Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod I've been making quests for 10+ years so I have a lot of past trial and error to learn from - people loved THIS type of thing, THAT type of thing was hard to pull off. Also elements from games I played and enjoyed can inspire - even as simple as "big explosions are FUN!" 😄
I don't think it's a spoiler to say Agent Yarrow's first story quest involves some big explosions as just one element of it. 🙂 Other times it's more in-depth: working with the writer to decide what story do we want to tell about the character or the world? How best to tell it?
For example last livestream I mentioned early on we tried to define the key elements of a Freelancer - hero, explorer, warrior. We tried to theme each of the agents (Yarrow, Matthias, Brin) to focus around one of those traits, so you're learning what a Freelancer is as you play.
And the livestream cut me off before you could hear this 😝, but I also said that we deliberately used a different quest designer/writer combo for each Agent to ensure that each agent's questline feels and plays quite differently and each agent has a very different personality.
In a team and game this big, we get quite specialized - as a quest designer I focus on the actual mission flow and ensuring it's fun and plays well. I don't make creatures, balance combat, or make loot, etc; other teams do that, who are specialists in those areas.
I put all the elements together into a quest, and make sure they all work together! I also play through each quest with a combat specialist to make sure he feels it's fun and well balanced, since I know he's more a combat expert than I am, and his feedback ensures it's great 💯
Likewise other teams will play through quests looking specifically at their content. Does that creature/VFX not behave well or look good in the terrain I set my quest? Maybe they can tweak it or I can move it. We all try to look at everything but there's specialists in each area.
Which is also BTW why comments like "devs suck at playing" don't make sense. We have combat specialists who focus on that; most of our roles don't require being awesome shooters. An artist doesn't need to be a top combat pro any more than our combat dev needs to design trees. 😄
Our combat specialist is fearsome to see play (as are several of our combat QA) and way beyond the skillz I can ever aspire to! But he sat with many of our team who self-described "suck at shooters" to watch them play and ensure our difficulty scaling accommodates all play types.
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Shattered Steel, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard
We’re hard at work to be ready for our public demo weekend, starting tomorrow, 2/1. This week has been focused on improving the player experience in the demo – that focus was based on our learnings and your feedback. For those of you that played last weekend, you should see significant improvement in multiple areas over last week.
While we are confident that these changes will improve this weekend’s experience for players, we’re also cognizant that we may see recurring and new issues. Our team will again be working around the clock to deal with any problems that arise so that all players can enjoy the game. As always, you can use Answers HQ for help.
Our ongoing scale testing this week has gone well. We’re confident we are ready for the load we will see. Like last weekend, we will be prepared with more server capacity than we anticipate will be needed. However, predicting player numbers – particularly for a new game like Anthem in its first open public weekend – is very difficult. If more players decide to try the game than we anticipate, we also have systems in place to control entry rates of incoming players. This is to ensure players in the game are having uninterrupted fun and to give us time to increase capacity. If you encounter this situation, we hope you’ll be patient with us and try again later. We’ll have messaging on our servers on our server status page.
I mentioned earlier in the week that we’ve also been preparing for many weeks for our full launch. That version of the game already has a long list of things that are already fixed that did not make our demo weekends. It includes:
Further performance Improvements Additional stability fixes Fixes to inscriptions showing up incorrectly Fixes to inscriptions from other Javelins being chosen Fixes to disappearing customization settings Fixes to XP gain behavior Audio improvements Improvements to PC controls, including flight and aiming A Social Hub: The Launch Bay And a few thousand more (literally)…
One additional comment based on what we’ve been asked on Twitter. If you are a returning VIP demo player, you’ll keep your progression from VIP weekend. That includes your Javelins, pilot level, and all gear, weapons, and customizations.
I hope to see everyone in the game starting Friday. Lastly, please be kind to the grabbits!
Stronger Together!
Chad
Dateline Monday, 4 Feb 2019:
Over 8 million Grabbits killed, murdered, slaughtered, annihilated, roasted, burned, bombed, shot, zapped, frozen, shocked, baked, destroyed, vaporized.
Well done Anthem players ... Stronger Together indeed.
What's upsetting about it? This charts been around for months
This. They act like it just got released, and all the bashers jump on the bandwagon, and act like you need a degree in astrophysics to read the thing.
It will get even more frenetic the closer we are to release, regardless of how well the open demo will fare this weekend. It's one of the largest games launching in this quarter and Fallout 76 is running out of fuel when it comes to things to harp about without it getting old. Clearly, the outrage crowd is seeking new blood, seeing how they try and grab on anything that can sustain the vitriol. Not much can be done aside from not giving these people much attention.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
This. They act like it just got released, and all the bashers jump on the bandwagon, and act like you need a degree in astrophysics to read the thing.
If they can't figure the chart out, they're going down when they try to main a Colossus...
Though in fairness, this all kicked off when EA Help got confused about which chart they were up to, that really shouldn't happen.
Last Edit: Jan 31, 2019 23:03:01 GMT by SofaJockey
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 decades of RPG gaming from green screen to 4K. Moderator posts mostly marked by 'Police' emoji. Other views shared are just personal ones. On UK time zone.
This is the flip side of don't nerf anything because noobs whine about the demo. Don't buff anything because noobs whine about playing Colossus badly!
Can't we have a learning curve? Can't we have a high skill ceiling that punishes low effort in skills building?
At first, everyone complained about how the Iron Bull and the Reaver spec was squishy and died too often. But then people figured out how to min/max the build and it became a faceroll juggernaut, even before the buffs from Trespasser. Give people time to figure out how to play the class right!
Inquisitor: Is that innuendo? Sera: No, it's at the front!
This is the flip side of don't nerf anything because noobs whine about the demo. Don't buff anything because noobs whine about playing Colossus badly!
Can't we have a learning curve? Can't we have a high skill ceiling that punishes low effort in skills building?
At first, everyone complained about how the Iron Bull and the Reaver spec was squishy and died too often. But then people figured out how to min/max the build and it became a faceroll juggernaut, even before the buffs from Trespasser. Give people time to figure out how to play the class right!
I don't think they necessarily have to nerf/buff much - I think it's mostly an issue of 'Colossus is different compared to other Javelins and we probably have to give better hints at how to play the class'. One of youtuber mentioned, for example, that his friend only realized that Colossus has a shield after 2 days of playing Colossus is a bit counter-intuitive, especially if you spent most time with other Javelins.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Michael Gamble @gamblemike I agree with everything here except for the request to be kind to Grabbits. Grabbits are conniving, dangerous, and should be stopped. Can we top last weekend? Can we get to 5M?
Michael Gamble @gamblemike I agree with everything here except for the request to be kind to Grabbits. Grabbits are conniving, dangerous, and should be stopped. Can we top last weekend? Can we get to 5M?
Miranda Sanchez @havokrose Oh... I guess I should delete this page then?
ImperialTrooper 2739 @the_MasterLight @benirvo and @gamblemike you guys don't have to answer, but I am just curious. Just ballparking it, how many lines of code is #Anthem? I am just curious because I am teaching myself coding and am just in awe of everything that happens in game.
Ben Irving @benirvo All the lines.
Michael Gamble @gamblemike Eleventy zillion, give or take.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR Origin: helios969 Prime Posts: No Clue Prime Likes: Who Cares Posts: 2,178 Likes: 3,178
This is the flip side of don't nerf anything because noobs whine about the demo. Don't buff anything because noobs whine about playing Colossus badly!
Can't we have a learning curve? Can't we have a high skill ceiling that punishes low effort in skills building?
At first, everyone complained about how the Iron Bull and the Reaver spec was squishy and died too often. But then people figured out how to min/max the build and it became a faceroll juggernaut, even before the buffs from Trespasser. Give people time to figure out how to play the class right!
Hm...
Is Bio/EA looking to expand its player base from experienced gamers of the looter-shooter genre or looking to expand from the non traditional base? ... 'cause I can see both sides' viewpoint.
Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
ImperialTrooper 2739 @the_MasterLight @benirvo and @gamblemike you guys don't have to answer, but I am just curious. Just ballparking it, how many lines of code is #Anthem? I am just curious because I am teaching myself coding and am just in awe of everything that happens in game.
Ben Irving @benirvo All the lines.
Michael Gamble @gamblemike Eleventy zillion, give or take.
Oh, yes, very informative to a newbie coder. Great encouragement.
Morpheus: "know what happened happened and that it could not have happened in any other way".
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Shattered Steel, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard
Michael Gamble @gamblemike I agree with everything here except for the request to be kind to Grabbits. Grabbits are conniving, dangerous, and should be stopped. Can we top last weekend? Can we get to 5M?
Ben Irving @benirvo E......Z.....
Ah Mr. Gamble has seen the "light" and come to the dark side. Knowing the Grabbit overlords must be stopped. They are like those sneaky mice in Hitchers Guide to the Galaxy.
What's upsetting about it? This charts been around for months
and that's my point people are acting like this is something new to them. There's nothing wrong with the charts and in the comments alot of people acting like they don't understand the chart. they are making like the chart is rocket science.
Judging by some of those complaining it probably is above their intellect...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 decades of RPG gaming from green screen to 4K. Moderator posts mostly marked by 'Police' emoji. Other views shared are just personal ones. On UK time zone.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah the number 9. 2 cool things about nine: -A number is divisible by nine IFF it’s digital root if -it is in so many sayings...
Colossus is a bit counter-intuitive, especially if you spent most time with other Javelins.
