Gears 5 Patch Notes Include New Accessibility Options, Overhauled Competitive Rankings

Gears 5’s latest update is out, and it adds in a number of usability, accessibility, and multiplayer changes. In addition to now allowing players to disable camera shake and turn on more clear path signaling, the update also overhauls the way that competitive leaderboards work.

In Gears 5’s Operation 7 patch notes for this week, developer The Coalition revealed that it’s adding a number of welcome accessibility options. These include allowing players to turn off the shaky camera effect and turn on the Target Lock feature on difficulties up to Advanced. In addition, the studio’s added a brand-new feature that it calls Navigation Ping – Escape Mode. This essentially adds additional options for adding UI elements to reveal the main path through the game.

For example, you can turn on “Full Path Always” which will add a permanent ping to direct you to the right path; or you can enable “Doorways Always” which constantly pings main exits to each area of the map. If that’s too much, there are variations on those two options where they’re only enabled when Taccom is active.

Another significant change added in this update is a complete overhaul of multiplayer ranking. The previous Ranked mode has been replaced by Competitive mode, which no longer uses ranked tiers. Rather, the leaderboard system is now based on points, with everyone starting from scratch this week. Extra points are awarded for the following situations:

• Winning a match
• Winning a round
• If you complete a match and your team has had players quit
• If you play solo (not in a party)
• If you are the top player on your team

Many more changes are implemented in this update, including tweaks to Horde mode, weapons, and the economy. You can see the full Gears 5 Operation 7 patch notes below. In other Gears 5 news, Operation 7 also added new characters and forced cross-play to be enabled across console and PC players.

Gears 5 Operation 7 Patch Notes

General

• Players will now receive Gear Coins when earning unusable duplicate Skill Cards.
  • Unusable Skill Cards earned prior to this title update will be retroactively exchanged for coins up to a limit of 100,000 Gear Coins
    • Common–5 Coins
    • Rare–30 Coins
    • Epic–100 Coins
    • Legendary–400 Coins
  • For each level 6 skill card earned after this update, you’ll earn the following Gear Coins for each rarity
    • Common–5 Coins
    • Rare–30 Coins
    • Epic–100 Coins
    • Legendary–400 Coins
• Prescott now plays audio when retro charging and chainsawing enemies.
• An issue that resulted in the size of Civilian Anya’s hands being enlarged has now been addressed.
• Captain Hoffman should once again no longer have Marcus’ voice lines.
• Harbour: A particular piece of cover should no longer allow Grenades to clip through it.
• Tomb: A Level of Detail pop on some sandbags near the COG side has now been addressed.
• High Tea: The Gnasher/Boltok weapon tile will now match the weapon preview.
• The Simple Omen will no longer go away before a player is completely healed.
• Adjusted the gib range slightly to compensate for the changes made to gib calculation in Operation 6.
• A rare instance in which the Torque Bow arrow would attach outside the player.
• The option to disable cross-play has now been removed.
• Known Issue: The icon to distinguish if a player is playing Gears 5 on PC has now been removed. This will be re-added to lobbies as soon as possible!
• The classes section in Customization will now correctly tell you the number of classes you have maxed out.
• Field of View options have now been added to all Xbox One consoles.
• The stats menu has been updated and will now automatically show your stats for currently active playlists in Gears 5, this has additionally fixed issues where certain modes wouldn’t appear in the stats menu at all.
• Updated Quickplay to now be a 5v5 playlist.

PVP

Note: Get the full rundown on PvP updates for Operation 7–Drop 1.

• Ranked has now been replaced by Competitive mode.
  • Competitive mode uses a points-based leaderboard system and will no longer use the rank tier system. Everyone will start from scratch.
    • In particular scenarios extra points are given when the following occurs in your match
      • Winning a match
      • Winning a round
      • If you complete a match and your team has had players quit
      • If you play solo (not in a party)
      • If you are the top player on your team
  • A seasonal leaderboard and all-time leaderboard can be viewed to view your progress through each mode.
  • Each player’s stats can be individually viewed for that respective mode.
  • Passing certain point thresholds on the seasonal leaderboard also grants rewards
    • 100,000 points = Mark, XP, and coins.
    • 500,000 points = Mark, XP, and coins.
    • 1,000,000 points = Banner (different for each mode, XP, and coins.
  • The top 1,000 players in each playlist at the end of a season receive a unique Heroic reward.
  • TDM: You can now queue up as a party of 4 in Competitive TDM
• Situations that allowed players to “wrap” their shots around cover have been addressed, the wrap shot technique is now much more difficult to perform as a result.
• In some instances, users were able to aim around cover without physically leaning around the cover piece, this has now been fixed.
• Removed an animation that exposed players in low cover when holding the left thumbstick.
  • Additionally, fixed numerous covers that allowed shots to pass over them.
• TDM: If a user joins near the end of a match the game will now consistently finish.
• Players are now able to earn progression in private Versus matches.
  • This includes Multiplayer XP, Stars for time played, Daily and Tour of Duty Objectives, and Ribbons.
• Players are now able to enable a selection of Mutators in Custom matches
  • Headshot explosion (both AOE damage and Confetti options)
  • Health Regeneration (on damage, only in cover, only in cover + damage)
  • Low Grav Death (gibs of dead players float)
  • Voiced gun sounds
  • Screen effects (20 options)
• The following weapons as available swaps in Custom Versus:
  • Pipe
  • Snowshot
  • Cluckshot
  • Cupid’s Torquebow
  • Golden Gun
• A unique esports variant of Control has been added to the custom match selector
  • DBNO damage mitigation has been enabled.
  • Weapon respawns now work based on pickup not on use.
  • Reduced ammo in power weapon pickups (based on the table below)
  • Weapon spawn times adjusted (based on the table below)
  • Players can now suicide while DBNO
  • The initial starting hill for each map will now always be the same.
  • Ring orders for each map are now static.

