An additional fair point of the argument is that DAO and ME1 were received well at their point in time. If one was to release ME1 with such controls and combat now (but, say graphics of anthem)? They would get crucified.
Well I'd say they'd be better received than Anthem (which is quite easy). The Witcher 3 isn't great in terms of controls, it's sometimes criticized for it, was it crucified ? Or was it considered a masterpiece by the majority because of its content and story telling ?
Controls in TW3 were adequate, fights were on the low side, but for me it was the drabness of whole setting, story & how it started, which killed the game, not controls.. ok offtopic end
[ LegendCNCD / AsariLoverFI ] Waiting for ME5 - Look's like sometime in 2186, everything went to hell. We got out just ahead of it! MEA & ME1 (>>>> 3 > 2) -- DAI > DAO > DA2 -- 3500h+ & maxed out all 02/2020 in MEAMP, APEX 137001+, DAIMP (560/728/200), ANTHEM, SW BF II - Drinking tears of MP lamers since DooM & Quake in 90's softknees.bandcamp.com/ Go go go! I will destroy you! Watch out! Enemies everywhere! You must die!
What is DOA? Do you mean DAO? If so, I had no problems with either game as far as controls go. If you do mean DOA, I don't know what that is so have no comment.
Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod Sure, soloing the Monitor is hard, but have you tried soloing the Monitor while the cat is jumping on your mouse and randomly clicking buttons? Grandmastercat mode! 😝 #AnthemGame #HardMode
Ok, so thanks for proving my point : games with better story/content but average gameplay are better received than games with better controls but average story/content
I'll finish a game with good controls/gameplay but maybe a not so stellar story. However, I'll drop in a second a game with shitty controls/mechanics despite overwhelming opinion that the story is great. If I can't PLAY the game, or get overly frustrated trying to do so, the story don't matter one twat.
FF XII is a game I installed some years back. A console port of the worse kind. Worst KB controls ever. I uninstalled the game immediately after my first combat experience. To me, ... unplayable.
Why did I install it? Well. because I saw the movie Final Fanstasy: The Spirits Within (2001). I enjoyed it. The game? Awful.
Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod Sure, soloing the Monitor is hard, but have you tried soloing the Monitor while the cat is jumping on your mouse and randomly clicking buttons? Grandmastercat mode! 😝 #AnthemGame #HardMode
Emily is playing with a KB? Does Bio permit this?
Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
Mary Kirby @biomarykirby This is an extremely good thread.
Aaron Makes Video Games @nemo10 In the fallout from the Kotaku Anthem piece, there hasn't really been enough talk about how bad the industry is at promoting and training leads. I've worked with a lot of people who were promoted to positions they were unprepared for, & everybody suffered for it.
Most people know, at least at an intellectual level, that being a lead is fundamentally different from being an individual contributor, but people still get promoted to lead positions all the time without proper training, and even then...
The reporting and feedback structures aren't set up to deal with it. Sometimes it's because everybody wants to try to be friends, and telling your boss that they suck at their job feels like it will screw up your professional and personal relationship...
EA actually has, in theory, pretty robust mechanisms for giving feedback and reporting team morale, but in my experience most people aren't good at giving feedback anyway. Often, the only training on how to give feedback is for managers, not for their reports.
And of course, nobody wants to be the person who tells their boss's boss that their boss sucks at their job and then gets bitten in the ass about it later. It's pretty common to hear complaints in any organization that HR isn't trustworthy about keeping feedback confidential.
So you have this endless cycle that people get promoted to positions they're not prepared for, they work really hard but often do the wrong things, their bosses don't get good enough feedback about how they're doing, the project suffers, and they get shuffled into a new role...
...only to be replaced by someone who is likely to go through the exact same process. This is often why games and studios die. Not because the Evil Corporate Overlords deliberately make bad decisions (this almost never happens), but because...
Making games is hard, leading teams is hard, giving feedback is hard, creating the right structures and building trust to give good feedback is hard, and spotting talented team members who can lead a team or a project is also hard.
As footnote, there's also a major issue with people getting into lead roles because they've been adjacent to success, ie they worked WITH a really good lead/director on a project so it's assumed they know how to recreate the magic. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they know how to talk very convincingly about how to Do Things The Right Way, but that doesn't mean they actually can. And because making games is so difficult, they're often given a lot of leeway when they're actually floundering.
This is discussed in the Kotaku article briefly but is, IMO, the most important way that big companies screw up their relationships with their studios; How many times have we read about games that were rushed out at the last minute because they spent too much time in...
...Preproduction Hell? There's a difference between deliberately doing a lot of prototyping (there's a great GDC talk about prototyping Titanfall 2 "action blocks" like this) and just lurching back and forth between ideas. (+ apparently trying to prototype in Frostbite is hell)
One of the solutions is for us all to treat game development like we're professionals. And I mean that in the sense that you need to hold yourself and coworkers to professional standards; learn best practices and hold your team accountable at all levels.
