My beef with the Last Stand update.

Look, I know, its recent, and stuff like that, however, I, like many people in discussion forums, as well MY experience with it, I'm honestly, not too appalled with it, especially as a mod creator, since it broke Witch model mods for example, as well others, and there's many reasons why:

The new campaign is just 2 maps, length wise, its Crash Course, yet another rushed campaign that feels like Cold Stream, somehow being even worse than those two, ranging from finale having a total of 7-8 medkit type items(which feels overblown, especially in versus), bad AI pathing on watchtower in 2nd map, which results in zombies/survivors not getting inside. None of survivors on new map have campaign specific dialogue, just generic ones from other maps! Those are the examples, but I think there's more.

For new additions, like CSS weapons, melee weapons however, due to how weak they are, as the shovel/pitchfork have worse hit detection than normal melees, too big and strange compared to others, and also just worse than fire axe or anything for that matter, while CSS weapons are very, very subpar, being worse than normal guns they are supposed to be alternatives for, but with pathetic DPS, you are just opening yourself for more special and common attacks. And in versus, the fact they can replace an otherwise good gun(expect knife and SG552 for M16, since they are practically the same thing aside from being faster and having a scope), can ruin your speedrunning/organized runs.

The new animations, while nice to fix outdated ones, some are really out of consistency/place, like the magnum, which feels like the animator was looking at Call Of Duty skins and thought "hey, that fits for a game", while it looks too goofy and just disrespectful. Other changes include M16 getting a red line in its magazine, as if its some kind of modded server. The worst ones are CSS guns, since they broke the left-handed replacements for them resulting in left-handed guns, though its good to see that you don't have to model them left-handed now. But using outdated models and textures? Even with enough time to do so? I see no excuse for that.

The supposed focus of this update was of course, the campaign, but with how short it is, and comparing to how MANY survival maps were added, well, let me tell you the truth, while survival play rates increased with the update, its still LOWER than coop and versus. And even better, no one plays scavenge at all! This means in a week or a month, everyone's going back to campaign and versus with NO ONE playing survival! Aside for achievements with friends or alone, of course...

If the update was just new maps, fixes and stuff, but NOT adding stuff that mods already do, like the survivor anims that do weird reviving animation, reanimating weapons to look like some Counter-Strike game as opposed to just fixing them, or just letting the users to pick the mods for that.

Other weird things - now The Passing golf club is now appearing in many more maps, to point its more common, where you can have a katana-like weapon easier than before, and The Passing newer voice acting that was previously available via modded servers, is now official everywhere - expect the character grunts when meleeing, which is still mod only, apparently.

Using vocalizers generic lines, including death screams now has a delay now - which takes apparently like, 10-15 seconds between each along with 3-5 second delay on everything? The only ones not affected are campaign specific lines, like The Passing lines, which you can still spam but at lower rate. Its good to see there's less spam, but it makes doing funny things less inciting. Also, Rochelle is somehow even worse, should just add the newer lines as a mix to originals, not replacing everything and thinking it will improve everything. Like, when you friendly fire someone, they normally yell a general line or a character specific one, but now they ONLY speak the character specific one, which makes it not look good if the character who got shot couldn't see the attacker by the time they got hit.

"By community, for community" - When the changes affect versus in a negative way, and normal users as well, I now understand why good developers only let modders suggest, but never add things that will piss people off with the difference in professionalism. It's like trying to force people to play survival/scavenge with so many new maps yet not understanding what people actually want.

My initial thoughts on that update were initially meh. And somehow, certain changes/issues make it worse and confusing. But still meh. Expect the actual threats to game balance and long-term lifespan and people's acceptance of the game as a whole.