Halo 3- L4D Survival Remakes

Ok i apologize in advance for the long post, i have been working on a l4d style map and I have REALLY looked into how to do this,first, i have found a way to make it so you can incorporate many different special zombies. first of all how to get the weapons to work for base player traits turn weapon pick up ON, next go to zombies and turn weapon pick up OFF, now go to spawn traits and set the timer to 3 seconds, in the spawn trait options set weapon pick up ON. this will allow zombies to pick up weapons for only the first 3 sec of their life,but later they can not pick up any human weapons no honor rules required. also, zombies shouldnt have sheilds, except for the tank, as this will lead to humans using some weapons to have much reduced strength (pls weapons arent good for body damage) i suggest the following weapon sets for zombies

regular- energy sword
horde- (still in progress current guessower drain? (if a horde is GOOD it will scater humans, but a bad one will deal minimal damage))
witch-(once again still working, current guess:you can only spawn her angery, so tank power up w/ only sword)
boomer- radar jammer (to imitate vomit) pls grenade (only way i could simulate horde damage) and a sword
smoker- pls rifle (smokers AREN'T good at long range, flare (as smoke cloud), sword
hunter-grave lift (for jump) sword
tank-custom power up (to increase health) grave hammer (smashing fist) and 2 frag grenades (as concrete bricks)

second on how specials spawn, you can control how often zombies spawn if they spawn in an area contained away from all humans, lets say we want one out of four infected to be special, but want all specials to be equally common, put 12 on the ground (for commons) now float 4 crates a fair bit away from each other, each one will will have one spawn and that specials weapons, this will give you the spawn system, just change the ratio to your liking.

finally, for humans i strongly suggest they have one over shield, 500% damage resit, and no regen, (giving them 10 sword hits to kill) and for health packs then you can use over shields that don't respawn, as regeneerators will not work due to the health system. in addition i sugget humans have only a small radar, but a marker on them visible to all (like the outlines in the game)

sorry for taking up so much space but i really hope you are successful, and that some of what i said helps, finally if you ever have a beta i would be happy to test for you.

 

Wow, good ideas riptide. I really would have never thought of it, I would have quoted it but didn't wanna take up too much room but still very good. Instead of the crate thing, I would suggest 4 small rooms with a teleporter leading to the regular spawn just so there isnt a chance of the crate falling off, or the crate not spawning because crates are tricky objects. They disapear and reappear whenever they want it seems like. Still great ideas.

 

well the reason i didn't use a small teleporter is it is fairly budget and object heavy, also if you are doing one of the actuall levels it allows for easy one way zombie access from their spawn rooms. and you can replace crate with any other object suits your fancy, also if you forge on sandbox MAKE SURE the zombies are not spawning directly above or below humans, as this will throw of radar and mess up the spawn system due to its mechanics.

 

Nice suggestions riptide.
I don't think the witch should be used. In-game she's a super tank, but static until activated. In Halo, she'd be controlled by a player, and would probably wipe out the humans if she attacked with the tank.
The idea of using equipment for the zombies is something I hadn't thought of, but it opens up a lot more options. The flare for the smoker and grav lift for the hunter are good. The power drain for the horde is questionable, since it would only take one zombie to run in and drop in to drain a team's health. I think the boomer should get the power drain, but have really low movespeed, so using the drain will almost always get him killed.
I'm not sure why you say regens won't work as medpacks.

