Field guide

Queue pops, the ready check, the campaign vote, the connect info and your team voice channel all run through our Discord. Playing with your team in voice is a big part of what makes these games good, so being in the server is required to queue, and you have to be sitting in one of its voice channels to press Ready. Leaving voice during the ready check un-readies you.

When 8 players are queued it pops: everyone has 2 minutes to press Ready (on the site or the bot’s card in Discord), then there is a 30 second campaign vote. Teams are split so each side has as close to an even chance as the ratings allow, a server is set up, and you get the connect line. Both teams play every map as survivors and as infected, and the bot moves each team into its own voice channel.

Press Copy on Play, or Connect on the Discord match card, and paste the line into the L4D2 console (enable it in Options, open it with ~). The password goes first, then the connect: password xxxx; connect ip:port. The other way round fails with “Bad password”.

You have two skills: survivor and infected. Your rating (SR) combines them, and teams are balanced on it. On every map, your team’s survivor half is judged against what survivors usually score on that map, and so is the other team’s, so a great infected half counts even if the map is close. The final game score counts once more on top.

Margins matter: a blowout moves ratings more than a near-tie. How you played matters a little: your stats on each side are compared with the other players in the match and with what your rating predicts, worth up to about ±12 a match (shown as ▲/▼ next to your rating change). Winning is still what counts most.

A new player’s rating is uncertain, so it moves fast at first and settles as you play. Your first 25 chapters (about 6 matches) are placements: your rank shows once they’re done, and until then you can see your provisional rating on your own profile. If you don’t play for 21 days your rating slowly becomes less certain and drifts down a few points a week; it comes back quickly once you play. Subs who play under half a match keep their stats but their rating doesn’t change.

When a new season starts, everyone’s final rating, rank, place and record are saved on their profile. Then every rating is pulled a quarter of the way back toward the average and becomes a little less certain, so your first matches of the season count for more. You keep your rank; there are no new placements. The Season tab on the ladder counts stats and records from the start of the season.

You get a queue timeout. Missing a ready check, or never connecting to a match that gets cancelled for no-shows, costs 1 minute, then 1 minute, then 1 minute, then 5 minutes, then 15 minutes for each one after that. Offenses older than a week stop counting. If it was a genuine accident, ask an admin to clear it.

The game pauses and you get 5 minutes to reconnect. That time is for the whole match, not each disconnect, so every time you drop it keeps counting down from where it was. The game pauses for your first 3 disconnects; after that it carries on without you while your clock runs. When everyone is back the game unpauses after a short countdown. If you run out, the match ends as an abandon: nobody’s rating changes, and you are banned for 1 day (3 days for a second abandon within a month, then 7 days). If you crashed, tell an admin straight away: they can hold your clock or give you more time.

No. Leaving the queue before it pops is always fine. Only an ignored ready check or a no-show counts.

Make sure the Discord account you linked is the one in our server (your profile shows the linked name). If you linked the wrong one, unlink it and link again; you can’t do that while you’re queued, in a match or banned. After joining, press Check again.

Sign in with Steam and link your Discord, then join any of our servers for a few seconds (the Get verified page lists them). The server checks your game language and connection and disconnects you with the result. Game in English: you’re in straight away. Otherwise a staff member has a quick chat with you in Discord first. You only do this once.

Some players are checked by a staff member before they can play: when the game isn’t set to English, for connections from some regions, and for VPNs or proxies (they hide where you’re connecting from). It’s a short chat in Discord, not a test. You get a DM as soon as you’re approved.

No. One account per person: no smurfs, no shared accounts, no playing while someone else is banned. Accounts that sign in from the same browser or play on someone else’s Steam library (Family Sharing) are flagged to staff automatically. Smurfing and ban evasion are permanent bans on every account involved.

/queue, /leave, /status, /ready, /profile, /leaderboard, /matches, /link, /report and /help (search every answer in the help center). The queue itself is the panel in #lock-in. Parties and scrim teams are made on the website; once you’re in one, Lock in from Discord queues all of you. When a match ends its result card has an Endorse button: you can endorse up to 2 players from it within 24 hours.

If anyone still hasn’t connected 10 minutes after the server is ready, the match is cancelled. Only the players who never connected get a no-show; everyone else goes free. A match with no round played 30 minutes after the server is ready is cancelled with no penalties at all.

Your copy of the file it names has been modified, usually by a skin or sound mod. Remove that add-on or verify your game files in Steam and you can connect straight away.

Load the demo’s first map in versus first (for example map c8m1_apartment versus), then playdemo. Loading a versus demo from the main menu crashes the game.