Is playing Engineer just stressful for anyone else?

Gears 5
#1

In Gears 4, I played a lot of Engineer. I think it was actually my second most played class behind Scout. But in Gears 5, I’ve found myself avoiding the Mechanic/RE/Architect classes unless no one will pick it. Last night I found a Regency lobby on Master and wanted to join, but they needed an Engineer, and I passed, even though Regency is a map I was specifically looking for.

I guess I wanted to start a discussion about the current Horde energy economy and how a lot of expectations are put upon the Engineer in a mode where you can set up literally anywhere and any way you want. Most times when an Engineer leaves or a team wipes, there are specific reasons I can point to surrounding the energy economy that led to the failure. And interestingly, they kind of feed into each other to create a perpetual cycle.

  1. The Engineer had unrealistic expectations about everyone giving all their energy for them to build, even though they shouldn’t ever need that much, and even though classes need to perk to be effective and kill the things fortifications are slowing down.
  2. Players failed to deposit enough for the Engineer to do his job, leaving our fortifications lacking when we needed them most.
  3. Poor placement or lack of understanding by the Engineer about how to set up that map, leaving the team unable to focus on killing things before they get too close.
  4. Backseat engineering that leads to annoyance, tension, and an eventual wipe while people are being ■■■ hats over disagreements.

#1 and #2 are two sides of the same problem, just as #3 and #4 are. But I see them all the time. And most wipes are a result of one of these, rather than… really any other issue. Classes are all strong enough to hold their own, but only so long as the fortifications are being placed and maintained correctly. Does anyone else feel that the current Horde setup places too much of an onus on the Engineer for the team to succeed? Is there some way to take some weight off of the Engineer’s shoulders while not undermining the class entirely?

(I’m talking about lobbies with strangers, rather than with friends. Because all of these issues are results of poor communication, something avoidable if you happen to have four friends to play with.)

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#2

Not for me. I rarely play Engineer but when I do I let everyone keep their power. Ill get the lockers and barriers as I get the power. Ill put barriers on all the chokepoints and near the taps. Then my job is done. As Robotixs Expert I wait until I see a flusher or a drone that I can kill with my Embar and I see if my team needs revives or needs a flashbang tossed for them.

3 Likes
#3

Kinda. With randomers who aren’t communicating it sometimes feels like you’re juggling different priorities. You want barriers to keep your team safe, but this class wants a weapon locker; and that class also wants a weapon locker, and they find it hard to share space etc. It’s simply lack of communication. But if someone takes the initiative to communicate and negotiate, then it becomes much easier.

I typically build a weapon locker first and foremost and then wave it in front of one or two of my team mates. It’s my non-verbal way of communicating to everyone “I understand you guys need ammo, so don’t panic when I also build a few barriers later too!” In Frenzy, I aways get a level 3 locker first, and then barriers after. How much I build depends on my team depositing.

Obviously with mics and party chat with friends, life is easier and you just talk and agree what needs to be done.

But I get what you mean though - sometimes it’s like treading on eggshells cos you you feel if a team mate feels neglected then they’ll leave or something which can put you at a disadvantage. You know what needs to be built, but limited resources (even in Frenzy) mean that it simply takes a bit of time and some people are just impatient.

1 Like
#4

I don’t know if I’d consider it a stressful role unless you’re the only one left standing in the middle of your base and everyone else is dead or downed with a bunch of enemies still left alive.

But I am gonna say that I don’t like playing the engi in 5 compared to 4. It’s extremely one dimensional and you just put down some level 1/2 barriers everywhere, lockers for those who need/want one, maybe some extra shock sentries and that’s about it. Don’t even bother building MGs because they’re a terribly underpowered fortification of which my only use would’ve been to cover spots where flyers like to go but their damage is so horrible you can’t even do that.

And don’t get me started on how atrocious level 3/4 barrier and decoy health is unless you’re playing Mechanic who will literally never be able to repair any of those in time(another dumb thing, the stupidly slow base repair speed). And the fact that the level 4 decoy explosion FAILS TO KILL FRIGGIN JUVIES.

4 Likes
#5

As I don’t play Gears 4, so I can’t compare it to Gears 5.

My 3 most played classes are demolition, mechanic & robotic expert.

I would say no in frenzy because players are suffer from inexperience of having 0 Engineer in the game. They don’t have much confidence to win the game without an Engineer.

However, if you’re saying 1-50 horde, then it’s a 100% yes for having at least one Engineer that suit Gears 5’s meta because the enemies are less than frenzy each wave. You can’t use ultimate every wave, so it’s very hard for random’s team to succeed in wave 25+, let alone 50 waves.

I think Gears 5 Engineer is quite extreme after I reach the forum & not. It changes my playstyle / build because it’s more effective than what I have explored. Gears 5 Engineer is a kind of “formulaic” playstyle. You build tons of barriers + lockers, and then you win the game if your teammates don’t suck.

