Left 4 Dead Confession- Team Killing for a Reason

[Blind0bserver]

I'm against outright teamkilling in just about any case, but with Left 4 Dead I'll make an exception. In a way, L4D is a zombie survival simulator. You have to survive the apocalypse alive, it's as simple as that. Where this game becomes very "meta" is where it gets interesting.

Here's a scenario: in your team of four there is one guy that has brought your collective group to the brink of destruction on multiple occasions. He/she keeps making easily avoidable mistakes that bring down the horde and almost cost lives (or possibly does). This person is a liability and a danger to your continued safety and survival. He/she is slowing the group down and at the same time is using up a portion of the group's very limited amount of supplies (in this case first aid, pills and grenades). After thinking about it this way, what would you do?

It's here in the player dynamic that L4D mirror's real life. Humans have a very strong survival instinct and in most cases will do whatever they have to so they can continue to survive. In your case, Teefus, those two people you gunned down were slowing down both you and "Good Guy #2" and were in turn exposing you to unnecessary danger as well as keeping you from being able to get to safety. I'm sure you felt bad about it (hence this thread) but I'm willing to bet that both you and "#2" were able to survive without any major problems after that.

In damn near every case team-killing hurts the team. It wastes respawn tickets, it hurts a defense effort, it prevents captures, whatever. In Left 4 Dead, though, it could either hurt the team or help it. Sometimes you may be in a position where you have so sacrifice one person for the greater good of the entire group.

~Van

 

[Odude]

While I cannot say that team-killing is the best or most efficient course of action, these people have no business playing a multiplayer game without the necessary equipment or experience, i.e. mics. The ability to communicate and cooperate is vital in a highly Co-Op necessary game like L4D, and the fact that they couldn't makes them little more than a liability.

All in all, I would have to say that your actions were negative, but at the time necessary.
And that they were just being dick players.

So because they didn't have mics they shouldn't be playing the game? That's what's called a twat statement. I played L4D without a mic for the first month, and while it's not as easy as it could be, it's entirely doable so long as you're a good player.
Saying that they have no business play it is like saying somebody had no business play Red alert 3 because they haven't played 1 and 2

Not even close. Not having a mic in L4D is equivalent to tying an arm behind your back. Now if you were besieged by the undead on every side, I'm pretty sure that your fellow survivors would be pissed at your "Look guys, one hand!" antics. It has nothing to do with knowing the back-story of the game (which L4D has next to none anyway).

If you know exactly what you are doing, it's not quite so bad, but in this case it totally was and would have prevented the situation. I also understand that some people can't afford mics.

P.S. I corrected the spelling in your post for you.

 

[DeadMG]

While I cannot say that team-killing is the best or most efficient course of action, these people have no business playing a multiplayer game without the necessary equipment or experience, i.e. mics. The ability to communicate and cooperate is vital in a highly Co-Op necessary game like L4D, and the fact that they couldn't makes them little more than a liability.

All in all, I would have to say that your actions were negative, but at the time necessary.
And that they were just being dick players.

There's a big difference between mic, and not being a team player. I play on the PC (admittedly the relevance is not massive) and it's fine in teams without a single mic. You can watch the other players and react accordingly... and I'm not lowskilled.

 

[Ronwue]

Team killing is by my book, never justified... unless you get killed first. You can get pissed and leave if you can't vote the players off.

 

[Corven]

you could have just, you know, kicked them from the game, right?

 

[Bofus Teefus]

While I cannot say that team-killing is the best or most efficient course of action, these people have no business playing a multiplayer game without the necessary equipment or experience, i.e. mics. The ability to communicate and cooperate is vital in a highly Co-Op necessary game like L4D, and the fact that they couldn't makes them little more than a liability.

All in all, I would have to say that your actions were negative, but at the time necessary.
And that they were just being dick players.

There's a big difference between mic, and not being a team player. I play on the PC (admittedly the relevance is not massive) and it's fine in teams without a single mic. You can watch the other players and react accordingly... and I'm not lowskilled.

I don't summarily kick non-mics, and it's usually not a problem- as long as they're decent at the game it doen't make that much of a difference (same goes for people with mics.) The only real issue for me is cases like this where they also happen to be complete losers. We would've kicked, but we couldn't have got the votes.

I'm against outright teamkilling in just about any case, but with Left 4 Dead I'll make an exception. In a way, L4D is a zombie survival simulator. You have to survive the apocalypse alive, it's as simple as that. Where this game becomes very "meta" is where it gets interesting.

-Winning example snipped to save space-

That's a freaking awesome way of thinking about it. You should charge a fee for every time I'm going to use that example.

You taught them a valuable lesson. Actually know how to play the game well and get mics.

I don't think mics are that much of a need to succes since if your a good player you should know what to do and when to do

mics just make it a funnier ...

then again this is only my opinion

Seriously, 90% of the time, the mic is there to say funny stuff, but when you're all at a window, and you say "I'm gonna throw this pipebomb- get ready to run through the area," it helps to know if everyone is on the same page. I still don't discriminate against mic-less.

Well, you had mics right? Did you tell the micless guys that you were going to shoot them and let them catch up at the next spawn point?

If you didn't, I'd assume that they assumed that you were being a douche and team-killing for no reason.

I used to try to communicate by speaking loudly into the mic hoping that the TV is up loud enough for them to hear me, but it seemed like all I was doing was yelling in the ear of everyone else. Guess I could have in this case.

 

[Parallel Streaks]

Team killing is justified if the players are an INCREDIBLE liability. As in, getting smokered and huntered every three seconds, willingly seperating from the group and then expecting to be saved, and startling the Witch without trying to chrome.

 

[DigitalSushi]

they might have only started to play the game, and didn't know what to do, this sort of thing wouldn't happen on PC, you can type on that bad boy.

 

[antipode]

Some people need to learn the hard way. While I've never been the first to attack a teammate on purpose (and usually don't get attacked on purpose) I have helped teammates TK someone who was attacking them. Griefers don't have a place in such a small team, and it's better to be done with them.

Hopefully your two bad teammates went back to single player to learn the maps.

Oh, and I'd laugh at throwing the molotov too. I'd say it was justified from a self-preservation standpoint (and a hilarious one).

 

[klarr]

well dude ya gotta do what ya gotta do. and sometimes assholes have gotta be delt with. and asses are always going to be around. they gotta learn!

 

[wordsmith]

Technically it's a recognise strategy for anyone with less than 50% health. Either they get into the safehouse and have to heal, or die and respawn with more than 50% health.

So yeah, you can justify it.

 

[scotth266]

Hmmm...

The way you put it, I would've supported you. You DID make sure to notify them of your plans, right?

 

[maddawg IAJI]

your fine. by slowing you down they were team killing as well just not in a literal sense.

 

[wgreer25]

No, no line crossing. In a game like L4D and RE5 a mic is 100% necessary. If I am playing RE5 and get a partner with no mic, I send a message asking them to use a mic, if they don't I boot and send them a friendly message reminding them that this is a co-op game and an essential part of co-op is communication with your team. Since I have not mastered telepathy, the mic is a necessity.

The only thing I would have done differently if I were you was to send them a message between missions as to why you shot them, and to get a mic.

 

[Strong Intelligent]

Well, the game I had that earned me Mercy-killer and No-one Left Behind, the were three people with mics (including me), and one guy didn't. He, however, was extremely competent. If we waited, he would wait, and eventually lead the way. He even got us past a tank.

The next match I ever had, I was with three hyper-active mutes. They just shot me, and left me bait to the hunters.

So, the moral is, the more mics, the more competent the team is.

 

[obisean]

I don't understand people in this game sometimes. I'm kinda going off on my own rant, inspired by your story, so forgive me if I go too far off. Yesterday (3/16/09) was a great (as in not good) day for me in L4D.

My first match was versus (never co-op) in No Mercy. I was infected and the survivors had left the starting building and were in the alley. Thing was there was a car in the middle of the alley blocking it off. The 3 of us who have mics were asking "is this car always here?" Granted it was easy to jump over, but we thought it kind of odd that we never noticed it before. Then we get out in the street to be greeted by a 747 further blocking our passage towards the survivors. Even on the roof tops we couldn't see them. They just kept re-spawning for it cover until they got to the safe room. I got kicked from the server for saying "If you're going to cheat, at least try to make it subtle so we dont notice".

Then the very next game was Blood Harvest, I joined mid-game so I'm not sure which part we were on, but it's the one where you start next to the picnic bench outside. I was a Survivor in this one. Anyway, the guy playing Louis kept throwing himself off the side of the cliff so we would have to rescue him. We didn't even make it 10% on that one. Granted we should have left him, but we thought the first time was an accident. They killed us on the second revive of him.

Basically, I don't get why people play this game to cheat/grief, takes all the fun out of it. The guy playing Louis probably got screwed out of playing with his friends on infected, so he decided to help them. The 747, just WOW, i wish there was a report system in this game. It's not like winning in this game gives you a bigger p#nis or something.

 

[Blind0bserver]

I'm against outright teamkilling in just about any case, but with Left 4 Dead I'll make an exception. In a way, L4D is a zombie survival simulator. You have to survive the apocalypse alive, it's as simple as that. Where this game becomes very "meta" is where it gets interesting.

-Winning example snipped to save space-

That's a freaking awesome way of thinking about it. You should charge a fee for every time I'm going to use that example.

Well, if you liked that then you'll love hearing about how I developed that theory. Allow me to tell you a story...

I can still remember it very clearly. This was still during the closed demo available to people that pre-ordered the game for the PC. It was myself and three of my friends out of my gaming clan. I was playing Francis, Vak was playing Zoey, The Light was playing Bill and Louis was being played by... er... "Fourth Guy". Okay, maybe I can't remember it as vividly as I thought.

Anyway, we were playing the demo campaign on Expert. For those of you that either didn't play the demo or don't remember the demo was the first level of "No Mercy" and then half of the second level (up to the warehouse). We had been making excellent progress until we reached the streets out on front of the subway entrance. As soon as we spotted the car everyone immediately shouted out warnings not to shoot the car. Don't so much as touch the car. Don't even let you thoughts dwell on the car. Get what Vak did as a joke because we said all this? That's right, he shot the car. From here it was a mad dash off of the streets to the underground so we could get to the safe room. There was a very large and very pissed off mob of zombies right behind us ready to follow us in before we can so much as start trying to close the safe room door.

It is at this point in our story that Max "Vanguard" Phillips, an other wise ethical and reasonable man with a strict sense of right and wrong and a staunch code of honor, turns and shoots his friend Vak point blank in the kneecaps with a shotgun.

Vak got us into that situation, so it was my reasoning that he was going to get us out of it. Vak is incapacitated on the ground with the mob swarming all around him and everyone else rushes into the safe room. This is things begin to take an even sharper turn for the worst. "Fourth Guy" didn't make it into the safe room, but instead stayed outside to, and I quote, "watch Vak die". After the zombies were through with Vak they turned on him. It's roughly about here that I rush out and try to rescue the incapacitated "Fourth Guy" but fail. I kill all the zombies but I'm incapacitated on the ground and "Fourth Guy" is dead. The Light comes to revive me but gets taken out by a Smoker.

This, children, is an example of how not to survive in an emergency situation. I hope you were taking notes.

When the scenario restarts, there is much laughter abound as we start clearing the apartment again. This time, as Vak is checking the bathroom on the top floor for supplies "Fourth Guy" decides he's still pissed and tries to kill Vak. During this firefight Vak gets incapacitated and "Fourth Guy" ends up being very dead very fast. This is all taking place while The Light and I are fighting off a rush of infected.

Vak is incapacitated on the floor of the bathroom. What do I do? I simply close the door and The Light and I walk away.

~Van

 

[runtheplacered]

Hell, if it were me I would have just quit and found a new game with Good Guy #2. I don't have much patience with douchebaggery in L4D, since it's so easy to find another game.

 

[Sinvel]

Well, I've been playing L4D on live for a while and I've seem some major idiotic behavior in that game. One time, at the end of the map (I forget which) we were all in the house waiting for the boat to show up and two of the teammates started camping the front porch (the front porch of all places?!) -- me and another teammate camped a room upstairs like you're supposed to -- needless to say they got wiped out almost the first min when the hoard showed up while we were hanging tight upstairs -- we almost made it but it's tough to take on a tank with only two peeps so we died. Once we restarted in a safe room they both opened fired on us... for revenge I guess. Another time, we made it to the farmhouse and I took the last first aid (my health was down to 5 the other turds didn't want to heal me even though their health was like 50 and had 2 first aids) and I think the other player wanted to get it so he shot me and took my first aid. Another time the hoard was attacking I accidentally hit a teammate with my colt one time and when it was over and we were safe he emptied his shotgun into my back -- and never said a thing on his mic -- the funny thing was that he waited until we were moving again to sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back.

Anyways, enough ranting... considering that so many players are willing to teamkill me for sooooo much less, I think you are perfectly justified in doing what you had to do. You had to survive and since they were slowing your team down (you were in the safe house for god sakes!) They should have understood that they will simply respawn in the safe room with 50 health, no fuss no mess.