Newbies in SWTOR are screwed in every conceivable way, especially if they subscribe. They won't have enough credits to even purchase a speeder at level 15 unless they do all the side quests....which they won't because the xp is crap for them now, compared to story quests, nor will they be able to afford starship upgrades. It doesn't help that all the idiots in general chat (most of whom haven't been newbies since December 2011, or have in fact been newbies SINCE then, depending on how you want to look at it) are giving horrible advice about starting out "Just buy orange gear on GTN, dewd who has only been playing for 30 minutes.....". Ultimately, the only newbies who last more than a couple of days in SWTOR are the charity cases that get 50k credits, a speeder a guild invite, and their hand held through level 60.....and even so 90% of those are gone after a week, when they figure out that SWTOR is a single-player themepark with mediocre multiplayer content tacked on as an afterthought. SWTOR is just as newbie-unfriendly as SWG was, but in completely different (and utterly ridiculous) ways. It isn't gaining subs, and is fighting just to retain the dwindling number it currently has.

I don't think I ever encountered anyone in SWTOR who yielded any evidence that they were more than 8 years old. So I am quite suspicious of these responses. Or is it more likely that everyone in SWTOR acts like an idiot because the game itself nurtures such behavior? It warrants further study. But not by me.

You guys really need to accept that GSF is a failure, and that it's dying. Based on your very own threads and comments permeating page 1 of this subforum, it's clear you already know this, you're just afraid to admit it and would rather lash out at anyone that can actually see the forest for the trees. Had EA imported the Totally Games engine, you wouldn't be sitting in queues for 45 minutes a stretch or being forced to group up with toxic players you can't stand just to "enjoy" warzones with a z axis on the same two maps over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, pretending like everything is ok. Because SWTOR players wanted XvT. They didn't want War Thunder in space (you guys SERIOSLY need to check out Star Conflict and that line of games from Gaijin so you can fully understand that GSF is a watered down version of (marginally) superior games). Don't get me wrong. I hope GSF improves. I hope maps are added. I hope more ships and roles are added. I hope tiered matchmaking is added. I hope a competent tutorial is added. I hope pve missions are added. I hope flight stick/gamepad support is added. I hope EA does SOMETHING to make GSF more accessible and appealing to the normal, rational gamer, stops catering to the toxic hardcore elititsts with Aspbergers who think that the ability to push buttons on a mouse and keyboard = ace piloting skills, and who respond to posts they disagree with by using a series of point/counterpoint rebuttals, which only serves to reinforce my point completely. I sincerely DO hope efforts are made to correct four years of blatant oversights in a game based on a franchise that DEFINED space combat; a game that thus far has done a huge disservice to it. I hope that ultimately the players who have invested so much time and money into GSF are rewarded for their efforts beyond "here's a new paintjob for you to buy with cartel coins, see you next update!". As for me, I'll be playing these 20 year-old games with my RL friends (remember those? Sadly, you probably don't) where I actually get to fly Star Wars starfighters (not ones that kinda sorta look like Star Wars ships if I squint really hard and use my imagination) against competent opponents who don't hide inside a cheesy gunship turret because they can't dogfight. This community's toxic, insular, overzealous, overbearing and elititst attitude will most definitely not be missed. I don't need to cling onto the stubborn refusal to give up on GSF because I'm a fan of spaceship combat and/or Star Wars anymore. I don't need to grind through 450 matches just to put myself on a level playing field with the unemployed elitists in their gunships anymore. I don't need sit at my desk for 45 minutes at a time waiting to find others willing to accept mediocrity along with me and play the same 2 10-minute warzones in space over and over again. I have better games to play again. And I couldn't be happier.

Fixed.

I don't hate GSF. I just dislike the majority of its niche playerbase of fanboys who blindly dismiss the fact that it was a complete and utter failure from the moment it was stolen from Gaijin Entertainment, and that it's not what the vast majority of SWTOR players wanted, expected, or asked for. But you believe whatever you want to. I'm having loads more fun playing a 20 year-old game by myself than playing Galactic Gunship with a handful of yes-men who enjoy whatever EA tells them to pay to enjoy. And I can guarantee you that there are 1000x more people playing TIE Fighter tonight than are playing GSF. No, I can't back that up with numbers, but you know I'm right. You'll certainly dispute it, because that's what you do. But deep down in what passes for your heart, you know I'm right. And I'm also right in asserting that gamers will still be playing TIE Fighter long after SWTOR goes offline.

And I'll point out that out of the 1.5 million SWTOR players, less than 250 consistently play GSF (everyone else plays 1 or 2 matches and then swears it off entirely). Meanwhile, TIE Fighter is heralded as one of the top 10 video games of all time on dozens of sources. The only thing history will remember GSF for is being a cheap knockoff of Star Conflict, and one of the most underwhelming expansions for a MMO ever produced.

