Insight into Horde changes?

Gears 5
#1

I don’t want to be seen as piling onto the Hate Train that often comes with sequel releases but 5’s Horde is a disappointment.

GoW 4 Horde was contentious, with some old school players liking earlier, barebones iterations. I loved it though, and sunk 400+ hours into it playing with a friend regularly.

The changes they’ve made from 4 to 5 Horde don’t seem to cater to barebones proponents, and they’re garbage for those that liked 4’s version.

Classes being married to a specific character is hugely restrictive when combined with the fact that TC doesn’t allow duplicate classes/heroes in a Horde game. With such a limited starting pool of choices, multiple players are getting stuck with a class or character they don’t like, or both.

What if I like Del but don’t like the engineer role? What if I like the engineer role but don’t like Del? Why can’t said engineer buy a lancer from the fabricator if they want one?

Speaking of the engineer role, who the hell would want to play as one now when they don’t get in-match upgrades like other classes, and are completey starved of energy because there’s little to no incentive for other players to deposit a share of theirs? (Despite this it looks like engineer is still required; they’re just in for a miserable time unless playing with a squad willing to share energy).

Horde in Gears 5 seems smaller in every way. The maps appear smaller, with less lines of sight, and bosses and sentinels clipping through walls and ceilings. Ammo drops are tiny, energy is in short supply, and the intensity and number of enemy units seems markedly less.

So what am I missing? Are changes as bad as they look to me? If so, why’d TC implement them? Can I still do bounties or have they been entirely replaced by tour challenges?

The complaints don’t stop there, and far outweigh what I view as the positives - but the addition of bots and energy taps seem solid in concept, anyway.

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#2

Most veteran horde players have been saying the same thing. So far we have not been heard. We hate it. They took away our freedom of choice. Made enemies bullet sponges and ammo in short supply. They took a mode that was based on teamwork and turned it into a Jon Rambo free for all

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#3

I agree it’s a shame you can’t choose your favourite character, but really this isn’t the end of the world (for me atleast). What you say about intensity I disagree, I personally find the difficulty on inconcievable to be very tough, especially the high rounds. Enemies were just as much bullet sponges in gears 4, nothing has changed there.

From my experience so far as engineer that’s gotten to 50 few times - as soon as you start getting to higher waves people desposit a lot more. At the begunning people share the energy between perks and fabricator which is the way it should be. In my opinion have an allie with +25% health and/or damage or whatever it may be does benefit the team. And a good engineer (which I played a lot as in gears4) can make do with limited resource, as long as the team has weapons lockerd and know what they are doing.

This has just been my experience so far, and I personally like that an engineer has been limited, it’s a refreshing change in meta to gears 4 sentry spam.

#4

I do like that we can’t have multiple class’s cause in gears 4 most of my matches were heavys with lockers full of salvos. Couldn’t compete with kills against that. I would like there to be a penalty for quitting at wave 1 if you didn’t get the class you wanted. Or que as a class and only match up with rooms where that class hasn’t been taken yet. I do think we should be allowed to change chars without changing class’s. Engineer feels like it has received more value than before. In gears 4, if you had a good scout people didn’t care about your discount or they could buy he repair tool. Engineer is the only one who can upgrade forts which sucks for everyone else but the engineer isn’t useless once everything is built. Also not everyone can build everything like the engineer. The forge certainly isn’t a worthwhile investment without the engineers discount and upgrades. I would like to be able to make any weapon from the fabricator or have the enemies use more weapons. I would like to get certain weapons without having to trade with a team mate. The power feels less but that;s because everyone gets a share now. I like that change instead of the scout hording all the energy.

#5

If anything it’s more about teamwork than ever before. When playing higher difficulties at least. Of course, as usual, it’s problematic to work as a team when playing with random people. Gears 4 was easier because everyone knew those two or three tactics that quaranteed a success.

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#6

Yeah often Im yelling at the dumb ■■■ JD whose off on his own. When he gets grabbed by a sire I won’t run across the map to save him. Leaving my fortified spot at wave 40+ is suicide for me. It is kinda bs you can’t chainsaw sires anymore.

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#7

Intensity doesn’t mean difficulty. For me Gears 5 Horde is frustrating and monotonous - hopefully some of that is just the learning curve.

Sentry spamming in 4 was an issue in that it was an obvious and guaranteed way to win, but a massive overhaul to base-building and the mode in general wasn’t required to fix it. Throw a cap on the amount of allowable sentries, or make reloading them more costly, instead.

You’re right, that’s the way it should be. But it isn’t. At least it hasn’t been in pub games.

Some of my gripes could be tolerated if I were able to simply play as the character and class combination I’d like to. As you said, it’s not the end of the world - but it is an arguably unnecessary restriction, and removal of an enjoyable and simple aspect of the game.

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