Soapbox: The Problem with ANTHEM Is That the Storm Javelin Is Way, Way More Fun Than the Other Suits

While I'll admit that Storm beats the other javelins in coolness, it also tends to be the first one to die in every team fight.
Now I'm not saying that the Interceptor is superior per se, though it totally is, but it can kill a pack of Scars, and then be taking down a turret and snipers before you're even done with your combo, assuming your "shield" even let you survive that long. :>

Agree with a lot of this. It’s cool that each javelin plays differently and feels unique but it results in the Storm being by far the most fun. Didn’t enjoy playing as a Collosus, for a Tank character you really couldn’t take that much damage before need to search for health. Didn’t enjoy using its abilities either. Rangers abilities were fun to use (even the grenade! Which was great from cutting down groups of minions) and felt the most like playing Iron-Man. Think Bioware need to make the flight last longer on the other classes, they build up heat a bit too quickly, definitely on Ranger. I’ve liked the gunplay in Anthem but it definitely feels second best to the abilities, they could do with a bit more punch

Preaching to the choir.

I'll play this when it has an offline mode.

Yeah that's why they die first and I always have to go and revive them Interceptor ftw.

@Enuo dude no one cares if you will play the game or not.

yep I agree. I been saying the same thing.the storm is the best.word up son

Why online only? Let me play it without the servers, or if the internet goes down. Seems like online only is a very expensive rental of the game, because if I owned it, I could play it whenever I choose to. One day, servers will be shut down on this.

When my best friend tried the demo the other day, she had to search around to manually set her game to "private" (single player). When she attempted to start a mission, there was a massive screen-filling pop-up which said "ANTHEM is best played co-operatively with other players. Are you really sure you want to play alone?" and then once underway, discovered that the game is insanely difficult on normal difficulty because it expects you to be fighting alongside three other human players. Upon lowering the difficulty down to easy, another pop-up told her that you don't receive loot bonuses on easy, making her feel penalised for wanting to play alone. She then tried to do a Stronghold, but yet another pop-up told her that these can only be completed in co-operative play.

That's the real problem with ANTHEM.

@RogerRoger difficulty scales depending on how many people are playing and the difficulty you set is the level of loot you'll receive so playing single player things are much easier to kill than in a group

@ROTTIEMAN Hey, I'll admit that I'm relaying somebody else's experiences and therefore shouldn't really be passing judgement with third-hand information (and perhaps she just found the game difficult in general, something I can't really say given that I haven't played it myself).

However, it still seems to me that only getting high-end (or large quantities of standard) loot when you play multiplayer will put single-player players at a disadvantage. BioWare have gone to great lengths to reassure people that ANTHEM can be played alone, but everything my friend encountered in the demo seemed to be trying to convince her that, by doing so, she was playing it wrong.

That's what I don't like the sound of. But anyway, like I said, I shouldn't really be passing judgement, and this article is about the in-game suits for folks who have actually played the demo, so I'll stand down for now.

I would not recommend to solo players. It can be done but the game cleary was designed to be played with others.

@kyleforrester87 Completely agree, and that's my problem; not that the game is designed for co-operative play, but that BioWare have been desperately reassuring fans that it can be played solo.

If they'd have just come out and said "we made a Destiny clone" then it would've been much more honest of them, at least.

EDIT: Sorry, said I was standing down... I'll shut up now.

@kyleforrester87
I agree, if you make something for everybody then more often than not it's interesting to nobody. They should stay focused on their vision and not feel the need to compromise every time someone moans the game doesn't interest them because of a, b or c.

I'm just glad they left out PVP so all future content will be something I'm interested in.

The demo crashes way too often for me to even tell if the game is fun but I do like the Storm. Flight time could be longer. Loot also seems pretty scarce for a loot game but that's probably just for the demo? Certainly won't be getting it day 1.

I agree the Storm is cool, but I found myself getting demolished when by myself as the Storm. I have been enjoying the Colossus. I'm sure once I get better equipment the Storm will be much better. But all the loot I am getting is for Colossus.

@Hego I agree the Colossus needs to be buffed in the defense category.

They have talked about the Colossus being underpowered a bit on Twitter. I think they will tweak it in the full game.

Aggree 100%. Just tested the demo and the Storm javelin is way way cooler. Cool game, btw, not getting it at launch, but maybe later down the line.

This is far from its only or major problem, imo.

Nope storm is a mechanically dull light show compared to the interceptor

@kyleforrester87 I see the "privacy" mode being only useful for:

(1) playing with friends
(2) making sure you can play the story without people rushing through it

And @RogerRoger, if Normal is too hard, why not play on easy?
I found Hard to be even almost too easy when you are full rare equipped, but it all depends on equipment + skill.

@topic, I played all 4. And while the Storm does indeed seem to be the most popular one, I found myself liking Ranger most.
I just need more components that allow me to "float" longer.

@Enuo lol well you won’t b ever playing it then! 😂 It’s a online only game.... so it won’t ever be offline 👍

i played all 4. my least favorite must be the Ranger. but he has his uses. That shield is the best when we see the storm dying on the ground. i personally love the Colossus. Flamethrower/venom spitter(poison) to take out large groups of enemies quickly. Shock enemies near you even if you behind them with your shoulder mounted weapon is also great, and deals high damage. a frikkin nuke launcher that just kills anything and everything it even looks at. and a shield that will keep you live for much longer. how i play it is to tank. without me tanking the entire battle the storm is dead pretty fast. The interceptor is very fun and showy which i agree could have better abilities, but arent bad in any way. very useful when his Ult is activated and becomes invisible while killing EVERYTHING. The storm is super fun with the elemental powers making it the "Mage DPS" in the game. but if a turret or anything starts to target it. you will die fast.

Instead of making a VERY 1 sided argument how about you understand that its playstyle dependant. ive seen all the abilities on all characters used in many other games. Non of this is new. But its depends on playstyles. i love tanking so me playing any other Javelin is useless. when the storm dies in the middle of the battlefield cause he tried to escape death elsewhere. Youll be glad to have a javelin run into the heat of battle. take ever bullet ever created by man kind while reviving your squishy ass.

Also fun fact. i played about 15 hours on each character before i choose my favourite. and the colossus was the only one i was able to solo kill bosses. his autocannon just eats through anything. All Suits are fun and have their uses. saying one is better than the other is wrong since is situational. ive had moments where my colossus was not great.

@Splat This is great news as i found him to be OP XD However his components give my Colossus like +900 health and +500 armor. i can just stand infront of most bosses for a long time and take tyhe abuse. and deal major damage when im not spending 3 years reloading XD cant wait to see how good they get.

BioWare's third person combat mechanics are pretty darn good nowadays but unfortunately their writing and dialogue choice have gone backwards. There's a choice of only two dialogue options in Anthem. Just two. I know this is an online co-op shooter but it's still BioWare.

@Tatsumi I'm guessing you didn't really read what @RogerRoger wrote? Because if you had you'd have realised he'd already covered everything you said; and in the process saved yourself from looking a little foolish. But hey, at least it gave you the opportunity to tell us how insanely great you are at the game.

Had a choice between downloading this or buying Yakuza 0 over the weekend, and I went for the latter. Still keeping an eye on Anthem but the impressions from people so far aren't especially encouraging.

@Eldritch I appreciate the clarification of my comment, and huge thanks for reading it, but let's try and give folks the benefit of the doubt. It's possible that @tatsumi thought that they were offering a helpful suggestion after just scanning my comment (no matter how obvious the tip) and, if that's the case, I'm nothing but grateful and will pass it along to my friend.

I understand the internet teaches us to be pessimistic about people's intentions, but personally I see no problem here.

@AdamNovice Agreed that is the first thing i noticed when i played. i am a tad disappointed.

@ShogunRok
I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

In terms of "fun", the Storm was nifty but didn't even come close to interceptor. Who needs to hover when you can fly all around the battle field weaving dashes and jumps? I could coast through any part of the map, fly longer, and much faster with my interceptor.

The constant damage of his blades, along with ability to stunlock any enemy (remember shielded enemies are immune to status effects) let me switch up easily from assassinating elites and heavy enemies, to popping an ice or electricity aura for taking down waves of grunts.

Geared up, I was survivable, my +33% damage buff on boss helped everyone to lay down damage, and my ability to triple jump while reloading, or constantly chain dash farther than anyone else helped me position my gunplay and get my shots in where it counts.

Not only that, but no javelin could match my ability on the stronghold to bypass fights entirely, zipping through enemy lines, clearing objectives, dashing around whether I was overheated and couldn't fly or not.

And as far as skills... Yeah the shurikens are lame, that's no lie. I used the freezing Glaive to get my ice aura and a lighting kick to remove sheilds and get a lightning aura.

Honestly if you think about the Interceptors main skills bring dashing, combo melee, and it's auras that constantly apply status for 10-15 seconds at a time and can be used back to back: and their first and second abilities are more like tools to let you do those things better, it's a better way to look at the class.

I do agree that the Storm is probably the "Strongest" javelin, and a very welcome addition to any group, but in my experience the gameplay really shines when you have Javelins filling in different roles. I found success in many team comps, 2 Interceptors and 2 Colossus, or one of each class. I think they did a great job of making each contribute something unique that's helpful to different combat scenarios.

For big groups of enemies really Colossus can lay down way more raw damage than storm with his explosion combos.

The ranger will appeal more to those that like a good ole third person shooter. It's skills are designed to be popped off quickly so you can focus on gunplay. It seems to get tankier inscriptions, and it's bubble shield is way too useful for rezing allies. When I loaded my Ranger with two +10% light machine gun damage components and some other skills that extended my clip size, I certainly didn't feel like I was missing out on skills as I mowed through waves of bugs, and burned down enemies.

