What is your opinion on Tribes Ascend?

Royalty

The Aussie
There are a few other TA threads floating around in the off topic section. One about TA tips, another which was created to be a place where people shared their TA in-game-names. Instead, that thread has become a war zone in which people have been debating about TA. The aim of this thread is to draw people away from that thread, and get them to bitch all they like here.

I think it's only fair that I start.

First off I'm going to tell you which side I'm on. Tribes Ascend is by far the best game I have ever played. The graphics are amazing. Yes my, laptop can only run smoothly when playing at 800x600, but that resolution is bearable, and in fact quite harmless on performance as a pose to playing full screen with the same FPS. Tribes Ascend is also the first game I have played in which I have experienced under 50 ping. It is amazing. No more lag for me. And the Australian servers are also full all the time. I played from 5-8 pm yesterday, with breaks of course, and the Australian server always had at least 20 people in it at all times. The weapons, turrets, vehicles, generators, and healing aspects of Tribes I all love. The game is amazing.

Well there's my side of the debate. Now I'm going to state some of the flaws of Tribes Ascend, and give you haters some material to start with. The physics aren't as good as Legions. If the physics of Legions were put in to Tribes it would be near perfect. The fact that you can't have custom classes. You can't have them yet in Legions either, however I don't think Tribes is ever planning to release a custom class system. The lack of maps. That problem won't be existent for much longer but it is a current problem.

That is my opinion on Tribes Ascend. It is by far the best game I have ever played.

K, imma go play some Tribes now. :)
 

Xtreme

shaska's bff
This is what I posted on hirez forums after playing a couple games last weekend:

First off, the spinfusor's projectile speed reminds me of T:V, meaning a bit slow relative to player speeds. Also, energy regeneration seems sluggish, forcing me to go up and down hills more frequently than I'd normally have to. I like the fact that the maps are flatter or at least spacious when compared to the most popular maps in previous tribes games, but maybe that's the 120 fov kicking in - not sure. I don't like the fact that there is no way to shift the direction in which I'm skiing on the ground without using up energy to make minor adjustments, but maybe that's because Legions pampered me (yes, I play that s***). Also, I don't really want to rant about the token system and the fact that we have to pay for certain features (or alternately earn alot of points) because I have a good feeling that people will rage, saying that it's the only means of funding the project. But what I don't understand is the way the loadouts are structured, meaning the weapon slots, grenades etc. I didn't bother looking through all 36 pages of the loadout thread, but I noticed general disappointment as far as weapon slots are concerned. And so my question here is, why did you stray away from the classic 3-4-5 setup or even another possible setup of 2-3-4? Could you clarify a bit?

My opinion still holds more or less, except skiing feels better after the recent patch. I really don't agree with your idea of implementing legions' physics in ascend since legions is broken in many aspects. Can't say the game isn't a bit fun but still a lot of work in progress.

Hope you enjoy your 10 ping because now you have nothing to complain about!

Edit:
It is by far the best game I have ever played.
You obviously haven't played any good games - at all
 

Fixious

Test Lead
You have to look at Ascend from two difference standpoints. 1.) As a game, is it fun? 2.) As a Tribes game, is it fun?

1.) The game is fun, usually. I'm primarily a capper for several reason, though I'll sometimes go on chase. Either way, I play as Pathfinder 98% of the time. The game is a nice change of pace from all the modern military shooters we've had recently, and really every FPS where walking and/or running is your primary means of transportation. Killing is fun. Capping is fun. Going fast is fun. Actual teamwork is a (rare) blast.

2.) As a Tribes game it's lacking in nearly every department that made Tribes what it was. Projectile inheritance is barely there, and not at all for grenades. Jets are lacking in every area, though the latest patch improved things quite a bit(still needs more work). Discjumping is pretty much pointless right now, even though the removal of speedcaps helped a bit. They don't give nearly as much speed/distance as they should. The loadout situation is...yeah. Rifles/SMGs/Pistols are really starting to aggravate me more than I thought they would. They don't belong in this game or any Tribes game. The most we can hope for is the removal of all hitscan weapons and making them projectile-based like the CG currently is. No mod support is bad. No user-hosted servers is bad. No server browser is bad, though we'll get one eventually. Having literally 0 control while traveling at high speeds, especially as a light, is something I deal with every game and hope it gets tweaked. I don't get how removing your finger from the right mouse button suddenly gives you control.

Hills are almost another enemy you have to deal with due to the sheer amount of momentum you lose when going up them. As a Tribes game, hills should be your BFFJill, but in Ascend they just slow down gameplay. You have to already be going at a decent speed when tackling them, and since the majority of maps are quite flat that's sorta hard to do.
 

Volt Cruelerz

Legions Developer
As has been said before, the general skiing sucks. Basically, if you combined legions' movement with TA, you could possibly create my favorite game ever. Oh, and spinfusor speeds... They suck. I try to account for travel time, but they move too dang slow... Maybe that's just being used to the RL though...

Grenades suck. One by default is too few. Beyond that, they just explode in weird ways if they do so in mid air.

And then the lag... I feel like someone took Kilgarah and averaged the lag. Seriously, I have an almost brand new laptop with more than enough power for stuff without lag, even huge games of Sins of a Solar Empire with thousands of ships in combat at the same time on max graphics (it's a space based RTS) that lags everyone else in the game to kingdom come on min graphics while I'm using around fifteen percent of my processor's total power. Tribes Ascend lags like mad, and given it's immunity to things way more complex than tribes, it's not going to be my computer's fault.

Of course, the lag can be fixed. I still say that the movement is nothing compared to legions though. All my complaints could be fixed, but I doubt movement will be :(
 

Fixious

Test Lead
Sadly you have to unlock all the skills within a class to have a good time with it(mainly energy related stuff).
 

Ucantry2run

Private Tester
To be honest, I don't think Ascend is boring at all. I could go playing Cata and Cross forever. There is really a lot of options that you have if you don't like certain aspects of the game. Don't like skiing? Get good at sniping, Heavy O, or shrike chasing. The game really has so much variety that you should really complain about gameplay. They will be tweaked and fixed eventually based on feedback. Also, I don't see the problem with the skiing. Maybe its because I haven't had a big Tribes background, but I found it very easy to adapt to and use.

In terms of loadouts, I agree that there is a little less variety because most of the weapons are hitscan. Although this isn't really a problem for me because I began playing Tribes with Mabel. :p

Overall I really like the game because its better than Legions and because I get top score every round.
 

WildFire

Warrior of Linux

C'mon, 15000 tokens for a loadout? I barely have 2000 from several hours of playing. Considering the amount of loadouts, to unlock them all would simply take the piss. Hi-rez business model sucks, and I hate how it influences the game itself.
 

Royalty

The Aussie
I'm going to spend $50 on TA. That will get me 9 Loadouts, and then I can buy the 10th with tokens. Would take ages to get them all with tokens. Also, apparently if you buy gold now, you get VIP status for life.
 

Volt Cruelerz

Legions Developer
The thing that annoys me most regarding that is that you can't ever actually try out the weapons on people. How do you know which ones to get if you've only ever shot turrets with them. Saber launcher for instance. I haven't the foggiest idea how that thing locks on because all I can do is use it against turrets which can't be locked.
 

discord

Private Tester
C'mon, 15000 tokens for a loadout? I barely have 2000 from several hours of playing. Considering the amount of loadouts, to unlock them all would simply take the piss. Hi-rez business model sucks, and I hate how it influences the game itself.

They are a business. I would have gladly just paid a retail price for the game. Instead of that, I preordered to support the company and have all the classes along with around 50k tokens laying around and enough experience on classes to fully unlock everything on those that aren't complete and the next three loadouts that are made available. The free to play model will suck money out of the wealthy and the stupid. This model also creates a decent influx of new players trying it since it is 'free' along with allowing those who simply cannot afford it to play. There have been plenty of discussions on the ramifications of the loadout system in their forums, and for non Hi-Rez competitions it should be a non-issue.
 
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