[L4D1+2] Special Infected warning dialogue

[BreakinBenny]

Since the previous issue I wrote back in December 18, 2013, became labelled as an invalid report, I decided I'd try this again.

Has anybody noticed back in L4D1, that the Survivors only call out Hunters and Witches? For some reason, the Survivors never notify of hearing Smokers nor Boomers in the area, which is clearly odd considering Louis can be heard saying something like "I hear a Boomer" a in a GameTrailers video before the game was released... In addition, Francis got an extra line apparently intended for calling Boomers out in Crash Course and that it "sounded Canadian", but it too goes unused because of a bug that silently appeared in the Response Rules system around 2008 that prevented recognizing ex. the Boomer zombie class, same goes with Smokers, Chargers n' Spitters (the latter two for L4D2 Survivors only, since the original Survivors never got any lines for calling out the new Infected besides the 'WarnSpecial' with The Passing which Bill later got for The Sacrifice before Jim French finally left). This bug has never been fixed in years, six if you count Left 4 Dead 1's release date, and I doubt it will be since that crappy Cold Stream campaign.

...Though, I find it extra fascinating that the L4D2 Survivors have unused lines for calling out the Smokers n' Boomers, but have to be activated manually by using custom radialmenus and assigning them to PlayerHeardSmoker, PlayerHeardBoomer and so on. How come nobody at Valve noticed the bug in the PlayerWarnHeardSmoker, Boomer, Spitter or Charger not being spoken? It'd be nice to know what's been happening, even during the events of L4D2 coming just a year after L4D1's release!

[Tele42]

For reference, #1591 is the previous issue report, which is open as of this writing.

[BreakinBenny]

So... anyone? Anything?

[sereaI]

Yeah it's a shame that this has not been addressed yet. :( a lot of lines have been recorded in vain! been googeling this topic for quite a while now hoping i'd find some clues regarding this topic.. eventually found this issue report.

[BreakinBenny]

@Sereal I would be surprised if Valve did it on purpose because they probably thought "Survivors constantly saying they heard less dangerous Infected would get annoying, as Jockeys and Hunters are fast".

[sereaI]

so why did they decide to implement "heard witch" then? it's by far the least threatening one. also if you look at the talker files.. it has these "applycontext" parts. isn't one of the numbers a timer how long that context lasts? they could have just added different timers here.. e.g. long timers for less threatening specials.. and short ones for the others.

[BreakinBenny]

As far as I and others know (and looking at the Modified Talker addon), the WarnHeardZombie (for Boomers n' Smokers, along with Spitters and Chargers) must be broken.

[sereaI]

Na I doubt it's a problem with WarnHeardZombie as this works for hunters etc..
The issue is with the bugged infected.. they don't trigger whatever it is that triggers the "WarnHeardZombie" concept or their respective "IsXClass" criteria (like IsSmokerClass). Also the infected don't have talker files.. so I don't really know what files controls them -> making their noises. The only file i found related to the specials is in "left 4 dead 2\left4dead2\scripts\game_sounds_infected_special.txt". I did some trial and error with this file with the
"GameData"
{
"Priority" "Interesting"
}
in particular but this merely seems to be an enumeration of the NPCstate... and of course nothing is documented anywhere..

[sereaI]

in fact i'm pretty sure the problem is that bugged ones are not triggering the "WarnHeardZombie" concept.. i just removed the "IsSmokerClass" from the smoker rule and gave it a weight of 200. (=making it trigger and win over any other rule as soon as ANY special infected makes itself known by triggering "WarnHeardZombie")
standing next to a smoker to for a fair 10 minutes and nothing was said. then kicked the smoker and spawned a hunter and after a few secs got the "Careful, Smoker" from ellis...

[BreakinBenny]

I suppose the Hunter (including the Jockey since he's technically a variation of a Hunter) is the only infected to not even be broken, whilst something got fucked up with the other five.