swtor producer mentions GSF changes coming in 5.2.2!

[Pietrastor]

Well, you know, its funny right, because I never in a million years would have predicted the behemoth that is Galactic Command, let alone that a ground end game gearing system would increase participation in GSF. So, I won't go so far as to suggest a pve-version of GSF ought to take priority over a new GSF game mode, but I won't discount the possibility it could be even more successful than galactic command in revitalizing GSF.

I think it would easily have much higher impact on GSF activity. This IS a primarly PVE game, with heavy emphasis on solo as well. PVP is a small addition to it and many would never step a foot into a WZ without extensive PVE training, getting to know the character movement quirks, abilities etc.

[BobaWest]

I think a PVE mode for GSF that has Story mode for solo, Veteran mode for group, and Master mode for a group of mastered ships would be the best thing for GSF. I really want to see capital ship engagements where starfighters defend and attack, this would work for a new PVP mode too, but I think a PVE mode gives players a place to learn and build up their hangers. I think this will lead to a better PVP experience and more even matches. Either way I'm happy that they're giving GSF some more attention.

[kaherdyn]

I would really like that they invest some time in developing gsf. Since it was one of things that brought me back to the game after few years of break. But i am also worried about how this changes will affect that mode.

 

To be honest and i know it's pipedream i would love to have pve content in gsf. Something like flashpoint when 4 people fight with pve enemies (a mix of gsf and space combat missions) . But like i said, it's a pipe dream.

[inCelesphere]

It's good to know they are still thinking about it. I am not going to hope for this or that, I never like to do that and it works well because I'm always happy with SWTOR, but I can still hope they might add some more customisation options, or at least be thinking about it for the future. The colour modules, reactors, etc., are limited and it would be nice if new ones would drop in new packs. Or, you know... something...

 

Either way, exciting!

[Magira]

It would be better to give them all of the ships, plus full upgrades. Gear and talent differences have no place in PVP.

[Verain]

No, they don't need free everything. All the upgrades are hard power boosts (boost you earn once and don't expire: in an MMO, the rarest kind of boost, gear earned in pve tends to expire within a year or so). It's completely reasonable to ask that players play the game to earn their gear. Many games have shown that large upgrades for almost nothing, and small upgrades for a long tail experience, are effective and totally fine in pvp.

 

With that out of the way, adding some free ships to new characters- most ESPECIALLY adding the T1 bomber and gunship, and adjusting some costs- are things the community has agreed on for YEARS now. The "free stuff" or "no gear in pvp" trolls will argue, but even they agree wholeheartedly with the gear scrooges like me on this improvement. Whether they give an adjustment to veteran accounts (ex: free T2 or T3 gunship) or not, that will definitely improve the game for all with their announced changes.

 

Even if minor, a small improvement in GSF still shows three things: (1) they care (2) they are doing something to improve the game (3) they are actually taking a community suggestion and implementing it pretty much verbatim.

 

Those are really important things imo.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Verain

[Magira]

This comes from Verain who has probably equipped tens of dozens of ships, it is not a great miracle that he wishes to keep his privileges.

 

I play PVP in four games, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Guild Wars 2 and SWTOR.

 

The only MMORPG game with fair and competitive PVP is Guild Wars 2. There you go directly with all the talents and best gear. And you can see clearly how much more fun the fight makes under the same conditions. Overwatch as a pure PVP Game does also enable a fair and competive game.

 

Gear and talent differences are for carebears and lamers, who are happy to play their superior equipment against newcomers. Real PVP players do not need this.

 

Btw: In Guild Wars, there was a poll among all PVP players, whether Premades from the rated be banned. The result was a clear 80% for the ban. I do not think it would be different here, the premade players write more in the forum than the casuals. This distorts the perception in the forum totally.

 

The game under the same conditions contributes, of course, to the fact that real PVP players are there in quantities (certainly 10 x more than here) and a PVP game starts at 4 o'clock in the night within a minute.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Magira

[Toraak]

I'd like to bring up 1 point. I keep seeing where people say they are giving out the T1 bomber, and T1 Gunship. Consider this. They didn't say which GS, and bomber they will be giving out, they could be giving out a T2 gs, and bomber or even a T3 of each. Edited June 1, 2017 by Toraak

[Ramalina]

I'd like to bring up 1 point. I keep seeing where people say they are giving out the T1 bomber, and T1 Gunship. Consider this. They didn't say which GS, and bomber they will be giving out, they could be giving out a T2 gs, and bomber or even a T3 of each.

 

Well, the logic is that the T1 gunship and T1 bomber are already the "cheap" ones in terms of fleet req. So the general assumption is that they're just reducing the price on them even more.

 

Now, if they wanted to make the dronecarrier and T3 gunship free, that would be even more impressive. You'd have a free option, a cheap option, and a full price option, and the full price option would be the least competitive ship in each class. That would be pretty generous of them, and a nice idea.

 

 

Speaking of generosity in GSF updates:

 

I'm still waiting on the shark teeth/krayt dragon paintjobs for the Republic strike fighters.

 

Make it happen Devs, you know you want to.

[Darth_Crisis]

i think a pve mode for gsf that has story mode for solo, veteran mode for group, and master mode for a group of mastered ships would be the best thing for gsf. I really want to see capital ship engagements where starfighters defend and attack, this would work for a new pvp mode too, but i think a pve mode gives players a place to learn and build up their hangers. I think this will lead to a better pvp experience and more even matches. Either way i'm happy that they're giving gsf some more attention.

 

this!^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Lendul]

Great perspective from someone who understands effectively influencing change.

 

https://clips.twitch.tv/RefinedFriendlyPoxNononoCat

[phalczen]

This comes from Verain who has probably equipped tens of dozens of ships, it is not a great miracle that he wishes to keep his privileges.

 

I play PVP in four games, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Guild Wars 2 and SWTOR.

 

The only MMORPG game with fair and competitive PVP is Guild Wars 2. There you go directly with all the talents and best gear. And you can see clearly how much more fun the fight makes under the same conditions. Overwatch as a pure PVP Game does also enable a fair and competive game.

 

Verain, as well as most of us who played GSF since its closed beta, "lose out" on this feature change, from a selfish perspective, and yet we still support it.

 

DCUO would be one to add to your list of games with interesting balance setups for PVP. They have three main types of pvp: arenas (like our warzones), world pvp, and Legends PVP, with Legends PVP being basically gear-less since you play as one of the main DCUO superheroes and not as your character with whatever pvp gear you have earned. Its a purely skill based mode.

 

I also think you're off the mark in your attack on veteran pilots and the gear gap. With Galactic Command in its current iteration, every player has significant incentive in playing GSF on alts. I'd even argue that GSF is either the best or second best way to gear alts (maybe even mains!). Therefore, even veteran pilots have the obligation of gearing out their ships. That's why members of SRW took the time to outline a very fast way to assign requisition after only a week's worth of matches that makes your ships competitive.

 

But regardless, gear grinding is here to stay in SWTOR as it has been since the beginning with pvp gear. The gear gap between 208 min-maxed and starter 204 in the 4.0 era was not maligned much in the forums because it was relatively easy to gain gear. Now however, because the item rating difference is more perceptible (248 to 238 after bolster), now its suddenly an issue, when the real problem is the acquisition rate of unassembled components, not the fact that there is a difference between bolstered stats and top end pvp gear. Ship requisition doesn't exactly fall from the sky since 5.2 but it certainly comes much more quickly than UCs, and the difference between a mastered ship and one requisitioned properly after a week isn't nearly as wide as the ground game gap is.

 

Instead of calling for gear to be completely removed, which isn't going to happen, instead call for faster requisition gain or ways to transfer unspent requisition from one character to another in your legacy. What makes you the final arbiter of what "real pvp'ers" want? Furthermore, why should the game be designed from the perspective of what you've defined as a "real pvp'er," since what you describe is most definitely a minority of people playing the game? Hey even GSF and hard core progression raiders constitute a minority in the playerbase. Most people in this type of game expect and accept some form of gear progression, or they would go play some other type of game. Inasmuch as the acquisition of a set of pixels and entries in a database constitutes an accomplishment or a reward, most people want to earn some type of reward and that reward is gear. Why? Because most people won't ever do ranked pvp or master mode progression operations (or Super Serious Nights for GSF) and the only rewards they may be able to achieve are pieces of gear or mastered ships. Many of them want the sense of satisfaction about having the best gear possible. You need not worry, Magira, because your real pvp skills (or in this case, piloting skills) will always be better than those who don't care enough to improve their skills and only care about the gear, so you will still roflstomp them.

 

Finally, regarding premades ... I think separate queues for solo queuers vs. groups would be appropriate for ground unranked warzones and GSF, but I've already written in other threads as nauseum about why the Devs favor short waiting times over balance. Wasn't there a week long bug sometime in the 4.0 era where groups were bugged in ground pvp and they weren't getting pops, so everyone was solo-queuing? I seem to recall ground pvp being a little more interesting during that time, and queue times didn't suffer. I find your anecdote about GW2 at 4 am fascinating, if its true. I don't think this game should ever overtly discourage people from grouping (there's already too much of that in the story part as it is), but I would not oppose separate queues being implemented.

[Magira]

Finally, regarding premades ... I think separate queues for solo queuers vs. groups would be appropriate for ground unranked warzones and GSF, but I've already written in other threads as nauseum about why the Devs favor short waiting times over balance.

 

It is a doom-loop. Gear Gap and Premades drive new players reliably. Therefore, there is not enough room for separate queues or a fair matchmaking. Therefore this dies, and goes the way of the Ground PVP, which has long been dead.

[Toraak]

Well I wasn't far off. The patch notes are out, and it's the T2 GS, and T3 bomber as the 2 free ships in 5.2.2

[Magira]

To give the newcomers the worst gunship and the worst bomber is completely garbage. No balancing, that would have been the most important, especially with respect to the Striker and the Battlescout. All "updates" that did not require any manpower. These are just changes to numbers in a table.

[Greezt]

They're also reducing ship costs, increasing requisition gain from the intro mission and reducing component costs.

 

So while I'd have loved them to give out the T3 GS and T2 bomber or something, overall they've done good for new GSF players.

[phalczen]

To give the newcomers the worst gunship and the worst bomber is completely garbage. No balancing, that would have been the most important, especially with respect to the Striker and the Battlescout. All "updates" that did not require any manpower. These are just changes to numbers in a table.

 

Actually, it's not. The intro mission has always given enough fleet req to buy a tier 1 gunship or a tier 1 bomber. Now, they'll get even more. More importantly, by unlocking the arguably worst members of ship class for free, they are actually steering players away from making a poor choice with spending their fleet req. I can think of worse things to do with 5000 fleet req than buy a tier 3 gunship or tier 2 bomber. They've now made that choice for a new player even simpler.

 

Now, if only they could buff strikes to finish out improving the new player experience and adding that "x-wing" like feel to the game.

[Glzmo]

So to combat the problem of the game being littered by multiple gunships (aka "little death stars") hidden in AFK-Bomber little death-star-drone fields that destroy any hope of fun (and reward AFK players with multiple kills and assists), Star Wars-like dogfighting in Strike fighters and scouts is to give everyone a gunship and a bomber. This will make things even worse.

Why not just boost Strike Fighters and Scouts (and tone down Gunships and offensive drone bombers a bit) so they would actually be more desirable to fly and we could get a more authentic Star Wars dogfighting experience once more?

[caederon]

Why not just boost Strike Fighters and Scouts (and tone down Gunships and offensive drone bombers a bit) so they would actually be more desirable to fly and we could get a more authentic Star Wars dogfighting experience once more?

That would require a development team that actually knew how to change significant portions of GSF without breaking it. Those people are long gone, so they would have to hire new ones if they wanted to do anything that went beyond altering a couple numbers on a spreadsheet (like the req cost changes).

 

GSF really has nothing to do with authentic Star Wars dogfighting, anyway. The original movies based their space combat scenes on World War II movies, so you have spaceships moving as if they were airplanes with no significant three-dimensional aspect to their movement or spatial relations. That's not GSF. Never was, never will be.

