As someone who has played 10’s of thousands of hours of gears of war, I feel like I need to express a point that was a major point of debate before gears 4 and way back towards gears 3 on the old epic forums (of which I used a different account)
I would like to outline my point is reference to game design among other recently successful titles.
The most popular Multiplayer games today are almost always highly competitive, they strive for balance and usually a VERY high skill ceiling, nearly always unreachable actually. Also a large skill gap and (even for team heavy games like Rainbow Six Siege) allow for individual player skill to shine. The mechanics behind these titles allow for this in numerous ways to outmatch multiple opponents. In Fortnie it’s building and the weapons are balanced, In Apex it’s movment, In siege is accuracy and planning, in CSGO it’s raw aim.
All of these titles allow people to reach very high skill sets by not hindering them with mechanics which specifically compress the skill gap between new and experienced individuals. There are streamers who a younger audience watch for pleasure and strive to be as good as. There is that momentum in skill that people want to reach, to get better and better, that is what driver the multiplayer scene and ALL of the top MP titles know this.
This was the Case in Gears of War 1/UE and why those games were so prized in terms of competitive nature. Power weapons were deadly and the weapons with the least amount of skill required (the automatic weapons) were not given Special treatment.
Sadly the developers at TC do not seem to be in tune with this trend or have any idea how to make a multiplayer title that people want to look up to. They seem to want to cater to the individual with one slice of pizza in hand who plays for fun once every week.
Stopping power… The worst thing that has every happened to the Gears of war franchise.
The cancerous growth that represents this compression of skill . The obvious inclination to reduce the current recoils in gears 5, have a lower TTK and make it easier for “everyone to go home with a trophy”.
Having played gears 5 for two says now I can tell you one thing. People camp, making plays doesn’t happen and strictly isn’t permitted by the games mechanics, most notably the ridiculous stopping power.
Since when have the automatic rifles every been fun for anyone who has played gears for more than a few hours? They AREN’T fun. Period
The rifles would be just fine without stopping power and I’m certain that is what ruins the fun of gears of war for most of the people I speak with or have experience of the older games.
What is strange is that TC seem grossly underestimate gamers.
As previously mentioned most the “casual” audience they are trying to cater to simply don’t think like that, they want to get better, invest time into being skilful, look up the the streamers who are the best etc. What I find strange is that they seem to be making the game more arcade like, but also adding things that make it less fun.
Here are a few things that while on paper seem like small changes that drastically change the whole feeling and flow of MP for the worse.
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Stopping power
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High damage/low recoil rifles
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Camera Shake/ Flinch
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Blood splatter
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Physics system (floaty rounded physics properties)
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Definition of characters, tac com advantage, outlines.
I’m not owed anything by these developers, It’s only because I’m extremely passionate about Gears of war MP that I even bother writing this post.
I wonder if a day will ever come when we will get a skill based gears of war MP again, I frankly doubt it, but one can dream.