Bioware,

As it stands, GSF is a miserable experience for anyone who's new or not in a fully mastered ship. There is no matchmaking and no bolster system in place, which results in brutally lopsided games. The entry barrier is also too high. New players who are simply trying to figure out how to fly their ship and how ships function are obliterated before they have the chance to learn anything and are ultimately discouraged from returning. Overall, it's a very cool concept but one of the worst PvP experiences in my 20+ years of gaming.

That said, I think it's your responsibility to either make GSF a more fair and fun experience for all who choose to explore that aspect of the game, or just shut it down to preserve the integrity of SWTOR. Since I'd rather see it fixed than removed, I have some suggestions for ways you can accomplish that.

Matchmaking

There needs to be a matchmaking system so that new players in stock ships aren't thrown up against veteran players in fully mastered ships. I realize that the lack of players participating in GSF on most servers doesn't make this feasible, which is why you need to implement cross-server matchmaking. Yes, I've read your response to this in the past where you said your current server architecture won't support it. I also happen to work in the software industry, and I know that it's possible to re-architect your servers to support this, just as Trion did with Rift, but you choose not to because of the cost. I suggest you re-evaluate that decision. Many of the problems with PvP in your game, WZs included, would be solved with cross-server matchmaking. The problem isn't going away, and will continue to handicap your development in these areas to the detriment of the game.

Bolster

Add a bolster system to GSF. In the absence of matchmaking, the least upgraded ship in the match should be able to compete on some level with the most upgraded ship. You cannot reasonably expect a good player experience otherwise. (And the perverse enjoyment of some of the veteran players who derive pleasure from farming the noob players who don't have a chance against them isn't a valid consideration.)

Requisition

The Imps on my server lose 70% of our matches. That's not anecdotal. In many of those losses, we're getting utterly slaughtered and farmed. On average, I make 1/10 the Requisition that the Pubs do, which results in greater competitive disparity. Players in disadvantaged ships (i.e. ships that are not as upgraded as their opponents) should receive a Requisition bonus to help offset those losses. The greater the disparity between stock ships and upgraded ships, the greater the bonus should be. This helps the newer players catch up faster and provides some measure of incentive for continuing to queue up for loss after loss after loss.

BLC (burst laser cannons)

This weapon is not balanced and needs to be adjusted. Nearly every ship I see on the enemy team has them, and with fully upgraded BLCs + Overcharged Blasters, they are literally killing other ships in 2-3 seconds. When the TTK on BLCs is faster than a fully upgraded slug rail gun with 100% armor penetration, that's a problem. My recommendation would be to halve the armor penetration on BLCs to 50%, or remove the armor pen completely and replace it with something else.

Domination

On my server, the Pubs often spawn camp us during death matches, such as planting mines/drones at our spawn points. The capital ships need to defend players at their spawn points just as they do on the capture (satellite) matches. This would stop that behavior and would give the underdog team at least a chance to get out of their spawn points.

Ship Upgrades

I've added this suggestion from another player that I felt should be included here.

One big help would just make your unlocks 'Legacy' wide. So that as you unlock stuff any one of your characters who play in GSF can use the unlocked equipment. You would still have to unlock things on both sides (Imp/Pub) but I know that in a game that really encourages making alts more than past MMO's part of the issue with GSF and why so few play it is because if you are on an alt you have ridiculous, unnecessary, progression to go through before you are competitive. As its a side game, there is no reason to have it as a per character progression.

I really hope you take to heart some of these suggestions and act on them, as I know I'm not the first to make some of these. As I said earlier, I really like the concept of GSF and it could be a fantastic addition to the PvP aspect of your game, but it needs some serious attention. If you don't have the intention or desire to address it, then I strongly recommend you remove it from the game completely.

Thanks for your time.

Bolster doesn't work for ground PvP, why would it work in space?

I hear you, GSF on a new toon with new ships is just nuts when fighting geared ships...

I used 2x XP to roll a new toon and with it, new GSF. Since GSF isn't legacy based (really, why not, it should be), I got to have the fun of being killed all over again.

