Light vs. Dark Event and GSF

[Lendul]

Yeah, shame on me. It's not like I put a ton of time and effort into helping people improve. I totally don't offer to answer questions in game. And that link in my signature? It's not really a guide, it's just a page mocking people for being bad. You caught me, Lendul. I exist only to kick new players and puppies.

 

You're defending this guy? Really? Have you read anything he's saying? He's beyond helping. It doesn't matter what we say. Even if he got what he wanted, he'd still whine about how we were being too hard on him. You can't help players like that, and I gave up trying a long time ago.

I am defending GSF. Yes, I am quite aware that this particular person's perception is off from reality, However if you pay attention many new players tell this same narrative over and over. It is a symptom of a problem. The problem is there is distinct psychological difference in getting beat and getting beat down. It is not really a hard concept to understand, but with your specific mentality you are just as far beyond help as this person of whom you hold contempt. So yes, shame on you.

[DakhathKilrathi]

The problem is there is distinct psychological difference in getting beat and getting beat down.

 

I disagree. I have never had a new player complain that they lost by a lot. They don't even understand that yet. They complain that they lose, and hey, who wouldn't? But the ones who stick around are the ones who can handle a loss. Players who can't handle losing by a lot are players who probably aren't suited to any sort of PVP game in the first place, because it is going to happen.

 

I still find myself on the wrong end of that sometimes. It happens. But you won't catch me whining on the forums about how SRW is being too hard on me or whatever else, because I know better. I don't want a pity sat. I don't want anyone to insult me by playing a Slegehammer or whatever. I want whoever it is to get it over with so I can get on to the next game.

 

If losing is certain, drawing it out is just cruel. It's losing that they have a problem with. Everything else just comes from the whining and excuses they make for it. They don't lose because they're bad, oh no. They lose because:

 

"everyone has mastered ships"

"GSF is pay to win"

"there are premades over there"

"I got one shot from 30km out"

"gunships are OP"

"bombers are OP"

"scouts are OP"

"that player is hacking"

"I got spawn camped"

 

Nowhere on the list of common complaints will you find "I lost because I need to get better". That's the difference between good players and players who might be average but will never really go anywhere. Good players recognize where they need to improve. Average players blame game mechanics or the other team.

Edited July 13, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[phalczen]

Oh really I overeastimate the gearing. A geared GS will one shot kill most ships. A zero upgrade GS never even comes close. Lacks the firepower and escapability of the T3 ship.

 

Yes, really you are. Drakkolich has broken down the math, and since you seem so keen to attack Siraka's ability to count, let me reiterate the FACTS.

 

The only ship that can be one shotted with a slug that isn't buffed by Damage Overcharge is a scout with a poor evasion RNG roll.

 

Now, it is true that a DO-buffed slug can one shot a greater number of ships, but it is because DO is so powerful.

 

My Bomber is almost impossible to remove from satellites compared to my ungeared bombers.

 

This one is correct, but that's because the stock type 1 bomber has overcharge shields and, what, reinforced armor I think? As Siraka pointed out, it doesn't take a lot of req to get a decent charged plating build and I used it to great effectiveness on a DvL toon I made and did GSF with. I'll give you partial credit for that one. However, you can get a tier 2 bomber and be effective right out of the box. Yes you will want to change out protorps for seekers and missile sentry for railgun, but honestly, those upgrades aren't so bad that one would be considered useless in a T2 bomber.

 

 

Or put a ton of development into figuring out how to better balance matching for brand new toons created.

 

No one will disagree with you on this point. Tiering somewhat works in lowbie/midbie/end-game ground pvp because the population is larger. Despite that larger pool of players to choose from, do I really need to remind you of the threads that cry about 30s being matched with 64s? The special ability/passive/utility point difference is huge within that level range, yet those cutoffs have persisted for years. Just last night, I was pvp'ing in midbies and felt a noticeable difference in my effectiveness than in lowbies.

 

The developers have made it abundantly clear, however, that their #1 goal in queues is wait time. "Fairness," or "proper matchmaking," is almost an afterthought and has more or less been stated as such for everything other than ranked. GSF queues are no different. Tiering would never work in GSF today because the population is still too low, relative to ground pvp, as to facilitate short wait times/fast queue pops. Dividing the GSF population so that lower geared ships aren't matched with maxed gear ships, or separating the group queues from solo queues, is in my opinion likely to prolong wait times to an unacceptable level. I believe that to be the fear of the developers as well, or they would have done something about it already.

 

Anyway, to summarize,

1.) You are factually incorrect about many of the gearing discrepancies.

2.) Even if you were correct about the gearing discrepancies, giving players maxed out ships is not likely to change their ability to perform as much as you think it to be. See my win rate after nearly 700 matched and over 100k requisition. See also the effects of recent double requisition events and the effects of increased token requisition grant patch notes on the evolution of GSF.

3.) The GSF population is currently so small that dividing the queues to provide more even matchmaking is likely to prolong queue pops to a prohibitive duration.

 

As a final, philosophical note, while the GSF population may increase with faster requisition gains (see #2 above), in reality it is incentives like Galactic Conquest or Dark vs Light Event that really bring more players in. Just look at the popularity of vanity items in the cartel market, in people's strongholds, in the popularity of outfit designer ... most casual players enjoy that stuff. GSF needs more things like that: paint jobs, color kits, pilot suits, stronghold decorations, ship re-skins, character titles, legacy titles. See this thread for some of my ideas about rewards. I theorize that the cartel market gets so much attention because the reality is that most people are interested in that vanity stuff, despite what reddit or General Discussion forums might indicate. It's a shame, for the pilots anyway, that the only way to get decorations of their ships in their stronghold was to get the deco at random from a cartel pack, or that most of the pilot suits in the game cannot be obtained by actually playing GSF.

 

I'd like to believe that clothing, a paint job, or a reskin of a T3 gunship/T1 bomber using an existing model is easier to develop than a new game mode, a revamped tutorial, a ranked system, or any of the other things that GSF ultimately needs. I would bet dollars to donuts that stuff will get more players into GSF than a new game mode, just looking at history.

 

So sure, let's boost the req gains, incentivize solo queuing, fix strikes, remove starter traps like rapid fire lasers if you don't fix them ... but lets dangle more carrots in front of people too.

[FlavivsAetivs]

Spawn camping is absolute BS. You have absolutely no reason to do it. That's like if one (American) football team tackled the other and kept them pinned down at the gate right when they run out onto the stadium floor.

 

Spawn camping just contributes to the kind of BS that drives people away from the gamemode.

 

~ Eudoxia

[DakhathKilrathi]

Spawn camping is absolute BS. You have absolutely no reason to do it. That's like if one (American) football team tackled the other and kept them pinned down at the gate right when they run out onto the stadium floor.

 

Spawn camping just contributes to the kind of BS that drives people away from the gamemode.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

If you don't like it, don't let me do it. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to target the closest red name, no matter where the closest red name happens to be.

Edited July 14, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[PlagaNerezza]

I disagree. I have never had a new player complain that they lost by a lot. They don't even understand that yet. They complain that they lose, and hey, who wouldn't? But the ones who stick around are the ones who can handle a loss. Players who can't handle losing by a lot are players who probably aren't suited to any sort of PVP game in the first place, because it is going to happen.

 

I still find myself on the wrong end of that sometimes. It happens. But you won't catch me whining on the forums about how SRW is being too hard on me or whatever else, because I know better. I don't want a pity sat. I don't want anyone to insult me by playing a Slegehammer or whatever. I want whoever it is to get it over with so I can get on to the next game.

 

If losing is certain, drawing it out is just cruel. It's losing that they have a problem with. Everything else just comes from the whining and excuses they make for it. They don't lose because they're bad, oh no. They lose because:

 

Nowhere on the list of common complaints will you find "I lost because I need to get better". That's the difference between good players and players who might be average but will never really go anywhere. Good players recognize where they need to improve. Average players blame game mechanics or the other team.

 

I don't have a mis-perception of this mini-game. Its internal advocates on this board are giving fine ship building and playing advice, but terrible advice on the overall status of this mini-game. They also admit to farming, spawn camping, lack spiking and a host of otherwise garbage moves to win.

 

Every thread I've read has the new pilots freely admitting their is a skill gap. What is infuriating is that skill gap is compounded with a massive gear gap. Even if you are closing the skill gap if you roll an alt you are faced with this stupid gear gap again in a mini-game that is nothing more than a space shooter.

 

Given that matching won't change the easiest solution involves addressing gearing of ships. Which I am advocating tossing gear progression out the window on this game.

 

For those saying gear doesn't matter this shouldn't be a problem. (Yet they keep arguing to keep gear progression). For those saying gear does matter it removes it from being a problem. I highly suspect that the GSF 'experts' are defending gear progression in GSF only because its a massive benefit to them. If its not then why the bother? If the difference on the gear is a non-factor why are you defending its existence?

 

I also agree that the rewards should be more in line with cosmetic and decorations. Their should be a lot more across the game including the GSF mini-game.

Edited July 14, 2016 by PlagaNerezza

[PlagaNerezza]

I don't have a mis-perception of this mini-game. Its internal advocates on this board are giving fine ship building and playing advice, but terrible advice on the overall status of this mini-game. They also admit to farming, spawn camping, lack spiking and a host of otherwise garbage moves to win.

 

Every thread I've read has the new pilots freely admitting their is a skill gap. What is infuriating is that skill gap is compounded with a massive gear gap. Even if you are closing the skill gap if you roll an alt you are faced with this stupid gear gap again in a mini-game that is nothing more than a space shooter.

 

Given that matching won't change the easiest solution involves addressing gearing of ships. Which I am advocating tossing gear progression out the window on this game.

 

For those saying gear doesn't matter this shouldn't be a problem. (Yet they keep arguing to keep gear progression). For those saying gear does matter it removes it from being a problem. I highly suspect that the GSF 'experts' are defending gear progression in GSF only because its a massive benefit to them. If its not then why the bother? If the difference on the gear is a non-factor why are you defending its existence?

 

I also agree that the rewards should be more in line with cosmetic and decorations. Their should be a lot more across the game including the GSF mini-game.

 

For those nimrods that like to read post history feel free to read my GSF history. Its a long running tally of how absurd gearing is in GSF and how much all I want is a level playing field to die painfully. As this point I am done asking for development time to fix the system and just want them to get rid of the progression system they have since they wont do anything of value to improve space.

[Octagon]

Where I'll agree that to the ace pilot gear doesn't matter much, to us mere mortals it cannot be overstated. Allowing someone to collect enough comms to even get a ship half way geared in a relatively short time frame would be a really big deal for most people. Sure they will still get destroyed by an ace, but they will be in the fight a little longer and maybe have a little fun before the re-spawn screen hits. Also having a respec system for those that don't read the forums and waste comms on garbage abilities would be super helpful. Edited July 14, 2016 by Octagon

[FlavivsAetivs]

Honestly the best thing they could do is look at say Stasie's guide and revamp the game start, so that you start out with say a fully mastered, properly built Ion/HLC/Concussion Starguard with Directional shield (something that won't get one-shotted even if it is underpowered) and a properly built Lasers/Rockets Novadive with EMP. It would give new players viability and let them figure out different stuff does different things (like ions don't work on hull, EMP clears mines, missiles vs. pods, etc).

 

But the fact of the matter is the Devs have given up on GSF. They won't even put cross faction in it like they did with the two new PvP maps.

 

They also admit to farming, spawn camping, lack spiking and a host of otherwise garbage moves to win.

 

I can't help it some people continue to be hellbent on killing this game mode. If the other team sucks, tell your team to hold back in the middle of the map, or let them have a sat. I know, firsthand, that things like that encourages a small number of people to keep playing.

 

Nobody here has ever admitted to lag spiking. I know nobody who does it intentionally, except for 2-shipper noob pilots who probably come from the PvP community (and probably cheat there) and enter a game trying to cheat and we all report and ban them.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited July 14, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[HeatRacer]

If you don't like it, don't let me do it.

 

I'm sorry, I've tried to keep out of this, but that is one of the most stupidly unhelpful statements I've seen posted in this whole thread.

Edited July 14, 2016 by HeatRacer

[PlagaNerezza]

I'm sorry, I've tried to keep out of this, but that is one of the most stupidly unhelpful statements I've seen posted in this whole thread.

 

Actually its very helpful and insightful.

 

Its what a lot of paying customers who enter GSF go through.

 

If you don't like being farmed you can try and stop them.

 

It's not the players fault. I don't blame him. Its not his video game design. He didn't setup the game, rules, gearing, match. I can call him out for it, but its not his problem to solve.

 

It's EA/Bioware's job to provide a fun balanced encounter and most games make a concerted effort to prevent players from being farmed by more geared and experienced players.

[DakhathKilrathi]

I'm sorry, I've tried to keep out of this, but that is one of the most stupidly unhelpful statements I've seen posted in this whole thread.

 

You misunderstand. It's not a taunt; it's a direction. I mean it when I say it: don't let me do whatever it is you don't want me doing. I want everyone playing this game to be capable of stopping me or any of the players who are better than I am (and there are quite a few).

 

It's the mindset you need to have to be good at any PVP. Don't look for the other team to give you anything. Look for what you can do to win. Learn the mechanics and spot what they're doing wrong so you can take advantage of it.

 

If you're ever against me in a loss, feel free to hop sides and ask me about the game. I'm always willing to explain what happened and why, and what a given team needed to do to win. (This extends to giving tips in General chat during wargames, though no one ever listens to those for some reason. They think i'm sabotaging them, I guess.) Sometimes one person could have pulled that off. Usually matchmaker is just unhelpful and the teams were mismatched from the start, but even then, there's something you could learn.

 

Don't ask me to hold your hand during a game. That's not my job. I'm always willing to offer tips, however, and I've said as much multiple times. I've had maybe two or three people ever take me up on that offer. Most people are quick to blame mechanics they don't understand all that well or aren't particularly good at instead of trying to improve.

 

It took me over a thousand games to start to get good, but I'm not the norm. I need a lot of practice to get a feel for something. Most people can pick it up much faster than I did. I stuck with it in spite of being just average for a long time, so I don't have much sympathy for anyone who wants to give up. I didn't.

Edited July 14, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[HeatRacer]

You misunderstand. It's not a taunt; it's a direction. I mean it when I say it: don't let me do whatever it is you don't want me doing. I want everyone playing this game to be capable of stopping me or any of the players who are better than I am (and there are quite a few).

 

Ah sorry if I misunderstood your intentions; I was reading it as basically "git gud", or like how a bully taunts "what're you gonna do about it?" I understand your point, but think it's easier said than done sometimes (specifically talking about the spawn camping). When a couple gunships set up a GS wall and start picking off newcomers as soon as they rez in, there's not a whole lot they can do about it. If you really want to encourage people to stick around long enough to provide a challenge, then they need to have enough room to get out there, maneuver, fire off some shots, etc. since there's no PVE mode to practice or gear up in.

 

As far as Domination, I'm a believer that the other team should be allowed to have a satellite. But you can attack it to get them to learn to either defend it, or to attack one of the other satellites. A sense of back-and-forth goes a long way towards encouraging people to try again. Once again, if they are getting spawn camped, they are neither learning, nor earning, anything, and that doesn't do anything towards the goal of grooming future challengers. Sure, no one has an obligation to be "hand-holding", but for anyone professing to want a challenge or a larger playerbase for faster queue times, they need to extend some courtesy.

Edited July 14, 2016 by HeatRacer

[Lendul]

Ah sorry if I misunderstood your intentions; I was reading it as basically "git gud", or like how a bully taunts "what're you gonna do about it?"

You didn't misunderstand anything. You were right on your first impression. This person is just very adept at double talk.

[FlavivsAetivs]

You want proof that what you're doing is killing this game? Take a moment and think about why you all had to leave Ebon Hawk. Oh, right, queue there completely died.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited July 14, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[caederon]

You want proof that what you're doing is killing this game? Take a moment and think about why you all had to leave Ebon Hawk. Oh, right, queue there completely died.

The queue on Ebon Hawk died because the veterans left and nobody else there was interested in learning how to play well. The level of anti-learning lassiez-faire 'do whatever you want'-ism was only ever exceeded in my experience by Shadowlands impside.

 

I was accused of hacking there because I strafed while charging shots in a gunship.

 

Ebon Hawk had a vibrant and interesting GSF scene until the veterans moved to other servers and/or quit. The veteran players are the ones that drive the scene. The ones that stick around, that persevere, that learn all they can about the game, they are the ones that matter and that you want to retain because they keep queuing, they keep playing until the situation becomes so distasteful or boring that they leave.

 

In the prime days of GSF, there were enough players to fill queues even on servers like Begeren Colony to the point where there were at least two matches running at any given time. Harbinger usually had three. The game was actually even more merciless then. Gunships were drastically more powerful due to pre-nerf ion railgun. It was brutal. Yet, somehow, people persevered. They played and developed skills despite gameplay conditions being less favorable. Some excelled.

 

The difference then was that you could always get a game. You could keep queuing and push through the difficulty of learning through repetition and gaining experience. People bled away when development ceased...

 

and by the way:

 

So congratulations you and your brethren are the reason why no matter what other people do GSF will not grow and will get no further development time.

This is probably the most nonsensical, wrongheaded statement that I've ever read on this forum.

 

If you seriously think that the development team makes their decision of whether or not to throw money at something based on whether skilled players are routinely beating unskilled players, then you are even farther gone than I had already thought. It is not the obligation of the skilled player to tie their hands for the benefit of unskilled players. Hang on, let me repeat that:

 

It is not the obligation of the skilled player to tie their hands for the benefit of unskilled players.

 

It is the development team's job, in fact their PRIME job, to provide a game that suits the audience playing it. Making some wrongheaded argument that somehow they would refuse to grace their players with further development because some people are just too darn good and they're ruining it for everyone is lunacy. Punishing players for being successful is not the aim any dev team should or would take.

 

GSF didn't meet the financial metrics that some bean counter set, so they ditched it like a bunch of other half-finished ideas in SWTOR. Par for the course. The decision was not a moral judgement upon the mighty aces who reached too far and Icarus'd the game into a nosedive (which despite your preferred narrative is not what happened). It is and was and will be about money.

 

I wont even go into the established and well proven fact that new people did not care enough to take advantage of learning resources when repeatedly presented to them.

 

It takes drive to succeed. It takes perseverance through adversity. It takes a willingness to accept that you may not immediately win... that you may have to seek help from those who are better at the game than you... that you may have to take a new approach when your first approach isn't working.

 

Personally, I don't care if they give every new player a fully mastered hangar. Unless they also include an autopilot feature that takes them where they actually need to be in a match, you'll still see hordes of people flying anywhere but to A B or C. You'll still see people blasting their mastered rapid-fire lasers from 10k away. They'll still lose a whole lot, and they'll find things to complain about that seem earth-shattering and impossible to overcome despite their new wealth of top-end components.

 

The only thing that would truly improve the new player experience is full cross-server queuing so there are enough players that the new ones can be matched against their peers most of the time.

 

- Despon

[DakhathKilrathi]

You want proof that what you're doing is killing this game? Take a moment and think about why you all had to leave Ebon Hawk. Oh, right, queue there completely died.

 

~ Eudoxia

Where did you get the idea that TEH queues died? Like you've left JC for more than ten minutes to see. I'm not sure which is funnier: the idea that you play elsewhere, or the idea that a single player is capable of killing an entire server.

 

You and Lendul do realize how absurd that sounds, right? A single player, responsible for killing an entire server? Like Despon said, TEH slowed down for the same reason that every server but Harbinger slowed down: there are fewer veteran players sticking with it, and those of us who have used the cheap server transfers to congregate in one place, because that made the most sense for competition.

 

I didn't leave TEH. I still play there. And, as you can see from the image above (screenshots taken tonight in the first few minutes after logging in) it's doing well enough. Sure, the queue slowed down, but what did you expect to happen when the server's only GSF guild moved to Harbinger?

 

but no that's my fault right

Edited July 15, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[FlavivsAetivs]

Several people here can attest they've seen me on other servers, I do play on Harb, TRE, and every now and then Shadowlands. I used to play on TEH but haven't in a year now. Although I haven't queued on Harb or TRE since May because I'm currently working during the day, and by the time I get home and can play JC's queue is going. And even then I don't queue on JC as much as I used to because I have HM ops to do.

 

Actually it's a pain to play at all right now because my mouse is busted. Playing with a laptop keypad at the moment.

 

I'm not saying that you, alone, killed GSF queue on TEH. And I won't deny that veterans leaving contributed to it.

 

Look, you two technically aren't wrong. Should we have to tie our hands to keep this gamemode alive? No.

 

Do we have to? Unfortunately, yes.

 

But spawn camping is still unacceptable, end of discussion.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited July 15, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[DakhathKilrathi]

But spawn camping is still unacceptable, end of discussion.

 

Spawn camping isn't the goal. I don't think you get it. When I end up on spawn, it's because I want the other team to be as far from my own spawn points as possible. Like it or not, map control decides who wins games, both in TDM and domination. My team's success can be dependent on how much of the other team's fire is directed at me.

 

I think you forget that both teams have less experienced players. Sure, the players on the weaker team are having less fun, but for the stronger team, they have freedom to do whatever. They get a chance to get shots in. They get a chance to actually contribute. They can actually make it across the map without some gunship picking them off as they go, because all of the other team is concentrated in one place.

 

I won't apologize for controlling the map. Map control wins games.

 

I won't apologize for three capping, either. Players need to learn how to take a contested sat. That's huge. You can't win consistently if you can't do that. It's easier to take a sat if the other team has three capped than it is to take one if they're defending two.

Edited July 15, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[FlavivsAetivs]

You can control a map without spawncamping.

 

~ Eudoxia

[DakhathKilrathi]

You can control a map without spawncamping.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

Yeah? How's that?

 

Edit: Also, you're missing the point. My goal is never to spawn camp. And indeed, often I won't spend much time on the spawn point. But there's no such thing as a "safe" spot on the map. A player who runs to spawn is a player I'm still going to kill. A player who charges their railgun on top of their spawnpoint is similarly fair game.

 

I would also like to repeat: controlling the map means my team has room to practice. That's important. Don't overlook that.

Edited July 15, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[Lendul]

You can control a map without spawncamping.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

You are wasting your time. Trying to explain the merits of self control and mercy to her is like trying to explain the color blue to someone who was born blind. She views things through a lens with a very specific filter. That lens is her wants her needs nothing else is relevant.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Lendul

[TheRandomno]

A non-sub wrote a very long reply to this and wants someone to post it here. I haven't actually read most of it.

 

[FlavivsAetivs]

Can't really argue with Buggles, although despite what he says I don't ONLY fly strike, my imp main is a sting/mangler. And when new players ask for help (or I see people in Clarions/Imperiums trying to copy me) I tell them to fly the right ship (Battlescout, Quarrel/Mangler, or Rampart/Razorwire I think).

 

He's right about JC, it's really a pain sometimes because the majority of queue consists of mediocre pilots and the veteran players have gone inactive (I saw Oscar, Graendhal, and Buggles last night at least but never see Traesha, Zuck, Saevius, etc. anymore. I did see Tenebrious once. Arturses gets on from time to time). In large part thanks to the drama but also because of JC's queue itself tapering off there for a while (Clarion night actually helped kick up queue again a bit, although it was mostly conquest that got it going again. DvL has gotten quite a few new faces into it too).

 

I have never suggested to throw a game, though. The moral action is to give them some room around their spawn. They're still gonna loose, yeah, and rightfully so.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited July 15, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[FlavivsAetivs]

Why don't I grab you Sriia, Lendul, and try and grab Buggles (I already messaged him) and you all can come to JC tonight and we can talk for a bit? We can use my guild's teamspeak.

 

Yeah I can be argumentative but I'm not unreasonable.

 

~ Eudoxia