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So Ive quickly begun having more fun in the game as I soldiered through the early stages. So far the weirdest issue was being stuck in the Public Area at the Fortress, where I leave the Public Area through the door.

has anyone else noticed these buggs/annoying things:

-now and then there is no checkpoint in contracts, meaning no way to complete the contract.
-stuck in a limbo in temple of scar, aka blocked off by a purple wall and without the auto transport to next zone timer appearing. has happend to me more then half of the times i have done the instance, yet never in tyrant mine.
-very limited mastercrafts drop pool. managed to get into GM1 before the weekend and i have prolly recived about 25-30 of them. 11 are unique spread over 2 different suit,. the rest are duplicates..............
heck, in my last stronghold run i got 2 masters and 1 legend, all 3 was the same item, and i had allready recived 3 masters of that same item during the weekend...................

I had the contract issue, but decided to wait and it turned out to just be really lagged. 2 people gave up and left but me and the other guy that stuck around made it to the end. Also, trying to do GM1 quickplay missions is messed up for me almost every time, it's like a contact group but there's no contract to do. Like free play but without any missions or random mobs.

I got locked out of a dungeon once, got stuck behind the wall and couldn't teleport. Usually works fine for me though

And yeah I get so many duplicates. And I was playing my colossus yesterday and got a legendary for a ranger. I always thought you were supposed to only get stuff for what you're playing. I've had bad luck with legendaries though, I got 2 so far, and I feel like i've been playing GM1 or 2 a LOT. Maybe I need gear with luck bonuses on it.

 Necros wrote:
And I was playing my colossus yesterday and got a legendary for a ranger. I always thought you were supposed to only get stuff for what you're playing.

went into one of the caves in freeplay with the interceptor, left with 2 mastercrafts for the storm.......

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/azktpq/protest_to_revert_loot_drop_changes_bring_back/

Looks like Reddit is up in arms over this. Oh reddit.....

That just reminds me of all the people who said "Boycott" CoD MW2" after they heard it wouldn't have dedicated servers. They formed a steam group and everything.

They were all playing MW2.

 LordofHats wrote:
That just reminds me of all the people who said "Boycott" CoD MW2" after they heard it wouldn't have dedicated servers. They formed a steam group and everything.

They were all playing MW2.

The Division had similar boycotts if I remember right. I don't think they ever amounted to much.....

Right after I hit 30, I ran a few contracts on GM1 difficulty. I got nothing better than purple drops.

Then I switched over to my colossus, and dropped the difficulty (since I hadn't played it for a while, and the gear wasn't good enough for GM) back down to Normal. I got a Masterwork Grenade Launcher.

^^;;

Eumerin wrote:
Right after I hit 30, I ran a few contracts on GM1 difficulty. I got nothing better than purple drops.

Then I switched over to my colossus, and dropped the difficulty (since I hadn't played it for a while, and the gear wasn't good enough for GM) back down to Normal. I got a Masterwork Grenade Launcher.

^^;;

ye there is a very small chanse for masterworks from lv25 on easy and hard.
at GM1 the only reliable places to get mastercrafts is strongholds. you get 0-2 per completed run(in moust runs you get just 1, now and then you get a 0 mc run), but the RNG on their drops is up the wazhooo.
contracts is just to test builds, rep farm or get purples if you have just hit 30. i guess you get 1 MC in every 3-6 contracts, the droprate is in anycase low in contracts.

The purple contracts always give 1 MW at the end. So I usually do all 3 of them, and come away with like 5 total

 Necros wrote:
The purple contracts always give 1 MW at the end. So I usually do all 3 of them, and come away with like 5 total

Uh...

I've never gotten a masterwork from a purple contract. The only thing that seems to differentiate the purple contracts and normal contracts is that you're guaranteed at least one legendary enemy in a purple contract. A regular contract doesn't always have one.

Eumerin wrote:

 Necros wrote:
The purple contracts always give 1 MW at the end. So I usually do all 3 of them, and come away with like 5 total

Uh...

