Me, Derf and O'Cram and a buddy of theirs did No Mercy on expert yesterday. Well, actually, we didn't finish it. We fucked up the finale like FIFTEEN TIMES in a row. In don't know wtf went wrong. We weren't always making the best choices, sure, but even then...we had the feeling the AI is getting much better. Especially the cooperation between the boomer, hunter and smoker seems to be much much better. Smokers often pull you towards boomers now, and they all melee a lot more (something I already noticed in hunters before). Tanks seem to be faster, but that might just be my imagination.

I've had a hunter pounce, land in front of me (not on me) and melee me before I could pistolwhip it. Their melee attack does like 20 damage a hit on expert.

No ox thats just you getting older and slower, hahhaa (jk)

lol, possibly but yesterday I wasn't drunk or tired so it couldn't have been that!

I was trawling through the Steam forums and found that a recent patch increases the speed of tanks when they're on fire. None of the official updates seem to mention this, which is weird but maybe i'm not seeing the complete list. Wouldn't surprise me if they're sneaking in changes to the AI.

Found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0RWVqboVjI

Basically, the tank goes FASTER (and not just a little bit) in campaign mode when set on fire. So...unless you got a clear way (you're in a narrow path with a lot of space to run backwards) and can set him on fire easily, it's better to actually waste him using guns.

No Mercy finale sounds like a place where guns would be preferable. Man, how could I not have known this? I knew there was something fishy going on when the tank (on fire) seemed to gain on me even though I had 75 health or so.

Ladders and holes still slow the bastard down well tho.

I dunno, No mercy has enough roofs and ladders to run around no? And the tank takes ages to climb on those roofs. If it's up you can run around on the pipes and go down again, and take him for another tour.

Kinda like i did when we first finished No Mercy on expert.

I find that No Mercy has a nice "encircle" place much like the house on Blood Harvest. I'm talking about the main building at the end of No Mercy (where you call the chopper on the radio).

Also setting the tank on fire at the no Mercy finale is pretty dang hard. The surroundings are pretty cramped so there is practically impossible to anticipate his movement, especially when there are 4 of you and you're all worrying about nearby specials or hordes.

I swear i completed No Mercy on expert. Can't remember how though.

In my opinion it's not that hard...just don't get cornered by that tank bastard and you'll be fine. There are plenty of places you can run laps around that tank. But all it takes is some bad luck and your ass is toast... a boomer at the wrong time is about the worst thing that can happen.

We could also try having everyone grab an auto-shotty and just blowing huge holes in that bastard. If I ran out and distracted him while everyone else shot him at point blank, would you be able to put out enough damage to take him down before I died?

Well at no mercy, the minigun could be used to ratatatataattataaa him too.

Just did some number crunching and a tank on expert takes 33 autoshottie shells from point blank before biting the dust. Divide that by 4 of us and thats just above 8 each.

Sounds easy

Probably. I think that we might be better off in some situations in expert if we try to just shoot the tank instead of setting it on fire (as you've seen in the vid, he speeds up scarily much). I remember in one of the tries we did on the second level of blood harvest on expert, the tank got derf, followed me and Satis and Shiny waited for it in the safe room. I pretty much managed to kill it on my own, just by running in and out of the barn and blasting it with the shotty. So it's not all that hard.

As Peltz noted, the minigun in No Mercy will even bring it to a virtual standstill when fired on. We probably should keep that in mind when doing the No Mercy finale next time Derf.

I'm still pissed at how fast the tank was in the No Mercy finale.

No it wont do just above 8. You have to divide it by 3 since 1 is down on the floor shooting pistols and hoping the tank wont off him before going down. So the tank has to be softened up real good before going for autoshottie carnage.

Derf, did you test how much damage one tank melee strike does on expert too?

How did you test it anyway? Console spawn?

Well, 3 people can hold off on auto-shotty until the tank is point blank and bashing on me... so that's 30 rounds assuming noone goes off half-cocked. So if I can put 3 rounds into the guy before he knocks the shit out of me (no sure thing) we should be ok. Then again, the minigun or running around of roofs thing sounds like a better plan.

I dunno, I kinda like the "kicking the shit out of Satis" part of the plan