PLEASE NOTE: The latest Valve update has rendered most of these plugins null except for, possibly, the Unscrambler. Even then, it’s possible that the plugins are incompatible with the new version of the game, so I recommend you remove them and/or check Allied Forums for updated versions or confirmation that they’re fine with this version.
Take this situation:
You’re on No Mercy, the 3rd map, the Sewers, playing as Infected. You’ve done a bit of damage with a fast attack soon out of spawn, countering the initial Survivor rush to the left. Licking your chops and grinning with glee, you get ready to time your spawns around the lift, the infamous crescendo in which the Infected have a wonderful chance to do some incredible damage, if not win outright.
But what is this? They do not even look at the lift. Instead the entire team runs to that door to melee it 67 times and skip the crescendo entirely. An opportunity is lost, an exploit found, and the game loses value as a result.
Some would say that it’s not really an exploit, as both teams have the chance to do it, but I beg to differ. It renders the lift crescendo completely useless as, with a bit of knowledge and melee spam, the Survivors make it instantly easier on themselves and devalue their victory accordingly (as their use of it, like the use of crescendo closets, all but forces the other team to do it). But that’s an argument for another post.
But there is a light to this, a beacon casting back the soulless exploits and lack of fun in the shadowlands. The champions at http://www.alliedmods.net/, namely Fyren, KawMAN and bman87, with Ydiss as their public relations officer on the Steam Forums, have worked at and succeeded at making some temporary fixes for four of the more annoying exploits and griefing attempts.
All of these fixes are server-side, so they require the Server Owners themselves to install and implement these modifications into their servers. This is to just get the knowledge out there. I strongly urge all server owners to implement these plugins to give clients a fairer and more vanilla game.
The Fixes
TAKE NOTE: The plugins require MetaMod:Source and SourceMod 1.2 to be installed on the server. I’m going to assume owners have the proper knowledge to install both SourceMod/MetaMod and the accompanying plugins. If you’re new to server ownership and don’t know, or just have some questions, just reply in comments and I’ll see what I can do to help you.
No Mercy Map 3 Shutter doors Exploit Blocker - This plugin takes the shutter door on the Sewer level and gives it 100,000 health, thereby forcing exploiting players to either bypass it (thereby taking the intended crescendo route) or sit there and melee it for a couple of hours. Tanks can still bypass the door in both directions, so Infected play is not changed.
Kill Blocker - This blocks the “kill” and “explode” command from clients, preventing griefers from joining a game and suiciding at the worst moment.
Unscrambler - This plugin takes the team layout from the end of the previous map and forces it on teams in the first 30 seconds (time is changeable) of the next map, circumventing the random swapping of teams on a map change, and stopping people who load maps quickly from swapping, taking a slow-loader’s place on a team before they can join.
Infected Spectator Exploit Fix - This kills a player if they join the Spectators straight from the Infected, preventing the cloning Infected exploit. It will not kill players who have to play Tank, so don’t worry about it having off side-effects.
That’s all the exploit fixes known so far. I’ll update this if and when more fixes are available. These are only temporary fixes, until Valve decide to jump on these issues themselves. I have a server at 64.156.14.109:27015 with these plugins implemented, if anyone was interested.
Once again, many thanks to the folks at Allied Modders for putting the time into this. This thread at SteamPowered informed me of it all. Thanks to Ydiss for spreading the word.
