1981

Not that Hard Rain 4 isn’t just a shameful rushing map anyways.

Infected selector is awesome, but as I was explaining to someone in chat last night, I have the feeling that it’s not helping some of the new players really learn the strategies for each infected.

I think the flying mod is the most important mod in the game. While it’s not perfect due to Valve’s level design (which has understandable invisible walls in order to reduce memory usage for lower end PCs), it makes every building a potential threat. I’m more sad that it’s not part of the stock game.

And after last night, I’m gonna have to call out people for “skating” or “drifting” the boomer over buildings and into the group. The boomer is balanced based on his inability to do much of anything in open areas. Half of the versus game is positioning yourself to not be close to corners. Therefore, you will be called a cocksmacker for employing the skating boomer tactic on the Qt3-L4D2 server.

Also, Bunny, is there any way for the server to use the pistol sounds from L4D1? After playing IHM, I found out that I really miss the awesome pistol sounds from L4D1.

1982

Probably? You could maybe make a vpk with the sound-file from l4d1… I don’t really know how to go about that, though.

1983

Hrm. There’s gotta be a way. We did used to have that one custom gun, after all… and what happened to that gun? That was pretty awesome (the assault rifle from CS that zoomed in slightly)

1984

Yeah the two guns were from the German version I believe. Would be nice if Bunny could put those into the rotation again. And the pistols in L4D1 do feel like they have more oomph than the L4D2 pistols.

1985

I doubt the sounds are server side - my guess is modify your own sounds files would do the trick.

l4d2 weapon sounds are in …(whatever) \ left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\sound\weapons

l4d1 is in a similar place, try some swapping…

1986

I took it out because it was spawning erratically. One team would get it and the next would get something else. I’d rather both teams get the same guns.

1987

On the other hand, I’m not crazy about the Charger + moving cars + cars incapping people.

Last night we started a round, Charger hit a car which moved about 5 feet and incapped half the team in front of the start room.

It was a cheesy tactic and led to the round being over in 30 seconds. I don’t think I even fired one shot.

The levels weren’t designed for the cars to be moved by the Charger. Unlike the Tank, the Charger can spawn at will and move very quickly. It also seems incredibly unbalanced to have the Charger car-smack do a full incap. I can understand stumbing or even taking off 30 health or something.

But going from 100 health right out of the room to incapacitated? Not realistic. More importantly, not fun. At all.

1988

What are you talking about? That was hilarious!

The thing about the car charge is that 99% of the time it fails utterly and ridiculously, and the charger stands there looking stupid for a second before everyone guns him down. The other 1% of the time it totally kicks one team’s ass. I kind of like the way it gives the charger another option and changes the tactics of the game slightly. I can understand why some people might not appreciate it, though, in the same way they might not appreciate the fact that a jockey can instakill you at the start of The Passing map 1.

1989

A jockey can what?

The only place I really think the car thing is insane is the hard path on the…second, I think…map on Dead Center. Since there’s a police car you basically have to jump on to get through. And there’s a door right there. And the charger can bust through the door.

OTOH, incapping half the enemy team there was pretty awesome.

1990

A jockey can carry you into the water right next to the beginning of passing 1.

Jinsai, your argument is that incapping a team with a charger-car is cheesy, unrealistic and unintended? That’s not very meaningful. A better argument would be that the balance is too heavy in favor of infected, which I doubt is the case. Sounds like your team just didn’t expect it, and hilarity ensued.

I’m open minded about it not being a fun mod, I’m just not convinced of it.

1991

Charging cars around is hella satisfying… If it’s really unbalancing, we can look at lowering the force it moves the car at (it’s currently set to the default of 500).

To be honest, I’d rather if it just threw the survivors (like a charger carrying a survivor does) instead of instant-incap.

1992

Set the force to 20000.

1993

Fine, unbalancing rather than cheesy. Whatever. It wasn’t fun.

I’m not a fan of any element that allows for near-instant victory - especially at the start of a round. It took longer to load the level than play it.

Lazy, to your point - I’d say the non-deterministic nature of it makes it a worse game mechanic, not a better one.

I’m also probably just whining because it was me and my team that got incapped, not the one that did the incapping. That always seems to change one’s perspective!

1994

I disagree- unpredictability with most outcomes being ‘epic fail’ but that one in a 1000 being ‘flawless victory’ will have me trying all the time, with the advantage going to the other team most of the time.
This is far from a blue shell of game design.

1995

I think it would be really funny if we actually did this for one game.

Also I prefer it when my games aren’t totally deterministic, if that term can even be applied here. YMMV.

1996

I was with you when it happened, but I don’t mind having to watch out for cars when it comes to chargers. It definitely does way too much damage, and the ability for the car to incap you as you’re standing on top of it is very very cheesy, but I don’t think the mod can help that Valve’s physics/damage system just isn’t perfect.

Another small problem is that this makes the charger more powerful, and he’s already powerful enough.

1997

I was there too, and I really didn’t mind it(or the charger mod). It makes jumping on cars dangerous, and makes the player have to consider the risk before doing it.

Our wipe there was purely my fault. We had charged that car at the beginning, and the message we had was that that car was immovable. As survivors, I thought of that before I jumped on the car - normally, i wouldnt have been that close to that car, and definitely not on it.

1998

I Charged and ended up going completely over the car and down the other side. Which was highly unexpected. I’m guessing you have to hit a car perfectly broadside to get it to move?

1999

I’m non-committal on charging cars.

Only thing that we should work on removing is sky-booming, IMO. If it’s possible to tune the maximum height you can fly to, that could probably be used to remove the ability to get high enough to be able to spawn.

I’m OK with rocket-booming off of rooftops, on the other hand. That’s been in the game since L4D1, and it take some skill. And shooting the boomer in flight usually results in no one barfed.

2000

There’s no need to mod that. It’s obvious when it happens, and people just need to not do it.

I’m OK with rocket-booming off of rooftops, on the other hand. That’s been in the game since L4D1, and it take some skill. And shooting the boomer in flight usually results in no one barfed.

Uhh… rocket booming wasn’t in L4D1. Doing a run spawn-jump off a rooftop is one thing, your maximum distance is still only going to be like 10 or 20 feet.

Doing the drift stuff catapults you quickly over a long distance right into the middle of the party with little chance to avoid it. The boomer is traveling at a very unnaturally fast speed and with lag it’s almost impossible to shoot (think shooting a hunter that’s pouncing perpendicular to your viewpoint… nearly impossible).