what are your thoughts on Two-piecing (melee with shotgun, then fire). Do you use it a lot. Or do you think it is cheap and a noob tactic. My thoughts are it is overused way too much and can get annoying after a while. I only use it in desperate situations.

I use it when I'm outnumbered and they're rushing me.

I use it sometimes but I still find it hard to pull off and it isnt that cheap since you get that close you deserve to die

I do find it cheap if a player uses it too often, and by too often I mean all the time.  I must admit, I do use it, but only in desperate situations where I'm going to die anyway and just want to get a kill out of it.  I was more upset by all the glitches that people used more than two-piecing.

if its a tactic used every now and again its not a problem, but if people are absolutely depending on it then its lame

"I use it when I'm outnumbered and they're rushing me."

Just because its a cheap tactic, its still in the game, and its not a glitch or anything. So I use it

The sad thing is, I almost have to use it sometimes. I can't count how many times I'm standing behind someone, or at their side, shoot the shotgun - and they turn around slowly to just kill me. The stun weakens them a bit, and lets the shot align properly (I'm guessing due to latency).

I hope they address all of these issues in the sequel. And if they do, for the most part, I won't need another game for quite some time...

"The sad thing is, I almost have to use it sometimes. I can't count how many times I'm standing behind someone, or at their side, shoot the shotgun - and they turn around slowly to just kill me. The stun weakens them a bit, and lets the shot align properly (I'm guessing due to latency).

I hope they address all of these issues in the sequel. And if they do, for the most part, I won't need another game for quite some time..."

Hulk use it for reasons Aaron stated above.  Whenever Hulk in laggy games he can either take his chances with standing right behind a guy and firing into him twice, only to not get a kill.  Or Hulk can just melee them once, wait a second, then fire and get the kill 9/10 times unless it's the host who will miraculously get away some times.

Hulk not so much have problem with two piece, just laggy games where the host and players near the host can just run through everything anyone throws at them, lancer, pistol, shotgun shots, and just melee them right in the face and two piece.

I find that no tactic is completely noobish. If someone's doing it a lot, I can usually stop them before too long.

I suck at it, therefore don't do it. I just shoot them with the shotgun and skip step 1. Works most of the time.

I feel the time for this topic has gone by, yet I am obliged to say that this no worse than sticking grenades next to weapon spawn points, or throwing smokes and hovering over people with chainsaws. Therefore, I think that it although annoying, it is a legitimate technique.

If I'm close to a guy, I use it. The game has too much lag and other random glitches/factors, and I can't rely on a normal shotgun blast anymore. The melee usually ensures it, but sometimes it doesn't.

If a guy's moving up to two-piece me, and I know of it, I usually just Lancer him down while he's coming towards me. If he comes up from behind and surprises me but still fails, I generally chainsaw him.

It's a cheap tactic, but it's the only way to get kills without getting incredibly lucky.

its annoying but it works

Meh, fair is fair. I have no problem with it. All that I find to be bullshit is grenade tagging. It's fucked up.

It's very easy to counter so I don't see how it is cheap. Just walk backwards and shoot them in the face.

Epic made a lot of poor decisions when trying to balance gears, they really should not have changed the two piece the way they did. It would have been just fine by including stopping power, which makes it hard to even get close enough to an aware player to two piece. Instead they decided to make your character pause awkwardly and make the hit detection after a melee terrible which makes the tactic annoying to use, and therefore, the game more annoying to play.

The shotgun use to feel so good, but now it is nerfed and kind of feels like garbage. Instead of taking the power of the two piece away and ruining the beauty of that shotgun, they should have just continued to improve other tactics to stop the two piece. You don't improve a game by making weapons worse, you balance the game by making other weapons better I think. This is why a lot of people who were in love with Gears 1 are not playing Gears 2 online. Seems like Epic tries to balance their game too much and the result is the alienation of players who supported the online in the first game. I like Gears 2 and play it constantly, but if they continue this one step forward one step back approach I see more people getting frustrated and leaving the online behind.

"I find that no tactic is completely noobish. If someone's doing it a lot, I can usually stop them before too long."

"mandeponium said:

"I find that no tactic is completely noobish. If someone's doing it a lot, I can usually stop them before too long."

  The two-piece requires a lot of skill. I've played with the #24 player and he was amazing at it. He could charge into large groups of people and two-piece them all."

"ParanoidFreak said:

"mandeponium said:

EIther that, or they all just sucked."

"halfameatball said:

"Epic made a lot of poor decisions when trying to balance gears, they really should not have changed the two piece the way they did. It would have been just fine by including stopping power, which makes it hard to even get close enough to an aware player to two piece. Instead they decided to make your character pause awkwardly and make the hit detection after a melee terrible which makes the tactic annoying to use, and therefore, the game more annoying to play. The shotgun use to feel so good, but now it is nerfed and kind of feels like garbage. Instead of taking the power of the two piece away and ruining the beauty of that shotgun, they should have just continued to improve other tactics to stop the two piece. You don't improve a game by making weapons worse, you balance the game by making other weapons better I think. This is why a lot of people who were in love with Gears 1 are not playing Gears 2 online. Seems like Epic tries to balance their game too much and the result is the alienation of players who supported the online in the first game. I like Gears 2 and play it constantly, but if they continue this one step forward one step back approach I see more people getting frustrated and leaving the online behind."

I played Gears1 online for almost a year, I was done with Gears2 in a month or 2. The Mp sucks in so many ways, that I just couldnt bring myself to play any more. I went to game crazy today and there were 20 used copies of this in the shelf, you couldnt find a used copy of gears1 for the first year. Everyone seems to hate this game for good reason."

The 2 piecing is not the problem for me, its everything else. I hate the match making as a whole. It just dosent work for gears, I have been a man down to many times after waiting 5 fucking min to get into the game, not to mention the teams always seem to be over stacked on one side. When I get into a game that is set up right its great, but that seems to take to long to happen.

Agreed. Not only do I get stuck on teams without a full 5, but when I do the rest of my team seems to have been infected with the the d-bag kill stealing syndrome or no brain whatsoever. This is why I feel that it is unfortunate that they took out lobbies with hosts that could boot these people who bring the game down. Yeah there was lag and host advantage in Gears 1, but it was fun to play and you had the option of getting rid of terrible players. I don't have a clan that is able to play at all hours of the day, so it would be nice to play games with other competent individuals rather than the people I get paired with in matchmaking.

The random host selection is what really annoys me though. Me, having an awful connection, or someone else who has a great connection? It always seems to choose me. This results in crappy games and me getting hate off other players. Why can't they just choose the player with the best connection. They would get host advantage, but it is still better than having me host, and not play at all.