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Reviving Versus

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Tali, Apr 21, 2017.

  1. Tali

    Tali MG Donor

    I know in the past the topic of versus has created much debate and heated emotions but I am hoping we can have a good discussion about it and find a solution to revive it. I think people were passionate about it because they loved it a lot, I know I did, and it is sad to see it empty all the time. I want to see if we can find a way to bring it back to the way it used to be.

    Up until 2 years ago we would be on the server all the time, many evenings people would have to wait on auto connect for an hour before they would be able to join, that's how full the server used to be.
    Somewhere along the line things happened, changes occurred and people left. But I know there is a decent group of people who would love to re-populate the server and bring back the amazing matches we used to have.

    So I guess my request is to discuss not what went wrong but what could be done to revive it and maybe actually have clan wars become an actual possibility again.

    My question that I would love to ask is; is it possible to bring back an older version of VS PR to one of the servers (EU) and test to see if it is playable and if people will join in when it is back?

    I want to have a VS event on the second week of May for a reason on which I will make a separate post next week. And I am hoping that by then we could bring some life into VS and make the event an enjoyable experience for anyone who still has the old VS in their hearts.

    Thank you for reading, hope you have a great weekend ~ Tali
     
    Angel, chronic, Duncan and 3 others like this.
  2. marvel

    marvel Head Administrator Staff Member

    I've been thinking about this as well, the reason why coop is more popular. Obv one reason would be that leveling is faster in coop. Also coop has all the special tanks that can be defeated. Another reason is I think the bots in versus. I've been thinking about ways of maybe removing the bots and get the leveling on par with coop.

    Either way any suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for this post.
     
    Tali likes this.
  3. Horama

    Horama MG Donor

    I write without thinking before , may be going repost more idea after checking .

    The survivors becomes too much OP in same time add new tank ( seem too much P2W- pay 2 win ) and decreased health of the tank , the idea to put buff for each infected is very nice .
    What i know his people complain about versus is empty ( 90% of time when i discuss about versus ) , but do nothing to give a idea or invite/join versus .
    NOW you a chance to DO something .

    I'm totally agree with tali and thinking/discuss since some years about , the best idea is to return at old PR-VS version , if you are saved it , if Honorcode need people to try something , i'm here too like on past ( i test some new buff for tank , pathing for new map , etc ) .

    Yes a only map during 45mn when versus was balanced but personnaly that's what i like .
    ( By example on tank , it's NOT you hit like a dumb what you see , have a FIGHT during 45mn you need to manage the whole survivor team with other infected , very tactical , give me good moment )

    We can't change team it seem now , bad idea , before most 'powerfull' player ( by example jones , me , etc ) changed team before start to balanced versus ( A veteran of versus lvl max with +2000H owned literraly a another lvl max )

    I'm more invested by building and grow up my Clan but i can give help if needed

    Pain aka Horama
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2017
    Tali likes this.
  4. Horama

    Horama MG Donor

  5. timkit

    timkit MG Donor

    I suppose your thinking then that the 5x cash and exp that we'd be getting in versus is not enough for leveling well.
    I also have been wanting to see a unique versus event with something similar/different to COOP that provides more rewards than COOP itself if it were to be included. By no means I am saying that players are going to have less favourable reactions to the event because VS has more better rewards than COOP. The point I want to make here is to try get a general VS horde of players going back to and from the server, even if its only every weekend that it would happen.

    A good suggestion to consider in mind for when the summer (northern hemisphere) / winter (southern hemisphere) season comes.
     
    Tali likes this.
  6. Leaxeaus

    Leaxeaus Junior Member

    Some players don't play versus because their internet connectivity impedes them to retaliate or make quick maneuvers. Ping is also a key reason why people prefer coop rather than versus, mainly cuz if your team lags alot.. you lose almost instantly.
     
    Tali likes this.
  7. chronic

    chronic New Member

    I think what Tali said about bringing the old PR-VS would be a really nice start. Is that even possible? If not how about removing some things (or a lot of them) like special tanks (shaman and paranoia could stick around like it was before on the older PR versions) and some buffs (event buffs, etc) which IMHO it breaks so hard the balance mixing too much stuff from coop, like any other new content introduced to the VS server, it is hard to keep balanced for both sides and since the Coders dont have much time to fix everything right away, sometimes it takes days or even weeks, people slowly lose interest about the server. Also the lack of communication between the community with HC, Mute makes the things even harder to find possible solutions since sometimes it needs people playing/testing to find out what is broken or what could improve.

