[Game] Tribes Ascend

[LightsabeR]

First of all, let me say that I'm not arguing that the game balance is perfect. Ideally I'd see both SEN and INF completely removed and then the game re-balanced so that chasing is more viable.

Having high damage hitscan weapons just seems so out of place in a game like this, but they are a necessary evil in high level gameplay, since once the capper gets out there's usually no other way to stop them. At low level play, where cappers are slow and have bad return routes, SEN's are not needed, but once you start playing against skilled cappers they become a necessity.

And since SEN's are necessary to stop cappers, there needs to be something that effectively counters the SEN. That's where the INF comes into play. Thing is, having a class that can go invisible is in my mind absolutely dumb in an FPS game. So if they removed SEN and buffed chasing, there would be no reason to keep the INF.

With that said, let me get back to your post.

A semi-decent Sentinel with the Falcon can shut down a game and no one can touch him at any range if he's aware of you.

That's why you approach a semi-decent sniper in a way that you can get close without them seeing you. Or just go INF.

Raiders who can aim even slightly can stop just about anybody. There's no cover, moving is pointless, and if the guy's fire rate is high enough you're toast in a couple seconds even as a heavy.

You're not supposed to be dueling Raiders 1v1 in the midfield. The only time you're supposed to fight a RDR is when they are attacking your flag stand. And in that situation you have other defenders to help you, a SEN who's taking potshots at the RDR while they are coming in and plenty of cover to play with.

Two skilled players who know how to play "floor is lava" is much more entertaining than seeing whose auto shoots faster.

Entertaining is quite a subjective term tho. What may be entertaining for you might not be so for others. Personally I do sometimes also enjoy spinfusor dueling, it can be quite fun, but when I'm playing to win, as I usually do, I prefer to use the optimal way of playing. My entertainment primarily comes from beating my opponents and getting my team the win.

Leading a fast moving target with an explosive weapon or hitting in mid air has a much better payoff and IMO is a lot more satisfying than just pecking somebody down with an auto while they float about.

Of course mid airs are more satisfying. They are also more random and luck based. Going for a mid air instead of waiting for the enemy to land or chaining them is like gambling and winning at gambling feels quite rewarding.

And I don't know who you have been playing against, but non of the people I peck down with my auto "float about". Only players who are very new to the game hover in one place. Those who know how to fight an auto user strafe on the ground and if forced to jet they also strafe in the air as much as possible.

T:A basically devolved into CoD with jetpacks as they kept adding weapons that strayed away from using slow-moving high-damage projectiles.

While I haven't played the previous Tribes titles, from what I've heard from people who have, Tribes has never been about just Spinfusors. Chaining has always been there and has always been used to great effect by skilled players.

The thing with T:A is that, compared to T1 and T2, you have a lot more control during skiing and while in the air. This means it's harder to predict where the target is going to be, which makes high-damage slow-moving projectiles far less effective.

You make it sound like chaining is easy. And sure, against an unskilled opponent it is. But against people who know how to strafe and not float when fighting against an auto user, it's a different story.

With recent patches Hi-Rez has stepped it up tho. They gave server owners the tools to mess around with game physics and there are already a couple of more skill based physics settings being play-tested among the competitive players.

Here's an example of a high level pug with custom physics:
Capping: http://www.twitch.tv/tribesascend/c/1774805;
Disrupt/Capping: http://www.twitch.tv/tribesascend/c/1774811

What they've done is given players less control while skiing and in air, changed the gravity setting and various other little things.

 

[Rak]

I don't know how TII and TI was, but spinfusors and explosives in this game feel more like to "accompany" SMG's, not vice versa.

 

[I. Kant]

Well, at some point it does become like that: autos are the primaries, spinfusors there to spice things up.

Like I previously wrote, a lot of this boils down to being kitted out for every opportunity (i.e. after you've already ground through the unlocks, or obtained them via purchase). Once you're through that phase, and have several loadout prepped, you just change loadouts and classes on the fly according to what you're currently trying to do. I tend to play a mix of fusing and chaining: once I'll be the raider with the nasty SMG, next I'll be a Jugg fuser boosting my way towards the enemy base and then maybe a Soldier with the SMG and the Spare fusor (love that combo), etc.

