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Underwhelmed by Galactic Starfighter


ZavienUK

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Hey all,

 

I've been thinking of posting this for a little while, to see if anybody else feels the same or I'm the odd one out. I can't shake this niggling feeling of underwhelmedness (yeah I know that's not a real word) with Galactic Starfighter.

 

Full disclosure here, I've had a busy few months and haven't had time to follow the development, blog posts etc about the development of GS so I'm sorry if I'm covering old ground and I'm behind the times here. This was also partly intentional as I didn't want to 'overhype' myself for the expansion, decided I just wanted to go in blind and find out for myself. And this is key really, I went into the expansion knowing virtually nothing, having no idea what to expect or knowing the scope of the expansion, and maybe this has contributed to my disappointment.

 

So going in blind here is what I discover pretty quickly:

 

No PvE content

One game type

2 maps

 

To be fair I'm not a programmer or developer, so I'm merely speculating here, but I would imagine creating the game system and physics for free form flight has to be the biggest challenge and I have no doubt that a massive amount of work has gone into it. And this is perhaps why I feel a bit guilty for feeling underwhelmed. But I'm surprised and disappointed that after doing what I imagine is the lion's share of the work on the game system, so little has been done with it.

 

Also the mouse control and lack of joystick support (which would be ideal for free form space flight) feels barely adequate and a bit clunky.

 

Additionally the monetisation of the system, even for subscribers (e.g. some ships only available for cartel coins, cartel coin cost to convert ship requisition) is disappointing and a big turn off. I realise development has to be paid for, but that's what I pay a subscription for. It should be one OR the other, pay a subscription, or 'pay as you go' with cartel coins. Not both.

 

The lack of integration into legacy is also really turning me off wanting to put time into it, knowing it's all tied to the individual character. It would absolutely make sense to have republic and imperial progression kept separate, but tying to the individual character especially when there is a real world cost just smells of a nasty cash grab to me. 95% of the time I only spend cartel coins on account wide unlocks or legacy unlocks, I can't justify to myself spending real world money on an individual character.

 

Finally I'd like to touch on the aspect of it being unconnected whatsoever to the rest of the game. For me it could work either way. If this was a large scale expansion, with both PvE and PvP content, several game modes and dozens of maps it could work really well as an entirely separate game, allowing people to play either the traditional game or GS or both, depending on what interested them. But as it stands now, esentially feeling like a limited mini game (again!) I feel it would be better integrated into the rest of the game, so it can serve as a break from traditional questing/leveling, in a similar way warzones and the old space missions do now. As it currently stands I can't help shake the feeling I'm wasting my time playing this mini game that doesn't affect my character development in any way.

 

In closing, I'm just finding I'm thinking about GS but then ultimately just not logging on that often, and when I do after a few games getting bored and logging off again, which is consistent with it's limited appeal as a mini game. I'm comparing this to the first time I did a hardmode flashpoint as part of the HK quest line. I remember the experience feeling absolutely epic, it was an incredible intense few hours of gameplay (we kept wiping but got there in the end), and I was in awe of the game, however playing GS, it's fine, nothing horrifically wrong, but ultimately it just makes me go 'meh', it doesn't feeling anything that special.

 

So why am I sharing all this, just to find out what other people think. Am i missing something? do people agree or disagree? Is it just not for me? (as much as I wish it were). I'd just be interested to hear other people's thoughts and experience as a comparison.

 

Thanks all

 

-------------------------

TLDR

 

Disapointed with Galactic Starfighter:

-No PvE

-One game type

-Two maps

-Clunky mouse control, lack of joystick support

-Monetisation even for subscribers

-Lack of legacy integration

-Integration into base game vs completely separate

Edited by ZavienUK
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GSF is live in a very basic form. The devs have already stated that is was their intention to release like this. Because they intend on making it a major feature of the game over time, they want to ensure that it works and is balanced before they start adding frills and depth to it.
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I agree with pretty much everything you said, except for the pve part. Their AI's for the 2d ground game are glitchy enough...they'd never be able to implement one for space.

 

Considering you can do everything there is to do on GSF with a single character, I think they seriously dropped the ball with having seperate progression for alts.

 

GSF participation needs to be legacy-wide for each faction.

 

Mechanically, it needs work also. Mouse movement feels choppy and hypersensitive. And there's no slider for it. I actually have to turn my mouse sensitivity down in windows before playing GSF or controlling my ship with any degree of accuracy is next to impossible.

 

It's been entertaining, but the shallowness of what they rolled out is causing the shiny to wear off real fast.

