I'm sorry if criticism ruffles some feathers, but I'm trying to engage the endgame here and I'm getting shat on at every opportunity. I'm not bad at this stuff - this needs more time to bake.
I think it's reasonable to provide criticism, but we're also less than 72 hours since launch, so having 'endgame problems' seems like it comes with the territory? Obviously there were going to be people who nearly killed themselves getting to the level cap asap, but I don't think it's worthy of some of the ire I've seen (not here, elsewhere in general) to not have every system perfected right out the gate within days. I'm pretty sure there's a patch coming next week for PC/XBone (PS4 just start at that point, if I'm not mistaken), and we have the roadmap where we know improvements are coming.
I mean, there's part of me that has seen in this very thread the 'there's only 3 strongholds' complaint, and, well, kind of rolls my eyes. Yeah, 3 now, and a 4th coming in March. And that same part suspects there could be 7 with an 8th on the way and they'd still get the same shit. There is no upper bound, for some folks (again, not here, in general) which makes sussing out sincere and thoughtful critique a little harder to distinguish from the same shit.
Like, I get that Legendary contract tether must have been super frustrating, and I empathize with that. It's also day -4 from my PS4 player perspective. We should hold companies to a high standard if they want our money, but we also need to be able to step back and say 'okay, this is a start, let's see where it goes in time'. No team has infinite money, time, or talent. Epic Games is making literally billions and Fortnite Save the World (the PVE campaign) is, from what I'm hearing, outright unplayable on Xbone. Like, the entire platform. And that's been in development for something over half a decade, and been live for around 1.5 years.
Maybe I'm giving too much benefit of the doubt, but if nothing else, I'm guessing the Bioware team really wishes they didn't have the game go live this weekend. If the 22nd fixes and improves even a fraction of things, it really does seem like this early week on the most variable platform (PC) is a lot to handle. Maybe they really do need another quarter or two, but with a Game as a Service, there will forever be 'just one more fix, one more upgrade', that's kind of the idea. It has to go out to users at some point.
And I agree that we have to set reasonable expectations. We can't compare any game's launch to another game's 2 or 5 or 10 year anniversary. Those expectations should be managed by players and the developers alike, and simple stuff like giving us a roadmap helps me personally have some faith in the direction they intend to go, even if it takes weeks or months to materialize.
Again, this isn't a direct refutation of what you've said, or really directed at anyone in particular, more a general musing on the nature of releasing something this expansive in this day and age. Maybe once I get my hands on it on Friday, I'll hit some game breaking shit and be venting my spleen in here too, but I'll be striving to take a breath and realize they are likely just getting hammered. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no game release goes unscathed when millions of players start taking it apart.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I think Venom bomb is stealthily one of the best Interceptor Assault gears - it's on such a short cooldown and primes enemies fairly quickly. You don't even need to freeze packs of mobs, you just let your friends combo them to death and do it again 7 seconds later (less time if you've got cooldown reduction stuff). Once the adds are clear, it's a lot easier to focus down the elite/legendary enemies hanging around
I run venom bomb and detonating strike. It makes me a goddamn combo machine. I do have some issues taking down shielded flying enemies, but once I get cryo glaive I'll be more balanced. I suppose it's not necessary to run two primers but it's certainly a lot of fun.
To be clear I really enjoyed the demo. I'm pretty happy with the decisions they made regarding the style of the game. Not trying to shove in PvP, letting you feel awesome from the start, combat being fast and allowing lots of difficulty variety.
The parts that frustrate me are just extra frustrating because it feels like they made most of a game and then someone decided to release it a year before it was ready. I'm constantly wondering if anyone tested this game. It's like they were working towards a beta and someone crossed out BETA on the whiteboard a month ago and wrote RELEASE. There are already people who have an optimized chest looting route so they can max out gear. It's like the loot cave and chest runs in Destiny didn't teach anyone anything OR they never finished making their game and had to let it go into the wild with obvious issues. I generally like Bioware and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I do think a lot of the issues are specific to people playing on PC.
Edit: Still constantly crash/drop when ending missions so you end out in a loop where you get no reward or credit for the mission unless you can load into another area and then hopefully travel back to Tarsis and get your reward/complete screen.... and hope it counts. Untested game is untested.
As a fellow ps4 player my primary concern is the bug ridden mess we are going to have to deal with for longer then the other 2 platforms. Our day one patch will only be guesses on how to fix the bugs present in other versions with zero insight into the unique fuckery the ps4 will offer. Hopefully EA uses their clout and/or money to push patches through certification quickly across the board.
Bug riddled mess is pretty strong hyperbole, at least on console. I'm almost done with my trial on Xbox and I'm hard-pressed to think of any that I ran into that stand out. I guess the first time I unlocked the launch bay I couldn't get back into Tarsis and had to restart but that's about it.
Geeze, I'm reading bland things about the story. If that's the case, then why did BioWare make this game again? Seems odd not to capitalize on one of the team's strengths.
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BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
I think the writing itself is fine for what it is. I just don't think it fits the tone I was originally sold on. I'm not a fan of how....quippy...everyone seems to be. I think it's fine to have 1 or 2 characters where that's their thing but I don't need this level of sass from every NPC I meet
Geeze, I'm reading bland things about the story. If that's the case, then why did BioWare make this game again? Seems odd not to capitalize on one of the team's strengths.
