Left 4 Dead

2008-11-19 12:10:22 pm

fuck you i wont do what you tell me

This game would be epic for a 4 player co-op run.

I've only played the first two campaigns so far, but there are definite areas that you could skip (like the roof jump from the first level).

I'd be all for participating in such a run. Smiley

anyone up for research?

Thread title:

Daniel

2008-11-19 02:33:33 pm

Im not sure if this roofjump is new or not. However if it is new, then it's around 2 seconds faster than the other well known roofjump:

http://randomshit.awardspace.com/l4d/roofjump.html

(My computer cant play the game with >8 fps if im not looking at the ground constantly, thats why the video has low fps)

With this method the apartment level should be able to be completed in less than 30 seconds, my best time on the xbox 360 is 31.8 seconds and i guess you loose less time turning around to shove away zombies in the pc version. (expert difficulty)

I also found a weird glitch that teleports the bots closer to you, sucess rate is around 33% if you walk backwards and look down like this:

http://randomshit.awardspace.com/l4d/botteleport.html
(Yes, i know that im not looking down in this video, but it usually works better when i do look down)

There is a spot right at the end of apartment level where this have occured for me twice too, haven't occured for me in subway level yet though.

Im not sure if this roofjump is new or not. However if it is new, then it's around 2 seconds faster than the other well known roofjump:

http://randomshit.awardspace.com/l4d/roofjump.html

(My computer cant play the game with >8 fps if im not looking at the ground constantly, thats why the video has low fps)

With this method the apartment level should be able to be completed in less than 30 seconds, my best time on the xbox 360 is 31.8 seconds and i guess you loose less time turning around to shove away zombies in the pc version. (expert difficulty)

I also found a weird glitch that teleports the bots closer to you, sucess rate is around 33% if you walk backwards and look down like this:

http://randomshit.awardspace.com/l4d/botteleport.html
(Yes, i know that im not looking down in this video, but it usually works better when i do look down)

There is a spot right at the end of apartment level where this have occured for me twice too, haven't occured for me in subway level yet though.

RaneofSOTN

2008-11-19 05:22:43 pm

I want off the ride....

I have been playing l4d; i got through the first 3 campaigns (No mercy, Dead air, and the one that rescues you by boat). So far, No mercy is the hardest. the 15 minute survival is BRUTAL

the other two are only 10 minute survivals.

Honestly 4p is the way to go with this game.

Versus is fun; cause its like a true versus. Do it, then stop them from doing it.

Nihilus

2008-11-20 12:16:24 am

That roof drop puts your life in the yellow, are you still moving at full speed after it?

And I would definitely love to help at some 4 player runs. Havent bought the game yet, but I played the hell out of the demo. Moving fast is definitely good, as the "difficult" encounters seem to be on a timer.

AI Director manipulation strategies will be tons of fun I think, like running while shooting each other to waste ammo and health, so the game will go easy on you later Tongue

A run will definitely be about retrying like crazy until it gives you a setup you can work with; I forsee a segmented run, with no tanks whatsoever, and mobs only spawning behind the players.

A "no death" run will be the only thing impressive, as it's easy to save time by leaving one person behind to die.

RaneofSOTN

2008-11-20 01:19:25 am

I want off the ride....

Quote from Nihilus:

That roof drop puts your life in the yellow, are you still moving at full speed after it?

And I would definitely love to help at some 4 player runs. Havent bought the game yet, but I played the hell out of the demo. Moving fast is definitely good, as the "difficult" encounters seem to be on a timer.

AI Director manipulation strategies will be tons of fun I think, like running while shooting each other to waste ammo and health, so the game will go easy on you later Tongue

A run will definitely be about retrying like crazy until it gives you a setup you can work with; I forsee a segmented run, with no tanks whatsoever, and mobs only spawning behind the players.

A "no death" run will be the only thing impressive, as it's easy to save time by leaving one person behind to die.

I think it'd be impossible to have no tanks. They like to run after you and catch you no matter what. Even if they spawned behind you, not happening. And most of the tanks are scripted spawns. Like in the roof defence there are two tanks. If you take too long in the first level getting to the underground a tank spawns (skippable, so not really worth mentioning). But there is a guarentee that YOU WILL SEE A TANK. you can manipulate no witches. (so you dont have to worry about the possibility of startling one and getting a survivor down.) But tanks, boomers, hunters, and smokers all come at a regular interval. So doing it speedy just means that you'll see LESS of them. Its kinda proven really when you mess around in versus. When there is to be a tank, it'll take the place of some other special one. And its always in about the same area regardless of what happens.

Tanks will just come and go. Just gotta be able to handle them quickly and efficiently. Which always seems like Molotov -> Massive spam. I still donno what is the BEST weapon to kill a tank with. 15 headshots from the hunter's rifle doesn't down him. but 2-3 clips of assault does. Not even sure on shotgun as I found i preferred the hunting rifle or assault more.

Also, smacking zombies is SOO under-rated it seems. Its so handy to smack zombies away then shoot them if they are running up. its just weird like that.

Honestly, seeing this speed run would almost be a waste... the game lends itself to WANTING to be speedy. The faster you are, the less zombies you have to kill cause then you don't have to worry about the AI director spawning MORE to deal with your slow speed.

Points that need to be handled are the damn glitch on the rooftop of No Mercy part 5. Just before the final 15 minute fight of death. You can actually get stuck in a "oh no i need to get pulled up animation." And that's killed a campaign for me once.

The whole damn thing is random as hell...
Point to prove this. No Mercy final part, the game can give you 4 molotovs and 4 pipe bombs and 2 gas cans, or 2 gas cans 2 propane tanks 4 molotovs. Or 4 gas cans and 4 pipe bombs. Its just random... and there isn't anything someone can really do without heavy segmentation to even come close to manipulating these things as precisely as you expect.

[quote="Nihilus"]
That roof drop puts your life in the yellow, are you still moving at full speed after it?

And I would definitely love to help at some 4 player runs. Havent bought the game yet, but I played the hell out of the demo. Moving fast is definitely good, as the "difficult" encounters seem to be on a timer.

AI Director manipulation strategies will be tons of fun I think, like running while shooting each other to waste ammo and health, so the game will go easy on you later :P

A run will definitely be about retrying like crazy until it gives you a setup you can work with; I forsee a segmented run, with no tanks whatsoever, and mobs only spawning behind the players.

A "no death" run will be the only thing impressive, as it's easy to save time by leaving one person behind to die.
[/quote]

I think it'd be impossible to have no tanks. They like to run after you and catch you no matter what. Even if they spawned behind you, not happening. And most of the tanks are scripted spawns. Like in the roof defence there are two tanks. If you take too long in the first level getting to the underground a tank spawns (skippable, so not really worth mentioning). But there is a guarentee that YOU WILL SEE A TANK. you can manipulate no witches. (so you dont have to worry about the possibility of startling one and getting a survivor down.) But tanks, boomers, hunters, and smokers all come at a regular interval. So doing it speedy just means that you'll see LESS of them. Its kinda proven really when you mess around in versus. When there is to be a tank, it'll take the place of some other special one. And its always in about the same area regardless of what happens.

Tanks will just come and go. Just gotta be able to handle them quickly and efficiently. Which always seems like Molotov -> Massive spam. I still donno what is the BEST weapon to kill a tank with. 15 headshots from the hunter's rifle doesn't down him. but 2-3 clips of assault does. Not even sure on shotgun as I found i preferred the hunting rifle or assault more.

Also, smacking zombies is SOO under-rated it seems. Its so handy to smack zombies away then shoot them if they are running up. its just weird like that.

Honestly, seeing this speed run would almost be a waste... the game lends itself to WANTING to be speedy. The faster you are, the less zombies you have to kill cause then you don't have to worry about the AI director spawning MORE to deal with your slow speed.

Points that need to be handled are the damn glitch on the rooftop of No Mercy part 5. Just before the final 15 minute fight of death. You can actually get stuck in a "oh no i need to get pulled up animation." And that's killed a campaign for me once.

The whole damn thing is random as hell... 
Point to prove this. No Mercy final part, the game can give you 4 molotovs and 4 pipe bombs and 2 gas cans, or 2 gas cans 2 propane tanks 4 molotovs. Or 4 gas cans and 4 pipe bombs. Its just random... and there isn't anything someone can really do without heavy segmentation to even come close to manipulating these things as precisely as you expect.

Daniel

Edit history:

Daniel: 2008-11-20 01:49:58 pm

2008-11-20 03:55:52 am

Quote from Nihilus:

That roof drop puts your life in the yellow, are you still moving at full speed after it?

When life is above 40 health you move at normal (full) speed, the roofjump gives you 44 health.

Quote from RaneofSOTN:

Points that need to be handled are the damn glitch on the rooftop of No Mercy part 5. Just before the final 15 minute fight of death. You can actually get stuck in a "oh no i need to get pulled up animation." And that's killed a campaign for me once.

There's a way that makes my roofjump work every time, it cost you around 0.8 seconds or something like that, but it is a 100% sucess rate, meaning "drag you up"-thing wont show up, ever:
http://randomshit.awardspace.com/l4d/secureroofjump.html

It seems like the best way to avoid tanks and witches are just to run past them. If you got 40+ hp (running fullspeed) i think you can get away from tanks, im not sure though.

Nihilus

2008-11-20 04:08:31 am

Oh yeah, witches definitely aren't a threat at all. From being close to them, it still takes a full 8 seconds or so before they go hostile, even if you bump into them. Plenty of time to just run and ignore them. The only danger is if they're blocking a small hallway, but even then I've killed them on expert with the auto shotgun alone.

And yes, the melee attack is amazing. I find the best way to survive getting massively swarmed is to spin around doing only melee while everyone else kills them. The idea being if you keep all the zombies near you stunned, you can't get attacked. If you get caught face-to-face with a hunter, it seems to keep him stunned for a very long time, long enough to kill him even with a single pistol, completely risk-free once that initial hit lands.

xXIkuto

2008-11-20 05:28:35 am

which guys have l4d on the 360? i need fwends to pway with Kiss

if there we actually 2 or more other sda members interested, i wouldn't mind trying a run of one of the campaigns Roll Eyes

illuminated

2008-11-20 08:33:51 am

I thought L4D was 360 only?

ColonelFatso

2008-11-20 10:14:38 am

Unless you do not consider the PC a gaming platform, no it is not 360 only.

RaneofSOTN

2008-11-20 12:55:51 pm

I want off the ride....

I got the 360 version. So yeah I dont see heavy segmentation going through there. I've just been having fun. Playing on normal cause yeah. This game has a lot of ins and outs to learn first. The ai director doesn't take to kindly to someone lagging behind. Its basically all or none.

illuminated

2008-11-20 01:42:40 pm

Quote from ColonelFatso:

Unless you do not consider the PC a gaming platform, no it is not 360 only.

Ah. That would explain it then, yes.

Daniel

2008-11-20 01:48:26 pm

Im gonna pick up this game for X360 in about 1½ week, so i guess i could contribute to some coop runs, the only thing that would keep me away is that i live in europe (GMT+1) which can make it hard to find any time where everyone is online.

There is one thing i wonder though, i know there are player collisions since i have been blocked from entering door openings some times, however i never managed to jump ontop of another player, does anyone know if this is possible?
I have landed ontop of zombies some times though.

Snuvs

2008-11-20 04:18:16 pm

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this game. I've played this game a whole lot and I could imagine speedruns of the single player campaigns. Each Campaign takes about an hour to complete so you could have separate runs of the different campaigns or even each individual part.

Of course this is a Valve game so you have the ability to record demos and make videos out of it for SDA.

I would imagine the basic strategy would be to run through as fast as possible. Maybe even leaving your partners behind to run through to each safehouse. The way the game works is that even if someone doesn't make it to the saferoom they will be alive for the next part. So you could essentially look for the best randomness of enemies so that you may be able to avoid as many special zombies as possible.

I wanna hear some peoples thoughts about this.

Nihilus

2008-11-20 05:28:27 pm

It has been mentioned, in the console section. I dont know why, as I played the PC and 360 demos, and the PC version will definitely be much faster.

It would be most impressive as a 4 player, no deaths run. Single player is just too easy by just running to the end, and retrying until it works. 4 player with deaths would be faster, as it's easy to pass harder encounters by letting someone stay behind to die, and as you said, they just come back for the next level anyways.

Lazylen

2008-11-20 10:55:41 pm

fuck you i wont do what you tell me

yeah, i definitely accidentally put my Left 4 Dead thread in Newer Consoles instead of PC, as I have it for PC not the Xbox 360. :\

alot of tanks could be run past (except for finales), and due to the nature of tanks, would eventually lose interest. however, for a speedrun of this game, you would definitely need two shotgunners to clear the front, an autoer to clear out hunters & smokers, and another auto/shotty (probably auto) to run ahead and set up the crescendo points (opening the door, calling the elevator).

an optimized run would have no witches on the main path, so they would not need to be worried about.

The Finales would go something like:
-Minigunner
-Shotgunner to protect the minigunner
-Rifler to pick off the special infected
-Autoer to protect the shotgunner & rifler

and Blood Harvest (due to no minigun) would probably go Shotgun Shotgun Shotgun Auto, holding up at the stairs.

pipe bombs are easily abused to clear out infected.

Dead Air level 3 is a bitch.

Lazylen

2008-11-20 11:00:17 pm

fuck you i wont do what you tell me

lol, i meant to put this topic on PC, as i dont have it for 360. i dont even have a 360. Tongue

in the demo at least, you could walk on witches, so long as you didn't turn your flashlight on, hit them, or stay there too long. they're really not a threat.

the jump i was thinking was one that left you still with about 80% health, but it went onto the vent. yours is obviously faster.

Ekelbatzen

2008-11-21 07:21:56 am

I would also be interested to see a run, also on singleplayer, but in both game modes the difficulty should not be below advanced, or the zombies are most likely to stand in some corners and wait to die, would be boring to watch.
Of course a coop speedrun would be even more fun to watch because the teamwork must be perfect on higher difficulties.

typical

2008-11-21 09:47:34 am

^does not care for console's

If 4 people were to run it how would you record it?

I'm also very interested in a run on Left 4 dead being made.

D-13

2008-11-21 10:07:09 am

Each runner record a demo/several demos on his/her computer.
Then you end up with 4 videos... then take the 4... Edit them in a video-editing program
so the video switch between the 4 players... perhaps to show the most intresting/cool moments.

Snuvs

2008-11-21 01:48:11 pm

Quote from D-13:

Each runner record a demo/several demos on his/her computer.
Then you end up with 4 videos... then take the 4... Edit them in a video-editing program
so the video switch between the 4 players... perhaps to show the most intresting/cool moments.

Well when you record a demo it records all of the actions that the zombies do and players do. So you would just need to make demo videos based off of each player all from 1 recorded demo. So no need to have everyone record a demo.

You could essentially record every play through of the game and if you get one good run through make a video from the demo and submit it to SDA.

Pootrain

2008-11-21 05:24:29 pm

train kept rollin

I have a 360 and should be getting it in the next day or so, been playing the demo a load, so I wud be up for a coop run.

In responce to Daniel, Their is a slight collision detection but you can pass through AI/Human surviours on the 360 at least so stacking cant be done.

I also have a question, how would a 4 player co-op run be recorded? and shown on the site? All players record their gameplay?

mholzem

2008-11-21 06:27:42 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote from D-13:

Each runner record a demo/several demos on his/her computer.
Then you end up with 4 videos... then take the 4... Edit them in a video-editing program
so the video switch between the 4 players... perhaps to show the most intresting/cool moments.

Or, as I prefer, a 4-player split screen style. Or even releasing them seperately, but that's quite a large amount of bandwidth and space on servers.

D-13

2008-11-21 06:36:33 pm

split-screen sucks monkey balls...

Rake

2008-11-21 07:28:42 pm

Would be cool to see a run done. It would have to be 4player co-op imo since the bots are complete retards. I would think you'd have to do it on expert to really challenge yourself. Would you be doing just each stage runs or full campaign runs?