So, let me preface this post and this video. I modified Moxel's KF-Testingmap specifically to make this video
Modification made was to shove the ammo into groups in the room, so if your perk can, you can stay in the room infinitely or until you mess up/the game crashes.
Also, WARNING: Video contains swearing, Personal opinions, etc. Viewer Discretion advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UW5UEBhsyshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UW5UEBhsys
Text version (TLDR Version not included with admission):
So, i haven't really seen a video or post showing the berserker perk directly compared to other perks in the game, to show how absolutely mechanically flawed the class is.
So i made one.
Tripwire, i know you guys have stated "We're looking into it" but the fact that the perk got hit this hard by nerfs and has been left as-is as a newbie and veteran trap alike is rather pathetic.
In that video, i've taken the testing map and made it more "broken" as a perk grinding map, but it also works for demonstrating just how pathetic the berserker truly is, even in the most ideal-yet-adverse conditions (infinite ammo and trapped in a room with cysts spawning 5 per second or so) the 'zerk can't even hold it's own with a T3, so lets run down why:
Lawnmower blade: Jokingly, i call this the berserkers best weapon, and right now, it basically is, it attacks and blocks very quickly, flinches light targets, and generally has no downsides beyond it's mildly low damage, but for clearing out weaker ZED's it's free, it's quick, and it gets the job done faster than the bloody eviscerator.
Crovel/Krovel: The other starting weapon, more damage but slower per swing than the lawnmower, it's best on things like gorefasts or crawlers, Targets that are generally either harder to hit due to the range of the knife, or have more health and won't die as quick to it, your fallback until you can afford....
The Pulverizer: The big daddy, the offperk special, the best g*****n weapon the berserker has, it smashes through heavy targets, it stuns targets, it's a shotgun taped to a sledgehammer. It's only downside is that the alt-fire doesn't automatically reload if the clip is empty and you have more ammo. While it's the slowest melee you have, it hits like a truck and isn't exactly cost-prohibitive to run (i usually have this by wave 2 on anything under HoE) If you aren't carrying it, there's something wrong with you or you're not playing berserker.
Vlad 1k Nailgun: Shouldn't be a berserker weapon, i'll make a full post later on this (as i mention at the end of this post) but for what it does, it's alright, it's basically the bouncing fragments of the supports grenade made into a weapon, the only thing holding it back is the longer janky reload animation and it's lack of penetration through targets
The Pathetic Evsicerator: I Don't really have enough words in english to say how useless this thing truly is, but if you buy it in a game you're seriously wasting Dosh and you're going to die horribly, it does basically no damage, barely has any use with either mode on any kind of "Trash" ZED and it's slower flight speed and odd hitbox means you're not easily going to land the headshots you desperately need to make this thing slightly less suck.
As shown in my video, even on headshots with the alt-fire it takes as long as the knife to kill a clot and has less horizontal range, actually making it -worse- at killing trash enemies
So, how do we make the berserker perk better, without making it as "Overpowered" as the KF1 bersker?
Simple (+ means "Added" - means "Remove this"):
+ Bloat/siren res go up an additional 1% per level
+ movespeed/level and attackspeed/level go up to 1%/level
+ Berserker gets a similar health boost to what commandos get per level (2hp/level or so)
- Berserker ranged weapons get moved to off-perk for another perk based around improvised ranged weapons (making a thread on this)
+ Eviscerator gets split back into the 2 old weapons that make it (chainsaw, buzzsaw bow) Buzzsaw bow moved to off-perk for the new improvised range perk
+ Chainsaw is a repurposed Scrake chainsaw that uses fuel, left click is the old revved-up attack, consuming fuel at the same rate as the current evis alt fire/right click fire, Right click is a horizontal swipe that "Turbo boosts" the saw and consumes a set amount of fuel (5-10 per use) but has a higher chance to stagger large zeds and shoves weaker ZED's away from you
= For now, skills stay the same, with the above changes that move the perk more towards a pure melee face-breaker, i'd wait to see how it plays out before changing the skills (Though bulk ammo would go away in favor of say, a berserker version of the medic armor perk or a health regen thing, all the other skills are melee based)
So what does this all accomplish?
