303: Glitching the Tank

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LogicNProportion

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Mar 16, 2009
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Great story. My friends and I are also achievement whores, and I totally understand this. For 35GS, I'm willing to do something not so legit...unless it's downright hacking/cheating of course. (For fear of repercussion from MicroSoft, and I lose all my hours of hard work.)

Now, for Blood Harvest, you were RIGHT NEXT to what I would most legitimately call the campaign's 'Jesus Room.' Get a full squad of buddies, and take point in the upper floor of the barn. As long as you guys are competent and cooperative enough to watch EACH OTHERS backs, you can take the infected down from angles before they can even attack a friendly. Also, you are right next to health/ammo, in case of emergencies.

And then when it comes to a Tank, you have the high ground and he has to go either up the platform, or use the ladder, so line up and rain down Hell on him from far, far away. If you're not sure where he will be going, Assault Rifles near the window, Auto Shotties near the ladder.

Seriously, out of all the L4D campaigns, I thought Blood Harvest was the easiest because it was the easiest to predict. Death Toll's Boat House on the other hand...
 

Toeys

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Mar 30, 2010
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Articles on the escapist about how friends bond through cheating in a coop game so that they can increase their irrelevant gamerscore?

MEH!
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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The Imp said:
1. There are no Zombies in Left4Dead. Even the developers said their monsters are infected humans.
If you are like this in real life, I almost feel sorry for you.

OT: Eh, my friend's kind of like you guys, and I generally take the approach that I'd rather do it myself then jump through hoops to exploit a glitch.

For me, the fun comes more from getting totally destroyed time after time. Expert (on L4D2 at least, haven't played the first game) can be a real ***** though.
 

Ashcrexl

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May 27, 2009
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after trying for about 3 hours to beat the finale of death toll, with various players leaving and dropping in and leaving again, i just straight up gave up on that achievement and never played any campaign on expert ever again.
 

rokkolpo

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Aug 29, 2009
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I don't often read the article's here, but I enjoyed this one thoroughly.

Great story, and even more fun, it seems you've stepped on some toes by doing this before the patch.
Jealous haters xD
 

Cyd0n1a

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Jul 15, 2009
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I actually got 1000GS from L4D by playing split-screen co-op with my friend. We spent literally countless hours working on What Are You Trying To Prove. Trust me, it was a pain with the two bots being complete retards all the time. And Nothing Special (the achievement for completing a campaign without any survivors receiving any damage at all from special infected) almost made us cry. But we still got it and a had a blast playing the game.
 

se7ensenses

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Jun 10, 2009
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L4D is SO much damned fun! When my friends & I tried it we found the "Hey Zeus" places, but my GOD we didn't have the patience for being humbled by the AI director so many times! Still one of my favorite gaming experiences!
 

MrJoyless

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May 26, 2010
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Glitching for gamerscore, doesnt seem like fun to me to be honest.

Tho im one of those "weird" gamers who play a game get the achievements that i can without bending over backwards and moving on to the next game.

Grinding out a difficult achievement can be fun but glitching to get it just seems a bit over the top instead of, you know, actually trying to achieve the objective via practice and teamwork.

I dunno this whole article smacked of the same mindset that game crackers and pirates have...i wasnt going to get it in the first place so i might as well cheat to get it.
 

talkstogod

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Nov 24, 2009
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lol @ people comparing glitching to theft. The author bought his game to have fun & it's his to do with as he sees fit. If he wants to use the disk as a plate for burritos, fine. If he wants to glitch it, fine. He had a ton of fun playing with his friends and he isn't hurting any of you, so what's the issue?

Don't give gamerscore/achievements some magical meaning that they don't have. Half of the people with Seriously got it by spending dozens of hours standing in circles taking turns shotgunning each other in the face; people with Aperture Science used the dev code glitch; people who got all the endings for Fable 2 saved it 10 seconds before the ending & reloaded their save 2 times. Hell, there's even an invulnerability glitch for Ninja Gaiden 2, a game reknowned for being nigh-impossible (unless you use the glitch). That's just how it goes.

Great article, btw.
 

