This game's skill curve is already so incredibly variant (i don't believe i need to prove this to anyone), do we really need a requisition system to add on to that?

 

I would argue that a requisition system serves the purpose of giving a sense of progression to the player base, but given how much your skill matters in this game a sense of progression is given as your skill improves. Thoughts?

Edited July 20, 2015 by tommmsunb

Given that gsf hasn't been updated, I'd say they should just drop the requisition system. If they aren't willing to make enough new content to get people interested in dumping cc into requisition transfer, they might as well broaden the game mode's appeal to get more cosmetic sales.

 

Plus, we can finally end the stupid gear vs skill threads once and for all!

Given that gsf hasn't been updated, I'd say they should just drop the requisition system. If they aren't willing to make enough new content to get people interested in dumping cc into requisition transfer, they might as well broaden the game mode's appeal to get more cosmetic sales.

 

Plus, we can finally end the stupid gear vs skill threads once and for all!

 

My thoughts exactly. It also would eliminate the barrier to entry in each GSF community leading to hopefully a more diverse overall gsf community. Grinding up characters grows tedious.

The only thing that should remain of the req system is to let you set your components to behave as if they were low-tier, just to see how they behave, or maybe stock night purposes.

Well, it's a part of an RPG, so it's expected. But, no, I don't think it's needed and it doesn't really help. In particular, it doesn't help GSF in its current state.

 

Leveling up typically allows new players to start with a subset of of the game and slowly expand, while going up against opponents that are in the same boat. GSF doesn't have a high enough population (partly due to having a huge RPG bundled with it; if an optional GSF-only client could be created then more people would likely be willing to try it) to support proper matchmaking. Too many new players are placed in matches against experienced teams. Also, there's no bolster equivalent to help out new players.

 

If new players can't reasonably be guaranteed to be facing off against opponents of their own skill level (not just equipment level), or at least have the option of doing so, then there needs to be some kind of compensation to help them out.

 

In addition, some of the starting equipment are traps. A new player is more likely to make poor choices by upgrading the starting equipment ("Oh, rapid-fire lasers are the default weapon? They must be the average weapon then. I'll just start there..."), which will just make it take even longer before they can get a good build ready.

 

Because req and unlocked ships are per-character, getting your personal hangar up to competitive standards (if you're playing against opponents at the same level, then you'll want your ships geared up the same) on a new server is, as pointed out, a grind. This hurts the community as a whole, as it makes visiting other servers a larger chore than it should be. If there was an easy way to transfer req or unlocks to other servers, that would help out. But that would only help out experienced pilots. The bigger problem is getting the pilots to stick around long enough to be experienced in the first place.

 

The grind can be fun sometimes. But, for me, that usually applies to single-player games. If your human opponents are at a similar level as you, then that helps out--but matchmaking applies even if everyone has all the same options.

 

Other F2P games typically allow players to trade money for time. They can gear up faster, but they shouldn't get anything that free players couldn't get over time.

 

GSF fails at this:

1. There's no good way to speed up the gearing process
   
2. Transferring ship req to fleet req is absurdly expensive
   
3. Cartel ships are absurdly expensive and very rarely on the GTN
   
4. Having a cartel ship allows a player to have 2 builds for the same ship type (particularly useful for the T2 scout), which is only possible by paying real money in one way or the other (rarely on the GTN, and even when they are, they are too expensive for a F2P player to be able to purchase)
   

 

Simply making the Cartel market more reasonably priced would help out. Particularly for subscribers that want to play on new servers. It would also help out newer players or other players with a few extra coins they're able to spend.

The only thing that should remain of the req system is to let you set your components to behave as if they were low-tier, just to see how they behave, or maybe stock night purposes.

 

I'm sorry but what is the point of this?

Stock night should be a random (rare) matchmaker option.

Stock night should be a random (rare) matchmaker option.

 

I feel like it'd just become as hated as denon pretty quickly.

I feel like it'd just become as hated as denon pretty quickly.

 

Well locking every out upgrade has effectively the same result as unlocking every upgrade when it comes to leveling the playing field in terms of gearing. I suppose it depends on how strict the definition of stock is. Only T1 strikes and scouts is a much more restrictive interpretation of stock than one that lets you have any ship and any component, but no upgrades on any component. Strikes and scouts only would get old fast, an any-ship and any component interpretation of stock might not be that bad. Depends partly on how appealing you think it is to see scouts taking a lot more torpedo hits than they do at full upgrades.

 

 

Anyhow, with the number of GSF achievements there are to grind if you want to grind things in GSF I don't really see a problem with throwing open all upgrades and all ships just by logging in. Or by charging 200 - 500 CC to unlock a ship and maybe 500 -700 to unlock all components in a legacy's hangar if they felt that they had to monetize it if they're offering an out for the grind. If they're not going to offer cool GSF stuff for CCs they might as well at least offer practical stuff.

 

Overall, if they're not doing anything useful gameplay-wise or income generation-wise with it then GSF requisition is pretty pointless.

 

If they went in there and changed the unlocking mechanics I wouldn't mind having the ability to un-equip upgrades on components. It'd be nice when trying to isolate GSF bugs.

 

So yeah. Making requisition perform a worthwhile game function or just getting rid of it are both better options than leaving it as it is now.

 

They could change the stock builds to drop all the trap components in the default builds while they were at it.

Tom, you're a genius! This is exactly what GSF needs to expand the player base. It will eliminate all the tedious gear complaints new (and old) players have.

 

Bioware devs: Make this a reality. Thanks.

The requisition system we have now is indeed not helpfull. I understand where it comes from but as others have already stated GSF works different compared to the ground game. Though I also think that some kind of progression can keep the interst for some people.

 

I'd say get rid of the ship requision system by giving us maxed components (and maybe rework it that way that we only have to choose were we can now and remove the stuff were choice is not possible by working it into the base components), but keep some sort of progression based on fleet coms for choosing different components (for a small price, though!) and buying new ships/crew. That way we still have to invest some time into the ships we want to fly but we don't get that difference between a stock ship and a mastered one that we have now.

 

On the other hand: Learning a certain load out by slowly building it helps to understand what your components do for you and how they behave in a combat scenario. Skill has to be developed, I think we can all agree on that.

The requisition system we have now is indeed not helpfull. I understand where it comes from but as others have already stated GSF works different compared to the ground game. Though I also think that some kind of progression can keep the interst for some people.

 

I'd say get rid of the ship requision system by giving us maxed components (and maybe rework it that way that we only have to choose were we can now and remove the stuff were choice is not possible by working it into the base components), but keep some sort of progression based on fleet coms for choosing different components (for a small price, though!) and buying new ships/crew. That way we still have to invest some time into the ships we want to fly but we don't get that difference between a stock ship and a mastered one that we have now.

 

On the other hand: Learning a certain load out by slowly building it helps to understand what your components do for you and how they behave in a combat scenario. Skill has to be developed, I think we can all agree on that.

 

I would agree with you on the learning process if it weren't for the fact there are so many trap components and builds.

 

If a system of requisition were required I'd recommend a call of duty/titanfall/battlefield approach where there's a list of default classes and then you can earn upgrades to create custom classes.

I wouldn't remove reuqisition just reduce requisition cost of everything by a factor of 5 - after all, the main reason gearing up in ground game takes so long is to artificially delay the gearing process, so PvPers don't have an advantage over PvEers. There should be a way to trade excess requisition for tokens and for those tokens you'd get gsf paintjobs, credit lockboxes, gsf related stuff (decorations, style-armors, ...) and, most important, useful gear for the ground game with around flashpoint quality stats (or the low pvp set). Want people to convert ship into fleet req? Reduce fleet req gains back to 1/10, as they were at the beginning and make the tokens cheaper when bought with fleet req. Edited July 21, 2015 by Danalon

I like this suggestion (no requisition) because it would make all kinds of events possible around the world. It would reinvigorate the game for experienced players without any real developer time attached to it.

 

Separate issue: Trap components should be buffed so that they are no longer trap components. Most of them can be fixed by simply increasing/decreasing a few constants, if only there was someone who could do that for us.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Ardaneb

do we really need a requisition system to add on to that?

 

Yes, I believe we do need a requisition system. Could it be reworked and still function properly within the game? Yes it could. At the end of the day this is still an MMO, catering to players who put in the time to advance themselves, both gear-wise as well as skill-wise. To take out gear advancement within this gametype would alienate a large percentage of the playerbase that derive their satisfaction from gear advancement. That being said, the gear curve has some pitfalls which should be fixed, however, as someone who has geared up 16 GSF toons to a reasonable level while being (mostly) preferred status, I do not think the amount of time it takes to get into a competitive state is unreasonable at this time.

 

In addition, I firmly believe that more non-gsf rewards should be offered for playing. Bioware did a great job with this by adding both fleet requisition and conquest points as a reward for playing. However, cosmetic items, guild flagship bonuses, or any other type of in-game reward would go a long way towards getting the rank and file into the ques.

Actually, we need the exact opposite. A sort of handicap system as in golf. During a Kill is a great achievement for new pilots, it is no longer for experienced players. And finally to individual performance will be assessed, do you?

Something like this: New pilots begin with ships on the highest level and with the ages more and more on the ships fails. Just as in real life too.

That would be interesting, but toons would get "played out" as stuff quit working, and we'd quit seeing them as soon as they lost some keystone ability like armor piercing or DF lock break.

That would be interesting, but toons would get "played out" as stuff quit working, and we'd quit seeing them as soon as they lost some keystone ability like armor piercing or DF lock break.

 

Unless you take that concept to its logical conclusion and make it that req is used to repair your components to bring them back to normal.

No, we don't need a requisition system now. I have 20 pilots with 50+ matches, and 15 of them have all 12 ships. I wouldn't say I enjoy the grind; it's just an unhealthy obsession.

 

The player-base could be classified in 3 groups.

 

Casual gamers: they can't deal with the skill gap and the gear gap as they perceive it.

 

Veteran RPGer: they may enjoy the building and upgrading, but it's been 1.5 years and most have already ticked most of the boxes in GSF.

 

Super-serious fliers: they don't need that gear grind for motivation and just want to group up and fly mastered ships against other groups.

 

How would they remove the requisition system though? Perhaps a new patch could just automatically unlock all ships, components, upgrades and crew members, and remove any saved daily or weekly tokens. Of course there has to be some compensations (non-unique ones, like credits, elite comms, crafting materials, etc.) for the requisitions the players already earned and spent or saved. Going forward, GSF battles should provide some other (unique or non-unique) rewards instead of requisitions and tokens.

Since it's a pure PvP game, definitely warzone coms.

Actually, we need the exact opposite. A sort of handicap system as in golf. During a Kill is a great achievement for new pilots, it is no longer for experienced players.

 

Experience points in offline, single-player RPGs are often distributed like this as well.

Edited July 26, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

Unless you take that concept to its logical conclusion and make it that req is used to repair your components to bring them back to normal.

 

Yes, and no.

 

To make it an interesting mechanic, it would have to be able to take capabilities away from your ship, and you would have to reasonably be able to keep your ship together. But this presents questions which don't normally show up in this game:

After a bunch of farmfests, you won't have the req to put your ship back together, especially if you're a newbie. It's easier just to reroll for a new one. I'd even go so far as to say it punishes newbies for playing the game. At the very worst, it would encourage stronger focus on KDR, especially if ship decay were based on how many times a player wrecked a ship.

Aces will tend not to have that problem at all, so the mechanism is just an annoyance.

 

Most of these details make the game less fun for most people.

Yes, and no.

 

To make it an interesting mechanic, it would have to be able to take capabilities away from your ship, and you would have to reasonably be able to keep your ship together. But this presents questions which don't normally show up in this game:

After a bunch of farmfests, you won't have the req to put your ship back together, especially if you're a newbie. It's easier just to reroll for a new one. I'd even go so far as to say it punishes newbies for playing the game. At the very worst, it would encourage stronger focus on KDR, especially if ship decay were based on how many times a player wrecked a ship.

Aces will tend not to have that problem at all, so the mechanism is just an annoyance.

 

Most of these details make the game less fun for most people.

 

Point. Maybe just have a large req pool tied to legacy? So new pilots won't have too much trouble getting their ship back up at maximum performance during the first 40-50 disasters. This might even allow them to introduce legacy hangers. Boost the daily ship req bonus that's available. Make the first 100 matches in a legacy have reduced ship decay.

 

In the end it's doable, they just have to be willing to cover the initial skill disadvantage rookies have and compensate for it.

I don't like the idea of handicapping in this way. If there is to be a handicap, it should be where stronger pilots/ships should be worth more points than weaker ships. This would have its own problems, of course. (e.g., pilots could hop in a new character and get lots of extra points shooting down mastered ships from weaker players, where they are a still few skill tiers apart.)

 

Another idea (though I do approve of ditching requisition altogether): If all components were already maxed out to start with, then requisition would just be used to unlock new components and ships. Basically, you're on even footing in that everything is "mastered", but you can customize your ships to your own style.

 

There are still downsides to this. Some starting components are subpar. Also, the requisition required to unlock new components would be much greater, so you'd have to tough it out with a subpar configuration even longer before you can get something that resembles your target build.

 

(Essentially, this isn't much different than a bolster, as starts are fairly equal except for available abilities..)

Edited July 27, 2015 by AgentRobP
additional clarification

I've heard these questions and read the complaints about the learning curve and new players are scared away...but...

I just buckled in and learned it. I read guides, played, died, killed, died some more, and learned.

 

I'm just now getting to the point where I can upgrade the components. Has it been frustrating? Yes but no more than PvP anywhere else.

 

I guess I also have experience some young players don't and that's PvP in Jump to Lightspeed which is more of a learning curve (IMO) than GSF.

 

But I guess I'm not a normal "new player to GSF" huh?

 

But I can see pros and cons to both sides.