Jump to content

Update: RIP in Peace, Anthem


skillzdadirecta

Recommended Posts

Not to put a damper on the ‘reviewers/gamers be crazy’ train, but from the reviews, it sounds like there’s some real problems with the story structure, town and load times fracturing the multiplayer experience.  Hopefully future patches can address that.

 

This is definitely the type of game I’d want to be able to do almost everything in the suit.  XCX spoiled me.  How cool would it be if Anthem was that seamless?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Load times will be improved with the day one patch and that should help somewhat. The story structure probably can't be altered. You have to load into Fort Tarsis after completing a mission to pick up the next quest. I think it does a fine job of breaking up the action, but I know a lot don't care about story stuff. Maybe they could have taken a page of TOR's book and had a story mode that you could play with friends together.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Everthing about this game looks awesome, it's the kind of game I'm into that's why I bought it. It's just the loading times that I'm worried about. If the patch fixes them then cool but I've seen things like whole sections of the fort not loading in with the only way to make them load is to clip through the floor to force a reload. Also it seems like everything is based around slow loading from actual loading screens between everything and slow loading in of gear in the forge. Regardless of all that I'm still going to play it even if it's an underdog. I'm practically sick of Destiny's static enemies that tend to be rooted within short areas that you alway know where they'll be. Anthem's enemies seem to chase you down. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My biggest concerns with the game do revolve around load times. But really it is in areas where there should not need a load screen. 

 

Tethering to teammates, and being downed/respawning. They said they are addressing both. Specifically in being more generous with the distance alloyed between team mates, and finding a way so you are not downed for an entire fight in a respawn resticted encounter. 

 

Those improvements are good, but the joining allies mechanic and simply respawning shouldn’t have a load screen, definitely not one that takes more than 1-3 seconds. The world is already loaded. I’m not leaving my instance to join a completely different one. And it isn’t a team wipe, or loading into a whole new area. 

 

These two two things I find break the flow of gameplay more than anything else I’ve  encountered. I hope their planned fixes on the 22nd make a big improvement here, and they keep tweaking to reach its ideal.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Other than the games so called problems, there are at least two very great things about Anthem.

 

1. BioWare seems to be committed to the game and are being completely transparent with their plans and are answering critiques from users on a daily basis.

 

And...

 

2. The soundtrack by Sarah Schachner freaking awesome. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

Not to put a damper on the ‘reviewers/gamers be crazy’ train, but from the reviews, it sounds like there’s some real problems with the story structure, town and load times fracturing the multiplayer experience.  Hopefully future patches can address that.

I don't think the story structure has any real problems of note? It's a good story, not a great one, and it's told well enough.

 

The load time things I can't really speak to. There's a few weird ones like when you get teleported to your team that need to be fixed, and the load times definitely need to be cut down as much as possible, but the load times for me aren't as big of an issue as the ability to quickly do things once I'm in the game. Once I finish a mission, I should be able to just stay in Freeplay, or hop into another mission, etc, which I think they should be able to do.


That said I play on an SSD, so load times, while not nearly as fast as they should be, aren't terrible. I dunno how consoles or HDDs are gonna handle it. But no one seemed all too bothered by Bloodborne's 3,000 year loads or Destiny's endless loading for every little thing so I think folks will survive.


Although an advantage Destiny in particular has is that you can do things like change your gear while loading. The UI front for Anthem is absolutely lacking. They need to clean that shit up. Less nested menus within menus and more universal functionality. I know they want you to change your gear at the Forge, but screw that. Just let people change it wherever they happen to be. If you don't want people changing it mid-mission to prevent gear "stop-and-compare" situations, then at least let us do it before jumping off the platform into the action.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont find the Load times all that bad.  I personally have been playing solo a lot so the tethering hasn't been an issue, but that 100% is a real issue.   

 

I have an external SSD connected to my X1X and it seems to load fairly quickly.  Going back to the Fort is quick.

 

Its no longer than Destiny's loading, where you constantly watched your Ship flying to go back to the tower, then again to go to a mission.  I also have my PC right next to me so I just look over at the boards or Twitter when its loading, so maybe I don't notice.

 

I'm like 30 hours into the game in like 3/4 days? I just love the world and being in it and exploring it, like Xbob said.  Its a worthy world to explore and you can find some legit good items and stuff from chests, which I don think was the case in Division or Destiny.  I know Public Events could get you good loot but just exploring and finding random chests hidden away I dont think gave anything but materials.  

 

I'm about Lvl 22 now and must be getting close to the end of the story.  The missions are repetitive in nature, but I love the gameplay enough it doesn't quite feel like it.  I wanna wrap up the story though as I'm interested to see where it goes.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

I dont find the Load times all that bad.  I personally have been playing solo a lot so the tethering hasn't been an issue, but that 100% is a real issue.   

 

I have an external SSD connected to my X1X and it seems to load fairly quickly.  Going back to the Fort is quick.

 

Its no longer than Destiny's loading, where you constantly watched your Ship flying to go back to the tower, then again to go to a mission.  I also have my PC right next to me so I just look over at the boards or Twitter when its loading, so maybe I don't notice.

 

I'm like 30 hours into the game in like 3/4 days? I just love the world and being in it and exploring it, like Xbob said.  Its a worthy world to explore and you can find some legit good items and stuff from chests, which I don think was the case in Division or Destiny.  I know Public Events could get you good loot but just exploring and finding random chests hidden away I dont think gave anything but materials.  

 

I'm about Lvl 22 now and must be getting close to the end of the story.  The missions are repetitive in nature, but I love the gameplay enough it doesn't quite feel like it.  I wanna wrap up the story though as I'm interested to see where it goes.  

You’ve got me super excited to explore!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Biggie said:

You’ve got me super excited to explore!

 

The controls, movement, and just gorgeous visuals really do it for me.  Being able to fly around and so easily and painlessly land on tiny platforms mid flight just feels so good.  They really really nailed the controls and movement, and that makes flying around and just exploring such a fun experience.  Then some of the visuals just constantly blow me away.  

 

And as I said, just exploring, I got some like 20 minute World Events that felt more like story missions with how they were presented and the 4 steps I had to do and areas I had to explore to complete them.  It's worthwhile to do Freeplay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, ALIEN-gunner said:

Maybe these critics should review the game after it's actually released not when it's in early access. 

I can kind of understand both sides of this one. It's not "real" early access like you'd get on Steam or something where it's a game in development, but it's also not a proper release. It's not really a beta but at the same time it's clear there's gonna be a big patch on proper release.

 

At the end of the day, though, reviewers/Youtubers want to talk about something as soon as possible because that's when you've got eyeballs, and I assume EA and Bioware know this. It's very, very hard to get a second first impression. Even proper betas can tank a game's reputation in no time, which may take ages to rebuild.


All they can do at this point is to commit to making the game as good as they can and continuing to listen to (and implement) player feedback where it's applicable. They've been doing a great job so far, but I don't really award too many points for listening to people bitch about all the problems your game has that it shouldn't have at launch. If they continue to do this without big periods of silence like fucking Bungie, then I'll be much happier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I don't think the story structure has any real problems of note? It's a good story, not a great one, and it's told well enough.

 

I meant the way that multiplayer parties could feel fractured by certain players needing to finishing story beats, town errands, loading, etc. 

Haven't played it, FYI.  Just asking if this is correct, because some of the reviews go there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, crispy4000 said:

 

I meant the way that multiplayer parties could feel fractured by certain players needing to finishing story beats, town errands, loading, etc. 

Haven't played it, fyi.  Just asking if this is correct, because some of the reviews go there.

 

I could see how it would do that.  Every time you go back to the Fort, your party fractures and goes to Single player.  It does that because each player will have their own individual conversations with NPCs.  Imagine playing Mass Effect in multiplayer with everyone advancing their story lines individually in the Citadel then partying up again to go on another mission. It's just hard to coordinate and get everyone to be on the same timeline.  

 

It's why i kinda decided to play solo for the story stuff and will squad up for the end game/ grinding Strongholds missions on harder difficulties, ect.  That way I could play through on at my own pace and take my time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, yeah. I've played the entire thing solo so far. Well, not "solo," with randoms. Same way I did Destiny 2, which had somewhat similar issues. The matchmaking in Destiny 2 was smoother, but that didn't do much to deal with story progression. Waiting until I've completed the story until I start figuring out who I want to group with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, in the alpha or beta, you had a talent tree or something where you could spend points for like 5% bonuses to this or that. I keep expecting to unlock that, was it just a feature they got rid of? I remember it actually being a huge turn-off because literally every single item on it was small bonuses that I am 100% sick of when it comes to talent trees. It's fine if it's just a little bonus on a piece of gear, but if you're making me choose bonuses as some kind of reward and they're all 5%, that's garbage.

 

Seems weird they'd just remove it outright.

 

Unless it's in the game and I missed it and have been playing without it this entire time.

 

EDIT: Okay, looks like they took it out precisely because it was boring, which it apparently had to be since it was javelin-agnostic. There's actually a bunch of Bioware replies to it, but the gist of it is that they took it out for now and are reworking it and will re-implement it sometime in the future, with more interesting choices and improvements.

 

4n3B5KL.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

I could see how it would do that.  Every time you go back to the Fort, your party fractures and goes to Single player.  It does that because each player will have their own individual conversations with NPCs.  Imagine playing Mass Effect in multiplayer with everyone advancing their story lines individually in the Citadel then partying up again to go on another mission. It's just hard to coordinate and get everyone to be on the same timeline.  

 

It's why i kinda decided to play solo for the story stuff and will squad up for the end game/ grinding Strongholds missions on harder difficulties, ect.  That way I could play through on at my own pace and take my time.

 

This is exactly the way I play these games going back to Diablo I. Beat the SP story by myself first then get into all the MP and loot grinding after that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to prematurely nominate Anthem for the Rainbow 6: Siege award of this generation, meaning a game released to unrealistic expectations and near universal criticism that rapidly garners community goodwill to the point that everyone forgets about the initial negative coverage. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...