I'm writing this guide not only because I have a lot of experience playing Left 4 Dead 2, but also because I'm constantly playing with people who don't. It's not a lack of skill that bothers me; we were all noobs once. It took a lot of wasted time to get me to 1000 1200 1400+ hours. The problem is most new players have simply fired up the game, jumped online straight away and proceeded to bug the hell out of more experienced players with their lack of ability.

In a heavily co-op oriented game like Left 4 Dead, one crappy teammate can throw a whole game into jeopardy. So I'm writing this as a quick guide to some basic Left 4 Dead etiquette that will make your presence more tolerable to veteran players.

Having said all that, I've played with more people than I care to count who have double or triple my hours and still play like someone who bought it yesterday. I'd encourage them to read this guide too, because having a thousand hours is no excuse to play like you're a one man army. A living teammate with 5 hours is more valuable than a dead teammate with 5 hundred.

There are plenty of guides to teach you about what a Boomer is and how not to stand in front of Witches (apparently I already wrote one of those, see the section on Witches), but I'm not going to cover any of that. I'm not trying to teach new players stupid crap like how to shoot their weapon and how to use WASD to move. This guide will instead cover the small tips and tricks that players normally learn only after hours and hours of experience.

TL;DR: I'm here to teach you how to not play like a sack of wet fish, so let's get started...

Check up on your teammates every few seconds. Look around. Observe where they are in the map, how tightly bunched or spread out you all are. If you're in the middle of a horde, keep alert to make sure no one is getting swamped or pulled away by a Smoker or Jockey.


I can't stress enough how irritating it is to get pounced by a Hunter 3 feet away from another team mate, only to watch your health dwindle to 0 because they were looking in another direction, or sitting there having a cheeky wank.

If you only watch out for yourself, you're only as good as your own reflexes. When that Charger or Hunter spawns out of nowhere and is nanoseconds from wrecking your ♥♥♥♥, then your reflexes aren't good enough. Oh, and it seems you ran 3 miles ahead of everyone else because you weren't paying attention. Bummer.

If everyone watches out for everyone else, then each teammate has 3 pairs of eyes watching their backs. That Smoker isn't going to be able to keep you tethered for long when he's got 3 rifles aiming for his head.

Speaking of being alert, here comes my second point...


Make sure you're always listening to what's happening around you. Whenever special infected spawn, the game plays a musical cue. If you don't know them, take a gander at this video...


The music in Left 4 Dead 2 plays a big part of the atmosphere and gameplay. Musical cues will tell you when a special infected spawns, what kind of infected it is, when a horde is incoming, when a tank or witch is nearby and even when a teammate has been attacked by a Special Infected that you may not have noticed.

Another tip to improve game feedback is enabling 'Full Subtitles' in the Audio options menu. These subtitles will show up on screen whenever a Special Infected is in hearing range, and is especially useful for locating Tanks before they've had a chance to notice you.

This doesn't mean you have to be a goody two shoes and heal teammates all the time. Rather, if you're on 1 HP and you see a team mate get hunted, you drop your health pack, whip out your gun and save them. If you take the time to heal and they get incapacitated, then it's as though nothing happened at all; your team still has one badly wounded person weighing them down. If you can save a teammate even a small amount of HP, that's health that they can later use defending you as you take a well deserved heal break.

Speaking of defending team mates...


I'll say that again,


Having an incapacitated team mate die as I'm trying to revive them because I was being swarmed with zombies makes baby Jesus cry. Don't be a selfish team member, provide adequate cover to others whenever they need it.

Also,


Unless the incapped player is on the verge of death, they're hardy enough to survive while you take a quick detour to detach a Jockey from a team member. Two incapacitated team mates is worse than one.

I would highly recommend playing each story through once or twice on Single Player (read: not Campaign mode) so you can get the lay of the land for each map. As hilarious as it is watching a new player get incapacitated from across the map because they got lost on the woods while the rest of the team is cosy in the saferoom, it's not very fun for the dead player.
Conversely, if someone runs 5 miles ahead of everyone else and gets killed somehow, it's their own damn fault.

Shed no tears for the running man, for he is quick of step but not of wit.
- Deci-kins

Deep.
Now, if you would be so kind, I would like a drumroll for this next tip because it's one of particular significance...


Don't whine and moan about not being able to keep up when your 3 compadres are sticking together like glue and you're wasting time scavenging through every possible room for that one adrenaline shot. "You should have waited for me because it's a co-op game" isn't an excuse when everyone is cooperating except you.

This also means that you don't get to Superman your way to the finish line, even when your team mates are playing like molasses. If you get attacked 10 miles ahead of your team, don't complain about how slow they are. You're prefectly capable of blasting through the map while playing with your own friends. If you have any.

