There are plenty of challenges to be had, in Horde

Gears 5
#1

Hey,

Ok, after countless complaining and critical posts about various aspects of this game, mostly PvP but also PvE, let me say something positive.

I heard a lot of people complain that “Master Horde is too easy”.

I dont agree. It all depends how you choose to setup…

There are setups which are relatively easy to do: Overload comes to mind… I have no objection to those. There is nothing wrong with having a more traditional, " easier" setup. You still need to know what you are doing, i have seem plenty of fails there. But yes, experienced players, with high level classes, Overload is routine…

Then there are aetups which are … Unusual…

For example i just did two 1-50 Master runs on All Fathers… Set up IN THE MIDDLE…

Yes, in the middle… With enemies coming from all sides…

First run we had 2 tacticians , gunner, mechanic, and jack (me). 1 locker, lots of barriers, no sentries…

Second run we had 2 tacticians, a veteran, combat medic, and an infitrator… No engineer… I think we had 2 sentries by the end…

Both runs were very good challenges… Definitely not easy, definitely not routine…

So please, stop complaining that Horde is "too easy, " if you choose to play easiest, most routine setups, with the most powerful classes…

I want everyone to have the choice of how they play… I dont subscribe to the theory that EVERY setups, on ANY map, with ANY classes needs to be a super annoying, stupidly difficult setup, in order to say that Horde can be a challenge…

Play how you want. There are plenty of ways to make it a good challenge. Dont try to impose only everyone what they should or should not be able to do…

Setup on Pahanu, in the middle. It works, my team did it (i wasnt there). No barriers, no sentries. Try that, and say Master Horde is too easy :grin:

19 Likes
#2

I agree. It is all too easy to just do the same thing on the same map with the same classes over and over again. I am guilty of doing this. In many ways I just want to max level all my classes so I can get back to playig for fun.

3 Likes
#3

All I’m going to say is, the people who claim that “Master Horde is too easy” obviously haven’t had enough BS wipes from ridiculous things where no player really made a mistake happen.

10 Likes
#4

Finally, after a few years, you have a similar philosophy.

From weapon nerfs to map nerfs…it was all about how people wanted to play and others thinking they should decide for them.

Metas are popular for a reason.

The game can be as easy or hard as you like.

Most of the complainers are either doing a weird flex or running solo with unlike minded people.

The problem was never with the game.

1 Like
#5

I think the thing that people often forget, is that game difficulty needs to be tailored toward the wider player base to an extent. Alot of the people who moan about X being too easy, tend to be the top tier of players.

Sure there’s lower difficulties for everyone to play on. And less experienced and less skilled players should start off on lower difficulties and work their way up. But when you link the grind for rewards, XP and cards to difficulty the way it is now, people are going to be tempted by higher difficulties.

Also GOW is and always has been a squad-based shooter. It’s a team game and when played as a team, this is where it shines and in terms of difficulty, it becomes easier.

I think the difficulty at present is fine as it is. PVE classes as well as enemies etc are pretty balanced. Not perfect of course, but since around Op 4 it’s probably been the most balanced it has been since launch.

If people want more challenge, they can come up with their own challenges. This was what I had to do as a kid gamer in the 90’s if I felt I had run out of things to do in a game. Setting up in different places in Horde is a good way of doing it. Disallowing certain meta-classes is another, or any other handicap. I agree, people wanting a challenge beyond the boundaries of the game’s preset difficulties need to be more creative with it.

What I will say, is that TC could add a few more potential settings for private-custom games as well. Perhaps a setting which comepletely disables ultimate abilities as an example? People have asked about whether TC can enable the challenge mutators to be selectable in private lobbies too, which I think would be a nice addition.

9 Likes
#6

Yep its the lack of imagination from players. For the simplest one all you have to do is change some cards up and boom a new challenge. Change the location of the Fab and boom a new challenge. The amount of classes to mix and match and all the diffrent places you could deploy the fab which litteraly decides how difficult the game is going to be but no we got the nert this and nerf that crowd lol. Gods I miss OP 1 and 2 Horde …That sh** was intense lol and I don’t mean from meta fab deployment or meta classes point of view because I broke that tradition in OP 2 which made Horde and extreme challenge lol.

2 Likes
#7

Some people tend to be stubborn on changing it up, a pal of mine always insists on getting the same particular tap spawns on some maps any time he plays. It gets boring and its stuff like that, to me, that makes the game “easy”.

#8

I don’t really think it’s fun to play the game at a purposeful disadvantage just to try to make the game more challenging. At that point I think it’s time to move on, but to each their own.

TC does plenty good on their own making this game more challenging thru game-breaking bugs.

