Balancing perks around roles

[Aze]

Looking at all the rather wild discussions regarding perk balancing, i noticed that when suggesting things, it didn't seem like people were discussing with a real goal. Instead of random discussions, why not be more exact in how you view the perks and how you think they should be categorized?

I will start:

I see 4 main perk group roles:
A) Trashkiller
B) Heavykiller
C) Middlegrounder (of A and B)
D) "Pure" support

Let me explain the groups and which perks fit in them (described from a CAMPING POINT OF VIEW + mostly viewed from HoE 6-man):

A) Trashkiller. The perk that is quickly described as "good against lesser specimen, bad against big specimen". But let me be more thorough. Clots, Stalkers and Crawlers should be a complete breeze to kill with this group. The Gorefast and Bloat shouldn't be too much trouble either. The Husk and Siren are average to take down. Scrake and Fleshpound should be hard to down with this group of perks.
Which perks fit: Commando and Firebug.
The Commando might have more troubles with Husks and Sirens than the Firebug, but Bloats and Gorefasts are easier, due to the ease of headshotting them.

Problems: I'd say the Firebug might need a tad boost in general, cuz even the weakest enemy, the Clot, can take a tiny bit too long to die from the DoT on HoE.


B) Heavykiller. This perk should be more suited than other perks at taking down the bigger targets, in particular the Scrake and/or Fleshpound (depending on what weapons you choose). But they are more than that. They can also be good at taking out the lesser specimen, but they generally can't do it as easily as the Trashkillers, and especially not alone. This also varies a bit more with their weapon loadouts though. Interestingly enough, both perks here might really hate Stalkers, because they can block important shots quite annoyingly.
Which perks fit: Sharpshooter and Demolitions.
In general, the Sharpshooter is better against Scrakes (and single targets), and the Demolitions is better against Fleshpounds (and crowds), but their weapon choices can specialize more towards killing one or the other (or both!) of these specimen, at the cost of something else (like close combat, trashkilling powers etc).
For example, Demolitions using M32+M79 is generally better against light trash and Fleshpounds, while LAW is better against medium trash and also Scakes, due to being able to stun them (but still not bad against Fleshpounds or big groups of trash). Or, the Sharpshooter using the Xbow+HC is better fit against Scrakes but worse against Fleshies (if alone that is), while M14+LAR is better against Fleshpounds (soloing them that is) and taking out non-lined-up trash, but not as awesome against Scrakes, especially not with lots of enemies in front of them.

Problems: I'd say the 2 perks are mostly fine, but some changes could be made (mostly in terms of prices)


C) Middlegrounder. Able to assist/kill most things in the game, but not as good against heavy specimen as the heavykillers, and not as good against trash specimen as the trashkillers. They have their weakness though, mostly noticeable is the shorter range of their weaponry. But their damage output is definitely one of their strengths however, and the reason they are so versatile too.
Which perks fit: Support Specialist and Berserker.
Another interesting thing about these 2 perks is that they have 3 common specimen they quite dislike: Crawlers, Sirens and Husks. Crawlers are annoying cuz you need to aim down and/or sit down to kill them which is quite annoying towards both perks. Husks are dangerous due to their long range, but once the Berserker/Support gets close, they pose much less threat to the player. Sirens are very dangerous towards these perks though. Another interesting thing about them is that they are supposedly meant to be better against one of the 2 heavy specimen. The Berserker can stun the Scrake (and kite the Fleshpound, which imo is too powerful), and the Support can assist much better against the Fleshpounds due to the extra handgrenades (and oneshot Scrakes with Hunting Shotgun using a little trick, which imo is too powerful).
On top of their damaging powers, they support in other ways too: The Berserker is a good tank, for example in a doorway and the Support Specialist is the best welder of all perks, obviously.

Problems: Both perks have too many strengths and too few weaknesses. The Support shouldn't be able to solo Fleshpounds so well, and definetly not be able to oneshot Scrakes (6-man HoE that is, remember?). The Berserker needs to be made less awesome at kiting, and also not nearly as good (or at all?) at kiting Fleshpounds, especially considering the perk's unlimited ammo and cheap weapons.


D) "Pure" support. This is quite obviously the Medic. The perk is basicly there for 3 things: Heal people, tank big enemies with their awesome armor and to kill whatever they can when they don't do the first 2 things.

Problems: None really.


Solutions to all perks and their problems:

Commando:
It's fine. I'd shift the weights between the Bullpup and SCAR though, but that's it.

Firebug:
* Rework the burn DoT, so it deals the same overall damage, but faster (over 8 sec instead of 10 for example, like in Scary_ghosts community beta).
* Fix the Mac10 from not being able to kill Crawlers with the burn damage, and make its damage (at least burn damage) and total ammo scale up too.
* Change starting weapons to, level 5 = Mac10, level 6 = Flamethrower
* Add a new perk bonus to the perk: From level 0 to 6, you get a 0-6% (% bonus is obviously directly linked to the perk level ) damagemultiplier added on burning specimen, meaning, when you lit a target on fire, ANYONE shooting at the burning target gets an extra X% (6% at Firebug level 6, being the highest) damage done on it.

