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Tactics What actually makes a good KF2 Player?

serulin

FNG / Fresh Meat
Sep 10, 2020
1
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The awards don't tell the whole story. For example most people say its all about damage, whoever does the most damage is the best player. But then you have players who never go for headshots and only unload on the body. Not only are they killing slower and potentially killing the party by not killing fast enough, they think they are doing the most work...

Then their's kills. Well would you rather have someone who actually does their job and prioritizes the targets that could potentially wipe out the team or someone who's just killing everything or even trash mobs when they arent supposed to.

Thats only two examples... then we have anything from a good "team player" who can look out for someones back to other tactics like not being able to hold their spot / line etc all the way to the guy who focuses on surviving himself at the end, and then can kill an extra 50 or more after everyone dies and then finally dies without completing the round then he gets top score.


So how would you guys say is an actual objective way of finding out how well you or someone is doing?
 
It's no rocket-science really.

A good KF2 player is the one that helps the team. That knows what to prioritize depending on its role and weapons. The one who knows that the kill count is not what matters most, but survival is. The one who won't play as the third commando on the team and instead try to pick the perk and loadout that will compliment his crewmates the most. The one who can handle its money well enough to find a balance between ammo, upgrades and weapons, as well as the finances of the team. And most of all : the one who knows that in the end, it's only a game! Fun should always be your main objective.


We can hardly tell you more unless you specify which perk you're playing. Which team comp you may have. What weapons you're planning to use and so on. It's a bit difficult to tell you "what a good player should be doing on average" because one match is not the other.
 
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Ye just have fun

without whatever aleflippy said at the beginning about the whole team thing, that's just a fairy tale.

Also by fun we min limited amount of fun, if your fun includes griefing and trolling others whole game.... it might be fun for you, but damn is it not fun for anyone else in the lobby :D
 
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Ye just have fun

without whatever aleflippy said at the beginning about the whole team thing, that's just a fairy tale.

Also by fun we min limited amount of fun, if your fun includes griefing and trolling others whole game.... it might be fun for you, but damn is it not fun for anyone else in the lobby :D
Tell me about it. I got scolded the other day because I complained that people in Overwatch don't give a **** about teamplay and people would probably play three Genjis and two Mccrees if they could (similar to the "five snipers teams" in Team Fortress 2)

Guess who got blamed for playing the "fun police" ... ?

I'm not the kind of guy who believes that "video games are serious business", but come on. It's only natural for humans to be happier when you win than when you lose. I always compliment my opponent if the match was tense and interesting, even if it ends with my loss. But there's nothing enjoyable about losing because your team didn't care.

But maybe it's due to my past as a competitive player :(
 
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Tell me about it. I got scolded the other day because I complained that people in Overwatch don't give a **** about teamplay and people would probably play three Genjis and two Mccrees if they could (similar to the "five snipers teams" in Team Fortress 2)

Guess who got blamed for playing the "fun police" ... ?

I'm not the kind of guy who believes that "video games are serious business", but come on. It's only natural for humans to be happier when you win than when you lose. I always compliment my opponent if the match was tense and interesting, even if it ends with my loss. But there's nothing enjoyable about losing because your team didn't care.

But maybe it's due to my past as a competitive player :(
Ye, ending your competitive run does leave you with anger issues when people just can't seem to work together and pick a class that is more beneficial to the current situation that could turn a tide... Instead we are sitting ducks in spawn and there goes the keyboard leg.

Honestly its best to leave pvp as a whole if you are feeling you're done being a competitive player, and start transitioning your mind from "we have to win at all cost because its "fun" ", to "actually enjoying the whole process even if it resulted in loss"

I'm speaking from personal experience, my early life contained nothing but competitive games and at one point actual competitive tournaments.
 
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Ye, ending your competitive run does leave you with anger issues when people just can't seem to work together and pick a class that is more beneficial to the current situation that could turn a tide... Instead we are sitting ducks in spawn and there goes the keyboard leg.

Honestly its best to leave pvp as a whole if you are feeling you're done being a competitive player, and start transitioning your mind from "we have to win at all cost because its "fun" ", to "actually enjoying the whole process even if it resulted in loss"

I'm speaking from personal experience, my early life contained nothing but competitive games and at one point actual competitive tournaments.
Oh my competitive days were mostly linked to fighting games, so I didn't even need to rely on teammates! It was me against my opponent and no one else. Still, it more or less ingrained a few key components into my brain : reacting accordingly to what the opponent is doing, training a lot to get the most of my options, learning from my mistakes... And obviously accepting that some people are simply better than you !

I like multiplayer games. There's nothing more satisfying than playing with complete strangers and still somehow understand each other. React to what everyone is doing. Plot a strategy to emerge victoriously. But on the flipside, it's really annoying when you're meant to play as a team and yet everyone does its own thing. If you don't want to help your teammates, then go play some Arena Shooter or a Deathmatch. Not Team Fortress or Overwatch.

