We Need to Talk about Horde

Gears 5
#1

Which gear’s player does not enjoy playing a horde with friends or random people in the matchmaking ?

The new character system is very interesting and ingenious, it allows us to act and play the game with our style, it also divides all the characters into classes, but there’s the problem, it seems to me that the classes as much as the development the cards and the gameplay are not even 10% balanced, I will summarize and also separate in topics everything I should clarify about my horde experience.

1- Lack of cards or useless cards.

first thing to highlight are the cards of each character, we can see that some characters have many cards and some with a much lower number, we can also notice that some cards are absurdly meaningless, such as adding a weapon’s increased damage card that the character does not start with the weapon or is difficult to obtain, for example: why do we have poison cards in the escape game mode in the horde game mode? the three characters: keegan, mac, lahnin, why do they still have cards from another game mode? another question, because they do not have the same standard equipment, as mac uses hammerburst on the escape mode and in horde uses retro lancer and mk1 … the cards must be rethought in countless characters. Why does lizzie have a card that increases the amount of ammunition in the pistol and doesn’t have a card that increases the damage of the pistol? how should i play the master mode with my gun doing 2 damage?

2 - How to play in high difficulty if the character does not have damage increase cards?

One thing that discourages me is the character Lizzie, she has a very interesting silverback and great gameplay, but you know what makes no sense, is that she starts with a enforcer and a dropshot and has no card to increase the damage of these two weapons, in end game difficulties, it is practically useless without doing any damage unless using the silverback that has a long waiting time, what happens? I could easily trade her for a lancer if I had the option in the guns menu, in fact I always ask a friend to make me a lancer or a gl lancer, but in reality I am always kicked out of the game for not offering any action beyond the silverback, or be lizzie is a bad character in itself, very poorly balanced, the enforcer is a short-range weapon, with little damage and extremely bad to control, if it had at least one card that increased 50% of the damage like other characters would be perfect, a simple thing to do and that would help a lot, this is also repeated with paste, Clayton carmine, I see characters like gear’s cgo and keegan, they have cards that increase the damage of their main weapons and are extremely competitive in high difficulties as in the master, but Clayton and lizzie are practically useless and must use heavy weapons to try to help the team. Every character should have a primary weapon damage increase card, lizzie with enforcer and Clayton with lancer. This is a basic idea.

some characters that don’t have cards that increase the damage of their main weapons: MAC, CLAYTON CARMINE, LIZZIE, LAHNI, COLE … ETC

3 - Supreme skill that does not use the full potential of the character

exemple : keegan starts the game with a boomshot, has cards that increase the effectiveness with that weapon, but his supreme does not reload the boomshot ammunition? if I’m going to be forced to pick up an ammo box, what is the ultimate purpose ?

4 - supported enemy tagging system

we all know that eliminating an enemy marked by the support makes your supreme skill reload faster, the problem is to mark the enemy, I make a suggestion, make the system similar to that of the jack, the support marks the enemy doing damage and not pressing the click button, this greatly reduces the delay of marking the enemy, this make better the fluidity of the gameplay.

5 - Transform the Tank characters as really tank.

the game should focus on the characters to play high difficulty and it might even force you to do it, but what is the difference of playing with tank or attack character? none apparent, you will simply die quickly just the same. This does not, however, and apply to Lizzie and the CGO’s gear and he’s not even a tank ¬ ¬

this is just the beginning, taking these changes the game will change a lot for the better.
thank you.

3 Likes
#2

Maybe on the next title if there’s one after this one.

#3

Hi. Lizzie main here.

Get heavy weapons. You generate stim by doing damage with Aggressive Armor, and that stim offers you more time to stand up in cover and shoot. In addition, Cold Finish freezes enemies as they lower in health, making it even less likely that you get shot into DBNO. It also helps A LOT on Scions, Guardians and bosses.

I’ve done Master at lvl.15 by almost exclusively using Salvos and Trishots. Lizzie is really good as she is. Just put your Dropshot into a weapons locker if you don’t feel like using it.

3 Likes
#4

Regarding Keegan:

The problem with him is that he does have a card that refills explosive ammo, but it only works in Escape (Explosive Venom Resupply, or something like that). I pointed this out to Octus a couple months ago and he said the team is working on getting his ultimate to work with explosive weapons in Horde. Probably by the next Operation.

#5

I’ve played as Keegan and he’s a decent enough character but I just find it odd that he has a card for explosive damage boost but he isn’t able to buy explosive weapons like frags, Dropshot, or Torque Bo, and you have to hope that the enemy drops one. And if you die, you’re SOL. I mentioned it in the developer’s stream and of course they said they would pass it on to the proper team. That gets old after a while. And you would think that they would give him a card to increase ammo rounds for his heavy weapons at least since his ULT doesn’t work with them.

Or how Marcus has a card that works with Lancers but he’s not able to buy ALL of the Lancers from the Fabricator.

I think if you have a card that boosts a particular type of weapon you should be able to buy ALL of those weapons from the Fabricator. Imagine having a card that increases the damage of the Boltok, but your character starts with the Snub, and you’re not able to buy a Boltok from the Fabricator. Makes no sense. And no I’m not going to run around asking/hoping my teammates will want to buy/trade weapons for/with me. That’s a dumb and annoying solution.

So basically I’ve leveled up a few characters to level 15 because I couldn’t care less about the banners you get for the last two levels, and play sporadically, hoping they make some more major changes in the future that will make the experience consistently fun for me, and not just fun for a few games until I get tired of dealing with how convoluted everything is right now.

And like you said, some of the cards are obviously filler. And while I get that, they should have thought of more useful cards before releasing that character. And some of the ULTs are kinda meh…

#6

Referring to point 1, I agree with the venom cards, but, as said by TC in the Horde patch notes thread for operation 3, they are looking to get the venom cards in. This links similarly to point 3.

Referring to point 2, Lahni can get a 100% damage boost with her On The Flank card, which is useful when you play on a map like Forge, Asylum, maybe even District.

Mac, doesn’t have a HB card. In Escape, no one starts with a HB, he starts with a Boltok. I don’t get your point here.

Referring to point 4. Not all characters, but I get your point, and it is a cool idea. Like JD’s ultimate recharges faster the more damage he does, same with Kait.

Referring to point 5. Cole, as a Tank, is really strong. When his cards are levelled up, he can be invulnerable to melee attacks, and can take a 90% reduction in damage whilst in his roadie run, as well as having a health perk, and his increased health and health regen card.

I do agree with some of your points, not all. 4 months ago, I would probably agree with you on nearly everything. But now, I disagree on certain aspects.

2 Likes
#7

I’ve played Clayton Carmine and Cole since they’ve been released, much more Clayton, i think he’s underrated, everyone just looking for increase damaged cards but that’s not necessasry for the type of character Clayton is, his Concussive Explosive Card is a great card indeed, that stun is used on all explosive weapons greatly which quite assist your team . Against Scions, DR-1s , Guardians, Sentinels and all Bosses. while I"m stunning Bosses and MiniBosses , my team is providing supporting cover fire during stuns, and because have Torque -Bow as loadout weapon makes it all better, Done many runs without JD also and when one of my squad members use JD, he gives me Boomshot which i will use along with Torques to provide same stun.

I also use Team Resist and Heavy Deflect Cards as Carmine which helps the team mates out also.

Clayton can be used along with every other character because of his Concussive Explosive Card.

1 Like
#8

Ok that’s a good ideia but the problem in this all is that all players are doing this right now, Lizzie or not, are few the characters that people keep using the main weapons even on easy mode, the game forces you use this heavy weapons, if the game’s ideia is all players do that, all characters could start the horde without weapons and just use heavy weapons cause in the end it’s what they’re doing…
My ideia is make the Lizzie more useful cause people was easy to accept her on master horde cause her skill but me per exemple: if i make a serious server i’ll not prefer lizzie on party cause for me she’s weak for now. i think some weapons like ENforcer is very weak to play on master or endgame, it’s need a little buff card on weapon and recoil like the others characters.

#9

That’s a weapon issue. It is not a great weapon for anyone but a Marcus player at very close range. Giving Lizzie an Enforcer damage and recoil skill won’t make players use that thing on her for any longer than they have to. A Claw skill would suit her fine, though, and make that weapon be more viable for her throughout the match instead of having to rely on a Tri-Shot to kill pretty much anything other than Imagos, Leeches, Juvies and Trackers on Insane and up.

1 Like
#10

Lizzie is amazing, she’s definitely can hang with the best because Cold finish is just that good.

People who kick Lizzie are braindead stupid,

Cold Finish Barriers are where it’s at.

3 Likes
#11

I know what you’re trying to say, in fact it should be one of the best in the game, but the cold skill is only useful at low health of the enemies’ , especially since it is only activated like that, practically lizzie does zero damage during the horde with their main weapons. silverback time is very long, people wanna characters than do damage on 100% of gameplay like marcus or the best example JD.

#12

Cold Finish Is legit, your “DaMaGe AlL wAvE” arguement isn’t gonna change that.

#13

You’re both right, Cold Finish is great, but Lizzie’s damage potential outside the Silverback definitely is rather lackluster to say the least, due to a lack of damage bonuses for any weapon. Works better for Escape than in the Horde spongefest.

1 Like
#14

So you’ve tried it? Freezing Barriers?

1 Like
#15

No? I haven’t done anything in that regard. Not even played Lizzie ever since Op 3s launch at the very least.

#16

You’re the lizzie brigadier and you haven’t even done Cold Freeze Barriers?

Wtf

2 Likes
#17

I usually don’t build stuff as non-engi. And I never needed any help to freeze enemies using barriers nor have I been asked by any engineer to do this while I was playing Lizzie.

Besides, Cold Finish still remains a great skill without using it for barrier shenanigans.

#18

Cold freeze bypass’s execution rules, it’s legit amazing, cold freeze barriers make Lizzie top tier.

2 Likes
#19

I don’t usually find myself to be particularly bothered by execution rules, but then I mostly play Kait and Lizzie in Horde. Two characters not really affected much by them.

And I generally see it as a main criteria(for myself, not everyone) to how well I can use the character for holding a flank myself. Cold Finish still is great even then. May be that the freezing barriers are even better, but no one’s ever asked me to try them… and it’s really not something I personally think of trying in the middle of a Horde match either. It may be the result of being the type of player to not really touch the fabricator as a non engineer, or I’m not running into the right type of player.

Besides, I have infrequently played Horde since Op 2. Very plausible the freezing barriers thing wasn’t spread far by then, so I just haven’t run into anybody wanting me to use it. Have only played Kait since Op 3s launch in Horde as well. So try to have some understanding please.

#20

No u

1 Like