GSF que...

[OpeningToEndgame]

Is %$#@^&* horrible on The Bastion. I play a lot on my days off and I sit for over an hour for one match, that sometimes is instantly over because there aren't enough people. I enjoy GSF. Something needs to change. I've done everything in game I want to do. PvP, Ops, leveling.

[Verain]

I hear you 100%. We have enough people, some of the time, and when we do queues are a couple minutes. But the rest of the time I'm hopping around on the ship with my companion Estragon, waiting for Godot.

[Coldcrush]

Is %$#@^&* horrible on The Bastion. I play a lot on my days off and I sit for over an hour for one match, that sometimes is instantly over because there aren't enough people. I enjoy GSF. Something needs to change. I've done everything in game I want to do. PvP, Ops, leveling.

 

 

I run an Imperial side GSF guild on The Bastion and even when queing solo I rarely find myself waiting for more than 7-8 minutes. If what you say is remotely true, it sounds like you are queing up in either the morning or early afternoon. Try playing at prime time if you can and you may see a significant improvement in your pop time,

[renegadeimp]

Queue as a group. its much faster.

[HoloGrinder]

The queue time will keep getting worse until it dies all together because Imps hate GSF because they get beat 90% of the time. If the devs want to save it they will balance the odds by matching teams or helping the imps catch up with massive req rewards. As I have been saying for weeks now you all bear witness.

[Eldrenath]

The queue time will keep getting worse until it dies all together because Imps hate GSF because they get beat 90% of the time. If the devs want to save it they will balance the odds by matching teams or helping the imps catch up with massive req rewards. As I have been saying for weeks now you all bear witness.

 

I think this is likely true. It seems when I queue imp side more and more I am getting pub vs. pub matches, and imp side queue is way longer than it used to be. My opinion is the lack of matchmaking and the constant farming the imps endure has made many folks just quit queueing. Certainly I do not have access to actual data, but I suspect that that is the reason.

 

I don't know the solution to the problem and I don't know that giving the imps a leg up as you describe is a good idea. But I do believe that what's being done now simply isn't working.

[Coldcrush]

The queue time will keep getting worse until it dies all together because Imps hate GSF because they get beat 90% of the time. If the devs want to save it they will balance the odds by matching teams or helping the imps catch up with massive req rewards. As I have been saying for weeks now you all bear witness.

 

YOU get beat 90% of the time. My win ration is around 65% as per the legacy stats and that is almost entirely as solo queue. (Only started my GSF guild last week). As time has passed I personally have only seen more enthusiasm for GSF and tomorrow it goes free to play.

[stevetsuida]

...Imps hate GSF because they get beat 90% of the time...

 

That's a ridiculous statistic pulled out of the air, extrapolated from cherry-picked anecdotes. I fly with an Imperial character, and we see nothing like a 90% loss rate. Quite often, we see lopsided wins because we coordinate our game over the chat window, pre-game.

 

...helping the imps catch up with massive req rewards...

 

No. The developers shouldn't reward mediocre players who refuse to group up or practice by giving them an unfair advantage.

[HoloGrinder]

YOU get beat 90% of the time. My win ration is around 65% as per the legacy stats and that is almost entirely as solo queue. (Only started my GSF guild last week). As time has passed I personally have only seen more enthusiasm for GSF and tomorrow it goes free to play.

 

Spoken like a pub in disguise.

[HoloGrinder]

That's a ridiculous statistic pulled out of the air, extrapolated from cherry-picked anecdotes. I fly with an Imperial character, and we see nothing like a 90% loss rate. Quite often, we see lopsided wins because we coordinate our game over the chat window, pre-game.

 

 

 

No. The developers shouldn't reward mediocre players who refuse to group up or practice by giving them an unfair advantage.

 

Yeah the pub symbol you represent your self with there screams you fly imp {sarcasm off}. which do you want to end first your imp noob farming or GSF buddy? This issue will kill GSF!

Edited February 3, 2014 by HoloGrinder

[Armonddd]

No. The developers shouldn't reward mediocre players who refuse to group up or practice by giving them an unfair advantage.

 

Not to mention it doesn't do anything about the frustrating play experience, which is the original problem.

 

Spoken like a pub in disguise.

 

lol gud 1

 

Yeah the pub symbol you represent your self with there screams you fly imp {sarcasm off}. which do you want to end first your imp noob farming or GSF buddy? This issue will kill GSF!

 

Because someone's forum avatar really says anything about what they do in game.

 

My avatar is the flashfire. Guess my current favorite ship. Go on, guess.

