Anthem.... another let down.

DirectorGunner

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Incompatible or bad?

I got plenty of bad rolls, but thats the incentive to keep you grinding for better stats.

If everybody got the Legendary with +200% dmg in the first week of grinding, they would log off and stop playing.
My bad = incompatible with the weapon type.

A not bad roll (right now) for me is when all rolls complement the weapon type.

So... yes.. incompatible.
 

Montoya

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A not bad roll (right now) for me is when all rolls complement the weapon type.

So... yes.. incompatible.
I have good news for you!

Update to loot coming today.

This is our plan for changes to go live on February 28th or March 1st (central US time)


  • Inscriptions are now better for the items they are on
    • This applies to new items earned in Anthem (not existing ones in your Vault)
    • If an inscription applies only to the item it is on (gear icon), it will be useful to that item. Otherwise the inscription will provide a Javelin wide benefit
    • For example, an Assault Rifle will not have an item specific +pistol damage inscription. It may have a +electric damage suit wide inscription (cool for a lightning build)
    • Some more information below
  • Removed uncommon (white) and common (green) items from level 30 drop tables
    • This was a highly requested change and we agree, so that’s that.
  • We have reduced the crafting materials needed to craft a masterwork from 25 masterwork embers to 15 masterwork embers
    • As you salvage or harvest, you should be able to craft more masterwork items to get the inscriptions you are looking for
    • Now that inscriptions are more relevant to their item, this should yield better results for players
 

supitza

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Incompatible or bad?

I got plenty of bad rolls, but thats the incentive to keep you grinding for better stats.

If everybody got the Legendary with +200% dmg in the first week of grinding, they would log off and stop playing.

This is what I mean by incompatible loot.
+175% physical damage on a Storm seal that only does lightning damage. The gear icon next to it means the stat only affects the piece of gear it's on. So for this piece in particular, it does nothing.
Another example is + autocannon damage on gear for any other class other than the Colossus.

If you never got one (or hunderds) of these items, you're one lucky guy.

EDIT: this just got invalidated because i just saw that they're patching it. YAY!

EDIT2: The patch might have just dropped, because the game kicked me out in the middle of a Legendary Contract, without any prior notice, to update itself...
 
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Xist

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Looks like the patch dropped.

Updating now!

Hooray! No more +physical gear damage on my ice abilities! :like:
 

Xist

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NOTE: Today's patch doesn't include the loot update. Supposedly that's doing into a later patch today, or tomorrow.
 

DontTouchMyHoHos

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I agree the AI is currently inferior and the boss mechanics are simplistic. However I'm enjoying it anyway, and hoping that they will improve those 2 elements in the not-distant-future.

Hopelessly optimistic? Perhaps. But happy, nonetheless.
See thats what irks me. You bought a game in hopes it would be fixed in the future. Why support that malpratice? Why support lower standards so you can be fed it later and they can continue to keep making lower quality games and then sell expansions to you improving upon these things while making patches that fix juuuuust enough to keep you playing. I dont understand why that is an acceptable standard.
 
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Xist

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See thats what irks me. You bought a game in hopes it would be fixed in the future. Why support that malpratice? Why support lower standards so you can be fed it later and they can continue to keep making lower quality games and then sell expansions to you improving upon these things while making patches that fix juuuuust enough to keep you playing. I dont understand why that is an acceptable standard.
Because the game is still good.

I've still ended up paying less than $0.50/hour of play time, and that number is still dropping.

The value is clearly there, except if you planned to spend the rest of your life doing nothing but playing this game (which never entered my mind).
 

supitza

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Awesome, after the game suddenly shut down and kicked me out without notice to update itself, I go on to play my first mission after the patch: a legendary contract. During the first objective, we're fighting a Titan and he despawns at about 50% health.
Fine, we move on. We go to the next objective where we have to kill 3 lesser Titans. We kill the first 2, then while fighting the 3rd I get a random loading screen: "The server has shut down".
Keep praising this game, it's a work of art.

If you enjoy Anthem, congrats. I'm uninstalling it and moving back to indie games.
 

Xist

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Keep praising this game, it's a work of art.
Nobody ever said it's perfect. They're making fast patches to both client and server while we're playing. It's a development production environment.

You should expect it to have minor bugs, especially since they didn't have ANY alpha or beta testing of the actual game itself, just of the capacity of the servers.

