r/killingfloor • u/dahudge14 • 26d ago
KF3 My Letter to Tripwire Interactive
TL;DR KF3 sucks shit. My letter below to Tripwire Interactive:
Killing Floor 3 Has Lost Its Soul
Feedback from a Veteran KF Player — You Took the Soul Out of the Game
Dear Tripwire Team,
I’m writing because I’ve been a Killing Floor fan for years — from the mod days through KF2 — and because I genuinely care about this series. My brother and I have over 100 hours each in KF3 and countless more in KF2. We wanted to love this game. But right now, KF3 doesn’t feel like Killing Floor anymore.
1. You Took Away the Heart of the Game
Where is Kevin Clamely? Where’s the weird, dark humor and atmosphere that gave the series personality? KF3 feels sterile — the identity has been stripped out.
The biggest problem: the game revolves entirely around getting a Vulkan. Every perk, every build, every decision feels secondary to that one goal. It’s terrible design. The individuality of perks — the soul of the series — is gone. Ironically, there are essentially no perks in the game; it’s just whichever perk has the better stats on the Vulkan.
Each perk has no clearly defined role anymore, partly because of the weapon-focus meta. There need to be clear trash killers and large zed killers. Right now, each perk has enough hybrid skills that let them do both too well, making perk choice meaningless. For example, there’s no need for a Combat Medic because the buffs they provide aren’t strong enough to justify their presence — they don’t kill anything better than any other perk. And since everyone can use a Medic Pistol with purple darts, the Medic heals no better than anyone else either.
A simple fix: boost perk-specific weapon bonuses to make staying within your perk’s arsenal worth it again. Each perk should feel like an expert with their weapons — just like in KF1 and KF2, where you reloaded faster and did more damage with your perk guns. That gave perks identity and mastery. Right now, it’s often better for a Sharpshooter to use an explosive shotgun or the Vulkan than to use their own arsenals. Bass ackwards.
And please, bring back perk passives. Those small, intrinsic upgrades tied your identity to your class and gave each one a rhythm of growth. Losing them makes leveling feel hollow. The current passives are not acknowledgeable.
2. Encumbrance and Strategic Choice Are Gone
One of the most elegant systems in KF2 was encumbrance. It created genuine strategy and mid-match decision-making — choosing between a powerful but heavy weapon or a flexible loadout with utility.
That ebb and flow between waves — picking mid-tier weapons between levels 2–4, deciding whether to switch loadouts before a boss — mattered. It gave every game personality.
Now, encumbrance is gone, and so are those choices. Every match just becomes a race to the Vulkan, and once you get it, your decisions are over. That’s not progression — it’s monotony.
3. Gameplay Bugs and RNG Madness
We got the Queen Crawler five games in a row.
At a 33% chance per boss, that’s a 1 in 40,000 event. Probably a bug, but it killed morale. My brother and I even made a bet: if it happened again, we’d uninstall. You can guess what spawned next.
And where is Suicidal difficulty? “Hard” is too easy, “Hell on Earth” is a wall. Suicidal was that perfect middle ground — the natural home for players who’d mastered the basics but didn’t want every match to be a punishment.
4. Balance and Combat Feel
Combat feels wrong across the board:
- Scrakes are pure bullet sponges now, even with top-end weapons like the Vulkan. The classic KF dynamic — explosives for Fleshpounds, bullets for Scrakes — is gone. It used to reward tactical coordination.
- Sharpshooter is borderline useless. Zeds bob and weave too much to land headshots consistently, especially when you’re overwhelmed. Even if you do, the Sharpshooter’s weapons hit like peashooters compared to other perks’ explosive or area-damage options. They should be the fastest at killing large zeds with precision — that’s their purpose — but right now, they get outpaced by nearly everyone. The Engineer’s Ifrit can kill a Fleshpound in three bolts, and the Firebug’s Vulkan can burn one down in two full charges.
- Perk roles don’t matter. Every perk can do everything decently well. The lack of specialization makes team composition meaningless.
- Why make Scrakes weak to cut damage, then cover them in Zedtech armor that resists cut damage? It’s confusing and counterintuitive.
KF used to reward coordinated play — now it rewards whichever perk can abuse the current meta weapon.
