Jump to content

GSF Discussion: Friction Points


EricMusco

Recommended Posts

  • Dev Post

Hey folks,

 

This week, we are creating three separate forum threads for GSF discussion. You can head to this thread to get links to each of them.

 

Galactic Starfighter, like all group content, is a system that we want to see being used by as many players as possible. This thread is to discuss the friction points that you see in GSF. Whether it stops you from playing frequently, or from playing at all, we want to understand that friction.

 

Here are some things to consider to get the conversation started:

  • Is the learning curve too steep to get into?
  • Is ship balance preventing you from playing?
  • Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?
  • Matchmaking issues?
  • The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 310
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

One of the biggest complaints I heard both on BC (when I was on that server) and have heard on EH by new players is they cannot do anything before they get killed. A large part of this is they dont understand how their missile evade works,what each ship does and how to line up shots on a moving target. With ground PVP you have 10 levels of PVE before you can queue. This allows you to learn how your character works. It is in essence the introduction to how to play the game (that is what the four starter planets are there for). The tutorial does not give an equal compensation for that. To be brutally honest I dont think anything other than GSF PVE is going to. The rail-shooter space missions do not handle like GSF,they do not have the abilities of GSF and you cannot control where your ship goes like you can in GSF.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm super stoked to see this forum thread started up.

Here's my current list of concerns for GSF (in order):

1) Matchmaking -- on Shadowlands, pub side always dominates. There's a group of hardcore pilots that are far and away better than anyone else. If you play Imp side, you will lose. Period. I'd like to see some sort of match making changes (either cross-faction or have tiers like PVP)

 

2) Ship imbalance -- Strike Fighters are basically useless. Maxed out strike fighters still can get 2-shot, the same as a scout.

 

3) Learning curve -- I'll take responsibility for this to a point. I haven't looked at a lot of the guides; I've been trying to learn by playing. Unfortunately, there's not a good way in game to understand which upgrades to take or which crew members to use

 

4) The hanger is character only. If I want to GSF, I have to do it on my GSF toon, even if I want to gain CXP on another toon.

 

Hope this helps!

-B

Edited by Rockula
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is the learning curve too steep to get into?

 

This is a tough question. In general, maybe. The lackluster tutorial and the fact that we don't have an area where we can practice outside of a match doesn't help. In the ground game, people can duel or beat up a dummy to test out their builds. We don't have that option, and we've been asking for that for a long time.

 

The single biggest change you could make that would help is to add some flytext or color change to indicate when:

You miss due to evasion/deflection/RNG.

Your damage is reduced because of damage reduction.

 

As it stands, new players don't realize why they're missing shots due to evasion, and that leads them to believe that the game is broken. Please find some way to provide this information via flytext. Adding some visual representation of satellite capture range would be nice as well.

 

It doesn't help that you start everyone with terrible components in each slot by default. We've been begging for you to change the default since launch. Rapid Fire Lasers are quite literally the worst weapon in the game and both the Novadive/Blackbolt and Starguard/Rycer start with it. Many of the other defaults are questionable at best. Would you like a detailed listing of starter components that probably lead to people quitting? The list is probably fairly long.

 

Is ship balance preventing you from playing?

 

No. The stealth class would be nice to shake things up a little bit, but in general I don't believe there is a problem with ship balance at this time. (Outside of, you know, Strike fighters. We're still waiting for those buffs you talked about two years ago.) There is a perceived problem with balance, certainly, but I don't believe that the numbers back it up. I've seen far too many very good scout players to believe that scouts are inherently weak even in TDM. There are of course some tweaks and changes that should be made (like double checking the tier 5 talent for ion railgun, for example: it's broken and what it does isn't what the tooltip says it does. The energy lockout is 100% rather than whatever the tooltip says it is, and that's huge.)

 

Related to the first question: there are several individual components that are very weak in the current meta, and almost all of them can be found as the default component on one or more ships. This adds to the perception of imbalance, especially coupled with the tutorial and in game info that explain very little about how the game works.

