YMMV / Killing Floor 2

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The AF2011 was thought to be a fictional gun due to its weird design, a conjoined Colt 1911 lookalike. It is a real gun, although obviously it hasn't seen widespread use.
• Annoying Video Game Helper:
  • The TRADER Pod will remind the player to buy ammo or armor if you're low whenever you bring up the menu, and especially in solo play she'll also remind you to heal yourself at the end of a wave.
  • A few other maps and modes have other characters taking on the role of the TRADER Pod, but while most are appreciated (Gary Busey as "Badass Santa" in Santa's Workshop and the Patriarch constantly belittling you in most maps on Endless mode), Airship brings back Ringmaster Lockheart, who is often muted solely for the fact that he talks like a Borderlands character, in that everything he says is done with too many words and a lot of forced quirkiness.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • King Fleshpound is basically a souped-up version of a normal fleshpound. Though this sounds scary, since the Fleshpound is probably one of your most formidable foes, King FP fights you alone with only the occasional quarter pound showing up. This makes fighting him amount to kiting around the map and parrying his attacks to de-rage him. He has a laser attack which deals a lot of damage, but this can be avoided simply by ducking.
  • The Patriarch is considered to be one by veteran players for one reason: It is very easy to bodyblock him with a Berserker and prevent him from escaping to heal up, while the rest of the squad mows him down. Due to this, the battle with him can be over in a minute or less. If you don't use said trick though, he will offer more of a challenge.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Die Volter", Hans Volter's boss battle theme, is an intense piece that'll get you pumped as you take him on.
  • "Collapsing", while not made specifically for the game, is an epic piece to rock out to while massacring the army of Zeds "collapsing" on you. The rest of the soundtrack can be like this too, especially if you like metal (specifically bands like Demon Hunter and zYnthetic, as they take up a good portion of the soundtrack).
  • "This I Know", while being an epic track in itself, it has an unintentional Title Drop which makes it the de facto Title Theme Tune. Oddly enough, it didn't appear in the official soundtrack.
  • The Main Theme of the Summer Sideshow the aptly titled "Step Right Up" is pretty rad.
  • Most of the songs for the Summer Sideshow event are pretty rad. With such songs as No Winners, The Greatest Hell on Earth, and We All Float.
  • Do you like Carol Of The Bells? No? How about now?
  • The menu theme for the 2018 Halloween Horrors event, A Samhein Celebration, does a great job at capturing the feeling of arriving at a haunted castle where monsters lurk in the deepest, darkest corners.
  • Do you envision the zeds as computer viruses? If so, "Cyberpunk", theme of the 2019 Spring update will make you pumped up to "exterminate" them and save millions of devices.
  • For those disappointed in the rock music for most of the game's events, Pumpkinhead, the theme for the 2020 Halloween Horrors event Infernal Insurrection will satisfy with its slow tempo and build-up, reminiscent of what you'd hear in a horror film.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Two areas in the Elysium map bordered on being these in the original workshop version, but were made into full examples with its official release in the Christmas Crackdown update:
  • First is the blue area built of wireframes, looking as if it came straight out of TRON or the Metal Gear Solid VR missions, which clashes with the mythical design of the other areas.
  • The other takes place in a mysterious void reminiscent of space or a dream, where players move on invisible ground that is illogically littered with rocks, doors, and half-built brick walls. Like the former example, it clashes with the rest of the map's design.
    • The one thing that hindered them from being full examples in the workshop version was the accompanying text messages which gave context for the player's presence in them ^*"#gLiTch !!? |\_(I)_/|" and "What happened? These are not the Shores of Elysium... We should not be here", respectively. The official version did not keep these, making the areas seem completely out of place with no explanation as to why.
• Breather Level: Several of the mutators during Endless Mode are essentially free wins for you.
  • Any of the single-specimen waves qualify, with the exception of Scrake and Fleshpound-only waves. The true threat of the zed horde comes from their tactical flexibility, not their numbers - e.g. Crawlers and Stalkers are a threat not because they come up on you in groups of four or five at a time, but because they choose to do so to distract you from a much bigger threat like a Scrake. Special mention goes to the Clot wave, which is a wave of just Clots, the easiest enemy.
  • The Bobble Zed mutator, in addition to being hilarious, will turn the game into a leisurely walk in the park for the duration of the wave; it inflates the heads of every specimen to a comical degree, and increases the hitbox to match, making landing headshots effortless. If you also happen to be a Sharpshooter or Gunslinger, it's less a leisurely walk in the park and more a prolonged afternoon nap on a park bench, since you can annihilate virtually anything with a single or few shots, plus being able to stack the Rack 'Em Up skill like no tomorrow.
• Breather Boss: Arguably, The Abomination, since he doesn't have health-restoring tricks, ranged attacks, the fact that he can be damaged by the same minions he spawns in against you and even his charging move isn't used all the time, pretty much making The Abomination just a big target to shoot.
• Broken Base: From Early Access to post-release, Killing Floor 2 has split its fanbase into multiple factions with almost every major patch or update.
  • The game's EULA, in which people can be not only banned for cyber-bullying, but have their CD key revoked, and this also extends to private servers and even the community board. While some have no problem with the conditions, others think it's far too draconian and that "cyber-bullying" is too vaguely defined within the EULA and could easily be abused (though the devs have clarified that they don't plan on targeting players who just "use bad language at each other"). Comparisons to EA's horribly-received attempts at similar EULAs have also been made.
  • The fact that the game offered a "Deluxe Edition" while still in Early Access, and that it only adds on another character and a couple of cosmetics is kind of underwhelming, considering that the price of the addition is $10 more than the base game. It does contain the soundtrack and the original game, though.
