Open thread for anyone joining in on the Twenty Sided Left 4 Dead server tonight. Or this weekend, really. <\/p>\n
Out of curiosity:<\/p>\n
The server is full most evenings, and I’m wondering if there isn’t enough server to go around. How many people are having trouble joining due to server full? <\/p>\n
The new survival mode is the gameplay du jour. Our first-night gold medal was not a fluke. Our team has scored four gold medals thus far. My own advice:<\/p>\n
1) Find a good spot and HOLD STILL. Lots of jockying around is actually really bad for team stability. You need to know where everyone else is without looking. The bad guys aren’t shooting at you so you don’t NEED to bob and weave all over the place. Moving around for a “better shot” is folly. Trust me: They will come to you. Be patent. <\/p>\n
2) We use a two-layer defense most times. Two people are out in front and slightly exposed. The tank will attack one of them and the rest of the team can focus-fire him down. The damage you take from a single tank punch is nothing compared to what the entire team will take if you try and scatter. <\/p>\n
3) Don’t use molotovs. A pipebomb can clear the zone of common infected for long enough for you to use a medkit or revive a fallen teammate. A pipe bomb can salvage a critical situation. (Like everyone blinded by a boomer.) <\/p>\n
A molotov can only block common infected, and only ones coming from a particular direction. Worse, it sets up a visual curtain. You can’t see through the flames, but the special infected can see you. Smokers will pull you into your own flames. Your teammates will either have to chase you into the fire to free you, or try to shoot the hidden smoker, which takes longer. Which increases the chance you’ll be incapacitated within the fire, and your teammates have to choose to take massive damage rescuing you or let you die. Flaming hunters are more dangerous then normal hunters because you can’t tell if they’re down or not, much less tell them from the common infected. And this is assuming you don’t get knocked by a common mid-throw and end botching the toss. A botched pipe bomb is an annoyance, but a botched molly throw can kill the entire team by forcing you out of your defensive formation. The tank might catch fire, but the damage it will take in ten seconds of being on fire is peanuts compared to a couple of close-quarters blasts from the shotgun. Instead of throwing the molly, just try to get in a couple of extra shots. <\/p>\n
If you ARE going to use molotovs, make sure you’re doing it for fun. (Which is fine, that’s the point.) Making BIG HUGE FIRE is delightful and spectacular. But be aware that this is not an optimal tactical choice. I don’t begrudge anyone having fun, even if it puts the odds of winning at stake, because I’d rather have fun than anything else. I’d rather lose laughing than win like Leroy Jenkin’s over-serious compatriots. It just bugs me when people repeatedly burn the team alive and KEEP TAKING THE MOLOTOV just because that’s a sound campaign-mode strategy. <\/p>\n
4) Announce a pipebomb throw. You don’t want to waste them by throwing two at once.<\/p>\n
5) Pick a spot with light. A pitch black corner with good defense is often worse then an exposed area where you can see what you’re doing. <\/p>\n
6) Try a spot a few times and see how it works and what the weaknesses are. Often areas that seem like a bad idea will work out because the infected don’t navigate properly. (In some places smokers try to get close, other areas they will snag you from far off. Same goes for hunters and jumping. Sometimes a place that seems ideal will fail simply because it’s so close to an infected spawn point that you end up fighting twice as many, and sometimes a seeming bad spot will be a success because the AI doesn’t use the space optimally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Open thread for anyone joining in on the Twenty Sided Left 4 Dead server tonight. Or this weekend, really. Out of curiosity: The server is full most evenings, and I’m wondering if there isn’t enough server to go around. How many people are having trouble joining due to server full? The new survival mode is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}