Anthem - PrEAying it Doesn't Suck

[Anonymouswizard]

One more digression from Anthem, this time for ME, released today:

Bioware claims to "definitely not be done" with Mass Effect

Eh. I liked ME and ME2, and despite the ending and the several 'walking simulator dreams' that I felt didn't strictly need to be there (or to be gameplay) ME3 was okay, but after what I've heard about MEA I'm not certain it being continued is a good thing. The first three games work because they're supposed to be a story, and even if the ending of the ME trilogy isn't brilliant it's still an ending, the story is done time to move onto new things.

Although I suspect the next 'Mass Effect' project will be a book, a comic, or a film of some sort. Wasn't there supposed to be a live action film coming out that was originally it's own story and then was going to be a watered down version of the first game?

I mean, a lot of the reasons Anthem disappoints me is that when I first learnt of it the idea of Bioware making a science fiction game centered around powered armour was interesting. Hey, maybe it'll even be a Bioware RPG with a reduced cast, just focusing on the mental issues squad we can bed back to basic functionality. But instead it turns out to be a MMO shooter in the Destiny vein, and if I wanted one of those I'd be playing Destiny 2.

[Calemyr]

Eh. I liked ME and ME2, and despite the ending and the several 'walking simulator dreams' that I felt didn't strictly need to be there (or to be gameplay) ME3 was okay, but after what I've heard about MEA I'm not certain it being continued is a good thing. The first three games work because they're supposed to be a story, and even if the ending of the ME trilogy isn't brilliant it's still an ending, the story is done time to move onto new things.

Although I suspect the next 'Mass Effect' project will be a book, a comic, or a film of some sort. Wasn't there supposed to be a live action film coming out that was originally it's own story and then was going to be a watered down version of the first game?

I mean, a lot of the reasons Anthem disappoints me is that when I first learnt of it the idea of Bioware making a science fiction game centered around powered armour was interesting. Hey, maybe it'll even be a Bioware RPG with a reduced cast, just focusing on the mental issues squad we can bed back to basic functionality. But instead it turns out to be a MMO shooter in the Destiny vein, and if I wanted one of those I'd be playing Destiny 2.

I'll be honest, I really liked ME3, up until the last ten minutes. If the game had ended with Shep and Anderson sitting by a window by the control console, slowly bleeding out as they watch the Reapers blow up ("Quite the show." "Best seats in the house.") I would have stood up and applauded. The majority of the game is a love letter to the fans, with every little thing from the other games getting a call back here. The gameplay was solid, the characters were good (I even liked Vega), and it all just worked. Then the console didn't work and Shep needed to face the Star Child and everything just... yeah. I've said way more than enough on that in the past. They gave us the Citadel DLC, I must remind myself, so we're good.

Andromeda... I'm split on. The game mechanics are a lot more fun than the original trilogy, a fact that's only really marred by just how bullet sponge-y everything is at higher levels. The plot is awkward and ham-fisted at first, only getting potentially interesting in the latter half of the game. My brother put it best, I think: "In the first half, the story is awful but the gameplay is fun; the second half has a much better story but extremely tedious gameplay." A lot of the really bad bugs are gone now, particularly the missing "acting track" for the cutscenes*.

Spoiler: * The cause for the acting bug, as I understand it.

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I remember looking into this a lot when the game first came out. I never saw an official explanation, but this is the most logical course of events I could piece together:

The cutscene scripts had a separate track for the animations/facial expressions to play at different points in the scene: Character scowls, signs with resignation, then places hand on face in exhaustion claiming "My face is tired". Unfortunately, the compression algorithm used corrupted many of the "acting tracks" for various scenes, resulting in the loss of all emoting, whether facial or through gesture, and thus "acting" so wooden the Star Wars Prequels compare favorably. Fixing this bug makes the game a lot better, but still doesn't fix the horrible writing that is "My face is tired." That's just bad.

[Psyren]

OT- considering the story is mostly hush and the recent success of the new battle royale, which the devs have said EA had little to no creative input on, do you think Anthem has, at the end of the day, escaped the EA gutting machine?

Meaning, do I think EA executive meddling might evade Anthem given how successful a hands-off approach was with Apex? Well, the problem there is that EA didn't know Apex would be that successful (hence the decision to not spend a ton on marketing it) and both titles were basically in development at the same time, so even if they're happy with the results it's a bit late now for them to have applied a similar approach to Anthem. All we can really do is hope it was a cultural shift rather than a one-off approach.

But Apex's success may have another benefit for Anthem - its ping system. Being able to communicate with your team in a variety of ways remotely without voice is genius. I'm surprised more games haven't done it, the closest I've seen is Starcraft 2. Unfortunately, they're on different engines (Anthem uses Frostbite while Apex uses the modified Source from Titanfall 2) so that may be a pipe dream.

[Dienekes]

Meaning, do I think EA executive meddling might evade Anthem given how successful a hands-off approach was with Apex? Well, the problem there is that EA didn't know Apex would be that successful (hence the decision to not spend a ton on marketing it) and both titles were basically in development at the same time, so even if they're happy with the results it's a bit late now for them to have applied a similar approach to Anthem. All we can really do is hope it was a cultural shift rather than a one-off approach.

But Apex's success may have another benefit for Anthem - its ping system. Being able to communicate with your team in a variety of ways remotely without voice is genius. I'm surprised more games haven't done it, the closest I've seen is Starcraft 2. Unfortunately, they're on different engines (Anthem uses Frostbite while Apex uses the modified Source from Titanfall 2) so that may be a pipe dream.

Both League of Legends and For Honor have similar ping systems. Though the tweaks AL adds seem pretty nice.

[Psyren]

Both League of Legends and For Honor have similar ping systems. Though the tweaks AL adds seem pretty nice.

Sorry, I wasn't clear - I know RTS and similarly-designed games have that functionality. Shooters however usually don't, and you're reliant on voice chat and in-game sounds, e.g. character barks (Overwatch) to give you information. In Overwatch for example, characters can yell "group up with me!" but not ping a flanking route to let the team know that an enemy is pushing through it or ping a health pack to let your wounded teammate know that it's respawned. Apex's design enables that kind of easy communication that should help random teams better.

[MCerberus]

Meaning, do I think EA executive meddling might evade Anthem given how successful a hands-off approach was with Apex? Well, the problem there is that EA didn't know Apex would be that successful (hence the decision to not spend a ton on marketing it) and both titles were basically in development at the same time, so even if they're happy with the results it's a bit late now for them to have applied a similar approach to Anthem. All we can really do is hope it was a cultural shift rather than a one-off approach.

A likely scenario is that after the BF2 disaster EA made a hard course correction. So that means we may be in a situation where future content has a freer hand than what we see in launch. Or who knows they could have rewritten the plot completely over the past 6 months in a dark room as is weirdly a thing in AAA sci-fi games.

That isn't to say that publisher or 3rd-party notes are always bad, MSGS is famous for letting its UI team help out on console ports, especially the early F2P stuff.

[Psyren]

A likely scenario is that after the BF2 disaster EA made a hard course correction. So that means we may be in a situation where future content has a freer hand than what we see in launch.

Yeah, almost losing Disney money would have definitely made even the suitiest of suits at EA sit up and take notice. But we'll see if it worked. (I'm almost positive that before that bit of bad press, we would have had lootboxes in Anthem too.)

[Giggling Ghast]

Ooh, ooh! they can release alongside a new comic series and see which creative team they can force the most corporate mandates into the story on! It'll be like having 2 Deceptions at once!

On a side note, there actually was a Dragon Age comic called Deception. It was actually pretty decent, however.

[MCerberus]

On a side note, there actually was a Dragon Age comic called Deception. It was actually pretty decent, however.

But did any Wardens die by being stabbed by a toothbrush?
God I hate that mary sue ninja

[Giggling Ghast]

Nobody’s cereal got eaten, no.

[Anteros]

On a side note, there actually was a Dragon Age comic called Deception. It was actually pretty decent, however.

There's a handful of Dragon Age comics. The one I read was decent. Nothing special, but not bad.

[Giggling Ghast]

They range in quality. The 10-issue series spanning the Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep was middle of the road — not bad, but not great. Magekiller was dull as dishwater and a complete waste of time. Knight Errant was actually quite good, and Deception was a worthwhile follow-up.

[Psyren]

According to my Origin this morning, the game has pre-loaded for the early release; I'll be checking it out this evening and seeing how the story/characters hold up. Planning to level on Hard.

