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The Ascent |OT| As Above, So Below

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Installed and play some last night. Absolutely horrendous experience. Summary for those interested.

- First we couldnt get party to work on the Xbox app on Windows
- Then we couldnt get the ingame invites to work.
- After several tries, we finally all managed to get in a lobby but couldnt hear each other
- Eventually, we started the game and the performance was awful on my 2080, my friends 2070 super and my other friends 5080.
- Constant stuttering. Framerate drops on explosions. The first boss fight was unplayable for all of us whenever he did the bomb attack.
- Eventually we got in a nice groove and started to enjoy the game and then boom, game crashed for a friend and he wasnt able to join back in.
- We tried changing the host but you cant do that because the progress is saved on the person who started the game. So if I no longer feel like playing the game, they literally have to start over. Bizarre!
- This isnt Xbox, Microsoft or the developers fault but my CPU was running at almost 90 degrees. Got my PC fixed recently and they must have fucked up the fan installation. God I hate PC gaming. I am just going to pick up an xsx because this is ridiculous.

Will try again today. Game looks absolutely magnificent. So much detail. Just goes to show that indie games can look like AAA games as long as the team has talent. If anything, I think it looks better than 99% of the AAA games I have played this year. Oh and it has destruction. But the game clearly isnt ready. Destruction is great but if it drops the framerate from 100 to 10 fps, your engine isnt optimized for it. Several explosions literally brought my framerate down to 0. Same for my friends.
 
Installed and play some last night. Absolutely horrendous experience. Summary for those interested.

- First we couldnt get party to work on the Xbox app on Windows
- Then we couldnt get the ingame invites to work.
- After several tries, we finally all managed to get in a lobby but couldnt hear each other
- Eventually, we started the game and the performance was awful on my 2080, my friends 2070 super and my other friends 5080.
- Constant stuttering. Framerate drops on explosions. The first boss fight was unplayable for all of us whenever he did the bomb attack.
- Eventually we got in a nice groove and started to enjoy the game and then boom, game crashed for a friend and he wasnt able to join back in.
- We tried changing the host but you cant do that because the progress is saved on the person who started the game. So if I no longer feel like playing the game, they literally have to start over. Bizarre!
- This isnt Xbox, Microsoft or the developers fault but my CPU was running at almost 90 degrees. Got my PC fixed recently and they must have fucked up the fan installation. God I hate PC gaming. I am just going to pick up an xsx because this is ridiculous.

Will try again today. Game looks absolutely magnificent. So much detail. Just goes to show that indie games can look like AAA games as long as the team has talent. If anything, I think it looks better than 99% of the AAA games I have played this year. Oh and it has destruction. But the game clearly isnt ready. Destruction is great but if it drops the framerate from 100 to 10 fps, your engine isnt optimized for it. Several explosions literally brought my framerate down to 0. Same for my friends.
Yeah the coop is wonky as shit. From what I can tell, if you start with an online character, you can't use them for couch coop. My wife was wanting to play for the first time so I was wanting to use my level 12 character that I've been using during online coop but it wouldn't let me.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah the coop is wonky as shit. From what I can tell, if you start with an online character, you can't use them for couch coop. My wife was wanting to play for the first time so I was wanting to use my level 12 character that I've been using during online coop but it wouldn't let me.
Yeah, my friend wasnt able to bring his single player character over. I didnt understand what he was saying at the time. Kind of bizarre in a post Destiny era.
 
Yeah, my friend wasnt able to bring his single player character over. I didnt understand what he was saying at the time. Kind of bizarre in a post Destiny era.
Yeah like I'd join her game, it'd ask what profile I wanted to use so I'd select my character I wanted to use, and it would just say "are you sure you want to delete this profile?" Like who the fuck said I wanted to delete it?
 

Greggy

Member
Installed and play some last night. Absolutely horrendous experience. Summary for those interested.

- First we couldnt get party to work on the Xbox app on Windows
- Then we couldnt get the ingame invites to work.
- After several tries, we finally all managed to get in a lobby but couldnt hear each other
- Eventually, we started the game and the performance was awful on my 2080, my friends 2070 super and my other friends 5080.
- Constant stuttering. Framerate drops on explosions. The first boss fight was unplayable for all of us whenever he did the bomb attack.
- Eventually we got in a nice groove and started to enjoy the game and then boom, game crashed for a friend and he wasnt able to join back in.
- We tried changing the host but you cant do that because the progress is saved on the person who started the game. So if I no longer feel like playing the game, they literally have to start over. Bizarre!
- This isnt Xbox, Microsoft or the developers fault but my CPU was running at almost 90 degrees. Got my PC fixed recently and they must have fucked up the fan installation. God I hate PC gaming. I am just going to pick up an xsx because this is ridiculous.

Will try again today. Game looks absolutely magnificent. So much detail. Just goes to show that indie games can look like AAA games as long as the team has talent. If anything, I think it looks better than 99% of the AAA games I have played this year. Oh and it has destruction. But the game clearly isnt ready. Destruction is great but if it drops the framerate from 100 to 10 fps, your engine isnt optimized for it. Several explosions literally brought my framerate down to 0. Same for my friends.
Haven'nt noticed the slowdowns during explosions but I'm on XSX. I don't think Digitial Foundry reported that either. You seem to blaming both your CPU and the engine. Care to clarify?
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Haven'nt noticed the slowdowns during explosions but I'm on XSX. I don't think Digitial Foundry reported that either. You seem to blaming both your CPU and the engine. Care to clarify?
Nah, not blaming my CPU issues on the developers. Thats why I started the sentence saying This isnt their fault.

The CPU issue bit is just me venting about PC gaming. Just spent $600 getting this PC fixed and its still a fucking mess. I am just not built for PC gaming and would rather just buy consoles.

The game dropping frames on explosions and stuttering is the devs fault. They probably optimized it on next gen consoles and left the PC version to die. This happens with like every other big PC release so I shouldnt even be surprised, but doesnt make the experience any less frustrating.
 

Phase

Member
there is enough variety of locations, even a big one later in the game.

But it's still space gritty cyberpunk at the core, you are not gonna see jungles or mountains, just various locations of the city.
Well I don't mean different biomes. But they could have a rooftop greenhouse, a toxic lab, maybe a place with lots pools that shimmers on the walls. There's lots that could break up with grey and neon environment.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Well I don't mean different biomes. But they could have a rooftop greenhouse, a toxic lab, maybe a place with lots pools that shimmers on the walls. There's lots that could break up with grey and neon environment.
Oh but there are some variations and unique buildings, don't worry.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Anyone on PC (Game Pass version) run into performance issues in Black Lake Towers? As soon as I enter the area, the frame rate drops to sub-10 (from around 100 in other areas). No change of settings (including switching to DX11) seems to do anything.
 

twilo99

Gold Member
This game is significantly easier with a mouse vs a controller.

I've playing with a controller, and I had the same feeling.. gonna give it go with m/k

edit. the cloud based version is controller only btw, which makes sense I guess since its running the xbox version of the game?
 
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Fess

Member
Damn and someone was saying expect 5 - 8 hours lol.
And I think I still have 4 main quests left lol
But I’m not rushing it and I’ve been dying a lot and taking photos and videos etc so don’t look too closely on my playtime.
 

Concern

Member
And I think I still have 4 main quests left lol
But I’m not rushing it and I’ve been dying a lot and taking photos and videos etc so don’t look too closely on my playtime.


Im not either. Im only level 9 I believe right now. Really do like the game. Nice game to hold me over till 12 minutes which looks weird but interesting lol
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Just checked and I have over 17hrs into the game. Take away troubleshooting time and it's about 15hrs for the main missions and 25% of the side missions. So as a general observation I'd say ~15hrs for just main story, or ~25hrs for a completionist run.
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
I'm 27 hours in and still have the final 1-2 mission to do.

I did all the sidequest tho.

Did you get the actual achievement for doing all the side quests? I've finished the game with 28h on the clock, but going by the achievements I stll haven't done all the side quests, still haven't encounter all enemy types, and I'm missing some entries in Codex, but I have absolutely no idea what more I could do in the game :/
 

SCB3

Member
I've put in a few hours today and I have a few early thoughts:

  • I like its style, its a Cyberpunk as fuck homage and I like it
  • Its hard but somewhat fair
  • The checkpoints are good
I'm not sure if 20 hours is not too long for this, but we'll see
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Did you get the actual achievement for doing all the side quests? I've finished the game with 28h on the clock, but going by the achievements I stll haven't done all the side quests, still haven't encounter all enemy types, and I'm missing some entries in Codex, but I have absolutely no idea what more I could do in the game :/
I don't think so, but i don't give a damn about achievements so i probably didn't even noticed.

Have you done all the casino courier sidequest? it's more than one.
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
Did you get the actual achievement for doing all the side quests? I've finished the game with 28h on the clock, but going by the achievements I stll haven't done all the side quests, still haven't encounter all enemy types, and I'm missing some entries in Codex, but I have absolutely no idea what more I could do in the game :/

Two achievements are confirmed bugged and unobtainable on all platforms - "Flatliner"- all enemy codex entries - stuck at 96% (missing the final boss girl) and "Comprehensive" - all codex entries - stuck at 86% max after doing everything currently possible in the game.

There are 28 side missions, one where you're asked to plant some bombs on cars is commonly broken for many users at the very last step and can't be completed. Other common buggy side missions are those that require clearing up outlined areas of enemies (killing everyone in the area doesn't register - possibly break if you walk out of the mapped "circle" mid-combat, stuff like that) - those can be re-done by reloading the zone with taxi.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Have you done all the casino courier sidequest? it's more than one.

Yes, I have it fully completed.

Two achievements are confirmed bugged and unobtainable on all platforms - "Flatliner"- all enemy codex entries - stuck at 96% (missing the final boss girl) and "Comprehensive" - all codex entries - stuck at 86% max after doing everything currently possible in the game.

Good to know, that's most likely it, so seems like I have indeed maxed out the game :) Gonna count the side quests tomorrow, but probably something's bugged and I havent been able to even pick a quest.
 
Been using controller and enjoying the experience ---- apart from the gods-damned menu and map!!!

But can totally see the appeal of KBM (am a card carrying Diablo-phile) so have been giving it a spin, just finding WASD not quite as satisfying... maybe I'm doing it wrong...

Anyway game continues to be jaw-droppingly beautiful and a ton of fun.
 

SCB3

Member
Getting into more of a rhythm now and the game is scratching that Diablo / Marvel Heroes itch I'd been missing, though I will say, the Health drops are very scarce there have been multiple times where I died as I just could not handle everything, though I will say I just got back to the first town area with the shops and was able to power level my health (I'm level 7 or 8) so that may help a lot.

Also Enemies spawning behind you constantly is kinda bullshit, but the AI is damned good, it know how to flank and gang up on you, very Halo-esque
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
This game is really good but it takes a couple of hours to really get it’s claws in. I’m genuinely astounded at that 3 outta 10 from metro. i normally trust their reviews but that review has genuinely got me questioning anything they review in the future. I mean, this is one solid assed game that is in need of a couple of patches.

the sound design, holy shit…the sound design is god like. when shit is just rattling off gun sounds and the ambience of the world with flying vehicles thundering around the surround sound etc. Absolutely top tier.

this game is bloody good. As a fan of blade runner and growing up on akira, ghost in the shell, Appleseed, cyber city 808 and many more this game nails cyber punk. Hats off to them!
 

Phase

Member
Also Enemies spawning behind you constantly is kinda bullshit, but the AI is damned good, it know how to flank and gang up on you, very Halo-esque
This is my only real gripe with the combat. You get used to the spawning but I still wish it wasn't present.
 
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Fess

Member
As a fan of blade runner and growing up on akira, ghost in the shell, Appleseed, cyber city 808 and many more this game nails cyber punk. Hats off to them!
Absolutely, this literally looks like cyberpunk concept art but it’s the game, absolutely insane graphics and design.

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Finished it now. Playtime is bugged, still says 20h23m but I think I landed around 25 hours, with 5 side missions left to do.

In the end. What a fantastic game! I really appreciate that I had to rethink my strategies up til the last second, and that a shooter of this style have such depth. And the graphics and sound, oh wow, absolute top quality! I wonder what has triggered some critics, I think they’ve been incredibly harsh here. This should sit at 80+ easily on metacritic.

I stumbled upon an annoying bug though that had me replaying a super frustrating boss fight I had been doing over and over for like half an hour, it didn’t register that I had cleared the room.
”Yesssss!! I did it!!… Wait… No… Why is the stressful music still playing?!?…nonono… *searching every inch of the area*… Nooooooo!!!”

In the end it’s still up there alongside Ratchet & Clank and MS Flight Sim for me as my favorite game of the year.
9/10
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Absolutely, this literally looks like cyberpunk concept art but it’s the game, absolutely insane graphics and design.

The static screens don't even do the justice, the game shines in motion where you get to see how the perspective pans out, how all those multi-layer storeys move along, getting that sense of depth and scale, and how that fantastic lightning dances on all the surfaces.
 

Perrott

Member
I ended up uninstalling it after 2-3 hours.

Expected the game to be much more straightforward, but the map was a mess (I ended up getting lost a lot) and there was too much text, lore, cutscenes and shit for not only a Diablo clone of sorts but a twin stick shooter (which is a genre that works better with more arcadey approaches to the game's structure). I also didn't feel the joy in the combat while fighting the human gangs (as opposed to the rats or creatures you fight at the beginning of the game) and thought that the menus/UI were all over the place. Looks really nice tho, so that's something at least.
 
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Fess

Member
The static screens don't even do the justice, the game shines in motion where you get to see how the perspective pans out, how all those multi-layer storeys move along, getting that sense of depth and scale, and how that fantastic lightning dances on all the surfaces.
Yeah it absolutely manage to look even better in motion, I’m just in awe of what this team has created. And I’m literally coming right from finishing Ratchet & Clank to this, didn’t think anything would impress me after Ratchet but The Ascent has constantly wowed me. Loved the late game area btw, no spoilers, it was the icing on the cake for me, just brilliant 👌
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Loved the late game area btw, no spoilers, it was the icing on the cake for me, just brilliant

Dunno why but The Pinnacle has the most charm for me, it might be super sterile but that ambient sound is just on another level, makes me wish it was used way much more in the game. Should've been the end-game level TBH, with super high tech enemies, bots/mechs etc. not seen previously on lower tier levels. Wasted potential.
 

Fess

Member
Dunno why but The Pinnacle has the most charm for me, it might be super sterile but that ambient sound is just on another level, makes me wish it was used way much more in the game. Should've been the end-game level TBH, with super high tech enemies, bots/mechs etc. not seen previously on lower tier levels. Wasted potential.
I don’t want to talk much about it, I hope people get to experience it first hand, I was literally grinning at my first visit, the design combined with the music was pure perfection 👌
 

noise36

Member
Expected the game to be much more straightforward

You dont have to read anything or navigate yourself at all really.

Just follow the path to each mission and run and gun. If the walk is to long then fast travel, the map shows where the closest taxi drop off is to the quest marker.

Enjoying this more than I thought I would but felt like a real dumb ass when I finally ran into the Megarachnoid Boss and died lots of times, only them realising that there are energy weapons for mechs and that the number next to the guns wasnt the gun level but how many I owned. I went back to town, sold all the gear I had unknowingly accumulated up to that point, leveled up some guns and bought some new gear so was able to take down the boss.
 
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Kagey K

Banned

Curve achieved its largest ever opening weekend sales revenue this weekend, generating more than $5million and securing the Number 1 slot in the Steam Global Charts for Neon Giant’s The Ascent, firmly positioning the Indie title as a AAA competitor.

Gamepass continues to hurt sales and kill the industry. 😉
 
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