Ever since Hi-Rez Studios essentially abandoned Tribes: Ascend in favor of SMITE the game has been on a slow decline, a massive shame given that it is truly a one-of-a-kind shooter. While the story would usually end there, back in March Hi-Rez released an absolutely titanic update for Tribes Ascend that pretty much rebalanced every single aspect of gameplay, and with it brought back the once loyal fanbase.
The following updates weren't so revolutionary, but they did slowly push Tribes: Ascend towards some sort of a balanced state, even though many will argue it still has plenty of problems. One of the biggest among them, at least as far as gameplay feel is concerned, is the annoying screenshake that happens when someone's pelting you with chaingun fire. As you can imagine, trying to aim back at your opponent while standing in the middle of an earthquake is a fairly difficult thing to do, especially when everyone is flying around at 300km/h!
If you hated the screenshake as much as I have, you'll be extremely happy to hear that Hi-Rez has decided to completely remove it as a part of the final "Parting Gifts" update! Naturally, the final update for Tribes: Ascend doesn't just contain a fix for the screenshake, it also brings with it a variety of bug fixes and balance changes. Here are the patch notes:
Notes
• We will be upgrading Tribes starting at 11am Eastern (4PM Central European)
• Expected downtime will be around 2 hours.
• Weapon statistics for Tribes:Ascend 1.4 - Spreadsheet
Gameplay
• Screenshake has been completely removed from the game.
• Ammo/Health pickups
• Lifespan has been reduced to 15s from 60s.
• Health gained from pickup reduced to 300 from 400.
Equipment Changes
• Sidearms and Automatics have been merged into the same category across all classes, renamed to Bullet.
• Light Spinfusor and Light Blinksfusor
- Direct hit damage increased to 750 from 725.
- Splash damage increased to 600 from 580.
- Sparrow, Eagle Pistol, and Nova Colt
- Damage decreased to 80 from 95.
• NJ5 SMG
- Clip size reduced to 12 from 20.
• Honorfusor added to Medium armor.
- Provides direct hit damage only, no splash damage.
- Direct hit damage of 875.
- Located in the “Specialty” weapon category.
- Locks Advanced Repair Tool into the third slot.
- Has 50% inheritance.
• Thumper DX returns to Medium armor.
- Base damage of 700 with rapid damage falloff to 140.
- Direct hit damage of 875.
- Ammo count increased to 26 from 10.
• Thrown Discs
- Removed from the game.
• Chaingun
- Damage decreased to 70 from 80.
Heavy Armor
• Weapon slots reduced to 3 from 4.
Vehicles
• Grav Cycle
- Gravity scaling lowered to 1.0 from 1.2.
- Damage done to other players hit directly by the vehicle reverted to pre-OOTB values.
- Increased max movement speed to 2750 from 2500.
- Pilot weapon ammunition lowered to 12 from 24.
- Pilot weapon damage increased to 180 from 80.
- Pilot weapon damage radius increased to 200 from 150.
- Pilot weapon damage versus Beowulf increased to 1.6 from 1.0 (direct hit damage of 360).
• Beowulf
- Base damage lowered to 1000 from 1250.
- Minimum splash damage reduced to 25% from 50%.
- Damage multiplier against Beowulf increased to 3 from 2.
- Damage multiplier against Grav Cycle lowered to 1.5 from 3.
- Damage multiplier against base assets increased to 2.5 from 2.0.
Misc.
• Fixed base upgrade messages showing up in certain help suggestions.
• Fixed collision issues on Hellfire.
• Fixed issue allowing players to get out of the playable map space when exiting vehicles in specific locations.
• Fixed issues with the thrust pack not thrusting or thrusting too much. It now thrusts just right.
• Fixed issue with the Elf Projector being able to maintain lock through a wall.
• Fixed the Medium Spinfusor kill icon being incorrect.
• Fixed issue with being able to equip items in Target Practice or Roaming that were supposed to be locked.
• Due to the change in the number of weapons a Heavy can have equipped and the merging of Sidearm and Automatic weapon categories, all weapon loadouts have been reset.
• Addressed deadstop issues in all maps when skiing/jetting along the creativity wall.
• Resolved client performance issues when near the creativity wall.
• The patcher is no longer required to run the game and is completely standalone.
• The in-game web browser has been removed from the game and will no longer install Flash as a prerequisite.
Since all of this might be a bit too much to take in, Hi-Rez has also taken the opportunity to provide the community with a massive spreadsheet detailing all of the characteristics for all of the weapons! You can find it by heading over here.
If you've ever wanted to try Tribes: Ascend, but didn't pull the trigger due to its low population, now would be the best time to do so as I can guarantee that there are at least a couple of servers constantly running with a healthy amount of players. Shazbot!