Back 4 Blood - Oct 13, 2021

[nutcrackr]

Turtle Rock studios is making a L4D spiritual successor. 4 Player coop. Yes it has versus mode. Coming Oct 22, 2021 this year. Here is the latest E3 trailer.

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Couldn't find a thread, but please merge if there is one.

[Nascar24]

Noice, XBox game pass free.

[KAC]

No.

[Nunz]

My sis played the alpha and she was pretty disappointed. I hope it’s good and they take the feedback they received. They have a lot of time until the release.

[Nascar24]

No.

Yes Sir!

[KAC]

I hated the L4D garbage so…

[Nunz]

I hated the L4D garbage so…

So why are you in this thread? bye

[Jet Black]

My sis played the alpha and she was pretty disappointed. I hope it’s good and they take the feedback they received. They have a lot of time until the release.

Did she elaborate on what was wrong with it?

[Nunz]

Did she elaborate on what was wrong with it?

Apparently difficulty wasn’t balanced very well, which makes sense considering it’s an Alpha. Lots of buggy issues causing insta-deaths that really were kind of surprising they existed for a play-test ..

I’d have to ask her as I don’t remember the rest. It was a pretty extensive list, and she’s played a ton of L4D and L4D2.

[Jet Black]

If it’s mostly bugs, that seems okay… any awful gameplay mechanics, though, could be a death sentence. WWZ did a good take on the L4D system and I liked it a lot. It did seeem to me that Back 4 Blood wanted to be more loot-minded, which could work, provided you have time to scrounge around and find mods and weapons. I guess we will see soon enough! Plus Game Pass day one, so no reason not to try.

[Trunks0]

As much as I like the return of this... little sad that I don't think I saw seeing anything new...?

[Nunz]

If it’s mostly bugs, that seems okay… any awful gameplay mechanics, though, could be a death sentence. WWZ did a good take on the L4D system and I liked it a lot. It did seeem to me that Back 4 Blood wanted to be more loot-minded, which could work, provided you have time to scrounge around and find mods and weapons. I guess we will see soon enough! Plus Game Pass day one, so no reason not to try.

Yeah. I'll ask her to refresh my memory, but she did have some reservations in the gameplay mechanics

[clerick]

Played the alpha, it was a downgrade from L4D2 in every was possible, even the gore wasn't up to par. The whole card system is also just meh.

[logical]

Played the alpha as well, wasnt a big fan of the card system as well. I just wanted to shoot things and not think about it. Talk about over complication of a simple task.

[CyanBlues]

beta is coming up soon, you can access now if you watch someone on twitch play it for an hour via their drop item thing

[Nagorak]

So, my friend sent me a beta key. Haven't played the actual game yet, so I'll throw out some thoughts on the graphics options.

On a 3080 and 5900X in the starting area I'm getting over 200 FPS with ultra quality settings. Game looks...ok? Not bad, but not Doom Eternal either. It's good enough to get the job done, since max graphics wasn't the name of this sort of game to begin with.

The weird thing is with the AA options. DLSS is strangely listed under AA. Other than DLSS you have options for TAA and FXAA or nothing. The problem is the TAA implementation is **** and makes the whole screen blurry. FXAA is almost as bad in terms of reducing sharpness but is worse at removing aliasing. Why there is no straight MSAA (or SMAA or whatever the modern version is) is beyond me?

The end result is that DLSS quality actually looks better than the others (less blurry), with the exception of off which of course has aliasing. BUT, DLSS quality still looks soft compared to off (since you're upscaling), so basically you're trading screen clarity for actual anti-aliasing.

There is a Fidelity FX sharpening filter, which you can then use to re-sharpen the blurry mess from TAA or FXAA (or DLSS, although it is less bad). But then the screen looks a bit over-sharpened (especially with DLSS since it's not as blurry to start with), although it's still better than without. And honestly it is retarded blurring the screen and then sharpening it, versus simply running with MSAA first, or a non-**** TAA.

So it's basically kind of a messed up situation, and I don't know why the AA settings were limited in this way.

Edit: I tried to fix the problem by running DSR instead, but beyond 1.5x scaling the game just minimizes out. But still that option combined with DLSS may result in the best picture quality and best anti-aliasing.

Edit 2: DLSS has some noticeable ghosting (can be seen on the windmill above the ring in the starting area), so I guess I'll run 1.5X DSR, TAA and FidelityFX Sharpening, which overall looks pretty good.

[theshadowcult]

So, *SNIP* good.

Any game that uses defered rendering cannot use msaa, its impossible. Thats why a lot of games these days do not offer it. A lot of devs use deferred rendering because its a nice way to cheat some extra performance.

[pax]

OK but is the beta better than the alpha gameplay wise?

[clerick]

OK but is the beta better than the alpha gameplay wise?

Nope, none of the issues got resolved.

