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Just preordered. Loved the demo.

I tried to like Destiny 2, but:
-The writing is painful
-It's too cartoony
-Classes barely vary
-Abilities beyond guns are impactful, but on long cooldowns - so it's just gunplay
-The "world" is very, very small

I know Anthem is getting meh reviews, but it looks like the loot-shooter for me. Solid atmosphere, non-cartoony, classes that actually differ, and abilities beyond gunplay each are awesome.

Also, unlike Destiny, the world - and what we know of the story - actually makes sense. Not a hard SciFi, and certainly nowhere the quality of ME/DA. But good.

The fact that it looks beautiful, and the flying feeling is amazing, are just icing on the cake.

Also, doesn't hurt that I don't need to shell out $60 every couple months just to "keep up".

It's odd, that BioWare's most recent game has masterwork combat, and it's other systems are getting ragged on; when BioWare deserved it's legendary status, it's combat/gameplay was passable, but everything else was flawless.

Can't wait for the 22nd!

I read an article on the planned Day 1 patch, and they are planning to try to fix some of the things you guys have mentioned here: the lengthy loading screens, some loot bugs, and some other stuff.

How many people does it take to play this? Can you do 2 player groups viably?

 Ouze wrote:
I read an article on the planned Day 1 patch, and they are planning to try to fix some of the things you guys have mentioned here: the lengthy loading screens, some loot bugs, and some other stuff.

How many people does it take to play this? Can you do 2 player groups viably?

The story missions that were in the demo and the short quests in the free roaming mode were possible solo or in 2 player groups. The strongholds didn't have an option to play privately so if you are a squad with less than 4 people you'll get some randoms to fill out the empty slots.

The whole game tries to put you in squads of 4. It fills the squads for you, though, so you're not LFG'ing at all. And, if you don't talk to them, the other guys are basically OP NPCs (from what I saw).

I did read some posts that suggest playing the main storyline quests solo (although duo for a close pair would be basically the same thing). Pacing reasons, mostly.


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From what I've read, aside from the Stronghold, the main story quests can all be solo'ed on normal without issue.

It's worth noting that you can turn matchmaking off for the story--but can't for "open world"(can't do a Private open world session BUT it won't bring people into your group unless you want to let them in) or Strongholds(which are effectively the Dungeons/Raids rolled into one bit).

I did everything in the demo solo save for the raids, which mandated full teams of four (and I doubt I could have done solo anyway).

 Ouze wrote:
I read an article on the planned Day 1 patch, and they are planning to try to fix some of the things you guys have mentioned here: the lengthy loading screens, some loot bugs, and some other stuff.

How many people does it take to play this? Can you do 2 player groups viably?

Day 1 is the first day anyone who wants to pay can play the full game and that day was 2/18. If EA Bioware wants to play word games with a concept as simple as a release day by breaking it into more pieces than the triforce in Zelda then they need to be called out on that. It's not a day 1 patch regardless of how hard they try to make that fetch happen just like the buggy last minute beta they tried to pass off as a demo. It's interesting to see the early reviews of the final product coming in *below* even Mass Effect Andromeda currently making this the third debacle in a row for a previously largely unanimously beloved developer and their lowest rated game (albeit that rating is subject to change).

Yeah, I don't trust player reviews any more, too many politically motivated review bombs whose text basically amounts to "Wah wah sjws waaaaaah!" for me to trust amateur reviewers unless I actually know the person.

I actually saw one website call it a day zero patch. (As in the day before general release), but that seems absurd with it in circulation for a week.

What puzzles me with this release model is trying it out early costs $15 or whatever, but gets you everything in the origin access program and it for a month. If you aren't certain of the game, paying full price and getting it 'late' seems the absolute worst option. If you pay $15 for a month and then maybe $15 again a couple months later when the first (only? Never? ) content update comes out, you'll pay half the list price and probably get your fill of the game.

Unless there is something else to this access model I really don't understand, it seems like sensible behavior should involve flipping access on and off and saving money, and letting EA have fewer dollars.

The Origin stuff is part of a subscription for early access to certain games, occasional discount, and other content EA tries to use to justify the subscription, sometimes with other bonuses like free skins or whatever. It's generally not worth doing IMO.

 Melissia wrote:
The Origin stuff is part of a subscription for early access to certain games, occasional discount, and other content EA tries to use to justify the subscription, sometimes with other bonuses like free skins or whatever. It's generally not worth doing IMO.

