Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[RuneDK]

I've often wondered why they took that route. No chat was a weird choice. I'm sure they expected people to just use some v-chat of their own but I also don't think it's normal for 4 strangers that were just thrown into a short lived SH or open world event to hook up for v-chat. Can't quite figure out why they left it out and I haven't heard a reason why either.

probably the same excuse bungie gave for destiny missing the "feature"...They didn't want trolls or people being assholes so they just nixed it.

BioWare and EA missed an incredible opportunity with this game...I still find the game fun...I just find no reason to log in right now with The Division 2 just coming out. So I'll put Anthem on hold for a bit and come back probably late May to check out what's been added/fixed.

[yasiru]

I've often wondered why they took that route. No chat was a weird choice. I'm sure they expected people to just use some v-chat of their own but I also don't think it's normal for 4 strangers that were just thrown into a short lived SH or open world event to hook up for v-chat. Can't quite figure out why they left it out and I haven't heard a reason why either.

More than likely it was more because this game seems to be built for console first. Heck even a lot of PC players play it with controllers like they were on consoles. They have already stated it was due to the law regarding having text chat in a game but many people think it's a copout.

For me personally, I play on console so yes I don't miss any kind of text chat. If I want to communicate with others, yes I have to use a headset. I don't play many games like this period though where I need to speak to others. if I am playing with actual friends we are all in a party chatting anyway.

[Ophenia]

Your MWs and Legendarys will show up in your end of expedition screen even if you have full bags and can't pick them up. I had the same issue in Freeplay the other day.

Oh... Thanks for the information.
So I guess the only limit is the 250 one.

[quras]

More than likely it was more because this game seems to be built for console first. Heck even a lot of PC players play it with controllers like they were on consoles. They have already stated it was due to the law regarding having text chat in a game but many people think it's a copout.

For me personally, I play on console so yes I don't miss any kind of text chat. If I want to communicate with others, yes I have to use a headset. I don't play many games like this period though where I need to speak to others. if I am playing with actual friends we are all in a party chatting anyway.

If the game was created for consoles first that might could explain bioware cutting a chat feature out. I had not heard that one. It would make it easier for cut out chat given how behind on fixing things bioware is. They could just expect gamers to use some other v-chat options.

As far as the FCC change, that just changed it so games have to have all the chat options if they have chat at all. Meaning: text chat, Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text.
anthem would have to have all accessibility options for all type of players available. I think bioware took the easy way out and just didn't want to put in that effort given how behind on fixes they already were. Compare it to something like Apex Legends which as it all three options and to me it seems bioware just didn't want to bother with the work and used the FCC ruling change as a scapegoat to not add it.

I think it was a bad move to not have it in. Like you, if it's friends we tend to be in discord. If it's a random group of nobodies I have no connection with. It's as quiet as a graveyard.

probably the same excuse bungie gave for destiny missing the "feature"...They didn't want trolls or people being assholes so they just nixed it.

BioWare and EA missed an incredible opportunity with this game...I still find the game fun...I just find no reason to log in right now with The Division 2 just coming out. So I'll put Anthem on hold for a bit and come back probably late May to check out what's been added/fixed.

With all of anthems problems and issues, I do wonder what chat would have been like.

As far as the game being a missed opportunity I agree. the negativity attached to anthem is extremely bad given what bioware shipped. Even that newly seen sales figure isn't great when we start talking about what ea expected. (6 million units sold I think it was at $60. I've seen no information thats near 360 Million as they projected)

I don't think you are the only one sidelining anthem.

[kaelleria]

Oh... Thanks for the information.
So I guess the only limit is the 250 one.

Nope, you can go over that very easily. I'm bad at bags and inventory and have about 240 MW/Legendaries that are feasibly usable with different builds. I'm generally at 265-275 after an expedition, you just cannot launch another expedition until your vault goes under 250.

[Eleccybubb]

So Asus send me some free codes for a month of Basic Origin or w/e EA sells, and a 10 hour trial of Anthem. Personally, I don't like the game that much (outside of flying and combos), the demo pretty much told me all I needed to know. I'm always interested in the technical aspect though, especially when there was talk about shortened load times and improved performance.

I have to say... pretty much nothing really changed from the Beta. The game is simply broken in specific places. For example in the image below, you can see my 1070ti at 60% utilization (1080p, Ultra). The CPU is a 8700K - it's not properly used either - no core is loaded to the max. Overclocking to 5GHz? Not one single frame over that.

So I guess it's the engine itself that is broken in spots. Not everywhere just in maybe 20% of the areas.

The RAM usage is also insane. You can see it spilling well over 16GB of total use, into the pagefile.

However, what's good is that frametimes and framepacing are quite good even at below 60 fps.

Oh, and also got disconnected twice. Very good, very stable 1Gbit Internet. Not that big of an issue, I could rejoin the same session.

Yeah performance wise the game is just broken as hell in some places at the moment. PS4/PS4 Pro actually has rendering issues. That's how bad it is.

Doesn't help on top of the other colossal issues the game has right now.

[kaelleria]

It wouldn't be as annoying if those missing 40% of performance would not mean 80-90 fps, and the engine having these dumb hiccups where it doesn't know what to do and how to use the components means you're below 60 fps, at least for my card. There are also some Gsync bugs I've found, where there seems to be a hidden framecap of 70 in some spots (at least for 144Hz). That's without any Vsync enabled etc. and easy to notice in an area near the doors in the fort hub.

First time I've seen a game behave like this.

Next patch should have some performance improvements.

[kaid]

This might be the loneliest multiplayer game i've ever played. Not adding text chat was the worst decision they've come up with.

They went the same route as destiny which also made for a very lonely feeling game that you were playing with others a lot. I think it is intended most people use voice chat but in practice nobody uses in game voice chat so everybody is yammering away in their own discord channels.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm always interested in the technical aspect though, especially when there was talk about shortened load times and improved performance.

I have to say... pretty much nothing really changed from the Beta. The game is simply broken in specific places. For example in the image below, you can see my 1070ti at 60% utilization (1080p, Ultra). The CPU is a 8700K - it's not properly used either - no core is loaded to the max. Overclocking to 5GHz? Not one single frame over that.

The improvements made were mostly on the end of poorer hardware that was horrendous for playing the game and load times etc from my understanding, my performance hasn't changed much at all since the beta but I never really had the more severe issues people were talking about.

My 1070ti is typically maxed out while playing, my CPU was getting maxed out too but I found out that was because the origin launcher is hot garbage and you have to do absolutely nonsensical workarounds that'll drop usage by 30-50% on the CPU end of things.

Did you try all the Javs out? They're so incredibly different I find I hate the game playing some while I absolutely love others.

[Baconeggcheese]

Only Storm and the one that you did get the first in the demo. Pretty sure I'd play exclusively Storm and Interceptor since I love mage/rogue type of gameplay.

Yeah I pretty much exclusively play interceptor myself. I tried the others but didn't get on with them for one reason or another which was surprising for storm since I normally play casters (was a lock in WoW).

They play so incredibly different though, really not sure why they limit what you play in the demo. Think its a huge disservice to themselves not giving people the opportunity to find what they might really like.

The utilization might be a consequence of some sort of buggy Gsync implementation. Only seeing this in this specific game. With Gsync disabled GPU utilization drops a bit at times, but it still remains in the 90s.

Sad part is Gsync is quite useful for this game for the 1070ti, since it's so demanding graphically.

Gsync on vs off, check the GPU utilization. Also the weird 70fps cap with Gsync On in some areas. Makes me scratch my head.

Sorry I meant CPU on the second part, yeah I have a 1440p Gsync mointor and my GPU is always at 100%. I never actually bothered to look at this before for other games, but from what I understand you want that to be the case. My CPU was also at 100% all the time which was causing performance issues until I did the origin launcher workaround and bought back 30-50% of my CPU. They desperately need to fix the origin launcher, I can't imagine how many people had terrible experiences not realizing that was potentially a big part of the issue.

[chazus]

So I just got Renewed Courage, the MW Havoc LMG. I was super stoked because I loved the Havoc, but it just didn't hold a candle to anything MW. Here's where I'm confused, though.

I love my Artinia's. The MW RElentless is fabulous. Here's the confusion, though.

The Epic Relentless vs Epic Havoc seem to vary GREATLY from the MW versions.

