Advanced is expert and expert is advanced?

jex · 11-25-2008, 07:24 AM

It seems sometimes that playing on advanced can take 2 hours of playing to complete a level and then you leave it a day, play it on expert and do it in 3 or 4 attempts.

=Sarc= · 11-25-2008, 08:31 AM

That's the director for you. I should remind you that we got creamed on expert last night. Do you remember that?

jex · 11-25-2008, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by =Sarc=

That's the director for you. I should remind you that we got creamed on expert last night. Do you remember that?

LOL yeah I remember. However, we got pretty far for first time in the maps rather than No Mercy where we played the 2nd level on the demo for 1.5 hours trying to beat it on expert before finally doing it.

Expert is doable as long as you don't let yourselves get caught out in the open and you get into defendable positions.

But my point is that sometimes Advanced sometimes seems to take ages where on expert it takes half the time

Zephyr · 11-25-2008, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jex

LOL yeah I remember. However, we got pretty far for first time in the maps rather than No Mercy where we played the 2nd level on the demo for 1.5 hours trying to beat it on expert before finally doing it.

Expert is doable as long as you don't let yourselves get caught out in the open and you get into defendable positions.

But my point is that sometimes Advanced sometimes seems to take ages where on expert it takes half the time

Perhaps because expert is more reliant on being able to stop a particular horde effectively, while advanced may just be like normal but with more hordes?

What is harder, more enemies or better enemies? I think given TG player's proficiencies with weapons and teamwork, it could make sense that Advanced would seem more difficult because there is more to shoot at rather than just survive harder zombies.

-Zephyr

DaBrit · 11-25-2008, 05:18 PM

A big difference is the amount of damage zombies can take and dish out (on expert, one hit from a regular zombie will do ~10 damage), and additionally the amount of damage received from friendly fire. Further, you won't find any med kits outside of safe rooms on Expert, just pills. I'm sure there are other differences.

Zephyr · 11-25-2008, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaBrit

A big difference is the amount of damage zombies can take and dish out (on expert, one hit from a regular zombie will do ~10 damage), and additionally the amount of damage received from friendly fire. Further, you won't find any med kits outside of safe rooms on Expert, just pills. I'm sure there are other differences.

Yeah, this is in line with what I was thinking. Expert is by far the hardest for most people because you NEED teamwork and good shots. TG has those in droves.

Advanced probably seems more exhausting for us just from sheer volume.

I wonder if there's any way to test this.

-Zephyr

**Avs** · 11-26-2008, 03:33 AM

Hmm, I think advanced is actually not very tough compared to expert. Consider this test:

We are in Death Toll, 4th level. We just started the forklift for the big rush. I run up on the left ramp and then jump into this big wave of advanced horde. The rest of the team posts up top on the left side. One minute later I am still alive spinning and jumping while meleeing with 10 hp out of 93hp. Couldn't do that in expert because damage goes from 5 to 20. Also FF goes from 5 to 30 for a single pistol round that is intentional (the game does a great job at detecting unintentional shots and bullet clipping when people move through you).

I think it is really the director that is messing with you on advanced. Since the zombies deal much less damage, and FF isnt an issue and the director is random with many rushes or lots of bosses or none at all, expert is probably tougher almost all the time (unless you get a really lazy director).

We should play a campaign tomorrow together so we can see what the experience is like.

=Sarc= · 11-26-2008, 08:25 AM

A tank can hit you several times on advanced before incapacitating you. On expert, it's a one hit knockdown. This makes it much harder on expert during the finale.

Zephyr · 11-26-2008, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avs

Hmm, I think advanced is actually not very tough compared to expert. Consider this test:

We are in Death Toll, 4th level. We just started the forklift for the big rush. I run up on the left ramp and then jump into this big wave of advanced horde. The rest of the team posts up top on the left side. One minute later I am still alive spinning and jumping while meleeing with 10 hp out of 93hp. Couldn't do that in expert because damage goes from 5 to 20. Also FF goes from 5 to 30 for a single pistol round that is intentional (the game does a great job at detecting unintentional shots and bullet clipping when people move through you).

I think it is really the director that is messing with you on advanced. Since the zombies deal much less damage, and FF isnt an issue and the director is random with many rushes or lots of bosses or none at all, expert is probably tougher almost all the time (unless you get a really lazy director).

We should play a campaign tomorrow together so we can see what the experience is like.

I think this is a pretty good analysis of the differences. I've always enjoyed advanced more than expert because for whatever reason it felt like I had more to do (i.e. shoot), while on expert one tiny mistake meant the end for everything because I just couldn't absorb three seconds of a surprise horde, even though there were only a few in it.

-Zephyr

Spyder · 11-26-2008, 11:18 AM

Yeah, the key to surviving expert comes down to two things. Eliminating FF damage and minimizing regular zombie damage. Boss zombies (sans Tank) are really not hard to deal with. The strategies for them are the same on all difficulty levels and after playing expert for aout 20 minutes you pick up the best ways to deal with them pretty quickly

People lose on expert due to attrition. Running into the tank when already badly hurt or having no mobility is usually the end.

A few strategies that people need to adopt to survive on expert:

1) When half of your team gets boomer bombed, the clear players need to get in the way of the infected. They will only attack boomer'd players for the duration of the bile, so if you can get out front and melee bash you can hold off the horde at no risk to yourself, which prevents a whole lot of damage from regular zeds to your teammates.

2) Don't backtrack. You're in a war of attrition because you're limited to 1 medpack each. The longer you waste, the more hordes you have to deal with. More hordes = more damage. When you've just finished dealing with a boomer horde. Run forward until you reach the next set of infected and then go back to your tight-grouped tactical advance. Take advantage of the now-cleared out section.

3) You don't *need* to be in a corner or have your back to a wall. Too many expert teams I've been on take all kinds of damage while running (usually backwards) to that "optimal spot" If you're out in the open that's fine, adopt a 4-corners defense. Everybody crouch in a tight group, back to back covering all 4 directions. Alternate bashing and firing and you will come out of it fine.

3a) When you hear a hunter scream in said situation, stop firing (and just bash) until somebody hits it in the face. One guy getting pounced will disrupt everybody and you'll get beat up really good.

my .02 anyway

**FooFighter** · 11-26-2008, 03:47 PM

One of the funny things about the AI director is that he "reacts" on the number of humans which are playing. I was able to solo a campaign on advanced (well, almost. The server crashed :B) in about 20 - 40 minutes (I was waiting for the others to come back so that we could play coop again, and got bored

). I also remember soloing one or two stages of another campaign at expert, but again, the server crashed before I was able to get further. When playing with a full team of four players however, expert can get _really_ hard though; same goes for the last two stages on advanced.