GSF Discussion: Friction Points

[hamlinius]

Hi, few things about GSF from me:

1. Learning curve is too steep / takes too long. Before I can get to the point when I know what to do I will have to die so many times that I don't want to do it anymore.

2. It takes too long to get the ship upgrades to compete with other already geared players. Please don't count wins and say "oh you just have to win xxx times and you are fully geared". I will not win, which means it basically doubles the time to gear up, and its just per one ship. Thank you very much, If it was like completely new game with same amount of things like the "ground game" then I could accept this as normal. But it is not. its a side game, and spending so much time in it just to gear up is just something I won't do.

3. Ship balance is something I can't say much about as I can't get to the point where I have all the ships upgraded and played enough time to say what's balanced and what's not.

4. Matches take too long. It should be cut in half. That's why people don't want to be there anymore. Because if they can't contribute to the match and it takes ages to finish it, then what's the point?

5. For a person with a ship that is not upgraded (like me) the feeling of flying in GSF is like cycling through the knee deep water. It just feels sooooooo slooooow... omg it's like it's not a space ship but a cart with an invisible donkey puling it through the space...

6. Legacy. Yes, it is like a slap in the face. You were advertising legacy system as something of a big deal for the players and then you just "U" turned into character perks... single toon vs legacy... Please walk away from single toon perks and go back to Legacy focused perks. I'm not going to torment myself and other GSF players by trying to upgrade all of my toons, one by one, ship by ship... it would take a year to do it...or two...

 

I know you haven't read through all the other posts that deal with the learning curve. and possibly not even the ones that deal with ship upgrades. Even the Vets say give us a group tutorial to help train the new guys in a safe environ. as to the ship upgrades. The devs already handled that. when you do your weekly and daily missions ship req is granted to all ships. so if you get 1500 req that is given to each ship equally. they also reduced the cost of ship upgrades by as much as half. as for match length. it's 10 minutes. instead of grumbling about how much you suck ask a vet for tips and then i don't know, apply them. just a thought.

Edited July 11, 2017 by hamlinius

[hamlinius]

granted that's each ship per toon. so again I would like to see a fleet req that's legacy wide. ship req should stay the way it is.

 

I'm starting a new paragraph because I had an idea a little bit ago I want to share. what would fix GSF? well you will never make everyone happy. giving ground gear upgrades through GSF per CXP and GSF upgrades through ground missions would be nice. would draw in possibly new players but what then? Give us the tools to help train new players. let the community be responsible for retaining it's members. give us the Group tutorial and or Group PVE content and from there let pilots earn req to upgrade their ships. not much but enough to get them hooked (maybe award half the standard req for the group PVE) and if they want to Master their ships then they join in the GSF PVP. They would still be able to use their own ships even after they are mastered in the PVE content, but that req gain shouldn't replace the current content. Put it on the back of the Vets to teach the new guys. I mean we want to anyway. this would solve a bunch of the issues. maybe give an achievement for completing your first training one and one for being the "instructor" for say 100 matches or whatever. hell make it 1000. The instructor is the guy with the group leader spot. this way even vets can get a trainee badge if they want it. oh and please more maps and more modes. the capital ship duel would be sweet. especially if ground pvpers could also man the turrets or guard ship board objectives. maybe add a shuttle to carry attackers to the other capital ship and the GSFers have to protect it while in flight and then attack or defend the outside of the big ships. just a thought. free of charge.

Edited July 12, 2017 by hamlinius
spelling errors

[Ibliss]

Let's expand this topic of learning curve. There are videos and guides that have been on the Internet for years. The issue is not solely that people don't bother to read/watch.

 

The Tutorial:

1. You are not shooting at any moving targets. Learning techniques that actually net kills require that you queue in real matches, which take way too long because few people queue.
   
2. Nothing is shooting at you. Even a sequence that launches a missile and tells the player to hit their missile break at the proper time would help. People assume the abilities behave like defensive cooldowns in the ground game when the timings and durations are so different, that thinking gets you killed making you think they don't work.
   
3. You can't use the ship of your choice in the tutorial. If I want to practice rail guns, I need to do it in a live game. Same with getting used to the different handling of a bomber. The tutorial uses the fighter every guide in existence tells you to never use.
   

 

Learning by Doing

I can go to Dulfy and read guides for days. I can use legacy gear to gear up my alts. I can parse the dummy to get my rotation in order. I can compare what I'm doing on parsely.io and see what's right and wrong. I can do flashpoints before operations, story mode before hard mode, PvP or even heroics and use any aspects of my class (damage, heals, cc mechanics, tanking). So when I'm told L2P, I can actually do that, from the first minute I logon to the last.

 

In GSF, I can watch videos of people demonstrate their skill, Stock Ship is an entertaining one. I can read guides telling me what to buy, but I can't put it into practice for a significant amount of time. I pulled up my stats and the ratio of time between GSF and the ground game is literally minutes versus hours in a single week. I sit in the queue and if I get bored and queue PvP, I drop from the GSF queue. GSF simply doesn't pop often enough, the tutorial doesn't even let me practice with the ship and weapons I invest 10's of thousands of requisition to use. Cartel Coins to convert ship requisition to fleet requisition really needs to go. The people who play a lot don't need to do this, the people who are new who have 20k+ ship req in a strike fighter they will never ever use because they can read, will not waste the CC.

 

Summary

GSF is like asking to join a group for Veteran or Master (NiM) operations when you're undergeared and/or don't know your rotation. This is due to matchmaking and the aforementioned points. Even if the people aren't toxic, the scoreboard is discouraging enough that people won't spend time or cartel coins on something that affects maybe 10% of their total play time in a week.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Ibliss

[Ramalina]

I always wonder, though... if you took the Flashfire and swapped its model with the Starguard, and called it a strike fighter... would people complain about it? If that ship was exactly the same except it looked like a strike and was called a strike...

 

That came up in the ship balance thread, and it got me thinking about how GSF feels once you've got some gear and pretty much know how everything works.

 

The answer of course being, no, an A-wing doesn't feel like an X-wing, and new bodywork won't conceal that difference.

 

I took the question a bit farther though, and decided to look at the ship classes overall in terms of "Star Wars Starfighter Feel." I'm posting here because feel is influenced by balance, but good feel can be unbalanced and balance can feel bad. Of course ideally you'd like good feel and good balance. There are cases where I'd rather log off than play a game in a particular ship, even if that ship is widely regcongized as one of the strongest in GSF. So I think that's more a friction point than a balance issue.

 

 

 

In a stereotypical Star Wars Starfighter classification scheme you have:

 

Light weight fighter/interceptor: TIE (ln, int, adv, def), A-wing.

 

Strike fighter: X-wing, Z-95.

 

Bomber: TIE bomber, Y-wing, B-wing.

 

Misc slow armored stuff with weapons: Lambda shuttles, Mu class missile boats, etc.

 

What in GSF doesn't feel it fits this pattern properly?

 

As long as you never use BLCs, TT, BO, or Distortion in your builds GSF nails the "A-wing feel" just about perfectly. Evasion and damage cooldowns can make the scouts feel more durable and more heavily armed than one would expect for the class.

 

 

The strikes feel off in the most ways of all the classes.

 

They're a bit slow. The T1 and T2 feel about like a B-wing, which is pretty close to as fast and as maneuverable as an X-wing in absolute terms, but it's enough to feel the difference. The difference between the T3 strike and the T1 and T2 feels right, but the T3 should be going as fast as the T1 and T2 currently are. Basically all the strikes need one to two more thruster slots. T3 needs regen, T1 and T2 need regen, speed and turning.

 

Durability feels off in a sense too. Partly it's just that maneuver offers basically no protection in open space, which throws things off. There's a, "hard to hit," factor that strikes feel like they're missing. Not at all on the scale of an interceptor class, but if a strike is on the defensive it feels like it should be more work to hit one than it currently is. They also feel a bit squishy, but if Scouts respected "A-wing feel" build guidelines and if maneuvering had any sort of significant effect on the ability of railguns to hit then that squishy feeling would instantly disappear. Basically if strikes had 25% evasion baseline, their defenses would probably feel right, though mechanically I'm not sure I like that idea. It would sort of solve the problem of strikes feeling uniquely vulnerable to Ion Railgun though. Defensively scouts and strikes should stereotypically be relying on maneuver and shields as primary defenses, with scouts leaning maneuver-wise and strikes leaning shield wise. Feel wise I'd say Ion should hit scouts more often than it does (delta is too big), and also that strike engine depletion is too crippling on Ion hits. If the drain only applied after shields had been fully stripped then it would feel less wrong. Scouts should be slightly harder to Ion, but it feels sort of wrong that their defenses and mobility are so much less affected than strike defenses and mobility when they are hit. Ion is bad for all ships, but it's really only catastrophic on a routine basis for strikes.

