Left 4 Dead Beginners Guide

Left 4 Dead Beginners Guide

Game Mechanics

How does Left 4 Dead work? How can I use these inner working to my advantage? These are two extremely important questions. Yet not many players get to the point where they ask questions, never mind answering them.

If you want to take luck out of the game you need to figure out how it works. I'm going to show you the underside of l4d.

Voice

Every one knows about voice but I see tons of players who don't use it. If you can afford a $50 game you should be able to buy a mic. Good communication make or break teams in tactical games, L4D is a tactical game. Playing as survivors or infected takes coordination and timing. You wont be able to achieve either of those trying to type out you're plans. Here are some examples of when voice is important.

Tank fights should be some of the most voice intense sessions. Every one needs to know the tanks position, health, and whether or not its on fire. Not exactly stuff you have time to type out.

Leading also requires voice. Every team needs a leader to set the games pace and lead inexperienced players. Without a leader players start to fall behind while others run too far ahead.

Getting pounced or pulled always sucks. It sucks even more when you don't have voice. The time it takes to type out for help can cost you u 10-45 damage!

So get a mic and talk to the internet!

Zombie spawns

Almost every enemy that spawns in changes positions from one game to another. This is all thanks to the AI director. So no game is ever exactly the same. There's some things that are always the same. Like the amount of zombies that can spawn in.

The maximum amount of zombies on a normal server is about 25. You might fight 60 zombies in an attack but they always come in waves of 25. There's a few ways you can take advantage of this.

If they spawn behind you and there's a door or some thing to slow them down you can get a zombie free path for a few minutes or until they catch up. A move like this can take advantage of getting unlucky with a boomer.

This also means that if a boomer gets your team right before a finale you should start it. Starting the finale will kill two birds with one stone. Your going to have to fight them any ways so might as well make it count to your escape.

Special infected spawns

Any one who has played versus should have a decent idea of special infected spawns work. They only need to be a short distance away but more importantly they cant spawn in plain sight in front of survivors. This is true on campaign and versus. You can take advantage of this!

There are good spots and bad spots for special infected. There are a hell of a lot more bad than good. If you're team is moving slow or is healing up after an attack figure out where the best spawn is and just stare at it. This forces them to fight you from a bad spot and give you the advantage!

It's especially important for the team leader to use this. I use this strategy in my games at least 3-4 times a round. It will save you from taking tons of damage!

Propane tanks

For the most part I hate these things. You try throwing one down in a crowd of zombies and it ends up taking 10 damn shots to make the thing blow. The hit registration on propane tanks is so bad your better off just shooting the zombies with you're main gun.

Its not completely useless though. You can use it to stun both tanks and witches. Witches are easy to kill when every once focus fires them and then stuns them with a propane tank. Tanks have way more health then the witch but it gives you a few seconds to get extra damage on him. On some maps you can use the tank to knock the tank off ledges to his death.