ANTHEM - failed Destiny clone from BioWare

[TheChickenKing]

Well, it looks like they're essentially rebuilding half the game, from the UI to the loot that's dropping to how it's dropping to how you interact with it when it's dropped. They're most likely working with a skeleton crew, and then on top of all that, it seems like they're also trying to add in new content (see the previous blog about the pirate faction they're adding in). Seems like a very ambitious rework. So ambitious, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if they intend to charge people who purchased the original game again.

 

[ADL]

I'm sure we'll find out.... In 19 years when their 20 year long non-disclosure agreements expire and people write books about what went wrong.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

For a game trying to be a looter shooter you would expect this blog entry on the development period, not after gaem release

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

All this time and all they have to show is a loot fix? That's hilarious. I'm reminded how last year there was a loot buff bug that the games player base seemed to enjoy, but in a baffling bumble BioWare quickly patched out the one thing their customers seemed to like...and maybe the only good bit of news the game had since it released.

Seems like it would've just been smarter to undo that fix, (I'm guessing that would've been quicker than what they're announcing now) while focusing on bigger more substantial fixes.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Well, it looks like they're essentially rebuilding half the game, from the UI to the loot that's dropping to how it's dropping to how you interact with it when it's dropped. They're most likely working with a skeleton crew, and then on top of all that, it seems like they're also trying to add in new content (see the previous blog about the pirate faction they're adding in). Seems like a very ambitious rework. So ambitious, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if they intend to charge people who purchased the original game again.

There's no way it's running on a skeleton crew. Despite Anthem being a series of bad news ever since release, it also made money; $100 million in digital revenue on release. So the game sold. Unless EA is just abandoning it, and the idea of making money off in-game purchases, ($3.5 million of that $100 million on release was that) and these fixes and updates would indicate they haven't, it likely still has a good sized team because of the potential profit it could make.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

That looks like they're going to over-correct the loot just like Diablo 3 did with update 2.0 when everything started raining legendaries so they became salvage trash.

I'll take it, enemy piñatas are better than the old stingy drops that were trashed anyway because it's a fire spell with bonus ice damage.

 

[Yldr]

It's still not going to change much, a thorough story run with side content took us 10 hours and all that was left was typical "high-level" MMO bloat.

I'm not sure what's the expected end result here. Let's assume they adequately "fix" everything that needs fixing. What then? Are you going to replay a handful of raids over and over with fixed loot tables... so you replay a handful of raids over and over with better gear? It's actual content this game needs: more areas, more story, more missions, etc. No doubt you can touch up the UI and loot system but in their present state they are enough to keep the ball running for such a short runtime.

Treating Anthem as a "real" MMO is killing it, there's nothing inherently wrong with a game that you go through in a few days before moving on. I know they had higher ambitions, and no doubt it must hurt to spend untold amounts of time, money and reputation to end up with a 10-hour shooter, but the harm is done and their game just doesn't have near enough content to be more than play&uninstall fodder. Treat it that way and it's actually fun while it lasts.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The game really just feels like a congregation of ideas that just never gel together, with what seems like some sloppy gameplay and some terrible enemy encounters. Although the lack of gelling seems to be more incompetence on BioWare's part than much of what they're trying to do inherently being in conflict with one another.

It's almost kind of amazing BioWare fucked this game up so spectacularly. Of all the things they could fuck up, what surprised me most was the loot, and I don't even mean loot drops in particular but that on release their wasn't really any cosmetic difference with loot. Not sure there still is, but it seems you can change how much power armor looks more now. I mean, I know BioWare wasn't exactly making Diablo style loot driven hack and slash games; but all the same, loot is still a big factor even outside of that particular sub-genre of RPG, and BioWare at least used to make RPGs. They should at least somewhat understands the appeal of getting loot.

Weirder, or maybe funnier, is what they seem to be pulling from doesn't have his kind of loot problem.

 

[Gerrard]

There's no point in having loot have different looks because at the end of the day people will ask to be able to change the looks independently of the equipped gear anyway.

 

[SerratedBiz]

There's no point in having loot have different looks because at the end of the day people will ask to be able to change the looks independently of the equipped gear anyway.

Different loot is significant because it allows you to unlock different looks for use in a transmog kind of system.

