Boredom = MASSIVE DLC Suggestion for Beast/Horde

[HVAC Techie]

So, after grinding out 300 untouchable ribbons for the medal, I needed something else to do. So I brainstormed. And then this happened.

Picture this. Competitive Beast Mode. No, not Beast where you serve as the COG, but Beast where you serve as the COG or the Locust and duke it out in 12 rounds of COG on Locust violence. Now, how exactly would this work? You're probably thinking it couldn't. Well, it works like this: on the side of the Beast, everything works normally. You destroy fortifications and COG, and that adds time to the clock. Now, for the COG, it's a bit more difficult to implement, at a first glance. So, to start, each player on the COG side is assigned one of the however many characters for that wave. That number is decided by how many points they earn - from revives, killing Locust/Lambent (I'll get to that later). The person with the highest point total gets assigned to a COG position, whilst someone with a lower score might be Stranded. In times when there's more than 5 COG or Heroes, you'll end up with a random selection from those Heroes. Sometimes you can have the highest score and be Baird. Other times maybe Sam. It's all random.

Now from there, it just still seems unfair. You have powerful Locust and Lambent (again, I'll get to that later) versus a limited number of COG. Whilst unfair, the best way to balance it, as I've found, is the ability to buy yourself back in with the points you earn through kills and revives. Your character's Tier affects how much it costs to buy your way back in. A stranded might cost, say, 500 points, whilst an Onyx Guard might be 5,000. It may also depend on your weapons - note how some Onyx Guards carry some weapons as heavy as a OneShot. The same cost for an Onyx Guard with a Lancer versus one with a OneShot seems a bit unjust. So, now we have a good combat system in. But now then, how exactly would the COG win? Well, you know how in Beast, destroying Fortifications and killing COG earns you time? For the COG, it does the exact opposite. Killing Locust decreases the time you have on the clock. Just take in everything you've read so far and try to picture in your mind how a match would play out.

Now, and this is just my personal opinion, we could use some stuff to go with it besides just the game mode. Being a Beast Command Pack, so to speak, we need some content for that, right? So, starting off, 5 new maps. I'd leave that up to the devs if this was ever implemented. They know best. But if anything, more maps that are based off of areas in the Campaign! Anyways, we need some more characters on the Locust/Lambent (getting to that now) side of the fight, in my opinion. So first off, some new Locust. Right now, you're probably familiar with the 4 "Tiers" of Locust at the moment. I'll use that to refer to where each of the new characters goes.

Shrieker, Grinder, Flame Boomer, Cyclops, Bolter, and Palace Guard are the newest Locust. Shrieker falls under Tier 2, Grinder under Tier 3, Flame Boomer under Tier 4, Cyclops under Tier 3, Bolter under Tier 2, Palace Guard under Tier 3. The Grinder is of course armed with a Mulcher. The Flame Boomer has the Scorcher. The Cyclops has his Lancer, presumably taken from some poor sap that wasn't looking both ways before he crossed what was left of the road. Bolter of course has the Boltok Pistol. And finally, the Palace Guard has a Torque Bow, as they seem to wield that most commonly, from experience. The Shrieker has its simple dual guns. That's 5 new Locust in all. Now, on to the fun one.

So, Lambent. Commonly left out of Beast for obvious reasons. I personally think they would make a lovely addition to Beast, albeit a costly one. The Locust I was thinking on adding are: Polyps, Lambent Wretches, Drudges, Drones, Formers, and Gunkers. Polyps would fall under Tier 1, along with Lambent Wretches. Formers fall under Tier 2 along with Drones. Tier 3 includes Drudges - which when killed, are sometimes destroyed, and sometimes Mutated. Whichever it does is completely random. Gunkers fall under Tier 4, of course. The Drones would make use of the Hammerburst/Gnasher, and the Drudges the Hammerburst... though if mutated they can shoot gunk or the 'flames'. The Gunker would have the Giant arm and the, well, Gunk. Polyps have the jump attack and the little Gunk attack. L. Wretches have the same basic properties at a Wretch, except they explode. Formers only have a quick melee attack.

So, final addition of Beast, is what I refer to as Tier 5. It's a series of Elite characters too powerful to possibly fit into Tier 4. All of these costing upwards of at least $10,000. There would be 5: Lambent Berserkers, Reavers (with AI riders, like the Bloodmounts), Brumaks, Skorge, and RAAM. (Sorry, no Rift Worm.) The Reavers would have a Drone Pilot and a Theron Gunner. Skorge would be armed with 4 Ink Grenades, the Gorgon Pistol, and his Dual Chainsaw Staff. RAAM would have the Kryll and his Serrated Blade. The L. 'zerker would have a Jump attack, the charge and smash of a basic Berserker, and the Imulsion leakage when damaged. Note: this also damages Locust/COG. Lambent are fine though. Finally, Brumaks have those nasty guns (which have a cooling time) and the heat seeking rockets (which have a long reload time, not unlike the Silverback, probably longer though).

So, now we have a fully outfitted Beast mode and Competitive Beast, along with 5 new maps. What more could you ask for? More content! Achievements, Medals, Ribbons, Mutators, and new settings for Horde. Please forgive the long post - you must realize exactly how bored I was to think of all this. Specifically speaking, 13 achievements for 250 Gamerscore (going off of the 360 here) 10 new medals, 28 new Ribbons, 3 new Mutators (1 each of Easy, Hard and Fun) and... I'll talk more about Horde later. So first, the 3 new Mutators. The Fun one is Invisible Weapons, which makes the weapon you're holding, the weapons enemies are holding, and weapons on the ground invisible. The Easy one is unkillable. You can't die, but you can be downed - meaning if every team-mate say in Horde is downed, you'll still fail the wave as if everyone had died. The Hard one is 10x Poison: Damage Taken is 10x, Enemy Health is 10x, and Enemy Accuracy is 10x, from the first until the last wave/chapter (if in Arcade). The Fun does not modify your score. Easy modifies your score -30%. And the Hard modifies your score a whopping +100%, due to its sheer difficulty (so Insane = 120, 2 other 10 modifies and this one would be a total of 240). Unlocking these is somewhat brutal. For Fun, unlock all 17 executions. For Easy, earn the Onyx Medals "Medic", "Hard Target", and "Motivator". For Hard, earn Seriously 3.0... why? Simply put, only the best of the best deserve to tackle the hardest of the hard.

Now, achievements. These... yes... require some of the previous DLC to get. It's been done before in other games, and, be honest - who do you know that would just buy some of the DLC instead of all of it for GOW3? Moving on. (Gamerscore values not specified)
1: Mutation - Unlock all 18 mutators.
2: Extremely Serious - Earn the 10 new Onyx Medals.
3: ...And Then Some! - Earn the 28 new Combat Ribbons.
4: True Chaos - Earn a kill with all of the new Locust and Lambent.
5: Conqueror of the Horde - Complete all 500 Waves of Ultimate Horde. (I'll get to that)
6: Fight or Flight - Save a Horde Game.
7: Grandmaster - Reach Level 400.
8: One is All I Need - Kill a Mauler and 4 other enemies behind a Mauler Shield with one Oneshot shot.
9: Oh, So That's What It Does. - Kill the Lambent Brumak using only Silverback Rockets. (I'll get to that too)
10: We Won The Battle... - Win Wave 12 of Competitive Beast as the COG without anyone dying.
11: ...But Not The War. - Win Wave 12 of Competitive Beast as a team of 5 Lambent Berserkers.
12: Skillful Fighter - Earn the "Ultimate Fighter" ribbon.
13: Just Salting The Earth - Kill RAAM in Competitive Beast with a Curbstomp.

Now for those Horde changes. First off, you can now save your current Horde game in the time between waves for later. Say a team-mate needs to leave, and you have a really dedicated team. You can, as the host, save up to 5 Horde Games for later. When you reload the save with your team again, you'll be right where you were when you left, although the clock will be stopped. It can be started again within the pause menu. Loading a save is simple - alongside choices to start a Private Horde match or a Public one, you'll have a "Load Save" option. Finally, the last Horde Change - Longer Horde. You can now pick from any of 10 50-interval increases of wave amounts. Tier 1 will get you the basic 50 waves, Tier 2 gets you 100, Tier 3 150, all the way up to Tier 10, packing in a brutally heavy 500 waves. The 500th wave is special - rather than boss monsters and regular Horde creatures, you have one creature to defeat - the Lambent Brumak. It's the most difficult thing you'll ever face and then some. Now, I doubt you could do all 500 waves in one sitting. So that's why there's the Horde Saving system. I should also note in settings, the Tier you choose corresponds directly to which wave you can start on - if you pick Tier 2, you can do any wave from 1 to 100, for example.

Now, the Ribbons and Medals I'll only elaborate on if people show interest in this idea. I don't really want to go the whole 9 yards on an idea that either would never have a chance of being implemented or that people don't like. So for now, that's it. I'll take suggestions, feedback, and whatever else you want to throw at me - including criticism, hate mail, nasally voiced pre-teen racial slurs, and glazed doughnuts. Enjoy the post.

[HVAC Techie]

44 views and no comments? I'm not interesting enough for feedback. *sniff*

[Garry]

If I get the general idea, you want a "versus horde mode". This is actually what I though Beast would be when it was first announced and was really surprised when it wasn't.

[Corporal_Sorotki]

The only problem I can see with this is that it would take up a MASSIVE amount of gigs, and it could quite possibly slow the game down for those whose connections aren't the greatest.

Otherwise I love the idea of it.

[SoloSwagBiggE]

Shrieker falls under Tier 2

They already said somewhere (I think in one of Rod's streams) that they were thinking about implementing them but the collisions and keeping you in the air with the possibility of escaping the map was too much of a headache to bring to beast.

13 achievements for 250 Gamerscore

They wouldn't be able to do this since Gears of War 3 has already reached 2000Gs.

10 new medals, 28 new Ribbons, 3 new Mutators

Doubt they would implement new medal and ribbons. And I heard somewhere (from Rod Fergusson in a stream I think) That they won't(or can't) add any more mutators.

So, final addition of Beast, is what I refer to as Tier 5. It's a series of Elite characters too powerful to possibly fit into Tier 4.

Wouldn't this affect UI which they really have a problem with? I'm not trying to rag on your ideas, It's just there are reason these things didn't come to fruition before. Lambent When it's suppose to be Locust vs Cog? Lambent kill anything they see (apart from other Lambent) so them working on the same side wouldn't work out. Nice though, To see DLC ideas for beast since the last DLC from the season pass wasn't exactly beast related, but a lot of this stuff doesn't work (IMO).

[DJ Silent D]

If I get the general idea, you want a "versus horde mode". This is actually what I though Beast would be when it was first announced and was really surprised when it wasn't.

Same here.

So i like this idea, and it really seems like you put some taught into this. This could actually work, alongside some tweaks.

[HRPac]

This is a great idea and definitely will be a gigantic DLC, probably on the order of 1-2GBs. I'm not sure Epic is willing to invest the resources it would require to develop at this stage in the product's life cycle. The only thing I would change about the DLC idea is to remove the lambent. I just don't like the idea of having the lambent and locust on the same side.

[Cyclops 100]

Great Ideas! Ive always wanted them characters for Beast Mode. Grinders where supposed to be playable. Even look in the E3 game videos.
Cyclops would be awesome! Have about 250 bullets and once you have no ammo. Resort to the chainsaw!

Nice thread!

[A TEAM ALLMELLO]

a few good ideas. i do wish they did something to beast mode. i think it has potential but its waay too easy.

[HVAC Techie]

-big post-

Hm, alright, I can see why shriekers would be a problem. In reality, they could always do something like Halo does, where escaping the map boundaries quickly kills you.
Wasn't there some Japanese game or something that is at 2250? I don't recall the title but I remember one of the staff at the Xbox 360 achievements website talking about it in the comments a couple months ago.
Perhaps not, but a guy can dream, can't he? I always assumed there would have been more, because the achievement for the ribbons was "earn all original 132 combat ribbons." as if it intended on adding more. Not sure why they couldn't add more mutators, though.
Well, that's why I went into detail on how Lambent attacks and AOE attacks would hurt the Locust as well. Although perhaps not practical, I liked the idea of it. May it affect the UI? Maybe. Not being extremely knowledgeable about the inner workings of the game, I have no reason to say it would or wouldn't hurt the UI. As well as, look at Horde - I've had Lambent and Locust in the same wave at the same time, but they're attacking me, not each other.