The new game "Anthem" moves like jogging with a broomstick down your pants

[Sy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(video_game)

There is pre-beta access out there, available for free, which lays plain the beauty of this game. With wonderful terrain-- holy shit I can barely move. What even is this.

It's like a bad hybrid between Mechwarrior and Gears of War.

Movement that's beyond awful is a killer for me, but when its early mission is blocked by a color puzzle, where a practically full-time gamer has to search the internet to figure it out, and which has multiple random participants.. that's a game's suicide.

Please please GO PLAY IT. It's a beautiful train wreck that you must experience for yourself so you can tell others you were warmed by the glorious trash fire that was Anthem.

 

[Aisman_]

Yeah, I thought too that the movement looked very sluggy.

 

[Pandagnome]

I haven't tried this game but it looks nice also not sure how jogging with a broom down the pants would be but it would perhaps be what a witch does to hide the broomstick!

 

[PartTimeJedi]

My buddy played it. Gave the demo an overall 5/10 ☹

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

Wonder if IGN and all them will give it a 9/10 LOL

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

it takes awhile to get into it.... probably around the halfway mark. They had to change their settings to get it to run properly.

from what I have seen, it plays like a slightly speed up version of Mass Effect Andromeda. With a far stronger jet pack. I played alot of MEA multiplayer too since it reminded me of how I played Firefall.

 

[Pandagnome]

it takes awhile to get into it.... probably around the halfway mark. They had to change their settings to get it to run properly.

from what I have seen, it plays like a slightly speed up version of Mass Effect Andromeda. With a far stronger jet pack. I played alot of MEA multiplayer too since it reminded me of how I played Firefall.

The load in and the area you get the mech suit part oddly reminds me of an area in warframe plains of eidelon market area hmm

The flying part looks like fun though makes me think of iron man and the exploration under water instead of gameover in the water too looks neat.

Other parts doesn't seem to wow me as much, the sound effects of the weapons seem dull
i am still pondering on the enemy at 1:27:32 looks like a bug with a white afro guess it is early days for this game.

 

[Sayan]

Free open demo for anyone starts Feb 1st. If you played before you should have all 4 frames available for you in this one.
Though it's still the same old buggy build that is said to be 2 month behind internal live build with thousands of bugfixes and changes.

Movement is definitely one of the strongest points of the game, even though people complain about controls a lot. Once you get used to it, the combat feels fast and fluid, with a lot of tricks you can do, like using melee from air, dodges and high jumps. And you have to dodge a lot, if you don't want to spend half the game sitting behind cover, but it's entirely possible to stay mobile.
The world map looks beautiful with huge vertical range, should be a bunch of different biomes too. Kind of a shame it's limited to 4 players per instance, I guess it's fine for PvE coop game. It seems like events spawn in the same locations and bear no impact on the world.
What worries me is combo system and damage numbers in demo, idk how much of that will change, but optimal way to play devolves to ability spam and melee for mobs and sniper rifles against bosses. Just going from level 10 to 15 ability damage doubles or even triples if you compare to rare quality. Skill combos obliterate everything without shields, making skills that don't deal a lot of damage or combo well, subpar. While getting through shields on elites is a struggle if you don't have frost or lightning damage.

Also Colossus ult is carbon copy of Accord mortar arcfold hkm for DN lol, I wonder if that comes from somewhere else.

 

[Faeryl]

My thoughts on Anthem...

I really had a difficult time concentrating on enjoying game play for several reasons:

- Rubber-banding but only in the Expeditions.
- Loading screens freeze up causing me to restart the entire game on all loading screens but entering the Expeditions was the most frequent.
- I found when I COULD play, the almost stationary AI were a bit OP ('Mobs stagger you, you don't stagger them').
- I discovered a lot of interactive menus in town were unavailable for the Demo; I understand but this was disappointing.
- Not being able to see my character at any point was a disappointment. I'm not sure why they added animations of getting in and out of the Javelins at this point.
- There was no text chat of ANY kind. This makes communication VERY difficult with random players who may or may not have Discord/VOIP.
- There were settings for VOIP but, I'm not sure if it was working as I used Discord.
- A VERY basic tutorial (with an option to skip and unlimited visits) would be helpful so players could get an idea of how jetpacks, various guns, abilities, and combat moves work.
- I thought Demo should have ALL 4 Javelin types available to try out; not get one and unlock one.
- It seemed to be semi-open world but, still felt very separated from town and other players.
- Respawning. Have to wait on another player to get rescued. What happens when you're NOT rescued? That could be a LONG LONG wait. Needs a self-respawn/revive mechanic.

Here are things I liked in the Anthem Demo:

- Visuals in the game; what I saw of it looks VERY VERY pretty.
- Javelin skin looks and color customization; love the customization.
- After I finished the story line, I played in the "Free Play" area. This is where I was able to better learn the flying, swimming, and I was able to test each Javelin's abilities; whereas there was no time or space to do so in the story line Expeditions.
- I liked the open world feel of the "Free Play" area; even though only 3 other people at a time are there with you. Maybe in the future this could be opened up to more people?


I'm going to play more during the public Demo this weekend. Although it doesn't sound like they're going to fix all the bugs we encountered by then. I've seen several videos that mention the VIP Demo was 6 weeks old compared to the live build. @Wyntyr made a good point that the VIP Demo was only levels 10 through 15; hence why there was no introduction/tutorial of any kind. In retrospect, I'm not sure how smart an idea THAT was. Like I said, I would much rather be given the option to have unlimited uses and/or skip a tutorial than not have one at all.

I AM impressed enough (even with all the frustrations of frozen loading screens) that I'm willing to give it some more of my time.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

- There was no text chat of ANY kind. This makes communication VERY difficult with random players who may or may not have Discord/VOIP.

- I found when I COULD play, the almost stationary AI were a bit OP ('Mobs stagger you, you don't stagger them').

- I liked the open world feel of the "Free Play" area; even though only 3 other people at a time are there with you. Maybe in the future this could be opened up to more people?

Destiny is the same way. It seems to work out since even with pugs without voice chat directing people isn't that hard. But it ain't very effective. Sometimes I wish I could send people a link to a 3rd party voice channel from within Destiny.

man... stationary AI that don't stagger reminds me of Mass Effect Andromeda.

the free play area reminds me of skyforge.

Movement is definitely one of the strongest points of the game, even though people complain about controls a lot. Once you get used to it, the combat feels fast and fluid, with a lot of tricks you can do, like using melee from air, dodges and high jumps. And you have to dodge a lot, if you don't want to spend half the game sitting behind cover, but it's entirely possible to stay mobile.

Sounds a lot like MEA. In the co-op PVE matches even though the devs gave players a lot of movement capability, a lot of people would rather just bunker down and let the targets come to them.

I had the nearly the same experience with Destiny, skyeforge and a few games like MEA.. A lot of people seemed to prefer being statures even if you are given a lot of movement capability.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

Decided to buy it. From the few hours of playing it feels more like a single player game than anything else.

Yeah, the missions are four man teams that groups you with randoms if you don't go with friends, but there's no sense of danger for me as a Storm toon. You get a choice of 4 toons and from the description, I figured a long range AOE attacker would probably be better than the other toons.

I was able to swap out the freeze power for a fireball power that reminds me the firecat's weapon from firefall. It has both a charge up attack a lower power burst attack. I found it more useful than the mid-range freeze attack.

The game needs better tutorials. They got a page in the journal that's marked tutorials but it doesn't explain much more than give out lore. For example, just by experimenting, I found the Storm toon has a free floating evade that doesn't deplete jet fuel.... so you can sit yourself way above combat and rain fire down with barely any risk to yourself.

Ammo can be scare. To the point that my abilites became my main way to fight. Since that's limited by only a recharge. And since the Storm toon is basically the scifi equivalent of mage...

only 4 players in a freeplay zone? Why? Who made that decision?

and while I'm on the topic on stupid decisions... why did they decide to force players to pick a toon and get stuck to it without giving players the opportunity to try them all first? Especially since apparently even restarting the game forces you to play with same frame choice. If I didn't take the time to actually read through the journal and found all the info on the various toons, I'd be seriously pissed off.

I experienced everything that Faeryl wrote about. And that was the public demo version...

movement... other than the jet pack it feels like Mass Effect Andromeda. I had to tweak the aiming sensitivity to 50 % though. Default is like 20% which makes me way too slow.

The jetpack is okay.. it's just really annoying to use since their tutorial is extremely basic. How to activate it. You pretty much go to figure it out yourself.

I played The Divison 2 beta... and that feels much more alive even when you are playing by yourself.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

The game needs better tutorials. They got a page in the journal that's marked tutorials but it doesn't explain much more than give out lore. For example, just by experimenting, I found the Storm toon has a free floating evade that doesn't deplete jet fuel.... so you can sit yourself way above combat and rain fire down with barely any risk to yourself.

Apparently that was a bug. Not an intended function. They did a stealth patch that increased the burn rate to make it noticeable.

And since they seem to love lore over clear descriptions of your various gear and weapons, I'd suggest experimenting with everything you get. For example, I couldn't figure out why triple dashing for the Interceptor toon didn't work for me until I read on reddit that I'm supposed to hold the button down. I probably should have tried that but after trying different button mashing attempts I gave up for awhile.

I gave up for now since they haven't fixed the loot problem which is a completely retarded design choice. For instance, I'm got a pistol with stats that say it will increase the stability to my LMG except the stat clearly says it's limited to the pistol.

 

[Skum]

Played in the beta a bit. Yeah controls were pretty clunky. Flying took a lot of tweaking the settings to get actually usable for anything. Swimming.. yeah that just wasn't pretty.

Took a while to really get going, and still felt pretty slow. and the graphic anomalies (flicker of doom anybody?).

that said, once I got the second frame thing, it was actually enjoyable (light ninja mech with some crazy stabby), that and the tactical nuke of a sniper rifle (though I hear they may have patched that somewhat)

Game has potential, but I think I'll wait for them to iron out a few things before considering buying it.

Oh, and sometimes you just need to go jogging with a broomstick in your pants...

 

[liandri]

There was a patch today that was supposed to fixed the inscriptions on the loot so that you can't get a pistol that buffs your LMG.

I enjoy it, but I'd agree that it really feels like a single-player experience. I've never heard anyone on voice chat in the 50 hours I've played, and other than reviving, I haven't had to interact with anyone.

 

[Faeryl]

I enjoy it, but I'd agree that it really feels like a single-player experience. I've never heard anyone on voice chat in the 50 hours I've played, and other than reviving, I haven't had to interact with anyone.

I still felt alone even when there were three other people in my "squad" and we never quite seem to really work together; even though we're all trying to get the same goal. I've never heard anyone on voice in-game either. Also, there seems to be no real reason for interaction between players other than a revive. And that's only if you're noticed because they have no way to signal for help.

When @Wyntyr and I teamed up, I started having a better time. With just two of us, we waited for each other to spawn into the map before moving anywhere. That way I was able to hear and listen to the dialogue/story instead of worrying about catching up to the others before getting stuck in another loading screen because the other 3 had already moved up to the next area in the expedition. And after the BIG patch, they did fix loading screen wait times. I still wish they'd fix the number of loading screens - it's still too many.

I don't know why they added the Launch Bay. When I do go in, there aren't very many players there and we can't even be in the SAME one as our squad mates so, what's the point?

I really think they need to find a way to put text chat in-game. It seems to me, most people (me included) do not want to use voice chat (I dislike hearing my own voice).

I'm still willing to give BioWare a chance to keep working on it to make it better but, I'm not sure if EA will let them do it ...

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

I think their intention for Launch bay is a visual form of chat. It ain't helpful for those in a squad already but for those are looking to pick up some random people for more than one mission perhaps.

Yeah I hate the way the system would pull everyone to the person that is furthermost along the route. That crap is so annoying. Especially when you find one of those random special enemies that appear within the objectives of a mission. You want to take them down, but you can't since the you get pulled into a loading screen.

I don't understand why they needed to put that in place anyhow. It's only 4 people in a instance. It's not like another team is going to show up and take over. Hell that death/revive screen would be enough of deterrence for rushing people if they wanted people to stay together.

I don't have much hope for this game anyhow. EA pulls out of titles so fast. I don't understand how they make money. They invest in something and then they pull out before it matures to invest in something else.

Swimming.. yeah that just wasn't pretty.

Still ain't pretty. Hard to tell which way is up or down or left...

 

[NanoTechnician]

Anthem, I can see why having a longer crunch time than 6-9months is beneficial as well as a focused idea like Em8er has.

My pet grievances are:

- No thumpers
Like this is an easy attack of the game, the missions re in the same areas as where your squad of 4 is in open play.

-Instances for EVERYTHING!
Having a really beautiful detailed area is nice, but it's empty without having a common area. You could design it so that there could be multiple docking areas as well as a larger area to allow for more than 4 people, but the engine is limited to the amount of people it can support, which is odd considering Battlefield etc.

This was the closest I could see my character, a hand and a shadow.


-Open World
it reminds me, to be honest early Copa, you wondered what was beyond and I have the same feeling, but it has a false height. The world, whom ever made it made it with love for detail right down to the placement of vines on the cliff faces and I've only found 1 location where it's glitchy.

The open world feels really empty, and like above, it's so nice to play when in a group, the symbiotic relationship between javelins is really well done and this is where FF succeeded.

-Communication
I wasn't able to access zone chat, because? it doesn't appear to be there. You have a circle rectal that shows emotes and basic hi, help, follow and thanks. I had to screengrab a name, open up chrome, search for them and then add them to my friends list, this is a failure of the game. Even the recent met social area wasn't the people that I met.


This circular F remineded me so much of FF.

I'll add more as I play, but the game works, but it's lacking in so many ways.

 

[Drakin5]

That boy ain’t right.

 

[Sy]

There needs to be a student-developer class that does a breakdown of this legendary fuckup, like some sort of post-oil Venezuelan economics lesson.

 

[NanoTechnician]

I'll let you know next month Sy, I start my degree in Games and interactive Media