Natace
04-11-2007, 03:15 PM
Hi, I am new here, and havent really FOLLOWED left4dead's complete progress like a normal fan would, however, I am most certainly looking forward to left4dead, and I believe it will recieve more hype than CS ever did. (I don't really like CS anyway)
But to help the devs, looking onwards, having some foresight on the project, after what I have read, especially after reading the brilliantly done hands on preview here on this website, that there will be plenty of exploits.
What usually kills a multiplayer game? well to start off with, many players complain that it's the games fault for being crap..take bf2 for example, alot say it is crap right, but their reasons are mainly because of other players in the game, and this is why making a balanced and civilised co-op multiplayer game is so darn hard.
Take a look at a normal mp game...you cannot, you absolutely CANNOT avoid the morons who want to run around causing trouble for everyone, and i'm not just talking about people who go around TKing everyone, I'm talking about groups of these morons wreaking havoc on servers. HOW? well, simple, it's not that they actually PLAY in a not so fun manner, but they generally like to HOG servers, I've been on official servers for games before, and this hasnt happened much, BUT when it happens, it is downright frustrating.
What the problem is, is players exploiting the vote system to just kick anybody who is not a part of their little trouble making gang of morons, so you join, you get vote kicked, and THAT is downright frustrating, it is alot more frustrating than being TK'd thats for sure.
So L4D has this system, where players will get a reputation so to speak.
This is how I think a few things should be, otherwise, looking from a morons perspective, L4D's system is going to be exploited to all billio, and nobody is going to like it, except the morons, because to them, exploiting games, IS the game, playing the game how it should be played, is the problem in their eyes, these people are generally young kids, or even sometimes people around the 18-25 yr old mark.
So, in order to destroy their game, you have to have a dead end at every corner, everything they try, needs to have a cut off point, a dead end, something to stop them right where they are.
First of all, players get a reputation right, but there is also a vote system where any of the 3 players can gather up their votes and kick people...BIG MISTAKE, because what if those 3 people are all morons, and want to hog the server for themselves? They just kick anybody who comes into the server that they don't know, or don't want to know, even if it means playing with only 3 people, they probably are waiting on a buddy of their moron gang to join.
This needs fixing.
The easy way to do it is this.
They can only vote a player out who has more than say..3 team kills in that server, or 3 of the major mistakes. Something along those lines where people could only vote a player out who is clearly breaking rules, sure mistakes happen aswell, so a player might not be so good at the game and accidentally not know that Team killing is possible and that grenades are deadly, and all those other things in the game that could look like trouble making activity, so how does that get beaten? well, if a player doesnt know how to play, he should bloody well learn how to play, it is just ignorant to ignore tutorials before playing a game, the tutorial section is not there to take up space on the main menu...ok, take it OFF the main menu and make it a compulsary thing before anybody can play.
Ever played America's Army? yeah, you MUST, you absolutely MUST complete the training before you can play online, that way, you have no excuse to screw around and do stupid things...there are still idiot players on servers...but hell....they get banned and kicked normally.
So what does the game need, it needs a compulsary training system, you only have to complete it once, but it makes sure that the player understands the game mechanics, and they will have to do a test at the end of this aswell, if they can't pass the test, they can't play online, simple..
Yes, this is harsh, but not as harsh as going onto a server and causing problems for people who want to get down to business, only to have them get frustrated and kick the player from the server, because they think he is trying to cause trouble.
Thats the first thing, the other things are with the weapons...I am not entirely sure how this works, but in the hands on preview, they failed to go into much detail on how many weapons you can carry at a time, and how the weapons get shared amongst players.
I can see alot of fuss happening when players are all rushing to try and get a weapon...so why even do this at all, why not only allow certain weapons to be able to be used by certain characters?
Shotguns for the big fellas, m16's for the electronics guy, uzi's for the chick, sniper rifle for the electronics guy, mounted mg for the big fellas again, and so on...every weapon would be allowed to be used by a certain member of the team only.
Also, whatever character you play as, is random, you don't get to choose the best character before everyone else...you are assigned a character, and you are stuck with that character, until you change level or whatever.
NOW, you can see problems there can't you, so can I, so I go onto the next thing.
What happens if you're the only one left and you are the chick, you can't use the shotgun!!?!?! OH NO!!! out of ammo, and infected surround you, closing in fast, and you can't do anything but push them back with your uzi...oooooh damn, too bad!....
No...thats not right is it?
The way to fix this is that say you have 2 players for example, one is the biker, he can use the uzi and the shotgun, and the girl can only use the uzi and sniper rifle.
The biker dies, his shotgun lays there on the ground, he is out of uzi ammo, and you only have one clip left in your uzi, enough to kill the few infected in the vicinity and enough for you to get to safety...
Well....you want to pick up that shotgun, but that bloody stupid system won't let you pick it up..oh how crap. Well, that wouldnt be the case. What would happen is that if a player who can use the shotgun is dead, and there are no other players that can use it that are alive, the people who normally can't use the shotgun, will now be allowed to use it, as it is kindof like a last resort...
