[Wild and Crazy Idea] Flatten the upgrade tiers?

[Armonddd]

I submit to you the majority of people playing GSF regularly have well-geared ships, so your premise is flawed.

 

The majority of people playing GSF are not people who play GSF regularly (and not all people who play GSF regularly have well-geared ships, either). The majority of people who play GSF have anywhere between two and four ships with a moderate number of upgrades (no upgrades costing more than 5k, so around 55k req or so, tops).

 

The actual problem is that not enough people are playing, not that a gear curve exists.

 

People aren't playing largely because the gear curve exists.

 

When a gear curve exists, people blame the gear curve for their failures. From there they figure they shouldn't play because they're behind the gear curve and would have to work too hard to catch up.

 

This exact reason is why I have never PvPed in WoW and why I don't pick up operations in SWTOR.

 

Unlike those game formats, however, gear upgrades in GSF actually don't have much impact except at the highest tiers and/or games with (nearly) equally skilled combatants.

 

There are better ways to accomplish those goals than by taking away people's progress.

 

Name one. Preferably, name as many as you can think of.

 

Again, we're not talking about "chop off the top half of each upgrade tree". We're talking about flattening things, which means merging upgrades together, or rolling things into baseline, or what have you. No one will be any less powerful after a flattening, so in reality you're not taking anything away.

[Devrius]

There are better ways to accomplish those goals than by taking away people's progress.

 

The problem with higher tier components it's that their akin to advanced class trees, seeing how they give extra abilities or greatly enhance the base component.

 

People in low or un-upgraded ships are battling with unfinished builds, while a good pilot can do without a new player is crippled by this.

 

If flat out removing the requisition requirement is too harsh a measure then diminishing the ship required by a good 10 times or make daily reward give 2 tiers worth of reqs (the end 2) and weekly a whole component worth of reqs, this would allow players to get finished builds and try other ones without playing for months with subpart ships again better pilots to boot.

 

Yes those who earned their "progress" the old fashion way may feel this is a great injustice to them, but in the long run flattening or balancing the gear gap will mean more players in GSF, or more alts from existing players if nothing else... That's more important then a few bruised egos.

[FridgeLM]

The majority of people playing GSF are not people who play GSF regularly (and not all people who play GSF regularly have well-geared ships, either). The majority of people who play GSF have anywhere between two and four ships with a moderate number of upgrades (no upgrades costing more than 5k, so around 55k req or so, tops).

 

Not the case on Pot5.

 

People aren't playing largely because the gear curve exists.

 

When a gear curve exists, people blame the gear curve for their failures. From there they figure they shouldn't play because they're behind the gear curve and would have to work too hard to catch up.

 

Except they're failing because they're bad at GSF because they're new. Experienced players can do well even in stock ships - but yes, it's easier for them to blame external factors rather than themselves.

 

If I were writing a guide to GSF I would title it, in homage to one for DOTA, "Welcome to GSF. You suck." Because people need to realize they aren't going to have success right out the gate, unless its against other new players.

 

Name one. Preferably, name as many as you can think of.

 

Given the problem is low population and poor performance of new players exacerbates the problem, here's two proposed ideas that should be implemented in tandem:

 

1) Far more extensive tutorial, preferably one for each ship class if not each individual ship. Require each tutorial's completion before you're allowed to enter a match with that class in your loadout. In lieu of the giant wall of text tutorial currently implemented I'd probably favor copilot voice over guidance while the tutorial plays out - though that'd be really "gamey." People generally aren't going to read the tutorial offered under the current system.

 

2) Ground game rewards attainable through GSF. The rewards revealed for Season 1 of ground pvp ranked play made ranked pvp extraordinarily more popular. Given that the ground game is the main game, GSF should offer incentives that have some impact, even if cosmetic, on the main game. This is a proven model, unlike the idea proposed by this thread.

 

Again, we're not talking about "chop off the top half of each upgrade tree". We're talking about flattening things, which means merging upgrades together, or rolling things into baseline, or what have you. No one will be any less powerful after a flattening, so in reality you're not taking anything away.

 

In reality you're taking away the time, effort, and in many cases cartel coins people have dedicated toward improving their ship above the baseline. That does adversely effect people and they will have a negative reaction to it whether you think so or not.

Edited April 27, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Verain]

TIf flat out removing the requisition requirement is too harsh a measure then diminishing the ship required by a good 10 times

 

Like, do you think the devs are reading this and thinking "huh, good idea, we'll just totally redo this"?

 

Ten times is an absurd level of boost. That's how wrong you think GSF is?

