Another successful boycott! (L4D2)

Quote from Rick_D

I laid out my points without so much as a single cussowrd, in wonderfully presented type. However you just ignored that as well because you are not actually mature enough to alter an opinion once you've stated it.

you are clearly very ignorant, very unintelligent, or you simply haven't played the game.

derp derp

the only reason i'm ignoring this right now is because of the heat i get from a debate like this. also, after buying l4d1, i found out it wasn't my cup of tea at all.

Quote from Sentura

the only reason i'm ignoring this right now

lol. Good job on the ignoring....

Incidentally I played the demo again, it's still meh. I totally hate the way the guns recoil is worked. Much prefer the DoD system to HL2/CS.

The demo is indeed shit. I really don't know why they bothered with such a half-assed effort.

The full game, for some unknown reason, feels totally different to them demo.

Quote from Defrag

PositivesI'm thoroughly enjoying the game when I can actually play it. The sense of urgency and a need to move forward now exists in a way that the original lacked. The best thing is that you are no longer safe in any area. I'd say outside is still the most vulnerable place to be, but inside you have chargers and spitters to contend with. One charger can skittle your whole team in a tight corridor which means no more dicking around and spending a lot of time thinking. You have to stick together and move quickly, while also balancing the need to move forward with the need to scavenge for items.

In short, it's pressure pressure pressure!

The scoring is much more straightforward and easily graspable, too. While I'd argue it is an improvement, my only quibble is that you don't get much of a completion bonus. I.e. the scoring is improved, but I think they may have gone a little too far in making it almost purely distance based.

Negatives

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  [*:33zddwor]There's still a lot of lobby/server issues to be ironed out. I'm really disappointed by this, particularly because the first game had almost the same issues, yet these mistakes have been repeated and, in some cases, made worse (local hosting is now unannounced... fail).
  

  [*:33zddwor]Various bugs such as the "I'm stuck in geometry" one after a charger slam. This is a game breaker -- if can easily cost you one of your team, and once that person is dead, it is much harder to proceed with 3.

  
  

  [*:33zddwor]I personally think some of the new levels lack an easily identifiable path to the goal. In the first one, you nearly always knew where you were meant to be heading as all of the levels were dark and they showed the path via lighting. Alright, the sequel is definitely less linear thus making the problem harder to solve, but I still lose my bearings and start running in the wrong direction a lot of the time.

  
  

  [*:33zddwor]There's multiple weapons that feel much the same. Unless I'm missing something and they are actually different, I would've rather they just consolidated the similar guns into one gun model to avoid confusing players. E.g. there's a couple of auto shotties and assault rifles that are extremely similar. Am I wrong here or are they noticeably different? Despite people bitching, I felt the first game's simple "shotgun/smg" + "assault rifle/auto shotty" choices were simple and to the point. They were distinct and the differences were obvious. Now it's a case of a lot of shades of grey with no intuitive feel of each weapon's strengths and weaknesses.

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I think the point of having less obvious routes was a purposeful design decision; to both encourage exploration, make the worlds seem much more realistic, rather than a corridor filled with zombies, to give VS a much less awkward playstyle (no longer can 4 infected easilt wait at a chokepoint and win easily, these chokepoints are few and far between and force players to try different strategies), and finally to allow the AI Director to open up new routes at random - no good having a blaring light over a door that is open one round and not open the next.

As for the weapons, I don't think there's anything in them at all. They are just there to provide some much needed breaks to the repitition. That was one problem I had with the first one, the very few actual weapons. And it always boiled down to using dual pistols to deal with ranged mobs, and the auto-shotty for everything else; and anyone who didn't use that was compromising their team. Now you can put together very different strategies, and you are forced to make hard decisions rather than simple ones.

Quote from Defrag

The scoring is much more straightforward and easily graspable, too. While I'd argue it is an improvement, my only quibble is that you don't get much of a completion bonus. I.e. the scoring is improved, but I think they may have gone a little too far in making it almost purely distance based.

If both teams get to the end with all four people, who evers team did more damage as infected gets 25 bonus points. This was probably designed to stop the huge stomps that would happen propelling one team a thousand points ahead in one map causing massive ragequits.

Quote

[*]I personally think some of the new levels lack an easily identifiable path to the goal. In the first one, you nearly always knew where you were meant to be heading as all of the levels were dark and they showed the path via lighting. Alright, the sequel is definitely less linear thus making the problem harder to solve, but I still lose my bearings and start running in the wrong direction a lot of the time.

I agree on some points, but you have to look at the subtleties. For example water now flows in the direction of the safehouse/end/path. It still is challanging sometimes, but you have to take into concideration that it might have been designed that way to mimic irl. (Not saying that that's right)

Quote

[*]There's multiple weapons that feel much the same. Unless I'm missing something and they are actually different, I would've rather they just consolidated the similar guns into one gun model to avoid confusing players. E.g. there's a couple of auto shotties and assault rifles that are extremely similar. Am I wrong here or are they noticeably different? Despite people bitching, I felt the first game's simple "shotgun/smg" + "assault rifle/auto shotty" choices were simple and to the point. They were distinct and the differences were obvious. Now it's a case of a lot of shades of grey with no intuitive feel of each weapon's strengths and weaknesses.

I'd imagine this was done to shut the "ZOMFG THERE'S ONLY 6 WEAPONS IN THE GAME" people. Sure some are asthetical changes, but the two different shotguns have different uses. Spas12 has a wider spread = more anti-zombie crowed. It's trade off is more friendly fire, etc.

Just wait until you play with a german and get CSS weapons.

If you have to look out for subtleties they are not subtleties. And it’s not been designed with reality in mind first as in some areas there are huge orange arrows on the ground every couple of meters. The first game was a lot more linear but still used the basic tricks: Your path is brightly lit, anything off the beaten path is dark, and you are always heading to a different elevation or silhouette. Whereas in Left 4 Dead 2 there is less lighting contrast and there are a few open areas whose exit is just a doorway or alleyway. Often I'd be waiting for someone to say something to confirm we're heading the right way. But that said, there's only 5 campaigns, you can commit all this to memory fairly easy, which is why I kept schtum.