[No longer an issue] Unusually frequent spawn rate of Special Infected

[Visual Vincent]

NO LONGER AN ISSUE

Originally posted by Visual Vincent:

So, odd thing... I just fired up L4D today and once again played the same map (with director_debug which was pretty interesting, though unfortunately it didn't seem to have any statistics on special infected) and this time I didn't encounter the special infected as often as I did all the other days, including yesterday. I played for 10-15 minutes and only encountered about 13 specials in total (including a tank, since I counted that in my video), but with much more breathing room in between.

Don't know what is going on, but it felt a lot more relaxed today. I might've just been unusually unlucky with the randomness this last week (or unusually lucky all the other times I've played ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ seeing as to you guys this was normal behaviour)

Thanks for all your input!

Old post

Problem
Special Infected spawn at an unusually frequent rate, on average every 27 seconds, and almost always in pairs of two or three.
Affects both L4D and L4D2 (video below)

Frequency
Occurs 100% of the time during the last couple of days.

Impact
In my opinion this makes the game a lot more frustrating and the special infected much less scary, which causes the game to lose its charm and is therefore no longer fun to play.

Background
I last played L4D in the end of last year/beginning of this year and had no issue. I returned to it again a couple of days ago and noticed an unusual number of special infected spawning while playing, and additionally they almost always come in pairs of two or three (e.g. when I encounter a Boomer, there's usually a smoker nearby as well). After killing them it takes less than a minute for them to spawn again, and like before, always in pairs of 2-3 at roughly the same time.

Just a few days ago, when I first encountered the issue playing L4D2 with a friend, we encountered a Jockey, Hunter, Charger and then a Tank within less than 20-30 seconds between one another.

I've never played on dedicated servers nor used any mods. I've ever only played vanilla singleplayer or privately hosted with friends.

Surprisingly, as seen in the video below I encountered two Tanks on the same level, which was new at the time of recording and completely unexpected.

System specifications
OS: Windows 7 x64 Professional / Windows 11 x64 Professional (tested on both)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
GPU: ASUS Radeon RX 580 Dual OC (8 GB)
RAM: 16 GB @ 3600 MHz
Monitors: 3 (all 1920 x 1080 @ 144 Hz)
1 TB NVMe SSD as OS drive
Game running on a 2 TB HDD

Game information
L4D(2) addons installed: None
L4D(2) scrips/customizations made: None
L4D(2) cvars modified: None
Have played singleplayer: Yes
Have played self-hosted with friends: Yes
Have played on dedicated servers: No
Occurs regardless of difficulty: Yes
Restarted the game before trying: Yes
Have tried verifying game cache: Yes
Have tried uninstalling and resinstalling: No
Had the game installed since: 2018-ish
Beta channel: No

Video showcasing the issue (singleplayer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_AAPB6RfEU

Related posts
It seems I'm not the only one having this issue.

- https://steamcommunity.com/app/550/discussions/0/3430074255265334150/
- https://steamcommunity.com/app/550/discussions/0/3430074255272972172/
- https://steamcommunity.com/app/550/discussions/0/3103518890056511569/

Statistics (from my video above)

Chapter: 3 (Death Toll)
Level: 3 (The Church)
Play time: ~9 min 50 s
Total number of special infected: 20

Time taken for special infected to spawn
Average: 27,9 s
Median: 23,2 s

Individual time taken to spawn

Boomer 1        38s
Smoker 1        19s
Hunter 1        13s
Boomer 2        32s
Hunter 2        1m 19s
Boomer 3        6s
Tank 1          15s
Smoker 2        14s
Boomer 4        27s
Boomer 5        1m 26s
  + Smoker 3
Hunter 3        19s
Tank 2          43s
Hunter 4        38s
Boomer 6        53s
Boomer 7        14s
Hunter 5        19s
Boomer 8        12s
  + Smoker 4
Boomer 9        31s

[Nescius]

Dont see anything unusual just regular spawn rate as it always has been. Multiple tanks were also always possible in l4d1

[what?]

I'd recommend starting up a singleplayer game and putting "director_debug 1" in the developer console to see what its up to.

It's normal for them to spawn in 3, that's the limit.

I think the typical respawn time is either 35 or 45 seconds, and 10 during horde events.

Also tanks and witches ignore the special/respawn time limits - they don't count as "special infected", technically speaking.

[◢◤Tinsellieye◢◤]

those are pretty standard spawn if someone takes their time looting and all, if someone is fast enough for example on no mercy chapter 1 by doing the skip they can most of the time avoid any single special spawn because they took less than the game timer to spawn them

[JAiZ]

I don't see anything unusual with those spawn rates, 18 Special Infected in almost 10 minutes is pretty normal, that's barely 2 SI per minute. (Tank spawns are not included in SI/Min rates since I believe their spawns are set on map start, rather than being dynamic throughout the level. Same for Witches.)

The only thing worth noting is that L4D1 and L4D2 have slightly different spawn behaviour, for example the tank spawns; L4D1 can have up to 2 tanks in a single map, whereas L4D2 has it capped at maximum 1 tank per map.

Specific events also change the respawn rate, so for some events you might get a Special Infected spawn every 5 seconds, on others it will be every 10 or 15 seconds. That's event-specific and set by the level esigner.

In future, you can verify if something is normal by playing on an official Valve server; That will force the game to use the normal values, overriding any mods you might have.

[fran]

it only happened a bunch of times in l4d1 for me (that's the l4d i play the most after all),but sometimes weird things do happen

i'm talking about extra long and really frequent hordes,super aggressive si's + their spawn time is severely reduced etc and all this on valve's official servers but the game is much much harder than a regular expert game

no one seems to know why but one theory i heard is that if you join a dedicated server with mods , sometimes some of your settings get changed and can be carried over even when you join an official server

simply verify game files just to be sure , that always worked for me

[King Of Lolis]

i call ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that 2 hunters or 2 smokers can spawn at the same time on some parts like dark carnival roller coaster rush

or special re-spawning
like jockey is following me from behind as i rush but all of a sudden he comes around the corner in front of me and gets me

broke game

[Captain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥]

?

[Visual Vincent]

Originally posted by yesskillch:

I'd recommend starting up a singleplayer game and putting "director_debug 1" in the developer console to see what its up to.

It's normal for them to spawn in 3, that's the limit.

I think the typical respawn time is either 35 or 45 seconds, and 10 during horde events.

Also tanks and witches ignore the special/respawn time limits - they don't count as "special infected", technically speaking.

Thanks, I will try that.

The default appears to be 45 seconds, according to https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/Complete_list_of_console_commands/Z
I checked the convars in my game, and they seem to not have been tampered with:

z_special_spawn_interval = 45
z_ghost_spawn_interval = 60 (don't know what ghost means, but it apparently it has to do with special's spawn interval as well)

[Visual Vincent]

So, odd thing... I just fired up L4D today and once again played the same map (with director_debug which was pretty interesting, though unfortunately it didn't seem to have any statistics on special infected) and this time I didn't encounter the special infected as often as I did all the other days, including yesterday. I played for 10-15 minutes and only encountered about 13 specials in total (including a tank, since I counted that in my video), but with much more breathing room in between.

Don't know what is going on, but it felt a lot more relaxed today. I might've just been unusually unlucky with the randomness this last week (or unusually lucky all the other times I've played ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ seeing as to you guys this was normal behaviour)

Thanks for all your input!