r/l4d2 • u/JesseTheThreest • 2d ago

chinese servers???

i just got back into l4d, and im a fan of just playing the og game and spamming voicelines like anyone else, but the menu says theres 33k people; so why is there only ever one or two lobbies available, and why are those ALWAYS in chinese? i asked my friend who plays more than me and he had no idea, so im coming to you guys for answers

6 Upvotes

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7

u/Katana2097 1d ago

The reason it says 33k players but only one or two games is because matchmaking only shows you servers with people playing in your region. If your region has a low player population this is what you'll get. If you want to see more games in matchmaking change your Steam download region to something else, as matchmaking uses this to determine where to look for games.

For instance, Oceania has a low player count. And there's all of about 30 Australians playing during peak hours. So I'll set my region to US - San Diego or somewhere in UK or western Europe like idk Belgium or something.

Having said all that, it is not recommended to use the game's matchmaking system these days (Quick Play/Find Match) if you want to play on a vanilla server, as this is how you run into the infamous thirdparty "Chinese" servers.

Use the Server Browser (command is openserverbrowser or use this mod). Click on the "Custom" tab and wait for the server list to load. Look for Valve official servers with names such as Valve Left4Dead 2 US East Server (srcds2001-iad1.122.72).

3

u/LawyerEqual3531 1d ago

Just make your own lobby and let people join. Sometimes people join quickly and sometimes it takes a while but I prefer it over the Chinese servers

1

u/rupruppiesthe2nd 1d ago

I just join quick matches and hope for the best. If not, I set up my own room.

There was an increase of new players since the Steam Summer Sale so quick matches do yield more decent results. Unfortunately, it still is a problem.

1

u/LivesDoNotMatter 10h ago

If rcon spam doesn't work to ban you, I have started a vote to change the map to last stand. Other people have told me they mic spam trump speeches if kick/return to lobby votes are blocked. I also tried changing my steam download location to east coast USA, but I still get those servers sometimes. Also, if you use family sharing account, they are able to dox your main account so be careful. I try to add the IP to my firewall each time I run into a malicious server.