Seems to me they spent all their creativity juice on the setting and barely had anything left over for the story.
As a fellow ps4 player my primary concern is the bug ridden mess we are going to have to deal with for longer then the other 2 platforms. Our day one patch will only be guesses on how to fix the bugs present in other versions with zero insight into the unique fuckery the ps4 will offer. Hopefully EA uses their clout and/or money to push patches through certification quickly across the board.
Bug riddled mess is pretty strong hyperbole, at least on console. I'm almost done with my trial on Xbox and I'm hard-pressed to think of any that I ran into that stand out. I guess the first time I unlocked the launch bay I couldn't get back into Tarsis and had to restart but that's about it.
Did you ever get the Tyrant Mine glitch that spawned you in between two locked doors? I would say that is the only MAJOR bug I've seen; a minor one is it seems the game will overwrite any legendary you have with a lower quality one? It happened with the Legendary Marksman I seemed to have randomly (I'm guessing from the LoD pre-order) and the Ranger's Pulse Beam.
All I'll say is that I've been having a lot of fun this past weekend.
Same. Even the Tomb Quest wasn't a pain as it actually forced me to get out there and actually learn about Bastion and there's quite a bit of fun stuff to find out there (I took on a Luminary and was like. . ."Why the hell is this thing just randomly out here." Almost died several times and boy would that have been a pain hoping someone would come and rez me). There is a ton of work that needs to be done, but hell other than not having as many "Strikes" at launch as Destiny or the weapon variety of the same, I think the experience for me tracks pretty similar. Honestly I feel like this is Diablo 3. . .just without a much needed statistics page (I really can't believe this wasn't a development priority).
In my opinion this has some of Biowares best written characters in a long time. The delivery from the NPCs is all really good. The cutscenes are smooth and look great. The critical path is generic but flows. I've only had one instance in which I thought the delivery was sub par
The dialog in the heart of rage at the beginning felt rushed and sort of jammed in
In my opinion this is has some of Biowares best written characters in a long time. The delivery from the NPCs is all really good. The cutscenes are smooth and look great. The critical path is generic but flows. I've only had one instance in which I thought the delivery was sub par
The dialog in the heart of rage at the beginning felt rushed and sort of jammed in
.
That's good to hear. I know from the demo I liked Matthias.
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drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
The Genie landing emote is basically a must for Storm Javs.
As a fellow ps4 player my primary concern is the bug ridden mess we are going to have to deal with for longer then the other 2 platforms. Our day one patch will only be guesses on how to fix the bugs present in other versions with zero insight into the unique fuckery the ps4 will offer. Hopefully EA uses their clout and/or money to push patches through certification quickly across the board.
Bug riddled mess is pretty strong hyperbole, at least on console. I'm almost done with my trial on Xbox and I'm hard-pressed to think of any that I ran into that stand out. I guess the first time I unlocked the launch bay I couldn't get back into Tarsis and had to restart but that's about it.
Did you ever get the Tyrant Mine glitch that spawned you in between two locked doors? I would say that is the only MAJOR bug I've seen; a minor one is it seems the game will overwrite any legendary you have with a lower quality one? It happened with the Legendary Marksman I seemed to have randomly (I'm guessing from the LoD pre-order) and the Ranger's Pulse Beam.
I haven't unlocked the mine yet and I pre-ordered the standard version so I don't get my goodies until launch, which is irritating because I'm sure I'll have out leveled the gun by then.
I'm getting kind of annoyed at how much time I spend reloading as a Chonky. Autocannons take forever to reload.
And then I get staggered by something and have to start over.
I think the only reasonable way to use autocannons is with some extra ammo, dmg bonus components so that you end up killing enough until you can grab an ammo pick up - which auto reloads your clip; worst case switch weapons, never reload those things
PSN SeGaTai
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I'm getting kind of annoyed at how much time I spend reloading as a Chonky. Autocannons take forever to reload.
And then I get staggered by something and have to start over.
Honky-Chonk should ideally be reloading autocannons by running over ammo pickups. The +35% magazine size component is quite helpful here.
Badonk-a-donk-chonk is a very ability focused Javelin, you mainly want to be spamming your Q and E and meleeing fools with the ground slam. It's part of why the Firewall+Railgun build is IMO weaker than Lightning+Flamethrower even at higher difficulties, if you're hanging back and trying to shoot at mooks your damage is much going to be much lower than if you're running at people AoE'ing. I think if you want to run a hang back artillery build you probably want a marksman rifle, not an autocannon.
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TTODewbackPuts the drawl in ya'llI think I'm in HellRegistered Userregular
Oh no, another NPC convo
Another difficult choice
Sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
*presses 2*
Bless your heart.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I'm getting kind of annoyed at how much time I spend reloading as a Chonky. Autocannons take forever to reload.
And then I get staggered by something and have to start over.
This is my life as an Interceptor with a Devastator.
*shoots, starts reload*
"Oh I should probably toss a venom nade."
*resets reload animation*
"While I'm at it, I should mark them too."
*resets reload animation*
"Oh, better evade that shot."
