L4D2, and some concerns

[Neelpos]

This is mostly directed at the people who have been playing L4D2 with us as of late. We tend to start games around 7pm PST nightly. I just felt like there were some issues that needed discussing, mostly brought up through tonights game. The points I wanted to address individually are as follows; Opinions on what are playable conditions and what are not, team balancing, waiting for players, and speed running.

Playable conditions could be defined as a server that affords everyone a good enough ping (sub 150 preferably), though with the removal of official servers for L4D2 and thus the now abundant modded servers this can change things somewhat. Some servers are only modded in small ways, such as adding the German CS weapons (SG552, AWP, Scout, MP5) or keeping track of damage dealt without pulling up the scoreboard. These servers are fine for the most part, they don't affect the gameplay in any substantial way, and the German weapons were made by Valve in the first place, so they're fine. We have however been running into Perkmod quite a lot, or other variations there of. Perk servers tend to do things such as allow you to give your survivor three perks (example: 175 health, increased running speed and +65% damage bonus would be one build) and a specific perk for each special infected. These kinds of servers can be fun, as playing the game in a sillier way is in no way unacceptable, we're here to have fun after all. But when certain game breaking mechanics are introduced, it eliminates the aspect of fun, as it heavily imbalances the match in one teams favor (generally the special infected). An example of this comes from the first game we played tonight, and please don't take the fact that I was on the losing side of these examples both times as a sign of bitterness, I genuinely think these circumstances were unfair, and they really did ruin my experience for the campaign.

Ex 1.
Charger gets 300%+ speed bonus to his charge. This resulted in a scenario where on map 1 of Dead Center, without even the time to see that a charger was in the next room, it had shot across faster than a survivor flung by a tank, and charged me to the ground below instant killing me. All of this was done in a matter of frames, so fast that because I could not see the charger around the corner (but he could see me) that there was literally no way to combat it, it was just too fast to even try to move out of the way. This is game breaking, this is an example of an unplayable condition.

Ex 2.
Later, on the second map, our team had made it further than the enemy team did, which was a good sign as we were still at a score disadvantage and were intent on taking the lead. On reaching the bridge leading to the gun shop, a tank spawned, and one of the perks proved overpoweringly broken. an immense health bonus (I believe it was 90,000?) that made the tank able to take so much damage, he could literally just stand in the doorway of the gun shop as we unloaded into him, and he survived for what seemed like a full minute of continous fire, one or more of my teammates actually ran out of ammo. This is game breaking, this is an example of an unplayable condition. We soon after returned to lobby, and decided to try something else.

On the topic of team balancing, there is certainly a gap in player levels present that we do our best to accommodate, the only issue is that different people seem to have different ideas of everyone else's skill levels. This has proven to be so much of an issue that electing team captains is barely more effective than random selection, as one team leader will have a better idea of everyone's skill levels than the other and as such may end up with the better players due to poor choices made by the other. Hell, I had to correct Fisch (was it Fisch?) recently when we were doing team captains, specifically because I felt that when choosing the third player for his team, he'd picked the lowest skilled person in the lobby, and that the end result would just be my team rolling his. I'm not going to build a list and rate people, as I think that would just be rude, but I will highlight the skills that I think are important, and may help you better gauge people's skill levels in terms of team balance. 1: Communication, nothing is more important than being able to tell your teammates when you're hit, when someone who isn't talking was hit, or to name threats that may be lurking ahead, behind, to the side, anywhere. If you talk, you are automatically at the least a decent teammate. 2: Ability to listen, we use mumble for all talk, which is generally devoted to nothing more than irrelevant banter as the game goes on. In game chat is dedicated to speaking tactically, and telling your teammates what is up. If you can't hear your teammates in game, then you need to change your audio. If it is agreed upon that your in game mic settings are too low, it is up to you to turn it up. If you can't even hear your teammates cries for help, you're sure to lose precious team health that could end the round right then and there. 3: Sticking together, if you're intent on running into a side room, always make sure you tell your teammates so that at the least they know where you are, or better yet someone can cover you doing so, running off on your own only works if you're the last one standing and there's no chance of saving your teammates. Silently sneaking around is just going to get you pounced by the infected, remember, they can see where you are at all times, if your teammates get boomed and you're on your own, stick an apple in your mouth and lay down on a dinner plate why don't you.
Also stop picking on Cold Blade, he's fairly decent now, there's most definitely people worse than him.

