Is SWAT/SURV ever getting attention?

[Humam2104]

There's a lot happening in terms of buffing certain perks and their skills. Recently, I only play Demo with the new +10 Explosive shots (easier boss kill and trash clean) and Support's higher magazine capacity (getting more ammo from ammo boxes).
I'm hoping these two perks would get some love from the developers as everything else is kind of balanced atm (except for medic imo since zerk is somewhat balanced).
I just want to know if there's ever going to be an attention to the SWAT/SURV perks because they're really weak compared to others. If one of the devs could just give us a clue about that it would be appreciated.
And yes, you can win Solo or even 6P HOE matches with these but they're not favorable by most players/teams.

 

[Aleflippy]

You're certainly doing the work of the whole community with your numerous topics, many of which are actually addressing good points... But I kinda believe you're fighting a lost cause by now.

Many of us pretty much gave up, at least that's how it looks by the sharp drop in forum activity in the past six months or so. I think we realized our pleads will never be answered. Or if they do, it will be half-assed. Or done... in exchange for stuff we never asked for.

I believe our best bet right now is either an ultimate update that corrects a lot of things as KF2's lifecycle ends. Or the rumored KF3 to release... But KF2 as it stands probably won't pull a 180.

Then again, maybe the Steam Community would prove me otherwise, but if the forums are to be trusted, I think this year's of added content might be the last. But we'll see I guess.

 

[CitronVert]

Surv is not weak. It is probably S-tier while hemoclobber stays in current state. The only thing with survivalist is that you have to carefully choose you loadout because 95% weapons are trash with him and only the remaining 5% are OP (hemo, railgun, kaboomstick).

 

[Humam2104]

because 95% weapons are trash with him and only the remaining 5% are OP (hemo, railgun, kaboomstick).

I totally agree, it's silly to pick a perk to just to use the OP weapons. It should have its own properties. Hell, I could choose the Kaboomstick and play with Medic!

 

[OnionBubs]

Survivalist isn't supposed to be "good," which is the inherent issue when making a "jack of all trades" character in a game where everyone else is a specialist. A character like that is going to have issues regardless, so it seems like TWI want to keep them on the underpowered side rather than make them too good. Their actual "good weapon" list is basically "the good offperk weapon list" because Survivalist is fundamentally an offperk with fast reloads (situationally).

So Surv isn't exactly strong with Hemo in that it's good at killing Zeds, it's just hard to kill; it's still worse at killing things than every other perk is in their specific role. Nerf Hemoclobber anyway because it's fundamentally stupid and unhealthy for the game to have that much self-healing. It gets worse as players improve.

Hell, I could choose the Kaboomstick and play with Medic!

In fact, 90% of Survivalist loadouts could be replicated by playing Medic with something offperked, and it would still be better than a Survivalist because Medic buffs, syringe charge rate, etc.


And to throw my hat into "SWAT discussion #5,273", SWAT's balanced on paper. The easiest way to balance it would be to knock certain weapons on other perks down a couple of pegs, and to increase the max monster count in multiplayer, with extra Crawlers and Clots filling in for more monster slots on the increased max count (more trash that SWAT is strong against would justify SWAT as a pick). The only problem I could really see with the previous fix would be that it would have the knock-on effect of making Support harder, as Support already has issues with handling lots of trash at once. IDK

There are other solutions, yes, but above all it seems like TWI really, really doesn't want to boost their damage for fear of making it "shootier Commando." I don't know what else can be done with SWAT that isn't "give it tank loadouts lol" because that's some copout crap and encouraging tanking damage over dealing it out probably isn't the healthiest idea for the game.

 

[Humam2104]

The easiest way to balance it would be to knock certain weapons on other perks down a couple of pegs, and to increase the max monster count in multiplayer

Strongly disagree, for two reasons. 1. That won't benefit SWAT. He's weak even he's WANTED, it might encourage other players to use it (or force them to). So players might get mad for being forced to choose such a perk. 2. People would use Firebug and Demo more since they're mass trash killers.
SWAT would be even less wanted because now he's even more useless. Tanking SWAT wouldn't hurt and adding better skills to him won't hurt the game if done right.

 

[OnionBubs]

1. That won't benefit SWAT. He's weak even he's WANTED, it might encourage other players to use it (or force them to). So players might get mad for being forced to choose such a perk

I don't follow.

