Needing to try and find some clarification on how versus matchmaking is going to work in gears 5 (due to how 4 did it I checked out of the game after about a year)…
So in Gears 4 (at least when I stopped playing) the only way you could play in a group over 2 players was to play ranked, or play co-op vs AI. There was not a casual playlist to simply play one or a variety of game modes with a team where you could back out and requeue without a penalty. The only time this sort of playlist existed would be when new maps would come out and season pass holders could do the VIP playlist with big parties, bot backfill, and simply play.
I personally liked ranked, but some of my friends (who are not major gearheads) HATED playing the game because for all of us to play together most of the time we had to play ranked. Not fun having your buddies hate themselves because you are a onyx 3 or diamond player (prior to diamond getting tiers) and they are silver playing against a team of all diamond/onyx.
Is Gears 5 bringing back a true, casual playlist where we can play in a 5 stack (like social was in gears 3) or is it the same crap from 4 (only ranked or co-op vs AI for a team of 5)? If nobody knows yet that’s fine, but I would love someone to provide me a bit of insight. It’ll determine if I game pass this game for a few months and move on or actually dedicate years to it like I have in the past. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide.
I totally agree with you, it’s lame to force friends of different levels who just want to have fun in ranked.
The problem is when multiplayer games don’t prevent people from stacking in social, it results in players abusing the system.
In Gears 3, social was killed in less than 1 year by teams of 5 stacked social-warriors tryharding and crossing across the whole map with retrolanzor and sponge characters against random people.
And nobody would want that to happen again, devs nor gamers.
I am not inside so I can’t answer your question but I am sure this problem is a real pain in the a** for devs.
And one way or another, people like your friends who just want to have fun playing the game casually are penalized.
But overall, devs can find all the solutions they want, it just depends on the population remaining high to enable matchmaking system to do its work.
So let’s hope devs tried something else than capping social at 2 stacks and that Gears 5 will have a larger base than Gears 4 and will succeed in the long term.
I appreciate the reply. I hope they have something ready for us in this game. It just stinks that games like CoD, Destiny 2, Halo, and others can manage this but gears gave up the fight due to people 5 stacking in social during gears 3. Now that they have incentives to play ranked (weapon skins and other rewards) I don’t think 5 stacking with a sweaty party will be as crazy if they were to bring back social, or expand social to allow 5 person parties.
In the old system you could quit, find a new lobby, and keep rolling whenever you’d want, much like all of the games mentioned above. Just stinks that gears of war (my all time favorite series) doesn’t allow me to jump in and play with my friends like I can when I play CoD with one of my more talented fps friends.
Fingers crossed they fixed this issue, if not gears 5 will be quick to only have the most dedicated gearheads playing after a month.
I think there should be limitations to Social. If you and four friends that don’t play a lot want to jump in and have fun you should be allowed without you having to be concerned with your rank in Ranked.
In its current state, Gears 4 matchmaking puts bronze against diamond players, so it’s impossible for casuals to have fun being literraly destroyed while trying to apprehend at their own level how the game works.
I just don’t get that every other game that has a competitive scene has the ability for large groups to play and casually have fun except gears. It’s really difficult to justify my friend who likes versus games to buy it since I won’t be able to play with him/her without the matchmaking placing us in a crazy lobby.
Just make the social playlist(s) available for large parties and if a 5 stack wants to waste their time and force the other team to quit let them. They will be stuck in a lobby against bots and will eventually get sick of matchmaking and go into ranked to play a team of actual players.
I’d rather have to leave a lobby because it’s really tryhard with my friends and requeue than go into ranked and be forced to stick out a beatdown or take a suspension.