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The Ascent - isometric, co-op cyberpunk action RPG

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
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Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
The game has many flaws. Just a couple of them: camera is a abomination

I actually disagree with this. I liked how the fixed camera swung around to present various things and areas. There were only a few places (so far) where it's given me issues. That could change later, but for now, I at least appreciate what they were doing for the presentation of the game.

Generally speaking though, I'd agree that it's kinda like CP2077 in that it's very pretty and presented well, but relatively mediocre as a game.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
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https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/979690/view/3001072216355364465



Hello everyone

It’s been a week since we launched the Ascent! Though finishing our very first game is an achievement in itself, we can’t express how much we have been blown away with the amount of feedback and positive response from our community of players. This means a lot to the team and we wanted to thank each and every one of you for your love and support toward The Ascent. We truly couldn’t have dreamt of a better community of Indents!

Since launch day, our team has been working hard on improving the game, taking on the very precious feedback from our players. As a reminder, if you are experiencing issues in the game, you can report them via the following form: https://forms.gle/1z8KqkAEHBH3eic79. Thank you to anyone that has submitted or will submit feedback to this form, it is immensely useful for us to prioritize our work and improve the game in the shortest fashion.

Please keep an eye on Steam Community & Steam forums and our Twitter channel @AscentTheGame as you will hear from us very shortly regarding updates.

And for those that have been following us but haven’t yet had a chance to get their hands on The Ascent yet, we’d like to share this very helpful “beginner” guide from Fextralife >



They are also our official Wiki partner on the game, so you can check all their helpful guides here > https://theascent.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Ascent+Wiki

And… One more thing!

Thanks to the incredible response, we have decided to extend the early adopters discount and bonus on Steam to August 9th! As a reminder, by opting into the Steam Early Adopters’ offer until August 9th, you will receive a 10% discount on game and some exclusive content for free:

The exclusive “BitSplit” Shotgun (you unlock it automatically when completing Mission 1)

A digital Artbook (In your steam library, right click on the Ascent, select manage, browse local files, and inside the extra content folder, you will find the artbook)

The game soundtrack (to find the soundtrack, just tick the “soundtrack” box in the dropdown within the Steam Library)


Thank you all for your support, you are the best indents!

TEAM, PASSION, COMMITMENT!

Neon Giant
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
Alright, gave it a spin. Ever played a game that seems really great on the onset, but as you dig deeper in, it sort of lacks half the mechanics you'd expect it to have? That's Ascent. It's starts of with fairly satisfying combat... which however just doesn't get any deeper as the game progresses; what you saw at the start is what you get for the rest of the game. You meet an interesting character or two at the very start... and then find out that that's pretty much it. You aren't going to meet much in the way of interest later on, nor will you interact with these much anymore (your interaction with the world will mostly shrink to "go there, kill stuff, come back"). It also looks like you'll be in for some interesting itemization with a brutal economy, only to find out nope, you don't really need to buy a single thing the entire game since it all drops from enemies anyway, and there's not that many items in the first place. Then you see the level design with various semi-secret passages and stuff... but they only contain loot chests, which usually have the same loot every time anyway (a crafting component, or rather an "upgrade token", usually.)

Now, the game is really beautiful and the bystanders chatting around in the world are a nice touch (they even run away when you start shooting, I found that pretty neat) and the feel of the world is really pretty spot on in my opinion – you're in a dirty, overpopulated hellhole that's full of crime, and the design matches that through both level design and art, but that's about the only thing to mark as the game's strong point.

Overall, you're likely to have a blast the first few hours, and then get more and more bored as the game keeps you in that exact same loop for the rest of it.
 

