StarDestroyer.Net BBS

As a followup to this thread...

The Tribes: Ascend open beta is now live. The game is fully playable, and my experience has been bug-free so far.

Tribes and Tribes 2 were always my favorite FPS games, and Ascend very much picks up where they left off. The game will be\is free to play, and while you can spend real money to unlock features faster, every feature other than custom skins is also unlockable through gaining experience points in-game.

Anybody else playing?

Only played a few rounds.

It's Tribes.

Do you like Tribes? If yes play it. If no, ignore it.

weemadando wrote:Only played a few rounds.

It's Tribes.

Do you like Tribes? If yes play it. If no, ignore it.

Fixed.

Well, Tribes is good.

And that Spinfusor feels *right*

Does it still have all the stuff that dooms Tribes to it's niche or is it accessible?

You mean does it deliberately hide its complexity and assume prior knowledge?

I said it was Tribes didn't I?

Hm. So I just found out I am really, really good with the Shrike. That thing is practically overpowered. The only way anybody ever manages to shoot me down is with a locked-on missile, but if there's a hill anywhere on the map taller than the Shrike you can just get behind it.

Played a little. People get stupid good after those misleading first games. Also, damn the Pathfinder bolt launcher. That thing is insanely strong.

You'll be able to show off to all the nine people who buy it. :v

Seriously I watched some trailers and it looks like Tribes. Tribes has a lot of problems and has never really sold well. I guess someone needs third-tier gimmick shooters?

Stark wrote:You'll be able to show off to all the nine people who buy it. :v

Seriously I watched some trailers and it looks like Tribes. Tribes has a lot of problems and has never really sold well. I guess someone needs third-tier gimmick shooters?

Free to play.

Stark wrote:You'll be able to show off to all the nine people who buy it. :v

Seriously I watched some trailers and it looks like Tribes. Tribes has a lot of problems and has never really sold well. I guess someone needs third-tier gimmick shooters?

At first I was going to write an actual response to this. But then I realized that it was just stark being stark, so why bother?

As to the game itself, my biggest problem with it at the moment is that the experience prices to unlock things are set absurdly high relative to the amount you get and the 'performance bonus' for doing well is stupidly low, obviously a paper thin attempt to force people into buying gold if they want to have not shit gear.

The game is still pretty fun though.

Most of the exp prices are fairly reasonable, and then you have some 'wait, WHAT?' outliers with hundred-thousand pricetags. With any luck, that won't survive beta, but time will tell. They certainly do look like money-grabs, but frankly if they stay on bits of fringe equipment, I don't really mind that. The developers have to make money somehow, and if that means driving purchases of optional accessories that aren't clear pay-to-win universal upgrades, eh, whatever.

Except 90 percent of the time, the unlockable weapons aren't a tradeoff... they're flat out BETTER. By a LOT. there's a few useless exceptions (phase rifle), but mostly it holds.

Light Spinfusor -> Boltlauncher? The Bolt Launcher is a larger projectile for direct hit purposes, does way more damage, does ~2x splash radius, travels faster, is harder to see/dodge. Downside? Fires MARGINALLY slower.
Fusion Mortar -> MIRV Launcher? The MIRV fires a projectile that does a smaller bit of individual damage than the mortar, except that it splits into 4 so it does substantially more in total. Even worse, the thing detonates on contact, making it far more likely to hit. Sole downside: You can't really bank it around corners, and the projectile is slightly slower?
All the Handguns being medium-range hitscan, replacing some sort of bad finisher.

And even 40k exp can take quite a while if you don't have boost.

weemadando wrote:It's Tribes.

Do you like Tribes? If yes play it. If no, ignore it.

What about people who don't know because they have never played any Tribes games ?

Nephtys wrote:Except 90 percent of the time, the unlockable weapons aren't a tradeoff... they're flat out BETTER. By a LOT. there's a few useless exceptions (phase rifle), but mostly it holds.

Light Spinfusor -> Boltlauncher? The Bolt Launcher is a larger projectile for direct hit purposes, does way more damage, does ~2x splash radius, travels faster, is harder to see/dodge. Downside? Fires MARGINALLY slower.
Fusion Mortar -> MIRV Launcher? The MIRV fires a projectile that does a smaller bit of individual damage than the mortar, except that it splits into 4 so it does substantially more in total. Even worse, the thing detonates on contact, making it far more likely to hit. Sole downside: You can't really bank it around corners, and the projectile is slightly slower?
All the Handguns being medium-range hitscan, replacing some sort of bad finisher.

Boltlauncher also has a ballistic trajectory, where the Spinfusor is direct line-of-sight. The falloff fucks with my aim, I prefer the Spinfusor most of the time.

darthdavid wrote:

Stark wrote:You'll be able to show off to all the nine people who buy it. :v

Seriously I watched some trailers and it looks like Tribes. Tribes has a lot of problems and has never really sold well. I guess someone needs third-tier gimmick shooters?

At first I was going to write an actual response to this. But then I realized that it was just stark being stark, so why bother?

As to the game itself, my biggest problem with it at the moment is that the experience prices to unlock things are set absurdly high relative to the amount you get and the 'performance bonus' for doing well is stupidly low, obviously a paper thin attempt to force people into buying gold if they want to have not shit gear.

The game is still pretty fun though.

While specific unlocks like weapons are purchasable with gold, most other upgrades are not - the armor upgrades, for instance (not unlocking different classes, actually upgrading the armor) can only be purchased with XP.

The XP gain is MUCH more friendly when you've purchased some (any) gold, the 50% permanent bonus is very noticeable.