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Valve is like Nintendo, you shouldn't become accustomed to their production assistance, because then you'll resent their absence
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Aug 14, 2021 12:47
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RBX posted:I was SO disappointed the first time I used a pipebomb. should be thread title
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Aug 14, 2021 13:15
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this is like the hollywood adaptation of that cult classic foreign language film that completely misses the point of it's source material, while somehow having the same production credits
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Aug 14, 2021 13:23
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Kanos posted:I was willing to give Turtle Rock the benefit of the doubt with Evolve turning out to be a big piece of poo poo - maybe it was a fluke, or things didn't just pan out like they wanted, or there was undue publisher interference - but Back 4 Blood also turning out like this is really making me think that Valve's help was really important in making L4D what it was. In the commentary tracks for L4D there is quite a bit of mention how they tweaked things in response to QA/player feedback, sometimes in very significant ways. Players didn't know where to go, they added bright light sources to offer an orientation point. Players were uncertain how to complete an objective, add big old onscreen prompt. Players didn't realize they could/should duck through low vents, make them crouch automatically when they get near it. The same sort of feedback-based design seems completely absent here. Upon launching the game, just about everyone will find one or several things that don't work well and have fairly obvious solutions. That shows pretty obviously that tester feedback was either underprioritized, done badly, or simply not gathered in the first place.
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Aug 14, 2021 13:45
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RBX posted:Wondering how much of L4D was thanks to valve's help. Or lots of the old devs left the studio since then.
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Aug 14, 2021 14:04
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Perestroika posted:In the commentary tracks for L4D there is quite a bit of mention how they tweaked things in response to QA/player feedback, sometimes in very significant ways. Players didn't know where to go, they added bright light sources to offer an orientation point. Players were uncertain how to complete an objective, add big old onscreen prompt. Players didn't realize they could/should duck through low vents, make them crouch automatically when they get near it. Turtle Rock devs probably should have gone through the commentary play through and taken notes
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Aug 14, 2021 15:23
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That's what I was thinking about a whole lot playing this. The work was done for them already, all they had to do was copy the homework.
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Aug 14, 2021 15:41
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I wish I read this thread before trying out the beta. My group (myself, my buddy and two randos) were getting stuck in death loops due to unhealable "Trauma". We had three people with max HP in the 40s. We eventually figured out that the wall mounted med stations can heal it. However, we could only find those med stations in the level and, any time we had a wipe, it was back to the beginning will all that unhealable damage. There were 3 levels left to the end of act 1 when we called it due to running out of continues. My overall impression of the game is pretty negative. I didn't like the guns having loot rarity. I would want the guns to have a baseline effectiveness independent of rarity banding. Keep the mod system with rarities as a way to make the numbers fluctuate not the guns themselves. I get what the game is trying for with the ammo segregation but I was using my pistol primarily for pretty much the entire run. Either shotgun ammo is super rare or someone was vacuuming it all up. Same problem when I switched to a sniper rifle later on. There should be ammo checkpoints that have a generic and infinite pile (like L4D). I bought ammo at shops too but it doesn't last with 0 pickups in between levels.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:27
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You're supposed to state ammo between players, but good luck coordinating it between pubs.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:39
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I'm in the "considered getting this but after reading all the posts pointing out how bland/unfun/half baked/better off just playing the real L4D2" boat and gonna steer clear of this. Wattishame. Also I have an inkling this is gonna turn out to be an Anthem-lite type big hype/potential and a big flop but that's just me.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:53
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This. loving. Game. Hopped in for a little half hour game while doing laundry. Quick play, "normal" difficulty. Load into a map 6, no guns in the safe room. Still, we make the best of it, working our way through the map, until we accidentally set off a car alarm. So, first horde event of the session. I want to stress the following: we weren't idiots, we weren't obviously bad players, we pinged specials and focused them, we stuck together, everything I saw in the 5 minutes leading up the horde showed we were a reasonably competent pub team. The horde event facerolled us. One bruiser, then another, then another, and the horde started back spawning once the bruisers had us relocating. As the round ends everyone says variations of the same thing in chat; this is too hard, this isnt' fun, why weren't their guns, this poo poo is too much. I loving swear, it's GTFO all over again; frustrating to see a non toxic pub team get stomped and just sort of remark that it's a shame this game sucks. Edit: Here's a thing to note: I had the only gun on the team, JR's pistol. There was one bot with an AR and, while it was reasonably OK at helping us work through the pre-horde trickle of zombies, from what I saw it in no way started spending them bullets once the horde kicked off, which is an extremely basic thing humans do. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 16:54
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EorayMel posted:I'm in the "considered getting this but after reading all the posts pointing out how bland/unfun/half baked/better off just playing the real L4D2" boat and gonna steer clear of this. Wattishame. I mean you can pick up the pre-release demo they've got going and see if it's something you like. But I haven't read anything unfair.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:59
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Lol that pretty much every "gaming journalism" preview article says that this game is good and fun and a great spiritual succesor to l4d
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Aug 14, 2021 17:04
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https://www.vg247.com/2021/08/13/back-4-blood-community-questions-fov-dedicated-servers-cross-play-bots-difficulty/ I just read this after my post. They say Easy is too easy (ok sure yes) and Hard is too hard (ok sure yes). There's nothing in there about Normal being too hard. However, I do think that what they're suggesting could work: if they made Easy less of a brain dead cake walk, then OK I can play that and come back to Normal when my cards are stronger. I'll absolutely aknowledge this doesn't address all the other things (specials, zombie hit reaction, gun feel, character design, level design, grind) that make the game less than great, but with the difficulty it's a question of whether I play the game at all, whereas almost everything else is the less urgent question of how long and how much I enjoy the game before moving on.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:07
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This game's biggest flaw is that there's no option to kill Evangelo. I tried the demo and picked him because he was the one my cursor started on, and instantly regretted it the second he started talking. The dialogue in general just seems atrocious, and I only played two maps before I got bored and stopped. The game just feels like they added stuff to Left 4 Dead entirely arbitrarily. Why would I ever play L4D and want randomized cards to boost my stats? Why would I want loot and non-generic ammo? Why would I want a money system? Normally I would try and give the game a chance on its own merits, but the name tells me they straight up want us to make that comparison.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:09
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The money system is especially dumb because I'm not sure...what it's for. Like, I would assume it's to minimize RNG loving you over by giving you a way to ensure you get something you need via the shop, but the shops are also randomized to a point where it's no more reliable than anything else in the game. You can use them on med cabinets, but again, those are randomized too. Just do the Killing Floor thing where shops have every weapon in them and you have to make an economy decision about whether so save up or spend
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Aug 14, 2021 17:20
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Man, reading the thread after an evening playing is kind of crazy because I almost wonder if we got the same game. I mean we did, and I can see all the complaints, but I went in with low expectations and came out pumped. I completely agree that the atmosphere is completely different (and far worse), pipebombs feel lackluster, and the special infected suck in every single way compared to L4D(2). I still had a blast playing; I actually like the design changes around weapons and melee balance. Moving in a coordinated, tactical fashion is super important. It felt like (non-deathrace) Expert L4D, where you've absolutely got to move in coordinated fashion and cover each other carefully.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:21
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Corbeau posted:Man, reading the thread after an evening playing is kind of crazy because I almost wonder if we got the same game. Did you play in a 4-stack and on what difficulty? Veteran is doable if you've got a competent team but if you're playing with pubbies it's way way harder, and if with bots it's basically not doable. Nightmare is also functionally impossible unless you've got a 4-stack on comms and high-end cards
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Aug 14, 2021 17:28
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There are still so many little things that I don't completely understand. Take for instance, Quickplay. Leaving aside joining a map in progress, which itself is arcane and weird, lets say you join a map at the start. You get to pick a character (usually, except when the game makes you play a specific character), and then pick a deck (again, usually, assuming it doesn't skip the deck picking portion and just forces you to play a generic deck). Then you get to your cards played page. The most common behavior is that you get X number of card picks where X is how many you would have missed since the start of the match... but then, sometimes not. Sometimes you get only one card pick, and the rest of those slots are filled with generics (Wounded Animal, Extra Life, etc). Sometimes, and this one is even weirder, it splits the difference between generic cards and free picks. Then you load the level. Sometimes you have money, sometimes you don't. I don't understand how one system can be so inconsistent, I have no idea what the intended behavior is, and if this is caused by a bug or not. Trauma is an interesting mechanic now that I understand how it works a little better but the game explains it not at all to you and virtually everyone I've seen seems to not understand it either. Pubs love to try to heal it over and over, which is interesting. Then I keep seeing the opposite behavior, where people refuse heal their regular damage despite an abundance of healing items. This latter bit is an interesting (albeit, bad and unintended) bit of game design. Trauma seems to more readily stick to you when you've suffered damage, and health items honestly don't heal all that much, so people sit on health items that wouldn't even top them off and accumulate a ton of trauma besides. I'm not sure if this is because healing items in co-op shooters are more optimally used after you've been downed, and people are coming in with expectations from other games; or if they just forget they have bandages or whatever. TLDR: use your healing items more frequently. RazzleDazzleHour posted:The money system is especially dumb because I'm not sure...what it's for. Like, I would assume it's to minimize RNG loving you over by giving you a way to ensure you get something you need via the shop, but the shops are also randomized to a point where it's no more reliable than anything else in the game. You can use them on med cabinets, but again, those are randomized too. Just do the Killing Floor thing where shops have every weapon in them and you have to make an economy decision about whether so save up or spend I dunno I don't think it's so bad. It's just another chance to get what you might want and it seems okay at that. I have noticed people getting very specific about what guns and attachments they like and I think that's going to cause frustration in this game because yeah, you're going to have runs where you just don't find the poo poo you want. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 17:37
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:Lol that pretty much every "gaming journalism" preview article says that this game is good and fun and a great spiritual succesor to l4d I feel like for the general audience who knows what left 4 dead is but either didn't play it at all or didn't play it obsessively enough to be able to dissect what made that game truly great, this game is going to be close enough to call it a great spiritual successor. I've watched a few streams this week and everyone seemed to be generally positive about it and like you said all the articles are out there doing the same.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:43
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RazzleDazzleHour posted:Did you play in a 4-stack and on what difficulty? Veteran is doable if you've got a competent team but if you're playing with pubbies it's way way harder, and if with bots it's basically not doable. Nightmare is also functionally impossible unless you've got a 4-stack on comms and high-end cards Full team of L4D vets, yeah. That's what makes me think they're designing/balancing around that specific audience. Which is ironic, since the L4D vets are also calling out all the places where it's lackluster compared to the originals.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:03
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Corbeau posted:Full team of L4D vets, yeah. I mean, I used to be able to complete L4D on expert, when I both played the game a lot and had a full party of friends on VoIP, but I got there by playing the game on normal first and I'm not always going to be able to bring that kind of party into my B4B sessions.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:21
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Man reading this thread after a night of playing of crazy. Except for the core mechanics being terrible, uninspired and worse in every way compared to l4d the game is a good!
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Aug 14, 2021 19:32
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You can be so close and yet so far.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:34
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RazzleDazzleHour posted:Did you play in a 4-stack and on what difficulty? Veteran is doable if you've got a competent team but if you're playing with pubbies it's way way harder, and if with bots it's basically not doable. Nightmare is also functionally impossible unless you've got a 4-stack on comms and high-end cards Vet is easily doable with pubbies, you just need a couple of good cards. The card system is a big culprit of "what the gently caress" I feel. Seems like they balanced around it. I don't mind nightmare needing a full stack
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Aug 14, 2021 19:35
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Man this game is gonna have a REAL short honeymoon period
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Aug 14, 2021 19:40
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Haven't made it past the first ogre on nightmare yet. Some of the corruption cards on NM really change the way you play. I've had both SWAT armored zombies and Acid Blood zombies.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:49
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Played it last night on the PS5 and wasn't enjoying it, I felt quite un-coordinated with the controls, constantly fighting it, adjusting settings and not feeling like I could handle and take down a hoard like in L4D. Booted it on the PC today and had a much better experience. Could handle hoards, taking out massive swarms and navigating much easier. Guess I just suck these days using a controller on an FPS. Did enjoy the amount of guns, attachments and carrying items, felt like it could make future runs more interesting by varying up your playstyle. Seconding the issues with the friendly bot AI and also the included specials. The "melee restores health" card seems like a must as the health options seem limited in effectiveness (without more cards). Didn't always feel like I had enough ammo for the gun I needed and there was not many times I could change weapon types, it needs more fixed areas where you are always able to restock on ammo or guns especially at the gauntlet/forced horde type areas. Did several levels before I could find a single melee weapon and had to do the entire boat area with my pistol as could not get any ammo for my primary or a new primary. Had a bug on the finale as nothing spawned except the exploding specials at the mine entrance so we fired the gun a few times and it just ended, no battle at all. Getting replacements players when people leave seems an issue. There was me and another with two bots for 80% of one complete run until the 2nd to last level. At nearly 2 hours long for a run that a lot of time to have to put up with the bot AI. Could think of a dozen quality of life fixes (bigger arc for melee/push back being my main issue) though it would basically make it L4D3 in gameplay, which isn't a bad thing, 1&2 hold up and I replay 2 often, but wanting to own and replay this one..... meh. Here is hoping the beta creates a lot of feedback fixes. I may buy it down the line in a sale as this experience just doesn't have me pumped for it - but depends what happens to the post release longevity and development between now and then.