[Giggling Ghast]

Anyone check out that live-action trailer by Neill Blomkamp? I thought it was pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wka5RovFEo8

[Psyren]

BF and I playing through Anthem story. Level 7 and counting. Pretty much all the glitches I ran into in the demo are gone now, and you can run in the Fort!

There's a funny Dragon Age easter egg in the bar:

Spoiler

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The rumor in town is that the bar is cursed; Max, the current proprietor, tells you that one of the previous owners reportedly tried to name it "The Black Emporium." Not long after he did, a random Shaper Storm caused some wild weather and lightning struck him. They reportedly found him in the back, fused to a chair.

[Spacewolf]

So what are your feelings overall toward the game? There's still weirdly little buzz around this game considering how much money must have gone into it.

[Psyren]

So what are your feelings overall toward the game? There's still weirdly little buzz around this game considering how much money must have gone into it.

I'm having a blast. The plot starts out fairly generic (basically it's the Neglectful Precursors trope: The Game), but the characters get you invested quickly - whether it's the nervous policewoman Sentinel Brin, your eager hotshot partner Owen who's longing to pilot a Javelin of his own, and of course I liked Matthias since the demo. There's also plenty of Hey It's That Voice, e.g. Sayrna is Louise from Bob's Burgers.

Storywise - so far much better than Destiny 2. Can't quite say it goes as deep as Warframe (nothing could in such a short amount of time) but I'm barely scratching the surface also. Hope to beat it over the long weekend.

[Chen]

Played about 1.5 hours of the free trial using origin basic. I like that its not a cover shooter and the special abilities/shooting feel good. Unfortunately for me the flying and rapid jumping dodging made me extremely motion sick so its a no go for me to keep playing. Maybe if they introduce an FOV slider i could get it to work but for now no dice.

[Beleriphon]

Question, as I don't have a PC that will run, thus relegating myself to Xbox, do I have to have a Gold Account and play online? I have zero interest in playing online with others.

[Calemyr]

So I ended up getting this game for my brother as a birthday present and I discovered it was actually pretty fun. There are not a lot of games that properly convey a... well... a joy of movement, if you will. It's fun to just jump and fly and shoot. The characters are over-the-top and charismatic and from to watch, from Haluk (from the prologue) grinning so wide the top of his head is about to fall off to Owen playfully trolling a fellow cypher while claiming that he's trying to break the monotony of her dull life. All four of the Javelin models look and feel awesome in their own ways, and there's a wonderful amount of visual customization for each of them.

While the raw gameplay is fun, the actual missions aren't fantastic. Most missions revolve around either point defense events or scavenger hunt events, so you're either killing everything in sight, or running around a battlefield looking for something (glowing energy balls, fragments of a device, glowing wall runes, piles of debris) to collect or examine. Usually both. It's not particularly engaging, and feels like busywork to fill in the gaps between cutscenes and radio chatter. Fortunately the cutscenes and radio chatter have been interesting enough to keep me moving forward. I really hope they add more variety to the missions in the future, because at this rate I'm going to have no reason to keep playing once the plot is done.

The cosmetics aspect is frustrating. You have a LOT of control over how your character looks, from a list of material textures (all kinds of cloth, metal, rubber, and leather) and a full palette wheel of colors. You can easily create something incredible or unbearably garish, depending on your tastes. The actual bodies, however, more restrictive, you start with one (and only one) set of body parts for any Javelin you choose, while a second one behind a paywall (paid in either in-game coins or cash currency shards). A third one is only available for those who buy the deluxe edition (or play it through Origin Premium), and then there are two other sets for one specific model of Javelin (one for the Ranger, one for the Colossus) available in the microtransaction shop.

Microtransactions are a bit of a sticky thing. At this point nothing can only be purchased with shards (the cash currency which, as predicted, is roughly a penny a shard), and the prices were cut by about 60% from the leaked screenshot - low enough to not be revolting but still disgustingly overpriced for what they offer. Things are really expensive coin-wise, but you start with a small stash of coins and the game throws them at you constantly early on via challenges. Unfortunately most of the challenges are one-time things, so your income dries up late in the game, left with only daily challenges and the weekly payoff for your "alliance level", which you earn over the course of a week by doing missions with a team. The game also starts you with 40k coins, which makes the coins feel easier to come by than they really are. Oh, yeah, and you can use coins to buy resources for the in-game crafting system as well, so those coins can fly by fast.

