-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
KILLZONE 2 - The |OT|
- Thread starter BruceLeeRoy
- Start date
AranhaHunter
Banned
So my friend came over yesterday and wanted to play Killzone 2, at first he was complaining about the lack of split screen and we couldn't play co op or play online together like you could in other games. Then I let him play, he played 4 or 5 games and actually did pretty good, and found out something that I didn't know, you can spawn with your squad leader if you're in a squad.....anyways now he's now gonna buy the game.
Well what I wanna know is what is the workaround for the lack of a party system? I think they said you have to create a clan or something? Of course we wanna play on the same team and stuff...Also do you have to create a new squad every round?
EDIT: Killzone leader board over 1 million now.
Well what I wanna know is what is the workaround for the lack of a party system? I think they said you have to create a clan or something? Of course we wanna play on the same team and stuff...Also do you have to create a new squad every round?
EDIT: Killzone leader board over 1 million now.
AranhaHunter
Banned
commish said:
I guess, but the lack of party system still sucks.
Also this thread seems to be dying down :lol
KZObsessed
Member
AranhaHunter said:
New maps 2moro.
TrAcEr_x90
Member
andycapps said:
Yeah i guess im a bit rusty, but also just getting used to be back in doing all the objectives, which are way more fun than just bodycount servers. I forgot which map it was last night but damn, I came in second on points and got like 6 ribbons?? I came back on at like 12, and was playing, then all of a sudden the other clan [lol] was demolishing us. I didnt realize but like 80 percent of the gaf clan dropped out. hahahaha. I kept going, seeing if i could get a few more kills before i stopped for the night.
Apharmd Battler
Member
I can't wait to hear impression on the new maps and the game balance. Killzone is fun as hell to play online.
AranhaHunter
Banned
FFObsessed said:New maps 2moro.
I'll wait until they release all the maps and have a map pack bundle
xenorevlis
Member
Yeah I'm going to have to wait for a bundle of maps before I get them. Not sure about 5.99 for levels that essentially exist in the game already. I'd like them to expand the level design toolkit they designed and give us vehicles
xenorevlis said:Yeah I'm going to have to wait for a bundle of maps before I get them. Not sure about 5.99 for levels that essentially exist in the game already. I'd like them to expand the level design toolkit they designed and give us vehicles
The levels are not in the game already.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Room created.
Name: NEOGAF
Password:
Name: NEOGAF
Password:
believe
I went to see cirque du soleil last night and the whole time I was thinking "I could play Killzone to this music".
Up until now Ive been using the Dark Knight soundtrack (which is perfect) but itll be nice to switch it up. It'll have that sweet "wish upon a star" in faceoff effect.
Up until now Ive been using the Dark Knight soundtrack (which is perfect) but itll be nice to switch it up. It'll have that sweet "wish upon a star" in faceoff effect.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
TheFatOne said:
Let me know when it starts
Facism
Member
Raist said:A couple of VP? :lol
I wish GG would play against us if we win...
Tempy, would it be possible?
I looked it up. Apparently winners play GG. Didn't specify if it was online or actually against them somewhere physically.
So...not a particularly great 'prize.'
'win killzone 2 tournament for the chance to play more clusterfucked killzone 2!!!!!!
:O'I nearly shat my pants in that game earlier when 14 assaults rushed us on S&D defend -_-
Facism said:I looked it up. Apparently winners play GG. Didn't specify if it was online or actually against them somewhere physically.
So...not a particularly great 'prize.'
'win killzone 2 tournament for the chance to play more killzone 2!!!!!!
Where does it say this? I was sure all we won was some tiny amount of VP (300ish).
The "Guerrilla Warfare Tournament" that was set up by the incredibly shit ConsoleGaming.eu that had its hard drives corrupt on them with no backups and lost all the tournament/clan data had a prize of playing GG.
Bearillusion
Banned
Love KZ2. Well done GG.
Now why is MP so lacking in the basics? Why is there no information given about the MP games I can join? I don't know what classes or badges are available. I don't know which maps are in rotation. Nothing expect for 'Radec No Rockets ahoy!!!'.
The foundation is there for something very special but they dropped the ball. The good news is that it shouldn't take be hard to address this. The bad news is that they obviously don't see a need to. Warhawk gives you all the information you could ever want about the games you can join. Why doesn't KZ2? What possible reason could justify this?
Now why is MP so lacking in the basics? Why is there no information given about the MP games I can join? I don't know what classes or badges are available. I don't know which maps are in rotation. Nothing expect for 'Radec No Rockets ahoy!!!'.
The foundation is there for something very special but they dropped the ball. The good news is that it shouldn't take be hard to address this. The bad news is that they obviously don't see a need to. Warhawk gives you all the information you could ever want about the games you can join. Why doesn't KZ2? What possible reason could justify this?
KZObsessed
Member
Good games tonight guys.
