Anthem

[h2ojunkie 96]

Seriously just spent 20 minutes walking around the "tower" talking to people. I swear half the time is just walking through that base.

[Nick 38]

Yeah. There are a bunch of conversations to have around the Fort. I do wonder if the stories told with them can change depending on the choices made...

[h2ojunkie 96]

I'm just clicking buttons

[MT 917]

5 minutes ago, h2ojunkie said:

I'm just clicking buttons

Whoa, don't oversell the game, man!

[h2ojunkie 96]

I had a couple game crashes on the PC, not sure why. No error code or anything. 

[Mera'din 307]

There's a half assed sprint function (basically makes it a brisk walk instead of a slow plod) . Not sure what it is on PC but with a controller it's the same button you use to start flying out in the world.

 

@Nick It does. You can convince the weird fort safety/janitor guy to leave the fort near the end and then the water fountain doesn't get fixed I know. There's a few people that will leave or not depending on what you say to them.

 

Biggest difference I saw was with Raythe telling you she lost her Javelin to the Regulators. I told her I would go with her to meet with them about getting it back and my wife didn't and the whole thing played out quite a bit differently.

 

There's a maintenance on Tuesday so hopefully that means the big patch with the new stuff and shitload of changes will be coming along side that.

[Nick 38]

Very interesting.

 

And it DEFINITELY looks like a big patch.

 

Patch 1.0.4 Notes

 

Going to read through them in a bit. But looks like a lot.

[Mera'din 307]

Damn. Beat me to it. Some pretty good stuff. Fixed the armor and shield bugs where extra armor and shields from Inscriptions wasn't always loading right so that's good. Only thing I see that people might bitch about is the Elysian Chests not having armor pieces in them (and honestly, they really should) but everything else is good stuff. My favorite inscription got a small nerf, but one of the new ones added should make up for it at least. XD

 

Being able to use the forge anywhere in the fort and having no loading time on it is going to be wonderful. Now they just need to get caught up to what their trailers showed and let you board a Strider in Free play and some missions to gain access to the forge and what not and we'll be good. >_>

 

Edit: So apparently increasing the loot threshold on bosses and chests kind of fucked some things. People are getting MORE loot but not better. Used to be a guaranteed masterwork item from GM1 and higher bosses and now it's not guaranteed so people are losing their minds. I personally have got 3 legendary drops already today from legendary contracts and the legendary mission on GM2 so I'm pretty happy. >_>

[Hikageryu 35]

I am playing on xbone.  Crashing is a problem.  They should have listened to the diablo dev about the loot especially considering the perks are random.  Bioware just needs to make it rain.  Elysian caches are a joke.  I like the gameplay i thinks its cool... that being said, i feel like the way the javelins work together is kinda squiffy.  Mostly because of randos in a colossus or interceptor.  I don't mind when my friends play because i know what they are going to do so i can adjust my playstyle accordingly... but i seriously cannot count how many times a col or int have body blocked my bullets or my detonator abilities.  2 good things about the new patch.  Yvenias gambit priming on the added lightning strike.  And thr dragon scale metal that hit the shop... that is all...

[Mera'din 307]

Dragon Scale metal is pretty hot.  

 

As an interceptor I really like a couple of the new components as well. Still trying to get a decent roll on a Bloodlust one because that thing is amazing. Really makes up for the nerf to our lightning on consecutive melee strikes one.

 

Best thing to do right now though is not play it for the loot. I've just been focusing on challenges and stuff and get a pretty steady stream of upgrades just not worrying about it with only limited complaints.

[MT 917]

That's kind of sad when the best part of a loot shooter isn't the loot.

[Mera'din 307]

And that's been most of them when they first come out. The Borderlands games seem to be the only ones that actually know what they're doing.

 

Destiny started decent and then went downhill so fast nobody wanted to do anything to get loot because the stuff from the original raid outshined it, Destiny 2 was worse than Anthem is originally. Diablo 3 loot was fucking horrendous originally. Division loot was boring and generic. Can't speak for Division 2 but what I played of the demo was basically a continuation of D1 though maybe that changes at endgame.

 

I never said there wasn't some interesting stuff, but high end drops are hard enough to come by that chasing perfect roles is almost impossible right now so it's not worth worrying about. There's enough in the game to focus on otherwise that I don't see the need to get bent out of shape about it. When I run out of things to keep me busy then maybe I'll worry about it.

 

The key problem is that they games Legendary items (equivalent to Destiny's exotics without the restrictions of only having 1 gun and 1 other) aren't actually unique. Each gun type has 3 "styles" and they're the same for each rarity (common, uncommon, rare, epic, masterwork, legendary). At the Masterwork rarity, the guns (and other equipment), though still the same "style" get unique abilities, some of which are REALLY cool. But then the Legendary stuff is identical to the Masterwork version visually and function wise just with bigger numbers attached (though the unique ability isn't any stronger). If these were more like they are in something like Destiny where they were wholly unique and had set, really nice affixes on them then their rarity would actually be worthwhile.  Drop rates right now treat them like they ARE Destiny exotics without the actual payoff unless you get REALLY lucky.

 

Just focusing on other things though, I've got nearly a full set of Legendaries already with a bunch to spare (stuff for other Javelins or different gun options on top of what I have equipped). So I'm nearly as far along as people that are trying to find efficient ways and/or exploits to farm shit without any of the headache. IE: Best not to focus on it when you have other things to do in the game.

[Nick 38]

I always feel like I should try playing something other than my Colossus when I play.... but then I only ever play my Colossus. <<

[Mera'din 307]

Same but with Interceptor. I need to get to the others eventually for their gear challenges and Colossus specifically for the two guns that only they use but I keep not doing it. XD

[MT 917]

On 3/30/2019 at 11:16 AM, Mera'din said:

Destiny started decent and then went downhill so fast nobody wanted to do anything to get loot because the stuff from the original raid outshined it, Destiny 2 was worse than Anthem is originally. Diablo 3 loot was fucking horrendous originally. Division loot was boring and generic. Can't speak for Division 2 but what I played of the demo was basically a continuation of D1 though maybe that changes at endgame.

Oh i'm not saying Anthem is alone in this. I'm just saying you would think, this far into the genre, someone would have gotten it figured out by now, and that it's sad no one has.

[Mera'din 307]

Fair enough. I get there needs to be some sort of balance between amount of loot and quality of loot for most of these games but they all seem to completely fuck it over and it takes a year or more to sort it out. The biggest issue is nobody seems to want to take what other people have done right and start from there. Like there's some weird, driving NEED to "Do it different" than everyone else but there aren't really many options. Borderlands definitely seems to have the best approach with "Here's 5 million different kinds of gun configurations. Figure out what the fuck you want to use yourself." Even that's not perfect, but it at least gives you options. XD

[webhead 519]

Borderlands drowns you in a sea of loot and there's so fucking much that you just try whatever.

 

Yeah I won't get why this is so hard for everyone.  These companies all seem to absolutely refuse to listen to their players about this stuff too (Bungie the most of all) so they end to spinning their wheels for a long time before they figure it out.

[MT 917]

Here's a really long, but really good, article about Anthem's development.

 

I pulled a few quotes I thought were interesting (there's a lot)

 

Perhaps most alarming, it’s a story about a studio in crisis. Dozens of developers, many of them decade-long veterans, have left BioWare over the past two years. Some who have worked at BioWare’s longest-running office in Edmonton talk about depression and anxiety. Many say they or their co-workers had to take “stress leave”—a doctor-mandated period of weeks or even months worth of vacation for their mental health. One former BioWare developer told me they would frequently find a private room in the office, shut the door, and just cry.

