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Update: RIP in Peace, Anthem


skillzdadirecta

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Stronghold bosses on GM difficulties also now guarantee a masterwork drop, so you're much, much more likely to not have people dropping group to get the first encounter chest over and over now. Will probably still happen, but I imagine to a vastly decreased degree.


The modular system sounds great, specifically for the World Event part. This is one of Destiny's biggest failures. Those public events are such a tiny, tiny pool and are rarely expanded upon, and they recycle them on every planet, which makes an entire solar system feel tiny and silly.

 

If we can get World Events regularly added? That'd be amazing, especially since they specifically mentioned new mechanics and designs, which is what every game like this badly needs, something new and interesting happening. I just did a side quest where your vision turns black and white and you hunt down these glowing orbs that are otherwise invisible. Essentially it's just collecting echos, but with the twist (besides the invisible part) is that you've only like 45 seconds to collect them all. That was the first time I'd seen that, and it was a nice little surprise.

 

Gimme a bunch of those and scatter them over the world, combined with some high-end, more involved content and keep introducing new abilities and ultimates (which they've also said they're working on/gonna work on) and you'll keep me interested for a long time.


And let's not forget the introduction of new javelins. I dunno when we'll see more, but I hope it's soon. The good part is there's no PvP, so it doesn't matter too much if something isn't perfectly balanced, and you don't have to make PvP-friendly abilities, so they can focus on a play style and just go to town.

 

I hope they're able to update this consistently and often, because I really don't want it to be like Destiny 2, where I check back every 3-6 months to see if the new expansion sucks, which they usually do, so it's more like once a year when the "real" content hits.

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Lol I saw a Laymen Gaming video on their thoughts on the game. They actually said they wish all players could experience how bad the quest to unlock the Tombs were pre patch. I don’t understand why. If you want the game the be good, like they said they did then why would you want people to experience the game in way that will make them think less of the experience? 

 

 

 

I dunno. 

 

I like the menu change. Load times are better on some load times. It still feels like loading into Fort Tarsis takes forever. It feels like it takes longer than loading into an expedition. 

 

I do like the sound of the Stronghold Vanity chests. That’s really cool. Though they mentioned you could get keys daily and if everyone has a key then you can get 4 items at a pop. That sounds neat, but then it also sounds like it won’t take you long to burn through the 100 vanity items. Unless they’re going to be added 100 new items every month or two. 

 

I miss the music from the demo in Fort Tarsis. There should be some music in the background. It feels too quiet. Otherwise I like the city. It feels loved in, feels like there’s so much more going on than just my shit. 

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Seriously, what the fuck were people doing to make that piddly ass quest into some big deal? It starts tracking at level 3 now, but even before, it started tracking at level 8. So you should've had at least a few hours of tracking already. I would be so curious to get a highlight reel of peoples' runs up until that quest. Were they just standing in place assault rifling things every mission while randos did the heavy lifting?

 

I'm not kidding when I say that when I got to it, the entire quest was almost completely done, and not a single objective seemed even remotely like some huge time sink. Altogether, if you were super slow and had no idea what you were doing, I could see it MAYBE taking 2 hours, but a key part of the mission is introducing you to Freeplay, in which almost every single objective (except "do 3 missions" which sure is a super hard thing to do in a mission-based game) could be completed in a single session.


I'm not even trying to defend it as a good quest. It's a pretty lazy one, and it has zero payoff (the payoff comes like a mission or two later) with the tombs you open being shitty little rooms with nothing in them. But people are talking about it as if it was some Sisyphean task that they nearly died accomplishing.

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12 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Seriously, what the fuck were people doing to make that piddly ass quest into some big deal? It starts tracking at level 3 now, but even before, it started tracking at level 8. So you should've had at least a few hours of tracking already. I would be so curious to get a highlight reel of peoples' runs up until that quest. Were they just standing in place assault rifling things every mission while randos did the heavy lifting?

 

I'm not kidding when I say that when I got to it, the entire quest was almost completely done, and not a single objective seemed even remotely like some huge time sink. Altogether, if you were super slow and had no idea what you were doing, I could see it MAYBE taking 2 hours, but a key part of the mission is introducing you to Freeplay, in which almost every single objective (except "do 3 missions" which sure is a super hard thing to do in a mission-based game) could be completed in a single session.


I'm not even trying to defend it as a good quest. It's a pretty lazy one, and it has zero payoff (the payoff comes like a mission or two later) with the tombs you open being shitty little rooms with nothing in them. But people are talking about it as if it was some Sisyphean task that they nearly died accomplishing.

 

Microsofts VP Mike Ybarra tweeted about this too, calling some reviewers whiners.. Of course he got a lot of heat for it.   Bravo to him for speaking his mind even if he did have to walk it back some after...

 

 

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Yeah, it's not surprising they don't know how to do combos. On the one hand, the game doesn't explain them for shit, but on the other hand, as a reviewer, you gotta at least ask what the fuck these "combo" things are you're seeing from time to time. And then when you learn, you can blast the dev for not explaining it, rather than just making a review where you don't know what you're talking about.


Like the Skill-Up review. He talks about combos somewhat, talks about how satisfying the noise it makes is... but he never explains them, not their lack of an explanation. All his footage is basically him assault-rifling everything, with the occasional ability usage, even over footage of him literally saying you need to use your abilities as soon as they're up because they're the real damage, which also isn't correct, because that's not how primer-detonator combos work, so it seems like he almost knows what he's talking about??

 

It's a shared-blame thing. Bioware did a shit job of explaining the system (they didn't, at all) and reviewers did a shit job of learning the system by asking people about it (they didn't, at all) -- they should totally be hammered for not explaining this, as the average joe might never figure it out, but I expect a helluva lot more from someone with a 2-part video review where the first part is 40+ minutes.

 

That said I totally subbed to him after that video. I liked his presentation and his other videos, and even liked this one for the most part. Seen the name thrown around a few times and may have watched one of his videos before, but now that I've watched more, seems like a legit dude.

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4 minutes ago, Anzo said:

I think the biggest insult of the tombs mission, aside from lazy design, is that there is basically nothing in each tomb. No trial. Just F to pay respects. 

Yup. That was the worst part for me. The mission itself was easy, but having you opening these tombs with nothing inside was just fucking bad. At least in FFXV (of all the comparisons to make...) when you opened each ancient tomb, you got a new weapon out of it for your weird Armiger thing.

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I can understand the complaints.  Good on Bioware for tweaking it, but for some players this is still going to be an arbitrary progression blocker.  As endgame content though it would probably be fine.  People might even appreciate it.  Same could be said for Wind Waker's Triforce Quest,  FFXV's Chapter 13, Shadow or War's Nemesis Grind, etc.

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34 minutes ago, Duderino said:

I can understand the complaints.  Good on Bioware for tweaking it, but for some players this is still going to be an arbitrary progression blocker.  As endgame content though it would probably be fine.  People might even appreciate it.  Same could be said for Wind Waker's Triforce Quest,  FFXV's Chapter 13, Shadow or War's Nemesis Grind, etc.

At the time I did not understand the hate for the Wind Waker Triforce quest. I ended up finding the pieces while I was exploring the world inbetween the dungeons. Sure if I had rushed through the dungeons trying to burn through the main missions as fast as possible I might have felt put out. Or if it was given to you as a quest only when you needed it to progress and no sooner. But it was something I ended up completing along the way. 

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2 hours ago, Duderino said:

I can understand the complaints.  Good on Bioware for tweaking it, but for some players this is still going to be an arbitrary progression blocker.  As endgame content though it would probably be fine.  People might even appreciate it.  Same could be said for Wind Waker's Triforce Quest,  FFXV's Chapter 13, Shadow or War's Nemesis Grind, etc.

