My stupid suggestion to help GSF balance

[bmharrison]

Notice I didn't say "fix" GSF balance because, well, we're pretty much looking at balance through the rear-view mirror, and it's getting pretty small. Any major balancing effort toward a particular ship is, at this point, only going to anger said ship pilots and likely not going to "fix" whatever the original issue was (ref. 2.7 fix to barrel roll).

 

That being said, here's what I see as the major imbalances in GSF overall:

 

1. Premades > pugs (if you add in teamspeak with the premades, then Premades>>>>>>>>>>>pugs)

-I don't know what do to about this really. We could try ranking ships by total req earned (not by ships in hangar- too easy to manipulate) - but of course, that means much longer wait times. If GSF went cross-server this might be doable, but I have no idea how hard it is to implement a system like that. They could also implement teamspeak as a feature integrated into GSF, but again, I have no idea how hard that is to do. So, for #1, I pretty much have no viable ideas.

 

2. Gunships/Bombers > strikes/scouts

-now, before anyone starts to plan the death of my children, let me say that I'm not going to go on about how I think Gunships are overpowered (I do, but that's not the point of this thread) or that bomber drones need a nerf (see previous parenthetical). My point in this case is based on numbers, specifically the numbers of GS or bombers in the field.

 

No one can reasonably argue that a greater number (say 4-8) of gunships doesn't offer an advantage over a small number (1-3), especially in TDM. Bombers are less of a threat in TDM, unless they team up to provide cover for said gunships; then they also provide a significant advantage. In Domination, 3-4 bombers and 2-4 gunships provide a huge advantage over any teams flying primarily scouts/gunships. Of course, pilot skill is a variable, but we all know that a line of 8 gunships aren't made up of 8 new players who just decided to "try out" their new T1 ships. They are all skilled, upgraded, and ready to rip the other team apart.

 

So, here's my stupid solution (yes, it is a stupid solution, but the only one of which I can think atm). Create a que regulator that allows each team to have X+1 gunships or bombers, with X being the amount of gs/bombers that the other team has in play (or qued in hangar). This way, if a team wants to go with 8 gs and 2 bombers for a TDM, their opponents would have to pick at least 7 gunships and 1 bomber. As to who gets the pick, first come, first serve. If a GS dies and you're in the que, you can choose your GS and (s)he'll have to go with something else, unless the other team picks another gs. Same for bombers.

 

Yep, it's stupid. It won't work. It'll have pilots ragequitting all over the forums and in chat. But, maybe it'll inspire some heavy thinkers out there to come up with something better. If not, well, flame on.

Edited March 14, 2014 by bmharrison
fix typo and clarification

[Ramalina]

What you're talking about mostly consists of player behavior, and while the developers can change incentives a bit, no one has yet found a reliable way to upgrade, patch, or debug software users. It would make life so much easier for programmers if they could.

 

The way the queue and ship selection work is nice in a lot of ways from the player end, but the design also means that the devs sort of shot themselves in the foot when it comes to viable matchmaking that's any better than just having even numbers on each team. Basically too many variables that are random or player controlled for an algorithm to do a good job of balancing matches and still have short queue times. You'd have to overhaul the entire system to make it workable, and I don't really see them doing that.

 

At least by the nature of the ship designs it's not like the 4v4 ground PvP where you can get things like 4 tanks on a team, or 3 healers and a tank, etc. Or 3v4 matches.

 

Maybe no one on the current SWTOR team likes programming queuing algorithms. Though to be honest, it looks like it would be a lot of hard work, and without changing some things to reduce variability in the population the hard work it would take might not be very useful in terms of making a noticeable difference to players. If that's what programmers told managers, then it's likely that managers told programmers, "O.k. let's have you work on something useful instead."

 

The end run around that, would be to have some sort of option to have a flat gear level. Either stock ships or fully upgraded would be easiest (or you could get crazy and have some sort of random ship selection option). In some ways that wouldn't fit with the gear grind model, where you assume that your gaming product is so lacking in 'fun to play' that people will quit the instant there's no reward beyond the actual play experience. But you could in theory have some sort of recruit's queue where it's always just stock ships, maybe restricting it to one map in an effort to reduce replay value and nudge people into the general queue once they've learned to fly a bit better.

[Verain]

The engine component nerf will change the game a lot. My normal issue (just had a game like this in fact) is when my team of pugs offers 0 gunships, and I have to play mine to even have a chance. It's all terrible scouts and strikes, which probably hurts the perception.

 

Gunships do need a nerf. Slug needs a light nerf, ion needs a slightly bigger one. Bombers probably need a small nerf as well. But the delta is ultimately a player caused one, and that's my issue- if you see a bomber go 50k damage, it's almost always because of a bunch of nubs fly into mines.

[SammyGStatus]

The engine component nerf will change the game a lot. My normal issue (just had a game like this in fact) is when my team of pugs offers 0 gunships, and I have to play mine to even have a chance. It's all terrible scouts and strikes, which probably hurts the perception.

 

Gunships do need a nerf. Slug needs a light nerf, ion needs a slightly bigger one. Bombers probably need a small nerf as well. But the delta is ultimately a player caused one, and that's my issue- if you see a bomber go 50k damage, it's almost always because of a bunch of nubs fly into mines.

 

Why do slugs need a nerf? you need a full charge to actually do worthwhile damage. The engine component nerf is eh. Shouldn't really make a difference if you switch the barrel roll T3 skill to mobility instead of speed. Ion's AOE could use a nerf. I'm not sure if the timer resets everytime you get ioned, but if it does, I could see that getting a worthwhile nerf too.

 

Back to the original point - any organization will yield better results than a bunch of people with no strategy. VoiceIP may be disliked by some, but if it's done correctly, you won't die. You'll call to your team mates when they have one on you, and you'll have one on them.

 

Also, if you're saying Bombers / GSes are OP, I think they balance each other out. I can 2 shout a scout, 3 shot a fighter, and 4 shot a bomber. Bombers can kill a GS close up. And once we get the new class of ships, this balance will evolve more into Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock where there will be a counter for everything. Give it time for things to develop more. We're not even passed the first 6 months

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Notice I didn't say "fix" GSF balance because, well, we're pretty much looking at balance through the rear-view mirror, and it's getting pretty small. Any major balancing effort toward a particular ship is, at this point, only going to anger said ship pilots and likely not going to "fix" whatever the original issue was (ref. 2.7 fix to barrel roll).

 

That being said, here's what I see as the major imbalances in GSF overall:

 

1. Premades > pugs (if you add in teamspeak with the premades, then Premades>>>>>>>>>>>pugs)

-I don't know what do to about this really. We could try ranking ships by total req earned (not by ships in hangar- too easy to manipulate) - but of course, that means much longer wait times. If GSF went cross-server this might be doable, but I have no idea how hard it is to implement a system like that. They could also implement teamspeak as a feature integrated into GSF, but again, I have no idea how hard that is to do. So, for #1, I pretty much have no viable ideas.

 

I've suggested this in other similar threads and I think it's a very simple solution to the premade issue:

 

add a GSF commo rose similar to the one used in Battlefield. For those who may not be familiar the commo rose has two options: 1 button brings up communications for the whole team and 1 brings up communications specific to your squad (the squad one typically being commands such as "attack/defend this location"). The team wide one include things like "I need a medic!" or "I need back up!"

 

The brilliant things about it are

1) it takes one button to bring up the commo rose, and 1 mouse click to select the communication you want and the game does the rest; I've used it in Battlefield games before and there is no difficulty using it under fire or moving

2) your icon on everyone's minimap flashes when you use the commo rose so everyone knows who sent it, no wondering which of the many green dotes just asked for back up

3a) for things like "I need a medic!" the commo rose autofilters so only medics get the communication, you won't spam up people's comm channel with requests their class can't fulfill

3b) for requests such as for a medic your minimap icon changes to that class's symbol to help them more quickly spot who needs help

 

A commo rose could handle almost everything that a premade could do on VOIP, the only thing a commo rose couldn't handle would be elaborate strategizing that would require typing or VOIP to communicate.