Developer Live Stream = some hope

[Lendul]

In the director's live stream which and be viewed at the link below.

 

https://www.twitch.tv/swtor/v/95573503

 

The introduction of Galactic Command offers a little of what some of us have been asking for, which is a tie in for Star Fighter into the main game. In short Galactic Command will allow people to earn rewards relative to the main game through playing Star Fighter and other content in the game as well.

 

The best way to describe Galactic Command would be to say it is personal per character system that affects characters much in the way conquest affects guilds. You will be able to earn command points and increase your command level by playing pretty much anything in the game. However there will be a daily rotation of which area will be incentivized and will give bonus command points on some days that will be GSF.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Lendul

[HeatRacer]

Plus, GSF seemed to have a prominent spot in the interface, being equal in size to the others, to remind people it exists. Now if veterans don't completely wreck the n00bs and drive them away...

[phalczen]

It's funny that they mention at the cantina that they can't prioritize development of GSF even long enough to fix strikes, but they can tie it in to their new Galactic Command grind.

 

I can just picture the threads in general discussion now... It's not fair that someone can play GSF all day and get nightmare ops-level or ranked pvp arena- level gear/vanity items/etc. I mean it was a big forum issue when the only source of repeatable end game content for some conquest weeks was ground pvp and GSF... Now it's tying into raid and pvp gear progression.

 

I'm happy they want to integrate areas of the whole game and I'm happy that they are creating incentives for GSF. But I never imagined this was the answer to our version of the elusive mythical "better than cross server". I'm also not sure that someone who does GSF all day wants a set bonus piece for operations to be awarded in his or her command crate. That being said, it seems most of the people still around these parts have already delved into other areas of the game, you know, since I see them post elsewhere (I'm looking at you Eudoxia, Greezt, Lendul, and Despon). I am sure I wouldn't mind getting a set bonus piece to drop when I've spent a day playing GSF. But I still wish there were GSF themed rewards anyway... But that horse has long since been turned to glue.

 

/Rambling off

[FlavivsAetivs]

That being said, it seems most of the people still around these parts have already delved into other areas of the game, you know, since I see them post elsewhere (I'm looking at you Eudoxia, Greezt, Lendul, and Despon). I am sure I wouldn't mind getting a set bonus piece to drop when I've spent a day playing GSF. But I still wish there were GSF themed rewards anyway... But that horse has long since been turned to glue.

 

/Rambling off

 

I've always played this game to play it with a friend or with friends. Virtually none of whom queue for GSF anymore, or when they do it's terribly inconvenient for them/me. I usually played in the afternoons, but it barely pops now at that time and Traesha has moved on to other Starfighter MMO's, and when most people queue at night I'm already tied up in ops or on rare occasions ground PvP. As a result, I mostly do PvE now with my best friend.

 

I should note that in the new system, PvP/Ranked daily gives 35, each weekly Op gives 40, and GSF Daily gives 45, meaning we now have the fastest way to get geared, technically.

 

If they don't remove the RNG system, which I absolutely hope to God they immediately get rid of and go back to the way it has been for the past 5 years.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited October 18, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

[Toraak]

I can already see it. People queu up for GSF and go afk just for the Command Experience. This may not be as good for GSF as it did at first glance. Get your fingers ready to Vote to kick Non contributor's.

[Lendul]

I can already see it. People queu up for GSF and go afk just for the Command Experience. This may not be as good for GSF as it did at first glance. Get your fingers ready to Vote to kick Non contributor's.

 

Those people still show up in Bioware's analytics as playing GSF. Which is what they use to determine what they spend their resources on developing.

[Storm-Cutter]

No matter what the comms, if you mainly play GSF, you'll not need them for gear anyways.

unless they make the comms/requisition legacy transferrable.... which I can't see happening anytime soon.

 

 

My guess is, they'll wreck it, some folks will leave. Those that were pilots in GSF will be replaced by asteroid-hugging suicide loving noobs just in it for the shiny things.

 

IF they wanted to increase numbers playing GSF, increase the rewards, improve the tutorial, promote it a bit and make hangars and/or req legacy wide.

