Discussion
Anyone tried the open Beta?
It's left 4 dead essentially, same 4 player co-op vs zombies. Same standard zombies and specials, same saferooms, same weapon caches, exploding barrels and don't wake the herd mechanics. I didn't find the maps particularly dynamic, no real evidence of a 'director' just slightly different monster appearing, the maps are always the same.
Seems to play well enough but I personally found the card/deck system a poorly explained and unnecessary addition that smacked of pay to win.
It will probably be a good laugh with a few mates but I'm not sure what it brings to the party. It's really more of the same as L4D and I think that after a few rounds it's going to get very samey.
It's left 4 dead essentially, same 4 player co-op vs zombies. Same standard zombies and specials, same saferooms, same weapon caches, exploding barrels and don't wake the herd mechanics. I didn't find the maps particularly dynamic, no real evidence of a 'director' just slightly different monster appearing, the maps are always the same.
Seems to play well enough but I personally found the card/deck system a poorly explained and unnecessary addition that smacked of pay to win.
It will probably be a good laugh with a few mates but I'm not sure what it brings to the party. It's really more of the same as L4D and I think that after a few rounds it's going to get very samey.
Doesn’t seem to have the same hold as L4D, was really looking forward to it but can’t see the replay ability (loot moves, WOW!).
Zombies are stupid, seem to just spawn anywhere, even places you have already been / looked.
Weapon attachment system is stupid, I want to customise outside of the match not potluck during a round.
AI bots are retarded, they don’t pick up weapons, ghost fire at zombies that can’t be seen (I.e. behind a wall).
Card system is clunky, as you say it smacks of Pay to Win ‘Platinum’ level cards or some such following release.
It’s like a poor mix up of WWZ and L4D, disappointing.
Zombies are stupid, seem to just spawn anywhere, even places you have already been / looked.
Weapon attachment system is stupid, I want to customise outside of the match not potluck during a round.
AI bots are retarded, they don’t pick up weapons, ghost fire at zombies that can’t be seen (I.e. behind a wall).
Card system is clunky, as you say it smacks of Pay to Win ‘Platinum’ level cards or some such following release.
It’s like a poor mix up of WWZ and L4D, disappointing.
Played a couple of rounds over the weekend and it just wasn't as fun as L4D (1 or 2). Played similarly to WWZ and had the same lack of humour. Looks pretty but the bots are useless (backwards step from L4D). So far with the card system it's like a cross between Battlefront 2 (new version) and WWZ with the worst of both being played out. The zombies appearing from no-where also breaks the enjoyment factor (in L4D a horde would break through a wall next to you - but once you had eliminated them all you got a few moments reprieve- didn't seem to get any reprieve in B4B).
Lots of weapons but are any as fun as a frying pan or guitar so you can El-Kabong your way around a zombie apocalypse? - I think not.
Lots of weapons but are any as fun as a frying pan or guitar so you can El-Kabong your way around a zombie apocalypse? - I think not.
I'm a bit disappointed as I was really looking forward to this.....Mack on "Worth a Buy" gave it a fairly comprehensive beta first impressions here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2YOxGQ6-h4
It's a pretty good metaphor for what's wrong with gaming nowadays. £99 "ultimate" edition and you still have the full suite of P2W garbage on top.
Oddly it leaves me yearning to play Left 4 Dead 2 more.. a game you could buy for £20 at launch in a 4 person bundle, had a bunch of free DLC (on PC at least), had zero microtransactions, etc.. you paid for the game and you got everything they'd made for it.
Ironic that Valve is basically responsible for the loot box world we live in now when they changed Team Fortress 2 to become Hat Fortress.
Oddly it leaves me yearning to play Left 4 Dead 2 more.. a game you could buy for £20 at launch in a 4 person bundle, had a bunch of free DLC (on PC at least), had zero microtransactions, etc.. you paid for the game and you got everything they'd made for it.
Ironic that Valve is basically responsible for the loot box world we live in now when they changed Team Fortress 2 to become Hat Fortress.
I am quietly interested in this game, I wouldn't say it's a huge title on my list of things I am excited to play, but I had hoped it would be decent. It looks like there is significant work to be done all round to spruce the gameplay up in time for release.
The comparisons to Left 4 Dead are interesting, I often wonder what people saw in those games to make them so revered as I thought they had the depth of a puddle and were quite dull. As the gameplay on basically every run was the same (quiet start, grab loot, enemies ramp up, elite enemy appears, make it to safe room, repeat until the end of the mission) and the "Director" AI method wasn't particularly nuanced, having interesting map designs and plenty of maps would have kept it feeling fresh a little longer. Instead, L4D and L4D2 had hardly any maps and even after DLC, were extremely short games. I can only imagine that the studios were short of level designers and environment artists. After playing through all of the levels the games had to offer, you were left simply to repeat them, but despite the "No two runs are the same" marketing, every run felt virtually identical and they were hardly the last word in crisp gunplay either, so I found them to have very short lifespans.
Looking at B4B, The cards system doesn't concern me so much. Frankly anything to break the monotony in these sort of games is welcome and if that means randomised modifiers and attachments then I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. You can leave it to the player to select non-meta loadouts to keep things varied, but in practice people generally just gravitate to whatever is most effective, so forcing people out of their comfort zones could be a good thing here in terms of keeping the gameplay varied and stopping it getting stale so quickly.
With the beta happening so close to the final release and with beta tests just being glorified, limited early access sessions, I wonder how much can be done to make the game exciting. When people are playing an early access weekend and saying the game is boring and dull, that's not a great sign.
Whether it will be Back 4 Blood or First 2 Flop remains to be seen.
The comparisons to Left 4 Dead are interesting, I often wonder what people saw in those games to make them so revered as I thought they had the depth of a puddle and were quite dull. As the gameplay on basically every run was the same (quiet start, grab loot, enemies ramp up, elite enemy appears, make it to safe room, repeat until the end of the mission) and the "Director" AI method wasn't particularly nuanced, having interesting map designs and plenty of maps would have kept it feeling fresh a little longer. Instead, L4D and L4D2 had hardly any maps and even after DLC, were extremely short games. I can only imagine that the studios were short of level designers and environment artists. After playing through all of the levels the games had to offer, you were left simply to repeat them, but despite the "No two runs are the same" marketing, every run felt virtually identical and they were hardly the last word in crisp gunplay either, so I found them to have very short lifespans.
Looking at B4B, The cards system doesn't concern me so much. Frankly anything to break the monotony in these sort of games is welcome and if that means randomised modifiers and attachments then I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. You can leave it to the player to select non-meta loadouts to keep things varied, but in practice people generally just gravitate to whatever is most effective, so forcing people out of their comfort zones could be a good thing here in terms of keeping the gameplay varied and stopping it getting stale so quickly.
With the beta happening so close to the final release and with beta tests just being glorified, limited early access sessions, I wonder how much can be done to make the game exciting. When people are playing an early access weekend and saying the game is boring and dull, that's not a great sign.
Whether it will be Back 4 Blood or First 2 Flop remains to be seen.
I'll try the open beta (failed to get into the closed one) but don't have much hope. I've watched a bit on Twitch and they may as well have been playing L4D. Sounds like there will be a load of DLC to contend with as well on top of the £50 (!) price tag so I will probably give the full game a miss and stick to the old games.
I may have put a few hours into L4D2 over the last 12 years...
...although mainly because I can just pick it up and play for 30 mins or so on old (office!) hardware in between (or even during) video calls. I play with bots only on Expert, enough of a challenge to keep me on my toes.
Currently downloading the B4B beta for a play, though it doesn't seem like it's moved anything on.
...although mainly because I can just pick it up and play for 30 mins or so on old (office!) hardware in between (or even during) video calls. I play with bots only on Expert, enough of a challenge to keep me on my toes.
Currently downloading the B4B beta for a play, though it doesn't seem like it's moved anything on.
There was something unique about the co-op of the l4d games,very few games since have managed to repeat the trick,it just played right and you never felt cheated by the game .
The problem for this back4blood is there is some ferocious competition looming,the aliens game frankly looks much better ,and Valve are releasing something 'the anacrusis' which looks promising.
The problem for this back4blood is there is some ferocious competition looming,the aliens game frankly looks much better ,and Valve are releasing something 'the anacrusis' which looks promising.
Played a few games today, first impressions -
Difficulty curve seems a bit, all over currently. I don't know whether I need to try other modes but on the default setting you can more or less just run through the campaign (minus a few set pieces) One chap just pegged it through the entire act while I was back casually searching for weapons, the bots also teleport frequently to the furthest away player so be prepared to lose your back up (and your immersion.)
Zombie spawning appears to be.. somewhat odd at times and can look very "unnatural", if that makes sense. Almost as if you can see the monster closets sometimes.
The card system, at least to me, feels very unappealing. Not once did I feel obliged (or know how) to use my cards. It feels like an unnecessary system in a zombie survival game.
Weapon system is a huge COD rip, again, not sure the rarity system or upgrade system is all that interesting or necessary. I'm supposed to be on the look out for advancing special zombies or vantage points not comparing the star rating of scopes or attachments. It dilutes immersion somewhat, having to look for coin drops. It feels like I spend half my time just looking around for drops and occasionally going "oh a zombie!" when in reality it should be the other way around.
Level design is obviously fairly linear, but in a game like this it has to be really. There is the odd alternate path that I've found but it's largely utilised to hide weapons or caches or coins.
Bots are useless. I mean, they usually are. But these are a special breed.
Some positives though -
Gunplay feels pretty good, for a beta. I occasionally felt the recoil was a little odd on some weapons, but overall the models and sounds are pretty bloody good. A lot of variation, too.
It looks fantastic (at least on high on my 3060ti)
Going to try with some friends on a higher difficulty I think, maybe do some different acts.
Definite potential here.
Difficulty curve seems a bit, all over currently. I don't know whether I need to try other modes but on the default setting you can more or less just run through the campaign (minus a few set pieces) One chap just pegged it through the entire act while I was back casually searching for weapons, the bots also teleport frequently to the furthest away player so be prepared to lose your back up (and your immersion.)
Zombie spawning appears to be.. somewhat odd at times and can look very "unnatural", if that makes sense. Almost as if you can see the monster closets sometimes.
The card system, at least to me, feels very unappealing. Not once did I feel obliged (or know how) to use my cards. It feels like an unnecessary system in a zombie survival game.
Weapon system is a huge COD rip, again, not sure the rarity system or upgrade system is all that interesting or necessary. I'm supposed to be on the look out for advancing special zombies or vantage points not comparing the star rating of scopes or attachments. It dilutes immersion somewhat, having to look for coin drops. It feels like I spend half my time just looking around for drops and occasionally going "oh a zombie!" when in reality it should be the other way around.
Level design is obviously fairly linear, but in a game like this it has to be really. There is the odd alternate path that I've found but it's largely utilised to hide weapons or caches or coins.
Bots are useless. I mean, they usually are. But these are a special breed.
Some positives though -
Gunplay feels pretty good, for a beta. I occasionally felt the recoil was a little odd on some weapons, but overall the models and sounds are pretty bloody good. A lot of variation, too.
It looks fantastic (at least on high on my 3060ti)
Going to try with some friends on a higher difficulty I think, maybe do some different acts.
Definite potential here.
I don't think you can choose.
You just join a match and if no-one else is playing that 'mode' then you get bots or a mix of real people and bots. People can drop and join as and when as well. I got dumped into a game halfway through with very little ammo and a crap gun and the other players a mile ahead.
You just join a match and if no-one else is playing that 'mode' then you get bots or a mix of real people and bots. People can drop and join as and when as well. I got dumped into a game halfway through with very little ammo and a crap gun and the other players a mile ahead.
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