• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Ascent |OT| As Above, So Below

Concern

Member
I'm not sure if I am feeling this Solo tbh, I like the Soundtrack, the setting, the looks and the gameplay is fun, but I'm not sure what it is thats making me want to play more

I just don't see how anyone could enjoy any of these types of games solo (Diablo, helldivers, nex machina, etc). The coop brings out the fun imo.
 

SCB3

Member
I just don't see how anyone could enjoy any of these types of games solo (Diablo, helldivers, nex machina, etc). The coop brings out the fun imo.
I like Diablo Solo, I pretty much got into 3 too late so even matchmaking would not find me players to play with
 

Fess

Member
This will go down as a cult classic. No doubt!

I keep harping on, but that Metro reviewer is clearly a crack head.
Don’t worry about it, for some reason unusually few critics has reviewed the game but so far the user review bombings isn’t rampant, so it seems like user feedback reflects quite well how the game is. 8/10 is the average score on all platforms. Steam reviews are very positive with 4500+ reviews. My take is that it’s a 9/10 if you’re a fan of the genre and 7/10 if you’re not.
 

twilo99

Member
I loved it. My game of the year so far. It would've been so interesting to see what they could've done with more than 12 people. Either way, it's an incredible accomplishment for them and am looking forward to some DLC

You finished it already? Rather short then or did you just put in some good time
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
How do you upgrade ICE in the game? I found a few cyberdeck upgrades but I don't know what to do with them and I'm still locked out of level 1 doors.

I'm at the pinnacle now so I want to wrap up the last upgrades before finishing.
You probably just missed some chests. You could look up where it is online maybe, or just start hunting down all the treasures left on your map. I think I just found the door level 1 upgrade and I'm not as far as you are.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Showed the game to a friend and he could not stop laughing at my character. I had chosen purple during the start of the game but it seems purple with the armor that I had on at the time made me look like Grimace with the padded jumpsuit and armor. Grimace with a big VR headset.
Yep got all the ICE level 3 and all hacks. I also found another Cyberdeck upgrade on the map and it told me I was already full up so it seems the game has more upgrades scattered around the map than needed.
 

SCB3

Member
Is the Mecharachnid boss some kind of cruel joke? So much shit is flying at you off camera and he’s really tanky
 

SCB3

Member
It's the first major skill check in the game. Use an energy weapon (lightning bolt icon) and wear fire resistant armor.
Nah, its really bad design, for example I have really good fire resistant gear on, most over 40, 1 Energy weapon and a +4 Machine gun, yet I can get him down to half health and all he does is spam spiders and fire off screen, the spiders merge with the floor really easy and do a lot of damage. And if I want to get better armor or weapons I have to travel back, hope theres stuff there and then spend another 20 mins getting back to where I was as the fast travel is no where near here

Look I'm all for fair difficulty, see Souls games and even Returnal, but this alongside bullshit spawns behind me are just not for me
 
Nah, its really bad design, for example I have really good fire resistant gear on, most over 40, 1 Energy weapon and a +4 Machine gun, yet I can get him down to half health and all he does is spam spiders and fire off screen, the spiders merge with the floor really easy and do a lot of damage. And if I want to get better armor or weapons I have to travel back, hope theres stuff there and then spend another 20 mins getting back to where I was as the fast travel is no where near here

Look I'm all for fair difficulty, see Souls games and even Returnal, but this alongside bullshit spawns behind me are just not for me
Do you have the healing augment that undoes damage?
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
The game is pretty damn good other than some weird performance issues on PC. The story and characters are pretty forgettable so far (I'm just level 11), but the visuals, sound, and fun combat more than make up for it. I started with controller, but I honestly find the KB/M controls to be a lot better.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
I finished the main missions and now I'm mopping up on the remaining 6 side missions. The environmental art in this game is amazing. If only they were a bigger team and could have done more RPG elements and a deeper plot with branching dialog. I would love to have more missions and interactions with some of the characters.

