Anthem 2019: why is there a hole in my bread?

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Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

exquisite tea posted:

New in the cosmetic shop this week: A legendary invisible skin that does nothing, called The Cost of Transparency.

Accompanied by a new codex page:
The Freelancer's New Javelin - mostly written by Hans Christian Andersen.

# ? Mar 25, 2019 20:30

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 00:03

DogsInSpace!: Sep 11, 2001; Fun Shoe

exquisite tea posted:

This is like the moment you realize Weezer has sucked rear end for a much longer time than they've ever been good and you're old as gently caress.

Sick Boy : It�s true in all walks of life... The �Name of the Rose� was a blip on an otherwise downward trajectory.

Ya know if people lived only 10-15 years things would go easier for lots of game devs.

# ? Mar 25, 2019 20:50

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Pattonesque posted:

Modern BioWare makes cargo cult games

Before Anthem, Andromeda is the perfect example because it seems perplexed as to why dressing everything up like Mass Effect doesn't result in a good game

I like your analysis.

Bioware games have the vestigial illusion of a product someone actually designed but then you look again and suddenly it's all bamboo airfields trying to convince a jetliner full of cash & fans to land on a lovely pacific island with no amenities.

Time to repost this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMNJFpVxg4Q

DancingShade fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 25, 2019

# ? Mar 25, 2019 21:46

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

SickZip posted:

I forget what faction it is in the lore that views the Traveler as just using lesser races as pawns in its war with the Darkness but I don't see how they aren't right.

The Hive are disgusted by the Traveler and its uplifting of races because the Hive are all about that social Darwinism. Killing something is proving that you are stronger than that thing and moves the universe towards its final, perfect shape. This ideology is so ingrained into the Hive that the three Hive gods regularly betrayed and killed each other. They considered it an act of love because death taught them how to better survive. Admittedly, the Hive gods had the advantage of being able to come back to life.

And killing things to prove your superiority over them and grow stronger should sound awfully familiar to anyone who's played an RPG.

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:03

Pattonesque: Jul 15, 2004; johnny jesus and the infield fly rule

DancingShade posted:

I like your analysis.

Bioware games have the vestigial illusion of a product someone actually designed but then you look again and suddenly it's all bamboo airfields trying to convince a jetliner full of cash & fans to land on a lovely pacific island with no amenities.

yeah like I think the big indicator in Andromeda is the whole "Movie Night" quest

so for everyone who doesn't know basically your crew decides on their own that it'd be great for morale for everyone to watch a movie together. They actually featured the final scene from this quest (where everyone is sitting close together on a couch, with Ryder and their love interest next to one another) in a few of the trailers, as reassurance that the game would be character-focused and have those cool BioWare moments you know and love. It's basically the sensibility of the Citadel DLC, which should be great because everyone loved Citadel!

It fails on at least two points, however. First, in order to actually do this quest, you literally have to go and buy ingredients and supplies and the like, and all of these things and the prompts to buy them are gated behind plot progression, so the time between starting the quest and finishing it could be like ... thirty hours. It just ends up being one more annoying little thing Andromeda makes you do and is therefore kind of easy to miss out on.

Second, and this goes to the cargo cult thing, all those awesome moments in Citadel worked because you've spent quality time with these characters beforehand and have become invested in their stories. Your gruff buddy Wrex is there, letting loose! Your best friend Garrus is there, doing Garrus things! You have all these characters who are interesting and have cool arcs and provoke strong feelings in people. Folks felt some kind of way (for better or for worse) about Tali so when she breaks out in an over-the-top song it stands a much better chance of coming off as endearing rather than just plain weird, because it's the established character Tali doing this rather than a vehicle for an emotional or quirky moment.

So when you have these characters in Andromeda who are thinly-sketched at best (even the best one, which is probably Drack, is basically just Wrex with more scars) suddenly joking around and being all buddy-buddy, it feels incredibly strained. It's like when Bo and Luke Duke left Dukes of Hazard and they brought in two characters named Coy and Vance Duke and everyone was expected to just continue on with these dudes like people were supposed to relate to them.

You have these archetypes in every BioWare game but they used to be significantly better about differentiating them within their series and giving them strong plots that endear them in some way to the player. A lot of them could even die or be kicked out of the party, which adds a level of consequence (even if their deaths/departures are easy to avoid) to their place within the party that simply does not exist in Andromeda. People don't like Sera in Inquisition but you could kick her out of the party and threaten to hunt her down if she made trouble. Meanwhile Liam reveals the location of the Nexus to an unscrupulous smuggler and you can barely even yell at him about it.

But he definitely makes jokes at the party.

Pattonesque fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 25, 2019

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:14

Pozload Escobar: Aug 21, 2016; by Reene

Pattonesque posted:

yeah like I think the big indicator in Andromeda is the whole "Movie Night" quest

so for everyone who doesn't know basically your crew decides on their own that it'd be great for morale for everyone to watch a movie together. They actually featured the final scene from this quest (where everyone is sitting close together on a couch, with Ryder and their love interest next to one another) in a few of the trailers, as reassurance that the game would be character-focused and have those cool BioWare moments you know and love. It's basically the sensibility of the Citadel DLC, which should be great because everyone loved Citadel!

It fails on at least two points, however. First, in order to actually do this quest, you literally have to go and buy ingredients and supplies and the like, and all of these things and the prompts to buy them are gated behind plot progression, so the time between starting the quest and finishing it could be like ... thirty hours. It just ends up being one more annoying little thing Andromeda makes you do and is therefore kind of easy to miss out on.

Second, and this goes to the cargo cult thing, all those awesome moments in Citadel worked because you've spent quality time with these characters beforehand and have become invested in their stories. Your gruff buddy Wrex is there, letting loose! Your best friend Garrus is there, doing Garrus things! You have all these characters who are interesting and have cool arcs and provoke strong feelings in people. Folks felt some kind of way (for better or for worse) about Tali so when she breaks out in an over-the-top song it stands a much better chance of coming off as endearing rather than just plain weird.

So when you have these characters in Andromeda who are thinly-sketched at best (even the best one, which is probably Drack, is basically just Wrex with more scars) suddenly joking around and being all buddy-buddy, it feels incredibly strained. It's like when Bo and Luke Duke left Dukes of Hazard and they brought in two characters named Coy and Vance Duke and everyone was expected to just continue on with these dudes like people were supposed to relate to them.

You have these archetypes in every BioWare game but they used to be significantly better about differentiating them within their series and giving them strong plots that endear them in some way to the player. A lot of them could even die or be kicked out of the party, which adds a level of consequence (even if their deaths/departures are easy to avoid) to their place within the party that simply does not exist in Andromeda. People don't like Sera in Inquisition but you could kick her out of the party and threaten to hunt her down if she made trouble. Meanwhile Liam reveals the location of the Nexus to an unscrupulous smuggler and you can barely even yell at him about it.

But he definitely makes jokes at the party.

Citadel sucked

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:16

RottenK: Feb 17, 2011; Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Gasoline posted:

Showing off cosmetic options pre-release and then never implementing them in the actual game must be a directive from way up high in EA, DICE is doing the same thing with BF5. That game had basic customization items in the pre-release public betas that still aren't available

didn't BFV remove cosmetics because chud gamers were losing their poo poo about "historical accuracy"

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:33

DoctorGonzo: Jul 25, 2016; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

bioware doesnt have the talent and or direction to make good games anymore and hell you can argue that since me2. in a post witcher 3 world and with the outer worlds and vampire 2 EA should just put this brand out of its misery

dragon age origins was loving great

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:35

Moongrave: Jun 19, 2004; Finally Living Rent Free

RottenK posted:

didn't BFV remove cosmetics because chud gamers were losing their poo poo about "historical accuracy"

They said they'd "never bow down to those types of people"

then immediately bowed down and removed anything fun from the game

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:45

Gasoline: Jul 31, 2008

RottenK posted:

didn't BFV remove cosmetics because chud gamers were losing their poo poo about "historical accuracy"

That too but like 2 weeks before release the characters in the beta had such outrageous looks as not being bald! There's still no hair available in game even if all promotional shots show it, it's amazing in how it shows DICE's incompetence. Like, there's a submenu that shows items you can buy with ingame currency, and all the preview pictures show characters with customization you can't get

On release the general feeling was that the cosmetics that aren't just "a grey shirt" would be cash shop only, but it's been half a year and there's still nothing.

What I'm saying is all of EA's GaaS apart from SWToR are dismal failures

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:47

Symetrique: Jan 2, 2013

RottenK posted:

didn't BFV remove cosmetics because chud gamers were losing their poo poo about "historical accuracy"

Partially. They dropped the robot arm, but kept women and minorities as player models.

DICE hosed up the non-premium currency and couldn't figure out how to get it working for a couple of months, which caused them to delay their premium currency and cosmetics (these are still unreleased). A bunch of cosmetics have been datamined, and a few were available to purchase with non-premium currency for a month before being inexplicably removed from the store.

# ? Mar 25, 2019 22:51

moist turtleneck: Jul 17, 2003; Represent.; Dinosaur Gum

https://i.imgur.com/tEliF5c.gifv

# ? Mar 25, 2019 23:19

RottenK: Feb 17, 2011; Sexy bad choices

FAILED NOJOE

Oh my god.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 01:46

Promethium: Dec 31, 2009; Dinosaur Gum

I was under the impression you can't actually lose a legendary because they get forced into your inventory at the end even if it exceeds the item limit.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 01:50

drkeiscool: Aug 1, 2014; Soiled Meat

Promethium posted:

I was under the impression you can't actually lose a legendary because they get forced into your inventory at the end even if it exceeds the item limit.

that can't be right, it sounds vaguely reasonable.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 02:25

Legs Benedict: Jul 14, 2002; You can either follow me to our bedroom or bend over that control throne because I haven't been this turned on in FOREVER!

Promethium posted:

I was under the impression you can't actually lose a legendary because they get forced into your inventory at the end even if it exceeds the item limit.

that�s what they say but it doesn�t work in practice for a lot of players

# ? Mar 26, 2019 03:54

Monday_: Feb 18, 2006; Worked-up silent dork without sex ability seeks oblivion and demise.; The Great Twist

Who can stand to play this game long enough to hit the limit?

# ? Mar 26, 2019 04:43

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

ashpanash posted:

There's this whole aspect of the Destiny story where the Hive have learned to use a form of worship as a kind of catalyst to enable access to imbue creatures and weapons with extreme power, and along the way they encountered the Vex. The Vex, basically a super-hive-mind aided by computers, eventually learned to imitate this 'worship' to gain power for themselves.

There's plenty more, too - the Vex seem to have access to both their distant past and distant future and are attempting to remake the universe into entirely vex-space, but for some unknown reason they don't have the ability to easily rewrite the past. You'd think time travel would be a devastating weapon but either the Vex aren't capable of using it to that extent or the time travel they can perform has some limitations. Instead the Vex spend most of their energy attempting to simulate possible future outcomes, to the point where their some of their simulations are effectively indistinguishable from reality.

That's not even going into the Hive and the sword logic and ascendant worlds and all the new crazy poo poo coming out about the Nine. There's a whole lot of interesting lore to Destiny. I don't even play it anymore, but I follow the story because it's got some really cool ideas.

I just wanted to say that it's really cool to run into people talking about this stuff in the wild and not just on Destiny lore subreddits. I wrote the Books of Sorrow and some other stuff, it's really cool to see how people have taken to it :unsmith:

(no pun intended)

# ? Mar 26, 2019 06:00

Snuffman: May 21, 2004

General Battuta posted:

I just wanted to say that it's really cool to run into people talking about this stuff in the wild and not just on Destiny lore subreddits. I wrote the Books of Sorrow and some other stuff, it's really cool to see how people have taken to it

(no pun intended)

Have you had any involvement with the new Destiny 2 lore stuff?

# ? Mar 26, 2019 06:27

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Yeah been writing a lot for them, especially Forsaken and some later stuff about the Nine.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 09:06

Tei: Feb 19, 2011; Can't post for 4 days!

Why you wrote one Sorrow in many Books? Dont make more sense to write One Book with Many Sorrows?

Asking for a friend. I have huge respect for your work.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 09:09

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

The Sorrow was the best part of Torment: Tides of Numenera.

A game with a fantastic setting, interesting characters and loving annoying combat / skill resolution mechanics that I never want to see again. Really wish I could stomach a second play through.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 09:20

ashpanash: Apr 9, 2008; I can see when you are lying.

General Battuta posted:

I just wanted to say that it's really cool to run into people talking about this stuff in the wild and not just on Destiny lore subreddits. I wrote the Books of Sorrow and some other stuff, it's really cool to see how people have taken to it

You guys deserve a lot of props. I look forward to seeing what else you and your team has in store.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 14:32

ashpanash: Apr 9, 2008; I can see when you are lying.