 

[Rak]

So I did the Facebook like for gold thing and used it towards a 1 day boost. I could only make 30.000xp in 4 hours. I wanted to unlock the X1 and I already had 35.000 in bank. Still 23.000 short. I got 5000 in one game, 2000 in a few games and mostly 1000 from others.

If you average 1500 for one game you need to play 59 rounds and each round averages about 10 minutes which makes 590 minutes. That's almost 10 hours with boost for ONE(88k) weapon, 1-2 hours less with the VIP status. Also, you have to do good in the game, otherwise you'll earn way less.

The grinding in this game is absolutely ridiculous. I may as well give up in the end.

 

[LightsabeR]

The best thing you can do is just play the game for fun and not even focus on gathering exp. The default loadouts for most classes are rather decent. Of course the "perfect" loadout gives a slight advantage, but player skill matters a lot more.

If the only reason you play is to get something unlocked, then it's really tedious. Try to get your "win of the day" every time, it adds up quite nicely. Also save your gold for daily deals.

I have around 200 hours played and have everything I'll ever need unlocked for the classes I play (SLD, RDR, JUG, PTH). What's more, I don't have a VIP account, so the most exp I earn per map is ~1200 and that's if the game goes 25 min, my team wins and I'm top of the scoreboard.

That said, I have gotten around 1500 gold from various places, so that has helped a bit.

 

[Rak]

The best thing you can do is just play the game for fun and not even focus on gathering exp.

That's what I do normally and the game is still incredibly fun with all the crazy mind games(flag games?) going on. I've already unlocked disc nades, Fusion Mortar Deluxe and Spinfusor MK-X without even thinking about the grinding aspect.

Though when I got the boost I got a time constraint imposed on me, I can't play much during weekdays, and I tried hard to unlock that gun. Boost is usually bought by real money so I thought it would be much faster to unlock stuff, it turned out I'm wrong.

I wish they sold a 20-30$ "game unlock" thing so we could just concentrate on the game. The game is well worth it.

 

[I. Kant]

Don't they? I thought there was this well-rounded package that gets you off to a good start, as far as unlocking goes. I think it was called the "Fusor pack" or something like that: a bundle that unlocked all classes, gave you a couple perks and several guns? You'd have to check, as I don't have access to the comp where I have T:A installed.

 

[LightsabeR]

I wish they sold a 20-30$ "game unlock" thing so we could just concentrate on the game. The game is well worth it.

I wish there was no unlocking at all and they just sold the game at like

 

[Rak]

So here's me taking out a Tribes official channel streamer with an artillery shot(long range mortar). I love doing this

http://tr.twitch.tv/tribesascend/b/349457168?t=2m18s

 

[LightsabeR]

Nice one Rak! Now go take him out in a 1v1 duel.

I usually play on the heartbreakerz public servers (which are rank 24+) and run into Shaz and many other comp players quite often. I have to say, he is one of the best duelers. I can hold my own against many of them, but Shaz and a few others are really difficult to beat without a fair bit of luck.

Also:

 

[Rak]

So after playing with the X1 for a while, I'm back to the good old spinfusor. It wasn't a "win" weapon as I imagined, as it's really hard to get a good chain going. It changed the Jugg gameplay a lot however; transforming the class from a long range "siege machine" to a balls to the walls skirmisher.

I could be really annoying in the openground(midfield) with the LMG; chipping away the attackers' health and being a bullet sponge with the big health pool. I could potentially get better by lowering my mouse sensitivity a lot, but autos are not satisfying generally and they don't get me more kills either. Against good chainers I keep my distance and stress them with the mortar, or lure them into buildings.

