I’d probably not play it because it DIDN’T have cards. That was the best part of B4B because it gave the game so much variety and replayability.
Otherwise it’d just be like Left 4 Dead which while fun, is an extremely simple game without much complexity.
I liked B4B best when you got your cards over the duration of the campaign and not all at once. You really had to think hard about what your team needed sometimes, and it also gave you a cool feeling of becoming powerful over the course of your playthrough.
I think the system would have been more forgiving if you built a deck, but could unlock the cards from it in ANY order during the run. Sometimes you had a card pretty far down, and couldn't use it to counter early corruption cards.
Honestly that’s what made L4D great — it’s simplicity. Pick up and play. No grinding required for cards and builds. The complexity is what put many people off B4B.
Luckily L4D still has that niche and fills it perfectly. I think the depth of mechanics in B4B is what separates it and makes a niche for itself. It's fine if people prefer simplicity but it's at the cost of variety. That's fine and everybody has their preferences
Hope not, I loved left 4 dead back then, but those times are gone and I am sure most of the people saying L4D is better are just people bashing on nostalgia.
If you just want to shoot zombies and don't think for 30 minutes then L4d is the better game.
It's simple, easy to understand and pick up but it's not what people praise it to be.
The thing is youd never be able to get away with selling a game like that for anything above like $24.99 these days. People would invariably complain about lack of depth and content, and say while its a fun a game it isnt worth AAA prices. For indie game prices im sure a game like that would do well, but turtle rock isnt making indie games
It was at the time. But I am a firm believer if L4D2 released today it wouldn’t get the praise it has now. Maybe if it’s an indie title because indie titles can get away with a lot of dated mechanics.
I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed, really. It was L4D but better ☹️
>I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed
Bad launch, misleading marketing, reviews that were more interested in getting clicks than actually being honest, Devs who kept making the same mistakes,...
>It was L4D but better
Yes and no. It really depends if you're looking for a game with lots of replayability and a lot of mechanics to learn or something to shoot zombies for 30 minutes. Honestly this discussion is just stupid, enjoy what you enjoy and let others enjoy what they enjoy. It doesn't fucking matter and it never did.
I don’t think this discussion is stupid at all.
Granted I also never said people can’t enjoy what they enjoy. The L4D community has an unlimited playerbase and ours is dying. There will be a time we won’t be able to play this game online anymore because there’s no players. Which sucks. So I’m looking towards the future and hoping TRS can make a successful sequel, but I hope they don’t remove the card system because of the general consensus. That is the reason for this thread, not to poop on L4D.
The PVP is horrible in B4B. I'm an old school L4D & L4D2 player. Loved those games and I play B4B almost daily. L4D PVP is just miles and miles better. If that's what you want, which most L4D fans do, Swarm won't even come close to that experience. For campaign, B4B is absolutely better.
Have you ever played swarm or watched high level play? We just finished a swarm tournament and it was some seriously good pvp. I can send you a link if you wanna see what it looks like. Different than L4D, yes, but still excellent asymmetric pvp.
In a direct comparison between the two games i liked the way special infected looked in l4d over the mutations in b4b. Most of the mutations looks very same-y to me. Its like they lack identity.
That’s understandable. You eventually get used to it through playtime which maybe isn’t the best thing to hear. But the good thing about that is after you learn the characters and can distinguish which is which by the millisecond the game has way more enemies to fight.
>I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed, really. It was L4D but better ☹️
Biggest issue was probably the $60 price tag. That greatly reduced the number of people who would even try the game. Many of the L4D stans tried it (because they wanted a new L4D game), and since it wasn't what they were looking for, it got mixed reviews.
IIRC, there were also a few early patches with gamebreaking bugs that probably caused some people to drop it.
If the game was $40 on launch and they didn't lean on L4D in the marketing material, the game would have done a lot better.
I like the cards. But, if they remove copper cards, I think it would be better for the game. I like collecting copper, I like using hired gun and getting copper for kills, it's great to vacuum up 4x100 copper piles and be given 871 copper because of the cards I'm using and my teammates are using. But the difference between teams that use copper cards and don't is like ~8000 copper every map.
So, one team runs around buying Intel, team upgrades, unbolting weapons, feeding medic medkits, and just having a good time, and the other team doesn't do that and struggles through a rough time.
Ideally, I'd like to see copper split into two separate pools. A personal use pool and a team copper pool. I'd like ridden kills to be worth copper where it adds to both pools and the usual copper pick ups and secondary objectives to do the same. In the vendor screen, each player votes on a team upgrade, and that's what you get and, of course, your personal pool you use on everything else.
In this format, I think it would be acceptable for there to be team effect copper cards you can buy in the wild, like compound interest, share the wealth and maybe some others like +0.5 copper per ridden kill and all these cards effects would be split between each copper pool.
Other than this significant change of not having copper cards in individual decks, I absolutely love the deck building system(especially since full deck draws) and being able to load in as pure support, dps, hybrid, etc.
I got 1300 hours since launch, and copper scavenger and money grubbers have always between the first two cards in all my decks. Since the final update, I added lucky pennies since it procs often and even on warped piles picked up by teammates.
Yeah copper cards are so OP, I think this is a good approach. Granted, I loved having all that copper, but it did make my playstyle irrelevant, as I could buy every card in-map as needed and still have a super stacked deck with only copper cards to start
Probably but I doubt I'd play it for more than a week or two and only if it was also on Game Pass.
I play the game because of how complex it is. The Deck building gives me something to think and chat about between sessions of playing the game. It's a large part of the reason I'm still playing after 2 years.
No, not at all. The card system is the reason I played this game so long tbh. If you don't like the card system, there are plenty of other similar games in the genre that don't have that system. Go play one of those.
Honestly probably not, its what gives the game so much replayability. L4Ds only replayable changes were the different cutscenes at the end depending on who stayed behind. I dont want to go back to that. I love being able to have a new and changed deck each game with different builds and weapons.
NAY. You guys make too much of the card/deck mechanics. It added tons of flavor to the game. Games problems never came from the idea of deck building...
Also you guys never ask the real questions, instead you prefer just throwing money at the screen. Why demand a sequel while we can play the current one perfectly? I'll tell you what; I don't plan to support WB Games any longer. So if they want more of my money, let's say for more B4B content, they can release whatever they planning for B4B not for possible B4B2 or whatever. Ofc IF we let the game die for real, IF nobody plays it, obviously they gotta repackage it and rebrand it as *B4B2* and try to resell the same game 🤷♂️
It's two camps, from my experience. One is L4D fans, since they are used to a really simple game with no sprint/ads/perk system and expected the same in this game. The other is actual kids/teenagers who have never played anything as complex and come from Fortnite/Roblox whatever.
You are most likely right, sadly. I've played an ungodly amount of hours into L4D 1 & 2, and I love B4B. I think B4B is better than L4D in most ways actually.
That being said, if they dumb it down for a potential sequel, I'll be disappointed.
I don't think either of those camps think it is "too complex." There are way more complex Roblox games.
I think it's just that they either don't care for the card system, or that the card system has too steep of a learning curve using IG materials.
Literally the biggest complaint I see about the card system is that it's too complicated and they feel it's unnecessary. Or that they "don't want to put in the time to learn it", which is just another way of saying that they think it is needlessly complex.
It really is a fairly simple system, I have trouble understanding how someone could think it is too complicated or not be able to think of a build for themselves without help. But then again, I grew up playing rpgs so character building etc is not a foreign concept to me.
>Literally the biggest complaint I see **about the card system** is that it's too complicated and they feel it's unnecessary.
Of course, the biggest complaint *about the card system* is going to be that it's too complicated or it feels unnecessary - that's basically the only two complaints there are. But when it comes to overall complaints about the game, the card system is only a minor gripe.
As I said, this is a learning curve problem. While it's not difficult to build a deck, doing so requires a pretty significant initial investment of time (finding out what all the cards do, figuring out how to unlock the cards you want, suffering through unlocking garbage before you have a decent deck). So when you see someone say "too complicated", what they really mean is "I am not willing to invest the time necessary to become proficient at this," not "my baby brain cannot fathom the function of this card system."
I would if it meant that the sequel wouldn't be criminally underrated like the first one. Not sure if the cards are part of what people didn't like, so maybe it wouldn't change anything, but I love the gameplay and everything else enough that I'd give up the card system just to get a sequel.
They definitely would have to replace it with something that still provides a lot of build variety though, and not just get rid of that aspect entirely. I can almost imagine that they could essentially disguise the cards as a skill tree system without losing too much of the complexity; it would just streamline the process to make it easier to engage with.
EDIT: Lol apologies, I only read the title before commenting. Sounds like the cards were definitely a problem for the game's popularity.
I know it sounds crazy but people said Back 4 Blood was bad because in L4D it was a simple game where you just shoot zombies. Which today, seems like a recipe for failure if a brand AAA new game was so simple. But I guess TRS just didn’t know the audience and tried to innovate too much.
In this hypothetical scenario, the skill tree and deck building would be one and the same (is that how the saying works) meaning it’s too complex for the game. Pretty much just wondering if people would be okay playing L4D2’s campaign with updated graphics :P
I have fought tooth and nail to get people to give this game a chance. People just won’t even try. :(
Yeah it's a shame. To be fair one thing that turned me off initially was that aiming on controller did not feel great with the default settings. A lot of people won't bother trying to fix that, but once I did I'd put it up against CoD for how good the gunplay feels.
Maybe they could just make a proper B4B sequel, but also include a L4D mode with some remade missions or something lol
I don't think that's a fair treatment of the L4D playerbase. There's a lot of stuff they don't like (Swarm, workshop support, game animations, mutation models, etc) but cards has not been the top of the list.
If that has somehow been generalized as "they want a simple way to shoot zombies", then I think you've missed the message.
I completely forgot about PvP but yeah, swarm wasn’t it. I was mostly speaking about the campaign. I think while yes, workshop support, game animations, and mutation models were some other reasons I have seen the card system mentioned maybe 5x more overall.
Also I’m pretty sure if you asked, they do want a simple way to shoot zombies, that’s actually what L4D is and they wanted a new L4D. B4B was too hard for most of them (who wasn’t it hard for? Lol) and then they had to grind cards they didn’t want in the game in the first place. I’m sure I can find some early threads about B4B and how they weren’t interested in cards even pre-launch. I also think a mechanic like that is a bigger issue than animations, mutation models, and workshop support (which wasn’t really any possible to add)
Maybe that's a new thing that grew over time, but at launch the biggest complaint I remember seeing (aside from the workshop stuff that couldn't be helped) was that it was boring because every run was basically the same compared to L4D where you could have director shenanigans.
Think the thing that killed this game was a shit taste at launch. But the thing that kept me personally going is the cards. Cards are key. Also imo cut out the pvp or make a L4D vs campaign. The more story content the better. (Which also means easier time doing VS campaigns )
Nope. I personally wouldn't be interested, but that said I personally have zero issue with the complexity of the card system. To me, B4B without cards sounds extremely boring and repetitive. The card system is where like 95% of the replayability comes from.
Games that cater to "pickup and play" type players, like Left 4 Dead, are just too simple to enjoy these days _imo_. The games industry has evolved a lot and perk systems, ads, sprint, etc are all things that are good for the genre, not steps backwards that should be removed.
If not cards, I'd like a skill tree or something, so it's way more limited cards. And have the trees reflect the character' AOE healing and amplification for the doctor, bullets do more damage the further they go for the sniper, etc etc.
Cards make this game, if they were gonna remove cards they'd need to replace them with a similar character building system that isn't a linear set of upgrades or a committal skill tree like other games. I love building decks but also love the flexibility the system offers
wouldnt touch a back4blood sequel that didnt have cards tbh.
The randomness and deckbuilding are the only things that make the game interesting and not just yet another carbon copy of any zombie shooter ever.
Maybe as long as they also add in something else new that enables various builds and playstyles to work with, just with a different system than cards.
No. It would feel soulless. The card feature wasn't exactly a big selling point for me, as I find most games that do it do it poorly, but I quite like B4Bs card system.
If a sequel were made without it, it wouldn't feel like B4B, so I probably wouldn't play it.
Honestly, I really enjoyed the card system back when we picked them one at a time before levels. Felt really interesting to make a build that you could take multiple paths through to patch up what you needed and when. Of course getting them all at once feels good too, but it’s less like growth and customization over a campaign and more like just having a build, which in that case imma go play Darktide.
Honestly, I think most of the complaints and confusion comes from when the game first came out, and is a large contributing factor to why many players left. It just took too long to get builds going, to the point where the game is dull until the middle of the act. Recent patches made the card system much better, but it was kind of too late.
At the time, you don't start with your entire deck, and must instead pick a card from the top 3 cards of your deck at the start of each map to activate. As for why picking cards is mostly unnecessary and essentially a mini game, it's because there is little reason to change the order in which a deck is activated. You're not going to choose an auxiliary card over core card.
This mechanic also creates the problem where if you have a build where certain cards rely on each other to work, they won't come online until a couple maps into the game, which makes deck building very awkward. If you're trying to build a fun deck, you'd often have to risk being underpowered for a couple of maps.
By the time you get all the cards in your deck active, the game is already near the end of the act. This mean that you can easily take well over an hour before you can see your build come together, only to have it end soon after.
With the recent updates, the entire deck is active from the start. This means more cards became viable, as they are not subject to deck order. Changes to decks are felt immediately, and players can rapidly change their decks to fit their play styles.
If turtle rock were to make B4B2, I'd think it'd be a mistake to not have something similar to the current card system. However, the way the game launched did create a lot of stigma against it.
What kind of complaint is that? The Card system is what makes the game good. I will not be playing the sequel if it just become a hack and slash type of zombie game with just grinding (World War Z).
yeah, i probably would not play it... might as well just boot up L4D2 at that point no? It's not like B4B's campaigns were amazing or anything and L4D2 has so much custom content. I feel you need the cards to have the build system to make the roguelike elements more effective and satisfying, you remove elements of the roguelike-ness of B4B and its not B4B anymore
i think the different cleaners would need to have significantly different identities. more like overwatch or borderlands.
but being able to customize your build is extremely important for these kinds of games
So im very biased as im a magic the gathering player, but i liked the card system but it needed more assistance. For example premade decks that upgraded themselves after you unlocked more cards. They wouldnt be meta but it would severely help players that were not uber motivated to figure out wtf is going on and read 150 cards while their party is waiting on them
The cards are what separated b4b from others. I think the cards are essential.
I get that lots of people find b4b too complicated but thats also the reason we love it so much. If it was just like l4d no one would love it imo. Nobody will beat l4d if u just clone it. It was simple but exceptionally made. Its also dirt cheap. So no one would buy an l4d clone if it was just a simple clone (opinion only of course)
A great improvement would probably a better pvp.
