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myrrhbear

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  1. I wasn't aware it was already busted. The suggestion I made could help fix it, even on old servers. No need to give up.
  2. The credit transfer limit when bringing characters over to Shae Vizla is a good idea in general, but being able to bring over 15 million per character is going to recreate the broken economy very quickly. People with 16 characters will in effect be bringing over 240,000,000 credits. Prices on the GTN will reflect this, and the economy will again soon be busted. Credits one can bring over should be limited to the Legacy, not to the character. That way new players, or players transferring only one, two, or a few characters will be in the same boat as those with 16 characters - everyone starting only with 15 million credits to build from. This would keep the playing field level, and help prevent quick inflation issues. Long term players will naturally find ways to keep selling things for the most they can on the auction, and the problem will of course come back. A better solution is to simply impose a maximum amount you can list an item for on the GTN determined by item type and rarity (bronze, silver, gold, platinum). As a rough example (though these numbers are probably not right) the price on the GTN for Bronze mounts could be capped at 100,000 credits, Silver mounts at 500,000 credits, Gold mounts at 2 million credits, and Platinum mounts at 5 million credits. The same would need to be done for weapons, armour sets (individual armour pieces should be 1/7 of these prices), decorations, crafting materials, etc. Additionally a cap would need to be placed on Trades. If the goal is to make it more fair and accessible for all players of this game and to stop the exponentially widening gap between rich and poor which excludes newer players from access to many of the cool and fun items in this game, which makes the game altogether less accessible for new players, this is the only way that makes sense to me. The other side of correcting the issue is to help new players be able to better earn credits. For this we'd need to reduce costs from repairs, travel, and other basic, common activities, while increasing the number of credits that drop from new-player-friendly content.
  3. The other problem with trying to introduce separate queues for grouped vs solo is that GSF already struggles for much of the day with queue times, and dividing those who like GSF into separate queues would make that even worse. So yeah, the easiest, least expensive, quickest fix for GSF that is also pragmatic would be (at least in the short term be) just deleting the GROUP queue button, and have everyone queue together in SOLO and also only have 8v8 during off-peak hours.
  4. I appreciate the intent with this thread. GSF is one of my favorite things to do in SWTOR, and has been for years. I have 100% GSF achievements, maxed ships on like 30 characters, have written GSF guides, and very much enjoyed running a GSF class weekly in my guild. I really enjoy it. I also would like to see it improved, and I 100% agree that it obviously needs improvement. However, I think the thread about removing premades from solo queues https://forums.swtor.com/topic/932302-just-end-premades-for-solo-queing/page/2/#comment-9793053 is a more practical approach to improving GSF at this time. I may totally be wrong. How would I know. My impression though is that SWTOR now has less money to invest in development than previously, and even at it's peak SWTOR really didn't seem to see value in budgeting to improve GSF. It is widely hated - deeply hated even, lol. Many people in SWTOR avoid it like the plague. A bunch of people started doing GSF when it was added to weekly seasonal tasks because it was quick progress but since they were only playing to get the conquest or whatever, but it was still MISERABLE to play GSF a lot of the time due to absurd degrees of imbalance, we started getting a lot more people AFK. I wish they wouldn't do that. It's a disregard of the other people on their team, but I DO understand why they do it. GSF needs fixing, but I think it's a correct assumption that because it has relatively little activity and isn't a core factor in retaining subscriptions, it is very low on the ranking of what the devs will think it's worth investing money and time into. I hope I'm wrong and there's a budget to actually change GSF in ways that are needed, but I don't imagine there is. SO... I think it makes better sense to request a change that takes very little money, very little time, and goes to the core of the problem. After hundreds and hundreds of hours in GSF it seems to me this is simply removing the GROUP QUEUE button. That shouldn't cost much money at all or time. Yes, I think it would be hypothetically better to add in a separate GROUP QUEUE that only matches players against others in GROUP QUEUE. At least this way the people who only enjoy GSF as a group still have the option, but I don't know if this is as easy and as low cost as simply removing the GROUP QUEUE button. If it's just as quick and inexpensive, then by all means simply separate the SOLO QUEUE from the GROUP QUEUE, and keep both of them. If that's a hassle though, just delete the GROUP QUEUE button. That change alone, though obviously far from perfect, should result in more often have more fair matches. The matchmaker program is far from perfect, but it's okay, and it attempts to divide the strongest players evenly across the two teams. If we remove the GROUP QUEUE button, I think we will find that after a number of months the data shows the average balance of matches is improved, and along with that the average number of people queing will slowly begin to improve. I would also think the number of people going afk will decrease once GSF starts to feel somewhat more fair and accessible to newer players to learn. The removal of the premade groups should also heavily reduce the hostility associated with GSF, which is better for everyone and for SWTOR as a whole. I would also add that a 4 person premade is still going to be absolutely miserable against people queing solo. I know for a fact as someone who is very proficient with GSF that I can heavily sway a match on my own. The people who bully and troll the community with their premades often use this as an argument in favor of defending their premades. It's a poor argument because it basically implies disregards that SOME improvement is better than NONE. Yes, 1 very strong player can sway a match, but 2 very strong players split by the matchmaker, 1 on each team, is often a fun and fairly balanced match. Whereas 2 very strong players on the same team, especially if on comms together but even without that, is a landslide. If I queued with even 2 other strong players it would be miserably imbalanced. It's just a fact. GSF has a VERY steep learning curve, and the total beginner gets tossed in against the most expert players. It's not a good design, but assuming there's very little incentive as developers to invest in improving GSF, that's why I'd say we focus on asking for something that can tangibly help, but which cost almost nothing in money or time - just delete the GROUP QUEUE button. Try that and lets see how it pans out over a number of months. If you want to do anything else that's simple and adds a lot of incentive for players to queue up for GSF, it would to make GSF matches count towards PvP progress!
  5. YES. Premades being matched against people queing solo should ABSOLUTELY and obviously be removed from GSF. This would be for the betterment of the experience of GSF and of SWTOR as a whole for the VAST majority of players, and especially for the newer players who have yet to decide if they like this GSF or even if they enjoy SWTOR. You will always have people - a VERY noisy tiny group of people - who will shout out that since this is a multiplayer game it makes no sense to impede the premade groups. This is a red herring. The game remains a multiplayer experience whether everyone joins the queue solo or not. The specific people who shout about this are the experts in GSF, who represent a TINY fraction of the players. The enjoyment these people get from queing as a group is ENTIRELY at the expense of 90%+ of the rest of the players. The premade people have been luxuriating in being allowed to completely steamroll the opposing team for years. It's comparable to an NBA team showing up on a primary school playground and going ALL OUT to completely dominate the kids... and then (to their own embarrassment) they gloat about it and praise each other for this... victory??? Of COURSE they don't want this to get taken away from them. They're having fun constantly destroying the other team, in match, after match, after match, for hours and hours, day after day. It's the very tiny group of people who are hardcore about GSF but who refuse to choose of their own accord to queue solo who are going to make a big fuss and they have spent years contriving rationalisations for their bullying of the rest of the community in GSF. But they account for such a small percentage of players and it makes no sense to give these bullies more power by bowing to their demands and their shouting. It's totally obvious how they are actively circumventing the intended design of the matchmaker which otherwise should be splitting up skilful players as close to 50/50 as possible. I have hundreds of screenshots spanning years of this craziness of the premade groups getting scores of 1000 to 10. There's just no excuse for this. The result of these gangs of premades trolling the other 90%+ of people is that GSF has become widely hated by most people in SWTOR. Que times are often terrible. Adding GSF to Conquest and Galactic Seasons tasks helped somewhat, but only insofar as people do what they have to for the task then get out of there. As a side effect this also resulted in many more people sitting idle in matches, because they hate GSF due to the premades, but they want to complete the tasks. The premade people bully the new players additionally by complaining wanting to more easily be able to kick out those who rightly are miserable getting one-shot constantly, over and over, who then go afk. A MUCH better solution would be to make GSF more fun for newer players, which would obviously need matches to feel more fair and balanced. Premade groups decimating GSF makes everyone quit queing, and often makes people log off altogether. It makes SWTOR feel like such a hostile environment altogether for many people, and drives them away to find other games. The negative snowball effect is that the more premades there are, the more the 90%+ of people who are miserable due to that quit, which means ques are longer, which in turn makes fewer people interested, and in turn GSF gets less and less attention and stops being of value to invest into improving. How long has it been since there were ANY improvements to GSF like new ship types or new match types or maps? But simply removing the Group Queue button could well help GSF get back on track, be more balanced, be therefore more fun and more inviting, could retain player interest, shortening queue times, and thereby drawing in even more people. It has the potential to be VERY fun, if only it wasn't plagued with the totally absurd imbalance generated by having teams of expert players on comms together destroying teams of solo new players who might as well just be grass getting mowed down by a lawnmower. Only allowing people qued as a group to be put in matches against others who qued as a group is a sensible and highly effective way to address a serious problem. In the absence of being able to queue as a group against people queued solo, if everyone qued solo, *though it would remain far from perfect*, the matchmaker system built expressly with the intent of balancing the team by splitting skilful players, would have a BETTER chance more often to balance the match. It would still of course often be unbalanced, but any improvement MATTERS and has value. Not doing something that could improve the game a certain percentage of the time for the majority of players just because it still won't be perfect is ridiculous. The enjoyment of a tiny group of people which is derived by exploiting an easy way around the intended match balancing design, who make the vast majority of people hate this game, and who refuse to see it as a choice of good sportsmanship, but insist on feeling entitled to destroy others experiences if the game lets them... is NOT a valid reason to let this go on. Let those people queue only against other premades. Let them earn their sense of success when in a fair fight. Let the rest of the community have a chance to get into and enjoy GSF for the fun game it could be, by having a better chance at more fairly balanced matches more often, because the matchmaker is able to do what it was designed for - SPLIT the skilled players even into opposing teams.
  6. Asking for new species in SWTOR has got to be one of the most frequently and persistently requested things. I think I may have come up with a new approach to being able to deliver this to players which could be fun for the players while also bypassing much of the usual rationale for why this hasn't happened for so long. Instead of designing a whole new species again, full body character models and animations, voices, adjustments to story content, and trying to make sense of how this would fit in with the existing lore... WHAT IF... we simply had cosmetic items that can be equipped in the headpiece slot, that are considered DISGUISES that look like various species! This would allow players to design characters they could either imagine for themselves are actually that species (as many people currently do with droid type cosmetic gear already), or they could RP that they are in disguise as that species, just wearing an advanced costume mask with a built in high tech translator to Galactic Basic. This could be just a single male and female variant of the disguise mask (which is alright), OR, (and far preferably), you buy the disguise mask item which has a default appearance, but you have the option to use the Appearance Designer station to adjust the facial appearance of that mask, the same as though it were your species. This sidesteps needing to design anything other than the head, or to explain why the character voice is unchanged and they speak Basic, requires no change to stories, interactions, or any need for a given species to fit into the lore. It's just a hi-tech disguise. There are SO many species people have been clamouring over for years. I don't know what the costs are in development to design a cosmetic headpiece that looks like exciting new Star Wars species, but I hope developers look at this in a BIG PICTURE way, and don't only compare the cost of the item to develop to the amount players would pay for that item in isolation. There is NO other thing in an MMO that as powerfully draws me back to a game than new classes/races to try - nothing remotely comes close. Massive new regions to explore, tons of new gear, new huge Flashpoints or Operations... NONE of that actually has much appeal for me. If I haven't been playing the game for a while, none of those things would bring me back. I actually tend to feel a little trepidation about those sort of things. But a new species... THAT totally grabs my whole attention. As soon as a new species has been announced in the past I begin playing again in order to prepare and plan my new character. I plan out a whole cosmetic outfit for them, and this means I spend TONS of credits on the GTN buying just the right looking armour, weapons, tunings, vehicles, pets, etc, but also I go on the in-game store and purchase items there. This is one of the ONLY cases where I will splurge and buy things from the game store. I re-subscribe to the game ahead of time to get myself all set up. When the new species launches in game I ALWAYS start over at level 1, because one of my favourite parts of SWTOR is the low level story questing. I do this even though I already have like 30 characters I've fully levelled up. It's how I bring my new character to life - fleshing them out through their personal story journey. This means when calculating revenue for the developing company one should consider not just the cost of the species (or in this case the cosmetic headpiece), but the value of many months of subscription time, many purchases of other cosmetic items from the store, and every other associated purchase that happens during the process of levelling an entirely new character. Additionally there must be some sort of snowball effect taken into account that the excitement from a new species creates in online discussions about a game. The more people get drawn back to the game, the more buzz there is. Additionally the more people return and become active again, the more lively the game feels, and this helps players want to keep playing, as well as drawing in more people. There are lots of different species that players have hoped and begged for years for, including, but not limited to: - Rodian - Zeltron - Echani - Devaronian - Bothan - Duros - Voss - Cerean - Mikkian - Chagrian - Theelin - Tholothian - Nikto - Falleen - Pau'an - Palliduvian - Iktotchi - Pantoran - Umbaran - Bith - Kage - Weequay - Gran - Gammorean - Ugnaught - Talz - Selkath
  7. Is Galactic Starfighter frustrating for you? You want it to be fun and think it could be but you seem to keep getting 1-shot? You like it but wish you could do better? You hate it but do it for Conquest, Weeklies, or for Galactic Seasons and wouldn't mind if you happened to get better at it? : ) This guide aims to give the novice and the advanced player alike highly effective builds for every ship on both factions. There are many other options to experiment with and other effective ways to build out your ships. It's great to experiment for yourself and to take the time, if you have the patience, to read through the tooltips on the various components and crew options, to gain understanding of why certain combinations are effective. N.B. Highly recommended: Go to Options > Preferences > Starfighter > check the box under Tooltips to enable "Show Detailed Star Fighter Weapon Tooltips". This will give you much better information when you mouse over components. About the author: I have logged many hundreds of hours in GSF, have completed 100% of the GSF achievements, have carefully read through and watched numerous guides weighing out the approaches of others and comparing their different builds, have run weekly GSF classes for my guild as well as sharing extensive discussion with several of the top pilots in GSF and others who have written guides. Hopefully these ships will help you make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, and in the words of Han Solo: I don't know... fly casual : ) The ship types are in the same order as they appear in the Ships tab of the Hangar. If you want to skip to a specific type of ship, they are also colour coded as follows: Strike Fighters, Bombers, Scouts, and Gunships. Last Updated: May 3, 2023 Strike Fighters FT-7B Clarion / FT-3C Imperium (Type 3 Strike Fighter) Components Primary Weapons: Light Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Shield damage) Secondary Weapons: Proton Torpedo(Increased Firing Arc/Increased Range) Systems: Remote Slicing (Weapon Power Reduction/Engine Supression) Shields: Directional Shields (Reduced Regen Delay) Engines: Koiogran Turn (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Dampening Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuraacy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: MZ-12 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: MZ-12 (Ammo capacity +30%/ Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Malavai Quinn (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) FT-8 Starguard / F-T6 Rycer (Enforcer/Gladiator are identical) (Type 1 Strike Fighter) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Quad Laser Cannon (Reduced Power Cost/Increased Hull Damage) Secondary Weapons: Cluster Missiles (Increased Ammo Capacity/Double Volley) Shields: Quick-Charge Shields (Reduced Cooldown) Engines: Retro Thrusters (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Capacitor: Damage Capacitor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuraacy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: MZ-12 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: MZ-12 (Ammo capacity +30%/ Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Talos Drellik (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Example video for this build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QruHy59YqLw FT-6 Pike / F-T2 Quell (Type 2 Strike Fighter) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Cluster Missiles (Increased Range/Double Volley) Secondary Weapons: Proton Torpedoes (Increased Firing Arc/Increased Range) Shields: Quick-Charge Shields (Reduced Cooldown) Engines: Barrel Roll (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Magazine: Efficient Targeting Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: MZ-12 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: MZ-12 (Ammo capacity +30%/ Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Malavai Quinn (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Example video for this build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8m63jZmGhc Bombers Warcarrier / B-4D Legion (Firehauler/Onslaught are identical) (Type 2 Bomber) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Seeker Mines (Increased Speed/Additional Active Mine) Systems: Interdiction Sentry Drone (Increased Interdiction Effect/Additional Active Drone) Shields: Repair Drone (Refill Ammunition) Engines: Shield Power Converter (Increase Shield and Engine Power) Minor Components Armor: Reinforced Armor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Communication Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: Lord Scourge (Copilot Ability: Supression - Target's accuracy -25% for 20s) Offensive: Qyzen Fess (Firing arc +2 degrees/ Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: M1-4X (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Lord Scourge(Sensor radius +3000m/Communication range +5000m) Engineering: C2-N2 (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Xalek (Copilot Ability: Supression - Target's accuracy -25% for 20s) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/ Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Xalek (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Talos Drellik (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Blizz (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Sledgehammer / B-5 Decimus (Type 3 Bomber) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Concussion Missiles (Increased Range/Engine Targeting) Systems: Concussion Mine (Additional Active Mine/Increased Hull Damage) Shields: Overcharged Shield (Increased Overcharge) Engines: Shield Power Converter (Increase Shield and Engine Power) Minor Components Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: M1-4X (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Lord Scourge(Sensor radius +3000m/Communication range +5000m) Engineering: C2-N2 (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Blizz (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/ Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Xalek (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Mako (Sensor radius +3000m/Communication range +5000m) Engineering: Blizz (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Rampart Mark Four / M-7 Razorwire (Type 1 Bomber) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Seeker