 

The firepower feels pretty wrong on strikes. In terms of weapon range they're ok to maybe biased a little bit too much to the short end. If Scouts pretty naturally operate in the 0 to 5 km range it feels like Strikes should be a bit more in the 5 to 10 range instead of the 4 to 7 range. This is influenced by how effective, or should I say how ineffective their weapons feel. Wanting to hold weapons on target for a medium length of time (versus short for scouts or very long for gunships) at medium to medium long ranges feels very right. What feels very wrong is that if you do that well your reward is usually a lot of missed shots (or wasted missiles) and unimpressive results for anything that does manage to hit. An interceptor will get to a target faster and have an easier time staying on target, a bomber is going to have a larger payload and far more interesting payloads, but if you want to get to a target promptly and blast a really big hole in it a strike should be the ideal choice. Basically strikes need less missing and more blowing up with regard to their targets.

 

Bombers feel mostly ok to me. This is probably somewhat a minority opinion.

 

In a "actual air combat: Stuka, B-17, Tu-95, B-52, B-1, B-52, {insert any real bomber or attack plane that mostly uses bombs}," sense GSF bombers are so horribly wrong that they're off the charts.

 

However,

 

TIE bombers, Y-wings, and B-wings are not that sort of bomber.

 

The bombers mostly do have torpedoes or long range missiles, so they've got that covered. They can soak a lot of damage. They fly like wallowing barges. There's also enough in the way of space mines and robotic weapons in Star Wars expanded content, and even to a certain extent in the prequel movies, that "bombers as minelayers," isn't too much of a stretch in terms of lore. Partly, and this affects strikes too, there's a problem of not having a really legit target for torpedoes. If capital ship kills were important and torpedoes had a damage multiplier when used on capital ships that would solve a whole bunch of "feel" problems. Pending missing game modes though, dropping mines and drones is ok. I do wish that they had more boost endurance though. Their speed feels good, their turn feels good (in a "yup, this is a wallowing barge alright," way), but the Star Wars bombers generally aren't supposed to feel range limited. Dogfighting in a TIE bomber, B-wing, or Y-wing is supposed to be a real handicap, but losing to "fuel emergency, engine shutdown immanent," isn't a thing that I associate with bombers. I think that they'd feel better if they could boost the same distance a strike currently can. Doesn't even have to be a baseline strike, having the single energy pool boost range of a strike with Regen thrusters would be ok. I have a weird fondness for dogfighting with a bomber (probably stems from how much I enjoyed brining a Y-wing to a dogfight in the X-wing series), and I'd say it feels just about perfect until you run out of engine pool so much sooner than everyone else. You have to remember that while boost is great at speeding up the game pace, it's not really a classic thing. There was just base speed and power management. A bomber would get there slowly but steadily. Steadily means not having to stop at a gas station half way through a dogfight.

 

Gunships feel, odd, but not strictly speaking wrong.

 

I think the lore got kind of fumbled from an acceptance angle. A gunship is basically a capital ship turbolaser, that's being employed like a 88 mm German F.L.A.K. For something that's based on something that's based on inspiration from WWII air combat, that's a role that makes plenty of sense. They sure do move pretty fast for artillery though. To me the interface feels like a sniper interface from a FPS game, which does not feel at all like a capital ship turret mated with a Kuat Yards construction space tug. I'd probably like playing gunships more if it felt like operating a ship turret instead of like the sniper level from some PS2 or Nintendo James Bond game from around 1999. Mechanically I can see why they made the choices they made, and I largely think that they're good choices, but ultimately the feel I get from gunships is a) why are they here at all, and b) old console style FPS sniper UI feels weird and out of place as a starship control interface.

 

For infiltrators, well it didn't come up, but I'm sure there'd be a little bit of, "Are these Klingons or Romulans? How did they get here?" to their feel.

 

I've largely made my peace with GSF, the good, the bad, and the just plain wierd. It's a generally healthy way to approach GSF that allows enjoying it on its own merits.

