Community Opinion: Berserker Overpowered?

[scary ghost]

Imo, that's ok. Why? Well, because they are then working as a TEAM. I don't see much of a problem with that!

It's the solo Zerker being too powerful, and also the one who has to abuse the FP mechs to be able to solo everything. That's what overpowered. Teamwork (aka gangbanging a FP together) is not a problem, that's how it SHOULD be done!

So, i still see changing the FP mechs to be non-abuseable as a good fix to tone down the Zerker's soloing powers (yes it tones down the other perks too, but not as much).

Right now, all zerker teams kill fp by having the FP's target lure the FP away from the team while the rest of the team keeps the other specimens from getting too close. That's teamwork as well. Axe gang bangs are extremely rare, as a matter of fact they rarely happen in a zerker kite unless there is a need to dispose of fp immediately. It's funny how zerker teams usually won't gang bang when it's a lot faster than slowly hacking away.

As outofrealman pointed out, the fleshpound will never get down to the 33% hp level if the zerker gets his head shots. Head hp is roughly half of the body hp and add in the decapitation bonus, a fleshpound decapited with axe alt fire is dead. The fleshpound will never be at the 33% hp level. It starts at 100%, then goes to ~50%, then dead.

 

[Undedd Jester]

And guess how much health that fp still have after 8 axe alt-fire? ~50%. And a fleshpound cannot rage after decap (decap shut down zeds' abilities, remember?)

I think you haven't really understood what I meant when I said 33% health.

I meant that if the FP gets to either 33% head health or body health. I didn't clarify it because I figured this was implied.

So if either the head health OR body health of the FP drops to 33% (or whatever) it will rage continously till dead.

So now thats been cleared up, do you still disagree with that post?

 

[scary ghost]

I think you haven't really understood what I meant when I said 33% helath.

I meant that if the FP gets to either 33% head health or body health. I didn't clarify it because I figured this was implied.

Ehh, I usually associate "health" with total health unless it is specifically mentioned to be head health.

 

[Undedd Jester]

Ehh, I usually associate "health" with total health unless it is specifically mentioned to be head health.

Yeah my bad for not clarifying, since your the code guru, what would you make of that suggestion to encourage teamwork and discourage soloing in 6-man games?

 

[Aze]

Right now, all zerker teams kill fp by having the FP's target lure the FP away from the team while the rest of the team keeps the other specimens from getting too close. That's teamwork as well. Axe gang bangs are extremely rare, as a matter of fact they rarely happen in a zerker kite unless there is a need to dispose of fp immediately. It's funny how zerker teams usually won't gang bang when it's a lot faster than slowly hacking away.

Then what is your opinion on the Zerker really? Do you think it is too strong/versatile? Or are you saying we should let it go cuz it's "teamwork"?
Are you against changing the FP mechanics, or are you not? I wanna know your PoV more clearly on this matter.

Imo, i think the sole Berserker can do too much at the moment. While you say that letting the team take care of the small stuff while a single Zerker kite-kills a FP "is also teamwork", i say that it's still simply too powerful, especially costwise. There should be more a bit more risk being a Zerker than it is now, considering how survivable the perk is (speed + damage resistance).

I don't think an "all Support" team is overpowered, even though they can bring down everything together with some teamwork. It's still kinda risky to do so though. They have quite alot of limitations with range, survivability, but more importantly: ammo.
Being an "all Zerker" team should MAYBE be able to do the same as an all-Support team too (or maybe not, as i don't see 6-man Commandos/Firebugs doing so?), but i think the requirement to kill a FP in a Zerker-team should be the "gangbang" way, which is risky, just like it can be for the Support-team, or any other team for that matter. I just think that a SINGLE Zerker shouldn't so cheaply take care of an FP. I'm not saying it's the easiest thing in the world to do (although, it's actually really not that hard to do, honestly), but it is just too cheap to do so. You basicly spend NOTHING doing so, and if you do, it's your armor. But ALL perks risk their armor(s) fighting Fleshies, on TOP of the ammo they spend.

And since i don't wanna do something silly like durability on melee weapons etc, i would rather have the "price" of the Zerker, if you use that a multitude of Zerkers as a team, should be a very high risk of DEATH, just like it is for Commandos and Firebugs. That way, it pushes the Zerker a bit more as a Scrake+Trash killer, rather than a walking kill-everything-by-myself-machine, which promotes more variety in what perks to be used in a team so you can have one or more FP-efficient perks mixed in there at least.

