Anthem (Bioware's new property)

Freeplay having other people in it doing their own thing is fine, and if sessions can be set to private, that's fine too.

Freeplay can't be set to private, but I wish it could be.

Events scale depending on people are present, but it's not a very smart system.

Say I'm doing a world event on a high difficulty, and I'm doing fine because it's scaled to me. But some random person just happens to fly past within 2 miles? Then the game starts spawning in more difficult enemies because it doesn't care that person isn't helping or even interested in the event.

That's why I hunt for events far away from the spawn area around the Fort; less through traffic.

Look, either I'm dumb and the input lag issues (serious ones, like having me let out a pretty long rant full of profanities while waving my hands in front of the camera while my javelin is plodding into one direction after I tapped W for a split-second and the game failed to realize I let go) are caused by some connectivity fuckery, or I need to upgrade my computer.

There's a serious difference between the minimum processor requirements for Anthem and Battlefield V, like three generations large. BFV requires an i5 6600K, which is pretty much the beefiest you can get out of an i5, while Anthem is, supposedly, content with a 3570, which is what I have now. Weirder still, Nvidia's Geforce Experience suggests that I can enjoy BFV on High settings (barring, of course, the raytracing thingo), but adjusts Anthem's settings to lowest of the low (I'm still getting 40 to 60 fps on Medium after the Day 1 patch, and I could get those framerates on High during the Premier week). Hell, I'm enjoying Apex Legends on High settings despite Nvidia recommending lowest of the low settings for that game as well.

So, is it that Bioware cannot into Frostbite, or is my dinosaur processor and motherboard ruining the fun?

They've had multiple games running on Frostbite before (Inquisition and Andromeda) so it might be your hardware.

K+M had some issues in the demo but the game is fairly responsive by all accounts (One of the "few" positives in reviews). Now, Bioware certainly have struggled with the engine, so optimising it for older hardware may be a bit of fallout from that.

Have to say I'm having an absolute blast. This is the Starship Troopers game I wanted. The Tyrant stronghold is great for just waves of enemies, your team holding the line and just kicking off combo after combo. And the boss at the end is rather entertaining. Yes, it's by the numbers but still fun.

The missions and the banter on them is engaging. Limited puzzles. But so far I've really enjoyed it. Yes there are a lot of fiddly bits and loading screens but I enjoy the dynamic of flying, combat and heading back to Tarsis.

And whilst others dislike Tarsis I quite like how it's a more organic version of Destiny's Tower. Everyone talking about talking heads forgets that the tower is just a glorified menu where you have to jog between the same menu screen, but with a different loyalty counter. And there's no real... dialogue or engagement with the characters.

I do wish the Striders were a bit more involved - for something so talked about they're very static and so far I've only seen 2 moving partially in game.

I'm looking forward to the point where useless rolls on items go away. Those feel pretty bad right now.

Yeah, a lot of the gear feels very useless - or rather the rolls seem too random. Crafting feels a bit pointless too. I hope we get options down the line to influence it with purpose. It'd be a good way to encourage specific gear loadouts and also being able to tailor things rather than the hodge podge we get at the moment.

What self respecting industrial society just "makes do" with things randomly?

I got this game as a gift and I have to say, I’m having a pretty decent time with it. The core gameplay is fun and punchy, the characters seem (mostly) well written, and the grind/crafting systems feel fairly accessible so far.

That said, it seems to be lacking some kind of...personality? Destiny, for example, always had kind of a distinct vibe and vision. This game feels a bit lacking somehow.

Yeah it's weird. I think the Science Fantasy thing is part of it; no "nearly human aliens" that you actually interact with.

Plus the enemies are all very distant. With the Early Mass Effects you had a more detailed look at your opponents; they weren't as far away, or as overwhelmed by your HUD. Something about the depth perception is going on, meaning enemies feel further away.

Add to that I think a feeling that most things are "generic enemy" - or variations on a theme - at least the "soldier" types.

Overall, I quite like the effect though - you do feel badass just rolling on through.

Unfortunately sales data indicates this has had a rough launch - half the sales of Andromeda (though the staggered launch may have impacted that) and also a quarter of the Destiny 1 sales (Digital).

Apologies if this has already been mentioned (EDIT: Mentioned in the post above me! Fear my reading skills), but I figured it was worth posting about. Anthem's managed about half the physical sales of Andromeda. Physical sales are a little unreliable these days, especially in the case of an online multiplayer game like Anthem, but from the comparisons you can make it's an ill omen for Anthem's overall sales. It's also currently sitting around 60 on Metacritic.

BioWare also released a three-month roadmap — if this game is to succeed still, I think it'll depend heavily on what adjustments are made and what content is added in the future.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Feb 25th 2019 at 2:39:20 PM

Definitely. The game had a huge amount of bad press before it released, and the fact that it was mandated to be made by EA, and started to be promoted more just after EA fucked up royally with Battlefront 2, and has continued to fuck itself over PR-wise with Visceral and everything else, is definitely not working in the game's favor.

