Are you a fan of Left 4 Dead 2’s Expert difficulty and custom campaigns? Look no further for tips on how to conquer the challenging Questionable Ethics Remake in single-player mode with no human assistance. Our expert gamer has discovered a successful strategy using the Left 4 Bots 2 addon by Smilzo and Competitive-Bots+, which can greatly improve your chances of survival. Don’t worry, we don’t consider this cheating as bots are notoriously unreliable in most custom campaigns, especially this one. Keep reading for all the details!
Proof of beating chapters
Second screenshot is chapter 4. Nothing special to say.
Third screenshot is chapter 5. you can see that bots don’t have their medkits as this is after the laser section, which is not bot friendly.
The real deal
Chapter 5 has this scripted tank fight in a VERY small area. Vanilla bots get pummeled to death instantly in expert.
But I found a (strict) workaround. Before jumping into the small arena, equip with the M60 weapong and at least one melee.
How to beat:
This could still fail though… but
Tank will inevitably one-hit incap a survivor bot with a rock. Usually the tank does a sort of victory animation, somewhat long enough (for you to touch him), SO take advantage of that! As soon as the rock leaves his hands and hits your teammate, run quickly to the tank and melee him until his animation is about to end. Two bots’ fire bullets and your melee attack can finish the tank in seconds.
Or…
Sometimes the tank just downs a survivor with one punch and decides to kill the downed survivor while he/she is incapacitated. You can also apply same strategy while tank is finishing off a survivor.
Run away when tank’s animation ends in a timely manner. That goes without saying.
Before the tank fight, you can command a bot to pick up a grenade launcher, which also deals great damage against tank. To do that, first look at the grenade launcher, and type something like “ellis use” and Ellis bot will pick it up. Note: You have to be looking at the grenade launcher while typing this command. You can also do that with any item.
I predict that someone will be thinking:
“WAIT! I SEE YOU WITH AN RIFLE DESSERT AND NOT M60”
To that I say, my M60 ran out of ammo duhhh. There was also a rifle dessert in the arena for pickup, and a defib.
In my first run I was failing miserably that I had to quit. I was just using t2 weapons and not t3 ones. Even with molotovs tank survived long enough to wipe the team. But in my second run, I tested with the M60 and a melee. I used the first half of M60 ammo for the first tank and saved the other half for the second tank. I beat that part on my first try. Not even with my human teammates was I able to go further, though in our first attempt we managed to beat that first tank scenario.
With my human teammates, we passed the first tank section on first attempt, but lost in second tank section. Afterwards, we were being wiped out in first arena in a row and did not even reach the second arena. I guess that first attempt was pure luck. Nevertheless, the strategy above can also work with human players more easily because human players are smarter, I guess.
Though, I do not think it is possible to get through all that with at least one death. It would require big luck otherwise. Therefore I advice to carry two defibs so everyone can reach the next safe room. Look in the Left 4 Bots 2 section to see how to command one bot to pickup defib or any weapon or item you want.
Strategy summary:
1. Shoot tank with M60, your bots will be shooting him too
2. After tank downs one bot with rock and his victory animation starts, rush into him and melee him quickly. Two bots’ shooting will help with that.
3. Before the animation ends, quickly move back and pickup another weapon.
4. Shoot again and tank will die in about ten seconds
ADDITIONAL TIP FOR SECOND ARENA
There are two throwable objects for tanks, to move them out the way, move them with a gascan to somewhere you think the tank won’t go through
To do that, pick up gascan, approach object, while pressing W throw the gascan against it and it will move. And continue doing that until you move it to where you want.
Last but not least apply same strategy, there are two tanks though so it will be harder.
This is how I performed in the second arena.
This is before the two tanks spawn
This after the tanks annihilated us
It was taking a long time and I needed to other things in my life, so I switched to Easy mode to finished the rest as to not lose the stats. Here you can see the stats:
In my second run of the campaign
After the laser section. I am surprised this time the bots took less damage
After beating the first tank in first arena
After beating second tank in first arena
Before the two tanks spawn in second arena
After beating two tanks in second arena
Finally in the safe room
Surprisingly enough, in my second run I beat this chapter in my first attempt. That shows how useful Left 4 Bots 2 + Competitive Bots are for single-player expert in custom campaigns.
Again, for some reason I had to disconnect because I had to quit the game since I happened to be busy again but this time I had to go so quickly that I did not even switched to Easy, thus I lost the stats, lol. I’ll try the last chapter in expert in the future and if I manage to beat it, I’ll update this guide. I guess the last chapter will be easier to fight tanks as it is a bigger arena.
Left 4 Bots 2 and Competitive-Bots+
-Left 4 Bots 2 by Smilzo https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3022416274
-Competitive-Bots+ by Omixsat and UndeadRyker https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=655424673
Just subscribe to these add-ons to install them
To create their folders, just play any campaign and then quit the game and look for this folder
/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/common/Left 4 Dead 2/left4dead2/ems/left4bots2/cfg/
In the cfg, you will find a text file “settings.txt”
Change this line
From “load_convars = 1” to “load_convars = 0”
This will allow the competitive bots addon to work with l4b2
If you want, you can disable this in the settings
“throw_molotov = 1”
Switch to 0 so the bot won’t throw molotov. In chapter 5 of Questionable Ethics Remake it is necessary because then the bots could burn themselves instantly, since the arena is very small and won’t have much space to evade the tank.
Summary to beat chapter 5 and possibly chapter 6
1. Shoot tank with M60, your bots will be shooting him too
2. After tank downs a bot with rock and his victory animation starts, rush into him and melee him quickly. Two bots’ shooting will help with that.
OR
2.After tank one punches a bot and decides to kill him in two hits, also rush into him and melee him quickly. Two bots’ shooting will help with that.
3. Before the animation ends, quickly move back and pickup another weapon.
4. Shoot again and tank will die in about ten seconds, with your bots’ help
And that wraps up our share on Left 4 Dead 2: Questionable Ethics Remake (Expert difficulty) Tips to have an easier game. If you have any additional insights or tips to contribute, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below. For a more in-depth read, you can refer to the original article here by Darko, who deserves all the credit. Happy gaming!