ANTHEM: A Year in Retrospect and a look ahead

Hello Freelancers, My name is RubyJavelin. Most of you are probably already familiar with my guides here on Vulkk. Yet, nobody is familiar with who I am or my own reasons for playing. This is some of what this post will be, a bit of a different fare from my usual guide content. There’s still going to be Anthem related stuff as well, regarding my hopes for the game and some general talking points, both past and present.

Ruby’s Story

First, I’d like to talk a bit about myself and give you all a bit of insight into the person that’s been making these Anthem guides. When I started playing Anthem, when I started with the guides, that kind of thing. I’m not going to go too heavily into personal details. The last thing I’d want to do is give way too much information out on myself. I will say though, despite using Ruby as part of my name in many games and for many years at that, it’s nowhere near my actual name, nor representative of my gender.

For starters, I joined Anthem during the Early Access week in February 2019. I purchased the Legion of Dawn Edition as an early birthday gift for myself, with that being at the very end of the month. I’ve enjoyed the game since then, despite its flaws pushing me away from being overly dedicated to it. Currently, the best way to word this. I have way more free time to do as I’d like, which often has me playing Anthem or other games I enjoy. It’s a result of unfortunate circumstances sadly, with gaming serving more as an escape to me than entertainment most times.

When I started Anthem back in February 2019, I was playing often.. To the point of amassing roughly 300 hours in the first month. Soon after that though, the friends I had started with had quit, due to the state of the game.

My activity in the game decreased drastically after that, only gaining renewed interest in the game with the Cataclysm PTS that following Summer. The PTS had hit, and I found myself playing another 300+ hours over the course of the PTS, then another 300 when Cataclysm hit the live servers. Currently, I sit at around 1000 hours on Anthem, playing much more casually and trying to avoid total burnout on the game.

For me, the Cataclysm update was a huge turning point for the game, and my history with it. Before, I had been the one looking up the information and things like that. Something drove me to try something different. For once, I had the chance to be one of the early players and provide the information and details others could use to see their own success within the game.

It started with the early version of the Cataclysm guide I posted to the EA Answers Forum, in the PTS board for the ongoing Cataclysm PTS. It was a simple guide detailing just the events to start, then slowly grew as the PTS continued. Detailing new events as they were added, adding images to give clear context, discovering and sharing the secrets to be found. The culmination of the hours spent on PTS; hunting either alone or with newly made friends, some of which are still mostly active in the community today.

Eventually, the guide even expanded into videos. I’m not exactly a stranger when it comes to making informational types of videos for games I play. Nothing high quality mind you, but it’s something I’ve done in the past as my youtube channel will show. I’ve always held minor aspirations to being a content creator in some capacity, but it’s always been a challenge for me. Even with the support of friends, I often find myself not being motivated enough to make videos and spend the hours needed to edit them.

I feel like my guides are enough, but making consistent video guides to go along with my text and image based ones here would be great… If I could get myself to focus on them.

I don’t always make guides either. I often find myself making various tools as well. Like my recently released Damage Calculator for Anthem as an example. I track a lot of information, usually on spreadsheets to find the best way to apply different mechanics and stats in games. Just always been that way I guess, tearing games apart and trying to be the best I could at them.

I’ve enjoyed being a part of the Anthem Community, at least after a lot of the incredibly high amounts of toxicity died off. Best way to put things regarding that is… Not only is that a pet peeve of mine, it certainly doesn’t help with some of the issues I currently struggle with to this day. 

I always feel people shouldn’t be told to hate something just because someone else felt that way about it. Anthem definitely had some issues early on, no denying that; but none of the issues were big enough to really prevent you from enjoying the game. Combat and Flight are still referenced as the best parts of the game, and that makes up the majority of the gameplay. I guess that brings me nicely to a starting point to talk about the game in general.

Anthem: The Past

As stated previously, I started back in early 2019, with the launch of the game. I’ve been here since and have seen all the things that have gone wrong with the game, as well as the things that have been done right.

Anthem definitely launched in a poor state, well towards the end game section of things. There were other smaller hurdles in the way too; like being slow to load and quests designed to stall your progression, if only for an extra few hours of play. These were remedied rather quickly. Outside of that, most of the issues lied in the end game of Anthem and spurred a lot of the hate the game got.

