Is Left 4 Dead (1) Coop only?

[ILOVEDOOM!]

So ive been thinking about purchasing l4d and from what i have seen, there are 4 characters in the game. My internet isnt the best right now for playing with players online so i have a very important question:

Can you play singleplayer in l4d?

Sorry for asking such a stupid question but i would just love to see what a zombie apocalypse game would look like when made by valve, the people that made the amazing half-life series. thanks in advance :)

[cambreaKer]

both l4d 1 and 2 have singleplayer with bots playing as the 3 other characters.

EDIT: i recommend buying l4d2 since it has more content and it also has the campaigns of l4d1

[ILOVEDOOM!]

thank you so much :D

[ILOVEDOOM!]

26 minutes ago, cambreaKer said:

both l4d 1 and 2 have singleplayer with bots playing as the 3 other characters.

EDIT: i recommend buying l4d2 since it has more content and it also has the campaigns of l4d1

what changes does it make? should  buy l4d2 before l4d?

[Chow Yun Thin]

More guns, melee weapons that are mostly the same but effective nonetheless, more items, more special infected.

[ILOVEDOOM!]

but how will i access the l4d 1 campaign?

[reflex17]

I like both games, L4d2 has the campaigns from the first game but it also has the new enemies etc. If you can I would play the 1st one and then the 2nd. If only a single game is your option then go with 2 because it has more user content online that you can download as well like new campaigns etc.

[Coincident]

3 minutes ago, ILOVEDOOM! said:

but how will i access the l4d 1 campaign?

If you buy just L4D2, it will already include the L4D1 campaigns, you can choose them from the menu. I also highly recommend buying L4D2.

[Bauul]

I second getting L4D2, it has all the content from L4D1, plus a whole load of additional campaigns they've added over the years. Plus tons of custom campaigns if you want them. 

 

The only thing you can't strictly do is play the L4D1 campaigns without the new enemies, weapons and items they put in L4D2, but that's not really a big deal as the new additions all enhance the game in positive ways.

[ABRACADABRA]

if you just want to play casually go with the l4d2, it has all of the maps from l4d1. it's a bit different though, as l4d2 has more weapons including melee, more special zombies, slightly different weapons and models for them. Somewhat like if you occasionally encounter a revenant or mancubus and ssg in doom1. Just watch l4d1 intro on youtube before you start. you can find a list of l4d1 campaigns on the net to separate them from l4d2's

[seed]

Third, for L4D2. There's no point in getting the first anymore as they added the content from the original to L4D2 years ago, and L4D1's community is nowadays mostly non-existent, apart from historical reasons or curiosity I'd say it's a waste of time to buy it over L4D2.

 

If you plan on playing Versus or something, I would strongly advice you to build a squad. This community, like with most competitive shooters really, is pretty toxic. You'll have a hard time playing it solo. Get a group of reliable people who don't turn into a bottomless mine of salt when they lose first, you'll thank yourself later, as people tend to block each other very quick in this game - and unlike other games, if you try to join a server where one of the players has blocked you, you will not be able to join, and vice versa. Dumb decision but it is what it is.

[Murdoch]

I concur with the others. L4D2 is superior in every way in spite of what some "purists" might argue and has all the L4D content. The presence of melee weapons alone is worth the price of admission. I played L4D, moved to L4D2, tried going back to L4D and got found the lack of melee weapons deeply frustrating.

 

Versus is, as seed says, very fun when things click but can be frustrating when they do not. Start with bots to familiarise yourself with the mechanics (the bots are actually reasonably solid), then get into co-op. Don't move into versus until your skills are relatively decent and you know the maps well. Going into versus without this will likely result in you being booted from most games unless you happen to stumble across a game filled with similarly experienced people. And always remember, it is a team game. Going off on your own in either versus or co-op will quite rightly make you the target of anger and get your ass kicked.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Murdoch

[cybdmn]

3 hours ago, Chow Yun Thin said:

more special infected.

 

Plus they spawn more often, which is the problem with L4D2 imho. That aspect was better balanced in the first game.

[rehelekretep]

damn now i want to play l4d

[Pegg]

L4D2 is more punishing to new players with all the rushing it forces and new zombies that are just there to fuck with players strategies from first game (They designed the infected to fuck with player strategies instead of synergizing together like the special infected from l4d1). Those alone are enough to have a better experience with l4d1 for a new player. The ported campaigns in l4d2 also have gameplay differences (map changes and game itself) not to mention missing voice lines, which makes the original characters seem boring as fuck if you didn't know whats up. 

 

[Murdoch]

Personally I think the special infected changes were for the better. It was too easy in L4D for players to hole up during finales in spots where getting in was next to impossible to break if they were competent, resulting in finales that were tiresome bores. But yes you are correct @Pegg, it would make for a less forgiving experience for an uninitiated newbie. That is why working up to it is so important. I personally did not find L4D2 any more "Rushy"; generally in both games keeping a solid pace and not hanging around is a sound strategy.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Murdoch

[seed]

And also stay together. Bad idea to go solo and take random, unnecessary trips in these games, that's one of the main ways you're gonna lose, divide and conquer really works in these titles. And indeed, for going into co-op or versus, familiarise yourself with the maps and the infected at the bare minimum first, although even after getting to a reasonable level you may or may not still have crappy moments, hence why I still recommend building a squad, you never know when you're getting kicked and for what.

 

Another thing to note is that this community has a pretty low threshold for mistakes, I myself have experienced that the better some players are, the lower their tolerance for mistakes tends to be. They'll forgive you maybe once or twice in a match, and try to actually work with you by giving you tips and sometimes understand when you make mistakes, as long as you are still trying, that is, which is perfectly understandable, if you're there just to troll, wander around, and hinder your team, why should they care? And why are you there to begin with if you don't want to play? But after that, they will eventually kick you, and likely also block afterwards.

 

As for game differences, the irony of the content that was ported to L4D2 is that it made it even better than L4D. I always found the campaigns from the original were far better designed and much more fun to play, not to mention more atmospheric. As a game in itself, L4D2 is pretty filler and you can tell the original was made by people who actually wanted to make that game, with L4D2 I never got that impression. Apart from Dark Carnival and The Parish, L4D2's campaigns uh... suck. Hard Rain probably sucks the most out of the bunch...

Edited May 25, 2020 by seed

[Mara]

Me and some friends pulled off a speedrun of L4D2 three years ago. Main Campaign (L4D2) with time of 1 hour, 7 minutes and 19 seconds. It was with Steam's most recent version so we didn't have access to some extremely powerful skips (like the C1M1 skip) but we're still proud of that run despite it being a bit sloppy in some areas.

 

Absolutely, do not play versus till you are more experienced with the game. Co-op is a lot more casual option and the chance of you getting kicked are a lot less in co-op. Of course, it's always better if you can bring friends with you - playing with randoms is a bit meh experience in my opinion. If you feel like you've had enough with the official campaigns, you can always download custom ones and play those with your friends.

[ILOVEDOOM!]

thank you :D ! i have one last question though: is l4d1/l4d2 optimized like half life? (my laptop isnt made for gaming and thats why i only play half life/2 most of the time they run well on low end machines)

[seed]

59 minutes ago, ILOVEDOOM! said:

thank you :D ! i have one last question though: is l4d1/l4d2 optimized like half life? (my laptop isnt made for gaming and thats why i only play half life/2 most of the time they run well on low end machines)

 

If you can't run HL2 well enough on max settings then no, your experience with L4D is going to suck.

 

The L4D version of the Source engine is more technically advanced and uses better effects, models, shaders, and textures.

[ILOVEDOOM!]

1 hour ago, seed said:

If you can't run HL2 well enough on max settings

what particular settings do you mean ? can you give me a photo example so that i can try the settings you are talking about and see if my hl2 still runs well?

thanks :)

[TheNoob_Gamer]

1 hour ago, seed said:

(my laptop isnt made for gaming and thats why i only play half life/2 most of the time they run well on low end machines)

Source is generally considered to be very optimized, although due to networking reasons many graphics-related console commands in L4D2 have either been disabled or removed by default.  Still, specify your laptop's specs.

A year ago I played L4D2 with my friends online, using an Intel HD 4000- PC and the performance is very much stable (70-120 fps) on low - 1024x768.

 

[ILOVEDOOM!]

i wish i could but i dont know how. if you can tell me how to do it i will hapilly tell you what the specs are(i really want to know if i can run it)

 

 

 

[ABRACADABRA]

if you are on windows press Win+Pause and take a screenshot. That way we will know your CPU and ram. then click Device Manager on the left and see what Display Adapter you have

[ILOVEDOOM!]

its all in polish, but hopefully you guys will understand it :)

[cambreaKer]

12 minutes ago, ILOVEDOOM! said:

its all in polish, but hopefully you guys will understand it :)

let me translate the important stuff

the cpu is "intel celeron cpu n3350 @ 1.10ghz"

you have 4 gigs of ram

and the graphics card is intel hd graphics

[ILOVEDOOM!]

so im guessing that l4d2 wont work on my computer?

[cambreaKer]

it should run fine at low settings

[ABRACADABRA]

should be enough for l4d1, not sure about l4d2 though. you can always refund on steam anyways. Or try out "demo" version. I mean, torrent edition.

[ILOVEDOOM!]

1 hour ago, cambreaKer said:

it should run fine at low settings

is it going to be in the options? and where? im sorry for these stupid questions but i want to make sure what i have to do to get the best experience and so that i can save that information for later