Mine tooAntecdotal but my friends list is packed with folks playing Anthem.
Mine tooAntecdotal but my friends list is packed with folks playing Anthem.
Yeah, but lackluster to what? RPG games like Witcher or first 3 ME games? Oh yeah, it's totally lackluster. Compared to other GaaS games like Destiny and Division? Not that bad. In fact, I still don't really understand what Destiny is about and Division was.... something near future something terrorists?
Reactions to gameplay seem mixed. A lot of reviewers and commenters feel the gameplay is just about hitting your cooldowns every time they've cooled down, and is otherwise just shooting boring guns at mediocre enemies with bad ai.I think most people consider the core aspects of the gameplay to be pretty fun. Flying around casting "magic" is as engaging as the combat was in Andromeda or previous mass effect games, if not more-so. But the game has a very real issue with objectives and mission design. And I think it's down to bioware not being very good at populating open world's.
The activities you do in Inquisition and Andromeda outside of the main story missions show that pretty clearly and they were incredibly similar to what anthem is currently doing. It's a small selection of repetitive tasks that you have to repeat over and over. It's the definition of filler content...busy work...a grind. Prior to this gen bioware never made open world's. They made hub planets made up of small contained environments. Missions felt like they were well crafted linear affairs. This gen however they've pushed into a territory I don't think they're capable of doing well in. Whether it was EA sending them down that path or not I don't know. What I do know is bioware are 3 games deep into open world territory and their mission design is still painfully lacking.
I think most people consider the core aspects of the gameplay to be pretty fun. Flying around casting "magic" is as engaging as the combat was in Andromeda or previous mass effect games, if not more-so. But the game has a very real issue with objectives and mission design. And I think it's down to bioware not being very good at populating open world's.
The activities you do in Inquisition and Andromeda outside of the main story missions show that pretty clearly and they were incredibly similar to what anthem is currently doing. It's a small selection of repetitive tasks that you have to repeat over and over. It's the definition of filler content...busy work...a grind. Prior to this gen bioware never made open world's. They made hub planets made up of small contained environments. Missions felt like they were well crafted linear affairs. This gen however they've pushed into a territory I don't think they're capable of doing well in. Whether it was EA sending them down that path or not I don't know. What I do know is bioware are 3 games deep into open world territory and their mission design is still painfully lacking.
I think most people consider the core aspects of the gameplay to be pretty fun. Flying around casting "magic" is as engaging as the combat was in Andromeda or previous mass effect games, if not more-so. But the game has a very real issue with objectives and mission design. And I think it's down to bioware not being very good at populating open world's.
The activities you do in Inquisition and Andromeda outside of the main story missions show that pretty clearly and they were incredibly similar to what anthem is currently doing. It's a small selection of repetitive tasks that you have to repeat over and over. It's the definition of filler content...busy work...a grind. Prior to this gen bioware never made open world's. They made hub planets made up of small contained environments. Missions felt like they were well crafted linear affairs. This gen however they've pushed into a territory I don't think they're capable of doing well in. Whether it was EA sending them down that path or not I don't know. What I do know is bioware are 3 games deep into open world territory and their mission design is still painfully lacking.
I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
We've been here before. In 2012, BioWare released Star Wars: The Old Republic, an online role-playing game modelled closely on World of Warcraft. At the time it was the most expensive video game ever made: a mammoth, high-stakes undertaking in a genre BioWare, which specialises in epic storytelling for a solo player, had no experience of and didn't seem entirely comfortable with. Its fully voiced dialogue and multiple branching storylines clashed awkwardly with the streamlined social play of an online world.
Seven years later, it feels like BioWare's publisher EA has once again directed it into hostile territory with a huge war chest but no map. This time, Destiny is the target, a "loot shooter" that hooked millions of players by bringing the infinite grind and social dynamics of WOW to the first-person shooter. Once again, the genre doesn't seem to play to BioWare's strengths. And once again the studio's answer, Anthem, has snowballed into a colossal, eye-wateringly expensive project that consumed all of BioWare's development teams as it rolled towards last week's release.
