Why Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 succeeded, and Evolve failed

[FakeSympathy]

When Evolve was first announced, it probably was one of the biggest video game hypes. Up till that point, the only shooter games were military-based, and that was getting really stale. Evolve was suppose to be the one game that brings back co-op shooter. But we all know how this game turned out to be. This game made a terrible first impression on me with its boring beta and the ridiculous dlc packs and TWO season passes. And after playing for a bit over at my friend's house, I decided to boot up by L4D 1 & 2 to see why those games worked so well.

Location

L4D series had 12 locations (yes, I counted them), all of which are distinguishable from each other had had unique feels. And each of those locations had multiple stages from 5 to 8 stages PER location. That is fuck load of gameplay value. Now, evolve has 12 maps as well for hunt (There are 4 for defender but no one plays that mode), but they are all on a gloomy, dark planet colonies. If compare the maps, L4D series was linear w/ ambush spots, car alarms, pick up weapons here and there, and a witch for clueless players. This is much better playing experience compare to Evolve's enclosed map, where everyone is literally going around in circles. There are wildlifes here and there, but since you are going around in circles, a smart player can guess where they might spawn

co-op gameplay value

The fact that you can't play this game in a local co-op split screen AND as the monster while in online party is ridiculous. Not only does L4D had split-screen co-op up to four players, but it allowed online party members to be both the survivals and zombies.

Speaking of zombies

The zombies were a lot more fun to play as compare to the monsters in Evolve. Maybe it's because i'm not force to play the same monster for 15 min until I can evolve into the next monster which I have to spend 30 min playing until I unlock the next one. The reason why zombies died so easily was to have players adapt to the gameplay of the next zombie. It added variety of playing as a zombie especially playing as a tank.

The characters

Each of the 8 humans in L4D series were fully fleshed out characters to have players connect to them. I personally connected to Ellis because of his open, friendly, inclusive and highly (even unrealistically) optimistic personality. Evolve throws in so many characters, it's hard for the players to relate to.

L4D had ZERO dlc bullshit

The reason why L4D series is so great on steam is because of the mods. These add custom games, weapon skins, and character skins which players never had to spend a dime on it. Evolve had some of the most extensive dlc I've ever seen. As Angry Joe once said, "You are giving me a gun, that's painted blue, and you want to charge me $2?" This only was made WORSE when 2K had the balls to announce 2nd Season Pass!. And even with those season passes, there is were $130 worth of dlcs that weren't part of the season passes

Conclusion

I still can't believe these two games were made by same guys. I seriously think 2K fucked with the development and this is what we get.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Evolve is a great game in theory; the idea of one player being the monster that the others fight is genuinely intriguing and the decision to make each character in the party fulfill a different but important role makes for a lot of teamwork. The three stages of monster growth and the cat and mouse it, in theory, creates, where the hunters push hard early and the monster overpowers in late game, is also a really cool concept. And as long as the monster is Goliath (and, to a lesser extent the Behemoth) that works really well.

In actuality monster players quickly found out that the easiest way to win was to pick Wraith, lead the hunters on a long shitty chase that they had no hope of winning due to the the Wraiths poor design and then completely overpower and murder the hunters after 20 minutes of running in circles. The Wraith's combination of stealth and high mobility made it nigh impossible to catch and allowed it to elude the hunters even when caught in the dome, the fact that its' decoy could deal damage while the Wraith corner camped was just the shit cheery on the shit sundae, as it allowed the Wraith to wear down the hunters without ever actually engaging. That it took well over a month to actually patch this monstrosity (pun intended) of poor design and balance was what lead to the initial, irrecoverable player drop off.

But if you weren't a Wraith player, you ask? Wasn't it alright then? No, it wasn't. Kraken players quickly figured out that their vortex and maelstrom (a cone push back and a AoE centered on the kraken) abilities had really high damage output, which allowed for consistent hunter wipes in stage 1, by having the Kraken push hunters into a corner and then maelstrom them to death. If done correctly, the Kraken could pretty much stun lock the entire hunter party and whittle them down beyond recovery before the first person got back on their feet.

Evolve was the early wave of DLC bullshit, but its' player base was gone long before the first season pass was even done. Evolve should be the cautionary tale of what happens when you screw up game balance and you take too long fixing it. Hunter players got fed up with matches that either dragged for 30 minutes without them getting any meaningful play or were over 3 minutes after they dropped in. Once the balance got fixed, players had already left.

 

[09philj]

Evolve was stymied by making it 1 Vs 4 only. The fewer players you have on a team, the greater the chance of the teams being unbalanced. Unbalanced teams makes for a very dull game, so people would be unlikely to keep playing.

 

[CritialGaming]

Evolve failed because it was a DLC shit show. They even said they had made the game from the ground up with DLC in mind.

The 4 v 1 formula wasn't a bad idea, and when properly put together it can be great. Take a look at Friday the 13th to see how good a 4v1 game can be. Evolve sadly was poorly balanced, and extremely limited without a grind and DLC purchases. Thus failure.