 

If you ever fly in matches that predominantly feature scouts (assuming pilots of similar skill level), you will notice that actually hitting anything at a reasonable pace is nearly impossible, as literally everyone is bursting at the seams with Evasion and missile breaks. It is endless yo-yo-ing around while nobody's weapons land. All-strike matches feature a far slower pace and similarly few kills because they don't do enough burst damage to finish things.

 

GSF is at its best in a combined-arms match where each ship class is performing its role and people counter the other side by adjusting their approach or ship choice to reflect the tactical situation.

 

I understand the desire for the dogfighting simulation of your dreams, but GSF will never be that because none of the game mechanics are really set up to facilitate that kind of play.

 

- Despon

[Verain]

Actually, it's not. The intro mission has always given enough fleet req to buy a tier 1 gunship or a tier 1 bomber. Now, they'll get even more. More importantly, by unlocking the arguably worst members of ship class for free, they are actually steering players away from making a poor choice with spending their fleet req. I can think of worse things to do with 5000 fleet req than buy a tier 3 gunship or tier 2 bomber. They've now made that choice for a new player even simpler.

 

Thank you for saving me from having to post exactly this.

 

The change is AMAZING. It crosses every t, and dots every i. By handing out the generally least powerful gunship, they provide a free gunship that the community secretly knows SHOULD be free, because the other gunships are more powerful than it is. The type 2 gunship has a really fun strategy, and has a pretty distinctive look (especially on Republic), instead of looking like a "heavy" and a "light" version of the same gunship (as the type 1 and type 3 seem to generally be). As such, it was an early pick by entirely too many new players, who thought that it should probably be about as balanced as the other 5000 req ship, and probably better than the 2500 req ship.

 

This prevents errors!

 

Similar for the type 3.

 

As an added bonus, the subscriber bonus remains intact, instead of having to be shuffled off to another ship (or unprecedentedly, removed forever).

 

Also exciting is the lowered req costs on pretty much everything, but I'll base my excitement based on how much they are lowered by. Too little and it won't be felt, too much and it will diminish the play time of the veteran players. There's a very broad section of correctness, however.

 

 

Complaints in this thread that they should have done MORE are totally absurd. They can always do more. Most times they do nothing. These changes will unquestionably help the game, and they are ultimately sourced from the community. This is highly competent dev action. Sure, ask for more, but don't whine!

Edited June 13, 2017 by Verain

[phalczen]

These changes were low hanging fruit and indirectly address gear gap concerns by both making requisition flow more freely and making meta ships more accessible. These changes were never intended to address balance beyond making it easier for someone to own and upgrade a meta ship. Realize also there was a tiny little patch note:

The CXP reward for completing a Galactic Starfighter match has been increased slightly.

 

This definitely won't hurt the GSF population.

 

I would love to see more GSF themed rewards (e.g. titles, uniforms, ship cosmetics), legacy requisition grants to make transferring req easier between toons, Infiltrators, and of course strike fighter and/or projectile weapon changes. But players have a great incentive to play GSF for unassembled components and command points. At this point we have to crawl before we walk. We are getting new ship customization options, hopefully direct buys instead of only being chance random drops from the Grand Starfighter packs, which combined with the requisition and ship unlock changes is more love than we've seen in three years. I hope those other things come.

That would require a development team that actually knew how to change significant portions of GSF without breaking it. Those people are long gone, so they would have to hire new ones if they wanted to do anything that went beyond altering a couple numbers on a spreadsheet (like the req cost changes).

- Despon

It took a little over 2 years (10/27/2004-1/15/2007) for the then current development team of SWG to re-learn Jump to Lightspeed and add content to it. 7 to add atmospheric flight (3/2011).

I would hope that development teams learned from past mistakes in other games and put comments in the code to facilitate balance changes in the future.

On a more positive note, I think the key is that they should put any sort of balance changes up on PTS and invite us to test them out, because if its broken we will find it.

