Did TLS make the game harder?

[Jellyfrosh]

After coming back with some friends to play for the first time in about a year and a half we all noticed the game felt 10x harder than before. Specials just spam the ♥♥♥♥ out of you now, it feels like they don't make sound warnings when they spawn either. We went from speedrunning expert with 3 people to struggling to even finish some of the campaigns. The finales feel longer too. It's absurd.

I thought it was just me but all of the people I play with agree with me; the game just feels way harder and frankly unfun since the update. I tried checking the patch notes but modders being modders I found them to be vague at best.

[GI Jeff]

I haven't noticed any issues with SI warning sounds. I've heard plenty of complaints about the game suddenly becoming harder, but no one can point to a particular issue.

[Flariz]

Well it seems they probably might have done things outside of the patch notes, but it is well-known that they "improved" the AI pathing so they don’t get stuck/are slow to get to you, both for commons and for Specials....

That is what is said, anyway.

[Red™]

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

[Jellyfrosh]

Originally posted by Red™:

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

Yeah I'd say it's "you're just rusty" were it not for the fact that everybody else I'm playing with feels the same way.

[󠀦󠀦★ ⁧⁧RockyLight]

Originally posted by Red™:

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

Contradiction much? First you say the game is the same but in your next sentence you said they fixed the AI pathing so they get to you faster. Which is a direct change that makes the game more challenging.

But yes, they did fix a lot of AI navigation which is what leads to previously "safe" spots not being so safe anymore. Another good example is the common upper path exploit of the bridge in the Parish finale being filled with zombies now.

[Olde]

The most noticeable things are that witches do more damage to incapped survivors and the amount of speed the survivors lose when hit by an infected is greatly raised. As for the former, the reason behind this was explained by the witch's slashing animation not being synced up to the damage dealt. The latter doesn't have an explanation as far as I'm aware. From what I've been able to determine, survivor movement is reduced by a factor of 75% when hit by an infected. This makes you move incredibly slowly for a few seconds when you get hit, and reduces your movement speed to 0 in the water. Even outside of water, getting hit is more punishing than just the damage taken as the loss of movement allows more CI to pile up on you and it just becomes a compounded issue.

My opinion (for whatever it's worth): Both of these adjustments influence the game in unintended ways. The witch sync up is a bad thing for the TLS team to change, as the lack of syncing is almost assuredly an intentional decision by Valve to not punish the player too hard for disturbing her. A witch disturbance on even the most casual runs can now very realistically be a death sentence. Now there's a lot less difference between disturbing a witch on Non-Realism and Realism. It's inconceivable to me that Valve would have just accidentally messed up the animation of such an important enemy so badly in both L4D1 and 2. It was clearly to make her look intimidating and scary but not punish the player too hard. I'll concede that given the proper teamwork and weaponry, a witch slashing at a downed survivor isn't that hard to deal with, but you have to remember that there are hundreds of campaigns built around the old mechanics of the game, where the witch may have been seen more as an obstacle to get around rather than a death sentence. I've encountered plenty of campaigns where you will encounter a witch while only having a single pistol, and if she's unavoidable, there's no getting around the fact that one survivor is now going to die.

As for the movement speed loss, this is pure speculation on my part, but considering the emphasis on Survival mode from the team, this was possibly a way to make Survival more difficult, punishing players more heavily for messing up a circular perimeter route. At least it definitely feels that way because maintaining momentum in perimeter runs like Atrium is the meta and was very easy for Survival players. However this changes the campaign mode too and just makes maps like Hard Rain 4 that much more hated.

[Tsuey]

Coop / Nav Changelog https://hackmd.io/@MrFailzz/rJ5S7EZHw
Steam Changelog https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/75849
General Changelog https://pastebin.com/BfJaf2cG
Map Fixes and PvP Changelog https://pastebin.com/fHeWVG6k
Talker Changelog https://pastebin.com/QrziQws8
Survivor Animations Changelog https://pastebin.com/dWtYsbE5

As hard as it might be to believe, and as unreadably lengthy those changelogs are, others are correct in saying that navmesh was fixed to prevent stuck spots. And that's really it, unless we're talking about Versus or edge cases with the Witch.

It is possible that made it harder, but some stuck spots / bad navigation (i.e. No Mercy 3 Scissor Lift roof) were deliberately left in for balance.

[Red™]

Originally posted by RockyLight:

Originally posted by Red™:

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

Contradiction much? First you say the game is the same but in your next sentence you said they fixed the AI pathing so they get to you faster. Which is a direct change that makes the game more challenging.

But yes, they did fix a lot of AI navigation which is what leads to previously "safe" spots not being so safe anymore. Another good example is the common upper path exploit of the bridge in the Parish finale being filled with zombies now.

What’s so challenging? You weren’t supposed to sit in god spot and survive all attack unscathed because valve made some lazy programming.

[Red™]

Originally posted by Jellyfrosh:

Originally posted by Red™:

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

Yeah I'd say it's "you're just rusty" were it not for the fact that everybody else I'm playing with feels the same way.

Don’t worry. You’ll get better if you continue to play

[Baby❤]

Originally posted by Jellyfrosh:

Originally posted by Red™:

The game still stay the same. You haven’t played in a year, so you’ve gotten rusty. The reason why you see more commons/si being more “aggressive” because they fixed the nav mesh so they get stuck less

Yeah I'd say it's "you're just rusty" were it not for the fact that everybody else I'm playing with feels the same way.

no ♥♥♥♥ youll all be rusty if you all havent played in a while?

Sometimes co-op games are harder when you have players who aren't carrying their weight instead of bots or more experienced players too.

[이방인]

it changed a lot in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dirty way. they only improved common, special inf. nothing for survivor a.i. making it harder in a very irritating way. thanks to mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ l4d1 modeling.

especially for female common inf in l4d1 maps. shaking upper body left and right and never thought of hitting action but it does damage to players. also use too often very fast hit action pattern with one hand. which wasn't used often before this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ update.


and sometimes tank spawned in the back of me where i and other players had already been through ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bug. and they never fixed it and just said nothing as ♥♥♥♥.

and after TLS update, too often incoming msg. making it harder for players to go through or do other stuff.

weapon? as same as what i said so far.

nobody uses awp, scout but sig.

pitchfork by far the worst weapon. they shouldn't have made this ♥♥♥♥.

they just hyped ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff as very tremendous and big event.

it was nothing as ♥♥♥♥ and causing many people to experience much harder and more difficult than ever before.

maybe they know only about PvP stuff and don't care ♥♥♥♥ about pve.

and they said what a big update making many people falling for it.

and so many campaign expert or real exp players around me complained about it.
idk what they really wanna express to us in playing l4d2.

did they just want perfect team work? oh, u have to work with other players always, cuz it's coop game? so this patch is what is for. huh? some really good at this game always play like that. some with other players and sometimes play alone. being too harsh for solo players or player left alone with combination of special inf which is in harder and very annoying way (ex : charger waiting around corner ready to charge and smoker waiting on the rooftop ready to tongue me)

they ruined this game. i really liked way of what valve used to do which is totally different from this LAYMAN!

[s10055072]

Originally posted by Olde:

The most noticeable things are that witches do more damage to incapped survivors and the amount of speed the survivors lose when hit by an infected is greatly raised. As for the former, the reason behind this was explained by the witch's slashing animation not being synced up to the damage dealt. The latter doesn't have an explanation as far as I'm aware. From what I've been able to determine, survivor movement is reduced by a factor of 75% when hit by an infected. This makes you move incredibly slowly for a few seconds when you get hit, and reduces your movement speed to 0 in the water. Even outside of water, getting hit is more punishing than just the damage taken as the loss of movement allows more CI to pile up on you and it just becomes a compounded issue.

The Witch part is true, but not the behavior of common infected, they didn't slow you down more, that's because of improved Nav Mesh as far as my knowledge concern. (They stuck less as some other post explained)

https://youtu.be/4bGObSfupdY

^^^ If you still insist on altered behavior of common infected, watch this video first, tell me the difference and give the timecode where you THINK is different.

If you have time, record your OWN video showcase to prove your point on common infected.

[s10055072]

OP, you already admit you haven't played the game for a year, that's really long, being a player who actively plays the public game before and after the Last Stand didn't notice those things you mention (Expect for witch of course)

At least from what you describe on Special infected attack you way more often, I can explained that because Nav Mesh has improved so the bots (included zombie) will stuck less, their spawn rate didn't change. (Some event may alter their spawn rate via VScript, but those are always in the game.)

Witch DPS did increase on downed survivor, and it was even mentioned in the changelog.

Not to be rude, but this is getting ridiculous, people still spreading lies about TLS, even most of them have either being debunked or just an old issue exist long before TLS

https://youtu.be/EvsiRDNL8pw

[**DeiRowtag]

I didn't feel any major difference either, most of the change that have been made on infected are easily learned and adapted if you give a bit of effort.

I can play the same as before the update in any game mode, I mean my play style

[TheMagicalMoose]

Originally posted by Red™:

Originally posted by Jellyfrosh:

Yeah I'd say it's "you're just rusty" were it not for the fact that everybody else I'm playing with feels the same way.

Don’t worry. You’ll get better if you continue to play