Could Tribes 3: Rivals be the best FPS ever? 

Do these more recent Tribes games, like revengence, still have all the mechanics of the original two? Vehicles, larger maps, bases with power systems, deployable, etc? I briefly played whatever tribes game came after T2 and it just felt arcady and awful.

We had a ladder in europe as well for Tribes 1 :) Some amazing players there

I had a Tribes1 clan that was ranked in the top 30s back in the day. It was no easy task to stay at that rank. There were so many bad ass clans. I can remember how hard we would practice for matches.

Glad you enjoyed that! Haha. Especially since this was my first video on the topic I probably spent way too much time in the writers room anxiously over analyzing everything.

I would love for that line to be in some community montage advert that shows up in youtube ads but for a whole new purpose @@GoodJobDino

I've heard that Prophecy added servers beyond just NA and EU? Maybe something there for you?? And if not, I hope it shows up sooner rather than later!

nope only usa and europe and even with the west coast I got 100 of ping@@GoodJobDino

Not only do I not hate it, I play it every week! Tonight even. More the merrier.

@@GoodJobDino thats awesome! I will have to play with yall.

Couldn't go without it!

I have played M2 a number of times. While I find adjusting to the movement a little difficult it's still a good time. Hard to get used to letting go of "w" and not always going up with jets.

Seriously, its look like they trying to create the same game from decade ago, just more... scuffed?

That is wonderful to hear! The footage and feedback on this gameplay is from patch 1.3 which was... last year, I think? It's been great to see them updating the movement and I'm glad it shows to the degree that my points on it are actually obsolete.

Crap. Thanks for letting me know. Just a sec.

discord.gg/VVbwx2UxGR

Always remain hopeful and always play Vengeance haha.

High skill Ceilings are good. You just need a manageable skill floor, and alternate strategic tools to make the skill gap less of a problem. I still consider T2 the high watermark for mixed unit combat, because there was numerous way to support the team that wasn't direct combat. Whats gonna make or break that structure are the team sizes. Small caps directly skew everything into combat. And its counter intuitive to the large map sizes, making everything about chasing instead of blockading. Larger caps free up more players for support roles, and make point to point routes more dangerous. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and favors certain play styles.

I have only just tried T2. And very little so far. What did you enjoy about them?

@@GoodJobDino I guess it's nostalgia? At the time there wasn't many games like that where you could board vehicles in groups. I liked being the driver and get my team as close as possible to the action!

@@GoodJobDino Its hard to understand on its face, because T2 is from an era when Mixed Arms combat and online multiplayer was still a relatively new concept. Stock servers can do 64 players, but some managed 128 players. Much like Battlefield, you need the larger player counts free up players enough for the larger overhead of vehicle, logistics, and Command Circuit management. Modern Battlefield is a poor comparison, because games after BF2 compressed crew sizes to the point were the driver is 80% of the vehicle's effectiveness threshold. The only exception being the Gunships, where 2 players are needed to become unstoppable killing machines. Anyway, the combat vehicles in T2 were awkward and a hold over from a slower version of the game. That said, each had a niche in this matrix of base fortification game play. A well fortified base, with ample, well placed turrets and defenses, make short work of most Flag cappers. Balancing this was a hard limit on deployables (per team), and a fixed number turrets on the map which you can swap barrels for different defense types (AA, Mortar, Plasma, ELF) to combat different types of threats. Base runners (engineers and defense teams) had to balance and adapt defenses to not expose themselves to the different counters. On the flip side, assault teams had to exploit weaknesses in the defenses to open holes for the flag cappers. Vehicles were the proposed answer to base fortification. Tanks and Heavy Mortars counter turrets; though tanks were awkward to drive, and are used the least. The Bombers clear deployables and scatter defenders, and in turn are directly countered by AA Turrets and Shrikes. Shrikes pull double duty as Anti-air/Anti-Areal, and will often be able to chase down enemy flag carriers. The Hover bikes help move the flag carrier faster as a passenger (they can't operate vehicles while holding the flag); and kind of on the assumption the flag carrier isn't a skiing fiend. The Havoc(?) transport ship is made to move slower units to and from the base and front lines, or other strategic points. The Jericho is a mobile FOB and resupply point, and creates a blind spot in the enemy's sensor coverage. If you've played games like Planetside, the work flow and logistics should make a lot of sense. Even the old BF games don't really have a direct equivalent, since most never leaned into proper base fortification mechanics. The command circuit is also special in that any player, at any time, can manually take over friendly assets and operate them remotely. Turrets, sensors, Cameras; and anything AI controlled in modded games. And EVERYONE had a laser pointer. Painted targets can be locked onto by some weapons, and give Mortar users a calculated trajectory and HUD element to aim at. Vehicles in T2 fit a bit awkwardly overall, because jetpacks and mobility make players extremely flexible. However, the stronger a defense is, the more useful vehicles are at beating them down via coordinated strikes, or slow attrition. They're also way more vulnerable to infantry than to other vehicles, which why they rely on the state of base fortification to justify their use. The two exceptions being the Thundersword and Shrike. Carpet bombing an area is always impactful, and relies mostly on the pilot's ability to line up strafing runs. So like BF games, a competent pilot with a newbie gunner can still be a menace. Shrikes being able to chase all but the fastest skiiers makes them a serious threat to light armors, and can run from any heavier load out that might threaten them back. This makes them popular with player who like picking off targets one by one. Another example is a Jericho deployed behind a hill near an enemy base, lets allies swap loadouts/resupply, as well as let players travel the map in light armor (ie Faster) and swap to heavy later when they go into battle. This eco system replicates a number of classic RTS elements and strategies, and integrate them into an FPS environment. Most modern games can't do this effectively due to abundance of Class based systems. Creates too much of a Zero Sum balance mentality, and ends up overcomplicating an already tricky to tune balance situation. But decoupling the deployables from classes, and just resorting to a team wide limit, you can balance those assets separately, as opposed to "number of engineers per team" or other team comp concerns.

The speed cap has been waaaay loosened up on, thankfully.

Ascend had the same problem, and the reasoning was a lot of weapons DO NOT work on high velocity targets. Thats a huge problem when your business model is based on releasing new weapons within a class based strcuture. Side question, since I'm only just learning about this now... Are they finally going back to vector thrust instead of that god awful vector velocity rotation and water physics HiRez was using for flight movement?

I love ricocheting weapons Rushdown Revolts a Platform fighter where one character is about that an the high you get nailing someone in the op corner from a mile away is huge

well does anyone even use vehicles besides the bike in Ascend I only saw a few Tanks an they just got bullied lol so how would that be tweaked

This is such a tribes sentence. The best part is "grappler" can be replaced with dozens of unique game elements from each of the games. I loved T2 (for big battles & mods), & Legions (for movement control), I liked Starsige (predated my start and felt less than T2 by the time I tried it), & Vengeance (smaller maps didn't do it for me, plus collage). Sadly once I'd dropped some money on Ascend, I left with a bad taste in my mouth. I haven't had a PC since. I don't think tribes is any one thing but I do think they'd do well to include all of these things in part if only for modding and wild game modes.

@@JohnKerbaugh I understand, but if you can control the grap... It's just a whole other dimension of speed and movement controll...