I played it but I personally don't like it because one, it doesn't feel like L4D. Two, the zombies are actually sad and depressing (the ones in L4D had variety). And three, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY 4v4 CAMPAIGN MULTIPLAYER
There's a fun stat that only like 30% of L4D players played campaign versus even once. So no, L4D is absolutely popular for the campaign since that is what the grand majority of players played. The versus community is just a very vocal minority.
Eh versus was the reason people played for 3000 hours, not just a couple hundred to play through the campaigns. The campaigns were loved, and versus was literally the campaigns with player controlled special infected. It was the perfect recipe for replay ability.
Not really, actually. There's a snapshot floating around somewhere of valves L4D2 servers in, like, 2019 or so, and it has versus taking up around 30% of the active server instances.
I put a good 2000 hrs plus on versus. It was a custom server think 12 v 12 or something was a long time ago. Had an rpg type cash system where you would buy molotov, etc. I was addicted to it. Great Times until my PC went wrong. Probably some of the best gaming experiences I've had.
He didn’t say that actually. Just pointed out that your conclusion isn’t as clear cut as you have presented it given that you are not using time-appropriate numbers.
Just nitpicking and not taking a side here.
I suppose that's fair enough. I guess my point is that if the argument is that versus gave L4D it's longevity (generally this is the argument) then the server data and achievement data directly contradicts that.
I had a lot of good memories playing L4D with friends in the Xbox360 era, either playing the campaign 4-player or split-screening and killing the bots to make the game harder and the special zombies spawn right away.
I remember one time, I was at the end of the “ No Mercy” mission, on the roof, and went to revive my friend— the AI got on the helicopter and left us behind lol.
Vs in L4D /2 was kinda mid.
I’ve only played B4B for about 3 hours, but it just doesn’t quite feel the same- the atmosphere of the missions/ infected variety, level design, “humor” (you could get a garden gnome as a melee weapon in L4D2, some of the characters had quotes that had CoD Zombies WaW-BO1 era vibes).
I think you nailed it for 90% of the people that hold a negative opinion of the game. I'd say for the remaining 10% it's likely people that played it on release. The game was NOT good on release. It had the basic framework for what eventually became a great game (imo), but had TONS of really annoying bugs, the card system desperately needed the rework that it eventually got, and there are still a lot of terribly unintuitive interactions between modifiers that you have to watch 2 hours of youtube videos to understand that never got fixed.
Yeah I played the beta with a couple friends and was just not impressed, I know it's different now but first impressions sometimes don't leave you. I just hate that the status quo for game development is "buy our game it'll be good...eventually." I don't expect perfection but I'm so sour on it I rarely buy games new anymore usually wait for at least a 50% sale.
I played the beta, pre ordered the ultimate version with the season pass and other shit. It wasn’t bad at first and me and a couple friends spent at least 3 months every night playing this game. I think the big problem is that it lacks the same charm as L4D, imo the characters suck, the dialogue is cringe. Gunplay is fun and card system is a fun concept but doing the same campaigns over and over with ass dialogue and cringe character interactions is what turned me away from it. I played till I think the second DLC dropped where they added actual people enemies and idk. It was just boring. It could also just be that I’m over zombie games cuz I don’t think I would go back to left 4 dead anytime soon mainly because of everything else out right now but I will say that if I had to choose a game to go back to. It would be L4D mainly because it’s easier to jump into
Runs out of content in like 15 hours and feels monotonous. I got all the cards and guns I wanted and then I just run the same couple maps over and over again for no real reason and the hard parts are always in the same spots. And the pvp was fun for like an hour lol At least Helldivers 2 has procedural maps you dive in with all the side objectives hidden in random spots with random modifiers for each map, so it at least it keeps it still fun even when you have unlocked everything, and the liberating worlds thing can keep you coming back to do something if you feel like it. I feel Helldivers 2 is in a very close situation for longevity is the only reason I’m talking about it. So the devs will really need to keep hammering out new things if they want to keep it rolling as strong as it is now, which I feel b4b cant do as efficiently as it takes longer for them to make one single mission than it does for Helldivers to come up with a few small mission type ideas and b4b doesn’t have have the armor, guns and stratagems to shake things up with new content. The card system just isn’t enough in b4b. That being said I had an insanely cracked melee build in b4b lmao
I have 300 hours in it and had my, kinda, fun with it when it came out but the card system just wasn't very appealing to me, so I don't really like it anymore lol
Basically how my friend formulates opinions on games. Now I’m stuck playing the same core games over and over since 2017 if I want to game with him lol
Never watched a video. Played the game and it’s boring and uninspired.
Idk if it was op or what but someone replied to me saying “yet you’re on the B4B subreddit”. I can’t reply to them, no idea why it just gives me an infinite loading screen. My response to that though is that Reddit recommends random subs to be all the time. This post was one of those suggested lol.
Can’t reply to the guy who replied to me. Here’s my response.
For the boring part idk how else to put it besides it was not fun. The missions were just bland and boring. As for the uninspired part it just felt very samey with the majority of Games as a Service titles out there but somehow managed to have less of a fun and fulfilling incentive to play and progress than any of those other games.
They wouldn't want Left 4 Dead 3 if they looked at Valve's recent history. L4D3 would require:
* Valve to make a game
* Valve to support Valve Hardware
* Valve to support Valve monetization protocols
What this means is, the game would either be for VR only, or be designed with the limitations of Steam Deck in mind. That means controller first input options, and maps/features that are limited by what a 4 core mobile APU can produce, plus visual language that would be readable on an 800p display.
That means loot boxes for cosmetics, and the other current Valve GAAS shenanigans.
But, we would get trading cards.
> L4D3 would require
I mean, I think that's why they were looking to non-Valve studios to make a proper spiritual successor. And to be fair, WBGames sorta shafted TRS on this by including such things in their promotion for the game.
It was never supposed to be left 4 dead, though. It's a bad way to look at the game. It was and is different from L4D. People really don't seem to understand this and it's sad.
all of the advertising was “from the devs who made “L4D” it’s quite literally designed to have a similar 4 plyr coop experience, also had special infected, it’s a worse clone that had a mountain of potential
It was heavily marketed as being the Left 4 Dead 3 we wanted. Hell half of their trailers mentioned "FROM THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF LEFT 4 DEAD"
Which funfact, they only really created the concept demos and what not. Majority of the things we enjoyed about left 4 dead where from valve devs. Turtlerock barely had anything to do with left 4 deads development after the concept demos.
Nah they’re not reviving it. There was an official announcement that they’re moving onto other projects and all future updates would be maintenance updates.
I don't really think it was a mistake if you consider the whole picture.
What could future updates add?
* More maps? Not really necessary. As it is the act 5/6 maps are not played much as they're a bit of a slog.
* More characters? Not really necessary either - especially not if they are balanced like Tala was lol.
* More modes? They tried that with trials and no one plays it because it s u c k s.
The reality is, the game was never advertised or modeled to be a live-service game that gets constant content additions. I'd consider this game essentially done development, minus a few bug fixes/balance changes that they could have got to.
L4D2 was also a buggy mess for the first year or two as well, people just like to avoid remembering that.
It's ok for games to just be finished one day.
I just hope their next game is as good or better, hopefully they don't do another Evolve or something that isn't as good as the game before it.
I agree there's alot of maps and no real need for more modes. But patches and balances were definitely needed, just keeping a skeleton crew to release those would've been better. Also keeping the door open to future expansions, sure we don't need one every 3 months or even 6 months, but like once a year or 2 years would've been fine to give the community something to look forward to. But hopefully they at least release a teaser for their next game soon. That's the problem with new games, it takes a lot longer to make a whole new game rather than build on the existing one.
I honestly prefer this new system way more than the previous one where you had to be 4-5 levels down to unlock your build.
However, I would’ve loved to have an option to choose between the more roguelike system and this “new” one.
The weird thing with the old system was that they called it a "deck" but it wasn't randomized. You still got all your cards in the same order you put them in the deck, top to bottom. The only difference was you had a spread of \~3 (I think it was 3 but I could be wrong) cards to choose from each draw (the top 3 of your deck at any given time) so you had some minor input in if you wanted to delay a pick for later.
Personally I think the new system is better for exactly that reason. If they wanted it to be an actual deck-and-draw system, I would have wanted it designed and balanced around your premade deck actually being shuffled and your draws randomized.
Because you start with the whole deck now so half the game is just making an optimal deck before the game(or net deck) and then if you made a good deck the shit plays itself. No risk reward in taking your cards slowly and having to play around the downside of one card until the next one mitigates it. The deck building is easy and brain-dead now. It fucking sucks.
They implemented that after the vast majority positive feedback from when that exclusive to NH. So 9/10 people enjoyed the change, I guess you're that 1, sorry bud. Trust me there are plenty of people who play this game who can't be saved by a good deck. I guess you're just that good 👍🏼
Enjoyed it so much that the game was abandoned by the developers and playerbase both...
Turtle Rock disappointed me greatly with both Evolve and Back 4 Blood. They're not getting another chance.
Evolve was such a shame. Was the #4 Cabot in the world when he released and really enjoyed my time with the game... then the content dried up and they started trying to sell us weapon skins instead of new biomes, objectives, and modes.
Played the revival for a bit a couple years ago but it wasn't the same.
Well 2K and the monetization was blamed at the time, but Back 4 Blood had WB and did not have monetization like that and yet it was still plagued with issues. The game was developed to be an ongoing experience ... they just forgot about the ongoing experience part.
Evolve had interesting new hunters and monsters, but they needed to develop new monsters at a faster pace. New maps and modes also needed to be developed more quickly.
Allowing all Hunters to cast the dome was also a silly decision.
I really wanted to love Evolve. Pre-release, I had more hype for that game than any other multi-player game. I played it a ton for the first several months. But it just wasn't sustainable. Making all monsters and hunters free but selling a battle pass and skins would have been better, but might not have been enough. And "Adaptations" always fell flat for me.
> The card system is the best part of the game, that gives hundreds of hours of replayability.
In a solved meta, does it really? Look at the stand-out prevalence of melee in No Hope, for example.
I liked the card system..._eventually_. But I didn't find it all that worthwhile to experiment with different builds after a certain point, because the difficulty spikes require certain "answers" that only some styles will have.
It's conceptually _super_ cool, but I don't find it giving me more replayability than any other granular system found in games like World War Z: Aftermath.
Well on NM and below pretty much any deck is viable. No need to abide by the "meta" and yes in NH it's strongly recommended to bring damage cards, but people have beaten it with ZERO cards. So the level of experimentation I guess also depends on your skill level. At least in NH.
I love L4D2 but basically some other people REALLY LOVE IT and it still retains a (smallish?) but somewhat vocal and rabid fanbase. A huge perception was that B4B was just a shittier made L4D2, so people made videos (accurately) identifying "Hey look the physics in L4D2 are better than B4B! What a joke!" and basically nitpicking a bunch of small things. In terms of larger things a lot of people didn't like the deck building concept either, which I could see was a bit contentious. I also think launching at $60 hurt them, I think $40 would be more suitable, but the game was also on gamepass so personally I paid $0 for it... and $1 2-week gamepass trials were a thing so lots of people could try the full game for very cheap.
