Well its all obvious post all cunning general or level stategies here. Also include weapon or health spwn points.




lets get the obvious ones out of the way.




-Stick together so you wont be taken down separately. i know this one is stoopid but it happns a million time when someone goes for scavenge and gets taken down before the team can do some thing.

-When taking down waves of enemies use places with choke pointsto your advantage eg:

Closets, Carts(get on top of em) in the subway, tunnel to the left in the subway(at the begining or at the ammo pickup)

- Close all doors even the ones at the spwn points.

- Once a boomer vomits on you the incoming horde will only taget you and no one else(unless the too been puked on). Use this to your advantage. Hide in a closet or to a chokepoint to help your frends take the wave easier.

-When using molotovs or pipes do not fire at the mob who has been hit (molotov) or will be hit(pipe) by the explosion to conseve ammo.

-When taking waves try to have the following formation all the shotgun people crouching in the front sniper/pistol/autoguns atthe back.


- (a)When a friend is taken down by a hunter DO NOT shoot teh hunter with the shotty knock the hunter off THEN shoot him.

- (b) if you are forced to shoot the hunter off a friend then aim slight aboce the mid section so your crossair is about 1cm about the body of the hunter. This will damage him and not the team mate.

- Sniper riffle is a 1 hit 1 kill weapon which can also pierce multiple targets use this to your advantage

- Always remember to push the zombies away if your are overwhelmed or reloading to buy time. This one is dead obvious but a lot of peopel forget it.

- Also if possible aim for teh head to conserve ammo especially for peopel using the UZI or M16

-Also if a friend is shooting at a zombie or is surrounded by them DO NOT SHOOT since friendly fire does more damage than the zombies( shove em instead). If you feel you absolutely have to shoot use the pistol while crouching to achieve maximum accuracy.


- If a friend is taken down by a smoker shove the friend to free him.

When vomited on by a boomer drop a pipebomb... the incoming mobs will jump on the pipe and explode.

Using melee causes no friendly fire, so always swap to this if you get swamped very close to a friendly.

Use melee to clear hordes around downed team mates then shoot them, stops your team mate taking excessive damage. Team mate remember to pick your pistol shots from the floor, nothing worse than trying to save someone that is continually capping you in the ass as well. :f

Don't jump into my line of fire. That is all.

Okay, to make a serious contribution:

- Keep moving! The few times I've played with others I noticed some people (Aka) tend to fuff around and not really progress, that not only kind of ruins the point of running away but also you will keep getting rushed by new spawnwaves.

- Retreat to corners. If you're being rushed -especially when boomer'ed- it's extremely helpful if you retreat into a corner, not only can you not be attacked from behind, it's also alot easier to get those btards off you. Plus, the chance that you're going to shoot a teammate due to impaired sight is alot lower since there most likely will be hordes of zombies between you and them. I've noticed people doing this by instinct but others often dont.

- Watch others' health. Several times I've witnessed teammate A being in the reds while teammate B -not wounded- was carrying a healthkit. It's vital to have a full team, heal others, would ya?

- Run & Shoot. The trailer tells you to run AND shoot when fighting a tank, do it! I've noticed myself and others being too self-confident and just standing there spraying at it in the hope that it wont survive the punishment before it gets to me/them- that's not gonna happen. A healthy survivor can out-run a tank, keep running around pillars and objects while shooting it; run, shoot and dodge the objects it's throwing after you.

- Dont startle the witch. Something I wasn't sure about but found out by a quick death is that even shooting other zombies near her can startle the witch, be very careful and don't forget to turn your flashlights off.

- How to handle smokers. You can of course shoot the smoker but you can also just knock your mate free by using MOUSE2.

- Free your teammates. After a death teammates respawn trapped in a room, if you're close to the room and getting rushed, open the door first if possible so your 4th man/woman can join the fight.

- Crouch. Like others have said, crouching is good so your teammates (me) won't shoot you in the head, it also gives increased accuracy/lower spread though.

- Headshot. Please refrain from yelling "BOOM, HEADSHOT!" after shooting a zombies head off. Your teammates may have heard it a good 7343 times and feel the urge to *accidentally* shoot a boomer near you before going afk. Same applies to unnecessary "behind you!!"-calls.

There.

Right when i started this it was going to be short a sweet but i thought what the hell and covered as much as i could.


Tanks target one person at a time usually the person whos doing the most damage, use this as an advantage and have the other 3 spread out at distance incase he changes target corridor doors are useful to slow tanks but not closets as you'll be trapped. Last point aim for the head not his big burly arms also grenade weapons (molotov + pipe) are largely ineffective against the tank.

The witch isn't as bad as she seems ignore her and TURN OFF the flashlight (f key i think) if someone does wake her let her incapacitate whoever woke her and most of the time she just runs off after that, save your ammo. chances are that the person who disturbs the witch will be taken down even if everyone fires at her.

Boomer's aren't so effective in the demo as ive yet to see one 'drop and pop' . Common sense plays a large role here if you are vomited on it's harder to see, but doesn't mean fire aimlessly until it dissipates (friendly fire remember). hide if you can and let those who can see defend you.

