I've been playing GSF since the start and it seems that parity is gone (at least on Star Forge) and it is no fun for either side. It is getting to the point where one side is so totally dominate that they are constantly hitting the other team at the respawn points. It is no fun on either side when a death match is 50-8 or 600-30 on domination. It is no fun to be on the losing side where you are getting hit just as you come off a respawn point (even in domination) and it's no fun when you are on the winning side because there are 3 or 4 pilots trying to hit the only ship that isn't dead. But that what it seems to be all the time and GSF is no fun anymore.

I understand that there are new pilots but they need to be kept engaged so they can learn and get better. It will be hard for them to stick with it so they can move up the learning curve when they are getting totally destroyed or can't get a kill on every match. Parity needs to be restored. GSF needs to be fun again.

I suggest PVP rules are implemented:

1) No groups

2) Teams are no longer faction specific (like on Odessen PVP)

3) Teams are selected by capability

I think this would restore parity, make the game fun again and hopefully get more new pilots in the game.

Thank you for your time.

(1) Would destroy the game for anyone that takes it seriously. There's also no precedent for this: ground pvp has groups. Every other game like this has groups. GSF is a group game. This idea is absolutely wretched.

(2) Is a reasonable idea.

(3) Wouldn't be bad, but there's no way to do it without a ranking system.

The existing system does try to group by experience and gear. But there's limits to what can be done there. During times with multiple games, it works ok-ish. If there's only one active game though...

I've been playing GSF since the start and it seems that parity is gone (at least on Star Forge) and it is no fun for either side. It is getting to the point where one side is so totally dominate that they are constantly hitting the other team at the respawn points. It is no fun on either side when a death match is 50-8 or 600-30 on domination. It is no fun to be on the losing side where you are getting hit just as you come off a respawn point (even in domination) and it's no fun when you are on the winning side because there are 3 or 4 pilots trying to hit the only ship that isn't dead. But that what it seems to be all the time and GSF is no fun anymore.

 

I understand that there are new pilots but they need to be kept engaged so they can learn and get better. It will be hard for them to stick with it so they can move up the learning curve when they are getting totally destroyed or can't get a kill on every match. Parity needs to be restored. GSF needs to be fun again.

 

I suggest PVP rules are implemented:

1) No groups

2) Teams are no longer faction specific (like on Odessen PVP)

3) Teams are selected by capability

 

I think this would restore parity, make the game fun again and hopefully get more new pilots in the game.

 

Thank you for your time.

Hi, who are you writing to? The devs don't read this forum (at least not most of the threads), but the community does.

And while we're here, let me direct you to another useful resource. This is the GSF Community Discord. https://discord.gg/wSyGSp

It's a good place to find some friends to group up with. There are many skilled pilots there who would be willing to help you if you are getting stomped and need a hand. I have toons on all of the English servers and would be happy to group with you or work with you to grow in your skill as a GSF pilot.

I understand that you're frustrated with getting stomped. I've been there. I agree that those games are no fun (whether I'm doing the stomping or someone else is stomping me). But your proposed solution will never be implemented. So, rather than expect the devs to do something to "restore" parity (there was never real, consistent parity - and there never will be), you should take action yourself.

Make some friends. This is an MMO. Fly with others. Hit us up in the discord. Check out players' videos (like mine) and Despon's GSF School on Youtube. Learn more about the game, and group up. These are the ways you're going to create a more enjoyable playing experience for yourself, not some futile hope that the devs will do anything.

Sorry if this was harsh, but it's reality.

PS - Drinking beer helps too. Looks like you've got that covered.

On Darth Malgus, if any of about 50 imp pilots are online, pubs may as well not bother.

Faction imbalance is a witch.

1) No groups

I'd say have solo queue, and group queue. Split it up, so you either queue for one or the other. Nobody wants to mix them into the same battle. The groups frequently piss off everyone else. Grouping shouldn't be forced on everybody in order to play without being annihilated every battle. And for the comment about it being in other games, the same problems exist in other games. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about it.