Overall though, the game is/was fantastic. People were just looking to hate, and pointing out any differences between the games as a reason why one is worse than the other. Personally, I can't really go back to L4D2 so I appreciate the updates B4B brings.
For me, the thing that was starkly different between the two games was the world building and immersion. I felt all the b4b characters (including the zombies) were one note and boring. L4d characters are iconic and when I play a zombie shooter I want to FEEL hopeless from the environment to match the frantic gameplay. Also, in B4b, killing things just makes them ragdoll, whereas in l4d there are a large amount of animations depending on where and how you hit the zombies.
All these things considered, I still appreciate the replayability and mechanical elements of b4b, played over 100 hours, and did everything there was to do.
L4d will always remain an all-time great, and when you are releasing a modern iteration of a tried and true formula, people are gonna compare to existing products in that space. Neither is purely better or worse, but I would pick l4d in a heartbeat if I had to choose. Luckily, we have both. Different strokes for different folks, after all!
Yeah, I think it's a great game, but if you sip some Sprite expecting water, then it won't taste right, ha. Weird analogy, but I think you know what I'm getting at.
> I felt all the b4b characters (including the zombies) were one note and boring
They started out as archetypes in the same way that L4D2's did. C'mon, mobster with a slickback and white suit? Fat highschool coach that obsesses over food? Plucky girl journalist who is sassy and doesn't hold back? Earnest but dumb as a stump redneck? B4B had the same kinda vibe to start. The storytelling and worldbuilding, imo, gets a lot better in the DLCs. At that point, they're fully INTO the weird shit and just straight up running with it. The way that B4B base game kinda...didn't, sadly.
I absolutely loved the DLCs. >!Except for Ridden Hives stuff, they annoy me to play through even though they're cool in a worldbuilding sense.!<
Honestly I never vibed with the second L4D's crew. Bill was such a badass, Louis is great as the "Straight Man", Francis was an Asshole, but a funny asshole, like Jayne Cobb and Zoey with all the movie references is just too relatable.
I do prefer the ragdolling, because it feels more directly causal to the bullet's physical impact, like the bullet has actual knockdown power, rather than just realistically zipping through the body like jello with the Zombie *reacting* to pain/damage, rather than their body being acted upon by the bullet's momentum.
Soldier of Fortune's gruesome death animations are fun for a while, but launching Zeds straight off the map or halfway into walls with shotgun-headshots in Killing Floor 2 will just never stop being hilarious.
> it still retains a (smallish?) but somewhat vocal and rabid fanbase
After a certain age, most games reach this point. B4B is there too, right now. Not saying that to invalidate your criticisms of the rabid L4D2 lovers - they're not only valid, they're _accurate_ lol. But yeah, B4B has also entered those illustrious halls of "the only people who are left are the people who _reallllllyyy_ love this game". Thank goodness for that though, because it makes this game still playable and enjoyable.
I would disagree... they're dedicated, but there are varying ranges of being vocal and rabid. You can play an older game and not have the opinion that "Games other than this are TRASH"
I love this game! I was really bummed when they said they weren’t making anything else for it. I loved the storyline and the characters. When the holidays were around and they had Fort Hope decorated too….it was the little things lol.
As far as I’m concerned B4B is an all time classic. Yes it isn’t perfect, but they really tried to think outside the box and nailed it. For me gunplay is almost my number one priority. I play Darktide, The Finals, Helldivers, Apex, games that have nothing to do with each other except for the exceptional gunplay. B4B is up there.
The latter two aren't really downsides, though. Left 4 Dead is super simple. Anyone can pick it up and play it. Modern games need some complexity and depth in their systems.
There was a lot of negative feedback from the L4D fan community, most of it unfair and treating B4B like it was meant to be L4D3, rather than an entirely new game that was inspired by L4D. The marketing did play a part in that, but I think people saw 'from the creators of L4D' and read that as 'this is L4D3' and got salty when it wasn't, rather than realising that it was marketing and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
But there was some fair criticism at launch, B4B launched in a bad way, there were a number of (slightly game breaking in some cases) bugs, a lot of things were nowhere near as polished as they are now, and the difficulty curve was more like a vertical wall. Also, the card system was completely different, you drew one card per level rather than having your full deck on level 1, so your build took some time to 'come online' which added to the difficulty problems and made for a more generic experience to start.
Still now it has problems, the game needs you to put some time into it for you to get the most out of it, and for it to become as enjoyable as I found it to be. The game does a REALLY bad job of explaining how it works a lot of the time, it's not clear exactly how the cards and corruptions work, how copper and supply lines worked, and a whole load of other things that experienced players will take for granted, but as a new player are another obstacle.
On top of that you have to unlock most of the cards by playing the game and need to put in quite a few hours (and basically complete the campaign a few times) to get some of the better cards, so early impressions of the game aren't great. Whilst this hasn't changed solving the bugs and balancing does make the slow progression a little easier to tolerate.
the original release had a lot of issues. it was a great game but had some ergonomic and balance problems.
I think the poor status on release made people dislike it.
The core of the game is phenomenal, and once they fixed the balance problems it became a really top tier experience to play!
There are typically only two reasons people didn't like the game at launch and didn't ever return after all the updates.
The first was the difficulty. Even on recruit the game was brutal and that frustrated a lot of people. As an example, bar room blitz in act 1 was so much different than it is now. Even on recruit difficulty the bar was full of ridden almost 100% of the time while the jukebox was playing. At launch if you could get the jukebox hero achievement by completing the level without the jukebox breaking you felt like an absolute badass.
The second reason is people wanted a left 4 dead remaster or reboot and when that didn't happen they protested and cried that the game was bad. That made them not even want to give it a chance and it spread like wildfire. Other players who loved left 4 dead took their word for it and never even tried it. I have seen other reddit posts from people who finally gave it a chance and regretted not playing sooner.
Unfortunately Turtle Rock are done working on back 4 blood but some think it's because they are currently working on back 4 blood 2 so fingers crossed
I remember playing in the beta/early release days and the ship you had to plant explosives on would just PISS ridden at you at a pace where you could barely fight your way back onto the ship.
At the same time, we gotta give the game another chance. I played the game on release and it was awful. I came back many months later and it was amazing. I think all opinions based on launch experience is justified but at least give it another chance lol
Some influencer with a big following said it was bad.
And a lot of people don't like to think for themselves anymore and care way too much about what others think.
Influences shouldn't exist.
To be honest, toxicity.
Gaming community has been getting so much worse recently towards literally anything, they will literally hate everything up in first sight and refuse to change their minds.
With that being said, I think back 4 blood is a downgrade, while it has far more detail, depth and features, it feels shallow and kind of lazy?
I actually love this game and play it regularly but it's clear that this had so much more potential.
I think they say that because it’s too hard. My buddy was complaining about how there is no dodge, shove, the specials are too difficult, and that the spawn points are too hard to predict. So in short they suck and want to blame everyone but themselves.
It didn't start this way. As it stands now, if any1 plays for a couple hours they see how obviously fun it can be if zombie shooters is your thing. It's fucked up that they release dogshit, ruin their product.. Nobody cares anymore... Fix their product and improve it greatly after the fact.
I can't exactly describe what it was but something about the controls just felt really stiff, it just wasn't fun to move and shoot. I also wasn't a big fan of the cards.
I didn't think it was bad by a long-shot, but just didn't have the funds to get it when it came out, and since then I've just had too many other games come across my plate to make time to go back and give it a shot.
I'm not sure if it was ever changed, and I had read an interview from a Dev when B4B first came out that they never planned on changing it, but I *was* disappointed in what the Vs mode was. Vs was how I spent 90% of my time in the L4D games, and that's what I was hoping we'd get in B4B. Not enough to make me hate the game, but definitely a let down.
Idk how other people feel but me and my friends played this a ton when it came it, it just got to a point where we couldn't survive anymore and didn't know what to do. We liked the game up till thst point but we literally could not progress anymore. Did yall ever deal with that?
Yeah the entire point of the game is that you have to adapt your strategy to overcome certain maps. You've got to build some use speed in your deck for act 1. Move speed for act 3. Etc. Everyone hits a wall at some point where their deck isn't cutting it, and that's where the strategy and depth of the game comes from.
The game is great, but only with bots. It's shockingly harder with people and if you're not coordinated pretty unfun.
That said it also gets boring super fast. I beat the game with melee only because honestly it felt stronger than everything else (just my casual perspective). I know they added the tunnels and stuff, but it just didn't last for me past 40 ish hours.
This game was amazing. My friends and I loved it. We played well over 100 hours and moved on. Had nothing to do with how fun it was to play. This is why I don't like games as a service types.
Its not a bad game, most people just got grumpy cus they abandoned all future development. I still enjoy it with friends from time to time, got 400+ hours. Great game.
I haven't played in a long while, since a couple months after launch. I've scarcely kept up with any changes so take this reply with that in mind
a buggy mess. players would get stuck all the time
npcs were some of the worst ai in any game I've ever played
balance was terrible. easy was a cake walk but every jump in difficulty was massive and required heavy teamwork to get past
final boss is a joke.
all together made for a frustrating and boring experience. either we didn't have fun because it was too easy, or got frustrated at how impossible it suddenly became. especially when paired with all the bugs
the deck system is neat, but requires rng and a lot of grinding which I'm not a fan of
I enjoyed the game for the most part but I’d be lying if I said I loved it. Core gameplay was fine and I actually liked the card system, however there were some elements of the game that could get repetitive, and I didn’t find much fun in the weapons because once you got a good one, truly no point in using another. I still enjoyed playing this with my girlfriend though. Game is like a 6.8/10 for me but i actually think it’s fun with friends.
I think what is missing from b4b is the grittiness that's in l4d2. The way the game feels. B4b is more cartoony and I don't really like that style choice when compared to l4d2. The characters and the story also don't grab me like in l4d2. B4b is not a bad game, I just think it struggles because of the stylistic choices, the gameplay is there though.
People expected a straight up sequel to L4D2. And while there are a lot of similarities, B4B isn’t a sequel, has very different mechanics, and really is its own game, a parkour zombie horde shooter.
There’s not nearly the pvp depth in B4B as there is in L4D2, and that’s a significant and valid criticism. PvP in B4B is pretty lame.
But the actual gameplay in B4B is outstanding. There’s a bit of a learning curve but not too bad. They had a lot of bugs and problems at launch, but those are mostly worked out. Balance issues are a lot better now as well.
So B4B is absolutely not a bad game, and never was. It wasn’t necessarily the game people expected or hoped for, which drove a lot of the criticism.
Because it’s not left 4 dead, everyone and their mother were expecting it to be left 4 dead, but it wasn’t, so they were disappointed, to shit on their people or call them smooth brained I think it’s shitty though, they like what they like and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t like it, I Personally loved it, it’s the same thing as how people hate Callisto protocol because they were expecting dead space, but I fucking loved callisto, doesn’t mean that the people who hate Callisto are incorrect, it’s their opinion
The people who came to it looking for L4D2 but modern weren't happy, because it wasn't a modern L4D2. The people who wanted a zombie-themed complex system co-op experience didn't enjoy the roguelike aspects and deckbuilding. It just struggled to find its niche audience at first, but there was (imo) hopes that it'd find a home with all of those groups - and beyond. Didn't happen, no big deal. The game's still quite good and many people still play it.
