The problem with Left 4 Dead
One game that I have been playing consistently since the beginning of this year is Left 4 Dead, a multi-player online game by Valve, makers of Half Life, Counter Strike Source, and Team Fortress 2. There are many reasons why Left 4 Dead is a great game, and should be played by anyone interested in the FPS genre. For one, it is one of the few small-team co-op multi-player games that is done right ™, where players really have to work together and help each other out to win campaigns. For another, it has a certain level of simplicity that makes the game very easy to pick up; there are 4 basic types of weapons: fists, pistols, tier one mains, and tier two mains, and in those last two types, you just have a few options; the uzi & pump shotgun for tier one, and the assault rifle, auto shotgun, and hunting (sniper) rifle for tier two. Add to that pipe bombs, molotovs, and the occasional mounted gun, and you have the complete range of weapons available to players. This kind of simplicity adds to the realism; in a zombie apocalypse, you won't likely have access to tanks or rocket launchers. It also means that you only need to master a few basic gameplay elements before you start focusing on actual team strategy to win matches. Compared to Team Fortress 2, which offers nine player classes and approximately six different weapons for each one (after achievement unlocking), Left 4 Dead is a sigh of relief.
Now, when I say that I've been playing this game a lot since I bought it, I'm not kidding. I play a lot of console games, currently across Wii, Nintendo DS, and GameCube, as well as some Virtual Console classics, and I play PC games as well. I was addicted to Team Fortress 2 throughout last year, but I gave up that game when the new weapon load outs were released, as I felt things became very unbalanced after that. There isn't a lot of variety to playing Left 4 Dead; I dabbled with campaign and survival modes, which involve co-op play against computer AI hordes, but now I almost always play versus, which involves two teams of 4 each, with teams alternating between playing as humans or "special infected" zombies. When it comes to playing as zombies, things are even more simple; you can pounce as the hunter, pull as the smoker, or vomit as the boomer, and if you get to play as a tank, then you just run around decimating the humans until you die. Again, the play mechanics are very simple and easy to learn, and it's the strategy that takes time to master. Versus is the mode that any Left 4 Dead fans will spend most of their time playing, and it's here that most of the games problems really show through. Here's what I have found:
- Campaigns are too long. In the official Valve levels, called campaigns, there are 5 parts, and in a versus game, each team has to play through all 5 parts. This means that unless both teams are really good at incapacitating the humans as zombies, playing a versus game easily takes more than an hour. There's usually no way to limit the campaign length either, at least not in a way that doesn't require using the console. This leads to another problem…
- Quitters are not penalized in any way. If, in the first part of a campaign, one team does significantly better than the other, it's very likely that members of the losing team will quit rather than continue playing through. This presents a number of problems: computer AI players fill in the spots until new players join in, which puts the remaining players at a huge disadvantage, teams missing players are guaranteed to fall further behind with no way to "pause and wait" for more players, and the only way to stop what will become a very frustrating endeavor is just to cancel the game and return to lobby. I once played a number of games in one night, and while waiting in one lobby, I noticed a player that had quit very early in a previous game I was playing, simply because our team had fallen behind after the very first part of the campaign, putting us at a huge disadvantage and keeping us from being able to catch up while we were waiting for another player to fill the spot. I stated in the lobby chat that this player was a known quitter (called rage quitter in L4D speak), but I had no way of proving this. The game started as expected and sure enough, after just the first part, this player was again on a losing team and quit immediately. I said the usual "told you so," but understandably, the lobby leader had no way of knowing that I was telling the truth and could do nothing to prevent having a serial quitter in the match. What L4D should have is a score for each player based on how many games they complete vs. how many they quit prematurely due to disconnection or player choice. This way, it would be possible to create server thresholds for responsible players only, so it can be easier to find games where all 8 players will actually stick it out to the end. The reason this is so important is explained by the next problem…
- Most games you play on versus mode end in disaster. There are a number of scenarios for how a versus game will play out, and only the first one is good:
- Both teams will play to the best of their abilities, with good inter-team communication and commitment to playing all five parts of the campaign. One team will win, but at least the other team will have tried their best and hopefully had a few good moments.
- One team will get such a strong lead off the first part, and possibly humiliate the other team, even if only by luck, that the entire other team will quit immediately, leaving a dead game or a game that will be plagued by continuous quits and new join-ins that will undoubtedly be uncoordinated as the team dynamic is never formed.
- Both teams will have a close game until the fourth or last part, where one team will get a decent lead and the other team will quit, despite being very close to playing a complete game, and giving neither team the satisfaction of winning.
- One player on the losing team will be so awful that they will quit, leaving the losing team to struggle at making a comeback without a fourth player and end up being doomed from then on.
- Events that require the humans to survive a constant wave of zombies while waiting in one area usually lead to those humans holing up in a corner, making them hard to attack for zombie players. This goes back to campaigns being too long; these events are usually a "wait-out" period for both teams, since the humans need to do very little work to complete the event, while the zombies have little chance of attacking during this time. This is further confounded by the fact that human players can occupy the same physical space (called "stacking"), nullifying friendly fire and allowing them to act like one human with eight hands. Stacking is an annoying game play tactic, because it means that both teams will just have to wait for the event to be over, but unfortunately it is the best way to handle a large number of common zombies. L4D2 is reported to introduce a "Spitter" zombie that can split up players, but I am not convinced that this will prevent stacking entirely. The biggest reason that stacking is a problem is simply that it is physically unrealistic, and realism is one of the main attractions of L4D.
- When human players sprint through a campaign, they can basically leave all zombies behind, preventing new zombie spawns and essentially getting an unencumbered run through the rest of the level. I shouldn't have to explain why this is a problem, but let me just say that I did this once at the recommendation of a team member and it basically made it impossible for the other team to stop us. It's a ridiculous flaw.
So here's the part where I present solutions to Valve that might help them fix these problems plaguing their current flagship product. Left 4 Dead 2 is coming out very soon (November), and it has a lot of new features, like melee weapons, new zombie types, and daytime campaigns (hopefully involving more open spaces). These are great features, and I think that I am bound to purchase this game when it comes out, because I'm basically addicted to this franchise and I want all the new play experiences I can get. That all being said, Valve has not made any indications that they plan to fix the fundamental problems in this new breed of gameplay, and I hope that they will, for both Left 4 Dead and its sequel. Here is what should be done:
- Allow and encourage one-part campaigns in versus mode, such as playing only Death Toll part 3, which will offer up both a way to get a complete experience in less than 15 minutes, and allow games to be played that are quit-free.
- Add a rating for all players, that measures how many versus games they complete, versus how many they quit. This will allow lobby leaders and server admins to keep out serial quitters and ensure that even public games will be played with people who are willing to see campaigns to their completion, even if they aren't on the winning team. This will also encourage players to actually improve, since you usually learn the most by playing against better players.
- Allow game forfeits, so that at least if a team is off to a bad start, they can concede the game and give the other team a legitimate win, rather than simply quitting or just canceling and heading back-to-lobby.
- Allow versus campaigns to be played without events, to keep the humans moving rather than stacking in corners. Also, force humans to physically collide with each other, so they cannot occupy the same space, effectively making stacking impossible, and making events more realistic (if players cannot stack, they might occupy different corners of the same room, at the very least making it somewhat possible to attack those players).
- Eliminate sprinting in any ways possible. One solution would be to allow common infected to respawn ahead of the players, so they cannot run through the map without any opponents. The "director" AI should also be improved to account for situations where players sprint and come up with ways to slow them down.
I would really like to see Valve take a stab at fixing these problems, and hopefully even respond to my opinions on this. I think Left 4 Dead is a great franchise, but playing the game can sometimes be a very frustrating experience, and I'm afraid that these problems will eventually catch up with the game and make it less attractive overall. As it is, many players refuse to play with strangers, because they can't stand the high frequency with which players quit mid-game. Fixing these problems would definitely improve the experience for everyone.
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All of your points are well stated and accurate. However I do think if you look deeper into the interviews regarding L4D2 you'll see that many of those suggestions are in fact being used. For example:
1) Players cannot stack at all this time around, the player models have tangible limits which you cannot push through. Therefore if one player is in a corner the other players cannot physically push themselves into that same spot. However the character in the corner may push out from the others if they block his way, but this will automatically "shove" his teammates a little bit to make room.
2) The AI director does indeed now track the progress of an individual team, and will actively make changes to compensate for their success rate. E.g. If they slaughter a horde with no problem, a fog bank may roll in to obscure their vision. If they move too fast through an area, a bridge might collapse, forcing them to take a much worse route. Also it will now actively create more special infected if they still continue to do well (like a Charger randomly rushing in from the side).
However you have some great ideas here from a gameplay standpoint. My favorites are the idea of having a seperate mode for playing one level at a time, and then adding a "Forfeit" vote option for teams so they can at least restart without being a total jackass and quitting. I've been forced to quit before because I'd end up alone on a team against a full party on the other, making it impossible for me to win as Infected but impossible for THEM to win as Survivor since the Survivor AI has ridiculously good shooting.
Shuffle the deck. If it becomes uneven, then even it up by forcing a/an(optional) switch.
I don't play as much these days but over the 12 years that I have, it's been the only effective solution.
I find myself constantly having to manually switch in older games just to keep it even.
(2) - You're going up against a lot of kids… I don't think they care.
(4) - That would be maddening for the Humans while trying to escape or run… they would just trip over themselves making it rather uneven.
(5) - But if you remove sprinting altogether…
(6) - Food.
William: I'm glad that those two fixes are going in for L4D2. Another thing I noticed today, while playing Death Aboard (a fan-created campaign), was that in the last part, the house that players had to defend to wait for the transport had a lot more openings than any of the ones in official Valve maps. It meant that we could still attack them as zombies with a bit of success, and it also meant that when the tank came, it was easy for the humans to get moving rather than getting stuck on windows or doors like what usually happens in maps like Blood Harvest. It was probably the most fun that I have had in a final part of any campaign on versus. I think it shows that better level design might solve some of these problems.
Anrkist: Unfortunately, teams in L4D are very small and communication and team building are a must in each campaign. I've been team switched a couple of times, either because of a shuffle or because a server admin really wanted to play with their friends, and the game basically ended right there. The competitive spirit is really high in a versus game, with both teams really trying hard to bring each other down, and once you have to switch sides, you immediately feel like a traitor and you don't want to get along with the people you have tried so hard to defeat. I know this might sound cheesy, but I'd rather continue playing on a losing team than be switched to the other side.
This is all because scoring in a versus campaign is cumulative. If each part was a separate competition, it wouldn't matter if teams were shuffled after a couple uneven rounds. That would fix everything and make it easier to make a server rotation rather than having to join a new server every time a game is started.
On (2), at least on the PC, I don't see many kids. I find a lot of people who sound more like they are in their 20s, and get annoyed with quitters a lot. I should have mentioned that I was talking about the PC and not the Xbox 360 version in my post.
And on (4) and (5), considering that sprinting can actually be really easy for anyone who is at least at an intermediate skill level, you could throw out the events and it wouldn't change much. The zombies usually get the most chances to hit the humans when they are moving out in the open, so it would just make matches quicker and more exciting for both teams.
If you're serious about the game, join a league. All the things you're requesting stem from players' inability to create a fun match. You're basically asking Valve to hard-code things to prevent douchebags from spoiling your game.
Sure, VS is long, but that's the point of it… See who can claim victory over an entire campaign, since the maps have different difficulties and you can adopt different strategies every time. If you want to make VS mode shorter, create your own campaign with only 2 maps, that's what the SDK is for.
What you're doing is randomly enter a server and expect everyone to have the same skill and interest in the game as you, which is impossible. If you want a fun experience, play with 7 friends that share the same interest in the game, that's what I do.
Sure, it's easy to create a list of things you dislike about your experience and ask Valve to fix it for you, but you fail to realize that you're discussing on-line play, which is entirely up to the players and not the game itself.
Tobias, you are 100% correct. My point in making this post was to suggest some methods for Valve that would extend the lifetime and increase the popularity of the L4D franchise, because pub play is an important part of any online game and it's where most players decide whether or not they like the game and are willing to buy a sequel. That being said, I want to get a better experience from L4D myself regardless of what Valve does with their game. I had some friends from a clan I was in before, but they are all TF2 nerds and won't play L4D. Can you recommend some leagues or groups to join so I can get more friends in-game?
There are many more important things in life than gaming, unless you are in the MLG. The fact is, the vast majority of people playing online are not in the MLG. What this means is, many people quit or stop playing for many reasons at many times. I work from home, so at various times throughout the day I have time to play a quick game of something, some times its an hour, some times its ten minutes, and I try to pick games accordingly. But there are times when my hour gets cut short after fifteen minutes or twenty, or whatever.
The point is paying my rent is much more important than weather or not my team loses on L4D or any other game. If they or you lose, what happens? Is your life over? Stop taking it so seriously. When you call for people to be punished for things beyond their control and which amount to nothing, you sound like an immature whiner.
You are not the only one who pays their hard earned cash to play (or not), so you don't get to ban people from games. If it is too casual for you, join a league.
Survivalist: Your smug, holier-than-thou attitude is seriously misguided. You seem to take a blog post as an indication of importance. I might have spent 30 minutes writing this, which I could have also spent browsing L4D lobbies to find a game. Do you really think I wasted my time?
But maybe I need to clarify some context for you. I am a game developer and one of my interests (these are things that consume my attention, unlike paying rent) is improving game (re)playability to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. What I have presented here is suggestions on how to make L4D, and similar small-team multiplayer games, more enjoyable for everyone (even the losing team). These are ideas that I would use even in my own work.
Now, pay attention, so I can tell you why your comment is misguided:
Am I really such a bad person?
You're a panzee bitch.
Learn how to play L4D more gooder.
Fred,
No, you are an idiot. You seem to think that my reasons for offering advice on how to improve L4D stems from my lack of skill in playing the game. I never implied anything to suggest that. I am actually really good at this game, as anyone who has played with me can attest, and I win the majority of the games that make it to completion, on top of all the ones that involve the other team quitting because they don't want to play against me.
How about you send me your Steam ID and I'll prove it?
Christian, I like your ideas and I agree Survivalist had a bit of a bad attitude in his comment. But I agree with the issue that he raised about unexpected interruptions that are not rage related, which puts a snag in to a rating system for quitters. A lot of players do have unexpected obligations during the course of a one and a half hour game. For example I am a father of a 2 year old son, and if he is in bed for the night but starts crying, I need to attend to him immediately L4D or not. Personally unless I have an obligation of some sort I never quit, I really enjoy the challenge of playing against a better team, and even if my entire team rage quits I stick it out and make good plays even though I am getting destroyed in score until some new players join. Often when I do this I gain respect from the other team if they are a clan or whatever and they all friend me.
Such a rating system could end up hurting good players who sometimes have to quit for situations beyond their control. Perhaps it could be implemented in such a way to reduce being penalized for having to leave for reasons other than rage. There could be a point scale for different situations:
Examples:
1) Quiting while on the winning team could incur fewer or no point loss.
2) Quiting due to lag, if a player has higher than a certain threshold ping on average (example 400ms ping) then they incur fewer or no point loss
3) There could be a sliding scale of points lost based on how early the player on the losing team quits… the longer you stick it out the less of a penalty you incur… The idea behind this one is that if you played for the last hour there is a good chance you may be quitting due to some real life obligation and not just rage quitting.
4) quiting within the first 1 or 2 minutes should not be penalized at all because you may find yourself in a game full of ignorant and abusive jerks
5) being kicked should not count against your 'rage quitter rating' just in case a player is kicked unfairly… however perhaps their could be a separate score kept on how frequently a player is kicked (with its own set of rules and exceptions)
Aneurism: All good ideas. The thing about rating systems is, even if you have to legitimately quit most of the games you play, you will still have a better rating than the douchebags that quit every single game the play (you know, the ones that are always on the losing team, because they play so bad and don't try to improve).
But there's an easy way to deal with this: quit forgiveness. Your teammates could be the ones to decide if you should be penalized or not. So you could tell your teammates, "sorry, my kid is crying, gotta go" and after you leave, they could vote not to penalize you and you are safe. I think this would be good, because I have also seen cases where a friend quits and then they message me saying "my game crashed," etc. and if I knew that I wouldn't penalize them. It's really the cases where some random person quits in the middle of a stage while you are being attacked that you ought to be able to vote "penalize this jerk" and get something for it.
A couple more points:
p.s. while we are on the topic of L4D, I had an awesome game last night… 4620 to 46. I was on the winning team, of course
And fortunately the other team did stick it out.
Did that guy named "Fred" actually just type what I think?!
Fred on August 17, 2009
You're a panzee bitch.
Learn how to play L4D more gooder.
I was searching for posts on "Why kids shouldnt play L4D" when i stumbled upon this page.
First of all Fred its "Pansy". Secondly "Learn how to play L4D MORE GOODER?" Seriously kid, you need to talk to your father….that is if you can find him.
OHH I see, it is smug to point out YOUR smugness? Ok, as you wish I guess. When did I say you wasted your time? If you want to spend your time whining, great.
The fact is, you not only suggest that people who leave a game early should be punished(through an absurd point system) but you go a step further, and suggest that the ones doling out the punishment should be other players. Do you not realize how many bad ratings will be given even after someone says " My kid is crying, gotta go."? I can sort of understand where you are coming from with the whole rating system (not right, but I understand your frustration) but putting it in the hands of the players is just idiotic. I'm not calling you an idiot, but your idea is a very bad one, born of frustration and anger.
Do you really believe that everyone is as honest as you, and would never rate a good player badly just for the heck of it?? You can't honestly say you haven't seen people abuse the vote to kick a player, can you?
When people anonymously abuse the power given them….you don't give them more power to abuse. It's common sense.
Now, you keep saying that these suggestions of yours will make the game more enjoyable for everyone, and that is a very smug thing to say, especially because you are saying it in a conversation with someone who wouldn't find it enjoyable.
You see It would not be enjoyable for me and a lot of other people, so by your line of thought the only people who matter are those that agree with you. Sounds pretty "holier than thou" to me.
A Survivalist: Have you ever played a game where you can penalize another player that team kills you? It's a point system, it usually allows you to cause something bad to happen to them, and it's entirely vote based. You get to vote if someone actually kills you when they are not supposed to. You think it would get abused all the time, but it doesn't. I played Wolfenstein ET for many years and had many accidental team kills, but it was rare that I actually suffered unfair penalties for this. The reality is, there are a lot less douchebags on these games than you think. There are more when the game has no safeguards to prevent douchebaggery, which would explain why there are so many griefers in L4D. I can assure you, if there was at least some system for differentiating people who disconnect frequently from people who do not, you would see far less griefers. It would not have the negative repercussions you are so convinced of.
Another example of a game with a point system is Warfish.net. When you invite players to a game, you can see the boot stats for each player in big red letters. I had a couple boots last week because I wasn't around during the weekend, but do you think that prevented people from inviting me to new games? Not at all. I was invited to less games, especially in the case of games that had short boot times, but I was not a victim of abuse in any way.
And please understand one thing: this is not a conversation. Just because I have a comment box on this page, does not mean that I value your opinion over mine. If you have different opinions, start a blog and post them there. But I am a game designer and I have very strong ideas about how to improve many games. While I don't work for Valve, I am entitled to my opinion, and I am entitled to believe that I am right, and the $6/month I pay for a domain name and $50/month I pay for a server entitles me to share my opinion in a smug manner for the whole world to see. So deal with it.
Silly. You don't have to value someones opinion to for a back and forth exchange (and this is one) to qualify as a conversation. You are most definitely entitled to your opinion, when did I suggest other wise…I only called it dumb. If you want to pay 56 bucks to share your dumb opinion with the world , then the world will tell you how dumb it is….deal with it. After all, I didn't put the comment box at the end of your blog.
either way comparing the grief protection of wolfenstien and the one you suggest for L4D is apples and oranges. Team killing and other forms of griefing is not the same as leaving early. Leaving early is NOT griefing.
You say there are a lot less douchebags than I think, but what you don't seem to realize is, I play every day…I see them all the time. They mess with me, they mess with others, they try and recruit me to mess with people, the day I don't run across at least one douchebag is a memorable one, because it is so rare.
Once again, your point system and this entire blog is born of anger and frustration, stop trying to play dictator and just hit mute.