And you see? That's the thing that seems apparently difficult for people to grasp : no, I'm not expecting to win all the time. No, I'm not even expecting all members of my team to be good ! But I do expect people to at least try to play in a way that benefits everyone. It's been memed to death by now, but for real : PUSH THE DAMN PAYLOAD.

I'm good with losing though. If the match was tense, if we kept pushing until the very last second with everyone pulling their best efforts... Then I probably had the time of my life and a playthrough I'll remember fondly. It is when I'm the only one completing the objective that I get mad.
 
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A good player is one which works with his team, tries to do his job and save his teammates.

But an even better player is one that picks zerk or medic, does none of the above, walks alone, lets his team die, and solo's the rest of the wave. Letting the team die is important, to capitalize on the reduced Zed HP - which makes it much easier and reliable than if other players were alive.

Unfortunately that's the state of HoE right now...
 
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So how would you guys say is an actual objective way of finding out how well you or someone is doing?
It is a mistake to search for an objective way, and it misses the point to try to find out how to best judge yourself or someone else. That's insecurity and narcissism talking. Some narcissism is healthy; too much is crippling.

Everybody defines 'success', 'good enough', 'skilled', and 'fun' a bit differently. This is usually highly correlated with their strengths. The trick isn't to declare a one-size-fits-all definition, but in declaring your personal definition and finding like-minded players who play the way that you enjoy.

My personal (and my friends') definition is to do whatever it takes for everybody to survive, unless a party member or two is reckless. This entails good communication, harmonizing perk strengths and weaknesses, and helping each other. We don't dictate each others' perks, loadouts, DPS, efficiency, etc. and treat each other's dosh like one big pot. If someone wants to separate from the group (usually a random person who joined) in pursuit of stats, dosh, or glory, then they're free to do so without the benefits of group survivability tactics.

If you want to make it about damage, make it about damage. If you want to make it about healing, make it about healing. If you want to create creative teams, such as an all-zerk team with everybody toting bone crushers who play a spartan phalanx style, then find like-minded people and do that. I wouldn't stop you even if I could. I'd enjoy watching to see how that turns out.

Hell, if anyone wants to be a troll all day, I say go for it. Trolls live lives of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Getting blacklisted is easy; feeling good about yourself isn't. They'll figure it out eventually.

What I'd prefer to see is strangers helping others. Ask them to help you, too. Make a team that is stronger than the sum of its parts. If you make a connection and seem to harmonize with a stranger, add them to your friend list. Maybe they'll be in your wedding some day. Maybe they'll be who you marry.

Ignore the rest. Judgement gets incredibly picky: "Let's kick this guy out. He chose the M99 over the rail gun. Doesn't he know that the .500 is overkill and we need the Winchester?" followed in the next game with different people saying, "Let's kick this guy out. He chose the rail gun over the M99. Doesn't he know that he's supposed to concentrate on taking down the big guys with his most powerful gun?" Why try to mold yourself to an ever-changing definition of 'right'?

I'd prefer a, "ok, so that guy chose a different loadout than what the stat-based spreadsheet suggests. After this game I'll ask him why. Maybe I can learn something. If he is open to other loadouts, I'll offer up some tips and give him a chance to practice them. Maybe he's uncomfortable with my favorite M99/201 combo because of the M99's slow rate of fire. Maybe he's never considered an off-perk backup. Maybe he's never had a meat shield crouch and clean trash before and has never had to heal them as a sharp."

Ultimately, if he's happy, I'm happy for him. I'd rather play with an imperfect player who is having fun than with a perfectionist who is bringing everybody down with his well-defined expectations.

My opinion is that there is too much my-way-or-the-highway'ing and, "I expect TWI and other players to conform to my 'objective' definition of fun," going on. If it were up to me, the idea of dosh rewards and end-of-game achievements (best killer, best assists, best healz, etc) would disappear. It encourages turning a cooperative game into a competitive one (if you want to play a competitive game, consider not playing co-op). I'm a fan of friendly competition, but not forced competition and not at the expense of the team. In this game, the zeds are your competition. Outplay them.
 
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A good player is one who:
  1. understands the basic mechanics of the game
  2. understands that the point of the game (which has a win/lose condition) is to win
  3. understands that the game, when not in solo mode, is team-based and they should accommodate the team's strengths and weaknesses when picking their perks and loadouts
  4. understands perk interactions and how some perks can screw others over, inadvertently or otherwise
  5. understands the less apparent/finer mechanics of the game
  6. understands the mechanical in-and-outs of the perk they choose, and finally
  7. understands aim/recoil mechanics relative to how necessary said mechanics apply to their role.
In so many words, this is basically the "have fun the way you want to" argument.