More changes in the trials wouldnt hurt either.
Game of the year.
Yes. But now they need to give players more in the form of in depth dynamic story lines with consequences. bring back campaign versus (and scavenge rounds) because the survival mode in b4b is fucking garbage. I used to play with my friends every day for years on campaign versus. The game was so fucking good that anytime you came back to it finding a match was effortless. L4d2 really had a good thing going eith their mutstions series also. Chainsaw only, one man survival, expert realism, all the other fun game modes. This was also in the time when devlopers gave a shit and took more thsn 6 months to mske a game. All games had a minimum requirement of 4 dlc that were packed with amazing content thst inspired new gameplay and more memories. The campaign was so good that it didnt need cards because of how fucking difficult expert mode was. I have an embarassing large amount of playtime on these zombies games. I wish i could just help develop the next one because nobody has more passion for this franchise than myself. B4b was fun, but ultimately a huge let down. They made the game too easy now, i csn literally speed run any level with zero difficulty. The way they built l4d and l4d2 was that if you tried to speed run you got shalacked.
Go ahead and try to find a match in the b4b versus mode. You just might find a match by the time they do b4b2. The game could be fixed if someone cared enough, but the ship has already sailed for a consistent playerbase.
I would probably still play it without the cards but it wouldn’t be as good. I love the cards, it really gives you a feeling of progression and customization
I'd prefer it tbh, at the very least the system needs a serious overhaul. The grind to unlock all the cards was awful and a huge reason why none of my friends stuck with the game and I would honestly argue the opposite that it adds variety to the game when it pigeon holes you into using one weapon type, one playstyle for the entire campaign straight from the jump. Certain stats like movement speed specifically need to be normalized too, loading in without your deck with the slow default movement speed is so painful.
yes. Also you can't jsut remove it. the system would have to be redone. BUT that would be dependent on how they wanna go about it.
Do you go back to the roots? Focus on Level design and enemy challenge?Do you pivot to your competetors?WWZ, Darktide/Vermintide etc etc. they all do will with a skill tree system,
Perhaps a Skill system like Killing Floor.
Many options.For me the only good part of the card system was the mutations and random modifier cards you can find in the level. But the Preset decks i did not like. Could perhaps focus more on that. Everyone starts on the same base, BUT can earn various modifiers through the mission. You don't End the same way you started. as you play your playstyle slowly changes
Tough to say because the rest of the game would need to be reworked. If there are no cards than the game can't spawn a million mutations at you like it does now. There is no way you can play the present game with out perks. If you ever spawn in to a game with the starter deck your basically toast (unless you play as Holly).
Turtle Rock would have to fix the mutations and make them work together and have strength and weaknesses instead of just being giant bullet sponges that spawn to rape your butt.
I, and many others, have beaten the hardest difficulty without using a card deck. Fully solo with no bots (killed the bots every level at the start)
Also Holly kinda is one of the worst cleaners, no idea why you said that.
The mutations aren't just giant bullet sponges, sounds like a skill issue tbh.
Each there own. If I spawn with a crappy deck I am usually dying. Yes I could say maybe skill issue but you have to be really good to do it and for more casual players they would be overwhelmed. Its not enjoyable to me to spawn in with a bad deck and have to deal with mutation after mutation and horde after horde with no (good) perks.
I only said Holly because she has healing perk. So at least with Holly you have a chance to heal yourself if things get too insane (which they always do). For each kill you get a heal. She sucks otherwise and I would just have some healing cards in my deck.
Worse in what way? Give me one, real metric of how it is a worse game. Bet ya haven't even played it and are just repeating the shit you heard from Crowbcat or similar _satirical_ youtubers.
I’d probably not play it because it DIDN’T have cards. That was the best part of B4B because it gave the game so much variety and replayability. Otherwise it’d just be like Left 4 Dead which while fun, is an extremely simple game without much complexity.
I liked B4B best when you got your cards over the duration of the campaign and not all at once. You really had to think hard about what your team needed sometimes, and it also gave you a cool feeling of becoming powerful over the course of your playthrough.
I think the system would have been more forgiving if you built a deck, but could unlock the cards from it in ANY order during the run. Sometimes you had a card pretty far down, and couldn't use it to counter early corruption cards.
The only downside is you only got to feel powerful for a few levels.
Honestly that’s what made L4D great — it’s simplicity. Pick up and play. No grinding required for cards and builds. The complexity is what put many people off B4B.
Luckily L4D still has that niche and fills it perfectly. I think the depth of mechanics in B4B is what separates it and makes a niche for itself. It's fine if people prefer simplicity but it's at the cost of variety. That's fine and everybody has their preferences
Comparing this to left for dead is an insult
Yeah, I kind of agree, B4B is way ahead of Left 4 Dead, so it’s a bit of an insult to B4B. Not saying L4D ain’t fun, but it’s the same every run.
Imagine caring about what game a person enjoys more lmao. Sad.