*resets reload animation*
I've started to just shoot, switch to a different weapon, and then find an ammo pickup for a free reload.
I'm really surprised by all the negativity around this game. Especially because almost all of it is about "extra stuff" like the "I want a big deep story but I hate talking to people in Ft. Tarsis" ummm....
I mean, I've read a couple reviews, and they're all big giant piles of complaints about PC bugs, and either too much, or too little story and worldbuilding, or gear complaints - like seriously? It's been 3 days, you don't even know what your optimized builds look like yet, much less have had a chance to actually get the best gear for it. And they've had a published list of when that "extra" content stuff is coming, out even before the game was. This isn't like Destiny where you've got to read between the lines of a snarky post from Deej and two cryptic reddit answers. There's a roadmap! With dates and everything!
The game is a lot of F-U-N fun to play. That's the biggest thing, and it's usually one sentence in a 4000 word review.
XBL: Morgan Coke Yes, there is a space, not an underscore. I'm old school like that.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Eh, reasonable expectations to me is that I don't spend $60 on a game hoping the system holds up so I can do content. I've had multiple instance-breaking bugs that flat-out wastes my time. Revive bug in a stronghold, tether bug in contracts, sound bug during the story, mission end bug ad nausea. Multiple disconnects (I'm on fiber). Not being able to use my abilities/shooting bugs on the storm javelin (fun little bug where your abilities can be stuck and not able to launch. you'll see a false positive and the firing of the gear never completes. I have to land/scope/shoot/re-hover to get it to go away). On top of everything else needing to be ironed out (that I expected would need to be ironed out), I at least expect to be able to function in the game world. Combine that with 3/4 loading screens before I really want to do anything: this game does not appreciate my time.
They'll get there. I like the combat, I like the aesthetics, I imagine I'll enjoy whatever gameplay loop they establish. It just isn't there yet, and in my opinion, a lot of the basic, "thanks for buying and playing our game" shit isn't even in order. "Engaging, efficient gameplay" to me isn't doing a chest route in the open world. I'll leave it at that.
I'm really surprised by all the negativity around this game. Especially because almost all of it is about "extra stuff" like the "I want a big deep story but I hate talking to people in Ft. Tarsis" ummm....
I mean, I've read a couple reviews, and they're all big giant piles of complaints about PC bugs, and either too much, or too little story and worldbuilding, or gear complaints - like seriously? It's been 3 days, you don't even know what your optimized builds look like yet, much less have had a chance to actually get the best gear for it. And they've had a published list of when that "extra" content stuff is coming, out even before the game was. This isn't like Destiny where you've got to read between the lines of a snarky post from Deej and two cryptic reddit answers. There's a roadmap! With dates and everything!
The game is a lot of F-U-N fun to play. That's the biggest thing, and it's usually one sentence in a 4000 word review.
To specifically talk about the bolded, I haven't finished the main story yet, but I like the setting. The cyphers and the "anthem of creation" are interesting. But so far the only character I actually like talking to is the space nun. I find Mattias and Owen pretty annoying. The conversation system is fine, but could be a little faster since I can read faster than the voice lines. You can skip through, but it's a little clunky.
But mostly the problem is that walking around in first person in the city sucks. You're slow and the turning makes me feel a little ill. For a game with such good movement while piloting a javelin, the city bits stand out as especially huge speed bumps. Basically everything about the city stuff I am finding obnoxious. Even the forge seems like it could be faster and easier to navigate.
I think I like the setting and want to hear more, but the ways they have given me to do that aren't fun.
I mean. . .I think the voice acting is exactly how they would be having the conversation. There is definitely a bit TOO much acting in some of the voice work though.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
I mean. . .I think the voice acting is exactly how they would be having the conversation. There is definitely a bit TOO much acting in some of the voice work though.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
Yeah the voice acting isn't bad or anything, I just think the UI for it is clunky.
What's actually the point of the launch bay? I've only been in it once when it put me there for a tutorial. It seems like I still need to leave and go talk to quest givers?
I mean. . .I think the voice acting is exactly how they would be having the conversation. There is definitely a bit TOO much acting in some of the voice work though.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
Yeah the voice acting isn't bad or anything, I just think the UI for it is clunky.
What's actually the point of the launch bay? I've only been in it once when it put me there for a tutorial. It seems like I still need to leave and go talk to quest givers?
The launch bay is more of an endgame area where you've exhausted most of the character-driven stuff and are largely into the contract/stronghold/freeplay loop. It's 10000x better than Tarsis once you're Over It from a story perspective.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Personally I'm of two minds why I haven't felt to strongly either way.
1. I feel when you play these "games as service" you kind of go in knowing there will be constant updates. So I think you kind of have to manage your expectations around that.
2. I kind of feel folks have "games as service" fatigue. Like I get it making a new game from scratch is hard in this day and age but I think people miss the days when something just worked out the gate and you didn't feel like you were still doing QA post-release.
I mean. . .I think the voice acting is exactly how they would be having the conversation. There is definitely a bit TOO much acting in some of the voice work though.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
Yeah the voice acting isn't bad or anything, I just think the UI for it is clunky.
What's actually the point of the launch bay? I've only been in it once when it put me there for a tutorial. It seems like I still need to leave and go talk to quest givers?
