The current state of balance in Killing Floor

[scary ghost]

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.

Only lar, m14, and dud law/m79/m32 head shots do 75% damage per hit to a fleshpound. The HSG only appears to do 75% damage because pellets hit twice, with the pellet's second hit dealing 50% less damage than the first.

x*0.5 + x*0.5*0.5 = 0.75x

 

[outofrealman]

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?

Well... in fact I only encounter the "no pellets hitting" on test map when zeds cant move... May be because I always try to back off if somthing is at point blank rage while playing, so I never have the problem of doing no damage.

Btw, I suppose you have 0 ping when playing solo? I one shot gorefasts with aa12 quite sometimes and their head isn't destoryed. And on solo I always see zeds' head explode if that's a head shot kill. So.... I guess the answer is yes? If the range is higher than may be 3 feet, it always seems shotgun do really great.



Is support overpowered? I dont know, but WHAT perk can just stand there and rape 200 zeds alone while able to do heavy (HEAVY) damage to bigs when needed? (two alt-fire scrakes without the katana trick, and two alt-fire + two nades on fps, 6-MAN HOE)

Oh and 6-man HoE scrakes has ~2559 head health. Huntting shotgun alt-fire having 20 pellets doing 50 dmg each, support with 60% dmg bous. That's only 1600, even add in one hit of katana, it's a long way to go to reach 2559 (and with that trick you dont even need to hit the scrkaes's head with katana). If the pellets isn't hitting THREE TIMES, that scrake wont die. (and that's proved with scary ghost's mutator, that's 60 hits)

 

[Steeps]

Support specialist is not overpowered in the sense that it ruins the game and needs to be fixed ASAP (unless you consider no variety in teams game breaking ). This is not what I was trying to suggest.

Its problem is that it overshadows all of the other perks, and from a tactical standpoint there is no reason not to have at least 3-4 on a team. This is the problem I have with it: not only does it do its designated job, but it can take the roll of every other perk as well. Unless you're playing out of enjoyment of playing the perks, there really is no reason to touch commando or firebug anymore. And with enough supports (or giving one of them an xbow for husks) there is no reason to have a sharpshooter, either. Kiting aside, 4-5 supports and a demolitions (with the potential sixth being a sharpie or medic) - although potentially stoppable - right now is the strongest combination on most HoE maps.

Too many commandos or firebugs on the team and you'll have problems with scrakes and fleshpounds. Too many sharpshooters and you'll get overwhelmed by the trash mobs. Too many supports and... well unless you get unlucky or make some mistakes you should be good to go.

 

[scary ghost]

Oh and 6-man HoE scrakes has ~2559 head health. Huntting shotgun alt-fire having 20 pellets doing 50 dmg each, support with 60% dmg bous. That's only 1600, even add in one hit of katana, it's a long way to go to reach 2559 (and with that trick you dont even need to hit the scrkaes's head with katana). If the pellets isn't hitting THREE TIMES, that scrake wont die. (and that's proved with scary ghost's mutator, that's 60 hits)

You forgot 1.65x extra damage for head shots which brings it up to 2640 dmg.

 

[HaTeMe]

The reason I dont like the idea of decreasing health or armour of ANY perk is because zeds is already enough to instan-kill player on HoE.

Hmm yeah I see your point altho Fleshpounds are the only ones able to insta kill (if you dont take Patty into account). But I still dont like the speed decrease

 

[Aze]

Don't touch Support's speed, nor the health/armor. Just fix the pellet-bug, and maybe also remove the damage-increase for handgrenades. That would be fine. It's not THAT overpowered. And it definitely does NOT overshadow Commando against the small trash.

I played on Westlondon yesterday (6man HoE), and we holed up in the church, welding one door (the one close to the trader), while fighting at the other one.
We had 1 Commando (me), 2 Support, 2 Demolition and 1 Medic.
Let's just say, the Medic was almost pointless to have in the team. Commando does NOT get overshadowed by Support, due to having such effective range to kill trash with, plus much shorter reload times. I was constantly thinking "If i was playing Support right now, i would have SO much troubles with reloading and we would've been overwhelmed so easily". I had almost 1000 kills as the Commando when we finished, and the Supports were more to clean up / assist with Fleshies/Scrakes. Commando is a very, VERY good perk to have in a team (if played right) and definitely NOT overshadowed by Support as trashkillers in any way.
Now, let's say i would had been a Firebug instead? Well, we would had been dead meat very, very, very fast. The specimen would've been able to come inside the church (since they don't drop dead instantly, compared to a Commando's headshots) unless i would've tapped more fire on them (but then i would've run out of ammo for sure) and i would've blocked the vision a lot for my teammates, further increasing the chances of us getting overwhelmed.
Firebugs kinda suck imo (on HoE). Support Specialist is very strong, yes, but only for as long as the magazines have ammo in them.

EDIT: Undedd: I bet that if you would've been equally awesome with Commando as you seem to be with the Firebug, you would be a far better contribution to the team, that's my guess at least

 

[poosh]

Oh and 6-man HoE scrakes has ~2559 head health. Huntting shotgun alt-fire having 20 pellets doing 50 dmg each, support with 60% dmg bous. That's only 1600, even add in one hit of katana, it's a long way to go to reach 2559 (and with that trick you dont even need to hit the scrkaes's head with katana). If the pellets isn't hitting THREE TIMES, that scrake wont die. (and that's proved with scary ghost's mutator, that's 60 hits)

Shotguns have x1.65 headshot damage multiplier. So 1600 * 1.65 = 2640. +225 katana alt-fire damage = 2865 total damage to the head. And btw, Sckare's head has ~2843hp on 6p HoE.

 

[outofrealman]

I end up totally forgeting head shot mutiplier, LOL.

Well... I see that's a 60 hits with ghost's mut. But anyway, yeah, only one alt-fire is enough to blow away scrakes' head (the katana hit is ONLY used to interupt his attack, not do damage to the scrake). And I suppose when you crouch, the pellets hit his lower body, upper body and then his head, so that's 60 hit, but either way scrakes die in one alt-fire.

Oh and if two support cant defend such a narrow door such as the church on westlonden, they suck, real bad. On maps where zeds mainly come from only one side, support only need someone to cover them for 3 seconds when they need to reload. Basically any perk is good enough for that covering job. Support only need more covering fire or help when big shows up.

As a commando, a bloat standing in front of 3 gorefasts can already eat your whole clip. Not to mention that siren or husk behind, and scrake or fleshpound you cant even hurt them enough to be effective.

Lastly, that bug could use some fix, but the close range lower damage bug also need to fix, while increase a little bit of shotgun damage.

 

[Entangler]

For anyone who's interested, I just calculated the Katana + Hunting Shotgun vs Scrake scenario, and found that although it is indeed enough to decapitate if each pellet hits only once, it isn't quite enough to kill - the Scrake should survive with 334 health remaining. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.

Spoiler!

Scrake body health = 1000 * (1 + 5 * 0.5) * 1.75 = 6125
Scrake head health = 650 * (1 + 5 * 0.3) * 1.75 = 2843.75

Katana alt fire base damage = 205
Katana headshot damage multiplier = 1.1

Full damage dealt by Katana alt-fire headshot off-perk = 205 * 1.1 = 225.5 truncated to 225

BoomStickBullet base damage = 50
BoomStickBullet damage type = KFMod.DamTypeDBShotgun
BoomStickBullet HeadShotDamageMult = 1.5 (inherited from ShotgunBullet)
DamTypeDBShotgun HeadShotDamageMult = 1.1 (inherited from KFWeaponDamageType)

Pellet damage with BoomStickBullet headshot damage multiplier = 50 * 1.5 = 75
...with perk damage bonus = 75 * 1.6 = 120
...with DamTypeDBShotgun headshot damage multiplier = 120 * 1.1 = 132

Full damage dealt by 20 Hunting Shotgun pellet headshots = 132 * 20 = 2640

Katana alt-fire + Hunting Shotgun alt-fire = 225 + 2640 = 2865

Decapitation bonus input damage = 132 + 6125 * 0.25 = 1663.25 truncated to 1663
...with perk bonus = 1663 * 1.6 = 2660.8 truncated to 2660
...with DamTypeDBShotgun headshot damage multiplier = 2660 * 1.1 = 2926

Full damage dealt by Katana alt-fire + decapitating Hunting Shotgun alt-fire = 2865 + 2926 = 5791

Scrake body health remaining = 6125 - 5791 = 334

In any case, I should clarify that I want the Support Specialist perk to receive only a minor overall nerf - just enough to reinforce its role without considerably weakening it. I feel that the changes I suggested on the first page would accomplish that without going too far. The speed-to-weight scaling idea floating around in here has occurred to me before, but I'm ambivalent about it, and I'm not at all interested in health penalties or anything weird like that.

 

[scary ghost]

For anyone who's interested, I just calculated the Katana + Hunting Shotgun vs Scrake scenario, and found that although it is indeed enough to decapitate if each pellet hits only once, it isn't quite enough to kill - the Scrake should survive with 334 health remaining. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.

In any case, I should clarify that I want the Support Specialist perk to receive only a minor overall nerf - just enough to reinforce its role without considerably weakening it. I feel that the changes I suggested on the first page would accomplish that without going too far. The speed-to-weight scaling idea floating around in here has occurred to me before, but I'm ambivalent about it, and I'm not at all interested in health penalties or anything weird like that.

The pellets (again) hit twice. I don't remember exactly off hand but the first hit is normal damage, and the second hit doesn't factor in the 1.5x head shot multiplier in ShotgunBullet. I'll check again with my mutator later.

EDIT:
Some pellets hit body then the head.

 

[scary ghost]

I implemented 2 quick support and zerker changes to get the ball rolling. So, feedback, try out the changes and give thoughts.

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=52521

 

[Entangler]

Yeah mate, I know the pellets hit twice - I mentioned that on the first page. I'm just responding to claims made elsewhere in this thread that the bug doesn't affect the outcome.

 

[Gartley]

My two cents for what it's worth. And I'm going to start with some sweeping genralisations.

Support - Overpowered. When you combine the shotguns penetration, 10(?) nades plus increased carry weight... I've seen supports mulch nearly everything in sight.

My suggestion; remove nade bonus as a start. I'm tempted to say decrease the penetration of the shotguns but if the multi hit trick is fixed that should be enough.

'Zerker - Overpowered. Far to fast. I don't think the damage resistance doesn't need to be touched.

My suggestion; Drop his speed down to that of Medic. It'd make healing him easier as well.

Sharpshooter - I'm not sure. Sort out the M14 sights and I'd be happy.

Commando, FB and Demo are fine.

 

[DDC1234]

Take away the grenades of the SuS.
FB is underpower definitely - hard highest level you can play on a 6 man team an still be usefull. He has no direct fire damage an that makes him a liability when it comes to close range where a flame thrower is suppose to excel.

 

[outofrealman]

The problem isn't easy enough to solved just by "fixing the double hitting pellets". Do you guys really think removing nearly 50% of the damage of a perk will not make it underpowered?

Support is considered pretty balanced before the "tricks" on scrakes and fps is well known by the palyers. And support can kill medium zeds at medium range with alt-fire of huntty and drop a large group of small zed with a single shot of shotgun from the first day of release. And suddenly everyone say half the damge of all shotguns is fine? WTF? Really?

But well... I predicted support will be considered OP since the players complain about sharpshooter, I jsut know this will happen. And I dare to make another prophecy here and now: Demo is next.

The OP complains will never end. And I'm not supprised.

 

[Entangler]

I was under the impression that the multiple hits only occur at close range. I suppose I had better test that.

 

[outofrealman]

I was under the impression that the multiple hits only occur at close range. I suppose I had better test that.

Anywhere long enough can make each pellet pass through the same target twice. And actually it needs quite some distance on smalls. Because bigs have two hitboxes at the upper body, so basically it autolly hit them twice at least.

At least that's what I found after testing with ghost's mutator (or scripts? I dont know what to call that, but it shows how many hits and how much damage each hit does)

 

[timur]

The problem isn't easy enough to solved just by "fixing the double hitting pellets". Do you guys really think removing nearly 50% of the damage of a perk will not make it underpowered?

Support is considered pretty balanced before the "tricks" on scrakes and fps is well known by the palyers. And support can kill medium zeds at medium range with alt-fire of huntty and drop a large group of small zed with a single shot of shotgun from the first day of release. And suddenly everyone say half the damge of all shotguns is fine? WTF? Really?

But well... I predicted support will be considered OP since the players complain about sharpshooter, I jsut know this will happen. And I dare to make another prophecy here and now: Demo is next.

The OP complains will never end. And I'm not supprised.

SS was rightfully nerfed, but I have to agree with you; there will always be some perk out of line, if even by a small margin. I would normally say "well, it wouldn't be much difficulty balancing, then", except for the fact that nerfs have a tendency to go a little overboard and pretty much destroy instead of balance. Need I bring up the chainsaw nerf as an example?

 

[FSUBoo]

I'm thinking that the Supports penetration is fine where it is. I understand the grenades nerfing for the most part, and having tested Scary's mutator with people in a controlled environment (testmap) it works to promote teamwork more so. I think that support could get way with having maybe 7 or 8 grenades that do normal nade damage, instead of old support bonus damage instead of the basic 5. My reasoning for this is the increased carry weight he has.

 

[outofrealman]

I'm thinking that the Supports penetration is fine where it is. I understand the grenades nerfing for the most part, and having tested Scary's mutator with people in a controlled environment (testmap) it works to promote teamwork more so. I think that support could get way with having maybe 7 or 8 grenades that do normal nade damage, instead of old support bonus damage instead of the basic 5. My reasoning for this is the increased carry weight he has.

Nades is what makes support solo fleshpounds too easily. Remove any bonus dont really affect their trash cleaning job at all while making supports having really hard time to solo fps alone. With 11 nades it is enough for supprots to solo nearly every single one fleshpounds while still able to do their trash cleaning job.

Take ss as an example, they rape fps and scrakes, but they are far from effective in trash cleaning.

So, removing the nade bonus, and make katana cannot interupt scrakes' attack off-perked do the job for me already. I dont want to see another chainsaw or xbow.