Please buff the rewards for GSF if you're going to buff ground PVP as well.

[Kallaes]

What does this mean? Maybe gsf wasn't such a failure in terms of popularity due to way it was made, but because it has barely any rewards connected to rest of the game and apart from titles those few rewards there are you can buy from other players. Lack of rewards didn't give players any incentive to play it and low popularity compined with a bit overpriced (ships) and pointless (cosmetics) cartel market unlocks were reason why it didn't bring in any revenue. Complete and I mean complete neglect from bioware (they don't even read gsf section of their own forums) for last 2.5 years hasn't helped our community either. I'm very doubtful that "cool" rewards you can get with crate tokens are actually cool enough for people to play gsf just for the sake of good CXP.

 

Just my opinion here...

 

GSF was not a failure due to the way it was made or the lack of rewards. It was a failure due to the staggered manner of its roll out. Closed beta, early access, subscriber access, and I think preferred and free to play at their own individual dates. Nothing prevented experienced players from rolling new toons, getting matched against newcomers, and them repeated smearing them across the figurative floor. Better, faster rewards may have been able to entice some players to stick around, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference. It wouldn't have for me. What it really needed was a legacy wide ranking system that factored into the queue. While it wouldn't have eliminated the issues caused by the staggered roll out, it would have at least mitigated some of the experience gap.

[Storm-Cutter]

Just my opinion here...

 

GSF was not a failure due to the way it was made or the lack of rewards. It was a failure due to the staggered manner of its roll out. Closed beta, early access, subscriber access, and I think preferred and free to play at their own individual dates. Nothing prevented experienced players from rolling new toons, getting matched against newcomers, and them repeated smearing them across the figurative floor. Better, faster rewards may have been able to entice some players to stick around, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference. It wouldn't have for me. What it really needed was a legacy wide ranking system that factored into the queue. While it wouldn't have eliminated the issues caused by the staggered roll out, it would have at least mitigated some of the experience gap.

 

Highlighting an important point here..... The whole reason that GSF wasn't legacy-based, that rewards in requisition weren't legacy based was that it was built with people spending CCs in mind. - a blatant cash-grab. When the cartel market was fairly new.

 

- All GSF being tied to one character at a time was supposed to be a big money spinner....Only the studio abandoned it at infancy and the CC revenue probably dried up soon after.

 

Whatever your reasons for playing, there is a disconnect between gearing up for PVP or PVE purposes and playing GSF. - CXP is only edging this part of the game a scant few degrees closer to the rest.

 

But at the end of the day, the community want a bigger player pool and some dev attention. Giving out poor or fantastic CXP for whatever reason can't paper over the cracks of their years of total neglect. - And an over-generous reward just attracts the AFK-ers and suiciders anyway.

 

It's now years since people suggested tweaks and balances, new maps, new game modes, new ships and all the rest.

 

Bring it roughly in line with ground PvP - that seems to be the best solution. - Basic CXP for matches played, extra for medals and extra for winning. + daily and weekly bonuses.

I know it doesn't address the nuances of a match, but it'd be a start.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Storm-Cutter

[Baudran]

Galactic Starfighter has flourished, or, more realistically, risen from it's Deathbed with Galactic Command, especially on some of the Smaller Servers out there.

 

The CXP Rewards led to a gain in interest and a return to GSF from many, including some of which discovered this new element of SWtOR and, shock horror, enjoyed it.

 

The fact that GSF has not been balanced or supported in the last two years is now a moot point (including Cartel Market Items that do not work) , however, would it be so hard to avoid further discriminating a Part of SWtOR that already doesn't reward much ?

 

Please consider aligning the GSF Rewards along the lines of Ground PvP as suggested by the OP.

[Anzel]

What is this "GSF"? I click on it in game and then nothing happens. Ever. Is something supposed to happen?

[Jovanho]

Save the GSF, save the dream...Please keep GSF rewards competitive with other mini games. Community is large enough and can still grow for all sky lovers.

[Shwarzchild]

What is this "GSF"? I click on it in game and then nothing happens. Ever. Is something supposed to happen?

 

What I've found (from a new gsf player perspective) is that the population is small. If you want to get pops, learn, and by extension win, you need to actively search out the gsf population on your server.

 

How to do that? Shoot a message in general chat about gsf and see if you get a response. Or, keep queing and when you get a match at the end see who's top of the charts. Send them a message afterwards asking for tips. More than likely you'll have a similar experience to what I've had where you find that the population is very willing to help you out. For me on Shadowlands, I messaged one guy who has done what he or she can to include me as much as possible by way of invitation to groups, giving me their ship builds, finding what ships fit my playstyle a bit more, and giving me the custom channel. It also helps queing more in prime time for your server than not.

