Horde 3.0 pits five players against 50 waves of enemies. Every 10th wave is a boss wave and every 11th wave embues enemies with a new mutator that increase their effectiveness (More health/Accuracy etc). ​

  Horde 3.0 is an evolution the the excellent Horde 2.0 from Gears 3. Players are no longer restricted to where they set up their base or what fortifications they can build. This change in the Horde formula is a breath of fresh air that opens up many gameplay possibilities.

​   Players can now choose from five different classes. Soldier, Engineer, Sniper, Heavy and Scout round out the classes. Each class can be leveled up, and with every other level they can equip a skill (max 5). These skills can give players a tactical advantage and a make them  more effective team member. ​

  The downisde of having five character classes and all of these skills is the grind. I played over 15 hours of horde as an engineer and only managed to reach level 7. This has discouraged me from trying out any of the other classes because I would have to start at level 1 and I won't be able to use most of my skills, making me a less effective squad memberm thus holding my team back.

​   I also haven't leveled up any of my horde skills beyond level 3 (max level 5) because the only way to level up your horde skills is through crafting duplicate horde skill cards.​ I also feel discouraged from trying a new class because I am missing skills. if a player has not unlocked a skill, they cannot craft it. The new skills and classes adds some depth, but the grind can be intimidating.

  One of the downsides to Gears of War 4's Horde 3.0 is it is repetitive. Of course a game mode where players take on fifty waves of enemy would be that way, but what I mean is that wave 1 and 41 have the same enemies. The only difference being the enemy's accuracy and health.

   Something I've been wanting in Horde for the longest time are lobbies. Simple fact is, I don't have 3 hours to dedicate ​to playing a single game of Horde. Sometimes I just want to play a quick 10 waves.

   A lobby system that allows players to adjust how many waves they want to play would be appreciated by the community. For example a lobby can allow 10,20 or 50 waves. This would be a great idea for players like me who just want to play a quick session and for players that want to find a team that wont quit on them after 10 waves. Also, allowing people to join games in progress would be a godsend.

​Mix it Up!: I would want to see certain waves have a random element to it. A wave of 100 juvies and 50 trackers would be a fun way to mix things up and keep players on their toes.

More Bosses: 5 boss waves but only 4 bosses? Just like with the previous suggestion, adding a few more bosses to spice things up would be appreciated.
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More Objective Waves: Horde does feature a few objective based waves, but a few more wouldn't hurt. A wave where you have to defeat an enemy leader or retrieve a weapon cahce from across the map would be a good way to spice things up.

Weekly Events: Weekly events with bonus XP/Credits is a great way to draw players in. 

New Enemies: Adding some new enemy variants or enemies from previous installments would help break up the monotony. Enemies such as UIR soldiers, Lambent or the Locust would be a welcomed addition.

Leveling Skills: How about if players would earn experience that can then be used to level up their skill cards. For example, if I am using the Bonus Headshot damage skill and I kill 200 enemies in game, I earn a free headshot bonus card then can then be used to upgrade the skill.
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   Do you have questions, comments or concerns? Email us at deepdigitaldesign@gmail.com
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- Danny Q
@Dannylv100​​
​

  Welcome to another edition fo Danny Designs! I spoke about Gears of War 4's campagin in a previous post. Today I am going to be talking about the other half of the game, the multiplayer! This includes the versus mode (Social, Ranked and Competitve) and the Horde mode. 

  For many people unfamiliar with the Gears of war series, the changes made to gameplay may go unnoticed. For a veteran of the franchise the subtle changes to gameplay are a welcomed addition. The games runs smooth and the action is hard hitting and competitive. Landing a headshot or winning a shotgun duel in the midst of a chaotic battlefield is a feeling no other 3rd person shooter can replicate.
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- You can now Active reload any time during the match. Including when your weapon is full. Including power weapons

- There is no sound/audio cute for when you are severely injured as in previous game.

- You can now do a running vault over cover and leap onto raised surfaces.

- You can only set one grenade at a time as a proximity bomb. 

- Melee speed has been reduced.

- Pressing LB( Tac-Com) will now highlight your allies and any spotted enemies will be temporarily highlighted in red. Weapons on the map will also be displayed.

- A player with a raised chainsaw will not be stunned if shot, only stunned if they are shot when attempting to rev the chainsaw.

  Plunging a knife into an opponent is satisfying. The Yank is a well balanced mechanic, miss the landing and you're left exposed, but land that kill and earn the bragging rights.

  The one thing I will say about the Yank is that timing the counter is very tricky. I've only counterd another player once! Another small thing to note is that to execute the knife execution involves approaching the stunned opponent and pressing the "Y" button.

  For those of you not familiar with the Gears of War Series, "B" is the melee button, naturally I would press "B" and I would simply melee at the target, only to be blown away by a shotgun. I tried "X", because that is the interact button, the button to open doors, press switches and pick up ammo. That doesn't work. It took me a little while to realize that it was actually "Y". Why is that a strange choice? B is the default melee button, therefore in my mind it automatically meant "Knife", a knife is a melee weapon. Y has be the "point of interest" button. 

  Versus mode is divided between Social, Co-OP vs Ai, Core and Competitive. Core and Competitive modes are broken into tiers from Bronze to Diamond. These tiers are meant to help match players with similar skill against one another. The downside of this is that it isn't made clear how players are placed into these tiers and at times you can be paired with players that are leagues below or above you in skill.
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  Core Matchmaking is where you can find the standards Gears of War modes. Team Deathmatch, King of The Hill, Warzone and Guardian. New to this playlist are Dodge ball (a fast paced mode where players can bring back dead team mates by eliminating opposing players) and Arms race (a game mode where both teams compete to see who can get three kills with 12 weapons). 

​   Execution has been moved to the competitive playlist alongside Escalation, a new game mode that is being touted as the MLG game type. Escalation pits two teams against each other, trying to either earn 210 points or capture and hold all 3 rings to win a round. Win 7 rounds and the match is yours. Escalation lives up to it's competitive namesake and I do see a lot of high level players continuing to invest their time and energy into this competitive mode.

   One thing I felt that was a little odd is the fact that Dodge ball, another mode touted as an MLG friendly mode is found inside the Core matchmaking playlist. Why isn't Dodge ball in the Competitive playlist? Why is Arms Race in the "Core" playlist? Arms Race doesn't come to mind when I think of the core modes of Gears. 

  New to Gears of War is credits and scrap. Unlike the previous installment of Gears 3, players do not unlock additional characters and skins through completing objectives but by buying booster packs with credits. Inside these packs are cards, some will get you the aforementioned skins/characters whereas others will get you bonus XP and Horde skills. Any duplicate cards can be scrapped. Scrap is a currency that can then be used to craft desired cards.

   Credit payout for most game modes is too low, which in turn makes buying packs infrequent. This leads to less duplicate cards being obtained, less duplicate cards means players wont be creating scrap as often. Scrap payout is low, your average player is not unlocking content at a steady rate.  
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   With a few tweaks, this system would be fantastic! First thing we can do to improve this system is to increase the payout across the board. Increase the amount of scrap players receive from scrapping cards. The second thing would be award players free versus/horde packs for meeting in game goals. Leveled up? Free pack. Win 3 games in a day? Free pack. Earn an achievement? Free pack! Overwatch is very generous with how they hand out their loot crates, it keeps players invested, gives them a reason to play one more match.

   As of right now every standard booster pack comes with five cards. An operations pack has five random cards (bounties, skills, skins, characters,emblems). Two of those cards are guaranteed to be customization cards. Something I know that really annoys me is unlocking an emblem as one of my customization items. Emblems serve no real purpose and oftentimes it feels as if you're losing a slot that might have been a character or weapon skin.

  What I would recommend is adjusting the card packs so that they would always guarantee one emblem and then the 5 cards.

   Adding credit/scrap boosters as random rewards for packs would be a great reward for players. It would help keep players playing the game. And they don't have to be too common, one out of 10 packs can contain a booster card. I feel that players will find more value from packs this way.

  Gears of War 4 does feature a login bonus. Unfortunately it is a little bit underwhelming. When a player logs on they will be randomly awarded a bounty card or have a small chance to receive a weapon skin. 

  I would suggest a daily login pack, similar to Halo 5. A daily login pack that awards the player a random emblem and a bounty for versus and horde modes. After a week of consecutive logins, the player could receive a booster card or guaranteed weapon/character skin instead of an emblem.
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  Do you have questions, comments or concerns? Email us at deepdigitaldesign@gmail.com
Follow us on Tumblr, IndieDB, Twitter, Mixcloud,Soundcloud,Twine, instagram and Youtube

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100​​
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