Suggestion: Give archwings a "fast stop" manuver

[Gentleman_Bird]

With the community going rampant about Itzal's potential nerf, maybe it's time to think about how we can make archwing movement better. I'm not gonna talk about Itzal's teleport, there's enough people talking about that already. Instead, I wanna talk about his 2nd ability, the one that makes you invisible.

 

However, the invisibility isn't that important right now. What's more important is it's secondary effect, activating it instantly stops all motion. This is currently the only way to quickly stop in any archwing. If/when Itzal is getting a nerf, we should at least give other archwings the ability to quickly stop.

 

Where should we bind this fast-stop man2uver? Back-roll.

 

Currently, the back-roll manuver makes you do a back-flip thing and causes you to lose a bit of momentum. Replacing this with a fast-stop maneuver will be much more useful.

[RazorCure]

I'd love that for trying to Rez downed team mates in Awing. Its sooo twitchy to do, and really easy to even miss the fact you CAN do it. I had no idea, until after I had done like 50 Awing missions and asked a guy how he did it!

[Gentleman_Bird]

Just now, RazorCure said:

I'd love that for trying to Rez downed team mates in Awing. Its sooo twitchy to do, and really easy to even miss the fact you CAN do it. I had no idea, until after I had done like 50 Awing missions and asked a guy how he did it!

That too, my current strategy is to boost toward the downed teammate and hopefully hit the revive button at the exact right moment. If I don't, I completely overshoot them and then they hit the manual kill button. It would be nice if we could revive from a longer range, or maybe give Amesha an instant revive ability similar to that one augment mod Nekros has.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, Gentleman_Bird said:

With the community going rampant about Itzal's potential nerf, maybe it's time to think about how we can make archwing movement better. I'm not gonna talk about Itzal's teleport, there's enough people talking about that already. Instead, I wanna talk about his 2nd ability, the one that makes you invisible.

 

However, the invisibility isn't that important right now. What's more important is it's secondary effect, activating it instantly stops all motion. This is currently the only way to quickly stop in any archwing. If/when Itzal is getting a nerf, we should at least give other archwings the ability to quickly stop.

 

Where should we bind this fast-stop man2uver? Back-roll.

 

Currently, the back-roll manuver makes you do a back-flip thing and causes you to lose a bit of momentum. Replacing this with a fast-stop maneuver will be much more useful.

The momentum in archwing is completely borked on every level. Fast-stop is a start, but archwing needs more. We need the ability to start a bombing/strafing run without immediately careening directly at the ground. We need the ability to retreat and shoot at the same time in mid-air... without careening directly at the target you're trying to retreat from

[Variks_Prime]

13 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

The momentum in archwing is completely borked on every level. Fast-stop is a start, but archwing needs more. We need the ability to start a bombing/strafing run without immediately careening directly at the ground. We need the ability to retreat and shoot at the same time in mid-air... without careening directly at the target you're trying to retreat from

Maybe have aiming in archwing not change your movement direction, with view rapidly snapping back to your previous direction when you release the aim button? Maybe only have it do this if you're in sprint, with non-sprint archwing keeping normal aim mechanics? As is, aiming in sprint basically isn't usable anyways.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Variks_Prime

[Gentleman_Bird]

1 minute ago, Variks_Prime said:

Maybe have aiming in archwing not change your movement direction, with view rapidly snapping back to your previous direction when you release the aim button? Maybe only have it do this if you're in sprint, with non-sprint archwing keeping normal aim mechanics? As is, aiming in sprint basically isn't usable anyways.

I agree with aiming being independent from movement. Hard pass on the rapid view snapping though. That can get very disorienting very quickly.

[Variks_Prime]

3 minutes ago, Gentleman_Bird said:

I agree with aiming being independent from movement. Hard pass on the rapid view snapping though. That can get very disorienting very quickly.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a mechanic that would give us what's needed without adding more buttons. Archwings are already using the 4 ability buttons, the use and reload keys, etc, though perhaps the transference button could be used to toggle "turret controls," since it currently does nothing? We already have 2 keys just for archwing banking, though hardly anyone seems to use them. Any other ideas for solving this without overly complicating the controls?

The fact that archwings already have a lot of complexity while K-Drive has so many unused buttons is part of what makes me think they should be given special movement abilities to achieve Itzal-like movement. They're already hoverboards, no need to try to glue them to the ground and keep them useless.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Variks_Prime

[Gentleman_Bird]

11 minutes ago, Variks_Prime said:

I'm having a hard time thinking of a mechanic that would give us what's needed without adding more buttons. Archwings are already using the 4 ability buttons, the use and reload keys, etc, though perhaps the transference button could be used to toggle "turret controls," since it currently does nothing? We already have 2 keys just for archwing banking, though hardly anyone seems to use them. Any other ideas for solving this without overly complicating the controls?

The fact that archwings already have a lot of complexity while K-Drive has so many unused buttons is part of what makes me think they should be given special movement abilities to achieve Itzal-like movement. They're already hoverboards, no need to try to glue them to the ground and keep them useless.

It's definitely doable. I would introduce the ability to move in any direction while arch-sprinting instead of being limited to sprinting in the direction of your mouse curser. The banking mechanic can be removed altogether. The game auto-corrects your banking in the open worlds anyway, it's not needed. (Not sure about space combat. Unless DE designs space levels around banking, I don't think it'll be needed there either.) However, the tradeoff is that the way directional rolls work will need to be changed. Maybe such a rework will make room for strafing and braking options. Experimenting with those ideas could end up with making Archwing feel a bit better.

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, Gentleman_Bird said:

That too, my current strategy is to boost toward the downed teammate and hopefully hit the revive button at the exact right moment.

Last I checked you can just boost at them while holding X, you'll automatically start reviving once in range