I've been a part of a project that was basically on fire for almost its entire development cycle and IMO our studio leads gave the game team leads way too many chances. Being slow to address these major issues delays an inevitable morale hit, but too bad. Get the pain over with!
I'd rather have a rough month and then ship the game than have a rough year and have the game canceled. Or even if the game was canceled EARLIER (which it probably should have been), just get that shit over with. Restructure the team, fire the toxic people ASAP!
That may have seemed like a tangent but it's an example of less than professional behavior by leadership. Trying not to hurt feelings or damage morale by admitting that things were going bad ultimately dragged the pain on for too long, and did no good.
Not that it's not important to get along with coworkers and make friends on the job, but ultimately you're there to do a job & if the studio goes down because people were too afraid that admitting the problems was going to hurt feelings, then everybody's worse off in the long run
(Just to be clear - I worked at EA and in general it was a good experience. I would definitely go back given the right circumstances. This thread is not meant to be specifically about EA - it's just a good jumping off point because of the Kotaku article.)
I've made an Interactive Map for Anthem. You can find Chest, collectibles, arcanist runes, PoV, PoI, etc... All are showned with pictures/video and you can check them to remember whiches are discovered.
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Mary Kirby @biomarykirby This is an extremely good thread.
Aaron Makes Video Games @nemo10 In the fallout from the Kotaku Anthem piece, there hasn't really been enough talk about how bad the industry is at promoting and training leads. I've worked with a lot of people who were promoted to positions they were unprepared for, & everybody suffered for it.
Most people know, at least at an intellectual level, that being a lead is fundamentally different from being an individual contributor, but people still get promoted to lead positions all the time without proper training, and even then...
The reporting and feedback structures aren't set up to deal with it. Sometimes it's because everybody wants to try to be friends, and telling your boss that they suck at their job feels like it will screw up your professional and personal relationship...
EA actually has, in theory, pretty robust mechanisms for giving feedback and reporting team morale, but in my experience most people aren't good at giving feedback anyway. Often, the only training on how to give feedback is for managers, not for their reports.
And of course, nobody wants to be the person who tells their boss's boss that their boss sucks at their job and then gets bitten in the ass about it later. It's pretty common to hear complaints in any organization that HR isn't trustworthy about keeping feedback confidential.
So you have this endless cycle that people get promoted to positions they're not prepared for, they work really hard but often do the wrong things, their bosses don't get good enough feedback about how they're doing, the project suffers, and they get shuffled into a new role...
...only to be replaced by someone who is likely to go through the exact same process. This is often why games and studios die. Not because the Evil Corporate Overlords deliberately make bad decisions (this almost never happens), but because...
Making games is hard, leading teams is hard, giving feedback is hard, creating the right structures and building trust to give good feedback is hard, and spotting talented team members who can lead a team or a project is also hard.
As footnote, there's also a major issue with people getting into lead roles because they've been adjacent to success, ie they worked WITH a really good lead/director on a project so it's assumed they know how to recreate the magic. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they know how to talk very convincingly about how to Do Things The Right Way, but that doesn't mean they actually can. And because making games is so difficult, they're often given a lot of leeway when they're actually floundering.
This is discussed in the Kotaku article briefly but is, IMO, the most important way that big companies screw up their relationships with their studios; How many times have we read about games that were rushed out at the last minute because they spent too much time in...
...Preproduction Hell? There's a difference between deliberately doing a lot of prototyping (there's a great GDC talk about prototyping Titanfall 2 "action blocks" like this) and just lurching back and forth between ideas. (+ apparently trying to prototype in Frostbite is hell)
One of the solutions is for us all to treat game development like we're professionals. And I mean that in the sense that you need to hold yourself and coworkers to professional standards; learn best practices and hold your team accountable at all levels.
I've been a part of a project that was basically on fire for almost its entire development cycle and IMO our studio leads gave the game team leads way too many chances. Being slow to address these major issues delays an inevitable morale hit, but too bad. Get the pain over with!
I'd rather have a rough month and then ship the game than have a rough year and have the game canceled. Or even if the game was canceled EARLIER (which it probably should have been), just get that shit over with. Restructure the team, fire the toxic people ASAP!
That may have seemed like a tangent but it's an example of less than professional behavior by leadership. Trying not to hurt feelings or damage morale by admitting that things were going bad ultimately dragged the pain on for too long, and did no good.
Not that it's not important to get along with coworkers and make friends on the job, but ultimately you're there to do a job & if the studio goes down because people were too afraid that admitting the problems was going to hurt feelings, then everybody's worse off in the long run
(Just to be clear - I worked at EA and in general it was a good experience. I would definitely go back given the right circumstances. This thread is not meant to be specifically about EA - it's just a good jumping off point because of the Kotaku article.)
I am actually in a position where i got an extensive training about leadership not so long ago, which was a real eye opener about the amount aof things a good leader needs to know and do. Not easy at all. Additionally, it is gruelling to see other leaders around me doing it wrong 😑 so i kind of understand this post really well.
Mary Kirby @biomarykirby This is an extremely good thread.
Aaron Makes Video Games @nemo10 In the fallout from the Kotaku Anthem piece, there hasn't really been enough talk about how bad the industry is at promoting and training leads. I've worked with a lot of people who were promoted to positions they were unprepared for, & everybody suffered for it.
*snip*
A company that wants employee feedback has the means to get it - there is no need to rely on employee initiative to report leadership problems and all the troubles that may come along with that.
My company for example conducts an employee survey every year, which includes but is certainly not limited to all kinds of questions about leadership. Survey data are handled by an external specialized contractors who anonymizes and collates the data and creates a comprehensive report from it. The report's results are made accessible for all employees via company newsletter and intranet, with a comparison to the previous year's report. Company management actively works to improve in all areas that are considered problematic, including leadership.
If a company truly wants to know these things and improve on them, it can be done.
"Give me a fully loaded Hornet and I'll shake the gates of heaven." -Aria Reilly
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer I with experience in Item Creation to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This is an important role in a looter-shooter like Anthem. The System Designer is responsible for creating a system of itemization that players can understand, but they are also responsible for creating interesting and compelling choices with the combat team. They also ensure that the properties on items work in the way intended.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer I with experience in Store Management and Reward Pipelines to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This role handles both store flow and creation, also ensuring not just the data that comes from managing the store, but also the flow of all rewards in the game, so the game has compelling rewards in every avenue offered by the experience. This role also reviews access to the types of items that come in through the pipeline to ensure (via data) that the players are getting what they want.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer II with experience in Combat Balance to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This role is responsible for moment to moment tuning of the game, ensuring that the player and monster abilities are equivalent in ways players understand. This role will work closely with the item designers to ensure their assumptions about the player power matches the awesome items in the game world.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Senior Systems Designer with experience in Loot Systems to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. Building a truly great server side loot system, that is scalable, has modern concepts like streak-breaking, and easily modifiable data formats. A great loot system ensures that the players have predictable experiences that can be measured with data.
If they're hiring new developers, especially senior-level developers, then it looks as if they're pretty serious about wanting to fix the game. I doubt EA would let them get away with adding new members to the team if they weren't committed to some degree either. A lot of pressures going to be on that Senior Systems Designer, since loot and loot reward structure is probably the games biggest problem right now. Hopefully this means the game will end up in a better spot when its all said and done. I foresee this first year mostly being them trying to stabilize the game anyway. My only thing though, is that adding these new devs won't mean anything if they still can't coalesce around how they want them game to evolve. Not having that settled would simply mean you've added more problems onto new people.
I've put Anthem on the back-burner for a week now. I check in to see what's coming with this weeks livestream, and I'll probably give the game another go to check out the new stronghold and see if I get any new weapons. Currently, however, I'm just waiting for Days Gone to arrive.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 decades of RPG gaming from green screen to 4K. Moderator posts mostly marked by 'Police' emoji. Other views shared are just personal ones. On UK time zone.
Anthem @anthemgame 24 hour countdown to the next #AnthemGame livestream. We'll be going through a new Stronghold, The Sunken, at 1PM PST/3PM CT. Watch here:
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer I with experience in Item Creation to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This is an important role in a looter-shooter like Anthem. The System Designer is responsible for creating a system of itemization that players can understand, but they are also responsible for creating interesting and compelling choices with the combat team. They also ensure that the properties on items work in the way intended.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer I with experience in Store Management and Reward Pipelines to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This role handles both store flow and creation, also ensuring not just the data that comes from managing the store, but also the flow of all rewards in the game, so the game has compelling rewards in every avenue offered by the experience. This role also reviews access to the types of items that come in through the pipeline to ensure (via data) that the players are getting what they want.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Systems Designer II with experience in Combat Balance to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. This role is responsible for moment to moment tuning of the game, ensuring that the player and monster abilities are equivalent in ways players understand. This role will work closely with the item designers to ensure their assumptions about the player power matches the awesome items in the game world.
BioWare is looking for an creative and passionate Senior Systems Designer with experience in Loot Systems to join our studio in either Austin or Edmonton to work on our newest IP Anthem. Building a truly great server side loot system, that is scalable, has modern concepts like streak-breaking, and easily modifiable data formats. A great loot system ensures that the players have predictable experiences that can be measured with data.
If they're hiring new developers, especially senior-level developers, then it looks as if they're pretty serious about wanting to fix the game. I doubt EA would let them get away with adding new members to the team if they weren't committed to some degree either. A lot of pressures going to be on that Senior Systems Designer, since loot and loot reward structure is probably the games biggest problem right now. Hopefully this means the game will end up in a better spot when its all said and done. I foresee this first year mostly being them trying to stabilize the game anyway. My only thing though, is that adding these new devs won't mean anything if they still can't coalesce around how they want them game to evolve. Not having that settled would simply mean you've added more problems onto new people.
I've put Anthem on the back-burner for a week now. I check in to see what's coming with this weeks livestream, and I'll probably give the game another go to check out the new stronghold and see if I get any new weapons. Currently, however, I'm just waiting for Days Gone to arrive.
I find this to be the most encouraging info for Anthem since, well, before the VIP demo. You absolutely do not hire for multiple positions for a product that is on its way to cancellation. It happens, to be sure, and it can happen to a new hire that just uprooted their whole family and moved to the new job, only to find no new job anymore. But if things get that bad, there’s a lot more wrong than just Anthem.
Inquisitor: Is that innuendo? Sera: No, it's at the front!
I find this to be the most encouraging info for Anthem since, well, before the VIP demo.
Very much this. Hiring is expensive and shows a commitment that goes well beyond marketing waffle.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 decades of RPG gaming from green screen to 4K. Moderator posts mostly marked by 'Police' emoji. Other views shared are just personal ones. On UK time zone.
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
BioWare's looking for new hires for various elements of Anthems development:
If they're hiring new developers, especially senior-level developers, then it looks as if they're pretty serious about wanting to fix the game. I doubt EA would let them get away with adding new members to the team if they weren't committed to some degree either. A lot of pressures going to be on that Senior Systems Designer, since loot and loot reward structure is probably the games biggest problem right now. Hopefully this means the game will end up in a better spot when its all said and done. I foresee this first year mostly being them trying to stabilize the game anyway. My only thing though, is that adding these new devs won't mean anything if they still can't coalesce around how they want them game to evolve. Not having that settled would simply mean you've added more problems onto new people.
I've put Anthem on the back-burner for a week now. I check in to see what's coming with this weeks livestream, and I'll probably give the game another go to check out the new stronghold and see if I get any new weapons. Currently, however, I'm just waiting for Days Gone to arrive.
I find this to be the most encouraging info for Anthem since, well, before the VIP demo. You absolutely do not hire for multiple positions for a product that is on its way to cancellation. It happens, to be sure, and it can happen to a new hire that just uprooted their whole family and moved to the new job, only to find no new job anymore. But if things get that bad, there’s a lot more wrong than just Anthem.
Encouraging, yes.
But, what does that say about the people that worked / designed the Anthem reward system? I mean, we had ME3MP then DA:I MP then ME:A MP. Is anyone suggesting that these were failures?
On the other hand, it seems that Bio is acknowledging that the current Anthem reward system sucks. Getting it fixed, is a good thing. Though, I get a hint of "we need to increase our monetization revenue". Maybe Bio is also looking forward to DA4.
Anthem @anthemgame 24 hour countdown to the next #AnthemGame livestream. We'll be going through a new Stronghold, The Sunken, at 1PM PST/3PM CT. Watch here:
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Anthem @anthemgame 24 hour countdown to the next #AnthemGame livestream. We'll be going through a new Stronghold, The Sunken, at 1PM PST/3PM CT.
*snip*
I'll have to watch the video later though. They have no sympathy for european timezones
PS: Goddamn their insistance to always post only in their own times... is a little GMT to much to ask?
PPS: From the 3 second video it LOOKS as if it's an outlaw stronghold...
Good. We need a easier way to farm outlaw faction for the challenges/quests.
Also i agree about the timezones. I would not kill them to put this in a way the whole world could easily understand when the livestrem is going to happen.
Don't knock the little winds. They're important - for morale.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem Origin: correctamundo1 Prime Posts: A thousand and then some. Prime Likes: They never liked me! No one likes me! Posts: 2,830 Likes: 5,270
I'll have to watch the video later though. They have no sympathy for european timezones
PS: Goddamn their insistance to always post only in their own times... is a little GMT to much to ask?
PPS: From the 3 second video it LOOKS as if it's an outlaw stronghold...
Good. We need a easier way to farm outlaw faction for the challenges/quests.
Also i agree about the timezones. I would not kill them to put this in a way the whole world could easily understand when the livestrem is going to happen.
I keep my phone showing local time in all NA time zones as well as GMT and my own CET. Oh and Tokyo too.