Ideas: Left 4 Dead 3. What would you like to see?

[Jiarn]

So if you were allowed concept design on the upcoming L4D3 where would you set it and why?

Personally if they want to keep it in our timeline, I would LOVE to see something in London, it's just the perfect place for an attack (28 Days/Weeks) or anywhere in Europe with large populations and amazing archtecture (L4d3: The Vatican lol)

What I would most like to see happen, is (and it probably wouldn't due to "story continuity") is L4D the 30s-50s timeline. Old school weapons, old archtectures and clothing, the Capone Gangster style timline etc. The possibilities make me giddy.

 

[Chibibar]

Well, they could do L4D Zero (like Capcom did with Resident evil) That could be earlier timeline where the people manage to "contain" the infection and store them in some government facility until L4D timeline (that would be awesome)

As for L4D3, I think it would be cool to have to spread to other places BUT people will have issues with Vatican. Remember one of the game (I can't remember the actual game) where they shot up a church mockup that look exactly like the real church and people has a hissy fit? can you imagine the hissy fit people will have if we blew up the Sistine chapel?

 

[Dave]

Make it a shooter/Thief type game where you have to actually use stealth/strategy. You would be able to sneak past zombie and there would be a penalty for using guns in that it would bring a lot of zombies around. (Yes, like The Walking Dead.)

 

[SpecialKO]

Make it a shooter/Thief type game where you have to actually use stealth/strategy. You would be able to sneak past zombie and there would be a penalty for using guns in that it would bring a lot of zombies around. (Yes, like The Walking Dead.)

Sign me up for this one.

 

[Dave]

The one thing missing from these type of games is the fear that would be in a zombie infection. There's no horror. It's a few false bravado guys with lots and lots of guns, ammo everywhere and basically unlimited health (it's easy to die but just as easy to heal yourself).

The perfect zombie game to me would be a multiplayer game where everyone starts as a human but can be bitten and turned. Once turned you have to choose whether to continue the character (losing all skills/etc gained as the character) or play as a zombie with no skills, slow speed and inability to use any weaponry.

As a player character you must survive, find food, find ammo (if you want it), train your survival skills, etc.

As a player character (zombie) you ramble around looking for someone to infect.

 

[Mathias]

Make it a shooter/Thief type game where you have to actually use stealth/strategy. You would be able to sneak past zombie and there would be a penalty for using guns in that it would bring a lot of zombies around. (Yes, like The Walking Dead.)

METAL GEAR .... zombie!
Added at: 13:24
I want a zombie/survival MMO damn it!

 

[Tress]

The one thing missing from these type of games is the fear that would be in a zombie infection. There's no horror. It's a few false bravado guys with lots and lots of guns, ammo everywhere and basically unlimited health (it's easy to die but just as easy to heal yourself).

The perfect zombie game to me would be a multiplayer game where everyone starts as a human but can be bitten and turned. Once turned you have to choose whether to continue the character (losing all skills/etc gained as the character) or play as a zombie with no skills, slow speed and inability to use any weaponry.

As a player character you must survive, find food, find ammo (if you want it), train your survival skills, etc.

As a player character (zombie) you ramble around looking for someone to infect.

There's an old Counterstrike mod that does all of this. It isn't perfect by any means, but it was fun and demonstrates how a game like you proposed could be done.

 

[Covar]

Obligatory:

HL: Episode 3.

 

[@Li3n]

The one thing missing from these type of games is the fear that would be in a zombie infection. There's no horror. It's a few false bravado guys with lots and lots of guns, ammo everywhere and basically unlimited health (it's easy to die but just as easy to heal yourself).

If L4D taught me anything is that a even fast zombies would be little threat to 4 people with machine guns... if it wasn't for the special infected and especially the tank a good team would breeze through the game on any difficulty.

 

[Chibibar]

The one thing missing from these type of games is the fear that would be in a zombie infection. There's no horror. It's a few false bravado guys with lots and lots of guns, ammo everywhere and basically unlimited health (it's easy to die but just as easy to heal yourself).

