Left 4 Dead 1/2

[Reject_666_6]

General gaming seems dead + the hivemind's opinion on the L4D series is missing

=

What do you think about it?

I got the Razor1911 version of 2 working in multiplayer and played with a mate of mine and it's pretty fun. The interface seems dumbed down to the max, but at least it doesn't have health regen and a cover system. What makes it fun is that there's actually some difficulty in it. Maybe it's because I'm playing with just one other guy, but some of the finales are brutal and survival requires some planning in order to stay alive longer.

Most of the criticism of 2 I hear of is that it's basically like 1 but with more of the same, but I'm looking for more objective opinions on them.

 

[MetalCraze]

Hivemind opinion on L4D is that it's good for what it is as always.

L4D is a grind-action chore. 1 minute you go and shoot lonely zombies - then a bunch of fast zombies try to rush you - then you have another minute of shooting lonely zombies - then fast zombies rush you again - repeat until the end of the game. Your typical action game with a cheap console-like design. Never understood why it's good for what it is. There is not even any sense of coop in the game. You just shoot zombies together. Even Alien Swarm which is a mere mod for UT2k4 requires more cooperative gaming than this.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Hivemind opinion on L4D is that it's good for what it is as always.

hahaha oh man that was clever I see what you did there that was totally unexpected high five dude

 

[ChristofferC]

I guess it's good for what it is but what it is isn't good.

 

[entertainer]

both shit. killing floor is better

 

[Reject_666_6]

Hivemind opinion on L4D is that it's good for what it is as always.

L4D is a grind-action chore. 1 minute you go and shoot lonely zombies - then a bunch of fast zombies try to rush you - then you have another minute of shooting lonely zombies - then fast zombies rush you again - repeat until the end of the game. Your typical action game with a cheap console-like design. Never understood why it's good for what it is. There is not even any sense of coop in the game. You just shoot zombies together. Even Alien Swarm which is a mere mod for UT2k4 requires more cooperative gaming than this.

I've played Alien Swarm and it requires about the same amount of cooperation, 1 or 0. Either you help your teammates, cover, heal, assist, etc or you don't and you lose. Compare these two examples to vanilla UT2k4, specifically the Invasion mode, in which you shoot aliens together but here it really doesn't require any cooperation - if you're good at shooting and dodging you can solo it easily.

Aslo, is that codex Alien Swarm game still going? I'm thinking of joining but I haven't seen the thread in a while.

 

[Hory]

It's good for what it is and what it is is the first coop zombie FPS to become popular. That's all. Now we just have to wait for the Starcraft of zombie FPS to be developed.

 

[Reject_666_6]

I thought you hated Starcraft, though. Or I'm confusing you with another codexer.

 

[MetalCraze]

if you're good at shooting and dodging you can solo it easily.

Which is what I've noticed about L4D.
In Alien Swarm good luck staying alive for more than a minute if you don't closely watch what your team is doing (but even with the team of two it's very very hard - even four-five of us could easily spent 2 hours doing one level). Then again I didn't say Alien Swarm is a milestone of coop gaming or anything. L4D really felt like a shooter for four instead of a game where you needed to survive through zombie apocalypse. Zombies didn't feel like zombies , they could've replaced them with any other melee monster and game would still play the same. Instead of proceeding carefully the game forced you to play a typical shooter.

Aslo, is that codex Alien Swarm game still going? I'm thinking of joining but I haven't seen the thread in a while.

Yeah it's being played once in a while.

 

[Nakuratz]

The only way to play l4d is Team Versus mode - you and 3 mates get all mic'd up and the (admittedly dodgy) matchmaking system pits you against another team. You can't join team versus lobbies at random, you have to either make the lobby yourself or be invited off the steam friends list, so you don't end up with anonymous cretins that spoil everything.

In a proper match, with both teams evenly skilled and voiping away, co-op is utterly essential, no way around it - running off by yourself will get you incapped/killed in moments; even splitting up into pairs is a surefire way to lose the round.

Single player/pubbing is mindless fun for a few rounds, but the AI for the bots and special infected is too poor for any sustainable joy. Versus is where it's at, and when it's good its pretty spectacular - whether you're a survivor being dragged off a few feet from the saferoom, yelling at your teammates 'just go, i'm done for, save yourselves', or an infected poised on a rooftop going over the plan on comms; hunter goes in first to give the boomer a few seconds to get close, jockey coming up from behind to nab a straggler and pull them around a corner or over a ledge... it's all good stuff, even when the plan inevitably disintegrates - the balancing is tight enough that one well-coordinated attack from the infected (or one fuckup from the survivors) can spell the end of the round, so there's always hope (or dread, if you're a survivor - even with your whole team at full health with medpacks to spare and the saferoom door in sight you know it could all go horribly wrong).

And yeah, L4D2 is a worthy sequal, tho i was on the ragewagon to start with. the complaint that they're too similar only really holds up if you're playing campaign or single-player - the new special infected completely change the dynamic of a versus round, particularly the spitter; in the first one it was too easy to survive a horde by holing up in a corner and shove/shoot/shove/shooting until the drums stopped. Now, not so much.

1 minute you go and shoot lonely zombies - then a bunch of fast zombies try to rush you - then you have another minute of shooting lonely zombies - then fast zombies rush you again - repeat until the end of the game.

Yeah, that's pretty much it in campaign mode. In versus, the ordinary zombies are just speed bumps, you barely pay attention to them as you're running through the level - you're too busy straining your ears for the gargling of a boomer behind a door, or looking out for the flash of green that means a spitter's about to ruin your day. It's hard to explain just how quickly things can go from rosy to utterly fucked.

So, yeah. Play it, but only if you can convince some other people to play with you, or you're willing to spend enough time slogging through pubs just to get the IDs of 3 other people that have a microphone and aren't retarded, so you can get into the good stuff.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I was going to post my thesis on L4D's good and bad points, but Nakuratz pretty much said what I would word for word. If you don't get to know good players fairly quick then you will probably start cutting your wrists once you have 5 hours of gameplay under your belt and can recognize the incredibly stupidity of the average pub player.

One thing that should be mentioned is that the map design is absolutely horrible in some places for versus mode, and unless you play with competitive mods rounds will generally end with both teams at the safe room and one team getting a 25 point tiebreaker lead because the other team took 1 more damage from stubbing their toe on a door threshold. Valve doesn't even care about balance, the map design is horrible in some places and despite the best efforts of the playerbase there is a lot of randomness which can cause the game to be decided by a coin toss.

 

[Sirus]

the games are fun for a while, but they are sooooo repetitive

 

[Hobo Elf]

L4D is good for what it is, and what it is is a playground for me to troll.

 

[Nakuratz]

One thing that should be mentioned is that the map design is absolutely horrible in some places for versus mode

This too. Maybe 3 of campaigns from l4d2 are good for versus (parish, dead center and dark carnival). The others are nice for a bit of variety now and then, but aren't up to much (swamp fever is particularly lame).

rounds will generally end with both teams at the safe room

Depends on the map, really. I find the opposite is true more often, especially towards the end of the campaigns - neither team survives, so whoever gets the furthest takes the round.

there is a lot of randomness which can cause the game to be decided by a coin toss.

Disagree. Each map is randomised for each game, but the same for both teams - so if you're a survivor and you get a tank right at the start of the map, you'll get a tank in the same place when you play infected - gives a slight advantage to whoever plays infected first, since you know where the weapons etc are, but then the team that's in the lead always plays survivor first, so it's not too unfair.

the games are fun for a while, but they are sooooo repetitive

Sadly true. Certain tactics for certain spots are so effective that you'll see them used over and over again, and it does get a bit tired.

Also, I neglected to mention that l4d2 is pretty bugtastic - you'll see a lot of animation glitches and it's not too hard to get stuck in the geometry and need to get bumped out to get moving again. Occasionally get weird truce situations where the survivors need a charger to knock one of their number free so the game can continue.

Also the matchmaking can be pretty infuriating, sometimes need to restart a campaign three or four times to get a server that doesnt ping >100 for everybody on both teams. And then when you finally get a low ping server, it'll have alltalk on (so everyone can hear everyone voicechatting) or voip switched off entirely or other random infuriances.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

One thing that should be mentioned is that the map design is absolutely horrible in some places for versus mode

This too. Maybe 3 of campaigns from l4d2 are good for versus (parish, dead center and dark carnival). The others are nice for a bit of variety now and then, but aren't up to much (swamp fever is particularly lame).

And even among those there are horrible maps. Dead center 1 is pretty much impossible to actually kill a survivor team so all you end up doing is hoping your lag-tastic chargers can kill someone off a building. Dark Carnival 5 is simply a horrible horrible map where there is absolutely no place to attack a survivor team from.

rounds will generally end with both teams at the safe room

Depends on the map, really. I find the opposite is true more often, especially towards the end of the campaigns - neither team survives, so whoever gets the furthest takes the round.

There is a reason the competitive config takes absolutely all medkits and defibs away. In standard L4D a team can negate 100-300 infected damage every 20 feet through a map.

there is a lot of randomness which can cause the game to be decided by a coin toss.

Disagree. Each map is randomised for each game, but the same for both teams - so if you're a survivor and you get a tank right at the start of the map, you'll get a tank in the same place when you play infected - gives a slight advantage to whoever plays infected first, since you know where the weapons etc are, but then the team that's in the lead always plays survivor first, so it's not too unfair.

Randomness I'm talking about is mostly two things
1. Getting random infected. You can go half a map without getting a charger or spitter if you are unlucky, which sucks ass. Those two infected can easily do hundreds of damage and kill a survivor team if you are lucky, and you could get them every time or none at all depending on chance.
2. Random tank spawns. One team gets a tank right before the crescendo and he gets set on fire before the player gets control and gunned down instantly. The next tank spawns during the crescendo during an infinite zombie horde and with cars to hit at survivors for an instant incap.

Also, I neglected to mention that l4d2 is pretty bugtastic - you'll see a lot of animation glitches and it's not too hard to get stuck in the geometry and need to get bumped out to get moving again. Occasionally get weird truce situations where the survivors need a charger to knock one of their number free so the game can continue.

I haven't actually seen many bad bugs. Never seen someone get stuck in geometry. There is a lot of really stupid design choices though. All guns look like you are holding them up to your ear. Overdone motion blur is tied to graphics options so you have to make the rest of the game look like shit to get rid of it. The console, which you use to select what server to load into, it turned off while in a lobby because Valve got sand in their vagina when players were able to use it to play versus in the l4d2 demo.

 

[Nakuratz]

Seems you've played a lot more than I have, so I guess I'll defer to your wisdom Never touched any competition mods or anything like that. I guess when you get up to the megapro people it's a whole other game again.

Strange you've never seen anyone get stuck, I see it all the time. Tho now I think about it, not for a while. Maybe they patched it out at some point. And yeah, the motion blur is super tacky, no idea why they thought it would be a good idea.

And yeah, good point about the infected spawns, it can get really annoying. Without a boomer or charger, there's not much the inf team can do.

But that's all part of the fun, imo. Luckily the people I play with take it seriously so I don't have to I just tag along and chuckle through their raeging when I loiter next to open windows/shoot alarmed cars/fail boom/startle the witch or any of the hundred or so other ways there are to fuck it all up for everyone. Joy.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

But that's all part of the fun, imo. Luckily the people I play with take it seriously so I don't have to I just tag along and chuckle through their raeging when I loiter next to open windows/shoot alarmed cars/fail boom/startle the witch or any of the hundred or so other ways there are to fuck it all up for everyone. Joy.

You could well be one of the people I play with. They seem to enjoy being yelled at by me for some reason while I rage every time things go bad for us. Though I too enjoy just fucking around if my team ends up being ahead in points.

Now that I recall correctly I have actually seen some instances of players getting stuck, however they always teleported a few feet onto solid ground on their own after about 10 seconds. There was just one or two notorious spots in L4D1 that this could happen in and you wouldn't get teleported.

For all its faults, in the realm of current gen games that you can reasonably play anywhere from the casual level to the competitive level, L4D is probably one of the best. It has a bit of uniqueness and is pretty easy to get into. It could be a LOT better if Valve would stop being stubborn bitches who can do nothing but slurp on microsoft's xbawkz cock.

 

[ever]

The opinion here is hypocritical

On the one hand the masterpiece DOOM gets all the praise it deserves for its action packed single player and 4 player co-op, but on the other hand L4D which is basically the same kind of game (strafe, shoot, strafe, hope there's ammo and medkits somewhere) gets hammered by skyway and all the blahblahbalh clones

 

[Reject_666_6]

if you're good at shooting and dodging you can solo it easily.

Which is what I've noticed about L4D.

L4D can't be soloed by design. Sure, if you were fighting only the regular kind of zombies it would be a cakewalk, but most of the special zombies can incapacitate you with no problem and kill you on the spot.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

On the one hand the masterpiece DOOM gets all the praise it deserves for its action packed single player and 4 player co-op, but on the other hand L4D which is basically the same kind of game (strafe, shoot, strafe, hope there's ammo and medkits somewhere) gets hammered by skyway and all the blahblahbalh clones

By that definition every FPS ever released is basically the same. The difference is in the details.

 

[ever]

No its not

CoD2 and onwards had regen and are open shooters where combat is done at a distance and a big part of it is the use of positioning and cover and you're not just shooting and strafing the whole time. In fact regen is such that it specifically requires you to take breaks from shooting.

Very different from DOOM and L4D

I think you can easily draw a distinction between different styles of FPS games.

You have your Duke3D/Half Life style action games, you have your DOOM/Quake1 style games you have your CoD2s and your Halos.

L4D is the traditional DOOM/Quake1 style. Strafe Shoot, almost never stop.

 

[entertainer]

Bullshit.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

General gaming seems dead + the hivemind's opinion on the L4D series is missing

=

What do you think about it?

Hordes of identically looking enemies running at you, infinite ammo, no leaning(lolconsolez), four maps you can replay over and over, "Director AI" which is a fancy name of dynamic difficulty which will always throw you a medkit or two when you're doing poorly, clipping bugs, weapon reload animations straight from a mod LOL WAIT IT IS A MOD LOL

In other words, another smash hit from Valve, ten million copies sold

 

[Quilty]

Considering the monstrosity Valve has become, there's nothing wrong in removing it from inventory, installing Garena + patch and giving it a whirl. The first one's actually pretty fun until you grow bored of playing the same maps and realize the community hasn't produced anything noteworthy yet. The second one was a disappointment.

 

[racofer]

L4D is the traditional DOOM/Quake1 style. Strafe Shoot, almost never stop.

OH TEH AUDACITY!