6 Likes
#9

I love the logic, we the players should just do everything for them, nevermind that adding higher difficulties is sorta trivial as all it would take is maybe 1-2 people some thought and effort (much much much easier than the decoupling of classes and characters or all the character buffs/nerfs they did mind you) so this logic of “if you want challenge play as Striker” or whatever is stupid.

To put all of this into perspective I find Master Horde to be fairly difficult assuming you don’t have a stacked team (high level players with high level classes) and you pick some of the more challenging maps, but that’s no excuse or reason why they couldn’t just add a modifier or two on top of what we already have.

I just find it hypocritical that everybody begs them for maps or characters (which take loads of time/resources) but all us masochists asking for higher difficulties are wrong apparently.

#10

I find the map thing laughable. for PVE players. I wish they could provide stats for number of games hosted on Nexus, Gridlock, Regency, Speyer since the fallout about having too few maps. I actually think at this point it’s other features like you describe that should be added for variety rather than maps.

All you see now is the Daily map and Overload. So what’s the point making more maps to never have them played once the first master run and frenzy is done?

I know you want a master+ but I disagree with that but I’m also honest about my skill level in comparison, my ****ing son reminds me enough when he watches our group run a map! I think I’m more the mid level that @Bleeding_Pepper says they have to cater for. But I do agree and want more ways to play the game and if that’s harder modifiers you can add yourself to a master run, then I think that’s the way to go. I don’t just want extra lethal, extra damage but more thought into how they could do that.

Kind of how I failed in a stack about 10 times this week with Canals daily on master due to the modifiers.

4 Likes
#11

You can have all the maps in Gears history but at the end of the day you are still fighting the same enemies lol.

Heres the thing though if they did add it no one would have to play it. Like I litterally only play master Horde and Escape and there are other players I have come across who only play insane. Yes if they linked the tour to it and you wanted to finish the tour but again you make the choice.

I would love for them to bring back Horde from Op 1,2 and 3 but have it as Master+.

Horde needs new enemies now more than ever and its definitely something I going to keep telling TC lol.

3 Likes
#12

I disagree that there was or is a problem with the game. There have been many problems with the game in the past, and there are still problems with it… But you can work around them.

One issue which is driving us crazy is STIM…

There has NEVER been an official explanation of Stim, it’s effects, and definitely not its multiple UNITS… Plenty of people have speculated, and/or tried to describe their experiences, but TC has NEVER, EVER explained how it works, and how it related to the units.

For example, Combat Medic: helful headshots, give few “HP” of Stim, depending on the card level.
Get Up gives PERCENTAGE of Stim, depending on the card level…

So how does HP refer to %??

Also, it doesn’t appear to make any difference on Master hord. Stim given by a level 6 GOLD card is completely destroyed/taken down by a single hit of pretty much anything…

There does not appear to be any difference in the level of the card: 30% stim, 40% stim, 60% stim, etc - doesn’t matter - 1 swipe of Juvie’s claw, and it’s all gone…

So explain to me, please, if you are playing on higher levels, what is the point of leveling up medic’s stim cards??? You lose it all in 1 hit… Regardless of the level, HP, or Percentage…

1 Like
#13

I think your a pretty good player my guy, its difficult to ascertain because your in UK so like your ping is in the stratosphere every time I play with you, but overall I think of you as a smart player :+1:

I don’t understand why people think this is the “issue” with Master Horde, Because its a cover based shooter all that damage really means is that you just duck more, I would argue Insane was harder as it meant enemies could just straight up instakill you whereas in Master Horde/Escape it just means you go down and (hopefully) get revived a a few seconds.

I was thinking modifiers that either did something towards the economy aspect or just some lazy modifiers that just added more enemies (more enemies is far more threatening than damage, more variables=harder to face)

Just as an example, a common thing that players do (I do it every single game) is they just suicide via flame nades to get another Boomshot/Longshot/whatever, a simple modifier that just made it every player spawned with nothing but a lancer would be a massive increase in difficulty because it would mean you’d either have to purchase the weapons you needed or you’d just have to wait for them inbetween waves.

btw where do you think your son got his skills from? :thinking:

Gears of War 6. Though it is possible they’ll add those enemies from the Escape from Kadar playlist into regular GOW5 Horde.

#14

From the last stream it does sound like they are adding new enemies but whether or not its the Locust from Kadar I don’t know. Gears 6 could be an extremely great horde experience if they really expand on their roster of enemies.

#15

I can tell you the reason in two words:

RNG TAPS

TC really wants people to use Taps, they neutured Jack’s Optimizer card, tried to offer more benefits to taps (health) BUT THE RNG LOCATION KILLS IT.

I remember watching Ryan talking about how Taps were going to support and entice base growth during a game…

That is not a bad idea, BUT the RNG nature of the taps kills it.

If we have a base and get a new tap on the other side of the map, it is useless, on Master horde… MAYBE it will survive a wave here and there, but not enough to make an impact…

This BS of Taps not being fortifications for purposes of prwcision repair or team repair alao doesnt help…

So people play on the one map where tap placement is actually reasonable relative to where you want to setup: Overload.

You want to support map variety:

  1. Taps ARE fortifications, so precision and team repair repair taps, and

  2. Taps appears closest to the fab, and grow out from there:THAT is how you support varied base locations AND base growth.

Until then, most people will play Overload, and when playing other maps in custom will start, restart, restart, etc, etc, over and over to get the “rng” taps they need for what they want to do.

RNG tap placement is stupid, and has nothing to do with supporting good or varied game play or map selection.
Or skill.

@TC_Kilo1062 @TC_MichaelAOS

3 Likes
#16

:thinking:

I 100% am certain they’ll add all the locust we knew and loved, but they may look a bit weird. The bigger question is whether or not they’ll add the Savage Locust (highly likely in my opinion as they’ve done lots of those skins already) or the Lambent (doubt it)

Another question is what direction Gears 6 will take, if they decide to make Gears 6 into a full blown RPG expect crap tons of enemies, if they go with a Battle Royale type game I highly doubt they’ll put much attention in that area.

#17

I think the main issue, is that there’s also a mutator for extra enemy health so they can tank it up. Also in standard Horde, one of the mutators is Enemy Health Regeneration.

If enemy damage was any higher, you can imagine the scenario where there are multiple enemies with high accuracy who can down you in a split second. They can tank damage, so only certain weapons are really viable - Longshots, and explosives basically. And with health regeneration, you can’t even gradually wear the enemy down - if you don’t maintain the damage they’ll just heal.

Enemy Health Regeneration really determines how I play in both Escape and Horde. If it’s not there, then I can afford to be more patient. If it’s there, then I need to be more aggressive and commit to an attack, otherwise they’ll heal.

I think the balance right now is fine. Any more and it’ll just become insufferable.

2 Likes
#18

Yeah but at worst the only difference would be that instead of 2 shots downing you it would be 1, so if you are running around in the middle of the map on Master then I highly doubt extra damage was the problem.

There are lots of viable weapons in Horde/Escape, basically any precision weapon is good (Longshot, Torque, Embar, Markza is ok) every heavy weapon is good (Salvo, Trishot, Mulcher, Cryo, Buzzkill is pretty trash in Horde though), all explosive weapons are good (Boomshot, GL, Frags, etc.) so I’d say that the weapons themselves aren’t the issue and that your class and how you use them are what determines your success.

I also don’t understand your point about enemy health regeneration, now when it comes to flyers/bosses that’s huge but against regular drones? Pfft. One Boomshot/Torque and that guy is in Grub heaven. If they didn’t just give bleeding to super powerful classes that can probably kill bosses even without bleed it would be a larger factor, but as it stands now enemy regeneration isn’t the most challenging modifier I’d say.

This is also where good fortification placement comes into play, because even though no players may be shooting at that enemy, they would still be getting consistent damage via barriers/sentries, so in a lot of cases you don’t really have to commit, but overall there are definitely instances where its vital.

For you maybe, and I’m aware that most players can’t just hop into a regular Master Horde lobby and do well, the reason I want a Master+ difficulty is very simple, its so I have something else to strive towards and so that if I get a stacked team there’s a mode that we can all play together that will offer a real challenge for us. I’m not speaking for an average player, I seriously have little insight into what a regular player has to go through, I’m speaking as a high level player that wants a high level challenge. Now I do think it would have some impact on regular players because maybe it would give them something else to strive towards, but my suggestion has nothing to do with little Timmy that just got the game a month ago, Timmy got lower difficulties regardless.

#19

Well, of course you can always make yourselves a challenge. But how I always say, a game with 8 difficulties should have one difficulty that is meant to be extremely difficult. And in this game it’s certainly not the case. The crazy thing is the notable difference between Inconceivable and Master. Inconceivable feels like a baby mode while Master feels like “Normal” mode to me.

If you take a look at Escape, Escape used to be extremely tricky but with every operation it felt like getting easier and easier.

#20

Yes, Master is just “Hmmm…is that’s it?”

However, we think Master is easy mainly because of the explosive-broken class ( Tactician/ Pilot/ Demolition).

It’s still challenge when there’s no Explosive Class here. I don’t play GoW 4, but what I remember in GoW 3 Horde is that it’s challenge because of various types of enemy.

Clearly, in this state, Master is a basic difficulty for an experienced player, but there’re still plenty of players suffer from Master. To extent, I think it’s time to add another difficulty, which is “Impossible”, you won’t be able to go down, but die instead.