Bioware's "Anthem"

Utnayan

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What does it take for EA to finally admit that the money they are 'saving' on using Frostbite is far too expensive in lost productivity and eventual lost sales?

Never. Not since day one have any of these idiots understood opportunity cost even when 80% of their organization scream it from the roof tops and dedicate 120 meetings that were meant to advance one stage of accessibility, were switched to get these bozos to hold themselves accountable for shit decisions.
 

Zindan

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I want to make a snide remark about some of the Edmonton devs taking 1-3 month Stress vacations while theorycrafting Anthem. Its remarkable that they were able to release what they did, even with the game needing another 1-2yrs of cooking.
 

Rombo

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Has someone with zero programming experience, whats with all the qq i keep reading when frostbite is mentioned. From a visual perspective, its slick as hell. Is it super complicated to use compared to the other engines?
 

kaid

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Has someone with zero programming experience, whats with all the qq i keep reading when frostbite is mentioned. From a visual perspective, its slick as hell. Is it super complicated to use compared to the other engines?
Basically it is the worst of both worlds engine wise. Lack of documentation and polish of a home brew but lack of access to the people who made the damn thing who can tell you how to tweak it like an off the shelf package.
 

Lost Virtue

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Has someone with zero programming experience, whats with all the qq i keep reading when frostbite is mentioned. From a visual perspective, its slick as hell. Is it super complicated to use compared to the other engines?

From what I've understood, it more comes down to the complexity of it aswell as the total lack of documentation as it was essentially pieced together rapidly. Typical stuff when companies think they can develop their own solution rather than using something more built, robust, etc to save a dollar via the aspect of license-fees (which hilariously enough probably cost them more to build and support their own engine than to license).
 

Salshun

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Looks like this "Woke" them up didn't it...

Their canned reply, that was written before the article was even out and based on an emailed "These are the bullet points of the article we're about to publish", didn't address jack shit about the article beyond "We don't talk bad about our people" and is just another example of how Bioware is dodging shit like The Matrix when it comes to anything resembling a straight and honest answer about the problems that plague this shit show.
 

kaid

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Thats insane to me, I have yet to see one drop. I guess I'm just not at that point yet (28 at 440ish iirc, I'm at work). I thought that weapons were using affixes yesterday, but then I started looking up other masterwork items and legendaries and realized that the Marksman Rifle "Thunderbolt of Yvenia" is unique (and still a blast) but the LMG and AR masterwork variants that I picked up last night have been a let down. I hated the legendary marksman rifle that you got for just playing the game. Its damage was terrible in comparison to LMG's or AR's that were leagues under its level. However, the LMG and AR variants I picked up last night hit for around ~523. Where as the Yvenia Marksman rifle was hitting for 1558 and casting a thunderbolt at 1860 damage at what seemed to be every 3-4 shots. Far out-pacing its rival weapons. Much less any combo damage from the lightning strikes. Spider Thing in the stronghold just melts on normal with that weapon. Looking at the rest of the list though, everything else that suits my play style seems to revolve around setting up your group or relying on them too.

Content is questionable. Three strongholds isnt enough, and needs to be three-four times that. Content is there in other parts of the game, however its bland. Its the same handful of goals throughout the entire game. I recall a bunch of games having this same problem at launch, though. So yes, I'm right there with you on needing more strongholds, and more imaginative content quickly-soon. I personally like the Interceptor, but have a reluctant desire to try out the Storm. They should have used the different javelin's as a jumping point for more quests and content. I can think of a huge chunk of QoL improvements for the game, but my main desire is that they would just add events that are happening now, or able to be triggered to the map.

To me, they nailed the shit out of the whole flight and fight. Which has got my attention, but they've gotta give us something to do.
Weapon quality varies a lot due to its role. I have a thunder bolt that rolled 250% weapon damage the proc can hit for up to 30k. I also have one with no bonus to weapon damage and hits like a wet noodle. Also until you do GM1 and higher I don’t think you can get legendaries to drop. Also it feels like the higher your gear level the better chance for legendaries you have.
 

Lost Virtue

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I do take back basically everything positive I've said over the last few weeks regarding their stale turnaround. Their response was something alright...
 
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Chimney

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Has someone with zero programming experience, whats with all the qq i keep reading when frostbite is mentioned. From a visual perspective, its slick as hell. Is it super complicated to use compared to the other engines?

Unity is like working on a Honda. Frostbite is like working on an Aston Martin.

--

Also lol @ MAKE US UNMEMEABLE!

Yeah your whole game turned into a joke instead.
 

Utnayan

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Their canned reply, that was written before the article was even out and based on an emailed "These are the bullet points of the article we're about to publish", didn't address jack shit about the article beyond "We don't talk bad about our people" and is just another example of how Bioware is dodging shit like The Matrix when it comes to anything resembling a straight and honest answer about the problems that plague this shit show.

I think you may have missed my sarcasm. :)
 

gshurik

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Jason Schreier is a faggot of the highest order.

Bioware are shit, but he really is the worst.
 
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Hosix

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Good read, explains a lot. What a fucking shit show. I've never been on the "fuck EA" bandwagon, but honestly fuck game development period at this point by any company that does this shit.

That article is great. It doesn’t justify a companies stupidity. But it helps me understand how shitty they are.
 
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Stave

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What does it take for EA to finally admit that the money they are 'saving' on using Frostbite is far too expensive in lost productivity and eventual lost sales?

I don't buy the whole "game failed because Frostbite". That doesn't make the game not suck and the horrible decisions not happen. A lot of things obviously work great in Frostbite and decent in Anthem. The world, the flight, the combat. Yeah it may be more tricky to develop for. But it's better than them rolling in with the Creation or Gamebryo engine, which I wouldn't doubt for a second EA would do. Imagine if SWToR was done in Frostbite. It would probably have done much better. Frostbite is actually a very solid engine and has been well proven in many games. Performance is good, it is immensely scaleable, and the graphics are great. It has made everything from FPS games, to NFS racing games, to FIFA and Madden sports games, to Dragon Age RPG's. Fact of the matter is, they spent like 5 years fucking around not doing shit, and then built the game in the last 15 months or so, in the engine they say is so bad. Now imagine if they had spent all 6 years actually developing the game.

EA's internal help team for Frostbite may suck, and that's definitely something they should probably improve on and invest in, along with mandating that new game teams have access to other studios prior code, and actually use it building upon previous works, but again, I find it hard to believe that Frostbite is what made them fail, nor do I believe for one second that if they had used a different engine, that Anthem would have been amazing.
 
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Folanlron

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Has someone with zero programming experience, whats with all the qq i keep reading when frostbite is mentioned. From a visual perspective, its slick as hell. Is it super complicated to use compared to the other engines?

I haven't looked into any actual Frostbite engine stuff, but some of my friends who worked for DICE , have all said the engine is not designed for these kind of looter/shooters, there are massive holes in Frostbite when you want too bring RPG elements into the engine(code you would have write out for that game alone), it's one of the main reasons why Viscera's SW game was canned, not only cause it wasn't part of "EA VIsion" but the engine requires massive additions too get RPG systems working correctly.
 

Hachima

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I haven't looked into any actual Frostbite engine stuff, but some of my friends who worked for DICE , have all said the engine is not designed for these kind of looter/shooters, there are massive holes in Frostbite when you want too bring RPG elements into the engine(code you would have write out for that game alone), it's one of the main reasons why Viscera's SW game was canned, not only cause it wasn't part of "EA VIsion" but the engine requires massive additions too get RPG systems working correctly.

What exactly are these "RPG" systems that are considered difficult? Like it doesn't give you an algorithm to calculate rarity of item drops out of the box so you need someone with a PHD in statistics to do it for you? Or you know... don't base a players drop rate based on other members of the group drop rate? Don't put useless stats on an item that can't benefit from them? That damn Frostbite engine getting in the way!!
 
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Alex

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They probably don't even have a library for inventory management. Or a loot system. So they need to be built from scratch.
 

Folanlron

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What exactly are these "RPG" systems that are considered difficult? Like it doesn't give you an algorithm to calculate rarity of item drops out of the box so you need someone with a PHD in statistics to do it for you? Or you know... don't base a players drop rate based on other members of the group drop rate? Don't put useless stats on an item that can't benefit from them? That damn Frostbite engine getting in the way!!


Battlefield/Battlefront use a LoadOut system(What I call a lazy answer too stats), they have minimal(If any at all) stats vs what a RPG system uses, basically all they have is Defense and Attack stats(all theses stats are only on weapons, and armor or whatever they are calling it in the game)

RPG systems on the other hand have multiple systems that tie stats, your level, MW garbage pipe shooter's +%Bonus etc etc, it's a lot of math that happens in the background. This stuff takes years, unless your lucky and hire a statistician who has no life. And don't even get me started on edge testing, they are a headache(unless your using a locked RNG, which happens a lot really) Nothing like being at "MAX Stats" and all the sudden your doing -255 damage to the NPC values(basically healing the NPC lulz) ... all because your forgot a ")" hahaha