Like this dude and the taxi company...
The-Ascent3-1080.jpg

Or these shroom dealers in the scraplands. This seems like a cool place to hangout, aside from the murderous robots lurking outside...
The-Ascent4-1080.jpg


Something that would be cool to add to the game is a horde mode in the vein of Smash TV or Running Man. That way you have something to do with all the augs and weapons you stack at the end of the game.

Overall, my favorite augs were the spider bots and Dr. Octopus tentacles. Favorite guns were the Dominator machine gun and the Disinigrator beam rifle. Got them both to Mk. 10. I really love this game it just gets in your head with the amazing environments and visuals, creepy cyberpunk music, and hardcore blasting.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Level 23. Ive found tons of weapon components but cant get any weapon above MK 8. Im once again stuck on a boss/hoard battle. Trace Protocol. I can kill the main girl in the mech suit but the number of regular enemies just keep swarming in and I get overwhelmed. Even at level 23 Im getting blocked from side quests.
There is a level 22 side mission to install a camera at The Pinnacle but its once again a no go area.
Ive completed 17 side missions and 6 main missions. My playtime is now 20 hours.
Im getting Ascent fatigue. Not sure if I will be able to get to the end. I think doing side missions borked the game difficulty or something cause Ive seen video of other playeres mowing down these same enemies at level 15. I cant do at 23.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Level 23. Ive found tons of weapon components but cant get any weapon above MK 8. Im once again stuck on a boss/hoard battle. Trace Protocol. I can kill the main girl in the mech suit but the number of regular enemies just keep swarming in and I get overwhelmed. Even at level 23 Im getting blocked from side quests.
There is a level 22 side mission to install a camera at The Pinnacle but its once again a no go area.
Ive completed 17 side missions and 6 main missions. My playtime is now 20 hours.
Im getting Ascent fatigue. Not sure if I will be able to get to the end. I think doing side missions borked the game difficulty or something cause Ive seen video of other playeres mowing down these same enemies at level 15. I cant do at 23.
For that boss I used spider bots, rifle bot, and auto turret. Then just circle while pounding away with something like the Dominator and RPG. I'm pretty certain you can get stuck in a weird scaling loop where the enemies quickly outpace your character. On the last boss that happened to me. I almost beat it the first couple passes, but after that the enemies started to scale in difficulty and swarm like crazy. I tuned my build, but the harder I fought the crazier they became and this went on for 2-3hrs. I went in at ~lvl 24 with enemies around lvl 20, and left at ~lvl 28 with enemies ~lvl 30.

Once the difficulty patch was released for GP PC and Xbox, I booted the game and set it to 'Hard' I went to that mission(it takes fucking forever to get there) and it was brutal getting there. I changed to 'Normal' and they still fucked me up after only 2 terminals disabled. I died and went back in while still on the 'Normal' setting it was on before I died, but had changed in-game. This time around I breezed through no problem. Try changing the difficulty in the game, die, and then try that sequence again.
 
Last edited:
I have been playing coop non stop.

I feel game has come a long way in fixing bugs that plagued it at launch.

Yesterday, sound was basically perfect. I had been missing out on superb music on coop but it's back now.
 

GymWolf

Member
Nah, its really bad design, for example I have really good fire resistant gear on, most over 40, 1 Energy weapon and a +4 Machine gun, yet I can get him down to half health and all he does is spam spiders and fire off screen, the spiders merge with the floor really easy and do a lot of damage. And if I want to get better armor or weapons I have to travel back, hope theres stuff there and then spend another 20 mins getting back to where I was as the fast travel is no where near here

Look I'm all for fair difficulty, see Souls games and even Returnal, but this alongside bullshit spawns behind me are just not for me
Just stay away from him and chip his health away, his fire attack has shit range and the spiders get fucked in 1-2 hits if you have a decent weapon, it's just a long battle not an hard one, you are gonna wish for the mecha spider as a boss later in the game.
 