Sharpshooter:
Mostly price changes
* Increase LAR price to 400, but include it in Sharpie discount (due to the weapon's awesome offperk versatility)
* Increase Xbow's price to 1250, but include it in Sharpie discount (due to the extreme sellvalue) and reduce base bolt price from 20 down to somewhere around 10 - 15 (due to a bit too pricey ammo)
* Increase M14's headshotmultiplier to 2.30 (from 2.25) so you can oneshot Husks and Sirens on 6-man HoE, and possibly also swap the lasersight and aimpoint scope between the M14 and SCAR?
* Reimplement the reloadspeed for Dual Handcannons and fix the stupid pickup bug (Scary_ghost has fixed it in his beta )

Demolitions:
Also mostly price changes
* Add a discount for Handgrenades (level 0, 1 and 2: 25% discount, level 3 to 6: 50% discount) (due to the expensive levelling)
* Give the M79 the same discount as the Pipebombs (due to the expensive levelling and its sellvalue)
* Change starting weapons to, level 5 = M79, level 6 = M79 + 3 more handgrenades.
* Reduce the Pipebomb base price to 1000 (makes each bomb cost 130 instead of 195)

Support:
* To remove the Scrake oneshot trick, reduce shotgun headshotmultiplier from 1.65 to something lower (like, only 1.1 or 1.25 or so) and remove the ability to flinch a Scrake with melee weapons if you are not a Berserker.
* Remove the handgrenade damage bonus, so soloing Fleshpounds is much harder / less frequently doable. Having up to 11x grenades is ok though, because i personally like Supports having a slight edge when dealing with Fleshies, but at the moment they are too strong with having damage bonus on the nades too.

Berserker:
* Reduce movement speed to 15 or 20% to reduce kiting powers.
* Make Fleshpounds unkiteable by doing a number of things: Make line-of-sighting not reset the rage-o-meter, but rather just pause it. Make a missed swing from a Fleshpound NOT reset the rage-o-meter either. Make a HIT from a non-raged swing only pause the rage-o-meter too, rather than resetting it. No more mechanic exploits.
* Buff Chainsaw (increase primary damage so it oneheadshots the small trash from the front, and increase secondary's headshotmultiplier to 1.25x so you can stun Scrakes from the front with it!)
* Make the Patriarch shoot a rocket after he kneels down, if he is surrounded (to remove the "autowin" by surrounding him with Berserkers)

Medic:
I'd only do one change really, and that is to make the Medic's speed be 20% at max level. I dislike having different speeds depending on difficulty and would rather keep it consistant.


Now, what is YOUR opinion of what the perks belong to?

 

[Blockbot]

Commando.

Agree.
Ak Needs some work. bit less spread.

Firebug

agree.

Sharpshooter.

Agree.

But let the xbow be, its fine.

Demo.

Disagree.

but. that pipe bomb thingy of urs! (Y)

Support

agree with grenades thingy. and disagree on scrake thingy.
make scrakes, bloat, and fp take all the penetration.

Berserker.

Disagree.

Fp's hard enough with berzerker. and its not always, zerker have total control over the situations as he has when kiting

* Make the Patriarch shoot a rocket after he kneels down, if he is surrounded (to remove the "autowin" by surrounding him with Berserkers)

Disagree... with noumerous occasions when having 15-35 hp make him kneel and run away is one of the few things while not playing zerker saved me, (but lost anyway xD)

Instead dont change the "stack Damge" on patty so loads of melee attacks would be less power full. like the pipebomb stacking If I remember right

Agree with Chainsaw thing.

Medic

Disagree. but make self healing less efficient. so its normal to not make it better than Berserker at kiting

And last I like colours

 

[Aze]

Commando.

Agree.
Ak Needs some work. bit less spread.

First: OUCH MY EYES, that red colour truly sucks against the dark background
Second: Maybe so, but i personally think the AK is already powerful enough. And a little tip: Don't shoot fullauto unless you really have to, like when finishing off a Husk/Siren/Scrake/Fleshpound (if you are assisting with killing them) when they get too close to comfort.

Sharpshooter.

Agree.

But let the xbow be, its fine.

No it's not. With the changes i proposed, it would be much harder (or at least, a lot less valuable) to do the Xbow-death-respawn trick for loads of money (Due to the discount and 1250 baseprice, it would only cost 375 to purchase, and only be worth 281 to sell, instead of the current 600)

Demo.

Disagree.

but. that pipe bomb thingy of urs! (Y)

Why do you disagreed on the handgrenade discount, and the M79 discount (it's not gonna change much at level 6, but it would be much cheaper at level 0 and up)

Support

agree with grenades thingy. and disagree on scrake thingy.
make scrakes, bloat, and fp take all the penetration.

So you don't think instakilling the Scrake with a Hunting Shotgun to the face even on 6-man HoE is overpowered?

However, your idea of having the Bloat, Scrake and FP soaking up all the penetration is a good one

Berserker.

Disagree.