 

Also please buff strikes. Somehow. You asked about and admitted they needed it literally years ago now.

 

 

 

Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?

 

I'm still playing, but new maps or game modes or something would be appreciated. I'm not sure I want you to adjust much in terms of balance, given your track record with balancing the ground game. But yes. New features, new game modes, new cosmetics.

 

Something to spend all of the extra ship req I can't use on anything would be great, too.

 

 

Matchmaking issues?

 

This I'm not sure about. I feel like matchmaker doesn't have a large enough player pool to work with, but it behaves oddly anyway. Sometimes it seems like it prioritizes trying to make a team of similar players first, then trying to match up two similar teams. Given that there are rarely enough players to make more than two teams, this is not the right approach. Is there a way to tweak that?

 

 

The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

 

Leveling new alts is pretty easy now, but I would still love some way to transfer requisition via Legacy. I know I'm not alone. Maybe add tokens to let us do that on some vendor like the PVPers did for commendations for a while?

 

And can we please, PLEASE get collections unlocks for the Cartel Market ships?

 

Edit: I highly recommend also reading Despon's post in this thread.

 

Edit 2: I also recommend reading through my guide to see a lot of the mistakes and questions that new players make or come to me with. Every item in that guide is there because I see it a lot or get asked about it just as often.

Edited by DakhathKilrathi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I play GSF very rarely, on average maybe 0-2 matches a week. When GSF first came out, I was pretty good at it, often getting some MVP medals, but over the months, other players got better than me and once bombers were released, I lost interest because I did not want to invest that much time to figure out how to optimize my loadout.

 

When 5.2 came out, I played a lot of GSF (completing the daily every day) but I do admit that I hated every second of it. I only did it for tokens so I could upgrade my gear and not handicap my raid group for Tyth.

I hated it so much in fact that I was AFK most of the time. Either, I got lucky and was put in a match with some of my guildies who are pro at GSF (I always queue solo) and it's a guaranteed win, or I'm put against a premade and it's a guaranteed defeat. In that case, I could self-destruct to make the game go faster but I find that unfair to my team; it's easier to just go to desktop, read the Internets and come back when the match is over.

At first, I was reluctant to go AFK, but once I calculated how many matches I'd need for a full T3->T4 upgrade, I never looked back; my raid group is more important to me than any fellow GSF players. I know you don't want to read this and I probably shouldn't be writing this, but it's the truth, GSF feels that horrible to me, and that's what players will do if they are forced to do what they don't like.

 

For the objective maps (the ones with the 3 satellites), I can see how my contributions help toward winning (even when I don't kill anyone I can keep a satellite neutral just by flying in circles), but for TDM, I have the following theory: Since my K:D ratio is always smaller than 1, I actually contribute more toward winning by being AFK than by being active. For example, say I play correctly, then I will likely die 10 times during the match and get maybe 1-2 kills. This will get the other team a 8-9 point advantage. If I just AFK, the other team gets a 0-1 point advantage. Yes, my team has a harder time in a 7v8 situation than in a 8v8, but not enough to get an additional 8 points to make up for my deaths.

 

 

So whatever you do, please DO NOT force players into GSF, your anti-AFK systems are not mature enough for that. If I am interested in doing GSF, I will queue whenever I am in the mood for it, not because I need tokens.

The issue is that there is just too much content. Now that I have full 248 gear, I will play my favorite content (flashpoints, operations, daily areas, GSI) and do non-gameplay things (dealing with guild issues since I'm an officer, helping out new players, decorating the guildship), and in the remaining ~30% of my playtime, I do other things (PvP, GSF, heroics, PvE space missions, chapters, etc.). So depending on how much I play during a week, I could do anywhere from no GSF to maybe 1-2 matches during the week. And then when I do queue voluntarily, I am in the mood for GSF and I enjoy participating, and of course I won't go AFK.

But when 5.2 launched and I had to do GSF (and PvP, which I hated only slightly less), it was horrible, and I hope that when T5 launches, I can get command tokens from operations or anything that is not PvP.

 

 

Some more specific feedback on what I don't like about GSF:

  • I always play on a scout, I refuse to play a different ship. When it comes to PvE, I'm an expert at my class and know every tidbit by heart, but in GSF, I consider myself a casual GSF player.
    That is a problem because by not using the BiS loadout, gunships can one-shot me, and I envy bombers that can just hide in a satellite and do nothing while their mines automatically kill me. But I'm a scout for life. So yes, the learning curve is too high. If there was a button to auto-select the BiS loadout, sure I'll click it, but if I have to put in time to figure it out myself, no sorry, I won't do it. And I am fully aware that I am the problem, and you as a developers cannot do much about it, but like I said, I don't care about GSF, and unless you dumb down GSF so much that everyone has the same ship, it will be too complex for me.
  • The second problem is that GSF was designed for more players than are currently in a queue. Not only does it take too long for matches too pop (compared to PvP invites), there also is usually only one match at a time on my server (T3-M4), and it is always a 8v8 since there is some new player in it.
    If there were 3-5 matches at once, the game would automatically separate good and bad players. (Though because I have so much requisition and bought upgrades for my ship, even if they're not the optimal ones, I will likely end up with the good players, so this won't help...)
    And no, forcing players into GSF (like you did with Galactic Commando) is the wrong solution, it only worsens the gameplay quality for everyone. One solution I could see is redesigning the maps so you need fewer players, how about 4v4 or 6v6 maps? I know this is more work than you intend for GSF, but it's the best solution IMO since you said cross-server is off the table. A server merge with the other German servers won't make much of a difference because VC and JKS are nearly dead, and don't even consider trying to merge us with English and French players, I want to play in German with German players only.

 

So as requested, this is my feedback on why I don't like GSF. Like I wrote, I am a casual GSF player so I am the right target group for this thread. TBH, I care so little about GSF that I'd never write in the GSF forums, I only wrote this since you asked for feedback.

 

1) Matchmaking -- on Shadowlands, pub side always dominates. There's a group of hardcore pilots that are far and away better than anyone else. If you play Imp side, you will lose. Period. I'd like to see some sort of match making changes (either cross-faction or have tiers like PVP)

4) The hanger is character only. If I want to GSF, I have to do it on my GSF toon, even if I want to gain CXP on another toon.

Quoting for visibility. Yes, cross-faction should be added, it will shuffle the teams. It won't help against premades but it will improve the current matchmaking.

The hangar should have been legacy-wide from the beginning, there is no excuse for why it should be character-wide only. I realize it will be difficult to merge all characters' hangars into one legacy hangar now, but it should be done.

Edited by Jerba
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Queue as ops groups

Please let us queue as ops groups as the current 4 person group system makes team matches very difficult

 

Improved kick system

Please give us a better kick system. Currently there is nothing we can do about CXP farmers that join a match and then do nothing besides fly around the outside and occasionally get killed to avoid being auto-kicked for extended inactivity. The only kick option we have is when they are flagged as inactive and then as soon as we start the kick they move and it cancels.

 

Don't match us with those we ignore

Please give us a "don't queue with those you ignore" option. This would help with people like the one I kept sending you videos and screenshots of who choose to use multiple bots inside matches or even just those that fly on their own but suicide through matches to get the achievements. My thinking here is that if we had that option during that whole bot saga then all of us regulars would of had them on ignore and whilst we could fly together the troublemakers would not get into matches with us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your questions are kinda for non-players. As someone who waited for this part of the game (and largely bought the game because it was announced pre-launch, and have been happily subscribed since it came out), my responses won't really be typical.

 

Is the learning curve too steep to get into?

No. But it does help if you've had experience with other arcade flight/space sims. The three-space combat is unique and it is not simple or forgiving. IMO it is the best part about SWTOR though, by quite a bit.

 

Is ship balance preventing you from playing?

