@TC_Octus & @anon86589457
Sorry for the radio silence, we found a work around that allowed Alpha and another friend to have their progress count so they could unlock Seriously. We were confused with why Alpha’s kills were not getting added to the leaderboard when each week we were seeing different tags on the leaderboard with kills. Then I looked at the details of those on the leaderboards, the top spot was held by someone with 16 matches and 16 rounds, second place had 17 matches, 17 rounds. Third place had 9 matches and 13 rounds, fourth place had 11 matches, 14 rounds. Fifth place had 16 matches, 16 rounds, and so on. Seemed odd that the only folks on the leaderboards were averaging 1-2 rounds per match. This led us to do some testing… 18 matches of testing to be exact.
We started with a 1 round match, Alpha won it, and the leaderboards updated with his kills. Next we tried a 3 round match, Alpha won all 3 rounds, and the leaderboards reflected the match. Then we did a 7 round match, Alpha won all 7 rounds, and the leaderboards reflected the match. Next up, we did another 7 round match, but traded rounds to get 13 rounds in the match, Alpha won 7 to 6, but the leaderboards did not update to reflect this match. Thinking it may be total number of rounds, we tried a 3 round match, trading rounds to get 5 rounds, with Alpha winning 3 to 2, the leaderboards reflected this match. Then we went to a 4 round match, trading to make it 7 rounds, but unlike the other 7 total round match, this one did not count.
At this point we found a breaking point between matches that count and ones that don’t. However, we were not sure why. The next test, we dropped back to 3 rounds, trading to have 5 rounds, and it counted. Since we were not sure why some total of 7 round matches counted and others did not, we decided to start monitoring the time as well. The next test was a 9 round match where Alpha won 9 to 0 in 5 minutes and 25 seconds, it counted. A 4 round match, trading to get a total of 7 rounds was completed in 4:55 and it counted. Another 4 round match for 7 total rounds, completed in 5:40 and it counted. Another 4 round, 7 total round match completed in 4:55 and it counted as well. A 5 round match, trading to get 9 total rounds took 6:32 to complete, but it did not count.
We were now 12 matches into our testing and finally had a theory. Matches that are completed in under 6 minutes appeared to be counting while those taking over 6 minutes were not. Next was another 4 round, 7 total completed in 5:08, it counted. Back to a 5 round, 9 total completed in 6:32, did not count. So tried a 10 round match with no trading, completed in 5:16 and it counted. Dropped back to 4 rounds, trading to get 7 total in 5:11, counted. Another 4 round, trading to get 7 total, but taking our time and dragging it out to 7:02, did not count. Another 4 round, 7 total, but completed in 6:09, and it did not count either.
With this knowledge, we proceeded to work on grinding out the kills Alpha and our other friend needed for them to obtain Seriously. We were worried any attempt to fix this bug could result in either it getting worse (having a shorter max match time) or that the leaderboards might get reset. Alpha had more kills, so while they both were getting kills, we set the matches to 4 rounds to keep the duration under 6 minutes. The leaderboards were consistently updating with the kills both were getting. Once Alpha unlocked Seriously, we shifted to 9 round matches for our other friend to make sure we kept the time well under the 6 minute limit. That friend unlocked Seriously a few hours ago, hence this update.
Hopefully this data will help The Coalition fix the leaderboard tracking in the original Gears. Up until October, the leaderboards had been tracking and updating after the completion of full first to 19 matches, which ended up being 37 round matches that took 40+ minutes to complete.
P.S. The XP multipliers in both verses and horde in Gears 2 Japan have stopped working again. I’ve seen folks complain about it recently, so I tested and I cannot get the multiplier to register.