Left 4 Dead 2 Catch All

I actually don't mind playing the jockey. I think the most underused aspect of it is not trying to jump on someone, but just getting in the middle of a group of survivors and clawing the crap out of them. In that case, the fact that you're so small works in your advantage.

PandaEskimo wrote:

I've been having problems with people dropping (crash of some sort) while playing on the "Show Me Your Boomer" server and not being able to rejoin. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Anyone else with these problems?

Yeah, I've been having connection problems as well. I don't know if its the server, my ISP, or some funky Windows 7 thing.

When you do get disconnected, the best way to rejoin quickly is to find one of your friends that you were playing with and use the "Join Game" feature of the friends list. I've found that if you try to join through the game itself will often get you a "game is full" message because the server thinks you're still in the game. For some reason you can usually connect faster through your friends list.

Andor wrote:
PandaEskimo wrote:

You would have loved the smoker in L4D1, he was much more effective.

I don't remember the actual differences, but didn't he have a much longer range?

camnipotent wrote:

Bad recharge time

I think it instantly recharges if you incap a survivor while riding him. Soooo maybe you just need to be better?

It was much easier to hit with the smoker. First, the red reticle seemed to activate much more. Second, anywhere on the screen, you'd get a pull. Third, the tongue seems to break much less easily.

As for the Jockey, maybe the timer starts after you've landed a jump. Therefore, time jockeying someone is time recharging. Jockeying and incapping someone with 5 health might not give you back a full charge while someone you've taken down from 70 health may. Not sure. I remember having to run away and wait many times after an incap.

Andor wrote:
camnipotent wrote:

Bad recharge time

I think it instantly recharges if you incap a survivor while riding him. Soooo maybe you just need to be better?

I think he refers to the recharge time if you jump at a survivor and miss. You then have 5 or 10 seconds before you get a chance to hop on somebody again. Usually somebody will kill you before you get the chance to do it however.

In the finale of Hard Rain last night the Jockey made Wild Blue and I laugh out loud. There were two people left alive and I (smoker) ran inside the Burger Tank to grab one. The Jockey got the last one and toddled in front of me and past the screen. Then in the background we saw him walk out the door and start wandering around outside. Something about watching the survivor struggle and toddle around was completely hilarious, like something out of Scooby Doo. Perfect end to the match.

PandaEskimo wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

I have to say, I really hate being the jockey in VS. It feels so useless, and I always just wish I was one of the other infected. The Charger and Spitter I can get behind, but I'd like a world where the jockey was never invented.

The Jockey on Map 3 of Hard Rain at the top of the elevator. Saw someone (with help) get 3 people off that ledge. I love that little bugger!

The best time I ever had as a Jockey was at that spot as well. I walked someone off the edge and jumped off him, and immediately started to climb while the lunge recharged. The second it recharged, RukiTanuki walked over and started pulling the guy up, so I scampered up behind him and walked him over the edge too. Then both other teammates went over to help them up, just in time for a charger to show up and throw everyone to the ground.

I also loved the time I grabbed someone out of the diner at the beginning of Hard Rain, walked them out into the open, and handed them off to a charger who carried them over the edge of the dock. It was like a great Harlem Globetrotters alley-oop.

YOU ALL POST TOO MUCH! Get a room... a chat room.

I've incapped someone and then immediately lunged at someone else. And I know for a fact that there's not a long recharge when you miss. 1-2 seconds, maybe. I use it to travel around after I've spawned. Much like the hunter pounces.

I think PandaEskimo's on to something about the timer starting when you land on someone. Makes sense, anyway. I've never actually checked.

Oh come now, it's lunch time. Time to post about L4D2

LobsterMobster wrote:

Meh. Just another reason I hate the jockey. That laugh seems so much more "aware" than any of the other infected.

I don't know about that. Laughing is a pretty involuntary reaction, it could be that whatever's left of his brain is just hardwired to laugh constantly. Common infected sometimes shout random words or sentence fragments, and all special infected make a unique noise when they spot prey.

That reminds me. The developer commentary has a bunch of interesting info about the sound design. Especially something about the charger's early sound was pretty funny. I recommend everyone check it out.

Regarding recharge timers, I'm pretty sure that for chargers and jockeys the recharge ticks down while they're riding/pounding someone, so if you beat on someone for long enough and then get knocked off you'll be ready to attack again.