 

Not only can't they read good advice form people here in the forums, they chose to repeat all previous mistakes as well.

[SeCKSEgai]

I can just picture the threads in general discussion now... It's not fair that someone can play GSF all day and get nightmare ops-level or ranked pvp arena- level gear/vanity items/etc.

 

Psh. I reside on the most populated west coast server and I've seen the GSF queue fade dramatically. There was a time when you could get pops even at odd hours. Prime time would consistently have multiple matches in progress. Now we get downtime in prime time and the people left tend to scare away the few new players left trying it out.

 

With population decline in all facets of the game pretty blatant, adding a new gear grind only justified by new solo content isn't going to do anything for player retention.

[Lendul]

Psh. I reside on the most populated west coast server and I've seen the GSF queue fade dramatically. There was a time when you could get pops even at odd hours. Prime time would consistently have multiple matches in progress. Now we get downtime in prime time and the people left tend to scare away the few new players left trying it out.

 

With population decline in all facets of the game pretty blatant, adding a new gear grind only justified by new solo content isn't going to do anything for player retention.

 

Players will return for the expansion. How long they stay though.....

Edited October 19, 2016 by Lendul

[Greezt]

The new galactic command doesn't tie in GSF any more than conquest did. It doesn't give people a reason to play, only to queue.

 

Unless they fix that, all I can see will happen is that people will go afk in game, or even SD on TDMs. Just as is currently the case.

[Deavastro]

To prevent new players who'll go the route of being suicider's, ticks (or just bring in the good ol' pvp trash talk of the ground game and do nothing else), is it possible to tie the galactic command rewards to medals rather than matches played/won? This way even the worse/newest player would be incentivised to at least get on a legion to farm a savior medal. Drop drones so they don't get kicked for not contributing to damage. In a way contribute to the team without actually doing much..... and who knows somewhere along the line maybe they'll get hooked on gsf as well.

 

Yes I realize I'm trying to put a positive spin on bomber spam. Ummm idea may need work.

[Greezt]

Simply put, the only way I can think of that would make people participate is to reward winning. People currently go into matches knowing they are literally doing us a favor by queueing up. They don't feel the need to play, or improve. They get conquest for showing up, they get their DvL cheevos, they get money too.

 

Medals are a horrible way to gauge preformace, as is DPS and as are kills. If there was a way to combine all the stats together in some algorithm it might work, but even that would miss out on some stuff. Example: in serious TDMs, Warcarriers will often recieve the noncontributing message. They aren't dealing damage, so they're not contributing according to the game... In DOM matches, holding a node white doesn't grant defender or attacker points.

 

So if they put in another reward for winning, or even change the way it works so that only winning rewards players, I might believe some improvement to GSF might come.

 

The way it currently is, there'll be nothing good about it.

[Deavastro]

I would agree about winning should be rewarded, but near the first week of DvL I heard a guild discussing throwing a game cause half of the enemy team were their friends/guildmates. I agree that medals are a poor gauge of contribution to team, but at least everyone who earns a medal has to do something worthwhile for the team, even if it is just dropping a repair probe on a sat and grinding out a savior medal.

[phalczen]

If there was a way to combine all the stats together in some algorithm it might work, but even that would miss out on some stuff. Example: in serious TDMs, Warcarriers will often recieve the noncontributing message. They aren't dealing damage, so they're not contributing according to the game... In DOM matches, holding a node white doesn't grant defender or attacker points.

 

Agreed. There's a lot we don't know about the CXP gained within a pvp or GSF match that would be important to make comparisons to pve, where we, say, know how many ops bosses and roughly how much gold trash there is, and can make guesstimations on how much CXP an op might yield.

[phalczen]

Psh. I reside on the most populated west coast server and I've seen the GSF queue fade dramatically. There was a time when you could get pops even at odd hours. Prime time would consistently have multiple matches in progress. Now we get downtime in prime time and the people left tend to scare away the few new players left trying it out.

 

With population decline in all facets of the game pretty blatant, adding a new gear grind only justified by new solo content isn't going to do anything for player retention.

