Character development? Prolly not. As has been said it's a 3rd person looter shooter and so far it seems to do that pretty well.
The combat seems decent. The graphics are super fancy. But the game was billed and promoted as an rpg - and it isn't. I can't complain much since I got it for free with the access thing I have with Origin, but I am very disappointed. The old Bioware is dead, and Neo-Bioware is a console dev. I can't rebind sprint to Alt key (and a bunch of buttons to other keys), and many other console nonsense such as this.
In fact, with this game, and Bioware hyping it as an rpg, when it has way less rpg elements than even Destiny or Division, it is clear they have gone FULL console. Never go full console if you want to be taken seriously by rpg fans.
Character development? Prolly not. As has been said it's a 3rd person looter shooter and so far it seems to do that pretty well.
The combat seems decent. The graphics are super fancy. But the game was billed and promoted as an rpg - and it isn't. I can't complain much since I got it for free with the access thing I have with Origin, but I am very disappointed. The old Bioware is dead, and Neo-Bioware is a console dev. I can't rebind sprint to Alt key (and a bunch of buttons to other keys), and many other console nonsense such as this.
In fact, with this game, and Bioware hyping it as an rpg, when it has way less rpg elements than even Destiny or Division, it is clear they have gone FULL console. Never go full console if you want to be taken seriously by rpg fans.
Seriously? The game has always been promoted as a RPG Looter Shooter. Only people hyping it as just a RPG are Bioware fans remembering all their other games. I haven't seen anywhere mentioning it as only a RPG. I have been hearing praise about the story so far but they also say it is a Looter Shooter first with RPG elements. I mean they have been saying it is a Co-Op game.
"You think this "A" stands for France?" Captain America
Character development? Prolly not. As has been said it's a 3rd person looter shooter and so far it seems to do that pretty well.
The combat seems decent. The graphics are super fancy. But the game was billed and promoted as an rpg - and it isn't. I can't complain much since I got it for free with the access thing I have with Origin, but I am very disappointed. The old Bioware is dead, and Neo-Bioware is a console dev. I can't rebind sprint to Alt key (and a bunch of buttons to other keys), and many other console nonsense such as this.
In fact, with this game, and Bioware hyping it as an rpg, when it has way less rpg elements than even Destiny or Division, it is clear they have gone FULL console. Never go full console if you want to be taken seriously by rpg fans.
Seriously? The game has always been promoted as a RPG Looter Shooter. Only people hyping it as just a RPG are Bioware fans remembering all their other games. I haven't seen anywhere mentioning it as only a RPG. I have been hearing praise about the story so far but they also say it is a Looter Shooter first with RPG elements. I mean they have been saying it is a Co-Op game.
Yup that's the way I understood it as well but then I don't care as much for the RPG elements as some people. FYI I just tried the auto-matchup in game and that worked out pretty well too.
Character development? Prolly not. As has been said it's a 3rd person looter shooter and so far it seems to do that pretty well.
The combat seems decent. The graphics are super fancy. But the game was billed and promoted as an rpg - and it isn't. I can't complain much since I got it for free with the access thing I have with Origin, but I am very disappointed. The old Bioware is dead, and Neo-Bioware is a console dev. I can't rebind sprint to Alt key (and a bunch of buttons to other keys), and many other console nonsense such as this.
In fact, with this game, and Bioware hyping it as an rpg, when it has way less rpg elements than even Destiny or Division, it is clear they have gone FULL console. Never go full console if you want to be taken seriously by rpg fans.
Seriously? The game has always been promoted as a RPG Looter Shooter. Only people hyping it as just a RPG are Bioware fans remembering all their other games. I haven't seen anywhere mentioning it as only a RPG. I have been hearing praise about the story so far but they also say it is a Looter Shooter first with RPG elements. I mean they have been saying it is a Co-Op game.
Yup that's the way I understood it as well but then I don't care as much for the RPG elements as some people. FYI I just tried the auto-matchup in game and that worked out pretty well too.
That's the thing about Bioware. They were known for their deep storytelling in games. They spent a number of years building this rep so a lot of their fans come to expect this.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Not had any issues with it technically, its all worked but theres just no meat on the game. The story is stupid, but thats subjective so you would have to make own opinion on that but the beautiful world they made is completely wasted, you get told constantly "go here" and "go there" with notifiers, if you have a look around then your squad is foot tapping at a door, if you play single player then you really see how sparse it is and the mobs act with the worst AI I have seen in 20 years.
Its a shiny pretty thing and its actually pretty smooth, but theres no longevity here.