No, I don't need to L2P, I do very well on my geared toons, but with a fresh ship my skill isn't enough to overcome the gearing. Gunships can one shot my new scout, they can't do that to an upgraded scout.

^ The above being said, don't expect anything, GSF has been abandoned in place, just like the PvE on-rails space game which will never see another update.

They had plans for another ship type for GSF, another role. But GSF isn't played enough, so they have moved on to other things. GSF accomplishes a "check the box feature" and that is it now.

It more that likely has been abandoned but what the hell.

In JTL I learned how to fly through pve missions. That gave me the experience I needed to learn the systems and how to be effective before ever jumping into pvp. I would suggest Bioware create a small pve series to teach the mechanics before throwing people together.

I would suggest Bioware create a small pve series to teach the mechanics before throwing people together.

So would everyone else, but it clearly isn't going to happen...

One big help would just make your unlocks 'Legacy' wide. So that as you unlock stuff any one of your characters who play in GSF can use the unlocked equipment.

You would still have to unlock things on both sides (Imp/Pub) but I know that in a game that really encourages making alts more than past MMO's part of the issue with GSF and why so few play it is because if you are on an alt you have ridiculous, unnecessary, progression to go through before you are competitive.

As its a side game, there is no reason to have it as a per character progression.

Rempoving that would likely mean more people participate and more fun is to be had by everyone.

It more that likely has been abandoned but what the hell.

 

In JTL I learned how to fly through pve missions. That gave me the experience I needed to learn the systems and how to be effective before ever jumping into pvp. I would suggest Bioware create a small pve series to teach the mechanics before throwing people together.

This right here. The five minute tutorial is not enough to teach players how to track moving targets, how to look for enemies and remember their locations or rudimentary dogfighting basics. Capping points and shooting at stationary targets is a small part of GSF.

It more that likely has been abandoned....

Bioware needs to confirm or deny this. If it's true, they need to remove GSF from the game and repurpose those servers. Certainly no one is forcing us to queue up for it and we can avoid it, but new players don't know better as there is no warning about how awful it is. And in fact, I see many of those new players quit a few minutes into the match, which of course exacerbates the unfairness of the matches.

It's been suggested to me that I should move servers to one where GSF is more active and the matches are more fair. That's not a viable solution for me and most others because of the friends that we have on our current servers, which for many of us is a big part of the reason why we play this game. It's simply not acceptable to suggest that the players should bear that burden and migrate servers just to find reasonably fair matches. The responsibility to fix GSF rests with Bioware, not us.

The whole thing is a giant, gaping black hole that sucks the fun out of an otherwise enjoyable game. As I said in my original post, it's the worst PvP experience I've had in 20+ years of gaming across dozens of FPS and MMO games. Perhaps if a spotlight was placed on GSF and it received some negative press, Bioware might pay more attention to it. I'll see what I can do there.

Bioware needs to confirm or deny this.

They did... you just have to be willing to real corporate speak...

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=738432

"Unfortunately, that ship role has been pushed out indefinitely. Not to say it is impossible to be brought in at a future date, but it has been pushed off of our current roadmap."

It is done, finished, never to be touched again. That was written a year ago.

If it's true, they need to remove GSF from the game and repurpose those servers.

That isn't going to happen either...

They did... you just have to be willing to real corporate speak...

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=738432

 

"Unfortunately, that ship role has been pushed out indefinitely. Not to say it is impossible to be brought in at a future date, but it has been pushed off of our current roadmap."

 

It is done, finished, never to be touched again. That was written a year ago.

 

Apparently you stopped reading after the first paragraph. Later, he says, "...but we want you to know we are still dedicated to expanding GSF, like all of our game systems."

That to me doesn't say they've written it off completely, though the lack of any improvements, or at the very least, not addressing some of the very obvious problems with GSF since it was introduced seems to suggest that they've forgotten about it for now. Perhaps they just need some reminding.

Apparently you stopped reading after the first paragraph. Later, he says, "...but we want you to know we are still dedicated to expanding GSF, like all of our game systems."

 

That to me doesn't say they've written it off completely, though the lack of any improvements, or at the very least, not addressing some of the very obvious problems with GSF since it was introduced seems to suggest that they've forgotten about it for now. Perhaps they just need some reminding.

