Crom's T:V Impressions from GDC

1 more thing, about the Energy pack's "boost" in active mode, is it a huge boost like the beacon jump in Renegay. Or will it be a minor speed/jump boost? Does it make you gain momentum or altitude?
If it gave a fairly large boost, I think that making it disposable after using it might help balance it. Just like a Parachute, after you open it, you just ditch it. So the epack may ditch out smoke and disconnect from your back.
 
Slurp said:
They are limited by the engine.

But oob bounce is fun (in Tr2), and could easily enhance the ctf game far more than oob cap routes ever did.
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I'd take my oob cap routes any day of the week over innovations like a bouncy oob grid :/
 
I think it bizarre that when repair kits might not be part of the next game, suddenly a bunch of complaints about them pop up. I've never heard anyone ever say something negative about repair kits before this day. When did it become a bad thing to pass a kit to a Hof, etc ?

Everything else mentioned reminds me entirely too much of when t2 was going to come out.
 
Nil said:
I think it bizarre that when repair kits might not be part of the next game, suddenly a bunch of complaints about them pop up. I've never heard anyone ever say something negative about repair kits before this day. When did it become a bad thing to pass a kit to a Hof, etc ?

Everything else mentioned reminds me entirely too much of when t2 was going to come out.
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Fact is people will resist any amount of change. Even moreso when they don't understand it. It's expected, but it's not the end of the world. Open Beta will be a time to really understand the changes and make more informed input about said changes.

Honestly, with the amount of info Sierra has received from both Tribes 1 and 2, lessons learned, you have got to bet they aren't going to make the T2 mistake they did 3 years ago.

Major Problems with T2
Stability
Performance
Slow Physics
Vehicle Centric

Those four issues killed T2 for lots of T1 vets. All of which are corrected so far as we know, in T:V

T:V
Potentially stable, since it's based off a core technology that's been around for years.
Should perform on par with current UT engine based products.
Fast physics
Not Vehicle Centric

If you can think of any other reason why T2 failed that hasn't been corrected in T:V, let us know.

I have a strange feeling the naysayers are going to be pleasantly suprised and thoroughly impressed with T:V when they finally get to play it.

:)
 
Out-of-bounds grid
I actually had very little to do with this decision (even though we had the same thing in TR2). But I want to point out that it's not going to be very "bouncy" by default. It's intended to politely prevent you from exiting the mission area.

In typical outdoor missions the boundary is far enough away that you can set up a variety of cap routes. Think Snowblind or bigger in terms of mission area. There's lots of room in Snowblind for evading chasers and (if the flag was in the open) setting up routes.

The OOB grid will be visible when you're near it and will also be clearly marked on your radar and command map.

Repair kits
I, too, initially mourned the loss of repair kits. And contrary to what Thrax said, the decision to keep or remove them is not mine alone. But I'm becoming used to it. We gave each armour more health to compensate.

The repair pack is pretty powerful right now. As has been pointed out, this might lead to new roles. There's also another repair-related trick we have up our sleeves that will be interesting to try.

And in single-player, just to clarify, you get a nice little repair PATCH with each kill as a reward.

Mines and deployables
Yeah, so mines are deployables now. And you can carry both a pack and a deployable. We're considering allowing mediums and heavies to carry more than one deployable.

This means there *is* a form of mine discing in the game. Currently it's not very useful (you need to deploy the mine and then shoot it), but we've considered ways to make it more useful. Regardless, mines (like vehicles and all deployables) are a function of map design now. Some maps might have lots of mines available to defenders, others might have none.

Catapults (aka jump pads)
These are map-dependent. Some maps have them, some don't. You run over them and they propel you.

Disc jumps
Thrax already pointed this out, but I wanted to re-emphasize: disc jumping in light does NOT almost kill you. It takes you down just below 50% health. And you spawn in medium, which lets you do naked disc jumps with even less of a penalty (I LOVE the chasing aspect of Tribes and would hate it if I couldn't chase someone immediately after spawning),
KP
 
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toy said:
Wow. I am going to be really, really disappointed if this is true in the retail version. Tribes is about freedom of movement above all. I've never heard a complaint about being able to leave the bounds of the map, why limit gameplay in this fashion?
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tribes 2 you could fall off the map....

so who cares.....now you cant.....big woop
 
Thrax Panda said:
Depends on the map. The Arena maps have a force field between the field of play and the fans. A standard map has a force field at the edge (remember the edge in T1?) to keep you from falling to Valhalla, or flying a vehicle under the map. Also the field is only invisible right now. It will most likely have a grid on it eventually.
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Can the oob area be as large as in T1, and if so is that standard in most CTF maps?
 
The timing of using the repair kit was an extra "skill" of Tribes. You could decide to use it to repair yourself to full health even if you didn't have much damage if you were approaching a dangerous situation. Otherwise, you could wait for you health to fall below the amount the kit repaired before using. Removing the kit and adding extra health is just another way of dumbing the game down.
 
K, well the bouncy wall doesn't sound too bad, as long as you give us enough "OOB" space before it kicks in. I don't mean make the maps bigger, just leave a descent sized halo of empty hills/desert/jungle, or whatever the map theme is.

As for the repair kit, I'm really not worried. I'm sure we'll get used it after about 15 minutes of playtime.

Now, the jump pads.. I'm still skeptical.
 
i like no repair kits and skiing and light lights.

i dont like bouncy oob. at least for me, infinite playing grounds are a part of tribes. as much a part as jets or vehicles. i like being able to go anywhere but always being concerned with the actual playing area because that is where my objectives are. it adds tremendous scope of play. having an invisible barrier in the middle of nowhere will feel terribly restrictive to me in the context of tribes gameplay.

is bouncy oob a server-toggleable option? it sounds like one. i hope it is.
 
RegisteredFruit said:
The timing of using the repair kit was an extra "skill" of Tribes. You could decide to use it to repair yourself to full health even if you didn't have much damage if you were approaching a dangerous situation. Otherwise, you could wait for you health to fall below the amount the kit repaired before using. Removing the kit and adding extra health is just another way of dumbing the game down.
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We discussed and debated this for...days? Weeks? I challenge you to come up with an argument that we didn't already consider.

I agree that it takes a certain amount of intelligence to decide when you should use a repair kit. This was the main argument for keeping it. I'll even one-up you with another argument.

I often "pretended" to have already used my health kit, especially in duels. This lured my opponent into thinking I was more vulnerable than I actually was, making him more likely to be over-aggressive and make *himself* vulnerable, at which point I could use my repair kit and take advantage of his over-aggressiveness.

Alas, neither these arguments nor any other so far has out-weighed our team's perception of repair kits as being generally clunky in Tribes 1 and 2. They require an extra key. They're not intuitive to new players. They give a big advantage to players that know about them and a big disadvantage to players that don't. Worse, there's a feedback loop because when players who don't know about them die, they give their repair kits to the players that DO know about them. All this because of one little key and nugget of information. How much skill is in that, really? Those are some very big X's against them and none of our arguments in favour of repair kits have been enough to tip the scales.

As Thrax has suggested, it would be a fairly simple change to add them back. But it would have to be very clear that their removal has negatively impacted the game. If this really bothers you that much, or anyone else for that matter, you can suggest alternative repair kit systems that might be more intuitive. But we already considered a bunch of those, too,
KP
 
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