Almost all the problems we have now aren't because the game is bad -- they're problems because EA failed to test this with actual players before launch. Thus we're the test group.

Imagine that. TEST, TESTing. 🤯
 

Montoya

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See thats what irks me. You bought a game in hopes it would be fixed in the future. Why support that malpratice?
Im enjoying this exchange, you should drop into voice chat, we are talking about this game right now!

With all due respect, it sounds like you implying the game is broken and needs to be fixed.

The game is not broken because of the AI, so he is not hoping the game gets "fixed" in the future. He is agreeing with you that there is room for improvement.

Xist is pointing out that this is a game as a service, like Warframe, so we should expect incremental improvements and additional content as an ongoing process.

By definition this game is not "complete" because it can never be complete due to its nature of being a live service!

It is not a linear story line with a beginning and end like Mass Effect.

This is a spiral staircase.
 
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DirectorGunner

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I have good news for you!

Update to loot coming today.

This is our plan for changes to go live on February 28th or March 1st (central US time)


  • Inscriptions are now better for the items they are on
    • This applies to new items earned in Anthem (not existing ones in your Vault)
    • If an inscription applies only to the item it is on (gear icon), it will be useful to that item. Otherwise the inscription will provide a Javelin wide benefit
    • For example, an Assault Rifle will not have an item specific +pistol damage inscription. It may have a +electric damage suit wide inscription (cool for a lightning build)
    • Some more information below
  • Removed uncommon (white) and common (green) items from level 30 drop tables
    • This was a highly requested change and we agree, so that’s that.
  • We have reduced the crafting materials needed to craft a masterwork from 25 masterwork embers to 15 masterwork embers
    • As you salvage or harvest, you should be able to craft more masterwork items to get the inscriptions you are looking for
    • Now that inscriptions are more relevant to their item, this should yield better results for players
I know I saw the Reddit post, I am very happy with the upcoming changes!
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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See thats what irks me. You bought a game in hopes it would be fixed in the future. Why support that malpratice? Why support lower standards so you can be fed it later and they can continue to keep making lower quality games and then sell expansions to you improving upon these things while making patches that fix juuuuust enough to keep you playing. I dont understand why that is an acceptable standard.
I see what you mean here. I think part of that problem is online and the breath of tech makers these days:

The one point that really struck home to me, is the games makers can't quality test for all computer builds. I have an FX AMD cpu, Sapphire Graphics Card, Gigabyte Motherboard, Corsair RAM and Crucial SSD's - So lets say the games developer tested this particular rig and got the game working really sweet on it. But then I swap out that Corsair RAM for some Kingston. Well I've invalidated that set of tests. And what if I swap the SSD's and have a HDD in there instead for more storage? The mother board, the graphics card... Just with my one computer alone, there are probably a thousand close matches and a million combinations I could have put together... Even consoles can have multiple different component sources in the same box with some games actually playing better on consoles built in the same factory but with different brands internal bits. Can't recall the game but on Playstation 2 it worked fine on all but a specific model that just bugged out on it.

That's one argument for the suck-it-and-see approach that seems to be happening...

But if a game is released part finished or not fully realized, no I don't see any reason for that, It's almost like a "Minimal Viable Product" is released to see if it'll fly and if it falls then it minimises the losses. If it flies then they can start recycling some revenue into it to keep the cogs turning and make it nearer to what it should have been. Thats my cynical outlook on it, but then I played Star Command Origins and some whacky lawsuit means I can play any more of what was planned in the future.

Reacting to the community is okay, but then it begs the question just who is making the game, the developers or the online popularity contest that is public opinion?
 

DontTouchMyHoHos

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I see what you mean here. I think part of that problem is online and the breath of tech makers these days:

The one point that really struck home to me, is the games makers can't quality test for all computer builds. I have an FX AMD cpu, Sapphire Graphics Card, Gigabyte Motherboard, Corsair RAM and Crucial SSD's - So lets say the games developer tested this particular rig and got the game working really sweet on it. But then I swap out that Corsair RAM for some Kingston. Well I've invalidated that set of tests. And what if I swap the SSD's and have a HDD in there instead for more storage? The mother board, the graphics card... Just with my one computer alone, there are probably a thousand close matches and a million combinations I could have put together... Even consoles can have multiple different component sources in the same box with some games actually playing better on consoles built in the same factory but with different brands internal bits. Can't recall the game but on Playstation 2 it worked fine on all but a specific model that just bugged out on it.

That's one argument for the suck-it-and-see approach that seems to be happening...

But if a game is released part finished or not fully realized, no I don't see any reason for that, It's almost like a "Minimal Viable Product" is released to see if it'll fly and if it falls then it minimises the losses. If it flies then they can start recycling some revenue into it to keep the cogs turning and make it nearer to what it should have been. Thats my cynical outlook on it, but then I played Star Command Origins and some whacky lawsuit means I can play any more of what was planned in the future.

Reacting to the community is okay, but then it begs the question just who is making the game, the developers or the online popularity contest that is public opinion?
Im perfectly fine with bugs hands down. I understand the broad spectrum you cant make the quality reach everything and as you expand the scope of the game you increase the bugs, but this game doesnt even reach a spectrum of breadth that i would accept blantant bugs that are rampant. This game isnt huge by any standard imo and i wouldnt consider most of my gripes falling in the spectrum of hardware testing either. If you have so little faith in your ability to make a well produced game than the marketing shouldnt lie which if that was the case with anthem if they are testing the waters. They flat out lied with their marketing. A lot of the issues i have with anthem is simply lack of talent in my eyes or EA pulling an Andromeda and forcing short production timelines to cut corners.
 

DontTouchMyHoHos

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Im enjoying this exchange, you should drop into voice chat, we are talking about this game right now!

With all due respect, it sounds like you implying the game is broken and needs to be fixed.

The game is not broken because of the AI, so he is not hoping the game gets "fixed" in the future. He is agreeing with you that there is room for improvement.

Xist is pointing out that this is a game as a service, like Warframe, so we should expect incremental improvements and additional content as an ongoing process.

By definition this game is not "complete" because it can never be complete due to its nature of being a live service!

It is not a linear story line with a beginning and end like Mass Effect.

This is a spiral staircase.
Real games as a service that i have seen have real content and are well made. MMOs being case in point. You have to have an actual good game to start from. You dont make a lazy game then build it up to a real game. Thats just lazy development and taking advantage of the consumers imagination of what could be.

The broken thing, in my eyes if some of that i deem broken is intended then they seriously lack talent as developers. Halo 1 and 2 had better AI than anthem. Warframe btw is f2p so it get a pass on a lot of its failures when it started. I understand ai being bad is not deeming the game is broken is just hard to covering everything when your are posting on mobile phone through out the day, lol. A game to be a service also has to be a game to beging with. Games as a service is describing mmos and those games crush anthem in terms of content
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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Games as a service is describing mmos and those games crush anthem in terms of content
Interesting... please give some examples, which MMO's?

EDIT - I'll skip the question and get right to the point:

Eve Online launched 2003 and has 16 years of additional development behind it.

World Of Warcraft launched 2004 and has 15 years of additional development behind it.

RuneScape launched 2001 and has 18 years of additional development behind it.

Well renound MMO's with lots of content.

Anthem launched 2019 and hasn't had the oppertunity to have any additional development time behind it yet because it is still 2019... Maybe in 15 years time it will have as much content as WOW...?

That said if you think the game stinks, you think it stinks 😁 I haven't played it yet as I can't afford it.
 
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Montoya

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Real games as a service that i have seen have real content and are well made. MMOs being case in point.
No argument from me that MMO's have some great content, but you need to judge Anthem within its genre.

Skyrim had way better story telling than Anthem, therefor Anthem sucks... Does that make any sense?

Anthem is a loot n shoot.

Warframe is a loot n shoot.

Destiny is a loot n shoot.

Division is a loot n shoot.

Now tell me again, how does Anthem stack up?
 

WaterShield

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I like the way Star Citizen is handling development better :p

I agree that the game feels unfinished. Sadly I do not know whether to blame EA for being "EVIL" or Bioware for having difficulties (time crunch, new type of game for them, etc...) In the end I'm not too interested in finding who to blame for it.

I have enjoyed myself minus the points everyone else has brought up. I am likely going to be putting less time into the game for a bit while I wait for it to be more feature complete.

My main thought with all of this is yes, they could have done better. I'm simply hoping for the product to continue to improve and for EA / Bioware to learn from the experience. If these things happen I will be happy.
 
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