Descenders – High Reputation Peaks Grinding

Detailed instructions for farming reputation points on peaks.

Reputation and How It’s Made

All credit goes to JnvSor!

Reputation is what you get for doing cool stuff. If you’re reading this guide you already know that.

You probably thought to yourself that you couldn’t farm reputation, because every time you go to peaks you end up losing rep and every time you go to highlands you end up not getting much in the first place.

So instead of explaining how to get rep (Which should be obvious to anyone who has unlocked the shortcut to peaks) I’m going to explain how you lose rep.

• REKT: -5% of your rep
• Retire: -2% of your rep
• Bail: -1% of your rep

Notice how these are all percentages? You might not be feeling the effects of this yet, but before you get that last achievement you’ll be losing a whopping 2k rep per bail, 4k per retire, and 10k per rekt!

Players at the top of the leaderboards lose over 10k rep just for a single bail!

The key to farming reputation then, is not to bail. Or retire. Or get rekt. Ever.

Preparation

Obviously there are tricks to not bailing. Let’s prepare for the run.

Bonus objectives are for the weak

Bonus objectives such as “Do a 720” or “Finish in 50s” will give you a single bit of bonus health. This is great if you’re struggling to finish, but if you’re struggling to finish you’re never going to stop bailing anyway.

You don’t bail do you? I didn’t think so. That means bonus objectives are just lures to make you bail trying them out, that reward you with the opportunity to blow away more of your rep in a single session.

Ignore bonus objectives. Always. If you’re on last stand, ignore bonus objectives. If it’s easy, ignore it anyway. If you can’t help yourself then try to fail the objective before even stepping off the heli.

“Finish without braking”? Phah! “Finish without breaking your skeleton” is the only bonus objective you need.

Where the points at?

In a typical peaks run you’ll get anywhere between 20k and 30k rep, of which 14-21k will be from the boss jump. There’s no need to go into tracks with lots of stunts and try to get rep there, it’s a waste of time.

Graphics settings

• Terrain quality: Set this to low. This makes the difference between the track and the snow easy to see, but more importantly, it means those pesky rocks off the road are no longer camouflaged
• Level of detail: Set this as high as you can. This means you can see those pesky rocks from further away
• Depth of field: Turn this off. In addition to being really slow, it blurs things that are too near or far from you. The last thing you need is blurry vision when you’re going 90kph
• Vsync: Turning this off will give you better performance and responsiveness

Camera angle

I farmed 400k rep on my first day with an inefficient method in first person, so any camera angle will do for this. However if you have the bad luck to get a “Where is the path” track, I suggest that you switch to the far camera so you can see rocks over bumps more easily.

Starting Off

The launch

When you go off the heli always go straight. Don’t turn, don’t pitch, don’t pump. Don’t touch your sticks. Just accelerate. Bailing off your own heli is the most agonizing feeling imaginable.

Landing jumps

In case you haven’t realized it yet, you can push the right stick forward just before you land (And keep it held while you hit the ground) to give you a bit more leeway in sticking your jumps, but you’ll still need to watch your speed.

If you messed up a jump and are about to start rolling backwards off the landing ramp, hit your breaks and mash the reset button to go to a checkpoint or the heli. That’s a guaranteed death right there.

As you might have noticed by now, certain jumps need specific speeds. I’ll have them listed later on, but a general rule of thumb for normal roads is to sit just above 50kph so you get the high speed combo but don’t go too fast to control.

Checkpoints

If you miss a checkpoint just keep going. You’re not going to bail are you? Good. Then you won’t need the checkpoint. The only checkpoint you should go out of your way to take is the one before the boss jump, which I’ll explain later.

If you go off the road, mash your brakes and reset asap, even if it sends you back to the heli. The snow is slippery and you can go a long way on a downhill slope if you fall off the road.

Your goal

Remember: Your only goal is not to bail. You don’t need to do tricks, you don’t need to go fast, you definitely don’t need to do the bonus objective. You just need to get to the end without bailing.

Picking your track

Once the first track is done you get to pick the next one. Ignore the bonus objective. Pick mellow tracks if you can, but if you have a high steepness track with no stunts and low curves that will work too.

Try to stay near the middle so you have more options to pick from later, but if you’re at the edge and you only have a tough track don’t bother going back around. Just grin and bear it.

Jumps, and How to Hit Them

All speeds are in kph

Ramps

Hit these at about 40 +- 5 straight. Less than 30 and you probably won’t make it over, more than 50 and you’ll go splat without a counterpump. More than 60 and you’ll go splat without a parachute.

Depending on the angle and height you might want to add or subtract 5 from this speed.

Mounds

Ideally hit these at 45 – 50. If you lean forward you can drive straight up a mound even at speeds as low as 35.

Gondola

Jump this at 60 with a hop. You can make it over at 55 but you’ll need to turn sideways 90 degrees to pull your wheels up.

If you’re going slower than 55, just go around. “Sweet spot” and “Burn” are too risky.

Lodge

Jumping on top of this is fairly easy with a hop, and the speed precision is forgiving enough that you can figure it out yourself. Going through the lodge works most of the time, but sometimes it’s too high to hop into so slow down before going around the ramp if you intend to do that.

Spinebreaker

You should go into the dip at about 45. You’ll lift off the ground a bit if the angle is too sharp, and nailing the landing is tricky. I frequently just go around.

Enemy pits

These are nasty. They’re supposed to be jumped but from first person you can’t see the other side, and it frequently leads you to jump straight into a wall.

When you see the red flags, slow down. You want to be nearly stopped and fall into the pit, then crawl out the other side. Yeah it’s lame, but it’s also the only safe way to do it.

Don’t try to go to the side right off, giant cliff faces tend to appear out of thin air once you’ve committed to your path.

The Boss Jump

First off, you want to get the checkpoint before the boss jump. This is important because it will let you experiment with the jump without dying.

When you go down the hill you want to mash your brakes to keep your speed around 60. When you’re about halfway there you let go and go to the bottom.

At the apex of the jump your speed will be one of these:

• < 78: This won’t be enough – you’ll slam your face into the half-pipe and die. In theory you can make it with a bunny hop around that speed but you’re going to want to go faster.
• 78/79: This is the speed you want.
• 80-83: This will overshoot the landing. You can survive with a counter-pump and reset, but if you wait too long the boss jump will be “Used up” and go into your points pool and you’ll have blown most of your points, so hit reset before your combo finishes!
• 85+: You dead brah

So here’s what you’re going to do:

• < 78: Jam the brakers. You can still stop before going over the ramp, and hit reset when you stop moving to go back to the checkpoint and try again.
• 78/79: Drive off the end with no pump or hop and you’ll nail the landing.
• 80-83: If you see your speed pop above 80 around the apex of the jump, just tap your brakes and you’ll nail the landing.
• 85+: Ouch. Brake. Either get it to hit the 70s and do the jump, or stop and reset. Or bail. But you don’t want to bail do you?

If you’ve reset to the checkpoint you can experiment with getting the right speed until you’re ready to go for real.

Once you get to the halfpipe go into attack mode and hop off the other side at full speed, with a counter-pump on landing. Then just drive to the end.