On my server Jung Ma, people lost interest in GSF already. During prime time at night, it takes 15+ minutes to get a GSF pop. And they are not full 12v12 games either. Most of them are 8v8 games.

I think there are several issues causing this:

1. The difference between fully upgraded ships and new ships are too great. Newbies get slaughtered in a few matches and get discouraged from continuing to que.

2. Ship upgrades are not across legacy, and this problem is tied to #1 above. If someone is playing on an alt with no upgraded ships, he/she is unlikely to que because the ones with fully upgraded ships will slaughter him/her. So unless the player specifically want to play GSF and get on his/her main with upgraded ships, he/she would rather que for WZs for PvP when they are on alts.

3. GSF sucks as a leveling option for newbies and alts, and this problem is tied to #1 and #2 above. Queing for GSF when leveling alts may pit the player against people who may be on their mains with fully upgraded ships. Fully upgraded ships can easily slaughter new ships with no contest. So playing GSF on alts is like playing as a level 15 against level 50s in WZs in the old days: asking to get owned.

This is what I suggest to make GSF fun and viable even for newbies and alts:

1. Make ship upgrades across legacy. So people don't have to start all over with new ships every time they play a different alt.

2. Nerf all ship upgrades and abilities across the board, so the power level between new ships and fully upgraded ships are not that big of a gap.

On my server Jung Ma, people lost interest in GSF already. During prime time at night, it takes 15+ minutes to get a GSF pop. And they are not full 12v12 games either. Most of them are 8v8 games.

 

I think there are several issues causing this:

 

1. The difference between fully upgraded ships and new ships are too great. Newbies get slaughtered in a few matches and get discouraged from continuing to que.

 

2. Ship upgrades are not across legacy, and this problem is tied to #1 above. If someone is playing on an alt with no upgraded ships, he/she is unlikely to que because the ones with fully upgraded ships will slaughter him/her. So unless the player specifically want to play GSF and get on his/her main with upgraded ships, he/she would rather que for WZs for PvP when they are on alts.

 

3. GSF sucks as a leveling option for newbies and alts, and this problem is tied to #1 and #2 above. Queing for GSF when leveling alts may pit the player against people who may be on their mains with fully upgraded ships. Fully upgraded ships can easily slaughter new ships with no contest. So playing GSF on alts is like playing as a level 15 against level 50s in WZs in the old days: asking to get owned.

 

This is what I suggest to make GSF fun and viable even for newbies and alts:

 

1. Make ship upgrades across legacy. So people don't have to start all over with new ships every time they play a different alt.

 

2. Nerf all ship upgrades and abilities across the board, so the power level between new ships and fully upgraded ships are not that big of a gap.

Funny that bioware made such a big deal and were proud of themselves that they managed to make the gear gap in normal pvp so small.

And then they **** up all over again making the difference in GSF huge.

They're like a child, they don't learn from their mistakes, even when they fixed them before

This sounds to me to be more an issue of less people playing over the holidays, and the general reduction in participants now that a month has come by and people go back to playing the rest of TOR.

Hopefully, however, the coming influx of new players will enable the GSF matchmaking to work better (and it itself might get some refinements in the coming patches), so the stomping issue will be mitigated.

Mind you, the biggest problem really isn't fully upgraded ships vs unupgraded, it's skilled and experienced pilots vs new pilots. When I made an alt, I still stomped everyone I went up against, mostly because they were mostly newbies and I knew what I was doing. How they can fix matchmaking to account for player skill when it comes to alts is beyond me, but they do have matchmaking take ship ugprades into consideration.

I can't really say I've seen this on JC, but occasionally when I queue solo, it takes 5-10min to pop. If I queue as a group 2-4 people, it's usually within 1-2min.

My unsubstantiated theory regarding why this is is as follows.

