With OP5 right around the corner, let us discuss the positive changes that TC have made with the transition from OP3 to OP4.
NOTE: I have mentioned the changes which I personally thought was a good improvement to the game in the long run.
i) Removal of totem system. OP4 scrapped all totems altogether, so that you don’t have to purchase a totem and then grind its challenges associated with that particular totem. Worse part of this was that some the totem challenges were bugged. In OP3, I made it all the way to general and earned my ‘Armored Kantus’ skin. But I couldn’t equip the skin because I didn’t purchase the totem yet… so annoying. Glad that they got rid of this system.
ii) After you reach ‘General’ rank with tour of duty, the tour of duty doesn’t stop yet. Legend ranks start from there on immediately. Just by earning a minor 12 stars, you could earn 750 coins. This was a good addition from TC to ensure that the tour of duty doesn’t stop abruptly. This was already a major turn off for players who made it to ‘General’ rank pretty early on during the course of OP4 and as a result they felt a bit…empty.
iii) In horde, power taps take less time to collect energy, as compared to OP3 where you had to hold the ‘X’ button for a huge amount of time. Often times you won’t be able to complete the animation if the power tap was located far from your base and the new wave would abruptly start, making you highly susceptible to enemy fire.
iv) Again, coming back to power taps in horde, OP4 ensured that power taps could be upgraded even further, making them even more valuable. Also the team gets a global health bonus per level of the tap. And the energy drawn from the tap is increased by roughly 50%.
v) Making the fabricator accessible to everyone.
Now, anyone can purchase fortifications, weapons and even upgrade existing fortifications. It is not exclusive to the engineer only. This opens up some exciting combinations in horde for a ‘No Engineer’ runs.
vi) Addition of Paduk. Nicely balanced character, and having more diverse cards which opens up for a possibility of an ‘Execution’ build ‘Sniper’ build or a mixture of both. Nicely done by TC.
vii) Marcus’s skill for ‘Rifle feedback’ the numerical values have been reduced (nerfed). This is good, nobody likes OP Marcus anyway… even a small nerf was good.
EDIT: @HerrKatzchen has been kind enough to point out that the introduction of Headshot master and Ultimate Buff for Marcus nullifies this. The negatives far outweigh the positives in this situation, so all in all this isn’t considered as a good improvement.
viii) Longshot tuning. I am talking about this specifically:
ix) Maximum card level has increased from level 5 to level 6.
x) Removal of the ‘Supply drop’. For those who don’t remember, it was a random card which was obtained daily and could be either a weapon skin, iron, boost, character skin, etc. Hated loot boxes in Gears 4, glad to see that this ‘randomness’ was removed.
xi) Introduction of store. Now all the characters whom you have to obtain by purchasing totems and completing their respective challenges, have been added to the store. You can now purchase characters of your choice easily with coins. And it would be instantly ready to play! If you wanted to play as Clayton, Cole, Baird, etc. in escape and horde, you couldn’t do that without purchasing their respective totem (and completing the challenges associated with them). Now you can easily purchase these characters with coins and experience their playstyle. So basically characters are now ‘unlocked’ whenever you get ANY character skin associated with that character.
xii) Introduction of Kait, Fahz, Del, JD as escape characters! They are no longer exclusive to horde.
xiii) Free for All versus game mode was reduced to a maximum of 8 players.
xiv) Introduction of Dom, Locust Grenadier, Locust Drone, Mihn, Uzil Skraag, Samantha Byrne, Zamil Karn, etc. as versus characters.
xv) Introduction of classic maps such as Blood Drive and Checkout.
xvi) Reactor map is the best highlight of OP4. This map just oozes creativity. The animation of the reactor operating in this map is just fantastic.
xvii) Addition of an ‘Assymetric’ map (Rail Line) in horde. TC should try to make more assymmetric maps.
xviii) Batista as Marcus in Gears 5 campaign. I know a lot of people are upset about this, but I still just had to mention this as this is going to release before OP4 gets over. Batista seems very passionate about taking on the role of Marcus. You can tell he puts his heart and soul in the character he plays. That is enough proof for me that the job was done well from Batista’s side. TC on the other hand… I don’t wanna go there (this would destroy the purpose of this thread).
xix) Addition of two new music tracks which played during ‘Boss waves’ in horde.
xx) Introduction of Horde Frenzy. Not only that, TC also gave us the freedom to create our own custom lobbies for this game mode.
xxi) Allies xp bonus has been increased to the maximum limit of +15%.
xxii) Also, NOW GNASHER HAS 8 SHOTS!!!
xxiii) Terminator skins have been changed to increase visbility.
xxiv) Sires can now be chainsawed and killed by retro lancer charge.
xxv) Heavy weapons such as Buzzkill, Mulcher, Cryo Cannon etc. can now be purchased from the fabricator.
xxvi) Flashbangs are now available as an option for default loadout.
xxvii) Taking cover used to provide additional defence bonus. TC scrapped that defence bonus : ‘If you can see them, you can hit them’
xxviii) Also I am obligated to say this but… various bug fixes by TC.
I am again mentioning that I haven’t talked about all the updates of OP4, I only placed emphasis on what I thought was significant enough.
Please contribute to this thread by highlighting/mentioning what improvements you thought were a significant improvement to OP4. I want to know the community’s thoughts.
Sure, OP4 brought in many updates that TC ‘thought’ it was a positive improvement. But no, I want to know YOUR opinion on whether this was a good improvement or not.
Please DO NOT MENTION THE BUGS/DISSAPOINTMENTS that OP4 brought along with it. Kindly only mention the changes that OP4 brought along with it that changed the game in a positive way on the long run.
I have to admit, I have a hidden motive of creating this thread. I want to check the consistency of TC’s performance.
Here, I have outlined the positive changes from OP3 to OP4. I will do a similar thread in the future once we reach the end of OP5. Then I will compare the positive changes from OP4 to OP5 over OP3 to OP4 by coming back to this very thread.
Your feedback is very crucial.
Thank You!
@Scoops_4 did a great job by creating a thread yesterday which analyzed ‘This Week in Gears’
The link to the thread is here : 2020 TWIG Content: VS, Escape, Horde
@Scoops_4 kindly create a similar one/expand upon the existing thread to include TWIG content for OP5 towards the end of OP5 please?