 

In these early versions, the idea was that you’d embark from a city and go out on expeditions with your friends, staying out in the world as long as you could survive. You’d use a robotic exosuit, and you’d fight monsters with melee and shooting attacks, but the focus was less on hoarding loot and more on seeing how long you could survive.

 

One BioWare developer who hadn’t yet moved to the Anthem team recalled hearing those colleagues talk about how much better they had it than the people who were stuck on Mass Effect: Andromeda, which at the time was going through serious struggles thanks to technical challenges and significant directional changes.

 

Throughout those early years in development, the Anthem team realized that many of the ideas they’d originally conceived would be difficult if not impossible to create on Frostbite. The engine allowed them to build big, beautiful levels, but it just wasn’t equipped with the tools to support all of those ambitious prototypes that they’d created.

 

It often felt to the Anthem team like they were understaffed, according to that developer and others who worked on the game, many of whom told me their team was a fraction of the size of developers behind similar games, like Destiny and The Division.

“A lot of the really talented engineers were actually working on FIFA when they should’ve been working on Anthem," said one person who was on the project.

Because leadership didn’t want to discuss Destiny, that developer added, they found it hard to learn from what Bungie’s loot shooter did well. “We need to be looking at games like Destiny because they’re the market leaders,” the developer said. “They’re the guys who have been doing these things best. We should absolutely be looking at how they’re doing things.”

 

For years, the Anthem team had gone back and forth about the flying mechanic. It had been cut and re-added several times in different forms. Some iterations were more of a glide, and for a while, the idea was that only one exosuit class would be able to fly.

 

At E3 2017, BioWare announced that Anthem would launch in fall 2018. Behind the scenes, however, they had barely even implemented a single mission. And the drama was just getting worse.

 

Mark Darrah was then installed over game director Jon Warner to become executive producer on Anthem. His role became so significant that he took top billing in Anthem’s credits. That the first name in Anthem’s credits is someone who started working on the game in October 2017, just 16 months before it shipped, says volumes about its development.

 

Decisions had to be made that would get the game out the door, no matter what that meant cutting. There was no more time for ideation or “finding the fun” in prototypes.

 

They came up with some artificial solutions to extend the campaign, like Challenges of the Legionnaires, a tedious, mandatory part of the main story that involves completing grindy quests in order to access tombs across the game’s world. Originally, according to two BioWare developers, this mission included time gates that might force players to wait days to complete it all — fortunately, they changed this before launch.

 

While talking to me, a number of former BioWare developers brought up specific complaints that were voiced by players and critics, then shared anecdotes of how they had made those same gripes to the leadership team throughout 2017 and 2018 only to be brushed off.

 

“I think Anthem might be the kick in the butt that BioWare leadership needed to see that how you develop games has changed dearly,” said one former staffer. “You can’t just start fresh and fumble your way forward until you find the fun. That doesn’t work anymore.”

[Nick 38]

Jesus. Haven't read through the article, but I have been looking at a lot of reactions to it.

 

It just sounds like it's such a mess. EA being absolute shit, Frostbite being awful to work with, leadership being fucking useless, devs having to take leaves because of their mental health... And then BioWare's poor attempt at Deflection and PR Spin with their response to the article they apparently put out minutes after the article was actually posted.

 

That's just bad. :/ Feel horrible for the devs who had to go through all that shit.

[Mera'din 307]

Missed the part about the game's lead designer dying in July 2017 as well. That probably rocked the boat harder than a lot of other things.

 

Here's the blog post Nick referred to that acts (in part) as a response to the Kotaku article:

http://blog.bioware.com/2019/04/02/anthem-game-development/

 

Jason Schreier (Kotaku article writer) has since responded to the blog post, specifically highlighting the part that says "We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better."

 

BioWare wrote and published this about my story before they even had a chance to read it, which is perhaps itself testament to some of the problems that I highlighted this morning. Defensiveness, belief in BioWare magic...

