FULLY AGREE!
Tbh I thought this was only PvE in terms of the heros, but as for “lofty goals” i’d agree with you, I feel like they were aiming for an audience that just didn’t exist.
I feel like this was actually listening to fan feedback in relation to people wanting it to feel like Gears 2&3’s unlock system. But it felt like it was made with making money from the store also in mind, as a result it was awful. I do believe they tried to listen though!
I think this is very much a big factor and I find myself often swaying between how I feel about it. I have tried to settle on a better way of wording it, I feel like they didn’t intend to abandon their fans, but they had an ego / god complex whereby they envisioned what they wanted to do and they were going to go and do it regqardless, even if it went against CLEAR displease from the community (for example the omen).
This is certainly a debatable topic because it could be argued that they’re the developers, it’s their game and they can do what they want. That’s 100% true.
On the flip side it could be stated that the “loyal fans” are people, they’re paying customers. They became loyal to Gears because they liked the content they got when they purchased Gears. Being loyal doesn’t just mean you’re a sheep who will pour money into anything with a Gears branding (for most people at least), so if people don’t like the way Gears is heading with these changes, they won’t spend money on it. I used to LOVE Gears, with Gears 5 I have spent £1 on the Game Pass and I feel that I got my money’s worth from the campaign, honestly had I paid £1 for the MP I would want my money back. That there is the thing, TC need to remember that their “fans” are paying customers, without them the game will flop so there’s no point in having a God Complex as a developer because the community will just turn their back on you and you’re left screwed. I honestly believe that for the most part, that’s what happened.
I want to both agree with you and be honest. I am probably 1 of THE MOST critical people towards TC that there is. Here’s the thing. My critique is from a place that wants the best for Gears. A lot of the time when changes are made (or not made) following feedback it can become extremely frustrating and i’ll admit to becoming immature at times which isn’t helpful at all, but this was at a time whereby I had put a lot of time into proper feedback on behalf of many people that felt to be ignored, so I felt like that was a waste of time too.
I have since recognised that they do appear to be listening, listening enough to the point that they’re actually listening too much and need to settle on a specific route to take based on majority feedback. (I have been making that point often recently).
As for “agrressive”, I haven’t ever done that, I have been sarcastic which is a big difference, I have seen threatening comments from people though which is too far. I would often Tweet sily things at the old lead MP designer, most of which with the intent of humour, but I would occasionally see people hurling actual abuse at him too, whereby I would flip to actually defending him. A lot of what gets said should come down to common sense and decency.
I think the problem is because it’s feeling like too little too late, also it feels somewhat like a repeat of Gears 4 all over again and people can’t just forget that.
Gears 4 was an utterly awful game but near the end, TC started to publicly listen and respond to feedback. The come up with the Comp 2.8 beta. They had so much feedback praising it. Gears 5 launches and it’s like this never even happened, it’s like they knew nothing. Now that Gears 5 feels like it’s failed they’re once again looking to the community for feedback. You have to ask yourself if they’re genuinely looking to listen or if they’re trying to repair the PR between TC and fans so that people buy Gears 6, only to maybe find they’ve forgotten feedback again? It really can’t overlooked that they did that. It’s been a very long time since Gears 5 released now and it still feels horrible, it’s still not in it’s final phase. It’s all just too slow. I understand that it had a bad launch as you say, but it feels like we’re nearing the end of it’s lifespan now and it’s still not even finished. Patience only lasts so long.
Good, it’s deserved. (by hate I mean negative feedback). It was a terrible idea, borderline being utterly stupid! We all seen the backlash that GoWJ got for trying to be different, I can’t grasp the logic behind knowingly trying to do that again. Gears is Gears, you can’t change the core mechaniss without wrecking the overall experience. People can Fly showed us that back in 2013, I can’t understand the thought process behind taking that risk again. So yes, the backlash to it is well deserved.
I agree with you, for once I find it very hard to pin the blame on TC for this. The problem isn’t TC. The problem is 50% game developers in general and 50% the gaming community.
I could type so much on this but i’ll keep it short. Players want to buy things now rather than earn it, I even see people asking TC to put characters for sale, they don’t even consider earning them. Game developers recognise this and they will of course adjust their business plan to cater to this, it’s easy money. This will NEVER change unless the community stops funding it, which they won’t so it’ll never go away. The problem isn’t TC. Saying that though, putting items in the store makes the item have no real value to the game, even seeing Carmine means nothing to me now.
I WANT to agree with you, I just find it difficult to. Yes they’re admitting to their mistakes which is good for anybody to do, I do respect it! But I find it hard to accept it based on what I said earlier in relation to already having feedback from Gears 4 and the ego / God Complex. To an extent I feel like they intentionally brought this on themselves due to potentially believing that the fan base EPIC built up the loyalty with would stick around through their mess. Many people were so angry with Gears 4 that Gears 5 needed to be perfect at launch in order for them to stick around, it wasn’t and it’s still far far far far far from. To many people TC are still yet to earn any real respect for it to become loyalty. Maybe they DO want what’s best for Gears, but I don’t think that they wanted what’s best for the community until they realised that their vision wasn’t working.Gears is the community, we felt ignored for too long whilst things weren’t working, if the community feel like they weren’t considered with the intitial view TC had for Gears 5 then they’ll feel like TC turned their back on them, in turn they’ll turn their backs on TC. As I said earlier the community are the people who pay for this, having them turn their back on you is a bad route to take, especially the Gears community because we’re not exactly forgiving. As a community we can simply not buy another TC product if we wish, we could just go and give our money to a different developer for a different game, it’s of little consequence to us. Whereas TC need to keep their customers, without us they’ll fail and that’s the same for any company / customer relationship anywhere in the world.
My workplace, if they customer isn’t happy they’ll go to a competitor, some game companies have the ego that it won’t happen to them. I assure everyone that it will if the customers feel like they’re not important, nobody is going to spend money on a product that they don’t like.
100000000000% Agree, it’s very important for people to remember. I will always support proper feedback, I often have people come to me requesting that I forward on feedback for them, if it’s logical then I will but I refuse to push blind hatred or abuse. It’s easy to forget that when typing on the internet that it’s going to other people. People need to not forget that.
Do I like Gears 5? No
Do I like TC? No not really
Do I like TC employees? Yes, they seem very friendly and bubbly
Do I think they can make Gears 5 good? Yes
Do I think they will make Gears 5 good? No
I think many people giving feedback is good, I think that some people need to get feedback on their feedback because some of it is awfully presented. I agree and disagree with some of your points, good post though.
%
