Weapons Wisdom in Left4Dead Servers
Posted in Left4Dead News
Left4Dead servers went live on November 19, meaning that if you’re even here reading this you have a very poor grasp of priorities. But we’ll make it worth your while with some tactical advice that might just keep you and your fellow survivors alive come Finale time.
1. The Pistol
Years of first person shooter experience have trained you to believe that the pistol is puny. It’s something you know as deeply as your ABCs and now, thanks to Valve, it’s wrong. The pistol (or better, pistols) are a real force to be reckoned with and their proper use will do more for you than any of the larger weapons.
They’re powerful. They’re accurate. If you’re close enough you can drop regular zombies with a single headshot, so you have to resist the action movie urge to empty clips into each body (an especially powerful feeling when you’re all Chow Yun Fat-ed up with twin pistols). Use your pistols whenever you can - especially on Expert, when you’re going to need to conserve your heavy weapon ammunition for the real emergencies.
2. Shotgun/Combat Shotgun
Booyah!
Oh yeah, that shotgun feels GOOD, doesn’t it? When the evil undead come screaming at you there’s nothing quite like reminding them why “the ability to use tools” is such a powerful advantage. Especially when those “tools” can project cones of lead shot which mince anything in front of you.
That “cone” thing is important: if you can see any teammates, you are not using the shotgun properly. Get out in front and stay there, crouching so that teammates with the more accurate machine gun options can sharpshoot over your shoulder. Oh, and a message from everyone you’ve ever played with on an L4D server: DO NOT KNOCK HUNTERS OFF WITH THE SHOTGUN. THAT HURTS. A LOT.
3. Uzi/Assault Rifle
Point 1: The automatic weapons can rapidly pump entire clips into approaching foes
Point 2: Do not pump entire clips into an approaching foe.
No matter how desperate things get, aim for the head
The fully-automatic fire can obliterate the infected and then, when you’re out of ammunition, the infected can obliterate you. Restrain yourself to burst-fire, popping off heads as you run for the safe rooms and saving the full-clip head-height sustained fire for the inevitable Horde-ings.
4. Hunting rifle
This bit is almost relaxing
An absolute joy. Setting up camp and popping heads from a safe distance is one of the greatest pleasures in the game, and if it wasn’t for how the Director will kill your ass then everyone would do it. The problem is that the Director, the software that controls zombie distribution, can get bored. And you don’t want that. Anything that can trigger Hordes and Tanks on you is not something you want to bore, trust us.
The key to proper hunting rifle use is prioritising targets: stop, pick off as many infected on your intended route as you can in a few seconds, then move on. There’s also the Highlander effect: there can only be one. More than one hunting rifle in a group and you might as well be waving candyfloss at the inevitable Horde.
5. Doors
You might not automatically think of doors as weapons. This is because you’re not a paranoid schizophrenic. But if Valve offer you a device which can detect zombies and freeze an entire Horde while letting you shoot at them you’d be a fool to turn it down, right?
What we’re saying is “Close the doors behind you!” Just like your mother did, but it’s considerably more fun this way.
Tags: Left4Dead News, left4dead servers
November 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I was skeptical when you were promoting pistol use, but you completely blew any credibility you might have had out of the water when you said to not shoot hunters off people with shotguns. I guess you didn’t realize the fact that teammates are IMMUNE to friendly fire when they are being disemboweled like that or pulled/choked by a smoker.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I’m afraid that there you are wrong, they are very vulnerable to friendly fire, on advanced and expert at least, I have tested and confirmed this. Punt only, no shooting if you please.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Are you sure about that? Have you seen the YT vid making the rounds? “ABORT!! ABORT!!”. The guys team mate blasts the hunter three times with a shotty up close and each blast is linked to a reduction in health for the pinned player.
Or maybe I’m seeing things.
Where do you get the info that they are immune from?
As for pistols…. crouching makes them incredibly accurate. Love dual pistols. Gonna aim for Akimbo Assassin shortly.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
This should be requried reading for all L4D players. Simple yet very effective advice, good job!
November 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
To clarify, my comment was aimed at Belgain Roffles.
Great article though.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
From the L4D forums
“Friendly Fire is always on in all difficulty levels, and there is no way of turning it off.”
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d8a59d16700796e16ef681e0e85d5d3a&t=535896
November 24th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Tested it multiple times in the demo and full game and you DO NOT take damage from friendly fire while you are pinned or pulled/choked.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
It is a special case in those instances, if you’re not pinned, pulled, or choked, friendly fire works as normal.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Even if you took damage from friendly fire while getting whacked by a hunter, you can still shoot it without hitting your friend.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I’m 100% positive that friendly fire is turned off when that person is being pulled or jumped. It is reactivated when they are incapacitated, though.
alan, I know what vid you are talking about - is it possible you’re just mistaking the damage from the Hunter?
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:59 am
I’m with Belgain, and I hate all of you annoying people who want to complain every time you get hit with a stray bullet. We are under attack by zombies. If you get hit by a stray bullet…get over it and move on. I think what people mistake for friendly fire is when the hunter has been clean off and the player lets a couple of extra shots off that hit your friend…and then the crying starts.
March 6th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Jim is right. FF is off when pounced or smoked, but that effect is disabled as soon as the enemy is off. Which means you can easily shoot your teammate by accident if you’re not super careful
March 7th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Belgian Roffle: While it is true that you are immune to freindly fire in the event of being choked, pulled or pounced, The shotguns effect of spraying bullets at varying speeds through the air will make the first few shots hit the hunter off and the rest will hurt the team mate as he is no longer immune to friendly fire.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I play L4D a lot (gamertag snake360wraith) and the point in the article where it says “no shooting the hunter pinning your ally with a shotgun” is a crock’o'crap. All those before me who said that you do NOT in fact hurt your ally while shooting the hunter are correct…hell i’ve hit a hunter in said situation with a Molotov Cocktail…yes, my ally took damage but not until AFTER the hunter died (many profanities were shouted…many laughs were had). So if you see a hunter pinning your ally, FIRE AWAY…just MAKE SURE you stop shooting once he’s dead or else ally WILL take damage
March 9th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Don’t forget that a hunting rifle is great for crown suppression as well, long halls or the steams of zombies that come in hordes can be taken down quite quickly. Also following similar advice to the uzi/assault rifle, firing the auto shotgun as quickly as possible is an easy way to run out of ammo. Finally, get to know the ammo spots in every map, being that they are one of the few facts in the game, if you know where these are its rather easy to go through an entire campaign without using the pistols or running out of ammo.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:39 am
Everything about this article is correct from what I can see, except the part about having only one hunting rifle. True, One is better than two, but it is very possible to plow through hordes like a katana through tissue paper. This is because the hunting rifle is a one shot kill. Also, it can fire quite rapidly. And because of it’s ridiculous inaccuracy when you’re not using the scope, if you get out in front with it, you will hit anything within a generally wide range. Although two combat shotguns does work a little better than two hunting rifles, a combat shotgun, and an assault rifle.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:40 am
The problem with shooting them off is that people often shoot too many times thus plugging the already damaged hunter victim. They also shoot when a team mate is going in to bash the hunter and then the basher takes a slug to the back.
If your close enough to bash then do so, if the line of fire is clear to the victim and its faster to shoot then do so, but aim for the head and don’t unload.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
called a magazine not a clip.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:19 am
…Cry about getting hit with a stray bullet?
Oh wow. Somebody is obviously not skilled enough to play expert.
I hope you realize a single shotgun shot is an incapacitate in expert. A single pistol shot is a lot of damage too. It takes what, 3 pistol shots to incap? 4 maybe?
Stray bullets are not ok. Don’t go to expert if you’re not good enough to avoid FF. Even in advanced it can be fairly bad.
If you’re on easy where Friendly Fire does no damage, or normal where damage is quite small, then you can talk about it being no big deal. Advanced or Expert, and you need to l2p if you’re FF’ing enough to piss people off.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Anyone who adds “Welcome Stumbler, give us your thumbs!” is automatically going to get a lot of thumbs down.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:09 am
Shooting hunters and smokers off does no damage until the victim is fully recovered from the pounce/pull. Also, pouncing on already smoked survivors does no extra bonus damage. NO one knows this for some reason.