[webhead 519]

This all sounds a LOT like the story of Destiny, to be honest.  This kind of stuff SHOULD be aired out so maybe it stops happening.

[Mera'din 307]

Similar shit with Andromeda too. That particular writer is really big on exposing that kind of stuff. Think he actually wrote a whole book about the situation at various AAA developers.

[webhead 519]

This sort of stuff just keeps happening and no one is happy.  Worst of all is that every gamer I see says they'd rather a game take longer to make and not be shit but then these companies still rush out something unfinished.  Yet this still happens.  I think it's just the unbelievable greed of the publishers.

 

Other than that just like endless management problems.  That doesn't even seem like the publishers.  It seems like the cancerous culture of game development and the seemingly incompetent management in place at all these companies.  The shitty culture forces out anyone that can get a better job and the people left break under the pressure and lack of direction from above.

 

Seemed like it was just a Bungie thing but now it seems to be happening a lot.  It's sad.

 

I think the thing that made me the most upset reading that was people in the company telling them the parts of the game that sucked and then nothing happening.  Holy fuck that would be maddening.  To then have those exact complaints given by all the players just drive those people to murder.  Seriously.

[MT 917]

 

[Mera'din 307]

5 hours ago, webhead said:

This sort of stuff just keeps happening and no one is happy.  Worst of all is that every gamer I see says they'd rather a game take longer to make and not be shit but then these companies still rush out something unfinished.  Yet this still happens.  I think it's just the unbelievable greed of the publishers.

 

It's not entirely a greed issue per say (in some cases at least). This game was in development for 6 years. That's 6 years of dozens to hundreds of people working on a game where no profit is being made from the work done. There's a breaking point where SOMETHING needs to be released and mismanaged companies like EA just make it more obvious when resources aren't being properly allocated or there is a lack of oversight ("Bioware Magic" will see us through). Where one game needs maybe some better QA testing and a solid day one patch, others need a years worth of scrambling and some massive overhauls to set straight.

 

Unfortunately the latter is becoming more common with the advent of 'live services' where the company can see a base line pay out for work performed thus far and finish it on the run (FUCK IT! WE'RE DOING IT LIVE!). Much like how the loot box concept in F2P games was taken by AAA publishers and shoved into full priced games, this is basically the AAA version of "early access". 

 

That being said, I sincerely hope to see a turn around of Anthem in a shorter time than it's contemporaries which all took about a year and the work so far seems to lean in that direction but the state of morale that appears to be prevalent at Bioware currently is a bit disheartening. Also makes me worry about what may ultimate happen with the next Dragon Age game if it continues.

 

Side note: I find it mildly baffling that apparently the flying was not a constant in the game since it's easily one of the best and most well rounded systems the game has by far. Give whoever planned that shit a raise. O_o 

 

P.S. Polygon's turn apparently:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/2/18292304/bioware-press-response-anthem

[webhead 519]

That response from Bioware must be so disheartening to all the people there.  Like seriously, you guys aren't fooling anyone with that lame ass response.  Just another piece of management that simply has no idea what they're doing.

[MT 917]

From what i've been able to gather, EA/Bioware (whoever was responsible for putting out that "response") seemed to have it ready to go before the article itself was published. I think Jason mentioned on Twitter that he would send companies an outline/overview of what his article is going to be about before it gets published, but not give them the full text.

[Mera'din 307]

Yeah, he updated the original article stating that he sent them an outline and then they published their response pretty much minutes after his article went up without actually reading the full thing. Sounds like they COULD start learning from their recent mistakes. There are some hopeful threads in the article overall now that I've had a chance to read the whole thing, but they really don't have any missteps left at this point. Glad to see that the people who will more or less be running the game now seem to have their shit together a little better too. The updates so far have done a decent amount for the game and I'm honestly more impressed with it now knowing the specifics of what the dev cycle was like on it. If they can keep up the pace they may actually be able to turn it around in the public eye but will have to see how it plays out. They've been weirdly quiet since the last patch. Haven't even seen their community guy on reddit recently.

