Aimbots? Cheating? Huh!? How?

[SammyGStatus]

It's not cheating, that's for sure but it is a pain.

 

When some of the best pilots of the server choose to fly solely as a premade any chance at balanced matches go out the window. When I see the burgers logged in I know they'll dominate GSF and finish my dailies and go play something else... When they are on pretty much everyone else just grunts, sighs and moves on.

 

I can't count the time I have seen the burgers and the group chat becomes: "well we can't win, lets try to mass all on one point and we might hold it" or "well, lets farm the 2 guys that are clearly new at this, the burgers fly together".

It's not much better if they are on your team, you have no fun since the match is an auto massacre.

 

It's like pugging WZs and coming up against nothing but premades with ranked gear on, the pool of GSF pilots is so small that when the burgers are on you'll face them or fly with them. No other scenario pops up.

 

More premades is not a solution, just a way to make sure even *less* new pilots keep playing GSF. They pug, see not only their ships but everyone in his squadron get creamed in incredibly one sided matches over and over, the chat stating the match is over way before the 1st ship leaves the hangar.

 

GSF needs premade only queus and solo queus.

 

More premade will only create a game where it's 4/5 premades fighting each other over and over and new pilots knowing not to even try to play on PoT5.

 

Ranked ques are what ALL of the top pilots want, but since the Dev's aren't introducing cross-queing, the only alternative is to form your other premade. I've been having a great time getting my ships mastered since Xfering servers, but most of the times I play, I'm grouped with friends who all hang out together in our mumble / TS. It's just easier / more enjoyable. I imagine we're going to start getting our imp-side up too using similar tactics until we all have mastered ships on both sides. It's really the only way we can fix the whole "OMG FACEROLLED!!!" matches out of the way (through self-balancing).

 

Join / start a GSF guild (I'm actually considering what you're saying, and once my guild has more numbers, I'm probably going to split myself, swansea, and pylan up so that each of us heads a squadron so that, while we're still together, we're communicating more with our squad than with each other. That way, everyone on our side is lead by an Ace who can turn the tide of battle, thus reassuring our side. Imps can do the same things, assuming they have the numbers which I can imagine they have).

Edited April 19, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[DamascusAdontise]

You realize what you said actually supports my point that the game is giving the middle finger to people that Queue solo ? Hell you might as well just say the devs are trolling most of the people that come into the game.

 

I dont think you read my post, I basically spelled out how you can take control of this game and be competitive. It seems though like you would rather shut your eyes tightly and ignore the fact that this is a "TEAM" game . Its up to you to change your own play experience, no one will tailor this game to suit your specific needs. Of course you can ignore "team" in a "team based" game and get rolled into the floor until you quit, your choice honestly but you cannot hold other people responsible for your failures. If you refuse to group you will always get a PUG experience (which varies in every game on the planet) You can read my post again for ways to fix this or you could scream till you turn blue. I dont care either way, all I can do is offer you the truth.

 

Also wanted to step in on the lag/cheating thing. I have personally never seen anyone that did this and had any benefit. Most of the people I see rubber banding seem to be honestly lagging. Having issues with my connection I can verify at times that you can still land hits, but hits landed on you seem much more difficult.

 

I think this has to do with the way the server processes information, as the player who is lagging you are seeing people where they were on the screen and shooting at them (sometimes ti appears static for a few seconds, like a stutter). The server tries to correlate this with what everyone else see's and you get a short window where some shots will register damage on a target that is no longer where it was. This has the odd effect of letting the lagging player get a shot or two off while the people shooting at the lagger see them jumping all over (harder to hit)

 

I think the server has additional difficulty when someone is using boost or shooting (anytime more information is being exchanged) this is why the craft appears to fly normal / non lag then suddenly lags when they go to do something, (shoot boost etc) I have experienced this many times and I can tell you without a doubt that there is no benefit from this. You can still manage some points but its a frustrating experience I will avoid at any cost. I have never seen anyone "cheat" and this is out of thousands of matches. Just food for thought. (closest thing is ships that are close and suddenly appear 20k away, though even this is likely an extreme case of lag)

[General_Brass]

I dont think you read my post, I basically spelled out how you can take control of this game and be competitive. It seems though like you would rather shut your eyes tightly and ignore the fact that this is a "TEAM" game . Its up to you to change your own play experience, no one will tailor this game to suit your specific needs. Of course you can ignore "team" in a "team based" game and get rolled into the floor until you quit, your choice honestly but you cannot hold other people responsible for your failures. If you refuse to group you will always get a PUG experience (which varies in every game on the planet) You can read my post again for ways to fix this or you could scream till you turn blue. I dont care either way, all I can do is offer you the truth.