I think it's more of a lategame thing, or something that will be useful for guilds in Update 1 or 2. Right now I just use it because it feels quicker to load than Tarsis for rerunning Tyrant Mines or dumping shit off after a Freeplay. I do believe yes for the main story you need to go back to Tarsis and pick those up.
I mean. . .I think the voice acting is exactly how they would be having the conversation. There is definitely a bit TOO much acting in some of the voice work though.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
Yeah the voice acting isn't bad or anything, I just think the UI for it is clunky.
What's actually the point of the launch bay? I've only been in it once when it put me there for a tutorial. It seems like I still need to leave and go talk to quest givers?
I've been queuing up multiple faction quests and running them in a row from the bay. Then I only have to load into the city once.
It's honestly a little strange reading some of these posts. In the 33 hours or so I put in this weekend I've had: 1 crash to desktop, 1 kick from the game, 1 audio drop out. That's it, it has literally disrupted my gameplay all of 3 times which I can say is hands down the best launch experience I've ever had in an online game like this. Maybe I won the bug lottery here, and I'm sure people are getting afflicted with random issues because it happens, but dang. I mean I've had a handful of other smaller issues but they're things like the ult bar display issue when you spawn in, not really things that ruin the experience. Oh wait I had one time where the tethering was weird, it tethered everyone to the entrance of a spot and we couldn't actually move beyond that even if the marker was telling us to. It did clear itself up after ~15-20 seconds though.
So I guess like, if you're reading these posts about issues keep in mind that while there are issues it's not nearly as bad for most people. Which is probably why there's a large array of positive vs negative comments. Unfortunately, the nature of PC gaming means that there are going to be issues that affect some people more than others, and hopefully they work hard on clearing up those issues. Though based on these posts alone I wouldn't really blame anyone for waiting a few weeks post launch to make sure that they're fixing these issues.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I'm really surprised by all the negativity around this game. Especially because almost all of it is about "extra stuff" like the "I want a big deep story but I hate talking to people in Ft. Tarsis" ummm....
I mean, I've read a couple reviews, and they're all big giant piles of complaints about PC bugs, and either too much, or too little story and worldbuilding, or gear complaints - like seriously? It's been 3 days, you don't even know what your optimized builds look like yet, much less have had a chance to actually get the best gear for it. And they've had a published list of when that "extra" content stuff is coming, out even before the game was. This isn't like Destiny where you've got to read between the lines of a snarky post from Deej and two cryptic reddit answers. There's a roadmap! With dates and everything!
The game is a lot of F-U-N fun to play. That's the biggest thing, and it's usually one sentence in a 4000 word review.
To specifically talk about the bolded, I haven't finished the main story yet, but I like the setting. The cyphers and the "anthem of creation" are interesting. But so far the only character I actually like talking to is the space nun. I find Mattias and Owen pretty annoying. The conversation system is fine, but could be a little faster since I can read faster than the voice lines. You can skip through, but it's a little clunky.
But mostly the problem is that walking around in first person in the city sucks. You're slow and the turning makes me feel a little ill. For a game with such good movement while piloting a javelin, the city bits stand out as especially huge speed bumps. Basically everything about the city stuff I am finding obnoxious. Even the forge seems like it could be faster and easier to navigate.
I think I like the setting and want to hear more, but the ways they have given me to do that aren't fun.
Well...they said that a run option will be patched in on the 22nd.
Which again makes the 15th release window a very strange decision.
All I'll say is that I've been having a lot of fun this past weekend.
Having fun and game being mired with various issues aren't mutually exclusive.
Vanilla Diablo 3 was a great game. It built the engine that's still, bar none, the second best (I'd give Bastion best engine honors) overhead ARPG combat engine. Almost every other overhead game, no matter how fun, feels clunky by comparison. D3 is just that responsive. Claiming vanilla D3 didn't have issues even when many, many people dropped hundreds of hours in it would be ludicrous.
Reaper of Souls improved D3 a ton; it also launched with a ton of issues itself and anyone saying otherwise is being silly. People still poured hours by the hundreds into launch RoS.
While people expecting current RoS level polish, which took literal years to get to, in this third person diablo-like shooter are being silly there's plenty of issues from a basic design perspective that aren't. Like chest farming. People brought this up endlessly based on prior games; Anthem launches with it as an issue. Stun locking was a demo issue AND an issue in other games of theirs, like Dragon Age Multiplayer; stun locking is an issue at launch. Bugs are still present they've said they've fixed, and will likely be present come the 22nd as well. The list goes on, there's plenty of valid complaints.
I've had more fun with Anthem than a lot of games lately. I can't wait to see how it grows. But like with monster hunter before world blew up or during diablo lulls I'm expecting to be one of the ten people still skimming this thread months from now like I've been with plenty of other games on the forum. All that's fine because I love this combat engine. I can wait on fixes, better loot, more story, whatever else they add. None of that negates the issues Anthem currently has killing a lot of people's fun with the game nor should they hang around when there's so much else to play with your precious time if it's not instantly grabbing you.
This game is precisely the same as Diablo 3 when it was first released. It was entirely unfun and luck based, people wore magic find gear (in this game, it is +luck) to try and get the good stuff. There is a pretty limited set of what constitutes as good gear and good items, especially when considering the balance for the abilities is pretty slow.