  • The game's development time. From its Early Access release in April 2015, development was expected to be finished by the end of 2015, yet went well into 2016 and there was still at least two more planned player classes yet to be released (let alone Tripwire balancing the classes that were out at the time). Many of the game's players held the initial release projection to its word and were correspondingly outraged by the pace of the development, while others were perfectly fine with a "done when it's done" approach given that the game was, while not complete at the time, certainly quite playable, unlike many other Early Access games' releases that held to their original statements.
    • The Zed-Conomy announcements, which introduced microtransactions for cosmetics and weapon skins. Many players worried about the game following PAYDAY 2's infamous example (in which the developers swore up and down they would never add microtransactions, then eventually did - and ones that could give some players minor advantages, at that), as well as questioning whether microtransactions should have been introduced in Early Access. Most players weren't thrilled that Tripwire seemingly prioritized implementing this microtransaction system over actually finishing the actual content that was promised. Many players even converted themselves to Hate Dom, going so far as to upvote negative reviews and downvote any remotely positive feedback. Others were relieved that the microtransactions haven't become a Pay to Win example like Payday 2 and that they are truthfully optional (giving players no advantages whatsoever), and dismiss those firmly against microtransactions as entitled and incapable of reason.
    • The "Revenge of the Zeds" update. Should Killing Floor 2, which is a cooperative game from the ground up, have a competitive game mode or not? Plenty of those who thought it shouldn't complained about how it was more development time working on stuff that wasn't the main game again, the progress for which that they already felt was being made at a glacial pace.
    • The Bullseye update, while introducing the highly-anticipated Sharpshooter perk alongside its 2 final weapons and 2 new maps, also added a very base-dividing resistance system. What it did was give every zed additional resistances and weaknesses against certain types of weapons, on top of the pre-existing damage resistances. Some people claimed it encouraged teamwork and more diversity with the perks, while others bashed it for making certain perks (Firebug, Support and Demo) weaker against mobs of trash enemies (Stalkers could take a point-blank SG 500 shot and still go on, while every trash zed would only take a third of the fire damage they used to). It also made solo sessions an exercise in frustration, since playing alone meant you couldn't take on any Zeds meant for other Perks (e.g. a lone Demo couldn't deal with anything other than Sirens or Fleshpounds). Tripwire seems to have eventually agreed with the latter group, and changed the resistances to near pre-patch numbers.
    • August 2019 saw confirmations of "paid weapon DLC" in the future. Needless to say, the camp now became split between detractors who hate increased Microtransactions as the history of PAYDAY 2 safes were repeated, those who claimed Tripwire had taken milking the game aside from fixing bugs and issues as a priority, and those who justified the decision by saying that the game had lots of content given away for free already. Not helped is that as the game has gone on longer and more DLC weapons have been added, many have felt that their animations have been of noticeably lesser quality - compare the Glock 18C from the summer 2020 "Perilous Plunder" update (a few issues like the slide being pulled back too far in one chamber-checking animation, but still having had effort put into them) to the G36C from the Halloween 2022 "Blood & Bonfires" update (very clearly having next to no effort put in beyond the most important keyframes).
  • The music. Aside from Die Volter, Collapsing, This I Know, Bitter End, and maybe Disunion Reconstructed for nostalgia value, many players think that the soundtrack ranges from "mediocre" to "repetitive and irritating". Others like the metal tracks. It can be agreed that the lyrics stink though.^note It can be condensed into something like this; if you like Demon Hunter, the music from the first game, and metal in general, you're going to be fine. Otherwise? Good thing you can access Youtube in-game via Steam's web browser! It's actually possible to manually replace the music tracks as well, and multiple mods have been made to replace the default soundtrack entirely
    • Alternatively, if you're primarily into the extreme subgenres of metal, chances are you will despise the melodic Collapsing. And if you believe that "Christian" and "metal" should never be mentioned in the same sentence, then you're going to have a very bad time with the licensed bands on the soundtrack.
  • There's been some debates regarding the lighter tone, PG-13 language of the characters, and cleaner art style compared to the first game. Fanning the flames was this interview with Tripwire president John Gibson, where he stated that the toned-down language of the characters and the usage of music from groups like Demon Hunter was done out of his personal beliefs. Some see this as a hypocritical Bowdlerise of a game that already revels in Gorn. Others didn't see a problem with it or didn't care, since it doesn't affect the gameplay design in any case.
  • On April 20th 2018, Tripwire revealed details for what would become the Treacherous Skies update which would see the implementation of a Prestige system, an option to upgrade purchased weapons to increase their damage... and the return of a fan-favorite character from the first game, Mrs. Foster. However, in the announcement Tripwire had written "The first DLC mercenary is joining up, and we can’t wait to introduce you to this roster returnee". While not the first character to require additional payment for use,^*DJ Scully has required purchase of the Digital Deluxe edition to be useable by the player since the game's Early Access release this caused debates to rage anew in the Steam forums. Those who defended her being paid argue that she's only a cosmetically different character that does not affect gameplay, is entirely optional to purchase, and that she's voiced by a professional voice actor, Claudia Black. Those against it argued that Tripwire had gone back on their statement during the Zed-conomy update that the microtransactions would fund development of future content, and some individuals expressed fear that this could lead to Tripwire eventually implementing pay-to-win mechanics in the game - which many were quick to accuse them of following nerfs to Berserker in the 2021 Interstellar Insanity update, that many felt made it all but impossible to play the class well without buying DLC weapons for Berserker.
  • The upgrade system, introduced in the update described above, has been a major source of contention. Some players like the ability to upgrade lower tiered weapons instead of having to always purchase higher tiered ones to stay effective, with some arguing that it opens up for more loadout options in matches. Others however criticised it, saying that it makes the weapons homogenous and strips them of the specific roles intended for them, or that it makes teammates less willing to share dosh with others (players now have an incentive to hoard dosh for themselves to upgrade their gear). It doesn't help that the system is widely inconsistent amongst the selection of firearms, as some weapons are affected very little by the upgrades whereas others get massive boosts to their damage, enough to reliably slaughter Scrakes and Fleshpounds.
  • The reveal that the long awaited Matriarch boss is none other than Rachel Clamely^*Although it was hinted at the end of the Grim Treatments update trailer, the Patriarch's daughter and a former playable character, has been met with mixed reception from players. One group criticizes the decision, claiming that it's out of character for her to turn into the very thing she sought to destroy, as the last official objective map for the first game had her assisting the mercs with eliminating her father's zed army and prevent a worldwide spread of them. Others defend it, arguments including that her determination to stop him is a plausible enough reason for her change into a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Colbert Bump: Divisive as their inclusion in the game is, you'll find a decent amount of new Demon Hunter fans that were introduced to the band through this game.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • The Medic will always be a mainstay because of their utility, but the ZED time trio are a very popular team comp to go with. A Sharpshooter procs ZED Time, the Commando extends it, and the Gunslinger takes advantage of it.
  • Zerkwalling is another popular tactic because Berserkers are incredibly tanky and ammo is not an issue. Couple them with a few medics and even HoE becomes laughably easy.
  • The AA12 sees a lot of use, even off-perk, due to being significantly more powerful than all other guns currently available (both in terms of damage per second and damage for the ammunition carried), especially when used against Hans Volter. Its only weakness is its rapid consumption of ammo, making it unsuitable for general use except for actual Support players.
  • Generally at the last wave spare cash is used to buy extra AA12s, RPGs, and Microwave Guns.
  • Most maps have one or two areas where players will insist on camping for every single wave, generally ones with as much flat, open space as possible to see enemies coming from a long range, keep enemies from spawning within three feet, and/or give plenty of room to escape in an emergency. Examples include the courtyard in Volter Manner, the pathway with the trucks in Outpost, and the plaza in view of the Eiffel Tower in Burning Paris. This is a very self-enforcing habit, because whoever does not camp these specific locations will be left on their own and is thus almost certain to die on later waves. It gets even worse if the team can't actually hold the camping spot and die repeatedly, but they still keep going to the same spot.
  • Pretty much every Demolitionist invests in becoming Siren-proof upon reaching Level 15, though for good reason: without it, the only attack they have that Sirens can't negate are the bullets from the M16, while its alternatives have had a history of simply not being worth taking over it - formerly Door Traps, which set doors to explode when barricaded, which was situational at best (and thus later made an innate ability of the perk), now Fragmentation Rounds, which increases the radius of explosives, but originally also decreased their damage, which made it an even less attractive option.
  • Most Firebug players will pick the Helios Rifle over its alternatives on the higher difficulties, for one reason. It can deal headshot damage, a stark contrast to most of the perk's weapons and plays much more nicely with perks like Sharpshooter, Gunslinger and Commando, unlike the Husk Cannon and Microwave Gun which only deal body damage, which does not contribute to big zed kills in precision-based teams.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Sirens, as per usual, disarm grenades and other explosives when she screams. This can be even worse on harder difficulties, where Sirens can be stuck in huge groups of enemies or together with a Fleshpound, where explosives can save a lot of ammo. They've also gained the ability to draw players toward them with their screams.
  • Bloats' puke is a lot worse, covering most of the screen, making it much harder to see what is going on. Especially bad during big hordes of Zeds. On top of this, they take more damage than in the first game, where shooting them a few times in the head with your starting pistol would neutralize the puke threat - now, you generally need close to a tier-3 weapon to remove the head in less than six bullets. They can also soak up more fire from Firebug weapons and absorb more explosions than any other "trash" zed.
  • Scrakes and Fleshpounds are much, much worse than previously: Scrakes will spawn much more frequently on anything above Normal, Fleshpounds are essentially mini-bosses, almost worthy of knocking Hans of his boss-title, and both require fire from almost a whole team to be taken down safely. The primary reason why these zeds are more dangerous than they were previously is due to the extremely precise hitboxes and expanded zed animations. When walking, neither will be that difficult to land headshots on. However, once they start running, the Scrake's head wavers erratically and the Fleshpound covers most of his face with his arms as he charges. Contrast this with the first game, where neither's head moved anywhere near as much when charging.
  • Crawlers have gotten much faster, often attack in larger groups from multiple directions, and prioritize attacking players who are otherwise distracted with stronger Zeds. Crawlers have a distressing tendency to pop out of any possible hole around you, cutting off possible escape routes at the worst possible times. They are also fully capable of inflicting the Death of a Thousand Cuts, first by reducing your armor down by bits and pieces, then your health bar. They may be weaker than other Zeds, but that doesn't matter when you're below ten health points and there's five Crawlers rushing in to deal the deathblow.
  • Elite Crawlers are white Crawlers that explode into a gas cloud if not killed by a headshot. Before this gas cloud's effects were toned down, players were likely to give up buying armor at all for the game's harder difficulties because the prevalence of Elite Crawlers spawning (and exploding) practically meant armor would barely ever last anyway.
  • Stalkers arguably have reached this role. In the first game they were quite ineffective cannon fodder^note They were slow, noticeably visible when cloaked, still cast a full shadow, often talked while approaching, walked in a straight line towards you, and were so slow that on the highest difficulty, someone crouch walking with their knife out would still evade them due to the need to stand still, uncloak, attack, cloak, then start moving again. It didn't help that every time they had to uncloak or recloak, they would spend about a full second doing so; they mostly ended up just being an annoyance for Commando players trying to kill them before they threw themselves in front of another player's gun so they could level up.. But now, Stalkers are fully invisible save for a split second shimmer every now and then, actively flank and try to stay behind you, change directions to throw you off, and instantly snap from invisible to visible for a half second as they kick you in the jaw, seamlessly vanishing again before they've even finished the attack. Because of all this it is recommended to have a Commando on the team, as they allow every team member to spot stalkers in the Commando's sight.
