Thrusting upwards via gliding patched out?

[A_Cool_Gorilla]

Did the developers share any rationale as to why this mechanic was removed from the game? I haven't seen any patch notes address it, so I'm definitely hoping this is just a bug... but it has me concerned either way. The mechanic being tilting the camera upward, causing the player to thrust upwards once they hit a certain distance from the terrain.

While I understand their possible wanting to better control traversal distances, I just don't believe that removing this mechanic was the way to go about it - if it was even purposely removed. The mechanic made terrain a utility as opposed to just being an obstacle, and it added an additional tool to the sandbox. For me anyway, it added additional strategy to gliding as well as giving me a greater amount of satisfaction from carving paths through the map.

It was a similar sort of satisfaction as grinding out rails in SSX or Coolboarders - it just complimented the parent mechanic and added more personality to it by breaking up the monotony that it may have otherwise had. Gliding in Apex has comparatively simple dynamics in contrast to shredding runs in SSX or the like, which makes the absence of a mechanic so small incredibly noticeable for me.

I definitely want to see it return. If traversal distances are an issue, I'd imagine that shortening the height of the balloons would be one solution to balance that out while allowing the dynamics of gliding to stay intact.

Thanks for reading!

[GoldyIsHere]

They would have to make it an actual feature as one could teleport with this bug! Yes it was a bug and was patched.

But yeah maybe landing thrusters with a fuel gage would be cool!

[VisualfEX]

They patched it out. This was basically because the amount of time you could glide around and gather intel was insanely high. Especially if you were good at controlling it could go across the map almost and just float around gathering enemy location. This takes away from game because everyone would be flying around and it's much harder to hit someone flying then on the ground. 

It was also never intended to be working that way balloons are re-launchers not a glide system so they work the same way as launching from the ship hence the name. I know a lot of people had fun doing it and messing around but it was extremely annoying in a game without matchmaking when you got the squaded up pros all launching and going in hard for kills meanwhile you might be in a squad that doesn't even know how to work it.

So overall just don't expect them to be patching this back in, as it was never their intended design for it to work as such.

[A_Cool_Gorilla]

Less of an expectation, and more of a request. Whether it was intended or not, I strongly believe that it added a considerable amount of satisfaction to the gliding, as well as widening the strategic value of it.

I'm not sure how much thrust should be given when gliding to avoid making it too powerful, but I wouldn't mind seeing balloon heights and the initial drop ship height being lowered to balance it out.