 

Shadow of War's "grind" was vastly overstated. Like dramatically so...

 

In other news playing today for the first time since the patch... Load times still seem pretty long.

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Yeah, I'd say that review is pretty spot on. Although, like so many others games like this, it can be summed up by this very early line in the review:

Quote

Anthem, as it stands now, is an adventure best saved for a later date.

None of it is the terrible game people are eager to make it out to be, but you'll definitely have a far better time if you wait a while for things to get cleaned up, for features to be added, etc. Smooth out all those rough edges and add some shiny new stuff. You don't have to look very hard to see the flaws, but luckily most of them don't seem like things that can't be fixed in a relatively quick fashion. I do worry a bit about things like getting into missions, though. It's not as annoying as MHW's matchmaking, but it would be hugely beneficial if they could rework the system to where you didn't have to go into any long load times to get into the next mission.

 

For the story in its current state, I can't see this being completely solved, as several quests require you to go back to town and talk with people about the events and how to proceed, which is fine, I suppose. But I hope that doesn't prevent them from basically just keeping you in Freeplay once a mission completes and allowing you to choose the next mission from there. Hell, maybe even give you the option to fly there from your current location instead of hitting a load screen. I'd really like that, pick up some vistas/chests/codex entries along the way, take in the scenery, maybe do some World Events, etc. It'd go a long way towards really selling the world, because I REALLY like Freeplay. Was in a session earlier where everyone in the match actually sought each other out and we were all just doing World Events together, which was a big change from my previous sessions where we kind of all did our own thing, which was also fun.

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Here's some basic tips to get you started:


- Depending on your Javelin of choice, abilities are likely more powerful than your guns, although this may change back and forth depending on what abilities you've chosen. So make sure to get used to using them often and knowing when they're off cooldown! Don't just shoot!

 

- Use the dodge button! It's a life-saver.

 

- Flying and hovering in combat is totally viable! Try it out! Even if you only use it to reposition or get away from enemies, it's a big step up from just standing and shooting! Some classes have abilities or weapons that are much easier to use or more effective from higher up just due to being able to get a better lay of the battlefield.

 

- Melee is good! Use it! Not every class has equally good melee, but usually you can take out smaller enemies easily, and some have different mechanics like using it from higher up will cause it to deal more damage, some are even detonators! Detonators explained below.

 

- Primers and detonators! This is a fancy way of saying combos! Abilities that have a circle icon on them are primers. These will apply a debuff, usually elemental (fire/ice/lightning, etc) to enemies. So you'll hit the primer, and now the enemy is frozen in place if it's ice, covered in electricity or fire, etc. They are primed! Now if you have an ability with a little starburst icon, that's a detonator! If you hit them with that before the debuff wears off, that's a combo! Combos do massive damage and each javelin has different effects when they combo. For example, the Storm Javelin's combo means that elemental effect hits all nearby enemies along with the big damage! So they're great at taking out/slowing down swarms of enemies. I believe both Storm and the Ranger melees are detonators, so even if both your set abilities are primers, you can still detonate by smackin' 'em! Based on what I've seen, only the initial primer ability properly primes enemies, though. So if the Storm freezes everyone with a combo, you can't further combo that, at least not that I've seen.

 

- To make the above even simpler, think of combos like soaking an enemy with water before hitting them with an electric attack! You're priming them to take much more damage, that's all. It's really not complicated. That said, not every ability is a primer or a detonator! Some are just really reliable and spammable damage, which can also be super valuable! You can also detonate enemies primed by teammates, which is critically important later on. Pay attention, but really it's hard to miss a primed target.

 

- Anywhere you see water splashes (like the edge of a waterfall) you can completely cool your engines while flying. Passing through the little mist spurt is just as effective as diving underwater or underneath a waterfall proper. Otherwise skimming even shallow water greatly extends your flight time. Don't forget about the puffs of mist, though, that hard reset to 0 heat is great, and provides no heat buildup for a while to boot.

