How to choose Campaign, Anne co-op, and Versus
One machine can run dozens of cfgs. See which line the room is on, then decide whether to join.
Three lines
- Campaign：Regular campaign, Mutation, Realism, Death's Door. Close to vanilla.
- Anne：AnneHappy plus Hardcore, shotgun, and party variants. Plugins take over SI spawning.
- Versus：ZoneMod, NextMod, EQ, Acemod. Count heads first, then pick 1v1 to 4v4.
Not0721 hangs on the campaign line. SI count and ammo multipliers can differ by an order of magnitude. Do not treat it as a regular campaign.
Anne version or vanilla version
Campaign, Mutation, and Realism each have two entries. Anne versions keep stats, some commands, and web hooks. Vanilla versions turn off most gameplay plugins and feel closer to offline or official servers.
To learn maps, Anne campaign or vanilla campaign both work. To practice Anne co-op mechanics, join AnneHappy. Do not finish a vanilla campaign and then ask why SI never spawn. Type !xx in the room.
When to move up to Anne co-op
Finish official maps with the team, revive, and focus fire, then join standard Anne co-op. Plugins own spawning: 16-second countdown, Anti-Bait, PPM tiers. Split up or go down, and the next wave hits harder.
Hardcore and Shotgun Hardcore are for experienced groups. Himiko, Except, WTF are not first stops either.
Choosing for a team of mixed skill
The common case is neither four newcomers nor four veterans, but two or three regulars bringing along one or two new players. The principles shift a little here.
- Decide by the least experienced player：Not by the average. Pressure in AnneHappy is shared by the whole team, so when one person cannot keep up, everyone stops to deal with it.
- Avoid configs that need pre-assigned roles：Rescue chapters and event-heavy configs are too much information for a newcomer. Start with a regular campaign that has a clear route.
- But do not go too easy either：Relaxed variants give no feedback: the newcomer learns nothing and the regulars are bored. Regular AnneHappy is usually the best overlap.
- Explain where the difficulty comes from：Newcomers usually assume they are just bad, when in fact they have never heard of the 16-second countdown or the grouping check. One sentence changes the whole experience.
One more thing: dynamic difficulty averages the individual PPM of each human survivor, so bringing a newcomer lowers the mean and the round is already a little easier than your usual. No need to hold back further.
When to start Versus
Both sides need matching counts. Four people should not start 4v4. Two people should not force standard ZoneMod. Suffixes like zm1v1, nextmod2v2, eq3v3 in the menu are split by head count.
Never played a ruleset, start with ZoneMod. It is this server's Versus baseline. Other packs make the most sense against it.
Decide within five minutes
If you would rather not read the whole article, running through these three questions is enough to settle it.
- How many of you are on tonight?：Alone: the campaign line or a solo variant. Two or three: the co-op line, and stay away from versus that needs matched numbers. Four or more: all three lines are open.
- How much has your least experienced player played?：Decide by them, not by your most experienced player. One person can be carried; three cannot.
- Is tonight for relaxing or for drilling?：To relax, take the campaign line or regular AnneHappy. To drill, pick one concrete goal — route knowledge, coordination, or versus mechanics — and work on only that.
| Situation | Pick this |
|---|---|
| First time here | Regular campaign / vanilla campaign |
| You know the routes and want to try AnneHappy | Regular AnneHappy |
| You can finish official maps in AnneHappy | Hardcore AnneHappy / shotgun hardcore |
| You want something more extreme in co-op | Not0721, starting from the base campaign or NoobPlus |
| Full team, want to play versus | ZoneMod, with the suffix for your player count |
| Only one or two of you online | The campaign line, or find people in the lobby |
The room is already running — can you still switch?
Yes, ask first. !match picks a new config; if a match is loaded, !rmatch first. Change maps with !mapvote. Players missing a custom map stall on load. Confirm everyone has it before the vote.