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On October 21 2011 00:29 xDaunt wrote:And here's the reality: HiRez doesn't need to cater to the old base. In fact, it is smart to go after a new player base. I am betting that the average, old school T1/T2 player is now close to 30 years old, give or take. How many of them still play? How many of them will play T:A? The answer is probably not that many. Tribes needs new blood.
So why try to capitalize on the Tribes name if you're not going to cater to the players that have some emotional investment in that title?
Quoted from Hi-Rez about beta testing
"First of all, THANK YOU for joining in our tests of Tribes: Ascend!
Some of you helped with early testing of Global Agenda and have first-hand experience with how we work. Hi-Rez Studios has a design and release approach that is certainly unique. I believe we are one of the leaders in a major industry shift toward more gamer-metric focused, iterative design and more studios will embrace similar approaches over time. But regardless, for better or worse we certainly operate differently. One industry buzzword descriptor would be 'games as a service', but what does that really mean? And how does that relate to our Testing program and how you can best contribute and advance the game? Here's a brain-dump around our philosophy and approach.
Every Design is a Hypothesis.
At a high level our design process can be summarized as:
Our goal is a fun game ->
Game designs are hypotheses (about what might be fun) ->
Playtests are experiments (measuring the fun) ->
We evaluate designs based upon playtest results (often resulting in a change) ->
Repeat
p.s. Valve, but few others, describe their "Design Process" exactly the same way. Basically we create. We test/measure. We change something. We repeat. This process continues in Alpha... and in Closed Beta... and in Open Beta... and even after release of the game. But our goal is for the scope and impact of the post-release changes to be much smaller than the pre-release changes. And for all of the changes to be guided by what we believe players enjoy most based on their in-game actions. So, that's where you come in.
Consequences:
- everything is subject to change. that said, there are some design ideas that are 'strong' hypothesis and less likely to change; vs. others that are weak hypothesis and more likely to change. Feel free to ask and we'll try to give guidance on what features or systems fall into which category. For example - it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we would change the idea of offering fixed 'load-outs'/classes. However, a particular implementation of load-outs could more likely change.
- When our Designers make predictive statements like "this will be fun because of xxx", we are skeptical. When you make predictive statement about what will be fun, or not fun, we are equally or more skeptical. Our bias is - let's prototype it and playtest it and measure the results. So the most valuable feedback you can provide is specific to what you experienced in the most recent playtest.
- actions speak louder than words. We do read the feedback on the forums. But we also measure and monitor what actually occurs in game. If you feel a weapon is over-powered the most effective way to demonstrate that is to use it repeatedly in the playtest against everyone with HiRez in their tag.
Cognitive Bias for Status Quo... or Why the Test Isn't Only For Tribes Veterans?
Cognitive Bias for the Status Quo is a fancy way of saying, 'people like what they know and were first exposed to' and it is a powerful force. We saw this first hand in Global Agenda whether it was the Device Point system or AvA Season One or countless other things. Players get attached to whatever Version X they are first exposed to. And they almost always prefer that system to Version X+1 unless there is an OVERWHELMING reason to adopt something different. My first exposure to college basketball was cheering on the NC State basketball team and I did this for 10+ years. Later I ended up attending college at their arch-rival school UNC-Chapel Hill. Even while actively attending UNC at a student, and after THREE YEARS attending basketball games as a fan, my main allegiance was still to the original team I grew up with. Only the death of the NC State Coach (Jim Valvano RIP) provided enough reason for me to switch my allegiance to UNC; (and even now NC State is still a very close #2.)
If you grew up a passionate Tribes fan; and certainly if you still play some version of Tribes today, you are deeply invested in that game. Those are exceptionally great games and you strongly identify with ALL the exceptional elements within those games. Each of us have a particular hobby, sport, TV/movie/book franchise, or different game with which we feel similarly. To discard or change a part of that experience may feel like a direct challenge - rejecting greatness that you recognize and identify with.
That said, our vision for Tribes: Ascend is NOT simply one of the previous game with updated graphics. Those were great games. They still exist. We are introducing a successor title that preserves many elements, the key elements to us, but changes some elements.
