Left 4 Dead 2 Welcome and Frequently Asked Questions for Newcomers and Existing players: Authors: Wrathfulsin | Vote4Pedro2Day | Vrtra Theory | Dohnut Man Trav

- The basic premise for Left 4 Dead 2 and you!

So like many gamers you either bought this game because you enjoyed the first one, or enjoy the concept of a good old fashioned zombie apocalypse beat down gaming session. Well you came to the right game for this. L4D2 is a 8 player multiplayer game when played online, or a 4 person player game when organized through a group or pick up party, or even a single player game where 3 AI controlled bots support you through the "green flu outbreak".

The main understanding whether playing with your AI botfriends or with actual people is that this game is about team work. If you are someone who's played a Rambo/ Wannabe Chuck Norris mentality, this game is not for you and you need to relearn the concepts behind team dynamics to enjoy this game in a multiplayer setting.

- Pros/Cons and Basic concepts for single player:

+ Bots have amazing accuracy, often able to snipe with assault rifles and pistols at times with pinpoint precision.
+ Bots will never take point or lead in a campaign, they will always stick behind you or to your sides.
+ The only reason friendly fire happens with bots is because you crossed in front of their line of sight.
+ Bots are generous with healings and giving you their pills in the event your health goes orange
- Bots do not always respond quickly to an incapp'd team mate
- Bots do not utilize propane/fuel tanks/oxygen tanks/fireworks at all. You will need to set them up and detonate them on your own.
- I have yet to see a bot use a molotov/boomer bile/pipebomb at all. Do not expect them carry these or use them ever
- Bots do not use Defibrillators ever. If you die and only you die in single player, the campaign will restart regardless of their health.

A few basics and tips for Realism on Expert difficulty

Ah, yes the two most coveted achievements in Left 4 Dead 2. The Real Deal and Still Something to Prove. The challenge of beating a campaign on Expert with Realism mode is quite daunting but can be done. Surviving every campaign on Expert, even veterans of L4D1 will find have difficulty with the new SI, gauntlet events, Swamp fever's two tanks at the same time finale, The Parish's Bridge finale, and the endless horde of the dead between you and the last safe room in Dark Carnival. I have tips for those who dare attempt it (I'm really damn bored at work so please excuse my dorkyness)

First things first what weapons to use. While many people love the thrill of melee weapons and hacking the infected to pieces I would not recommend using them on expert and going with the most prized weapon for Expert, the Desert Eagle, able to kill the infected in one shot even on realism expert and can pierce quite a few bodies meaning sometimes, one shot 5 kills. (Very valuable in Realism as the zombies much stronger health-wise, unless you are a master of the art of head shooting if so then use what ever you like) The primary weapons I recommend are shotguns, able to crown the Witch (Very easy to do with the chrome shotgun and auto shotguns)
Realism does all of the following: outlines are mostly gone (this includes survivor outlines and item outlines unless you are very close to that item) No re-spawning closets (You do however respawn in safe rooms) and common infected can take more body damage. (HEAD SHOTS)

To start of with Expert the infected do 20 damage per punch and 10 damage if they attack from behind. Most SI do 40 per slash (very deadly) One punch from a tank is an incap 2 more and you die. Witch kills in one slash. The Tank has 8000 health.

Surviving is tough enough but throw in gauntlet events and you've got a whole new kind of pain but there a few ways of tackling these events. My usual tactic is to fight the horde in a certain area that funnels the infected until there is a slight break in the action. (10-15 seconds of no zombies after fighting so many hordes) Keep moving during the break and when you see the first sign of zombies again throw a pipe bomb or a boomer bile jar.(boomer bile is much more effective but pipe bombs will work too) Throw those items as far away from YOU as possible that will give you more time to run. Another, more dangerous way is not wait to throw the boomer bile or pipe bomb and just run and throw it when see the zombies this works but requires more throwable items like pipe bombs and bile bombs then the former tactic.

