The current state of balance in Killing Floor

[poosh]

2) Taking away the Berserkers ranged specimen resistance (Husk, Siren, Bloat Bile (although keep his perk specific damage resistance of course), Patty chaingun and rocket launcher), and dropping his speed to that of a Medic.

I think removing or decreasing some Berserker damage resistance is a very bad idea. Berserker is an excellent perk for soloing or roaming, but still not a good enough team member to defend the position. Decreasing damage resistance will force Berserker to retreat faster, but great speed bonus allows to run away and survive the wave even after other teammate die. He will receive more damage -> needs more time for healing -> makes kitting waves longer -> makes game boring.

IMO it will be better to decrease speed bonus to 15-20%, but remove low health speed penalty (make Berserker with 1hp to run at the same speed as with 100hp). This will make soloing or "ramboing" harder, because lowers speed will not allow to outrun raged Gorefasts, Stalkers or Crawlers so easy (this is the part where Berserker is most OP now), and force Berserker to stick with the team. From the other end, when sticking with the team, Berserker will be able to stand at front-line longer, retreat faster (if seriously wounded and need healing) and also faster return to the front position.

 

[Aze]

Im not gonna argue against you Undedd, you have good arguements and all that and i don't feel like arguing at the moment. But, i'd really like to know one thing. By this quote here:

I complete almost every single round with AT LEAST half a tank of fuel, unless I have to continually overstep my role and cover poor play from the rest of my team. That, I might add is without using any secoundary weapons or the MAC-10.

Ok, are you saying you have half a tank LEFT, or that you USED only half a tank per wave? (Do you have 560 fuel left, or only 80?) And on what difficulty are you stating this for? 6-man HoE?

 

[outofrealman]

Im not gonna argue against you Undedd, you have good arguements and all that and i don't feel like arguing at the moment. But, i'd really like to know one thing. By this quote here:



Ok, are you saying you have half a tank LEFT, or that you USED only half a tank per wave? (Do you have 560 fuel left, or only 80?) And on what difficulty are you stating this for? 6-man HoE?

My firebug perk is at 10M (or may be 11M) damage without any cheats. I have all the damge just by playing. And after I'm level 6, I never have enough ammo on any pub servers if I dont have a secondary weapon.

Yeh yeah yeah, feel free to say me suck Most of the time I only lit smalls on fire and use ~10 ammo on mediums. HoE waves is long enough to use up ALL of the ammo from the FT unless you get yourself a really good team (what I mean is you NEVER have to shoot scrakes or fleshpounds and at least half of the mediums is taken down by suitable perks). But if I'm in a really good team, I can do nothing and still win.

And again, when using the FT, you ONLY HAVE two options:
1. just lit everything up and wait the DoT to do damage
2. hold M1 and kill thing really fast


2 burn your ammo quicker than you can imagine, so this is a "must not do" as a FT user.

1 gets you or teamates keep attacking by burning crawlers or gorefasts. Because the speed reduction is not enough to help you outrun those zeds. And most importantly, it takes too long for the FT to do damage this way. Even a clot burn for 5+ seconds. This is a HELL LOT of time when those crawlers and gorefasts keep coming.

The "freak-out animation" takes years to occure. Also, burning zed IS BLOCKING line of fire and line of sight. This is plain fact. Another perk doing the most simlar thing as FB is commando, difference is commando can decap to do REAL damage, the headless zed is can be dodge EASILY, unlike burning zeds. Also, commando can gun down any headless zeds when needed without worring their ammo even they spam all day long. Firebug? You hose them down, you may not have enough ammo. If you NEED to hose down one single gorefast or siren (while both of them NEED to take down quickly), it take what? Nearly 20 count (or ~15 if you tap M1). If your teamate make any mistake and forced you to hose down a scrakes or fp, you are really unlikely to have enough ammo for that wave.

So, as I requested for really long time, anyone who can tape or link me a vedio showing HOW a firebug can save enough ammo for the entire wave on HoE while holding a position with a 6-man team? (cos kiting is just easy for firebug to safe ammo, and again, unlikly to happen in real gameplay) And all of the FB defenders share the same characteristics:
1. able to be the top 2 or 3 on the scoreboard
2. having quite some ammo after a wave on HoE
3. preventing burning zeds to hurt anyone

I never ever able to do those, and never ever see ANY FB do it. So I start to think I MUST BE playing FB TOTALLY wrong to have such a HUGH difference with those players. So I really want to see how to do what they do.

 

[Undedd Jester]

Ok, are you saying you have half a tank LEFT, or that you USED only half a tank per wave? (Do you have 560 fuel left, or only 80?) And on what difficulty are you stating this for? 6-man HoE?

Half a tank left, even when having to constantly cover people who aren't doing their jobs, and without using any secoundary weapons at all.

I swear this is true, lest my steam account gets hijacked and permanently lost with all my KF progress...

I have just finished playing with a mate of mine in my server who had never picked up a flamethrower before and as such was level 0. I explained to him how it worked and what he should be doing and I in turn supported him accordingly as a demoman. On a 6 man HoE server (I wanted to actually test a few of my theories on a low skill level) he actually proved pretty effective in his role. To his credit this was because, as Firebugs should be doing, he wasn't going for kills, he was trying to slow down the opposition and soften them up for the rest of the team.

Admittedly he did have a couple of problems with limitations of a level 0 Firebug, such as low fire damage resistance and reduced range, but he performed admirably in the Firebugs role, and proved more useful to the team than most of the other level 6's in the game. Using the core Firebug principles he even finished a number of rounds with a good tank left over and a reasonable kill count to boot.

I only say this because I will be truly gutted if Firebug is drastically changed. It is a very well balanced perk, and I would hate to see it go the way of the Zerker and be made stupidly overpowered to accomadate all the people who aren't any good at using it, not directed at anyone ofc


@ outofrealman

2 is where you are going wrong, never EVER hold down the fire button no matter what. If you hold down the fire button, the recoil kicks your flames up into the air and most of the time right over your opponent dealing no damage. If you need to kill something fast use rapid taps. It will use much less ammo than a sustained burst and be jsut as efficient, if not more so.

And of course ignite a Scrake but don't go for sustained damage.

Hope it helps

 

[Lubaz]

I dont care about balancing, i play Killing Floor for killing Specimens with friends..

 

[nutterbutter]

I'm going to post my disagreements and some agreements so assume agreement or ambivalence if I don't mention it. Personally, I hate that I have to actually spell that out and that Undedd had to specifically say "Remember these are my opinions." That is a shame.

Medic
"saving for such weapons can hamper the team." That doesn't make any sense. The medic relatively low damage output along with his primarily function of healing while the rest of the team is putting out considerably higher damage means the medic is pulling very little cash.

"When alone is very much required to run and get away rather than stand and fight." No perk can stand an fight on HoE and I doubt any can do it on Suicidal. Kiting is a requirement for all perks on HoE and the medic is second best at it.

"Very susceptible to the clot grab." Every perk save zerker is susceptible to the clot grab. However they don't have the quicker and faster charging of the medic. Just trying to point out this isn't a specific medic disadvantage.

"his lack of any real cost effective damage output makes surviving alone very challenging, and in some situations almost impossible" I disagree with that. He has few perked weapons, however like the zerker, he has speed and unperked weapon damage (especially melee weapons) over a long period of time is almost always more effective than perked weapons by a slow player.

"Verdict: Well Balanced (leaning very slightly towards Overpowered if anything, but no real complaints)" With the addition of the clot grab, I agree with slightly OP.


Support
To the strengths, I'd add the second fastest reaction time to attack, behind zerker. I'd also add interruptible reloads with the shotgun.

"Awkwardly long reload times on majority of weapons, increased by general inefficiency by killing lower level/common targets." I'd disagree with that as well. The only really long reload time support has is with the AA12. The other long reload times are with unperked weapons and every perk has that same problem except commando. Lover level/common targets are easily, quickly, and very efficiently dispatched by support. Penetration means multiple common targets go down with a single shot and support can carry handcannons or the m79 to save the aa12 for big targets or fixing mistakes.

"- Effective range is alot lower than other classes, making sirens and esspecially husks problematic." Sirens not really because by the time they can hit you, you can hit them. Husks, yes.

"Verdict: Slightly Overpowered (He is not gamebreaking, but he is a tad overpowered in the eyes of a good number of players)" When support is with a good team and can rely on just doing his job, I'd agree with the slightly OP. Put him on a bad team or having to solo 100+ specimens and that ammo gets used very quickly and he's screwed.


Sharpshooter
"Reload and cycle times of weapons greatly improved." Until last patch but the interruptible reloading of the LAR helps.

"Body shot damage is extremely ineffective against even the most basic of foes.
- Skill required for the perk is very high, as any kind of mistake can prove very costly, especially against Scrakes and Fleshpounds." That's the truth. Add in some objects on the deck and specimens start crawling and jumping over each other. Sharpie is screwed then. No bonus for body shots means 9mm usage better be very precise to be effective.

"Verdict: Pretty Well Balanced (although slightly leaning towards underpowered)" Agreed although if the funky specimen crawling and jumping were fixed, he'd be just about perfect.


Commando
"...they are a well balanced class." Agreed. Commando is one of the three that is perfectly balanced.


Berseker
"Slow movement without melee weapons, most notably when self healing." Couldn't disagree more. Berserker is faster with any weapon than any other perk with that same weapon.

"Severe lack of range, requiring a typically kiting style of play." Again, I disagree. Unperked weapons give the zerker just as much range as every other perk and unperked damage is good enough. Every perk solo on HoE, and probably suicidal, has to kite and the zerker is the best of the bunch.

"In the wrong hands proves a very poor perk at cooperative gameplay." Experience fixes that.

"Verdict: A little Overpowered (since his typical application in game is not within a team capacity, needs revising on how best to limit his solo abilities)" I'd say easily OP because he has no disadvantages and no clot grab.


Firebug
"- Is very flexible in how rapidly he can deal out damage to crowds of specimens." Yup. Put firebug on a large open map and he can deal significantly more damage than any other perk.

"- The Firebug is rather cheap to maintain, and alos spawns with armour, making him very money efficient." Exactly.

"- Although resistant to the husk, he cannot kill him with fire based damage. This can mean he finds himself forced to use an off perk weapon to deal with it." MAC10 is perfect.

"- The Flamethrowers available ammunition in his tank is a large percentage of his overall supply. This can mean keeping track of your overall available ammuniton is very difficult." I find the firebug is the easiest perk to keep track of the ammo.

"Verdict: ...he is rather well balanced." Agreed. Along with Commando and Demo, perfectly balanced.


Demo
"Verdict: Well Balanced (Although the skill required is very high.)" Agreed.

I believe the best games bring a "rock, paper, scissors" aspect and Demo, Commando, and Firebug are implemented in that vein perfectly. Each has very specific strengths and very well defined weaknesses. Those three are also the only pure "support" perks as well. If the medic couldn't create the second most powerful perk the zerdic, I'd put the medic in the "pure support" class as well. I consider a perk and game to be properly balanced when someone says "Wait, we don't have -this perk- in our group? We have to have one because of -this reason-. I'll switch." Sharpie, Support, Zerker are all in the "lead" role and built to primarily solo.

Personally, I'd like to see the weapons "Medicized" for balance rather than the perks proper balanced. A perfect example is the medic has more bullets in each mag for a perk bonus. Do the same thing for other weapons. Unperked xbow? No scope. Unperked AA12? Few drums and fewer shells in each drum. Unperked m14? Fewer bullets in each mag. Unperked m79? Fewer grenades. And so on. Not sure what to do about unperked zerker weapons.

Good writeup.

 

[outofrealman]

@ outofrealman

2 is where you are going wrong, never EVER hold down the fire button no matter what. If you hold down the fire button, the recoil kicks your flames up into the air and most of the time right over your opponent dealing no damage. If you need to kill something fast use rapid taps. It will use much less ammo than a sustained burst and be jsut as efficient, if not more so.

And of course ignite a Scrake but don't go for sustained damage.

Hope it helps

Sorry, that doesn't answer anything. I hold M1 and still get at least 95% of the fire on my target.

And quick tap still use 15+ count if you want a gorefast or siren dead quickly. If M1 is held, they die around the time 20 count of flame is used.

If you use 10 or less count, they dont die within 3 seconds. And that's enough for these two zeds to instan-kill or seriouly hurt someone. So, at the end of the day, two outcomes:
1. having enough ammo but constanly getting hit by crawlers or gorefasts.
2. doing great at the first 3/4 of the wave, and then....

So, a vedio showing how excatly to "play firebug properly" will be really helpful.

And lastly, I start to see more and more people say FT can penetrate. After my... may be 30th time of testing, it dont. Well...

 

[scary ghost]

Well the main problem I have is given the number of tweaks in my head and the potential work load it might create, I'd feel a proper arse asking you to do it for free

Perk tweaks are simple make, even simpler to load thanks to Marco's server perks mutator. Specimen stats, like resistances, speed, hp, etc are straightforward as well. On the other hand, specimen behavior changes will take longer as it's more than just changing a few numbers around. But I am pretty familiar with their code now after working on my mutator so I can tweak their behaviors as well. In any case, some server admins have expressed interest so I'll whip up something tonight.

Funny enough, the two ideas you mentioned are the same as the ones I wanted.

 

[Uk1t4k3]

I dont think a speed decrease is going to affect much, but just be annoying. I mean how often you see a support running around, they are always sitting still at the front of the group, they have no need to run when they have a weapon capable of annihilating anything. Just give him longer reload times or the above mentioned health/armor decrease. Messing with damage, ammo or prize is not a good idea imo.

Why give Support Specialist longer reload when the reload time is already life threatening during a suicidal/Hell on Earth game? I disagree that you're saying you seldom see Support Specialist roaming because i do that a lot when my whole squad are dead.

 

[Steeps]

Firebug definitely has enough ammo to get through a wave but the problem is if you want to have enough ammo you're basically forced to use the tap m1 every few seconds strategy. Therefore, firebug is heavily relying on its damage multiplier abilities, which right now in its current form is almost always inferior to dropping the zeds with commando or support specialist. That's why I think the DoT needs some tweaking to make it more appealing.

Why give Support Specialist longer reload when the reload time is already life threatening during a suicidal/Hell on Earth game? I disagree that you're saying you seldom see Support Specialist roaming because i do that a lot when my whole squad are dead.

That's why I always like to take the pump shotgun with either the hunting shotty/aa12. The ability to interrupt reload is almost too good to be true. Plus it has the deepest penetration of all of the shotguns (or at least seems that way). You can't instantly clear a hallway with it (though you can do so pretty quickly) but you do great damage and never get caught reloading. I see most supports on HoE take the AA12/hunting shotty and imo the pump shotty is the most underrated weapon in the game.

But yeah, I personally wouldn't mess with the reload. Support being the fallback guy who is the most deadly at point blank range and prevents the squad from being overrun is a good thing. Support being a preferred option over any perk regardless of the situation is not.

 

[poosh]

Firebug
I would be happy, if flamer doesn't loose bonus fuel when dropped. Now if level 6 Firebug drops fully loaded flamer on the ground (640 fuel) and picks it again, it will have only standard (unperked) fuel amount (400). If it will be fixed, you could easily buy extra flamer and using only half of 1 flamer fuel on early waves fully refill both of them for later waves.

 

[Uk1t4k3]

Most of the time Support Specialist can survive a long walkway without problems but if you place it into a situation when u are soloing a wide open map and that every time u roam you encounter either a crawler or gorefast which would be life threatening when you don't deal with it immediately.

It would be almost impossible to conserve ammo and you will need to immediately kill them by wasting a single round which could kill a few of them in a row. Overall it's impossible for Support Specialist to conserve ammo effectively and increasing reload duration would seriously impair the perk.

 

[poosh]

Most of the time Support Specialist can survive a long walkway without problems but if you place it into a situation when u are soloing a wide open map and that every time u roam you encounter either a crawler or gorefast which would be life threatening when you don't deal with it immediately.

It would be almost impossible to conserve ammo and you will need to immediately kill them by wasting a single round which could kill a few of them in a row. Overall it's impossible for Support Specialist to conserve ammo effectively and increasing reload duration would seriously impair the perk.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Support is pretty well balanced when he is alone, but becomes more and more overpowered when they grow in numbers. There simply can't be too many supports in the team. Altering shotgun's damage/reloading/ammunition can't be a solution.

Removing hand grenade damage bonus and ability for pellets to hit twice the same specimen should be done. But IMO support's OP problem is too complicated to be fixed just by this.

 

[outofrealman]

Removing hand grenade damage bonus and ability for pellets to hit twice the same specimen should be done. But IMO support's OP problem is too complicated to be fixed just by this.

This actually HALFED the damage of supprot. HALFED. Try to shoot a clot at point blank rage. It wont die even you are using pump shotgun. If that bug is going to be fixed, base damage of shotguns must be increased.

Everytime you shoot something which is not at really close range, you ARE doing double damage. How can support not being underpowered if you half its damage while it is considered "fairly balanced" now?


Oh and btw... support is quite OP at both team play and solo. No other perk can do shuch HUGH damage to bigs while doing that great against trashes. And on solo support is just as OP as berserker. Its just too easy for berserker or support to solo.

And in the suituation where teamates starts to die, berserker and support are the two most possible perk to win the remaining wave (add in medic on some of the maps). But berserker clearly is THE easieast perk to run out of the hell hole when teamates start to die because of his speed.

 

[Aze]

This actually HALFED the damage of supprot. HALFED. Try to shoot a clot at point blank rage. It wont die even you are using pump shotgun. If that bug is going to be fixed, base damage of shotguns must be increased.

Everytime you shoot something which is not at really close range, you ARE doing double damage. How can support not being underpowered if you half its damage while it is considered "fairly balanced" now?

Point blank range - You do LESS than normal damage. MUCH less. A 6-man HoE Clot has 228 health. The UNPERKED shotgun would deal 245 (35*7) if you hit all pellets on it. The problem is that the pellets spawn too far forward from the weapon, so only a few (or even NONE!) of the pellets might hit. Clearly a different bug.

Double hitting pellets - Are you 100% sure that this always happens? Isn't it just more a thing that happens on the bigger specimen, most noteably the Scrake? I mean, think about it, most specimen that die instantly at medium/longer ranges die because you hit their heads, no?

 

[Deafmute]

...Support really isn't that overpowered, guys.

 

[Uk1t4k3]

...Support really isn't that overpowered, guys.

Explain to them.

 

[poosh]

Double hitting pellets - Are you 100% sure that this always happens? Isn't it just more a thing that happens on the bigger specimen, most noteably the Scrake? I mean, think about it, most specimen that die instantly at medium/longer ranges die because you hit their heads, no?

If you mean Katana + HSg double blast instant-kill trick, then Scrake dies not because of double hitting pellets, but because all pellets hit his head (20 pellets need to hit the head after katana hit, 17 - after axe, so axe doesn't require so accurate shot).
To be honest, I don't understand why shotguns have such a big headshot multiplier (x1.65)? Isn't it weird to be supposed to aim in head with shotgun? I understand, that with the current implementation high multiplier >= 1.5 grants shotgun to do 75% damage to the Fleshpound comparing to other weapons, that do only 50%.

But wouldn't it better to add one more condition to Fleshpounds's TakeDamege() function, leaving shotgun damage 75%, decreasing headshot multiplier and increasing base damage? scary_ghost, please consider this idea while making your mutator.

 

[poosh]

...Support really isn't that overpowered, guys.

Try to win 6p HoE game without Supports in the team. Then do the same with 6 supports. Analyze how much second is easier and think again. Nobody says support is very overpowered (like Sharpshooter was before update), but it is slightly better than other perks.

 

[Deafmute]

Isn't it weird to be supposed to aim in head with shotgun? I understand, that with the current implementation high multiplier >= 1.5 grants shotgun to do 75% damage to the Fleshpound comparing to other weapons, that do only 50%.

It's not weird to aim for the head with any weapon in KF.

Try to win 6p HoE game without Supports in the team. Then do the same with 6 supports. Analyze how much second is easier and think again. Nobody says support is very overpowered (like Sharpshooter was before update), but it is slightly better than other perks.

I played 6-man HoE Bedlam last night with 3 Supports and we got pretty well screwed on wave 10. Neither scenario you mentioned is typical in gameplay so I don't see why you're using it as a point of reference. I do think the grenade damage bonus is a bit excessive after Demo was introduced, so that could easily be nerfed or removed altogether.