Tribes: Ascend

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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Discussion about this game in this thread yo!

averagetribesmatch.gif


PCGamer trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBKUFIqNAOk&hd=1
Old, but relevant look at the game from a player perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcIOx3WwILU&hd=1

What is Tribes: Ascend?
It's a FPS game, based in the Starsiege/Tribes universe which was first released in 1998 (way before Halo, just saying) with the title Starsiege: Tribes.
Tribes is a tricky game, which generally has had a incredibly high skill ceiling throughout all it's releases, it features gimmicks such as jetpacks and skiing (more on that later) and vehicles.

What do you do in Tribes: Ascend?
The main game mode is Capture the Flag.
Each team has a flag at their base, the goal is the steal the enemy flag while keeping your own flag secure. You can only capture the flag if your own flag is at its flagstand.
The flag can be returned to the base if a teammate touches it when it's dropped.
There are secondary objectives like destroying generators. These generators (one for each team) power Inventory stations (resupplies/class change), Base turrets, Vehicle stations, and player deployable items such as force fields and turrets.

There's also Team deathmatch and Rabbit, which is a little more mindless. Everyone knows how TDM works, Rabbit however is special, but easy to explain; There is one flag on the map, hold the flag and accumulate points until you win, everyone else is on the same team and trying to steal the flag and become the new rabbit.

What are these gimmicks?
Jetpack: as you'd imagine, it's a jetpack and does jetpack things. It has a energy pool, and it recharges whenever you're not using it.
Skiing: hold a button to turn off friction on your character. You can still steer a little. Use this to ski down slopes to build up speed.

How much does it cost?
It's Free-to-Play. And will use micro transactions to turn a profit.
These transactions are currently limited to unlocking classes, and boosting(doubling) your experience gain.
Everything is available to a non paying customer however, you just have to invest time, instead of money.

It's currently in Closed beta. Meaning you need either an invite to play, or you can buy your way in (if this interests you, I'm sure google can help you find where and how much it costs).
Last I heard it will be released Q1 2012.

Are you playing the game already? Post your ingame nickname
I will add it to this list:
  • Ravidge
  • theharribokid
  • Okrag
  • Prestige
  • WastedMeerkat
  • StickZer0
Throw that in the little friend thing at the bottom right of the screen.
Important to note is that if you haven't ever played a match, you can not be added as a friend! This will hopefully be resolved as it gets closer to release.

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Harribo

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Nov 1, 2009
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My Tribes name is theharribokid, I've been mostly playing engineer because my computer can barely run the game and my fps so low that combat is pretty much impossible for me :(.

There so many Juggernauts around now that they've lowed the price for the class again, once they get inside our base it's so hard to get them out with such a high amount of health and that fact that everyone regenerates health.

I really don't understand why there is so many different classes that seem to almost have their class characteristics designed around destroying generators when they make up so little of how well your team does.

I think they either need to make the generators more important to the team's effort/defence or give generators a better resistance to damage from the gener-hater classes
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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There has been a lot of talk about making generators more important in the beta forums.
In previous tribes games, you've always spawned as a basic light armor guy, only able to get your gear from a inventory station, but with that system gone the generators aren't as crucial.

Still, they power turrets and forcefields, which are really annoying for light armored classes (they do damage based on your speed as you pass through).
 

Trotim

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Jul 14, 2009
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Unfortunately I dislike how ridiculously long the distances, ridiculously fast the speeds and ridiculous in general the "advanced movement" gimmicks are. Have never been able to get into the series and this installment isn't going to make it easier either it seems.
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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Unfortunately I dislike how ridiculously long the distances, ridiculously fast the speeds and ridiculous in general the "advanced movement" gimmicks are. Have never been able to get into the series and this installment isn't going to make it easier either it seems.

Definitely won't fit everybody. But Hi-Rez is doing a lot to make it more "accessible" or whatever, much to the dismay of the superhardcore tribes fan who hate everything that isn't the original. Skiing for example is not really advanced anymore, at least not compared to the hoops you had to jump through in earlier games.

The maps are a lot smaller than in previous games, guns are easier to use, the overall lethality is higher and so on.
You only really need the speed if you're going for flags, playing on defense or harassing the generator is a pretty slow business.
 
Mar 23, 2010
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prestige is my name
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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It's pretty easy to spot if your team is going to lose or not within the first minute.
If more than 3 of your mates go offense on the round start, you will lose. Unless the opponents does the same, then it's just a 6 minute game of perpetual flag capping.

Just an observation I made today when playing juggernaut.

I had an excellent game yesterday that lasted the entire 25 min round timer and then an additional 9:36 minutes into overtime. The score was 4-4 for I don't know how long, it was crazy. The flag was almost capped at least 20 times, just seconds away each time, for both teams.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1281220/2011-12/Screenshot-2011-12-09_21.24.53.jpg
Those guys racked up some serious score (I mean, reaching even 15000 is not that easy), I was pretty outmatched by the skill on the server and focused on chasing and returning flags...
 

Harribo

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Nov 1, 2009
871
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The first ever organised Tribes: Ascend scrim was played and casted last night.
Link to the site: http://tribescast.com/
Link to last night's match: http://www.twitch.tv/tribescast/b/302175100
Bart from HiRes talks to the casters and there is also some pub play after with some nice discussion about the differences between this and Tribes 2 after

Really goes to show how OP the Sentinel (Sniper class) is at the moment in the second match
 
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Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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Really goes to show how OP the Sentinel (Sniper class) is at the moment in the second match

Yeah, there's really no way to defend yourself against them. You're so vulnerable no matter what you do.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
5,441
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Looks like Halo crossed with UT. I never liked either but i'm always a sucker for CTF, even now i claw onto ctf in TF2, despite it's sub standard gameplay.

Since it's F2P i might give it a go but even just by looking at it i can see massive imbalances between classes and weapons. Even youtube gameplay vids say not to bother with half the weapons, like the shotgun.

I can see what they're trying to do with the game, in many ways it's emulating Quakes original fast paced gameplay with modern graphics and custom aesthetics but they have a ways to go to bring it into more respectably balanced gameplay.
 
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Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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Shotguns and pistols and suchlike are secondary weapons, that you take out to finish off someone. You typically want to use your much more powerful (but probably harder to aim) primary weapon for most situations. I think only 1 class of the 12 available lack a brutalmurder primary weapon (technician).
They work well for that, and it's important they they are there to fill that loadout space. But you won't see anyone running around trying bring people down from 100% hp with a shotgun, It's just not efficient.

I think I read somewhere on the beta forum that the real weapon vs weapon tweaking hasn't really begun yet, they are collecting data and feedback.
 

Numerous

L4: Comfortable Member
Oct 14, 2009
150
72
I tried this game, once, and I absolutely hated it. Unbalanced as fuck, rediculously non-newb-friendly, and generally annoying.

Later on, I learned that you could ski.


By the way, would there be Surf maps, in Tribes? Just hypothetically wondering.
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
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From the beta forum:
HiRezStew said:
In the next patch, the Ranger's Assault Rifle, Technician's TCN4(SMG), and Infiltrator's Rhino(SMG) are all projectile based.

Sounds great to me!
 
Mar 23, 2010
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Yep I just got an email about some new patch with that. Kinda funny.
 

WastedMeerkat

L3: Member
Aug 15, 2009
144
142
Just got the Tribes beta from AngryAngus today! (thanks) This game is awesome. Add me, I'm just WastedMeerkat.
 

StickZer0

💙💙💃💙💙
aa
Nov 25, 2008
664
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Yeah, AngryAngus gave me a key too, and of the few hours I've played, I'm really enjoying it!

Thing is, I'd pay a full £30 for this as a retail game, but I refuse to spend £10 so that I can get triple XP for a week. That's just stupid imo :/

I'm StickZer0 in game. Also, the guide said the amount of time it takes to unlock a class is (Token cost / 50) * 25 in minutes. Which is just (Token Cost / 2). But seriously, that means 900 minutes (15 hours) to unlock that scouty class? Jeeeeeez D: