Designating a GSF 'Minor League' Server

[caederon]

I propose that veteran GSF pilots, particularly those frequenting this forum, select a server, designate it as the Minor League GSF server, and enact the following policies:

 

1. Veterans who have played more than 250 games, who average >30k damage/match, or who average >15 k+a per/match will refrain from playing competitively on the MLGSF server. Mentoring or other instructional flying is acceptable and encouraged, but fly a T2 strike, T3 scout, or T2 'double torpedo' gunship. Or fly stock, all the time.

 

2. Inform new pilots on all other servers that the MLGSF server exists and is a safer space to learn the game. Post this message frequently in the GSF channel and at the start of matches. Funnel those who want a less intense, less competitive, less 'immediately blown up' experience to check it out.

 

3. Strongly discourage 3-capping in MLGSF. It's likely to happen less, anyway, but creating a culture where it is actively discouraged will allow new pilots more time in matches to acclimate to the game.

 

4. Encourage players to graduate from MLGSF play once they have learned the game and feel comfortable, but just like minor leagues for pro sports, there are 'career' minor leaguers. That's ok, they are playing the game they love in an environment that suits them. Establish suggested thresholds to meet which indicate a pilot is ready to advance.

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Which server would host this version of GSF? Maybe Begeren Colony, POT5, or Jung Ma, which anecdotally seem to have largely or wholly lost their veteran populations already. If there's a better suggestion, let's hear it.

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I realize this idea has a pretty slim chance of working for many reasons. Convincing new pilots to try a different server is a hurdle. Convincing natives of the chosen server to play along is another. Getting enough pilots there to make queues pop reliably would be a concern.

 

If the idea has any merit, pick it apart and discuss it and maybe we'll find a way to enact it.

 

Despon

[Reghas]

If you want a server with literally no interference at all where you could actually form a "minor league" training matches, whatever It would be my good old hometown of Prophecy of the Five.

 

It is the definition of Ghost Town. It's GSF ques seem to be popping again after we left, however its still rather small mainly solo players trying it out for the first time. with 1-3games every two hours max.

 

You can really organize it here. Consider it.

[Ramalina]

Well more population is always nice, but I don't think we on Jung Ma have ever heard of this, "organization," thing. What exactly is it? I think someone tried visiting to explain once and wound up stomping away muttering something about herding cats.

 

On the upside, the matchmaking queue already pretty much enforces a mastered-ship perma-ban for solo queuing. Doesn't do much good when folks like Tommm or Tsuk come back to visit in terms of noobs being farmed into oblivion, but such visits are pretty rare.

 

The ship mix is pretty starter heavy and not all that meta even for 4-5 ship hangars. Pilot skill tends to range from noob to strongish-mediocre. Queue pops are extremely variable and range from barren to non-stop for up to 2-3 hours.

 

I'm also not on enough to really be called available for mentoring, and I don't know that anyone else is either.

 

Overall the idea has merit, but there are enough hurdles to implementation that I'm not sure that it's really workable. Cross server, or some sort of web page/game interface that tells queue numbers and matchmaking rating by server would possibly be more successful. Of course they're probably also even less likely to happen.

[RickDagles]

I like the idea, and I think it would be fun to fly those 'Tier 2' ships. However, I think it would be pretty hard to organize this. I think a lot of the people that follow the forums are probably in the major leagues. It's the people that don't read the forums or talk in GSF channel that would benefit most from this.

 

I'd like to at least do a 'Tier 2' super serious night. We could do it on Harbinger where there is a steady population of good "minor league" pilots that fly meta ships.

Edited August 16, 2015 by RickDagles

[tormrook]

I'd like to at least do a 'Tier 2' super serious night. We could do it on Harbinger where there is a steady population of good "minor league" pilots that fly meta ships.

 

I'd be thrilled with something like this on Harbinger. I have just started playing GSF and have been trying my best to read up on it and start building up a meta ship but it is quite a steep learning curve it seems. There are clearly some great pilots on Harbinger and something like that would probably be really helpful.

[Bolo_Yeung]

The problem with Harbinger (and all West Coast servers) is that players from Europe have really bad latency there. It is playable but not always pleasant.

For me, the best solution would be some of East Coast server... however don't know how much people from Australia/eastern Asia is playing GSF...

Edited August 19, 2015 by Bolo_Yeung
Typos

[zaskar]

I think we should reverse this. All servers but 1 maybe 2 are minor leagues.

 

On the major league servers if your premade group you fly with all the time is absolutely destroying the other teams, you should break your group up and help the new players out, not continue to win 1000/0 or 50/1 over and over driving new pilots away.

 

With a community as small as ours attracting new members is pretty damn important and unsportsmanlike conduct is not the way to go about community building. There is very little anyone can say to defend being epeen polishers. Its like the records thread, those are not rankings. Those are people taken advantage of a good for them, bad for everyone else situation.

[Nemarus]

Eclipse Squadron is pretty tied to TEH. We are a very large guild, with a guildship, and are not easily transfered. We are also probably one of the broader communities in terms of number of competent pilots (even if we are lighter on super aces). I do not think TEH would be a good candidate for an amateur server.

 

That being said, I think we generally play a bit nicer than some other servers do. Eclipse Squadron members certainly try to split up skill between groups/sides. And we have good rivals in Saberwing.

 

If anything, I'd say that TEH represents a relatively healthy spectrum of talent--as healthy as GSF can get anyway.

[zaskar]

Eclipse Squadron is pretty tied to TEH. We are a very large guild, with a guildship, and are not easily transfered. We are also probably one of the broader communities in terms of number of competent pilots (even if we are lighter on super aces). I do not think TEH would be a good candidate for an amateur server.

 

That being said, I think we generally play a bit nicer than some other servers do. Eclipse Squadron members certainly try to split up skill between groups/sides. And we have good rivals in Saberwing.

 

If anything, I'd say that TEH represents a relatively healthy spectrum of talent--as healthy as GSF can get anyway.

 

The TEH queue is very strange. That server has a very healthy group (during peak hours) of dedicated pilots, yes however, there are large factions that whine if the match does not go by the TEH playbook. The whining becomes belittling to newer players and vile towards veterans.

 

Because of the vigor in which TEH factions lash out at new players for trying to learn, I'd classify it as the Lucha Libre server! Pure drama with some mild action.

[Nemarus]

The TEH queue is very strange. That server has a very healthy group (during peak hours) of dedicated pilots, yes however, there are large factions that whine if the match does not go by the TEH playbook. The whining becomes belittling to newer players and vile towards veterans.

 

Because of the vigor in which TEH factions lash out at new players for trying to learn, I'd classify it as the Lucha Libre server! Pure drama with some mild action.

 

IS THAT A CHALLENGE?!?!?!

[zaskar]

umm, sure?

[caederon]

Its like the records thread, those are not rankings. Those are people taken advantage of a good for them, bad for everyone else situation.

This is a matter for another thread, but I will offer a short take on the records thread here, since it was brought up. I derive motivation from measuring my performance against my peers. With no records thread, I would never have branched out to other servers, and would probably have quit playing or played only sporadically.

 

My reason for going to other servers was that I saw the accomplishments of the top players and wondered if I could do the same, and also wanted to know if their playing field was different than mine. So I sought out the people that topped the lists and played with and against them, in order to better evaluate my own performance and to help me improve my skills. I thought that I could never challenge the kinds of numbers I saw on the records board, until I did. It helped my confidence grow and pushed me to keep pushing myself.

 

Some people derive motivation from competition, and satisfaction from outperforming others. Some want to master a particular niche, to become the best at a specific skill. Metrics are necessary to judge performance. Between the single-match records and Drak's career average records, there are a lot of barometers to use in judging where a pilot stands. I think taken together they provide a pretty good picture of what is possible for GSF pilots to achieve. They aren't perfect, and don't measure every single facet of piloting, but that doesn't mean they have no value or are simply a venue to boast.

 

Some people are less competitive, and just enjoy playing the game. That's great for them, too. That's also the point of this discussion, which is trying to direct players to the servers that best represent the sort of environment they would be happy playing in. Also, to a lesser degree, it's about concentrating players on as few severs as possible to increase the availability of queue pops.

 

Despon