The problem here is that if you're playing the game to win (which, again, should be the point), there absolutely exist objectively better ways to accomplish that. The other problem is that in a team-oriented game, your individual actions absolutely contribute to the team's collective well-being, and that's where problems arise: because many, many players often take the point of view that they must have their fun their way, even if it runs counter to the team's interests. It has unfortunately existed in every team-based game since the dawn of man and still exists in this one.

The "fun is the only thing that matters" mindset doesn't win Hell on Earth games. Some of us do have fun by, y'know, trying our best to work as a team and pulling it off nearly seamlessly.

That mindset is what gets you the second/third Commandos on a team (where one already existed), the players running Berserker and Firebug in a team where everyone is otherwise running a precision perk, the players who pick SWAT to round out a team planning to Zerkwall on the Nightmare map, the players who pick terrible Demo weapons and bomb their teammates both in and out of Zed-Time, and the players who insist that no, really, their Survivalist loadout is awesome and the best despite Survivalist being objectively worse at filling out any given role than any other pick in the game.

(On another note: I've read your linked suggestion threads, and honestly, I'm not sure what to think. While they could be interested if implemented in a completely different game altogether, your ideas run counter to the base design of Killing Floor on a fundamental level.)

So how would you guys say is an actual objective way of finding out how well you or someone is doing?
You have to examine their behavior and their results.

Say a player jumps into a HoE game and sees the following: Berserker, Medic, Commando, Firebug, and two open slots. He should know instinctively that the team lacks a HVT killer and thus picks something that accommodates the majority of the team, which is a chaos perk, so that would be Demolitionist (as picking Sharpshooter would be making life hard for himself, and by extension, the rest of the team if he cannot fulfill his role).

A Demolitionist filling his role, per example, should at least know the following:
  • their role (killing large Zeds)
  • the best loadout for accomplishing their above role (LLLLL; RPG + C4 + .500)
  • the bread-and-butter as well as situational combos for dismantling the aforementioned large Zeds
  • the positioning relative to the rest of his team to accomplish his role (don't split from the team because that's how you get eaten by Crawlers)
  • the timing and mechanics on his weapons (don't spam C4 without having a combo in mind, unless you're in Zed-Time; don't spam the RPG at every crowd you see; remember that Scrakes die from dud rockets to the face but they also require a pre-damage on 6P HoE with the .500)
  • how he should avoid screwing his team over (don't spam explosives near the Commando; don't nuke the Commando in Zed-Time; don't steal the Commando's Zed-Time extensions; don't rage Zeds you aren't intending to immediately kill afterwards)
  • basic communication (does he have Scrake/FP/"help me, I'm surrounded" binds at bare minimum, if he doesn't have actual voice chat running) to play with the rest of his team

That's not an exhaustive list, but it's something to think about. The finer points change depending on the perk and situation, but the broader rules apply to everyone regardless of role or participation.

That doesn't even include the willingness to practice headshots for hours on end if you play precision perks, and so forth.
 
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KF2 is not a team-based game. Maybe it is advertised as such, but that's all. A game where one player can reliably win no matter what his team is doing can not be called a team-based game.

And no the goal of the game is not to win, at least, it's not what you should aim at, and I even find your post borderline toxic. The goal of the game is to have fun, and that takes priority over winning. If a guy wants to pick demo and not play the optimal loadout, why do you even care. Nobody cares whether you'll win this game or not, it is a PvE game anyway, everybody will leave and forget 10 min later. KF is one of the only multiplayer games where you don't lose anything for a defeat, and you can always carry regardless of how bad your teammates are, so if you like winning, just consider it as an additional challenge. We all have different reasons to play, and the last thing I want when I'm playing this game as sharpshooter + M99 is to listen to somebody telling me I should play medic instead, because he somehow doesn't realize my time is more important than his W/L ratio.
 
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I even find your post borderline toxic
I'm being nice with the above and below; I could be a lot meaner with my words and opinions given my experience in the game, but I'm not going to because I don't like to be mean about it.

Keep in mind that I'm posting from a perspective of 6P HoE at base level. I don't find it unreasonable that, when considering the hardest difficulty the base game has to offer, players are tryng to win to the best of their ability. (I didn't even jump into HoE for at least a hundred hours of running Suicidal games until I thought I was ready because I didn't want to be that guy dragging the team down.)

What I posted above is the basics of teamwork for a given role in a team-based game when considering the hardest difficulty--a direct response to Serulin's legitimately good original post--and apparently that's an affront to some because the optimal strategy in the game for being an ideal teammate and winning isn't always "whatever is fun."