Dealing with an Expert Tank flat out sucks but one thing I can say that may help is do not loose sight of him and keep moving. I also do not recommend lighting him on fire as it makes him faster and one punch can incap you so a faster tank is not good. Try getting him to climb up something or forcing him to crouch this will give you more time to shoot him while hes climbing or crouching. Never get yourself cornered into a wall this will get you killed faster then you can say "Hug a Witch". Open spaces are the best place to fight a Tank.

Onto the final tips I have for Expert, the Finales, finales are many times the worst part of a campaign as you have to fight of 2 very large hordes and 2 tanks (3 on Swamp Fever) and then a giant horde that will only stop once you all get into the rescue vehicle oh and another Tank. The main thing to is find a spot were you can funnel and or limit the directions the infected can come from ( This is very easy to do with players) or find an open area where you can back up behind something and fight the hordes the good thing about this with bots is they will snipe most of the SI so they are won't be a factor (Nothing worse then getting puked on by a boomer during a tank attack) This tactic works well for bots and players alike.

So, after you've held out the first horde get ready for a tank, if you're fast enough you can even refill on ammo as there is some downtime before a Tank arrives. (but I suggest just using magnums for the hordes and saving the primary weapons for the tank) After that Tank is dead get back to where you held off the first horde off, rinse and repeat. Now comes the rescue vehicle, I highly suggest throwing any pipe bombs, bile bombs and etc if you haven't used them yet now is the time to do so.

Hopefully that helped also don't be afraid to leave bots behind so you can get to a safe room or rescue vehicle you getting rescue is more important then saving them unless they are player and need to make it as well or you can just say better luck next time.

- Basic concepts for multiplayer:

There are so many concepts I will cover elsewhere in this topic because this is a multiplayer game, I will discuss the main points here first.

- Communication: It is imperative you do something to send a message to your team mates, you will play with folks who do not have mics, speak foreign languages or just choose to sing and dance on their mics instead. Without first resorting to a kick option, consider the alternatives to try and get someone to pay attention and work with you and not against you in a team. Some methods of no mic communication include shooting in a direction they wish to go, clicking the left analog stick down to make their character speak a preset phrase, jump up and down to get everyone's attention so they can do something in particular.

- Sticking Together: This is a team game where "Rambo" went the way of the dinosaur long ago. The Horde will swarm you and slow you down on your own allowing a Special Infected to take you down or do serious damage instead. Always knowing where your team mates is a big step towards winning a stage in the game. Even if you don't have a mic or aren't able to openly communicate, stick with your team to ensure you can save them and they save you. In versus games and other Special Infected (SI) versus Survivors, it is extremely common that a SI will retreat to let their ability recharge knowingly drawing someone who wants to kill them after them. This is a seperation tactic which works better than people think.

- Heal your team mates when needed, not just because. If someone says "I am seeing black and white" it means they have gone several times and been brought back from incap status. If they go down again however without a first aid kit healing, they will die flat out. If you are holding onto pills and you are in orange or green, yet someone is in red and has no health options, equip the pills or shot of adrenaline and walk to them and squeeze the left trigger to give them the item. Being a team mate looking out for someone's health is crucial to making it as a team to the safe room alive.

- To shoot or to melee: So if you see a SI take over a team mate like a charger is pounding them or a jockey is riding them.. What should you do? It depends on the scenario honestly, you could shove the SI or survivor with a left trigger pull while a weapon is equipped to knock the SI off and free the survivor.. Or you could just unload a clip in their direction and hit the SI and the survivor doing damage to both. On Easy and Normal Difficulty there is either no team shooting damage or minimal at best where it can be intentionally neglected. Above those two however, team mate damage isn't something to ignore or practice and instead.

- Also know your SI and what you can get away with, Chargers need to be killed via gunshot or explosion or melee attacks (an actual weapon not a left trigger squeezing). Hunters can be left triggered, shot, or hit with a melee to knock them off or kill them. Jockeys are the same rule as a Hunter, Smokers can be shoved with LT, shot, or LT at the survivor to break the tongue grasping.

