I'm not sure why people were expecting Survivalist to have a free choice of any starting weapon, grenade and knife the player wishes. For that to happen would mean writing more code and creating menus for the sake of just one perk. And we've been down the same road more than enough times in the past already to know by now that the skill tree (or at least its first draft) is not going to be spot-on in terms of something that makes sense. My take on the skills:
Level 5 - Commando and SWAT weapons won't be anywhere near as effective in the hands of the Survivalist as their natural perks. The only weapon I would even consider for this skill's sake is the Desert Eagle because it's one of the best off-perk weapons in the game. But even so, it's a Gunslinger weapon and for a perk that's meant to be a jack-of-all-trades, it's not going to be close enough in terms of power. Heavy Weapons Training looks more logical; Boomstick, AA-12, RPG, M4-203 are all decent off-perk choices and they don't have enormous deficits in overall performance compared to the perk weapons which Tactical Reload focuses on. But still, level 5 is being way too restrictive overall. Either buff reload speed in general for all weapons and add a skill, or just replace both skills with an entirely different area of focus.
Level 10 - Medic Training wins this easily. Being able to heal yourself at a faster rate is essential in Hell on Earth. Melee Expert is not even an accurate name for the skill as it's a pitiful imitation of the Berserker with just 10% extra damage, when the original perk itself can deal at least +100% damage (with heavy hits). Again, an illogical choice and too restrictive overall.
Level 15 - Ammo Vest is the obvious winner here. +15% ammo for your favourite weapons and you also get medic grenades, nothing more needs to be said about that. Weapon Harness does give extra slots, but that can also be a downside for your economy in-game and molotovs are THE worst grenades you could have chosen for any skill. Halfway through the Survivalist skill tree and it's not looking rosy.
Level 20 - Spontaneous Zed-Splosion is basically Shrapnel with knockdown, caused by any weapon. Make Things Go Boom only works with explosives, so 5 weapons at the very least, or 6 if it includes the Pulverizer.
Level 25 - Both skills sound normal for level 25, nothing out of the ordinary.
Now we've got the skill tree out of the way, there are two likely setups I would have in mind considering these skills. I could either roll RPG (for the bigger zeds) plus perhaps a Boomstick and a single Desert Eagle for everything else. Or, I could copy my Medic's arsenal and go Medic AR, Boomstick and double Desert Eagles. If I were to choose the latter then sure, Survivalist will be just a tad more proficient with the 'off-perk' weapons, but the Medic AR, darts, grenades and syringe would be nothing compared to how my actual Medic would use them. Whatever gains the 10th perk would have, would be completely overshadowed by the fact that my Medic is a better healer and that alone, makes it far more likely for Medic to survive games than the Survivalist perk itself! This makes me question why on earth time and resources are being devoted to an extra perk that is purely filler with no new or extra content and making it 'official', when a more superior version of it has been in the game since Early Access began about 16 months ago?!
To add to that, we're getting a new weapon for Berserker as well. Now, I'm not against new weapons being added to the game, of course not. It's who that new weapon is being allocated to: the Berserker. He also claimed ownership of the Katana when the SWAT perk was released, and he now has 7 weapons as a result. Seven. Just think about that for a moment. 7 perks still have 4 weapons, the Demo received a 5th weapon (which was necessary). But somehow, Berserker gets seven. Then, check this video out and notice the date:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQstOLz83I&t=4m34s
What I'm getting at here is that instead of the Survivalist and maybe instead of making more melee weapons for the Berserker, we could have had a 10th perk that was its own perk with its own style, new weapons, new skill tree, something fun and exciting to play as in what would have been a very fitting end leading up to the official release of the game. The devs had this in mind as far back as 16 months ago, the dev in the vid I linked above even said it was his favourite perk in KF2. For him to even say that, means that they must've had a general idea or outline of what it was going to be, what weapons and skill tree it had and where to go with it. I for one was excited about this perk, and to realise that it's been ditched in favour of a perk that adds nothing new or fundamentally game-changing in the slightest? It's kind of killed any buzz I had for the game's official release.
Because of the Survivalist qualifying as 'the 10th perk' and the Demo's tier 3 plus the Berserker's extra 3 weapons, TWI can say that the game will have 10 perks and 40 weapons in the game on its release, but the manner in which that has been accomplished just feels a little underhanded to me.