1 Like
#6

Not stressful,but I feel sorry for engineer(s)I play a lot of horde frenzy .I put 10,000 in fabricator only for players ,ignore the Engineer ,buying themselves sentrys,weapon locker for themselves,Then the message comes up, don’t touch my locker/put my weapons back (boom shot etc,etc)I only play medic,unlesssomeoneisthat class

1 Like
#7

I am not a god tier engineer but I find that your teammates can make the match a joke or a nightmare depending on how they spend their power.

I don’t want to go back to Gears 4 MG spam but they need to balance the current fortifications and give us reasons to upgrade to Level 3/4 barriers beyond blocking off a vault/clamber location.

1 Like
#8

Having played hundreds of hours as an engineer in both G4 and G5, I can tell you that I felt the most pressure in 4 but not so much in 5 with all the broken classes we have.

You can put the blame on the demo for not killing the boss, the sniper for not targeting scions but with barriers all over the place and lockers to keep everyone happy, why would anyone blame the engineer?

I can play as a sniper and be stressed all the game with how bad my teammates are, there is something about 5 that makes new players join a master game with not a clue about what to do. I never saw this in 4, at least not this bad.

1 Like
#9

Alright I guess I’m just neurotic then. :joy:

#11

If you as engineer start watching someone else buying stuffs and wasting the energy, they start demanding lockers when you already built one and is empty ‘cause they didn’t start on use it, is not stressful, then I don’t know what would be stressful. The only matches I can say I enjoy is when everyone play their role, nobody build and therefore there’s no engineer.

Engineer class is overrated, if people has anxiety if there’s no barriers and they suck on killing enemies, causing they must rely on fortifications, then something is bad at the game and the players stuck in the old gears 4 play style.

The engineering made more stupid to people and more annoying, being like a building simulator or some bs, I would like this would be scrapped and move to another approach of survival mode like the Mercenaries mode from Resident Evil 4, 5 and 6, more focused on kill, but also add the team component, if not, the building should be similar like World War Z, no matter if you built all the fortifications, if you suck killing, then you’ll fail the match 100% sure.

Those who claimed Demolitions isn’t necessary but engineer is mandatory… even if there’s proofs there on YT. Then keep thinking that but don’t claim bs that is the only way to beat a match.

#12

Chilling for me is just killing things every wave. Engineering feels like babysitting!

#13

Robotic Experts has become my favorite class, so much that I’ve really been considering making a video guide on it. Coming from someone who enjoys this role I will list the things that “stress” me out sometimes.

  1. People spamming the “boo” emote when I’m carrying things.
    {This gives me some kind of false impression that I’m doing my job wrong but in reality someone is just bored and wants to spam emotes}

  2. People standing by fabricator looking at me, then back at the fab.
    {I’m not a mind reader so I can never tell what these people trying to tell me. I always make lockers when I see classes that usually use them.}

  3. Having JD, Clay, Lizzie and Fahz in the same lobby.
    { This isn’t very common but when it does happen Power Drain really needs to be off. These are all classes that can benefit from Lv3+ Lockers. You obviously don’t always need Lockers but you have one job and you wanna be able to do it.}

  4. When the base is fine but the DPS is low
    {RE can do dmg too, which is why I love playing the role but there is only so much I can do. Nothing more stressful when you’ve got every chokepoint blocked but people still aren’t killing/ignoring certain spots.}

5 Likes
#14

Yeah I agree, It’s like healer/Maybe Tank in a MMORPG, you get blamed for everything if things go down hill.

I also find it very boring so my Engineers are the lowest carded ones.
Except for the architect as it’s actually fun to mess things up.

1 Like
#15

Even among my friends when I play an Engineer I feel the same way, or some nebulous, ill-defined sense of anxiety about the base even though 1) we rarely play with much of a base, 2) everyone is happy to deposit, 3) we all know our roles.

I think people would chill about bases a heck of a lot more if they realized that honestly a few level 1 or 2 barriers down the lanes and lockers are usually sufficient to get you through a whole match.

Get the word out!

1 Like
#16

During the no building no ultimate, the engineer was actually decent and fun.
Take the Db Card with an embar and you can chain stun the bad stuff like the Boomshots.

Outside of that mod, everyone will want you to build though.

#17

I’ve had the engineers blame me for failing back in the days of Op 1 because they and other teammates were spamming Tri-Shots at a Kestrel and making it impossible to have the Demo ult or GLs land on it completely because it was constantly moving as a result(not that I played the class for long as I thought it got boring quickly and everyone just expected you to GL spam which I wasn’t interested in, and haven’t felt interested in the class since, beyond getting it to level 20 in Op 5).

