Clearly taking my love for Left 4 Dead a bit too far, I decided to write about some of the mistakes that entertain me the most.
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1) Failing to Heal Each Other:
In a survival situation, our instincts are likely to best benefit our own interests, so I can see why this is such a common mistake. But by not healing your teammates, you inhibit your own ability to stay alive. For each person lost, a significant portion of the odds in one's favor are forfeited, and with the Infected typically focusing on the weakest enemies, it will not be long before they overcome you. I also take special pleasure in watching Survivors wait for their limping comrades when they could be healing them, which gives me more time to spawn and make matters worse.
2) Shooting When You Should Be Swinging:
As a Survivor you will constantly be pressed to quickly decide between punching and shooting to free a captured ally, yet people often seem choose the one that takes the longest to be effective. Each strike brings your team one step closer to losing and they add up quickly, so you want to release allies as soon as possible. I offer this as a general rule of thumb; always be running towards captured teammates while shooting, and once you reach them, melee to save them. If you are stationary, you get two shots before you must resort to punching. I chose two because you do not want anyone to die while watching you miss more than two potentially point blank shots...
3) Panicking when the Tank Shows Up:
It seems like a large portion of Left 4 Dead players are playing the campaign on Expert, so I am sure most of us are aware of what a threat the Tank can be. However, please keep in mind that few Versus games are configured to Expert or equivalent settings, so there is no need to run screaming from every Tank that charges you in the open. Hitting one with a Molotov is a good precaution, but don't count on it to save your life or even delay your beating. 10 seconds of sustained fire between 4 people will down them on almost every difficulty, so do not stop unloading until victory is assured.
4) Alerting the Witch (When you Don't Have To):
Unfortunately, the Witch is one of the least threatening baddies in video game history. Though the repercussions are harsh, she only punishes the most callous mistakes, and most of us learned not to step on spiky things in Super Mario Bros. Yet she is constantly harassed, and often plays a vital role in the Infected boss's violent overtaking of the Survivors. You can practically prod her with a stick and she won't attack, so I'm surprised more people don't try walking around her.
5) Ignoring/Muting the Audio:
First, if you play Left 4 Dead with the audio muted, shame on you. Second, failing to pay attention to the effects in the game is a great bane and will likely cost someone on the team a few pints of blood. There's more growling, coughing, and puking going on than a party at Hunter S. Thompson's house, so crank it up a few notches if you want an edge on the Infected. Just make sure to test it with a few pistol shots first, because you don't want a Hunter's screech to be the sound that tells you your speakers are too loud.
6) Causing Friendly Fire:
These days most of us have gotten the hang of crouching to avoid getting shot in the back of the head. Surprisingly though, I still see a lot of friendly-fire happening, and it looks like it can often be avoided. If you want to get across a line of fire, walk behind the shooters rather than in front, and do your best to duck if you want to get near a choke point that's being showered with bullets. The shots tend not to hurt too much in Versus games, but while considering how many times most of us have limped into the Safe Room, judge for yourself what those hit points are worth.
7) Survivors Chasing the Infected:
You should kill every Infected you can, but you should not chase them unless your whole team is chasing them. One of the Horde's favorite hobbies is splitting your team up, second only to killing your ass. Besides, back-tracking just to off one wily Hunter will not do the Survivors much good if attentive allies act quickly when she attacks.
8) Abandoning Your Teammates:
I blame the L4D demo for making this such a problem. It is amazing how many people believe they need to sprint full-speed through every map without concern for protecting their allies, and I think this was a habit enforced by the two short demo levels; most of the time you could just high-tail it past the hordes and make it to the end relatively unscathed. That habit seems to have carried over to the full game and now I get to watch someone leave their comrades to their death every third match, despite knowing that they cannot handle the Horde themselves. Sometimes they'll return when they see someone has been attacked, but by the time they get there, the damage is done. The only thing I like more than this is when someone...
9) Dies While Abandoning Their Teammates:
This is the best chocolate in the Left 4 Dead box, that one candy that's just so much better than the rest that it's a pure delight when you get to partake in it. It's a dick-move to leave your teammates behind, and to be the righteous justice that slams down upon you from the tallest rooftop I can find is the truest joy I have known since November 18th, 2008. The icing on the cake is when someone quits because they cannot handle the overwhelming flow of emotions usually triggered by the inevitable realization that no one is close enough to save them (emquitting, short for emo-quitting, or colloquially, "being a bitch"). Because these people have abandoned their allies, the gods have awarded them a few precious moments to consider the error in their ways (while they are choked by a Smoker's tongue), and the time for introspective brings to light their own failures. If forced to face my own heroic deficiencies, I would quit, too.