End game just was not stellar, and still is lacking to some degree. At least people have stopped shouting about loo- Oh wait. No, no they haven’t. It’s still a problem, but much less so in my opinion. It was abysmal at launch, but is not in a spot where it can be salvaged by adjustments to the current underlying systems, though it would still be far from great. It would still be better. I’ll talk about that more later.

Between this and a ton of comparisons to an E3 Trailer, which is honestly a mistake in the first place; the hate began. There were complaints about every little thing. It drove a lot of people away from the game, even the ones that were trying to enjoy it despite these problems.

A lot of people didn’t take notice of the changes being implemented from feedback, which did start as early as March with the 1.0.3. Update. This specific update, White and Green items were removed from the loot pool at Pilot Level 30. There were a hefty amount of balance changes here too.

1.0.4 brought more of the same balance changes, changing abilities to have better Masterwork perks, improve use and functionality, and extend the duration of timed buffs, doubling them in most cases.

Update 1.0.4 also brought Elysian Caches, which when revealed to the community sounded great, but they were implemented so poorly that they quickly became hated. A chest full of cosmetics ended up also being filled with common crafting materials. This drew more hate to the game, this time a bit more deservedly.

Moving forward to 1.1.0, the fourth Stronghold “The Sunken Cell”, was added. Alongside it a ton of QoL improvements, including accessing the Forge from anywhere, the option to queue right into another mission without having to return to Ft. Tarsis, and allies no longer blocking attacks in any way.

The next major Update, 1.2.0 brought some minor changes, No more shields on Brutes, enemy storm javelins now require force or a fire status to ground, Freeplay got Strider Fast Travel. Nothing too major. We also got the Communication wheel, which while limited, did expand the options for communication, despite the lack of text chat.

As mentioned previously, 1.3.0 was a huge turning point for the game, bringing the Cataclysm. The Cataclysm was relentlessly mocked when they showed it on a devstream, despite knowing full well that it was still a work in progress. 

This update still brought players back due to the major changes that also happened. Not only did we get Cataclysm, this brought a lot of new gameplay concepts to the game. Scored/Timed Events, Inversions and even Guilds. GM2 and GM3 even got re-balanced to not be as difficult, and for the first time since launch, we got some new weapons (including melee being decoupled from Gear Score) and abilities to play with, most of which have been prominent in meta builds.

The next major updates, 1.4.0 and 1.5.0 didn’t do much in terms of content, but gave some of the QoL changes people had wanted for awhile. We got 100 more vault space, warchests were improved, Mass Salvage was added to the Vault, Forge and end of Expedition screens. 

Then we get to 1.6.0 Icetide, or the last major update before the current patch. Warchests were improved further, Freeplay got an icy makeover for a few months, warchests were improved further, being limited to the Legendary only variations of them. We got some new-ish content, in the form of Seasonal Strongholds; which were stronghold with some of the mechanics of Cataclysm, like scoring and inversions added to them. All Legendary items on GM3 drop at power 80 and we even got some form of legendary crafting, albeit still a little too random to truly be crafting.

Now, we’re to the current patch 1.7.0. There’s no longer seasonal content instead, all content of past Seasons have become a rotation of content that changes weekly. While not new content, it does help with the common complaint that there’s not enough to do. Not major changes to loot, outside of the Crystal store now having a weekly rotating stock of different warchests, offering a mix of legendary and non-legendary warchests.

Anthem: The Future

Now that we’ve covered a bit of the past, let’s talk about the future. I guess specifically what changes I’d like to see going forward and what I hope Anthem will eventually become. I kind of want to go topic by topic with this and just share my own ideas and such regarding different areas where the game is struggling.

I am by no means a game designer, these are just my ideas and ultimately may not be feasible or balanced. The ideas and numbers are purely conceptual. I’d hope BioWare seen these and at least get some idea of their own from it. Unlikely, but a guy can dream.. right?

Loot and Crafting

Starting off with the big kahuna here. This will be all things Loot, Inscription and Crafting.