The new patch for Anthem drops today. I predict people will say "This makes everything so much better!" for about a day and a half before finding some absurd game-breaking bug or oversight.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 14:34

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

loving lol

this is not how to GaaS

# ? Mar 26, 2019 14:57

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

GaaS thread.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:27

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

cant wait to spend :10bux:

to slap this on my robot:

it's worse than most of the emblem creator poo poo i remember from battlefield

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:34

Sixto Lezcano: Jul 11, 2007

General Battuta posted:

I just wanted to say that it's really cool to run into people talking about this stuff in the wild and not just on Destiny lore subreddits. I wrote the Books of Sorrow and some other stuff, it's really cool to see how people have taken to it

(no pun intended)

It busted my poo poo to learn, after reading Traitor Baru, that you wrote the books of sorrow as well. They�re so different! I�m glad you�re writing more for D2, your flavor of weirdness is very up my alley.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:41

Owl Inspector: Sep 14, 2011

Kaysette posted:

cant wait to spend to slap this on my robot:

it's worse than most of the emblem creator poo poo i remember from battlefield

Please do not make fun of my son�s art. He is entering the third grade this year and I am very proud of him.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:45

Skull Knight: Aug 2, 2013; Sexy bad choices; Lipstick Apathy

Kaysette posted:

loving lol

this is not how to GaaS

What the heck is the pattern on the left? Not a single cosmetic armor option? Not even recycling one of the previous ones? ... WHY?

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:55

Skull Knight: Aug 2, 2013; Sexy bad choices; Lipstick Apathy

Digirat posted:

Please do not make fun of my son�s art. He is entering the third grade this year and I am very proud of him.

Good lord. How is this poo poo so bad?

# ? Mar 26, 2019 15:57

Sixto Lezcano: Jul 11, 2007

Skull Knight posted:

Good lord. How is this poo poo so bad?

They didn�t even put it on a javelin to show what it�s like they just kinda threw it on the table and walked away

# ? Mar 26, 2019 16:03

teh_Broseph: Oct 21, 2010; THE LAST METROID IS IN
CATTIVITY. THE GALAXY
IS AT PEACE...; Lipstick Apathy

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/b5q1f4/anthem_104_game_update_notes/

Patch notes are up, notables jumpin out at me let's see:

