Anthem Getting Loot System Improvements to Deliver Appropriate Inscription Stats on Items

After the release of Anthem, the game’s community quickly noticed that there was something wrong with the loot system. Not only was there an abundance of low-quality item drops, but some inscriptions also applied useless stats to a given item (for example, providing a bonus to Assault Rifle damage when the item itself is a Sniper Rifle).

BioWare’s Ben Irving, Lead Producer on Anthem, shared an update earlier today on Reddit about the improvements planned by the developer to address those specific issues. The changes are expected to go live by tomorrow, March 1st, with the goal to make the so-called ‘loot chase’ much more rewarding for players.

Related Dev: We Aren’t Lazy, It’s Just Impossible to Plan for Live; Luckier Launches Have no Crippling Bugs

  • Inscriptions are now better for the items they are on

    • This applies to new items earned in Anthem (not existing ones in your Vault)

    • If an inscription applies only to the item it is on (gear icon), it will be useful to that item. Otherwise the inscription will provide a Javelin wide benefit

    • For example, an Assault Rifle will not have an item specific +pistol damage inscription. It may have a +electric damage suit wide inscription (cool for a lightning build)

    • Some more information below

  • Removed uncommon (white) and common (green) items from level 30 drop tables

    • This was a highly requested change and we agree, so that’s that.

  • We have reduced the crafting materials needed to craft a masterwork from 25 masterwork embers to 15 masterwork embers

    • As you salvage or harvest, you should be able to craft more masterwork items to get the inscriptions you are looking for

    • Now that inscriptions are more relevant to their item, this should yield better results for players

Additional inscription change details

  • Current: There are a large pool of inscription options available to roll on items, the inscription pools are generic (e.g. Weapons)

    • Every masterwork item has 4 inscriptions – Major Primary, Minor Primary, Major Secondary, Minor Secondary

  • Change: Each item type now has a specific set of inscription options for each of their inscription pools. The pools are smaller and are targeted to the specific item type

    • E.g. there used to be a Weapon pool, now there is an Assault Rifle pool and the assault rifle pool has 4 pools for each of the inscription types listed above

    • Primary inscriptions are focused on damage or survivability

      • Any item specific inscriptions (gear icon) will always benefit the item they are on

      • Javelin wide inscriptions (suit icon) will benefit damage or survivability across the whole Javelin

    • Secondary inscriptions focus on utility and can be targeted to the item (gear icon) or the entire javelin (suit icon)