That is corporate speak.

It has been a year since GSF was touched, it isn't on the 2015 roadmap either...

By all means, remind away, I actually enjoy GSF, but I'm realistic about these things...

..... I actually enjoy GSF .....

Finding GSF enjoyable is the opposite expression from how new players describe their experience. The only players that seem to actually enjoy GSF are the ones on fully mastered ships who are content to farm the new players in stock ships who pose little or no resistance to them. The impression I get is that these are the same players who don't really care if the game is fair or fun for anyone else because they're already at the apex of ship upgrades.

As for "corporate speak", I'm more than familiar with it, and while I'll agree it appears they've forgotten or are even ignoring GSF, I think you're misinterpreting what was said in Eric's response and that eventually they'll revisit it. Likely long after most of us have quit and moved on. Though that begs a bigger question: What's the point of a suggestion box if they aren't going to listen and implement any of the (good) suggested changes that are warranted and in some cases, needed? I think most would agree that a little bit of love would go a long way to making GSF more attractive and popular to players.

The first thing that turned me off of GSF was when I found out it was PvP only. I can understand this because of the AI that would have to be written to compensate but, this is a guess, there are a ton of players like me. I was hoping for the old X-Wing and Tie Fighter game experience (or close to it) and was really looking for a squadron style of campaign with all the bells and whistles of the grounded class story arcs. Needless to say, I was severely disappointed and never had the motivation to try it at that point.

Compound this with all the bugs in the beginning then the severe new player difficulties, and I'm sure many others were turned off as well. If all this was attended to, I'm sure there would be a mass explosion of new GSF players, me included.

I tried GSF during early access and surprised myself by loving it. At the time I had 8 characters and they all did enough matches for the Weekly. It was the only PVP I'd done since Zek servers in the '99-'03 Everquest heyday.

I'm objective oriented and got the Domination match achievements for Defending more than 8 minutes and for capturing 3 satellites in 1 match and such. Low kills/damage but assists through the roof as I herded enemies into the "killzones" and returned to my defending/capturing. Dogfighting was not my thing.

I was interested in Bombers BUT... I only queued once post official release because with Bombers came Deathmatch. I have 0 interest in Deathmatch and would likely be a detriment my team. I won't be "good" if I don't want to play. So I stopped playing.

Give me a checkmark to never be entered into Deathmatch arenas, or a checkmark to only play Domination matches and I would start playing again in a heartbeat. As long as it may put me into a match I have no interest in, then I have no interest in any matches.

YMMV.

Bolster doesn't work for ground PvP, why would it work in space?

 

I hear you, GSF on a new toon with new ships is just nuts when fighting geared ships...

 

I used 2x XP to roll a new toon and with it, new GSF. Since GSF isn't legacy based (really, why not, it should be), I got to have the fun of being killed all over again.

 

No, I don't need to L2P, I do very well on my geared toons, but with a fresh ship my skill isn't enough to overcome the gearing. Gunships can one shot my new scout, they can't do that to an upgraded scout.

GSF isnt legacy because rep and imp ships are very different ny upgrate parts and abilities

I'm a new player, been here just over a month now, and when I first started, I gave GSF a whirl (Why not, I picked up the weekly mission for it) and... I got obliterated. Totally. Utterly. Constant one-shots from people I never even saw. So I played it again. Same result. Packed it in completely... Till yesterday. Figured I'd give it another whirl, and as I'd learnt that the one-shotters were in gunships, I spent every last bit of GSF currency I'd picked up from completing the first weekly (Or possibly daily - Play GSF twice) on buying a Gunship. Started up and... Got obliterated. BUT! this time I managed to at least hit something! Once...

Anyway, fast-forward a few matches, and whilst I'm still in the stock Gunship (A Condor?) I actually manage a few (well a couple of) kills each match. No wins and a depressing number of deaths, but my progression from complete blithering amateur to pathetically unskilled amateur is clear. I'm slowly but surely getting to grips with it

But that first experience put me off for a month. It was simply utterly pointless. I was a complete liability to the team, though no-one said anything... Other than one match where some high-and-mighty little so-and-so said 'Pfeh! This crappy team ain't worth my time'. It was only on a whim I decided to give it another go, and was lucky enough to have gathered enough pennies to pick up a new ship.