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:02
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I like the card system a lot less now that I know it isn't random draws but a set order in which you get them. Still can't work out how I feel about the game. The level design doesn't feel remotely close to L4D with enormous difficulty spikes in a few places (like the god damned church). After more play with the corruption cards it also feels like excellent aim is mandatory. L4D emphasized team positioning over aim while B4B demands both and gently caress you if you can't keep up.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:39
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Senethro posted:Haven't made it past the first ogre on nightmare yet. I like that aspect of the game but I wish you saw more of the corruption cards on lower difficulties. Like you go from having almost no modifiers on Survivor to Veteran, where the final map of Act I has the game literally making GBS threads out corruption cards at you during play, with no step in between to indicate that can happen. I think if they sprinkled in a variety of corruption cards on Survivor that would be cool.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:05
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Anyone have any tips they want to share? Keeping 400 copper on hand for the first aid seems like a big deal to me; I don't know of any better way to remove Trauma Damage. My favorite throwable is the pipe bomb; no other grenade will buy you space and time like it.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:09
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Jack B Nimble posted:Anyone have any tips they want to share? Sure I've played a bit of it: * The best way to heal trauma damage is not to get any. Trauma damage compounds when leaving your healthbar unhealed, so don't wait until you get a down before using a bandage or pills. USE YOUR HEALING STUFF. The only way besides wall kits are certain cards (I think there are two?) that remove a very small amount (10?) * On the subject of healing: Pills are basically the best healing item and doubly so if you're specced at all into support. They're quick to deploy, temp health runs over trauma, and if people are taking that much damage they're probably just going to take it again anyway. You can also deploy them on other people which, coming from L4D where you have to hand them to other people first, was a surprise. This is also a great way to prevent more trauma. * I see way too many people getting owned by chip damage from basic infected. Keep your head on a swivel and don't rely on your team to clear enemies off of you unless you're in a stack. Only trust your fists, pubs will never help you. * As far as keeping trash off of you, a lot of the L4D strategies apply here. Keep your back to a wall, don't stand out in the open, if you must stand out in the open, keep an eye out for incoming zombies and advance slowly, checking your back and sides whenever possible. If you do get a Zed in your face, punch him twice; just hold the button down like a second longer than normal. This usually hits any secondary zeds you didn't see when you first started waving your hands around. * Pipe bombs are great and your friend. Frags can pretty easily chunk specials though, and are very useful for that. If you can coordinate try to get a mix of the two. * I seem to get more supply points on the first full map completion I get on Quickplay. If you don't have any dedicated role decks yet start by doing this to get some good cards. * While we're on the subject, I can't stress enough how much easier some of the middle-late tier cards make the game, they completely alter gameplay. If you're hitting a wall you probably don't have a decent set of cards. * Stun guns are much better than they appear and are a great way to prevent a wipe. * Never just go toe to toe with tallboys of either variety, it's just a death sentence. Like on Survivor you probably can and I'm sure everyone has a clutch story of doing so but for the most part if you're in a tiny shack and you see two or more of these guys on top of you, you need help. So don't get yourself into that situation because you can't just hose your way out of that. * Melee is good but you need several cards for it. Thankfully some of the decent ones are starter cards. I got through the first curve of my cards by melee-vampire-ing my way to victory. The fire ax is probably the best melee weapon for new players; melee has surprisingly little stagger so if you don't kill you're going to take more chip damage. Ax delivers a chop straight to the head and on easy will kill more or less instantly. Just watch your stamina. Or play Holly. * Somebody should have a tool kit. Stashes aren't always worth it but they often are and usually at least pay for themselves. * The card pool is not random and I believe appears in the order you have listed in your deck. You can change the order by dragging cards up or down the list. At the very least, the first five cards are assured, but I think it might be the whole deck. In general much like L4D you don't want to heal your way to victory, if you find yourself running out of health constantly you need to adjust your play. I've seen players on Survivor getting a full bar of Trauma (which I think is max health reduced to 45?) and it's going to cost you a lot of money to get out of that hole. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 21:56