Fess

Member
For that boss I used spider bots, rifle bot, and auto turret. Then just circle while pounding away with something like the Dominator and RPG. I'm pretty certain you can get stuck in a weird scaling loop where the enemies quickly outpace your character. On the last boss that happened to me. I almost beat it the first couple passes, but after that the enemies started to scale in difficulty and swarm like crazy. I tuned my build, but the harder I fought the crazier they became and this went on for 2-3hrs. I went in at ~lvl 24 with enemies around lvl 20, and left at ~lvl 28 with enemies ~lvl 30.
Lol yeah that happened to me as well, I just circled the place and used the aug where your health regen goes up (it’s awesome) while waiting for the timer to reach 0, but the game didn’t like that and spammed like 50 enemies at me and in the end I still had to kill them so it wasn’t a good plan 😅
 

ZywyPL

Banned
[...] you are gonna wish for the mecha spider as a boss later in the game.

Nah, the spider is the toughes enemy in the game, he might not deal the most dmg later on, but taking him down takes a lot of effort. Yesterday I had one in Scrapland at lvl 30, and a bounty on top of it, it was virtually unkillable untill I used I/O Converter with Dealbreaker, befire that we traded for minutes literally and his HP barely moved (I was lvl 32 and unkillable as well).
 

GymWolf

Member
Nah, the spider is the toughes enemy in the game, he might not deal the most dmg later on, but taking him down takes a lot of effort. Yesterday I had one in Scrapland at lvl 30, and a bounty on top of it, it was virtually unkillable untill I used I/O Converter with Dealbreaker, befire that we traded for minutes literally and his HP barely moved (I was lvl 32 and unkillable as well).
Some 3 min assaults were far worse for me, especially the last one before understanding the right tactic.

The spider is only annoying because it's a long battle, if you stay far it does zero damages and the spiders are one shot trash mobs.

The i\o converter is great, i wrote that in my tips list.
 
Last edited:

VAL0R

Banned
Is there a way to re-spec my gun points with the gun smith? I want to upgrade different weapons now but I'm locked into some old crappy gun upgrades on guns I won't touch again.

And the Grafter(name?) charges way, way to much to re-spec skills. I'd have to play the game 5 times to experiment with all the possibilities. I'm not doing that. A wasted opportunity at gameplay variety. Unless I'm missing something.
 
Last edited:

Bartski

Gold Member


AUGUST 6TH STEAM PATCH NOTES

The following summary covers the key areas we have addressed in this new major Patch update for The Ascent on Steam.

This update is now available for The Ascent on Steam, and the same patch will also be landing for Xbox and Windows 10 players shortly.

Our team is continuing to work hard on improving the game and we are very grateful for all the support and feedback from our players.


Performance (PC Steam & Win10 only)


  • Fixes to improve performance in DX12, also with Ray Tracing.

  • Note to Players: on first running of the update, there will be a 20-25 second ‘stall’ on loading to Main Menu to allow some caching to happen before you play. This is a one time event.

  • Ray Tracing is now available to Players on the Windows Store.

  • Improved loading in of NPCs

  • CPU performance mode for lower-end PCs



Stability (all platforms)


  • Numerous instances of ‘one time’ crashes have been fixed in both Single Player & Coop on ALL Platforms. (some other instances remain, we are working hard to resolve these for the next update).

  • Local Coop fixes where Player 1 and Player 2 have controller focus issues on certain menus.

  • Numerous other crash-fixes have been made to improve the stability of both local and online Coop, including fixes when disconnecting controllers, issues when 3 Players start a new game, and fixes when the internet connection becomes unstable.

  • Fixed an issue where in certain circumstances a black screen would appear at the end of Mission 12.

  • Fixed an issue where sometimes it takes too long to return to the Main Menu after gameplay.

  • Fixed issues where Area loading is slower for the Client joining the game after the Host is using the Taxi.

  • Fixed some Weapon replication issues in Online Coop.

  • Fixed some issues around cross Platform hotjoining where Clients had trouble connecting to the Host.



Save Progress (all platforms)


  • Introduced a new system to circumvent situations where save files could become corrupted.

