Hello! New to the leaderboard and working on runs, questions about some stuff
8 years ago
North Carolina, USA

Wanted to drop in and say hi. My friends and I are very familiar with L4D2 already but had never tried to speedrun it. We attended AGDQ 2016 and ran Alien Swarm as well as watched the L4D2 run there which inspired us to run it ourselves and we plan to submit for AGDQ 2017 assuming it is in a good location for us to attend again.

In the meantime, we have been brushing up on the tricks and working on placing in the leaderboard, aiming for the top.

First, how much time would you all estimate the older version of the game really saves over the newest? We have not reverted and are still very competitive, and have noticed the current top time is on the newest version, so for right now it doesn't seem likely we will go through the trouble of reverting but I am curious as to how much faster it can potentially be.

Second, does anybody have tips on getting the molotov/pipe bomb throwable boost? We have biles down very consistently since they are easy, but molotovs/pipes are giving us a lot of trouble and we just can't seem to get them working consistently.

Besides that, are there any tricks, even if they are difficult, that aren't showcased in the current co-op WR shown that we should take a look at? So far that has mostly been my reference but I would like to look at any other good sources for more if they exist.

Thanks for reading and answering! We'll see you guys at the top.

Florida, USA

You already said that you're familiar with Left 4 Dead 2, so you should have an easier time grasping speedrunning it. It comes down to mechanics and RNG, at the very basic level. Also, good job on climbing the leaderboards. Just keep on grinding.

First, how much time would you all estimate the older version of the game really saves over the newest?

If you're grinding the main Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns, then there is potential of getting sub one hour with glitches that have been patched. (There are some glitches that still can be done, but in alternative ways. Example is Dark Carnival and the roller coaster)

Which would mean that there is a potential of a seven minute time save, just from the get-go. It would require a god like run but it is possible.

Second, does anybody have tips on getting the molotov/pipe bomb throwable boost?

Use "sv_cheats 1" and keep spamming molotovs and pipebombs until you're consistent with them. Practice is going to make perfect.

Besides that, are there any tricks, even if they are difficult, that aren't showcased in the current co-op WR shown that we should take a look at?

HS Top (A channel on YouTube) showcases some things that are unlikely to be shown in a run. Some of them take intense amounts of RNG. For instance, the video below has not been done yet in a run. (Showcased bile jump starts @ 2:23)

Mawfeen has gotten it once. I'll be trying to do this tomorrow for an one player record on Dark Carnival. It would essentially be a guaranteed world record if you don't get screwed over at the finale by a late helicopter.

North Carolina, USA

Thanks, we've been making steady progress over the past couple of weeks in practice. Our best possible according to splits went under 1:04 today, so we just need to get a nice run in eventually. We've already done a duo 1:08 but it was with bot kicks, we're working on voting difficulty and killing them to get a submittable run now. It is very likely we will turn in a 2-man first as the other members in our group need more practicing time first before a nice 4-man will be possible.

Wow, I didn't know that the older version could save so much time... I'll have to check some runs on that version and see what is different.

We have indeed tried the pipes/molotovs upwards of 200 or more times in total now between the four of us, probably, and don't feel any closer to getting it consistently. I was hoping we were missing some sure-fire setup... hmm. At least biles are workable for now.

Hah, wow, there is some very interesting stuff in that video... the amount of common jumps seems to be pretty crazy. Thanks for the resource, I'll look around the channel.

I've also been streaming our sessions although the stream looks to be up very inconsistently and I am not sure why, OBS Studio seems to be failing me... nothing particularly impressive being shown yet, we are making plenty of mistakes still while working on the run but are improving in consistency as we go along.

Also, Rawrica, I noticed you said something in my chat earlier today but I didn't catch it until a bit later. Thank you for wishing us luck.

Florida, USA

I've also been streaming our sessions although the stream looks to be up very inconsistently and I am not sure why, OBS Studio seems to be failing me...

Had some issues using OBS Studio. If you have a decent graphics card, I would suggest using your GPU as the encoder. My stream was freezing often when I was using the x264 encoder. (CPU bottleneck maybe, I dunno.)

Hah, wow, there is some very interesting stuff in that video... the amount of common jumps seems to be pretty crazy. Thanks for the resource, I'll look around the channel.

The skip that I showed you would not be beneficial at all in a real run. It would be so unlikely to do that while actually doing a main campaigns run. However, for an IL run of Dark Carnival, I do not see the issue of doing it.

Wow, I didn't know that the older version could save so much time... I'll have to check some runs on that version and see what is different.

Feel free. If you are wanting the older version of the game, hit me up. I'll be able to help you out with that.

North Carolina, USA

I weighed some options and took your advice in using my GPU to encode. I have a system in place now to stream and record locally that seems to be working well. I'm using the older OBS (which oddly isn't dropping stream) with NVENC instead of x264 to stream, and OBS Studio with x264 at a far higher bitrate for a much nicer and clean local recording with no splits.

We may try out the older version, if you can send me a message about it on Twitch it would be appreciated.

For now, we are submitting a run we just got tonight of 1:10:21 on the newest version, highlighted here, ... it went so well until a reset in Swamp Fever 2 1:30 in! The cheats you see toggled on and off at the beginning cutscene of Dead Center is for the purpose of resets for bot killing, setting the server back to expert and bypassing the vote timer to vote easy because we can't avoid the vote wait timer in this version while resetting the run and would otherwise have to changelevel and then suicide every reset which isn't a problem after the run gets going. Far easier to use the console. If we switch to the older version we'll finally be able to vote freely, so that would be much more convenient.

North Carolina, USA

Oh, also, we finally figured out the Pipes and Molotovs. It turns out we had the timing right, we were just aiming them too high up, causing it to push us up and then back down. We aim high for biles and didn't realize the same couldn't work for the others since they don't explode on contact. That certainly makes the skips far easier when we don't have to rely on bile spawn RNG!

Florida, USA

Sounds like you're on a good road of running this game fully. Best of luck to you.

North Carolina, USA

Thank you. The co-op WR will be incoming any day now. Hopefully our new activity on the leaderboards will encourage more submissions as well since there is quite a bit of room for improvement.

Also, I've added my Twitch to my profile. Did not realize I never filled that in.

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