I've never gotten a masterwork from a purple contract. The only thing that seems to differentiate the purple contracts and normal contracts is that you're guaranteed at least one legendary enemy in a purple contract. A regular contract doesn't always have one.

i have done so far 6-8 purple contracts, i have only recived 2 legendary items, and they dident even come from the contracts, they came from strongholds.
and purple contract does not allways give 1 masterwork, they have just a little better drop chanse then normal contracts.

all in all, finding masterworks is a very big boring grind of strongholds, only to get more mw duplicates then you get brand new ones.

Bioware really need to watch this GDC talk:

Eumerin wrote:

 Necros wrote:
The purple contracts always give 1 MW at the end. So I usually do all 3 of them, and come away with like 5 total

Uh...

I've never gotten a masterwork from a purple contract. The only thing that seems to differentiate the purple contracts and normal contracts is that you're guaranteed at least one legendary enemy in a purple contract. A regular contract doesn't always have one.

Are you doing them on Grandmaster 1? Because what Necros is saying only applies there.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Bioware really need to watch this GDC talk:

And really, a link to a GDC highlighting WoW on the front. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Bioware really need to watch this GDC talk:

And really, a link to a GDC highlighting WoW on the front. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

Yes, because someone who worked on the loot and rewards systems in the largest MMORPG in the world, as well as the Reaper of Souls expansion for Diablo 3 which the playerbase loved for its changes to the loot system, talking about the mistakes made and fixes implemented would be no use at all to the team trying to find that balance of player rewards in their own game.

 Kanluwen wrote:

And really, a link to a GDC highlighting WoW on the front. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

If you bothered to even watch the video for even three minutes, WoW's development is often highlighted by the speaker for mistakes he and others made as developers. The only part of WoW he speaks well of is Legion, which he didn't even work on, and was easily the most well received piece of WoW content since Wrath. You've been a bit of a boi for awhile now, but now you're just being ridiculous.

It's an hour long video, but it's actually pretty good stuff from someone who has clearly gone through his career introspectively and has a lot of useful lessons learned. Watching it I can see some of the lines that caused me to quit Destiny 2, why the Division died within 3 months, and how Diablo has managed to maintain such a strong community for so long. Some of these are also relevant to criticisms that have already come up in Anthem. The devs might benefit from listening to the man and thinking about what he says that could work for them.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

And really, a link to a GDC highlighting WoW on the front. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

If you bothered to even watch the video for even three minutes, WoW's development is often highlighted by the speaker for mistakes he and others made as developers. The only part of WoW he speaks well of is Legion, which he didn't even work on, and was easily the most well received piece of WoW content since Wrath. You've been a bit of a boi for awhile now, but now you're just being ridiculous.

Gee, it's almost like there's been nonstop swooping and pooping from people on a game that just came out with completely irrelevant garbage. Excuse me for not wasting an hour of my life listening to an ex-Blizzard employee talk about how a bunch of games he worked on sucked and then got better.

It's an hour long video, but it's actually pretty good stuff from someone who has clearly gone through his career introspectively and has a lot of useful lessons learned. Watching it I can see some of the lines that caused me to quit Destiny 2, why the Division died within 3 months, and how Diablo has managed to maintain such a strong community for so long. Some of these are also relevant to criticisms that have already come up in Anthem. The devs might benefit from listening to the man and thinking about what he says that could work for them.

Players would also benefit from actually paying attention to the devs and chilling the hell out as well.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Gee, it's almost like there's been nonstop swooping and pooping from people on a game that just came out with completely irrelevant garbage.

The trends that come up in that video relevant to almost any game with a loot system. I find it useful, giving some terms and shape to feelings I've had in a number of games I've enjoyed and others I enjoyed but lost enthusiasm for.

And if you don't want to spend an hour watching it, that's fine. It's a freaking hour long video. I wouldn't blame you.

