General Gaming Update: RIP in Peace, Anthem

[JPDunks4]

14 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

There was a small patch released on Saturday.

 

I mean today compared to yesterday even.  Store was updated, and little UI tweaks that werent there before.  

 

Previously it didnt show the rewards for doing Contracts on the Map Screen, now it does. 

 

I think they added more Weekly Challenges, before it was just do 10 Strongholds.

 

Just small stuff like that.

 

At least on Xbox

[JPDunks4]

 

[JPDunks4]

Day 1 Patch goes live in a few hours

[Mr.Vic20]

Excellent, here we go then! 

[Dexterryu]

2 hours ago, Man_of_X said:

 

Skill up is an intelligent guy that does well thought out reviews and videos for the most part.  He absolutely has a serious bias in this case though.  Also, he can go fuck himself for his snappy little thumbnail.  He doesn't need to do that with the subs he has and announcing to the interwebs that the game is garbage is not only inaccurate, but will definitely affect sales.  He is also not the only one that does this.  You only have to look at Arekkz for the correct way to do it.

 

I just want Bioware to get the same chance that Bungie had with Destiny (even though year one of that game should have killed the fuck out of it) and Massive had with the Division.  So fuck all of the youtubers that feel the need to wave that flag to the whole world instead of just putting a video up with their impressions where they can say whatever the fuck they want.  Again, with the subs they have, they don't need to do that.

 

I'll chime in here... I've been a Bioware fan dating back to the 90's with Baldur's gate. I REALLY wanted to like Anthem. I really want to like Anthem. The combat and flying around is fun... but the rest is not so much. When I look at DA:I, ME:A, and now Anthem I see the studio pulling further away from what made their past games great. I'm talking about the heart of the game. The characters and the way you can connect/interact with them. The way character interactions gives you choices that impacted the story of the game.  The characters and interactions right now are a couple of binary choices that break up long winded monologues. The side characters hardly ever interact with each other and always seem to be standing in the same spot (nothing like the Normandy where walking through the ship you'd see various characters around having conversation about stuff that happened).

 

I'd also argue the forced multiplayer component almost strips away the possibility for companion characters (and the usually fun intra-party banter) makes the missions/combat to feel more generic because it's just about the actions and less about the why. Matchmaking puts us with random people who mostly don't talk and typically want to race through missions and not explore. The  story and missions feel like they were written to have characters along with you. In fact, the tutorial and first mission feel pretty darn good because they're basically single player.

 

In light of these things, early "review in progress" comments that I've seen feel very accurate. This game feels like it was heavily influenced by executives picking from a list of cool ideas.

 

[JPDunks4]

Talking about Vanity Chests at the end of Strongholds.  You will collect keys doing daily missions, then at the end of Strongholds there will be 4 chests, if you open a chest you and your team get the item.  If all 4 team members open the chests all 4 players get all 4 items.

 

[Moa]

14 minutes ago, Dexterryu said:

 

I'll chime in here... I've been a Bioware fan dating back to the 90's with Baldur's gate. I REALLY wanted to like Anthem. I really want to like Anthem. The combat and flying around is fun... but the rest is not so much. When I look at DA:I, ME:A, and now Anthem I see the studio pulling further away from what made their past games great. I'm talking about the heart of the game. The characters and the way you can connect/interact with them. The way character interactions gives you choices that impacted the story of the game.  The characters and interactions right now are a couple of binary choices that break up long winded monologues. The side characters hardly ever interact with each other and always seem to be standing in the same spot (nothing like the Normandy where walking through the ship you'd see various characters around having conversation about stuff that happened).

 

I'd also argue the forced multiplayer component almost strips away the possibility for companion characters (and the usually fun intra-party banter) makes the missions/combat to feel more generic because it's just about the actions and less about the why. Matchmaking puts us with random people who mostly don't talk and typically want to race through missions and not explore. The  story and missions feel like they were written to have characters along with you. In fact, the tutorial and first mission feel pretty darn good because they're basically single player.

