Moving to Commonsensegaming.com

Soon I should be moving the blog over to CommonSenseGaming.com as it should allow me a better platform in which to format my posts, and definitely should allow for a better look than this blog currently has.

Expert runs 2 L4D

Expert Runs: Addendum

A few alterations to my previous entry, but in a new post since Blogger likes to eat code and spit out a bunch of random changes. Update: Even new posts aren't free from blogger faggotry!

Considering rule 2: Never skip health packs: Random health packs do NOT spawn. You will only ever find pills outside of saferoom/finale. As such, abuse of Hero Closets is advised. A strat I've thought of but never had the opportunity to attempt: Nobody uses health packs until someone dies. Player closest to death picks up health pack, then team waits by a hero closet until player respawns. They respawn, pick up the weapon they were using, team moves on. This way, you effectively get two extra downs, and 50 free permanent health for the dying player, and the worst off player gets reset to 80 and 2 downs. A better trade than one reset with a weakened player in tow. An alternate strat would be to have a player on last down, go and sacrifice themself in a controlled area as to maximize safe respawn in hero closet. Note: The respawn can take a minute or two. Hopefully you've planned for a long game session ;)

Additionally, you must arrange it so that you ALWAYS leave a saferoom with 4 healthpacks. If you have extra, you can use some, but if you have to crawl to the first hero closet then so be it. Ideally you'll be minimizing damage through meticulous clearing of normal infected and slow careful progress through the level.

Dealing with Witches: I just learned today that witches take 50% damage from every weapon but the hunting rifle. As a headshot from the hunter rifle stuns the witch, this is a perfect opportunity to practice range-reap of the witch. Player with hunting rifle lines up, everyone else takes aim with the longest range weapon they have. Headshot, then unload on her while she's stunned. Hopefully she'll die before she begins her charge toward the hunting rifle user. The setup should be a crouching m16 user, the rifler standing behind him, and two flanking to the sides. During her charge she'll run in a straight line so the m16-er will be able to unload the whole clip into her easily. Just remind the m16 user to stay crouched as to avoid FF (and the probable incap associated with the occurence.)

Grenade preference: In most situations the pipebomb will be the superior explosive item to possess. It draws regular infected and allows easier clearing of them from a wide open area. When you enter such an area you should always lead with a pipebomb before you advance. As for the Molotov, it still has its uses but it will most often be a hindrance instead of a benefit. The one shining area is when you encounter a tank. Expert tanks have 8000 health, which means unless you can really drill him while he's running at you, with all 4 people, he will end up with an incap. Nailing him with a ranged molotov will help drain his health quickly, however he seems to get a slight speed boost when burning. This may only be in multiplayer, as a balancing issue, but I haven't really tested it in single player.

Expert Runs in Left 4 Dead
Instructions

Expert. The ultimate challenge (Besides 'Nothing Special' and "Untouchables) for Left 4 Dead players. ALL infected do massive damage. Friendly fire is full damage (meaning an auto-shotty round will probably incap in one hit from full health.) Explosions and fire are particularly dangerous. Tank is auto-incap, Witch is insta-death. What is a group of lonely survivors to do? Ideally, this guide will get the right frame of mind knocked into your heads so that maybe, just maybe, you can pull it off.

I. Pace
In the survival mode commandments, the idea is to move as quickly as possible. Here, your pace will be much more deliberate. You will be scouring rooms for supplies in hopes of extra pain pills, health packs, and pipebombs. Stumbling into a pitch-black room with just ONE normal infected can mean you lose upwards of 40 health. Considering you start with 100, this is MASSIVE.

As you move ahead, stop frequently to clear out normal infected. Never disregard this. 3 infected can down you in a second. When you come upon a room, peek in, then duck back out. The infected inside should have noticed you and will rush the doorway. This makes it much easier to shove them away so that you take no damage.

II. Health
Also contrary to the multiplayer guide, you will be taking EVERY advantage you can get. This means NEVER skipping a health pack you happen to find. The computer, while very aggressive in Expert, isn't near the level you'll face in Versus.