Rapping Granny
Banned
Good games, Killzone is fun again
mgviperman
Member
Good games tonight guys. It was really fun playing the medic again.
aj2good4you2
Member
alr1ghtstart said:Is the map pack out? I get a "Now Available" loading screen with placeholder art. :lol
not out til tomorrow, everybody has been getting that.
xenorevlis
Member
Haha, I got that same placeholder thing and took pics with my phone. I gues... BEATEN!?!
Anyway, those of you whom have played with me can probably tell I'm not very good unless "in the zone". Well, that and I've only played a tiny fraction of everyone else, so they make me look better than I really am
Anyway, those of you whom have played with me can probably tell I'm not very good unless "in the zone". Well, that and I've only played a tiny fraction of everyone else, so they make me look better than I really am
untoldhero
Member
Is the map pack all regions or just US..?
Would be fucked if just US
Would be fucked if just US
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
alr1ghtstart said:Is the map pack out? I get a "Now Available" loading screen with placeholder art. :lol
I quit the game to see whats up :lol
I hate it when there is no spawn grenader
cjtiger300
Member
Kittonwy said:I wuz busy tonight but I'll be on tomorrow night.
I was in the same boat tonight, but I should be on tomorrow as well! Map pack awesomeness will ensue!
As someone who generally plays late and solo, the number of servers without auto teams really sucks... sooo often teams wind up getting really uneven. Also don't know who the genius is that made it possible for the teams to be skewed in such manners as 18/14, etc.
I love the game, but I think I've hit the wall with it and squeezed as much fun out as possible, given my schedule (which makes meeting with anyone a pain in the butt)
I love the game, but I think I've hit the wall with it and squeezed as much fun out as possible, given my schedule (which makes meeting with anyone a pain in the butt)
loading screen bug = lol
nice games yesterday, my favorites were those in CC and PR (GAFe vs SM Clan) with Live and Nega, very fun and competitive, the last one ending in a draw.
Guerrilla never provided a tool so a team could play together versus another random team with somewhat even teams, we just have the auto balance off setting for that matter. Playing in uneven teams will be common practice from now on, friends/clan mates just want to play together and kids adore the 1,5x thing to help growing their micro e-penis. Guerrilla should have seen this coming anyway.
any news on when they are fixing the glitching / exploiting (Bodycount no respawn, S&R speaker in base) for clan games? it's been quite a long time now :'(
new maps today... "action packed maps" according to the ads before they went to the placeholder limbo, S&D is going to be more chaotic than ever.
nice games yesterday, my favorites were those in CC and PR (GAFe vs SM Clan) with Live and Nega, very fun and competitive, the last one ending in a draw.
SickBoy said:
Guerrilla never provided a tool so a team could play together versus another random team with somewhat even teams, we just have the auto balance off setting for that matter. Playing in uneven teams will be common practice from now on, friends/clan mates just want to play together and kids adore the 1,5x thing to help growing their micro e-penis. Guerrilla should have seen this coming anyway.
any news on when they are fixing the glitching / exploiting (Bodycount no respawn, S&R speaker in base) for clan games? it's been quite a long time now :'(
new maps today... "action packed maps" according to the ads before they went to the placeholder limbo, S&D is going to be more chaotic than ever.
Very, very long and epic post/wall of text coming up... If you have ADD, are a KZ2 vet that already know about all the flaws to the game, or a blind fanboy that sees nothing wrong with KZ2 and think Guerrilla Games is perfect, you might want to skip this post. Heck, you might want to skip it just because of the length, but I think its a good summation of all the online multiplayer portion of the game. Take your time, grab some popcorn, and maybe even split the read into sessions.
Killzone 2 does many things right but it does so many more things wrong. TTP had his opinions of the game in the OP and Lince has had his. :lol Well, heres my personal opinion / review / criticisms of the online multiplayer portion of the game:
First and foremost, I do like the game and I do have fun playing it (thats probably why Ive already logged 300+ hours). So dont take this post the wrong way and think I hate the game or Guerrilla Games, because I dont. Its just that GG made so many amateur mistakes in the game and there are so many excluded game features, it boggles my mind how/why they made the game design decisions they did, especially with so much development / beta time and having such a large budget / team size.
What most newbies notice when starting their first online MP game (other than how good it looks), is how different the controls feel. I suppose this is one of the reasons why so many people complained about the controls lagging or feeling sluggish. Having played KZ2 for so long, I can honestly say that the controls in the game is perfectly fine, even before the patch that changed the controls. Its just that KZ2 feels and controls very differently from most FPSs. Thus, it takes players longer to adjust to (some never do or dont have the patience to). GG did a good job making players truly feel the weight of the weapons. However, it does take a while to get used to.
My first gripe isnt with the controls (although the first day or two I played KZ2, I didnt like it). Its the fact that new players start out so underpowered and the fact that it takes a lot of grinding to unlock everything in the game so that you can finally start playing the game with all classes, all of their different class combinations, and all weapons. Yes, I know youre supposed to have to put in some time and effort to unlock the max ammo count and 1 extra grenade, and that it doesnt take too long to achieve.
Veterans not only had experience and map knowledge over newbies, they also have a very distinct and unfair advantage in more weapons choices, larger ammo count, more classes, and even extra point bonuses. Some people might not mind having to grind, to unlock just about everything to have fun, but many players do. I personally didnt mind too much because Im a hardcore FPS player, but I just wanted to point out that this is one of the main reasons I believe drives away the casual gamers and gamers who arent very good at KZ2 (which is the majority of the playerbase, sadly). The grind takes a long time and many players eventually resort to setting up rooms where buddies help them unlock certain annoying/ridiculous ribbons and medals.
Heres my breakdown of each class in KZ2:
Rifleman No special abilities but has access to a lot of weapons after theyve been unlocked. Most people (who have already unlocked other classes) pick this class for the LMG because of its spray and pray qualities. Others pick it for the rocket launcher in games where the game creator banned the Assault class but didnt turn off the Helghan rocket launcher. Quite a balanced class, since they dont have any special, overpowered or underpowered abilities. I actually wouldnt mind if KZ2 had no class system at all and just made everyone be Riflemen (or some generic soldier class with character customization) but gave them the sniper rifle and other weapons and take away rocket launchers. The game would be so much more balanced this way but it would obviously be less unique, I suppose.
Medic The revive ability is flawed. It takes forever to recharge the revive gun, which I suppose prevents it from being overpowered in a game already plagued with respawn issues. What makes the revive feature really retarded is the fact that once revived, the revived player usually spins 180 degrees, takes like 3 seconds to get up, then by the time they can get situated, they are killed again by the surrounding enemies or the person who originally killed them. It also sucks that once revived, none of your timers are reset and you are left with whatever ammo/grenades you died with. I wish GG gave players the ability to decline a revive.
The secondary function of the Medic class: the blood/med pack, is a very powerful secondary ability. In fact, when combined with the already overpowered and broken Assault class, its nearly cheating. Ill get more into Assault later on. But the med pack is a great choice as a secondary ability due to the relatively fast reuse timer and the fact you can heal not just yourself, but others as well. The problems with the med pack is that it cant be thrown very far, is hard as hell to spot, and can also be picked up by enemy players. If GG increased the distance med packs can be thrown, added an icon on the map indicating where med packs are, and didnt allow enemies to use your teams med packs, I would probably use it a lot more often as my secondary ability.
Engineer The motherfuckin Engineer class. Quite possibly the most played and most overpowered class other than Assault in KZ2. Every good / smart clan knows to stack their team with dedicated Engineers. The class importance and dominance is enhanced in clan games because clan games usually have lower player counts than large public games, which results in less turrets being destroyed and their ability to focus fire on single targets a lot more effective. Having 4 turret bots constantly shooting and defending an area is more than annoying, its straight-up deadly and an essential tactic in most game modes, required in clan games. You blow one turret up, they put up another one. You are now left with low health, distracted from the objective, and the enemy (usually the Engineer camping near the turrets) get a nice and easy kill on you. The bots are in my opinion, very overpowered. They can get headshots too easily, can absorb too much damage (unless they were freshly placed and are still in a vulnerable state), they do too much damage compared to the mostly useless air bots, and they fire rockets (at air bots) way too rapidly. Oh yeah, and its quite retarded how Engineers can just die to immediately refresh their reuse timer on turret bots. Thats how people can get so many bots up so quickly to flood an area with bots. The only negative thing (and its not even really negative, mostly annoying) about Engineers / bot placement is the fact that the placement timer resets every time someone runs by you and you also have to be facing a certain way to place them in certain areas.
The damn shotgun Other than grenade / rocket launchers, the shotgun is the most complained about weapon in KZ2 and for good reason. Simply put, it is overpowered. The range on this gun is ridiculous, especially given its power and accuracy. Since there is no damage reduction to the shotguns pellets in relation to distance traveled, it does too much damage even if fired from a lengthy distance. Also, even if 1 pellet hits your head, it counts as a headshot. Aim-assist on this gun is just ridiculous. Sure, GG finally took out the auto-aim exploit but the shotgun STILL locks onto people like a friggin magnet. Then add in the fact that most objectives on most maps in KZ2 are located in close quarters, with tons of choke points and narrow corridors, the shotgun shines in most situations. If a smart Engineer / shotgun user is running out in the open, simply carry around another overpowered weapon: the Magnum (you just have to grind to unlock it).
Tactician My favorite and most played class. In my opinion, its the class that requires the most skill and thought to be good at. No overpowered weapons, no overpowered (although very important) abilities, and you need to have some intelligence and suicidal tendencies in order to place good spawn points.
The spawn grenade is a good idea and a cool concept. However, GG implemented it completely wrong. They didnt put any restriction to where spawn grenades can be placed and used. This causes the mind-numbing clusterfucks that constantly occur when 2 or more opposing spawn grenades are in close vicinity of each other. Then you add in the ridiculous spawn invincibility (while still being able to deal damage) and you have yourself a recipe for chaos and frustration. I honestly dont know how such a well-funded, well-staffed, and well-supported development team can make such amateur and idiotic game design mistakes like they did with spawn grenades. I mean, any semi-intelligent gamer or even amateur game designer can see the problems that would arise when you allow players to respawn ANYWHERE on the map in a FPS, plus spawn invincibility. The easiest and most obvious solution to this problem is to restrict spawn grenades from being used within certain areas close to the objectives, enemy base, or even opposing spawn grenades. After that, make it so that when invincible, you cannot do damage to enemy players OR just take out spawn (grenade) invincibility completely. Id prefer the former to the latter but both would work.
I dont know why GG made it so that Tacticians have to be facing backwards to where you want you and your teammates to face when respawning, when throwing out spawn grenades. It just doesnt make much sense, but whatever, I eventually got used to it. The problem is, newbie or retarded Tacticians that dont know about the whole turn your back to where you want to face when respawning aspect, always throw their spawn grenades in terrible directions and locations. Which leads me to the next few gripes you cant disarm/disable friendly or opposing spawn grenades, so you and your team is stuck with badly-placed spawn grenades for a minute or so. Theres no way to tell who threw what grenades where, so shitty Tacticians go unnoticed (unless you actually witness them throwing the grenades out) and unpunished (not like anyone actually gets voted out of games in KZ2 anyway). What makes this worse is the fact that the Tactician who threw the grenade has a ~10 second exclusive right to throw that same grenade out again once it runs out. Meaning, if you have stupid Tacticians that keep throwing out spawn grenades in terrible places, they can keep throwing them out and other Tacticians cant do shit about it.
Another dumb aspect of spawn grenade-throwing is the fact that when 2 spawn grenades are thrown out at around the same time, they both fizzle out or become duds. It takes another 10 or so seconds for that spawn grenade to become available again, while the 2 Tacticians who threw out the duds are left with a long reuse timer. Lastly, I hate the fact that throwing out a spawn grenade shows you on the enemys radar. As if its not bad enough to have to run into an enemys stronghold on a suicide mission, they make it so youre a fucking red dot giving the opposing defenders / campers a headsup to your location. Every time I throw out a spawn grenade, I prepare myself for the 3+ rushing enemies running straight at me, guns blazing, hoping I can get in a kill or two before being overwhelmed.
About the air bots: they suck. Plain and simple. Yes, they do get lucky headshots and might actually kill a wounded enemy stuck out in the open once in a blue moon. Yes, they do provide a bit of distraction. And yes, they do a decent job at revealing Saboteurs and nearby Scout locations. But air bots are just too damn weak and crappy compared to their overpowered ground turret bot counterparts. Its stupid how every team can only have 2 air bots out, while 4 turret bots are available to each team. Then add in the fact that ground bots eat air bots for breakfast with their rapid firing rockets, air bots are nearly useless. Getting the 5-kill air bot ribbon 8 times for the medal is annoying and hard as fuck without resorting to getting a buddy to sit there and let your air bot kill him over and over.
Saboteur Ahh, the class that GAFers love to whore-out. I think people mainly play this class for the cheesy spray and pray mini SMG (it should be renamed HMG: Headshotting Machine Gun) more than they do for the disguise main ability. To vets of KZ2, a disguised Saboteur can be spotted from a mile away. The disguise can only trick dumber or less experienced players unless theyre within a clusterfuck where its hard to tell whos an enemy even if theyre not disguised. I guess its harder to notice a Helghast player disguised as an ISA Rifleman because the absence of their blue lights are less obvious than the red eyes-less ISA Saboteur disguised as a Helghast Rifleman. Still, its not that hard to notice if youre aware of your surroundings.
About the C4. It should be renamed Sticky Proximity Mines (SPM) or something because they do not at all behave like C4. First off, you cant throw C4, you need to place / set them. Second, C4 is not proximity-activated. You need to manually detonate it or set a timer. Anyway, aside from semantics, C4 in KZ2 is still broken. There are minor detection problems but what really frustrates me is the fact that if you die and respawn, your C4s become duds. They may still have the blinking lights on them but they wont go off anymore. You need to find them, then blow them up manually with a direct bullet hit or grenade explosion and wait ~10 seconds for them to be available to use again. Its a hassle and ridiculous to have to go through so much crap just to reuse C4. Either make them permanent so that they must be set off by enemies or blown up. Or put a timer on the effectiveness of the proximity detonation, but make them automatically disappear and made available for reuse without having to jump through hoops.
C4s are quite cheap (not overpowered) but then again, the entire Saboteur class is cheap in my opinion, due to their disguise, SMGs, and nature of being a "sneaky" class. I suppose if the C4s were a bit easier to spot or detect (some sort of distinct noise or something), I wouldnt call it cheap. I do have to say though, getting C4 kills is pretty funny and being able to throw them on teammates and turn them into suicide bombers is REALLY funny. Too bad if they die before the C4s goes off, youre shit out of luck, left without C4s for the 3+ minutes it takes them to disappear and get back into your inventory.
Assault Fuck this class and everything about them (their weapons, extra armor/health, Boost) and fuck GG for being stupid enough to include them in the game, not nerfing the shit out of them 2+ months after release, even with tons of complaints from so many people. By now, most posters in this thread know how broken and overpowered the Assault class is. Even with a large portion of the official forums bitching about everything related to Assault, there are still lots of fanboys, Assault users, and inexperienced players on that forum defending this piece of shit class. Whats even worse, GG doesnt seem to think theres a problem with Assault (or any weapon/class balance issues for that matter) and probably have no plans to change anything about Assault. Im guessing their reasoning and attitude is, If you dont like the class, then make or play in a room without it. Were not going to go through the trouble of redesigning or balancing a completely broken and overpowered class. In fact, I think that's their attitude with most of the problems in this game.
As if the bitching on forums wasnt enough proof of how bad this class is for the game, GG only has to look at the games search results and take a look at the large amount of rooms which specifically ban Assault and/or their fucked up weapons (while not banning most other classes). Its hard for me to play in rooms these days that has both Assault and their grenade / rocket launchers enabled. On some rare occasions, when rockets/Assault off rooms are sparse or all full, Ill go into a room that has them enabled just to remind myself how utterly broken this class is. Ill admit though, sometimes it is fun just running around like a mindless n00b with the launchers in hand spamming rockets and grenades. It's so pathetically easy to get (cheap) kills as an Assault.
Boost doesnt belong in this game. KZ2 already suffers from lag and framerate issues. Boost just makes things worse and its nearly impossible to kill a strafing booster (unless youre a shotgun n00b with magnet aim-assist, getting a lucky shot or two). Boost also makes the game a lot less tactical. Assassination and Search & Retrieve is just too easy with Boost, even more so if used with Assault. Even though I dont think Boost is good for the game, I do use it the most as my secondary ability (if its available) because its just too good (and cheap) not to use, especially as a suicidal Tactician trying to get to my destination in good time. The only map where I dont mind Boost at all in, is on Pyrrhus Rise. PR is almost unbearable without Boost, just because its too wide-open and theres too many snipers camping everywhere.
Anyway, Assault should be nerfed and/or completely taken out of the game. Having 200% health, double speed, double health regeneration rate, and spammable 1-shot ranged explosive AoE weapons is just ridiculous. This class simply has NO DOWNSIDE. Theres nothing negative about the class whatsoever, not even slower walk/run speed, even though they have all that armor and lugging around heavy rocket launchers. Heck, if you want to be even more overpowered and cheap as Assault, just use med packs as a secondary and youll have always have 100-140% more health than your opponents (unless theyre Assault too). I mean, at the VERY LEAST make it so that the class advantage is actually what its supposed to be: double ARMOR, not health. As of now, Assault has double health because they regen back to 120% of a normal class health and I suppose in GGs illogical world, it makes sense to give an already overpowered and broken class the ability to heal all of their ARMOR back to 200% with blood / med packs.
Scout I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand, its the most overpowered sniper class in any FPS, ever. They are almost completely invisible (when not moving) have a 1-shot (ANYWHERE on the body, except against Assault, non-headshot) sniper rifle, along with the ability to put a permanent X on all visible enemies for you, as well as putting a permanent red dot on all friendly allies' radars? Really? WTF was GG thinking? "Let's make this the ultimate, superdooper, bestest ever sniper in the history of online gaming?!?"
Even though Scout is a K/D whores wet dream (along with Assault with med packs) and a near-perfect/ideal sniper class, it can be countered by other snipers and smart players. Opposing Scouts can make each others camping lives miserable, particularly with Spot and Mark. Smart players can look for hidden snipers when they shoot because theyll show up on the radar. Just match the red dot that pops up with their shots or look for the awkward red dot on the map in some remote location if they are spotted and marked. Im on the fence about whether or not Scout is really an overpowered class, but I do know one thing it is: a selfish, stat-boosting and mainly non-helpful class during most objective games. They only help during Search and Destroy, Bodycount, and sometimes Capture and Hold. But it takes a smart Scout camped in a good position, taking good shots to be actually useful in these game modes.
Overall, Id say that at least half the classes and weapons in this game are not balanced, with a few specific bad apples that are ridiculously overpowered and/or cheap. I highly doubt GG will try to balance out any of these classes or weapons, simply because they thought they already have balanced them throughout the past few years. It is what it is
Killzone 2 does many things right but it does so many more things wrong. TTP had his opinions of the game in the OP and Lince has had his. :lol Well, heres my personal opinion / review / criticisms of the online multiplayer portion of the game:
First and foremost, I do like the game and I do have fun playing it (thats probably why Ive already logged 300+ hours). So dont take this post the wrong way and think I hate the game or Guerrilla Games, because I dont. Its just that GG made so many amateur mistakes in the game and there are so many excluded game features, it boggles my mind how/why they made the game design decisions they did, especially with so much development / beta time and having such a large budget / team size.
What most newbies notice when starting their first online MP game (other than how good it looks), is how different the controls feel. I suppose this is one of the reasons why so many people complained about the controls lagging or feeling sluggish. Having played KZ2 for so long, I can honestly say that the controls in the game is perfectly fine, even before the patch that changed the controls. Its just that KZ2 feels and controls very differently from most FPSs. Thus, it takes players longer to adjust to (some never do or dont have the patience to). GG did a good job making players truly feel the weight of the weapons. However, it does take a while to get used to.
My first gripe isnt with the controls (although the first day or two I played KZ2, I didnt like it). Its the fact that new players start out so underpowered and the fact that it takes a lot of grinding to unlock everything in the game so that you can finally start playing the game with all classes, all of their different class combinations, and all weapons. Yes, I know youre supposed to have to put in some time and effort to unlock the max ammo count and 1 extra grenade, and that it doesnt take too long to achieve.
Veterans not only had experience and map knowledge over newbies, they also have a very distinct and unfair advantage in more weapons choices, larger ammo count, more classes, and even extra point bonuses. Some people might not mind having to grind, to unlock just about everything to have fun, but many players do. I personally didnt mind too much because Im a hardcore FPS player, but I just wanted to point out that this is one of the main reasons I believe drives away the casual gamers and gamers who arent very good at KZ2 (which is the majority of the playerbase, sadly). The grind takes a long time and many players eventually resort to setting up rooms where buddies help them unlock certain annoying/ridiculous ribbons and medals.
Heres my breakdown of each class in KZ2:
Rifleman No special abilities but has access to a lot of weapons after theyve been unlocked. Most people (who have already unlocked other classes) pick this class for the LMG because of its spray and pray qualities. Others pick it for the rocket launcher in games where the game creator banned the Assault class but didnt turn off the Helghan rocket launcher. Quite a balanced class, since they dont have any special, overpowered or underpowered abilities. I actually wouldnt mind if KZ2 had no class system at all and just made everyone be Riflemen (or some generic soldier class with character customization) but gave them the sniper rifle and other weapons and take away rocket launchers. The game would be so much more balanced this way but it would obviously be less unique, I suppose.
Medic The revive ability is flawed. It takes forever to recharge the revive gun, which I suppose prevents it from being overpowered in a game already plagued with respawn issues. What makes the revive feature really retarded is the fact that once revived, the revived player usually spins 180 degrees, takes like 3 seconds to get up, then by the time they can get situated, they are killed again by the surrounding enemies or the person who originally killed them. It also sucks that once revived, none of your timers are reset and you are left with whatever ammo/grenades you died with. I wish GG gave players the ability to decline a revive.
The secondary function of the Medic class: the blood/med pack, is a very powerful secondary ability. In fact, when combined with the already overpowered and broken Assault class, its nearly cheating. Ill get more into Assault later on. But the med pack is a great choice as a secondary ability due to the relatively fast reuse timer and the fact you can heal not just yourself, but others as well. The problems with the med pack is that it cant be thrown very far, is hard as hell to spot, and can also be picked up by enemy players. If GG increased the distance med packs can be thrown, added an icon on the map indicating where med packs are, and didnt allow enemies to use your teams med packs, I would probably use it a lot more often as my secondary ability.
Engineer The motherfuckin Engineer class. Quite possibly the most played and most overpowered class other than Assault in KZ2. Every good / smart clan knows to stack their team with dedicated Engineers. The class importance and dominance is enhanced in clan games because clan games usually have lower player counts than large public games, which results in less turrets being destroyed and their ability to focus fire on single targets a lot more effective. Having 4 turret bots constantly shooting and defending an area is more than annoying, its straight-up deadly and an essential tactic in most game modes, required in clan games. You blow one turret up, they put up another one. You are now left with low health, distracted from the objective, and the enemy (usually the Engineer camping near the turrets) get a nice and easy kill on you. The bots are in my opinion, very overpowered. They can get headshots too easily, can absorb too much damage (unless they were freshly placed and are still in a vulnerable state), they do too much damage compared to the mostly useless air bots, and they fire rockets (at air bots) way too rapidly. Oh yeah, and its quite retarded how Engineers can just die to immediately refresh their reuse timer on turret bots. Thats how people can get so many bots up so quickly to flood an area with bots. The only negative thing (and its not even really negative, mostly annoying) about Engineers / bot placement is the fact that the placement timer resets every time someone runs by you and you also have to be facing a certain way to place them in certain areas.
The damn shotgun Other than grenade / rocket launchers, the shotgun is the most complained about weapon in KZ2 and for good reason. Simply put, it is overpowered. The range on this gun is ridiculous, especially given its power and accuracy. Since there is no damage reduction to the shotguns pellets in relation to distance traveled, it does too much damage even if fired from a lengthy distance. Also, even if 1 pellet hits your head, it counts as a headshot. Aim-assist on this gun is just ridiculous. Sure, GG finally took out the auto-aim exploit but the shotgun STILL locks onto people like a friggin magnet. Then add in the fact that most objectives on most maps in KZ2 are located in close quarters, with tons of choke points and narrow corridors, the shotgun shines in most situations. If a smart Engineer / shotgun user is running out in the open, simply carry around another overpowered weapon: the Magnum (you just have to grind to unlock it).
