Left 4 Dead Versus Preview - November 17th, 2008
Left 4 Dead splitting into two game modes has been one of the most controversial changes amongst the community since the game was announced. Fans were scared to hear the term "death match" used in a game that, for many, represents a cooperative oasis in a desert of assholes playing Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, and Halo. After that scary word was used, we learned that the proper phrase is "versus mode," which still sounded out of place. We were scared. And yet, after getting to spend some quality time with the two different game modes, we've learned that "versus" can belong in "coop" games. L4D's versus mode sets a group of four people head to head with another group of four to see who can cooperate the best.
This mode, in our opinion, is what's going to keep people playing Left 4 Dead for years.
Versus mode is being released with two movies: No Mercy and Blood Harvest, with more hopefully to come in future updates.
The structure of the game is simple. Team A begins the map on the Survivor team and Team B starts out on the Infected team. The players run through the first map of the movie and the Survivors try to reach the safe room with as much health and as many Survivors as possible. The Infected do whatever they can to stop them. After this round is over, a score is given to the Survivors based on their performance and the teams switch sides. The map starts over, with Team B now playing as Survivors and Team A on the Infected side. Team B now tries to outperform and outscore Team A. After this round is over, the teams move on to the second part of the movie.
The scoring system is a little complicated at first. After the Survivors reach the safe room or the Infected kill off them off, a score is given to the Survivors. The score calculates the average distance traveled by the Survivors (total of the distance traveled by each Survivor as a percentage, divided by 4) and adds this to how much real health they have at the end (after applying held health kits, pills don't count since they're only temporary health). This number is then multiplied by the number of Survivors alive. This is multiplied again by a difficulty modifier given to each portion of the map. These seem to be anywhere from x1 to x2. In a full game, each team will finish with five different scores, which are then totaled together. The team with the most points wins.
[(Average Distance Traveled) + (Health Score)] * (Number of Survivors in Safe Room) * (Map Modifier)
As an example, if four Survivors make it through to the safe room with full health (+100 health each) and it's on a finale with x2 difficulty rating, the total score would be (100+100*4)*4*2 = score of 4,000 points for that map.
Versus mode has no difficulty setting. Instead, the regular Infected take a backseat (perform the same as Normal difficulty level in campaign mode) and the bosses play an even greater role, allowing the difficulty to be controlled by the skill of the players. The basic Infected are still important and keep the Survivors occupied, but the bosses will be the main threat. One of the benefits of having two separate modes is that playing against player-controlled bosses can be balanced independently from AI bosses. It works out really well.
Click below on NEXT to go to the next page of our Versus mode preview.
