TRIBES 3 RIVALS - Alpha Play Test - A Non-Tribes Player's Thoughts

[@Katabatic44]

Your feedback as a new player is SO welcome to this franchise. I've been playing for so long and there is SO MUCH POTENTIAL with Tribes and FPS-Z... to this day nothing eclipses the fun and exhilaration of skiing around at high speeds and landing insane midairs for me. The eternal problem has always been attracting and retaining new players. I like that Prophecy is moving in the direction of making shots easier to hit. Please continue to give feedback you are exactly what the franchise needs. Another thing this game needs is larger maps with bigger bases and more base assets in general. It is essential to give players options to contributing to their teams success that doesnt involve high speed skiing (capping/chasing). In other words, add more ROLES to the game (which were already present in past Tribes games) Base raiding and base defense is exactly that, and was a huge part of prior Tribes games (particularly T2 - you should check it out for fun, its free). People especially this day in age just want to fight and kill shit... base raiding/base defense is 90% that which is a great way for new players who suck at skiing to contribute to their team's success. Add more sensors, forward healing/inventory stations, more turrets (and buff turrets). In Tribes Ascend, several maps had force fields near the flag that would turn on and off when the generator was online/offline which would change what capping routes were available. When the generators were down, it was always easier to grab the flag and get out in a good trajectory. Also, Vehicles are missing which were a fun way for new players to play as well. Doesnt involve skiing at all. It's early alpha and they seem to be making huge changes and nice additions each week. I am hopeful they will work toward expanding the game and game systems over the course of development.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Yeah maybe they are just trying to get the core balance down before they unveil bigger maps with vehicles and stuff. Appreciate the comment and I'll for sure keep providing feedback! See you out there.

[@MrMGR1986]

I encountered you a few times on the most recent playtest. You got the juice bro. Murked me a handful of times. 🤝

[@SaltyOctopus]

GGs! See you in the next one! 😉

[@Pandoracasting]

I'm also a T1 vet and this playtest was absolutely amazing. The speed was perfect the gun play was excellent. I dont have a problem with newer players being able to hit midairs. The trick is to hit the mid airs first and faster.

[@SaltyOctopus]

I really enjoyed this playtest, I can't lie!

[@neph13]

woah, I had no idea there was a new one coming out. I was deeply into the original Tribes long ago. Watching this video made all those memories come flooding back. Those were some great games. I will have to look into this.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Come join us!

[@MulekeTrairao]

It is such a relief to see a veteran Arena FPS player understand why the developers have to implement certain changes. Like, we are not in the 90s anymore, and expectations are different. It's a new generation. No wonder a lot of Arena FPS games fail to retain popularity. And I am someone who loves Quake and Arena Shooters in general. Quake Champions was a good change of pace, and I want to see more developers try to innovate the genre. If they keep remaking the same exact formula, their business won't survive.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Amen 🙏

[@greag1e]

Tribes 2 vet here. As far as getting moving quickly and quick changing direction, you could shoot the ground at your feet for an assisted speed jump.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Oh yeah I need to practice this. Thanks!

[@POTATOEMPN]

I still remember Tribes on ps2

[@SaltyOctopus]

I think Tribes 3 will have crossplay.

[@tatatatira]

I loved this playtest. They should increase projectile speed next playtest by half of what they've done now, and also reduce the hitboxes by alot (like a middle ground between a previous playtest and this one). I understand this is noob friendly, but its too friendly. Also not a single crash this playtest, and i prolly played for 15+ hours

[@SaltyOctopus]

I wish I could say I did not crash. I crahsed at least 7-8 times in about 5 hours of gameplay.

[@GegoXaren]

I wish they add Server Side Scripting. That is what made Tribes so good! You should try older games in the series. SS:T bundles on ModDB. Tribes 2, on TribesNext and PlayT2. Tribes: Vengeance on Tribes: Revengeance. (it's patched so you can play online again)

[@Newt211]

When are the play tests listed? Everyone time Iog on the server is down for maintenance.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Discord. There is one tomorrow.

[@Connorses]

I played some other Tribes games and the air control was better in ALL OF THEM. You had this thing since Tribes 1 in 1998 called horizontal jets. Your jets fire vertically unless you use WASD, then the jets fire horizontal and give you more control. Feels way better overall. Oh and the chaingun wasn't this easy to aim in earlier playtests. Everyone and their mother was complaining about how strong it was this time around. The chaingun should be for finishing people off, and for killing people who lost their speed. Not for gunning down fast players.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Those would be welcome additions to this game for sure.

[@Baconaughts]

I agree on the projectile phsycis being pretty nice right now. A lot of veterans don't like it one bit, but for a game to survive with a modern audience, Tribes has to tone it down just a bit with the skill requirement for a newby to even consider going toe-to-toe with more experienced opponents. I will say that the chain gun in the last Tribes game was balanced mainly by having a SUPER slow projectile speed compared to other bullet weapon, which prevented it from being used for anything except close-up combat by a defending heavy class called the Doombringer. Regarding your comments of losing all speed when hitting something, I think the main issue that this game has (that the last one didn't) is that the map design includes so many tiny bits of "stuff" scattered throughout the main paths of travel. On your comment requesting more air control, I believe there is a slider to adjust how your jetpacks function when the WASD keys are pressed, to divert some upwards thrust to allow better horizontal movement. Snipers in this game are currently a mess. They used to be 100% assigned to a light class called the Sentinel, which was task-built for sniping and balanced as such. This game seems to be throwing weapons around for no good reason, giving grenades/abilities/weapons to weight classes that cannot fully utilize them. One glaring example is chasers (light class for hunting down flag cappers) no longer having the impact nitron to force flag drops. Instead, this grenade was given to the medium class because...... honestly not sure. It takes the primary flag chaser's tool away from the weight class built for capping and chasing.

[@SaltyOctopus]

Thank you for your comment and insight. I'm happy you agreed with some of my points. You'd think the devs would just copy what worked from other games instead of trying to reinvent the wheel... Shrug.

[@Baconaughts]

@@SaltyOctopus My first reaction on playtest 1 when opening the loadout menu was "Why is everything so jumbled". I never once had an issue with a weapon being given to a certain class in the last game. Hopefully the trend of mix-matching gear from Tribes Ascend doesn't continue.

[@SaltyOctopus]

@@Baconaughts it seems like they're trying to see what sticks... Again, I hope they're not over thinking it and trying to reinvent the wheel. Hopefully they have more solid decisions made soon.

[@AngelicMayhem]

I think its because the medium's are supposed to play around midfield controlling space. This would mean they would be in the opportune position to counter efcs.

[@4_am]

some testing saying in the game discord that there was some aim assist on the Heavy? this does explain why the lights were getting mowed down by chainwh0rze in this playtest :D

[@SaltyOctopus]

I think that was only with controller. I did not experience it with mouse and keyboard.

[@4_am]

@@SaltyOctopus kk only skim read the feedback :) most people covered my feelings, mids & heavys seem too fast compared to light, with mids being able to keep up with them more than long enough to blueplate them. But then light player will always always want more speed! MORE SPEED!

[@SaltyOctopus]

NEED MORE SPEED ALWAYS!@@4_am

[@Ad-im1ne]

Having more lateral movement might not improve the feel the way you expect 😅It kind of goes counter to landing projectile shots. The reason you're able to land them from such great distances (especially mid-air ones) at all is because of your opponent's predictable movement.

[@kcshfl]

The big issue I found with the hitboxes and projectile speed was it made heavies too strong on the point and the lights were pretty much just getting 1 tapped out of the air to the point where they were pretty much useless in organized games.

[@SaltyOctopus]

After seeing feedback. I agree. I didn't know the hitboxes were adjusted. That makes so much sense.

[@danielwhite9713]

Admittedly, I've played a lot of Tribes (T1, T:V, and a little T:A). As a veteran and like you mentioned, I was not as happy with the gun settings of this play test. I really think the skill level was brought down too far. I'd lose interest in the game extremely fast if it was as easy as it was this last play test. The projectiles explode for a reason. Splash Damage. Because you're not supposed to be able to hit people in the air with it 1outta 5 shots. The weapons had specific scenarios you'd use them in. Just give everyone modern rifles if you're going to make the hit boxes large enough for people to hit body shots as easy as they did. Just make another Call or duty at that point. You can't cater to new players soo much that you take away the main aspects of the game. Give it a new name if you're going to do that.

[@SaltyOctopus]

I agree that there needs to be a balance. New players need to feel like they can get the hang of it quickly and veterans need to feel like there is still skill involved. I hope the devs can find the sweet spot.

[@danielwhite9713]

@@SaltyOctopus totally agree. There's definitely a sweet spot, or sweet zone at least that should make most people happy, new and old. The games been a lot of fun already, so they're pretty close already if you ask me. I'm really glad to see new players interested in it tho, and making content about it even 👍!

[@SaltyOctopus]

Thanks ! See you out there ;) @@danielwhite9713

[@OneWingedMoogleTTV]

One note: There's two inheritance sliders. If you were truly at default, you had 100% FORWARD inheritance, but 0% LATERAL. I played with the full 100/100. Takes some getting used to, especially at these speeds. I played some T1, some T2, but I was never "serious" or "competitive" about it. I played Quake 1-4 multiplayer also, but again...as a VERY casual player. My bread and butter over the years is MMOs. Not FPS. Tribes 3 has been a breath of fresh air, and frankly, I thought this playtest was closer to being "noob friendly" with still having very difficult shots at longer ranges (at least for ME). I think one thing they need to address *immediately* is controllers having aim assist........which completely skews the chaingun's power when you can hit 100%.

[@SaltyOctopus]

I didn't know controllers had aim assist. Yuck lol... I'll try 100/100 for sure. Thanks for the comment.

[@BoredDan7]

Controllers having aim assist wasn't intended. They are working on controller support for a console release so they do have AA code, but the inclusion of it in the playtest was nor purposeful. They plan for matchmaking to input based in the future so it shouldn't be a case of controller w/ AA versus mouse.

[@blendes3240]

I hated this playtest, on Eu everyone where using chainguns and as a light player i keept getting killed over and over and barley getting the enemy flag once.

[@SaltyOctopus]

I can see that. Very different experience playing defense.

[@guyperson6527]

from ur clips, the hitboxes for projectiles look too big, some of ur shots that look like misses were hits too often but the increased velocity u talked about looks good and noob friendly IMO so i think all they need is to adjust hitboxes to make air shots look cleaner

[@SaltyOctopus]

I can see that. Good point for sure.

[@BoredDan7]

I think one thing you got into about new players being turned off by being beat down by veterans if the midairs are too hard is more of an issue of these being playtests. Right now there is not a big audience and no sbmm. When you have a final release with actual mm it will be much less of an issue. not only that but it'll be easier for these new players to hit shots when their opponents are as awkward with the movement as they are and aren't as oppressive. So I think judging the current weapon feel you have to sort of take yourself out of that perspective a bit. That said, I don't mind if they make things "easier" then older tribes, but the current values feel pretty ridiculous. While a new player might enjoy hitting those shots, I feel that impact will drain pretty quickly if hitting many of these midairs is too run of the mill. Like I didn't read the patch notes and when I jumped in things felt great and I was hitting some nice shots. But after about two games I knew something was really off and that I was hitting shots I shouldn't and the illusion wore off, this made me feel sorta deflated as the "challenge" of hitting the shots felt vacant. I looked up the feed back and saw I was right about something being off. Admittedly once I knew why things felt wrong I just sort of went with it and enjoyed the sort of power fantasy for bit (especially as a chaser). But by the end of the first day I was already bored with it. It just stopped feeling rewarding, and it had me constantly questioning if I hit a legitimately good shot or not at times. Didn't bother playing really second day as I just had no motivation to.

[@SaltyOctopus]

That's fair. There needs to be a balance for sure.

[@ryanmcgrath7069]

Not bad, newb

[@SaltyOctopus]

😉

[@catowarmeowson9964]

Shazbot

[@SupermotoF00L]

But cant dumb it down too much. Otherwise it willl die and get boring. I think gun play to fast. Might as well play COD. And we dont need to think these "new players need a an easier tribes cause there not as good" the newer generation will learn new stuff and kill us old farts... they need to keep the skill ceiling high enough to make it a skilled game. Also yes we need boost and the movement still off a bit. They need to just figure a good mmr and matchmaking not make shooting easier... rocket league didnt .ake a bigger goal and change flip reset to not work... just saying. Lol

[@SaltyOctopus]

Your opinion is very valid. I think finding a good middle ground for both parties would be the solution. A good MMR system would also be great, as long as the player population can support it. Thanks for the comment.

[@pvprangergod4024]

its already boring. i have never played tribes and its boring to me. its not even a tribes game it is just call of duty with jetpacks.