Following on from its initial announcement of an Anthem redesign, BioWare has now outlined plans for “high-level goals and changes” to the game’s loot system.
Earlier this year, BioWare announced plans for a “longer-term redesign” of the game. In BioWare’s latest blog post, studio director Christian Dailey says “A good player experience depends on the loot system being extensible and robust, and a lot can go wrong. A lot did go wrong. We fell short here and we realised that building something new from the ground up was going to be required – starting with taking a long look and understanding the best in class of the many great games that inspire us.” Dailey goes on to outline some of the “high-level goals and changes” planned for the game, based on research and feedback, but points out that everything discussed is still a work in progress and could change in future.
Plans include an increase to the frequency of Loot Drops, making “all items better and more competitive,” and ensuring “all loot rarities have strategic value throughout progression.” Other changes would mean “you can pursue specific loot without relying on randomness alone” and modify loot. BioWare outlined a plan to make loot feel “exciting and more noticeable when it drops,” and to be “celebrated when collected”, with rare enemies creating “exciting moments to get a burst of loot all at once.” Loot will be revealed and equipped immediately, with a “complete revamp of the equipment sheet.” There’s also plans for your power cap to be “easily increased” with loot systems “scaling accordingly”. Dailey says that “aligning around these goals has really helped us focus on the right priorities as we continue iterating and seeing the progress in our internal playtesting. It is early days though and we will continue to test and experiment over the coming months, hopefully with your feedback.”
It seems we can expect more blogs like these to detail other plans BioWare has in its mission to completely “redesign” Anthem, and we’ll update you when we learn more. In the meantime, what do you think of these changes? Let us know in the comments!