Barrel Roll

[OpeningToEndgame]

I read the patch notes and saw that Barrel Rolls cooldown was being increased? I am downloading the PTS now. Anyone know what the change is? I am kind of disappointed. Running a Sting. BR was the best maneuver I had to escape from most ships. =(

[Jamus_Divinus]

I read the patch notes and saw that Barrel Rolls cooldown was being increased? I am downloading the PTS now. Anyone know what the change is? I am kind of disappointed. Running a Sting. BR was the best maneuver I had to escape from most ships. =(

 

I'm very disappointed but I still fully support the decision. My GS with BR is unkillable 1v1 for 99% of encounters. Will miss the original version but can understand why they felt the need to nerf it tbh.

[DamascusAdontise]

I would have rather seen them go for a 50% increase in cooldown not the 100% they are currently testing. Moderation is the name of the game =/ but we may have to wait several buff / nerf cycles before it gets to 15 where it should probably have always been =)

[OpeningToEndgame]

Oh christ if it's more than 5 seconds, then I am just not going to play GSF anymore. I ONLY play a Sting, because I suck with other ships. They nerf my best defensive ability. Then I am done.

[Armonddd]

Oh christ if it's more than 5 seconds, then I am just not going to play GSF anymore. I ONLY play a Sting, because I suck with other ships. They nerf my best defensive ability. Then I am done.

 

It's up to a 20 second cooldown with upgrades.

 

Try out retro thrusters. They're better anyway.

[Altheran]

What surprises me is that Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters got the same treatment... I never heard of any problem coming from those.

From Barrel Roll, yes, because it could be used as quick travel ability in addition to be a missile lock breaker, but nothing from Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters.

[Philmors]

What surprises me is that Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters got the same treatment... I never heard of any problem coming from those.

From Barrel Roll, yes, because it could be used as quick travel ability in addition to be a missile lock breaker, but nothing from Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters.

Seriously? Barrel Roll definitely needed this treatment as it allowed gunships to move around quickly and avoid missle locks a lot but Retro Thrusters and Kolgarn turn definitely didn't.

[Armonddd]

What surprises me is that Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters got the same treatment... I never heard of any problem coming from those.

From Barrel Roll, yes, because it could be used as quick travel ability in addition to be a missile lock breaker, but nothing from Koigran Turn and Retro Thrusters.

 

Retros land kills. I can't tell you how many times I've used it to finish an engagement (by finishing my missile lock and getting off an extra shot or two while also breaking their lock or dodging their pods) that would otherwise have been prolonged by one or both of us running away with barrel roll and coming back to repeat the process.

 

Is it easy? No. I don't manage it every time, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of pilots were incapable of this tactic because of issues with accuracy and spacial awareness (if you don't smack into a wall, the jittery nature of the maneuver will throw off your aim -- and a lot of pilots will dive out of your firing arc if you're not fast enough). I don't think it should have been nerfed because all this nerf does is drastically reduce how often I can break a missile lock (because most of the time I use them defensively, not offensively).

 

Koiogran turn? No idea. Can't stand it myself, and on a 20% turning ship, I don't need it. I'll take a manual U-turn over a predictable U-turn any day.

 

I can see a rise in type 1 scouts using EMP field to compensate for the decreased frequency of missile lock breaks available.

[DamascusAdontise]

*Chuckle* Give PowerDive a try, they left that alone (disclaimer not responsible for damage to your spaceship)

[Armonddd]

*Chuckle* Give PowerDive a try, they left that alone (disclaimer not responsible for damage to your spaceship)

 

Get that **** outta here.

[MaximilianPower]

Retros land kills. I can't tell you how many times I've used it to finish an engagement (by finishing my missile lock and getting off an extra shot or two while also breaking their lock or dodging their pods) that would otherwise have been prolonged by one or both of us running away with barrel roll and coming back to repeat the process.

 

Is it easy? No. I don't manage it every time, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of pilots were incapable of this tactic because of issues with accuracy and spacial awareness (if you don't smack into a wall, the jittery nature of the maneuver will throw off your aim -- and a lot of pilots will dive out of your firing arc if you're not fast enough). I don't think it should have been nerfed because all this nerf does is drastically reduce how often I can break a missile lock (because most of the time I use them defensively, not offensively).

 

Koiogran turn? No idea. Can't stand it myself, and on a 20% turning ship, I don't need it. I'll take a manual U-turn over a predictable U-turn any day.

 

I can see a rise in type 1 scouts using EMP field to compensate for the decreased frequency of missile lock breaks available.

 

I'll have to give retros another whirl. I attempted to use them a while back, and got so consistently disoriented that I quickly gave up. I always liked the idea, though...now I have a pretty good reason to try out retros again.

 

Any tips?

[Armonddd]

I'll have to give retros another whirl. I attempted to use them a while back, and got so consistently disoriented that I quickly gave up. I always liked the idea, though...now I have a pretty good reason to try out retros again.

 

Any tips?

