JuggerLeft
commented
1 month ago Hi, thank you for your feedback! Any feedback is appreciated and is exactly what we need to make sure that the changes are feel as great as possible
-Yea, the way the car alarm works isn't so great and a lot of people are still unaware that it actually spawns a Tank... We plan to improve the feedback in relation to that eventually and i will see with Alexis if anything can be done in relation to how it spawns a Tank to make it more fair. Currently there's a 20 seconds interval for them so hitting multiple car alarms at the same time would really only spawn one Tank.
-We did get some feedback in relation to the amount of time reduced being not that meaningful and that Holdouts can more oftenly than not be too tedious, finding a correct balance can be tricky since there are many things to take into account but it's definitely something i'm willing to experiment with.
-Those dialogues are a issue i'm aware off, No Mercy specially can be really annoying and it's currently because of a Trigger that locks the first dialogue which is something that can be tweaked but we need to experiment with it to make sure that nothing breaks because of it.
-Personally i never see anyone using the Chainsaw, people oftenly prefer to keep a safe distance from the Tanks on Expert but i can definitely see potential if used correctly! Don't think it deserves a nerf though.
-Yea, one of the biggest complains in this mutation is related to Tanks climbing Pipe Bombs... there doesn't seem to be a easy fix for it at the moment, but we're aware of the issue.
-They spawning in plain sight is a issue we are aware of but nothing was really changed about how they spawn in the update that happened last year, so it's most likely a issue that already existed but people payed more attention to it after the update... Still a issue of course.
Really appreciate the feedback about those issues currently.
-The fast bleedout happens 10 seconds after everyone is in the saferoom with the door closed, then the incapped player start taking 12 damage instead of 3. The idea was exactly to get rid of the need to idlespam and use commands since it's really just a big bandaid to the bothersome long waiting times in the saferoom if someone was left behind... So it's a feature i consider really important for the overall experience, but of course it's something that can be tweaked in some ways.
-The reason we decided to make the Church Tank weaker was to make sure it didn't feel too punishing since it happens after a really long event, and it's mostly a cool easter egg to show some attention to detail. You could say that the Church Tank is weaker because it's recently transformed, which is cool xD
-The water slowdown isn't really as meaningful as the one on players Tanks are still faster than you and will catch up really easily still, they're just not twice as fast. Nobody even ever mentions it when i'm playtesting in water levels so i'd say a good balance was found in relation to that.
-Yea, the longer delays for punches was something i was already considering removing because of that, it previously was a 3 seconds delay but that allowed to revive incapped players even if a Tank was punching them so we nerfed it to 2.2 but we might consider just removing that change like i said before.
-Taking into consideration how important Adrenaline is in those levels it's really important to make sure that the player has a fair supply of them otherwise it just feels like you're being screwed by rng which is not a fun thing. I understand the appeal of the challenge, but the challenge should be by encouraging a better use of your skills not your luck! The level itself still is really challenging, but beating it should now be more consistent if you're playing well.
-The increased timer in Chapter 3 of Dark Carnival is really odd but it's important to consider some odd changes if it pays off for the overall experience, some custom levels can really benefit from changes like that for example but it's definitely something i will take a deeper look into.
-The change to the elevator definitely makes that chapter way more difficult specially if you're playing solo and yes i'm aware of the skips using the Pipe Bomb/Propane Tanks they're all really cool!
-I'd love to make it possible to beat the Hard Rain Finale solo without the need of exploits but that's really difficult since it's a finale that forces you to focus in killing Tanks since running around isn't possible because of the water... Some people suggested removing the water slowdown in this map but people weren't really a fan of the removal of that last time.
-The removal of walls in No Mercy 4 is one i'd say that takes advantage of the idea of Tank Run the best since it encourages running more by expanding the possible routes that you can take, and Tanks can also benefit from those same routes more easily too which can lead to really fun moments! There are still some walls that we didn't remove that you can even try to benefit by making the Tanks breaking them btw
-The change to No Mercy isn't to their Spawn Interval during the Finale, it's only for before the Finale so the path to it isn't as frustrating or repetitive.
