Anthem - EA’s next PR disaster after BF 5

[Pumpkin Girl IRL]

Who knew Bioware can copy a game like Destiny and made it worse than Destiny lol.

Seriously. Six fucking years in devrlopment and they crap out something that was apparently in stasis the entire time. Reminds me of Wildstar - competing with MMOs from five years ago, on release, and had even shittier QOL.

Pcgamer gave it 55/100. Fun as hell given the amount of shilling they did for it.

 

[Watcher]

Spoiler

I own Baldur's Gate 2, but I could never get into really playing it, since I'm not a big fan of DnD rules. I know these games mean a lot to many people, therefore I feel for those that enjoyed these classics.

Baldur's Gate 2 is a bad place to start because it is a direct sequel to BG1 and throws characters and story elements at you that were gradually introduced in BG1. Like it completely spoils a plot twist in BG1. You also play as the main character from BG1 and can even import your character from that game into 2.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

One thing that I'm kind of wondering about:
Diablo 2 made it so much fun to walk around a large level, killing endless hordes of enemies and collecting loot, so you can walk around in a different part of the level, killing endless hordes of harder enemies, so you could collect better loot . . . and so on.
Why doesn't it work here? I guess Diablo 2 had a shitton of progression when it came to skills, skilltrees and so on as well as a very, very good loot system. I have never played games like Borderlands, tbh, but afaik, they pull it off, too.

So what went wrong with Anthem? Too little loot, too little progression with the powersuits (ie: you get tapped out too quickly and there's nowhere else to go but to hope for loot that's a tiny bit better)?
Diablo 2 was fun on the second playthrough after beating the endboss, it seems Bioware gave you hardly any reason to really roam and just kill mobs for fun. And that seems to be it. Technically, Diablo 2 was one giant grindfest, but it's not grinding if it's fun. Anthem, on the other hand, forces you to engage in boring grinding halfway through the campaign...

 

[MeatRokket08]

6.5 from IGN, oh boy

 

[Megaroad]

64 on metacritic atm for what that's worth.

I'm more interested in sales numbers than the score. How did Andromeda do?

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Gamestar (vidya magazine from Germany) gave it 67 points.

Is this an indication that EA didn't even bother to "encourage" positive reviews?

 

[Tanner Glass]

One thing that I'm kind of wondering about:
Diablo 2 made it so much fun to walk around a large level, killing endless hordes of enemies and collecting loot, so you can walk around in a different part of the level, killing endless hordes of harder enemies, so you could collect better loot . . . and so on.
Why doesn't it work here? I guess Diablo 2 had a shitton of progression when it came to skills, skilltrees and so on as well as a very, very good loot system. I have never played games like Borderlands, tbh, but afaik, they pull it off, too.

So what went wrong with Anthem? Too little loot, too little progression with the powersuits (ie: you get tapped out too quickly and there's nowhere else to go but to hope for loot that's a tiny bit better)?
Diablo 2 was fun on the second playthrough after beating the endboss, it seems Bioware gave you hardly any reason to really roam and just kill mobs for fun. And that seems to be it. Technically, Diablo 2 was one giant grindfest, but it's not grinding if it's fun. Anthem, on the other hand, forces you to engage in boring grinding halfway through the campaign...

I could write a giant essay on the question you asked, but basically even though the two games are similar on paper they couldn't be more different.

Diablo 2 has a masterful sense of progression through where you character starts at level 1 and where that character winds up at level ~80 (when a character can reasonably beat the game on "Hell" mode) through a clever progression of skills, player ability, and character items. Diablo 2 excelled with a synergy of all of those progression markers and the fun came from making characters absurdly powerful. The characters also have wildly different skills and abilities and it makes them distinct from one another. Diablo 2 additionally had a lot of avenues for items and some of the most powerful items in the game were crafted (via the cube or runewords) and weren't strictly boss drops. You could also trade for items as well with other players or simply be given them.

Destiny/Anthem have a shitty sense of progression. Your character rarely gets more abilities and those abilities are not "game changing" in any way. These abilities rarely synergize with items and the classes tend to blur together with minor differences. Items (mainly) exist to raise a characters arbitrary "power level" (item level in other games, "Light Level" in Destiny) which isn't really satisfying because it's just a choke point into content instead of anything fun or meaningful. These items also largely exist on a single upgrade path (dungeons, and raids in order) which funnels you into a specific type of content. Content done at the lowest level and done at the highest level isn't wildly different from a gameplay perspective aisde from "better guns do bigger numbers".

Diablo 2 at all points (the lowest level, the highest level) was fun to play. Anthem/Destiny 2 are rarely fun to play and Destiny 2 tends to keep what some people would describe as "the good stuff" locked away in raids which is a pretty big time investment to see if you like it. Destiny, Destiny 2, and most certainly Anthem also didn't (or won't) start in a good place and took a long while to get "up and running" (if at all). Destiny 2 took a number of DLCs before it was "good" and Anthem is going to be by all accounts missing a huge chunk of content. Diablo 2 was a full game from the very start and the expansion simply improved on everything in the game in a massive way.

 

[MrTroll]

Is this an indication that EA didn't even bother to "encourage" positive reviews?

Strong-arming better reviews only works when a game is mostly well-received on its own merits. No 'respectable' publication is going to throw away its reputation by pretending to like a game that everyone else is dumping on.

 

[RJ MacReady]

The key difference is that Anthem and Destiny are shooters whereas Diablo is not. A good RPG can generate strong feedback in just a few button presses, whereas shooters inherently require aiming skill and a bad looter-shooter will deprive the player of reward for exerting energy to hit a shot comparative to a game like Diablo where they can simply press a button and destroy huge groups of enemies. Additionally, looter-shooter gear progression typically softens the skill required while an RPG usually demands better ability management, class builds and gear choices to keep pace with the ramping difficulty. So not only does the RPG reward you for knowing when to press your button, it rewards you for knowing how to make your button more powerful.

Borderlands seems to be the only looter-shooter that dealt with this dilemma effectively, and it's a single player game (i.e. no PVP).

 

[Watcher]

gggmanlives reviews Anthem. The title says it all

EDIT: EA forced him to edit his video and remove a EA watermark because he was too negative

 

[Watcher]

64 on metacritic atm for what that's worth.

I'm more interested in sales numbers than the score. How did Andromeda do?

Andromeda did really poorly. I remember they even killed dlc they planned for it and just dropped support.

It apparently sold 2 million copies but they expected 6-9

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

@Tanner Glass is right when it comes to gameplay and progression systems.

in addition to that, diablo 2 also had a very cool setting, highly memorable characters (tyrael and diablo in particular are still widely recognized across the world 20 years later) and a great soundtrack. diablo 2 was also an absolute masterpiece when it comes to atmosphere and how the game world 'felt', which was achieved through a combination of lighting, sprite artwork, animations, level design, sound effects, and music. the game was revolutionary in many ways.
anthem (from what i've seen of it) has none of that, everything looks like a generic destiny/warframe ripoff with not much going on in terms of creativity or innovation.

hell, diablo 2 had more soul and emotion in just a single cutscene than you can find in all of anthem:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XRXP5td0ZrA

RIP Marius, and Blizzard's story telling abilities.

 

[moocow]

Also they still refuse to make 3D models of cute women.

That's a trend that's really getting irritating. Because fat ugly dangerhairs feel threatened by attractive women, we're getting stuck with frumpy, "unconventional" female characters in games.

 

[MeatRokket08]

That's a trend that's really getting irritating. Because fat ugly dangerhairs feel threatened by attractive women, we're getting stuck with frumpy, "unconventional" female characters in games.

Which really show's since these AAA Western games tend to have the budget of a summer blockbuster, but they end up looking like rejected alien models for Mac and Me.

Compare:

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

Anyone on PS4 notice that Anthem achievements are coming up under the title name DYLAN (WORKING TITLE) still? I wouldn't have even noticed if one of the people on my friends list didn't play it.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

The key difference is that Anthem and Destiny are shooters whereas Diablo is not. A good RPG can generate strong feedback in just a few button presses, whereas shooters inherently require aiming skill and a bad looter-shooter will deprive the player of reward for exerting energy to hit a shot comparative to a game like Diablo where they can simply press a button and destroy huge groups of enemies. Additionally, looter-shooter gear progression typically softens the skill required while an RPG usually demands better ability management, class builds and gear choices to keep pace with the ramping difficulty. So not only does the RPG reward you for knowing when to press your button, it rewards you for knowing how to make your button more powerful.

Borderlands seems to be the only looter-shooter that dealt with this dilemma effectively, and it's a single player game (i.e. no PVP).

I guess it's not impossible to make a looter-shooter as addictive as Diablo 2, it's just that you have to be creative and take risks.
2 things that EA is more afraid of than the devil is of holy water.

Anyone on PS4 notice that Anthem achievements are coming up under the title name DYLAN (WORKING TITLE) still? I wouldn't have even noticed if one of the people on my friends list didn't play it.

View attachment 673554

Gamers worldwide: You can't halfass a game more than Fallout 76.
Bioware: Hold my soy-latte.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Which really show's since these AAA Western games tend to have the budget of a summer blockbuster, but they end up looking like rejected alien models for Mac and Me.

Compare:
View attachment 673521

You should probably have used a pre-downgrade screenshot of Witcher 3 if you wanted to be honest. Triss in particular looks much worse in the final game.

 

[Ruin]

That's a trend that's really getting irritating. Because fat ugly dangerhairs feel threatened by attractive women, we're getting stuck with frumpy, "unconventional" female characters in games.

I used to think this was an idiotic conspiracy theory by Gamergate dorks but I played the most recent Tomb raider game and Laura is a borderline A cup now for no real reason.

It's not like you shrink breasts by four cup sizes by accident or something and that's not the only game I've noticed it in.

 

[shartshooter]

Spoiler

I'm guessing that's the percent cocoa, but that's fucking funny.

 

[RJ MacReady]

EA has forced the Youtuber gggmanlives to delete his negative review of Anthem and blacklisted him from their partner program (EA Game Changers):

EA's community manager claims this is because he didn't sufficiently disclose the sponsorship (and implies he was being "dishonest") but he had a clear disclaimer at the beginning of the video:

The CM backtracks and denies he's been blacklisted:

SkillUp claims gggmanlives's disclaimer is identical to other videos in the Game Changers program:

The CM refused to reply. Also according to Twitter, the program's TOS demands that all criticism be "honest" and "constructive" which suggests gggmanlives's negative criticism played a hand: