boomercharged.net

Well if they use their healthpack, that’s one less healthpack they have. Generally you won’t get a team that DOESN’T use it unless they’re really thrifty or bad.

Also, if you PUG it, you’re more likely to find that. Since I play with the same 3 people on my team every time, we don’t often run into that. But I know what you mean when it seems like it’s all for naught.

I agree completely Agent. Ugh, even with support for Dead Air and Death Toll I find I play VS less and less.

I agree with Cramill, especially about the ragequitters. I have played many games which as best described by an example: enemy team steamrolls stage 1, equal tie on stage 2, then on stage 3 my team would manage to steamroll and even though the overall score was almost dead even, the ENTIRE OTHER TEAM would ragequit. Events like this (let alone the simpler situation described by Cramill) have happened way too often for this to be random, and, unfortunately i think it simply speaks to the nature of many L4D players.

Also, the health-pack inconsistencies are also very annoying…

I can see your points here however, this name being my xbox live gamertag, i find the versus gameplay excellent. I was very aggraveted when they nerfed the hunters melee damage but the gameplay is overall still fair. It supposed to require teamwork to take down the non-infected. Nobody like the rambo style of gameplay… it gets boring… and a shotgun can kill a hunter yes but a hunter can respawn(huge adavantage) and pounce and working with the other hunter and smoker while a boomer distracts the other devastates them. One thing i do have to say is that there is a major problem with overall skill of players… I think it should use a balance system for both pc and xbox those being the most competive players. Sorry but PS3 players just dont compare…. anyway im getting off topic but the point is about your article that both ways are designed for heavy amounts of communication and teamwork. haha valve makes excellent games of these type. And the ragequits im clueless to being an xbox player the mentality is different. On the xbox you want revenge no matter what it takes you dont quit you make that player wish he never wronged you. So on that piont i dont know sounds like a cowardice to me haha.

@Sinister Minister

The 360 version let’s you splitscreen, so you can find two players on the same console. I think that’s what he meant.

As for Versus, I find that matchmaking is fraught with ragequitters. I generally prefer to play Versus with friends, then it’s more enjoyable.

But as b33fst34k said, you don’t have to win to have fun. It’s just that steamrolls one way or the other are not enjoyable, particularly if half the game quits afterwards.

I liked it better at release when there was team rebalancing in between rounds.

But there were all these tards who wanted to get a pro team together and then roll noobs, who QQ’d about it and got it changed (I can only assume).

I don’t see how a tide that’s difficult to turn is a problem at all. The better team tends to win, and that seems to me to be preferred. It’s very true that a team that’s systematically crushed will often rage quit, but there’s two things that help with that: (a), you don’t have to yourself, and (b) chances are eventually you’ll get a team that’s either mature enough to stick around for a while, or skilled enough to compete. Maybe patience gets short, and it’s frustrating to wait around for that to happen, but I think it’s worth it.

Why do you need to win, though? Seriously, B33fSt34k is right, you can have plenty of fun while you lose. Ragequitters are the soul of a sore loser incarnate, and nobody likes them, right? It’s not rocket science to realize that we don’t play games to win, but to have fun (in a fair match, which versus certainly is). If you have a problem with losing, fair enough, but my suggestion is go find a nice friendly, easy, single player game, instead of looking for your victory fix here.

Also, boss infected’s health shouldn’t be an issue - I WillNotShutUp is right, respawning fixes that immediately. If you die, it’s not the end of the world. Come back, try again, learn from your mistakes, and do better next time. If you fail again, calm down, rinse, repeat, and try something new. There are plenty of ways to succeed as infected, but it takes patience, and the ability to accept failure while you’re learning.

I have to tell the truth: I tend to forget campaign mode is even there. I see Left 4 Dead as versus with a little extra game thrown in there called “Campaign Mode”, that’s amusing for a few hours but generally bland. There’s entertainment in fighting zombies, but the real depth of L4D is in the interactions between infected and survivors, and you can really only find that at its purest in a versus match.

Leave the versus games for those who actually play it well, the basement dwellers.

Like it was stated earlier, Versus was better when the AI director was able to independently react to teams. If a team was completely blowing through a section, they could expect more hordes, tougher zombies, and less items. On the flip-side, suffering teams had an easier ride, allowing them more of a chance to escape.

This was all fine and good until it came to the special specials, the Tank and Witch. People started whining over and over on the Steam forums about how unfair it was for one team (the pwning one) to get a tank while the other (the ones being pwned) did not. While it is true that the winning team is the “discovery team” now (those playing Infected know where things will be), this only aggravates the problem.

I think there’s gotta be a happy medium between Director Ruining Everything and Steamrolls Ruining Everything. My suggestion: Partially re-enable the director. If survies are steamrolling , make the zombies a little stronger. Make the weapons and pickups appear in the same places, make the tank appear in the same place, make the witch move around. Limit health kit respawns. Instead of appearing in groups of 4, make 4 appear one at a time, a good distance apart, if they’re gonna spawn at all. If there’s one person against 3, make the 1 person team hella stronger and give them 3 AI zombies so that they’re not completely alone and teamwork is possible, if unlikely. Survivors have bots, infected should too.

@IwillNotShutUp

Infected mode has no Versus bots. Every player you are short as infected reduces your spawn timer by five seconds. This can actually make being one player short occasionally advantageous, but if you’re down two players (or 3) you become pointless.

So..uh…just who is making you play?

It’s true actually. I’m being forced to play.

In response michael, I’m just voicing my opinion.

Honestly though, it’s because the game is so hard that it’s so damn fun. When you’re on the losing side because you joined a lousy pug game with a bunch of noobs, then yes, it’s gonna suck, and it’s gonna suck hard. When you’re with 3 other friends who do nothing but play l4d 30 hours a week, then hell, it’s gonna be FREAKING AWESOME ARRRRR. I swear, when I was on my L4D binge, nothing was quite so satisfying as landing a 25dmg pounce from the most lucrative positions and getting those perfect pulls that just completely change the game. Ahhh, yea. Good times.