How to destroy GSF

[Verain]

The devs talked about a multiphase plan to revitalize GSF. In other threads, we have (and will continue) to speculate how cool this will be, you know, getting new ships / faster ability to gear / maybe a way to teach new players / maps / "something better than cross server", etc. In this forum, we have a zillion ideas, and many of them are solid, and we know the devs do actually read the forums.

 

 

But THIS thread? It's a bit different. Here we list the giant mis-steps that the devs could make while "revitalizing" GSF. These are things that would make the most loyal of us hate the game. My only request: Try to avoid statements of the form "..If the devs DO NOT NERF (class I hate)". That's a class nerf request, not for this thread!

 

 

 

1- "Simplified power settings"

One thing I've seen while playing is that new players are very bad at power settings, and veterans are very good, and the difference in game is in part substantial- but this is not all of it. I really, really like the subtlety with this thing, and I think it's a core part of the Star Wars "flight sim" feel. I also like that there are definitely a class of solid players who are still working on this, and I feel it's deep enough that it's always possible to improve on play. My concern: because this is finicky, someone will come along and say "sweep this out of here" and make it mostly cosmetic or gone entirely. It stands out as being a multiple resource system, a lot of depth in an era with normally very transparent and unrealistic mapping of input device movement to on screen movement. It's easily one of my favorite things, and the removal of it would be devastating. It's my number one dreaded patch note that is not class related.

 

 

2- "Exciting ships available in the ground game!"

The complete ability of the ground game to be divorced from the space game is a bit of a hindrance, but the devs understood right away that "forcing" GSF participation would create very bad blood. Many players of MMOs are terrible at three space games (code words when complaining: "bad controls", "terrible UI"), and while their whines are not welcome, their opinion is- this corner of the game isn't for them, they signed up for ground game pve or pvp. As such, nothing in the ground game is conditional on GSF combat. When conquest launched, that appears to be a giant bribe to do some action in any given week, and GSF comes up there- but in that case, conquest is a giant bribe to do one thing and do less of all others, so leaving GSF out of that would have definitely hurt it. Unless GSF is overemphasized, but I think I would have been told that. So this fear is, that they go the other way- reward loyal ground pounders with cool models, exclusive models, etc. Things I can't get without actually playing the non-GSF parts of the game. There's a lot of ways that they could make the ground game able to help you get started at GSF, but this isn't that: this is assuming that there's some stuff in the ground game that *I* would be motivated (aka, "forced") to do, for instance. Would be real bad news.

 

3- "We're deleting requisition"

This seems unlikely, but it's always a concern. There's no shortage of players asking for free stuff, or claiming that the gear matters and nothing else (never seen anyone with a thousand games say this), or otherwise begging. And for the MOST part, I think it's fair to say that the playerbase wants easier requisition, wants new players with more components and more ships. The game has a lot to offer, but it gates "new experience" behind the same gate as "you are more powerful", and you risk the new ship you unlock being worse (for you) than the ones you know how to use... so why not use that for the straight upgrades? By removing req entirely, however, they would be crapping on progressed players and the "promise" implied by the game design. So while it is pretty uncontroversial to make stuff cheaper, I would fear a redesign of this.

 

 

4- "Imperials and Republicans rendered identical"

There are VERY few factional differences in all of SWTOR, which I think is a true shame. The couple that exist in GSF add a lot of charm to the game, and make my play experience different on each side- it's about the same, but it makes it not a straight model/voice swap. Even the ships that just have a different set of tactical passives because of their faction gain something from that, and it feels exclusive to land a bypassed thermite on a Clarion or run Hydrospanner on a Razorwire (you can do both on either side, but you'll be less likely to). While I am in favor of making more copilot abilities and increasing access to them, and I'm definitely in favor of buffing the weaker crew passives or baking in the strong ones, I would hate to see the crew members become largely just "pick your favorite voice". This would really reduce depth of play and build optimization. If we instead get MORE good crew abilities, then the ships might be a bit a different more often, even if only on passives.

 

5- "Weapons are much more similar now"

We have a lot of diversity in weapons right now. I'm worried that they might become very similar in the future.

 

 

 

 

The five things I picked are very much the sort of changes that devs get told by management to implement based on reading some studies or following a fad or whatever. I don't play the ground game these days, but the new "disciplines" system is similar-ish to other modern MMOs that put a lot of your progression into leveling, and then push utility as divorced from spec and power. WoW did this, but they weren't even the first. Personally, I like a game with the "open feat" type design, that the talent trees do an ok job of imitating- so I see that design decision and I get worried. And I don't want to discuss that one in particular- maybe disciplines will make the whole game much better and balanced- but I wouldn't want to see that applied to GSF.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, what patch notes are you worried about? What "phases" of the "revitalization" are you concerned about?

Edited October 20, 2014 by Verain

[DamascusAdontise]

Most of those things would be game breakers for me, except the requisition thing (I still think its a bad idea and would ruin things, but it wouldn't bother me personally)

 

I would like to add:

 

Over-Nerfing scout into oblivion / making it an unplayable class

 

This would really drive me away from GSF in general, whats the good if I cant zip around like a humming bird on crack

 

I won't get into it since there is already so much debate, but suffice to say they could approach balance through many vectors (bursts, disto, evasion, burst damage etc) which would be a TERRIBLE idea IMO

 

Or they could approach it one thing at s time and tweak them down as necessary. In the past they have done many things at once, and this worries me. Scout could easily go from overpowered to unplayable with a little heavy handed nerfing.

[Fractalsponge]

Things that would kill GSF for me:

1. Ship type restrictions in match - "What, you want to play gunship? NO! Two useless scrubs have taken the only slots already"

 

2. Removal of group queuing - "What, you have friends? SUCKS TO BE YOU"

 

3. Lack of any new maps - seriously, how hard can it be to have new maps? This goes for ground PVP just as much as it does for GSF, so it's not an isolated instance. New game modes I understand can be more work, so I don't expect these in great quantity, but even if they used a random number generator to make procedural maps for TDM, that would be a plus in my eyes.

 

4. Most of Verain's list. Except requisition.

[PlagaNerezza]

The devs talked about a multiphase plan to revitalize GSF. In other threads, we have (and will continue) to speculate how cool this will be, you know, getting new ships / faster ability to gear / maybe a way to teach new players / maps / "something better than cross server", etc. In this forum, we have a zillion ideas, and many of them are solid, and we know the devs do actually read the forums.

 

 

But THIS thread? It's a bit different. Here we list the giant mis-steps that the devs could make while "revitalizing" GSF. These are things that would make the most loyal of us hate the game. My only request: Try to avoid statements of the form "..If the devs DO NOT NERF (class I hate)". That's a class nerf request, not for this thread!

 

 

 

1- "Simplified power settings"

One thing I've seen while playing is that new players are very bad at power settings, and veterans are very good, and the difference in game is in part substantial- but this is not all of it. I really, really like the subtlety with this thing, and I think it's a core part of the Star Wars "flight sim" feel. I also like that there are definitely a class of solid players who are still working on this, and I feel it's deep enough that it's always possible to improve on play. My concern: because this is finicky, someone will come along and say "sweep this out of here" and make it mostly cosmetic or gone entirely. It stands out as being a multiple resource system, a lot of depth in an era with normally very transparent and unrealistic mapping of input device movement to on screen movement. It's easily one of my favorite things, and the removal of it would be devastating. It's my number one dreaded patch note that is not class related.

