I've been seeing a lot of what I'm going to assume are new players on the forums talk about how this game has no skill at all and that it's only about mastered ships and using premades to do well.

I was pretty sure this was very wrong as I think skill in this game is the most important aspect, as it should be in my opinion.

To test this I made new level 1's on multiple servers and after playing 1 game I would screenshot the scoreboard and my stats to prove I had no upgrades. I also deleted the characters afterwards to be able to play again with 0 upgrades.

Game #1 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #2 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #3 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #4 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #5 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #6 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

The games above clearly show that even in a ship with not only 0 upgrades but 0 new components I was still one of the most useful team members on my team in every game.

Some of these games where I thought for sure I was going to get completly wrecked, like in game 4 where they fielded 4 gunships, or in game 5 where I faught what looked like a double premade I still managed to put up decent numbers. Now granted I went 3/3 over these 6 games, but to me 50% win ratio while solo q ing and having 0 upgrades was pretty good.

I really wanted to do this to give anyone on the forums a place to point too when people try to say that this game has no skill and that its just all mastered ships and premades.

Now to everyone out there with some skill go make a level 1 somewhere throw up some screenshots in this thread.

Edit: Did a few games on red eclipse for the first time tonight, decided to add them here

Game #1 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #2 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #3 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Edit#2: Adding some videos of me playing on Stock ships.

The whole 3 hours of streaming is here if you prefer to watch it that way, I show off that all the ships are Stock right at the starting. I also explain a ton of stuff during the stream. Part 1 Part 2

The individual games are as follows:

Rycer 1

Blackbolt 1

Razorwire 1

Sting 1

Rycer 2

Rycer 3

Blackbolt 2

Mangler 1

Mangler 2

Seriously did that the other day after hearing this newb whine about it for over an hour on TEH's GSF chat. Thought to myself I should put up or shut up, rolled a new toon, was literally standing next to him on the starter planet and got into the next que pop with him.

50k damage using rapids, top assists(18), second highest kills(8). His reply was that I followed him around all match stealing his kills. Like ***?

I'm using my ignore button far too much this last week. Nice numbers you put up btw, but good luck trying to convince those new players that skill means anything at all.

Believe it or not, this is with stock upgrades (or very very very close to it). This was also the same day that I saw Drak streaming for my first time, cuz I remember flying with Cosmo.

http://i.imgur.com/ucFsebC.jpg

These are my stats on this toon a month after that: http://i.imgur.com/XL5pvBG.jpg

Great thread! I have wanted to do something like this but I am lazy as hell

Heres a match on a near stock Novadive (only 1st tier upgrades - LL, Pods, Distortion, and BR)

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b625/Flankenstein/Screenshot_2014-07-27_12_19_06_873958_zps0d4b9156.jpg

Match from Bone Stock Novadive

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b625/Flankenstein/Screenshot_2014-03-22_12_08_16_543502_zpscbbcef99.jpg

I need to make some new toons though to show the RFL love.

For OP. In those matches where you led the scoreboard I can't help, but notice that your enemy team wasn't doing very well at all with only couple of them having any kills. You can easily get good score with stock ship againts noobs and if your team works well together giving you support.. againts more experienced players too. Also doesn't stock strike have some other co-pilot ability? Slicer's loop or in your sights? Not that I really think changing it as not flying stock ship as long as you take one of co-pilots available as default - I have done the same with my stocks.

I fly stock ships every now and then. I'm good, but nothing exceptional so there is probably some real aces who can do better than me with stock ships. I fly them in stock condition until I have enough req to master them. Already done with mangler, rycer, blackbolt and soon with sting. It's kind a nice to use different components than I usually use and It is different type of playing. For example flying stock scout againts experienced players with upgraded ships I usually have to be sneaky or use hit and run tactics intercepting enemy ships while on mastered scouts I would have enough fire power to either kill them, make them run or atleast have good chance of doing it.

There is huge difference between 100 matches experience and 1000 matches. Upgrades do not matter as much as some people think, but they do matter. They don't help noobs much againts player in stock ship who has played 1000 matches more than they have, but againts experienced and skilled players anyone flying stock ship should be in trouble. Unless they really are that good, but I haven't seen one yet and I'm gonna need more proof than scoreboard about it. In the end remember that GSF is very team dependent game it all depends on how well teams work together and againts each other - which ships people are using etc.