[Eldrenath]

Yeah the pub symbol you represent your self with there screams you fly imp {sarcasm off}. which do you want to end first your imp noob farming or GSF buddy? This issue will kill GSF!

 

While I agree with you that the lack of matchmaking is a detriment to GSF as a whole, I have to agree with those who have said that some sort of bonus req to the losing team is not a good idea. I do not know what the solution is, but I'm not a game developer so no one pays me to know such things.

 

My personal experience is imps getting dominated far, FAR more often than they win. I've flown over 400 matches now, about 60-70% on pub side. And in my experience when I'm on pub and fly against imps (which is now less than half the time, maybe 1 in 4 matches I get imps, the rest is pub vs. pub) we dominate them. When I fly on imp side we get dominated.

 

It's always clear what is about to happen: I can't tell you how many matches I've entered on pub side and seen my entire team, nearly all of whom have 5 ships and most of whom I recognize from many, MANY previous matches. The imp side is mostly 2-3 ship folks and I don't recognize anyone. Same thing happens when I fly imp. It's not the fault of the experienced pilots or the premades--if they get in a match they're going to do their best, and why shouldn't they? But it's clear there is a lack of matchmaking. I don't know why, but in my experience on my server it is a real issue and fewer and fewer imps seem to be playing GSF.

[HoloGrinder]

Not to mention it doesn't do anything about the frustrating play experience, which is the original problem.

 

 

 

lol gud 1

 

 

 

Because someone's forum avatar really says anything about what they do in game.

 

My avatar is the flashfire. Guess my current favorite ship. Go on, guess.

 

I'll take a guess just for fun. Burst lasers not fast enough... maybe... you fly a GS now?

[HoloGrinder]

While I agree with you that the lack of matchmaking is a detriment to GSF as a whole, I have to agree with those who have said that some sort of bonus req to the losing team is not a good idea. I do not know what the solution is, but I'm not a game developer so no one pays me to know such things.

 

My personal experience is imps getting dominated far, FAR more often than they win. I've flown over 400 matches now, about 60-70% on pub side. And in my experience when I'm on pub and fly against imps (which is now less than half the time, maybe 1 in 4 matches I get imps, the rest is pub vs. pub) we dominate them. When I fly on imp side we get dominated.

 

It's always clear what is about to happen: I can't tell you how many matches I've entered on pub side and seen my entire team, nearly all of whom have 5 ships and most of whom I recognize from many, MANY previous matches. The imp side is mostly 2-3 ship folks and I don't recognize anyone. Same thing happens when I fly imp. It's not the fault of the experienced pilots or the premades--if they get in a match they're going to do their best, and why shouldn't they? But it's clear there is a lack of matchmaking. I don't know why, but in my experience on my server it is a real issue and fewer and fewer imps seem to be playing GSF.

 

You Sir, are well spoken! I wish I could convey my message as well as you.

 

My solution proposals are likely not the best but here is what motivates me to speak out.

 

1) I see an undeniable imbalance that I believe will kill GSF.

 

2) I like GSF... a lot...

 

3) Balance is all that will save it. it must happen.

 

There are only 3 ways to balance it but I am sure that some one will come up with much better ways to do it than I could suggest.

 

1) Bring the top down... Nerfing or taking what people have worked for is something I do not agree with... so no...

 

2) bring the bottom up... I could live with rapidly advancing new players ships to help balance GSF and ultimately save it. Of coarse good republic pilots switching to the imp side would do it as well.

 

3) Segregate by skill level... this would work too but I don't believe we have enough people that still play GSF to make it work.

 

What is not an option is leaving things as they are and watching it die.

[Eldrenath]

1) I see an undeniable imbalance that I believe will kill GSF.

 

I definitely agree here. I definitely believe that the current situation is detrimental, at least on my server (I cannot speak for other servers, I exclusively play on Shadowlands).

 

2) I like GSF... a lot...

 

3) Balance is all that will save it. it must happen.

 

I definitely agree on both points.

 

There are only 3 ways to balance it but I am sure that some one will come up with much better ways to do it than I could suggest.

 

1) Bring the top down... Nerfing or taking what people have worked for is something I do not agree with... so no...

 

2) bring the bottom up... I could live with rapidly advancing new players ships to help balance GSF and ultimately save it. Of coarse good republic pilots switching to the imp side would do it as well.

 

I have to respectfully disagree on each of these. I certainly see where you are coming from. I just see something like this causing a lot of acrimony. Gamers don't agree on much but the clear majority do seem to agree on as level a playing field as can reasonably be achieved. Giving any side an explicit advantage or disadvantage is contrary to this and will definitely cause understandable anger.