For example as a Storm, there really isn't much motivation to use anything but Frost abilities (primer). At Grandmaster 1+ the CC is just far too useful and strong to ignore. There is a real mistake, imho, when they decided that some abilities just aren't a primer or a detonator. Are they supposed to do more damage? I don't know. Fireball hits for 9k for me with unlimited charges (basically) with a 1 second charge time. Glacial Spike hits for ~15-20k with a 6 second cooldown. Why would I use this lightning strike that does 2k and doesn't even prime or detonate? I just don't get it.
I'm 434 gearscore and now the game is fish for Masterwork/Legendaries. Just like Diablo 3 in the beginning you could get a Masterwork gun with +harvesting or you can get one with +200% damage. Can't reroll it, can't upgrade it. Just gotta try your luck again (you can craft them pretty easily though).
This game has all the warts of Diablo 3 right when it launched (including Inferno difficulty) in terms of gameplay. When you add on the constant loading screens, inability to change your loadout. Loading screens to just look at your inventory. All sorts of stats that literally do not tell you what they are or how they are used. +Physical? Is that guns? +Gear? +Effect?.
Its...a mess
The real shame is that the game can be really enjoyable at times. A perfect loadout with a well balanced group can really make the game feel different. The bugs will get ironed out but the bad gameplay decisions (c'mon man I thought everyone realized magic find should not be in games) are gonna be around a long time
Frost CC seems very strong in general and with the storms the best ones to apply it yes they are going to at least initially wind up focusing a lot on frost. I am guessing some cc changes happen because right now the ability to lock targets down for a non trivial amount of time as you shoot them to bits outweighs just about anything else you could do.
I'm really surprised by all the negativity around this game. Especially because almost all of it is about "extra stuff" like the "I want a big deep story but I hate talking to people in Ft. Tarsis" ummm....
I mean, I've read a couple reviews, and they're all big giant piles of complaints about PC bugs, and either too much, or too little story and worldbuilding, or gear complaints - like seriously? It's been 3 days, you don't even know what your optimized builds look like yet, much less have had a chance to actually get the best gear for it. And they've had a published list of when that "extra" content stuff is coming, out even before the game was. This isn't like Destiny where you've got to read between the lines of a snarky post from Deej and two cryptic reddit answers. There's a roadmap! With dates and everything!
The game is a lot of F-U-N fun to play. That's the biggest thing, and it's usually one sentence in a 4000 word review.
To specifically talk about the bolded, I haven't finished the main story yet, but I like the setting. The cyphers and the "anthem of creation" are interesting. But so far the only character I actually like talking to is the space nun. I find Mattias and Owen pretty annoying. The conversation system is fine, but could be a little faster since I can read faster than the voice lines. You can skip through, but it's a little clunky.
But mostly the problem is that walking around in first person in the city sucks. You're slow and the turning makes me feel a little ill. For a game with such good movement while piloting a javelin, the city bits stand out as especially huge speed bumps. Basically everything about the city stuff I am finding obnoxious. Even the forge seems like it could be faster and easier to navigate.
I think I like the setting and want to hear more, but the ways they have given me to do that aren't fun.
Well...they said that a run option will be patched in on the 22nd.
Which again makes the 15th release window a very strange decision.
Not Bioware's idea, EA does it for all of their games.
Frost CC seems very strong in general and with the storms the best ones to apply it yes they are going to at least initially wind up focusing a lot on frost. I am guessing some cc changes happen because right now the ability to lock targets down for a non trivial amount of time as you shoot them to bits outweighs just about anything else you could do.
. . .it also has an absurdly short cooldown. However, the fact that it can't go through shields means against certain enemy types you're not really effective.
I know people like the 'god combo' of lighting artillery plus flame thrower for tons of short range combos, But I think rail gun plus firewall is better as you climb difficulty. Firewall primes everything too- So You can melee to pop huge combos in groups or use railgun to pop from afar. And this combo gives you way more utility as you can use rail gun from across the map. It gives a really good damage dump with entire map distance range. Both are on pretty short timers. Plus if you prime with fire wall- you can immediately shield bash though them and run circles CCing all the enemies you knock down and you are now safe while priming everything vs flamethrower where you cannot shield and use at same time.
Yeah, I saw that combo on a stream and decided I need to try it. Sure, lightning coil detonates, but it's fairly short range so I might as well melee up close. Swapping it for a mortar gives me way more range.
Yup depends what you want but on that strong hold ramp the lightning coil is REALLY nice. It's actually pretty reasonable range especially for in the cave areas and it does a good job at stun juggling people as it twitches them and knocks them down which allows you and your teammates to rain fire/ice/gun fire upon your pretty helpless targets. It also lasts a long time on a full charge. I never got firewall in the demo but I could see that being very handy as well for similar thing punish stuff trying to force its way to you.
On more open areas though the mortars are really good you can shell turrets from hella long range and it smacks them around pretty hard.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Frost CC seems very strong in general and with the storms the best ones to apply it yes they are going to at least initially wind up focusing a lot on frost. I am guessing some cc changes happen because right now the ability to lock targets down for a non trivial amount of time as you shoot them to bits outweighs just about anything else you could do.
. . .it also has an absurdly short cooldown. However, the fact that it can't go through shields means against certain enemy types you're not really effective.
Yeah even in the demo the ability balance was all over.
Also I agree in a game where primers/detonators are big deal they are gonna have to do a lot to make the combo neutral abilities seem worth it.
The flight is amazing and the open world looks gorgeous.
The combat is fun, but it's lacking the special something that would make it F-U-N fun. I don't know what it is. A lack of "meatiness"? A lack of "oomph"? Bioware can do great combat -- I put hundreds of hours into ME3's multiplayer -- but it's not compelling here.
The world, characters and story do nothing for me so far.
The UI is atrocious. I've encountered plenty of bugs.
Even with those problems I was still having decent fun going through the story. But the "Tomb of the Legionnaires" busywork quest completely killed any desire to play anymore of this.
I hope people find something to love in Anthem, I hope it's successful, and I hope BioWare has plenty of opportunity to build and improve on the game. But after going through Destiny rebooting itself multiple times, I don't want to make the same journey with Anthem. I'll wait and hope that it becomes the amazing experience it could be.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
The flight is amazing and the open world looks gorgeous.
The combat is fun, but it's lacking the special something that would make it F-U-N fun. I don't know what it is. A lack of "meatiness"? A lack of "oomph"? Bioware can do great combat -- I put hundreds of hours into ME3's multiplayer -- but it's not compelling here.
The world, characters and story do nothing for me so far.
The UI is atrocious. I've encountered plenty of bugs.
Even with those problems I was still having decent fun going through the story. But the "Tomb of the Legionnaires" busywork quest completely killed any desire to play anymore of this.
I hope people find something to love in Anthem, I hope it's successful, and I hope BioWare has plenty of opportunity to build and improve on the game. But after going through Destiny rebooting itself multiple times, I don't want to make the same journey with Anthem. I'll wait and hope that it becomes the amazing experience it could be.
i definitely am not looking for another destiny, especially anything like the current incarnation which to me is just absolute garbage
shooting mans was fun during the demo, so i'm willing to give it a shot, but if it weren't a free copy i most likely wouldn't be paying otherwise to find out. it is seeming too much like it is trying to be another "do nothing compelling for hours on end" type of game and i just don't have any interest in that kind of a game anymore
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I think it's reasonable to provide criticism, but we're also less than 72 hours since launch, so having 'endgame problems' seems like it comes with the territory? Obviously there were going to be people who nearly killed themselves getting to the level cap asap, but I don't think it's worthy of some of the ire I've seen (not here, elsewhere in general) to not have every system perfected right out the gate within days. I'm pretty sure there's a patch coming next week for PC/XBone (PS4 just start at that point, if I'm not mistaken), and we have the roadmap where we know improvements are coming.
I mean, there's part of me that has seen in this very thread the 'there's only 3 strongholds' complaint, and, well, kind of rolls my eyes. Yeah, 3 now, and a 4th coming in March. And that same part suspects there could be 7 with an 8th on the way and they'd still get the same shit. There is no upper bound, for some folks (again, not here, in general) which makes sussing out sincere and thoughtful critique a little harder to distinguish from the same shit.
Like, I get that Legendary contract tether must have been super frustrating, and I empathize with that. It's also day -4 from my PS4 player perspective. We should hold companies to a high standard if they want our money, but we also need to be able to step back and say 'okay, this is a start, let's see where it goes in time'. No team has infinite money, time, or talent. Epic Games is making literally billions and Fortnite Save the World (the PVE campaign) is, from what I'm hearing, outright unplayable on Xbone. Like, the entire platform. And that's been in development for something over half a decade, and been live for around 1.5 years.
Maybe I'm giving too much benefit of the doubt, but if nothing else, I'm guessing the Bioware team really wishes they didn't have the game go live this weekend. If the 22nd fixes and improves even a fraction of things, it really does seem like this early week on the most variable platform (PC) is a lot to handle. Maybe they really do need another quarter or two, but with a Game as a Service, there will forever be 'just one more fix, one more upgrade', that's kind of the idea. It has to go out to users at some point.
And I agree that we have to set reasonable expectations. We can't compare any game's launch to another game's 2 or 5 or 10 year anniversary. Those expectations should be managed by players and the developers alike, and simple stuff like giving us a roadmap helps me personally have some faith in the direction they intend to go, even if it takes weeks or months to materialize.
Again, this isn't a direct refutation of what you've said, or really directed at anyone in particular, more a general musing on the nature of releasing something this expansive in this day and age. Maybe once I get my hands on it on Friday, I'll hit some game breaking shit and be venting my spleen in here too, but I'll be striving to take a breath and realize they are likely just getting hammered. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no game release goes unscathed when millions of players start taking it apart.
I run venom bomb and detonating strike. It makes me a goddamn combo machine. I do have some issues taking down shielded flying enemies, but once I get cryo glaive I'll be more balanced. I suppose it's not necessary to run two primers but it's certainly a lot of fun.