At my current gear, the Epics look like this:
Relentless: 21k per magazine, 1775 DPS
Havoc: 12k per magazine, 2366 DPS

Now what this tells me is that while the Havoc will do less damage overall on a single mag, it will do a lot more damage in that mag time. If I want to burn something down REAL fast, that's my go to, especially for level level enemies. I haven't done the math on how the DPS pans out over multiple mags.

Here's where things get strange.

MW Relentless: 56k per mag, 4700 dps
MW Havoc: 26k per mag, 5000 dps

What this tells me is that the Havoc is doing almost the same dps, but it's damage is so low that it makes virtually no notable dps bonus, and worse, the aiming reticle is so bad that you're probably missing a lot of those too at over 30 feet.

Per bullet, the Epic Relentless does 27% more damage per. I would EXPECT the MW versions to have that same ratio. Why does Artinia per bullet do 60% more instead? Is it overpowered, or is the MW Havoc just weak?

[Ophenia]

MW Relentless: 56k per mag, 4700 dps
MW Havoc: 26k per mag, 5000 dps

What this tells me is that the Havoc is doing almost the same dps, but it's damage is so low that it makes virtually no notable dps bonus, and worse, the aiming reticle is so bad that you're probably missing a lot of those too at over 30 feet.

Per bullet, the Epic Relentless does 27% more damage per. I would EXPECT the MW versions to have that same ratio. Why does Artinia per bullet do 60% more instead? Is it overpowered, or is the MW Havoc just weak?

Have you tried both at the same conditions ? Specifically the range, Artinia has a 35m range before fall-off while Renewed Courage has 25.

[chazus]

Have you tried both at the same conditions ? Specifically the range, Artinia has a 35m range before fall-off while Renewed Courage has 25.

I'm just looking at their damage in the forge, not in real use. I'm not so much concerned about the actual falloff, but more the discrepancy between the two guns from Epic to MW.

I just I just expect them to have the same ratio from Green to Blue to Purple to Gold.

[Adam Jensen]

It didn't age well at all. The graphics as you say somehow look far worse than ME2's to me, the gameplay is absolute ass, and it was clearly the first time Bioware used the paraphrase system because a good number of choices mean nothing or almost nothing in terms of what Shepard says. On a replay you can also see how the story on the Citadel makes very little sense, the humans hoping that the Council would throw their top agent to the wolves based on one eyewitness testimony was stupid.

The characters are still pretty good however, especially Wrex and Ashley, and the soundtrack is killer. But then again Mass Effect has by far the best soundtrack of any Bioware production.

I actually hate that line, when Anderson brings up Shepard's dream.

Breaks my suspension of disbelief and I want Shepard to turn around and say "dude, you honestly think they'll believe that shit? Don't be dumb."

[Baconeggcheese]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-of-division-1

Hopefully I can link this without it becoming a conversation bout the division.

I'm linking this more to the point of how sales trends are these days in relation to how people were making it out to be Anthems failing. I think its just a sign of the times. Physical sales are declining, the market is flooded with enticing options, and maybe most importantly; this genre has taught everyone not to invest early.

Imagine this is just the way the market is now.

[Yunru]

Uh oh, that was quicker than expected. (lootboxes)
5.30

Now i wonder if they will sell keys for it. And limit you to 1 a day. OR WEEK.

And its probaly not 100% cosmetic drop either.

[Ophenia]

Uh oh, that was quicker than expected. (lootboxes)
Now i wonder if they will sell keys for it. And limit you to 1 a day. OR WEEK.

And its probaly not 100% cosmetic drop either.

Can we keep the complainery and all the retarded youtubers ranting about literally everything for when it will actually be a thing ?

Edit: Thinking about it, why not keeping the Youtubers outside of literally every topic ? They're PAID to cry about everything. EA could find a cure for cancer that you'd see some """influencer""" crying about it.
Maybe that's time for internet people to make their own opinion about any subject. Dunno.

[Cairhiin]

Those cosmetic lootboxes were announced weeks ago.

[Dhrizzle]

Is that video talking about the Elysian caches?

[Cairhiin]

Is that video talking about the Elysian caches?

Yea, I didn't watch the video though, I just skipped to 5:30 and there was an image of an Elysian cache.