Tactician My favorite and most played class. In my opinion, its the class that requires the most skill and thought to be good at. No overpowered weapons, no overpowered (although very important) abilities, and you need to have some intelligence and suicidal tendencies in order to place good spawn points.
The spawn grenade is a good idea and a cool concept. However, GG implemented it completely wrong. They didnt put any restriction to where spawn grenades can be placed and used. This causes the mind-numbing clusterfucks that constantly occur when 2 or more opposing spawn grenades are in close vicinity of each other. Then you add in the ridiculous spawn invincibility (while still being able to deal damage) and you have yourself a recipe for chaos and frustration. I honestly dont know how such a well-funded, well-staffed, and well-supported development team can make such amateur and idiotic game design mistakes like they did with spawn grenades. I mean, any semi-intelligent gamer or even amateur game designer can see the problems that would arise when you allow players to respawn ANYWHERE on the map in a FPS, plus spawn invincibility. The easiest and most obvious solution to this problem is to restrict spawn grenades from being used within certain areas close to the objectives, enemy base, or even opposing spawn grenades. After that, make it so that when invincible, you cannot do damage to enemy players OR just take out spawn (grenade) invincibility completely. Id prefer the former to the latter but both would work.
I dont know why GG made it so that Tacticians have to be facing backwards to where you want you and your teammates to face when respawning, when throwing out spawn grenades. It just doesnt make much sense, but whatever, I eventually got used to it. The problem is, newbie or retarded Tacticians that dont know about the whole turn your back to where you want to face when respawning aspect, always throw their spawn grenades in terrible directions and locations. Which leads me to the next few gripes you cant disarm/disable friendly or opposing spawn grenades, so you and your team is stuck with badly-placed spawn grenades for a minute or so. Theres no way to tell who threw what grenades where, so shitty Tacticians go unnoticed (unless you actually witness them throwing the grenades out) and unpunished (not like anyone actually gets voted out of games in KZ2 anyway). What makes this worse is the fact that the Tactician who threw the grenade has a ~10 second exclusive right to throw that same grenade out again once it runs out. Meaning, if you have stupid Tacticians that keep throwing out spawn grenades in terrible places, they can keep throwing them out and other Tacticians cant do shit about it.
Another dumb aspect of spawn grenade-throwing is the fact that when 2 spawn grenades are thrown out at around the same time, they both fizzle out or become duds. It takes another 10 or so seconds for that spawn grenade to become available again, while the 2 Tacticians who threw out the duds are left with a long reuse timer. Lastly, I hate the fact that throwing out a spawn grenade shows you on the enemys radar. As if its not bad enough to have to run into an enemys stronghold on a suicide mission, they make it so youre a fucking red dot giving the opposing defenders / campers a headsup to your location. Every time I throw out a spawn grenade, I prepare myself for the 3+ rushing enemies running straight at me, guns blazing, hoping I can get in a kill or two before being overwhelmed.
About the air bots: they suck. Plain and simple. Yes, they do get lucky headshots and might actually kill a wounded enemy stuck out in the open once in a blue moon. Yes, they do provide a bit of distraction. And yes, they do a decent job at revealing Saboteurs and nearby Scout locations. But air bots are just too damn weak and crappy compared to their overpowered ground turret bot counterparts. Its stupid how every team can only have 2 air bots out, while 4 turret bots are available to each team. Then add in the fact that ground bots eat air bots for breakfast with their rapid firing rockets, air bots are nearly useless. Getting the 5-kill air bot ribbon 8 times for the medal is annoying and hard as fuck without resorting to getting a buddy to sit there and let your air bot kill him over and over.
Saboteur Ahh, the class that GAFers love to whore-out. I think people mainly play this class for the cheesy spray and pray mini SMG (it should be renamed HMG: Headshotting Machine Gun) more than they do for the disguise main ability. To vets of KZ2, a disguised Saboteur can be spotted from a mile away. The disguise can only trick dumber or less experienced players unless theyre within a clusterfuck where its hard to tell whos an enemy even if theyre not disguised. I guess its harder to notice a Helghast player disguised as an ISA Rifleman because the absence of their blue lights are less obvious than the red eyes-less ISA Saboteur disguised as a Helghast Rifleman. Still, its not that hard to notice if youre aware of your surroundings.
About the C4. It should be renamed Sticky Proximity Mines (SPM) or something because they do not at all behave like C4. First off, you cant throw C4, you need to place / set them. Second, C4 is not proximity-activated. You need to manually detonate it or set a timer. Anyway, aside from semantics, C4 in KZ2 is still broken. There are minor detection problems but what really frustrates me is the fact that if you die and respawn, your C4s become duds. They may still have the blinking lights on them but they wont go off anymore. You need to find them, then blow them up manually with a direct bullet hit or grenade explosion and wait ~10 seconds for them to be available to use again. Its a hassle and ridiculous to have to go through so much crap just to reuse C4. Either make them permanent so that they must be set off by enemies or blown up. Or put a timer on the effectiveness of the proximity detonation, but make them automatically disappear and made available for reuse without having to jump through hoops.
