Valve Announces Left 4 Dead Patch

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Valve Announces Left 4 Dead Patch

Valve's new patch [http://store.steampowered.com/news/2162/] for Left 4 Dead is a biggie that primarily fixes exploits, but there are some great additions to both the single and multiplayer games, too.

For the Survivors, it's mostly fixes, but you now can't scale the buildings using Infected routes or leap onto ladders after being punched by a tank. The Infected, on the other hand, get goodies galore.

The Hunter now pounces hard, and can get past melee a lot more easily. The Smoker's tongue has had a lot of fixes so that he's now deadlier, faster and more accurate. The Tank appears more often, nearer to the players, but can't fraternize with the Witch so much. He's also far more resilient against shotgun blasts.

Even the Witch gets some loving, with the chance of her appearing increased and appearing with the same chance on both sides of the Versus race. The Boomer, however, will just have make do with his boosted Infected-in-Arms.

Overall though, loading times are up, the HUD is clearer and people can't chop and change teams willy-nilly.

The PC patch is already waiting on Steam for download, and the 360 patch will be coming over the next few weeks.

One thing that the patch doesn't change: Francis still hates vans. [http://ihatevans.com/]

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[Nivag the Owl]

I admit that some of this update has been a bit extreme, like totally buffing smokers. But to be honest, it's about bloody time there was a patch like this. There's so, so, SO many bugs in the game that need to be fixed and they haven't done anything about it for months.

 

[mokes310]

FINALLY! Now it'll be fun to play versus again w/o the cheaters.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Wait, they've made the Tank less vulnerable to the Shotguns? How in the name of Zombie Jesus are we supposed to kill him now?

Now we'll fighting the big muscled bugger all day (or does this only apply to versus mode?).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Wait, they've made the Tank less vulnerable to the Shotguns? How in the name of Zombie Jesus are we supposed to kill him now?

Now we'll fighting the big muscled bugger all day (or does this only apply to versus mode?).

From what I can determine it's only the auto-shotties that don't tear him in half anymore, but the Tier 2 weapons were overpowered. Will need a bit of testing later.

 

[Nimbus]

Hmmm... I was kind of hoping for better netcode or more servers, but I guess this will do. Getting a low-lag game is still a *****, though.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Wait, they've made the Tank less vulnerable to the Shotguns? How in the name of Zombie Jesus are we supposed to kill him now?

From what I can determine it's only the auto-shotties that don't tear him in half anymore, but the Tier 2 weapons were overpowered. Will need a bit of testing later.

Playing on expert there is no such thing as overpowered against the Tank!

On the lower difficulties I can see your point, but I thought it was more that the tier 1 weapons were way underpowered. On Advanced/Expert having the Uzi/Shotguns seems to be a virtual death sentence against a Tank.
Then again on the lower settings it might be a bit too easy to get Tankbusters with the tier 2 weapons.

 

[Corven]

It should be a couple of weeks before I can afford Left 4 Dead anyways, so I should hopefully get it when the patch ships out for the 360.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Wait, they've made the Tank less vulnerable to the Shotguns? How in the name of Zombie Jesus are we supposed to kill him now?

From what I can determine it's only the auto-shotties that don't tear him in half anymore, but the Tier 2 weapons were overpowered. Will need a bit of testing later.

Playing on expert there is no such thing as overpowered against the Tank!

On the lower difficulties I can see your point, but I thought it was more that the tier 1 weapons were way underpowered. On Advanced/Expert having the Uzi/Shotguns seems to be a virtual death sentence against a Tank.
Then again on the lower settings it might be a bit too easy to get Tankbusters with the tier 2 weapons.

The Tank has also had some nerfs in the fact that he only gets rage reduction from hitting but I'll take a trip on Expert tonight and see how he stands up.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Finally! I simply can't play left 4 dead because of some of the exploits, especially on No Mercy. Hopefully this will solve some things.

And I'm really glad of the buffs for the zombies. Boomer is the only zombie I'm any good at, as you actually get points for dieing.

 

[Rednog]

I'm interested as too how hard the pounce is now, there are a few areas in No Mercy where you can easily pounce someone for 20+ damage. Example because I know there will be people going wtf?? In the 3rd zone, if you're infected you run onto the roof over where the survivors are, then jump across onto the the fire escape climb all the way up and as the survivors are leaving the safe room you jump up at and angle and then point down at the survivors and you should hit for a good chunk of their hp. There are a couple more spots in the game where as a hunter you can do some pretty clever wall leaps and get really high and just come crashing down on a survivor. Though this makes me curious as too how much the buffed infected will do on expert, you were already pretty screwed after a few hits...

Also I hope they fix the huge bonus damage hunters get for setting themselves on fire.

 

[Ralackk]

The minimum damage on the hunters pounce is kind of nice but it was already very easy to pounce a survivor who was meleeing. The smoker definatly needed some help though as he was only usefull in rare situations or if the survivor team didn't actually stick together.

I'm a bit worried about the fact that the Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode. I liked how it was random, as the first team didn't know it was coming until it showed up and the team after then only knew that a tank was going to turn up, not exactly where it turns up. The second team will now have a fairly big advantage in the fact they can prepare for a tank at the exact same moment they got theirs.

 

[shial]

They are not saying it spawns in the same spot. It has an even chance of spawning at any given spawn point and both teams will face the same number of tanks. Look at how they phrased the changes to the Witches.

 

[Samah]

They are not saying it spawns in the same spot. It has an even chance of spawning at any given spawn point and both teams will face the same number of tanks. Look at how they phrased the changes to the Witches.

No, they are saying that there is a greater chance of getting a Tank, but both the Tank(s) and Witch(es) will spawn at approximately the same place for the enemy team when switching sides. They also mention that the Witch won't appear close to the Tank. The wording on that pretty much confirms the wording on the other notes.

Specifically:

- Increased chance of getting the Tank or Witch
- Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode
- Witch spawns at the same % through the map for both teams
- Witch: Avoids spawning within a certain % of the tank

 

[Angron]

i always play with friends so the exploits dont really happen that much, but still (maybe i say this too much) but nic eone valve, the list of fixes you gave are almost all the small complaints i had about it

guess its time to L4D abit more

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ok, just had a play.

Tank is a lot tougher and spawns in some weird locations. Like at the start of 1:2????????
You usually just get Tank or Witch, not both.
Smoker needs a lot more skill to play, but hits harder.
Hunter's pounce is a lot more manual than automatic, and works well for good players.
Boomer's horde seems a little reduced(?)
Bots are still idiots when it comes to rescuing you.

But I love the Boomer. Can't beat a good Boomer bomb.

Overall, a good and well-needed patch, but more servers would SO help.