 

 

2- "Exciting ships available in the ground game!"

The complete ability of the ground game to be divorced from the space game is a bit of a hindrance, but the devs understood right away that "forcing" GSF participation would create very bad blood. Many players of MMOs are terrible at three space games (code words when complaining: "bad controls", "terrible UI"), and while their whines are not welcome, their opinion is- this corner of the game isn't for them, they signed up for ground game pve or pvp. As such, nothing in the ground game is conditional on GSF combat. When conquest launched, that appears to be a giant bribe to do some action in any given week, and GSF comes up there- but in that case, conquest is a giant bribe to do one thing and do less of all others, so leaving GSF out of that would have definitely hurt it. Unless GSF is overemphasized, but I think I would have been told that. So this fear is, that they go the other way- reward loyal ground pounders with cool models, exclusive models, etc. Things I can't get without actually playing the non-GSF parts of the game. There's a lot of ways that they could make the ground game able to help you get started at GSF, but this isn't that: this is assuming that there's some stuff in the ground game that *I* would be motivated (aka, "forced") to do, for instance. Would be real bad news.

 

3- "We're deleting requisition"

This seems unlikely, but it's always a concern. There's no shortage of players asking for free stuff, or claiming that the gear matters and nothing else (never seen anyone with a thousand games say this), or otherwise begging. And for the MOST part, I think it's fair to say that the playerbase wants easier requisition, wants new players with more components and more ships. The game has a lot to offer, but it gates "new experience" behind the same gate as "you are more powerful", and you risk the new ship you unlock being worse (for you) than the ones you know how to use... so why not use that for the straight upgrades? By removing req entirely, however, they would be crapping on progressed players and the "promise" implied by the game design. So while it is pretty uncontroversial to make stuff cheaper, I would fear a redesign of this.

 

 

4- "Imperials and Republicans rendered identical"

There are VERY few factional differences in all of SWTOR, which I think is a true shame. The couple that exist in GSF add a lot of charm to the game, and make my play experience different on each side- it's about the same, but it makes it not a straight model/voice swap. Even the ships that just have a different set of tactical passives because of their faction gain something from that, and it feels exclusive to land a bypassed thermite on a Clarion or run Hydrospanner on a Razorwire (you can do both on either side, but you'll be less likely to). While I am in favor of making more copilot abilities and increasing access to them, and I'm definitely in favor of buffing the weaker crew passives or baking in the strong ones, I would hate to see the crew members become largely just "pick your favorite voice". This would really reduce depth of play and build optimization. If we instead get MORE good crew abilities, then the ships might be a bit a different more often, even if only on passives.

 

5- "Weapons are much more similar now"

We have a lot of diversity in weapons right now. I'm worried that they might become very similar in the future.

 

 

 

 

The five things I picked are very much the sort of changes that devs get told by management to implement based on reading some studies or following a fad or whatever. I don't play the ground game these days, but the new "disciplines" system is similar-ish to other modern MMOs that put a lot of your progression into leveling, and then push utility as divorced from spec and power. WoW did this, but they weren't even the first. Personally, I like a game with the "open feat" type design, that the talent trees do an ok job of imitating- so I see that design decision and I get worried. And I don't want to discuss that one in particular- maybe disciplines will make the whole game much better and balanced- but I wouldn't want to see that applied to GSF.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, what patch notes are you worried about? What "phases" of the "revitalization" are you concerned about?

 

Space is one of the worst pvp environments I've played in. The gating to meaningful participation in a secondary game is absurd. The complete imbalance of ships is obvious. A burst scout? No joystick for a space game? The missle lock system is terrible. It couldn't get much worse than it is frankly and if turning off the "diehard" GSF players means fixing the terrible system they should do it.

 

2 and 3 are needed to occur. Ground should earn fleet points just as space earns you fleet comms, which you can trade for ground items, decorations and other things. The grounders deserve for their actions a representative transaction that supports GSF like being able to earn ships through ground based acquistion. Quest series seems very reasonable to me to unlocking a ship. The gating needs to be addressed. Bolster is needed.

 

 

 

They need a ship bolster system.

[Fractalsponge]

Bolster is needed.

They need a ship bolster system.

 

Gear is a minor contribution to GSF, apart from the very top end of play and the first few matches. I do think that the basic options should always be available, so players can try out new components at the outset to decide what to focus on. Ground integration would be nice, but do you think gsf should grant pvp and pve commendations? I actually don't mind, but that's going to be a necessary tradeoff if ground play gave you gsf requisition.

 

And, as always, asking for joystick support is asking for a whole new game. It's like requesting controller support for ground pvp. If they did implement it without it being a whole new game, anyone using a joystick is going to lose. HARD.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Fractalsponge

[PlagaNerezza]

Gear is a minor contribution to GSF, apart from the very top end of play and the first few matches. I do think that the basic options should always be available, so players can try out new components at the outset to decide what to focus on. Ground integration would be nice, but do you think gsf should grant pvp and pve commendations? I actually don't mind, but that's going to be a necessary tradeoff if ground play gave you gsf requisition.

 

And, as always, asking for joystick support is asking for a whole new game. It's like requesting controller support for ground pvp. If they did implement it without it being a whole new game, anyone using a joystick is going to lose. HARD.

 

The stock ships you start in might as well be called vacuum ships. Cause they suck and you'll be spaced shortly vs anyone with upgrades. I have that opinion having played in them recently. They have water guns for weapons and toilet paper for shields.

 

I was clear on integration. You should be able to quest for ship unlocks and gear unlocks. I don't see why this wasn't in the game other than time. It makes perfect sense. You can either unlock it running a quest series or flying around. In fact, both make perfect sense to me. You either earned it by being an Ace and the Navy allocated that high-end stuff to you, or you acquired it through other methods. After all this is star wars. Han Solo frequently stole parts to upgrade the Falcon. I'm a Sith Lord. Or I am the top agent of the empire. Or I am a scoundrel. Or I am a crafty Jedi Master. Their is more than one way to acquire parts.

 

If they want to let you trade space pvp comm's for PVP comm's go ahead. I trust bioware to set the threshold to be reasonable. They've done a good job imo balancing comm swaps so far. In space, I don't see any issue with earning ground gear. You capture systems, ships and salvage. Why wouldn't you find an amazing item that way?

 

People need to relax on integration. I'd rather do a quest series then pvp in space all the time. So what? Either gear and ships matter or they don't. You are trying to have it both ways. Its odd to have you stating intergration would destroy the GSF and then claim gear doesn't matter.

 

As to anything being necessary, I think you have it incorrect. GSF is going to die off without more ground players getting into it. They won't have developers add content to it if people don't play it. To equate the two in terms of needs by saying if ground can get space its over is broken logic. This is your don't devalue my stuff argument. Well when my pvp gear is reset guess what? Tough. You deal. You need to deal with a change that devalues your gear and adds a new "grind". You'll be fine. GSF will be better off with more players.

[Verain]

Space is one of the worst pvp environments I've played in.

 

Which is interesting, given how many of us really like it.

 

The gating to meaningful participation in a secondary game is absurd.

 

So, if you mean this to say "Waah I need req", then:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=755330

If instead you mean "this game takes a lot of practice to be good in", then... yes, actually, I agree. And the fact that you can't get that practice outside of straight pvp is frustrating. If there was solid solo content, even training content as is being thrown around the forum these days, then that would really help. This isn't talking pie in the sky AI-ships, it's just like, fly through the rings fast and stuff.

 

 

The complete imbalance of ships is obvious. A burst scout?

 

I don't feel this is as off as you say, but I think everyone is on board with some scout nerfs- just nothing devastating. It's going to be a fine line for the devs to walk, especially given that the type 3 scout is generally weakish, the type 2 scout is definitely too strong, and the type 1 scout has some pretty offensive burst as well, but outside of that is a much more reasonable ship. It's hard to say what should happen there, and if you DO take down the peak of scout burst, you also need to look at gunships, who will have a lot more time to roost without scouts attacking them. And honestly? I think once the scout burst is down where it 'should' be, it will still be absolutely lethal to many players.

 

No joystick for a space game?

In the place of a dark lord, you would have joystick players! ALL SHALL LOVE US AND DESPAIR

 

The missle lock system is terrible.

This is actually the strangest thing in your post. The joystick thing is a common statement, and yea, it'd be great but it won't happen for all the reasons I say every time, the ship balance is mostly an excuse, and it is on the devs list, the req thing isn't a real issue but the devs are addressing it regardless (and no one seems opposed- most players would be fine with doubling req handed out, I think, which is odd).

 

But... missile lock is terrible? How? You right click, the tone plays, you fire. Your enemy tries to wiggle free and has to blow a break. You play inside their head to trick them into doing it wrong. Lots of head games here, lots of reward for good pilotry and good gunnery- how is it bad? What on earth?

 

It couldn't get much worse than it is frankly and if turning off the "diehard" GSF players means fixing the terrible system they should do it.

No, they shouldn't. Because we at least understand the game we are playing. You just hate that fact, I think?

 

 

2 and 3 are needed to occur. Ground should earn fleet points just as space earns you fleet comms, which you can trade for ground items, decorations and other things.

 

The fleet comms turn into gear? I bet that's not true. I bet they become cosmetic items only. Those things would straight up ruin the game, and I explain why above. Handing out anything in GSF to some dumb raid or pvp grind would make me have to play those things, and I absolutely should not (just as your shiniest implant or trinket shouldn't rely on you being able to beat a premade of us in GSF). Mirroring Imp and Pub in a game that does far too much of that already would be awful. Right now the biggest difference on most ships is that the empire has a bit more sensor range and the republic has a bit more sensor dampening, and the very few builds that have something meaningful, like the quads and pods having more ammo on empire or being able to play bypass sometimes on pubside, are unique, fun, and not game breaking. More, not less.

 

The grounders deserve for their actions a representative transaction that supports GSF like being able to earn ships through ground based acquistion.

 

No, you do not. GSF and the ground are distinct for great reasons- notably so that the bulk majority of ground guys that can't fly at all don't have to learn that to enjoy the rest of SWTOR. The opposite applies, and needs to continue. Your ability to light-bat down some plastic encounter shouldn't give you a thing in GSF- I'm always in these games worrying that they'll go make raiding mandatory for entirely unrelated things, like pvp or side games. You play ground game to be good at ground game. You don't get GSF for free.

 

Quest series seems very reasonable to me to unlocking a ship.

...This could be ok, as long as the ship could also be unlocked for fleet req. I would not mind something that provided side options like that.

 

The gating needs to be addressed.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=755330

Again.

 

 

Bolster is needed.

Instead of linking Drako a third time, I'll say this: bolster can't be done, won't be done, and is ludicrous on the face of it.

We don't actually have gear here, first of all, second of all the delta is not large, and third and most importantly, there's no GSF outside of GSF- it isn't like when your battleground gear lets you play world pvp, there's no world pvp with GSF. Bolster can't be a thing, but if it could, it would be a dire thing indeed.

 

They need a ship bolster system.

This is just "delete req". You just want free upgrades to your ship, and the removal of the ability to build a ship. Do you even understand that these are talent points, not gear?

[PlagaNerezza]

You can call it whatever you want. Talents. Weapons. NPC's. Your "gear" through fleet requisition points adds to your DPS, Survivability and improve the output performance of that ship.

 

The volume of players taking part in GSF is what I am basing my critique of the game on. I don't personally care if it dissappears right now, because its not very good.

 

A flight simulator game that doesn't support a joystick option is highly unusual. SWG and TIE flight games had joystick support. its not earth shattering to ask for me to bind this stuff to a joystick. Its pretty much the lamest thing I have heard about GSF.

 

There is no PVE to GSF. You PVP with only capture mode or death mode. Its immature for content.

 

You are just saying to players play like me to get the gear I have. Its the only legitimate way to earn gear for your ship. I disagree and I think a lot of people do as well. Instead of asking for a method to be balanced you are 100% against it. That tells me its about you and your gear.

[tunewalker]

You can call it whatever you want. Talents. Weapons. NPC's. Your "gear" through fleet requisition points adds to your DPS, Survivability and improve the output performance of that ship.

 

The volume of players taking part in GSF is what I am basing my critique of the game on. I don't personally care if it dissappears right now, because its not very good.

 

A flight simulator game that doesn't support a joystick option is highly unusual. SWG and TIE flight games had joystick support. its not earth shattering to ask for me to bind this stuff to a joystick. Its pretty much the lamest thing I have heard about GSF.

 

There is no PVE to GSF. You PVP with only capture mode or death mode. Its immature for content.

 

You are just saying to players play like me to get the gear I have. Its the only legitimate way to earn gear for your ship. I disagree and I think a lot of people do as well. Instead of asking for a method to be balanced you are 100% against it. That tells me its about you and your gear.

 

I think the point Verain is trying to make is he doesnt want anything unique to be earned in Ground Game for the space game, and honestly the Requisition DOESNT make a huge difference those links he gave were of several players playing 100% stock beggining ships with 0 requisition and kicking the tail out of Mastered ships simply because they know how to play.

 

Bassically Gear Doesnt Matter. The moment people really start understanding that the better off they will be. If you suck with out gear we could give you the mastered stuff, and you would still suck.

 

What Verain doesnt want is to be force to play the ground game that he doesnt like to get stuff for the space game and vice versa, he doesnt want dedicated Raiders or Arena players to have to GSF to get stuff to Raid or play Arena. Imagine if the best Enchancement (Power surge NiM strength) was only offered by doing GSF, that would be a terrible design.

 

Same principle, we dont want to have to do NiM content to unlock a new ship. We play GSF, we want to play More GSF to unlock more Ships.

 

 

Edit: this being said, there is one part that always makes me chuckle a little inside when most people talk about scout nerfs. They know they need them, and we want them to nerf burst.... "but not to much" and all I read in the "but not to much" is "but not enough to actually change the meta at all", it may not be what some are intending, but it definitely feels that way. Its because as you said, people bought that T2 scout for what it brings, the best Defense, the best Burst, the Best tracking accuracy, the best speed. They didnt buy it for one they bought it for all take away any of that and people who have bassically been leaning on it being the best at so much for so long will find themselves on an even playing field and that would ruin their ability to dominate and thus drive some people away.

 

That is kind of the sad thing to me, the game has been this out of balance so long that if they actually did balance it, the people who have fallen in love with the scout (maybe to a lesser degree the GS) might just up and quit. But I do agree, they need a nerf, but not one that brings them so low that Strikes or GS take over the Meta, they need to still be a dominate part of the Meta or GSF wont be GSF.

Edited October 20, 2014 by tunewalker

[nyghtrunner]

The stock ships you start in might as well be called vacuum ships. Cause they suck and you'll be spaced shortly vs anyone with upgrades. I have that opinion having played in them recently. They have water guns for weapons and toilet paper for shields.