Also, I had a fun time with the charger in one of the swamp levels when the survivors had frag rounds. It turns out that if you're pounding on someone the frag rounds will knock you off them with a full recharge so you can immediately charge someone else. I incapped one person, got knocked free by a stray frag round, charged and incapped another person, got knocked free again, and charged a third person to end the round.

That explains a lot. I was playing the other day and noticed a charger incap someone and then immediately charge someone else.

Huh, I got knocked off a guy with frag rounds last night and my recharge bar was empty. I had to go run and hide behind a tree, and some meanie chased me down.

Switchbreak wrote:

Huh, I got knocked off a guy with frag rounds last night and my recharge bar was empty. I had to go run and hide behind a tree, and some meanie chased me down.

Weird. Maybe it was a bug.

muttonchop wrote:
Switchbreak wrote:

Huh, I got knocked off a guy with frag rounds last night and my recharge bar was empty. I had to go run and hide behind a tree, and some meanie chased me down.

Weird. Maybe it was a bug.

If I had to guess I would say that the "full recharge" occasion was a bug, maybe it's been patched out?

I was a spitter and got knocked back by a gun melee and it reset my charge as well. Could be a gameplay mechanic.

Yonder wrote:
muttonchop wrote:
Switchbreak wrote:

Huh, I got knocked off a guy with frag rounds last night and my recharge bar was empty. I had to go run and hide behind a tree, and some meanie chased me down.

Weird. Maybe it was a bug.

If I had to guess I would say that the "full recharge" occasion was a bug, maybe it's been patched out?

That's what I meant. Getting knocked off with an empty recharge seems like a more fair gameplay mechanic.

muttonchop wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Meh. Just another reason I hate the jockey. That laugh seems so much more "aware" than any of the other infected.

I don't know about that. Laughing is a pretty involuntary reaction, it could be that whatever's left of his brain is just hardwired to laugh constantly. Common infected sometimes shout random words or sentence fragments, and all special infected make a unique noise when they spot prey.

Laughing is involuntary. Finding something amusing is a higher brain function that implies a degree of consideration and understanding. Zombies aren't big on things like knowing what the hell is going on beyond OMG I'M GONNA EET JOOO.

LobsterMobster wrote:
muttonchop wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Meh. Just another reason I hate the jockey. That laugh seems so much more "aware" than any of the other infected.

I don't know about that. Laughing is a pretty involuntary reaction, it could be that whatever's left of his brain is just hardwired to laugh constantly. Common infected sometimes shout random words or sentence fragments, and all special infected make a unique noise when they spot prey.

Laughing is involuntary. Finding something amusing is a higher brain function that implies a degree of consideration and understanding. Zombies aren't big on things like knowing what the hell is going on beyond OMG I'M GONNA EET JOOO.

Finding something amusing isn't necessarily a higher brain function. Several drugs and mental illnesses can cause uncontrollable laughter, doesn't seem unlikely that a disease that affected people's thought patterns to the degree that the zombie virus does couldn't mimic those effects.

Who says that drugs and mental illnesses don't work on higher brain functions, or inhibit them? Now assuming someone had brain damage where they couldn't stop laughing, that could be caused by damage to a higher brain function (judgment), or it could be an involuntary reaction in which case they wouldn't actually find anything funny. At that point they aren't really "laughing," they're just making a sound we label as laughter.

You might argue that the jockey isn't actually laughing any more than a hyena or seagull, but if you think he's actually amused by something, then that means he has some degree of higher brain function than any other zombie shows (aside from being sneaky when trying to murder your face off).

Perhaps we should employ this guy to help us out with the neurology of zombies.

I don't know if any of you have noticed this, but I'm thinking the longer you ride someone, the longer the recharge time will be once you're knocked off...is that right? If I lunge at someone and miss, the recharge time is maybe 1 second, but if I lunge and land and sit for 10 seconds, the recharge time is like 20 seconds...I'll have to pay more attention.

I'll add to this silly idea, the jokey has kuru. He was common zombie infected by eating a clown while in Whispering Oaks, or it could be lupus.

[quote=Tkyl]

LobsterMobster wrote:

---------

So last night we had a great game on The Parish, but had a very very interesting start to it. My team started as infected and we had managed to kill one of the survivors right before the room with the jukebox. On to our turn as survivors, we're feeling confident and telling ourselves that we should be able to do better than other team. We walk up the ramp off the dock. One of the survivors is slightly in front of me when we hear a charger. I immediately realize that I'm not going to be able to get out of the way so I'm just going to have to take it. Sure enough the guy in front of me gets charged and the charge continues right into me. Only I didn't just get knocked out of the way. I got knocked up and over the railing into the water. I hadn't even made out of the "safe room". We ended up losing that round by 9 points.

Yeah that was brutal. Starting dock at the parish, 1 survivor dead already. The other 3 of us made it all the way to car alarm and 2/3 made it in. Same game I mentioned last night, overall a very even match.

Tonight might be TF2 night with the udpate.. but if they are on "Valve time" we can probably get some more vs/scavenge in while we wait.

I said no such thing! D:

I think all the specials are pretty ridiculous from an in-fiction perspective. The jockey is up there - I especially like how they offer basically no justification of any kind for exactly how the hell he is able to ride people around. Is he reaching inside their brains with his bare hands and rewiring them? Wouldn't it be simpler at that point just to murder them outright?

Far and away the most funny is the hunter, though. Not only is he aware enough to stalk his pray and do the physics in his head for complex jumps to pounce on them from far away, and not only should he be smashed into a fine paste after any one of those jumps, but he wears a uniform to advertise what strain of the infection he has! The hoodie is distinctive enough that people in-game even notice that all the hunters wear them, yet they don't even try to come up with a reason for it. I like to imagine that the entire infection was a literal viral marketing campaign for The Gap, and that the hunter strain was the first one to move into Stage 2 of the infection in which everyone develops identical fashion sense.

I'm just not sure the Jockey is actually amused by something. If he only laughed when he rode people I might buy it, but he laughs constantly.

And as far as how he controls people, if you watch him riding people he keeps smacking them in the face and covering their eyes, as well as leaning back and forth. My guess is that he's just obscuring their vision and putting them off balance so they tend to stagger in whatever direction he's leaning.

Switchbreak wrote:

Far and away the most funny is the hunter, though. Not only is he aware enough to stalk his pray and do the physics in his head for complex jumps to pounce on them from far away, and not only should he be smashed into a fine paste after any one of those jumps, but he wears a uniform to advertise what strain of the infection he has! The hoodie is distinctive enough that people in-game even notice that all the hunters wear them, yet they don't even try to come up with a reason for it. I like to imagine that the entire infection was a literal viral marketing campaign for The Gap, and that the hunter strain was the first one to move into Stage 2 of the infection in which everyone develops identical fashion sense.

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it is not the man in the hoodie who is infected but the hoodie itself? That the "hunter" is but a tortured husk of a host, subject to the whims of an evil zombie garment?

I think the special infected are like the survivors in that there is only really one of each of them. You know how a survivor will die but later on the same survivor will be in a closet somewhere waiting to get out. I think the special infected are the same. So the reason they all look the same is because all of them are the same. Every tank is the same person. Every witch is the same person.

Switchbreak wrote:

Far and away the most funny is the hunter, though. Not only is he aware enough to stalk his pray and do the physics in his head for complex jumps to pounce on them from far away, and not only should he be smashed into a fine paste after any one of those jumps, but he wears a uniform to advertise what strain of the infection he has! The hoodie is distinctive enough that people in-game even notice that all the hunters wear them, yet they don't even try to come up with a reason for it. I like to imagine that the entire infection was a literal viral marketing campaign for The Gap, and that the hunter strain was the first one to move into Stage 2 of the infection in which everyone develops identical fashion sense.

I don't think that the physics is that big a deal. I read a paper once about how dogs running along a beach and then into the water to get a stick entered the water close to the exact optimal point for the differences in swimming and running speed, which is a moderately complicated calculus problem. Humans can throw a ball to hit a moving target. When you consider air resistance and three dimensions that probably becomes a math problem harder than any I have done with pencil and paper. Monkeys also throw things, but the limiting factor isn't so much brain power as it is shoulder bone structure. For example this fish hunts its prey with a method that is probably identical from a math standpoint. Maybe harder because a water droplet is a less reliable projectile than a rock or spear.

As far as the hood goes, well yeah, that's ridiculous. Hmm, unless the hood is connected to him not being smashed into a fine paste! Maybe all of the hunters that weren't wearing hoods lack the aerodynamics necessary to survive their first jump!

Yonder wrote:

As far as the hood goes, well yeah, that's ridiculous. Hmm, unless the hood is connected to him not being smashed into a fine paste! Maybe all of the hunters that weren't wearing hoods lack the aerodynamics necessary to survive their first jump!

The hood acts as a mini drag chute.