Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2

Lockdown DLC
JAiZ 26 May, 2020 @ 4:30am
Feedback thread
So I just played through this campaign and noted down a bunch of feedback to it, but due to Steam's character limit for comments I figured a thread would be more adequate. This'll allow others to post feedback in more detail as well.

Let me start off by saying that overall the campaign is really solid. It has a great setting, innovative ideas, and each map feels unique and different while still making sense and having good transitions.
From the thematic point of view, I cannot complain, it's absolutely flawless.

I also want to emphasize that I absolutely LOVED the finale. Pushing through the tunnel is quite difficult, and I would suggest a wider area to push through would be better, but the fake-out escape with the helicopter crashing is something I've always wanted to do myself, and seeing it in action was amazing, especially with the tank and exploding car.
I would add a few more gascans, since those can be used at any point if survivors need a break to heal up or catch a breath, it allows players to essentially pick where they want to wait for a moment.

Now I'll get to individual level feedback. Keep in mind although it contains a lot of negative points, the campaign is definitely really good and enjoyable, so don't get discouraged.

Map 1:
- The intro chatter is weird, it feels like the survivors are talking way too much, I'd try to keep such saferoom chatter a bit more limited.
- The smoke in map 1, right outside of the saferoom, is way too strong. It makes you almost completely blind and is really annoying.
- There's no reason to have all that smoke outdoors, it doesn't add to the map (as it is already stormy) and it just makes it harder to see, I would remove it completely.
- There's a random helicopter sound while indoors, doesn't really make any sense nor does it serve a purpose.
- I like the implementation of the rainstorm, but you should make sure that the storm is dimmed when you're under a roof or indoors, like Hard Rain does it.
- My framerate averages 80FPS on this map, whereas I usually get 300 FPS on valve maps. It even dropped as low as 40FPS - It needs a lot of optimization. I suggest checking out some tutorials on optimizing maps.
- The navmesh needs fixing, infected get stuck in many places (this applies to other maps as well). If you need a reliable editor I can highly recommend my friend Salakirby, he's experienced, very reliable, and friendly.


Map 2:
- Louis is talking... but he's nowhere to be seen?
- There was a random witch death sound right outside the saferoom.
- There was another random helicopter sound outside the saferoom, like on map 1.
- The indoor storm sounds are so much better on this map compared to the previous map.
- Why is there a T-posing louis at the top of some random stairs?
- I'd lower the fog density a bit, or increase it's range slightly, since I couldn't see the helicopter flyover due to the fog. You may also want to use one of the smoother pre-existing animations for it or create a new helicopter animations, since those will always look better than path_tracks.
- In the alley where the light turns on, an invisible wall blocks survivors from moving forwards. In general, don't use invisible walls to prevent survivor progress - always make sure there is something visually blocking off the path. In this case, you could do what Dead before Dawn did and have a generic survivor who shoots at the ground in front of you shortly after the light turns on, perhaps with some voicelines to indicate that players can't pass there, maybe saying something like "stay away!".
Whitaker has a good line for such a scenario, it's comeupstairslongerb04 - this'll work even better if you add a little store to the area below.
- Now Bill is randomly talking out of nowhere?
- The ATM alarms were a big cause of frustration. Granted, i didn't have the game instructor on, but it would be nice if activating one of the ATM's would shut down the other one next to it, so you don't risk accidentally setting off the 2nd one right as the horde wears off because a boomer wandered out from around the corner.
- The saferoom tank can be implemented better. Currently it warps/pushes the player backwards after interacting with the door and it happens without any warning.
Hearing some growling and thumping just before getting close to the door would warn players, and perhaps having the tank bust out when the survivors reach a specific proximity would be better, rather than requiring a player to interact with it.

Map 3:
- I really liked the mini-finale design in the warehouse. It could be improved by designing it a bit more like the sacrifice's finale with more horde and more supplies.
- The map 3 crash occurred even though I have a good PC, it's likely related to map logic. Still occurred with lowest graphics, so I skipped the rest of this map.

