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My New Take on GSF


Kokurou

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So, let's revisit this thread that I created about a month ago.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=965688

 

GSF is no longer fun. I notice the same names every match, most of them even play together and don't solo queue. Certain ships have an unfair disadvantage while others are just way too strong. In a single match, one team will go through a rotation of about 10-20 people who leave because they're getting absolutely gutter stomped by the other team. The other team gets bored because there's no challenge and just want to finish the match faster.

 

This isn't fun. It's starting to feel like old warzones when premade groups in Ranked&Augmented gear would stoop into unranked warzones and stomp on players who don't even have half of a pvp set to fight with.

 

The learning curve in Galactic Starfighter IS INSANE. It's not even "it's difficult". It's so far beyond that.

 

GSF IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET INTO WITHOUT WANTING TO SMASH EVERYTHING. I have two characters that I play GSF on, one pubside one impside. I'm not a good pilot, if anything I'm barely average but even then I have matches where I'd be able to hold my own. Still, there's matches that just seem hopeless and pointless to stay in because there'a an entire group of people who just know more and are outright 20 times better than your entire team.

 

You ask your team for advice: "Kill them, don't let them kill you"

You ask your team for help while being chased: "Help out stop dying"

You ask your team to help cover a node: "Go to another node don't die"

 

There's nothing going for GSF anyway. It's not like old warzones where you got gear from it, or commendations to buy crystals for your weapons that you could use in PvE. But unlike warzones in general, you have PvE to at least teach you what your rotations are, how to move around, what to do when you're stunned, how to capitalize on stuns and slows. Groupfinder teaches you how to work in a group, so that when you get into PvP, you're already used to SOME level of teamwork. GSF doesn't hold any of that. It, quite literally, hands you a pamphlet with minimal explanation and a tutorial that's way too basic and says "Here's a fleet of ships. Go have fun."

 

GSF is not fun anymore and frankly. I really wanted to be able to enjoy it, to really get into it. But the more I play it, it's just not being fun anymore. It's just becoming yet another grindfest added to an MMO that already has a ridiculous amount of grinding in it.

 

GSF needs more people, it needs more rewards, better rewards after each match, different maps with actual ground, a much higher understanding, a mode where you can practice flying on other maps to discover where powerups are or sweet spots to snipe with a Gunship, a game-type SELECTION so you don't have to feel like you want to burn everything in your house playing TDM. IT JUST NEEDS MORE.

 

GSF is almost in the exact same spot it was when I came back to SWTOR late mid 2014. It's been 5 years. Warzones have been expanded, PvE has been expanded. The rewards in both and what each of those give outside of them have been expanded on. What is there that GSF has to offer besides a mini-game basically?

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I would pretty much agree with you. I'm not a noob pilot, even though I do make noob mistakes sometimes out of frustration. But the current state of GSF is not fun. I enjoy it, weirdly enough, but its not fun. I know that doesn't make sense. I get angry when I win, I get angry when I lose. If you're not flying a GS, or a SF, then you are a glutton for punishment. What seems to be happening is people are so frustrated, they premade up, ruin the queue and it doesn't pop for awhile. Mostly because nobody likes being farmed, and everyone likes being carried. The alternative, and its almost worse, is that everyone picks a gunship and bombers, and they protect each other. Essentially camping and you are unable to reach them, because there is ZERO coordination if you aren't running a premade in voice. Zero. You can try to communicate but it doesn't make any difference, unless all veterans are on. So many people will argue that GSF is fine, but Strike Fighters are OP AF. There is a reason its what 90% of people pick. Scouts are essentially worthless unless you are in the middle of nowhere 1v1ing. People will say "Well you aren't flying correctly then". There is NO way a scout can reach a team that is camping Gunships and bombers. You just can't do it. I don't care how much you Line of Sight, but bombers protecting Gunships is a cancer to the game. It doesn't become about flying anymore. Its just sitting around, letting your mines/drones attack anyone that comes close to stop the barrage of gunship spam.

 

Sure you can out fly a Strike FIghter with a Scout, but......why? You get more of everything with a SF. The only thing you don't get is BLC. Which aren't even fun anymore. You have to be so close to get them off, and one wrong move and youre dead from a Slug from a GS, or a mine from a bomber anyways, which there is a plethora of since they made the matches so large. There is no point in running a scout. Sure EMP is cool, but youre going to rush in, pop it off and die. "maybe" take out a few drones but thats your entire strategy. Rush in die and maybe a teammate that isn't afk can coordinate with you. So instead of actually trying, just pick a GS or a bomber and sit around waiting for people to come to you. Every time I queue, I say this is the last time I play this mode. Even when I win, or on top of leaderboards, it felt like a slog to get there. GSF just isn't fun anymore. If you look at all the people here that say its so fun, and in a good spot, watch their youtube videos, or gameplay. They never fly alone. They always have coordination. Premade GSF is a TON of fun. But you destroy everyone, make them angry, and kill the queue and now you have to wait until everyone who raged calms down. Its not sustainable for newer players.

