Ways to Improve GSF

[Cuffwin]

With the new attention to GSF I feel it is a good time to bring up which I am sure are very old points but worth repeating...

 

New Map -- it can be an existing map with new objectives or a new map with old objectives anything would be welcome at this point.

 

Shorter Queue -- You can kill 2 birds with 1 stone and make a 4v4 Map helping out servers with long wait times by adding the 4v4 aspect and creating a new map (which could be a DOM map used for TDM) If it is possible to set in a timer after so long without a pop it creates a 4v4

 

Alliance Queue -- I am not sure about everyone else but I would have no problems with mixing Imp/Pub queues much like you did with warzones I thought that was a great idea it helps balance out the 2 sides.

 

New rewards -- Nothing crazy here but something else to trade Fleet Commendations for would be great a couple of pilot decorations Imp/pub models from the pilot armor would work. New rewards help attract new players and even bring back some older casual players. Galactic command has helped this aspect a lot but more incentive never hurts and this is incentive for ftp/pref still as well.

 

Strike boosts -- I am sure almost everyone would be open to a boost to strike fighters it does not have to be components maybe a boost to health or engines or whatever.

 

Purple republic paint jobs -- ok this is me being a bit selfish but come on guys!! lol

 

Lets hear any other ideas people may have, I think GSF is a unique part of the game that will always help retain a certain player base to SWTOR and attention should be given to it.

 

Cheers

[Ornithopoda]

/Signed.

All good ideas that would be fun to see. I'm quite happy about the recent attention to GSF, and anything from the devs is welcome at this point. I'm definitely one of those players who primarily plays SWTOR for GSF these days. It's the only thing I still love doing between new content updates.

[phalczen]

Arenas work very well for 4v4 because the scope of the playing area is small. I don't see 4v4 working in any of the current maps which are pretty "yuge."

 

However I love your idea of alliance forces going up against each other in a war game. Re use some of Aygo's voice overs since he is already involved with GSF and the alliance, and Adm Ranken may or may not survive depending on your choices. This would be a good opportunity to add a new game mode or map or both.

 

That being said, if GSF combat has to stay pub v imp, the iokath system makes the most sense for a new map, barring any knowledge about what is taking place in the Umbara system come 5.4. According to codex entries, the Builders mined the other planets and asteroids in the system to collect the resources to build the Dyson sphere, so there's probably lots of debris for LoS for a TDM match. That would give us three DOM and three TDM maps.

[MaximilianPower]

All of OP's suggestions are solid. But assuming the absolute minimum commitment of dev resources...4x4 probably isn't happening.

 

Arenas work very well for 4v4 because the scope of the playing area is small. I don't see 4v4 working in any of the current maps which are pretty "yuge."

 

Yeah. I'm picturing 4x4 gunship chess in Denon. All such matches would end by timer, with final scores averaging 5-3.

 

However, I don't see why we can't at least have a standard 8/12-man Denon TDM. The map already exists. Throw in some space junk, a sprinkling of power-ups. maybe alter the spawns a bit. Done and done.

 

Given the attention GSF has garnered via GC, I think it's earned at least a tiny bit of dev attention beyond the hangar. The free ships and cheaper upgrades are great, but let's see some actual gameplay changes.

[Drakkolich]

If they did do 4v4 I'd do it like Arena where you do 3-5 rounds, and people only get 1 life each round. Also don't show opponents ship selection during each round.

[HrRav]

A good summary of valuable and realistic improvements (considering that BW probably will not spend much resources on GSF). I hope the devs read this thread.

[phalczen]

If they did do 4v4 I'd do it like Arena where you do 3-5 rounds, and people only get 1 life each round. Also don't show opponents ship selection during each round.

 

Sensor beacon might just be useful in such a scenario

 

If only we had infiltrators the way they seem to have been designed in sources that we cannot discuss here

[Uvirith]

Get rid of about 90% of those bloated stats. Everytime I try to get into GSF I look at that window and immediately get turned off.

[philwil]

What do you mean?

[Toraak]

Honestly. I think Arena style GSF would just be bad, with the way the matchmaker works. Not to mention not everyone likes the style of Arena's on the ground PvP. I know I leave every single arena I get instantly. Leave that nonsense to Rank ground PvP. I never leave GSF (unless a RL emergency comes up), I'd hate to start feeling like they encourage me to leave matches.

 

Edit: Unless they put the 4v4's as a Ranked GSF queu that was Optional.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Toraak

[sentinel_vickers]

MY question is, why can't the space missions (Fondor Escort, TAspan Ambush, Sarapin Assault, etc), be modified to allow GSF or even 2 or 4 man co-op. The missions are already created, scripting for more ships is not overly difficult, plus it's not a major modification to the game. Setting awards for GSF ships instead of personal starships would need to be worked out, but it shouldn't be a total rewrite of the game. OR just give the standard exp/cxp if that is too difficult to do.

 

OTher than that, kudos to the OP.

[Vospir]

If they did do 4v4 I'd do it like Arena where you do 3-5 rounds, and people only get 1 life each round. Also don't show opponents ship selection during each round.

 

Awesome!

[Stncold]

No thank you to arena. I hate TDM and leave most TDM shipyards as it is. Same with 90% of ground pvp arenas. If I wanted to go do that crap I'd play WoW. I have no issues with waiting longer for something I actually want to do.

[psandak]

MY question is, why can't the space missions (Fondor Escort, TAspan Ambush, Sarapin Assault, etc), be modified to allow GSF or even 2 or 4 man co-op. The missions are already created, scripting for more ships is not overly difficult, plus it's not a major modification to the game. Setting awards for GSF ships instead of personal starships would need to be worked out, but it shouldn't be a total rewrite of the game. OR just give the standard exp/cxp if that is too difficult to do.

 

OTher than that, kudos to the OP.

 

It is a shame that space combat (the single player on rails stuff) has been basically abandoned, but I'm going to be blunt and state: you have no idea what you are talking about. Reworking the existing on rails space combat to accommodate multiple players and be off rails would be a monumental undertaking.

 

Firstly mission design:

As it stands on rails if you miss a target you have little to no chance to hit that target again meaning that if you miss that target you have a harder time completing the mission. Granted there are usually more than enough targets of opportunity to make up for a missed target so it is not that big a deal. That said I am more talking about the bonus mission portions of the space combat missions. Off rails would mean that if you miss a target you can go back and get it.

 

fix #1: the mission timers would have to be such that turning back for a missed target would result in time expiration and mission failure.

 

fix #2: reduce the targets of opportunity such that one MUST turn back if a target is missed.

 

Either way, for all intents and purposes we'd be back on rails anyway, because players would publish optimized paths for maximum potential.

 

Secondly, enemy ships would have to have AI installed. As it stands right now they fly a fixed path; they come on screen they fly around, they move off screen and you never see them again. That is not AI that is programmed pathing. For an off rails space combat system those ships would have to have an AI installed, not to mention that the system would have to track where they are throughout the mission.

 

Thirdly, off rails for those missions would be a lot harder than you think...

All that space you see around you in space combat is currently little more than mat paintings...scenery NEVER designed to be interacted with. They would have to completely redesign the space to allow ships to interact with that space.

 

I am reminded of when Blizzard introduced flying mounts into WoW, and players immediately asked the question: "when will we get to fly over Azeroth?" It took 4 years from the introduction of flying mounts in The Burning Crusade and two more expansions (WotLK and Cataclysm) to get flying mounts to work in the original world content...for the EXACT same reason; the space above the landmasses of Azeroth were not designed for flying around in, they had to be completely redesigned.

 

Lastly, do you REALLY believethat multiplayer compatibility is as easy as flipping a switch in code? Let's assume for just a moment that it is really just that simple:

would the mission parameters remain the same?

Would a simple increase in health and damage be an acceptable retuning?

What happens if one player's ship gets destroyed?

Edited July 15, 2017 by psandak

[Alnass]

Reducing the amount of RNG would also be nice. Some suggestions for that:

 

Remove accuracy boni from crew members and increase base accuracy. We'll have an actual choice which crew members to pick then.

 

Change railgun mechanics: instead of charging it up, then swiping over a target and going boom with aim correction, make them lock on with actual aiming. Your chance of hitting starts at 0% and slowly increases to 100%, while you keep your enemy in focus.

 

Tie evasion to actual movement. If you're boosting at full speed, you get your full evasion. If you're sniping or ticking, your evasion is 0%. Alternatively make evasion a spamable active ability like the singleplayer space missions' barrel roll.

 

Remove critical hits. Whether you're being one-shot by a gunship or a scout, it's frustrating. Knowing that part of it is just dumb luck, that's worse. At least the damage boost power-ups give you a fair warning. Crits are just random and meh.

 

Make bombers take damage from their own mines. You want to reward smart and active bomber pilots, not the ones going afk in a stack of mines and drones. On that note, complement mines with timed bombs to support the more active play style.

 

Completely unrelated: add permanent buff auras to strike fighters. Every wingman makes you stronger, rewarding people for flying in formation and picking diverse setups, adding a new role to the game and introducing a new bane to scouts.

 

ps:

And please fix the annoying queue bug that randomly sends you to a warzone when you queue for a gsf match and/or change the popup description from a generic "PvP" to "GSF", so at least we know what we're getting into, when it pops.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Alnass

[XhrisShan]

Option to alter mouse sensitivity. It's way too high for me, and I imagine others share my pain.

[Verain]

Option to alter mouse sensitivity. It's way too high for me, and I imagine others share my pain.

 

You can do this in your OS, but a redundant setting to slow it could be ok. They normally don't duplicate OS settings though.