Anthem's community manager has posted a heartfelt letter in response to a fan letter that has gained a lot of traction on the game's subreddit. Darokaz, the community manager, took the time to address each point that was made in an effort to clarify BioWare's stance on Anthem moving forward, and the response has been largely positive.
Anthem has had an extremely rough go as of late, with several planned updates doing more harm than good. Update 1.0.3 notoriously broke more parts of the game than it seemed to fix, addressing the PS4 console crashing issue that had been a menace after launch but accidentally causing a gear calculation bug. This was directly after a different weapon damage bug that briefly made a level 1 rifle the best weapon in the game. Naturally, the community has felt as though the developer has yet to learn from the issues that have plagued the game since launch, and the open letter posted to the Anthem subreddit is a result of that sentiment.
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To their credit, Darokaz handled the community letter, which aggressively picked apart Anthem's current state, with the kind of deftness and kindness that can help defuse ugly situations like the one brewing in the game's playerbase. Darokaz first thanked the user for writing the letter in the first place, and acknowledged that the honesty in the Anthem community was something they respected. Darokaz then went on to address nearly every point in the fan letter, taking the time to break down their perspective on the situation whenever possible. Here's a sample, and if you're interested in the full letter, we've included it in its entirety on page 2 of this article:
"I want to thank this community for everything. The team is listening to all of your feedback for Anthem on how you’d like to see the game improve, or how you’d like to see us engage with the community differently. I know that players want to see updates faster, but these things can take time to make sure they are done right. We’re very appreciative of this community and look forward to the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Strong Alone, Stronger Together."
Darokaz closed the letter by thanking the community, too, avoiding any negative connotations or assertions about how the Anthem fanbase has behaved over the past month. For as many issues as BioWare has had with the game itself, the developer has remained refreshingly transparent and honest about how it is moving forward with Anthem, and that includes responses like Darokaz's.
Unfortunately, though, however well Darokaz and the rest of BioWare's staff are navigating current fan ire, the issue is really with why that resentment exists in the first place. Anthem has been glitchy and incomplete for far too long post-launch than is reasonable, and despite clearly having a great team of people behind it, at some point the game needs to deliver the results fans are expecting. That window of time, if the original fan letter is any indication, appears to be closing quickly for EA and BioWare.
"First, I want to thank you for writing this up. I appreciate the honesty of how you (and others) feel about the current state of things. I also want to say that I can’t talk about everything, simply because it is not my area of expertise, or because I don’t have the information you’re looking for. I stand by our statement of being transparent though and will continue to do so here and on other channels.
Now, I want to address some of your points that I can:
Communication -
Pre-game release vs Post game release –
To start, things used to be a lot friendlier here for dev team members who normally don’t talk on social channels or forums. They could answer questions, give information and know that they aren’t going to have people getting upset at them. Why would a dev team member take time away from working on the next update to post when they know it’s likely to be met with hostile replies, or they get flamed because can’t answer other questions that players are asking? I don’t mind posting here when things aren’t so nice, but that’s because it’s my job. For the devs it isn’t their job, and I’d like to ask that people remember that when replying to them. When some people say “be nice or the devs will stop posting” it’s 100% true. Be respectful and constructive with your feedback and more team members will likely reply.
Aggravating the community by acknowledging trivial things over major issues –
I have been acknowledging issues that aren’t the major ones you mentioned, but that’s because I can quickly check in on those and work with the team to see how fast we can get them fixed. I also report major issues, but until I get word back on them there is nothing else I can say. Issues like the Masterwork Embers not dropping I can quickly bring to the attention of the team and we can get fixed. I think it’s better that I address the things I can as quickly as I can instead of nothing at all. Also, I try to avoid saying “thanks for the feedback, I’ll share with the team” too many times in reply to posts 😊
Loot though? All I can do is point out what studio leadership shares on channels. They are very aware of all the conversation going on around loot and when they have more details to share, they will.
Now for the EA Help Tweet about Quickplay. The reason we asked for this information is to help us track down the remaining issues players are experiencing in Quickplay in one location, and to get more specifics on what they were doing when they encountered the issue. Having all of that information helps the team track down the bugs faster, which means they’re more likely to be fixed in the next update, which means they can move on to other parts of the patch sooner (other bugs, content, etc.).
Being confidential about the patch notes –
I said this before, but nothing was hidden on purpose in the patch notes. The truth is patch notes come together late in the update process and I do everything I can to ensure they are accurate, but sometimes things slip by with all the moving pieces. I’d much rather put together patch notes even if they are missing a few things instead of doing generic ones that just say “various bug fixes and improvements”. I’ll work with the team to get this process better, but we still may miss something from time to time, especially if it is something that gets added to an update late in the process. We will never hide a nerf or change in the patch notes on purpose, even if it’s something we know the community won’t like. And if we do put in something that the community doesn’t like we’ll do our best to explain why that particular change was made.
Not Learning from previous mistakes –
I’m not going to comment on the first two points because I didn’t work on Andromeda and I know how some players feel about EA, but I do want to talk about you addressing how we’re handling feedback.
For feedback, we’ve made a large number of changes based on what players have told us. Not wanting to run to the Forge every time to launch an expedition? We added the ability to launch anywhere in Fort Tarsis, that was because of player feedback. Wanted to visually see loot drop from bosses in Strongholds? Added because of player feedback. If you are talking about feedback on loot in general (and I’m pretty sure you are) I’ve already said that the team is discussing and that more will be likely be shared in the coming days. I know everyone wants to know when, but I don’t have that answer. We do not ignore any feedback from players, sometimes it just takes a bit longer as things need to be discussed for a longer time. We don’t want to say something we can’t do or give incorrect information. Like Chad Robertson said in a Tweet, we aren’t happy with where loot is either, so know that it’s high on our priority list.
Discarding Feedback –
Honestly, reading this stings a bit because I never discard feedback. I love this community and am very thankful for everything that has been brought up such as feedback, bug reports, funny posts (༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ Summon the loot update ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ) and everything in between. I’m open to feedback on what you’d like to see the community team do to make you feel welcomed and appreciated. We do our livestreams, blog posts (like the inscriptions write up), patch notes, helping out with issues when we have the info and more. I am always listening and willing to make changes so please, let us know.
Lack of Content –
I’m not going to go into this too much as it’s areas that I don’t have control over, or I don’t have the exact info on how the team is addressing. Know that I relay the feedback from the community to the team on ALL of these issues. The team is aware, and they are doing a lot of work to address these concerns.
Turning a good game bad –
All I’ll say on this is that Anthem is here to stay. Do we have a lot of work to do to fix parts of the game? Yes, and the team is committed to making improvements and releasing new content.
Conclusion –
Again, I want to thank this community for everything. The team is listening to all of your feedback for Anthem on how you’d like to see the game improve, or how you’d like to see us engage with the community differently. I know that players want to see updates faster, but these things can take time to make sure they are done right. We’re very appreciative of this community and look forward to the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Strong Alone, Stronger Together."