On another note, is it common for teams that start to lose to just start committing suicide as soon as they spawn to get the humiliation over with quickly? I saw that once or twice and found it to be... Pathetic. (This was on The Progenitor EU server).

... So ultimately, my suggestion here would be to give starter ships a fairly significant boost, at least for the first couple of matches, or instead grant a big pile of relevant currency prior to the first match to either pick up a new ship immediately, or partially kit one out to the extent its not a flying coffin.

So you actually ask to get a mid cap ship ready in some runs,

Well i need that too in pvp armor set too. Bored to run so many WZ to get 1 pvp part and die so many times.

not to mention that arent expertise starter set so WZ pvp is harder to ladder than GSF, trust me ive capped all republic and imperial ships last year, and i know what time need to upgrate a ship (better say ships) since ONLY in GSF the points you aquarie after daily / weekly are going to ALL your UNLOCKED ships.

something that isnt happend in pvp ground. (to can buy dps and tank / healer set at once

So you actually ask to get a mid cap ship ready in some runs,

Well i need that too in pvp armor set too. Bored to run so many WZ to get 1 pvp part and die so many times.

 

not to mention that arent expertise starter set so WZ pvp is harder to ladder than GSF, trust me ive capped all republic and imperial ships last year, and i know what time need to upgrate a ship (better say ships) since ONLY in GSF the points you aquarie after daily / weekly are going to ALL your UNLOCKED ships.

something that isnt happend in pvp ground. (to can buy dps and tank / healer set at once

No. What I'm asking for, is that starter ships survive more than 5 seconds, and are not just flown straight into asteroids to get the game over with so you can cash out and grab the paltry number of requisitions ad nauseum until you can afford something that can actually do something constructive. PVP, is slower paced, so a tank or healer no matter how poorly equipped can do a smidgeon of good immediately, and DPS can tag along with someone else and attack their targets.

Hell, just granting a gunship as a starter ship would help - As I said in my earlier post, I was able to vaguely contribute as soon as I switched to one. Tripling the HP of ALL ships, would probably also do it - It'd give newcomers a chance to live long enough to start to understand just what is going on, but that solution would probably cause a lot of people to scream bloody murder.

In comparison to ground PVP, if you wear the sub par PvE gear, you get bolstered with expertise so you aren't a complete liability to your team, so why not do the same for a sub-par ship?.

(Sorry for the disjointed nature of this post, I wrote it whilst slogging through the near-final parts of Belsavis).

Ok, while I feel your pain and agree whole-heartedly that the tutorial lacks a lot and matchmaker is a mess. That's no reason to call for an end to a game feature a lot of people apart from you enjoy. GSF is a pvp mini-game within an mmo and like ANY pvp game, there's a steep learning curve and a lot of game factors to take into account but it would be the same as any pvp game out there. You couldn't just join Battlefield 4, pick up a rifle and expect to compete with fully geared players who've been playing for the past year that know the maps, have the best gear and play well together and just like GSF, if you sit out in the open you'll get 1-shotted by snipers.

If you truly want to enjoy the game, any pvp game, you have to do a bit of research. You have to read beginner guides, ship play-styles, good and bad components, tactics etc etc. there's an abundance of stuff on the forums. Just as there is on BF4's forums. These games aren't Frogger or Angry Birds, they're sophisticated and multi-dimensional. You just can't grab a controller and play. Research & practise, determination & up-grading are all necessary. On any new game I start I head right to the forums and research as I'm playing. What rifles are good, do grenades suck? Is armor worth upgrading? What's my preferred play-style? Do I want to be quick and hard to hit? Or slow and deadly from a distance? Or tanky with low damage? This is pretty much fundamental in any pvp game nowadays.

