How is anyone enjoying Horde on higher diff levels? This is just stupid... and not fun

Gears 5
#143

haha, we play without a Jack (there are only 4 of us - I did the jack thing for several runs, then got bored and decided I want to actually participate, not be an errand boy :slight_smile:). But since I’m still support, I do the COG thing, and use team revive a lot, with team repair to help Del.

good to know! I think next time we get together we’ll do a number of 50-only runs to unlock all modifiers and then pick and choose…

I think Asylum is the only one I haven’t played Horde on yet (from the “new” maps)… I hear it’s a good one…

#144

It’s good enough as a map, though I have only done spawn setups on it, one of which was a Master match where I did all 50 waves as Kait. It works well enough, but I personally prefer District in one of the spawns.

#145

I did district just outside of the spawn, in the area where the talon pistol spawns, in koth… I was shocked to see the matriarch run right THROUGH the walls, haha…

#146

That has never occurred to me. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Matriarch could actually smash through walls though.

Regarding Jack, I wouldn’t find him interesting either. They basically took the worst aspect from the Gears 4 Scout, isolated it and slapped it on Jack with the Forge for extra power gains, while giving him a largely ineffective zapping beam and a healing beam to revive players with if necessary. I don’t complain about it though, because it frees Scouts up to have a proper offensive role instead of being a workhorse for the team, but it still makes someone be stuck with a chore for two or more hours, which is never a great thing in a game in my view.

#147

Jack is not just a glorified scout bro.

Jack is literally the COG Bastion.

He is the hard counter to most things in horde.

Keep the beam on 1 person through a wall or from a safe spot, and they can tank the wave. Only ice scions pose a threat as they will still cause their freeze and subsequent death to tags.

#148

Well, yeah. I usually do not mention that when saying this because it’s not the seemingly main intended role of Jack but he is pretty good at it. Healing Reach and Speed basically make anyone invincible. But I don’t run into many Jacks who do this, whether it is out of lack of knowledge because you can be made practically invincible or because they use some other build, I don’t really know.

On the topic of Ice Scions, anyone else make the experience that Stim seems to get rid of and prevent freezing rather effectively? I’ve pretty much stood in a freezing beam at point blank range with Lizzie but her Stim ability basically kept removing anything put on me by one Scion while I was hitting it with a Talon. It may just be her who is capable of doing so but I still thought it was interesting since usually getting caught at point blank range by an Ice Scion is a death sentence if you can’t find some cover to get between it and yourself quickly.

#149

How do you figure it isn’t the main role?

It’s literally his main role… he has a card for it, and the enemies have their own bastions lol

By the way the healing speed card isn’t for the speed at which you heal others, it’s the speed at which jack regens health. So, with the card and the perk, you can top out at 150%, making jack nearly invulnerable to ranged fire, aside from things that one shot him.

Yes stim seems to counter ice well. I’ve noticed as del with the incredible stim feedback he has that I nearly never get frozen standing in front of them.

Also fortifications and decoys completely block their freeze.

#150

I just assumed Jack’s primary intended role was for the Forge, not that it makes him any more interesting to play as. Different views, I guess. I certainly see far less players cover a perma beam healing role with Jack than they do the Forge.

And if the Healing Speed skill isn’t affecting the healing beam, what skill is it then that causes it to either heal a player extremely slowly or very quickly? I don’t recall all of the ones he’s got.

#151

It’s 100% his main role.

He’s our bastion, the COG bastion lol.
I know most don’t do it, but some players even at low reups have it figured out, I was with a reup 6 jack the other day that outplayed 99.9% of jacks I have ever played with!!!

He followed me in stealth, beamed me before I went down when it seemed necesary, forged in between, and dove out to revive me if we were seperated. I was able to run around as kait and make mince meat of that run due to him!!!

It works even better camping in base/a strong position than running around.

Kait/jack were designed to run around the field together from a developer standpoint imo.

The way I look at horde, and well, most games, is as a puzzle where the pieces all fit together (Assuming it is a well built/balanced game), and in gears 5 the pieces fit together just… oh so flushly… I am very impressed with their balancing work. So you see why Im at such odds with opinions otherwise yes?

There is no card that controls the speed of the beams heal. It is a base speed that doesn’t change.

People have misinterpreted the healing rate card to be a healing beam speed card, when instead it is jacks self regen speed. It even shows jack glowing on the card :slight_smile:

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I give you Jack, the Boss-killer
#152

If only they all thought that. Kait with a Jack permabeaming her is so much more fun to play. If it’s not the skill that affects the healing rate, is it a perk Jack has? Because I could swear some
Jacks on Incon or Master took ages for me to go back to full health, other times it took barely a second for the omen to disappear completely. I never checked those Jack perks out properly when I did his Assists medal in Operation 1 but believe he has a repair speed perk or something in that direction? It might explain why the beam sometimes seems to heal slower, other times much faster, if it was intended to work for both forts and humans, or it’s glitched. Hijack can turn him into a true Bastion though, by “borrowing” one from the Swarm. Or a killing machine if you snag a Mulcher Scion or DR-1 Oppressor.

Unfortunately, the puzzle that is to be assembled here has problems with the first hurdle of any online game/shooter, randoms, which for the most part inexplicably seem to have lost their ability to adapt to changes and try learning new things, of which there were at least a couple during Gears 4. You could tell when people had a clue of what they were doing and how things worked well together on the higher difficulties because the run would likely go perfectly smoothly, bar some incidents that may not have been possible to avoid(such as a single frag or Boomshot causing a wipe because it just landed when you were all close enough together to be caught in the blast, which is very unlucky but can happen). Hardly seeing much of that in 5 where players either abandoned Horde or everyone somehow forgot everything from Gears 4s highest difficulties and only build very basic, simple bases, sometimes forget to provide or upgrade lockers for the team, etc. Would almost certainly be a more enjoyable experience if people learned(or didn’t forget) how to survive matches without a JD, use the fortifications in their current form most effectively, you name it. But I guess everyone’s just there for an easy match that is more a grind than anything. Sometimes I wonder why people play if all they do is grind. If it’s not fun, why do you grind to begin with?

And how does JD fit into it all? I have not identified any useful synergies there, other than that Jack’s healing beam basically helps any player do better. He is pretty much a standalone who can do everything as soon as a locker is built and upgraded. Seeming more like a “crutch”, so to speak, for the less great players or there for those who only care to have an easy match.

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#153

It’s the Health Regeneration Penalty that makes it look like Jack healing someone slower.

Jack’s Repair Speed is for Fortifications.

JD can be standalone character for the first couple waves where Locker not needed. When Claw Drones appear on Wave 7+, JD + Jack healing beam him is very helpful for JD to stand out in open and keep the pressure on enemies. No one-shot down by Claw Drones.

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#154

Fear not, I have the explanation. You see since the beginning of gears 5 There has been one game-breaking difficulty-nullifying bug after another. In order- Permanent ults, Red barrier glitch, infinite money dupe, and now baird bleeding barriers currently.

Couple that with the fact that the path of least resistance is to merely run engi-jack-jd-kait-extra at the dead end of several maps with little to no build variety- the ENTIRE playerbase has had the option since launch to opt out of improvement, while still clearing the hardest difficulty.

That is exactly why the player-base is inept, and it is exactly why I challenged myself, so I would not fall prey to the effects.

This too is an answer I can provide.

Ego. It gives them something to grind that they can throw in the ego bank. It’s a tiny endorphin drip they crave, even at the expense of enduring an unenjoyable activity. I have seen this time and again.

#155

Yes I see what he means now, when the omen won’t clear up from jacks heals.

Seems to happen mostly when you go extremely low/full omen.

Other times it will clear right up, but if critically wounded it would seem it takes time for the omen to dissipate.

#156

Where the torque is concerned…a headshot should be a kill on any difficulty…played insane last night with @jmelia123 @The_Bozzmeister…i was jd …played only with torque n boom after 1st few wvs…made the game more balanced (not carpet bombing the map…everyone enjoyed the game with plenty contributed by all…I’d say the least tc could do …is balance up characters n loadouts ect🙄

4 Likes
#157

Never heard of this one. Must not have been common if it ever existed in Gears 5. Do know one such exploit was there in Gears 4 for about a week in June or July. TC was very quick to patch that out, which I didn’t really complain about.

I guess I’m just different or got over this long ago because I cannot find joy or reward in a task that is a chore. In Gears 4, when I eventually reached Wings 5 which must’ve been well over 80-100 million XP, with various I barely felt rewarded because it took far too long to get there regardless of what I would do, and I spent a fair bit just doing regular matches while around those reups. Excessive grinds of un-fun activities are more likely to drive me off from a game no matter how good the reward at their end, which is something that has driven me away from games over the course of my existing life a few times. So I do not really understand those people. I just want to play for fun but nearly everyone is always just grinding. Sometimes it makes me want to pull my hairs out(I wouldn’t, fyi).

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#158

When I play JD I try not to have a locker full of nothing but GLs for that reason. It’s boring for everyone else. If were not struggling to kill my locker may have 2 GLs and either boomshots or torquebows.

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#159

Right, the scout pickup energy from dead scout doubling it one…so you’d get up to a few million energy on wave 1, and then spam sentries all game… worked… boring, but a quick way to level up characters…

#160

I remember that bug. Only in my case instead of sentries a soldier class spammed the hammer strike.

#161

ah you didn’t miss much. Basically it was a gun dupe from trading weapons where an extra was created on the ground.

Got fixed after a week or so. For a while there everyone elected to merely camp the dead ends when there was no game breaking bug to rely on. Hopefully you can see though how everyone has simply had the option not to improve, so why would they right? Why deviate from the most effective tactic and all… (if all you care about is exp, I mean, I understand you don’t play for that reason)

STILL working through that reply btw. I’ll get there man

#162

Oh, that. I never heard anyone mention it in Horde or Escape so I’d assumed it was not going to create any issues there. Certainly didn’t run into anybody using it and at that, the complaints about it mainly came from Versus with multiple players using it to get several Dropshot, Breaker Maces, etc., so it was somewhat more of an issue for those players, not that I am into PvP.

On that note, I don’t think anyone from TC has yet acknowledged the matter where you can infinitely duplicate any type of grenade with Keegan or JD if they have the skill to hold multiple explosives/grenades beyond the base capacity of 2 in the MP PvE modes, nor have I seen it mentioned in any type of patch notes, and I’m 100% certain it was not intended for players to be able to freely duplicate grenades to have them as much as is possible. Certainly find it a little stupid when a Keegan in Escape wants you to pick up frags(or other grenades) so he can have 7 when you only picked up two and repeat certain steps to basically generate infinite grenades. Or quits when you refuse to use the blatantly obvious exploit. Like, seriously. Why would they give players a way to effectively have infinite grenades of any type in a mode that is meant to be about managing your ammo more carefully?

You’ll make it to the end of that reply eventually. I did warn everyone it’d be long. Oh, and as a fun fact, I spent about two hours typing it up(with various smaller distractions coming up in between).