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Jack B Nimble posted:Anyone have any tips they want to share? We did a Vet game last night with a friend +2 pubbies, got through Act 1 with full continue, both pubbies dropped out at end of Act 1 for some reason. Played with bots for the first level of Act 2 which ssucked but okay, its not that hard of a level ultimately. Got some pubbies starting second level of Act 2 and they weren't great, one was pretty bad, but we got to victory with 1 continue left. The only reason we won was friend had the medic card that has pills share a lot of temp-health for the team and just constantly charging over health with temp, and we pumped up Team Support Item level to purple early on. For the 3rd level of Act 2 where you have to run the infinite horde to the house, someone needs 2 or 3 pipe bombs, mandatory. Going back to reiterate, someone medic cards with super-charged pills is really loving important. Bandages lose power pretty quickly and can usually find enough on the ground and it's far better to juice over Trauma with temp as best you can, and yeah having enough on hand to heal up at stations is important, use em. The church level usually has a heal station + free card but you better get it before you board up the windows because it despawns Someone should have a toolkit or two, usually always worth it to open the locked storage rooms. The knife melee in slot 1 with +2 health per melee kill is fairly solid, but the only weapon really worth using is the fire axe. It's also stupidly easy to friendly-fire with melee but the knife melee option doesn't so use that one a lot. e: I should add our Victory was probably due to the game going "easy" on us and only spawning shitloads of Crushers instead of Bruisers. Like the game kept making GBS threads at us 3+ crushers back to back which is 100000% more manageable than 3-bruisers back to back. Xaris fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 22:05
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Did a playthrough of the campaign on survivor difficulty while waiting for some friends, and I don't know if it was the difficulty or not, but the 4-4 finale was an absolute wet fart. The entire level basically just involved me and the one remaining pubbie walking back and forth to the gun to load it, while a single zombie waddled out from some nearby ruins every 5 seconds or so, it was pretty anticlimatic. Did a run through most of the campaign on veteran later, and while it was definitely more fun with friends (what isn't), I'm not sure I'm willing to shell out 60 bucks for this.
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Aug 14, 2021 22:09
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Broken Cog posted:Did a playthrough of the campaign on survivor difficulty while waiting for some friends, and I don't know if it was the difficulty or not, but the 4-4 finale was an absolute wet fart. That finale is one of the places where difficulty is stupid because the vet version plays completely differently. It might still be unsatisfying, tastes vary, but it's so weird that you don't get get actual intent on easy.
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Aug 14, 2021 22:12
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Mendrian posted:That finale is one of the places where difficulty is stupid because the vet version plays completely differently. It might still be unsatisfying, tastes vary, but it's so weird that you don't get get actual intent on easy. It was so weird, the levels before it weren't exactly difficult, but they at least tried to throw enemies at you. During the finale I was legit wondering if the AI director had just broken or something, basically nothing was happening. Also had an issue earlier where both me and the pubbie got jumped by specials at the same time, and the bots just ran up and stood next to us until one of us got downed, whereupon the bots revived them so they could clear out the surrounding horde and get me up. Broken Cog fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 22:17
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Broken Cog posted:It was so weird, the levels before it weren't exactly difficult, but they at least tried to throw enemies at you. During the finale I was legit wondering if the AI director had just broken or something, basically nothing was happening. So, I doubt this spoils anything, so here goes: On Vet that act finale is very, very different. Like, again, people are still going to say it's easy or that they hate it and I won't try to argue with that because I have no interest in telling someone their taste is wrong, but I can confirm for you that the easy version is way too easy. On Vet, the game shits ridden and specials on you, as it has been throughout the act on Vet. It also does this thing where each wave or two it plays another corruption card that enhance the specials. Sometime around wave 3, it throws an Ogre at you. And I think there's six waves on vet, rather than 5.
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Aug 14, 2021 22:20
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Yeah, that's more what I expected it to be. I'm guessing they couldn't find a good way to balance it for easy mode, so they just disabled most of it, leaving behind... this.
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Aug 14, 2021 22:32
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It was definitely broken. Got to that finale a few times today and the game just gives up and lets you fire the cannon five times without spawning a single enemy. Like the rest of the game, it's buggy.
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Aug 14, 2021 23:02
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When I did it with a buddy we had a hellishly difficult time... until most of the way through, when things stopped spawning. Definitely buggy.
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Aug 14, 2021 23:11
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