Request: vital minor changes to scoreboard and mechanics

[Armonddd]

I love Galactic Starfighter. I resubscribed after a long break specifically to try it out, and I can honestly say it is among the most fun I have ever had in an online game. Even losses are exciting and interesting. Unfortunately, it's not yet perfect - I won't talk about balance because I've seen every ship do well when played well (which is a very good sign), but there are some basic mechanics changes I think would make the game more fair and enjoyable.

 

Galactic Starfighter currently revolves around capturing points and preventing enemies from capturing points. In the future, it may revolve around deathmatches and kill counts. Whatever direction the game goes, kills and assists will be important. The scoreboard, medals, and achievement systems are all well designed to reinforce this - the game makes it abundantly clear who contributes the most kills, the most assists, the most captures, the most time defending. However, this is not always representative of actual dogfighting skill and contribution, which is why my guild looks primarily at the damage column.

 

I request an additional column be added to the scoreboard - kills plus assists. This column should ideally be to the left of the damage column and break ties by number of assists. The mouseover tooltip would show this K+A value divided by the player's damage done. This makes it easy to tell which players are participating in the dogfighting, and which are landing a couple hits on a lot of targets so the computer will give them a lot of assists without contributing much.

 

Everyone who's played Galactic Starfighter has watched big red and green letters pop up saying "So-and-so just self-destructed". Sometimes this is due to a player's unfamiliarity with controls, surroundings, what have you - all normal for relatively new content. However, a significant amount of the time, these deaths are caused by the player dodging the wrong way - maybe they're trying to get out of the line of fire, or maybe they tried to barrel roll away from a torpedo and ran into an asteroid. In either case, the assaulting player is not rewarded - thus, indirectly punished - for the situation they placed the defending player in. I suggest that if a player self destructs within three seconds of a secondary weapon being launched at them, or within three seconds of using their evade skill while painted or locked on by a secondary weapon, the assaulting player receives kill credit. Furthermore, while it would be harder to code, the last player who scores a hit or near miss (including evaded shots) on someone who then promptly self destructs should receive kill credit.

 

Of secondary importance (as much due to impact on the battle as the increased difficulty of coding [there would probably have to be a whole extra variable added!]), I have yet to find an experience more frustrating than watching a turret finish off a target I've pumped thousands and thousands of damage into. It's not nearly as bad when another player does it - at least they get credit towards a medal, an achievement, something like (and if you're in voice chat with them, you get to yell and joke with them!). I propose changing the game so that when a turret lands a killing blow on a fighter, if any player has dealt more than about two thousand damage to the victim within the last ten seconds, those players should receive kill credit. This may result in two players racking up damage on a victim's shield and hull, followed by a turret sniping a kill, but honestly this is such a rare situation that it should be rewarded, not discouraged.

 

I don't think a similar change would be necessary for players that snipe kills in this way, but if you twisted my arm and made me code something for it, I'd set the time limit to five seconds instead of ten. It's harder to get in a situation where two players are evenly competing for a kill - it's much more common, in my experience, for someone to swoop in at the last second and take advantage of the victim's poor positioning, debuffs, and/or misplays to score a kill - and often that player needs to deal with a fully reinforced shield from the other angle. I think this is fine and would be sufficiently rewarded by the kills and assists column(s) on the scoreboard.

 

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and attention. If you agree with these proposals, please say so; popular demand is what fuels change. Likewise, if you think they're inappropriate, please tell me why; I cannot improve my suggestions without feedback. Rest assured that if a major point is brought up, I will attempt to edit it into this post, or at least provide a link in context.

 

Good hunting,

 

-Maethon

[Brimmer]

However, this is not always representative of actual dogfighting skill and contribution, which is why my guild looks primarily at the damage column. I request an additional column be added to the scoreboard - kills plus assists. This column should ideally be to the left of the damage column and break ties by number of assists. The mouseover tooltip would show this K+A value divided by the player's damage done. This makes it easy to tell which players are participating in the dogfighting, and which are landing a couple hits on a lot of targets so the computer will give them a lot of assists without contributing much.

 

Look at the damage output. That will tell you who was hitting the enemy the hardest/most often.

 

Objective points > kills.

 

Everyone who's played Galactic Starfighter has watched big red and green letters pop up saying "So-and-so just self-destructed".

 

In either case, the assaulting player is not rewarded - thus, indirectly punished - for the situation they placed the defending player in.

 

There are two rewards and two and a half punishment every time this happens.

 

Rewards:

1.) Assist to anyone who recently did damage before they crashed

2.) One less person at the objective

 

Punishment:

1.) The player has to wait on the timer

2.) The player has to fly all the way back

2.5.) Waste majority of their energy using boosts to return to battle

 

I have yet to find an experience more frustrating than watching a turret finish off a target I've pumped thousands and thousands of damage into.

 

The purpose of the match isn't to have the most kills, it's to hold the objectives leading to the most points as a team. I've had turrets steal kills from me. Clearly I was taking too long if they were able to. So problem solve, one less person at the objective.

 

I don't think a similar change would be necessary for players that snipe kills in this way..

 

Kill are just fluff. The only thing that matters is capturing and holding objectives. If the enemy dies by you a wall or your team then it's a win.

 

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and attention. If you agree with these proposals, please say so; popular demand is what fuels change. Likewise, if you think they're inappropriate, please tell me why; I cannot improve my suggestions without feedback. Rest assured that if a major point is brought up, I will attempt to edit it into this post, or at least provide a link in context.

 

The kills + assist seems like the only thing worth asking for. Though kills hardly make you the best player, and this is from somebody that is typically 1st place for kills in most matches. After all you'll never win a match with kills alone.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

A combined kill + assist column would probably be good since it might emphasize to people that in GSF assists are given equal value to getting a kill.

 

More than changing the scoreboard in that regard I think what would be more beneficial would be something that breaks down requisition points awarded. In essence have something that shows, on objective based maps, how the people with low kill/assist counts but 100+ objective points got more req than the guy at the top of the board in kills but low objective points. (assuming that req is awarded in such a fashion). Sure some people will never play the objective but some people might not realize how it works and would start playing the objective more when they realize they can earn greater rewards that way.

[Armonddd]

Look at the damage output. That will tell you who was hitting the enemy the hardest/most often.

 

This is what I said at the end of the previous paragraph.

 

The purpose of the match isn't to have the most kills, it's to hold the objectives leading to the most points as a team. I've had turrets steal kills from me. Clearly I was taking too long if they were able to. So problem solve, one less person at the objective.

 

Well, yes, of course. But when your team is winning 90% of their matches, accurate kill counts become more important than preventing people from breaking your 3-cap.

 

More than changing the scoreboard in that regard I think what would be more beneficial would be something that breaks down requisition points awarded.

 

This would also be an excellent quality of life change, but since I don't know exactly how requisition points are awarded (or, for that matter, how the MVP is determined), I don't know how useful it would be for encouraging people to play better.