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Anthem Demo Impressions Thread

Well, I got like 8+ hours out of the demo. Not sure if I want to pay full price but it's enjoyable enough for me. I do usually end up getting multiplayer games near release just so I can experience them when the community is at its peak.
 
From what I played of the demo, it was a jittery mess. The FOV is too claustrophobic for the type of game that it is and the netcode seemed to have players and enemies skipping around the map like crazy. You can tell the mechanics were also exactly like destiny. Lastly, the UI was god awful, if they chose to rip anything off of destiny, it should have been that as I could not find my loadout menu, was it disabled in the demo?

I would also like to add, that Frostbite contrast is in full effect here. Blacks crushed so hard you could make wine.

So much loading.
 
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-MD-

Member
They say anything about fixing the wonky flying/swimming, making the hub town less tedious with the slow walking and fixing the awful mouse smoothing?
 

Lone Wolf

Member
From what I played of the demo, it was a jittery mess. The FOV is too claustrophobic for the type of game that it is and the netcode seemed to have players and enemies skipping around the map like crazy. You can tell the mechanics were also exactly like destiny. Lastly, the UI was god awful, if they chose to rip anything off of destiny, it should have been that as I could not find my loadout menu, was it disabled in the demo?

I would also like to add, that Frostbite contrast is in full effect here. Blacks crushed so hard you could make wine.

So much loading.
What did you play it on?
 

Razzorn34

Member
Played on PC. Performance was good all around and the game looks great. I ran into all kinds of bugs and server issues though. I got booted from games or crashed a crazy amount of times. My character was apparently bugged and couldn't progress to level 12 with any XP gained through free-play. No matter what i did for 4 hours, nothing would make me go to level 12, though I could still collect loot. It took helping someone in a random story missions to fix that. I also could not ever finish the stronghold mission. It took me probably 10 tries to even make it to the end because of crashes, disconnections, or other players dropping. I did finally beat the boss, and I got disconnected right after he dies. Also, FYI, if someone disconnects while holding one of those white orbs? Your sessions is fucked and you have to respawn.

Overall, the base gameplay is stellar. I love the push for using abilities over just boring shooting. I was ripping things up with my Interceptor. That said, no way in hell am I buying this game anytime soon. There are way too many bugs and gamebreaking server issues going on. I'll pick it up in the future though.
 
Played on Xbox X and PC, obviously I prefer PC for performance but I had weird issues even with a 7700k and 1080 and I couldn't downsample without cutting refresh rates in half.

That said, the classes and gameplay are cool but the Colossus is too weak with his armor. He doesn't have a shield like the others. He uses a directional, physical shield instead that opens him up to attacks from behind. He needs a rework, IMO.

Also, I too couldn't stand the walking at Hub, the FOV, the excessive loading, the pop in enemies, the crashes, etc. They have a lot of work to do. Pass for me until for probably a month. If they had cross-play, I'd consider getting it so that my PC could reduce the load times a bit.
 
Ok why am I getting crappy rare items with 1 or 2 0% stat boosts. It's weird.
I imagine because it's early game but you have to wonder at the logic of even saying there's a 0% bonus to something. Also sometimes if the bonus description is long the percentage doesn't show up at all.
 

EekTheKat

Member
People were not kidding that this was an Iron Man simulator - characters in this demo can't help themselves in delivering smart ass one liners and quips. It's as if every conversation is a competition at one upping each other.

The first person camera also seem to highlight how static NPC's are. The old dynamic cuts back and forth in a conversation in Mass Effect did a decent job in hiding this, but now NPC's are just standing there delivering their lines. If they were at least moving around in a general area doing things it would make things feel at least a bit more alive.

Hopefully this is all out of context in the demo and the full game has a different tone.

For the record, I'm reluctantly jumping into Anthem as my go-to for this kind of game is planning on introducing something I have less than zero interest in, so I'm hedging my bets a bit and giving this game a chance.
 
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Neolombax

Member
I played for maybe 5 hours in total on my base PS4. I was surprised to see that the performance is on par or even better than Mass Effect Andromeda, which is quite odd but a welcome surprise. The shooting feels solid, using abilities fell really powerful. But I dont like that getting loot requires you to go to the forge to inspect and equip them. I wasn't able to go to free play mode for unknown reasons, i keep getting kicked into the start screen. I experienced enemy warping quite a few times and that was me playing solo.

All in all, not sure what I felt about Anthem. Its a competent game but the universe in general didn't capture me the way that the Destiny beta did. I am now more curious about The division 2 beta. The game is a real looker, the art direction is fantastic. The javelin customization was on a whole different level compared to say Destiny. But the moment to moment combat feels rather ordinary, and I am worried about the end game content for Anthem. There doesn't seem much to be on offer. No PVP, 3 strongholds, some contracts seems a bit light on content. this game will surely be on my radar once it receives heftier updates down the line but it is definitely not a day 1 purchase.
 

Belmonte

Member
I like it a lot.

I loved the fantasy of being an Iron Man like dude in a lush sci-fi Monster Hunterish world. This is hard for me to ignore. The art is great, very good taste, I'm surprised more people don't mention it.

The graphics are incredible to me. Don't know if it is because I don't expect the same graphics as the announcement trailers anymore, for any AAA game or it is because I play old games a lot. I played on PC, on high, but I like it even on low. Animations, sound effects, graphic effects, everything is great.

Being a loot-shooter, it is expected the gameplay is not as tight as a Doom, for example. Too many variables and the designers need to make something to be played lots of times. But I found the base gameplay great! Fun weapons to use, good enemy variety and attacks, lots of verticality, flying is important in combat without being cheap.

There aren't enough TPS which are not cover based these days so when the server issues are resolved and I'n positive there is enough content to justify the price, I will get it. If there are too few missions and areas, I will wait for a drop in price unfortunately.
 

Elenchus

Banned
I like it a lot.

I loved the fantasy of being an Iron Man like dude in a lush sci-fi Monster Hunterish world. This is hard for me to ignore. The art is great, very good taste, I'm surprised more people don't mention it.

The graphics are incredible to me. Don't know if it is because I don't expect the same graphics as the announcement trailers anymore, for any AAA game or it is because I play old games a lot. I played on PC, on high, but I like it even on low. Animations, sound effects, graphic effects, everything is great.

Being a loot-shooter, it is expected the gameplay is not as tight as a Doom, for example. Too many variables and the designers need to make something to be played lots of times. But I found the base gameplay great! Fun weapons to use, good enemy variety and attacks, lots of verticality, flying is important in combat without being cheap.

There aren't enough TPS which are not cover based these days so when the server issues are resolved and I'n positive there is enough content to justify the price, I will get it. If there are too few missions and areas, I will wait for a drop in price unfortunately.

I agree. Thought it was fun. Started running scars over with the colossus and then finishing up with the shotgun. Definitely a buy. Demo is over for me. Wished I would’ve spent the last hours playing instead watching that boring game. Oh well. Back to Halo 5!
 


I'm going to make use of the $1 Origin Access 10hr trial to see what the full game is like, but the warning bells are rinnninginnng!!
 

Lanrutcon

Member
After the terrible state Destiny 2 launched in, you'd think people would be mindful of Anthem. There's enough reason to be cautious and see how the launch goes.

But hey: it's not my money. I hope to be proven wrong.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
After the terrible state Destiny 2 launched in, you'd think people would be mindful of Anthem. There's enough reason to be cautious and see how the launch goes.

But hey: it's not my money. I hope to be proven wrong.

What terrible state did destiny 2 launch in? D2 never had any real server or performance issues. D2 sure as hell had about 5x more content at launch too.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
What terrible state did destiny 2 launch in? D2 never had any real server or performance issues. D2 sure as hell had about 5x more content at launch too.

Oh, hey. Thought you might reply. You're very much our resident Destiny 2 cultist :)

It's not really a secret that vanilla Destiny 2 was a bit of a mess. Not from a technical perspective so much (the AA sucked a bit but that was about it in terms of technical issues), I mean content/balance wise. There wasn't a lot to do, you pretty much capped yourself in 3/4 weeks having seen all there is to see. Lots of activities were unrewarding, progression amounted to weekly rewards for little work, guns were unbalanced as hell with everyone running around with the same handful of firearms, classes were unbalanced (twin grenade Titans, anyone?), there was a heavy focus on the cash store, seasonal events were shallow, tons of content had been stripped down from the original, etc. It's a different game now I hear, but it wasn't great at launch and they knew it. Destiny 2 was very much launched with a "get it out and fix it later" approach (speculation: due to the reboot of the game's development in 2016) which turned out fine for long term fans, but not so much for early adopters.

Now, Destiny 2 got its shit together in year 2, but should Anthem take the same launch approach it might not enjoy the same turn around.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
The mistake with d2 vanilla was catering to the one and done player. And luckily it had pvp to sustain it a bit while content and updates trickled out and mostly corrected by the time warmind dropped.

The mt outrage was the fakest bullshit ever. It always is when it comes to trivial useless shit like cosmetics that drop at a fast rate to begin with. I feel the same about it here with what we know of anthem... faux outrage.

Content stripped down? I always find this laughable. How long are halo campaigns? 8hrs. How many pvp maps? Even vanilla destiny was more fleshed out than a halo game.

People’s expectations for these games at launch are ludicrous. Somehow these games are expected to be bigger than every other 60$ game and continue to drop 60$ worth of content every 3 months for free because that’s what players want.

Plenty of things get left on the cutting room floor. Sometimes they never get to it or they do. Uldren was originally supposed to be the hunter vanguard in d1 and be cayde-like... well guess what? He killed cayde, is now a guardian, and will become the hunter vanguard... cinematics of this exist from a d1 trailer... but cut content eh?

I don’t think either division or anthem can touch destiny right now. It has too much content and will continue to roll out more. Part of the reason I’m excited about anthem is not just because I’m a bioware fan too, but I’m a bit burnt out if not stressed with my destiny to do lists. It will be nice to have another co-op pve game to play for a month or two. That and the flight is friggin awesome.

And I’m someone who enjoyed mass effect andromeda enough to play it for 80hrs. Still feels like mass effect to me.


Btw, destiny’s endgame IS its pvp as far as I’m concerned.. Sure raids and whatnot but you put those weapons to the test in crucible... well that’s what it is for the pvp crowd.
 
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Morinaga

Member
Couldn't even play the demo, it kept crashing. Crashed on Boot, crashed in menus, crashed when trying to launch the game.

What I did get to see (Menus and hub world) was a buggy mess. The dialogue with an NPC was just meaningless and was nonsense.

Promptly deleted from my system. I will not be buying this pile of steaming poo. At least not until EA can release a game that actually works, and judging by the state of the demo I'm pretty sure that wont be on launch day., or Launch week. It may not even be Launch month.
 
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Wished I would’ve spent the last hours playing instead watching that boring game. Oh well. Back to Halo 5!

Amen. I turned it off with maybe 3-4 minutes left and went into the other room to play and hoped the demo would still be going but instead felt the remorse having watched a terrible game when I could have been having fun wrecking shit in Anthem.
 

Elenchus

Banned
Couldn't even play the demo, it kept crashing. Crashed on Boot, crashed in menus, crashed when trying to launch the game.

What I did get to see (Menus and hub world) was a buggy mess. The dialogue with an NPC was just meaningless and was nonsense.

Promptly deleted from my system. I will not be buying this pile of steaming poo. At least not until EA can release a game that actually works, and judging by the state of the demo I'm pretty sure that wont be on launch day., or Launch week. It may not even be Launch month.

Game ran great on PC. Just watched a video of Shroud running the game and he had no issues for a 2-3hr stream. Think the problem was your PC.

Updated: Here you go.

 
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Now that it's no longer up I miss the demo. Had EA given the 1 week headstart to console pre-orders I'd have probably taken the bait by now.
 

manfestival

Member
The game started to grow on me on the second play through. However, the HUB area is still unbearable. The combat flowed better for me in the second play through and I had more fun messing around with flying and the gameplay. Also a big downside is the endless enemy spitter that some of these missions come out to be. It is like 5 minutes of forced fighting because the game has to let its internal clock run out and you just have to kill everything until then. Not a big fan of the amount of time they have set. Most games do this and it does not bother me. There should be some indicator of the time at least on the screen. If anything, shorten the length to be more bearable.
 
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Btw, destiny’s endgame IS its pvp as far as I’m concerned.. Sure raids and whatnot but you put those weapons to the test in crucible... well that’s what it is for the pvp crowd.

Ideally, but is that really what happens? Weapons w/ fixed perks. But it seems like most? weapons are good in one or the other or require different perk rolls.

Bungie could keep Gambit and Iron Banner and scrap the rest for all I care. Destiny still needs a better end-game loot grind.

As for Anthem, I don't really agree. As SkillUp puts it, people player Borderlands/Destiny/Division/Warframe/etc as a hobby in and of itself. There's nothing wrong w/ expecting Anthem to deliver a decent end-game day one.

It's part of the genre since the evolution of Borderlands, and BioWare should be able to learn from Bungie and Massive's mistakes imo.
 

Ascend

Member
I'm in a phase in my life where wasting more time than needed is something to avoid... So, grinding for loot is not for me. If there was evidence of a great story & plot here, I could still consider it, because it IS fun to play. I wonder for how long though, and the fact that I'm asking that already, instead of being hyped to play it, says a lot. So at this point... Nope. Not getting this at launch.

Sorry BioWare. I'd love to try and keep you alive so we can see a Mass Effect revival/remake, but this game is not going to cut it for me. It's too far away from what used to be important in your games. I guess for now, Life Is Strange 2 and Dead or Alive 6 will have to do.
 

CAPSOL

Member
I had a decent time with the Anthem demo but feel like its still around 6months from completion. Aside from the technical issues, the game needs more variety in its missions, enemies and environment.

With Division 2 looking extremely polished releasing in the same quarter, I think Anthem is going to suffer, unless it's delayed.....
 
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Verdanth

Member
I had a decent time with the Anthem demo but feel like its still around 6months from completion. Aside from the technical issues, the game needs more variety in its missions, enemies and environment.

With Division 2 looking extremely polished releasing in the same quarter, I think Anthem is going to suffer, unless it's delayed.....

Either way, I think Anthem will suffer, assuming Division 2 does not pull a stunt too.
 

Dthomp

Member
Eh I'm still excited for it. Anything to give me a PVE that isn't as boring as the Destiny 2 grind in PVE. Now if D2 could get it's PVP out of the shitter and make it engaging I wouldn't need distractions from it.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Ideally, but is that really what happens? Weapons w/ fixed perks. But it seems like most? weapons are good in one or the other or require different perk rolls..

Yea I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. There are some fixed perk weapons like pinnacle weapons and exotics and there are random perk rolls on weapons.
 
Yea I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. There are some fixed perk weapons like pinnacle weapons and exotics and there are random perk rolls on weapons.

I mean that IME you don't tend to use a lot of the same weapons across PvE and PvP. And when you do, you're often targeting different perk rolls.
 

MadYarpen

Member
I had a decent time with the Anthem demo but feel like its still around 6months from completion. Aside from the technical issues, the game needs more variety in its missions, enemies and environment.

With Division 2 looking extremely polished releasing in the same quarter, I think Anthem is going to suffer, unless it's delayed.....

I am not sure it is fair to judge this particular thing after the demo. How much variety can there really be? It was basically 1 story mission (divided in 3 fetch quest). I wasn't able to do any freeplay because it crashed when I tried (so all I saw were story missions), but hopefully they have more enemies and more interesting environments there...

Though considering how it looks overal you CAN be worried that's it really.
 
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Data Ghost

Member
Played it on X and could tell straight away that it wasn't for me. Its Destiny with flying and to be honest thats not what I am looking for in gaming right now.
 

RaptorGTA

Member
Tried it on PC and just wasnt feeling it. Maybe when it goes on sale Ill check it out again but Ill be passing for now.
 

NickFire

Member
I would suggest paying the 5 bucks or whatever for the 10 hour trial; see if it’s for you
Saw your post. Said heck, that doesn't sound so bad. Googled how this would be done. Saw the option is only available for Xbox and PC players. So much for that.

But I do appreciate that you took the time to suggest it, and I'll be watching reviews / feedback no matter what.
 

Morinaga

Member
Game ran great on PC. Just watched a video of Shroud running the game and he had no issues for a 2-3hr stream. Think the problem was your PC.

Updated: Here you go.

Thanks for the link, but I'm at a loss as to why I need to see someone playing the Anthem demo on a PC? The anthem client is as buggy as an Ant hill, and a video of a stream is not proof otherwise. If you're happy that it is, fine, good luck and have a great day and ignore my posts.
 

Elenchus

Banned
Thanks for the link, but I'm at a loss as to why I need to see someone playing the Anthem demo on a PC? The anthem client is as buggy as an Ant hill, and a video of a stream is not proof otherwise. If you're happy that it is, fine, good luck and have a great day and ignore my posts.

A video of Anthem running well is no proof that Anthem is running well. Only on GAF. Good luck man. 👍
 
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