Preface: Sometimes I think we forget that the context of KF1 was not a bunch of hapless survivors trying to hide out the Zed invasion, but rather it was a militia of badasses specifically contracted or volunteering to eliminate the Zed threat..
Don't believe me? Read the map introductions. Note the military chopper dropping US off at the start of a map. Consider how we get payed by.. someone.. on a per-kill basis, and again when we fully clear an area. Not to mention the professional arms dealer who sets up shop just to sell us military grade weapons. Yeah, we're not supposed to be a bunch of unfortunate horror victims, we're supposed to be Zed-slaughtering PROFESSIONALS.
Or, to quote a popular show: Sind sie das essen? Nien, wir sind der jaegar. ;)
We forget this context, because there was no reason NOT to hide away and think of nothing except staying alive; the Zeds all predictably follow the single-minded goal of getting to the players, so as long as you continued fighting them off you would eventually clear the wave... even if it took a very, very long time.
I don't know about you, but this bothered me for two reasons: One, my contextual badassitude was having a damper put on it, and two, I didn't always want A SINGLE MAP of Killing Floor to take up my entire evening.
With that said, I've got a two-part suggestion to help remedy this problem.
_____________________
1. Time Incentives.
Positive Reinforcement:
It makes sense that whoever is paying us to clear out the Zed menace would prefer it if we do this, y'know, BEFORE they destroy the entire area. So, why not have a bonus on the wave-clear payout if it is completed within a certain amount of time? Or have a scaling bonus that gradually decreases, until it reaches a minimum "Well at least you killed them eventually" amount.
In addition, getting a bonus to the duration of Shop/Prep time after clearing a wave quickly only makes sense. That's more time to choose good holdout spots, weld doors, set bombs, and even forage around for random guns on the map. I mean, it must take some time for Horzine to ready their next wave of Zeds, right? And if you didn't spend an extra twenty minutes clearing the last horde, why shouldn't you get an extra minute before the next arrives?
Negative Reinforcement:
Speaking of which... taking unnecessarily long to finish a wave could result in more overall Zeds or more brutal spawn groupings in the following wave, since the enemy had that much more time to prepare. Of course, in order to not accidentally encourage people TO delay a wave as much as possible, the bounty value of those additional zed forces would have to be considerably less than the cash bonus for clearing the wave early.
_________________________
2. Zeds Doing Things (other than hunt down the players)
I get that the Zeds were created just to kill and destroy, but wouldn't it add a bit of atmosphere and take away from the misconception of us being hapless survivors if we sometimes saw them engaged in acts of murder or destruction not revolving around us?
I'm talking about map-specific scripted events that would trigger randomly, specifically when a player wanders from one section of a map into a new section. There they might encounter Zeds in the middle of doing something, like breaking into a sealed room or eating a corpse, or cornering an NPC survivor or somesuch. Maybe you see clots hauling away some piece of equipment to take back to their masters. ... Or, for a bit of humor, maybe you see Stalkers doing that. By which I mean, you wouldn't see the stalkers, you'd just see some object floating it's way down a hallway.
Players would then have two equally valid choices:
Prioritizing survival, they could ignore these Zeds for the time being and in turn these zeds would ignore them, at least until they finish their scripted task and then resume normal Zed behavior. That means Zeds, that count towards the spawn and wave limits, temporarily not engaging the player (so long as they don't get too close or attack said zeds) allowing them to focus attention on the ones that ARE actively trying to kill them.
Alternatively, the players could go out of their way to engage and stop these Zeds. Doing so would net them a small cash bonus, essentially serving as an incentive to get out and explore maps while also providing additional atmosphere and the feeling that something more than "not dying" is being accomplished.
Both the time incentive and scripted zed encounters would serve as enhanced risk/reward. It would still be perfectly valid to play the game the overly cautious way, but having the bravery to actively hunt down the zeds instead of waiting for them to come to you, and scouting the map, would give the chance for extra money and therefore affording better equipment a couple waves sooner.
