Wow has been able to have cross server dungeons and PVP for years. Why can't Bio-Ware get their act together on this? The lack of groupfinder for the first 6 months after launch is what drove 80% of my friends away from it and I'm sure a good percentage of the rest of the people who left in droves.

Now, myself and a ton of other people play this game pretty much exclusively for GSF. However, we are all very fed up with the lack of cross server GSF. Since there is rarely more than 1 or 2 matches going at a time the "Matchmaking" does not work at all. There are huge benefits to the game play and enjoyment for all skill levels by doing this. Ground PVP, Flashpoints, and Operations finders will all benefit hugely as well.

If you figure that one out, let me know! I'd love to see it. The developers clearly have stuff planned to the end of the year, I wouldn't expect anything regarding cross-server to be implemented (though I'd be very happy ). The only thing that was more or less confirmed was a Denon TDM coming up, which was to be expected.

Players have differing agendas - I haven't seen General_Brass around lately pushing his "solo queue only" thing in every thread and spewing vitriolic hate to players who group up.

The only thing that was more or less confirmed was a Denon TDM coming up, which was to be expected.

 

When/where was this confirmed? There was some indication for its existence in datamining, but that was before the Infiltrator was shelved. It's entirely possible the new TDM map (and all in-progress GSF content) was shelved as well.

In the last Twitch stream, when we asked Eric if he could tell us one GSF-related item in the roadmap, the only thing he would mention was the forthcoming "balance patch"--which we don't even have a date for. If Denon TDM was in the works, you'd think he could've acknowledged that without much risk--since as you note, it was expected.

But the fact that he didn't mention it makes me think it isn't scheduled anymore.

When/where was this confirmed?

Los Angeles Community Cantina. I believe the source was Ootinicast or one of the other SWTOR news websites that covered the Community Cantina (don't quote me specifically on Ootini, it could've been another - I listen/read while playing or doing other work).

But the fact that he didn't mention it makes me think it isn't scheduled anymore.

Wouldn't be the first time we were given the wrong information. I'm not holding my breath until it shows up on a roadmap, but the roadmap we have consists solely of "lolhouses" at the moment.

Los Angeles Community Cantina. I believe the source was Ootinicast or one of the other SWTOR news websites that covered the Community Cantina (don't quote me specifically on Ootini, it could've been another - I listen/read while playing or doing other work).

 

 

Wouldn't be the first time we were given the wrong information. I'm not holding my breath until it shows up on a roadmap, but the roadmap we have consists solely of "lolhouses" at the moment.

LOL, I was at that Cantina tour. Alas it was super cramped and extremely loud, so it was hard to get much information from it.

So how do we get them to acknowledge it as a priority?

When it actually BECOMES a priority. Right now, it isn't. It's only a priority for YOU, and your tens of thousands of imaginary friends, of course. Most people live and grind on planets and are only vaguely aware that GSF even exists, and then only as a more or less irrelevant after-thought not germane to the main game, class stories, etc. It's even less integrated into the game than the old space battles, which are also pretty much forgettable and unnecessary. The fact that both are there at all represents a squandering of resources that could have been better spent improving on-planet game play.

So when people "demand" attention to this NOW! it's just kind of laughable.

When it actually BECOMES a priority. Right now, it isn't. It's only a priority for YOU, and your tens of thousands of imaginary friends, of course. Most people live and grind on planets and are only vaguely aware that GSF even exists, and then only as a more or less irrelevant after-thought not germane to the main game, class stories, etc. It's even less integrated into the game than the old space battles, which are also pretty much forgettable and unnecessary. The fact that both are there at all represents a squandering of resources that could have been better spent improving on-planet game play.

 

So when people "demand" attention to this NOW! it's just kind of laughable.

im pretty sure more people want cross server than you think, and its not just GSF. Just because you come here to down talk and troll a community your not involved with doesn't mean you know anything about GSF or SWTOR. Please go back to your appropriate forum, your obviously a trash GSF player and your opinions are not wanted.

That being said I think that everyone who plays ground PvP, Space PvP, and Raid PvE wants to see cross server implemented. I think this dwarfs the "just does dalies blind to the rest of the game" crowd.

I agree that its silly they have not devoted time to this by now, and they certainly have lost a LOT of good players by their refusal to adopt what is in other games a "core system" but *shrug* its not on the roadmap.

I just hope that if it does get implemented that its before most/all the good players leave.

It's never going to happen guys. Not for normal Warzones, let alone for GSF.

Deal with it, get over it, move on. Find a coping mechanism.

+1, cross server GSF, asap.

please.

it would really help all the pilots, n00bs and veterans alike.