 

[ADL]

The new UI looks pretty Destiny looking
https://blog.bioware.com/2020/10/28/anthem-update-javelin-gameplay-builds/

Reliably Create Builds

• • Abilities are unlocks, not drops! Play with the Abilities you want, when you want
  • Empower your Abilities by equipping them with Mods
  • Builds are defined by the synergies of Specializations, Abilities, and Equipment
  • Inscriptions improve build synergies, but are no longer the primary factor

This is nice.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Looks like a generic uninspired mobile UI. Devs like Bioware should be capable of doing a lot better.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

wait they haven't given up on this game yet?
the genre just doesn't work; destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

they should just devote all their time to adding in loot boxes and paid cosmetics to milk what little playerbase they have for as long as possible before shutting the servers down

 

[sullynathan]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

 

[fantadomat]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

If destiny was making big bucks activision wouldn't have dropped them like a dead cat lol. They make money,but nothing special.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

destiny warframe and anthem combined have less than half twitch viewers as old school runescape lmao
just let that sink in
a 2d java based cookie clicker game from 20 years ago has more than twice the viewerbase than the entire loot-shooter-quasi-mmo genre

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Reminder that SWTOR is probably the only thing keeping Bioware alive right now.
And they heavily siphoned its dev team to help this disaster once again shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Gerrard]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

destiny warframe and anthem combined have less than half twitch viewers as old school runescape lmao
just let that sink in
a 2d java based cookie clicker game from 20 years ago has more than twice the viewerbase than the entire loot-shooter-quasi-mmo genre

You think twitch viewer numbers are somehow translated to the amount of money a company makes on their game.
Let that sink in.

Tencent wouldn't have bought a company that makes no money.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Looks like a generic uninspired mobile UI.

It does look like trash, but it's probably all proof of concept/placeholder shit.

 

[Myobi]

Looks like a generic uninspired mobile UI. Devs like Bioware should be capable of doing a lot better.

Imagine that, a Bethesda fangirl complaning about other games UI's

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

You think twitch viewer numbers are somehow translated to the amount of money a company makes on their game.
Let that sink in.

yes of course.
you sound mad
maybe go grind some +2 dps gauntlets in your dead looter shooter lmao

 

[sullynathan]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

destiny warframe and anthem combined have less than half twitch viewers as old school runescape lmao
just let that sink in
a 2d java based cookie clicker game from 20 years ago has more than twice the viewerbase than the entire loot-shooter-quasi-mmo genre

Is twitch really all that trustworthy? Madden has more viewers than NBA2K but I can clearly tell that 2K sells more copies and generates more money. I've never heard about Escape from Tarkov nor have I seen impressive sales figures from it yet I'm supposed to believe that it and Sekiro - which we have sales figures for - are more popular and make more money than Destiny because they have more viewers at the time of this post? Doubtful.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

destiny, anthem, and warframe are all failures

To who? Destiny & Warframe make big bucks

destiny warframe and anthem combined have less than half twitch viewers as old school runescape lmao
just let that sink in
a 2d java based cookie clicker game from 20 years ago has more than twice the viewerbase than the entire loot-shooter-quasi-mmo genre

Is twitch really all that trustworthy? Madden has more viewers than NBA2K but I can clearly tell that 2K sells more copies and generates more money. I've never heard about Escape from Tarkov nor have I seen impressive sales figures from it yet I'm supposed to believe that it and Sekiro - which we have sales figures for - are more popular and make more money than Destiny because they have more viewers at the time of this post? Doubtful.

it's not perfect, just a good gauge, especially for comparing mmo type games that suck up all your hobby time since players don't have time to care about anything other than the mmo they're playing

anyway I really just wanted to shit on this awful skinnerbox genre that I hate

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's hard to tell if the people watching streamers are doing it because of the game or the streamer. Except outliers like Ninja who lost 3/4 of his viewers when he dared to play something that wasn't Fortnite lel

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Twitch is terrible for judging a game's popularity, people largely watch streams based on personalities not the game. There's no correlation between number of people playing a game on Steam and the number of people watching that game on Twitch. e.g., CSGO has 921k people ingame right now and 69k people watching twitch streams of it. GTA5 has 112k people ingame right now and 65k people watching twitch streams.