-You can skip the Crane event easily by using a Tank Boost which is cool but not possible in expert which in my opinion creates a big disparity across all difficulties and by making the main route quicker it really feels more consistent and both benefitial to their own extent across all difficulties. Yes i'm aware of other strategies like stanging in a window where Tanks can't get you or using a pillar to go back to the beggining of the level, still valid options of course
Yea, Blood Harvest is one that i underestimated too much, it doesn't really have a lot of resources or verticality in the map so if things go down poorly it's really difficult to manage the mess... I really overdid in this one! I'm glad that you liked that same change for Dark Carnival, unlike Blood Harvest it has more verticality and much more resources overall so it's a much more fair challenge
-Not needing to have all players in the Traincar Arena can lead to more strategies that could make it easier so i will take a look at that.
Thanks for the feedback about the changes, it will be really helpful overall
-Yea the rng in the Whitaker dialogue was a really frustrating part of Dead Center 2, even if you played really well all the way to the shop everything could be ruined because Whitaker decided to take a really long conversation with you...
-Thanks, the idea was to create more variety in the areas in the finale since Tanks would oftenly spawn in the same exact place or even fail to spawn multiple tiems before the finale started! In Dead Air for example the Tank would always spawn in that same exact spot and then you'd all need to kill him before making any progress... Now he can spawn anywhere he wants to.
-That one change to the defibrillator is also one of my favourites, it was really frustrating when you just revived someone or got revived and then a Tank incapped you before you even had a chance to move.
-Explosive Ammo not having any meaningful purpose was something that botherex me since other things like Pipe Bomb and Bile were tweaked to be relevant in this gamemode, glad that a good purpose for it was found.
-The reason why they can spawn deployed is so people use them more, previously people would just ignore them or leave them behind if they had a medkit... Now when players see them they oftenly try to use it even if it's a bit off the main path. Because of that people also figure out more easily that Explosive Ammo actually has a purpose.
Bile is much rarer in Tank Run so i wanted to make sure that it was more valuable, many levels won't even have them so keeping them to use at the right time can be as valuable as in Default Coop. Wasting one now hurts your soul xD
Their speed with Bile was 131 units, now it's 114 on ground and 105 in water
-Yea not needing to wait for incapped players is a major change, makes many events more forgiving and allows more consistent progress.
-The sound was to serve as indication of the 10 seconds being reduced per kill because surprisingly a lot people don't know about that.
-Once again, thank you for the feedback! We really appreciate it and we will discuss about the things you talked about
C-Livee
alexiscoutinho
Just recently found out there's a community page for the Tank Run mutation which is awesome! I've been playing Tank Run on and off for over 2 years now and I personally find it more fun than Campaign + Versus + Survival + Realism combined. I've met countless great people playing Tank Run and I can't thank the creators enough for making such a well made and thorough mutation in an already really great game, who knew Left 4 Dead 2 could get even better right? With many upcoming changes that are coming, I do have some issues with current implemented mechanics, and potential future ones. I do understand that all future changes will potentially be tweaked, or outright removed. I will give some of my thoughts and feedback in this thread if that's okay.
First I'll start with issues I have with current Tank Run.
-The car alarm spawning a tank. It's a really great implementation, however, the idea was poorly executed in my opinion. Punishing a player that's most ahead of everyone else instead of spawning the tank near the car alarm is extremely annoying and cheap. [e.g when you get past the sewer section in Parish chapter 3 and you're about to reach the saferoom, then teammates that are farther behind trigger multiple car alarms and you get absolutely obliterated]. Spawning tanks near triggered car alarms would be a way better and welcoming change.
-10 Minute Timer on Holdout Finales. A simple change I'd personally love to see is the timer decreasing by 15 seconds for each tank kill instead of 10. I just think even when you're doing exceedingly well with killing tanks in holdout finales, 15 seconds would be a way better pace instead of 10. I disagree when people call for nerfs on finales such as Hard Rain, I think it's extremely fun and satisfying once you beat those kind of finales even up to Expert difficulty. But I can't even blame players for vote skipping those finales because even with an S tier team, it's basically just a really long wait until the rescue arrives. To put 15 seconds into perspective, molotoving 8 tanks would shave a full 2 minutes instead of 80 seconds. #MakeIt15Seconds<3
-Certain holdout finale dialogue and interactions are tediously long. No Mercy finale requires everyone to be on the proper rooftop before even triggering the first dialogue, then you have to wait so long for the second dialogue to interact with. After interacting with the second dialogue, there's a delay in the timer popping up. This might be a nitpick however can be crucial if a tank was set on fire/low health from the team shooting at it, then the tank dies too early to be counted towards the timer. Compare this to Swamp Fever's finale dialogue with Virgil, where you don't need everyone to be there to interact with the first dialogue, then the second dialogue can be skipped almost immediately, and the timer appears immediately after the second interaction. Every holdout finale dialogue and interactions should be the Swamp Fever standard. It's only the left 4 dead 1 maps that have these issues though, No Mercy, Death Toll, Dead Air, and Blood Harvest can hopefully receive some quicker dialogue/interactions in the future.
-Chainsaw's infinite fuel. If you know how to melee fight a tank, or using melee to damage a tank after dodging their rock and standing behind it for a couple of seconds, you'll realise how stupid OP the chainsaw is when doing these techniques. Don't get me wrong, I love doing these techniques with normal melee weapons or shotguns/AKs etc, but it actually feels like cheating when using the chainsaw. Their health shreds insanely fast and god forbid a tank comes across 2 chainsaw wielding survivors, or even more than 2. So I think the chainsaw should get the grenade launcher treatment being non-infinite, and the damage dealt requiring a slight nerf OR make the chainsaw drain faster while dealing more damage than it already does (Honestly, the chainsaw already does insane amounts of damage I'd personally prefer the chainsaw to have slightly nerfed damage output and remove the infinite fuel). The chainsaw currently is stupid OP in Tank Run even on Expert difficulty.
-Tanks climbing the pipe bomb (they can climb molotovs and biles but it's most noticeable with pipe bombs because they bounce). Tanks 90% of the time avoid the stun animation when this happens which is annoying and cheap, although it's charming admittedly. (They sometimes jump randomly after a pipe bomb is thrown which is an alternative way of them avoiding the stun). Sadly I assume this problem is embedded into Left 4 Dead 2 and not just the mutation, so I'll understand if this can't be changed, but I'd love for this to be fixed in the future.
-Tanks spawning in line of sight of a player. This is another one where it might be a bug that's currently embedded into Left 4 Dead 2, and not just the mutation. I do remember this not happening until an update released over a year or two ago. I'm not sure if it was TLS update but I'm pretty confident I never (or rarely) had this happen up until an update released. So hopefully this can be reverted in the future.
-Silent rocks. Sorry to sound like a parrot, I assume this is ANOTHER bug that's embedded into Left 4 Dead 2 and not just the mutation. Sometimes a tank doesn't give a sound que when they're beginning to throw their rock. It's kinda grown on me because it's another layer of being cautious with your surroundings but it'll always suck when you get jumpscared by a rock and potentially incap.
Now that I've gone over all my thoughts with how I feel about current Tank Run, I'm gonna go over my thoughts with potential future implementations.
-''Incapped Survivors die quicker sometime after everyone else is inside the end safe room'' A strategy that players typically do is teleport to incapped survivors to rescue them and potentially get them back to the saferoom, and gather more resources such as adrenaline, pipe bomb, defib etc back to the saferoom for the next level/finale. It seems like the bleedout gradually increases, until eventually ramping up faster and faster. I heavily disagree with this being implemented, currently you can go idle and votekick your bot, then jointeam 3 back into the game to insta bleed out if you really want to. (Idle, ''status'' in console cmd, ''callvote kick [whatever number is displayed for your bot from status]'', ''jointeam 3 [whichever survivor you're playing as e.g coach, zoey etc]''.
-''Church Guy in Death Toll 3 will now become a Tank that only has 25% of health'' I love this idea, I just think this implementation should be full send 100% health instead of the tank having a health reduction.
-''Tank's movement speed is now affected in water and walk-only areas'' This gives me ptsd flashbacks to when you could auto-revive and walk normal speed through water sections xd. I just personally think this change would remove the charm and unique increased difficulty scaling of water sections. And with the explosive rounds buff that I do actually like, I think this change would be OD in my opinion.
-''Tanks now take a bit longer to punch again after a successful hit'' I've tested this and the ''successful'' part isn't actually required. This applies to punches that tanks miss. This is my main issue, MAYBE with successful hits it could be a okay change, but if this change was to ship as is then this would be a huge buff to manipulating tanks for yourself and for teammates. Sometimes when tanks go through doorways with the door being open, they'll swing at it and you can take advantage of holding a tank or going past it with less fear of its next punch. Same goes for if you close the door on a tank, you'll have more breathing time to get past, or hold the tank to have teammates get past. Usually, the only risk is mistiming the tanks next punch or pathing incorrectly, but with this change it becomes way more doable with less thought. You can kill tanks much more safely as they're crushing an incapped survivor with the risk of the downed survivor getting killed by the tanks slam being much more lower. And you can deal more damage because you can get 1 extra melee swing in compared to the current 2 swings as you're melee kiting a tank. This change is basically low risk = major reward, rather than major risk = major reward, which I personally prefer the latter, so I hope this potential change is reverted.
-''Replaced some pills spawns with Adrenaline'' I personally disagree with superficial spawnrate increases for certain chapters such as Passing Chapter 2 and Parish Chapter 3. Even with their major difficulty spike I just think that's their unique charm and it rewards players who have learned the ins and outs of those particular chapters. Even though I have my own issues with RNG in games I think this change can be skipped.
-''Quadrupled pipe bomb density and raised Tank spawn interval to 25 s [Dark Carnival Chapter 3]'' Basically similar thoughts with the previous change I went over. I think the pipe bombs spawn increase is too superficial, I understand how close quarters Dark Carnival Chapter 3 is but I promise you pipe bombs aren't even needed if you know what you're doing, even in Expert difficulty. The tank spawn rate changing to 25 seconds for this specific chapter isn't a good change either in my opinion.
-''Reworked how the elevator behaves [Hard Rain Chapter 2 and Chapter 3]'' This is very vague but playing you'll soon realise what this means. Tanks now drop from above when you personally reach the bottom (before the gate is even opened), so you pretty much need a pipe bomb or propane if you're using the elevator. And in the next chapter, tanks that spawn above the elevator now drop down. I kinda don't mind chapter 3, however chapter 2 should be either reverted or let the tanks only be able to drop down 2 or 3 seconds after the gate has been fully opened. Chapter 3 like I said I wouldn't mind but I will miss being able to cover the spawn and jump back and forth on the shed and pipe to kill the tank while another person goes back to revive potential incapped teammates. Also, I was able to use the elevator while other survivors weren't incapped and not in the elevator with me, so I assume you can repeatedly call the elevator back up (not 100% sure if this is the case). I do like this change, and it actually could synergies well with the change of tanks being able to drop from above. If a survivor remains above they can have the tanks lured onto them while each survivor goes down the elevator (rip the last survivor though). However, all of this is kinda undermined because you can use a pipebomb/propane/green propane explosion to stagger your fall to skip the elevator, or run off the edge and incap yourself on the shed roof and have another survivor land-revive onto you or teleport.
-''Finale Double Tanks spawn less often (50 s delay instead of 40 s) [Hard Rain Finale]'' This is very conflicting to me, even though I said previously I disagreed with people asking for Hard Rain finale to be nerfed, I do think this change would make Solo more doable without bots. I've only gotten to 5 minutes solo with no bots on Expert and it's usually because the tanks path weird while under the building and they take their time to climb up to you, eventually resulting in having to deal with more than 2 tanks. In terms of multiplayer I disagree with this change, but this might actually make soloing doable without bots (excluding abusing the godspot) But yeah, overall I'd say I disagree with this change because it'll make multiplayer less thrilling.
-''Removed some walls [No Mercy Chapter 4]'' This is another one that's very conflicting to me. On the one hand, it opens up opportunities for different pathing options, but overall I wouldn't like this change to be implemented only because having the tank punch open a wall for you gives it that unique charm. The similar change to Dark Carnival chapter 3 I agree with only because I've never had a tank destroy that wall.
-''Increased the initial Tank spawn interval [No Mercy Finale]'' I slightly disagree with this because I still think this one can be almost as chaotic as Hard Rain finale only because tanks can spawn really far away and you end up having to deal with more than 2 at once.
-''Increased amount of Gas Cans and Propane Tanks [Death Toll Chapter 2]'' Another conflicting one to me, I get the vision with the bridge event but my brain can't agree with superficial spawns.
-''Tank spawn interval is increased to 30 s after the event [Death Toll Chapter 3]'' I disagree with my reasoning being... superficial.
-''File cabinets in the Church Safe Room are now mostly static [Death Toll Chapter 3]'' This is too charming to see get removed, I love spectating someone and they freak out when a cabinet comes flying at them from the tank punching through the door, it's too funny to see go xd
-''Increased the speed that the Crane lowers the Dumpster [Dead Air Chapter 2]'' I actually do think that the ladder should be more easier to climb onto when you're jumping from the bottom as it's coming down. Your character will continually fall off even when you're visibly attaching to the ladder, you have to wait until it's really low but that's most likely another embedded bug in Left 4 Dead 2. There's already many counters you can do while waiting for the dumpster to lower so I don't think this really needs changing.
-''Finale Double Tanks spawn more often (30 s delay instead of 40 s) to make better usage of the large arena [Blood Harvest Finale]'' Similar to how I feel about the No Mercy finale, I think this one can almost be as chaotic as the Hard Rain finale (If you're not abusing the godspot). Rocks are scary on this finale because they're usually hidden from LOS as they're coming from the outskirts. This isn't a needed change in my opinion. However, the Dark Carnival finale change I can agree with.
-''Reduced the time to open both train car doors to 2 seconds [Sacrifice Chapter 1]'' Much more doable to solo without bots but much more easier in multiplayer. In current Tank Run it's a really interesting dynamic to have a survivor lure the tanks as you hide yourself out of LOS to open the second door. Overall I don't think this needs changing.
And I think that's almost everything I have to say. I may write more again in the future but these are my overall thoughts. I want to end this thread by addressing some potential changes that I have positive thoughts on. The whitaker lines being consistently shorter is definitely one I agree with, even though I used to think the RNG aspect had its own unique charm, failing a run because whitaker took too long will always be really annoying. ''Climb that, you green-skinned son of a bitch'' ''Get your hands off my store'' everytime my ears are exposed to these dialogue lines I'm mentally finished, just open the goddamn door! The M60 damage increasing by 50% is cool. Tanks being able to spawn in finale areas before the timer is started is a huge change, it'll shake things up but for the better in my opinion, it becomes very predictable where tanks will spawn once you reach the finale arena, so this is a welcoming change to me. Survivors standing up quicker after being defibbed is awesome, you can idle after being defibbed currently but some players will have this knowledge locked away until either told or finding out on their own, so having a quicker stand up time overall is definitely a major plus, also idleing sometimes doesn't work regardless because of TLS update. All players in the arena are no longer required to release the Train Car in the Sacrifice, I agree with this. Explosive Ammo now slow down tanks drastically, I always felt like the explosive rounds were pretty pointless in Tank Run other than the extra damage dealt, so I do really like this however I can see this being extremely OP with the M60. Upgrade Packs now have a 75% chance of spawning already deployed, even though I said I was going over changes I thought were positive I do think this one can be reverted, if you're going to have explosive rounds slow down tanks drastically then I personally think you should sacrifice that little time deploying the rounds instead of luckily having a set already deployed. This would also give more control to save the deployable rounds for certain sections, instead of being cucked by the set being already deployed. The bile receiving a buff in increased duration, splash radius and slowdown was a nice touch to me when testing it out. However, I couldn't tell how increased the slowdown was, if anything it felt like the tank was moving faster while biled compared to current Tank Run. I assume this is a bug because the tanks did look like they was visually moving faster in general, maybe faster animations, really unsure. Players no longer need to wait for incapped Survivors in order to progress areas like elevators. This effects Parish chapter 2 with the CEDA section and No Mercy chapter 4 with the elevator section. Major change for sure. The holdout timer is visually smaller which I like, however I personally don't like the sound that plays for each tank kill. To me it should be a more subtle/quieter sound and have a small green text on the far right of the timer saying -10 seconds that would quickly fade away (-15 seconds for my dream change).
Overall, I can't wait for this update to eventually come out, and a special thank you to the developers for making, and continuing to develop such an amazing mutation.