Like I stated,

I back away untill a certain point, namely the point that I feel comfortable in landing and evading hits. that point is with me 250-300m. With other people that is 150m. I haven't stated anywahere which I consider to be best. But it is my right to make it as easy for me as possible, if I am making it hard for people that prefer short range fights above medium range fights (what is illogical once the velocity of weapons go up). Since the closer you are with the weapons with a higher velocity the harder it is to dodge them due to decreased response time. Therefore distances will increase to keep the same timeinterval of successfully dodging a shot. So if you really want fights at 150m then consider of using weapons like the phased blaster or any of the lower level weapons.

Besides it is not as if it is hard to hit a valk with an energy weapon... they are big enough targets. Its a lot harder to hit a vult, although this one has its disadvantages also...

Besides once people are in the 'zone' then they will stop backrolling since they will only hurt themselves. So the only way to make sure that they stop backrolling is by backrolling or not backstrafing but also not going to them. Try to change your mentality and feel comfortable at longer distance fights. It is what we had to do during all the ram-tactics (and complain naturally). But tactics will appear and people will succeed just as eldrad succeeded. Or do you think that eldrad was just able to do what he did, or that I was just able to land rocketshots semi decent or that icarus was a semi-god with rockets... Its all practice and making sure that you make people fight according to your terms in stead of you fighting in their terms. Or at least adjusting to their terms so you feel comfortable with them also.

Not to mention that I don't always back off, I only do so when people try to come TO close. Don't come to close and I don't back off. Make use of that and try to encorperate it in your tactic. The used strategy before was to come faster to me then that I could back off. If that does not work anymore or is to hard then find something else in stead of starting to complain. I had to do that too with the introduction of multi-rocket spammers.

Or just break off and stop the fight, its not as if it is hard to flee. Maybe it just means that they don't want to fight. Its the last option, but if your skills aren't good enough to stop someone backstrafing then don't try to kill him since youll fail anyway or fight with people willing to fight you on your terms.

cheers

Ah. I'm talking about people who hover at 300-400m and constantly roll. You can dodge anything with ease at that distance.
towards you, not fly in loops 300m away. Nor Eldrad - no, I don't think he was just magically awesome with energy, but he's the exception in this case. Few people have the time to get that good.

Plus, the 400m roll is NOT A SUCCESSFUL TACTIC AGAINST PLAYERS.
I'm not sure why you bring Icarus into this... he would boost They don't hit anything! It works against bots because bots will keep coming towards you and not doge very effectively. Against players who have an inkling of how to dodge energy weapons, it's a frustratingly boring "watch me sit still and dodge your fire" battle.

"Maybe it just means that they don't want to fight."
They attacked me. They fired first.

Bah. I propose this be locked until we see how the new engines and such change things.

I brought them in since they all had a distinctive way to cope with certain occurences in the game. Which they didn't learn by just complaining but going out there and dieing over and over :D.

Besides eldrad was good yes, but like I stated he was unable to beat me always :D or even for a majority of the cases, just because I understood his tactic and tried and mostly succeeded in countering that. Keep eldrad at a distance and he is not 'uber' anymore. He is just as succeptible to hits as anybody else. He is only so good because he can make very short dodges which benefit him in short range fights. Once more, don't try to adjust to their way of fighting but let them adjust to your way of fighting. That is the only reason why backstrafing is used. Naturally, I doubt I could still pull that off since I have been out for to long.

If newbies are doing that, then in stead of complaining in here, tell them that what they are doing is ineffective agaisnt you. And just avoid their shots and don't hit back. Just as a way of getting a point across. Tell them if they want to have a chance of hitting you that 200-250m is better. Or even 200 - 300m. If necessary fight in busses since they are easier to hit at these ranges then a normal fightingship. Even better is to show their inability of hitting you by backrolling by going into a bus and evading all their shots. I used to do it. What however together with the introduction of multi rockets and gausses led to getting rammed but thats another discussion. Newbies are new for something, don't expect them to know the game from day one, do the effort of getting them out of that good valk into a bus. Really, I learned the most from my fights in a bus. There is a reaosn why I flew in a bus for at least 2 months when I began. Only because it was cheap, was fun to learn to dodge with and was semi decent at it.

Try to get some busduels going. Try to let these newbies come out of their valks and into busses. And show them how the game is meant to be played, in stead of the constant complaining :(.

Constant complaining?! This is the first I've said anything on the subject. I know how they learned because that's how I learned too, and that's what I'm telling new players to do. The fact that this thread grew to three pages so fast seems to indicate that I touched on a subject close to both vets and newbs.. it's not useless whining.

do a search on newbies + valks and youll see what I mean, I was not talking to you directly star. Just the general tendency of venting.