Horde

• Added Lambent Drone, Lambent Grenadier and Lambent Theron to Horde and Horde Frenzy.
• Fixed an issue where Lambent death explosion did not deal damage to players or enemies.
• Fixed an issue where Lambent units would frequently spawn too close to Locust or Swarm units.
• Wardens that spawn in the context of being a mini boss will now display the boss locator and health bar.
• Reduced base health of Wardens spawning outside of boss wave to 10,000HP from 15,000HP.
• Rebalanced boss combinations in Horde Frenzy to avoid combining bosses that rapidly invalidate low cover positions (Kestrel, Sentinel, Swarmak, Flock, Predator)
• Matchmaking into Horde Frenzy will no longer frequently place players in Daily Challenge lobbies.
• Added the Flashbang Grenade to the Fabricator.
• Users can no longer stall the time between transitioning waves by pausing their game.
• Horde Classic can now be selected in custom matches as a mode. Horde Classic is similar to Gears of War 2 Horde, there will be no cards and fabricator.
  • You can select to play this mode with either 12 or 50 waves.

Escape

• Fixed an issue on Forever where occasionally certain enemies would fail to spawn.
• Fixed an issue on The Blight, The Clock, and The Trap where custom door functionality was not working correctly.
• An issue that resulted in significantly increased loading times in the safe room has now been addressed.

Brawler

• Scorcher Master will now work correctly.
• Soothing Warmth card will now correctly regenerate your health when near a burning enemy.

Pilot

• The Silverback Scorcher card will now work correctly.

Tactician

• The duration of the Tactician’s ultimate has been reduced by 50% in Horde.

Demolitions

• Fixed an issue where Demolition’s “Gambit” Skill Card was not allowing the correct number of planted grenades.

Mechanic

• Changed Ultimate ability from “Reinforce” to “Turret”.
• Changed the Skill Card “Bloody Shrapnel” to “Shredder Rounds”. This Skill Card now causes bleeding damage for any player using the Mechanic’s mounted turret.

Combat Medic

• Intervention will now revive multiple downed players simultaneously.

Protector

• Changed Passive from “Every 6th Headshot Drops Pilfer” to “Heal for 50% of bleeding damage dealt and resist 30% melee damage”
• Lowered regeneration delay of Protector’s “Regenerative Field” Skill Card to 4.25s for all levels of the card.
• Increased stim gained per second on Protector’s “Regenerative Field” Skill Card from 2 Stim per second to 12 Stim per second (Level 6).
• Increased additional damage of Protector’s “Gnasher M45 Mod” Skill Card from 30% to 60% (Level 6).
• Increased bleeding damage of Protector’s “Bloody Blade” Skill Card from 110% to 130% (Level 6).
• Increased the multiplier of Protector’s “Drop Shield Duration” Skill Card from +60% to +100% (Level 6).
• Increased the range of Protector’s “Close Range Recharge” Skill Card from 3m to 5m.
• Increased the base duration of Drop Shield from 10s to 15.
• Decreased the cooldown of Drop Shield from 300s to 200s.
• Changed “Critical Damage” Perk to “Damage” Perk.
• Changed “Increased Health” Perk to “Damage Resistance” Perk.
• Changed “Ammo Capacity” Perk to “Increased Movement Speed” Perk.

Architect

• Decreased the cooldown of Hologram from 300s to 150s.
• Increased the base duration of Hologram from 5s to 7s.
• Lowered regeneration delay of Architect’s “Regenerative Field” Skill Card to 4.25s for all levels of the card.
• Increased stim gained per second on Architect’s “Regenerative Field” Skill Card from 2 Stim per second to 12 Stim per second (Level 6).
• Changed the behavior of Architect’s “Hologram Extend” Skill Card from “Snub damage from behind extends ultimate” to “Ballistic damage extends ultimate”.
• Changed the behavior of Architect’s “Custom Snub” Skill Card from “Deal 60% extra damage with the Snub” to “Deal 200% extra ballistic damage from the side or behind” (Level 6).
• Renamed “Custom Snub” to “Deception”.

Slugger

• Changed the behavior of Slugger’s “Heavy Preparations” Skill Card from “115% additional heavy ammo capacity” to “Plant 6 additional grenade traps simultaneously” (Level 6).
• Renamed “Heavy Preparations” to “Lethal Preparations”.
• Increased the amount of grenade damage on Slugger’s “Modified Frag” Skill Card from 130% to 200% (Level 6).
• Update the description of Slugger’s “Modified Frag” Skill Card to accurately state the increased explosive radius per level.
• Renamed “Modified Frag” to “Grenade Proficiency”.
• Changed the behavior of Slugger’s “Stopping Power” Skill Card from “230% increased stopping power” to “Ballistic rounds penetrate unlimited targets and deal 60% additional damage” (Level 6).
• Renamed “Stopping Power” to “Power Shot”
• Changed the behavior of Slugger’s “Tough Skin” Skill Card from “Resist 32% melee damage” to “Resist 32% damage within 15 meters”.
• Changed the behavior of Sluggers “Follow Up” Skill Card from “Successive shotgun hits recharge ultimate for 8.5s” to “Active shotgun hits within 10m stun drones for 3s” (Level 6).
• Renamed “Follow Up” to “Impact Receiver”.
• Changed Passive from “Damage taken recharges ultimate” to “Resist 50% explosive damage”.
• Changed “Shotgun Damage” Perk to “Damage” Perk.
• Changed “Max Health” Perk to “Damage Resistance” Perk.
• Changed “Increased Movement Speed” Perk to “Grenade Resupply” Perk.
• Decreased cooldown of Heavy Hitter from 300s to 200s.
• Swapped loadout slots so that the Gnasher is on the right.

Striker

• Decreased cooldown of Enhanced Melee from 300s to 200s.
• Increased the bleeding damage of Striker’s “Bloody Breaker” Skill Card from 55% to 130% (Level 6).
• Increased the damage of Striker’s “First Strike” Skill Card from 35% to 100% (Level 6).
• Increased the amount of stim gained from Striker’s “Stim Siphon” Skill Card from 23HP to 120HP (Level 6).
• Changed the behavior of Striker’s “Team Up” Skill Card from “Resist 32% damage near Slugger class” to “Resist 50% melee damage” (Level 6).
• Renamed “Team Up” to “Melee Armor”.
• Changed Passive from “Damage taken recharges ultimate” to “When hit, move 50% faster for 4s”
• Changed the behavior of Striker’s “Melee Rush” Skill Card from “Close range damage increases passive by 210%” to “Melee or bleed kills reduce ultimate cooldown by 35s” (Level 6).
• Changed “Max Health” perk to “Damage Resistance” perk.
• Changed “Movement Speed” perk to “Damage” perk.
• Swapped loadout slots so that the Overkill is on the right.

Tour of Duty–Daily Challenges

• Arcade daily challenges have been removed
• The challenge for “Assists in a single versus match” has been removed.
• The challenge for “Assists in versus” has been removed.
• Damage dealt challenge changes:
  • 1 star: Increased from 15,000 to 25,000
  • 2 star: Increased from 35,000 to 50,000
  • 3 star: Increased from 70,000 to 75,000
• Damage in Horde or Escape challenge changes:
  • 1 star: Increased from 25,000 to 100,000
  • 2 star: Increased from 50,000 to 200,000
  • 3 star: Increased from 70,000 to 300,000
• Damage in Versus challenge changes:
  • 1 star: Decreased from 15,000 to 10,000
  • 2 star: Decreased from 37,500 to 20,000
  • 3 star: Decreased from 70,000 to 30,000
• Drone Elites challenge changes:
  • 1 star: Decreased from 7 to 5
  • 2 star: Decreased from 15 to 10
• Power in Horde challenge changes:
  • 1 star: Increased from 10,000 to 15,000
  • 2 star: Increased from 22,500 to 30,000
  • 3 star: Increased from 35,000 to 40,000

Accessibility

• Users can now disable camera shake in PvE going up to Advanced difficulty.
• Users can now use the Target Lock feature in PvE going up to Advanced difficulty.
• A new feature Navigation Ping–Escape Mode, has been added, when enabled the following changes are enabled:
  • This feature provides four options
    • Full Path Always (breadcrumb-style ping that constantly pings you to the right path),
    • Doorways Always (pinging on the main exit to each area of the map constantly)
    • Full Path on Taccom (breadcrumb-style pings that only ping when Taccom is active).
    • Doorways on Taccom (pinging on the main exit to each area of the map when Taccom is active).
  • There are unique pings when you need to interact with something or move over cover
  • Each ping is accompanied by a high contrast visual cue