How so? General player behavior means getting bored and moving on to a new game.
Paying $15 for a couple weeks of Anthem before getting bored seems more sensible than paying $60 for a couple weeks of anthem and getting bored.

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, I don't trust player reviews any more, too many politically motivated review bombs whose text basically amounts to "Wah wah sjws waaaaaah!" for me to trust amateur reviewers unless I actually know the person.

I wasn't referring to the player reviews but rather to the aspiring political commentators who get by as game reviewers and post too many politically motivated editorials. The supposed "pros" are giving it so far a lower score (again... early, in progress, subject to change, etc) than MEA on aggregate sites like metacritic. In this rare case, they seem to be agreeing with the pleb player reviews overall.

The 15 dollars doesn't get you the game itself. It got you access to two weekends of "demo" which was had a limited selection of quests and terrain, so it's really like 4 days of playing the same two levels of content over and over again.

If you prepurchased the game and have the subscription, you got a week of early access.

I really wanna get Anthem.. the demo was a lot of fun. but I am forcing myself to resist it. Too much work to do and if I invest in an all new game like this, there goes the next 6 weeks of my life. At least this way I can wait till some more of the kinks are worked out and maybe I can pick it up if there's a sale in a couple months.

Voss wrote:
I actually saw one website call it a day zero patch. (As in the day before general release), but that seems absurd with it in circulation for a week.

What puzzles me with this release model is trying it out early costs $15 or whatever, but gets you everything in the origin access program and it for a month. If you aren't certain of the game, paying full price and getting it 'late' seems the absolute worst option. If you pay $15 for a month and then maybe $15 again a couple months later when the first (only? Never? ) content update comes out, you'll pay half the list price and probably get your fill of the game.

Unless there is something else to this access model I really don't understand, it seems like sensible behavior should involve flipping access on and off and saving money, and letting EA have fewer dollars.

Yeah, I don't understand the reasoning behind it but obviously I don't have the detailed financial data they have. Withe MEA at least, the early access lead to bad reviews and the creation of the various negative memes that convinced people to not buy the game. The game wouldn't have been better without that early access but some amount of people might buy it at $60 during the first week without that coverage. Same with Anthem and them paywalling the first week of release behind Origin access. The only reason I can come up with is that if they know the game will not live up to expectations that they're hoping that the one month of Origins subscription cost will make up for the shortfall in week with some players who already bought the game also getting the subscription in addition to people who never would buy it trying it out for only $15. That's pure conjecture on my part though.

It used to be back in the 360 days that developers in various interviews look in retrospect at all the demos that used to come out as a negative both in that they took time/attention away from the full release AND convinced more people to not buy games than buy them. That wasn't the case with me personally; if I'm not sure then I wait for reviews like with stinkers like Alien Colonial Marines for example. YMMV.


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 Melissia wrote:
The 15 dollars doesn't get you the game itself. It got you access to two weekends of "demo" which was had a limited selection of quests and terrain, so it's really like 4 days of playing the same two levels of content over and over again.

If you prepurchased the game and have the subscription, you got a week of early access.

Thanks, I didn't know that. I figured it was like the xbox game pass in that you have full access for that subscription cost. That somewhat changes what I said above but I suppose someone could possibly still preorder, get the early access, and possibly cancel the preorder although that isn't particularly likely.

Huh. I was under the impression there were two levels to 'Access,' one got a demo period and the other got free reign.

Could be wrong, as I've booted up origin only once or twice in months. In that case though, yeah, definitely not worth it.

Edit: But checking on it, Origin access tells me I can pay:

$5 for access to a 182 game collection, 10 hour trial (Anthem and more) or
$15 for access to a 189 game collection, and Full game access to Anthem and more.

And checking the FAQ, the second question is 'Can I keep playing after the early access period?' The answer is: Yes, with the $15 Premier membership. So unless there is a really hidden caveat...
And its the special edition version too, for whatever that is worth.

So, yeah, pay $15 for a month of access to the $80 edition of the game. Cancel and pay $15 again whenever. You'd have to play this one game for more than 4 months to really lose out in any real fashion. For most people, that seems unlikely.

I remember getting the basic access for the 10 hour trial of andromeda, and got to play and finish ME3 as essentially a freebie. The only real problem at the time was their back catalog was incredibly limited.

There is a 10 hour demo period on consoles. Given that I was wrong apparently about the paid level above, I won't guess morning than that.

Played a couple hours of Anthem after its release. Gotta say, the story is pretty good so far, very coherent worldbuilding. The gunplay feels just as good as in the demo / beta (whichever you want to call it). Have experienced none of the bugs I found in the demo, as well, so it looks like they fixed all my complaints. Saw some more varied terrain too.

Day 1 patch markedly improved loading times on my rig (which was my only real complaint during the early access). Need to spend more time with it post-patch, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Agreed, went down pretty dramatically for me, too.

 warboss wrote:
There is a 10 hour demo period on consoles. Given that I was wrong apparently about the paid level above, I won't guess morning than that.

The "10 hour demo period" is tied to EA Access for the Xbox. I don't think PS4 has a demo, since they don't have EA Access.

Looking at the review bomb it's gotten on metacritic makes me annoyed. Like, someone gave it a 0.0 because "the character isn't in the center of the screen", even though off-center characters in 3rd person games is pretty standard so that aim reticle can be in the center.

Game continues to have solid gunplay, fluid movement controls, a pretty good idea on what it's doing with worldbuilding, and generally is a good game. And yet 33% because downvoting anthem is the popular thing to do.

Maybe focus instead on the media reviews that were at 61 when I last checked?

So much for will power. I'm level 4 now, whee!

Congrats, maybe? I hope the 10 year live service support plan lasts longer in actuality than the DLC support Mass Effect Andromeda got. If it's on sale in two weeks at 33-50% off like Battlefield 5 then I think we'll know the sales aren't living up to expectations.

The quips every character make seemingly every five minutes get on my nerves. The gerenal uselessness I feel when using weapons in the game gets on my nerves (Seriously, they are in power armor, why is the recoil so atrocious?), the general uselessness of the class specific weapons (Other than the Flamethrower and Lightning Cannon on the Colossus) get on my nerves.

Like, I really wanted to like this game, I really really did. I love power armor, I liked Mass Effect Andromeda. But I just cant really invest in this game, the power armor doesnt feel special to me, the quipyness feels worse than it did in ME:A and I know that was a big complaint among people I know that played ME:A

How exactly are you finding abilities useless? The Ranger for example; the grenade kills a horde of enemies, the smart missile deals a ton of damage in one shot, etc. And both recharge pretty fast.

And to be honest the only weapon that has a ton of recoil is the LMG, and well, it's an LMG, so it's about what one would expect?

Yeah, the weapons seem useful. I've been running a Ranger this go round (iirc, I'm level 7, so I'm just about to unlock my second Javelin; apparently the levels required to unlock additional Javelins have been reduced since the Open Demo), which is the "boring" jack of all trades master of none Javelin, and I've been having lots of fun using Frost Grenades to freeze enemies in place (particular the big Scar guys with the flamethrowers).

And I have to disagree about the quips. The quips that I've seen so far have mostly been related to the mission narrative. The problem was the exact opposite in ME:A. One of my team mates would start to provide some commentary related to the mission narrative, and get cut off by someone making a random comment (or SAM telling me that the area I was entering could be mined). That hasn't been a problem so far in Anthem.


One thing that I've found interesting about the game is the amount of freedom to run the missions that I want. You start the game, run your first few missions... and then the next "critical" (the word for main storyline) mission is to find three NPCs and run their first missions in any order you choose. And if you, say, run the Sentinel's mission first, then you can ignore the other two "first missions", and run the sentinel's second mission immediately afterwards. IIRC, Destiny and The Division are much more linear in comparison.

One comment I've seen in youtube video reviews (not playing the game myself) is that those quips as well as other things are interesting and novel in the beginning but then slowly start to grate on you. Obviously that would vary from person to person so take it with a grain of salt.

FWIW, here is a link to the just published "roadmap" for updates over the coming months. Alot of the commentary I'm reading/watching is that with 5+ years of development that this kind of stuff should have been in the game in the first place like the first end game "cataclysm". Maybe the game will be unrecognizable (for the better?) in 6 months to a year for new players similar to Destiny? YMMV.

https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/acts

 warboss wrote:
Alot of the commentary I'm reading/watching is that with 5+ years of development that this kind of stuff should have been in the game in the first place like the first end game "cataclysm".

IMO, it depends on what's involved in preparation. If it takes the "average" (whatever that means) player a little while to prepare for it, then it's not such a big deal. And it shuts down the power gamer who blows through *all* of the content in a couple of weeks, and then starts screaming for more while the more typical players are still working on getting there. Slowing down the power gamers through slow-walking releases is pretty typical for on-line game developers. It's not until it slows down the more typical players that it starts to become a problem.


But we won't know until it rolls out, so we'll have to wait and see whether it deserves criticism or not.