 

Still, when you say, "Star Wars space combat," practially everyone brings a large load of assumptions about what to expect from that content. It's emotional, it's often irrational, but it's there, and it's often strong. Given the nature of GSF it really does surprisingly well in achiving a classic Star Wars space battle feel, but there's room for more.

[Stellarcrusade]

A team being rolled should have no chance of victory, barring a change in players or a dramatic change in strategies. It should never be in the best interest of the winning team to avoid winning too hard for fear of some carebear mechanic.

 

If a team that is being rolled "should have no chance of victory", then why not just end the match automatically immediately when a team is that far ahead? Because that's not the real intent. Wouldn't it be better if both sides still had a challenge in the remainder of the game? If there were some mitigation to make the rolled team at least a little more formidable then the aggressors would continue to have to apply skill to hold on, and the rolled team would have something to do other than alt-tab and surf the web. There is an opportunity for an improvement to be ironed out I think for this.

[caederon]

If there were some mitigation to make the rolled team at least a little more formidable then the aggressors would continue to have to apply skill to hold on, and the rolled team would have something to do other than alt-tab and surf the web. There is an opportunity for an improvement to be ironed out I think for this.

Contrary to popular belief, there is -always- something to do other than 'alt-tab and surf the web.' People don't improve by checking out of difficult situations. It's when people abandon their participation in matches that you get the worst of these blowouts. People (most notably bomber pilots) often go AFK in the beginning stages of matches as-is after parking themselves in some hole in the wall. Unsurprisingly this also fails to improve their skills at flying. 'Making an effort' should not be an optional part of participating in a game.

 

The issue of badly mismatched blowouts is one that should be solved through the natural means of getting people into matches where their opponents are similarly experienced. A larger player pool will generally wind up sorting this problem out on its own, and better learning resources in-game will equip people to participate meaningfully.

 

I wouldn't oppose a ranked system to sort people by skill, but it's pretty unlikely they will implement one like that anytime soon. The current matchmaker does ok when there are enough people participating. I'd love to see what it would do in a cross-server capacity, giving it the maximum possible number of people to work with... but even if it was just dealing with one server's population, it can function properly if there are enough players.

 

- Despon

[AlrikFassbauer]

People don't improve by checking out of difficult situations.

 

Well, I kind of "improved" when I had to drive the motorhighway to my grandparents one way with so much snow falling that I almost couldn't see a thing, with a thick layer of snow benbeath the wheels, and beneath of that an additional layer of ice being as smooth as glass - it way highly difficult, though.

There are more situations in RL to "improive" - some people die in RL when they try to "improve" in such situations.

 

For in this game, I've always said that any human being needs a minimum of several seconds to even be able to analyse AFTERWARDS why his toon/starship has been killed. Both in ground PvP and in GSF.

 

The human perception and analysis afterwards needs several seconds to kick in. If my took gets obliterated within let's say five seconds, where is the learning effect, then ? Am I really THAT fast to be able to memorize the whole 5 seconds situation in my mind so that I can compare what I've experienced with some guides of forum entries ? Is the transfer of knowledge really that good and that fast ?

 

Ages ago I once read that "the human brain needs 3 seconds to realize Reality". (My words, it's been too long ago since I read this.) I have no clue whether this is actually true or not, but it does show, on the other hand, that even for realizing that something has happened, a few seconds are required. The higher the reflexes, the better, maybe.

 

PvP People were laughing at me and at the idea that people need a ceretain time span to realize things. Why has my toon get killed this time ? Reports of traffic incidents in the newspaper tell me that indeed need to realize certain things before they can react to them. Apart from reflexes.

Apparingly, people assume that such an "reaction time" just doesn't exist, especially or untrained Newbies. They were laughing at that idea.

 

Of course, you can enhance things through sheer training, and there are so many stories of elerly peoplebeing so fast - but what about untrained people ?

[caederon]

Of course, you can enhance things through sheer training, and there are so many stories of elerly peoplebeing so fast - but what about untrained people ?

Since we are not in the Matrix (... I think ) and do not have Bene Gesserit recall of the life experiences of our ancestors... everyone starts out untrained.

 

Some people have talent in different areas, or physical gifts like superior reflexes, but skill is learned and practiced. Nearly everyone who wants to be good at something needs to train extensively to reach the pinnacle of their own potential.

 

A vast amount of the text I've output in these threads is dedicated to promoting the notion that the game needs better training opportunities for GSF players. Improving via experience, repetition, and study is the way someone gets good at a game.