[webhead 519]

Didn't they say they weren't going to come around anymore if people were mean to them or something?

 

Maybe that was just actual developers.  Right at this moment I don't blame them from shrinking back a little and figuring out how to handle this.

[MT 917]

Looks like some of the wellbeing issues are going to get talked about

[Mera'din 307]

Saw that just a bit ago. Hopefully they can start to iron this shit out though I'm not overly hopeful. Most high end developers are probably almost identical (in terms of stress and morale for the employees. Not necessarily the shitty mismanagement).

[MT 917]

I have a friend who's worked in the industry for the past decade or so, who's been bounced from one developer to the other pretty much because of bad management, so EA definitely isn't the only one

[Mera'din 307]

By management in that statement I was referring more to project management. Employee management is shit all across that industry pretty much. Those guys need a fucking union. Not sure how likely that is though with how spread out the game development industry is.

[MT 917]

Newest patch lets you change loadouts while in a mission

[webhead 519]

Quote

Fort Tarsis has always been more of a glorified menu than a consequential environment for the game. It appears that BioWare is quietly acknowledging that by allowing players to bypass it almost entirely.

 

Well the game is just getting better and better.  Can't wait for the sales on it so I can get it cheap and not broken.

[Mera'din 307]

Yeah, lots of good stuff on there it looks like. Can also start contracts straight out of the mission select screen instead of having to pick them up in the fort, and can launch a new mission straight out of the mission completion screen instead of having to load into the fort or launch bay first. That will keep the flow going a lot better during end game play.

 

A few bug fixes I've been waiting on for a long time too.

 

A few little quality of life things too, including projectiles now pass through friendly javeline's. No more fat ass Colossus walking in front of you just as you throw a grenade and having it bounce off their fat ass.  

Doesn't look like they're going to keep up with their roadmap though. Was hoping to see their Mastery System that was set for this month since it's supposed to be an "expanded progression" system (assuming something like the Paragon system in D3). Trying to not play too much until that's in now that I've done all the main and side quest stuff. Just been doing dailies for the Elysian Keys and to stock up on coins in case the store has something interesting.

[Mera'din 307]

Just did the new Stronghold. Was a lot of fun. Really liked the setting and the feel of size of it. Felt a little light on enemies, and we really need an Outlaw based stronghold. At least it wasn't more Scars though. Lot of interesting visuals to the place. The feeling of coming up into the boss chamber really sells one of the things I love most about this game.

[Nick 38]

It does seem like they're making more and more good QoL updates and changes to the game. And I've heard good about the Stronghold. But it's been a while since I played it last, to be honest.

 

Sounds like it'll still be a while before there's some kind of update/fix for Loot in general. And the whole Roadmap has been delayed, I believe.

[Mera'din 307]

Yeah, despite the intense bitching about the game that's still going on, they are steadily improving it. The loot thing is just whatever though honestly. Drop rate is fine. I've had a full set of Legendary stuff for quite a while and I rarely play above GM1 (only did 2 a handful of times and have never touched 3). Mostly they just need to fix item score on the shit to reflect difficulty and/or make the rolls less retarded (either tighten them up more than they have, or let you reroll specific things with crafting mats since they have NO use otherwise outside of making a new character). There's no real reason to go up in difficulty after GM1 because stuff doesn't get BETTER it just has a chance to drop more often which is almost unnecessary.

 

The fact that you can get a Masterwork weapon on Easy that is the exact same item level as what you could get on GM3 is kind of stupid basically.

 

I would say don't rush load it up again. Wait for some of their end game stuff to go in. The Mastery system at least should help a lot if it's what I think it is.

[Nick 38]

I'm definitely waiting for them to add more content to the game to do. Don't really feel like just doing Strongholds.

[MT 917]

Well if you want content, have I got the game for you

 

?