 

This thread is pretty ludicrous tbh. It's a few zealots making personal attacks to anyone who shows up to defend the game we are playing, and players throwing around stuff like "order of magnitude less req".

 

 

I mean, if you even did what I suggest- thinning out the top tiers by a couple thousand req- you'd have to refund that req in a meaningful way. Even that could tick off someone who dropped enough USD on the problem.

 

 

Yes those who earned their "progress" the old fashion way may feel this is a great injustice to them, but in the long run flattening or balancing the gear gap will mean more players in GSF, or more alts from existing players if nothing else... That's more important then a few bruised egos.

 

It's not "egos" it's "what the game is".

 

You basically want GSF changed into something entirely not at all like GSF, and you want to punish the players who are actually playing the game. All in the name of some hypothetical pool of players that may or may not be real.

 

 

 

 

That seems odd. Why not instead push for something that COULD happen, or might make sense?

[FridgeLM]

That seems odd. Why not instead push for something that COULD happen, or might make sense?

 

Myopia.

 

My idea's better, you'd all be better off pushing for it.

[Devrius]

Myopia.

 

My idea's better, you'd all be better off pushing for it.

 

Better tutorials is something we are pushing for, in fact go here and help with that: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=737434

 

For someone who thinks "their" idea is better you have not backed it in the relevant thread.

[FridgeLM]

Better tutorials is something we are pushing for, in fact go here and help with that: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=737434

 

For someone who thinks "their" idea is better you have not backed it in the relevant thread.

 

Sorry, guess you better call the forum police so they can take me to forum jail where I can await my forum trial to be convicted by a forum judge so I can start to pay my forum debt to forum society.

[Armonddd]

Not the case on Pot5.

 

Fair. I can't say as I have experience on all servers, so I can't say as my perception is the same as everyone's perception.

 

Except they're failing because they're bad at GSF because they're new. Experienced players can do well even in stock ships - but yes, it's easier for them to blame external factors rather than themselves.

 

Oh, certainly. That's still a large part of the reason why GSF has so little retention, though. (Another is the icy cliff that's the skill curve.)

 

Given the problem is low population and poor performance of new players exacerbates the problem, here's two proposed ideas that should be implemented in tandem:

 

These would both help, certainly. I feel like the tutorial is the better idea of the two, because it helps solve the core problems (people leaving GSF because they're losing). I feel like offering ground rewards isn't going to help very much unless it's the optimal way to get rewards for the ground game (which would be silly). If it's not, people are going to continue getting frustrated with GSF and get their ground game rewards elsewhere.

 

I still think flattening the upgrades (significantly) is important, though. While the lack of informative tutorial is a major issue, I predict that even with a better tutorial, people will start off poorly, get frustrated, and blame gear on their failures. When they see some of the upgrade costs ("fifteen thousand requisition for the last tier?!") and compare them to their current rewards ("I only got 500 requisition for that match?!"), they're liable to just quit (not realizing that they can game the system in a way that supports the team and feeds them req, and that they really got 550 req because of fleet req they ignored, and that those matches count towards dailies/weeklies).

 

Beyond that, a veteran player who decides to create a new GSF character on a separate faction or server faces a lot of gating before they can get back to the ship they're used to flying. I barely play my imp character on TEH for that reason.

 

I'm probably also pretty vocal about this partly because we've talked about the tutorial before, so it's surely popped up on the devs' radar.

 

In reality you're taking away the time, effort, and in many cases cartel coins people have dedicated toward improving their ship above the baseline. That does adversely effect people and they will have a negative reaction to it whether you think so or not.

 

I have foolishly spent maybe seventy-five thousand cartel coins on GSF, as a lowball estimate (I can't be bothered going through my credit card statements for the last five months, sorry). I really want upgrade tiers to be flattened. If people are going to get butthurt about it, they can be given cartel coin refunds or extra fleet req or some other sort of compensation, I don't care.

 

I understand that people have spent real money on getting that competitive edge, and that's a touchy subject (for some reason). So, sure, maybe that should be refunded in some form.

 

On the other hand, though, any competitive player realizes that by min-maxing their gains, they're going for a slight and temporary advantage over the competition. By spending all those cartel coins, I knew I was getting the advantage of a mastered ship perhaps a couple weeks ahead of everyone else. Likewise, when I spent my time and effort to get upgrades before my guildmates and my competition, I knew that advantage was fleeting and was limited by both mastery (at some point everyone would have mastered ships) and future discoveries and updates (either of which could encourage me to change my build).

 

I honestly think the backlash will be significantly less than what people are predicting, and even if they're not, the long-term effects will be well worth it.

[Kuciwalker]

You basically want GSF changed into something entirely not at all like GSF, and you want to punish the players who are actually playing the game.

 

If all GSF is to you is a way to level up your ships, I don't care about your taste in games at all. GSF the game would be unchanged.

 

All in the name of some hypothetical pool of players that may or may not be real.

 

No, also in the name of every veteran who rerolls on another server, or who wants to queue for GSF while leveling an alt, etc.

[Armonddd]

If all GSF is to you is a way to level up your ships, I don't care about your taste in games at all. GSF the game would be unchanged.

 

 

 

No, also in the name of every veteran who rerolls on another server, or who wants to queue for GSF while leveling an alt, etc.

 

I wouldn't have wasted your time. That post shows Verain is clearly out of touch with reality and in denial of anything that could disagree with him, which is unfortunate because he used to be pretty good at arguments.

[FridgeLM]

These would both help, certainly. I feel like the tutorial is the better idea of the two, because it helps solve the core problems (people leaving GSF because they're losing). I feel like offering ground rewards isn't going to help very much unless it's the optimal way to get rewards for the ground game (which would be silly). If it's not, people are going to continue getting frustrated with GSF and get their ground game rewards elsewhere.

 

The rewards have to be unique to GSF so that people can't get them elsewhere - that's why I used the example of the season 1 arena rewards. This is virtually guaranteed to increase the player pool, because it did for ranked, which was as or more unpopular than GSF before the release of what the rewards would be.

[Verain]

If all GSF is to you is a way to level up your ships, I don't care about your taste in games at all. GSF the game would be unchanged.

 

If a game has a leveling scheme that takes months, it's fair to say it's a big part of the game.

 

 

Look, I don't think the game you want would have been a bad one. But it's absurd to believe GSF will be turned into that game.

 

 

I do think they'll thin stuff out- like the rest of you guys, I kind of think they have to. But I think the ways to keep player retention in this model of games are pretty well defined. Some just include bribing the players, others include adding interesting content.

 

 

What would do more than anything to keep people around would be to add some damned pve to the game.

 

 

 

By the way: making a game purely about skill isn't an automatic formula for success. Watching how MMOs play out should tell you this- almost none of them have "just skill" as their thing. Some of them actually just have you grind like forever.

[Devrius]

The rewards have to be unique to GSF so that people can't get them elsewhere - that's why I used the example of the season 1 arena rewards. This is virtually guaranteed to increase the player pool, because it did for ranked, which was as or more unpopular than GSF before the release of what the rewards would be.

 

There is a truly crazy idea I have been musing over for a while, something to kind of unite WZs and GSF.

 

Make it either we can convert WZ commendations into ship req and vice versa or have daily's for each give commendation and requisitions.

 

This way we may get ground PvPers doing GSF for the commendations, new players gearing their ships on GSF dailies and ground PvP (which is several times easier to get into) and vets GSF pilots could keeps doing nothing but GSF since they don't need the reqs half as much as the new pilots.

[Armonddd]

The rewards have to be unique to GSF so that people can't get them elsewhere - that's why I used the example of the season 1 arena rewards. This is virtually guaranteed to increase the player pool, because it did for ranked, which was as or more unpopular than GSF before the release of what the rewards would be.

 

I'll freely admit that I have no idea about anything related to ground PvP. If it worked as well as you say, cool, it'll probably work here too (though I doubt I personally will have any interest in them; that's cool, though, the rewards aren't designed for me).

 

On the other hand, given the history of games with flattened or eliminated progression presented earlier in this thread, I think it's a little unfair to say that this suggestion is completely untested.

 

By the way: making a game purely about skill isn't an automatic formula for success. Watching how MMOs play out should tell you this- almost none of them have "just skill" as their thing. Some of them actually just have you grind like forever.

 

Don't mix up competitive success and financial success. As long as there's a subscription model, grind will unfortunately be a major part of MMOs. On the other hand, actual competitive and mostly grind-free games have had very successful worldwide tournaments. Didn't Valve throw money into a Dota2 world tournament before the game was even released?

[FridgeLM]

Don't mix up competitive success and financial success. As long as there's a subscription model, grind will unfortunately be a major part of MMOs. On the other hand, actual competitive and mostly grind-free games have had very successful worldwide tournaments. Didn't Valve throw money into a Dota2 world tournament before the game was even released?

 

Valve's model for DOTA 2 is reliant almost exclusively on in-game cosmetic purchases, and it's also partially facilitated by player-created cosmetics via the workshop. The infrastructure required to implement something like that for SWTOR would prohibit the developers from even considering a similar model.

 

DOTA 2 also had a vast ready and waiting player base eager to migrate from DOTA 1.

[Sidenti]

The rewards have to be unique to GSF so that people can't get them elsewhere - that's why I used the example of the season 1 arena rewards. This is virtually guaranteed to increase the player pool, because it did for ranked, which was as or more unpopular than GSF before the release of what the rewards would be.

 

Oh, no. Nononononononono. I would prefer to keep the THINKING PvPer playing GSF and keep the rabble playing on the ground.

 

Yes, I'm a PvP elitist. I MUCH prefer the company of pilots to groundpounders (certain exceptions notwithstanding). So I am against special unique rewards that will certainly attract the more unsavory element among the gravity-bound.

 

One of the things I love most about GSF is the community of pilots. I don't care if I have to fly stock forever just to get an appropriate challenge level for myself; I will do so gladly if it means we keep the knuckledraggers among the PvPers out of our community.

 

I await your hate! XD -bp

[FridgeLM]

Yeah I have nothing but antipathy for the sentiment that we don't want a broader player base because of some stupid elitism. Edited April 27, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Sidenti]

Yeah I have nothing but antipathy for the sentiment that we don't want a broader player base because of some stupid elitism.

 

It's not the elitism that prevents me from wanting to be around that kind as it is so much their tendency to be unwashed, uneducated and wholly lacking in manners overall.

 

But I can see where that might be confusing. -bp

[Armonddd]

It's not the elitism that prevents me from wanting to be around that kind as it is so much their tendency to be unwashed, uneducated and wholly lacking in manners overall.

 

But I can see where that might be confusing. -bp

 

So... it's bigotry?

[Sidenti]

So... it's bigotry?

 

It's not their opinions either.

 

(This is too much fun. XD)

[MisterBlackJack]

So basically, even if it would mean more players and with that better matching, more competition, faster queues, you wouldn't want upgrades to be cheaper or even free?

 

Is it that your ego wouldn't never allow it because it would "devalue" your efforts, or are you simply terrified at the thought of facing others without the edge of a mastered ship?

 

Either way it's just sad...

 

Upgrades do not give a significant edge. If your a skilled pilot you can go into a match in a new ship and top the boards. Flatning all upgrades will not change the divide between new and vets.

 

If your not good having all upgrades won't change it.

 

Also progression is needed in this game and the game is designed towards progression changing the system will only create negative reaction. Whether you like it or not players (mmo) need a sense of accomplishment and something to make them stand out among the crowds and progression gives them that. Just because you don't want to put the effort doesn't mean bioware should devalue GSF for you.

[Devrius]

Upgrades do not give a significant edge. If your a skilled pilot you can go into a match in a new ship and top the boards. Flatning all upgrades will not change the divide between new and vets.

 

If your not good having all upgrades won't change it.

 

Also progression is needed in this game and the game is designed towards progression changing the system will only create negative reaction. Whether you like it or not players (mmo) need a sense of accomplishment and something to make them stand out among the crowds and progression gives them that. Just because you don't want to put the effort doesn't mean bioware should devalue GSF for you.

 

Let's see, TT: -15 sec CD (no biggy), increased radiius (meh), +8% evasion (now we're talking), 25% surge and 10% crit chance (sweet!).

 

You don't see how being ungeared on top of being underskilled could be detrimental to new players?

 

And where do I say I don't want to put the effort? I have close to max on all ships I like flying, on both the imp and pub side.

 

"Devalue", yeah so just how many pilots see GSF as a gear grind Korean MMO and not as a space battle simulator?

 

I thought the point of GSF was to have fun while piloting space ships and having space battles, guess I was wrong it all about hoarding gear and getting a Delta on new players to make sure superiority is maintained...

[Armonddd]

You don't see how being ungeared on top of being underskilled could be detrimental to new players?

 

On top of being inexperienced, yeah, that's gonna be a hard time. But a new player who flies a bunch of ships and can't decide what he likes is going to have a better time than someone who pays cartel coins to get upgrades quickly -- because he'll be a better pilot, not just have a better ship.

[LilSaihah]

I await your hate! XD -bp

 

Well, at least you're cognizant of the fact that your point of view receives a lot of criticism. It's a shame you haven't taken those recognized criticisms to heart. What you believe is fundamentally suicidal to a gaming community.

[Sidenti]

Well, at least you're cognizant of the fact that your point of view receives a lot of criticism. It's a shame you haven't taken those recognized criticisms to heart. What you believe is fundamentally suicidal to a gaming community.

 

Ooh! Hyperbole AND multiple threads - do I have a new Puppy?!

 

You'll have to get along with my current one. I rather like him. -bp