We had to avoid Pay-to-Win

Restrictions on Power & Pay-to-Win

I put these two points together because to me they feel very similar in their impact. I think it’s self-evident as to why they’re bad for a community of players, especially in a F2P game. Both create a sort of caste system based on the “haves” and the “have nots.” Both create jealousy. And moreover, both create resentment towards us, the developers.

 

What this game should be about is pitting your dogfighting skills against your enemies; how you strategize and use the environments to overcome the enemy; how you learn to use your abilities at the right time. Asking you to give us money in order to be more powerful and to gain an unfair advantage over an enemy undermines that desire.

 

I agree with this quote from the dev blog so much.

I just want to say it's awesome TOR won't have the cartel-coin fleet-comm conversion!

This is the best news I've heard regarding starfighter. I really feel like our feedback in beta was really listened to.

I am just so thankful that won't be in the patch tomorrow, and I want to thank Bioware for removing the terrible pay-to-win options that were available in beta. Specifically, the use of cartel coins to create Fleet-comms out of our wealth of worthless ship-req.

Best. News. Ever.

I agree with this quote from the dev blog so much.

 

I just want to say it's awesome TOR won't have the cartel-coin fleet-comm conversion!

 

This is the best news I've heard regarding starfighter. I really feel like our feedback in beta was really listened to.

 

I am just so thankful that won't be in the patch tomorrow, and I want to thank Bioware for removing the terrible pay-to-win options that were available in beta. Specifically, the use of cartel coins to create Fleet-comms out of our wealth of worthless ship-req.

 

 

Best. News. Ever.

It just means, those that have the spare cash for coins, can't use it ingame, making bioware get less profit, well done. :-)

I agree with this quote from the dev blog so much.

:

Sorry, nevermind, I continued reading....

This obviously makes Fleet Requisition much more valuable. Players can use Cartel Coins to convert Ship Requisition they’ve earned on their ships into Fleet Requisition, effectively using their more powerful ships to twink their less powerful ships.

Umm... isn't paying to be twinked .... by definition.... pay to win? I mean, a twink is a character built to be more powerful than the average competition so that winning can be achieved with less skill. So how exactly is that not pay to win?

It’s important to note here that players will also get a small portion of their Ship Requisition converted to Fleet Requisition for free at the end of each battle, helping create a pool of Fleet Requisition for them to use.

A small pool? What is the non pay-to-win way to convert worthless ship req to fleet comms? If we wish to be competitive, are we supposed to deposit 25 cents to convert ship req after every few battles like we're playing an arcade machine? I suppose in the end it doesn't matter, since eventually everyone will cap, but non-pay to win players have an artificially long grind ahead of them.

Our philosophy here is that if a player puts in the time, it’s up to them how they use that time. If you want to spend Cartel Coins to upgrade one of your other ships, or to keep upgrading the ship you earned that Requisition on that’s your choice.

I see a sentence about respecting players time. Something that suggests "dailys" so you still get some fleet comms if you don't have a lot of time. Next to that is a sentance about disrespecting the majority of players who desire a non-pay-to-win based system. The two thoughts are unrelated.

Ultimately, it’s a question of time and we’re confident Galactic Starfighter is a fun, satisfying experience from the very start.

You're confident it's fun from the start? Yet I notice you are offering a paid option to skip that nasty "start" part.

There are other factors involved here as well. For instance, Subscribers and Galactic Starfighter Pass Holders will earn Requisition on their ships faster than Free-to-Play players. This is obviously allowing Subscribers to “level up” faster than F2P players, but this is nothing new to our game and many others like ours.

The difference is that when one player levels up faster than another, the one leveling up faster doesn't get to keep all his level difference and beat the sith spit out of everyone in sight. The mere slight advantage of talent trees created enough of a problem in balance that level brackets had to be created in spite of bolster. GS has no such mechanism allowing significant difference in strength between ships and slaps a payment based level system on top of that.

 

I hope that gives some insight into our thoughts

I hope this gives you some insight into my thoughts as well.

Seems some of you havent played on the open PTS weekends or havent read up on what Galactic Starfighter is.

