BioWare Austin studio director Christian Dailey promised in his last preview of the Anthem reboot that a new dev blog would be coming soon, and sure enough, he made good on that vow with a look at what the developers are doing to improve looting and gearing up.
Much of these changes are goals-oriented, but they do sound promising, particularly to those who found the “loot” part of the original looter shooter underwhelming; more loot drops, more viable loot that has “strategic value” during character progression, the ability to chase specific loot via quests, specialized vendors, and unique loot tables, and rare enemies exploding with goodies when they’re killed are all promised.
The blog also explains that players will be able to equip found gear immediately, with a revamped character sheet to more clearly identify whether something is an improvement or not. The post also promises the end of useless items, with each item having an inscription “budget” based on that item’s Power and Rarity while exceptional items are about getting the precise bonus being sought. Additionally, players should be able to easily increase their power cap and see their loot scale accordingly, while the devs will have access to telemetry to quickly identify trends and make needed balance changes.
While all of these goals certainly sound noble, it’s the execution of them that matters, and Dailey writes that hitting those goals will require effort. “Changes like these are exciting to us and hopefully to you as well, but I want to set expectations that there is a lot of work behind each of these and in some cases a rather large tech undertaking – this is not an ‘easy fix’ and will take time,” he notes.
