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Broken Coop Difficulty

Humam2104

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Jul 1, 2020
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When playing with 3P Suicidal or HOE the game becomes much harder than 6P, you don't have a medic or a large/small zed killer for example.. I don't find it logical that you take the same damage if you're in a co-op 2P or 6P!
everything is almost double the damage from solo while there are only 2 players in the game
for example: if there's a firebug and a medic in the team of 6P that greatly increases the chance of winning and reduces the chance of losing by committing mistakes..
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Mechanics_(Killing_Floor_2)#ZEDs_-_Damage_multipliers
1599494936191.png
I know that the wave size changes from 2P to 6P but it's again easier because 6P means x4.5 the wave size while 2P gives 2 x wave size and 3 players give x2.75 wave size!
1599494803798.png
playing as two players is very close to solo, maybe 3 is a little bit less close to solo but the argument stands.
I think the game should offer something to mitigate this aspect, especially since the zed teleportation is a thing in the game. Zeds almost never teleport in a 6P game because every player is having the other player's back at his LOS.. while this not the same for a 2P or a 3P match
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Mechanics_(Killing_Floor_2)#ZEDs_-_Teleportation
1599495312311.png
One more thing I'd like to mention is that players on a 6P server can hold an area (camp) on HOE and Suicidal difficulties while 2P and 3P can't because of the higher amount of zeds per player. I know this game is well optimized for teamwork but there's pretty much nothing we can do in a 2P situation
I would suggest to do something similar to the Scrake/FP/Boss HP's for when there's more than one player in the game (something that progressively increases)..Or maybe keep the 50 syringe healing feature for 2 or 3 players while keeping the 20 for 4+ players.
Source: https://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Scrake_(Killing_Floor_2)#Base_Statistics
1599496692572.png
Source: https://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Fleshpound_(Killing_Floor_2)#Base_Statistics
1599496687101.png
 

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One more thing to mention:
Maximum Zeds.png
The maximum number of zeds (at the same time) doesn't increase beyond 3P.. which is another advantage for 6P so it's not helping 2P or 3P either
if 2P are playing: each gets 18/2=9 zeds at a time, 3P would get around 32/3≈11 zeds at a time! while 6P makes each player get 32/6≈6 zeds at a time! which is alot less than the other two cases
 
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I was just checking the damage modifiers in the game, and it turned out that Suicidal Coop's damage modifiers are even higher than Solo HOE.. so if a player is used to playing on Suicidal and wants to play with his friend or two (2P or 3P) he should be capable of playing HOE solo in order for him to theoretically win. And that makes Coop another difficulty of itself considering that he won't be able to heal himself because most likely they're playing without a medic in the team (2P or 3P).
The scaling between the two is enormous, the difference in the multipliers is very large in both HOE and Suicidal cases

The difference between the multipliers is almost the double sometimes between the Solo and Coo, and that can just happen because 2 Players are in the game..
1599909768557.png
1599906991906.png
One more thing that really surprised me is that Suicidal Coop doesn't differ much from HOE Coop in terms of damage modifiers of Large zeds and bosses (QP, Scrakes, Fleshpounds, and All Bosses! which is really weird. They're almost the same difficulty for some reason!
1599907246268.png
This is another graph that shows all difficulties with all types of gameplay (solo and coop) included just to show more information
1599909702755.png
My opinion on this: I think that Suicidal should be a difficulty that players can play in solo.. and if they're able to win in solo then they should be able to win in multiplayer. The scaling system of difficulty makes that hard to happen on average players because suicidal coop is totally different from suicidal solo. So in a way it isn't even suicidal anymore. it's almost HOE and even more.
I would recommend that the game would give two difficulties: Suicidal and HOE coop as two difficulties and not just one. That way more players would be attracted into Suicidal and this would give them a better practice towards HOE. I know the game is more focused on 6 players HOE and Suicidal but still, most people don't have 5 other friends to play with.. it's mostly 1 or 2
 

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Me and my friends was talking about this last week, we play at 3 guys and we were having problem to finish the Die Sector 25 waves in Endeless on HoE with the three of us, in the end, we never make it in group, we ended up beating the map everyone at solo mode and I can definitely say that the game solo is way more easy than in a group of 2-3 players. We actually are not used to play at a larger group of 6 players but your point its truly right. After 4 people the game modifiers of number of zeds, zeds per time and even damge modifier is not that high. I tottaly agree with you, the game is really hard to finish HoE maps with less players than 5-6.
 