 

- If you find normal difficulty to be good enough, that's fine, but if you're finding it makes missions a little too boring, crank it up to hard! You can easily do the entire campaign on hard on a first playthrough and it provides a much more acceptable (to me) level of difficulty.

 

- Some shit's still janky. Enemies firing attacks sideways or not telegraphing can be really annoying. And sometimes you take fire from what feels like nowhere. Not much of a tip, but just be aware that it's probably gonna happen on occasion, so keep that dodge button ready.

 

- You can rush through the story if you want, but I personally really like all the weird characters around the town. They're a bit stiff and off-putting at the start, but when they start opening up and being weird, I found myself pausing my Youtube videos on my second monitor a lot more just to enjoy their conversations. It helps that you don't play some mute. Your character also has a personality and things to say, with you influencing them. But the interaction and choices are pretty limited. I was just entertained by good characters, is all. I think it'd be a shame to skip out on all those conversations. At the very least, chat with the folks you like!

 

- Your Javelin starts out with a "dirty" skin applied. You'll get an "old" one pretty soon after that, and standard later on, with clean being quite a bit later. When customizing your Javelin early on, try not to let it bother you to much. You'll get it nice and clean soon.

 

- Don't bother saving a bunch of crap early on. If you have an ability you really like and want to try a new one, sure, keep the one you like just in case. But generally just scrap anything that's like 2+ power levels below you. You're gonna be getting a lot and rapidly, so don't hoard. The real loot game doesn't begin until 30.

 

- You unlock all the Javelins as you level up, so just choose whichever seems most interesting for you to start with. Storm is very popular because of its fun abilities and extreme hover time, it makes a good beginner Javelin (beginner as in starter, not as in it's easier or harder) because it introduces you to combos very quickly.

 

- A lot of stuff is account-wide. If you start a second pilot for whatever reason, you'll keep all of your Javelins unlocked, for example. I believe your reputation as well, so you keep some pretty big advantages.

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5 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Shadow of War's "grind" was vastly overstated. Like dramatically so...

Same goes for FXV’s Chapter 13.  And WW’s tri-force quest.  And probably Anthem too.

 

The common thread between it all, arbitrary late game progression stalls can lead to unhappy gamers and lower review scores.

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I saw somebody with the LOD armor last night, checked and it still was not in my rewards. My trial ended 32 minutes before the actual release, but I needed to go to bed for work anyways. 

 

 

I hit an odd difficulty spike last night. I always play missions/quests in hard and I matchmake for the bonus XP and for a bit of help. Suddenly out of no where in a missions I start getting 1 shot by snipers. I respawn, fly back, and immediately get 1 shot again. This kept happening throughout the mission. Usually if they hit me it just takes out my shields and a good chunk of health, but I survive. What felt weird to me is I was using a consumable for the first time that gave me 10% more shields and better shield recharge and I had just equipped better items that improved me shields normally. 

 

Anyway, I think I will stop doing missions with matchmade groups. The game keeps putting me in the middle of the missions so I miss some of opening dialog. I’m sure it’s not hugely important, but I don’t like feeling like I am missing banter, revelations, or world building and lore. 

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Well you could always squad up with somebody behind you in the story and just essentially redo missions. You get bonus XP for helping others complete missions. Not sure if you get more bonus if it isn’t mission you already completed.  

 

I don’t mind redoing story missions. Especially since I may have missed some of the missions due to getting joined to a mission half or more completed. 

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9 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Played for about an hour before crashing last night. Graphics are awesome. Gameplay was smooth as butter. Question though. After competing the first few missions I was showed my loot. Should I be salvaging all those weapons or hold onto them all? 

I keep enough to outfit each Javelin according to the play style I'll be using for that particular build. I salvage guns and loot that isn't at my level.

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