Valve have made some pretty serious updates in the last couple of weeks, especially with regard to versus mode. The Smoker got some serious buffs, Survivor melee got nerfed and the order in which the teams play through the stages now depends on points. Generally speaking I think that they’re for the better, and here’s why.

Smoker Buff

The Smoker recently received a couple of serious buffs to his performance. Firstly, the extra damage he does to survivors as he drags them and the inability to free a survivor while they are being dragged makes him a much bigger threat even if the survivors are in a tight group. Before this, Survivor players in my gaming group had started to pair up whenever they were in a risky position (e.g. the loading dock roof on NM3) and meleeing each other all the way across to avoid being dragged off. It worked, but it wasn’t fun for anyone. Now those areas are much more dangerous, and require more planning and skill to traverse safely.

Second is the widening of the Smoker’s targeting cone and the ability to target through common infected. Both of these things allow for less experienced players to use him effectively and make Survivors who are surrounded by the horde especially vulnerable as once they’re snared they have no way of defending themselves and their friends have a hard time getting to them to free them.

Melee Nerf

The small “but very large” change that Valve made to Survivor Melee last week was to limit the time that they can constantly melee for. Now a Survivor can only melee 5 times in quick succession before they have to ‘recharge’. This is a great improvement to gameplay, as it gives Boomers more spots to attack the human team without worrying that they’ll all just hide in a corner and melee all the approaching zombies to death. Another effect of this nerf is that you can no longer simply melee a Hunter to death on your own.

As a survivor, it takes a bit of getting used to. However, I think that once everyone has had some time to adjust their play style we will see more exciting encounters that are more fun for both sides. Lets face it, sitting in a corner mashing the right mouse button isn’t much fun  for either team.

Play Order

Finally, the order in which teams play through each stage was shaken up. Valve (along with lots of other players out there) realised that playing as the Infected first confered an advantage as the spawn location of weapons as well as Tanks and Witches could were known by the time that team played as Survivors. Don’t believe this would make a huge difference? Consider this: Team A plays Survivors first on No Mercy 3 (The Sewers). If they want good weapons (and who doesn’t?) They have to look everywhere. This includes the little second story room behind the gas station in the loading dock. Getting up there, looking around and getting back down to the lift takes a fair amount of time, easily enough for the Infected team (Team B) to get an extra attack in. Even if there are no weapons up there, the detour still has to be made. By the time Team B plays through the level, they already know if there are weapons up there or not, and can skip it if they choose. This deprives Team A the same extra attack that Team B got in the first run through. This situation is repeated many times throughout a campaign, and the advantage stacks up over time.

The new ‘Winning team plays as Infected first’ is a great way to overcome this, as it gives the losing team a little bit of help in catching up and makes for a tighter game. The best games for me are not the ones where my team wins by miles, it’s the ones where every point counts and victory isn’t decided until the final round. I think all of the recent updates help towards this, so I’m very pleased with them!