‘Gears Of War 4’ Credit And Gear Crate Changes Coming Soon [Update: Changes Released And Detailed]

Those who dropped extra cash to play Gears of War 4 early have effectively served as play testers for some of Xbox One and Windows 10 PC game’s servers and systems. One of those is the credit system, where players earn credits in multiplayer to purchase Gear Crates containing cards for character skins, experience buffs, and other non-gameplay changing items. The initial feeling is the credit payout has been too low and the cost of Gear Crates has been too high. Developer The Coalition is responding by making changes to the credit system.

Update: The Coalition announced the following changes to credit payouts and the cost of Elite Crates are now live in Gears of War 4.

• Elite Pack Credit cost has been reduced from 4000 to 3500
• Match Completion bonus credits in Versus Multiplayer have now been increased

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The early access launch of Gears of War 4 on Friday, October 8 experienced some issues with matchmaking servers. The Coalition quickly addressed the server issues, as noted on the game’s official Twitter feed.

However, the Gears of War 4 community raised concerns on both the official forums and the Gears of War Reddit group about the credit payout system. The current credit system rewards players with 500 credits for every five levels gained in multiplayer. Credits are also rewarded at the end of multiplayer matches but are dependent on performance during a match. Still, players are reporting relatively low payouts, which result in a huge grind when saving up for the Elite Crates, which cost 4,000 credits.

“I played all night launch night, the first Elite Crate I bought took me till Rank 30. I didn’t buy anything else. That’s 4,000 credits in about 40 games, INCLUDING the 500CR for when you hit ranks 10, 20 etc,” BAZZ shared on Reddit. “I hit 52 just now, I was just able to buy my second Elite Crate. Two Elite Crates around 10 hours game time, in 52 ranks.”

Of course, Gear Crates can also be purchased with real-world money via micro-transactions in Gears of War 4. Some players expressed their belief that the low credit payout from multiplayer matches, compared to other titles with similar systems like Halo 5 and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, is meant to goad players into spending additional money on the game.

The second concern with Gear Crates is that there is no guarantee players will receive items matching the level of the crate they purchased. For example, iJonesy99 claimed on the Gears of War official forum he saved for an Elite Crate, but he only received a common emblem and two uncommon weapon skins.

Interestingly, Destiny went through a similar issue when it first launched. Players would attempt to decrypt a Legendary engram, for example, and receive a Rare quality item instead. Bungie eventually corrected this by guaranteeing players would not receive items lower than the quality of engram they were decrypting. Meanwhile, other titles with similar card pack/crate systems guarantee a certain number of items at high quality with the chance to get more high-quality items or less.

Those concerns will be addressed in an upcoming patch to Gears of War 4. The Coalition Community Manager Adam Fletcher confirmed via Twitter that an update will be available “today or tomorrow.” Whether The Coalition will address the issue by increasing credit payouts, decreasing the cost of Gear Crates, or both is currently unmentioned. Likewise, there’s no mention if there will be changes to the quality of items that are obtained from Crates.

If The Coalition is able to get these changes in on Monday or Tuesday, this will coincide nicely with the official release of Gears of War 4 at midnight. This is when the bulk of players will be joining to stress servers and the game’s various systems.

There are other issues with Gears of War 4, just as there are with the overwhelming majority of new game launches. The Coalition is keeping a running list of known issues on the game’s official forums, which was last updated on Sunday, October 9. The majority of the issues reside on the Windows 10 platform, with the Xbox One’s most serious issue outside of matchmaking being an infinite loading problem in Act 3, Chapter 5 of the campaign.

What do you think of the Gears of War 4 credit and Gear Crate system? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image by The Coalition]