[Multiplatform] Left 4 STOP THROWING PIPE BOMBS AT THE TANKS

Played with 3 friends of mine who have been looking forward to it for a while, and we had a bunch of fun with it, just replaying parts after we wiped.

Someone actually launched a molotov inside an air vent while we were all inside. After everyone but me was finished burning, I made an attempt to revive one of my buddies only to be shot in my face. Much teamkilling and hilarity ensued.

I'd agree that medium and easy are kinda cakewalks once you have a general feel for the game. They might be just right for beginners, but once you establish what guns you like, what paths you like to take, and so on, advanced and expert are the way to go. There are a few stipulations:


Shooting a Boomer too close: that's a wipe.
Getting separated: that's a wipe.
Startling a Witch: that's a wipe.
Using your health pack too early: that's a wipe.
Using your health pack too late: oh, you better believe that's a wipe.


In all honesty, though, they make the game hard, but not impossible, so your friends can always be brought back from the brink of death (or even respawned). The AI director manages to keep things fresh every time, even if the maps don't change.

There's a lot of audio cues in the game, so it pays to listen for the sounds of boss zombies around, or for the music to change when a team member is pinned, or a swarm spawns in. It's the first FPS I've played to put so much relevant info into the sound of the game.

How ya doing, buddy?

It can get annoying, but I've noticed that it also cues me in to when I should be reloading. If you face down a swarm, you have to have some people firing while others are reloading, so it's staggered slightly. I noticed the other night that when we all emptied clips, we tended to get separated from one another in our panic to reload, and then surrounded soon after that.

That maphack thing sounds pretty amazing, too. Can't wait to see how people put it to good use.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm going to throw this out there, because after playing some more on expert last night, it is just too important:

Shoving will be your bestest friend forever and ever. <3

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by The Dopefish

Sadly, it's probably possible to die on the roof. I'm waiting for it to happen. You watch. A Boomer is gonna come from the stairs, with a Hunter from another building and a Horde comes just after the Boomer barfs on everyone.

You watch.

A friend watched as we had a swarm, a smoker, and a hunter all come from another roof on top of ours. We didn't wipe, but it's entirely possible to idle on the roof and die.

Originally Posted by How Unfortunate

What's the problem people are having? The hordes or the special infected? Are you meleeing copiously during horde attacks?

Does anyone know: do tanks have a weakpoint? I've heard people claim the hands or the head.

Fire helps, but I don't think they're particularly weak against it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Good god, the top of that hospital on No Mercy is ridiculous. Given, we were playing on advanced, but just trying to stay in the same general spot as your teammates is hard.

Smokers seemed to get me more often than not, and they usually followed a swarm in, standing among all the bodies in the confusion. Hell, even taking out the tank wasn't all that hard after a couple of tries, but because the smokers can get you from so far away, there was always that confusion from my teammates about where they were supposed to be shooting.

Still so much fun, though. I mean, literally 10 or 15 times we played the same rooftop scene, and the only reason we didn't keep going until we finished was because we all had to get up early the next day.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Left 4 Dead sales in Russia spur mad rush for adrenaline high, brains.

YouTube Video

-After playing some rounds on versus, I've decided that advanced is a lot easier than I thought at first. The dev commentary mentioned that versus mode was made basically to be biased in favor of the zombies, so it takes a really miraculous circumstance, or really inept infected team, to see survivors make it all together.

-Shotgun remains my all time favorite, although playing through Death Toll made me appreciate the value of a good long-distance weapon.

-somehow, I managed to get Mercy Killer even though I died literally right next to the helicopter. This did not make up for the fact that the game threw a total of three tanks at us in the Death Toll finale. I got stomped on my way to the boat, and it made me sad.

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Originally Posted by The Dopefish

Now, is this three tanks at a time? Or over the course of the final siege? Because that seems like the standard; you're going to get around five Hunters, Smokers and Boomers and two Tanks before your salvation arrives, then generally another Tank (but sometimes a Boomer, as Pang, Sass and I found out a couple of nights ago) during a Horde as your help shows up.

It was over the course of the finale, but for some reason I only remembered one in No Mercy, and then the one at the very end when the heli arrives. Well, at any rate, I was in the red by the time the final rush for the boat came around, so there wasn't much I could do except get beaten with the tank's hamhock arms.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by The Dopefish

As far as maps or campaigns go, not being a zombie-movie aficionado makes it hard for me to come up with any suggestions or ideas, outside of Shawn of the Dead. That would probably require a mod to inject a lot more funny into the game.

