Killing Floor 2 appreciation post

[Poor huwhyte Carl]

There's a lot of criticism for the game on this board, so I decided to play devil's advocate and point out how exactly this game is great.

To give some background, I play FPS games a lot since DooM release in 1993, currently 1,500 hours in-game with KF2, typically play HoE as a GS or SS.

I rarely invest that much into playing a game, unless it provides a very good, or even exceptional shooting experience multiplied by a very high mastery ceiling, making it a challenge. I recently reviewed top played games on Steam and, while KF2 makes top 100, it's far behind many other FPS games. And ALL these games suck, compared to KF2, they are either not too hard to master or provide crap shooting experience.

So the original FPS game, classic 1993 DooM by id software, was arguably the first one to provide a great both PvE and PvP shooting experience. The reason I'm on this throwback is because I feel that lead KF2 designers noticed and borrowed many original DooM features that made it great, so it's worth going over some.

- firstly, Doom was the first game to provide a great variety of monsters which came in droves, often overwhelming the player. It took quite a skill to dodge their attacks and manage the crowd and it was hard to master.
- secondly, they had a "Nightmare!" difficulty level where all monsters were shooting projectiles 3 times faster, moved 3 times faster and all dead monsters would respawn in 15-30 seconds after death, making it impossible to clear the map. To give you the idea how hard it was, the first speedrun demo of a man completing the whole game on this difficulty appeared in 1998, 5 years after release, and it was a set of demos glued together, not a single run done in one sit. Because of the respawn feature one could never be sure that his back is safe even after a room was cleared and there was always a chance to get attacked from behind by a just respawned monster. Sounds familiar, right?
- Next, the Doom 2 episode was called "Hell on Earth". Sounds familiar?
- Then, they had monster infighting in Doom. A very rare feature even up to this date, but we have it in KF2! Isn't it exhilarating to see a bloat and a husk fighting each other to death, only for the surviving one to be killed by a player? Or a raging fleshpound running through a bunch of trash in a narrow corridor, smashing all of them?
- Doom was one of the first FPS to have basic "afflictions", e.g. one that is known in KF2 as "gun hit". You could've interrupted monster attacks by delivering an especially hard blow and one of the most interrupting weapons was a double barrel shotgun. Sounds familiar?
- Doom was arguably the first game to introduce a metal theme in its soundtrack.

On top of that KF2 has these features that make the experience more deep and the mastery harder to achieve:

- different monster behavior, raged vs. calm, forcing the player to adapt to both;
- different monster attacks with different moves, forcing the player to learn all to properly predict head trajectories;
- different head bobbing patterns for different zeds and different head protection and evasion techniques, forcing the player to learn all of them to master the headshots;
- separate head health, which makes it a priority to shoot at the head, which is a much smaller target and requires a ton of aim mastery;
- a great affliction system with flinches, getting hurt from gun hits, stumbles, panics and knockdowns;
- bashing with a chance to stumble or interrupt;
- crazy awesome gun animations and tons of guns;
- zed-time slomos, matrix level sh!t;
- dismemberment, bloody gore and flying bowels;
- different perks with vastly different approaches to the killing.

After putting 1,500 hours I don't feel like I'm close to perfection and every time I die I think about it and learn a lesson on what I did wrong and what can be improved about my game play so the next time I don't die as easily. I can see myself getting to 3,000 hours and a thought of playing other FPS games at the moment makes me laugh at them. Those other FPS games can buy my time occasionally with a nice story, nice suspense or parkour or whatever, but the last time I checked I typically invest 100-200 hours at most in them before it gets unbearably boring.

With Killing Floor 2? It's never boring yet, the mastery ceiling is up there, the perfect gameplay hasn't been achieved, replayability is still as if it was new. What a great game it is (even though it has its issues)!

[Stellifera]

Originally posted by Molly:

Stop with the personal attacks.

Alright [TW] Molly.

[Molly]

Originally posted by Sophistry Kat:

Originally posted by Molly:

Stop with the personal attacks.

Alright TW.

Thanks

[Keaton Fox]

Killing Floor 2's still such a strong game for me and many others. The game runs well, looks decent, and offers a lot of variety in terms of weapons and maps. It's nice seeing people bring up Killing Floor 2 around the internet on unrelated websites and forums, praising it for being an awesome game. While I prefer Killing Floor 1's theme/style, KF2 is still a solid experience. Of course I have some issues with Killing Floor 2 that'll probably never get fixed, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying this game.

[Two Clicks]

Originally posted by Aya Shameimaru:

Three years ago, i'd share the same thoughts as you but now it's a miracle that the game even runs at all. Network issues so far up the @$$ that the only thing i can really blame is the fact that we are talking about a game engine from 2006 filled with 3 years of content bloat and now we're at the point where we're nearing critical mass.

I still think we need a $40 re-release running UE4.

Yeah I thought I was imaging things but latency seems to have take a big stride north.

