Bungie's Destiny

I’m still going strong. Nothing but gambit though. I swear the strike is the same one over and over again. Not high enough level to do anything else. Only 550ish.

I did just manage 22 kills on my last gambit game. That’s a record for me. I give credit to my scout rifle and tracking rockets (not nearly as good as truth).

 

I've got to ask... How are you still just 550? It's so easy to get to 650?

 

I don’t really do anything except gambit. None of my drops are ever over 550.

Maybe I’m just not very good at the game.

 

You should have a stockpile of prime engrams waiting. Those alone will net you 5-7 levels each. Gambit has nothing to do with it. You can get prime engrams to drop there or anywhere in the game.

 

Nope. I check after I’m done playing. I usually play 3-4 times a week and at least 2 gambits a day. More playing if it’s iron banner. I bet I’ve gotten one maybe two prime engrams in the last month if playing.

Tonight’s haul...
544 pulse rifle
568 sniper (highest I’ve ever seen)
568 pulse rifle

Last week I did get an exotic engram. 566.

So I suppose I’m getting there. If I equip all of my highest level gear. I’m...drumroll...553.

 

If all you do is gambit then ya, its gonna take a while! Even just doing the daily strike or crucible once before gambit will help you level quicker.

 

It's not Destiny, but we have talked about it here.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/m/7e284744-8a94-3632-bbf8-d3d0964db3c9/bioware-fixes-'anthem'.html

 

Gamers will always find a way lol. I remember the loot cave in D1 and running by it and seeing multiple people shooting at a cave thinking "what the hell are they doing?". At least BioWare is being proactive and it will be fixed when the game officially releases. Things like this don't break a game. All they do is make your enjoyment of the game less if you choose to do these exploits. If people were getting masterwork gear to drop then what's the use in doing any of the end game activities? You're just robbing yourself of the enjoyment of doing difficult things and getting rewarded for it. It's kind of like buying a Prime Warframe off the Warframe market. You can do it if you want, but you've just missed out on a bunch of content that allows you to get the same Warframe and the chase to get the pieces to put it together. I've got 19 Warframes right now and 10 of those are Prime Warframes. 8 of the Prime Warframes I earned and 2 of them I got because of having Twitch Prime. Everything else I've earned in the game. There's some satisfaction with that to me.

There was a reddit post yesterday with the day one patch and all the fixes that will come along with it. Anthem has had the most fucked up launch schedule I've ever seen a game launch with before. But, in a way, it may be good for those that will play it on PS4 since there was no way to play the game before Feb 22. Whatever bugs that have popped up could be addressed before the actual launch of the game. And I can assure you there will be many more patches to come.

Here's the way I view Anthem. If I get 100 hours out of it I got my money's worth. From what I understand there is about 20 hrs or so of actual story (not counting side missions). So if there is enough to do in the game and enough to chase after I think it will be a good game. The game will grow over time so it has promise. But that said... Anthem is coming into this market very late in the game. It falls into: go shoot this, collect loot, go shoot this other thing and collect loot etc... The thing that's going to differentiate this game from the others is the verticality of the game, the movement, and the abilities of each class. Having the ability to min / max your character is a good thing also since you can't do that with Destiny. You can do that with The Division though, so it will be a wash between those two games.

My personal advice is, if you haven't pre ordered the game and are interested in it, wait for a month or so to see how things are working in the game. It will launch with bugs (probably a lot if I'm honest). There will be a bunch of patches that will fix those bugs and the game will become stable. Then it will just be a matter of what content they release and how often they release content. The quality of the content they release will determine if this game will be great or fail.

 

Day one patch is available for Anthem right now. 6.9GB's. Game starts at midnight EST

 

Alright man, getting better already.

 

Well see man. This game has a long way to go to prove itself. It will be a month or so before most of the bugs are worked out. Like I mentioned before... the quality of the updates will be the deciding factor whether this game will succeed or not. It will be a few months before they are able to get their feet on the ground and start creating engaging endgame content. What that content will consist of will be the rise or fall of this game. So far... all the early reviews have been pretty negative because of the bugs an constant loading screens. We'll see if that get fixed?

 

Guess we will find out. You going to play at midnight or wait till tomorrow?

 

I'll probably play a little bit tonight since it starts at 11pm for me. Depends on how easy it is to log in and if there are long queues.

 

Okay... So I've played Anthem for about 4 hours now and I'm just taking my time in the game. I know the PC version is having trouble with long load times and a few other problems but I've got to say that in complete honesty... the game has run perfectly on the PS4.

There are absolutely no problems with the game at all. The difference between the demos and the actual game? You can't even compare them. The graphics are completely different and look amazing. I've not had one single issue with the game at all. "So far"... it runs smooth. I've done one mission that was match made and you get matched up with other players and you actually talk to them while your playing unlike Destiny where no one ever uses teamspeak during a strike. There is a story that actually is pretty engaging. It's BioWare so there will be a story. But it's not nearly as engaging as Mass Effect and whatever you choose in your dialogue with a NPC doesn't effect the outcome or change what is happening in the game. So that's a bit disappointing.

The gameplay is fucking amazing. There are a few tweaks I wish they would do such as having an actual radar rather than having a bar at the top. Sometimes you are getting shot and you have no fucking idea where it's coming from. The only other tweak I'd make is the loading screens. They are everywhere. It just breaks the immersion when you are in the middle of freeplay and you go into a cave or some new place and there is a loading screen. Luckily the PS4 version doesn't suffer the issues that the PC version has. But it's still a bit annoying. Destiny's loading screen was your ship flying to whatever planet that you chose and you sat there and just watched your ship until if finally loads. But that is much better than what Anthem does. Your just stuck looking at a picture for about 5-10 secs and then you are in another place. But those are minor things. I can live with that because the gameplay is so good. I was really sceptical after watching the PC issues but the day one patch must have taken care of those issues (at least with the PS4 version). I'm starting to feel better about the game now. So time will tell if it turns out to be a good game. But right now? I'm having a lot of fun in it.

 

Well I'll be goddamned.....a positive post from you finally!!!

I fell asleep trying to wait for it, so I will be on later tonight, wont be late though. Gotta get up early, fishing for sailfish tomorrow, guy who's boat I mate has a friend in town and wants to catch one or two. Hopefully I can add a few dolphin to the list as well.

 

It's not completely positive. It's good. There are things that need to be tweaked and I'm sure they will in time.

I've only had one crash since the game launched which isn't bad. When D2 launched I remember about 50% of the time you would fly to the tower the game would just sit there on a black screen and you would have to relaunch the game. I've only had one crash in the game so far so I'd say that it's been a smooth launch for a game that was complete shit in the demo. It is completely different then the demo. The graphics are amazing and everything just runs smooth.

Where this game gets a bit annoying is the loading screens. There is a fucking loading screen for fucking EVERYTHING and that gets on your nerves after a while. They aren't long but they could have done it much better. Destiny has a better system for their loading screens since you are looking at your ship waiting for it to fly to wherever you picked. That's Destiny's actual loading screen and it's much better than what Anthem does. The other issue is, there really isn't a clear system for what you are suppose to do. There really isn't a linear path and sometimes your sitting there wondering if I'm doing the main mission or a contract. And there are contracts everywhere in the fort. So they could have done a better job with "here is the main mission and here is the contracts". One other issue is when you are in a mission and someone moves to the next part you have 25 secs to join them or guess what? Another fucking loading screen. The problem with that is if someone moves forward and there is loot on the ground that you haven't picked up yet and you don't pick it up before the 25 secs are up, you lose that loot. So that kind of sucks. I don't like that mechanic. Other than that... I've got no other complaints. It really is a good game once you get into it. I'm just trying to get to level 15 so I can start doing the strongholds to start getting better shit. I've got no complaints about the combat and how the game plays because it's a lot of fun flying around and using your abilities and shooting shit.

There is plenty to keep you occupied in the game and those things are fun to play. It's just the fucking loading screens for everything.

 

Who would have thought...."loading screens" would be the gripe. I do remember in the demo though exactly what you are talking about. It wore on me in the demo, so I am sure it will be annoying in the game as well.

 

Someone put on reddit, if we're going to have the load screens for everything then put the game lore on the screen instead of just a picture of a javelin. That's not a bad idea. There will never be another way for them to not have load screens. They would have to recode the entire game. But the more I play it the better it is. I was really concerned about this game after the demos but this has got to be one of the easiest launches I've seen in an online game. I've only experienced one crash since yesterday. It's worked and played perfectly.

 

So after a week of playing Anthem I've got to say it's a really good game. I haven't been able to play as much as I would like this week but over the last two days I've got some good playing time in.

First off... the hate toward this game is getting to the point it's getting ridiculous. The vast majority of reviews center around how much people hate EA. That part I completely understand. I hate EA myself and I'll never defend them. But who I will defend at this point in time is BioWare. There have been three patches this last week alone to take care of quality of life improvements in the game. I have had the game crash on me only one time since launch. There was a DDOS attack on the EA servers earlier tonight but they had the servers back up and running within an hour. It appears that the vast majority of reviewers want this game to fail because of EA. Angry Joe (who I agree with on almost every review he does) has been extremely vocal about his hate toward this game and I'll have to disagree with him on this one. From what I understand, most reviews are coming from the PC side of things and there have been a lot of issues with the PC version of the game. So if you have the PC version of the game then you have a right to be upset. But I haven't seen one PS4 version of the game reviewed. Only the PC version. The PS4 version has suffered no issues whatsoever. The game runs smooth and there is plenty to do and chase after. I got my first two Masterwork items earlier today and they are stupid strong with their inscriptions and bonuses (which you will need for Grandmaster Strongholds). Loot is dropping like crazy so it appears that they have taken a page out of Diablo's playbook on that front. What you don't want or need you can break down into resources to create other items which is a very good idea. The game gives a sense of excitement when a masterwork item drops and you feel rewarded for your time in the game. I'm sitting at level 28 now and once you hit level 30 you get access to Legendary Contracts which rewards you with more Masterwork gear and Legendary gear.

The world is beautiful. By far one of the best looking games of this kind. The flying just adds to the fun and adds another dimension to the game. Pulling off combos with your team is satisfying and placing a well timed Ultimate ability will destroy shit like crazy. All in all it's a damn good game. I hope people can separate their hate toward EA and the game. BioWare has been nothing but transparent about everything they are doing in game. Everyday they are answering questions that players ask. That's about all you can ask for from a developer.

The cons:

#1: The Fort is hard to figure out where you need to go and who to talk too. It's also boring as fuck IMO. I skip almost all the conversations since they have absolutely zero impact on the game and your decisions that you make with your answers don't matter at all. The same outcome will happen in game no matter what you choose.

#2: It would be nice if they would allow for a marker to be placed on the open world map which would make navigating much easier rather than having to open your map to make sure you are going in the right direction during Freeplay.

#3: The radar FUCKING SUCKS! Put in a radar that actually makes sense for Christ sakes. Sometimes shit will spawn behind you and you don't know it. If you get sniped on hard difficulty it's a one shot kill and you have no idea what killed you.

#4: If you go down, let there be a spectator mode like Destiny instead of just sitting there looking at your downed Javelin.

#5: They have drastically reduced the loading screen times but they are still a bit annoying. Destiny hid there loading screens by looking at your ship flying in space. That is a much more aesthetically pleasing screen rather than looking at a staganate screen.

The first Masterwork weapon that I got. The stats on this gun are stupid strong. 33% chance to deal a large AOE electric dmg? Plus all the other inscriptions? Yeah... I'll take it



The second Masterwork that I got. Shooting an enemy at close range deals 110% more damage? Jesus... this thing is OP as fuck



Here is a portion of a Contract. These generally last around 20 - 25 mins or so depending on the Contract. You can see how much loot drops at the end.

*EDIT* Click on the video to put it in full screen mode. You'll notice how smooth the games runs.





All of that said... I still think that Warframe is a better game. But it's been around since 2012 so it's had plenty of time to grow. I still have the urge to hop back into Warframe but Anthem is keeping me busy for the time being. New updates are coming out throughout this month so that will only grow the game so we'll see how it goes.