Bezerker games

[Neom.1r]

Hi, long time lurker, only just registered because I couldn't use my hotmail and I REALLY have some things to say about the game.

I have been playing KF on and off for around 2 years. I hated how 'overpowered' the SS used to be in that it could make a mockery of tough specs like the sc and fp but it was tolerable because the game was still enjoyable.

I mainly play as a medic, so the current 'all zerker' games aren't a problem for me per se, but I hate them out of principle. I have recently 'upgraded' to start playing Sui/HoE games only, where I can actually get a game... I play in EU so there is not very many SUI games at all, but slightly more HoE games with pings under 90-100. The problem is that HoE games are almost always all zerker and they just run around destroying everything, because their inherent speed means time is always on their side. They can kite and choose to engage when is safe.

It's not skillful, anyone can run around stabbing stuff and avoiding the bigs until people are ready for them, but the playstyle being adopted makes people joining the server forced into playing like that. If they can't keep up, they're dead. This wouldn't be a problem if there were many servers, but for me, there isn't usually much choice. This might be a problem with my filters, but even if it is this playstyle happens more than the 'camping' playstyle. There are many more katanas and foreaxes than guns...

I don't see how it could be fixed, because at the end of the day it is just people using the buffs of the Zerker perk. To me it seems Zerker has 2 playstyles. The obvious 'kiting' with axe/katana and the much rarer 'camp with the team' using the Chainsaw's constant DPS to switch targets instantly. However, the Chainsaw is seen as underpowered mostly due to it's lack of mobility. I feel many players would use this an an excuse to play constant kiting Zerker games which is what I encoutner more than the traditional 'camping' style which I enjoy more, heck, I enjoy GUNS more. As such, I would propose making the Zerker move quicker while firing the Chainsaw, but give it some form of renewable ammo (not fuel, but firing increases the heat of the motor that when reaches max needs to cool down). Zerker can now stay with the camping team, but Chainsaw is viable to hold down chokes and to quickly move between targets. He can't kite with it, however, as he will quickly burn out the imaginary motor, making it need to cool down, and it has no stun capabilities afaik. Axe alt fire should also trigger FP rage, but katanas not, so hopefully the kiting is still an option for those who choose to (ab)use it.

A 'stamina' bar could also be implemented, working in the same principle as the chainsaw motor or an MG emplacement overheating in many, many games. I am not fond of this idea because ot affects everyone which isn't fair, but I'm just throwing out ideas because I felt the need to comment on what i see as a problem, and a problem that detracts completely from the 'feel' I get from KF.

I do not play Bezerker, but will very often melee on my Medic, and I have little experience in HoE games, where I believe balance issues are much different to the other difficulties, so I'm really no expert.

 

[SMIFF]

Yep, Zerk teams have become a serious problem, most HoE servers are majority Zerker and it's ruining the game.

Zerkers have no weakness, they need some.

 

[kablooie!]

Zerkers have no weakness, they need some.

That's certainly news to me.

 

[Zoridium JackL]

they have weaknesses, they are just easily overcome... well, easier to overcome when compared.

 

[Undedd Jester]

That's certainly news to me.

LoL really? There was a collosal community debate over it not long ago... unintetionally started by myself. It got rather heated shall we say

This is a huge wall of text cause I jsut need to vent




The history of Berserker balance is actually quite long and interesting really

Spoiler!

Thing is back even before the Level Up Update, and before the Katana was even added, Berserker was considered overpowered even then. That was with 20% run speed, 25% Damage Resistance. The thing that made him insane was the fact the Chainsaw was a boss. Berserkers would sit with the team, zed blocking, and ripped stuff to pieces while their teammates shot over their shoulders at anything dangerous like Sirens, Scrakes and FP's.

After that the Chainsaw got nerfed, the katana got added, and then that was considered overpowered, and numerous changes went to the katana because the chainsaw was agreed to be by and large useless. The katana debate lasted for a good long time lasted for a good long time, but the main problem wasn't the katana for the Berserker, it was the katana for everything else, especially the Medic.

The Medic could out zerk a Zerker with the katana since he enjoyed all the abilities the Berserker did like Scrake stunning and decapping chains of zeds with ease, but the Medic had better armour, better healing and better speed. It wasn't really the case the Berserker was underpowered, more the case the katana made the Medic Overpowered.

This was later compounded when the Husk was added, as it had a greater effect on the Berserker than it did the Medic for the same reasons. The game evolved, but the Zerker didn't evolve with it, it was left behind, and other than the most experienced and talented Zerkers, no one used it. This was where alot of the cries for a Zerker buff came from. The Medic was outshining them in their role. The game remained unchanged for alot of time as I'm sure we all remember, but then TWI ran the KF Beta and invited the community to take part.

Alot of players agreed the main things needing changing were the Sharpshooter and his overpowered nature, the off perk Crossbow and Katana to reign in the Medic, and the Berserker and his chainsaw. However alot of players (including myself) unneccessarily felt the berserker needed his stats buffing significantly. Admittedly with the changes to specimen behaviour, and weapon nerfs, and most notably the melee attacks from behind damage boost fix, the game had become alot harder and would require a bit of a look at the Berserker attirbutes to keep him strong against low end zeds.

The problem was the players in the beta were genereally running the Chainsaw and playing in more of a team capacity. So the Berserkers stats rose to compensate for his short comings, however only a couple of people noticed the Berserker becoming overpowered in his kiting role. They did raise the concern however sadly it got washed into the sea of all the beta changes. So the Berserker got his massive 40% damage reduction and 30% movement speed. He of course retains all the buffs from before and becomes a near uncatchable killing machine.

Having one or the other of these attributes wouldn't have been so bad, but the combination of both makes him capable of soloing any specimen in the game, even for less skilled players.

Thus the modern Berserker debate is born

The main porblem I have with the Berserker is a moron can do it. I myself am not even that good at the Zerker and I managed to solo a 6 man fleshpound single handed using the trick without any practise. Some of you might say I'm a veteran, but if I'm honest I cocked up on several occassions.

I missed the Fleshpounds head hitbox several times, I got hit on at least 4 occassions between attacking him, it took me about 2 minutes to do it since I wasn't getting the headshots in... and I still won...

Further more I was running around in a circle instead of a straight line, so it was a little harder to do, but if someone like me can screw up that many times and STILL get away with it on the hardest difficulty, something is major out of whack.


The fact is, berserkers get away with pretty much anything, no matter how big the cock up is.

Spoiler!

I watch people in public games run point blank into a Siren, and take a full blast of her scream. Their speed gets them back out of range before a follow up scream, and their damage resistance buys them the time they need to escape.
Anyone else would be royally screwed.

I watch them box themselves into a corner, with gorefasts and Scrakes rolling in, and only escape by pushing towards a group of clots, and punch through without penalty because clots cannot grab them.
Anyone else would be royally screwed.

I watch them get hit 3 times in a row by a pair of husks, and merely turn around, start running and hit a heal, anything trying to get in and finish them off cannot keep up.
Anyone else would be royally screwed.

A raged fleshpound goes for the Zerk and smacks them square in the face dropping them to 20 HP. They merely turn around, start running and avoid the follow up hit, grab a heal then start Fleshpound cheesing without concern.
Anyone else would be royally screwed.

The list goes on and on and on and on, and yet there are plenty of people who just can't see that the Berserker outshines every other class in the game... to me it is so obvious that it just blows my mind that others cannot see it.

 

[Neom.1r]

Personally, I think it's quite obvious the solution is to lower the current Bezerkers movement speed to 20% and his damage resistance to 25%. He will still be able to do what he does, which is kill everything, but he'll need mroe team support and won't be able to rambo about like he currently can.

His Overpoweredness isn't that his stats are out of line with the game, but that they make him not need to rely on teammembers.

 

[HalfDemon]

You do realise there is a simple solution.

The Brute.

Fact is, the Brute can catch up with a Zerk and at times it is very difficult to kill with its deflecting arm. As a Zerk, while you're trying to kill it you'll either let other Zeds swarm you or get smashed into a Fleshpound/Scrake/Sirens. One versus one with a Brute can usually get you killed as a Zerk, while it can easily be taken care of as a team. Two Brutes can kill a Zerk in seconds too.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I know that a lot of people dislike the Brute (can't see why though), but to me its the answer.

 

[Sheepy]

I don't feel that The Brute would remove the issue with the Bezerker maxing out HoE games, I think they're just generally too powerful and fast. Maybe the modifying of stat power modifiers could be the answer with a bit of work.

 

[Neom.1r]

This has nothing to do with implementing a new type of specimen I've never seen before.

I just joined Aperture HoE with a lone Zerker on wave8. He asked me to leave and obviously I said he should be playing solo if he wnats to solo. 4 others joined and he finished the wave them committed suicide and left.

I mean really, the Bezerker playstyle encourages this; I bet it wouldn't have happened if that same person was a different Perk. Disgusting, ruining games.

If theres 2 or more Zerkers on HoE which is almost every game most of the time the team will die and be forced into going Zerker/medic.

Maybe removing the ability for zerkers to heal themselves would also help, making them much mroe reliant on teammates even if they are all Zerks. Thoughts on this?

 

[I am ZI]

I just recently started playing Killing Floor on the internet. I think I've been playing for about a month or two, and I've played plenty a year ago over LAN. For a while I always joined up with 5 other friends, and we'd always play support or ss and a medic.

