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WWAUT - Heading Towards (an opt-in) Beta

Oh wow the hype is REAL!

Those changes look all amazing (was a bit sad about Nuke not killing big zeds anymore, but as soon as I saw the other reworks, I was happier than ever!), I really can't want to test them out.
2-3 weeks...gonna be a loooong wait for me. :(

...and let's not forget the "new content" we're being promised. Goddamn you Tripwire, I can only get so erect! <3 I love you guys, great work. :)
 
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Furious Imbecile;n2264837 said:
Support: This video should suffice as an answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAtD7YlJDRM

Funny answer :D
But yeah, my opinion still stands to the camping meta. Its no fun for me camping 10 waves long (its about 1h of gameplay) at the same place. Take biolabs for example. People block 1 near the railings and stairs and camp even harder, shooting at one hall as 6 people. Not fun imo.
The penetration is really doubled or even tripled, if you count the passive. Makes no sense to have nearly 3x the same skill.
 
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How about making some kind of sub-perks instead of remaking perks again and again?
As you can see, there are different reaction about changes so why not to keep both variants?
You know, if each perk had 3 sub-perks, game would be much less stereotype (there would be 30 perks instead of 10, without the need to add more weapons and other mechanisms)...
Medic is great example- Old medic could be Field Medic sub perk (healing, armor refill), new sub perk could be Support medic (buffs, some boosts to weapon damage), and third sub-perk could be Assault medic (less healing skill, more skills aimed at weapon damage, reload speed, mag size etc.)
 
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Posted yesterday? How did I miss this!?

FoolishNinja;n2264831 said:
I
Medic:
Totally disagreeing where Medic is going. Hes now a buffer instead a field medic, he will focus more on adding damage and movement speeds and stuff like that. Just too much.

I knew you wouldn't like it. The fact that medic needs another way to support other than just heal still remains though.

FoolishNinja;n2264831 said:
All in all zeds will get even more destroyed, game will be even easier than it is right now and casuals can now be happy :confused:.
I dont like this, I mean, it was already easy. People didnt reach the boss, because of the difficulty ramping up after wave 7 to 10. Wave 1-6 is like hard difficulty on HoE...
I miss the difficulty right after the launch. With the insanly fast zeds and strong scrakes (ofc there were some bugs and annoyance).
Please look into this TWI! :)

Hold your horses!
Keep in mind they're going to add versus zeds to survival and improve Ai behaviour / make zeds actively defend and shield themselves from damage. There are buffs incoming for ZEDs too!
 
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A lot of the buffs in terms of percentages seem insane. But then you guys have to remember that Zeds are going to have albino variants along with blocking and dodging now. We'll have to see how it plays out, but I would suggest getting rid of percentage skills and keeping them as passives (in terms of health and damage mainly). That way all skill selections are more about what utility is best for you over just getting a higher stat boost. (Unless we're talking about temporary buffs like the new medic skills and rack em up). Overall though these still look like a ton of fun and I'm dying to get my hands on that beta!
 
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Damn are we really going to see a 3-shot double-barrel???

All these changes look promising. I think some skills could have been better while other are already due for a nerf. However, were missing an important piece:

Some (core) issues could be traced back to weapon mechanics during the discussion. Are there plans to address these too?

Just as a reminder:
  • Tapping firebug weapons consumes less fuel than holding.
  • Where to aim with a microwave gun?
  • Homing darts takes away the sense of challenge and horizontal progression from support medics.
  • There is little reason to carry and use additional medic weapons aside from AR even after weapon swap speed buff.
  • Medic shotgun is meh but the recoil is insane especially when firing darts.
  • Unlimmited amount of darts coupled with buffs/ armor repair cultivate a spam bot playstyle.
  • It's still hard to tell whether Berserker ranged weapon X is supposed to benefit from passive/skill Y on attack/mode Z.

Besides that, there is no point in judging these changes before we get to play them (in their upcoming context). Can't wait! My personal highlight is ~5times longer burning and groundfire. :D

Edit: Almost forgot. Thank you for clarifying the Rack 'em UP skills! Really appreciate that.
 
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Omg I've been on pins and needles waiting for the firebug rework. I love playing with my prey before killing it so thanks for keeping the ability for me to do so!! The perk looks great! I can't wait to try out all the options.

Everything else... 6 more bags of yays! I wanna play now!!!!
 