Mines (Increased Speed/Additional Active Mine) Systems: Interdiction Mine (Additional Active Mine/Improved Interdiction) Shields: Overcharged Shield (Increased Overcharge) Engines: Shield Power Converter (Breaks Missile Locks) or Engines: Hyperspace Beacon (Fortified Beacon) Minor Components Armor: Deflection Armor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Communication Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: M1-4X (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Lord Scourge(Sensor radius +3000m/Communication range +5000m) Engineering: C2-N2 (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Blizz (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/ Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Xalek (Damage reduction +9%/Shield power pool +10%) Tactical: Mako (Sensor radius +3000m/Communication range +5000m) Engineering: Blizz (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Scouts Spearpoint / S-SC4 Bloodmark (Type 3 Scout) Components Primary Weapons: Light Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Shield damage) Secondary Weapons: EMP Missile (Increased Damage/Engine Suppression) Systems: Targeting Telemetry (Threat Evaluation/Precision Targeting) Shields: Repair Drone (Refill Ammunition) Engines: Snap Turn (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Dampening Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: B-3G9 (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: B-3G9 (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Treek (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Blizz (Copilot Ability: Hydro Spanner - Repair hull for 308 over 6s) Offensive: Gault (Secondary weapon reload & cooldown times -12%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Talos Drellik (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Blizz (Engine power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) NovaDive / S-12 Blackbolt (Type 1 Scout) Components Primary Weapons: Light Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Shield Damage) Secondary Weapons: Rocket Pods (Increased Ammo Capacity/Plasma Warheads) Systems: EMP Field (Missile Lock Immunity/Engine Supression) Shields: Distortion Field (Disable Enemy Missile Lock) Engines: Snap Turn (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Sensors: Dampening Sensor Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: Treek (Copilot Ability: Running Intereference - Evasion +15% for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Kira Carsen (Ammo capacity +30%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Treek (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Talos Drellik (Copilot Ability: Running Intereference - Evasion +15% for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Lieutenant Pierce (Ammo capacity +30%/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Talos Drellik (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Example video for this build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtrhcQxXO2k Flashfire / S-13 Sting (Skybolt/Ocula are identical) (Type 2 Scout) Components Primary Weapons: Burst Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Shield Damage) Secondary Weapons: Rocket Pods (Increased Ammo Capacity/Plasma Warheads) Systems: Targeting Telemetry (Threat Evaluation/Precision Targeting) Shields: Distortion Field (Disable Enemy Missile Lock) Engines: Retro Thrusters (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Capacitor: Damage Capacitor Reactor: Large Reactor Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: Treek (Copilot Ability: Running Intereference - Evasion +15% for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Qyzen Fess (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Treek (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Talos Drellik (Copilot Ability: Running Intereference - Evasion +15% for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Tactical: Talos Drellik (Sensor radius +3000m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Example video for this build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo7d5g4SW_E Gunships SGS-S1 Condor / GSS-4Y Jurgoran (Type 3 Gunship) Components Primary Weapons: Burst Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Hull Damage) Secondary Weapons: Slug Railgun (Improved Damage to Hull/Increased Damage) Secondary Weapons: Interdiction Missile (Increased Range/Engine Targeting) Shields: Distortion Field (Disable Enemy Missile Lock) Engines: Retro Thrusters (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Capacitor: Damage Capacitor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Thrusters: Regeneration Thrusters Republic Crew Copilot: Lieutenant Iresso (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Qyzen Fess (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Malavai Quinn (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Malavai Quinn (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) SGS-41B Comet Breaker / GSS-5C Dustmaker (Type 2 Gunship) Components Primary Weapons: Heavy Laser Cannon (Ignore Armor/Shield Piercing) Secondary Weapons: Slug Railgun (Improved Damage to Hull/Increased Damage) Secondary Weapons: Proton Torpedo(Increased Firing Arc/Increased Range) Shields: Fortress Shield (Increase Blaster Power Regen While Active) Engines: Barrel Roll (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Dampening Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: Lieutenant Iresso (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Qyzen Fess (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Malavai Quinn (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Malavai Quinn (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) SGS-45 Quarrel / GSS-3 Mangler (Redeemer/Mailoc are identical) (Type 1 Gunship) Components Primary Weapons: Burst Laser Cannon (Improved Firing Arc and Tracking/Increased Hull Damage) Secondary Weapons: Slug Railgun (Improved Damage to Hull/Increased Damage) Secondary Weapons: Ion Railgun (Hits Do Area Damage/Engine Disruption) Shields: Distortion Field (Disable Enemy Missile Lock) Engines: Barrel Roll (Increased Turning Rate) Minor Components Armor: Lightweight Armor Magazine: Regeneration Extender Reactor: Large Reactor Sensors: Dampening Sensors Republic Crew Copilot: Lieutenant Iresso (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Qyzen Fess (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Lieutenant Iresso (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Nadia Grell (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Ashy (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%) Empire Crew Copilot: Malavai Quinn (Copilot Ability: Wingman - +20% accuracy for 20s for you and 2 allies within 3000m) Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam (Firing arc +2 degrees/Weapon accuracy +6%) Tactical: Malavai Quinn (Sensor focus range +3500m/Sensor dampening +2000m) Defensive: Vector (Shield power pool +10%/Evasion +5%) Engineering: Aven Geth (Blaster power pool +15%/Cost of engine abilities+boosting -13%)