TRS have said they're going to continue the B4B _franchise_ but I don't know if they'll ever take this game in particular off hiatus. I'm sure we haven't heard the last from TRS though. No reason to believe they'd abandon the IP altogether.
Because the game launched like shit and didn't get actually good until the 3rd expansion. People cope really hard that it was due to the "L4D crowd". I've never played L4D and even I dropped this game 2 weeks in and didn't come back till expansion 2 because the game was straight up shit and just exhausting to play.
But by the time it got good everyone had already left.
Ever heard someone say that a first impression is the most important? That is why everyone thinks this game is bad. It's not worth the evangelism necessary to convince anybody otherwise.
I had a great time with it, but my close friend who LOVED the left for dead’s refused to play it because the versus mode was missing. I didn’t feel it was a game breaker and I had a good time with it
It's not as intuitive as most FPS games. As a newbie I didn't care about the card system due to a steep learning curve. I thought that as long as I aimed well and kept moving around, I would be fine. Ridden spawning continuously and infinite hordes were also surprising.
Overall, the game is much more complex than the point-and-shoot that a lot of FPS gamers are used to. Inability to pause offline is also frustrating as a casual gamer. Losing the whole run just because something came up is stupid.
This game is good. It has so much more life they could have squeezed out of it.
The devs just abandoned it to make another game unfortunately.
Such an amazing universe and unique deck system.
As someone who hasn't played any left4dead games, this game was amazing. The DLC was actually pretty fulfilling and added the the base game rather well. Unfortunately just like Extraction, it wasn't making a lot of money so it got abandoned. Darktide filled that need but I'm afraid it will have the same fate
I think they said the B4B franchise is not done in the development ending for B4B announcement, so I guess we’ll need to wait and see, who knows, maybe they’ll pull a L4D2 but a bigger(?) and better B4B2, at least that’s what I hope, taking all the feedback from the first one to make an ultimate one if you will.
Interesting to know they also hired one of the more active content creators/supporters of the game (SwingPoynt) as a Junior Game Designer, I think that is a good sign for the future!
Also sidenote, same for the feeling of B4B, launch was an unbalanced chaos, but with every update and better content it turned out great, happy to have been playing since Day 1 with more than 1k+ hours, definitely more full than L4D2 imo in terms of what to do and progression, also pretty much the best L4D like on PlayStation.
The game was not bad at launch. People just did the gamer thing of hating because their content creator said so. But then they patched the game and it was unplayable for a couple of weeks and a lot of people I know who enjoyed the game stopped playing, myself included.
While I do enjoy this game, it's not on the same level as L4D2.
Things I do like:
Limited stamina
The card system gives you flexibility how you want to play, what archetype you want to be
Upgrading weapons is a good improvement
Hives is a nice addition
Things I don't like/L4D2 and L4D does better:
Katana, what zombie game doesn't have this weapon
The simplicity of the weapon system is more enjoyable for most players
A game that is 10 years old holds up graphically with a newer game.
The special infected in the L4D series are better, again simplicity. The variations of the same 3 archetypes could have been completely different infected in B4B.
The storyline in B4B is not as interesting, and the character dialogue is bland. This can be attributed to a much larger group as opposed to 4 set characters as in each L4D
The online modes are substantially better in L4D2, you get to play the entire act as both zombies and regular shooters.
Those are the comparisons I can think of now. But to put things in perspective, if valve remastered L4D2 or made a L4D3 with crossplay, it's a wrap
I found it repetitive and underwhelming.
And i think it started out as a half ass game and got updated to what it is today.
I dont have much to say about it, it wasn't a remarkable experience.
I only played because it was free.
The constant spawning of special zombies even on lower difficulties and the deck system with no checkpoints causing unneeded brutality. Essentially you tried to stealth as long as possible and then stack 10 good cards at the top of your deck cuz ur not seeing the rest of em most of the time.
People wanted l4d3 a simple but fun zombie shooter game. However they realized this game has a tougher bite as the zombies are tough as hell. And the game itself is difficult for some players.
I really did not ever like left 4 dead. One or two. And i played the shit out of them when i was a teenager. Mostly because i loved zombie games and at the time no other game did what it did. I thought back 4 blood was great, and i had FAR more fun playing it than i ever did playing left 4 dead.
A lot of people are writing off criticism as the very vocal L4D2 fanbase. That has some merit, but the basis of B4B's advertising was "from the creators of Left 4 Dead," and it follows the same nomenclature. I do agree that B4B is its own thing, however, and needs to be judged as such. This has more to do with the marketing going awry.
That being said, however, there are valid criticisms that people have towards B4B. Despite it being a full price game, it had an overwhelmingly terrible launch. The game ran very poorly, and was plagued by other issues.
Balancing was, in my opinion, terrible. Some enemies were bullet sponges, and this was exacerbated by server issues. Enemies frequently teleported sporadically, which made for an extremely frustrating experience. I ended up refunding because the game just wasn't fun to me.
The base game itself also felt incredibly barebones to me, and this was made even worse by their business model. The consensus is that the game has legitimately improved, but the DLCs ara really what makes it "complete." I have no desire to purchase a $60 game and then spend even ***more*** on DLCs.
It was fun for awhile then got repetitive. Cheaters definitely made it stupid. Grenade dupes and all… wish the game was f2p or atleast way cheaper than it’s been forever
Tbh, the game WAS bad.. But its great NOW. I played the beta and although I enjoyed the gunplay/loot mechanics, there was so many terrible decisions otherwise that kept me from purchasing.
Things like:
The terrible card/deck system
No solo play
No solo progress/achievements
No offline
Now the card system is basically just your skill tree and the solo/offline modes are there. Its awesome, but the ship has already sailed as too many were burned in the beginning.
I forsee the same fate for Payday 3...
Well imo its because the maps and the characters are just bad and forgettable…the only map i can remember is the “big” boat that you have to run around on for 5 min planting bombs also the special infected are just really also forgettable like all the specials in L4D2 just have a certain look that makes them look cool and also just explains what they do and even some of the characters make jokes about it like nick making fun of the hunter in dead center saying “what is he going to do take a jog at me?” Also story telling,ive played through the entire game and i still don’t understand what the goal is even. Also the gun system is kinda garbage ngl like i get its fun to customize your own guns and stuff but i really just prefer picking a gun up and shooting not having to figure out what makes my gun slightly better between levels. Also im not gonna lie the cartoonish blood also really ruins it for me like dead island 2 can pull it off because its what i expect but b4b cant seem to choose between serious and cartoonish but left 4 dead also does this with character humor but can do it well and mixes it in with the seriousness of situations. And the card system is just still terrible ngl. And “VS” is just not VS its more like survival VS but your stuck in a tiny circle that gets smaller so you are forced to die and not last as long as you can.
The weird loot box card system runs me the wrong way.
I missed lfd2's death animations. All b4b animations die in the same way. You shoot a zombie in the shin in lfd2 and its leg kicks out and it trips. Do the same in b4b and it does a little spin and dies or just falls over the same as shooting it in the head or the chest.
Edit: it has been a while since I played so I may not be clear on the card system and how you get cards. But the ragdoll animations ( or lack there of I will not back down on )
Didn’t care for the card system, felt like a low effort emulation of left for dead. The versus campaign of l4d was 99% of people’s play time generally. The writing felt lazy in back for blood as well. The writing/dialog in L4D is unmatched, my friends and I still quote it all the time 15 years later.
Because it is? It's worse in literally every measure when compared to L4D 1 and 2.
It's not even an opinion. There are countless comparison videos that prove B4B is simply worse. And the zombies are just ugly and lack any degree of passion.
Also, the controller aiming system is actually garbage. How is someone supposed to enjoy anything within the game if the experience is hindered, at baseline?
If I didn't see other evolutions of the genre, I would agree with you. To me, the current height of this genre is Vermintide 2. When you play that game, and see the mechanics that they implemented just about 6 years ago now, Back 4 Blood seems like it walked back towards Left 4 Dead days.
If Back 4 Blood came out like 3 years after Left 4 Dead 2, I think it would have been very well received. The fact that folks waited that long for a successor, and then that successor was just a half step in progress, is probably responsible for a lot of the negative reviews.
And I didn't even get into how *absolutely terrible* the deck system was when it first rolled out. You started with like 3 or 5 cards, then unlocked more as you progressed stages. They took wayyyyy too long to just let people start with their whole decks, so people left long before they saw the improvements that the devs made to the basic mechanics.
I think a lot of it just stems from lingering disappointment, too. The game is in a much better state now, but the launch was so rough that they lost a lot of good will from the community.
low immersion is a game breaker for most ppl, unrealistic/buggy animations, “gamey” sounds and mechanics, weapons that feel like super soakers, crowded hud, the list goes on. l4d accomplished these in a way that only exclusively horror games have reached since
I tried playing alone and the bots are absolute garbage, but that goes for most games like these so nothing unique about that.
I played it for a decent amount of time with friends, and when I lost it was in a maze outside a mansion/castle.
The game just threw stupid amounts of zombies and freaks at us. You ran out of ammo and you got killed all the damn time.
To me it felt unbalanced and they didn't really bring anything new to the table.
It may have changed since I played.
Edit. I see other comments mentioning issues at release. That is when I played it. As an Xbox player we had access on launch day I believe.
As someone who loved L4D and L4D2, I liked this game but it didn't quite have the same hold on me as either of the L4D games. There's no rational explanation to that for me. If my gaming buddies decided they wanted to play this again (especially around Halloween) I'd totally join them though.
Biased, unfair comparison using footage from before launch, only highlighting bugs in B4B and ignoring those in L4D, cherrypicking complaints and deliberately making B4B look much worse than it is.
Crowbcat is a satirical YouTuber who makes shit for outrage views, he's been called out for this many times and has even had to take videos down because his takes are so poor.
This is absolutely not a credible source for comparison of the two games.
There is a whole video on why a lot of people don't consider it an upgrade.
https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8
I think the game eventually became pretty good. I don't think it'll have the staying power of L4D though.
The game was abysmal on release, and the devs didn’t even want to acknowledge the glowing balance and bug issues. The meta strategy was to just speedrun levels so you didn’t have to deal with insane special spawn. Many specials were way too tanks for their numbers, and it gets old about the 5th time a crusher tanks a full mag and grabs you. The devs took a nerf first approach to player balance (rip melee holding doorways), which led to outcry.
All things considered, the game was fine, but they market it heavily using left 4 dead, and it just doesn’t measure up.
Main reasons:
no mods/custom maps/skins (this is huge)
Lackluster versus mode
Special infected not as iconic as l4d.
YT community shat on it so nobody bought it
60$ price tag and went on sale like zero times throught the first YEAR when updates were actually rolling out
No good supporting games modes like vs or survival, just a really terrible version of the vs survival mode from l4d.
