[Luc's every day tips.]

How to get better without worrying about learning advanced skills." I see a lot of things in GSF that people are doing wrong. Really simple things that don't necessarily require "get good" to fix or do differently. And just by doing differently, would instantly improve said person's experience. So I will now be posting every day tips when I see these things happen.

 

Here's a couple to start with that I see quite often.

 

Feedback shield does not activate off rail guns. I often fire at another Gunship, and see them activate Feedback shield. Worse still, sometimes that Gunship is aware that its me shooting at them, and that it was a rail gun that hit them. Feedback shield activates off primary weapon fire. That means lasers. Rail guns are a secondary weapon, like missiles. I assume the confusion comes in because the primary weapon that Gunships use is rail guns, but that doesn't mean a rail gun is a "primary" weapon. Digressing slightly, Distortion Field is a better option 100% of the time on a Gunship.

 

How to use Concentrated Fire Correctly. I see a lot of people equipping Concentrated Fire and not knowing how to use it. It has a 36% crit chance for primaries, only a 16% crit chance for secondaries, and a very short 6s up time. These numbers make it almost worthless for Secondary weapons. The travel time of a missile or charge time of a rail gun can mean you easily waste half of the up time. The percentage chance is also simply too low to be worthwhile. I've seen videos of gunships with CF almost never getting a crit. Even if it did crit, the up time is so easily wasted. If you're trying to torpedo someone and time it to hit with CF, unless you are watching buffs, you are literally playing a lottery. Basically, you can waste a whole match trying to make that crit Proton happen. Its not "reliable." CF works best with lasers that have a low rate of fire (HLC, BLC), since those lasers hit big anyway, so the effect is amplified with CF. It still works well with lasers that have a high rate of fire (RFL, LLC), but not as well, unless you are an expert shooter with those weapons. Use CF when you are in an ideal shooting position, and don't activate it until you start shooting. A friend of mine often flies it on his Battle Scout, and it is devastating when used correctly. Generally speaking if you think you are making these mistakes with CF, you would do better to equip Bypass as an alternative, due to the longer up time, and come back to CF when you're more aware of how to use it. Lastly if you are using CF, you should spec your weapon tier 4 and 5 options to crit as well, if they have it.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

When is it right to switch to a Gunship? I started this Kuat TDM in a Strike. We got off to an early comfortable lead, but then the other team close ranks and stay tightly together. Which is exactly what you should do if your team is behind in a TDM. The result is it makes flying the strike into the heart of the action risky, as you likely have multiple people targeting you at once. This is what happens, and they start to catch up, even going ahead of us at one point. This is a good time to switch to a Gunship, where the range will mean you are under less pressure. However, it can also allow them to break their formation and start pressing you, so some knowledge of how to survive in a Gunship is valuable.

 

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

To be fair, Luc is a bit thin skinned when it comes to people complaining about skill, and has been less than entirely diplomatic.

I don't want to recount details, because I want to be done with it now, but yes I have a very short tolerance for him.

 

I do see that Luc sort of started it by importing an argument that the two of you had going on in another thread, which isn't really good etiquette.

I imported a discussion from another thread to here, because it was directly applicable to this topic. Where as it had nothing to do with my video highlights thread. I could see it being bad etiquette if I imported a private discussion here, but I didn't. It was an open discussion on an open forum that everyone can read, and it was very relevant to this discussion.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

The balance is still a disaster with people complaining about the matchmaker more then any other thing lol.

 

So, this is the nail in the coffin to the entire debate. The newest hottest flight sim around, has got the exact matchmaker requirements that is being asked for here. Solos vs solos and groups vs groups, as best as it can with the available queue. Then it also has a dedicated ranked queue. But despite both of these matchmaker features, and despite it having a much larger player base, the matchmaking is still a hot mess. Why? Because skill matters. It doesn't matter how good you make matchmaker, if the skill divide is huge, games will be lop-sided.

 

Why are we debating this? If it won't work with SW:Squadrons, it won't work here with a smaller player base. SW:Squadrons can afford these matchmaker features because it still has the player base to get pops, for now at least, since its still new. But GSF is a game within a game, the proposed matchmaker changes would kill pops. We just don't have the player baser to sustain it like SWS does.

 

Don't get me wrong, if the devs want to bring in ranked GSF I am all for it, but it won't sort out the hot mess that is match balance, and it probably won't pop much if at all. Group only queue? Forget it, it will never pop.

 

There really is no point arguing this further. SWS did it, it didn't work, it won't work here.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

You seem to have knocked your halo from your head while you were patting yourself on the back so much. What is rude, is for you to make it personal, I never attacked anyone personally, my first post did say remove, but after that it continually said choice. I even edited it, and left a note, so certain people wouldn't accuse me of changing it to look better. Just because you've done stuff for the community, doesn't put you above reproach, it doesn't mean you can't be questioned, and it doesn't mean you are always right. If that was the case, there are plenty of people here, who'd qualify as gods, they've helped out so much, and they've never needed to pat themselves on the back over it. Not to mention, they've helped the WHOLE community, no just a niche group. But go ahead, keep with the personal attacks, if you really want to make it personal, I can tell you about my disabilities, or maybe give you some old nick names I used to be called. If you can't accept ideas without attacking the person who's making them, well, nothing more can be said.

 

Dude, I can't even. The self righteousness in the face of everyone telling you otherwise. Accusing me of personal attacks because I disagree with you. And now you brought disabilities into it, assuming, ignorantly, that I don't have any. I am done with you. I'll let the others take this from here on.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

No one has threatened anything, but it's a fact it's a niche thing, that had very few players till the cq points got boosted, that's when more people started playing, and then add in GS, that's when the queues started popping regularly.

 

It's not about winning or losing, it's about sustainability , and for the record, my win average is above 60%, may not be great compared to the aces, but it'll do for CQ/GS.

 

For the record, since I was here in GSF and you were not... pre the CQ changes GSF was popping one match back to back from around 10:00am onward. And at the biggest peak times, Friday, Saturday evenings and after weekly reset, you would see two active or overlapping games. When the CQ changes came in it didn't change much during the day, but we regularly saw 2-3 matches most evenings. Galactic Seasons, was what sent it into the stratosphere with up to 6 active games at peak and 2-3 active games during the day. So you can moan about sustaining GSF all you like, its been here for a long time and it will keep being here until SWTOR ends.We got on fine before Galactic Seasons, and it will be fine if Galactic Seasons stops. Although lets be real, it won't. The whole point of GS is to get people to participate in all aspects of the game.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

Well Said Ramalina.

 

Actually at this point I've decided its downright rude and ungrateful to be saying the things Dark Tergon is saying. Drakolich has done loads to help GSF players. Coaching, analyses videos, Q&A sessions, instructional videos. Despon made the legendary and still very relevant GSF School. Sriia made the GSF discord, a guide and a compilation of other guides. Numerous people have made guides. Me the newest contributor to this side of things; coaching and analysis videos. Stradin organised the training sessions for multiple newbies at once. Then there are countless seasoned players who help people privately without any public knowledge, or just answer newbies on discord and here. I am certain you guys can name other notable contributors to providing assistance to the masses. Quite honestly, the evil Aces have gone above and beyond the call of duty in trying to help people in GSF, the thanks we get for it by Dark Tergon, is get out of the player pool thanks. Downright rude and inconsiderate.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

I'm not against a ranked queue either, it would certainly spice up GSF. But what he is failing to accept is that if they did make ranked GSF, regs GSF would not change from what we know it to be right now.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

How about instead we just remove Solo queue all together, make people actually play a team game with a team. Since everyone seems to want to delete an entire playstyle, I vote we delete yours instead.

 

I lied, there is something I wanted to add. It occurred to me that this is what we already have. I know you've been saying it for ages, GSF is a team game within a team game. But what we have, being more specific, or accurate, is a group queue, that "allows" solo players. The entire function aim and goal of an MMO is group play. You can't be mad at Bioware for that, that's what an MMO is by design. So the fact that they embrace solo queuers in all game modes within SWTOR is a kind thing. They could have it so that we are required to form groups prior to entering the queue. and we couldn't be mad at them, because it is a team game. I say that and fully admit that, as one of the biggest known solo queuers around right now.

 

I have historically made no secret of my general distaste for people that always group and never play solo, buuuuuuuuuuttt, I can't really be mad at them, can I? It may be my preference to play solo, but I can't be mad at people playing a game the way it was designed to be played. This was a realization I came to some time back, and that's when I decided to stop ranting and moaning about premades, and to step up my game to cope. And in the event I couldn't cope, to have people to call on to form a group. Great solo players were always the ones I most desired to emulate, the ones who would defy the odds and win anyway, in-spite of ever mounting odds against them. But we have to be clear here, a solo player is being "allowed" to queue in a "team" game and being given a team because he queued solo. We also have to make it clear that this is a risk / decision / that the solo player takes, in his full knowledge at his full responsibility. Or at least it should be. You are choosing to go solo in a game designed to be played in teams. You are choosing to jump into the fire, and say; "I can handle it."

