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Still loving Anthem.

Just hit 30 last night.

I've been playing slow and doing whatever I feel like. But I don't see how you could "beat the game in 10 hours" without skipping the dialog and sidemissions. It may not be a long game, but so far it feels like there's a lot to do.

Also, it seems by the way everyone talks, that all they do is spam one activity (usually one dungeon). Why? You can get the same loot (albeit at different drop rates) from *any* activity (at GM1 or harder). So why not change it up? Why not just play what you feel like playing?

It hasn't gotten repetitive for me yet, and I'm probably at 30-40 hours.

Bharring wrote:
Still loving Anthem.

Just hit 30 last night.

I've been playing slow and doing whatever I feel like. But I don't see how you could "beat the game in 10 hours" without skipping the dialog and sidemissions. It may not be a long game, but so far it feels like there's a lot to do.

Also, it seems by the way everyone talks, that all they do is spam one activity (usually one dungeon). Why? You can get the same loot (albeit at different drop rates) from *any* activity (at GM1 or harder). So why not change it up? Why not just play what you feel like playing?

It hasn't gotten repetitive for me yet, and I'm probably at 30-40 hours.

Less optimal. Find something safe and easily repeated so you can run out of fun things to do faster is my general assumption based on past MMO experience.

I suspect that the Path of Valor is an attempt to get players out of their comfort zones. It'll work for the short term, but I've no idea if it'll affect the long-term.

Bharring wrote:
Still loving Anthem.

Just hit 30 last night.

I've been playing slow and doing whatever I feel like. But I don't see how you could "beat the game in 10 hours" without skipping the dialog and sidemissions. It may not be a long game, but so far it feels like there's a lot to do.

Also, it seems by the way everyone talks, that all they do is spam one activity (usually one dungeon). Why? You can get the same loot (albeit at different drop rates) from *any* activity (at GM1 or harder). So why not change it up? Why not just play what you feel like playing?

It hasn't gotten repetitive for me yet, and I'm probably at 30-40 hours.

simple, even at pure purple, you will struggle at gm1. you either are 2 hit kill with avrage dmg or you can take some hits but your dmg is non existent. you need thouse masterworks to get the hp and dmg going, and since mw drop is realy, realy low, anything that does NOT give guaranteed mw when you have 10 purple items, is basicly a pure waste of time.

and the only source of guaranteed mw is strongholds. at gm1 you get usualy just 1 per run, 2 or 3 if your luck is realy high.
so that means you have only 3 strongholds to choose from and that gets realy repetative realy fast. free roam is pointless as there is no gps marker for the global events so you spend more time flying then farming loot chests from global events, and regular contracts has a horrible low mw drop rate.

anthem is a looter game, yet it is a game that does not give enugh of the loot that is needed for gm1+. it is like the devs dident even bother to see where diablo 3 and division 1 failed when they made anthem, and both of thouse games had to increas their drop rate significantly over time.

I'm gonna disagree that it plays like MEA, except insofar as it is a shooter. MEA at its core was still a cover-based shooter, just with a mobility option in the form of high jumping, dashing and air-dashing-- and frequently, cover-based fighting was still more effective than them. Anthem plays off of your mobility, instead, with no cover mechanic aside from the usual "disrupt line of sight", and the ability to literally fly around the battlefield as needed. Or more bluntly, I don't avoid damage by ducking behind a waist-high wall, but by flying in to the air and away from the biggest source of damage.

They're in the same genre and share plenty of similarities don't get me wrong... but that's like arguing that doom plays "just like" whatever the latest call of duty is.

"simple, even at pure purple, you will struggle at gm1. you either are 2 hit kill with avrage dmg or you can take some hits but your dmg is non existent."
Started GM1 on a Storm. 2 Blues, lower-lvl Weapons (awesome inscriptions, so better for this build than lvl30 weapons - as most of my damage is from gear). No MW (to start).

Only got 2-shotted by Legendary enemies. Like a Legendary Ursix did me in. That's fair.

I was *very* fragile. But I'm one Storm. I'm fighting an *army* (or three). I shouldn't be able to tank the world.

Even basic Elites took 2-3 rounds of combos to kill, though. With purple gear. Non-elites didn't seem so scary, though.

That seemed very reasonable for a fresh 30 in mostly-purple.

" you need thouse masterworks to get the hp and dmg going, and since mw drop is realy, realy low, anything that does NOT give guaranteed mw when you have 10 purple items, is basicly a pure waste of time."
Did 2 Legendary contracts and some freeplay. Got 2 MW Components. Just equipping the first one (bad rolls not a great component, but great stats) made me quite durable in GM1. Haven't equipped the second (dropped in the second contract). Doesn't seem unreasonable.

"and the only source of guaranteed mw is strongholds."
Leg. Contracts seems quite reliable for MWs...

" at gm1 you get usualy just 1 per run, 2 or 3 if your luck is realy high. "
I'd prefer to play contracts/Freeplay a bit. Been getting quite a few upgraded Purples. MWs will drop eventually, but GM1 is fine without them (so far).

"so that means you have only 3 strongholds to choose from and that gets realy repetative realy fast."
3 Strongholds, 3 rotating/randomish Leg Contracts. And that's just for high-prob. MW drops.

" free roam is pointless as there is no gps marker for the global events so you spend more time flying then farming loot chests from global events,"
Or just screw around and have fun. Freeplay on GM1 has been fun, so far. And purple is good enough.

"and regular contracts has a horrible low mw drop rate." Haven't tried yet. But there's a lot of purple upgrades I need yet.

MW aren't necesary unless/until you want to push GM2+. They are super useful in GM1, but not necesssary. Which means you don't actually need them to see any "content", just harder versions of the content.

So I can have fun, and am having fun. And expect to have more fun. Even if I don't get any upgrdes.

Which brings me to anther point. Once you've played for a nontrivial time, if the drop rate and quality remains constant, the rate at which you get upgrades should be the same log function *regardless* of drop rate/quality. Because what determines if a drop is an upgrade is a function of "has a better piece dropped previously". So the odds getting an upgrade in, say, an hour of playing after playing for N hours, should be the same whether MW drops once a minute or once a week. So upping the loot frequency won't help.

Upping the loot frequency just feels like it's "raining loot". Purples feel bad because you've come to expect better things than purples. If the MW frequency had been the current-Purple frequency, and the Leg frequency haad been the current-MW frequency, it'd feel exactly the same.

"anthem is a looter game, yet it is a game that does not give enugh of the loot that is needed for gm1+."
I'm bad at shooters. It gave me enough loot for GM1+ within three hours of being 30.

" it is like the devs dident even bother to see where diablo 3 and division 1 failed when they made anthem"
That's a reasonable point.

", and both of thouse games had to increas their drop rate significantly over time. "
Or at least the illusion of increased drop rates. What really happens is:
1) Loot inflation. Better stuff is available, so upgrade frequency doesn't fall off exponentially with time. But then, that super-awsome-BiS piece you got early on is now trash. I like being able to get things that are *actually* good.
2) Loot variety. Yesterday you were looking for +Dmg. today you're looking for +crit. Tomorrow you're looking for +Shields. By having different stats have different values for different builds, you provide a wider stable of "good gear" options. By having too many build options and stat preferences for any player to track all at once, you get a player to revolve through their gear. That would be cool. I hope they add this. Currently, weapons are "+Dmg or go home". MW Components are "who cares, it's garbage". Some items always want charge speed or charges. Other items always want +dmg. There is some competition between +dmg and +armor/+shields. And there's some value to +crit over +dmg. But most inscriptions or comparisions or straight better/worse (at least as currently perceived).
3) Scaling difficulty increasing drop rates. You can't get most MWs before GM1. But once you can do GM1, you can increase your MW frequency a bit. However, GM2 and GM3 only slightly increase drop frequency (MW or otherwise), while drastically increasing difficulty, and even worse, drastically increasing the time it takes to kill everything - so you get gear faster in GM1. I hope they fix this too.
4) Huge gap between Purples and MW. A smaller gap would smooth the curve between full-purple and a couple MW. Which would be ideal. Even if it meant Purples could drop at many different item levels at 30. Hopefully not the "Light Level" style drops (where your current gear *directly* decides the power of any new gear). But even level 30 content dropping purples of random iLvl anywhere between their current iLvl (38) and MW iLvl would soften the curve, and give pre-MW players greater breadth for upgrades.