 

Ultimately this is a player problem--more folks are queueing on the pub side and fewer on the imp side. The better players are choosing to form premades. This is entirely their choice and I don't think such a choice can or should be taken away or limited. I don't have a better solution than these 2 suggestions, but with respect I do believe that each of these 2 suggestions are not workable solutions.

 

3) Segregate by skill level... this would work too but I don't believe we have enough people that still play GSF to make it work.

 

100% agree. This is the only solution I can think of that could really work without upsetting people. Put newer players against newer players and experienced/premade players against the same. No one can reasonably complain about that--challenging matches are more fun and certainly more exciting when you win. As many have pointed out, the numbers currently will likely not support such a system and so there is some understandable resistance because folks don't want to make queue times even worse. Cross server queues might--but I have no idea if that is feasible given the game design. I'm no game developer or coder so I'm certainly not in a place to be an "armchair dev".

 

In a nutshell, the only workable solution is to have better matchmaking. That means larger pools of players. Either through cross-server queues or giving rewards for playing GSF that are cool enough to get more people playing GSF. If those rewards are obtainable for everyone (cool cosmetic items, speeders, etc etc) then there is no side getting something that others are not, and hence balance.

[LegoUniverseBC]

The most I ever have to wait on JC is 5 minutes at most.

Most of the time I get a pop in a minute or two though.

[stevetsuida]

Yeah the pub symbol you represent your self with there screams you fly imp {sarcasm off}

 

I fly both sides, HoloGrinder. As a matter of fact, I alternate roughly 50/50. 269 matches, with a mastered Blackbolt and a mastered Sting on the Imperial side, and a mastered Novadive and mastered Star Guard on the Republic side. Level 55 characters on both factions. I don't see the point in sticking to one faction in a video game.

 

It's not that hard a game to play, as long as you don't sit on your *** and wait for the developers to spoon feed everything to you. Log in, play, lose, learn, try harder, lose, learn, try harder, coordinate, experiment, and occasionally win. That's how games work. Getting exactly what you want every single time is called ************ (which gets censored here, but starts with an m), and if that's what you're after, HoloGrinder, then go somewhere else.

[Ramalina]

The problem with matchmaking (which so far I've seen no evidence of in a player detectable form), it that the way you queue up for GSF makes matchmaking insanely difficult.

 

You can sort based on gear. This in some ways is the least problematic aspect. Gear is locked when you queue zone into the battle, so that can be assigned values and evaluated with reasonably simple code. Of course, least problematic is still problematic. If a player has a favorite ship, there can be huge disparity in the ships they have available. So how do you balance the player with a mastered gunship and 2-6 other ships with no upgrades with a player whose ships have a more averaged distribution of upgrades? Having a range of choices available inside the battlefield when you respawn creates a huge problem, as gear balance can change during the match.

 

You run into a similar problem with skill. Great with a gunship but terrible with a striker or a bomber? How, would you compare that while sorting out the players in the queue? Then the other problem is how you even try to quantify skill in the first place. A good pilot on a terrible team can put up really bad numbers on the scoreboard, and still be a good pilot for matchmaking purposes. What about someone with high kill and damage numbers, but who is terrible at teamwork and ignores objectives? Do you count them as skilled or as incompetent? How many of the player's recorded stats do you use? Do you only use stats from recent games so that it reflects more closely what you hope is their current level of skill or do you use lifetime averages?

 

If the queing system stays the way it currently is I don't think that a really good matchmaking system is even possible. If you were very clever, and maybe used Baysian statistics, you might get something that works somewhat in some conditions. To a large extent it would require that GSF players are creatures of habit (which may be the case), and there would be times where it would still botch the matchmaking pretty badly.

 

Then even if you've partially solved the nightmare of decent matchmaking, you have to balance against wait times. If queue times are long enough you loose new players and more experienced players. At that point GSF is in even bigger trouble.

[HoloGrinder]

I definitely agree here. I definitely believe that the current situation is detrimental, at least on my server (I cannot speak for other servers, I exclusively play on Shadowlands).

 

 

 

I definitely agree on both points.

 

 

 

I have to respectfully disagree on each of these. I certainly see where you are coming from. I just see something like this causing a lot of acrimony. Gamers don't agree on much but the clear majority do seem to agree on as level a playing field as can reasonably be achieved. Giving any side an explicit advantage or disadvantage is contrary to this and will definitely cause understandable anger.

 

Ultimately this is a player problem--more folks are queueing on the pub side and fewer on the imp side. The better players are choosing to form premades. This is entirely their choice and I don't think such a choice can or should be taken away or limited. I don't have a better solution than these 2 suggestions, but with respect I do believe that each of these 2 suggestions are not workable solutions.

 

 

 

100% agree. This is the only solution I can think of that could really work without upsetting people. Put newer players against newer players and experienced/premade players against the same. No one can reasonably complain about that--challenging matches are more fun and certainly more exciting when you win. As many have pointed out, the numbers currently will likely not support such a system and so there is some understandable resistance because folks don't want to make queue times even worse. Cross server queues might--but I have no idea if that is feasible given the game design. I'm no game developer or coder so I'm certainly not in a place to be an "armchair dev".

 

In a nutshell, the only workable solution is to have better matchmaking. That means larger pools of players. Either through cross-server queues or giving rewards for playing GSF that are cool enough to get more people playing GSF. If those rewards are obtainable for everyone (cool cosmetic items, speeders, etc etc) then there is no side getting something that others are not, and hence balance.

 

I honestly believe a fair fight is all that it would take to get much more of the player base especially the imps to play.

[HoloGrinder]

The most I ever have to wait on JC is 5 minutes at most.

Most of the time I get a pop in a minute or two though.

 

5 min is pub side but you have to think when pubs are fighting pubs Imps are waiting. I have seen upwards of 15-20 min during prime time and in the morning on imp side it's over an hour between matches consistantly except for the 2 or 3 back to back that pop when the mission terminal resets. I'm on JC

[LegoUniverseBC]

5 min is pub side but you have to think when pubs are fighting pubs Imps are waiting. I have seen upwards of 15-20 min during prime time and in the morning on imp side it's over an hour between matches consistantly except for the 2 or 3 back to back that pop when the mission terminal resets. I'm on JC

 

I play a imp there as well. It's not that bad.

[HoloGrinder]

I fly both sides, HoloGrinder. As a matter of fact, I alternate roughly 50/50. 269 matches, with a mastered Blackbolt and a mastered Sting on the Imperial side, and a mastered Novadive and mastered Star Guard on the Republic side. Level 55 characters on both factions. I don't see the point in sticking to one faction in a video game.

 

It's not that hard a game to play, as long as you don't sit on your *** and wait for the developers to spoon feed everything to you. Log in, play, lose, learn, try harder, lose, learn, try harder, coordinate, experiment, and occasionally win. That's how games work. Getting exactly what you want every single time is called ************ (which gets censored here, but starts with an m), and if that's what you're after, HoloGrinder, then go somewhere else.

 

I don't get what the censored word is, I thought it might be BS spelled out but you say it starts with an M and i'm drawing a blank. Your logic is play hard and get better to balance it. Steep learning curve and all that. I get it, I do. In fact that's what I did and am working on a 3rd mastered ship (all imp). That is the way to go and should be the goal of every pilot. Now for the reality of the situation. It's not happening that way the imps try it lose a few and either give up on it or switch to pub. Some of us fight through it and get good but that is pure stubbornness (which I am also known for) and getting 2 of those few in the same game on any given day is rare. I am not either going to shut up about a flaw in the system or go some where else. Not going to happen bud. I Beta tested this game and have my preordered collectors edition box and Darth Malgus statue sitting on the shelf. Instead I'll make some noise about the problem and it'll get fixed or it'll die out and I'll get to tell the critics that I told them so.

[HoloGrinder]

I play a imp there as well. It's not that bad.

 

It is that bad. If you play imp you know it's that bad. I could record a string of hour plus consecutive wait times in the morning but who the heck would watch that? If you say you don't see a problem with the factional balance on JC because you are having fun owning imp noobs that's cool but recognize it for what it is and realize that by concealing the problem you are putting an end date on GSF. "Truth will out"

[Verain]

Bro, go somewhere else with that. At least another thread about faction imbalance. We get that your server, emps can't get a fair shake. That does suck, but there are servers with the opposite damned problem.

[sollinton]

Why not make GSF queues cross-server? That would bring together everyone queuing up and reduce queue times. The increase in queues would also allow a proper matchmaking system to help with the facerolling of premades vs newbies.

 

Normally I do not like cross-server queues because they tend to destroy communities by introducing a whole new level of anonymity. However right now the GSF queues are so small that combining the queuing pool with cross-server queues would not hurt the community nearly as much as a cross-server LFG queue would.