 

...Snipped for brevity

 

Aside from MAYBE base components*, and new ship models, I don't think you should be able to "gear up" without going into GSF. You talk about the grind of PVP when they release a new tier of gear and how the PVPers have to suck it up and start a new grind, and I understand that, but you can't get PVP comms at all unless you do ground PVP**. To me, it's like asking to be able to get PVP mods and unique shells from PVE content, and if they did that, the PVP crowd would probably be howling ("I spent all that time, taking my lumps, and now you're giving the gear I had to work so hard for to people who don't even PVP?!").

 

That said, I largely agree with Verain that you shouldn't be able to get things for GSF exclusively through any other means than GSF. IE - Dread Council on NiM shouldn't drop some random, super awesome skin of the T2 Scout, and have that be the only way to get it. I wouldn't be super opposed to this so long as PVE NiM Palace wasn't the only way to get the object, but by and large when it comes to actual equipment that you use in GSF, you should be able to get it via GSF. And I certainly don't think you should be able to grind T5 BLCs via the ground game. That's just ridiculous. You have to take your lumps to get your PVP gear in the ground game, why should GSF be different?

 

I do want to see a little more integration, but it goes the other way. I want to see new armor skins that you can only buy via Req (fleet or ship, but fleet makes more sense), I want new color crystals, I'd love new decorations, but every single aspect of the game has things that you can ONLY get doing a specific portion of the game. They have gear, mounts, and decorations that you can only get via PVP, there are mounts, gear, and decorations you can only get via Ops/FPs. I don't see why that should be different with space PVP (because that's honestly what this is). Also, after playing probably a couple thousand matches, I've got req on my mains coming out of my ears, with no way to spend it/use it. That's a little frustrating, and one of the reasons I have so many alts. At least if I'm playing a fresh ship, I feel like I'm grinding towards something.

 

I'd probably be OK with some amount of random drops for GSF things that are exclusive to the ground game, but as someone who both raids and GSFs, I'd be dead set against actively gearing up through the ground game, because as you note; GSF is a separate entity.

 

As for the stock argument... I can do 40-50k damage, get a bunch of kills and assists, and very few deaths in a stock Rycer. Gear makes a difference only really at the top end, and usually only for specific circumstances. I have to play a little differently, but the reaction time, the aiming, the awareness... That's still all there, and is far, far, FAR more important than gear, especially if flying with friends. And if you put my preferred stock components on the ship, and let me swap out to my regular crew members, I'll be about 80% as effective as I would be in a mastered version of the same ship. Put 60k req into a ship, and I'm about 95% as effective as I "should be".

 

This isn't like ground PVP where if I have no PVP gear, and am shooting at a Tank in full PVP gear, he can just sit there and take it pretty much indefinitely while laughing at me because of the gear. And upgrading my space gear won't let you pelt me ad infinitum with BLCs from 500m and just sit there and take it. I still have to move at the first hit. That doesn't change regardless of gear. It's me realizing that I've been hit, and where it's coming from that let's me live in that scenario. Not my T3 Disto missile break. Not my evasion armor. Not my Large Reactor. It has absolutely nothing to do with gear.

 

The best way I can put it is this: Gear makes a difference only if the 2 pilots in opposition are of nearly identical skill, or in edge cases where armor ignore is important (Charged Plating on a bomber/Strike, although it only REALLY matters on a bomber in a Domination match; or when it comes to taking out turrets, also in domination matches). Beyond that, it's skill, reaction, and experience. Upgrading your gear doesn't suddenly make you fly more evasively, or make you a better overall shot. It gives you a few percentage points in your favor here and there, and that's it. Once you match ship to flight style (get the base components you're used to flying with) gear is relevant in very few situations.

 

NOTES:

*This is part of a larger gripe that you have to pay to unlock base components anyway. I would very much prefer to have base, tier 0 components available when you get the ship, so you can swap them out and test them before committing req to unlock a weapon you don't like. Could avoid a LOT of mistakes this way.

**I guess there's that 1 treasure chest on Tatooine that gives you 100 warzone comms...

[Verain]

You can call it whatever you want. Talents. Weapons. NPC's. Your "gear" through fleet requisition points adds to your DPS, Survivability and improve the output performance of that ship.

 

Yes, but it does so in non standard ways. Many of the talent points are highly situational- 8% shield piercing, for instance, is not scoring a ton of kills, and armor piercing is very strong but relies on the enemy having armor, and even the more common things like 5% damage or 8% frequency often make no difference for a variety of reasons.

 

What is an MMO PC? A miserable little pile of stats.

 

So you can bolster that, by pretending that the pile is a bit higher and deeper for a few minutes. You can't bolster in GSF because so few of them are stats, and many of them are even situational. The starting crew members aren't the best crewmembers, but in theory they have the same budget as the "correct" ones for your ship. And importantly, you can't bolster GSF because that's the same thing as deleting req. If the entirety of pvp was places with bolster, and the entirety of pve was places with bolster.... what would that do?

 

There's no GSF outside the instance. You ask for "bolster", but you mean "delete req". Screw that.

 

 

The volume of players taking part in GSF is what I am basing my critique of the game on.

No, that's just your excuse to QQ about your pet peeve. Everyone is always like "FIRST I believe that this game is less popular than it COULD be SECOND hold up while I have this terrible redesign THIRD the biggest problem with this game is the players that write up guides and organize events and give tips and run twitch and make youtube BECAUSE they know how to play it AND THAT IS INSULTING TO ME"

 

Yea. Wrong from square one, and then it spirals off to the derp nebula from there.

 

 

I don't personally care if it dissappears right now, because its not very good.

I think it's excellent, and for something you don't care about, you sure did come in to post in this thread in hopes that it is destroyed.

 

A flight simulator game that doesn't support a joystick option is highly unusual.

Agreed, and I know friends that aren't interested because it has no joystick. The issue, which has been explained over and over, is basically that supporting a second style of play would require a ton of playtesting, would grant an advantage to joystick players (I mean, it could technically be a terrible implementation that doesn't, but if you want that you can just joy to mouse today, a good one would allow you instant control of ship pitch and yaw with the hat controlling a reticule), and would take a ton of testing of the actual hardware, and implementation of that code into the baseline that isn't used by anywhere else.

 

I'd love a joystick control. But I'm telling you why it will never happen- it's not even the fact that it would be very expensive and please a super minority of players.

 

 

What would a player like you do once your excuses are gone? When you have your joystick, when you have your free maxxed out ship, when you have all of that and you still aren't good? You just slink off into silence, or maybe make up more bogeymen that "Bioware needs to fix". If you aren't willing to get good now, why would that change? Do you think this crew of flight sim fans doesn't know how to joystick or something?

 

SWG and TIE flight games had joystick support. its not earth shattering to ask for me to bind this stuff to a joystick. Its pretty much the lamest thing I have heard about GSF.

 

I'd be shocked if they added it.

 

There is no PVE to GSF. You PVP with only capture mode or death mode. Its immature for content.

Agreed. We want more maps, and we want more training, and we'd LOVE pve, but it's probably too expensive. I doubt the devs would disagree with this either.

 

You are just saying to players play like me to get the gear I have. Its the only legitimate way to earn gear for your ship. I disagree and I think a lot of people do as well. Instead of asking for a method to be balanced you are 100% against it. That tells me its about you and your gear.

 

The thread I linked, and the fact that we all go play on new servers with alts, should tell you otherwise.

[PlagaNerezza]

You've ignored everything I said about the things you said would destroy GSF that I disagree with you on.

 

Req. is not earth shattering and changing it to get more people playing is not going to destroy GSF. Make gearing easier and faster. That a ground PVE mission series to get the bomber is not going to end GSF forever. Or that unlocks Crew Pilot Y. Or that unlocks Weapon special X. Its not going to break the game.

 

What is killing GSF is the absolute lack of content and horrid controls.

 

No one is asking for "free". What everyone is asking is that for 2 maps of content, no flight controls of substance and a gear gap that has a grind like pvp with so little popping queues why is bioware wasting further developer time on this section of the game and if it doesn't intend to fix the basic issues it has.

 

You want to have a philosophical argument on this feel free. I don't mind you owning my GSF abilities and knowledge. I have taken part in it enough to see what the problem with it is. Small maps. The same "map". An overly lengthy grind. I mean people in the guild begged me to play and swore, its really fun. Give it a shot. I am trying as I love flight combat. This is about as bad as regular space honestly. It's only saving grace is it grants fleet comm's which I like to use to decorate with.

[tunewalker]

You've ignored everything I said about the things you said would destroy GSF that I disagree with you on.

 

Req. is not earth shattering and changing it to get more people playing is not going to destroy GSF. Make gearing easier and faster. That a ground PVE mission series to get the bomber is not going to end GSF forever. Or that unlocks Crew Pilot Y. Or that unlocks Weapon special X. Its not going to break the game.

 

What is killing GSF is the absolute lack of content and horrid controls.

 

No one is asking for "free". What everyone is asking is that for 2 maps of content, no flight controls of substance and a gear gap that has a grind like pvp with so little popping queues why is bioware wasting further developer time on this section of the game and if it doesn't intend to fix the basic issues it has.

 

You want to have a philosophical argument on this feel free. I don't mind you owning my GSF abilities and knowledge. I have taken part in it enough to see what the problem with it is. Small maps. The same "map". An overly lengthy grind. I mean people in the guild begged me to play and swore, its really fun. Give it a shot. I am trying as I love flight combat. This is about as bad as regular space honestly. It's only saving grace is it grants fleet comm's which I like to use to decorate with.

 

They are massively increasing Req gain, so that the grind isnt as grindy any more, 90% of your complaint here is already being done. You cant PVP to get Raid gear, you cant Raid to get PVP gear, that is all the difference here.

[caederon]

What is killing GSF is the absolute lack of content and horrid controls.

Just because you don't like the controls does not make them 'horrid'. I've played plenty of joystick based space sims. When Freelancer came out, it was one of the (possibly the) first space sim to use mouse based flight, and it did it so well that I wished every other space game didn't necessitate I drag out my joystick. So, I like mouse based controls. Is my opinion less valid than yours?

 

It would be flat out dumb to optimize GSF around flightstick based play if your goal is to attract a significant number of players from the very large pool of people who do not have and will never buy a flightstick. Everyone has a mouse.

 

GSF's controls are well implemented. Things are laid out logically and you have a very flexible means to rebind commands to extra mouse buttons or different keys to suit you. There aren't so many controls that you're searching out this button or that in the middle of combat, once you've flown a handful of matches. Getting good at flying requires practice, but is not so cumbersome that only die-hards will get into it. There is no Falcon 4.0 telephone-book sized manual to learn.

 

The gear vs. skill 'debate' has been had so many times that it's barely worth rehashing. Experience wins you battles, and experienced pilots win you games. Experienced pilots in stocks vs. inexperienced pilots with fully mastered ships will result in a win for the experienced pilots. The two most valuable assets in GSF are situational awareness and skills developed through practice flying.

Edited October 20, 2014 by caederon

[Gavin_Kelvar]

The fleet comms turn into gear? I bet that's not true. I bet they become cosmetic items only.

 

By and large you're right unless you consider the option to buy crafting mat boxes with fleet comms that can drop mats that otherwise are only available on the GTN or by doing FPs/Ops. Mats in turn can be used to craft gear (but you'd need to have bought the gear the traditional grind method and gotten lucky on an RE crit so to assert fleet comms turn into actual gear is a stretch albeit not entirely wrong).

 

I'm with you though in not having GSF reward things like WZ comms or ground PvP rewarding GSF req. Either way you'd have a guy gear up for one game mode using a totally unrelated game mode, be totally unprepared for that game when they queue and be a detriment to their team. A rook who has no idea how accuracy/tracking penalties work won't magically do phenomenally better with a fully mastered ship than they would in a stock ship (if they do better at all it would likely be a negligible amount and they'd still be easy pickings for the vets).

[PlagaNerezza]

Just because you don't like the controls does not make them 'horrid'. I've played plenty of joystick based space sims. When Freelancer came out, it was one of the (possibly the) first space sim to use mouse based flight, and it did it so well that I wished every other space game didn't necessitate I drag out my joystick. So, I like mouse based controls. Is my opinion less valid than yours?

 

It would be flat out dumb to optimize GSF around flightstick based play if your goal is to attract a significant number of players from the very large pool of people who do not have and will never buy a flightstick. Everyone has a mouse.

 

GSF's controls are well implemented. Things are laid out logically and you have a very flexible means to rebind commands to extra mouse buttons or different keys to suit you. There aren't so many controls that you're searching out this button or that in the middle of combat, once you've flown a handful of matches. Getting good at flying requires practice, but is not so cumbersome that only die-hards will get into it. There is no Falcon 4.0 telephone-book sized manual to learn.

 

The gear vs. skill 'debate' has been had so many times that it's barely worth rehashing. Experience wins you battles, and experienced pilots win you games. Experienced pilots in stocks vs. inexperienced pilots with fully mastered ships will result in a win for the experienced pilots. The two most valuable assets in GSF are situational awareness and skills developed through practice flying.

 

The controls are not well implemented. You happen to like GSF. The fact they did the yaw so they couldn't add joystick support is not well thought out. Its poor design. There isn't a lot of combat options because flight combat is twitch based. Call me a purist but I happen to think bendy lasers cannons mounted on a fixed wing ship are not designed well.

 

I don't need to debate on which draws more star wars pilots. A game with a joystick option or a game without that option.

 

Gear matters. Crit bonus matters. Cutting lock time in half matters. Increased range, better armor and better shields matter. higher dps matters. I've never seen a group of people deny this advantages exist more than GSF players. When I play PVP I take skills to give me these skills. Sure I can beat a geared knob running some goofball spec that doesn't take good skills, while wearing green armor who doesn't know how to pvp. That is saying nothing. A great pilot in base ship against anyone descent will lose like they should most of the time. Because the gear will matter. If you don't want to acknowledge fact in a computer game based on statistical measures fine. Do so. Don't buy gear. Pug in you ungeared ship. Use the wrong co-pilot skills. See if you win anything. You let us know if you face-roll them newbs.

 

As others have said req is getting made faster to gain because Bioware wants people to play GSF. I must not be the only one who looked at the climb and said not for this.

[nyghtrunner]

You've ignored everything I said about the things you said would destroy GSF that I disagree with you on.

And you appear to have ignored everything we've said about how the gear gap doesn't make a huge difference. I have 13 GSF toons in various states of gearedness. I can do well with all of them. There are precisely 2 things I "miss" when I'm not on a maxed ship. Armor penetration and the 2nd missile break with Disto.

 

Req. is not earth shattering and changing it to get more people playing is not going to destroy GSF. Make gearing easier and faster. That a ground PVE mission series to get the bomber is not going to end GSF forever. Or that unlocks Crew Pilot Y. Or that unlocks Weapon special X. Its not going to break the game.

The Req grants are being changed with 3.0. Quite dramatically. To the point where this shouldn't even be a bone of contention. None of us said, "No!!! You can't have more Req!!!!" And you've ignored everything said about Bolster. GSF Bolster would be beyond stupid, because there's almost nothing to bolster! Not to mention the massive headache it would be for the devs to figure out an algorithm to bolster even close to appropriately. "This guy doesn't have the 10% damage at T5 for the main weapon, but does have the T3 Damage Capacitor, and his Cluster Missiles are at T3, so we should give him like 4% damage to blasters, and make his clusters hit 1.2 times as hard, etc."

 

Bolster "works" in the ground game because the characters have stats that directly translate to how powerful they are. You can bring stats in line, or try to. GSF doesn't have a baseline willpower or any other stats in a similar way. What's your idea of bolster? Give the guy with no upgrades 10% damage boost and 300% health? How do you start to measure a baseline stat when everything is a collection of tiny stats largely given by the tiered upgrades? 5% Crit here, 6% accuracy there, 10% damage somewhere else, 5% less blaster pool to use primary weapons, 2% Evasion, 4% shields, etc. These are actual examples of upgrades.

 

What is killing GSF is the absolute lack of content and horrid controls.

I agree with you that the lack of new content is annoying, and the old stuff is stale. I don't have a problem with the controls. I'm sorry that you hate them so much.

 

No one is asking for "free". What everyone is asking is that for 2 maps of content, no flight controls of substance and a gear gap that has a grind like pvp with so little popping queues why is bioware wasting further developer time on this section of the game and if it doesn't intend to fix the basic issues it has.

You are placing WAAAAAAAAAAY too much importance on gear. Gear makes you a little better, sure. And it's definitely helpful in the edge cases. But my guess is I could probably dust you in a maxed ship of your choice in a stock ship of my choice, provided that you didn't use Charged Plating on a Bomber and just find a crevice to sit in. And when it happened, I wouldn't want to hear about "teh geerz"!!!

 

You want to have a philosophical argument on this feel free. I don't mind you owning my GSF abilities and knowledge. I have taken part in it enough to see what the problem with it is. Small maps. The same "map". An overly lengthy grind. I mean people in the guild begged me to play and swore, its really fun. Give it a shot. I am trying as I love flight combat. This is about as bad as regular space honestly. It's only saving grace is it grants fleet comm's which I like to use to decorate with.

You could get those doing regular space missions, and probably faster than you could with GSF. And there, you can straight up buy the best gear for the ship on the GTN. So no req grind for gear. Honestly, if you think GSF is simply full of the suck...

 

Unless I'm missing something, your arguments are:

1) Content/Maps - Totally agree. We're a year out, and have 5 maps total, and 2 game archetypes. Not enough.

2) The Gear Grind - Which isn't that bad, especially if you know what you're doing. And as of Dec. 2, it will be about half as bad as it currently is. So I think it's fair to say this gripe will be addressed.

3) The Gear Gap - Which is largely irrelevant. Maxed gear probably makes an 8-15% difference in overall performance, all things being equal.

4) Lack of joystick/bad controls - Not a stand alone flight sim. And I can customize my controls to my liking. On a mouse with 5 buttons (If you include the scroll wheel). The controls take some getting used to, and will never be a joystick, but I totally disagree that they're "horrid".

5) No Bolster system - There is no good way to implement a bolster system. And the gear differential is nowhere near as punishing as lack of PVP gear is in ground PVP combat. It's nothing like how in ground PVP, if I'm fighting someone with max expertise, and I have no expertise, they take 25% less damage from me while doing 25% more damage to me. The reality is that I might hit you something like 10% more of the time, and do like 8% more damage. Is maxed better? Yes. Is maxed game breaking? No.

Edited October 20, 2014 by nyghtrunner

[Danalon]

I can't understand the complaints about the controls. There actually isn't so much difference to the controls of Rogue Squadron on the N64. Using mouse instead of joytick is understandable - most people playing SWtoR probably don't have a joystick. Also, flying a Harrier jet in GTA Saint Andrew is more complex than GSF. Flying and actually hitting things when shooting is way more complicated in most first person shooters than in GSF - also understandable, GSF controls are very simplified to make it easier to play for mmorpg players.

 

Lack of gametypes and maps? Maybe. But I think there will be new maps and gametypes added over time. I'd like to see something like Voidstar or something like the assault UT2004. Anyway, ground PvP may have more maps but most of them condense down to "one person defends a specific point, rest of the team zergs at another point". I'm not saying new maps aren't important but pvp is more about competition than maps.

 

Requisition and gear. It is true that getting enough requisition to master a ship is a lengthy process. But to play the game you don't need a mastered ship. It's not like ground PvP where your head gets bashed in over and over if your gear is low - bolster doesn't really help you as a fresh lvl 55 in questing greens; you may survive a little longer but in the end it doesn't matter if you survived one attack more or less. Bolster however would not have any use in GSF as situational awareness and experience is way more important than dps. When starting a new toon or playing a new ship I usually max out weapons last - I do spend points but usually only to get something like reduced lock-on time, while I spare pure dps increases. A good example are missiles, I usually get the reduced lock-on but spare the rest until later.

[nyghtrunner]

Gear matters. Crit bonus matters. Cutting lock time in half matters. Increased range, better armor and better shields matter. higher dps matters.

Gear matters - Indeed it does. But not to the degree that you seem to think it does.

 

Crit Bonus Matters - Indeed it does. But the nature of the game is that the crits rarely matter (infrequency/relevancy... Most likely, a crit hit that kills would have come close to killing without the crit... So like 5% of the time, you "save" 1 shot on your kill time). If you're base damage is 1, and you're using BLCs, you're looking at total output being base + (base * crit chance * crit damage percent). Keeping in line with BLCs, that would be 1 + (1 * 0.05 * 0.5) == 1.025 with maxed BLCs v unmaxed BLCs. I'm sure that extra 2.5% actual damage matters a lot to the guy still using Hydrospanner... It's a bit of an oversimplification, but if you're looking just at crit chance, that's how much maxed BLCs do in difference based on the crit from maxing the component. I suppose if you really want to get technical, you'd do 1.07625 damage (7.625% more damage) because you get 5% base damage from the tier 1 BLC upgrade. It's also worth noting that the increased crit chance and the increased damage are the Tier 1 and Tier 2 upgrades, which are a whopping 3500 (total) req to unlock. For a sub, and a good pilot, that's 2 games + the daily, and you'll probably have some req left over.

 

Also of note, most of the truly relevant upgrades happen at tiers 1-3. Which are the least expensive. It's one of the reasons I'd say that with 35-40k req, you're probably at 90-95% overall efficiency. Verain, feel free to chime in if you have actual numbers here. You're more the match guru than I am.

 

Cutting lock on time in half matters - Except there's no ability in the game that cuts lock-on time in half. Most cap at about a 14% lock-on time reduction.

 

The rest - Yes, it matters, but this is a twitchy environment. If you can't fly evasively, position yourself correctly, and aim well, none of it matters. Gear only barely helps that.

 

I've never seen a group of people deny this advantages exist more than GSF players.

