WWAUT - Heading Towards (an opt-in) Beta

[Ramare]

I hope everyone complaining about 3 extra penetration power skills on support does so because they dont realise it will give you higher damage on each target as well.

Even if that is the case, 14 (15 if they round up) target penetration is already plenty and full damage on all enemies hit through other enemies during zed time is still a pretty lame zed time skill.

 

[Ordalium]

Commando

The following skills weren't picked very much so we've buffed the following skills.


Perk Changes

LvL5 FallBack skill

• 9mm and knife now do 2.1x more damage (was 0.6x)

LvL15 Prepared

• Get 20% extra ammo (previously was 2 mags)

LvL20 Rock n Roll

• Mag capacity increased to 100% (was 50%)

I think that +210% more damage for 9mm(s) is over the top. (Is this skill moved to lvl 5? Or is it just a typo?)
Former Ammo Vest skill isn't changed as it gives you 20% more spare ammo since build v1.034, despite the ingame description.
For former Eat Lead skill... IMO, it will be better to interchange it with lvl 15 Health Increase skill (So you would have to choose between more damage and decreased recoil or better survivability at lvl 20) and leave it at +50% bigger mags.

 

[Veny]

I think that +210% more damage for 9mm(s) is over the top. (Is this skill moved to lvl 5? Or is it just a typo?)

I think its enough compared to the second perk and to the fact that 9mm is horribly weak and barely used in 2+ rounds.

 

[Ordalium]

I think its enough compared to the second perk and to the fact that 9mm is horribly weak and barely used in 2+ rounds.

Well, it will not only make them just as powerful as M1911(s) in terms of damage, but also with about twice bigger mag, more spare ammo, with ability to reload faster (and even more so if Elite Reload is picked) and finally, it will cost you only 100 worth of Dosh to buy a second one. Not even to mention that it will make AR-15 super useless and you will be able to switch weapons twice as fast.

 

[Ramare]

I think its enough compared to the second perk and to the fact that 9mm is horribly weak and barely used in 2+ rounds.

I'm pretty sure that they made it 210% specifically to make it just strong enough to decap Gorefasts with one shot, so it's totally enough. The fact that it's a huge enough boost to make it viable to kill Scrakes (solo offline or when you're in a real clutch moment, that is) with it is just an unintentional side-effect.

 

[Ramare]

Well, it will not only make them just as powerful as M1911(s) in terms of damage, but also with about twice bigger mag, more spare ammo, with ability to reload faster (and even more so if Elite Reload is picked) and finally, it will cost you only 100 worth of Dosh to buy a second one. Not even to mention that it will make AR-15 super useless and you will be able to switch weapons twice as fast.

To be fair, the AR-15 has always been pretty craptastic (poor base damage, small mags, long reloads, uncomfortably low semi auto fire cap, tiny ammo pool, bad burst mode, no auto mode, poor iron sights; the thing is actually worse than I thought, now that I think of it, it's pretty much the opposite of the comparatively amazing Commando tier 1 from KF1 (sans poor base damage, which is a shared trait)). Maybe this change will finally spur them on to make it less crap...one can hope.

 

[Ryno5660]

I just wanna say it's all looking good and the direction of more decisive perk skills is always good.

One thing I'm not sure about though is why you have gone for afterburn *duration* on firebug again, as well as keeping "Napalm". Napalm is a great name for an FB skill and all but there is literally no use for the on-contact stuff, it won't be noticeable just like before I bet. I'm just saying 2 things; Firstly I think Napalm should simply do something else, something new. More intense afterburn damage or something, I don't know, but on-contact fire spreading will not be useful. Willing to try it but I'm calling it.

Second point is duration. All I can say is 5x duration? That's about 25 seconds. That sounds nice and all but I can't think of a single zed I'd want running around for 25 seconds and I don't see 25 seconds of afterburn being damaging or useful at all against bigger stuff either, it'd just make it easier to accidentally send them into a rage state but not being specced for damage.

My point is I think "BBQ" and "Napalm" still need changing. More intense afterburn, ramping up how much the fire hurts per tick, whatever. I just don't see 25 seconds of afterburn being useful on anything, not how it applies damage currently.

EDIT: For what it's worth, duration isn't a bad idea at all but first the afterburn has to be mean enough. It's the difference between 25 seconds of being tickled by a feather or say, 10-15 seconds of being ground down by sandpaper. Currently we have the feather, time makes no difference to the lack of damage it does (I can imagine that duration killing pretty much all trash zeds but again, being a feather, takes too long).

I'm being long-winded, my point is this: duration is cool but nothing, *nothing* has 25 seconds in this game. 10-15 seconds maybe at a push, but honestly the fire should first do something mean and have an impact within 5 seconds if 10-25 seconds is going to mean anything. I hope this makes sense.

 

[Daar375]

Sharpshooter
LvL15 Rack em Up

• Each consecutive headshot with a Sharpshooter weapon increases your damage by 10%, up to a maximum of 50%
  • When you miss a head shot the bonus is no longer lost. It's on a 2 sec timer now, so as long as you get another head shot every 2 seconds, it will keep going up to a max of 50%

I dont now if that is going to work againts the fast reload and it could be better if it is diferent from the gunslinger skill, maybe if you keep it the same as before but if you miss the counter dont go down to 3 it goes to the half

 

[Insert Name Here]

I'm pretty sure that they made it 210% specifically to make it just strong enough to decap Gorefasts with one shot, so it's totally enough. The fact that it's a huge enough boost to make it viable to kill Scrakes (solo offline or when you're in a real clutch moment, that is) with it is just an unintentional side-effect.

Pretty much this. Though I don't see why such a buff is necessary. Backup is already quite powerful considering it boosts weapon swap speed as well. The AR-15 already 2-shots Gorefasts even off-perk (they take 1.2x damage from assault rifles), so it doesn't need to be knocked down further. Does Impact have that much, er, impact that more people are taking it?

On some other notes:

• I've given Medic team buff skills some more thought. Wouldn't it be better to have skills that work concurrently with healing, instead of something that potentially encourages buff botting? For example:
  
  Adrenaline: When you heal your teammates, they have their low-health speed penalty reduced by 75% for 3 seconds.
  Triage: Increase health regeneration rate for seriously wounded teammates, up to 50% when at 25% of max health or lower. (15hp/sec at <= 25% of max health vs 10hp/sec)
  
  The exact numbers (or even the skills themselves) aren't important. The point is aiming for skills that would be more useful for keeping your team alive rather than just buffing already healthy teammates, which is hardly better than dart-spamming for armor.
• Regarding Support penetration: having more total penetration helps with damage, because damage is calculated based on (current penetration / total penetration).
• The Sharpshooter ReU changes will help LAR and EBR and penalize XBow and Railgun. I think this is deliberate.

 

[Lt.Fenix]

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.

Most of these things can actually be represented visually.

Chiappa sells a triple-barrel shotgun called the "Triple Threat":
http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/44421-1/triple_threat_3016web.jpg

With an appropriate aftermarket lower receiver, the Scar 17 can take an X-Products 50 round drum:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e192/shadyirishmen/SCAR25X-25_zps9bb10d88.jpg

Tube-magazine shotguns can take extensions to hold ridiculous numbers of shells. People typically use these for competition, and the tubes sometimes extend far beyond the barrel. Sometimes I think they do actually hold 12 shells. This picture shows a Benelli M3 with an extension, but same idea:
http://i.imgur.com/D6smN.jpg

Typical competition shotgun:
http://special.squad.fi/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8145-672x372.jpg

For guns that take AR-15 magazines, there are things like the Surefire 60 and 100 round quad-stack mags:
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Surefire-60-100-Round-Box-Magazine.jpg

These sorts of things do exist for AK's as well:
http://weaponsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/quadstack-2.jpg

So Tripwire could represent these things visually if they actually cared enough. I really hope they do.

 

[FoolishNinja]

Most of these things can actually be represented visually.

Chiappa sells a triple-barrel shotgun called the "Triple Threat":
http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/44421-1/triple_threat_3016web.jpg

With an appropriate aftermarket lower receiver, the Scar 17 can take an X-Products 50 round drum:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e192/shadyirishmen/SCAR25X-25_zps9bb10d88.jpg

Tube-magazine shotguns can take extensions to hold ridiculous numbers of shells. People typically use these for competition, and the tubes sometimes extend far beyond the barrel. Sometimes I think they do actually hold 12 shells. This picture shows a Benelli M3 with an extension, but same idea:
http://i.imgur.com/D6smN.jpg

Typical competition shotgun:
http://special.squad.fi/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_8145-672x372.jpg

For guns that take AR-15 magazines, there are things like the Surefire 60 and 100 round quad-stack mags:
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Surefire-60-100-Round-Box-Magazine.jpg

These sorts of things do exist for AK's as well:
http://weaponsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/quadstack-2.jpg

So Tripwire could represent these things visually if they actually cared enough. I really hope they do.

so you want to change a whole weapon plus their animations just to represent a skill?
The mag increase skill for support should just be changed to 30%.

