Anthem got a large patch this morning and it delivers a ton of changes, both large and small, to help right the game’s ship two weeks after the last of its launches.
The most notable change in Patch 1.0.3 involves respawn restrictions; that is, there are no longer any respawn restrictions. Instead, respawn timing is based on the activity a player is in. So Crit-Path, Agent Missions and missions other than end-game missions will have a respawn delay of 10 seconds. End-game missions, Strongholds and Legendary Contracts will have a respawn timer of 30 seconds. Freeplay respawning is unchanged.
Then there’s the obligatory and generic “improved stability for all platforms” promise. Whatever that means, BioWare earlier this week said it identified the cause of some really nasty crashes on PlayStation 4 (as in, taking down the whole system). But that fix was said to be on the way on March 12. Still, the full patch notes note that 1.0.3 alters the damage scaling on secondary damage sources to address problems with that model overall. In this week’s livestream, BioWare also said that change was coming in the March 12 patch.
The third big change concerns loot, and some players are already unhappy with that. From now on, level 30 players won’t see common or uncommon loot drops, the two lowest ranks of loot quality. While that sounds like an improvement for high level foragers, some complained that the real issue is in the drop rates, not the quality. Last night, apparently, BioWare beefed up the drops and players responded approvingly. However …
“STOP NERFING THE LOOT!” said one player. “All the community wants is better drops. You give us that, then remote nerf it. … Why can’t you just realize that to have people happy with your game, you gotta realize what ACTUALLY makes them happy?” Another called on BioWare to “fix loot back to what it was last night,” too.
Other highlights of the patch include the ability to launch an expedition from anywhere inside Fort Tarsis, which should help the pace of play. Titans have also gotten eight different balance changes, including an increase in the time that weak points are exposed (and they will always be active on lesser Titans), the damage done to weak points, and improved collision detection on a couple of attacks, to make those easier to dodge. Moreover Titans will no longer respawn on a mission after they’ve been defeated. To now, a player who destroyed, say, two out of three Titans on a mission would find all three waiting for them if they respawned; now it would be just one.
The full notes are lengthy (courtesy of the Anthem subreddit) but give it a look and see if your particular ox has been gored. There are many with this game. Anthem is available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.
