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Danalon

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Posts posted by Danalon

  1. I'm not from Harbinger, however there is something I'd like to call arms-race matches.

     

    I'll use a deathmatch as example. It usually happens when my side has 2-3 good pilots and 5-6 new pilots while the other team is mostly consisting of average pilots with 6-7 of them having 4-5 ships to choose from. At first the other team thinks it's going to win easily, because they only see 2-3 people with 5 ships on our team (my wingman and I have lots of alts and usually aren't recognized by others) while themselves having a lot of 5-shippers. They choose their ships relatively random from what I can tell but soon realize they get killed by the same 2-3 people again and again and they can't keep up with the kill count. Over the course of the match their team is stacking more and more gunships to counter our good pilots - and even with passive evasion it's hard to not get hit when having 4-5 people shooting at you. They stack more and more gunships because they'll try to farm our beginners faster than our good pilots can kill them, making it virtually impossible to effectively kill them with scouts - we're not aces, just above average. That's when we switch to gunships and it becomes a 3v7 railgun standoff, with us trying to kill their gunships faster than their gunships can kill our beginners. (On a side note, I dislke new players who keep flying into gunship walls even when told multiple times to stay in cover or at least manage their boost so they're actually a distraction to the enemies instead of just cannon fodder.)

     

    The other team does the right thing in that situation, they adapt to the match and change their ships to turn the game in their favor. Can't blame them.

     

    Similar things happen with bombers in domination. The game starts "normal" but at some point we drown in enemy bombers trying to take a node. (On a side note, I dislike new players who don't stay close to a green satellite so it stays green in case the "main defender" dies.)

     

    However, those games are also the reason for me to fly with my/a wingman whenever possible. When I'm the only good pilot and the other team starts stacking whatever ship against my team I usually can't do much, but flying with a wingman helps to keep the situation under control most of the time.

  2. I don't agree with that at all. A BLC/pod/retro scout is absolute murder as a carry ship in domination. It's easily way better than a bomber for carrying a game. The second best carry ship here is probably the T1 gunship, but you'll have to spend a lot of time on the node killing stuff with BLC if your team is bad enough. IMO the only time it's worth it for me to play beacon bomber is if I have at least 3 competent teammates that will actually use the beacon. Sure, I could hold one satellite all game, but it's way harder to keep two satellites than the aforementioned choices.

     

    A BLC/cluster/barrel roll scout is probably the best carry ship in TDM in these scenarios. If you are truly an ace, you'll be able to grab every single DO with this ship whereas you might otherwise miss a few if flying a gunship. Damage overcharge BLC murderers everything, and clusters are extremely good at killing any pilot that knows how to stay out of BLC range.

    I don't see much difference.

    While a Scout is equally dangerous as the other two when flown by an ace, it's effectivenes plummets when flown by an average pilot.

    ... while Gunships and especially Bombers require almost no skill or effort when fielded en masse against new pilots.

     

    If mediocre pilots were able to farm beginners as well in Scouts as they do in Gunships/Bombers, there wouldn't be so many games where Gunships or Bombers or both are spammed against beginners.

  3. In my opinion the problem with Bombers and Gunships isn't that they're too strong, but they are extremely effective against new players, without having to put much effort in and even when used by mediocre pilots. While a Scout is equally dangerous as the other two when flown by an ace, it's effectivenes plummets when flown by an average pilot.

     

    In a game with equal and high average skill on both sides, the three meta classes work just fine, but everyone here knows that most games aren't that way. If one team consists of mostly new players the easiest way to farm them are Gunships for DM and Bombers for DOM. A Bomber in DOM doesn't have to do anything but getting to a satellite, drop everything and sit still for the rest of the game; a Gunship in DM never gets attacked because new ships usually lack evasion and are easily killed by railgun spam - and sadly, that's what a lot of people do.

    A well piloted Scout is as deadly as the other two, but the Scout lacks AE and it has to watch out for it's hitpoints because it's effective range is small enough that even new pilots have a chance to target it.

  4. I play T1 Bomber with Interdiction Mines and slowing Seismic Mines. It's hilarious to see an attacker coming to a full stop, trying to boost away but realizing he can't, then panicking and using the engine ability only to crash into an obstacle.
  5. Does the slow effect from concussions stack with ion interdicion? If it does, does it stack with ion missiles too?

     

    As far as I know, all of those effects just slow but don't reduce turning rate.

     

    Pure slows just stack with "true interdiction effects" (effects which reduce speed and turning rate).

  6. My understanding is that it has always prioritized Groups over Noobs over people with mastered ships (with the more mastered ships you have, the less likely you are to get a group). If that is true then the order I stated (barring noobs vs noobs which I forgot to list) is how it will go.

     

    Afaik only the "most-mastered" ship on the bar is affecting queues, with one component of every slot at max as the highest value. Additional components and ships don't count.

    It tries to match people with roughly the same numbers of games played.

     

    As most active pilots have a mastered ship and a high number of games played, they sometimes get skipped because the matchmaker can't find anyone else with that much games played.

     

    But the matchmaker also prioritizes groups (imho completely ignoring any other factors - never was skipped while grouped), which makes grouping up the only way for some veterans to get a queue.

     

    The presence of 2 veterans is enough to determine the outcome of most games against groups with no veterans, which makes games seem a lot more unbalanced than they actually are.

  7. Is it possible you might do a best of server category?

     

    On another note, Traesha pointed out that most of these, barring the ship-specific categories, were accomplished by T1 Gunships and T2 Strikes. And a lot of these seem like they're pretty old; many of those servers have almost no population now. Maybe it's time for a 4.0+ list? Start fresh? A lot of pilots don't play anymore (e.g. I've never seen anyone named "Dres" on Jedi Covenant and I've been flying for almost a year now) and there are a lot of new ones who deserve to make the board.

     

    I'm not suggesting this so I'll have a spot on the list; chances are I won't. It just seems like this is kind of outdated now, and that there's no real aspiration to try and go for records.

     

    I don't think a "best of server" category is a good idea. For example, there are only 4 (or so) different people, who submitted records from T3-M4. Most of the T3-M4 records are by me - not because I'm the best pilot there, but because the others don't submit records. A server specific list would be pretty empty for almost all servers.

     

    A lot of the records are accomplished by T1 Gunships and T2 Scouts simply because almost all statistics we get from the scoreboard are kill-related and those two ships are the best killers.

     

    Some records here are pretty old and that's because a new list only gets made when there's a patch that makes a big change to balance in GSF. The last patch that made changes to GSF was 2.8 as it says in the title.

  8. You know, I see this kind of mental acrobatics about this game more often than I should, and it comes in many different flavors, but tends to express itself in similar ways. This isn't just new players, but even players who have been around for a long time can make excuses and come up with an endless list of justifications to try to convince themselves that it isn't THEIR fault that they are are having a bad time, but some external issue.

    [...]

     

    The human brain goes through a lot of effort to make itself look better. One of the most common ways it does this is the self-serving bias. I'm aware this bias exists, yet sometimes I catch myself doing it.

  9. Let's consider every component having roughly the same strength and enough synergies with other components to work well. There would be more different ships around, and beginners could build what they like without making mistakes. That's about it. It wouldn't magically make beginners stronger.

    Without a rating system, which requires a bigger participation to work, or at least a better tutorial, which has to be played and not just skipped, there won't be much change in veteran vs beginner fights.

     

    Game mechanics versus real-life usually doesn't lead anywhere. Games have to be designed for playability and in many cases there are differences to "real life".

    The reason why there are no Gunships in the movies is basically the same as with the game mechanics. Movies are made for watching - they're not documentaries about weapons. Weapons have to be cool to watch. Besides that, in almost any movie there are discrepancies bewteen the power a character (or his equipment) should have and the power he uses. Sometimes it's explained, moreoften it's not.

     

    Maybe inside the game there is no mechanic to support playing with a wingman, but what keeps you from using any VoIP to coordinate. I usually fly with a wingman and we have developed some standard moves for the beginning of matches and coordinate changes in tactics. I wouldn't call us aces but we manage to lead our team to victory most of the time.

    And again, while 2v1 may work, what happens if the opponent also brings a wingman?

  10. Auf T3-M4 hat man nachmittags und abends kaum Wartezeit und es sind zwischen ein und drei Spiele gleichzeitig offen. Unter der Woche geht das letzte Spiel meistens um 00:30 auf und an Wochenenden um 01:30 - es gibt natürlich immer wieder Ausreißer, wo manchmal etwas früher oder später Schluss is. An Wochenenden geht vormittags auch was und an Montagen is etwas weniger los.

     

    Während Clash in Hyperspace ist natürlich noch mehr los als üblich.

  11. Oh, that one. I was confused because of the "being in two locations at the same time" thing.

     

    Of all the laggy people I've seen I reported one, because he seemingly was switching between normal and laggy depending on situation.

    Most people really just lag. Didn't see anyone lagging on my main server for over a year, but when I play on Harbinger it's more common - I think it's just a side effect of AsPac/EU players flying there with high latency.

  12. I know that developing each weapons reduces the CDs of the mines, so I will be able to cloak the area thicker, I presume.

     

    The amount of mines/drones deployed at the same time is limited. Upgrades can get you an additional mine/drone for some of them. The reduced cooldown is helpful when there's a lot of action and your mines trigger (or get destroyed) all the time.

  13. If possible I try to center my target. My current loadout has 3 ships with BLC and 2 with HLC. With BLC (Scout, Gunships) in dogfights or CQC I shoot whenever I can, even if the enemy is at the edge of the firing arc. With HLC (Bombers) I usually ignore tracking penalty, because the firing arc is so small. Can't tell you what percentage of shots have high penalty, I really don't pay attention to that.
  14. Oh, I fly every ship, since each has bonus comms. Hey, I was sent today to do the bomber thing, and assured that flying in circles and spamming on CD is fine.

     

    But I suck with much more enthusiasm on the Scout. I really like the missiles on the Sting. Weeeeee! Sure, I forget the wingman thinggie, but hey, it's the FOURTH button! Fourth, I tell you, that's where it gets complicated. Seriously, the legendary Conan the Barbarian was thwarted at that stage, what do you expect from me!

     

    And, I've finally got the Hyperspace beacon on the RW. Next time I won't just fly in circles, I will also put down a beacon, 'cause that's pro. :p

     

    Now, I just need to stash the comms for the healing ship.

     

    I was using Hydrospanner for the first year of my GSF career on my T2 Scouts because "it repairs like 25% ot the hull". Forgetting the copilot ability sometimes won't stop you from getting better over time.

     

    I see your sarcasm there but flying a Bomber is not just "flying in circles", I see a lot of people do that on satellites. They just keep flying below the disk part with no active evasion whatsoever. As a Bomber you'll need to learn where to place your deployables and how and when to place them. Also it's crucial to learn how to fly to avoid getting hit, which includes getting a feeling for the behavior of other players.

  15. In your experience, good folks, do people usually move for this one and the queue empties everywhere else?

     

    You might see less activity by some pilots, who will be flying on Shadowlands instead of their normal server. But you probably will also see a lot of usually inactive pilots playing GSF for their conquest points.

     

    Overall I'd expect a rise in GSF participation on most servers during Clash in Hyperspace conquest events.

  16. To update your graphics drivers, check what graphics card you have and download the drivers from the manufactureres website.

     

    To change your SWtoR launcher from streaming to normal, follow these instructions: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7826333

    You will have to redownload the whole game. I found it's worth it, because future patches will need less time and the non-streamed version of the game is more bug resistant.

     

    To use the repair function of the launcher, log in and click on your name on the upper right side, then go to settings and there it is. A download may be required if the repair function finds errors.

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