Consequences:
- for those who morn that a particular design decision (such as fixed load-outs) crushes the spirit of Tribes; we aren't going to argue because clearly for YOU personally that feedback is accurate. But that line of argument/feedback is not going to sway our opinion
- please do your best to park your natural cognitive bias for the status quo. Try to see the game thru fresh eyes and give us your feedback from that perspective. What elements are awesome? What elements suck? Give the feedback within the context and fun and balance of Tribes: Ascend, and even in comparison with other, modern shooter offerings that will be our competition; not based on the similarity or difference with a previous game you are used to.
- we'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are advocating changes for the good of Tribes: Ascend. And please do the same for us. Our Design and Dev team is working hard with the intention of producing our own exceptional game. We are not trying to dumb it down. We are not trying to copy CoD or Halo. We are not going for a money-grab. Our dev team plays T:A every single day so we need a game that delivers fun in each match and also over the long-term - if just for our own sanity!
- so, please help keep the testing forums positive as we grow the population.
Our mission... and Your mission if you choose to accept it... is to re-introduce the core Tribes elements of jetpacking, skiing, vehicles, and teamwork AS a class-based shooter WITH progression that also happens to be free-to-play
It is certainly NOT the least controversial path, but it is the path we've chosen."
Well....I guess they're doing Tribes right in their own way. They got jetpacks, skiing, vehicles and teamwork. They sure took some liberty with everything else.
Tribes Vengeance was closer to Tribes than T:A is now, and it failed miserably to attract a player base. Those 4 things they listed do not make for a successful Tribes game. The physics, weapons, speed, loadouts, and 100 other things big and small all make a huge difference.
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How big is the old Tribes player base that is still active and/or likely to buy a new Tribes game? Maybe 1,000 people? You can't make a game just for them. The player base is just too small.
The biggest problem with T:V is that it wasn't accessible and palatable to new players. Yes, the Tribes vets grumbled, and many never even switched to T:V. However, T:V wasn't going to succeed on the vets liking it. That player base was too small even back then. It needed new players, which it didn't attract. T:V was still Tribes and Tribes is hard. Tribes is also old. It comes from a different era of gaming. It needs a facelift to attract to new blood. It needs new features and new dynamics, which T:A is implementing.
Yes, the core components of Tribes are jetpacks, skiing, vehicles, and teamwork. T:A has those, which is good. The speed and physics are mostly there as well. Tribes vets should be happy to see a new game that has these elements, which, as a package, are completely absent from every other FPS out there. All of this grumbling is kinda ridiculous. But whatever, if these people want to let it hold them back, that's their business.
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On October 21 2011 02:42 xDaunt wrote:
How big is the old Tribes player base that is still active and/or likely to buy a new Tribes game? Maybe 1,000 people? You can't make a game just for them. The player base is just too small.
The biggest problem with T:V is that it wasn't accessible and palatable to new players. Yes, the Tribes vets grumbled, and many never even switched to T:V. However, T:V wasn't going to succeed on the vets liking it. That player base was too small even back then. It needed new players, which it didn't attract. T:V was still Tribes and Tribes is hard. Tribes is also old. It comes from a different era of gaming. It needs a facelift to attract to new blood. It needs new features and new dynamics, which T:A is implementing.
Yes, the core components of Tribes are jetpacks, skiing, vehicles, and teamwork. T:A has those, which is good. The speed and physics are mostly there as well. Tribes vets should be happy to see a new game that has these elements, which, as a package, are completely absent from every other FPS out there. All of this grumbling is kinda ridiculous. But whatever, if these people want to let it hold them back, that's their business.
Why would we be happy about hirez destroying everything we loved about tribes? Not to mention completely burning us by saying Tribes ascend would use T2C as a base...which it clearly hasn't. Speed caps are completely against the spirit of tribes and are a large part as to why TV and T2 base are so terrible. Not to mention they've turned the game into rock paper scissors and removed all the versatility a loadout could give. Loadouts used to be bread and butter with something to specialize your loadout. Now they've removed the bread and butter part and just give you specialization. Oh and don't forget the perks. Not being able to drop the flag? REALLY? Like some of these perks are seriously retarded and I'm sure they will become even better when hirez starts selling the better ones.
The game being hard is precisely why it was fun. It made competition possible, and entertaining. It gave people something to aspire to, it was beat the shit out of that guy who killed you 10 times rather than "Oh if I missile someone I get an achievement!" Starcraft 2 was a nice balance between old and new. Tribes ascend, unfortunately, is not.
Another thing that pisses us off is that there are so many things right that are destroyed by a few wrongs. The art and graphics are both spectacular. They have added some neat weapons like the arx buster and the bolt launcher. Even the blink pack is a neat idea, how it performs in practice we would have to find out. And yet the game is ruined by a few simple flaws. Speed caps, terrible loadout choices (OH BOY A SNIPER AND A PISTOL OH BOY), and bad map design.
We wouldn't be complaining at all if the game didn't have the word "Tribes" in it. Infact, it would probably be an excellent game if it didn't. But the fact is that it does have "Tribes" in its title. And that automatically makes the game judged by vastly higher standards than any other game.
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On October 21 2011 02:42 xDaunt wrote:
How big is the old Tribes player base that is still active and/or likely to buy a new Tribes game? Maybe 1,000 people? You can't make a game just for them. The player base is just too small.
You're right of course. It's not enough.
But that's not the only people you're catering to. There are also hundreds of thousands of casual gamers that used to play Tribes at some point who have fond memories of the franchise, and most likely wouldn't mind re-visiting it at some point. - These guys are the reason why the name "Tribes" still holds some value from a marketing standpoint.
Granted, most of them probably won't be as discriminating as the "hardcore" crowd, and won't have as big of a problem with the direction of where Hirez is taking T:A. But I'm also pretty sure that they wouldn't have a problem if they'd keep it more in touch with the traditional games.
And here in lies the beef that most vets have with the current direction of T:A. Appealing to the casual audience does not have to come at the expense of appeal to the hardcore. See: Starcraft 2.
You don't need two weapon loadouts to appeal to newbies. You don't need speed caps. You don't need soupy physics, locked uncustomizable loadouts, or over-simplified mechanics. You only need to make the game easily accessible and fun. The problem with the previous Tribes games was that they were lacking on the "easly accessible" -part.
The biggest problem with T:V is that it wasn't accessible and palatable to new players. Yes, the Tribes vets grumbled, and many never even switched to T:V. However, T:V wasn't going to succeed on the vets liking it. That player base was too small even back then. It needed new players, which it didn't attract. T:V was still Tribes and Tribes is hard. Tribes is also old. It comes from a different era of gaming. It needs a facelift to attract to new blood. It needs new features and new dynamics, which T:A is implementing.
As much as T:V gets harped on for being "easymode" version of tribes (it was), it's a fallacy to say it was noob friendly. It wasn't a forgiving game in the least. It had a more arcadey feel and pace of the game was much quicker when contrasted with the more cerebral combat in T1/2, was much more cramped (nowhere to "hide" or take shelter) with the tiny maps, and the addition of superpowered packs and things like the grappler certainly didn't make it any easier on the newbies.
Ironically, while definitively the worst overall gameplay wise, T2 base probably was the most newbie friendly version of Tribes - The slow pace did well in coddling newbies, the huge D stack helped them feel useful while learning the ropes of the game, and the vehicle centric gameplay brought that 'wow' factor to the table.
Yes, the core components of Tribes are jetpacks, skiing, vehicles, and teamwork. T:A has those, which is good. The speed and physics are mostly there as well. Tribes vets should be happy to see a new game that has these elements, which, as a package, are completely absent from every other FPS out there. All of this grumbling is kinda ridiculous. But whatever, if these people want to let it hold them back, that's their business.
You're right about that.
It's nothing but some feelings.
But after having played the previous titles, you are going to feel pretty bummed to settle for something less than them simply because it is the only available option - You're kind of expecting a new title to take things a step forward, not two backwards.
But yes, a major issue to most people with a history in Tribes is that this game has "Tribes" in the title, yet is not "Tribes" in content. And the fact that it was billed to us as a a "true successor to Tribes 2" (or something akin to that) by the developer back when they announced it - not as "Global Agenda 2, now with skiing", when they clearly had no intentions of making it "Tribes" in the first place.
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On October 21 2011 02:59 Coriolis wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2011 02:42 xDaunt wrote:
How big is the old Tribes player base that is still active and/or likely to buy a new Tribes game? Maybe 1,000 people? You can't make a game just for them. The player base is just too small.
The biggest problem with T:V is that it wasn't accessible and palatable to new players. Yes, the Tribes vets grumbled, and many never even switched to T:V. However, T:V wasn't going to succeed on the vets liking it. That player base was too small even back then. It needed new players, which it didn't attract. T:V was still Tribes and Tribes is hard. Tribes is also old. It comes from a different era of gaming. It needs a facelift to attract to new blood. It needs new features and new dynamics, which T:A is implementing.
Yes, the core components of Tribes are jetpacks, skiing, vehicles, and teamwork. T:A has those, which is good. The speed and physics are mostly there as well. Tribes vets should be happy to see a new game that has these elements, which, as a package, are completely absent from every other FPS out there. All of this grumbling is kinda ridiculous. But whatever, if these people want to let it hold them back, that's their business. Why would we be happy about hirez destroying everything we loved about tribes? Not to mention completely burning us by saying Tribes ascend would use T2C as a base...which it clearly hasn't. Speed caps are completely against the spirit of tribes and are a large part as to why TV and T2 base are so terrible. Not to mention they've turned the game into rock paper scissors and removed all the versatility a loadout could give. Loadouts used to be bread and butter with something to specialize your loadout. Now they've removed the bread and butter part and just give you specialization. Oh and don't forget the perks. Not being able to drop the flag? REALLY? Like some of these perks are seriously retarded and I'm sure they will become even better when hirez starts selling the better ones. The game being hard is precisely why it was fun. It made competition possible, and entertaining. It gave people something to aspire to, it was beat the shit out of that guy who killed you 10 times rather than "Oh if I missile someone I get an achievement!" Starcraft 2 was a nice balance between old and new. Tribes ascend, unfortunately, is not. Another thing that pisses us off is that there are so many things right that are destroyed by a few wrongs. The art and graphics are both spectacular. They have added some neat weapons like the arx buster and the bolt launcher. Even the blink pack is a neat idea, how it performs in practice we would have to find out. And yet the game is ruined by a few simple flaws. Speed caps, terrible loadout choices (OH BOY A SNIPER AND A PISTOL OH BOY), and bad map design. We wouldn't be complaining at all if the game didn't have the word "Tribes" in it. Infact, it would probably be an excellent game if it didn't. But the fact is that it does have "Tribes" in its title. And that automatically makes the game judged by vastly higher standards than any other game.
High-Rez destroying tribes? And yeah I'm pretty sure they did use the older tribes as a base but that base was just for movement and gameplay, which they've done a good job at. Yeah the speedcaps suck but it's not even in beta yet so chill out. Many things could still change. This is High-Rez's vision of tribes and they're vision includes a class based system of 2 weapons. They seemed to have made it clear that they don't want 3 weapons because they want to encourage team-work rather than have people who can do everything flying around. This is definitely different and a change, but you can't argue that this removes any depth from the game.
Bad map design? Not even in beta. Loadout weapons have not yet been balanced, that's being saved for beta. Also people keep dismissing the pistol as if it's worth nothing. The pistol is a good weapon. I've gotten good kills from it and it's good for chasing. The game might be different but it still plays and feels like tribes, and that's pretty loyal considering the amount of time that has gone by since the last tribes game.
I wish SC2 had been this loyal to BW. In SC2 they changed a lot of units and abilities up, and that's pretty much what High-Rez is doing to Tribes. SC2 however changed the game significantly and got rid of micro. There is almost zero REAL micro in SC2. I don't care about the units, change them all you want, but the micro is gone. Pros and amateurs control their units exactly the same. Casting a forcefield isn't micro, blinking isn't micro, and moving pheonix while they automatically fire isn't micro. The only real micro still in the game is perhaps marine kiting, but even that's pretty basic. SC2 changed starcraft in a huge way by practically removing half of what BW was about. The biggest difference between pro games and amateur games in SC2, is that amateurs have less units on the field. The fights are so fast and microless that they seem the same.
We will see how Ascend turns out, but so far, after playing it, it still felt like tribes. The fast paced, yet non twitchy, more calculated gameplay was still there. Yeah I had a rifle instead of a chaingun, yeah I had an accurate pistol, yeah I didn't have a spinfusor at the same time as my sniper(thought the sniper didn't consume energy), but I never felt like I was dead because of a class mismatch. I always felt that with good control, I could take out my opponent, even with just a sniper and a pistol.
