Hey all, i have a idea to do a new category with 5-6 map like mains campaigns but with custom campaigns that can diversified a little bit

What do you think?

I would enjoy a custom campaigns category.

I wouldn't mind some new stuff to play, and my viewers would probably like to see some completely new campaigns as well. I support this with the hope that other runners like mister tree man above me submits too, I wouldn't want to be all lonely! By the likes it looks like mrfailzz and kaito might be in too. It will make for some interesting new skips as well, who knows what crazy common jumps may await us?

We need to handle this carefully, though. I really don't want another Left 4 Mario situation (that campaign is godawful). These campaigns should be in theme with the official campaigns, designed well or at least are fun/interesting to play, look good, and are rated highly. I'm not familiar with many custom campaigns myself so I'd have to look around at some before voting on any, but if anybody else is familiar we should start posting them so we can all take a look and figure out what the best candidates are.

Length-wise 5 or so campaigns so it matches the Main Campaigns length sounds good. Are you also thinking of having IL versions of each? Those categories are always a big help in practicing for the "main campaigns" category.

Yeah sure you will have IL

I already take a look of wich campaigns can be add

Suicide Blitz 2: One of the best custom map Gamemap link: http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2793 Workshop link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=128428201

City 17: Pretty cool map too Gamemap link: http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2506 Workshop link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=141632373

I'm still looking for other map atm

Feel free to do any proposition

Ah, Suicide Blitz! I think that's a campaign people kept telling me I should try, it looks great.

I think I'll go through some of the top rated on the workshop on stream to get a feel for them and gather opinions as well as ideas of other popular campaigns people know about.

Tried two campaigns tonight so far, Suicide Blitz and Back to School.

Suicide Blitz looks good and looks like it may have some potential for interesting skips (especially for co-op). The maps feel like they are longer than Valve maps but once you're speeding through them and skipping stuff it may cut down on time. I'd put it in the running.

Back to School was a pretty muddled campaign that felt like it was trying to take several different themes and shove them all into one, not to mention almost everything about it had nothing to do with a school until the very end. For speedrunning, there were too many holdout areas that will stop a run cold while you wait for things to happen before proceeding which will really kill the pace. There were also some missing textures in one of the maps which we were all seeing so that must be a problem with the Workshop upload. I would not recommend this for consideration.

I'll keep going through the top rated ones soon and keep that list building.

I will test Dead Before dawn dc in stream tonight

http://www.gamemaps.com/details/15139

Don't worry about the fixed version it's only fixed crash problem

i played city 17 today. me, my friend and 2 bots on advanced. there were some very tough parts, specially chapter 2 and the finale. the map overall was good though. without many skip possibilities, but good. already found a skip on chapter 3, a really big one on chapter 4 (still need a stuck spot for it though) and a possible jesus spot for the finale. the map was taken directly from HL2, so it has the correct Valve feel to it

Actually i test the 3 first map on the before dawn dc campaigns

It's look like a pretty good campaigns actually it's might be possible to do boost with nade Maps are really open too

Some thoughts on the mechanics of this category,

I noticed you can't vote to change to addon campaigns, so that will present a bit of a problem as to how we want to handle them being strung together. The only alternate ways to change campaign off the top of my head is by backing out and starting a lobby on a new one, or using map/changelevel. Changelevel breaks intros (I assume with these as well but haven't tested that), going through the menu seems like it would be clumsy although technically "proper", and the map command would force clients to reconnect which is also a bit clumsy, not to mention it would then require that the host open their port which isn't required when connecting via the lobby. Maybe there is another way I haven't thought of? I'm not really sure which option would be the best... changelevel probably would be if somehow intros don't break. This assumes there isn't a roundabout way to call a vote for a specific map I'm not aware of which would be ideal.

I realized that downing the bots will be... interesting, since there will be no bug to get them kicked and the vote creation timer exists. Quite a few maps will be on Expert, I wonder how sustainable this will be in Solo runs... it may be time for me to learn to cut the Smoker tongue. I'll say in advance I hope none of the maps require bot warping, please, please no! Ahh!

