Left 4 Dead Survivor Mode: First impressions

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2[H]4U
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Feb 4, 2003
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So just had a few goes and a few rounds on the Survivor mode.

Definitely a nice addition to the game and very fun. But you absolutely positively need competent players, and preferrably all mates, and as others may have noted already, microphone communication is a must.

Having just finished a few goes on the "No Mercy" one I can see that it's simply just not doable with random people. People just don't seem to 'get it' at the moment. I know we're all new to it, but there are some basic obvious (to me at least) principles which people don't seem to get:


1. Gotta stick together.
2. Can't 'closet camp'. The tanks will rape you.
3. Save your fucking pipes and molotovs! Everytime I see someone throw off a pipe in the first 10 seconds I just think of that Captain Picard facepalm pic that does the rounds on forums. :p


So yeah, what's everyone else's thoughts here? I'm hoping as time goes on people learn the basics and pubbing can be fun. Me and my mates only have a couple of days a week we can get arrange to together online for L4D so pubbing is where I'm at for the most part.
 
its pretty fun , theres definitely poeple doing silly things. but it's easier to find good players now that the game has been out for a while.
 
I don't think L4D has EVER been good without playing with friends. Too many people rage quit while pubbing and its fucking annoying. And if they're "too good" they start barking orders at you which basically takes the fun out of it.
 
Closet camping IS the best way to do it, provided you have enough room/time to gun down the tank. Four players with autoshotties don't even need to finish their clips.
 
Yeah, I really can't stand playing this mode with noobs lol. But its so much fun!

The communicating aspect is awesome.
 
I agree.
Survival mode is sooo much fun.
I love it. So many different levels too.

I think it is a must to play with friend and play with coordination.
I played with some random's last night. and got to nearly 16 minutes on death toll escalators.
iown.jpg

then I played with some others on the lighthouse, and omg it was rediculous.
1 guy kept jumping off the edge on purpose lol.
The other guy would scream like a little girl everytime he got smokered or huntered. I was laughing so hard the whole time.
Very Very fun though.
 
in campaign and versus all guns have their advantages and disadvantages. in survival, there is absolutely no reason for any gun besides autoshotty.
 
Having one or two rifles are handy for picking off special infected. It gets annoying when you keep getting spammed by smokers.
 
lasted 9 min and 10 seconds........damned hard too there was 4 tanks on screen at once!!!
 
3 shotguns and 1 assault rifle works best for us. A shotgun shell is a waste on a single zombie, but a single AR headshot is worth it. AR can headshot special infected from a long way off so that shotgunners don't need to pull pistols or just wait for them to come close enough(at which point they can already start grabbing, or the hunter can start pouncing and stunning the whole team).

Less than 3 shotguns doesn't work out so well, the Tank needs to die /fast/ and it generally takes at least 3 shotguns to kill a tank quickly enough to avoid needing to run away from him. Molotovs are NOT for killing the tank dammit!
 
Having one or two rifles are handy for picking off special infected. It gets annoying when you keep getting spammed by smokers.

Agree. I posted this in the other thread but it feels like they just make it so you get pinned by Smoker -> Hunter -> Smoker -> Hunter over and over, repeat ad nauseum. Not particularly fun, IMO.

Overall, it's a fun mode, but they need more regular zombies and less specials on the map at once. Having like 5 Smokers simultaneously just seems ridiculous.
 
Yeah, it seems you need at least one sharp person with a sniper rifle or M16 to deal with the smokers.

The best setup I've been in was holding out in the barn in the Blood Harvest Survival mode. You're so closed in so you can have everyone have auto shotty's no problem and you have enough manourvability to deal with the tanks that show up. Got to 8 and a half mins there on my first few goes with survivor.

I haven't tried all maps yet, but the No Mercy one seems by far the hardest. What strategies/holding positions are people using here?
 
No Mercy Subway I got about 8m45s a couple times by heading upstairs and hanging around the window area. Kept running into problems when making ammo runs though. Smokers or random zombies getting in the way when trying to get into the stairwell to the basement can mean quick death.

I've found that the easiest one I've played so far is DA Terminal or Escalators or whatever it is. Where you start the van. Hanging around the desk/chain fence, nearly all zombies and tanks come from way across the room giving ample time to shoot any impending danger. Made it to 10min nearly every time.
 
I haven't tried all maps yet, but the No Mercy one seems by far the hardest. What strategies/holding positions are people using here?
I got to 10:17 on no mercy last night. (Generator part)

We set up right near the ammo stack in the corner and got to silver. Then when the tanks started getting ridiculous we ran all the way upstairs and set up against the railings so the 4+ smokers couldn't pull us off. So intense.

remember to make use of the Molotov's and Pip Bombs. They give you like 25 of them. So use them all to your advantage.
I'm a nade whore ;)
 
Already hit 20+minutes.

yer right...
The best STEAM have got can barely make it past 10min
plus
spawn-graph.jpg


basically after 14min you get a tank every 14seconds!!!

do you still say you lasted 20min, as oposed to the average of 4?
 
L4D updated 4/23

Survival Mode Changes

* Darkened the Lighthouse background movie and increased the contrast with the user interface elements
* Chapter selection is now available when creating a Survival lobby
* Single player coop now works correctly after playing Survival online
* The correct game mode will be set when playing back a demo
* Changed holdout server spew to be development only
* Stats are no longer updated while viewing a demo
* Correctly update the leaderboard based on the player's personal time, not the team best time
* Show the player's best time in the scoreboard
* Removed Survival exploits from The Terminal, Last Stand, The Crane, The Boathouse and The Warehouse
* Fixed tanks sometimes not spawning after 15-20 minutes

Now try your twenty minute time again, best personal time - 13 minutes on NM gas station
 
thank you dude, i was wondering how it was :), i need to try it :/, maybe this wekeend
 
lfdj.jpg



After seeing the update I will say our tank did stop spawning around 17-18 minutes but we still made it that far with a constant tank spawn. No hacks like you might have been suggesting though. The second time in a row I play The Hospital I scored 12+ minutes and that was with random people. Not exactly hard.
 
yer right...
The best STEAM have got can barely make it past 10min

I know what article you are referencing and I call BS on the article. If "the best" Valve has can only barely make it past 10 they are not trying hard enough.
 
We all know game devs are totally crap at playing their own games. :p

I remember back in the old days when it was traditional that a game would give a little demo of gameplay if you left it sitting at the title screen and it would always be a demo of the most inept tard failing at playing the damn thing. Doom was a classic example of this.

There are countless other offenders... :cool:
 
You guys make me want to buy the game. :/

This is cheaper, and quite good (on official maps, anyway). :D

Although, fair enough, I clicked on the thread to read it because I'm looking for a reason to buy L4D, myself. On some level. I dunno, ZP seems to satisfy all my "zombie game" drive for now, but I suppose one always wonders is there something better out there??
 
This is cheaper, and quite good (on official maps, anyway). :D

Although, fair enough, I clicked on the thread to read it because I'm looking for a reason to buy L4D, myself. On some level. I dunno, ZP seems to satisfy all my "zombie game" drive for now, but I suppose one always wonders is there something better out there??


I played Zombie Panic before L4D came out , it was very fun, there is a good community for it, I liked how you could barricade yourself in and using inanimate objects as weapons.
 
I played Zombie Panic before L4D came out , it was very fun, there is a good community for it, I liked how you could barricade yourself in and using inanimate objects as weapons.

You can't barricade yourself into a room in L4D?? Really? That seems a pretty basic part of most zombie movies?

(FWIW, my favorite part of ZP is the gameplay. As a survivor, it's tense and desperate, running from one objective to the next to escape...then you die and become a zombie. And then it's shamble, shamble, shamble...hide in dark areas and around corners and scare the CRAP out of the dwindling survivors...until you win. :D And that's the great thing. MANY times, nobody "loses" a match except the final survivor. :p )
 
You can't barricade yourself into a room in L4D?? Really? That seems a pretty basic part of most zombie movies?

Nope. Zombie Panic on the otherhand you can use couches, shelving and bookcases pretty much anything you can move.


There really two totally different Games, Zombie Panic relies alot on strategy, where as L4D is more Teamwork and high pace.
 
Do you have any suggestions for the Last Stand Map with the lighthouse? Almost all the walls break and I have not gotten past 6 minutes on that map. Any ideas?
 
I just scored 15.16.03 on Blood Harvest Warehouse with a random group. My first gold too. Then I got 12 minutes on Generator Room.
 
Do you have any suggestions for the Last Stand Map with the lighthouse? Almost all the walls break and I have not gotten past 6 minutes on that map. Any ideas?

Playing it for a few rounds last night, what seemed to work well was to having everyone get to the 2nd highest level on the lighthouse and hang around on the back half (the side that faces the hillside).

Smokers and hunters all come up the ladder on the other side and generally lollygag around on the roof top below snagging any noobs stupid enough to stand around in plain view there.

You wanna start by bringing up a bunch of red fuel things to use as make shift molotovs later on when you need to take on the tanks. You can just lob them down onto the roof below and have team mates shoot them in mid air creating quite a good spread of fire that'll keep things in check.

If anyone gets snagged off, fuck 'em. It's their own stupid fault. On other levels you will do well to save team mates who let themselves get snagged, but on this level there's nothing you can do; you'll just die with them.


I've yet to play Survivor with my mates so it's kinda frustrating at the moment. Some people are just idiots and don't seem to understand that smokers will snag you if you stand in obvious spots .:rolleyes:
 
Thinking about getting the game now the DLC is out with more variety, but as a noob to the game will I enjoy it? I don't want to join up and annoy the crap out of experienced players. Is there any way to play with similar novice players, or is it luck of the draw?
 
lfdj.jpg



After seeing the update I will say our tank did stop spawning around 17-18 minutes but we still made it that far with a constant tank spawn. No hacks like you might have been suggesting though. The second time in a row I play The Hospital I scored 12+ minutes and that was with random people. Not exactly hard.

So, did they clear your score after the update? I'm curious what happened to the folks that used the bug to their advantage and if their (obviously) illegitimate scores persisted:

"Removed Survival exploits from The Terminal, Last Stand, The Crane, The Boathouse and The Warehouse."
 
Ugh, who can exploit the longest. this mode is best played with buddies on LAN away from the people who think their illegitimately gained times in survival mode define them as a person.
 
Ugh, who can exploit the longest. this mode is best played with buddies on LAN away from the people who think their illegitimately gained times in survival mode define them as a person.

Agreed, that is why I am so glad the leader boards only show the best time of your friends. The last thing I want to see is some loser with 99:99.99 for a time across all of the maps because they found a way to expoit and made it their mission to be the top leader.

As far as the new DLC goes, I am pleased with what we received. 16 Survival maps is a lot and adding to that 2 more Versus maps should hold me over for a while.
 
Playing it for a few rounds last night, what seemed to work well was to having everyone get to the 2nd highest level on the lighthouse and hang around on the back half (the side that faces the hillside).

Smokers and hunters all come up the ladder on the other side and generally lollygag around on the roof top below snagging any noobs stupid enough to stand around in plain view there.

You wanna start by bringing up a bunch of red fuel things to use as make shift molotovs later on when you need to take on the tanks. You can just lob them down onto the roof below and have team mates shoot them in mid air creating quite a good spread of fire that'll keep things in check.

If anyone gets snagged off, fuck 'em. It's their own stupid fault. On other levels you will do well to save team mates who let themselves get snagged, but on this level there's nothing you can do; you'll just die with them.


I've yet to play Survivor with my mates so it's kinda frustrating at the moment. Some people are just idiots and don't seem to understand that smokers will snag you if you stand in obvious spots .:rolleyes:

the thing that I hate about rooftop is that when the tank hits you, you probably will be dead due to fly off the cliff
 
the thing that I hate about rooftop is that when the tank hits you, you probably will be dead due to fly off the cliff

What we do is place a propane tank at the tip of the ladder, once he climbs up (and hes usually on fire before then) you blow it up and he falls off. By the time he climbs back up a second time (if there is a second time) he'll be dead. Then grab another propane tank and put it by the ladder again (we load up the very top of the lighthouse with all the propane tanks).
 
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