  • The SWAT update introduced a damage mitigation system whereby evasive zeds such as Stalkers, Crawlers and slasher Clots will dodge when they take light damage. Stalkers perform a leap forwards, backwards or to the side and Clots will do a roll. Stalkers in particular can cover a significant distance when dodging and if you aren't tracking them when they jump, they will very easily get behind you when they otherwise should not have. Even when you see them coming, hitting them is a pain now because several of them, particularly Crawlers, will even dodge out of the way just from aiming at them.
  • The Summer Sideshow 2018 added E.D.A.R.s, who are not only very hard to kill (since they are robots and they can easily dodge your shots), but they also fire mini-rockets or blasters at you (or even worse, shock you while holding you in place). If you are retreating from a horde of enemies and get hit by a lazer trap launched by an E.D.A.R, you will become an easy target for specimens. Did we mention that those robots can fly?
    • A later update after the event hit reduced the health of the E.D.A.R.s significantly, especially in the chest where shooting them a few times with the majority of weapons takes them out quickly, and when killed through their chest core, they also release an EMP blast that disables any nearby zeds. While they're still a threat to players who ignore them, they're no longer massive bullet sponges that require a barrage of bullets to put an end to. Still, a number of players are vocal for their detest of them due to not rewarding headshots like the other zeds and their robot aesthetic clashing/being unsatisfying to kill compared to the other zeds.
  • Rioters are like clots, but are heavily armored so only a few of the most expensive weapons will be able to put them down with headshots quickly and will cause the smaller zeds nearby them to sprint toward players. The armor alone makes them quite annoying to many players.
  • Gorefiends, an Elite Mook variant of the Gorefast are among the toughest enemies in the early waves, and hold their own even in the later ones. While regular Gorefasts can prove deadly if not taken care of, skilled players can quickly take them out with one to a few headshots at most from the majority of weapons, turning them into Goddamned Bats at worst. Gorefiends on the other hand both deal more damage and have more health than their regular counterpart, and almost always block if the first shot doesn't remove their head (neccesiating waiting until they lower their guard or shooting around it). Let them get too close and they're likely to unleash a highly-damaging Spin Attack, which is unblockable^*but mercifully can still be parried and can cut down a full-health player in seconds. SWAT in particular struggles with this enemy in the early waves, due to their health requiring multiple SMG shots to take out, which the blocking doesn't help with. And while they have a huge weakness to shotguns, making Support a good perk for dealing with them, it requires a point-blank shot or a well-aimed one that causes most pellets to hit their head. Finally, they spawn only slightly less frequently than Gorefasts on Hell on Earth, ensuring a rough time.
• Even Better Sequel: Less clunky gunplay thanks to the new engine, adjustments to weapons to make them far less redundant, chest-mounted flashlight, improved graphical interaction and gore, and each character having their own unique voice lines instead of two dozen characters all sharing the same pool of two voices, makes this game even better than the first.
• Fan Nickname: Sister Foster for Ana, due to her slightly crazy manner of talking to herself. That and her love for guns.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Some consider the Commando perk as this, due to its passive cloaking detection making the highly annoying Stalkers a breeze to kill and its ability to reset Zed Time up to six times providing ample opportunity for teams to kill everything in sight. The other comparable trash-clearing perks have their unique points, but still don't provide quite as much inherent ease-of-use utility as the Commando.
  • The FN FAL has been and is still considered to be one ever since its addition to the game in the Halloween Horrors 2018 update for both of its perks, though more so for the Commando than the Sharpshooter:
    • For Commando, it deals the highest per-shot damage of their available weapons at 70, outperforming both the SCAR and Stoner. In addition, its damage is classified as the "rifle" type instead of "assault rifle" type, which means Fleshpounds resist it less compared to the other Commando weapons. Coupled with the perk Hollow Point Rounds which increases the damage even further, it lets a Commando player, whose main purpose is to pick off trash-level zeds, assist the team with Zed Time extensions and reveal Stalkers, solo kill Fleshpounds and Scrakes with little effort, even with a full squad on Hell on Earth.
    • For Sharpshooter, it negates the need for accurate aiming and makes it easier to dispose of trash zeds that get too close for comfort, which is otherwise one of the biggest weaknesses of the class. Combined with Rack em Up, and a skilled player can take down big zeds by spraying bullets into their heads with increasingly larger damage. While its base damage is lower than the cheaper M14, its faster fire rate means it hardly matters.
    • The weapon has its drawbacks (low amount of reserve ammo, high recoil for low-level players, slow reloads even with perks, and an awkward ACOG sight to aim with), most of which had been carried over from its debut in the first game, but these all either can be easily compensated for (by carrying a secondary weapon, practicing recoil compensation or firing single shots) or simply pale in comparison to the sheer power the FAL offers.
  • Glock 18C, one of the paid weapons, is respected by a lot of Gunslinger players thanks to good damage, high rate of fire and ability to score headshots at an incredibly fast rate, making it a perfect weapon to level up the perk. It also has a dual version too, and it's just as devastating.
