When I heard that Epic had an idea for a “big change” to Gears of War 2‘s multiplayer, I was hoping for confirmation that it would be worth me putting the disc in again. After the “update” to Gears 2, I’ve been barely able to play multiplayer thanks to awful matchmaking and the trolls that exploit it. Still, Epic’s non-fix idea is still somewhat dramatic, if only on a cosmetic level.
The suggested alteration revolves around showing your trueskill rank. According to Epic’s Rod Fergusson, showing one’s trueskill ranking is a source of frustration for some, and could do with changing. When I think Gears 2 multiplayer, I can think of several far more frustrating things, but whatever.
“What if, instead of skill rank, we instead showed your experience level. You would gain experience through your individual performance in Public multiplayer matches – the higher your score at the end, the more experience you acquire,” Fergusson proposes. “Of course the experience gained across the different match types would be balanced so you couldn’t just grind on the respawning game types to try and level faster. The experience requirements for each level would grow with each level gained (like a typical RPG) and we’d have 99 levels of experience for you to show off your leetness.”
This “experience system” would have no real bearing on the game, and would exist simply as a surrogate penis, showing off to others how long you’ve played the game. You’d keep gaining “experience” for as long as you play the game, and would lose some for quitting matches. Outside of that, there’s no actual alteration.
That’s not going to encourage me to sit through twenty minutes of matchmaking.