  • Fixes to situations in Coop where the Host leaving the game could cause the Client to lose progress.

  • Fixes to situations in Coop where Players may experience progression blockers in certain situations.

  • Fixed the issue where a Client's items would unequip after a Host disconnects.

  • Fixed an issue where a Client may lose connection when hotjoining a game in progress.



Gameplay (all platforms)


  • Fixed an Achievement issue where you could unlock Main Mission and Side Mission under incorrect conditions.

  • Fixed an issue where the mission objective during ‘Go To Grinder’ in Mission 2 would not update.

  • The issue where multiple bosses could spawn has been fixed. e.g. Papa Feral, Megarachnoid (Spider Boss), Gun-Dolph.

  • Fixed the Casino Courier Side Missions 1 - 5 where you could sometimes be unable to proceed due to missing NPCs.

  • Fixed the custom camera for ‘Dark Horse’ Side Mission.

  • Fixed the custom camera for Bartender in Stimtown.

  • Fixed the situation where sometimes ‘Dark Horse’ could not be completed due to the NPC remaining in a frightened state.

  • Fixed an issue where the Volatile Augmentation when used on neutrals had no effect.

  • Fixed an issue where the Siege Mech in the Prison could despawn after a Player died.

  • Fixed the issue where the Snooze Dealer’s Journal map icon was a white square.

  • Fixed damage scaling on the Pocket Mech minigun to make it more powerful as you level up.

  • Allows the use of certain augmentations while rolling.

  • Balanced cost/cooldown/efficiency of Life Transfer, Neutron Beam and Overclock



Translation (all platforms)


  • Lots of fixes have been made to address instances where English would appear instead of the correct language.

  • Further work is continuing to improve the quality of the translations as well as further general bug fixes.

  • Fixed an issue in Japanese where text overlapped in the intro cut-scene.



Assorted other fixes (all platforms)


Fixed an issue where sometimes in Dreamworld, shooting SFX without enemies being present could be heard.

  • Fixed an issue where the death-screen replaced the SFX & VO after defeating the Megarachnoid.

  • Cyberdeck visible in Journal

  • News now plays in the Taxi

  • Film Grain toggle added to the Graphics menu

  • Fixed the Dismemberer shooting SFX that could be missing for Clients.

  • Fixed previews for Auto Turret and Pocket Mech in Vendors.

  • Fixed Cluster 13’s Metrolink entrances collision box.

  • Various UI fixes.
 

Jebron

Member
Just started playing this last night. I'm really enjoying it, but the map is absolutely awful. Any chance it gets more usable later in the game?
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Just started playing this last night. I'm really enjoying it, but the map is absolutely awful. Any chance it gets more usable later in the game?
It's not the best, and no it doesn't change. The map will tell you the rough idea of where to go. Basically the exploration part that is fun is figuring out the vertical part. If you can't find something it's because there are 2-3 height layers in some sections with elevators. If you're stuck, look for the elevators icon on your map and explore around there. Some stuff opens up later also with main quest advancement. And don't forget to use your map guide while playing by hitting up on dpad, though it's not always 100% accurate.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
but the map is absolutely awful
I think the map is just part of a cyberpunk theme/charactger. Cyberpunk 2077 city was also a big maze. I've gotten used to looking for stairs and/or elevators to find chests and components. But later in the game I now have so much money that I just get a taxi to make it across the map if I get in a hurry. I do wish the taxi would go between the levels. As it is now you taxi/run to the main level elevator, wait for the elevator ride/load screen. Then take a taxi/run to your next destination. Thats 3 loading screens in a row to get you where you want.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Finished it just now and the last part is really complete bullshit, just the game throwing everything it can at you.

But overall I really loved it, definitely one of my favorite games this year so far. MS should buy this dev as it is obviously talented with UE and art direction in general.
 

Desless1

Member
For that boss I used spider bots, rifle bot, and auto turret. Then just circle while pounding away with something like the Dominator and RPG. I'm pretty certain you can get stuck in a weird scaling loop where the enemies quickly outpace your character. On the last boss that happened to me. I almost beat it the first couple passes, but after that the enemies started to scale in difficulty and swarm like crazy. I tuned my build, but the harder I fought the crazier they became and this went on for 2-3hrs. I went in at ~lvl 24 with enemies around lvl 20, and left at ~lvl 28 with enemies ~lvl 30.

Once the difficulty patch was released for GP PC and Xbox, I booted the game and set it to 'Hard' I went to that mission(it takes fucking forever to get there) and it was brutal getting there. I changed to 'Normal' and they still fucked me up after only 2 terminals disabled. I died and went back in while still on the 'Normal' setting it was on before I died, but had changed in-game. This time around I breezed through no problem. Try changing the difficulty in the game, die, and then try that sequence again.

He, the last boss was a pain. But I think there is sometimes a bug with the boss fights, spawning double up with enemies.

I was level 28 at the time, had average of 130-150 in resistance and was still struggling. But I changed some gear and suddenly it was just OK. I.e,. ABR commando so I don't have to aim that good, and the clone augment.

I also spent hours to get chests for upgrading all weapons to max before the last mission. Helped a lot.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Got the achievement for completing all side missions now I’m at the very final main mission fight. Y’all were not joking. This is the game filling the screen with every enemy at once.
 

GymWolf

Member
Got the achievement for completing all side missions now I’m at the very final main mission fight. Y’all were not joking. This is the game filling the screen with every enemy at once.
This was my tactic.

Everytime a new wave spawn, go to the beginning of the area (the empty large zone), wait for all the human enemies to follow you and use the plasma beam aug, if you have enough points in the blue stats, you are gonna kill all the human enemies leaving only the trash mobs, at that point just kill them and activate the monitors, the last wave of enemies is the tougher one and they can kill you if you use the plasma beam for too long, so you use the heal granade in the place where you fire the beam so you are gonna be unkillable while using it.
 

Fess

Member
This was my tactic.

Everytime a new wave spawn, go to the beginning of the area (the empty large zone), wait for all the human enemies to follow you and use the plasma beam aug, if you have enough points in the blue stats, you are gonna kill all the human enemies leaving only the trash mobs, at that point just kill them and activate the monitors, the last wave of enemies is the tougher one and they can kill you if you use the plasma beam for too long, so you use the heal granade in the place where you fire the beam so you are gonna be unkillable while using it.
I don’t think I’ve tried the plasma beam, is that the thick blue laser type of thing I’ve seen in a gif somewhere here? Not the heal granade either. I think it’s really cool that you can play in so many different ways.

My strategy had less finesse:
The augmentation to boost your powers and health regen, auto turret at the sides of the computer and finally spider bots. Then do the computer thing. Enemies will constantly try killing you but you’ll survive if you have enough skill point for health. Then circle the room and rebuild health. Same procedure again. Again. Again.
 
Last edited:

GymWolf

Member
I don’t think I’ve tried the plasma beam, is that the thick blue laser type of thing I’ve seen in a gif somewhere here? Not the heal granade either. I think it’s really cool that you can play in so many different ways.

My strategy had less finesse:
The augmentation to boost your powers and health regen, auto turret at the sides of the computer and finally spider bots. Then do the computer thing. Enemies will constantly try killing you but you’ll survive if you have enough skill point for health. Then circle the room and rebuild health. Same procedure again. Again. Again.
Yeah there are a couple of different strategies for that part.
 

Concern

Member
Got the achievement for completing all side missions now I’m at the very final main mission fight. Y’all were not joking. This is the game filling the screen with every enemy at once.

I feel like im missing out on a lot of side missions. Do i just try talking to everyone for side missions, or will some pop up in other ways?
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
I feel like im missing out on a lot of side missions. Do i just try talking to everyone for side missions, or will some pop up in other ways?
The final 5 are in the same place. Go to the casino in center of high street to get the money to deliver then return to the casino for 5 missions total in casino.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom