L4D UPDATE! Options

[MonkeyFiend]

Valve have just updated Left 4 Dead, the changelog is:

January 14, 2009 - Left 4 Dead Update Released


Left 4 Dead has been updated with a host of fixes, tweaks and new features, including enhancements to Versus mode for improved competitive play. The full change list is below. For PC users the update will be applied automatically via Steam. Meanwhile, the update will be made available to Xbox 360 players in the coming weeks.

General

• Fixed Survivors being able to climb surfaces marked for versus infected only
• Fixed a class of SurvivorBot bugs dealing with rescuing downed players
• Players can no longer grab ladders while flying through the air after a Tank punch
• Shooting near a car with an alarm that has already fired the alarm will no longer make chirping noises
• Improved loading time
• Fixed mini-gun physics exploit
• Fixed propane tanks (and other physics objects) causing players to fall through elevators
• Fixed rare achievement bug issues
• Fixed several map exploits
• Fixed various match making issues
• Fixed NAT traversal issues

Versus Changes

• Added HUD elements to show status of other infected players
• Changed color of infected player name in chat to red
• Fixed exploit where players could spawn infected bots
• Fixed instance where a Survivor changing to the infected team would be attacked by infected bots
• Normalized special infected melee damage
• Made the following client commands cheat protected: "Kill" and "explode"
• Fixed exploit where infected players could run away and teleport back to gain health
• Players can only change teams once per map
• Players can't change teams while other players are still loading
• Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode
• Made the Tank and Witch spawn directly on the escape route
• Increased chance of getting the Tank or Witch
• Fixed team swap issue

Hunter

• Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing
• Increased Minimum damage a Hunter pounce does

Smoker

• Fixed Smoker tongue tolerance
• Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break
• Survivor's cannot bash someone off the tongue until the Survivor being pulled is paralyzed or hanging
• Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer
• Fixed cases where the ability timer was not using the correct time
• Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit
• Fixed Smoker tongue not targeting and landing properly through PZ ghosts
• Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors

Tank

• Bashable objects now appear with a red glow
• Tanks hitting a car with an alarm disables the alarm permanently
• Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks or fists
• Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks

Witch

• Witch spawns at the same % through the map for both teams
• Avoids spawning within a certain % of the tank
• Fixed an exploit where the Witch could be woken up and tricked into attacking Survivors

[MonkeyFiend]

The idea in my previous post was at the beggining of the round (maybe add a 20 second delay), an infected is randomly picked who will play the tank.. (just like traditionally a random infected is thrown into the role of a tank)

they could then cheese around the map and select a point to spawn (obviously not at the very beggining/end safe room) - the moment they pick the tank spawn point they'd go back to regular infected with the rest of their team and play through the game as normal infected.

Once the survivors get near to the point previously selected for the tank spawn, the original player would become the tank.

This would allow infected to place tanks in strong positions and allow preparation, it would also mean that survivors (knowing where the strong places and therefore likely locations for tank spawns are) could prepare where they think a tank will be. As for randomness, it also means infected could gamble and pick a less strong spawn point to try and maximise the advantage of surprise.

So the options for infected would be to

A: maximise the strongest locations for a tank (but risk the survivors preparing for it)
B: use a weaker starting location and maximise the element of surprise

I also forgot another point, as it stands you don't always get a tank on a level, so if one doesn't come for the first team, then the 2nd team know they are not going to get a tank and can prepare accordingly e.g. picking pipe bombs over molotovs