New Cooperation Mechanics for KF3

[Agent Pickles]

Many players are wanting to see improvements to team play and team cohesion. With KF2 on the way out, this thread is dedicated to various ideas that might find their way into KF3. Focusing on KF3 will allow more possibilities and thinking outside of the box, since KF2 will receive less support and might have existing conflicting code in the engine.

Please make each of your ideas a different post in this thread so it is easier for people to scan, search, like, and share.​

Here are other posts dedicated to new weapons, perks, zeds, and weeklies.

 

[Agent Pickles]

Give Individual Perks Something to Fear​

Create new or improved enemies, perhaps which only appear in team games, that can better offset perk abilities or are neigh invulnerable to certain attacks. This element already kinda exists (ie, husk vs Firebug), but crank up their extremes. The Husk is difficult for the Firebug now, but make him nearly impossible in team play.

Give every perk an enemy to truly fear. This will force players to say, "ok I can't do this on my own," and reduce lone wolf behavior in team games.

View and post New Zed Ideas for KF3 for examples.

 

[Agent Pickles]

Survivability vs Synergy​

Given the idea that less survivability = more desire for cooperation, give each perk their own Survivability vs Synergy perk option that is automatically chosen based on whether or not the player is playing solo or with teammates. This way, synergy is increased with less detriment to solo play, and devs have more opportunities to create or fine tune perk balance.

As examples:

Zerk's Survival Option (solo play only)​

This perk option functions the same as the KF2 Skirmisher option.​

​

Zerk's Synergy Option (team play only)​

Take Only What You Need. Sell the Rest. Similar to picking up another player's weapon, this perk allows the player to pick up ammo and armor but then "sell" the unused portions for teammates. Teammates interact with the Zerk like they would for free ammo/grenades from other perks, turning the Zerk into a golden retriever of pickups. Zerks get bonus dosh when another player "buys" the unused portion.​

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For example, a Zerk has 80% armor and picks up a nearby armor drop, bringing the Zerk's armor up to 100% and carrying an additional 80%. He then brings it over to his teammate, who has no armor, so that his teammate can approach, interact, and take the 80% remaining armor. It costs the teammate nothing but the Zerk gets a dosh bonus.​

​

Medic's Survival Option (solo play only)​

Carry Only What You Need. There's no point in having healing dart attachments to your gun if you have nobody to shoot them at, so leave those behind. Every perk weapon now weighs 1-2 pounds less and medic weapons alt-fire is disabled.​

and/or​

Experimental Ingredients. The more damage you do to zeds between syringe uses = your syringe gives you an increasingly potent damage buff on the next use.​

and/or​

Poison Darts. Those darts that would normally heal teammates now cause poison damage to zeds. If zeds are killed while the poison is in effect, they explode with a healing gas, similar to a weak Healing Grenade.​

​

Medic's Synergy Option (team play only)​

Great Minds Think Alike. All Syringe and Dart effects get a boost the more players are carrying Medic perk weapons.​

and/or​

Pharmacist. Teammates' syringes get temporary stat boosts on their next use every time the teammate interacts with the medic during combat. The medic gets extra dosh for "selling" these drugs.​

 

[Agent Pickles]

Incentivize Making Friends​

I think the biggest roadblock to team chemistry are the players themselves. The increasingly narcissistic and anonymous nature of the internet means that random teammate pairing leads to a lot of selfish gameplay. Whether it is people hogging stats and dosh... or players who feel like their play style is superior... or players who expect support without providing support... or those who had a bad day and just want to ruin someone else's day, it is easy to not give a rat's tail about your team. We use players for how we want them to be rather than appreciate them for the contributions they bring to the team.

Incentivizing making friends will encourage players to accept others for who they are. Yeah, they might not play a perk with the loadout and skill choices that would maximize your perk's abilities, but another player and its guns are still helpful. This is a game, after all, and not a chore or career.

Give players a small chance at winning free keys to locked chests whenever they play with people from their friends list X number of times, including exclusive Team Builder skins and cosmetics.

 

[Agent Pickles]

Incentivize Keeping Friends Alive​

No more dosh for kills. The mercenary contracts are for surviving, after all. It is a given that all zeds need to be cleared from the area, so why make the rewards based on individual kills? And why would our employer care about who killed which zed? Skilled, zed-grinding players are rewarded with having teammates alive to shoot their own guns and chip in with their own kills.

A player can still earn dosh for assists and healing. Just replace the kill dosh with a dosh bonus for every teammate that remains alive at the end of the round.

A part of me would also like to see dosh bonuses go to players who kill zeds that have grabbed or are damaging a teammate, but I wonder if this mechanic would get abused.

 

[Agent Pickles]

Create Team Identity​

I wouldn't mind a plot point in KF3 revealing that the whole dystopian scenario is turning into a Hunger Games of sorts, where the surviving social elites of the world are betting on which mercs die first. Every round, the teammate with the least kills or who had the least health at the end of the previous round is singled out as the one who the bettors are betting will die and the team will get bonus dosh if that teammate is alive at the end of the current round.

Various sponsors can provide a variety of team buffs. Players can subscribe to a particular sponsor, increasing the odds of being paired with like-minded teammates during random team play.

For example, an in-game Glock sponsor can unlock the Glock for all teammates, with the pistol ammo being free in the Trader, but requires all teammates to limit their weapon choices to pistols... or that's the only pistol in the game for that team... and non-pistol ammo is more expensive. This sponsorship could extend to real life to teams in ranked KF tournaments, bringing in cash and exposure for both TWI and the sponsor.

But if a player ever switches sponsors, the Glock goes back to being available only to those who've paid for it.

Other sponsors might provide more slush funds, giving teams more money at the start of round two. Others might buff healing, damage, or strength, etc.

This could also open the possibility, if every teammate agrees, to not just fight a boss (or two) on the last round, but to be transported to an arena, where your team has to fight a boss and another team, in a PvP and PvE combo. The team that kills the boss (or does the most damage to bosses), wins.

Don't want a sponsor? Allow friends to create their own team logo and colors, which will appear on clothes, guns, and banners.

 

[Agent Pickles]

Add Difficulty Modifiers and Mutators​

Players with certain difficult or easy mutators active will help with intelligent team building, increasing the odds of being paired with a potential friend, rather than just a stranger whose preferences don't mesh well with your own. Right now, the closest that players can come to matching with like-minded strangers is by joining a game based on difficulty and map. Let's expand on that.

Allow players more flexibility in picking and choosing options that work for or against their play style. People who want a harder challenge will choose more challenging options. Casual players will do the opposite. While difficulty settings already do this, their lack of flexibility is clearly not enough.

 

[MBOmnis]

Incentivize Keeping Friends Alive​

No more dosh for kills. The mercenary contracts are for surviving, after all. It is a given that all zeds need to be cleared from the area, so why make the rewards based on individual kills? And why would our employer care about who killed which zed? Skilled, zed-grinding players are rewarded with having teammates alive to shoot their own guns and chip in with their own kills.

A player can still earn dosh for assists and healing. Just replace the kill dosh with a dosh bonus for every teammate that remains alive at the end of the round.

A part of me would also like to see dosh bonuses go to players who kill zeds that have grabbed or are damaging a teammate, but I wonder if this mechanic would get abused.

I like this. But regarding the last paragraph, it would definitely be abused.

As for removing Dosh for individual kills, one idea that could balance this out is making the end-of-wave dosh payout proportional to how much damage the players sustained in that wave (less damage = more dosh), with a bonus if nobody took any damage at all.

I'd go out on an extra limb here and also eliminate the need for you to deal damage to an enemy in order to get XP. Everyone gets the XP from a killed Zed. Sure it might encourage laziness but at the end of the day, everyone benefits from a cleared wave, and unless you're playing with actual trolls or AFK people, everyone's doing something to help.

It shouldn't matter if one of the 6 players didn't tap a zed before it died, and it's no use hurting said player by not giving them XP because they were prioritizing something else such as healing or other, bigger Zeds that everyone else is going to have a chance to shoot at.

EDIT: I just thought of something else that wouldn't strictly fit the bill of "new cooperation mechanics", but it fits the idea of the entire team benefitting from each individual player.

Make all leftover Dosh players have on-hand at the end of a victorious round be converted into extra XP and/or Vosh for everyone. This way, all the Dosh the players still have after being fully kitted out will still serve a purpose and not simply be a pretty number on the screen.

 

[Agent Pickles]

I like this. But regarding the last paragraph, it would definitely be abused.

As for removing Dosh for individual kills, one idea that could balance this out is making the end-of-wave dosh payout proportional to how much damage the players sustained in that wave (less damage = more dosh), with a bonus if nobody took any damage at all.

I'd go out on an extra limb here and also eliminate the need for you to deal damage to an enemy in order to get XP. Everyone gets the XP from a killed Zed. Sure it might encourage laziness but at the end of the day, everyone benefits from a cleared wave, and unless you're playing with actual trolls or AFK people, everyone's doing something to help.

It shouldn't matter if one of the 6 players didn't tap a zed before it died, and it's no use hurting said player by not giving them XP because they were prioritizing something else such as healing or other, bigger Zeds that everyone else is going to have a chance to shoot at).

I dig it. All good points. I don't care about XP except that I expect to be rewarded with some as I play, and I play more during events with 2x XP, but I couldn't tell you how much XP any zed is worth. I'd be fine with making that a reward for all, especially since, as you said, some roles aren't focused on killing. Good thoughts!

 

[CitronVert]

I haven't read it all but these look like good ideas overall. That said I think you're suggesting too drastical changes, and imo, KF2 balance is not too far from ideal now, and I would prefer if they don't deviate to much from it in the next opus.

For example, in KF2, it is too easy to solo the later waves even in 6p servers, and your suggestions acknowledge this, but what you suggest is the other extreme (making teamplay close to mandatory). In KF1, it was actually very hard to solo later waves, and since I played both, I can tell you that I prefer the "too easy" approach of KF2 much more, as at least I don't feel like I'm doomed for joining a server with a bad team, and that imo is far less frustrating, even though it makes the victory a bit less rewarding.

