Anthem has a way of making you feel like an absolute badass, while simultaneously trying
to stop you from being, said badass.
Now, don't get me wrong.
The core gameplay you engage in is absolutely fun, but there are a lot of problems plaguing
the game.
What you will hear people complain the most about is probably the UI and the menus.
There is a lot to be desired when it comes to how unresponsive and clunky it is for sure.
And for one of my friends, together with all the bugs and glitches from the Demo, that
was actually a dealbreaker.
For me, not so much.
Because once you get past all these things, you climb into your javelin and go look for
faces to smash in- That's where Anthem really shines.
I don't want to spend the entire video talking about how much I hated interacting with the
UI and menus because I'm fairly certain that enough channels out there are going to
focus on that very thing.
What I want to talk about instead, are core design choices that I believe take away from,
what is otherwise an amazing experience.
As I said at the start, Anthem absolutely makes you feel like a complete badass when
you go flying around, tossing explosives, punching and slicing through enemies and essentially
portraying you like Ironman on steroids.
What makes Anthem's customization really awesome is the fact that, very early on into
the game, you have a lot of choices when it comes to how you want to approach combat.
We are starting the Demo at Level 10 which, by all means, shouldn't take us long to
get to in the final game, considering my level progression to 15 in the Demo.
But from the very beginning, the game gave me access to items that meaningfully changed
the way my Javelin functioned.
I got a ton of different weapons aswell as gear pieces and components.
And not all of them were straight upgrades.
There were a lot of side-grades that allowed me to make decisions.
For example, my Ranger Javelin comes equipped with a shoulder mounted missile.
That in itself is a pretty cool, and very useful ability.
But it does get boring very quickly.
So what I did instead, was replace it with a few venom darts.
Usually in games like these, you are stuck with using the basic kit of your class for
a good while until getting something new.
And altering existing abilities, let alone replacing them outright, is more of a late
to end-game kind of affair.
The fact that Anthem is giving me so many opportunities to try out different ways of
approaching combat is really, really cool, and I found myself taking advantage of that
feature all the time.
Now, the downside here is that yes, you do get a ton of loot that you really don't
care about and considering how tedious it is to navigate the menus at this point in
time, inventory management is definitely a chore.
At least they allow you to deconstruct everything you don't need right away after presenting
all the loot you got at the end of an expedition.
That makes it a bit easier.
So, my problem is definitely not the way you play your Javelins.
Because that simply feels awesome.
My problem comes with the content that you are playing through.
Because everything you do scales with your group size and power level, I have never really
felt like I've gotten stronger.
And don't forget, there's gonna be 30 Levels in total, so going from 10 to 15 should
yield some kind of power increase.
But here's the thing: Every single, last piece of content in this game is instanced.
That means that you'll be getting a loading screen every time you enter a dungeon of some
kind, a random cave, a Stronghold or any kind of story mission.
That makes sense because it allows the Developers to create location specific, scripted events
that, otherwise, wouldn't really be possible in an MMO-like kind of environment.
That's why, in World of Warcraft, story missions featuring scripted events are also
always taking place in a separate instance, away from other players.
Anthem is doing a few things to make sure that you can always play with your friends.
For example, scaling power levels to make sure that you and your buddy always do the
same, relative damage, even when you grossly outlevel your friend.
I think you can imagine how that impacts the content you are clearing.
No matter what level you and your friends are, assuming you are steadily replacing your
gear with new pieces you find as you level up, the content difficulty will pretty much
always feel the same.
Mini bosses will always be tanky, grunts that I one-shot at Level 12 will also get one-shot
at Level 15 and snipers that took me a couple moves to kill will always take me that many
moves to kill.
I will always blow my ultimate on either a huge pack of enemies or a boss and I will
always do the same, relative damage to them.
And I don't think that this is going to change until you get into the late game.
Because the way that I believe power increases in Anthem, is by getting more components.
Components are essentially gear pieces that give you flat bonuses on all kinds of things
and add different effects to your abilities.
For example, the only reason that my friend kept dying on this boss while I was able to
survive reasonably well was because I had a Shield Reinforcement Component in my Javelin
that gave me a flat increase in defensive capabilities.
I assume that the effects will get stronger the higher level the item is, and as you unlock
more Component Slots at Levels 15, 16, 22, 24 and 30, you will probably feel a boost
in effectiveness.
But I never felt like, me picking up a gun that has a higher item level or damage value
really helped me killing enemies faster.
It always felt like my net-killing-effectiveness was staying the same.
Replacing Strike and Assault Systems doesn't feel like it makes me stronger, it merely
changes how I am operating.
Am I blowing something up or am I poisoning it?
Depending on how I approach the battle, the result is usually the same.
The enemies all die in about the same time.
And that problem is further exacerbated in the way that Difficulty Settings are scaling.
I don't really wanna talk too much about the Easy Mode- It's exactly what it says
on the package.
If you only care about the narrative, that's the one to go for.
Enemies will absolutely let you kill them while putting up very little resistance, and
the only way to die is by getting outnumbered to a ridiculous degree.
Snipers are still going to snipe you and turrets are still going to destroy you.
Hard Mode in Free Play is an absolute joke and it kinda has to be.
Free Play is not something you can lobby yourself into all for yourself.
You are joining a public lobby that has a certain difficulty setting.
The people you see are kind of your party, but also not really and you don't have any
obligation to work together with them unless you wanna beat some of the public events and
bosses.
The reason they can't crank the difficulty on that one is because of what I just said.
It's a public lobby with random players who have no obligation to work together.
If it was a client sided lobby just for me and my friends, the game could probably do
more on that front.
When it comes to the Stronghold and Missions- It all comes down to level appropriate content.
Cranking up Hard Mode on a mission while wearing a full set of uncommon gear is gonna be incredibly
annoying.
But as soon as you did a few of those, you'll probably have enough green's and blue's
to start doing Hard Mode with no change in perceived difficulty whatsoever, while getting
substantially better loot.
Kinda reinforcing my assumption from a little while ago in which I suggested that the 3
base difficulties would all be really easy, and you won't be facing too much of a challenge
until you unlock the GrandMaster difficulties in the end-game.
I also can't say that I felt like the enemies were getting smarter or anything as we cranked
the difficulty, even in the Stronghold.
There were still grunts that just looked at me as I laid into them or a mini-boss, without
really trying to stop me.
But all of these things are not what really bothers me.
So what if the leveling experience isn't very challenging most of the time.
The fact that I get loot drops that change my abilities on a regular is probably gonna
distract me enough to not care as much about that.
What really did bother me though was that the game is bent over backwards to try and
stop you from being a badass.
If you look at this clip- Me jumping around and destroying enemies with my Interceptor,
you're probably gonna think: Man.
This looks really cool and fun to do.
And I can confirm.
It feels really cool and fun to do.
And that's why it sucks that, the only way the game can make it more difficult for you
is by forcing you to stop doing these really cool things.
There are right and wrong ways of approaching that.
Here's an example: In this particular clip, I can't just jump into the enemies and start
meleeing because there are monsters that explode after a while if I get close.
That means that I am going to get blown into smithereens.
There are also reinforced enemies that don't care about me hitting them until I hit them
with a heavy impact move.
That means that they can stop my combo very easily if I mess up.
All of these things are perfect fine, because it forces me to turn on my brain before I
start spamming the melee button.
But most of the time, the game doesn't utilize any of these tools.
The way they stop me from jumping around and doing cool shit that's fun and effective,
is by tossing down a truckload of snipers and turrets.
The problem with these things is that- Every time I am hit by a sniper or turret, I get
staggered.
It stops my combo and gives the enemies around me a chance to attack, which is gonna get
me into a stagger-chain that eventually kills me.
That means that the most effective way of approaching this kind of situation is by hiding
behind a rock and shooting the turrets from afar.
If my team is any useful, they'll be getting aggro so that I can shoot the weak spots of
the turrets and get it done more quickly.
Once the turrets are done, I have to fly up and take the snipers out one by one.
And every time I killed one, I have to hide and wait for my shields to regenerate, because
I can't kill them fast enough before the other snipers lay into me.
Since obviously, they all have an open line of sight to one another.
By the time I am done dealing with all these annoyances, my team has already taken care
of most of the ground units by spamming explodes from behind cover, which means that I didn't
even get to see any of the action.
And this, compared to anything else in the stronghold, creates a massive difficulty spike.
Because most of the people who first approach this are obviously not going to know the most
effective rotation to take on this room.
And everything else in the Stronghold is your typical affair or taking out waves upon waves
of enemies.
Which means that, counter to everything the game has ever showed you, it is this room
in particular that forces players to completely abandon the usual way of playing Anthem, which
is applicable to most of the Story and Free Play content.
Which would be fine if it added some kind of engaging mechanic that made you feel smart
about beating it the right way, but instead, it just felt like the Developers are trying
to slow you down by forcing you into cover, or getting destroyed when caught out in the
open.
And there are more encounters featuring this kind of an artificial difficulty spike.
This robot spider boss, for example, has a move that instantly overheats your Javelin,
meaning that you can't fly or hover anymore.
But he also has a turret that lays into you and staggers you over and over again.
The solution seems obvious, right?
Use what little cover the arena has to offer and chip down on the weak points.
But wait, there's more.
Because the boss knows that you're gonna hide behind cover like a scared child, which
means that he is going to send seeker mines after you.
And if that wasn't enough, he is also going to open rifts that spawn enemies who will
also try to push you out in the open.
What made this encounter so annoying was that, the boss did everything in his power to get
us out of the two available points of cover in the entire arena.
But the moment we're caught out, he and the other snipers he summoned would stagger
chain us into oblivion.
Anthem, at times, is trying way too hard to get us to play like we're in a cover based
shooter, while not being a cover based shooter at all.
Enemies will absolutely shoot you when you feel like they shouldn't be able to see
you, and it's not like the content gets harder, it just gets busier.
Between snipers, flamethrowers, turrets, gunfire and explosions, there is just more shit on
the screen aiming to throw you off.
That's not fun or engaging, neither is it a satisfying increase in difficulty.
It's literally just annoying.
And that stands in a very strong contrast to everything else you do in the game, where
you are an absolute badass laying into hordes of enemies.
There is nothing that prepares you for that kind of an encounter, and even if there was,
that still wouldn't make it fun.
It's just very, very poorly designed.
Now, let me show you another boss fight in which Anthem actually gets everything right.
A boss fight that, no matter how often I did it, I always enjoyed.
And it's the last boss of the available Stronghold in the Demo.
This boss is doing a number of things to make sure that players always feel like they can
contribute.
I obviously can't melee into this thing because it is literally going to stomp me
into the ground.
In addition to that, the weak points are elevated from the ground, meaning I can't reach it
in the first place.
It is my responsibility as a player to bring weapons that allow me to contribute to a fight,
even when my particular field of expertise isn't useful.
So what I did was bring a sniper rifle to lay into the weak points from afar.
While I was doing that, the boss would periodically leave the arena by crawling or digging away,
and a few waves of enemies would come at us at the same time.
Now I can finally shine with my melee build, destroying wave after wave and creating ammo
drops for my sniper rifle as well as my teammates who are more proficient when it comes to taking
on the boss.
But don't get too comfortable, because if you're not fast enough, and you're on
the wrong platform at the wrong time, the boss is absolutely going to one-shot you as
it resurfaces.
So I am managing my abilities and cooldowns to make sure that we can destroy these waves
ASAP and then dash away into safety before the boss comes back, and ideally, have all
of our weapons refilled by then.
This boss fight, in the way that it was challenging players, was really, really satisfying.
Because the art was to manage grunt waves and stronger grunt waves with the timings
of the boss fleeing and resurfacing, while never getting too comfortable in one spot
because there were different threats that challenged you both on the ground and in the
air.
And all of that was keeping us on the move so that we can get maximum damage by hitting
the weak points.
This, in my eyes, is an utterly satisfying encounter, with no cheesy bullshit that makes
me feel robbed from the experience that Anthem usually provides.
When I say, "Anthem is fun, but.."
I don't necessarily mean all the bugs and problems that the game very obviously has.
Because if you really like the core gameplay, chances are that you can forgive all, or at
least most of these things.
What is much more difficult to forgive is when the game suddenly stops delivering on
this core, Anthem experience.
When it randomly tosses you into these really annoying rooms that you have to beat by playing
in the least fun way possible.
Or by putting you in front of bosses that are just terribly designed by every metric.
I don't even wanna complain too much about difficulty scaling because those are things
that can be fixed quite easily.
Worst comes to worst, we'll get a decent dose of challenge at the endgame.
And yes, sure, some of the enemies behave really stupid and the Interceptor seems to
be broken beyond belief, allowing you to cheese many encounters.
But none of these things are deal breakers for me in the way that these other complaints
are.
But obviously, that is just my opinion.
Did you get to play the VIP Demo?
If so, how did you feel about any of these things?
Does your perspective change when playing a different Javelin?
Feel free to leave all of your thoughts and impressions down in the comment section below.
But until then, thank you everybody so much for watching, don't forget to drop me a
like on your way out if you enjoyed the video, subscribe if you wanna see more, and I hope
to see you guys next time.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét