Tribes: Ascend Review

[KILGAZOR]

The review mentioned nothing about how the experience unlocks unbalance the game in favor of veteran players with lots of experience points. The paid variety unlocks I'm fine with, but when you're handing out unlocks that outright boost the stats of your character, you've gone too far, especially since everything else in this game seems to be built with competitive play in mind. It's games like Call of Duty that popularized bad unlock systems like the one in Tribes: Ascend, and now it seems that this system is being justified with the free-to-play model. I do not like where shooters are heading. If this pattern continues, true balanced, competitive shooters will be gone in a decade.

Sorry, what? What unlocks? You mean weapon/armor upgrades? That are exp only? And take about, hm, 3-4 hours of gameplay per class loadout to get the useful ones? And are pretty damn minor in the grand scheme of things?

Sorry, Tribes is and always was more about individual skill. If You suck at skiing or aiming projectile based weapons no amount of upgrades will help You. I can wreck as much havoc on my 0 upgrades Juggernaut as anyone else. I can cap flags at decent (200+ km/h) speed with my 20% unlocked Pathfinder.
Maybe just practice a bit more instead, hm?

Oh yes, because I find something wrong with the game, clearly I just suck at it. That is a completely rational and mature argument.

Sarcasm aside, I never said that the unlocks gave you that much of an advantage in the first place. They don't. Whether you win or lose is mostly determined by skill, as it is with most shooters. But with experience unlocks (upgrades, whatever, they're the same thing), you do get a small advantage, the few extra hit points or the few extra rounds in your magazine provided by unlocks can be the difference between life and death, and very close matches can be decided by a single kill. It removes some of the competitive satisfaction from kills and victories if, in the back of your mind, you know that they may not have been exactly fair.

Also, thank you for recognizing my godhood by capitalizing the word "You".

i feel you on those armor/weapon upgrades being a massive factor in breaking the whole skill barrier. (especially with doombringers) but if we just keep playing ,have fun with the game, and progress with it along the side it will surely be worth our while. just play more it is after all a free game it's not like you have wasted your money on something you wouldn't like yet.

I totally agree that it's a really fun game, I just think it's a little unbalanced. Cuz of the unlock system, however, I'm boycotting spending any money on in-game items, at least as long as I can stand playing Technician with the crappy submachine gun instead of the grenade launcher. After buying multiple CoD and Battlefield games, I'm just sick of this unlock crap and I don't want to put any more money towards it than I have to.

 

[Excludos]

I've already said what I need to say about this game in the user review section. Its awesome.
But like justin said, some of the unlocks are retardedly expensive. I'm serious when I say you might find yourself grinding for up to 24 hours of ingame time for a single damn weapon.

But its a game where you skishoot at 200km/h! how can you not love it?

 

[Mariena]

I picked this up about 2 days ago. I played Starsiege: Tribes to absolutely hell and back, and I was surprised to see myself ending up on top of the scoreboard just about every game. It really does feel like the original Tribes, with a good number of changes .. But the core game from 1998 is still there.

Pathfinder, spinfusor and mid-air kills all day. I was also overjoyed to play on Raindance again.

 

[Sonicron]

Been playing the game since beta, and it just doesn't get old. Despite my preference for the Technician and Raider classes, all nine are loads of fun to play, and the game's CTF mode has a different role for every one of them.

Might have to dial it down with the game for a few days, though - I think it's a sign of playing too much when your reaction to a real-life mishap is exclaiming "SHAZBOT!".

 

[Fayathon]

I still have my Starsiege: Tribes disc lying around here somewhere, and I remember it fondly. The only thing that this game needs to get as close to perfect as it can is proper voice chatting, I mean the mute is already in place, why not the voice?

And don't tell me that [VGS] covers it, [VGS] is annoying as hell IMO, regardless of its functionality. Still haven't figured out the command for enemy spotted @ location.....

 

[Bolt-206]

I gave Tribes a try during the beta; found it fun at first, but it didn't last long.
I probably just not my kind of game, not helped by how under-performed my computer apparently is (despite getting it only a few months ago).

It's also probably the one game that's made me rage the most at map design instead of my own performance.

 

[DeadEy3]

Tribes - FPS = Tiny Wings

BTW anyone else finds this game a strain on the eyes?

 

[Scarim Coral]

Mmm I have been meaning to get a FPS game for this new pc of my. I could get this althought the unquie movement feature sort of put me off abit (I mean it's something I can't transfer if I play a different FPS game) and the ten maps may get boring for me.

 

[Meight08]

I am so good with a technician in this game it´s just weird.
One time i was defending the inside of a base from a Juggie and a soldier.
I killed the soldier with a grenade,Used my speed to go circles around the juggernaut and pick up the grenade the soldier dropped.
Then another juggernaut came in i throw a grenade in his face dropping his health to half,gave the other jug a nade and dropped his health to a sliver and then died when they flushed the entire room with fusion mortars.
Friendly fire was on and they also killed each other.
Gotta love FF within a base.

