Closet or Corner Camping

[Operational]

IF you want Valve to remove "closets" then they'll have to remove every other room with only 1 way in, because how is that any different from a closet? Everyone can crowd around the door, melee'ing and shooting, and no one can get in. Hell, while they're at it, maybe Valve should just go ahead and remove every building in the game! We can just play in one huge empty map with nothing in it, no places to hide, no cover at all! That's the only true way to play!

Which is why it's a far better idea to have a new Special Infected that makes closet camping harder. I'm partial to giving the Infected something like a weak version of the molotov, but there are plenty of ways Valve could do it.
It might also be worth buffing the Tank's punch to an AoE effect (like the Hunters is now) to prevent closet camping being so effective versus Tank's.

 

[Sheepo]

Closet camping is not effective against tanks at all. But they are very rare, and an anticloset camping infected is a great idea.

 

[Diesel_Power]

L4d is so full of exploits that there is really no point in even playing it until Valve releases a big patch to fix 'em up. Period! The game is basically turned into finding all the nooks and crannies in the map that the infected can't reach you.

Just the other day I was playing Dead air on expert and some guy on our team jumped off a building and climbed down a tree (obviously Valve didn't intend this). By doing this he managed to bypass half of the map and camped in the safe room until we got there. He killed all the special zombies as the spawned and attracted all the hordes to himself. It made the game pointless, stupid and boring.

I have no problem with closet camping. It's just something needs to be done about the meele spamming, and infected need some sort of counter to closet camping that'll make the survivors get out and run. Don't have to get rid of closets.

 

[Arrowhead]

Add stamina to the melee, problem solved. It's ridiculous that a team can just crawl up in a corner and fight a horde without breaking a sweat.

And players who resort to this tactic are CHEAP! Yeah, that's right, you know who you are...

 

[phoinix]

Here are some solutions I thought/liked
-Add fatigue to melee attacks
-meleeing a team member makes him loose his aim when holding a gun and in general slightly step over
-meleeing a smoker victim has no effect
-closets are unlocked only when someone's trapped in it (optional)
These changes will help bring a little balance in versus

 

[PimpinPenguin]

-meleeing a smoker victim has no effect

I liked your other points apart from that. In some cases the smoker may grab you but be out of range to be shot. So in those cases meleeing the smokers grip may be the only option to save them.
But what they should do is reduce the time it takes before you can grab again. Cause it takes less then a second to break yet and it's very easy to yet takes 30 to recharge.

 

[phoinix]

In most circumstances, shooting the tongue is quite easy and will rid of the smoker's grip. Meleeing the smoker's grip, thus releasing it in less than a second, is something annoying for a smoker who tried hard enough to stay out of sight, have a good position and waited several seconds to "regenerate" his tongue. There're just so many ways of interrupting a smoker attack. Either this, or they can make it so it requires 2-3 melee attacks to let of the grip.
Also an idea that just came up and is quite logical:
-Infected heal up by successful attacks on survivors, thus giving sense to the term "brain feeding"

 

[the cow says moo]

Originally Posted by Operational
Which is why it's a far better idea to have a new Special Infected that makes closet camping harder.

This is possibly the best idea. Ever.

Originally Posted by phoinix
-Infected heal up by successful attacks on survivors, thus giving sense to the term "brain feeding"

Possibly the second best idea, except maybe for when a hunter is on someone.

 

[Sheepo]

Stealing health from survivors would be fairly useless for hunters/boomers/smokers.

 

[the cow says moo]

I noticed you didn't say why you think that.

 

[Eejit]

It should be obvious... they all have low enough health that they die to a couple of well placed shots. i.e. too quickly for health leeching to have much benefit.

 

[Kula Meenur]

I noticed you didn't say why you think that.