Guys leave this game and get it in a year 12 hours story 3 hrs grinding 1 quest to move story on. this was taken from reddit
Loading screens
They're everywhere -- in the open world, in between missions, in between menus, in the middle of missions, in between everything. I genuinely don't think the problem is the length of the loading times (though it doesn't help), it's the sheer *number* of them.
As an example, I just played a mission that went
Loading screen: Fort Taris
Loading screen: Open Forge
Loading screen: Back to Fort Tarsis
Loading screen: Mission Select
Loading screen: Start mission
Loading screen: Get teleported to where my friends are (don't even get me started on this)
Loading screen: Enter cave during the mission
Loading screen: Back to open world for the rest of the mission
Loading screen: Victory screen
Loading screen: Fort Tarsis.
That's 10+ loading screens for about 5 minutes of actual gameplay. Even on an SSD and relatively quick load times, it's just so hard to stay engaged and immersed through that much waiting around.
Grindy and Repetitive Missions
The variety of missions is basically nonexistent. By far the worst offender is the Tombs mission everyone has already discussed at length, but even leaving that aside, there's even less variety here than in missions/public events in Destiny 2 (and that's saying something). The environment, enemies, and objectives are all very attractive and cool the first time, but they're the same throughout the entire story. It's just hard to get excited by yet another iteration of fly to the marker -> kill the same guys you've been killing -> fly to the next marker ad infinitum.
Lack of Enemy Variety
Some folks may disagree with me here, but I feel like I've seen everything in the game and it's just not much. There are basically three types of 'world bosses,' a couple types of wildlife, and then a ton of mostly interchangeable scars/bandits/dominion soldiers. There's no real thrill of discovery here.
Lack of Loot Variety
Now, maybe this will change at the endgame, and maybe I've just been unlucky so far, but I have yet to find a single piece of loot that made me say "cool!." Even in the early story chapters of Diablo 3 (which is, as I understand, the biggest inspiration for Anthem's loot system), you'd occasionally find gear you were excited to use. Here, basically everything feels pretty boring - lots of 5% buffs and tiny incremental damage upgrades.
Fort Tarsis
Look, I get what Bioware is trying to do here, but it just doesn't work for me. I love the idea of the hub, but the problem is you need to go there for everything, which involves 2-3 extra loading screens taking you out of the game. If you could change your loadout on the fly, I'd be much less annoyed by this.
And while I know some people will argue it's a 'Bioware game' so it's to be expected, lets be real - the binary dialogue options are hardly the stuff of which deep narratives and classic RPGs are made of.
Endgame
Ok, full disclosure - I'm not there yet. But I have done two of the three strongholds, and I have to say, I'm not super motivated to get to grinding them (plus the legendary contracts, which are made up of the same repetitive mission types I talked about above). They're relatively quick, they re-use the same enemies over and over, and most inexplicable, they don't really take advantage of the huge possibilities Anthem's verticality and traversal options open up. They're more or less corridor -> big room with enemies -> corridor -> big room with enemies, and I just can't see wanting to do that over and over again. Again, though, I haven't started, so this point could be off.
TL;DR: Multiple design decisions make it hard to get to the most fun part of the game (flying and combat)
I have base Origin Access on PC so I could check out the trial. Anyone know if the trial has been updated to the release version or is it the same one from a couple of weeks ago people were moaning about?
It's the full version and your progress is saved.
I DL'd the trial but I've only played about an hour of my 10. It sure looks purty and performance is actually great on my aging GTX 980. At this point I'm just mostly flying into shit like a klutz - I'll need to play around with the mouse sensitivity settings.
It's nice they start you off in a full blown mission but the story... the end result of that mission going to shit just didn't seem to warrant the loss of rep for all freelancers everywhere - that was way contrived just so that the real game can start with you in a low social tier and make your way up in the world as part of your progression.
Faces don't look tired though, so there is that...
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I have base Origin Access on PC so I could check out the trial. Anyone know if the trial has been updated to the release version or is it the same one from a couple of weeks ago people were moaning about?
It's the full version and your progress is saved.
I DL'd the trial but I've only played about an hour of my 10. It sure looks purty and performance is actually great on my aging GTX 980. At this point I'm just mostly flying into shit like a klutz - I'll need to play around with the mouse sensitivity settings.
It's nice they start you off in a full blown mission but the story... the end result of that mission going to shit just didn't seem to warrant the loss of rep for all freelancers everywhere - that was way contrived just so that the real game can start with you in a low social tier and make your way up in the world as part of your progression.
