I don't think regeneration seems weird for a Tribes game more than it does for any other FPS. The only reason it wasn't T1 and T2 is because of when T1 and T2 came out.
The whole repair your teammate/bring a repair pack for yourself/kill people fast enough to be able to grab a health kit from their dead corpse dynamic completely disappears with regenerating health, and it makes hiding out the opponent's base and blowing stuff up much less of an adventure.
Exactly. Repair packs wont even be necessary in this game. Huge part of supporting taken out. Pretty shitty move.
Just jumped into a game. Graphics are a bit meh, does definitely feel like a Tribes game.
Sounds like you didn't play long.
1. How's the speed of the game?
2. Does it feel "technical?"
3. Are there plenty of deployables and base-maid support rolls?
4. Can you choose your weapons and packs or are they locked into the little loadouts?
Thanks in advance. Just dying to know some details.
Just jumped into a game. Graphics are a bit meh, does definitely feel like a Tribes game.
Sounds like you didn't play long.
1. How's the speed of the game?
2. Does it feel "technical?"
3. Are there plenty of deployables and base-maid support rolls?
4. Can you choose your weapons and packs or are they locked into the little loadouts?
Thanks in advance. Just dying to know some details.
I was in a multiplayer match for a few minutes before exiting to mess with options. I then spent about 10 minutes in an empty map to get a handle on controls and gameplay before I lost connection to servers.
1: You can get good amounts of speed by skiing (holding down spacebar). Saw people complaining in chat about being able to instantly change direction, but that didn't seem like too much of an issue to me. The two maps I looked at the enemy team's base was pretty close by, with part of each team playing defense and the rest skirmishing in middle of map. Running is painfully slow.
2 and 3: The empty map I ran around on had pre-existing base turrets which could be destroyed. There are inventory stations to buy whatever you need once you've earned enough points in round. The multiplayer round I jumped into the enemy team had flag surrounded with deployables so got owned the moment I grabbed flag. As for the "technical" end of things, gameplay is pretty easy to pick up, although the key layout may take some getting used to (or require rebinding). Plenty of room on maps to maneuver for flanking/stealth assaults.
4. Loadouts are locked except for first two. You can open the others with store bought gold and it appears you can buy the loadouts with points earned in matches. Each class can equip two perks and also has an ability tree to unlock.
Loadouts confuse me some. Here is how I imagine it working:
There are 3 classes. Light, Medium and Heavy. Each class has different armor and different skill trees.
Within each class are different loadouts. These are what they sell people in the shop. For examples:
Light with spinfusor, blaster, plasma rifle, frag grenades and shield pack. (Light Assault)
Light with Grenade launcher, chaingun, pistol, whiteout grenades and energy pack. (Light Capper)
etc. etc.
Is this correct?
From what I understand, there is no "customization" of loadouts in the game, right? You can't choose whatever pack/weapon/grenade combo you want. It's all locked into the loadouts.
Loadouts confuse me some. Here is how I imagine it working:
There are 3 classes. Light, Medium and Heavy. Each class has different armor and different skill trees.
Within each class are different loadouts. These are what they sell people in the shop. For examples:
Light with spinfusor, blaster, plasma rifle, frag grenades and shield pack. (Light Assault)
Light with Grenade launcher, chaingun, pistol, whiteout grenades and energy pack. (Light Capper)
etc. etc.
Is this correct?
From what I understand, there is no "customization" of loadouts in the game, right? You can't choose whatever pack/weapon/grenade combo you want. It's all locked into the loadouts.
Ah so each class has 4 possible loadout combinations? I guess they'll add more.
What's in current game:
4 Light
5 Medium
3 Heavy
Ranger and Soldier (both medium) unlocked at start. All the others cost 520g or 15,000 in-game points to unlock except for the Scrambler which costs 520g/18,000 points.
From the Tribes store:
Use Tribes Gold inside of Tribes: Ascend to purchase a variety of in-game items.
Ouch, so to buy all the loadouts it's $49.99. That'd be ok except they'll probably be adding more down the road.
Is there a cap to how many in-game points you can have? If I bought the whole shebang for $49.99, and just kept earning points, when the eventually release more loadouts or whatever could I have redonculous amounts of credits to buy them?
