Problems that Keep Anthem from Being Great
Mission Padding With Grinding
Mission padding is an easy thing to spot, especially when it’s done poorly. Anthem doesn’t even try to keep the padding out of its main storyline, and it shows.
Most missions consist of fly to a point, kill enemies, fly to a new location, rinse and repeat. The flight between points is fun but offers nothing of value to the experience outside of extended each missions length by a few minutes. This stretches out already uninspired mission design and becomes exhausting towards the end.
In particular, the Tombs Trial missions are some of the worst padding we’ve seen in a while. Forcing players to go out and engage with parts of the game like Freeplay and side quests can be done in a more nuanced way that doesn’t involve stopping the flow they were getting into. It artificially lengthens the experience and only frustrates players.
The most efficient way to currently obtain end game gear is by farming chests since missions and Strongholds take too long and offer too few rewards. So even the grinding is rough for players.
Recently, BioWare patched out some of the chest farming runs players had discovered, furthering the divide between players and acquiring their endgame gear.