That's because the advantages in gear are minimal. We're not denying they exist, we're merely pointing out that they are far less important than the ground game in toto.

 

When I play PVP I take skills to give me these skills. Sure I can beat a geared knob running some goofball spec that doesn't take good skills, while wearing green armor who doesn't know how to pvp. That is saying nothing.

No, that's a variation of what we're saying. Probably a bit more extreme an example, but you effectively just made the same argument we've been making, although we're also saying the gear gap is much smaller in GSF than a some knob in Obroan (or whatever the top PVP equivalent is right now) and you wearing all greens. The difference is much closer to the difference between top tier PVP and 2nd tier PVP, where the 2nd tier is your ungeared ship, and maxed is your top tier pvp. Is there a difference there? Yes, but the difference is single digit upgrades at percentage points. Top tier PVP gear doesn't give you another 20k health, or let you do 100% more damage than similarly itemized tier 2 gear.

 

A great pilot in base ship against anyone descent will lose like they should most of the time. Because the gear will matter. If you don't want to acknowledge fact in a computer game based on statistical measures fine. Do so. Don't buy gear. Pug in you ungeared ship. Use the wrong co-pilot skills. See if you win anything. You let us know if you face-roll them newbs.

Except that the first statement here is demonstrably false. Go look at some of those threads Verain linked. Those stats were put up with stock ships. I don't know how to combat this argument if you're unwilling to concede that one simply has to be geared to be effective, despite evidence to the contrary.

 

I know several very good pilots who have toons that they fly with stock ships, and stock crew. Them doing that doesn't kill their winning % unless they run up against aces (read: People with similar skill levels, where I've noted that the gear starts to make a difference). But they regularly destroy people in maxed ships with their stock RFLs and Concs. They do it for the challenge, and to prove it can be done.

 

As others have said req is getting made faster to gain because Bioware wants people to play GSF. I must not be the only one who looked at the climb and said not for this.

Fair enough. But I'll be curious to know what you think after you get maxed ships (if the POS that is GSF retains your attention long enough to do it, because you seemingly hate it?). Having a maxed ship won't turn you into Scrabs or Tommmsunb or Aimbot or Drakkolich or any of another number of pilots. And all of those guys are extremely deadly in stock ships, because they know exactly what they're doing.

[Drakkolich]

The controls are not well implemented. You happen to like GSF. The fact they did the yaw so they couldn't add joystick support is not well thought out. Its poor design. There isn't a lot of combat options because flight combat is twitch based. Call me a purist but I happen to think bendy lasers cannons mounted on a fixed wing ship are not designed well.

 

I don't need to debate on which draws more star wars pilots. A game with a joystick option or a game without that option.

 

Gear matters. Crit bonus matters. Cutting lock time in half matters. Increased range, better armor and better shields matter. higher dps matters. I've never seen a group of people deny this advantages exist more than GSF players. When I play PVP I take skills to give me these skills. Sure I can beat a geared knob running some goofball spec that doesn't take good skills, while wearing green armor who doesn't know how to pvp. That is saying nothing. A great pilot in base ship against anyone descent will lose like they should most of the time. Because the gear will matter. If you don't want to acknowledge fact in a computer game based on statistical measures fine. Do so. Don't buy gear. Pug in you ungeared ship. Use the wrong co-pilot skills. See if you win anything. You let us know if you face-roll them newbs.

 

As others have said req is getting made faster to gain because Bioware wants people to play GSF. I must not be the only one who looked at the climb and said not for this.

 

I've been hesitant to get involved so far in this gear debate but why not.

 

Alright to start off I can't really comment on the control scheme you seem to hate so much as this is my first ever flight game. I have never played anything with a joystick so I can't really comment as to which is better.

I can however say that I currently love the controls in GSF, I can do anything I want very quickly especially because I use a very high mouse sensitivity.

 

Let's talk gear, no one is saying that gear does nothing that would be silly. However there are many arguments that gear is everything in GSF and that is very much not the case. What everyone else in this thread is trying to say is that in most cases where someone cries out that they are only being beaten because of gear, it often would not have mattered because they were only being beaten by a superior pilot and all the gear did on that pilots ship was end the fight faster.

 

Basically gear only decides how long the fight will take between an experienced pilot and an inexperienced one. The only time a gear gap decides whose going to win is when both pilots are very close the same skill level.

The damage and and survivability difference between a mastered ship (150k req) and a ship thats just starting lets say (40k req) is actually a lot smaller then most people think. That first 40-50k get's you a ton of stuff, then the last 100k does. Now if you want to compare mastered vs stock, there is a gap there I'd say the mastered ship probably does about 40% more damage. Measure the defensive capabilities is a bit harder as it depends on the build and what cooldowns were talking about, but in most cases I'd probably say you are about 40-50% tankier in the mastered ship, this is just an estimate I don't really have anything to back that up.

 

If you still think that you can't do anything at all in a stock ship, I have several videos up of me playing some of many types and taking down very good players in mastered ones. You can find them either in the thread Verain linked or my twitch stream highlights which are in my signature.

 

Now lets talk bolster I've heard this a few times and haven't had a chance to talk about it. As I understand it in ground pvp you have your stats on your gear like stamina and crit chance and what not. Bolster brings you up to a certain threshold so there isn't as huge of a gap between you and your opponent. I think the big problem is you're comparing the wrong things here. The "Gear" in GSF is more like the talents on your ground character, each upgrade gives you an ability or less cooldown on one or maybe more range on something. You can't really Bolster someones talent tree in the ground PvP the same as you can't Bolster GSF's "Gear". This in my opinion is why Bolster can never work for GSF.

 

Look forward to your response.

[Verain]

By and large you're right unless you consider the option to buy crafting mat boxes with fleet comms that can drop mats that otherwise are only available on the GTN or by doing FPs/Ops.

 

I wouldn't think most would count that- those are economic in nature, after all. It's not like, raid gear or w/e.

 

The controls are not well implemented. You happen to like GSF.

 

If you consider a mouse/keyboard combination WITHOUT the amelioratory "infinite turn radius" to be a design goal (which it absolutely was) then yes, the controls are great. The reticule on the game board becomes the virtual joystick, and you immediately lose all the downsides that bringing a mouse to a joystick game brought you. No, you don't gain every joystick advantage, but man, that's not at all a bad solution.

 

And yes, all the functions are there.

 

This whole point blows my mind because it's always some yahoo who wants a "more democratic experience" for the game or whatever, and the FIRST thing they bust out with is "and we should support this superior control mechanism that only hardcore players have, because it's hardcore". I mean, I'd LOVE it if GSF had joystick support. That would be super great! But wouldn't you be in here complaining that someone has a better HOTAS than you, or asking for hat-reticule support to be blocked because you don't have it on yours, or something? How is that better for the game?

 

 

Anyway, whatever, if you want to claim GSF would be better than a joystick, that's fantastic and I actually agree. But it won't happen, and if it did, they would be pushing further away from the baseline SWTOR player.

 

The fact they did the yaw so they couldn't add joystick support is not well thought out. Its poor design.

 

Can you state with ANY degree of worth, why it is "poor design"? Please remember, this is a M+K game, and that's what 100% of players have. How many do YOU think have a joystick? But seriously, what's poor about the design?

 

There isn't a lot of combat options because flight combat is twitch based. Call me a purist but I happen to think bendy lasers cannons mounted on a fixed wing ship are not designed well.

 

I actually think that the variable tracking penalty per laser gives a lot of depth to the guns. I think it allows for more distinct weapon types.

 

Gear matters.

But does it matter... to you?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=755330

Can you top these scores? Can you get anywhere close to them?

And this is with a STOCK ship. You should play a stock ship exactly ONCE, if you are gonna cry about it. Get 10k req on a ship and they are vastly better than a stock ship.

 

 

Crit bonus matters.

Not very often, as it turns out. Crit is memorable, but often not impactful.

 

Cutting lock time in half matters.

Can you show me where the lock time gets cut in half? I swear you are like the third dude to make this ludicrous claim. I have all the ships mastered bro, ain't no lock time getting cut in half. There's like a 10-15% reduction, and it costs like NOTHING. You should have it after your fourth game on a ship or whatever, especially if you are gonna cry about it. It's like 1000 ship req on every missile but concussion, where it's 2500. That is NOTHING. It's FREE. And it's certainly not halving the lock time.

 

Increased range, better armor and better shields matter.

They don't to YOU. These things matter very rarely. Again, go post your stock ship screenshots or just stop making stuff up. Why wouldn't you LISTEN to us? We have more games on stock ships than you ever will. Maybe we actually know what we are saying? Maybe?

 

higher dps matters.

Again, not really.

 

 

If you had a clue, you'd say:

"Armor pen matters. Disto field missile break matters."

Because these two things? They actually do matter (unlike what you said), fixing them isn't a matter of like two games (unlike what you said), and they actually are real mechanics in the game (unlike most of what you said, like half time missile locks).

 

I've never seen a group of people deny this advantages exist more than GSF players.

If everyone with 1000+ games says something, do you really seriously think you are in any position to argue? Do you realize how ludicrous that is? Do you notice how everyone is of one mind on this topic, and we agree on pretty much NOTHING else? Is your conclusion that by playing a bunch of games on stock ships we somehow know less about how it is to play on stock ships?

 

 

When I play PVP I take skills to give me these skills. Sure I can beat a geared knob running some goofball spec that doesn't take good skills, while wearing green armor who doesn't know how to pvp. That is saying nothing.

 

We aren't claiming gear doesn't matter. We're claiming it's just a much softer factor than most players who came in here claiming GEAR IS PROBLUM seem to scream. We all jump on this because it IS important to point out.

 

I will claim this: Gear is not YOUR problem. If YOU have a problem, it's lack of experience at GSF, full stop. I linked you a thread with a guy in ships worse than yours doing better than any three of you, right?

 

 

A great pilot in base ship against anyone descent will lose like they should most of the time.

Interestingly, that's not what we see, and we actually run those ships against those pilots. And why the obsession with base ships? Mastered ship is 150k. Base ship is 0k. How about we talk about 20k ships versus 150k ships? Why never have that convo?

 

But you are correct that if two great pilots face off, one full mastered, one totally nude, the mastered one will come out ahead much of the time. It's not guaranteed as an outcome, but it's reasonable to assume it's the more common situation. Guess what? That's fine. That happens not very often. Again, unless you are running stock ships all night like Drako does, you VERY RAPIDLY are no longer stock, and the gap becomes much smaller.

 

 

If you don't want to acknowledge fact in a computer game based on statistical measures fine. Do so.

We actually do it with our actual ships and spend our actual time playing. That's what you are missing. You are like "if I was in combat versus some guy JUST LIKE ME but he has better gear, I would win". And you are used to this being MEANINGFUL in a statement, because in most MMOs, that's super crazy true. Here, it only TECHNICALLY is. His blaster deals 15% more damage than yours? Is that gonna determine the winner? This isn't the ground game, there's a lot more going on with positioning.

 

 

Don't buy gear. Pug in you ungeared ship. Use the wrong co-pilot skills. See if you win anything. You let us know if you face-roll them newbs.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=755330

 

I think we've done this before.

 

 

Maybe you didn't click. I'll quote:

 

I've been seeing a lot of what I'm going to assume are new players on the forums talk about how this game has no skill at all and that it's only about mastered ships and using premades to do well.

 

I was pretty sure this was very wrong as I think skill in this game is the most important aspect, as it should be in my opinion.

 

To test this I made new level 1's on multiple servers and after playing 1 game I would screenshot the scoreboard and my stats to prove I had no upgrades. I also deleted the characters afterwards to be able to play again with 0 upgrades.

 

Game #1 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #2 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #3 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #4 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #5 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

Game #6 Scoreboard / Proof of no upgrades

 

The games above clearly show that even in a ship with not only 0 upgrades but 0 new components I was still one of the most useful team members on my team in every game.

 

 

So that thing you said? That actually happens. Drako even has a twitch on it, you can watch him queue stock all night sometimes. And again- NO ONE is playing stock. It's not even a valid compare. Your first game, poof, not stock. You played stock once, ever.

 

 

As others have said req is getting made faster to gain because Bioware wants people to play GSF. I must not be the only one who looked at the climb and said not for this.

 

Yes, you join the chorus of THIS WHOLE FORUM who asked for faster rep gains, congrats. But 30% boost to req won't make you stop complaining... will it?

 

If it does, that would be pretty sweet!

Edited October 20, 2014 by Verain

[tunewalker]

The mention about how we agree on pretty much nothing else Verain made me laugh because of Truth. We all agree, gear matters little but cant agree on any other balance changes.

[Magira]

You should be able to quest for ship unlocks and gear unlocks.

 

I'm forced to do PVE to play PVP? The worst idea ever.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Magira

[Danalon]

The mention about how we agree on pretty much nothing else Verain made me laugh because of Truth. We all agree, gear matters little but cant agree on any other balance changes.

It almost moved me to tears.

 

 

The biggest problem for new players probably is that they don't know why they died and so they assume it's because of gear. To be honest I thought the same in the beginning, but my reaction wasn't "they got more gear and are overpowered, that's unfair" instead I thought "I want to get that gear and be so op". But it seems like most players don't want to put effort in getting better, in the matter of gear or skill. As I progressed towards mastering a ship and also started another toon and when playing GSF with the new one I noticed that I was way better than when I started with my first character. Over time I started playing GSF on about 10 characters and I gear does matter but after you spent the first 30-40k requisition on a ship its almost as good as mastered.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Danalon

[MiaowZedong]

The mention about how we agree on pretty much nothing else Verain made me laugh because of Truth. We all agree, gear matters little but cant agree on any other balance changes.

The thing to remember about gear is that it matters relative to the player's skill level. I actually think it's more impatcful than people generally admit, a factor of two, maybe three. But this is applied to the player's performance, which is by far a bigger factor.

 

Doing two or three times as well when you only manage 1k damage in a game is still only 2k or 3k damage, which still sucks, and probably won't even meaningfully impact the player's experience. At the other end of the scoreboard, an elite player swapping into a stock ship will probably have a real impact on the match, but they'll still be near the top of the scoreboard even if they're not truly dominating anymore.

 

I think the real reason people sometimes exagerate the importance of gear is that while you grind up your first mastered ships, you also gain experience and improve your skill as a player. The combination of experience times gear means you probably increase your performance twentyfold by the time you've mastered your first ship, but it is very much not possibly to do so with gear alone.

 

To be honest, if your skill level is zero, then zero times anything is still zero. You could be given missiles that one shot everything with 0.5 sec lockons and no CD, if you don't know how to launch missiles it won't help you

Edited October 21, 2014 by MiaowZedong