So I don’t think everyone really blames the engi. If anything I would say the blame is on the other players for being incapable of holding enemies off, if you fail in early waves where you won’t have your base set up. I mean, can’t be that difficult to fight them off without barriers placed everywhere on the map, and early on a Juvie rush shouldn’t cause you to fail immediately as without the double Lethal or 3x damage mods they won’t one hit down you before the 2x damage poison activates.

Now if your engi sets up a terrible base, there’s a better case to be made, but that’s probably still map dependant. Certainly, I’d argue having a proper base setup is more important on Harbor, Pahanu or Ritual to name three examples, than something easier to play like say, Asylum or what have you that falls in the easy to medium map difficulty category(if you can class them into such).

Even so sometimes the game just Thanos snaps runs out of existence because it decided you won’t win that day.

#18

Ahh I think you misunderstand me.
It’s not that the Engi is usually responsible, he is mostly not, it’s that the “Dps” aren’t as visible.
If stuff goes wrong people will latch on the most obvious people, speaking from my mmorpg experience, which has been my main games for over 15 years, that is people that are easily pointed at.
You can single out a dps if he does abyssmal damage but otherwise hard to tell.

People just fall on the easiest scape goat, that is not them, I would not see how that is different in GoW.

#19

I like Mechanic, and play it a fair bit.

The pattern is always the same: 2-4 barriers, then lockers for everyone. Once everyone who want a locker has a quad, perk away.

Until i want all your energy, with slugger and medic buying granades being fine.

No class, not one “NEEDS” perks in the first 10 waves. No one.

If you cannot make it through the first 10 waves of Master without perks, you dont know what you are doing. And then your little perks wont save us if we get overrun…

No stress. If i see people perking on single digit waves i leave…

Daily Horde and Escape Challenge Map, Modifiers, and Rewards (Part 2)
#20

So basically, you don’t play with anyone who plays Blademaster which is practically useless without at least one level into the bleed damage perk. Or an Anchor thinking they may have more use by getting their ammo regen perk to level 5. Or a Tactician going for the explosive resupply(though I will grant a point there that it should not be necessary for one to use it or even a Boomshot for the first couple waves of a 50).

5 Likes
#21

I haven’t played much G5 @ all but i will say this speaking as an Engineer main on G4 …

There are many points here that i just disagree with (feel free to correct as i’m no expert on G5)

#1 Communication is a buzz word around getting Horde matches to work. It really boils down to individual playstyles. Examples …

#1 There’s a locker & heavy put his Boomshot on it. You don’t need comms to know not to grab that boom or not move the locker etc. Someone that steals others weapons from lockers or takes them to their side or what have you will not listen if you tell them in chat or over voice comms. Again, playstyle.

There are a myriad of other examples i could make out of thin air where comms don’t mean that much. They tend to matter when you are setting the bar really high like with my team on G4. I would build only x amount of certain fortifications.

No Salvo/Turret/Sentry/Strike card runs for example. You need comms when playing matches like this (not in public on ‘standard’ Inconceivable mode i’m assuming Master on G5 would be quite similar)

No Scout/Engineer runs, or 3 Soldiers no Scout 1 Engi or vice-versa. Comms are needed when really pushing the limits, but not on standard hardest difficulty with randoms as once again. … Playstyles matter & the majority of the time randoms will not care if you tell them to do x,y,z to accomplish a,b,c …

As for Sentries “not doing enough damage” well not to get all up on my high horse here, but i never used sentries in G4 to ‘kill’ anything. More so as a back-up deep in our base (typically one in each corner angled so every part of the base was covered if we were breeched & on the verge of a wipe) so again sentries (in G4 for me) were best used as annoyances to stagger flyers or to get them to constantly swivel around exposing their back-ends.

As for decoys not having enough hp in G5 , i know that in nG4 they seemed to have a lot of health but again, i always positioned them off to the side in order to ‘protect’ them from Booms & drops but in a way where the Scions would waste time trying to get an angle to shoot them & as such give my team-mates time to ‘protect’ my decoy by killing or damaging the Scions before they could damage my Decoy. So a cycle of protection if you will.

I also put barriers in front of my decoys so my forts could protect my forts, another cycle of protection.

I could have built 20 Decoys & done whatever i wanted in G4, but with the right tactics i made my forts work without having much ‘upkeep’ whilst having around 5 decoys in ‘active’ use & another 10 or so just sitting in the back like some type of factory line to replace my ‘expired’ decoys. So when it comes to decoy hp etc, i really don’t know how much better in G4 they were because …

I had solid tactics in order to protect them.

As for repair speed , yeah if the repair speed is significantly nerfed in G5 (especially the base rate) than this would become an absolute nightmare as on G4 i never had enough time to do exactly what i wanted. Most of the time i was risking it with 5 or so enemies left & pushing my forts where i wanted them or trying to set-up my team-mates (is the decoy okay here or not? Barrier here ok? etc) so repair speed nerfs would on their own would have most likely killed my urge to play as whatever the Engineer class is in G5 had i decided to play …