Really you could go with any horror movie cliche and make something good come of it. A rural setting like The original Night of the Living Dead, with objectives placed in the way, would be pretty cool. If there were some way for the game to put an activation timer on a vehicle, you could set up a finale level where one survivor has to hotwire the car while the other three cover him.

Or there could be one level that finishes with a surprise-- like the whole time the survivors are trying to get to a military base for safety, but just as they try to close the last safehouse door, they find out the place is overrun.

Or maybe just a panic event in a church, where you have to go up to the bell tower and ring the bells to let people know you're there, but of course it brings 8 million zombies down on your head. The noise of the bells drowns out audio cues for boss infected, and hilarity ensues.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Garr

So hey, are people who play as Survivors on Versus retarded or something? As soon as the game starts up, it's like they all split off and do their own thing. After dying a few times, I ended up being a Smoker towards the end of the first level of No Mercy. I got up into the building overlooking the staircase that leads down to the first safehouse and chilled there for a while. I manage to snag the guy playing as Louis, but I figure the tongue stretching down the entire building constricting a guy wearing a white shirt would be hard to miss, so I didn't expect it to last.

Once people start getting closer to the safehouse, it's amazing how many will just take off. That open area is a deathtrap, and it doesn't help that some assholes like to hit the car alarm on purpose just to fuck with other people's day.

I've also noticed that people can

Spoiler:

while on infected team, switch teams back and forth quickly to get a hunter respawn right away, which also tends to fuck with the AI on your team bots, so they stand around looking dense.

It's getting worse, I've noticed. Hope they come out with a patch pretty soon. Some more attention to clipping issues would be great too. Can't count the number of times I've gotten stuck on a door or a corner.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

Oooh, one more thing. Witches. People will tell you to loom over them, and the survivors will be FORCED TO SHOOT HER! Nobody falls for this anymore, it's an empty threat and you both just stand there staring at each other like idiots until you get headshot. What you do instead is wait for the cocky geniuses to make their CR0WND attempt and ambush them from the side while they stare down the barrel all a-tremble. As a bonus this almost guarantees they will fuck up the assassination and loose the witch on themselves in addition to whatever hurt you may put on them. Almost a guaranteed incap.

Did they remove the ability to rile up the witch, also? I noticed infected doing it before, but when I tried it the other night it didn't seem to work.

I wish they'd do something to beef up smokers, though. Now that everyone knows melee is the thing to do, they're not much more than an inconvenience. Granted, the truck yard is a great place to drag people off, but there's only a few places like that in the game where it's worth it to be smoker.

Really what I'd like are some teammates who actually look out for me. Can't count the number of times everybody's taken off without any concern for yours truly, and what do you know, I get surrounded by all the zombies they just passed by without killing, and a pounce or a pull follows soon afterwards.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I dunno if this is so but I think if the team rushes the map you might be able to outrun the tank spawning. Either that or the Director was being super gay.

My experiences with rushing have always turned out badly in this game. Inevitably, because people are more concerned with going forward than making sure their backs are covered, someone gets separated by zombies that get in the way, or a smoker grabs the last one through, and everybody else is like "Oh, thought you were with us. Well, anyways, let's go." Usually by that point it's just a matter of picking off the rest.

Besides that, it's not usually too hard to take down a tank as long as you're in an area where you can all focus your fire on him.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

After going through a crazy Orange-walled custom level (Textures missing I guess) tonight with Pang, Dope & Sass, I looked around to see what other stuff people have come up with. I saw a BioHazard type mod, a couple player Skins (Especially for Zoe) but the creme de la creme HAS TO BE THIS:

Crossroads Mall - A Replica of the Mall in Dawn of the Dead

I saw this on youtube already, but as huge as it is, it will need more work to ensure survivors aren't wandering aimlessly or getting separated when they play. As it stands, there's not even an indication of where a person should go to find a safehouse.

Here's an updated walkthrough of some of the work they've done, which looks good so far.
YouTube - Dead before Dawn - Left 4 Dead New Map

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

After a couple of throwaway rounds, I almost feel better about the old smoker. I prefer having a surefire backtrack for the survivors to a little extra damage here or there.

