|
My friend got me this for christmas as we both have many hours in left 4 dead 1& 2 and Vermintide 2. This game is severely busted. The bots are clueless, matchmaking is slow, pinging is moronic. Playing through on recruit is either a complete joke or an infinite spawn of specials. Pubbies, especially with crossplay on, are probably worse than bots. Playing by yourself becomes impossible when you need to fetch multiple briefcases. I'm going to finish the campaign on easy then uninstall lol
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2022 22:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 10:33 |
|
|
tehinternet posted:What hardware/console are you running? I’d imagine the OG Xbone would have a bad time with this being 8 years old (and outdated when it came out in 2013). I might agree except it ran perfectly prepatch for months.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2022 23:08
|
|
|
I haven’t experienced any of these issues since the patch, but I’m usually running pretty specialized builds and have played a lot of L4D/L4D2. The patch took veteran from rough to pretty manageable even with meh pubbies in my experience. I’m using KB/M though so it might be that it’s way easier to deal with the spitter’s verticality vs a controller? I’m legit not trying to be passive aggressive or a dick or anything, I’m just not seeing the same issues post-patch. I’ll try to pay more attention in the future and see if my experience matches up with yours.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2022 23:21
|
|
|
Yeah I’m puzzled at how polarized the response to this game is. I haven’t experienced any glaring technical issues, difficulty was a bit on the hard side to start but I actually sort of enjoyed that? Now it’s a bit on the easy side on vet but nightmare is still challenging. Me and my group will likely continue playing for a long time, the basic mechanics of shooting and looting just feel good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2022 23:42
|
|
|
Poodlebear posted:Yeah I’m puzzled at how polarized the response to this game is. I haven’t experienced any glaring technical issues, difficulty was a bit on the hard side to start but I actually sort of enjoyed that? Now it’s a bit on the easy side on vet but nightmare is still challenging. That’s where I’m at. We have a group of roughly 6 who play and it’s been pretty smooth for everyone. Vet is manageable and we are looking forward to nightmare.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 01:18
|
|
|
Poodlebear posted:Yeah I’m puzzled at how polarized the response to this game is. I haven’t experienced any glaring technical issues, difficulty was a bit on the hard side to start but I actually sort of enjoyed that? Now it’s a bit on the easy side on vet but nightmare is still challenging. I mean to be fair, pre-patch, everything anyone critical ITT mentioned was 100% right on (minus connection issues which anecdotally don’t appear to be widespread). I play with pubs mostly because I’ve had decent luck getting not complete shitters but I def get the frustration pre-patch. Nightmare was just lol worthy at how hosed you were if you got anything but the easiest draw of cards to start
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 02:27
|
|
|
Yeah I mean if you weren’t rolling with a coordinated group / 4 man pre patch you could forget about getting out of recruit. Glad they fixed that ultimately, but it was sorta cool to have this big release game kick your rear end for a while, it was different than the usual handholding. I don’t know One thing I’m disappointed they didn’t do is randomize the set pieces more. Once you see the optimal place to set up for these there’s no reason to do anything else. I feel like it would have been easy to randomize some doors or cars and stuff and force teams to mix it up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 04:02
|
|
|
Veteran feels too easy now tbh, but (performance aside) the only patch change I hate is the absolute gutting of wallbois. Getting pounced by one doesn't mean poo poo without the horde summon. Maybe a smaller horde, but man do they feel irrelevant on veteran now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 04:08
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8 Left 4 Dead may be a much older game, but there's things in it that just can't be replicated without a massive budget. For example, they motion captured a stuntman performing about a hundred "being shot and stumbling over" animations, which is why the zombies in Left 4 Dead fall over and die so much more satisfyingly than in Back 4 Blood. Ditto for facial animations on the survivors. Also, at the end of the video, L4D devs vs B4B: 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 05:09
|
|
|
Watching that video it pretty much sums up big budget vs medium budget. L4D2 def had better animations and polish, can’t argue that. More personality, too. But until Valve decides that they want to print some more money (and with Steam making more money than any game ever could, why would they), I think B4B is as good as you’re going to get. Which isn’t to say that it’s bad at all — the card system makes it much more replayable and the game is much more challenging and teamwork based than L4D2 (it was bullshit pre-patch, it’s pretty fair now). It’s a solid evolution of the L4D2 gameplay design, it just sucks that it had such a rough start because it really is a fun game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 07:30
|
|
|
Seems kind of disingenuous for Crowbcat to omit showing Back 4 Blood's deck building, corruption card, ammo sharing and gun rarity gameplay features in that video, in order to nitpick at stuff you barely notice while playing.  I guess the Youtube crowd lap it up in the comment section so whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 09:51
|
|
|
Are any of those adding anything to the game that helps? All of that is window dressing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 09:56
|
|
|
RBX posted:Are any of those adding anything to the game that helps? All of that is window dressing. In my experience they are what make the game fun and replayable as it adds an element of depth and strategy to the run & gun. That being said, it makes the game less fun if you aren't playing in a coordinated group of 4 people because of pubbies, bad AI and bad matchmaking. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 10:35
|
|
|
RBX posted:Are any of those adding anything to the game that helps? All of that is window dressing. The video that shows no meaningful gameplay impact or the stuff in the post above that impacts gameplay in a meaningful way by changing enemies, their abilities, your abilities, how the map looks or plays?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 12:40
|
|
|
It's apples to oranges to say that B4B has decks and gun rarity, the video is highlighting elements that are in both games that are done better in L4D. Enemy death animations, environmental destruction, survivor face and body animation, and special infected musical cues. It's all either less sophisticated or missing entirely in B4B, and the team members who would have worked on them weren't the same people making the deck so it's not as though they choose one or the other. The video illustrates that's there's more to a game then its bullet points of major features and these small details add up to have a real impact on the quality of a game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 13:17
|
|
|
Jack B Nimble posted:It's apples to oranges to say that B4B has decks and gun rarity, the video is highlighting elements that are in both games that are done better in L4D. Enemy death animations, environmental destruction, survivor face and body animation, and special infected musical cues. It's all either less sophisticated or missing entirely in B4B, and the team members who would have worked on them weren't the same people making the deck so it's not as though they choose one or the other. The video illustrates that's there's more to a game then its bullet points of major features and these small details add up to have a real impact on the quality of a game. Yeah, L4D2’s animations and physics were definitely better, agreed. But that’s essentially window dressing that don’t have a meaningful gameplay impact. Though the pipebombs in L4D2 were always a good time. Go back and play L4D2 — it’s still fun, but it’s aged by comparison. The animations are nice, but give me substance over style every time. And this isn’t to poo poo on L4D2 because that game was good as hell, it’s because B4B is a great game too. The one place you’ll flat out win is the lack of a versus mode in B4B. Which is awful.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 13:32
|
|
|
tehinternet posted:
You're absolutely right, I did that at release and L4D does show its age. I think one implication of the video is that, when we say something is the spiritual successor to L4D, what was L4D? The video shows it's many things, and getting some of them right will take both a lot of money (for motion capping etc) and a lot of talent and work that might just seem like window dressing. I say this as someone who played a lot of, and enjoyed, B4B, but its still useful and interesting to ask what B4B does and does not replicate from L4D.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 13:47
|
|
|
tehinternet posted:Yeah, L4D2’s animations and physics were definitely better, agreed. But that’s essentially window dressing that don’t have a meaningful gameplay impact. Though the pipebombs in L4D2 were always a good time. The video shows that all that wasn't window dressing. It was the soul of the game and it made it special. Even if we didn't notice or appreciate it at the time. L4D is still played by me and many others and still holds up like every other Valve title. How does B4B have any more substance than L4D when it's trying to be a souless copy riding on past glory. The fact that it's even a debate of it quality is a failure, that part should've been a home run. tehinternet posted:The video that shows no meaningful gameplay impact or the stuff in the post above that impacts gameplay in a meaningful way by changing enemies, their abilities, your abilities, how the map looks or plays? L4D didn't NEED any of that though. Cards and variants of special infected don't make the game better as whole. You just have to work harder to get back to the power level you used to be at.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 15:46
|
|
|
Fanatic posted:Seems kind of disingenuous for Crowbcat to omit showing Back 4 Blood's deck building, corruption card, ammo sharing and gun rarity gameplay features in that video, in order to nitpick at stuff you barely notice while playing. Solid death animations for things you are killing all the time add a lot to a game for me. The original RAGE had some incredible death animation too which helped in completing and otherwise mediocre game  .
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 16:01
|
|
|
Here's an aspect of this that is peripheral but still relevant to this comparison. Something the video doesn't address directly, though it comes close when talking about the environmental destruction and the physics spectacles they engineered with the Boomers, is how much work the Source Engine is doing for L4D. I don't know about ya'll, but for me the release of HL2, CS Source, etc was one of the last times people just could not believe how good this PC game looked. Here's a small anecdote. Remember Myst? My uncle was a software engineer with Microsoft back then and, that Christmas, he brought a desktop and Myst to my grandmother's house. All of us, the whole family, stood around over his shoulder and just watched him click on things, and then took our own turns. We couldn't believe it. Well, the same thing happened with the release of Counter Strike Source; a wide group of friends from High School, some of whom were only mildly interested in PC gaming, came over to just gawk at CS Source and take turns moving around, shooting at stuff, trying to jump on the barrels, etc. L4D inherits and benefits from being part of one of the last big revolutions in PC FPS gaming, and that’s something B4B, through no fault of its own, can’t really enjoy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 16:14
|
|
|
i think it's source engine, though e: no, tell a lie UE4
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 16:17
|
|
|
I meant that the source engine was revolutionary in 2008 in a way B4B doesn't feel now, but that's not really an achievement you can directly credit to L4D.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 16:19
|
|
|
that’s a good point. L4D benefitted from a lot of valve magic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 16:21
|
|
|
If my crew only has 4 people we play B4B because the cards, the fact the maps are new, and the QoL improvements like ADS make it more fun than replaying the same l4d2 maps over and over again (including custom maps that rock, but still have been replayed to death). But if 5+ show up we switch to the modded l4d2 server that allows 20+ survivors in campaign.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:18
|
|
|
I think one of the key things about L4D is that it was designed and balanced around the idea that players could be controlling the Special Infected, and that there was no real difference between a vs and coop run asides from this. That meant that the designers really had to think way harder than usual about the amount of health to give them, respawn times, amount of each infected that could spawn at each time, etc etc. The coop mode on the first game cheats a little with spawns (I think it can spawn multiple pinning specials in a way that's impossible in vs), but it can't just up the difficulty with more specials. This forces map design and flow to the forefront, requiring ambush points, positions for individual infected to shine (smoker death pulls, hunter 50+ pounce spots etc). The designers constantly had to be thinking "how are actual humans going to take advantage of this"
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:19
|
|
|
I couldn't remember a lot of set pieces from l4d2 until I watched that video and that's really something b4b is missing Everyone loves the bar level but that's one of the few times the game decides to be a little goofy I couldn't care less about facial animations and death stumbles but at the same time that shows how much time and love they put into the game (and how much money they had at their disposal) Something that still bugs me about b4b is how long they took to add easy wins: people are mad as hell about hockers/stingers and they wait two months to add a cooldown in a mega patch instead of doing a small update. And if that made the game too easy? Who cares, like 1 percent of the public were capable of finishing veteran before that Another stupid thing that still bugs me is the buy menu, where they made razor wire a utility item but it's still in the middle of the grenade poo poo
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:26
|
|
|
Who greenlit swarm mode? That’s what I want to know
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:34
|
|
|
I think it’s not so easy for them to make certain changes quickly because of crossplay. They probably need to go through some set of hoops for every platform release so it makes sense to pool a bunch of changes together in one patch rather than many small patches. That’s my guess anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:36
|
|
|
Right, but they could still do that with small changes, tons of other games are cross play and can still put out quick updates
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 17:38
|
|
|
moist turtleneck posted:I couldn't remember a lot of set pieces from l4d2 until I watched that video and that's really something b4b is missing In case people were confused at all about the budget of this game, how many times is the gas station map where you spawn at Fort Hope reused? I'm sure having to have patches on at least 5 SKUs also hurts their ability to do hotfixes A lot of the offensive item cards still mention razor wire too. It's a good change, but I think it was added pretty late in the patch and they didn't have time to actually make it more clear As far as big memorable portions of the game, I think the run up to Blue Dog Mine with all of the open mine shafts is probably the best set pieces in the game. It shows how the just the common ridden got to be so dangerous and communicates the game's core idea of constant forward momentum better than anything else in the game. At least it does until you've run it a couple times with your crew and everyone brings grenades to destroy the spawn points and it becomes a light jog up a mountain, but it's what stands out the most for me In fact, almost every level in act 1 is really good except the farm and searching for boxes with the snitches
