Left 4 Dead 2 Versus uneven

[pcslookout]

Do you think it is ? I really don't. Hearing a lot of people say this and that is why they do not play lol. One thing I don't like though is those modded servers. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I played on a few and it sorta sucked. Has anyone played on a 16 slot server before? Pretty funny but unfair sense there was never enough people and they kept leaving. No one knew what was going on lol.

 

[Sacraster]

Do you think it is ? I really don't. Hearing a lot of people say this and that is why they do not play lol. One thing I don't like though is those modded servers. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I played on a few and it sorta sucked. Has anyone played on a 16 slot server before? Pretty funny but unfair sense there was never enough people and they kept leaving. No one knew what was going on lol.

I thought it was ok, but i think versus in l4d1 is better. you can avoid the modded server by using official server only

 

[Crow550]

I don't think Versus is unfair at all. I've won some and lost some on both teams. It's pretty fun.

 

[n7]

Haha, 16-man versus is insane.

Impossible to strat properly though with it.

Versus isn't "unfair", but the odds of getting two evenly matched teams that don't have ragers every round, well, that's RARE.

 

[shortylickens]

Dont sweat it. If the game really is unbalanced then Valve we eventually rebalance it, much like they do with Team Fortress and other games.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Haha, 16-man versus is insane.

Impossible to strat properly though with it.

Versus isn't "unfair", but the odds of getting two evenly matched teams that don't have ragers every round, well, that's RARE.

My thoughts exactly. Usually one team is far more organized / skilled than the other, giving the impression that whichever side they're playing is better. All things equal, I would expect the infected to have the edge, though it is highly dependent on spawn combination and location. That's why each time plays both sides, though.

 

[Maximilian]

Do you guys always end up playing with other americans? Are there gateways in L4D2 like in bnet except with no option to choose?

I always get stuck with french people who are absolute garbage, germans are fine, every other european is fine usually but the french just suck at this game. Im from the UK.

 

[pcslookout]

Do you guys always end up playing with other americans? Are there gateways in L4D2 like in bnet except with no option to choose?

I always get stuck with french people who are absolute garbage, germans are fine, every other european is fine usually but the french just suck at this game. Im from the UK.

Your lucky your from the UK sense your ping is a lot better than me in the US when on a European server. I don't care as long as I get 300 ms or less. Prefer 150 ms or less but beggars can't be choosers. Never played with French people except for L4D1 but I really don't care. I was on a server somewhere located in Russia, Japan, and Portugal before though. Most of the time it is people from the US though.

Do you find there are more European servers than US ones ?

 

[Maximilian]

Your lucky your from the UK sense your ping is a lot better than me in the US when on a European server. I don't care as long as I get 300 ms or less. Prefer 150 ms or less but beggars can't be choosers. Never played with French people except for L4D1 but I really don't care. I was on a server somewhere located in Russia, Japan, and Portugal before though. Most of the time it is people from the US though.

Do you find there are more European servers than US ones ?

All i get are worthless french newbs, although there was a trio of 3 belgian newbs earlier thats quite rare. Apparently if i change my steam download settings from UK to USA i can play with people from the US more, or from anywhere.

 

[Imp]

It's only unfair in that one team is ALWAYS more organized than the other, which translates into survivors going off on their own, and uncoordinated attacks by zombies. You can usually tell who's going to win after the first round.

Ragers and people quitting in the middle don't help, but then again, I rage a lot because I get sick of my team leaving me to die or just being retarded.

 

[heat901]

people who don't have mics ruin this game......

 

[TJCS]

ironically, some people with mics ruin this game...

 

[DarkForceRising]

All things equal, I would expect the infected to have the edge, though it is highly dependent on spawn combination and location. That's why each time plays both sides, though.

From what I've heard of high end competitive matches, this is simply false. My experiences even in public matches lead me to believe that survivors really do have the edge. It's not uncommon in competitive matches for the survivors to make it through on every map (minus, say, death charges/instant deaths and the Parish finale).

The main obvious problem is that the survivors have too many items. The scoring system is based around the idea that the survivors won't make it to the end of the level. As stated in commentaries for L4D1, this is the developers' intent. But for every chance the infected have to damage the survivors, the survivors find health items laying on the ground. Med kits everywhere, defibs everywhere, throwables everywhere. Any damage the infected can do can be totally negated. Most times when a team doesn't make it, the other team is much, much better.

A really good survivor team can (and will) totally shut down infected attacks. Shooting hunters out of the air. Deadstopping hunters. Shooting boomers through walls. Hordes are almost useless with the addition of melee weapons. Not that they did much anyway, when half the survivors have pipebombs at any given time. Frag rounds are a particularly bad offender as an overpowered weapon. They can stumble witches, or knock any special infected away from what they're currently doing (stumble chargers, hunters, etc).