III. Special Infected
Keep your ears and eyes open for special infected. Smokers will deal massive damage after separating you from the group. Hunters will kill you VERY fast if you let them land on you. If ever there was a time to go for "Nothing Special" this is it. Chances are you'll take some hits: This is ok. The same principles apply as in vs: Stick close. Never far enough away to where you have to run to get a hunter off of an ally. Boomers are brutal: 20 infected spawn when a boomer connects with bile: 20 infected zeroed in on you. Considering 2 infected can down you in seconds, this is a crucial time. Back into the nearest corner and have your allies surround you. Melee until you can see again, then eliminate all threats.

IV. Tanks
Except for a few circumstances, you will be able to hear a tank grunting from around a corner right before you encounter him. As a tank strike is an automatic incap, accidentally running into this beast is a VERY bad thing. When you hear the tell-tale angry grunts of Mr. Hyde, back your team up. Find the longest corridor you can focus your fire in, and send one ally ahead to get the tank's attention. That ally should take a route of retreat that allows fire on the tank: Hug a wall. If an ally gets hit, take advantage of the tank's stationary position to do as much damage as possible: He'll kill your ally in 2 hits. If you can't kill him before he kills your friend, begin retreating and laying on the damage. Hopefully you'll pull away with 3 survivors.

V. The Witch
The witch is absolutely brutal on expert. A hit is automatic death. Luckily, once she kills someone she will then run away and not attack again.

A death cripples your team. If possible, AVOID the witch. If your cr0wner happens to make a mistake and dies, you'd down a man. Never go a step out of the way to kill a witch you don't need to. However, if the witch is blocking the path with no way around, then you'll have to make the shot. Alternatively, you can send your weakest player to die. Every health point counts when survival is on the line: you should find a survivor closet soon.

VI. NO Friendly Fire.
Friendly fire does full damage in Expert. Accidentally shooting an ally with an auto-shotgun or the hunting rifle will knock off almost all of their health. Its almost a guaranteed incap, or guaranteed if they've taken some damage. Friendly fire is the absolute quickest way to end a level in a team-tipe. Do not panic. Due to your deliberate pace the amount of infected you'll be in combat with will be minimal. If you're behind an ally, DO NOT FIRE. Melee only. Only take a shot if you have a perfectly clear line of fire.

VII Summary
In any expert run, it helps to know where the survivor closets are. Chances are you're going to have numerous deaths in your journey to complete one campaign. These will refill gaps in your lineup: hopefully nobody gets left out due to multiple deaths. Remember: Everything is very, very deadly. Be diligent in clearing out every common infected. They can ruin your day in a hurry.

Playing the Undead in Left 4 Dead

The Infected General Rules

I'm going to take this in a little bit more of a free-form guide, since rules surrounding playing as the infected in L4D are never really static as the situation is constantly changing for them. You get to respawn multiple times, have many opportunities for attack, and generally get to be an asshole to the survivors. Aint unlife grand?

But, there are a few rules you should always constantly be applying when you're preparing to attack.

1. Never attack head on
This one is important. If a survivor sees you coming from a mile away, they're going to alert their teammates and then that can lead to several fewer hits, and that much less damage. They might also be able to kill you before you even attack. This is USUALLY the case. This is why, as a boomer, its important to get them from around a corner as they run by, or to get them from above. If you attack, try to get in between several of them so that in their rush to kill you, your explosion covers several in bile. Vision impaired survivors have a much more difficult time fighting off common infected, and CAN'T see if an ally is being attacked by a hunter (No red outline) or dragged off by a smoker (no yellow outline.) Which leads us to the next rule:

2 Never attack alone
If you pounce one of 4 healthy survivors in a tight cluster by yourself, you're going to die after only having dealt 5 paltry damage, and now you're going to be waiting 25+ seconds to respawn. Attacking with at LEAST 2 people at once vastly improves the damage you're going to put out. Always try to cut off survivors going to rescue a friend: It slows them down from doing so increasing the overall damage output of an attack. If you see a boomer ally attack, grab survivors WITHOUT the purple outline: Their allies will have a much tougher time noticing their friend has been dragged off by a smoker, or has a hunter on them. Not to mention the horde of common infected slowing them down twofold: Being in the way and actually slow-down from their hits. If your smoker friend drags off a survivor, pounce the ally returning for him. Cover the dragged survivor in bile. Team up on the survivors. You ARE on the infected "team." If four special infected attack at about the same time, chances are 3 survivors are going to be unable to protect themselves/each other AND the several will be covered in Bile. This is a heavily damaging assault, and if you land an incap, your attack can be considered a success. Incaps SEVERELY slow down the survivor advance, meaning more chances to attack. And, at the very least, they're going to need to heal. This still means they're not moving.