Plus people don't want Bio Ware to work on Anthem, they want them to work on Mass Effect and Dragon Age and Star Wars.

Honestly kinda surprised lot of people here actually bought the game to give it a chance O_o I mean, outside of game being developed by Bioware and there being lot of internet discussion about it, I haven't had any interest in even checking out videos about the gameplay

I expect those player numbers to decrease even further if the game really is as barren as I’m hearing.

If you can’t get good shit then there’s not much of a point to be playing.

I like the core gameplay a lot, and if some quality of life and loot fixes are implemented before my month of Premier runs out, I'll be buying.

I had the chance to play this game, and I hope it gets to stick around and get some expansions, because I really like the gameplay. It plays a lot like the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which I loved.

There's gonna be a steady trickle of content starting in March: contracts, new Stronghold, then a large event in May, then even more stuff until the end of the year.

And the best thing? It's all free.

Edited by NotSoBadassLongcoat on Feb 25th 2019 at 9:16:09 PM

thats great and all, but "it'll be awesome in a month" isnt the best strategy for retaining customers when new games come out weekly and youre in a genre with many feature complete games

Nah; this period of the year is mostly dead anyway.

Especially when you don't have much in the first place. I feel like they should be uploading stuff as fast as they can because a month is just too much in this current state.

Oh right that is true. Good window of opportunity there.

....... Huh the games already being heavily discounted in some areas, down to like 35 bucks...... pretty sure that's not a good sign.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 25th 2019 at 7:31:13 AM

Bit of a kick in the pants to the people who pre-ordered and bought it at full price.

Edited by M84 on Feb 25th 2019 at 11:32:37 PM

sure, but EA probably figures theyre tioo invested in telling themselves they made a great purchase to back out now

as for it being mostly dead, i dunno about that. theres quite a few decent games that came out in the last month or so supposing you arent absolutely deadset on a loooter shooter.

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Feb 26th 2019 at 12:35:45 PM

Y Eah an earnings call for EA doesn't paint a great picture; but overall they've been doing "poorly" ("Only" 5.5 Billion....)

Apex Legends really saved them. But ironically if they'd had an inkling you just know they'd have tried hawking it as a full priced game which wouldn't actually had the opposite effect.

Anthem is fun, but the QOL stuff and little niggles are what people are getting very focused on. And I understand that - it makes it disjointed and frustrating. From my point of view, though, I spent a similar amount of time in Destiny doing the same stuff - go to orbit, watch the ship fly for 3 minutes, go to tower, hand in 2 engrams and dismantle 15 blue / green pickups. Go to orbit, do another "wave after wave" of enemies mission.

So I do feel the hate for Anthem is a tad myopic. It took The Taken King to make Destiny a stayer. And arguably it'll take more DLC to keep D2 going. Forsaken was alright but hardly amazing.

But Bioware / EA SHOULD have seen that and adjusted. They had all the market and feedback data out there... why not USE it. But then again all large companies seem to go through the same mistakes and decision loops.

I hope their roadmap works and what we get is good. Another city to visit (Or even the Regulator base to visit) would be a good call. Being able to launch from the Forge would be good too. Just little shortcuts. That's where the tower has Tarsis beat - you can at least leave it from ANYWHERE.

I feel like there's been a lot of releases this first quarter too; Resident Evil 2 last month, Anthem this month, Devil May Cry 5 and Sekiro next month, to name a few I bought/will buy, plus a whole load more coming up that there aren't dates for yet but could be this year. Had this year been as empty as last year (I only got two new releases in the whole of 2018), I might have given more thought to getting Anthem too. That said, I'm currently playing Final Fantasy VII and Darkest Dungeon, so who knows? :P

You're right that Anthem seems to be making a lot of the same mistakes as Destiny, but that doesn't excuse it (as you said, the information was there, makes it a bit weird that they didn't use it), and for me personally, I spent two or three years beating my head against Destiny's bizarre and backwards game design choices, I don't want to start it all again with a new game. I have no patience for it any more.

Edited by artfulscruff on Feb 26th 2019 at 10:24:55 AM

Honestly I just wanna know what happened behind the scenes.

Cause seriously ya gotta wonder what the fuck happened to this game for it to be released in such an unfinished state.

I already pre-ordered DMC & I'm thinking of getting Sekiro.

Anthem for me is only fit to be a rental unless I get a huge discount.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 26th 2019 at 2:23:01 AM

A friend of mine theorised that it's down to Bioware being inexperienced at developing a multiplayer looter-shooter. I don't think I completely buy that. As was just said, the information was out there on other games in the genre, so for Anthem to have problems those games have solved is weird. Only thing that makes sense to me in that regard is that Anthem was in development before those games were released, and maybe they didn't want to do an Acti Bungie and throw out years of work to retool things.