 

And this leads me to Verain's point here:

Further, I can say with absolute certainly that many GSF games pop with no one of any note on either side, something that can be ascertained with /who and the new legacy-stalking crap that this game has, so anyone pretending that they CONSTANTLY RUN INTO ACES is either lying or literally only queuing when good players are on, which is quite the talent.

Yes this does happen. In addition to the reasons we know it happens as stated here by Verain, I can add that I know it happens because I have back-filled a good number of those matches, and turned it from a loss to a win or from a win to a stomp.

 

So let's just pull on these treads a little bit, and think about what would happen in the event that things like groups or Ace players were removed from the queue and placed into their own queue. This thread started with "remove groups." Okay so we do that, we remove groups. Now what? Well Sriia chimed in that a solo Ace carries a game too. So then it progressed to "remove solo Aces." Okay so we remove solo Aces. Now what? Well, shock horror, someone is still going to be leagues above everyone else. That decent vet who struggles against an Ace, is now going to start topping every game and carrying teams as often as an Ace does. And where does this lead us? Remove "decent-ish veterans." Okay so we remove decent-ish veterans. Now what? You got it, that missile spammer who relies heavily on missiles and couldn't hit water with lasers if he was standing on a boat, starts topping the board. Starts carrying games. Starts being hated.

 

The point is, it doesn't matter how much you remove talent or groups from the pool, people will always moan about whoever is at the top of the table. I've seen people scoring high numbers when no other Ace is in the match, who wouldn't do it vs an Ace. I've seen people say "watch out for so and so, they scored 24 kills last game." But this game, I am here, and "so and so" now does squat. Or the time someone said "guard XYZ, they will carry us." but little do they know Invis is in that match, and XYZ does nothing of note while Invis carries them. This is Verain's point. So the more you remove talent from the pool, lesser skilled players will take their place as the new top dog tier. And the reason we can count on this 100% being what would happen, is that people are so incredibly bad at this game, there will always be someone better. That is just the nature of PVP. I give you the people who spawn out and start firing Rapids at the first target they see even though that target is on the other side of the map. That is PVP. You cannot be mad at people for being good at PVP. My brain cannot even fathom how someone arrives at the conclusion; "people who can actually play a game shouldn't play it." And here is the real kicker, eventually you wind up at a point where the guy who campaigned for groups and Aces to be removed, now finds himself the king pin with people asking for him to be removed, and he's thinking, hold up, hang on, what did I do wrong?? And now he's telling people to learn to play the game. You will never solve it by "remove so and so from the game. " That is an endless cycle that only ends in PVE.

 

Wow, I actually had a lot to say didn't I? Sorry. But lastly, I want to ask a question about SW:Squadrons. SWS has dedicated Group and Solo queues. So Solo players don't get matched against groups, and vice versa. It also has, I would think, a better match maker? So those two things given, how are the games? Overall balanced? Or still a hot mess? Or somewhere in between? Genuine question, because if it didn't work in SWS, it wont work here. And as GSF has a smaller player base than SWS, separate queues would only kill pops.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

Well, that was an interesting read to wake up to. Been a while since a thread on here went from page one to page four overnight! Great news, I don't have to add anything! Gosh, I love you guys, thanks! To top it all myself and Verain in total agreement with each other. Who knew! Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it already :cool:

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

Please move this discussion to the more appropriate thread.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

Moving discussion from my video highlights channel to here.

 

The last couple of posts have highlighted a change that is needed, they claim solo people are on top all the time, the same solo people, not groups. What we need then are brackets, that remove these sharks from the tide pool, put them in a pool of their own, a shark tank, and leave the minnow's swimming around in the tide pool learning to be sharks.

 

We need the equivalent of ranked and unranked, so these people don't do what has been shown . If you want the GSF community to grow as you say you do, changes are needed.

 

No, you cannot master the ship in 5 mins, and that's insulting to say, you may get a rough grounding, but not mastering, at least not for most people.

