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Bioware comments on the PC version of Anthem; mouse acceleration, performance, FOV slider and more

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The PC demo of Anthem let down a significant amount of gamers as it has some ridiculous mouse acceleration issues, has mediocre performance on high-end machines, and lacks some PC-specific features like a FOV slider. Thankfully, BioWare has shed some light on the final PC version of the game, revealing the improvements that will be coming to it.

First and foremost, in the final build mouse acceleration should be off for aiming and players will enjoy proper 1:1 mouse input. The team has also fixed an input lag issue that was often described as aiming being “floaty” and made some adjustments to flight so its easier to control. On the other hand, swimming will need more work (despite some improvements that have been made in the game’s latest build).

Regarding a FOV slider, BioWare’s Ben claimed that he cant recall why this isnt an option in the demo. Ben did not confirm whether the final version will feature a FOV slider but chances are that there will be one (or may be added via a post-launch update).

As for performance, Ben stated that BioWare has done performance improvements since the demo, although he could not give a percentage of the performance boost that PC gamers could expect. Still, he claimed that the game’s performance is something BioWare will continue to work on improving.

Below you can find the full list of changes/improvements/tweaks that will be coming in the final PC version of Anthem.

Keyboard and Mouse

The build is a little old now and unfortunately some changes were made that arent available in the Demo

  • Mouse acceleration should be off for aiming – we can double check this is true in the latest build
    • You should have your 1:1 mouse input
  • Input lag – we fixed an input lag issue that was often described as aiming being “floaty”
  • Flight – We made some adjustments to flight so its easier to control
    • Part of flight with a mouse will be the fixes we made
    • Part of it will be getting the right sensitivity for you
    • Part of it will be practice – It takes a little more time to get used to than the other parts of the game, mostpeople get used to it after a couple of hours once they have all the items above. There are also tricks to it like being much smoother in your actions than when aiming (ie smooth vs snap aim) as well as learning to enter hover to recenter yourself
  • Swimming
    • Agree that swimming needs work still. We have some improvements in the latest build but we will need to put some more time into this
    • One tip is to use the arrow keys if you get yourself stuck, this is not a “real” solution but it has helped some people who have a tough time with it. Being very smooth with your mouse movements helps a lot here?

Menu / UI

There is room for improvement here

  • Clicking directly onto items instead of needing to focus the list first — ” should just be able to click into the options once they are highlighted. ”
    • This is good feedback and we will look into it
  • Menu keybindings for changing tabs – Although i agree, given you can just click with the mouse I think this is a lower priority than other improvements we could make so probably isn’t something we would prioritize in the short term
  • Hold to activate – I understand your perspective here but is holding it really very different than clicking it and being asked to confirm via a prompt? Will likely see if this is a problem in launch

Forge

  • Will investigate rotate speed with mouse
  • Scroll wheel – I would suggest clicking but agree this is a little confusing, will look into it

Everything Else

  • FOV Slider – To be honest i cant recall why this isnt an option we have so i will find out
  • Motion Blur – If you turn the setting off and post processing off then im told its turned off, we can look into this a bit more
  • UI suggesting DPAD buttons – this is a bug, it should show you whatever your equivalent key bindings are (e.g. to drop a relic, push “.”)
  • Sounds clipping each other – this isnt a PC specific problem?
  • Percentages for settings – agree but you set them once and probably never go there again so its likely not going to be at the top of the priority list
  • Text chat is something we will continue to monitor – there is VOIP to help explain things to team mates and we have some other ideas to help with this post launch (“Follow Me”, “Group Up”, etc)
  • Keybinding issues
  • Performance
    • We have done performance improvements since the Demo but i dont have a good way to quantify that for you… its something we will continue to work on improving