Feedback on Virus and its update

I really like the graphical updates to Virus, however:

The radiation sound when an infected is nearby doesn’t sound like radiation. It just sounds like an annoying clicking.

I don’t have motion sickness, but the view tilt when strafing makes me want to throw up. And for somebody who likes the view bob, I’d prefer if the view bob and view tilt were made into separate sliders in the settings because GODDAMN I wanna turn that off.

The crossbow, in the current state of Virus isn’t a good addition. With the current netcode, feel of the game, and existing arsenal, the crossbow is severely weak compared to the plasma auto-rifle or the double-barrel. Any time a crossbow is granted instead of the TNT for the round, there’s a collective groan from the players and then nobody uses it. Not to mention, removing TNT for rounds SEVERELY weakens survivors who are already at a pretty big disadvantage (ESPECIALLY with a lot of players). (Infected have a higher winrate than survivors)

Also, this had been in the game for a while, it’s not just from this update, but using the C hotkey to use your adrenaline sometimes equips the adrenaline, but doesn’t use it and then unequips it. This can ruin your chances of survival that would have otherwise been in your grasp.

Also, with the changes to the camera system, if you die as an infected when the camera is against a wall, the camera will go through it during the ragdoll phase causing everything to turn black and most sound to stop. This is extremely disorienting and also causes the player to think their game crashed for a few seconds.

I hope these points are taken to heart.

I was planning on posting a separate suggestion post. We touch on a few of the same points but have some differing opinions so I wanted to hear other’s thoughts.

View Bob

I really like the tilt, It makes the constant strafing feel much less stiff and juking zombies feel more actiony. Problem is the default value is a little too jarring for most. The tilting does help the game feel more hectic, but throws off my aim. I find around ~25 view bob to be best.

My suggestion: Lower the default value for the view bob from 100 to at least 50. I’m totally fine for separate sliders, but a lot of players who don’t read patch notes didn’t even know there was a setting for it last night.

Crossbow

I felt the opposite. Being chased by 3 or 4 zombies it felt almost OP being able to insta-kill body shot them. Especially with that quick reload. I need more time really judge, but I could land shots with it consistently at 50-70 ping. It is essentially the plasma auto-rifle alt fire with 0 charge up required. I love it, but I will agree the scope is pretty useless.

TNT gets 1 kill, MAYBE 2 kills, and if you’re super lucky 3. Crossbow is a near guarantee of 3 insta kills from a long distance. Also, it gets old watching the first infected just run into three layers of TNT for the first 30 seconds of the round.

My Suggestion: Randomize who gets TNT and who gets Crossbow. If the rest of the loadout is shared still, that is fine. Right now we either have potential TNT turtling rounds or Crossbow sniping. I think it’d feel much more organic if each round loadouts were 50/50 on who has TNT or Crossbow, instead of all or nothing.

I’ll probably still make a separate suggestion post, but I need to play test some more. Also I’m fine with the radiation sound. I was afraid it’d sound more like HL2’s which got irritating to me. Virus’ is noticeable but not irritating so far.

5 Likes

I like the “split TNT and crossbow” idea

2 Likes

No offense but isn’t that what a Geiger counter is?

Yeah, but it usually sounds more static-y sort of and with less percussion