1. This makes the berserker a melee perk who can actually survive in melee range on difficulties over normal, and has the tools and incentive to do so
2. Gives the berserker it's old trash-wrecking ability, the chainsaw was one of the best weapons in the entire game in the hands of a skilled 'zerk up until the DLC weapons (Claymore, Scythe, etc.) were added to the game and having a repurposed Scrake saw as the new eviscerator would just be awesome
3. Actually makes the health-level perks useful, with increased health and extra resistance to being cheap-shot by a random bloat or siren, you're less likely to die while trying to make use of them, and a skilled player with those and good parry timing, will be able to go toe-to-toe with bigger enemies with less problems overall
4. Removes the newbie trap from the perk. As alright as the ranged weapons are in theory, they're terrible in execution because they get next to no bonuses from it, so moving them to a totally new perk and focusing the berserker on melee is better for balance.
And overall, that's what we want, is berserker to be it's old self with it's "I want to smash things in the face" feeling intact.
So, what about this new perk i keep mentioning? Well, we had some improvised ranged weapons in KF1, and we have some improvised ranged stuff in KF2, so we have the following potential weapons for a new "Improvised ranged weapon" perk
Blower Thrower, Buzzsaw bow, Nailgun
Which gives us a T3, T2, and T1 weapon (Or T4/T3/T2 if you're so inclined to call them that) All one needs to do is come up with a starter weapon, like a Zip gun or other "Backyard Boomstick" type thing and you've got the weapons for a perk, as i outline in this thread:
http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?p=1413892#post1413892
In summary, if you made it this far or you just TLDR'd through the wall of text and the video, the berserker should really be refocused purely to melee, since the off-perking viability of other weapons is higher here (and if we're going to be stuck with it, lets make use of it) and his upper-tier weapons should be redesigned and balanced to compensate, so that the perk can once again reign supreme as the melee king
Modification made was to shove the ammo into groups in the room, so if your perk can, you can stay in the room infinitely or until you mess up/the game crashes.
Also, WARNING: Video contains swearing, Personal opinions, etc. Viewer Discretion advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UW5UEBhsyshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UW5UEBhsys
Text version (TLDR Version not included with admission):
So, i haven't really seen a video or post showing the berserker perk directly compared to other perks in the game, to show how absolutely mechanically flawed the class is.
So i made one.
Tripwire, i know you guys have stated "We're looking into it" but the fact that the perk got hit this hard by nerfs and has been left as-is as a newbie and veteran trap alike is rather pathetic.
In that video, i've taken the testing map and made it more "broken" as a perk grinding map, but it also works for demonstrating just how pathetic the berserker truly is, even in the most ideal-yet-adverse conditions (infinite ammo and trapped in a room with cysts spawning 5 per second or so) the 'zerk can't even hold it's own with a T3, so lets run down why:
Lawnmower blade: Jokingly, i call this the berserkers best weapon, and right now, it basically is, it attacks and blocks very quickly, flinches light targets, and generally has no downsides beyond it's mildly low damage, but for clearing out weaker ZED's it's free, it's quick, and it gets the job done faster than the bloody eviscerator.
Crovel/Krovel: The other starting weapon, more damage but slower per swing than the lawnmower, it's best on things like gorefasts or crawlers, Targets that are generally either harder to hit due to the range of the knife, or have more health and won't die as quick to it, your fallback until you can afford....
The Pulverizer: The big daddy, the offperk special, the best g*****n weapon the berserker has, it smashes through heavy targets, it stuns targets, it's a shotgun taped to a sledgehammer. It's only downside is that the alt-fire doesn't automatically reload if the clip is empty and you have more ammo. While it's the slowest melee you have, it hits like a truck and isn't exactly cost-prohibitive to run (i usually have this by wave 2 on anything under HoE) If you aren't carrying it, there's something wrong with you or you're not playing berserker.
