Incentive for more Conquest players to join GSF - Award 750 points a win

[Tulmara]

GSF is pretty much dead at certain times during the day on my server, Beregen Colony. It also tapers off on a Tuesday when there is no Conquest. At launch the server was the unofficial Oceanic server, yet starting late afternoon, early evening AEST till 6.00am the next morning queues are practically non existent, so I can only conclude that Aussies, and Kiwis don't like GSF. My idea to encourage more participation would be to award 750 points for a win while leaving losses at 500 points.

[Lendul]

GSF is pretty much dead at certain times during the day on my server, Beregen Colony. It also tapers off on a Tuesday when there is no Conquest. At launch the server was the unofficial Oceanic server, yet starting late afternoon, early evening AEST till 6.00am the next morning queues are practically non existent, so I can only conclude that Aussies, and Kiwis don't like GSF. My idea to encourage more participation would be to award 750 points for a win while leaving losses at 500 points.

Umm no...There is a reason why The Harbinger is known as the server that never sleeps.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/pc-mac-linux-society-1000004/swtor-unofficial-oceanic-pve-server-the-harbringer-28969402/

 

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/pc-mac-linux-society-1000004/swtor-unofficial-oceanic-pvp-server-the-swiftsure-28968954/

[SeCKSEgai]

There are more fundamental issues that keep GSF from ever gaining any real popularity.

 

While I don't think 1k CQ per match is unreasonable - you have to be careful of giving too much incentive for people to just leech.

[Storm-Cutter]

People will simply join more matches to go AFK, in the hope that they get a win, and conquest points.

 

5 AFK -ers on 1 of my matches last night.*

 

They'd be better off giving people the conquest points for just putting the mouse pointer over the GSF icon.

 

TBH it'd be a step in the right direction if you got Conquest points for >x number of medals - so that you had to do something to earn them, rather than turn up and hope to be carried.

 

*And Monday nights (EU) aren't even conquest nights, FFs.

[ALaggyGrunt]

Making the conquest rewards behave like WZ would help with the don't-try problem. The current everybody-gets-the-same-points invites people to AFK through matches.

[DomiSotto]

I am not big on Conquests, but from what I have seen in ground PvP, extra points for win is not an incentive to try. Conquesters that have no interest in pvP, ground or space, would rather AFK for free points, than work for extra.

 

As for medals, well, you will be penalizing the folks that earnest try. Unless I am on a bomber, I don't get any medals in a lot of my matches, and I sure as heck try hard. Unlike ground PvP where 8 medals is a baseline, I quite often see teams with over half the team getting 0 medals.

 

Tbh, I had no problems getting personal Conquest done on a PvP character, but even on that week when the conquest was all about GSF, I only got like 11K points on my GSF toon.

 

GSF's appeal in terms of 'getting things' is super-easy XP, & nothing else that I can think of.

 

To be honest, people that feel like they 'have to' do something in the game ain't going to do it with a consistency necessary to sustain the player base.

[SeCKSEgai]

As for medals, well, you will be penalizing the folks that earnest try. Unless I am on a bomber, I don't get any medals in a lot of my matches, and I sure as heck try hard. Unlike ground PvP where 8 medals is a baseline, I quite often see teams with over half the team getting 0 medals.

 

I typically get 6-15 medals and generally get 8-9 - now. When I was a much greener pilot 1 was a big deal. When there weren't more experienced pilots to carry me and the rest of the new pilots 0 was a norm.

 

So yeah it's kind of hard to find a way to regulate gsf rewards in a way that doesn't entice the afk leeching.

[DomiSotto]

Well, when I am carried too too much, I don't get medals either because by the time I wheel around and get into the shooting range or charge my guns, Poof! The target is already gone, and there goes my Assist to Be. I jump out of my skin to get a kill or 4 assists for even 1 medal.

 

The bomber gets medals for flying in circles and taking pot-shots at anything that comes to them. The only downside is that it is boring.

 

If the tangible benefit of getting Conquest points (and some credits for meeting that goal) is tied to medals, I will be doing what will overall net me the most pluses for the time invested.

 

Right now when I actually play GSF (which I did not for over a week, 'cause other stuff is more of a priority), I try to switch ships to get the bonus comms, because it is a tangible benefit. It is a good one, because it encourages trying different roles.

 

Conquest points tied to medals is a poor choice, since so many people end up without, BUT there IS an easy way to get 'em AND everyone choosing it is probably not ideal at all.

Edited March 1, 2016 by DomiSotto

[caederon]

Conquest points tied to medals is a poor choice, since so many people end up without, BUT there IS an easy way to get 'em AND everyone choosing it is probably not ideal at all.

While flying in the SRW conquest event, I felt just the opposite. It seemed to me that it really rewarded people who focused on playing to the objectives, particularly in Domination matches.

 

Let's take a look at the list of obtainable medals for a moment and consider which beginners can go for.

 

Kills are tough for beginners, but landing two in a match is not unreasonable to hope for. Look for targets low on health and try to land some shots on them. If you're in a bomber at a contested satellite, you'll probably get two kills just from the enemy being in proximity of your mines or drones.

 

Similarly, four assists is highly achievable for any ship class. Practice tagging any target that comes in range. Just land a single shot on them and you're going to get credit for an assist when someone else kills them. Dent their shields and move on to another target. Make a habit of that and you'll find that eight assists is easily within reach, too... but start with four. This becomes much easier if you're flying a T1 gunship and have your Ion Railgun upgraded to the fourth tier. That gets you Area of Effect damage, and one landed ion shot will bounce to up to four targets. So with literally one landed shot, you can get that four assist medal if conditions are right.

 

As for Damage Dealt, ten thousand is a tough mark for beginners to hit but once you've been playing for a while you should be able to top that regularly if you're around the action.

 

Killing Turrets is something any ship can get in on if you're in the right place at the right time, but it's kind of situational. If you're in an offensively geared ship, though, even a beginner can get in on this. Use weapons with armor-ignore (rocket pods get this as their first upgrade, slug railgun's third, Burst Laser and Heavy Laser fourth tier) and turrets go down very fast. They are also stationary with no evasion, and so they are easy to hit.

 

Capturing Objectives is an area that every pilot should concentrate on in Domination and get rewarded for with both medals and lots of requisition. Just being in the vicinity of a satellite that your team is capping will give you credit for this. You don't have to land a shot on anyone, you don't have to perform much fancy flying. Just be part of the team that is influencing control of a satellite as it goes from neutral to green (or red->neutral->green) and you can get the medals here. You should be able to get at least one medal for this per domination match, and two isn't out of the question. Get close to the satellite, look for the green glow around your ship, and you get that medal.

 

Defending Objectives can similarly net you a lot of medals just for hanging around a friendly controlled satellite. Stay in the immediate vicinity of a sat and you don't have to kill anyone, land shots, or even shoot to accrue these medals. Of course, doing all those other things increases the amount of medals you'll earn, but it should be possible for even raw beginners to get their ship to a friendly satellite and stay near it for several minutes.

 

Repairing friendly ships can also net you medals. The T2 bomber, T3 strike and scout all have the capacity to repair your allies. Dropping a repair drone or using repair probes on friendly forces is always welcome and useful, especially if you include ammo replenishment along with that.

 

Aim for these goals. They encourage good gameplay habits. Even raw players can get 5-6 medals with a little planning and care... and from there you have a measurable roadmap to being a better pilot and teammate as you start to earn more.

 

Despon

Edited March 1, 2016 by caederon

[DomiSotto]

Five-six medals?! OMG, I am lucky to get one if I am not on a bomber in a 3 satellite games & we actually managed to capture a Sat.

 

If that rule was in effect, cutting off at 5-6 medals, I'd get zero conquest points for playing GSF ever. Two is GREAT! I can't remember off-hand if I even have seen 5 or 6! EVAR.

 

Four assists are very hard, because the ship you are hitting has to get killed. And you have to land a shot before it gets killed. And for the next medal, you have to double the Assists, which means 8 ships has to go down.

 

I've done over 10K damage a few times, and even then I had maybe 2 medals.

 

And, yes, hanging around satellites on a bomber is the only easy way to get medals. That's what I said. Is that what you'd like us all to do? Hang around sats no matter what is going on?

 

As a raw beginner, I can also tell you that my lifespan is insufficient to gain a defense medal if two Gunships are covering for one another. My only chance at a medal is to shoot at the turret before I die.

 

Having anything upgraded to Tier 4 is not a raw beginner! I think I don't even have it on my very first ship, the Blackbolt yet, because it's like 10K ship comms! I am happy to have step 1 and 2 upgraded.

 

Seriously, guys, I know what I am talking about, 'cause I am a noob, and I see what I see.

Edited March 1, 2016 by DomiSotto

[caederon]

Five-six medals?! OMG, I am lucky to get one if I am not on a bomber in a 3 satellite games & we actually managed to capture a Sat.

...

Is that what you'd like us all to do? Hang around sats no matter what is going on?

It sounds like you are suffering more from a lack of overall team strength than you are from issues with your own personal performance. If you are getting 3-capped frequently, and nobody is killing anything, then yes it's going to be tough to earn medals. You would not have as difficult a time meeting the requirements for more medals if you were on teams that had relatively equal strength compared to your opposition. The medal system is a good one that encourages productive gameplay habits. Team imbalance is a whole other issue, argued at length in way too many posts lately. Mabybe we can arrange for some veteran presence to group with you so you (and your team) have some breathing room to accomplish various medal-earning things.

 

I'm going to toss this match in as an example of a pretty close match with a lot of players (12v12 I think) and a mix of skill levels ranging from very good players to less experienced and effective ones. The teams were not too disparate in terms of their relative strength. 15 of the 17 players pictured on that leaderboard had more than 5 medals, and even if none of those at the bottom of the leaderboard did (which is not certain at all) that's over half the players participating in the match. The reason for this is that the match had a lot of shifting action and lasted quite a while.

 

As a side note, not to derail this thread too much, but yes if you're in a bomber during a Domination match you should always be near a satellite or in transit to one. Note: this applies to other ship classes, too! Being near the satellites is of vital importance to your team and personal success. Now, which satellite you're near can make all the difference. If you're staying out of the fight at a friendly sat that is under no pressure, you won't earn much other than defense or repair medals (assuming you tell your team to head to your sat for repairs). If you are part of the group contesting a satellite that is under pressure, your mines will hit things, your drones will shoot people, you will accrue damage, assists, and probably kills, and will pick up medals for doing so. It's a moot point if you're on helpless teams against opposition that decides to 3-cap you, but that is the worst case scenario. In a competitive match with even strength teams, you will find plenty of opportunity to earn medals through engaging, active gameplay.

 

Despon

Edited March 1, 2016 by caederon

[ShallowHal]

Five-six medals?! OMG, I am lucky to get one if I am not on a bomber in a 3 satellite games & we actually managed to capture a Sat.

 

You can get 4 medals a match by getting in a scout, flying to A or C, capping it quickly, and staying there for the entire match if nobody comes after it. I know because that's what I used to do before I purchased other ships and learned how to play.

 

In a hopeless match where I know the other team is going to have us 3-capped the whole time, I get in a gunship and shoot as many turrets as I can. They are stationary targets, easy to hit, and will go down in one fully charged slug railgun shot once you've upgraded it a bit.

 

As for Conquest, I'm not really that interested in it although I had a reasonably good time at the SRW event when the teams were balanced. But they need to deal with the people that don't even participate in the game first not getting any rewards for it before they start incentivizing more people to play. Personally, I think if you're leveling a character, the XP rewards are already plenty of incentive to play.

[DomiSotto]

What I am trying to say is that I am seriously doubting it that locking the Conquest points essentially saying: "Nah, you suck to much to get anything," is not going to make the GSF any more appealing.

 

You already have to wait till a certain time of evening to queue for GSF, then sit in a queue for 10-20 imnutes. I honestly have no idea why folks don't care for it, it is a fun game, but well, they just do not. I don't think more GSF points gonna solve that.

 

In truth, I just want it to stay the way it is, a status quo.

 

And, yes, I am doing all that, trying to get a capture points, and all that jazz (except usually they are waiting for you at every sat and kills you, and if you try a Gunship, you get shot even faster unless your team facerolls; then you will have troubles getting a shot out in time, everything will be dying before your charge is finished, and yes, that's whith changes the power to engine, shields and guns).

 

What I see is plenty of people with 0 medals when one guy gets 25 kills or something, and that getting medals in GSF is far harder than in the ground game. That's what I see, and I have no intention of posting screenshots because... well, I don't really see the point. Who on Earth cares. I am fine the way things are.

 

Just leave it be, don't try to mess things up and cut people deeper than needed, and tell them that the suckers don't get even frigging useless points.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DomiSotto

[DomiSotto]

Here are some Real Life Screenshots for you, that's what actually happens in GSF, not in an artificially arranged match :

 

3/16 people have >5 medals, both screenies from tonight, and those are what I bothered to take, the rest was not much different. I did a weekly with 1 win, 5 losses & it took about 2 hours of queueing. I had 5 medals in a winning game flying a Razor around a sat and rushing one of the ships that get over, so if the mark is lowered to 5 medals, I'd get Conquest points for one zone out of 6. I played 2 zones on each of my Razorwire, Gunship and Sting.

 

That's what I see whenever I queue up. 5 medals is leet in my GSF.

 

http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t502/Melirinda/SWTOR/Screenshot_2016-03-01_22_16_02_523047.jpg

http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t502/Melirinda/SWTOR/Screenshot_2016-03-01_21_03_38_052245.jpg

 

And I don't mind it.

 

I mind all those folks endlessly telling everyone how it is so easy to do stuff that is actually pretty darn hard.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DomiSotto

[caederon]

I mind all those folks endlessly telling everyone how it is so easy to do stuff that is actually pretty darn hard.

Believe me, I know that unbalanced matches do not give you much opportunity to achieve the sorts of things that earn medals. That 50-8 TDM featured very lopsided teams, and it is not surprising that you would gain little from that. It sucks. I am not disputing that.

 

I also don't suggest that any restriction be placed on conquest earnings, or the rewards get lowered or the thresholds be increased. I think rewards for all aspects of GSF should increase, and that they should give people something meaningful to get with Fleet Comms.

 

My feeling from participating in the Clash In Hyperspace week for Conquest was that they offered an ample amount of ways for GSF'ers to get points for their guild. I liked the Medal related bonus. It encourages people to earn medals which are won through doing positive things in the game.

 

You screenshots do nothing to dissuade me from saying that your problem isn't -your- problem precisely. If you're constantly getting sorted onto bad teams, make friends with a couple veterans whose presence will give you the breathing room to actually participate. Even the best players can't singlehandedly make up for the shortcomings of a bad team if they're pitted against a number of pilots who know what they're doing.

 

Real-life GSF differs greatly depending on what server you're on, when you're on it, and who else is playing. If you want, I'll come to your server (which I think is Harbinger, right? Much though I loathe it) get a group together with you and some veterans, and you can see what happens when you don't constantly have to run for your life because you're on an awful team.

 

Despon

[DomiSotto]

They are not bad, they are not bad teams, they are players just like me who load up to play a few games here and there. Just the way the game is supposed to be played. I don't have any problems with it. I like these folks, they make the game happen for me, whoever they might be and whatever their reasons are to queue up that night. I want to play with them, because I am one of them!

 

If folks want to stack the odds in their favor by only playing with the selected few they deem worthy, or doing manual matchmaking, that's fine with me. I want to play with everyone and anyone who'd come and play. However the RNG decided to split people up.

 

GSF is perfectly rewarding right now. I have months and months of comms to got yet to put into crew unlocks and the ships. My char is leveling really fast. It's fine.

 

The only problem I have is with people pronouncing judgments and demanding things to be taken away based on the assumption that meeting some X benchmark is 'easy' and if you did not do it, you did not try hard enough and therefore should not get points, comms, XPs, whatever.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DomiSotto

[Danalon]

That's what I see whenever I queue up. 5 medals is leet in my GSF.

 

http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t502/Melirinda/SWTOR/Screenshot_2016-03-01_22_16_02_523047.jpg

http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t502/Melirinda/SWTOR/Screenshot_2016-03-01_21_03_38_052245.jpg

 

And I don't mind it.

 

I mind all those folks endlessly telling everyone how it is so easy to do stuff that is actually pretty darn hard.

 

In the domination game you could have had 5-7 easy medals when taking a bomber and staying on the one node you had for the entire game. Also you had the option to attack enemy satellite turrets, so you could have gotten 3 medals and some additional easy damage out of that too. Defense, repair, turret-kill and damage are really easy medals in DOM if you focus on just getting medals in a lost game (Just so I'm clear: I'm not saying "lose the game, focus on medals"; I'm saying "If you can't win, might as well collect medals")

 

Getting medals on the receiving end of a lopsided deathmatch as a pilot in training is extremely difficult. Sometimes it's easier to do that in a Gunship. Also in deathmatch the maximum medal count is 12 (instead of 25, also the kill-related 10 are harder to get), so getting 5 there is much more difficult as in domination.

 

They are not bad, they are not bad teams, they are players just like me who load up to play a few games here and there.

 

Some people are new, some are casual but some are just bad. I don't mind new and casual pilots being underperforming. I hate bad pilots. Bad players in GSF and other games are all those who don't want to improve themselves. Players who complain no one takes them on raids/operations but don't upgrade/augment/enchant(whatever) their gear. Players who perform significantly worse than others with the same gear and yet refuse to read a guide or get help from other players. Players who make the same mistakes over and over. I'm not talking about players who just can't be better for a reason (for example a colorblind person not seeing everything), I'm talking about lazy players who don't want to put in the slightest effort and just leech the rewards.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Danalon

[DomiSotto]

In the domination game you could have had 5-7 easy medals when taking a bomber and staying on the one node you had for the entire game. Also you had the option to attack enemy satellite turrets, so you could have gotten 3 medals and some additional easy damage out of that too. Defense, repair, turret-kill and damage are really easy medals in DOM if you focus on just getting medals in a lost game (Just so I'm clear: I'm not saying "lose the game, focus on medals"; I'm saying "If you can't win, might as well collect medals")

 

I flew my Razorwire in the other 2 Dom game that night (with 4 and 5 medals each), but the way the bonus comms ar structured, I need to switch the ships, so in that particular one I was flying gunship, trying to get at the turrets. However, the approaches were heavy with all the fun mines and drones, so I was first trying to find a secure position, then start clearing out the gadgets, beacons, repair drones etc to make sure other folks had a chance to get to the sat. Or, well, trying to.

 

I need those bonus comms, because all the upgrades cost so much.

 

Honestly, I just want one thing changed in GSF real badly (well, save for folks actually playing it). That's a different color icon on the Gunship for the secondary weapon switch. because I tried to hover my cursor over it in the game, and all it tells me is that it's intended to switch my weapon, not which one is equipped at the moment. Silly.

Edited March 2, 2016 by DomiSotto

[Danalon]

Honestly, I just want one thing changed in GSF real badly (well, save for folks actually playing it). That's a different color icon on the Gunship for the secondary weapon switch. because I tried to hover my cursor over it in the game, and all it tells me is that it's intended to switch my weapon, not which one is equipped at the moment. Silly.

 

On all non-cc ships you can see which weapon is equipped by looking at the icon of the weapon that's shown on the mouse keybinds.

 

By looking at your screenshot I can tell, slug is active.

 

Here's what slug and ion look like on the Mangler. If you want to look up the icons of any weapon, you can do that in your hangar or here.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Danalon

[Lendul]

 

Honestly, I just want one thing changed in GSF ....a different color icon on the Gunship for the secondary weapon switch. because I tried to hover my cursor over it in the game, and all it tells me is that it's intended to switch my weapon, not which one is equipped at the moment. Silly.

If you are using Ion & Slug as your secondary weapons the icons should be significantly different.

 

Ion Icon

Edited March 2, 2016 by Lendul

[DomiSotto]

Okay, Slug is long, and ion is boxy, got it. I'd still MUCH prefer a color-code.

[Lavaar]

On all non-cc ships you can see which weapon is equipped by looking at the icon of the weapon that's shown on the mouse keybinds.

 

By looking at your screenshot I can tell, slug is active.

 

Here's what slug and ion look like on the Mangler. If you want to look up the icons of any weapon, you can do that in your hangar or here.

 

Someone in our community just worked hard to produce a program to fix the cartel icon bug. It works flawlessly for its intended purpose. For some reason this community has decided to ignore it's existence and continue talking as if this is still a problem.

 

The link to this thread is HERE

 

The dev's aren't going to fix this any time soon, so we did it ourselves. Support the efforts of the community to improve the game or suffer in silence.

 

Okay, Slug is long, and ion is boxy, got it. I'd still MUCH prefer a color-code.

 

Domi, the program could be altered to add color coding to the icons to help people out as well if there is demand for it. There is no reason why this program couldn't be used to add color-coding to the rail guns of the non-cc ships as well, or any ship that switches weapons for that matter.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Lavaar

[DomiSotto]

This is actually super-awesome, thanks! COlor will be so much better than trying to tell at a glance if that's a boy or a girl in that wee little square. Edited March 2, 2016 by DomiSotto

[Archonitek]

This is actually super-awesome, thanks! COlor will be so much better than trying to tell at a glance if that's a boy or a girl in that wee little square.

 

HA! Nice one.

[Ashamam]

Someone in our community just worked hard to produce a program to fix the cartel icon bug. It works flawlessly for its intended purpose. For some reason this community has decided to ignore it's existence and continue talking as if this is still a problem.

 

To be fair the thread you linked was posted on the forums only like a week or two ago.