GSF is very team dependent game it all depends on how well teams work together

Premade not furr. Premade no skill bads with masturd shipz. lolpremadeIcankillthemsolo #premadesarebs #Irunsoloinateamgamebecausethatswhathipstersdo #hipstersthatsacoolword #oknotreally #hashtagnoonegivesasheet #theyearis2014 #Ifirerocketpodsatinnocentplayers

Premade not furr.

For OP. In those matches where you led the scoreboard I can't help, but notice that your enemy team wasn't doing very well at all with only couple of them having any kills. You can easily get good score with stock ship againts noobs and if your team works well together giving you support.

You're basically proving the whole point of the thread. I out flew others because I have more skill then them, and it had nothing to do with my upgrades. People have been saying that experienced pilots only win because of their mastered ships or because they queued as a group, so this shows that, that premise is wrong.

Also doesn't stock strike have some other co-pilot ability? Slicer's loop or in your sights? Not that I really think changing it as not flying stock ship as long as you take one of co-pilots available as default - I have done the same with my stocks.

Yes I changed the copilot in the crew section but I still didn't unlock anything.

I fly stock ships every now and then. I'm good, but nothing exceptional so there is probably some real aces who can do better than me with stock ships. I fly them in stock condition until I have enough req to master them. Already done with mangler, rycer, blackbolt and soon with sting. It's kind a nice to use different components than I usually use and It is different type of playing. For example flying stock scout againts experienced players with upgraded ships I usually have to be sneaky or use hit and run tactics intercepting enemy ships while on mastered scouts I would have enough fire power to either kill them, make them run or atleast have good chance of doing it.

I don't really know what to say to this, except gratz for playing on hardmode I guess. I don't really see how this is more fun for you, but if you enjoy it then all the power to you.

There is huge difference between 100 matches experience and 1000 matches. Upgrades do not matter as much as some people think, but they do matter. They don't help noobs much againts player in stock ship who has played 1000 matches more than they have, but againts experienced and skilled players anyone flying stock ship should be in trouble. Unless they really are that good, but I haven't seen one yet and I'm gonna need more proof than scoreboard about it. In the end remember that GSF is very team dependent game it all depends on how well teams work together and againts each other - which ships people are using etc.

Alright so this block is kind of hard to understand, but I think your saying "skill is important, but if 2 people have = skill then gear is also important"

This is basically the idea I'm trying to hit home, skill is way more important then gear, but as two pilots get close in ability the gear gap is going to be more and more apparent.

As for the game being team dependent I actually play like 90% of my games in a full premade to be honest. I have a team and we practice coordinating all sorts of stuff. This to me is the most fun part of the game, playing as unit not as a single ship.

I hope that gives you more insight on why I put this up here, I'm not trying to say I'm the best pilot ever because I can kill new pilots with no upgrades, I'm trying to say a good pilot can.

I would like to highlight 2 things which lots of people here forgetting:

1) Most of players discusing here are veterans. Learning to play was much more easier in early times of GSF. Most of players were on same level - same stock ships, no upgrades and much less knowledge about game. Now are newbies facing aces with fully upgraded ship. Its hard to learn something when you are down after 2 shots.

2) Some people are just better at GSF than others. Well, you are top aces, you can do well even in unarmed escape pod. But GSF is game (and its not realistic simulator game) and so it is inteded for wider range of players, not only top pilots. Player base will be hardly ever larger if game stay as it is now.

You're basically proving the whole point of the thread. I out flew others because I have more skill then them, and it had nothing to do with my upgrades. People have been saying that experienced pilots only win because of their mastered ships or because they queued as a group, so this shows that, that premise is wrong.

Yes, but I doubt that will make those whiners feel any better. It really doesn't matter for those people whether it is gear or skill they are missing, if they are losing. Most of them wont bother to stick around and learn to get on same level gear/skill wise than veterans who have played since early access, but it's awesome if this thread motivates someone to stick around.

Alright so this block is kind of hard to understand, but I think your saying "skill is important, but if 2 people have = skill then gear is also important"

 

This is basically the idea I'm trying to hit home, skill is way more important then gear, but as two pilots get close in ability the gear gap is going to be more and more apparent.

Exactly what I was trying to say. Sorry, if my english is hard to understand. It's not my native language so it can be hard for me to express what I want to say.