Right now though, the Zerker just handles everything too well. I can't believe im actually sorta quoting nutterbutter, but:
The Zerker kinda has no weakness...

As outofrealman pointed out, the fleshpound will never get down to the 33% hp level if the zerker gets his head shots. Head hp is roughly half of the body hp and add in the decapitation bonus, a fleshpound decapited with axe alt fire is dead. The fleshpound will never be at the 33% hp level. It starts at 100%, then goes to ~50%, then dead.

This was aimed at Undedd right? Cuz i know this already

 

[assfuzz]

i actually think all you whiners are complaining about a non issue. after you nerf berserker and no one plays it any more you will all just be whining about the next "overpowered" perk. and the people who actually like to play berserker will be left out in the cold. if you dont like how a server is going then leave and play with friends there are plenty of servers. you can even make your own!

if the whole argument stems from a berserker being too powerful because it can take out a fp just remove the headshot damage done by melee weapons on the fleshpound(edit) so melee will have to chop away at the full body health.

 

[TheAlpha]

i actually think all you whiners are complaining about a non issue. after you nerf berserker and no one plays it any more you will all just be whining about the next "overpowered" perk. and the people who actually like to play berserker will be left out in the cold. if you dont like how a server is going then leave and play with friends there are plenty of servers. you can even make your own!

if the whole argument stems from a berserker being too powerful because it can take out a fp just remove the headshot damage done by melee weapons on the fleshpound(edit) so melee will have to chop away at the full body health.

Finally someone who makes sense around here...........it seems alot of whiners are responsible for the fall and decline of players in Killing floor.its threads like this that the Devs read and base their Judgement?

the Game is Nerfed and basically killed as it is....all these wineres are doing is killing the game more.
The Berserker is just fine ............it doesnt need altering of any kind.

and just because someone can kill a FP with a Katana doesnt mean everyone can.ive seen ALOT of noobs die trying to kill a FP with a Katana

obviously all theese wineres are people that cant play the game right so all they can do is complain and wine...............................the berserker is not overpowered snd is just fine for me

 

[assfuzz]

Finally someone who makes sense around here...........it seems alot of whiners are responsible for the fall and decline of players in Killing floor.its threads like this that the Devs read and base their Judgement?

the Game is Nerfed and basically killed as it is....all these wineres are doing is killing the game more.
The Berserker is just fine ............it doesnt need altering of any kind.

and just because someone can kill a FP with a Katana doesnt mean everyone can.ive seen ALOT of noobs die trying to kill a FP with a Katana

obviously all theese wineres are people that cant play the game right so all they can do is complain and wine...............................the berserker is not overpowered snd is just fine for me

thankfully the majority of voters in this thread said berserker is fine. also i think its safe to say that the people at tripwire do not cater to the lowest denominator very often. if they did there would be 200 weapons and 50 different kinds of specimens and the patriarch would be impossible to defeat on normal mode.

 

[TheAlpha]

thankfully the majority of voters in this thread said berserker is fine. also i think its safe to say that the people at tripwire do not cater to the lowest denominator very often. if they did there would be 200 weapons and 50 different kinds of specimens and the patriarch would be impossible to defeat on normal mode.

idk Fuzz??....i visit daily a teamspeak3 server that hosts the top and i mean TOP Killing floor servers in the game.and none of the guys there play KF anymore due to all the nerfs to maps and chars builds..they keep the servers going cus they have a dedicated box, but as if late i see the traffic has slowed down in them as well as alot of servers shutting down due to nerfs and no traffic;...........so..............

it disheartens me when i see the game get nerfed or a map dwhitelisted.

i play this game so much, and am slowly moving away due to the decesions and nerfs that tripwire keeps making.

i dont see and "kf-Funmap" servers anymore or kf-acrobat" servers anymore.....
the doom2 map servers has dropped by 80% or more...........i see the writing on the wall " man
i hope TW has a KF
in the workings and is the reason for the nerfs so that everyone goes there, cus if not, ............................................
the berserker is just fine........................i'd like to see the game reset to its original" settings.................

 

[scary ghost]

@Aze
I should clarify that in those situations, the other 5 players keep the other specimens at bay so the 6th guy can fight the fp 1 on 1. Usually, another player will follow the target zerker to make sure no surprise spawns get him. I didn't mean that the FP's target just runs away from the team with the fp chasing him, heh, though I will do it on Foundry. For example, the team camps 3rd floor. When an fp shows up, I'll draw its attention, take it to the 2nd floor, then work my way back to the camping spot, hacking away at it.