Because he doesn't have to explain himself to you

 

[phoinix]

You're right but a skillful smoker can take advantage of health stealing, as many times an attack doesnt kill him. It's obviously useless for a boomer.
Here's another smoker idea that may substitute health leeching as far as smokers are concerned:
-when a smoker chokes a survivor with his grip, he can step back/crouch for a very small distance, allowing him to get out of sight-fire. Very usefull for roof smokers who are especially vulnerable

@Koola Mena
Of course he doesnt but without explanation to back up his statement, we can ignore it.

 

[Sheepo]

It should be obvious... they all have low enough health that they die to a couple of well placed shots. i.e. too quickly for health leeching to have much benefit.

This.

 

[the cow says moo]

Well, I wish there was some way to regain health. Of course, this wouldn't be for the tank and I'm not sure if it would screw up the gameplay somehow.

 

[Jintor]

I'm seeing less and less of this. Well, closet camping, anyway.

 

[heywood]

I just got L4D on monday, and started Versus Mode a day or two ago.
Impressions after many hours of Versus: mad imbalanced against zombies. Already I can do most of a campaign on expert in singleplayer, but as a zombie in versus mode i just get really frustrated, to the point that the game just isnt fun. That means a lot since I absolutely LOVE everything about L4d except the imbalances in Versus mode.

The bottom line is that bash presents a dominating strategy for the humans, and when I saw it done properly this evening it really got me thinking about the changes that Versus Mode NEEDS to have.
Picture this:
No Mercy, versus mode, 8 players. The survivors make it to the elevator and summon the horde. All 4 of them get behind the ammo gurney, which is sitting at an angle in front of a corner right in front of the elevator doors. 3 survivors bash-spam and the 4th uses an auto-shotty or M16. All 4 of these survivors are overlapping each other, effectively only occupying about 1 square foot of space.
I'm sure you've all seen this before, but in this specific situation surely no one can look at it and think it's not a dominating strategy. Nothing can get to them except a tank, which spawns seemingly randomly (so the zoms only hope is to get lucky).

IMO there is only ONE simple and agreeable solution to this problem.
SOLUTION:
Make bash do damage/friendly-fire to teammates.

The zombie melee attacks damage other zombies, why not make human melee damage other humans? EVERY ATTACK a survivor can do can damage his teammates except bash. Why? This is ridiculous and presents the dominating strategy of 4 humans overlapping each other in a corner spamming bash.

Also I know I'm kind of a newb at this game but most servers i play versus on have alltalk enabled, so setting up strategies as a zombie is near impossible unless you want to type everything out. Is this a bug? I'm not imagining it either because the opposing team would verbally acknowledge our voice chats when we start calling strategies.

 

[Pesmerga]

Adding friendly fire to bash is the stupidest idea ever.

Adding friendly fire when you're inside someone is smart. In my experience, closet camping isn't even effective because it's so easy to Boomer the entire group, thereby adding even more shit to the already shit filled finale (and shit + tank usually means death)

Campaigns should never be about "holding your ground", IMO- it should always be move move move and shoot shoot shoot. Survivor teams should be rewarded for good coordination and team skills, not finding a claustrophobic room and circle jerking each other.

 

[Sheepo]

I would never endorse friendly fire melee simply because it's one of those stupid goofing around things I really enjoy. Like character shouting. And it's pretty stupid, yeah.

 

[heywood]

I would never endorse friendly fire melee simply because it's one of those stupid goofing around things I really enjoy. Like character shouting. And it's pretty stupid, yeah.

Well, I suppose that's one reason to leave Versus mode horribly unbalanced.

 

[Jintor]

If Versus mode was 'horribly' unbalanced, it still wouldn't matter, because you switch teams every map. It'd be horribly unbalanced for both sides, and cancel itself out.

That's the theory, anyway.

Anyway, wouldn't simply 'you can't occupy the same space' or 'you will get ejected if you occupy the same space' as another Survivor solve that problem?

 

[Sheepo]

Well, I suppose that's one reason to leave Versus mode horribly unbalanced.

Uh, could you define 'horribly unbalanced' for me?

 

[Cornerstone]

It means he sucks at it.

 

[the cow says moo]

heywood just got burned.