If the game is severely frustrating to you but if you want to keep hammering at it then at the very least you could just run dailies & weeklies. Anyone can run 1 or 2 matches a day without raging. So many new players focus on offence because they wanna be stone cold killers then cry they get killed. You should be focusing on defence, get your missile breaks, get your evasion up, learn the maps, learn how to LoS against gunships, learn to support and defend. You get way more pts as a new player defending a satellite then you would chasing enemy fighters all over the map. Shooting 2 defence turrets & defending a sat for 4 mins will net you like 800pts. I'll take a sat in 20secs and ask noobs to come defend it but no one does, they'd sooner chase an evasion scout all over the map like a space-tard and earn 300pts then complain about it. BW put shipyards with indestructible ray shields on lost shipyards, no one uses it, it makes a great base to work out of. Put a repair probe in there and LoS behind the shields. In TDM why not hang back and cover your gunships? Those are jobs noobs should be doing, instead, they run all over space dying and crying.

PS - I literally just got 1775 req killing 2 bombers and babysitting a sat while writing this, plus we won the match so that's like 4000req without even trying.

PS - I literally just got 1775 req killing 2 bombers and babysitting a sat while writing this, plus we won the match so that's like 4000req without even trying.

I just ran it, was mid-board with two assists and no kills, and for 5 minutes or so's play, picked up 300 req, so...

Just add a third tier of requisition - legacy requisition. Or Faction, at least.

A small fraction of the other two requisitions. Slowly but surely, your alts could benefit from your top pilot toon.

Or, make it possible to exchange requisitions for legacy requisition just in the way you can exchange warzone comms for ranked warzone comms (why not keep the threshold, even, before you get to swap those).

So you get to improve your alts, and at the same time are not adding too much discrepancy into the game as opposed to beginners that would be even more overwhelmed.

Ok, while I feel your pain and agree whole-heartedly that the tutorial lacks a lot and matchmaker is a mess. That's no reason to call for an end to a game feature a lot of people apart from you enjoy. GSF is a pvp mini-game within an mmo and like ANY pvp game, there's a steep learning curve and a lot of game factors to take into account but it would be the same as any pvp game out there. You couldn't just join Battlefield 4, pick up a rifle and expect to compete with fully geared players who've been playing for the past year that know the maps, have the best gear and play well together and just like GSF, if you sit out in the open you'll get 1-shotted by snipers.

I'm not sure if you're referring to the original suggestions, or to one of the replies to it, but I didn't post about my relative skill, ship upgrades, or experience because it's not really relevant. The suggestions pertain to balance issues that affect everyone who's starting out in GSF, and to a lesser degree, the veterans who've been playing GSF since day one.

As to your point, I don't expect new players in stock ships to be bolstered to the point that they out-perform vets in mastered ships (e.g. the broken WZ bolster when the Hutt expansion came out 2 years ago). RIFT (Trion games) had the exact same problem with their PvP. They originally had 6 tiers of PvP gear (I believe it's up to 10 tiers now), and players in Tier 1 gear would get thrown into matches against players in Tier 6 gear. You can guess how that went. Needless to say, it was a miserable experience for new players. They eventually fixed the problem by implementing a cross-server queue system that matched players by tier, so that Tier 1-2 would never get matched against Tier 5-6. The result was that it fixed a lot of the issues with their PvP, such as queue times and grossly unfair matches because it attracted more players to PvP. However, Bioware has said that they don't have the server architecture/infrastructure to support cross-server matchmaking (and make no mistake, it's not that they can't do it, it's that they don't want to spend the money to do it). Without cross-server matchmaking, they need to look at other solutions to give new players a chance to contribute and compete. They need to make it FUN for new players so that they might actually stick around and queue up for another game instead of rage quitting like I see so many do each and every match.

If you truly want to enjoy the game, any pvp game, you have to do a bit of research. You have to read beginner guides, ship play-styles, good and bad components, tactics etc etc. there's an abundance of stuff on the forums. Just as there is on BF4's forums. These games aren't Frogger or Angry Birds, they're sophisticated and multi-dimensional. You just can't grab a controller and play. Research & practise, determination & up-grading are all necessary. On any new game I start I head right to the forums and research as I'm playing. What rifles are good, do grenades suck? Is armor worth upgrading? What's my preferred play-style? Do I want to be quick and hard to hit? Or slow and deadly from a distance? Or tanky with low damage? This is pretty much fundamental in any pvp game nowadays.

