Tribes: Ascend

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
1,544
2,818
Goddamn it takes forever to unlock things... And there's no way to try-before-you-buy, so you might sink XP into a class or weapon that turns out to suck...

It does take forever. I'm hopeful that they will find a balance between time/xp/cost in the coming weeks. The unlock system just went through a major overhaul and it's easier to adjust prices down rather than up (because people rage otherwise).

You used to be able to test weapons in roaming mode, hopefully this will make a comeback too eventually.
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
1,590
410
After playing for a day or two and running up against some teams with lots of goodies... it seems way too fucking far over on the Pay-to-Win scale. The sheer scope of all the benefits (and unique capabilities) you can purchase makes for hugely stacked match-ups. Even BF3 didn't feel quote this frustrating, if you ignore the vehicle-aspects.

And how the heck do you clear three infiltrators from your base with stock equipment? If they're in there, you don't have power for a drop-jammer even if you had one...

it's easier to adjust prices down rather than up (because people rage otherwise).

I don't see how people would not rage in both directions.
 
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Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
1,544
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If the prices gets lowered you can refund people who unlocked at higher prices. Which doesn't really work in reverse. Unless you make people go into negative XP.

The rate at which you gain XP atm is somewhere between 35-40 XP/min for non-vip non-boosted ctf matches. I think either the rate will go up or the prices lowered soon enough. New players such as yourself are faced with a huge hurdle...

People will just have to complain a lot in the next email survey.
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
1,590
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If the prices gets lowered you can refund people who unlocked at higher prices.

You could handle both situations by doing a full reset and refund, presuming the correct information was kept.

But even if they precisely and accurately refund all XP and gold some folks will rage if they purchased gold but now--due to lowered requirements--feel like they were highballed into it.

Anywho, found out today that there's some turret placement bug where an enemy turret can interpenetrate a friendly supply station to be very hard to kill.
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
1,544
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Oh shiit! They added a referral system, being the massive tool that I am, I'm going to want every single one of you to use my link and play the game until you reach rank 6 (couple of hours at most).

Clicky the click on this link and get playin' the best FPS game currently available!

I should mention that rank 1-5 players are in their own little bracket, so the skill level in there is pretty low and you should have no trouble just messing around learning controls and basic dueling. Once you get out of that bracket and play with "everyone else" the fun starts.

If you're going to try the game out, I encourage these 3 things:
1) Play until you get out of the newbie bracket, you can't really judge the gameplay from those early games against other novices.

2)in CTF pick a position and stick with it. I suggest on-stand flag defense or flag offense. As they're easy and straightforward.
Flag defense: Stand on the flag as a Soldier, watch for incoming enemy cappers, and shoot/splash them with your thumper as they touchdown to grab your flag. You have a split second to do this, it's hard but very very important for a team to have people trying to deny flag grabs at all times.
Flag offense: I don't mean capping, that is another role. Flag offense means disruption, your job is to remove forcefields, turrets, mines and claymores from the flagstand, and of course enemies. You are not there to grab the flag (no matter how enticing it looks)! You should be destroying the enemy defense as much as you can to allow your own teams capper to get a clean grab and exit. Any class can do this.
[Once you're in the >rank 5 bracket it's common for your cappers to yell "I have the flag!", this actually means "I'm going for the flag, right now, at high speed, clear the fucking flagstand asap because here I come!"]

3)Take your time learning. The maps are large, there are many classes and weapons, there's a lot of unwritten rules. Don't try to understand everything at once, your first goal should be to understand the jetpack and skiing. Once you can move around the map at a decent pace you can start experimenting. But movement and positioning is KEY in this game.
A helpful tip: Suiciding (default: K) is a valid strategy in this game. The maps are so large, and the spawn timer (6 seconds) is so short, that if you get stuck in a odd/flat place of the map, with no speed, you might as well kill yourself and start over. You often spawn on top of a hill or other height to get going again. Defenders also use it to get back in position quickly or to restock ammo/grenades.
 
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Ravidge

Grand Vizier
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May 14, 2008
1,544
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The secret lies in the Egocentric perk. Allows a pathfinder to do 2 nitrons and a disc jump, easily resulting in 240-ish km/h in a few seconds.
Even without Egocentric health can be converted to speed with almost all classes, this is important to keep in mind since there is health regen (on a 14 sec timer, if your armor is upgraded). So don't be afraid to use it.

Converting energy to speed is much harder. If not impossible (above certain limits). But with good energy management you can keep skiing forever.

Or if you have just won a duel and are left on basically flat ground with no speed. Just find the nearest decent slope, any will do, even if it goes the wrong direction, once you have speed you can go anywhere. If you find that you have to walk up a hill just to slide down it again, it would probably have been better to suicide before climbing that mountain in the first place.
 

StickZer0

💙💙💃💙💙
aa
Nov 25, 2008
664
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Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
aa
Jun 9, 2009
2,364
2,728
FffBF.jpg


Chasing as DB so much fun