What is a great improvement for the Jugg is the MIRV launcher(explanation for those who have no idea what I'm talking about). You trade some range and potentially damage for larger blast area radius. It's great for stand clearing as you really get disoriented with all those blasts going around you, impairing your vision(and FPS). It's also great for killing players cruising around the midfield with the greater blast radius. Even at close range you have more chance of hitting people. This is now my standart mortar, I'd only consider Mortar Deluxe for ultra long range stand clearing or base asset attack.

So after a flurry of unlocking the best loadout(IMO of course) for an all around Jugg is;

*MIRV Launcher
*Spinfusor MK-X
*Disc nades
*Ultra Capacitor I
*Quick Draw

Spinfusor+Disc nades combination is great for dueling, as most people don't expect you to whip out a disc nade after shooting your spinfusor.

I know I'm kind of using this thread as a Tribes diary but I hope to attract more players to this underrated game. It's an incredibly deep game with a skill ceiling through the roof and each class requires a different approach and mastery. Once you get the hang of it, making a long range mortar shot(you have to predict where they will be after a few seconds in a 3D space) or getting a blue plate is immensely satisfying. This is just a dream for me I'm sick of "mainstream friendly" games which aim to narrow the skill gap with higher damage.

 

[LightsabeR]

So after playing with the X1 for a while, I'm back to the good old spinfusor. It wasn't a "win" weapon as I imagined, as it's really hard to get a good chain going. It changed the Jugg gameplay a lot however; transforming the class from a long range "siege machine" to a balls to the walls skirmisher.

Well, yeah, it's not gonna be good unless you're good at chaining. As for changing JUG gameplay, I'd say your goal is to always be a long range siege machine. The difference is that with the X1/Disc nades combo you can fight off most enemies outdoors, which in turn allows you to keep mortaring the enemy stand for longer.

I could be really annoying in the openground(midfield) with the LMG; chipping away the attackers' health and being a bullet sponge with the big health pool. I could potentially get better by lowering my mouse sensitivity a lot, but autos are not satisfying generally and they don't get me more kills either. Against good chainers I keep my distance and stress them with the mortar, or lure them into buildings.

Yeah, low sens is really important in this game, especially for chaining. I'm a rather high sens player, but I've been lowering it for Tribes. Currently move the mouse ~20 cm on the pad to do a 360 turn in the game. I want to go to ~30 cm for 360. I know some good players are at around half a meter for 360, but that's way too much for me, even tho my mouse mat is big enough.

As for chaining being satisfying, well, it gets satisfying when you get good at it. I especially enjoy chaining down cappers who are far away. It's immensely satisfying to predict their movement arc and take them out from very far. Doesn't work that well on good players who air strafe tho.

It's also quite satisfying to duel against a good chainer. Using the terrain to break line of sight, throwing grenades and using an explosive weapon to force your opponent to jet (which makes them an easy target for chaining), etc.

What is a great improvement for the Jugg is the MIRV launcher(explanation for those who have no idea what I'm talking about). You trade some range and potentially damage for larger blast area radius. It's great for stand clearing as you really get disoriented with all those blasts going around you, impairing your vision(and FPS). It's also great for killing players cruising around the midfield with the greater blast radius. Even at close range you have more chance of hitting people. This is now my standart mortar, I'd only consider Mortar Deluxe for ultra long range stand clearing or base asset attack.

It's situational. The MIRV is only really useful for wide flag stands, like the one on Drydock, since the enemy mine placement is more sporadic and they have more room to avoid normal mortar shots.

For a small flag stand, both the standard Mortar and the Mortar Deluxe have their advantages since their damage output is greater.

At first I thought that the Deluxe is a clear favorite over the standard Mortar, due to longer range and higher damage (slightly less radius, but if you're accurate, that doesn't matter as much), but one of the best JUG players in the game explained to me why he sometimes prefers the standard Mortar.

The thing is, Mortar Deluxe's projectile travels faster and thus you can't arc your shots as much or bounce your shots off of buildings or terrain that well. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you're good with mortar weapons, the standard mortar has quite a few advantages that are not always evident.

That said, Mortar Deluxe can one-shot mediums, which is good for taking out SoF's (Soldier of Flag).

