Back 4 Blood December Update Patch Notes (Patch Out Later This Week)

On recruit, I’m assuming? Lol

I was on nightmare on my one and only play through!

I hate you

I cry

It's got potential, but they need to iron it out a bit, and tbf; this patch looks like it goes a long way to doing that. The controller improvements are welcome and I'm hoping that fixes the janky feeling when moving/looking.

I'm annoyed i bought it at launch, as it's already less than half price here in the UK, but I'm definitely wanting to play more when it's in a better place. There's a fun game in there that I feel does build on the l4d formula in some good ways.

I get that pain - I picked it up for £18 2 days ago, feels like it's only been out a month or so

It's the best with friends anyways. It's great then.

The buddies and I really enjoy it. Our biggest gripe is they removed the PvP for some horde mode junk. Like no one wants to just hold a point we want to run through the normal levels but with other players as the AI

It really wouldn’t surprise me if that type of mode gets added in a post-launch support. Say what you will about EVOLVE, but 2K literally had to drag TRS off of it kicking and screaming, preventing them from doing any further updates or balance patches. The December patch notes in the OP are miles long and address every component of the game, imo for the better in almost everything. Will see how it plays when it goes live tomorrow but I think it’ll be better for everyone except speed runners, and I dunno why you’d buy a game just to try and outrun the horde and ignore every mechanic anyway lol.

I'm glad I got it on gamepass instead of buying it on the ps store. With that being said the game was kinda stale imo

Heck yeah we are! But I mostly play with friends so you wouldn’t see me matchmaking anyway.

Wasn't there some sort of backlash with this game? I think lots of people knew it was gonna "die" quickly

I think it was just your run-of-the-mill reddit bullshit. Some people were upset that it wasn’t Left4Dead3, which it never could have been as Valve owns the IP. Others pre-judged it because they didn’t like EVOLVE (which had a rough start for sure but once they implemented a hotfix system so they didn’t have to wait for Sony/MS to approve balance patches, TRS got to work on that game and it ended up being a fantastic 4v1 experience that was ahead of it’s time imo).

The only real criticism of B4B that I think was warranted was that it was “too hard” on veteran and nightmare, and “too easy” on recruit. Something this patch goes out of it’s way to create 3 different experiences based on difficulty. Anyone with concerns about the aiming have far more precise control over it than they do in most shooting games now.

And the negative attributes were removed from most cards that had them, so you aren’t worried about min/maxing with individual cards and worried about the -stamina or whatever on a single card, but instead looking at opportunity cost between picking one card over another when all of them are good choices. So anyone that might have thought the deck component of the game didn’t have a place in it should probably give it a shot, as you can carve out widely varied playstyles between the cards, weapons, attachments, and characters. It’s a game that is at it’s best when played with friends for sure, but I think that matchmaking with random ppl should be a lot better with this patch too.

Yeah, my crew is still playing it regularly. The massive December changes will make it so much more accessible to players, from the difficulty nerfs to the removal of negative attributes on cards, the aiming improvement, and just a shit ton of tweaks to every system in the game. I think that currently, there are groups of ppl that just replay certain levels like 1-1 or 1-5 for supply points, or that speed run to race ahead of hordes and they make the game trivial in doing so for the rest of their group. But they’re likely doing all of this because it’s easier than playing the actual game, which the changes here all fix and address. They’re also enabling offline progression with bots, which will give people a way to farm supply points that doesn’t impact random matchmaking groups.

I think it’s a blast, especially with a group of friends willing to work together towards a common goal that will share copper and ammo, buy upgrades, have someone playing Doc, etc. It’s not exactly Left4Dead3 but it never was going to be (as they don’t own the IP). And I think the cards, which I was initially averse to being a core mechanic, ended up providing a ton of flexibility as far as different builds and playstyles that work better with specific weapons and attachments in conjunction with the deck you chose. It gives the game a lot more replayability and longevity than the L4D games came with. I haven’t messed around with the PvP mode, that’s probably one of the areas that the L4D series is clearly better at. But if you’re looking for a co-op shooter that gets really frantic and intense, especially at higher difficulties, Back4Blood is a fun time.

Agreed. As a Doc player, I feel like they might have done a couple things that make me less vital to a group, but overall that’s great for groups that don’t run with a dedicated Doc. And I think that with the massive changes to difficulty and the amount of special infected that can spawn, the cooldowns of their attacks, preventing certain types from stacking (like a hag in the fog), or not allowing a boss to spawn early in a run before players have acquired a couple cards, etc… the game will be a lot easier overall.

The only people that I think will be upset about this update are speedrunners, and currently their meta is to run so fast that the horde chases the person out in front and leaves everyone else behind them alone, completely negating the importance and build and contributions of the other 3 players in the group. But it looks like speed will still be a viable option and changes to some things will allow you to kite (while sprinting) even backwards and sideways now.

They’ve pretty much tweaked all the cards that had a negative stat as well, so you aren’t looking at individual cards and thinking “I like this but I hate this”, and instead will be agonizing over which cards out of tons of good options for your playstyle and build. Lots of great stuff like cards that will cause molotovs and razor wire to drop while killing, moving razor wire to the quick slot, reducing bird HP from 10 to 1 so you can kill them with shotguns and molotovs, etc. I think the bots are gonna be a lot more lethal than they already are, with upgraded decks and weapons (and they’re already amazing for giving you health and ammo and pinging special infected), and offline progression is available too. I’m excited to see the new card type and holiday stuff as well as the upcoming DLC expansions and new difficulty and more card types and cards that will keep adding different ways to play and unique builds to facilitate them. I’m pretty happy with the patch notes overall.

It doesn't have local co-op?! That was the best part of L4D

I mean before this patch there was not even offline progression.

It doesn't have a take-a-break mode either. Gotta piss in the middle of a run? Tough luck.

Exactly! And it was made by people from the original L4D team which is what makes it even more disappointing.

What didn’t you like about it? Was it the aiming/controls, specifically?

They’ll now have separate sliders for Aim Assist Friction and Aim Assist Magnetism, Camera Acceleration (On/Off), Camera Movement (Linea