I will however point out that it's really silly to not watch video, have no idea what the speaker even says in it, and then wave your banner denouncing it in ways that make it really obvious you haven't watched the video and have no idea what the speaker even says in it. Don't watch it fine, but there's a huge irony here with you bashing something with no idea know whats in it after jumping down the throat ("swooping and pooping" as you term it) of anyone whose opinion doesn't line up with your apparent sense of enthusiasm for products that haven't come out or have and are really early in their lives.

Grow up.

Players would also benefit from actually paying attention to the devs and chilling the hell out as well.

People payed attention to the Devs back in MEA. You know, when the game was shut down for not being an immediate success rather than soldiering through failure (not uncommon, but a few notable games sucked before their makers soldiered through failure and ended up being quite good).

 LordofHats wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Gee, it's almost like there's been nonstop swooping and pooping from people on a game that just came out with completely irrelevant garbage.

The trends that come up in that video relevant to almost any game with a loot system. I find it useful, giving some terms and shape to feelings I've had in a number of games I've enjoyed and others I enjoyed but lost enthusiasm for.

And if you don't want to spend an hour watching it, that's fine. It's a freaking hour long video. I wouldn't blame you.

I will however point out that it's really silly to not watch video, have no idea what the speaker even says in it, and then wave your banner denouncing it in ways that make it really obvious you haven't watched the video and have no idea what the speaker even says in it. Don't watch it fine, but there's a huge irony here with you bashing something with no idea know whats in it after jumping down the throat ("swooping and pooping" as you term it) of anyone whose opinion doesn't line up with your apparent sense of enthusiasm for products that haven't come out or have and are really early in their lives.

Grow up.

Sure, I should have watched it. But by that same vein, one might remember that Diablo required a whole separate game purchase for RoS and at its launch? It STILL HAD THE SAME PROBLEMS WITH LOOT AS THE BASE GAME. It wasn't until they started doing the Seasons that things really started turning around for them, and that was years on.

Anyways, you're trying to bash me for not finding relevance in the experiences of someone who worked at a company that has had virtually no competition in one market(MMORPG) for quite some time to the point where their "failed projects" still have a bank to fall back on.

Players would also benefit from actually paying attention to the devs and chilling the hell out as well.

People payed attention to the Devs back in MEA. You know, when the game was shut down for not being an immediate success rather than soldiering through failure (not uncommon, but a few notable games sucked before their makers soldiered through failure and ended up being quite good).

No actually, people didn't pay attention to those devs. If they had--they would have ignored the nonsensical whining from the Early Access PC players and the constant memes over weird graphical glitches that were fixed within days of the game's launch.

Thank you Hats.

A particularly relevant part, which ties into the reddit complaints with regards to loot drop rates, is at the around 40 minute mark.

Here, the developers felt that the level of loot drops for higher tier loot was what they were aiming for. Then the metrics showed that only the hardcore players were really reaching that, so they decided to increase the drop rates. Then they doubled that drop rate for the anniversary event, initially only meaning for it to be temporary. However they then realised that it would be terrible to take this away from the players, who felt that this drop rate was great, so they kept this increased drop rate which was around 4 times higher than what their maths had initially suggested would be a good drop rate. Later this drop rate could increase to up to 15 times that initial drop rate aim.

Basically, these kinds of games need to feel good for the players. It doesn't matter if the developer maths says that the current drop rates are fine if they don't feel fine to the players. It doesn't matter how perfect your maths is if the end result is frustrated players.

He summarises it thus:

No design is perfect, we will always have problems to solve. It's better to solve the problem of players having everything they want than trying to solve the problems caused by players being frustrated with stingy reward systems.

And if you were paying attention to the devs, they've already said that they're not happy with the loot drop rates when scaled versus difficulty.

It's why they have opened up Hard and Normal MW "loot drops"(which were supposed to be limited to just weapons at the outset) to also include MW Components for Javelins as well, since they currently feel that Grandmaster 2+ isn't worth the effort vs drop rates.

It's why they also adjusted the scale on gearscores for items as they weren't dropping correctly.