Conn1496

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Apr 21, 2011
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I remember getting 1000 Gamerscore on L4D2. It was the only thing that kept me playing, after the 1000 Gamerscore I completely gave up on it. The teamwork, the glitching, I'd say, DON'T PATCH IT. It's all part of the experience! You can't say after a game loses it's charm, you haven't tried tricking into owning itself. A glitch may help you on your way, or it may just provide humor in a boring-ass game you gave up with a loooong time ago. I agree, it may ruin a game, but it's the point. Ruining a game is fun! (Especially stuff like L4D, after you give up on it.)
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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Brandon Cackowski-Schnell said:
Glitching the Tank

With four players of dubious ability, far too many zombies, and 35 Gamerscore points on the line, sometimes you just have to cheat.

Read Full Article
It all comes back to what, if anything, the Gamerscore measures... and what the point of this whole "gaming" endeavor really is.

For you, it seems Gamerscore is simply a metric for how much fun you've had. Did you wring every last bit of fun out of this game you've purchased, or did you miss some? That is the accomplishment you're looking to measure, and it's a worthy accomplishment at that.

To others, Gamerscore is a symbol of the catalog of skills they've acquired and demonstrated. To them, this is the worthy accomplishment--not demonstrating dominance of the game itself, but of the skills the game entails (and other gamers).

The only problem, as I see it, is when one side insists that the other adopts the same meaning. Usually, it's the "skill metric" crowd that's insisting, because it's only that particular camp that frequently compares scores with others.
 

Brian Hendershot

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Mar 3, 2010
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Eleima said:
Wow. Am I like the only one who didn't know about the Jesus room and Jesus rock?
Interesting read, although I will echo what has already been said. Exploiting a glitch for achievements isn't exactly praiseworthy. I mean, it's nice to get achievements for "bragging rights", so-to-speak, but the manner in which you achieve them also counts. The guy who snags that particular achievement by beating the Expert campaigns fair and square is much more worthy of admiration.
Incidentally, I kinda like XxRyanxX's metaphor, as I was always the type of student to study hard for my good grades while a few others didn't play by the rules. Always annoyed the heck out of me.
Nope. We used the Jesus Room and the Jesus Rock on No Mercy and the map with the cabin. We nutted up and did it the old fashioned way on Blood Harvest and once again, whatever the other map was called.

I kinda miss the good old days of Left for Dead. Left for Dead 2 just doesn't cut it for me. Maybe it just looks too good or something :/

EDIT: Kill a Tank with melee weapons only. What the sandcastle Valve?
 

Sennz0r

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May 25, 2008
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XxRyanxX said:
The way I understand it is that for them the achievement didn't represent accomplishing the actual challenge set by the developers. Instead, they made peace with the fact that they were never going to be able to finish the entire game on expert, but still wanted a challenge out of the game. So what they did is they took the premise of that achievement and cut it down to bits they could handle.
If you ask me they seemed to have a pretty tough time getting through the game this way already. They also forced a set dead line on themselves, which couldn't have been that easy. Though I myself don't glitch, I applaud the perseverance of the author and his friends. They kept their eyes on the prize and as the author stated, for him the achievement stands for something completely different than what the developers meant for it. I'm sure he won't be going around saying he actually did finish the whole game on expert. He denied a challenge he knew was impossible for him and replaced it with one he could succeed at.

I get where you're coming from with the analogies on cheating, but to me they seem flawed. The premise of cheating at a test is right; A fellow student did his best and got a good grade, you decided to take a short cut and got the same grade. Not fair. But this is a game we're talking about, not something that could shape your future. That achievement has no value whatsoever, besides from sentimental value. Grades are for determining whether someone has what it takes to pass a course and enter a certain career path. Achievements do nothing of the sort. You don't gain anything of consequence by acquiring them and you don't deny anyone else a deserved opportunity by obtaining them in an unfair manner.

Same goes for the gambling analogy: When you cheat at gambling, you steal money from people. You don't steal anything by glitching to get an achievement. The two are not comparable.

One could argue that glitching to get an acievement is like stealing. When you cheat you cheapen the value of the achievement. What once belonged to a group of elite players can now be obtained by anyone with an internet connection and minor Googling skills. It would be a fair argument, however that's a flaw within the system. If companies would want their achievements to reflect on the player's true skill in matters like this they should either release a bug free game or withhold expert achievements until all bugs are fixed so no one can take the easy way to obtain them.
Unfortunately something tells me developers don't care for that much, they just want you to log in tons of hours into their game trying to get those achievements. Don't think they really care how you do it.

On the other hand, fortunately the people who earn their achievements fair and square know what they accomplished, and it's that personal sense of pride that makes you put yourself through it, not the 35 points added to your gamerscore. It's why I played through Halo 3 on Legendary with all skulls on (co-op, I'm not completely suicidal).

