Thread: Versus is still bullshit

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

But, don't you think it's harder to survive then it was in L4D1?

It is, but if Versus is designed to be about how far the survivors can get rather than who can do more damage as infected, why does the director throw medkits everywhere, and why don't the infected see an increase in power (or reduction of spawn timers) when the survivors see an increase in power via T2's?

If a well-coordinated infected team can't manage to kill even one survivor against a moderately-coordinated survivor team, why would they fare better if they were fighting an equivalently skilled/coordinated team?

Damn, anytime you post it's always super well written and thought out.

I don't really understand but, still, no one can say you have bad grammar.

Originally Posted by Hocus Pocus

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You need some more dots. Here, I'll help you.

I don't care how good the survivors are. A GOOD SI team working together, coordinating GOOD attacks, and knowing GOOD spots to execute those attacks WILL take out a survivor team a majority of the time.

And yet it's sounding more and more like the Survivors are the ones "winning" each round when two highly competent teams are involved - and I think a lot of this is a result of both the director spawning too many items (especially medkits) too often, and the fact that the Survivors see a major increase in staying power when they get T2's... while Infected remain the same. They don't even get a reduction in spawn timers.

Maybe it can be chalked up to just the game being new; those competitive players haven't had the game any longer than the rest of us, and it's possible that they still haven't perfected their chargers, spitters, and jockeys. I'll accept that possibility.

But I still think that versus favors the survivors too strongly for Valve to apparently continue with their stance on "the survivors should rarely make it to the safe room." Who knows? Maybe just removing the medkits from the director's list of things to spawn would be enough - chip damage would certainly matter a hell of a lot more, since you'd have the four medkits you start with, maybe another here or there at crescendo and finale events, and that's it. But when you can knock someone down repeatedly only for them to find a medkit in a closet 20 feet away and be unable to stop them from healing... it's frustrating as hell.

Like it or not, the game isn't about pinning three survivors and mobbing the spare anymore, though it's still possible... just harder.

And again, I'm trying to emphasize a point that you guys seem to either be ignoring or misunderstanding - a decent team of survivors got all four people to the safe room against a very competent team of infected. They coordinated their booms perfectly (and I mean perfectly... they never failed a single boom, and there were only a handful of booms that were in a bad position or failed to get more than one person), they were damned good with coordinating their pins, and yet they still failed to stop us. They did a shitload more damage than us and got the 25 points, but it shouldn't have come to that - they should have stopped us cold. But we kept finding medkits. We got our T2's and suddenly those amazing booms didn't really bother us so much, and those chargers started dying before they could really start shoveling on the damage. Those hunters started getting skeeted by autoshotties, and the jockeys would get plastered before they could cart someone too far.

You can't deny that once your team gets their T2's (especially autoshotties), the infected that don't pin become significantly less problematic. If you get three people boomed when you're rocking pump shotties and uzis, and then two of those three get pinned... your team's gonna take a lot of damage before you can slog through the horde to kill the charger, chase the jockey in circles, and avoid the spit pools. But when you have your T2's, you can easily blow through the horde with an autoshotty, quickly mash the charger, snipe the jockey, and get out of the spit because the horde didn't keep you stuck for very long.

If it's really just because people can't coordinate their attacks for shit as infected, why is it so much easier to reach the safe room with T2's than with T1's? Do you think you'd be able to reach the safe room without the random medkits?

your complaint is that it's too easy for the survivors once they get T2's? aren't t2's a reward for survivors for making it that far?
i dont see a problem if both teams get the same number of drops in the same places.

survivors that use teamwork should win every single time IMO. go play a random pub game and just see how many times survivors won't make it.
at least this is true in l4d i havent played l4d2 enough to draw a different conclusion, but it should be the same.

Can't say I've ever viewed them as a reward, but I guess it could be looked at like that. But what about maps that start you with T2's? Is that a reward simply for continuing to play the campaign (or just by happening to join at the right time?) If so, why don't the infected players get a similar reward (improved abilities, shorter spawn timers, whatever?)

The problem with the item drops (especially in regards to medkits) is that Team A could find all six medkits along the way to the safe room, and not need them and get 500 points for making it to the safe room. Team B could find all six medkits along the way to the safe room, use all six of them because of getting their asses stomped and get 500 points for making it to the safe room. Even though Team A pretty clearly trounced Team B, they only get a very small point bonus at the end of the round - a point bonus that could easily be reversed if Team A happens to make a mistake in the next round.

The scoring system is a lot better now than it was in L4D, but it's still flawed - this time because it doesn't reward a team for making it to the saferoom with medkits on their backs and pills on their belts. If you were rewarded for carrying items into the safe room (medkits, pills/shots, and maybe even throwables), I think you'd see more intense games, where Team A maybe should use that medkit or pills to ensure they'll make it... but choose to save that medkit/pills for the bonus at the end at the risk of someone not making it. As it is, there's absolutely no reason to take such a risk (a risk that I'd argue is skill-based, for those that really care about that kind of thing) because there's no reward for it. That's kinda lame.

Again, this is mostly just opinion, anyway. I still find the game fun enough as it is, otherwise I wouldn't play it... but I think that Valve can do better. Don't you think the games would be more intense (and more fun as a result) if the only medkits you got in each map were the four in the starting safe room (and static spawns at crescendos and finales), forcing you to rely more on temporary health and making judicious medkit use important? What about if you also received a point bonus for making it to the ending safe room with those medkits on your backs? Everyone's had games in both L4D and L4D2 where your team just barely scraped their way to the safe room with damn near everyone in black and white and like 12 health apiece, praying a hunter or charger doesn't show up to start slashing people to death, right? Wouldn't the game be more fun if those situations were more common?

My greatest argument for all of this VS bull is that survivors can almost always have the advantage. If a survivior team is well coordinated and has a good amount of FPS skills (such as past experience with CS or something) they can be unstopable.

A boom can be shot with his vomit mid air and the vomit stops (or meleed the milisecond after he pukes and it stops). Hunters can be dead stopped. Smoker tongue can be meleed or shot off by the one being pulled. Charger can easily be side-stepped. Spitter can be shot before their acid goes off, and even if the acid does go, it is easily dodged. Jockeys can be killed or meleed off within a split second.

Overall, SVs have the greatest advantage of all if they know what they are doing, and do it correctly. That is my flaw with Kanati's argument on well played SI combos and such.

However, there are hardly any teams that know exactly what they are doing, how to do it, and actually can do it. Soooo... Hurray for Kanati's argument!

I also do agree that there should be some type of reward for making it with all those goodies, but then there would be the outrageous scores again (one thing gone wrong can take down goodies bonus and destroy a team at the last second). There should also be a different bonus points system for most damage done. Let's say you are on the Dead Center campaign. Each team makes it to the saferoom every time, and beats the finale. The first 2 maps, Team A wins and gets a total of 50 extra bonus points. The last 2 maps, Team B wins and gets 50 bonus points. I have no clue how a tie works, but this seems like a logical thing that could happen in some time with equally matched teams.

So. Yeah. :2

I also do agree that there should be some type of reward for making it with all those goodies, but then there would be the outrageous scores again (one thing gone wrong can take down goodies bonus and destroy a team at the last second)

The outrageous scores were due to the survival multiplier for the most part. If all four players made it to the safe room, your score for that round got quadrupled. In L4D2, you just get 25 extra points per surviving player.

If medkits were worth 40 points each and pills/shots 25 points each, the absolute maximum bonus you could get in a round would be 260... which is about half of a normal map's completion points. And this is assuming that they could even make it to the saferoom without using those items. Versus is too easy for survivors, but it ain't that easy.