 

 

I did read your post. What you keep missing is that the premades kill the game for everyone not in a premade, and there are considerably more people not in premades than there are in premades.

 

I posted this in another thread but it seems very relevant for you.

 

http://blog.ted.com/2013/12/20/6-studies-of-money-and-the-mind/

 

The study: In a UC Berkeley study, Piff had more than 100 pairs of strangers play Monopoly. A coin-flip randomly assigned one person in each pair to be the rich player: they got twice as much money to start with, collected twice the salary when they passed go, and rolled both dice instead of one, so they could move a lot farther. Piff used hidden cameras to watch the duos play for 15 minutes.

 

The results: The rich players moved their pieces more loudly, banging them around the board, and displayed the type of enthusiastic gestures you see from a football player who’s just scored a touchdown. They even ate more pretzels from a bowl sitting off to the side than the players who’d been assigned to the poor condition, and started to become ruder to their opponents. Moreover, the rich players’ understanding of the situation was completely warped: after the game, they talked about how they’d earned their success, even though the game was blatantly rigged, and their win should have been seen as inevitable. “That’s a really, really incredible insight into how the mind makes sense of advantage,” Piff says.

 

Really what you are doing is rationalizing a bad game design that happens to benefit you.

Edited April 19, 2014 by General_Brass

[DamascusAdontise]

Your missing the point, your solo queing in a team game and getting mad that there are teams. Who told you it was a solo experience? You may be reading but your not digesting anything thats being said (In essence youve stuck your fingers in your ears and are screaming "lalalalalala" at the top of your lungs). This is a team game, its your choice to go solo, dont get mad at people who choose to play on a team in a team game please. Your sense of entitlement is incredible.

 

Id love a ranked que but you dont see me preaching about how terrible it is to play with PUGS. The game is what it is take it or leave it.

 

You have the tools to fix this, and no one will do it for you. Your trolling yourself by ignoring teams of players who will help you to be a better player.

Edited April 19, 2014 by DamascusAdontise

[Armonddd]

I did read your post. What you keep missing is that the premades kill the game for everyone not in a premade, and there are considerably more people not in premades than there are in premades.

 

I posted this in another thread but it seems very relevant for you.

 

http://blog.ted.com/2013/12/20/6-studies-of-money-and-the-mind/

 

Really what you are doing is rationalizing a bad game design that happens to benefit you.

 

People are real quick to throw around terms like "bad game design" when they don't know what they mean.

 

Trying to apply a study on rigged Monopoly games to GSF is laughably inappropriate.

[General_Brass]

People are real quick to throw around terms like "bad game design" when they don't know what they mean.

 

Trying to apply a study on rigged Monopoly games to GSF is laughably inappropriate.

 

Well seeing as what I meant by bad design, was designed to infuriate the majority of the people trying the game from enjoying it, I think this qualifies as bad design, in terms of the matchmaking/side balancing mechanics and complete lack thereof.

 

Sorry you completely missed the point of the study. It wasn't studying monopoly but studying people's reaction to playing games that blatantly favored them.

[Armonddd]

Well seeing as what I meant by bad design, was designed to infuriate the majority of the people trying the game from enjoying it, I think this qualifies as bad design, in terms of the matchmaking/side balancing mechanics and complete lack thereof.

 

If that were what it was actually designed to do, you might have a point. Instead, it's designed to encourage people to team up and play together in a massively multiplayer online game, so your argument is invalid.

 

Don't get me wrong -- the lack of matchmaking (combined with the vertical progression system and outdated server segregation) is a large part of what's keeping GSF from being a competitive PvP game, and it's a bad thing. But saying it's "designed to infuriate the majority" (and whatever the rest of that sentence was supposed to mean) is just flat wrong.

 

Sorry you completely missed the point of the study. It wasn't studying monopoly but studying people's reaction to playing games that blatantly favored them.

 

Right, and that in no way relates to your argument about premades in GSF. In the Monopoly experiment, Piff studied the effects of a game rigged in a way that cannot be overcome. There is no way to compensate for the fact that your opponent has twice your starting money, earns twice as much money by passing around the board, and moves about 2.5 times faster than you do; the only way to overcome these disadvantages is to make significantly smarter plays than your opponent. In other words, the only way to level this kind of unbalanced playing field is to unbalance it in a different way.

 

In GSF, you're arguing, players have an unfair advantage when they group up with other people. But nothing is stopping anyone from grouping up with anyone; you can freely whisper anyone after a match to group up and share advice, and many servers even have specific chat channels to facilitate this process.

 

You're also assuming that all groups are superior to all PUGs. From experience, this is simply not true. I and others have singlehandedly curbed groups that would otherwise have dominated my team, and likewise we've had quality teams defeated by PUGs that knew what they were doing.

 

GSF is not rigged in any way, much less in a way that cannot be overcome by the players themselves. Therefore, Piff's experiment, while interesting, is completely irrelevant.

[SammyGStatus]

A better application of the lessons learned from the monopoly game may have been used to describe the overwhelming advantage that mastered ships have on brand new ships. That makes more sense than the "que solo" issue at hand. Regardless, this is an MMO, and while it gives the option to que solo, how many SUCCESSFUL op runs are made exclusively by pugs? Hint *Not many. MMO means other players, and since we're in a TEAM game, we should be joining as a TEAM (or a squad, in this case). I don't see any issue with forming premades besides the fact that those who refuse to adapt will consistently get left behind. Darwin strikes again!

[General_Brass]

If that were what it was actually designed to do, you might have a point. Instead, it's designed to encourage people to team up and play together in a massively multiplayer online game, so your argument is invalid.

 

Don't get me wrong -- the lack of matchmaking (combined with the vertical progression system and outdated server segregation) is a large part of what's keeping GSF from being a competitive PvP game, and it's a bad thing. But saying it's "designed to infuriate the majority" (and whatever the rest of that sentence was supposed to mean) is just flat wrong.

 

Beg to differ, it's design goal is to keep people playing/subbed to SWTOR.

 

 

 

In GSF, you're arguing, players have an unfair advantage when they group up with other people. But nothing is stopping anyone from grouping up with anyone; you can freely whisper anyone after a match to group up and share advice, and many servers even have specific chat channels to facilitate this process.

 

 

Ahh no that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the game endlessly throws random noobs at oremade groups and if you want to have a chance you must team up or you are screwed. As to your other comments on a match by match basis the disadvantages overwhelmingly can't be overcome. This is why I can 90%+ predict the outcome of a match before it starts.

[Armonddd]

Beg to differ, it's design goal is to keep people playing/subbed to SWTOR.

 

You're mixing up specific and general goals of game design. It's like asking a physicist, a biologist, and a pharmacist what they want their microscopes to do. Sure, they all use the same tool for the job, but they use it for different things. Here, you're mixing up what Chris Schmitt and Andrew Wilson want the system to do.

 

Ahh no that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the game endlessly throws random noobs at oremade groups and if you want to have a chance you must team up or you are screwed.

 

That sounds a lot like "players have an unfair advantage when they group up with other people".

 

As to your other comments on a match by match basis the disadvantages overwhelmingly can't be overcome. This is why I can 90%+ predict the outcome of a match before it starts.

 

This sounds like you're going into a solo queue, finding yourself losing against a team of good players (or winning with your own team of good players), and thinking, "hmm, I wonder if things will change if I just keep solo queueing".

 

And the flip side of the coin is... welcome to PvP, where teams with good players beat teams with bad players. It's been like this for millennia, and if the alternative were true, we'd call it unfair.

 

If you want a game that rewards improving your play and improving your team, GSF is pretty good, and has a lot of analogies to trading players in sports teams. If you want a game where your individual skill means the difference between victory and defeat, success and failure, however you choose to define those terms in the game's context, I highly recommend Ys Origin -- because team games just aren't going to offer that except with exceptionally skilled play.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Armonddd

[DamascusAdontise]

Beg to differ, it's design goal is to keep people playing/subbed to SWTOR.

 

Ahh no that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the game endlessly throws random noobs at oremade groups and if you want to have a chance you must team up or you are screwed. As to your other comments on a match by match basis the disadvantages overwhelmingly can't be overcome. This is why I can 90%+ predict the outcome of a match before it starts.