The outcome is different, though. The Old Republic was copybook stuff, a studious and polished imitation of Blizzard's game that did little interesting and got little wrong. Anthem takes more risks, is more original - and makes more mistakes. Much more. It seems not just unfinished but only half-started, a game caught in the act of figuring out what it is supposed to be.
I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
I'm not sure about the emotes, they might too, but the vinyls and armor cosmetics you can go to the forge and look at them there.I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
The problem with flying is that it's fun... but kind of pointless. It is not used creatively in the game even once, they could have done so much with it but at the moment it's purely a means of transportation, a fancier sprint option if you will. By the time I hit hour 70 I dreaded having to fly to the next event or contract point. This could be somewhat solved by better mission design but I think the core idea of the flight only being used to get from point a to point b is a bad one , that feels amazing for the first 100 hours and then wears thin very quickly after.
The combat kind of breaks down as well once you hit GM2 and 3, abilities become kind of second fiddle to weapons (opposite to early game), which is bad because the gunplay is mediocre as hell and abilities are one of the few fun things. When you have guns that can kill a boss within 15 seconds (or even just a couple of minutes) then what is the point of using your abilities? They're so far behind in damage to even some of the not broken guns.
I highly recommend watching Angry Joe's extended review I posted a little further up, I actually think the discussion is better than his main review.
I'm sure I'm in the minority in this thread but I've been playing Anthem on and off since Saturday and I am having a ton of fun with it. It has its share of frustrations with the server disconnects and the expected kinds of release-week network problems, but outside of that the game is a lot of fun. I like the look of the world, the lighting and effects, but most of all the movement and the weighty feel of the animations just make traversing the world and fighting enemies a lot of fun for me. I don't hate it and so far I don't regret buying it. It's hard for me to understand why people are calling it a flat out "bad" game, when I can name dozens of games that are fundamentally broken or bad, downright unplayable things. But - I am playing mostly solo so far, and I think that's why I view the game differently.
What it feels like for me is that this was originally going to be a single player game the likes of which we know bioware is good at doing. The sheer convolutedness of the way you are issued missions and have to basically leave your group to go watch conversations and then head back into the menu to choose the next ones just feels so broken and so tacked on that it feels like an afterthought or something that came into being late in the development cycle of the game. When I am playing alone, the game flows nicely and I think that's part of why I like it so much. When trying to get things done with my friends, it's a fucking mess. I feel like we'll all be better off if we solo the story and then go back and work contracts together later as a group.
I like the ideas Anthem brings to the table, and I like the freedom of movement and the visual quality Frostbite provides, but I do hope to see some improvments sooner rather than later, mostly to the multiplayer structure.
Also, as beautiful as the game is - go back to Destiny 2 and Bungie's masterful use of vibrant colors and crazy alien geometry really drives home how great Destiny's art team is - the game just POPS when played back to back against Anthem.... something we've been doing a lot of after Anthem's 3rd disconnect of the night each night.
I love this notion. Basically "give a developer a decade to work on a game thats providing no returns during that time of investment for the publisher, and maybe then it would be good" is something that could literally be said about any game thats ever been made. I'm sure plenty of devs would love to get a decade of time and funding to work on their projects.the best thing for this game would have been to create tons more content and release at the beginning of next gen, where all flaws are not longer magnified
Yeah would be pretty interesting to be a fly on the wall right about now
It's really dumb but you need to go into the forge to preview them. You click into say Helmet and then tab over to 'Buy' to see it. So no way to preview the whole thing together either afaik.I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
Question is: are they completely surprised and blindsided by the negative reactions or were they actually expecting them? Since they are the ones that know the game the best obviously, strengths and flaws both.
I can neither confirm nor deny that.Maybe I'm misremembering an article I read, but didn't you work for Bioware as marketing director? You longer work there I assume?
Yeah that's super sub-optimal but you are right.It's really dumb but you need to go into the forge to preview them. You click into say Helmet and then tab over to 'Buy' to see it. So no way to preview the whole thing together either afaik.
Question is: are they completely surprised and blindsided by the negative reactions or were they actually expecting them? Since they are the ones that know the game the best obviously, strengths and flaws both.
I think they must've seen this coming, right?
For me I like how D2 keeps changing up the visual areas as you work through stories and missions. Avoids monotony, and I *really* like their skies.I agree with everything, I'm really having a lot of fun. The only thing that I kinda maybe don't agree is the Destiny comment - sure, it looks vibrant and nice but I like Anthem's visual style more. I've been playing a lot of Forsaken and Tangled Shore gets a bit old too fast for me. There is something about Anthem's nature that looks mighty, though it is a bit more generic. I also like the Javelins more than I like the Guardians.
Anyway, I am having fun. I had fun in Destiny 1/2. I expect to have fun in Division 2. I like games like this. A lot of things are frustrating in Anthem, but it's been really fun so far and I look forward to playing it each night.
🤐I'd love to hear any stories about the development of this game in case you are allowed to reveal anything about it
Just so you know this is 100% false. This game was Casey Hudson's dream. He has said repeatedly that this is the game he is always wanted to make, stop letting him off the hook.We're blaminng EA because the GaaS focus obviously comes from them. They took a rugby team and made them play football. No amount of time could compensate the lack of fundamental capabilities.
Yes and no, this is all my opinion of course, and I'm an idiot so it's probably a bad opinion, take it with a grain of salt. This style of game is made to get the most time out of the most people, a hobby basically. Lets say by the end of the lifecycle the average fan of the game that has treated it as a hobby has say... between 500 and 1000 hours? Considering this game's lifecycle was meant to be at least as long as Destiny, so 3 or so years, that seems more than fair. The first difference I have to make to Destiny is that I never liked the sparrows, but I never disliked them, they were just a fancy MMO mount. Even after 1000 hours in Destiny I never liked or disliked sparrows any more or less than the first time I used them. They never became more interesting but they never got in the way of doing what I was there for, shlooting.I think something wearing thin after 70-100 hours is pretty good going considering all it is a means of transport akin to the sparrow in destiny. Yeah, it would have been nice to have some dog fighting in there. Same as it would have been nice to have underwater combat too. But it's a very satisfying means to get around and I totally expect them to expand it to arial races like destiny did with sparrow racong. the combat is pretty fun though, as angry Joe even said. Sure things become a little redundant as you max out your characters, but I think for most people the simple act of shooting things and throwing your abilities around is a compelling one. It's just a shame the missions that require you do do so are so by the numbers and are repeated so often.
They've basically taken the shallow optional side missions you get in all open world games and made an entire game around them. Maybe that's par for the course for these looter shooters? I can't say I experienced much better in destiny 1 or 2 either. So maybe inspired mission design and GaaS are terms that don't mix. But I expected a hell of a lot better than what is here. Or at least enough narrative context to make me notice less.
It's all super glaring. Which makes it all the weirder that not one person within bioware or EA noticed?
Question is: are they completely surprised and blindsided by the negative reactions or were they actually expecting them? Since they are the ones that know the game the best obviously, strengths and flaws both.
I think they must've seen this coming, right?
A mobile game Marvel Future Fight even lets you test out the skin in a gameplay practice room. Maybe this one is just not ready and they will show animated and a showroom display of skins later...I was looking at the in-game MTX store refresh this morning...
Am I crazy, or for a game that wants to pay for future content by selling cosmetic MTX is this not a really poor execution of a store?
- if you are considering buying an emote, you click on it and get a static image of it? You don't see an animation?
- the skins they want to sell are presented as static, layered images that don't look very good at all. Why not a 3D render you can rotate?