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GSF is live in a very basic form. The devs have already stated that is was their intention to release like this. Because they intend on making it a major feature of the game over time, they want to ensure that it works and is balanced before they start adding frills and depth to it.

 

Even if that's what they said I don't believe it for a second. They are following EA's stock and trade of delivering as little content at a time as possible while figuring out how to charge everyone extra for it. Ships with better requisition for cc's, requisition conversion for cc's...

 

I think it's very naive to believe they have some altruistic intentions behind delaying the other content.

 

Part of me was hoping that this time they might have gotten it right, that I could actually enjoy the new content w/o being nickled and dimed the whole way, but I guess I'm done with this company. GSF was the only reason I came back and I'm not going to renew my subscription.

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agreed, i usually always spend my sub coins for legacy collection unlocks also,

we have to pay for stuff that usually would be free for a sub.

It seems i have to pay 5 bux for every crappy belt made nowadays in game.

i have played several space type mmos and it is not my first ship in digital space,

its kinda very limited and way to missile heavy i find it feels more like an f16 game than

a space ship lol.

Edited by ODTONE
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The monetization issue bothered me at first, until I realized that you really dont ever have to spend cartel coins on GSF (at least not at the moment).

 

If you do the daily and weekly missions for GSF, you'll rack up fleet requisition at a decent enough rate, and all you need it for is unlocking new ships or crew. You also gain requisition for all of your ships no matter which one you're flying (though notably more for the ship that you fly), so over the course of ten or so games you might gain 6000 requisition on the scout you always fly, and you'll find that you have 2000 or so for any other ships in your hangar (these numbers are not accurate, btw, just for elaboration purposes).

 

Of course that also means that if you always fly one ship type, you can convert the requisition from all your other ships into fleet requisition.

 

 

My only real issue with the system is that unlocking equipment only unlocks it for the ship you're selected on. I unlock a weapon type for one of my scouts, and my other scout doesnt get it, so if you fly multiple ships you have to do a lot more work that anyone who flies just one ship.

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The monetization issue bothered me at first, until I realized that you really dont ever have to spend cartel coins on GSF (at least not at the moment).

 

You don't technically need to spend cc, but anyone who does will advance a LOT faster than anyone who doesn't. The UI will let you spend fleet req at the same rate as ship req for upgrades. When you do your daily/weekly, those bonus req's are granted to all of your ships, so anyone who wants to can spend the cc's to convert the req's on the ships they don't use for fleet req's. Then they can upgrade their main ship a metric boatload faster than anyone else.

 

This is about as close as they can get to pay-to-win w/o being able to outright purchase requisition.

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This is about as close as they can get to pay-to-win w/o being able to outright purchase requisition.

Pay for speed is not pay to win.

 

You cannot gain even a fraction of a percentage of advantage by paying over that, what another player can get by simply investing more time.

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Pay for speed is not pay to win.

 

You cannot gain even a fraction of a percentage of advantage by paying over that, what another player can get by simply investing more time.

 

When the disparity is this large between upgraded and not, being able to get there that much faster by spending money is most certainly pay to win. Having an otherwise unobtainable advantage is not the sole definition of pay to win and I wish people would stop saying that.

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Pay for speed is not pay to win.

 

You cannot gain even a fraction of a percentage of advantage by paying over that, what another player can get by simply investing more time.

 

I dont like the idea but its not biggie to me unless they start to add better skills, vessels and crew members with a frequency that will leave people who dont spend CC to transfer requisition in a constant disadventage. If they plan to introduce clearly better upgrade ever month it will become just another grind or real money sink and that will be the end of GSF for me.

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Seeing as they've been dangling the Super Secret Space Project (SSSP--it had its own acronym!) out there for a year and a half, its almost inevitable that the expansion would disappoint on some level.

 

My primary issues are that we only have two environments, and they're completely instanced. When I think about space, vast openness comes to mind. The environments they designed feel claustrophobic. If there's anything that's been missing from SWTOR from the start, its the open-world feel. Too many instances and loading screens break the continuity.

 

The other issue I have is that ship customization has been touted as a feature, but during the game I rarely even get a glimpse of anyone's fighter. Either they're too small, or zooming by and gone in a second. I think being able to show off your accomplishments visually is one of the things that pvp progression players enjoy, but the opportunity isn't really there.

 

That, and the strongest element of SWTOR--the story--seems to be completely missing from GSF. I realize that could come later, but even something like letting us walk up to our fighters in an actual hangar environment would make a huge difference here.

 

They made some odd choices, as GSF doesn't seem tailored for fans of the ground game, and it doesn't strike me as having strong appeal to PvPers. I hope it turns out well, and I'm sure new players leveling for the first time will appreciate the diversion, but as someone who's been through all that, I feel GSF adds little in terms of what I want from my MMO.

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To judge GSF now is sort of like looking at an acorn and saying, "This oak tree is really underwhelming."

 

Hopefully, anyway. I presume that, over time, GSF will continue to be developed with new features and maps and rewards and performance tweaks. I don't mind the slow, continual development process as long as the material that is released is high-quality and adds to the fun.

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This is about as close as they can get to pay-to-win w/o being able to outright purchase requisition.

The Fleet Req is only gained by PLAYING. Paying CC's to convert it can be equated to an XP buff, but it's not "P2W"...it's borderline, but it didn't cross it.

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GSF is live in a very basic form. The devs have already stated that is was their intention to release like this. Because they intend on making it a major feature of the game over time, they want to ensure that it works and is balanced before they start adding frills and depth to it.

 

As somebody who doesn't have the time to constantly keep an eye on the dev tracker, this is the first i've heard of this. If this is true I'm extremely disappointed. The emails I received invited me back to the game to experience this new 'expansion' (quotes because after experiencing the scope of it it I consider it a content patch not an expansion). The email said nothing about this being a 'beta' or 'preview' .

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As somebody who doesn't have the time to constantly keep an eye on the dev tracker, this is the first i've heard of this. If this is true I'm extremely disappointed. The emails I received invited me back to the game to experience this new 'expansion' (quotes because after experiencing the scope of it it I consider it a content patch not an expansion). The email said nothing about this being a 'beta' or 'preview' .

 

"Early Access"...not beta, but not fully functional either. They're still working on the other levels.

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I agree with pretty much everything you said, except for the pve part. Their AI's for the 2d ground game are glitchy enough...they'd never be able to implement one for space.

 

For me I enjoy all aspects of the game (i'm not one of those that has an intense hatred for one aspect of the game) so after doing the work on the development of the free flight system it would give it more depth if there was both PvE and PvP content (so people can do either or both depending on their preference). I'm not convinced it isn't technically possibly to make the AI work in this environment.

 

Considering you can do everything there is to do on GSF with a single character, I think they seriously dropped the ball with having seperate progression for alts.

 

GSF participation needs to be legacy-wide for each faction.

 

/signed

 

Mechanically, it needs work also. Mouse movement feels choppy and hypersensitive. And there's no slider for it. I actually have to turn my mouse sensitivity down in windows before playing GSF or controlling my ship with any degree of accuracy is next to impossible.

 

Thank you so much this, I'd never thought about that, I'll give that a go to see if it makes the control more berable. But that gorgeous force feedback flight controller I have sat in my cupboard is making me sad - It would be amazing for this.

 

 

It's been entertaining, but the shallowness of what they rolled out is causing the shiny to wear off real fast.

That's exactly it for me, I didn't actually get round to starting until the weekend. I logged on during the week but decided I was too tired to get my head round the complicated UI, after one evening over the weekend the novelty was already wearing thin.

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Even if that's what they said I don't believe it for a second. They are following EA's stock and trade of delivering as little content at a time as possible while figuring out how to charge everyone extra for it. Ships with better requisition for cc's, requisition conversion for cc's...

 

I think it's very naive to believe they have some altruistic intentions behind delaying the other content.

 

Part of me was hoping that this time they might have gotten it right, that I could actually enjoy the new content w/o being nickled and dimed the whole way, but I guess I'm done with this company. GSF was the only reason I came back and I'm not going to renew my subscription.

 

I don't want to believe what your saying, but that was my niggling feeling deep down, I fear you are right :(

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I don't want to believe what your saying, but that was my niggling feeling deep down, I fear you are right :(

 

You folks do realize that Bioware and EA are businesses.....right?

....and the "Star Wars Franchise" is a device with which to make profit.....?

 

Like it or not....this is the future of gaming and content......though some programmers LOVE to program, they won't do it for free....at least not forever.....

 

You want a gaming industry and new titles to play and content for those titles......yet are amazed that it costs money to create....?

 

Are you some sort of communist.....like me? Even I know the ins and outs of capitalism......

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If you do the daily and weekly missions for GSF, you'll rack up fleet requisition at a decent enough rate, and all you need it for is unlocking new ships or crew. You also gain requisition for all of your ships no matter which one you're flying (though notably more for the ship that you fly), so over the course of ten or so games you might gain 6000 requisition on the scout you always fly, and you'll find that you have 2000 or so for any other ships in your hangar (these numbers are not accurate, btw, just for elaboration purposes).

 

Sadly not everybody is able to do the daily every day, at which point the gap widens vs spending real money. I never understand with these things while they can't make it a weekly which requires x 7 of the objectives and gives x 7 of the rewards - so that people who want to do it as one per day over the week can do, but those of us who can't log on every day can catch up when we have time at the weekend. I'm not asking for the same reward for less time - just the ability to do it either as half an hour a day OR in a big chunk at the weekend to suit differing schedules.

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Pay for speed is not pay to win.

 

You cannot gain even a fraction of a percentage of advantage by paying over that, what another player can get by simply investing more time.

 

I disagree, this might not be blatant pay to win but it's very very close to the line. The moment spending a small amount of money gives the same result as spending a large amount of time, then clearly you are paying for an advantage, maybe 'pay to win' isn't the correct expression but certainly 'pay to get an advantage' doesn't seem within the spirit of things.

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I disagree, this might not be blatant pay to win but it's very very close to the line. The moment spending a small amount of money gives the same result as spending a large amount of time, then clearly you are paying for an advantage, maybe 'pay to win' isn't the correct expression but certainly 'pay to get an advantage' doesn't seem within the spirit of things.

 

So...XP buffs are also P2W in your opinion?

 

I agree that this is REALLY close...VERY close...but it's not.

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You folks do realize that Bioware and EA are businesses.....right?

....and the "Star Wars Franchise" is a device with which to make profit.....?

 

Like it or not....this is the future of gaming and content......though some programmers LOVE to program, they won't do it for free....at least not forever.....

 

You want a gaming industry and new titles to play and content for those titles......yet are amazed that it costs money to create....?

 

Are you some sort of communist.....like me? Even I know the ins and outs of capitalism......

 

lol you make me laugh...

ive probably spent at least 300 bux since the start in subs and expansions

if that isnt an expensive game i dont know what is,

next step poker lol

so if the quality is so so people get mad actually BECAUSE they have spent the money to support something they would like...

thats product and demand the simplest market principle possible , and has nothing to do with youre brainwashed communism 1965 comment.

The i take any junk people give me is actually way more communist than deciding on a product you like...

so ive actually been paying the devs for people to be able to play free... lol and then get jaked by the cartel,

tell that to people who play for free, and honestly i dont mind the f2p i just think i shouldnt be forced to spend more than my sub for the ships or any content as a matter a fact...

its actually a repeat of the newer space maps and ship gear but in pvp, wich they said they would avoid the next time.

Edited by ODTONE
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I can't say enough and things about galactic starfighter. I think it is terrible design. Can't believe this is what bio ware have been doing for the last 2 years. Real let down. Will not be playing it

 

While I understand that not every aspect of the game is for everyone (I hate crafting), could you be more specific about what you dislike about it?

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Seeing as they've been dangling the Super Secret Space Project (SSSP--it had its own acronym!) out there for a year and a half, its almost inevitable that the expansion would disappoint on some level.

 

I just can't believe this is the SSSP we heard about such a long time ago. My personal feeling is the original SSSP was either shelved or severely cut back following the development cuts to the game. This is the SSSP in name only, I can't believe this is the product the original developers were excited about back when SSSP was first talked about. As I said there is nothing fundamentally wrong with GS as a content patch, and I was really careful to NOT get over hyped about it, but it's just a fairly average mini game, nothing more.

 

My primary issues are that we only have two environments, and they're completely instanced. When I think about space, vast openness comes to mind. The environments they designed feel claustrophobic. If there's anything that's been missing from SWTOR from the start, its the open-world feel. Too many instances and loading screens break the continuity.

 

That, and the strongest element of SWTOR--the story--seems to be completely missing from GSF. I realize that could come later, but even something like letting us walk up to our fighters in an actual hangar environment would make a huge difference here.

 

You know I hadn't realised it, but you've just helped me realise one of the reasons it feels so shallow. I guess I'd expected something I could fly into and join in while flying between planets. To access it in an instanced fashion through a button on the UI doesn't feel at all Massively Multiplayer, nor does it live up to the typical expectation of the vastness of space. No actual hanger (I read something about my paint jobs being available in the 'hanger' so I really had expected an actual hanger to go to) and the total absence of any story or context. It feel a likes a console lobby - fine for a couple of hours fun - but for me MMORPG's are supposed to be about something more involved than that.

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