Not me, obviously, but ship balance is an issue that discourages some people. In the span of a few months, we've had threads decrying strikes being too good, missiles being too good, railguns being too good, scouts being too good, mines being too good. Fishing through this as a dev has gotta be a mess. Generally, three of the four ship types have jobs.

 

Ultimately, the biggest burst things in the game are what players will be discouraged by. A burst/pods type 2 scout can end the life of even the highest health bomber in mere seconds. A railsniper can end most ships in two connecting shots, the first of which requires high situational awareness to see coming (and a new player will not have that situational awareness, nor does the reasonably pinched view of the UI help you in any way when a railshot is charging). A bomber can deny a node or require you to do a wild dance to get into it safely, requiring a huge amount of skill.

 

I think these things discourage players more than the fact that strikes are severely underpowered, though that is definitely an issue.

 

Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?

 

Some hardcore players would return immediately if active development resumed, based on discussions with them out of game. I play whenever my team plays, and sometimes solo. I just don't know if you'd see huge numbers return.

 

Matchmaking issues?

Cross server when?

 

I get it, that's not the question. But what should matchmaker do better? It seems to mostly work on Harbinger. Before we left Bastion, it was terrible over there. The difference is that Harb usually has enough players to make two games during most times, and sometimes many many more. The matchmaking doesn't seem smart, but I'm not sure if this is the matchmaker. Obviously, cross faction could probably give you more to work with here, I dunno.

 

The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

I really like that it is character based, honestly. But you could definitely have some legacy hooks. I'll let those more passionate about this deliver their invectives about how it is totes needed, but I'll add this: it feels really odd that I can't unlock naked versions of cartel ships without rebuying them for each character. Given that the cartel ships only offer the ability to stack a second version of some ships, this seems odd. It also seems odd that the type 2 gunship is not available from the GUI, but whatever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never liked that the ships/companions/loadouts aren't mirrors of eachother. (Maybe I'm mistake by this point, but it just seemed I couldn't build my republic ship on sith side.)

 

Now I realize a XWing and TIE Interceptor aren't mirrors of eachother. BUT swtor makes no effort to mirror the Xwing vs TIE Interceptor trade offs either.

Edited by SirUrza
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The learning curve: the tutorial shows some basics, but absolutely doesn't prepare for a real match against mobile targets.

 

Coming into a match with little to no experience, and being grouped with experience players (who do all before you even get what to do and how to do it), and against experience players (who know how to avoid you and how to kill you a lot better than you do). Ground PvP is divided into level groups. It's be great if there was a way of matching GSF groups based on experience, "GSF level", or whatever to call it, if possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played the crap out of GSF during early access, but cannot speak to anything about it beyond official release.

 

This would fall under Friction Points

 

I liked Domination maps. I liked taking objectives. I liked defending objectives.

I have no desire whatsoever to just be dogfighting in a Deathmatch.

There was no toggle to only play Domination or never play Deathmatch, so I just stopped playing.

 

This is why I can't offer any other suggestions re:current state of GSF, my friction point has existed since 2.6

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey folks,

 

 

Here are some things to consider to get the conversation started:

  • Is the learning curve too steep to get into?
  • Is ship balance preventing you from playing?
  • Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?
  • Matchmaking issues?
  • The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

1. I personally feel that it's hard to jump into because I know I'm going to get decimated by GSF vets, not so much because of the learning curve but because newbie ships are considerably weaker than the established ones. It's not exactly fun going into a match knowing you're going to lose beforehand. I'm not saying nerf this or that. The ship requisition from the new conquest mission was a nice start in the right direction to get new pilots into a competitive ship faster. Just need a little bit more of that so new pilots can be competitive faster. Also, the tutorial could be improved upon because it really doesn't teach anything but how to click and shoot.

 

2. No idea about this one, but I know there's a plethora of threads in the GSF subforum about ship balance that could be looked at.

 

3. I'm not playing GSF because of the gap between new and vet players to GSF, and the fact that I never know when to que because it seems like it only pops when there's some kind of coordination before hand.