2) Teams are no longer faction specific (like on Odessen PVP)

Factions are kind of integral in GSF. Maybe you could implement that into some new maps, but not the ones which have great big capital ships shooting at each other. Maybe some way of just seeing people's ships as your faction's equivalent.

3) Teams are selected by capability

It would be nice to have some sort of skill based group division. However I think that randomizing mixed with my other two suggestions would eliminate the predictable outcomes somewhat. Some actual skill balance mechanism may or may not be better than true randomizing. It's hard to make one, and it's questionable whether there would be any improvement over random mixes. That said; when groups are mixed in with solo queue, there are never random mixes.

A big issue is the use of third party programs, which make it so that people can talk to each other when playing. On it's own this is a non-issue. However it creates a huge disparity in the overall power of a team, regardless of the skill of the individual pilots. The very fact that it is not universally used, makes it a cheat. Since there is no practical way to prevent people from using them, including a good communication system into the game itself would be a possible solution.

> I'd say have solo queue, and group queue. Split it up, so you either queue for one or the other.

Lol. It's a team game. If you can't find a team, you will be at a disadvantage compared to those who can. Doing what you talk about would destroy GSF, and make it into some solo queue nonsense.

> the same problems exist in other games

They aren't problems, they are good game design.

> The very fact that it is not universally used, makes it a cheat.

No, this is not what a cheat is. People in the same room is not cheating. People talking on ventrilo/mumble/discord is not cheating. Someone doing something you are not personally doing is not cheating.

1) No groups

This argument is about as old as online games themselves. I have talked about separating the queues before, although I have also discussed creating separate incentives for solo-queuing vs group queuing. I've argued that the rewards could be different for soloq because the risk of losing is higher when you queue by yourself. I've argued that for both ground unranked pvp and for GSF. Its been largely met with silence, and counter-arguments that creating any unbalanced incentive or separate queues would overall destroy the game, based largely on the hypothesis that the changes will be so unbalanced that even dedicated teams of GSF pilots would be forced to ungroup just to get a pop to happen. These counter arguments come from some people that I have some respect for, who group pvp in other games and formats, so I don't dismiss them as invalid simply because I don't agree with them. I'd like to think that the act of solo-queueing could be incentivized in such a way that it would not destroy groups, and I don't think the separation of queues or separate incentives would "destroy GSF." I think there is a spectrum of outcomes, hard to predict, but I will concede that a negative impact is possible. It would only work if the people in it for the incentives greatly outnumber the people in it for the team aspect. And, if you piss off the people in it for the team aspect, you will lose people that write guides, stream, do youtube videos ... you will lose a lot of the teachers this game has. It happened in the ground game: Hayete never finished his operation boss guide series, and countless other contributors and guide writers are long gone. I have yet to see teachers emerge yet in the wake of the loss of these community members. Dulfy has precious few post-5.6 advanced class guides up and there have been a lot of changes to the ground game (and discoveries about stats) since 5.0. I would hate to see that happen here in GSF.

2) Teams are no longer faction specific (like on Odessen PVP)

No, I think the engineering time to do this would be better spent elsewhere. I'd rather see Infiltrators developed, or a new game mode like an escort. Maybe its not as complicated as I think.

3) Teams are selected by capability

Yeah this is pretty tough. I mean, the game already does some matchmaking based on ship requisition. In another thread I discussed why making the pilot stats, such as kill/death ratio, legacy wide, would introduce a lag problem during the matchmaking, as the game tried to look up the stats of everyone's legacy. I guess it could base it on just the player's pilot stats, but then people could get around it by playing a new alt, since you can queue up for GSF from the moment you set foot in game at lil ol' level 1. And, people who group are sort of self-selected: they know that grouping and working together is advantageous, both from a queue priority as well as determining the outcome of the match. They already have a desire to optimize their performance. Its almost like they have the will to take the steps to improve their game, maximize their advantage over the competition. Hmm... Anyway, I usually solo queue and being on both sides of unbalanced matches, I would love to see something to improve matchmaking. But, I don't know what that would be short of creating an ELO system for GSF like there is for ground ranked pvp.

A big issue is the use of third party programs, which make it so that people can talk to each other when playing.

I remember when Sony Online Entertainment added that to all their MMORPGs including Star Wars Galaxies. It worked, but it was buggy and it lacked features which were important to guilds, and in the end most guilds gravitated away from it, at least in SWG. Its still alive in SOE (now Daybreak Games)' current portfolio including DCUO and the EQ games, so I presume its had updates, but who knows if it has the economy of Mumble, the feature set of Discord, the moddability of TeamSpeak. Because of its bugs, it never really solved the problem of people not communicating. You can't force a person to enable it, and you can't force a player to listen to what is being said even if you don't wish to talk or use a microphone. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it show up in this game, but I'd like to see some objective evidence that its integration into other MMORPGs is successful. Who knows if the Hero engine can even support it, at least the customized alpha version upon which BW built the game. To call it cheating, though, is kinda sour apples on your part. The Devs have been crystal clear they don't consider it an exploit. More importantly, the GSF Discord has open voice channels, and the GSF Discord is open, and Discord is free, so you kinda don't have any excuse.

I have talked about separating the queues before, although I have also discussed creating separate incentives for solo-queuing vs group queuing. I've argued that the rewards could be different for soloq because the risk of losing is higher when you queue by yourself. I've argued that for both ground unranked pvp and for GSF. Its been largely met with silence, and counter-arguments that creating any unbalanced incentive or separate queues would overall destroy the game, based largely on the hypothesis that the changes will be so unbalanced that even dedicated teams of GSF pilots would be forced to ungroup just to get a pop to happen. These counter arguments come from some people that I have some respect for, who group pvp in other games and formats, so I don't dismiss them as invalid simply because I don't agree with them. I'd like to think that the act of solo-queueing could be incentivized in such a way that it would not destroy groups, and I don't think the separation of queues or separate incentives would "destroy GSF."

You've got it backwards Phalczen. If there's any sort of working automatic solo queue system then solo queuing does not need to be incentivized at all, because that's the choice most people will go for. What needs incentives is for more people to group. This isn't just in GSF, or even just in SWTOR, it's in most western style MMORPGs, and even in genres like RTS, MOBA, and FPS games.

Grouping has costs: you have to seek out people to group with, you have to socialize with a bunch of strangers, you have to socialize well enough that they'll be willing to group with you again, you have to do all this coordination at a time when members of your preferred group are available, etc. It's a hassle in some respects.

It works for raiding at high level because the encounters are designed so the lack of a coordinated team pretty much guarantees failure. Raiders team up because the game forces them to.

Compare to PvP, where unranked is more populated than ranked which is more populated than team ranked. There's matchmaking, so in theory at least, the difficulty should be about the same in all as you're being matched against opponent groups of similar competence. However, the game doesn't really force you to group, and though the rewards are greatest for coordinated groups, they're not great enough to motivate more than a tiny fraction of players into actual coordinated group competitive play.

If you want to incentivize enough on the "follow the loot" model of player motivation, you have to bribe people to group up with really extravagant rewards to make grouping the norm if the gameplay doesn't force grouping. When I say extravagant, I mean that every experienced player would tell a new player, "you have to be ignorant or insane to solo queue." I'm not sure if a 10:1 reward ratio would be enough to motivate people to group rather than solo queue, even if you changed the UI and queuing process so that solo queue was an opt-in choice rather than the default.

If solo queuing required incentives then you'd expect most people in the queue to be queuing as groups, not that the overwhelming majority of the queue is solo queuers.

Balance via bribery won't happen though I think, because you'd have to shovel SO MUCH loot at the group queue in order to increase grouping that it would be outrageously unfair.

I'm sure one could design to push people into grouping as the normal choice, but SWTOR very much does not do that.

You've got it backwards Phalczen. If there's any sort of working automatic solo queue system then solo queuing does not need to be incentivized at all, because that's the choice most people will go for. What needs incentives is for more people to group. This isn't just in GSF, or even just in SWTOR, it's in most western style MMORPGs, and even in genres like RTS, MOBA, and FPS games.

Eh, I dunno. Its certainly quicker to queue solo, you just click on a button in the UI. That doesn't mean that I, with thousands of games under his belt, doesn't know that his odds of victory increase just by grouping.

And grouping is widely believed to be successful. I mean, there wouldn't be tons of people on forums of all sorts of games complaining about groups rolling all over them if it didn't result in victory, right? So, if even relatively novice players come to this conclusion, it stands to reason the "reward" or "incentive" to group is the higher likelihood of victory. But I get what you, and others are saying. Still, Verain, for example, doesn't group up for the CXP. I mean his Sentinel has a complete set of 248 gear min-maxed, but that's more for its comedic value than its value for the ground game. Drak takes pride in the fact he's got hundreds of command crates he's never opened. It seems to me that you dangle the carrot of "CXP" gains in front of the non-GSF player and when he/she is intimidated by the roflstomping by premadess, you remind them that they get more CXP for solo-queuing. Then, hopefully, they stick with it long enough to ultimately decide if they want to truly learn it, and be victorious doing so, or if it remains just another way to earn CXP. Its no different than offering unassembled tokens, or role-in-need rewards, from entering group finder for raids. The hope is that people get into operations, or get into different trinity roles, and then find they enjoy it, and the number of raiders, or the number of tanks, increase. But we can go 'round and 'round on this topic and we will never see eye to eye on this. Its not worth belaboring, since we both agree that banning groups entirely, or only allowing solo-queuing, is bad in any form.

Why pick and quote my quotes? I'm not the original poster of the quotes I quoted. I just didn't want to mark my quotes as quotes, so now my quotes are quoted quotes. Mocking my suggestions doesn't really help. Critiquing them, and offering other ideas does. I'm not saying that people aren't. I've seen good ones. This is just for those who would rather say no no no, rather than thinking up ideas.

Anyway. People are quoting me out of context, without taking into account what I actually said. Regardless of what you feel things should be, the queue dies every night as soon as a certain group shows up. This is not something of a matter of opinion, but it's something supported by empirical evidence. There is no opposing group that they play against, and they don't make any effort to balance out the matches. All this behavior about you should do this or that to stay competitive, is just people trying to be elitist. Which is a vulgar behavior in any culture.

All of this is a moot point anyway. The reality is that people stop queuing, rather than form groups to challenge an overwhelming group. If an unopposed group will not split up and form multiple groups to challenge each other, they deserve the dead queues which they wrought.

It was a pretty fun stream.

I'd love to see it. People love those crate opening videos.

Why pick and quote my quotes? I'm not the original poster of the quotes I quoted. I just didn't want to mark my quotes as quotes, so now my quotes are quoted quotes. Mocking my suggestions doesn't really help.

I responded to your post because you echo sentiments I've read on the forums here before, not just in this thread, and I was particularly taken aback by your unfounded claim that voice comms are cheating. Now, people should be respectful during discussions. But this is the internet, so you're going to have to put your grown up pants on and maybe even some hip waders and get ready to dive into the muck and hope you come out with something of value.

There was a neighborhood with children who like to play American football. They pretty much know all the official NFL rules and such. The township decides to build one park with a football field and goalposts and maintain it. There are 22 kids that regularly play in the neighborhood, so there are enough kids for a game. They're all largely busy through the week so they tend to play on Sundays.

However, 11 of those kids are on the local junior high team. They're bigger and stronger. They've practiced for a few years, they've read play-books and been given advice by coaches. They work well together. We will call them team A.

The other 11 kids, well, they enjoy playing football, but they aren't part of a team. They have other things they enjoy maybe, other after school activities, so they don't want to join the team. Maybe their parents don't have the money to buy them equipment. But, they still want to play. Let's call them team B.

Of course, team A, with better physical abilities, knowledge of how to run plays, and a history of teamwork, roflstomps team B. Often times, when the kids on team B see the kids from team A coming up to the field, they just leave the field. Team B isn't having any fun, so they complain to their parents who then complain to the township to do something. And when team B runs off and goes home, the kids on team A don't have any fun either.

Some would argue that Team A should be forced to divide their players up so that both teams have some good players and some less talented people. A redistribution of wealth, as it were.

Some would argue its up to the people in Team B to watch videos of football plays online, exercise more to strengthen up, and work together with their teammates throughout the week to be better coordinated, practice plays, etc. A model of adult learning and self-improvement, as it were.

Some would argue the township should build another football field, so that the players in Team A can play as a group and the players in team B can play the way they want. Of course, there are only 22 kids in the neighborhood that regularly play. Now, a few other kids in the community hear that the roflstomping won't continue because the teams are separated, so 2 or 3 kids join the B group, but that's still not enough for a full match. Furthermore, building another football field will take away from other areas of the playground.

Others would argue that the businesses in town should provide some prizes for the people who play in team B, like a coupon for a meal at the local diner. Maybe more kids come out, and a larger pool of kids are playing football and having fun. Or, maybe the kids in team A leave for team B because they want the coupons, and team A kids no longer have enough people to play.

Those are some decent analogies, if you were talking about groups only. But that's ignoring that solo queue is a option, and most defiantly should be. It's like putting two teams from similar spots together, without any kind of streamlining to make it work.

I'm sure someone will probably take this out of context, since that seems to be the recurring theme. The queue is fake, and plays favorites. Groups skip ahead in line, regardless of how long someone who is queued solo has been waiting. But telling people they have to queue group, get skipped in the queue, or get destroyed takes that option away. Nothing I have brought up is anti-group, or anti-solo. Yet it seems that people have taken it that way. I'd like both options to be viable. There are group pilots, and there are solo pilots. There are some that are interested in both, and just want to have a choice. That's where I fit.

What I said about third party programs has been taken out of context to. That fits into that sports analogy like one team using aluminum bats, and the other team using wooden bats. The team with aluminum bats will be able to hit the ball farther, with respect to equally skilled batters. If both teams are using wooden bats, or aluminum bats there is no problem. It's when you have a disparity in what is available, that's when the cheat arises.

The queue is fake, and plays favorites. Groups skip ahead in line, regardless of how long someone who is queued solo has been waiting. But telling people they have to queue group, get skipped in the queue, or get destroyed takes that option away.

Despon, a frequent contributor to these forums, a teacher/content creator for GSF on YouTube, and a good pilot, often solo-queues. He's often proposed a custom match lobby to allow people to create their own type of matches, whether it be gunship-free matches or 4v4 teams, or whatever. Other pilots have said a group ranked GSF queue would be welcome. Neither of those suggestions are mutually exclusive either ... both would be met with applause. However, most people are concerned that the playerbase size prohibits separation of the queues.

But let's talk about your "getting destroyed" allegation. How exactly would you normalize the solo-queuing experience to ensure solo pilots had a chance to win? You can't do it by overpowering any one ship to be a carry ship: we had that to some extent 5.5 and it didn't work anyway, because when you make a ship OP its gonna be devastating in the hands of experienced pilots on a team.

Would you give that side a handicap? Like enable cap ship turrets for the side with more solo-queuers in TDM? Seems easily exploitable to me.

Would you prohibit two groups that had been queued up from being on the same 8-person team when the match pops? You have to go back to the number 1 concern stated very often by the developers. Their #1 concern is pop frequency. Everything they do has to take into account what it will do to the frequency of pops. This is true for ground pvp, flashpoints, and GSF. Players don't like waiting around. So any solution you propose has to result in a neutral or positive effect on pop frequency.

It's when you have a disparity in what is available, that's when the cheat arises.

As I said before, the GSF Discord has open voice channels, is free to download/install/use on both smart phones and PCs, and is well publicized to everyone. There is no disparity other than individual choice. I think you care enough to make thoughtful posts, but if you continue to insist that voice comms are cheating, I'm not sure we can have a reasonable discussion.

Please explain this open voice discord thing? I don't think it's as publicized as well as you think. At least not in game. Every once in awhile I see someone tell people in matches about /cjoin gsf, but perhaps only during operations have I seen mention of a voice thing. If it's of value please talk about it in game, as I'm probably not the only one to play a lot and not watch forums. Is it set up so solo queued people can easily form a radio frequency within the minute they have before starting? You've piqued my curiosity.

I don't think ship balance is really an issue. They all seem to be pretty good. Perhaps there can be some tweaking to this or that, but for the most part it seems ok. I do like those ideas that were mentioned though. I think the player base is there. Look what happened right after the server merges. Lots of people queued up, all through the day, and night alike. I think there are more bad things pushing people away, than good things retaining or attracting people. Some refinement in matching what people want to queue for, to what they actually get put into couldn't hurt.

Please explain this open voice discord thing? I don't think it's as publicized as well as you think. At least not in game. Every once in awhile I see someone tell people in matches about /cjoin gsf, but perhaps only during operations have I seen mention of a voice thing. If it's of value please talk about it in game, as I'm probably not the only one to play a lot and not watch forums. Is it set up so solo queued people can easily form a radio frequency within the minute they have before starting? You've piqued my curiosity.

 

I don't think ship balance is really an issue. They all seem to be pretty good. Perhaps there can be some tweaking to this or that, but for the most part it seems ok. I do like those ideas that were mentioned though. I think the player base is there. Look what happened right after the server merges. Lots of people queued up, all through the day, and night alike. I think there are more bad things pushing people away, than good things retaining or attracting people. Some refinement in matching what people want to queue for, to what they actually get put into couldn't hurt.

First of all, I'm getting the distinct impression that you have no idea what Discord is. This should help:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=discord

There's a link in my signature (and unlike the one earlier in the thread, this one doesn't expire). It's pretty easy for groups to decide on a channel to use at the start of the match. As you can see, they're laid out pretty clearly.

Interesting. I'm just seeing a bunch of empty channels, so I guess I'm doing something wrong. Is there any forum threads about this? It's kind of going off topic, and I'd like to learn more without distracting from it.

I don't think you're going that far off-topic at all. What do you mean you're seeing a bunch of empty channels? If the voice channels are empty, it's because no one is using them at the time. The unfortunate reality is that 99% of the time they stay empty, but the resource is there for anyone to use.

The text channels are in almost constant use any time of day honestly.

The Discord voice channels are available for anyone, and someone looking to pick up a group will be able to find a spot in there without any clashing. I do agree that it is odd that people don't use them more often for this.

Well everyone that habitually uses voice is generally already in their own: Discord/TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble/Skype or miscellaneous other VOIP.

For everyone who only situationally uses VOIP, sure the channels might get used during a community organized GSF event where they're very handy, but they're hardly needed to crush a random team.

Touching back on sports comparisons, an MLB allstar player doesn't need an aluminium bat as an advantage. The T-ball kids are so busy dropping their bats and running away from 90+ m.p.h, fastballs that a cracked piece of 2x4 from a construction site waste bin will more than do the job.

There's a good point to be made about advertising the Discord in the game's chat in matches though. The people who could really benefit from the GSF Discord are the mediocre pilots that don't know that it exists. If there are only 1 or 2 high skill players, making at team effort to keep 3 to 4 people (especially these days people with proton torpedoes) on them can do a lot to even the odds a bit, especially in TDM.