C4s are quite cheap (not overpowered) but then again, the entire Saboteur class is cheap in my opinion, due to their disguise, SMGs, and nature of being a "sneaky" class. I suppose if the C4s were a bit easier to spot or detect (some sort of distinct noise or something), I wouldnt call it cheap. I do have to say though, getting C4 kills is pretty funny and being able to throw them on teammates and turn them into suicide bombers is REALLY funny. Too bad if they die before the C4s goes off, youre shit out of luck, left without C4s for the 3+ minutes it takes them to disappear and get back into your inventory.
Assault Fuck this class and everything about them (their weapons, extra armor/health, Boost) and fuck GG for being stupid enough to include them in the game, not nerfing the shit out of them 2+ months after release, even with tons of complaints from so many people. By now, most posters in this thread know how broken and overpowered the Assault class is. Even with a large portion of the official forums bitching about everything related to Assault, there are still lots of fanboys, Assault users, and inexperienced players on that forum defending this piece of shit class. Whats even worse, GG doesnt seem to think theres a problem with Assault (or any weapon/class balance issues for that matter) and probably have no plans to change anything about Assault. Im guessing their reasoning and attitude is, If you dont like the class, then make or play in a room without it. Were not going to go through the trouble of redesigning or balancing a completely broken and overpowered class. In fact, I think that's their attitude with most of the problems in this game.
As if the bitching on forums wasnt enough proof of how bad this class is for the game, GG only has to look at the games search results and take a look at the large amount of rooms which specifically ban Assault and/or their fucked up weapons (while not banning most other classes). Its hard for me to play in rooms these days that has both Assault and their grenade / rocket launchers enabled. On some rare occasions, when rockets/Assault off rooms are sparse or all full, Ill go into a room that has them enabled just to remind myself how utterly broken this class is. Ill admit though, sometimes it is fun just running around like a mindless n00b with the launchers in hand spamming rockets and grenades. It's so pathetically easy to get (cheap) kills as an Assault.
Boost doesnt belong in this game. KZ2 already suffers from lag and framerate issues. Boost just makes things worse and its nearly impossible to kill a strafing booster (unless youre a shotgun n00b with magnet aim-assist, getting a lucky shot or two). Boost also makes the game a lot less tactical. Assassination and Search & Retrieve is just too easy with Boost, even more so if used with Assault. Even though I dont think Boost is good for the game, I do use it the most as my secondary ability (if its available) because its just too good (and cheap) not to use, especially as a suicidal Tactician trying to get to my destination in good time. The only map where I dont mind Boost at all in, is on Pyrrhus Rise. PR is almost unbearable without Boost, just because its too wide-open and theres too many snipers camping everywhere.
Anyway, Assault should be nerfed and/or completely taken out of the game. Having 200% health, double speed, double health regeneration rate, and spammable 1-shot ranged explosive AoE weapons is just ridiculous. This class simply has NO DOWNSIDE. Theres nothing negative about the class whatsoever, not even slower walk/run speed, even though they have all that armor and lugging around heavy rocket launchers. Heck, if you want to be even more overpowered and cheap as Assault, just use med packs as a secondary and youll have always have 100-140% more health than your opponents (unless theyre Assault too). I mean, at the VERY LEAST make it so that the class advantage is actually what its supposed to be: double ARMOR, not health. As of now, Assault has double health because they regen back to 120% of a normal class health and I suppose in GGs illogical world, it makes sense to give an already overpowered and broken class the ability to heal all of their ARMOR back to 200% with blood / med packs.
Scout I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand, its the most overpowered sniper class in any FPS, ever. They are almost completely invisible (when not moving) have a 1-shot (ANYWHERE on the body, except against Assault, non-headshot) sniper rifle, along with the ability to put a permanent X on all visible enemies for you, as well as putting a permanent red dot on all friendly allies' radars? Really? WTF was GG thinking? "Let's make this the ultimate, superdooper, bestest ever sniper in the history of online gaming?!?"
Even though Scout is a K/D whores wet dream (along with Assault with med packs) and a near-perfect/ideal sniper class, it can be countered by other snipers and smart players. Opposing Scouts can make each others camping lives miserable, particularly with Spot and Mark. Smart players can look for hidden snipers when they shoot because theyll show up on the radar. Just match the red dot that pops up with their shots or look for the awkward red dot on the map in some remote location if they are spotted and marked. Im on the fence about whether or not Scout is really an overpowered class, but I do know one thing it is: a selfish, stat-boosting and mainly non-helpful class during most objective games. They only help during Search and Destroy, Bodycount, and sometimes Capture and Hold. But it takes a smart Scout camped in a good position, taking good shots to be actually useful in these game modes.
Overall, Id say that at least half the classes and weapons in this game are not balanced, with a few specific bad apples that are ridiculously overpowered and/or cheap. I highly doubt GG will try to balance out any of these classes or weapons, simply because they thought they already have balanced them throughout the past few years. It is what it is