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Berserker: can't really say; haven't played zerk in a while

Commando: looks ok; guessing 2.1x is to combat slashing resist and increased head health of certain zeds in the last update, which is nice

Gunslinger/Sharpshooter: nice to see rack em up and rhythm method become more of a consistent damage boost, although I still think both skills allow players to kill certain zeds way too quickly with headshots, and I don't think any skill will be able to compete with them. Bone breaker might have been able to compete if it had a move slow attached to leg shots and a damage reduction attached to arm shots.

Sharpshooter alone: cool to see the crouching thing get more than just bonus damage. It's also nice to see sharpshooter get the knockdown zed time skill replaced with something more useful. Although I still think stun power should be a passive and the skill that doubles it should be replaced. Stun is still just too good and I think most players would still take it, but I could be wrong since now that rack em up gives more consistent bonus damage, you'll just be able to one shot kill pretty much every zed in the game.

Demo: love to see reactive armor coming back as a passive

Medic: certainly seems like there's more clear tree in it (buff yourself or buff teammates) although it might be op having darts buff teammate movespeed, damage, and damage resist all by 30% with 3 darts. I think it'd be more interesting to see these bonuses tied to the weapons that way there's more decision making involved in it.

Firebug: love it. Looks like I'll finally be able to rely on DoT.

Support: love it. +1 for that door fixing ability. Although it still would be nice to be able to see doors health (maybe make support be able to see door healthbars? Or just let everyone see them and support can see from further away)
 
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Woah, that is quite a changelog! Most of the changes sound awesome, but some of them don't make much sense when you look at the bigger picture. I don't know if others feel the same about some of the skills, but I'll explain why I view some of them with scepticism.

BERSERKER

Dreadnaught - surely you mean Fortitude, right? This skill has to compete with one that offers solid health regen AND movement speed bonus which is no longer a passive bonus. Another factor to consider is that the more max hp there is, the more likely that the Berserker will need the Medic's assistance in the sense that default syringes only healing 20 hp is just nowhere near enough to heal a guy with 175 max hp. It's only when being compared to the other choice, that I agree with Fortitude getting +75 hp.

Vampire - the reason this skill does not get picked much has almost nothing to do with lack of extra attack rate. It's because it's too conditional: you only get health back if you get the kill. But if a friend steals a kill, you don't get it. This becomes an even greater issue when the Berserker is fighting a Scrake or Fleshpound as he is likely to lose quite a bit of health in such a tussle. Even if he got the kill, would 4 hp really be a just reward in terms of taking down a big zed? At the very least, this skill needs to function based on landing assists as well as kills, as well as possibly scaling according to the type of zed that the Berserker just helped to take down.

Another problem with Vampire is that it serves almost no use during boss wave, except for the trash zeds during the healing intervals. By the time Vampire can be triggered from the boss itself, it's irrelevant because the game is won and finished. Not sure how you would go about altering Vampire to be more relevant during boss wave.

Parry - while I agree with the change here, it's pretty hard to displace Resistance when it offers what was once a significant passive bonus.

Massacre - the skill isn't lacking in damage, it just isn't as relevant as Smash is. This is because even without Massacre, light hits are best used against the trash zeds, and both the Pulverizer and Zweihander can decapitate all of them with single light hits. If that angle is already covered, then it just makes far more logical sense to pick Smash and land more damage on bigger zeds.

COMMANDO

Fallback - eh? Based on the skill description, surely you mean the level 10 skill Backup, right? Or is it now being moved to level 5? In any case, it's a nice buff but I for one already had this selected before because as far as I was last aware, you could still stumble zeds with the butt of your rifle without taking the stumble skill.

Prepared - This skill description surprises me - not sure if you've realised, but there is very little distinction between 2 extra magazines and 20% extra ammo. The SCAR is the notable exception; it will get something like 3.5 extra clips worth of bullets. But the other 3 assault rifles will only get a marginal increase: a few extra bullets more than just 2 mags. And as far as Hell on Earth difficulty is concerned, it's pretty tough to displace Health Increase.

GUNSLINGER

Zed Time Reload - this is quite an odd passive boost in itself, but I am more concerned that it will make the Zed Time skills much easier to choose between. Fanfare was already the better option when it comes to bigger zeds at least, but this passive boost will only serve to make Fanfare a really palpable choice: the passive bonus can't really be used if you choose a Zed Time skill where you don't empty your guns.