I want to start by saying personally, I feel like the drop rate for Legendaries is very much within reasonable measures. However, I do also feel like the game could use some kind of “Bad Luck Protection”. This would technically increase the drop rate of Legendaries, but overall make hunting for them much more enjoyable. Something to just counterbalance bad RNG and make getting Legendary Items more consistent.

Inscriptions however, these need some serious work and retooling. Currently, some stats show up in places they shouldn’t. Specific weapons and ammo bonuses come to mind. As well as things like damage on gear like Cryo Grenades which have no damage at all.

First things first. A rebalance of inscriptions in general; tiers, values, and ranges. To me, this is ideally how these should look to me. First up, Tiers. The X’s in the table below indicate that this tier is found on that rarity.

The main thing here being a few notable changes. All gear will have a consistent four affixes. Starting at four Minor affixes for Uncommon, and ending at four Epic on a Legendary. The next notable changes, Rares will get 2 major stats, Epics get an Epic inscription, and Masterworks are on par with current Legendaries.

Components would be largely the same, though Masterworks would gain an Epic tier roll and Legendaries would be two Epic rolls. Each component regardless if Iconic or Universal would get their highest tier for Primary AND Secondary inscriptions.

By itself these changes have potential to be a little too good. But there’d also be some adjustments to many stats to compensate and such. No loss in power at the higher end, everything should be about equal, possibly greater. Here’s another quick table for that.

Just to explain the numbers above. The numbers in parentheses are the number of rolls possible in that tier. No more 1% increases, most are 5% or 10%. Generally, the higher tier of stats have a smaller range of values; aside from the Utility/Defensive stats, which are slightly different due to smaller ranges.

Local damage changes only slightly as the above inscription tier changes would increase power already, allowing for a 75% increase, up to a max of 500%. This also bumps the current minimum from 225% (175+50) to 400% (200+200) for Legendary gear/weapons with double damage rolls.

Global Damage rolls are higher in general, to compensate for only one roll per component, instead of the previous two. This is also a general increase for stat stick weapons and gear. This does add a lot of power overall, but also allows for defensive stats to be picked up more freely.

Utility and Defensive stat rolls have been bumped up from their top end being 20% to 35%. Requiring less of these types of rolls to be effective as stats is the general goal. This would also be massively bumping the otherwise useless damage reduction stats as well.

Health and Shields from components might take a small hit, but weapons can roll up to 200% max now, which compensates for it pretty easily.

And now, Crafting. Needless to say, we need to be able to make specific legendaries. It’d be nice to have these as an unlock, by using the gear, similar to how Masterwork functions but with a different task. It shouldn’t just be handed out, earning it would feel nicer.

Crafting would also include inscription re-rolling. This should have been implemented already, but it’s not. This absolutely needs to be in a 2.0 overhaul. Not being able to use resources and have a chance of making a decent legendary into a great one is a shame.

I look forward to seeing how Inscription rerolls gets implemented. Though honestly, I’d limit it to one Primary and one Secondary stat. You pick the slots you want to reroll and the other two become locked permanently. This limitation prevents any random legendary from being ascended to god-tier without hesitation. It does however let you make a garbage roll better, or a good roll godly.

Combat

Combat needs some adjustments, but very minor stuff. Combat does generally feel fluid otherwise.

Shields for both enemies and allies need to be consistent. If we can be afflicted by a status with a shield up, they should be able to as well. The stat changes mentioned above would deal with their supporting stats being more relevant as well. Right now Shield Refresh and Shield Delay aren’t worth using unless you can stack Max Shield, while still getting 90%+ Delay and a decent amount of Refresh.

Force seems to be a very underutilized stat. Either make it so force works better and more consistently provides a benefit or just scrap it as a stat. There’s no in-between for this at all.

Combos should reward both parties if two players are involved in a detonation. 100% for a one-man combo. 100% charge to detonator, 50% to primer in a to man combo. This would make the combo system a little more interactive, in terms of use in high level, coordinated play. It’d generally be a buff to Storm and Interceptor getting rewarding for priming. It still doesn’t help that only two of the four javelins can scale combo.