The perfect zombie game to me would be a multiplayer game where everyone starts as a human but can be bitten and turned. Once turned you have to choose whether to continue the character (losing all skills/etc gained as the character) or play as a zombie with no skills, slow speed and inability to use any weaponry.

As a player character you must survive, find food, find ammo (if you want it), train your survival skills, etc.

As a player character (zombie) you ramble around looking for someone to infect.

I remember there was/is (not sure I forgot the name) web text base game kinda like that. You are human and can turn into zombie. You learn skills and such. BUT the game allows you to "turn back" to human via serum or something.

 

[Dave]

See, I think turning into a zombie should be a penalty. No skills for you. Otherwise every basement dwelling troll would get themselves infected just to try and fuck with people.

Unless there was a cure. But you have to capture a zombie to administer the cure. So zombies could get cool skills but if they get captured they could get turned back into a human again. If they then got bitten again they would lose their zombie skills. Meanwhile, if you get cured you lose human skills, too. So if you were a zombie you'd not want to get cured but if you were a human you wouldn't want to get bitten, either.

 

[Jiarn]

My head hurts. Thanks Dave.

 

[Chibibar]

If it is a MMO style, then there has to be a limit (like what Resident Evil outbreak did) is how many time can you get bitten before you turn. Gotta have some way to limit "ganking" of the opposing sides. Of course RE did in such a way that you could take "medication" to reduce the infection

But I do like the idea that if you turn Zombie - you lose ALL human skills and if you turn back, you lose all zombies skill and start at "fresh" human again.

 

[Dave]

Well, there would have to be benefits and hazards to playing either a zombie or a human.

Possible Benefits:

Human

• Use weapons and tools.
• Fast move if needed.
• Sneak Ability.
• Ability to form groups and share damage.

Zombie

• No need to sleep/eat.
• Night vision.
• Heightened senses/life detection.
• Can take a lot of damage (except to head)

Possible Penalties:

Human

• Fatigue slows you down and hurts skills.
• Prone to damage.
• Must eat/drink to stay alive.
• Poor night vision.

Zombie

• Slow moving.
• Inability to use weapons or tools.
• Inability to communicate with other players.
• Inability to form formal groups. They could, however, follow each other around if they felt like it.

Possible Skills:

Human

• Gun/weapon skill upgrades - power/accuracy/magazine size
• Survival skills - foraging, dowsing (finding water), trap/detection (to hurt zombies or warn about danger).
• Sneak - Ways around the zombie's Life detection.

Zombies

• Faster move.
• Greater Life detection.
• Climbing.

Just a few ideas. I think it would work and would be fun to play either side.

 

[Disconnected]

intriguing.
I agree emphasis on fear element is needed.

I say less guns, more running, problem solving, surviving. Back to basics and all that.

 

[Dave]

That's why I like the "no night vision" thing. You don't have a light source? Uh oh. The bad guys can now see and you can't. Flashlights give out and you have to forage new batteries. Find yourself out foraging and it gets dark? Ruh ro, raggy!

 

[figmentPez]

If L4D taught me anything is that a even fast zombies would be little threat to 4 people with machine guns... if it wasn't for the special infected and especially the tank a good team would breeze through the game on any difficulty.

Yeah, but think of all the game mechanics that go into making common infected such a low-threat situation. Melee attacks are highly effective, reload times are quick, ammo piles are abundant (and bottomless), pistols never run out of ammo, etc. The game is designed around having the special infected be the real threat, but I don't think that necessarily has to be the case for any zombie game.
Added at: 14:54
Personally I like the simple jump-in nature of L4D. I wouldn't want skill progressions or other persistent elements.

 

[Jiarn]

Yeah, I think by making the base game harder with my "30-50s" style of theme, it'd really take on a completly new feel. No AK47s, no Sniper Rifles, no Pipe Bombs etc.

Gritty, old world, weapons that can't mow down entire hordes, etc. It'd be pretty awesome. I also agree with figmentPez. L4D does so well because if you have 20-40 minutes free to just shit around with, it's an amazing game to just hop in and out of. If I want skill based/persistant etc? I play WoW.

 

[Adam]

Expanding on Dave's idea, the most dangerous concept of Zombies is their strength in numbers...Soooo, why not, if you get turned into a zombie, it's not a 1:1 conversion, but you get a full mob to play with that you control from a top-down perspective using a Starcraft interface kinda dealio. They can explain away the differential by saying you turned and immediately infected everyone in the same room as you.

At least it turns being a zombie into something fun and different. And challenging.

 

[Necronic]

L4D3: Mount and Blade!
Time to get medieval on their zombie asses

Seriously though I think Dave has a pretty good idea. There was some old browser based game like that, Urban Dead I think.

 

[SpecialKO]

We're talking about two different games here.

1) Dave's Zombie MMO. Min-maxing stealth game for the hardcore. Not jump-in friendly, but providing a more in-depth zombie experience. Maybe experience levels and skill-ups could be supplemented via a real-time survival system. I.E. the longer you survive, the more RNG, such as it is, tweaks things slightly in your favor.

2) Mod for L4D which changes the difficulty via a new setting, like mob-run Chicago in the 30s (or the 3 Kingdoms period in China ). Retains the jump-in quality of L4D while increasing the difficulty. Doesn't have the same level of immersion as #1.

See I could go for either of these, and would play them at different times.

 

[Dave]

I always have good ideas about shit like this, I just don't have the ability to make my visions a reality.

 

[AshburnerX]

That web-based Zombie MMO you were talking about earlier is Urban Dead and it's pretty addicting.

As for Left 4 Dead 3... I dunno, I wouldn't mess with it too much. I like that it's different than most games in the genre and I don't think making it more "survival-ly" is going to make it better. It's a fast paced action game in a genre full of slow, plodding marathons and I think it helps it stand out. However, what I WOULD add/change is...

- Melee weapon destructibility. Melee is over powered currently, which is one of the reasons they took away the safe house bats for the pre-orderers. Making it so most (maybe not all) weapons ether break or become less effective over time would encourage people to change it up more often. Maybe make finding an ammo repair them too, if you REALLY want to stick with something.

- Make Adrenaline over-heal you if your at/near max health, but it make it wear off over time still. In fact, make it so that the Adrenaline health is used up LAST, so you might drop to the ground if your not careful. It'll make Adrenaline more effective, but also add in a drawback to using it. Maybe even let us use it to self-revive if we have it while we're on the ground, but make the health drain much faster because of it.

- Change the Medicine and Grenade slots into generic slots and let the player decide what to carry with them. For instance, let them carry two doses of meds if they don't have a bomb, or an extra bomb if they find a stash of them before they find more pills.

- While we're at it, give us new items to use in those slots. I can think of three right now: The Spray-n-pray, Body Armor, and Smoke Bombs. The Spray-n-Pray is a one time use flamethrower made of an aerosol can, a handle, and a lighting device. You can use it to quickly escape a Horde if you get surrounded or to do high damage against a Tank or something. It's range is short and narrow, so it doesn't tread too much on the Molotov's use. The Body armor lets you take less damage and makes you immune to friendly fire/explosions, but slows you down slightly, so you can choose between ether being safe from getting hurt occasionally or being able to evade getting hurt at all. Smoke Bombs act like being in a Smoker's Cloud, but with an advantage: Special Infected can't see your outline while your in them. Drop one in a hallway or a point you need to defend and you'll be safe (well... SAFER) from Special Infected attacks.

- Make the stationary machine-guns USEFUL. Right now there is no reason to ever use them on any level other than No Mercy's Finale... ether let us position them ourselves (by making us pick them up like gas cans) or put them in good locations and give them limited ammo to prevent them from becoming too powerful.

- More variety of weapons. What we have it great, but I'd love to see more... like a quick and powerful sawed-off shotgun, a fast shooting but inaccurate machine pistol, or a hunting revolver.

- Player Rankings for Online Play. I'm sick and tired of ether being stuck with people who don't know how to play or getting into a match with a pre-made of great players and getting curbstomped. Optional ranked match making would do a lot to help with that.

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

Jockey needs some love. The thing's current use is soak up damage so some useful SI can do things without getting shot at.

Make the maps more turtle friendly. The Spitter and the Charger are supposed to be anti-turtle, but most of the maps favor rushing and constant movement. This leads to the new SI feeling very underwhelming.

Improve the lobby system.

Change how the SI spawn in Versus mode. I'd like to see there be 2 Hunters, 1 Spitter/Boomer slot, and 1 Charger/Jockey/Smoker slot. That way, the SI get decent damage often, a useful spitting type, and one person who can isolate Survivors.

 

[AshburnerX]

They only need to do one of two things to make the Jockey effective: Make it so whoever they are riding takes enhanced friendly fire damage whenever the Jockey is shot or make it have half to 2/3rds of the health of a Tank when it latches onto somebody, but can still be knocked off with a single shove. Without the endurance to move someone away from their team, the Jockey is too situational to be helpful.

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

The only situations he's helpful in are if somebody on the Survivor team wants to be a lone maverick or if all the survivors in an area are boomed. But then again, who isn't?

 

[figmentPez]

The only situations he's helpful in are if somebody on the Survivor team wants to be a lone maverick or if all the survivors in an area are boomed. But then again, who isn't?

The jockey works well in the hotel hallways with windows in Dead Center. He can get an occasional instant kill. Actually, letting a jockey continue to ride a survivor clinging on an edge, continuing to damage them and hastening their death, might not be a bad idea.

 

[Joe Johnson]

In Vs. mode, I'd like to be able to control some of the normal zombies either A. as a horde, instead of one of the special zombies, or B. as an individual zombie, when you're waiting to spawn as a special.

 

[Mathias]

http://news.mmosite.com/content/201...mmo_now_working_by_ex_guild_wars_talent.shtml

http://www.deadfrontier.com/

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

The jockey works well in the hotel hallways with windows in Dead Center. He can get an occasional instant kill. Actually, letting a jockey continue to ride a survivor clinging on an edge, continuing to damage them and hastening their death, might not be a bad idea.

That's still two general situations and one map-specific situation. The guy needs some kind of bump. Or several kinds of bumps.

In Vs. mode, I'd like to be able to control some of the normal zombies either A. as a horde, instead of one of the special zombies, or B. as an individual zombie, when you're waiting to spawn as a special.

Although that initially sounds fun, the big advantage of sitting around when you're dead is being able to watch where the survivors are, what they're doing, and if any of them are limping. SI work best when they're coordinating with each other, and being dead is great for knowing where you should go to surprise them, and if there are any survivors the group should focus on.

 

[Cajungal]

I want to see a Vegas level just so I can kill some Zombies in feathery costumes and headdresses handing me coupons for free steak dinners.

 

[Chibibar]

I want to see a Vegas level just so I can kill some Zombies in feathery costumes and headdresses handing me coupons for free steak dinners.

ummm wrong game

 

[AshburnerX]

I'm pretty sure any new L4D game is ether going to be about a group of survivors who stayed/got left behind or about people in Canada or Mexico, as it's pretty clear that most of the mainland United States CRAWLS with Infected right now. The L4D2 survivors were able to drive/run hundreds of miles without running into anyone who wasn't infected.

Then again, it could start out on the cruise ships everyone was rumored to be escaping to and the game is about finding another safe place to hide out. Could work as a way to meet Zoey and the rest anyway.

 

[Hailey Knight]

While some of the ideas in this thread sound great for some other zombie game, they also sound like someone wants to fundamentally alter what L4D is to the point that it might as well be another title.

 

[AshburnerX]

While some of the ideas in this thread sound great for some other zombie game, they also sound like someone wants to fundamentally alter what L4D is to the point that it might as well be another title.

Yeah, that was my take on it as well. We're already getting more survival based Zombie games in the future with stuff like Dead State, so I'm fine with Left 4 Dead being the action zombie game.