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.
Decided to load this up for the first time this weekend, and it’s actually very enjoyable so far. Getting people joining for missions too, so it’s not deserted.
There is a reboot? I own this game, but not played more than the main story.
They also need to fix the menus. It was always a decision on whether to go through the nuisance of opening the menu…”Oh, do I want to spend 30 seconds opening the menu or just stop playing?”
IDK that loot fixes how shallow the game play is.
You found the actual shooting/flying below average?
One of the joys of this game is whipping out my Colossus’ shield and running enemies down. So personally speaking, I found the gameplay one of the few things done well.
Me too, which is why I was curious. The problems didn’t seem to be with gameplay
I think he’s referring to repeatability. There are a limited number of missions/strongholds, so it is a lot of rinse&repeat. Also, outside the mech… it’s a single player instance. There’s no market, no socializing… I wouldn’t call Anthem an MMO at all. More like a match maker like World of XXXXX, or those shooters that are so popular that I never play.
I think the actual gameplay in the mech is great and havn’t found anyting quite as enjoyable. It does take time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a lot fun and pretty unique in my experience. My col was always a quick hop and hulk smash and for the bosses, can’t beat the gatling gun.