Faces don't look tired though, so there is that...
I use:
Sensitivity: 50
Precision: 0
Response: 100
For both flight and swim. Mouse is set at 1200dpi for this game. I find that means I move with my actual mouse movement instead of there being any drag or accelerated turning. If you need to do a sharp turn or complete 180, quickly disable flight, turn where you want to go and enable flight again. That's the best and fastest way to change direction.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Yeah I'm still slamming into walls and stuff but getting better.....the flight is a big part of the game imo. If you don't like that the game might not be for you. I am having a hell of a good time however...
I wouldn't recommend this game in its current state. It has positives and negatives but the main reason I won't tell friends to grab it is because of loading times. There are a LOT of loading screens. Normally I don't have and issue with that. However, the time it takes to complete is by far the worst I have ever experienced in a game.
So you take those 5 loading screens to run a mission and then add 1-2mins for each one to actually load and I have spent more time watching a loading screen than actually playing the game. No hyperbole. I would let them at least fix this issue before telling anyone to pick it up. It makes it very frustrating to play and leaves a bad impression.
On the plus side the gunplay, graphics, sound, and story all seem pretty good so far. I imagined it as a more polished Warframe before diving in and so far that seems correct. Keep in mind I am still extremely early in the game.
It's sounding like I made the right call to wait. They talked about not having all the math done and having a lot of place holders and this was weeks before launch. It sounds basically like a good game but I'll give them some time to balance everything.
Hope they fix those loading screens. ESO also had very long loading screens at launch and they eventually got that worked out for the most part but not completely, now it's bearable.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I am not like most others it seems,bugs ,technical issues do not bother me,likely why i am still playing and loving Atlas. To me if a game is just crap,it can be the most polished game in the entire world,it is still crap.However on the flip side,if a game is really good but full of problems,that means that at least i will; have a lot of my gaming time where i have a smile on my face with the occasional GTFO here ru serious displeasure in bugs.
I would rather play a game that is buggy for 500 years than a pile of crap that is fully polished.
My simple breakdown of Anthem,well it is doing noting new /creative,it is neither really bad nor is it really good.To me it is just another game in the millions out there vying for my dollar,problem is that this game just being VERY mediocre is not good enough for me to buy into it.
I see this game EXACTLY like the D2,no not in the game stylistically but in the reason why people are excited playing it.That is reason is LOOT,the ONLY time i ever see any streamer excited is when he/she sees a valuable loot color but the rest of the time it is like they are simply "getting through" the game to get it done.
Speaking of D2,funny how all those D2 streamers are already playing Anthem,guess they weren't so excited about D2 after all,just all business and not about gaming.When i find a good game to play,i play it a LOT,i don't go jumping around game to game every 2 days.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am not like most others it seems,bugs ,technical issues do not bother me,likely why i am still playing and loving Atlas. To me if a game is just crap,it can be the most polished game in the entire world,it is still crap.However on the flip side,if a game is really good but full of problems,that means that at least i will; have a lot of my gaming time where i have a smile on my face with the occasional GTFO here ru serious displeasure in bugs.
I would rather play a game that is buggy for 500 years than a pile of crap that is fully polished.
My simple breakdown of Anthem,well it is doing noting new /creative,it is neither really bad nor is it really good.To me it is just another game in the millions out there vying for my dollar,problem is that this game just being VERY mediocre is not good enough for me to buy into it.
I see this game EXACTLY like the D2,no not in the game stylistically but in the reason why people are excited playing it.That is reason is LOOT,the ONLY time i ever see any streamer excited is when he/she sees a valuable loot color but the rest of the time it is like they are simply "getting through" the game to get it done.
Speaking of D2,funny how all those D2 streamers are already playing Anthem,guess they weren't so excited about D2 after all,just all business and not about gaming.When i find a good game to play,i play it a LOT,i don't go jumping around game to game every 2 days.
Streames and youtubers are "mercenaries". Their allegiance it's not to any particular game. They are chasing subscribers and drift from hyped to hyped game.
As soon as a game has some issues they are the first bashing the game ( while praising it for months before ).
That's why I don't trust streamers and youtubers reviews. I rather loose some $$$ and judge things first hand, instead of being a sheep, manipulated by some subjective opinions.
For me, Anthem it's nothing exciting, nor good or bad. A " Rainy Sunday afternoon " game.
There is room for improvement, no doubt of that, but it will take some time to see it.
I rather play "old" games before jumping into new over-hyped games.
I was playing Destiny 2 only after the Forsaken dropped out and it was awesome experience, with so much content to deal with, with so many bugs already fixed.
I will be back to Anthem later this year or mid-year to see what's what. Same goes for The Division 2. I support these games by buying them, giving devs the financial tools to improve them over the time, but I wont be a crush test dummy also. That's the job of those who love the above games in their current state And I respect their decision.
Once again I weigh in with the cynics: My main question is why the constant comparisons to Destiny 2? D2 is 1st person. Anthem is a "good" 3rd person point of view (way better than Warframe imo) with flying. That is an enormous difference. In a game where you mostly fight (once the story is done), how you fight is everything.
As to the loading screens, that improved a lot for me when I put the game on my SSD. I have no doubt they are working to improve it, complaints are plastered all over their forums.
They know exactly how many people are subscribed to EA Access and Origin Access. They should have been ready for the maximum number being in game at the start. And it's the same problem as 2 weeks ago and last week.
Yep! Played the beta and was unimpressed. In keeping with my new approach to pre-orders, I'm on the sidelines with a "wait and see." Hope they work it out but not on my time any longer. Fallout 76 was the last straw for me. On a happy note, enjoying Far Car New Dawn which looks and plays great.
Once again I weigh in with the cynics: My main question is why the constant comparisons to Destiny 2? D2 is 1st person. Anthem is a "good" 3rd person point of view (way better than Warframe imo) with flying. That is an enormous difference. In a game where you mostly fight (once the story is done), how you fight is everything.
As to the loading screens, that improved a lot for me when I put the game on my SSD. I have no doubt they are working to improve it, complaints are plastered all over their forums.
POV is a non-issue. Comparison is a valid one in that meh story followed by an endgame of harder versions of the ones you have already done and a couple dungeons or raids.
I would make the case that D2 is a better game. It has less loading screens, better looking gear, and even the worlds are more varied that what has been seen in Anthem. They are though the same type of game with a lot of similarities. But that is not a bad thing either as most games in a genre are comparable with some differences to make the good ones stand out.
D2 also has a better story, imo.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Its a good job that Apex is doing so well, because i don't think Anthem would have saved EA.
Agreed. It's fun to play once you're out and about in the Javelin, but it suffers from the disjointed "story-driven-lite" woes that Destiny 1 had at launch. After seeing Bungie publicly being criticized for that in D1, I can't decide if that makes Anthem's suffering the same detriments better or worse for Bioware.
And also agreed, Apex, unless it's just not enticing anyone to pay at all, looks like it will be the cash cow of the two. Very surprising, given the competition in the BR genre.
Comments
The combat seems decent. The graphics are super fancy. But the game was billed and promoted as an rpg - and it isn't. I can't complain much since I got it for free with the access thing I have with Origin, but I am very disappointed. The old Bioware is dead, and Neo-Bioware is a console dev. I can't rebind sprint to Alt key (and a bunch of buttons to other keys), and many other console nonsense such as this.
In fact, with this game, and Bioware hyping it as an rpg, when it has way less rpg elements than even Destiny or Division, it is clear they have gone FULL console. Never go full console if you want to be taken seriously by rpg fans.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
"You think this "A" stands for France?" Captain America
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Loading screens
They're everywhere -- in the open world, in between missions, in between menus, in the middle of missions, in between everything. I genuinely don't think the problem is the length of the loading times (though it doesn't help), it's the sheer *number* of them.
As an example, I just played a mission that went
Loading screen: Fort Taris
Loading screen: Open Forge
Loading screen: Back to Fort Tarsis
Loading screen: Mission Select
Loading screen: Start mission
Loading screen: Get teleported to where my friends are (don't even get me started on this)
Loading screen: Enter cave during the mission
Loading screen: Back to open world for the rest of the mission
Loading screen: Victory screen
Loading screen: Fort Tarsis.
That's 10+ loading screens for about 5 minutes of actual gameplay. Even on an SSD and relatively quick load times, it's just so hard to stay engaged and immersed through that much waiting around.
Grindy and Repetitive Missions
The variety of missions is basically nonexistent. By far the worst offender is the Tombs mission everyone has already discussed at length, but even leaving that aside, there's even less variety here than in missions/public events in Destiny 2 (and that's saying something). The environment, enemies, and objectives are all very attractive and cool the first time, but they're the same throughout the entire story. It's just hard to get excited by yet another iteration of fly to the marker -> kill the same guys you've been killing -> fly to the next marker ad infinitum.
Lack of Enemy Variety
Some folks may disagree with me here, but I feel like I've seen everything in the game and it's just not much. There are basically three types of 'world bosses,' a couple types of wildlife, and then a ton of mostly interchangeable scars/bandits/dominion soldiers. There's no real thrill of discovery here.
Lack of Loot Variety
Now, maybe this will change at the endgame, and maybe I've just been unlucky so far, but I have yet to find a single piece of loot that made me say "cool!." Even in the early story chapters of Diablo 3 (which is, as I understand, the biggest inspiration for Anthem's loot system), you'd occasionally find gear you were excited to use. Here, basically everything feels pretty boring - lots of 5% buffs and tiny incremental damage upgrades.
Fort Tarsis
Look, I get what Bioware is trying to do here, but it just doesn't work for me. I love the idea of the hub, but the problem is you need to go there for everything, which involves 2-3 extra loading screens taking you out of the game. If you could change your loadout on the fly, I'd be much less annoyed by this.
And while I know some people will argue it's a 'Bioware game' so it's to be expected, lets be real - the binary dialogue options are hardly the stuff of which deep narratives and classic RPGs are made of.
Endgame
Ok, full disclosure - I'm not there yet. But I have done two of the three strongholds, and I have to say, I'm not super motivated to get to grinding them (plus the legendary contracts, which are made up of the same repetitive mission types I talked about above). They're relatively quick, they re-use the same enemies over and over, and most inexplicable, they don't really take advantage of the huge possibilities Anthem's verticality and traversal options open up. They're more or less corridor -> big room with enemies -> corridor -> big room with enemies, and I just can't see wanting to do that over and over again. Again, though, I haven't started, so this point could be off.
TL;DR: Multiple design decisions make it hard to get to the most fun part of the game (flying and combat)
It's nice they start you off in a full blown mission but the story... the end result of that mission going to shit just didn't seem to warrant the loss of rep for all freelancers everywhere - that was way contrived just so that the real game can start with you in a low social tier and make your way up in the world as part of your progression.
Faces don't look tired though, so there is that...
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Sensitivity: 50
Precision: 0
Response: 100
For both flight and swim. Mouse is set at 1200dpi for this game. I find that means I move with my actual mouse movement instead of there being any drag or accelerated turning. If you need to do a sharp turn or complete 180, quickly disable flight, turn where you want to go and enable flight again. That's the best and fastest way to change direction.
So you take those 5 loading screens to run a mission and then add 1-2mins for each one to actually load and I have spent more time watching a loading screen than actually playing the game. No hyperbole. I would let them at least fix this issue before telling anyone to pick it up. It makes it very frustrating to play and leaves a bad impression.
On the plus side the gunplay, graphics, sound, and story all seem pretty good so far. I imagined it as a more polished Warframe before diving in and so far that seems correct. Keep in mind I am still extremely early in the game.
Hope they fix those loading screens. ESO also had very long loading screens at launch and they eventually got that worked out for the most part but not completely, now it's bearable.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
To me if a game is just crap,it can be the most polished game in the entire world,it is still crap.However on the flip side,if a game is really good but full of problems,that means that at least i will; have a lot of my gaming time where i have a smile on my face with the occasional GTFO here ru serious displeasure in bugs.
I would rather play a game that is buggy for 500 years than a pile of crap that is fully polished.
My simple breakdown of Anthem,well it is doing noting new /creative,it is neither really bad nor is it really good.To me it is just another game in the millions out there vying for my dollar,problem is that this game just being VERY mediocre is not good enough for me to buy into it.
I see this game EXACTLY like the D2,no not in the game stylistically but in the reason why people are excited playing it.That is reason is LOOT,the ONLY time i ever see any streamer excited is when he/she sees a valuable loot color but the rest of the time it is like they are simply "getting through" the game to get it done.
Speaking of D2,funny how all those D2 streamers are already playing Anthem,guess they weren't so excited about D2 after all,just all business and not about gaming.When i find a good game to play,i play it a LOT,i don't go jumping around game to game every 2 days.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
As to the loading screens, that improved a lot for me when I put the game on my SSD. I have no doubt they are working to improve it, complaints are plastered all over their forums.
Yep! Played the beta and was unimpressed. In keeping with my new approach to pre-orders, I'm on the sidelines with a "wait and see." Hope they work it out but not on my time any longer. Fallout 76 was the last straw for me. On a happy note, enjoying Far Car New Dawn which looks and plays great.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
And also agreed, Apex, unless it's just not enticing anyone to pay at all, looks like it will be the cash cow of the two. Very surprising, given the competition in the BR genre.