Vlad 1k Nailgun: Shouldn't be a berserker weapon, i'll make a full post later on this (as i mention at the end of this post) but for what it does, it's alright, it's basically the bouncing fragments of the supports grenade made into a weapon, the only thing holding it back is the longer janky reload animation and it's lack of penetration through targets
The Pathetic Evsicerator: I Don't really have enough words in english to say how useless this thing truly is, but if you buy it in a game you're seriously wasting Dosh and you're going to die horribly, it does basically no damage, barely has any use with either mode on any kind of "Trash" ZED and it's slower flight speed and odd hitbox means you're not easily going to land the headshots you desperately need to make this thing slightly less suck.
As shown in my video, even on headshots with the alt-fire it takes as long as the knife to kill a clot and has less horizontal range, actually making it -worse- at killing trash enemies
So, how do we make the berserker perk better, without making it as "Overpowered" as the KF1 bersker?
Simple (+ means "Added" - means "Remove this"):
+ Bloat/siren res go up an additional 1% per level
+ movespeed/level and attackspeed/level go up to 1%/level
+ Berserker gets a similar health boost to what commandos get per level (2hp/level or so)
- Berserker ranged weapons get moved to off-perk for another perk based around improvised ranged weapons (making a thread on this)
+ Eviscerator gets split back into the 2 old weapons that make it (chainsaw, buzzsaw bow) Buzzsaw bow moved to off-perk for the new improvised range perk
+ Chainsaw is a repurposed Scrake chainsaw that uses fuel, left click is the old revved-up attack, consuming fuel at the same rate as the current evis alt fire/right click fire, Right click is a horizontal swipe that "Turbo boosts" the saw and consumes a set amount of fuel (5-10 per use) but has a higher chance to stagger large zeds and shoves weaker ZED's away from you
= For now, skills stay the same, with the above changes that move the perk more towards a pure melee face-breaker, i'd wait to see how it plays out before changing the skills (Though bulk ammo would go away in favor of say, a berserker version of the medic armor perk or a health regen thing, all the other skills are melee based)
So what does this all accomplish?
1. This makes the berserker a melee perk who can actually survive in melee range on difficulties over normal, and has the tools and incentive to do so
2. Gives the berserker it's old trash-wrecking ability, the chainsaw was one of the best weapons in the entire game in the hands of a skilled 'zerk up until the DLC weapons (Claymore, Scythe, etc.) were added to the game and having a repurposed Scrake saw as the new eviscerator would just be awesome
3. Actually makes the health-level perks useful, with increased health and extra resistance to being cheap-shot by a random bloat or siren, you're less likely to die while trying to make use of them, and a skilled player with those and good parry timing, will be able to go toe-to-toe with bigger enemies with less problems overall
4. Removes the newbie trap from the perk. As alright as the ranged weapons are in theory, they're terrible in execution because they get next to no bonuses from it, so moving them to a totally new perk and focusing the berserker on melee is better for balance.
And overall, that's what we want, is berserker to be it's old self with it's "I want to smash things in the face" feeling intact.
So, what about this new perk i keep mentioning? Well, we had some improvised ranged weapons in KF1, and we have some improvised ranged stuff in KF2, so we have the following potential weapons for a new "Improvised ranged weapon" perk
Blower Thrower, Buzzsaw bow, Nailgun
Which gives us a T3, T2, and T1 weapon (Or T4/T3/T2 if you're so inclined to call them that) All one needs to do is come up with a starter weapon, like a Zip gun or other "Backyard Boomstick" type thing and you've got the weapons for a perk, as i outline in this thread:
http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?p=1413892#post1413892
In summary, if you made it this far or you just TLDR'd through the wall of text and the video, the berserker should really be refocused purely to melee, since the off-perking viability of other weapons is higher here (and if we're going to be stuck with it, lets make use of it) and his upper-tier weapons should be redesigned and balanced to compensate, so that the perk can once again reign supreme as the melee king
Last edited: