Vs mode is fun, but it's a shame the difficulty has been restricted to normal, it was more fun when vs was played with advanced difficulty. The auto-shotgun is still a little overpowered in vs mode, if a team's only desire is to win a map (regardless of how lame it is)- equip the whole team with auto shotties and run and gun. On some maps the team can run half the map before having to stop, to kill a scripted zombie horde or a tank. It's an effective method, but i find it boring because i like killing zombies.
You can change the difficulty of Versus mode, however, you have to have rcon commands for the server (basically it has to be your own server). I've played VS on advanced and its much more difficult since the regular zombies do more damage per hit, making Boomers pretty powerful. I believe pounce scratch and pull damages are increased as well.
As for the run and gun, a good team can pull it off and a bad infected team can let it happen. Coordinated attacks are the key to stopping the survivors. You can't send one hunter at a time. It's tough in a random pub to find a run and gun team since the players are all randoms. You're more than likely going to have 1 moron on your team who gets left behind exploring.
The group of friends I play with several times a week for about 4 months now have pretty good fights. If our team skills our balanced, I'd say that both teams only complete 1/2 the maps as survivor. As for the shotgunning. I find its preference. Sniper rifles are always a mistake in VS, in the campaign their fine. 95% of the time I take the 1st tier shotgun as the Uzi runs out of ammo quick. And then depending on the map, I take the auto-shotty about 75% of the time. Open maps i take the Assault rifle for accuracy and distance. For say Mercy Hospital or the Subway, auto-shotty all the way.
The game has become more and more balanced with each patch. At first, survivors could just corner with auto shotties and could kill a tank in 20 seconds. Well they lowered shotgun dmg to the tank and fixed so that tanks can hit more than one person in a swipe. I really hated the melee fatigue at first, but it really has made an improvement in balancing. No more melee spam in the corners to save the survivors, now they have to at least use ammo. Makes getting a pull with the survivors and a pounce with a hunter easier.
There are the typical 'cheap' strategies to every map. But you'll find that in any game you play in some form or another. I'm really surprised they haven't fixed the gurney on No Mercy Level 4 by the elevator.