That being said I'd like to agree with everyone here who says glitching ruins the game for other players. But this is only the case when it matters. It matters when you're in competitive play and your fellow players want to play fair but you'd rather glitch your way through a match. It matters when you're in online co-op and get booted for not glitching along to get through a tough bit in the campaign. It doesn't matter when it's just a couple friends playing on a private server who have all agreed they want to exploit the game's weaknesses to have fun.
 

SageRuffin

M-f-ing Jedi Master
Dec 19, 2009
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Achievement grinding, huh? Looks like a few people here don't know about X360A...

I'm of the mindset where cheating and exploiting is detrimental in certain environments (i.e. multiplayer Versus). If a few guys are just trying to add a few points to their gamerscore, who the fuck cares how they do it? In the end it doesn't mean anything anyway - let them have their fun.

Me? Fuck all that - I'll boost every chance I get (though I'm rather proud to have gotten "School for the Gifted" in MvC3 [5-win streak in ranked matches... it's harder than it sounds] without boosting, and I had all but given up hope on grabbing it on my own). I'm not the greatest gamer, nor am I the most honest unless others will be affected. If there's a bug or exploit that allows me to essentially turn on "God Mode", best believe I'll use it.

All right... gotta break out the lightsabre again. I think this thing can catch wildfires...
 

dunnace

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Oct 10, 2008
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I love glitches, adore them even. I want to make a game based on manipulating them, or at least making the mechanics of a game based on common glitches. Glitches are all about abusing the system, not "breaking the rules" so much as "finding a loophole". It's far more admirable to manipulate the rules to win in my view, you are effectively questioning the established and beating it at it's own game. I love that stuff.
 

Continuity

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May 20, 2010
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Srsly dude?

Its not that hard. In the time you spent trying to glitch the game you could of built up some real skills and then done it properly.

I beat all the finales on expert within a couple of weeks of getting the game. Admittedly with randoms, taking my friends along would of been a serious handicap as they aren't that great at FPS.

Oh wait, you're doing this on an xbox? That is hardcore, using a mouse and keyboard makes it 20x easier.
 

pejhmon

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Mar 2, 2010
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pneuma08 said:
Brandon Cackowski-Schnell said:
Once on the plane, the only real threat was smokers, but yet another bug offered immunity to their attack provided someone was constantly meleeing you.
That's not a bug. Meleeing someone who is grabbed by a smoker releases them.
The fact that the melee never ran out was *technically* a bug and was fixed in versus, survival and L4D2.

OT: I remember doing that achievement the hard way (or should I say, the expert way ;D) and Blood Harvest was by far the hardest to do, I think my friend and I took ~6 hours. When I played L4D1 I started too late (glitch wise) meaning the only one left was the "power shot", a way of glitching the smg or m16 to empty and entire clip in 1 shot. It killed your ammo but helped a lot against tanks, providing you didnt miss (got annoying on versus when all 4 were using it and tanks died too quickly.

Then there was the case of picking up L4D2 (after reading somewhere that expert on 1 is like advanced on 2, not really the case from experience but I was none the wise then) and seeing "The Real Deal" (survive expert realism). That was my "how the fuck?" achievement for quite a while (we did it eventually but yeah).

The main way that the expert achievements got harder in 2 was the fact that you had to survive the campaigns, not just finish them.


Side note; my captcha is partially in subscript ..... THEY WERE HARD ENOUGH TO READ ALREADY.... especially when there's a lot of i's, l's and t's next to each other, they all look the same
 

pejhmon

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Mar 2, 2010
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Continuity said:
Srsly dude?

Its not that hard. In the time you spent trying to glitch the game you could of built up some real skills and then done it properly.

I beat all the finales on expert within a couple of weeks of getting the game. Admittedly with randoms, taking my friends along would of been a serious handicap as they aren't that great at FPS.

Oh wait, you're doing this on an xbox? That is hardcore, using a mouse and keyboard makes it 20x easier.
/agreed

I originally had L4D1 on the xbox then got L4D2 on both xbox and PC (both pre-ordered, long story). Since the xbox version of 2 was lacking players and I had RL friends on the PC I left the xbox version for quite a while. Going back to it months later I realised that normal was a struggle when I could do solo expert (campaign dependant mind you) on the PC. Honestly don't know how I got "What are you trying to prove" legit on the xbox back in the day