3. Attack the weakest survivor
The sooner you incapacitate a survivor, the better your chance at killing ALL of them by means of "more spawns, more damage" as infected. Incapped survivors can't move, and have VERY poor damage output with slow-firing, wildly inaccurate dual pistols. They have to be revived, which means only 2 survivors are capable of fighting unless the third drops their downed ally, which restarts the revive timer. So, do your best as a pack to try and down one survivor. The less progress survivors make, the longer it takes, the more spawns, and better chance at a wipeout attack.

4. Abuse the Tank/Witch when they spawn
To abuse a witch, get a smoker and grab a passing survivor and drag them to her. She'll wake up and provide you a free incap. Otherwise, boom the enemy and try to draw them to her. They'll have a very tough time seeing her while blinded, so waking her up while trying to shoot you is a possibility.
To abuse the tank, when you roll one, evaluate your situation: Are you outside in an open area, or inside close quarters where survivors cannot maneuver effectively? If you're outside, keep your distance and throw as much concrete at them as you can. Wait for them to corner themselves and move in. Let your allies whittle them down while you can. If you're inside, rush them. They're bound to get caught on a corner while backing up, and you can incap them easily once they do. As a tank, AVOID CATCHING FIRE. This will drain your health rapidly, and kill you long before your time. Don't be afraid to use concrete at a long distance. Just aim up like you would with a hunter pounce, and have at it. You might get lucky and knock one down and do heavy damage. Better opportunites for your allies!

Tactics

1. Sharking
What this entails is the dedicated assault of, at minimum, 3 of the 4 infected in attacking a single survivor with the objective of incapacitation. The term "Sharking" comes from the feeding frenzy that sharks are driven into upon smelling blood... well imagine seeing the red survivor outline meaning they're weak as a magnet for your attacks. Follow the above rules, and attempt to do as much damage as possible to one survivor. Even if they're not incapped, they're going to slow the rest down quite a bit.

2. Frog Splash from the TOP ROPE
Smoker grabs victim. Hunter is in place well above the smoker and the victim. Hunter has an easy, immobile target to nail for a high-damage pounce. Max is 25. See if you can break 20! Not only that, but the smoker will be dealing damage while you are pretending to be a WWII bomber.

3. Boomerkazi
This one is simple. Get above the survivors as the boomer (Easiest to execute on NM1, in the alleyway, but there are other places this is possible.) Simply drop down and attack with your bile, and cover as many as you can. If you're lucky, a survivor will panic and shoot you, causing you to explode and definitely cover several of them. You can also do this after vomiting on a survivor or two, then running past them and attacking them, trying to get them to kill you and further coat their allies.

4. The Tankstraction
Tanks are powerhouses. They can incap in 4 hits or so, and can take a ton of damage. However, this is not their only purpose. Good survivor teams will be huddled together to protect them from you. The tank can EASILY divide a pack of survivors making them easy pickings for your allies. Simply maneuver to try and separate them, and let your friends attack. If you can land a hit, focus on downing that person. Stay close to them while your allies work the enemy. This way, they can't sneak around and revive their ally and get away.

5. Tankwalling
This is an alternative to the above. A hunter or smoker is attacking a survivor, so the tank positions himself in between the trapped survivor and his would-be rescuers. They will not get close enough to free him, so chuck concrete when an opportunity presents itself. Once that survivor is incapped, rush to help the next infected get a down.

6. Multipounce
Occasionally you'll have 3 hunters spawned. You're limited to 1 smoker and 1 boomer, but I suppose Hunters can two or 3. Multipouncing is gathering a group of hunters to lay in ambush, then when the survivors come through jumping them at once. If your fourth can distract the only one not getting pounced (Blinded by boomer) then you will do heavy damage.

7. Overhang Pulls
Grabbing people with the Smoker and pulling them over a ledge, and sometimes you get a "Fall down" which they're hanging on to the edge of a fall. A good spot is right before the rope bridge in Blood Harvest 1. Grab them from across the gorge (You'll have to jump the wire-fence to get in position) and grab them if they wander too close. You'll pull them down and they'll effectively be incapped. Have hunters jump whoever goes to help, and you'll have a high-damage assault and huge delay.