Give the game more of a chance man. Let it become what it's going to become before dismissing it completely. Then if it sucks in the end, then it'll just suck and that's that.
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The game isn't perfect, but as has been said ad nauseum already, beta hasn't even started yet. There's a lot that's going to change. Just think about how much SC2 changed from beta to release.
The one thing that does concern me though is that Hi Rez is giving serious consideration to making T:A a "small team game" (ie, 5v5/7v7 instead of 10v10/12v12) to foster E-Sports. Tribes simply isn't meant to be a small team game, and there are some particular aspects of T:A in its current form that reek of trying to make T:A a small team game, which I and lot of other Tribes vets really don't like. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
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On October 24 2011 18:17 pzea469 wrote:
I wish SC2 had been this loyal to BW. In SC2 they changed a lot of units and abilities up, and that's pretty much what High-Rez is doing to Tribes. SC2 however changed the game significantly and got rid of micro. There is almost zero REAL micro in SC2. I don't care about the units, change them all you want, but the micro is gone. Pros and amateurs control their units exactly the same. Casting a forcefield isn't micro, blinking isn't micro, and moving pheonix while they automatically fire isn't micro. The only real micro still in the game is perhaps marine kiting, but even that's pretty basic. SC2 changed starcraft in a huge way by practically removing half of what BW was about. The biggest difference between pro games and amateur games in SC2, is that amateurs have less units on the field. The fights are so fast and microless that they seem the same.
If SC2 had been as loyal to BW as T:A is to T2, you'd have ended up with Dawn of War as I said earlier. A game with ridiculous hard counters, where you can only command whole squads at a time because they don't want you to - they won't let you - micro individuals, no matter how much you'd want to or how much sense it'd make from a player perspective. Because that just wouldn't be fair against all the poor dudes who can't dish out 150++ apm to the table. SC2 at least lets you micro, even if it good unit control overall is much less important than in BW due to the more intelligent unit AI and faster pace of the game.
If you really want to make an oranges to apples Tribes to SC2 comparsion "dumbing down micro/unit control" and adding MBS is more equivalent with what T:A did with the skiing mechanic and air control. If you wanted to be good at moving around in Tribes you needed supreme map knowledge, and a keen eye for reading the terrain whenever you didn't run a pre-practiced route. If you wanted to change direction in any meaningful way you had to do it via ground contact on terrain features with a suitable slant that'd direct/deflect your movment vector in the direction where you wanted to go.
Now? Terrain features have minimal impact on your direction (and on that tangent one of the distinguishing hallmarks of T:A so far is that the terrain in the maps are pretty boring and featureless). You can can "carve" on any sloping terrain, simply by looking where you want to go. And even then, you don't need to, because the air control in T:A is ridiculously strong at anything but redline speed, so even if you botched up, hey no problem, just hold down the strafe key a bit.
Then again, on the plus side, it doesn't take you weeks just to learn how to move around in the game. You can just push your spacebar and go.
Welp, that was a bit of a derailment. Back to business.
On October 25 2011 00:04 xDaunt wrote:
The game isn't perfect, but as has been said ad nauseum already, beta hasn't even started yet. There's a lot that's going to change. Just think about how much SC2 changed from beta to release.
They're not going to change major features in the beta. Beta is for tweaking & balancing, not re-designing core features.
In other words, stuff subject to change: physics parameters, weapon balance.
Not going to change no matter how much or how sound your arguments are: F2P, two weapons limit, uncustomizable loadouts, skiing mechanic.
As far as team sizes go, personally I like 10v10 myself the most. It's enough to be "large scale" but not big enough you can just solve problems by just throwing a bunch of bodies at it. Anything over 12 and it quickly becomes a spammy mess, and 7man tilts the individual skill vs teamwork skill more on the individual skill side, which I personally am not that much of a fan of.
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On October 25 2011 01:07 Muey wrote:
Not going to change no matter how much or how sound your arguments are: F2P, two weapons limit, uncustomizable loadouts, skiing mechanic.
