Well I tried Raindance, on a naked spawn server. Of which there were...two. And the match started with about 6 people in it. Went up to about 15 total by the end of the match.
The problem with naked spawn in ascend seems to be that the pathfinder loadout it gives you is still pretty decent, so people were just capping flags with that. Still an improvement over the default but again...two servers. Our team won pretty handily, I got the first flag cap and then went defensive. Tried to put a forcefield up in front of the flag...but the deploy area was blocked? So I had to put it catty cornered, which didn't look like it was very effective. Especially since it just got shelled into oblivion by long range spinfusors. The map does feel pretty similar to the old Tribes map but it just isn't capturing that magic it used to have. Our generator went down a few times and I honestly didn't notice. If I spawned naked I went for the flag cap and did serious damage with the fusor, and if not I tried doombringer which seemed pretty ineffectual with the chaingun outside, though I'm always partial to the spinfusor anyway.
The Raindance map definitely feels like an improvement, just because the flag is harder to get to, but it's still really hard to defend the poor thing since the deployment options are incredibly weak. I'll check back later to see if there are more customs servers up.
The best thing they could do that'd make me give them tons of money would be to add mod support. But alas.
I was curious to see what happens if you try to redeem the code if you already have the soldiers spinfusor, apparently it redeems but you get nothing (I was kinda hoping I'd get the exp or gold that a spinfusor costs to unlock).
In other news: Maaan, I remember when I actually got to run the flag. I don't get it. There's always like 3 or 4 yahoo pathfinders on my team that seem perfectly content to just suicide into three heavies on the flag over and over again, and since I actually you know, care about objectives in the game, I always end up having to switch off to go play raider or jug and keep the stand clear.
Where is my raider to keep the stand clear for me? Hm? *sobs*
So I have a strange issue thats making the game rather hard to enjoy. No matter what keyboard I use, my character autostrafes right all the time. I tried resetting my keybindings and it didnt help. Anyone have any ideas?
Edit. It also does it without my keyboard even plugged in =(
Do you have a gamepad/joystick plugged in and/or are running some sort of key mapping software?
In the olden days having a joystick plugged in would cause hilarious headaches in System Shock.
So I have a strange issue thats making the game rather hard to enjoy. No matter what keyboard I use, my character autostrafes right all the time. I tried resetting my keybindings and it didnt help. Anyone have any ideas?
Edit. It also does it without my keyboard even plugged in =(
Do you have a gamepad plugged in? Sometimes my Xbox controller flips on its face and one of the thumbsticks is pressed to a side.
Takes me forever to realize what the hell is going on
I seem to get killed by suicides a lot when I don't think I actually suicided.
Edit: I do actually suicide a lot legitimately (my raider can throw those EMP grenades a whole 2 feet). I almost wonder whether enemy explosives are setting of my explosives as I'm launching them or something.
drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
So I hopped into a CTF map for the first time since they released the Ruins or whatever. Join the losing team with 0-3 on flags. I figure I might as well help out with capping them by going pathfinder, instead of being a selfish solly that just wants to play with his new gun. End the game with my filthy sand raker brothers 5-3. Feels good man.
I wish a few more people would play chase. If I don't, it seems nobody else will.
Fortunately I like playing LD/chase, but it would be nice if I didn't feel punished for playing other things for variety.
Yeah, it's frustrating when it feels like half of your team are doing nothing. I'm down in the gen room, solo defending it like a pro from waves of Infs and the occasional heavy. I pop out to repair and upgrade some resources and there's a single poor Heavy trying to defend the flag while the rest of the team is out in the field, doing fuck knows what. Sure as hell isn't flag capping. I figure taking up 1/16th of the team doing repair and gen defense would be an acceptable sacrifice for what you get for it, but apparently not.
Game needs a pre-match lobby where people can grab roles so I can go a different class if it turns out mine's useless. There's 16 of us, how the hell am I supposed to tell at a glance what class is needed when I'm stuck under the base?
I wish a few more people would play chase. If I don't, it seems nobody else will.
Fortunately I like playing LD/chase, but it would be nice if I didn't feel punished for playing other things for variety.
Yeah, it's frustrating when it feels like half of your team are doing nothing. I'm down in the gen room, solo defending it like a pro from waves of Infs and the occasional heavy. I pop out to repair and upgrade some resources and there's a single poor Heavy trying to defend the flag while the rest of the team is out in the field, doing fuck knows what. Sure as hell isn't flag capping. I figure taking up 1/16th of the team doing repair and gen defense would be an acceptable sacrifice for what you get for it, but apparently not.
Game needs a pre-match lobby where people can grab roles so I can go a different class if it turns out mine's useless. There's 16 of us, how the hell am I supposed to tell at a glance what class is needed when I'm stuck under the base?
If you press the "I" key, it brings up a quick-class change menu and it shows your team's class breakdown. It's not exactly roles, but it can tell you a bit more about what's happening.
Y'know, sometimes I feel like I've been pigeonholed into certain roles. . . as much as I'd like to play classes like Pathfinder and Raider a lot, most of the time those roles have already been filled by teammates by the time I join a game, or (more often than not) there's a distinct lack of defense or base maintenance, which means I spend most of my time with either Doombringer, Tech, or (if I'm lucky) Soldier for intercepting enemies and providing midfield coverage. I haven't even bothered to open up Infiltrator or Brute yet, mostly because they don't really fit my playstyles but partly because I'll probably never get to use them with regularity.
As much as I like the Soldier's Spinfusor for heavy damage purposes I still feel like I'm better off with the Assault Rifle most of the time simply because it's a lot more reliable in a firefight. Also because of the crazy inheritance properties causing my spinner shots to veer way off target while I'm on the move even if I'm trying to compensate. I'll never get rid of my Eagle Pistol, though. Great for quick instant damage provided I can actually keep my target lined up - it could use a slightly larger hit radius.
So I logged in for the first time in forever and I have enough XP to buy any class, which is the best defender?
There isn't really a best. Several classes can fill defensive roles:
Doombringer for flag-stand defense, Pathfinder (w/ thrust pack) for flag-stand defense and chasing, Raider (w/jammer pack) for interior defense/anti-Infiltrator, Sentinel for exterior defense/anti-Infiltrator, and Soldier/Technician for general defense.
So I logged in for the first time in forever and I have enough XP to buy any class, which is the best defender?
Well just to get right to the point, Technician is a great defender for obvious reasons. Great base maid and the turrets can help a lot.
Doombringer is also the other iconic defender class. Can widdle down cappers as they're coming in or escaping with his chaingun. Can. also toss up force fields in the face of incoming cappers. He's also good for body blocking because he's so wide.
Lastly, Pathfinders are great for chasing down cappers with their thrust pack and soldiers are good for fighting off attackers and potential base rape hookers.
I liked them too. Even being a looong time Tribes player, I enjoyed watching the little overviews.
The doombringer one is pretty old at this point but still has some useful bits.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
Oh my God. Just had an amazing game on Raindance. I don't know if I'm getting better or Raindance is just nice for skiing but I was going faaaaast. I mostly stayed around the base on defense, just skiing around, but I did make my first flag capture at speed and then zipped outta there. Skied around our base while waiting for our flag to come back and nobody could catch me.
My heart was friggin' pounding whenever my speed got high. Felt amazing. I wish I could figure out how to take a screenshot.
tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
I need to work on proper thrust pack usage. I've been chasing and capping with the e-pack, which works okay, but I figure it's better to use the thrust pack.
At which point I promptly realized that I don't use it very well (yet).
I need to work on proper thrust pack usage. I've been chasing and capping with the e-pack, which works okay, but I figure it's better to use the thrust pack.
At which point I promptly realized that I don't use it very well (yet).
I have the same problem. Always seem to wind up with no energy not going much faster than I was before.
Pretty much just use the thrustpack to get started, once you are moving at speed the amount of extra speed you get isn't worth the energy. If you are chasing you can offset the energy cost with rage or potential energy. If you are flag running just plan your route so the initial energy investment isn't a big deal.
Inquisitor on
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tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
Yes, my understanding of it (which is probably causing the issue) is that the thrust pack only gets you going to a certain speed. If you're already skiing at a decent clip, it adds nothing to your velocity.
Pretty much just use the thrustpack to get started, once you are moving at speed the amount of extra speed you get isn't worth the energy. If you are chasing you can offset the energy cost with rage or potential energy. If you are flag running just plan your route so the initial energy investment isn't a big deal.
This. You use it to hit your first hill immediately after spawning (instead of jetpacking up, falling, then skiing down the hill). Your won't be going any faster on the route, but you will shave off some overall time because you started that much faster.
You also use the jump pack to return/grab a flag that has been dropped, boost to dodge in a duel, and in emergencies stop and boost to change directions quickly.
Yes, my understanding of it (which is probably causing the issue) is that the thrust pack only gets you going to a certain speed. If you're already skiing at a decent clip, it adds nothing to your velocity.
Nah, it always gives you speed, but it's just not enough to be worth the energy. Using a little trick in practice mode where you keep changing your loadout to get all your energy back you can go incredibly fast.
I've pretty much mainly played medium and heavy since the T1 days. I'm pretty expert on taking light classes to the cleaners but still working on my GOTTA GO FAST abilities.
Do not use unless you have more than 50% energy or you get a weak thrust that wastes your energy.
It should get you to around 120-150 KPH. This is also the speed range where it becomes useless.
Best to have a downward slope or flat space ahead of you so that you at least have time to nitron before you lose the speed.
Sometimes it is worth doing a short jump before punching the thrust.
You can look upward/downward to adjust the direction of thrust somewhat. This can help with efficiency.
Apart from getting you going quickly (e.g. to start a chase, or do a llama grab), it can also be used to quickly change direction, but you must more or less come to a stop first. This can be useful in duels or to intercept people/flags.
Went with the Doombringer in the end. Having fun and doing pretty well but it's been so long since I played Tribes seriously it feels like I have zero idea what the fuck is going on.
Also the sound in this game is super unhelpful in terms of direction.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
The haters can go home. I love Raindance. The hill configuration is perfect for my skiing. Finally got to level 8 so I can try capture and hold! I wish I had played more and gotten the veteran beta badge
I think most of the battles that takes place on Raindance occurs on 20% of the map.
If they want to go ahead and make truly large maps we need more objectives. Raindance works effectively in C&H because it uses the whole map for gameplay.
What I really miss from T2 is the small bases you could acquire (fully stocked with gens and everything) among the map. Although Raindance is bigger, it still feels extremely small when playing. I agree, it fun to ski, but if thats all I'm doing in most of the map than I don't find its done its job facilitating gameplay.
The haters can go home. I love Raindance. The hill configuration is perfect for my skiing. Finally got to level 8 so I can try capture and hold! I wish I had played more and gotten the veteran beta badge
The hills in raindance are great. The bases (especially the gen room) blow. Hopefully they will go through with the idea of adding another entrance to the gen room soon.
Posts
The problem with naked spawn in ascend seems to be that the pathfinder loadout it gives you is still pretty decent, so people were just capping flags with that. Still an improvement over the default but again...two servers. Our team won pretty handily, I got the first flag cap and then went defensive. Tried to put a forcefield up in front of the flag...but the deploy area was blocked? So I had to put it catty cornered, which didn't look like it was very effective. Especially since it just got shelled into oblivion by long range spinfusors. The map does feel pretty similar to the old Tribes map but it just isn't capturing that magic it used to have. Our generator went down a few times and I honestly didn't notice. If I spawned naked I went for the flag cap and did serious damage with the fusor, and if not I tried doombringer which seemed pretty ineffectual with the chaingun outside, though I'm always partial to the spinfusor anyway.
The Raindance map definitely feels like an improvement, just because the flag is harder to get to, but it's still really hard to defend the poor thing since the deployment options are incredibly weak. I'll check back later to see if there are more customs servers up.
The best thing they could do that'd make me give them tons of money would be to add mod support. But alas.
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
Get on that.
Edit: Heh, apparently you can't paste into the code field in the game...
In other news: Maaan, I remember when I actually got to run the flag. I don't get it. There's always like 3 or 4 yahoo pathfinders on my team that seem perfectly content to just suicide into three heavies on the flag over and over again, and since I actually you know, care about objectives in the game, I always end up having to switch off to go play raider or jug and keep the stand clear.
Where is my raider to keep the stand clear for me? Hm? *sobs*
Probably only halfway to the enemy's flag stand because you pathfinders are going too fast. :P
Something tells me I'm not playing these classes right ...
Edit. It also does it without my keyboard even plugged in =(
In the olden days having a joystick plugged in would cause hilarious headaches in System Shock.
Do you have a gamepad plugged in? Sometimes my Xbox controller flips on its face and one of the thumbsticks is pressed to a side.
Takes me forever to realize what the hell is going on
Edit: I do actually suicide a lot legitimately (my raider can throw those EMP grenades a whole 2 feet). I almost wonder whether enemy explosives are setting of my explosives as I'm launching them or something.
Fortunately I like playing LD/chase, but it would be nice if I didn't feel punished for playing other things for variety.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
I should do it more, but typically the flag runners are way faster than I am.
I do have a lot of fun hitting enemy flag carriers with missiles when they fly way up in the air though.
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
Game needs a pre-match lobby where people can grab roles so I can go a different class if it turns out mine's useless. There's 16 of us, how the hell am I supposed to tell at a glance what class is needed when I'm stuck under the base?
It feels like coming home.
If you press the "I" key, it brings up a quick-class change menu and it shows your team's class breakdown. It's not exactly roles, but it can tell you a bit more about what's happening.
As much as I like the Soldier's Spinfusor for heavy damage purposes I still feel like I'm better off with the Assault Rifle most of the time simply because it's a lot more reliable in a firefight. Also because of the crazy inheritance properties causing my spinner shots to veer way off target while I'm on the move even if I'm trying to compensate. I'll never get rid of my Eagle Pistol, though. Great for quick instant damage provided I can actually keep my target lined up - it could use a slightly larger hit radius.
There isn't really a best. Several classes can fill defensive roles:
Doombringer for flag-stand defense, Pathfinder (w/ thrust pack) for flag-stand defense and chasing, Raider (w/jammer pack) for interior defense/anti-Infiltrator, Sentinel for exterior defense/anti-Infiltrator, and Soldier/Technician for general defense.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Well just to get right to the point, Technician is a great defender for obvious reasons. Great base maid and the turrets can help a lot.
Doombringer is also the other iconic defender class. Can widdle down cappers as they're coming in or escaping with his chaingun. Can. also toss up force fields in the face of incoming cappers. He's also good for body blocking because he's so wide.
Lastly, Pathfinders are great for chasing down cappers with their thrust pack and soldiers are good for fighting off attackers and potential base rape hookers.
Hope this was helpful.
Helpful class video links:
Soldier
Pathfinder
Doombringer
I liked them too. Even being a looong time Tribes player, I enjoyed watching the little overviews.
The doombringer one is pretty old at this point but still has some useful bits.
My heart was friggin' pounding whenever my speed got high. Felt amazing. I wish I could figure out how to take a screenshot.
I can play pathfinder and go really fast but die to a bunch of heavies standing on the flag.
OR
I can play raider and keep the enemy flag stand completely clear all game but have no one to run the flag.
God. Damnit.
Also: As soon as you give up and try run the flag as raider, a pathfinder on your team zips through the flagstand right after you pick the flag up.
At which point I promptly realized that I don't use it very well (yet).
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
I have the same problem. Always seem to wind up with no energy not going much faster than I was before.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
This. You use it to hit your first hill immediately after spawning (instead of jetpacking up, falling, then skiing down the hill). Your won't be going any faster on the route, but you will shave off some overall time because you started that much faster.
You also use the jump pack to return/grab a flag that has been dropped, boost to dodge in a duel, and in emergencies stop and boost to change directions quickly.
Nah, it always gives you speed, but it's just not enough to be worth the energy. Using a little trick in practice mode where you keep changing your loadout to get all your energy back you can go incredibly fast.
Do not use unless you have more than 50% energy or you get a weak thrust that wastes your energy.
It should get you to around 120-150 KPH. This is also the speed range where it becomes useless.
Best to have a downward slope or flat space ahead of you so that you at least have time to nitron before you lose the speed.
Sometimes it is worth doing a short jump before punching the thrust.
You can look upward/downward to adjust the direction of thrust somewhat. This can help with efficiency.
Apart from getting you going quickly (e.g. to start a chase, or do a llama grab), it can also be used to quickly change direction, but you must more or less come to a stop first. This can be useful in duels or to intercept people/flags.
Watch Blinks. He is a very good LD/chase player, and uses the thrust pack to good effect. (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJLXRkB0kSY)
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
It should be illegal to have this much fun. But it isn't, and better yet it's free.
Also the sound in this game is super unhelpful in terms of direction.
If they want to go ahead and make truly large maps we need more objectives. Raindance works effectively in C&H because it uses the whole map for gameplay.
What I really miss from T2 is the small bases you could acquire (fully stocked with gens and everything) among the map. Although Raindance is bigger, it still feels extremely small when playing. I agree, it fun to ski, but if thats all I'm doing in most of the map than I don't find its done its job facilitating gameplay.
The hills in raindance are great. The bases (especially the gen room) blow. Hopefully they will go through with the idea of adding another entrance to the gen room soon.