EDIT: Oh, so it appears that VIP package is actually quite a deal.
EDIT2: Damn shithell. I'm such a weak consumer whore.
Ouch, so to buy all the loadouts it's $49.99. That'd be ok except they'll probably be adding more down the road.
Is there a cap to how many in-game points you can have? If I bought the whole shebang for $49.99, and just kept earning points, when the eventually release more loadouts or whatever could I have redonculous amounts of credits to buy them?
EDIT: Oh, so it appears that VIP package is actually quite a deal.
EDIT2: Damn shithell. I'm such a weak consumer whore.
It doesn't seem like there is any cap on in-game points/tokens you earn. Not sure if there will be a daily/weekly cap either. Seems to be set up pretty much just like World of Tanks.
You've made it very tempting. Thinking I might buy that little VIP package. May wait until tomorrow to see if I get in randomly. Doesn't seem like i'd get in today.
It's a bit of TRIBES a bit of TRIBES 2, and overall seems really good. Some things need balancing, light armor should move faster than it does compared to medium, energy needs a boost across the board really, but yeah.
Graphics are good, not amazing, but I can turn it up to ultra and get perfectly smooth play.
This is gonna be good. I'm sure there's gonna be haters and people crying about this and that, that's its not this from TRIBES or that from TRIBES 2, etc, but for the 10 minutes I've played, it felt like I was home again.
My only real bitch so far is the current loadout list is pretty meh. There's no light with spinfusor/sniper which was my "thing" in TRIBES, so that's disappointing.
EDIT: My favorite thing had to be the spinfusor. They kept it pretty much identical to TRIBES as far as how fast you can shoot, the speed of the disk etc. Everything felt so natural it was like I never quit TRIBES.
Light armor needs more lift when using the jetpack. It's fine on medium/heavy, but afaik you can't get thrusters with light like you can for heavy, which would help immensely, but overall the game feels too ground-bound for light armor right now. The slopes on the supposed-broadside analogue (it's not anything like broadside) are way too shallow.
I don't know what is known about loadouts/skills/levels but here is some stuff I noticed.
Each loadout has a cap, right now anyway, of level 18. Leveling gives you access to skills, but you still need the skill points to unlock them. Which is weird. So say, level two takes 300 xp (I think that was right), well, once you hit level 2 you can access the first tier of skills, but they all cost 1000-1500 skill points. I'm not seeing where you actually gain skill points, so that is confusing. I only had 1400 points when hit 2 and couldn't unlock what I wanted.
The skills are loadout specific, things like faster energy regen, lower friction thresholds (yes please), more ammo, etc.
You can, however, add a loadouts skill points to a "general" pool to use in other classes, so that's cool. Also it seems like all your loadouts get some xp even if you don't use them. not much though.
There are perks, of which you can have two, but I didn't see how you unlocked those. It didn't say. Maybe higher levels?
Aside from unlockable skills, getting levels doesn't seem to do much of anything as far as I could tell.
Anyway, thats some stuff. the limited loadouts is starting to bug me more than I thought. It just feels like they're purposefully making loadouts at first that aren't ideal so when they release more later you will pay to unlock them. Why can't I have a light with a sniper and spinfusor? Or a spinfusor and chaingun? Pretty much every single loadout is like "ok, this makes sense...wait, what?" with one or two of the items not really fitting what would otherwise be a great loadout. Kinda frustrating to be honest. It's not making me not have fun, granted, but I can definitely see what they're doing there and meh. In the long run unlocking everything is going to cost a shitload of money unless they lower prices. Right now you can unlock everything for $50 if you buy gold (the VIP pack comes with 3k). But it's clear there's gonna be more, a lot more I'm sure. You could probably end up paying $100+ in the long run if you want to unlock everything. in-game point gain seems really slow. If something costs 15k, I'm only getting like 80ish for a win, per game. That might be some give or take, but that's still many many many games to unlock one loadout.
yeah I agree that the prices seem a bit steep right now, but I'm glad my thoughts are shared on the game, I am really digging the class specific levelling stuff, to give each loadout advantages
Right now there are only two maps and the only one of those with water doesn't allow bikes. So, no clue. I am gonna go out on a limb and probably say no, though.
The "WTF is Tribes" video sold me on the game. It's not as if I don't have enough games to play, but wow does this look a ton of fast paced fun. This'll be yet another game, including BF3 but that doesn't run at all, that may or may not run on my soon to be replaced computer. I'm really looking forward to giving it a try when the servers come back up tomorrow.
Here's a bit of me playing today, the quality is kind of shit because I was streaming it to Twitch.tv and just uploaded that to Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doQPvNM3-hM
Pulled the trigger on this last night and played some before servers went down. Liking the game alot. It really does feel a lot like Tribes. A few things though.
-I felt "heavy." Seems like thrusters need a little more oomph and i'd like for the skiing speed to be a bit faster.
-Weapons feel amazing for the most part. Most of them seem interesting and viable. Even aside from the spinfusor, I found several weapons I really enjoyed that seemed really strong. The rangers grenade tube thing, yeeesssss.
-The two maps I played were fun. People naturally went back to the old tribes roles, defending, skirmishing, capping and chasing. It was nice to see that teamwork element emerge again.
-I like how they kept the full range of voice binds and commands from Tribes 2 exactly the same. VGH VGS.
-Vehicles seem strong but difficult to use. Saw a few people using them and most didn't do well. One team in the big tank thing was totally obliterating us though. Seemed fun.
-The game has spotting, ala Battlefield games. I like spotting. Seems like it encourages teamwork.
If they add plenty of maps and don't bungle their shop, this could be a ton of fun.
Uploaded some more stuff to my Youtube from stream today - I found out that the game has Rabbit which was a nice surprise, though it kind of shows how terrible chasing is in this game.
The game is OK, I think people will play it but I doubt many people will care too much about it in the long run.
I don't think it's that surprising given its popularity particularly in TRIBES 2.
But yeah, with the current jet setup in the game, eh. They would need to level the playing field in that mode too or people at level 18 in a light loadout would have a serious advantage over those who are starting new making it way too frustrating for new players. But yeah, I could go on for ages about the exact problems currently with speed and jetpacks. I realize they want to avoid some of the shenanigans that went in in TRIBES in the end, but I think they went too far the other direction.
Aaaaanyway, I'll probably hop on some tonight. It seems like very few people are in the beta via whatever means. There is a functional buddy list so if you do get in, we need to get some games going or something.
Loadouts currently have a Skill Tree which you unlock with XP earned while playing it, first tier skill costs 1000XP second tier costs 2000xp so on. You can eventually unlock all the skills so the only difference is order you unlock them, Then each Loadout can bring two Perks into a game. Perks are shared across classes but you only start with 2, more are unlocked by getting to the end of a specific Loadouts Skill Tree. A single Loadout can usually unlock 2 more Perks.
But yeah, with the current jet setup in the game, eh. They would need to level the playing field in that mode too or people at level 18 in a light loadout would have a serious advantage over those who are starting new making it way too frustrating for new players.
Is there any matchmaking at all, or are people just thrown into a game, first come first serve?
Loadouts currently have a Skill Tree which you unlock with XP earned while playing it, first tier skill costs 1000XP second tier costs 2000xp so on. You can eventually unlock all the skills so the only difference is order you unlock them, Then each Loadout can bring two Perks into a game. Perks are shared across classes but you only start with 2, more are unlocked by getting to the end of a specific Loadouts Skill Tree. A single Loadout can usually unlock 2 more Perks.
Seems to be first come, first serve. Although, I don't think high level people won't have as big of an advantage as you think. There is built in autobalance on the servers though.
But yeah, with the current jet setup in the game, eh. They would need to level the playing field in that mode too or people at level 18 in a light loadout would have a serious advantage over those who are starting new making it way too frustrating for new players.
Is there any matchmaking at all, or are people just thrown into a game, first come first serve?
I'm not sure what the mechanics are behind where they put you, game wise. I've felt like the skill of the players I've been up against have been on par with mine, however. It could be that the current people paying, or who shelled out for VIP like me, are old school TRIBES players so there could just be a higher level based on that.
When more people join we'll see, but right now there is Matchmaking (with CTF and Rabbit) > VIP Matchmaking (With CTF and Rabbit, but isn't enabled atm) > Private Servers (disabled) > Tutorials (haven't tried them) and uh...something else, custom servers iirc.
I don't know if there's some behind the scenes "skill" deciding this. I'm not sure if we'll ever see, say a Tennessee TRIBES Server that you can always connect to, no server lists as far as I can tell (there's not really a UI for that), so meh in that regard.
Anyway, just some tips for people coming in.
Skiing has some "tricks" behind it. If you maintain your skiing you won't lose any speed over flat ground, and actually if there are any dips you can gain more speed as you go along, just remain skiing. It feels weird to just be moving along flat ground and not lose momentum, but there you go. You actually have considerable control over direction while you're skiing so you can avoid hills and look for dips to gain speed.
When you're skiing you'll see a "speedometer" pop up telling you how fast you're going. Here is one of the major problems with the game and NEEDS to change or shit is going to get messed up. There's a cap to your speed. This much seems pretty obvious and initially it makes sense. However it's pretty easy to hit that max speed, or at least the max speed you can get on any given map based on the terrain (as I've said before, they need to deepen the terrain, particularly in the broadside map) so here's what happens: Player grabbing the flag gets up to speed prior to going for the grab. They take the flag and fly away. Fine so far. This is TRIBES. However, they're already at speed. even if a defender moves immediately, and is good with skiing and can get moving as fast as they possibly can, if the carrier is going at the speed cap it is literally impossible to catch up. You can't do it. There's a cap, and it's actually really low, compared to TRIBES anyway. So you find yourself caught in a futile chase because you literally can't go faster no matter what you do. So you have to hope your opponent messes up and loses speed, misses a good speed hill, whatever, so you can catch up, or hope their flag is away so you can duel them and take it back. But simply catching a skilled player, even if you're quite skilled yourself, just isn't an option. And it's not a matter of "well, get better", there's a preset barrier you can't cross which limits the possibility of defense here.
Which is a really bad thing, and as more and more players get used to the game, it's just going to get worse.
So that has me seriously concerned. It's probably, along with the general issue of the game being too ground bound for a TRIBES game, the single biggest thing that is going to cause the game to be successful or for people to get frustrated and leave. In my estimation anyway.
But yeah, with the current jet setup in the game, eh. They would need to level the playing field in that mode too or people at level 18 in a light loadout would have a serious advantage over those who are starting new making it way too frustrating for new players.
Is there any matchmaking at all, or are people just thrown into a game, first come first serve?
When you're skiing you'll see a "speedometer" pop up telling you how fast you're going. Here is one of the major problems with the game and NEEDS to change or shit is going to get messed up. There's a cap to your speed. This much seems pretty obvious and initially it makes sense. However it's pretty easy to hit that max speed, or at least the max speed you can get on any given map based on the terrain (as I've said before, they need to deepen the terrain, particularly in the broadside map) so here's what happens: Player grabbing the flag gets up to speed prior to going for the grab. They take the flag and fly away. Fine so far. This is TRIBES. However, they're already at speed. even if a defender moves immediately, and is good with skiing and can get moving as fast as they possibly can, if the carrier is going at the speed cap it is literally impossible to catch up. You can't do it. There's a cap, and it's actually really low, compared to TRIBES anyway. So you find yourself caught in a futile chase because you literally can't go faster no matter what you do. So you have to hope your opponent messes up and loses speed, misses a good speed hill, whatever, so you can catch up, or hope their flag is away so you can duel them and take it back. But simply catching a skilled player, even if you're quite skilled yourself, just isn't an option. And it's not a matter of "well, get better", there's a preset barrier you can't cross which limits the possibility of defense here.
Which is a really bad thing, and as more and more players get used to the game, it's just going to get worse.
So that has me seriously concerned. It's probably, along with the general issue of the game being too ground bound for a TRIBES game, the single biggest thing that is going to cause the game to be successful or for people to get frustrated and leave. In my estimation anyway.
That doesn't really make sense. Without a speed cap the flag runner would only be going faster, and it would be harder to get up to his speed.
That doesn't really make sense. Without a speed cap the flag runner would only be going faster, and it would be harder to get up to his speed.
Not true.
The flag capper will be in a lane, doing their route, whatever it may be. There's always lanes, it's TRIBES. Thus due to this their speed would be naturally capped by the terrain of the lane they're in. Someone defending could start at a higher point and with skiing could easily catch up or surpass the speed of the capper, to catch up or to cut them off. But since the speed limit is so implemented so relatively low, the defender, even if they're on top of a mountain, is going to reach that cap awfully fast and then they're stuck at the max speed unable to catch up with the capper.
I get having a speed limit, I was there in the last days of TRIBES when it was idiotic. It needs to be there. But where it is at is so low that you, even on the second day of beta, are already running into situations commonly where the capper is ahead of you to the point that you can't get any real shots on them, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to catch up making it futile. The speed limit should be set by the physics of each stage. There can be a hard coded "max" cap to avoid people moving so fast even things like mines can't trigger in time before they're gone. But that is the exception to the rule. The map itself should dictate how fast you can move, and someone starting on a mountain trying to catch a capper should be able to reach a speed much higher than the capper can in a relatively shallow lane.
One thing they could do to fix this is remove the ability to maintain your speed while skiing on flat ground. It's kind of silly to begin with and it'll naturally reduce the speed of a capper making the able to be caught by defending players on the move. The capper should still be able to maintain a good speed if they know the map, but there would be room for quality defenders to make up that ground so that the capper isn't, as currently is, completely unreachable. However this would require reworking their entire jetpack system which I don't think functions correctly to begin with. At the very least, maintaining speed on level ground should drain your energy or something, some limit to being able to maintain a max speed with no fear of being slowed down.
That's assuming that the runner and the chaser are both equally skilled at gaining speed, which is not the case. Building up speed in Tribes is a skill just like predicting where your opponent will be or choosing what guns to bring or to use in a specific encounter.
I played Tribes 1 for almost 3 years ... game feels alot more like Tribes 1 than Tribes 2 IMHO. Graphics of Tribes 2 with physics closer to Tribes 1 ....
Skiing needs to be faster though ... caps are unfortunate.
Dueling is great. Feels just like Tribes. Game isn't perfect but it's close enough to what I remember. I think I'll be spending the 30 bucks.
Yeah I've had tons of fun every time I've played the last two days. I guess I might be sounding bitchy, but I'm just contemplating things that maybe could be fixed to improve the game, since it's beta.
I would go take my ideas to the hi-rez forums but uh...if you've been there you probably know why that'd be useless. I think the devs have pretty much abandoned their own forums And for good reason.
Speed Caps were a late addition to address Heavies being just as fast as Lights with way more HP, in Alpha Heavy Flag Capping was pretty much broken. It is not a Hard cap per say, you can go over but soon as you hit the ground you rapidly lose any speed over the Loadout cap. The good news is it will be changing, according to Devs they are testing another more accell based setup. The physics are a work in progress, Ascend is on like the 3rd iiteration of a Jump mechanic now.
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Exactly. Repair packs wont even be necessary in this game. Huge part of supporting taken out. Pretty shitty move.
Sounds like you didn't play long.
1. How's the speed of the game?
2. Does it feel "technical?"
3. Are there plenty of deployables and base-maid support rolls?
4. Can you choose your weapons and packs or are they locked into the little loadouts?
Thanks in advance. Just dying to know some details.
I was in a multiplayer match for a few minutes before exiting to mess with options. I then spent about 10 minutes in an empty map to get a handle on controls and gameplay before I lost connection to servers.
1: You can get good amounts of speed by skiing (holding down spacebar). Saw people complaining in chat about being able to instantly change direction, but that didn't seem like too much of an issue to me. The two maps I looked at the enemy team's base was pretty close by, with part of each team playing defense and the rest skirmishing in middle of map. Running is painfully slow.
2 and 3: The empty map I ran around on had pre-existing base turrets which could be destroyed. There are inventory stations to buy whatever you need once you've earned enough points in round. The multiplayer round I jumped into the enemy team had flag surrounded with deployables so got owned the moment I grabbed flag. As for the "technical" end of things, gameplay is pretty easy to pick up, although the key layout may take some getting used to (or require rebinding). Plenty of room on maps to maneuver for flanking/stealth assaults.
4. Loadouts are locked except for first two. You can open the others with store bought gold and it appears you can buy the loadouts with points earned in matches. Each class can equip two perks and also has an ability tree to unlock.
Loadouts confuse me some. Here is how I imagine it working:
There are 3 classes. Light, Medium and Heavy. Each class has different armor and different skill trees.
