Thank you so much Chris and Eric for the GSF Q&A (answers within)

[Verain]

I think what he's saying is, when same faction matches pop up and one team has five vets and three noobs and the other team has one vet and seven noobs, there's a problem.

 

It may not be? It could be odd, is my point.

 

 

The algorithm can sort those teams however it wants.

 

It can't break a group. I bet four of those guys were in a group, so the choices were really limited. In fact, you might be complaining that it gave them one extra ace at random. I don't think that dooms the whole system.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Verain

[Verain]

Yeah, bravo for making me not want to play with a subset of my friends!

 

If you value Lt. Pierce over your real life friends, you are fated for the Empire anyway.

 

While the faction divide is a central and crucial part of the storytelling, it really has no place whatsoever in a game with any sort of social aspect

 

100000% disagree.

 

I love the factional aspect of this game, and I wish they had done much more with it.

 

much less a game with PvP. I'm fortunate enough that I dislike PvE to the point where I can mostly ignore it, but really, GSF in specific and SWTOR in general would have a much healthier community if the faction divide didn't exist.

 

There's basically no barrier to this pvp though. You can play it at level 1.

 

It's too late to fix the biggest issues, though, so all we can do is stamp down on the smaller issues when they rear their ugly heads.

 

This is a feature, not a bug. I would hate it if all the copilots become stupid dumb mirrors of each other.

[Kuciwalker]

I honestly don't care about the companion stuff. I'm perfectly happy with the stuff available Pubside. That said, obviously it ought to be mirrored. There's no interesting flavor to "some random combos are only available to imps, some only available to pubs".

[Verain]

I honestly don't care about the companion stuff. I'm perfectly happy with the stuff available Pubside. That said, obviously it ought to be mirrored. There's no interesting flavor to "some random combos are only available to imps, some only available to pubs".

 

It should not be mirrored. Goodness, they give us one thing that isn't just a 100% complete graphical thing only, and everyone loses their minds.

 

It's great. It's nice that there's some meaningful difference even though it is damned small between my Republic and my Imperial. It's good that if you only play one side, you are missing part of the experience. That's great!

[Kuciwalker]

It should not be mirrored. Goodness, they give us one thing that isn't just a 100% complete graphical thing only, and everyone loses their minds.

 

It's great. It's nice that there's some meaningful difference even though it is damned small between my Republic and my Imperial. It's good that if you only play one side, you are missing part of the experience. That's great!

 

No, this is stupid. If it were mirrored no one would pick it out as the interesting and flavorful thing for the factions to differ on. Symmetry-breakers have to actually be things that merit breaking symmetry.

 

Also, you are already missing a big part of the experience if you only play one side - the story.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Armonddd]

If you value Lt. Pierce over your real life friends, you are fated for the Empire anyway.

 

That's not actually what I said, nor is it at all related, but ok, sure.

 

100000% disagree.

 

I love the factional aspect of this game, and I wish they had done much more with it.

 

Yeah, so do I... in a single-player game.

 

There's basically no barrier to this pvp though. You can play it at level 1.

 

...You're joking, right?

 

If you want to play, yeah, you can do that at level one. That's not what we're talking about, though. We're talking about doing well, which is gated by requisition and, in some cases, faction choice. Those are both major barriers to anyone looking to start the game.

 

This is a feature, not a bug. I would hate it if all the copilots become stupid dumb mirrors of each other.

 

I never said it was a bug -- it's just a poorly thought out feature.

 

I comprehend that you want the copilots to be different. But why? To preserve the story? There are already literally hundreds of hours of story that are enriched by the faction divide. To make builds feel unique? There are already plenty of other tools doing that, even if some of them are out of balance (T1 gunships being a "perfect storm" of that kind of thing). To keep factions distinct? There are already plenty of things that do that without disrupting a competitive environment.

 

I'm honestly confused as to why anyone would want this. When I wrote that point, I thought "there's no way anyone will disagree with this, unless they're trying to promote their faction." I've probably missed your reason entirely, so I'd appreciate it if you'd enlighten me.