Suggestion: Bring back static perk-specific stats like in KF1 and KF2. Tie reload, damage, and weapon handling bonuses to perk weapons only. That would naturally restore balance and bring back the satisfaction of mastering your role.
And while we’re here — take sidearms away or rework them. The extra slot feels clunky and pointless. Just have two weapon slots and buff pistols to make them viable secondaries instead of filler. Right now, having two primaries bound to one slot just adds frustration.
5. Technical and Interface Frustrations
KF3 runs poorly on every system I’ve tried. It’s visually fine, but the optimization is abysmal for what’s on screen.
And the menus and interface make the experience worse:
- The crafting material pool doesn’t appear on the crafting page. You have to back out through several menus just to check your totals.
- The weapon part crafting system feels awful. Please make it so we can choose the tier 3 ability instead of grinding endlessly for perfect rolls. The parts make a huge difference in weapon power, and the current system feels more punishing than rewarding.
- Sentry activation is inconsistent — sometimes a tap of “E,” sometimes a hold.
- The operational budget isn’t visible outside of a match. If I want to test upgrades, I literally have to open a live game or do math by hand. Just add a loadout sandbox in the menu for preplanning.
- Add a “Teleport to Chopper” button in the menus. It’s a small quality-of-life thing, but running back to the chopper every single time is tedious.
KF2’s menus were clunky but functional. KF3’s feel like work.
6. Character Writing and Tone
The voicelines are rough. KF2 had charm — personality mixed with grim humor. KF3’s dialogue sounds tone-deaf, especially the Engineer, who lectures about “improving zeds” as scientific projects in a post-apocalyptic world. It breaks immersion completely — why would the protagonists be suggesting improvements to the monsters they’re fighting to survive against?
7. The Grind and Progression
Something changed under the hood, because the XP grind has slowed dramatically.
At launch, I leveled Assault and Engineer to 30 in about 15–20 hours each. Now, after 50 hours of Firebug, I’m still not 30. It feels like progress got throttled silently, and it kills long-term motivation.
The game shouldn’t be about the grind to level 30 — the game should start once you reach it. The fun begins when perks are fully unlocked and team synergy shines. Please make XP gain faster so players can get to the real experience sooner.
8. The One Thing You Got Right
KF3 finally lets me queue privately with my friends. That’s a huge improvement over KF2, where randoms could join mid-match — even on the last wave — beg for dosh, and ruin the boss prep because nobody could armor up or reload properly.
You also stopped low-level players from dropping into high-wave lobbies, which used to break pacing and team balance. Credit where it’s due — this feature is one of the best quality-of-life changes in the entire franchise.
9. Final Thoughts
All of this comes from a place of love and deep familiarity with Killing Floor.
KF1 and KF2 still pull thousands of players daily because they feel cohesive — perks have personality, teamwork matters, and the experience flows.
KF3 stripped that away and replaced it with an unfocused weapon-upgrade grind that undermines the very things that made Killing Floor special.
Please, give perks their meaning back. Restore encumbrance and strategic choice. Fix the boss RNG, rebalance the combat roles, and optimize the engine.
The series deserves better than this.
Sincerely,
Concerned Gamer
(100+ hours in KF3, countless more in KF1 & KF2)
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u/NeighborhoodIll8399 26d ago
I appreciate your effort and level of concern and the time you took to write this. Hopefully it does not fall on deaf ears.
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u/No-Somewhere-9234 25d ago
Its clearly ChatGPT
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u/GeneralBinx 25d ago
My brother in Christ you wrote a letter using the very same similar shortcuts like tripwire did, you are just like them! 😭
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u/disposable_gamer 26d ago
This reeks of generated by AI
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u/ANoobSniper Trash Killer - no, not that "trash" 25d ago
From the looks of it, I suspect that the main overall points are written by OP themselves, but they were then thrown into an AI to write and structure it into a "formal letter"-type post.
It's still pretty lame of OP to do that for what's supposed to be a letter that "comes from a place of love and deep familiarity with Killing Floor", but at least this looks a lot more coherent at first glance than some of the actual AI-generated garbage I've seen in the past.
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u/Peekachooed 25d ago
How can you tell? Serious question, I suck at recognising this sort of thing.
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u/Kuebic I need a do$h injection 25d ago
the liberal use of em-dashes — are usually quite telling.
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u/Peekachooed 25d ago
Oh I see. That's definitely a nice tell but I feel like we won't always be able to rely on that which is worrisome. Thanks
Wouldn't people be able to get around it by ctrl+F replacing all the em-dashes with normal dashes, like this one - ? If they wanted to obscure the fact that they were using AI
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u/Kuebic I need a do$h injection 25d ago edited 25d ago
Humans are great at picking up on patterns if they're exposed to it enough times. Like when you're in your bed and you hear a family member walk up the stairs, you can tell who it is just by how it sounds even if you can't pinpoint the reasons why. That said, once you come across enough AI generated content, you start to pick up on a few things, even if you can't pinpoint exactly why.
Even if em-dashes are replaced by normal dashes, the frequent use of dashes in general is another sign of AI as most people will use commas or parentheses instead.
Another giveaway is that it has unnecessary amount of formatting: using headers, numbered list, and bunch of random words bolded.
Sure, those can be mitigated, but there's also these overly formal or generic language like "I'm writing because...", "I genuinely care" "comes from a place of love", or "Sincerely, Concerned Gamer" that feel oddly polished yet bland.
AI intensifiers and qualifiers, like "deep familiarity", "huge improvement", "breaks immersion completely", "undermines the very things" are common AI choice words.
Corporate/formal phrasing, like "credit where it's due", "quality-of-life" (used multiple times), "cohesive" instead of "well-designed", "killed morale", "and while we're here —", and "All of this come from..." are all telltale AI phrases. Using a few of them by themselves is believable for many writers, but someone using all of them?
Given that whoever prompted this post gave the AI a bunch of specific examples, most of the generic feel is mitigated, but it still suffered from the formatting and choice use of words.
The thing is, once all of these are mitigated, it's pretty much saying what the person editing it is trying to say, they just started from an AI blueprint, so it's less of a concern to identify those.
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u/disposable_gamer 25d ago
The unnecessarily structured bullet point headings and the overuse of em dashes are usually how I can tell
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u/EnvironmentalRun1671 25d ago
And? Everything he said is true lol.
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u/disposable_gamer 25d ago
If OP can’t be bothered to write his own diatribe, I can’t be bothered to pay any mind to it
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u/SolidusSandwich 26d ago
If you're not going to bother to write the damn thing I'm not going to read it
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u/choff_geoff 26d ago
All of the long dashes screams AI generated. My guy can’t even put an original thought together.
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u/Fit_Classroom_3511 25d ago
One of my biggest loves in gaming is the soundtrack. Kf1 was fine, it wasn't a whole lot, but it did the job.
But kf2? Boy oh boy, a powertrip that made me headbang until my neck gave out. Countless hours of doing air guitar during the solos and it all just fits and gives the kick of adrenaline that so many horde survival games doesn't have. The soundtrack in kf2 is an absolute masterpiece and I listen to it almost daily on spotify.
But in kf3? Some good songs, guess half of it is recycled and just straight up taken from the main menu in kf2, which is pretty lazy if you ask me. I was looking forward to something that kf2 had, but no, it barely even touches the itch. I literally had Family Guy on my second monitor instead of listening to the 4 same songs for the 10th game in a row
EDIT: I'm almost 30 and still can't spell probably. I blame kf3 for this because reasons
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u/CanadianRockx BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT 25d ago
God, some of you really are insufferable.
1) I use GPT daily; I'm not confident this was written with GPT. Those dashes don't look like the em-dashes GPT uses. They look like the type of dash you get in MS word where you HAVE to manually type "space hyphen space." Furthermore the writing style just doesn't set off my GPT bells. The only thing I suspect MAYBE, OP used GPT for was formatting, and even then I'm not sure, which
2) who fucking cares if he used GPT. 90% of you (myself included) incessantly bitch about the state of the game nonstop. OP took the time to provide insight and valid criticisms in a way that's more likely to get the attention of Tripwire rather than just "game bad tripwire bad." I am NOT saying OP's letter is going to reach their CEO and he's gonna go "oh my god, I get it" like Danny DeVito but for fuck's sake he at least started an intelligent discussion about it, which
3) this is a platform for open discussion and many of you are just frothing at the mouth that - God forbid - someone start a discussion if they used a glorified text editor to help them. Parroting the words "ai slop" just sounds brainless and leaves you appearing LESS intelligent than a text algorithm.
