Valve has launched a brand new replace for Left 4 Lifeless 2 displaying that, regardless of the followers might imagine, somebody over there may be definitely taking note of all their complaints. It makes substantial, not-so-substantial, and in some circumstances barely bonkers modifications to the sport. Do that on for measurement: “Restored the knife’s unique horizontal swing trajectory.” Knife is as soon as extra the very best! Although the skillet will at all times maintain a particular place in my coronary heart.
A few of the fixes look like issues that ought to at all times have been the case, resembling solely the unique attacker being credited for harm attributable to exploding props. Others are clearly in response to group requests, such because the addition of a bunch of latest script capabilities, together with “GetClosestCharacterWhoIsIT” which is able to return the closest character who’s IT. Seems like tag.
The true modifications are throughout the sport’s many maps, most of which have obtained some kind of a touching up. In some circumstances this is so simple as fixing real bugs, like a spot on map 3 of Lifeless Heart the place gamers might get lodged on a merchandising machine: hey, could’ve taken 14 years, however Valve will get there ultimately. On Darkish Carnival they’ve patched “an elaborate SI out of bounds exploit.”
Maybe the very best patch be aware of all comes for the map Swamp Fever. The notes begin off sturdy anyway with the information that Valve’s patched a “janky ladder” close to the ferry occasion: I believed janky ladders had been simply the Supply default, however what do I do know. Then the information each L4D fan has been ready for:
“By in style group request the TLS Swamp gator is now canonically named Fred.”
I have to admit to zero information of the TLS swamp gator and the marketing campaign to have him named Fred, however that is clearly God’s work.
Just about each map within the sport has had one thing tweaked or fastened, as you may see within the full notes, although typically it is fixing caught spots, collision points, moments the place gamers might comfortable lock themselves from progressing, and (in Crash Course) stopping fuel cans from falling between the finale buses. In spite of everything, they’re no use down there.
When it will get to Blood Harvest one will get the sense that whoever wrote these patch notes is becoming bored, as a result of one in every of them simply reads “Caught in tree close to shed.” Who’s caught in a tree close to shed? Do they need assistance? Is that this a repair or a promise?
In addition to all of the bug fixes Valve has additionally rejigged the balancing in sure areas of the sport. The Final Stand’s finale now has less complicated problem scaling that solely will increase on superior and professional difficulties: “the intention is to curb participant fatigue and confusion along with bringing it extra consistent with expectations from different finales.” It is also tweaked what number of fuel cans gamers require in numerous crew configurations and difficulties.
There is a large outdated checklist of tweaks to the Tank Run mode, most of that are minor with the ultimate two being fairly spectacular:
- Mounted subject the place Tanks wouldn’t retain their slowdown when biled, in the event that they had been hit with one other vomit jar whereas already being biled.
- Mounted subject the place Survivors might get immediately revived when hit with a automotive.
Lastly, there are fixes for L4D1 Co-op, Survival and Versus modes (as it has been some time I ought to make clear: Left 4 Lifeless 2 contains all of Left 4 Lifeless’s content material). These embrace a change to the claw viewmodels which have apparently been fallacious all alongside, and altering the noise ranges to higher replicate the unique sport relatively than L4D2: making it more durable for frequent contaminated to note gamers. Defibrillators may also now convert to ache tablets as an alternative of medkits as a result of “beforehand, when transformed to medkits the sport stored making an attempt to spawn extra defibs which led to an over-saturation of medkits.” Then, and I am actually undecided the right way to take this one, “Modified to make use of rather more correct L4D1-like wanting ragdolls.”
Naturally, group response to such sterling help for a sport that got here out in 2009 has been to demand Left 4 Lifeless 3. Which, y’know, I am down however appears as doubtless as any Valve sport with a ‘3’ within the title (the corporate’s final assertion was just a few years in the past and boiled-down to “completely not”). Others are simply celebrating Fred. The perfect of all although are these followers piling in on a sport all of them love and nonetheless play, the final word zombie shooter, and saying with excellent irony: useless sport.