 

[Agent Pickles]

you're suggesting too drastical changes, and imo, KF2 balance is not too far from ideal

(making teamplay close to mandatory)

I play with friends that I know in real life but I'm mostly a casual soloist. I wouldn't be making these suggestions if I thought they might make team play a requirement!

But when I do play solo, I don't join other teams and ignore the other players. I especially don't complain if I die because I left the team to do my thing. Nor do I yell at the medic for not following me around. Why? Because I'm playing solo! Lone wolf tactics are perfectly okay when you aren't on a team.

Yet that has been my experience with my friends when other random people join our games. Randos just kinda do their own thing half the time, being a pain to the team. They join, assume that they're the new leader, ignore what the team is doing and/or try to split the team (sometimes succeed), sell teammate's weapons, and then complain when we stop supporting them.

I do think that cooperation should make team play easier while competitive behavior should be detrimental to the player who is being selfish. In that sense, yes, cooperation should be highly rewarded when engaged in team play. Co-op isn't about numerous individuals scattering into the wind. It's about harmonizing complementary strengths and weaknesses.

If TWI thinks the zerk's Vampire skill needs nerfing because it promotes lone wolf behavior, rather than just nerfing it, add the requirement that it only works when the zerk is crouching, and tack on a bonus to damaging legs and a bonus for teammates who shoot over him.

This helps reduce the effects of stacking Skirmisher and Vampire, encourages cooperation and specialization, and makes Last Man Standing scenarios tougher without becoming impossible.

 

[Aze]

Incentive for teambased damagedealing: Remove head- vs body-health​

Head vs bodyhealth is completely unnecessary and just causes dissynergy between certain perks. First, lemme explain head vs body health mechanics:

Every enemy (except bosses) have both headhealth and bodyhealth. Dealing damage to the head also hurts the body, but when directly hurting the body, you do NOT hurt the head in any way. With these mechanics in play, you can only kill a ZED by fulfilling 1 of 2 different criteria:

1) Deplete its bodyhealth to 0. Note that when you decapitate an enemy, you also deal a huge chunk of damage to its bodyhealth - if its body health reaches 0 from that, well, the target is instantly killed. If not, you can shoot it a bit more and drop its bodyhealth to 0, again, killing it.
2) If you decapitate an enemy and the enemy is NOT outright killed, you can also simply let it bleed out. It will automatically die after a few seconds.

Due to these mechanics, it causes a pretty massive team dissynergy:

Precision perks - Perks such as Gunslinger, Sharpshooter and Commando really want to aim for the head to try and do decapkills (or let enemies bleedouts if needed).

Chaos perks- Damage effects like fire, poison, electricity, explosives (not counting explosives' impact damage) and other similar effect can ONLY damage bodyhealth. This means that weapons which purely house these effects can NOT contribute to "precision kills". On top of that, their incapacition effects most often cause enemies to flail around, making precise takedowns even harder.

So, as per my "title", remove headhealth as a mechanic. Just make enemies have a singular healthpool, like bosses. Note that shooting enemies' heads with precision weapons would still deal heavily increased damage. This means the playstyles of chaos vs precision remains - except now they can help one another to take down targets, since they both always target the same healthpool. It's already in place for bosses, so why not just extend it to all ZEDs?

Chaotic incapacitations could also need some serious tweaks, so they don't disrupt precision-based attempts as much either. But for that I have no direct solution to offer (other than slow down the "panicking" enemies, maybe?).

 

[Agent Pickles]

Head vs bodyhealth is completely unnecessary

Wholeheartedly agree. It's completely optional and weird.

Chaotic incapacitations could also need some serious tweaks, so they don't disrupt precision-based attempts as much either. But for that I have no direct solution to offer (other than slow down the "panicking" enemies, maybe?).

I see this as less of a problem and more of a, "there are pros and cons to every perk" deal. Panicked zeds give the precision perks a chance to displace, heal, or reload. Big zeds are less likely to panic, and since those are the zeds that the Sharp and GS love to see, it kinda works out. Meanwhile, the precision perks should probably not waste ammo on panicking trash zeds.

Alternatively, a Survivability vs Synergy solution for the Firebug might be this:

Firebug's Survival Option (solo play only)​

Increased odds that large zeds on fire will panic.​

Firebug's Synergy Option (team play only)​

Nearby teammates enjoy a 25% bonus to weapon switching and both the Firebug and nearby teammates gain a +5% fire resistance for every teammate that is near the Firebug. (nearby teammates can now use knives/pistols more readily and save their important ammo for zeds that aren't on fire)​

I've seen a Sharp with an M99+201 SMG combo be very effective, so while my solution doesn't fix the problem you've identified, it does allow for precision players to more effectively expand their role when a Firebug is on the team.

I'd also be curious to hear from others if they have experience with using both a molotov and freeze grenade on a group of zeds at the same time.

A more direct solution might be this: TWI could increase the odds that chaos effects will trigger zed time.