The game, however, is gorgeous. If you felt like it, you could spend much of the game just collecting screenshots of breathtaking vistas. Not that you get to really enjoy them when most of the game is spent shooting things. The hub of the game, Fort Tarsis, starts out feeling like an empty tomb, but as you level up and gain reputation with various factions, more and more unlocks in the fort, such as merchant stalls and decorations and such, to the point that it starts bustling like it apparently hasn't in decades.

So that's my take on the game: fun to play, but with lackluster mission design. Lots of cool ideas combined with lots or really bad ideas. All told, it's a fun game to visit, but it's never going to be one of my "main" games.

[Spacewolf]

So got the game today and I've noticed I don't seem to have a blue shield on the Colossus I have I can only see the full hp bar. Am I missing something obvious here?

[MCerberus]

How's the loading time on consoles?

[Spacewolf]

I havn't had a time above 30 seconds or so on my standard ps4. So noticeable but not anything bad.

[Psyren]

Question, as I don't have a PC that will run, thus relegating myself to Xbox, do I have to have a Gold Account and play online? I have zero interest in playing online with others.

You need to be online; you can solo most of the story but Strongholds (i.e. dungeons) and Freeplay require MP. There's one or two points in the story where these modes are required to progress, but you can always just drop the difficulty and blast through them quickly and painlessly.
.

So got the game today and I've noticed I don't seem to have a blue shield on the Colossus I have I can only see the full hp bar. Am I missing something obvious here?

You're not missing something - Colossus can get a personal shield later on (not sure when but I was seeing other Colossi at 20 with one), but leveling as one is a pain because the only barrier they have for a good chunk of the game is the one they can carry, which interferes with your gunplay and other abilities.

EDIT: Just double-checked and apparently this isn't true. In the GUI if you're partnered with a Colossus buddy it looks like they have a personal shield, but if there's a way for them to actually get one I haven't come across it. But they CAN get a ton of damage reduction with the right components, and of course they do have their shield, which you can use some abilities while having it out. Not many but some.

Do remember that your Ultimate will heal you to full and make you invincible regardless of class, so if you can't find any hearts during a pitched battle you at least have that option.

While the raw gameplay is fun, the actual missions aren't fantastic. Most missions revolve around either point defense events or scavenger hunt events, so you're either killing everything in sight, or running around a battlefield looking for something (glowing energy balls, fragments of a device, glowing wall runes, piles of debris) to collect or examine. Usually both. It's not particularly engaging, and feels like busywork to fill in the gaps between cutscenes and radio chatter. Fortunately the cutscenes and radio chatter have been interesting enough to keep me moving forward. I really hope they add more variety to the missions in the future, because at this rate I'm going to have no reason to keep playing once the plot is done.

There isn't a ton of variety currently, but if Mass Effect multiplayer is any indication they have a lot of additional variants they could draw on, like "escort this macguffin out of cover past the enemies, it stops moving if you move away" and "Assassinate these heroic targets, enemies will keep spawning until you do" and "stand against overwhelming odds until a timer elapses" among others. They can also borrow mission types from similar games like Warframe and Destiny, though I'd say it already has more variety in the public events than the latter does.

The cosmetics aspect is frustrating. You have a LOT of control over how your character looks, from a list of material textures (all kinds of cloth, metal, rubber, and leather) and a full palette wheel of colors. You can easily create something incredible or unbearably garish, depending on your tastes. The actual bodies, however, more restrictive, you start with one (and only one) set of body parts for any Javelin you choose, while a second one behind a paywall (paid in either in-game coins or cash currency shards). A third one is only available for those who buy the deluxe edition (or play it through Origin Premium), and then there are two other sets for one specific model of Javelin (one for the Ranger, one for the Colossus) available in the microtransaction shop.

Microtransactions are a bit of a sticky thing. At this point nothing can only be purchased with shards (the cash currency which, as predicted, is roughly a penny a shard), and the prices were cut by about 60% from the leaked screenshot - low enough to not be revolting but still disgustingly overpriced for what they offer. Things are really expensive coin-wise, but you start with a small stash of coins and the game throws them at you constantly early on via challenges. Unfortunately most of the challenges are one-time things, so your income dries up late in the game, left with only daily challenges and the weekly payoff for your "alliance level", which you earn over the course of a week by doing missions with a team. The game also starts you with 40k coins, which makes the coins feel easier to come by than they really are. Oh, yeah, and you can use coins to buy resources for the in-game crafting system as well, so those coins can fly by fast.

The game, however, is gorgeous. If you felt like it, you could spend much of the game just collecting screenshots of breathtaking vistas. Not that you get to really enjoy them when most of the game is spent shooting things. The hub of the game, Fort Tarsis, starts out feeling like an empty tomb, but as you level up and gain reputation with various factions, more and more unlocks in the fort, such as merchant stalls and decorations and such, to the point that it starts bustling like it apparently hasn't in decades.

The models are indeed pretty expensive coin-wise. The emotes and vinyls are much cheaper though.

I'm surprised there's no dance emote yet, but hopefully that's on the way.

[Aotrs Commander]

Whelp, having watched Jim Sterling playing it... Nope, nothing here again that can remotely interest me - not that, from what observed previously, there likely would have been - same as the last few offerings fom Bioware, and this looks the least appealing of the lot, not even being, as far as I can tell, an RPG at all.

I remember when Bioware automatically got a preorder from me just on principal.

But, I suppose, that was the problem that got us here, wasn't it?

(These days, only the occasional kickstarter and SOMETIMES Paradox are the only things that will get a purchase before I have thoroughly researched post-release.)



Good for those of you that are having fun with it, though.

(Given time, I'm sure EA will find a way to f that up for you, though...)

[Calemyr]

So got the game today and I've noticed I don't seem to have a blue shield on the Colossus I have I can only see the full hp bar. Am I missing something obvious here?

The Colossus has a large pool of HP and a physical shield it can use, but no regenerating "force field"-type shield. Each javelin model does things differently, from the melee-focused Interceptor, to the Storm, the crowd control monster whose force field is at its strongest while hovering.

[Spacewolf]

When I look at other colossi they all seem to have the blue shield though? Or does that show the health of their arm shield?

[Psyren]

Good for those of you that are having fun with it, though.

(Given time, I'm sure EA will find a way to f that up for you, though...)

It's possible. Thanks for dropping by all the same.

When I look at other colossi they all seem to have the blue shield though? Or does that show the health of their arm shield?

Yeah I think it's either a graphical representation of that, or it's just copied over from other javelins and misleading.

The Colossus has a large pool of HP and a physical shield it can use, but no regenerating "force field"-type shield. Each javelin model does things differently, from the melee-focused Interceptor, to the Storm, the crowd control monster whose force field is at its strongest while hovering.

While that's true, all of the other three do recharge just by doing nothing too. So it's kind of annoying that Colossus has to be dependent on health drops, especially when some fights make getting those difficult.

[Calemyr]

While that's true, all of the other three do recharge just by doing nothing too. So it's kind of annoying that Colossus has to be dependent on health drops, especially when some fights make getting those difficult.

Agreed. There's a reason that Colossus is the last javelin I have yet to unlock. The style doesn't really appeal to me, either. That said, supposedly, using the shield as effectively as possible grants you a massive pool of HP plus a massive pool of shield HP that does replenish over time (when the shield breaks you can redeploy it again after a delay).

[Psyren]

Agreed. There's a reason that Colossus is the last javelin I have yet to unlock. The style doesn't really appeal to me, either. That said, supposedly, using the shield as effectively as possible grants you a massive pool of HP plus a massive pool of shield HP that does replenish over time (when the shield breaks you can redeploy it again after a delay).

I would be fine with the shield if it did one or more of the following:

1) You can use heavy pistols while it's out.

2) You can use *all* shoulder cannon/launcher abilities while it's out.

3) Breaking it created a wide, omni-directional pulse around you that staggers shielded/heavily-armored enemies, and knocks down unshielded ones, giving you a chance to run for health drops or reposition. (I'd be okay with this effect having an internal cooldown.)

As it is, I feel that the Ranger has much more survivability due to its decent toughness, mobility, and ability to return fire *while* protecting itself. Certainly I have been able to easily survive on Grandmaster with mine while reviving my team. (Currently I'm 450 ilvl.)