KF2 is not a team-based game. Maybe it is advertised as such, but that's all. A game where one player can reliably win no matter what his team is doing can not be called a team-based game.
Just because the majority of this game's playerbase sees it that way doesn't invalidate the core design, which is multiple specialists working hard enough at their roles to win as a team. That is largely a failing of the playerbase and partially a failing of TWI encouraging said behavior in the aforementioned playerbase. But the HoE and CD community actually know what makes the game tick and the aforementioned mechanics I spoke of in my previous post. They recognize the game as something more than "hit zombies with lightsaber while your Medic friend holds M1 with the Healthrower at your feet." There's some brilliant intentional design in KF2's core mechanics with how the perks interact, and it pains me to see that the playerbase at large doesn't care except "whar new weapons."

Want another still-relevant example? Team Fortress 2 is, at its core, a beautifully designed and nuanced first-person shooter with 9 years of intentional forethought given to its classes and their interactions. The competitive community which works on keeping that scene alive, all things considered, speaks to that much. Certainly, there's an unfortunate layer of cosmetics and trading, and there's some weapons with much less consideration put into them (which thankfully better players have spoken out against for various reasons), as well as the numerous servers with people just eating sandwiches in the corner and saying "pootis" rather than actively participating in first-person shooting, but that is simply how the playerbase who doesn't care about the actual game plays it. Such is the fate a developer consigns itself to when one makes the early promises of unlimited content and wackiness above all else.

Want another similar example that isn't based around PvP? Left 4 Dead, both games. They're both PvE zombie games that encourage tight-knit teamwork and that choice is deliberately reflected in the game's base design. There's multiple difficulty levels that will absolutely shred you if you don't know how the game works, and not working as a team will result in your life being cut that much shorter. There's certainly no shortage of people who play it like a solo game with three other stooges at the keyboard, but that doesn't make it not a team-based FPS at heart. There are people who have posted "stealth" solo runs on Realism Expert. But that doesn't make it not a team-based FPS.

Want a more contemporary example? Deep Rock Galactic is based around 4 different classes using their abilities to work together as a team to get through stages of randomized space spiders trying to eat and/or melt your dwarves. It, too, has multiple difficulties to speak of, as well as marathon runs each week called Elite Deep Dives. Some players only run the super-difficult ones, and they don't appreciate people intentionally taking crap builds and/or just not knowing the basics of the game before attempting the super-hard difficulties.

The point is, the ones who enjoy the game for its core mechanics are the ones I care about the opinions of, because they know what makes the game tick and enjoy playing it for what it is. They're not the ones who only sign on when a new update comes on, play for maybe a couple of hours, and then log off with an utterance of "dead game."

And no the goal of the game is not to win, at least, it's not what you should aim at, and I even find your post borderline toxic. The goal of the game is to have fun, and that takes priority over winning.
What if, like someone who comes from boomer shooters and old games, the "having fun" includes learning the ins-and-outs of the game and "gitting gud"? Surely there's a reason that varying difficulties exist, yes? And to take that example to its logical conclusion, why would harder and harder difficulties with alternate enemy stats and movesets exist otherwise? The point is that it's a challenge to overcome, non? Otherwise, there would be only one difficulty (Normal, for example) and that's all you get. The game clearly wasn't designed that way, although I will confess that various problematic weapons and perk combos have definitely made accomplishing that easier over the course of the game. (Not that there's a reason such ideas should be encouraged.)

But I'm assuming that one picks harder difficulties to overcome the challenge of playing through said harder difficulties. There is an option for players who just want to goof around or do the whole "power fantasy" thing; it's called "play on lower difficulties," not "ask the devs for more stupid weapons and unnecessary perk buffs."

If a guy wants to pick demo and not play the optimal loadout, why do you even care.
To quote myself:
...in a team-oriented game, your individual actions absolutely contribute to the team's collective well-being, and that's where problems arise: because many, many players often take the point of view that they must have their fun their way, even if it runs counter to the team's interests.
When someone joins a Normal or Hard game and takes the HX-25 to upgrade it to tier 5, nobody cares because the game isn't challenging enough that your choice of loadout really matters that much. At that difficulty, you aren't playing it for the hardest challenges.

When someone joins a Hell on Earth game (or CD) and decides without even asking that they're going to run an absolutely garbage loadout that doesn't play to their perk's strengths or the team's need for that ability, you might as well be wasting a player slot (and adding unnecessary challenge to the game because you're adding more Zed health and more Zed counts). To continue with the Demo metaphor, most of its weapons are garbage because they don't accomplish Demo's role (which is deleting Scrakes, Fleshpounds, and QPs) as well as the RPG/C4/.500 loadout. The Seeker Six might be the only exception because it can actually get the job done in Hell on Earth, although you have to be magnitudes better at using it than basically anything else in Demo's arsenal (and that's just to achieve what the RPG loadout can already handle for much less effort).

