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Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Anthem delayed until 2019

No doubt to remove the Battlefront 2 style loot crates and progression mechanics. I hope they take a look at TF2 and learn how progression should work.

I imagine it was delayed so as to ensure the best possible game if SWBF2 showed anything it's that you can remove that content and tweak progress in a matter of days.

Billy86

It's kind of funny to be reading this page the day after doing Tower Outta Nowheres on my replay of Witcher 3. :pac:

Penn

Deleted User wrote: »

I imagine it was delayed so as to ensure the best possible game if SWBF2 showed anything it's that you can remove that content and tweak progress in a matter of days.

Sounds more like the progression system in the game was designed to be along the same lines as BF2 so now they're having to do major tweaks from the ground up rather than risk a similar backlash.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

I imagine it was delayed so as to ensure the best possible game if SWBF2 showed anything it's that you can remove that content and tweak progress in a matter of days.

Not at all. Progression in SWBF2 is completely borked since they removed loot crate purchases. It really shows how it was all designed around a paid progression system. They have done nothing to fix it.

Penn

Penn wrote: »

Sounds more like the progression system in the game was designed to be along the same lines as BF2 so now they're having to do major tweaks from the ground up rather than risk a similar backlash.

I never expected it to launch this year, from everything we've seen it was clear that more work had to be done and that a 2018 release was optimistic as hell.

If the progression system was like BF2 then they could tweak it easily enough as they did with BF2. If it was to redesign the progression system then I could see a couple of months delay but not a whole year.

Reports were that Anthem will most likely have loot crates but they will be cosmetic only so all those people angry at BF2 will be happy as it's not gambling if it's only cosmetic.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Not at all. Progression in SWBF2 is completely borked since they removed loot crate purchases. It really shows how it was all designed around a paid progression system. They have done nothing to fix it.

Exactly

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Not at all. Progression in SWBF2 is completely borked since they removed loot crate purchases. It really shows how it was all designed around a paid progression system. They have done nothing to fix it.

They gave out more credits in game for completing tasks and performance in game. It now plays the same as every other game like it.

Jerichoholic

Deleted User wrote: »

They gave out more credits in game for completing tasks and performance in game. It now plays the same as every other game like it.

The grind is insane. I gave up on it and traded it. It's pointless.

EA boss Andrew Wilson

Micro transactions are coming back as originally promised. A clear admission the progression system needs an overhaul:

EA boss Andrew Wilson wrote:

We never intended to build an experience that could be seen as unfair or lacking clear progression

EA boss Andrew Wilson wrote:

Again, as we look forward, the big learning is there is no one-size-fits-all [approach] when it comes event-driven live services, but at the very core we must always build on a foundation of player choice. That might be the choice of whether a player engages in a particular mode or not; that might be whether a player decides to grind for something or not. In all things it's around providing a fair playing field where players feel they have choice.

EA boss Andrew Wilson wrote:

You should expect we will continue to drive hard against that and ensure, again, we didn't set out ... to build a feature set that could be perceived to be anything other than fair. It's clear we didn't quite get that balance right, but we are doubling down now to ensure we do it

I hope they get it right. I'll happily revisit the game if they do. Underneath all this there is a fantastic Star Wars game.

Jerichoholic

Jerichoholic wrote: »

The grind is insane. I gave up on it and traded it. It's pointless.

I'd suspect alot of fans are heavily invested in it and it's hard to expect the facts that it's a broken mess.

Seems that the Anthem delay is so that they don't end up with a similar situation to the whole Titanfall2 and Battlefield 1 releasing within a couple of weeks of each other.

From WSJ:
The company also pushed the release of a new shooter called “Anthem” to later in the fiscal year to avoid competing with the new “Battlefield.” That should avoid the fate that plagued the company’s “Titanfall 2” game two years ago. It should also show that EA can learn well from its self-inflicted wounds.

gizmo

Deleted User wrote: »

Seems that the Anthem delay is so that they don't end up with a similar situation to the whole Titanfall2 and Battlefield 1 releasing within a couple of weeks of each other.

From WSJ:
The company also pushed the release of a new shooter called “Anthem” to later in the fiscal year to avoid competing with the new “Battlefield.” That should avoid the fate that plagued the company’s “Titanfall 2” game two years ago. It should also show that EA can learn well from its self-inflicted wounds.

Which explains why their CFO was so insistent the game wasn't delayed despite its release date being pushed back.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Jerichoholic wrote: »

The grind is insane. I gave up on it and traded it. It's pointless.

i often wonder when did we all get on this hamster wheel of grinding for stuff, I rememeber unlocking emblems and stuff in Halo 3, and COD had the whole prestige level thing, but it seems like in the last 10 years its gone out of all control, everything has a skill tree, progression system, tiered unlocks etc. IF anything, its only the illusion of longevity or something to do.

One of the great things about old shooters like quake etc was that there was none of this nonsense.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

i often wonder when did we all get on this hamster wheel of grinding for stuff, I rememeber unlocking emblems and stuff in Halo 3, and COD had the whole prestige level thing, but it seems like in the lads 10 years its gone out of all control, everything has a skill tree, progression system, tiered unlocks etc. IF anything, its only the illusion of longevity or something to do.

One of the great things about old shooters like quake etc was that there was none of this nonsense.

Well before you had online multiplayer the game got harder as you progressed up the levels. It still had a core formula to the gameplay which looped, the difference being the difficulty. More opponents to tackle who were harder to kill and with a trickier terrain to navaigate. You'd also just pick up better weapons but they would only become available when you reached a certain level.

Problem now is you have maps, so you're playing the same level over and over. And you've got human players. I think the whole progression started as a way of controlling the difficulty level of a game as you progressed. They needed a way to gauge how good you are at a game and match you up against players of the same skill level and better.

Jerichoholic

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

i often wonder when did we all get on this hamster wheel of grinding for stuff, I rememeber unlocking emblems and stuff in Halo 3, and COD had the whole prestige level thing, but it seems like in the lads 10 years its gone out of all control, everything has a skill tree, progression system, tiered unlocks etc. IF anything, its only the illusion of longevity or something to do.

One of the great things about old shooters like quake etc was that there was none of this nonsense.

SWBF2 had me looking for 500 kills to unlock a weapon, then another 200 to unlock a mod, then another 200 to unlock the next mod. And then the gun is no better or worse than the previous. That's literally all there is to do. I just decided there was more to life than that.

K.O.Kiki

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

i often wonder when did we all get on this hamster wheel of grinding for stuff, I rememeber unlocking emblems and stuff in Halo 3, and COD had the whole prestige level thing, but it seems like in the lads 10 years its gone out of all control, everything has a skill tree, progression system, tiered unlocks etc. IF anything, its only the illusion of longevity or something to do.

One of the great things about old shooters like quake etc was that there was none of this nonsense.

I blame Mass Effect 3 MP

ShadowHearth

I liked progression sytems in online shooters when they just appeared. It was a rare time when being better or good at game showed up on your character. If you sow a guy with golden skin on weapon in modern warfare games, you knew he was a bit better then average.
If I liked a weapon or class, I could play it and get stuff for it.

It all went **** sideways when in battlefield decided to put loot boxes. So getting skin and attachments were luck based, not effort put in or skill.

In Battlefart2, you play and like one particular class, but you get loot boxes, which can give you crap for completely irrelevant class. **** that I say.

Battlefront 2 only achieved 9mil sales thanks to very heavy discounts and bundling the damn game with anything they could. Technically I even "bought" a copy. I was getting xbox one s for my daughter as xmas present and it came with battlefront 2 as a bundle. I didn't even took wrapper off the damn thing and took it to cex 5mins after I bought console in smyths.

Skerries

EA lying about how much SWBF2 sold

https://twitter.com/saraheneedleman/status/958744053939625984

Skerries

Skerries wrote:

EA lying about how much SWBF2 sold

Assume human error, they are hardly going to lie to a to a journalist inflating the sales figures and then go and state a lesser sales figure in their presentation.

When I used to report on games it was pretty common to get a set of figures from a company rep and then a couple of hours later get a panicked call telling me they were wrong.

Skerries

I have picked up my pitchfork and I am not putting it down just cos you said so!

gizmo

Well if you're going to do it, you may as well commit, Skerries.

In any case, the journalist in question has posted a follow up.

https://twitter.com/saraheneedleman/status/958825284706463744

Saruhashi

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

i often wonder when did we all get on this hamster wheel of grinding for stuff, I rememeber unlocking emblems and stuff in Halo 3, and COD had the whole prestige level thing, but it seems like in the lads 10 years its gone out of all control, everything has a skill tree, progression system, tiered unlocks etc. IF anything, its only the illusion of longevity or something to do.

One of the great things about old shooters like quake etc was that there was none of this nonsense.

Hasn't it always been there from the beginning?

People were trying to get the "kill screen" on Donkey Kong and Pac Man back in the 80s and 90s. On top of that there was competition over how high a score you could get over 255 levels of Pac Man and 117 levels of DK.

I notice, from reading these forums and others, that modern gamers tend to amass pretty sizeable collections of games and so what people really seem to want is games that can be picked up and played through and then thrown on the "completed" pile.

Grinding is more designed for players who will play one game for many hours a week for many months. I always saw it as a way to reward those players who like a game enough to invest many hundreds of hours in it.

In Breath of the Wild, for example, you don't have to complete all the shirnes, you don't have to collect all the seeds and you don't have to get the DLC but it's all there as something to do for players who want to keep on playing.

I wonder how much gaming journalists and/or reporters play into this perception that some games are full of pointless "busy work". It might seem that way to them because playing the game literally is work for them so having mountains of sidequests is probably a real pain.

I feel like they have somehow transferred this attitude to gamers though. I am still playing through Shadow of War a full 4 months after release. That's because I like fighting the Orcs and recruiting or killing them etc. It's not "work" in that sense and I am glad that the game is set up in a way that allows me to play it for 100s of hours.

I'm guess that the average reviewer played the game for a week full-time, complained about the grind, and then will never look at the game ever again.

I don't really see that much of a difference between trying to beat my high score on Snake or Space Invaders and trying to polish off the last few side quests in Assassins Creed or kill that difficult monster in Xenoblade or get that unlockable costume etc.

If anything I'd say games offer more variation in how they offer that longevity.

Xenji

Yakuza 6 has been pushed back to the 17th of April.

Skerries

Sleeping Dogs to be made into a film

http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/sleeping-dogs/47675/sleeping-dogs-donnie-yen-to-star-in-videogame-adaptation

Robert ninja

Possiblly yet even more sexual predators in gaming journalism
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/960046881693777920

And at Valve: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/02/counter-strike-co-creator-leave-valve-due-teen-sex-scandal/50762/

Dyr

Robert ninja wrote: »

Possiblly yet even more sexual predators in gaming journalism
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/960046881693777920

It's almost as if there's a reason that games journalists all look like rusty and eugene from the simpson

Jerichoholic

Robert ninja wrote: »

Possiblly yet even more sexual predators in gaming journalism
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/960046881693777920

And at Valve: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/02/counter-strike-co-creator-leave-valve-due-teen-sex-scandal/50762/

Interesting, you would always see Phil "liking" and retweeting comments or posts on twitter almost exclusively by women. It always annoyed me.

K.O.Kiki

Robert ninja wrote: »

Possiblly yet even more sexual predators in gaming journalism
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/960046881693777920

I'd still wait for official comments instead of blindly believing Twitter.

degrassinoel

subnautica's (awesome)sound designer got sacked today for this tweet

ShadowHearth

degrassinoel wrote: »

subnautica's (awesome)sound designer got sacked today for this tweet

Rightfully so.