Map 4:
- Here again - Don't use invisible walls to block players, always have a prop to visually block off a path. For this gate you can easily solve this by using a func_movelinear that opens up after interacting with one of the monitors.
- The first electric box is highlighted before players need to interact with it. This caused some confusion.
- The fireaxe in the tree can't be picked up, I recommend having weapons always obtainable, rather than just making them a decorational prop.
- I have no clue where I'm supposed to go after turning on the power, the event area needs a clearer sense of direction, perhaps with some lights starting up to signal the next area to move to, and shutting down once that part of the objective is completed.
- Why is a disembodied Zoey talking out of nowhere?

Map 5:
- Some ladders are nonsolid and not climbable, feels weird. I'd probably make them solid or look broken just so they feel better.
- Avoid giving any weapons the "absorb all dropped weapons" flag, all it does is cause players to lose a gun they might've liked more by absorbing it. Valve is guilty of this as well and it's generally a bad idea unless you have an area with tons of guns like Whitaker's gunshop.
- Once again, invisible walls to stop players from accessing an area is bad design. Always have it visually blocked off in some way. For the finale you could require players to push a crate in order to jump over the bus, or something along those lines. Perhaps just do what Cold Stream does and use a different trigger to start the finale, that opens a gate or barrier.
- The helicopter crash was AWESOME!!!!
- The pipe bombs by the exit of the tunnel can be picked up 5 times each, I assume this was an oversight.


Final words
The L4D1 survivors implementation feels forced and is quite frankly pointless - they don't add anything and their disembodies voices are just... weird. The campaign wouldn't lose anything if they were removed.
There's also the issue of invisible walls blocking players, not just in the instances I noted above, but in general - there's some areas in maps where there's a gap wide enough to fit through, but then an invisible wall blocks you from going there.

But overall, the map is pretty solid, you added a great deal of innovation and interesting designs.
The only other, more general issue for me is that maps can feel very cramped and claustrophobic at times, especially with the large amount of props per level. Sometimes simplicity is key, and there's a lot of unnecessary paths leading to dead ends.
Other than that, I hope to see more future campaigns or maps, and am always down to do beta testing if you need someone. Keep up the good work!
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Showing 1-15 of 25 comments
5.5/10
a1ex MVP  [developer] 26 May, 2020 @ 5:06am 
Thank you a lot for playing my map, and for taking all that time to write this feedback. Just want you to know I appreciate it a lot! It's fine with criticism, it's only healthy and is needed to improve! ;) I will go through it more thorough when I'm done at work.
krit9122 26 May, 2020 @ 2:47pm 
Just played thru up to the end of chapter 3 and I agree with the author of the threads concerns, at least bill and Zoey should at least show up in the map like Louis did although if there was a way to rescue them and then have them show up and help you in the finale would be worth it. Examples I could think of would be triggering an alarm to distract the horde and give Louis the chance to escape, throwing a can at Bill so he stops shooting you and opening an alternate path, have Zoey be downed by the tank and be revived and then run off to help Francis. I think you could accomplish all of this with triggers, pull the fire alarm for Louis, interact with a soda can and chuck it at bill telling him you're not a zombie and opening up the path thru his firing spot, reviving Zoey and then have her duck thru the front door of the hospital where you put the dangerous area message. That is all I have to say. Good campaign better at visual storytelling than most maps, 8/10 would play again.
Tendie | CCND 26 May, 2020 @ 9:13pm 
I was able to finish the campaign and there was at least two times where I got completely lost. One was on Map 2 near the end. I couldn't tell where to go inside the garage and ran around like an idiot trying to break into the diner or go under the van. The other was on Map 3 after you destroy the siren. I really liked that moment, but I got really lost and didn't notice the ladder to get into the vents for a good 7 minutes. One more thing, I don't know what the purpose of that unstable platform was. It wasn't even in a way I had to go? I jumped on it for fun and it broke so, that's cool. I'll replay it again on expert soon and give more feedback on it again.
PuncakeTheThird 27 May, 2020 @ 3:24pm 
Yeah i ran into some pretty harsh drops into the 40s in a few areas in map1.The gate that leads into the next area after the burning building being the biggest one. Really detailed campaign though!.
Last edited by PuncakeTheThird; 27 May, 2020 @ 3:29pm
.Mart. 28 May, 2020 @ 5:13pm 
One of the best maps I ever played. Very detailed, I could see the effort done on this map. Nice work and thanks! For me as is a 9/10.

About people getting lost, I think, this is normal in every playthrough until you "learn" the path.
After playing 3~4 times I didn't get lost.

Now some feedback,

Map 3 is constantly getting crashes (in a sourcemod server), even with low graphics (the problem is that the server crashes) usually before the door hint in the first part, I also don't know what is causing these issues, since hosting a local server my game never crashes (with the same configs). I also have been reported about the same behavior on map 4 (not confirmed).

Sometimes the Tanks spawns after an event sometimes don't, I don't know if it should spawn every time after the "same" event (Like after starting the 3 generators) or if it's supposed to be random.

The carousel noise/sound after you cross the fire room (map 3) is a bit annoying, never stops until the map changes, at least I don't know how to stop it.

The heavy func_precipitation (smoke/cloud) in some maps is causing a lot of FPS loss for some players.
I didn't notice that, but some of my players, most low-hardware users, it shows to be a problem, making it unplayable in some parts.

Anyway, keep the good work. Fixing some issues will put this one easily on top custom L4D2 maps
Last edited by .Mart.; 28 May, 2020 @ 5:17pm
Caboochie 29 May, 2020 @ 1:40am 
I personally think it was far too hard. Every couple of minutes, a mega horde would be spawned in, sometimes, halfway through a horde swarming us, we would get 2 or 3 notifications saying to us that more were on the way. I found this to be very frustrating.
Not only were med-kits scarce on this map, but huge hordes would constantly incapacitate my team mates. And not only that, but near the end of the second map, after triggering 2 hordes in a row while being swarmed, and with 2 of my teammates dead, when I opened that faux safe room door, a tank busts through and almost kills me. Plus a boomer and a spitter to shortly follow. Keep in mind that I'm playing on normal difficulty, too.
I love this map. It is super fun and new. But there were multiple times when I didn't know where to go, or what to do, and coupled with the aforementioned problems, it wasn't always the most enjoyable.
Last edited by Caboochie; 31 May, 2020 @ 3:23am
DOOMGUY 29 May, 2020 @ 7:36am 
Great review.

There are issues with this campaign. The lights/lens flare (I have the Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain/Ground Zero lens flare mod on though) were out of control. Either it's the decisions or just my mod. Anyways, I'll double check that and edit this comment soon.

The smoke was covering my screen a bit too much. Maybe a little tone down will be nice.

Also (I have an Dead Carnival Marry Go Round music replacement mod at the time I've played the 3rd map today) having the Marry Go Round music in the 3rd map just doesn't fit to the hospital part at all.

And finally, how the L4D1 characters die is not satisfying at all. Maybe change their deaths like make them like Tony Stark, risking their lives to save the L4D2 characters. Or just take them out of the campaign entirely.

(One more thing though) I do have experienced missing skybox in the 3rd map and objects missing like for example, a red X which means an object is missing.


Edit: Even without the Metal Gear Solid 5 lens flare, the lens flare in the campaign are still out of control. Map 4 has some of the worst my eyes have seen. There are too many lens flare that I have to lower the brightness of my PC and game because my eyes are bleeding and can possibly blind you in a fight and kill you. Overall, the lighting just sucked. Also let's not forget the infamous white windows that have nothing but whiteness inside and nothing else in map 4.
Last edited by DOOMGUY; 29 May, 2020 @ 12:28pm
eN-t 30 May, 2020 @ 4:38pm 
Enjoyed the map most of the way through, but some parts were frustrating. Sometimes because it took like 5 to 10 minutes to try and find where to go or what that generator or button you just pressed actually unlocked. Other times because visibility was too low because of too much smoke and steam.

Most frustrating was the escape sequence because the zombies seemingly spawn non-stop and the tunnel is too narrow and full of obstacles, which makes it so that Zombies get onto your head or stuck under props (aka it's impossible to push them away) and SUPER frustrating to go through. The tank at the end doesn't help as it can force you back into the tunnel so you have to go through the tunnel twice.

Also the tanks were way too fast - but I am unsure if that was a mod on the server or actually part of the map. There's one part where you open a saferoom and a tank comes out, and it was SO fast that even with a headstart the tank catches up. If that is part of the map, please make the tank normal speed.

