Developer Live Stream = some hope

[Lendul]

Once again, you condescendingly manage to lay bare you antagonism towards anyone who is actually skilled at the game and who dares to engage in a multiplayer component of an MMORPG that facilitates grouping.

 

Let's ignore the fact that for veteran players with many thousands of games under their belt, the system will queue-skip them if they do not group. So, to clarify, the people who want to frequently queue and play a lot have to waste enormous amounts of time not playing if they fly solo, because the matching system is designed to overlook them. Once again, drilling it down even simpler for you: the system prevents the very people who keep the queue healthy from keeping the queue healthy if they do not group. Oh, I guess I didn't ignore that fact at all, because it is really very important.

 

I can't believe I even have to type this stuff because it's plainly evident:

• Anyone can form a 'premade,' there is no barrier to entry or requirement.
  
• There are significant advantages to doing so, and discouraging people from that or demonizing it is only hurting what is left of the player base.
  
• GSF is a team game, and at the lowest levels of play, nothing would help a player more than grouping up with their friends, learning to coordinate, and playing with objectives in mind on a team level.
  

 

If people choose to fly solo, that is a valid way to play with its own risks and rewards, but so is flying with your friends! It is a multiplayer game, it is a social environment, and the gameplay of the mode in question, GSF, rewards coordination and team play.

 

State your complaint clearly and honestly. You aren't complaining about premades, you're complaining that groups of skilled pilots want to fly together, and when they do, you can't cope with it. You could choose to group with skilled players and work to build your own skills to counter this, but you would rather attack the people who -have every right to play the game in a way that they enjoy- instead.

 

I have long been on record, even in this thread, advocating the proper solution to all of this. A custom match lobby would fix the whole problem, as anyone who can't cope with flying against groups of good players would then have configurable private matches available in which to fly against whomever they invite. Common practice from the dawn of the internet would fix this problem.

 

In the absence of that sensible fix, you should be encouraging new pilots to group up, make 'premades,' learn team tactics, fly with the objectives in mind, and not attempt to be a lone-wolf superhero until they have the understanding of the game and foundation of skills to pull that off.

 

- Despon

Where does this I can't cope with skilled-premades come from? If you mean I can't 1 vs 4/8 them then yes that is true. If you mean I stop queuing when they happen then you are wrong.

 

I base my conclusions on watching what happened to the Bastion queue. The developers could not have done more encourage play on that server. When they were actively promoting GSF that is where they would fly and they would live stream it on twitch. Many people created GSF characters on The Bastion just to "fly with/kill the developers".

 

Enter what is arguably the best 4-man group in GSF history. Drakolich, Verain, Sanic & Xiao. None of them were considered the most skilled in their role(some may argue Drakolich is the best all around player), but they had the best combination of skill and coordination. They proved it with the rise of the Super Serious events. Even more people either created or transferred characters to The Bastion to compete against the best.

 

I however watched a phenomenon happen during what most would call the golden era of GSF on The Bastion. The average joes of the server at first would comment in GSF chat "team Drak is queuing I'm out" sometimes for SRW as well but not as often. I just sat back and watched the queues via (/who mesas shipyards denon) and just read chat. A silent observer seeing that while the immediate influx of 4 players would of course increase the player pool by 4 ,but inevitably the total number of people in matches would shrink.

 

Now an addendum to this I would like to add is that I think it takes more than the combination of skill and premade I think the final ingredient that comes into this is lack of restraint. I think that is what forms the dark triad that kills queues. A skilled coordinated premade that does not show restraint is what will kill the queues of the average joes and new players.

 

So I now ask you. If your assertion of "Aces are the lifeblood of the queues" is true then how did The Bastion queue die? It was the server that had the most aces after all.

Edited October 31, 2016 by Lendul

[caederon]

So I now ask you. If your assertion of "Aces are the lifeblood of the queues" is true then how did The Bastion queue die? It was the server that had the most aces after all.

No four people have ever killed a queue, or a server (unless you count Bioware executives). They did not fly 24 hours a day, relentlessly double-boxing so they could be in every match that was flown, gunning down every player that dared set foot on their turf. They were a single 4-man group. They did not have access to special equipment, or prevent others from gaining the exact same ships they used. They even widely distributed knowledge of their tactics and builds, which everyone else could learn from.

 

Even more people either created or transferred characters to The Bastion to compete against the best.

So... they killed the GSF queue by drawing people TO the server to play GSF? Increasing the pool of players killed the queue? Ok.

