Soda

My latest creation, took me a whole 10 mins to write the code thanks to an SDKTools function and a L4DStocks function lol.

Playtest #2 on my server :

Copy that! For now this is a project aside from GC, but if it is accepted by the community to be a suitable replacement for the existing server, I'd be open to merging it into GC. Will keep you in the loop as things progress! I started this project about 2-3 weeks ago, and I would say things are getting quite close to shippable-product level by my standards, so I think having it sorted by July is doable

Archer did mention he was hesitant to give me access to look at Jackie's plugin code, since it's not his (understandably considerate). So I'm not sure who I need to make sure to ask! Obviously Jackie, but my assumption is he isn't around

@Flitterkill actually glad you mention that, Archer and I been chatting a bit recently and I've mentioned that I'm definitely open to helping work on Jackie's version, or other server-related things. I even made my own ready-up plugin from scratch in ~200 lines of code that should be very efficient. Aside from plugins, I just recently hooked up a local database and started making the code for long-term stat tracking, and potentially very interesting stat comparisons, like map-specific personal bests, all time records, etc. - all the while being efficient by using threaded queries and selective timing on reading and writing where reasonable (like writing stats to the DB after the round ends). Basically I just like making stuff work nice and feel good, so if you guys are interested in exploring some new things then I can definitely help out.

Short playtest video showcasing the server:

Play testing tonight and this weekend. Starting tonight at: - 11PM London, UK time - 7PM Atlantic time - 6PM Eastern time - 3PM Pacific time https://www.gametracker.com/server_info/142.67.84.104:27015/ - Link broken now likely due to IP change

I've often thought about what the L4D2 !buy 10v10 experience could be, given a bit of tweaking and active development influenced by community feedback. I know that GC used to operate like this, though things changed over time, as life happens - understandably. That said, I've taken it upon myself as a personal project to reinvent the experience for the community. I took the time to learn Sourcemod code (SourcePawn) and build an !buy plugin almost from scratch, heavily influenced by the version used in GC. Since Jackie's version is not public and other points plugins are not quite the same, almost all the functionality for the points system was made by me. I include things like boomer goggles, SI fire extinguish, placeable witches, and more. I've also included things like the ready up system, a database for long term stats, and achievements, all custom built. Also included rocket spawning, infected class chooser, and some other plugins that make GC as fun as it is. I have also made a 10v10 server, which runs on 66 tick rate, opposed to the 30 tick rate of most L4D2 servers, GC included. This makes the game feel much, much better. You can even play on zero lerp without experiencing any common infected jitter. Additionally, I have tweaked the behavior and statistics of the special infected and reduced the presence of tanks. My philosophy for 10v10 is that you shouldn't need to buy many tanks at once to wipe a survivor team, but rather the specials should be strong enough to be able to do so. Almost all specials received buffs to their damage, some received additional buffs, like smokers tongue range being increased, or boomers being able to move slowly while puking. Health values of specials are kept at vanilla with the exception of the tank, who has traded some max hp for increased move speed and lost the ability to heal. I am very open to feedback and suggestions, as I am actively developing new features and am very active on discord. I have created a new discord server, specifically designed for this new server, and all GC members are welcome to join, chat, connect, and provide feedback or suggestions. I do not run the server 24/7 right now, however I am open to it in the future. If you are interested in learning more or trying it out, join the discord, where I'm actively tracking my development: https://discord.gg/zwbGzFmwM8

@MPG1770 Hey Maestro, what do you mean by fixing GC? Is that more referring to the community/board member side of things rather than the technical server side? Also worth noting community members like myself are willing to help out to keep the community and/or servers active and running if there's opportunity. Hope yall are enjoying the weekend and looking forward to the holidays

My current stance on balance is that survivors are much more powerful than specials, aside from tanks. Forcing infected players to farm tanks to consistently have a chance to wipe a team. I do not like this state and it also makes infected feel very boring for players who just want to be impactful on the regular specials without feeling forced into farming for a tank +heals. 1. Nerf tanks, probably 9/10 team wipes are caused by tanks. Idk about everyone else but I find tanks are also pretty boring to play against. With the current balance it's way too easy for decent players to farm 80 points off boomers or rocket jockeys and single handedly wipe a team with their tank +heal. I would change tank buys to 75 points and remove the ability to heal as tank altogether. 2. Buff special infected damage. a) Smokers are nearly worthless in gc outside of a few locations in campaigns. They barely give any points and rarely do significant damage. I would 2x the damage of strangling a survivor, thus greatly increasing the threat of them and increasing their point gain as well. b) boomers are very low skill floor and generate a ton of points, encouraging many players to spam them over other specials too frequently. I know boomer point generation has been nerfed before, but that still doesn't seem like enough to me with stomach acid and other achievements. I would further reduce boomer vomit point generation by approximately 30%. I would also increase boomer scratch damage to 10, greatly increasing their threat at close range to survivors. c) spitters. "SPIT AND DIE" is a very old concept in gc and I think it could be revamped. Spitters do good damage and have good utility already, but idk why players have to die after spitting otherwise they are essentially useless. This can be very alienating to new players getting roasted for not suiciding after spitting, although still trying to be useful. If possible, I would reduce spitter recharge time by about 60%. This would allow players to for example sit on top of a building and spit below frequently until a survivor deals with them. I know a few locations where this could be abused with coordinating players as spitters, but would be interested to see how this affects the game pace and play style of this special. d) jockeys. Nerf rocket jockey damage, buff jockey riding damage. Rocket jockeys generate a ton of points from the landing damage and bonus points. I think jockeys should be able to quickly incap survivors caught out, similar to smokers, but shouldn't be close to hunters in terms of landing damage. I would reduce rocket jockey damage by 50% and increase jockey riding damage by 30%. This increases incentive for players to clear teammates as soon as possible but worry a bit less about the flying jockeys they are nearly impossible to counter consistently. e) chargers. I think chargers are one of the most well balanced specials currently. They are fun to play, high impact but without being overpowered, and very counterable with melee weapons. No changes I would suggest. f) hunters. Buff max high pounce damage. 25 damage is a bit weak as a top damage potential, especially with the insanely high skill cap and squishy nature of this special. One awp shot or one ak bullet to the head will kill a hunter, making them easily counterable for decent survivors. High level hunter players are not rewarded enough for their skill level, and I believe this is a bad thing for the replayability of these players. I would increase max high pounce damage to somewhere between 30-35. This would also buff their point generation as well, increasing incentive for players to improve their skills on this special. g) witches. Witches are in a pretty good spot, but severely outclassed by tanks. Witches are fun to play against, but become a bit too strong with 45 point dangerous witches. I would reduce witch cost to 15 points, and a dangerous one to 25. I would also 2x the cost of buying dangerous witches. This will make infected players who have a lot of points really think whether a tank or dangerous witches is more valuable. If there team has been spamming witches all game, it greatly adds incentive to save up the 90 points for dangerous. this will encourage more players to buy witches, especially is they have a hard time getting many points, allowing them to have a solid impact on the team, but shouldn't destroy the survivors so easily if it is much harder to buy dangerous witches. This is a long post and I am not even sure if all these changes are possible or how many players would agree with my suggestions. Regardless, gc hasn't seen a major balance change in maybe forever, so I feel like it would be a good way to bring a fresh feeling to the server. Bonus suggestion for Jackie. Increase server tick rate. I have spent my fair share of time working through plugins and sourcemods, and found a way to increase server tick rates from 30 all the way up to 100. This makes the game feel incredibly smooth for all players, even on 20 lerp, and I highly recommend looking into it if possible. I can provide more details on how we did this if you are interested, just let me know. Also, I know gc board members have been quiet lately so I'm unsure if there is even interest in large revamps to the server, but I hope some people like myself still have the interest to warrant this. if you read through the whole post, let me know your thoughts on my suggestions, if people have better ideas, I will update the post. tldr: nerf tanks into the ground, buff every other special. Long live gc and max is best player. Have a nice day (Posted on mobile, apologies for any grammatical or formatting errors)

I have just over 70 hours in back 4 blood as of the time I'm writing this. I'll try to answer some questions people ask a lot and hopefully it'll help out Is the game good? Yes Is it better than l4d2? I don't think so Why? The card system removes reliance on game knowledge and skill and instead focuses around creating different builds. Also a lot more of the games focus is only completing missions so lots of people just Speedrun in pubs which is super boring imo Is the PVP any good? I haven't even tried it. My understand is that it's not like l4d2 pvp where you just play the campaigns against human players instead of bots, it's like some smaller scale arena type thing that doesn't interest me at all Does it have custom server capability? No Does it have mod support? No Summary/would I recommend? Yea I would recommend it. It's a fresh look at the coop fps style like l4d, and has some fun new features and experiences. I doubt you'll sink as much time as you likely have put into l4d games into it, but I felt like it was worth my money. Oh also it'such more demanding on PC specs than l4d so lower end rigs might have a tough time hitting higher framerates Ps: I'm posting this on mobile so hopefully my formatting doesn't suck lol. Also long live gc and also max is best player

not sure which answers you think are me trolling but the only one is the song lol, the rest is truth. if i meant to make this a troll post i didn't do a very good job of it.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/ogsoda STEAM_0:0:13306101 1. i found out about it from steam group servers and i play on l4d2. i have been here since 2014 but took a 2 year break and returned in 2016. 2. my first experiences including me playing bad and learning how to send points to people. 3. i met my main homies maestro, meng, mercman and turbo on gc. also some honourable mentions include elite gandalf, sox, deadlock, pump, shaf and elias. 4. top fragging and trying to break my own records keeps me coming back. 5. gc helped me grow as a l4d2 player and appreciate forgiveness and personal redemption, peanut taught me that one. 6. my favourite moment in gc was standing on the helipad on no mercy finale with my boi guts (rest in peace) and leveling chargers. 7. the song that reminds me of gc is quack quack - greyface. 8. this next year i want to accomplish becoming a board member. as for l4d2 i want to break my kill record of 193 and go for 200. also need to find new hunter postions/spots.

Even still, a 1060 3GB can keep up decent with current games so I would say it’s worth it for $500 but that’s just my opinion with that info

if it's just for l4d2 then hard to go wrong for $500 with those specs tbh

could i get the oG taken out so its just Soda? haven't used that part of my name in a couple years

i think he means that if someone on infected would buy a tank for 50 points, the 50 points would be split up evenly and given to the other team (the survivors). also if a survivor was to buy for example a heal for 15, those 15 points would be split up and given to the infected team.

I agree with pretty much everything you said crasx but in our defence, my boy deadlock tried to return to the community in a (somewhat) similar way to what you just said. He was declined because he did not admit to cheating, regardless of if it did or not, but because he was convicted as a cheater. If you're saying that whether he did cheat or not, does he deserve a second chance even without admitting it? http://gamrs.co/forums/index.php?/topic/46823-request-for-appeal/&do=findComment&comment=565445 He has tried before to come back either through appeal request or through an alternate account, only to find himself banned again. If you had tried what seemed like all your options and ended up with nothing, how would you feel?

buy a deagle for 2 points; damage per shot=80; damage per headshot=320. at least last time i checked these were the stats. if you dont have the points to buy up right away just buy a deagle and you have a much higher chance of killing a charger punching you while downed.

chargers arent overpowered at all, melee weapons and awps both destroy chargers who are trying to spam heal and punch, ask anyone who plays charger often how annoying it is to play against that. also there isnt many people who do that in the first place. i see it as a strategy that infected can use to deal out large amounts of damage, although not gaining many points. if it were easier to gain points, maybe dealing more damage wouldnt be the priority..

make it 10

For parish finale make it chargers only with a spawn limit of 10, survivors only able to use melee weapons lmao