In general, I don't like that item spawns were completely scripted (?). This very much lowers the replayability value and makes it impossible to get "better luck" sometimes. If I die and have to restart, it's better to have a different set of items at different locations so sometimes it's harder, sometimes it's easier, but it's always different.
a1ex MVP  [developer] 31 May, 2020 @ 2:39am 
eN-t- sounds like you were playing on a server that made the tanks move faster. Because in my campaign they move with normal speed.
Black Wolf 31 May, 2020 @ 5:32am 
oh yeah, one thing i forgot to mention was the VERY ANNOYING smoke, especially those areas that give you that smoke effect on your screen, on some areas even lowering the brightness, making it very hard to see!
8sianRednek 7 Jun, 2020 @ 8:52am 
Tested after the June update.

Map 1:
Even though you've lowered the smoke by 40%, it's still too much. Also, it doesn't really make much sense with a building burning in a storm. I'd suggest either remove the fire and smoke in the building or remove the storm, or at least just make it rain like in The Passing.

Navmesh still needs fixing, I had a Boomer stuck inside a tree and just couldn't shoot it. This also goes with Commons.

This map needs some optimizations, my fps drops to ~20ish as soon as I exit the building and enter the woods. I normally get ~60fps in vanilla maps.

Map 2:
I completely agree with JAiZ about removing the L4D1 survivors' voices since they don't make much sense in the map. I understand you added them just for laughs and giggles.

In the area with the armored truck, there was a helicopter sound but the chopper itself was nowhere to be seen. And once again, the fog outside the building was really annoying. I could not see the helicopter crash because of it. After I turned on the power and flipped the switch, it took me a while to figure out I had to go down the pipes to proceed. Suggestion: Replace the helicopter and its sound with some director hints to turn on the power, add the safe house icon graffiti on the wall where you have to go down the pipes. Strongly suggesting to remove the fog outside the building!

I'd suggest to block off the alley where "Someone is shooting at you!" with some props to avoid confusion. Add a few more arrow graffiti when you get to the roof where Bill dies for better navigation. But good job with the director hints on the ATMs.

I agree with JAiZ about making the tank bursts out of the safe room when the players reach a specific point rather than having to interact with the door.

Map 3:
Well not much to say about this map except the CTD is fixed, at least for me. Played through the entire map without any problem. So good job on that.

Map 4:
I'd add the steel roll up door at the beginning where players have to choose the mode rather than an invisible wall with a director hint. Once the players choose a specific mode, the door will roll up and they can continue.

After I turned on the power to the generator and opened the shutter, it took me a few minutes to find the way. A few more arrow and safe house graffiti would help.

Just like JAiZ said, I got confused by the first couple electric boxes. Perhaps just highlight the ones that need to be interacted first. And again, instead of invisible walls, block off the path with some props.

Map 5:
Good job on the finale, it got really tense and challenging. Also, the helicopter crash scene was great! However, there need to be more arrow graffiti on the road. Right after the crash, I had no idea where to go next and with the infecteds charging at you nonstop, it was absolutely confusing.

Conclusion:
I really like the design and the atmosphere of the map, especially with the options to choose which mode to play in map 4. Maybe adding some music at the start of the campaign and in the safe rooms. Speaking of safe rooms, please provide some supplies or at least an ammo stash. In general, the map is a 7/10, it just needs some optimizations and minor changes. Keep up the good work!
Last edited by 8sianRednek; 7 Jun, 2020 @ 8:55am
Shad3rEVO 22 Oct, 2020 @ 10:21am 
I like the beginning of the map intro chatter, the author is trying to add a story, is that so bad?
Private Hazzard 3 Jan, 2021 @ 11:00pm 
this is a really interesting map- it has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. The guy making it is incredibly good at decorating spaces and is also really good at making things look aesthetically pleaseing. In addition, the maps blend together well, but in a bizzare, dreamlike way, that reminds me of dark wood.

The main issue is the claustrophobic latter stages. They're set in cityscapes, and look fantastic, but are a bit too cramped and bizzare.

The finalie is also a missed opportunity- it's just a tunnel. After spending so long in the cramped city, running through a cold-stream esque outdoor environment would be an excellent final chapter. Sadly, the finale is a gauntlet run through a literal tunnel, and is probably the most linear and confined finale i've ever seen.

I really encourage the mapper to change the final chapter to an open, scenic wooded area, which would really add a lot of flavor to the campaign.

but at it is, it's bizzare, but also very pretty and interesting
``~Scre@m~`` 11 Oct, 2021 @ 11:05pm 
the campaign is good except the end crescendo.. its way too hard.
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