My line of thought is that currently, SMG damage types and low percent boosts mean that SWAT is currently a counterclass to very specific trash, even though they're very capable of killing stronger Zeds. Part of the problem is that a max monster size of 32 really doesn't warrant a dedicated trash killer as much, because the numbers are just too low to mandate it when you're good enough. So to that end, why not add more trash that they're more effective against and allow its bigger magazine sizes to come into play? That would absolutely encourage dedicated trash killers to step up.

This is opposed to: giving them more armor/health, giving them yet another HVT deleting weapon, etc. If there's nothing like that, then just nerf some of the other weapons on perks that break class roles (e.g. neuter the FAL on Commando, which is SWATs). Buffing the SWAT with more broken stuff will just further dilute class roles, which is something that should be avoided.

2. People would use Firebug and Demo more since they're mass trash killers.
SWAT would be even less wanted because now he's even more useless.

Demo is only a mass trash killer if you're not using his actual good loadout, which is RPG + C4 + .500 (since he's the Chaos perk for killing HVTs). Because his other weapons kinda suck and are mostly sick memes, especially when it comes to killing HVTs. The only weapon that comes close in HoE is the Seeker Six and that's if you're an absolute god with it.

And players will still use Firebug regardless because aiming is hard, or something. Firebug got the Helios Rifle--its own method of removing HVTs--and I still almost never see pub Firebugs using it, because you actually have to aim the thing.

Tanking SWAT wouldn't hurt and adding better skills to him won't hurt the game if done right.

We already have three classes that soak up damage; I don't see the point in encouraging a fourth.

 

[Humam2104]

I really don't understand your logic of increasing the zeds instead of buffing SWAT. It's a weak perk, most of the things it has as "skills" other perks have as PASSIVE skills.
That's enough for me to say that this is a weak perk and it's not balanced with other perks. I won't be really surprised if you're one of the people that think they should nerf SWAT and Survivalist because they're too OP

 

[OnionBubs]

I really don't understand your logic of increasing the zeds instead of buffing SWAT.

It's a trash killer that isn't completely justified by the current game's trash setup. It has a better place in Controlled Difficulty where the zeds are more numerous and it has more fast-moving trash to kill. Ergo, increasing the max monsters would give it more trash to kill and justify picking it by proxy.

Again: In the context of having a number of specialized roles that need to work together, SWAT is fine. It just hasn't been hit by the power creep that the rest of the game has, most of which is in the form of stupid weapons (like the FAL for Commando). So neuter those to bring the other perks back in line with SWAT.

most of the things it has as "skills" other perks have as PASSIVE skills.

Elaborate? I don't know another ballistic perk that has SWAT's particular skill tree *as passives.* Nor, in fact, has its passives as passives. Commando has Fallback, Elite Reloads, and Impact Rounds as skill trees, but they aren't passive; they're conscious decisions to pick one skill over another for certain loadouts.

I admit it could probably have some changes to the skills that basically give you armor and an extra pistol to start out before you switch off. I'm assuming these exist because TWI had a very specific vision for this perk in mind (which is basically the RRLRR tree), and then they realized that they needed some other skills just to have the illusion of choice. But the perk's performance in endgame is fine. It takes extra shots to down Scrakes and has trouble with FPs, which isn't bad--it's not designed to be strong against HVTs, but with Cripple and flashbangs, it helps. I can live with it having basically one good skill tree.

I admit that SWAT is one of my current favorite perks, both in how it handles and how it hasn't snuck in too many OP things. I love playing it. It's just that most of the time, a team won't have a Commando, and that gets picked first due to being able to extend Zed-Time.

The only actual buff that would make sense for SWAT (read: not giving it stuff like Stalker-vision, or more stupid crossperk weapons that don't belong on an SMG class) is a damage boost or ammo cost reduction. The damage boost is trickier because you risk messing up breakpoints and making it too good at killing med/larges for a trash class. The ammo cost reduction, while nice to have, really doesn't benefit players who are already good at SWAT.

I don't like the idea of giving yet another class weapons like riot shields and stuff because it has the knock-on effect of basically encouraging players to accept that they're supposed to tank hits, which is counterintuitive to playing SWAT well. There's a reason for Berserker to have *some* tankiness being a melee class, but SWAT is meant to cut down Zeds before they reach the player(s).

So. Having said the above: what do you want to see for SWAT?