If you have not played since the patch, there is a pretty huge difference in performance and loading. Game is actually running much better for me in general. I am wondering if they were running some kind of debugging or verbose logging for all of the clients during early access that added additional processing.
I'm struggling to really like this game. It has awesome mechanics, but the mission structure is so... CTRL+C/CTRL+V. Go here, kill 20 enemies, gather the thing, put it in the middle, go here, kill 20 enemies, gather the things, go here kill 20 enemies, stand in the middle. There's zero usage of the actual amazing level structures to add to the gameplay. Verticality is ignored and every fight is basically on the ground. For having a game that is about FLYING, it sure seems they don't want you to do it except during transport. Its so close to greatness but just missing some key ingredients to actually use what they've created to its full potential.
The concept is great. It intrigues me. The reviewers are not WRONG however, even if they are over the top or hyperbolic. Coming from something like Warframe I feel like my ability set is dramatically reduced to two real abilities, Q and E. I occasionally use Support and Ultimate, while potent, is on a long cool down and becomes an 'oh shit I'm going to die' life save ability. I don't find the weapons overly compelling so far, although the Devastator sniper rifle is good fun and there appear to be interesting Masterwork variants. There is not a lot of 'there' there yet, though I don't feel I didn't get my $15 worth. I am concerned about how some of the technical hurdles can be addressed such as the constant loading or the combat mechanics to keep my attention long term. I haven't played the 'Day 1' patch yet, so we will see what that is like
I'm kind of looking at this like a lot of the other, similar games in the last few years. Look at Warframe, Destiny 2, and The Division. At launch, they were all just shells of what they eventually turned into. Warframe was monotonous as hell, The Division had a terrible - almost absent - endgame, and Destiny was freaking riddled with predatory money schemes. The all turned into competent games over time. I suspect this one will too. Hell, it took a YEAR for the Division to be worth bothering with.
Yea I'm keeping an eye on it plus I didnt pay extra for it so I'll jump in probably at least enough to finish the story, but they have the potential for awesome but version 1 didnt quite get there
That is all very true, but there are a couple of very important differences between these examples and Anthem: Warframe (during its fledgling years) had little to no competition in its genre AND was F2P from the start (which greatly helped to settle nerves about lack of content). Destiny, although a premium game, was able to piggyback off the success and (somewhat) similar gameplay of Halo which went a long way in endearing it to legions of Bungie fans. Division was pretty awful at launch too. The only thing that saved it was Ubisoft's dedication to making it better. By comparison, Anthem is pretty much a complete departure in genre from what Bioware is known for and Anthem is an entirely new IP that wants to charge $60 out the gate for content that feels like a F2P game. It's possible for Anthem to improve, sure, but my biggest concern is EA will not have the patience nor willpower to give the franchise time to become something good. Also, its a "shooter" where the shooting is a secondary method of dealing damage? That's a weird niche. If I had been running the show, I would have skipped all the expensive (and pointless) marketing and launched the game as FTP. As it stands, the only thing that can be done is listen to player feedback and take the time (and lots of money) to fix the problems. That's what Warframe, Destiny, and Division had to do to become good. However, EA's track record in this kind of situation is decidedly not good. We were all hoping for a win from Bioware. Personally, it bums me out to see this happen; Anthem could have been the first game I bought from EA since Mass Effect 2. Now I don't know anymore.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on part of that. I will absolutely, 100% agree that Anthem needs work from a gameplay and technical standpoint. It's no where near as bad as during the vip demo, but it needs help, and they need to work on the end game to give players more to do after the story. Would you prefer " 3rd person action game" to "shooter"? Anyway, moving on. I will take an issue with saying it feels like a free to play game, because to me it really doesn't. The audio and visual production quality are stellar here. The animation, voice overs, and graphical design aspects are through the roof. Those teams brought their a-game, and I've only seen a couple of the very best f2p games even come close. Warframe being one of them, but that was more than a year after release when they finally got the money to start fleshing it out. At launch it was janky as hell, and to me, boring. If you're worried about listening to player feedback, they addressed some requested items within hours of them being brought up, so I'm not too worried about that. I don't want to sound like I'm being a fan boy, so I will say if you haven't already bought it, don't. It wasn't ready for prime time at launch. Wait a few months or grab it during a ssle.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what we disagree on. Maybe it's semantics? When I say "it looks like a F2P game to me", I'm referring to its lack of Content at launch, not Production Values. I totally agree that the audio and visuals sound and look great. But I don't buy games based on their audio and visuals. I buy games based on their "content" and the content in Anthem right here, right now looks empty and repetitive to me. To be fair, the content in Warframe (for example) is extremely repetitive, but there are other aspects within that content that allow me to enjoy that game in spite of it. But if we want to get *really specific*, I find the gunplay in Anthem completely underwhelming. I don't understand the game design logic of a "looter-shooter" where powerful "loot" seems secondary to throwing fireballs as fast as you can. That sounds like they pulled a page from MOBA games for some reason. Nothing against people who enjoy that, it just adds to the pile of why I'd rather spend my limited time in other games. What incentive is there to play Anthem right now over other competitors? I'm not seeing it. That's what I was saying. The article posted by Gihzmo above makes a lot of good points. I don't contend with any of them (except the gunplay, specifically). And I'm not worried about Bioware; I'm certain they will do their very best to listen to feedback and fix the problems. I have complete confidence that Bioware will do everything in their power to make Anthem great. Like I said before, what I'm *actually* worried about is EA not giving a shit about anything but their bottom line. I'm worried that EA will pull stakes on Anthem and Bioware like they've done almost countless times before. That is not unreasonable.