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In order for us to have the total damage multiplier, I went and compared the total damage done by Bosses and Large zeds on each difficulty by:
Damage Multiplier X Difficulty Damage Multiplier
1600126942850.png

Summarized in this graph:
1600126965585.png
Update: This graph shows Normal Coop and Hard Coop as well, Hard coop causes more damage to players than suicidal
1600377139302.png
You can clearly see that Suicidal Coop gives almost the same damage or even higher than HOE solo with the abomination as an exception to the rule. And as previously mentioned, there's a tremendous amount of damage difference between Suicidal solo and Suicidal coop while the gap is smaller between HOE solo and Coop.
below is the full graph for all zeds
1600126955564.png
 
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Me and my friends was talking about this last week, we play at 3 guys and we were having problem to finish the Die Sector 25 waves in Endeless on HoE with the three of us, in the end, we never make it in group, we ended up beating the map everyone at solo mode and I can definitely say that the game solo is way more easy than in a group of 2-3 players. We actually are not used to play at a larger group of 6 players but your point its truly right. After 4 people the game modifiers of number of zeds, zeds per time and even damge modifier is not that high. I tottaly agree with you, the game is really hard to finish HoE maps with less players than 5-6.
you're right, I've done that achievement on solo too. I can't guarantee that I'll find 5 other players to play with
I hope they'll do something about this
 
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From the game's mechanics point of view: 1600254236039.png
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Mechanics_(Killing_Floor_2)#Gameplay_-_Game_Conductor
Playing with 5 other players results in 15 second of Low Attack Intensity mode, a mode that reduces the dynamic difficulty of the game to lower levels to help players. This mode can be reached 5 times in a 6P game while it can only happen once or twice in a 2P or a 3P game.
Another important Aspect is that Matriarch, Patriarch, and Hans Volter all gain 20% bonus each minute there's one player left in the multiplayer game. This stacks up to 30%. In a 6P game this requires 5 Players to be dead, while in a 2P or a 1P game this happens after 1 or 2 deaths only.
Source: https://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Patriarch_(Killing_Floor_2)#Speed
1600254383251.png
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Matriarch#Speed
1600254435452.png
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Dr._Hans_Volter#Speed
1600254485646.png
 
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When playing with 3P Suicidal or HOE the game becomes much harder than 6P, you don't have a medic or a large/small zed killer for example.. I don't find it logical that you take the same damage if you're in a co-op 2P or 6P!
everything is almost double the damage from solo while there are only 2 players in the game
for example: if there's a firebug and a medic in the team of 6P that greatly increases the chance of winning and reduces the chance of losing by committing mistakes..
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Mechanics_(Killing_Floor_2)#ZEDs_-_Damage_multipliers
View attachment 2335442
I know that the wave size changes from 2P to 6P but it's again easier because 6P means x4.5 the wave size while 2P gives 2 x wave size and 3 players give x2.75 wave size!
View attachment 2335441
playing as two players is very close to solo, maybe 3 is a little bit less close to solo but the argument stands.
I think the game should offer something to mitigate this aspect, especially since the zed teleportation is a thing in the game. Zeds almost never teleport in a 6P game because every player is having the other player's back at his LOS.. while this not the same for a 2P or a 3P match
Source: https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Mechanics_(Killing_Floor_2)#ZEDs_-_Teleportation
View attachment 2335445
One more thing I'd like to mention is that players on a 6P server can hold an area (camp) on HOE and Suicidal difficulties while 2P and 3P can't because of the higher amount of zeds per player. I know this game is well optimized for teamwork but there's pretty much nothing we can do in a 2P situation
I would suggest to do something similar to the Scrake/FP/Boss HP's for when there's more than one player in the game (something that progressively increases)..Or maybe keep the 50 syringe healing feature for 2 or 3 players while keeping the 20 for 4+ players.
Source: https://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Scrake_(Killing_Floor_2)#Base_Statistics
View attachment 2335448
Source: https://wiki.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?title=Fleshpound_(Killing_Floor_2)#Base_Statistics
View attachment 2335447
The real suicidal is 3p suicidal, the real hoe with 3p. Otherwise, 3p suicidal is harder than (>) 6p hoe. 6p games are not reflect the real difficulties because of the control (domination) of area. And solo is really easy because of the 50hp syringe potential. 3p suicidal is much harder than solo hoe. Most of experienced players find 6p games easy even if hoe. İt should be fixed.
 
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I just want to point out that the suggestion I'm making in this post is already applied in one of the games I've played recently, the game offers an optional difficulty to satisfy gamers.
1606385283176.png
This game has a maximum players of 4, and you can play a game of 4 players with a base difficulty of 2 for example.
I hope for this fix to be applied in the upcoming updates as the current system is broken.
 
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I agree with you. İn addition to these, swat (with more passive defensive skills and armor regenerations)&abomination buffs, reduction of sui&hoe solo syringe potential (from 50 hp to 35-40 hp) are should be applied urgently.
The syringe in all cases should heal 35 (solo and coop) and the recharge should be 10 seconds in my opinion. that way players won't have a difficulty playing coop
 
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The syringe in all cases should heal 35 (solo and coop) and the recharge should be 10 seconds in my opinion. that way players won't have a difficulty playing coop
The syringe in solo should heal 35 is ok, but in multiplayer shouldn't be. It is alright as current, 20 hp, otherwise medic will be useless. İn addition to, wave length modifier and maximum zeds at a time should be increased in 4p,5p,6p games.

I have 2000+ hours of game and I still have a difficulty of 3p suicidal, but I have a guarantee to finishing hoe solo. There is not much gap between suicidal & hoe and I also say 3p games are real difficulty level. We don't need a new difficulty level beyond hoe, just need balancing 4p,5p,6p and solo modifiers.

2 bosses are ridiculously easy in 5p&6p hoe: Patriarch and Abomination. This is not a gift to coordinated teams to easy win, even if you have a moderate team you can kill him with %90 of chance before his first heal. Needs more spawn&minions and it makes trash killer perks more useful at boss wave. Most of players complain that commando/swat/support are useless at boss wave, it will fix them as well.

Developers should consider the synergy of 4p,5p,6p interaction. Game difficulty should get high because of the players domination & control of each choke-points/sides. There is no need to run/more action, you can camp at site, kill all zeds. But in 3p, you can't camp at specific site and also have to be careful about your rear sides.

Maybe decreasing difficulty scale between 3p-6p makes community games more attractive and it get encourage more players to completing the 6p fully team, in this way it makes more popular Kf2 in game market. But this upsets veterans.
 
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If you only knew how easy would it be for them to alter the maxmonsters parameter you would have lost all hope, because since they haven't done it in all these years means that the amount of care they have about the 1-6 players balance is close to zero.

All they need to do is alter this code in the kfaispawnmanager class "defaultproperties" section that was initially developed by Christian Schneider who is still with the company:

maxmonsters.JPG

As you can see in the comments, whoever put them there back in the day, was thinking of other values, that would grow more linearly, but for whatever reason this idea was abandoned and as of now 3 players (which uses the MaxMonsters[2]=32 value) is indeed t he most unfair number of players as they get exactly the same amount of max monsters present on the map as the 6 players team does.

There's absolutely NO reason whatsoever for 3 players to have the same amount of zeds present on the map as for a 6 player game. This function should be somewhat curvy but close to linear. On one of my servers I use this MaxMonsters array for 1 to 6 players: 25,35,40,50,60,70. This is roughly twice more zeds than in vanilla gameplay, but as you can see the numbers grow reasonably, without this non-sensical plateau at 3 players.

It's not like I care about this too much though as I haven't played the vanilla game in months, but people who play on official servers would definitely appreciate a more fair growth of difficulty with added players.
 
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Okay, but please if you plan to fix the difficulty scaling then also fix the actual difficulty problems of HoE to keep it a bit of a challenge, namely:
- fix medic
- fix bosses (Abom literally gets spawnkilled, KFP can't catch half the classes in the game, Patriarch gets killed before his first syringe)
- nerf kiting: scrakes and FPs should become faster after some time has passed

If those get fixed maybe I can finally play on a 6p server without falling asleep.
 
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Okay, but please if you plan to fix the difficulty scaling then also fix the actual difficulty problems of HoE to keep it a bit of a challenge, namely:
- fix medic
- fix bosses (Abom literally gets spawnkilled, KFP can't catch half the classes in the game, Patriarch gets killed before his first syringe)
- nerf kiting: scrakes and FPs should become faster after some time has passed

If those get fixed maybe I can finally play on a 6p server without falling asleep.
- Fix Medic: 1) Healthrower should be fixed (nerfed). It has randomly healing capacity, has too much healing capacity in comparison with other medic weapons, it buffs teammates constantly (guarantee to heal teammates) and makes them tanky intermissionless. Healthrower overshadows all the other medic weapons.

2) When the medic stay "last man standing", he kills everything and we wait for 30 minutes to finish the wave. Medic carries all the game by alone like previous op berserker but I don't have any idea how to fix it.

- Fix Bosses: I totally agree with what you said.

- Abandon all hope should be replaced with hell on earth. Because, there is no much difficullty gap between suicidal & hoe currently. Abandon all hope is real hell on earth (boss health pools may get nerfed).

- Fix MaxMonsters for 4p, 5p, 6p.

- Fix solo syringe potential to 35 hp.
 
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This issue is still not fixed. If it gets resolved, there will be given tons of much better stuff for the game with buffing Hell on Earth coop difficulty scale:

✓ Patriarch (you have %90 guarrantee to win before his first healing, you don't see his mortar attack and further phases) & Abomination are still easy and vulnerable (because of number of trash zed's unsufficiency) on 5p & 6p. You have a guarantee to win with even incompetent team. Finishing the game without seeing the patriarch's attributes and further phase attacks is a loss for the game. Devs should buff Patriarch while he is fleeing. The reason why hans and matriarch are a real boss is their trash is strong enough. Abomination's own body is strong but its supports are very weak.