 

Your entire premise is fundamentally wrong.

 

The 'average joes' queue now and then, but it is the continual presence of the 'aces' that play a lot who give the game a baseline population. When the 'aces' go, there are not enough casual players concurrently queuing to fill matches up. THAT is when a server dies.

 

Look at BC, which slowly lost its veteran population and GSF guilds to other games because there was never going to be anything new in GSF again. At one time, BC had 2-3 concurrent matches going every night. The aces slowly spread out or quit, and the couple GSF heavy guilds relocated or quit. GSF has dwindled to the point where I can play story content there for hours without a single pop happening.

 

Look at Shadowlands, which had a dominant premade impside when Xi'ao flew. Should have killed the server right? Instead it prompted some of the other up-and-comers there to form SRW. Tough competition motivated them to build up their own skills and seek allies. When Xi'ao left, impside became an inexhaustable dumpster fire of people who refused any attempts to help them learn to fly.

 

Look at TEH, which was vital with an enormous roster of excellent, active pilots who nearly all filtered away leaving only the 'average joes' to stage the occasional match every couple hours or so, people so dedicated to remaining average (and GSF-less) that they call 'hacker' on people with the magical skill of strafing in a gunship.

 

* FUN FACT: Drakolich had nothing to do with the rise or fall of these other servers, btw!

 

* FUN FACT #2: it wasn't just GSF that died on Bastion, it was Ops, FPs, WZs, content in general, none of which Drakolich played.

 

* FUN FACT #3: Drakolich and his group haven't flown on Bastion in over a year. The 'average joes' did not take advantage of this ace-less playground to rekindle safe, happy, carefree GSF. Because there were never enough 'average joes' to do so who cared enough to queue continually, especially in the face of zero new additions to GSF (unless you count bugs).

 

Look at Harbinger and TRE, which remain active BECAUSE of the constant presence of 'aces' showing up there and queuing.

When cheap 90cc character transfers and 12x XP happened, everyone flocked to the most populous servers, being TRE and Harb. Population loss killed the other servers. It killed GSF on Pot5 when the aces moved to Harb and abroad. The aces were and always have been the people who will continually queue up to play, making them one hundred percent vital to the continual existence of GSF as an ongoing entity.

 

Open your eyes and see it for what it is! People that play GSF are a subset of people who both 'like space shooters' and 'like or tolerate PvP' in a game that is neither primarily a space shooter or primarily PvP. The game's population is mostly comprised of people who have no interest in GSF, did not come to SWTOR expecting to find a PvP space shooter, and SURPRISE, they ignore it when they learn of it.

 

Bioware killed GSF with lack of planning, poor vision, and disastrous lack of followthrough... or at least gutted it and left it to its fate on the side of the road.

 

If anyone wants to see GSF continue, the answer is not to demonize and chase off the players that play the most just because they're hard to beat!

 

- Despon

Edited October 31, 2016 by caederon

[RickDagles]

Question, If you are in a match against team composed of 50% or more new pilots (2 ships on bar/ known new pilots) do you think you should employ methods 1,2,4?

 

Agreed. 1,2, and 4 are not necessary (or fun to do) in those scenarios. I usually try to fly a weaker ship in those cases. Often I have 5 meta ships on my bar because I need them against difficult competition though.

 

 

As for 5, I am of the opinion if its a comfortable 3 cap win (1000 - <100 scoreboard type match) you should leave A and C unguarded, let them cap and then *****slap them hard to cap it back.

 

Sure I see no problem with that. Kinda hard to get everyone in the game to agree to do that, but it's not a bad idea.

 

 

One premade can be bad(depending on individual skill level) but hardly a queue killer in an of itself, even if it were I would not want them to split up just so I could win a match. A preamde in a stacked faction (or simply just a stacked faction) such that every match is around 7-8 veteran pilots vs 1-2 veteran pilots? maybe then someone should switch.

 

Yes that is very boring and I try to avoid those games.

 

 

One thing though. The point about premades killing queues is not an opinion it's a fact. In point #3 you even show this. The retort to the premise is "but me likey".

 

 

Despon covered this fairly nicely but I will add one thing. You are correct about "but me likey". I do like to play with friends. It's a team game. I don't feel like it's my responsibility to constantly fight against my friends just to make everyone else happy. We do split up the teams sometimes, but often I think TRE, harb, and JC have more than enough good pilots on the other side to give us a good challenge.