Everything is geared towards the survivors. There are sounds that play for the survivors (music cues) that tell them what infected are currently coming in. Before they spawn. All infected except for hunter give their position away constantly by making weird sounds. Burping, screeching, etc. Tanks are a total joke for a good team. They can either light him on fire and then run (he can't catch up), or just lead him around and shoot him. As they're probably green, they'll most likely take one or two hits before he goes down.

Witches are even worse. It was ridiculously easy in the first game to oneshot the witch. Now it's even easier, since the wandering witch takes longer to get set off. Not only that, but the new witch takes 6-7 seconds longer to kill someone.

Halfway through each campaign, the survivors start getting upgraded weapons (assault rifles, autoshotguns, etc). The infected? No upgrades whatsoever.

The point being, even in competition (sponsored tournaments, etc) where all extraneous health items are removed except for one or two sets of pills, there are only rarely tier two weapons, and many of the new survivor items are removed, both teams commonly make it to the end of the match. The skill curve isn't anywhere near the same for survivors or infected. You get much more benefit out of being a better survivor than being a better infected.

None of this really applies at low skill levels or when one team is drastically better than the other. Has anyone been in games where everyone on both teams made it out most of the time? Where any time you got in a good attack, there was a medkit spawn around the corner? Levels like the Parish 3 (I think) where at the car park, you might have ALMOST killed the survivors, finally. They have no health items, they're all limping, one's dead, and then they get to the ambulance. There's now three extra health kits, and two sets of pills. Almost all your work is now totally negated. It's like the level has started over.

Each team gets to play both sides. This makes the game fair. It does not, however, make the game balanced. The game will only be balanced when for an evenly matched team, there's an even chance of stopping the survivors. Currently, that balance is out of whack, and the survivors usually make it the entire way to the saferoom. Even if they don't make it, it's common to get 80-90 %.

 

[heat901]

From what I've heard of high end competitive matches, this is simply false. My experiences even in public matches lead me to believe that survivors really do have the edge. It's not uncommon in competitive matches for the survivors to make it through on every map (minus, say, death charges/instant deaths and the Parish finale).

The main obvious problem is that the survivors have too many items. The scoring system is based around the idea that the survivors won't make it to the end of the level. As stated in commentaries for L4D1, this is the developers' intent. But for every chance the infected have to damage the survivors, the survivors find health items laying on the ground. Med kits everywhere, defibs everywhere, throwables everywhere. Any damage the infected can do can be totally negated. Most times when a team doesn't make it, the other team is much, much better.

A really good survivor team can (and will) totally shut down infected attacks. Shooting hunters out of the air. Deadstopping hunters. Shooting boomers through walls. Hordes are almost useless with the addition of melee weapons. Not that they did much anyway, when half the survivors have pipebombs at any given time. Frag rounds are a particularly bad offender as an overpowered weapon. They can stumble witches, or knock any special infected away from what they're currently doing (stumble chargers, hunters, etc).

Everything is geared towards the survivors. There are sounds that play for the survivors (music cues) that tell them what infected are currently coming in. Before they spawn. All infected except for hunter give their position away constantly by making weird sounds. Burping, screeching, etc. Tanks are a total joke for a good team. They can either light him on fire and then run (he can't catch up), or just lead him around and shoot him. As they're probably green, they'll most likely take one or two hits before he goes down.

Witches are even worse. It was ridiculously easy in the first game to oneshot the witch. Now it's even easier, since the wandering witch takes longer to get set off. Not only that, but the new witch takes 6-7 seconds longer to kill someone.

Halfway through each campaign, the survivors start getting upgraded weapons (assault rifles, autoshotguns, etc). The infected? No upgrades whatsoever.

The point being, even in competition (sponsored tournaments, etc) where all extraneous health items are removed except for one or two sets of pills, there are only rarely tier two weapons, and many of the new survivor items are removed, both teams commonly make it to the end of the match. The skill curve isn't anywhere near the same for survivors or infected. You get much more benefit out of being a better survivor than being a better infected.

None of this really applies at low skill levels or when one team is drastically better than the other. Has anyone been in games where everyone on both teams made it out most of the time? Where any time you got in a good attack, there was a medkit spawn around the corner? Levels like the Parish 3 (I think) where at the car park, you might have ALMOST killed the survivors, finally. They have no health items, they're all limping, one's dead, and then they get to the ambulance. There's now three extra health kits, and two sets of pills. Almost all your work is now totally negated. It's like the level has started over.