Quick Draw - Most avoid Quick Draw because of one tiny nuisance: they don't like automatically swapping to weaker pistols in the middle of a fight, something that can easily be ill-timed when you have zeds trying to get in your face when all you wanted to do was reload your favourite guns. If you just removed that unnecessary quirk, I think it would see more frequent usage without having to reduce recoil and increase movement speed with it.

Rack em Up - The 2-second timer for each stack is a problem if you are forced to lose a stack while reloading your guns.

DEMOLITIONIST

Shock Trooper - New name for Grenadier I guess? I chose this skill over Bombardier anyway because I found out that with direct hits to the core, a level 25 Demo can solo-kill a 6P HoE Fleshpound with just as many rockets as with Bombardier, not to mention that it's a much better skill for survival when using the nade pistol. I'm not surprised though that most people would be bought over easily by +25% damage, but this skill doesn't need a buff in the grand scheme of things either.

MEDIC

This is a complete overhaul of the Medic skill tree and I'd rather test it out and see it in action before rushing to any conclusions. The current iteration was underwhelming to say the least so it was in need of a revamp, but I wasn't quite expecting anything like this. Can't wait to try out these skills.

FIREBUG

Barbecue - No, no and no. One of the biggest problems with Firebug right now is that KF2 is rather fast-paced and the zeds don't burn to death quick enough if you tag them with fire. When lack of time is the real problem, ADDING more required time is just hilariously exacerbating the problem to begin with! Firebug players want fire DoT to be something viable, but that's not going to happen when it is stuck at its default rate. Therefore, Barbecue needs to quicken the pace of fire DoT instead of attempting to extend something that doesn't act fast enough anyway. Probably would be a better idea to double the speed at which the ticks of fire DoT occur.

Napalm - For the same reason as Barbecue above: extending the burn duration will solve nothing. If anything, I would consider doubling fire DoT damage for those who choose Napalm over Shrapnel/Pyre.

Firestorm - My concern with this is that this level 20 skill doesn't do anything to help the Microwave Gun or Trenchgun, while Heat Wave benefits all 4 Firebug weapons and is better for survival prospects overall.

SUPPORT

Zed Time - Penetrator - I'm not seeing the logic in having this when there is already a level 15 skill which does the same thing, not to mention a huge passive bonus in shotgun penetration which is still present. I would rather keep Safeguard and make it trigger consistently with each extension.

SHARPSHOOTER

Marksman - This... is exactly how the skill is right now in the game. It's a decent skill.

Stability - The idea of having to crouch just to make use of this skill was probably why it was so off-putting to many. But if the movement speed bonus is substantial enough to turn the skill around, maybe it could work.

Rack em Up - Again, the exact same problem as with the Gunslinger, except it's worse for Sharpshooter because his weapons are not as quick in fire rate and it's also bad if he's using a Railgun. Choosing to stack headshots means he can't build up stacks with just his tier 4 because reloading each bullet by default takes longer than a headshot stack lasts for. Choosing elite reload would have given him a slight window of opportunity, but it falls in the same level as Rack em Up; it's either one or the other. You could argue that SS players should gain stacks with the Winchester before rolling out the Railgun, but that doesn't bode well for diversity if players are just conscripted into choosing the same two weapons all the time for the sake of maximising one skill.
 
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Escadin;n2264849 said:
Damn are we really going to see a 3-shot double-barrel???

Honestly, i care much more about this than about the impact of the changes.
I am not against changing weapon mags trough perks/passives, but dual shotgun with 3 shells? SCAR with... how much? 50 rounds in it tiny funny box magazine? 12 rounds in m4 shotgun?
I loved how weapons were made in this game (ZED time animations etc) but without visual upgrade (bigger/different mag - drum, belt, whatever) this game is becoming Borderlands-like game with infinite pistols, 100+ rnds assault rifles and 3-in-one-barrel RPGs.
Bring 100rnd p90 and i will be really annoyed... yeah, minor issue, i know... but i believe i am not the only one who likes realism here.
 
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I don't think i'm gonna love the new medic, because it has a buffer role now. Drop down combatant role, medic not meant to fight ZEDs as much as other perks. You'll see this skill tree being abandoned very soon.

Instead give it a Healer role.

Buffer provides temporary boost, everything you're saying here while healer has things like

ability to restore small amount of the armor, faster heal rate, more HP per dart, AOE healing etc.
 
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I'm really looking forward to trying all of this out. I have three questions about this coming update.

1. How will the 75% additional damage mitigation for the parry skill actually be calculated? It seems like this will make you take potentially negligible damage when parrying with any of the higher tier zerk weapons.