While I can't speak for everyone, I've done a lot of reading and research on GSF since I started playing. I've posted questions on the GSF forum and have watched a couple of player-made tutorial videos. None of that has had any significant impact on the outcome of my matches. While I certainly understand how to pilot my ships better, how to play toward the objectives, and how to upgrade my ships, it's not enough to overcome the advantages that the other faction has when it comes to their ships and their veteran players who tend to queue up constantly. On my side of the fence, at least half or more of the team in any given match are completely new, have likely done little or no research into how GSF works, and are on stock ships. So at least in this thread, your advice may be good but it's entirely misplaced. The entry barrier for new players is simply too high to make the game attractive to most of the player base, which is why the GSF community is so small. Let's be realistic here - most players aren't going to invest the time or energy into learning how to play better if they aren't having fun, and a majority of the new players are not having fun in GSF. They get mercilessly slaughtered in one or two matches, then they quit and never come back.

If the game is severely frustrating to you but if you want to keep hammering at it then at the very least you could just run dailies & weeklies. Anyone can run 1 or 2 matches a day without raging. So many new players focus on offence because they wanna be stone cold killers then cry they get killed. You should be focusing on defence, get your missile breaks, get your evasion up, learn the maps, learn how to LoS against gunships, learn to support and defend. You get way more pts as a new player defending a satellite then you would chasing enemy fighters all over the map. Shooting 2 defence turrets & defending a sat for 4 mins will net you like 800pts. I'll take a sat in 20secs and ask noobs to come defend it but no one does, they'd sooner chase an evasion scout all over the map like a space-tard and earn 300pts then complain about it. BW put shipyards with indestructible ray shields on lost shipyards, no one uses it, it makes a great base to work out of. Put a repair probe in there and LoS behind the shields. In TDM why not hang back and cover your gunships? Those are jobs noobs should be doing, instead, they run all over space dying and crying.

Again, I can't speak for everyone, but this is exactly what I do. I play GSF in doses to limit my frustration and typically stop playing after I've finished my daily/weekly. That's not a good indicator that the game is balanced or fun, and in fact, is a red flag that most players should probably avoid GSF altogether. I even made a post on the GSF forum to warn new players about that and made the very same suggestions you did, albeit with more colorful and creative language, and one of the regular forum goers there posted in response that I should essentially lie to new players and omit the part about how awful it is when you start out. The post ultimately got reported and was deleted by the moderators (it was cited as inflammatory). Regardless, whining happens in every PvP game without exception, but most of it can be attributed to lazy or inept players blaming everything and anything else for their own skill deficiency. Yet I don't think it's fair to generalize and ascribe the problems with GSF to lazy players. Skill is not generally going to be gained prior to playing GSF, and for players to acquire that, they need to have a reason to stick around.

The bottom line here is that GSF in its current state brutally punishes new players and unduly rewards veteran players. It's a very, very rare occasion that I see close, fair matches on my server (where both teams are either equally horrible and in stock ships or equally good and in mastered ships). Most matches are complete blowouts. If GSF is ever going to be more than an embarrassing joke for Bioware, they need to make some changes to not only lower the entry barrier for new players, but to also make it fun and fair enough to keep them coming back. This is why I posted the suggestions. I'm not saying that my suggestions are the only ways they can address the issues with GSF, but if they can make a few key improvements, a ton more people would play GSF and Bioware would start to see more of the revenue they so clearly crave. In the end, I want to see GSF succeed because I can see the potential in it and I genuinely like the concept, no matter how poorly implemented the actual idea may have been.

i say just remove GSF entirely , it is horrible anyways

And if Bioware is unwilling or unable to fix some of the balance issues plaguing GSF, I'd agree with you. You'll certainly get some objection from the veteran players who already have fully mastered ships, but I have yet to hear a single suggestion from any of them on how to make GSF more fun and fair for new players in stock ships they are owning with ease. If the GSF community championed that cause, they might bring more attention to it and help bring GSF to a better place for all players. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, as they say.