 Kanluwen wrote:

No actually, people didn't pay attention to those devs. If they had--they would have ignored the nonsensical whining from the Early Access PC players and the constant memes over weird graphical glitches that were fixed within days of the game's launch.

They never fixed the main issue I had with the game, its writing.

"My face is tired"
Flirting option with Peebee: "What does someone have to do to get you to flirt with them?"
Upon first meeting the Angara there is no option to ask how they know your language or a language which can be translated in real time by the translation software available. This was completely nonsensical for a game about exploring a new galaxy and first contact situations.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Sure, I should have watched it. But by that same vein, one might remember that Diablo required a whole separate game purchase for RoS and at its launch? It STILL HAD THE SAME PROBLEMS WITH LOOT AS THE BASE GAME. It wasn't until they started doing the Seasons that things really started turning around for them, and that was years on.

He covers that. He literally gives a play by play of development progression, talking about the thought processes that led them to various design decisions, what about those decisions was bad, what about those processes was flawed, and what parts he thought worked and could be refined further.

There's also a really humorous QA bit at the end where he's talking about his "difference of opinion" with the guys design Battle for Azaroth where there's an obvious between the lines comment that the people designing BfA learned nothing from previous development in WoW and he's slying telling them to stop XD Well I found it humorous.

Anyways, you're trying to bash me

Criticism != bashing.

for not finding relevance in the experiences of someone who worked at a company that has had virtually no competition in one market(MMORPG)

He's part of the team that brought Diablo III back from the brink of death, the franchise that put "looters" on the map, and you don't see how it might be relevant to a looter game?

If they had--they would have ignored the nonsensical whining from the Early Access PC players and the constant memes over weird graphical glitches that were fixed within days of the game's launch.

A moot point, given the publisher dumped the game in a hot minute and its life was so short it's failure and unpolished state at release is all that will ever be remembered of it.

Know what other game released in a horrendously unpolished state, filled with glitches, and soldiered through to massive success in spite of it? World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, EA now has the reputation for folding when the launch money dries up, and players aren't just going to forget that because of a nice inforgraphic when the game in front of them has problems.

 LordofHats wrote:

If they had--they would have ignored the nonsensical whining from the Early Access PC players and the constant memes over weird graphical glitches that were fixed within days of the game's launch.

A moot point, given the publisher dumped the game in a hot minute and its life was so short it's failure and unpolished state at release is all that will ever be remembered of it.

Because people did nothing but spread the negative crap, amplifying that nonsense to the point where everything else was ignored.

Know what other game released in a horrendously unpolished state, filled with glitches, and soldiered through to massive success in spite of it? World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, EA now has the reputation for folding when the launch money dries up, and players aren't just going to forget that because of a nice inforgraphic when the game in front of them has problems.

Money where your mouth is in the future then: don't buy the game at launch.

Additionally, it boggles the mind that we're in 20fricking19 and people still don't understand that games like Anthem will have multiple teams working on them. The people working on the problems you're having now? They're not the ones who are working on the forthcoming content drops.
It really does feel like MEA all over again. You lot couldn't separate the MP side of things from the SP side, whining about new characters dropping for MP as though it was taking away from the SP side of things.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Because people did nothing but spread the negative crap, amplifying that nonsense to the point where everything else was ignored.

So said every failed "genius" angry that the world didn't understand their hidden brilliance.

The game was crap. It died.

Money where your mouth is in the future then: don't buy the game at launch.

I've bought few games at launch in the past few years. The ones I did buy I've generally been pleased with. Some of them got better (Grim Dawn you amazing knock off you). Even if they gradually broke down later on and I stopped playing, I've usually gotten my money's worth so w/e. Certainly I've already stated my position on EA games, and EA can blame themselves for that. Have crappy customer service and customers are going to crap on you.

Additionally, it boggles the mind that we're in 20fricking19 and people still don't understand that games like Anthem will have multiple teams working on them.

I don't know why you think people wouldn't understand this.