 

I've never been (very) disoriented by retro, because it usually brings me back to where I was when I hit the button. Maybe that kind of spatial awareness comes more easily for me than you, I dunno. You can try using quick look and auto roll and see if those help, though I don't use them. Perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to think "where was I just a second ago?" before hitting the button.

 

As for crashing, which will inevitably come up (for you or someone else): like every other engine ability, retro takes a certain mindset. You could theoretically use quick look to check behind you before you retro, but I see flaws in that plan and can't recommend it. Taking that moment to think about where you were a second ago before pushing the button is doubly important here.

 

If there's someone shooting at you from behind, retro. 90% of the time they'll show up in front of you.

 

If your nose is next to a satellite, you can usually retro, because satellites are a fair distance away from asteroids and whatnot.

 

If you're not sure if you have space behind you but there's space behind you, you can boost and then retro.

 

Advanced trick: boost forward, then kill the boost and immediately shove the mouse straight up or down (and shove it hard -- as hard as you'd slam on the brakes if a moose jumped in front of your car), give yourself a quarter second or so for the ship to adjust pitch, and retro. You'll essentially do a snap turn, and you can turn it into a U-turn if you need to.

[Kain_Turinbar]

Seriously? Barrel Roll definitely needed this treatment as it allowed gunships to move around quickly and avoid missle locks a lot but Retro Thrusters and Kolgarn turn definitely didn't.

 

This won't change anything. I use Barrel Roll and primarily target gunships because they are so easy to kill in a strike fighter if you know what you're doing. So this will change nothing in that regard; they use it to run, I use it to chase at the same intervals.

 

The thing that sucks is when I get 4-5 people raging at me I can abuse barrel roll to where they never catch me because after a while they just give up. I think I will take a lot more missile hits now.

[Sindariel]

The bigger issue you people don't see with this nerf is that Barrel Roll's power cost has also been increased. This is a huge nerf to every ship EXCEPT gunships.

 

Scouts and Strike Fighters have to boost to the gunships to get in attack range, while the gunships themself usually have full engine power when they are engaged.

 

This completely bypasses the issues that people have with Barrel Roll and is just a plain stupid and pointless change.

 

Not to mention how gimped you'll be with barrel roll after getting hit with an ion railgun.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Sindariel

[Nemarus]

Oh christ if it's more than 5 seconds, then I am just not going to play GSF anymore. I ONLY play a Sting, because I suck with other ships. They nerf my best defensive ability. Then I am done.

 

You realize that every class of ship except Bombers can get Barrel Roll?

 

It's everyone's best defensive / travel ability.

 

This change will make your Sting stronger, not weaker. Before, with everyone using Barrel Roll, the length of time a ship could use afterburners didn't really matter, because with Barrel Roll everyone could cover any distance for minimal energy cost.

 

With Barrel Roll on a longer cooldown, Scouts (with their cheaper afterburner and faster engine regen) will be even more mobile relative to other classes.

 

Think of it this way: Scouts can run faster than everyone else ... but everyone taking Barrel Roll and being able to use it every 10 seconds was equivalent to everyone driving around in cars, so running speed didn't matter. Now Barrel Roll will be usable only every 20 seconds, so everyone will spend less time "driving" and more time "running" (i.e. using afterburners). Scouts will be able to get around the map much more easily than anyone else.

[okiobe]

I'm disappointed in this change. Seeing as this change affects most of the missile lock abilities I wonder if this has less to do with barrel rolling around the map and more to do with a large portion of the player base not being able to hit anything with their lasers (and missiles for that matter). They want missiles to be a bigger factor. I guess people couldn't make the transition from sure targeting in the MMO environment to free targeting in the GSF environment. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out but if matches become a missile fest I probably won't stay long.

 

EDIT: I would rather they shorten the distance traveled by barrel roll than increase its cooldown.

Edited March 5, 2014 by okiobe

[Kain_Turinbar]

The bigger issue you people don't see with this nerf is that Barrel Roll's power cost has also been increased. This is a huge nerf to every ship EXCEPT gunships.

 

Scouts and Strike Fighters have to boost to the gunships to get in attack range, while the gunships themself usually have full engine power when they are engaged.

 

This completely bypasses the issues that people have with Barrel Roll and is just a plain stupid and pointless change.

 

Not to mention how gimped you'll be with barrel roll after getting hit with an ion railgun.

 

Wow, this does suck. So many times I get tagged by an ion shot or two and have no energy and furiously tap "3" until barrel roll finally has enough energy to activate and can escape just in time. This will make any stunlock an automatic death.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I'm disappointed in this change. Seeing as this change affects most of the missile lock abilities I wonder if this has less to do with barrel rolling around the map and more to do with a large portion of the player base not being able to hit anything with their lasers (and missiles for that matter). They want missiles to be a bigger factor. I guess people couldn't make the transition from sure targeting in the MMO environment to free targeting in the GSF environment. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out but if matches become a missile fest I probably won't stay long.

 

EDIT: I would rather they shorten the distance traveled by barrel roll than increase its cooldown.

 

The increase in being taken out by missile spam is my concern too.

 

I suspect though that scouts may be hit hardest though since they lack the HP to eat a missile. Perhaps all ships, and scouts more specifically, were proving more capable of surviving missiles than was intended with the short CD since it was entirely possible for the engine ability to come off CD before you reacquired your target and/or your missile reloaded?

[Itkovian]

Wow, this does suck. So many times I get tagged by an ion shot or two and have no energy and furiously tap "3" until barrel roll finally has enough energy to activate and can escape just in time. This will make any stunlock an automatic death.

 

That is my chief worry. Barrel roll is one of the best way to survive gunships, and with the increase power cost it may make it impossible to use BR to survive an ion railgun hit. This is rather counterintuitive, given how ion railgun is one of the more abusive systems out there still (in the sense that it's a stunlock, and stunlocks are _bad_).

[Armonddd]

Perhaps all ships, and scouts more specifically, were proving more capable of surviving missiles than was intended with the short CD since it was entirely possible for the engine ability to come off CD before you reacquired your target and/or your missile reloaded?

 

Well, it's definitely an indirect buff to protons, since now only snap turn and power dive can be used more frequently than protons can be launched.

 

Though if the devs think survivability versus missiles is too high, they need to look at clusters with damage overcharge...

 

The other thing to consider is that both scouts and double railgun gunships get an additional lock break in the form of distortion field. Type 1 scouts get a third lock break in the form of EMP field. If missiles are really a problem, looking at engine abilities won't even the field -- it'll leave strikes even farther behind everyone else.

 

My biggest problem with this change is that it's a "rich get richer" change. Those who are skilled at timing missile breaks after launch, or who can successfully use line of sight to break a lock (without crashing), are at the advantage because they need to use fewer missile breaks, thus they are less affected by the nerf. The learning curve in GSF is already huge because of the lack of a thorough tutorial or effective matchmaking, and changes like this will just make that worse.

 

Actually, that's my second biggest problem with the change. My biggest problem is that we've heard zero reasoning from BioWare for the change. I don't know what their perspective is. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish, or even if they have a goal in mind. I've seen companies approach balance by flailing with a chainsaw in the dark, with predictable results; suffice it to say that those companies don't get my money anymore. The lack of communication really worries me, because if they have a plan, we don't know what it is, and we can't be reassured that they're working towards a better end.

[MaximilianPower]

I've never been (very) disoriented by retro, because it usually brings me back to where I was when I hit the button. Maybe that kind of spatial awareness comes more easily for me than you, I dunno. You can try using quick look and auto roll and see if those help, though I don't use them. Perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to think "where was I just a second ago?" before hitting the button.

 

As for crashing, which will inevitably come up (for you or someone else): like every other engine ability, retro takes a certain mindset. You could theoretically use quick look to check behind you before you retro, but I see flaws in that plan and can't recommend it. Taking that moment to think about where you were a second ago before pushing the button is doubly important here.

 

If there's someone shooting at you from behind, retro. 90% of the time they'll show up in front of you.

 

If your nose is next to a satellite, you can usually retro, because satellites are a fair distance away from asteroids and whatnot.

 

If you're not sure if you have space behind you but there's space behind you, you can boost and then retro.

 

Advanced trick: boost forward, then kill the boost and immediately shove the mouse straight up or down (and shove it hard -- as hard as you'd slam on the brakes if a moose jumped in front of your car), give yourself a quarter second or so for the ship to adjust pitch, and retro. You'll essentially do a snap turn, and you can turn it into a U-turn if you need to.

 

Thanks for this, good stuff. Thinking about where I was a second ago before activating retros seems obvious, but I may well have not really been paying as much attention to this as I should have. I think generally speaking my spatial awareness is fine, not great but certainly adequate, and I think eventually I can get the hang of this. Just gotta get some practice in. I honestly didn't give it much of a chance originally, and given that barrel roll appeared to be the far superior engine option, I wasn't much incented to try any harder than I did. Now, different story.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

[Sindariel]

Another issue i see with this change are missile drones.

With the increased cooldowns, wasting a evasive maneuver to a missile drone will become more lethal than ever.

[Armonddd]

Thinking about where I was a second ago before activating retros seems obvious,

 

When you've got a missile tone in your ears and shots flying past your cockpit, not pressing the button is the hardest thing in the world.

 

Also remember that losing barrel roll is going to significantly impact your mobility, and you'll need to compensate for that. Scouts can pick up booster recharge and/or engine power converter. Strikes... well, I'm planning to just deal with the nerf. Not like I play my strikes very often anyway.

 

Since you recognize from the onset that practice is what you need most, you're going to have a much easier time adjusting to the changes than other people will. Good on you.

[Kuciwalker]

I am not happy with this. 15s is reasonable, 20s is not. Barrel roll provides a distinctive and interesting type of flying that regular boosting does not.

[Armonddd]

Barrel roll provides a distinctive and interesting type of flying that regular boosting does not.

 

...What? The only thing barrel roll does that afterburners don't is go faster. Which is silly, cause it's... a barrel roll.