Yes its completely free flight! There are no rails.

As of yet, there is no joystick support so yes you fly with A,S,W,D + mouse and a few other buttons. Dont let that deterre you from trying it out though. It takes some time to get used to the controlls, but once you know them well enough, youll start enjoying the game for what it is! An epic free addition to SWTOR!

Its definately not P2W. The upgrades you can buy sure give you a small edge, but thats it. If you cant aim, constantly fly into obsticles (ive done this quite some times), don't know when to fight, when to run or don't know how your ship is supposed to fight, no ammout of upgrades will allow you to win.

A 2%-8% better turn rate wont let you win each dogfight, while it will certanly give you an edge over someone without it.

The only "big" upgrades are tier 5 of all main components and they are quite expensive. Even then, a skilled pilot may defeat you. Your blasters doing 18% more damage to the hull or shields will make a difference, but how much of a difference? Maybe 1-2 less shots required for a kill? You still have to hit all the other ones

Also, there is a Daily quest and a Weekly for GSF. Both reward Ship Requisition for all your currently available ships.

The Weekly also provided some Fleet Requisition on the PTS. So you already can boost your other ships with your primary and it doesnt cost a CC while providing you with additional options.

Skill is the most decisive factor in GSF. Just give it a try first and then find out for yourself!

I'd also like to know about this. Are we actually going to be able to fight? Like we were able to in Battlefront or are we just in for a ride to click for 5 minutes? I want to be able to blast away whoever I want whenever I want. I want Dogfights.

you control the ship with the mouse, you fire primary weapon with left click and secondary weapon with right click, you speed boost with space bar and push 1 2 3 4 for space abilities,

on my 1st match i died 5 times and 4 of those times were me crashing into things, it looks fantastic but my biggest problem is getting used to the controls,

Quote: "We literally wanted to make the pool of players as large as possible"

If that is the case, how could you possibly leave out Joystick support ?

Did NO ONE in the development team do any research at all about Space Fighter Flight Games ?

Every Star Wars PC Space Game (until SWTOR) had Joystick support. X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Rebel Assault, Galaxies, etc... not to mention EVERY other space game worthy of mention (insert list).

HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY LEAVE THAT OUT ?

Without joystick support I have NO desire to play this GSF. NONE.

I'm really disappointed in you (the developers) for this mistake.

I'm a damn good pilot, and I really wanted to play this game. Bummer.

Wow, how did you actually manage to make this MORE pathetic? Are you seriously implementing NEW content before you even considering trying to fix the 'old' stuff? Bioware has now become the darth vader of the game dev's world: Started out good, then went downhill faster than a lead mining cart made of grease and butter.

Last message I wrote was extremely long and addressed most of my compaints, so if you actually want to try taking customer feedback into account for once, its on the original GSF discussion forum for you. Along with atleast one flame post by a butt-hurt player stamping his/her foot because they didnt think of all those things. I don't know I stopped looking.

But after patch 2.5.1 finally downloaded this morning I figured I'd give GSF a go again. Now people are actually lagging/pinging out so badly it might as well be a god hack because its impossible to hit them seeing as they warp about 100 metres per second. So a ping filter needs to be added. And no, before you ask, this was not an issue with MY ping because it was only happening with 1 player. plus, you know, sub 200 ping on hoth.

This. Is. An. Absolute. DISGRACE! And NOT putting locks on people's power? NOT balancing it out? Are you insane? How is a new comer supposed to get 20 metres past the first asteroid when they die as soon as they are so much as glared at by the enemy? THAT is what you call business strategy? Good grief, no wonder you guys lost so many subs. This right here, is the reason: Raw, blatant, unfathomable stupidity. If you don't start making better decisions, you're going to keep bleeding players.

Fix the bugs first, make the content less simplistic/stupid second, balance out the equipment, start punishing the trolls, everything in my previous post, add a ping filter, grab a coffee, go home and sleep, have a ****, and a whole other lot of **** after that but ADD content before the previous content is barely functional? DEAD last. Although if you did so much as half of what you should be doing, you might as well scrap the whole system now and go back to the drawing board.

Same old crap: MOAR MONEH!