Edited June 13, 2017 by phalczen

[Lendul]

Thank you for saving me from having to post exactly this.

 

The change is AMAZING. It crosses every t, and dots every i. By handing out the generally least powerful gunship, they provide a free gunship that the community secretly knows SHOULD be free, because the other gunships are more powerful than it is. The type 2 gunship has a really fun strategy, and has a pretty distinctive look (especially on Republic), instead of looking like a "heavy" and a "light" version of the same gunship (as the type 1 and type 3 seem to generally be). As such, it was an early pick by entirely too many new players, who thought that it should probably be about as balanced as the other 5000 req ship, and probably better than the 2500 req ship.

 

This prevents errors!

 

Similar for the type 3.

 

As an added bonus, the subscriber bonus remains intact, instead of having to be shuffled off to another ship (or unprecedentedly, removed forever).

 

Also exciting is the lowered req costs on pretty much everything, but I'll base my excitement based on how much they are lowered by. Too little and it won't be felt, too much and it will diminish the play time of the veteran players. There's a very broad section of correctness, however.

 

 

Complaints in this thread that they should have done MORE are totally absurd. They can always do more. Most times they do nothing. These changes will unquestionably help the game, and they are ultimately sourced from the community. This is highly competent dev action. Sure, ask for more, but don't whine!

 

Nice, a post from Verain I can completely get behind. Jade is only effective in Hearthstone Druid decks.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Lendul

[Verain]

This will make things even worse.

 

This is terrible reasoning, by the way. Without mines, scouts would be the best things on a node (and were before bombers), the best dogfighters (obviously still are), the burstiest damage (still are), and the most mobile thing in the game (obviously also still are). Hoping that new players line up in strike fighters to feed doesn't improve the game.

 

Why not just boost Strike Fighters

 

They should and still intend to. But I can offer a great guess: balance work is much harder than the simple and correct changes that they just made to the game. As example I offer:

 

and Scouts (and tone down Gunships and offensive drone bombers a bit)

 

These are bad changes! Scouts definitely do NOT need buffs. Gunships could be nerfed as part of a redesign that also nerfs scouts, and drone bombers absolutely do NOT need nerfs- they aren't even the most relevant bombers!

 

 

 

Balancing isn't a "...just...". It's a big deal. The simplest balance changes they could make are simple buffs to strike fighters, ideally in a way that makes them a little bit less like gunship and scout food. The game, as written, has solid and good roles for three of its four classes.

[Stellarcrusade]

This is terrible reasoning, by the way. Without mines, scouts would be the best things on a node (and were before bombers), the best dogfighters (obviously still are), the burstiest damage (still are), and the most mobile thing in the game (obviously also still are). Hoping that new players line up in strike fighters to feed doesn't improve the game.

 

They should and still intend to. But I can offer a great guess: balance work is much harder than the simple and correct changes that they just made to the game. As example I offer:

 

These are bad changes! Scouts definitely do NOT need buffs. Gunships could be nerfed as part of a redesign that also nerfs scouts, and drone bombers absolutely do NOT need nerfs- they aren't even the most relevant bombers!

 

Balancing isn't a "...just...". It's a big deal. The simplest balance changes they could make are simple buffs to strike fighters, ideally in a way that makes them a little bit less like gunship and scout food. The game, as written, has solid and good roles for three of its four classes.

 

I agree. I would love if they would balance out the dogfighters, meaning instead of scout being the best in every catagory and fighters being slow, less range, and weaker, it would be nice if a little give and take could balance them out such that a veteran fighter versus a veteran scout would be an even match up. Where the scout would have to win with maneuverabiity/speed or the fighter would out burst him down. Perhaps remove BLC from scouts and give JUST to fighters would be a start. Really, battle-scout shouldn't be a thing. That's like a speed-garbage truck or a armored-motorcycle: no reason to exist. Scouts should probably be the fastest and most meneuverable with no punch. Fighters should be more armored, less manuverable and dogfight very strong if not out-maneuvered.

 

Yeah, I know, you are thinking: "Then what would all the veterans fly if not for a sting/flashy?" ........... Exactly.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Stellarcrusade