Yeah, it is strange. I wonder if Division 2 will follow the same trend.
I think it's one of those genres that is really hard to balance correctly. The loot structure is basically a functional economy and I could understand it being out of whack when the game is first released. It's hard to test that when it hits live.
Division had the same problems when it was released. Loot was totally out of whack and the end game was very, very small and weak. It took the devs 6 months to release an update that fundamentally changed the way the game was structured.
Originally posted by BackFire
The loot structure is part of it, but even with things like struggling to have a strong narrative or world. It seems particularly bad in this case because it's a Bioware game, it had a 6 year development cycle, and from what I heard it still somehow feels rushed.
Duke Nukem Forever had a much longer cycle, and look how that turned out. 👆
Like in that case, I'd bet somewhere in this mess is incompetent management.
Hey, don't critic scores determine how much devs get paid?
I can't find how much Anthem made, or if it's a financial success, but I was thinking:
If critic scores had no real effect on sales anymore, and companies knew this, wouldn't they try and game the critic scores on their own games lower, just to screw the devs and save some money?
Just a thought.
Meanwhile Sony is offering refunds now that the game is reportedly crashing consoles.
https://www.vg247.com/2019/03/03/sony-reportedly-refunding-digital-copies-of-anthem/
Looks like the inevitable happened. RIP Anthem.
Originally posted by Nemesis X
Looks like the inevitable happened. RIP Anthem.
Didn't they promise it would last forever?
I smell a false advertising lawsuit. 🙂
I think it has a lot to do with the type of loot and what that loot could do to the game in general. Problem with loot based games is that you can sometimes create imbalance and "must haves" and plenty of games want to avoid the cookie cutter builds where only certain loot are seen wanted due to their ease of use, power and efficiency. So devs have to be careful when introducing specific type of items as well as balance out their rarity.
But none of that is Anthem's problem. The loot in that game is such hot garbage that ANYTHING would have been a decent alternative for the mountains of dog doodoo they are shoverling at you in that game. Not to mention the terrible way they were handing out loot in the game (you get the loot AFTER each mission). They tried to copy Destiny's loot system while being even more stale and boring. Where Destiny's loot is hampered by its pvp (so devs had to make the loot as simple as possible so that they won't accidentally make something that is too OP when used in combination with other items), Anthem is pure PvE so it should not have been an issue (OP is A-OK in a PvE lanscape). They should have tried to be more like Diablo than they did Destiny.
I would say their incompetence/inexperience combined (they were never as skilled at shooting mechanics as Bungie) with some higher ups forcing them to stick to a Destiny-esque game, gave the game the worst aspects of Destiny while not not getting the best parts (polish and gunplay).
I enjoyed the combat part of the game....however, I only played the beta.
But I can understand the frustration with loot. The Division had similar problems when it was released and it took months to fix.
I believe people came back to that game after the devs did a major overhaul so Anthem can do the same thing (in theory of course).
There is one thing I know and that's people love loot based games and are willing to come back if the game is good.
I think it would stupid for them to at least try.
The story around the game would be a lot worst if they just abandoned it.
If Ubisoft didn't try to fix The Division, I believe Division 2 annoucements would be harshly received. However, they fixed it and the story became more about how the made the effort than the original shittastic end game.
Lead creators leave Anthem, Bioware shifting focus to Dragon Age 4.
It only pisses me off even further this is what they abandoned Andromeda for: another game but this one they apparently didn't know how it worked making everything they've done up to this pointless! Hopefully this'll get EA to not push Bioware to do this live service crap again with Dragon Age at least or else repeat history. Good grief.
Originally posted by Nemesis X
Lead creators leave Anthem, Bioware shifting focus to Dragon Age 4.It only pisses me off even further this is what they abandoned Andromeda for: another game but this one they apparently didn't know how it worked making everything they've done up to this pointless! Hopefully this'll get EA to not push Bioware to do this live service crap again with Dragon Age at least or else repeat history. Good grief.
I think this was kind of always the intent with Anthem. The "A" team makes the game for initial release and then hands it over to Bioware Austin to make any other content down the road.
Actually it's probably for the best, Bioware Austin is responsible for TOR which has become a pretty decent MMO, they can probably take a lot of what they learned form that game and utilize that knowledge to make Anthem decent, where as the Edmonton team seemed to have no ****ing idea how to make a game like Anthem in the first place.