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State of Gears: Smoke Screen Split
State of Gears: Smoke Screen Split
Posted by SmellyMoss on Feb 23rd 2009 11:39
By Switchbackk
We’re now 3 months in to Gears of War 2 and opinions have been solidified. Is it what Gears of War players wanted? Put simply, Gears of War 2 is not what the competitive scene wanted. The burden of building on Gears of War seems to have made Epic Games second-guess what they were doing as nothing seems right in the sequel.
You may know that the original Gears of War’s multiplayer was a last minute job, but despite this, it was probably the best after thought the gaming world has ever seen. This was a case of a game being great because of a lack of effort and the resulting simplicity. A German car company called Weissmann didn’t put electric windows or complicated heated seats in their roadster as there was less to go wrong. Much the same with Gears of War and Epic’s idea of simple weapons, simple maps and simple game modes. Keeping it simple gave them one of the most played games on Xbox Live.
So what has Epic do wrong with Gears of War 2? They changed the movement, added more weapons, changed 99% of the games working mechanics and then decided to add in something called a smoke grenade. This wasn’t just any smoke grenade though; this was a smoke grenade that separated an entire community.
After playing Gears of War for two years, teams were looking for something new but not something different. Namely some new maps, a couple of small tweaks to balance out weapons and some new characters would’ve definitely sufficed. Yet Epic failed to see where they had succeeded. If you have played Gears of War, you’d know that it lives up to its tactical name for the first minute or so of a round. From there on out, it becomes a full on adrenaline rush and a race to eliminate the opposing team. This gave the game balance, as players with smart minds could easily duke out an area of a map to give themselves the advantage when it came down to pushing up and finishing a round.
Was this implemented into Gears of War 2? Sort of. The inclusion of weapons like the Ink Grenade and the Stopping Power feature have helped to prevent rushes as grenades can be tagged onto a wall, much like a proximity mine. However, pair this with Stopping Power and the results are dreary rounds and a crawling pace.
The refined and radical Smoke Grenade is the main problem. It’s not the idea that’s so bad, but rather the random and unpredictable effect it has on players. You see the grenade knocks you down, but the two variables aren’t the size of the grenade or the amount hurled at you, but rather the amount of time your character spends lolling about on the floor and the distance that it takes you down from. I’m not one for randomization, nor are most gamers, hence the huge problems this little grenade has caused.
Since release, Epic have pumped out two updates and there’s a third on the way soon. In each one, teams are hoping for some sort of fix on the smoke grenade – whether it be a full removal of its knock-down ability or a simple radius fix – yet no overhaul has arrived (Title Update 3 looks promising). This has totally divided the community as some players want them on regardless of its flaws, mainly to counter the slow, toned-down game play of Gears of War 2. Whereas others despise the over-powered items and think they’re too random and don’t fit in with competitive play.
Each case has a valid argument and each case has flaws. Playing a competitive match with smokes ON does offer exciting, fast game play and is how the game should be played, yet the inconsistencies are always reminding you that the smoke grenades are broken and odds are you’ll get screwed over with a 99% chance of it being down to the smoke grenade. Playing with smokes OFF removes the randomness of the grenades themselves, brings in Stopping Power which is a lot more predominant with no smokes, and with no secure way of acquiring a chosen objective (power weapon, an area of the map), game play slows down and players become much more cautious, ending up in tie rounds. The smoke grenade is certainly one of the most controversial and frustrating items to have been featured in a game.
With two mindsets, matches are increasingly harder to come by and players are leaving the game resulting in an insecure community. There’s even been talk of reverting back to the original Gears of War, and after a poll on gow2forum.co.uk (80 votes for, 71 against), it's realistic possibility. The same site held a poll regarding smoke grenades being banned in competitive play and the results totalled 37 votes for smokes and 81 against. With the community split on smoke grenades and vouching for the return of Gears of War, what can we expect? Fingers crossed, bring on Gears of War 2 Title Update 3.
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Dekko said: (Feb 23 2009 at 12:51:13 GMT)
The GoW community are the biggest bunch of moaners regardless of smoke grenades, if it wasn't them it'd be something else.
All everyone did back in the first game was moan about host advantage, the shotgun, wall bouncing etc etc.
The Gears forum at xleague was the worst, full of moaning, whining and bullying compared to the Halo forum for example.
The game will never be perfect and update after update wont change that. Going back to GoW1 for competitive matches is just lazyness & falling back to the security of familiarity and I think that would signal the end of the Gears community.
Just implement a set of rules (such as we had at xleague) that everyone has to stick too unless agreed otherwise, how hard is that?
Saying that, the smoke grenades are bloody annoying ;)
Abilityz said: (Feb 23 2009 at 17:47:36 GMT)
the gears community only moan as playing a game u dont always enjoy is boring
LiqzZ said: (Feb 23 2009 at 19:21:28 GMT)
Gears of War is one of those games thats really hard to progress at competitivly. All its problems make the game that little bit more challenging to master which in turn makes it more fun being good.
NyteTyme said: (Feb 23 2009 at 19:45:40 GMT)
I actually think your comments are harsh Dekko. If you have experienced the game competitively then you would understand their frustrations. I'm sure when Halo was released everyone complained about the weapons, br spread, setups and slow speed compared to Halo 2.
We all critique new games that don't live up to our expectation and i can agree about the smoke grenades. They actually stun a player leaving him vulnerable to an easy kill.
BTMX Skp2TheEnd said: (Feb 23 2009 at 21:24:42 GMT)
Thats why I think that the majority of people (Including myself) would love to see the smoke grenade's stun ability removed asap. Atleast in the first game they were just smoke grenades and nothing more.
However, its not the only problem with the game. The chainsaw is too powerful, the grenade tagging encourages camping, you have rounds where you have no gun/lag on the spot and the mortar totally ruins the tactical style of the first game (Okay maybe im being a bit harsh on that last one, but it is annoying).
Fortunately most of these faults can be ironed out with some weapon customising, but the smoke grenade cannot be removed and thats what needs to be done for the next update otherwise people will become fed up and move onto something else.
Loco G O D said: (Feb 24 2009 at 10:27:04 GMT)
Dekko - Everyone dealt with host advantage, it was just asked to be toned down and in 3 patches it never was. In terms of the rest, when did people ever complain about wallbouncing? The shotgun? No more than a player complaining about another sponging on Halo 3. Perhaps the XLeague GoW community (i.e. a small minority of the whole community) complained, but that's why a lot of those teams avoided playing amongst the best. Otherwise, I've seen just as much complaining from every other community.
The smoke grenade is more annoying due to the fact that the stun duration is random, and sometimes glitched depending on where you land. Are you saying that an obvious flaw is nothing to be concerned about? That's your opinion, but nowadays there are 3 EU teams interested in going to MLG as opposed to just us, and no one wants something to happen that can seriously spoil the game when playing at the highest level in the EU or the US.
Loco G O D said: (Feb 24 2009 at 10:28:35 GMT)
Thanks to this 'complaining' EPIC are at least fixing a few things, and we care about them knowing our concerns because we enjoy many of the game's aspects. If anyone wants to complain about our input into improving the game, then waste your own time.
Dekko said: (Feb 24 2009 at 15:08:53 GMT)
I understand the problem, a number of clans stopped playing the first Gears due to host advantage & this could have the same effect on the game competitively I'm just stating my experience from three seasons of xleague's Gears community.
Dekko said: (Feb 24 2009 at 15:14:39 GMT)
Plus Loco you seem to have taken what I've said to heart, sorry but it's just a reaction from the negativity of the xleague Gears forum which started so well and ended so bitter for many clans & died due to its own apathy in a sea of moaning.
This news caught me on a bad day.
Of course I understand the problem & clan players feedback to the developers about a game.
My point was simply a reaction from those three ever declining seasons.
I Ehrgeiz I said: (Feb 24 2009 at 18:32:40 GMT)
i myself have gone back to playing gears one. as is said in the article it would have been much better to just fix the little niggling problems with gears 1 instead of overhauling everything making it really slow paced, dull and boring.
yes theres still the problem of host advantage and quitters but its still a more fun game to play. epic have shot themselves in the foot with gears 2.
Mister X said: (Feb 26 2009 at 17:15:59 GMT)
yeah i play gears 1 more epic should fix the problems now before gears 2 dies. i agree with dekko about the xleague gears community it did go bad and everyone was moaning a lot so i see what he waz saying
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