 

Also, before queing I check to see who's doing what. So I'll search (for example) Kuat since that's the name of one of the gsf maps. If it comes up with search results I know people are queing and games are to be had.

[xmarcusprimex]

So I'll search (for example) Kuat since that's the name of one of the gsf maps. If it comes up with search results I know people are queing and games are to be had.

 

Would this not also show people in the Kuat flashpoint?

[DakhathKilrathi]

What I've found (from a new gsf player perspective) is that the population is small. If you want to get pops, learn, and by extension win, you need to actively search out the gsf population on your server.

 

How to do that? Shoot a message in general chat about gsf and see if you get a response. Or, keep queing and when you get a match at the end see who's top of the charts. Send them a message afterwards asking for tips. More than likely you'll have a similar experience to what I've had where you find that the population is very willing to help you out. For me on Shadowlands, I messaged one guy who has done what he or she can to include me as much as possible by way of invitation to groups, giving me their ship builds, finding what ships fit my playstyle a bit more, and giving me the custom channel. It also helps queing more in prime time for your server than not.

 

Also, before queing I check to see who's doing what. So I'll search (for example) Kuat since that's the name of one of the gsf maps. If it comes up with search results I know people are queing and games are to be had.

 

 

By far the best way to find out what's going on for GSF on any given server is to join the server's GSF channel: /cjoin gsf

 

If you want to see if there are any games going, search for "denon mesas shipyards". This will pull up just the five GSF maps.

 

Also, consider joining the GSF community Discord server! We're open to everyone and we can probably tell you if a given server is active or not.

[Homodmitrius]

Would this not also show people in the Kuat flashpoint?

better type "shipyards denon mesas" - these are gsf exclusive areas (lost shipyards, denon exosphere, kuat mesas).

[DakhathKilrathi]

GSF is the bonus today, and we've been able to get games nonstop on TEH as a result. I'm concerned that will change if PVP is more worthwhile to do.

[AscendingSky]

While I like and regularly play GSF, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me for GSF to grant gear components/tokens for non-GSF play, when said gear has no relevance in GSF. It's a nice little minigame, it shouldn't turn into something people can just farm for gear through kamikaze techniques.

[JediBoadicea]

I completely agree with the OP, and with all of the great posts in the thread that have articulated how CXP has helped GSF, and how an increase in newer players makes it more fun precisely for those newer players, because they are hitting less of veteran firing squad wall.

 

It's true that GSF doesn't require gear, but I think it's worth noting that gear does not actually seem to be the point of Galactic Command. The point of Galactic Command is to encourage participation in all of the game's modes. The fact that you get gear for doing it is the incentive, but not the purpose. Setting aside the very valid arguments of whether or not holding gear hostage in this manner is fair or wise (an argument that would be totally set aside if we didn't have to contend with RNG, but I digress), I personally do quite like that GC has encouraged people to explore other aspects of the game. That can be tangibly felt in the increased frequency of Warzone pops, or of people exploring old dailies areas, and yes absolutely in a wonderful-to-see increase in GSF pops.

 

If the CXP values for GSF remain as high as they are, then it will still be a good means of working toward command levels. But I agree with the OP that excluding it entirely from the changes coming in 5.1 could just be taking another step back, after an unexpectedly nice step forward.

 

So far, the devs, in accordance with their stated desire to reward group content the most, seem to be planning to rank group content rewards in 5.1 as Operations first, Warzones second... and everything else not currently really included. Perhaps that everything else, including GSF, could easily be included just by expanding the Unassembled Components (currently projected to be rewarded for PVP) into other activities.

 

For example (and using purely hypothetical numbers), if a Ranked PVP match were to grant 6 Unassembled Components, and a regular PVP match were to grant 4, then perhaps Uprisings and Flashpoints and GSF could grant 2 Unassembled Components. This means that Operations (granting fully completed tokens) and Warzones (granting higher number of Components) are still the faster means, but it doesn't completely invalidate the other game modes. Combining a reward of 2 Unassembled Components with the high CXP gain from GSF would still make it attractive, particularly during its Bonus phase in GC.

 

Honestly, what possible reason could there be to not do this? Or, to phrase my question another way: What would it hurt to do this?

 

As someone who does progression raiding I am still miffed at how much agency has been taken away from us, with GC gearing, in our efforts to coordinate our raiding activities. But as someone who also plays GSF, and who also PVPs, and who also plays story content, I think that encouraging all of the game's modes does nothing but good. And especially because I've lost so much power over my gearing for running Operations, I'd at least like to be getting the maximum rewards possible to make up for that loss when I play all the other game modes!

 

Spreading the love around seems to be at the heart of GC, and we're just asking that GSF not get left out in the cold.

[DakhathKilrathi]

I just wanted to say thank you again. Someone out there listened. The community appreciates it. A lot of the time we feel like no one pays attention to us anymore.

 

So yeah. Thank you.