FP tactics aside, I do believe the zerker is too powerful / versatile and I have long held that stance. Zerker can deal with every specimen without help from his teammates. The only other perk that can do that is the support specialist, but if he tried that every time, he'd run out of ammo very quickly and possibly take some damaging hits. There is a reason why you rarely see a rambo support on 6 man HoE.

People like to claim zerker is balanced because his damage output is "low" . They fail to realize that there's no point in having all that firepower if you aren't alive to use it, don't have ammo, and don't need to do more damage than needed. Sure, demo, support, and sharpshooter all have weapons that do more damage than an axe alt fire swing. Too bad those attacks instantly enrage fleshpounds and against scrakes, support can't stun them with his weapons, demos need 3 rockets, and sharpshooter needs 2 bolts. Berserker 1 shots husks and below with his "weaker" weapons and can do so with a

 

[assfuzz]

idk Fuzz??....i visit daily a teamspeak3 server that hosts the top and i mean TOP Killing floor servers in the game.and none of the guys there play KF anymore due to all the nerfs to maps and chars builds..they keep the servers going cus they have a dedicated box, but as if late i see the traffic has slowed down in them as well as alot of servers shutting down due to nerfs and no traffic;...........so..............

it disheartens me when i see the game get nerfed or a map dwhitelisted.

i play this game so much, and am slowly moving away due to the decesions and nerfs that tripwire keeps making.

i dont see and "kf-Funmap" servers anymore or kf-acrobat" servers anymore.....
the doom2 map servers has dropped by 80% or more...........i see the writing on the wall " man
i hope TW has a KF
in the workings and is the reason for the nerfs so that everyone goes there, cus if not, ............................................
the berserker is just fine........................i'd like to see the game reset to its original" settings.................

to me its easy to see why some people would be leaving this game after a while. it doesnt have a ****load of replay value. after you get to lvl6 in everything and get all or most of the achievements and dick around with people in hoe on custom maps you have pretty much done everything. this game is mainly community driven in the sense that custom maps and story mode maps are what everyone plays after the official ones get boring so if no one is making new maps the game will get stale. this is where mutators come in. you can only add so many weapons or new enemies or player limits and such before you realize its still the same game you got bored of a while ago. with the exception of story mode maps the game is very basic.. blast a ton of **** for 10 waves then blast away a big mofo and move on to the next map.

 

[Aze]

@Aze
I should clarify that in those situations, the other 5 players keep the other specimens at bay so the 6th guy can fight the fp 1 on 1. Usually, another player will follow the target zerker to make sure no surprise spawns get him. I didn't mean that the FP's target just runs away from the team with the fp chasing him, heh, though I will do it on Foundry. For example, the team camps 3rd floor. When an fp shows up, I'll draw its attention, take it to the 2nd floor, then work my way back to the camping spot, hacking away at it.

FP tactics aside, I do believe the zerker is too powerful / versatile and I have long held that stance. Zerker can deal with every specimen without help from his teammates. The only other perk that can do that is the support specialist, but if he tried that every time, he'd run out of ammo very quickly and possibly take some damaging hits. There is a reason why you rarely see a rambo support on 6 man HoE.

People like to claim zerker is balanced because his damage output is "low" . They fail to realize that there's no point in having all that firepower if you aren't alive to use it, don't have ammo, and don't need to do more damage than needed. Sure, demo, support, and sharpshooter all have weapons that do more damage than an axe alt fire swing. Too bad those attacks instantly enrage fleshpounds and against scrakes, support can't stun them with his weapons, demos need 3 rockets, and sharpshooter needs 2 bolts. Berserker 1 shots husks and below with his "weaker" weapons and can do so with a

 

[timur]

i dont see and "kf-Funmap" servers anymore or kf-acrobat" servers anymore.....
the doom2 map servers has dropped by 80% or more...........i see the writing on the wall " man
i hope TW has a KF
in the workings and is the reason for the nerfs so that everyone goes there, cus if not, ............................................
the berserker is just fine........................i'd like to see the game reset to its original" settings.................

The reason for the 80% decrease in doom servers is that the map got de-whitelisted. Before, it was booming, and will again when rewhitelisted.

Also, if you want "original" settings, than we should get rid of the Katana, AK, Scar, AA12, Mac10, MP79, Demo perk and weapons, M14, and more weapons, as they were all added in updates.

Oh and that "writing on the wall" and "decline and fall" stuff....do you remember that there were far far fewer servers and players before 1017? I remember there being literally NO suicidal servers that weren't empty (minus the maybe 5 that were full). I also remember me and many friends leaving KF during that period, as we were all sick of the pure unbalance, and thats casuals and veterans alike.

I may not really see much of a reason to nerf, but this "golden age" people who whine incessantly about the past really annoy me. I mean, there is more content on the way, a constant flow of community content, and loadsa players. That, for a game that is relatively "old"? Not to mention all that you have gotten, all those hours of entertainment getting where you are. But there is more to come.

And if you want old settings back, make a mutator. I mean, from what I saw, back then those habits were driven by the urge to get achievements and perks up, but if you find that fun, all the power to you. Get a Mut released, set up some servers, get some people, have fun the way you want to.

Anyways, rant done

 

[outofrealman]

Still... you didn't "fix" what you want to fix, and punishing firebug and commando when they happen to be the last one.

If fp rages @ 33 % head health, meaning 7th axe alt-fire hs will rage him. After you apply the chance, soon berserkers will "know that they NEED to miss 3 hs" because the fp will die @ the 9th hs. If all 9 hits is hs, you will get a headless raging fleshpound. (decap after rage will not clam him down)

So, 7th hit rages > axe him two times = dead fp. Again, he cant even hit the berserker. Nothing's changed. HOWEVER, if at any point the berserker fails, the team need to deal with a endlessly raging fp with ~60% health. Even before the patch 50% health scrake can still hit someone, what do you think a 60% health fleshpound, which can instan-kill, have 50% resistance to most weapon, and cannot be stunned, can do to the team? Endlessly rage also means he will never do the rage animation again.


And you know what, without armour, a berserker still able to just let a clam fp hit him with attacks that "dont hurt" to keep him clam while axe him to death. So even miss-swing dont reset the timer, you STILL do not change the fact that berserker is good @ kiting. What's the big deal to kite without fleshpounds? That's just likep laying solo... you kill the pound at the begining of the wave, and then it's just like wave 1-6 with more zeds.

 

[scary ghost]

If fp rages @ 33 % head health, meaning 7th axe alt-fire hs will rage him. After you apply the chance, soon berserkers will "know that they NEED to miss 3 hs" because the fp will die @ the 9th hs. If all 9 hits is hs, you will get a headless raging fleshpound. (decap after rage will not clam him down)

Oops, I misread Jester's change as "Rage when loses 33% head hp" as opposed to "Rage @ 33% head hp", lol. Yeah, I'll have to take back what I said earlier then. This is exactly what will happen. The fleshpound rage animation takes ~3 seconds which is 2-3 free shots for the zerker. After the 7th hit, fleshpound rages and zerker can get #8 and #9 in before the fp even finishes his primal roar of anger. The fleshpound will be weakened after the decapitation that it won't take much to finish him off.

That is how I axed FP before the balance patch. 6 primary swings then 1 alt attack to intentionally rage him, followed by the 2nd alt swing while he's doing the rage motions.

 

[outofrealman]

Oops, I misread Jester's change as "Rage when loses 33% head hp" as opposed to "Rage @ 33% head hp", lol. Yeah, I'll have to take back what I said earlier then. This is exactly what will happen. The fleshpound rage animation takes ~3 seconds which is 2-3 free shots for the zerker. After the 7th hit, fleshpound rages and zerker can get #8 and #9 in before the fp even finishes his primal roar of anger. The fleshpound will be weakened after the decapitation that it won't take much to finish him off.

That is how I axed FP before the balance patch. 6 primary swings then 1 alt attack to intentionally rage him, followed by the 2nd alt swing while he's doing the rage motions.

If a fp rage @ 66% head health.... man.... a endlessly raging fleshpound with ~80% health......really? I really think that's way too difficult....

 

[Undedd Jester]

If fp rages @ 33 % head health, meaning 7th axe alt-fire hs will rage him. After you apply the chance, soon berserkers will "know that they NEED to miss 3 hs" because the fp will die @ the 9th hs. If all 9 hits is hs, you will get a headless raging fleshpound. (decap after rage will not clam him down)

Well 33% was really a ballpark figure, I don't generally do the numbers.

Its more the concept I am suggesting, so since you have a better grasp of the numbers than me, what value do you think would be better to get the desired effect? E.g. would say 50% be a reasonable deterant but at the same time not too high to make it unreasonable for all players?

Or if not, there anything you can think of that promotes this kind of teamwork, but doesn't reward solo kiting to such a degree?


On the Firebug and Commando suriving alone issue... I already reserve myself to the fact that unless I get a very lucky spawn, I've probably lost if I'm a lone Firebug. Even if I kite and kill a fleshpound using the LoS exploit (which I personally don't on morale principle ) there is no way in hell I'm beating a Scrake alone. Ironically the fact that I can't do it alone is what makes the Firebug one of my favourite perks. I suck at Commando for some reason, but I have massive respect for players who play him for the same reason.

I just really dig the whole cooperative side of KF, and I think Aze summed everything up best in his last post

 

[Deafmute]

idk Fuzz??....i visit daily a teamspeak3 server that hosts the top and i mean TOP Killing floor servers in the game.and none of the guys there play KF anymore due to all the nerfs to maps and chars builds..they keep the servers going cus they have a dedicated box, but as if late i see the traffic has slowed down in them as well as alot of servers shutting down due to nerfs and no traffic;...........so..............

it disheartens me when i see the game get nerfed or a map dwhitelisted.

i play this game so much, and am slowly moving away due to the decesions and nerfs that tripwire keeps making.

i dont see and "kf-Funmap" servers anymore or kf-acrobat" servers anymore.....
the doom2 map servers has dropped by 80% or more...........i see the writing on the wall " man
i hope TW has a KF
in the workings and is the reason for the nerfs so that everyone goes there, cus if not, ............................................
the berserker is just fine........................i'd like to see the game reset to its original" settings.................

Nerfs to maps? You mean de-whitelisted because of massive exploits? You can still play on maps that aren't whitelisted, and Doom will likely be re-whitelisted anyway.

It disheartens me when I see my favorite game rot in an unbalanced state for almost a year. Quit whining; KF is better and more balanced now than it had been for a long time.

 

[outofrealman]

Well 33% was really a ballpark figure, I don't generally do the numbers.

Its more the concept I am suggesting, so since you have a better grasp of the numbers than me, what value do you think would be better to get the desired effect? E.g. would say 50% be a reasonable deterant but at the same time not too high to make it unreasonable for all players?

Or if not, there anything you can think of that promotes this kind of teamwork, but doesn't reward solo kiting to such a degree?


On the Firebug and Commando suriving alone issue... I already reserve myself to the fact that unless I get a very lucky spawn, I've probably lost if I'm a lone Firebug. Even if I kite and kill a fleshpound using the LoS exploit (which I personally don't on morale principle ) there is no way in hell I'm beating a Scrake alone. Ironically the fact that I can't do it alone is what makes the Firebug one of my favourite perks. I suck at Commando for some reason, but I have massive respect for players who play him for the same reason.

I just really dig the whole cooperative side of KF, and I think Aze summed everything up best in his last post

As I said countless times... scrake is an non-issue when you are alone.... and running around the map. He is a melee zed. He dont have ranged attack. And he is even slower than a clot unless you shoot him.

Also, a one-man workth scrake is easy for any perk, really.... (medic may be the only exception)
And hell... you can just kite scrake around and when zeds number hits 5, they will auto-die if you create enough distance.


And if you make him rage when his head is hurt, you either have no effect OR you end up having a endlessly raging fleshpound with a HEEEEEELL lot of health. You are punishing firebugs, commandos and support. (yes, commando too, because like support, you rather aim for body to get 100% bullet hitting than aim for the head to risk missing quite some bullets)

What I suggested before is just reverse the rage timer when lose LOS. And both damage taken and LOS use the SAME counter. This makes kiting very very hard even for medic. And I really cant think of ANY change to prevent berserker being "THE best" solo perk before making him useless for the team.

As for the matter of rambos, it only comes down to the ammo problem, not about the zeds. Cos demo and sharpshooter RAPES fps with M14 and M32.


And if someone think solo and last man standing should have NO CHANCE to win, I cant give any suggestion because this conflicts with my biggest opinion of "everything should be at least possible".

 

[scary ghost]

OEven if I kite and kill a fleshpound using the LoS exploit (which I personally don't on morale principle ) there is no way in hell I'm beating a Scrake alone.

Slightly off topic but people need to stop calling breaking LOS and all that stuff exploits. The code is working as intended. Entangler and I have posted about this and I even went so far as to dig up Ramm's post about their stance of zerker (and by extension, commando, firebug, and medic) vs. fp yet most people just simply ignored our posts on the matter. When the auto raging feature was added, guess what else they added? That's right, code to reset the timer rage timer. Also, the two second damage reset has been there since the game was released.

The problem, as many people have pointed out, is that the rage mechanics are severely limited. That in turn lets classes that were supposed to have a small chance end up having near 100% chance in killing the fp. There's no exploiting involved, just code that was never extensively tested to find its limitations.