Legendary Missions: Allows you to replay critical path missions again with a much higher difficulty level. One mission will be available per day that has no limit on the number of times it can be completed.
Elysian Caches: Earn Elysian Keys by completing daily challenges. These keys can be used on Elysian Caches, which appear at the end of each Stronghold after the boss is defeated to unlock vanity and crafting materials.
Chests now have a chance to drop additional items and crafting materials in Strongholds, Freeplay and Missions.
Apex creatures now have a chance to drop additional loot, similar to the change made to chests. (Apex creatures include: Ursix, Titans, Furies and Escari/Luminaries)
On GM1 difficulty and higher, Stronghold bosses will now drop more loot with a chance at additional masterwork and legendary items.
Added Field of View sliders for various cameras in-game:
Reduced the AFK auto-kick timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.
Support for Deep Learning Super-Sampling is now available on Nvidia RTX-based video cards.
Improved performance on gameplay effects that were updating or running often to reduce performance strain.
The Forge can now be accessed via the main menu while you�re in Ft. Tarsis or the Launch Bay.
There is no longer a loading screen when entering the Forge.
Tyrant Mine: Fixed an exploit where you could double loot from the Swarm Tyrant. (lol)
General: Fixed an issue where strongholds were disappearing from the map, so they could not be selected.
Fixed text for several Masterwork items that caused incorrect % values for ultimate charge, the functionality has not changed :
The Mark of Ruin and Amulet of Winter Storm Masterwork components should now correctly be applying their respective bonuses, have their corrected text and icons, and should be functional.
Fixed an issue where the Ablative Shielding (Masterwork Colossus Component) was not correctly granting the additional armor and shields noted in the text. This is updated on the player stats, but may not be resolved for the UI stat bars for the component. (lol)
Fixed statistic bar for weapons in Forge UI where �Magazine Size� was incorrectly labeled �Clip Size�. (insert Bangalore quip)
Adjusted an error with secondary player damage scaling (combos, status effects, ultimates, melee) where unequipped item slots were not identified correctly for damage scaling.
Fixed an issue where the amount of armor segments displayed on the player HUD was incorrect when compared to their actual armor values. This is only the UI half of the reported �health bug� problem.
Fixed an issue where players could load into an expedition without having all of their inscription bonuses properly loaded. This would result in various problems (less shields, health, max ammo, etc) on the Javelin. We believe this should resolve the non-UI aspect of the reported �health bug� problem as this should now correctly load javelin health/shields.
Fixed an issue where swapping weapons at the start of the Storm Ultimate would give you a full heal without using the Ultimate charge.
Fixed an issue where defeated creatures would sometimes go back into idle ragdoll positions unintentionally.
Additional reduction and tuning to health of The Monitor boss fight in the Heart of Rage stronghold
The text for Shield Refresh and Shield Delay inscriptions were incorrectly swapped on items and have been corrected. (lol)
Fixed a number of issues that could cause the game to crash
Players can now �Junk� items much faster in their vault.
Fixed a number of issues that would cause players to be unable to interact with objects or players.
Match consumables now sort by rarity then alphabetically
Quickplay instances will no longer be allowed to spawn into missions older than 15 minutes.
Fixed an issue where a small number of players could not craft items and would continue to receive Common (white) and Uncommon (green) drops after hitting level 30.
Doubled the rate at which Masterwork gear with multiple charges regain charges: (huh? is this a bandaid, can they not figure how yet how to add extra ability charges properly? if ya don't know, last I played partial charges wouldn't count..so you use first charge of a skill, bar starts recharging while you do other stuff, then you use it again before it fully recharged and it would use the full charge remaining and wipe the partial charge that had come back, making it fuckin trash instead of awesome. is this patch change saying that losing partial charge is just how it is so they made it at least go faster?)
Some Colo buffs
Decent looking Interceptor buffs
Lots of Ranger buffs
Some Storm buffs
Grenadier Inscription Basic Ranger component now correctly reduces cooldown of Ranger Grenades and text is updated to reflect this.
5 new Universal MW Components added, e.g. Acid Slugs: Adds specialized storage for enhanced shotgun ammunition and increases damage. Hitting (7) shotgun shots in a single burst applies acid on the target.
Updated Interceptor Wraith Strike gear text to match new functionality: �Interceptor projects a ghost of itself that can warp up to X targets. Active Auras apply to all targets struck.�
Reduced the weapon reload times by speeding up the reload animations for the Colossus Heavy Weapons (Autocannons and Grenade Launchers).
Interceptor Melee can now execute multiple melee attacks with a single held input.
Interceptor can now detonate combos even if they have an aura currently active. This allows the Interceptor to detonate the combo to do extra combo damage without having to wait for the aura to expire. In addition, detonating a combo will refresh the duration of the currently active aura (regardless of the primer that is detonated on the creature). For example, if you have an Ice Aura active and you detonate a creature primed with Acid it will refresh the duration of your Ice Aura.
Increased the max stamina (thruster) meter for all Javelins by 20%.
Reduced the base overheat duration for all Javelins by 20%.
Fire Status effect on players no longer instantly overheats the Javelin but instead starts to quickly build up until overheating.
(I don't see flight speed increased by 20% which I thought they said on the stream and it seemed like they were flying faster in there..?)

and a bunch of other bugfixey/tweaking kind of stuff

# ? Mar 26, 2019 16:04

moist turtleneck: Jul 17, 2003; Represent.; Dinosaur Gum

quote:

Fixed an issue where players could load into an expedition without having all of their inscription bonuses properly loaded. This would result in various problems (less shields, health, max ammo, etc) on the Javelin.

this was owning me so hard

sometimes my colossus was a tank and sometimes he was like little baby

# ? Mar 26, 2019 16:08

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

quote:

Reduced the AFK auto-kick timer from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.

who loving makes a game with a 10 minute AFK auto-kick timer in 2019

# ? Mar 26, 2019 16:15

d3lness: Feb 19, 2011; Unicorns are metal. Gundanium alloy to be exact...

Guess they have given up on trying to fix Titan's Hail and just changed it entirely instead. Could have been a super rad weapon. For those who don't know, burst mortars aren't detonators. Titan's Hail was intended to be special by being a burst mortar that could donate combos. It's been broken since day zero and never functioned correctly as a detonator.

From the patch notes...

Titan’s Hail:

Was: Upgraded Burst Mortar: Special shells burst across wide area. Burst Mortar can now trigger explosive combos.
Now: Upgraded Burst Mortar: Special shells burst across wide area. Creates a large physical explosion for each enemy hit.

:thumbsup: