A new era in GSF? It looks like server merges are coming

[Nemarus]

Nevermind.

There are some hints from certain reddit sources that megaservers are coming:

 

1) You will soon be able to have spaces in names. First + Last names will increase the likelihood everyone can keep unique names they want, even after a server merge.

 

2) You will be able to set your 'focus' as PvE or PvP, which will steer you toward PvE or PvP instances of every zone where open world combat can occur. This removes the need for separate PvE / PvP servers.

 

I don't see any other reason for these two changes other than merging into megaservers. If this happens, each megaserver may actually have enough GSF population to facilitate decent matchmaking. That leads to more competitive matches for veterans and gentler matches for new pilots (assuming the matchmaking algorithm actually works as advertised). If that happens, then GSF population might actually grow.

 

Current theory is that there will be two servers for US--West and East, and then one server for every European language.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Nemarus

[FlavivsAetivs]

There are some hints from certain reddit sources that megaservers are coming:

 

1) You will soon be able to have spaces in names. First + Last names will increase the likelihood everyone can keep unique names they want, even after a server merge.

 

2) You will be able to set your 'focus' as PvE or PvP, which will steer you toward PvE or PvP instances of every zone where open world combat can occur. This removes the need for separate PvE / PvP servers.

 

I don't see any other reason for these two changes other than merging into megaservers. If this happens, each megaserver may actually have enough GSF population to facilitate decent matchmaking. That leads to more competitive matches for veterans and gentler matches for new pilots (assuming the matchmaking algorithm actually works as advertised). If that happens, then GSF population might actually grow.

 

Current theory is that there will be two servers for US--West and East, and then one server for every European language.

 

I can't keep my name

 

This might be a new era of GSF, but this is always a sign that the game is coming to an end.

 

~ Eudoxia

[Lendul]

Let me be the first to welcome you all to The Harbinger

 

And servers/shards are an outdated thing of times past.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Lendul

[DakhathKilrathi]

I'll believe it when I see it. I fully expect this to stall before they actually progress. Datamined content doesn't always make it into the game, and this is big enough that I have my doubts. I'm sure they would like to, eventually, but my expectations are not high.

 

It'd be great for the game if they did it, but I don't believe their backend can support it. See: all the ability delay every time there are several instances of the same planet. Even if it could, they've been talking about "better than cross-server" for what, well over a year now?

 

I can't keep my name

 

This might be a new era of GSF, but this is always a sign that the game is coming to an end.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

 

lol

 

Be sure to tell that to GW2 and ESO. ESO even started with megaservers, and while they were forced to go B2P, they're in a healthy state now. Arguably healthier than SWTOR. It will be good for literally all group content if they can pull it off.

Edited February 23, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[FlavivsAetivs]

As a member of Jedi Cov's raiding community, I have watched it drop from over 100+ unique players to probably around 20 on pub side alone, since I started raiding in June. Imp Side's largest raiding guild on my server all quit and went to WOW. I'm probably going to loose my best friend in the game because of it too. A Megaserver won't save the PvE community. So no, it's not good for all group content. In fact it will probably make group finder and pugs even worse.

 

My issue is that if they do a Megaserver, GSF is going to absolutely suck. Jedi Covenant is currently the only server where you pretty much never have a Gunship/Bomber wall with BLC scouts mixed in. Most people on Jedi Covenant actually fly non-meta ships, and both Traesha and I have discussed that GSF is probably something we're going to queue a lot less for once we end up with Eclipse and SRW on the same server. We don't like the walls and the BLC scouts, there's nothing fun about constantly going up against them, irrelevant of whether or not you have a wall on your side too. We want Veteran players again on Jedi Cov, but we don't want anything like what Harbinger is.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 23, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[DakhathKilrathi]

As a member of Jedi Cov's raiding community, I have watched it drop from over 200+ unique players to probably around 20 on pub side alone, since I started raiding in June. A Megaserver won't save the PvE community. So no, it's not good for all group content. In fact it will probably make group finder and pugs even worse.

 

My issue is that if they do a Megaserver, GSF is going to absolutely suck. Jedi Covenant is currently the only server where you pretty much never have a Gunship/Bomber wall with BLC scouts mixed in. Most people on Jedi Covenant actually fly non-meta ships, and both Traesha and I have discussed that GSF is probably something we're going to queue a lot less for once we end up with Eclipse and SRW on the same server. We don't like the walls and the BLC scouts, there's nothing fun about constantly going up against them, irrelevant of whether or not you have a wall on your side too. We want Veteran players again on Jedi Cov, but we don't want anything like what Harbinger is.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

A great deal of Eclipse Squadron has the same problem with playing to win that you do. I don't really understand queueing for PVP if your goal isn't winning, but I can sympathize with not liking change. Personally, I like the competition. I play to improve, and TEH has been pretty boring lately. You'll still see lopsided games no matter what. I wouldn't worry too much about matchmaking actually functioning, given the way it works.

[FlavivsAetivs]

We do play to win. We just don't like the walls always created by people in meta ships.

 

I'm a strike fighter pilot. I hate gunships and flashfires (and Rycer/Star Guards) . I hunt Gunships into oblivion, and joust with BLC scouts and win (except against Matsue... damn him, and now there's that Selvik-or guy running around...). But when you have a wall where you have 3 gunships targeting you every time you come into range + whatever the bombers have dropped, and you can't switch your directional shields to focus on an enemy because the instant you do you either get one-shotted by a gunship or BLC scout, it's not fun.

 

Jedi Cov has always been the casual GSF server. We don't want Harbinger's environment and matches, which always seem to be purely walls of meta ships.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 23, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[Pietrastor]

If mega server happens, great. It's gonna be good for all kinds of group content. Larger player pool, playing at different hours around the world = more consistient and frequent pops. Fact.

 

My issue is that if they do a Megaserver, GSF is going to absolutely suck. Jedi Covenant is currently the only server where you pretty much never have a Gunship/Bomber wall with BLC scouts mixed in. Most people on Jedi Covenant actually fly non-meta ships, and both Traesha and I have discussed that GSF is probably something we're going to queue a lot less for once we end up with Eclipse and SRW on the same server. We don't like the walls and the BLC scouts, there's nothing fun about constantly going up against them, irrelevant of whether or not you have a wall on your side too. We want Veteran players again on Jedi Cov, but we don't want anything like what Harbinger is.

 

~ Eudoxia

And what's better? Eudoxia getting his favourite setup of ships or more players getting a chance to participate in it AT ALL? Do you realize how hard it is to get a pop at all on some smaller servers? How long you can wait even on bigger servers outside prime hours? That it is absolutely impossible to do separate queues for veteran and newbie players right now with such small population separated by servers? Edited February 23, 2016 by Pietrastor

[DakhathKilrathi]

We do play to win.

 

I'm a strike fighter pilot.

 

These two things are mutually exclusive.

[FlavivsAetivs]

And what's better? Eudoxia getting his favourite setup of ships or more players getting a chance to participate in it AT ALL? Do you realize how hard it is to get a pop at all on some smaller servers? How long you can wait even on bigger servers outside prime hours? That it is absolutely impossible to do separate queues for veteran and newbie players right now with such small population separated by servers?

 

1. The only time Jedi Cov doesn't pop is about from 1 AM to about 12 PM EST. Sometimes we get slow days when it doesn't start popping till like 4 PM, but other than that it's pretty regular. The pops don't take 30 seconds like on Harb, usually more like 15 minutes, but we're active.

 

2. My favorite setup of ships is Clarion. I keep a Flashfire on my bar if I end up being forced to use one (and by then I'm infuriated anyways and I suck in a flashfire so it only makes me madder as I die even more), and a Tensor if someone asks for a Tensor, but that's it.

 

These two things are mutually exclusive.

 

No, they're not.

 

The only ships that beat Clarion are Gunship and t2 scout. Rampart is called a Meta ship but I don't see why, I can hang out of range and protorp it to death, outrun it, and can eat its shields down faster than it can eat mine. Even if it has DR, Protorps ignore that. Quads and passes work fine if it's not a DR build. And its mines are effectively useless against a Clarion unless you do something absolutely stupid like intentionally run through them.

 

Barring (more than one) Gunship/or a T2 scout nothing else beats Clarion. T1/T2 Strikes, T1/T3 Scouts, any bomber except a good sledgehammer pilot, and any gunship without ion snare doing weapon power reduction are cannon fodder.

 

The reason you all can't do this is because you all think it's a support ship...

 

I don't claim to be the best pilot there is. I've fought against the members of Harb and SRW, they're WAY better than me. I just claim y'all consistently throw strikes out the window for no reason.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 24, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[Pietrastor]

1. The only time Jedi Cov doesn't pop is about from 1 AM to about 12 PM EST. Sometimes we get slow days when it doesn't start popping till like 4 PM, but other than that it's pretty regular. The pops don't take 30 seconds like on Harb, usually more like 15 minutes, but we're active.

To sum up: you have no argument and you're against it just cause. OK.

[FlavivsAetivs]

My argument against it is the damn Gunship/Bomber walls, not about how often it queues.

 

You think Gunship walls are really going to make things better for noobs? I'd say Jedi Cov is the most noob-friendly server there is because we rarely have them.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 24, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[caederon]

I can understand the impulse to keep separate server identities with their own regional flavor in place, though I've found most regions taste sour, bitter, or bland... and some are chewed up far too easily.

 

Nothing would be better for the health of GSF as it is now than greatly enlarging the pool of players. Being able to play when you want, as much as you want, against appropriately skilled competition would make things infinitely better than the current state of affairs. It would give the matchmaking algorithm the fuel it needs to run competitive matches. It would eliminate lopsided servers where one faction is constantly dominant.

 

Most of all, it would allow people to play GSF who have until now been limited by their server choice. Not everyone wants to have a character on every server, not everyone wants to take the time to build up a hangar everywhere. Eliminating these pointless barriers from the game would be a very positive development.

 

Bring on mega-servers.

 

Despon

[Ramalina]

Given the amount of trouble they have keeping Harbinger up and functioning smoothly, I hope they don't try megaservers before some substantial improvements happen on the server end.

 

Harb's queues do pop nicely, but it's the most consistently laggy and crash prone server I've ever spent time on.

 

The empty servers on the other hand, are very, very stable.

 

They need to figure out how to handle more than 150 people in a zone without performance going down the drain before they attempt mass consolidation. If the past 3 months are any indication, they're not remotely near that point yet.

[Greezt]

No, they're not.

 

The only ships that beat Clarion are Gunship and t2 scout. Rampart is called a Meta ship but I don't see why, I can hang out of range and protorp it to death, outrun it, and can eat its shields down faster than it can eat mine. Even if it has DR, Protorps ignore that. Quads and passes work fine if it's not a DR build. And its mines are effectively useless against a Clarion unless you do something absolutely stupid like intentionally run through them.

 

Barring (more than one) Gunship/or a T2 scout nothing else beats Clarion. T1/T2 Strikes, T1/T3 Scouts, any bomber except a good sledgehammer pilot, and any gunship without ion snare doing weapon power reduction are cannon fodder.

 

The reason you all can't do this is because you all think it's a support ship...

 

I don't claim to be the best pilot there is. I've fought against the members of Harb and SRW. I just claim y'all consistently throw strikes out the window for no reason.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

All of this is patently not true. Strikes are not competitive, and I say this as someone whose favorite ships are the T1 and T2 strikes.

 

A single seismic mine deals more damage than a clarion can heal in a minute, and you can eat four of them. You could build a CP clarion and survive them better, but that doesn't matter because you can't actually hurt a CP bomber, except with torps. You can't consistently land torps against any good bomber on a node, except if you're being assisted by gunships or scouts (and they can kill bombers without the clarion).

 

The T1 scout can outburst a clarion too, as can the T3 (although it's generally used for tensor). They can't face tank a clarion, but why should they? A good scout outmaneuvers you and kills you from its advantage point.

 

In fact the clarion IS a support ship. It can't fly far (even compared to other strikes), its damage is mediocre at best without combat command (and its survivability is bad without repair probes...), and its main attributes are team assisting systems abilities.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Greezt

[caederon]

Maybe if they deploy their Mega-Server technology, and it actually runs smoothly, and GSF matches are suddenly easy to get into, and many people are playing... maybe then they will make good on their promise of strike fighter buffs.

 

Maybe!

 

Despon

[FlavivsAetivs]

A single seismic mine deals more damage than a clarion can heal in a minute, and you can eat four of them. You could build a CP clarion and survive them better, but that doesn't matter because you can't actually hurt a CP bomber, except with torps. You can't consistently land torps against any good bomber on a node, except if you're being assisted by gunships or scouts (and they can kill bombers without the clarion).

 

Yes, you can. I kill Traesha, who is arguably one of the best bomber pilots in the game, all the time in my Clarion. She has no defense against it if she's in a bomber, except breaking the lock via LOS. If she charges me, she dies. If she runs, she dies. If she circles the sat, she dies. She only kills me when I do stupid **** like run through her mines, get stuck dead in the water with no engines/shields/weapons cause of another ship helping (usually a gunship or BLC), or if she switches to a scout.

 

The T1 scout can outburst a clarion too, as can the T3 (although it's generally used for tensor). They can't face tank a clarion, but why should they? A good scout outmaneuvers you and kills you from its advantage point.

 

Okay, it can outburst and out maneuver and outrun a clarion. Force it into a joust. Force your enemy to play on your terms. And then exploit the server tick as they pass to fire a protorp effectively at the last minute or backwards and they can't dodge it due to reaction time/ping/whathave you.

 

Unless it's a T2 scout. BLC's you gotta just hope they retro while jousting so you get the extra quad shots in with wingman popped. Or be good bait for your allied gunship/bomber.

 

In fact the clarion IS a support ship. It can't fly far (even compared to other strikes), its damage is mediocre at best without combat command (and its survivability is bad without repair probes...), and its main attributes are team assisting systems abilities.

 

It's a Hunter/Killer ship. Not a support ship. Is it supposed to be a support ship? Yeah I guess. I still wreck enemies using it offensively (or at least I used to, evidently it's only been like 3 weeks and I'm way out of practice).

 

Patience is a virtue. Use it.

 

EDIT: I have a big ego, BTW. In actuality I'm not really mean or anything to other GSF'ers, and if they're better than me I compliment them. Traesha and I go at it a lot cause I think I'm better than her (*cough* I am *cough*) but she can tell you there's probably nobody on the server who's nicer to her.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 24, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[Pietrastor]

My argument against it is the damn Gunship/Bomber walls, not about how often it queues.

 

You think Gunship walls are really going to make things better for noobs? I'd say Jedi Cov is the most noob-friendly server there is because we rarely have them.

 

~ Eudoxia

How does the number of Bombers/Gunships even matter when noobs can't get a freaking pop on lowbie server and on better servers they're put against group of veteran scouts that don't need a single GS/Bomber to decimate them? Server separation = very small pool of players. Even the biggest servers can't afford separate queues for less-experienced and more-experienced players, let alone ideas such as max GS/Bomber slots allowed or anything else. The problem you're talking about is tiny in comparsion, and even then it's a result in large part of server separation. You have an extremly narrow view of the GSF state, population etc

Edited February 24, 2016 by Pietrastor

[Greezt]

Yes, you can. I kill Traesha, who is arguably one of the best bomber pilots in the game, all the time in my Clarion. She has no defense against it if she's in a bomber, except breaking the lock via LOS. If she charges me, she dies. If she runs, she dies. If she circles the sat, she dies. She only kills me when I do stupid **** like run through her mines, or if she switches to a scout.

 

I can't comment on specific bombers on JC. I believe you when you say Traesha is a good bomber. In that case, why ever try to kill you? Ramparts are primarily Dom bombers, and even warcarriers, which are much more common in TDM, are used as area denial ships. Of course a bomber wouldn't fly out towards you. They would break LoS, and as long as you can't kill them, they win (especially in Dom matches when holding a node). That's their point.

 

Okay, it can outburst and out maneuver and outrun a clarion. Force it into a joust. Force your enemy to play on your terms.

 

I've yet to see a good scout being forced into a fight with a strike. A pike can land a couple of missiles on a scout before they run away, sometimes, but what can a clarion do? Your range is at best ~1000m more than theirs, hardly a match breaker. Your maneuverability and speed are all inferior to theirs. The only way you can torp a scout without being a pike is if they've wasted both missile breaks on another joust, and are out in the open.

 

I have torped scouts multiple times myself as a clarion. I just don't claim it was the clarion or me, but rather the scouts or luck.

 

It's a Hunter/Killer ship. Not a support ship. Is it supposed to be a support ship? Yeah I guess. I still wreck enemy teams using it offensively (or at least I used to, evidently it's only been like 3 weeks and I'm way out of practice).

 

Patience is a virtue. Use it.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

Patience is a virtue in games where burst isn't so dominant. You said yourself that you can't bear to be slugged down in a second by gunships.

 

As the game is, a ship that can't kill fast or provide decent enough team utility is not competitive. Bombers provide better team utility than the clarion (although its healing is arguably better than repair drones), and scouts and gunships kill better.

 

Maybe if they deploy their Mega-Server technology, and it actually runs smoothly, and GSF matches are suddenly easy to get into, and many people are playing... maybe then they will make good on their promise of strike fighter buffs.

 

Maybe!

 

Despon

 

You're still hopful. Wow... I appreciate that.

[FlavivsAetivs]

How does the number of Bombers/Gunships even matter when noobs can't get a freaking pop on lowbie server and on better servers they're put against group of veteran scouts that don't need a single GS/Bomber to decimate them? Server separation = very small pool of players. Even the biggest servers can't afford separate queues for less-experienced and more-experienced players, let alone ideas such as max GS/Bomber slots allowed or anything else. The problem you're talking about is tiny in comparsion, and even then it's a result in large part of server separation.

 

1. I see tons of noobs who end up in our pops on Jedi Covs because everyone solo queues. There are no groups getting priority, because there are no groups (except mine, but I never invite more than 3 people to fly with me).

 

2. Not a lot of veteran scout pilots on Jedi Cov. Most pilots left for Harb because of its faster pop rate and higher competitiveness (one that I don't like because it's purely gunship walls), and also because transfers were cheap before 4.0 dropped. Stuck with a bunch of veteran bomber/strike fighter pilots mostly here. Granted that can still wreck noobs, but it's not bad as when a gunship pilot like Averann comes in and gets 30 one-shots solo on noobs. The biggest complaint I hear from people trying out GSF for the first time is always gunships, even when I wrack up 15+ kills against a hairball of noobs in my Clarion, they still complain about the one or two gunships, not the strike fighter.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited February 24, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[Pietrastor]

1. I see tons of noobs who end up in our pops on Jedi Covs because everyone solo queues. There are no groups getting priority, because there are no groups (except mine, but I never invite more than 3 people to fly with me).

 

2. Not a lot of veteran scout pilots on Jedi Cov. Most pilots left for Harb because of its faster pop rate and higher competitiveness (one that I don't like because it's purely gunship walls). Stuck with a bunch of veteran bomber/strike fighter pilots mostly here. Granted that can still wreck noobs, but it's not bad as when a gunship pilot like Averann comes in and gets 30 one-shots solo on noobs.

 

~ Eudoxia

And you think newbies have so much fun going against you because the server separation creates small pool of players and thus it's impossible to pit you against veterans? Seriously, do you understand it?

 

The biggest complaint I hear from people trying out GSF for the first time is always gunships, even when I wrack up 15+ kills against a hairball of noobs in my Clarion, they still complain about the one or two gunships, not the strike fighter.

So you do understand it! It's not necessarily Gunships (which BTW you've been complaining about in the entire thread yourself) but veteran players. Yup, I agree, but guess what, without megaservers that will never change. And if you're as amazing against gunships and every other class as you say, you shouldn't be scared at all of getting put in match against other veterans Edited February 24, 2016 by Pietrastor

[ALaggyGrunt]

It's not so much gunships as the level of coordination necessary to fly them vs. beat them. Throw down a blob, and the easiest way to poke at the blob is to slug it. Flying a scout through that many rail sentries is insane, and all the gunships run wingman anyway. It's not uncommon on Harb to see a gunship with a wingman and a RI buff from someone else nearby.

[SWCNT]

@many of you

You guys should really read this. In particular 6, 15, and 16. If you want to discuss the merits of clarion vs. GS vs. bomber then make a new post and do that, stop hijacking another person's posts and turning it into a personal discussion. It's rude to the OP and forces people who want to read about the topic of the post to filter through all your irrelevant stuff.

 

I think mega servers would be a huge boon to the game in general and GSF specifically. It would be nice to have a population high enough for match maker to maybe work. It would also help with conquest events and GSF events in general since people wouldn't need to roll new toons on multiple servers. I hope they can solve the current performance issues, which may simply be related to server hardware or something more complicated like replication or asynchronous data considerations for their instances. I know their original version of Heroengine was before Seamless 2.0 was finished for that engine, however, none of us know exactly what they've done to the original engine.

[FlavivsAetivs]

We're done talking about Clarions.

 

I see the merits of the Megaserver, but I also know what it will do to the Jedi Cov GSF community.

 

~ Eudoxia

[Kinsha]

I've actually heard from some visiting players, including scrabs, that JC was rather gunship-centric. Atleast it was when he dropped by regularly. I've also seen my fair share of gunship walls on JC. That is not my experience, but it's what I've heard from visitors. I'm usually able to compete in those kinds of games and I see my fair share of wins in that zone, but I really find the mass gunship battle pretty stale, boring and ultimately rather frustrating. If there was more of that I'd probably just stop GSFing.

 

On some other server, I did play on some odd hours, but I had an agonizing display of games that made me not want to play. Actually it was more accurate to say I could not play. The games I had were basically 5-7 new players with one or 2 people who had more than 3 ships. The other team would be composed of meta ships. End results of those matches ultimately ended up with me not being able to get a que at all.

 

I really am not sure what would happen if the GSF population got folded together into large groups. I think it would see a temporary surge in activity at the very least, but I suspect over a longer duration of time it could also cause a decline in the number seasoned players who solo que but get matched against organized groups night after night.