One problem is that people just want Master runs done in the easiest and quickest way possible. Normally that involves Forge, which is brain-dead easy outside of Guardians and Sentinels, or Exhibit speedruns, which again, is fast and easy. Even District Arcade room is easy.
People learn the game one way, and when it doesn’t go that way, they don’t have a clue what to do. Its kinda why I learnt to play multiple ways after I did all the launch maps on master.
As for people not reading lobby names, that happens all the time. It happened quite a bit with my LFG posts in Gears 4. It happens in multiple games outside of Gears. The amount of people who cant read 5-15 words is staggering.
People who don’t understand the class they are playing generally want to be carried, which is possible in Horde, not so much on Escape (aside from a few hives). It also doesn’t help that it is a grind to unlock and level up skill cards in this game.
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No, but the grind is. Look at the stats page and see how many days/hours you’ve spent on Horde and Escape (because let’s be honest, if people are grinding, it’s most likely in Escape). Now tell me how many characters you’ve maxed (5 for all equipped skill cards).
Gears used to be an arcade style game. Pick up and play. Chuck some metal at them grubs with anything you find on the ground. Easily accessible and understandable for anyone. Now it requires some serious sunk hours to be even marginally effective at higher difficulties, not to mention the meta like you said.
If a new player spent 10 hours leveling up Emile or Sarah Connor for Horde and find themselves being kicked from every match because of the meta, they have a powerful incentive to stop playing.
I think that’s what Gears 5 misses sometimes. Don’t just give people an incentive to play. Also don’t give them any incentive to stop playing.
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I’ve put 9 days into Horde and I haven’t maxed any character. I’ve put 2 and a half days of playtime into Jack (most of it on Master), and still not got every card to level 5.
The only one I have maxed out is Mac, but even that took 2 days of playtime.
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I agree that the pool is kinda thin. I’m pretty new to gears 5 and it seems like not much has changed since I left after gears 3. You get some guys that are really good that stick around and then it’s just noobs trying the game out after any other decent players have quit. Do they not have clans or teams or guilds or something? It doesn’t make sense not to have clans or some kind of party system where you can group up and co’op. None of my friends want to play gears and it’s quite a shame.
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I don’t kick them cause of the meta. It’s because 99.9% of randoms joining my games have 100% now clue how to play them properly. They play like idiots.
That’s gameplay design. You could say that’s not the meta but I choose to call it meta because learning all the intricate systems is a strategy unto itself and it is brand new to the franchise.
I call it the meta because Gears 5 is dressed as a straightforward game when it’s actually a complicated game.
Think of it as the Franchise or Genre Meta. This Meta used to be straightforward: choose your favorite character and fight grubs by scavenging the battlefield for gear.
Now it takes hours and days of play in Gears 5 to learn how to play effectively. You also have to scour forums and websites for info because a lot of it is not explained in-game (see thread about inaccurate skill card descriptions). On top of that you have to get good RNG to actually be effective.
You could say that the meta is actually about character choice (JD/Kait/Baird) but there is a higher level of meta for me.
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Was in that match with you, that Baird was truly a hammerhead
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The best solution for this is for every character to be unplayable untill the player runs a detailed tutorial. Like for example how to use JD, and his role in the game. The player should be taken into a proper tutorial and give basic tricks. Like for example direct shots on enemies protected by a bastian with a boomshot will damage the bastian itself. Cryocannons are used to freeze bosses, guardians, and senitels to make them 10x easier to kill.
After that difficulties should be unlocked with each character in terms of his level. For example you can’t use a character on master below level 16, and if you don’t have another level 16 character to use, then you should be removed from the game with a proper message indicating why.
So far 2 of my friends’ reputation decreased from having to kick noobs and low level players who join, that’s really unacceptable
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Bingo. Horde 4 was and is far superior. True “roles” and character diversity allowing self expression and an element of skill. Horde in 5 is none of those things. OP JD ego maniacs and heavy weapons are about the extent of its diversity. It’s so boring. And these guys like @Looopeeeeeee will probably kick you because they don’t like your weapon skins. Horde is fekked by these hubristic idiots.
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@JollyBunny44821 I think that the reason why there are so many low quality players ( a term that I really hate to use, since I don’t think there are bad players… since for me only exist bad games ) . It’s because horde its so limited in its structure, choice of weapons and skills to use… its boring that the good players eventually ran off to something more interesting Period.
I wouldn’t worry about the low quality players… I would worry about the low quality horde that TC has fed up to us as of now.
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I loved horde 4 and I liked beast in 3 equally if not better. Matriarch could have been the new beast berserker. What a missed opportunity. I still play beast, escape is rubbish and horde is dead. Kick kick kick…host change. The whole essence of gears finest selling point is disrupted beyond belief. And it’s these so called ‘master’ players who seem to think they have suddenly become the new ‘real deal’. Anyone who is a gears veteran knows that is simply not the case.
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The pool of any and all players of any type is low.
Well, i just finished a Master game, last night, with no Jack and no Forge (and no taps either), so i call BS on ‘vital’…
Useful? Yes… Helpful? Yes… Vital? Not so much… 
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Many players, like myself, probably don’t find masters to be fun, and too time consuming, with a meta that is too strict.
Some folks want a reasonably challenging, hour long experience where multiple setups and team comps are viable.
Frenzy is a great addition, modifiers change the strategy needed, but the positive aspects are outweighed by poor enemy and hero balance, ammo starvation, and forcing players into using characters they don’t enjoy playing .
Some people might enjoy sitting back for 3 hours supporting JD while he racks up all the damage, while others enjoy the older versions of horde where your chance to contribute isn’t hindered by awful balancing.
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Seeing comments like yours just reminds me of Gears 4 Horde and the fun that was left behind with it. To be clear, I’m only missing the fun. Things the Dropshot could still do then with a good Heavy player such as the person in this video(it’s not me, but I’m sure people used to know this guy very well, I sure did to find this vid again). Note text annotations on top left for difficulty. I watched it once… or maybe twice before I posted it here.
@Omen_LP Seeing that brings back fun memories, doesn’t it? Such a damn shame what they did with the Dropshot. Could’ve lived with lower ammo capacity and maybe not going back to taking bosses down in 1-2 shots, but the damage nerf to oblivion practically just killed the weapon for me in Horde.
But I guess it somehow is more “ skillful” to waste loads of ammo on a single bullet sponge enemy while it can put you down in two or less shots.
(Is it just me or does the Boomshot Scion voice saying “Firing” sound more intimidating than in Gears 5 in this? Honestly forgot what they sounded like. I never liked hearing that for knowing a Hail Mary Boomshot was about to come flying in.)
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I had a bunch of clips of it too, but probably deleted them to save space by now. Perhaps other people still do, but I’m not too bothered going to dig around for clips of people I knew were good with a Dropshot in 4. Things like firing Dropshots at moving flyers and b*tch slapping them or firing at one hiding behind a building and killing it, that was the stuff. I can admit to the Dropshot having maybe been slightly OP but heck, that’s what made it fun and much more useful in the first place. And rewarded actually being good with the weapon.
Now, it’s almost like a peashooter and doesn’t feel like it rewards getting consistent headshots or direct hits with it nearly as much. Well, except for when it somehow takes off over 60% of a Warden’s health on Elite in Escape for no apparent reason when it usually does just over 10-20% on a direct hit. But that incident has only ever happened once to me. Forget killing bosses with it. And the fact that you need to have explosive bleed to makenthe weapon be halfway relevant against anything bigger than Leeches, Trackers and maybe Juvies, and Drones if you hit a headshot on them(if not, the explosive splash is puny and barely does anything to them without bleed, and I prefer to have actual punch behind the explosives rather than relying on bleed to do the damage for me) just makes it even more boring.
Heck, if they just straight up reverted the Drop to its Gears 4 state I wouldn’t even care. Would be far more engaging than just sitting there waiting for bleed to kill an enemy, or spam a Tri-Shot if I don’t play Kait. But I guess TCs “balance” is more important to them than the fun that weapon provided. And its carnage required being good with it so I still don’t understand why it had to be so ridiculously nerfed it’s practically useless.
I have 7days in and my highest ranked characters (lvl15) got that high from playing a few rounds of escape on a 2x character xp weekend months ago rather than grinding horde.
I don’t have anyone with level 5 blue, purple or gold cards. I do have hundreds of stacked unscrappable score boost cards, so i have that going for me. Which is nice.
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17 to 18 seems to take for ever, particularly because custom horde host idiots don’t want you levelling up at elite or above. It’s 1 kick after another. Your ability is irrelevant. Only level matters to these hubristic nooks.
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