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Well, cya. Not sure what you are expecting, other than what it is. And has been since it came out.

 

Basically, GSF is the last thing on their minds when they want to update.

 

The people that rekt you now, are no where near as good as the pilots who left, due to not enough competition.

 

The people you see 'at the top of the board' wouldnt be with these pilots back in the fold.

 

I notice in DISCORD, you seem to complain a lot. I mean, from the get go.

 

It almost seems, you would rather beat on GSF than actually work to get good.

 

We tell you certain builds to use, crews etc, and you end up 'i like this better' and now you are like I hate GSF.

 

If you might listen, and work on using those builds, you might actually enjoy it a bit.

 

You are basically, really irritating. Like finger nails on a chalk board.

 

With Love

 

Fluxicans

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  • 2 months later...

Your going to get the:

 

A. Get GUUUD

or

B. Make Friends

 

But the reality when the pvp player pool starts to dry up allowing people to group beyond pairs of 2 it's devastating to the average player. This goes for all pvp games. Multiply that by two for SWTOR because there are two factions which automatically halve the population.

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Your going to get the:

 

A. Get GUUUD

or

B. Make Friends

 

But the reality when the pvp player pool starts to dry up allowing people to group beyond pairs of 2 it's devastating to the average player. This goes for all pvp games. Multiply that by two for SWTOR because there are two factions which automatically halve the population.

 

GSF is cross faction.

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  • 4 weeks later...
GSF is cross faction.

 

Great. I see that now. Eliminating the factions is a very positive step. However, one more thing would have an even more positive impact.

 

Reduce groups of 4 to 2. This would eliminate that 3 v 1 feeling you get when you kill one of their buddies and they all focus you down.

Edited by HuaRya
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As a returning (and rusty) GSF veteran, I hate to admit it - but yes, there is an incredibly steep learning curve now. It was always there to some extent, but it's far worse now than it's ever been. I think (the much-needed and long-awaited) rebalancing of certain ship classes is to blame... which sucks, because I think these very same changes that amplify veteran pilots' ability to curbstomp new players were also desperately needed. I won't go into further detail unless someone loudly demands it, but I think the changes allow for a more aggressive style of play across the board - which IMO benefits established pilots far more than new ones.

 

GSF has always been a very skill-based form of pvp - every veteran has stories of taking stock (totally unupgraded) ships into combat on new characters, and having great matches nonetheless. It just goes to show that a strong grasp of GSF fundamentals and knowledge of the maps means a lot.

 

This, of course, is a double-edged sword for newcomers. On the one hand the emphasis on skill means that you don't have to grind out tens of thousands of requisition to stand a chance. Meta upgrades certainly help, but you can still manage to contribute without having everything maxed out. But on the other hand, that same emphasis on skill means that the veteran pilots who just do everything better can really eat you alive.

 

I just got out of a deathmatch where I made 0 kills. Plenty of assists, and decent enough total damage, but... 0 kills. I'm not sure I had a match like that except for the very first match I flew, ever. It's rough out there, even for someone who knows a lot of tricks but is faded on the muscle memory when it comes to certain things. I can easily imagine that a newcomer would be totally disgusted by such an experience, and it would only intensify as it happens match after match. Until more veterans start quitting for good (many already have), this problem will only get worse.

 

As far as I can tell, the only hope for GSF remains the obscenely good pve rewards associated with it. Easy XP, and at 75 a warzone crate every match. I believe propping up a pvp mode via pve rewards is a bad idea and indicates severe problems with maintaining population, but at least it will give demoralized newcomers a reason to come back every once in a while.

Edited by voltaicbore
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So, let's revisit this thread that I created about a month ago.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=965688

 

GSF is no longer fun. I notice the same names every match, most of them even play together and don't solo queue. Certain ships have an unfair disadvantage while others are just way too strong. In a single match, one team will go through a rotation of about 10-20 people who leave because they're getting absolutely gutter stomped by the other team. The other team gets bored because there's no challenge and just want to finish the match faster.