[Costello]

As someone who developed GSF he sure sucks. 7 deaths for 1 kill and no medals can he work out how many matches it would take him to even get close to the level of the people that are ganking him. Or the next game with 0 kills 0 assists and 7 deaths again. If he had been flying with me I would have asked what was he playing a PvP mini game for if all he wanted to do was hunt drones go play the tutorial for that.

 

Does that not show a little bit of the problem of mis-matched matches. I don't think many people would say its better to play a **** game of being hunted by people that you can't defeat than not playing at all. Look at the score 50 vs 4. Do the development team honestly think that anyone finds being ganked like a little ***** is fun?

 

Just look at Chris' face as he gets ganked and just keeps dying, flying back from the cap ship and that's without the other team drone mining the spawns. Its first hand experience of GSF and it did not look fun. Looked more fun when people were dancing around on the ground game or laughing about how **** he had done.

 

If you can call 10 deaths to 1 assist PvP and Im not sure its not some sort of fight clubbing to get other people stats up more than PvP why would anyone pay money and queue for an experience of being hunted like that. So what is being done to fix the incredibly bad match making, the incredibly unejoyable experience of new players getting ganked and the vast gap between the unemployable vs the causal gamer.

[Armonddd]

As someone who developed GSF he sure sucks.

 

I'm not sure this is relevant. Keep in mind that he's playing a nearly stock novadive when he specifically said he favors bombers. Even on his main account, I'm willing to bet his nova has (at least) t5 emp field, t4 sab probe, and t3 dfield, all of which dramatically change your gameplay. If you're used to that, and then suddenly have to go back to playing a stock ship, you're gonna have a bad time. Most notable, I think, was the fact that he was running quick-charge shields, which play very differently from anything else he could be used to.

 

There's other telling signs that his skill could be improved -- eating torps point-blank instead of barrel rolling past the strike, and taking heavies to the face when he stopped behind a flange on the satellite -- but I think it's completely fair to say that he would play better if Eric weren't constantly bugging him with questions from the chat and such to make the stream, you know, entertaining and informative.

[Costello]

If a guy that developed the game and has a main toon with upgraded ships and experience flying sucks that badly what experience does he think new players will have to GSF.

 

New guy sees all the trailers for GSF decides to try it out, logs on knows little about the lay out and lets face it doesn't have much choice of crew and setup loads into to the mismatched match making systems and gets blown up by a rail gun before he could even see them. The gets blown up by a missile, then gets blown up by a drone, then gets blown up by a burst laser scout in 1 overcharged shot (maybe 2 if his lucky). Then repeat until the match is over.

 

If a guy with more knowledge of the workings of GSF than anyone else, a guy that had a hand in deciding what the first experience of new players would be like and a hand in deciding what load out a level 1 player would receive sucks so badly. What chance can a new player to GSF have, If I sucked that badly I wouldn't go back. SWTOR is a game, GSF is an unimportant mini-game that plays no bearing on the rest on TOR and offers negligible ground based rewards. Why go back just to be killed over and over again? And given how little he contributed to his team (as he said the other team no doubt loved a useless pilot to pick off as they pleased) it will be a long long time of running dailies and weekly missions before he can even hope to have a chance of competing.

 

Yet even with first hand experience of this nothing will be done till GSF is so unbalanced it will be an hour for a game to pop at peak times.

[Armonddd]

Your post is full of fallacies. Have a nice day.

[Itkovian]

Your post is full of fallacies. Have a nice day.

 

Indeed. Moreover, I've yet to see a video involving a game developer where the same developer didn't suck at the game he's helped create.

 

Given that, I imagine poor performances are more an issue of them being distracted and not focused on the game (and likely not caring how poorly they're doing).

 

Besides, want to see GOOD GSF players at Bioware? Get the QA guys. You know, the ones whose JOB is to actually play?

Edited March 28, 2014 by Itkovian

[Verain]

Yeah, so do I... in a single-player game.

 

It's super easy and boring to balance a game with both sides equal. It's interesting to make minor differences without putting all the cool stuff on one side. Out of the MANY valid ship builds, some are optimal on empire, others on republic. I think that's really nice.

 

If you want to play, yeah, you can do that at level one. That's not what we're talking about, though. We're talking about doing well, which is gated by requisition and, in some cases, faction choice. Those are both major barriers to anyone looking to start the game.

 

No, it is gated by requisition earned, and that is all. Faction choice does not make a meaningful power difference, but it does make for a little bit of difference. For instance, your Lt. Pierce example, which relies on valuing certain exact things with an exact build. Lt. Pierce has Concentrated Fire, a special that boosts your blasters, 6% accuracy, by far the best offensive passive, and extra ammo, a situational passive that works with the build in question. Over on Republic side, concentrated fire is available on three copilots as well, but your choices are Aric Jordan, who keeps the extra ammo but trades accuracy for rapid reload, HK with rapid reload and improved kill zone, and Qzen, who has Improved Kill Zone and Accuracy- itself a favored combination that the empire doesn't have (Jaesa offers these two, but has the terrible and worthless Lingering Effect). So if you take Qzen, you gain the marginal utility from aiming at edges, and lose the extra ammo. That's an interesting tradeoff.

 

To keep factions distinct?

 

Yes, and this is not disruptive. It's excellent. I was cross before Jaesa was available because Empire seemed a bit left out (Scourge is not as desirable as her passives, both of which boost blasters).

 

I'm honestly confused as to why anyone would want this. When I wrote that point, I thought "there's no way anyone will disagree with this, unless they're trying to promote their faction." I've probably missed your reason entirely, so I'd appreciate it if you'd enlighten me.

 

 

You failed to consider that I actually play both factions almost equally (I'm a Republic main, sorta), and as such my ships are not just 100% reskins. They are instead 99% reskins, and that's fine. That one difference allows me to experience the game differently when logged in on Empire and logged in on Republic.

 

The differences are interesting. I would hate to see the factions become mirror in the ONE MINOR WAY that they differ. Instead, I'd prefer that they sort of push the copilot abilities closer together in power for more ships, or make every passive a little bit more balanced (rapid reload, shield regeneration, and 10% power to blasters all are rather lamely represented). I really hope the devs never cave on this, like they have been forced to on every other interesting factional difference.

 

 

I hope you never get your 25% extra ammo on your Flashfire, man. I hope that you run that kill zone and 1200 critkill some imp at the edge of your los though!

Edited March 28, 2014 by Verain

[Costello]

Your post is right and I concede your points.

 

I've fixed your post.

 

As always when someone can't defend the indefensible they resort either to bland states of your wrong which is no more than I don't agree with you so you must be wrong or the other basic your worse than Hitler. I'm sure you are just working up to the later.

 

Match Making is broken, there is far too much of a difference between a fully upgraded ship and a basic ship and these need to be fixed to allow new players to enjoy GSF.

[Armonddd]

It's super easy and boring to balance a game with both sides equal.

 

It is? Oh, well, games like Guild Wars 2, DOTA2, etc. must be perfectly balanced, then.

 

Out of the MANY valid ship builds, some are optimal on empire, others on republic. I think that's really nice.

 

I don't think I should have to pick a side to PvP optimally. More accurately, I think the side I pick should be determined by who I want to group with, not who plays the faction where my build is optimal or who the game will let me group with (because I can't get Itkovian, a pub, and Callem, an imp, in the same group).

 

No, it is gated by requisition earned, and that is all. Faction choice does not make a meaningful power difference, but it does make for a little bit of difference.

 

When was the last time you... actually loaded a rocket pods build? Not having Lt. Pierce hurts. It's a fairly big deal. At best, I'm giving up ten rocket pods. I absolutely have an advantage impside that is simply impossible to get pubside.