The difficulty setting can be seen when you press TAB (default) to bring up the team HUD.
When you want to join an online campaign, pressing "Quick Play" will usually automatically connect you to a Normal difficulty server. Sometimes this glitches out however, and you will be connected to a server of higher difficulty.

I don't care how good a player you think you are, if you only have the barest grasp of the game mechanics and you show up in an Advanced or Expert map, you will suck. Hard. There is nothing worse than a high-stakes Expert game being upended by a new player who has accidentally been dropped into the fray.

Be smart, if you find yourself in an Expert or Advanced server and you first opened the game 2 hours ago, do the courteous thing and leave. Only after you know all the ins and outs of a map, and you can actively and constantly look out for team members would I advise playing anything higher than Normal.

Note that this rule only really applies when you've joined a random Advanced/Expert game unintentionally. If you and 3 of your buddies want to get a feel for having your orifices violated, by all means.



Maybe you've completed all the campaigns with flying colours. Maybe single player just doesn't cut it any more. Maybe you think you're good enough to tackle versus mode. You're not.

Versus mode is a whole different ballpark. It'll chew you up and spit you out. Special Infected are no longer controlled by AI... they're controlled by other players, and no AI in the world comes close to the cunning that can be displayed by a real live person. With a good team, I can breeze through an Expert campaign with no problem, but even the most carefully selected team members can be laid to waste in Versus, espeically if the opposing team is equally good. Or better.
Which will happen.
A lot.

If you REALLY, TRULY, ABSOLUTELY want to play Versus, play it in a friends only server first with some steam friends. If none of your friends own Left 4 Dead 2, tell them to stop being cheap ♥♥♥♥♥ and buy it. Then link them to this guide too, so they can also play like champs and not chumps.

Apparently there are some players out there who are still unaware that shooting your team mates in Normal, Advanced and Expert modes cause increasing amounts of damage. A single shot in Expert will wipe off a gigantic chunk of survivor HP, and a single shot in Normal will wipe of a huge chunk of my patience.

Of course, nobody's perfect. There's no way to eliminate friendly fire forever, because we're only human. Just follow these handy dandy tips and we can help reduce friendly fire wherever possible:

- Don't run across a team mates line of fire if you can avoid it. If you have to, go when they're reloading. If not, wait until they move. Laser sights help a lot in this regard so you can see where they're aiming.

- If you're at the front of the group and you need to lay down some fire, CROUCH. This means other players can get in some shots over your head without having to aim around it.

- Don't block bottlenecks. Doorways, hallways, windows, all these places have a very limited amount of space to pass through. Don't sit there shooting everything in sight when it's not necessary to restrict forward movement. Progress is good.

- If you're sick of crouching, getting up without warning is an excellent way to get shot by the team mate standing behind you. Move to a better location before standing.

- Although your zombie killing stats are oh so important, you don't need to shoot the zombie three inches in front of me when I'm clearly about to accomplish the same thing. Allowing other players some leeway when fighting zombies becomes more important when you enter Advanced and Expert mode. Accidentally wiping off 60 HP from a team member because you couldn't stand to forego a few kills is not cool.

- If you absolutely have to use a chainsaw, stay at the front of the group at all times, and try to keep moving forward. No one wants to be stuck behind you for 5 minutes while you stand there being a chainsaw Rambo.

Don't be that guy.
Unless you're in an easy server, just don't use them. In fact, don't use one ever. Period.
If you need the achievement for blowing up a bunch of zombies, get the achievement and then leave the grenade launcher far, far behind.

It's slow to reload, it can't be restocked with ammo like other weapons and it's comepletely overkill in a game that is typically played in enclosed spaces where the only time you'll need to take out big groups of zombies is when they're too damn close to you, and you'll just end up dealing splash damage to yourself and your team mates anyway.

I don't care how much fun it is to use, when you're shooting grenades at me every 5 seconds and slowly killing me with splash damage, I'm not a happy camper. Does that make me a killjoy? Am I a hater of fun? Probably. If you wanna use them, go play Call of Doody or something.

Here's the skinny on throwable technique...

- Bile jars will not distract zombies if a team member has been boomed on, use a pipe bomb in this situation.

- Setting a team mate on fire will make me come to your house and shove my boot up your ass. I don't care how many zombies they're surrounded by, you roll up your sleeves and take them out the hard way using guns or melee weapons.

- Setting a team mate on fire in Advanced or Expert difficulty makes baby Jesus cry. And when baby Jesus is crying, thats when you know you're going straight to gaming hell.

