Anthem Loot Changes Revealed – Inscription Fixes, Masterwork Crafting Changes, and More

BioWare promised that it would roll out some changes for Anthem’s loot drops, which currently range from confusing due to the inscriptions on some, to useless depending on your set-up. The changes are set to go live either today, or on March 1st, Central US Time. Lead producer Ben Irving started a recent update by outlining feedback that the development team had heard from fans. This included the following:

• Many inscriptions are not useful to the item they are attached to
• Due to this, players need to get many masterworks of the same item to find a “good one”
• Players want the frequency of masterwork drops to increase to help with the above OR…
• They want us to change how masterwork inscriptions work so that they are more “useful”

Some of the changes coming include Inscriptions being better on their corresponding items, though you’ll need new items for these. They won’t currently work on current pieces of loot. How it works is that the Inscription will either carry something relevant to the loot itself or offer a buff for the Javelin. “For example, an Assault Rifle will not have an item specific +pistol damage inscription,” Irving explains. “It may have a +electric damage suit wide inscription (cool for a lightning build).”

Perhaps one of the best changes – and one that oddly made it into the final release – is the removal of Uncommon and Common items from drop tables at level 30. “This was a highly requested change and we agree, so that’s that,” Irving wrote. The amount of Masterwork Embers needed to craft Masterwork items has also been reduced from 25 to 15. “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.”

Other changes coming to Inscriptions can be seen in the full post. Overall, this is a pretty good first step by BioWare to fix Anthem’s loot system. While there have been complaints about the lacklustre end-game and numerous design flaws, some have found enjoyment with the inherent gameplay loop. These changes should hopefully strengthen that even more.