 

hmmmm.... well from what i know we only have the custom power up (used on the tank), and the base traits (needed for zombies), so i dont currently have a way to slow down the bomber, also im not sure WHY the regens dont work on humans with 0% recharge, but i have personally tested it and it just doesnt work, most likely because it just multiplies your regeneration rate and anything time zero is still zero, however if you use oversheild it will not decay on the humans, so they are the closest thing i could use, and thank you for the responses

 

The regen thing is wierd. The overshield works, except they aren't really portable.
As for the zombies...
The hunters are fast, springy, and medium health (but could be made weak)
The smokers are medium speed, very weak
The boomers are slow, and very weak
The tanks are medium speed, and strong.
So the base zombie traits will need to be fast and weak.
The hunters get active camo, energy swords and a grav lift.
The smokers get a sentinel beam and a flare.
The boomers get a custom powerup, plasma grenades, and/or a power drain.
The tank gets a custom powerup, grav hammer, and overshields.
The custom powerup will make the zombie who picks it up slow, but nothing else.
This means that the damage resistance and shields will need to be tweaked to accommodate all 5 types of zombies.

 

well, on a first note if you use the oversheild on the tank it will slowly regrade over time, possibly emulating the timer on player controlled tanks,and im sorry but aside from over sheilds i dont know of a way to give you five different health levels, but i CAN give you 4 if zombies use sheilds, regualor (for deafults), with over sheilds (probably for boomber+smoker), with custom powerup (hunter, also can include a slight speed, and damage boost), and finaly oversheilds +custom power up (for tank)
as for speed all i have right now is regular+boomber at the default zombie speed, and smoker,tank, and hunter at an increased speed.
so the only problems are exact hitpoints of each class, specifically the hunter having always 1/2 as many as a tank in the propused build, the boomer is too fast (cant change due to only one type of custom power up), and the hunter is a little slow OR the tank will be a little too fast. also i would like to see if the frag grenades for the tank were too strong, or if something else was just "off",in my time of testing with the health bar i would say that the power drain is in fact broken and shouldnt be used without the humans having an advantage, finally i think when we stop looking at the special infected we should give a little consideration as to what to due with the humans. I look forward as to where this project goes, keep thinking about what to do and im sure this will go a long ways.

 

Humans should spawn with magnums and have access to an additional magnum, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and a battle rifle. They should be slightly slower than the default movespeed.

 

May I make a few suggestions and shed some light on this remake.

One of the most important things in recreating something is to know it thoroughly, and in this case that involves playing it to death. You can also read about it a lot, or watch videos (may I recommend this channel) but the point is to know this game in and out so that you can do your best to recreate the experience. Emphasis on the experience. Because, if you have played Left 4 Dead's Survival mode you'll know that there are a couple things you could perfectly recreate. The horde, the tear down walls, many special infected, etc. You can come close, but in the end I guarantee you it will seem more like a novelty than an actually fun gametype.

The reason I say this is because I have seen a particular large amount of attention on the special infected zombies with many ideas that, let's face it, would never do the game justice. Why is this? Because Halo 3 can never be L4D, so trying to recreate every element in forge will just fail. Blunt truth. But, this is not to say that the experience cannot be recreated, because you see what is more important than accuracy is fun, and what makes L4D so memorable and fun is it's experience. So, therefore, I suggest you ditch the details and just focus on the experience.

But what is the experience like in Left 4 Dead? To know this, you need to know why it is so successful. The simple answer to that is, challenge. One slip-up from a single player and the whole operation can fall apart, forcing players to work closely together in order to survive. So there's objective one:

1.Make this challenging.
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However, there is more. Unlike Left 4 Dead, in Halo actual players will need to play the zombies, and this throws a rock in many gears. First and foremost, players have brains compared to NPC zombies (no pun intended), therefore the strategy will naturally be different. Second, if players will have to play as zombies and could very well be doing such for a long length of time, it sure as hell better be fun. So there is objective two:

2. Make zombie play fun.

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Now, those two points alone hardly make Left 4 Dead. Right now, it is sounding like any zombie map should be, so how do you make it unique? This is where knowing the game inside and out will definitely help with comprehension. In the standard Halo 3 infection game, you can basically go anywhere, and the humans attempt to hide because they have a large space to move around it. In **** Zombies, players are confined to a small house and desperately hold zombies off. In Left 4 Dead Survival, players are on levels meant to emulate a "grander scale" but in the wider scope of things you realize that players are actually quite contained. Most Left 4 Dead Survival levels consist of several outposts and points of defense. While players are treated to an open map, there are maybe 3 to 4 places of which players need to focus their attention if they want to survive. Which brings us to objective 3:

3. The maps need to have very specific locations of defense.
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Alone, however, that sounds a little vague. It still sounds like a Halo 3 Infection map with an armory. So I'll delve further. Basically, these points of defense in Left 4 Dead vary from the obvious, to the not so obvious. For example, an obvious point of defense is in a room full of ammo and supplies and will cater to the needs of the players for a given amount of time. However, the room or area itself is quite open and susceptible to attack, so while this location works at first it's defenses quickly fall apart, resulting in a location where amateur players can succeed. Then there are the not so obvious areas, places that lack in ammo and supplies but have a far more structured defense. These places may be abundant, and often cater to the various play styles of different players. While an experienced shotgun user may do well in the small confines of a 2 entrance room, a skilled sniper might survive longer on the high ground. But these places are not infallible, since players will eventually run out of ammo in such locations resulting in one of 2 possible fixes, A) Players are forced to conserve their ammo to hold out as long as possible or B) Players have to work together to do ammo runs, grabbing the opportunity during breaks in action or sending out players during the heat of battle. With this said, for objective 4 we have:

4. Locations of defense contain various levels of Risk and Reward. Be near ammo in exchange for safety, or take safety over ammo? Do players do better in confined spaces, or on the high ground?
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Now we are starting to capture the essence of Left 4 Dead, but it is missing a very important factor, and that is one that should not be ignored (not that it has been) but steal the creative focus. That is the special infected of Left 4 Dead. You have all been busily discussing how to pull these things off, but I feel like the discussion has been more about the recreation of them than the recreation of the threat they pose. These "elite" zombies can quickly change the tide of the battle in favor of the infected, and if not dealt with properly can destroy the human's defense all together. But what does each one contribute to the horde?

• Hunter: These zombies are fast and players have to be quick on their toes to shoot them down before they do any damage. But what about them makes them such a threat? These zombies pin down players, taking a 4 man team and turning into that of 3. All players then must focus their actions on these zombies to regain their player with minimal damage inflicted. This, combined with their fast speed make the Hunter a formidable foe.
• Smokers: These zombies are weak, and hardly ever are seen in the thick of the action. One might call them pushovers, but they are anything but. While Hunters may incapacitate humans and cause disruption, they usually don't cause the humans to get separated from one another, and in Left 4 Dead it's all about sticking together. Smokers can attack from a far distance, using their tongues to capture victims and pull them away from their fellow survivors. If smokers aren't dealt with immediately, the victim could very well be dragged away to a place of no return, and left to die as their remaining teammates struggle to survive without the players help.
• Boomers: Slow, weak, and large targets. They seem worse than Smokers, but their role is very game-changing. If they throw up on humans, two things happen. 1) A horde of zombies are quickly drawn to the spot and 2) The player can hardly see a thing. In the grand scheme of things, the boomers effects are not that great, but serve their purpose in weakening the humans.
• Tanks: Last but not least is the Tank. Large, strong, full of health, and fast when it needs to be, the tank is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. When a Tank comes, it is immediately the target of all players, that is if the players have any sense. Tanks can knock players around, and deal massive amounts of damage, and cause humans to use large amounts of their ammo reserves. This is the "elite" of the "elite" and is a force to recon with.

Now, with that analysis out of the way, you need to narrow it down to what really matters. Which abilities are most effective at destroying the human's defense? Once you know that, go about recreating that experience, and don't even acknowledge the zombie itself. I'll get into the special infected later, but what is important here is objective five:

5. Create methods that effectively replicate the various affects special zombies have on the gameplay.
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So there you have it, your 5 objectives:

Spoiler

1.Make this challenging.
2. Make zombie play fun.
3. The maps need to have very specific locations of defense.
4. Locations of defense contain various levels of Risk and Reward. Be near ammo in exchange for safety, or take safety over ammo? Do players do better in confined spaces, or on the high ground?
5. Create methods that effectively replicate the various affects special zombies have on the gameplay.

