Please don't let GSF end up like ground pvp

[SeCKSEgai]

I think most of us have had the experience of playing a sport where two team captains pick from a pool of players. Some of us were the captains. Some of us were the first pick. Some of us were the last pick or not picked at all.

 

In that setup, its basically the responsibility of the two captains to be familiar with the players involved in order to create the most even teams possible.

 

For some time now on Harby, it has often seemed that there was just one captain taking the 3 best players available to form a team that the rest of the available participants can't compete with. When it gets really bad both of the "captains" are essentially on the same side free to beat up on anyone unaware of the massacre about to happen.

 

Some of you may just write this off as a whiny complaint - a lot of those same people are also unwilling to admit they know very well they form these teams because they know it dramatically improves their win rate against the lackluster competition - for every capable person in your group that's one less random to negatively impact your team's performance. When you put most of the best players readily available on one side, you don't do it to encourage competition, you do it to avoid having any.

 

The reason I'm bothering to write this is because GSF on my home server of Harbinger is ending up the way ground pvp has. So yes, I have a personal stake in the matter. I could just follow the crowd and do the harby shuffle, but frankly I don't want to be restricted to play certain characters at the whim of other people and at this point I only really enjoy the really close matches - close competition is a driving force for improvement.

 

Pubside has a smaller population to draw from. As such it's generally at a disadvantage, as its a lot less likely to be able to form a full team of capable pvpers with half or conquest or a companion quest. This results in said side losing more often, which in turn further increases the appeal of the imperial side. You'll be lucky to see one premade group pubside - where imp side its not uncommon to find two. So, the better players of the republic are basically trained to only q with a group or not bother at all. To put it in realistic terms - pub side ranked might pop once in a blue moon for a few matches - Imp side ranked can go for hours daily.

 

I used to be a regular pvper pubside. When I subbed the first time it was almost all I did and for months after. For some time, it felt competitive enough to be worth doing. As the server migrations started, that stopped. Imperial side has generally held more appeal to the pvp minded player, but with imperial side often fielding one or two premade groups and pubside often not even having one healer I eventually ate enough blowout matches to barely touch ground pvp altogether, and I know a lot of pvpers pubside also ended up with that same conclusion (at least as far as harby goes).

 

Ground pvp is far more popular than gsf, and has a much larger player pool. Scale it down for gsf standards and it should be apparent that we as a community have to go above and beyond just to keep people in queue.

 

In an MMO, grouping should be the norm. People want to group with competent teammates. However, when almost all of them are on one side, that means they're being opposed by newer inexperienced pilots. We lose most potential pilots in their first match as that's practically guaranteed to be an unpleasant experience. When that lousy experience repeats itself over and over, only the most diehard fans stick with it.

 

There was a pilot I used to see a lot that was on the verge of becoming a full-fledged ace (at least according to my standards). I don't see him/her on anymore. I mean there's a lot of potential reasons for that, whether it be something like new game or lost interest in swtor entirely. But in the majority of my current matches (as far as pubside goes) I see new people plenty. The names don't ring a bell because none of them stay anymore long enough to grow as pilots.

 

Simply put, if we want to stop bleeding pilots and start growing as a community, we need to be willing to make sacrifices as its pretty clear were not seeing any action in the dev cycles.

 

Sacrifices like what you ask?

Things like not stacking a side so heavily that the victor and loser is clear before the spawn timer hits 0. Personally I get annoyed that people are more interested in easy wins instead of a close visceral match where you don't know who's going to take it till the last seconds. Don't get me wrong, It's nice to have some easy wins when cycling through alts. But when it's clear that one side is far weaker than the other, ace pilots should be more willing to try to even the sides out and give them a fighting chance.

 

If we're essentially ignored by the devs, we have to regulate ourselves instead of scaring off the new guys/gals before they can find what kept us going at it all this time.

[Lendul]

As someone who has extensive solo queue experience on the Republic side of The Harbinger I think this post is a little exaggerated. I think I know what you are talking about, but they fly both sides and group with lots of people not just the best of the best.

 

The GSF population even on The Harbinger is too small to sort things into us vs them. It's just "US".

[caederon]

I flew a lot on Harbinger for quite a while, mainly for the short waits between matches but also because it had the highest concentration of veteran pilots.

 

I largely quit flying on Harbinger a couple weeks ago because any given match had about a 90% chance of devolving into bombergeddon, with many matches featuring upwards of seven bombers. When solo q'ing into a team of inexperienced pilots against Bombers'R'Us, it basically amounted to a guaranteed waste of fifteen minutes of my time. Even when queuing with a group, it became onerous and frustrating to deal with not only because of the gameplay ramifications of so much bomber overload, but also because of the technical toll the avalanche of bomber spew takes on the game. For whatever reason, past a certain point it grinds my framerate down and makes the game almost unplayable.

 

In the past, there have been times of Imp dominance, times of Pub dominance, and periods where there were adequate numbers of veterans on both sides to generate competitive matches.

 

The trick is to get half of the veterans on each side. This is a tough trick, depending on who is involved. My suggestion is that you find people who are only there to play GSF and ask them to switch to the weak side with you, then group up when you're there. It can be a hassle to organize things, and it'd be nice if they sorted themselves out on their own, but sometimes a more active hand in shaping events is necessary.

 

It can also be tricky to prevent the weak side from suddenly becoming the side steamrolling everyone in that circumstance. Complicating things further is the randomness factor where even if you have one strong group on each side, they will often end up both getting matched up against teams of inexperienced pilots instead of against each other. It takes a sort of magical rain dance to time queue entry so that good teams are pitted against each other.

 

There are a lot of ways actively organizing groups to promote competitive play can work. Setting up groups with two veterans and two inexperienced players can be a good way to go, provided everyone is in on it and nobody is stacking things too hard.

 

Ultimately it would be great to get GSF to the point where you can fly with a group of your friends and find competitive matches, you can solo queue and find competitive matches, you can be a new fish, old fish, red fish, or blue fish and find competitive matches in the fathomless depths of the GSF sea. With some work, though, we can influence the tides by organizing things.

 

Despon

[Lendul]

So Despon, you mean that your Gunship with it's Ion Railgun did not counter the bombers like the meta lawyers indicate?

[ShallowHal]

+1 for everything Reiyn said. There have been way too many skewed matches on Harbinger.

[ShallowHal]

So Despon, you mean that your Gunship with it's Ion Railgun did not counter the bombers like the meta lawyers indicate?

 

One gunship, by itself, isn't going to clear a node full of bombers, but it's an integral part. Ideally, you probably want two gunships and perhaps someone to peel off anybody who comes off the node to challenge the gunships.

[caederon]

So Despon, you mean that your Gunship with it's Ion Railgun did not counter the bombers like the meta lawyers indicate?

Your rather flippant question leaves me wondering what your intent is? Are you trying to indicate that gunships are in fact not so OP because one of them can't handle massed bombers without team support? Are you trying to say bombers are OP or unbalanced? Please do clarify.

 

I can counter two, possibly three bombers on my own (depending the quality of their pilots) with careful use of Ion and Slug. With any team support whatsoever, they would not be an issue.

 

When I get saddled with a team that lacks the tactical sense to attack bombers, can't land shots even if they try, or worst of all just fields tick-ing bombers of their own who sit under an enemy satellite on the opposite side from the bomber swarm massed there who are themselves sitting motionless hidden in crevasses, that is when issues arise.

 

A competent team can handle an enemy team that decides to mass bombers. This is particularly so when most of the bomber pilots are unskilled and know little more than how to fly to a satellite or sit behind a rock and deploy their munitions.

 

Inexperienced pilots are eaten up by bomber swarms. They give up, they scatter, they have not developed the mental tools to tell them how to deal with it. So the bomber swarms win a fair amount of matches. I have seen countless times, though, when a competent team engages them the swarm starts losing but they stick to the same tactics. They fly their bombers single-file to the satellites, they keep larding on bomber junk behind pillars in TDM... they do nothing to adjust their tactics, they don't change ships, they just stick with their sole solution to any problem: heap a bunch of bombers on the enemy. It is bad piloting.

 

None of this is indicative of ship balance issues. It is entirely indicative of pilot issues.

 

That's the last I'll address the topic in this thread. If you want to make a thread to grouse about whatever your point was in asking that question, I'll expound at length there. This thread is about trying to get competitive games on Harbinger. It'd help the server of the bomber swarmers learned to play other ships (and indeed learned to play their bombers properly too) but there are other issues at play in making for better, more competitive games.

 

Despon

[SeCKSEgai]

As someone who has extensive solo queue experience on the Republic side of The Harbinger I think this post is a little exaggerated. I think I know what you are talking about, but they fly both sides and group with lots of people not just the best of the best.

 

The GSF population even on The Harbinger is too small to sort things into us vs them. It's just "US".

 

What would you say is exaggerated? It got to the point where I created a doppelganger of my main imperial side. Solo q ground pubside I go in knowing it's likely to be a loss and am rarely surprised to win. The last time I had a pubside team dominate an imp side match I expressed how surprised I was in ops chat and other people were too because they have the same experience of republic side infrequently fielding a competitive team.

 

As far as people grouping, I have an extensive collection of screenshots I've taken at the start and end of every match showing just how often these matches are one-sided.

[caederon]

So, I came back to Harbinger today. That was a mistake. My return lasted five matches... well, actually more like 4.25 matches. I will not be returning for a while. Maybe not until we are mega-served some mega-servers. Who knows.

 

Anyway, I had two Domination matches sandwiched around three TDMs. One TDM was me and nobody against nobody, a win. One was a close loss with me and Rackou carrying a bunch of non-paricipants against Bugglesley and a bunch of Imps that were able to set up a gunship nest with a few bombers. The third was a dispiriting loss against a four-bomber (of 8) wall that marched its way across the map as my team failed to do anything productive at all.

 

I screenshotted the Dom matches for you, you can take a look at my first match, and the one that drove me off the server again.

 

BONUS - this is the match that brought on my first departure from Harb.

 

Special thanks to the Count for his help in illustrating my point.

 

Both Dom matches today featured an Imp team that was in no serious danger of losing regardless of ship choice fielding 5 bombers out of 8 players. This is idiocy. It is good for nothing, and I can't even see how anyone could have fun doing it. Good luck to anyone who decides to fling themselves into the trash-heap that Harbinger has turned into.

 

Despon

[ALaggyGrunt]

Harbinger bombers tend to be easy to hit with torpedoes.

 

Everyone has found the noob tube, and nobody wants to use a more interesting gun which will beat it.

[SeCKSEgai]

Harbinger bombers tend to be easy to hit with torpedoes.

 

Everyone has found the noob tube, and nobody wants to use a more interesting gun which will beat it.

 

You fired a torpedo... you hit target... target isn't dead... other bombers still incoming.....

[Lendul]

You fired a torpedo... you hit target... target isn't dead... other bombers still incoming.....

Just got through watching Drakolich rampage a bomber stack with a T3 Strike LOL.

[SeCKSEgai]

Just got through watching Drakolich rampage a bomber stack with a T3 Strike LOL.

 

What bomber stack, I was on the opposing side for most of his matches... there should even be a bit where he spends a minute or 3 just chasing me in a gunship. That wasn't a bomber stack, that team (my team) was outclassed from the beginning which is why they were able to 3 cap.

[ALaggyGrunt]

You fired a torpedo... you hit target... target isn't dead... other bombers still incoming.....

... and long reload so you take your next shot after your target has healed back up. Except this wasn't about a bomber still incoming so much as a bomber already there. They're usually that bad.

 

It was more a comment about how good the typical bomber was.

[Drakkolich]

What bomber stack, I was on the opposing side for most of his matches... there should even be a bit where he spends a minute or 3 just chasing me in a gunship. That wasn't a bomber stack, that team (my team) was outclassed from the beginning which is why they were able to 3 cap.

 

I'm pretty sure he meant the Kuat Mesas Deathmatch where you challenged me to play Strike. Your team had started with 4 Bombers, but by my first death you had 6 Gunships on your team and 7 by the end of the game. Once Sriia started lagging I decided to get off the Imperium so I wouldn't lose my team the match.

 

However the fun chase you're referring too was on a Denon when I was playing a Flashfire, you actually ran me out of Clusters during that chase it was really fun. I had Strike on my Tail for almost the entire time too.

[SeCKSEgai]

I'm pretty sure he meant the Kuat Mesas Deathmatch where you challenged me to play Strike. Your team had started with 4 Bombers, but by my first death you had 6 Gunships on your team and 7 by the end of the game. Once Sriia started lagging I decided to get off the Imperium so I wouldn't lose my team the match.

 

However the fun chase you're referring too was on a Denon when I was playing a Flashfire, you actually ran me out of Clusters during that chase it was really fun. I had Strike on my Tail for almost the entire time too.

 

Didn't forget that one, but a bomberstack didn't apply to that match, at least in the sense that we've been referring to and what convinced despon to stop bothering with harby.

 

Side note, after a long wait, got a pop. Team I'm on is mostly new and inexperienced - managed to kill enough and do enough damage to catch up and they resort to bomber spam to recover. Easiest way to beat newer pilots on a sat match will be bomber spam - in a battle of attrition newer players are going to lose that as they have a hard enough time hitting anything let alone a bomber... or several.

[Greezt]

Didn't forget that one, but a bomberstack didn't apply to that match, at least in the sense that we've been referring to and what convinced despon to stop bothering with harby.

 

Side note, after a long wait, got a pop. Team I'm on is mostly new and inexperienced - managed to kill enough and do enough damage to catch up and they resort to bomber spam to recover. Easiest way to beat newer pilots on a sat match will be bomber spam - in a battle of attrition newer players are going to lose that as they have a hard enough time hitting anything let alone a bomber... or several.

 

I was actually in two games against you. I don't know if one of them is the match you were referring to, but on at least one of them you had four bombers from the start, and so did we. At least in my case, my bomber is stock, so I was gaining requisition on it.

[ALaggyGrunt]

Even in a totally stock Star Guard, you can kick an orbiting bomber off a node if there aren't any turrets if the bomber won't facetank you. Pop the drone, tank the mines, gnaw away at the bomber's aft shields. If you get lucky, it will drop mines while under fire from rapids.

Many of the bombers on Harbinger can be killed like that if they're alone, and you're the first to a node. If you overshoot, most of them won't catch the mistake, so you stop your ship and they'll just fly right back into your sights.

 

Once they're dug in, it's the same old story: the stock ships don't carry anything with armor ignore, so there's nothing to be done about it.

[caederon]

Many of the bombers on Harbinger can be killed like that if they're alone, and you're the first to a node.

This is undeniably true. It's when the other four bombers show up and your team is still trying to figure out that the spacebar engages engine boost that things go downhill swiftly.

 

Once they're dug in, it's the same old story: the stock ships don't carry anything with armor ignore, so there's nothing to be done about it.

There are plenty of five-shippers on Harb who have played long enough to earn plenty of req for armor ignoring weapons, yet don't display even basic offensive skills or seem to realize F3 at the start of the match gets you to the node faster. Focusing bombers or using weapons suited to the situation seems beyond their comprehension. They probably pound nails with a screwdriver and dig ditches with a rake.

 

Despon

Edited February 25, 2016 by caederon

[ShallowHal]

This is undeniably true. It's when the other four bombers show up and your team is still trying to figure out that the spacebar engages engine boost that things go downhill swiftly.

 

 

There are plenty of five-shippers on Harb who have played long enough to earn plenty of req for armor ignoring weapons, yet don't display even basic offensive skills or seem to realize F3 at the start of the match gets you to the node faster. Focusing bombers or using weapons suited to the situation seems beyond their comprehension. They probably pound nails with a screwdriver and dig ditches with a rake.

 

Despon

 

I may not be able to focus a bomber, but you haven't lived until you've experienced a rake-dug ditch

[Ornithopoda]

Playing through my weeklies last night I ended up in a whole string of one sided losses on my Pub toon. Once that was over with I switched to my Imp toon to do the weekly there, but by that time all of the good players must have switched factions, because that was a painful seven game losing streak as well.

I have noticed an increase in lop-sided matches on Harby lately, but I've been getting them on both factions.

 

I know it's going to be a rough ride when I am the one with the highest score on my team .

[Maulkat]

Tonight (0216), I was flying pub side and did three or four matches. Noticed there were three premades pub side...so went imp to attempt to even things out.

My group (yes a premade) only came across one of set of said pub premades once. Beat them, the /gsf chat imp side kept talking about these guys. My queue just kept missing them.