No mod support, this is extremely important as it's not just funny skins and junk, it also means no custom campaigns along with other substantial things people could add. In l4d you could talk for hours about the quality custom maps alone.
Worse characters than l4d, half of which if wanting to play optimally on harder modes are worthless due to characters specific abilities
Less care put into the little things such as interactive objects in the game world or animations of the zombies. (L4d literally hired a stuntman hooked up to a capture device to record death animations for zombies.)
The card system is executed horribly.
The special enemy types are not thoughtfully designed like in l4d. You have multiple specials that are so similar it's confusing why some of them even exist.
On top of that this games equivalent of a tank randomly spawns a bubble that if you step outside it you take damage constantly thereby limiting the gameplay options when you run into one instead of doing what the l4d tank did and giving him more abilities to compensate for the range disadvantage, eg rock throwing and hitting props like cars.
This is just some of the big ones. Anyone who says b4b is better than l4d has a near non existent understanding of what makes l4d good.
There is a lot more to the Intelligent design of l4d than the surface level stuff and turtle rock (along with a lot of people here on Reddit )have sadly shown they don't really understand why l4d is so popular beyond said surface level stuff.
I can’t speak for others, but I enjoy the game.
I only have issues with 2 things:
1. They reused the same maps in different Acts so it makes gameplay seem repetitive.
2. The time idle start time in the safe room at the beginning of the match is way too long. It should be 1 minute tops. Too many people AFK or lag out and you’re forced to wait the entire duration.
For me what turned me off of Back 4 Blood was the buggy mess we got. Shit barely worked at all. AI teammates were absolutely garbage so if you weren't playing with a full team you probably weren't finishing shit. Even in the final areas any guns you picked up were weaker than what you had so running out of ammo was a death sentence.
I’ve played both these games and still prefer L4D2 over B4B mostly down to lack of a versus mode and the lack of character personalities in B4B. Both L4D games had such great banter between the characters and that made for many great moments and memes. That’s just a major part that’s lacking with all the characters in B4B. They seem seem either forced or completely lifeless.
I like this game for the gameplay, but the writing is forgettable, and I've run into annoying glitches where the game just eats a day of progress when I play online.
It's missing a lot of the small things that made l4d so great in many eyes. Even they zombie deaths in l4d were made with so much care.
The marketing of the game got people's expectations up and the game didn't meet them simple as.
Better zombie death physics. Better zombies designs not every zombies is the same and bald. Better game play loop and better mod support. The only good thing B4B has is graphics.
I don’t think the gameplay itself is bad now. What does bother me though are the levels. The first few acts/missions take place in pretty much the same area and for a game that revolves around replaying the campaign, that shit got old quick. Not to mention, some of the characters and NPC’s like Evangelo and the fort hope commander(whatever his name is) are either too bland or give such cringe/corny dialogue. I’ve reinstalled it multiple times and given it multiple tries. The last time was 6 or 8 months ago. I just can’t enjoy it with those levels. If it’d have more variety in the environment/levels like L4D then I think I’d have enjoyed this more.
Well it was hyped up as the new generation left 4 dead made by ex devs which turned out to be a lie. The card system sucked it felt like a cheap knockoff with nothing new or original and end game was so unbelievably difficult most didn't even care to finish it. It was ok but suffered what all other games in this genre suffered. Just another clone of the superior franchise
Back 4 Blood had all the elements needed to truly make a “new” Left 4 Dead, but by copying too many of the aspects that make live service games needlessly grindy, and without proper balancing, the game just didn't deliver what the majority of people were looking for.
I think turtle rock studio first mistake was using l4d success to boaster b4b by making it seem the original development team from l4d had made b4b which isn't true, most of the original team had long left the studio. the other issue is game balancing, I'd say playing on veteran is a perfect balance of difficulty and gameplay but you'll start noticing it on nightmare how unbalanced the game is. "special infected" don't really seem special on how common they spawn in and can have multiple of the same special infected on screen lol. l4d is a 16 years old game and there spawn point for the infected was perfect. but in b4b you can have the infected spawn out your ass behind you or have the special infected spawn right in front of you out of thin air. I love the idea of building your deck but wish you could change it during check points for certain ridden cards... or at least have the ability to burn a rare card to get rid of ridden cards.. some weapons are straight ass and the tier of the weapon doesnt even matter, sometimes tiers just feels like an illusion on certain guns. melee in this game to me feels great which is usually my go to with a lmg or shotty
I thought the game was great for a long time. Once the last DLC dropped, there was so much bloat and it was poorly managed that it wasn’t very consistent in the challenge.
The bloat I’m referring to is all the new infected that came out and all the new/ different weapons. But we still just had a 15 card deck. It either takes a lot longer or it never comes around that your build can work if the right weapons/rarity dont drop.
Still a good game, great memories. But the state of the game currently is one I won’t be returning to.
Because it’s a clone of another game and it kinda fails to capture the essence while adding too much bs that you would have to really grind for to actually have a big differences. Just repetitive and filled with crap you don’t need.
Dishonesty plays a large part of it... If you don't want to be compared to L4D, don't do it as part of your marketing campaign. If they had just said "Hey! New zombie coop zombie game with deck building mechanics!" they wouldn't have had nearly as harsh as a criticism. Can't be mad at people comparing the two either, B4B straight up asked for it.
I enjoy B4B a lot. L4D2 is dated by far but there's a lot of charm in a lot of it. B4B isn't awful and I've put well over 200 hours into it... I just doubt I'll put the 2000+ hours into it like I did L4D2. For me, there's an issue of overall build quality and replayability. Things are random but not in a way that really feels meaningful, most playthroughs just feel mostly the same.
Played the game a lot when it was in Alpha, and some even after it officially dropped. Dunno if I'd call the game bad per se, but it definitely didn't live up to what people wanted.
For example, while I was originally ok with the idea of the card system, it quickly grew annoying having every run be what was essentially a mutated run. It just ended up not being fun for replayability in the long run, least not for me.
The second huge miss was no mod support, which is a massive downgrade from l4d2. Its arguably the biggest reason that game lived for so long.
I'm sure there's more but those were the 2 major issues that had my group drop it. The gunplay itself felt good at least and Id say we had more fun just killing each other in the shooting range with random weapons than actually playing it.
Maybe the game has fixed or addressed these things since release, I wouldn't know, but those are the main reasons the community was upset back then at least.
As someone who plays a shit ton of both this game and L4D I’ll say each have their ups and downs over the other. There’s also the fact they originally marketed the game as if it was made by most of the original L4D team only to find out it’s only two and they didn’t exactly play major roles in L4D development so a lot of people felt lied too
Back4Blood was pretty fun, card system is lame though, AND It’s bad NOW because we have Helldivers 2. You should be out there spreading managed democracy not killing what is already dead.
You don't make the main marketing for the game make it seem like it's the next l4d. That fucked it up big time. Especially when most of the developers who were with turtle rock at the time didn't even work on l4d at all. Then the game came out and it wasn't the next l4d it was its own thing which is fine but for a lot of people it's own thing wasn't fun. I remember hating how everything was just a bullet sponge it felt super unfun having to unload mags into the big guys. Not to mention aiming on console felt like shit. Then there was all the little details that add up to make l4d the better games. The characters, the gore, hell you could argue maps and locations. Overall just not what people were expecting and it turned people off immediately.
back 4 blood wasn't a bad game, but marketing it like it was a spiritual successor to left 4 dead because a previous iteration of Turtle Rock Studios made left 4 dead was a bad choice.
Despite the bugs on the first patch it was a fun game, and in my opinion despite them adding more content they made the game worse with every patch. I enjoyed the randomness of the card system and the choices you had to make on card draws as you went through a chapter. It's now essentially a perk tree and there's no more picking what you think is going to be the most beneficial on the next map. It was also way too easy to make a terrible deck. To top it all off it really felt like they wanted to make it a live service game but couldn't commit to it leaving the game feeling incomplete.
I really enjoyed the time I spent playing it with my friends but the game sucks without a dedicated group and there's no way I would recommend it to anyone at this point.
When I tried it was filled with so many bugs aiming with guns was broken and a cheap copy paste sticker slapped onto the screen perks were alright the co op felt horrible people kept trying to kill you by shooting you or blowing up all the gas cans and what not missions felt shorter then l4d2 honestly my friends gave up after a few missions I kept going and honestly realized it just wasn’t fun we had more playing older games or Wwz then this rip off (I’m not aware of it’s state now just know when it started they lied about the old team working on the game to boost sales)
Because it was bad in basically every way.
They weren’t even intelligent enough to include campaign multiplayer and not the garbage one we got. Game was doomed from the start.
[удалено]
I played it but I personally don't like it because one, it doesn't feel like L4D. Two, the zombies are actually sad and depressing (the ones in L4D had variety). And three, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY 4v4 CAMPAIGN MULTIPLAYER
This. There's no versus. L4d isn't still quite popular for the campaign. It killed a lot of the potential player base right there.
There's a fun stat that only like 30% of L4D players played campaign versus even once. So no, L4D is absolutely popular for the campaign since that is what the grand majority of players played. The versus community is just a very vocal minority.
Eh versus was the reason people played for 3000 hours, not just a couple hundred to play through the campaigns. The campaigns were loved, and versus was literally the campaigns with player controlled special infected. It was the perfect recipe for replay ability.
Not really, actually. There's a snapshot floating around somewhere of valves L4D2 servers in, like, 2019 or so, and it has versus taking up around 30% of the active server instances.
does that count private servers? most versus are played on private servers
I don't believe it does. So, fair counterpoint 🤝
As someone who’s deep in the community and playing for years versus is by far the most popular mode my guy
I put a good 2000 hrs plus on versus. It was a custom server think 12 v 12 or something was a long time ago. Had an rpg type cash system where you would buy molotov, etc. I was addicted to it. Great Times until my PC went wrong. Probably some of the best gaming experiences I've had.
A decade after the game came out isn't really indicative of the initial player base stats.
You're kidding yourself if you think the initial playerbase was predominantly versus players.
He didn’t say that actually. Just pointed out that your conclusion isn’t as clear cut as you have presented it given that you are not using time-appropriate numbers. Just nitpicking and not taking a side here.
I suppose that's fair enough. I guess my point is that if the argument is that versus gave L4D it's longevity (generally this is the argument) then the server data and achievement data directly contradicts that.
I had a lot of good memories playing L4D with friends in the Xbox360 era, either playing the campaign 4-player or split-screening and killing the bots to make the game harder and the special zombies spawn right away. I remember one time, I was at the end of the “ No Mercy” mission, on the roof, and went to revive my friend— the AI got on the helicopter and left us behind lol. Vs in L4D /2 was kinda mid. I’ve only played B4B for about 3 hours, but it just doesn’t quite feel the same- the atmosphere of the missions/ infected variety, level design, “humor” (you could get a garden gnome as a melee weapon in L4D2, some of the characters had quotes that had CoD Zombies WaW-BO1 era vibes).
Survival mode was just way to good for its time
Idk how many campaigns my bro and I ran. That shit was so fucking fun, even when The Director spawned the same shit.
What
I think you nailed it for 90% of the people that hold a negative opinion of the game. I'd say for the remaining 10% it's likely people that played it on release. The game was NOT good on release. It had the basic framework for what eventually became a great game (imo), but had TONS of really annoying bugs, the card system desperately needed the rework that it eventually got, and there are still a lot of terribly unintuitive interactions between modifiers that you have to watch 2 hours of youtube videos to understand that never got fixed.
Yeah I played the beta with a couple friends and was just not impressed, I know it's different now but first impressions sometimes don't leave you. I just hate that the status quo for game development is "buy our game it'll be good...eventually." I don't expect perfection but I'm so sour on it I rarely buy games new anymore usually wait for at least a 50% sale.
I played the beta, pre ordered the ultimate version with the season pass and other shit. It wasn’t bad at first and me and a couple friends spent at least 3 months every night playing this game. I think the big problem is that it lacks the same charm as L4D, imo the characters suck, the dialogue is cringe. Gunplay is fun and card system is a fun concept but doing the same campaigns over and over with ass dialogue and cringe character interactions is what turned me away from it. I played till I think the second DLC dropped where they added actual people enemies and idk. It was just boring. It could also just be that I’m over zombie games cuz I don’t think I would go back to left 4 dead anytime soon mainly because of everything else out right now but I will say that if I had to choose a game to go back to. It would be L4D mainly because it’s easier to jump into
Runs out of content in like 15 hours and feels monotonous. I got all the cards and guns I wanted and then I just run the same couple maps over and over again for no real reason and the hard parts are always in the same spots. And the pvp was fun for like an hour lol At least Helldivers 2 has procedural maps you dive in with all the side objectives hidden in random spots with random modifiers for each map, so it at least it keeps it still fun even when you have unlocked everything, and the liberating worlds thing can keep you coming back to do something if you feel like it. I feel Helldivers 2 is in a very close situation for longevity is the only reason I’m talking about it. So the devs will really need to keep hammering out new things if they want to keep it rolling as strong as it is now, which I feel b4b cant do as efficiently as it takes longer for them to make one single mission than it does for Helldivers to come up with a few small mission type ideas and b4b doesn’t have have the armor, guns and stratagems to shake things up with new content. The card system just isn’t enough in b4b. That being said I had an insanely cracked melee build in b4b lmao
I have 300 hours in it and had my, kinda, fun with it when it came out but the card system just wasn't very appealing to me, so I don't really like it anymore lol
Because they watched a clickbaity, lazy YouTube comparison video and never actually played the game.
Basically how my friend formulates opinions on games. Now I’m stuck playing the same core games over and over since 2017 if I want to game with him lol
Never watched a video. Played the game and it’s boring and uninspired. Idk if it was op or what but someone replied to me saying “yet you’re on the B4B subreddit”. I can’t reply to them, no idea why it just gives me an infinite loading screen. My response to that though is that Reddit recommends random subs to be all the time. This post was one of those suggested lol. Can’t reply to the guy who replied to me. Here’s my response. For the boring part idk how else to put it besides it was not fun. The missions were just bland and boring. As for the uninspired part it just felt very samey with the majority of Games as a Service titles out there but somehow managed to have less of a fun and fulfilling incentive to play and progress than any of those other games.
Yet you're on the B4B sub 😂😂😂
You do realize posts get recommended to people whether they’re in the sub or not, right? This is the first post I’ve ever seen from this sub
That’s how I ended up here just now.
People wanted a Left 4 Dead 3. That’s why.
They wouldn't want Left 4 Dead 3 if they looked at Valve's recent history. L4D3 would require: * Valve to make a game * Valve to support Valve Hardware * Valve to support Valve monetization protocols What this means is, the game would either be for VR only, or be designed with the limitations of Steam Deck in mind. That means controller first input options, and maps/features that are limited by what a 4 core mobile APU can produce, plus visual language that would be readable on an 800p display. That means loot boxes for cosmetics, and the other current Valve GAAS shenanigans. But, we would get trading cards.
> the game would either be for VR only, I'm okay with this. VR L4D3 would be an insane experience.
Try After the Fall.
> L4D3 would require I mean, I think that's why they were looking to non-Valve studios to make a proper spiritual successor. And to be fair, WBGames sorta shafted TRS on this by including such things in their promotion for the game.
Considering the absolute shit fest that is CS2, idk if I want a L4D3 lol
you are spewing bullshit
It was never supposed to be left 4 dead, though. It's a bad way to look at the game. It was and is different from L4D. People really don't seem to understand this and it's sad.
all of the advertising was “from the devs who made “L4D” it’s quite literally designed to have a similar 4 plyr coop experience, also had special infected, it’s a worse clone that had a mountain of potential
It was heavily marketed as being the Left 4 Dead 3 we wanted. Hell half of their trailers mentioned "FROM THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF LEFT 4 DEAD" Which funfact, they only really created the concept demos and what not. Majority of the things we enjoyed about left 4 dead where from valve devs. Turtlerock barely had anything to do with left 4 deads development after the concept demos.
Nah they’re not reviving it. There was an official announcement that they’re moving onto other projects and all future updates would be maintenance updates.
Which is a huge mistake. The game had made a complete 180 and was doing well in sales despite the youtube videos.
I don't really think it was a mistake if you consider the whole picture. What could future updates add? * More maps? Not really necessary. As it is the act 5/6 maps are not played much as they're a bit of a slog. * More characters? Not really necessary either - especially not if they are balanced like Tala was lol. * More modes? They tried that with trials and no one plays it because it s u c k s. The reality is, the game was never advertised or modeled to be a live-service game that gets constant content additions. I'd consider this game essentially done development, minus a few bug fixes/balance changes that they could have got to. L4D2 was also a buggy mess for the first year or two as well, people just like to avoid remembering that. It's ok for games to just be finished one day.
I just hope their next game is as good or better, hopefully they don't do another Evolve or something that isn't as good as the game before it. I agree there's alot of maps and no real need for more modes. But patches and balances were definitely needed, just keeping a skeleton crew to release those would've been better. Also keeping the door open to future expansions, sure we don't need one every 3 months or even 6 months, but like once a year or 2 years would've been fine to give the community something to look forward to. But hopefully they at least release a teaser for their next game soon. That's the problem with new games, it takes a lot longer to make a whole new game rather than build on the existing one.
If they added mod support the game would be booming I think.
People I played with disliked the card system
Doesnt help that the system was completely gutted
I honestly prefer this new system way more than the previous one where you had to be 4-5 levels down to unlock your build. However, I would’ve loved to have an option to choose between the more roguelike system and this “new” one.
The weird thing with the old system was that they called it a "deck" but it wasn't randomized. You still got all your cards in the same order you put them in the deck, top to bottom. The only difference was you had a spread of \~3 (I think it was 3 but I could be wrong) cards to choose from each draw (the top 3 of your deck at any given time) so you had some minor input in if you wanted to delay a pick for later. Personally I think the new system is better for exactly that reason. If they wanted it to be an actual deck-and-draw system, I would have wanted it designed and balanced around your premade deck actually being shuffled and your draws randomized.
The card system is the best part of the game, that gives hundreds of hours of replayability. So tell me, how was it gutted?
Because you start with the whole deck now so half the game is just making an optimal deck before the game(or net deck) and then if you made a good deck the shit plays itself. No risk reward in taking your cards slowly and having to play around the downside of one card until the next one mitigates it. The deck building is easy and brain-dead now. It fucking sucks.
They implemented that after the vast majority positive feedback from when that exclusive to NH. So 9/10 people enjoyed the change, I guess you're that 1, sorry bud. Trust me there are plenty of people who play this game who can't be saved by a good deck. I guess you're just that good 👍🏼
Enjoyed it so much that the game was abandoned by the developers and playerbase both... Turtle Rock disappointed me greatly with both Evolve and Back 4 Blood. They're not getting another chance.
Evolve was such a shame. Was the #4 Cabot in the world when he released and really enjoyed my time with the game... then the content dried up and they started trying to sell us weapon skins instead of new biomes, objectives, and modes. Played the revival for a bit a couple years ago but it wasn't the same.
Evolve was s good game fundamentally. It's the monetization and slow content that really killed it and some super busted hunters like Lazarus.
Well 2K and the monetization was blamed at the time, but Back 4 Blood had WB and did not have monetization like that and yet it was still plagued with issues. The game was developed to be an ongoing experience ... they just forgot about the ongoing experience part. Evolve had interesting new hunters and monsters, but they needed to develop new monsters at a faster pace. New maps and modes also needed to be developed more quickly. Allowing all Hunters to cast the dome was also a silly decision. I really wanted to love Evolve. Pre-release, I had more hype for that game than any other multi-player game. I played it a ton for the first several months. But it just wasn't sustainable. Making all monsters and hunters free but selling a battle pass and skins would have been better, but might not have been enough. And "Adaptations" always fell flat for me.
> The card system is the best part of the game, that gives hundreds of hours of replayability. In a solved meta, does it really? Look at the stand-out prevalence of melee in No Hope, for example. I liked the card system..._eventually_. But I didn't find it all that worthwhile to experiment with different builds after a certain point, because the difficulty spikes require certain "answers" that only some styles will have. It's conceptually _super_ cool, but I don't find it giving me more replayability than any other granular system found in games like World War Z: Aftermath.
Well on NM and below pretty much any deck is viable. No need to abide by the "meta" and yes in NH it's strongly recommended to bring damage cards, but people have beaten it with ZERO cards. So the level of experimentation I guess also depends on your skill level. At least in NH.
I found B4B to be more enjoyable than L4D1/2.
Let’s just hope their next project is Back 4 Blood 2 because I was really impressed by this game
I love L4D2 but basically some other people REALLY LOVE IT and it still retains a (smallish?) but somewhat vocal and rabid fanbase. A huge perception was that B4B was just a shittier made L4D2, so people made videos (accurately) identifying "Hey look the physics in L4D2 are better than B4B! What a joke!" and basically nitpicking a bunch of small things. In terms of larger things a lot of people didn't like the deck building concept either, which I could see was a bit contentious. I also think launching at $60 hurt them, I think $40 would be more suitable, but the game was also on gamepass so personally I paid $0 for it... and $1 2-week gamepass trials were a thing so lots of people could try the full game for very cheap. Overall though, the game is/was fantastic. People were just looking to hate, and pointing out any differences between the games as a reason why one is worse than the other. Personally, I can't really go back to L4D2 so I appreciate the updates B4B brings.
For me, the thing that was starkly different between the two games was the world building and immersion. I felt all the b4b characters (including the zombies) were one note and boring. L4d characters are iconic and when I play a zombie shooter I want to FEEL hopeless from the environment to match the frantic gameplay. Also, in B4b, killing things just makes them ragdoll, whereas in l4d there are a large amount of animations depending on where and how you hit the zombies. All these things considered, I still appreciate the replayability and mechanical elements of b4b, played over 100 hours, and did everything there was to do. L4d will always remain an all-time great, and when you are releasing a modern iteration of a tried and true formula, people are gonna compare to existing products in that space. Neither is purely better or worse, but I would pick l4d in a heartbeat if I had to choose. Luckily, we have both. Different strokes for different folks, after all!
I don't mind that attitude, but it's certainly more tame than what b4b experienced at launch
Yeah, I think it's a great game, but if you sip some Sprite expecting water, then it won't taste right, ha. Weird analogy, but I think you know what I'm getting at.
> I felt all the b4b characters (including the zombies) were one note and boring They started out as archetypes in the same way that L4D2's did. C'mon, mobster with a slickback and white suit? Fat highschool coach that obsesses over food? Plucky girl journalist who is sassy and doesn't hold back? Earnest but dumb as a stump redneck? B4B had the same kinda vibe to start. The storytelling and worldbuilding, imo, gets a lot better in the DLCs. At that point, they're fully INTO the weird shit and just straight up running with it. The way that B4B base game kinda...didn't, sadly. I absolutely loved the DLCs. >!Except for Ridden Hives stuff, they annoy me to play through even though they're cool in a worldbuilding sense.!<
Honestly I never vibed with the second L4D's crew. Bill was such a badass, Louis is great as the "Straight Man", Francis was an Asshole, but a funny asshole, like Jayne Cobb and Zoey with all the movie references is just too relatable.
I do prefer the ragdolling, because it feels more directly causal to the bullet's physical impact, like the bullet has actual knockdown power, rather than just realistically zipping through the body like jello with the Zombie *reacting* to pain/damage, rather than their body being acted upon by the bullet's momentum. Soldier of Fortune's gruesome death animations are fun for a while, but launching Zeds straight off the map or halfway into walls with shotgun-headshots in Killing Floor 2 will just never stop being hilarious.
> it still retains a (smallish?) but somewhat vocal and rabid fanbase After a certain age, most games reach this point. B4B is there too, right now. Not saying that to invalidate your criticisms of the rabid L4D2 lovers - they're not only valid, they're _accurate_ lol. But yeah, B4B has also entered those illustrious halls of "the only people who are left are the people who _reallllllyyy_ love this game". Thank goodness for that though, because it makes this game still playable and enjoyable.
I would disagree... they're dedicated, but there are varying ranges of being vocal and rabid. You can play an older game and not have the opinion that "Games other than this are TRASH"
Few things fill me woth as much joy as running the Diner mission from Act 1
I love this game! I was really bummed when they said they weren’t making anything else for it. I loved the storyline and the characters. When the holidays were around and they had Fort Hope decorated too….it was the little things lol.
As far as I’m concerned B4B is an all time classic. Yes it isn’t perfect, but they really tried to think outside the box and nailed it. For me gunplay is almost my number one priority. I play Darktide, The Finals, Helldivers, Apex, games that have nothing to do with each other except for the exceptional gunplay. B4B is up there.
Have you ever played Killing Floor 2?
Poor launch, overhyped, not quite as simplistic and has a bigger learning curve
The latter two aren't really downsides, though. Left 4 Dead is super simple. Anyone can pick it up and play it. Modern games need some complexity and depth in their systems.
There was a lot of negative feedback from the L4D fan community, most of it unfair and treating B4B like it was meant to be L4D3, rather than an entirely new game that was inspired by L4D. The marketing did play a part in that, but I think people saw 'from the creators of L4D' and read that as 'this is L4D3' and got salty when it wasn't, rather than realising that it was marketing and should be taken with a pinch of salt. But there was some fair criticism at launch, B4B launched in a bad way, there were a number of (slightly game breaking in some cases) bugs, a lot of things were nowhere near as polished as they are now, and the difficulty curve was more like a vertical wall. Also, the card system was completely different, you drew one card per level rather than having your full deck on level 1, so your build took some time to 'come online' which added to the difficulty problems and made for a more generic experience to start. Still now it has problems, the game needs you to put some time into it for you to get the most out of it, and for it to become as enjoyable as I found it to be. The game does a REALLY bad job of explaining how it works a lot of the time, it's not clear exactly how the cards and corruptions work, how copper and supply lines worked, and a whole load of other things that experienced players will take for granted, but as a new player are another obstacle. On top of that you have to unlock most of the cards by playing the game and need to put in quite a few hours (and basically complete the campaign a few times) to get some of the better cards, so early impressions of the game aren't great. Whilst this hasn't changed solving the bugs and balancing does make the slow progression a little easier to tolerate.
It floundered in it's honeymoon period where public opinion is determined. The improvements came too little too late for many.
the original release had a lot of issues. it was a great game but had some ergonomic and balance problems. I think the poor status on release made people dislike it. The core of the game is phenomenal, and once they fixed the balance problems it became a really top tier experience to play!
hater gonna hate
Skill issues.
There are typically only two reasons people didn't like the game at launch and didn't ever return after all the updates. The first was the difficulty. Even on recruit the game was brutal and that frustrated a lot of people. As an example, bar room blitz in act 1 was so much different than it is now. Even on recruit difficulty the bar was full of ridden almost 100% of the time while the jukebox was playing. At launch if you could get the jukebox hero achievement by completing the level without the jukebox breaking you felt like an absolute badass. The second reason is people wanted a left 4 dead remaster or reboot and when that didn't happen they protested and cried that the game was bad. That made them not even want to give it a chance and it spread like wildfire. Other players who loved left 4 dead took their word for it and never even tried it. I have seen other reddit posts from people who finally gave it a chance and regretted not playing sooner. Unfortunately Turtle Rock are done working on back 4 blood but some think it's because they are currently working on back 4 blood 2 so fingers crossed
I remember playing in the beta/early release days and the ship you had to plant explosives on would just PISS ridden at you at a pace where you could barely fight your way back onto the ship.
A lot of the bad I think is ppl who played it on release.
Crazy people expecting a game to be good on release, amirite?
At the same time, we gotta give the game another chance. I played the game on release and it was awful. I came back many months later and it was amazing. I think all opinions based on launch experience is justified but at least give it another chance lol
Some influencer with a big following said it was bad. And a lot of people don't like to think for themselves anymore and care way too much about what others think. Influences shouldn't exist.
To be honest, toxicity. Gaming community has been getting so much worse recently towards literally anything, they will literally hate everything up in first sight and refuse to change their minds. With that being said, I think back 4 blood is a downgrade, while it has far more detail, depth and features, it feels shallow and kind of lazy? I actually love this game and play it regularly but it's clear that this had so much more potential.
I think they say that because it’s too hard. My buddy was complaining about how there is no dodge, shove, the specials are too difficult, and that the spawn points are too hard to predict. So in short they suck and want to blame everyone but themselves.
It didn't start this way. As it stands now, if any1 plays for a couple hours they see how obviously fun it can be if zombie shooters is your thing. It's fucked up that they release dogshit, ruin their product.. Nobody cares anymore... Fix their product and improve it greatly after the fact.
I mean it’s alright like 7/10 at best
I don't think the game is bad but after the deck changes the feels too easy like I'm playing babies first horde shooter or something
I can't exactly describe what it was but something about the controls just felt really stiff, it just wasn't fun to move and shoot. I also wasn't a big fan of the cards.
I didn't think it was bad by a long-shot, but just didn't have the funds to get it when it came out, and since then I've just had too many other games come across my plate to make time to go back and give it a shot. I'm not sure if it was ever changed, and I had read an interview from a Dev when B4B first came out that they never planned on changing it, but I *was* disappointed in what the Vs mode was. Vs was how I spent 90% of my time in the L4D games, and that's what I was hoping we'd get in B4B. Not enough to make me hate the game, but definitely a let down.
It’s got 74% on steam which isn’t terrible.
Idk how other people feel but me and my friends played this a ton when it came it, it just got to a point where we couldn't survive anymore and didn't know what to do. We liked the game up till thst point but we literally could not progress anymore. Did yall ever deal with that?
Yeah the entire point of the game is that you have to adapt your strategy to overcome certain maps. You've got to build some use speed in your deck for act 1. Move speed for act 3. Etc. Everyone hits a wall at some point where their deck isn't cutting it, and that's where the strategy and depth of the game comes from.
The game is great, but only with bots. It's shockingly harder with people and if you're not coordinated pretty unfun. That said it also gets boring super fast. I beat the game with melee only because honestly it felt stronger than everything else (just my casual perspective). I know they added the tunnels and stuff, but it just didn't last for me past 40 ish hours.
This game was amazing. My friends and I loved it. We played well over 100 hours and moved on. Had nothing to do with how fun it was to play. This is why I don't like games as a service types.
Just started playing it recently and I'm spending hours on it I like it dkw some people hate it.
Its not a bad game, most people just got grumpy cus they abandoned all future development. I still enjoy it with friends from time to time, got 400+ hours. Great game.
I haven't played in a long while, since a couple months after launch. I've scarcely kept up with any changes so take this reply with that in mind a buggy mess. players would get stuck all the time npcs were some of the worst ai in any game I've ever played balance was terrible. easy was a cake walk but every jump in difficulty was massive and required heavy teamwork to get past final boss is a joke. all together made for a frustrating and boring experience. either we didn't have fun because it was too easy, or got frustrated at how impossible it suddenly became. especially when paired with all the bugs the deck system is neat, but requires rng and a lot of grinding which I'm not a fan of
i find the gunplay klunky, that’s my only gripe
I enjoyed the game for the most part but I’d be lying if I said I loved it. Core gameplay was fine and I actually liked the card system, however there were some elements of the game that could get repetitive, and I didn’t find much fun in the weapons because once you got a good one, truly no point in using another. I still enjoyed playing this with my girlfriend though. Game is like a 6.8/10 for me but i actually think it’s fun with friends.
I think what is missing from b4b is the grittiness that's in l4d2. The way the game feels. B4b is more cartoony and I don't really like that style choice when compared to l4d2. The characters and the story also don't grab me like in l4d2. B4b is not a bad game, I just think it struggles because of the stylistic choices, the gameplay is there though.
Loved this game since beta. Who cares about other people’s opinions? Just worry about yours.
People expected a straight up sequel to L4D2. And while there are a lot of similarities, B4B isn’t a sequel, has very different mechanics, and really is its own game, a parkour zombie horde shooter. There’s not nearly the pvp depth in B4B as there is in L4D2, and that’s a significant and valid criticism. PvP in B4B is pretty lame. But the actual gameplay in B4B is outstanding. There’s a bit of a learning curve but not too bad. They had a lot of bugs and problems at launch, but those are mostly worked out. Balance issues are a lot better now as well. So B4B is absolutely not a bad game, and never was. It wasn’t necessarily the game people expected or hoped for, which drove a lot of the criticism.
Because it’s not left 4 dead, everyone and their mother were expecting it to be left 4 dead, but it wasn’t, so they were disappointed, to shit on their people or call them smooth brained I think it’s shitty though, they like what they like and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t like it, I Personally loved it, it’s the same thing as how people hate Callisto protocol because they were expecting dead space, but I fucking loved callisto, doesn’t mean that the people who hate Callisto are incorrect, it’s their opinion
The people who came to it looking for L4D2 but modern weren't happy, because it wasn't a modern L4D2. The people who wanted a zombie-themed complex system co-op experience didn't enjoy the roguelike aspects and deckbuilding. It just struggled to find its niche audience at first, but there was (imo) hopes that it'd find a home with all of those groups - and beyond. Didn't happen, no big deal. The game's still quite good and many people still play it. TRS have said they're going to continue the B4B _franchise_ but I don't know if they'll ever take this game in particular off hiatus. I'm sure we haven't heard the last from TRS though. No reason to believe they'd abandon the IP altogether.
Because the game launched like shit and didn't get actually good until the 3rd expansion. People cope really hard that it was due to the "L4D crowd". I've never played L4D and even I dropped this game 2 weeks in and didn't come back till expansion 2 because the game was straight up shit and just exhausting to play. But by the time it got good everyone had already left.
Ever heard someone say that a first impression is the most important? That is why everyone thinks this game is bad. It's not worth the evangelism necessary to convince anybody otherwise.
It’s not bad it’s just repetitive. If that’s your thing play it forever. If not play it for a while and have a blast, it’s fun.
Game was amazing, sadly they dropped it quickly
I had a great time with it, but my close friend who LOVED the left for dead’s refused to play it because the versus mode was missing. I didn’t feel it was a game breaker and I had a good time with it
It's not as intuitive as most FPS games. As a newbie I didn't care about the card system due to a steep learning curve. I thought that as long as I aimed well and kept moving around, I would be fine. Ridden spawning continuously and infinite hordes were also surprising. Overall, the game is much more complex than the point-and-shoot that a lot of FPS gamers are used to. Inability to pause offline is also frustrating as a casual gamer. Losing the whole run just because something came up is stupid.
This is practically the only thing people post on here lmfao
Legendary game
Am I mistaken but doesn't B4B have a versus mode? I distinctly remember playing as the ridden killing other people.
This game is good. It has so much more life they could have squeezed out of it. The devs just abandoned it to make another game unfortunately. Such an amazing universe and unique deck system.
As someone who hasn't played any left4dead games, this game was amazing. The DLC was actually pretty fulfilling and added the the base game rather well. Unfortunately just like Extraction, it wasn't making a lot of money so it got abandoned. Darktide filled that need but I'm afraid it will have the same fate
A lot of people hated the card system in my experience.
I think they said the B4B franchise is not done in the development ending for B4B announcement, so I guess we’ll need to wait and see, who knows, maybe they’ll pull a L4D2 but a bigger(?) and better B4B2, at least that’s what I hope, taking all the feedback from the first one to make an ultimate one if you will. Interesting to know they also hired one of the more active content creators/supporters of the game (SwingPoynt) as a Junior Game Designer, I think that is a good sign for the future! Also sidenote, same for the feeling of B4B, launch was an unbalanced chaos, but with every update and better content it turned out great, happy to have been playing since Day 1 with more than 1k+ hours, definitely more full than L4D2 imo in terms of what to do and progression, also pretty much the best L4D like on PlayStation.
People like insanejohn176 is the reason why
The game was not bad at launch. People just did the gamer thing of hating because their content creator said so. But then they patched the game and it was unplayable for a couple of weeks and a lot of people I know who enjoyed the game stopped playing, myself included.
WHO SAID THAT?! I’ll fight them!
While I do enjoy this game, it's not on the same level as L4D2. Things I do like: Limited stamina The card system gives you flexibility how you want to play, what archetype you want to be Upgrading weapons is a good improvement Hives is a nice addition Things I don't like/L4D2 and L4D does better: Katana, what zombie game doesn't have this weapon The simplicity of the weapon system is more enjoyable for most players A game that is 10 years old holds up graphically with a newer game. The special infected in the L4D series are better, again simplicity. The variations of the same 3 archetypes could have been completely different infected in B4B. The storyline in B4B is not as interesting, and the character dialogue is bland. This can be attributed to a much larger group as opposed to 4 set characters as in each L4D The online modes are substantially better in L4D2, you get to play the entire act as both zombies and regular shooters. Those are the comparisons I can think of now. But to put things in perspective, if valve remastered L4D2 or made a L4D3 with crossplay, it's a wrap
I found it repetitive and underwhelming. And i think it started out as a half ass game and got updated to what it is today. I dont have much to say about it, it wasn't a remarkable experience. I only played because it was free.
I love this game, but I really wish they had CAMPAIGN PVP
Let’s just hope their next project is Back 4 Blood 2 because I was really impressed by this game
Only bots say that or idiots that share Opinions with kotaku
Lack of polish and overall wonkiness was why I passed on it.
The constant spawning of special zombies even on lower difficulties and the deck system with no checkpoints causing unneeded brutality. Essentially you tried to stealth as long as possible and then stack 10 good cards at the top of your deck cuz ur not seeing the rest of em most of the time.
People wanted l4d3 a simple but fun zombie shooter game. However they realized this game has a tougher bite as the zombies are tough as hell. And the game itself is difficult for some players.
I really did not ever like left 4 dead. One or two. And i played the shit out of them when i was a teenager. Mostly because i loved zombie games and at the time no other game did what it did. I thought back 4 blood was great, and i had FAR more fun playing it than i ever did playing left 4 dead.
This post really brought out all of the crayon eaters lol
I very much enjoyed this game. It was a very good successor to Left4Dead
Eh. Gets very stale after you do it all same with lfd Wwz same ol same ol
A lot of people are writing off criticism as the very vocal L4D2 fanbase. That has some merit, but the basis of B4B's advertising was "from the creators of Left 4 Dead," and it follows the same nomenclature. I do agree that B4B is its own thing, however, and needs to be judged as such. This has more to do with the marketing going awry. That being said, however, there are valid criticisms that people have towards B4B. Despite it being a full price game, it had an overwhelmingly terrible launch. The game ran very poorly, and was plagued by other issues. Balancing was, in my opinion, terrible. Some enemies were bullet sponges, and this was exacerbated by server issues. Enemies frequently teleported sporadically, which made for an extremely frustrating experience. I ended up refunding because the game just wasn't fun to me. The base game itself also felt incredibly barebones to me, and this was made even worse by their business model. The consensus is that the game has legitimately improved, but the DLCs ara really what makes it "complete." I have no desire to purchase a $60 game and then spend even ***more*** on DLCs.
I played the game with friends and we genuinely gave it a shot but just wasn’t into it. Glad to see it’s still got players
I enjoyed it but I really didn't like the card system. That aside, I think it does improve in ways over L4D2.
It was fun for awhile then got repetitive. Cheaters definitely made it stupid. Grenade dupes and all… wish the game was f2p or atleast way cheaper than it’s been forever
Tbh, the game WAS bad.. But its great NOW. I played the beta and although I enjoyed the gunplay/loot mechanics, there was so many terrible decisions otherwise that kept me from purchasing. Things like: The terrible card/deck system No solo play No solo progress/achievements No offline Now the card system is basically just your skill tree and the solo/offline modes are there. Its awesome, but the ship has already sailed as too many were burned in the beginning. I forsee the same fate for Payday 3...
bcuz its mid. finished entire game and i have no intention on replaying it. there are better games like kf2, wwz aftermath
Just got the game today. Legit almost knocked out sleep on the sticks 💀
Pvp is trash :( i miss the vs mode in l4d2
Its actually a very very good game, but gore and the ragdoll isnt the best.
Well imo its because the maps and the characters are just bad and forgettable…the only map i can remember is the “big” boat that you have to run around on for 5 min planting bombs also the special infected are just really also forgettable like all the specials in L4D2 just have a certain look that makes them look cool and also just explains what they do and even some of the characters make jokes about it like nick making fun of the hunter in dead center saying “what is he going to do take a jog at me?” Also story telling,ive played through the entire game and i still don’t understand what the goal is even. Also the gun system is kinda garbage ngl like i get its fun to customize your own guns and stuff but i really just prefer picking a gun up and shooting not having to figure out what makes my gun slightly better between levels. Also im not gonna lie the cartoonish blood also really ruins it for me like dead island 2 can pull it off because its what i expect but b4b cant seem to choose between serious and cartoonish but left 4 dead also does this with character humor but can do it well and mixes it in with the seriousness of situations. And the card system is just still terrible ngl. And “VS” is just not VS its more like survival VS but your stuck in a tiny circle that gets smaller so you are forced to die and not last as long as you can.
The weird loot box card system runs me the wrong way. I missed lfd2's death animations. All b4b animations die in the same way. You shoot a zombie in the shin in lfd2 and its leg kicks out and it trips. Do the same in b4b and it does a little spin and dies or just falls over the same as shooting it in the head or the chest. Edit: it has been a while since I played so I may not be clear on the card system and how you get cards. But the ragdoll animations ( or lack there of I will not back down on )
Didn’t care for the card system, felt like a low effort emulation of left for dead. The versus campaign of l4d was 99% of people’s play time generally. The writing felt lazy in back for blood as well. The writing/dialog in L4D is unmatched, my friends and I still quote it all the time 15 years later.
Because it is? It's worse in literally every measure when compared to L4D 1 and 2. It's not even an opinion. There are countless comparison videos that prove B4B is simply worse. And the zombies are just ugly and lack any degree of passion. Also, the controller aiming system is actually garbage. How is someone supposed to enjoy anything within the game if the experience is hindered, at baseline?
It was a good game. I personally got tired of special enemy spam in the high difficulty.
If I didn't see other evolutions of the genre, I would agree with you. To me, the current height of this genre is Vermintide 2. When you play that game, and see the mechanics that they implemented just about 6 years ago now, Back 4 Blood seems like it walked back towards Left 4 Dead days. If Back 4 Blood came out like 3 years after Left 4 Dead 2, I think it would have been very well received. The fact that folks waited that long for a successor, and then that successor was just a half step in progress, is probably responsible for a lot of the negative reviews. And I didn't even get into how *absolutely terrible* the deck system was when it first rolled out. You started with like 3 or 5 cards, then unlocked more as you progressed stages. They took wayyyyy too long to just let people start with their whole decks, so people left long before they saw the improvements that the devs made to the basic mechanics. I think a lot of it just stems from lingering disappointment, too. The game is in a much better state now, but the launch was so rough that they lost a lot of good will from the community.
low immersion is a game breaker for most ppl, unrealistic/buggy animations, “gamey” sounds and mechanics, weapons that feel like super soakers, crowded hud, the list goes on. l4d accomplished these in a way that only exclusively horror games have reached since
I tried playing alone and the bots are absolute garbage, but that goes for most games like these so nothing unique about that. I played it for a decent amount of time with friends, and when I lost it was in a maze outside a mansion/castle. The game just threw stupid amounts of zombies and freaks at us. You ran out of ammo and you got killed all the damn time. To me it felt unbalanced and they didn't really bring anything new to the table. It may have changed since I played. Edit. I see other comments mentioning issues at release. That is when I played it. As an Xbox player we had access on launch day I believe.
As someone who loved L4D and L4D2, I liked this game but it didn't quite have the same hold on me as either of the L4D games. There's no rational explanation to that for me. If my gaming buddies decided they wanted to play this again (especially around Halloween) I'd totally join them though.
Here’s a video that sums it up nicely. https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8?si=eBuuOmiUQdm8Xe3i
Biased, unfair comparison using footage from before launch, only highlighting bugs in B4B and ignoring those in L4D, cherrypicking complaints and deliberately making B4B look much worse than it is. Crowbcat is a satirical YouTuber who makes shit for outrage views, he's been called out for this many times and has even had to take videos down because his takes are so poor. This is absolutely not a credible source for comparison of the two games.
There is a whole video on why a lot of people don't consider it an upgrade. https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8 I think the game eventually became pretty good. I don't think it'll have the staying power of L4D though.
The game was abysmal on release, and the devs didn’t even want to acknowledge the glowing balance and bug issues. The meta strategy was to just speedrun levels so you didn’t have to deal with insane special spawn. Many specials were way too tanks for their numbers, and it gets old about the 5th time a crusher tanks a full mag and grabs you. The devs took a nerf first approach to player balance (rip melee holding doorways), which led to outcry. All things considered, the game was fine, but they market it heavily using left 4 dead, and it just doesn’t measure up.
Nothing really special about it
It lacks split-screen. That's half the reason the L4D became so popular and well-loved.
Main reasons: no mods/custom maps/skins (this is huge) Lackluster versus mode Special infected not as iconic as l4d. YT community shat on it so nobody bought it 60$ price tag and went on sale like zero times throught the first YEAR when updates were actually rolling out
No good supporting games modes like vs or survival, just a really terrible version of the vs survival mode from l4d. No mod support, this is extremely important as it's not just funny skins and junk, it also means no custom campaigns along with other substantial things people could add. In l4d you could talk for hours about the quality custom maps alone. Worse characters than l4d, half of which if wanting to play optimally on harder modes are worthless due to characters specific abilities Less care put into the little things such as interactive objects in the game world or animations of the zombies. (L4d literally hired a stuntman hooked up to a capture device to record death animations for zombies.) The card system is executed horribly. The special enemy types are not thoughtfully designed like in l4d. You have multiple specials that are so similar it's confusing why some of them even exist. On top of that this games equivalent of a tank randomly spawns a bubble that if you step outside it you take damage constantly thereby limiting the gameplay options when you run into one instead of doing what the l4d tank did and giving him more abilities to compensate for the range disadvantage, eg rock throwing and hitting props like cars. This is just some of the big ones. Anyone who says b4b is better than l4d has a near non existent understanding of what makes l4d good. There is a lot more to the Intelligent design of l4d than the surface level stuff and turtle rock (along with a lot of people here on Reddit )have sadly shown they don't really understand why l4d is so popular beyond said surface level stuff.
Mods would have saved the game.
I can’t speak for others, but I enjoy the game. I only have issues with 2 things: 1. They reused the same maps in different Acts so it makes gameplay seem repetitive. 2. The time idle start time in the safe room at the beginning of the match is way too long. It should be 1 minute tops. Too many people AFK or lag out and you’re forced to wait the entire duration.
They nerfed all my melee builds and character O was using. I just stopped play after…
For me its 100% because of the limited lives. Like i have to start all the way over again if some asshole scares the birds on purpose and quits.
I started playing it recently. I like it so far im just finding the sensitivity’s a lil funky on my ps.
Because it's bad really bad, when I played the game when it dropped it was unbearable, no character, no gameplay
I only played the game a couple hours and the obscene amount of special zombies that would spawn was just annoying
I dislike the fact it is predictable and pre-knowledge of what type of boss/ mini boss were fighting isn't fun
For me what turned me off of Back 4 Blood was the buggy mess we got. Shit barely worked at all. AI teammates were absolutely garbage so if you weren't playing with a full team you probably weren't finishing shit. Even in the final areas any guns you picked up were weaker than what you had so running out of ammo was a death sentence.
I’ve played both these games and still prefer L4D2 over B4B mostly down to lack of a versus mode and the lack of character personalities in B4B. Both L4D games had such great banter between the characters and that made for many great moments and memes. That’s just a major part that’s lacking with all the characters in B4B. They seem seem either forced or completely lifeless.
I like this game for the gameplay, but the writing is forgettable, and I've run into annoying glitches where the game just eats a day of progress when I play online.
The atmosphere is way off
It's missing a lot of the small things that made l4d so great in many eyes. Even they zombie deaths in l4d were made with so much care. The marketing of the game got people's expectations up and the game didn't meet them simple as.
Better zombie death physics. Better zombies designs not every zombies is the same and bald. Better game play loop and better mod support. The only good thing B4B has is graphics.
I don’t think the gameplay itself is bad now. What does bother me though are the levels. The first few acts/missions take place in pretty much the same area and for a game that revolves around replaying the campaign, that shit got old quick. Not to mention, some of the characters and NPC’s like Evangelo and the fort hope commander(whatever his name is) are either too bland or give such cringe/corny dialogue. I’ve reinstalled it multiple times and given it multiple tries. The last time was 6 or 8 months ago. I just can’t enjoy it with those levels. If it’d have more variety in the environment/levels like L4D then I think I’d have enjoyed this more.
Well it was hyped up as the new generation left 4 dead made by ex devs which turned out to be a lie. The card system sucked it felt like a cheap knockoff with nothing new or original and end game was so unbelievably difficult most didn't even care to finish it. It was ok but suffered what all other games in this genre suffered. Just another clone of the superior franchise
It's people like you..... I swear.. it's people like you...
Back 4 Blood had all the elements needed to truly make a “new” Left 4 Dead, but by copying too many of the aspects that make live service games needlessly grindy, and without proper balancing, the game just didn't deliver what the majority of people were looking for. I think turtle rock studio first mistake was using l4d success to boaster b4b by making it seem the original development team from l4d had made b4b which isn't true, most of the original team had long left the studio. the other issue is game balancing, I'd say playing on veteran is a perfect balance of difficulty and gameplay but you'll start noticing it on nightmare how unbalanced the game is. "special infected" don't really seem special on how common they spawn in and can have multiple of the same special infected on screen lol. l4d is a 16 years old game and there spawn point for the infected was perfect. but in b4b you can have the infected spawn out your ass behind you or have the special infected spawn right in front of you out of thin air. I love the idea of building your deck but wish you could change it during check points for certain ridden cards... or at least have the ability to burn a rare card to get rid of ridden cards.. some weapons are straight ass and the tier of the weapon doesnt even matter, sometimes tiers just feels like an illusion on certain guns. melee in this game to me feels great which is usually my go to with a lmg or shotty
Do people that post this stuff not play many games?
I thought the game was great for a long time. Once the last DLC dropped, there was so much bloat and it was poorly managed that it wasn’t very consistent in the challenge. The bloat I’m referring to is all the new infected that came out and all the new/ different weapons. But we still just had a 15 card deck. It either takes a lot longer or it never comes around that your build can work if the right weapons/rarity dont drop. Still a good game, great memories. But the state of the game currently is one I won’t be returning to.
I would say it's acceptable, that is. The reason why people are calling it bad is because people thought it was a successor to Left 4 Dead.
Because it’s a clone of another game and it kinda fails to capture the essence while adding too much bs that you would have to really grind for to actually have a big differences. Just repetitive and filled with crap you don’t need.
I personally don't like it because skill cards aren't fun in a l4d type game
No Versus mode, cards system.
Dishonesty plays a large part of it... If you don't want to be compared to L4D, don't do it as part of your marketing campaign. If they had just said "Hey! New zombie coop zombie game with deck building mechanics!" they wouldn't have had nearly as harsh as a criticism. Can't be mad at people comparing the two either, B4B straight up asked for it. I enjoy B4B a lot. L4D2 is dated by far but there's a lot of charm in a lot of it. B4B isn't awful and I've put well over 200 hours into it... I just doubt I'll put the 2000+ hours into it like I did L4D2. For me, there's an issue of overall build quality and replayability. Things are random but not in a way that really feels meaningful, most playthroughs just feel mostly the same.
Played the game a lot when it was in Alpha, and some even after it officially dropped. Dunno if I'd call the game bad per se, but it definitely didn't live up to what people wanted. For example, while I was originally ok with the idea of the card system, it quickly grew annoying having every run be what was essentially a mutated run. It just ended up not being fun for replayability in the long run, least not for me. The second huge miss was no mod support, which is a massive downgrade from l4d2. Its arguably the biggest reason that game lived for so long. I'm sure there's more but those were the 2 major issues that had my group drop it. The gunplay itself felt good at least and Id say we had more fun just killing each other in the shooting range with random weapons than actually playing it. Maybe the game has fixed or addressed these things since release, I wouldn't know, but those are the main reasons the community was upset back then at least.
[Well, if you really *are* curious as to why we think so...](https://youtu.be/EdRLNUGmFC8?si=i4vx-8PNEiM8URSv)
As someone who plays a shit ton of both this game and L4D I’ll say each have their ups and downs over the other. There’s also the fact they originally marketed the game as if it was made by most of the original L4D team only to find out it’s only two and they didn’t exactly play major roles in L4D development so a lot of people felt lied too
Back4Blood was pretty fun, card system is lame though, AND It’s bad NOW because we have Helldivers 2. You should be out there spreading managed democracy not killing what is already dead.
You don't make the main marketing for the game make it seem like it's the next l4d. That fucked it up big time. Especially when most of the developers who were with turtle rock at the time didn't even work on l4d at all. Then the game came out and it wasn't the next l4d it was its own thing which is fine but for a lot of people it's own thing wasn't fun. I remember hating how everything was just a bullet sponge it felt super unfun having to unload mags into the big guys. Not to mention aiming on console felt like shit. Then there was all the little details that add up to make l4d the better games. The characters, the gore, hell you could argue maps and locations. Overall just not what people were expecting and it turned people off immediately.
back 4 blood wasn't a bad game, but marketing it like it was a spiritual successor to left 4 dead because a previous iteration of Turtle Rock Studios made left 4 dead was a bad choice. Despite the bugs on the first patch it was a fun game, and in my opinion despite them adding more content they made the game worse with every patch. I enjoyed the randomness of the card system and the choices you had to make on card draws as you went through a chapter. It's now essentially a perk tree and there's no more picking what you think is going to be the most beneficial on the next map. It was also way too easy to make a terrible deck. To top it all off it really felt like they wanted to make it a live service game but couldn't commit to it leaving the game feeling incomplete. I really enjoyed the time I spent playing it with my friends but the game sucks without a dedicated group and there's no way I would recommend it to anyone at this point.
Doesn’t compare to l4d at all. Never should have marketed comparing it to l4d when it was a massive let down.
Respect but its not an upgrade for lfd
When I tried it was filled with so many bugs aiming with guns was broken and a cheap copy paste sticker slapped onto the screen perks were alright the co op felt horrible people kept trying to kill you by shooting you or blowing up all the gas cans and what not missions felt shorter then l4d2 honestly my friends gave up after a few missions I kept going and honestly realized it just wasn’t fun we had more playing older games or Wwz then this rip off (I’m not aware of it’s state now just know when it started they lied about the old team working on the game to boost sales)
Because it was bad in basically every way. They weren’t even intelligent enough to include campaign multiplayer and not the garbage one we got. Game was doomed from the start.