  8. These changes will especially penalise poor players and new players and make it harder for them, which seems like the exact opposite of fixing the economy. It's like raising the tax on tomatoes causing people with low incomes to struggle even more since their basic grocery costs just went up, but millionaires couldn't care less. The changes in swtor will also make the game more grindy, which may seem enticing as a developer because it may seem that it will result in retaining more subscriptions, but it's really SO negative to the player experience that in practice it will drive players away to other games (especially when swtor is already suffering in player retention). Many older players who have had time to develop significant amounts of credits will still be annoyed by the idea of this change as it seems petty, but for many other wealthy players they just won't care at all, since it won't in practice really affect them. Any attempted fix to the massive gulf between rich and poor in swtor will result in some people being upset about it. That can't determine to course of action. We can aim to minimise *needless* disruption, but we can't make any meaningful correction without upsetting some people. I think the solution is relatively obvious though. Simply impose a maximum amount you can list an item for on the GTN determined by item type and rarity (bronze, silver, gold, platinum). For example (though these numbers aren't necessarily where they need to be) bronze mounts can't be listed for more than 100,000 credits. Silver mounts can't be listed for more than 500,000 credits. Gold mounts can't be listed for more than 5 million credits. Platinum mounts can't be listed for more than 20 million credits. The same more or less for weapons, armour sets (individual armour pieces should be 1/7 of these prices), decorations, etc. Also crafting mats would need to have a max price imposed. Really all items that can be listed on the GTN would need to be capped in balance with these lines. Of course a change like this will make those (like myself) who have a ton of credits, somewhat annoyed/angry because it will of course mean we can't keep getting richer and richer in such huge leaps and bounds anymore. We won't lose our existing wealth but because this will prevent the escalation it's going to be perceived as a loss. However, if the goal is to make it more fair and accessible for ALL players of this game and to stop the exponentially widening gap between rich and poor, this is the only way that makes sense to me. This one change will significantly impede the rich from continuing to get farther and farther ahead. However it won't properly help the poorer and new players catch up. It does make it so all the many cool items in the game suddenly become accessible in price to many players who previously couldn't afford a cool mount because they were priced at 500,000,000 credits on the GTN. But the other side of correcting the issue is to help the poorer and new players be able to better earn credits. For this I'd simply do *the exact opposite* of what was just done. We'd need to remove or at least significantly reduce costs from repairs, travel, and other basic, common activities, while increasing the number of credits that drop from all new-player-friendly content. For example have solo content, class quests, lower level/easy flashpoints, heroic missions, etc... all have notably higher credit rewards. The goal here should be to make it so that players who are new or who are relatively poor can, without needing to go through an annoying grind, naturally accrue enough credits through their normal casual game play, to bank for themselves tens of millions of credits. Once the new and more casual player has a normal and fun means, without having to make it their focus, to build up enough credits to feel comfortable spending 20 million credits on a new mount without that costing them their entire savings, they will now find themselves able to access the economy in full and all the cool items this game has to offer. And once they can afford some of these items, they can also then buy and sell those items to build upon their wealth. One thing to comfort the extremely wealthy players is that we too will be able to easily afford anything on the GTN if the prices are capped like that. The fact that some players have billions and billions of credits in their vault will no longer have any practical negative effect on other players who only have in the tens of millions or who are only starting off, because we ALL will have access to buy the same items. The rich won't find it as easy to keep getting absurdly even richer because they won't be able to sell an armour piece for 1 billion credits anymore, but with the highest priced items on the GTN never being above 20 millions credits the rich players will find it super affordable to buy all the cool things of interest to them, and will still remain rich... But at the same time newer players, just through casual questing, if basic costs are reduced and basic credits drops and increased, will find themselves in the normal course of things able to afford good items on the GTN and to be able to enter the buying and selling of good items market themselves too. A loophole the rich could exploit would be making private trades directly. To close this loophole we'd need to make it so that it's not possible to trade over 20 million credits at one time. Players might think - I will just re-open a trade over and over to keep giving credits until I reach the amount I want, but in practice this won't actually work because players don't generally trust each other when making private trades. The vast majority of the time people won't want to give an item in a trade that they think is worth 500 million for 20 million, trusting the other player to then open the trade window 25 more times to keep giving 20 million again and again. The same is true in reverse - players won't feel safe to give 20 million in trade over and over again while trusting that after the many trades the other player will then give them the desired item. Capping the listing prices on the GTN would be effective at fixing this problem and making all the cool items now available to all the players, will allow newer players to build up enough wealth to be fully part of the game, and will allow wealthy players to retain their previous wealth (even if they can't keep getting more absurdly rich).
  9. I just want to say I'm quite concerned with the how the changes towards 7.0 are being handled. In nearly two decades of being an avid MMO gamer, I have never seen this much negative feedback prior to a game update before. There's always some negative feedback, as you can't please everyone all the time, but this genuinely stands out. Normally before big changes, if one starts talking about what they are upset about, immediately there will be other players disagreeing with them about their complaints. This time it seems that isn't happening, but instead the strong majority seem to be in agreement about their bewilderment and dismay with the upcoming changes. That is a VERY bad sign. And possibly worse than the widespread deeply negative feelings about the upcoming changes, is the responses we're getting from our developers, or lack thereof. The silence feels markedly dismissive. I happen to be in a guild with a fellow member who is personal friends with one of our developers, and he relayed to me that the attitude internally was one of callous mockery of the players being cry-babies basically. I was shocked. I don't want to believe that, and I would urge anyone reading this to assume that was a misrepresentation by my guild mate, but the lack of willingness to adjust course by the developers seems to corroborate it. This all reminds me of the deeply damaging mistakes made with the ending of Mass Effect 3, also a game by EA. Ignoring that such a large proportion of your players, including the most moderate and level headed among them, and even those who professionally share SWTOR content via guides and community updates etc... ignoring that even they are in agreement that the proposed changes are quite negative, and ignoring their suggestions for alternative approaches ... seems like a very dangerous course for this game to take. I will be interested to see how many players altogether quit SWTOR over the next period of time. Just because time has been invested in the current planned direction for the changes, and just because some key voices internally probably threw their voices behind this and might feel awkward to back-peddle, doesn't mean you should fall prey to the fallacy of sunk costs. You could still take some polls, and start showing that you're listening to the community feedback. There might be some suggestions among the community for alternative changes that would be much more agreeable to the players, and ultimately, isn't the primary thing that the players enjoy this game and want to keep playing? Please understand, I'm saying this from a desire to see SWTOR succeed and continue being a fun and engaging experience, as it has been, which I've been enjoying since I subscribed on the day it first launched. I hope for good things.
  10. 1. I think the proposed system of changes, forcing players to choose between passives and between which skills to keep or lose is a very significant mistake and should absolutely not be moved forward with. I assume some of the developers fought for having these changes, formed arguments in support of the changes, invested time and effort into developing them, and still would like to see these go forward. That's a lot of momentum to stop, but I hope the cavalcade of negative responses from the community to these proposed changes will be heard and put a stop to this poor choice of direction. I think it can be said with confidence that this will have a negative impact on retaining players in Swtor. While change in general is difficult for people, this is specifically the removal of skills that have been part of our characters for years, and it feels really bad. It removes flexibility from our characters, which overall seems quite bad as well. In place of being able to have more freedom to customise and play our way, this feels like the direct opposite, and removes that freedom forcibly, against our will, and I suspect easily 1 in 10 players will quit Swtor if this set of changes goes to the live servers. 2. I don't think this would actually help keep any players who might otherwise have quit Swtor. I assume the newer or more casual player is the target audience for this attempt to reduce number of skills and thereby reduce complexity. As an aside, I personally don't find the game too complex at all, and had never even considered that thought until seeing this proposed change and then wondering about why it's even been suggested. Consider though that regarding newer players, if they begin at level 1 they already have few skills to work with, and it's really quite easy. In fact when you level up naturally from 1 through 75, because you gain your skills incrementally it gives you a chance to become familiar with when to use each skill, so that when you finally have earned all of your skills it's fairly easy to know how to use them because you became familiar with them gradually. The only time the average person will find their skills confusing is if they are a new player and they skip instantly to level 75, bypassing the natural learning process where they would otherwise have easily integrated this learning. A solution for this without being heavy-handed and forcing a lower bar on all the rest of your players, is simply to caution players who are new that if they opt to skip to level 75, they may find it challenging initially to make sense of all of their skills. Leave it up to them to choose. It's not rocket science at all, no matter what those who complain might say. There will ALWAYS been those who complain no matter what, and tailoring things to the lowest common denominator is a bad direction to take. I don't think Swtor needs to be dumbed down at all. You give people too little credit if you think we're not capable of understanding how to use the current spread of skills. I'm sure even children who play Swtor are totally fine with figuring things out. If someone gets bored with the game before reaching level 75, that's not because the game is too difficult to learn. Some people simply will have other priorities in life or other interests. 3. Who does this detract from the game for, and who does it alienate? I think it's your core players who subscribe regularly that this will most push away. People who have enjoyed the process of levelling up, and who enjoy their characters, and pay to play this game at end-game are exactly the people who will find this removal of skills seriously off-putting. Many of these people will adapt to the changes if you force the changes through despite the reams of firmly negative feedback, though it will still negatively impact upon trust, but a solid percentage of people will in fact quit Swtor. Having some of our skills taken away like this feels like being robbed and being helpless to do anything about it. It's not just the feeling of helplessness and being stolen from though, but the breach in trust with the game developers that will underlie changes of this sort - a failing in a sort of social contract - and that mistrust earned by a heavy handed move like this will obviously drive a good number of players away. The players who will feel this way are specifically the players who were active in playing their characters after reaching level 75, and who were likely subscribers. They are the ones who liked their character the way it is, and who will most dislike having their skills culled, against their will and without giving them a choice to opt-out. The announcement of Combat Styles had seemed so cool when all we'd been told about what the option of being a Jedi Guardian who opts to walk the dark path and now has the skills and abilities of a Sith Marauder instead. That, as an option players can take or leave, was a very welcome and exciting prospect. The discovery of the intent to strip away a bunch of our skills, or force us to choose between a single target ability, an AoE, or a defensive ability, hampering our flexibility and forcing us to make a very unpleasant choice, is just a massive bummer. It holds zero appeal for me whatsoever, is quite stressful and really very negative, and it's plain to see that the huge majority of those replying feel similarly. But... there are alternatives to forcing these changes on those who don't want them, even while retaining the work of those developers who saw this as a good or necessary change. One simple approach would be to make this OPTIONAL. This could be done in a variety of ways: a) When players level up and gain new skills, if the skill is deemed to not be crucial, a tooltip could pop up telling the player something like "If you're a player who prefers a simpler style of play with fewer skills on your bar, this skill is one you might find you can leave off of your bar." b) Presets could be provided for players to choose from when they hit certain levels which come with a tooltip explaining their options: b.1) For the advanced player who likes a challenge, and wants their maximum skill flexibility, here's a preset with all skills available. *This option is the most important one for the massive number of players who are upset about having these changes forced on them. Simply allowing an OPTION to retain all of our skills if we want, would correct this whole issue. b.2) For the newer player, or those who like to keep fewer skills on their bar, here are 3 presets to choose from, which will leave certain abilities off of your bar that are deemed unessential depending on which focus you have for your combat - single target, AoE, or defence. c) Include an option in preferences that can be toggled on or off that puts a coloured border around skills to make it very easy to identify which type of skill it is. So for example: all healing skills have a green border (possibly dark green for single target heals, and light green for AoE heals), all defensive cooldowns have a blue border, all cc skills have a yellow border, all attacks have a red border (possibly dark red for single target and light red for AoE), and all offensive cooldowns have a purple border. Perhaps we'd have boxes in our preferences for each of these categories to turn on the border highlights for only those skill types we want to! This would be quite helpful in fact. (And perhaps players could even choose their own colours for the borders, like how we choose colours for chat. That's not necessary but players might like that.) d) Provide an option in preferences for more or less detail in tooltips, for players who want all the nitty-gritty, and for players who want it kept simpler. The bottom line is that people like to have options, flexibility, free choice, and to be able to customise things and play their way... and very much dislike being forced and dictated to removing freedom of choice, or having things taken away from them against their will. Find a solution that lets people who want to retain all of their skills, and make these presets or hiding of certain skills optional, and then this hugely negative change becomes a positive one that gives players more choice, instead of less.