    I mentioned about the pings before, and for sure the ideal server for VS should be hosted in the US for a better and fair experience to everyone regardless of where you live.

    Well those are my thoughts for now, and i really wanna see if those people who got unbanned still care about the server and maybe share their ideas here too.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
    Tali likes this.
  8. Tali

    Tali MG Donor

    some general thoughts after reading the current replies;

    I don't think anyone ever went to Versus in order to level up. I know me and most of my friends would level up in coop and then take our buffs and skills to versus, so I doubt the issue was ever the levels, although I could be wrong.

    Secondly I do believe the changes in coop are essential because people get bored of the same thing so changes keep coop alive. However the players of versus never seemed to want change other than some new buffs here and there, so it seems that change is not what attracts people to Versus. Every match we had was different based on players and their skills, and how well the team played together. And any time changes happened it would turn people off and decrease the population.

    So basically my point is that coop players and versus players want different things out of the experience. A lot of us enjoyed playing both versions but from what I know, many of the regular Versus players were only a part of the mg community for versus exclusively; so it might be a good solution to treat it like a separate entity and dedicate some resources and time for the Versus community. Not in a divisive way, but as another division of the mg community.

    It also seems like more people want the old version back so I am hoping that it is doable or that the current version could be reverted by removing new features that mess with the consistency of the experience we were used to.
    And I do agree that better ping would allow more people to constantly return to play daily/weekly like before.

    thank you for all of the replies so far, please keep adding to the discussion to show your interest and help the revival manifest into reality soon.
     
    Angel and chronic like this.
  9. Horama

    Horama MG Donor

    [​IMG]

    At begenning of EOP we level up on versus coz we find coop to much boring thing can change ( Now i prefer coop compare to actual versus , for reminder i didn't touch coop since 2 years after begun on mgftw lol )

    I'm totaly agree with full post of coldenemy ( chronic ) and tali just say the evidence

    I just want add in past we never teach at players how play versus , it's was hardcore less and less during years but coop is here to teach them .
     
    Tali and chronic like this.
  10. Angel

    Angel MG Donor

    We're still around, some of the changes are a bit hard to get used to though. Makes sense in one way, I haven't even been here for 3 years.

    First of all, I love the survivor/infected classes. You can apply your own playstyle to the game and it really makes everything more interesting. One of the biggest issues we had back then was the fact that there was a bunch of buffs you absolutely HAD to use so there wasn't much room left for the other ones. Everyone was using pretty much the same buff build (with some minor differences) and that was that. So as I said, I think that is something that should be kept if an old version of versus is brought up again.

    Of course, there are a few things I still find hard to get used to with the new versus. I think what most of us miss are those games that could last like 40 minutes because we were having some really good fights. The infected team was giving their all and the survivors were actually going back for each other. We used to split up in teams of two on the survivor team, one team leading away the tank(s) from where most of the SI would be, and the other team fighting their way forward. Nobody gave up, and we had tons of fun. Now however, it seems that it has turned into a rushfest. I rarely see the type of teamwork that we had back then, which could be due to some things I'll bring up below.

    I also noticed that you don't get any kind of bounty when you use the spitters. I do agree that the infamous spitter -> tank combo was pretty annoying, but now that we have the classes it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Either you deal damage, or you slow the survivors down. In general, I feel that it's much harder to get any bounty at all, maybe that's just me, but no bounty at all is a bit weird in my opinion. Bots should NEVER give any bounty though.

    The new changes favor mostly the survivors because there are some new ridiculous event buffs and some old upgrades/skills also have higher levels (that can do much more compared to the type of upgrades the infected got in turn). As I said, the teamwork aspect is mostly gone so either the game lasts about 10 minutes because the survivors get completely overwhelmed (due to the rushing) or because the infected can't do anything about the survivors rushing off into oblivion. Our main way to stop rushers was to use tanks, but now you can only buy 1 tank, the tank goes to someone random on the team and it costs MUCH more than what it's actually worth in its current state. Tough skin is gone, the hp is too low and the regen is too slow for that amount of hp... For someone who used to enjoy playing tank just to let the rest of my team pick off the survivors one by one (the way it should be) instead of trying to kill them all by myself, I just don't enjoy playing it anymore and I never buy tanks for those reasons. Someone also pointed out the special tanks. Personally, I wouldn't mind having NO special tanks at all as long as the tanks would be as strong as they used to (and that you can have 2 at the same time).