8. Save the Boom
This involves having used your bile attack, covered some survivors, and you didn't get killed in the process. Take your first opportunity to run ahead in the level, where the survivors need to go next. This way, your bile attack recharges, and you can use it again. Of course, if the survivors haven't progressed at all since your previous attack, feel free to move back and set up another ambush. Chances are you won't get to do this more than once, but generally being annoying as possible, dragging a special infected mob in to attack as well as all the pre-spawned infected means they keep getting slowed, are blinded for a good deal of time, and most of all: bait for your allies.

9. Concrete Rain
Some stay dry while others... wait, not what we're talking about. This, of course, will involve the Tank. Should you get him a fair distance away on an open level (Huge disadvantage for a tank) you should take this opportunity to rain concrete on survivors. Aim high, in their general direction, and hope you score a few hits so your frustration meter doesn't empty. For enhanced teamwork, an ally that has yet to spawn can stand near where survivors are and tell you whether your shots are short or far, so you can adjust and hopefully deal some good damage while being relatively immune to return fire. In an open level, attacking survivors is suicide. They can run circles around you and can fill you with fire from all angles. Closing to melee range is only an option indoors. Of course, if you see several purple outlines, your boomer friend took advantage of the distraction you provided, now you must do the same. It takes about 6 seconds for the bile to start clearing from their vision, and during that time are not very likely to see you in their face until its too late. They'll feel their controller rumbling, see their screen shaking, but won't know you're nailing them until its too late. Also, as a rule: If a survivor has a hunter on them, DO NOT ATTACK. Hit the others. The survivor with the hunter will be dying shortly.

Thats it for now. Should some more ideas get thrown my way I'll type them in a following post. Editing posts on Blogger makes things really frickin goofy.

Left 4 Dead survival guide

Left 4 Dead: The Six Survivor Commandments

Commandment I: Stick Together
There is NOTHING more important than sticking together. If you're in close quarters to your allies hunters will do minimal damage, smokers will have a very tough time separating the whole group, and individual infected won't be able to do much harm either. Always stay close and watch each others back. The less damage you take, the less you'll need to stop and heal, and the more health bonus you'll keep at the end of the level.

Commandment II: Move Fast
Players on the Infected team take 25 seconds or so to respawn. Deathscreen+20 second timer. Sometimes its even more. So, as a rule, you need to take advantage of ANY gap that is presented by killing enemy players by making as much progress as possible. The farther you get in the level, the higher your average completion goes up and the more points you get should you get killed. It ALSO means that they don't get to spawn nearly as often. The less often they spawn, the more health you will be able to retain by virtue of not having been attacked.

Commandment III: Kill the Special Infected
Rarely are common infected more than a nuisance, but the special infected can kill you quickly. Especially Hunters. If your ally has been pounced, NEVER melee the hunter off then ignore it. Make sure its dead. Smokers can be trouble since they can attack from a roof, but free your ally then do as much damage as possible. Boomers are the exception to this. Always make sure that your allies are far away from the boomer when you kill him, as to minimize the bile coverage. A respawning infected is an infected that is not doing you damage.

Commandment IV: Protect Weakened Players
Low health players move slower than players in the green. They won't be able to keep up. So stick with them until you can get them healed. Incapped survivors can only use their pistols, and have a very large scatter pattern and slowed fire rate. They need protection more than anyone. When a survivor is healing themselves, healing an ally, or reviving a teammate, EVERYONE should fall in to protect them until the situation improves and the march can resume. Never leave a survivor alone that is currently incapable of defending themselves. The whole team must protect each other to make it to the goal with maximum score.

Commandment V: Communicate
Call out important things. You see a boomer? Say where he is. Hunter pounce you? Announce it. Not everyone will know about every event in a round of Left 4 Dead, and a hunter pounce that has gone unnoticed will result in an incap. Hunters do heavy damage so they need to be removed as fast as possible. Smokers can be a huge pain if not dealt with, dragging you down to an area you were at previously while doing light damage. If left alone, they are just as capable of killing you as anything else in the game. If you get incapped, call it out. Not everyone has their eyes on the whole screen. Make sure everyone knows what is going on, and you'll have a much better chance at succeeding.