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 18:01
|
|
|
Harsh but true
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 18:12
|
|
|
RBX posted:The video shows that all that wasn't window dressing. It was the soul of the game and it made it special. Even if we didn't notice or appreciate it at the time. L4D is still played by me and many others and still holds up like every other Valve title. You’re arguing that the things that don’t impact gameplay impacted enjoyment? I mean, I can see that. It’s fun to see all the different ways infected blow up or hack apart. I’m with you until: RBX posted:L4D didn't NEED any of that though. Cards and variants of special infected don't make the game better as whole. You just have to work harder to get back to the power level you used to be at. This kinda makes me think that you haven’t really played much B4B because the cards meaningfully change how you play the game and make it much more varied as a co-op experience vs L4D2 (again, the extremely disappointing removal of versus mode in B4B aside). Given the choice between meaningful gameplay improvements or zombie physics and animations, I’m going gameplay every time. I mean, I agree that the animations aren’t as nearly as good for common infected. I just don’t care about it compared to the QoL improvements and variety of gameplay that’s possible. Substance over style if that makes sense. I think our disagreement might be more rooted in it being a more of a game for me and it being more art for you — your arguments make sense to me within that context.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 20:48
|
|
|
The shooting was let down by the zombies being generic and ugly(not in a good way), don't like the maps, the specials are generic and more annoying to fight than fun, the bosses are bad. The game plays like "serious" game where I gotta build craft and all that bullshit and I liked L4D because it was so casual. I'm kinda over builds and poo poo and get my fill of that in games like Destiny or Warframe
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:04
|
|
|
honestly, give me a card to pick what weapon I start with --- without it being a burn card.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:05
|
|
|
Ichabod Tane posted:honestly, give me a card to pick what weapon I start with --- without it being a burn card. What I wouldn't give to be able to play Mom without having to prioritize getting rid of the Belgian at the first opportunity. I'm too stubborn to figure out how to make that weapon usable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:09
|
|
|
Cidrick posted:What I wouldn't give to be able to play Mom without having to prioritize getting rid of the Belgian at the first opportunity. I'm too stubborn to figure out how to make that weapon usable. Nothing at all would be lost if the starting guns in the safe room were infinite.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:12
|
|
|
RBX posted:The game plays like "serious" game where I gotta build craft and all that bullshit and I liked L4D because it was so casual. I'm kinda over builds and poo poo and get my fill of that in games like Destiny or Warframe This is why marketing it as a spiritual sequel to L4D2 was a mistake: it's not a casual game. It just isn't: the cards, equipment, and gunplay both have a ton of intricacy to them that the difficulty demands you engage with. If not for all the bugs (that still exist, holy hell is the phantom bullet problem out of control) this would be the best designed gun system that I've ever played (blowing my prior favorite, BFBC2, out of the water). But it is very clear, looking at the design, that it was never actually meant to be L4D-like. Similar setting, but totally different in the details. But marketing knew that hyping up the (fairly tenuous) L4D connection would sell way more copies, so here we are. It still might have turned out okay if their technical work hadn't fallen down. Whatever the reason, the game shipped with (and still has) a shitload of technical issues undermining the design. Corbeau fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jan 3, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:22
|
|
|
Corbeau posted:If not for all the bugs (that still exist, holy hell is the phantom bullet problem out of control) this would be the best designed gun system that I've ever played (blowing my prior favorite, BFBC2, out of the water). Do you like Escape from Tarkov? Try it next reset if you haven't.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:27
|
|
|
Jack B Nimble posted:Do you like Escape from Tarkov? Try it next reset if you haven't. I am not even slightly interested in pvp permadeath games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 10:33 |
|
|
Corbeau posted:I am not even slightly interested in pvp permadeath games. You can install a local server on your PC and play it as a PVE game, I've done that to play some single player in addition to the normal play. I don't recall how complicated it would be to add coop to that though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2022 21:36
|
|