These are your key to recreate Left 4 Dead's gaming experience. As I said, you can recreate the various details of the game, but the gameplay won't be the same because it lacks the essence of Left 4 Dead. So, I suggest making those 5 points your points of priority, because if you can effectively achieve all 5, then you will manage to make an amazing Left 4 Dead remake. However, this can all be a bit confusing with this talk of "gaming experience" and what not, so I'll give you guys some help to illustrate what it is I exactly mean. I will do this with the recreation of the special infected.

Now, I already talked about their various effects and how those affect the human's strategy. So at this point, I am not going to even mention names, I am just going to point out what I feel is most important.

1. Disorganize Human players by breaking their lines.
2. Handicap the Human's ability to work effectively together.
3. Create a central target that will temporarily distract the Human's, in order to take out the immediate threat.

So how can this be achieved? Well, a Hunter breaks into the human lines effectively with it's lunge. It's damage and presence when close becomes the focus of human attention. So simply give this zombie an energy sword (assuming normal infected us plasma pistols). This nearly triples the zombie player's range of which they can attack from, and doubles the amount of damage they can do. Players will have to try and take out the sword wielding zombie much sooner than the non-sword wielding to prevent it from lunging and inflicting maximum damage. Once it is close, all humans will have to attempt to get said zombie off the team-mate it is attacking. See, the simple use of a sword has 1) Created a central target that will temporarily distract the Humans and 2) Broken into Human lines and disorganized players if left untouched.

The next, most obvious infected is the Tank, which does all 3 things if players do not handle them correctly. But how do you create something similar to that of the tank? Or better yet, how do you create something that has a similar effect as the tank? Custom Power-Up and Gravity Hammer. Custom Power Up can change the infected's speed, damage resistance, and damage given. The Gravity Hammer can deal massive amount of damge without being overbearing, and can push humans apart from one another with its "explosive punch".

Now we have both a tank like creature, and a hunter like creature down, but we are still missing the very important handicap that prevents players from working effectively together. While the tank can do this to an extent, this requirement is only met should players not deal with the tank correctly. What then can cause confusion and break the humans up? Like the Boomer's Barf, a flare can temporarilly blind players. There are many different ways you can tackle this one (I provided a single example), but what is most important is that you find a way to achieve this effect.

With that said, quick recap. First, take it upon yourselves to understand what makes this game tick. I briefly covered it, but there is so much more to know. Once again, here is that youtube channel of a guy who does a great job at beating these levels with good teamwork, and provides great insight into how this game plays: YouTube - JosefVStalin's Channel
Then, adress each of the 5 Objectives that will ensure a good recreation of the Left 4 Dead experience. Every idea you have should somehow relate to these 5 Objectives. And lastly, don't go for a detailed remake of the game, for a detailed remake of the experience. You might have to sacrifice some aspects (such as certain "special infected") but if done right you will create a game that imitates that of Left 4 Dead's Survival mode.

 

thank you for that post, a lot of what you said really struck me, especially about focusing more on how to maintain the left 4 dead feel, not so much recreate it, however some important things i noticed from the videos, all spots eventually ran out of supplies forcing a retreat to a new room, each room had 4-5 ways in, you had a choice of close quarters or open fields, and finally when one of you group was removed from the fray it was devastating, and finally the swarm of zombies did not seem to stop attacking, except for about 10 sec every 3 min or so.

Next, some more game type ideas starting with infected, if zombies have plasma pistols, how do we stop them from using the full powered blast to one shot a human? perhaps the zombies need a different starting weapon from the sword or the plasma pistol. i do agree that the boomer should have the flare, but lose the plasma grenades, as not being able to see clearly was one of his best abilities, he wouldn't deal much damage on his own, this will bring us closer to the game and force the boomer to play the role it is meant to, support, so it should gain the flare in place of radar jammer+plasma grenades, as for the smoker, i focused too much on its long range and not enough on the fact that it can break human formations, the spartan lazer sounds way too powerful, but it would give the proper scare to humans, along with time to dodge if they pay attention, otherwise my vote might go to the fuel rod for its group breaking, visibility, dodge-ability, and range, the smoke was only really a problem if you were too close but outside it wasn't a big problem so i say we either drop the smoke or use a radar jammer to replicate it. As for the hunter, it can panic humans if it comes in unseen, as a couple of sword swipes can really hurt a human, as for the jump i say we keep it as it is key to the hunter being able to keep surprise on the humans. Finally the tank, i think that the custom power with gravity hammer is good enough as it forces the tank to get up close like in the game, and discourages using "rocks" (grenades) from around corners, making the tank a little closer to what the AI would do.

Secondly the humans, running out of ammo for the game is never an issue, unless you lose access to your ammo stash, on the other hand ammo on you is a bit of a problem, as it forces you to run out with a team-mate in order to stock up, and running out of your primary weapon ammo is almost as bad as losing a team-mate, finally ammo in clip was almost always an issue, i believe of that this is especially important to keep in mind as we make the maps as that having to reload adds a little bit of panic to the humans lives, making everything more interesting. also turrets were sparingly placed, and each one not only faced an area with cover, but exposed almost all of the gunner's back, this is even more important to watch, as in halo one assassination is an instant kill. pain pills seemed to play a very important role in survival, almost as much as med packs, because they were instant and healed a fair bit of damage, however without taking away the health bar we can not use a portable healer to my knowledge, and the fact your health does not come back on its own seems to out-way the portable healing, so for now we have to use oversheilds for any healing.
sound was very important for humans, as it could tip you off before an infected got to close, this also supports the fear of the humans as zombies my just knock a few barrels around to mess with them. finally setting up a proper defense was key,because of the number of entrances to each area having a plan quickly decided life or death for humans, also moltovs and pipe bombs played a huge role mostly as emergency crowd control, but due to their nature, they can be dangerous to use. finally setting up gas cans and propane tanks was another key part, as this allowed for more tactics and provided the humans with a nice trap, but a well played zombie could try to push the humans back once again focusing more on tactics, so i say that we include trip mines or fusion coils to form the static explosives for our remake.

Finally, the map itself, this is by far the most important part, there should be several choices of where to hold out, however each one should be equal in terms of what it has, no one room should have tons of supplies and still be the most defensive, but we need about 3-5 different spots to hold out for humans, with about 3-4 ways in each, to force team work on both humans and zombies, supplies should be just barely enough for the group to get by, turrets were placed so that it discouraged zombies from attacking from a main entrance, but left many side areas open for attack. As a battle is fought in a room doors and cover started breaking down, so i suggest we use some pallet covered walls, as these will slowdown zombies, but it wont stop them. also line of sight is used very heavily, there aren't too many large open spots, but there are a few, leading to surprises for both teams, and increasing zombie survival rate. as a last note, we should not build each base entirely flat, that height provides cover and that extra split second shot that saved the humans many times.

 

The essential factor in this remake is how well we can pull off the focus on teamwork. My ideas for how to do this are...
Turn down the human's damage

This will make people think twice about facing zombies alone. Creating an enormous horde of zombies is an impossibility. At best, there will only be 12 zombies attacking the humans. So we have to make those 12 FEEL like a horde, by making one person be unable to deal with 12.​

Make camping a team effort

Survival mode is about camping. Much like Something.'s maps The city and Township, the basic strategy is to find the best place to camp. However, the important thing is to keep in mind that this is not the infamous Living Dead playlist-style camping. This is camping only in the sense that the focus is on holding a location. Buildings and other structures must have multiple entrances/exits, and weapons must be placed in such a way as to emphasize the risk/reward that sweeny touched on.​

Friendly fire is ON

Pretty self-explanatory, and a basic part of L4D. Spray-n-pray should not be an option.​

I'll get to my ideas for the special infected later, but I think that if we can capture the feeling of teamwork, it'll go a long way towards a successful remake.

 

hm ok i think i will start drafting how to make the light house in sandbox, but im not the greatest forger either so i will leave that to some one else. and just one final post from me on game type,

for balancing the game, and encouraging teamwork, perhaps we should look into versus mode to see what they did. Also a note on health bars, in halo you have shields, and then regular health, which even with shield regen turned off restores over time, giving us a sort of incapacitated effect, just without gameplay penalties and it goes away on its own, just to quickly list the numbers in a regular game you have 70 shield (one bar) and 40 Health (only adjustable by using different damage resistance).

OK done with gametype for now, onto forging questions,how do you propose we do breakable walls? we could use pallets for doors, but i think it would be better if we used varied walls, like window slits and wooden bridges for a "boarded up" look and to allow zombies to see in and humans to shoot out. I'm assuming the answer is no to the following but, should we include money for filters? and can we use a budget glitch.

 

For gameplay videos, I would direct you to xx5w33ny70ddxx's post, specifically the link to JosefVStalin's youtube channel. He plays through a survival mode map, and it helped me visualize the experience better.
The obvious choice for doors is to use pallets. I have a few ideas for breakable walls, which I'll test this weekend. I'll post here if they work.
Filters mostly distract from gameplay. Maybe a gloomy filter or something at the end won't be terrible, but it depends on the map. Add it at the end.
The budget glitch, while known to cause lag when playing with large parties, is a valuable asset, one which should be employed here. Since the maps aren't intended to be used in matchmaking or any other Bungie function, the budget glitch should be used to bring out a map's full potential. At the very least, start with a glitched map, and if you find yourself under budget, you can un-glitch it.

EDIT: I checked out some kill counts on survival mode to find the ratio of infected...in the order of Common:Hunters:Boomers:Smokers:Tanks: 301:24:15:11:11.
In terms of percentages...
83% were Common infected
7% were Hunters
4% were Boomers
3% were Smokers
3% were Tanks

Keep in mind these were kill counts, not total infected present, but it should be fairly accurate. While the zombies won't be exact copies of the ones in Left 4 Dead, this will be helpful in figuring out balancing.

 

another question on the map design, should we use fusion coils+trip mines for fuel cans+propane tanks? also should we just use a large stack of each weapon w/ a run time minimum to make the ammo pile? finally are we using fire bombs for moltovs, and spike grenades for pipe bombs?

 

Grav lifts could work as ladders.
Either spike grenades or plasmas should be the pipe bomb. Neither will attract zombies, but plasma grenades bounce, while spike grenades bear some sort of semblance to pipe bombs.
Also, how are the overshields going to be placed to keep the zombies from getting to them?

 

note on grav lifts as ladders, make sure they have a run time minimum, otherwise humans could break their own ladders, unless you want this to be incorporated, also I know that sniper riffle works fro hunting riffle, and shotgun works for auto shotgun, and pistols should cover double pistols, but do we want the assault riffle or the SMG to cover the assault riffle? also keep in mind humans WILL grab two power weapons even if there is an honor rule. as for oversheilds being human use only, I'm still working on it.

 

my general theory on oversheilds went like this, in the gametype humans naturally have one overshield, this doubles as a marker to zombies which human is weaker, but if a human without shield regen touches an oversheild it wont restore you to over full health, and it doesn't decay over time, so it functions like a health pack. As for the infected i planned to use it as a health booster for some infected, and keep the custom power up for the tank, but its up to you as to what you want done with the specials.