Gears on-line going down the drain???:

This was an amazing game and from the Wednesday before emergence day until the holidays I played the game strong sometimes playing until 4 a.m. on work nights. When it was first released, sure the community had the usual drinkers and smokers, but the smack talking was here and there and the community wasn't too obnoxious for a month and a half. No one ever even cited lag and even though I didn't have the best connection and never hosted games, I never noticed it being an issue.

After the holidays died down and I had time to play the game again was around the same time as the update. The first 2 days of the update were every 3 or 4 games there was a connection error. Since then I've started to see some really odd things. I've seen myself melee numerous people and show the hit animation but the person never stumbled, I've seen downed players getting clips unloaded into them only to stay downed and not die until a person switches a weapon. I've seen people shoot someone 3-4 times with a shotty up close only to see themselves get one shot killed. I've seen a spike in the roadie run glitch but it has simmered down some, and 1 case of a guy coming through a wall to take someone out.

Add all of this on top of the ever depreciating quality of the on-line community of ranked matches (i.e. young high pitched voices whining about chainsaws or grenade tags, G-units (not a color thing) that when they talk it's the equivalent of them basically trying to convince you that theirs is bigger than yours and they'll stomp you, and F* bombs bursting in air). This all is sprinkled heavily onto a "there is so much host lag" sandwich. In which this case I can't argue with that after what I've seen, this game for seemingly running so fluid, is just a facade. This game has the worst lag of any I've played yet.

I say that, because when you play another on-line games, everyone usually shares the lag. You can hear chatter that everyone acknowledges lag, the screen stutters and it's a given. This game tries to cover it up, but when sniping or up close, it really rears it's ugly head. I don't know the exact name of it, but I know that CS uses a server re-loop system and I believe this game is in dire need of it. Because with CS, what you see on your screen is what you shoot, which is why in games that use the re-loop to show the server what your screen saw it reflects that. Which is why in some games, if you run past a doorway, make it past, but suddenly/unexpectedly die, it is because someone was actually shooting you when you ran by that doorway.

It is really unfortunate, because I was pretty sure up until a few weeks ago, that Gears would actually be one of those rare on-line games that I would stick with and play like people have with Halo through the years. After reading some of Cliffy B's interviews it seems like not much is going to be done about it except they are going to nerf the frag tag even more, and maybe add a new game mode or two through DLC on Live. It's unfortunate that I will never bother to try those game modes because unless I host a game, it is just not playable. After you've dropped enough time into to really see how flawed it is.

On top of all this, I knew when I sniped a guy in the face and they kept running, and then I meleed a guy 4 times, even seeing the stumble animation this time, only to see him still meleeing, and I get downed by 1 melee w/o ever even going through a stumble animation, that my hopes for this game have pretty much lost. It's cool if you congratulate your teammates, but when you know the host is on your team, why talk smack? You can't lead a person because if a person zig zags or dives, you don't truly see it until a second later, so you are always shooting ahead or behind unless a person just runs straight at you.

It's been a sad realization for me that this is just the way the game is going to stay. Anyone else feel the same about any of these issues or feel the same and moving on? Sorry for the vent, it just sucks seeing what was great MP go down the drain.

jdknight21

This was an amazing game and from the Wednesday before emergence day until the holidays I played the game strong sometimes playing until 4 a.m. on work nights. When it was first released, sure the community had the usual drinkers and smokers, but the smack talking was here and there and the community wasn't too obnoxious for a month and a half. No one ever even cited lag and even though I didn't have the best connection and never hosted games, I never noticed it being an issue.

After the holidays died down and I had time to play the game again was around the same time as the update. The first 2 days of the update were every 3 or 4 games there was a connection error. Since then I've started to see some really odd things. I've seen myself melee numerous people and show the hit animation but the person never stumbled, I've seen downed players getting clips unloaded into them only to stay downed and not die until a person switches a weapon. I've seen people shoot someone 3-4 times with a shotty up close only to see themselves get one shot killed. I've seen a spike in the roadie run glitch but it has simmered down some, and 1 case of a guy coming through a wall to take someone out.

Add all of this on top of the ever depreciating quality of the on-line community of ranked matches (i.e. young high pitched voices whining about chainsaws or grenade tags, G-units (not a color thing) that when they talk it's the equivalent of them basically trying to convince you that theirs is bigger than yours and they'll stomp you, and F* bombs bursting in air). This all is sprinkled heavily onto a "there is so much host lag" sandwich. In which this case I can't argue with that after what I've seen, this game for seemingly running so fluid, is just a facade. This game has the worst lag of any I've played yet.

I say that, because when you play another on-line games, everyone usually shares the lag. You can hear chatter that everyone acknowledges lag, the screen stutters and it's a given. This game tries to cover it up, but when sniping or up close, it really rears it's ugly head. I don't know the exact name of it, but I know that CS uses a server re-loop system and I believe this game is in dire need of it. Because with CS, what you see on your screen is what you shoot, which is why in games that use the re-loop to show the server what your screen saw it reflects that. Which is why in some games, if you run past a doorway, make it past, but suddenly/unexpectedly die, it is because someone was actually shooting you when you ran by that doorway.

It is really unfortunate, because I was pretty sure up until a few weeks ago, that Gears would actually be one of those rare on-line games that I would stick with and play like people have with Halo through the years. After reading some of Cliffy B's interviews it seems like not much is going to be done about it except they are going to nerf the frag tag even more, and maybe add a new game mode or two through DLC on Live. It's unfortunate that I will never bother to try those game modes because unless I host a game, it is just not playable. After you've dropped enough time into to really see how flawed it is.

On top of all this, I knew when I sniped a guy in the face and they kept running, and then I meleed a guy 4 times, even seeing the stumble animation this time, only to see him still meleeing, and I get downed by 1 melee w/o ever even going through a stumble animation, that my hopes for this game have pretty much lost. It's cool if you congratulate your teammates, but when you know the host is on your team, why talk smack? You can't lead a person because if a person zig zags or dives, you don't truly see it until a second later, so you are always shooting ahead or behind unless a person just runs straight at you.

It's been a sad realization for me that this is just the way the game is going to stay. Anyone else feel the same about any of these issues or feel the same and moving on? Sorry for the vent, it just sucks seeing what was great MP go down the drain.

jdknight21

exactly!! thank you for making this post. its called server side hit detection and thats what gearsservers are running. what they need to do is change it to client side hit detection which is thehit detection you see in call ofduty or halo..this wa you dont have to do any leading with your sniper shots andyour shots will come out ofyour gun as soonas you shoot them like they should. sure i know every game has lag and that there isa little host advantage in every game but in GOW it stands out more than any othergame i have ever played.

its made me realize that if your host then you basically have the game in the bag. i can destroy the whole other oppossing team bymyself easily with host. especially the shotgun which is majorly cheap. when your host you pull off all these impossible shots with the shotung..like every other time i kill someone i get a headshot wit the shotgun..im pretty sure thats not supossed to happen.

its apparent that host advantage exsist and that it really needs to be patches with another kind of hit detection because i really dont enjoy playing the game unless im host. i do join my friends rooms from time to time but it only frustrated me because i know how everyone else feels when they get killed by the host shotty ever single time.

mother_farter

You FTW.  That's term I couldn't think of.  Funny you mention it about hosting.  I never hosted until after the update, but I did and was at the top.  One 7 round match I had 22 Kills....That's a sham, because you can only rack up 28 kills total if you don't lose a round.  I only hosted 10-15 matches because I wasn't patient enough in ranked to wait to play when it was rarely ever competitive (again not bragging it just wasn't what I preferred difficulty wise).