- Boomers are not screaming "SHOOT ME SHOOT ME" from the point of a survivor at close proximity, use the LT on a Boomer and then quickly back up and shoot them. Boomers are relatively harmless SIs who while can claw at you are slow to manuver. Don't detonate them around a team mate, always use a left trigger to knock them away then shoot them.

Spitters do not entangle or tie down a player so no real worries about engaging them. However a common tactic of Spitters is to commit suicide over gas tanks in Scavenge when they are out of spit. Their body will drop acid onto a tank and cause it to ignite and lose the tank, or to die over a survivor and garner 18-22ish in damage hits because of their dead body acid pool.

On hunters and chargers: both hunters and chargers do 10 damage/second (hunters do 5 every 0.5 seconds, chargers do 15 every 1.5 seconds). However, hunters boost to 20 damage/second on incapacitated survivors. That means hunters can kill an incapacitated survivor in 12.5 seconds, whereas a charger takes the full 25 seconds. Keep that in mind when picking targets.

Jockeys are forced to take the "full" (very long) recharge time after incapacitating a survivor, even if they hardly rode them at all. Plus, they only do 3 damage/second while riding, but they'll melee swipe for 4 damage. So if you're attacking a survivor with very low health (perhaps less than ten), I would attempt to swipe them 2-3 times instead of riding them. This will allow you to immediately jump on another survivor, or lay a trap for the first survivor that arrives to help.

Another note on Jockeys: you also don't get penalized with the full recharge time for hanging someone off a ledge. Whenever given the choice between incapacitating and hanging, do the hang.

Jockey again: unlike hunters, a jockey doesn't have a "pouncing" state. If you simply fall off a tall cliff and happen to land on a survivor's head, you will start riding him. Sometimes it is easier to simply jump off a building and land on a stationary survivor's head than it is to get next to him and "pounce" him.

Infected Cooldowns
Each of the Special infected have a cool down for their special abilities some longer then others.

The Boomer has to wait 30 seconds before being able to vomit on the Survivors again.
The Hunter does not have a cool down on Pouncing, but it must wait 2 seconds before being able to leap if it stood up.
The Smoker's tongue takes 15 seconds to rewind if it breaks or is removed from a Survivor. In Versus, it takes 5 seconds to rewind if it misses.
The Tank takes 3 seconds to swing his arm again after punching and to rip the ground to throw concrete. The Tank has no punch delay after a rock throw, meaning it can hit a Survivor twice.
The Charger has to wait 12 seconds to be able to charge again. Also, this recharge time is still active if a Charger is pummeling a Survivor.
The Spitter has to wait 20 seconds before she is able to spit again.
The Jockey has to wait 1 second after he jumps if he misses a Survivor, 7 seconds if he is knocked off of a Survivor, and 30 seconds if he incapacitates a Survivor.

- Achievements that many ask for help on or need clarity on:
Most achievements are self explaining and easy to understand, however a few are causing common concerns:

Tank Burger: This achievement is done by killing a tank with ONLY melee weapons. This means that NOT ONE SINGLE BULLET OR EXPLOSION HITS THE TANK. If it does then the chance to earn the achievement is null and void. The best method for this is to set up a private game with a friend on EXPERT, whether split screen or through XBL, while in the starting point of the game kill your two bots so only you and your friend are alive. Once they are dead (do not ever release them from a closet when you see them later on) go into the game's menu and cast a vote to change the difficulty back to EASY. When you hear a tank eventually spawn, start whacking or chainsawing the tank until it dies. Once it dies you should see the achievement pop on your screen

Heartwarmer: In a versus mode, take a defibrillator and go into the saferoom then leave it to revive a dead team mate. If it does not unlock and did follow those steps, there is potentially a glitch that you need to clear your Xbox Cache and retry it. Be warned that clearing the cache can affect some games like Gears of War 2 that keeps the ranking system saved in your cache.

Guardin' Gnome: Oh good ole Gnome Chompski in Dark Carnival, first in the 2nd stage (you can start Dark Carnival on this stage if you like) you will see a game booth shortly after leaving the saferoom. You need to activate the game and play it, take note of the scoring system to the game booth's left. If you hit the right score by the end of the game's created round, the gnome is your prize. YOU MUST CARRY THE GNOME THE REST OF THE DARK CARNIVAL GAME LEVEL. Please re read that, if you drop him you must pick him up, he must be in the safe room with you when the final survivor enters and closes the door. You can drop him and kill zombies and SI but make sure to take note of where he went when you dropped him and pick him back up immediately. Once the finale happens, you need to carry him into the helicopter and hold on tight to him, if you get knocked out of the copter or incapped in the copter you might not get the achievement.

CL0WND: Seems easy for some but hard for others. In Dark Carnival the special common uncommon infected is clowns. You will hear their Bobo horn squeek in advance knowing they are around. When you see one you can left trigger them, if hit head on usually with a left trigger shove you will hear their clown nose honk. Most clowns if not killed or shot can take 4 LTs before they die. Honk 10 noses (basically 3 clowns if played right) and the achievement is yours.

The Real Deal: Expert + Realism mode = You will die many many many times. Ignore those who talk about "boosting" this and instead do it the right way for the honest feeling of earning a hardcore achievement. Mind you while in realism mode, items will not highlight, zombies take more hits unless a headshot occurs, and you are a weakling who can and will be killed in a matter of seconds if a horde swarms you. To get this achievement it is suggested playing with 3 other friends for ultimate strategy building. But you are welcome to try it with the bots instead. All you need to do is survive the entire campaign (if you die in single player you restart anyways and if in multiplayer you only need to play all sections of a campaign and at least live through the finale).

Shock Jock/The Quick and The Dead: I list these both together because you need to let the game take it's natural course and incap fellow players or let them die on their own. If you team kill a bot or fellow player to boost this achievement, the game will not recognize it and it will not be added to your tally.

- Melee vs Pistols:
Totally situational and depends on your comfort level. There are players out there who prefer melee, usually it's an instant kill which benefits you and you don't need ammo another plus. However some prefer dual pistols because of unlimited ammo and the ability to still take down zombies and SI at medium range where as melee requires you to go toe to toe with a zombie/SI. Melee earns it's worth when taking down a SI like a Charger who is pounding a bot or team mate, the melee hit at most in 2 swipes will kill the Charger and free your friend from any additional damage.

- Scavenge and Versus specifics and some tips:
Currently Scavenge is a new mode available for multiplayer. In it you must gather the gas tanks as survivors and the SI must stop you and get the clock to run out. Every gathered gas tank will add time to the clock until all 16 tanks on a map are recovered. Team work is critical and going solo/Rambo will not help your team at all. When you start as survivors take a moment and scan around for all the tank locations where you will see them in white outlines around the map.

Coordinate with your team mates and then nut up as I say with weapons, meds and the likes and head out. Once the safe zone timer runs out or you break the area of safety the clock starts ticking. Grabbing tanks and returning to the generator or car and filling them up gives you more time and counts towards your team's round score. Now an important thing to keep in mind is that when the timer runs out AND someone is holding a tank, this becomes forced overtime. All SI will be looking for you and your team mates need to cover the person who has the tank like white on rice on a white paper plate in a snow storm.When the round ends because of all tanks being gathered, time runs out, or the survivors are all killed both teams switch sides. Here's a few tips to help with each of the SI tactics:

Boomer: You are an easy target, try hiding until a survivor is near the tank to fill up or on their way and puke on them. The swarming horde can slow them down for another SI to roll in or force them to drop the tank. Also a Boomer's death can have knock back effect, if you have no bile available then try throwing yourself at the survivors. Your explosion may cover them AND knock them back/stun them.

Jockey: Try riding people off high ledges, this can cause an immediate incap (might kill you but hey it works). Also watch gas tanks and when someone grabs it, then jockey them since they are weaponless and you will cause them to drop the tank.

Spitter: You are the sniper, spit at the generator so survivors have to stand in acid and take damage, also watch for orange outlined tanks to spit on. These mean a survivor dropped the tank and it is fair game to be blown up.

Charger: Hide around corners and sneak up behind or pop out in front of a survivor, once you go into your charge chances are you will not be stopped by your intended target. Also coming up behind survivors who are filling gas can drop the tank and null/void the collection as you stun them or ground pound them. You can charge through doors so hiding is always a perk and charging through. Also charging from high places and crashing through glass or off say the 3rd story in dead center can be immediate survivor death (and yours as well).

Hunter: Same as a Jockey honestly, watch for someone to grab a tank them pounce them. Or like a Boomer hang out near the generator and pounce them when they start filling.

Smoker: Shoot to make pulls off high ledges where an immediate incap can occur because a person will be hanging in the air. Also keep an eye out for gas can carriers since your tongue will cause a drop.

Firearms differences and Pros/Cons:

Pistols: There are two pistols available, the starter pistol being a USP .45 cal which has 15 rounds before a reload is needed. The USP can be dual wielded giving an ammo of 30. The other is the Desert Eagle .50 (DE) cal with 8 rounds available. The DE has the ability to blow through several zombies if lined up at the time of firing, it can also 1-2 shot special infected versus a USP's damage rate. A DE *CANNOT* be dual wielded. Both pistols have unlimited ammo abilities.

Assault Rifles/Machine guns from lowest to highest value:

Silenced Uzi: Basically an Uzi with a strapped on silencer, decent sized clip with fast firing rate. Good up-close to medium range. Will alert the zombies in the area regardless of silencer. Laser sighting will help improve distance accuracy

Uzi: Louder and slightly more damaging cousin to the silenced Uzi. Same distance as previous Uzi. Laser sight helps with distance accuracy.

AK-47:Most powerful assault rifle, however most horrid accuracy factor. Extremely high recoil rate as well. Laser sight does help greatly on this for medium to long range short bursts.

M16: Full auto and fair sized magazine capacity. Medium to long range as well, has a moderate amount of recoil where the target will rise upwards as shot. Laser sight has excellent use to make this a fully auto sniper rifle in many aspects.

SCAR: Fires in 3 round bursts, can seem like a full auto at times but is not. Has the best damage output of the assault rifles in comparison to firing rate/ammo consumption. Recoil is also signficantly less than other auto weapons. Laser sighting helps but actually can be bypassed/optional.

Shotguns: Basically all have the same distance, damage will vary and laser sights have the same modification to all.

Pump Shotgun: Bottom of the barrel Shotgun, 8 round capacity with fair amount of reloading time like all shot guns. Laser sighting helps increase the spread at medium range.

Chrome Pump Shotgun/Chrome handled pump shotgun: Unsure of difference between these besides a possible slight boost in accuracy due to the handle grip on the handled version.

Combat/Assault Shotguns: From a player's perspective both seem to have the same amount of damage, the firing speed of one over the other is marginally faster. Reloading speed is the same.

Hunting Rifle: Smaller of the two in terms of clipsize and slightly slower firing speed.

Spec Ops Sniper Rifle: Larger clip and faster reload time, damage output seems to be the same.
- Laser sights help slightly when shooting in a non scope/zoom mode

Grenade Launcher: The grand daddy primary weapon. Laser sight does nothing besides put a cute red dot on the intended area. Has an excellent area of effect explosion radius. Very slow reload time, however this can be offset by using adrenaline shots to speed up reload/shoot effect. Consider doing this when a tank arrives.

- How do I?:

Kick someone from the game? As a host in the lobby you can freely kick as needed, don't be a jerk about this. simply select the person's name and the kick option will be a button to press. Sometimes just be nice and explain why the kick is taking place. Some folks just don't understand and will become what is called "griefers" people who continually rejoined your game from their XBL recently played with players listings.

How do I call a vote? Open the start menu where the screen will fuzzy out and you will have several options including "Call a vote" open that sub menu and pick from the given options.

How do I get a cool baseball bat? You don't at this point unless you can find an unused code that was offered for reserving the game on launch date. I've heard players who play with folks who did get the game as a preorder on launch date can use the bat as long as they are in the same game, but once they go seperate ways it's back to a cricket bat only.

- Mic or no Mic.. that is the question:
You will in this game encounter players who do not have a headset, do not fret just yet however. Some folks choose to have XBL mic voices carry through their TV speakers so they can at least hear you. Some cannot play with headsets because they have had bad experiences and also might be some of the female gamers who have been harassed in game numerous times and gave up on mic communication with unknown players. Give the no mics a chance before ragging on them or booting them.

- Common communication alternatives players can and will use:
- Repeated jumping up and down to draw your attention to them
- Left clicking the analog stick to make the character call out vocal acknowledgements to items and characters.
- Firing into a direction with pistols/primary weapon to help direct a desired destination/party travel direction.

A great point also to keep in mind is that some players are in fact deaf. A mic has no use to them so to boot a player who isn't speaking prematurely is unfair and quite frankly rude.

- Why does a person who just joined have a duplicate name and a (1) after it?:

There are times people will choose to play split screen and the main account owner has Gold Membership status. L4D2 is unique because it will let a split screen set of players go and team up or against other players online. Sometimes 1 person will wear the mic, sometimes both or never at all. Splitscreeners can be a force to be reckoned with good and bad. They obviously can communicate with one another which helps them out better than their team mates, but also there can be faster reaction times than your party giving commands.

However on the flipside if the need to vote them out occurs, the split screen players will get 2 votes of their own towards the team voting. So if you truly desire to kick split screeners, it needs to be done at the time the game is created and you are in the lobby. Be mindful of some split screen players in Versus or Scavenge.. You will see one pop on the survivors and one on the infected.. When this happens this means that each can obviously see one another's screens and if so choose to play in a unfair manner.

Monster Files:
The Boomer
The Boomer is an extremely bloated Special Infected. It's mutation has caused it to produce vast quantaties of a green, Horde attracting Bile. The Bile itself can blind The Survivors for a short time, and cause them to be the prime target of The Horde. A powerful, yet fragile infected, it's role in Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 is to slow down and cause confusion amongst The Survivors as a group, giving the other Special Infected a chance to attack.
The Boomer has been heavily mutated by it's strain of The Infection. This has caused it to become so bloated that even the slightest of ruptures will cause it to explode, sending Bile, blood and body parts every where. The bloated-ness of its body is caused by the vast amounts of Bile it is producing. Large boil-like growths grow on its body show that it is mostlikely still expanding.

The Charger
The Charger is a large Special Infected thats job is to ram The Survivors down and into obsticles, disorientating them. It bears a large similarity to a Tank, but rather than having two large muscular arms, it has one large arm, that is covered with dry skin and scabs. It also doesnt need its arms for support, with its legs growing with the rest of his body (Unlike a Tank). He can be seen sporting denim overalls (which can be seen on common infected during the Swamp Fever and Hard Rain campaigns) that have burst due to his growth. The Charger seems he is halfway towards becoming a Tank, but may become a Special Infected of his own (like the Jockey bears resembelance to a Hunter).

The Hunter
The Hunter is the most agile Special Infected of them all, his role is to pounce on the survivors and rip them to shreds. You can mostly find them attacking lone Survivors who have wandered away from the group. They wear a hoody (Dark blue for L4D, Grey for L4D2) and sweat pants. Their hood covers the top part of their face, making it hard to see their eyes. They also have claws that they will use to claw the survivor. It appears to be one of the least mutated Special Infected of them all, he still looks human, he has gained an increase in lower body strength, with out the grotesque muscle growth of the Tank, this has caused the hunter to have the abiltity to scale buildings with ease. But, due to the infection, his eyes have gone. Making him rely on some other way to see.