 

Subscriptions have nothing to do with design goals. You might need to add new content in an attempt to retain players but the design goals stand on their own: Setting a goal to add a new world, to re-design an area, to add new textures to a model etc. While related they are not the same thing IE: design goal, player retention goal (one is akin to finance and the other art)

 

That being said there are several bad things affecting new player experience in GSF:

 

Lack of a tutorial that prepares pilot for PvP combat (currently you get the most basic of basics and thats it)

 

Lack of a "new pilot or cadet" bonus (to help people get some initial gear, or to offset mistakes made early)

 

Lack of general information in game about GSF / Ships / Talents

 

These things hurt new players more than any premade group, new pilots are not given the tools they need to be successful in the first couple games. Most pilots don't understand what they are doing wrong, and rather than asking someone or trying to get help they que and que and que until they are so frustrated they quit.

 

This is all very human and understandable, what I cannot understand is why someone would continue to do the same things over and over and expect different results (its literally the definition of insanity) at what point does it become the fault of the player? People seem to expect the game to change around them when its the other way around, you change yourself / play-style to match what the game requires.

 

PUG matches are "random" meaning "you have no control" . If you want something other than random results then a group is your only choice. We can hope for cross server and MM balance but in the end hope doesnt win matches. what you can actually do right now to affect the quality of your matches is simple: /addfriend name and /t name hey want to GSF? There is simply NO EXCUSE FOR NOT DOING THIS, it doesn't cost you anything, doesn't take a lot of time, and adds a TON to your gaming experience. Ill never understand why people simply wont do this.... is it some screwed up version of pride "I can take on the whole universe myself.... im that good" mentality?

 

I dont believe any game is unwinnable, and if your pegging the match in the first 3 seconds then you have the wrong attitude. My thoughts are usually one of two: "Ah now I can level an off ship" or "crap this is going to be tough!" - And there have been games that looked massively unbalanced where we won (yes even on solo q)

[Armonddd]

what I cannot understand is why someone would continue to do the same things over and over and expect different results (its literally the definition of insanity)

 

It's actually not. Don't mix up Einstein with actual legal/psychiatric terminology.

[General_Brass]

This is all very human and understandable, what I cannot understand is why someone would continue to do the same things over and over and expect different results (its literally the definition of insanity) at what point does it become the fault of the player? People seem to expect the game to change around them when its the other way around, you change yourself / play-style to match what the game requires.

 

 

I can't understand it either that's why i asked in another thread if anyone was aware of another PvP minigame with parameters similar to GSF that had been a success. I personally can't think of any but I can think of many many failures.

[Ramalina]

The game design is actually surprisingly good, and the major balance issues have been addressed pretty quickly and pretty well.

 

Once you've become an established GSF player it's quite nice.

 

The introductory player experience and rollout strategy on the other hand, well I think inept is the nicest thing I could say, but horribly botched is maybe a bit of an exaggeration.

 

GSF is a grumpy old hermit of a game for new players. Very nice once you've befriended it, but very few people are going to get past the first impression and stick around long enough for that to happen.

 

I guess I can understand a position where they had the resources to either make a good introduction or a good game, and chose to make the game. I can't help but think how many more players there might be (and how much shorter queue times might be) if the learning curve had a ladder up it instead of needing to be free climbed and if the gear playing field had been level for preferred and f2ps when they started.

[Armonddd]

...and if the gear playing field had been level for preferred and f2ps when they started.

 

To expand on this a bit, the vertical gear progression is the heart of this problem. If, for example, everyone had been reset to stock ships on launch, then over the game's lifetime the gear discrepancy would crop up between new players and veteran players as it does now.

 

I liked the original Guild Wars for this reason. To show a counterexample of the vertical progression, Guild Wars had "PvP only characters" that couldn't exit the designated PvP towns/zones. PvP characters had a special gear creation panel that allowed you to create any armor or weapon your class could equip. As you played, you could unlock new stats and skins (through both PvE and PvP) to equip in any combination -- but you always sacrificed one stat to get another. I might want +30 HP on my weapon, for example, but it would always come at the cost of +5 armor or +20% buff duration. Skills worked similarly, which was important because there were over 1,200 skills but you could only equip eight at once.

 

This type of horizontal progression meant that as you played more, you had access to more options. While that's certainly an advantage for a veteran player, none of the options were (intended to be) inherently better or worse than any others.

[Altheran]

Concerning whether GSF is a team game or not is IMO, a bit off-topic, (as I do not consider teaming "cheating" per se although I find this low and unfair/abnormal at the moment) but let me state my opinion.

 

Long story short : sure, you play IN a team, but the game is done so it forbids you to play AS a team.

 

In details : GSF is actually very different from a WZ.

 

In a WZ, you can :

- give orders as you move.

- signal ennemies incoming without losing controls of your character.

- tell that your mates are fighting without needing them to tell you they're fighting.

- have a large view on surroundings that allows you to see if someone is in a pinch.

- put targets to lead focuses.

You can actually fight AS a team although you queued solo.

In a WZ you can legitimately say it's a team game, and that fighting "real teams" (as opposed to randomly made teams) isn't actually a problem, as your given tools and means to be part as a team as a solo queuer.

 

But here's what GSF gives you :

- Minimal information about yourself

- Limited peripheral vision

- Approximate information on ennemies

- Nearly unusable chat

- No team status information

 

This doesn't allow much if any kind of team play/organization if you queue solo. You have to act like if your mates are NPCs, not expecting anything from them. As a result, playing in solo queue, do not lead to team play, and it doesn't even remotely ressemble team play. Although you're in a team, it's forced solo play.

 

So for me, GSF isn't a team game. Maybe you can call that a tag game, as you're merely tagging along, but not forming a "team", as you can't act together outside of mere coincidence.

 

So, ultimately, forming a party to join GSF, isn't inherently bad as it's just "tagging along", but when it becomes a team that is actually using vocals to build strategies, call focus and other team things, that party/team isn't actually playing the same game anymore. It deviated.

 

In the end, my opinion is just an opinion. I'm no dev to tell what the game is intended to be...

But I think that :

- if it has been intended to be a "team game", then it has been poorly made as it does not even give a chance to solo queuers to be a team

- if it was intended to be a solo/tag game, then group queuing should never had made it to the final version as people using third party softwares to get an advantage was an obvious result of its presence.

 

End of story : they failed somewhere.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Altheran

[Urglab]

Something which has been brought up before (but not nearly often enough) is some kind of system to quickly give 3 button commands. Like SMITE's "vgs" system or Battlefield's whatever it's called.

 

Some examples would be.

 

VI3 - enemies incoming C

VI2 - enemies incoming B

VA1 - attack A

VHH - HELP!!!

VH2 - Help B

 

And so on. Instead of typing which is a horrible idea unless you're sitting at an empty node twiddling your thumbs you only need to quickly press 3 buttons which are easy to memorize once you've used them a bit.

 

This will allow pugs to somewhat play as a team and perhaps actually put up a fight against premades who normally dominate them completely. It'd also make pug vs pug matches much more interesting.

 

It could of course lead to people spamming it but perhaps put a cooldown on using it on it or limit it to squad leaders. Even so, spam is irrelevant, we need ways to quickly communicate, without needing voice comm.

[KareBarey]

I think you can play as a team in GSF if you pay attention. The mini-map shows (pretty much) where the action is and the score thing up top shows which node is under attack. In domination, if you watch your surroundings, you can tell if someone is being targeted, and so go help them out.

 

It would be nice to type in chat without having to stop flying, or have some sort of in-game voice chat. When I play with guildies, we use Mumble, so communication is not an issue.

[Sidenti]

Concerning whether GSF is a team game or not is IMO, a bit off-topic, (as I do not consider teaming "cheating" per se although I find this low and unfair/abnormal at the moment) but let me state my opinion.

 

Long story short : sure, you play IN a team, but the game is done so it forbids you to play AS a team.

 

In details : GSF is actually very different from a WZ.

 

In a WZ, you can :

- give orders as you move.

- signal ennemies incoming without losing controls of your character.

- tell that your mates are fighting without needing them to tell you they're fighting.

- have a large view on surroundings that allows you to see if someone is in a pinch.

- put targets to lead focuses.

You can actually fight AS a team although you queued solo.

In a WZ you can legitimately say it's a team game, and that fighting "real teams" (as opposed to randomly made teams) isn't actually a problem, as your given tools and means to be part as a team as a solo queuer.