It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to nerf hunter swipes, either. The appeal is that they're silent compared to smokers and boomers, who will almost never be up in close combat and won't have a lot of excuses to melee. The improved pounce is nice, but it doesn't provide a lot of flexibility on the infected side.

Also this.

Spoiler:

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by StarmanDX

How was getting your tongue broken instantly by melee any more surefire? I don't see how the tongue is anything but stronger now.

Smoker before was a waiting game, but a sure kill was a sure kill, and at the very least you made people go in the opposite direction to get to the survivor. The tongue now is supposed to be more specific in its targeting, but so far all I've seen is that it doesn't seem to grab as often.

It could just take some getting used to, but it definitely operates differently now.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Grail

That's the thing, when 3 hunters have 3 people pounced and a smoker has 1 person died up, I don't think anyone can shoot.

Smoker took quite a while to incapacitate before the patch, and I think the round ends only when everyone is incapacitated, so that's probably what happened.

Anyone heard any word on when the other 2 campaigns will be opened up?

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

At any rate if you run a local server (which is pretty easy to do in L4D) you can already load Death Toll and Dead Air in Versus Mode; they're just horridly unbalanced in their current incarnations.

I had no idea. I saw something like that in PA's forums but I didn't realize they were already playing those campaigns.

I think I'd enjoy the novelty, even if I wasn't alive for very long. D:

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Originally Posted by Qwarky

I had the sound stuttering problem and it was precisely cause of the nvidia driver. I rolled back to a previous driver and multicore works fine. If one has the latest driver, disabling multicore removes the stuttering and I didn't spot much of a visual difference.

The 182.xx drivers seem to have taken care of this, and the release notes talk about improved performance for L4D and a few other games, so you might want to try them out.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

I'm perfectly fine with randomness. I'm just tired of being the one guy in every game that doesn't want to Form Voltron. I love this game but it's getting impossible to enjoy Versus when every other player insists on making every single crescendo event into a non-participatory totem pole. For fuck's sake Valve just turn on player collisions. Yes it will cause some griefing but when I literally cannot hit the enemy because they have collapsed into a waveform I am already being griefed thank you very much.

You know, I think you're right. It would also negate some of the unbalancing that happens when you get 4 friends playing together in versus. It would force them to actually have to negotiate around one another, which would open them up to attacks a bit more.

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I think what I'd like to see now is a handicap system for points, because a team of randoms and I were doing well against another team until one and then two people left.

It's like, wow, you beat us! With alltalk on! 4 versus 2! Let's throw you a parade!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Gettin kinda fed up with people who go into co-op modes and run from safe room to safe room without regard for survivors.* Wish there was a way to penalize douchebags without making other people sit out. It would be awesome if someone that did that just got put in their own instance of the game where they have 0 survivors so the rest of us could actually play something.

*Also known as "I ran past the tank while he was throwing a rock/molesting other guys. Clearly I got mad game."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The problem is I'm not even playing versus, I'm just playing regular campaign or realism, and these people have it in their heads that the most fun you can have playing this game is to avoid the game itself.

And the whole time I'm just sitting there, like....wow, really?

How ya doing, buddy?

Apparently everything gets louder the more it gets oversimplified.

There's certain circumstances (tank, neverending horde, etc) where one survivor is better than none at all. But these people are flat-out running without regard to anything around them. If a smoker snags them or they run face-first into a witch, and there's nobody around to help them, it's just "aw, man, cheap-ass game." But if they make it to the saferoom against all odds, then it's "jeez, I got mad game, yo."

It's taking the structure of the game and making it approach randomness. So have fun playing this and Modern Warfare 2, if that's your thing.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Jinn

But really, comparing Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2 is pretty ridiculous.

*shrug*

Only as much as the nade spam and exploits makes it less fun for people who are playing the game.

And then we get into the whole "if they hadn't wanted players to do it it wouldn't be in the game" which is just...I don't even know where to begin with that.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Tails

Second, stop crying like a woman. "Oh no some dudes on the internet played the game wrong" I assume you must be new to online gaming. Random people suck, welcome to about ten years ago.

Jesus, sorry I poked your sacred cow with a stick.

"He's never played an online game before but he's complaining-- on the internet, of all things!! What a scoop! Sure hope no one's irony meter goes through the roof on this one!"

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I used to have mad game

but the trade-in value was too much to turn down

Jam it back in, in the dark.