  • The Piranha Pistol is another good weapon that is put behind the paywall, fitting for both Berserker and Gunslinger players alike. In addition to shooting ricocheting razor disks a la the Eviscerator, it can be used to parry attacks. And, just like the Eviscerator, its projectiles can be picked up and reused again. In the right player's hands, the Piranha Pistol becomes outright devastating, especially when used in a dual mode. In cramped spaces (which is very common in the game's levels), a player can shoot all the disks and turn those spaces into a blender for 10 seconds. It is also very useful for ZED time extension due to its discs cutting through the weaker zeds like a knife through butter and also dealing a good damage to bigger enemies.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Crawlers are already extremely annoying, moreso than in the first game (their small size and ridiculous numbers don't get any more tolerable when they now randomly jump up and dodge to the sides whenever you try to get a bead on them), but elite crawlers may be the single most annoying enemy in the game. While they're every bit as weak as a normal crawler, they have added ability of exploding into a toxic gas cloud that obscures your vision if you kill them with anything other than a headshot, making them a horrible combination of a crawler and a bloat. While this alone is manageable, they frequently spawn on Suicidal and Hell on Earth difficulties, meaning that you likely won't notice one among the hordes of zeds running towards you until it's right in front of you.
  • Rioters^*Elite Alphas until the 2018 Infinite Onslaught update aren't particularly hard to take out even with their ability to enrage nearby zeds, as they're slow upon spawn. What makes them frustrating is their armor, which protects every part of their body except the legs. This makes killing them with most perks slow and ammo-consuming, and they don't give any more dosh or XP than normal Clots to make up for it. While Sharpshooter and most of the higher-tier weapons can destroy their helmet quickly (often taking the head with them) with the right skills, that leads to the problem of having big zed killing perks focusing on common enemies or wasting expensive ammunition when a lower tiered weapon otherwise would have handled them without issue.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • The Demolitionist was often regarded as one of the weaker classes in the game after launch due to the following: their weapons often were too expensive to be used on a regular basis, the class being vulnerable especially in the earlier levels, most of their explosives didn't function at extreme close ranges (as their grenades/rockets won't detonate without being in the air for a few seconds), being completely shut down by Sirens until level 15, and Hans Volter (the only boss at launch) having resistance to explosive damage. Its reputation got so bad that it was totally retooled through changing both L5 skills, both L10 skills, and one L15 skill into basic passives for the class, removing a L20 skill that did nothing but give a small damage bonus to off-perk weapons, and replacing them all with new and more useful skills. While the class is still vulnerable to close range attacks, it's a far more useful Perk to use after the changes.
  • After its release, the Survivalist class was pretty much agreed to be a Master of None at best while being a waste of a class at worst, and this was because being vaguely adequate at everything was far less appreciated by the community than having a dedicated class doing their defined role. As an example, players prefer to have an actual Berserker on their team (who has all melee-related Perks that mesh well together) to hold back the Zeds effectively, over a Survivalist who does the same essential role less effectively even while played well (in this instance, the Survivalist class has a hodge podge of skills and is missing valuable passive and active Perks for melee). Players had already been able easily swap Perks mid-game since Early Access to fill gaps in their team's composition, which didn't help Survivalist's touted "jack of all trades" value to its detractors. The later addition of multi-Perk weapons caused some of the game's community to outright dismiss Survivalist as a waste of time, since other classes could now be more flexible and effective than the class that's supposedly designed to be the ideal multi-tasker. It has gotten some positive changes over time such as exclusive weapons and buffs to its perk skills, but is still considered the least effective perk by most of the community.
  • The Firebug class is a very distant second by the same regard. This reputation is mostly due to how poor players of them can easily make things go pear-shaped in moments on the harder difficulties by trying to burn the big zeds, or by people disliking their flames either busying up the screen with particle effects or causing allies (especially ones that need to be precise, such as Gunslingers and Sharpshooters) to miss their headshots from zeds flailing around while on fire. The Firebug's stated roles of crowd control and providing light are done with far less disruption from other classes, whom all have flashlights or night vision goggles that don't actively interfere with other players, and who can also sweep out more Zeds without covering everything in view-obscuring fire.
    • Mitigated with the introduction of the Helios Rifle, a particularly destructive and incendiary Energy Weapon assault rifle with a large magazine and high damage output in addition to the ability to the ability to set zeds alight. It even surpasses the stronger Commando assault rifles! Also the MAC-10, not only that it's cross-perk with SWAT, but it also puts the strongest non-incendiary SWAT SMG to shame with its incendiary capability.
  • The SWAT perk is considered by some players to be a more expensive yet inefficient version of the Commando perk with no benefits to make up for its inherent flaws. Arguments include higher ammo costs, low base damage of the SMGs (the UMP being an exception), high fire rates that makes the two aforementioned issues very problematic, many of the left side perk skills being ineffective compared to the right side skills, not being able to effectively kill Fleshpounds in a multiplayer match and lacking the team-wide utility a Commando brings (granting Stalker vision and Zed Time extensions to the entire team), as SWAT perks only directly benefit the SWAT player. SWAT also struggles with dealing damage to bosses as they resist SMG damage, making the already low damage even lower. The perk does have its upsides such as higher mag sizes the more you level up (up to double the capacity at level 25), flashbangs that stun any zeds nearby with a short fuse time and can compliment other trash killing perks, but the low damage starts counteracting these good points once Gorefiends and other tougher zeds start popping up.
    • Then came the HRG Nailgun, a variant of the Berserker's and Support's VLAD-1000 in the Grim Treatments update. The damage type it deals is resisted considerably less by Fleshpounds and armored Zeds, and is accordingly a better choice against them than the rest of the perk's arsenal. SWAT still isn't a dedicated big zed killer in the same way as a Sharpshooter or Demolitionist, but it lets them stand on more even ground alongside the rest of the team or even on its own.
• Narm:
  • The Tiny Terror weekly makes players and Zeds shrink in size as they take damage. By itself, that qualifies as narm, but in addition their voice's pitch scales with their size, meaning that eventually, Helium Speech is in effect. The same thing happens to Zeds that get hit with the DLC Reducto Ray. It's especially notable against the seasonal Zeds and bosses, and it becomes hard to take Hans or the Patriarch seriously when they sound like chipmunks.
