk, you take a LOT of damage. But a bloat on HoE is about as threatening to a zerker as a Husk is to a firebug. Less, because the zerker has no trouble quickly killing the bloat.

 

[HaTeMe]

i still think adding an acceleration to the beserker would help alot and when he is hit he slows down again for a second or so and has to build up movement speed again.

Wow that could actually work O_O
Like have him slow down to "normal" speed every time being hit and then after a second or two he gets back to his perked speed. After all, zerkers DO get hit rather often by crawlers and husks.

EDIT: Actually now that I gave a little more thought to it he'd need a bigger reduction to speed rather than just returning to "unperked" speed, cause you still run pretty quickly with a melee weapon even as non-zerker.

 

[ph30nix]

Wow that could actually work O_O
Like have him slow down to "normal" speed every time being hit and then after a second or two he gets back to his perked speed. After all, zerkers DO get hit rather often by crawlers and husks.

EDIT: Actually now that I gave a little more thought to it he'd need a bigger reduction to speed rather than just returning to "unperked" speed, cause you still run pretty quickly with a melee weapon even as non-zerker.

would reducing them below normal screw them on HoE?

 

[Lacedaemonius]

The idea being, if you get hit by a stalker, your movespeed gets temporarily reduced to what it would be if you had no perk speed bonuses and were carrying a gun, regardless of your actual perk/weapon. So it would have no effect on a commando holding his AK, would slow him down slightly if he had his knife out, and would significantly slow down a medic or berserker.



I've got to treat this as a joke. Bloats do pathetic damage. On lower difficulties, they cannot so much as dent armour with their vomit, and even on HoE, you take no DoT and only minor armour damage from the initial stream. I've actually afk'd the start of a round, come back a minute later, and found a bloat had been beating on me the entire time, only to have lost 25 hp, most of it due to his cleaver attack. Any other specimen and I would have been dead or dying.

It's stands out especially because if you get vomited on as a non-zerk/medic perk, you take a LOT of damage. But a bloat on HoE is about as threatening to a zerker as a Husk is to a firebug. Less, because the zerker has no trouble quickly killing the bloat.

Well then in that case I'm all for it. but might the effect on speed be variable with difficulty?

 

[ph30nix]

well looking at it one on one only a FP is any threat to a zerker and thats only if they dont try and kite it.

im more picturing a bloat mixed into a pack of clots/gores throw in a siren and thats just a pain in a butt group. and still to me the worst part about a bloat is the vision loss.

 

[Gridlok]

I actually want to see the bile resistance lowered by a good amount. I don't even bother dodging the puke anymore, I just cut through the bloat and keep running, idgaf.
Stalkers... have a special role to fill already, they block, they block very well. I've been gored fast and flesh pounded many a time because a group of stalkers I failed to see were grabbing at my nuts and stopping me from kiting. I've also thrown nades and had them stuffed by an over-eager stalker, gibbing my armor and pissing me off =/

When I do see them and can prepare for them they're no trouble, same could be said for any specimen though.

 

[HaTeMe]

would reducing them below normal screw them on HoE?

I doubt it, but yeah maybe its not such a good idea after all. If you dont reduce it below normal speed its probably useless, and if you do it might be too big of an annoyance.

 

[9_6]

The slowing may be a nice idea but doesn't really solve the problem that stalkers just have almost 0 chance to hit anything ever in the first place since they die from sneezing at them. Like big crawlers without an annoyingly deadly leaping attack.

Perhaps they should be invincible while "invisible" and permanently turn visible when hit for the first time. (maybe turn invincisible again after few seconds but that's just minor tweaking for a theory)
You know, first attack always "misses" which would make sense for the commando being good against them with his spraying weapons and would also make them a huge threat for anything that deals much damage in few shots.
Demos couldn't instagib them anymore, support couldn't mow them down in 1 shot, sharpies couldn't stun them with a HC bodyshot and need to waste 2 bullets since even headshots won't work and something that doesn't go down in 1 katana swipe is instantly more threatening to the zerker too. Fast moving mobile obstacles are quite the pain for those.

But perhaps that would turn them from zero into too much of a hero for something so common.

 

[OCAdam]

snip

Well, if you're really going to go from zero to hero... make them work like Bloodsuckers from Clear Sky... invincible while cloaked. That actually might make a Commando totally necessary then. But then make the stalker extra OP... although then having a non-moving attack actually worth keeping... just so they are fallable.

(note: do not take this post too seriously, semi-joking here)

 

[9_6]

I edited it in just that way just now.
Now it looks like I stoled your idea and the internet police is after me.
Brb, leaving country.