2. When will supports be able to fix doors (during waves or during trader time?), how often and how long will it take to perform the action?

3. Will the improved zed AI and VS-inspired zed attacks be introduced at the same time as the perk changes? I really hope so, because otherwise HoE is going to become a joke. It is already quite easy if you know what you're doing, but with these changes (which I actually really like), I just feel that the difficulty of the game is going to disappear.

Oh, and with the support penetration, I thought it was the damage-falloff after the pellets go through zeds (not over a distance) that was the issue, not the penetration itself. If that is the case, then this would just make it so that you deal tiny amounts of damage to a whole bunch of things, but not actually kill much.
 
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Well, this is one hell of a WWAUT...

Berserker: Sure. I really like the Parry buff.

Commando: Is Backup back to level 5 now? I'm guessing the damage increase is for Gorefasts (20->50 head health when resistances were first introduced). Extra ammo is +20% already, but I'm glad to see that you're fixing the skill description. And +100% mag capacity is technically better but it's still up against +25% damage/-50% recoil.

Gunslinger: Zed time reload buff sounds neat. GS is getting knocked down a peg on speed and ReU, but that's fine (the perk is really powerful as is). So the new Quick Draw won't auto-change your weapons instead of reloading? If so, that's quite welcome, because that was the reason many people took Shoot and Scoot instead.

Demolitions: Never really got to play with Reactive Armor, so having it back as a passive is excellent. One suggestion for Mad Bomber: add massive explosive resistance to it lest you have Demos accidentally blowing themselves up during zed time (Destroyer of Worlds doesn't do self-damage, so it would make sense to bump up Mad Bomber as well).

Medic: Symbiotic Health sounds great, but 10% health gained/heal sounds overkill. Maybe x% of health restored (x should be higher than 10)? I'm not so sure on all the team buffs, honestly. I could see it being mitigated by the fact that you pretty much have to focus on one teammate to get the maximum buffs. I'll just have to see how it all plays out though.

Firebug: As mentioned before, Barbecue would probably be better if it sped up the damage ticks or increased DoT damage instead of keeping DoT on longer (same with Napalm). In any case Ground Fire would help with keeping panicked zeds under control.

Support: What...what am I looking at? :eek: How is Support not going to literally murder everything with these buffs? Moving carry weight and Supplier to passive is very nice, as well as being able to fix broken doors. I'm wondering if shotguns are going to get their max ammo nerfed, because current ammo count + 50% passive + 20% with Resupply pack = shotgun rain forever. And the thought of a 3-round DBS is both hilariously ridiculous and insanely awesome. :D

Sharpshooter: Stability buffs are welcome. The ReU change is a creative way of knocking the Railgun down a peg or two. And Assassin no longer knocks down zeds.

Considering that zeds are getting evading and blocking with this upcoming update (and Crawler gas, and Bloat mines, and...), it's a start. The zeds have quite a ways to go to compete with all of this, but we'll get there.
 
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[TW]schneidzekk with all the honest on the world and trying to make a constructive critic
try to focus on important things, first make all the perks ant then try to balance all of them, when a perk appears that is whem it breaks the game balance
now only are 2 or 3 useful perks, the rest of them are just trash or trash cleaners
medic is not a medic, just a perk that give bufs to other players
 
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Veny;n2264857 said:
Honestly, i care much more about this than about the impact of the changes.
I am not against changing weapon mags trough perks/passives, but dual shotgun with 3 shells? SCAR with... how much? 50 rounds in it tiny funny box magazine? 12 rounds in m4 shotgun?
I loved how weapons were made in this game (ZED time animations etc) but without visual upgrade (bigger/different mag - drum, belt, whatever) this game is becoming Borderlands-like game with infinite pistols, 100+ rnds assault rifles and 3-in-one-barrel RPGs.
Bring 100rnd p90 and i will be really annoyed... yeah, minor issue, i know... but i believe i am not the only one who likes realism here.

Yeah we can't have any 3-shot DBS nonsense. Realism flies right out of the window and into orbit. Also I really have to know. Would the alt fire consume 3 ammo and do extra damage, or awkwardly leave the gun with 1 shot left? Really, I think large mags is just a lame skill for support, DBS aside. Not to mention that the new level 5 support skills blatantly plagiarize from Commando. Plus non of the shotguns besides AA12 even have mags, so naming the skill High Capacity Mags is nonsense.
 
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