I don't really have a problem with any of these items per se. F2P, uncustomizable loadouts, and the the current skiing mechanics are all fine in my opinion. I'd prefer a spinfusor + 2 weapons class setup, but I can live with what they're doing assuming that they get the balance right.
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That video was a horrible show of ascend tbh and kinda makes me worried. I tried the alpha build last week and they are listening...marginally, one step at a time. So far they've decreased shooting interval and reload time of the spinfusor. A couple surface area tweaks for the heavy so it can meatshield, and they increased the jet power and regen a little bit and added the jump button back in but its not like it used to be cause it will use up a bit of your energy to boost you up. You kind of feel floaty during the whole thing but that's being tweaked.
There was word from todd who mentioned bringing back the spinfusor + 2 after a lot of complaining from the community. They had mentioned they would try that on the system test last week but they didn't actually follow through. With months of beta ahead of us starting this friday i'm hopeful that it will pull through.
I should note that the new katabatic feels really........really really flat. And much much smaller compared to the original katabatic, probably half the 3/4 the original size or so. Makes me cry as it was my favorite map back for T2.
there's a couple other things i can dig up from the system test forums if you guys are interested ._.
ps: speedcap is uninamously agreed in the forum to be a baaaaaad move, i'm hoping HR will continue listening to us.
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On November 01 2011 11:27 ProjectVirtue wrote:
That video was a horrible show of ascend tbh and kinda makes me worried. I tried the alpha build last week and they are listening...marginally, one step at a time. So far they've decreased shooting interval and reload time of the spinfusor. A couple surface area tweaks for the heavy so it can meatshield, and they increased the jet power and regen a little bit and added the jump button back in but its not like it used to be cause it will use up a bit of your energy to boost you up. You kind of feel floaty during the whole thing but that's being tweaked.
There was word from todd who mentioned bringing back the spinfusor + 2 after a lot of complaining from the community. They had mentioned they would try that on the system test last week but they didn't actually follow through. With months of beta ahead of us starting this friday i'm hopeful that it will pull through.
I should note that the new katabatic feels really........really really flat. And much much smaller compared to the original katabatic, probably half the 3/4 the original size or so. Makes me cry as it was my favorite map back for T2.
there's a couple other things i can dig up from the system test forums if you guys are interested ._.
ps: speedcap is uninamously agreed in the forum to be a baaaaaad move, i'm hoping HR will continue listening to us.
Katabatic was always flat, that is why it is such a deadstop hell and shield pack heaven. I mean sure it had hills but you would just deadstop as soon as you came off anyways.
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ps: speedcap is uninamously agreed in the forum to be a baaaaaad move, i'm hoping HR will continue listening to us.
This is not actually the case. I think it's fair to say that it's generally thought it's not well implemented at this stage, but there's some level of discussion as to whether a cap is valuable as a balance tool or not given the easier skiing mechanics.
Katabatic was always flat, that is why it is such a deadstop hell and shield pack heaven. I mean sure it had hills but you would just deadstop as soon as you came off anyways.
one of the nice things about the non-jump skiing system is that this doesn't happen. You can skii without losing momentum along the flats, you only slow if you clip something or go up a hill. Of course, the only way of changing direction on the flat without deadstopping is to punt yourself in a direction with a disc or grenade, so it has its challenges.
There was word from todd who mentioned bringing back the spinfusor + 2 after a lot of complaining from the community. They had mentioned they would try that on the system test last week but they didn't actually follow through. With months of beta ahead of us starting this friday i'm hopeful that it will pull through.
I'm fairly sure this won't happen. Not entirely sure, but it goes against everything I've heard anyone say. In the competitive section a staffer outright ruled it out, take from that what you will.
having played the 2 weapon system a bit now I don't think it's too bad. It means you don't feel quite so supersoldier/starshiptrooper esque, but it makes team comp and teamwork far more important, which for a game centering around teamwork focused competition is a good thing. legacy tribes was more suited to quake 3 players who are all about their own leet skillzors. This one is more suited to CS players, executing plans in perfect concert with assigned roles and a little flair. The focus is slightly different. I'd argue that quake players are more individually honed killing machines, but CS players are perhaps the more skilled overall, requiring very solid mechanics, but also a lot of practice working as a unit.
It's still totally tribes though. It feels more tribesy than tribes as I said before. If you're worried about a lack of people zipping through the air dueling with spinfusors and flag capping at a million miles an hour then playing midair flag football, don't. That's still pretty much the way it plays out.
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Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already.
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On November 05 2011 06:10 Charger wrote:
Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already.
Just started my download, will come back with first impressions later.
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On November 05 2011 06:10 Charger wrote:
Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already.
The game needs some work, but it seems to be moving in the right direction. Here are my top concerns right now:
1) It's still too slow. Movement in this game is sluggish. Part of this is due to speed caps and part of this is due to weak jets.
2) A lot of the weapons are dogshit and need buffs. The Wraith/sniper class if probably the worst offender. There are too many one-weapon classes out there. Not having a spinfusor on every class is just wrong.
3) Base rape is basically nonexistant. Only gens are destructible, and the consequences of losing them are basically negligible because you can spawn into whatever loadout that you want. This REALLY pisses off the vets.
4) Map design needs some work. Some of the new maps are too flat.
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I take everything back I said in the earlier posts. This game fucking blows. First day into beta and I'm already bored and sick of it.
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On November 05 2011 06:10 Charger wrote:
Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already.
what would you like to know
care to elaborate razith? I can't say it's in the state i'd prefer it to be in right now but there are a number of tweaks coming our way and it's a long time before the game goes gold anyways.
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On November 06 2011 02:44 ProjectVirtue wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2011 06:10 Charger wrote:
Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already. what would you like to know care to elaborate razith? I can't say it's in the state i'd prefer it to be in right now but there are a number of tweaks coming our way and it's a long time before the game goes gold anyways.
I'm not looking for anything super specific. The original Tribes was one of the first games I ever played and really loved. I played Tribes 2 a little bit as well. I'm certainly not a hardcore veteran player, it was just a fun ass game to play with some friends for me. I like playing games that don't die within weeks whenever everyone moves onto something else, that's why Starcraft is so great to me. I'm not too hung up on the ultra specific things that hardcore players seem to be complaining about as long as it's fun and has the potential be a long lasting game.
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On November 06 2011 03:25 Charger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2011 02:44 ProjectVirtue wrote:On November 05 2011 06:10 Charger wrote:
Anyone got into the beta yet? I think it started today and I was hoping this thread would be buzzing with some first hand impressions already. what would you like to know care to elaborate razith? I can't say it's in the state i'd prefer it to be in right now but there are a number of tweaks coming our way and it's a long time before the game goes gold anyways. I'm not looking for anything super specific. The original Tribes was one of the first games I ever played and really loved. I played Tribes 2 a little bit as well. I'm certainly not a hardcore veteran player, it was just a fun ass game to play with some friends for me. I like playing games that don't die within weeks whenever everyone moves onto something else, that's why Starcraft is so great to me. I'm not too hung up on the ultra specific things that hardcore players seem to be complaining about as long as it's fun and has the potential be a long lasting game.
I guess the first thing to note is a decrease in speed. They've added a speedcap since the alpha build primarily to prevent heavy capping (with the right skiing and disc jumping, they were going as fast as lights but with 4x the hp). HiRezStew has commented that next week, they will be implementing some changes with regard to energy pool, thrust, regen to increase the pace of things. I'm sure you've heard spinfusor damage is tiered based on which armor class you play, problem is heavy and medium discs one shotting lights right now but that's being looked at. You can expect your average altitude per game to be MUCH closer to the ground like in vengeance rather than T1 where you're in the air the majority of the time. With regard to the 2 weapon loadout, it works for the most part. But the secondary's feel really useless sometimes. Theres 2 sniper classes, one with a halo esque sniper thats presently hitscan but might get changed, and another class with the traditional laser rifle (not selectable yet). Midair's are still just as hard to do as before, the lack of inertia inheritance for the disc makes chasing shots rather difficult to hit because the disc is too slow at the moment. Shrike is absolute garbage right now, totaly garbage as the control system was an attempt at simplifying flying controls where in you remain in an upright position at all times. The new beowulf is weird to control, less arc and damage in the explosive shells. Mortars are underpowered right now both in damage and explosion radius as gratuitously demonstrated by a member on the forum. Theres definitely more but i'm drawing a blank, maybe this might jog something in your mind that you're curious about
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