It'd be like being the chick player and walking into a room full of shotguns...and you can't use them, lol, it'd suck.
So, that would be the way to fix that issue, but then there is also another issue yet.
What if there are 3 people left, 1 person who can carry a shotgun is dead, the other person who can carry the shotgun is nowhere to be seen, but is not dead, and the shotgun lays there on the ground,and you are out of ammo, that'd suck, because the system would only allow you to pick it up if nobody else can carry the gun.
I am thinking about this one on the fly, so bare with me, I only have 15 more minutes to think and write this :p
A solution to this could be that the shotgun has a radius around it, if a player who CAN use the gun is inside this radius, then nobody else can get the gun, if the player is JUST outside of the radius of the gun, and is running towards the gun, but another player runs to pick the gun up ...before the other player gets inside the radius...well, that'd kinda suck wouldnt it, so there is ANOTHER problem right there!! oh damn, the problems never seem to disappear do they.
Well, to combat THIS problem, players who CAN pickup the gun would need to be below a certain amount of ammo for the gun, or not have the gun for no other player to be able to pick the gun up, so say for example, a player is just a hog, he is a guy who can use this gun, he has plenty of ammo for the shotgun and is happily blasting the crap out of the infected as they close in, the girl runs out of uzi ammo, she wants to get the gun, but the big fella is standing in the radius of the gun...well this sucks doesnt it, because you have a swarm of infected trying to eat you...eik!.
So if the player who can normally use that shotgun is below a certain amount of ammo and needs to pickup the gun, and is inside the radius, he can pick the gun up, and nobody else can, but if he has all the ammo in the world...one of the other players can pick it up, UNLESS, THEY have more ammo ;).
There is another problem though.
What if two players have no ammo?
Simple, it is the player who gets the gun first....this is survival afterall. This is FAIR gameplay, if you both has 0 ammo in your weapons..and you have one person 10 feet away, one person 2 feet away with a bunch of zombies on him/her, then the player 2 feet away needs it a hell of alot more.
I could get even more complex with this using the same radius system, which would determine how many enemies a player has inside his radius, and therefore determining who NEEDS the gun the most for their own survival....but thats another story for later.
I've only really covered a few things...less things than I would have liked, but I hope to hear some responses to this.
I believe the gameplay can be made so much better and fairer if the developers really thought with a complex web of ideas...which i'm sure they do, but they may need to get more complex.
I hope people like the ideas...if you find an exploit in the idea (there are a few there that I don't have the time to continue covering), please point it out, and ways that it could be combated.
Have fun.
But to help the devs, looking onwards, having some foresight on the project, after what I have read, especially after reading the brilliantly done hands on preview here on this website, that there will be plenty of exploits.
What usually kills a multiplayer game? well to start off with, many players complain that it's the games fault for being crap..take bf2 for example, alot say it is crap right, but their reasons are mainly because of other players in the game, and this is why making a balanced and civilised co-op multiplayer game is so darn hard.
Take a look at a normal mp game...you cannot, you absolutely CANNOT avoid the morons who want to run around causing trouble for everyone, and i'm not just talking about people who go around TKing everyone, I'm talking about groups of these morons wreaking havoc on servers. HOW? well, simple, it's not that they actually PLAY in a not so fun manner, but they generally like to HOG servers, I've been on official servers for games before, and this hasnt happened much, BUT when it happens, it is downright frustrating.
What the problem is, is players exploiting the vote system to just kick anybody who is not a part of their little trouble making gang of morons, so you join, you get vote kicked, and THAT is downright frustrating, it is alot more frustrating than being TK'd thats for sure.
So L4D has this system, where players will get a reputation so to speak.
This is how I think a few things should be, otherwise, looking from a morons perspective, L4D's system is going to be exploited to all billio, and nobody is going to like it, except the morons, because to them, exploiting games, IS the game, playing the game how it should be played, is the problem in their eyes, these people are generally young kids, or even sometimes people around the 18-25 yr old mark.
So, in order to destroy their game, you have to have a dead end at every corner, everything they try, needs to have a cut off point, a dead end, something to stop them right where they are.
First of all, players get a reputation right, but there is also a vote system where any of the 3 players can gather up their votes and kick people...BIG MISTAKE, because what if those 3 people are all morons, and want to hog the server for themselves? They just kick anybody who comes into the server that they don't know, or don't want to know, even if it means playing with only 3 people, they probably are waiting on a buddy of their moron gang to join.
This needs fixing.
The easy way to do it is this.
They can only vote a player out who has more than say..3 team kills in that server, or 3 of the major mistakes. Something along those lines where people could only vote a player out who is clearly breaking rules, sure mistakes happen aswell, so a player might not be so good at the game and accidentally not know that Team killing is possible and that grenades are deadly, and all those other things in the game that could look like trouble making activity, so how does that get beaten? well, if a player doesnt know how to play, he should bloody well learn how to play, it is just ignorant to ignore tutorials before playing a game, the tutorial section is not there to take up space on the main menu...ok, take it OFF the main menu and make it a compulsary thing before anybody can play.
Ever played America's Army? yeah, you MUST, you absolutely MUST complete the training before you can play online, that way, you have no excuse to screw around and do stupid things...there are still idiot players on servers...but hell....they get banned and kicked normally.
So what does the game need, it needs a compulsary training system, you only have to complete it once, but it makes sure that the player understands the game mechanics, and they will have to do a test at the end of this aswell, if they can't pass the test, they can't play online, simple..
Yes, this is harsh, but not as harsh as going onto a server and causing problems for people who want to get down to business, only to have them get frustrated and kick the player from the server, because they think he is trying to cause trouble.
Thats the first thing, the other things are with the weapons...I am not entirely sure how this works, but in the hands on preview, they failed to go into much detail on how many weapons you can carry at a time, and how the weapons get shared amongst players.
I can see alot of fuss happening when players are all rushing to try and get a weapon...so why even do this at all, why not only allow certain weapons to be able to be used by certain characters?
Shotguns for the big fellas, m16's for the electronics guy, uzi's for the chick, sniper rifle for the electronics guy, mounted mg for the big fellas again, and so on...every weapon would be allowed to be used by a certain member of the team only.
Also, whatever character you play as, is random, you don't get to choose the best character before everyone else...you are assigned a character, and you are stuck with that character, until you change level or whatever.
NOW, you can see problems there can't you, so can I, so I go onto the next thing.
What happens if you're the only one left and you are the chick, you can't use the shotgun!!?!?! OH NO!!! out of ammo, and infected surround you, closing in fast, and you can't do anything but push them back with your uzi...oooooh damn, too bad!....
No...thats not right is it?
The way to fix this is that say you have 2 players for example, one is the biker, he can use the uzi and the shotgun, and the girl can only use the uzi and sniper rifle.
The biker dies, his shotgun lays there on the ground, he is out of uzi ammo, and you only have one clip left in your uzi, enough to kill the few infected in the vicinity and enough for you to get to safety...
Well....you want to pick up that shotgun, but that bloody stupid system won't let you pick it up..oh how crap. Well, that wouldnt be the case. What would happen is that if a player who can use the shotgun is dead, and there are no other players that can use it that are alive, the people who normally can't use the shotgun, will now be allowed to use it, as it is kindof like a last resort...
It'd be like being the chick player and walking into a room full of shotguns...and you can't use them, lol, it'd suck.
So, that would be the way to fix that issue, but then there is also another issue yet.
What if there are 3 people left, 1 person who can carry a shotgun is dead, the other person who can carry the shotgun is nowhere to be seen, but is not dead, and the shotgun lays there on the ground,and you are out of ammo, that'd suck, because the system would only allow you to pick it up if nobody else can carry the gun.
I am thinking about this one on the fly, so bare with me, I only have 15 more minutes to think and write this :p
A solution to this could be that the shotgun has a radius around it, if a player who CAN use the gun is inside this radius, then nobody else can get the gun, if the player is JUST outside of the radius of the gun, and is running towards the gun, but another player runs to pick the gun up ...before the other player gets inside the radius...well, that'd kinda suck wouldnt it, so there is ANOTHER problem right there!! oh damn, the problems never seem to disappear do they.
Well, to combat THIS problem, players who CAN pickup the gun would need to be below a certain amount of ammo for the gun, or not have the gun for no other player to be able to pick the gun up, so say for example, a player is just a hog, he is a guy who can use this gun, he has plenty of ammo for the shotgun and is happily blasting the crap out of the infected as they close in, the girl runs out of uzi ammo, she wants to get the gun, but the big fella is standing in the radius of the gun...well this sucks doesnt it, because you have a swarm of infected trying to eat you...eik!.
So if the player who can normally use that shotgun is below a certain amount of ammo and needs to pickup the gun, and is inside the radius, he can pick the gun up, and nobody else can, but if he has all the ammo in the world...one of the other players can pick it up, UNLESS, THEY have more ammo ;).
There is another problem though.
What if two players have no ammo?
Simple, it is the player who gets the gun first....this is survival afterall. This is FAIR gameplay, if you both has 0 ammo in your weapons..and you have one person 10 feet away, one person 2 feet away with a bunch of zombies on him/her, then the player 2 feet away needs it a hell of alot more.
I could get even more complex with this using the same radius system, which would determine how many enemies a player has inside his radius, and therefore determining who NEEDS the gun the most for their own survival....but thats another story for later.
I've only really covered a few things...less things than I would have liked, but I hope to hear some responses to this.
I believe the gameplay can be made so much better and fairer if the developers really thought with a complex web of ideas...which i'm sure they do, but they may need to get more complex.
I hope people like the ideas...if you find an exploit in the idea (there are a few there that I don't have the time to continue covering), please point it out, and ways that it could be combated.
Have fun.