MACE (MlDAlR now with less feature creep)

[buru5]

Hmmm...

holy shit, I thought I was responding to the same person.

 

[duke nukem]

Its already dying. Each day peak player counts just keep getting lower and lower. In 5 days basically lost half of the player base, what was already extremely low. This is why i did not get this. There is no market for these types of games. Also ctf is quite boring anyway.

 

[CreamyBlood]

"Also ctf is quite boring anyway."

Oh well. I guess that's why QC doesn't even have it. I realize that it's not your fault for being young and having different tastes than I do. It's just sad that what I envisioned video games would be in 2020 thirty years ago are such a shallow shell of what could have been.

 

[abija]

CTF was pretty well recieved in overwatch so seems to be deathmatch. It's not the game types or people taste but shit devs/publishers.

Also one of the main factors in MP games is a healthy players base so maybe these mongos (talking in general about arena/fast shooters apologists not this game):
1. could drop the edginess/elitist attitude/whatever fuck else they try to corner their niches with and design for the masses. It's easier to segment your player base once is big enough than to keep alive a niche.
2. target potato hardware cause it's a lot fucking easier to get friends into a game when they don't need a new pc

 

[Dayyālu]

This will manage to survive or die when it goes F2P and how they manage to get T:A fanbase. Lol, 30 bucks for the beta is insane, they should have gone F2P from the beginning. Or sub-10 bucks, at best.

Ascend had the potential to be great: pity HiRez was furiously incompetent.

Also ctf is quite boring anyway.

You have no idea what yer talking about.

 

[unfairlight]

This will manage to survive or die when it goes F2P and how they manage to get T:A fanbase. Lol, 30 bucks for the beta is insane, they should have gone F2P from the beginning. Or sub-10 bucks, at best.

Ascend had the potential to be great: pity HiRez was furiously incompetent.

Also ctf is quite boring anyway.

You have no idea what yer talking about.

It's not just the beta though, you get all unlocks on release if you buy it now. It's in an unfinished state and they are using EA for what it's actually supposed to be, early access. Release isn't too far away if they follow their schedule (which they have so far) with open beta in November or December, I think.
I'm still seriously amazed that the devs have made it so far with minimal issues and have kept their promises, most of these Kickstarter games end up a shitshow.
I'm still sad about Shazbot, they should at least add in Jazzbot or something.

 

[Grubba]

I'm still sad about Shazbot, they should at least add in Jazzbot or something.

Adding something as seemingly harmless as the "shazbot!" emote could very well be the thing that brings the C&D hammer down upon their heads. I just found out about this game the other day so I haven't followed the development, so has there been any threats of litigation so far? They definitely seem to be toe-tapping the line of infringement, i mean it basically looks like reskinned Tribes with a different name.

Definitely getting a nostalgia boner while looking at gameplay vids. Not sure it's worth 30 bucks though. Difficult to see this game making much noise in a very saturated market. Only gonna appeal to a small group of gamers and for it to be successful and have some longevity they're really going to have to get all those people on board.

 

[unfairlight]

I'm still sad about Shazbot, they should at least add in Jazzbot or something.

Adding something as seemingly harmless as the "shazbot!" emote could very well be the thing that brings the C&D hammer down upon their heads. I just found out about this game the other day so I haven't followed the development, so has there been any threats of litigation so far? They definitely seem to be toe-tapping the line of infringement, i mean it basically looks like reskinned Tribes with a different name.

Definitely getting a nostalgia boner while looking at gameplay vids. Not sure it's worth 30 bucks though. Difficult to see this game making much noise in a very saturated market. Only gonna appeal to a small group of gamers and for it to be successful and have some longevity they're really going to have to get all those people on board.

I doubt you could copyright the phrase, it came from an 80s TV show which was copied by Starsiege: Tribes in 1998, but if it were to have any legal issues then I think they could add in Jazzbot or something like it instead, though the devs said that it won't be added in a livestream because it's something that should stick with the Tribes franchise. Pretty retarded if you ask me because you copied the vehicles, the movement, some of the maps and the weapons yet one phrase is just too far, but I understand their reasoning (in all the gameplay and streams I have seen everyone still spams [VGS] anyway). Regardless no one has bothered them (and if Hi-Jizz did then it would be a PR fucking nightmare) and I doubt they are breaking any copyrights with the game. It's still a game meant for the tiny Tribes community first and foremost but no doubt some new blood will enter the not-Wilderzone with the F2P release. Funny that, if Hi-Jizz never fucked up and didn't go full Jew with the grind in Ascend then abandoned it when they failed to monetize their game on every single level and everyone left this game wouldn't ever exist.
I suggest you wait for F2P release, I trust the devs and I feel confident that they will succeed as they have done pretty well for the last 2 years, but I don't trust them for €27.99 or $29.99.

 

[unfairlight]

Hello I am back also stop using an avatar similar to mine pleb.

Never!

It will have a dual progression system where you spend $30 to get past all of the item-based/gameplay progression instantly or grind it out

I really hope they don't pull a T:A and fuck all the people that don't want to or can't pay so they require you to spend 400 hours to grind all the weapons like T:A did.

I decided to step down on that a short time ago, for various reasons.

I really shouldn't bother asking why, but why?

HiRez-styled Tribes was not the problem, HiRez was the problem.

Yeah, this is major. The 10,000 playtime hour autists have all the weapons grinded already and the only things they have left to spend money on is server renting and the like 20 cosmetics and voice packs the game had, and all the new blood didn't want to play the game too much because pre-OOTB there was so much grind.

 

[unfairlight]

The grind for gameplay stuff for a F2P gamer will be significant but it should overall be a bit less than T:A judging by these estimates, the major difference is still going to be being able to buy the game for the one-time fee whereas T:A cost $200-$400 to unlock all gameplay-related items before they put out the ultimate weapons pack a year after the game had already succumbed to the shitty payment model.

The main thing for me is not to have important weapons and tools be too expensive, the game will have 10 guns on release according to one of the devs on Discord, I'm not sure how classes and weapons work yet but if the core weapons that you really need to stay competitive are too expensive then it'll be shit for all the new players.

The HiRez CEO (HiRezErez) did not like Tribes

I never heard of this, source? Apparetly the CEO is a total dickhead and cuts infront of people at the cafeteria according to Glassdoor reviews, so I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[unfairlight]

I'm curious why they won't just sell the license, I guess having the IP is reason enough but I doubt they will do anything with it in the future and T:A has 0 people working on it anymore with the last 2 or 3 making 1.4 and saying adios to Hi Rez after that. Ah well, the game was fun while it lasted, they'll probably keep the servers running and try to erase all that is left of the game in a year or two like they did with Global Agenda.

 

[Maggot]

If they make the game more like T:A they're just going to alienate the community they already have. All the populated servers are base CTF and LCTF is pure . If they go that route I won't buy the game at all. Reflex had the same problem where it tried to cater to two types of players and ended up alienating both of them with mediocre compromises.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I'm in the beta, and I feel it avoids a lot of Ascension's missteps. It's more difficult to maintain momentum, especially with Heavy, instead of T:A's EVERYTHING IS ICE physics. It doesn't have T:A's problem with spammy hitscan weapons either; the only hitscan weapon is the railgun, which has a very low rate of fire, and the chaingun takes a bit to spool up and has wide spread.

There's the problem of low player count, but mechanically I'm pretty happy with where it is.

 

[unfairlight]

I got the game for 8€ (5 without taxes or refund option) at Kinguin.net, get it from there if you want to save your ₪.

 

[unfairlight]

Alright I played almost 2 hours of this game and here are my thoughts.
It's fun, it's super fucking fun. I enjoyed it a ton because even if I was doing shit the people are nice to talk to and the movement is very enjoyable, it isn't exactly like T:A movement and you can only really influence it instead of having as much control as you do in T:A. Most of the maps I played unfortunately lack vehicle pads so I couldn't do that despite how much I loved it in T:A, and the only full server was one in America and as a Eastern-European 180 ping isn't exactly optimal, but I could still occasionally hit shots. I enjoy the abilities and weapons the game has at the moment, there's a chaingun which is okay but it's way too inaccurate, there's the spinfusor which lacks as much explosion radius as there was in T:A but is still powerful, there's a plasma gun which is good for shorter range midair combat and groundpounding, a grenade launcher that you can use as a mini mortar if needed, a railgun for sniping which interestingly enough is not hitscan to emulate the way how you had to lead shots in T1/2 because there people had poor connections and the hitreg was server side, a pewpew pistol which I found kinda shit and an actual mortar which is great for bombing enemy bases. My main concerns were that the performance was iffy (which will be cleaned up later on according to their roadmap) and that going to a resupply point each and every time you spawn is annoying.