As for the MIRV impairing your vision, I'm not quite sure what you mean, since it doesn't do that for me. Do you have Visor Damage and Motion Blur turned on or something?

So after a flurry of unlocking the best loadout(IMO of course) for an all around Jugg is;

*MIRV Launcher
*Spinfusor MK-X
*Disc nades
*Ultra Capacitor I
*Quick Draw

Why Ultra Capacitor over Safety Third? The extra disc nade and more disc nade radius is very useful. Ultra Capacitor would only be useful if you're a very mobile JUG, but even then I'd prefer Safety Third.

Spinfusor+Disc nades combination is great for dueling, as most people don't expect you to whip out a disc nade after shooting your spinfusor.

I feel most people expect it, at least those who are somewhat experienced with the game. Thing is, often you can't do anything about it.

It's especially strong when combined with the X1 tho. If the opponent is on the ground, throw a disc, if he jets up to avoid it, chain them. Rinse and repeat.

I know I'm kind of using this thread as a Tribes diary but I hope to attract more players to this underrated game.

I love discussing Tribes, so do continue with your "diary".

 

[Rak]

I think deluxe is great for going after other players, it's projectile is much faster and follows a straigther arc. I know what you mean by normal mortar arc being useful, it's very slow so you can effectively hit stuff behind hills. Especially if you pick up some speed along with it, you can hit cappers cruising around thinking they're safe(awesome when it happens out of a million times).

I changed my mind about MIRV, it's effective at only a very specific range. That range is hard to describe, but it's the range when it explodes just 10-15m above the ground. That way you can focus both the initial explosion and 4 pellets at a location, one shotting pretty anything except heavies. Much like a long range shotgun. At long range it's only annoying as both the pellets spread over a large area and the damage gets reduced. At close range you get an extra delay from pellet fuse on top of initial explosion which makes it easy to dodge.

Anyways, I unlocked the Doombringer yesterday and had a blast It's a good change of pace from attacking. I haven't lost a 1v1 Chaingun fight yet and Saber Launcher is excellent for trolling on some maps. Otherwise it's good for spotting cappers approaching from far away. The real trolling experience began when I unlocked the Titan Launcher however, I call it "the fly swatter". It has a huge hit radius so if you don't panic any capper flying towards you(flag) either gets obliterated in the air or get pushed somewhere else. If he makes it through, there's a big chance I'll kill him because of the super heavy. If he gets the flag my Chaincannon takes a good 300-400hp of his health making the job of our chasers easier.

I got called "Doombringer EZ class, noob" a lot :/ Life of a Doombringer seems to be mostly miserable though. Some people just camp the hills and spam spinfusors from miles away for minutes. Jugs do the same and if nobody gets after them it becomes unbearable.

This game is so addictive. It's eating up my holidays!

 

[LightsabeR]

Anyways, I unlocked the Doombringer yesterday and had a blast It's a good change of pace from attacking. I haven't lost a 1v1 Chaingun fight yet and Saber Launcher is excellent for trolling on some maps. Otherwise it's good for spotting cappers approaching from far away. The real trolling experience began when I unlocked the Titan Launcher however, I call it "the fly swatter". It has a huge hit radius so if you don't panic any capper flying towards you(flag) either gets obliterated in the air or get pushed somewhere else. If he makes it through, there's a big chance I'll kill him because of the super heavy. If he gets the flag my Chaincannon takes a good 300-400hp of his health making the job of our chasers easier.

The Titan Launcher is used as the main weapon for DMB's nowadays. People use to use Quick Draw so they could quickly switch between TL and chain, but now either Super Heavy or Survivalist are used.

The thing with Super Heavy is that you don't really need to kill the cappers, body blocking them is enough to screw up their route and once the capper is slow, they're easy to take down with the TL. So really Survivalist is often more helpful, especially when the enemies have a lot of offense. That said, hearing cappers go "SPLAT!" against you is always fun.