 

In light of these things, early "review in progress" comments that I've seen feel very accurate. This game feels like it was heavily influenced by executives picking from a list of cool ideas.

 

 

I get being upset that Bioware is moving away from what you enjoyed about their games, but since the initial announcement of Anthem it has been crystal clear what type of game it is going to be. It sounds more like you wanted Anthem to be a game that you would like than you wanted to like Anthem.

[TheLeon]

I've only played a couple hours so far, but I don't think this game is for me. As I was flying around a cave fighting waves of enemies, I thought "Man, I wish I could be doing this with Wrex and Liara." I don't want to do missions with randos, and I'm unlikely to regularly group up with people I know, so it's going to feel like a lonely grind. 

 

*It's also possible that I'm trying to convince myself that I shouldn't buy it because I should be saving my money. 

[Anzo]

6 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I've only played a couple hours so far, but I don't think this game is for me. As I was flying around a cave fighting waves of enemies, I thought "Man, I wish I could be doing this with Wrex and Liara." I don't want to do missions with randos, and I'm unlikely to regularly group up with people I know, so it's going to feel like a lonely grind. 

 

*It's also possible that I'm trying to convince myself that I shouldn't buy it because I should be saving my money. 

I don’t think there is anything wrong with waiting it out a bit. Let them flesh out their post launch content, perhaps a price drop or two and you will have a load of stuff to do later if you so choose. 

[Dexterryu]

1 hour ago, Moa said:

 

I get being upset that Bioware is moving away from what you enjoyed about their games, but since the initial announcement of Anthem it has been crystal clear what type of game it is going to be. It sounds more like you wanted Anthem to be a game that you would like than you wanted to like Anthem.

It's probably both. I played probably about 12-15 hours over the weekend (up to level 17 I think). 

 

I made my post more as a bit of a commentary to what IMHO, EA has done to Bioware. Through DA:I -> ME:A -> Anthem  it's been a downhill trend that's drifted away from characters and story and more about checkbox/time-sink games designed to entice micro transactions. 

[Mr.Vic20]

Patch is live! 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

What I find so disengenuous about these “reviews” is they KNOW most of the people won’t be able to play the game until at the earliest 2/22, and they KNOW there is a huge day 1 patch addressing a fixing a bunch of stuff, yet they all seem to be rushing to get their videos finished before the patch and actual release. 

 

I get that that maybe some people were hyped thinking Anthem would have the content of a year 2 Division or Destiny title. I don’t know why they thought that, but I can see some thinking if any dev could do it, it would be BioWare. But it seems like there is not a willingness to allow Anthem a chance to grow. It either needed to be as good as Y3 Destiny, or not release at all. 

 

Just a a few hours in and there is more lore being explained and set up than all of Destiny 1 and the Division. I saw a guy on Inside Gaming saying he didn’t think the story in Anthem was that great because he was skipping through every conversation and dialog choice and has not felt like he was missing anything.  Except a fucking story it seems. 

 

Some me people are salty that BioWare made this over more Mass Effect, yet they are the same people that destroyed Andromeda over animations and visual bugs. I think they were people still pissed over ME3’s ending. 

 

I can understand telling people to wait if they felt Division and D1 and D2 were lacking at launch. But fans of both those games seem angry at Anthem and a yelling for people to never buy it. Just so they can go back to making their Destiny videos complaining that Bungie doesn’t listen to its community.  

[Pikachu]

Downloading the 5 gig patch now. 

[Mr.Vic20]

3 or 4 more missions and I'll be level 30! 

[Dexterryu]

11 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

What I find so disengenuous about these “reviews” is they KNOW most of the people won’t be able to play the game until at the earliest 2/22, and they KNOW there is a huge day 1 patch addressing a fixing a bunch of stuff, yet they all seem to be rushing to get their videos finished before the patch and actual release. 

 

I get that that maybe some people were hyped thinking Anthem would have the content of a year 2 Division or Destiny title. I don’t know why they thought that, but I can see some thinking if any dev could do it, it would be BioWare. But it seems like there is not a willingness to allow Anthem a chance to grow. It either needed to be as good as Y3 Destiny, or not release at all. 

 

Just a a few hours in and there is more lore being explained and set up than all of Destiny 1 and the Division. I saw a guy on Inside Gaming saying he didn’t think the story in Anthem was that great because he was skipping through every conversation and dialog choice and has not felt like he was missing anything.  Except a fucking story it seems. 

 

Some me people are salty that BioWare made this over more Mass Effect, yet they are the same people that destroyed Andromeda over animations and visual bugs. I think they were people still pissed over ME3’s ending. 

 

I can understand telling people to wait if they felt Division and D1 and D2 were lacking at launch. But fans of both those games seem angry at Anthem and a yelling for people to never buy it. Just so they can go back to making their Destiny videos complaining that Bungie doesn’t listen to its community.  

 

I'm hopeful they can turn things around and give the game some character & heart. If EA supports the game like Ubisoft did with Division then players will stick with it/come back. Division launched in really bad shape technically, exploit/cheat-wise, and content-wise. 4-6 Weeks in the community shrank rapidly but after 1.8 was released many came back and still play. I hope Anthem does the same.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Day 1/Day 8 patch notes.

[JPDunks4]

Patch is live on Xbox too, thought it might only be PC.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Yeah, I am downloading the patch now. Little over 5GB. 

[JPDunks4]

I think they are on to my workout for EA Access, wont let me switch over to my main account anymore.... ah well one more day.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

4 hours ago, Dexterryu said:

 

I'll chime in here... I've been a Bioware fan dating back to the 90's with Baldur's gate. I REALLY wanted to like Anthem. I really want to like Anthem. The combat and flying around is fun... but the rest is not so much. When I look at DA:I, ME:A, and now Anthem I see the studio pulling further away from what made their past games great. I'm talking about the heart of the game. The characters and the way you can connect/interact with them. The way character interactions gives you choices that impacted the story of the game.  The characters and interactions right now are a couple of binary choices that break up long winded monologues. The side characters hardly ever interact with each other and always seem to be standing in the same spot (nothing like the Normandy where walking through the ship you'd see various characters around having conversation about stuff that happened).

 

I'd also argue the forced multiplayer component almost strips away the possibility for companion characters (and the usually fun intra-party banter) makes the missions/combat to feel more generic because it's just about the actions and less about the why. Matchmaking puts us with random people who mostly don't talk and typically want to race through missions and not explore. The  story and missions feel like they were written to have characters along with you. In fact, the tutorial and first mission feel pretty darn good because they're basically single player.

 

In light of these things, early "review in progress" comments that I've seen feel very accurate. This game feels like it was heavily influenced by executives picking from a list of cool ideas.

 

I have to admit, that your feelings echo my own concerns.  I had hoped that BioWare Edmonton's trademark storytelling would get into the game -- but it appears that it largely hasn't.

 

But you're pretty brave posting in this thread.  The Anthem defence force isn't open to anything but glowing praise about Anthem.

[JPDunks4]

51 minutes ago, mikechorney said:

I have to admit, that your feelings echo my own concerns.  I had hoped that BioWare Edmonton's trademark storytelling would get into the game -- but it appears that it largely hasn't.

 

But you're pretty brave posting in this thread.  The Anthem defence force isn't open to anything but glowing praise about Anthem.

Defense Force? C'mon you've got to be joking.  

 

@Dexterryuissues with the games are well thought out and legitimate issues to raise.  He's not creating non issue BS reasons and then exaggerating them out of context just to destroy the game.  It's not Mass Effect or Dragon Age, so I can see why someone looking for old school Bioware would be disappointed in it.  If you could care less about a looter shooter multiplayer game, then its a legit reason to be upset this happened.  

 

The issue many of us have are reviewers should be professional enough to bash a game on its own merits rather than what they may have wanted, and it seems thats whats happening.

 

Reviewers saying the Javelins all play the same is basically straight up BS.  Stating that Tomb Challenge was a huge roadblock that broke the game was exaggerated BS.  The game has issues, bring them up, talk about why its not what you wanted but at least can appreciate why its a good game for what its trying to do.  Don't create clickbait BS just to hate on a game because its EA and not a super deep single player story RPG.

[Biggie]

Do players use mics in this game or will I be wasting my time using a headset? 

[Anzo]

3 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Do players use mics in this game or will I be wasting my time using a headset? 

Going through the story you probably won’t get much chatter. If you stick with it and get to the grand master difficulties I wouldn’t imagine that teamwork is crucial. 

[Man_of_X]

2 hours ago, mikechorney said:

I have to admit, that your feelings echo my own concerns.  I had hoped that BioWare Edmonton's trademark storytelling would get into the game -- but it appears that it largely hasn't.

 

But you're pretty brave posting in this thread.  The Anthem defence force isn't open to anything but glowing praise about Anthem.

 

Defence force? Give me a fucking break.  Nobody is shitting on anyone for having an opinion or for the game not being the game that suits them. 

 

What pisses me the fuck right off is people that like looter shooters, mainly various youtubers, broadcasting to the world that it's a huge piece of shit before the actual release is even here.  Angry Joe posting a video right now about that "nasty" tomb grind knowing full fucking well they've rectified the situation already. 

 

Has nothing to do with universal praise, but giving the game a chance to launch, improve over time like literally every other game in this genre. 

 

Just to be clear, none of the above is directed at you, just my general disgust with what I'm seeing these idiots do. 

[Mercury33]

4 hours ago, mikechorney said:

 

But you're pretty brave posting in this thread.  The Anthem defence force isn't open to anything but glowing praise about Anthem.

 

Yes this couldn’t be more false. This thread has been nothing but civil. Why you trying to start shit?

[Xbob42]

I think part of the issue is weighing what you wanted the game to be because it's Bioware, with what the game clearly was going to be based on literally everything we saw and heard about it. This wasn't No Man's Sky where everyone was wondering what the hell you were going to do in the game, this was clearly a looter-shooter from the get-go. How do you reconcile that disconnect without it just seeming like you're whining that Bioware made a game you don't like? "Bioware made the wrong game" is such an arrogant and dismissive statement, it's a total asshole thing to say. Maybe it's even right! But are they never allowed to try something new? We assume a lot of EA influence, but are we sure this just isn't a thing Bioware was really passionate about on their own? "A fantasy sci-fi Iron Man game" sounds a helluva lot like a Bioware concept.

 

It's completely fair to be disappointed a company didn't make a game you wanted, and to wonder about what it could've been. But I think to some extent that shit needs to be left at the door when you start making a review. Reference their past work, tell us what you thought about it, but your musings on what they should've done (outside of how this game could be better, not them simply making a different game) are just really audacious filler. Something best left to message boards, not reviews. Imagine if we got that with every review -- just the reviewer taking 15 minutes to really tell us what game they should've made instead, rather than telling us what the game's problems are and where it succeeds/fails.

 

This game has an atrocious UI, the map is borderline useless, there's too many load screens, there needs to be more mission variety, the AI is pretty bad, the guns aren't very interesting, the first-person town stuff doesn't work as well as Destiny's third-person town, and the third-person social space is pretty bland and boring, the story is way way better than other looter-shooters, but is still pretty weak, the GM difficulties are simply sliders that scale enemy health and damage instead of fun modifiers (Motherfucker I am NOT the defense force) and plenty of other problems ranging from minor to pretty annoying.

Those are all real, tangible problems the game has that hopefully get improved ASAP. You do not need to add the fantasy game you could've had on top of that, or exaggerate existing problems because getting 50 melee kills somehow took you 9 hours instead of 5 minutes. When we exaggerate or create problems that are unfixable ("I wanted Mass Effect instead!" is not an actionable problem, I'm sorry) or outright make up issues, that detracts from the power and effectiveness of proper feedback and just becomes a shitting contest.

[Xbob42]

...Huh. They changed the mission selection UI. Like, significantly. Didn't expect that big of a change so soon. Good to see it's modular enough for it. Hope we get more updates like that and they can make the UI good at some point.

[The Dude]

I don't understand why gamers don't have middle grounds. It's either amazing or shit. And this is simply the norm it seems where these games release and are fucked up but do get fixed for the most part. 

 

If anyone put time into destiny, divison, final fantasy etc... They have not one leg to stand on when it comes to a game like Anthem and it's share of problems as that would be the ultimate in gaming hypocrisy.  Not that I condone these games releasing in such manners, but this is the state of the gaming world right now with this type of game and the key factor is how well the devs respond. 

 

Watching reviews, reading chats... It's embarrassing to me seeing how people can't help to be rabid over every fucking flaw... Rabid. 

 

I played more tonight and it's a fun game, problematic but fun.. However how can I bash Bioware when I've played destiny for hundreds of hours? I can't. 

 

Only thing that will make Anthem rough for me is division so soon and then another season of D2 starting. But I think Anthem can succeed if they hit the game hard and address these issues which it seems they will do. 

 

But I agree above, people need to stop saying what they believe Bioware should've or shouldn't have done. It's their game, their vision and if the devs don't drop the ball they can make this a game worth it for the long haul. Might not be everyone's cup o tea but that's ok, what game is? 

 

BTW they need a tutorial badly as the fun factor increases dramatically when learning about primers and dets 

[Dexterryu]

4 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I think part of the issue is weighing what you wanted the game to be because it's Bioware, with what the game clearly was going to be based on literally everything we saw and heard about it. This wasn't No Man's Sky where everyone was wondering what the hell you were going to do in the game, this was clearly a looter-shooter from the get-go. How do you reconcile that disconnect without it just seeming like you're whining that Bioware made a game you don't like? "Bioware made the wrong game" is such an arrogant and dismissive statement, it's a total asshole thing to say. Maybe it's even right! But are they never allowed to try something new? We assume a lot of EA influence, but are we sure this just isn't a thing Bioware was really passionate about on their own? "A fantasy sci-fi Iron Man game" sounds a helluva lot like a Bioware concept.

 

It's completely fair to be disappointed a company didn't make a game you wanted, and to wonder about what it could've been. But I think to some extent that shit needs to be left at the door when you start making a review. Reference their past work, tell us what you thought about it, but your musings on what they should've done (outside of how this game could be better, not them simply making a different game) are just really audacious filler. Something best left to message boards, not reviews. Imagine if we got that with every review -- just the reviewer taking 15 minutes to really tell us what game they should've made instead, rather than telling us what the game's problems are and where it succeeds/fails.

 

This game has an atrocious UI, the map is borderline useless, there's too many load screens, there needs to be more mission variety, the AI is pretty bad, the guns aren't very interesting, the first-person town stuff doesn't work as well as Destiny's third-person town, and the third-person social space is pretty bland and boring, the story is way way better than other looter-shooters, but is still pretty weak, the GM difficulties are simply sliders that scale enemy health and damage instead of fun modifiers (Motherfucker I am NOT the defense force) and plenty of other problems ranging from minor to pretty annoying.

Those are all real, tangible problems the game has that hopefully get improved ASAP. You do not need to add the fantasy game you could've had on top of that, or exaggerate existing problems because getting 50 melee kills somehow took you 9 hours instead of 5 minutes. When we exaggerate or create problems that are unfixable ("I wanted Mass Effect instead!" is not an actionable problem, I'm sorry) or outright make up issues, that detracts from the power and effectiveness of proper feedback and just becomes a shitting contest.

 

To continue to clarify... the actual gameplay I have very little issue with. It's the story/character interactions that I'm mostly disappointed with. As I explained... it feels like the publisher and developers had different ideas and tried to compromise. My opinion is that the game suffers because of it. My opinion is that if the game were more narrative driven and had the character interactions & choice that Bioware has been great at in the past that the action would feel more meaningful.

 

I work in IT/Software development myself and if I'm seeing things correctly it's exactly the sort of thing that happens when a team has a product owner that's forcing decisions on the dev team. It's functional, but not what it could be. 

[Xbob42]

25 minutes ago, Dexterryu said:

 

To continue to clarify... the actual gameplay I have very little issue with. It's the story/character interactions that I'm mostly disappointed with. As I explained... it feels like the publisher and developers had different ideas and tried to compromise. My opinion is that the game suffers because of it. My opinion is that if the game were more narrative driven and had the character interactions & choice that Bioware has been great at in the past that the action would feel more meaningful.

 

I work in IT/Software development myself and if I'm seeing things correctly it's exactly the sort of thing that happens when a team has a product owner that's forcing decisions on the dev team. It's functional, but not what it could be. 

That's fair, but I kinda felt the same way about the entire Mass Effect series (the bit about forced decisions) since I'm one of like 6 people in the world who didn't think it was the greatest series ever. Mass Effect combat was such clunky garbage, and it completely killed the flow of the story in every single iteration. Either you played it like a boring cover shooter or you used the janky ass abilities to have a lot more action that still wasn't very good.

 

This kind of just feels like the flipside of that to me. I still enjoy the characters, story and world, but they're definitely disjointed. They do kinda feel like two different games. But I don't consider it a terribly big deal because Destiny 2 taught me to not ask for much story from looter-shooters. All that budget going to a story detracts from mission variety and actual things to do. Anthem is looking to have similar issues so far.

Frankly at this point I'd like these games to stop pretending to tell a story altogether if this is what it costs us. Even if the story was amazing, it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the hours you spend in these games, and getting any more of it takes so long and is always so little content. Spend all that time developing shit for me to do!

[JPDunks4]

During the Live Stream, the Bioware guys said they made the systems in Anthem to be extremely modular, and it's very easy and quick for them to add new gameplay elements and other things in.  They said they have other gameplay objectives and things that will be introduced in as World Events and what not as they are ready.

 

I personally was thinking of things I'd add in terms of gameplay variety.  They have a mix of defend this area, collect these items, activate these switches, a few puzzles that are a bit simple, and few other things that come into play later on.  They also have the "Flight Restricted" areas or carrying items that restrict flying that could create different challenges.  I think they have real possibilities with flight and challenges involving that.  

 

I also think about every other Looter Shooter type game and how they created variety in gameplay.  Destiny was basically waves of enemies as well, the Raids were really the only thing that created differences in gameplay with the co-op puzzles which I loved.  I am hoping we see stuff like that in Anthem.

[Anzo]

I’m not seeing much of a load time improvement post patch with SSD’s. To be fair, I believe the patch notes specified improvments for HDD’s only. 

[Pikachu]

It's definitely improved for HDDs. The loading is almost cut in half.

[Man_of_X]

I saw that they added like 100 items to Stronghold specific chests.  That's a good add.  Kind of like the strike specific loot from Destiny.  Definitely a reason to replay those.  They're also popping these "daily" events.  I saw some sort of outlaw one and they'll be having the giants one this weekend.

 

If they've designed this game to be able to make quick changes and improvements, I think they're in good shape.

[skillzdadirecta]

16 minutes ago, Man_of_X said:

I saw that they added like 100 items to Stronghold specific chests.  That's a good add.  Kind of like the strike specific loot from Destiny.  Definitely a reason to replay those.  They're also popping these "daily" events.  I saw some sort of outlaw one and they'll be having the giants one this weekend.

 

If they've designed this game to be able to make quick changes and improvements, I think they're in good shape.

Sounds like they learned that lesson from Fortnite.