Commandment VI: Skip healthpacks you don't need.
It may seem odd, but this is very important. It takes time to heal yourself, and when you find a non-safehouse healthpack the temptation to use the one you're holding to grab it might seem too great. However, this slows down the group immensely, and can be unbeneficial to do this. If your whole team has health above 80 and you have full health packs, skip it and keep moving. Any time you're holding still, you're giving the special infected more opportunities to spawn. Which can mean more damage to you, and probably enough to totally negate the healthpack you stopped for.

Advanced Techniques and Tips

Section I: Blinded
When a boomer hits you with its puke attack (or gets killed in close proximity to you) you'll be covered in bile and your ability to see will be greatly hindered temporarily. During this time, you're especially vulnerable. There are some useful strategies for dealing with this predicament. First: If possible, back into a corner. This will alow your melees to push away the majority of infected coming your way. Also, when your allies need help (Hunter pounce, other infected) try to get close while continually meleeing. Infected can't attack when they're reeling from a survivor melee. If they have a hunter on them, trying to obey Commandment III: Kill the Special Infected can be rather difficult. You will see your ally's name: Aim below it and start firing in between melees. This should at least remove the hunter from your ally and in the process stop the rapid damage they deal.

Section II: Smokers
Smokers can be a real pain in the ass. They grab your allies from rooftops where it is difficult to fire back upon them reliably, and meanwhile your ally is taking damage AND unable to defend themselves. So making sure they die is the second objective since their tongue takes 15 seconds to recharge. In these situations its best to free your ally immediately, then try to advance to a point where the smoker's position does not continue to help him. In the event this isn't possible, send a person to free the helpless survivor adn have the other two fire upon the Smoker. Hopefully you'll kill him, but even if you don't you'll heavily damage him so when he tries to attack again he will fall.

Section III: Witches
Witches are extremely dangerous if startled, otherwise they will not actively attack you. They are somewhat difficult to kill, but can be one-shotted by "cr0wning" her with a shotgun. You close to point blank and shoot her in her face, about where her head meets her neck. This should result in a one shot kill, removing the danger. The enemy is known for attempting to force you next to her, which wakes her up and sets her off, by either dragging you over with the Smoker, or attempting to blind you so that you stumble upon her. They sometimes sit behind her trying to force you to fire at them, which could accidentally hit the witch sending her into an auto-incap frenzy. In the event a witch downs someone, KILL HER IMMEDIATELY. She will let out a scream and immediately shred your downed teammate until they are dead, or she is. This is a very fast attack. If possible, the witch should be avoided. If she is very far off the beaten path, you can cruise right on by with almost no risk. First, make sure the enemy smoker has been killed in the past 10 seconds, then have everyone rush by. If she is in the way, then you'll need to send your most reliable person ahead to try and cr0wn her. In the event nobody is particularly skilled at cr0wning, send the person with the least amount of health.

Remember: The enemy will really push their attack (if they're smart) while there is a live witch just waiting to be alerted to you. Be very very wary of ALL infected around a witch while your person moves forward to cr0wn. Do your best to not fire upon the witch or get too close, as this can disrupt the crowning process. Use a range weapon (your pistol if lacking) to pick off common infected.

Section IV: Tanks
Tanks are very tough, and can easily incapacitate two survivors in the BEST scenario. Your best bet is to attempt to catch them on fire, which steadily depletes their health and makes killing them take much less time. Keep your distance and fill it with as much lead as possible. If it corners a survivor, put as much fire in his back as you can. Most likely he'll pound the individual until that person is incapped, and then move on. When their health goes red, start backing away while keeping the fire going. Keep the fire going: You're likely to suffer at least one casualty. Level 1 weapons (Shotgun and Uzi, single pistol) make it very very tough to take down a tank. Keeping a molotov handy will drain its health, but you need to overall keep together as a group to put the maximum hurt on the tank. If it is still alive, it will find and kill you. A tank is all it takes to end most survivor runs. Focus fire and kill it!

Section V: Random hints and tips
Subtitles: If you play with subtitles on, you will get cues that you might not normally catch. If you play with a high-quality sound system or headset, you can probably get away with not turning them on. They will alert you to a wide variety of events in game. When a special infected is around, explosions, special infected pain, witch/tank noise, and the like. Its a personal preference, but if you need to keep the sound way down, consider flipping this option on for the same ques the audio normally gives.

