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Gears of War 2 Gets Title Updated (Again)

A long list of changes and fixes accompany Epic's latest patch for Gears of War 2.

Here's a picture of Gears of War 2. You know, in case you forgot.
Here's a picture of Gears of War 2. You know, in case you forgot.
They call it Title Update 2. We sort of want to call it "the second patch." Either way, there's been a dull roar of griping about Gears of War 2's online since its launch, starting with basic stuff like the ineffectiveness of matchmaking, and ballooning up to cover a ton of glitches that people have uncovered since the game's release.

Executive Producer Rod Fergusson brought the details of today's title update to the official Epic forums this morning. Here's all that information:

Exploit Fixes

Title Update 2 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:
  • A player could melee or grenade tag through certain walls.
  • A player could equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously.
  • A player could make their shield invisible.
  • A player could become invisible.
  • A player could do a "super" mantle or "kung fu flip," flying high into the air.
  • A player could gain unlimited ammo with the Lancer Assault Rifle.
  • A player could fire while roadie running (also known as "crabwalking").
  • A player could pick up a weapon while sliding into cover.
  • A player could walk forward while firing a deployed mortar.
  • A player could force an opponent to be stuck in the down but not out (DBNO) position.
  • A player could prevent other players from picking up a heavy weapon.
  • A player could pick up a dropped meatflag without having to knock him down.
  • A ragdolled player could be killed without ever going DBNO.
  • A player could roadie run while firing the Scorcher Flamethrower.
  • A player could get stuck while evading, though they could continue shooting in any direction.
  • A player could concuss themselves under the stairs on the River map.

General Fixes

Title Update 2 fixes these other issues as well:
  • An issue with client-side hit detection of the Gnasher Shotgun. The fix makes the shotgun more reliable in high-latency situations.
  • An issue where players could have shotgun or Boomshot rounds fire into the ground when shooting from the hip.
  • A split-screen issue where one player transitioning to the death battle camera disrupted input from the other player.
  • An issue that could cause players' Look sensitivity to be changed to their Zoom sensitivity while zooming in, zooming out, and firing.
  • An issue that could cause players to get stuck if they tried to pick up a heavy weapon while firing the shotgun at the same time.
  • An issue where players could become stuck if they kicked over a shield while ragdolled from a smoke grenade.
  • An issue where bots were unable to kick over a shield that was planted backward.
  • An issue where players who quit during voting didn't show up in the end game stats, which meant other players couldn't easily provide negative feedback on them.
  • An issue where players couldn't chainsaw enemy meatshields if the meatshields were already damaged.
  • An issue where some players would not see the animation of a meatshield being chainsawed.
  • An issue where players could not chainsaw an opposing team meatshield in a game type that doesn't allow respawns (for example, Warzone and Execution).
  • An issue where a player partway through the act of raising or lowering the chainsaw did not transition into a duel when attacked from the front with a chainsaw.
  • An issue where occasionally a player waiting to respawn could not respawn when repeatedly hitting the left trigger to switch cameras.
  • An issue where some teammates couldn't communicate between rounds in games type that don't allow respawns, because dead team members were left in the dead radio channel until the next round started.
  • An issue where a DBNO player could be seen as standing if knocked DBNO while reloading the mortar.
  • An issue where a player joining a Private Xbox LIVE game in progress from another specific type of game could potentially lose HUD functionality.
  • An issue on the Flood map where a player's dying from Imulsion did not trigger a death message or penalize the player as other environmental deaths did.
  • An issue with Guardian games where if the leader is the last player killed on a team, the round may not end, due to the respawn timer.
  • A campaign issue where the gamer picture would not be awarded when the game is completed on Insane.
  • An issue where a player would continue to fire the flamethrower and damage other players if that player was knocked DBNO while firing it.
  • An issue that could cause a player to get stuck while moving and quickly attempting to aim the mortar at the same time.
  • An issue with Horde games where clients didn't receive the "waiting for host" message after they failed a wave.
  • A Horde split-screen issue that could cause a team to get –2 billion in score, which when posted to the leaderboards looked like +2 billion.
  • An issue where dead players may not show up in the metadata for multiplayer photos.
  • A system link issue where if a multiplayer match and a co-op game were hosted at the same time on the same LAN, neither could be joined.
  • Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.

Balancing


Title Update 2 makes these balancing changes:
  • Made planted proximity grenade mines much easier to shoot off the surface they're planted on, by giving them 50 percent less health.
  • Set grenades to respawn less frequently. When a player picks up grenades from a spawned location, a new set of grenades does not respawn until the previous grenades have been used.
  • Increased the penalty to rank for players who quit Public Xbox LIVE matches early.
  • Buffed the flamethrower to have stopping power (to slow a charging enemy) and to cause a chainsaw interrupt (to force the opponent to lower a revved chainsaw).
  • Removed the ability to instantly shoot coming out of a roadie run.
  • Added additional spawn protection to prevent proximity grenade mines and chainsaws from killing a player within 5 seconds after spawning.
  • Balanced grenade spawn cycling on the Hail map so that both teams have equal access to both types of grenades.
  • We continue to test internally and monitor online gameplay to determine what else may need adjusting.

