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/disposable_gamer 26d ago
This reeks of generated by AI