BW has made it clear there is some sort of matchmaking algorithm in place for the queue. I have no idea how it works, or how it could work even, but I get the feeling that when you queue solo it looks only at what upgrades you have (obviously) and tries to match a group based on that.

For argument's sake lets say it comes up with some factor that is a measure of upgrades purchased/total upgrades available for a ship. And I don't know if it does this for every ship in your hangar or just one, but it must take some arbitrary measure of how geared you are.

I get the feeling when you queue as a group, your group gear factor is averaged out over the people you queue with, so if you have a lesser geared person in your group, your matchmaking range becomes a little bit closer to entry level.

Again, this is all conjecture, but when I queue solo I tend to see longer queues, but better competition, than when I queue as a group.

Mind you, the biggest problem really isn't fully upgraded ships vs unupgraded, it's skilled and experienced pilots vs new pilots..

Yup, this.

I wouldn't want the overall uprades nerfed too much, that carrot has got to be there to motivate queueing up. It's not like you get anything that affects your character so ship upgrades damn well better be worth obtaining.

This is what I suggest to make GSF fun and viable even for newbies and alts:

 

1. Make ship upgrades across legacy. So people don't have to start all over with new ships every time they play a different alt.

 

2. Nerf all ship upgrades and abilities across the board, so the power level between new ships and fully upgraded ships are not that big of a gap.

1) I actually like having different progression on different characters. It's fun to level up, try different builds, ect.

2) First, as others have said, the upgrades don't make a very big difference now. Yes, they could be even less significant, but ship customization is one of the best parts of GSF, and making upgrades meaningless would ruin that.

Mind you, the biggest problem really isn't fully upgraded ships vs unupgraded, it's skilled and experienced pilots vs new pilots. When I made an alt, I still stomped everyone I went up against, mostly because they were mostly newbies and I knew what I was doing.

If you were stomping newbies on your alts, that means you were also up against ships with few or no upgrades in your games. Fully upgraded ships come with experienced pilots, because they had to play many games to get those upgrades. When you play against fully upgraded ships on your alts with few upgrades, you as an experienced pilot, will know the difference in the ships' power. 20% extra turning, ignor armor cannon and missles, shield piercing, evasion stack... etc. All these things are huge. I would even dare to say that any ship with no upgrade cannot even touch a fully upgraded evasion stacked scout, even if the new ship is piloted by an experienced player.

Come check out Pot5. Fastest que times and great GSF community!

No! Come over to Ebon Hawk! Enjoy a great GSF community AND great RP!

.... annoying, isn't it?

Here's my actual suggestion: stay on your original server and help keep it an active GSF community, because what's actually best for TOR is a vibrant community on all servers.

Wait for the new influx of players to come in. Don't worry about the queue times, it'll get better. Only a fraction of the total player base is allowed to play so far, and even then the GSF we've had so far is just a fraction of what it will eventually be.

It's normal for people to get burned out on just 2 maps and a single game mode, so what you're seeing is nothing to worry about. As new content is added (and we know more is coming), and preferred/F2P players allowed to play, you'll see those queue times improve dramatically, as will your server's GSF community.

Come check out Pot5. Fastest que times and great GSF community!

Except that your server has a landslide imbalance on warzone PvP in favor of Imps. I do not want to go to an imbalanced server. No thank you. As much as I like GSF, I like warzones more.

If you were stomping newbies on your alts, that means you were also up against ships with few or no upgrades in your games. Fully upgraded ships come with experienced pilots, because they had to play many games to get those upgrades. When you play against fully upgraded ships on your alts with few upgrades, you as an experienced pilot, will know the difference in the ships' power. 20% extra turning, ignor armor cannon and missles, shield piercing, evasion stack... etc. All these things are huge. I would even dare to say that any ship with no upgrade cannot even touch a fully upgraded evasion stacked scout, even if the new ship is piloted by an experienced player.

Not true. A number of people on this forum have rolled alts to try out other servers or some such and done well against upgraded opponents. I have six ships available, by only two have upgrades past tier one. When I fly these alts, I still do well against people I know have been playing for a while. I'm at a disadvantage, sure, but it's far from impossible to kill a scout.

The field is evened somewhat by minor components, which provide a very noticeable boost to your ship's capabilities for very little requisition. On a brand new ship, I generally get the weapon loadout I want (with no upgrades), then upgrade my evasion button to reduced cooldown, then get all my minor components sorted. It's a very cheap way to get some very important parts on your ship.

If you are still not convinced that the ships' power is not a factor, then I dare all of you experienced pilots to que on alts with few or no upgrade ships as a group, sync your que against your friends with fully upgraded ships, and you will see the difference. It is easy to do, just make level 1 alts on the opposing faction and sync your que against each other on a off peak time.

I do that all the time, lol.

If you are still not convinced that the ships' power is not a factor, then I dare all of you experienced pilots to que on alts with few or no upgrade ships as a group, sync your que against your friends with fully upgraded ships, and you will see the difference. It is easy to do, just make level 1 alts on the opposing faction and sync your que against each other on a off peak time.

I done that, Dandy! Wot's next?

Come check out Pot5. Fastest que times and great GSF community!

If Pot5 is so good why are you guys the only server that is perpetually trying to recruit more people? Trouble in paradise i think.

If Pot5 is so good why are you guys the only server that is perpetually trying to recruit more people? Trouble in paradise i think.

Kegger doesn't like running out if people to play against at 4 am.

If you are still not convinced that the ships' power is not a factor, then I dare all of you experienced pilots to que on alts with few or no upgrade ships as a group, sync your que against your friends with fully upgraded ships, and you will see the difference. It is easy to do, just make level 1 alts on the opposing faction and sync your que against each other on a off peak time.

Nobody said that ship upgrades is not a factor. Of course it is, but it is a minor one compared to pilot skill.

Pit a good pilot in a stock ship against an average pilot in a mastered ship (if such a thing were possible), and you can BET the good pilot will win. Skill is by FAR the most important factor.

Now that said, pit two equal pilots against each other, one in a stock ship and the other in a mastered one, and of course the mastered one will win... but that does not change the fact that pilot skill is the major determining factor in who wins. That's why when good pilots make alts they wipe the floor with everyone even in their stock ships.

Another factor may be the relatively easy-to-obtain carrots. It doesn't take THAT long to fully upgrade ships (unless you are trying to uprade and unlock every single component and companion just for completeness). So GSF becomes a bit like the Gree Event or the Bounty Hunter Contracts: after a while you max out, and won't run it again much.

One way to keep carrots available would be to do things like giving out comms for dailies/weeklies or for wins/losses (my preference would be for wins/losses since it seems like a lot of people do their dailies/weekly and then stop because they get tired of beingh rolled by premades or by heavily upgraded opponents). Or to put in a long, slow upgrade path (imagine +1 dmg from your lasers or +1 power to your shields for every 10,000 Ship Req or something like that. Very small, but still there to be obtained and improve.)

Kegger doesn't like running out if people to play against at 4 am.

Oh please, my server only has one instance of the fleet at any given time, don't tell me about having to little people on your server. You have like what four instances at prime time? And the funny part is that Jung Ma still has a active community.

Striker pilot here. Only upgrade I need is tier 1 missile "reduce lock on time by 14%" I assure you I will perform in the middle of the pack if not better. Skill is L33t, gear really doesn't change much.

Stop thinking of this like ground pvp

Does better gear make you more deadly sure. You will hit harder and last longer. But the advantages are not massive, you only see like 20% maximum improvement on your ship overall. back in the day a level 10s with no abilities played pvp against level 49s who had basically all their abilities and trees unlocked, and it worked.

Legacy GSF sounds nice but is actually less good an idea when you really look at it. Two reasons:

1. You earn less dailies and weeklies, If it was legacy wide there would probably be a weekly REQ cap.

2. You would max out and that would be it now more interesting grinding, yes grinding is interesting to some people.

Oh please, my server only has one instance of the fleet at any given time, don't tell me about having to little people on your server. You have like what four instances at prime time? And the funny part is that Jung Ma still has a active community.

You know, that just sounds to me like we've found out where we can get our fifth fleet instance from - we just have to convince everyone on JM to transfer or reroll. Imagine how active the combined JM/POT5 GSF community would be then!

On my server Jung Ma, people lost interest in GSF already. During prime time at night, it takes 15+ minutes to get a GSF pop. And they are not full 12v12 games either. Most of them are 8v8 games.

 

I think there are several issues causing this:

 

1. The difference between fully upgraded ships and new ships are too great. Newbies get slaughtered in a few matches and get discouraged from continuing to que.

 

2. Ship upgrades are not across legacy, and this problem is tied to #1 above. If someone is playing on an alt with no upgraded ships, he/she is unlikely to que because the ones with fully upgraded ships will slaughter him/her. So unless the player specifically want to play GSF and get on his/her main with upgraded ships, he/she would rather que for WZs for PvP when they are on alts.

 

3. GSF sucks as a leveling option for newbies and alts, and this problem is tied to #1 and #2 above. Queing for GSF when leveling alts may pit the player against people who may be on their mains with fully upgraded ships. Fully upgraded ships can easily slaughter new ships with no contest. So playing GSF on alts is like playing as a level 15 against level 50s in WZs in the old days: asking to get owned.

 

This is what I suggest to make GSF fun and viable even for newbies and alts:

 

1. Make ship upgrades across legacy. So people don't have to start all over with new ships every time they play a different alt.

 

2. Nerf all ship upgrades and abilities across the board, so the power level between new ships and fully upgraded ships are not that big of a gap.

Like others, I don't think its the gear gap that's causing newbies to wipe, but the experience gap. Nonetheless it must be extremely frustrating for new players to be matched up against veterans and subsequently be blown out of the sky. Repeatedly and mercilessly. Every time I see someone get blown away after 5 seconds of flying slow and straight through laser bolts and missiles, I feel a little sad because there's someone out there who's making the hard decision to stick it out and learn from their mistakes or decide that the whole thing isn't for them. Who's to say who's at fault here?

Ultimately I'd say the biggest culprit is the lack of players for viable match-making. What percentage of active players are subscribers? What percentage of those really care about space PvP? I hope that once full access is granted then there'll be enough new players so that they can be properly matched with each other.

Like others, I don't think its the gear gap that's causing newbies to wipe, but the experience gap. Nonetheless it must be extremely frustrating for new players to be matched up against veterans and subsequently be blown out of the sky. Repeatedly and mercilessly. Every time I see someone get blown away after 5 seconds of flying slow and straight through laser bolts and missiles, I feel a little sad because there's someone out there who's making the hard decision to stick it out and learn from their mistakes or decide that the whole thing isn't for them. Who's to say who's at fault here?

 

Ultimately I'd say the biggest culprit is the lack of players for viable match-making. What percentage of active players are subscribers? What percentage of those really care about space PvP? I hope that once full access is granted then there'll be enough new players so that they can be properly matched with each other.

Agreed. Well said.

You know, that just sounds to me like we've found out where we can get our fifth fleet instance from - we just have to convince everyone on JM to transfer or reroll. Imagine how active the combined JM/POT5 GSF community would be then!

LoL except I am sure several of us, and by several i mean several guilds would quit the game or transfer off if that happens.

Personally I would take TEH over Pot5, the RP servers are not so rampant with elitism, and according to the thread on faction balance per server is reporting 50% win/loss rates compared to pot5 witch had what a 90% imperial win rate?

Note: I am aware i posted a 87% win rate but that included matches played on my imperial char and counted same-faction matches which i have never lost.