 

So if you take Qzen, you gain the marginal utility from aiming at edges, and lose the extra ammo. That's an interesting tradeoff.

 

No it's not -- it's a suboptimal tradeoff. That build doesn't give two ***** about firing arc, because its firing arc is about five degrees before the tracking penalties kill your accuracy. Beyond that, you're effectively working with blasters only -- beyond 12 degrees you are literally working with blasters only -- which means half your DPS and burst capabilities just went out the window. Increasing my firing arc flat out does not significantly help my performance.

 

Impside I get eight passives and an extremely powerful active. Pubside I get seven passives and an extremely powerful active, or I get eight passives and a ****** active. Why is that?

 

 

Yes, and this is not disruptive. It's excellent.

 

...Oh, right, I forgot, it's because you said so.

 

I don't know that you ever actually said why this was a good thing, beyond "it makes it less boring when I switch to my alts".

 

You failed to consider that I actually play both factions almost equally

 

No I didn't.

 

I wasn't addressing you. This wasn't about you at all until this paragraph. I wrote that post (you know, the one where I link the appropriate twitch stream with timestamp) as an open letter to the community, as I do most of my forum posts.

 

You can go ahead and play both sides, if you want. Most people won't. Most people are going to pick a side and stick to it to the bitter end. I can only name about a dozen people I've flown with who regularly fly both sides, and a lot of them only take one side seriously and barely keep up with dailies on the other. For all of those people, Qyzen and Pierce and Nadia and Blizz are unfair advantages the other side has that they don't get.

 

(I mean, Nadia is OP cute and that's never going to get fixed, but, y'know.)

 

I hope you never get your 25% extra ammo on your Flashfire, man. I hope that you run that kill zone and 1200 critkill some imp at the edge of your los though!

 

I actually never want +25% ammo with bursts, but thanks.

 

I've fixed your post.

 

If you get to say I'm wrong because I'm too lazy to reiterate on points I have already created threads about, I get to say you're wrong because Godwin's Law.

 

(It really doesn't help your case that the fallacious post also completely failed to address my counterpoints, instead simply repeating your thesis as though if you say it enough it'll become true.)

Edited March 29, 2014 by Armonddd

[FridgeLM]

As someone who developed GSF he sure sucks.

 

If you actually think that any Bioware employee looks at the community stream as primarily a showcase for their gaming prowess and not an outreach to the community you are completely delusional.

[wvwraith]

Nice to hear something back from the devs. I'm assuming ion railgun is going to be adjusted to single target and not area. Not sure on their thinking for burst, its still out of balance. It needs tweaked some.

[Armonddd]

Nice to hear something back from the devs. I'm assuming ion railgun is going to be adjusted to single target and not area. Not sure on their thinking for burst, its still out of balance. It needs tweaked some.

 

Yeah, I agree.

 

My biggest problem with BLC is that, on its own, it out-performs almost every other combination of primary and secondary weapons with regards to burst killing power. On the scout, only quad/medium laser cannons plus rocket pods can compare, but those are IMO harder to use because of the enormous tracking penalties. On other classes, only railguns have greater burst capability.

 

That said, it takes good aim, quick reflexes, and quality piloting for BLCs to shine at close range. The devs probably figure that's justification enough.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

If you actually think that any Bioware employee looks at the community stream as primarily a showcase for their gaming prowess and not an outreach to the community you are completely delusional.

 

No way, man, they're like, totally playing to the best of their ability and showing off for us, aren't they?

 

What's funny is I've seen similar posts on different MMO forums. You don't necessarily need good to be a good player to be a good designer. I'll take the latter over a former as a developer, any day.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Nice to hear something back from the devs. I'm assuming ion railgun is going to be adjusted to single target and not area. Not sure on their thinking for burst, its still out of balance. It needs tweaked some.

 

Eh the AOE does have some use for countering minefields. So I'd be ok with keeping the AOE if they just bring the whole "drain all power in 2 hits and prevent you from regening any for 6 seconds" into line with the capabilities of other ion weapons. It's kinda crazy how easy it is to drain a ship of all their power with railguns compared to the effort you'd have to put in with any other ion weaponry (and odds are their shields would be down well before you fully drained all their power, even then other ion weapons can't halt power regen entirely).

[Altheran]

Eh the AOE does have some use for countering minefields. So I'd be ok with keeping the AOE if they just bring the whole "drain all power in 2 hits and prevent you from regening any for 6 seconds" into line with the capabilities of other ion weapons. It's kinda crazy how easy it is to drain a ship of all their power with railguns compared to the effort you'd have to put in with any other ion weaponry (and odds are their shields would be down well before you fully drained all their power, even then other ion weapons can't halt power regen entirely).

But originally, it isn't the job of Ion Railgun to clear mines. Its job is damage shields, then maybe hinder with drains. Its effectiveness against mines is probably coincidental, and not intended. I'd bet it.

 

And frankly, balance aside, almost no missile blasts, but a Railgun would ?

Please...

 

I'd prefer ten times a shield drain over time :

- Destroyed the shield ? Drain the other side.

- Some shields left ? Let the drain finish the job, and start charging your Slug.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Altheran

[MisterBlackJack]

If a guy that developed the game and has a main toon with upgraded ships and experience flying sucks that badly what experience does he think new players will have to GSF.

 

New guy sees all the trailers for GSF decides to try it out, logs on knows little about the lay out and lets face it doesn't have much choice of crew and setup loads into to the mismatched match making systems and gets blown up by a rail gun before he could even see them. The gets blown up by a missile, then gets blown up by a drone, then gets blown up by a burst laser scout in 1 overcharged shot (maybe 2 if his lucky). Then repeat until the match is over.

 

If a guy with more knowledge of the workings of GSF than anyone else, a guy that had a hand in deciding what the first experience of new players would be like and a hand in deciding what load out a level 1 player would receive sucks so badly. What chance can a new player to GSF have, If I sucked that badly I wouldn't go back. SWTOR is a game, GSF is an unimportant mini-game that plays no bearing on the rest on TOR and offers negligible ground based rewards. Why go back just to be killed over and over again? And given how little he contributed to his team (as he said the other team no doubt loved a useless pilot to pick off as they pleased) it will be a long long time of running dailies and weekly missions before he can even hope to have a chance of competing.

 

Yet even with first hand experience of this nothing will be done till GSF is so unbalanced it will be an hour for a game to pop at peak times.

 

you really honestly think he was playing at his best? It was clear to me he wasn't trying that hard to show his skills in the actual match, this was more so for the interaction with players. Even if he is that bad, what difference does it make?

 

GSF is not hard to learn, it just takes players to actually wanna learn. I started in Beta and had no clue what I was doing. Come Early Access I was still doing poorly but once I found my ship and my playstyle (Flashfire) I was able to do well and topping the boards.

[MisterBlackJack]

I've fixed your post.

Match Making is broken, there is far too much of a difference between a fully upgraded ship and a basic ship and these need to be fixed to allow new players to enjoy GSF.

 

No there really isn't. I just did a pts run on a new imperial character (I usually play republic) and the republic side was mostly upgraded and we easily won the match.

 

Gear helps but its not that much. It's all about skills and knowledge of the maps, the objectives and counters to other ships, which takes any person time to learn regardless if they are upgraded or not. I can easily hop in a new ship on a new toon and still top the boards.

[ImmortalLowlife]

Don't have Adobe player support on my phone so I can't watch the video. What did they say about joystick support for GSF?

[SammyGStatus]

I've also noticed when I livestream from my twitch, my internet connection gets a bit choppy. That could also hurt your performance

[QuinMantha]

Don't have Adobe player support on my phone so I can't watch the video. What did they say about joystick support for GSF?

 

Um, nothing.