Anthem drop rates caused confusion over the weekend. After the game’s day one patch, players began speculating as to whether loot drop rates had been nerfed. BioWare has now confirmed that a nerf did occur in a change made on the game’s launch day on Friday. However, the nerf only occurred after Anthem’s day one patch had accidentally buffed loot drop rates.
The confusion emerged when BioWare released a couple of updates ahead of Anthem’s launch. Two of the updates had the same patch notes despite being released on separate days. Speculation about the reason for the second update occurred in a Reddit thread titled “New patch stealth nerfed drop rates.” It was in this thread where Ben Irving, BioWare lead producer, clarified the Anthem drop rates situation. “In our Friday changes, one of the edits we made had the side effect of increasing certain drop chances, was not intended. Once we identified the problem we changed it back to how it was before. That was about 11 hours later. Took a little time for that message to make it around internally and to make sure we understood what happened and how to avoid it going forward. It’s never our intent to make changes without being transparent, so we wanted to come in here to respond and clarify.”
While Irving explanation provides clarity about the changes that were made, some players who responded still aren’t happy. One Reddit user complained that in situations where enemies had been dropping the game’s high-quality Masterwork items, there was now lower quality blue items in their place. The sentiment that the accidental buff had improved the game is echoed in several more replies, with several users stating it was the most fun they had in Anthem.
Anthem’s patches have continued over the weekend. You can find out more about the third patch, update 1.03, here. The update does not feature any further changes to Anthem drop rates, instead focusing on fixing the “Return to the Heart of Rage” stronghold, console HDR, and crashing issues. If you are still getting to grips with BioWare’s new shooter, we have a guide on how to equip consumables in Anthem.
[via Game Informer]