In general something I found on hard is that most abilities, storm included seem to take down either most of a sheild, 70% of a health bar, or detonate a combo for crazy damage. Now unless that combo is going off that means that an ability mostly weakened an enemy and it'd take another cast to finish the job, or a little bit of gunfire.

So even though the Storm is throwing down a ton of damage, having a good gunfighter finishing off enemies rapidly helps clear the waves faster.

@RogerRoger
I had a lot of fun playing solo. I even got to do the stronghold solo a couple times when my allies vanished.

I'd say it's extra challenging solo, and not balanced around it for strongholds, but a ton of fun all the same.

The stronghold boss took a long time as I didn't have as many opportunities to hit his weak points, so that part wasn't a ton of fun and definitely not designed for solo, but literally every other part of the demo I felt confident to take on solo and have a blast

Only the Ranger was available in the demo right?

@AtanamiReign

You got to unlock an additional suit, and some people got to try out all 4 (myself included)

They are all very unique in terms of play style. I don't know how they'll balance out at level 30, but pretty much any game has some rock stars at different level ranges, so who's to say if Storm will be just as dominant end game with full legendaries.

Luckily it's not PvP and the Storm can shine when it's in the back supporting the other Javelins, so it's a great role on the team, and not the only role.

.. I wasn't expecting much from the demo, but I really enjoyed my time with Anthem... It gave me an overwhelming "Dark Void" vibe that I'd forgotten how much I loved at the time... I enjoyed all Javelins actually, and now I'm actually considering getting it! It wasn't on my radar at all, but flying underwater and exiting via a waterfall just made me grin every time.. I thought it ran well too... (XB1X) decisions, decisions...

@RogerRoger
Kind of a ridiculous complaint if you ask me. It can be played solo, thats what they said, so whats the problem? Of course solo puts you at a disadvantage. Thats the point, they even stated this, you have a less chance at higher gear on easier difficulty levels. There is a gear score in the game and there was in demo, did she have lower gear? Than ya, itll be harder. Most MMORPGs work this way. That mechanic was brought over to Anthem and it makes perfect sense. If it was easier solo then people could get gear easier and faster than in group play which would make 0 sense as a game mechanic. Not sure why you would want to play solo anyway since match making will toss you into a group or you can use quick play to join an already made group on everything. I did play solo as a storm on normal and it provided a decent challenge but I managed to complete it. My gear score was also decently high and set up to combo my own abilities by using primers and detonators. Which from what ive seen is something a lot of people missed.

I played all 4 and enjoyed the Storm the most but I always enjoy the mage and whatever character has a teleport more in nearly every game.

I actually enjoyed all 4 though, the Colossus I thought was hilarious as you go around shield bashing dudes someone has frozen for you. Or melting their face with the flame thrower. I was annoyed you couldnt use any attack with the shield though... To me all suits fit their roles. And if you fly though or close to water itll cooldown your suit allowing longer flights. As well as being able to use gear to increase flight time.

The ranger I played the least and wasnt a fan of the little dart ability either. But I thought the grenade was great, especially the frost variant. Interceptor was really fun dashing around and being invulnerable during a melee smash fest was awesome. The storm ice beam made me feel like ice iron man and I could take on anything with that thing, same for the lighting beam, I noticed it also knocked flying enemies out of the sky. The aoe on fire blast with 4-5 shots on the storm was also toooo funny, no group escaped the extreme death of ice beam fire bomb combo lol.

In my experience the people that died the most were interceptors, seems like I always had to revive these guys in battle, one group had 2 and ended up reviving the both of them 10 plus times on the fort mission. I rarely went down as the storm, and was often the only one left standing. I did notice a lot of other storms not using wind wall though... Of course this could all just be to skill and gear level. Since im use to playing that class and was more comfortable with it. The sample size isnt large enough to really make a claim on which suit is better overall in a demo. Well have to wait and see for the game launch.

I played all four and for me it was the storm and yes show him some love, the ranger. I wish the ranger had a better super, it kinda feels underwhelming after you have used the storms super. Interceptor was fun but not really my play style and colossus I just didn't get on with.

@darklaw really? like 99% of games nowadays are like this.

Na, I'll stick with IronMan... I mean, Ranger (+Devastator)

I like the interceptors triple jump and the jumping animations are cool, along with her sprinting, storms sprinting is pretty bad imo and his jump is trash, don't care how effective they are, interceptor is just cooler when you're actually in game, still gonna main storm tho cus from what I saw there's no way to make interceptor look male, even though I'm definitely having a male character, and my mans WILL NOT be caught cross-javelining. I'm also gonna be tallying how many collosus I see in the game, I expect maybe, MAYBE, 2, possibly just 1, most likely none, because compared to the others the thicc boi just can't compete, sorry.