Ok treading on a sensitive issue here... The Medic & The Zerker.

[xebo]

Called it after his first post

 

[scary ghost]

As far as the meleeing fleshpounds goes, I have posted why it works during the beta testing. I even pointed out flaws with the rage accumulator that Xienen took the time to fix. TWI is fully aware of why a zerker can get away with meleeing a fleshpound and chose to leave it in despite fixing a flaw that allowed a perked lar to land 2 head shots on a FP without raging it.

Quoting myself since this post seems to have been overlooked through all the posting. Again, Xienen took the time to fix some quirks with the rage accumulator after I brought it to his attention during the beta testing. I highly doubt it is an exploit as he could have easily removed fp meleeing all together with a simple check to see if the damage was done by a melee weapon. If I'm not mistaken, didn't that insta-decap thread contain a post by a Yoshiro (?) or Xienen (?) stating they wanted zerker to have a chance against the fp? That thread's been deleted so we'll never know for sure.

One solution I haven't seen yet is to make the scrake the zerker's nemesis. Right now, the only way for a zerker to stun a scrake head on is an axe alt fire to the head. Why not just reduce the base damage of axe alt fire to 265, down from 275, so a head shot from the front only does 662 damage, down from 687, which isn't enough to stun. Now if a zerker wants to stun scrakes he must have a teammate to distract the scrake or else he will take a damaging blow. As an added bonus, scrakes are fixed to rage at 75% hp thus there is nothing a zerker can do to prevent a raging scrake if he desires to engage it 1 on 1.

Here you go, another alternative is to make the scrake the zerker's nemesis. You know, that specimen that often gets overlooked in lieu of the fleshpound? Reducing axe damage by 10 points so it only stuns with a backstab will make the zerker think twice about going off on his own.

 

[xebo]

Only reason to even use axe is scrakes. I welcome such an axe change, as it would give me a reason to use katana/xbow again. Good way to nerf the weapon IMO

 

[Entangler]

About the damage resistance (nothing new here):

Spoiler!

The damage resistance buff was indeed unnecessary. Good Berserkers managed just fine without it; there's plenty of evidence to that effect. The most common reason why people wanted it buffed was to compete with the Medic's armour, which I always found ridiculous because the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other - they aren't "competitors" and they shouldn't use each other as a benchmark for balance. Taken individually, on its own merits, the Berserker's existing damage resistance was perfectly adequate - as long as you didn't glue your feet to the floor.

There's a recurring misconception that having damage resistance means that you're supposed to rely on it, which is completely untrue. In fact, the Berserker has four sources of damage mitigation: The first is his head (good judgement and situational awareness), the second is his feet (dodging and escaping), and the third is his weapon (preventing attacks before they happen). The actual damage resistance bonus is the last and least of these, a fallback for those moments when damage can't be avoided entirely.

In 1014, if you expected the damage resistance to save you from yourself, you'd die, and rightly so. I see no reason why bad judgement ought to be punished any less severely in today's KF. So it's not so much a matter of nerfing the damage resistance now as it is about re-evaluating why it was buffed in the first place; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Now, about Flesh Pounds and soloing (this part is long):

Spoiler!

I actually don't mind the way that meleeing Flesh Pounds works now, and I don't like suggestions that would make it completely impossible. I do, however, feel that there are a couple of issues that make it easier than it should be. The Berserker's MIGHTY SKIN OF STEEL is one of them, of course, but apart from that, the main problem is line-of-sight kiting. Yes, a well-practised level 6 Berserker will kill a Flesh Pound relatively easily in isolation - but it usually isn't. If the only way to engage a Flesh Pound without enraging it was to charge at it despite unfavourable circumstances, it'd become a lot less appealing very quickly. For all the times that a Berserker can safely engage a Flesh Pound as soon as it appears without assistance, there are five more where it's meatshielding two Sirens and surrounded by Crawlers. Cue the teammates sniping the ranged attackers and covering the Berserker's flanks, because he'd usually need them.

But then we encounter another issue. What if everyone's spread out? The Flesh Pound won't have many minions then, because they'll be thinly spread across the map, so, ironically, not working together would actually make it easier, as a couple of scary ghost's videos demonstrate. Sounds like a job for another suggestion I've been plugging for quite a while: MaxZombiesOnce scaling.

Let's face it - even in today's KF, a decent team will hold off the hordes without much trouble. The game doesn't really "start" until the big specimens arrive. When you have at most 32 specimens between six players, it isn't hard to see why. So what would happen if there were more? I think the whole game would be better off for it - I've always felt that the hordes should be genuinely threatening in their own right - but let's focus on Berserkers for now.

