I've played it, and my thoughts are that it's not very skill intensive as the previous Tribes games. Hi-Rez seems to have taken the approach of changing or dumbing down mechanics for virtually no reason, with little improvement over the previous games in terms of gameplay.
It's not going to be a strong competitive game like the first 2 titles were. It's going to get people talking about tribes on the PC, and the xbox, but it doesn't really strike me as a game that anyone from other highly competitive FPS games would switch over to.
I mean it's got 1 hit airstrikes on light and medium armors, you can't have a competitive game with airstrikes.
I'm not sure how airstrikes are in RTCW, in T:A I can safely say they are a massive problem to CTF.
Particularly they influence flag chasing, flag standoffs, and general flag defense all in a negative way. It's basically like the offensive mortar tactic, but instead you just point a laser costing about 2500 credits. The laser itself can be seen, but people don't usually expose much of themselves or they are covered on the side of a slope, on top of that it isn't very difficult to earn 2500 credits in a game.
Because of this, you don't even need heavy offense in certain situations to pressure the light on flag, or the light defense. On top of that they have a massive spread, fire 8 or so projectiles and can cripple your health pool or even kill you if you took some damage before hand.
The credit system should be used for things like deployable inventory stations, upgrading turrets or base sensors. I'm not really fond of this system because I'd rather get rid of spawning in kit and the credits system, and just use the same system of the previous titles. Generators controlled deployables, inv stations, and vehicle pads. I'd also like to get rid of this stupid loadouts system with 2 weapons and limited loadout selections.
But those are just the minor issues with T:A. The game is in beta and I hope that beta is not just a showcase for the game, like the rest. As a singular title, you might view it as OK, in the state it's in I'd say it's slightly more fun to play than MW3, but less fun than it's spiritual succesor; Legions: Overdrive.
the competitive ruleset is still being developed but even in 16v16 pub play its hella fun. theres an invitational match coming up and a bunch of people from some hardcore t2 teams are gonna be working to develop a 7-10vs competitive ruleset with all the faggotry disabled.
recommend the $30 preorder now if you plan on playing it, its worth the 30 and then some
Ah ok. Have watched some videos on youtube and it looks really promising. Havent played any Tribes game before, but I enjoyed Section 8 earlier this year. Still I will wait for an official release and have a look at it first.