 

[Veny]

Most of these things can actually be represented visually...

I know and actually thats what i am asking for. Hard to say how difficult this is - in PayDay 2 each weapon (from maybe 60?) has some attachments that changes them visually. It would be awesome to have attachments that would reflect some perks in KF2 too, but only DEVs know how weapons are designed - the may use system that would require designing a whole new weapon + animations. Some response here from DEVs themselves would be nice... personally i would love to know how difficult this could be.

 

[techburn]

You guys keep changing the game to the point where I no longer recognize what I bought. You're free to do whatever you want with your product that's fine. You got your 30 bucks from me, done deal. Hell I probably got my money's worth. But going forward my friends and I are losing interest in not only waiting for the full game to be released, but to even bother playing with each of these major updates. Revamping all of the classes is kind of the final straw. Some changes sounds great. Some sound like you guys got really drunk and decided how to piss off the players the most.

For example you've made the medic pointless to play. He'll be a mindless buff drone. I really enjoyed being able to heal my team's armor before a massive scrake / FP attack. If I can't heal armor as a support medic then it is pointless. Everyone can just carry a medic pistol and heal each other while all 6 players have damage classes. Spending a year learning and getting good at using each class' perk only to have everything shaken up ruins the fun, at least for me. The back and forth between nerfing the berserker (my favorite class) and un-nerfing pretty much made me give up on playing that class.

I don't expect any changes on my behalf as I'm not that narcissistic. But quite a few of us feel this way. I'm sure the final game will be fun. In a way its our own damn fault for playing the game so early getting used to things. Its why I can't stand the early access model but had to get my KF2 fix. Anyways there is some honest feedback. Do what you want as I know you will, but I suggest at some point you stop changing **** over and over. It does wear on the community. You don't really have a game without a happy community. Not for long anyways.

 

[silverlighted]

I don't expect any changes on my behalf as I'm not that narcissistic. But quite a few of us feel this way. I'm sure the final game will be fun. In a way its our own damn fault for playing the game so early getting used to things. Its why I can't stand the early access model but had to get my KF2 fix.

In a way? No. It IS your fault for playing an early access game.

Many people including myself have been clamoring for TWI to make more changes, take more risks, etc because this IS early access.

This is good. If only they came out more frequently, esp when they're numerical tweaks.

Also...as an aside, I can't help but comment: you dislike medic becoming a mindless buff drone. But you liked the ability to "heal" armor ? I can't even...

The reality is, I feel like the sentiment of your post is narcissistic. Everyone here likes and dislikes different things. Any change is going to differentially affect people.

(not saying we can't complain. We should complain. Like napalm. Hopefully this will be the update that demonstrates that napalm should be removed. But...the spirit of your response is utterly counter productive)

 

[taiiat]

Berserker:
Parry, 75% on top of existing, that means that the 60-70% Berserker already gets from Pulverizer/Zweihander or Eviscerator are over 100% Damage Reduction, doesn't it?
i'm not sure about whether or not 100% Damage Reduction for a Parry will be a problem in the long run, but that throws it WAY over 100%, which doesn't really make sense, so maybe it's just the way it's worded.

Enemies running away from you is certainly unique, Players don't have that capability otherwise.

unmentioned changes are for things that i consider boring or what was changed is 'whatever'/not very noteworthy to me.


Commando:
fallback, that's a lot of extra Damage, which is perhaps a bit peculiar, some quick head math suggests that makes the 9mm Pistol better for Commando than Sharpshooter or Gunslinger. i'm not really complaining, it just kind've sounds peculiar.

Prepared, could this possibly round to the nearest Mag? so for example AK-12 would be 390 instead of 396, Scar-H would be 400 instead of 408, AR-15 would be 280 instead of 288.

i'm not sure an even larger Magazine Increase on it's own is all that useful. but i am a bit of a purist and i basically don't even consider using any Magazine Increases except for Firebug.


Gunslinger:
everything sounds cool here!
mechanically, that is. the new or adjusted mechanics here sound more engaging to play with.


Demo:
i like the addition to Shock Trooper, more likely to make Players consider using it.
same as Berserker, the two Slowmo Skills are w/e. neither of these have sounded interesting to me anyways. they still don't.


Medic:
both Lv5 Skills are 10/10. looking at these i literally can't choose what i want to use. both of them sound so useful. i wish everything was a choice like this, where everything is so cool you don't know what you want. but that's subjective so not realistically achievable.

both Lv10 Skills sound useful. they compete against each other well, but they don't both sound as cool as the Lv5 ones did.

i hope Acidic Rounds isn't as poop as the Slash DoT was before. making Acidic desirable over the other Lv15 Skill while not making it super cheesemode may be a serious challenge.

Lv20 is not as interesting a choice, i'm not sure these two in particular go head to head on each other as 'squarely' as one would like.

both Smowmo Skills sound useful.


Firebug:
Lv5, more DPS or more Sustained DPS. reasonable choice.

i like both Lv10 Skills, but isn't this supposed to be choosing between 'DPS' and 'DoT/Debuff'? both of these seem to be on the debuff side to me.

Lv15 Skills might be leaning towards Firebomb. also 5x total DoT increase if you hit an enemy with 'bounced' Fire? dayum son, that's a really long time.

i assume it's still +50% Range? if so this may be a relatively balanced choice, if maybe more suited to a lower Level choice.

Lv25 is totally option #2 for me, but #1 is technically a Magazine Increase choice so i'm not surprised i didn't find it interesting.


Support:
we can revive Doors now? hm. are you sure? you guys deliberately made them finite with a purpose in mind. if you're sure then i'm sure.

can... does... that mean the Hunting Shotgun will have 3 Shells?
because of the Hunting Shotgun existing, maybe this should be something else...? it's kind've just a can of worms because of the different Shotguns that are available.

LV10 is a reasonable choice, durability or Damage Output.

Lv15 is an excellent choice, both of these sound really awesome.

i like both Lv20 Skills.

for higher Difficulties, having infinite Punch-Through during Slowmo kind've seems like it devalues the Lv15 version. maybe that's just me.


Sharpshooter:
the wording of Stability ingame shouldn't be the same as this. the first 4-5 times i read it, i thought you made Sharpshooter the fastest moving Perk in the game. perhaps the word structure should put while Crouching first, or something else to make sure it's crystal clear.

this definitely makes Assassin more desirable, however i get the feeling that this will now be constantly chosen over Ranger.




i totally understand the Headshot chains not being as powerful (and sounding like you can't build it at the speed of light either, fixed rate). and for those adjustments to make them less universal choices, also making it easier to build/keep the counter in the first place, or visa versa.


there's one thing i know for sure. if a Player looks at the choice presented with them, and they say "well piss i don't know which one i want, because both sound really good", that is then an excellent example of creating choices. people tend to even complain when they're presented with a good choice, complaining there isn't an easy superior option (seriously wtf), but everybody wants any choices to be those kinds of choices deep down.
they want to have things that are so cool, they end up picking both in the long run as they change up how they play based on what they feel like doing. because every choice was just that cool that they want to play it all.


Edit:

I think that +210% more damage for 9mm(s) is over the top.

+110%, 2.1x. over the previous +60%, 1.6x.
just making sure we're clear here.

 

[MrRogersBestNeighbor]

In a way? No. It IS your fault for playing an early access game.

Many people including myself have been clamoring for TWI to make more changes, take more risks, etc because this IS early access.

+1

techburn, I'm not sure I understand the problem here. It's a bad thing that Tripwire is listening to the community because you need to change your playstyle every couple months in an early release game?
That's assuming that you do need to change your playstyle. I stopped playing KF2 for 5 months, came back and didn't have to adjust my playstyle for any perk.... Is there any example of any sort of huge adjustment you have needed to make in the last 6 months to any perk? Or is it just that you can no longer play Godzerker? Or regen everyone's armor within seconds? Because those are the only two things I can think of that have changed at all the way I play any perk.

I mean I understand why you'd want to keep the armor regen mechanic for Medic. I also enjoy preparing people for an engagement with large zeds. But it won't change much in the way I play the perk. And the armor regen mechanic was and has been ridiculously overpowered.

I'm incredibly stoked for these changes. MANY of these changes are changes people have been asking for, for a while. It shows me that I can trust that Tripwire listens to the players when they post their concerns and suggestions on the forums. I have yet to see that in any other game I've played.

 

[zekeyspaceylizard]

All these changes sound great but Tripwire you guys gotta get off this weird direction of trying to increase Firebugs damage by increasing the DURATION of his afterburn.

There are only 2 zeds in KF2 that you can basically play with a "set it and forget it" mindset and those are cysts and scrakes. Everything else NEEDS to be killed as quickly as possible. Nobody has time to wait for fire to take 10-30 seconds to slowly painfully kill something.

Thats why these skills werent picked before.
It's why the skills won't be picked now.
They are redundant when the better option is to just hold down Mouse1.

If you want to make damage over time worth using you need to LEAVE THE DURATION alone but increase the actual ticks of damage that occur during the time period.