 

[unfairlight]

If you have the game, redeem your free key on here and give it to someone who might enjoy it.
https://www.playmidair.com/news/dev-log-15-pax-recap-0-28-0-build-preview-and-key-giveaway/

 

[unfairlight]

https://www.playmidair.com/news/dev-log-18-build-0-29-0-highlights-patch-notes-and-team-change/
New patch, a lot of good stuff. Haven't played for a while, I can't really be bothered to ask for a game on Discord and it's dead pretty often.

 

[RoSoDude]

A certain Colonel Blair made a great highlight reel of all the best moments of the final match in the 9v9 Australian tournament in October. He did a really great job editing it together, with various camera perspectives and a combination of caster audio, team audio, text overlays, and some in-game voice commands to help give context for the action. Even if you don't really know much about Midair or Tribes, I think this is a great introduction to what makes it such a dynamic and kinetic type of competitive game.

Midair is looking great too, really looks like it's captured the essence of Tribes. Hopefully the game will foster a community on release and we'll see competition on an even higher level.

 

[unfairlight]

That's a pretty good montage, props to the guy who had time to put it together. I'm curious how the competitive community will adapt to the rocket launcher, or if they'll even allow it since it is really powerful against flag runners. A ton of fun to use in pubs, though.

 

[RoSoDude]

That's a pretty good montage, props to the guy who had time to put it together. I'm curious how the competitive community will adapt to the rocket launcher, or if they'll even allow it since it is really powerful against flag runners. A ton of fun to use in pubs, though.

Back when I was part of a shitter team in the Tribes: Ascend House League, we had a match where our EU sniper (don't know why we had an EU player in an NA ladder) couldn't connect and so we brought in one of our substitute players to play Doombringer snipe with the rocket launcher in his place. He sat on a hill in the middle of the map (Tartarus) and just locked onto the capper repeatedly.

...we won that match. Needless to say, we were not playing against the best of the best.

I'd think the rocket launcher could be balanced with flare grenades, just as it was in T2C. I support more loadout diversity, especially swinging towards T1/T2C design. SHOCKLANCE WHEN.

 

[unfairlight]

Shocklance would be awesome, but I want a normal melee attack and better designed maps first. At the moment Midair maps are way too big and most could be better at half size, I'd like to think Crossfire as the perfect Tribes map or at least the most fun to play as a pubbie, a nice mix of indoors, outdoor and perfect scale. Rocket launcher is a new favorite of mine since I HATE using automatics so much, and just firing and forgetting before someone lands on the ground to get a flag is a ton of fun. I also don't really like the current state of the plasma gun, it doesn't really have any place since it's blast radius is too small for groundpounding and it's too slow for midair shots, and everyone always equips disc and nader anyway so you can do both but better regardless.

 

[unfairlight]

YUGE! patch. New grenade, respawning revamped, new map, beta of the progression system for full launch!
https://www.playmidair.com/news/dev-log-19-build-0-30-0-highlights-patch-notes-release-update/

Hello Proxies!

Today is a new day and with a new day comes a new build with new features and content. In Dev Log #19 we’ll run through the highlights in build 0.30.0, full patch notes, and discuss updates to our upcoming release schedule. There’s lots to discuss including the addition of version 1 of our progression system, a beautiful new makeover of CTF-Dam, CTF changes, and plenty more.

Oh, and if you missed it, you should check out the full stream with play-by-play commentary from the Bring Your Own 5 LCTF Tournament from last week. It was a lot of fun to watch and there’s some great high-level competitive play showcased, especially during the final matches. Congratulations to Tribes+ for their hard-fought win and thank you to everyone for participating!

Build Highlights
While you’re downloading, here’s a look into all of the features available NOW in build 0.30.0.

XP, Level-Ups, and Skills
Progression is finally making its way into Midair. In 0.30.0 we’re introducing version 1 of our XP, leveling, and skill systems. Please note these are early-stage features that will likely have user experience issues, bugs, and are likely to change frequently before release. For additional reading on our goals and objectives with monetization and progression in Midair, read this blog post from a while back.

XP and Leveling Up
Each player will earn XP in the game and will level up as XP is accumulated. XP is earned by completing the tutorial missions, playing the game, and doing well. When in the game, you are currently rewarded for each minute played (with a minimum play time of 10 minutes), sticking around through the end of the match, and in bigger games, placing in the top 3 players in the server. To help you track how much XP you’ll earn in a given match, we’ve added a Match XP element to the score screen UI.

NOTE: In this early version, you will only be rewarded XP if you are in the server when the game ends. The amount of XP it takes to progress through each subsequent level increases each level gained with a max level of 50. To see your level and current XP vs how much is needed for the next level, we’ve added this information (and also your Steam profile pic) to a new UI widget at the bottom right of the menu. This information is also available in the Progression menu under your Profile.

What’s the quickest way to get your first couple of levels? Play through both tutorials!

Skills
Each time a player levels up they are rewarded a skill point. Skill points are used to unlock most of the gameplay features in the game such as Armors, Weapons, Items, Packs/Augments, Deployables, and Vehicles. These skills are laid out in a tree structure to visually show requirements and dependencies. We are planning to add additional gameplay elements to the tree that are not in this version. You may see some visual gaps in the tree structure due to these missing items.



We’ve added some features like lock icons that should help you visually identify in your loadouts whether or not something is unlocked. Additionally, clicking on the lock icon will automatically take you to that item in the skill tree for quick unlocking.

Your Loadout menu should also inform you when a loadout you’ve selected contains items that have not been unlocked yet. If you attempt to use a loadout with locked items, those items will either be missing (weapons, packs/augments, throwable items) or downgraded (armors).

Tools for Early Testing
In the Progression screen under your Profile, we’ve added some tools to help you test the progression system and quickly bypass progression if you so desire (you all have the Progression Pass after all!). Using Give 500 XP you can add roughly a single game’s XP. Give Level calculates and rewards the XP required between your current level and the next. Give Max Level gives you all of the XP through level 50. RESET will allow you to reset your XP, Level, and Skills progress. Note: Resetting requires a restart of the game, and confirming this action will automatically close the game.

Down with CTF-Dam, Long Live CTF-Reservoir!
The map CTF-Dam has been re-imagined, renamed, and given a full art pass to bring it to life in the Midair universe. We are itching to show off the results, so let’s take a look at the brand new CTF-Reservoir.


The central feature to the map is a giant dam that holds back water from streaming into the valley, creating a reservoir. Mana processing plants use the water to harness the resources this planet provides.

The base interiors have been built with almost entirely new art using our military themed assets giving a distinct feel both inside and out.


We’re excited to see you all experience CTF-Reservoir for the first time and discover some of the neat features and quirks built into the map.

CTF Changes
Last time we spoke, we had added a prototype game mode called Spawn CTF that spawned all players in their loadouts and added a spawn time penalty when generators were brought down. It’s clear after seeing the initial response and listening to feedback that two things stand out:

1. New and casual players have a better and more intuitive experience playing Spawn CTF than CTF that requires visiting an inventory to get your loadout
2. We need better ways to ensure the base is still an important and relevant factor in gameplay, which is what we committed to since development on Midair started

We’re moving forward with these two things in mind. This means we’re committing to spawning in loadout in Base CTF and will be enabling this as the default setting on all official servers as well as newly created servers. If you’d like to go back to the old style that requires inventory use, we’re keeping that option configurable for server admins. With that said, let’s look at the new changes to CTF in 0.30.0.

Loadouts, Spawn Timers, and You
When players can spawn in their loadout it introduces several design challenges. In particular, when observing Spawn CTF in action, it was apparent that there is little impact when taking down a player in a key role like defensive sniper or heavy offense. In order to help balance situations like quick respawning of powerful classes, we’re adding equipment spawn penalties that increase the time it takes to spawn in your full loadout. Here’s the list of equipment and their corresponding spawn penalties.

• Medium Armor: +0.5s
• Heavy Armor: +1.0s
• Rail Gun: +2.0s
• Missile Launcher: +1.0s
• Mortar: +1.0s
• Stealth Augment – Invisibility: +1.0s

The penalties are cumulative, so adding multiple of these items will continue to increase your spawn time. For example, a Heavy Armor (+1.0s) with both the Missile Launcher (+1.0s) and Mortar (+1.0s) equipped will experience a total spawn penalty of +3.0 seconds on top of the base spawn timer. The base spawn timer is 5.0 seconds, so the total spawn time for a loadout with those items would be 8.0 seconds. These penalties do NOT apply when using inventory stations.

Generator Importance
In 0.30.0 we’re adding several new effects to downed generators in order to keep base defense and assault important. Here’s a list of all effects that apply when the generator is down:

1. Base spawn penalty increased by +80% when generator is down (was 60% in 0.29.0)
2. NEW: Equipment spawn penalty of +50% when generator is down
3. NEW: Deployable turrets now fire 20% slower when the generator is down
4. NEW: Deployable sensors now acquire targets more slowly when the generator is down

Using the Heavy Armor example from before, spawning in that loadout when the generator is down will result in a base spawn + gen down penalty (+80%) of 9 seconds, and an equipment penalty + gen down penalty (+50%) of 4.5 seconds, making a total of 13.5 seconds when the generator is down. This means that keeping your generator up saves 5.5 seconds of spawn time for someone with those loadout options.

We’ve added information to the Loadout screen that will help you identify loadout equipment penalties easily, and also see when it is affected by a downed generator. The equipment penalty information will turn red and increase appropriately when the generators are down.

Emergency Spawn
In order to keep decision-making alive and well in base, and give players a chance to make quick decisions and emergency plays, we’ve added the ability for players to Emergency Spawn in a basic loadout at a much shorter interval. In the spawn screen, a shorter timer that is NOT affected by the generator status will decrease separate from the full loadout respawn timer.

Pressing Right Mouse Button will allow a player to initiate emergency spawn after the timer has completed.

Deployables
In addition to all of the above changes, we’ve removed the ability to deploy any deployable near the enemy base within a certain range (map-dependent). This should help make defending and retaking your base against a good offense a little easier, which should help prevent unbreakable base camping.

New Item: Concussion Grenade
The latest addition to the CTF arsenal is the concussion grenade. This grenade deals minimal damage but can knock out a player-held flag and knock the holder around. Its most effective use is stopping a capper from getting out clean or breaking a tough base defense when they are holding your flag.


New Main Menu and Loadout Backgrounds
We’ve added a brand new interactive background to the Main Menu and Loadout Screen. We changed the way we’re rendering this so the background is now be affected by your video settings and should be perform much better overall. Words won’t do it justice, so take a look for yourself:



Map Sounds Pass
We’ve started a sound pass on most maps which now have ambient sounds playing at minimum. Most maps with final or near-final art now have additional custom sounds as well. We’ll continue to update maps with sounds as we get closer to release to bring them to life and add polish to the final product. Take a listen!

 

[RoSoDude]

Progression system is meh, but has to be a thing. They'll have to strike a balance to make the unlockables compelling so people want to ever spend money on the game but also not blatantly overpowered. I'm sure some people remember Tribes: Ascend's Infiltrator and Raider updates...

Map visuals are coming along nicely, the game has style and definition without distracting visual clutter. Mostly very pleasant. Still don't like the artstyle of the characters, but they're ants on the screen anyway.

Movement away from naked spawn is decline, this system worked in Tribes 1 and 2 and shouldn't be gutted. The bandaid solutions with respawn timers and deployables aren't terrible, but fare poorly against the elegance and strategic depth of the naked spawn system and risk poor player conveyance. People just need to get on board with going to inventory stations to get their gear. Sigh. Even among a dedicated hardcore fanbase it's still an uphill battle...

Concussion grenade is a massively important inclusion, I've been waiting to hear about that thing. Good stuff.

 

[unfairlight]

I don't really like the naked spawn and I'm glad that they removed it. It might piss off some super hardc0re 1337 players who only practice routes 8 hours a day, every day but just spending 15 seconds to get to a inventory station before going into combat (and possibly being mortarraped by a heavy on the way) isn't something that matters to me as a relatively casual player.
Not that it matters, in its current state people only play LCTF anyway which is one of my biggest gripes with the game. It's either LCTF pubs or LCTF pugs, and I don't like either. I really don't care about hitting perfect which the super 1337 hardc0re players do care about because I just want to go fast and shoot the guys as a medium armor blinker, any time I want to go to play on a friday night it's always LCTF and it gets so tiring so fast. There's no fun strategies like using invisibility and destroying gen then getting behind them when they try to repair with a plasmagun and shooting them dead either.

 

[RoSoDude]

Well see, that's the thing. Naked spawn wasn't important because it meant you had to wait a bit longer to play as a Heavy, it was because it lent real weight to the generator and the base defenses in an organic manner. There were cycles over the course of the match, where an enemy heavy would make it into your base and muck everything up, so your defense would have to converge on them with suicide grenade and fusor shots so they could repair it again and go on the offensive. With all that gone, you may as well just play LCTF.

Tribes: Ascend's generators were never worth a damn in competitive except for a few extremely niche strategies (mostly involving the levels with generator-dependent shields around the flag). Pubbies just humped the generator because that was the only way they could groundpound people and get kills. Midair is trying to make the generator matter with bandaid hacks rather than systemic interactions, which I view unfavorably.