kerzain
3187
Maybe his next gig can be working on Demigod 2’s networking.
100% committed to finding a new job since August. ;)
rei
3189
He posted the useless “What’s next for Anthem” post in Sept:
kerzain
3190
No, I’m sure this goes all the way back to Anthem’s road map. If you look close, I’m sure this was a listed objective.
Yes I know exactly what kind of comments are going to follow but it’s information so here you go.
Game Pass just gave away a free month of EA Access, so I’m hoping to be able to play through the present game during this month. I hope I find it worth my time, like you do.
I’d offer to play with you, but the power disparity between our characters would probably ruin the experience.
kerzain
3194
Cherry picked some of the stuff about the overhaul and ignored their retelling of the game’s release woes:
- Many of the details are still in flux,
- There’s no clear timeline for the Anthem Next project just yet.
- The developers at BioWare haven’t even decided how it’ll be distributed. They’re still figuring out whether updates should be released all at once or over an extended period of time.
Details on Anthem Next are hazy, but among other things, the game’s developers plan to overhaul:
- The loot
- The quests
- The social aspects of the game
- The difficulty
- The progression system
- The world map.
One person on the project said they’re planning to change the game’s entire structure.
With so much in the air, it’s impossible to know what will and won’t change, but it’s safe to say that Anthem won’t suddenly transform into a brand new franchise—we still expect to see Freelancer mercenaries, Shaper artifacts, Javelin exosuits, and all of the other core ideas that the game has established. BioWare’s plan is to zoom out and overhaul the gameplay systems that most players have agreed don’t work.
How and when this plan will come to fruition remains to be seen.
With changes like these, I wonder how the monetization system might change, compared to just buying the game at retail and playing it all you want at no extra cost aside from cosmetic microtransactions. Based on their speculation, it seems like a lot of resources would need to be put on this and I wouldn’t imagine EA would want to have all this done for no added cost.
Heh, if they wanted to project confidence in their product to the public, they kinda failed to do that in that press release. :)
KevinC
3196
It’s what the game needs. The only thing the game had going for it was the feel of being Iron Man flying around and blowing stuff up. Everything else was… very lacking.
If they can restructure the whole game around the core of great gameplay, I’d be excited to jump back in.
That’s well put. I’d like to give Anthem the opportunity to straighten stuff out, much like Destiny and The Division did. No, I’m not comparing those games, just that they both benefited from some pretty serious re-tuning.
There’s a difference between re-turning and Anthem’s problems. There’s no there there to retune. There’s a whopping total of 3 raids, and that’s pretty much the entirety of the post-campaign game.
KevinC
3199
Yeah, the lack of content is a valid point of concern, especially with what we’ve all heard about the difficulties with Frostbite. I know one of the reasons Bungie (different engine, I know) had to move on from Destiny to Destiny 2 is that their production pipeline was a horror show and it took ages to get anything done. Does Anthem suffer from the same sort of problem? No idea, but the lack of content coming out is definitely a blinking red light for me.
Still, I think an “Anthem Next” approach is the right one. If you strip away everything else, the core gameplay is really good and that’s so difficult to get right. If they can just build a better game around it, I think the game could be revived. I mean, my friends and I didn’t hate the game, we just ran out of stuff to do or things to chase in the end game. We’ve been waiting for overhauls of the loot or progression systems to jump back in.
There might very well be. I’m willing to find out.
I’m not familiar with The Division, but Destiny’s re-tuning made the game much worse for me. It was much more solo-friendly at launch. In fact, the campaign was actually more fun solo than it was cooperatively. But the retuning ruined solo for me.
Yes, you’ve written about it extensively. But none of these games are designed to be played solo even if I, like you, usually play them that way. On the upside, I do find that Anthem, like those other games, lends itself well to pickup play with randoms.
Well the bigger question of, does the publisher have the stomach for the funds and timeline needed for a rework big enough to likely fix it? … has been answered. Sources say yes.
And the silence, followed NMS being name checked and the project being — Next in some of the discussion indicates they are going with the community “damage control” that seems to have worked well for NMS. I was curious about that.
Of course, why that worked for NMS was about a lot more than just the silence then fix loop. Unsure those two items alone would be as effective for EA/Bioware/Anthem. Quality and cost to previous purchasers of the fix was just two of the other reasons the NMS rework was received as well as it was. And those are big, open, undecided questions right now. So…
The movement loop (but not the gun play/combat), the new IP, and the easy to solo/PUG were really the only things worth it in the base release. I would certainly hope they are kept, but would expect changes in monetization. I hope the combo of pay to win resentment and loot box scrutiny that exist now will keep them from going too far either way. But you have to guess the publisher expects the decision to fund the level of redo/relaunch needed will have a payout somehow …
I do apologize for that. (Especially to you, since you seem to invoke me into bringing it up most often). I do miss it, so even though I try to let it go, I can’t.
What I should do is, if I feel the urge to play Destiny, I should fire up The Master Chief Collection instead. Then people can bring up Destiny at any time, and I’ll just brush my shoulder instead of posting the same thing all over again.
That wasn’t meant as a dig, although it does read that way when I look back at it. Let me put it in my own terms - I can rage about Bioware dropping Mass Effect Andromeda, any sequel plans and DLC, despite my thinking it’s a pretty damn good game. But I’m in the minority, and I have to accept that the world has moved on and left me behind. Luckily for me, I still have Andromeda, so I can pop it back in and play. I recognize you can’t do the same with your ideal version of Destiny, and that’s a drag. But, what’s done is done, right? We can hope they get it right next time around. That’s what I’m choosing to do.
rei
3206
Still no in game text chat leading remaining players to dump on new or returning players who don’t automatically know how to do event puzzles.