  11. Hi, I haven't had a chance to see if this is already how it works on the PTS, so I hope my suggestion won't seem foolish... I'd like to make the suggestion, and I think it's important, that when saving loadout profiles that we do not need to carry the alternate gear sets in our inventory. Instead we should be able to leave our alternate gear sets in our vault or legacy storage. When swapping to a different loadout it should grabs that gear from our storage no matter where we are located in game, and automatically equip it, and at the same time it will place the gear we had been wearing into the slots in our storage where the replacement gear was taken from - just swapping their places directly. This is exactly the way Armory loadouts work in DCUO, and it's quite important. Otherwise you end up with an unwieldy amount of items you need to carry around with you all the time, which isn't really feasible to manage. In this video you can see someone explaining how the saved loadouts works in DCUO. I've got the link set to play from where he talks about how the Armory swapping of loadouts grabs your gear from your bank storage, which he demonstrates in practice as he goes along. This is really important. Otherwise, if you have like 3 alternate builds you save, you'd end up carrying around 3 or more sets of gear, and that becomes totally a mess and unworkable. And even if a loadout build you'd saved would draw your set of gear from your storage vault or your legacy vault... if it put the gear you had been wearing before into your inventory... you'd still have the same problem, and your inventory would become a packed mess. You could even end up with a situation where you try to swap loadouts but there isn't inventory space to make the switch. You need it to take your alternate gear from your storage AND place the gear you had been wearing into storage for you. I hope this suggestion is helpful. Cheers
  12. I entirely agree with what you said Kokurou. You said it well. I tried sharing some thoughts of the same sort a little while ago on the forums and unfortunately the result was a string of replies by precisely the people on my server who are subjecting the rest of us to their GSF breaking behaviour. I was accosted with such mean spirited attitudes and total denial of the issue that it was really troubling for me. Sadly the sort of ganging up on me mentality has carried over to in-game. So I didn't want to see the same thing happen to you, and I am here to let you know that at least one person read through your post and is grateful that you took the time to share it. a) GSF requires a great deal of skill, and the tutorial is definitely insufficient. b) Without any shadow of a doubt there is a game-breaking problem currently of groups of expert GSF pilots queing together. When these pro teams aren't queing there is often fairly decent balance in GSF. Matches are often fairly neck and neck, with final scores like 48 to 50. In contrast every time the pro teams are queing the matches are consistently total landslides with scores like 6 to 50. Last night I was in a match with a team of several of the very best pilots (the guys who literally write the guides to GSF) on a premade team together, and the end score was 6 to 50, and that is standard whenever that group of guys queues, and for the duration of the few hours in which they keep queing each night. Perhaps they are having fun working as a team and totally decimating all opposition, but nobody else is enjoying it. People start quitting matches in droves - including people that I know to be very strong pilots. They just quit because there IS NO MATCH. It's no more a fair competition than if a group of 10 year old in the schoolyard was challenged to a game by a major league team. It's absurd. People quit mid match and people stop queing for the night until the pro team logs off. The argument I kept seeing hurled at me angrily by those defending their "right" to queue as a team is that the game is meant to be played the way they are playing it, and that if the rest of us don't like it we should form our own team, or it's our own fault. It's such a senseless and bullying approach. Obviously GSF is not intended to have one team 10 times stronger than the other team. That is NOT how it's intended to be played. The devs obviously intended for the two teams to be balanced - after all there is a dev diary about exactly that issue for GSF. They developed a mechanic to try to address balance by assessing ship tiers and player time in GSF with the goal of sorting pilots individually so that both teams are equally strong. Unfortunately the sorting mechanic doesn't seem to be able to compensate for groups of expert pilots who queue together. They remain together and therefore break the balancing mechanic, and therefore it breaks GSF. Matches become unplayable, and people stop queing. This is the reality no matter how much defensive denial those elite pilots throw at us to try to refute our concerns. My hope is that 1. Our developers will see the issue for themselves, and come up with a new mechanic that addresses the problem created by expert players who queue as a team. A solution is needed that allows GSF matches to be balanced. There is nothing reasonable about the elite players suggesting that everyone else should just be as a good as they are, and that they should simply find a second elite team to queue starting when their team starts queuing and continuing to queue for as long as the other elite team is online. That's not feasible in any realistic way. Therefore 2. Until such time as our developers come up with an internal mechanic to bring balance back to GSF despite the expert players queing as a group... I can only hope that some of those expert players will take a step back and consider the issue with some thoughtfulness for the impact on balance, and who will take a leadership role and encourage the other expert pilots to follow suit and simply queue solo. If they do willingly choose to queue solo, then the match stands a decent chance of having the strong players sorted evenly on both teams, and having a balanced and fair match for everyone.
  13. Quoting from depeshmood from answers.ea.com, upon his personal request that I share his post here for him: "Since part of my ideas in myrrhbear's original post for this thread pertain to matchmaking, and there is quite a bit of, umm, discussion for grouping, here are my idea for a player's ranking, that could be used for the matchmaking process in GSF. 1. Each player starts out, by default, at rank zero and goes up to 1,000. Each match completed, whether win or lose, adds 1 point to this rank and this number is used for the account. 2. When a player is queued for a match, their highest ranked ship in their hangar is used for the second part of their rank in matchmaking. See "Ship Hangar Ranking" for details. 3. (Optional, based on solo or group queuing) The third, possible, part for their rank is if they are in a group. My suggestion is to add 50 points to each player in a group for each additional player they're grouped with. See "Group Points" for details. Ship Hangar Ranking My suggestion for ranking the ships would be to give 100 points maximum per component and it starts at zero, when no upgrades have been applied. If the component has 3 upgrades then 1 upgrade would add 30 points to the player's rank. Group Points To elaborate on my suggestion for groups, when 2 players are grouped and queue as a group, then their group as a whole would have 100 additional points, whereas a group with 4 players in the group would have 600 additional points for the entire group, or 150 points additional each. My reasoning for these additional points applied to the group is to take into account that they have more than likely flown together on a few occasions and have a good synergy. They might also have some form of VoIP that allows them to talk and communicate their current and fluid strategy(ies). I am hopeful that those of us as a player base can come up with constructive ideas on how to better one aspect of our enjoyment that we derive from SWTOR, which is Galactic Starfighter!"
  14. Honestly the level of ad hominem hostility being directed at me in this discussion is really disturbing. I simply made the request that people be mindful and respectful of others in GSF. If you know you are strong pilots and you queue as a group, and you wipe the floor with the opposing team repeatedly, it is game breaking for everyone else. GSF, as all PvP, necessitates some approximation of balance. The devs implemented an attempt to create more balanced matches by ranking pilots, and having them automatically separated and sorted to the two teams according to skill. This only seems to function when people queue individually. However when people queue as a group together, all balance is lost. Perhaps this is in part because the current mechanic can't adjust for the significant increase in effectiveness that occurs when people who are skilled work as a team, with voice communication between them. Whether that's part of it or not, the fact remains that GSF becomes basically unplayable during the periods when groups of expert pilots queue together as a team. My request of my fellow players is some consideration for the balance, and simply to please, if you notice after a couple of matches that you are clearly destroying the balance, to by all means keep queing and enjoying the game, but queue individually so that the game has a chance to balance the two teams. The suggestion that was aimed at me, that I should just find a group of my own if I don't like it, doesn't seem realistic. On the drop of a hat, at any random time when a group of 4 elite pilots happens to form a team and start queuing, I'm not suddenly going to be able to find an equal number of basically equally skilled pilots to form a second team. I don't have the metrics available that the game's internal mechanic has for sorting pilots according to skill level, and finding several top notch pilots at a moment's notice just because another group has formed, is often not going to be available. If you enjoy a challenge and respect the need for balanced teams in PvP, as in any fair competition, and if you are sure there are more pilots of equal or comparable skill available and interested in queing at that time... then you could actually form both teams, and make it a proper and fair competition. If you can't however find more people of similar skill who want to do GSF at that time, then telling the other people that it's their fault for not finding and making their own team is obviously ruled out. So if there aren't more people who want to form a second team then instead of wrecking the game for everyone else you could split your current team of 4 , for example, into two teams of 2, still allowing a chance that the GSF teams can be balanced, and fun for everyone. Refusing to queue in a way that allows for a fair fight, and balanced teams, and good matches that are fun for everyone who is queing, is at best poor sportsmanship. Insisting that it's not your problem but the problem of the other players, and putting the obligation on them to find a second group of comparably strong pilots so the match can return to being balanced is not going to be practically feasible much of the time, even if they would try. Until such time as our developers find a way to mitigate this imbalance through an internal mechanic, the best I can do is ask my fellow pilots to choose, of their own good will, to be considerate, and to try to be part of the solution for keeping the matches balanced and fun for everyone who is trying to enjoy GSF.
  15. Speaking for myself now - not quoting for my friend: I think that the issues that depeshmood is trying to address here are ones that do really need some attention and I'm grateful that he took the time to present some suggestions and open up this discussion. GSF is one of my favorite parts of SWTOR. It has a lot of potential but it has some glaring issues at present. 1. The amount of time that queues take to pop is an obvious drawback. During off peak hours it seems like hours can pass without a single queue. Perhaps allowing for smaller matches during those times of day would make it so GSF queues would still be available to enjoy. It seems like something worth trying. 2. Groups of highly ranked pilots queuing as a team is really game breaking. I am personally a quite strong pilot in GSF ending up consistently in the top 2 or 3 on most matches I'm in. However whenever a team of 3 or more strong pilots queue as a group it for all intents and purposes kills GSF until they get bored and quit queing for the night. A group of strong pilots queued as a team totally throws off any semblance of balance, and their team almost invariably will totally decimate the other team to the point to which many pilots will simply stop engaging during the match. After a couple of matches like that people simply stop queuing, since it's really no fun to play GSF at those time, so GSF is not available for anyone for a while until the elite group stops queing for the night. It's really a big problem, and comes up fairly frequently. I've tried discussing this with the people forming those groups but the response I got was a sense of entitlement to do as they please, since it's fun for them, and a sense of annoyance as the suggestion they please queue individually, since they see this as an unfair imposition upon them. They have said back to me that it's basically my problem if I don't like it, and that I am always free to form my own group. To me this does not seem like a valid solution. The majority of players are not as strong in GSF as these elite pilots and even if they would want to form a group to try to make it a fair fight, a group of novices simply can't balance out a group of elite pilots. But even for strong pilots like myself, if I would want to find a group to try to balance the match it's not like I can find several other strong pilots 24/7 whenever I am in the mood for GSF and an elite group happens at that time to decide to start queing. It's just not feasible in any realistic way. Before the elite group starts queing you have a decent chance of the game mechanic for balancing GSF functioning as intended, and the matches are often close and fair and exciting. Then a group of elite pilots comes in, and immediately you get landslide matches one after the other, making it anything but fun to continue. If those elite pilots would simply queue solo then the game mechanics would be able to try to balance the two teams, and the match would become more fair and fun for everyone. This is really to the benefit of everyone. Fair and balanced matches mean that novice players can enjoy the game without getting steamrolled, while elite players are faced with a proper opponent and challenge to their skills. The only people who lose out are those who were getting their fun specifically out of breaking the balancing mechanic, and therefore massively overpowering whatever pick up group of novices they are against. Balance in PvP shouldn't really need to be defended as an idea. It's the basic requirement of PvP. That's why a system was introduced to GSF to try to assess pilot skills levels and to divide the teams so each side is equally strong. These elite groups simply break that balancing function. Therefore my suggestion for a solution would be: - Implement a change to GSF queing and team balancing mechanics so that if 3 or more people queue as a group, the game automatically places the highest ranked of those 3 on the opposing team, even though they queued as a group. If 4 people queue together, 2 should be placed on each team to balance the teams. If 5 queue together the strongest pilot is placed in a group of 2 on one team, and the other 3 players are placed on the other team, etc... This way you can have regular queues, and people who are grouped with their friends doing other content can queue for GSF, but if they are all strong pilots then they will be split up for the duration of the GSF match, allowing the match to be better balanced. - As an aside to this perhaps there could be once a month tournament nights on GSF where elite pilots are invited to queue as a group, and the group splitting mechanic will be turned off for the night so that elite groups can go in as a team, and battle against other elite teams. Alternatively there could be ranked GSF queues that are separate from the normal GSF queues. The downside of that though is that it removes pilots from the general GSF queue, and reduces the frequency of queues for everyone. That's why I think we're better off keeping everyone in one GSF queue, but dividing teams so that there is better balance.
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