Thread: Iron Sights

Originally Posted by DTbasketball855

Thank you, best post yet.

I don't agree with everything you say though, like it could be implemented in campaign mode, or that looking cool is that much of a pro (I know you were trying)..

Thanks, I know 'looking cool' isn't much of a pro, but that just proves even more how the cons out weigh the pros. It was very hard to come up with a lot of the pros I had.

Originally Posted by thomasisg123

lol thats what the kick vote is implanted. I dont see how aiming slows down the team? the hr doesn't slow down the team.

Sir, we're not talking about an individual member of the team here. We're mentioning that iron sights encourage this kind of behavior in many. Just about everyone will interpret from the iron sights that this game is indeed stop-and-pop.

Oh, and the hunting rifle doesn't slow down the team because not every player uses it. Many hunting rifle users are encouraged to move quickly because their non-HR teammates are moving quickly. Give EVERYONE iron-sighted weapons, and most of the players who use them are going to be encouraged to stop.

Originally Posted by IfinityNoir

I just came here to offer a different point of view when it comes to Iron Sights - Call of Duty has been mentioned quite a lot in this thread, and guess what? I was actually a CoD4 gun-nut

I've heard a lot of talk about Iron Sights slowing down the gameplay, or making players more prone to attacks or whatever... well...

Here is how I used to play CoD4 on public servers (hardcore mode, which means almost the entire HUD removed, no crosshairs, no grenade indicators no nothing):

Pick my favorite submachine gun - usually an MP5 or P90, but hell a lot of the time even a MiniUZI or a Scorpion.
Pick my Desert Eagle.
Take Bandolier, Double Tap and Dead Silence as perks. (which means: Additional ammo, faster rate of fire and almost unnoticable footsteps)

And then just move around the map like a madman, constantly changing my angle of attacks, choose different entry points to get up close & personal to my victims.
If they were close enough, I would just spray them down (as a person who has been playing shooter games for a looong time you have it in your blood & guts where your gun is pointing at, without even needing a crosshair).
If they were a little further away and we would get into a firefight, I would aim down the sights, get a burst of 2-5 shots off, remove the sights and MOVE - aim down the sights again, burst, remove sights and move again.

This is actually a very dynamic style of play and if you are good at it you are able to out-maneuver and out-smart your opponents who keep aiming down their sights pretty easily.


I don't know why this wouldn't be a good idea to implement in L4D#2 - implement some form of Hardcore Mode (which has been requested by a lot of players for a long time), with weaker Flash Lights etc. and also have the crosshair removed, so your only method of really being precise with your aiming would be aiming down the sights.

Now that wouldn't happen all the time and I doubt it would slow the game down, since a lot of the combat in L4D is CQB (close quarters battle) and you would only hinder yourself, if you would try to shoot a horde down, which is rapidly closing in on you.


The people who keep repeating it would only slow the game down and would make everybody sneak around like a bunch of commandos should realize, that there are other styles out there as well.

For example my very aggressive approach.

For me it'd be very viable to implement Iron Sights and I love the idea, because it would make exceptional players stand out even more, since it's tougher to carry yourself without a crosshair that is always present.

While this kind of a playstyle is excellent for an L4D type of game, the problem is that you are of the minority. Whenever I play Call of Duty 4 online (which I do frequently, I'm 10 levels from the second prestige), I find that almost all of the players adapt stop-n-pop gameplay.

Everywhere I look I see corner campers, people laying all over the floors, and snipers sitting idly in towers. There are the occasional players who do run and gun, but most (MOST) of the run-and-gunners are shot down quickly.

In the hardcore difficulties, I find that just about EVERYONE camps. Many of the players who rack in the most kills are people who sit in place and camp.

The problem is this: introduce iron sights to Left 4 Dead, and camping players who are used to succsess via stop-n-pop gameplay from Call of Duty would adapt this playstyle for Left 4 Dead.

And regarding the hardcore mode, I beleive that players should profess their skill via their ability to think on the fly. If a player can kill a hunter the second it pounces someone, kill a smoker the second it snags someone, and be able to intelligently navigate through the terrain while vomited on by a boomer, then they would show their skill.

A hardcore mode could introduce many things. perhaps a lack of medkits at the start of a level, less frequent item spawns, a massive amount of zombies, larger hordes drawn by boomers and crescendo events, more infected damage to the survivors, and less damage resistance could make the mode truly hardcore.

Good arguments, IfinityNoir, I won't quote your whole post, as it'll eat half the page, but you made some good points. Here are the bits I disagree with:

Originally Posted by IfinityNoir

This is actually a very dynamic style of play and if you are good at it you are able to out-maneuver and out-smart your opponents who keep aiming down their sights pretty easily.

I imagine this works nicely in COD4 where you have an opponent who is trying to get you in his ironsights and headshot you. However your opponents in L4D aren't trying to shoot you from a distance - they're charging like hell at you from about twelve different angles at once. Then you've got issues like being flanked from multiple directions by hordes - ironsights have one HUGE drawback for a lot of players - they encourage tunnel vision.
And then you throw hunters into the mix. They can attack from any angle, meaning that you have to be a pretty damn phenomenal shot to take one of those out of the sky with a horde bearing down on you as well as moving.

Originally Posted by IfinityNoir

Now that wouldn't happen all the time and I doubt it would slow the game down, since a lot of the combat in L4D is CQB (close quarters battle) and you would only hinder yourself, if you would try to shoot a horde down, which is rapidly closing in on you.

Ah, but you wouldn't only hinder yourself. You're also hindering every other player on your team, as they're the ones that have to run back to save your ass when you're pounced by a hunter you didn't see because you were peering down your ironsights. (Obviously this is a hypothetical 'you', not you specifically).

Originally Posted by IfinityNoir

The people who keep repeating it would only slow the game down and would make everybody sneak around like a bunch of commandos should realize, that there are other styles out there as well.

For example my very aggressive approach.

This is true, but you should also consider that the 'sneaking around like commandos' is already an issue in L4D with the Hunting Rifle (just after the church in Death Toll - how many times have you been stuck on the scaffolding for ten minutes while some jackass pretends he's Vasily freaking Zaytsev?) - imagine how much worse it gets when you bring ironsights in and people are trying to do it with the Assault Rifle and AK47.

At the end of the day, bringing ironsights in wouldn't KILL Left 4 Dead. However, it would run the risk of slowing the game down when a dumb minority of players decide to get all Solid Snake on the infected's asses. And to achieve what? The aiming system works fine as it is. There's no NEED to change something that works already.