As for the game being team dependent I actually play like 90% of my games in a full premade to be honest. I have a team and we practice coordinating all sorts of stuff. This to me is the most fun part of the game, playing as unit not as a single ship.

I was speaking generaly not just about premades. Skill of invidual player matters greatly, but that alone isn't enough, if whole team whether it's premades or not is getting dominated by other team. I think that was point I was trying to make.

I usually solo queue atleast on rep side because it's often stronger side anyways so solo queuing gives me better chance to get more balanced match. I know there are some people who really enjoy easy matches and quit before match starts if they think they will lose. I don't enjoy being on either side of unbalanced match. More than anything else in whole game I enjoy those intense close wins or even loses when I know I have given it everything I have. Sometimes I play with couple of guildies/friends in "casual" premades. No voip and we don't try to coordinate anything special, but I certainly wouldn't mind playing with more coordinated team on imp side when rep side is veteran heavy. I'm just too lazy to organize anything. My point is that I don't think there is nothing really wrong with playing in premades just on my server I feel they tend to make things even more unbalanced.

Yes, but I doubt that will make those whiners feel any better. It really doesn't matter for those people whether it is gear or skill they are missing, if they are losing. Most of them wont bother to stick around and learn to get on same level gear/skill wise than veterans who have played since early access, but it's awesome if this thread motivates someone to stick around.

So what should we do? Letting ourselves be killed by n00bs??? Giving them the victories they want freely? Letting them think their skills (or more lack of) is enough to play at vet level?

If you think so, ask yourself this question : "How does a chess master teach chess?"

Answer : By pointing out mistakes AND crushing quickly every attempt to fight. Then explaining what should have been done instead.

If they can't be bothered to ask politely for help (so not by being arrogant jerk who will simply piss me off) then I won't bother to help them. They can all think I'm an ******e for all I care. They can even stop queueing for GSF, they can unsub or even uninstall... And you know what?? I won't care. If they can't ask for help correctly they aren't fit to fly anyway IMHO.

Oh and below them, there are the stats padders that leave matches when they die to pad their KDR when they are goddamn aweful pilots. Yes we have on of those on TEH.... And for me and my friend.. And probably a few imps. He is now priority one. Just to make him rage quit and to troll him. I even have a few ships built specially to chase his Bloodmark round and kill him ASAP.

Arrogant n00b and statpadder. Both have some entertainment value. But after a few times, I just want to kill them repetitively.....

So what should we do? Letting ourselves be killed by n00bs??? Giving them the victories they want freely? Letting them think their skills (or more lack of) is enough to play at vet level?

No. I do sometimes take it easy on them like not going for 3 cap and/or playing my worst ship which doesn't really mean it's a bad ship, but atleast it's not mastered tier 2 scout or gunship. Still that's just me and usually when I'm just really bored. There just isn't anything we can really do other than live with it. Unless they will create cross-server queue which might solve problem of noobs having to playing on same level than vets and still have queues popping, but I guess that is wishful thinking.

Yes, but I doubt that will make those whiners feel any better.

I really don't care if they feel better. As long as they know they are wrong, that good players can put up numbers in naked ships that they can't put up period. They can't squawk about and cry that aces need gear, or whatever ludicrous story they tell themselves because they are worse at the game than other players other than just fessing up to that simple fact.

It really doesn't matter for those people whether it is gear or skill they are missing, if they are losing.

Of course not. That's the whole point. But without threads like this, someone might think the game is about gear.

The thing is, if people want to get good, they just need to play. If they want to get good faster, they should come and look up all the play and gear guides that are around here and that normally end up near the front page and should be stickied. Everything else is excuses.

Here's excuses:

> "I don't have the gear!"

> "Players who group together are trying to hide their weaknesses! I must be better than them!"

> "Aces started playing when everyone had no gear, and something something it's impossible to play now"

> "<insert technique> is cheating/cheap/dishonorable!"

It's just so silly to read the same complaints over and over. As if the devs should be like "Hrm, a few people who don't play the game at all are busy telling us that the best thing we can do is redesign the game to punish the players who play it daily, in the thin hopes that we may get them, or better yet, a whole TROUPE of whining noskill baddies to sign up! DO EET GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!"

I'm very glad it doesn't work like that. If there is some player who walks into a pvp game, loses, and then decides the problem is with the game, guess what? It wouldn't have mattered what the game was. The result was baked into the player.

Matchmaking is so bad that you could probably have a great game in a stock ship since it will usually be 8 vs 4 as dead players are respawning and running back into the fight. Or you'll be outmatched and it doesn't matter what you fly.

Well considering that I had just made that new character and had 0 games played matchmaking should actually be working properly if I am fighting all new players.

But the idea of this thread is just to show that a skilled player can put up good numbers without any upgrades, therefor disproving the idea that the only way a good player wins is because of upgrades or that they are in a premade. This doesn't mean a good player won't do better under those conditions of course they will, but for the most part it's not the reason a good player does so well.

I started a few new characters over the weekend - and queued for GSF as soon as I hit fleet and could pick up the intro to GSF and daily/weekly - so flying stock scout ships - And though I din't come close to your numbers I thought that 7 kills in 2 matches and 15-20K damage in both and plenty of basic req - >1500 each match showed that it's true that skill (and practice) counts for a lot. -

A few points: Stock ships are paper thin - and can be easily 2-shotted by GS. - they don't soak up missiles too well either.

If there are no support ships with repair probes, then Hydrospanner is very useful to keep you patched up. -You can always swap it out later.

You burn thorugh your cooldowns at a furious rate- and you fly more defensively, using LoS + looping away from the fight to let your system bars recharge.

Picking off isolated stragglers is better than wading into the thick of the fight.

If the enemy is pushed back across the map - you can spend a long time thrusting to the far side.

But also the Req builds quite quickly - enough to slap on some shields and unlock a crewmember of your choice and upgrade evasion or your stock guns. - Or whatever your build-from-scratch order is.

And final point - I'm only about 1/2 as skilled as Drak!

TL/DR: Skill + experience counts for a lot, but upgrades help a bit to stay alive longer and get higher up the chart. / The tutorial and matchmaking are sub-par - but then we all know that already.

veterans

The thought of less than a year old veterans who make still in diapers, is most amusing.

Stock Starguard with B-3G9 as copilot instead of Ashy. Also minor cosmetic changes; because psychological warfare.

http://i.imgur.com/eD98S9H.png

Not sure if I "did really well" because that game was kinda boring overall. Enemy had more ships to choose from but both teams averaged on a low skill level.

As far as I remember this was the third game on that specific character but in the other two I was mainly playing Nova Dive (managed to do well in those matches but didn't take screenshots).

That works to a degree.

Story: I made a new character. I was using an almost-stock Star Guard (still had rapids). There was a kill-scout who kept flying after someone, and into my sights. I killed it with rapids twice. Then its owner decided enough was enough, and got a charged plating Rampart. With stock ships, there's no way you're killing anything with charged plating + deflection armor.

Morals of the story:

1: Rapids are great for getting people to underestimate you.

2: There's more to being new than having fail gear. Lots of them fire rapids at maximum range and way off-center, and expect to do something. Charged plating is almost an invulnerability shield against newbies, because none of the stock ship components come with armor piercing. Star Guard can fit protorp, Novadive can fit thermites or upgrade rockets to tier 1, and then there are all the tier 3/4/5 upgrades. If you take charged plating into a match full of highly upgraded BLC scouts and type 1/3 gunships (BLC/slug), it doesn't help you at all, because all of the best weapons include armor piercing somewhere in their upgrade trees.

Here's some more data for the discussion. I decided to start a new character on the Shadowlands server tonight. I haven't spent a point of requisition on the ships yet. You can take a look at my record after 11 matches.

I ran a few matches each with stock Rycer, Blackbolt, and Mangler. The best one in terms of damage was this one, though I had another match where I rung up 10k 26a and a little less damage in the Mangler. The worst game I had was 18k damage in the Blackbolt as part of a generally raw and unschooled team against a wall-o-veterans. There is definitely a large performance edge when you're fully upgraded, but in that match even if I had my maxxed out Sting, I wouldn't have had much of a chance of doing much. The other players lacked the experience and skill to compete. Even with skill and experience, though, my rapid-fire lasers and model rockets couldn't dent a bomber or gunship with charged plating up, and I ran into a few of those.

I don't think anyone can seriously argue that experience and skill aren't a huge part of the game. If they do, they're willfully ignoring lots of evidence to the contrary. That said, new pilots who don't know the ins and outs are usually at a massive disadvantage competing against people who know what they're doing. And if you're thinking 'well, they should be!' then you're right, but that doesn't make for a healthy game.

