“Nightmare isn’t fun and is unmanageable” is the criticism of many players in Back 4 Blood. Now the developers should show it themselves.
The Nightmare mode in Back 4 Blood is a really tough nut to crack, even for shooter veterans and long-time coop fans. In addition to nearly perfect coordination, clear communication, and a good dose of skill, it also takes luck to handle the Nightmare mode. Sometimes only exploits or “creative solutions” help to make any progress.
Now came the November patch – and it has made the problem even worse. Players are demanding: “Hey, developers – play it yourselves and show us, because we can’t manage it.”
Why is Nightmare so hard? There are a whole range of reasons. First of all, the difficulty level is simply high. Normal zombies deal 10 damage per hit and special zombies like Exploder can knock out Cleaners with a single blow if their special attack succeeds.
What is “a bit annoying” on Veteran and Recruit quickly becomes a death trap in Nightmare. Often, it takes less than 10 seconds for a completely healthy team to collectively lie dead on the ground.
One reason for this is also the extreme Corruption Cards, which are the negative “affixes” that exist in Nightmare. They can be so severe that a seemingly easy map becomes nearly impossible without a perfectly optimized deck to counter precisely that combination.
The frustration among players runs deep. Even weeks after the release, Nightmare seems too hard for even good players. So hard that some are now asking: Have the developers ever played this themselves and did they enjoy it?
The latest patch was supposed to correct the spawn of special zombies and prevent excessive amounts of these enemies from appearing. However, initial clips already show: It didn’t work. Up to 10 special zombies still spawn at short intervals.
Developers should show how it’s done: User SmokeyAmp demands in the Back 4 Blood subreddit that the developers should just demonstrate how to play this mode. He is at the end of his abilities. The demand has received nearly 4,000 upvotes. The post even refers to another game, Dead by Daylight, where something like that helped:
They [the developers] apparently have a much better idea of how to approach the game than the thousands of players who play it every day. Let’s see why these absurd changes in the patch were well thought out.
Vote in the comments [,whether the developers should demonstrate it].
Behaviour, the creators behind Dead by Daylight, previously refused to fix a problem with the flashlight that could instantly blind, until one of the developers was eliminated in a stream by exactly that tactic. The next day the problem was fixed. Let’s see how long Turtle Rock takes to adjust the spawn of special zombies if they actually play their game on Nightmare.
There is also a lot of support for the idea in the comments. The video about Dead by Daylight that is referenced is this one:
Many are dissatisfied and sarcastic: That Back 4 Blood has made the Nightmare mode even harder through various map nerfs and adjustments has caused backlash in the community. No-Collection-7394 wrote a post with over 1,000 upvotes on Reddit that sarcastically reflects the current state of the patch:
I see the November patch as a step in the right direction. The game was far too easy, even Nightmare didn’t offer a real challenge. But there is still a lot to do.
The first thing I want to see in the December update is a significant increase in the damage from Tallboys, Bruisers, and Crushers. For example, Bruisers should be able to kill players with one hit, even if they still have extra lives.
Then the fire rate of Stingers needs to be increased. They should fire more like a Vector. Even the Stalker isn’t a big problem, one shot every 0.25 seconds seems to me to be the right cooldown.
Waves of special zombies should be constant on every map. 10 special zombies every 30 seconds seems reasonable to me.
The health points of the bosses are now good, but you should have 2 of them appear per map, preferably simultaneously.
Finally, weapons. You nerfed melee, but forgot about firearms. I think no weapon should deal more than 10 damage.
Thanks, that’s all from me. Keep up the good work.
Will the developers respond to this? That seems rather unlikely. It’s usually an “urban legend” that developers and designers are particularly good in their own game, as some people in the subreddit point out. Developers typically don’t have the time to engage with the game as intensively as players do.
Even though the demand may not be entirely serious, it does highlight how frustrated many players currently are with the Nightmare mode.
Have you mastered Nightmare in Back 4 Blood? Or do you also have no chance in this mode?
