Faliszek: Left 4 Dead 2 Works As 'Cohesive Single Statement'

[DigiQ8]

Gamasutra sat down with Valve's project lead Chet Faliszek to talk about Left 4 Dead 2. Chet explained how a standalone sequel works better as a "single statement" than individual content packs.

"Balance is really important," Faliszek said. "Trying to do piecemeal stuff in DLC, you have a real balance issue there where you're going to have to go back and keep nerfing or expanding elements as you go on. That was one of our original thoughts when we were looking at Left 4 Dead 2, this want to have a cohesive single statement.[br]

"The Jockey's not nearly as cool as he would be when he has the Spitter, because they work together really well" he explained, "and the Spitter's not nearly as cool without the new director AI and the Charger."

Also Valve has added scripting capability for the AI director -- functionality that will be available to modders.

Talking with them and with our own level designers, it's what they wanted to have for that experience happen. It all ties in together with the AI

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[Lobster]

The scripting sounds interesting, I wonder if it will let us have more control of the panic events, at the moment you basicly just trigger panic, then your map layout decides the pace, then there is this annoying hard coded delay between the next time you can call another event. I guess with gauntlet events and multiple alarm car clusters, they have already changed this though.

My main concern with the addon functionality at the moment, is that its really fiddly to add new sound effects or music into the maps, and even copying the music cues from say No Mercy, causes issues, I really like the addon .pak concept for creating custom campaigns, but its got a few kinks I would like to see ironed out.