Each team gets to play both sides. This makes the game fair. It does not, however, make the game balanced. The game will only be balanced when for an evenly matched team, there's an even chance of stopping the survivors. Currently, that balance is out of whack, and the survivors usually make it the entire way to the saferoom. Even if they don't make it, it's common to get 80-90 %.

I concur plus the maps seem smaller... there are no high places really for a hunter to pounce from and no death pulls for the smoker like in the first one.

 

[n7]

I dislike the maps in L4D2 for infected personally.
The first one was better for infected.

And while i do agree that good survivor teams will basically always finish, you have to keep in mind Valve isn't trying to market toward pros, as the average player in L4D2 lol, well, they suck.

I'd say what could help the survivor advantage is having an "Expert Versus" for those who want to play it.
Bigger badder hordes, & more infected damage, etc.
I'm betting it wouldn't get played as much though...

 

[DarkForceRising]

And while i do agree that good survivor teams will basically always finish, you have to keep in mind Valve isn't trying to market toward pros, as the average player in L4D2 lol, well, they suck.

The issue with this is that currently, players have no incentive to get better. What happens in Starcraft if you go online when you're not any good? You get stomped. What happens in CS:S? You get stomped. Any given multiplayer game? You get stomped. L4D2? You get items and medkits rained upon you, allowing you to survive where you have no business doing so.

When people finally run into teams that are enough better than them to win, what do they do? Do they try to get better? No, they go complain about pubstomping. L4D2 seemed balanced at release. Teams were wiping left and right. Now, most people that are left either recently picked up the game, or are the ones who have been around for a while and don't NEED the items. Those masses of people at release who needed the items? They're either better, or they're gone by now. Why is the game balanced for someone who isn't really playing it?

Heck, I'm not a pro. I'm just a player who wants to have a good game. And it's obvious to me that the game has issues. Just like the first game had issues.

 

[brencat]

I concur plus the maps seem smaller... there are no high places really for a hunter to pounce from and no death pulls for the smoker like in the first one.

I too would like to see more opportunities for hunters but given the maps are so much larger relative to L4D1, the ability of infected to wear out a survivor team in L4D2 probably had to be moderated relative to L4D1 in order to allow a reasonable chance of lasting the entire round.

That said, I have only one 25 damage pounce to my credit in L4D2...from the bleechers onto the stage in the finale of Carnival, and a more modest 22 damage pounce from the top of the bridge to the humvee at start of Carnival. Everything else has been 18 or less.

In terms of death-smokes, the best is the top right side of escalator in 3rd round of Dead Center....death smoke 1st guy off escalator, followed by immediate Charge of followers, plus a Spit in the air before Charger finishes running. Awesome!

 

[QuantumPion]

Do you guys always end up playing with other americans? Are there gateways in L4D2 like in bnet except with no option to choose?

I always get stuck with french people who are absolute garbage, germans are fine, every other european is fine usually but the french just suck at this game. Im from the UK.

Well here in America we often get stuck with French Canadians which are probably worse. ()

 

[clok1966]

And while i do agree that good survivor teams will basically always finish, you have to keep in mind Valve isn't trying to market toward pros, as the average player in L4D2 lol, well, they suck.

Well I would consider myslef an average player so I sorta agree and dont. This game is 100% based on teamwork, so a team fails or wins on it. The game is amazingly easy if you work togther (either team) or amazingly frustrating when you dont.

Basicly every game where the survivors keep within 10 feet of each other, dont panic when 3 infected hit um and help others, simple. Right now the Charger is the only real showstopper (and he needs support to really do well) since he can stall the survivors or move one a LONG ways away (also deathsharges, but not many levels with that). Smoker can also stall but he is so fragile (and cant hide for crap as he "smokes" so can be seen behind anything.

7 out of 10 games the Survivors dont stick togther, gotta get that PIPE/MOLLY, or whatever before the other 3 on team get it... geez who cares who throws it, as long as it gets thrown at right time.

And when it comes to infected, 9 out of 10 games has the Special infected attacking one at a time... fish in a barrel. A cordinated attack can end the round within spitting distance to starting saferoom so easy. as long as you have a hunter, jock, charge and smoke.
And Boomer, so key for spitter, heck most any attacks.

But I can take any part of the game, a complete domination by the other team, whatever, but ragers blow.. Bots are worthless. Loseing with crappy players is annoying, playing with bots is boring. I never rage.. and I still have a 50% ratio.. thats a hella lot of me against 4 people games.. Never rageing as one person put, has made me better, much much better, still no where near as good as some i see, but better.