Also NAPALM is just a horrible ability in general. Zeds only clump together at some chokepoints and tend to fan out almost immediately once they pass it. Again the problem is that this ability is for people who play SLOWLY which is nobody.

It'd make more sense to simply make it so Zeds on fire with Napalm activated have some sort of heated "aoe" around them that damages other zeds so lighting up whole groups makes the zeds burn each other to death quicker. The more zeds, the more stacking damage, the easier it is to clear them out.

Firebug is about AOE crowd control and clearing out groups of trash quickly. Not lighting up 1 or 2 zeds, and then hiding in the cupboard giggling like a cobbler shoe elf while the zeds burn to death over the generous course of a minute or more.

The only ONLY way these duration-extending abilities would ever be worth picking is if the aoe of flames that stick to walls and floors from the flamethrower and caulk cone are also effected. And considering how short the duration on those particular flames are, I doubt those would be good even WITH the duration extended.


Also, and it's been said many times, the Microwave gun actually performs worse when you hit enemies with it as opposed to hitting walls and floors. Simultaneously almost none of the firebug perk bonuses from 5-25 do a thing to power up the Microwave gun or make it worth picking outside of funsies on a Hans wave.

___
___

Anyway besides that, everything else sounds pretty great. Especially support. I had to change my pants reading all those Support changes.

 

[Escadin]

All these changes sound great but Tripwire you guys gotta get off this weird direction of trying to increase Firebugs damage by increasing the DURATION of his afterburn.

There are only 2 zeds in KF2 that you can basically play with a "set it and forget it" mindset and those are cysts and scrakes. Everything else NEEDS to be killed as quickly as possible. Nobody has time to wait for fire to take 10-30 seconds to slowly painfully kill something.

Thats why these skills werent picked before.
It's why the skills won't be picked now.
They are redundant when the better option is to just hold down Mouse1.

Agreed.
It depends on how effective the fire incap is and whether the burning over time can re-trigger it. Groundfire slow is a neat idea too. However, I generally don't see ANYBODY wait 10+ seconds for a cyst or gorefast to die. Not the firebug's teammates, not the firebug himself, not anybody. Furthermore, there is no clear advantage to this playstyle. Ammo values have been balanced around hosing everything down with direct damage so there is almost no point in conserving ammo through this more risky playstyle.
In short: Simply increasing burn duration won't do.

Also NAPALM is just a horrible ability in general. Zeds only clump together at some chokepoints and tend to fan out almost immediately once they pass it. Again the problem is that this ability is for people who play SLOWLY which is nobody.

It'd make more sense to simply make it so Zeds on fire with Napalm activated have some sort of heated "aoe" around them that damages other zeds so lighting up whole groups makes the zeds burn each other to death quicker. The more zeds, the more stacking damage, the easier it is to clear them out.

Agreed as well.
To be fair, it's hard to tell how well it actually spreads fire because the skill has NEVER even once worked since it got released. However, I don't think it will add much to the already extremely wide flame stream + splash damage. Moreover, the effect will be consealed and work in the back ground most of the time because it's hard to tell which source just set everything on fire.
In short: Fixing the skill won't make up for it likely being a bad and boring skill.

Also, and it's been said many times, the Microwave gun actually performs worse when you hit enemies with it as opposed to hitting walls and floors. Simultaneously almost none of the firebug perk bonuses from 5-25 do a thing to power up the Microwave gun or make it worth picking outside of funsies on a Hans wave.

You get to choose between bonus damage or double battery size (level 5) and between heat wave or range (level 20) though the latter is a no brainer. Plus, they'll remove the splash damage skill which means hitting your target is actually more effective. However, it still feels like they have no clear intention for this weapon right now which is unfortunate.


_____
All in all, some of these changes (not just firebug but medic as well) seem to have not seen enough thought and work-time to achieve what we had hoped. It looks like the core issues with these perks will stay unaddressed. Then again, they just might have set themselves different goals and it's hard to tell what they are and how far they've come until we get to play the changes.

 

[TheUndying]

Agree on those Firebug changes. Then again, it's an opt-in beta so we will test this and tell them whether it works out or not. If it doesn't work at all without being a chore, then some things have to be revised. But then again, this does apply to every perks and skills changed.

Let's hope they take their time to gather enough feedback from the opt-in beta and rework some of the stuff. (Either value adjustement or entirely new skills)

 

[Ordalium]

+110%, 2.1x. over the previous +60%, 1.6x.
just making sure we're clear here.

9mm and knife now do 2.1x more damage (was 0.6x)

It's 2.1x more. Same goes for previous +0.6x increased damage.