- instead of selling the materials as a ball, why not show an example set of armor using it or something (or maybe in addition to the ball)
Compared to best in class examples like a Fortnite and Apex, it really feels slap-dash to me.
For me I like how D2 keeps changing up the visual areas as you work through stories and missions. Avoids monotony, and I *really* like their skies.
That is not true. It's just the same stuff, you'd get from anything else. Difficulty level determines you loot drop chances.One thing I want to clarify from Fran's gamecast 'review' (more his impressions really) is that no actual loot drops from the end game stuff? By his description, when you're doing the Strongholds the only reward you get is coins and mats which you use to make masterwork armor? Is that true?
That would be the biggest turn off for me. I understand in Destiny 2 that I'm 'grinding' when doing end game content, but the thrill comes from the drops and maybe gettin an exotic I don't have or a legendary that I've been seeking out. Hell, it's the core component of any loot game. The idea that my end game is simply grinding for mats so that I can craft armor is really off putting, IF TRUE. Do you at least get gun drops w/ the end game stuff?
Eurogamer's review is out.
The opening paragraphs capture it all quite well, I think:
No rating. It avoided Avoid, at least.
The reporting from insiders was that they knew it was flawed, but that they were expecting a mid to high 70s score - the same as other GaaS released. It's clear this has partly caught them by surprise.
They fucked up estimating Andromeda's score too. Whoever is responsible for internal reviews probably needs to be axed.The reporting from insiders was that they knew it was flawed, but that they were expecting a mid to high 70s score - the same as other GaaS released. It's clear this has partly caught them by surprise.
So the channel that made my favourite review of Anthem has made a video all about Inscriptions/Augments and why it's terrible. (As well as some other discussion.) Worth a watch. Actual length of the video is about 6 minutes, the rest is showing his various MW's and Legendaries and their rolls to illustrate the point.
So the channel that made my favourite review of Anthem has made a video all about Inscriptions/Augments and why it's terrible. (As well as some other discussion.) Worth a watch. Actual length of the video is about 6 minutes, the rest is showing his various MW's and Legendaries and their rolls to illustrate the point.
I don't understand how a game like this could release into a field of looter games with no stat page.
I love me some Diablo 3 (top 15 in all of North America in multiple seasons in Greater Rift rank) and the stats page was not an option; it's a must. Too many things giving additive or multiplicative bonuses, flat gains and reductions, elemental increases and so on. It was a MUST to know what was doing what and how so that you could to some degree min-max your build. It was non-negotiable. The same is true in Path of Exile as anyone who plays the game knows. Try playing that game without knowing exactly where you stand with your resists and damage bonus to whatever damage type you're looking to build your tree around.
How can it not be here? As for random stats....I'm going to be honest: I don't have a problem with that in concept. Diablo 3 had that at launch and Path of Exile has a lot of that too. The problem is when you have a RNG system this punishing AND have no way to trade items. It works in Path of Exile because they designed the game to have a robust trading economy. Diablo 3 was okay at launch in concept because it had the same idea (but ended up being trash because it was built around their real money monetization scheme). It's not reasonable to have this degree of random variance AND not have some sort of way to trade -OR- a higher amount of embers upon dismantling.
Further, I don't understand some of the stat ranges for high-tier items. Diablo 3's model would have been perfect here where an item can roll maybe 8-10 possible types of stats that make sense for the weapon or item (and not %fire damage on a cold item) and then have a stat range. Maybe whites can roll +0%-5%. Maybe blues can roll +5%-10%. and so on up to however high you want to go on Masterworks and Legendaries. That way, you may get an item that isn't better than what you had before (so you trash it), but it's not just insta-garbage because it has affixes that your class can't even use.
