Hey all, Wes from PC Gamer here. Let me know if you have any questions about the game I didn't answer in the article. If I know the answer from the time I spent at Tripwire, I'll do my best to respond!
While I loved the shooting in the original, and popping a head always felt great, I hope KF2 really ramps up the melee combat. It's something I eventually got used to in the original, but while playing as Berserker was extremely powerful, the actual melee combat always felt really light and lacked in impact.
Bill Munk: "We're known for really awesome gunplay. But our melee in Killing Floor, we're not really known for this really sick melee. But it was our goal to have something that could stand on its own, even if the game had no guns.
Melee combat was really weak in the first game. I was always disappointed with it, and it never felt like something that could stand on its own. It was always better to use guns. We put a lot of focus on making the melee combat something awesome. My hope is that everyone will want to have the backup melee weapons or play the melee style perks."
From what I saw of the game, it's definitely going to be an important tactic to have people using melee weapons to defend members of the team who are pumping out high gun damage. Using melee will let you protect people while they're reloading, etc. No idea how many different melee weapons there will be.
Shop is still there. It was an early implementation when I saw it (graphics, audio etc. weren't finalized) but the mechanic of the moving shop is exactly intact from KF1.The shops to buy weapons are still in there, right? No simplified 'buy via menu'?
And I hope they have improved the server browser, the only bad thing in KF1.
They do procedural stuff to blend their animations with physics, which is why every death is going to look a little bit different. I imagine if you play a toooon of the game you'll become familiar with some animations, but the physics are there to react to walls, stairs, etc.They talked a bunch about the death animations in the preview, and how each character has a bunch of different death animations. Does this mean that their won't be ragdoll physics, or that death animations will play first and then ragdoll will kick in?
I didn't see any kind of weapon modification, but I don't have a definitive answer. They didn't give me a release window. They rushed RO2 out and spent a long time fixing and polishing the game post-release, and they don't want to make that mistake again.Will there be weapon modifications? And if so, would they cost extra money or is it possible that when you buy the weapon, it comes with the mods you already attached to it (kind of like a loadout of sorts)?
Also, will it be a 2014 or 2015 title?
Bill Munk: "Melee combat was really weak in the first game. I was always disappointed with it, and it never felt like something that could stand on its own. It was always better to use guns. We put a lot of focus on making the melee combat something awesome. My hope is that everyone will want to have the backup melee weapons or play the melee style perks."
They do procedural stuff to blend their animations with physics, which is why every death is going to look a little bit different. I imagine if you play a toooon of the game you'll become familiar with some animations, but the physics are there to react to walls, stairs, etc.
Bill Munk: "Generally games go two routes. They'll do a full animation of a death, which always looks really good but falls apart in some situations. If the guy's at the stairs, it won't look like he fell down the stairs. Or you have physics based, where it just looks like a limp noodle. Floppy. We basically took the best of both worlds and have an animation system that blends with the ragdoll. Each zed has 95 different death animations that have a random value and depends on where you hit them on their body. So there's a different set of animations if you shoot them in the stomach or the neck and get them to start convulsing. Or kill them from the leg. The different zones are head, neck, chest, stomach, each individual leg and arms. The animations blend from one to another."
Bill Munk: "We're known for really awesome gunplay. But our melee in Killing Floor, we're not really known for this really sick melee. But it was our goal to have something that could stand on its own, even if the game had no guns.
Melee combat was really weak in the first game. I was always disappointed with it, and it never felt like something that could stand on its own. It was always better to use guns. We put a lot of focus on making the melee combat something awesome. My hope is that everyone will want to have the backup melee weapons or play the melee style perks."
From what I saw of the game, it's definitely going to be an important tactic to have people using melee weapons to defend members of the team who are pumping out high gun damage. Using melee will let you protect people while they're reloading, etc. No idea how many different melee weapons there will be.
And I hope they have improved the server browser, the only bad thing in KF1.
Unless things change with the game, dismembering is a kill shot. The Tripwire guys sounded like they really thought about having it so that you could shoot their limbs off and they'd still come around, but it didn't work for a couple reasons.With 19 ways to dismember a zed I wouldn't be surprised if there's a class dedicated to crippling them in various ways, imagine a quick draw revolver at the knee caps of a clot or something, a kind of "short range" sharpshooter. All speculation of course.
Ro2 had this, people squirming on the ground when on fire or like going stiff when shot.Bill Munk: "We basically took the best of both worlds and have an animation system that blends with the ragdoll. Each zed has 95 different death animations that have a random value and depends on where you hit them on their body. So there's a different set of animations if you shoot them in the stomach or the neck and get them to start convulsing. Or kill them from the leg. The different zones are head, neck, chest, stomach, each individual leg and arms. The animations blend from one to another."
Zerker was the most survivable class in the game though...and to me the most fun. Hope they don't screw with it too much.Bill Munk: "We're known for really awesome gunplay. But our melee in Killing Floor, we're not really known for this really sick melee. But it was our goal to have something that could stand on its own, even if the game had no guns.
Melee combat was really weak in the first game. I was always disappointed with it, and it never felt like something that could stand on its own. It was always better to use guns. We put a lot of focus on making the melee combat something awesome. My hope is that everyone will want to have the backup melee weapons or play the melee style perks."
From what I saw of the game, it's definitely going to be an important tactic to have people using melee weapons to defend members of the team who are pumping out high gun damage. Using melee will let you protect people while they're reloading, etc. No idea how many different melee weapons there will be.
Zerker was the most survivable class in the game though...and to me the most fun. Hope they don't screw with it too much.
Zerker was the most survivable class in the game though...and to me the most fun. Hope they don't screw with it too much.
Hopefully there will be a beta ;_;
I think the Medic had more survivability than the Berzerker with that combat armor and faster recharging syringe.
Early Access is basically like a beta. Or alpha.
See, I love Killing Floor, but honestly, honestly there's not a whole lot that I think needs to be done. Even the graphics in the game don't bother me. It has a perfect amount of jank.
Medics use Crossbow to take out Scrakes even on suicidal. Not sure about HoE because I haven't seriously played that.The medic doesn't have any weapons that do good damage to fleshpounds of scrakes. All of the medic weapons are pretty crappy and are only good for killing clots and crawlers.
Super popular PC exclusive gets a sequel.
4 pages on GAF...sigh.
When we started designing the game we decided gore was going to be the most important feature," says David Hensley, art director on Killing Floor 2. "We were really inspired by Soldier of Fortune, the GHOUL system. We wanted to outdo Soldier of Fortune's gore.
Good time to share this again.
Hey maybe we'll get a PS4 announcement and then we can live it up in a KF2 megathread!
In all seriousness Tripwire probably should port it. Get in there before a similar game steals the spotlight. KF is way more fun than L4D PvE, everybody should try it.
They do procedural stuff to blend their animations with physics, which is why every death is going to look a little bit different. I imagine if you play a toooon of the game you'll become familiar with some animations, but the physics are there to react to walls, stairs, etc.