Anthem 2.0

I made a topic about this on reddit as well (https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/dio2ay/anthem_20/), but I thought it belonged here too.


This document started off as me – just for the fun of it – jotting down some of the improvements I thought would be cool to have in Anthem. However, as is always the way it goes in my life, my brain just would NOT stop overthinking this. So every day I just kept coming up with new ideas, until at one point I just thought: “okay, brain, okay, I’ll start to constructively categorize all your wayward thoughts.”. So I ended up with this complete overview of a whole reinvented, rebalanced Anthem. And as I am by nature a fan of optimization, some of these issues were really fun to think about (like functional optimization of controls, menus, …).

The goal of this document is not to criticize anthem for what it does wrong, but instead, I want it to give people some enjoyment in reading it. A glimpse of what Anthem might’ve looked like if it lived up to the original hype.

A dream come true would be if this document is actually read by someone working on the anthem team. Who knows? Maybe they’ll be inspired by some of the things my poor old brain blurted out.



This is a looooooooooooooooooong document (18k+ words at the time of typing this intro). BUT, I have divided it into sections for your reading pleasure. So I’ll add a bit of guidance for people who do not want to sift through everything to get to the thing they want to see.

Also, here is a link to a word document version, should you prefer reading that: gofile.io/?c=aDMiwo



1 Anthem 2.0 3

1.1 General QOL improvements 3

1.1.1 Private sessions 3

1.1.2 Drop banners 3

1.1.3 Fort Tarsis 4

1.1.3.1.1 Walking speed 4

1.1.3.1.2 Navigation 4

1.1.4 Launch bay 4

1.1.4.1 Launch bay vanity 4

1.1.4.2 Launch bay logistics 4

1.1.5 Shops 5

1.1.5.1 Materials shop 5

1.1.5.2 Vanity shop 5

1.1.5.3 Event shop 5

1.1.6 HUD 6

1.1.6.1 Status icons 6

1.1.6.2 Throttle bar 6

1.1.6.3 Toggles 6

1.1.7 Menus 6

1.1.7.1 Mission screens 6

1.1.7.1.1 Crawling in your Javelin 6

1.1.7.1.2 Selecting a mission 6

1.1.7.1.3 Matchmaking 7

1.1.7.1.4 End of a mission 8

1.1.7.2 Forge 9

1.1.7.3 Communications menu 10

1.1.7.4 Downed screen 11

1.1.8 Gameplay controls 11

1.2 Vanity 12

1.2.1 Elysian chests 13

1.2.2 Challenge rewards 13

1.2.3 Legendary vanity 13

1.3 Loot 14

1.3.1 The Grind tm 14

1.3.2 Crafting 14

1.3.3 Localization 15

1.3.4 Inscriptions 15

1.3.4.1 New inscriptions 15

1.3.4.2 Cap 15

1.3.4.3 Placement 17

1.4 Rebalance 18

1.4.1 Javelin-specific rebalances 18

1.4.2 Javelin combo’s 19

1.4.2.1 Ranger 19

1.4.2.2 Colossus 19

1.4.2.3 Storm 19

1.4.2.4 Interceptor 20

1.4.3 Team combo’s 20

1.4.3.1 How? 21

1.4.3.2 What? 21

1.4.3.3 Why? 21

1.4.4 Switcheroos 21

1.4.5 Items 22

1.4.5.1 Levels 22

1.4.5.2 Busters 23

1.4.5.3 Weapons 23

1.4.5.4 Ultimates 23

1.4.5.5 Gear & components 24

1.4.5.5.1 Storm 24

1.4.5.5.2 Ranger 27

1.4.5.5.3 Colossus 29

1.4.5.5.4 Interceptor 31

1.4.5.5.5 Universal components 34

1.4.6 Difficulty 35

1.4.6.1 Stats 35

1.4.6.2 Enemy mechanics 36

1.4.6.2.1 Titans 36

1.4.6.2.2 Fury 36

1.4.6.2.3 Escari 36

1.4.6.2.4 Bristleback and Ursix 36

1.4.6.2.5 Airborne enemies (e.g. Valkyries, scar enforcers, wyverns) 36

1.4.6.2.6 Outlaw rangers 36

1.4.6.2.7 Scar colossus and turrets 37

1.4.6.2.8 Brutes and dominion trolls 37

1.5 Game modes 37

1.5.1 Legendary contracts 37

1.5.2 Story missions 37

1.5.3 Strongholds 37

1.5.4 Freeplay 37

1.5.4.1 Player increase 37

1.5.4.2 Striders 38

1.5.4.3 Horde mode 38

2 Anthem 3.0 39

2.1 Artifacts 39

2.2 Moar javelins 40

2.3 Moar weapons 40

2.4 Story 40



1 Anthem 2.0

The Anthem 2.0 section contains all changes and rebalances that I believe are required to make Anthem 1.0 (or 1.4 as we are at, currently)

1.1 General QOL improvements

Some general Quality-of-life improvements which I’m sure we can all agree on are necessary in some way or other.

1.1.1 Private sessions

Allow us to play any mission we desire in a private session. There is zero reason not to allow this, as both someone who wants to play solo, as well as someone who is put together into a match with someone who wants to play solo does not benefit from the obligated multiplayer experience.

1.1.2 Drop banners

Let us see what drops. Don’t just show us ‘Legendary item’ on the right if we pick it up. Instead, show us (for example) ‘Ranier’s blaze’, or ‘Softened blows’, and just color it in it’s rarity (this way the banner doesn’t cover half the screen). I’m on board with not being able to see which inscriptions it has or equip it until the end of the mission, but at least let us know what we got.

This way, we can also remove the masterwork and legendary reveals at the end of the mission (except for s fancy showing this is useless, and the excitement you’re supposed to create here is already created during the gameplay, which is where it is supposed to be) and we can go straight to the loot overview. Speaking of…

1.1.3 Fort Tarsis

FT is pretty okay as it is. But there are still a few minor grievances.

1.1.3.1.1 Walking speed

Okay I get that you can’t let us walk too fast because FT is too gorgeous and there would be pop up. But just let us always walk a sprint speed, so that we don’t have to press sprint every time to walk 0.001% faster.

1.1.3.1.2 Navigation

Mentioned in 1.1.7.1.1: remove the ugly Y-button cluttering your view in FT. It’s ugly. It’s immersion breaking. Get rid of it. Instead, have the mission select available to you as one of the menu tabs. This tab replaces the map of Fort Tarsis, because the FT map is basically useless. It’s a bird’s eye view of the city, but there are no readily apparent landmarks or anything on it, and FT goes up and down, and this is really not clear on the map anyway. And the only thing the map is good for is knowing if there are any conversations /missions available.

So instead of the map, use the navigation bar (like we have at the top during gameplay which shows enemies) show conversation and mission locations in FT.

1.1.4 Launch bay

The launch bay is a scandalously underused asset. In the hundreds of hours I’ve played, I think I’ve spent maybe 5 minutes total in here (of which 3 probably unintentional). Scandalously, because it has a lot of potential. Asset, well, that’s doing it a favor because it looks like it was designed in an hour of modelling.

So, I’m going to put the launch bay concept to good use! The launch bay will become on the one hand the matchmaking centre, and on the other hand: a completely personalized room!

1.1.4.1 Launch bay vanity

Personalisation of the launch bay: From even before anthem launched, what people requested was a room which they could personalize and make it look like they wanted. Well, the launch bay should be the answer to that. It starts off like the brown box it is now, but using vanity items you either purchase in the shop or gain from doing challenges, you can do things like paint it another color, put up posters, place freelancer or monster statues, set up a nice sitting corner with a sofa, put some flowers in there… whatever suits your fancy.

An important new addition: the launch bay’s forge displays your preset javelin builds.



Every player sees the launch bay how they designed it himself. If one player painted it green and the other red, even if they gather in the same launch bay hub, one will see it green and the other red.



If you want to view your own personal launch bay without having to matchmake or select a mission, go directly to the launch bay from fort tarsis (to the right of the forge).

1.1.4.2 Launch bay logistics

What are the logistic possibilities of the launch bay?

1) The forge stands. Now displays your Favorited preset javelin builds. Selecting one of these immediately changes your equipment to that preset build (without having to use the menu). Selecting an empty slot opens the forge.

2) Vendor: Opens shop tabs.

3) Fort tarsis door: transports back to Fort tarsis (a prompt will ask you politely not to leave if you’re already matchmaking, though, just to keep the team together… but you can still go back if you really want to.)

4) Outer door: also starts a 30 second timer (visible in the centre of the matchmaking logo for everyone to see), after which the game is started no matter the amount of people who are gathered or ‘ready’.

5) Mission board: Displays the mission information you’re currently matchmaking for, OR opens up the mission select screen if you’re not yet matchmaking.

6) Vault: Opens vault for all your vault-related needs.

7) Alliance and challenges overview

8) The menus available in the launch bay are the same as in fort tarsis (no mission select when you’re matchmaking).

9) Frolicking: You’re in your equipped javelin and you can move and jump around all you want, just like you can do in the launch bay right now! Additionally, the communications menu is fully available (all 5 menus: 1.1.7.3). Hang out with your already gathered party as much as you want!

1.1.5 Shops

1.1.5.1 Materials shop

Scrap this one. It has zero functionality right now, materials are waaaayy too expensive for what they do, and if you apply the new crafting system (1.3) it could be used to buy power. And we don’t want that. Keep the shopkeeper as NPC though, because she’s awesome.

1.1.5.2 Vanity shop

This needs a really big rework. ASAP. This is where your money comes from, guys! COME ON! Get your shit together?! Anyway, here’s how you make money from this shop (see 1.2 for more vanity-related changes).



First of all, and this is none negotiable, every time you open this shop the shopkeep should exclaim: “The Thunder Merchant!”. No discussion. This is happening.



Instead of having a tridaily or weekly rotation between a very select range of armors, make all armors, materials, emotes, … that are not earned by challenges and have at any one time been newly released always available.

Every week, have promotions for a select amount of armors/wraps/emotes/… where the shard cost is halved. Don’t halve the coin cost so shard payment is incentivized.

Release new armor, wraps, emotes, decals etc. at your leisure when you’re done designing them (weekly, biweekly, … whatever), or during events.

Launch bay vanity (1.1.4.1) and weapon wrap vanity (1.2) is now also sold here.



Keep the coin earning as it is now. It should be difficult to grind for coin, as otherwise shards don’t bring in any moolah.

1.1.5.3 Event shop

I liked the idea behind the event shop of keeping certain boxes for certain weeks: it keeps the public playing for longer.

However, think about your currency next time. Major crystals served absolutely NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER. You could’ve simply priced everything in minor crystals. DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN! It was a huge waste of time for players.



Also, let us be able to buy multiple chests at once.

1.1.6 HUD

The HUD is actually pretty good in my humble opinion. A couple slight suggestions though.

1.1.6.1 Status icons

Status effects should each have their own color icon (fire red, lightning purple, acid green, and ice blue), instead of all red.

If status effects are used by detonation but are still active, they need to immediately turn gray, transparent, and be reduced by a third in size.

Status effect icons which are propagated are increased in size by 50%, and have a slow flashing border.

1.1.6.2 Throttle bar

It boggles my mind that our underwater meter has the same shape as our throttle meter, but one of them simply goes from left to right, and the other one from middle to left/right… CONSISTENCY PLEASE!

Either make both fill up starting from the middle, or both go from right to left. Personally, I’d go for everything start in the middle and fill up to the sides (the cataclysm stability did this as well).

1.1.6.3 Toggles

The communications quick menu has a toggle for turning on and off the HUD. This is for more easily taking pictures / videos without screen clutter.

It also has a toggle for turning off numbers.

1.1.7 Menus

Currently, all types of menu screens are functional, but a right royal mess. Hence, I propose optimizing the screens a bit so we lose less time and have more optimized navigation experience.