 

4. The only matchmaking issue I know of is a lack of players interested in GSF.

 

5. Incorporating the legacy system more into the game is always a welcomed idea. Turning Fleet Rec into a legacy pool that can be converted into Ship Rec for individual characters would be a great idea.

 

6. Not mentioned, but having most of the ship customizations locked behind cartel coins is a huge turnoff as well. Adding a Credit option to getting the ship customizations would be a nice addition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Galactic Starfighter, like all group content, is a system that we want to see being used by as many players as possible.

I don't exactly agree with this statement, philosophically. I think that, to a certain extent, quality > quantity. I think that a quality game experience would attract more people and the quantity issue would be somewhat self-correcting. This goes beyond GSF, especially for me. I've actually never tried GSF. I'll detail why below.

 

Since GSF came out later in the game's development, it never gained traction for me. I think the biggest friction point is that I want to play my characters, not so much play a ship. Does that make sense? I can't really progress my character's gear. If GSF progression is different from ops or PvP gear progression, I don't really see the point. GSF becomes more of a distraction than anything. Flying in a ship, one character is the same as another. There are no different classes with different abilities to keep me interested (I'm an altoholic).

 

At this point, knowing full well that there is a ship progression in GSF, I really don't want to start another separate grind. I don't even have enough game time as it is right now to do the existing Galactic Command grind to my satisfaction.

 

I think you can get Unassembled Components from GSF now, right? That adds a little incentive, but I'd much rather run warzones to the same result. Why go in with a noobie ship and get blown away with my limited time when I can go into a warzone and have some decent gear, have knowledge and experience with what I am doing?

 

EDIT: Woah, there are actual GSF forums?! I had no idea!! :p This is my first post in here, just saw this in dev tracker.

Edited by teclado
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest deterrent for me is similar to PVP and that's the "gearing" aspect.

 

I tried it out and just found it really not fun to get annihilated so fast and basically no chance to really learn how to play, it was not enjoyable at all. I found in time this is "just how it is" due to the nature of "gearing/developing your ships" so yet again another, what could be awesome, PVP aspect of the game ruined by game and this was FAR worse than standard PVP - at least you can actually get a bit of a game in during PVP.

 

I suggest removing any aspect of gearing/ship development that gives stat advantages in GSF if you ever want it to be popular, it's not fun. Find other things for people to look to obtain such as vanity items, currency etc. etc.

 

Failing that a PVE aspect to GSF would be at least semi helpful to allow us to a) learn how the hell it play it without getting annihilated constantly b) develop the gear we need via the PVE aspect so when we do go into PVP we aren't massively disadvantaged.

 

I can see some promise with GSF but as a new player it was not fun at all, the grind doesn't seem worth it.

If you want to make money in this game you need to start thinking outside of the box in regards to "but this is how MMOs are" and think "would the everyday, casual player enjoy this?" because very few people are going to sit there for hours, not having fun just to grind to a point where they can have fun - they'll go do something else and I would think your metrics would support the part about people going to do something else (be it within game or leaving game entirely).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never got into GSF because there is no basic missions to test your skills and practice before you are on a team that is relying on you not to crash into asteroids. You can only practice on other people's time. The intro quest does not count, it's really bad and impossible to practice in with all the pop ups.

 

I've personally given up on playing it, but if that existed I think a lot more casual players would be interested in trying it out like casual pvp with friends.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

#1 reason, and this is coming from regular GSFer. I don't play on alts and even increased requisition gains won't change that. GSF is a side-game, you cannot expect people to maintain dozens of ships separately on every alt. If Strongholds were character-specific, they would never be as popular.

 

That and lack of PVE Starfighter. This is PVE-primarly game. GSF is completly separated from existing on-rails PVE space minigame both in gameplay and gearing. One doesn't benefit the other and doesn't encourage trying out and continuing to play the other. Not to mention, most players will never even try PVP before having an extensive experience in PVE.