Within each class are different loadouts. These are what they sell people in the shop. For examples:
Light with spinfusor, blaster, plasma rifle, frag grenades and shield pack. (Light Assault)
Light with Grenade launcher, chaingun, pistol, whiteout grenades and energy pack. (Light Capper)
etc. etc.
Is this correct?
From what I understand, there is no "customization" of loadouts in the game, right? You can't choose whatever pack/weapon/grenade combo you want. It's all locked into the loadouts.
Can't help but wonder what my chances of getting in are.
Yeah everything is locked into loadouts:
What's in current game:
4 Light
5 Medium
3 Heavy
Ranger and Soldier (both medium) unlocked at start. All the others cost 520g or 15,000 in-game points to unlock except for the Scrambler which costs 520g/18,000 points.
From the Tribes store:
Use Tribes Gold inside of Tribes: Ascend to purchase a variety of in-game items.
Choose a package:
$9.99 - 800 Tribes Gold (700 Gold + 100 Bonus Gold)
$19.99 - 1800 Tribes Gold (1400 Gold + 400 Bonus Gold)
$29.99 - 3000 Tribes Gold (2100 Gold + 900 Bonus Gold)
$49.99 - 5500 Tribes Gold (3500 Gold + 2000 Bonus Gold)
Boosters double the base XP and Tokens you receive inside of the game as you play, allowing you to unlock classes, skills and perks at a faster rate.
Choose your package:
$7.95 - 10-Day Tribes Booster
$14.95 - 30-Day Tribes Booster
$29.95 - 90-Day Tribes Booster
Is there a cap to how many in-game points you can have? If I bought the whole shebang for $49.99, and just kept earning points, when the eventually release more loadouts or whatever could I have redonculous amounts of credits to buy them?
EDIT: Oh, so it appears that VIP package is actually quite a deal.
EDIT2: Damn shithell. I'm such a weak consumer whore.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Weak.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I won a key from PC Gamer the other day, that's how I got in. Had no idea about early access today until I saw someone mention it.
It doesn't seem like there is any cap on in-game points/tokens you earn. Not sure if there will be a daily/weekly cap either. Seems to be set up pretty much just like World of Tanks.
It's TRIBES. That is a good thing.
It's a bit of TRIBES a bit of TRIBES 2, and overall seems really good. Some things need balancing, light armor should move faster than it does compared to medium, energy needs a boost across the board really, but yeah.
Graphics are good, not amazing, but I can turn it up to ultra and get perfectly smooth play.
This is gonna be good. I'm sure there's gonna be haters and people crying about this and that, that's its not this from TRIBES or that from TRIBES 2, etc, but for the 10 minutes I've played, it felt like I was home again.
My only real bitch so far is the current loadout list is pretty meh. There's no light with spinfusor/sniper which was my "thing" in TRIBES, so that's disappointing.
EDIT: My favorite thing had to be the spinfusor. They kept it pretty much identical to TRIBES as far as how fast you can shoot, the speed of the disk etc. Everything felt so natural it was like I never quit TRIBES.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Good times. Needs more maps.
Light armor needs more lift when using the jetpack. It's fine on medium/heavy, but afaik you can't get thrusters with light like you can for heavy, which would help immensely, but overall the game feels too ground-bound for light armor right now. The slopes on the supposed-broadside analogue (it's not anything like broadside) are way too shallow.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I don't know what is known about loadouts/skills/levels but here is some stuff I noticed.
Each loadout has a cap, right now anyway, of level 18. Leveling gives you access to skills, but you still need the skill points to unlock them. Which is weird. So say, level two takes 300 xp (I think that was right), well, once you hit level 2 you can access the first tier of skills, but they all cost 1000-1500 skill points. I'm not seeing where you actually gain skill points, so that is confusing. I only had 1400 points when hit 2 and couldn't unlock what I wanted.
The skills are loadout specific, things like faster energy regen, lower friction thresholds (yes please), more ammo, etc.
You can, however, add a loadouts skill points to a "general" pool to use in other classes, so that's cool. Also it seems like all your loadouts get some xp even if you don't use them. not much though.
There are perks, of which you can have two, but I didn't see how you unlocked those. It didn't say. Maybe higher levels?
Aside from unlockable skills, getting levels doesn't seem to do much of anything as far as I could tell.
Anyway, thats some stuff. the limited loadouts is starting to bug me more than I thought. It just feels like they're purposefully making loadouts at first that aren't ideal so when they release more later you will pay to unlock them. Why can't I have a light with a sniper and spinfusor? Or a spinfusor and chaingun? Pretty much every single loadout is like "ok, this makes sense...wait, what?" with one or two of the items not really fitting what would otherwise be a great loadout. Kinda frustrating to be honest. It's not making me not have fun, granted, but I can definitely see what they're doing there and meh. In the long run unlocking everything is going to cost a shitload of money unless they lower prices. Right now you can unlock everything for $50 if you buy gold (the VIP pack comes with 3k). But it's clear there's gonna be more, a lot more I'm sure. You could probably end up paying $100+ in the long run if you want to unlock everything. in-game point gain seems really slow. If something costs 15k, I'm only getting like 80ish for a win, per game. That might be some give or take, but that's still many many many games to unlock one loadout.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
EDIT:Loadouts seem awesome, and I am glad that noobs will have their access to mortars or s-rifles restricted.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Here are some other videos that are even shittier quality - I was streaming it @ 1280x720 but my network bandwidth was shit so it couldn't really handle it:
Tribes:Ascend Closed Beta!!! - 1 / 4 - YouTube
Tribes:Ascend Closed Beta!!! - 2 / 4 - YouTube
Tribes:Ascend Closed Beta!!! - 3 / 4 - YouTube
Tribes:Ascend Closed Beta!!! - 4 / 4 - YouTube
I'll be streaming on my Twitch.tv whenever I am playing during the Closed Beta for the most part.
I won't be spamming the thread whenever I go live, but it will mostly be on Fridays and Saturdays most likely.
-I felt "heavy." Seems like thrusters need a little more oomph and i'd like for the skiing speed to be a bit faster.
-Weapons feel amazing for the most part. Most of them seem interesting and viable. Even aside from the spinfusor, I found several weapons I really enjoyed that seemed really strong. The rangers grenade tube thing, yeeesssss.
-The two maps I played were fun. People naturally went back to the old tribes roles, defending, skirmishing, capping and chasing. It was nice to see that teamwork element emerge again.
-I like how they kept the full range of voice binds and commands from Tribes 2 exactly the same. VGH VGS.
-Vehicles seem strong but difficult to use. Saw a few people using them and most didn't do well. One team in the big tank thing was totally obliterating us though. Seemed fun.
-The game has spotting, ala Battlefield games. I like spotting. Seems like it encourages teamwork.
If they add plenty of maps and don't bungle their shop, this could be a ton of fun.
I also can't wait to see one of their own maps, right now we have broadside and katabatic redone
The game is OK, I think people will play it but I doubt many people will care too much about it in the long run.
But yeah, with the current jet setup in the game, eh. They would need to level the playing field in that mode too or people at level 18 in a light loadout would have a serious advantage over those who are starting new making it way too frustrating for new players. But yeah, I could go on for ages about the exact problems currently with speed and jetpacks. I realize they want to avoid some of the shenanigans that went in in TRIBES in the end, but I think they went too far the other direction.
Aaaaanyway, I'll probably hop on some tonight. It seems like very few people are in the beta via whatever means. There is a functional buddy list so if you do get in, we need to get some games going or something.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
They really need to make a Light loadout available by default though, or make at least one a cheap token purchase.
Is there any matchmaking at all, or are people just thrown into a game, first come first serve?
Seems to be first come, first serve. Although, I don't think high level people won't have as big of an advantage as you think. There is built in autobalance on the servers though.
I'm not sure what the mechanics are behind where they put you, game wise. I've felt like the skill of the players I've been up against have been on par with mine, however. It could be that the current people paying, or who shelled out for VIP like me, are old school TRIBES players so there could just be a higher level based on that.
When more people join we'll see, but right now there is Matchmaking (with CTF and Rabbit) > VIP Matchmaking (With CTF and Rabbit, but isn't enabled atm) > Private Servers (disabled) > Tutorials (haven't tried them) and uh...something else, custom servers iirc.
I don't know if there's some behind the scenes "skill" deciding this. I'm not sure if we'll ever see, say a Tennessee TRIBES Server that you can always connect to, no server lists as far as I can tell (there's not really a UI for that), so meh in that regard.
Anyway, just some tips for people coming in.
Skiing has some "tricks" behind it. If you maintain your skiing you won't lose any speed over flat ground, and actually if there are any dips you can gain more speed as you go along, just remain skiing. It feels weird to just be moving along flat ground and not lose momentum, but there you go. You actually have considerable control over direction while you're skiing so you can avoid hills and look for dips to gain speed.
When you're skiing you'll see a "speedometer" pop up telling you how fast you're going. Here is one of the major problems with the game and NEEDS to change or shit is going to get messed up. There's a cap to your speed. This much seems pretty obvious and initially it makes sense. However it's pretty easy to hit that max speed, or at least the max speed you can get on any given map based on the terrain (as I've said before, they need to deepen the terrain, particularly in the broadside map) so here's what happens: Player grabbing the flag gets up to speed prior to going for the grab. They take the flag and fly away. Fine so far. This is TRIBES. However, they're already at speed. even if a defender moves immediately, and is good with skiing and can get moving as fast as they possibly can, if the carrier is going at the speed cap it is literally impossible to catch up. You can't do it. There's a cap, and it's actually really low, compared to TRIBES anyway. So you find yourself caught in a futile chase because you literally can't go faster no matter what you do. So you have to hope your opponent messes up and loses speed, misses a good speed hill, whatever, so you can catch up, or hope their flag is away so you can duel them and take it back. But simply catching a skilled player, even if you're quite skilled yourself, just isn't an option. And it's not a matter of "well, get better", there's a preset barrier you can't cross which limits the possibility of defense here.
Which is a really bad thing, and as more and more players get used to the game, it's just going to get worse.
So that has me seriously concerned. It's probably, along with the general issue of the game being too ground bound for a TRIBES game, the single biggest thing that is going to cause the game to be successful or for people to get frustrated and leave. In my estimation anyway.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
There is a Ranked PvP option, but it's disabled.
That doesn't really make sense. Without a speed cap the flag runner would only be going faster, and it would be harder to get up to his speed.
Not true.
The flag capper will be in a lane, doing their route, whatever it may be. There's always lanes, it's TRIBES. Thus due to this their speed would be naturally capped by the terrain of the lane they're in. Someone defending could start at a higher point and with skiing could easily catch up or surpass the speed of the capper, to catch up or to cut them off. But since the speed limit is so implemented so relatively low, the defender, even if they're on top of a mountain, is going to reach that cap awfully fast and then they're stuck at the max speed unable to catch up with the capper.
I get having a speed limit, I was there in the last days of TRIBES when it was idiotic. It needs to be there. But where it is at is so low that you, even on the second day of beta, are already running into situations commonly where the capper is ahead of you to the point that you can't get any real shots on them, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to catch up making it futile. The speed limit should be set by the physics of each stage. There can be a hard coded "max" cap to avoid people moving so fast even things like mines can't trigger in time before they're gone. But that is the exception to the rule. The map itself should dictate how fast you can move, and someone starting on a mountain trying to catch a capper should be able to reach a speed much higher than the capper can in a relatively shallow lane.
One thing they could do to fix this is remove the ability to maintain your speed while skiing on flat ground. It's kind of silly to begin with and it'll naturally reduce the speed of a capper making the able to be caught by defending players on the move. The capper should still be able to maintain a good speed if they know the map, but there would be room for quality defenders to make up that ground so that the capper isn't, as currently is, completely unreachable. However this would require reworking their entire jetpack system which I don't think functions correctly to begin with. At the very least, maintaining speed on level ground should drain your energy or something, some limit to being able to maintain a max speed with no fear of being slowed down.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
edit: I HAVE BEEN BEATEN
Skiing needs to be faster though ... caps are unfortunate.
Dueling is great. Feels just like Tribes. Game isn't perfect but it's close enough to what I remember. I think I'll be spending the 30 bucks.
I would go take my ideas to the hi-rez forums but uh...if you've been there you probably know why that'd be useless. I think the devs have pretty much abandoned their own forums
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Unlimited speed was amazing. Granted, it made the game more offense based, but that's why you had to learn to airdisc.