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^ incase anyone is wondering which video he's talking about
If I decide to come back to this map, I'll fully analyze your post. But in the meantime, I'm VERY well aware of the balance issues. Version 3 had plans to rectify that issue. If there were checkpoints for 2.9, I guess it would have been a different story. From a technical point of view, implementing checkpoints is a royal pain in the ass, and quite frankly I do not have the horse power or budget to continue. Personally it's getting really old with these wait times and I don't have the patience for it.
I'm getting a much better PC very soon. Whether or not that'll motivate me to come back to this map, I don't know but I'm leaning towards no.
You are right that it's unrealistically beatable, absolutely. I would, however, hate to make things too easy. It would be boring too easy. It depends if I really want to extensively test the difficulty; taking all gameplay variables into consideration. I guess I could recycle one of valve's custom scripts would work, but, what's the fun in that, ya know? Also, I would play the map again to prove your point but, I just really don't feel like.
Thanks a ton for the in-depth feedback, pretty awesome you went so in-depth with those numbers. Only every so often this will happen so I thoroughly appreciate it.
I had read you mentioning that you abandoned the new version idea; I did not even think checkpoints were even possible. In any case, they are not necessary, the only thing necessary is the rebalancing. If you already really know how badly it gets from night 2 to 3, then I'm at least glad you're aware of that.
The third night's intensity is what should be on night 5, in my humble opinion. The escalation is what needs rebalancing. My friends and I would be happy to entertain you for a night as we play it; we are very nice and team players.
You're very welcome. I only went into as much detail as I did because I know the campaign has so much potential and ultimately only needs minor tweaking. I would not have wasted my time on such an assessment with a lesser map. It is also a rarity that an author actually responds with feedback respectfully and in a timely manner, and even considers updating their work based on player input.
I've beaten the map twice, it can definitely be done. The main trick is to close the doors when the tanks come & shot them through the doors.
Also, throwing molotov in a hallway is invaluable to block it and give time to take out the SIs.
I also recommend you stay in the hallway near the main room, and only retreat to the main room to avoid acid spits & to hide from tanks.
I'm very torn on what this means for the map. On the one hand, it's a good thing in that it shows that the campaign is beatable, granted you have at least two other experienced players. On the other hand, I think it needs more rebalancing, not least of all because when I played it with three other experienced people, we always got rekt at the same part. Plus, I'm not sure why the third night would have to be the hardest, unless this is unintended. Ever since my review, I've eagerly awaited an update for this map to make it more realistically beatable. Now that I've beaten without even a full team...I don't know. I think it still has room for improvements because it's got a pretty huge and unexpected difficulty spike on night 3, which then seems to lower on nights 4 and 5.
Functionally, I feel like the campaign reaches its peak too early, making the rest of the map drag, rather than building up to a climax throughout. Again, I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but either way, I think it could be addressed in an update.
I'm posting our game stats because some people may find them useful or interesting:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1085269278
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1085269360
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1085269416
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1085269790
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1085269826
I'm going to address this first because it's the easier to "answer". I'm sure you know this but I want to make it very clear. Personally I've been eagerly awaiting to finish up this map.
I won't release a "singular" update to address balance. It's more than just moving around numbers. Off the top of my head, I don't think I could come up with precise numbers that demonstrate an actually satisfactory gradual progression of difficulty for each night (which is indeed what others and I will be playing around with in the future). And, like you mentioned, special infected and tanks will die randomly. This may or may not be happening to common infected, which I'll verify at a later date.
Due to that huge issue needing to be fixed, I'd much rather release it with everything else. Dealing with the AI director is arguably the most frustrating and boring task, and as a result, I usually get to it last. On the brightside, I've developed/polished/optimized other areas of the map. Even by my own standards, I accomplished a ton of work in this area. I've taken my sweet time making sure such functionality works, and I'll make sure I'll do the same with balancing and the AI director. My new desktop makes this workload 20x easier.
You've eagerly been waiting, and I agree it's been way too long since then. But since I am not receiving monetary benefits in return for making this map, this is the price others will pay.
I can assure you that's 100% unintended. It was intended to be a gradual progression of difficulty.
I always felt like there was a good enough gradual progression. Due to my teammates and I beating the map, I thought it was a solid enough benchmark anyway. Overtime, the general consensus became more clear to me from people's comments.
Since there will be checkpoints now, I wonder if it'll even be worth it. If you die on Night 3, you'll restart on Night 3, instead of Night 1. Not a bad deal, eh?
It's important to exactly pinpoint what is so "spikey" about Night 3. That way, I can tone it down, whatever it is, and thus, we'll be able to achieve that gradual progression. It seems having all Special Infected at once is the problem (in addition to the extra 2 minutes) so do correct me if I am wrong.
Allow me to show you a comparison between Night 2 and Night 3. Difference are underlined:
The rest of the nights will be displayed further down this post.
This information is taken from the current release of the map (2.9). The differences between Nights 2 and 3 is that Night 3 has two more special infected than Night 2. In addition, Night 3, at 8 minutes, lasts two more minutes than Night 2. In the upcoming update, Night 3 will last 6 minutes.
It seems that the extra two minutes is articificially contributing to that difficulty spike. The extra two special infected is most likely causing all of the special infected to appear. I wonder, though, how to address this? Should I at all? Should new special infected gradually appear at each night? And if so, which ones, and in which order? How does one determine that?
I'm sure there are other factors in the process, such as if the infected are dying randomly or even spawning at all. In other words:
Yeah, that's not intended. I intend to address it.
In any case, that about summarizes my thoughts in response to yours in the quickest manner possible. Essentially, the spike on Night 3 throws off the rest of the map's balance, and I think your post eloquently details how and why that happens. Yes, not even just Night 3 that needs to be addressed, but the rest of the nights as well.
Lastly, since 2.9 will be obsolete in the upcoming future, here are the infected numbers for nights 1-5. May these numbers assist your endeavors of further breaking down this map:
Numbers are one thing. If it were up to me, I would probably lower the 6 specials to 5 on night 3, but that might not ultimately make a difference. The point I probably didn't get across is that there are a lot of issues that compound the difficulty, it's not just sheer numbers: nearly endless streams of common, door energy, specials, running out of ammo, tanks (single and double spawns), tanks hitting players through the doors, bot idiocy, and lastly, human error. The map script may be a series of numbers but gameplay and our experiences are all different.
I did manage to record what happened when two others and I played night 3 and died. Upon reviewing the footage, this is what happened:
At 1:00 AM, two tanks spawned. We plan on closing the doors and getting one tank on each side. However, both one player and a bot are trapped outside when we close the doors. I and the other player inside the room kill both tanks; the player outside the room gets pounced by a hunter. The bot is already dead from the tank. We rush out to help the downed player but a spitter spits on him; that, with his low incap health and the large number of zombies on him, makes rescue unfeasible. Another tank spawns. The other player and I both rush back to the room. I get jockey'd, which promptly gets shoved off. My friend gets smoked, the tongue of which I promptly break. We close the left door before the tank gets to it, but it manages to incap my friend through the door even though he's standing in the middle of the room. At this point I'm the only one not dead or incapped, killing common, but then turn my attention to the tank and kill it through the door. Just as I'm about to help my friend up, I get vomited on and a spitter spits in the room. My incapped friend kills the boomer as I immediately open the door. The spitter starts clawing at me while my incapped friend gets pounced on by a hunter. As soon as I kill the spitter, a jockey leaps on me and a smoker shoots its tongue out at me. Even if I had successfully deflected the jockey, there would have been no way for me to avoid being smoked.
The tl;dr version: one player died while trapped on the other side of the door, the other player was incapped by a tank through the closed door, and ultimately we died to a boomer + spitter + hunter + jockey + smoker + human error.
If it's one thing I think this campaign doesn't accommodate most, it's human error. Because players are going to make mistakes. The question is should players be punished for making mistakes that may or may not be in their control, such as hitting the light switch instead of the door, locking someone out, assuming spit won't get under the door or on the table, going to the ammo pile at the wrong time? Should players be punished for healing bots? For failing to heal bots? Should they be punished for not tackling the map with three or four seasoned players? The map is a challenge, yes, and it is beatable. But I wonder, for every player who beats it, how many never even find a way to unlock the ammo pile? How many players don't know the importance of carrying defibs from the cellar to the room? How many bots have wasted the pills and adrenaline when still in the green or failed to get inside the room when there was a tank? As an author I can imagine it's a predicament wherein it's seemingly impossible to satisfy the average L4D2 player as well as the well-seasoned one. But while the question of how realistic it is to beat may not be of concern to a map maker, it certainly is to the player.
I still can't really voice my opinion about what to do for this campaign. Should it be easier? Harder? I can't quite say, nor does my opinion matter because I'm not the author. All I can say is I'm happy that you're still working on this campaign and I have no reason to doubt that the newer update will be worth the wait.
Edit: My thoughts as I'm re-watching some footage. It seems as though if everyone keeps constant pressure on the hallways, there's very little actual risk of something going wrong. However, if even one special gets through--say, if someone is going for ammo--it can be a death sentence for everyone. If one person gets jockey'd away from the room or someone in the hallway gets charged, that might let a spitter through to make the room unavailable or might allow a smoker to drag another survivor into the main dining room, which then will probably lead to an immediate pile-up of attacks of specials until it's a total disaster.