When it actually BECOMES a priority. Right now, it isn't. It's only a priority for YOU, and your tens of thousands of imaginary friends, of course.

No, it's a priority for all SWTOR players. But even if they couldn't cross server everything, they should work hard to special case GSF, as GSF is very much a special case. Simply put, your GSF ships exist nowhere except for the hangar UI and the actual battle, and that you can absolutely find yourself feeling like "I just can't GSF right now, I'll get stomped by the guys that just stomped me".

You see a lot of tears shed about stuff like this, often blaming organized players or whatever, but the fact of the matter is, all that matters is that when you press queue, the weight of your team is just gonna be a lot less than the weight of the other team- stuff I've seen happen with full solo queue guys and with both sides being double premades.

Since that's the whole of GSF- and the amount of connection between the GSF instance and your character is relatively low bandwidth, being mostly just "which upgrades the five ships you queued with have" as "upload" and "battle stats" as "download", then they should cross server GSF, even if the ground game gets nothing.

Most people live and grind on planets and are only vaguely aware that GSF even exists, and then only as a more or less irrelevant after-thought not germane to the main game, class stories, etc.

It was being talked about before launch, though, and actually was a giant draw. The cancellation of space stuff (or relegation to the starfox shooter) killed the game for a lot of players- some of whom are back and subbed just because of it.

To me, GSF is the game I play. SWTOR is a substrate. Sure, Bioware COULD fix that, in theory, and selling me on the rest of their experience is certainly easier than someone without at least a couple max levels, without someone who took time off to grab max and even raid a bit back when the game launched. But there's plenty of things that SWTOR is sort of missing, enough that I'd rather put that time into another game- these days mostly Wildstar, but also a bit of WoW.

...but GSF is a really solid entry. A clear efficient and excellent use of resources, it uses the existing combat engine to look different, tell a different story, and provide a different game play. It's bold, and the devel time is absolutely minimal in comparison to what they got out of it. It also goes a long damned way towards justifying their "use a generic engine" decision, IMO.

It's even less integrated into the game than the old space battles, which are also pretty much forgettable and unnecessary. The fact that both are there at all represents a squandering of resources that could have been better spent improving on-planet game play.

Screw that. I'm very glad they didn't throw any more money than needed on all that stuff. The industry is flooded with wowalikes, and SWTOR being one was never even a smart call.

My scoundrel has several heal buttons. Most of them involve this little tiny green remote control she pops out and dinks with pretty hard. Green beams shoot out of this thing. Sometimes little remote probes are controlled.

What is that item? I'd call it a tricorder, because it looks super close. But in fact, no one in the game world ever refers to this device, despite it being more ubiquitous in combat than like a lightsaber. Certainly, it isn't in holy trilogy. What is it? Why do I cast "underworld medicine"? What's underworld about a remote control that shoots greet lasers? What is happening?

This has no kit. It has NO KIT- NO IN GAME EXPLANATION!

Is it gear? Can I upgrade my angelremote? No. I think it's just an animation. I think the art guys were like "Well, it's like, a tech heal... ok, here's what we have, it's pretty cool", but then that intention never left the room. This means that it's a stage prop. Looking at it come out, we see the wires holding up the game. It's more play than movie in those moments, because it's a poorly implemented special effect. If it had been integrated into the game, into the story, a reason for my scoundrel (and many NPCs) to have this miracle device, that would be So Damned Great...

It's ultimately odd because this healing isn't in the story. It doesn't "really" happen. Much of the game is like this. My scoundrel has a remote healing probe so she can cast the same spells as my resto druid.

But I have a resto druid. I don't need Han Solo to be one, I have some nice night elf females to handle that stuff, right? And Rejuvenation makes WAY more sense than medical probe. My resto druid actually lives in a world where she can call nature magic, and her purple leaf button casts a purple leaf spell. That makes SUPER LOTS of sense, and yes, it really is happening in the story. She really is rejuvenating people with her actual in-game magic. What is my scoundrel doing? Is she even there, by story?

So I'm sure damned glad they made space fighters, which actually exist in the universe we are playing in, instead of funding more of the excursion Out Of Star Wars. Which, by the way, is not being forgotten or neglected, but is instead being enhanced with every patch. More strange monsters drawn to look vaguely plastic under this inherited engine will continue to be provided such that you can "tank", "dps", and "heal" them down, to make highly magical gear with a lot of "strength" on it, that doesn't correlate to anything except the WoW stat "strength".

That's not even changing. The devs not only don't see the oddness there, they are super into it.

So when people "demand" attention to this NOW! it's just kind of laughable.

To "most people"- or even "most gamers" - the game it self was "kind of laughable", and forgotten. I'm glad it's still here, even with its warts, but GSF was the most brilliant use of development judo I've ever seen. Repurposing a live MMO's combat system to force a whole set of parallel instances that better implement the gamesoul than the main game itself?

Well played!

But the reason this keeps coming up is because it is absolutely vital to GSF. But it's also extremely important to ground game pvp- this game has a lot of what WoW has, such as arenas, but without the mechanics needed to support them that WoW has had since vanilla. Copying WoW's pvp model, without also copying the substrate that it runs on, is Bad News. Oh, WoW also uses cross server for LFR, a wildly successful casual raiding model, so even pve has large gains to make.

Cross server is their number one needed feature, and yes, they are working on it- they'd be fools not to have it on their list of things to develop.

So they WILL do cross server, but I'm sure it's a very large effort, and they are pushing to make it happen as best they can. And it's easiest and most important for GSF, with the rest of PvP right behind, and hopefully with SOME kind of pve experience following that.

And at the OP: we know we need this. The devs who read these forums know this, as do the community folks who stop by. And they might be cross at the rest of my post, or stopped reading when I ragged on stuff, because they can't focus on negativity. Our forum isn't constantly cry requests for this because we all know that it takes Money To Do This, and we know it's Not On The Roadmap. It gets asked, it gets answered. We don't keep banging the Cross Server Drum, not because it isn't important, but because we'll just use up all the bandwidth. I'd rather read posts on components and play tricks and game balance, and I'm sure those guys would too. They know we need this, and I'm sure they are doing their best to provide it- so we don't want to crap the forums up with it.

So when people "demand" attention to this NOW! it's just kind of laughable.

Well it may be laughable to you, however, I am a subscriber and have been since launch. Nearly all of the GSF'rs I know are subs. On top of being subs most of us also buy cartel coins on occasion as well. Last month I bought $40 worth on top of my sub and the same this month. I really doubt Bioware considers that laughable. Yes, one person leaving may be not worth noticing but start adding the subs up and it will be noticeable.

Despite what some ground PVE peeps might think there is a pretty strong GSF community and we meaningfully add to the game. WoW has had cross server for YEARS. We aren't asking for the moon. We are asking for an industry standard.

Yes it would be nice in all aspects not just GSF. Ground PVP, flashpoint finder, operations finder. I play all portions of the game and it would be awesome in all. I just primarily care about GSF. Though, I'm already over $300 into Star Citizen and I'm highly debating cancelling my SWTOR sub and subbing for Star Citizen at this point. At least RSI is listening to their subscriber's input.

Cancelled my Subscription. I realized that Bioware seems to be more concerned with giving us fancy apartments than with adding anything meaningful to the game, so until that is resolved I will not give them any more money. Perhaps that is the only thing they will listen too. Enough people stopping the money train.

Right there with you!!! Now let's play some 1 server Star Citizen!! WOOT!!!

I think that our voices are being heard, but nothing will be done. Wish it would get taken care of, but it doesn't seem like that'll be the case. They know what we want. The ball is in their bar. *shrugs*

In the last Twitch stream, when we asked Eric if he could tell us one GSF-related item in the roadmap, the only thing he would mention was the forthcoming "balance patch"--which we don't even have a date for.

What really amuses me about this is how pointless their attempts to balance GSF are right now. It's cute that they think that engine maneuvers, weapons, or ship types are creating poor balance in play when matchmaking is so broken by the tiny server specific player pools that balance in the actual game is not possible. In fact, I can't help but wonder how they can begin to assess imbalances in ships and upgrades when the matches are all so one-sided to begin with. I guess just nerf what everyone plays the most every time they do an update?

The fact that cross-server queues are such a low priority for them is frustrating, because the small pools of players even during "primetime" are the reason that so few people bother with GSF. I play SWTOR with half a dozen people, and I'm the only one who stuck with it past the first time we tried the Weekly. They all gave the exact same reason for quitting, too. Getting matched against aces with mastered ships and destroyed over and over again is not even a little bit fun, and getting matched with aces with mastered ships and contributing nothing to the win is only slightly less unfun.

Small queues -> ****** matchmaking -> Driving new players away from GSF -> Small queues

But hey, maybe it'll all work out if we nerf Targeting Telemetry, right?

Edit: For the record (if anyone from BW actually reads this stuff), my sub's already cancelled. GSF was by far the coolest thing about this game when I came back to it last month, and I'd gladly sub for it.. if it were implemented in a way that's functional and fun for more than just the dozen or so aces on each server.

Why not just focus up and get good enough to compete, instead of complaining?

Well, whatever. Obviously cross server is the only thing that can fix that for you, I guess.

Why not just focus up and get good enough to compete, instead of complaining?

 

 

Well, whatever. Obviously cross server is the only thing that can fix that for you, I guess.

If a gameplay mode is being ruined for new players by the difficulty of playing with very experienced players, "L2P NOOB" may be an appropriate response from another player. I'd like to think that BioWare would have other concerns, though, like getting people to hate GSF less and play it more, which might be one of the huge benefits of cross-server queues, which is what I thought this thread was about.

And I think you've misunderstood me. I don't play GSF as much as I'd like because I play SWTOR socially, and no one that I play with can stand it for the reasons that I gave above. Maybe I just play at odd hours, but I typically do fine and end up somewhere in the top 3 on the scoreboard (for my team) at the end of a match. I'm not the best, but I'm not terrible at this game at all, and I'm getting better. I just don't play it as much as I wish I could, and I recognize how pointless it is to queue up sometimes when I see a group on the other side popping into every match and stomping everyone.

There's nothing wrong with people being really good at GSF, of course. I'm not blaming any of the players who've been at this for months for ruining GSF or something, but the fact is that anyone who just wants to jump in and play this cool game and have some fun without committing tens or hundreds of hours to accumulating requisition and mastering the game will probably not enjoy it very much. That cuts out a huge number of potential players, I think, which only makes the problem worse.

Well it may be laughable to you, however, I am a subscriber and have been since launch. Nearly all of the GSF'rs I know are subs. On top of being subs most of us also buy cartel coins on occasion as well. Last month I bought $40 worth on top of my sub and the same this month. I really doubt Bioware considers that laughable. Yes, one person leaving may be not worth noticing but start adding the subs up and it will be noticeable.

I let my sub lapse. I only renew it when I have a lot of credits in escrow & want to buy something off the GTN.

I'd also happily buy monthly "GSF Passes" IF there were shorter queues & cross server.

Though, I'm already over $300 into Star Citizen and I'm highly debating cancelling my SWTOR sub and subbing for Star Citizen at this point. At least RSI is listening to their subscriber's input.

I'm still tossing up which pledge ship to buy for Star Citizen. Sadly, i'll most likely need a new box before being able to play it.

I spoke to Customer Service asking the best way to let the devs know of our frustration - they pointed me to the 'Suggestion Box' as thats where the devs read the most stuff on the forums. Not sure how realistic it will be to see a change come about, but I think we have a "decent" amount of players on these forums that if we all posted, we could get some notice?

"Hey guys, I found a way to input data into the system. Lets all just spam worthless drek in there, that should fix things nicely."

No. If you like the suggestion box, then put something in there. I'm 100% convinced from every interview that the devs are totally aware about the need for this. What would it accomplish to spam a communications method? Once the idea has been communicated- and that was like, in 2012? Then further communications on the same topic just degrade your interface.

"Hey guys, I found a way to input data into the system. Lets all just spam worthless drek in there, that should fix things nicely."

 

 

 

No. If you like the suggestion box, then put something in there. I'm 100% convinced from every interview that the devs are totally aware about the need for this. What would it accomplish to spam a communications method? Once the idea has been communicated- and that was like, in 2012? Then further communications on the same topic just degrade your interface.

How many people were in the stream? Of the people in that stream, do you think it represented the entire community? I think not. While they have heard our complaints about a want of integration, it doesn't drive the point home. Think about it - if there were even 100 posts from individuals on the suggestion forum saying to implement this, it would show BW that we want this A LOT MORE than showing up in a stream.

The numbers would be there where, as stated before, a twitch stream doesn't represent the entire community. I don't think anyone said in the stream "Cancelling subscription until x-server is implemented". In business, if I get a phone call, I'll make note of what was discussed, but it would be a much higher priority if I received 10 emails about it. Your opinion is just that - an opinion. Numbers don't lie, and as such if there were a movement to post and get things done, things may actually progress faster than your belief that "Hey, they know we want it, but screw em". $$'s speak a lot more than opinions, and having that visual record for them to actually put into perspective the potential loss would motivate a lot more than a player posting about this. The CS rep even said that most of the time, the devs glaze over the subsections of the forum yet they do read the suggestion box. From a company perspective, that's the location where they identify the true wants and needs. Every other section is a community conversation, but it's nowhere near as capable of creating a movement for change.

Sammygstatus has it right. If we don't keep squawking at them they won't do anything about it. Them knowing it's an issue and realizing they need to do something about it with at least as high of a priority as digital casinos are obviously two different things.

Every one who wants cross server anything need to take 2 minutes and post in the suggestion box.