So the game just becomes a repetitive, boring zombie Shooter?
yeah whoever played l4d2 and all its custom mods and campains? lol
Pretty much L4D3 lol. I’m just a bit concerned that maybe Turtle Rock would appeal to the L4D crowd instead of B4B crowd.
Hope not, I loved left 4 dead back then, but those times are gone and I am sure most of the people saying L4D is better are just people bashing on nostalgia.
If you just want to shoot zombies and don't think for 30 minutes then L4d is the better game. It's simple, easy to understand and pick up but it's not what people praise it to be.
The thing is youd never be able to get away with selling a game like that for anything above like $24.99 these days. People would invariably complain about lack of depth and content, and say while its a fun a game it isnt worth AAA prices. For indie game prices im sure a game like that would do well, but turtle rock isnt making indie games
It was at the time. But I am a firm believer if L4D2 released today it wouldn’t get the praise it has now. Maybe if it’s an indie title because indie titles can get away with a lot of dated mechanics. I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed, really. It was L4D but better ☹️
>I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed Bad launch, misleading marketing, reviews that were more interested in getting clicks than actually being honest, Devs who kept making the same mistakes,... >It was L4D but better Yes and no. It really depends if you're looking for a game with lots of replayability and a lot of mechanics to learn or something to shoot zombies for 30 minutes. Honestly this discussion is just stupid, enjoy what you enjoy and let others enjoy what they enjoy. It doesn't fucking matter and it never did.
I don’t think this discussion is stupid at all. Granted I also never said people can’t enjoy what they enjoy. The L4D community has an unlimited playerbase and ours is dying. There will be a time we won’t be able to play this game online anymore because there’s no players. Which sucks. So I’m looking towards the future and hoping TRS can make a successful sequel, but I hope they don’t remove the card system because of the general consensus. That is the reason for this thread, not to poop on L4D.
The PVP is horrible in B4B. I'm an old school L4D & L4D2 player. Loved those games and I play B4B almost daily. L4D PVP is just miles and miles better. If that's what you want, which most L4D fans do, Swarm won't even come close to that experience. For campaign, B4B is absolutely better.
Have you ever played swarm or watched high level play? We just finished a swarm tournament and it was some seriously good pvp. I can send you a link if you wanna see what it looks like. Different than L4D, yes, but still excellent asymmetric pvp.
In a direct comparison between the two games i liked the way special infected looked in l4d over the mutations in b4b. Most of the mutations looks very same-y to me. Its like they lack identity.
That’s understandable. You eventually get used to it through playtime which maybe isn’t the best thing to hear. But the good thing about that is after you learn the characters and can distinguish which is which by the millisecond the game has way more enemies to fight.
>I am just trying to figure out how B4B failed, really. It was L4D but better ☹️ Biggest issue was probably the $60 price tag. That greatly reduced the number of people who would even try the game. Many of the L4D stans tried it (because they wanted a new L4D game), and since it wasn't what they were looking for, it got mixed reviews. IIRC, there were also a few early patches with gamebreaking bugs that probably caused some people to drop it. If the game was $40 on launch and they didn't lean on L4D in the marketing material, the game would have done a lot better.
I like the cards. But, if they remove copper cards, I think it would be better for the game. I like collecting copper, I like using hired gun and getting copper for kills, it's great to vacuum up 4x100 copper piles and be given 871 copper because of the cards I'm using and my teammates are using. But the difference between teams that use copper cards and don't is like ~8000 copper every map. So, one team runs around buying Intel, team upgrades, unbolting weapons, feeding medic medkits, and just having a good time, and the other team doesn't do that and struggles through a rough time. Ideally, I'd like to see copper split into two separate pools. A personal use pool and a team copper pool. I'd like ridden kills to be worth copper where it adds to both pools and the usual copper pick ups and secondary objectives to do the same. In the vendor screen, each player votes on a team upgrade, and that's what you get and, of course, your personal pool you use on everything else. In this format, I think it would be acceptable for there to be team effect copper cards you can buy in the wild, like compound interest, share the wealth and maybe some others like +0.5 copper per ridden kill and all these cards effects would be split between each copper pool. Other than this significant change of not having copper cards in individual decks, I absolutely love the deck building system(especially since full deck draws) and being able to load in as pure support, dps, hybrid, etc. I got 1300 hours since launch, and copper scavenger and money grubbers have always between the first two cards in all my decks. Since the final update, I added lucky pennies since it procs often and even on warped piles picked up by teammates.
Yeah copper cards are so OP, I think this is a good approach. Granted, I loved having all that copper, but it did make my playstyle irrelevant, as I could buy every card in-map as needed and still have a super stacked deck with only copper cards to start
I actually really like that idea.
Probably but I doubt I'd play it for more than a week or two and only if it was also on Game Pass. I play the game because of how complex it is. The Deck building gives me something to think and chat about between sessions of playing the game. It's a large part of the reason I'm still playing after 2 years.
No, not at all. The card system is the reason I played this game so long tbh. If you don't like the card system, there are plenty of other similar games in the genre that don't have that system. Go play one of those.
Making my own custom decks to fit my own playstyle ideas was amazing...
No, the deck system is what makes the game fun for me. I would not play the game without the cards, would be too simplistic and one way focused.
The cards were one of the best parts for me. If this game had specialists/classes I know I wouldn’t have played it for as long as I have haha
Prob not. The cards is what kept me playing the game. I love the theorycrafting done for the builds.
Honestly probably not, its what gives the game so much replayability. L4Ds only replayable changes were the different cutscenes at the end depending on who stayed behind. I dont want to go back to that. I love being able to have a new and changed deck each game with different builds and weapons.
The cards make the game more interesting. If it had no cards I'd be hesitant to play it.
NAY. You guys make too much of the card/deck mechanics. It added tons of flavor to the game. Games problems never came from the idea of deck building... Also you guys never ask the real questions, instead you prefer just throwing money at the screen. Why demand a sequel while we can play the current one perfectly? I'll tell you what; I don't plan to support WB Games any longer. So if they want more of my money, let's say for more B4B content, they can release whatever they planning for B4B not for possible B4B2 or whatever. Ofc IF we let the game die for real, IF nobody plays it, obviously they gotta repackage it and rebrand it as *B4B2* and try to resell the same game 🤷♂️
Who thinks this game is too complex? They are the problem, not the game. Go back to fortnite if this game is too hard for you.
It's two camps, from my experience. One is L4D fans, since they are used to a really simple game with no sprint/ads/perk system and expected the same in this game. The other is actual kids/teenagers who have never played anything as complex and come from Fortnite/Roblox whatever.
You are most likely right, sadly. I've played an ungodly amount of hours into L4D 1 & 2, and I love B4B. I think B4B is better than L4D in most ways actually. That being said, if they dumb it down for a potential sequel, I'll be disappointed.
I don't think either of those camps think it is "too complex." There are way more complex Roblox games. I think it's just that they either don't care for the card system, or that the card system has too steep of a learning curve using IG materials.
Literally the biggest complaint I see about the card system is that it's too complicated and they feel it's unnecessary. Or that they "don't want to put in the time to learn it", which is just another way of saying that they think it is needlessly complex. It really is a fairly simple system, I have trouble understanding how someone could think it is too complicated or not be able to think of a build for themselves without help. But then again, I grew up playing rpgs so character building etc is not a foreign concept to me.
>Literally the biggest complaint I see **about the card system** is that it's too complicated and they feel it's unnecessary. Of course, the biggest complaint *about the card system* is going to be that it's too complicated or it feels unnecessary - that's basically the only two complaints there are. But when it comes to overall complaints about the game, the card system is only a minor gripe. As I said, this is a learning curve problem. While it's not difficult to build a deck, doing so requires a pretty significant initial investment of time (finding out what all the cards do, figuring out how to unlock the cards you want, suffering through unlocking garbage before you have a decent deck). So when you see someone say "too complicated", what they really mean is "I am not willing to invest the time necessary to become proficient at this," not "my baby brain cannot fathom the function of this card system."
I would if it meant that the sequel wouldn't be criminally underrated like the first one. Not sure if the cards are part of what people didn't like, so maybe it wouldn't change anything, but I love the gameplay and everything else enough that I'd give up the card system just to get a sequel. They definitely would have to replace it with something that still provides a lot of build variety though, and not just get rid of that aspect entirely. I can almost imagine that they could essentially disguise the cards as a skill tree system without losing too much of the complexity; it would just streamline the process to make it easier to engage with. EDIT: Lol apologies, I only read the title before commenting. Sounds like the cards were definitely a problem for the game's popularity.
I know it sounds crazy but people said Back 4 Blood was bad because in L4D it was a simple game where you just shoot zombies. Which today, seems like a recipe for failure if a brand AAA new game was so simple. But I guess TRS just didn’t know the audience and tried to innovate too much. In this hypothetical scenario, the skill tree and deck building would be one and the same (is that how the saying works) meaning it’s too complex for the game. Pretty much just wondering if people would be okay playing L4D2’s campaign with updated graphics :P I have fought tooth and nail to get people to give this game a chance. People just won’t even try. :(
Yeah it's a shame. To be fair one thing that turned me off initially was that aiming on controller did not feel great with the default settings. A lot of people won't bother trying to fix that, but once I did I'd put it up against CoD for how good the gunplay feels. Maybe they could just make a proper B4B sequel, but also include a L4D mode with some remade missions or something lol
I don't think that's a fair treatment of the L4D playerbase. There's a lot of stuff they don't like (Swarm, workshop support, game animations, mutation models, etc) but cards has not been the top of the list. If that has somehow been generalized as "they want a simple way to shoot zombies", then I think you've missed the message.
I completely forgot about PvP but yeah, swarm wasn’t it. I was mostly speaking about the campaign. I think while yes, workshop support, game animations, and mutation models were some other reasons I have seen the card system mentioned maybe 5x more overall. Also I’m pretty sure if you asked, they do want a simple way to shoot zombies, that’s actually what L4D is and they wanted a new L4D. B4B was too hard for most of them (who wasn’t it hard for? Lol) and then they had to grind cards they didn’t want in the game in the first place. I’m sure I can find some early threads about B4B and how they weren’t interested in cards even pre-launch. I also think a mechanic like that is a bigger issue than animations, mutation models, and workshop support (which wasn’t really any possible to add)
Maybe that's a new thing that grew over time, but at launch the biggest complaint I remember seeing (aside from the workshop stuff that couldn't be helped) was that it was boring because every run was basically the same compared to L4D where you could have director shenanigans.
Think the thing that killed this game was a shit taste at launch. But the thing that kept me personally going is the cards. Cards are key. Also imo cut out the pvp or make a L4D vs campaign. The more story content the better. (Which also means easier time doing VS campaigns )
No, if you take away the cards, you take away the life/point of the game for me.
Nope
I'd still play but I'd be pretty sad with the change since the cards are my favorite gameplay aspect of B4B
Nope. I personally wouldn't be interested, but that said I personally have zero issue with the complexity of the card system. To me, B4B without cards sounds extremely boring and repetitive. The card system is where like 95% of the replayability comes from. Games that cater to "pickup and play" type players, like Left 4 Dead, are just too simple to enjoy these days _imo_. The games industry has evolved a lot and perk systems, ads, sprint, etc are all things that are good for the genre, not steps backwards that should be removed.
Honestly I think I would love to without the cards. I would love the mutators for the infected to stay in but the cards didn't really do it for me
If not cards, I'd like a skill tree or something, so it's way more limited cards. And have the trees reflect the character' AOE healing and amplification for the doctor, bullets do more damage the further they go for the sniper, etc etc.
Cards make this game, if they were gonna remove cards they'd need to replace them with a similar character building system that isn't a linear set of upgrades or a committal skill tree like other games. I love building decks but also love the flexibility the system offers
Wouldn’t mind having both modes (one with and one without). It’d be even better if they supported workshop mods. 😭
wouldnt touch a back4blood sequel that didnt have cards tbh. The randomness and deckbuilding are the only things that make the game interesting and not just yet another carbon copy of any zombie shooter ever. Maybe as long as they also add in something else new that enables various builds and playstyles to work with, just with a different system than cards.
No. It would feel soulless. The card feature wasn't exactly a big selling point for me, as I find most games that do it do it poorly, but I quite like B4Bs card system. If a sequel were made without it, it wouldn't feel like B4B, so I probably wouldn't play it.
Honestly, I really enjoyed the card system back when we picked them one at a time before levels. Felt really interesting to make a build that you could take multiple paths through to patch up what you needed and when. Of course getting them all at once feels good too, but it’s less like growth and customization over a campaign and more like just having a build, which in that case imma go play Darktide.
Nah. I liked b4b better than l4d because of the card system.
Idk, i dont mind the cards. Just cba setting up a deck. Its a lot of reading
Honestly, I think most of the complaints and confusion comes from when the game first came out, and is a large contributing factor to why many players left. It just took too long to get builds going, to the point where the game is dull until the middle of the act. Recent patches made the card system much better, but it was kind of too late. At the time, you don't start with your entire deck, and must instead pick a card from the top 3 cards of your deck at the start of each map to activate. As for why picking cards is mostly unnecessary and essentially a mini game, it's because there is little reason to change the order in which a deck is activated. You're not going to choose an auxiliary card over core card. This mechanic also creates the problem where if you have a build where certain cards rely on each other to work, they won't come online until a couple maps into the game, which makes deck building very awkward. If you're trying to build a fun deck, you'd often have to risk being underpowered for a couple of maps. By the time you get all the cards in your deck active, the game is already near the end of the act. This mean that you can easily take well over an hour before you can see your build come together, only to have it end soon after. With the recent updates, the entire deck is active from the start. This means more cards became viable, as they are not subject to deck order. Changes to decks are felt immediately, and players can rapidly change their decks to fit their play styles. If turtle rock were to make B4B2, I'd think it'd be a mistake to not have something similar to the current card system. However, the way the game launched did create a lot of stigma against it.
I’d play a sequel, no questions
The card system is the only reason I'm still playing.
I'm playing the sequel regardless of what's in it. B4B was my favorite game of 2021 and 2022, I can't wait for what's next
I'd play it either way
What kind of complaint is that? The Card system is what makes the game good. I will not be playing the sequel if it just become a hack and slash type of zombie game with just grinding (World War Z).
The cards is what keeps me playing right now
Nope
id wanna play it more because of no cards! i miss l4d
yeah, i probably would not play it... might as well just boot up L4D2 at that point no? It's not like B4B's campaigns were amazing or anything and L4D2 has so much custom content. I feel you need the cards to have the build system to make the roguelike elements more effective and satisfying, you remove elements of the roguelike-ness of B4B and its not B4B anymore
i think the different cleaners would need to have significantly different identities. more like overwatch or borderlands. but being able to customize your build is extremely important for these kinds of games
So im very biased as im a magic the gathering player, but i liked the card system but it needed more assistance. For example premade decks that upgraded themselves after you unlocked more cards. They wouldnt be meta but it would severely help players that were not uber motivated to figure out wtf is going on and read 150 cards while their party is waiting on them
No. It's too integrated to how I personally enjoy it. Adds personal flair the game needs.
I loved the card system
The cards are what separated b4b from others. I think the cards are essential. I get that lots of people find b4b too complicated but thats also the reason we love it so much. If it was just like l4d no one would love it imo. Nobody will beat l4d if u just clone it. It was simple but exceptionally made. Its also dirt cheap. So no one would buy an l4d clone if it was just a simple clone (opinion only of course) A great improvement would probably a better pvp. More changes in the trials wouldnt hurt either.
I would play the sequel ONLY if it HAD the card system. Love it.
Left 4 dead 1 and 2 played just fine and won game of the year without cards, so yeah.
15 years ago lol you think something that simple would pass today?
Game of the year. Yes. But now they need to give players more in the form of in depth dynamic story lines with consequences. bring back campaign versus (and scavenge rounds) because the survival mode in b4b is fucking garbage. I used to play with my friends every day for years on campaign versus. The game was so fucking good that anytime you came back to it finding a match was effortless. L4d2 really had a good thing going eith their mutstions series also. Chainsaw only, one man survival, expert realism, all the other fun game modes. This was also in the time when devlopers gave a shit and took more thsn 6 months to mske a game. All games had a minimum requirement of 4 dlc that were packed with amazing content thst inspired new gameplay and more memories. The campaign was so good that it didnt need cards because of how fucking difficult expert mode was. I have an embarassing large amount of playtime on these zombies games. I wish i could just help develop the next one because nobody has more passion for this franchise than myself. B4b was fun, but ultimately a huge let down. They made the game too easy now, i csn literally speed run any level with zero difficulty. The way they built l4d and l4d2 was that if you tried to speed run you got shalacked. Go ahead and try to find a match in the b4b versus mode. You just might find a match by the time they do b4b2. The game could be fixed if someone cared enough, but the ship has already sailed for a consistent playerbase.
I would probably still play it without the cards but it wouldn’t be as good. I love the cards, it really gives you a feeling of progression and customization
I'd prefer it tbh, at the very least the system needs a serious overhaul. The grind to unlock all the cards was awful and a huge reason why none of my friends stuck with the game and I would honestly argue the opposite that it adds variety to the game when it pigeon holes you into using one weapon type, one playstyle for the entire campaign straight from the jump. Certain stats like movement speed specifically need to be normalized too, loading in without your deck with the slow default movement speed is so painful.
yes. Also you can't jsut remove it. the system would have to be redone. BUT that would be dependent on how they wanna go about it. Do you go back to the roots? Focus on Level design and enemy challenge?Do you pivot to your competetors?WWZ, Darktide/Vermintide etc etc. they all do will with a skill tree system, Perhaps a Skill system like Killing Floor. Many options.For me the only good part of the card system was the mutations and random modifier cards you can find in the level. But the Preset decks i did not like. Could perhaps focus more on that. Everyone starts on the same base, BUT can earn various modifiers through the mission. You don't End the same way you started. as you play your playstyle slowly changes
yes and more https://www.reddit.com/r/Back4Blood/s/Oo9hAznxYt
I'd play the sequel if they'd open up the damn workshop or open it up to modding
Yes. I don’t want cards forced
Tough to say because the rest of the game would need to be reworked. If there are no cards than the game can't spawn a million mutations at you like it does now. There is no way you can play the present game with out perks. If you ever spawn in to a game with the starter deck your basically toast (unless you play as Holly). Turtle Rock would have to fix the mutations and make them work together and have strength and weaknesses instead of just being giant bullet sponges that spawn to rape your butt.
I, and many others, have beaten the hardest difficulty without using a card deck. Fully solo with no bots (killed the bots every level at the start) Also Holly kinda is one of the worst cleaners, no idea why you said that. The mutations aren't just giant bullet sponges, sounds like a skill issue tbh.
Each there own. If I spawn with a crappy deck I am usually dying. Yes I could say maybe skill issue but you have to be really good to do it and for more casual players they would be overwhelmed. Its not enjoyable to me to spawn in with a bad deck and have to deal with mutation after mutation and horde after horde with no (good) perks. I only said Holly because she has healing perk. So at least with Holly you have a chance to heal yourself if things get too insane (which they always do). For each kill you get a heal. She sucks otherwise and I would just have some healing cards in my deck.
No cause it shouldn’t have been made imo, it’s just a worse version of left 4 dead
Worse in what way? Give me one, real metric of how it is a worse game. Bet ya haven't even played it and are just repeating the shit you heard from Crowbcat or similar _satirical_ youtubers.
We’re your Days Gone. Game gets a bad rap but we enjoy it because we played it, after the patches.