 

So, you believe that even if GSF will get you command crates faster than ground pvp or operations, there won't be more people queuing up? Maybe they'll be AFK abusing the system like others have suggested above, and I agree its a danger, but you still don't think the queues will pop faster? Maybe the frustration of dealing with the actual match, regardless of whether you go AFK, outweighs even a dramatic CXP gain advantage?

 

Or, are you saying that the anticipated loss of all players from the game over the current and projected state of the game come 5.0 and into early 2017 will outweigh/negate any increase in people queueing up for GSF just because its a faster path to gear progression?

 

Personally, I wouldn't put it past a hard core raider or pvp'er to queue up for GSF if it meant that they could get into end game gear faster, in the same way I don't doubt BBB has countless members queueing up during the GSF-oriented conquest week. But, I guess there could be a threshold of frustration about GSF above which even a large boost to CXP isn't worth queueing for. Or, there could be a loss of players so dramatic that even if the percentage of players queueing up for "less preferred content" increases, the absolute number goes down.

 

If the current size of the playerbase is 1000 people, and 20% of the playerbase queues for GSF at any given time (the point prevalence), that's 200 players in the queue. If the playerbase loses 200 people, but GSF becomes more popular such that 25% of the players are queued at any given time, then you still have 200 people in the queue. If GSF becomes so popular that 30% of the players are queued up, that's 240 people in queue, and so despite your loss of 200 players from the playerbase the queue size went up.

[Storm-Cutter]

People will queue up for whatever gives the biggest CXP for the least amount of work.

 

Since BiS gear means nothing in the GSF part of the game, if GSF fulfills the above criteria, we can expect an uptick in numbers. - Whether that is enough to warrant any dev attention, or simply be more suiciders and match -wreckers remains to be seen.

 

Bottom line is that however they (BW) think they're clever enough to encourage people to queue up and play, they never think it through enough to reward tryers and punish suiciders.

[Lendul]

People will queue up for whatever gives the biggest CXP for the least amount of work.

 

Since BiS gear means nothing in the GSF part of the game, if GSF fulfills the above criteria, we can expect an uptick in numbers. - Whether that is enough to warrant any dev attention, or simply be more suiciders and match -wreckers remains to be seen.

 

Bottom line is that however they (BW) think they're clever enough to encourage people to queue up and play, they never think it through enough to reward tryers and punish suiciders.

 

Has it been confirmed that it will be a flat rate? It has been confirmed that the more people involved the more CXP. If that remains true in GSF then 12 player matches might be worth more than 8 player matches. They might make winning worth more than losing as well.

[Storm-Cutter]

If people AFK in the hope to be carried to a victory they'll get it eventually.... When 7 other people carry them.

- it only takes 1 or 2 people AFK-ing on the other team to get yourself a win.

 

BUT : I expect a Dev post on this issue any decade now....

[SeCKSEgai]

Simply put, the only way I can think of that would make people participate is to reward winning. People currently go into matches knowing they are literally doing us a favor by queueing up. They don't feel the need to play, or improve. They get conquest for showing up, they get their DvL cheevos, they get money too.

 

Medals are a horrible way to gauge preformace, as is DPS and as are kills. If there was a way to combine all the stats together in some algorithm it might work, but even that would miss out on some stuff. Example: in serious TDMs, Warcarriers will often recieve the noncontributing message. They aren't dealing damage, so they're not contributing according to the game... In DOM matches, holding a node white doesn't grant defender or attacker points.

 

So if they put in another reward for winning, or even change the way it works so that only winning rewards players, I might believe some improvement to GSF might come.

 

The way it currently is, there'll be nothing good about it.

 

Only rewarding winning would only further degrade the queue. As Harby's GSF pop declined, matches are even more one-sided as is. If winning was the only means of earning credit, you would basically end up killing the queue entirely as the groups in queue would only get a pop every so often against players unaware of the beating they were about to take and then never queue again.

 

Medals aren't hard to earn unless you're a new player getting shot by gunships before you even know what's hitting you. In dom matches you earn medals guarding a sat whether engaged in combat or not. Bombers who park in kill matches get the no participation warning because they're rarely doing little more than hiding in a protected area expecting people to mindlessly fly into traps. The main problem with medals is that they reset (or at least some of them do) when swapping ships.

 

Damage per second is meaningless on its own. Total damage is a lot more revealing. If someone does over 100k damage over the course of a match, they were far more effective than the player that did 5k. However, given the dynamics of GSF, a player who does just 5k is nearly guaranteed to be a lesser experienced pilot. Just because a newer pilot does little damage, it doesn't mean they aren't trying.

 

Kill counts have relevance but are hardly an adequate measure. I can net 29 kills one match and 3 the next depending on team strengths. When I was a newer pilot I was content in just landing a single kill.

 

The main thing you want to avoid is leechers - but that is a double-edged sword. The more the queue pops, the more likely there is to be at least one. The less the queue pops the less enticing it becomes for people to utilize it to leech.

 

As for people not improving - a lot of that is because most of what's left of the vets group up and essentially stack the team against mostly new and weak pilots. If people had the desire to "improve" we'd have a lot fewer one-sided matches, a lot more fun, and a lot more queue pops. Most people like easy wins. I've watched my own winrates drop over 10% (and often below 50% total) in attempting to give the weaker side a fighting chance. I find myself cycling through ships during a winning match just to help alleviate the losses to little avail.

 

And just to provide reference, pub side ground pvp on harby would virtually never pop if they only got credit for wins, as that has already happened as far as ranked pubside goes. Now on other servers it can be the exact opposite - and on several there aren't even pops for regs to warrant a care for ranked.

[Greezt]

Harbinger sounds like a sad place to be at. I guarantee you that on TRE things do not look so grim. We have a bunch of good to ace level players jumping sides in order to balance the queue and provide competitive matches.

 

Leechers are exactly why I want wins to be rewarded. I don't see why that is a problem. For PvP conquest, you get more points per win. For GSF you only need to show up... See the problem? I don't think DPS, damage or medals point towards contribution. Neither do kills. They might give a fair pointer, and they might not (see the TDM warcarrier example). Not to say that a gunship with 20 kills and 80k damage in a TDM was not contibuting, but that scout who sat back and peeled adventurous scouts off him (and ended with 15k damage and 2 kills) was pretty important too.

 

I don't see the use of keeping the queues alive if players don't try. I don't enjoy farming newbies, and I'm sure they don't enjoy it either. So either they get better and start farming me, or they just AFK and get their CXP. I can see why they would choose the latter, so Idtlike to incentivise them to pick the former. If they don't queue as a result, I'll take it as a sign that GSF's time has come. I'll have to move on.

[SeCKSEgai]

Leechers are exactly why I want wins to be rewarded. I don't see why that is a problem.

 

Someone didn't get why I referenced the state of pubside pvp, particularly ranked, or team stacking.

 

If only wins are rewarded, competition is discouraged. Instead of having competitive matches you're incentivizing stacking teams heavily. If you enter a match and see its a loss from the start, people either leave (ala pubside ground pvp) or suicide repeatedly.

 

If you only reward winning, than there's no point in playing things out to eat a loss. If every time you queue you see a loss before the match starts, eventually you stop entering the queue altogether.

 

It's too bad more of you aren't paying attention to the gearing feedback. A notable portion of the population is unhappy with the proposed changes and with good reason. It's very likely there will be another sharp population decline as most of what's left of the raiding community aren't going to stick around to grind grinding gear, as its a grind within a grind.

 

So while GSF was featured in the command point system, its likely that it will have little to no impact at all. On the other hand, veterans will get one last shot at welcoming pilots or decide to scare them off for good.

[Greezt]

Let's spell out our point of disagreement. You think that experienced players should go easy on new players. I don't.

 

I don't think so because this is a game. If I (or anyone) enjoy flying seriously, why would I fly a game where I gimp myself? Some players might enjoy firing only missiles or such, but others don't. I can sympathize with both sides, but as long as there are players who don't want to handicap theirselves for the benefit of new players some players will always get the sharp end of the stick.

 

Arguing that playing nice will bring an influx of GSFers to the game is just not true. I know this first hand, since a player accused me of stomping and told me that everyone on impside hates me (I flew only pubside). I used to fly strikes in noncompetitive games back then... Guess what made me change my mind.

 

Another point is that players need to think about the type of players they attract to the game. I'd rather see real PvPers. By real, I mean players who play the competitive game for a win, not float around and demand a node for trying. Participation trophies are nice, but they end up fostering entitlement. If you think people who are given points for trying someday change and become people who play the endgame, I think you're wrong.

 

As for rewarding wins - the only way prevent stacking sides is an ELO. This won't happen in GSF.

 

At least if wins are rewarded and players end up stacking sides, wargames might happen. And if they create premades in order to avoid competition, there's not a lot that can be done under the current system. Just as it is now.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Greezt

[Storm-Cutter]

It's debatable - a subject for a separate thread maybe - whether one should go easy on the opposition if they're clearly at a disadvantage. - So many time's I've seen my faction take a couple of easy wins in lop-sided games and it has killed the queue. - Or seen the opposition queue just for their 1/2 match daily and stop.

 

Personally I would like dozens, scores, hundreds of new players playing regularly. - however as a realist, making GSF matches count toward something pretty unrelated i.e. gear possibly isn't the way to do it.

 

BW needs to grow a pair and get on with making it more accessible, promote it more, reward veterans and encourage newbies positively.

 

Developers ignoring GSF for years but making people play for PvE progression achieves is pathetic.

[Toraak]

Personally I see this new system as something similar to conquest when it comes to GSF. Will it give Command XP for top end gear, yes. Like conquest tho it will bring in AFK'ers that will ruin the enjoyment of the game for others. Those on the side with the AFK'ers and suicide type players tend to stop queu'ing or will form a premade with the knowledge they'll be forced to out kill the people suiciding.

 

As for going easy on newbies, there are multiple ways to do it. One way which I try to do is have a troll ship on my bar for non competitive matches, a ship which we know has terrible components and see how well I can do on it instead of a Meta ship (any GS, and Bomber, or T2 scout) Lets face it these are the ships that stomp new players more then anything. Now with that being said I still fly that troll ship against them to the best of my ability. The second thing to do to make it easier on the newbies is to give them a node in domination so they don't get 3 capped. I do encourage players to do this when it's very clear there is no way my team will lose.

[RickDagles]

Let's spell out our point of disagreement. You think that experienced players should go easy on new players. I don't.

 

I don't think so because this is a game. If I (or anyone) enjoy flying seriously, why would I fly a game where I gimp myself? Some players might enjoy firing only missiles or such, but others don't. I can sympathize with both sides, but as long as there are players who don't want to handicap theirselves for the benefit of new players some players will always get the sharp end of the stick.

 

Arguing that playing nice will bring an influx of GSFers to the game is just not true. I know this first hand, since a player accused me of stomping and told me that everyone on impside hates me (I flew only pubside). I used to fly strikes in noncompetitive games back then... Guess what made me change my mind.

 

Another point is that players need to think about the type of players they attract to the game. I'd rather see real PvPers. By real, I mean players who play the competitive game for a win, not float around and demand a node for trying. Participation trophies are nice, but they end up fostering entitlement. If you think people who are given points for trying someday change and become people who play the endgame, I think you're wrong.

 

As for rewarding wins - the only way prevent stacking sides is an ELO. This won't happen in GSF.

 

At least if wins are rewarded and players end up stacking sides, wargames might happen. And if they create premades in order to avoid competition, there's not a lot that can be done under the current system. Just as it is now.

 

Well said! If someone wants to get good at ANY game, they will get good if they stick to it and use google to do some research. In their research they will fast track to success because they don't waste time with lesser tactics and gear/upgrades. Close-shave is a perfect example of this. He became an ace after only a few months of playing.

 

There will always be the crowd of players who try to figure out tactics/builds on their own, and those are more likely to be the players that get frustrated and quit. I don't care about those people.

Edited October 21, 2016 by RickDagles