 

This isn't fun. It's starting to feel like old warzones when premade groups in Ranked&Augmented gear would stoop into unranked warzones and stomp on players who don't even have half of a pvp set to fight with.

 

The learning curve in Galactic Starfighter IS INSANE. It's not even "it's difficult". It's so far beyond that.

 

GSF IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET INTO WITHOUT WANTING TO SMASH EVERYTHING. I have two characters that I play GSF on, one pubside one impside. I'm not a good pilot, if anything I'm barely average but even then I have matches where I'd be able to hold my own. Still, there's matches that just seem hopeless and pointless to stay in because there'a an entire group of people who just know more and are outright 20 times better than your entire team.

 

You ask your team for advice: "Kill them, don't let them kill you"

You ask your team for help while being chased: "Help out stop dying"

You ask your team to help cover a node: "Go to another node don't die"

 

There's nothing going for GSF anyway. It's not like old warzones where you got gear from it, or commendations to buy crystals for your weapons that you could use in PvE. But unlike warzones in general, you have PvE to at least teach you what your rotations are, how to move around, what to do when you're stunned, how to capitalize on stuns and slows. Groupfinder teaches you how to work in a group, so that when you get into PvP, you're already used to SOME level of teamwork. GSF doesn't hold any of that. It, quite literally, hands you a pamphlet with minimal explanation and a tutorial that's way too basic and says "Here's a fleet of ships. Go have fun."

 

GSF is not fun anymore and frankly. I really wanted to be able to enjoy it, to really get into it. But the more I play it, it's just not being fun anymore. It's just becoming yet another grindfest added to an MMO that already has a ridiculous amount of grinding in it.

 

GSF needs more people, it needs more rewards, better rewards after each match, different maps with actual ground, a much higher understanding, a mode where you can practice flying on other maps to discover where powerups are or sweet spots to snipe with a Gunship, a game-type SELECTION so you don't have to feel like you want to burn everything in your house playing TDM. IT JUST NEEDS MORE.

 

GSF is almost in the exact same spot it was when I came back to SWTOR late mid 2014. It's been 5 years. Warzones have been expanded, PvE has been expanded. The rewards in both and what each of those give outside of them have been expanded on. What is there that GSF has to offer besides a mini-game basically?

 

I entirely agree with what you said Kokurou. You said it well.

 

I tried sharing some thoughts of the same sort a little while ago on the forums and unfortunately the result was a string of replies by precisely the people on my server who are subjecting the rest of us to their GSF breaking behaviour. I was accosted with such mean spirited attitudes and total denial of the issue that it was really troubling for me. Sadly the sort of ganging up on me mentality has carried over to in-game. So I didn't want to see the same thing happen to you, and I am here to let you know that at least one person read through your post and is grateful that you took the time to share it.

 

a) GSF requires a great deal of skill, and the tutorial is definitely insufficient.

 

b) Without any shadow of a doubt there is a game-breaking problem currently of groups of expert GSF pilots queing together.

 

When these pro teams aren't queing there is often fairly decent balance in GSF. Matches are often fairly neck and neck, with final scores like 48 to 50.

 

In contrast every time the pro teams are queing the matches are consistently total landslides with scores like 6 to 50. Last night I was in a match with a team of several of the very best pilots (the guys who literally write the guides to GSF) on a premade team together, and the end score was 6 to 50, and that is standard whenever that group of guys queues, and for the duration of the few hours in which they keep queing each night.

 

Perhaps they are having fun working as a team and totally decimating all opposition, but nobody else is enjoying it. People start quitting matches in droves - including people that I know to be very strong pilots. They just quit because there IS NO MATCH. It's no more a fair competition than if a group of 10 year old in the schoolyard was challenged to a game by a major league team. It's absurd. People quit mid match and people stop queing for the night until the pro team logs off.

 

The argument I kept seeing hurled at me angrily by those defending their "right" to queue as a team is that the game is meant to be played the way they are playing it, and that if the rest of us don't like it we should form our own team, or it's our own fault.

 

It's such a senseless and bullying approach. Obviously GSF is not intended to have one team 10 times stronger than the other team. That is NOT how it's intended to be played. The devs obviously intended for the two teams to be balanced - after all there is a dev diary about exactly that issue for GSF. They developed a mechanic to try to address balance by assessing ship tiers and player time in GSF with the goal of sorting pilots individually so that both teams are equally strong. Unfortunately the sorting mechanic doesn't seem to be able to compensate for groups of expert pilots who queue together. They remain together and therefore break the balancing mechanic, and therefore it breaks GSF. Matches become unplayable, and people stop queing. This is the reality no matter how much defensive denial those elite pilots throw at us to try to refute our concerns.

 

My hope is that

 

1. Our developers will see the issue for themselves, and come up with a new mechanic that addresses the problem created by expert players who queue as a team. A solution is needed that allows GSF matches to be balanced. There is nothing reasonable about the elite players suggesting that everyone else should just be as a good as they are, and that they should simply find a second elite team to queue starting when their team starts queuing and continuing to queue for as long as the other elite team is online. That's not feasible in any realistic way.

 

Therefore

 

2. Until such time as our developers come up with an internal mechanic to bring balance back to GSF despite the expert players queing as a group... I can only hope that some of those expert players will take a step back and consider the issue with some thoughtfulness for the impact on balance, and who will take a leadership role and encourage the other expert pilots to follow suit and simply queue solo. If they do willingly choose to queue solo, then the match stands a decent chance of having the strong players sorted evenly on both teams, and having a balanced and fair match for everyone.

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a) GSF requires a great deal of skill, and the tutorial is definitely insufficient.

 

This is perhaps the most egregious thing about GSF. While it's impossible to replicate the wide range of situations new pilots will be exposed to in any pvp game mode with just a tutorial, the GSF tutorial is notably bad. It gives you some sense of how basic maneuvers work, but some things like doing a full stop behind a safe wall by pressing X is just totally absent. This is perhaps the most easily fixable aspect of GSF, in my opinion.

 

And yes, warzone pvp also lacks a similar access to empty arenas for practice, but at least combat resembles what players do in pve all the time. GSF is so different from the rest of the game that I believe it merits a better tutorial system.

 

b) Without any shadow of a doubt there is a game-breaking problem currently of groups of expert GSF pilots queing together.

 

While I completely agree that nothing will turn off newer/less experienced pilots than hours of curbstomps, I feel there's very little the devs can do regarding this matter. Not allowing teams to form in a team-based game mode is just... silly, and asking people to voluntarily split themselves up is literally telling people how to have their fun.

 

The only long term solution is to get better, and I mean that in all sincerity, no snark. The real problem is a lack of place to practice targets and maneuvers outside of matches. Currently new players have literally no place to learn the maps. Just knowing where to attack from and where to escape to is a great advantage. If a new pilot just flies around away from combat trying to learn the map during the match, they'll get hit with the non-contribution debuff and eventually die. Just having each map available in a self-study mode, with the option of a few AI ships to shoot at/get shot by would be a huge boon to new pilots.

Edited by voltaicbore
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While I completely agree that nothing will turn off newer/less experienced pilots than hours of curbstomps, I feel there's very little the devs can do regarding this matter. Not allowing teams to form in a team-based game mode is just... silly, and asking people to voluntarily split themselves up is literally telling people how to have their fun.

 

The only long term solution is to get better, and I mean that in all sincerity, no snark. The real problem is a lack of place to practice targets and maneuvers outside of matches. Currently new players have literally no place to learn the maps. Just knowing where to attack from and where to escape to is a great advantage. If a new pilot just flies around away from combat trying to learn the map during the match, they'll get hit with the non-contribution debuff and eventually die. Just having each map available in a self-study mode, with the option of a few AI ships to shoot at/get shot by would be a huge boon to new pilots.

 

I had this whole post planned to answer Myyrhbear but honestly your post here really sums up why is whole argument really falls flat.

 

Quickly I will say for you Voltaicbore, you can now actually start up Custom games in GSF, you only require a minimum of 4 players, basically 2 parties of 2 or more players. You can challenge each other and choose whatever map you want. With just a few friends you can create your own practice environment! I use this feature all the time for my teaching sessions, it's been a super useful tool.

 

I am going to throw out a few more points to address Myyhrbears points though.

 

GSF is a team game, you're supposed to play it as a team, that's why group queue exists. When it first came out the Devs were on livestream and were asked why you could only queue as a 4 person group, and they simply answered that while it is a team game they didn't want a group to be able to control the entirety of one team. So that's why since the very beginning I've only ever recruited players in the idea of having a 4 man team. We've been practising for literal years at this point, honing our game play, strategies and coordination. We do this because we want to keep getting better, we want to keep pushing, and when other premades show up in our games we're ready for them.

 

If you decide to Solo queue in GSF, you're deciding to be at a disadvantage when you do play against players that are choosing to coordinate, that's just how it works. If you don't want to be at a disadvantage you have to do the legwork, make some friends, start playing together, learn each others styles and strengths.

 

I've seen you repeatedly make the argument that you can't just find a group to play with at the drop of a hat. While that isn't technically true because I know many players that do just that by making use of the multiple resources we have for just that, like the GSF chat channel or the multiple Discords. The fact is no ones saying you should be able to instantly come up with a highly coordinated group capable of defeating one that's been playing together for years. But here's the thing, by making another premade, the match maker (often, it's definitely not perfect) will pit both against each other, and who knows you might meet some people you really enjoy flying with and you'll see just how rewarding it can be to play this game socially.

 

Lastly I see you always talking about the blow out games, but premade vs premade games are what I play this game for, they are by far and away the absolute best games ever. Just today we faught multiple different premades and the games were amazing. Even with us playing at our absolute best the games were super duper close! You're always saying you want people to split up, but if we do that we aren't playing as the team we want to play as.

I would rather (and sometimes do) play 29 blowouts to get to the awesome premade vs premade games, then never be able to play one of those games again.

 

I hope this gives you a little more insight into why high level teams play as a team and if you have any questions for me specifically I'd be happy to answer them.

Edited by Drakkolich
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I think that we need to separate the issue of imperfect matchmaking from premades. They can be connected, but they are different problems.

 

It’s not fair to people that have built a team to force them to break apart for a somewhat arbitrary concept of fairness. Nor is it appropriate to insist a team “go easy” on people or “sit out a few matches.” And I say this as a predominantly solo-queue-er. Because it does stink to get curbstomped, regardless of the reason why. But that’s not entirely Drako et al’s fault as if it’s malice or that they don’t want the game to succeed or players to improve.

 

I think history has also demonstrated that the existing SWTOR matchmaking systems do a much better job when premades are not in the queue, and even in bugged situations when groups don’t get pops at all, as happened a few years ago for ground warzones.

 

Does this mean solo players are lazy? That they don’t want to get better, or have a challenge? No, of course not.

Does it mean the team players are destroying the game? Of course not. Drako alone has done more to educate the community and share his knowledge than anyone else, and I’ve taken a protorp up my engine exhaust from him more than once.

 

Ultimately i don’t have any answers. The system would probably work if there were enough players such that premades would be more likely to go up against other premades rather than a group of solo-queuing new pilots and one veteran. I also think that a group ranked system where SRW could fight more routinely against Drako’s team would be ideal. I know I would be curious to see what happened if the solo queue and group queue were separated, but it isn’t any more fair to force a team to split up just to get a pop, than it is to expect new players to understand why they just got curbstomped.

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  • 2 weeks later...
This is perhaps the most egregious thing about GSF. While it's impossible to replicate the wide range of situations new pilots will be exposed to in any pvp game mode with just a tutorial, the GSF tutorial is notably bad. It gives you some sense of how basic maneuvers work, but some things like doing a full stop behind a safe wall by pressing X is just totally absent. This is perhaps the most easily fixable aspect of GSF, in my opinion.

 

And yes, warzone pvp also lacks a similar access to empty arenas for practice, but at least combat resembles what players do in pve all the time. GSF is so different from the rest of the game that I believe it merits a better tutorial system.

 

 

 

While I completely agree that nothing will turn off newer/less experienced pilots than hours of curbstomps, I feel there's very little the devs can do regarding this matter. Not allowing teams to form in a team-based game mode is just... silly, and asking people to voluntarily split themselves up is literally telling people how to have their fun.

 

The only long term solution is to get better, and I mean that in all sincerity, no snark. The real problem is a lack of place to practice targets and maneuvers outside of matches. Currently new players have literally no place to learn the maps. Just knowing where to attack from and where to escape to is a great advantage. If a new pilot just flies around away from combat trying to learn the map during the match, they'll get hit with the non-contribution debuff and eventually die. Just having each map available in a self-study mode, with the option of a few AI ships to shoot at/get shot by would be a huge boon to new pilots.

 

Reduce groups of 4 to 2. This would eliminate that 3 v 1 feeling you get when you kill one of their buddies and they all focus you down.

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I had this whole post planned to answer Myyrhbear but honestly your post here really sums up why is whole argument really falls flat.

 

The fact that you come on here indicates a guilty conscience. You probably once again stopped the flow of frequent pops and am coming onto the forums to check to see if anyone might be complaining. GSF is best played when teams are on equal footing.

 

I would think you'd be more into challenging yourself by having your mates play on opposite teams. The positive effect you think you might have on the game by your antics is reflected by the zero pop factor that follows. It's a small community and you are single handedly killing it.

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