The dramatic numbers drop coupled with the low sales confirm that this game is not what people who have enjoyed the franchise like, or really want. It's not just weapon balance, or the lack of maps, it's that the modes aren't even like Gears of War. Team Deathmatch with unlimited respawns? If you have lousy players they'll repeatedly die, costing you points. While it was awful to lose respawns in the previous entry, at least bad players would eventually stop coming back to life. But even that mode was criticized with it came out with 3.
People want to play Horde Mode because it was a battle against AI, where you defended a spot and battled against increasingly difficult odds. I'm glad to see there are many like myself who thought Horde 2.0 actually hurt the Horde experience, but Horde from both 2 and 3 were highly played game types. Survival, while fun and intense, is limited by the class setup, objectives to defend, irreplaceable barriers when lost, restricted weapon setups (and even character choices, as some people really are bothered by this), and truly awful teammate AI. Many people vocally want to play against waves of enemies with their friends or random players, and enjoy the challenge of getting through the waves while only having one life per round.
Epic didn't invent the concept of Horde, but it was an extremely popular mode. This new game cripples the accessibility for people who have followed the series with that mode. It would be like Treyarch removing Zombies from their Call of Duty games. That would be absurd, as it's sold the game to people who like team play, and like to work toward a goal.
Look at the removal of Execution. People were irate about that. Epic quickly moved to reincorporate it into the game, but it's just not the same. Starting with anything other than smoke grenades takes away from the experience. People will say adapt, but that makes little sense in this situation. Taking influence from Call of Duty doesn't work when it radically changes your game. In the same way I'm actually happy to read the backlash toward 343i and how they've really butchered Halo 4, and I'm equally pleased to see that with Epic.
Video games aren't art; they're a product. You can't stand behind integrity when you're selling an item to people for a high price with little benefit.
This new content is paid for. It's not a gift they gave to say their sorry. Gears of War gave us free maps, plural. Same with 2 with the Flashback Map Pack. And 3 gave us the Booster Map Pack with 2 free maps. This was on top of the many maps and modes the games already had. In this game, we have little maps to choose from, and they're making it seem like giving us a few more (withheld) maps is a gift from the gods.
When you accurately criticize the game on their site, you're banned and the topic is swiftly deleted. These guys are busy playing Call of Duty, wishing they could add more Call of Duty elements to Gears of War, and then when they do that, they're still playing Call of Duty. What does that tell you when the game these guys make and change isn't even the game they want to play. It's even more insulting since they have a Reaper Medal for killing someone online who is using the employee skin, and yet have had to resort to outsourcing that skin to posters on their forums who kiss the companies ass. Rather than play the game, they get others to do it, then deny the issues with the game. As they don't play it, of course they'd be oblivious to it.
I still play Survival, even though it's not Horde. I'd be fine with Survival if they'd literally say we're not bringing Horde back, but they intentionally avoid it. Topics on their forums are deleted. Posts on their Twitch streams are ignored for things like, "Is Alex Brand a little skinnier than her comic model?" If they just were like, 'it's not coming back,' at least people would no to get rid of their copies if that's what they were holding out for. But they won't do that.
This isn't meant to be a jerk post, I'm just annoyed by a lot of the actions they've taken with this game. I'm glad to see a Test Server, but that feels like it'll become the Special Event Request thread they have, where hundreds of posts and requests will be put in the thread, but they'll only check it for the first month, and then forget it. Then the next DLC will come out, and that's the end of their interest for the game.
But you also can't say go back to Gears of War 2 or 3 for Horde, then hypocritically say they better bring back Guardian. It's not fair to ignore the requests of many and then forward your own interests.
Many people left this company prior to the release of this game, which makes little sense. They'd be getting a paycheck for sticking around, and yet they decided to leave before the next entry in a successful series, seeking employment elsewhere. Clearly there was some dispute about the franchise direction. Seeing as how Halo has now tried to borrow/steal Call of Duty elements, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a Microsoft influence. They were probably hoping to get even more money out of their console exclusives. Clearly it's not worked, and people are stepping away from their games.
If nothing else, they'll make subtle changes to the game for Public Relations, so that when they release the next Gears of War game they can spin it as a sales pitch with really dumb expressions like, "You know, a lot of people struggled with the last game, but we're changing that, you know... We're going back to the roots. We heard your feedback. We're listening. And we're the biggest gear fans, so we want this game to be great, you know. Sure, we're not going to refund you your money for the previous blunder, but if you buy Gears of War 4 for next gen, you might like new direction we've taken it, by going backwards. Friends?"
LOL! I'd have loved to see that. You running around with an ammo box planted on your head resupplying everyone. That would have been a great youtube vid.
(2)
