Remove Kiting from KF3, Please

[Carlso]

Hi!

KF2 was a great game that I could play for 6 hours and not get tired off! Undoubtedly one of the best gaming experiences I ever had.

However it had one big problem: kiting.

Some players abuse the survivability of classes like Zerker, Medic and Survavalist and just run from Zeds. Due to their increases speed and regeneration, they can outpace the damage of the Zeds in a way that while they kite they never die. They will then take opportunity of split seconds to deal small damage on Zeds and then... back to kiting. And it can be like that to half an hour.

It is not that bad, because when the whole team is dead, I wait for 5 minutes and if the dude is still running with no sign of stopping, I simply quit and find another lobby. However,, it will still be good to remove that flaw from KF3.

It is very simple: increase Zeds speed in a way that they always catch up to players. In return, lower the damage and health. That way, the best way to deal with Zeds is always shooting and killing them, and players who run will be caught and killed.
For bosses: when they run for you, if you shoot them in a spot, maybe they stop and get stunned, but the answer most of the time should be to shoot and not to run.

With that design mindset, the problem of kiting will be reduced!

 

[baztheallmighty]

The two maps below require kiting to pass around wave 20-30. It seems a lot of players like kiting maps.

map​	Spillway​	KF-HorzineArena-B1​
Servername​	BAz | HOE | RANKED | Endless | KF-spillway​	BAz | HOE | RANKED | Endless | KF-HorzineArena-B1-v5​
Hours Played​	21463​	11118​
Players​	36073​	18993​
UniquePlayers​	4199​	3258​
Total Kills​	5871506​	2824377​
Total Deaths​	43902​	21577​
Average kills recorded per day​	10105​	2581​
Average Deaths recorded per day​	75​	19​
Average Unique players per day​	7​	2​
Count of days the map was played at least once​	581​	1094​
MaxWave​	99​	77​

Source: https://stats.mtreadwell.com/

 

[Migunne]

Hi!

KF2 was a great game that I could play for 6 hours and not get tired off! Undoubtedly one of the best gaming experiences I ever had.

However it had one big problem: kiting.

Some players abuse the survivability of classes like Zerker, Medic and Survavalist and just run from Zeds. Due to their increases speed and regeneration, they can outpace the damage of the Zeds in a way that while they kite they never die. They will then take opportunity of split seconds to deal small damage on Zeds and then... back to kiting. And it can be like that to half an hour.

It is not that bad, because when the whole team is dead, I wait for 5 minutes and if the dude is still running with no sign of stopping, I simply quit and find another lobby. However,, it will still be good to remove that flaw from KF3.

It is very simple: increase Zeds speed in a way that they always catch up to players. In return, lower the damage and health. That way, the best way to deal with Zeds is always shooting and killing them, and players who run will be caught and killed.
For bosses: when they run for you, if you shoot them in a spot, maybe they stop and get stunned, but the answer most of the time should be to shoot and not to run.

With that design mindset, the problem of kiting will be reduced!

All perks can kite, the key its to know how to, period. Ones has more perk thing to get it because MS% (movement speed%) rest hardly to run/walk on depends weight. About kiting its like to danding againts an enraged fp onto your direction. For taht u can do powerjump and all perks can do that, again MS% has some more benefir on it. I did the kiting thing on only FPS wave in Prison/Cell/Subway/Nuke etc and it kind struggles abit at beginning but way easy once knowing the behavior of each mob (zed)

 

[OnionBubs]

Kiting was also a thing in KF1, and contributed heavily to the popularity of Berserker and Medic in KF1's community.

Some players abuse the survivability of classes like Zerker, Medic and Survavalist and just run from Zeds. Due to their increases speed and regeneration, they can outpace the damage of the Zeds in a way that while they kite they never die. They will then take opportunity of split seconds to deal small damage on Zeds and then... back to kiting. And it can be like that to half an hour.

Tank classes are only part of the problem, but they are definitely part of it nonetheless.

When the game can be won simply by outlasting the Zeds in a war of attrition, having perks designed intentionally to be good at surviving compared to others is going to cause problems. Which Berserker/Medic/Survivalist absolutely fall into. Compounding the issue is that playing in this manner is much easiser than learning how to shoot everything efficiently, up to and including the highest difficulties (which is bad; the game should at least force the players' collective hand on needing to kill things well in a first-person shooter at higher difficulties).

Last Man Standing--the mechanic where the difficulty is dropped by way of decreasing Zed counts based on the number of players alive--is another major part of this. LMS was not built into the game from the start; it was added in after the matter and it resulted in the above perks becoming much, much easier to run the "I don't have to win, I just have to not lose" playstyle that has been problematic for a very long time.

KF2's (much earlier in its lifespan) teleporting and Zed spawns were designed as a means of both punishing kiting and making players feel constrained by claustrophobic environments. However, it doesn't serve that function well in large open maps (like Nuked and Elysium, and Spillway to a lesser extent), which is a large contributor to the popularity of those and similar maps; players who lack the skill to DPS efficiently can always rely on infinite loops as a fallback mechanic on these maps where they would otherwise get crushed in a more demanding map. The speed and damage sponging capabilities of the aforementioned further contribute to the problem, as they are effectively punished less for kiting compared to other perks.

Trappers were also sort of intended to solve that problem, but Trappers are mediocre at it at the best of times.

It is very simple: increase Zeds speed in a way that they always catch up to players. In return, lower the damage and health. That way, the best way to deal with Zeds is always shooting and killing them, and players who run will be caught and killed.

That probably wouldn't work as intended, because the three major tank classes, or at least considering how they are currently implemented in KF2, will be able to shrug off literally any damage unless it's getting hit by multiple Fleshpounds at once. Zeds in KF2 are already 1) plenty fragile, and 2) extremely vulnerable to incaps, and the amount of crowd control/stun/etc. incaps stops the lesser Zeds from being a huge threat in this manner.

Including more trapper-like Zeds that can yank players from inside crowds would probably go a long way towards minimizing this behavior, but that would require a new Zed entirely (and adequate playtesting to make sure they're not completely miserable to face off against).

I do agree that that nonsense needs to be dissuaded in future titles, at least on the highest difficulties. If players want to do that on the noob difficulties, whatever, but that shouldn't be an easy out on Hell on Earth.

 

[Aleflippy]

Honestly ? I'd say get rid of teleporting zeds and bad rubberbanding, in exchange for far less leniency in regard to speed and tankiness.

I fully agree that even faster perks shouldn't be able to run forever and ever... But then maybe zeds could also get a little smarter? Maybe we could have zeds that are even faster than the fastest perks. Maybe zeds could coordinate themselves and try to trap the player. Maybe the healing syringe could be nerfed a little, at least on self-heal.

I'm not against kiting as a whole though. First, because I'm the kind of player who LOVES to piss people off with hit-and-run strategies. Second, I much prefer that than the KF1's strategy of defending a minuscule zone for the entire game... moving only to get to the trader.