 

But here's what GSF gives you :

- Minimal information about yourself

- Limited peripheral vision

- Approximate information on ennemies

- Nearly unusable chat

- No team status information

 

This doesn't allow much if any kind of team play/organization if you queue solo. You have to act like if your mates are NPCs, not expecting anything from them. As a result, playing in solo queue, do not lead to team play, and it doesn't even remotely ressemble team play. Although you're in a team, it's forced solo play.

 

So for me, GSF isn't a team game. Maybe you can call that a tag game, as you're merely tagging along, but not forming a "team", as you can't act together outside of mere coincidence.

 

So, ultimately, forming a party to join GSF, isn't inherently bad as it's just "tagging along", but when it becomes a team that is actually using vocals to build strategies, call focus and other team things, that party/team isn't actually playing the same game anymore. It deviated.

 

In the end, my opinion is just an opinion. I'm no dev to tell what the game is intended to be...

But I think that :

- if it has been intended to be a "team game", then it has been poorly made as it does not even give a chance to solo queuers to be a team

- if it was intended to be a solo/tag game, then group queuing should never had made it to the final version as people using third party softwares to get an advantage was an obvious result of its presence.

 

End of story : they failed somewhere.

 

You must have the most unique definition of "team" I've ever heard if you think you can't coordinate lacking a voice setup. We do it all the time on TEH in solo queue. Makes for some pretty tight games.

 

Perhaps the issue here is that you don't know how to fly as part of a flight unit? It's got similarities to being part of a ground unit, but not many. Situational awareness is huge, keen typing skills a must (don't cry if you don't have the skill because you'll find no sympathy from me; simply improve your typing if you can't type and fly at the same time) and it's definitely not something Joe Sixpack can do on a whim. It takes a certain measure of skill to fly as a team.

 

But it can and has been done. Quite a bit. -bp

[Salakast]

Firstly I'd say that if the intention of the game is to encourage people to team up, as stated above, then it has failed miserably, as far more people solo than team. This is for myriad reasons, such as most players not having the time to commit to playing GSF for a considerable length of time, certainly not enough to waste time beforehand trying to get a group together.

 

This can then lead to a somewhat degraded game experience for this 'casual flyer' player base when paired up against more committed 'frequent flyers' grouping with their friends, but I'm not sure it's desirable to introduce any restrictions against team play, grouping should be rewarded.

 

What I understand less is where there is an obvious GSF faction imbalance (I'm looking at you Progenitor ) why do none of the republic pre-mades go and make some alts on the imperial side so that they can fly against the other groups? Instead (especially at weekends) there is game after game with 2-3 pre-mades on the pub side engaged in a total slaughterfest against 8-12 imperial 2-shippers. If the pre-mades were in it for the 'challenge' as much as they protest, you'd think that they'd want to split up to achieve that. That they don't speaks of a visceral thrill akin to a bully mentality and is where the 'monopoly study' mentioned above is relevant, it reveals the psychology at play that keeps these guys queing up again & again for hours on end in games thay can't possibly lose. The result? Imp chat filled with people complaining how they only tried this for a laugh, how stupid GSF is and how they aren't going to queue again. This benefits no-one long term.

[Sidenti]

Firstly I'd say that if the intention of the game is to encourage people to team up, as stated above, then it has failed miserably, as far more people solo than team. This is for myriad reasons, such as most players not having the time to commit to playing GSF for a considerable length of time, certainly not enough to waste time beforehand trying to get a group together.

 

This can then lead to a somewhat degraded game experience for this 'casual flyer' player base when paired up against more committed 'frequent flyers' grouping with their friends, but I'm not sure it's desirable to introduce any restrictions against team play, grouping should be rewarded.

 

What I understand less is where there is an obvious GSF faction imbalance (I'm looking at you Progenitor ) why do none of the republic pre-mades go and make some alts on the imperial side so that they can fly against the other groups? Instead (especially at weekends) there is game after game with 2-3 pre-mades on the pub side engaged in a total slaughterfest against 8-12 imperial 2-shippers. If the pre-mades were in it for the 'challenge' as much as they protest, you'd think that they'd want to split up to achieve that. That they don't speaks of a visceral thrill akin to a bully mentality and is where the 'monopoly study' mentioned above is relevant, it reveals the psychology at play that keeps these guys queing up again & again for hours on end in games thay can't possibly lose. The result? Imp chat filled with people complaining how they only tried this for a laugh, how stupid GSF is and how they aren't going to queue again. This benefits no-one long term.

 

I get what you mean, but on the flip side, it can be immensely entertaining - and SATISFYING - to make a plan happen out of a PUG mess. Honestly, that's how I've met all of my favorite pilots.

 

Premades are gonna happen in PvP. Just because they're premade, however, doesn't make 'em invincible. There's one premade in particular I enjoy pummeling solo. (I won't name names. I like the leader as a person, but not as a pilot. At all.) Think of it as a challenge.

[Armonddd]

You must have the most unique definition of "team" I've ever heard if you think you can't coordinate lacking a voice setup. We do it all the time on TEH in solo queue. Makes for some pretty tight games.

 

That's not teamwork, though -- that's a bunch of dudes going off to do their own thing with kind of an overall strategy.

 

In a team game, 1v1 doesn't matter. In GSF, 1v1 is hugely important.

 

I've played team games. In Guild Wars, people had ~600 hp and axes could, in about a second and a half, hit for double 100s with a non-stacking debuff to reduce max hp by 100. Two warriors could, after eight or nine swings of buildup (with base 100% accuracy and 0% dodge on all characters), kill an undefended character in about three seconds. But that wasn't enough, because once they finished their spike, they were back to autoattacking for 30s or 40s, and the monks could not only heal for ~200 with a single cast (with two or three different spells), but also grant allies 50% dodge chance, cap damage taken at 10% max hp, prevent damage taken from the next hit, and cumulatively reduce all incoming damage by 5 for several seconds... all on one bar, without sacrificing other skills. Oh, and teams generally ran two monks in 8v8 so they could cover various weaknesses and split up if they needed to.

 

In a team game, if you want to land a kill, you need to work as a team. To land a kill in Guild Wars, you had to have your casters shut down the enemy monks, strip buffs, and soften targets before a spike. Blocking and missing from enemy skills was common, so your monks had to simultaneously keep people alive and keep your melee clean so they could do their job. A common tactic was to build your team of 8 to be able to fight 4v4 + 4v4 and 6v6 + 2v2, and hope the defending team couldn't force you to fight 8v8 (or, more likely, 7v6 + 2v1+NPCs).

 

In GSF, though? There's none of that strategy. Some premades get on voice chat and call targets, yeah, but that's about the extent of it. In every single match I've played, all I do is pick my favorite ship (or decide to fly something else for the rare change of pace), zip over to the nearest objective (be it a satellite or a damage overcharge), and take out everyone who shows up. Unless I'm facing pretty terrible odds, such as 3v1 or 4v1 at a satellite, I do this completely independently of my team, because the game is designed -- intentionally or not -- to allow it.

 

And honestly, what else am I going to do? Scouts are barbarians, as Verain put it, and have more than enough burst capability to take out targets in three seconds of concentrated fire or less. It's like playing a warrior in Guild Wars, except I don't have to worry about taking 30-45 seconds to land the eight hits I need to use my spike because my spike is ready all the time, even when my cooldowns aren't ready. I don't need to worry about an enemy Clarion/Bloodmark/Warcarrier saying "no this guy doesn't die now", because they can't. There's no need to strip or wait out defensive buffs or coordinate with my team to get around them because they don't exist. There's no defensive team synergy whatsoever that applies during the three second timeframe it takes me to atomize someone, and therefore there's almost no need for offensive team synergy until a bomber shows up and sets up area denial in a game where area control is victory (a pair of mechanics I've despised for years).

 

GSF just isn't, strictly speaking, a team game; it's a game played by teams of solo players.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Armonddd

[SammyGStatus]

If my TEAM picks 4 bombers (rude), I'm not picking a bomber (ship choice directly relates to the team). This is a TEAM game by definition, but it's missing A LOT of helpful TEAM aspects

[Sidenti]

That's not teamwork, though -- that's a bunch of dudes going off to do their own thing with kind of an overall strategy.

 

In a team game, 1v1 doesn't matter. In GSF, 1v1 is hugely important.

 

I've played team games. In Guild Wars, people had ~600 hp and axes could, in about a second and a half, hit for double 100s with a non-stacking debuff to reduce max hp by 100. Two warriors could, after eight or nine swings of buildup (with base 100% accuracy and 0% dodge on all characters), kill an undefended character in about three seconds. But that wasn't enough, because once they finished their spike, they were back to autoattacking for 30s or 40s, and the monks could not only heal for ~200 with a single cast (with two or three different spells), but also grant allies 50% dodge chance, cap damage taken at 10% max hp, prevent damage taken from the next hit, and cumulatively reduce all incoming damage by 5 for several seconds... all on one bar, without sacrificing other skills. Oh, and teams generally ran two monks in 8v8 so they could cover various weaknesses and split up if they needed to.

 

In a team game, if you want to land a kill, you need to work as a team. To land a kill in Guild Wars, you had to have your casters shut down the enemy monks, strip buffs, and soften targets before a spike. Blocking and missing from enemy skills was common, so your monks had to simultaneously keep people alive and keep your melee clean so they could do their job. A common tactic was to build your team of 8 to be able to fight 4v4 + 4v4 and 6v6 + 2v2, and hope the defending team couldn't force you to fight 8v8 (or, more likely, 7v6 + 2v1+NPCs).

 

In GSF, though? There's none of that strategy. Some premades get on voice chat and call targets, yeah, but that's about the extent of it. In every single match I've played, all I do is pick my favorite ship (or decide to fly something else for the rare change of pace), zip over to the nearest objective (be it a satellite or a damage overcharge), and take out everyone who shows up. Unless I'm facing pretty terrible odds, such as 3v1 or 4v1 at a satellite, I do this completely independently of my team, because the game is designed -- intentionally or not -- to allow it.

 

And honestly, what else am I going to do? Scouts are barbarians, as Verain put it, and have more than enough burst capability to take out targets in three seconds of concentrated fire or less. It's like playing a warrior in Guild Wars, except I don't have to worry about taking 30-45 seconds to land the eight hits I need to use my spike because my spike is ready all the time, even when my cooldowns aren't ready. I don't need to worry about an enemy Clarion/Bloodmark/Warcarrier saying "no this guy doesn't die now", because they can't. There's no need to strip or wait out defensive buffs or coordinate with my team to get around them because they don't exist. There's no defensive team synergy whatsoever that applies during the three second timeframe it takes me to atomize someone, and therefore there's almost no need for offensive team synergy until a bomber shows up and sets up area denial in a game where area control is victory (a pair of mechanics I've despised for years).

 

GSF just isn't, strictly speaking, a team game.

 

Perhaps we approach this differently, Whoever You Are. You see, I've flown dogfighting games for a little over two decades now - solo, team play, all kinds. Love dogfighting, especially in space.

 

It's quite a bit more than simply calling targets over voice! XD

 

Have you ever seen a flight unit in formation in GSF? And I'm not talking about the "school of fish" effect we see with target-focusing premades. I'm talking an X formation. I'm talking Delta. I'm talking flying patterns with a SF on point, Scouts flanking and a supply bomber supporting.

 

I've seen that out there. Used to see it quite a bit in the very early days, as actual dogfighting veterans gave GSF the ol' college try. I don't see it AS much anymore, but it most certainly happens. And usually people cry about it because it's stupid-effective. XD

 

I know you like your mastered Flashfire. I know you like getting high amounts of kills or whatever, and that's ducky. Enjoy yo'self. But you know where that solo-first attitude is going to get you against actual coordination?

 

I won't tell you. It'll probably upset you. But fear not - this isn't an actual dogfighter. It's an arcade minigame, and a pretty decent one at that. You have no need to worry at present. -bp

[Sidenti]

If my TEAM picks 4 bombers (rude), I'm not picking a bomber (ship choice directly relates to the team). This is a TEAM game by definition, but it's missing A LOT of helpful TEAM aspects

 

Probably because the population is missing a lot of helpful team players - but let's face it. MMOers aren't exactly the "work-together-spontaneously" type. They generally have to be in guilds or cliques to do that, and even then, usually only for the benefit of said guild or clique.

 

Bioware has to design the game that people wanna buy. People, it seems, aren't interested in buying a GSF that's team-first. (I have my own theories as to why they shy away from it, but none of them are polite.)

 

I did enjoy flying with you immensely for your team-first attitude, however. It's why you're so personally successful - situational awareness, a strong degree of selflessness, and watching your wingman's six are highly effective tactics that get noticed by other pilots. And remembered. -bp