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Dodging Scrakes

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Quintuplin

Quintuplin

Grizzled Veteran
May 15, 2014
297
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#1
So I've seen some comment on this before, but not a proper thread in a while.

What I want to talk about is why dodging the scrakes' chansaws get so ridiculously nerfed? It seems like we had a mechanic that was a little janky and a little gamey, but it also gave us something interesting to do during a fight. When a scrake raged at you, thus began the dance of death, as you sprint under his arm, or dodge around him, all the while having to focus not just on whittling down the scrake's health, but also clearing trash around him so you didn't get caught by a clot and evicerated.

And then it was patched out.

Now you have a thing that charges at you, and if it gets close enough it deals damage until one of you dies. TWI literally took a complex and interesting fight, and turned it into a DPS race.

Now, you might say that it was OP and exploity, and that you could just dance all day without taking damage once. That is true, there was room for the swings to be more varied, or a little faster, or simply deal way more damage to make the cost of failure higher. But taking out one of the more interesting and memorable enemy fighting styles entirely?

Anyways that's just my thoughts. What do y'all think? Am I seeing this through rose colored glasses? Or do y'all agree that KF2 is having fun interesting mechanics "fixed" and turning into simply shooting, with less and less gameplay variety to mix it up?
 
#2
it was only interesting for a while before it got too easy, i could have lived with it if it involved some skill or difficulty, same for side stepping which was a bit more acceptable.

you can still evade scrakes pretty well by timing their attacks with a short sprint and time your incaps, its still a lot more intuitive than in KF1 where if you where caught by one you had better chance if you planted yourself to do dps while the scrake stabed you since it did less dmg than another swing.

im up for interesting mechanics besides just shooting, but i dont think circling was one of them.
 
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#6
Mr. Someguy said:
There was nothing complex and interesting about running around in a circle because the AI was too dumb to counter it.
Click to expand...

It's more interesting than just holding s+m1. Not by much but definitely a little bit. I'm not saying it was perfect, it definitely needed to be changed up. But TWI removed it entirely, which IMO took something away from the game's fun factor rather than adding to it.

To be more precise, I'm 90% in support of the old 'joust' where you could sprint under the scrakes arm during certain attacks, but only like 20% in favor of the circle strafe. Both would need to be made more varied and challenging to become an interesting mechanic rather than an exploit... but they were fun and different and I think it's in the game's best interest to put something like that back in.
 
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#8
I STILL say they need to implement a 'dodge' manuever that is in Dying Light, when you press a/s/d and space you will do a short hop in that direction, would definitely help with the idiocy that is the scrakes and FP homing charge of doom if you aren't the chosen perk with movement speed.

All they would need to do is add either a cooldown to the dodge or do something like in Depth when you are a diver and have 3 dodges you can perform in a row before you have to rest and recover, also a cooldown but on a longer timer.
 
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#9
Im not sure about this. If every perk can just simply dodge everything it'll surely be game breaking. Its going to be no different than one guy just circling around SC/FP/Hans again. If we're going to make dodging a thing then it needs be an well thought out plan with good amount of time and effort to implement it.

At the moment we already have many ways to deal with large zeds already: Stumbles, stuns, knockdowns, incaps, Kiting with fast perks, EMPs, Berserkers tanking with medics...and now suddenly everyone can dodge attacks? It would make dealing with large zeds far too trivial.
 
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#10
For sure I liked the circle-strafe era better than what we have now. It's not like it didn't demand ANY intelligence or skill, I saw lots of pubs get killed because they didn't wait to lure the scrakes away from the garbage zone.

I certainly want dodging back. I wonder if returning that would be hard without returning circling.
 
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#12
Shambler said:
It's not like you could dodge scakes in kf1. Why does everyone want such an easy to pull off counter to one of the most threatening zeds in the game?
Click to expand...

They didn't do chainsaw swan lake ballerina routine during attack, they didn't autorage all at once at the end of the wave. And when they finally got to you, they were standing still allowing headshots and dealing less damage. Handling SCs was far easier in KF1.

Same goes with fleshpounds, they could be properly kited, removed fast by one experienced player with a combo or just kept calm in KF1.

Some features that would make KF2 encounters easier would be nice to have, because, let's face it: back-sprinting for kilometers is just idiotic. (Or at least needs proper in-game music for that occasion.)

Side-dodging in initial release was actually a very good idea, only circling exploit needed to be removed. Perhaps side dodge could be re-introduced, but for example with a 3 seconds cooldown.
 
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#14
You should be able to avoid atacks by running, circle-strafing or side-step/dodging. However the avoid should not be automatic. Infact if TW could add some mechanism base on encumbrance/health and perk ability% to do so, personally Id welcome it.

And the ability to avoid attack before could be seen as gamey but personally I thought it added some much needed finesse to the game.

Just my 2cents... and if they dont add it, thats fine also!
 
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#15
Scrake dodging -thing has been discussed many times already, but because it is a very valid concern, I'm ready to chime in as often as possible. Dodging scrake attacks was great until circle-strafing was discovered and it all turned to poop. Then TWI introduced this god-awful homing attack system and it all turned into curdled poop with dingleberries on the top.
Scrake and fleshpound needs new, deadly moves that trigger, when players try to circle-strafe them so that it's heavily discouraged. Auto-homing attacks are not fun at all.
 
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#17
Al Bobo said:
Scrake dodging -thing has been discussed many times already, but because it is a very valid concern, I'm ready to chime in as often as possible. Dodging scrake attacks was great until circle-strafing was discovered and it all turned to poop. Then TWI introduced this god-awful homing attack system and it all turned into curdled poop with dingleberries on the top.
Scrake and fleshpound needs new, deadly moves that trigger, when players try to circle-strafe them so that it's heavily discouraged. Auto-homing attacks are not fun at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah, current homing is just awful. Not only a half-ton speeding flesh and metal juggernauts are able to make turns like a swift dragonfly, but it even happens in mid air, because f* u physics, that's why.
 
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#18
I usually don't have any problem killing scrakes even on hoe. Most classes can solo him given enough space, and most maps have enough space to do it aside from first few where you're at more of a disadvantage when you move from place to place.
I think farm is the best official map because you can move between good camping spots quickly and easily as long as you know what things to be shooting on the way and when to leave a spot. This map and many custom maps with more open spaces make scrakes super easy, especially with a gunslinger since they can outrun scrakes on all difficulties.
 
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#19
The old way to dodge scrakes allowed for soloing them as any perk as long as you knew what you were doing. I agree that circle strafing was broken, but the current fix took away a great deal of skill-dependent moves from the game. Now killing an SC must involve a zerker or coordinated unloading at it's head in a time frame of a second. I leveled my support to 25 before any major patch just becouse how fun it was to massacre SCs in suicidal pubs while being covered from trash by the team. I did not use circle strafe ever becouse I knew it was going to be patched, so I learned the "hard way" and baited wide swings. I took a long break and surprise - I can't do it anymore.

That method felt like how the game was supposed to be played. Screwing up meant taking a chainsaw to the face and getting grabbed by a clot/blocked by a crawler often meant just that. It was balanced, felt awesome and should be brought back.
 
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#20
Sticking to their back so they constantly turn while not attacking so you can easily decap was kinda lame and it's good they removed it, but dodging their attack by running past them to the side was awesome and should be reintroduced.
To achieve that, they should make scrakes have the old slow turning speed during an attack, and the new fast turning speed when not attacking.
 
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