    Some maps also seem have their pathing changed, like the second map of Dark Carnival. The area before you get up on the rooftops (where you have the open area) is completely empty now. There used to be a really long fence to block off the path so you actually had to walk around the whole area and I don't know why that was changed. I like changes to the pathing, but I don't really like changes that make it much easier to rush.

    The poor boomers should also start lifting more, I remember their slaps used to be much more powerful than now. Everyone loves a good karma slap!

    Anyway, I know that everyone will not agree with some of the points I brought up. I just wanted to talk about what made the old versus successful in my own personal opinion, along with what I also like about the new changes (the classes).

    Also, hi. Nice to see everyone again.
     
    [DFS] Unstable, Adward, Tali and 2 others like this.
  11. chronic

    chronic New Member

    Yeah about the rushing BS, is something that really bothers me and some people that are regulars here now really enjoy doing this and ruining the experience for those who are focusing in teamwork, helping people behind etc.. Thats something that should be a strict rule, because thats what VS is about, Teamwork, both survivor and infected.

    You cant earn any points by killing bots anymore i think and for sure should keep like this since people can easily farm bounty.

    And about the special tanks, i couldnt care less about them, but i know some people would cry if they were removed haha
    If it was possible, i would play as boomer all the time and maybe chargers and ofc only karma maps. :smiley-whacky069:
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017
    Angel and Tali like this.
  12. timkit

    timkit MG Donor

    If theres one thing that should come back to versus though to make it more funny and playable again, the jockey-slap in versus. There was not one moment where I didn't enjoy any survivor getting launched to their untimely death xDDD and when it also happened to me too. too funny of a thing that shouldn't have died out in the past.

    Of cause I remember the post when a certain admin (not gonna tell you who because he is gone from mgftw since a while back) decided to get rid of the ability to do those bitchslaps in versus.

    The Jockey-Slap should only be able to be done with the slower boomer who has the higher bitchslap power. Which means the slower boomer buff set should be equipped at the start of the round before anyone leaves the saferoom, with the feature in mind being a passive ability.

    At the very least there should be a limit to how much these jockey-slaps can be done if they are brought back, no need to make them have an unlimited use where people and high levels are gonna get annoyed of a quick versus match where bitch slapping was the only thing done to ruin the survivors lives, thats not how your supposed to have an enjoyable versus match lol. Having each boomer get a limit of 1 per spawn should make these boomers consider how they are going to get it done in maps where there is only a few chances of getting bitch slaps done.
     
    Tali likes this.
  13. Angel

    Angel MG Donor

    You see, behind all those successful jockey slaps was a much larger number of failed ones. It was something that was unintentional and it wasn't discovered the first week PR came out - it was discovered much longer after that. If an old version of versus is brought up again, the worst thing to do would be to limit things like that. It's not like putting a pipe trap where you basically used to have a free kill with every pipe bomb and an unlimited amount of traps.

    By the time it was gone, there was still a huge number of people who'd only ever had a couple of successful slaps due to ping, not timing it right, knives etc. First you had to make sure the survivor had no knives, then make sure he/she was alone and then actually do it right. They didn't go flying to their deaths automatically. The majority of the slaps were also done on finale maps because they took longer to get through. Blood Harvest finale for example; there you had the chance to find an opening for a jockey slap before the rest of their team killed you. Coupled with the fact that defibs were much easier to buy, I don't think jockey slaps were that much of a problem. Use some teamwork, stay cautious and be prepared for anything.

    It may have looked easy, but it required some strategy.
     
    Tali and chronic like this.
  14. timkit

    timkit MG Donor

    After reading what you said...

    You got a good point about the Jockey Slap as an unintentional bug that it should not be limited in versus, it makes sense in terms of strategy (all those things you mentioned about the ping, timing, location, current number of knives, whether or not it would work in that scenario). That could also be why you would often see alot more of the jockey slaps happen in pretty much all finales where there is the right location that involves enough height and or fall depth to kill someone due to fall damage.

    However, keep in mind that with the recent update to the upgrade that increases HP getting a maximum HP boost from 500 to 1000 and with the |E| It wasn't that high buff which reduces fall damage by 10% and increases damage needed to become ragdoll'd on death by 300. It becomes much harder to even get the jockey slap kill in the first place now, making it only possible to be achieved from the no mercy finale or with a dual bitch slap on any finale map where its possible to achieve a fall damage over say 75% of their maximum HP (750)

    With the strategy part, it also comes in terms of the buffs selected (and in fact some of the new buffs favor better to help out the infected in their battle, though that may be just my opinion right there).

    If you want to go see the new buffs and the classes of the special infected. view my guide below
    https://mgftw.com/threads/usage-of-infected-buffs-and-infected-roles-guide.6564/
     
    Tali and Angel like this.
  15. Mute

    Mute Head Administrator Staff Member

    I think communication is probably one of the biggest issues. When VS was starting to die out, we had no idea why. No one was saying anything from what I remember. (I was fairly busy around the time before the major VS update, as a result I didn't really do much with it.) With no idea what was wrong, HC thought that the gameplay was getting stale, as there was no real metagame outside of slaps/charges, just do damage and things die.

    When the rework was released, well, that was it. It was released and nothing really changed. Few people played and even fewer, if any, said what their opinion was or gave feedback. I'm glad this thread exists as it is now actually clear what some of the issues are, however a few things are still somewhat vague, which buffs do you feel are overpowered? How would you suggest tweaking them?

    Regarding rushing, it annoys me as well when I'm playing as infected and one guy just legs it away while the rest of the team suffer. I was thinking of maybe reducing the rusher's movement speed the further they were away from the team, any thoughts on that?

    I can also relate in some regards to the Special Tanks. On one hand, they're great fun to play as, but on the other they completely tilt the balance. Maybe adding a vote at the start of each map so players can decide if they want to allow special tanks or not?

    Finally, to clear up on some things:
    • As far as I'm aware Jockey Slaps are still possible. It was removed at some point, but after said admin left it was re-introduced, though I can't absolutely confirm this.
    • The upgrade to max health in VS is halved, so whilst in COOP max level health is 1000, its 500 in VS.
    So yeah, at the end of the day, you're the ones playing on our servers, so any and all feedback is welcome, just keep it constructive like in this thread. Too many times I've seen people in-game complaining 'X is shit', 'Y sucks' and I'm just left to guess what's wrong.
     
    chronic, timkit and Tali like this.
  16. Horama

    Horama MG Donor

    I don't think people complaining if Op tank ( may be para can stay like before depend which other thinking ) are removed ( just a few compare to other )

    I put another idea , problem is all Admin are Coop players , no one is really a versus players on past ( unless kakarot ) , we have honorcode play all thing on mgtfw but he can"t do all alone , it's just idea but sound good for me , someone really know versus during years and listen community i wish .
     
    Tali likes this.
  17. chronic

    chronic New Member

    Ok so, i believe all those buffs that especially boost the damage for survivor is breaking the balance, maybe allowing just those against tanks? i dont know.. because the normal tanks would need some tweaks as well since its really weak now. I would have to check it out in game what buffs besides the dmg ones are causing balance problems.

    IMO all the special tanks in VS should be removed and then tweak the normal tank, special tanks breaks the balance ingame and its really hard to balance them. I think VS should be always changed based on vanilla and balance is everything, fancy things like this can ruin the experience in VS (because again, it is really hard to balance both infected and survivors). Go play coop if you want to see fancy funky groovy stuff lol.

    "I think VS should be always changed based on vanilla", in other words, Skill over anything else (upgrades, buffs, etc) said that, i mean ofc its a modded server and thats the focus here but, again, the balance is crucial in VS since its a competitive mode. Basically Skill over level/upgrades/fancy buffs/stuff, that is something that always broke the balance especially with new players/low levels, keeping they away and even afraid of playing. Removing, rebalancing and tweaking some stuff that were mentioned here by others, would increase their chances to keep coming back and surviving more than five minutes.

    About the dumb, stupid and darn rushing, i think slowing down the survivors that are rushing is kinda tricky. Some players could be just spawn blocking ahead and could cause some trouble. Should be something that really make those rushers change their mind about acting like jerkoffs. So i think adding more VS admins would be a nice start regarding rushing shit and make it a strict rule so people can kick/report them and record a demo evidence to get them banned.

    Regarding the jocslap, its not that ALL MAPS is possible to perform such thing, some maps its not even possible to do that and you need work those charger, smokers and keep pushing the other team. Yeah it was removed and then introduced again, but modified. Its all about perfect timing now, so those people that are playing in high pings its nearly impossible to perform, so it turns out its a thing doable only by low ping players. Which sucks, if people were more aware ingame in terms of being capable to know where you could be slapped to death, i mean, its not that hard and kinda obvious. I think the joclslap should be brought back just like how it was before, so any people regardless of their ping could perform it too. Besides, it really stimulate teamplay and strategy from the infected side and for sure its one of the things that makes this server really special compared to others IMHO.
     
    Tali likes this.
  18. Tali

    Tali MG Donor

    These replies are incredible. You guys are giving great feedback and solutions that would work and hopefully won't take too much effort to achieve.

    I've had coop players msg me and tell me that they aren't getting involved in this thread because they have no interest in Versus, so I think it re-affirms the statement that coop and Versus are separate things and should be treated as such. Special tanks should be a perk that keeps coop interesting, IMO. The only special tank that was well received in Versus was the para and when the spawn% was on the rare side for players who had the para buff equipped.

    Rushing is an issue best solved by active admins in game who can warn/ban rushers on the spot, Or as said before players should be encouraged to report rushers to admins with SS or demos and have the issue dealt with peacefully without causing a bad atmosphere in-game.

    One of the best ideas is to have Versus dedicated admins and keep referring people to this thread to place their issues and suggestions when things are bugging out or are becoming too OP.
     
    chronic likes this.
  19. timkit

    timkit MG Donor

    I mainly mention my thoughts based on what mute said here but also reference another post here because I agree on some things and talk about other things related.

    Its no surprise that I see that people (high level players do it too, not just the occasional low level player) tend to rush for the saferoom when all hope is lost just because they want to ditch their incapacitated team or leave their stranded team alone to get to the saferoom before the others reach it. While there are already new buffs that can help slow survivors down and even if you can get the effect going on for long enough time, you need plenty of teamwork to ensure that the rushing survivors go down to their deaths.

    I would agree with the others though that we should have the ability to warn/ask/vote kick and/or report for a short to long term ban if its really repetitive and or disruptive to the versus gameplay. That's I would recommend bringing in the REP system into versus for only two things, the passive reputation gain with +1 rep every 5 seconds or so and rushing to give -15 rep every 3 seconds to survivors that rush more than 2000 units from their team to really discourage rushing in the first place.

    In terms of the negative reputation for rushing, I mean to say to make it more punishing on players who rush in Versus. Let it be a lesson learned to them that it will get you killed anyway (FYI the hunter has a buff that can prevent alone survivors from using their knives as long as no other survivor is around as proof of it). The only exception to this is if you weren't rushing and happen to be the last player alive who needs to run anyway, if you don't have the bounty to get a defbrillator or don't have it on you.

    The second thing on my thoughts, the communication. There's a huge lack of it when it comes to versus. period. About say 75% of players are mostly COOP/ Custom COOP where the 25% of players are mostly all modes. In other words which in order for them to want to play you must invite them to the other modes in order to get a game going, with the exception of Custom COOP, otherwise the game won't hold, they will get bored and eventually leave.

    Unfortunately as for the VS players that could have been here this year, about 80-90% of them left mgftw entirely for good and they won't return unless the versus mode in mgftw goes back to the original state it used to be in, guaranteed.

    For the third thoughts on special tanks. I wouldn't mind if we had a feature to vote whether or not to allow special tanks for the current chapter on versus. I also wouldn't mind if some but not all of the special tanks were gotten rid of. No harm there in doing that, but me and other players in versus rarely see people using the electric, ice, clan and bloody. Sure people will occasionally go bloody tank but the rate of people going to a shaman instead of a bloody tank at 100 bounty is high, meaning less people will go for bloody tank, but that doesn't mean that no player will choose the bloody tank.

    Could also be a nice idea to have the paranoia tank going back to the rare % appearance. Makes it more of a surprise to survivors to prepare themselves for a tough fight after so many normal tanks in versus that they think it wouldn't appear at all. though i'm willing to listen to the other people's thoughts on this.
     
    Tali likes this.
  20. XeroX

    XeroX Junior Member

    Well buffs like Tank slayer and berserk are an issue. They litteraly melt tanks away. Though i don't agree on removing the special tanks. Instead how about limiting the special tanks for the finale ? Maybe even remove the first aid kits on the end saferoom ? I mean if you, as a tank, fight 2 survivors inside the saferoom you basically have low chance of getting them incapacitated or even killed because of the first aid kits as you can easily add yourself another 6 (not 100% sure) lifes if in B / W mode. Could maybe add addtional resistance for tanks while in the last saferoom when there is more than 1 survivor inside ?! Im fine with jockey-slaps aslong is it doesn't end up in instant kill everytime a jockey-slap is performed on any map (i know this was a bug but stil). Bloody tank for example is not used much because it heavily depends on the director spawning common infected. Yes you can and should use boomer but there are areas where a different special infected makes more sense.