If someone jumped into HoE, picked Commando, and proceeded to offperk an RPG and the Spitfires instead of using the assault rifles, I would have many questions, the first being "how soon can I call the kickvote?"

Nobody cares whether you'll win this game or not,
When I start a match, especially in Hell on Earth or CD, the goal sure isn't to see the "Defeat" screen, especially not 45 minutes in. In fact, if the wipe was a direct result of something I caused, I would feel bad about it, as one should if they are the millstone on their team's neck.

KF is one of the only multiplayer games where you don't lose anything for a defeat
Lose time, and depending on the reason for the wipe, patience. Again, there's nothing gratifying about losing 45 minutes in, especially because players just made plain terrible decisions starting from the loadout screen. Sure, there's hard-fought losses that happen despite everyone trying their best, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

and you can always carry regardless of how bad your teammates are,
Sometimes you can. Sometimes you're on a perk that isn't designed for that, and maybe you're not killing multiple angry FPs as a SWAT. Sometimes you're on a map that makes it harder and you lose despite your best efforts. Sometimes you're the first to die because someone set fire to a few large Zeds and they decided that you in particular were at fault rather than the Firebug that caused the issue, in which case you're not carrying anything.

Nothing's a guarantee in this game, even with the scaling that kicks in once people start wiping. I don't get on HoE and CD games expecting to win all the time, nor for others to pick up my slack if I screw up because I screwed up. But I do get on to accommodate a preexising team in order to minimize the possibilities of something going awry.

so if you like winning, just consider it as an additional challenge.
This is a terrible argument. The challenge in a PvE game should come from the enemies, not the other players on your team.

That same line was unironically used in the Steam discussion forums when pro-Zerk players were talking about how Firebug and Berserker add a really cool layer of challenge because they screw over precision perks just by existing and doing the things they were designed to do, and it was just as dumb an argument in that context.

We all have different reasons to play, and the last thing I want when I'm playing this game as sharpshooter + M99 is to listen to somebody telling me I should play medic instead, because he somehow doesn't realize my time is more important than his W/L ratio.
(I only wish people actually played Sharp in Hell on Earth instead of Medic, because at least the Sharp is trying. Sharp is the rarest perk in HoE as it is because nobody can play it well enough, and the few who can don't want to deal with chaos teams, which I completely understand.)

The inverse absolutely applies here. Hopes have been dashed because someone insisted on coming in as a second Commando and ruining Zed-Time extensions. Or because someone picks Firebug on a precision team and sets things alight. Or because someone picks Survivalist and dons a terrible loadout, doing very little except making a lot of noise, when all we needed was a Demo to kill HVTs.

And it all adds up to a team wiping. It isn't unreasonable that I get annoyed with someone knowingly not playing with the team because "lol it doesn't matter, don't you know how to have fun?" THAT is the prime example of how not to be a good teammate.
 
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Your post is long so I will only quote and reply to a few paragraphs, but I will still try to address the message as a whole.

I'm being nice with the above and below; I could be a lot meaner with my words and opinions given my experience in the game, but I'm not going to because I don't like to be mean about it.
You suggested to vote kick people for their loadout choice. That's pretty toxic imo even though you said it nicely.

Keep in mind that I'm posting from a perspective of 6P HoE at base level. I don't find it unreasonable that, when considering the hardest difficulty the base game has to offer, players are tryng to win to the best of their ability. (I didn't even jump into HoE for at least a hundred hours of running Suicidal games until I thought I was ready because I didn't want to be that guy dragging the team down.)

[...]

[Comparison with TF and L4D2]
There is a big difference.

In KF, teamplay is only optional to win. In L4D it's mandatory (you can literally not fight certain enemies alone because they stunlock you).

If teamplay was mandatory to win then I would agree with your reasoning, but right now, it's not the case, KF is an extremely casual game with tons of OP stuff, even in HoE.

In L4D, telling teammates what to do is justified, because teamplay is at the core of the game.
But in KF, you CAN win with stupid teammates, so telling them what to do is not justified, it is just unnecessarily toxic and will lead to cringe fights/ worsen the situation 90% of time, what you should do is simply not care and focus on your own gameplay.


If someone jumped into HoE, picked Commando, and proceeded to offperk an RPG and the Spitfires instead of using the assault rifles, I would have many questions, the first being "how soon can I call the kickvote?"

This is an excellent example, because you seem to not realize that there are legitimate cases for this to happen. For example, the guy wants to lvl up demo, but he's very low level, so he picks an other class to have at least a few bonuses. (and commando is not even that bad since you can quickly switch weapon to kill trash).

So again, just ask yourself the question: WHY DO YOU CARE?