Fp's hard enough with berzerker. and its not always, zerker have total control over the situations as he has when kiting

That's the point! He is supposed to have at least ONE natural enemy. Right now he really doesn't, if he kites. It's way to easy to Zerker-kite, and it's really annoying when one game might turn into several hours of gameplay. Make it impossible to kite the FP and have the Sharpies/Demos/Support players killing them instead, so the Berserker has to rely on his team and emphasize on TEAMPLAY with the perk as well.

Disagree... with noumerous occasions when having 15-35 hp make him kneel and run away is one of the few things while not playing zerker saved me, (but lost anyway xD)

Ah but i think you missed something there:
He only shoots a rocket after kneeling, IF HE IS SURROUNDED (could be programmed with something like, if he has 3 or more players close to him when he kneels, he will shoot a rocket right after, which cannot be interrupted by a consecutive kneeling)

Medic

Disagree. but make self healing less efficient. so its normal to not make it better than Berserker at kiting

Self healing is already not so efficient, taking up all 100 energy from the Syringe. He is already much worse than the Berserker at kiting due to not having powerful perked weapons at his disposal, plus the fact that once the Medic loses the armor, you no longer are so durable at all!

And last I like colours

I noticed that ^^

 

[DDC1234]

I think the changes are relatively good.
Between Aze + Blockbot desire changes something good could come out.

 

[scary ghost]

Super Zombies mutator solves all your berserker problems

 

[Blockbot]

Super Zombies mutator solves all your berserker problems

lol, then he isn't going to be used at all... think that the berserker is allready to much underused because people find him really hard to level up. only adding the brute thing makes him near to impossible to use if u dont have a xbow in hand... which ammo comes very expensive... and then the class kinda sucks to everything...

This is one of the few perks that has a real disedvantage if u meat a tripple siren, some fire shooters. bumch of crawlers. double fp dam, double scrake... in 1v1 zerkers pown ofc. else you need a long ranger

 

[Blockbot]

No it's not. With the changes i proposed, it would be much harder (or at least, a lot less valuable) to do the Xbow-death-respawn trick for loads of money (Due to the discount and 1250 baseprice, it would only cost 375 to purchase, and only be worth 281 to sell, instead of the current 600)

I think we should start with lar + handcannon ^^, instead cuz xbow allways get empty anyways which you dont get with a level 5lar starter weapon.

Why do you disagreed on the handgrenade discount, and the M79 discount (it's not gonna change much at level 6, but it would be much cheaper at level 0 and up)

This is why you have zerkers and firebug... sparing money for the expensive perks

So you don't think instakilling the Scrake with a Hunting Shotgun to the face even on 6-man HoE is overpowered?

I do agree that this it's powerfull. but getting this close, and adding the non penetration on scrake means that there will be a huge **** behind the scrake ready to take you on while you have the long reload time on the hunting ****gun

That's the point! He is supposed to have at least ONE natural enemy. Right now he really doesn't, if he kites. It's way to easy to Zerker-kite, and it's really annoying when one game might turn into several hours of gameplay. Make it impossible to kite the FP and have the Sharpies/Demos/Support players killing them instead, so the Berserker has to rely on his team and emphasize on TEAMPLAY with the perk as well.

He has loads of them... when they come in gangs he is dead... litlerly... ever tried taking on 4 gorefasts. 3 sirens or 3crawlers at a time... you always loosing health. and last I checked. if u gang on a scrake and time it badly. ur dead as soon u find out that lol the scrake is also dead. the Berserker weakness is numbers. just like sharpshooter. he can maybe solo fps and scrakes. but in numbers he is good as dead.

Self healing is already not so efficient, taking up all 100 energy from the Syringe. He is already much worse than the Berserker at kiting due to not having powerful perked weapons at his disposal, plus the fact that once the Medic loses the armor, you no longer are so durable at all!

lul. not at lower levels atleast... never tried medic kiting on higher levels. but my suggestions stands

 

[Rhenna]

Generally agree with Aze's ideas with two exceptions:

Dislike the idea of raising the price of the LAR. Short of finding something randomly spawned, it's currently about the only decent weapon that Level 4 and lower-ranked players can afford with their initial

 

[Steeps]

Sure, I'll do this again. Luckily I can copy this from other posts pretty quickly.

These are not necessarily the roles that the perks currently have, but the ones that I think they should have and what needs to be done to get them there.

Field Medic - Defensive support
Role is primarily to heal, block fleshpounds/damage, save teammates, etc. Basically keep the team alive and fighting.
-I agree, keep speed at a constant 20%.
-I wouldn't be against a slight nerf to armor but I don't think it's necessary.

Support Specialist - Close range damage
Role is to take down the zeds that are in your face and threatening to overrun the squad.
-Scale speed normally with all of the other perks. There should be a downside to carrying 24kg of weight.
-Unperk (and possibly lower max amount of) grenades.

Sharpshooter - Long range
Opposite of Support. Point of this perk is to take out zeds from a distance before they can get close and cause problems.
-Maybe bring back 9mm reload bonus, but not sure of this one.
-Raise price of Xbow to 1200 but perk it. Scrakes aside, this weapon is as good off-perked as it is perked.
-Raise price of LAR to 400-500 for the same reasoning as the Xbow. Not being able to have this gun early off-perked (unless someone buys it for you) is also an indirect nerf to the berserker.

Berserker - Melee specialist/tank
Role is to be able to kill zeds up close and take hits for the team.
-Lower stats to pre-patch. Regardless of your opinion on kiting, it's just too easy to do now.
-Buff chainsaw. I suggest making it super strong and giving it fuel.
-Fix FP rage mechanics as in the SUPER ZOMBIE MUTATOR (this title sounds kinda cool for some reason )

Commando - Trash killing
Kills the trash. Enough said.
-Pretty well-balanced now, though I wouldn't be against a slight speed increase at alter levels. Maybe 5% or so at lv 6.
-Change SCAR weight to 6 or 7.
-Increase Bullpup headshot multiplier to make it a viable option.

Firebug - offensive support
Currently overshadowed by commando and support regarding trash killing. We don't need another trash killer, so let's focus on a more supportive role. By dealing damage, firebug should be making his squadmates' lives easier. Unfortunately he hardly does it at this stage in the game.
-Change DPS to make it useful again. Sure he's the "damage multiplier" as people around here like to call him, but in the way the game's set up it's usually far more convenient to just kill the zeds. Perhaps zeds on fire (with the exception of the husk) take 25% more damage. This way the perk could potentially be worthwhile.
-Give him some other supportive ability. In the past I suggested an alt fire on the flamer that slows down incoming zeds (could be useful for raging scrakes and fleshpounds) with the downside of dealing minimal damage and using fuel at a faster rate.
-More fuel for the flamer. One extra canister sounds fair.
-Another weapon/gadget would be nice, but I'd rather have no new weapons than a poorly implemented one.
-Possibly have the ability to turn off burn effects in the settings. Flaming zeds makes the lives of sharpshooters living hell, not to mention it hurts performance.

Demolitions - Extreme damage
Deals a lot of damage to a single zed or group of zeds with the downside of expensive weaponry and limited self-defense capabilities. Like commando, I wouldn't change to much about this perk.
-Maybe at lv 5 or 6 make his grenades (and possibly pipes) immune to siren screams.
-Slightly increase the hp requirements for pipe bombs so headless bloats no longer ruin all of the fun.

 

[Skalli]

lul. not at lower levels atleast... never tried medic kiting on higher levels. but my suggestions stands

You're making suggestions and say "yes" or "no" to some other suggestions.. Did you really play ALL of the perks enough and in every difficulty to be able placing a comment right here? Sorry but I don't think so. When I read your first post in this thread and your disagrees I feel like "this guy didn't even spend much time on HoE".

Yes, don't nerf Support, Berserker is fine, too.. Sorry it's nothing personal.

 

[sph34r]

Sharpshooter: I disagree with your M14 change - if you could 1 shot Sirens and Husks with it, there would literally be no reason to switch off of it unless you run out of ammo. As for the LAR, alright. 200 is incredibly cheap for a weapon with the amount of ammo the LAR has.

Support: In my opinion, a more effective change would be to reduce the support's max grenade capacity to 5.

As for the scrake trick, I think it's fine the way it is because the scrake is either "a joke" (sharp/berserker/support) or "very difficult" (firebug/demo/medic/commando). All it would do if you made the support unable to solo a scrake is to lead the support player to seek a teammate to take care of the scrake for him. Instead, you should propose a change that would only make it DIFFICULT to solo a scrake (not unreasonable to the point where the support needs to just get a teammate to do it). I just think at this point killing scrakes is a part of the support's arsenal and completely removing it is a bad idea. It has already been established as a part of the class, and in my opinion isn't OP to the point of needing a complete nerf. What makes support arguably OP, in my opinion, is that he can solo 5 FPs with all of his grenades (with 5 grenades it would only be 2 FPs at most).

Firebug: Please yes anything to buff the poor firebug.

Demo: From what I understand, you made things cheaper at the expense of not spawning with pipes anymore to prevent suiciding for 2 free pipes. I don't have the foresight to predict if the money changes balance out for the better or worse in the long run, so I'm hesitant to support the changes. I'd like you to know though that if your intent was in fact just to prevent "suicide for pipes", then you can't really stop it because on a good team, you will always have enough money for this:

(if you're wondering, that's 5-man HoE foundry, and there are a few more pipes that aren't visible in the picture)

Berserker: Yeah, OP class. Personally I stopped playing the class beyond the occasional derp after finding a group of friends where I could play non kite-fests, so I don't really care how badly you nerf the class as long as the essential playstyle remains the same. That is, if you make the current playstyle require more technical-skill to pull off, then I agree with you.

 

[Aze]

Sharpshooter: I disagree with your M14 change - if you could 1 shot Sirens and Husks with it, there would literally be no reason to switch off of it unless you run out of ammo. As for the LAR, alright. 200 is incredibly cheap for a weapon with the amount of ammo the LAR has.

Well, for Scrakes and Crawlers, it is better to bring out the lar so you can stun and oneshot them respectively. The M14 is a tier 3 weapon, supposedly a weapon which should be versatile and strong, like the SCAR and AA12. Why is it so bad to let the M14 be USEFUL?

Support: In my opinion, a more effective change would be to reduce the support's max grenade capacity to 5.

Well, that could work too. Imo though, i think it is better with the 11 grenades, but without bonus damage. Why? Well, the extra amount suits with the Supports ability to carry more stuff on him, and also allows him to "unweld" more doors with the grenades (you know, in emergencies). The extra damage for grenades though, is imo purely the Demolitions forte.

As for the scrake trick, I think it's fine the way it is because the scrake is either "a joke" (sharp/berserker/support) or "very difficult" (firebug/demo/medic/commando). All it would do if you made the support unable to solo a scrake is to lead the support player to seek a teammate to take care of the scrake for him. Instead, you should propose a change that would only make it DIFFICULT to solo a scrake (not unreasonable to the point where the support needs to just get a teammate to do it). I just think at this point killing scrakes is a part of the support's arsenal and completely removing it is a bad idea. It has already been established as a part of the class, and in my opinion isn't OP to the point of needing a complete nerf. What makes support arguably OP, in my opinion, is that he can solo 5 FPs with all of his grenades (with 5 grenades it would only be 2 FPs at most).

Thing is, you would still be able to solo a Scrake, (using AA12 or Shotgun blasts before finishing with the Hunting Shotgun), but not be able to get it down INSTANTLY. That makes the perk too versatile and even quicker to down a Scrake than the supposed "master Scrake-killer", the Sharpshooter (and sort of the Demolitions with LAW too).
And what you said:
" All it would do if you made the support unable to solo a scrake is to lead the support player to seek a teammate to take care of the scrake for him" ... well that's the point! To rely on your team more, even though with this nerf you could still solo it, but it would require some more effort and ammo spent. Thus, relying on the Sharpie (for example) to down the Scrake more elegantly promotes teamwork, which this game is supposed to be about!

Demo: From what I understand, you made things cheaper at the expense of not spawning with pipes anymore to prevent suiciding for 2 free pipes. I don't have the foresight to predict if the money changes balance out for the better or worse in the long run, so I'm hesitant to support the changes. I'd like you to know though that if your intent was in fact just to prevent "suicide for pipes", then you can't really stop it because on a good team, you will always have enough money for this:

(if you're wondering, that's 5-man HoE foundry, and there are a few more pipes that aren't visible in the picture)

Well, that wasn't the intention, but it is a good sideeffect (the suicide for expensive pipes)
The intention is to make the Demo start with a more playable loadout, like all other perks do already at level 5.
I would like to make a completely different thing with the pipes though, but it would require too much work (even though, id say it would be worth it) It requires a maxcap on the player so you can't put down more than 2 pipes (unperked), up to like 4 or even 8(?) when playing as Demo. That way, you could actually lower the cost for them even more, cuz you wouldn't be able to spam them anyway. It would also require more programming though, like being able to remote detonate them (so you can remove one manually, to be able to place a new one again, in emergency for example) and stuff like that.

Berserker: Yeah, OP class. Personally I stopped playing the class beyond the occasional derp after finding a group of friends where I could play non kite-fests, so I don't really care how badly you nerf the class as long as the essential playstyle remains the same. That is, if you make the current playstyle require more technical-skill to pull off, then I agree with you.

It would still remain the same basicly, in a teamsetting, but you wouldnt be able to solo NEARLY as well as now, because Fleshpounds would get to you no matter how much you would try and kite them. So it only removes kiting really.

 

[Darox]

The biggest problem I have is that I disagree with your definitions for the perks. Especially when it comes to Heavy killers.

The Demo, for instance, is an amazing trash killer, especially if he's using the nade launchers. He can clear out a fresh 6x spawn of crawlers a damn sight faster than a commando, that's for sure. If he's carrying a LAW, he's also pretty amazing at damage control should chaos ensue. The massive AoE, instagibbing of Sirens, and the ability to stun multiple scrakes helps a lot with recovering from a breach and preventing potential wipes. He's absolutely abysmal at killing Scrakes by himself though. He can do it, but at an exorbitant cost to his strained ammo reserves.

Same deal with the Sharpshooter, trash killing is one of his greatest strengths. Stick a single sharpshooter on a side passage while camping, and he can happily plug away at the trickle of zeds till the end of time. Between the 9mm, handcannon, LAR, and M14, he's got plenty of options for rapidly decimating groups of trash zeds. Hell, if he wants to go through the bother, he can grab a SCAR and do just as well if not better than a Commando with it.

If I was to make any changes, they would be as follows:

Commando - Give his weapons penetration and a perk penetration bonus specific to them. Possibly slightly increase his perk damage bonus.
The Commando isn't a bad perk. He's a lot of fun to play, and he's great at massacring groups of gorefasts and clots. The problem is he's not notably better at it than other perks like the Support and Sharpie, while being far less useful against Scrakes and Fleshpounds.

Firebug - It's hard to say. His biggest problem is he's no good at killing Gorefasts efficiently. And as a designated trash killer, that's a huge problem.

Sharpshooter - Tiny damage bonus to the M14 so you can decap husks and sirens with a single headshot in 6 man. It's really sad that I hope one of my teammates will die when I play sharpie on 6 man HoE, just so that they're brought down to that oneshot range. Aside from that and cheaper xBow bolts, he's fine.

Demolitions - He's got some big glaring flaws, but when he's in his element he shines. Maybe slightly better discounts, but otherwise fine.

Support - Remove the grenade damage bonus. The Scrake trick is fine. It's similar to Berserkers killing Fleshpounds, it requires a degree of skill and if done wrong or interrupted leads to a lot of hurt. If anything should be done to it, the swap time from Katana to HS should be increased slightly to give it more risk.

Medic - S'fine. The armour is a little strong, but the lack of decent damage output and existence of sirens makes up for it.

Berserker - Drop the universal resistance down to 30%, halve the bile resistance. Change the speed bonus to 5/10/10/15/15/20/25%.

Additional:
Fleshpound - Keep the existing mechanics, but reduce the timeout to 8 seconds, and double the rage accumulation for timeout if his target is moving away from him. (IE, he'll timeout and rage in 4 seconds if his target is constantly running from him)
Also increase the potency of his grinder and 1-2 punch attacks so that they are on par with the double fist smash. The grinder attack especially is rather weak compared to the other too.

 

[outofrealman]

Sharpshooter: now body shot do next to nothing. So xbow penertration is useless. You cant kill a clot with two more zed is standing in front of him unless that's a head shot.
Slightly increase body shot damage is fine IMO. (unless they fix all zed's hitboxes once and for all, then I would like the body shot dmg stay as is)
And NO to the M14 mutiplier buff. It already have many ammo, if nearly nothing make them switch to LAR, it may be... (I just dont like it... oh well)

Support: The main problem is he kill fps too easily now. Remove number of nades OR remove bonus dmg alone cant solve the problem. 1 nade + two hunting shotgun alt-fire = ~80% health of a 6-man fp. Unless the whole team are totally retards, no fp should be able to hit anyone after the blast of support. And even you give no nades to support, two hunting shotgun blast still do ~60-70% damage to fps. Support can solo pounds, but with its trash killing power, it still over shines some of the perks.

Scrakes: YEAH, scrakes. Many people think that katana is the weapon to "interupt scrake's attack", or whatever you call it. But in nature, scrakes' attack can be "canceled" by doing enough damage to him. Actually off-perk xbow can also do it. If you do more damage with a single hit, he is "stuned".
I dont understand why this feature is made in the first place... They should just remove this feature IMO. With the current setting, Firebug and commando also kill scrakes with ease.

Firebug: You can keep saying burning zeds is "not blocking sights", and firebug is "good at killing trash" all day... but it is blocking and it is no where near good for trash unless you stack several FT on the ground. We had enough of these sxxt. Some kind of buff is needed.

Demo: Pipes are too expensive. And demo is way too good against anything except scrkaes. A decent demo in the team can kill more than half of the zeds from trash to medium, and all fps in a wave. But everyone say demo is fine, its fine for now then (wait and see what they say after they successfully nerf support to the ground)...
Killing, or at least stunning 80% of the zeds and leave only scrakes or fp(s) with health as much as a gorefasts for 5 other people... surely it is not over powered.


Berserker: I still think you should make them "much harder" to kite, especially fps, but not impossible. If breaking LoS only pause the timer, you have no way on earth to prevent a fp from raging. You make it totally impossible for commando or firebug to play solo without pipes, and they can just suicide if they are the last one standing in mutiplayer.
I like the idea of reverse the rage timer if a fp cant see anyone more. And if he hit something, the timer should reset too. If berserkers need to tank a few hits if the want to kite fp, it already 10 times harder for most of the players (with also the speed nerf). If they LoS kite fps they simply cant kill the fp. If they keep LAR his head, they either rage the fp after a few shots or use much more time to do so.
The result is, all slow moving zeds (scrakes, sirens, and bloats) will stay together and the kiter will be sandwished by fleshpound(s) + gorefasts + crawlers and a HELL LOT of sirens and scrakes it he kite too long.
This is hard enough for 95% of the players. And for those 5% of players... we always have teamkill mut and super zombie mut... I dont see the reason to satisfy those 5% of player by screwing up 95% of them.

Commando: IMO, SCAR should one-shot crawlers. Scrakes is buffed quite a lot really... with the "attack interupt" removed, I see no problem to increase the dmg of SCAR. (or just give it penertration like many player suggested)

Medic: if you think medic need any kind of nerf, I cant communicate with you.

 

[horzineplumpudding]

and possibly also swap the lasersight and aimpoint scope between the M14 and SCAR?

No. Anything, but not this.

 

[Aze]

Lots of responses, now when im home from work

Super Zombies mutator solves all your berserker problems

Yeah, i love the Fleshpounds changes there

Generally agree with Aze's ideas with two exceptions:

Dislike the idea of raising the price of the LAR. Short of finding something randomly spawned, it's currently about the only decent weapon that Level 4 and lower-ranked players can afford with their initial

 

[horzineplumpudding]

Alright, you seem very intent on not changing that, but may i ask why?

Yep. Anyone who selects the sharpshooter perk is interested in the headshot bonus (or the free Xbow, but that's just for the 1st wave). Furthermore, anyone who buys a M14 is probably interested in its rate of fire. So, the main interest of the M14 is hitting many headshots in a short amount of time. I'll explain why removing the red dot would pose a problem, to me at least.

If you line up every weapon heavier than 4 blocks from both commandos and sharpshooters, you can place them on a simple scale based on rate of fire vs damage per shot (except for the SCAR which fires faster than the AK47, but it often used as a semi-auto weapon anyway). Both SCAR and M14 are in the middle obviously and removing the red dot from the M14 will only bring the M14 closer to the LaR and make the gap bigger between weapons from the two perks.

Now, if you remove the laser dot from the M14, firing fast with a good accuracy will become impossible (to me at least), not because of the design of the iron-sight, but because of the recoil animation of the model. So firing fast with a M14 will become spammy and ineffective since bodyshots don't do much. Now, if you still want to hit headshots, you will be faced by two options : 1) Leave the damage per shot as it is and the M14 will become an inferior weapon due to the obligation to fire slower 2) Buff the damage per shot and it will become a more expensive LaR (or something very close) with a bigger mag and different reload mechanics.

However, I'm okay with giving a laser sight to both M14 and SCAR. So, both weapons would allow accurate shooting with a good mobility which is fine given their 2500 price tag. The M14 will be able to take the big zeds down while the SCAR will excel in emergency situation against numerous small zeds (like 6 crawlers at very short range ready to pounce) thanks to its full-auto mode.

 

[outofrealman]

I mean, it's so silly that you sometimes shoot an enemy in the forehead or ear or something and that counts as a BODYSHOT? Confuses me so much.

You CLEARLY miss the head, but it count as a body shot.
You are up at a gorefast's face, you keep melee where his head appear to be, but he keeps slashing your face. It is no way a half-decent zerker miss so much times (not to mention melee hitboxes is larger).

And why no to the hs-multiplier for the M14? You can oneshot Sirens and Husks aaaaall the way up to 5-man HoE, but NOT on 6-man HoE. It's not exactly overpowered really. The LAR is still very useful anyway (Crawler oneshotted and Scrake stunning), so i don't really see the concern about this... And it's a frikkin tier 3 weapon which is expensive. Why should it be not be able to do its job ONLY on 6-man HoE?

Well... ok then, I suppose its still fine.

Umm you are talking about Hard and below huh? Cuz you can't flinchlock the Scrake at all on Suicidal and HoE, wether you are Berserker or not.
Same about the Xbow, it can only stun on Hard and Below. We're talking about 6-man HoE here...

Cos not, I never consider thing under HoE (or suicidal b4 HoE was added).
You cant flinch lock a scrake, but you can flinch him once. Which is done by doing enough dmg to him. It can be done mutiple times b4 the scrake buff, but you can only do it once now.

I think that's fine, just like the Sharpshooter can kill almost everything too. At least for as long as they have backup. The Sharpie and Demo are "glasscannons" sorta, meaning if they are getting attacked by the ZEDs, they might have tremendous troubles killing these things. Give them a Commando/Support/Firebug/Berserker holding the trespassers down, and yes the Sharpie, but especially Demo, are really strong. Which is fine, cuz that means they are working well in a team. You have to look at both the perk as an individual and alone, and at the perk in a group. The Demolitions perk is balanced.

SS NEED head shots. Demo miss, and still rapes groups and groups of zeds. EVEN it screw up the aim really bad, all those clots are stuned. Nothing gets to the team before he reloads. If you reload everytime after one shot, you can stun groups of zed all day long. SS is no match with demo in this.
Yeah, just like many people think zerker is OP (WHEN SOLO), then support and demo is OP in the team. Because you simply overkill and out damage commando and firebug (even if you buff SCAR back and buff Firebug).
Then what's the point of playing those two perks (personal preference should not be considered)?
And you seems to think that "working as a team" can make anything fine, but zerker is OP at kiting, meanwhile they suck really bad when forced to camp, which happens most of the time "as a team".

The thing is, do we really WANT kiting games? It's annoying as hell to play a game for several hours, just because someone has a hardon for kiting. And why not add this unkiteable Fleshpound on Suicidal and HoE, where soloing shouldn't really happen? That would be a good compromise, no?

No. The is a survival game, anytime you are not dead, you should be fighting for your life, not wait untill you die sooner or later. Reverser timer is hard enough to kite, believe me, it is. I run into several game where the team has to kite (as zerker team or half of the team dies), after may be 15 minutes of kiting, all sirens scrakes and bloats will stack up as a group of 10 or even more of them. While bloat can instand kill non-medic and zerker, and 3+ sirens rapes berserkers.

Anyway, the core problem is we get a melee perk in a FPS game... it cant fix in... A melee perk NEEDS to have speed and resistance to survive. And any of these two make them the best perk to solo. This cant be fixed. Making it harder is enough to discourage rambo while not screwing up the perk.

Still, I dont like the idea of "you have no chance to win, just kill yourself".

Penetration is probably a better answer, as that would only be a slight improvement. The Commando is so good against trash already that i don't see the point in this.