(I mean, for me, getting more action and not taking all bloody evening was always enough of an incentive, but sometimes I think that's just me)
Don't believe me? Read the map introductions. Note the military chopper dropping US off at the start of a map. Consider how we get payed by.. someone.. on a per-kill basis, and again when we fully clear an area. Not to mention the professional arms dealer who sets up shop just to sell us military grade weapons. Yeah, we're not supposed to be a bunch of unfortunate horror victims, we're supposed to be Zed-slaughtering PROFESSIONALS.
Or, to quote a popular show: Sind sie das essen? Nien, wir sind der jaegar. ;)
We forget this context, because there was no reason NOT to hide away and think of nothing except staying alive; the Zeds all predictably follow the single-minded goal of getting to the players, so as long as you continued fighting them off you would eventually clear the wave... even if it took a very, very long time.
I don't know about you, but this bothered me for two reasons: One, my contextual badassitude was having a damper put on it, and two, I didn't always want A SINGLE MAP of Killing Floor to take up my entire evening.
With that said, I've got a two-part suggestion to help remedy this problem.
_____________________
1. Time Incentives.
Positive Reinforcement:
It makes sense that whoever is paying us to clear out the Zed menace would prefer it if we do this, y'know, BEFORE they destroy the entire area. So, why not have a bonus on the wave-clear payout if it is completed within a certain amount of time? Or have a scaling bonus that gradually decreases, until it reaches a minimum "Well at least you killed them eventually" amount.
In addition, getting a bonus to the duration of Shop/Prep time after clearing a wave quickly only makes sense. That's more time to choose good holdout spots, weld doors, set bombs, and even forage around for random guns on the map. I mean, it must take some time for Horzine to ready their next wave of Zeds, right? And if you didn't spend an extra twenty minutes clearing the last horde, why shouldn't you get an extra minute before the next arrives?
Negative Reinforcement:
Speaking of which... taking unnecessarily long to finish a wave could result in more overall Zeds or more brutal spawn groupings in the following wave, since the enemy had that much more time to prepare. Of course, in order to not accidentally encourage people TO delay a wave as much as possible, the bounty value of those additional zed forces would have to be considerably less than the cash bonus for clearing the wave early.
_________________________
2. Zeds Doing Things (other than hunt down the players)
I get that the Zeds were created just to kill and destroy, but wouldn't it add a bit of atmosphere and take away from the misconception of us being hapless survivors if we sometimes saw them engaged in acts of murder or destruction not revolving around us?
I'm talking about map-specific scripted events that would trigger randomly, specifically when a player wanders from one section of a map into a new section. There they might encounter Zeds in the middle of doing something, like breaking into a sealed room or eating a corpse, or cornering an NPC survivor or somesuch. Maybe you see clots hauling away some piece of equipment to take back to their masters. ... Or, for a bit of humor, maybe you see Stalkers doing that. By which I mean, you wouldn't see the stalkers, you'd just see some object floating it's way down a hallway.
Players would then have two equally valid choices:
Prioritizing survival, they could ignore these Zeds for the time being and in turn these zeds would ignore them, at least until they finish their scripted task and then resume normal Zed behavior. That means Zeds, that count towards the spawn and wave limits, temporarily not engaging the player (so long as they don't get too close or attack said zeds) allowing them to focus attention on the ones that ARE actively trying to kill them.
Alternatively, the players could go out of their way to engage and stop these Zeds. Doing so would net them a small cash bonus, essentially serving as an incentive to get out and explore maps while also providing additional atmosphere and the feeling that something more than "not dying" is being accomplished.
Both the time incentive and scripted zed encounters would serve as enhanced risk/reward. It would still be perfectly valid to play the game the overly cautious way, but having the bravery to actively hunt down the zeds instead of waiting for them to come to you, and scouting the map, would give the chance for extra money and therefore affording better equipment a couple waves sooner.
(I mean, for me, getting more action and not taking all bloody evening was always enough of an incentive, but sometimes I think that's just me)
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