[Michou à la crème]

I kinda wanted to make a thread like that myself after seeing the crapshow about the new weapons
I have 460 hours on the game and only spent money when i bought it back in 2015
I've never opened a single paid lootbox on any game, and rarely buy cosmetics
When i saw they were selling weapons i first thought that would be good, i could support the game in some way, but then i saw that it was 10 bucks for ONE, that's quite a lot. For example a few years back, Payday 2 was doing packs with 3 or 4 weapons for half that price and people were already calling it too much (even tho it wasn't a problem to me, it seemed fair), and sure, KF's weapons are much more advanced and unique, so i could see myself paying 5 bucks for just one, but 10 is honestly too much
I'm not interested by the ion thruster because i'm just not a melee player, and i'm confused about the Rhinos, i've tried them with commands, and i don't completely understand what's the point of those frag rounds, would 3 pieces bouncing off the ground do more damage than the bullet itself which has much more chances to be a headshot? It was sick on the paper, but a bit underwhelming in practice sadly
But i do love the new SMG, the new shotguns are pretty fun too, even if i don't care about the health thrower because i'm mostly a solo player, and definitely not the medic when playing online

Overall i enjoyed the update, thanks for keeping the content coming, i'm excited to see what's coming next, and i hope i'll be able to support someday soon, maybe if there's a sale on the weapons for Christmas or something like that

Good luck with what's next!

[Stellifera]

Originally posted by Michou à la crème:

I kinda wanted to make a thread like that myself after seeing the crapshow about the new weapons
I have 460 hours on the game and only spent money when i bought it back in 2015
I've never opened a single paid lootbox on any game, and rarely buy cosmetics
When i saw they were selling weapons i first thought that would be good, i could support the game in some way, but then i saw that it was 10 bucks for ONE, that's quite a lot. For example a few years back, Payday 2 was doing packs with 3 or 4 weapons for half that price and people were already calling it too much (even tho it wasn't a problem to me, it seemed fair), and sure, KF's weapons are much more advanced and unique, so i could see myself paying 5 bucks for just one, but 10 is honestly too much
I'm not interested by the ion thruster because i'm just not a melee player, and i'm confused about the Rhinos, i've tried them with commands, and i don't completely understand what's the point of those frag rounds, would 3 pieces bouncing off the ground do more damage than the bullet itself which has much more chances to be a headshot? It was sick on the paper, but a bit underwhelming in practice sadly
But i do love the new SMG, the new shotguns are pretty fun too, even if i don't care about the health thrower because i'm mostly a solo player, and definitely not the medic when playing online

Overall i enjoyed the update, thanks for keeping the content coming, i'm excited to see what's coming next, and i hope i'll be able to support someday soon, maybe if there's a sale on the weapons for Christmas or something like that

Good luck with what's next!

KF1's pricing combo of multiple weapons before the priced raised was way more reasonable. DLC content at least little more accepting than KF2's approach.

[Bones]

How much did they pay you?

[XLbuff]

Questionable changes, copy/paste new zeds, new bosses based on zeds, E.D.A.R.s, weapon upgrade system, dead PvP mode, lootboxes, microtransactions, vault crates and lots of goofy items, paid characters and now paid weapons ($10 for 1), in-game store and no regional prices. I wish I could love the game in its current state, but I can't anymore. To be honest, events, maps and weapons are good, but everything else just killing floor the game for me. I wish TWI could stick to KF roots and choose a different monetization model, but devs chose their path and couldn't even stick to it.

[Psycho Dad]

There are many design choices I'd prefer to be different (spawnrage, robots, weapon upgrades, more horror, more gore options, less garishy,...) and all the dlc/crates stuff I can do without; but from a strictly gameplay perspective, despite its shortcomings, its still a great game.
Shooting stuff just feels fantastic and I love the straight forward nature of it.

Almost 2k hours in, it just never gets old (to me, at least)

[Poor huwhyte Carl]

Originally posted by Chefbones:

How much did they pay you?

Nothing, never even talked to TWI officials.

Objectively, it's a rare case for me to put that many hours into the game, the last game that did this to me was a game from 90's. KF2 has to be appreciated, there's no way around this. If it did suck like many of you tell me, would I play it for 1,500 hours? Definitely no. 150 and quit-- maybe, but it's not the case.

[vega]

love the "new" olsen voicebinds from wilson. "did you just twitch....................." hahahaah

i should prolly swap chars a lot more. dunno when they added. they are not in the original i just checked.


been here since i dunno how long off and on. ty. paid something stupid like 2 quid for kf1 on a sale. glad i did.


loot boxes suck. i cant tell you how much i hate people chipping away at gamers/.

[blackonion6pk]

I think I’m at close to 6k hrs for kf1 and 2 I think they’re fantastic games and just never seem to get old for me, also love the Red orchestra games. Keep up the good work Tripwire!

[DeathCow]

I think the issue isn't that the game sucks overall. It's the way games are developed. I prefer KF2 after it released from early access. Everything they've added I can do without. Kotaku had a good article about how annoying it is now. You can read it HERE.

That being said I've definitely enjoyed my time playing. They just made some design decisions and monetization choices I disagree with and make the game less enjoyable.

[Stellifera]

Originally posted by DeathSaves:

I think the issue isn't that the game sucks overall. It's the way games are developed. I prefer KF2 after it released from early access. Everything they've added I can do without. Kotaku had a good article about how annoying it is now. You can read it HERE.

That being said I've definitely enjoyed my time playing. They just made some design decisions and monetization choices I disagree with and make the game less enjoyable.

Early Access has the closest feel to KF1 until odd changes and RNG were added the quality went down hill from there after it left the Early Access.

[ZioMcCall]

So,i'm not the only one that started liking Killing Floor 2 because for how similiar to Doom is in some mechanics.