Gears of War 4 Title Update 3 lands today, combats quitters

The Coalition has officially kicked off the “Gears of War 4 upgrade season” and rolled out the game’s Title Update 3. This first major update of the year is part of TC’s 2017 strategy to improve the GoW4 gaming experience and address as many issues reported by gamers as possible.

The Gears of War 4 Title Update 3 requires approximately 7GB to install on the Xbox One console and 9GB on Windows 10 computers. The update will be available today, January 10, at 10am PDT and may cause various disruptions from 9am PDT onwards as the GoW4 platform transitions to the new Title Update. As a result, you should not start any gameplay sessions around this time to avoid technical issues.

Gears of War 4 Title Update 3 brings new maps

The GoW4 TU3 brings two new maps to the table as well as the Series 2 of the Gear Pack, delivering hundreds of new Cards to collect. The Series 2 content will be craftable a few hours after the update has been deployed. This means that you should withhold from buying Gear Packs until TC confirms the Cards are available.

Gears of War 4 Title Update 3 declares war on quitters

Following fan’ request, TC is now taking severe actions against quitters. Combatting quitting is a top priority for TC and the new TU3 introduces a series of new punitive measures to encourage Gears of War 4 players to stay to the end of the match and actively participate in Core and Competitive play.

Here are the first anti-quitting measures introduced with this update:

1. Players who quit a Core or Competitive Match will now be suspended from all matchmaking of any kind for a limited time to discourage drop out behavior.
2. The biggest time punishment goes to the first player to quit the match.
3. The more you quit, the longer the suspension will last.
4. To avoid unfair punishments due to power issues, players can rejoin the match they left for up to 5 minutes from the time they quit. There is a new “Rejoin Match” option in the main Versus menu. There will be no penalties as long as you rejoin and complete the match.
5. Added functionality to display matchmaking suspension time (including to your Squad Leader). If your Squad contains a suspended user, you won’t be able to matchmake until their suspension has completed.

With these new features, we hope to see a major improvement in player mentality to committing to a match in Core and Competitive. We have further quit penalty and balanced match features in the works – including Core/Competitive pre-game lobbies – coming in future Title Updates to further improve the online experience.

GoW 4 TU3 Spectator Mode improvements

TC has improved the Spectator Mode experience for viewers and casters. The TU3 brings far more information for viewers to follow the action, including:

1. The redesigned Player Cards take up less visual space
2. Player ammo and reloads are now visible in the Spectator Mode UI
3. Crosshairs are now visible to Spectators
4. Respawn timers are now displayed on Player Cards
5. Weapons holstered onto a player’s back can now be seen in Spectator Mode
6. Pressing B while holding Jump Cam now cancels a pending Jump Cam
7. New mapping for specific buttons added:
   1. ‘K’ keyboard button removes spectator inputs UI and/or the black bar altogether
   2. ‘L’ keyboard button toggles Player Cards to the far edges of the screen or normal positioning
   3. ‘V’, ‘B’ and ‘N’ keyboard buttons now jump to specific Escalation hill battle cameras
   4. Gamepad ‘A’, Keyboard ‘Z’ switch to Player or Follow Cam
   5. Gamepad ‘X’, Keyboard ‘X’ switches to Ghost Cam
   6. Gamepad ‘Y’, Keyboard ‘C’ switches to Battle Cam.

Gears of War 4 Title Update 3 bug fixes and improvements:

Apart from the new features listed above, the latest GoW4 update also brings a series of useful bug fixes and balance changes. They are below:

1. Skill ranking is visible again at the end of matches
2. Increased the Energy cost of the Hammer of Dawn Strike in Horde
3. Increased Escalation Win and Loss bonuses and Win Bounty Rewards
4. Tuned criteria and rewards for King of the Hill Bounties
5. Fixed an exploit that allowed players to teleport Energy to their position in Horde
6. Squad Members can immediately see when they have been removed from a Squad
7. The ‘Horde Skills’ UI Notification alerting you to new skills now works correctly
8. Added UI notification to show new Cards in your collection when opening Gear Packs
9. Improved UI on Turret Heat bar
10. Added slider to control how long text chat remains visible after a message
11. The Longshot can no longer shoot through walls if positioned through a 90 degree corner
12. Fixed an issue where audio slowly cut out in Horde
13. Fixed an issue allowing grenade effects to continue into the next round in Versus
14. Removed an exploit allowing users to break the map boundaries in Horde on Foundation
15. Fixed an issue that allowed players to respawn out of the map boundaries in Horde
16. Fixed an issue where offline customization would reset if user changed characters.

It looks like the new GoW4 TU3 is insanely good. Let us hope it won’t bring too many issues of its own and cause the game to crash like the TU2 did.

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