Firstly, having more active specimens would make splitting up much less desirable, as you'd have more threats to deal with on your own, and Flesh Pounds would usually have a bigger and more threatening retinue. Secondly, the scaling would do a lot to combat the last man standing phenomenon, because while Berserkers geared for that style of play can push through hordes to an extent, they don't kill things very quickly (relatively speaking), and having more active specimens saps at the Berserker's most valuable commodity - room to move. Crowd all of his escape routes, and even the best Berserker on the planet can't do much about it.

There are a couple of other rage mechanic changes I'd like to see too, but they're low priority. Currently, when an enraged Flesh Pound attacks, it calms down after the first successful hit. I'd rather that the whole attack was enraged - I'm pretty sure the second punch would hit if the Flesh Pound kept the movement speed bonus, not to mention most of the blender attack, and if so it'd hurt like hell. The other change is that whenever a Flesh Pound is due to calm down, if its TwoSecondDamageTotal meets the RageDamageThreshold, it should simply stay enraged instead of stopping to enrage again. If the team goes for broke with their damage output, so should the Flesh Pound. That might be a bit excessive though - I'd need to see it in action before committing to it. (I do actually plan to make a balance mutator including those changes when I have time, but don't hold your breath - I'm a legendary procrastinator.)

scary ghost, the Fire Axe change is an interesting idea, but I've got to admit I'm not sold on it. I wouldn't mind if soloing Scrakes required skill - hitting their heads would be trivial if not for the hit detection problems - but I'd still like it to at least be possible (without using world geometry to perform solo backstabs). Maybe that's just tradition talking though.

 

[SMIFF]

There has to be a line at which being paranoid about what is possible just becomes ridiculous.
The knife+9mm medic vs pound should clearly be far, far beyond that line.
So should taking 10+ minutes of undivided attention to deal with one single pound (which could go wrong any time btw).
What's the point in being able to kill that one pound by jumping through tons of hoops but then you're the only one left in the game because everyone else got bored?
No one can see how awesome you are for being able to solo 200 enemies in wave 10 in just one and a half hour at this point.

Seriously?

Now THAT is asinine.

 

[outofrealman]

If you are the only one left, fleshpounds spawn afterwards will only have health of one-man worth. So 5 alt fire from axe will kill him. Axe him, back off, axe again, this time keep alt-fire the fleshpound. He will die before he hits you.

Unless you make axe instan-rage a pound, you cannot stop the last man if he's a zerker. Even you make him not able to stun scrakes, he can just keep kiting those scrakes. If number of scrakes is lower than 5, you can just keep far enough to make them auto-die. If you get too much scrakes left, just take them down one by one. 100 health is much more than enough to exchange hits with a raging one-man scrake with even a machete.

In fact I really dont see WHY the last man should die. Just because no one like to watch someone solo 100+ zeds? Why dont you try NOT TO DIE or just change server? If people insist to rambo, nothing in this world can stop them. Breaking line of sight can already make those whatever thing they cannot solo to focus on the bigger groups of flesh meat instead of the rambo.

Anything more changes to scrakes and fleshpounds will only kill the purpose of berserkers even exist. Really? You want a berserker to back off to hope that scrake to change his target AND THEN face his butt towards the endless wave of gorefasts and crawlers just to back stab a scrake? Why I have to risk that much? Why dont I use hunting shotgun, LAR, xbow, M14?

Now a berserker who stick with the team already having enough hard time. Why we have to suffer even more just because some people like to rambo? I remember one time a played berserker in a full 6-man game on biolab. I dont want to block the line of fire of teamates. So I just croach every wave. Over 50% of the time I am just sitting there doing nothing. Because nothing able to get close enough for me to hit. Sometimes when mutiple scrakes/sirens/husks spawns, what I can do is take damage. Because jumping around is clearly blocking the line of fire, I will block evey shot my teamates try to save me with.

So what I could do is keep croaching. Playing with a good team resulting in I have nothing to do, or just being a meat shield. If I go support/demo or whatever, we will ahve enough fire power to keep everything far enough. Now if I go berserker, the only reason is if things really getting bad, our team still stand a chance, we will not be playing for an hour to die at the ast few waves.

If I was any other perks, NO ONE will be standing (well, croaching actually) in the middle of the hallway. But hell, I was. So I'M BLOCKING the way no matter what. Just like those clots should be DEAD if the firebug use other perks. But what is happening is a bunch of burning clots' there. How can you say this is NOT BLOCKNG the sight?

 

[Nanostrike]

Ugh. I hate topics that turn out like this. Reminds me of the massive, whine-filled Doom2 map hate-topics that ended up getting the map un-whitelisted for quite a while.

I don't really have much to say that hasn't already been said: if you nerf Berserker much from what it is now, there's little reason to choose it over a perk that lets you do largely the same thing, but at safe range using a gun.

 

[Starsky]

if you nerf Berserker much from what it is now, there's little reason to choose it over a perk that lets you do largely the same thing, but at safe range using a gun.

Pretty much this. Also, from a balancing perspective, including a melee class in a primarily ranged class game is a huge mistake because it's just begging for problems. It's not impossible to balance, but really damn hard.
For a melee class to be balanced, it has to be able to outperform any ranged class, through increased damage, survivability, or utility, while in melee range or it's just not worth using because the others can perform just as well from a distance. Think of it like this: if you had to choose between a sniper rifle and a shotgun, but the sniper rifle performed just as well at short to long ranges as the shotgun does at close range, why would you choose the shotgun? It has to be better up close or you're just gimping yourself by taking it.
This then very often leads to the melee class becoming overpowered when used by a skilled player even if it's balanced for the average one. (It does seem a little overpowered even for the average player atm though)
tl;dr If you can do everything a berserker can but from a distance, the berserker is pointless.

I do think the berserker needs some slight nerfing, but wanted to throw that out there for people to keep in mind so hopefully it's not nerfed into uselessness.

 

[Undedd Jester]

(1) If I'm not mistaken, didn't that insta-decap thread contain a post by a Yoshiro (?) or Xienen (?) stating they wanted zerker to have a chance against the fp? That thread's been deleted so we'll never know for sure.

(2) Here you go, another alternative is to make the scrake the zerker's nemesis. You know, that specimen that often gets overlooked in lieu of the fleshpound? Reducing axe damage by 10 points so it only stuns with a backstab will make the zerker think twice about going off on his own.

(1) A fair point, but aving a mechanic that pretty much ensures the FP is going down once the Zerker knows how to do it is a little more than a chance. Sure its an awkward skill to use but once mastered its very effective. I think knocking his speed down to 25% and making his damage Resistance 33% instead of 40% is a good mid line. Couple with with the suggested Fleshpound changes and the perk would require a decent bit of skill to use again (After all it was orignally the Perk that in unfamiliar hands was useless, but it a masters hands was extremely powerful), but would avoid this new player opinion of "The perk is useless!"

(2) An interesting idea, however the Scrake will never rage unless you force it to, whereas the FP forces you to deal with it. So it only partially solves the problem. mMind you I suppose even if he does solo the rest of the wave alone, haivng 6 or 7 Scrakes to take on without a stun lock would probably nuke the Zerker anyway... but then there is the problem of everyone having to wait for him to inevitably die. Its a tough one for sure

 

[sn4tchb0nk3r]

Leave the zerker as is FGS. Camping all day errday was what killed KF for me before the update. Reminded me as to why I stopped playing L4D so often, it's all about cornering up and lick your balls until the horde subsides, then move out

BOOOOOORIIIIIIIIING

Now with the running gameplay KF has adopted thanks to the Zerker's newfound effectiveness and popularity, the game has taken a faster pace, feels a lot more engaging and intense having to move around as a unit, mowing down zeds left and right, medics frantically healing, Sharps sharpening their aiming skills to the point they can either headshot on foot or know how to pause for just long enough to score that critical headshot that will disable incoming/following Husks/Sirens and increase the squad's chances of survival, the commando alongside the Zerker,taking out the rubble around to make way for their team and dealing with the big ones as they show up

nothing more exhilarating than successfully making it through all 10 waves in that nerve-wrecking, twitch-reflex tuning, senses-overloading environment.

 

[xebo]

Lower damage resistance and zerks have even less of a role in groups.

Solution (posted in ideas forum): Riot shields -SpeedBonus +DmgRes

 

[RainbowCakez]

Lower damage resistance and zerks have even less of a role in groups.

Solution (posted in ideas forum): Riot shields -SpeedBonus +DmgRes

I would like to see the Beserker just plain, have less movement speed in general (Not default). They tank well already, so why give them the speed to evade everything on top of that?
Speed and Clots can't stop them. Ten tonnes of an speedy, mean killing machine.

While the Beserker does melee everything, putting themself in danger; It sort of seems pointless because there's no real danger if you can easily avoid everything. If they don't have enough speed to dodge things, then not only will they be hit, but the Medic might find it a lot easier to Medi-Dart you since you don't run 100mph.

(Sorry if this was covered; I skimmed the topic.)

 

[nutterbutter]

..but the clot grab is really where his strength is.

I've said that many times. Magnetic clot grab is game breaking. If an FP is chasing you down a hall and there are two clots in front of you, those two clots are more dangerous than the FP. Two clots and a bloat are close? Miss that one shot at the bloat and you are dead. Just happen to be grabbed and you don't kill that clot before a reload? Dead or lose all of you armor before the reload is done. And "No", reloads should not be interruptible. Clot pops out of a door as you are running by and it is game over.

As for the speed, speed is everything. Speed is offense. Speed is defense. After all of the rebalancing, zerker is still OP and Zerker is almost right there as well.

 

[9_6]

So clots are 1 hit killers now?
I didn't even notice.

Maybe you're blowing the fact that jumping won't break a clot grab on higher difficulties a little bit out of proportion?
Don't tell me being successfully attacked by clots is that common to you in the first place.

 

[nutterbutter]

So clots are 1 hit killers now?

Yes, that is exactly what I said; clots are one hit killers.

 

[9_6]

I wouldn't act all smug if I would complain about "new" ways to die at the hands of the "upgraded" (explain please?) clot that have, apart from one minuscule changed detail, actually been in the game since its release you know.

 

[Benjamin]

I've died many times due to the altered clot grab mechanics. The problem is on the earlier waves there are so many, so usually one will grab me, which will result in me spamming its head with the 9mm until it dies, only to instantly be grabbed by another before I can pick up speed. To be honest I'm not sure why they altered the behaviour at all. The whole 'jumping away' was an escape mechanic.

At the very least I'd like to see some shove/melee feature to complement the change. Seems really silly that you can be stuck to the spot by something that doesn't even have its hands on you (an animation problem I assume), not to mention the fact that they look very frail anyway.

 

[nutterbutter]

I wouldn't act all smug if I would complain about "new" ways to die at the hands of the "upgraded" (explain please?) clot that have, apart from one minuscule changed detail, actually been in the game since its release you know.

Don't get in a huff when someone points out that you intentionally misrepresented what was said. If you don't want such behavior pointed out, then don't do it. Your attitude made that first post. Nothing prevented you from making only your second post.

I never said that clots were "upgraded." What the Magnetic Clot Grab does is stop the player from doing whatever he was planning on doing. And if that clot grab happens just before a reload then there is a very good chance that player will take significant damage or die. If that clot holds the player long enough for a second clot to grab the player then that player better hope that he kills both with the first spread of fire or he will certainly die. And if the rest of the specimens catch up then there is no hope.

Add in other situations where the player is running from a group and a clot grabs him from a door on the side. Or when clots climb over each other and push the player back to a corner. Or a clot and a bloat spawn next to a player and the player /has/to decap the bloat with the first shot because if he doesn't, he's dead. All sorts of situations.

What I don't understand is why I suck so much as a player. I play on the maps and I can hold my own and finish maps just as well as everyone one else if not better. However, I talk on these boards and apparently I'm the only player who ever dies or has problems on maps or in certain situations. I post when I do something I think was exceptional and apparently everyone else has done it while they were a level 1. I can't figure it out.

 

[RainbowCakez]

What I don't understand is why I suck so much as a player. I play on the maps and I can hold my own and finish maps just as well as everyone one else if not better. However, I talk on these boards and apparently I'm the only player who ever dies or has problems on maps or in certain situations. I post when I do something I think was exceptional and apparently everyone else has done it while they were a level 1. I can't figure it out.

There there. There's a difference between being Sucky and Being The Best.
If people are going to post what they did best, sure as heck they're going to make a mountain out of anthills.
Alternatively, people might not like mentioning they were grabbed by a clot because it's seem as being 'weak', when it's understandable that you're clearly outnumbered.

If it makes you feel any better, clots grab me quite regularly.

Jumping away from those little boops don't seem to be very effective, since it's like jumping in the spot since you hardly move anywhere quickly... I suppose that's where Beserker comes even handier, now that I think about it.
Everyone else makes it sound as if dealing with a few clots grabbing you is baby stuff; But I've been in the position where I'm reloading, a clot has grabbed me, a Fleshpound coming my way and I jump the opposite way to try run... But, a futile effort since you hardly seem to go anywhere...
Your movement speed doesn't seem to go back to normal when you're not grabbed, but you gradually increase in speed again which is very annoying...

 

[nutterbutter]

If it makes you feel any better, clots grab me quite regularly.

You must have missed my [sarcasm][/sarcasm] tags. Everyone dies, but there are a few posters here like 9_6 that rarely, if ever, have any problem playing the game. Bring up a situation or problem in the game and inevitably they comment that, for them, it isn't a big deal or hard to deal with.

Keep in mind that I have played with most of these people and everyone talks a bigger game than they play. Some people just talk a much much bigger game than they play.