Basshead

Educated
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Jul 25, 2019
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50
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Coal Region, PA
Just started playing this yesterday on game pass. I’m only a few hours in, level 8 I think. So far I really enjoyed it for what it was, a good twin stick shooter with above average graphics and presentation. The sound design does a lot to sell the setting, with the sound of machinery, flying cars and yelling pedestrians drowning out the dialogue, just like when an overhead train goes by and interrupts your conversation in real life.
The combat and difficulty seemed well balanced at first when I went to side areas and got stomped by higher level enemies, but it seems I’ve already found a build and strategy that just mows down everything in sight - evasion and a riot shotgun to the face. It’s definitely not an rpg and the game could definitely use more npcs placed throughout the world and some real choice and consequence.
I was playing on an Xbox one and the game said that the video card ran out of memory and crashed. I can see how the game would struggle to run on this old machine but apparently even on newer consoles and PCs with newer graphics cards are getting the same message.
Well see if it holds my attention for long though.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Another patch is out for the Steam version. As of August 7th it's still in the pipeline for approval for GamePass versions.

The Ascent Patch Notes – August 6, 2021
Performance (PC Steam & Win10 only)

Fixes to improve performance in DX12, also with Ray Tracing.
Note to Players: on first running of the update, there will be a 20-25 second ‘stall’ on loading to Main Menu to allow some caching to happen before you play. This is a one time event.
Ray Tracing is now available to Players on the Windows Store.
Improved loading in of NPCs
CPU performance mode for lower-end PCs
Stability (all platforms)

Numerous instances of ‘one time’ crashes have been fixed in both Single Player & Coop on ALL Platforms. (some other instances remain, we are working hard to resolve these for the next update).

Local Coop fixes where Player 1 and Player 2 have controller focus issues on certain menus.

Numerous other crash-fixes have been made to improve the stability of both local and online Coop, including fixes when disconnecting controllers, issues when 3 Players start a new game, and fixes when the internet connection becomes unstable.


Addressed a bug where in certain circumstances a black screen would appear at the end of Mission 12.
Addressed a bug where sometimes it takes too long to return to the Main Menu after gameplay.
Addressed issues where Area loading is slower for the Client joining the game after the Host is using the Taxi.
Addressed some Weapon replication issues in Online Coop.
Addressed some issues around cross Platform hotjoining where Clients had trouble connecting to the Host.
Save Progress (all platforms)

Introduced a new system to circumvent situations where save files could become corrupted.
Fixes to situations in Coop where the Host leaving the game could cause the Client to lose progress.
Fixes to situations in Coop where Players may experience progression blockers in certain situations.
Addressed the issue where a Client’s items would unequip after a Host disconnects.
Addressed a bug where a Client may lose connection when hotjoining a game in progress.
Gameplay (all platforms)

Addressed an Achievement issue where you could unlock Main Mission and Side Mission under incorrect conditions. Also, fixed an issue where the mission objective during ‘Go To Grinder’ in Mission 2 would not update.


The issue where multiple bosses could spawn has been fixed. e.g. Papa Feral, Megarachnoid (Spider Boss), Gun-Dolph.
Addressed the Casino Courier Side Missions 1 – 5 where you could sometimes be unable to proceed due to missing NPCs.
Addressed the custom camera for ‘Dark Horse’ Side Mission.
Addressed the custom camera for Bartender in Stimtown.
Addressed the situation where sometimes ‘Dark Horse’ could not be completed due to the NPC remaining in a frightened state. Also, fixed an issue where the Volatile Augmentation when used on neutrals had no effect.

Addressed a bug where the Siege Mech in the Prison could despawn after a Player died.
Addressed the issue where the Snooze Dealer’s Journal map icon was a white square.
Addressed damage scaling on the Pocket Mech minigun to make it more powerful as you level up.
Allows the use of certain augmentations while rolling.
Balanced cost/cooldown/efficiency of Life Transfer, Neutron Beam and Overclock
Translation (all platforms)

Lots of fixes have been made to address instances where English would appear instead of the correct language.
Further work is continuing to improve the quality of the translations as well as further general bug fixes.
Addressed a bug in Japanese where text overlapped in the intro cut-scene.
Assorted other fixes (all platforms)

Addressed a bug where sometimes in Dreamworld, shooting SFX without enemies being present could be heard.

Addressed a bug where the death-screen replaced the SFX & VO after defeating the Megarachnoid.
Cyberdeck visible in Journal
News now plays in the Taxi
Film Grain toggle added to the Graphics menu
Addressed the Dismemberer shooting SFX that could be missing for Clients.
Addressed previews for Auto Turret and Pocket Mech in Vendors.
Addressed Cluster 13’s Metrolink entrances collision box.
Various UI fixes.
 