A healthy game should put new players in a position where they can grow and improve their skills against similarly skilled opposition. MLB teams don't compete against little-leaguers. NFL teams don't whomp on high school football players. It's not like we're all being recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada. It's not life and death here, there's no reward for stomping people mercilessly at every opportunity.

I urge you all to not 3-cap teams of players who have no hope of holding a satellite. It's tougher to know where to draw the line in deathmatches, but if you see a team that's getting shredded, you really don't need to roll in the unassailable gunship nest with triple overlapping cover. Challenge yourself a little and fly a ship that puts you closer to their level. Your skill and experience will still bring the win, but maybe the other team won't have such a miserable time. And you might even learn a few new tricks yourself.

-Despon

. Challenge yourself a little and fly a ship that puts you closer to their level. Your skill and experience will still bring the win, but maybe the other team won't have such a miserable time. And you might even learn a few new tricks yourself.

 

-Despon

That's why there are strike-nights on some servers on Monday evenings - Okay so not everyone gets the message - but it's a great way to learn the intermediate skills needed on slightly-better-matched teams - it generally levels the playing field somewhat.

gunship with charged plating up, and I ran into a few of those.

Mind = blown. Please tell me who they are so I can demonstrate to them personally how dumb that is.

Mind = blown. Please tell me who they are so I can demonstrate to them personally how dumb that is.

This. Repeated often plz. K thx pew pew

My mistake on the GS charged plating comment. The bombers I engaged definitely fielded it, as I watched a continual laser / rocket pounding do no hull damage when their shields were down, but the gunships weren't CP, since they can't field it. Sorry for the mistake. It must have been fortress shield, since I wasn't blowing myself up ala Feedback and I wasn't missing from Distortion Field evasion, the damage just wasn't doing anything appreciable. So, un-blow your mind and then re-blow it slightly less severely that someone was using Fortress Shield.

The point still stands, though, that there are build options that effectively make it impossible for an un-upgraded ship to destroy them. When you have a team full of unupgraded ships against a team of upgraded ships, there are scenarios where no matter how well the unupgraded ships are flown, they're not going to succeed.

Pilot skill is a huge factor in GSF, but upgrade imbalance is, too. Skilled pilots will do really well even in stock ships that have no upgrades, that's abundantly clear. Putting people in a position where they have no hope of competing against an opposing team is a bad way to run a game, if you intend to have people stick around for the long run.

I agree the game handles damage reduction and armor pen ( or lack thereof ) for stock ships poorly, under other circumstances its still pretty easy to get some form of armor pen to deal with the charged plating situation.

Your starting blackbolt can upgrade its rocket pods for a measly 1000 req to pierce that armor.

If you were fortunate to sub back in november for the extra free mangler you can get the armor pen on the slug railgun for 8500 req, while 8500 req is still a few games investment, I think it's still pretty reasonable. The bigger problem the newer players face is not understanding how important having a armor pen loadout on your bar is.

Honestly I would love a copilot ability that gave you armor pen for a duration like bypass does for shield penetration. It would be even better if it was part of the stock kit for both factions. So even a brand new pilot had a way to deal with this problem if they took the time to read their abilities or a guide up on the forums. I think the best way to do this in my opinion would be to replace slicers loop( for republic) (which is just horrible in its current iteration) and maybe nullify (not as useless as loop but still the best choice for the replacement I'd say) with said armor penetrating ability

lol - it tells you how little time I look at shield "options" for gunships that I missed that no variant can take CP.

As for stock, I would just bake in the "key" effects into the base abilities, and have the later unlock tier improve it instead of provide it. So, DF breaks missiles automatically, and T2 drops cd a little, and T3 would drop cd to the current minimum. Rockets/HLC/slug would armor pierce 50% automatically, and the later talent gives full pen, etc.

I never had a problem with commitment -> more power, but not having the most important possibilities for new players to experiment always seemed wrong. I wouldn't feel like my multiple million ship requisition commitment would be cheapened if they retroactively changed this now. My suspicion (based on no data) is that it's coming to the point at which they need to rethink their monetization model for GSF a little bit to keep getting any ROI at all from the gametype. The fanatics are done, but the new player pull is pretty low.