L4D - OT
Justin Thompson
OK
I know this is HL NG - so a bit OT - but interested in you guys
thoughts on L4D
I thought I would give it a go... its Valve... Game of year... so cant
be bad, but I was hugely disapointed. Is it just me?
To my mind It seems to have a fundamental flaw, which is its AI
director. So they say it monitors your perfromance and adjusts the
zombies etc to give to a good but tough experince.
But it doesnt? It seems like you cant fail? I started by playing on
normal difficulty... no prob, so lets ramp up the difficulty to max so
I feel challenged... and what happens? I win easily??? WTF??
I can only guess that on hardest mode - it is the AI director which
recognises that I am struggling more (not that I felt it) and so backs
off on the zombies etc to whatever extent it feels appropriate, with
the upshot that I win... and feeling like I won easily?
So if I play like a god...or play like a pudding, i win !!! , with the
AI director compensating, how does that make sense? I end up with
zero sense of achievement.
When I play online with others... I guess its the same, as you cant
fail unless you are playing with complete tards.
So it ends up with just a blast of a million zombies - with minimal
effort and minimal strategic input...
I feel I must be missing someting, as its a popular game
Any idea what? May be if the AI director gave you a clue of how much
it helped...it may give you something to aim at, i.e. beat it with
zero AI help
Thoughts?
Cheers
Civilian_Target
Civilian_Target
Stri
>
> I know this is HL NG - so a bit OT - but interested in you guys
> thoughts on L4D
I'm not entirely sure it is OT in truth, it's one of the many mods
running off the source engine. Anyway, who cares?
> I thought I would give it a go... its Valve... Game of year... so cant
> be bad, but I was hugely disappointed. Is it just me?
I wasn't hugely disappointed but that might have something to do with
my expectations not being as high. I enjoyed it and I love co-op I
didn't enjoy it. I think my ideal co-op game is one where you're
forced to use your brain a little more. One where co-op is not just
encouraged but absolutely essential.
Now, L4D does force you to travel together and revive one another it
still stress frag chasing.
> To my mind It seems to have a fundamental flaw, which is its AI
> director. So they say it monitors your perfromance and adjusts the
> zombies etc to give to a good but tough experince.
>
> But it doesnt? It seems like you cant fail? I started by playing on
> normal difficulty... no prob, so lets ramp up the difficulty to max so
> I feel challenged... and what happens? I win easily??? WTF??
You must be just awesome.
Alright, I've stopped laughing now. No it is easy to anyone who plays
FPS's too much. They're scaled to fit the broader demographic. There
will be mods and changes to allow you to up the difficulty but it's
challenge isn't it's major hurdle in my opinion.
<snip>
> So if I play like a god...or play like a pudding, i win !!! , with the
> AI director compensating, how does that make sense? I end up with
> zero sense of achievement.
I suspect you misunderstand what the AI director does. I think it's
primary purpose is to keep the direction the zombies come from fresh
and random and to take advantage of any mistakes made. The problem is
the maps aren't large and diverse enough to create enough tension
although the game is pretty atmospheric.
> When I play online with others... I guess its the same, as you cant
> fail unless you are playing with complete tards.
You seem to have a pretty high opinion of yourself. Did you come on to
complain, give sensible critique on the game or was it to perform
public fellatio on yourself?
> So it ends up with just a blast of a million zombies - with minimal
> effort and minimal strategic input...
Well the strategy is limited. The game stressed co-op but when I was
playing there was little of it. I guess that is probably my major
gripe.
> I feel I must be missing someting, as its a popular game
The more popular the game the more likely I am to shy away from it.
Halo 2 & 3 anyone?
> Any idea what? May be if the AI director gave you a clue of how much
> it helped...it may give you something to aim at, i.e. beat it with
> zero AI help
>
> Thoughts?
> Cheers
It's important to decide that for yourself. It's just not that
addictive. Maybe I got all of the manic shooting out of my system with
DM and CS & CS:S as I rarely look at those games now.
It really doesn't matter anyway, it's already more popular than god
and the sequel will sell mighty quick.
Civilian_Target
> You seem to have a pretty high opinion of yourself. Did you come on to
> complain, give sensible critique on the game or was it to perform
> public fellatio on yourself?
ROFL! To be fair, I don't think he was trolling but the point stands :)
Civilian_Target
Justin Thompson
Guys,
No - I am SERIOUSLY not a god at these games - I am OK at CS when I
get my eye in - but I am 48 and so my rections are not as good as they
used to be... by a long shot :(
I was certainly not here to gloat - I honestly expected you all to say
you agree and agree that the AI concept is flawed.
Strider - I dont think I have missuderstood the AI - I went through
the game with the commentry turned on and clicked all the bubbles and
quite a few seemed to say quite clearly that the AI will throttle the
zombies if it thinks you getting into trouble.
And re the co-op - I have played about 20 co-op games and only lost
one - and that was because 2 of the people refused to stick together
and ran off.
All the others we have won, and like I said - no-one seems to expect
anything other than a win.
So I lost interest.. As you say - the game is not as expansive as you
might like and while it tries to mix things up - it does end up quite
lineier. Just 5 campaigns ... run through twice and you know them.
Cheers
Zootal
"Justin Thompson" <Justin....@removethisntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:gsd1e5lo54mfq1emk...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:43:27 +0200, Civilian_Target
> <tad...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
>>Stri wrote:
>>
>>> You seem to have a pretty high opinion of yourself. Did you come on to
>>> complain, give sensible critique on the game or was it to perform
>>> public fellatio on yourself?
>>
>>ROFL! To be fair, I don't think he was trolling but the point stands :)
>>
>>Civilian_Target
>
> Guys,
>
> No - I am SERIOUSLY not a god at these games - I am OK at CS when I
> get my eye in - but I am 48 and so my rections are not as good as they
> used to be... by a long shot :(
Meh...I'm 49 and I can still give these young pups a run for their money. I
was in the top 1% back in the glory days of Cucamonga and Charlotte Death
Squad. You know - back when people played the manly game of Death Match, not
mamby pamby team sports :-)