Back 4 Blood is finally live – but the trolls are also on board. Some report that some have paid money just to annoy others.
Those who have already peeked into the Early Access of Back 4 Blood in the last 4 days didn’t have only nice experiences. This was not only due to smaller bugs and occasionally questionable balancing but mainly due to trolling teammates.
Because those who search for like-minded people via Quick Match often find questionable individuals who apparently have only one thing in mind: to ruin the fun for other players.
What is the problem? Back 4 Blood is a game that is heavily focused on cooperation and teamwork. There is simply no place for selfish players in this zombie shooter, as one can hardly survive alone. Nevertheless, some players seem to have made it their mission to troll as much as possible.
The main issue here is that there is no function to exclude a player from the ongoing match. The ability to “kick” or vote for that is simply missing.
What is so absurd about it? Particularly strange is that these trolls apparently spent €90 for Back 4 Blood just to annoy other players. Because in the last 4 days, one could only play if they owned at least the Deluxe Edition and thus could participate in the Early Access.
For some trolls, money seems to be no obstacle to becoming quite unpopular.
What are the consequences? Trolls can “capture” games. For example, if they do not enter the safe room at the end of a match and instead barricade themselves somewhere on the map, then the round simply does not end. The only option for the rest of the team is to return to the troll and take them out themselves. However, this does not work on the easiest difficulty – because there is no “Friendly Fire” there.
This leads to scenes where the troll is simply teabagging somewhere on the map while the rest have no fun anymore:
In such cases, nothing helps but patiently waiting for the troll to finally make it to the safe room or to lose interest and leave the game voluntarily before the rest of the team does.
What can be done about it? Basically, very little, at least in the ongoing match. The best temporary solution is probably to set the game to private in the lobby (in Fort Hope) so that no “randoms” can join the game. Then invite only players directly from your friends list with whom you want to play and of whom you know that they will not betray you.
In case of doubt, you can also start your match with only 2 or 3 players and fill the rest with bots. Even though the bots are not the best in Back 4 Blood, a bot is still better than a troll who constantly teases the team and wastes their time.
It is to be expected that the developers will subsequently introduce a system to exclude unwanted teammates from a match. However, there is also the danger that the system will be overly used to kick players for even minor mistakes – a concern of players who remember that from Left 4 Dead.
Alternative solutions could include gradually limiting the map through a “swarm” once the first team member is in the safe room – this already happens in the PvP mode or during certain boss fights in the campaign. Then the rest of the team would have to hurry to avoid being automatically killed.
Have you also experienced such trolls in Back 4 Blood? Or have you fortunately been spared from such troublemakers so far?