 

[paislyabmj]

A jet pack wearing love child of Halo + Unreal... very cool.

both halo and unreal(and quake 3 arena) came out after starseige tribes.just thought you'd like to know.

game is real good but it is to demanding for my laptop so I probably wont be logging in again until I upgrade.

 

[Naeras]

Ive been playing since the closed beta and I love this game. The speed is great, even heavy classes can go 150 kph without too much of a problem. The Raider class is my current favorite, grenade launcher, perked for extra belt grenades (Safety Third) and reduced self damage (Egocentric). Great for clearing out my teams base or wrecking havoc in the enemies.

I play Raider as my primary class too, but I've found ultra-capacitor to be more useful than Safety Third. I don't use more than 2 grenades in a fight generally and the extra maneuverability is awesome. That may be because I use white-outs over EMP grenades though.

Ultra Capacitor 1 + Potential Energy is my favorite. For a class that survives on energy, getting more of it every time you get hit by anything explosive is awesome. For a raider itt pretty much does everything egocentric does, and more.


Otherwise, I'm currently one of those annoying MIRV-spamming juggernauts. It's so easy to get rid of mines, force fields, doombringers, turrets and other nastiness that might be around the flag, and it makes an awesome PSSSSCHHT when the cluster bombs split up. <3

 

[admiraljustin]

I still have my Starsiege: Tribes disc lying around here somewhere, and I remember it fondly. The only thing that this game needs to get as close to perfect as it can is proper voice chatting, I mean the mute is already in place, why not the voice?

And don't tell me that [VGS] covers it, [VGS] is annoying as hell IMO, regardless of its functionality. Still haven't figured out the command for enemy spotted @ location.....

Left-Alt is spotting. "Heavy spotted mid-field."

In mid-field: "POOTISPOOTISPOOTIS..." "oh god he's in the wrong game someone shoot him!"

 

[Fat Hippo]

So Justin is one of those dirty backstabbing infiltrator rats!? For shame!

 

[RazielXT]

I still think UT2004 was best, but nice game nonetheless.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Well yeah, but they have to go pretty out of their way to do absolutely nothing. Tribes is a resources game, and if one of your team mates is keeping two enemies busy, you're ahead on "player-advantage".

It is far harder to be completely useless in Tribes, than it is in TF2.

If you're not capping or defending the flag, there's a high chance you're being useless. Going for the generator and doing nothing else can lose you the game as though you weren't even moving from spawn. I've found it's way more easy to be useless in this game than tf2 - sometimes, no matter what you do, you don't feel like you've contributed at all unless you upped the score yourself, and only the pathfinders and the doombringers on the flag have any real worth.

Then you have no idea what you're talking about. If all you're doing is gener-hating, not only are you keeping forcefields down for your cappers, but if 4 or so techs decide to run in to repair the generator, you're distracting 4 times the number of people on your team who are down there. It only becomes a problem when 4 of your guys are down there. As I said in my previous post, Tribes is a resource game, and your resource is players.

It's pretty simple, actually.

Distractions = openings
Therefore, distracting those 4 techs when they could be defending the flagstand creates 4 more openings for your team. I've single-handedly kept 8 people busy in the gen room with nothing more than a few stickies and some good jetpacking. If that isn't helping your team, then nothing is.

Not feeling you've contributed =/= not contributing.

Let's say you pick up the flag at medium speed and know you won't make it back to your base. What do you do? You move a reasonable distance from the enemy base and bring the majority of the defenders and chasers with you. Then you drop the flag on one of them and keep them busy fighting you. Suddenly Mr Speedy PTH has a flagstand clear of enemies and chasers busy killing someone else. Free cap!

I'd argue that Tribes has been the best game in years to provide a sense of worth to people who only facilitate objectives.

Yeah, but can it compete with TF2? (or brink, but we never talk a out brink)

It's really good. A lot of the time in TF2 a game is won by around 3 people on the team and everyone else's contributions were basically nil. In Tribes, everyone is doing something that actively furthers your goals.

Oh, trust me.

People find ways to be useless.

Well yeah, but they have to go pretty out of their way to do absolutely nothing. Tribes is a resources game, and if one of your team mates is keeping two enemies busy, you're ahead on "player-advantage".

It is far harder to be completely useless in Tribes, than it is in TF2.

I dunno about that... due to the fast nature and projectile weapons, it can be pretty easy to be useless in a match. More often then not if an enemy just can't hit me (Playing as Juggernaut too, so it's real easy to hit me) then I just fly past them; if they come to a sudden halt, I just drop an explosive on their head and keep going as well.
It's quite possibly the first Online Shooter I've played where you can actually be considered a 'non-threatening combatant' by the enemy team and get completely ignored. Of course this works in your favor as well sometimes, like luring enemies in for a cheap kill then scoring a Triple Kill with a single Mortar...

I've never seen anyone completely ignored. More often than not, bad players get swamped by 3 or more people looking for easy credits. So even if you're not doing anything at all, you're keeping people busy.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Yeah, but can it compete with TF2? (or brink, but we never talk a out brink)

It's really good. A lot of the time in TF2 a game is won by around 3 people on the team and everyone else's contributions were basically nil. In Tribes, everyone is doing something that actively furthers your goals.

Oh, trust me.

People find ways to be useless.

Well yeah, but they have to go pretty out of their way to do absolutely nothing. Tribes is a resources game, and if one of your team mates is keeping two enemies busy, you're ahead on "player-advantage".

It is far harder to be completely useless in Tribes, than it is in TF2.

I dunno about that... due to the fast nature and projectile weapons, it can be pretty easy to be useless in a match. More often then not if an enemy just can't hit me (Playing as Juggernaut too, so it's real easy to hit me) then I just fly past them; if they come to a sudden halt, I just drop an explosive on their head and keep going as well.
It's quite possibly the first Online Shooter I've played where you can actually be considered a 'non-threatening combatant' by the enemy team and get completely ignored. Of course this works in your favor as well sometimes, like luring enemies in for a cheap kill then scoring a Triple Kill with a single Mortar...

I've never seen anyone completely ignored. More often than not, bad players get swamped by 3 or more people looking for easy credits. So even if you're not doing anything at all, you're keeping people busy.

It's not a common thing in games, but it happens now and then. Medium classes, Brutes and Infiltrators get a fair amount of attention regardless of player skill, but Sentinels, Pathfinders and Juggernauts get ignored when they can't do their jobs properly (I.e. Pathfinder that moves slowly/avoids flags, Juggernaut that can't hit anything, Sentinel that can't headshot).
Doombringers can get ignored dependent on the game, regardless of their skill - I've often seen Capture the Flag games where a good Pathfinder just grabs it straight out, all base defenses still intact. If the Doombringer has terrible accuracy, doesn't lock onto air targets and forgets to set up proper base defenses... well, it's like they barely even exist in the game.

Sentinels I understand, because they literally don't do anything if they aren't being played well. With other classes, though? I always see someone try to take them out. If a bad PTH is near your flag, you kill them so they don't set off your claymores or destroy your forcefields. Also, heavies are just fine as long as they stand on the flag. Even if they don't shoot anything, all they need to do is just stand there.

 

[Zhukov]

Checked it out. Was not terribly impressed.

The maps are huge and everyone moves fast. Sounds good, but the end result is that most of time you feel like you're firing at gnats.

Also, trekking across said huge map every time you die feels like a waste of time.

You are too slow. These are the complaints of a slow person.

Uh... no. Being fast in the game is not hard. Hold down space and jetpack up inclines. Rocket science.

My complaint is that everything is so spread out. The empty open maps combined with fast movement mean that combat takes place at really long ranges with relatively slow moving projectiles. So you spend most of your time taking potshots at distant specks on your screen.

It's not just me. I've noticed that enemy players have an awful lot of trouble landing hits. Especially noticeable when I'm running off with a flag and there are four people miserably failing to hit me.

Hell, just look at the review video. He landed all of four hits on moving targets in the whole thing.

 

[The Mapper]

A jet pack wearing love child of Halo + Unreal... very cool.

yer but the originals were very similar it and they were on the PS1 so realy it took Halo years to catch up...

 

[Zhukov]

Then you and other people suck ass. Deal with it and get better.

Or go play some game that makes use of hitscan, and have fun with that. But dont come bitching about how you actually need to *gasp* practice to get good in Ascend! What a terrible thing!

Ah yes, the "you just suck" defence. Always a classic. I like the "everyone sucks" variation though. Don't see that too often.

Anyway, I'm awfully sorry I'm not stricken with awe by your darling game. It's just not particularly good.

...

PS. Tribes has hitscan weapons.

 

[Excludos]

Then you and other people suck ass. Deal with it and get better.

Or go play some game that makes use of hitscan, and have fun with that. But dont come bitching about how you actually need to *gasp* practice to get good in Ascend! What a terrible thing!

Ah yes, the "you just suck" defence. Always a classic. I like the "everyone sucks" variation though. Don't see that too often.

Anyway, I'm awfully sorry I'm not stricken with awe by your darling game. It's just not particularly good.

...

PS. Tribes has hitscan weapons.

it does. But they are also the worst weapons in the game. Like the shotgun, which does decent damage, but needs melee range to do any..

Theres a pistol too which i ok to get those pesky people on low hp. But its not really comparable to a spinfusor to the face.

Should also note that at lvl 1-5 (I think. Might be 1-4) you only play against people on your own level, aka rubbish people. This is obviously to ease you in a bit. But tactics, teamwork and general skill level rises a lot once you pass that point. So the "everyone sucks" arguement isn't technically wrong