I hope they implement 2, 3, and 4. But just upping the drop rate is bad. Chasing the current powerlevel is bad. "Light Level" design is bad. Hopefully they fix it right.

the stat gap between mw and purp is very big, that is true.
on my colossus, (correct me if im wrong here cuz im doing this from memory) each purple colossus component gives 2000 armor. so that is 10000 armor for all 5 purple component slots.
1 single colossus mw component gives 10000 armor...... aka 1 single mw component gives about the same armor as 5 purple components.
and it is alot worse for the non class spesific components to the point where you begin to wonder, apart from the non class ultimate component that actualy has some use, why are the rest of them even in the game....

and it do not help that mw gear geats additional bonuses while purple do not. aka colossus dont get any self heal unless you find the mw version of the siege artillery, cuz that version restores 30% armor for each enemy hit.


they have some work ahead of them in regards to endgame, gear stat adjusting and loot drop adjusting, but if they sort it out the right way, this can be a fun game.
diablo 3, division 1 and destiny games dident become "playable" until 1 year or longer after their release.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm gonna disagree that it plays like MEA, except insofar as it is a shooter. MEA at its core was still a cover-based shooter, just with a mobility option in the form of high jumping, dashing and air-dashing-- and frequently, cover-based fighting was still more effective than them. Anthem plays off of your mobility, instead, with no cover mechanic aside from the usual "disrupt line of sight", and the ability to literally fly around the battlefield as needed. Or more bluntly, I don't avoid damage by ducking behind a waist-high wall, but by flying in to the air and away from the biggest source of damage.

They're in the same genre and share plenty of similarities don't get me wrong... but that's like arguing that doom plays "just like" whatever the latest call of duty is.

No, it is not. Doom's engine physics, hit boxes and weapons are quite distinct from Call of Duty's. ME's and Anthem's are not distinctive in this way.

De-emphasizing cover for mobility is a design choice, but while it can alter player behavior, it doesn't move it into another genre or alter the game engine in any significant way. Flying (or jump dashing) into the air and moving away from the biggest damage source was/is a perfectly valid and sensible strategy in either game.

It also doesn't change the fact that basic rifles in both game have very much the same behavior profile, bullet drop, bursts, and reload pacing, or that gun time is effectively a punctuation between power recharge cooldowns.

If bioware was to do a 'jump suit' style armor for Anthem, and slap a ME skin on it, the difference in functionality would be minimal at best, and combat areas wouldn't need to change. (Getting to some of them might)

I dunno if it was just bad luck matchmaing or they cranked up the difficulty, but suddenly it feels like GM2 is impossible. I've been doing contracts on GM2 lately with my colossus, it would be difficult but we'd always win in the end. Last night though, every game I played we were just getting slaughtered. Maybe I need to go back to GM1, don't really notice any difference in the amount of masterworks you get between the 2 anyway. Never even tried GM3, don't think I'd want to waste my time without a good group where we can all work together and stuff, rather than a PUG

There's a reasonable chance that people who'd normally be farming GM1 are trying to do GM2 for better drops, since they upped the loot in GM2.

No idea if GM2 is worth it over GM1 (and don't really care), though.

Just started playing my Collosus recently - I'm already at-least-half MW on all the other Javs. I've gotten a decent number of components while playing him - but only one of them has been Col-specific. And only two gear drops: Blue Railgun and Purple Railgun. So his abilities suck and he has no health. He's fun, but not ready for GM yet.

If you can get them, my favorite MW weapons on the colossus are the Voltaic Dome and the Best Defense. The dome is the ordinance weapon and it shocks everything around you and after it shocks them it freezes them. Then the Best Defense is the siege gun, you blast your newly frozen enemies and get tons of combo damage from them, and then every enemy you hit with it also heals you 30%, so if you're hurt you can blast a few critters with your canon and you're back to full health. I happened to find one that has a 100% charge perk on it, so I can shoot it twice, but then it takes twice as long to fully recharge.

I think I'm using Voltaic Dome currently. But it's blue. And ilvl22. And my highest-level gear for the slot...

I really want Best Defense or Emergency Power (or both). Having no self-healing makes it hard to play aggressively - as you only have shields when you're blocking.

I think I just need a few more purples before he's ready for GM1 freeplay. With all the other classes, it's a lot easier to be useful at lower gear (Storm is a godsend even without lvl 30 gear - so much status they can do!). But the Colossus really needs components for HP so he can stay in the fight.

i've mostly just been playing the colossus, I managed to find a legendary for my ranger (while playing my colossus) so I started playing him and he's just so weak and wimpy I can't get used to it. I love being able to hulksmash things. I've been trying my interceptor a bit though, on easier settings.. a lot more fun than the ranger was, zipping around slicing things to shreads

Ranger is actually my favorite, and the one I play the most. Gun things down. Support/status from one gear piece, detonate/finish with the other. Melee to prime something big or chump something small.

Typical engagement, I use both gear pieces, my gun, and melee at least once every ~10 seconds. Gotta get distance from some things, close in on others. It's the generalist suit; and for those of us looking for a generalist playstyle, it *really* works.

Or at least it did, until I got Last Argument, and associated Blast components, while not getting the weapons or Impact/Gun components. My Ranger is currently kitted to Blast/Ult things. Last Argument, Argos Mace, etc. Does a ton of damage. Ults regularly. But I want to go back to a more balanced play style - once I get the right gear pieces.

The Ranger isn't as beefy as the Colossus, but is beefier than Storm/Intercepter. He's not as fast as the Interceptor, but he's faster than the Storm/Colossus. He's the "basic soldier" suit. Which does *not* mean "boring".

I've got one heck of a jab. I've got missiles. I've got grenades. And I'm really good with a gun. I'm not some slowpoke unmoveable object. I'm not some lightweight that can't take a hit. I'm not some space wizard hiding in the back. I'm awesome.

This is one of the things Anthem truly nails: all four Suits are amazing, but in very different ways.

Yeah, I think that's why I love the colossus.. it's just big and heavy and feels so stompy, it really is a walking tank. To me it feels more like piloting a mech, the other suits just feel more like armored soldiers. Which is fine, for me I just like the more mechy feeling. Just something about flying over a bunch of bad guys, and dropping in the middle of them with a slam and killing everything around you, then whipping out your shield and steamrolling everything in your path.

Colossus is immensely fun, yeah. And I think it has some of the best abilities, too (the super-shotgun and the railgun are both top notch, the mortars are also great).

"Just something about flying over a bunch of bad guys, and dropping in the middle of them with a slam and killing everything around you, then whipping out your shield and steamrolling everything in your path."

I tried that twice.

First time, Full-to-dead in 3 seconds.

Second time, there was a legendary Escari, another legendary Scar, and two more Elites just over the ridge I didn't see before dropping in... didn't even last until I recovered from the drop...

You're making me really *really* want to play my Colossus now... Must get good gear....

(the only level-30 gearpiece I have is the Railgun, so I'm limited on skills to use atm)

i main colossus tank and you realy realy realy need colossus spesific MW internals to increase your hp pool and Best Defence for that higly needed self heal IF you want to be a tank.
you allso have Demolition Tribute BUT it gives only armor on mele kill, so it is not a primary heal source, but it helps when you go rampant on the trash or if you are a dps colossus.

I have a few MW Colossus components, so stepped into MW1 Legendary Contracts last night. Did all 3.

Got 2 'Universal' Components, and no MW beyond the given 3...

I feel like I have a reasonable amount of health, but my only way to get HP back right now are repair/ammo drops from mobs. So I can tank for a bit, but then I need to hide and wait for some orbs to show up.

The only damage I seem to do is with my gun (Divine Favor - not what I'd look for, but the best option for the Col I have for now). So I mostly stand back and shoot, only getting aggressive and playing like a Col. when there's a lot of orbs on the ground already.

Can't wait to find Best Defence or Emergency Power. Either will be a gamechanger for me. But I also can't wait to spend more time on my Ranger. Or Interceptor. Or Storm. But I'll probably stick with the Col until he's at least on par with those 3, gear wise. Oddly, I had no trouble kitting those other 3 out for GM1 - two Hard mode contracts/missions/freeplay gave me all the Purple I needed. But the Col gets almost no purple for some reason.

I switched back to my ranger last night and did a little better. I think my issue is that I try to play it like my colossus since that's what I'm used to. And also his ultimate comes back much faster than my colossus, but I don't expect to have it back so fast, so I don't use it as often and forget about it. Even on my colossus I usually save it for when I need it to hit something real hard rather than blowing away trash mobs as soon as it's ready. I kinda wish there was some kind of "Ultimate Ready!!2" message that would pop up on the screen so you know it's ready to go, don't always notice the meter in the bottom corner when I'm in the thick of battle.

 Necros wrote:
I switched back to my ranger last night and did a little better. I think my issue is that I try to play it like my colossus since that's what I'm used to. And also his ultimate comes back much faster than my colossus, but I don't expect to have it back so fast, so I don't use it as often and forget about it. Even on my colossus I usually save it for when I need it to hit something real hard rather than blowing away trash mobs as soon as it's ready. I kinda wish there was some kind of "Ultimate Ready!!2" message that would pop up on the screen so you know it's ready to go, don't always notice the meter in the bottom corner when I'm in the thick of battle.

yea, both of them has an internal that increase ulti charge, but colossus has its increased on use of the actual ulti, ranger has its increased ulti charge on a granade ability.
i run ulti build on my ranger and it is crazy how fast it builds the charge if you allso have a granade cd internal.

I skipped about 70% of the story dialog, Listened to Brin, Dex and a couple people in the bar.

for GM2 I feel like you needs your gear to be sync'd, which mine isn't currently.

I like doing stuff on hard an being a super hero and can carry the team if need be. The ten or so times I played solo on GM1 there was always either full teams of storms or interceptors that just felt new to GM1, and down'd too many times.

Has anyone had a couple of bad games, where there were people just AFK in the back, one dude was playing candy crush with his mike on.

The thing that drove me away and towards Division were the load times, I should be able to browse reddit while going from town, forge, matchmaking. Ill come back after some more fixes.

 Maddok_Death wrote:


Has anyone had a couple of bad games, where there were people just AFK in the back, one dude was playing candy crush with his mike on.

They'd don't have an autokick feature for AFK? I have thought Bioware would have learned that lesson when they had to institute it back in 2012ish for ME3. Sure, there are ways around it but I'm surprised it's not automated.

Never had that. Did have someone who was shouting at me in Russian, but he was playing the game. (Pretty sure he was asking me to revive him cause he died all the damn time and I basically never died).

There's always one of those "Well, he's dead again" guys in the GM2 games I play. That becomes me when I play anything besides my Colossus

I finally finished the challenge of valor last night. It gives you a red skull vinyl, but it covers up the whole body and doesn't look so good. Would have rather it be something on a shoulder pad .. would be cool if they would have a way to place your vinyls wherever you want and resize them.

 Maddok_Death wrote:
I skipped about 70% of the story dialog, Listened to Brin, Dex and a couple people in the bar.

for GM2 I feel like you needs your gear to be sync'd, which mine isn't currently.

I like doing stuff on hard an being a super hero and can carry the team if need be. The ten or so times I played solo on GM1 there was always either full teams of storms or interceptors that just felt new to GM1, and down'd too many times.

Has anyone had a couple of bad games, where there were people just AFK in the back, one dude was playing candy crush with his mike on.

Well, yes it even says so in the description for gm2, the fokus there is more about the gear + skill synergy and teamplay then your ability to just play the game, unlike how it is in gm1. Might even consider to make and use some of the consumables when you do random gm2s.
Allso the recommended gearscore for gm1-3 is either too low or the jump between the difficultys is too high, cuz even if you are 10-50 score above the recommended, you die in 2-3 hits and you do very little dmg with your abilitys regardless if you go from hard to gm1 or gm1 to gm2.
If people die fast in gm1/2 their are either lazy carrys, or they have just reached the gearscore recommended to play gm1/2 and are in the transition stage. sadly you will never know.

The only place i see afk people are in temple of scar cuz the instance is bugged to hell. if you are the last person to leave the first room or the 3rd big combat room, the purple wall goes up infront of you and the game refuces to tp you to the next rooms.


btw, has any1 noticed the increased drop rate in gm2? i just recently did my first full run gm2 stronghold and all i got was 2 MWs. i expected atleast 3-5 since 1-3 is what i get in gm1.
it still feels as gm1 is the only option for effective mw farming.

I noticed this week, playing mostly just GM2 I've gotten 3 or 4 legendaries, but not so many MWs. Before that I only had like 1 legendary ever.. might just be lucky though

Fun story.

It was not long after I first brought my Ranger into GM1 - on Freeplay. Terribly geared.

Took forever to catch up to the two randos who were doing events in this Freeplay session.

I caught up to them, and saw the Chest icon - so I missed the event. Too bad, no lewt for me. Figured I'd still pop in on them so I'd be with them as they moved to the next event.

They didn't pop the chest until I landed for some reason.

Legendary.

The only Legendary I've gotten. And I didn't even show up for the event that dropped it!

That was awfully decent of them. But I don't have a mic, so couldn't tell them or thank them.

Also, the drop had a +200% damage and a +150% damage. Wow!

However, it was Seeker Munitions. While Damage is the best you can get on it, it's still junk.

Same thing happened to me kind of .. someone was just farming monsters in an area, by the time I got to where he was, there was suddenly no one around, like he must have just quit.. but there was a big yellow diamond just sitting there on the ground. Score!

 Necros wrote:
I noticed this week, playing mostly just GM2 I've gotten 3 or 4 legendaries, but not so many MWs. Before that I only had like 1 legendary ever.. might just be lucky though

Hard to say for me, i dident transition into gm2 until this week, but in 6 purple contracts, i have gotten 3 yellow drops.
Perhaps that is the loot difference, that gm2 is not ment to give more MWs but start giving legends...