✓ This also makes trash killer perks more useful like commando, swat. A lot of players complain commando and swat are useless at boss waves. It will fix it and increases teamplay & distribution of roles.

✓ There is no much difference between suicidal & hoe modes. Damage taken in suicidal mode and zed's hp are a little bit lower, but the money taken from zeds is also lower. Full weapon loadout cannot be done (hoe gives more money than suicidal) in earlier waves.

✓ Hoe should be like Abandon All Hope, this changes make hoe like A.A.H. level.

✓ These changes will bring back many veteran players (1000+ hours) who were bored.


My suggestions are:

✓ Patriarch's current setting is: Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 42.5%. It may be better with these:
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 42.5% for 1 player.
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 42.5% for 2 player.
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 42.5% for 3 player.
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 47.5% for 4 player.
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 55% for 5 player.
  • Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 65% for 6 player.
✓ Adding elite crawler on Abomination would be nice. This boss was buffed at last update but still weak for 5p & 6p. Creating more chaotic conditions befits this boss.

✓ Solo syringe potential per difficulty: Normal: 50 hp, Hard: 50 hp, Suicidal: 45 hp, HOE: 35 hp.

✓ Pls fix current godmode op medic urgently. Waiting for last man standing medic for a long time is boring for everyone.

✓ Lastly, changing game numerical modifiers may be better:

wave length2.JPG
maxmonsters2.jpg
 
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[*]Flee begin when HP at 35%, ZED summoning begin when HP at 65% for 6 player.

Good suggestions overall, but I wanted to chime in on Patty. 35% is too low and summons at 65% won't help as his minions are weak and low in numbers. I've experimented with this and, even with his number of minions increased roughly 4 times AND setting his flee percentage to 50% most teams manage to kill him before he heals. I'm now experimenting with triggering the flee and heal routine when his HP reaches 65% and this actually may be ok, because now from some limited testing it's rarely but still possible to kill him before he heals, but most of the time not, makes the boss fight much more engaging.
 
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Good suggestions overall, but I wanted to chime in on Patty. 35% is too low and summons at 65% won't help as his minions are weak and low in numbers. I've experimented with this and, even with his number of minions increased roughly 4 times AND setting his flee percentage to 50% most teams manage to kill him before he heals. I'm now experimenting with triggering the flee and heal routine when his HP reaches 65% and this actually may be ok, because now from some limited testing it's rarely but still possible to kill him before he heals, but most of the time not, makes the boss fight much more engaging.

The Patriarch and Abomination are (own body mechanics) good boss in concept but need crowd control buffs for 5p & 6p hoe games as we all know, but their minions are too weak. You can easily kill them with moderate team within 1-2 mins. The factor that makes other bosses (Hans, Matriarch, KFP) balanced is their minions & spawns.

About Patriarch;

There are some ways to incapacitate him; EMP, C4, freeze grenade, trapping in a corner, body block, welding doors on his escape way, commando grants your team visibility when he is cloaked, maybe Hemogoblin slows him down... But his vulnerability doesn't cause from these tactical risk-reward methods. Only problem is his fleeing.

✓ Spawn consolidation:

p2.jpg

✓ Tentacle attack is like a joke:

patriarch tentacle.jpg

✓ I don't like to suggest increasing HP but it is needed:

p health.jpg

✓ Maybe the most efficient one:

p fleeing speed.jpg


About Abomination;

Though it is a running tank on solo, a piece of cake on full team (even in Abandon All Hope mode), lets see the difference with these HOE videos;





Abomination axes don't do much and he is too vulnerable to be a threat if you keep distance forever and don't stop moving or get blocked by trash zeds. For this reason, I suggest new attack and multiplayer scale regulations which may become a threat from the your rear sides too:

✓ Throwing huge dual axes like boomerang when he has armor (dodgeable with crouch), makes this boss more fun. Axes spill dirty blood everywhere while traveling towards you in the air. It can also damage multiple people along the flight path with their penetration. You will have to dodge when coming from the front and coming back from behind as well. Abomination will also be able to attack players at long range thanks to this. Please make Abomination more disgusting and fun.

✓ Adding extra dirty zeds:

abom spwns elite+bloat 12 seconds rage time.jpg

✓ Removing huge self-damage multiplier:

abom subspawn explosion remove.jpg

  • This is for both 2 bosses:
ab & patr min max.jpg

After these balancing suggestions, I hope the game will take more strategy to prepare for boss since you can't focus directly on the boss. Besides provides a challenge, won't be unrewarding time waster, increases trash killer and supportive perk's importance & utility on boss waves.
 
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