Life of a Doombringer seems to be mostly miserable though. Some people just camp the hills and spam spinfusors from miles away for minutes. Jugs do the same and if nobody gets after them it becomes unbearable.

Yeah, doing well as a HoF is heavily reliant on the rest of your D. If you don't have LD going out and dueling enemy JUGs and also some helping you kill enemy LO, then it can get really frustrating.

Ideally the DMB should be able to focus pretty much solely on stopping the capper, but if the rest of your defense is bad, you have to fight off enemy offense at the same time, which will distract you from your main role.

As a general suggestion, if the enemies have a lot of JUGs bombarding your stand, you should consider going SoF. The most common SoF setup is Thumper DX, GAST, Prox nades, Quick Draw, Safety Third. Since the SLD class is more mobile it's easier to avoid enemy mortars and with Prox nades and Thumper you should still be able to stop any capper, as long as you see them early enough.

 

[Rak]

I think I'll be unlocking the Soldier stuff next, thanks for the tips. Heavies are excellent for my playstyle but I want to move to lighter classes eventually.

 

[LightsabeR]

SLD is definitely worth investing in. It's just such a great jack of all trades.

- You can play flag D, as I described in my previous post.
- You can play LD and LO (light defense/offense), by swapping the prox nades with Anti-Personnel nades. On D your role is to defend your HoF/SoF and take care of enemy JUGs. On offense, while most prefer the RDR for the job, your goal is to kill enemy D and clear the stand for your capper.
- You can SLD cap. Currently in the comp scene most cappers use SLD over PTH, since they can reach similar speeds but the SLD has more HP and can self clear better. When you come in at the stand, spam your Prox nades and shoot the stand with your Spinfusor and it's not rare that you kill the HoF outright or at least knock them off your path.

 

[Rak]

This game literally ate all my free time in these holidays, it's freaking awesome! There are just so many things to get good at(chasing, capping, HOF'ing, duels, chaining, blue plates), it's always slapping my "I'm so good at FPS' " ego in the face

I got bored with the JUG and I barely play it anymore. You just can't get good at mortaring moving people across the map, it's too random. I used to take out llama flagcarriers easily on 1-10 lvl servers but it's useless against 400 km/h "Can't thouch this" cappers. It's good for flagstand harass only.

Meanwhile I fell in love with HOF'ing and mastered the Doombringer. It's so fun to frustrate cappers so much that they change to Brute and come fractal spamming a while later I tried the Soldier a while but it didn't really click with me. It's a very "standart" class, nothing special going with it.

My second favourite is the Pathfinder when there are no lvl 50 Sentinels around. I'm trying to get good at both chasing and capping but I find myself more on light defense duties, going after those distant spinfusor spammers or JUG's. Probably because I'm HOF'ing a lot so I understand their pain. Bolt Launcher is supposed to be harder but I find myself getting lots of kills with it, it's so satisfying. Dat sexy "swoosh" sound.

In 10 days I unlocked everything I wanted and I still have 80 days of boost to go. With booster unlocking things is not that tedious.

 

[I. Kant]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/01/24/tribes-ascend-is-halving-the-xp-cost-of-in-game-unlocks/

As someone aptly noted in the comments: now it'll only take half of forever (to unlock).

 

[LightsabeR]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/01/24/tribes-ascend-is-halving-the-xp-cost-of-in-game-unlocks/

As someone aptly noted in the comments: now it'll only take half of forever (to unlock).

Tribes is still one of the least grindy F2P games out there.

Just take the time and read this post from Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Tribes/comments/175suq/officially_12_xp_price_for_unlockables/c82o7k5

 

[LightsabeR]

Free 250 gold. Redeemable til the end of this month (March).

http://win.tribesascend.com/

(in game go to Store -> Redeem Promotion and type in the code)

And since this thread hasn't been updated in a while, you can also now buy a "Game Of The Year" edition on Steam, which unlocks all the weapons, classes and perks.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/17097/

I believe there's still a significant discount if you already have a Tribes VIP account (meaning you have purchased any amount of Gold before).