In a 1 vs 1 fight dedicated backrollers tend to jam their s key so the only good thing to do is to just stop in place and let him backroll to eternity.
Sooner or later backroller will find out that he cant fight or win against anybody and either change his tactics or go away.

Ability to exercise distance control by flying backwards in VO is a good thing.
Being able to keep good distance control at 150-250 m in a fight helps a lot when fighting gattling turret/rockets heavy ships.

Mind you, these are no fair dogfights, you usually have heavy armoured PROM with agt and flares on one side and a paper thin armor light fighter with energy guns on the other.

Real dogfights happen between 2 light fighters with similar weapons at 0-50 m range (unless you are fighting Eldrad, player with the best distance control ever).
Fast and furious attack with FA on wins fights in dogfights.

12:37AM incarnate
F_A: My note about not changing the game for specific "would-be" players was only in response to Death Fluffy's first comment above it. I was not trying to imply that your investment in the game (money, time, etc) did not merit your comment / opinion. I was simply noting that responders to the thread should focus on addressing the issue, rather than just saying "Well, he doesn't play anyway, who cares what he thinks?"

I stand by what I said.

Edit: Was on my way to work when I posted this morning. So I'll elaborate a bit now.

I am admittedly hostile against the idea of reducing reverse speed. In my mind it would create a combat environment that is very fast paced, extremely high and rapid damage and would give a significant advantage to certain setups. I'm sure there are a number of players who much prefer this level of intensity. However in my opinion, it would be forcing everyone into a specific combat style.

In the 10 months (yes I'm a newb to most of you) that I've been playing I can count on one hand the number of backrollers I've fought. I do not believe backrolling is a problem. However to be fair, I fought a newish backroller tonight. My solution? I started backing up myself. When he realized I wasn't anywhere nearby, he changed directions and came at me. I waited till he was near range, pushed forward and did major damage, repeated until he was dead.

Up close and personal isn't the combat style for me. It would cause me to either do other things in VO (provided the upcoming changes made them interesting again) or move on. Most of the reason has to do with my setup. Neither mouse nor joystick give me the kind of control I need to be effective at close range. I next to never score hits around the 50 to 75m +- range. Meanwhile my opponent is usually stripping chunks off my hull.

So for me, being able to maintain a distance and dart in and out quickly (I fly lights almost exclusively) is a must. It is often the difference in me winning a fight.

I suppose I could have been more courteous in my original post, but that would not have been honest of me. My intent was to respond in a hostile manner to a suggestion that would have a negative impact on my game experience to solve a problem I don't believe exists.

If you shoot the target as they exit the docking bay/warp animation, the need for them to go backwards is removed. :D

Nah, in all seriousness, I've posted about this in the past, back rollers can be bloody annoying. Yes, its kind of possible for a back roller to drag a fight out, but if you don't want to fight a back roller, they cannot stop you dis-engaging. Saying they can drag a fight out forever is just plain wrong, turn autoaim off and spam in their general direction, and their hp will start to drop. Yes, back rolling IS annoying, but its not an uncounterable manouver like you seem to believe.

Side rolling, now theres a move that needs to be fixed! Side rollers are 10x worse than back rollers, and dont get me started on random rolling eckataurs! :D

Now here is how a real dogfight in VO should look. :P



Some real nasty FA on work with immaculate dodging skills.

LOL

F_A: I'm not sure if you stated this before, but what is your former in-game name? Did every fighter you encounter backroll?
What was your most common weapon of choice?

@bojun, lol n1 :-)

@Surbius:
Drathas Herodis
Most common for bots and anything huge was Positrons + Plasma Devistator, if you hit once or twice with any or all, it seems to turn into a 1 or two hit kill... Depending on the type of bot.

In pvp, neutrons or posi's. Unfortunately with a UC batt posi's give it a real run for it's money, so you kinda gotta meter out your shots a bit. I prefer posi's over anything, and if I could I would do posi + plasma dev in pvp, but iirc it tends to make the ship a bit too heavy.

To respond to Scottso: That's a valid point, it's true that I am looking from a different perspective than Forboding_Angel or other newer players. However, I can remember back when I was starting to pvp, and I have helped coach a lot of newer players in fighting, so I would have expected that if this were extremely prevalent I would have seen it. And I have seen it, but only in a very few cases, and most of those were people who play regularly and know exactly what they're doing. It's also possible that it is primarily seen in fights between newer players, and doesn't show up in fights involving a newer player and a vet, in which case it would make sense that I wouldn't have seen it. However, for what it's worth, this is the first time I've ever heard this complaint applied to the whole pvp system rather than isolated, fairly rare specific instances.

My main recommendation, for Forboding_Angel and any others who might be experiencing the same types of issues, is to ask on 100 about it. There will quite possibly be someone on willing to help you out, show you some tricks, whatever. If you're finding something that everyone else seems to enjoy to be really boring and dissatisfying, for reasons that don't have to do with just not liking that type of thing, chances are someone can help you out.

@Forboding_Angel: I love posi's, they're far and away my weapon of choice. :) But I would have to agree that they're not that great at hitting anyone over 250m or so away from you. Unless they're backrolling, in which case a bit of trial and error with A/A off, shooting into their flight path, will take their armour down right quick.

@inc: i still think that many of F_A's comments were not made in good faith but sorry for stepping out of line.

@F_A: Yeah, I'm just a big bad troll. GTFO noob and lern2interwebs.

I'd take you seriously if you actually responded to my arguments.

@ The Issue at Hand: I don't know, honestly.

I agree with Foreboding's opinion on backrolling...

While it was necessary with tri-flares, with the majority using energy weapons these days it just drags fights out...

Going backwards in a tri flare? Are you drunk? Flares are mines if fired while backrolling....

You misunderstand my meaning, I meant in the tri-flare valk ERA, it was necessary in order to survive being charged by one of those tri-flare valks.

Eldrad taught me one thing while he was dodging my rockets, sometimes just changing strafe direction will save you from a flare, there really is no need to roll.

Maybe rolling should be removed :P

Why not remove all movements and replace them with buttons of chance! Where every time you click the button of the action you want to do, it rolls dice and either completes the action you want, fails the action, or goes horrifically wrong causing your character great harm!

Serbius wins. /thread :-) hehehe

@pointsman... you made 2 points.

1# Couldn't it be fixed by a weapons changeup. My reply: Bandaid solution for a bigger problem.

2# So if I do a 180 I will slow down. Look dude, if you ahd read what I wrote, you would realize why this is a stupid question. Please look up in the dictionary 2 words. Acceleration, and velocity. There is a reason why I said the word acceleration so many times.

To save you some trouble, Acceleration is the rate that you gain velocity. So if my care has a max speed of 140mph and an acceleration rate of 10 mph per second constant, I will reach my max velocity of 140mph in 14 seconds.

So, if I take the engine out of my car and replace it with an engine that only allows me to accelerate 5mph per second constant, I will reach 140mph in 28 seconds,

In these examples, I still have the max velocity of 140mph, but the rate at when I get up to that 140mph changes.

DO you understand now?

Oh and then after that you said I was full of crap, then after that you decided that I was a troll.

I'm not surprised that you expected to be flamed given the negative way in which you present yourself but this is neither here nor there. (I don't care...but, yeah...)

My experience with VO's PvP is much more extensive than yours and, while not to discount your frustration or insights, I must say that *I* never have issues with distance controlling types. We could have different tastes though I think there is much more possibility for intense dog fights as things are than you were able to witness, unfortunately; If someone wants to hit me they'll be in *my* range.

Distances are at once both relative and arbitrary. People try to assume the distance that is approximately beneficial for their chosen weaponry. If two people distances vary enough then we do indeed have a problem. We can try to fix it by making it difficult to be any farther away than your opponent wants you to be or by changing the weapons to have a closer effective range to one another. I think these are both valid methods, each with their own problems.

Hindering escape means completely breaking the balances that has been wrought over the last few years. Heavy ships get a buff. Rockets and other weapons get a buff. That is the point more or less. But we'd probably have to rebalanced everything after the change though that isn't such a terrible thing.

Or we could just buff those weapons that you want to use. If they are ineffective in real combat situations then they need a buffing. Sorry but this seemed like the better way to resolve your frustration. It still allows "fights" to be sullied by a party that doesn't want to be in a sane range but if you buff the weapons correctly the ninny will not be able to hit you without being at risk of being hit.

Feel free to castigate the merits of this if you want.

I know what acceleration and velocity mean. I miswrote and my apologies for that.

You suggested being able to reach, say, 100 mph going one direction and 140 going the other. I'm not sure what happens when you move sideways.... Sorry but this seems silly to me. It's space and there isn't any friction (at least until you reach 60 m/s. :P )

Making the limits based on acceleration makes it easy to "cheat" using side strafes. You'd have to cap them as well.

As to why I said you were full of crap... resub and allow me to teach you how to PvP. :-)

Only reason why i use/used the backrolling tactic is/was to manage distance to my comforteable distance. Meaning 200 - 250m. If i started to notice i was going to far i just switched to fa and put acceleration on 0. If i noticed they came closer again to distances with which i didn't feel comforteable i went to non fa again.

I needed to do this mostly because of the flares, or agt. If it was a fullout energy loadout, my comforteable distance was decreased to about 100m. And i would dependent on the ship be fighting in fa or non fa mode. Light ship versus light -> me in heavy enemy in light-> non fa.

I never had a problem with backrollers, since distance management didn't just mean hit boost and move in a straight line once i am at 500m or heck. It meant hit boost occasionally before i even reach the 300m range.

In any case, backrolling used to be for the average noob (so me included) the only way to evade flarebarrages. A very small amount of people could do it without it, even though not as consistently.

I've been following this thread. It seems that the people who are proficient at PvP combat like the current model. The people who are not proficient at PvP combat want to change it. My suggestion would be for the new non-proficient people to team up with some of the vets and learn how to PvP, as opposed to us changing the combat model. It's easy to learn a little, think you know it all, and then blame the combat model for you not winning at least 50% of your matches. VO is a game of skill. Skills require practice. Players with more practice will almost always have an advantage. The same would be true if we changed the combat model. The only difference would be that everything would change, so the disadvantage for new players would be removed, at least for a short while. PvP combat is fun in VO the way it is. As a matter of fact, it's one of the two things that keeps me playing this game. I think most people feel the same way. It's hard at first, but you will learn to be better with practice.

Backrollers can be easily defeated, you just need to learn how. There need be no "gentleman's rules". Things like hailing are a show of respect, but aren't required to win. If I got attacked by a backroller using swarms who didn't hail, I'd still likely win. The player didn't follow any convention and everything he did was considered "bad form" as decided by the general VO player-base, but that doesn't change the fact that he will still die. It's not like by doing away with convention he somehow gained a huge advantage and is now unbeatable. I hope that makes sense.

On the most basic level, if we reduced the reverse thrust acceleration, every idiot in a AGT/rocket Centaur or Prometheus would be nearly invincible against any other ship. The best way for a light fighter with minimal armor to defeat a heavy setup like that is to carefully control their distance. The change you suggest would ruin the current balance of PvP combat as far as I can see. Again, my advice is to get some PvP combat training from an experienced PvP'er. You may change your view.

I am rather proficient with PvP currently. I still want to change it.

Pointsman Wrote: "As to why I said you were full of crap... resub and allow me to teach you how to PvP. :-)"

Why do you have the impression that I lost a lot in pvp? Actually I won 70% of my fights. That doesn't mean I was particularly impressed with the way that pvp was done.

I don't care for distance controlling the way that vo does it. That doesn't mean that I didn't know how or wasn't good at it. So I should pay ten bucks so that I can play again and get irritated again? I'm tempted to do it just to prove a point, but what would be the use? It's not like I have any friends that will play it with me.

@fatstrat85: You would still be able to accelerate backwards, just at a lower rate. Roll+strafe=barrelroll that always served me well with avoiding rockets.

Once again, when vo gets more players, what are all those newbies going to do when they are faced with a pvp system that they have to spend eons learning just to be able to make it from point a to point b? With the large amount of greyspace available being a pirate can actually be a very lucrative goal. And given the lack of defenses of serco/itani territories there isn't a whole lot of protection there.

I did things opposite, because when I learned that backwards flying was as fast and quick as forwards flying, I knew what to expect from other players when it came time to pvp. As I previously stated, I won roughly 70% of my matches. I can live with 50% - 70%... At'll do, but that doesn't mean at the same time that I liked it.

Also, AGT's suck anyway, the rarely ever score a hit and are heavy to boot. Additionally, the centaur is a massive target, not to mention that the last time I checked it is heavy and maneuvers badly in comparison to a fighter. You could simply keep your distance and fly rings around him. You have strafing and rolling for a reason ya know.