L4D - Difficulty Changing From Expert to Normal?

[Wizman87]

Is anyone else having problems with Left 4 Dead servers resetting themselves back to Normal difficulty (and possibly resetting/corrupting other variables as well)? I have my game server configuration setup correctly, however, whenever anyone joins and leaves my server, my server automatically resets itself from Expert difficulty back to Normal for the next round of players to join; or in the case of versus mode, it resets the director_no_human_zombies variable back to 1, hence, turning off versus mode - despite having the variables set differently in my server.cfg for either situation.

Is there a fix for this? I have not had the experience with many other servers having this issue.. though, back when the L4D demo was released, there was a lot of bugs like this whenever a campaign or versus match was started (e.g. needing a vote map / reset campaign to work correctly, thereby resetting certain variables, or director_no_human_zombies back to 0). However, I do not seem to experience this kind of problem as much as I used to anymore. Is it because the map isn't resetting/restarting correctly? Is it a bug/configuration/dedicated server issue that needs fixing on Valve's part? I understand/know for sure that having the start map be either of l4d_campaign or l4d_vs prefix changes at least one variable (as programmed by Valve): director_no_human_zombies between the values of 0 and 1. I don't know of any other variable changes that take place, however.

Everything seems to be perfect again when a map changes (thereby re-executing my server.cfg) or if I re-exec my server.cfg manually while in-game via RCON - meaning, I highly doubt its a configuration issue, though I could be wrong. Also, if it makes any constellation, my server is currently running srcds on Linux.

One last off-topic question , is sv_downloadurl and .bz2 compression working for L4D? My custom maps, and the maps downloaded from websites like http://www.l4dmaps.com or http://www.fpsbanana.com will not download to players connecting to my server - from either my web or game server. The maps are playable on my server, however, as long as both the player(s) and I in question have downloaded and extracted the map files manually to our computers.

Here's my server.cfg and command-line parameters:

Code:

./srcds_run -autoupdate -game left4dead -ip 192.168.1.110 -port 27015 -timeout 5 -nohltv -maxplayers 8 +map l4d_hospital01_apartment -tickrate 100 -secure -pidfile L4D-27015.pid -debug

Code:

// Server name
hostname "Luigi's 24/7 Zombie Apocalypse"            // Default: Left 4 Dead Dedicated Server

// Server password
sv_password ""                            // Default: ""

// RCON passsword
rcon_password "rconpassword"                    // Default: ""

// IP address and ports
//hostip                            // Default:
//ip 192.168.1.110                        // Default: localhost
//hostport 27015                        // Default: 27015
//clientport 27005                        // Default: 27005

// LAN/WAN hosting
sv_lan 0                            // Default: 0

// Master server
setmaster add 68.142.72.250:27011
setmaster add 72.165.61.189:27011
setmaster add 213.64.180.252:27015
setmaster add 192.168.0.146:27015
heartbeat                            // Default:

// Server region
// Must specify sv_region, or server won't show up in Steam server browser
// 0: US East coast
// 1: US West coast
// 2: South America
// 3: Europe
// 4: Asia
// 5: Australia
// 6: Middle East
// 7: Africa
// 255: World
sv_region 1                            // Default: -1 | 255

// Contact details
sv_contact "email@domain.com"

// Bandwidth and FPS
//host_timescale 1                        // Default: 1
sv_minrate 5000                            // Default: 3500 | 5000
sv_maxrate 30000                        // Default: 0 | 30000
sv_mincmdrate 10                        // Default: 0 | 10
sv_maxcmdrate 101                        // Default: 40 | 101

// HTTP URL redirect, downloads, and uploads
sv_downloadurl "http://www.website.com/left4dead"        // Default:

// Purification
sv_consistency 1                        // Default: 1
sv_pure 0                            // Default: 0
sv_pure_kick_clients 1                        // Default: 1
sv_pure_trace 0                            // Default: 0
sv_cheats 0                            // Default: 0

// To be moved
sv_clearhinthistory 1                        // Default:
sv_forcepreload 0                        // Default: 0
sv_allow_wait_command 1                        // Default: 1
mp_disable_autokick 1                        // Default: <userid>
motd_enabled 1                            // Default: 1
//director_no_human_zombies 0                    // Default: 1
//sv_search_key                            // Default:
//sv_steamgroup_exclusive 0                    // Default: 0
//sv_steamgroup                            // Default:
sv_tags "New Maps, Custom Content, Addons & Plugins"        // Default:
sv_gametypes "coop,versus"                    // Default: coop,versus
//maxplayers 8                            // Default: 14
//mininum_maxplayers 8                        // Default: 14
//absolute_maxplayers 8                        // Default: 14
//default_maxplayers 8                        // Default: 14
//max_splitscreen_players 2                    // Default: 2
sv_visiblemaxplayers -1                        // Default: -1
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0                    // Default: 1
z_difficulty "Impossible"                    // Default: Normal | Easy, Normal, Hard, Impossible

// Multiplayer
//

// Multiplayer - Round specific
//

// Server
sv_alltalk 0                            // Default: 1
//sv_pausable 0                            // Default: 0
sv_voiceenable 1                        // Default: 1

// Miscellaneous
//

// Bots
//bot_freeze 0                            // Default: 0
//sb_all_bot_team 0                        // Default: 0
//bot_mimic_yaw_offset 180                    // Default: 180
//bot_mimic 0                            // Default: 0
//bot_crouch 0                            // Default: 0

// Plugins
// Mattie's EventScripts Plugin - VSP
//mattie_eventscripts 1                        // Default: 1
//eventscripts_subdirectory ""                    // Default: events

// Metamod:Source Plugin - VSP
//mm_pluginsfile "addons/metamod/metaplugins.ini"        // Default: addons/metamod/metaplugins.ini
//mm_basedir "addons/metamod"                    // Default: addons/metamod

// Mani Admin Plugin - MetaMod: Source
//ma_war 0                            // Default: 0

// Map Lister Plugin - SourceMod
//sm_auto_maplist 0                        // Default: 1

// Server logging
log "off"                             // Default: log off
sv_logbans 1                            // Default: 0
sv_logecho 1                            // Default: 1
sv_logfile 1                            // Default: 1
sv_log_onefile 0                        // Default: 0

// Execution
exec "banned_user.cfg"
exec "banned_ip.cfg"
//exec "MODS-CFG/eventscripts.cfg"                // Eventscript Plugins
//exec "mani_server.cfg"                    // Mani Admin Plugin - MetaMod: Source
//exec "?"                            // ??? Plugin - ???
//exec "detox.cfg"                        // SteamBans Detox Anti-Cheat Plugin - MetaMod: Source
//exec "zblock.cfg"                        // zBlock Plugin - VSP

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help. Any comments, feedback, or questions, etc, are greatly welcomed.

[St1flus]

Did you start up the srcds with -console and like -difficulty 4
Or whatever the command is to set it to expert?

In the target box ?

[Wizman87]

I tried +z_difficulty Impossible, and I also tried adding +exec server.cfg to see if it'd help. Unfortunately, it didn't. Also, I was running some tests on my server yesterday, and I noticed that it only resets during the first level of each campaign. If I change it to another level, leave, then rejoin, it's still on Expert difficulty. Right now though, I have it set to be versus only, so there's no issues there - since versus is Normal only now (not changeable), and the variables stay set to what they're suppose to, even after a reset. I'm thinking it might be part of the loading of the beginning cut scenes for each campaign, or something of that nature. It's all just speculation though.

[aftermath]

The z_difficulty "Impossible" command should not be in server.cfg, I believe this is the cause. Create an autoexec.cfg file and put the z_difficulty "Impossible" command there that way this command will only be executed once when the server is first started and not after each saferoom or mapchange.

[lol554]

Are you joining the server through a lobby or directly?

(and yes, z_difficulty should be placed in the server.cfg)