1.1.7.1 Mission screens

1.1.7.1.1 Crawling in your Javelin

I can not believe bioware didn’t think of this, but crawling in your javelin in fort tarsis is one of the most chill-inducing experiences when you first do it… until your are faded to black and prompted with the ghastly immersion-breaking mission select screen.

Instead, when climbing into your javelin, have the inside of your helmet light up like it’s a multi-part screen (like when you crawl into a titan in Titanfall), to reveal the mission select screen.

Note: Instead of having an ugly Y-button cluttering your screen in fort tarsis, add the mission select screen to the menu (instead of the Fort Tarsis map, see 1.1.3.1.2).

1.1.7.1.2 Selecting a mission

Selecting a mission is a clusterfuck of menus and frankly a downright in-your-face insult to optimization. What I’m proposing is a complete rework, but it would make our lives a lot easier.

When the lights inside your Javelin helmet come on you will see the map appearing, with upon it all following icons:

- (if any) You currently available story mission(s)

- The current legendary mission(s)

- The faction contracts (either normal (yellow) or legendary (purple), see -)

- Striders (selecting a strider will start Freeplay at that spawn point)

- The available strongholds

- The available events

The following controls are available when on the map:

- A: Select icon

- B: Back

- Y: Quickplay any contract / mission

- X: Quickplay any stronghold (not available in story missions map)

- LB / RB: Cycle Map / Forge (/ or other menu tabs if starting from anywhere in Fort Tarsis)

- LT / RT: Cycle difficulty

- L3: Set game to be visible and joinable by friends or guild members only

- R3: Set game to private (nobody can join you)

Now here is the kicker. On the top right of every corner will either be a green or a red orb. A green orb means that there are currently games available to join for that icon (i.e. games which are in progress and not full). A red orb means no games are available to join (either full or simply not available). When selecting an icon with a green orb, you can choose to either join or start a new game. When selecting red, only starting a new game is available.

Note: Changing difficulty (cycle by using LT / RT) will ask for a server refresh of the orbs.

Note: Freeplay strider icons will not have orbs as freeplay is about freedom and independence, not teamplay. Also, freeplay will be the only mode which can NOT be set to private of friends only, because freeplay is supposed to be about immersion into the world, and you are not the only freelancer in Anthem’s story.

Choosing to join a game in progress will immediately fire up the oh-so-cool javelin startup scene (skips matchmaking) and starts your game.

Starting a new game will start matchmaking.

1.1.7.1.3 Matchmaking

Instead of simply having the matchmaking icon in the bottom left corner make circles until it’s done, immediately transporting you to the game, matchmaking now works differently in quite a few ways.

The matchmaking icon still has a circle that turns while the server is looking for people, however, it will now not pass a quadrant if not enough people are gathered.

What do I mean? If no other players are gathered, only the first quarter of the circle will fill. If 1 person is gathered, it will fill to half. If 2 people are gathered, it will fill to 3/4th. If you have a full party, it will fully fill. This way, you know how far matchmaking is.



While matchmaking:

- The mission select tab in the menu will not be available (but the forge is!).

- Hold Y: indicates you are ‘ready’ to start the mission. Selecting ‘Ready’ means it is okay for you to start the game whenever everyone else has also selected ‘Ready’. Selecting ‘Ready’ will make your quadrant’s circle a full line (instead of the dotted line during matchmaking), so other people know if you’re ready. If everyone has selected ‘Ready’, the game starts after a 3-second countdown and then sends you on your way!

- Hold X: Cancels matchmaking.

- Hold B: starts a 30 second timer (visible in the centre of the matchmaking logo for everyone to see), after which the game is started no matter the amount of people who are gathered or ‘ready’.



If you selected the mission by crawling in your javelin, once matchmaking has started, the oh-so-cool javelin startup scene is played which serves as a load screen for the launch bay (see 1.1.4). Anyone who joins the party via matchmaking is also added to the launch bay.

If you selected the mission from the menu while in fort tarsis, once matchmaking is started, you are not automatically moved to the launch bay. Instead, you can keep walking around in fort tarsis and talk to NPC’s, listen to radio’s, shop, look at the vault, do freelancer stuff, … and all the while the matchmaking icon remains in the bottom left. However, if you have selected ‘ready’, no matter what you are doing (even if mid-conversation), the game is started. Also, if you climb in your javelin while matchmaking in fort tarsis, you will immediately go to the launch bay.

Note: If you cancel matchmaking while in the launch bay gathered with other people, the other people disappear, and then you can select a new mission.



So the main improvement to matchmaking is that now you’re not sitting there looking like a cow at a train while the matchmaking ends in possibly no results, but instead you can do either Fort Tarsis stuff or in the launch bay socialise.

Additionally, don’t forget that on the map screen (1.1.7.1.2) you can more easily see if games are joinable, so if you don’t want to play the matchmaking waiting game, just help a brother or sister freelancer out and join a game in progress!

1.1.7.1.4 End of a mission

The end of a mission should be a celebration of shared experiences and accomplishments with your fellow freelancers. Currently though, it is a slog through multiple layers of screens, some of which require a loading screen, and all of which have a skip button which is probably worn out by people who do endgame now. There is only 1 really important screen: the loot overview. And even this has been made an endlessly seeming duration.

To top all that off, if you’ve had a pleasurable experience, there is NO WAY to continue said pleasurable experience. You can’t stick together, you can’t handily search for your previous companions… You’re just dumped in Fort Tarsis.

This needs some serious reworking… and here’s how.



First of all, the following screens are cancelled, scrapped, and binned, never to return:

1) The screen which requires a load time to the outside of fort tarsis, where all 4 javelins ridiculously prostrate themselves.

Why? Because this adds a needless load time, and all functions it serves (showing off javelin looks, a victory pose, and the experience / alliance tally) can already be found somewhere else (respectively: the launch bay before you start a mission during matchmaking, the new end-of-mission-experience, and again the new end-of-mission-experience).

2) The screen which “spectacularly” reveals all your glorious masterworks and legendaries one by one to be shit drops.

Why? Because this has already been replaced by seeing which item drops during the game itself. And also, the loot overview window already provides the information about inscriptions etc. So it is a needless double waste of time. And often just filled with disappointment anyway.



Second, we need a to create a party. Successfully completing the mission should be a short moment where the players come together as a group around the final loot chest, and emote to their heart’s content to show appreciation for their fellow comrades. Hence, victory emotes now become normal emotes. This way you can do them whenever you want, and use whichever you want as any of your 8 emote options on the custom communications wheel at the end of the mission to celebrate.



Third, information about your alliance and experience gains can easily be shown during the last 30 seconds after the boss has been killed, instead of requiring a whole ‘nother screen.

10 seconds after the mission has been completed, a window appears (similar to the window at the end of the cataclysm showing you your score) in which is shown how many experience you gained, if you levelled up (the window becomes fancier if you levelled up!), how much alliance experience you gained, and if your alliance rank of the week has risen (the window becomes fancier if your alliance level has raised). This window can be closed by holding the left button (the same button as making a screenshot), so you can remove it at will and take end of mission victory screenshots with your team. It also closes automatically after 15 seconds (25 seconds total after mission completed).



Fourth, you should be allowed to choose your next course of action during the final 30 seconds in the game after the mission has been completed to optimize continued play and teams sticking together. Here’s how:

As the mission is completed (story done, boss killed, contract filled, …) a small window at the top of the screen (takes the place of the navigation bar) appears which allows you to cycle between 2 options (using the down button):

1) (default option) Fort Tarsis: You are disconnected from the current party and will be transported to your personal fort tarsis hub (after which the loot overview is shown).

2) Select mission: You are disconnected from the current party and will be transported to your personal launch bay hub (after which the loot overview is shown), where you do all launch bay stuff you want (including selecting a new mission) .

3) Repeat mission: You will be transported to the launch bay together with the other team mates which selected the repeat mission option (after which the loot overview is shown). Matchmaking for the same mission you just did is automatically resumed to fill the slots of any players which chose to go to not repeat.

Note that a small icon appears next to your name to show which option every player has chosen (so if no one chooses repeat mission, you might choose something else).



Lastly, after the 30 seconds have expired and after you have been transported to either fort tarsis or the launch bay, the loot overview screen is shown. In looks it can be similar to what we have today, except we need a few other abilities to make this screen less of a hold-X-for-2-minutes screen. So I’ve mapped out the buttons of what we need to be able to do when hovering over items:

- Hold A: Salvage all remaining items

- Hold B: Send all remaining items to forge and continue.

- Hold Y: Send to forge (item is removed from the loot overview and sent to your forge).

- Hold X: Salvage

1.1.7.2 Forge

The forge as it functions now in FT (and the launch bay!) is pretty okay. The only ghastly thing is having to use the Y button to first select another javelin, and then another preset build, which usually takes a while as the server loads it in, and only then can you edit your javelin.



Instead, how about this: You use LT and RT to switch between Javelin types (colossus, interceptor, storm, ranger), and LB and RB to switch between sub categoric preset builds. It’s still okay if it takes a while for the configuration to load in, as long as you can instantly see the name of the preset build on the top of your screen.

While in the forge, the controls are the following:

- A: Select

o (if an item is selected) Hold A: unequip

- B: Back

o Hold B: Exit forge

- Y: Toggle between ‘Appearance’ and ‘Gear’ editor

- (if item selected) Hold X: Salvage

o (if no item is selected) Hold X: delete build

- LB / RB: Cycle preset build (or new build)

- LT / RT: Cycle Javelin type

- L3: New build

o Hold L3: Copy build

- R3: Favorite build

o Hold R3: Rename build

As a result, selecting another javelin / build can now be done with 1 button, instead of 3 button presses.



Note that you can now select 2 primary and 2 secondary gears, 2 primary and 2 secondary guns, 6 primary and 6 secondary components, and 1 primary and 1 secondary ultimate. See 0 for more information.



As some of you may have noticed, there is no place to choose you sigils during preparation of a mission. Well, that is because the forge is now the place to do it. Instead of having to manually craft it and select it every. goddamn. time. a mission is started, you can now assign 3 sigils to each individual preset build in the forge (like when you’re selecting gear, weapons, components, there is now also a slot to select 3 sigils).

You don’t even have to craft them anymore!! The game will automatically deduct the cost of the sigils when you enter the mission, and notify you by showing the boost at the left for 10 seconds kind of like a masterwork bonus (but don’t worry: it’s active for the whole mission). If you don’t have the necessary materials, it doesn’t craft the sigils and doesn’t give the bonus. It’s that simple.



Favoriting a build is limited to one per Javelin type, and the favorited builds are displayed in the launch bay.



In the forge, you can also personalize the 2 modifiable communication menu tabs as a subsection in the appearance editor.

1.1.7.3 Communications menu

The communications menu needs to be expanded severely, it just has such great potential, and is yet oh-so-limited.

Note: The communications menu is only available in the launch bay and during missions.

The communications menu still works using only 1 button (well, 2 technically), and exists of 5 possible wheels.

1) Holding the ‘down’ button will open the communications basic menu, which are 8 simple commands that you can’t modify. The basic menu is also the only one available during the downed screen.

o (icon of flat upward hand) ‘Hello’

 For 30 seconds after someone has joined your game changes to: ‘Welcome to the party’

o (icon of waving hand) ‘Goodbye’

 When the mission is finished changes to: ‘Good game’

o (icon of thumbs up) ‘Thank you’

 If someone used the chest icon, changes to ‘Congratulations’ for 10 seconds

o (icon of cross) ‘I need help’

 When you’re downed changes to: ‘Revive me’ and additionally also pings your location marker more clearly in other player’s HUD (can only happen once every 15 seconds)

o (icon of flag) ‘Follow me’

 When standing still and not moving changes to: ‘Come to my location’ and sets a temporary marker at your location for 20 seconds. People can fast travel to this location in freeplay.

 When standing in a defense objective changes to: ‘Help me defend this point’ and sets a temporary marker at your location for 20 seconds.

o (icon of a reticle) ‘Attack the enemies’ (to ensure people focus on killing)

 If a legendary / boss enemy is somewhat in the centre of your screen, this changes to ‘focus fire’ and places a marker in other people’s HUD on that enemy (can happen only once every 15 seconds)

o (icon of puzzle piece) ‘Leave it to me’ (to ensure people don’t mess with whatever you’re doing)

o (icon of chest) ‘Hurrah’

 Shares the highest tier of item you picked up in the last 10 seconds with other people on their screen (so people see “xXDongSlayer420Xx got a legendary item”). Can only share once every minute.



2) Holding the down button and also holding LB will open the emote menu. While in the forge you can select up to 8 emotes and assign them radial positions on this menu.



3) Holding the down button and also holding LT will open the party menu. In a radial menu you can see general player information, including such things as Guild, Name, Javelin type icon, and Gearscore (and javelin rarity). It is divided in 4 quadrants: one for each possible party member (so yes, you can look at yourself!). On this screen you can press:

o A: Selecting a player will open an overview of that player where ALL items of his build are visible on the right (4 weapons, melee, 4 gears, all components, support, ultimate), and the javelin’s look on the left (kind of like a forge overview).

o B: Add to ignore list (so you will no longer match with them)

o X: Mute (for this game)

o Y: Send invite to join guild



4) Holding the down button and also holding RB opens up the communications menu. In the forge you can set 8 shortcuts of personalized text. This text appears to other players in the dialogue menu if selected in the communications menu.



5) Holding the down button and also holding RT will open the Quick menu. Here there are several shortcuts for doing useful menu things quickly:

o (Icon of map) Open up map (also available by holding menu button)

o (icon of letter) Open up last used lore (also available by holding start button)

o (icon of encircled star) Shortly visualize tracked challenges status

o (Icon of health/shield bars) Toggle HUD

o (icon of numbers) Toggle damage numbers on and off

o (icon of camera) View screenshots

o (Icon of person) Send invite to join your game to online friends (you can choose in the main menu to which friends this applies / doesn’t apply to prevent spam)

o (Icon of guild flag) Send invite to join your game to guild members (you can choose in the main menu to which guild members this applies / doesn’t apply to prevent spam)

1.1.7.4 Downed screen

The downed screen is pretty okay, functionally, but there are still frustrations with it. So a couple changes.



The basic communications menu is able to be opened (not the other tabs though).



Make the huge dead symbol in the middle of our screen a little smaller, so we can see better. Also make sure we can move the camera to look around.



If we revive ourselves after 30 seconds have expired, do so at the location we died, NOT somewhere else! This can be extremely annoying to revive and then require you to fly a long distance (or even be transported and have a load screen). Just let us respawn where we died.



Self reviving spawns you at 30% armor, being revived by a teammate spawns you at 100% armor and 30% shield.

1.1.8 Gameplay controls

The controls need to be altered slightly due to some of the changes; here are the new controls for XBOX (apply similar for PS4/PC). If you’re confused about certain terms I use, see other changes. Note that these are only gameplay controls, not menu controls.

- Left stick:

o On land or while hovering: Move

o while flying: speed up or down / bank left or right

o while in weapon menu: select weapon

- Right stick: Move camera

o while aiming: aim

o while in communications menu: select communication

- A: Jump

o While in air: double (interceptor: triple) jump

o Hold: (Storm) extend jump

o Hold: (Storm while in air): float

- B: Dodge (Colossus: Shield)

o Hold (Interceptor): Triple-dodge / Drill melee

o Hold (Storm): Perform a long dodge

- X: Reload

o Double tap X: Switch to other weapon

o Hold: Open weapon wheel

- Y: Melee

o Hold (Interceptor): Continuous melee

o Hold (Storm): teleporting melee

o Hold (Ranger): Charge 3-hit strike melee

o Hold (Colossus): Increase grand entrance damage

- LB: Left power

o Hold: charge power / place AOE

o While flying (Storm): Left power and hover

- RB: Right power

o Hold: charge power / place AOE

o While flying (Storm): Right power and hover

- LB+RB: Support gear

o Hold: charge power / place AOE

o While flying (Storm): Support power and hover

- Hold LT: Aim

o While flying: Aim and hover

- Hold RT: Fire

o While flying: Fire and hover

- Up: Switch ultimate gear / Hold Up: Use ultimate

- Right: Drop carried item (or last picked up echo, if no item is being carried)

o Hold: Interact

- Down: Repeat last used ‘communication’

o (When the mission is completed) Down: Cycle through next course of action options

o Hold: Open up communication wheel

- Left: Switch Gear and components

o Hold: take screenshot

o (When mission is completed) Hold: Remove experience / alliance window

- Menu: Go to the menu tab (map, friends, …)

o Hold: Open map

- Start: Go to challenges menu

o Hold: Open last picked up lore to read and mark as read

- L3: (On land) Sprint / (In air) Fly

- R3: Hover

1.2 Vanity

Vanity is the true endgame for any hardcore player. Except… it doesn’t really show in Anthem, even though they have tons of untapped possibility with javelin customization. Hence, these changes should improve vanity endgame (also see the shop: 1.1.5.2).

1.2.1 Elysian chests

Stop being cuckolds and bring these things back permanently. This was a fantastic idea and really promoted team spirit (“Should I waste my daily elysian key on these fucktards or wait for another cool team? Oh wait, they are opening chests for me? Might as well reward them with my key as well, then.”).

From the elysian chest you have a chance of getting either:

- 30%: embers, javelin/weapon parts, … these can now be used in crafting (1.3) so it’s no longer useless!

- 20%: a random coin amount between 500 and 1000

- 20%: Some random decal or graphic from the store.

- 20%: Some random material or color from the store

- 10%: Some random emote from the store

Armors / wraps or launch bay vanity is not available through elysian chests.



Elysian keys are earned no longer through daily challenges, but drop at stronghold bosses or end-of-mission chests. Once a day after the daily reset, you get a guaranteed 100% drop chance, and the rest of the day you have a 10% chance have an elysian key drop (in additional to all other normal loot).

1.2.2 Challenge rewards

High end vanity should be a reward for either a difficult task or a lot of work. Anthem kind of does this already, like during the cataclysm. Earning the bunny ears took getting to know the cataclysm and doing a “difficult” task. This might be an unpopular viewpoint, but the champion of tarsis challenge where you have to do a LOT of things in order to get a wanted gold color is actually pretty good. The bad decision with the champion of tarsis challenge was locking MW components behind it. Bad Bioware! Don’t do that.

In any case, lock away vanity that are only earnable by challenges like:

- Complete grandmaster 3 tyrant mine in 10 minutes

- complete GM3 sunken cell boss with no deaths

- Defeat GM3 Scelos without damaging him with gear

- Kill 10000 GM3 legendary enemies (nice and grindable).

- Multikill at least 8 enemies with Truth of Tarsis (to unlock a custom ToT gunwrap).

Basically, either very difficult or longterm challenges, that is what challenge rewards should be about.



Important is that challenge rewards should be things that are visible to other players with which you can flaunt, like:

- Decals or graphics,

- Materials,

- Armor,

- Javelin- or gunwraps,

- Emotes.

1.2.3 Legendary vanity

Currently, legendary items are just stronger masterwork items. Let’s change that up. Legendary items should be something truly special… truly personal. I want to create the feeling of: “This is my Rainmaker, the are many weapons like this rainmaker, but this one is mine”, or: “mmmmyyyyyyy prrrecioussssssss”.



Legendary weapons and gears should also be able to be modified with vanity, which can either be earned from challenges or attained in the shop. 40k coins seems about fair to me (in comparison to the 60k wraps/armor for javelins).



What exactly will legendary vanity do?

- Legendary gun wraps work just like javelin wraps: A recoloring of your gun.

- Legendary gear and melee colorizes the effect when using the gear / melee. For example:

o a legendary Ponder infinity should be allowed to choose your lightning’s color. This way, you can have a green lightning strike.

o Maybe a frag grenade’s explosion can be a colour other than red.

o Or how about a purple venom storm?

o Maybe, a black fire melee for colossus?



The goal is to really personalize every piece of gear you have on your javelin. And with legendary vanity you can personalize your item in both it’s workings (inscriptions, see 1.3.4) as it’s looks (vanity).

1.3 Loot

I personally wasn’t all too enthusiastic that Bioware went in the loot-shooter business instead of doing what they’re good at (what even is that these days?), but anthem turned out to be pretty fun to play. Until you hit the brick wall of grinding, at which point this game is an unforgiving RNG Troll. I’d like to address the core issues of the grind, without actually changing the current system or philosophy too much.

1.3.1 The Grind tm

The previous goal was to mindlessly grind for a random item of the ever expanding loot pool and pray to the god of luck for not too sucky random inscriptions.

The new goal is to grind for either the item you desire or the inscription you desire, or work hard and minimally improve almost every time you play by increasing your current inscriptions by salvaging other items.

1) Drop rates remain as they are currently. I know people rather dislike the RNG, but otherwise legendaries would not be special or rare anymore. But, not always getting a legendary on a run doesn’t have to mean that the run was useless, because even crap loot can still be put to good use…

2) Inscriptions can be transferred to another item of choice (if the inscription is valid on the other item: e.g. no damage on freeze grenades or no magazine size on gear, or no legendary inscriptions on masterworks) by sacrificing the item with the inscription (and an additional ember cost is applied, with the ember rarity depending on the rarity of the receiving item).

3) Inscriptions can be increased a marginal amount through hard work (i.e. a lot of playing) by sacrificing an item which has the same inscription (e.g. if you have a sacrificial item with +% shield which your desired legendary item has as well, you can increase the inscription on your desired legendary by 1% (green) / 2% (blue) / 3% (purple) / 5% (MW) / 10% (legendary) by using the sacrificial item (and an additional ember cost is applied, with the ember rarity depending on the rarity of the receiving item).

Note: the quality of inscriptions when they drop can pretty much remain the same as they are now as well, as even a 1% all damage inscription can be used to boost another item’s damage inscription, since the increase is based on rarity, not inscription amount.

With these changes, almost every mission will have you progress at least a little bit.

1.3.2 Crafting

I said: “almost every mission will have you progress at least a little bit”… well, how about making it every mission?

If masterwork or legendary drops are a) not the right item, not the right inscription, and c) not usable to boost any of your current inscriptions you want, you should be able to dismantle them into masterwork embers, so it at least serves a crafting purpose. I do not suggest dismantling legendary items in legendary embers, because then people who have dismantled legendary items before this will have done so in vain. As long as crafting legendary items is pricy enough, legendary embers are not required.



It should be possible to craft Legendary items. Legendary crafting blueprints can be earned through rigorous grinding using either the masterwork or legendary version of the item. This way, if you really enjoy using a certain gear piece but never had the chance to drop it as a legendary, you can use the masterwork version a LOT to earn the legendary blueprint (through challenges: e.g. kill 500 legendary enemies using the item in question).

Legendary crafting should also be very expensive (e.g. 100 masterwork embers / storm parts / weapon parts…). So that this system is not abused and can’t be farmed for inscriptions too easily. The main purpose of this system is that people can earn the item they want.

1.3.3 Localization

It should be possible to narrow your search for loot, instead of having one big random loot pool.

Specific actions should give guaranteed specific loot (difficulty affects the rarity: GM1 33% legendary (and otherwise masterwork), GM2 66% legendary (and otherwise masterwork), GM3 100% legendary):

- Stronghold: 1 gear, melee or ultimate drop from the boss

- Legendary contracts: 1 component drop on the final chest

- Legendary missions: 1 weapon (gun) drop on the final chest

1.3.4 Inscriptions

Inscriptions as an idea (a way to keep the grind going by allowing you to customize your build to the finest details) isn’t necessarily bad. The problem as it stands currently though, is that there is really only 1 thing that matters, and that is getting double damage inscriptions. Everything else is pointless.

I would like to take the potential of inscriptions to a new level, so that it adds to build variability and you can finetune any build to your gameplay preferences. Without going insane from grinding.

1.3.4.1 New inscriptions

We need to have new types of inscriptions, which rival (or complement) just stacking damage. I propose the following (although I’m sure others have additional idea’s).

- Charge time: decreases for things such as storm’s focus seals, or weapons such as rainmaker, ...)

- Fire rate: Increases fire rate for weapons (yes, this can potentially make weapons a lot more powerful, which is exactly what they need as they currently underperform compared to gear or combo/ultimate)

- Penetration: (for non-AoE weapons/gear) increases amount of enemies your attack penetrates (so if 2 enemies stand behind each other and you fire your gun, it fires through the first enemy and hits the second one as well) Having this inscription also negates armor damage reduction.

- AoE size: Increases all blast-related ranges

- Status effect: boosts how easy it is to apply effects)

- Status duration: boosts , and how long they remain in effect)

- Bonus duration: Boosts any masterwork bonus effect duration

- Ultimate cost reduction: any use of ultimate costs less (including using an ultimate itself!!!)

1.3.4.2 Cap

A cap for inscription bonus validity is applied. How does this work? If inscription bonus total goes over this cap, the amount over the cap is simply not applied.

Example: A storm equipped with:

- Lightning strike with 50% all damage inscription

- Burning orb

- Jarra’s wrath with 250% damage inscription

Using Jarra’s wrath on the ground would currently attain a damage bonus of 300% (250+50). However, as 250% is the cap for all types of inscription damage bonuses, only a total damage bonus of 250% is applied.

Using Jarra’s wrath while hovering and with a fully charged up burning orb would currently attain 800% (250+250+250+50 (see 1.4.5)). However, as the cap for inscriptions is 250%, a total damage bonus of only 750% is applied.

Note that for all intents and purposes bonuses coming from sigils and base component effects are considered masterwork effects, and do not have a cap.



Why implement it like this? Several reasons:

1) To close the gap gameplay-wise between hard core gamers and casual gamers

 hardcore gamers still have a huge advantage as finetuning a build still requires a lot of work, and hardcore gamers can also set themselves to stand out with the new vanity,

2) To balance out masterwork bonus effects and inscriptions in a more even manner

 currently masterwork effects usually pale in comparison to an inscription damage bonus, and instead I want masterwork effects and inscription maximum amounts to be on an equal level, so both contribute to build diversity. I do not suggest implementing a masterwork cap, as it is a lot more difficult (yet much more rewarding!!) to stack temporary masterwork effects than it is to stack inscriptions.

3) To make it easier to balance the difficulties of the game,

 currently as far as we know you can make an ultimate build with infinite damage potential. There is no balancing that in terms of difficulty. However, knowing that the maximum amount of bonus damage is going to get is 500% (e.g. 250% inscriptions and 250% masterwork) lets you calibrate the highest difficulty to these norms.



The cap amount varies depending on the effect, but it is set at such an amount that no previously collected legendary god roll items become useless.

Inscriptions with a cap of 300%:

- Charges (so you can have a total of 4 charges)

- Penetration (so you can penetrate up to 3 enemies)

Inscriptions with a 250% cap:

- Any type of damage boost (other than combo and ultimate). Note that if you have +200% elemental and 100% weapon on one item, the total damage is still capped at 250%.

Inscriptions with a 100% cap:

- Shield and armor each individually cap at 100%, so you can have a total bonus of 200% health. Yes I know this is rather low, however, otherwise you’d be able to stack up to 500% health, which is very difficult to balance.

- Ultimate damage

- Combo damage

- Weak point damage (this stacks on top of the 250% damage boost, so you COULD get a 350% total damage boost when hitting weak spots!)

- Spare ammo

- Magazine size

- Gear recharge (any type)

- Ultimate speed

- Ultimate cost reduction

- (Health / ammo) drop rate

- (Health / ammo) pickup amount

- Recovery

- Thruster (recovery / life)

- Status duration of applied effects (fire, ice, electric, acid duration)

- Accuracy

- recoil

- Force

- Pickup radius

- Status effect (how easy it is to apply effects)

- Effect resist (stacking this to 100% makes you immune to e.g. the fire status)

Inscriptions with a 50% cap:

- Fire rate

- Charge time (of things like focus seals or rainmaker)

- AoE size increase

- Bonus duration: masterwork bonus effect duration

- Damage resist (you can individually stack 50% physical and 50% elemental damage resist, as these 2 do not interact with each other)

- Reload time

The following inscriptions are scrapped and no longer exist (because they are useless):

- Armor and ammo drop rates are combined as: ‘drop rate’

- Thruster life and recovery speed and overheat delay reduction are now combined as ‘Thruster’

- Harvest bonus is scrapped because this should be useless. Instead, up harvest amount by 100% standard.

- All different types of combo damage from different javelins is now combined as simply ‘combo damage’ as all javelins can now increase their bonus combo damage.

- Effects duration is scrapped and is now included with status resist

- Repair and ammo pickup amount is now combined as ‘pickup amount’ (you can’t increase the amount you heal anymore!!)

- Shield delay reduction, shield recovery speed and repair amount are now combined as ‘Recovery’

- All types of accuracy (hip / aim) are now combined as ‘accuracy’

- All types of recoil (hip / aim) are now combined as ‘recoil’

I’m probably forgetting some types of inscriptions, but you get the overall idea…

1.3.4.3 Placement

What I mean by placement is which inscription can be generated on which item. Now, I’m not a fan of the current system since it lacks a certain simple logic system and seemingly arbitrarily segregates certain types of inscriptions over certain items (like why the hell don’t javelin-specific components get things like + ultimate damage??), however, I am against changing it and they’re better off leaving it as it is. Why? Because a) it’s not THAT bad (compared to the other suggestions I’ve made), you can now interchange inscriptions at will quite a bit (see 1.3.1), and c) changing this would create a lot of discrepancy issues with previously existing items.

1.4 Rebalance

Now, you can say what you want about Anthem, but the reason it even remotely has a chance in the gaming world is because it’s gameplay is really fun. No other game I know comes as close to the superhero feeling as Anthem.

And yet, as with the rest of the game, improvement opportunities are bountiful. What – in my humble opinion – is really missing is that extra layer of depth concerning enemies, javelin build strategies (which the new inscription system partly solves), team play possibilities, and most of all: Class balance.

Below are some of my suggestions, which could help uplift Anthem towards balanced party entertainment. Note that all of these are meant to be implemented together, as they are balanced keeping each other in mind.



My main goal of the rebalancing act is to balance out gun, gear and combo damage a bit more. Hence, in general you’ll notice a boost to flat gun and gear damage, and a slight nerf to flat combo damage.

Additionally, I want to even out inscription and masterwork bonuses, as currently masterwork bonuses pale compared to a god roll inscription. As I believe it is more fun to get a huge bonus due to a well-designed masterwork-synergetic build than it is by just getting a flat inscription bonus, I’ve tried to design the rebalance as such, that maximum damage bonuses you’ll get from inscriptions and masterworks are both around 250% (or 100 for some effects). Note that masterwork bonuses have no cap (unlike inscriptions), because a) they are temporary, and it requires specific difficult building to go higher.



Anyway: on with the good stuff!

1.4.1 Javelin-specific rebalances

Some general run-of-the-mill javelin-specific rebalances that are more about QOL (or adherence to lore) than anything else:

- An interceptor should be able to continuously melee in the air (to make attacking aerial enemies more user-friendly, and to be able to efficiently dispatch aerial enemies using your ultimate). An interceptor will start an aerial melee by either holding the melee button from hovering, OR by hitting an aerial enemy with your spin-to-win aerial melee attack. Aerial melee increases your thrust bar as if you’re hovering.

Reason: well, because there’s no reason not to!

- If an interceptor hits an enemy with a melee he will soft-lock on to that enemy, and unless the left stick is used, the interceptor will not change melee direction to the camera direction. This is an improvement for console users, as previously an interceptor would always melee in the direction of the camera (which leads to whiffing a lot of attacks). And constantly adjusting the camera AND holding melee is a hassle.

Reason: I understand some would say “L2P”, but this is just a lot more user friendly and doesn’t change anything in the way of balance.

- While hovering as a storm, shield delay recovery is halved, shield recovery speed is doubled, and movement speed is doubled (movement speed should be like floating (using jump while in the air).

Reason: The current hover of the storm isn’t that bad, but it’s simply not up to code when comparing to the lore. And also: hovering is tactically NOT beneficial… as there is no cover in the air and you’re just a big fat target. Hence, the storm’s shield lore should be matched by boosting shield recovery. This also provides interesting tactical dilemma’s: when getting hit, do you seek cover on the ground? Or do you start hovering to heal and hope to not get shot even more?

The increased movement is more of a personal request as I find it annoying to be so movement restricted while you’re in your natural hovering state.

- Bringing up your shield as a colossus just before (<0.5seconds) you get hit provides you with short invincibility frames like a dodge (i.e. it does not cost you any shield bar).

Reason: colossus healing is slightly nerfed because it was too OP. This is to balance that loss. And also, it’s only right that they should have some sort of i-frame ability.

1.4.2 Javelin combo’s

Before I introduce the many changes to combo’s I want to introduce one probably very unpopular measure: combo base damage will be reduced by 25%. Why? Combo’s are currently overpowered compared to gear and guns. However, do not worry. As you read through this section, you’ll notice there are plenty of ways to make up for this loss. It will just require more javelin building or teamwork.



Performing a combo should be the ultimate synergistic goal of your build. As such, a combo performed by any type of javelin should be able to contribute to the team in equal capacity, but simply in another manner.

A couple of clarifications before I move to the changes:

- Base combo damage: Damage in the amount we have now, but reduced by 25%. Still works off of (average) gear score. Not variable and the same for all javelins

- Bonus combo damage: Bonus damage on top of the base combo damage. This is variable per javelin and bonus damage calculation is based on base combo damage.

- Base combo range (for AoE combo’s): The range of the colossus’s combo is defined from now on as the base combo range.

- As all javelin combos now effectively do damage, all combo damage inscriptions are now generalized, meaning a universal component may have +20% combo damage, and it increases both the ranger’s, colossus’s, storm’s and interceptor’s bonus combo damage.

1.4.2.1 Ranger

No real changes. High single target damage. Pretty much the golden standard by which I tried to balance everything else.



Single target Impact bonus damage: 150% of base combo damage

1.4.2.2 Colossus

Let’s face it. This is OP. I get what they were trying to do: make the colossus a close-range tank which lures enemies to him, and then destroys them all in one go. But right now, the colossus extra damage is so strong it’s good against single targets as well. And that’s a bit too much of the good thing. So this gets a nerf.



Change: Area bonus damage is decreased from 100% to 75% of base combo damage. Base combo range remains the same.

1.4.2.3 Storm

Currently elemental spread is near-useless and sometimes even counterproductive for a team. He needs a totally different gimmick, BUT needs to have the same possibility to contribute to team DPS as ranger and colossus.

Hence, I’ve now dubbed the storm as “King of DoT”: The new storm combo leaves an elemental DoT field on the place of impact respective to the element with which the enemy was primed. This field does NOT prime or apply statuses, only damage.



Change: Instead of stat spread to nearby enemies, drop a DoT field on enemy’s location at the time of detonation. The field does elemental damage per second equal to 20% of base combo damage, in the element of the primer. The range of the elemental field would be 66% of the colossus’s combo range.

1.4.2.4 Interceptor

Now here is where it gets interesting… As useless as storm’s combo was, interceptor’s was – arguably – even worse. I reworked this to something completely new. I wanted the interceptor’s new combo to honor the old system of taking the combo bonus damage with you, but I also wanted to make it so that at base, it is the weakest combo, but if used properly, it becomes the most powerful.

So instead of just having an AoE dps field around you, performing a new interceptor combo will start a 3-second countdown on your javelin (on top of instantly doing base combo damage). After 3 seconds have passed, an explosion occurs centered on your javelin (which has a high force so it stuns enemies which is tactically useful for melee), using the damage type of the primed element. The bonus damage from this explosion is 30% of base combo damage and the range is 30% of base combo range.



WHAT?! OUTRAGEOUS!! SUCH LOW DAMAGE!. Well, yes. But actually? No, no, my friend, this is where a new mechanism comes in which can boost bonus combo damage, which works thusly:

Performing a combo using a certain primed element starts the timer. If you perform another combo using the same primer, your previous timer stops and performs the explosion, and a new timer is started of the same primer. However, if you perform a new combo from a different primer, the timer is again reset to 3 seconds and your explosion gets upgraded. If that timer runs out, a double explosion (one for each of the primers) will happen, but each explosion’s bonus combo damage will be increased to 75% (30+35), with a base combo range of 75%.



Still “Meh…”? Well, read on. You can collect a 3rd and 4th element, which will each again reset the timer and generate increasing bonus damage:

With 3 elements collected, each of the three explosion’s bonus combo damage will each hit for 105% (30+35+40), with a base combo range of 105%. Now we’re getting somewhere…

With 4 elements collected each of the four explosion’s bonus combo damage will each hit for 150% (30+35+40+45), with a base combo range of 150%. So this is basically 4 range impact combo’s, over an area of 1.5x colossus’s combo range. Yes please.



So what are the advantages of doing it this way?

- As noted before, it is the worst combo at base, but at level 3 it is already stronger than colossus and storm, and at level 4 is plain better than anyone. Also, with gears as they are now it might be difficult to get the level 4 consistently, but I’ve kept that in mind for the rebalance of gears (1.4.5) and it should be pretty doable now.

- You can combo off one enemy, kill him with base damage, and take your explosion damage somewhere else. This makes it so that a lot less overkill damage is no longer wasted. Interceptor’s mobility lends itself to this tactic very well.

- “Hey, this isn’t stronger than other javelins at all!”. Yes, it is, though. Look at the case study below which has each javelin performing 4 combos and the damage numbers they pump out.

• Ranger: (100 base + 150 bonus) x 4 = 1000% @ one enemy

• Colossus: (100 base + 75 bonus) x 4 = 400% @ one enemy + 300% @ 100% range

• Storm: (100 base + 100 bonus) x 4 = 400% @ one enemy + 400% @ 66% range over 5 seconds

• Interceptor (100 base + 150 base) x 4 = 400 @ one enemy + 600% @ 150% range

1.4.3 Team combo’s

To compensate for the 25% base combo damage loss as well as make the combo system a little more intricate / rewarding, a new type of combo is introduced: the team combo (red lettering for the damage numbers when performed). This type of combo is meant to be harder to perform and make it more rewarding, by having it be performed with an additional step in between priming and detonating: propagation. Additionally, it’s meant to encourage teamplay, as one person can not perform team combo’s by himself.

1.4.3.1 How?

1) Prime the enemy as usual.

2) Propagate the primer, by using a propagating gear/ability on the primed enemy.

3) Let the propagated primer be detonated by someone WHO DID NOT PERFORM THE PROPAGATION, using a standard detonator.

Et voila. Team combo.

1.4.3.2 What?

Okay, so a bit of ground rules:

- Propagating a primer increases the primer status’s icon in size, so it is clear for all to see that the status is propagated.

- Gear which previously did not have either a priming or detonating ability have almost all been turned into propagators, thus no longer leaving them in the dust.

- The person who does the priming and the propagating can be the same person. HOWEVER, no person can perform a team combo on it’s own, as only other people can perform a team combo off primers you propagated. If someone were to use a detonating ability on an enemy they propagated themselves, it would perform a normal combo instead (and propagation would be lost).

It is meant to be this way to encourage a team having all sorts of dedicated roles.

- If an enemy has multiple status effects applied, normally only one can be propagated at a time. Otherwise, it might get overpowered.

1.4.3.3 Why?

Why am I even bothering with this? Well, as mentioned, it is a way to encourage teamplay, and to balance out the combo damage nerf by making you work for it.



A team combo does a normal combo depending on the javelin type that detonated it, but on top of that it additionally does damage equal to 50% base team combo damage multiplied by the difficulty modifier (GM3: x5; GM2: x4; GM1: x3; Hard – Easy: x2), and this over a 100% base combo range.

Base team combo damage is calculated not off the detonating javelin’s gear score, but off the average team gear score! So having only 3 players in a game does not affect the team combo damage, but having a 4th leecher with low gear score does.

Team combo damage has no damage type, and is NOT affected by inscriptions, sigils, masterworks, or enemy resistances. Hence the difficulty damage multipliers: on GM3 it is much more likely that someone is running a high combo inscription damage build. And to keep team combo damage worth it to perform over normal combo’s, the damage is increased. Fret not. It’s not OP. You’ll need it… (1.4.6).

1.4.4 Switcheroos

Now here is where I get a little experimental. So bear with me for a moment.

The thing / problem is: sure, currently we can access the forge mid-mission. But I can count on one hand the amount of times I actually changed my build mid-mission or before a boss. It is just. so. SLOW. And it gets really annoying – for example – to switch to a different gun and matching components, or a different gear every time you encounter a situation where you need them. By the time you’ve switched up your build you’re just as likely to be downed already.

Also, you can’t use the forge to equip any new shiny gear you just got anyway, since you only get it after the mission, so it’s not like it helps you try out new stuff immediately.

Lastly, it also causes huuuuge menu slowdown during a mission.



So: Let’s get rid of the forge mid-mission. Wait! Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Read on.

What do I offer in return? Well, switcheroos. I know, the name is a work in progress, but here’s how it works: instead of letting us equip other items at will mid-mission, a preset build in the forge exists not of 2 gears, but of 2 sets of 2 gears. Not of 2 weapons, but of 2 sets of 2 weapons. Not of an ultimate, but of 2 different ultimates (see 1.4.5). Furthermore, you can – with one button – switcheroo between any of these sets separately at any time during a mission; this allows you to adapt on the fly (pun intended) to any sort of combat situation!

This way, you can basically carry 4 gears, 4 weapons, and 2 ultimates.

For balancing reasons (and to promote build diversity) melee and support can not be switched. Also, each of the switches comes at a cost…



• Left Keypad: Switcheroos between gear sets (components are also switched!!!).

Cost: Your newly equipped gear will have to fully recharge from 0 (if you have multiple charges, charges start at 0).

This way, it won’t be possible to: e.g. cast an ice storm, switcheroo, and immediately follow that up with a lightning strike to area detonate continuously. You’ll have to wait for the lightning strike to recharge.

• Up keypad: Switcheroos between ultimates (see 1.4.5). Why switcheroo between ultimates separately from gear you say? Well, because as part of the overall 2.0 update, ultimates will have passive masterwork ability for your javelin which is very powerful, but should need to both be available to the player at all times to allow for tactical diversity.

Cost: Your accrued ultimate bar is halved (if below 10%, no cost is applied).

This is a heavy cost, yes, but it should be like this to promote build diversity: e.g. one player might disregard his ultimate and instead focus on switching between the ultimate’s passives a lot, which the other person disregards his ultimate and uses both passive skills a lot.

Additionally, this also serves as another way for people to use up accrued ultimate bar. In some situations, you just don’t need an ultimate. Or you just forget about having it. This system gives you additional options.

Note: Hold Up keypad to use ultimate.

• Hold X: Brings up a weapon wheel with 4 quadrants. The top half will have your primary (left) and secondary (right) weapon displayed. The bottom half will have your other set’s primary (left) and secondary (right) weapon displayed. Selecting any weapon from the other set (bottom half) will switcheroo between sets (and equip the selected weapon). So you can basically carry 4 weapons.

Note: Double-tapping X will equip the other weapon of your current set without bringing up the weapon wheel.

Cost: Weapons will have their magazine emptied if they are not in the active set. So if you switcheroo’d between weapon sets, you’ll have to reload your weapons (or pick up an ammo pack) before using it.



Note: For obvious technical reasons, appearance will not change when switching.

Note: Only inscriptions from ACTIVELY SELECTED weapons, gear, components, … are applicable at any time. This way – for example –, if you see you’re about to get hit, you can quickly switch to a component loadout with a lot of armor and shields so the hit damage is reduced, and then quickly change back to your aggressive loadout (with less health inscriptions) when you’re healed up and ready to kill.

1.4.5 Items

Okay, this’ll be a long chapter. Because there’s just so much to change… I’ll spare you the introduction this time and just go to the changes because most of them just speak for themselves.

1.4.5.1 Levels

Items attained during events should be level 66/80. After the events, new items should be added to the normal loot pool at level 61/75. This way, event items remain special, but no-one loses out on the functionality of the new items as you can still attain them at a later time (albeit at a slightly lower level).

1.4.5.2 Busters

A very few select gear currently already have armor or shield busters (don’t know what they’re officially called). E.g. plasma star is effective against armor. What a buster does, is change the effectivity multiplier against a certain type of target to x1.5. So if a plasma star would do 100 damage against a normal enemy, it would do 150 damage against an armored enemy. This very much works the same way as elements. Fire has a multiplier of x1.25 against armor, so 100 damage against a normal enemy would turn into 125 damage against and armored enemy.



The buster system is sadly underused, as it could turn some weapons / gear into actually useful niche items. Not only that, busters are not diverse enough (only armor and shield). So, I’ve made some changes:

- There are now new busters. In addition to shield and armor busters, there are now also boss busters (against mini-bosses such as giant titan or escari tank, and against normal bosses) and aerial busters (against – obviously – any airborne enemy).

- Most javelins now have one of each busters assigned to a gear.

- Weapons now each have a niche busting target.

- Buster trumps element. Meaning, if there is an electrical attack happening on an armored enemy, but that attack has armor buster, then the buster multiplier is applied, not the element multiplier.

Note: If an electrical attack is happening on the aerial shielded enemy, and the attack has aerial buster, then still only the buster is applied (it doesn’t get a bonus from BOTH the buster AND the element.

- If an enemy is multiple types (e.g. Vara is flying and boss), then it is susceptible to both busters.

1.4.5.3 Weapons

I did not get into weapon-specific rebalancing as this is not my forte, but it is required, and I want to touch quickly on 2 rebalances for weapons which I believe to be necessary nonetheless

- All non-cataclysm weapons require a rebalance of +/- 50% base damage increase (though this may vary from weapon to weapon).

- Weapons need to be good against a certain type of enemy, to promote incorporating multiple types of weapons into your build. Therefore, I suggest turning each category of weapons into a certain type of ‘buster’ (unless it is an elemental weapon). As such:

• SMG’s and assault rifles, and marksman rifles become shield busters

• LMG’s and autocannons, and marksman rifles become boss busters

• Handguns, sniper rifles, and marksman rifles becomes armor busters

• Shotguns and grenade launchers become aerial busters

• Volt rifles are electrical type weapons and are already boosted against shields (and affected by components etc), so do not need rebalance

• Grave digger is a fire type weapon and is already boosted against armor (and affected by components etc), so does not need rebalance

• Bad omen (base damage + 25%) becomes aerial buster

• Razorwing (base damage + 25%) becomes aerial buster

• rainmaker (base damage - 25%) becomes aerial buster

• Riza’s ripper becomes boss buster.

• Shardstorm becomes ice type damage, with a very low frost status effect. As it is an ice type weapon and is already boosted against shields (and affected by components etc), it does not need rebalance

1.4.5.4 Ultimates

As you’ll notice in 1.4.5.5, much like they introduced 2 types of melee, I’m introducing 2 types of ultimate. Ultimates now also become equippable in it’s own slot in the forge.

Ultimates are kind of special in that their masterwork bonus is a passive ability that changes either how dodge works or how melee works in a very significant (and powerful) way.

You can switch between the 2 equipped ultimates at will, but it will cost you half the accrued ultimate bar. This is meant to serve as an additional way of expending ultimate, and to add tactical possibilities.

1.4.5.5 Gear & components

And now we get to the meat of the document. A grand rebalance of the javelin classes is required, and I’ve tried to do this mostly via the gears and components. Below is an overview of all rebalances and changes to the items as I believe would balance out the javelins as best as possible (including earlier mentions of non-item related rebalances such as combo’s).

‘Base gear’ (BG) is about the non-masterwork version of the item (by definition applies to masterwork, of course).

‘Original masterwork’ (OMW) is about the masterworks as we know them now.

‘New masterwork’ (NMW) is about the second version masterworks like we got from the cataclysm. Additionally, I’ve taken the liberty to invent new MW abilities for the gear which does not yet exist. I’ve mostly tried to make one of the gears about damage, and the other about utility.

‘Masterwork passive ability’ (MWPA) is the passive ability that ultimates have if you have them actively equipped.



A couple things to keep in mind:

- I’ve done away with passive abilites as masterworks (e.g. the ‘always on’ 200% venom spitter combo damage), and turned them into timed bonuses to counteract only equipping something for the passive bonus. Also, as some of these were overpowered (or underpowered) a timed bonus makes it easier for balancing (e.g. a very powerful damage bonus will only be applied for a short duration, while a difficult to apply or less powerful bonus will remain active longer).

- Exception to the rule above are ultimate masterworks, which provide always available passive abilities.

- For all intents and purposes, gear and support are now the same and all classified as ‘gear’. Basically, support is now also affected by anything ‘gear related’ including gear damage, all damage, gear recharge, …

- If nothing is mentioned, nothing is changed to how it works now. E.g. if I don’t mention the base gear for lightning strike, that means there’s no functional change to how it works now.

- Components do NOT get a new masterwork version. That’s more something for Anthem 3.0 (see 2).

- Sometimes I came up with names for the new gear, sometimes I didn’t. In any case, if I did, it’s marked with “air quotes”.

- I really did quite a number on interceptor gear. But that’s mainly because they were simply so uninspired…

1.4.5.5.1 Storm

Lightning strike

BG: Aerial buster

OMW: 250% electricity damage bonus when hovering instead of 165%

NMW: Increase dot damage form placed field by 50%



Ice storm:

BG: Base damage +200%, Base charges – 1

OMW: Hitting enemies stops countdown timer for masterwork bonuses for 3 seconds

NMW: Leaves ice vortex at location which does 5 second DoT damage (doesn’t prime)



Flame burst:

BG: Becomes propagator, Base damage +25%

OMW: Applies acid if hitting enemy an enemy 3x within 5 seconds, Detonator if hitting an enemy 2 x within 3 seconds

NMW: Hitting an enemy with flame burst increases all AOE ranges by 50% (including combo) for 10 seconds.



Ice blast:

BG: Base damage +25%

OMW: Hitting all chunks recovers 40% shield

NMW (“Permafrost”): Priming with ice (from any source) instantly restores a charge for ice blast



Living Flame:

BG: Base cooldown reduced by 35%

NMW: Every hit increases all (including combo) DoT damage by 10% (up to 100%) for 10 seconds



Frost shards:

BG: Base damage +900%

OMW: Every hit increases blast seal gear damage with 25% for 5 seconds

NMW: Every hit increases all gear recharge by 10% (up to 100%) for 10 seconds



Burning orb:

BG: Armor buster

OMW: 10% instead of 5% per hit for 10 seconds, maximum of 250% elemental damage

NMW (“Scorched earth"): Enemies hit by burning orb explode (also detonates) for AOE fire damage after 2 seconds



Shock burst:

BG: Primes multiple enemies as long as they are close-by (bounces between them)

OMW: Every enemy hit restores 1 second recharge

NMW (“Thunderlord”): Primes shields



Glacial spear:

BG: Is now Bossbuster

OMW: ice effect AOE increase +50%



Arc burst:

BG: Becomes propagator, Crit damage multiplier +50%

OMW: No more procs to nearby targets. Prime target with electricity, fire, and acid (proc damage) (and immediately self-propagates one of them because of the multi-hit)

NMW (“Static cage”): Hitting an enemy sets an anthem lightning orb (those annoying things which keep you from flying) at location for 10 seconds which grounds all enemies within range and procs every enemy with lightning whenever the enemy is hit with an attack from any source (max once every 0.5 seconds)



Melee:

OMW: Instead of fireball, have an explosion which knocks down (high force) close range enemies (making it in practice a close range area detonator)



Wind wall:

BG: multiple walls can be set in play simultaneously if you have multiple charges, base wind wall gets a 30% wall strength decrease, however, it can be charged like a focus seal to increase up to +200% of the new base strength



Anthem’s grace:

BG: 50% recharge bonus for 20 seconds, Radius can be increased by charging (like a focus seal) up to +200% radius

MW: No more damage upgrade. Prevents new status effect being applied to you while in the sphere. Also, if fully charged: heals previously acquired statuses.



Meteor strike (original ultimate):

MWPA: Allows melee to be charged, which will teleport you a long distance to the enemy and increases melee MW effect by 50% effectiveness (so 60% shield is recovered instead of 40, and the force explosion radius is 50% larger)



Titan ray (new ultimate):

BG: Fires a concentrated beam (like a titan) of high damage. Can only slightly be steered after initial aim.

MWPA: allows you to double the duration & distance of your dodge by holding dodge (like how interceptor dodge works, but only double, not triple) (also increases invincibility frames).

Amulet of winter:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%. Base effect buildup increase to 50%.

OMW: Freezing an enemy increases combo damage by 5% (stacks to 50) for 10 seconds.



Gunslinger’s mark:

BG: no more 20% gear damage reduction



Mark of clarity:

BG: Base elemental damage resistance bonus increase to 50%

OMW: Clearing a status (yours or someone else’s) restores 50% armor and initiates shield regen



Mark of ruin:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%. Base effect buildup increase to 50%.



Mark of wrath:

BG: no more 20% gear recharge reduction

OMW: (instead of electric explosion on combo:) applying an elemental combo field on an enemy which is already under effect of a different elemental combo field (e.g. fire and electric), also applies acid on that enemy. Acid does not count as an ‘element’.



Token of the daring:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%, and no more 35% physical damage reduction

OMW: On shield break recharge all gear (including support), and if all gear is already recharged add 1 temporary extra charge on top of your maximum, for 10 seconds



Token of the master:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%.



Token of the pupil:

OMW: Having any combo elemental field active and damaging an enemy restores armor 5% per second.



Tome of precision:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%. Base effect buildup increase to 50%.

OMW: Hitting a weak spot increases all lightning damage by 10% (up to 100%) for 10 seconds



Vanguard’s token:

BG: Base armor bonus increase to 50%.

1.4.5.5.2 Ranger

Frag grenade:

BG: Base damage +25%

NMW (“Killing spree”): Killing an enemy with frag grenade (including resulting combo) halves remaining recharging gear (including frag grenade itself and support)



Inferno grenade:

BG: Base damage +50%

OMW: Spawns cluster grenades which carpet a larger area (and also prime)

NMW (“Greek fire”): A direct hit employs a small AoE DoT burning / priming area around the enemy which lasts until the direct-hit-enemy dies.



Frost grenade:

BG: NO MORE DAMAGE INSCRIPTIONS

OMW: 50% damage bonus to combo and weak point hit for 5 seconds



Seeker grenade:

BG: Propagator, Boss buster

OMW: Every hit increases weapon damage by 10% (up to 250) for 10 seconds

NMW: Every hit increases ultimate speed and damage by 5% for 10 seconds (up to 100%)



Sticky grenade:

OMW: Ice proc also primes with frost (can self-detonate!)

NMW “Magnetic ‘nade”: sucks in other close-by enemies towards the grenade so all get hit by the small area detonation



Seeking missile:

BG: Base damage +100%. Base charges + 1. Aerial buster

NMW: Using this gear costs 2% ult charge instead of normally recharging



Pulse blast:

BG: (is still a shield buster)

OMW: (Instead of melee bonus) Hitting an enemy disorients it, reducing its accuracy for 5 seconds



Spark beam:

BG: Crit damage multiplier +50%, propagator

OMW: Fire proc also primes with fire

NMW: Every hit increases spark beam damage with 25% for 5 seconds (up to 250)



Venom darts:

BG: Base damage +200%. Base charges + 1. Charging venom darts fires all remaining charges until depleted

OMW: Priming with acid (any source) refills all charges

NMW: The acid shots lock on and spread over 3 enemies instead of concentrating at one



Blast missile:

BG: Propagator

OMW: A direct hit gives lightning proc which primes area with lightning

NMW (“Flashbang”): Explodes a bright light at impact location which reduces enemy accuracy for 5 seconds



Melee: no changes



Shield:

BG: Radius increase x 2

OMW: (No longer grenade boost) Heals armor by 5% per second while in the bubble.



Damage booster:

BG: Radius increase x 2, weapon damage increase by 100% for 20 seconds

OMW: All damage keeps increasing by 10% for every second you remain inside the bubble (up to 100%). If you leave, it’s back to zero.



Missile battery (original masterwork):

BG: Locks on and fires missiles

MWPA: Charging melee will result in a rapid 3-hit melee combo (upward strike, downward strike, small jump and area strike). You can dodge out of this combo at any time.



Carpet bombing (new masterwork):

BG: Carpets a HUGE area in all types of elemental (not acid) grenades, priming a large area with several types of effects

MWPA: Dodging into an enemy has a lot of force (similar to colossus shield run) and staggers them / knocks them over and damages them (damage depends on item rarity)



Airborne advantage:

BG: no more 20% blast damage reduction

OMW: Increase all resistances to 35%



Badge of devastation:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%.



Combined arms:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%.



Defensive bulwark:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%.

OMW: On low health (<30%), killing an enemy using guns restores 35% armor.



Elemental ops: No changes



General’s favor

BG: Base recharge bonus increase to 50%.

OMW: Hitting an enemy with melee decreases gear recharge for grenade by 2 seconds.



Tactical advantage

OMW: Weak point hits lower thruster heat build up by 80% and reduce reload time by 50% for 5 seconds



Tip of the spear:

BG: Base damage bonus decrease to 50%.



Vanguard’s badge

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%. Base electric effect bonus increase to 50%



Victor’s resolve

BG: no more 20% impact damage reduction

1.4.5.5.3 Colossus

High explosive:

BG: Base propagator (instead of detonator). Base force +200%

OMW: Fires a mine instead of an explosive which first explodes the area with ice prime, then after 2 seconds electric prime, then after 2 seconds fire prime

NMW: Deploys smoke at point of impact (obscures enemy vision and impairs accuracy) for 10 seconds



Burst mortar:

BG: Base is now detonator, Base fires 8 shells (instead of 4), Base damage reduced by 25%

OMW: double explosion on direct hit (volley of 8 missiles is also unleashed in half the time)



Firewall mortar:

OMW: Every primed enemy restores 1 second recharge

NMW (“Wildfire”): Expands area to double size over duration lifetime



Lightning coil:

BG: Base damage +100%

OMW: Enemies killed by Lightning coil (or detonation thereof) explode with a lightning proc and prime an area (like arctic tomb)

NMW: Enemies within range are magnetized towards you. Magnet range = +50% base damage range



Shock coil:

BG: Base damage +100%

OMW: Enemies are primed with fire if electric status effect is applied (instead of directly on hit with ice)

NMW: Primes shields



Siege artillery: No changes



Flamethrower:

OMW: Increases damage and fire rate of flamethrower with 2% for every charge spent (maximum 100)

NMW: Is now a propagator. Is able to propagate multiple status effects on one enemy.



Flak cannon:

BG: Propagator. Aerial buster

OMW: Every singular flak particle hit restores 0.25 seconds recharge of flak cannon

NMW: Hitting an enemy with flak cannon turns all your guns into aerial - , boss - , shield - , and armor busters for 10 seconds



Railgun:

BG: Crit damage multiplier +50%. Bossbuster, hitbox is widened by 100%.

OMW: Hitting a weak spot immediately fires a second shot

NMW: Penetrates up to 4 enemies if fully charged



Venom spitter:

BG: Base acid status +200%. Base damage +100%

OMW: Increase combo damage by 200% for 5 seconds after applying acid status

NMW: Increase combo range by 100% for 10 seconds after applying acid status



Melee: no changes



Shield surge: No changes



Battle cry:

OMW: Melee damage bonus decreased by 100%



Nuke (original masterwork):

BG: Fires 3 nukes which detonate combos

MWPA: Hitting an enemy with a shield melee (running, flying, or standing) provides 10 seconds of knockback resistance



Acid rain (new masterwork):

BG: Sets down ultimate weapon as a mortar and fire a long volley of mortar grenades which prime with acid. While the volley is firing you can continue to adjust the aim for greater area coverage

MWPA: 50% of damage taken by shield is recovered as armor (if you time it right before you get hit, your shield might not take damage, but you still recover health!!)



Ablative shielding: No changes



Catalytic overdrive:

OMW: Detonating a combo increases gear damage by 25% (up to 250%) for 5 seconds



Demolition tribute:

OMW: Defeating an enemy with melee grants 20% armor, with a cooldown of 5 seconds (so no more healing fully with 1 lightning coil and melee. Sorry, colossi, it was waaaaay too OP).



Emblem of destruction:

BG: Base blast damage bonus increase to 50%.

OMW: Performing a multi-hit (10) with your ultimate increases Ultimate charge by 3300% (can only happen once per ultimate)



Grand entrance:

OMW: Grand entrance explosion damage increases (up to 250%) if melee is held longer before you hit the ground.



Reinforced hull:

BG: Base magazine size increase bonus increase to 50%

OMW: Using support gear at low health (<30%) restores armor at 5%/second for 10 seconds.



Shock treatment:

BG: Base ordnance launcher damage bonus increase to 50%.



Stalwart badge:

BG: Base magazine size increase bonus increase to 50%

OMW: At low health (<30%), gain knockback resistance for 10 seconds.



Synchronised frame:

BG: Base assault launcher damage bonus increase to 50%.

OMW: Defeating an enemy increases damage for assault launcher by 100% for 5 seconds.



Vanguard emblem:

BG: Base damage bonus increase to 50%.

OMW: Explosion on shield break has high force and knocks down / stuns

1.4.5.5.4 Interceptor

Searching glaive:

BG: Base recharge – 35%. Is now detonator. Base damage – 50%. Searching glaive now hits up to 5 times (bounce between enemies like relentless pursuit, but also keeps hitting 1 target if no other targets available). Bossbuster

OMW: Hitting an enemy increases weapon damage by 25% (up to 250%) for 10 seconds

NMW: Launches 2 searching glaives



Venom bomb:

BG: Base damage +50%. AOE Duration +100%

OMW: Applying acid via venom bomb increases all acid damage by 250% for 10 seconds

NMW: Enemies remaining in the venom for 2 seconds are set on fire



Cryo glaive:

BG: Base damage +150%. Base recharge -35%. Works kind of like searching glaive in that it bounces between enemies, but it freezes instead of detonates, hits the same enemy only once, and can keeps bouncing infinitely as long as there are new enemies within range

OMW: For every enemy hit, increase status duration of newly applied status effects by 1 second (up to 10 seconds), for 10 seconds

NMW: Primes with ice through shields



Cluster mine:

BG: Triple base time it stays on field, maximum 3 mines on the field at one time. Base damage +50%. Is now detonator

OMW: Using cluster mine does not spend charges until it explodes (this allows you to throw up to 3 CM in the field at no cost, until it explodes)

NMW: No changes, but can self-detonate now due to electricity and base detonation



Plasma star:

BG: Becomes assault system. Base damage +50%. Propagator. Crit damage multiplier +50%. Armor buster.

OMW: Hitting an enemy weak spot increases gear damage by 50% (up to 250%) for 5 seconds.

NMW: Adds fire status



Detonating strike (name switched with tempest strike, because that’s more logical, so this is the fire detonator ability):

BG: Base damage +50%

OMW: Detonating a combo makes a fire explosion which spreads fire status to nearby enemies (like arctic tomb)

NMW: Hitting an enemy with detonating strike invisible-teleports you to the enemy’s back and confuses enemy ai for 2 seconds.



Wraith strike:

BG: Launch a projection of yourself at an enemy which melees the enemy (damage based on your normal melee) for 5 seconds. Propagator. Shieldbuster

NMW: (no longer a detonator) Ghost distracts enemies from attacking you as long as ghost lives



Tempest strike (name switched with detonating strike, because that’s more logical, so this is the electric prime ability):

BG: No more “explosion after death”, just simply: does an electric roundhouse kick which primes. New roundhouse kick does damage equal to the sum of the explosion and kick from before.

OMW: If an enemy nearby takes electricity damage (combo damage does not count), 10% of that damage heals you and is returned as armor

NMW: Hitting enemies which are already affected by a status effect (which is not ice) freeze primes them



Venom spray:

BG: Base acid status + 300%. Base damage +50%

OMW: Adds 5 ultimate charges per enemy hit with venom spray

NMW: On hitting the enemy, restores 1 ‘used’ primer (of any type) as a new detonatable primer. However it does NOT reset the duration timer of the original status effect, and it does not re-apply acid on an enemy which already has acid.



Spark dash:

BG: Base force + 100%. Base damage + 25%. Aerial buster. Becomes strike system

OMW: Every enemy that dies from any source at close range restores 1 second recharge

NMW: Detonating a combo restores 35% shield



Detonating melee (forgot the name):

BG: Base damage +75%



Acid melee (forgot the name):

BG: Base damage +35%



Support: No changes



Invincible melee mode (original masterwork):

BG: melees

MWPA: Hitting an enemy with a melee attack increases melee animation speed, weapon fire rate, and charge speed (e.g. rainmaker) by 5% (up to 35%) for 5 seconds.



Assassination (new masterwork):

BG: Aim and paint 1 enemy, then disappear from view (invisible) and after 1 second, appear at the enemy and perform one HUGELY damaging melee assassination hit. Note that if the enemy has a weak spot(s), the ultimate will automatically do damage to the highest crit multiplier weak spot available at the time of hitting. Shields are ignored.

MWPA: While dodging, perform a spin around your axis (like a drill) which melee damages enemies around you. Cooldown of 10 seconds (your arms will glow if it is available), but each normal melee hit reduces the cooldown by 1 second



Conductive lattice

BG: Base bonuses increased to 35%

OMW: If you get hit by an enemy which is close-by, it is primed with lightning



Elusive talisman:

BG: Base weapon damage bonus increase to 50%



Survival algorithm:

BG: Base maximum shields bonus increase to 50%. No more 35% armor reduction.

OMW: no more “can occur once every 10 seconds”



Talisman of power:

BG: Base strike system damage bonus increase to 50%



Vengeance matrix:

BG: Base all damage bonus increase to 50%, damage taken increased remains at 35%

OMW: On low health (<30%), damage taken reduced by 35% for 10 seconds and melee damage increased by 100% for 10 seconds



Way of the bold:

BG: Adds 2 seconds to the combo explosion timer (gives you more time to collect other elements)

OMW: Defeating an enemy with weapons (gun, melee) increases combo damage by 10% (up to 100%) for 5 seconds



Way of integration:

BG: Base acid damage, acid resistance and oxygen capacity increase by 50%

OMW: Melee hits lower thruster heat build up by 80% for 5 seconds.



Way of resolve:

BG: Base melee damage bonus increase to 50%

OMW: Dashing increases melee damage by 100% for 5 seconds



Way of salvage:

BG: no more weapon magazine size increase. Base drop rate increased by 50%

OMW: Collecting ammo increases all weapon damage (gun, melee) by 10% (up to 100%) for 5 seconds



Way of the swift:

BG: Base assault system damage bonus increase to 50%

1.4.5.5.5 Universal components

Acid slugs:

BG: Base shotgun damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases shotgun magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%



Bloodlust:

BG: Base melee damage increase to 50%

OMW: Killing an enemy increases weapon and gear damage by 5% (up to 100%) for 5 seconds



Emergency power:

BG: Base ultimate damage increase to 50%



Extended sniper magazine:

BG: Base sniper damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases sniper magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: Hitting an enemy with a sniper rifle decreases sniper reload time by 100% for 5 seconds



Extended special arms magazine:

BG: Base Handgun / grenade launcher damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases sniper magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: A hit streak (3) primes enemies with fire.



Feedback loop:

BG: Base AR damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases AR magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: Hitting an enemy with an AR increases AR damage by 5% (up to 100%) for 2 seconds.



Focused freeze:

BG: Base LMG damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases LMG magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%



Giant slayer:

BG: Base Marksman damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases Marksman magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: Hitting legendary enemies (incl. bosses) with a marksman increases weak point damage for marksman rifles by 100% for 5 seconds



Rapid hollow points:

BG: Base SMG / autocannon damage increase to 50%. Base additionally increases SMG / autocannon magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: A hit streak (12) primes enemies with electricity.



Rejuvenating ammo:

BG: Base increases all magazine size and spare ammo size by 50%

OMW: Picking up an ammo pack restores 20% armor, cooldown of 5 seconds (sorry, otherwise this is just TOO powerful, there are plenty of other ways to heal)



Softened blows: No changes



Symbiotic surge: No changes



Thermal cooling:

BG: Increases base javelin heat capacity by 50% AND flying through/above water gives you a 20 second bonus to heat buildup instead of only a couple of seconds as normal.

OMW: reduces time you stay overheated AND rate at which you cool down significantly.

1.4.6 Difficulty

I have tremendous respect for people who do game balance. It is the sum of sooooooo many variables requires near-endless iteration to perfect. Therefore, I’m not going to presume that I can rebalance game difficulty by simply saying : “add X% health to all enemies” and it’ll be fine. But I AM going to give directions about how I would go about changing how difficulty works in Anthem 2.0.

1.4.6.1 Stats

As you’ll undoubtedly are aware by now, the rebalancing of the gears and components and combo’s can lead to some VERY powerful combinations. As you’ll also be aware (or at least, should be, if you’ve read everything properly …), the maximum inscription bonus for health and shields is 100% each. This is signifying for the kind of difficulty experience I believe anthem should evolve towards.

At this particular moment in time all increased difficulty does is give enemies more health. And while I am not against this on principle, at least balance it properly if you’re doing that. I want each difficulty in the game to feel like “kill or be killed”: You have very destructive tools and tactical options at your disposal, but you better kill the enemy quickly or they’ll obliterate you in the blink of an eye!

If you fail to prioritize enemies correctly, or ignore a mob of mini-enemies, or do not bother with cover or tactical placement, you’re going to get downed. If you don’t know how to fight particularly strong enemies, you’re going to get downed.



Specifically for health of enemies:

- GM1 and lower difficulties can remain as they are.

- GM2 difficulty should be balanced towards players who have a full masterwork set, meaning enemy health should be balanced around a 250% damage bonus from masterworks.

On gut feeling (but again, I’m not presuming to be able to just write down how it should be): This means that what we now have as GM2 should become about halfway between what we have as GM2 and GM3.

- GM3 difficulty should be balanced around a full masterwork set, and full 250% damage inscriptions, AND a synergetic build.

On gut feeling (but again, I’m not presuming to be able to just write down how it should be): This means that what we have now as GM3 should become about halfway between what we have as GM3 and what GM3 was before patch 1.3.

In terms of damage received (i.e. our health or how fast we get killed), I think it’s pretty okay as it is, considering the max inscription limit is +100%.

1.4.6.2 Enemy mechanics

What keeps combat refreshing is having to think about the best way to take down enemies. Having to prioritize all enemies present in the blink of an eye. And each enemy requiring a different approach. I do honestly think that the variety in enemies is pretty okay in anthem. The problem is more that each reacts to all statuses in the same way. That’s why I want to add some variability to enemies, which I don’t believe require too big AI changes.

1.4.6.2.1 Titans

Titans go back to how they originally were: their weak spots only appear when they are attacking, and aren’t ‘always on’. HOWEVER, applying ice to a titan douses it’s fire, and exposes his hands as weak spots for 10 seconds. You can re-apply ice as much as you want.

Also, make the tracking orbs he shoots more dodgeable. They are infuriatingly tracky.

Resistant to status effect fire.

1.4.6.2.2 Fury

Furies now boost other enemies by having them regenerate health. You can stop this (as well as stop them from going into their bubble) by applying electricity.

Resistant to status effect ice.

1.4.6.2.3 Escari

Applying fire instantly blows out a leg. They become immobile and expose a weak point for a little while. However, if all 4 legs are blown out, it becomes a LOT more mobile, and chases you down a lot faster. So you better have it killed by the time leg 4 is blown out!

Resistant to status effect electricity.

1.4.6.2.4 Bristleback and Ursix

Applying ice blinds the Bristleback / Ursix, so it loses you as a target for 3 seconds. However, it starts to thrash around very violently. So you definitely do NOT want to be close by… unless you like the downed screen. Then by all means, give it a kiss.

Resistant to status effect acid.

1.4.6.2.5 Airborne enemies (e.g. Valkyries, scar enforcers, wyverns)

Applying fire or ice will drop them from the sky (in the case of wyverns: explode them)

1.4.6.2.6 Outlaw rangers

Applying electricity will cause them to immediately launch their missile attack into the air and damage their own forces around them.

1.4.6.2.7 Scar colossus and turrets

While they are burning, a timer counts down. If the timer reaches 10 seconds their gas tank / ammo box explodes, which does damage equal to half their health bar.

1.4.6.2.8 Brutes and dominion trolls

Applying acid turns them into a berserker rage, where they focus only on attacking the closest melee target indiscriminately and unrelentingly.

1.5 Game modes

A right contender with “Loot” for Anthem’s biggest fault: Endgame content. Personally, I think the amount of content is okay, but it’s more that there’s not enough reason to do the different content that necks Anthem.

This is party already solved by the fact that loot is reworked (1.3.1) and the fact that you can now look for something you want more specifically (1.3.3). But even then. More content is always welcome.



Below a few changes to existing modes which would boost replayability. As well as a couple fresh additions. Basically I just simply thought: what would bring me back to these activities after all this time of not playing?

1.5.1 Legendary contracts

Legendary contracts are now replayable as much as you want. No more ‘one-a-day’ BS. Also, as soon as you acquire a legendary contract mission, it replaces the old normal non-legendary quest on your map. So then you can’t do the non-legendary version anymore.

1.5.2 Story missions

Legendary missions are okay as they are now. No change required.



HOWEVER! After events are completed and these events contained story missions (non-legendary) KEEP THEM AVAILABLE! Because it is very annoying for new players to follow the story otherwise.

1.5.3 Strongholds

A new stronghold featuring outlaw enemies. I’m sooooooo tired of fighting dominion. And we already have 2 scar strongholds. We need something where we can fight outlaws for a change. It would be cool if we discover an outlaw base where they were training skorpions to fight for them.



Additionally, convert each event to a stronghold afterwards (without the event rewards), so you can also quickplay join into these strongholds.

Specifically as an example for the cataclysm, first of all remove any scoring system (so no more crystals), second make only 3 events available (so you have 3 chests same as other strongholds) but randomize them every time a cataclysm stronghold is started. Also remove the stability mechanic because otherwise it’d be impractical, and this way we get to enjoy the beautiful version of the seaside

1.5.4 Freeplay

1.5.4.1 Player increase

Freeplay is pretty okay as it is. The markers everywhere are pretty helpful. But, the map is pretty big for 4 players only. Increase the limit of players per freeplay map to 8. This will make you encounter more players and the world will seem more alive. Also, you’ll have more chance to be revived with someone nearby. Also, we need to be able to fast travel to striders via the map.

1.5.4.2 Striders

In freeplay, you can enter the forge and select another preset build or change your current build by interacting with a strider. This is possible in freeplay (unlike other game modes) because these sessions usually take longer and you might want to switch it up at some point. You can even switch javelins!!



Also, you can fast-travel to any strider icon on the map by selecting it.

1.5.4.3 Horde mode

We need some sort of horde mode. Basically, a mode where you defend against an increasingly amount and difficulty of enemies, featuring an increasing reward.

Additionally, this horde mode could be introduced as an event whereby a scoring system could be implemented.

Note that we already have / had a sort of horde mode in freeplay (the ‘conjunctions’), so I’d like to continue building on that premise.



Horde mode takes place in freeplay. I am against making this an additional gameplay mode, as this would only serve to segregate the player base even further across multiple modes.



Similar to ‘conjunctions’ now, after a previous horde mode has finished an objective marker appears somewhere on the map and it starts to count down from 10 minutes.

Once it reaches 0, you have 30 seconds to enter the horde mode. All players (up to 8) that entered the horde mode are gathered on another map (this map doesn’t necessarily have to be the cave from the conjunctions, it can be any custom-made map designed for horde mode; imagine an 8-player battle at the destroyed castle from the emerald abyss!!).

After 30 seconds of preparation time, wave 1 begins. Wave 1 is balanced to be able to be completed by 1 player. Once wave 1 is completed, a chest appears with 1 loot drop and a 10% elysian key drop chance. You have 30 seconds to collect these drops and prepare for wave 2.

Wave 2 is balanced to be able to be completed by 2 players. Once wave 2 is completed, a chest appears with 2 loot drops and a 10% elysian key drop chance. You have 30 seconds to collect these drops and prepare for wave 3.

Wave 3 is balanced to be able to be completed by 3 players. Once wave 3 is completed, a chest appears with 3 loot drops and a 10% elysian key drop chance. You have 30 seconds to collect these drops and prepare for wave 4.

Etcetera, until…

Wave 8 is balanced to be able to be completed by 8 players. Once wave 8 is completed, a chest appears with 8 loot drops and a 10% elysian key drop chance. You have 30 seconds to collect these drops and get the fuck out back to the freeplay session (where a new 10 minute timer will be started).

If all players die, the horde mode is seen as failed, and everybody is ejected back to the freeplay session.



Introducing horde mode to players should be done by with a new ‘event’. During the event horde mode, there points are accrued in many ways, requiring players to puzzle with enemy waves to see what is the most profitable:

- Clearing a full wave faster gives more points

- Mini bosses (500 points) will halve their point value after 30 seconds. Other legendary (200 points) and elite (50 points) will halve their point value after 15 seconds. Lower enemies (10 points) will not halve values.

- Dying detracts points (although a revive within 10 seconds mitigates point detraction fully, and within 30 seconds mitigates half).

- Performing team combo’s earns points (50).

- Performing combo’s earns points (10).

- Combo kills or weak point kills are worth more than normal kills.

- Using a enemy’s weakness (e.g. freezing a titan or dropping a Valkyrie from the sky) also adds points (25).

Difficulty also adds a multiplier at the end (x6 for GM3, x5 for GM2, …). Your final score can be converted to crystals (maybe blue this time?) with which you can buy event chests with – for example – all the new gear from 1.4.5.5. at level 66 / 80. There can also be inversions which vary per week so you can have a weekly scoreboard.



Once the event is done, the horde mode can simply be implemented in freeplay without the score.

2 Anthem 3.0

This section deals more with possibilities of Anthem for the longer term. They’re a bit less thought out and aren’t exactly as necessary as the changes from 2.0 to make Anthem work, but they would be cool additions.

2.1 Artifacts

Artifact items are one tier above legendary. They are the ultimate items available and should be extremely difficult to obtain. Here’s an overview of how they work:



Artifact items are item level 95 (100 for events)

Only one artifact item type may be actively equipped at any time (so you can have EITHER one artifact weapon, one artifact melee, or one artifact gear equipped).

Artifacts are essentially a weapon / gear which combines all other masterwork abilities of that class of weapon / gear into one item. For example:

• An Artifact Lightning strike would have both the “250% damage when hovering” and the “priming field” masterwork abilities.

• Any Artifact LMG (be it havoc, relentless or sledgehammer) would have “recoil reduction”, “combo explosion on reloading”, AND “RPM increase upon hitting weak point hits”.

An artifact gun also is in essence a new weapon, as an artifact LMG combines the best of the other 3 weapons class’s base properties (e.g. havoc’s rpm, sledgehammer’s accuracy and relentless’ magazine size)

• An Artifact ranger melee would have both “get ultimate charges on hit” and “increase all damage on hit”



Artifacts have fixed inscriptions, meaning they always drop with the same inscriptions and can not be altered. However, the inscriptions are not necessarily always ‘+ damage’. Inscriptions should be in function of how the weapon should be used.

As a rule, the 2 major inscriptions are always defining of the artifact, and the 2 minor inscriptions are always javelin-wide bonuses. Also, the inscriptions are always the maximum. For example:

An Artifact ice storm would have the following insriptions (on top of both mastwerwork effects “stop countdown timer for 3 seconds” and “leave ice vortex”) :

- +200% gear charges

- +50% AoE size

- +100% gear recharge (Jav-wide)

- +100% thruster (Jav-wide)

An Artifact Sniper rifle would have the following inscriptions (on top of masterwork effects “detonate combo on critical hit”, “freeze enemy on 5 hits”, and “increased weak point damage while hovering”):

- +250% damage (generally, weapons DO almost always benefit from damage)

- +300% penetration

- +100% critical damage (Jav wide)

- +50% reload time (Jav wide)



Support and ultimate artifacts are not applicable, as they do not have enough variability in items / masterwork effects to combine them as artifact. Components are not applicable as that would be boring.



Artifact weapons are obtained at a very very very very very veeeery low drop rate at GM3. They can NEVER be crafted.

GM3 Stronghold bosses have an increased chance (but still very low) to drop a gear artifact.

GM3 Legendary missions have an increased chance (but still very low) to drop a weapon artifact.

2.2 Moar javelins

Personally I’m pretty okay with 4 javelins. But more is always nice, of course! I have little inspiration for new javs as they have all archetypes from a traditional rpg pretty well covered, but I’m sure some other people will have ideas!

2.3 Moar weapons

I’ve already introduced extra ultimates, and 2.1 introduces archetypes, which are basically new guns as well. But it would be cool to see new types of melee (like katanas for rangers or spears for storms, or…). I’m sure other people have ideas enough to fill this in. But it’s not that urgent though. Current melees suffice.

2.4 Story

I know Bioware have said that they will release event-style story in the future. So I guess we’ll just have to come to grips with it. Some ideas for event stories that could be used:

- Harken’s plan and the worm in emerald abyss (I’m assuming it’s somehow connected to harken’s plan for using the anthem to gain power somehow…)

- An urgoth attack on fort tarsis (actually, the new horde mode would be fantastic to be introduced for this: we would need to go in freeplay and defend the areas around fort tarsis against the urgoth horde.

- We still need to find out where the scar come from and what they want with the anthem. Maybe have the outlaws and scar come to a deal to work together against us?