I've been playing this for a while now. I have everything but the Jumper, Scrambler, and Raider unlocked, and... as a classic Tribes player, I must say that I have
grievances with much of the game's design. It seems like every single point I can make in the game's favor comes with one against it. For example:
- The skiing mechanics are the best that the series has ever seen, but there's an arbitrary cap on the vertical thrust provided by your jetpack. This cap is disguised by the fact that jetpack thrust is cripplingly weak, to the point where it's almost impossible to recover from falling off a simple ledge. Try jetting straight up and see if you can't tell when you stop accelerating.
- The game has Spinfusors (Disk Launchers) that function identically to those found in the original Tribes, even down to the 50% inherited velocity, but the game is dominated by fully automatic weapons which don't feel nearly as satisfying to use and extremely frustrating to fight against.
- The class system promotes variety by giving every role a unique set of tools to do the job it is intended for, but every class is limited to only two weapons and many of them are useless (All three shotguns, the Infiltrator's pistol, the Tech's repair gun). Worse still, this leaves four classes, the Infiltrator, Raider, Doombringer, and Technician, completely reliant on fully automatic weapons in the most common environment - outdoors.
I could go on like this for hours. I'm having fun with the game, but there's flaws everywhere I look and I'm worried that they'll never get fixed. Lights and Mediums both regenerate energy at 14 units per second yet Heavies only get 10. The Brute is equipped with a "Minor Energy Pack" yet has less total energy than both other Heavy classes after skills are accounted for. The Infiltrator can be seen while cloaked even when standing still and has the lowest health of all Light classes despite being intended for use indoors where explosions are the greatest threat. Beowulf tanks move so fast that they can't be hit by Tactical Strikes despite the fact that they cost fewer credits to purchase. The flags bounce like superballs whenever they get dropped so that it's impossible to easily return them, and are all placed outdoors with no consideration for base defense.
How am I still enjoying this game?!