At the end of the night, ended up with totally different people in my group than what I started with and lost three wargames in a row. I called it there. Contrary to what is said about me, I group with anybody. I don't care the exp of pilot, the build of the ships...as long as I have a spot open, ask and I'll group. Yes, Often I am grouped with the same people. I ask in my guilds first, then /gsf.

Just because I'm or anybody else is in a premade, it does not dictate my team or the other premade is going to win. That's what I'm reading in this topic. Don't group, solo queue only in what is considered an MMO.

GSF is also PVP, don't forget that. It might not be on the ground, but you're playing against real people, PVP. I try not to 3 cap or spawn camp. This happens though and on the other side of the coin, happens to me consistently if the other team is able to do it.

So you request GSF not become like PVP, you need to "play fair, nice and go easy on noobs" yourself. Don't dance in the spawn points or harass a node if you already hold two. Just let the noobs puppy pile on the node they hold and kill them if they dare approach either of your two nodes.

[SeCKSEgai]

@maulkat - as you can see there are complaints arising from more than just myself.

 

It was never like you were the only person setting up one-sided groups - but running with mostly the same people for weeks to just beat up on the newer pilots that offered no resistance says a lot too. If I didn't start making a fuss about pointing it out I highly doubt you would have made any effort to change.

 

You ran with groups that would spawn camp, tri-cap and all the usual mess. It should not be surprising when people want to return the favor when they finally have a team that provides that opportunity. People need to be reminded of what its like to be on both sides of the coin, especially as some are so quick to forget.

 

The people causing trouble for imp side last night are typically running imperial so it was nice of them to switch it up (though I bet it was more for achievements). I mean, you did feel it necessary to make a point when the "two" pilots from your guild dominating from pubside logged.

 

Grouping locks people on a side before matchmaker kicks in - while matchmaker is far from good, when a mix of newer pilots and experienced ones is involved - throwing most of the experienced ones on one side makes for a lousy experience for whoever is leftover.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Grouping locks people on a side before matchmaker kicks in - while matchmaker is far from good, when a mix of newer pilots and experienced ones is involved - throwing most of the experienced ones on one side makes for a lousy experience for whoever is leftover.

 

Trouble is, Matchmaker does this even when groups aren't involved. Here's how it appears to work:

 

From a pool of players, it tries to make a team. It prioritizes having similar players on the team first, so it selects players with similar stats for whatever criteria it's looking for. Once it has one team, it tries to make another. Again, it prioritizes making a team from players that have similar stats.

 

Once it has at least two teams, it tries to match them up. Trouble is, there aren't very many people playing at any given time, so you might get a team of experienced players against a team of completely new players. Ever notice how wargames are often more lopsided than anything if there aren't a lot of groups involved? This is why.

 

I have no proof that this is how it's done, but from what I've been told that's how it appears to work for ground PVP as well, so it'd make sense.

[Krixarcs]

Tonight (0216), I was flying pub side and did three or four matches. Noticed there were three premades pub side...so went imp to attempt to even things out.

My group (yes a premade) only came across one of set of said pub premades once. Beat them, the /gsf chat imp side kept talking about these guys. My queue just kept missing them.

At the end of the night, ended up with totally different people in my group than what I started with and lost three wargames in a row. I called it there. Contrary to what is said about me, I group with anybody. I don't care the exp of pilot, the build of the ships...as long as I have a spot open, ask and I'll group. Yes, Often I am grouped with the same people. I ask in my guilds first, then /gsf.

Just because I'm or anybody else is in a premade, it does not dictate my team or the other premade is going to win. That's what I'm reading in this topic. Don't group, solo queue only in what is considered an MMO.

GSF is also PVP, don't forget that. It might not be on the ground, but you're playing against real people, PVP. I try not to 3 cap or spawn camp. This happens though and on the other side of the coin, happens to me consistently if the other team is able to do it.

So you request GSF not become like PVP, you need to "play fair, nice and go easy on noobs" yourself. Don't dance in the spawn points or harass a node if you already hold two. Just let the noobs puppy pile on the node they hold and kill them if they dare approach either of your two nodes.

 

hooray another explaination from the ever too pious maulkat, if I recall correctly republic side was stacked against me all night the last time I decided to grace ur server with my name brand and a handful of kronies.