Test Dummy. I don’t care where you put it, but I want something that has infinite HP that can be attacked endlessly for testing purposes.One for Health, Armor and Shield. Settings for different difficulties, assuming there’s hidden values that are known otherwise that affect damage.

Last thing I want in terms of Combat is content that can really push the high-end and well-geared players. Raids or some kind of scaling content… just something to allow people to push their builds. Raids, Horde Mode, Inversions that can punish you if played improperly. Any of these things sounds like fun, Raids especially.. If done right.

Gear and Progression

Right now, gear is almost locked to a handful of abilities and builds for each javelin. These need to be expanded with further options, and reworks to existing options (looking at you Cluster Mine, Frost Shards, Lightning Coil, Ranger’s Fire Beam). There’s also some gear used specifically for their perk rather than anything else (Solvent Green). It’s normal for everything to not be useful all the time, but the stuff that just isn’t good enough isn’t getting the love it needs.

Among the new options, I’d like to see more components and gear that enable new play styles for each Javelin. As much as I’d like to say just make another javelin, that seems like a bit too much. Though a summoner type of javelin would offer a unique play style with a degree of flexibility as to what role(s) it can handle.

Progression just stops at 30. Exp only gets used for Alliance at that point, and even that has a cap. There should be some way to adjust your build strength or open new build options beyond level 30. There’s probably lots of ideas out there, but this has honestly been the thing I’ve put the least thought into as far as topics involving the game go.

Social and Store

Text Chat. It’s long overdue at this point. There’s concerns around this probably, but not everyone has a mic and the comm wheel just doesn’t cover enough to be effective. Alternative ways to communicate without Text to Speech would be fantastic.

Guilds need more love, they need more tools to function in general. Everything being handled strictly by a mobile app is limiting. Guild chat would be nice too. More space as well. Heck, even give Guilds a leveling/perk system. Allow them to have a higher capacity and some small bonuses for being a higher level or more active guild. 

Guilds need better moderation tools. Right now we can’t even tell when people joined a guild unless tracked elsewhere via third-party lists and such. Guilds have to be solely managed by the Guild Leader, no way to “promote” someone or give them additional abilities/permissions within a guild.

The Store really needs an overhaul to its design. The rotating store is just going to continually get worse and worse as more items get added. Just give us a store front and cycle around sale prices, for both Coin and Shard purchases.

Would love to see cosmetic sets, like Icetide armors, N7 Armors, etc. just being sold together as a set for a discounted price.

Closing

Think that just about covers my time with the game, everything that has been done to the game, and my hopes for the future of the game. Looking forward to being able to create more content for the game, however this is probably the last post you’ll see from me here on Vulkk until the 2.0 update drops.

Before I close this out entirely, I do want to say thanks to the entirety of the Grabbit Kingdom guild. You all have been fantastic people to play and run with and really make the game enjoyable. Those of you that came over when I merged Remnant with GK, or were in Remnant previously especially so. I also want to extend further thanks to a few people that have kept me playing and supporting me when it comes to the guides I’ve written. Riafeir, you’ve been a great friend for a while now, and an even better girlfriend these past few months. Snowstar425 my close friend and fellow PTS freelancer, always nice having someone that is in high spirits almost constantly around. Finally, Vulkk for supporting my work and allowing it to be on your site.

I’ll likely still be playing on occasion or at the very least, active around discord. I’d leave information here, but I’m not one for honoring random friend requests. Now we begin the patient wait until 2.0 hits, in whatever form it takes. So until then, see you around Freelancers.

From Vulkk

RubyJavelin has created several fantastic guides for me, for VULKK.com and for the Anthem community! I first approached him after I saw his short, but very useful Cataclysm guide on the EA Forums.

His first Cataclysm guide was by far the most popular article on VULKK.com an it has helped an incredibly large number of players.

I am happy and grateful to work together with RubyJavelin and if you liked what you saw so far, just hold tight until Anthem 2.0 arrives. The amount of news and guides content will overwhelm you… in a good way, I hope :)))

Specifically about this article – I wanted to show RubyJavelin’s other side and offered him to write something more personal. Anthem is now one year old and this was a great opportunity to combine a “look back” material with some personal opinions! I very much hope that you have enjoyed this read!