Maybe we should try to aim for a rough target time for the category? I'm thinking about an hour at minimum, hour and a half at most, so it starts around what Main Campaigns are and leaves room for more in case many nice campaigns are found. Once a list of campaigns are built that we agree are suitable it might be a good idea to run them dry with the director off to get a rough idea on how long they are to find the total time without skips since huge ones are probably going to be very uncommon for a solo run. Perhaps this collective, trickless time should be closer to the 1h30m mark to compensate for potential big skips especially in co-op to ensure the time doesn't get too low.

I think what you could do for multiple campaign runs is use changelevel then call a vote to restart the campaign, which is also clumsy, but allows you to "unbreak" the cutscenes. this way at least you keep everyone in the game if you are doing coop and it wouldn't be such a time loss

Hmm... only disadvantage I can see to using changelevel and then voting restart is that you will not be able to vote difficulty to take care of bots (only a problem in Solo). Could be an option still.

I tried City 17 tonight, it was alright. Unsurprisingly very heavy on corridors and blind corners so its mix of open and enclosed areas aren't balanced too well, which also means I'm not sure many skips will be possible since it's pretty straight-forward too. Great opportunities for bunnyhopping (its strength, definitely) with a decent overall length and it is very recognizable for many people. I'd say this can be considered if there doesn't end up being other great campaigns that would have to be given up for it.

For reference, these are the campaigns I have subscribed to still to go through,

Yama (Treescrub says this is heaven for big tricks) Dark Wood Warcelona Diescraper We Don't Go To Ravenholm (rounding out the HL2 campaigns) Blackout Basement Night Terror Detour Ahead Death Row Day Break Plan B Urban Flight (tried it a while ago, not sure it'll be good or not) Dead Before Dawn

Quite a bit. I hope some are obviously not usable or this decision is going to get pretty difficult!

Some that I know/have tried: The Dark Parish - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/3467 Death Aboard 2 - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2486 Detour Ahead - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2445 Hard Rain: Downpour - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/12237 Dead City II - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2464 (This map consistently crashed for me on one of the later maps) Tour of Terror - http://www.speedrun.com/tot / http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2721 Urban Flight - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2639 Dark Blood 2 - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2592 Undead Zone - https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=187449102 The Bloody Moors - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/6772 Diescraper Redux - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2413 Open Road - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2741 Arena of the Dead 2 - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2387 Suicide Blitz 2 - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2793 Back to School - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/6691 Haunted Forest - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2653 Dead Before Dawn DC - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2268 I Hate Mountains 2 - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2731 Warcelona - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/3131 Energy Crisis - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/13867 Heaven Can Wait - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/10254 Fatal Freight - http://www.gamemaps.com/details/14002

Kappa

Here's some more lists: http://sirftp.com/Left4Dead2/Custom%20Campaigns/ https://www.l4dnation.com/mapping-discussion/complete-list-of-every-custom-campaign-in-l4d2/ https://www.l4dnation.com/mapping-discussion/the-best-custom-campaigns-for-competitive-l4d2/

Made some good progress tonight on four more campaigns,

Dark Wood requires no words. You would have had to be in my stream to understand it, that thing cannot be explained, only experienced... not even the slightest bit able to recommend it... what a ride...

We Don't Go To Ravenholm, although also a bit heavy on corridors, does look to have some strong potential for skips and bunnyhops. I would say that, if even including a HL2 campaign, it should only be one and I am leaning on Ravenholm over City 17 based on its bunnyhops and skip potential looking greater. The finale was a bit weak although City 17 wasn't particularly exciting either, that is the biggest negative I'd give it. Plays well as a L4D campaign otherwise, though.

Warcelona looked very nice visually and has strong bunnyhop potential as well, along with a potentially major skip in the finale if the clips allow. There may be other possible common jumps as well. I like this one, the finale also isn't a holdout so no boring jesus spot to find (a BIG plus IMO). Main problems are potentially annoying RNG paths in the first map and finale (at least) although it might not matter or can be mitigated. Would need more testing to see if the RNG is too heavy before seriously considering it but I definitely enjoyed the rest.

Urban Flight was decent. The environment is pretty samey although done well for what it is, with strong bunnyhopping as well and definitely some good throwable boosts at least. I can already see a unique and interesting gas can strategy in the finale as well where players would have to throw and catch them mid-air (I ¤think¤ it should work). I'd recommend this for the running.

Pretty good findings tonight overall, now my campaign list to check after considering DerpDuck's campaigns looks like this,

Yama Diescraper Blackout Basement Night Terror Detour Ahead Death Row Day Break Plan B Dead Before Dawn Death Aboard 2 The Bloody Moors Dark Blood 2 Open Road Energy Crisis Fatal Freight

Still so many! >_<

Current list of campaigns that have potential in my opinion, ordered roughly by most liked to least. I encourage anybody to play these too and corroborate their own opinion, we'll need to narrow this list down a bit I think!

Suicide Blitz 2 Warcelona Urban Flight Ravenholm or City 17

Detour Ahead was tried tonight in co-op.

Good stuff, very strong for nice tricks in co-op including a possible grenade launch. Another running finale rather than a holdout which is great. This one is near the top of the list now.

Top 5 maps I would recommend considering are: Diescraper Redux Detour Ahead Arena of the Dead 2 Open Road Haunted Forest

Though I haven't played any of the HL2 maps, so they might be decent too, but the 5 maps above are all pretty good quality.

Subscribed to Haunted Forest to check out, Arena of the Dead 2 I can't find on the workshop. I figured we may want to stick with things on the workshop so it's easy to download and everything is in one place? I guess it probably doesn't matter too much, but there are many good campaigns turning up so losing just one to not being on the workshop isn't a big deal anyway.

Death Aboard 2, while there is a (usually short) waiting crescendo in each map, I have to say it has a wealth of skips with some major ones in many places, especially maps 2 and 3, and many of those waiting crescendos can actually be bypassed in this way. These skips will be difficult in solo as it requires common jumps so, er, not sure if a pro or a con? I did test them and know some are possible but definitely very difficult. Visually nice as well. Map 4 is a bit confusing to look at since everything is tilted and it is a very tight space, but the rest of the maps are more open. It has a holdout finale that would be pretty painful if there is no jesus spot, but the massive scale of it mixed with a ton of weird places to stand in would be bound to turn up with something. Having a hard time placing this one, honestly, as it has some good and some bad.

I just personally prefer to not use the workshop, you can't stop the map from autoupdating if it ever gets changed if you use the workshop. It's not that much harder to download the file from gamemaps.com as it is to subscribe on the workshop. But yeah it doesn't really matter that much I guess. OSsloth

Played Energy Crisis, We Don't Go to Ravenholm and Detour Ahead. Energy Crisis was a really meh campaign. Had a good skip on level 2 and a creative finale but most of the campaign was very straight forward, so it didn't feel very interesting.

We Don't Go to Ravenholm, comparing to City 17, was a lot better. Maps 1 and 2 have some very good skips and the finale has some jesus spots. Would recommend the map for the campaign.

Detour Ahead was a cool campaign. Not so strong on solo as it seems to be on co-op, but still good. Surely a candidate for the category.

Mario and I tried some campaigns earlier. Diescraper, Energry Crisis, and Blackout Basement seemed good to me. Energy crisis has a crap finale but you can skip it entirely with a throwable boost, and the second map had (potentially, we kept dying on the last part) 2 boosts that skip almost the entire map. I'm pretty sure Blackout Basement had a good skip on one of the levels, it involved a throwable boost in an elevator shaft which could potentially save 30-40 secs. We also tried Dark Blood 2 but the finale was pretty bad (gas can gathering + it didn't always start properly). However, the one level had a good skip that avoided a horde event.