The parts that frustrate me are just extra frustrating because it feels like they made most of a game and then someone decided to release it a year before it was ready. I'm constantly wondering if anyone tested this game. It's like they were working towards a beta and someone crossed out BETA on the whiteboard a month ago and wrote RELEASE. There are already people who have an optimized chest looting route so they can max out gear. It's like the loot cave and chest runs in Destiny didn't teach anyone anything OR they never finished making their game and had to let it go into the wild with obvious issues. I generally like Bioware and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I do think a lot of the issues are specific to people playing on PC.
Edit: Still constantly crash/drop when ending missions so you end out in a loop where you get no reward or credit for the mission unless you can load into another area and then hopefully travel back to Tarsis and get your reward/complete screen.... and hope it counts. Untested game is untested.
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wra
Bug riddled mess is pretty strong hyperbole, at least on console. I'm almost done with my trial on Xbox and I'm hard-pressed to think of any that I ran into that stand out. I guess the first time I unlocked the launch bay I couldn't get back into Tarsis and had to restart but that's about it.
"...only mights and maybes."
Seems to me they spent all their creativity juice on the setting and barely had anything left over for the story.
Did you ever get the Tyrant Mine glitch that spawned you in between two locked doors? I would say that is the only MAJOR bug I've seen; a minor one is it seems the game will overwrite any legendary you have with a lower quality one? It happened with the Legendary Marksman I seemed to have randomly (I'm guessing from the LoD pre-order) and the Ranger's Pulse Beam.
Same. Even the Tomb Quest wasn't a pain as it actually forced me to get out there and actually learn about Bastion and there's quite a bit of fun stuff to find out there (I took on a Luminary and was like. . ."Why the hell is this thing just randomly out here." Almost died several times and boy would that have been a pain hoping someone would come and rez me). There is a ton of work that needs to be done, but hell other than not having as many "Strikes" at launch as Destiny or the weapon variety of the same, I think the experience for me tracks pretty similar. Honestly I feel like this is Diablo 3. . .just without a much needed statistics page (I really can't believe this wasn't a development priority).
Origin: theRealElMucho
And then I get staggered by something and have to start over.
That's good to hear. I know from the demo I liked Matthias.
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
I haven't unlocked the mine yet and I pre-ordered the standard version so I don't get my goodies until launch, which is irritating because I'm sure I'll have out leveled the gun by then.
I think the only reasonable way to use autocannons is with some extra ammo, dmg bonus components so that you end up killing enough until you can grab an ammo pick up - which auto reloads your clip; worst case switch weapons, never reload those things
Honky-Chonk should ideally be reloading autocannons by running over ammo pickups. The +35% magazine size component is quite helpful here.
Badonk-a-donk-chonk is a very ability focused Javelin, you mainly want to be spamming your Q and E and meleeing fools with the ground slam. It's part of why the Firewall+Railgun build is IMO weaker than Lightning+Flamethrower even at higher difficulties, if you're hanging back and trying to shoot at mooks your damage is much going to be much lower than if you're running at people AoE'ing. I think if you want to run a hang back artillery build you probably want a marksman rifle, not an autocannon.
Another difficult choice
Sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
*presses 2*
This is my life as an Interceptor with a Devastator.
*shoots, starts reload*
"Oh I should probably toss a venom nade."
*resets reload animation*
"While I'm at it, I should mark them too."
*resets reload animation*
"Oh, better evade that shot."
*resets reload animation*
I've started to just shoot, switch to a different weapon, and then find an ammo pickup for a free reload.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I mean, I've read a couple reviews, and they're all big giant piles of complaints about PC bugs, and either too much, or too little story and worldbuilding, or gear complaints - like seriously? It's been 3 days, you don't even know what your optimized builds look like yet, much less have had a chance to actually get the best gear for it. And they've had a published list of when that "extra" content stuff is coming, out even before the game was. This isn't like Destiny where you've got to read between the lines of a snarky post from Deej and two cryptic reddit answers. There's a roadmap! With dates and everything!
The game is a lot of F-U-N fun to play. That's the biggest thing, and it's usually one sentence in a 4000 word review.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
They'll get there. I like the combat, I like the aesthetics, I imagine I'll enjoy whatever gameplay loop they establish. It just isn't there yet, and in my opinion, a lot of the basic, "thanks for buying and playing our game" shit isn't even in order. "Engaging, efficient gameplay" to me isn't doing a chest route in the open world. I'll leave it at that.
To specifically talk about the bolded, I haven't finished the main story yet, but I like the setting. The cyphers and the "anthem of creation" are interesting. But so far the only character I actually like talking to is the space nun. I find Mattias and Owen pretty annoying. The conversation system is fine, but could be a little faster since I can read faster than the voice lines. You can skip through, but it's a little clunky.
But mostly the problem is that walking around in first person in the city sucks. You're slow and the turning makes me feel a little ill. For a game with such good movement while piloting a javelin, the city bits stand out as especially huge speed bumps. Basically everything about the city stuff I am finding obnoxious. Even the forge seems like it could be faster and easier to navigate.
I think I like the setting and want to hear more, but the ways they have given me to do that aren't fun.
As for the city, the launch bay alleviates a bit of that though I do wish I had my own private launch bay.
Yeah the voice acting isn't bad or anything, I just think the UI for it is clunky.
What's actually the point of the launch bay? I've only been in it once when it put me there for a tutorial. It seems like I still need to leave and go talk to quest givers?
The launch bay is more of an endgame area where you've exhausted most of the character-driven stuff and are largely into the contract/stronghold/freeplay loop. It's 10000x better than Tarsis once you're Over It from a story perspective.
1. I feel when you play these "games as service" you kind of go in knowing there will be constant updates. So I think you kind of have to manage your expectations around that.
2. I kind of feel folks have "games as service" fatigue. Like I get it making a new game from scratch is hard in this day and age but I think people miss the days when something just worked out the gate and you didn't feel like you were still doing QA post-release.
I think it's more of a lategame thing, or something that will be useful for guilds in Update 1 or 2. Right now I just use it because it feels quicker to load than Tarsis for rerunning Tyrant Mines or dumping shit off after a Freeplay. I do believe yes for the main story you need to go back to Tarsis and pick those up.
I've been queuing up multiple faction quests and running them in a row from the bay. Then I only have to load into the city once.
So I guess like, if you're reading these posts about issues keep in mind that while there are issues it's not nearly as bad for most people. Which is probably why there's a large array of positive vs negative comments. Unfortunately, the nature of PC gaming means that there are going to be issues that affect some people more than others, and hopefully they work hard on clearing up those issues. Though based on these posts alone I wouldn't really blame anyone for waiting a few weeks post launch to make sure that they're fixing these issues.
Well...they said that a run option will be patched in on the 22nd.
Which again makes the 15th release window a very strange decision.
Vanilla Diablo 3 was a great game. It built the engine that's still, bar none, the second best (I'd give Bastion best engine honors) overhead ARPG combat engine. Almost every other overhead game, no matter how fun, feels clunky by comparison. D3 is just that responsive. Claiming vanilla D3 didn't have issues even when many, many people dropped hundreds of hours in it would be ludicrous.
Reaper of Souls improved D3 a ton; it also launched with a ton of issues itself and anyone saying otherwise is being silly. People still poured hours by the hundreds into launch RoS.
While people expecting current RoS level polish, which took literal years to get to, in this third person diablo-like shooter are being silly there's plenty of issues from a basic design perspective that aren't. Like chest farming. People brought this up endlessly based on prior games; Anthem launches with it as an issue. Stun locking was a demo issue AND an issue in other games of theirs, like Dragon Age Multiplayer; stun locking is an issue at launch. Bugs are still present they've said they've fixed, and will likely be present come the 22nd as well. The list goes on, there's plenty of valid complaints.
I've had more fun with Anthem than a lot of games lately. I can't wait to see how it grows. But like with monster hunter before world blew up or during diablo lulls I'm expecting to be one of the ten people still skimming this thread months from now like I've been with plenty of other games on the forum. All that's fine because I love this combat engine. I can wait on fixes, better loot, more story, whatever else they add. None of that negates the issues Anthem currently has killing a lot of people's fun with the game nor should they hang around when there's so much else to play with your precious time if it's not instantly grabbing you.
Frost CC seems very strong in general and with the storms the best ones to apply it yes they are going to at least initially wind up focusing a lot on frost. I am guessing some cc changes happen because right now the ability to lock targets down for a non trivial amount of time as you shoot them to bits outweighs just about anything else you could do.
Not Bioware's idea, EA does it for all of their games.
. . .it also has an absurdly short cooldown. However, the fact that it can't go through shields means against certain enemy types you're not really effective.
Yup depends what you want but on that strong hold ramp the lightning coil is REALLY nice. It's actually pretty reasonable range especially for in the cave areas and it does a good job at stun juggling people as it twitches them and knocks them down which allows you and your teammates to rain fire/ice/gun fire upon your pretty helpless targets. It also lasts a long time on a full charge. I never got firewall in the demo but I could see that being very handy as well for similar thing punish stuff trying to force its way to you.
On more open areas though the mortars are really good you can shell turrets from hella long range and it smacks them around pretty hard.
Yeah even in the demo the ability balance was all over.
Also I agree in a game where primers/detonators are big deal they are gonna have to do a lot to make the combo neutral abilities seem worth it.
The combat is fun, but it's lacking the special something that would make it F-U-N fun. I don't know what it is. A lack of "meatiness"? A lack of "oomph"? Bioware can do great combat -- I put hundreds of hours into ME3's multiplayer -- but it's not compelling here.
The world, characters and story do nothing for me so far.
The UI is atrocious. I've encountered plenty of bugs.
Even with those problems I was still having decent fun going through the story. But the "Tomb of the Legionnaires" busywork quest completely killed any desire to play anymore of this.
I hope people find something to love in Anthem, I hope it's successful, and I hope BioWare has plenty of opportunity to build and improve on the game. But after going through Destiny rebooting itself multiple times, I don't want to make the same journey with Anthem. I'll wait and hope that it becomes the amazing experience it could be.
i definitely am not looking for another destiny, especially anything like the current incarnation which to me is just absolute garbage
shooting mans was fun during the demo, so i'm willing to give it a shot, but if it weren't a free copy i most likely wouldn't be paying otherwise to find out. it is seeming too much like it is trying to be another "do nothing compelling for hours on end" type of game and i just don't have any interest in that kind of a game anymore
but we'll see!