Agreed. Given that TC have been, and will no doubt continue to make a fair bit of money from selling character skins, this seems crazy.
What I had suggested before in the past, is perhaps for the generic Gear character to change depending on the Horde class with some differences in their design. E.g.: an Engineer will have a tool belt; a Soldier will have a grenade belt etc.
When I played Arcade, character locked heroes were off-putting at first. So I would’ve played as Kait with this forced ‘Hunter’ play style and tried other ones. Then I figured I liked the random weapon play style better, so mostly played as JD / Drone. It didn’t bother me after a while.
But Horde? There is going to be Kait character at least, and I’m wondering what role this character locked hero would have. Like for Gears 4 Horde, I would’ve mostly played as Sniper. One of these heroes for Gears 5 might become favourite or main one. I’m just gonna have to wait and see what roles each 6 “heroes” have. It shouldn’t bother me after a while.
People are implying that there will only be 5 characters for the game mode, the achievement says "launch characters ". They will get more in time, and each new character will bring a new one to level up, with new abilities ect. It is limiting on how you want to play with what character, example, you like being more of a sniper, but Marcus is geared towards scout. But this in my opinion expands the lifespan of the game mode. We get to look forward to new characters and abilities to level up, and not be essentially done once all 5 classes have been maxed.
Nah, people like to dress up their Ken and Barbie dolls . It’s more important to them. Really should go back to Gears 1 where it was like what 8 skins total?
The only thing that makes practical sense about locking classes to characters is making it easier to distinguish the classes on your team during gameplay.
In 3.0, you have to memorize the class symbols, look at the score board, see who on your team is what class, and then use tac com to look around at your teammates.
In this case, all you have to do is look at JD and know he’s a soldier or whatever the case may be. (After memorizing the characters and their respective class of course)
If that’s the reason for locking class to character, then they can easily circumvent this by putting a class symbol above each character’s head that is present all the time or maybe even the word “scout” above the scout and “engineer” above the engineer, or whatever the classes in 4.0 may be.
Then put a toggle in settings so that you can turn that feature off if you want.
Otherwise, there’s just no reason for this whatsoever. Period. People like their skins. From a business perspective and from a player perspective, it’s not good.
To be honest all I really care about is Locust/Swarm diversity, wave construction and the way TC handle the differing skills…although I think we already know the answer to that one.
I understand the frustration and I’m on the same board, I like to play with the skin of my choice and not a character I don’t like (I’m talking to you Del, you’re just an extra).
BUT.
Maybe it’s better to play a game when you recognize the class of your buddies without checking the scoreboard. Gears of War 5 is probably repeating a good thing from Judgment, it’s best to have a visual clue during gameplay. We’ll see at Gamescom.
That’s not my main concern about Horde 4.0 though, I want more enemies diversity. 3.0 has not topped 2.0 on that matter.
Not a chance… Their mt will drop like crazy if they ever do that, so that is why that will never happen.
EDIT: unless that is their objective; to actually sell the skins for Horde, but that will be way too greedy.
After reading all this what really needed is for TC to say something asap or over the next 9 days this thread will be total out of control.
This has 100% to do with micro transactions, I’m sure of that. They’ve already talked about, how you can buy characters for Escape, kinda similiar to buying heroes in f2p games like Quake Champions. This must 100% the reason, why they choose to go with pre-set hero characters in Horde. I can’t think of a realistic alternative Motive for introducing pre-set characters and classes.
TC is welcome to correct this at any time and I hope they do here so my concern was unfounded,
Well with gear packs to sell us,TC needed to get into are wallets and pockets books for Gears of War 4(Sin City Edition)and when they cleaned that out,They targeted are bank accounts next,for Gears 5 , TC look to clean those out to.
It might as well not have additional characters. At Gears 4 launch, they had achievement saying “launch” “classes”. Turned out, no new classes were released. I doubt it for Gears 5. Escape, Horde or Arcade.
That would be the obvious solution. I think it highly likely TC know we are discussing and have concerns and yet much like multiple times the noise from them is deafening.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that we are right though, (as in class/character locked) there is always that to cling onto, for another week at least!
I hope it’s not the case, it would be extremely stupid and 2 steps back, horde is a very popular mode too so I am really hoping they are not stupid enough to screw it up like that.
Aug. 19th will reveal the truth when we see the new horde mode.
I do like the stuff I see for Escape, have a couple people really eager for that one I just chatted with and played GOW 4 horde with.
The only thing that’s being screwed is stubbornness of players. Refusing to play a character locked “hero”. I’d get over it fast like with Arcade. Gears 1 to 3, you played as Marcus or Dom in Campaign. Gears 4, you had to play JD or Kait. Gears Judgement, you had to play Kilo Squad, mostly Baird but others had their moments. So… don’t really need to be stubborn. Even I had no problem playing Barrick for RAAM’s Shadow.
When a game regresses after GOW 4 already showed that classes were a thing and characters could be anyone in horde 3.0 making it like judgement’s OverRun/survival is stupid as ■■■■.
They already did this in arcade which is acceptable due to it being new, and for escape because it is based on that specific “hive buster” squad, it is NOT ok to do in horde when they already moved past that ■■■■ in GOW 4.
Hero abilities should be linked to a class not forcing a character you play as, it was ■■■■■■ in judgement which is why they changed it for GOW 4.
Also the examples you make are from CAMPAIGN not Horde mode, no one is complaining about playing set characters for the story.
No problem you say! Barrick is a bad A mutha, doesn’t even need to remove his stogie when killing grubs, that gets my respect right there 
I couldn’t get into Judgment’s MP much because of reduced population. It seemed like they went back to Gears 3 MP. I had no problem with Overrun. It was great game mode, when I tried the free Overrun Demo before I got Judgment. But population was down at that moment, many months after release.
I didn’t bother trying Survival at all. But 10 waves? Judgment already had kinda small character roster. I don’t think I would’ve mind. It was just Overrun vs bots and 10 waves. Not a real Horde mode cos not 50 waves and couldn’t pick up weapons off floor.
The transition from Gears 3 Horde to Gears 4, I don’t think classes should’ve been a thing. But over time, I gotten used to it. Still would prefer no classes.
Escape and Arcade. In my opinion, they should just let us choose any character. I would’ve preferred to play Kait with random weapon play style. Or maybe Myrrah later on down the line, still random weapon play style. Rather than being forced JD and Drone.
You’re right. No one’s complaining about playing set characters in Campaign. But who is complaining about playing set character in Arcade and Escape? These aren’t Campaign anyway, and should’ve let us choose any character. Same for Horde, to let us choose any character.
Just so you know, I’m not against having any character. Even I would prefer to choose any character. I’m just telling ya what’s going on in players’ head and being realistic here.
I find it pretty dumb also but like someone else said, it’s just a minor annoyance. For me at least cause I’ll mainly be playing as Jack and Marcus, no matter what skills their locked behind.