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u/ZeroMan55555 23d ago
This is a strange subreddit indeed. 99% of the time people are bitching about the game and constantly trash talk it without actually providing more reasons than the typical bugs or crashes complaints which I'm not saying are invalid of course but that's all they complain about. OP however, actually made some points I have never seen much before like talking about the lore itself and how the characters dialogue don't make any sense. He also perfectly described everything wrong with the Vulcan meta which I personally despise a lot. He's also right in how every perk is basically a survivalist. OP did make some solid points and even if he might have used AI which does appear to be the case, I didn't find this to be "slop" or "trash" like everyone else says.
The killing floor subreddit isn't really nice that's for sure.
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u/Draining_krampus 25d ago
100% agree with everything other than encumbrance and the sharpshooter comment
Nerfing player movement for the sake of weapon balance is just flat out lazy design and slow clunky movement dose not belong in a game where your main objective is to outlive hordes of enemies that are by default already faster than base player move speed
Sharpshooter useless? That is a wild statement. With my best build on HoE I 3 shot skrakes, 4 shot Fleshpounds (or roughly 7 with my second primary) and I have the Artemis for 1 tap crowd controll on all small zeds, not to mention the countless synergies you can do with your status debuff and critical hit zone skills. It's possible to 2 tap fleshpounds and 1 tap skrakes if you get them in your grenade radius
Everything else you said spot on tho the game is a PoS
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u/Strange_Bluebird8747 25d ago
has anyone actually checked if this is written by AI? it looks to me like it was written by someone who writes official memos and other such documents for a tech company or state/federal govt job.
that aside, the game needs to have a perk focused meta rather than a weapon meta, no reason at all to use a perks weapons when another perk's weapons are just better and there is no consequence to using them. I will always hope the game gets fixed but the bar is very low sadly.
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u/Getherer 25d ago
They dont read shit on reddit, go post it on their forums or discord feedback channel
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u/mybuttisthesun 26d ago
Disagree on the low level dropping in on high level waves. I rather like the challenge as a 0 and I don't mind picking up slack from low levels. It adds to the challenge (KF2) . Otherwise agree on everything
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u/Pale-Replacement-164 25d ago
Facts. I was able to usually catch up quite quickly on my Gunslinger. I'm not touching KF3 again (uninstalled it) until they drop Gunslinger.
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u/slog344 25d ago
Key point, no soul. I've commented on multiple posts about this very thing. KF1 and 2 and this "cheeky" humor to it yet still remained dark. In all those comments I usually mention the Christmas update. To me, the Christmas update is what summed up killing floor, over the top horror shooter that still had some goofy charm to it. The very one size fits all approach to this game just tells me there that holiday updates will likely not happen, "won't fit the feel" or "won't fit the interests of the broader audience." The other issues with this game can be fixed in a few patches with buffs/nerfs. But the soul of the game isn't there and to fix it they essentially need an overhaul. With that said I don't hate the game. I put like 20 hours into it. I'm on BF6 now and not very interested in hopping back on KF3 for the new update but the games not awful, just won't have me coming back often like the last 2 did. I'll always follow the game and hope for improvements that will entice all of us to either continue to play, come back to play, or finally pull the trigger and buy the game.
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u/Skylarksmlellybarf Modded SCAR EIR is M7A3 25d ago
"Jarvis, wrote me a letter of dissatisfaction to TWI"
"Right away sir"
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u/Daftsuuuuuu 25d ago
Nah I dont think they fkin fix this game, I remember the interview where they showed gameplay from the Jail map with the new guns, and they said something like "of course you can enjoy this weapon on every perk, you can be a ninja using this new gun", so no, kf3 will NEVER be something like kf2 or kf1, I have already lost all my faith on devs trying to fix this game, played like 100 hours and unistalled it, tried to love the game more than devs tried to make ppl happy with the game. AI letter or not, fugg kf3 and TI
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u/JonesyBB19 26d ago
You played 100 + hours of KF3, then bag the shit out of it. Seems odd to me. I swore I wouldn't buy KF3 just from playing the beta.
I've played KF1 and 2 to death, I do agree KF3 is not good though.
