Posted earlier today on the Gears of War forum, community manager PezRadar ran through new additions in the pipeline for Gears of War 4, including new skins, ability cards, and more.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of his update is the acknowledgment of the community's feelings over the UIR card packs, which were, frankly, prohibitively expensive. PezRadar said that The Coalition are actively monitoring feedback, and will update the community on their decisions at a later date.
I also wanted to update everyone on the feedback from the UIR card packs as well. [...] There have been a lot of heads involved in this discussion but we are most definitely looking at improving this experience and once finalized details come back, we will make sure to communicate those over.
UIR card packs were available for a limited time for $10 or 4200 in-game credits. That amount of in-game credits would take a tremendous amount of time to accrue, practically forcing players who wanted the UIR-themed cosmetic items to pay a premium.
Since the skin packs dropped over Christmas, the response from The Coalition has taken a while to come around. Gears of War 4 is rapidly earning itself a reputation for ripping its community off with this content, particularly considering the RNG luck involved with getting the cards you want. Hopefully, The Coalition will be a little more generous with future promotions.
On the plus side of things, January will see new maps by early next week, in an update The Coalition describes as being "a bit of a big one." It will include quit penalties, and even banning mechanisms for players who leave matches early, while bringing improvements to spectator mode. It will also bring in tons of new craftable cards, including "hundreds" of weapon and character skins, as well as bug fixes and balances for various weapons.
The Coalition will also decide what to do with the crossplay experiment they kicked off a few weeks ago, which allows players to optionally compete across Xbox One and Windows 10 versions of the game. The studio will be sharing the data on win ratios towards the end of January.
Expect more detailed information next week on the update, which The Coalition is considering naming "Season 2."
Are you still playing Gears of War? Do you think the loot packs are appropriately priced? Let us know in the comments.
