No mention of GSF in roadmap for all of 2015?

[nyghtrunner]

The potential benefit of a "player council" is that the devs could see, at a glance, the stuff that is just accepted as true by the community, without some guy coming in and screaming about how seeker mine is too powerful or whatever. The cost would be silencing a lot of other voices, a heavy price to pay just to keep a thread or forum clean.

In large part, this was my thought. Any potential devs trying to figure out what we might want for GSF by digging through the forums would need to dig through countless useless posts in order to actually get any idea what our little community might actually like to see, or any kind of priority.

 

If we could sort of centralize several of the best ideas, and come up with some kind of priority list for things we'd love to see, it might be a way to help them help us. We'd be tasked with coming up with a solid, organized list of wants that we could then hand to BW. It's absolutely doing some of their work for them, but it's also showing that we care enough to actually do some of that work. Hell, I'd love to dev GSF stuff for them, but that's never going to happen for a variety of reasons (Not the least of which is that I've never developed anything even remotely like this... And they'd never release the codebase to no-name programmer who wants to extend one of their modules).

 

This idea is the closest thing I could think of to meeting them halfway, and trying to show them that there's at the very least, a passionate set of fans for this particular module who is willing to donate some amount of work/time to improving GSF.

 

And there's kind of a part of me that thinks it might carry more weight if people like Drak are involved, since those people already do a lot for the community on their own time. I know you, Verain, have made some very good posts backed with numbers and theory. Drak obviously does everything he does with organizing events, streaming, and trying to post helpful vids. I've seen Tommmsunb doing some really good vids and offering good advice to people lately. Scrabs has too, although I haven't seen him in ages. Nem's big on TEH's community, as leader of Eclipse, but he also posts reasonable ideas and such here in the forums. In some ways, a lot of you are kind of de facto Representatives of the community whether you've realized it or not.

 

Which is why I somewhat disagree with the assessment of the price being silencing the community at large (or some number of voices within the community). I look at it as more of trying to filter out the good from the bad when it comes to forum posts. An organizational effort. Kind of setting up a middle-man, or set of community Representatives, so that BW doesn't need to bother reading all the posts out there that are effectively:

 

"ZOMG! Battlescouts needz nerf-bat because Gunsheeps are grossly OP'd because they can't killz bombers because battlescouts are OP'd and bombers blow up satellites and ion rail suxxorz when I shoot someone and they don't blow up because battlescouts and bombers! Fix now! RAWR! ANGER-MOUSE!!!"

 

You all are some of the most identifiable entities tied to this module, and I can't help but think that an organized community effort with you all at the head might carry more weight than another series of posts on the forums. Might make no difference at all, but it's the best solution I could come up with given the circumstances. And I try to be an optimist sometimes anyway.

[Ramalina]

I was under the impression that they have people whose job it is to read through the forums and sift out the promising nuggets from all the chaff, and then pass that on to the people who might be able to act on it.

 

Certainly there were strong hints when there was active development on GSF going on that the devs were either getting a filtered version of forum feedback, or possibly even reading some of the more promising threads themselves.

 

Where we're at now feels like there was a big effort to make GSF, but interest at higher levels waned when there wasn't a corresponding increase in revenue. This might potentially be solved, but I'm not sure that the folks writing the checks are interesting in writing another to cover what would be needed to take GSF from playable to: "marketable* within SWTOR's existing business model."

 

*As in removing the current barriers** in it's implementation that make it very difficult to make money off of GSF via subscriptions and CC purchases, but without any guarantee that after having had those barriers in place for 13 months a vast swarm of players will suddenly come by to throw money at Bioware.

 

**New player experience for GSF sucks, GSF related CC art assets and other rewards are mostly only (poorly) visible in the hangar interface and not impressive and easily displayed in public.

 

Maybe they should offer "GSF developer time" tokens in the cartel market or in the SWTOR store.

[CommanderOtto]

well, not long ago, I had absolutely no interest in starfighter...but I started playing it again, and I wish I had played more often.

