(In)frequently Asked Questions

I hate modded games. I hate things like Buy- and Perkmods, incapped crawling, and RPG mods. Why should I try Random?

Funny story: I too dislike many ways in which Left 4 Dead 2 is modded.
In my opinion, there are three types of mods: (1) mods that fix or change minor details for the better, (2) mods that are fun a specific purpose: for diversity, for comp. play in tournaments, et cetera, and (3) mods that are batshit insane and contrary to what Left 4 Dead 2 is about.

Random changes a lot to this game, no doubt about it. But I have strictly followed several rules in deciding whether to change something or not:

1. Nothing should mess with your general skills in the game. You will not unlearn basic skills like dodging, killing, skeeting, leveling and any (other) kind of direct timing- or damage-related ability by playing Random. Basic interactive mechanics do not change. Weapon damage and when SI may be expected to die does not change. Good strategic choices on the basis of normal game knowledge will make sense and pay off just as well in Random.
2. Nothing should mess with the basic idea and most fun thing about Left 4 Dead 2: it is all about team-play, above all. Random does not alter this in any way. Rambo-ing is not rewarded. If anything, some special events in Random enhance the need and reward for proper team cooperation.
   (Self-help mods are stupid for breaking this rule, by the way.)
3. There is such a thing as too much. This is subjective, but Random is designed to stay within some sensible limits, at least. Unless you're playing Randumb, the game should stay playable and importantly balanced. Random has plenty of new elements, but is designed so it can excellently be played without anyone being required to know many new things at once.

Just to be clear, here are some things Random does not do:

• Make things easier for survivors
• Add more than 4 survivors
• Add ways to "buy" things or gain "levels"
• Give players an advantage just because they play more often
• Change the normal speed of players
• Change the speed of smoker tongues, boom vomit distance, charge speed & distance, etc
• Change the main goal of the survivors or infected
• Change what it means to be incapacitated
• Change the health special infected or (normal) tanks have
• Change how leveling chargers or skeeting hunters works
• Change how weapons work or how much damage they do (minor exceptions like the GL and M60 excluded)
• Change anything that may be important without telling you at round start
• Constantly fill your screen with fireworks for no apparent reason

Short version: If you simply prefer to play vanilla L4D2 100% of the time and are nauseated by any change to it whatever, then no, maybe you shouldn't try Random. But if you're expecting it to take away the things that naturally make L4D2 unique and fun, I think you're wrong and that you should probably try it.
Note that there is Random Basic if you just don't like the gnome bonus scoring, special events, gifts and other more extreme modifications.

I hate T2s and medkits, why did you put them in Random?

Random thrives on diversity. The more items available, the better the randomized item setup works. I know tier-2 weapons (and, for many) first aid kits have game-breaking properties in vanilla versus. In Random, many powerful items are both relatively rare and nerfed in ways that help adjust balance:

• First aid kits: heal for 30% less than in vanilla
• Defibrillators: bring you back in black and white mode, with 30 temp. health
• Tier-2 weapons: have severely restricted ammo capacity
• Tier-3 weapons: Grenade Launcher is heavily nerfed, M60 has very little ammo, Chainsaw does less damage to tanks
• Pills: heal for 40, instead of 50 points

Remember that you can always play RandHard if you want Random with even fewer kits and without tier-2 weapons at all.

What is "random" about Random?

Here's a list:

• item spawns, density of items
• what items survivors start with
• special infected class selection, spawn timers
• whether there will be tanks, double tanks, witches or multi-witches
• tank hittables, car colors, alarmed cars
• special events (round-changing modifications)
• gift effects
• which player gets the tank
• a small degree of tank spawn variation
• whether there are survivor outlines
• how many incaps survivors can take before dying
• uncommon infected (every type on every map), fallen survivors and Jimmie Gibbs
• ammo in weapons lying around
• distance points for a map, damage bonus points
• horde size and interval
• items common infected and tanks drop on death sometimes
• whether pipebombs explode (or dud)
• whether witches sit or wander

I tried Random 0.9 (or older), has anything changed?

Yes! Random 1.0 has changed completely since previous versions. Take a look at the change log to get the full picture.

Does Random work with custom campaigns?

Short answer: yes.
Long answer: most of Random will work with any campaign. Some aspects of it, such as special events and gnome scoring will break if there is no data available (either "saferoom detect" data, "l4d2lib" saferoom items location). On some seriously huge levels there may potentially be some entity-overflow issues that could pop up.
If you run into any issues, let me know and I will add them to my list and hopefully fix them, if I can.

Where is the source code for Random?

Just about everything that was coded specifically for Random is in one huge plugin. The source code for it is in my Random Github repository . Stuff that I coded that may have some use beyond Random itself can be found in my L4D2 Plugins repository on Github.

Why don't defibs on my server bring back survivors in black and white mode?

There is a problem with the black and white defib plugin on Windows servers (even though the signature for the OnRevived() call is correct, the SDKCall does not work). Black and white defibs, for now, only work on Linux servers.