If you're going to take everything I say as an insult we may as well give up now. "5 minutes" is a figure of speech. I started a new toon from stock recently and have got 3 ships fully mastered in a little over three weeks. Compare that to ground PVP, complaining about lack of gear is an invalid argument. Gearing ships is easy by comparison.

 

Of course you can furnish a vid of you in stock ship, you are the ace, an ace pvp person could go in to unranked in base gear, and still kick ***. It doesn't mean anyone can.

Why complain about gear then? Gear has nothing to do with it, you just said so yourself. And if said person does go into unranked and stomp, how does this help the state of unranked?

 

 

 

Ask where?

Seriously?

According to some, these forums are dead, not even worth looking in to (Not my words, others)

then why mention it.

In game?

Yes, GSF channel.

People rarely talk in GSF matches, sometimes you get some say take a & b, or b&c, but no conversations. When anyone does mention they are new, most of the time it's ignored, or some one says, don't worry, I'm new too, etc. Don't think I've ever heard anyone actually offer advice, or say anything about training.

At this point you are either being willfully ignorant or you are not reading what people say. I have literally offered you personal coaching to solve your problems. Given how much time you spend on here, you have the time to accept it. Sriia has made it abundantly clear in multiple posts how she has set up resources to help people, including a guide and a dedicated very active GSF discord. Other players have received help on here both from me and others. Failing that, find a good player in a match, whisper them and ask for help. That's what I did. You would be surprised to find it works. You, would be surprised to find it works. Other people do this all the time. You're just raising problems for the sake of raising problems now. These are not problems.

 

From the games I've played, the same people always seem to be on the same teams

No they are not. 12k games here. No they are not. You're just bitter about losing. Bad players lose, good players win. that's how it is.

 

maybe it's just RNG, but most of the walk overs, are because all the good players seem to end up together (again, it could be grouped, or just extremely bad luck)

Most people can only do well on a good team. Put them on a bad team, they get squished. So if one side has an Ace and the other side does not, the people on the Ace's team will perform better (scoreline) than they would if they were on the other team. The stronger team makes the weaker players look better. You are reading this as good payers always together. Its not true. There is a lot you don't understand about the impact and control certain players have on the flow of the match and how that effects other players.

 

As for people quitting because it was too easy, another perfect reason for ranked, it takes the sharks out of the tide pool, and gives them an environment where they can compete, and challenge themselves

It doesn't though. There are plenty of highly skilled ranked players and teams still playing regs PVP. You're kidding yourself thinking a ranked GSF queue will stop Ace pilots from playing regs GSF. Stop, just stop. I'm all for the ranked queue, but it won't change the state of regs GSF.

 

 

People can improve, but that isn't 'get good', that's just improving.

You haven't even tried my help, which at this point is rescinded, to see how much "improving" would solve your issues. At this point you are literally talking about things you have no clue on. You can't comment on skill and how it effects matches, because you have none. SO you can't comment on how different it would be for you if I trained you.

 

As long as sharks are allowed to swim in the tide pool, minnows will forever be eaten alive, and never get a chance to evolve .

So how did I do it? I wasn't instantly amazing at GSF. I sucked for nearly six months before I started to get the hang of it. And I am not the only one. What you have there is a defeatist attitude; "The game is too hard for me so I want it to be made easier." Perhaps you should take up playing an easier game like Solitaire. Your're not cut out for GSF and your constant moaning and whining is getting tiresome.

 

It also exists to give the better players, a better challenge. And by giving them a better challenge. the leave unranked alone,

No they don't.

and it give the unranked a chance to improve.

Again, regs PV is a mess so regs GSF would be the same.

All PvP is a mess, but that's not because the aces are running around unranked stomping everyone to the ground, it's because BW have messed up a lot, which to go in to would triple the size of this thread. It would sort it out better then PvP, as the actual GSF system is far superior , in fact PvP needs to have the GSF system.

So skill has nothing to do with PVP at all, and the quality of the games in regs ground PVP has nothing at all to do with it being noobs vs pros. Yeah, this is just getting silly now.

 

But there's no point in arguing,

Yep I'm there with you on that one.

 

the sharks want to stay in the tide pool and eat the minnows

and the minnows want the game dumbed down to the point that its no longer PVP. Like I said, you aren't cut our for this, you should leave GSF and all PVP. You don't understand it.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

Comment moved to more appropriate thread.

[GSF Needs a separate Q for Premades/Groups]

I 2nd, 3rd and 4th what's been said here. It wouldn't fix anything the way you think it would. By some margin most of those heavy loss games you are experiencing are not against premades. Take a look this thread please, and realize what one player is capable of. Short version 77-82% solo win ratios on all servers. Like Sriia I also get accused of grouping / cheating yadayadaya....If premades are as rampant as you think they are, how can I get these results?

 

Yes, premades are in the game, they are queuing, but there are virtually no premades left that are 4 Ace level players. The premades that are around are typically mid-tier skill level players, who when grouped are still strong enough to stomp a team of noobs.

 

GSF is not some arcade flight sim that you can smash buttons and do well. It actually requires a degree of understanding and skill to be any good. Skill makes the biggest difference in the game and while matchmaker can certainly be improved, I think its an enormously difficult job to get matchmaker to accurately asses someone's skill.

 

But let's deal with what would actually happen if we had a separate group queue. Since most premades are not 4 Ace level players, they are not grouping to find a competitive match. I see this with my team on Malgus. We group exclusively to counter other groups. If no groups need countering, we fly solo and against each other. But on the occasions we do group up to counter another premade, that premade more often than not quits queuing. They are not in it to find competitive high level thrilling matches, they just want an easy ride. So if we did have a group queue, those premades would not queue in it, because they know they would encounter groups like mine and the one Verain here is part of. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of competitive GSF. Grouping with my team and finding another equally good or better group to have some thrilling games against, but the reality is that 90% of the player base would be scared of that queue and hence it would be dead. Also it would mean that 4 noobs finding it tough who group up to balance the scales, would now find themselves pitted against 4 pros.

 

I know what you're thinking, a group queue being dead doesn't matter to you. At least they wouldn't be queuing in the regs queue. But again I have to reinforce whats been said here. It wouldn't change the balance of GSF as much as you think it would, because most stomps are not a result of groups. If you're already thinking "this is a stomp, it must be a group," then your mentality is already wrong, and you'll struggle to succeed in GSF. Don't get me wrong, I look for signs of groups when things get tough, and there are tell tail signs that indicate it might be a premade. But usually its not. Usually its just matchmaker being drunk. When the premades do appear its usually at peak times, and I know which people on which server are likely to be part of those groups.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

We're not going to agree on this, basically what's happening at the moment is 'Ranked' GSF players are being put in to groups with unranked, and not only that, they are heavily geared

Gearing is easy. You can't compare that to ground pvp gearing. If you have been in GSF 5 minutes, you have mastered ships already. I can also furnish you with a number of screen shots of me dominating in a Stock ship, as can any Ace.

 

trained,

Some received training, others figured it our on their own. But this is not an exclusive group. You say that like everyone can't access that training. All they have to do is ask.

 

and mostly in groups.

Not in the slightest. By some considerable margin, most true Aces do not like grouping because it would be so much of a walkover there would be no challenge. Most true Aces have to go solo to get any fun from the game, and even then, I can personally name a number of them that quit the game because it was still too easy. Take a look at my 100 try-hard games per server. Those stats are all solo. You over estimate how many Aces group. Most groups you see are made up vets / decent players, not Aces.

 

That is what's causing the huge imbalance. There's no point in saying , 'Get Good', because 1, they can't, they don't have time,

Yes they do. The countless names that I see in GSF day in day out, these guys have time. They just need to change their approach, not spend more time.

 

2. there aren't up to ranked level, and never will be.

This one I will give you. Not everyone is cut out to be an Ace. But the vast majority can improve with just a little tenacity. Give me the worst regular player in GSF, and I will transform then in one month, if they commit to trying.

 

In pvp, we have ranked & unranked, for this specific reason, you can't grab a new pvp player and throw them in to a ranked game, GSF needs something similar.

Ranked exists to allow people bragging rights and claim exclusive rewards. It does not exist to make regs PVP a better place. If that were the case, ranked players would be banned from regs. This comment kind of pretends that regs PVP is not a mess too, and that ranked level PVP players do not play regs too. Point is, even if you brought in ranked GSF, all it would do is let the Aces sort out who is the best. It wouldn't sort out regs GSF anymore than it has sorted out regs PVP.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

, unless you are saying the aces would come up with a plan to steap aside and let one win over the other???

