Tribes assend is showing us the way

(light_sh4v0r) #221

What did they do to the ranger?

(BioSnark) #222

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/02/tribes-ascend-adding-loadout-customization-stealth-spinfusor/
!?

(ZernoK) #223

Heh… ok, so I got to play the ranger class last hours in the game.
Really looking forward to the patch, as I just started playing it a bit again since early December.

(tangoliber) #224

Patch is up. It looks great so far. There are now 9 classes instead of 12. You get more options for your primary, secondary, grenade, and belt item.

For instance, I can now put the bolt launcher with nitrons and energy pack. On soldier, I could have a spinfuser and a thumper.

There are still some “holes” in the freedom of customization. For instance, with the pathfinder your two secondary choices are a light AR or a shotgun. I’m guessing that they will eventually add enough options that those who had bullet weapons can always have two explosive weapons instead.

All of your spent Gold and XP has been returned to you, by the way… So you can re-purchase everything. Tokens have been eliminated…supposedly converted to extra XP.

(light_sh4v0r) #225

Yeah, it looks good. Spent some time reassigning all my xp (I had loads, I maxed out 5 classes, that’s more than I had before the patch…
Anyway, it plays well so far, pathfinder seems even easier to get silly speeds with now, and I didn’t even use the jumper pack yet.
Map changes seem nice overall, although Bella omega took a while to get used to, they changed the terrain up so much my normal routes were off :tongue:

I like what I’ve seen so far!

(ZernoK) #226

The jumper pack boosts you to like 150 and if you go at higher speed than that, then it pretty much doesnt work at all if you try to use it.
Travel speed on the Light AR seems way slower than the normal AR one, had quite a hard time hitting anything with it even in close range.

Not too fan of Bella Omega, the terrain is so… bumpy, having a hard time getting some good ski going because I hit a bump and lose some speed on that and just ruin my entire run pretty much.

Loving the new explosive nitron grenades pathfinder got, gain an even bigger speed from those than the other nitron grenade but does not have the drop flag effect on hit.

(tangoliber) #227

Ooooh, and on the same day, the Natural Selection 2 Beta updates.

Trailer for the “Gorilla” Update

//youtu.be/ZCsgeVfiklw

Damn…which one to play?

(light_sh4v0r) #228

Yeah I saw the new explosive nitron grenade, but I didn’t get it yet. Not sure if I want to give up the flagdrop effect, as that’s really good imo.

(tangoliber) #229

I haven’t tried the explosive nitron, but if I was using pathfinder as a capper, I probably would. I play chaser though, and the impact nitron still gives me a good enough boost in addition to the flag fumbling feature. When I use it on Arx Novena, it always sends me flying over the middle bridge. :slight_smile: And when I go for an e-grab, which you often have to do as chaser, I end up boosting myself over the bridge behind the base. (Which isn’t that smart, since going that high makes you an easy kill for Sentinels.)

I like the 3-shot burst on the light assault rifle. My accuracy isn’t good enough to duel with it, but its a good tool for chasing, since flag carriers usually go in predictable straight lines.

I love having the thumper on my technician. The technician is often around the flagstand unless he is focusing on the generator, which means that the technician is often in position to chase. But previously he had no way to propel himself. Now he can, with the thumper. And he can thump the flagstand. So, it was a really adequate choice for a technician weapon in my opinion. I’ve equipped the motion sensors, but I don’t yet have a sense of how effective they are in terms of the energy drain feature. I like that it gives me a bunch of them.

MIRV Launcher looks very cool, but I prefer the fusion mortar. I’m pretty bad at the LMG, and I prefer to have a spinfuser as my Juggernaut secondary anyway.

The Phase Rifle on the Sentinel is quite good too. It seems easier to get hits on targets going horizontal to your screen than it is with the other sniper rifle, thank to the beam.