Even when they launched the game as a Free 2 pay system it failed because the balancing issues were still there. Players who bought the game original felt shafted (which confuses me because if they gave a shit, they'd still be playing the game in the first place) because they didn't get a big enough head start or whatever the fuck they gave those players as extras for having bought the OG game.

It was a nightmare. Great idea, great theme, just done in the worst possible way to try to be as greedy as fucking possible.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The improvements the game saw when it was released as free-to-play probably would've gone a long way towards saving the game if they'd been included on release. I saw so many games where 90% of the footage was the monster just running around the map and the hunters playing catch-up.

But yeah, the number-one problem the game had was that it was designed as a DLC platform first and a game... fourth, maybe.

 

[Outcast107]

The main problem as other people said, was the balancing issues. They kept buffing the monsters and nerfing the hunters EVER patch notes. I mean, I know probably on the PC the Hunters were better, but damn on the consoles the Monsters would just easy wipe Hunters. I love the game and the 4 vs 1 style gameplay. But they fucked up with balancing and made it unfun as a Hunter.

 

[Fijiman]

Evolve was a game I wasn't really interested in when it was being hyped up, and then was glad to not be interested it once it went barreling downhill. Though I've never been too particularly fond of the L4D games. The first one because I never had more than one friend to reliably play with so I had to rely on randoms or AI for the other players, which usually didn't end too well. And of course there was also the incredibly annoying bug I kept having where the game would freeze on me after a few hours. This meant I could grind through the first three chapters, be at the finale, and then end up having done all that for nothing. It pissed me off even more when I was trying to go for one of the harder achievements only for that to happen. This happened more times than I'd like to remember. I've not even been able to play the second game yet because of both not having anyone to play it with and because I'm afraid of the bug returning.

 

[SweetShark]

I played the game for few hours, but sadly it was sooooooo bbboooooring! I was just walking and walking without something exciting happen.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Evolve is a great game in theory

Is it though? Because when I first heard of it, it was nothing more than theory and I kept asking myself who the hell is this aimed at? Who's gonna play this game? It was so obvious that it was going to be a very short lived title, if not dead on arrival.

 

[Nedoras]

The problem with Evolve is that it's a super niche game at heart, and it was marketed to the masses. Even if it didn't annoy the hell out of people with it's constant pushing of DLC to ludicrous degrees, it would have failed. I didn't play the game at launch, but I did give it a go when it went free to play. Here's the thing, it's an asymmetrical multiplayer game. One side is inherently much stronger than the other. The monsters have raw power and brute force, while the hunters are weak and NEED to work together to take down the monster. That shit doesn't fly playing with randoms. That was the main complaint that I kept seeing over and over when I was playing it. People kept crying that the monsters were too overpowered. Here's the thing though, the devs admitted that for the free to play launch, they purposefully buffed the hunters to be stronger to compensate for poor team-play of newer players...and people were STILL constantly complaining that the monsters were too strong. On top of that, the ranked scene was a mess. When you reached higher levels of play the hunters were dominant. Monsters lost all the damn time to the buffed hunters. So basically by buffing the hunters for the new, casual players, they ruined it for the experienced ones. However if they didn't buff the hunters, they would have gotten even more backlash from the new players for the monsters being "unbeatable". This game was always going to fail, because the average player solo-queues and doesn't use a mic or cares for proper team play which is NEEDED in that game. The average player will play a hunter, not coordinate, not plan, not use a mic, not work with their team, and then complain that he/she lost to the "overpowered" monster. There really isn't an easing in period with Evolve, you get thrown right the hell in and are expected to play damn well with your teammates to take down the big bad beast.

It's a shame though, despite it being niche I do enjoy that type of game and I did enjoy my time with Evolve. It really wasn't a bad game, just a very very niche one.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

As someone who played a heck of a lot of Evolve when it went free to play...

It was inherently unbalanced and punishingly hard to play.

As the Monster, if you didn't know how to "run" the map, you were screwed. The first dozen times I played monster at all, it was exceptionally frustrating. And a few times I played hunter and I just felt sorry for the monster and was certain the guy ragequit because he had no idea how to play.

As the hunters, if the monster knows how to "run" the map, if your team isn't perfectly co-ordinated, you're screwed and will probably not be able to catch the monster. I had people ask me "why the hell would we split up?" when I said to split up into pairs to try to corner the monster, or to have someone go off alone and then get whacked easily.

The horrendously useless tutorials for the first month or two when it went F2P weren't helpful either.

It was just way, way WAY too hard to play, and the shitty DLC stuff at first launch soured everyone on it already. :s

In the end I got pretty good at the Monster and had equal matches between:
1) Total Stomp, didn't get caught once, then slowly picked off hunters one at a time at the end until I could kill them all

2) Back and forth there I had lots of battles and eventually had enough momentum to win, or just got overwhelmed by the end

3) Legit could not escape the hunters and died miserably.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I played the game for few hours, but sadly it was sooooooo bbboooooring! I was just walking and walking without something exciting happen.

And now we have millions of concurrent players on PUBG running and hiding for minutes on end without seeing a single enemy and it's the most popular game in the world.

Not hating, I'm one of those people. Just thought your statement was funny in the current context.

 

[SweetShark]

I played the game for few hours, but sadly it was sooooooo bbboooooring! I was just walking and walking without something exciting happen.

And now we have millions of concurrent players on PUBG running and hiding for minutes on end without seeing a single enemy and it's the most popular game in the world.

Not hating, I'm one of those people. Just thought your statement was funny in the current context.

I guess it play a big role the premise of the game alone to make the people care for the game. Humanity genocide itself playing a Death game for sport. If it had monsters on it, this premise would had been gone and had a different impact to the players.

 

[baddude1337]

I played the game for few hours, but sadly it was sooooooo bbboooooring! I was just walking and walking without something exciting happen.

And now we have millions of concurrent players on PUBG running and hiding for minutes on end without seeing a single enemy and it's the most popular game in the world.

Not hating, I'm one of those people. Just thought your statement was funny in the current context.

I guess it's because in PUBG you have a 100 people free for all (in the main mode anyway), and it makes it MUCH more intense as you have to watch out for yourself constantly. Keeps you on edge for an entire match. Compared to something like Evolve, where there was probably downtime between fights, and far less threats to worry about.

Certainly what got me into it. Just wish the performance was far better (Early Access I know, but the game looks and runs like crap even on powerful setups).

 

[SweetShark]

Because linear > open world.

Because the special infected and hordes were more interesting opponents.

Saying this, I would be interested any FPS Multiplayer game have somekind of linear single player mode.
Like, I would LOVE to see a campaign in Killing Floor 2 fighting in unique setups the Zeds.

 

[sXeth]

Evolve is a great game in theory

Is it though? Because when I first heard of it, it was nothing more than theory and I kept asking myself who the hell is this aimed at? Who's gonna play this game? It was so obvious that it was going to be a very short lived title, if not dead on arrival.

I mean, on paper, its co-op Monster Hunter with a human controlled Monster, with the co-op being a bit of Team Fortress/L4D flavor to it. Granted, Monster Hunter is a niche title, but still reasonably popular. Possibly not for 2K's budgeting, who pulled the plug out even when the game sort of shambled back to life in the free-to-play version.

But yeah, the problems with balancing, being too slow to push out balance patches (while vomiting DLC unabated, which even though its probably different departments, never looks good (Paragon gets flak constantly because skins come out while balance patches get pushed back). Then there was a bit of kerfuffle as the first set of DLC hunters were pretty obviously superior, most of them combining the best abilities of two basic hunters.

 

[laggyteabag]

I still like the concept of Evolve, but it is just a shame that Evolve was the game we got out of it.

I never played the game, but at no point was I ever interested in jumping in. Like a lot of people, I was warded off by the fact that the first thing I knew about the game was that I could pre-order it to get a new monster character, and if that doesn't tell you everything that you need to know about Evolve and its business practices, I don't know what else would.

The game just looked dingy, though. I get that it is supposed to represent a hostile environment, but I would never have known that the game featured multiple maps, because they all just look like the same dark/rocky/foresty environment.

Another thing that never interested me was the hunter gameplay. Most of the time, the hunters were chasing tracks. That isn't a bad concept, because I love the idea of playing hide and seek with a monster that was getting stronger the longer he was alive, but it just looked like there was nothing to do in this stage of the game, other than running in a line.

As for the combat, again, I like the concept. 4 small characters vs 1 large boss character seems like a lot of fun, but again, because of the aforementioned step, the monster is either too weak because you found it too early, or crazy powerful, because you found it too late.

Hopefully someone can revive this concept one day and do it justice. Raid boss vs raid party? Sign me up!

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I played the game for few hours, but sadly it was sooooooo bbboooooring! I was just walking and walking without something exciting happen.

And now we have millions of concurrent players on PUBG running and hiding for minutes on end without seeing a single enemy and it's the most popular game in the world.

Not hating, I'm one of those people. Just thought your statement was funny in the current context.

I guess it's because in PUBG you have a 100 people free for all (in the main mode anyway), and it makes it MUCH more intense as you have to watch out for yourself constantly. Keeps you on edge for an entire match. Compared to something like Evolve, where there was probably downtime between fights, and far less threats to worry about.

Certainly what got me into it. Just wish the performance was far better (Early Access I know, but the game looks and runs like crap even on powerful setups).

I totally get it, like I said, I enjoy the game myself. My buddies and I frequently refer to it as "jogging simulator" as a joke since you spend so much time running to circles not really doing anything.

And I feel your pain on the performance. It's optimization is garbage. I'm playing on a 1080 and a 7700k and there are still frequent dips of the framerate.