Hunters are little more than a nuisance melee is the prefered choice to remove one from an ally. they also seem to target one person at a time sometimes to their disadvantage as that person may be inside a closet or subway carriage allowing teammates to take down the hunter.

The Smoker try if you can to kill him away from chokepoints (areas where alot of enemies will pass through). his tongue can be shot if you have sufficent aim although it is normally safer for the subdued survivor if you kill him rather than try and hit his tongue. The smoke isn't too much of a problem unless it happens to be hiding a hunter or boomer.

The weapon of choice depends on your intended use and/or the difficulty level. Shotgun very useful at close range can even kill multiple targets if used correctly. SMG is good for large hordes aswell as an early precision weapon. Pistol(s) are very useful and often underused, unlimited ammo and a fairly fast refire rate depending on the users mouse skills. Sniper rifle a precision weapon that actually has a use against large numbers. Autoshotgun fast firing large spray often the weapon that takes down a teammate partly due to being fired too often and wasting ammo. m16 the spray a pray option for most however in the right hands a whole horde can be missing their heads in just one clip. Molotov's are useful in doorways to handly large hordes and will gradually burn away at the whoever steps into the fire. Pipebomb's will attract the nearby zombies with its bleeping and flashing light before detonating. Melee now this is complicated damage changes depending on the difficulty level, melee does no damage to teammates, on expert a zombie pinned against a wall will take 4 hits, remember that melee is primarily for pushing back enemies and as such does little to no damage if the zombie has nothing behind it.

As a few general gameplay rules mic's come in handy way more than you think. even just an "ARGHHHH OH MY GOD THERES A TANK!!! RUNNNNNNNNNNNNN" can help the team prepare. teamwork is by far the most important aspect, never go solo at most stick in groups of 2 but even that is not the prefered option. Remember zombies come from the front back left and right aswell as above, 4 people stand more chance of covering against this than 1 persons limited point of view. if someone wanders off on their own and gets taken down by a hunter or smoker DO NOT go after them alone this will more often than not lead to both of you going down. the most important rule is to never stray from the pack even for just a second, inform your team if you're going back for ammo or a different weapon.

Touching on what Akasazh said after 5 seconds or so the horde will be on top of you from the vomit if you can wait another 3-5 seconds to ensure that as many of the zombie wave has arrived before launching the pipe.

I'll try and get some top down map pics so we can place ammo/weapon spawns aswell as health cabinets and possible grenade spawns.

Mehby

most everythign has been said quick note from wolfy tho Tanks dont chase pipe bombs so dont waste them on tanks. In regards to dealing with tanks. I go for the better you then me ideology. cold and cruel yes but its survival.

This is wrong afaik on expert I can kill zombies with 4 melee swipes no matter where they are positioned. I nearly always use shotty though, don't know if it differs from weapon to weapon. And you can still melee with molatovs and pipe bombs out too, you throw punches.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the shotgun is the most effective melee weapon. Logically it would be. I can only seem to knock one or two off me with the pistol(s) or SMG, but the shotgun seems to allow me to knock several back at once.

It's also VERY good at dealing with hunters. I've been trying to shoot the hunter before it gets to me (for example it's coming down a corridor at me) and that usually doesn't work. However, batting it away with the shotgun as it's jumping towards you seems to work really well, then just pump a couple of shells into it and job done. Dead hunter. He's stunned for more than enough time.

Of course, the waiting until it's right in front of you can be a risky tactic, but I've found it works 95% of the time.

There are times when you have to kill the witch (?) - last night she was right in the last room on subway map; the one with the hole in the floor that the mounted minigun faces away from. I was only playing single player on expert since everyone else in HH was busy/not playing, and I got completely mauled and killed. We've killed her plenty of times before, but I'm not sure what the best tactic is.

As for tanks...I'd just say use the environment to your advantage as much as possible. So long as you're not on 1 health and stumbling around you should be able to outrun the tank enough to take it down. Best way I've found is if it's on the subway bit of the level, get in a train carriage and try and keep it outside. It'll rip the doors off, climb on the roof, and may get inside, but if it does, run away again.

If it's in the room with the pillars, you can kite it around a bit and it'll pause to smash up the pillars so you can carry on blasting away at it. Headshots are pretty hard to pull off on it, and I've no idea how the damage model works, but shoot it enough times and it'll go down.

When it incapacitates people you can sometimes revive them, but that seems rare; they usually get finished off before you can get the tank away.
If you wait around after the fight you don't tend to get more than 1 spawnwave if any, and can rescue the people that died from the nearest cupboard.

Which leads me onto my final point/question...

If you don't open all the doors to cupboards where people can respawn, will that mean they'll definitely respawn, or if you DO open the doors (leaving them open) does that mean they'll not be able to respawn there?

What if you open a door then close it again?

Great game. Can't wait for the cornfield level that I've heard about.

Right my take is

Crouch alot especially when in front better accuracy peopel can shoot over

Close doors

MOST IMPORTANT
Aim carrefully when in close quarters with allies near or jsut lots of baddies use melee kills in something like 2 hits and huts liek 5 at once.

Thats my impression after being shot in the back occasionaly by Agent and constatly by Lua

Now now Ares, I wasn't the only one shooting team mates. Ok I kinda was.