L4D: Good vs. Slightly Better teams

**WhiskeySix** · 02-18-2009, 12:09 PM

IMO, here's what makes one team better than the other, as far as teamwork is concerned:

1) Better teams have one clear leader in the pack.
They call out moves and are the center of gravity... their location defines where the pack's location; if you're not near the leader, you're not near the pack and are going to get hit. Nobody goes forward until they say and then do so. If there's no obvious leader, a "who want's this level" while the survivors are in the safe room can make it clear. In teams with a 'flock' mentality, there are invariably several instances per map when someone moves forward alone and/or gets left behind. That guy always dies.

2) Better teams talk a LOT.
Comms are absolutely critical... especially for the leader - they need to be extra verbose to make sure everyone knows what stance the pack is in and what's going on. False-starts and miscommunications are deadly. I hate this the most: We're holed up somewhere, and I've got my back to the group watching the six. I get pounced and yell for help, only to turn and see 3 tiny little silhouettes miles away. Don't be those guys - let me know when we're moving forward.

3) Better teams always know what the pack is doing.
I guess there are three general postures that the survivors take. In my experience with TGers, leaving a closet/corner almost always gets some verbal indication. However, the transition to/from the second stance is rarely called out... this is a huge deal. If you're leading, make sure you note when you're going from searching rooms to moving forward.

Stationary - "hold up" / "on me" / "against the left wall" / "closet" - here you're just dealing with a horde or clearing an open area from safety (like when you're in the diner on NM01, clearing the gas-station parking-lot)
Room/hall clearing. "ok lets move" / "ready? let's go" / "moving forward" - here your moving at a slightly slower pace, typically in a building. You're killing everything you see. This is how you operate when you're searching for goodies
Running - "let's go, move fast!" / "run and don't stop" - If you just killed all four Special Infected, it's a good time to make some headway across the map. Here, you're just trying to run by all the zombies, bashing/blasting only as necessary to keep moving.

4) Better teams yell for help immediately after getting pounced/smoked.
... even when teammates are very close. Also - don't just say "HUNTER!" or "SMOKER!" because that really doesn't tell me anything. (A lot of people yell that when they hear one of those guys coming.) I don't know what the best SOP is for this, but I think you need to say something that makes it obvious that you need help RIGHT NOW; plus a direction or landmark to help people locate you quickly. I usually say something like "HELP BACK! IM POUNCED!".... or "HELP! I'M DOWN BY THE EDGE TO YOUR LEFT!" (edit: related to this, call out when you're incapacitated)

5) Better teams have near-instant reaction to pounces/smokes.
Heh - a game-within-the-game is to try shooting the hunter off before the victim can yell for help

Like in any game, it's all about situational awareness: when you hear a hunter scream or a missed smoker tongue, your head should be on a swivel; hair-trigger ready to unload into whomever gets hit (remember FF is OFF for someone pounced/smoked). More than half of your job is to protect the other 3 teammates. If everyone plays this way, everyone has three guns looking out for them.

(Note: if someone is boomed, they can't see infected outlines - so they can't tell the difference between someone crouching and someone getting disemboweled. Lessons: A) Pounce the dude that isn't purple and B) When you're boomed and you hear someone go down, unload at the name)

**Boot** · 02-18-2009, 12:27 PM

Yeah, good stuff. Also some things I've seen that work well:

Buddy System: I haven't used it much, but I've seen it done at times and it helps when clearing rooms and searching for goodies.
Calling out when you're helping someone down by specials. It really helps if I'm watching that hunter up ahead if someone in the back acknowledges that they are helping the guy who got smoked.
Confirming when you are no longer down by specials. I played a game with a pub who said "Thank you" when helped by specials. Again, it helped me know he was back up when I was trying to time my anti-pounce-melee.
Move fast. Especially in versus mode, it is really hard to organize joint attacks against fast moving survivor teams. That's the main story of last night -- our team was slow and theirs was fast.

Also some infected tactics I see developing:

Hunter pounces alone but distracts long enough for the boomer to spawn and run close enough to barf. Then second hunter and smoker can have fun in the melee.
When a regular horde is running in, the boomer just runs in with them and gets shot. Works real well against the crescendo event cornering.
Smoker pulls and boomer pukes the pulled survivor. Wraps him in a cocoon of fun.
We're too afraid of the tank. 4 auto shotties take him out faster than he can hit more than once.
The witch can be taken down pretty fast by a practiced attacker. Note to self: practice this.

**Boot** · 02-18-2009, 12:31 PM

Also, we should consider that FF is off when someone is down by specials. I've always heard that was the case, but even if not a stray bullet is going to do less damage than just letting the hunter/smoker keep hitting.

**Sawviper** · 02-18-2009, 12:36 PM

Yeah I find that a hunter does not even need to pounce to get enough attention of the survivors to let the boomer do their job. Just do some quick wall jumps around them to get their attention then leave in the opposite direction the boomer is at.

Also I never realized that FF was off when someone was pounced/smoked. I always try to headshot the things or melee. I will definetely be quicker on that now.

**WhiskeySix** · 02-18-2009, 12:43 PM

Yeah, the boomer is definitely the key to a successful infected team. I mean.... think about it... the team is blinded AND hit with this massive, disorienting, bullet absorbing horde.

Fortunately for the survivors, the boomer only takes a few rounds to kill... so shoot through walls and always expect a boomer at blind corners. Three big things as survivors:

Fight the instinct to shoot. Melee that fatass back... don't shoot him until he stops tumbling - that's when he's out of range.
Assume you're the only one boomed. If you get sprayed, don't just blindly shoot the boomer - you're going to get your teammates covered if they're not already.
Always kill the boomer. He's the worst infected in the game, so you've got to make sure he doesn't get two pukes in.

As far as playing boomer:

Always spawn ahead of the survivors - you're to slow to close ANY distance from behind. Your grumbling will get heard immediately and you'll get shot. This happened a lot last night - we got a lot of pre-puke kills on you guys cause you spawned behind us.
Delay spawn as long as possible - The boomer can be heard half way across the map. Since he's so fragile, you really need to find somewhere that you can spawn and then instantly puke.
Wait for a hunter pounce - when someone goes down, it draws the eyes/aim of the other three survivors - use this 1-2 second window to spawn-in and puke.
Aim slightly above head-height - <link> Also - the velocity/force of the puke tapers off as the puke lasts... i.e. it will spray the further at the start of the puke then at the end.

**Iamthefallen** · 02-18-2009, 01:18 PM

Hunters and Smokers
Good teams call out that they're pounced/pulled.
Better teams also call out their name if it happens after a boom. Nothing worse than hearing "Hunter" and you have no idea who said it and where they are because you're blinded and covered in a horde.

Moving
A good team move together, and move fast.
A better team moves in spurts with a clear goal. Decide what you're doing and do it. Move about 50-100 feet at a time. "Let's run down the stairs and defend", "Go to the train and stop", works much better than a generic "let's go" or "move up".

Boomers
Boomers are extremely effective in advanced mode. In normal mode, they won't do much damage though the blinding effect still helps. Base your attacks around the boomer unless you have a clear shot at someone singled out. If your opponent is moving slowly or holed up for a minute, boom, boom, boom. Every puke you get will chip away a few points, and you're creating an opportunity for someone to get blinded and separated.

The boomers range is fairly limited, often people try to puke from the top of a building and it just doesn't reach the survivors.

Here's the reach/arc of the boomer puke.

**jb4** · 02-18-2009, 02:04 PM

Hunters and Smokers- best uses of a Smoker I have seen is to pull survivors off of big ledges or buildings (like pulling from the dish on the roof adjacent to the roof ladder when they come up on No Mercy). You can also slow them by always pulling a straggler back to where they came from and put the team in reverse long enough for other infected to spawn in front. Smokers pulling someone away from the pack and them hitting the pulled person with a Hunter seems to work well also.

Tanks and Witches- rapid fire shotty works extremely well against both. You can put a witch down on the spot and it only takes a couple of full reloads to handle a tank while you are moving fast. This is my favorite utility weapon. Melee for the hoard is second.

Communication- is everything as many stated above. Those that stay/play together, usually win together.

**WhiskeySix** · 02-18-2009, 02:08 PM

oh yeah ... another one is that better teams are always thinking ahead and have a contingency plan: "If we get boomed here, everyone get along the left cliff-face"...

**Boot** · 02-18-2009, 03:34 PM

Survivor v. Boomer - It also helps to let people know if you've been boomed, especially since you're probably in the back and not obviously visual.

Boomer v. Survivor - Sometimes we try to delay spawns to coordinate attacks, but honestly I think the boomer should usually spawn and puke as soon as possible regardless of the others. Boomer will always slow the team down, and in some areas the team can move so fast you have trouble finding a place to spawn in. If you have a good spot to boom from, take it. In the end you'll probably even get an extra 3-4 boomer lives in a round, assuming they keep making progress when always being gooey.

**FBmantis** · 02-18-2009, 03:38 PM

I wish I could play smoker all round. Love picking off the strays - specifically near edges or right before the last guy is about to go into a room where they want to corner. Works great keeping that guy out and then a horde comes to block the others from helping.

**WhiskeySix** · 02-18-2009, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boot

I think the boomer should usually spawn and puke as soon as possible regardless of the others. Boomer will always slow the team down, and in some areas the team can move so fast you have trouble finding a place to spawn in. If you have a good spot to boom from, take it. In the end you'll probably even get an extra 3-4 boomer lives in a round, assuming they keep making progress when always being gooey.

Generally right... you should always boom when you know you'll get at least two. Problem is when people get impatient and spawn in spots where a successful boom requires a bit of good luck - most of the time you'll just end up shot. Think about it this way - a missed boom gives the survivors about a minute and a half with no horde... survivors are playing through two spawn delays plus however long it takes boomers to get in position twice. I guess (IMHO) the bottom line is do whatever it takes to not miss a boom.

Also - the difference between a 3/4 person boom and just one purple guy is huge. A 1-man boom slows them down and gives a chance to spawn, but as a team they're still very functional and alert. On advanced mode, I think I'd probably take a single 4-man boom instead of 3 one-man booms. When they're all purple, there's a pretty good chance someone will end up incap'd... assuming they're not in a closet.

**Iamthefallen** · 02-19-2009, 01:33 AM

I think tonight really showed that boomer strategy well, boom early and boom often and someone will get a good pounce or pull in every now and then.

**Namebot** · 02-19-2009, 02:07 AM

The boom seems to recharge only a handful of seconds after the survivors recover from the horde. So if they take their time moving you can boom them in the same spot as they try to move out, buying your team time to respawn.

Also one trick I have seen is for a hunter to swipe a boomer a couple of times so that when punched by a survivor he explodes immediately. Only seems useful to me if you need to jump around a corner and boom the whole group as they are clumped up.

Also keep in mind your character model when you are infected. The boomer has huge girth meaning your choices for objects to hide behind is quite limited. The smoker has a bunch of green (bugs/stench?) around him giving you away around corners. The hunter actually seems to blend in well. If the survivors are fighting the horde in the open you may want to consider trying to approach and swipe as they will most likely not realize a hunter is close.The swipe can hit more than one person(i think).