[Mera'din 307]

1.20, First update in like a month:

https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/news/update-120

 

They've been pretty silent and rumor is they've been in pretty heavy crunch to catch back up to where they wanted to be at this point. Tweet went out a couple days ago about new story and lore content being finished up, and this update apparently has a lot of "under the hood" changes not listed that are supposed to set up for their first big roadmap thing that was originally supposed to have happened already, so we'll see how fast they can get that out. As such, they're also adding a Test Server on PC and will have the "Cataclysm" thing on it to test starting tomorrow it sounds like and will also be doing a stream about it around 3pm CST:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/News-Updates/Update-on-1-2-0-the-Cataclysm-and-next-livestream/m-p/7902351#M15

 

Patch has some solid stuff in it either way. Can "fast travel" to the different strider locations now, map will show collectibles and rare enemies when you're near them and things like that on top of a lot of bug fixes and some ability buffs.

[Nick 38]

It's good that they're finally saying something after over a month of silence.

 

Hopefully it'll be worth it, but a part of me doesn't want to bother.

[Mera'din 307]

Everything they've been doing has been for the better, but if you've stopped I don't see any real reason to start back up for a while. Wait for some big additions and really meaningful changes. I'm still playing a little bit each day mostly just saving up currency  and what not and doing individual javelin challenges and stuff. Have both Interceptor and Colossus completely decked out in Legendaries and have all of their challenges done thus far. As long as they get shit out before I run out of side things to do, I'll be happy. 

[Nick 38]

Yeah. I fell off a while ago, to be honest. Didn't really feel like playing since all I was really doing was the same Stronghold over and over. And they're making a bunch of good changes, but it seems like it'd still be doing the same stuff (for not, at least) for the same rewards. And were there anything in those patch notes about loot?

[Mera'din 307]

Nope. That's one of their "big" projects so I'm assuming we'll see a complete overhaul (which it needs). Most people bitch about the drop rates, but there's not anything particularly wrong with that. RNG is a bitch, but I get Legendaries pretty regularly just playing on GM1 (like I said, I've completely maxed out 2 different javelins). So  I'd expect something more profound. Hopefully alongside new content. Once they get a couple more strongholds in too, that will help. Have 4 now. New one was really fun, but definitely need some variety. 6 strongholds and some "higher" tier of content (some kind of raid style thing) would be much more well rounded.

[Galeigh 308]

I seriously doubt they can save it at this point. Most people I talk to have all basically forgotten it existed at this point. Hell, even I was like "oh yeah, that's a thing" when I saw this topic had a new post.

[webhead 519]

Seemed like Bioware forgot it existed too for almost a month.  At least they're finally putting something out.  Kudos if they truly are just hunkered down trying to fix everything.  Replayability seems basically dead until they fix the loot but they definitely seem to be stacking up the QoL improvements so that's always good.

[Mera'din 307]

Just because they're not saying anything doesn't mean they weren't working on it. In EA's quarterly financial call they had not too long ago, they flat out said they're still fully supporting the game as it sold incredibly well and fills a gap in their lineup. Say what you want about the company, but they're not going to lie to their shareholders. That's about the only thing they DO care about.

 

The press on the game has been the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. When two of the guys started working on something else, people lost their fucking minds talking about how they were giving up on the game and all this other shit. They were two of the Edmonton team that had stayed on extra time to help with the transition to Austin taking over the game. They literally said months earlier that that was going to happen. Those two didn't have anything to do with the development of the game pretty much from the point it came out, outside of said transition, and the transition had finished.  

 

Still plenty of people playing the game. Unless I play at utterly bizarre times, I always have a full group when I do a random thing. Probably the only thing that would really be dead at this point would be the regular story missions since everyone would be done with them. Even if there weren't a lot of people playing, if they fix the stuff they need to it will be fine. There have been plenty of games that have had a resurgence after worse states than this.

[Galeigh 308]

None of which were published by EA.