Everything we know about Anthem

Regarding the return-to-fort loot format, Brenon commented on Reddit:

www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/8s7jyf/the_arguments_behind_knowing_what_your_loot_is/?st=JILYGD2U&sh=782b568d

User
The engram route is the best route for them to ensure you always come back to the fort,your little private space where its your story. It is the conveyor belt that feeds you into the story and progress of your fort. If you didnt have engram system you would visit the fort less for sure.

Brenon Holmes
This is one of the primary reasons we went in this direction.

Additionally, when you're out in the field we want to encourage people to be unified in their intent - finishing the mission. Revealing loot right away starts to put you into a different mindset - and we didn't really want to worry about people modifying loadouts mid-mission 😊.

User
I can agree during an open world mission, but I really believe loot drops from Stronghold bosses would be better off without this system. At that point you're not supposed to be in combat anymore, and revealing the drop immediately makes it that much more exciting.

Brenon Holmes
You're not wrong... But in order to equip some of that sexy loot, you need to be back at your Forge...

So, we streamline it a bit for you. After the reveal post mission, you know what you got and you can immediately go to the Forge to equip it 😊 (instead of knowing and being unable to equip it in the field)

User
Does this apply for all loot, to include the top end gear? What about Jarra’s Wrath?

Brenon Holmes
All loot, we changed things a bit from last year based on what it was doing to the game loop (what I was getting into above 😊)

User
Thanks for clarifying. Also...Random rolls/stats on identical pieces of gear? What can we do with dupes?

As an aside, the transparency and new vector on how you guys are gonna handle DLC and mtx has me super excited for Anthem! I look forward to no-life’ing!

Brenon Holmes
We'll be getting more into the details on this kind of stuff later on - I probably shouldn't say too much more on this right now 😊.

User
I am really disapointed with this choice.

Dropping an item directly from a fight makes you associate that fight with the item you just got, meaning you get exited about it and have a story to tell your friends.

Dropping an engram from it doesnt get you exited in the same way at all. And no one is going to tell storys about getting an engram. When you get back to base, maybe you have 3 engrams to decrypt, how do you know witch one you got from the stronghold boss and witch you got from a random white mob.

Having played other loot based games, the engram system really nueters the experience of getting loot drops.

Brenon Holmes
Sorry to hear that, there are a few differences in what we're doing - when you get the drop it tells you the rarity and the type of item you'll get.

So for example, if you kill something and it has a rare drop... when you pick it up you'll see that you're going to get a "Rare Assault Rifle". So there's a bit more information, which may partially address what you're getting at. 😊

User
So it is actually more like an identification system? You know what kind of item you are getting, you just don't know the details about it?

If that is the case, it does change it a bit.

Brenon Holmes
Yeah, that's probably a better way of thinking about it. 😊

User
You mentioned changing your loadout at the forge. Does this mean all weapon changes are locked in once the mission is underway, so you have to gameplan a little before heading out?

Brenon Holmes
Right now, yes. 😊

User
Can't say that I hate the idea given a varied mission. Allows a coordinated group to excel on any given stronghold/mission.

Assuming there is some sort of stronghold/mission playlist in place, would the strider at the start of each mission allow for changing as well? I'd hate to be forced back to Fort Tarsis to re-gear.

User
Glad to see you back in action u/BrenonHolmes . As always, thanks for the info and comms!

Brenon Holmes
/wave 😊

I've been trying to think of the best way to answer this and it's not easy.

I'm an introvert, a loner by nature so I'm happy doing my own thing at my own pace. In Anthem Bio seem hell bent on taking that away from players and that is not a good thing.

As a loner I'm not comfortable grouping with a bunch of randoms.

At the moment the chances of my buying Anthem are a big fat zero as much as I like the idea of zipping about in a Javelin. 

This could change depending on what we learn between now and release thought it's not looking promising. 
 

Come on now it wouldn't be a Bioware game unless they screwed something up

Though they really can't afford to screw up Anthem. 

Okay, looks like a good time for a few more updates...

SofaJockey

Okay, updates done. New items in Orange and testing some light re-organization...

Can only speak from my experience in SWTOR but flashpoints were locked by level to avoid people from spoilering themselves before they progress in the story. However you could bypass that by grinding XP from enemies to level up and unlock the flashpoint before story progression send you there.

Slacker.

Good idea about the arrival, I'll tweet that.

Done.



BSN BioWare forums @bsnforums
A suggestion: Can fast-travel/matchmaking place you in the sky/area ready for a superhero landing, please. So joining a party in progress (or fast-travelling) will always drop you immersively into the action in heroic style? @biomarkdarrah BrenonHolmes

I like the re-org. Loot needed it's own section.

Suggestion that might save you time: rather than coloring the entire addition, maybe just color a tag like [NEW] for each addition. Then we can search through the text with text search, rather than eyeballs, and find NEW for everything new, filtering then by color with eyeballs. Should also save alot of time for retiring older items, just delete the tag instead of uncoloring the whole text.

Example

Instead of this:

You will be upgrade(s) for longer flight duration. [Source]

Do this:

[NEW] You will be upgrade(s) for longer flight duration. [Source]

Nuggets from the Game Informer storytelling interview video.

www.gameinformer.com/2018/06/19/the-specifics-on-how-storytelling-works-in-biowares-anthem

2:14 - (paraphrased)

Q: Cyphers/NPCs are influenced by your SP choices, but when playing in the shared world with friends (a mission), will your team hear/get the same reactions from the same NPCs, even if their SP choices were different?

A: No, each player gets customized NPC reactions to their SP choices, even in the shared world. So a reaction player A gets from an NPC might be hostile, but player B gets friendly, in that mission. "The mission is the same structure, but the flavoring around it will be different based on the choices that you made." -- Mike Gamble

Later on Mark Darrah confirms that "radio chatter" may differ for different players in the same moment of the same mission.

3:47 - (paraphrased)

Q: Is it basically impossible to spoil the story for your friends during a mission, because so much of the story juice is back in Tarsis?

A: "Yeah, that's exactly right." -- Mark Darrah


Side note: Mark Darrah said that in other Bioware games, people tended not to share their story experiences with friends because it's personal and they don't want to spoil? BSN must not have gotten the memo! I'm pretty sure I posted about every funny thing Sera did in DAI when it happened.

Okay, looks like there's just a few updates today. I'll get to that in a minute...

SofaJockey

That's not what I said^^;