[DTS MAN]

Gears of War 2 Title Update 4 Detailed Release Notes

Title Update 4 has not yet passed certification and so I am unable to give you a specific date for it's release, but I wanted to get you the information. The following fixes and improvements are included in the upcoming Title Update 4.

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.
__________________
Executive Producer
Gears of War 2

[mattclarkie]

So Epic are essentially returning the smoke to how it was before the 'Old Skool' weekend. I'd prefer it is they actually returned it to exactly how it was before swapping to cringe.

[DTS MAN]

This whole game is so messed up its beyond a joke. most of the weekend all i did was lag about like a mo fo!

Im telling ya this game is the only one that winds me up

[mattclarkie]

Originally Posted by DTS MAN

This whole game is so messed up its beyond a joke. most of the weekend all i did was lag about like a mo fo!

Im telling ya this game is the only one that winds me up

I have seen some crazy crap. One of the exploits I hope they are addressing is people who hack into the game. There is an exploit that lets a user kick somebody from the lobby and take their place just before the game starts, on a Guardian game you can also make yourself leader permanently (I was in a guardian match with 2 leaders on one team, one was the hacker who was leader every round).


I was also host twice this weekend, and I was one shotting everything. I actually felt bad getting kills I shouldn't have done. But remembering the number of times I've been one shotted by a host soon took away any feelings of guilt.

[Raffboner]

Could they make the horde xp per round any smaller considering the majority of the TU4 achievements are horde based. TBH I hardly play Gears2 now im hoping the new campaign will get me back into it and when ODST and modern warfare 2 come out i'll doubt i'll play it at all

[DTS MAN]

i tell you what annoys me more is the fact i keep going back to it....i bet any money no matter how much i moan i still play this god dam peice of ****....WHY! hope i suppose...hope that one day someone at either MS or Epic will pull their finger out there arsse and do something. I have so many games on PS3 i have not completed yet but i love the competitive aspect of Gears.....roll on uncharted 2 multiplayer.

[Billy Goodgun]

Gears 2 is a strangely addictive one. You play it, and you convince yourself it's not that bad really. Then you hit ten terrible, laggy games on the trot, but keep playing because you're convinced the next one will be better - but it isn't. But you keep playing, and keep getting annoyed until you turn off your xbox in frustration and wander off to do something more constructive. Like gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon.

I think it's because it reminds me of Gears 1. Also, some of the innovations are great - crawling while downed, for example, and I personally like being able to tag grenades on to walls. Gears 2 is so nearly brilliant.... and yet it fails. Epic fail, in fact.

I just want Gears 3 now.

[mattclarkie]

I too am guilty of hope. The 1 game in 100 when everything is perfect.


Today I was in a match where the host was Stanbying, luckily he was on my team otherwise I would have been more annoyed, but it's still annoying lagging around while the host one shots the other team from across the map.

[Raffboner]

Gears is like Marmite and even though im trying not to play when i play something else im still thinking about Gears. I swear i'll end up rocking in a padded cell..

Roll on July 28

[DTS MAN]

you know what i just popped over the EPIC forums.....that place is a joke anyone and i mean anyone who pretty much tells the truth that the game is so full of lag get banned or deleted. What a pathetic joke.

[mattclarkie]

Originally Posted by DTS MAN

you know what i just popped over the EPIC forums.....that place is a joke anyone and i mean anyone who pretty much tells the truth that the game is so full of lag get banned or deleted. What a pathetic joke.

Our very own Kopchoir was banned over there for saying the game was lagtastic. He'd only been a member for about 2days.

[Billy Goodgun]

Originally Posted by Raffboner

Gears is like Marmite and even though im trying not to play when i play something else im still thinking about Gears. I swear i'll end up rocking in a padded cell..

Roll on July 28

Is July 28th the day you're trading in Gears 2?

It's worse than just being a marmite game, it's a marmite game for schizophrenics. It's not just that I love it and you hate it, it's that I love and I hate it. One game's brilliant, the next ten are a joke. That one game is enough to briefly make you remember why loved Gears to start with, and then you unlearn that feeling again through a conditioning process akin to Alex's in A Clockwork Orange.

[mattclarkie]

I'd sooner be in Alex's shoes than playing GoW2.

[jason g]

update 4 and still we don't get to choose what maps we can play.

[Crovon]

Originally Posted by jason g

update 4 and still we don't get to choose what maps we can play.

Update 4 and the game is still a steaming pile of crap!

[Sniper Ash6]

from reading the OP they seem to care more about points - whether that is EXP points or gamerscore it doesnt matter

will be interesting to see how it pans out

adding a message to tell people not to quit and lose EXP at the end of a match, i dont know people do that in the first place

and the if the smoke cringe is turned on sentance gets me curious