Gears of War 2

[EckoGecko]

damn, shouldn't have bought the recent ones.

Hopefully they fix some issues with the update too.

[Dmitry]

Yeah, I wanna buy that for the extra campaign chapter, but I already bought one map pack so I don't really want to pay for it again.

[Alina]

Double XP weekends start this Friday:

This weekend is Double xp! - Epic Games Forums

[Insanecyclone]

I didn't want to make a new thread for this. But how are the new map packs? I stopped playing it around a week before they did update 3 and added the exp stuff and update 4 looks promising to get me back in it.

Improvements

Title Update 4 makes these new improvements:

• Adds the ability to collect multiplayer experience by playing Horde mode. Players currently gain experience at this rate:

o 50 points per completed Casual wave.
o 75 points per completed Normal wave.
o 100 points per completed Hardcore wave.
o 125 points per completed Insane wave.

• Adds the ability to restart Public Horde from the current failed wave instead of having to start over from wave 1. Title Update 4 also allows the host to kick players from a Public Horde session.
• Increases the frequency of downloadable content (DLC) maps showing up in map voting if all players have shared map packs.
• Adds a message at the end of the match to explain to players that they should wait before quitting so that they avoid an experience penalty for quitting early.
• Adds support for the new campaign chapter, "Road to Ruin."
• Adds 13 new achievements worth 325 points. All of the new achievements require the Dark Corners Map Pack, a set of seven new maps and a deleted campaign chapter to be released July 28. The 13 new achievements are:

o "My Way or the Highway" (25 points): Without being detected, complete the "Road to Ruin" deleted scene after choosing the stealth option.
o "Highway to Hell" (25 points): Complete the "Road to Ruin" deleted scene after choosing the guns-blazing option.
o "Two for the Road" (25 points): Complete the "Road to Ruin" deleted scene in co-op as either Marcus or Dom.
o "Be Careful What You Wish For" (10 points): Reach level 5 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 10 on the War Machine map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Ride It All Night Long" (10 points): Reach level 10 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 10 on the Highway map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "No, But His Face Rings a Bell" (15 points): Reach level 15 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 20 on the Sanctuary map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Lost in Transition" (20 points): Reach level 20 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 20 on the Way Station map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Like Father, Like Gun" (30 points): Reach level 30 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 30 on the Allfathers Garden map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Am I Only Dreaming?" (40 points): Reach level 40 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 40 on the Memorial map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Blood on the Sand" (50 points): Reach level 50 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 through 50 on the Nowhere map in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Afraid of the Dark" (20 points): Play a multiplayer match on each of the seven Dark Corners Map Pack maps (any mode).
o "Did Not Go Gentle" (30 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the seven Dark Corners Map Pack maps (any mode)
o "Is it Hot or Is That Just You?" (25 points): Kill 25 Bloodmounts with a Scorcher Flamethrower while playing Horde on a Dark Corners Map Pack map (any difficulty).

Exploit Fixes

Title Update 4 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:

• A player could copy game progression data from one profile to another.
• A team could use the 50-point revive bonus to artificially increase its score in Horde. Going down but not out (DBNO) in Horde now subtracts 50 points, so there is no advantage to using the revive-bonus technique.
• A player could get 2 points for each kill in Wingman.
• A player could continue to shoot the Flamethrower while performing special movements like evading and mantling.
• A player could cause heavy weapons to spawn continuously while playing Horde.

Title Update 4 also fixes a number of lesser-known exploits.

General Fixes

Title Update 4 fixes these other issues as well:

• An issue that could cause players to lose all achievement progression if they signed in during a loading screen.
• Issues related to the Smoke Grenade causing a player to cringe instead of knocking them down. If hit by a Smoke Grenade with cringing turned on, players will now:

o Drop the Boomshield, even if aiming while carrying it.
o Drop a heavy weapon, even if it is deployed.
o Cringe while roadie running.
o Cringe while in cover.

• An issue that prevented players from shooting around the lower left side of a planted shield.
• An issue that could cause a DBNO player to not appear as DBNO.
• An issue that prevented Gears players from inviting players of other games to join them in progress in a Private match using DLC.
• Issues that caused rich presence information to become inaccurate.
• An issue that caused the overall achievements progress bar to not reflect the latest achievements.
• An assortment of localization bug fixes.
• Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.

Balancing

Title Update 4 makes these balancing changes:

• Adds a 30-second delay in map-based weapon spawning at the beginning of a Wingman match.
• Adds more future server-side balancing options.

We continue to test internally and monitor online gameplay to determine what else may need adjusting.

OFFICIAL - Title Update 4 Release Notes - Epic Games Forums

[AlexRuzhyo]

I didn't want to make a new thread for this. But how are the new map packs? I stopped playing it around a week before they did update 3 and added the exp stuff and update 4 looks promising to get me back in it.


OFFICIAL - Title Update 4 Release Notes - Epic Games Forums

The maps aren't out yet, sad to say. Last I checked the release is July 28th. This title update won't fix the improper host selection (Rod mentioned it in a thread on Epic's forums) but it does all look nice.

I play Gears regularly. I'd have to say lag and host are the things that piss me off most. It takes so many shots to kill host since they don't register while contending with his power. I can deal with that if it wasn't for the hosts with a shitty connection or those in TAIWAN (wtftaiwan) screwing it up for everyone. a LAN match is as close to Nirvana as you can get in that game.

I feel like I'm not actively enguaged or cannot change my playstyle, done something differently. They are just near me and I explode. I embarrassingly admit I tend to yell a lot while playing the game online.

[Insanecyclone]

Nah I'm talking about the current map packs the combustible(?) and snowblind

[AlexRuzhyo]

Ah. I love the snowblind set. Combustible was decent. Not much bad to say about either. I just hate paying $20 for them, when I could have waited and gotten both + the 7 new for $15.

If you've play the original, you know Fuel Depot. I was sad this and War Machine didn't make the Flashback cut. The only difference is the atmosphere and and alternating weapons.

Courtyard is wide and open. It's a very nice Wingman/Horde map. Getting shot by the bots can get annoying at times. (Fuck yeah 10 direct hits to 1% of visible arm flesh.) I hate usually hate everything with a Boomshot on it.

Grindyard is a very narrow map without a whole lot in terms of power weapons. There's only the three elevated rooms that provide more than 50% cover. Very hit-and-run and many opportunities to ambush/assist.

Underhill I can't really describe, but I always get my ass kicked on it. I guess I can say there's 3 or 4 different types of "battlefields". The long open bridge, the middle int he garage/tunnel, and the road between the two with the sniper/torque.

Gold Rush is what I like to call Gridlock 3.0. Similar weapon layout, two paths. One overlooks the other. All the explosive weapons spawn at once, all int he center of the map. I hate situations like that.

Flood is unique. In non-respawning matches the the Imulsion will rise up, pushing everyone to the middle ground. The may layout can be described as a power logo. The center ares has two power weapons with an alternating grenade, two grenades outside the main area. It's a push to claim the center in most cases. One of my favorite maps.

Fuel Station is a decent map, but it feels horrible unbalanced at times. The only "true" power weapon is the mortar at the top right of the map, overlooking the grenades. It's usually the spot you'd like to hold.

[Appie]

As Marcus would say: NIIIIICE!!! EXP to Horde Mode, maybe I can get off this lv3 then XD
I'm not one for the deathmatch types, I find Horde so much more fun. Yet the highest I did was wave 37 :/

[Insanecyclone]

As Marcus would say: NIIIIICE!!! EXP to Horde Mode, maybe I can get off this lv3 then XD
I'm not one for the deathmatch types, I find Horde so much more fun. Yet the highest I did was wave 37 :/

Yeah I was never good at gears multiplayer until magically I became good on my last gears 1 match before 2 came out the next day. It's hard for me to play this competitively and would rather play horde mode. But with this exp addon I may try it again since you can't lose your rank like before if you start doing bad in matches.

[rezn0r]

i love the game but i'm always playing cod4 over it because the exp system pissed me off (along with the slow matchmaking system), but exp from horde is going to make me get this addon!

[Alina]

I got to Rank 51 then I stopped, mainly because it took like 2 months for me to get it (with work and other things), and it's only 10% of the way to 100.

This game is a lot of fun, and I'd consider myself pretty good at it (1.82 K/D on the Snowblind maps, which is what I played exclusively since they came out). However, most of my deaths come from lag, or glitches resulting from lag. There's also the nice little glitch where when you pick up a weapon and try to roll back immediately, you actually roll forwards, which is just ridiculous.

I'm hoping a lot of these issues get fixed, and if they start doing double XP weekends all the time I might start playing this again. At the least I'll play the new maps for a bit, then shelve this for good.

[AlexRuzhyo]

Yeah, so they accidentally upped All Fronts Map Pack about 3 or 4 hours ago. It is still there but you get an error when you try to download it. Those who noticed it right away were able to download it fine for a very short time, so they are out there and playing. Others who purchased it before it was caught spent the MS points but are currently unable to download it. It was a glitch/mistake with Marketplace. It wasn't supposed to be upped today.

I'm hoping for some youtube videos of the new maps provided someone with the ability to capture or capture it can upload it. Been camping Epics forums but they will delete all streams/upload links on sight and nothing seems to be popping up on youtube.

[Ragnus]

It's kinda funny. I could have sworn I finished the game on Insane with my friend but I don't have the achievements for Co-Op finish and Insane Clear. Did they go back and remove achievements earned when playing through with the boomshield glitch?

[BadKarma]

It's kinda funny. I could have sworn I finished the game on Insane with my friend but I don't have the achievements for Co-Op finish and Insane Clear. Did they go back and remove achievements earned when playing through with the boomshield glitch?

Why would you need to cheat in single player?

[Ragnus]

Mostly for laughs. Partially because in the twin corridors part of the game right before Scorge, Baird has a really bad habit of running off into the middle of everything and getting killed by Boomer Maulers repeatedly.

[Alina]

It's kinda funny. I could have sworn I finished the game on Insane with my friend but I don't have the achievements for Co-Op finish and Insane Clear. Did they go back and remove achievements earned when playing through with the boomshield glitch?

Did you do the Train the Rook sequence in co-op? That's what most people miss. Also, achievements will never be removed for using an in game glitch... it's only if you gamesave or hack your achievements, and even then your entire gamerscore gets reset.

The All Fronts thing makes me sad. I paid 800 points for each of the map packs, and some people got everything in total for just 800 points. Not that $25 is a lot, but having to pay that much more is a bit irritating.

[Alina]

Also, at this point I don't understand why they just don't release it. I'd pay the 1200 points for Dark Corners right now.

[Ragnus]

Training the Rook counts? Dammit. -.-

[Alina]

Hooray, Dark Corners is out and I'm currently downloading it! Going to wait til later to play through the new scene though with my friend. Also, it's double XP for the week, in both Horde and the Dark Corners playlist.

Now that this is out of the gate, hopefully they can work on ironing out all of the problems the game has.

[Kkel]

Double XP in Horde for Private and Local matches is pretty hilarious. Highway is awesome for Horde, possibly even better than Grindyard. It's like they're just shoveling XP at players.