Back 4 Blood is really good, but the PVP is a shine

The Zombie Shooter Back 4 Blood was able to inspire many players on Steam at the weekend - but not the PVP mode. That's an absolute disaster.

In the last few days, the beta took place from Back 4 Blood and allowed it to look in the coming zombie shooter. Together with three friends, I balled up almost 20 hours through the different modes and transported several thousand zombies into the hereafter.

My first impression: The game gets really cool for those who stand on cooperative baller action as in Left 4 Dead. But there is a huge problem: PVP mode is a disaster and makes as many mistakes that it will virtually a dead birth.

But before I start with the problems, I want to explain what the PVP mode is at all.

Round-based PVP with guaranteed death

In the PVP mode of Back 4 Blood, 4 cleaners (people) contact against 4 Ridden (zombies). First team a people and team b plays the zombies. The game is played on relatively small cards, where you just have to defend the environment. A destination, such as a sacerouse, does not exist.

Team A is trying to survive as long as possible. You choose cards from your decks (quasi "perks") and must divide the sparse resources scattered on the map. Also for this you have a short minute time to prepare before the zombies attack.

There are a total of three regular waves on zombies and after each wave a short intermediate phase in which the "swarm" moves. The swarm marks something like a death zone and adjoins the area in which people can stop without suffering permanently. So the playing field will gradually become smaller, as you know it from "Battle Royale" titles. It is not possible to shamble in a room from the beginning, as it will be taken over soon from the swarm.

Should people survive all 3 waves - which takes pretty precisely 5 minutes - comes a last, endless wave of zombies. The swarm has restricted the playing field to a radius of maybe 5 meters, so it's just a question of seconds before the zombie players win.

If the last person goes to the ground, then the two teams change. Team A now hits the role of zombies, while Team B plays people.

The zombies are divided into different classes, such as:

• Tallboy, a slower, but devastating carpenters
• Reeker, a thick zombie that can spit and explode poison
• Stinger, an agile but frail zombie, the surviving party spinning

Zombies can be upgraded in the course of the game - both the special zombies of the players and the normal zombies. This is about mutation points that you get automatically over time and over bonuses when you harm humans.

The time before Team A is now the timeout that it is necessary to beat. If Team B manages to endure longer than Team A, Team B wins this round. If it succeeds the Zombies, Team A to turn off before reaching the time limit, the victory goes to Team B.

Afterwards, the whole thing is repeated on two other maps, because it is a "Best of 3".

Too much preparation for too little playing time

What sounds on the paper after a cool concept fails on so many corners and ends that the fun is completely on the track.

Especially bitter is the relationship between preparation time and actual gameplay. That's just terrible.

• Each round starts with 75 seconds in which the cleaner can select your cards. Zombies choose their character and wait in time.
• Then follow once more than 60-70 seconds in which the cleaner have time to browse the card to collect equipment and prepare your defense. Zombies are looking for a possible spawn point - and wait the rest of the time.
• It follows the actual match in which the cleaners usually survive between 2 and 5 minutes. Sometimes more sometimes less.
• Then change the two teams and the whole thing begins again.

Or otherwise said: Each round has exactly as much preparation time as actual gameplay for both sides.

Left 4 Dead made it before, back 4 Blood makes it gone

Extremely arg is also the comparison to the predecessors and thus also rans Left 4 Dead - Part 1 and 2. Here, all the maps of the campaign missions could also be played in the PVP. The survivors tried to come as much as possible, while the zombies had to ensure that the survivors die as early as possible. The further one came as a survivor, the more points there was.

Here you could have been able to use all the different campaign cards. In Left 4 Dead, a lot of fun to stop the survivors on the campaign cards and eat or eat as a survivor just as struck the safe room to earn really many points. Different strategies of "We all roughen all panicked" about "We go slowly and carefully before" goods possible. As a result, no match felt like another.

Exactly this variety, the back 4 Blood in the Koop campaign makes so grandiose, completely lost in PVP mode in its current version.

It really does not speak about a few cards on which you just have to endure a while. That would be interesting as part of a variety of cards. But that all cards are only solely "defend this point to your death" is sad and leaves the PVP mode far, very far behind the expectations and potential.

One last big point is the lack of feeling of satisfaction that is created as a human player. At Left 4 Dead, there was always a possible endpoint. A sacerouse or an event that people had to reach to get the maximum score and thus have won almost.

It does not exist in Back 4 Blood. People die. Guaranteed. There is no survival. No matter how well the team fights, the mode is designed to be overrun at the top of the 5-minute brand and killed at the latest. Even if you are overwhelming a grandiose time of 8 or 9 minutes, it is waiting at the end of death. So a victory never feels like a real victory, no matter how good you were.

Problems that exist (hopefully) only in the beta

There are also numerous other problems that were extremely disturbing in the beta, but probably with the beta. But I want to mention them for completeness halfway anyway

• Matches were never held 4VS4. Almost immediately one or more players leaves the game. Receverser There are no and missing players are not being temporarily replaced by bots. If a player is missing, it's missing and is a huge disadvantage.
• Connection problems reinforced the first problem. Often there were error messages from the server.
• Even if the whole opposing team has disappeared, the game does not end. The mode is simply playing further, no matter if there is something to do or not.

But at least these last three problems are probably because it was only a beta and there was no penalties for disconnects - in server stability but also better.

Also the community is angry

By the way, with the displeasure about this game mode, I am not alone. The subreddit of Back 4 Blood has hardly been spoken in connection with the PVP about anything other than all the misconduct of this mode (via reddit.com).

So Potatoflavoredbrain writes:

I would kill for campaign PVP (zombies of course). Honestly for everything that is not this current circle-arena PVP shit. Presumably there were campaign PVP in the planning, but [because of Covid] was probably rejected.

SHDAVISTX also looks similarly drastically:

_The PVP mode is an absolute joke. Everyone wanted the game mode from the L4D2 PVP. Anyone who has made the decision that "Swarm" is the PVP mode is fired.

BamboozledByCrocs looks a bit more positive:

I believe if you have to, then it should be quite easy for the developers to build campaign versus. The campaign cards already exist. It's just a question of whether the community as a whole that also demands .

Conclusion: PVP could be so much better if the developers only want

What annoys me most: The pure gameplay is fun. It's fun to get away from players controlled zombies. It's fun to play zombies to begin the survivors and slow down slowly and unlock new talents. The basic gameplay of "Zombie against survivors" makes a lot of mood, but the whole "trumhera" is a pure agony and so much worse than it could be.

If the developers want the PVP mode in Back 4 Blood is more than just a nice driving input, but really want to motivate long and have fun, then there must be a lot. Not a little fine grinding is enough, because massive work is necessary to reinstate the PVP again.

And if I'm honest, I think I do not think the time is enough to release the game in October. I can only hope that the developers take the time and energy after the launch, to ultimately revise the PVP and give the players what they want: The campaign levels in the PVP style, as in Left 4 Dead . Because everything else is convicted according to the current state of failure.

In Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 I have just under 1,000 play lessons on the speedometer, with about 700 in the versus mode and its different modifications. At the PVP of Back 4 Blood, however, I have already seen enough for about 5 hours to think of myself: "Then rather Koop again". Back 4 Blood also has other problems - such as a zombie, the streamer supposedly offended racist.