Improvements


Title Update 2 makes these new improvements:
  • Changed Annex games to use execution rules, to prevent players from leaving DBNO opponents on the ground to bleed out.
  • Made Horde waves count toward the "Party Like It's 1999" achievement. Each wave is counted as one round.
  • Added the ability, during Submission games, to see the flag's final destination by using Tac/Com.
  • Increased the frequency of most of the toasts for in-game achievement progression.
  • Added achievement progression numbers to the War Journal.
  • Added 7 new DLC-based achievements worth 175 points (progress toward them starts after Title Update 2 is applied):
  • "Skeletons in Your Closet" (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Flashback Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
  • "Trial by, and on, Fire" (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Combustible Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
  • "More Mystery, Less History" (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
  • "The Roof! The Roof! The Roof…" (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
  • "Bound by a Shared Past" (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps.
  • "Forged in the Fire" (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps.
  • "Annex: Now with Execution Rules" (75 points): Win an Annex match on each of the Flashback and Combustible Map Pack maps (Public only).
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

64 Comments

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Origina1Penguin

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Edited By Origina1Penguin

I'm not happy about execution rules on Annex either...

Still fun though.

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Ashthecat

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Edited By Ashthecat

One of the fixes was this:
"An issue where bots were unable to kick over a shield that was planted backward"

AHH!  Being able to plant shields backwards so the locust couldn't kick it down was one of the only things that allowed us to live through all 50 waves in Horde.

Now it's gonna be a lot harder to get through them all.  It'll require much more teamwork and skill.
I'm glad I got the Horde achievements before this was fixed.

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quag19

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Edited By quag19

how about we go back to making the shotgun free aim good like gears one   that actually took skill     or fix the fact that half of my sniper shots on an immobile enemy go through his head.  oh and why did we make the boomshot more powerful and even a cheaper weapon than the first?  And the number one mistake goes to dadada da yes removing unranked matches that people could join through matchmacking   so you know when we have 7 people in a private party but cant get more to join from our friends list we can still get a game going without splitting up    wait thats just common sense   goog sucking job at ruining my favorite game with your horriable sequal epic

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crunchUK

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Edited By crunchUK
quag19 said:
"how about we go back to making the shotgun free aim good like gears one   that actually took skill     or fix the fact that half of my sniper shots on an immobile enemy go through his head.  oh and why did we make the boomshot more powerful and even a cheaper weapon than the first?  And the number one mistake goes to dadada da yes removing unranked matches that people could join through matchmacking   so you know when we have 7 people in a private party but cant get more to join from our friends list we can still get a game going without splitting up    wait thats just common sense   goog sucking job at ruining my favorite game with your horriable sequal epic"


1) if the lancers aim suffers while blindfiring it's only fair (and balanced) that the shotgun should as well

2) for "skill" use hammerburst not shotgun, although you're porbably terrible with it and don't want to admit it takes skill

3) boomshot is a control weapon. It's in the middle of the map and you fight to get it to get an advantage. they just made it a more worthwhile prize, since 5 players on each team means that it would have less importance with only 2 rounds

4) toughen up. Although gears 2 ranked is pretty much the equivalent of halo 3 social (invis trueskill rank) bar guests of course

5) 7 people in a party....... thats plenty for a private game duh. I myself am partial to gears of war team doubles lol

6) adapt to gears 2.... In fact go and play the tutorial - "take cover or die" sounds like you just can't handle not being able to roadie run as you please

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ez123

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Edited By ez123

Multiplayer is now what it should have been from the beginning.  Better late than never Epic.

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Kratos81

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Edited By Kratos81

Fixed my ass, I just went trough 4 matches that I had to quit in a row for the lag. Not to mention, when after waiting and waiting to get in to a match, I always seem to be on a team thats a man short or way out ranked by the other team. This game fucking sucks. I love it when it works, but at this point I just dont have the patience to put up with this crap. Fuck epic, How long have they been making online games, long enough to know this shit dont fly, if you want people to play you game on a regular.

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Afroman269

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Edited By Afroman269

Fix the lag by removing host EPIC! Also how much you wanna bet that in a month those glitches will resurface in greater numbers. Gears 1 ring any bells?

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Edited By TheFreeMan

Maybe I'm wrong with this/am not remembering correctly, but has anyone else noticed that now your planted grenades will damage/affect you when they go off? I don't remember them doing that before the update.

I was in for quite a surprise when a enemy tripped off my smoke grenade, and I rolled down the stairs for about 10 seconds, to get shotgunned in the face.

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H00NER

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Edited By H00NER

Fixes are all fine, but if there is no way to prioritize low latency in MP, then the game fails.

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

thats a lot of mistakes

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

Oh.  So basically, they finally released the multiplayer portion of the game?  It's about time.

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Slugger4203

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Edited By Slugger4203
Luberik said:
"it's a pitty the game shipped as it was, but the updated come pretty quick so kudos to bungie."
lol bungie? GG!
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lemon360

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Edited By lemon360
MasturbatingBear said:
"Thank god they are fixing this. The game was almost unplayable."
lol update 3 is out now