Battle of Wits, Call of Duty style

As many of the people who know me know, I'm really into the First Person Shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare. The group of people I roll with work together well, and we win a large percentage of the games we enter with at least 4 people, out of 6 possible in Team Deathmatch. TDM (for short) is first to 75 total kills for your team, so a smart strategy would involve killing the enemy as often as possible, while dying the least possible. How do we go about this? Well, long story short: most of us camp.

What is camping? In most First Person shooters, its defined as staying in a small area and letting the enemy come to you. A lot of gamers look down on this practice as it is often described as "cheating" or "not playing the game like it was intended" or, at worst, it means you 'suck' at the game being played. This is not always true. Sure, some newer players will stay in a small area while they adjust to the game's combat system, but will venture out and work on "run and gunning," the polar opposite of camping. Camping takes skill, and for teams, a bit of coordination so everyone isn't camping one little spot. For one, camping in the open is certain death. Finding good cover that you can shoot from behind is key. Another component is finding a high-traffic area of the map with said cover, so you have plenty of targets to shoot at. Third, having a teammate covering your flank keeps your sights on the target, so you don't get shot in the side of the head.

We take the tactical approach to camping. While its still essentially sitting in one spot, waiting for the enemy to come to us, we take it a step further. Not only do we coordinate advantageous positions and spread ourselves out to cover more area, we signal the approach of enemies to our allies so they are properly prepared for their attack. There isn't an "I" in team, but there is a "me," as in "Warn me if someone is coming." We know where we need to be. We know where the enemy will be coming from. We are prepared for it and that gives us a distinct advantage.

How do we do it? Its pretty straightforward. I'll use Crossfire as an example. When we spawn as the Marines (our preferred team across multiple maps) we take up position on the three story building that leads up to the upper part of the street. One of us covers that doorway (usually Yelzan.) Another of us crosses the street and takes up position covering the doorway on the left. This allows snipers in the 2 story building along marine spawn to cover the entire length of the street, while also covering approaches to their allies that are providing the snipers their safety. The following image should show this better than my brief explanation. Also, I can't find where I found this so just know that the original, unaltered image is not my own.




























As you can see, it would be very difficult for an enemy to break through to flank us effectively. This is the core of our strategy: We control the approaches the enemies can take to our position so we're never caught off guard, and we're never flanked. These zones effectively funnel enemies to where they are easily killed. In this scenario, the enemies have to either: Charge forward through the covered areas in the buildings, and meet their demise from people prepared for their arrival, or charge up the street where they are easy pickings for the snipers.

Of course, our strategies have their holes. In the setup above, if we follow it strictly, leaves gaping holes in our defenses if even one of the non-snipers fall. As such, we usually designate one player to rove about and fill in the gaps in our line. If the enemy pushes exceptionally hard through an area, another player will switch to "swing" mode and go to assist the defense while a lone sniper keeps the street clear.

Another problem is if we don't get the marine spawn. We're stuck having to charge the hill, so to speak, and attempt to de-throne those with our spawn. Usually, this is not a problem since the other team is more than willing to meet the charge with their own, and we can work our way around them and take their spawn. But what happens when the enemy team takes our strategy? We usually cannot handle the circumstance, and if we win we narrowly scrape out the victory. Luckily, a few of us are more than capable 'run and gunners' so we can usually take the enemy down a peg while our more immobile players get into position.

Which brings me to another weakness, which is some of us are more skilled in controlling the map, and you can't do that during the attempt to gain control so it saddles the players with the quicker reactions with more load. One of us has to deal with a sub-par connection so he's constantly having to deal with shots not counting, which reduces his run-and gun efficiency. But sometimes, the other players are just BETTER, and we need a strat that isn't dependent on the ideal starting situation, so that we can maintaine the "tactical" edge.

My suggestion is if we get the bad (OpFor/Spetznaz) spawn, we do a bit of waiting and look at the advantageous areas of that side of the map, and wait for the enemies approach instead of charging and attempting to force the spawn flip. We engage them on our side, and send a few stealth players over to get behind them once the enemy advances.

I'll go into more depth concerning this idea in the next installment of "Battle of Wits, Call of Duty style!" See you next time.