Edited by Pietrastor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there,

 

I'm a Founder player who plays all aspects of the game.

 

I am always the guy at the bottom of the GSF leaderboard (yeah I know - I'm sorry). I'm so bad at it I even get reminders that unless I participate I will be removed from the game!! Despite this I have completed about 50 games since its launch and have won half of them (sorry I've been successfully carried in half of them).

 

In no other part of SWTOR do I feel so useless and I enjoy most of it most of the time.

 

I feel, like others, that the tutorial provided is completely inadequate. I have at times gone to Youtube in seach of fan help - but this should not be the way forward.

 

To me, this part of the game feels so removed from the rest of the game in terms of the demands put on your ability that it should be a separate stand alone game. I'll put it this way: If Battlefront was to be incorporated into this game as the PVP module I would feel more at home with that than I do with this fighter pilot simulator.

 

I feel that if GSF is to be continued, it needs to be dumbed down (for want of a better term) considerably to accommodate and encourage your average player to participate. This might not please those who are hardcore at it but I would counter that argument and say that you don't see everyone being forced to do ranked pvp as the only option in PVP or Nightmare Mode ops in PVE content.

 

I applaud the efforts to have a space battle module but I think that this is way too tough on most people who give it a look and then walk (or fly) away.

 

I look forward to see how you resolve the problems within GSF and thank you for reading how THAT guy who is bottom of the leaderboard feels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Low hanging fruit that could improve things for new players:

 

1) It's very easy to get disoriented as a new player, especially in death match. Flying straight into the enemy camp while being chased makes you an easy kill.

Solution: Put up waypoint markers on the capital ships, so you can head for one of those when you want to run away towards safety.

 

2) Gunships should start with max zoom out when going into sniping mode, as that's what everyone normally wants anyway.

 

3) Put up some defense turrets around one of the satellites in the tutorial, so people can practice how to kill those. Nothing makes you feel bad as a newcomer as when you're free at a node and get killed by the turrets.

 

4) Newcomers often leave matches with zero medals, especially in death match. The criteria for medals are too high for newcomers, while they're easy to pass for experienced pilots. Add an extra medal level for kills, assists, and damage:

  • 1 kill (this is reason enough to celebrate for a new pilot)
  • 2 assists (doable for most people)
  • 5k damage (still hard for very new pilots, but feels much more reasonable to aim for as a new player than 10k)

 

Other stuff that's a bit harder to do:

 

4) Fix mouse sensitivity and make it separately adjustable ingame, so one can play both the regular game and GSF without fiddling with the mouse settings. Without this, a newcomer can't hit the inside of a hangar. Also, make this so you can have reasonable mouse movement when using the free mouse mode.

 

5) Create a clear "UP" marker in the UI. While there is a leveling key, that doesn't work if you're trying to do something besides flying straight and being a target. Having a clear up indicator solves this.

 

6) Make it possible for people to load into all of the maps to have a look around. Newbies are very disadvantaged in that they don't find their way around the map. Also, make it possible for them to load in with their own ships. It's fine if there's nothing but a bunch of turrets around the satellite, and all the deathmatch powerup locations filled.

 

7) In deathmatch, have capital ships power up their guns for the losing team when they're enough behind (5-10 kills or so), and make an ops announcment about it. When it's more even, they power down again. (This is to prevent spawn camping.)

 

8) Newcomers spend very much time dying, being shot at, and running away from people chasing them. Neither of this is considered contributing, even if I keep 5 people busy shooting at me so my team can cap, if I don't hit anybody else. Make it so being hit and being targeted for missile lock counts as contributing.

 

9) Make it possible to make buffs and debuffs much bigger in the UI, so it's easier to notice them. (Max size possible in interface editor is still too small.)

 

10) I don't know if it currently is showing in any way, but it would be good if evasion showed around the ship in some way. If it does, it's not clear enough to be noticed. (And the "evaded" flytext suggestion from above is a good idea too.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest deterrent for me is similar to PVP and that's the "gearing" aspect.

 

I tried it out and just found it really not fun to get annihilated so fast and basically no chance to really learn how to play, it was not enjoyable at all. I found in time this is "just how it is" due to the nature of "gearing/developing your ships" so yet again another, what could be awesome, PVP aspect of the game ruined by game and this was FAR worse than standard PVP - at least you can actually get a bit of a game in during PVP.

 

I suggest removing any aspect of gearing/ship development that gives stat advantages in GSF if you ever want it to be popular, it's not fun. Find other things for people to look to obtain such as vanity items, currency etc. etc.

 

Failing that a PVE aspect to GSF would be at least semi helpful to allow us to a) learn how the hell it play it without getting annihilated constantly b) develop the gear we need via the PVE aspect so when we do go into PVP we aren't massively disadvantaged.

 

I can see some promise with GSF but as a new player it was not fun at all, the grind doesn't seem worth it.

If you want to make money in this game you need to start thinking outside of the box in regards to "but this is how MMOs are" and think "would the everyday, casual player enjoy this?" because very few people are going to sit there for hours, not having fun just to grind to a point where they can have fun - they'll go do something else and I would think your metrics would support the part about people going to do something else (be it within game or leaving game entirely).

 

You need maybe 30 games to gear a ship right now. I feel like that's more than reasonable. You still need to play CXP if you want to gear up your ground PVP alts, so how is this any different? The power difference between mastered and stock (with the right components) is small, and you need only a few games to get the low tier upgrades. A stock ship can and does perform well in the hands of someone who understands what's going on.

 

It's not a gearing issue; it's a player issue. Someone who has played six thousand games is going to annihilate someone who has only played two.

 

With that said, I wouldn't mind making gearing even easier if only to end arguments like this one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disclaimer: I am a player that was excited and tried GSF at launch, but quickly stopped playing it. I'm not sure if that means my feedback is more or less important.

 

The Super Secret Space project was one that I followed closely and I had high expectations for it. When I played it, I had issues that caused me to quickly drop it. I will try to hit all of those pain points. For transparency, I played the space game a lot in another MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, and I heavily enjoyed the PVE and PVP aspects of that space game, so I am no stranger to full XYZ axis PVP play.

 

  • I expected the controls to be more like a flight simulator and to be able to use a joystick. The control with the mouse was extremely difficult for me, and off-putting. I don't know if I can go back due to this issue alone.
  • When I pick a ship, my job is not clear to me. In the ground game, it is clear that more role is Dmg, Heals, or Tank. In ground game PVP, you can also have objectives, but your understanding of your role helps you to adapt to how you help your team with objectives. I don't understand the ships and their roles, I don't know which ship role I like, nor do I understand how I can leverage a role to help my team with objectives. For the ground game, the entire PVE experience helps you to get set up for that, but GSF does not have that support.
  • I needed something to "ramp up" the learning curve. I was expecting some PVE missions to get the hang of things before hitting PVP. The other space missions did nothing to prepare me for PVP. GSF needs a PVE component, because a noob does not want to go fight against seasoned pros.
  • The legacy issue. I leveled a character in GSF to unlock some ships, but among my 18 toons, I have no idea which one, or if I even deleted that toon. It was a lot of work, and I didn't want to start all over for what seemed like a lot of work.
  • I feel like I always get matched against seasoned veterans, and I can barely fly straight. I feel like I would do my team a favor by not queuing, so someone better than me could be in my spot, because I'm dead weight on my team.

 

Ultimately, without a PVE component in place to allow me to gain more confidence against AI controlled ships, I don't think I will ever go back to the PVP space game. If GSF space PVE was in place, I would most definitely use it to master a ship and then hit up space PVP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friction points for me are likely insurmountable.

 

I dislike the arcade flying, I come from a flight simulation background. So, GSf was likely dead for me from this point alone.

 

I got out of pvp in gaming many years ago, so that was the second blow. I just have no interest in pvp.

 

It seems unlikely that these aspects of GSF can be changed, but as you have asked for feedback I felt I should comment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing that most keeps me out of GSF is that it's character based rather than Legacy based.

 

I've got a billion alts that I play but I don't play GSF with all of them.

So I have to make a choice... do I want to play GSF on character A or something else on character B.

Sure, I could play GSF on character B but that character has no ship upgrades and I really don't feel like grinding another pilot up.

 

Personally, I wouldn't be disappointed if GSF was turned into some sort of "unified" experience that was pretty much disconnected from the ground game.

I mean, other than faction and companion availability, there's really no connection anyway so it's not really that big of a stretch to conceive of a system that gave us a single point of entry into GSF when we queue rather than basing it on which character we happen to be playing.

 

So I picture it like this:

We essentially have two "GSF Characters" (one for each faction) that exist separately from our ground characters.

We would have a single hangar with ALL ships that would be shared by the Legacy, though faction-limited in combat.

When we queue, we would have "queue as Imperial" and "queue as Republic" buttons.

Do away with character companion crews in favor of GSF crews (adding new NPCs where necessary) to avoid issues.

 

Beyond that, all that really needs to be decided is which character gets the various things like XP and conquest points that are earned.

Edited by Rankyn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for finally willing to hear out pleas. I was beginning to think the GSF pilots are the redheaded stepchildren of the game.

 

 

Adding the tier 1 gunship and bomber to the hangar did help to bring new players in. However, a new ship does not make a pilot. Learning curve is steep for new pilots coming off PVE and the tutorial is quite lacking. It's a sink or swim proposition in which new folks decide it's not worth it after being blown out of the sky 10,20 or more times. I know I was flustered at first but I like a challenge on occasion. I think a more comprehensive tutorial, possibly with NPC opponents will help them realized exactly what GSF is.

 

Wish we had an extra minute or 2 before matches to go over strategies with our team based on who's opposing us. Not everyone is using team speak or any voice chat. Hard as heck to type n fly. It would help the new pilots know who to be a wingman for and what to do over all. Giving new people a real fighting chance.

 

Matchmaker just out right sucks. When I notice it's heavily one sided and my team can clearly handle it, I just flutter about doing what I can to be annoying. We need a better system overall. Based on a medal system or time in the cockpit. Something just to balance out matches to make them competitive and fun.

 

I'd love to see a legacy hangar system, faction based would be fine. It would be cool if the hangar was interactive liken the hangars on the fleet. Between matches my toon could clean the carbon scoring off her freshly painted ship.

 

New maps of course. For vet pilots, we know the lay of the land. It can become boring to know there's a piece of space junk coming and need to strafe left. Maybe a trench run or bombing an outpost on some distant planet.

 

And new swag. I have capped my fleet commendations and there's nothing the vendors have that I want nor need. Perhaps selling personalized paint jobs. Think WWII bombers (Memphis Belle) and the like. Would be neat to have decals that expressed our individual tastes. I know wishful thinking but I'm tossing it out there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. The controls are horrible. Anyone who is not used to this type of gameplay will barely be able to fly their ship. When they do try GSF for the first time, they will just flit around like a drunk bubble bee. Then its just BOOM BOOM dead. with no clue where it even came from.

 

2.There is no way to practice. In the non-GSF part of the game PvE is really a sort of practice for PvP. GSF has no equivalent. It just throws you in the deep end of the pool. There needs to be some sort of PvE version vs npcs. A PvE version also needs different difficulty modes. It needs an easy mode where the npc's hit like wet noodles. It should take the npc's , in the easiest level, to take 30-50 shots to kill a player. In the master level it should be 1-3 shots.

 

In fact a PvE version of GSF could be a real hit. Imagine a 16 man GSF raid where they have to destroy a few minor capital ships, a shipyard, and some sort of prototype super capital ship.

 

The potential is there. I just don't think there are the resources to make GSF an active part of the average players gameplay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...