A few days ago, a guy joined my lobby and we already had a lvl 25 medic. He asked in the chat if he could also play medic.
First someone told him that no, there is already a medic, and it makes no sense to have more than one. (Which btw, is an hilariously wrong statement - but that's not the point)
Then the guy who wanted to play medic asked if he could play a low level class instead, because he only has medic lvl 25. Someone said "why would you join HoE if you are not lvl 25".
The guy proceeded to pick medic, said nothing, then waited for the wave to start, and immediatly left, so we would get screwed and still get the 6p zed count.

That's the kind of situations you create by telling people how they should play in a casual game. You're not helping the team to improve, you're not encouraging people to try their best, you're just being randomly annoying to a guy who wanted to do his thing in one of the most casual games out there, and setting a toxic ambience among your teammates. Often, with counterproductive results. Even if the guy's class makes no sense compared to the team's composition (which is already something dubious - no "composition" is needed in this game imo), there's 50% chance you're screwing up things more by forcing a guy to play something he didn't want to.


This is a terrible argument. The challenge in a PvE game should come from the enemies, not the other players on your team.
The challenge when you join a PUBLIC lobby in a CASUAL game should be to try to win WITH YOUR TEAMMATES, not to vote kick them because they are not doing what you want them to do. I already feel like it's super easy to carry nowadays even with a team of headless chicken, so how does the victory even feel rewarding when you're putting all the best chances on your side from the start, and trying to vote kick the players who are not reliable enough?

You say a defeat is a waste of time. For me, a waste of time is playing on Prison 24/7 with a fully organized team of medic, zerk tanking, and demo camping at top. Yet I bet you these guys win far more often than you and me. But I'd much rather play with a team of complete noobs and lose.


TL;DR

A good player is NOT one who picks a loadout which complements the team composition, tries his best to win, vote kicks the bad players, and has won all maps and modes in HoE.

A good player is one that has realized, that KF is a casual game at its core, and that the goal is just to have fun, not farm stats and achievements.
 
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You're not helping the team to improve, you're not encouraging people to try their best, you're just being randomly annoying to a guy who wanted to do his thing in one of the most casual games out there
There is a reason why there's difficulty levels in the game.

A good player is NOT one who picks a loadout which complements the team composition, tries his best to win
bruh
 
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ಠ_ಠ

A good player is NOT one who picks a loadout which complements the team composition, tries his best to win, vote kicks the bad players, and has won all maps and modes in HoE.

A good player is one that has realized, that KF is a casual game at its core, and that the goal is just to have fun, not farm stats and achievements.
"Being a good teammate doesn't matter because I insist this game in particular is casual" is certainly a hot take and a valuable answer to the OP's legitimate question.

I'm going to let that passage speak for itself and instead opt to respond to OP again:

The awards don't tell the whole story. For example most people say its all about damage, whoever does the most damage is the best player. But then you have players who never go for headshots and only unload on the body. Not only are they killing slower and potentially killing the party by not killing fast enough, they think they are doing the most work...

Then their's kills. Well would you rather have someone who actually does their job and prioritizes the targets that could potentially wipe out the team or someone who's just killing everything or even trash mobs when they arent supposed to.

Thats only two examples... then we have anything from a good "team player" who can look out for someones back to other tactics like not being able to hold their spot / line etc all the way to the guy who focuses on surviving himself at the end, and then can kill an extra 50 or more after everyone dies and then finally dies without completing the round then he gets top score.


