Back 4 Blood 2

[AsianGirlLover]

Turtlerock, if a sequel is in the cards (pardon the pun) for Back for Blood, one thing I’d humbly recommend is that your developers should be able to complete the entire game on the most brutal difficulty WITHOUT the use of your deck system.

The key to making the game fun is for pure, raw, unfiltered skill expression being king for claiming victory. The decks should serve nothing more than being a way for players to express themselves and add a little flavor to the game.

In short, please play your game as much as you spend time making it. If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?

[Terron]

I am not sure I am following what you are saying here. You mean make it so you can beat the game on hardest difficulty with no cards and only have cards as an option for some playstyle flavor? If so I disagree wholeheartedly as that would be like asking path of exile to allow players to beat hardest content without making use of the skill tree. Player builds are one of the best parts of back 4 blood and what keep me playing it regularly to this day.

[AsianGirlLover]

Originally posted by Terron:

I am not sure I am following what you are saying here. You mean make it so you can beat the game on hardest difficulty with no cards and only have cards as an option for some playstyle flavor? If so I disagree wholeheartedly as that would be like asking path of exile to allow players to beat hardest content without making use of the skill tree. Player builds are one of the best parts of back 4 blood and what keep me playing it regularly to this day.

Perhaps the game just isn’t for me, then. I feel like the deck system feels necessary rather than a fun option. Without an “optimal” deck, you’re being constrained to playing on only the lower difficulties.

For players that want an actual challenge, the card system should be nice to have, but not critical for surviving the hardest difficulties.

[Terron]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Originally posted by Terron:

I am not sure I am following what you are saying here. You mean make it so you can beat the game on hardest difficulty with no cards and only have cards as an option for some playstyle flavor? If so I disagree wholeheartedly as that would be like asking path of exile to allow players to beat hardest content without making use of the skill tree. Player builds are one of the best parts of back 4 blood and what keep me playing it regularly to this day.

Perhaps the game just isn’t for me, then. I feel like the deck system feels necessary rather than a fun option. Without an “optimal” deck, you’re being constrained to playing on only the lower difficulties.

For players that want an actual challenge, the card system should be nice to have, but not critical for surviving the hardest difficulties.

I think thats exactly the point though. The lower difficulties are for those who want to learn the basics and just enjoy a chill run but the higher up the difficulties you go the more the game expects of you both in terms of gameplay skill as well as decks. To be fair I certainly wouldnt say its only super optimal decks that work on highest difficulty. My brothers and I have made numerous decks for all different weapon types and even simple all round decks where therees just a few dps cards, few heal cards, few copper cards etc and nothing weapon specific. Then you just play whatever weapon you want and we even got through no hope this way. Hardest difficulty is indeed challenging but its not as though there are only 2 or 3 super meta builds and you need to use them or your screwed. Its not that bad. I DO see the appeal of left 4 deads more simple pick up and play appeal though. You pick a gun and go. Thats great too to be fair but I love that Back 4 Blood is doing its own thing.

[JI06CT3P]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Turtlerock, if a sequel is in the cards (pardon the pun) for Back for Blood, one thing I’d humbly recommend is that your developers should be able to complete the entire game on the most brutal difficulty WITHOUT the use of your deck system.

The key to making the game fun is for pure, raw, unfiltered skill expression being king for claiming victory. The decks should serve nothing more than being a way for players to express themselves and add a little flavor to the game.

In short, please play your game as much as you spend time making it. If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?

indeed

[Highrule -1]

Originally posted by Terron:

I am not sure I am following what you are saying here. You mean make it so you can beat the game on hardest difficulty with no cards and only have cards as an option for some playstyle flavor? If so I disagree wholeheartedly as that would be like asking path of exile to allow players to beat hardest content without making use of the skill tree. Player builds are one of the best parts of back 4 blood and what keep me playing it regularly to this day.

Your comparison between PoE and B4B is utterly stupid. PoE's entire existence revolves around "making a build"; you make a tree, you grind gear, you play the trade game, you test the build against increasingly difficult content. The players who play a "finished" build are in the extreme minority because the game isn't meant for that -- tree no longer matters, drops are irrelevant, trade has no purpose and there is no more "difficult" content when you can just stomp everything. 99.9% of what the game is about stops being relevant to your experience, making the game real boring real fast.

And this is what B4B does. It gives you a nearly "finished" build through decks before you even start the game; all that's left is equivalent to minmaxing a PoE build through rolling max stats with divs or getting those q23 gems where applicable; you upgrade guns, items and buy the occasional usable card you find. 80% of the "gameplay" is done once you've compiled your deck.

In PoE, you can't do ♥♥♥♥ with a lvl 100 skill tree if you don't have gear. In B4B, your deck covers most of your needs and if you're playing a bash deck, you're good for the entire campaign at the start of first mission.

And the point OP is making about skill should be really obvious. The deck system right now is a replacement for player skill requirements. This is good for players who suck at games, but is boring and in the long term becomes frustrating for anyone else. I still struggle with professional in L4D2, partly because I'm relatively bad at fps games and partly because age is degrading my gaming ability, but in B4B I ran A6 blind on NH and didn't find it particularly difficult. A decent deck fully covers whatever skill or knowledge I might lack, and sometimes it's frustrating to know that my success has nothing to do with my actions as the one playing the game, but rather the deck that was chosen at the very start of the run.

[SOURCE]

"hey can you make the sequel, but remove all the mechanics that make it different from left for dead?"

[Heretic]

I wouldn't take seriously anything Highrule says, especially that they "ran A6 blind on NH and didn't find it particularly difficult.", and but also claims they are old and bad at FPS games.

OP, I think its the opposite. The hardest difficulty should be gated behind understanding what is power and not power in B4B. A handful of cards in every deck all of sudden turns No Hope from difficult to manageable, and that quickly snowballs into easy mode after 3-4 hives. You just need to understand which cards you need for that.

Play with bots and see which of their cards are benefiting you the most, and then maybe take a handful of those for your own deck, and then everyone will benefit.

But some cardless No Hope runs would be interesting to see though.

[Highrule -1]

Originally posted by Heretic:

I wouldn't take seriously anything Highrule says, especially that they "ran A6 blind on NH and didn't find it particularly difficult.", and but also claims they are old and bad at FPS games.

And those two statements are contradictory how? It's not like this is a skill-based fps, the literal main attraction of this game allows players to mitigate and/or remove their flaws through appropriate deckbuilding.

[Kolgrimr]

Did you max out aim assist while using a pre-nerfed T5 deck? Which 15 cards did you use for your "blind run?" Can we see your B4B stats?

[Highrule -1]

Based on your post in the other topic you don't seem to have (entirely) hostile intent so sure, I'll humor you a bit. Here's proof of me getting both Recruit and NH achievements the exact same day and minute on Steam: https://imgur.com/a/Ae9fsCU

Here's the deck I used: https://forthope.gg/decks/TFJygLZwT3ASPQpxsaBN

[Heretic]

Well I guess using Melee and having bots provide 90% of the useful team support effects while carrying the ranged DPS it makes sense, but where is the fun in that?

[Terron]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Originally posted by Terron:

I am not sure I am following what you are saying here. You mean make it so you can beat the game on hardest difficulty with no cards and only have cards as an option for some playstyle flavor? If so I disagree wholeheartedly as that would be like asking path of exile to allow players to beat hardest content without making use of the skill tree. Player builds are one of the best parts of back 4 blood and what keep me playing it regularly to this day.

Your comparison between PoE and B4B is utterly stupid. PoE's entire existence revolves around "making a build"; you make a tree, you grind gear, you play the trade game, you test the build against increasingly difficult content. The players who play a "finished" build are in the extreme minority because the game isn't meant for that -- tree no longer matters, drops are irrelevant, trade has no purpose and there is no more "difficult" content when you can just stomp everything. 99.9% of what the game is about stops being relevant to your experience, making the game real boring real fast.

And this is what B4B does. It gives you a nearly "finished" build through decks before you even start the game; all that's left is equivalent to minmaxing a PoE build through rolling max stats with divs or getting those q23 gems where applicable; you upgrade guns, items and buy the occasional usable card you find. 80% of the "gameplay" is done once you've compiled your deck.

In PoE, you can't do ♥♥♥♥ with a lvl 100 skill tree if you don't have gear. In B4B, your deck covers most of your needs and if you're playing a bash deck, you're good for the entire campaign at the start of first mission.

And the point OP is making about skill should be really obvious. The deck system right now is a replacement for player skill requirements. This is good for players who suck at games, but is boring and in the long term becomes frustrating for anyone else. I still struggle with professional in L4D2, partly because I'm relatively bad at fps games and partly because age is degrading my gaming ability, but in B4B I ran A6 blind on NH and didn't find it particularly difficult. A decent deck fully covers whatever skill or knowledge I might lack, and sometimes it's frustrating to know that my success has nothing to do with my actions as the one playing the game, but rather the deck that was chosen at the very start of the run.

Disagree. The decks add a ton of variety to playstyles and playstyles vary gameplay up. The decks can make the game piss easy but that is why difficulty settings exist. Now melee is very unbalanced and trivialises a lot of the game indeed especially if you get grim reaper (I also wish cost of avarice didnt exist as it busts up the copper economy too). If you get to the point where you find no hope easy too then you have trial of the worm which is also great as you can max out its penalites to make a very challenging experience even with many of the meta builds. Theres plenty of room for skill expression in back 4 blood even with the deck system. I play a lot of no hope with randoms and by golly it can be plenty challenging.

[Highrule -1]

Originally posted by Heretic:

Well I guess using Melee and having bots provide 90% of the useful team support effects while carrying the ranged DPS it makes sense, but where is the fun in that?

Unreal. Why don't you copy that deck and run A6 NH with bots and tell me how it went?

[Heretic]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Originally posted by Heretic:

Well I guess using Melee and having bots provide 90% of the useful team support effects while carrying the ranged DPS it makes sense, but where is the fun in that?

Unreal. Why don't you copy that deck and run A6 NH with bots and tell me how it went?

No thanks its fine, wouldn't be much of a challenge anyways since I wouldn't be doing it blind like you did, right?

Plus, all you did was tell a story and show a picture, I still don't believe a word you say.

"I'm bad, no wait I'm good!, but only in B4B because of cards!, But that deck is super bad! You couldn't do it blind! but I could, but i'm bad at FPS games, but B4B is bad because I beat it going in blindly in 2024, years after release! I didn't pirate the game and play through it multiple times before buying it on steam because I actually like it, I swear!"

[Knee]

Why not just make a single deck that you like and then just use that ad infinitum? You only have to make the deck once.