 

However, these are the things that stopped me from playing GSF in the first place:

 

1. After playing Star Wars Galaxies, I felt that it was pretty stupid that SWTOR couldn't make GSF as fun (and complete) as space combat in a game that was more than a decade old. In Star Wars Galaxies, we had a variety of quests in various planets, and several schematics that allowed players to craft and/or obtain an endless list of ships. You could find anything from a TIE Fighter to the Millenium Falcon. Hell, you could even buy a space yatch that had no combat capabilities, but had some huge windows with a nice view and an internal bar to entertain friends. The ships could be decorated any way you wanted, you could add trophies, posters, chairs, sofas and all sorts of things inside your ship. You could also invite friends and they could man turrets to increase damage while you piloted the ship. You could also fly your ship within the atmosphere for transportation and land it on a platform. And of course, space was a free to explore zone. There were dangerous zones and low level zones.... you could fight players and non-players alike. It was just a thousand times better than GSF.

 

2. GSF has a major issue: new players are destroyed on sight. As a more experienced player, I did much better when I created new toons, but it is still a very difficult for people who are just starting and have zero requisition. Additionally, this makes a very unbalanced game and ALSO HURTS EXPERIENCED PLAYERS. If we have only 3 people with bombers and 10 people with only the basics (Starfighter, Scout, Gunship) and no upgrades, then we loose, simple as that. It is unfair for both new players, and for experienced players. Please, add a bolster system similar to Warzones, based primarily on the amount of requisition. Low level total requisition goes in one group, higher level requisition goes in another group, OR, bolster the kids so they stand a chance, and so the team can also stand a chance. Sometimes I can't blame people for exiting the battle before it is over... because sometimes it is obvious the match will be a waste of your time.

 

3. Add more rewards!! Only rewards for starfighter are those damned Republic/Imperial Scout decoration models..... I feel Bioware has cheated us by adding our rewards as prizes for the cartel market (Gunships, Strikers).

Edited February 2, 2015 by CommanderOtto

[Bryanseven]

I tried galactic starfighter, found the tutorial lacking, the imp side (my preferred faction) ships butt ugly and the most importantly, the game had ZERO tie in with my characters.

 

I wanted to like it I really did, but since I feel no attachment to it because it is so disconnected from the rest of the game and unappealing artistically for me I ignore it. I think most players probably feel the same.

 

Sorry.

 

If they had tied the ship to other game modes ie made it a part of a conquest style pvp game that has you boarding or landing in it, or let me choose from more diverse and appealing skins I might have stuck with it but none of these things happened.

[Verain]

I tried galactic starfighter, found the tutorial lacking, the imp side (my preferred faction) ships butt ugly and the most importantly, the game had ZERO tie in with my characters.

 

While a lot of us are fans of the imperial bombers, gunships, and especially scouts, the ship diversity is very low, the cosmetic choices poor, and the strikes awful to gaze upon. No one will disagree that the tutorial is poor- the best thing you can say about it is that "at least it exists".

 

I wanted to like it I really did, but since I feel no attachment to it because it is so disconnected from the rest of the game and unappealing artistically for me I ignore it. I think most players probably feel the same.

 

You should not generally assume "most players probably feel the same". I actually suspect that you are correct about the disconnection, and I also strongly suspect that the lack of a pve module does hurt player interest. Adding a bit of connection (especially cosmetic elements) would be possible, but a pve module would likely gain support commensurate to a high amount of dev time spent.

 

If they had tied the ship to other game modes ie made it a part of a conquest style pvp game that has you boarding or landing in it

 

I just sort of doubt this was ever in the cards. If you need Star Wars: Battlefront (and many other players pop in saying they need X-Wing versus TIE Fighter), or any OTHER game, the space pvp just isn't going to hook you period.

 

 

 

 

It is interesting to speculate on ways they could make it more POPULAR or more PROFITABLE in addition to making it BETTER, or MORE COMPETITIVE or MORE FUN. The first two don't get that much attention- usually it's someone coming in and saying "I hate this part about the game balance, everyone else is just like me, so I'm rage quitting and so did everyone else". That isn't helpful or accurate, but pointing out systemic limitations as you do likely is a big deal.

 

I will point out that the game doesn't seem like it has a large amount of population difference on faction, so the cosmetics of the ships being notably worse on empire is likely not a big factor. But the lack of pve, the lack of tying it to the rest of the game, those generally do. The fact that new players will often zone in and get rolled isn't a big deal, but the fact that they will often get rolled without understand the context of said rolling probably IS a bigger deal. Without the expert knowledge of a ton of previous games, they often don't understand what is going on, and the ones that bother to come here and complain often talk about being one shot (meaning that the UI isn't intuitive enough for them, as they are missing all the shots preceding their destruction), complain about gear difference, often citing ludicrous numbers like "triple damage" or "unkillable enemies" (meaning that the actual numbers and effects of the upgrades are not visible or obvious, allowing the player to dismiss his poor play as being a gear issue).

 

Without the ability to look at a combat log, replay the match from third person (and other player's perspectives), or have a UI that does not require expertise and experience to parse, much of the information is left occult. That triangle that is wiggling left and right at the lower left of your targeting circle and getting imperceptibly brighter is a scout that has swapped to you... he is boosting towards you from off screen. Do you see that? If you've played a few hundred games, of course you have. If you are new, it's just more noise. The UI communicates a lot of information, but has a really damned long learning curve, and a few minor improvements would really help.

[Itkovian]

This thread makes me sad, and I'm afraid Nemarus is correct in his assessment... but I also hope he is successful in his generating developer attention and bringing about some improvements based on Verain's thread (which is an excellent effort).

 

It's unfortunate, as one only needs to look at Star Conflict to see how much potential there is for growth in GSF. It's rather unfortunate, as GSF has several things going for it over Star Conflict, beyond simple branding. For one thing, GSF is much faster-paced and exhilarating than SC, and has many features that add depth to it (missile employment, component progression, power distribution, and better dogfighting comes to mind).

 

That said, I don't think that complaining about the devs not focusing on GSF is going to help. Efforts like Verain's and Nemarus' are a good way to try and get some improvements our way... but if we want more, I think our only chance is to make it more popular.

 

How could this be achieved? Well efforts like the Flight Night are a good way to do it. Let's invite players to join us and come try it out, and try to minimize the main barriers new players face.

 

These barriers are naturally the bad matchmaking and very poor tutorial in the game, which means we have complete newbies getting matched up against Aces on their first matches, and getting completely demolished.

 

This is a major barrier to player retention, as a casual player who decides to just take a look can easily be driven away by it. Naturally we've all been there, including those of us in the Beta, but few people will want to keep queuing after getting thoroughly facestomped.

 

I guess what I think it comes down to is that we, as a community, need to make more efforts to be more welcoming and helpful to new players. There's already such efforts in progress (like the EH Flight Night, Drako's AMA, vids, and so on), but more could probably be done.

 

Perhaps some actual "newbie nights" or some such (Nugget Nights, to stick with the aviation theme ), where we actively invite people on the station or some such to team up and queue up, and we coordinate with the top guilds to take things easy. Less focus on winning, more on helping the new players have fun.

 

Just a thought, though I'm sure it's not an original one.

 

Thank you.

 

Itkovian

[Pherdnut]

One thing is preplexing me though. Why are they not doing PVE Starfighter-like sections in new expansions/story arc. They have the base already. Games score almost "automatic" review points for gameplay diversity. That's why people want "vehicle" sections even if they suck (Mass Effect 1 anyone).

 

Speaking as a former associate editor with Game Informer, I have no idea what you're talking about. If anything, anybody who remembers the '90s and earlier would be very wary of a lot of diversified elements because back in those days it was the kiss of death and still probably is for plenty of games we've never heard of. Star Wars needs starship play because it's Star Wars. But not every general audience member is going to want space combat sim-bran with their MMO flakes. Hence, they got a bit wishy washy about it and don't know what to do with the fact that the game isn't a colossal giant mega-success like the Cartel Market.

 

Speaking as a programmer, GSF has two problems. 1. It doesn't appear popular enough to warrant the attention we'd like. 2. It's a specialized code base developed by an independent team with a unique set of design concerns that don't tie in directly to anything else in the game. The cost in devs and design assets training themselves up on such a thing when they could be put to more immediate use elsewhere is a lot. And if there is one thing EA probably hasn't learned and never will learn to recognize the value of, it's putting a stop to the high dev turnover that could have mitigated those costs.

 

The best thing GSF fans can do is try to grow the community in spite of lack of development focus.

[erdems]

Speaking as a programmer, GSF has two problems. 1. It doesn't appear popular enough to warrant the attention we'd like.

.....

The best thing GSF fans can do is try to grow the community in spite of lack of development focus.

 

As a player i think it is their (BW) fault if GSF is not popular enough. wht did they expect? would it not be boring to play only two scenarios again and again? they could at least fix the economy of it. Was that so hard?

 

Most players dont waste their time for GSF because it gives almost nothing. there is no good reward system in GSF. As a regular, i know it is very annoying for me that those requisitions are useless after some point, that means we (regulars) gain almost nothing by doing dailies or weeklies or casual games (only good for extra credits).

 

And you say we should grow the community..

 

So, BW doesnt care because community doesnt grow and community doesnt grow because BW doesnt care...

Edited February 12, 2015 by erdems

[Borshorri]

A few ideas for them to grow the GSF segment of the game.

 

What BioWare needs to do:

1. Have more in game attention to GSF.

a. Strongholds takes up a whole section of the Fleet station, with additional space used on the planets you can buy strongholds. Why not do the same with GSF? Start by having a section constantly calling it out, showing it off, and have vendors with rewards from Fleet Commendations and Reputation.

b. Story based missions - a la Flashpoint, but for starfighter. How cool would it be to group with up to 4 friends and take on a mission with objectives and bosses in space?

c. PvP Seasons - this would probably be the easiest to implement, as there is already this type of tracking information available for leaderboards etc.

 

What we need to do:

1. Get more people playing the segment of the game.

a. If you are in a guild and have sway over what you do for events - get your guild playing Star Fighter! Use things in the guild bank for prizes, and conduct your own PvP seasons.

b. Maybe we take that a bit further, and create a Starfighter guild that is separate from the other guilds. Build a community online that has regular play times, and again hosts their own Seasons with donations from the community in the form of Credits and items? Entry Fee of Creds goes towards final prizes. It would take a lot of organizing, and trust, but if we put in the effort, and showed that to BioWare, I'm sure they would take a second look at GSF.

 

Anyway, just my two cents.

[Lendul]

a. Strongholds takes up a whole section of the Fleet station, with additional space used on the planets you can buy strongholds. Why not do the same with GSF? Start by having a section constantly calling it out, showing it off, and have vendors with rewards from Fleet Commendations and Reputation.

.

GSF does have this. Edited February 12, 2015 by Lendul

[Ryuku-sama]

GSF does have this.

 

Yup...

 

And about PvE. No. I prefer not having PvE for GSF than fighting a crappy AI that would be so easy easy to defeat I could do it on a stock Imperium without firing anything but lasers. Making an AI able to fight in 3D, against very mobile opponents (we are so mobile the servers is often 1500m behind our location on our own screen if you we hold boost... (my record is 3000m with a ping of 45ms and stable connection) and no real aggro control like in ground PvP which actually forces a true AI.

[AlrikFassbauer]

If anything, anybody who remembers the '90s and earlier would be very wary of a lot of diversified elements because back in those days it was the kiss of death and still probably is for plenty of games we've never heard of.

 

That was the reason why thousands of Diablo clones reached the surface ? All that games lacking uniqueness and "diversified elements" ?

 

The industry has forced "diversified elements" so much out of games that the PC games market has degenerated into being dominated by 2-3 genres : Shooters, RPG, RTS.

Everything else just died out - yes, even whole genres ! - because "diversified game elements = risk = less profits".

 

. It's a specialized code base developed by an independent team with a unique set of design concerns that don't tie in directly to anything else in the game.

