Have you tried with k/m? Does it have the same issue? I’ve seem to recall other UE4 games that behave like this.
It will be interesting to see player numbers on Steam on day 1, because there seems to be very little hype right now.
I’m not ‘hyped’ but I plan to play a pair of weeks at least, on Gamepass.
Bad timing, I think. They just happen to be launching after WWZ: Aftermath and Aliens: Fireteam. Neither of which have convoluted card systems to understand. Plus the Amazon MMO is sucking a lot of air out of the room right now.
So this is out now for folks who paid extra for the privilege of playing before folks who didn’t pay extra. I hadn’t touched the beta because I like my games 1.0 or higher. So it was all new to me. And now that I’ve played it for a while, I am ready with my one-word review. Here goes:
Oof.
The upside is that Back 4 Blood will not be competing with World War Z and Aliens: Fireteam Elite for my attention. In fact, it’s not even competing for my hard drive space anymore. How on earth does the team that made Left 4 Dead do so little to advance the formula?
-Tom
But hey it’s got cards!
I am forever now referring to you as Tom 1.0 Chick. ;)
But its got CARDS, that do THINGS, to increase FUNS. No? I still don’t understand the card system.
Shortest review evar! I’ve got a couple of friends that still want to try this out, mainly I think because they still have good memories of us playing Left 4 Dead. I guess things could get interesting.
I’ll give it another go once it hits Gamepass. On whatever day that is this month.
I can’t even read the card system. They designed it for people sitting at their monitors, not on TVs 9 feet away.
I don’t even think it does anything, I recall having picked a bunch of cards every round and it felt like nothing changed.
Monday, looks like.
Ahh, should have released October 4th, day would have been right in the poster.
The cards confused me. Somehow everything there was arranged in a manner that my brain couldn’t parse. Probably due to aging.
Also, Aliens: Fireteam Elite has cards as well. I should probably stay away. I also recall ignoring the cards systems in Painkiller back in 2004. Maybe it’s a matter of perception, but for me the idea of adding cards to a shooter just doesn’t compute. Developers, use your imagination and add modifiers that have something to do with your game world.
Yep, pretty much. I think the problem is that you’re accumulating so many card bonuses as you play that the whole thing feels like a Big Deck Of Not Much At All. Contrast this with the “corruption” cards, which you have no control over. Those make a huge difference. I kept getting the fog modifier yesterday, which made it absurdly difficult for a new player to get through the level. I can imagine that’s a pretty cool modifier once you learn the levels, but it’s a real bullshit thing to spring on someone the first time through a campaign. And then the second time through a campaign all over again. Lovely.
So, yeah, the cards you control just pile up a ton of marginally useful modifiers that turns into a slurry of +10% here and there. Whereas the cards you can’t control do all sorts of cool stuff that may or may not ruin your day.
The cards in Aliens: Fireteam Elite are a mostly solid bit of game design. The randomness is kind of annoying at first, but eventually, you’ll have plenty of cards to use. But most importantly, and noticeable distinct from Back 4 Blood, they have a huge impact on the game, even though you’ll only ever use one card at a time. They can make things easier or they can make things more difficult, in which case they also boost the reward you’re getting. Or they can even just make things look different. The noir filter and CRT filters are actually very cool. Or they can just be a challenge, like getting a certain number of headshots for a nice reward. For the most part, I really like the card system in Aliens: Fireteam Elite. It’s intuitive, it’s entirely under your control, and it has a meaningful impact any time you choose to use it.
The “cards” in Painkiller were just upgrades. You unlocked them and could then slot the ones you wanted. It was a simple system and there was no reason to call the upgrades “cards”.
But, yeah, a lot of games just use the word “cards” without really meaning anything. It has a slight meaning in Back 4 Blood because of the way you arrange a deck and choose from a hand consisting of the top five cards in your deck.
-Tom
No, demonstrably false simply by examining your e.g. health or ammo totals after taking cards that improve them (although there could be bugs). A lot of them are minor at start though. And the deck implementation is still super weird, basically.
This is an order of magnitude more difficult that beta, at least on Veteran. Some of this I will like - the mutation spawns are more random, more frequent, and more varied. The 1-1 bridge horde doesn’t just idly come from the front. The fog is more of a hazard. Etc. Good improvements. OTOH, you get 1 continue now on veteran, which seems super punishing. Maybe you can earn more as you go, but I haven’t made it past 1-3 yet.
The servers don’t feel like they’re quite all the way there. I’m sure it’s a launch load thing, but I feel like I’m seeing some performance stuff I didn’t see in beta. Minor stuttering and the like. And there have been glitches. E.g. the bridge you lower in 1-1. In one game I played it was not actually there (it appeared there, but you fell and hung on the ledge when trying to cross so we had to jump it (lol).
Is Turtle Rock the same guys who even made L4D these days? With studio turnover, geez, who knows.
Or, was the guiding, iterate-it-to-death-we-have-all-the-money-in-the-world Valve the influence TR needed to make great games in their Counterstrike remake and the L4Ds?
Sorry to learn this is such a dud. Based on the studio and my eternal fondness for L4D I was looking forward to it.
At least it’s on Gamepass so I can feel bad at no additional cost.
Okay, I sat down to unravel the card system for a closer look. I built a solo deck to see how far I can push a melee build. As I played, I paid closer attention to how the cards accumulated and I can see the gameplay in here, even if it’s still an ungainly pile of modifiers. There’s got to be a better way to do this, but at least I can see what they’re trying to do. I think?
And then I got to the mission at Keet’s Bar (Act I, mission 2-3). That was pretty awesome and the sort of thing I’m looking forward to replaying at a higher difficulty level. I’m coming around a little bit, maybe? I’m about to join @Jason_McMaster to bang on it some more. So I’m revising my one-word review from “oof” to “umm…”.
-Tom
Perversely? The ferry mission 1-4 was much easier when I just did it. Like 20 times easier, whereas things had been 20x harder previously. It was surreal.
They still haven’t fixed the “sleepers can sort of hit you around corners and through walls, seemingly” glitch (or it feels like a glitch to me). Sadly got booted just now in 1-2-3 (they changed how missions work so I guess we need to use this nomenclature, but Act 1 includes a 4-mission chain, a 3 mission chain, a 2 mission chain, and finally a 4 mission chain), the bar defense mission Tom was just talking about.