Useful tricks not everyone knows

Useful tricks that I decided to put together into a guide. C:

Details simple tricks,
complex tricks,
and various launch options.

Introduction

Here's a bunch of little tricks I found that may help you play the game better.
You will not be banned for using any of these tricks.

I. Simple tricks

First off are a list of simple tricks that most people can do.

Switching Characters in Game

Are you at low health? About to die? Or you simply don't like your character? You can switch to another character IN GAME!

1. Go idle by pressing Esc and click "Take a break"

2. Open the developer console using the ` located below the esc key. (Make sure you enabled developer console)

3. Type "jointeam 2 character" (remove the quotes and replace character with the character of your choice e.g., jointeam 2 nick)











Quick Tip: Bind the idle command (bind q go_away_from_keyboard) and the jointeam 2 command (bind g jointeam 2) to a key and tap the idle key then the switch key quickly to switch much faster.

Notes:

• You can only do this when there is another player in your game.

• You can only switch to an unoccupied bot.

Fast ladder climb

This trick can double your climbing speed.

If you want to go up a ladder:

1. Attach to a ladder

2a. Look to the left of the ladder and look all the way down

2b. You can also look to the left of the ladder and look all the way up

3. If you looked all the way down, hold the S and D keys at the same time. If you looked all the way up, hold the D and W keys at the same time



You can also go down a ladder at double speed using the same technique:

1. Attach to a ladder

2a. Look to the left of the ladder and look all the way down

2b. You can also look to the left of the ladder and look all the way up

3. If you looked all the way down, hold the A and W keys at the same time. If you looked all the way up, hold the A and S keys at the same time

Alternatively, you can look to the right of the ladder, just make sure to reverse the keys e.g., Press A key instead of D key, W key instead of S key.

Notes:

• Gamepad must be disabled for this to work.
  
  
• You can also do this with sloped ladders, just make sure you are facing parallel to the ladder.
  
  
• If you are not facing directly parallel to the ladder, you may climb slower and you might start to slide off the side of the ladder.

Climbing a ladder normally:













Climbing a ladder while holding S and D (not sped up):

Shooting shotguns, Scout rifles, and AWPs faster

You ever notice how the tier 1 shotguns and the bolt action sniper rifles have garbage dps (damage per second)? With this trick, you can noticeably improve their fire rates.

1. Shoot

2. Immediately bash (default is right click) after you shoot

This trick works by skipping the intermediate animation of the shotguns and sniper rifles.

The method I use to take advantage of this is to spam the shoot button and time the right click just after each shot.

Notes:

• This is only useful on tier one shotguns (chrome, pump) and the scout rifle and AWP.

• This trick is USELESS on auto shotguns, military sniper rifles, and the hunting rifle as they don't have a loading animation.

• This will take some practice.

Normal firing speed (7.5 seconds, 8 shots):










Firing speed using this technique (6.6 seconds, 8 shots):











Firing using this technique is about 12-14% faster

No hanging on ledges

If you ever wanted to jump off or walk down a ledge but you couldn't because of the ledge grab, this trick will fix that.

1. Hold space
2. Jump down or walk off the ledge

Notes:

• You will still take fall damage so don't, you know, jump off a building.

• You don't need to time this trick; you can start holding space 20 seconds before you actually jump off a ledge and it would still work as long as you are still holding space.

Holding space:













Without holding space:

Turret boost

Here's an uncommon trick:

1. Hold space

2a. Move to the right of a turret (but still within interacting range) and face the left of the turret if you want to be launched to the left.

2b. Move to the left of the turret (but still within interacting range) and face the right of the turret if you want to be launched to the right.

3. Double tap E (or your "use" key)

Notes:

• You can adjust the angle at which you are facing the turret to propel yourself at different speeds.

• This may take a little practice to perform the first few times.

• You can do this trick with both types of turrets (minigun and heavy machine gun).

Getting launched to the left:













Getting launched to the right:

Reviving someone while healing yourself

In a pinch, you can revive someone while healing yourself at the same time.

1. Take out your first aid kit
2. Walk up to an incapacitated (downed) teammate
3. Hold e and left click on them at the same time

Note: Make sure you see your incapacitated teammate getting up, otherwise you are just healing yourself normally.

