asgaard

Tribes Ascend drama on Reddit

Wed, 07 Aug 13 13:00:24 +0000

Not exactly surprising...

It's a real shame, because Tribes (1+2) is such an amazing game. Tribes Ascend (T:A, Hi-Rez's addition) was a bit more like Tribes-lite than proper Tribes, but it still seemed like it could revitalize the series. Hi-Rez (the developer) seemed to squander the opportunity and generally went out of their way to upset the community, not just by implementing a game with some fairly big flaws at higher levels of play and which didn't make much effort to relive the level of detail in its predecessors, but also in their general attitudes and treatment of the community.

They seemed to start turning it around late last year, by which point I'd jumped ship to Planetside anyway and was a bit sceptical, but the (remaining) community was quite hopeful. But no, apparently Hi-Rez couldn't live up to it after all.

It seems strange that Hi-Rez would even want to make r/tribes the official forum - r/tribes pretty much universally hates them, and the Tribes community has historically been of questionable maturity at best. If anything, it seemed to get worse with T:A's focus on trying to attract esportsesportsesports pro types.

Once again, it seems like Tribes is going to spend the next 10 years gathering dust.

Tribes Ascend Survey

Tue, 27 Nov 12 22:37:23 +0000

Hi-Rez sent out a survey for all 'VIP' players in Tribes Ascend today.

They've probably realised their player numbers are tanking (hastened, I imagine, by PlanetSide 2's release last week). It's a sensible change of tactic; previously they've only canvassed feedback from serious competitive players, whereas they've sent this one out to everyone who has a VIP (paid) account.

The survey is a bit strange and apparently proposes very big rule changes without explanation of how they'd be incorporated alongside existing rules. One of Ascend's big problems is that it incorporates concepts from previous Tribes titles with no apparent understanding of how Ascend is different and why you can't just bring things in from different games and expect them to work.

The problem is that Ascend basically needs its rules rewriting from the ground up. Fortunately, someone's already written those rules. They're called Tribes 2.

I kind of hope they do implement massive changes just to make Ascend's death a bit less depressing than a gradual fade out over the next 6 months. Despite being better than Vengeance, it seems set for an even shorter lifespan.

Tribes Ascend Brute Strategy/Purpose - HoF

Sun, 14 Oct 12 16:58:57 +0000

It's the eternal conundrum. Juggernauts blow things up, Doombringers stand on flags, but what on earth are Brutes meant to do? Fractal dispenser, obviously. But nobody gets caught in fractal fields any more and now people have cottoned on to the fact that indoor play isn't very important, they're even less effective.

Well, it turns out you can make Brute a pretty effective flag-defence/HoF class. Is it as effective as DMB? I'm not sure; it's more of a high-risk high-reward thing, but it's far more fun.

Loadout

Primary: Devastator Spinfusor
Secondary: Nova Colt
Grenades: Sticky grenades (yes, really)
Pack: Survival pack
Perk 1: Up to you. I use Safety Third, but none seems very relevant. Rage might be better.
Perk 2: Super Heavy (but you might prefer Survivalist)

Let's quickly summarise the reasons for the choices above. The devastator spinfusor does a huge amount of damage on direct hits and is good for one-shotting incoming lights or quickly finishing anyone trying to duel you. The Colt is accurate and effective at picking off (or at least damaging) flag cappers who get through.

Stickies are just fun. You could use fractals if you want, but they seem to be most effective at denying you access to your own flagstand, which is the opposite of what we're trying to achieve here. And getting a sticky on a capper as he shoots past with your flag is hilarious.

The survival pack makes you walk a bit faster, and gives you a bit more health and faster regen to make you a bit more survivable.

Super heavy is for squashing cappers as they fly into you (obviously), but you could argue that a capper with a brute in his way is not a capper likely to do anything useful anyway (in the chaos of pubs though, this doesn't really hold true), so you could swap this out for survivalist.

Tactics

Your basic tactic is this:

Stand on the flag.
Watch all around for incoming cappers
???
PROFIT!!!

Because of the nature of capping, if a capper wants to come in fast, they have to head in a roughly straight line in the half-second before they grab. If you're on the flag, you have the absolute perfect opportunity to put a disc in their face. Struggling with blue plate specials? Here's a great time to practise. And because your spinfusor does a ridiculous amout of damage, you'll probably kill them in one shot.

Some cappers can swerve quite effectively, but ultimately they still have to go through the flag (or close to it) and you've still got a chance of body-blocking them if you miss. And don't forget you can move. Jetting at this point sacrifices a lot of control (but can make lining up a BPS easier), so generally you should stick to strafing.

But he's getting away!

You're not going to stop all cappers. When one gets through, whip out your Nova Colt and unload it in his direction. You're not a chasing class, so don't think about following him. Many games are lost because a flag is returned when the defence isn't at home, leaving the stand open for a few seconds. As a HoF you should always be in defensible range of the stand (except when you're dead. Try not to be dead very often).

But I'm getting blown up all the time...

HoFs attract spam. Which is why in many games, you simply won't be able to just casually reside on the flag. But you shouldn't leave the stand unless it's absolutely necessary (for example to avoid a wide-spread MIRV, or to resupply). You only need to be on the flag right as a capper is coming through.

As well as spam, you'll start attracting INFs, and even worse, they might work in tandem with cappers! Sandrakers can be smart like that. The good news is that if they do start operating like this, you've got a nice early-warning system on incoming cappers. The key is to stay alive and alert long enough to stop the capper without letting the INF distract you too much.

The hardest part is observation: cappers can sometimes come out of nowhere, and a capper with Reach doesn't have to go through you. Counter intuitively, these kinds of cappers are best countered by not being *on* the flag all the time. For example, Katabatic has a few back-to-front routes that are almost invisible to a HoF, and the visibility on Arx is clearly low if you don't move from the flag. On Kata, it makes more sense to wander around the stand from corner to corner. On Arx, it can help to get on top of a roof to look out for cappers then drop down when one approaches.

It's easy to get distracted by people trying to duel you or mortar spam or infiltrators. It's fine to engage in duels and general defence, but don't move far away from the flag. Definitely don't go after people heading into your base; it's not your problem. The beauty of a Brute HoF is that you're equally effective with or without the generator.

If you do get sucked into duels, make sure that between each spinfusor reload, you're looking around for potential incoming cappers. You'll still get caught out, but conversely, you're no use dead, which is how you'll end up if you don't defend yourself.

Tribes Ascend - Some spinfusor/blue plate special tips.

Mon, 18 Jun 12 13:22:57 +0000

Update: I wrote this in June and since then the game/playerbase has degenerated a lot, and frankly, playing with a spinfusor is no longer particularly fun.

The reason for this is that the weapons are imbalanced with regard to their effectiveness in terms of a player's experience. Spinfusors are hard, unreliable and have a low average case effectiveness for a good player. Autos (and sniper rifles) are easier, reliable and have a very high average case effectiveness for a good player. As time goes on, the playerbase dwindles and the ratio of win-at-all-cost competitive players in the average pub game grows. Simply put, if you want to play Tribes, as opposed to (dare I say it) CoD with Jetpacks, you'll have more bad games than good. Don't get me wrong; I *love* Tribes, but most Ascend players are playing a totally different game (and I don't quite understand why - it's not a good game). Hi-Rez certainly won't fix these things, and it seems the most vocal voices in the community seem to start all their proposals with the false premise that everyone aspires to play competitively, so I don't ever see it changing.

On the plus side, PlanetSide 2's pretty good.

Tribes Ascend! I love it. I played Tribes 2 from its release and I have vague recollections of spending more time than I strictly should have in the Tribes 1 demo. I've probably been playing Tribes for 11-12 years or something crazy, so if I've killed you repeatedly with ridiculously improbable spinfusor shots, sorry.

Personally I'd love to see more players shunning the run-of-the-mill automatic weapons and instead using the spinfusor; remember in The Princess Bride when the Dread Pirate Roberts is duelling Inigo? A good disc duel is like that. It's a pleasure to lose to an artist, whereas it's a slightly less positive experience to lose to some idiot who pulls out a machine gun and starts spraying. So here are some tips which I hope will encourage you to forego the autos a bit.

General

if your game (FPS) is lagging, turn down your graphics settings. Having a responsive and smooth input/feedback is the most important thing. You barely even notice graphics when you're playing ... except those beautiful light effects on Raindance, I'll admit.
Mouse sensitivity: it's become vogue to have a very low sensitivity. This completely doesn't work for spinfusors (and seems like a bad idea if you don't want RSI).
Projectile weapons are subject to inheritance, i.e. the projectiles inherit your momentum. You probably know this already. This is just a 'feel' thing, there's not much I can say about it other than be aware of it.
Your class _does_ make a difference. I find it easier to stack up the MAs with soldier. It's probably down to a) the way people engage you and you them, and b) it being a sweet spot between being able to move fast enough to stay alive while being slow enough to not have to consider the inheritance too much (also note that for some reason lights have the same hitbox, as mediums, so being light doesn't make you harder to hit. TA has some very dubious design decisions). Pathfinder and Juggernaut, however, are the only true Tribes classes.

Aiming

Aiming is hard. Tribes is very much a 3D game and aiming in 3D with your mouse is hard. Try to reduce the number of variable axes between you and your target. If they're flying straight at you, you only need to aim in the vertical axis. You wouldn't believe how many flag carriers I've surprised with easy shots like this by placing myself between them and their flag stand and just hovering at their height.
There's a point in a player's arc where they're almost stationary in one dimension - right at the top. That's a good place to aim, especially if you're moving in the same direction as them.
Try to aim as much as possible WITHOUT the mouse - if you can adjust your movement (by keyboard and jetpack) to better coincide with their arc, then DO. It's a lot more reliable than frantically waving your reticle around.
I don't go for 'tracking' people with my mouse:
- If I need to adjust my aim before I shoot, I do it rapidly right before I shoot. This isn't a conscious thing but it seems to work quite well for me - your milage may vary (this is more for duels).
- Try to place your reticle in the right place ahead of time, then wait for them to fly into your aim (this is less for duels and more for taking down people not paying a lot of attention to you).
At close range, it can be really unintuitive where you should be aiming. I'm not sure if this is the hitbox, lag, unintuitive physics or what, but generally, your reticle shouldn't be over your target if you're both moving at any speed. Aim well ahead of where you think you should be.

Practice, practice, practice

I miss loads. You will too. You won't get those awesome mid airs unless you try. And you won't get better unless you're willing to fail.
Engaging heavy classes is good practice (avoid jugs with the X1 LMG though). They tend to move much more slowly and predictably and their hitbox is massive.
Obviously, in a disc duel, it often comes down to energy management and making sure you're still in the air to land a ground-shot on them when they hit the ground. But think twice before you finish them off like this - it's often worth letting them get a few metres back up again just for the practice - they'll often be in a bad position and you'll get an easy-ish shot, but one which is more challenging than just splash damaging them when they're on the ground.
A very good skill to learn is rapidly throwing your viewport around to where you *think* someone will end up when you're flying past them (or vice versa). Don't be scared to sacrifice some aim to get some more mobility.

Other

Latency isn't *that* important. Easy for me to say with my ridiculous < 20 ping, but I used to be semi-competent on Goon Haven (a US Tribes Next server) with a 250 ping. There is so much compensation going on in your aim for other factors that as long as your ping is relatively stable and your game is playable, latency is just another factor and you'll adapt to it.
*EDIT*: Actually, T:A's netcode is terrible, ignore this point.
If you play jug, it's worth getting the throwable discs so if you get a good shot but you're half way through reloading, you can throw a disc at them. The aiming for these is weird - you have to hit fire and *then* aim, but I've had a good few MAs with them (and the improved rate of fire has saved me a few times).
Don't let your enemy get _directly_ above you. It's very hard to aim upwards. It seems much easier to aim downwards and shoot a disc in someone's face.
Bonus tip! Since writing this, Hi-Rez has released more spinfusors. I _always_ use the 'direct-hit' spinfusor for whatever class I'm playing - the one that does more damage but less splash. It'll improve your aim. And being able to take down a heavy in 3 shots with the duelling spinfusor is nice.
And finally... don't spend the whole game chasing mid-airs and ignoring the flag. No one cares that you've got 16 blue plates if they know you spent all game in the mid-field picking off easy and pointless kills.