VonMiskov

Educated
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
104
Such a glorified, confusing walking simulator with some combat in between. But kudos to Curve Digital for spinning the hype for it. Presumably sold 5 milion copies, great for such a mediocre game. The art department can pat themselves on the back too.
 

Riso

Arcane
Joined
May 22, 2007
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1,249
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Austria
Yeah, I bought the game and I got sick of it quickly. Too much running around and not enough variety of everything.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
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Jun 30, 2019
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5,675
It's really a shame though. It feels like that game isn't somehow inherently flawed, just unfinished. If they gave it another year of development where they'd add better content and a couple more mechanics, we'd be looking at a pretty good game.
 

ferratilis

Magister
Joined
Oct 23, 2019
Messages
2,224
Still no performance / balancing / polishing patch for Game Pass version.

Fuckers.
That's what happens when you put most of your money into marketing and memes. Tbh I don't blame the devs, it must be a pain in the ass to get an update released on that shitty Xbox Windows app. Steam release seems fine, so there's no other explanation.


I just gave up on game pass on PC, it gave me nothing but headaches. Fuck them.
 

orcinator

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Jan 23, 2016
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Republic of Kongou
The top down shooter action RPG genre is pretty much cursed, with only a handful of games managing to be tolerable and all of those being roguish(and that's a different type of curse).
I guess a part of the problem is europeans being violently averse to making a decent shmup(some finns aside) and carrying that mindset over to things like this.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
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5,869
The top down shooter action RPG genre is pretty much cursed, with only a handful of games managing to be tolerable and all of those being roguish(and that's a different type of curse).
I guess a part of the problem is europeans being violently averse to making a decent shmup(some finns aside) and carrying that mindset over to things like this.
Nice Housemarque brofist there, I concur. Although, it's too bad they were bought out by Sony, I don't see them making any more shooter bangers (although Returnal was pretty good for what it was). Nex Machina is one of the best games of all time.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Looks like the optimization patch for Game Pass users is finally out. 15.23GB, I'll report back.

Edit: Holy shit did they screw the pooch on this one. My framerates went from DX12 Ultra 120fps sustained down to 55fps, either in DX11 or 12 mode.

This developer is really struggling.
 
Last edited:

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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tor [developer] Aug 20 @ 3:04am said:
DX12 is now compiling its shaders somewhat slowly, which is why there is a slowdown for the first few minutes. This will be fixed in the next patch.

Gamepass version is only capable of running in DX12 due to unreal engine limitations, which is why the UI is confused regarding DX11 and 12. If you are stuck with insanely low FPS, set to DX12 (potentially restart, but should not be needed) then turn off raytracing, and that should solve things. Sorry for the problem!

:what:
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
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Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
tor [developer] Aug 20 @ 3:04am said:
DX12 is now compiling its shaders somewhat slowly, which is why there is a slowdown for the first few minutes. This will be fixed in the next patch.

Gamepass version is only capable of running in DX12 due to unreal engine limitations, which is why the UI is confused regarding DX11 and 12. If you are stuck with insanely low FPS, set to DX12 (potentially restart, but should not be needed) then turn off raytracing, and that should solve things. Sorry for the problem!

:what:

Buy your games like a man! Quit sucking on the Microsoft welfare teat!


Seriously though, that's interesting and odd.
 

Basshead

Educated
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Jul 25, 2019
Messages
50
Location
Coal Region, PA
I beat it, almost ran into some game breaking bugs on the main quest. Lots of crashes, one side quest still broken at the end. That aside I enjoyed my time with it. Very good art and sound direction, really nailed the cyberpunk atmosphere. Gameplay was fun if a bit shallow. Definitely needs some patching.
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
Got bored and beat it. It sucked. Not much to be said about it besides the fact that it fails in the same way many top down/iso shooters do.
There's another cyberpunk game called Glitchpunk that's basically GTA2 with not all that much to improve the gameplay so it sucks too but maybe if the game and this game were combined... well it probably wouldb't be very good but it would be more memorable at least.
 

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