So how would you guys say is an actual objective way of finding out how well you or someone is doing?
Going back to my previous post about class roles:
  • Medic should be obvious: Priority one should be keeping the other players healed to the best of your ability. Priority #2 should be prebuffing players engaging with hordes or large Zeds (defense buff and speed buff keep them alive, offensive buffs help kill Zeds more quickly). Priority #3 should be shooting trash Zeds in the face with the 401, and priority #4 should be calling out big guys or anything surrounding you. I guess priority #5 would be debuffing large Zeds without raging them. Don't skip over that last part.
  • Commando should be scoring lots of headshots, and ideally near the top of the kill list. They shouldn't always get "most headshots" unless there's no SWAT, because some of Mando's highest priority targets just drop with a single bodyshot from late game weapons (Crawler, Stalker) and headshots are just flexing at that point (though still encouraged for the sake of practice). Ideally, their metric should be "how good are they at extending Zed-Time," but it's map- and team-comp-dependent. If they have to take their own lane to get their extensions in, then someone else should be stepping in to keep trash off the Medic and others who are more vulnerable to being surrounded. If they're laning with someone, then the laning teammate should not take their extension kills and help with takedowns.
  • Sharpshooter is loadout and comp-dependent. Obviously they should focus on scoring headshots (their ammo is too scant to afford missing, and the Lv. 25 "passive" is what gives them the ability to initiate lots of Zed-Time), but in a full precision team, they ironically won't have the "most headshots" award since they'll kill things faster than other precision perks, hence fewer headshots. If they're doing LLLLL and using Railgun or M99, then the metric should ideally be "most Large Zeds." If they're solo-laning as the M14/generalist Sharp, I guess the metric is "how often did they need assistance," "do they use stun kills to help with takedowns or holding off HVT hordes," and "how good are they at fluid takedowns." It's hard to answer with just numbers. Also keep in mind how quick they are to resort to freeze grenades; if they need one to kill a single Scrake or Fleshpound, it's a sign that the Sharp still has trouble with basic takedowns; if they use them to save teammates or freeze entire crowds to single out certain enemies, that's a better sign of a good player.
  • SWAT should be high on the kill list and should focus on keeping trash dead above all else. A SWAT at least remotely good should snag the "most headshots" award, no contest. Other than that, it's "how responsible are they with flashbangs" and "do they always try and solo Large Zeds outside of Zed-Time or wait for backup first?" SWAT is a little tougher to quantify than others, because it's less a matter of numbers and more on meta knowledge and target prioritization. Part of knowing SWAT is when not to play SWAT; for example, not using it in boss waves (a thing I've seen players with 4-digit hours still do, despite the fact that they should know better).
  • Demo, as I mentioned in the previous posts, should be focusing on HVT loadouts and know when to commit for HVT kills. Not picking bad loadouts is the easiest part to screw up as Demo, since it has a metric ton of gimmick weapons that make a lot of noise and don't kill things effectively. The hardest part is learning the combos and positioning, but that comes with practice. Demo should have the "most large Zed kills" award at the end of the game, and quite possibly the highest damage (Zed-Time: Destroyer of Worlds helps a lot with this when you can just forget about anything existing in that area for 10 seconds at a time). They won't have high kills on the scoreboard at the end of the day, but that's fine, it's not their specific role to snatch all the kills like this. Also, please don't drop shots or Nukes on your teammates, especially Precision perks; they will hate you for it.
  • Support is hard to play well and does best with team support. If they can hold a lane with at least one other person, they're golden. If left solo, they can have problems in early waves, especially because their starter shotgun lends itself to bottlenecks quite nicely. A good support knows when to pick fights and when to take shots to maximize damage. A really good one knows takedowns with the DBS or Doomstick and can pull them off with short notice and without taking hits. Should have lots of HVT kills and probably most damage; situationally will be high on the scoreboard. Also, please stand away from the Trader so others can get your ammo supply. Please and thank you.
  • Berserker is weird because his main boon comes into play for boss waves, where keeping a boss locked in melee so the other players can gun it down with little resistance is key. His main gimmick--high survivability--effectively comes more into play during normal waves the worse the team is. With chaos-team Zerkwalling, their job is to tank damage and kill whatever trash comes near. As a LMS, well...if they have to LMS things have already gone catastrophically wrong, but as long as they survive, I guess that counts for something. His main problem is that he can actively bone precision teams by messing up aggro and blocking shots, a thing that is less of an issue when playing with chaos perks. There are Zerks that are good enough to solo large Zeds with DPS loadouts, but maybe .5% of the playerbase will actually get that good.
  • Firebug is sort of a weird hybrid between a trash clearer and a Zerk-alternative. They function best in chokepoints where their stream weapons will gobble up trash Zeds and keep them at the top of the scoreboard. Odds are they'll get lots of assists just by proxy. Anything that doesn't immediately die can be pushed back with Heat Wave and whittled down via ground fire and DoTs. Their main problem is that in higher difficulties, just by doing their thing, they can risk setting off large Zeds with flame DoTs and causing deaths or, worst case scenarios, team wipes. Much of knowing Firebug is what not to do and when to not use Firebug. It meshes poorly with precision teams but fits right into chaos perk teams. It is normally a bad pick for bosses, with one exception: Firebug basically hard-counters Hans due to Hans' AI putting priority on dodging fire streams, meaning you can use Ground Fire to corral him into a corner while the team wails on him.
I'm not counting Survivalist because in a specialist-oriented team, any specialist will fill in their role better than Survivalist. A Medic off-perking certain weapons will work just as effectively as a Survivalist.
 
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There is a reason why there's difficulty levels in the game.
If in order to win HoE, you need to vote kick players who are not reliable enough, it's maybe you who should play in lower difficulties...

Youtube is full of people winning 6p HoE in solo, sometimes playing with bad perks, or handicaps like knife-only, so in order to win regular HoE with randoms, I don't think it's needed to use vote kick or enforce any composition. Maybe you'll have to carry really hard, but then, isn't that exactly what makes a good player?
 
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Being a good player in KF2 is depending on how assertive of a player you are; assisting in takedowns, clearing ZED around players, stunning/freezing if
you see players reloading furthermore you have to evaluate the situation and decide pretty fast if it's worth to stop whatever you are doing to help out that player at the moment or if it would be smarter to have them deal with whatever ZED is trying to hug them while you push back their lane or area to avoid more ZED spilling in which would be more beneficial to the entire Team.

In my (EU) experience it is usually frowned upon if you end up killing everything or take over a match entirely since players still want to improve and taking everything off their shoulders is like an insult for some personalities, not to mention it makes the match boring.
I'm not saying that if you are good at the game you should limit yourself though if you have a lane/area you are holding try to stay there and only assist if you decide that player needs your help.

As for laning with another person both players should realize what targets they are prioritizing.
Playing GS on maps like Containment Station and farming larges on the short lane of the left side for 300k damage on the Result Screen is also not proof that the player is good.

Honestly most of it becomes pretty clear and more manageable the more often you play the game since it is hard to force yourself to play in a certain way if you aren't comfortable with the basics of the game, perk, game mode and so on.
 
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In so many words, this is basically the "have fun the way you want to" argument.

The problem here is that if you're playing the game to win (which, again, should be the point), there absolutely exist objectively better ways to accomplish that. The other problem is that in a team-oriented game, your individual actions absolutely contribute to the team's collective well-being, and that's where problems arise: because many, many players often take the point of view that they must have their fun their way, even if it runs counter to the team's interests. It has unfortunately existed in every team-based game since the dawn of man and still exists in this one.

The "fun is the only thing that matters" mindset doesn't win Hell on Earth games. Some of us do have fun by, y'know, trying our best to work as a team and pulling it off nearly seamlessly.

That mindset is what gets you the second/third Commandos on a team (where one already existed), the players running Berserker and Firebug in a team where everyone is otherwise running a precision perk, the players who pick SWAT to round out a team planning to Zerkwall on the Nightmare map, the players who pick terrible Demo weapons and bomb their teammates both in and out of Zed-Time, and the players who insist that no, really, their Survivalist loadout is awesome and the best despite Survivalist being objectively worse at filling out any given role than any other pick in the game.

(On another note: I've read your linked suggestion threads, and honestly, I'm not sure what to think. While they could be interested if implemented in a completely different game altogether, your ideas run counter to the base design of Killing Floor on a fundamental level.)
I don't see a disagreement with what I said and how you prefer to play. You appear to be following my advice to OP: play in a way that's fun for you and don't worry about another player's 'objective' truth because the importance of that 'truth' will vary from one player to the next.

I like your seven-point definition, but just don't take the game as seriously as you. I won't apologize for my play style, nor would I ever want you to apologize for yours. I hope you find like-minded players to befriend, if you haven't already, and you kick a ton of zed booty in HoE. Maybe the OP will join you.

Meanwhile, I'm going to crack open a beer and play with my friends. We've had players similar to you who come in and say, "you gotta play like this," or, "I'm the commando now. [my friend] needs to go," and we say, "that's cute," and go back to laughing at fart jokes. We mostly just enjoy playing together—chatting and making memorable moments. That's fun for us and I suspect that your experience is similar but more intense. Join us or block us; we won't notice.

The only reason why I'm even bothering to respond to OP is because one rando chewed out my medic-loving friend for not following him around, despite the fact that he was the one separating himself from the group. He demanded to know why he was having to heal himself. It was so bad that my friend, who tries to spin as many plates as she can and has her own internal intensity, wound up crying. Mean-spiritedness, which is not a category I'd throw you into, is why I opine for acceptance. That guy could have left for another team without saying a word, but instead he angrily demanded adherence to his previously-unknown expectations. Not a classy move.

Nobody is required to be classy, but then again nothing is gained by being classless. His anger didn't make his character come back to life, nor did it make him or anyone else a better player. He just alienated himself. My friend still loves playing a medic and we appreciate her.

Ultimately, it's just a game. Our computers/consoles will die someday and we'll forget all about it. If we do recall a memorable moment, such as that time where every shot was a head shot, we'll probably be reminiscing with the people who helped make that moment happen. Anybody else will just smile and nod and change the subject. Might as well be talking about level 80 death knights.

I also agree that some of my suggestions in other threads would create a very different feel for KF3. I'm not at all concerned with retaining your definition of the game's base design, which I already think is more flexible than what you care to admit. I don't expect TWI to ever read through my thoughts, much less implement them. I enjoy coming up with creative stuff, knowing that most, if not all, of it will be ignored.

One of my re-occurring thoughts in other threads, however, revolves around smarter match-making for team games and more options for in-game modifications (eg, turn off certain weapons or perks when creating a new game so any players who see your game will know what to expect prior to joining). Seems to me like you'd be interested in that so you can find more people who are happy to avoid certain perks when you're playing your sharp/slinger, for example.
 
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