Waiting for players is what tonights conflict centered around. Occasionally someone may experience a connection issue, or a teammate will have to leave all of a sudden and a slot will be opened up. General policy is to stop all movement of the round until a replacement is found, or the original player is able to successfully reconnect. However, mistakes can be made, for example tonight TehEnemy was having issues, and upon his return to the round I said "he's back, let's go" and left the safe room, my mistake, as he entered his ping was enormous and he needed a moment to level out, something I (and my teammates I might mention) didn't realize until we had already left the safe room, and were now fully engaged in fighting the other teams attack, Tehenemy ended up pounced and lost 60 health in the scuffle, and the infected team immediately called us out for running out when he wasn't in, and claiming we never said anything in mumble. Later in the round Tehenemy died, and at some point apparently someone on the enemy team had a connection issue as well, of which I would like to note wasn't stated very clearly over mumble, so we continued forward, and it was decided we were unable to wait properly for players (at this point it was effectively 3v3), and thus the rest of the round was vitriolic and passive aggressive, including such points as "well they can't wait so we won't" followed by rushing out of the safe room to start the round, and even ending the game with someone basically giving me a big fuck you by saying I can't wait and maybe I'll do better next time. This is not acceptable behavior. One should always wait for players to reconnect however a bit of leeway can be granted if in the time between disconnection and reconnection the survivors have taken noticeable damage from the bot/hordes. However, if advancement is made without meeting this requirement, it should promptly be pointed out over voice chat, survivors can backtrack, but you can't hand their health back. Always address the issue over the mic before attacking in a retaliatory manner, and do what you can to suggest a solution, rather than insulting the other team, we're big kids, act like it. Lastly, if an issue such as a player disconnect has arisen, be certain the enemy team knows, get them to tell you so, do not say it once and watch them advance because they didn't hear you, mic chatter can be missed, repeat yourself.

Speed running is my last point, it's not something that is brought up too often, but it's certainly something I feel strongly about. It is rare that the server will be filled with players that are all competent enough to effectively speed run a map, in fact it's quite often that I'll see one team do it very well, but another fail miserably when attempting to do so, simply because it contains players that do not communicate effectively enough to keep the team together, separation occurs, players panic, the team fails. It is my belief that speed running should just not be used at the start of a map, plain and simple. One or two players running from a tank? That's fine. A whole team working as a perfect unit against an infected team that couldn't hope to match them? Sure, there's nothing REALLY wrong with it, but why do you think I do things like screw around, do victory laps, say "hard mode" and shoot alarm cars? It's because winning isn't what's important, it's having fun, and crushing the other team under your boot is going to ruin the fun for them.

Also I do it because it's funny.

[Velp]

Waiting for players is what tonights conflict centered around. Occasionally someone may experience a connection issue, or a teammate will have to leave all of a sudden and a slot will be opened up. General policy is to stop all movement of the round until a replacement is found, or the original player is able to successfully reconnect. However, mistakes can be made, for example tonight TehEnemy was having issues, and upon his return to the round I said "he's back, let's go" and left the safe room, my mistake, as he entered his ping was enormous and he needed a moment to level out, something I (and my teammates I might mention) didn't realize until we had already left the safe room, and were now fully engaged in fighting the other teams attack, Tehenemy ended up pounced and lost 60 health in the scuffle, and the infected team immediately called us out for running out when he wasn't in, and claiming we never said anything in mumble. Later in the round Tehenemy died, and at some point apparently someone on the enemy team had a connection issue as well, of which I would like to note wasn't stated very clearly over mumble, so we continued forward, and it was decided we were unable to wait properly for players (at this point it was effectively 3v3), and thus the rest of the round was vitriolic and passive aggressive, including such points as "well they can't wait so we won't" followed by rushing out of the safe room to start the round, and even ending the game with someone basically giving me a big fuck you by saying I can't wait and maybe I'll do better next time. This is not acceptable behavior. One should always wait for players to reconnect however a bit of leeway can be granted if in the time between disconnection and reconnection the survivors have taken noticeable damage from the bot/hordes. However, if advancement is made without meeting this requirement, it should promptly be pointed out over voice chat, survivors can backtrack, but you can't hand their health back. Always address the issue over the mic before attacking in a retaliatory manner, and do what you can to suggest a solution, rather than insulting the other team, we're big kids, act like it. Lastly, if an issue such as a player disconnect has arisen, be certain the enemy team knows, get them to tell you so, do not say it once and watch them advance because they didn't hear you, mic chatter can be missed, repeat yourself.

You forgot to talk about the 3rd time someone dropped. It was on your time while you were infected , the survivors seen that they dropped and openly said in mumble (two to three times) we should wait for them to come back. Your team didn't want to wait as a spitter and smoker attack.

[Neelpos]

That doesn't sound familiar, can I get some more context?

[Velp]

It was the round right after TehEnemy thing happened. It was the same map. That was the last straw from some people on the other team. I don't remember who left, and it wasn't for very long.

[Django]

Ok, i took the time to read your walls of text and yeah you make some good points.

On the topic of custom servers, yeah some of them go beyond simple cosmetic changes ,and completely change the balance of the game ,but the thing is that the people
that you are playing with have to get the best out of it. Just try to agree them that the server that you are on is more oriented towards having fun, rather than being competitive.
Also, if you do not like the custom server, you can always move to another one, unless you are to oblivious to notice the particular changes on the specific server.

On the topic of ping, if you are playing with people with a ping above 200 they might want to consider stepping out, or changing servers. Unless it's a special case where the person lives in the conchinchina.
Then yeah expect laggy play, which sucks in that game not because of the other players
,but the common infected that are covered in industrial superglue and once they hit you are stuck just taking damage until you either shoot or m2. Imagine this with lag.

When people disconnect, you can not really stand still and wait for them, the game has to go on. It's not so bad for survivors cause cometimes the bots are better than
the actual players you play with
,but when it's the infected it really bad because the bots do not have the neccessary capacity of coordinating like a human being would in order to do a successful ambush.

Finally, learn to differentiate whether the people that you play with want a more casual game, or a more serious tactical game.
From personal experience, i used to play with really serious people that included xello, chuchubear, zombiechrist ,and others . Motherfucking tryhards
Games got insufferably frustrating. In most cases, speed running was the most viable option to win.

I always noticed that someone got frustrated whenever someone else took the game less seriously or wasn't equally skilled.
So making up your mind before the game ,and knowing the skill of the people you play with is key for a satisfying l4d2 match, whether you are having fun or
just fucking around.

[mbaxter]

On the topic of terrible servers, there will be a j2 server to use soon.

[Velp]

On the topic of terrible servers, there will be a j2 server to use soon.

Is there a way to use it from a lobby yet?

[mbaxter]

On the topic of terrible servers, there will be a j2 server to use soon.

Is there a way to use it from a lobby yet?

Yup! I set it to be a part of the j2.l4d2 group we have, and anybody in the group who is lobby leader chooses the server option that is like "my community servers" or "group servers" or... I don't know it's something obvious gimme a break I'm tired. Then when clicking start (NOT WHEN VOTING TO START, THANKS VALVE) you choose which server out of your groups to join (Thus clicking the j2 one).

[Eviltechie]

On the topic of waiting for players, I don't think it's appropriate to sit around for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for the 8th player to join. Not only is it incredibly boring (I could be doing something else), but I live on the east coast where it's already incredibly late at night. Besides, buy the time that 8th person joins, somebody else is going to end up quitting anyway. I'd rather just take a silly 3v4 run through than sitting around in the lobby or the safe room forever. I don't know if that's a problem these days, as I haven't been able to play for months, but it has been an issue in the past.

Also, if custom maps are going to be played, links to all the files should be passed around as early as possible. I've seen things where a map is broken into 4 parts, and you don't realize it and then purple checkerboards everywhere. It also gives time for people to download stuff ahead of time.

[Nightwolf]

Yeeeaaahhhh Vergil.

[Cheddars]

No Mercy.

[Ian7]

I think it's kinda dumb a guy can't take a dump without getting vote kicked.
You all are savages.