Sound design is terrible. Mixing is completely busted, special infected audio cues are nonexistent outside the boomer, soundtrack is completely static without any dynamic shifting between moods/themes, getting hit has no obvious sound cue, enemies sneaking up on you has no obvious sound cue
-Hitreaction for both the player and enemies is basically nonexistent. You can have a zombie gnawing on you while sniping a special infected and neither notice nor have it effect your aim. Enemies are fine, in a single stagger state that only some weapons inflict, or dead. They do not react to shots outside the explicit stagger effect and the only gibs are removable heads
-Special infected are poorly designed. Tall Boys are designed to force teammates to flank but the game is so full of tiny corridors and common zombies blocking off the way forward that in effect it simply encourages players to stop progressing and backpedal. Boomers are walking explosive with ranged damage and way too much health, if you peak a corner to find them you're going to get hit and if they charge you they've got enough health to reach you. Spitters are literally just hunters with guns and zero counterplay.
-A good chunk of the guns in each category are completely ****ing useless. There is only one sniper that is even viable outside baby's first picnic mode. Shotguns are 100% pointless. Mods also can't be moved from one gun to another but that's a much more minor gripe.
-There are different ammo pools for each type of gun and if a teammate picks up ammo you can't take it. This means anyone playing in pubs will be constantly low on ammo while dipshit teammates smash E on every ammo pickup they don't have a weapon for
-Cards are either wholly required or ****ing pointless. They run the gamut from **** like "your V melee is now an instant kill stronger than melee weapons" and "Killing enemies in melee restores health" to "+5 health (until you take a single bit of damage and trauma takes it). They add absolutely zero replay value and do not change runs in any perceivable way.
-The trauma system makes zero sense. Instead of punishing players for being downed it just takes max HP from you every time you get hit, INCLUDING BY FRIENDLY FIRE. This means that healing items that don't heal trauma like bandages and FAK are absolutely worthless and things that do like pills and wall kits are more important than they should be.
-The corruption modifiers were clearly just never tested. If you're in fog then spitters and boomers can see and attack you from outside your draw distance.
-Birds were clearly some dumbass exec's demand because they don't fit either in terms of aesthetic or gameplay. Some **** watched streamers play Hunt: Showdown and saw that birds alert other players and demanded they be in the game as the equivalent of car alarms.
-Objective conveyance is ****ing nonexistent. Nearly every team on 4-3 will hit the crane after the house and hole up not realizing that the horde is infinite and they're supposed to run.
-The game is simply not designed for campaign VS to be viable at all and survival VS is dogshit with no replayability

Basically play l4d2

[pax]

Wow so disappointed... Ill give it some leaway after release to see how it goes but def no pre order on this one.

[Nunz]

Wow so disappointed... Ill give it some leaway after release to see how it goes but def no pre order on this one.

Meh. Any time I see a review like that .. major grain of salt.

[Nagorak]

Any game that uses defered rendering cannot use msaa, its impossible. Thats why a lot of games these days do not offer it. A lot of devs use deferred rendering because its a nice way to cheat some extra performance.

That makes sense. I guess the game looks ok with sharpening enabled. Maybe this is just a weird situation where TAA usually has sharpening built in, but for some reason in this game it's a separate option.

[Nagorak]

Nope, none of the issues got resolved.

Basically play l4d2

FWIW some of those complaints apply to L4D2. For example, a lot of the guns that were added to the game in recent years (i.e. bolt action rifle) are utter ****.

That being said, I'm not seeing the complaints about the sniper rifles based on how they work in the shooting range. They are actually slow firing rifles unlike in L4D2, so there is more of a trade-off for using them. It looks like the difference between them is also a trade-off of slower firing vs more damage. Maybe that makes the slower shooting ones impractical, but in that case just don't use them. There are like 30 guns in the game, I'd be surprised if they were all perfectly balanced.

The use of iron sights is nice. It seems like the guns are designed to play a bit more realistically, similar to Killing Floor (OG) vs L4D2's more arcadey implementation.

[pax]

Meh. Any time I see a review like that .. major grain of salt.

Watched a few reviews and this is basically L4D. Some new variety but its Turtle Rock and they have basically just done the 3rd in line of their game franchise in everything but name only. So guess Ill be buying it early.

[Mangler]

https://kotaku.com/back-4-blood-beta-players-think-they-hear-zombies-yelli-1847443163

This game has racist Zombies!!

[clerick]

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[mizzer]

https://kotaku.com/back-4-blood-beta...lli-1847443163

This game has racist Zombies!!

I think we can all agree that all zombies, not just the racist ones, need to be put down.

[logical]

I played some tonight and still dont like it. I dont like the card system either.

[Thr0tt]

Wow just wow, cant join a game cant create a game cant do **** in game, really good beta test, forget this one its trash and will die very quickly especially with zero player base as it needs players to work.

Shite.

[Evileh]

The game i played with a group was pretty much flawless not sure why everyone is having issues

[Thr0tt]

The game i played with a group was pretty much flawless not sure why everyone is having issues

Maybe that is the key, have 3 others ready to go rather than try and create match or Join “quick match” both of which fail for me. May try later when less annoyed with everything. Grrrr work….

[Nagorak]

So, this game is pretty awesome!

At first when I played it with my friends I was not enjoying it. There's a little bit more depth to it than L4D2 and I was frustrated at first trying to figure things out. Also the specials are all different and it takes some time to learn what they do or how to deal with them. The weapons also are another thing, it's better if each person in your group takes one of the four types (sniper, rifle, shotgun, smg) so that you don't run low. SMG uses pistol ammo so that's another thing to be aware of.

Now having played it for a couple more days I feel that it is a worthy successor for L4D2. It's different but you can feel the kinship to those games.

There were still some bugs, like if I as the campaign host hit "continue" after a map then the other players would get stuck on a loading screen, but hopefully those will be sorted out by release.

I will probably be picking this up at release or not long after.

[Thr0tt]

I got in and played a round to a few safe houses, found it boring not sure why, even when I startled the ravens and hoards came it just didnt feel 'urgent' to me and every other shot was a headshot for me so either my skillz have increased or the hit boxes for the head are shoulders and up.

Uninstalled, will await the Alien game which looks to be more challenging.

[nutcrackr]

The game is out now for ultimate owners. Out for the rest in 1-2 two days. I've played a bunch of co-op and a bit of swarm. The game is not really worth playing solo with bots. Maybe once through on recruit difficulty to see locations. I don't think it would be possible on higher difficulties.

Co-op with others is pretty fun though. I think it has far more replayability than L4D1/2 because there are more missions, longer missions, and it has some good random changes. The director pulls different cards to change things a bit. Like putting more birds around that bring hordes if you startle them. More sleeper dudes that jump out and in cap you. Ferocious zombies. Armored zombies.

But it also changes levels slightly, like closing doors, putting stashes in different spots, requiring you to board up different windows during a defensive sequence. Some change the layout because the shortcut no longer works. And you also get looter-shooter weapon drops/random cards etc. Honestly 4 player co-op has pretty strong replay value out of the box.

The missions also seem pretty good thus far. There are definitely some pretty standard missions for a zombie setting, many that feel like a copy of L4D but that's not a bad thing. I liked going through farmland and killing nests (again their location is randomized which is ) and I thought the mine shaft levels were cool. Even the police station with zombie viscera everywhere looked great. There are some defensive swarm missions but most missions are fairly linear/forward movement like l4d. I'm not even half way through the game and already think it has solid value. Act 1 is like 3 hours through in a straight run. Three acts total.

Guns work well. Movement feels good and fast. I like that you can stab away and the gun keeps reloading. I wish they played a bit more with a slower pace. I think at times (veteran+) the sheer number of mutated spawns is insane and relentless. At times I have like 3 or 4 specials coming just for me and my teammates are scratching their rear ends trying to swap guns. Yet I really like when the game slows down and it goes quiet. I think if they had a special mode where normal zombies are x5 more deadly, specials are rare but more dangerous, and stamina is reduced, it would be a great slower pace version.

I've only played a bit of swarm but it's no versus. It features a couple of small areas and rounds that typically last a few minutes because you get worn down pretty quick. I guess they wanted quicker matches and more action but I think it lacks finesse so far. And it's a shame they didn't go campaign versus because there are some great chokepoints and ledges that you could pull people off or separate groups.

Overall definitely enjoying the 4 player co-op campaign. I highly recommend giving it a try on game pass.

Also mods pls change date in the title to Oct 13 pls thx.

[Seyiji]

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[acroig]

Title changed per request.

[Trunks0]

Gah! Really TurtleRock?! -Vert on ultrawide in 2021 when the damn engine your using supports it properly by default with a simple *.ini switch...

Can see a comparison with use of the the *.ini edit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Back4Blood/comments/oz1fy8/psa_vertical_fov_fix/h80n7qe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Not acceptable imho. The default 120 fov on Ultrawide is about a 90 fov when it's working properly.


Not that I would use 120 working properly. FOV looks like your looking through a marble . But a proper 90 FOV would be nice

[KAC]

Any one boning this want to party up. I am KickAssCop on GP.

[nutcrackr]

Well I went through all the missions and have to say there are some howlers in there, more so in the back half. They reuse a few areas but the fights against multiple bosses are pretty terrible in general and there are a few of them. I tried doing the last mission with bots and I think it might be impossible because they barely shoot the weak points. Stupidly high difficulty finales grind my gears.

Even other missions on recruit, it just spams a lot of mutated in some places and you'll have like 3 or 4 exploders at once. Not sure if the game director bugs out or if it's just trying to make things harder to slow you down. AI bots have bugged out a few times, both online and solo.

It takes about 9 hours to finish all missions (~15min each approx). Leaning towards 7-7.5/10 for this one.

[Evileh]

Any one boning this want to party up. I am KickAssCop on GP.

Bro me and jetblack have been running through the missions around 9pm my time which is 7am your time i believe?