'Diablo III' Designer Offers Up 'Anthem' Loot System Improvement Ideas

Though we gave BioWare's Anthem pretty high praises in our review for its incredible cinematics, gorgeous narrative, and the small details that make it keenly BioWare, there is still one aspect of the game that pretty much everyone can agree on that needs work: the Loot System. With gamers providing feedback on what they'd like to see added into the game as far as this feature goes, former Diablo III designer Travis Day is weighing in.

Day took to Reddit to mention that he's "really enjoying" himself with BioWare's new IP though like many of us, is looking at the Loot System. Instead of trashing the entire game over it, he instead offered helpful critique in the hopes that it will be improved upon - since this is a "live service" game, the changes of vast improvements are highly likely.

"By now I suspect many people have seen items roll with stats that they don't understand," he began. "TLDR Man icon means it effects everything you do, Cog icon means it only effects the item that it rolled on. Currently the game allows for items to roll inscriptions that literally can not effect the item they are on. Example, Venmous Blaze with item specific Physical damage, +% Weapon damage, or +% Cold damage.

"Having items roll affixes that are sub-optimal is standard practice for this kind of game but I think there should be a hard distinction made between "bad" and "literally doesn't work". Currently this causes a considerable amount of confusion for players learning the game as their initial assumption is to think anything an item rolled will work on the item it rolled on. Since that isn't true I assume the design intent was to create a larger spectrum of item power based on the rolls, I would argue it comes with too many drawbacks. Keeping the spectrum of item power large could easily be accomplished by simply changing the relative weighting of affixes while restricting them to things that actual work on the item. Alternatively items could have an affix range, MW could roll 2-4 or 3-4 properties on creation so that there is still the same amount of item variance but the affixes that show up continue to still "work" on whatever they rolled on."

He also weighed in on the Risk vs Reward aspect that applies, something that is very common in these types of games. He even mentioned it was something he himself has tripped on in the past. Day mentioned that BioWare should look into offering higher reward incentives, because outside of the completitionist feeling - the reward doesn't seem proportionate to the amount of work put in for events like Heart of Rage and Temple of Scar.

He also mentioned something similar for Strongholds, saying that the "reward" incentive isn't quite there but is something that could easily be added in, "Simple solve assuming dungeons are roughly equal in challenge is add a random stronghold to the available mission ques and attach some kind of luck/magic find bonus for doing it."

BioWare's Camden responded to the thread saying that he loved the unique feedback and absolutely passed it on to the rest of the team!

Anthem is now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. You can also check out our full tips and tricks guide right here! Need even more help or have a question? You can hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy - just @ me and I'll do my best to help! You can also check out my full review here.