Again, these are all lessons that have been learned and paths that have been tread years and years and YEARS ago. There is no reason for a 2019 looter game to be missing these sorts of basic features and understandings of how to design loot. It's just unacceptable.
if so much of the initial talk wasn't around the glitches and tomb quest. Which weren't as significant on console. I could see them thinking low 70s as best case scenario
But those were not even the major issues most reviewers brought up. If they reviewed the game today it would get the same (or worse) scores, since the patch seems to have created now problems than it solved.if so much of the initial talk wasn't around the glitches and tomb quest. Which weren't as significant on console. I could see them thinking low 70s as best case scenario
Very nice review.So I hope it is okay to post my review here. It is not yelling, and mostly calm collected thoughts about the game and how weird it is. Any criticism is okay, good and bad. English is my second language. Thank you
https://thegeek.games/2019/02/26/anthem-destinys-stepchild/
lol, if you think the tomb quest changes would have raised this game's average scoring by 10 points, you failed to understand the scope of issues people have with the game.if so much of the initial talk wasn't around the glitches and tomb quest. Which weren't as significant on console. I could see them thinking low 70s as best case scenario
The game was obviously developed in a 1980's era Soviet ICBM silo guarded by T1000's, that's the only logical way I can see so little information having gotten to BioWare on the modern state of video games and their competitions advances. I've said it before but other than the gorgeous graphics this game FEELS like it was made in '12-'13, and even then there was Borderlands 2 to compete with.I don't understand how a game like this could release into a field of looter games with no stat page.
I love me some Diablo 3 (top 15 in all of North America in multiple seasons in Greater Rift rank) and the stats page was not an option; it's a must. Too many things giving additive or multiplicative bonuses, flat gains and reductions, elemental increases and so on. It was a MUST to know what was doing what and how so that you could to some degree min-max your build. It was non-negotiable. The same is true in Path of Exile as anyone who plays the game knows. Try playing that game without knowing exactly where you stand with your resists and damage bonus to whatever damage type you're looking to build your tree around.
How can it not be here? As for random stats....I'm going to be honest: I don't have a problem with that in concept. Diablo 3 had that at launch and Path of Exile has a lot of that too. The problem is when you have a RNG system this punishing AND have no way to trade items. It works in Path of Exile because they designed the game to have a robust trading economy. Diablo 3 was okay at launch in concept because it had the same idea (but ended up being trash because it was built around their real money monetization scheme). It's not reasonable to have this degree of random variance AND not have some sort of way to trade -OR- a higher amount of embers upon dismantling.
Further, I don't understand some of the stat ranges for high-tier items. Diablo 3's model would have been perfect here where an item can roll maybe 8-10 possible types of stats that make sense for the weapon or item (and not %fire damage on a cold item) and then have a stat range. Maybe whites can roll +0%-5%. Maybe blues can roll +5%-10%. and so on up to however high you want to go on Masterworks and Legendaries. That way, you may get an item that isn't better than what you had before (so you trash it), but it's not just insta-garbage because it has affixes that your class can't even use. Having Masterworks and Legendaries that can roll 0% affixes (or even something < 20% IMO) is unacceptable.
Again, these are all lessons that have been learned and paths that have been tread years and years and YEARS ago. There is no reason for a 2019 looter game to be missing these sorts of basic features and understandings of how to design loot. It's just unacceptable.
Agreed on all counts.The game was obviously developed in a 1980's era Soviet ICBM silo guarded by T1000's, that's the only logical way I can see so little information having gotten to BioWare on the modern state of video games and their competitions advances. I've said it before but other than the gorgeous graphics this game FEELS like it was made in '12-'13, and even then there was Borderlands 2 to compete with.
I like well done random rolls, but there needs to be SOME curation and a hard cutoff to how useless an items rolls are so truly useless items aren't dropped. When a rare item drops with a terrible roll, it feels bad, your dopamine hit wears off straight away. I think D2's current system does this reasonably well, there are really no bad rolls, just suboptimal rolls due to having a small heavily curated pool that is different for each weapon. The issue is the affix pool at the moment is the same for all weapon types and the pool is so large that getting a good roll (yet alone a god roll which is theoretically possible but so unlikely as to be effectively impossible) is too random.