On the topic actually, this is something a lot of live service games I think suffer from, because the development team often seems to leave the service team with all the buck and none of the meat. Destiny 2's first few months literally played out like there were no notes, no communication, and no coordination between the dev team and the live team. The first few patches literally read like the people maintaining the game were trying to figure out what they were working with. Anthem's actually playing out in a similar way in some areas, like the back and forth on how loot rewards are being rewarded.

The people working on the problems you're having now? They're not the ones who are working on the forthcoming content drops.

I doubt the player cares who fixes the problem. They just want it fixed. I'm not sure what your point is.

It really does feel like MEA all over again.

Given that the game can be humorously described as "Mass Effect Jet Pack Boogaloo" I'm not sure that would be unexpected.

I think the similarities end at the aesthetic level though. MEA was an entry in a story driven franchise with a mediocre story, bad writing, and glitches so numerous and egregious it boggled the mind coming out of a AAA developer. Anthem to its credit doesn't have that problem. Anthem has more typical problems of the looter shooter genre and while I think it's worth pointing out that they could have looked at Destiny and The Division to see where the pitfalls were and either 1) didn't, or 2) didn't have time to address them, I doubt that'll make or break the game.

I suspect Anthem will make or break with it's first few content drops, and how that content shakes up the game dynamic. Hopefully they don't delay much needed changes (Looking at you D2), and hopefully they realize that just dropping a few new levels will not be enough to keep the game alive.

I really don't see how this can "feel like MEA".

Bad loot drops aren't the same as the horrific and bizarre bugs that went on in MEA...

I played MEA on release and tried, TRIED to soldier on to completion. I still haven't beaten it, though maybe someday I'll go back and finish. It was so horrifically buggy on the PC release that it was not uncommon to come across bugs that made the game unwinnable, forcing you to regress through saves and autosaves to find out where the bug happened.

can some1 give me a purple build for the ranger that works please.
i cannot understand the ranger, to me it is more fragile then interceptor with more or less zero skill dmg no matter what combo i try.
when i did hard, yes the dmg was very high when i was blue, but when i passed 425 and do GM1, there is no dmg and i am 2 shot at anythign that looks at me.

 Melissia wrote:
I really don't see how this can "feel like MEA".

Bad sloot drops aren't the same as the horrific and bizarre bugs that went on in MEA...

I played MEA on release and tried, TRIED to soldier on to completion. I still haven't beaten it, though maybe someday I'll go back and finish. It was so horrifically buggy on the PC release that it was not uncommon to come across bugs that made the game unwinnable, forcing you to regress through saves and autosaves to find out where the bug happened.

Because the combat is exactly the same, plus flying. Run and gun with shields and a small set of slottable 'powers.' The bullet physics are the same, the weapon types are largely equivalent (less stat/performance variety and fewer skins in anthem, amusingly enough) and the character models/skeletons are largely identical and interact with the environment in the same way, down to the stutter-step movement.
None of which is surprising, since anthem is an iteration of the same engine.

-----
and I'll be honest, I played the PC version of ME:A from beginning to end, and my experience was nothing like what you describe. I had almost no bugs, certainly nothing that made things unwinnable (a few mid aid spawns for enemies and very mild facial animation quirks). I don't even recognize the game you're bashing from your complaints about it. Andromeda got stomped because of facial glitches and being a spin off, not for gameplay bugs.

Voss wrote:
Because the combat is exactly the same [snipped for size]

So... your objection to it is "it's a shooter game!" basically? Maybe you should look outside of the FPS or 3PS genres for games then?

 Melissia wrote:

Voss wrote:
Because the combat is exactly the same [snipped for size]

So... your objection to it is "it's a shooter game!" basically? Maybe you should look outside of the FPS or 3PS genres for games then?

No.
I am not objecting to it with that description (I'd actually say 'its like MEA' is the most positive feature of anthem)


I'm answering -your question- about why people are describing it like MEA.
The answer is: Because it plays like MEA, being the same combat system and an iteration of the same engine.