Back 4 Blood - [hag intro] - The Something Awful Forums

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Xaiter: Dec 16, 2007; Everything is AWESOME!

RBX posted:

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

This. Right here.

I like B4B. It is a fun game. It is also very flawed. And I am an idiot who likes bad games for some reason.

A big part of L4D's broad appeal was that you could just pick up and play a zombie shooter with some friends and make your own silly Shaun of the Dead experience together. On lower difficulty levels, the Director would bend over backwards to cut the players some slack and usher them through the level. It might be a very primative and simple scripted AI driving things, but it took into account the status of the players when making decisions.

B4B seems to do no such thing. It doesn't care if you live or die, it isn't checking if you need some mercy because someone went down, maybe I should pause the invisible horde timer for 20 seconds while the players recover? It doesn't have a hard limit on incappers, it doesn't go "Gee, it would be really unfun to have all four healthy survivors instantly die because they all got grabbed in rapid succession".

This doesn't make B4B a bad game. The dumbass decisions like the very existence of the Hocker or allowing the Crusher to go TWO MONTHS after launch with a non-functional weakpoint and bonus HP due to a ridiculous bug are what makes it bad.

It makes more of a "competitive" game despite being PvE. And that's automatically going to be less accessible and thus less popular. Example, I could probably play L4D with my +60 year old mother who hasn't touched a video game since The Sims 1. And she would have fun playing a zombie movie with her son. B4B absolutely would never allow me to do this.

And I know this post is getting rambling, but that last part needs a bit more clarification. It's not JUST that the game itself, mechanically, is less forgiving and responsive to player state, but all that cosmetic poo poo you saw in Crowb's video? Yeah, that poo poo would matter to her in terms of understanding how things operate. There is an unspoken language in those cosmetic things. And it bleeds over into mechanics.

If a smoker grabs someone, my mom doesn't need to be told what's happening. You can see the tongue . You can hear your friend calling for help. You can follow the tongue its source. You can inituit that shooting the tongue guy will free your friend.

Now imagine something like the Hocker. What happened? Where did that come from? Why are you covered in web? How do I save you? Is there a spider in this game??? :confused:

B4B is much less casual friendly and that is not intended as praise. It's a damning insult that cuts to the core of the original L4D philosophy where individual player experience was the most important thing and the game would bend over backwards to accommodate almost anyone to ensure they too could play out their own zombie action movie with their friends.

...I reiterate, I still like the game. I just don't see how it's going to survive beyond a smaller player base of 2000-3000 hardcore nerds still playing by the end of the year.

# ? Jan 3, 2022 22:03

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:44

CoolCab: Apr 17, 2005; glem

games launch broken these days and new bugs are a constant and inherent issue with continuous development games-as-a-service, welcome to the future. valve is far from innocent on that front, too, i remember launch valve content.

# ? Jan 3, 2022 22:06

Babe Magnet: Jun 2, 2008

Corbeau posted:

I am not even slightly interested in pvp permadeath games.

stalker: anomaly. better than tarkov's pve by a country mile, more interesting setting, and completely free.

# ? Jan 3, 2022 22:59

Mendrian: Jan 6, 2013

Yeah this game is extremely unfriendly to casuals. One of the reasons I turned off comms was because I got sick of explaining the game's mechanics constantly to pubs. And I feel kinda bad but I just don't have the energy to clean up confusion about how trauma works for the sixth time in a session.

Also. Hoffman and Holly are the best characters mostly because they are funny and have quirky personalities. Evangelo and Mom are okay and it's downhill from there. The levels suffer from the same problem. They have locations, but they lack personality. You're not at a high-school where Jerry Celery is the school mascot and there's a zombie in a mascot costume, you're just at The School and your eyes can basically turn off.

I actually really like the game, I love the cards and the difficulty, I just wish they'd polished some of the rough edges a bit more.

# ? Jan 3, 2022 23:11

Senethro: May 18, 2005; I unironically think I'm Garret, Master Thief.

The pubs in this game are very weird. AFK in the the spawn room for 3 mins, sprint up you to, friendly fire all of you, then quit out. Happened twice tonight. The casualness of it was kind of odd, like they didn't even really care, this is just how things are done.

# ? Jan 3, 2022 23:49

RBX: Jan 2, 2011

Mendrian posted:

Yeah this game is extremely unfriendly to casuals. One of the reasons I turned off comms was because I got sick of explaining the game's mechanics constantly to pubs. And I feel kinda bad but I just don't have the energy to clean up confusion about how trauma works for the sixth time in a session.

Also. Hoffman and Holly are the best characters mostly because they are funny and have quirky personalities. Evangelo and Mom are okay and it's downhill from there. The levels suffer from the same problem. They have locations, but they lack personality. You're not at a high-school where Jerry Celery is the school mascot and there's a zombie in a mascot costume, you're just at The School and your eyes can basically turn off.

I actually really like the game, I love the cards and the difficulty, I just wish they'd polished some of the rough edges a bit more.

Trauma damage is still the dumbest thing i've ever seen and not explaining it anywhere was awful. I pay close attention to tips and poo poo when I play games but I must've missed the tooltip on it or something.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 01:01

The Door Frame: Dec 5, 2011; I don't know man everytime I go to the gym here there are like two huge dudes with raging high and tights snorting Nitro-tech off of each other's rock hard abs.

Trauma damage is a fine mechanic and I figured it out really fast by playing almost exclusively medic decks, but I don't ever remember any explanation of it in the game... The corruption cards that make specials inflict 100% of their damage as trauma are also not cool

# ? Jan 4, 2022 01:33

Xaiter: Dec 16, 2007; Everything is AWESOME!

RBX posted:

Trauma damage is still the dumbest thing i've ever seen and not explaining it anywhere was awful. I pay close attention to tips and poo poo when I play games but I must've missed the tooltip on it or something.

Oddly, Trauma damage was incredibly intuitive for me.

"Oh, okay. Some damage really hurts and lowers your max HP, like being set on fire. Hunt: Showdown had something like this. Makes sense... now how the gently caress do I get it back?"

Healing trauma didn't make sense until I took enough Trauma to notice the yellow cabs would restore some of my max HP.

I kinda like the idea of your max HP being whittled down by attrition, it adds tension. But I think it's one of those mechanics feeding into the snowball victory/defeat death spiral feeling, as managing Trauma can be pretty expensive without sufficient game knowledge..

EDIT: I think the most confusing thing about Trauma for me was because of my own L4D preconceptions. I had a medkit on me, I recall, and used it expecting it to recover some Trauma. I mean, it's a full blown medkit, not a bandage. It didn't, and I was still new enough I thought yellow cabs were essentially the same thing. So I was REALLY confused by how to heal it for a little while.

Especially when later we got better quality meds and the medkits started healing trauma and I still wasn't sure what was making the items better and oh god I can see how this can feel like a confusing mess.

Maybe giving the white medkits even a small amount of Trauma heal could help a bit. When their color changes, their role in the healing lineup changes dramatically. It's the only consumable that almost completely changes in practical function after a single color upgrade.

Xaiter fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Jan 4, 2022

# ? Jan 4, 2022 01:34

tehinternet: Feb 14, 2005; Semantically, "you" is both singular and plural, though syntactically it is always plural. It always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural.

Also, there is no plural when the context is an argument with an individual rather than a group. Somfin shouldn't put words in my mouth.

I thought the striping on the bar was pretty intuitive coming from L4D2. Healing it, less so but still not exactly rocket science.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 02:10

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

Trauma was confusing for exactly one time where you try to heal it and it doesn't heal. After that its really self explanatory.

I very much agree that the marketing for this game was the primary problem with it. All of my usual groups have literally no issue with beating it, even before they made Vet easier. Pubs though? Holy poo poo, it's like watching wildlife repeatly run into the jaws of a predator.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 02:42

Scruffpuff: Dec 23, 2015; Fidelity. Wait, was I'm working on again?

Xaiter posted:

Oddly, Trauma damage was incredibly intuitive for me.

"Oh, okay. Some damage really hurts and lowers your max HP, like being set on fire. Hunt: Showdown had something like this. Makes sense... now how the gently caress do I get it back?"

Healing trauma didn't make sense until I took enough Trauma to notice the yellow cabs would restore some of my max HP.

I kinda like the idea of your max HP being whittled down by attrition, it adds tension. But I think it's one of those mechanics feeding into the snowball victory/defeat death spiral feeling, as managing Trauma can be pretty expensive without sufficient game knowledge..

EDIT: I think the most confusing thing about Trauma for me was because of my own L4D preconceptions. I had a medkit on me, I recall, and used it expecting it to recover some Trauma. I mean, it's a full blown medkit, not a bandage. It didn't, and I was still new enough I thought yellow cabs were essentially the same thing. So I was REALLY confused by how to heal it for a little while.

Especially when later we got better quality meds and the medkits started healing trauma and I still wasn't sure what was making the items better and oh god I can see how this can feel like a confusing mess.

Maybe giving the white medkits even a small amount of Trauma heal could help a bit. When their color changes, their role in the healing lineup changes dramatically. It's the only consumable that almost completely changes in practical function after a single color upgrade.

Yellow cabs?

edit: never mind, I think you mean the medicine cabinets, I was about to get pissed that I didn't pay enough attention to the taxis...

# ? Jan 4, 2022 03:03

ShootaBoy: Jan 6, 2010; Anime is Bad.
_{Except for Pokemon, Valkyria Chronicles and 100% OJ.}

Scruffpuff posted:

Yellow cabs?

edit: never mind, I think you mean the medicine cabinets, I was about to get pissed that I didn't pay enough attention to the taxis...

Don't worry, I'm still 100% loving lost, I've only ever seen red cabinets for healing, and they're really rare in my experience. I've made it well known that I think trauma and healing it are a poo poo mechanic thought up by shitters that only adds the tension of "how long til this run is over for me now that I'm at 35% of my HP?". It's not communicated or explained clearly, and the fact that every trauma card got buffed is evidence imo

# ? Jan 4, 2022 03:30

Poodlebear: Aug 24, 2006; but if y'all put
feathers on a dog
that don't make it
no chicken

Jack B Nimble posted:

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:

This video made me very sad. Who�s putting this much thought and work into a game today? Maybe it�s about time to hang up my gamer gloves guys. What�s the point

# ? Jan 4, 2022 03:55

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

Poodlebear posted:

This video made me very sad. Who’s putting this much thought and work into a game today? Maybe it’s about time to hang up my gamer gloves guys. What’s the point

I'd argue From Soft still is.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 05:09

RBX: Jan 2, 2011

tehinternet posted:

I thought the striping on the bar was pretty intuitive coming from L4D2. Healing it, less so but still not exactly rocket science.

Yes I could tell something was going but what exactly was going on and what I needed to do was not communicated at all. I literally only know thanks to people online and unlocking cards. Which adds onto "bad pubbies" who are really "confused newbies" expecting to just hop on and shoot poo poo like World War Z.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 06:09

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

How many of the -5% damage resistance cards do you guys put in a deck?

# ? Jan 4, 2022 07:59

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

How many of the -5% damage resistance cards do you guys put in a deck?

Reckless Strategy usually goes in DPS decks. Widemouth and Reckless Strategy both go in some accuracy+dps decks. so probably around 2 tops. Multitool is okay but there's better use speed cards and don't need to stack that much usespeed most of the time.

I'm usually throwing in Motorcycle Helmet because my ADS is already disabled. pretty much most of my decks use 90% (hunker down + qk) or 100% acc (qk + optics enthus + front sight) so Motorcycle Helmet is mostly a no brainer and counts any negatives of like Reckless Strategy

Xaris fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jan 4, 2022

# ? Jan 4, 2022 08:19

Xaiter: Dec 16, 2007; Everything is AWESOME!

ShootaBoy posted:

Don't worry, I'm still 100% loving lost, I've only ever seen red cabinets for healing, and they're really rare in my experience. I've made it well known that I think trauma and healing it are a poo poo mechanic thought up by shitters that only adds the tension of "how long til this run is over for me now that I'm at 35% of my HP?". It's not communicated or explained clearly, and the fact that every trauma card got buffed is evidence imo

Scruffpuff posted:

Yellow cabs?

edit: never mind, I think you mean the medicine cabinets, I was about to get pissed that I didn't pay enough attention to the taxis...

D'oh! Yes, I mean medicine cabinets. I use colorblind mode, so the red medicine cabinets for you are yellow medicine cabinets for me.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 10:07

The Hambulance: Apr 19, 2011; ASK ME ABOUT MY AWESOME STARTUP IDEA; Pillbug

I generally dislike YouTube streamers (I'm old and grumpy), but Swingpoynt has a lot of good videos related to B4B. Prior to watching his videos, I had no idea what the upgrades did to slots 3, 4, and 5. Dude can talk incredibly fast, but his videos have changed the way I play the game. He really gets off into the weeds with the math, and I genuinely appreciate him showing how he figures everything out.

Here's a video where he talks about bullet stumble and how important it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ttBh07PPWk

He has one where he and his friends run T-5 on Nightmare, and their use of the razor wire completely breaks the level. I had previously just disregarded razor wire as useless, but it's pretty amazing when you have your Quick Slot upgraded to purple and the wire deploys as a circle.

He builds a deck to give grenades 13,000 damage that I have to check out.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 13:15

tehinternet: Feb 14, 2005; Semantically, "you" is both singular and plural, though syntactically it is always plural. It always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural.

Also, there is no plural when the context is an argument with an individual rather than a group. Somfin shouldn't put words in my mouth.

Keep in mind that silver bullets add flat stumble damage so you�ll stumble basically anything with a shotgun and that card. Or anything with a high ROF.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 14:40

Varkas: Apr 16, 2003; If I post before 5pm PST, PM my boss and tell him I'm fired.

The Hambulance posted:

I generally dislike YouTube streamers (I'm old and grumpy), but Swingpoynt has a lot of good videos related to B4B. Prior to watching his videos, I had no idea what the upgrades did to slots 3, 4, and 5. Dude can talk incredibly fast, but his videos have changed the way I play the game. He really gets off into the weeds with the math, and I genuinely appreciate him showing how he figures everything out.

Here's a video where he talks about bullet stumble and how important it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ttBh07PPWk

He has one where he and his friends run T-5 on Nightmare, and their use of the razor wire completely breaks the level. I had previously just disregarded razor wire as useless, but it's pretty amazing when you have your Quick Slot upgraded to purple and the wire deploys as a circle.

He builds a deck to give grenades 13,000 damage that I have to check out.

Yeah, I really struggled with T-5 until watching that video of his, and it's a total cakewalk now.

If I could only recommend one of his videos though, it would be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZWPF7L5D8I

# ? Jan 4, 2022 17:33

moist turtleneck: Jul 17, 2003; Represent.; Dinosaur Gum

I really like his no cards nightmare runs because you really get to watch for their strategy and positioning in those

They are long as hell though

# ? Jan 4, 2022 17:53

limp_cheese: Sep 10, 2007; Nothing to see here. Move along.

RBX posted:

Yes I could tell something was going but what exactly was going on and what I needed to do was not communicated at all. I literally only know thanks to people online and unlocking cards. Which adds onto "bad pubbies" who are really "confused newbies" expecting to just hop on and shoot poo poo like World War Z.

World War Z is probably the actual sequel to Left 4 Dead. I like the progression system and how easy it is to get into a game. The size of the hoardes is also something to marvel at. Back 4 Blood will through a few dozen zombies at you during a hoard event but World War Z will through hundreds at you and actually feels overwhelming, its great.

I was one of those morons that bought the Back 4 Blood special edition but other than a few matches when the patch dropped I haven't touched it and I don't know if I will again. Meanwhile World War Z is something I keep coming back to. More maps that are longer, more interesting, with challenge modes that are fun. Its just so much easier to get into a game as a single player with pubbies that are on a a whole somewhat ok, even with crossplay. The bots are also better.

I'm having a hard time thinking of what B4B does better. Maybe having equipment not tied to your class? The gunplay feeling a bit better?

# ? Jan 4, 2022 19:16

Pharmaskittle: Dec 17, 2007; arf arf put the money in the fuckin bag

no poo poo? I got wwz for free for some reason when it released and it was truly dogshit, it's gotten that much better?

# ? Jan 4, 2022 19:19

Stanley Pain: Jun 16, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

Is the gunplay better than @ launch for WWZ? It was such complete dogshit.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 20:42

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Haven't played this in well over a month but I'll have to give it a go before I get back to work after a protracted time off.

Some of the really unfair mechanics remind me of game design in the 90s and 00s. 90s platformers were especially punishing at times, but a game that raged me much in the 00s was Spider-Man 3.

At one stage these dickheads with umbrellas would beat my bag in (how they could take a hammering from my superhuman strength is a question I will leave to the scholars), but once they stunned me, and I couldn't do poo poo for the guts of 10 seconds, they continued to attack and drain my health with impunity.

Feels like that in B4B sometimes. I'm already down, stop kicking.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 20:43

Cidrick: Jun 10, 2001; Praise the siamese

The Hambulance posted:

I generally dislike YouTube streamers (I'm old and grumpy), but Swingpoynt has a lot of good videos related to B4B. Prior to watching his videos, I had no idea what the upgrades did to slots 3, 4, and 5. Dude can talk incredibly fast, but his videos have changed the way I play the game. He really gets off into the weeds with the math, and I genuinely appreciate him showing how he figures everything out.

Thanks for this, I've watched a couple of his videos and I agree that Swingpoynt's information is really good. He's confirmed a few suspicions I had about mechanics (mostly that stumble loving rules and that kiting crushers is easy) and has taught me a few more things like how useful accuracy is.

Time to re-make all my decks!

# ? Jan 4, 2022 20:50

limp_cheese: Sep 10, 2007; Nothing to see here. Move along.

Stanley Pain posted:

Is the gunplay better than @ launch for WWZ? It was such complete dogshit.

I'm not sure how it was at launch since I grabbed it earlier this year, but I will admit B4B has better sound and feeling for the guns. I also don't know if playing WWZ in first-person makes a difference since I know it was third-person only at launch and I never tried third-person. If first-person wasn't qn option I honestly wouldn't have bought it.

I really feel the zombie numbers they are able to achieve is what really makes the game for me. Left 4 Dead was also really good at zombie numbers and making them feel threatening. The ones in B4B just never seem to hit that numbers critical mass except during the cow pens dash. Maybe the coal mines run and T-5 too.

WWZ also having more difficulty options that feel way more fair and balanced compared to B4B with some random challenges thrown in if you want also keep it from getting stale. The Corruption cards just aren't the same because its random and hidden while WWZ tells you what you're getting into upfront.

The specials in WWZ are better than B4B if only because there's only 5 compared to 16.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 22:37

Varkas: Apr 16, 2003; If I post before 5pm PST, PM my boss and tell him I'm fired.

limp_cheese posted:

The specials in WWZ are better than B4B if only because there's only 5 compared to 16.

Yeah, this is what usually happens for the quick call outs:

Tallboy = "Big guy"
Crusher = "Big guy"
Bruiser = "Big guy"
Exploder = "Big guy"
Reeker = "Big guy"
Retch = "Big guy"
Stalker/Hocker/Stinger = "stalker"/"hocker"/"stinger" (any one of these randomly)

Turning on the closed captioning option at least helps to better differentiate the actual types, especially when you don't have visual sight of them yourself just yet.

# ? Jan 4, 2022 22:48

No. 6: Jun 30, 2002

WWZ is still dog poo poo

# ? Jan 4, 2022 23:05

Richard Bong: Dec 11, 2008

Tallboy/crusher/bruiser = large lad
Retch/reeker/exploder = big guy
Stalker/hocker/stinker = fun police

# ? Jan 4, 2022 23:47

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

WWZ is actually fun and anyone who doesn't like it is taking dumb horde zombie shooty games far to seriously :colbert:

# ? Jan 5, 2022 00:09

Mendrian: Jan 6, 2013

Richard Bong posted:

Tallboy/crusher/bruiser = large lad
Retch/reeker/exploder = big guy
Stalker/hocker/stinker = fun police

I prefer 'serial crusher' for large lads.

# ? Jan 5, 2022 00:38

Rick_Hunter: Jan 5, 2004; My guys are still fighting the hard fight!
(weapons, shields and drones are still online!)

Richard Bong posted:

Tallboy/crusher/bruiser = large lad

Tallboy/bruiser/crusher = county/regional/state jerk off champs

# ? Jan 5, 2022 00:47

Xaiter: Dec 16, 2007; Everything is AWESOME!

Richard Bong posted:

Tallboy/crusher/bruiser = large lad
Retch/reeker/exploder = big guy
Stalker/hocker/stinker = fun police

Tallguy
Fatguy
Fucker(s)

# ? Jan 5, 2022 01:01

tehinternet: Feb 14, 2005; Semantically, "you" is both singular and plural, though syntactically it is always plural. It always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural.

Also, there is no plural when the context is an argument with an individual rather than a group. Somfin shouldn't put words in my mouth.

Idk, WWZ and B4B are both really good co-op games IMO. There�s room for them both

# ? Jan 5, 2022 01:56

Stanley Pain: Jun 16, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

Thanks for the WWZ reco. Played a few games and it seems pretty good now. First Person mode really makes it better imo.

# ? Jan 5, 2022 04:06

The Door Frame: Dec 5, 2011; I don't know man everytime I go to the gym here there are like two huge dudes with raging high and tights snorting Nitro-tech off of each other's rock hard abs.

Richard Bong posted:

Tallboy/crusher/bruiser = large lad
Retch/reeker/exploder = big guy
Stalker/hocker/stinker = fun police

Alternatively,
Big Guy
Fat Boy
Whoop! Whoop! (because that's the sound of the police) or ACAB is also acceptable

Get creative with your call outs people, even spotting a special can be fun for your group if you make it fun

# ? Jan 5, 2022 17:55

Ichabod Tane: Oct 30, 2005; A most notable
coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.

https://youtu.be/_Ojd0BdtMBY?t=4

Lol here are my call outs:

Crusher (all of them are crushers)
Fat guy
Grabber / spitter

# ? Jan 5, 2022 18:02

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:44

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

They're all tall boys, except for the boomers and the spitters. :shrug:

# ? Jan 5, 2022 19:05

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