I really hope the Doombringer will get a good secondary option eventually. I like the chaingun and forcefields, but I hate the missile launcher. I would have loved to have the heavy bolt launcher as a secondary option.
I also want a different secondary for Raider before I play it again. I haven’t yet tried the nerfed whiteout grenades. I really enjoyed using them to cap before…but yea, they were probably OP. I hope they still work to some extent.

As for the nerfed Shrike, I was really surprised when I mid-aired a Shrike with a pathfinder spinfuser, and it lost over half of its health. Pretty cool in my opinion.

(tokamak) #230

I decided to play (since weeks) again. I took the juggernaught guy, I entered the team deathmatch and thought ‘hmm I wonder how this mortar thing works’. First shot, nope. Second shot, 400 meter flag carrier kill!

Neat!

(light_sh4v0r) #231

Yeah, I find the juggernaut incredibly fun and rewarding :slight_smile:
Try the mortar inside on the enemy generator as well!

(tokamak) #232

There’s quite a lot of love poured into this game.

(light_sh4v0r) #233

Getting random 5 second hangs every now and then since the last patch. Don’t know if it’s just me or serverwide though.

Double kill flagdefender no joy artillery explosive spree revenge accolades in 1 mortar shot? oh yeah :smiley:

(tokamak) #234

The character upgrade thing is actually addictive, unlike Brink.

(light_sh4v0r) #235

I preferred it the way it was before the patch though. I realise that this is not possible now that they have flexible loadouts, but seeing all your upgrades and perks in a single tree is much better than a single screen where you can’t see any of them at all!

Global XP is nice though.

(Apoc) #236

I think its interesting how hi rez have balanced the light and heavy classes, and really shows where brink went wrong.

Brink heavy - less movement, as a result - bigger guns, 60 more hp (cant remember exactly what increase it was, but wasnt more than 100% the lights).

Tribes heavy - less movement, as a result - bigger guns. nearly triple light xp (light = 900, heavy = 2400)

Tribes heavy feels balanced. Brink heavy does not. Really shows SD that a movement penalty is a very significant disadvantage, and cannot be overcome without significant balancing.

(tokamak) #237

Brink takes place in a more confined setting and movement is thus less of a penalty than in Tribes. HOWEVER the differences between both heavies are still huge. Brink’s heavy could easily have twice the HP and it still would be the weakest bodytype around.

(tangoliber) #238

Since Brink is more close range, the body mass was more of a drawback, since it catches more of the bullet spread. At close range in Ascend, it is much easier to hit a heavy, and its easier to snipe from a distance as well…but it doesn’t really affect it all the time. Also, Tribes is really not a kill/death game. People on offense hardly ever get kills, and people on defense hardly ever die. Theoretically, you can win a Tribes match 5-0 and never have a single kill on your team. I’ve certainly seen some very low kill wins, though you usually get some from the suicidal cappers that fly through the stand. You move people around, knock people off the flag stand more than you actually kill people.

I’m focusing on playing as a chaser right now. It sort of reminds me of the DB position in American football. But I’m doing it with the pathfinder, not the soldier AR and thumper loadout which is more effective. I guess that I expect them to keep tweaking until pathfinder is the best chaser. I use Egocentric and Safety Third. I use disc jumps to catch up, and nitrons to get the flag back. Glad they took out random grenade throws in the last patch. You can’t chase like that in a real match when they are going 300, but its good practice in pubs.

If you put GOTTA GO FAST in the secret code section, it will change your kph to “Sanics” on the postmatch results screen. It resets after you leave the game.

(tokamak) #239

Very true, the surface of the heavy in Tribes plays no role at all. Especially not considering most weapons are splash damage oriented.

I do think they could increase the size of the heavies a bit though, it would at least make the silhouettes easier to distinguish.

(light_sh4v0r) #240

Did I mention fusion mortars are awesome?
Just got half the enemy team raging about how OP they were after getting 12 kills in 5 minutes :smiley:

I love this game.