I always thought of it as super boring untill wave 10 when the pressure of several fleshpounds would get the game going - for the time being. I would see myself standing and not having to do a damn thing for all 9 waves. 3 supports will have no problem shooting them all down as long as we'd camp the right spot in the map. When wave 10 finally got there we'd all get to be a part of it, and then die.

I do agree the beserker seems quite powerful compared to the other perks, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to me. As a berserker I have to constantly be on my guard, and even more if I play public games as teammates just slash everything in sight, and even more will then spawn behind as we're kiting the map. Having played 90 hours of KF over two weeks I've got to see how other players play the beserker, and I have to disagree only a handful know how to play a beserker properly, as most of them by far grind up dead - either my fleshpounds, mobs or whatever.

If it wasn't because of the beserker I wouldn't be playing Killing Floor. To me there's a lot more teamwork going on than anything I've tried for a long time.

 

[Lacedaemonius]

*cough cough*
[url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=52719[/URL]

I do think my point stands very well.

 

[Neom.1r]

While it would definetely make the game much more interesting due to adding new content, we can't say for sure if it's possible or not witht he amount of dev time available. I'm not saying that because the dev team is busy they should neglect their duties, but this is a reality to be considered.

No, I do actually think that either keeping 40% damage resistance and removing the ability to selfheal, or debuffing said resistance to 25% would be enough to keep Zerker viable but be enough to discourage this style of play. It should be viable, but it should not be that almost every HoE server I join (now that I have mostly lvl5-6 perks) is full of Zerkers. Sometimes they just sit back if the team is 'mixed' campers and kiters indirectly helping to get the team to wipe, so that they can go and solo the wave even if it's only 1-2.

 

[ChairmanMurder[Forge]]

I watch them box themselves into a corner, with gorefasts and Scrakes rolling in, and only escape by pushing towards a group of clots, and punch through without penalty because clots cannot grab them.
Anyone else would be royally screwed.

I dunno about this particular one. I think it's a critical part of the Berserker's playstyle--he's a melee specialist, after all--not to be grabbed by the games most ubiquitous little monster.

On another example, let's say two or three Husks spawn in a high place where they can't be easily reached, and their shots are disrupting your aim so you can't pick them off. Everyone else would be screwed in that scenario... unless you're a Firebug with fire immunity. Fire immunity is integral to the Firebugs playstyle, so I couldn't call that part of him overpowered.

(To be fair, that's a poor example, since the tough'n'speedy Berserker has a better-than-average chance to beat feet out there and get behind cover, but yeah).

 

[Pluberus]

Y'know. I recall some people (*ahem*) mentioning this during beta testing, but nooooo...

>.>

 

[Steeps]

Yep, Support teams have become a serious problem, most HoE servers are majority Support Specialist and it's ruining the game.

Supports have no weakness, they need some.

fixed

<3

 

[ljM]

Some very good suggestions and queries here I think. I agree with the point that it isn't the berserker that is inbalanced, but the way in which he uses his surroundings combined with perk bonus'.

However, after coming close to 300 hours gametime on KF, a good 275+ hours of that, has been based around camping in a dark room.

The freedom and enjoyment which the new berserker kiting teams gave was a really really nice change for me. The worst thing about this style of play is that new players to the server are pretty much forced to be zerker/medic..

But to be honest, players have always been great at finding the most effective way to beat the game.. good players will find ways to make a game that should be hard, easy. Theres always some perk bonus or weapon or situation which players have 'exploited' with their otherwise balanced perks/weapons etc etc.

If this was 'fixed' by changing game mechanics/perk stats, it would only make the game imbalanced in some other way. ie. if you reduced his damage reduction, a berserker could no longer be the defensive wall of that team camping a room. You are actually going to encourage someone who wants to play zerker rambo even more!!

I'm open to suggestions and ideas, but all i ask is that you just think of a berserker in a different situation than kiting when you consider changes to the perk.

Cheers!

 

[Undedd Jester]

I dunno about this particular one. I think it's a critical part of the Berserker's playstyle--he's a melee specialist, after all--not to be grabbed by the games most ubiquitous little monster.

Oh yeah mate, I totally agree with you, that is a key point to the Berserkers abilities and should definately stay.

I was merely pointing out that the Berserker already has strengths like that in place, he doesn't need this insane stats boost to compensate for him, cause he already is compensated for

 

[SMIFF]

fixed

<3

Supports are a tad overpowered too, but nowhere near as popular as Zerker in HoE.

 

[Mizerykordia]

Is it possible to survive when you are not a berserker and you are only person on the server?

I mean is it possible to solo with perks?

Recently I was playing alone and waiting for other people to join and I couldn't handle all those specimens alone, especially when fleshpounds are entering the game, so I had to play as a zerker, cause other classes are too slow. (suicidal/hoe)

 

[Benjamin]

Supports are a tad overpowered too, but nowhere near as popular as Zerker in HoE.

Popular does not equal overpowered.