- You do not need to throw a pipe bomb or bile jar after a team mate has just used a pipe bomb or bile jar and it's still on the screen. Overkill. Use your guns/melee weapon instead.

General health pack etiquette is thus:

- It's generally favourable to take pills or adrenaline if you're on low health, healing should only be done if you really need to, i.e. before tank encounters/events with intense hordes.

- If you enter the saferoom with a healthpack you have previously acquired, you may use it and take another from the medical box.

- If you do not have a health pack upon entering the saferoom, you may take one from the medical cabinet and use it, but you may not take another unless a teammate does not require one.

- Be kind, heal the person who is on the least health first if you happen to stumble upon a health pack in the wilderness.

I'm going to preface this by saying that this tip is really just personal preference.

I typically don't bother with special ammunition (Incendiary and Explosive rounds).

Incendiary ammo doesn't kill zombies outright, which means things quickly turn into a cluster♥♥♥♥ of fire and flailing zombie limbs. If I can kill a zombie with 3 shots from a rifle, why bother complicating things by setting them on fire and having them stumble around for the next 20 seconds? Plus, although it will light Special Infected on fire, this effect is not permanent, and there is a large chance that the fire will burn out before killing them.

I also dislike Explosive rounds as they actually do splash damage if you're too close to an object that's being shot. Although explosive rounds will stun Special Infected and make them stumble, I just find it easier to kill them.

I suggest you read ALL of these tips and memorise them. They are things that the game will not teach you and you typically have to find out for yourself.

- Shoving hunters, smokers and jockeys with right click will dislodge them from team mates and stop them from dealing damage, but you don't have to go hunting for that Smoker to save a team member: shoving a survivor on the end of a Smoker tongue (or shooting the tongue itself) will also free them.

Don't spend 30 seconds trying to shoot a Smoker in a remote location when you could save a lot of your teammates health by simply shoving them. Same goes for Jockeyed or Hunted teammates

- You can't shove Chargers off of their victims. Once a player has been charged, the only way to free them is to kill the Charger.

- Melee weapons are superior to pistols for getting yourself out of sticky situations being surrounded by big hordes of zombies. Don't forget to shove them out of the way with right click too.

- If a Tank is on fire, it does not need to be set on fire again. Using a second molotov on an already blazing Tank is a waste. Even assuming that the Tank will stand still in the flames for long enough to cause serious damage, the same could easily be achieved by using your weapon. Save that second molotov for another time.

- Throwing pipe bombs/bile jars does not distract the Tank.

- Throwing bile jars AT the Tank is generally inadvisable*, as it will spawn a horde that will often outlive the Tank or the bile effect and leave you stuck with a bunch more zombies to kill. Plus, the Tank AI is barely affected by the bile and will still target you normally. This is more of a personal preference, some people will bile the Tank simply to clear an area of zombies and deal some extra damage.

*If you can manage to hit a Tank with a bile jar before it's had a chance to notice you, it will not be startled by the bile and will pummeled to death by the ensuing zombie horde without starting the Tank event. (Thanks to HK-47 for this tip)

- If you need to take a break for a moment in Campaign mode, press ESC (Default) to enter the menu, then click "Take a break" and your player will be taken over by AI until you return. The amount of people who leave their player standing around gawping for 10 minutes while they answer the phone or have a cheeky wank is ridiculous. (Note that this can't be done in Versus, or if you're the only player in a server.)

- Unless you're running the latest gaming technology and have lightning fast internet, Local Hosting a server for general play is not a good idea. If you can't find a Best Available server right away, try again in 30 seconds, or consider finding a server that's already running the map you want to play. Spending 20 minutes joining a Local Hosted server to be greeted with a 999 ping is not fun.
(This is mainly for my Australian bros, and others who have less than impressive internet speeds (I'm looking at you, New Zealanders))

A few people have asked about Witches. Since teaching how to deal with witches is more of a gameplay tutorial and less a stack of pro-tips, I wrote a seperate guide for it:

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=323011095
I know there's probably already a million bajillion guides on how to deal with Witches, so I tried to make mine as short yet informative as possible. It also contains video footage to help with the learning process. Plus it's funny! *

* May not actually be funny. Discretion advised.

That's it for now.

If you know anyone who's just joined the world of Left 4 Dead and could use some protips, send them this link so they can brush up on their skills. Please share it around as much as possible too, so we can create a strong skill base for new and old players alike.

Thanks to JayBee for spell-checking, editing and generally being awesome.

Sorry, but I don't accept random friend requests. Nothing personal, but my friends list is reserved for just that: friends.

Don't forget kids: is only game, why you heff to be mad?