Good against trash... compare with firebug?
Even sharpshooter is better then commando as long as he can hit the head. Not to mention every head shot is a kill, not decap...
The reason why support and demo is better mainly because of two reasons:
1. AoE: AoE is ALWAYS better then single target attacks.
2. High damage: you KILL zeds, not decap them or let them burn for like 10 seconds.

That tiny nerf was more of a thing to change the inconsistancy of the perk. Just like i hate the inconsistancy of the Zerker spawn loadout on Suicidal and HoE (you don't get an armor) I'd rather fix the spawning weapons so they can be balanced and constant.

Is money really THAT much of a problem for most of you?
I really dont care what you spawn or the price... (unless it is as rediculous as pipes) you have a hell lot of spare cash even on HoE if you dont die every wave.

If you join at the middle of a late wave, you die even they spawn you with full ammo. You are far away from the team, and you dont have armour as most of the perks. You are a dead man in this suituation. (this could also use a fix too, late joiners should spawn one wave later, not instandly increase the amont of zed while dying at the begining of the wave)



Btw, I feel like I can really "discuss" in this thread, not just spam downvote by some of the no brainers here.

 

[scary ghost]

Yeah, i love the Fleshpounds changes there

Now that the mutator is greylisted, when the circus event is over, you should replace the patriarch and record the lolz that happens when they try to chainsaw gang bang him.

 

[sph34r]

First of all Aze, thanks for being polite. It's a refreshing thing in this forum.

Well, for Scrakes and Crawlers, it is better to bring out the lar so you can stun and oneshot them respectively. The M14 is a tier 3 weapon, supposedly a weapon which should be versatile and strong, like the SCAR and AA12. Why is it so bad to let the M14 be USEFUL?

Well, in my opinion the M14 is already useful. More than useful. Overpowered even. I can't agree with anything that would buff it seeing as it is already too versatile. It would be extremely convenient to be able to 1-shot Husks and Sirens, but I feel that that's what the LAR is for. You clear the trash quickly with the M14, then switch to the LAR and get rid of the sirens/husks with the LAR.

On a sidenote, if you hold the AA12 and SCAR in the same regard with respect to being versatile, then by those standards the M14 is already above and beyond versatile. Suppose a hypothetical weapon that had all the benefits of both the SCAR and AA12, then compare it to the M14. Killing trash, check. Lots of ammo, check. Kills big guys, check. Quick reload, check. Awesome sight, check. Doesn't weigh too much in the context of a realistic loadout for the class, check. Doesn't cost too much for a tier 3 weapon, check. Basically, I think the M14 is already extremely versatile.

Well, that could work too. Imo though, i think it is better with the 11 grenades, but without bonus damage. Why? Well, the extra amount suits with the Supports ability to carry more stuff on him, and also allows him to "unweld" more doors with the grenades (you know, in emergencies). The extra damage for grenades though, is imo purely the Demolitions forte.

I actually dislike the fact that the support can spam his grenades at doors and get away with it because he has so many. I would prefer a KF where using grenades on doors would hurt you a lot because grenades were limited. The support being the way he is, he almost always has grenades to "easy mode" the doors. It's a fair point but I see nade-spamming doors as too easy, so it should at least not be available to you ~2 more times than every other class.

Thing is, you would still be able to solo a Scrake, (using AA12 or Shotgun blasts before finishing with the Hunting Shotgun), but not be able to get it down INSTANTLY. That makes the perk too versatile and even quicker to down a Scrake than the supposed "master Scrake-killer", the Sharpshooter (and sort of the Demolitions with LAW too).
And what you said:
" All it would do if you made the support unable to solo a scrake is to lead the support player to seek a teammate to take care of the scrake for him" ... well that's the point! To rely on your team more, even though with this nerf you could still solo it, but it would require some more effort and ammo spent. Thus, relying on the Sharpie (for example) to down the Scrake more elegantly promotes teamwork, which this game is supposed to be about!

You said you could still solo it. From what I understood of your previous post, I thought you couldn't. If you can still solo the scrake without getting touched (assuming you do it right) but it would require more skill, then I have no disagreement.

Well, that wasn't the intention, but it is a good sideeffect (the suicide for expensive pipes)
The intention is to make the Demo start with a more playable loadout, like all other perks do already at level 5.
I would like to make a completely different thing with the pipes though, but it would require too much work (even though, id say it would be worth it) It requires a maxcap on the player so you can't put down more than 2 pipes (unperked), up to like 4 or even 8(?) when playing as Demo. That way, you could actually lower the cost for them even more, cuz you wouldn't be able to spam them anyway. It would also require more programming though, like being able to remote detonate them (so you can remove one manually, to be able to place a new one again, in emergency for example) and stuff like that.

You said 4, then 8. That's a pretty big difference, so I can't quite reply without knowing =P

It would still remain the same basicly, in a teamsetting, but you wouldnt be able to solo NEARLY as well as now, because Fleshpounds would get to you no matter how much you would try and kite them. So it only removes kiting really.

Well, alright. Like I said, I don't mind the berserker needing some more skill to be able to do well.