Faster melee weapon swing exploit

Here's another uncommon but powerful trick:

1. Pick up a melee weapon such as an axe.

2. Make sure you have another item in your inventory that you can switch to like a first aid kit.

3. Start swinging your melee weapon by holding down left click.

4. Switch to your item and back to your melee weapon quickly while still holding left click.

5. Repeat step 4 every time the swing begins.

Notes:

• This will take some practice, don't just spam switch as it will not work.

• You need to time the switch just after you initiate a swing to make it go faster.

• This is more effective on slower weapons such as the axe and is less useful on fast weapons like the machete or nightstick.

Swinging the axe normally:









Swinging the axe with this technique:

The Three Server Types

This isn't so much of a trick as the other ones; it's more like information that I think more people should know.

When making a lobby, the game lets you choose the campaign, chapter, difficulty, and mode which are all self explanatory. However, the "server type" option may confuse inexperienced players. Here's an explanation of all of them:

Official Dedicated: Valve's official servers.

• These servers are ran by Valve and are completely vanilla or unmodded.

• These servers can't run add on campaigns because Valve only runs official maps like Dead Center.

• You should expect about 10-150 ping from these servers.

Best Available Dedicated: Community-run servers

• These servers are run by the community and can be heavily modded but it can also be vanilla depending on the server owner.

• When you choose this option, the game will connect to the community-run server with the best connection (to the lobby leader) hence the name "Best Available Dedicated"

• These servers can be found on most add on campaigns and all official campaigns.

• You can expect your ping to vary greatly from 10 ping (rare) to perhaps 300 or more.

Local Server: Host's server

• These servers are ran by the lobby leader.

• These servers can run any campaign.

• The host's game-affecting add ons such as admin system are enabled on these servers e.g., if the host enabled admin system and hosts a local server, they will be able to use admin system.

• Ping will vary depending on the distance between the clients and the host and the connection speed of the host.

• The host will almost always have about 5 ping while everyone else's ping may vary

• If you are hosting a local server, be sure to type "sv_consistency 0" into the developer console in game. Otherwise, most people will get an error and will not be able to join.

Tip: You can see a list of servers by typing in "openserverbrowser" into the developer console



(The Steam Group Server is like the Best Available Dedicated server but run by a steam group you joined)

II. Complex tricks

Next are some tricks that are more complicated to do. These tricks may not be as beneficial to you as other tricks.

Bunnyhopping AKA Bhopping

This supposedly takes about a year of practicing to master and it may not be worth it unless you want to spend a lot of time on this game.

1. Hold W to walk forwards so you have some initial velocity

2. Jump and then let go of W

3. Keep jumping as soon as you hit the ground to retain your speed

4. Hold A and move your mouse left to strafe left

5. Hold D and move your mouse right to strafe right

6. Repeat step 3 while strafing

Strafing left and right continuously lets you gain speed

Hold ctrl or crouch when bhopping down a sloped surface like a ramp to be boosted forwards even further

Notes:

• DO NOT HOLD W OR S WHEN BHOPPING FORWARDS

• Strafing lets you turn and increases your speed.

• Jumping as soon as you hit the ground retains your speed.

• Don't strafe too fast or you will lose speed.

• Don't strafe too slowly or you won't turn fast enough and you won't gain as much speed.

• You can bind jump to your mouse wheel by putting this command "bind mwheeldown +jump" in the developer console to make the jumping part easier.

• You know you are doing it correctly if you are not losing any horizontal speed while doing this.

• There are more advanced tutorials on how to do this, this is only a basic guide.

Reaching 500 velocity while bhopping with 1 hp!

Many people consider bhopping with scripts cheating!

Executing commands and autoexec

Tired of having to type in commands every time your settings get reset?

Part 1: How to go to your cfg folder

1. Go to your steam library tab and right click Left 4 Dead 2

2. Hover over the Manage button and click Browse local files

3. Find and open the "left4dead2" folder. Then, open the "cfg" folder.

Part 2: How to add commands

Once you are at the cfg folder

1. Create a new text document

2. Rename it to make it a .cfg file.

• For demonstration purposes, I renamed it to autoexec.cfg but you can name it to anything as long as you make the file a .cfg file.

• File name extensions needs to be enabled for you to see file extensions such as .txt or .cfg

3. Now add your commands. You can add any developer console commands such as "bind f9 killserver"

4. Save and close your .cfg file (You can edit and save it again at any time)

Example of an autoexec.cfg file:














Part 3: Executing the .cfg file

1. Launch l4d2

2. Open developer console

3. Type in "exec autoexec" (or the name of your cfg file you created)
You can also add "+exec autoexec" to your launch options (see Launch Options) to execute the .cfg file when launching your game.

Now you can easily execute useful commands like sv_consistency 0, sv_pausable 0 all at once

Notes: You don't have to name your .cfg file "autoexec.cfg" you can name it "commands.cfg" or "dudeuaiscool.cfg" just make sure you change the launch option to reflect this and/or type in the correct command to execute this e.g., exec dudeuaiscool

Lerp, cmdrate, and other rates

Left 4 Dead 2 has a set latency or delay value from the client (you) to the server that you can change. Lowering that value should reduce that delay and make your actions more responsive.
These are the network rates and commands that I personally use:

cl_cmdrate 100
cl_updaterate 60
rate 30000
cl_interp 0.065
cl_interp_ratio 1


Feel free to adjust these values to your liking, but I wouldn't touch them because they are good as is.

Notes:

• DO NOT SET cl_interp TOO LOW OR TOO HIGH, setting cl_interp too low will cause many animations to become choppy and zombies will appear to lag when they move. Setting cl_interp too high will cause zombies to hit and block your path before they even appear to reach you and more.

• You can check your network settings by using the command "net_graph x" (set x to a number from 1 to 5, 0 to turn off)

• You can put these commands in the autoexec file (see Executing Commands and autoexec) to execute them easily.

III. Launch options

Finally, it's launch options but first, here's how to add launch options.

1. Go to your library tab and right click Left 4 Dead 2
2. Click properties
3. Make sure you are on the general tab and you see this:













4. Insert your Launch options in the Launch Options text box like this

List of useful launch options

1. -vulkan
Runs the game on Vulkan API.

• In my case, this launch option doubled my fps.

• However, you may experience stuttering in the first several games you play; after that you shouldn't experience many issues.

• Make sure to disable v-sync in the "in game options" and remove the fps limit by typing
  "fps_max 69420" in the developer console

• Remove this launch option if it doesn't help your performance and if you encounter more issues

2. -novid
Skips the l4d2 startup video/intro

3. -nohltv
Supposedly increases performance by disabling SourceTV

4. +exec file

• Executes a cfg file with that name located in "common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2\cfg" on startup

• For this example, it would execute file.cfg on startup

• Look at "Executing commands and autoexec" for more info

5. -nosteamcontroller
Supposedly increases performance by disabling steam controller system

6. -lv
"Low violence" mode. Lowers gore by despawning zombie bodies as soon as they are killed and hides visible injuries and effects given to zombies such as amputations or burning.

• This can increase performance at the cost of satisfaction :\

• There's similar option to this found in Options->Multiplayer->Gore->Low except it is not as strong as low violence.

7. +mat_motion_blur_percent_of_screen_max 0
Disables the ugly motion blur effect that occurs when you move very fast


Some of the launch options listed above:

IV. Other useful resources

1. Greatly improves antialiasing if you have an Nvidia Graphics Card:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2170438239

2. Lets you play in Third Person in ANY game except versus:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=438477513

Final thoughts

I might update this in the future to update or add some tricks or information. Feel free to correct me if I made a mistake with any of this information.

[BigDogAwesome]

ak 47 when in relode shove

[dudeua]

Updated the formatting

[Barney, from Black Mesa.]

You can actually cut the smoker's tongue; I learned this trick from a speed runner. When you hear the smoker's attack sound, you face down slightly and cut from the direction of the tongue, which ends up cancelling the attack. You can only do this trick with blades and the crowbar.

[Benjamin]

yes you can heal while reviving a player, i have done it many times.

[Low Calorie Biscuit]

Very good stuff

[Shiro♌]

Thanks for the tips; Especially climbing up the ladder, fast recovery after each melee attack, and the recovery when it comes to using bolt-action weapons.

The rest is more or less kinda irrelevant for casual players, who do play for fun.. It's more for the hardcore players and veterans, who do wanna get records in Survival and such stuff.

[Raze]

Even though i know most of these, it was a good reminder!

[Solomon Kane]

This is highly relevant !

[Alucard]

Cool!

[dudeua]

@Alucard You can't heal another teammate while reviving someone but you can defib someone while reviving another person though they need to be right next to or on top of each other.