 

No, I am not saying that at all. I am saying in the event that there is only one Ace in a match he's still going to dominate and people will still be angry. Currently the Aces are already more spread out due to Galactic Seasons. I encounter less Ace level players in my matches than I used to, even when I know they are queuing at the same time. Its just the effect of having more active matches at any one time. And people still get angry with me for no other reason than the level I play at. That's never going to change. Ever. Even if matchmaker perfectly balances it, like this screen shot for example, people are still going to be angry at this level of play. So yes, one person would still decimate a match. You can't change that even with matchmaker fixes.Skill matters far too much in this game mode, and matchmaker will always have a hard time knowing someone's skill.

 

Which is why it is incumbent on people to put some level of work into understanding the game and learning how to play it. I'm not saying everyone should learn to play to Ace level, I appreciate that will never happen. But at the same time, expecting matchmaker to favor you for a 51% win ratio or higher - if you're one of those people who is not willing to make advances in his skill and understanding of the game - is unreasonable. However balanced matchmaker could be.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

I haven't had any exciting matches to post up here recently. So here is a 50-39 from Iokath. This match demonstrates nicely how to counter Strike Fighters in a Gunship. How to use the Engine Overcharge and Damage Overcharge clusters to hustle Strikes into a false sense of security, forcing them into mistakes. Playing to the strengths of your Gunship and exploiting the weaknesses of Heavy laser proton Strikes, by forcing them into close quarters engagements where using strafing and BLC gives you the advantage.

 

[100 try-hard games per server - Conclusions on each server and recommendations.]

Leviathan Stats / Conclusions and Overall Conclusions added to Original Post

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

We can't fix it, but the devs can.

 

Options are to have grouped and solo options, separate queues, straight away, we're all solo players (in the solo queue)

The algorithm then decides splits up the team based on (whatever means they use to measure it) and split the group in half, as much as it can. Both teams (in theory) are evenly matched. Of course, it won't be perfect, but it could be an improvement.

 

They could also maybe have ranked GSF, for the real pros.

 

But the problem with these ideas is, it would probably effect queue times.

 

Even if we did have separate group and solo queues, people would still complain about the Ace and Elite Ace level solo players who decimate teams all on their own. Its a game that requires great skill and knowledge to master. So at what point do the general masses stop moaning about solo players who have put the effort in to learn? Being mad at someone because he's good at something? Seems a bit odd to me. I say this is the nicest way I can.

 

At some point, its incumbent upon the masses to step up their game rather than complain about those who are playing it to the level it was designed to be played at.

[Asteroid one-sided tunnel exploit]

I wouldn't know if I've ever encountered this. I don't want instructions on how to use it. I don't want a map showing where to find it. I am curious what people are actually seeing (or not seeing) here. Does this keep you from visually seeing the enemy? It sounds like you can't "target" the enemy, but can you still shoot it? I don't have to select someone as a target to actually shoot them. Do abilities that effect an area still effect them if they are within it's range?

 

All you see is a target that is hazed out. It looks the same as any target that is behind something. You can't shoot directly at them, but yes AOE weapons will still damage them. My normal trick, which quite often flushes them out, is to Ion spam his nest with Damage Overcharge. Ion with DO still does a tonne of damage. It will destroy his nest in 2-3 shots, but each of those shots will also leave him severely wounded. Assuming you still have targets close to him after taking out his nest, you can literally destroy him from Ion splash. So at this point most tick bombers move to another spot, at which point you can slug them. This trick only works when you have DO, because otherwise Ion splash won't do enough damage to him to make him move. But it will still clear his nest no problem.

[7.0 and GSF]

I think the biggest improvement was CQ + GS requiring players to list for GSF. Some of those players did show interest in staying in GSF. I remember match not popping for half an hour months ago, now we can see 2-4 instances opened for GSF matches these days.

Those other improvements are small but still any addition in GSF are noticeable and heartly welcomed, tho PvE environment is still my dream... imagine objectives - oriented play mode (sth like Voidstar), like disable the enemy cruiser. But I guess in this moment its pure fantasy

 

GSF is a PVP game. PVE GSF wouldn't make much sense, beyond a better tutorial. However a 3rd mode where you attack and destroy each other's capital ships, I would be behind that 100%.

[100 try-hard games per server - Conclusions on each server and recommendations.]

That'd be a reasonable change, perhaps coupled to increasing the protorp capacity or reducing lock-on time. While it took some time to adjust, I think the present meta is much better balanced than the old. GSF mechanics and ships are generally in good shape.

Yeah I think almost every experienced player I have ever spoken to agrees the balance of GSF (ship wise) is really good. Its only minor tweaks. We already got slicing nerfed, not sure if you were returned to see that one happen? It can still cause you a big problem if you're caught out in the open and the slicer is using lock down. But for the most part its much easier to deal with now. And in DOM people cannot slice you from the other side of the node, so that's a big help to a Scout. If it were me, I would remove Efficient Targeting from the game. It would make the game a bit less missile focused and force people to either work harder for their missile locks, or put more emphasis on laser usage. And I would either nerf the damage of gunships or increase the health of all classes, so that Gunships can no longer one-shot other ships with DO. My preference here would be to increase the health of all classes, because without DO I think the damage of Gunships is about right. Even though I use DO all the time, and I one-shot people all the time, I fully understand how it winds people up. Other than those two things, and with slicing taken care of, I don't think the meta needs changing.

 

 

Just tossing ideas around, but when I made the comment I'd been wondering about limiting a ship build to 3/5 and 2/3 upgrades on components. Sub-optimal builds still have their uses within a play style, but it'd be interesting to see what ship limitations bring a good pilot down to the level of, say, the veteran fully-outfitted average.

Hmm I see. Hard to say. I've still done some really high numbers in very close to stock ships. When I level a ship, I do all minor components, shields and engines first, leaving weapons completely stock and do them last. The reason I do this is because the ship gets all its survivability first, and flies like a mastered ship, it just lacks punch. I don't have much problem at all netting kills and damage with stock weapons. Its hard to put a number on it, but I have a current toon which was stock that is still sitting at 70% win ratio, almost 60k Av.Damage, 11 kills per battle, and KDR of 5.25. As I've said elsewhere, there really is no substitute for skill and knowledge in this game.

[Luc Nodaro GSF video highlights]

Thank you, that a very kind offer. But the biggest issue is, the matchmaking is way off, if it were better, and more evenly spread, this might not happen. Most of the matches I've played this weekend were lopsided. It wears you down, match after match, being stuck with pro players on one team, and the rest of us on the other. And I only do it for GS/CQ, I can imagine how frustrating it would be for people for whom GSF is their major source of play.

 

Any advice is welcome though

 

I can't fix match matchmaker for you. All I can do in the way of "advice" is tell you that the better you get the less you get stomped on. That's the bit I can help with. It's extremely rare for me to get stomped on to the point I cannot be effective. That is to say where its so bad I can't still net 3-4 times more kills than deaths. Where I myself end up with less than 5 kills or even a negative KDR. It just doesn't happen to me now. Having done the Scout 100 challenge followed by 500 try-hard games split across all servers, I've kept much closer notes on this (among other stuff) and I can tell you in those 600 games, I was stomped into anegative KDR or less-than-five-kills only twice. I still get heavily one-side matches against me, but I am still able to shine. And my Win ratios speak for themselves. I'm not bragging here, I am just saying that if I am winning 70-80% (that's a low estimate, of the past 500 games its actually more like 77-81%) of the games I play, you don't need me to tell you that I am not getting stomped on as much as you are.

 

Imagine if 80% of the player base played to level I play at? Would stomps be a regular thing? Would matchmaker still have a hard time? Would it even need to be fixed? We can moan about matchmaker needing fixing, and you're not wrong, it is broken. But that is not the only problem. Matchmaker can't create a balanced game when 80% of the player base have next to no skill. And the more players advanced their skill the more balanced games will naturally be. There is a lot I can do to help you improve, and once you are half of my level, you won't care about things like stomps or ticks using one-way textures anywhere near as much as you do now, because these things won't effect you as much as they do now.

 

The decision is yours.

[Honest questions from a GSF noob]

Is there like a grace period or something, like a you can stay out of range of satelite for a couple of sec without loosing it or how does it work?

Nope. Its instant. But the animation lags behind what is actually happening. SO you know when you get that green aura around your ship telling you that you are turning the node green? If you move away from the node that green aura will stay on you up to somewhere around 3000m. But its just the animation being slow to update. You are not in comms range much further than the fins. You can test this yourself by approaching a node in the tutorial very slowly, and see when it starts to give you that green aura. Hhmmm, In fact, I might do a video for this.

 

Even though I initially started doing gsf for galactic season, I still try to do my best and contribute as much as I can.

So thank you for answering all my questions.

Great to hear If you need any help I'm here.