Gears of War 5 is the latest installment in this epic franchise. This series is beloved by many and is a huge exclusive for Microsoft. Thus far, people seem to be liking what The Coalition have done.
The story focuses more on Kate Diaz and her link with the locust species. There are new ideas that are moving the series forward in a fresh direction. Most notably, certain areas have an open-ended design where your player can explore at their own pace. Even the online multiplayer is amazing, featuring all sorts of new modes.
The one major issue players have had with the multiplayer section is users leaving matches early. As soon as things don’t work out smoothly in a match, several users feel the knack to quit and leave their teammates out to dry. This has happened with every Gears of War game, and it’s beginning to frustrate a lot of players. This is particularly true for those in ranked matches.
Well, The Coalition is not just sitting idly by letting users continue to quit and ruin the experiences for others. They have in fact enacted a new quitting policy, which pertains to the ranked matches in particular. According to the communications boss Dana Sissons, the new quitting policy went live on October 9.
Anyone who leaves a ranked match early will suffer a suspension. The length of that suspension varies on past behavior. For example, if you quit repeatedly in ranked matches, The Coalition will extend your suspension. The developers certainly aren’t playing around.
Just recently, one user was banned for two years for repeatedly quitting before their ranked matches had time to end. That should serve notice to the rest of the Gears of War 5 players. Even if things aren’t going your way, there’s a lot of incentive to keep playing until the bitter end.
So, is this a good policy? Well, it kind of depends. On one hand, you’ll certainly see a decrease in the occurrence quitting. That should provide better experiences in the ranked matches, especially for those who care about winning and want to move up the charts.
However, there are circumstances in real life where you simply have to quit sometimes in the middle of a match. You may have to go to work or you may even lose connection. It seems like the latter problem won’t be penalized. Instead, users who get cut out of a match and rejoin shortly after.
It will be interesting to see how the community takes to this new quitting policy. It seems really effective short-term, though.