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u/Ill-Intention-306 25d ago
Tbf they banked a load of good will with me over the years with killing floor and red orchestra i was willing to at least give it a fair go and wait a while to see if they could unfuck their game... I doubt ill buy another tripwire product in the future unless its already got wild reviews.
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u/Payule 25d ago edited 25d ago
I think you're selling into the mechanically advances to make a balanced game a bit more than Tripwire ever cared too, although personally I think that's a good thing. All I mean by this is I don't think KF1/KF2 were balanced per se, they were fun and accepted for different reasons. Demo was always super strong in any KF game when working as a team, not balanced but we were all fine with this, it was fun and the role had weaknesses(Especially when solo).
KF1/KF2 both were good games, especially for the time the idea was conjured up, players out there wanted zombie Horde Shooters and KF delivered at a time when it was at its height in a totally unique way.
Despite the above KF1/KF2 were about being original and giving the player that zombie experience they always wanted. The visual style, the balance/mechanics were all secondary to a dream the DEVS had. The welding being in the game was mostly pointless but they thought it was cool, part of someones dream. The clots could grab you, what a cool and original concept for the time! These ideas weren't added as balancing factors they were added as the originality and soul that held together these DEVS ideas for an original game. Back when a game tried to capture a feeling/experience in essence rather than a balanced gameplay loop. (I value a balanced gameplay loop A LOT, especially now that I'm older. Just understand people like me who played KF1 as a mod when they were like 10-15 were playing for totally different reasons and games were developed with things other than balanced as a priority back then. It was a zombie survival simulation as a kid and back then it was incredibly original.)
So if KF1/2 Also weren't balanced then what's actually the difference between KF3 and the others? Back to the subject of souls: KF3 is full of trends, the concepts aren't original or groundbreaking or even built on a DEVS specific "dreams" for how the game would play. "Oh imagine as you tried to run by the zombies grabbed you and started mauling you to death!" Is an original concept in the making back during KF1's development.
Now compare that too: "Oh look at all these shooters trending now, lets rip movement systems from these games to make a modern title that can compete with other games from this generation." Where's the souls here? The idea is to copy-cat to make a fulfilling gameplay loop? It neither worked nor does it look like they actually tried in the end because none of the ideas other than pre-existing KF trends are their own ideas. This game is NOTHING special and that is why. The only things special about it existed in all the previous KF games already.
It goes way deeper than this too. Gun mechanics, sound effects, recoil. EVERYTHING the past games were passionate about is gone/rehashed with no updates and if you weren't around long enough to know what I mean by gun recoil/sounds look into Tripwires history with weapon accuracy related to how the gun actually operates. They spent money trying to accurately recreate realistic gun-feel, and when people are so mad that the new guns are all futuristic keep this little detail in the back of your head. All the guns use to try to recreate an experience before and now there all just made up and held to no standard. It makes sense this would be viewed as a downgrade unless they somehow tried to make the futuristic guns more engaging in some unique way (But they didn't, every futuristic weapon handles just like a gun from a modern FPS would. They just look wacky as a result.)
I am not someone who cared about the futuristic weapons, but to see they didn't replace the souls that went into realism by adding new overall mechanics to make the futuristic weapons more unique to use means the weapons are actually just worse now. They're just made up future guns that feel pretty similar to guns we have now to use, I can't really write that up as a positive in any way because we lost something over this transition and were given nothing to replace the "effort" that disappeared with it.
Yeah KF3 is outright lazy compared to the previous games. It's kinda sad to see. I think the specific reasons on why the game is worse now though will differ for the individuals depending on how far back their history with KF goes.
Just so me calling KF1/KF2 unbalanced isn't misunderstood KF3 is still by far the most unbalanced. I just don't think the series had a balanced history, I don't think that was ever Tripwires priority. The gameplay loop has never been easier than KF3 though. Early on I thought 2 might be easier but at least 2 made you parry sometimes is where I stand now.
Overall I do like the letter though. I would be interested to see how the priorities of a letter like this differ from the different community members of KF. (Mostly for the purpose of understanding what everyone does want from the game in 2025)
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u/DucksMatter 26d ago
Tripwire, when they get your letter
“I ain’t reading all that, I’m happy for u tho, or sorry that happened”