Why Drew Barrymore is the problem in KF's expansions
Why Drew Barrymore is the problem in KF's expansions
I think the problem is Charlie's Angels 2. The first Charlie's Angels movie was a surprise hit that no one saw coming. It was fresh, unexpected, and full of action. When Charlie's Angels 2 came out, it was obvious that they thought "Let's take all the cool things in the first movie and just give them more of those." The problem is that the balance was off. While there were more guns, more action, more semi-nude bodies, and more explosions there wasn't any lulls in the action to appreciate the action. The balance was off. With the updates, TWI has given the players more cash, bigger guns, more bullets, and more explosions but they haven't taken anything away or increased the difficulty to balance the additions.
I believe the big balance issue in the game is cash. There is simply too much of it in the game. Players get much too powerful weapons in the game much too early. Players are able to stockpile weapons which throws off the balance even more.
Think about this. Which games do you remember? Do you remember that game from last week when the entire team of lvl 6 players stood in a single room and fired down the hallway for 10 waves? Or do you remember that game from 6 months ago when the entire team was killed and you had to run around picking up weapons, trying to scavenge ammo, and where you almost died 3 times but you pulled out the win? Of course you remember the latter. I'm not suggesting that Tripwire make the game so that every wave is a suicidal fight, but to raise the difficulty significantly to balance the increased firepower.
Spawning
I think the problem starts with the spawning of weapons with the players. Players spawn with much too powerful weapons. This leads to extremely easy waves and excess cash because the players don't need to spend money to purchase weapons so they get tier 4 weapons quickly.
Players below level 5 should not spawn with anything other than 9mm and grenades.
Level 5 perks spawn with lowest possible perked weapon.
Medic - MP7
Berserker - Machete
Support - Shotgun
Sharpshooter - Single cannon
Commando - Bullpup
Berserker - Machete
Firebug - Flamer
Demo - M79 (I think the m79 is too powerful, but it is the least perked weapon)
Level 6 perks spawn with level 5 weapon + armor.
Players also spawn with no cash. Make them work for their cash.
This keeps cash to a minimum and the lower waves interesting because the bigger weapons aren't in play immediately.
9mm Bonus for all perks
Because lower level perks don't spawn with a perked weapon, I recommend carrying the sharpie's 9mm bonus over to other perks only up to sharpie lvl 3 no matter the perk's level. So other perks can have up to sharpie lvl 3 perk bonus only on the 9mm.
I think this will promote several beneficial behaviors. This will promote headshots. This will give players who spawn as other perks some type of weapon when they spawn. This will also give the player a decent weapon when they are out of ammo for their perked weapon.
So when a player has reaches sharpie perk level 1, 2 or 3, it applies to only the 9mm across all of their perks.
MP7-ize all weapons
I think TWI hit the solution to the ammo problem with the MP7. As the perk increases, the magazine capacity gets bigger. This also fixes the problem of other perks building a "super-char" by taking the medic or zerker and adding a mix of fully loaded weapons.
After all, how many players are going to pick non-perked weapons when he doesn't get the full benefit? Much less ammo means a perked weapon is going to be better for that perk than a non-perk weapon without bonuses.
Reduce the cash in the game
There is too much cash in the game. Way too much. Too much cash allows for players to purchase tier 4 weapons by wave 2. Using tier 4 weapons in early waves allows players to generate tons of cash that they can give away and soon every player has all of their wanted weapons, full armor, and weapons stashed on the deck and the game isn't a challenge.
Here are my suggestions to lower the amount of cash
1) Remove the ability to repair armor. Make people decide between offense and defense. Make people decide whether to choose the big gun and go with the 40% armor they have or buy new armor and simply refill their current weapons. Make players decide if they want to spend 300 or try to make it through the wave with 65% armor.
2) Reduce the huge discounts for perked weapons. Give some discount but not the huge discounts currently in the game. No way someone should be able to purchase a katana, m14, or similar weapon after wave 1.
3) Double the price of ammo and give a 50% discount to refilling perked weapons.
4) Make the xbow's cost equivalent to its power. Make the xbow cost 1k and each bolt 50. Make players think long and hard before shooting that bolt at a gorefast.
Other suggestions
If a player equips a non-perked weapon, that weapon's weight goes up by one. So a katana weighs 3 to a berserker, but 4 to every other perk. This will help eliminate players mixing ultra-powerful weapons with perks (zerker & medic) that aren't supposed to use those weapons.
Ammo boxes reload only a single randomly chosen carried weapon.