Like I said, if you're not sold already, don't pick it up. You won't like it. Not saying this to you specifically, but it is a liitle frusterating to see it get crucified for stuff other games have gotten a free pass on just because EA is involved.
I am less worried about things going downhill now that Apex Legends is out and can provide a bump to income for EA. That takes pressure off of Bioware and Anthem and allows them some breathing room.
I really don't understand this idea that other games got a "free pass", though. I've already given multiple reasons in my initial response as to why things are exactly what they are. Warframe was so under the radar, most critics didn't care about it enough to review it at all. Also (again), it was F2P which made its early lack of content (a problem but) more forgivable. When they officially launched, Destiny & Division got butchered by legitimate critics just as bad as Anthem. I remember all of this, because I saw the reviews and avoided both specifically for these reasons. But yes, I'm totally fine with waiting and hoping Anthem gets better.
Come to think of it, I think EA marketing probably shot themselves in the foot by hyping it up too much for launch. If EA is so concerned about "games as a service" they should have known from every other successful looter-shooter out there that "Rome wasn't built in a day".
I said I want aiming that comment at you specifically. I just meant that a lot of the issues being mentioned and attacked on reddit/youtube or whatever are completely normal for these games. I wish I could articulate what I'm trying to say better, but that isn't one of my strong points. And yes, the marketing budget was insane. It reminds me a lot of Wildstar, actually. There were posters on bus stops they pushed that game so hard. The PAX booth in 2014 for that game was crazy. That article from forbes gihz linked hit it perfectly for me. If I had to review it with a number, a 6/10 would be it. But I think where I seem to differ from some of the people I've read is that I don't think a 6 is bad. It's average, with room to grow. I mean jeez, take a look at Skyrim and Fallout. Bethesda has been making technically (programming) shitty games for DECADES and are only just now feeling the consequences. There are bugs in Fallout 76 left over from the launch date of Fallout 4. They never even tried to fix them. Skyrim's unofficial patches include literal thousands of big fixes that were never even touched in that game, despite FIVE different re-releases that I'm aware of. I'm not comparing the type of game, only the technical ability of the devolopers. We let Bethesda get away with it, trusting the modders to fix it later because they were a "good" company. And now, finally, they release an online game modders can't fix and it bites them in ass. But the truth is they should have cleaned up their development process 20 years ago. We just didn't care. Anyway, I'm not trying to argue with any one specific here, including you, magnus. I just need to vent some frustrations with a lot of the more vitrolic press Anthem is getting elsewhere. I'm having fun. Screw metacritic.
Putting it in that context, I see what you mean. I think traditional Bethesda games enjoyed some weird "safe space" with their fans only because there was very little competition in that space: a sweeping open world RPG narrative AND full modding support. To be completely honest, the only thing that attracted me to the later Fallout and Elder Scrolls games was the insane amount of modding that could be done. Even on its best day, I wouldn't bother playing Skyrim right now without some choice mods installed.
I would also bring up pretty much the entire Arma series. The only reason it has gotten a pass is because it really is the only game in town. But Arma 2 was incredibly poorly optimized and Arma 3 was not much better. Hell Arma 2 didn't even have ragdoll physics. I am enjoying Anthem, I look forward to what they have planned. I also feel like they have content in the pipe that they are going to doll out so they do not have the issue that most of these games have where they front load everything and people burn through it in a week and then there is nothing left. We are at that point now, but with the knowledge that they are going to be releasing more content at a normal pace for most people.
Gihz and I had a fight against a Titan last night that felt like fighting a player. For non players, the titans are only vulnerable when charging attacks. This one could summon trash mobs that would kamikaze us the whole way through the fight, while it would fire AoE attacks at us in the meantime. When we finally got the mobs cleared and could focus on the titan, it never opened its attacks. It would sit and wait until we were distracted before attacking again. Whether it was coincidence or amazing AI I'm not sure, but it was a truly hard fight due to enemy tactics rather than just stats, and was a hell of a rush when we brought it down.
