You feel like there was more loot in Anthem before? With this feeling, you are correct, as confirmed by BioWare. A loot frenzy after the last patch was to blame.
Players are complaining about this in Anthem: Anthem received a huge update on February 23, which mainly fixed technical issues.
Since then, reports from players have been increasing that they suddenly receive much less loot than they did before the patch.
This is particularly noticeable when playing at higher difficulty levels like Grandmaster 2.
Alegost shows on Reddit the difference in his loot drops before and after the patch. It can be seen:
- that in the upper image after 30 minutes on GM 1 he received some masterwork items (orange), which are among the best loot.
- In the lower image, despite double the playtime and a higher difficulty level, he received much less loot and has even more common items, indicating a worse yield.
Which loot is obtained is determined by chance.
However, after the last patch, so many players noticed that they were getting less loot that it was already referred to as a nerf.
BioWare explains the sudden loot nerf
Lead Producer Ben Irving has now commented on the “loot nerf”. According to BioWare, there was no “loot nerf” on February 23, but the patch on February 22 had briefly led to a loot frenzy.
Actually, the big loot frenzy was probably due to a bug related to the patch on February 22.
In our changes on Friday, one of our adjustments had the side effect of increasing certain drop chances. This was not intended. When we identified the problem, we reverted it. That was about 11 hours later.
Ben Irving, Lead Producer of Anthem
BioWare needed some time to be internally sure about what the problem was. That’s why it took a while to explain the issue to the community. It was not BioWare’s intention to change anything without being transparent about it.
Players want the loot frenzy back
This is how players react: RENNYandBENNY opened a thread on Reddit stating: Bring this condition back. We never had so much fun in Anthem as during the time when loot was raining. With 1.6K upvotes, it receives a lot of support.
RENNYandBenny: “During this 11-hour window, everything felt rewarding. Strongholds were still the best for good loot, but freeplay was a lot of fun. Give the drops their buff back, add a few bosses to freeplay, take the class-specific perks off the wrong items, and let us grind for masterworks until we drop dead.”
Other users agree with this opinion. The loot system in Anthem is still not refined.
Nicarass: “It’s the same argument we had at the launch of Diablo 3, Destiny, Division, and so on. The fun is not in getting that one item once. The point of this type of grind is to receive billions of drops and crafting materials to get the rolls you want for the item. For this to happen, the game needs to shower you with loot like crazy.”
The loot problem for players is related to inscriptions (perks): In Anthem, items receive random stats via inscriptions. This means that the same item can have different effects. The inscriptions are additionally vaguely described. Many players do not understand what each inscription means.
To get items that players really want, with inscriptions of their choice, they need to collect certain drops quite often. That’s why many enjoyed the loot frenzy so much.
To get items that players really want, with inscriptions of their choice, they need to collect certain drops quite often. That’s why many enjoyed the loot frenzy so much.