Now THIS is podracing! Talk about answered prayers. Seriously, if you've never played these before, do yourself a favor and do so. They can all be played with a gamepad/flight stick, and they still hold up after all these years. These games are the space combat that SWTOR players wanted and asked for from day 1. Instead, you got GSF. My condolences.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. But I'm sure the 3 dozen or so players who swear by GSF will back you up. Unfortunately, the 1-and-a-half million SWTOR players who agree with me don't read this subforum.

Have you heard of Star Conflict? It's literally the same game, but with tiered matchmaking, pve, a playerbase 1000x larger than GSF, more varied ships and components, and very short queue times. Like GSF, Star Conflict is pay-to-win, and gear > skill, and I wouldn't even really call it a better game, but it's definitely the lesser of two evils.

The very fact that Verain shows interest in it makes me hope beyond hope that it will never launch and is indeed a scam. He's done enough damage in the GSF community as it is. For which he's very proud.

You're only reinforcing my point.

How to give it a wider appeal; 1). Remove GSF entirely from the game. It's a poorly-coded, poorly implemented knockoff (some might even say shameless ripoff) of Star Conflict, a ukranian F2P game on Steam with a playerbase 3,000x larger than that of GSF) with watered-down mechanics, stripped of everything that makes that game GSF plagiarizes popular (namely tiered matchmaking). 2). Reverse engineer the source code for any of Totally Games' space sims from the 90s (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance). Can't be any harder than reverse engineering the source code for a game that was still in beta when you plagiarized it, can it? SWTOR players never asked for a grindy gear-dependent pvp warzone disguised as a 3D space shooter (anymore than they asked for an on-rails Starfox ripoff at launch). They asked for space combat no more sophisticated than what was available 20 years ago. EA didn't listen. Ergo, vis a vis, concordantly, GSF is only played by a few dozen fanbois who consistently drive everyone else away (not with their leet ace combat skills, but with their arrogant, condescending, haughty, snot-nosed attitudes). TL;DR: The only way to give GSF a wider appeal is to ditch it and start over by finding a better space game to copy.

I don't expect to be topping kill charts. I do, however, expect to survive long enough to fire off abilities and figure out what they do. I expect some sort of tutorial that does more than explain how to target, how to fire your weapons, and how to capture an objective. I didn't even need a tutorial for that. What I NEED is a tutorial on how to take an enemy base without being one shot by its turrets before I can even get a missile lock. What I NEED is a tutorial on how to figure out which side of an asteroid or base a target is located from long distance, and maybe even an explanation how starship sensors are so much better than the ones thousands of years later in which an imperial fleet can't detect the Millenium Falcon in an asteroid field. And I could definitely use a tutorial on the thought process involved that determined that joystick/gamepad support, a basic feature of every single Star Wars space combat game that's ever been released (with the exception of this game, and Clone Wars Adventure, which, quite coincidentally, has been cancelled), wasn't worth implementing in a game whose fanbase was clamouring for a better space game than the horrible afterthought railshooter (based on a Clone Wars Adventures mini-game, by the way). Flight sim games are why USB joysticks exist. Again, if a game from 2004 can find the resources and talent to include it, why can't this one? I'm more than willing to "take the time to practice"....but this isn't practice. It's free requisition points for everyone else. I'm not learning anything. I'm just getting more and more frustrated. I could spend a decade doing this, and I wouldn't learn anything other than "you lose, but here's your participation trophy anyway. If you want to get better, just keep showing up, you'll eventually have enough trophies to Pay-To-Win". And I'm just not willing to pay for such an awful Star Wars experience. It's all yours. Be careful not to choke on it.

I don't have any problems with aiming, or firing torpedoes. Those mechanics are no different than any other space sim. I have problems with being destroyed immediately. I can dodge one missile lock every what, 60 seconds? But I can't shake the next 10 missiles that immediately follow. And I can only wrap around so many torpedoes or pylons. I'm not seeing any chaff or countermeasure upgrades, so I have no reason to believe that high end combat is anything more than "whoever runs out of missiles last wins". I have problems with being a "level 1" player pitted against "level 55" players. Skill doesn't mean jack squat when your opponent can survive 200 direct hits and you can't even survive 1. Put me in matches against other players who are learning the ropes, so we can all suck and learn to get better. Don't put me up against max-level ships who know they're going to win before the match even begins. That's not helping anyone learn how to play. It's nothing more than a frustrating grindfest to incrementally suck less until you're finally on par with players who merely have been grinding longer. And as far as queue times making tiered stages to GSF impossible....well, if GSF were anywhere near as good as you want to believe it is, then there wouldn't be an issue with long queue times, now would there? It's a Star Wars game, FFS. Star Wars is the reason most of us play video games in the first place, and it's the reason that video games became so popular. I expect more from a Star Wars game. And so should you.

No, but it may very will be my last. It's THAT bad.