 

I agree here - it can clearly be seen by the fact that GSF is the ONLY part in SWTOR without ANY sound in Windows XP.

They did GSF for Windows 7, or maybe for Vista as well - perhaps even using the new driver model.

Which also tells me that the GSF developers weren't using Windows XP, either. They probanly saw the ship [Windows XP] already sinking when doing GSF - meanwhile even the Revan expansion and all Strongholds do contain sound in Windows XP: What they did clearly NOT see was that SWTOR was built for Windows XP, and *not* for Windoiws Vista or Seven ...

 

These barriers are naturally the bad matchmaking and very poor tutorial in the game, which means we have complete newbies getting matched up against Aces on their first matches, and getting completely demolished.

 

Brackets like in ground PvP would be a step into the right direction, imho.

Edited February 13, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[arkanone]

The best thing GSF fans can do is try to grow the community in spite of lack of development focus.

 

1) Where is the Death Star to blow up? Or even a capital ship? When were ship battles in Star Wars ever about capturing "nodes"??

 

2) No ground at all. Why?

 

3) The only PVE targets are satellite turrets.

 

4) No effort at all to balance gunships and bombers. The GSF "community" that uses those ships in packs are as much of the problem as anything.

[Verain]

1) Where is the Death Star to blow up? Or even a capital ship? When were ship battles in Star Wars ever about capturing "nodes"??

 

All pvp in this game is about objectives that are interesting to play, not just interesting to watch if you have a story interest in the characters, who will actually really die if they fail to complete an objective.

 

PvE scenarios would obviously be great inclusions, and so would scenarios that involve capital ships as more than just interesting geography to line of sight with.

 

2) No ground at all. Why?

 

Because it would be hard to do ground with the models, and likely because the Starfighters have different physics close to the ground or something. This is a totally fine decision given how fast the ships move and how detailed the ground would have to be.

 

4) No effort at all to balance gunships and bombers. The GSF "community" that uses those ships in packs are as much of the problem as anything.

 

Gunships and bombers are both pretty balanced. We talk about balance in other threads that are not this one. It's funny that you left scouts out of your rant, given how WILDLY powerful they are. Blaming the community for realizing the game isn't *just* "pick a scout because it's best at dogfighting, win everything forever" is ludicrous. If the game was just dogfighting, it would be an empty shell. Ships with different capabilities are a great part of this game.

 

Also note: You are trying to turn the thread into a gunship/bomber QQ thread. Yet another class QQ thread. How exciting.

[StrixHiraeth]

1. It doesn't appear popular enough to warrant the attention we'd like.

 

Seems everyone agrees on this point. So, how popular would it have to be to get that attention, I wonder? Seems to me that if even a few hundred people subscribe for GSF it would be profitable and therefore deserving of continued development... right?

[Pietrastor]

Speaking as a former associate editor with Game Informer, I have no idea what you're talking about. If anything, anybody who remembers the '90s and earlier

How about last 15 years? Assassin's Creed, GTA, Mass Effect all score automatic review points for gameplay diversity "omg you can play golf in GTA 10/10". Sorry, but that's how industry press acts nowadays in general. And frankly, no wonder. The games have become so simplistic anything that breaks down the monotony of cover shooter is seen as a plus. Many games rely on "sum of its parts is greater than individual parts". Edited February 15, 2015 by Pietrastor

[ALaggyGrunt]

Seems everyone agrees on this point. So, how popular would it have to be to get that attention, I wonder? Seems to me that if even a few hundred people subscribe for GSF it would be profitable and therefore deserving of continued development... right?

 

Yes, and no. They don't have a way to tell them"Why did you (re-)sub"/"What part of this game matters most to you?", just a "Why did you unsub?" one. GSF isn't even listed in the multiple choices.

[StrixHiraeth]

Yes, and no. They don't have a way to tell them"Why did you (re-)sub"/"What part of this game matters most to you?", just a "Why did you unsub?" one. GSF isn't even listed in the multiple choices.

 

Surely there are internal metrics that track subscribers' activity in-game, though. Well, here's hoping!

[ALaggyGrunt]

Probably, but with dead queues (which are usually what I come home from work to), that won't tell them anything.

[JonnyRay]

In the 80's and 90's, I was big time into flight/space fighter sims. Went "all-in" with custom joysticks, left hand controllers, etc. I also had a great time with space combat in SWG. When I decided to return to SWTOR, the addition of GSF had a lot to do with that.

 

However, even with the experience I had, it is a bit hard to get into. The progression is slow. The tutorial doesn't do enough to help new players understand what's going on. Granted some of that is because human opponents are unpredictable. But I'm not sure a "PvE" element would help much. On the ground game, people tend to be either PvE or PvP, there isn't a lot of progression from one to the other.

 

Overall, I'm afraid that those who enjoy fighter sims have always been a smaller part of the overall gaming community. This is one of the reasons that you don't see as many of them anymore.

 

I don't have enough of a basis in GSF to judge / predict what 2015 may look like. But I think it is an important data point to bring up that even with a "bolster" or something, the percentage of SWTOR players who would be interested in playing a fighter sim may never represent a large population of players.

 

One suggestion I might make for the GSF community ... Why aren't there any GSF oriented guides on Dulfy? Or even a sticky thread or two here on these forums? If someone tries a GSF match or two and wants to learn more, there don't seem to be many good sources to read up on things to help with the learning curve.

 

It isn't easy to explain fight tactics via written words; however even something as basic as an analysis of the various engine / weapon / component systems on the ships would help a lot to make sure one isn't spending their precious req points on the wrong things.

[Lendul]

...

One suggestion I might make for the GSF community ... Why aren't there any GSF oriented guides on Dulfy? Or even a sticky thread or two here on these forums? If someone tries a GSF match or two and wants to learn more, there don't seem to be many good sources to read up on things to help with the learning curve.

 

...

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/15/swtor-galactic-starfighter-new-player-guide/ Edited February 17, 2015 by Lendul

[caederon]

The forum moderators here have, for a very long time, ignored requests to sticky the obvious and most complete guide for new players -

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

 

In addition there is a wealth of great video training and observation material recorded by Drakolich, you can check out his Twitch stream's recorded broadcasts...

http://www.twitch.tv/drakolich/profile

 

There are lots of videos on YouTube by various GSFers. There are lots of veterans on pretty much any server (or who will come to any server) that you can ask for advice, or to group with.

 

There is a whole community of people wanting this game to succeed, and doing quite a bit to perpetuate interest. All it takes is a little effort to initiate communication or look up info, and you can be on your way to understanding the game and performing better.

 

- Despon

[JonnyRay]

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/15/swtor-galactic-starfighter-new-player-guide/

Doh!

 

I visit Dulfy nearly every day (to see the headlines from the SWTOR world). Never noticed there was anything GSF related there. Now I found the category she uses. Galactic Starfighter on Dulfy.net.

 

There are lots of veterans on pretty much any server (or who will come to any server) that you can ask for advice, or to group with.

 

There is a whole community of people wanting this game to succeed, and doing quite a bit to perpetuate interest. All it takes is a little effort to initiate communication or look up info, and you can be on your way to understanding the game and performing better.

 

- Despon

Several good bits of info there, Despon, but I wanted to highlight your comment about the veterans on the servers. I'm on The Ebon Hawk and found the community there to be one of the most positive PvP communities I've ever seen in an MMO. Even when there are rivals kicking our arse, the comments are still ones of respect for the other pilots.

 

Granted, I only joined the GSF channel there this past week; so I'm sure there are trolls somewhere. There are always a few in any online community. But for the most part I found them quite welcoming to a newbie pilot and willing to share knowledge when asked.

[Jrr_hypernova]

The very least they could do is throw some rep items from the pve space mission vendor on the GSF weeklys and dailies

[Fractalsponge]

The forum moderators here have, for a very long time, ignored requests to sticky the obvious and most complete guide for new players -

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

 

I would bet these forums are completely unmoderated apart from direct post reports for spam/etc.