KF2 Unwritten Rules: Etiquette, Perk Roles, Dosh Bind and Skipping Intros

This is a translation of a Russian guide written in an internet-satire style, based on about 3000 hours of team play on vanilla Hell on Earth. It lists the "unwritten rules" of Killing Floor 2: how to behave toward teammates, quick perk roles, a handy dosh-toss bind and a launch option to skip the intro. The author stresses that it is opinion, partly humor, and about the time it was written.

The rules

Good play rests on understanding your team, a sense of mutual support and respect. The author laments random players who learn from bad guides and weak videos and then harm their team, knowingly or not.

1. It is only a game. Protect your nerves.
2. Lower your demands on others. Nobody owes you anything and you owe nothing to anyone. This is about randoms who sulk, insult and kick for no reason, not about denying teamwork. Examples of childish thinking: "the Medic should always heal me", "the Demolitionist should have hit", "the Berserker should have covered me".
3. When someone is throwing dosh, stand still and do not cross the money flow. The same applies to other people's items.
4. Leave only at wave changes, during the shop, after dropping dosh and weapons for others at the trader. Switching servers after every failure is not how you learn.
5. Pick a perk and play it to the end or until the boss, telling the team if you switch. Try to avoid duplicate perks.
6. Kick votes are a last resort. The usual reason for a kick vote is a newbie's fear that he cannot carry the match and wants to swap a "weak" player for a veteran. Some servers disable kick entirely.

Players, newbies included, come in two kinds. Some build automatic habits supported by inflated ego and deafness to feedback, the dead end. Others keep learning, searching for better builds and tactics. To help them, people compiled tables of all the game's numeric values (search "killing floor 2 stats" for the spreadsheet; see the numerical data spreadsheet).

7. Community. Many say it has become toxic, but the author believes many decent players exist and hide to avoid the noise. Tired of newbies? Teach them without forcing. You were a beginner once. Many adults log in for an hour to relax after a hard day.
8. Cheats. Yes, a PvE game has cheats, and using them is for the truly lost.
9. Fast leveling and perk training. It is up to you, but interest fades if you start maxed, and in the author's view it makes learning harder. Perk trainers often jump into Hell on Earth, get crushed and leave negative reviews.
10. Clans. In theory people unite around strong personalities or for company and learning from veterans. In practice an admin creates a group and a server, sometimes editing an open-source community mod by changing a few numbers, then writes silly rules built around his ego. Such groups usually fall apart from internal strife. Good servers exist; you just have to look. The author's advice is not to join clans, since Steam friends lists already unite the community, and it is easy to switch servers. Thanks go to the people who make mods and content and run low-ping servers for the Russian-speaking community. Killing Floor started as a mod, and the author hopes Tripwire returns to adding the best of them to the official build.

If you are angry, read rule 1.

The obvious and the incredible

A brief role summary, with the warning that Killing Floor has many special cases:

• Berserker: an unstoppable meat grinder that can destroy anything in any number; sometimes needs healing and cover from small Zeds.
• Medic: the main job is healing: take the left skill branch, stay near the team, keep everyone in view and press Tab often.
• Commando: 360-degree no-scope headshots. If you want to both heal and shoot, take the medic assault rifle.
• Support: can deal with everything on its own with the Boomstick; team-minded players take the expanded backpack.
• Demolitionist and Sharpshooter: mainly for killing big Zeds or clumps of small ones (Demolitionist), so cover them up close so they can aim accurately, especially during the boss's minion waves.
• Firebug: better off carrying a microwave gun, which pushes Zeds back and does big damage to robots. Ideally set fewer Scrakes on fire.
• Survivalist: called useless at the time (needs more effort to win), but an update added explosion resistance and improved shrapnel; developers said it equals a level-15 Berserker or Medic.
• Gunslinger: needs steady hands, and then kills everything.
• SWAT: versatile, but avoid Fleshpounds if the team is not ready; focus on small Zeds.

Cover every player. A medic pistol in a spare slot helps. If big Zeds appear unexpectedly, any perk can hold for a while by blocking with the knife. Use the radial menu to call for help or healing, and do not linger in passages. Welding fans should leave their craft behind at Hell on Earth, where it harms more than it helps. The author dislikes sitting in one place, calling it a pitiful style that gets boring; a real Zed hunter is not confined (clear the Farmhouse while staying outside as an example).

Dosh bind

You can bind a key to throw stacks of dosh quickly:

setbind m "tossmoney | tossmoney | tossmoney | tossmoney | tossmoney"

Here m is the key and each tossmoney is 50, so this throws 250 per press. For 500, repeat tossmoney ten times. For more variants see custom text binds and tossing dosh.

Remove the intro

Library, Killing Floor 2, Properties, Set launch options, and add -nostartupmovies (without quotes).

Conclusion

The author warns that trolling your team lowers your karma and may make the game crash, and that you tend to be matched with similar players. The guide is opinion, humor and dated to its time. It closes with a bonus poem, an ode to Killing Floor about forum gall, perk training, huddling in corners with a Berserker and a Medic who heals only himself, and with the idea that if everything makes you angry you should rest, while calling friends makes the game more fun.