  • Up, Up and Decay meanwhile causes zeds to swell up when shot at, as if they're fleshy balloons. Needless to say, it becomes hard not to laugh when it happens to the already obese Bloats, who start to look like an extreme case of someone with too much fat in their bodily reserves.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • The way specimens swell up when microwaved isn't exactly pretty.◊
  • The game somehow becomes even more disgusting when Nvidia Flex is turned on. This applies liquid physics to the spilled blood, increases the amount of gibs Zeds get blown into (which includes streams of intestines flying around) and adds liquid physics to the Bloats' puke, along with most spilled blood. Player discretion is advised for those with weak stomachs.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • The shop pod is universally disliked compared to the previous shopkeeper, who at least had So Bad, It's Good quotes, not to mention that the pod tends to be snide and patronizing when a player lacks ammo, armor, grenades, etc. Given how the average round goes, you will always have a sarcastic French lady calling you an idiot for not playing perfectly at all times. The Zedconomy update made her even more unlikable, if not for the Zedconomy itself, then for being a total Hypocrite to Masterson.
  • Averted with Hans Volter, as while people still clamored for the Patriarch's return (which eventually happened), they still consider Volter as equally badass.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • The weapon rebalance update gave the Medic SMG, the M79 Grenade Launcher, and the M4 Auto Shotgun a significant increase in ammo capacity, allowing them to be viable weapons (weight incompatibility with certain weapons notwithstanding).
  • The Firebug perk was hated because it tended to create unnecessary (and potentially team-destroying) chaos with its fire weapons, disrupting precision based perks like the Sharpshooter and Gunslinger, and raging Scrakes and Fleshpounds before proper takedowns could be performed. They were also a class that forced players to switch for another class when you entered the boss round, because their weapons were overall terrible at taking down Bosses. Come the Spring update of 2019, these issues were addressed by increasing the amount of fire damage needed to cause a panic state and by giving the perk the Helios Rifle, which can easily take down virtually everything.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Reload cancelling with the SG 500, M4, and Trench Gun shotguns had aim-issues, which meant that you'd most likely miss your first shot, if you were trying to reload cancel with a shot. It has been fixed, though, making this an effective strategy.
  • The way the camera swerves to focus on a clot when they grab you, forcing you to kill the clot in question before you can control the camera again, receives a lot of ire, likely disorientating a player and causing them to waste a shot on the grabber. While some players appreciate it for making minor zeds more threatening and the disorientation may be intentional, others loathe it considering the tendency for lone Clots to sneak up on a player and force them to waste a shot meant for something actually dangerous at the worst possible times. An update eventually made it possible to turn off the camera swerve, allowing those who prefer this mechanic to still keep it and those who hate it to no longer have to deal with it.
  • The way enemies can teleport if off screen, though convenient at a wave's end to sweep up stragglers, can lead to incredibly frustrating and counter-intuitive situations where running too far from a group of Zeds makes you more likely to be surrounded by them. Tripwire eventually released an update that significantly reduced instances of zed teleportation, making it far less likely to run into the zed swarm you're trying to escape from.
    • While teleportation has been toned town, the game's spawn system has caught a lot of flak as time went on. Zeds spawn outside of line of sight of players; the problem is that around a corner two feet away, and on rare occasions even right next to you so long as you're looking the other way, is considered fair game by the system. This can lead to situations where a player is forced to kite away from a horde, killing the pursuing zeds in the meanwhile and meet with anything from a mere clot to a full-fledged Scrake or Fleshpound ready to pummel them down simply by turning around.
  • Quarter Pounds and Fleshpounds have a chance to spawn in already enraged at higher difficulties. Some like the extra hectic challenge this can cause, while others find the not-impossible potential of multiple fleshpounds spawning in hitting the Killing Floor running to be a bit of a cheap way to lose a match.
  • The Killerwatt's alt-fire slows the player using it, which by itself is reasonable to make it feel heavy and powerful. But in addition to that, it also used to lower the aim sensitivity when fired. This aspect made it unnecessarily difficult to switch between targets and often ended up wasting ammo spent charging up the weapon. The Last Hans Standing update in 2023 increased the aiming speed for the weapon's alt-fire when firing, fixing the problem.
    • The later added Minigun has the same issue while spun up, making it very difficult to react to any zeds that sneak up from behind or the player's sides, further compounded by a lowered movement speed.
  • Because of recycled code, E.D.A.R.s can spawn alongside Stalkers and Husks. In normal matches, it's a minor annoyance, but in Endless it ends up outright breaking two special waves, which normally only spawn one of the two enemies. While they're similar to Husks in terms of ranged damage, it also means players can have their health withered down by lasers or rockets while pursued by a group of invisible women that can easily gang up on you.
  • The Boom outbreak/wave is infamous for being highly punishing, as it causes killed enemies to explode and damage nearby players (and only players) to make the bad time of getting hit even worse. Also, Fleshpounds always spawn as enraged. Players doing the Endless game mode consider it lucky to have their match manage to continue through Boom waves.
  • Burst-fire on weapons that support it (examples being the Helios Rifle and MP5) is considered absolutely pointless to switch to, due to forcing players to use a set amount of ammo for every shot (compared to full-auto and single-fire), while also not buffing any other stats like damage or rate of fire. The one exception to the trait is the AK-12, where firing in burstmode ups the RoF to 1000 RPM, allowing players skilled in recoil compensation to output much more DPS than full-auto would allow.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: While the game is harder than the first in many ways, it's easier in several aspects as well:
  • It is now much easier to level up perks, as the process of killing certain zeds with certain weapons or performing certain other actions isn't mandatory, dosh is more readily available on all difficulties and nothing costs quite as much as the ridiculous rates they could reach in the first game (the most you'll pay for anything is 2,000 - one of the last weapons added in the first game infamously required three times that much just to fully replenish its ammo).
  • A crosshair can be enabled, making it more viable to shoot from the hip while moving, especially for the SWAT (due to their high-capacity SMGs) and Support (which use shotguns and can increase their maximum ammunition pool) perks.
  • Sprinting (which can be done in any direction) will keep you away from most zeds, even more so when a 2019 update added one-tap sprinting rather than having to hold the button, making dashing viable.
  • The Quick Melee bashing mechanic reliably stumbles zeds you hit with it, so along with sprinting, a player is going to need to be in a very bad situation (e.g. surrounded by 10 zeds in a corner with an empty magazine) to truly get into trouble, while in the first game just a clot grabbing you with 2 gorefasts with it was already a very painful situation.
  • Blocking with melee weapons (even classes' default starter weapons) makes getting smacked even by a boss or an enraged Fleshpound a lot more survivable than the first game.
  • Healing syringes/darts are generally more effective (using the syringe on yourself causes it to fully recharge in 15 seconds, compared to 20 seconds in the first game, the recharge is halved if you use it on someone else, and the hitboxes for landing darts upon allies is a lot larger) and the basic Medic weapon, the HMTech-101 Pistol, only requiring 1 weight block and 200 bucks can mean careful teams which all buy it won't even need a Medic to stay alive.
  • And the non-Patriarch bosses' lack of invisibility and predictable movement and attack patterns make it easier for the team to plan ahead and bombard him with fire at intervals. Even the Patriarch isn't so brutal as he used to be in some ways, since he's a lot noisier, and his missiles, while harder to dodge in open ground due to launching three at a time, aren't guaranteed to be One-Hit Kills anymore.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Surprisingly enough, a ton of things got harder in KF2, and in a fair way:
  • Most official maps are considerably shrunk or made narrower and more labyrinthine, not to mention in some place full of dead-end obstacles.
  • Specimens no longer spawn at relatively fixed rates. Spawning instead occurs in peaks and troughs, meaning that players are often swamped with a slightly-larger-than-comfortable group of enemies, which then subside to a trickle for a few moments before the next peak hits. This also makes isolating/eliminating high-priority targets more difficult, as players are often forced to instead eliminate the weaker zeds that are approaching in large numbers lest they get swamped. According to the developer, this spawning algorithm was applied so that the action feels a lot more fast-paced without exhausting the players. It certainly enhances the tension experienced during gameplay and makes surviving each wave feel like more of an accomplishment even at lower difficulties.
  • Enemies gain new attacks on higher difficulties, which means they'll take you by surprise on Hard and up. Husks actually use their flamethrower as a flamethrower when a player is near them on Suicidal (quickly cooking even Berserkers), when on Hard, the worst they'll do in close range is a Suicide Attack at you.
  • A few "rare" zeds spawn increasingly more often on harder difficulties: Rioters, which are Alpha Clots with whiter skin, blue veins, and armor, that can speed up nearby clots to mob you; Elite Crawlers, which are white Crawlers that explode into a gas cloud if not killed by a headshot; and Gorefiends, darker-skinned Gorefasts with a blade attached to both arms that are noticeably tougher, immediately sprint at you once damaged instead of just when close enough, and can perform a devastating Spin Attack.
  • A number of smaller Zeds that are completely away from any players for five seconds can teleport to a spawn point nearby where players actually are, making safely kiting every zed and slowly headshotting them all to death a lot more difficult to achieve - odds are fairly good you'll run straight into one while trying it.
  • Not only that, but on Suicidal, all enemies can go "berserk", making them move faster than even a sprinting player with no weight on.
  • Hans Volter. Oh boy, this guy... this guy can be much worse than the Patriarch. What makes him much more difficult? He lacks the invisibility of his predecessor, but he is much more mobile, making up for the new player advantage of sprinting. Oh and he can out-run most players, except for a decently leveled Medic. He also wields dual StG-44s which chew through your Armor and Health really quickly. He also throws 3 different grenades, two of which are very deadly^note One is a toxic grenade, leaving a cloud of toxic something, that seems like Bloat bile, and an explosive grenade, that is very effective at ripping you to shreds., along with going berserk when low enough on health, where he'll rip through whichever player he has targeted.
  • Random weapons drops have been seriously nerfed since the beginning - all that drops are starting weapons that sell for $100, making it impossible to build up any serious extra cash just by stockpiling weapons and selling them at the end of a wave, even on Normal difficulty. Ammo drops have similarly become parsimonious outside of the boss wave or maps where you traverse different areas for each wave, with but a single box spawning on the first wave at higher difficulties.
  • A few of the zeds have new animations that make them much more difficult to hit. The Stalker no longer runs at you in a straight line and will somersault and do spin kicks when she gets near you, crawlers may attempt to dodge to the side as you shoot at them, the Scrake frantically swirls around when enraged, and the Fleshpound covers up his weak spot when charging at you. Needless to say, scoring headshots becomes a bitch.
  • EDARs are a hugely dangerous addition to the game compared to the first - not only will headshots fail to kill them (or stop their special attacks), but their vulnerable point is on their chest which can makes singling them out of a crowd and eliminating them without serious firepower very difficult. Fortunately, the death of one will cause an EMP effect to make handling all of the remaining zeds far easier for a little bit.
• That One Achievement: While Killing Floor 2's achievements are in general easier and more straight-forward than the ones in the first game, Quick on the Trigger can be a sore spot for players to obtain. It sounds simple enough, kill the Patriarch before he manages to heal himself for the first time, but what the description does not mention is that it only counts for the player that lands the killing blow on the boss. Contributed most of the damage as a Sharpshooter and the Medic takes his last HP away with a stray bullet from their AR? Too bad, you get nothing for your efforts. It's a bit easier if you play by yourself in Endless and fight him on wave 5^*The first boss you fight in Endless has less health than they do in Survival, though that still leaves you at the mercy of RNG.
• That One Attack: The Matriarch's plasma cannon can quickly burn up players who stay out in open areas, as it does a continuous stream of fire damage and, unlike the King Fleshpound's laser, it cannot be avoided by crouching. The only way to evade it is to go behind cover (which there may not be much or nearby depending on the map) or destroy it (which can take a while). It was at its worst in Beta 1 of the Yuletide Horror update, where on Hell on Earth, a player could be killed by it in it a matter of seconds. The second beta nerfed the attack's damage, but it's still her most powerful weapon available, as her other methods of damage^*EMP Blast, Tesla Cannon, Sonic Waves and melee attacks. are either limited by fire-rate or the need to rush up to close range, and it's still easily possible for her to bring a player from full health and armor to death if they're in an open enough area that they can't break line of sight.
• That One Boss:
  • Hans Volter. Moves erratically, spams gas grenades and dual assault rifles, and then will try to make a grab for a player at least three times to drain the grabbed player's health. After three times, he goes berserk. To top it off, on Hell on Earth difficulty, he can summon both Scrakes and Quarter Pounds during the battle, enemies that already on their own demand cooperation from players.
  • The Patriarch. Starts cloaked and tries to ambush, has a gatling gun with the expected damage at harder difficulties, a rocket launcher that can fire a trio of rockets directly at you or like a mortar if you're behind cover, and Body Horror chest tentacle to grab player and pull them into melee position. If his health reduced to just below half, he will cloak and run to refill his health at least three times (though he's still vulnerable, just hard to find). After three times, like Hans, he will go berserk.
  • King Fleshpound. Take the Fleshpound. Make him stronger and able to summon hordes of the (weaker, but still dangerous) Quarter Pounds. After his health reaches a quarter, he activates a shield and also starts shooting a laser beam that deals high damage on harder difficulties.
  • The Matriarch is basically a heavily armored variant of Patriarch, trading the ability to cloak and refill for higher raw health, damage reduction due to being armored, also trading the rocket launcher to an even more damaging plasma cannon, and the fact that she summons the robotic (and more durable than organic) EDAR as her flunky.
• That One Level:
  • Any map that is particularly claustrophobic, with little room for kiting that makes it harder for long range classes like the Sharpshooter or the Commando, forcing them into close-quarters combat. Special mention goes to Catacombs, the Descent, Power Core and Lockdown.
  • ZED Landing deserves a special mention. Despite taking place in an island and daylight, the place is smaller than it looks, with thick grass and also dead-end invisible walls. And it has some extremely long sight-lines, which are good for taking care of enemies at a distance before they get too close, but makes it surprisingly difficult to break line of sight against later-added bosses with extremely dangerous attacks that can only be dodged by breaking line of sight.
  • Black Forest is another contender. While it offers plenty of space to kite within, the terrain in many areas is uneven which complicates aiming for precision perks like Gunslinger and Sharpshooter, and the vegetation can end up blocking line of sight. As the match progresses, the daylight starts to give way to a rather foggy night, further obscuring vision for players. All of these factors make for a challenging map.
  • Endless mode has a chance for every non-boss wave from wave 6 on to have a special condition, some of them borrowed from the Weekly Outbreaks. A selection of these can give even the most experienced of players a tough time:
    • Boom, which causes every zed to be Made of Explodium. Being near a zed when it dies inflicts explosive damage, which quickly adds up if you're chased by a horde or get cornered. The zeds are also not affected by the explosions, so you can't even turn it against them. It's especially unforgiving for Berserkers, as their nature requires getting into melee range to deal damage, unless they opt for one of perk's ranged weapons. ^*Nailgun, Eviscerator, HRG Teslauncher, Frost Fang or the Piranha Pistols.
    • Up, Up and Decay, which in addition to raising some of the Zeds' HP, also makes them regenerate health passively. This makes constant fire a requirement (especially on big Zeds), which increases the risk of running out of ammo. If many squad members get killed and the players left alone are using perks not designed to handle these zeds, chances are everyone's going to be taking a dirt nap.
    • Scrake-only, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Every Zed is replaced by a Scrake, albeit to compensate the enemy count goes down. While not a big issue in solo games as the health of the Scrakes is reduced and the player can safely kite around without worrying about teammates, in multiplayer these waves can spell a quick end for a squad if their coordination isn't consistent, as it's easy for an hapless player to enrage too many Scrakes and ensure the rest cannot focus enough fire on them quickly enough.
    • Fleshpound-only, which was amongst the most brutal ones. With their high health pool, having possibly over a hundred of the toughest enemy in the game that would automatically rage after a certain amount of time passed or damage was inflicted ensured an exercise of extreme caution and teamwork. This wave was disabled with the Monster Masquerade update due to, according to Tripwire, the Fleshpounds unintentionally disrupting the difficulty of gameplay thanks to a spawn rate issue.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many community-made maps which have been integrated into the game officially have seen major changes to either their aesthetics, layout or both, which have not always been received kindly by players who enjoyed the workshop versions. In the case of Desolation^*Added in the Perilous Plunder update of 2020, even the map author was displeased with the changes that he felt punished players for kiting (since there are now shipping containers, crates, and other things for players to get caught up on if they aren't looking where they go every five feet) and holding rooms on it (since the button for turning on the generator was moved to a less convenient location), and went so far as to make a comparison video to showcase the differences.