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Left 4 Dead stats indicate players favoring Survivors, big surprise photo

Today Valve released a bunch of achievement statistics collected via Steam for their latest shooter, Left 4 Dead. They’re interesting to look at, especially at the surface level where you’ll notice that the most popular unlocks are mainly on the human side of the equation. Below is a bit of a sample of the discrepancy:

  • Drag and Drop (Rescue a Survivor from a Smoker’s tongue before he takes damage) 76.3%
  • My Bodyguard (Protect any Survivor from an attacking Infected 50 times) 66.8%
  • Double Jump (Pounce two different Survivors on one life as a Hunter) 37.3%
  • Chain Smoker (Constrict two Survivors on one life as a Smoker) 29%

One of the loudest criticisms about L4D is the balance of the Versus mode. Specifically, players feel as though the Special Infected are too poorly equipped to take out the Survivors. Do these statistics reflect that such is the case, or is this just the result of unbalanced achievements? I'm of the mind that it reflects both of these issues, but neither greater than the other.

Regardless, these are just the stats from the first week of play and probably indicate nothing significant. Valve tossed these up for all of us to see and added in the note that they’ll be using it to further enhance or tweak the game if needed. Those guys at Valve sure are swell.

[via MTV Multiplayer]


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33 comments | showing # 1 to 33

killias2's Avatar
killias2 at 12/02/2008 18:42
Captain Obvious to the rescue:

More modes have survivors available to play as. There. Explained everything.
Scottyman's Avatar
Scottyman at 12/02/2008 18:44
Keep in mind that there's only one game mode in which you play as the Infected while you will end up playing as the Survivors in every game mode. I think it's simply a matter of more playtime spent as the Survivors equaling more achievements unlocked involving them.
kevvo's Avatar
kevvo at 12/02/2008 18:45
playing as the infected isnt that hard if you are playing with people who you know and communicat. Me and my 2 friends have been dominating quite a few just because of proper teamwork
RawwrBag's Avatar
RawwrBag at 12/02/2008 18:48
Survivors are in every mode and every scenario, whereas the undead are available only half the maps in one of the two game modes...

As far as balance is concerned, I think it's perfect. I've played both scenarios extensively (on 360), and I honestly don't think there is a single multiplayer experience that rivals the zombie side of L4D versus. Sure you die a lot, but the downtime has never bothered me too much. It just forces you to be strategic!
Mxyzptlk's Avatar
Mxyzptlk at 12/02/2008 18:49
Exactly what kevvo said. An Infected team can clean up if they work together and talk to each other.
Mozgus's Avatar
Mozgus at 12/02/2008 18:53
Survivors, infected, and every fucking weapon is too strong AND weak. I've read it all. Ya know what? After 41 hours of L4D, I've determined that the game is balanced very well. It's the player skill that isn't. Just because a team of infected got dominated 5 maps in a row, doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. It means that team was retarded.
NinjaElf's Avatar
NinjaElf at 12/02/2008 19:05
I haven't been able to do any versus but I believe that all the weapons are balanced and bring differnt tactics to the gameplay. Also, screw versus. This game is all about the co-op.
monosylabik's Avatar
monosylabik at 12/02/2008 19:14
I find these criticisms to be made up by a bunch of crybaby losers. shut up crybabys.
ZeroTolo's Avatar
ZeroTolo at 12/02/2008 19:16
I'll be honest. Fuck that noise. If anything it's the Special Infected that are too powerful, especially for the fact that they can spawn waaay more often than the Director will throw them at you in Campaign. In fact, a human-controlled Tank doesn't stand a chance against four survivors armed with assault rifles. I'm of the opinion that they could tone down the accuracy of the ARs. Just like Mozgus said, it's not the game, it's the players.
Wedge's Avatar
Wedge at 12/02/2008 19:18
Errr, I think it's mostly there are always survivors, and only occasionally people even around to play infected. And a lot of those survivor achievements are sort of impossible to not get. Infected are actually really stupid powerful if you can get one survivor killed, the rest can be taken out simply by the respawn rate if you manage to keep boomers on them. Mobility is everything in that mode, because boss infected will just keep spawning if you stay in an area. This makes boomers king, as even a single zombie can make a survivor move at about 1 mph (which I think is broken btw, zombies should stack to cut your mobility, one stupid zombie shouldn't practically immobilize you like they do right now).
DanlHaas's Avatar
DanlHaas at 12/02/2008 19:35
I play on a server owned by a buddy of mine, so we always turn up the difficulty to expert for versus mode (yes, it's possible using an rcon command). It's great. I've killed parties of survivors with an average of 2% level completion.
Skyllus vBi's Avatar
Skyllus vBi at 12/02/2008 19:53
I wish the smoker was a little bit better. Other than that, I feel the game is very very well balanced.

I've seen teams of infected pounce all at once and take out survivors in seconds, and I've seen survivors go pretty much the entire campaign without getting downed.
Ninjasnake's Avatar
Ninjasnake at 12/02/2008 20:07
Maybe it's just me, but when me and my friends end up playing together as the infected we completely own.
Solgrim's Avatar
Solgrim at 12/02/2008 20:13
It feels balanced to me. A team of infected that wins alot, also wins as the survivors.
falinter's Avatar
falinter at 12/02/2008 20:23
The infected aren't supposed to feel powerful enough to take them on. Unless of course you move and act together like a well oiled terminator sent back from the future to eliminate Zoey and company.
Druid 01's Avatar
Druid 01 at 12/02/2008 20:26
AAARRRGGG they never spawn me as a smoker. i still got it though. i would argue those infected one are harder to get than the survivor ones.

and on steam at least the infected team has ALWAYS been filled before the survivor team.
lumberjackrock's Avatar
lumberjackrock at 12/02/2008 22:55
I just wish I would get spawned as the tank more. seems to me other dudes in my party always get it, and they're always the shitty players who run in a circle and avoid killing the survivors for whatever reason.
mix's Avatar
mix at 12/02/2008 22:57
It has seemed fair to me so far. Sometimes we win, sometimes we loose and there is no rape in between.
tkyy's Avatar
tkyy at 12/02/2008 23:09
As the first two comments say, this post fails...
It's common sense, Brad.
BlueJester's Avatar
BlueJester at 12/02/2008 23:22
I always thought the infected were overpowered. Thats the way it was designed. They ever mention it in the commentary.
Knives's Avatar
Knives at 12/03/2008 01:27
Infected need to work as a team as much as survivors
Kyousuke Nanbu's Avatar
Kyousuke Nanbu at 12/03/2008 01:29
Anyone who says the infected are overpowered is a loser, work with your team and you can wipe out the survivors mere moments after they've left the room.

I had a fun VS match, we killed one straggler leaving 3 who made it to the house to call for rescue, we spawned as 2 hunters, a smoker and a boomer, we coordinated perfectly and it went off perfectly, boomer vommited on the survivors thus blinding them, me and the other hunter pounced on 2 survivors while the smoker constricted the last guy, game over.

Also, little tip for tanks, PUNCH EVERYONE and if you down someone, don't sit around like an ASSHOLE and keep punching that person, all you're doing is giving the survivors free shots at you, hit everyone, your goal is to weaken them or down them all if they are weak enough, there's a reason why there's an achievement for kill all 4 survivors in one life as a tank, BECAUSE ITS POSSIBLE.
Peteru's Avatar
Peteru at 12/03/2008 02:05
Teamwork always pwnz stats here. If only one team actually plays together it almost always wins. I've seen survivors totaly overwhelmed in minutes, and going thru without a scratch. I don't think there's a balance issue. Even tanks are ok in versus. They can possibly kill everyone (pushing ppl thru the edge on hospital top floor and roof is pretty mean ;) ), but still can be dealt with.
Sharpless's Avatar
Sharpless at 12/03/2008 02:34
Why is this worthy of the front page? We already had a post about Valve's achievement stats. Are we getting a new post every time they refresh the list? Brad, man, you're really slipping, of late.
elsteveo's Avatar
elsteveo at 12/03/2008 06:41
I like being zombie it can be fun. It is the most fun when people are stupid and they run way ahead or stay way behind the other survivors
BlindsideDork's Avatar
BlindsideDork at 12/03/2008 07:31
You know what...I want to call bull on this.

If you just look at the achievements, there is one answer to resolve this...it is a lot easier to get those Survivor achievements. And there are glitches in the game that wouldn't give me the Chain Smoker for the longest time.
RaiRed's Avatar
RaiRed at 12/03/2008 07:33
In my opinion the infected are very powerful. Your not supposed to be able to take out the survivors at the very start, nor are you supposed to be able to kill anyone while supported by the group. It's more a case of picking off people who split from the team, slowing them down and working togther. I play the PC version and I rarely see the survivors reach the safe room.
Rosseh's Avatar
Rosseh at 12/03/2008 07:34
Last night we pounced on the survivors as soon as they were out the safe room door. Ruined in 2 minutes. Rarg! The problem I have is players seem to hang around too much as survivors. You can sprint through each stage in a few minutes, but people tend to linger through fear or just to shoot every zombie which gives the zombies enough time to respawn another wave. In a survival situation, these guys would be the first to run out of ammo :P
Face's Avatar
Face at 12/03/2008 11:42
They don't really need to be balanced anyway, Infected is basically defense. Damage control, you can only score points as survivors. That being said, for me Versus is just "play as infected mode". I just like the change in gameplay, I hate going back to survivor each round.
Dexter345's Avatar
Dexter345 at 12/03/2008 15:09
I don't think this is any indication of people preferring one side over the other. I think it's more of an indication that the Survivor Achievements listed are easier to get than the Infected Achievements listed. Personally, I prefer to play as Infected, because I can play through the campaign not-versus if I wanted to play as Survivors.
Hollow Gr4m's Avatar
Hollow Gr4m at 12/04/2008 10:54
The problem is the stats for versus and stats for campaign aren't seperate, as they definitely should be. Then you would truly be able to see who's beating who. Mixing up campaign mode stats from all different difficulties with versus stats doesn't tell you ONE thing about ANYTHING.

people should really look at the versus portion of this game as a completely seperate game. It's not campaign mode with human controlled infected. I love playing as survivors in versus mode cause you know you are really annoying the infected when you pwn them, it's much more fun than campaign mode and then when it's your turn to play infected, you get to show em how it's done.
RWarrior1CO's Avatar
RWarrior1CO at 12/05/2008 22:26
Having human-controlled Special Infected makes the game much, much more challenging. If the damage level is somehow set to expert, that makes finishing even the first stage almost impossible.

Also, playing as the zombies is a lot more fun. It's a shame, though, that Valve only set up two of the "movies" for Versus play. That, no matter how you slice it, was a baffling and utterly stupid decision, and I hope some modder out there is working to "unlock" those stages.
DADASLI's Avatar
DADASLI at 01/29/2009 13:14
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