Thread: No more bonus medkits in RVS?

How'd this one slip by? I checked the news feed after Krom mentioned it and Adre confirmed it, but there's no mention of it anywhere! This makes me worry it's actually a bug, but since Valve's updating the game every week, I guess it isn't.

Still, it's almost like Valve is listening to players when they say that they don't feel it's fair for Infected to have to deal with immortal, superhuman Survivors. While I do enjoy confogl, I'd honestly be perfectly willing to give up some of the more drastic balance changes it imports if it means the base game (which the vast majority of servers run) receives the right balance adjustments in the right places. My personal wishlist, all to be applied to RVS (which could become L4D2's answer to TF2's "pro mode):

- Reduced item density, particularly for grenades. Maybe a maximum of six to eight grenades on any given map (at least half of which are off the beaten path), and six to eight health items - either pills or shots. One defibrillator in the starting safe room.

- Decreased number of T2 (Rifles, assault rifles, auto shotguns) spawns; usually in beginning or ending safe room. All ammo piles are removed from the map, except safe rooms. The idea being that players will eventually be forced to swap back to T1's if they don't conserve ammo. Seems like a nice compromise between confogl's no T2's ever and vanilla's T2's around every corner with ammo piles every thirty feet. The Inception frag vid posted in the L4D forums is absolute proof that you don't need T2's to get the job done - but they sure are fun.

- Tank is no longer slowed by taking damage, and spawns in the exact same place both rounds. It's really, really annoying to get fucked by your tank spawning too early or too late, and the tank being slowed by taking damage is unnecessary in my opinion. T2's absolutely shred tanks that aren't receiving support, and T1's can make quick work of him, too. A Tank should always be able to catch a yellow player if the yellow player isn't using terrain to block the Tank (Tank should move slightly faster than a yellow Survivor.) Tanks on every map.

- Wandering Witch activates as fast as a Crying Witch. Never really made much sense to me for her to take so much longer to activate, especially when she's so much easier to crown. At least one Witch every map. Witch spawns are identical between rounds, and Wandering Witches will wander in the same directions.

- SI spawn timers are locked at 22 seconds. Spawn distance on finales is identical to regular spawn distances - hopefully this will remove some of the "god spots" present in finales (like the upper right or upper left corner of Dark Carnival.)

- Hard Rain features a much higher item density than other campaigns, but functions like it does in Campaign. If you eat those pills on your way to the gas, they won't be there on your way back.


I think these ideas are fair. I mostly want to encourage (and maybe even force) some tactical thinking and planning for both teams (especially Survivors, since they generally don't need as much of a plan as Infected generally do.) Do you take that defib, or do you rely on teamwork to prevent a death and take the fourth medkit? Do you plow through hordes with your autoshotty to make distance as quickly as possible, or do you conserve that ammo so you can shred the Tank with it? Use that pipe to clear the boom, or hang onto it for a mad dash to the safe room? Rush down the main path or take some time to search for items in the side areas?

For the most part, it still feels like VS is focused too hard on rushing and doesn't have enough tactical decision making. I think that adding in some situations wherein the Survivors are forced to make a judgement call and tactical decisions increases the intensity of the game and makes it more fun.

I support this message.

I was so excited at the concept of Hard Rain, what with the potential for CONSERVATION, but then they totally blew it by adding crap EVERYWHERE. You would hardly notice if those little warnings hadn't told you. And then they didn't even carry that over into VS. This game really needs to just have less items everywhere in general. Or at least the option to change how many items will spawn...

Adre and Krom both said there aren't. I guess I'll play a couple rounds of pubs tonight to confirm, but I don't have any reason to believe they were yanking my chain, and they aren't noobs :P

I still can't find ANY official mention of it, though.

Originally Posted by Walkerxes

I swear I saw it somewhere when the patch happened. Not sure where tho.

All these changes are nice and all, but Realism Versus did pretty well leveling the playing field already. What they need is to make these changes to vanilla versus.

Realism did make the Survivors have to work together better, but it didn't do a huge amount of anything to a team that was already working together well. Instakill witches and tougher CIs are the only really noticeable things, and maybe people missing a couple extra items due to lack of a glow.

I'm fine with the biggest balance changes going to Realism. Let people play vanilla VS for easymode

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

Realism did make the Survivors have to work together better, but it didn't do a huge amount of anything to a team that was already working together well. Instakill witches and tougher CIs are the only really noticeable things, and maybe people missing a couple extra items due to lack of a glow.

I'm fine with the biggest balance changes going to Realism. Let people play vanilla VS for easymode

Witches aren't always instakill on Realism, btw.