Too many Starfighter matches aren't matches at all. There is no balance. Four guys enter a match teamed together with tons of skill and it's just a turkey shoot and for the rest of the night you're either getting killed constantly or on the winning side but not getting to participate much because the skill guys are just wiping them out faster than you can even target them. Which is why I suggest SWTOR implement an MMR system or Pilot Rating so to speak sort of like Blizzard does . All the stats are there kill/loss ration all of these can give pilots a pilot rating so when teams are put together they aren't necessarily teams of equal numbers but rather teams of equal total skill number. So when four guys cue up together their combined skill number might match them up against 8 or even 10 against them to even the playing field.

If there were pilot ratings it wouldn't prevent blowouts but it would make more games playable for more people and even open the door for things like GSF team tournaments where teams of equal skill levels could compete for prizes. Guilds would form their own GSF teams watch their skill levels grow as they improve as. More people would start playing GSF. just an idea.

5.9.2 brought in some matchmaking changes. Players are given a combination score based on the amount of requisition spent across all the ships on your bar, and the number of matches played across the whole legacy. If grouped, the matchmaker considers each member of the group to have the same score as the member with the highest score.

Also, as noted in the livestream last week, the Guild Heraldry system (occurring AFTER 5.10) will introduce tracking variables like GSF matches. 5.10 will have custom GSF match creation as well, for a minimum of 2v2.

Yeah those changes in 5.92 haven't really done anything to fix the matchups. I've been in dozens upon dozens of matches since then and whatever matchmaking criteria they use is pretty much broken.

 

Be interesting to see the 5.10 Heraldy changes. 2 vs 2 seems a bit sparse, but I could see it being fun under the right conditions.

 

Either way there are currently some serious balance issues in GSF that need to be addressed.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Taythan

The matchmaking works some, it is a tiny improvement over how it was before. To the OPs point about the top-skill 4 man teams that are afraid to split into pairs, the match-maker currently obviously doesn't work for that. 100% win rate before matchmaker, 100% now, no challenge, no chance for loss. I like the OPs idea that would match those types of skill 4 premades against up to 12 players. That would be very fun to have a real contest. The 4 would get more kills than ever before, and would sometimes even lose, and both sides would have a chance (if implemented properly). I'm sure currently it isn't fun to be with or against the massively lopsided team, wasted matches really. Good suggestion.

 

I am also looking forward to the upcoming planned changes.