 

Perhaps some games are so simple that anyone can be relatively competitive on their first try. Tic Tac Toe, for example. GSF was not intended as such, and requires more effort. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

 

- Despon

[DennisJD]

Of course, you can enhance things through sheer training, and there are so many stories of elerly peoplebeing so fast - but what about untrained people ?

 

Record your games then watch them.

Edited July 12, 2017 by DennisJD
spelling

[Verain]

If a team that is being rolled "should have no chance of victory", then why not just end the match automatically immediately when a team is that far ahead?

 

Because the losers should be punished for being so weak.

Because the winners should be rewarded for being so strong.

Because all players queued up to play the game.

Because the game shouldn't devolve to spawn camping even if the losing team is totally outclassed and the losing teammembers are too stupid to not pick a spawn point swarming with red triangles.

Because no one will have any fun if the game is called early.

 

Wouldn't it be better if both sides still had a challenge in the remainder of the game?

Nope. Not when the teams are so different in power. Or rather, yes, as long as that challenge isn't for the losing team to win the game, which they have already demonstrated that they are utterly undeserving of.

 

 

If there were some mitigation to make the rolled team at least a little more formidable then the aggressors would continue to have to apply skill to hold on, and the rolled team would have something to do other than alt-tab and surf the web. There is an opportunity for an improvement to be ironed out I think for this.

 

If losing, your goal should be to lose less and win more. I agree that the game does a somewhat poor job of incentivizing this, but something that protects spawning ships when the game is too unbalanced does let them group up and do things, or stay apart and inject themselves into different parts of the map without being able to have a common spawn wave.

 

Bad players deserve to lose to players that are not terrible. Terrible players deserve to be destroyed rapidly and totally. Otherwise it isn't pvp, it's some carebear crap. But the game should still offer a way to engage in the gameplay, for the purpose of enjoyment and improvement, in these cases.

[TW-Cool]

I have two main reasons why I dont like to queue for GSF:

 

1. There is no bolster system in place. There should be a bolster system much like you created for ground PVP. You were willing to take away our expertise gear, but you chose to let people keep their fully upgraded GSF ships. Now, I realize that sometimes my deaths do come from poor playing skills, but a more level playing around certainly would make it better.

 

2. Slow queue pops. Please create 4 v 4 death matches to queues can pop when less people are in queue, much like ground PVP. Maybe add a way for us to see how many players are in queue currently and if its a waste of time to try at the current moment.

[caederon]

1. There is no bolster system in place. There should be a bolster system much like you created for ground PVP. You were willing to take away our expertise gear, but you chose to let people keep their fully upgraded GSF ships. Now, I realize that sometimes my deaths do come from poor playing skills, but a more level playing around certainly would make it better..

GSF is not ground PvP, and the systems that govern one do not automatically fit the other. Fully upgraded GSF ships are not akin to ground PvP gear. No form of bolster system is necessary, from a competitive standpoint or a game-design one.

 

As of patch 5.2.2, the developers greatly decreased the amount of requisition needed to gear your ships, they significantly added to the requisition gains granted by the Daily and Weekly quests, and they multiplied the amount of Fleet Requisition granted by the Intro to Starfighter quest from 5000 to 25000.

 

The Fleet Requisition given is enough to buy every ship in your hangar that you don't start with (excluding Cartel variants which have no gameplay difference from their analogues in your hangar)... or you can spend it on upgrading any particular ship you choose. It can get a single ship directly into competitive shape, and only requires that you play one single GSF match (win or lose) to complete the quest.

 

Investing a little time into understanding which upgrades are key ones to get and playing a handful of matches will have your ship(s) in good shape very quickly. It is quite a lot faster of a process now than it has ever been. There is no appreciable grind.

 

Veterans do not win because of their gear. They win because they know what they are doing and have lots of practice doing it. It's definitely a problem on low population servers, but my recommendation there is to group with some veterans and ask them for advice. GSF players who fly a lot are generally a very approachable bunch who are happy to help out new pilots.

 

- Despon

Edited July 12, 2017 by caederon

[Nebdar]

So much of those yellow post it is hard to write all the reply and feedback to all of them.

 

I played the GSF at the start(for a week or so) to see and experience it and.. have never returned to it again...

And if you look at Ground PvP and compare it with GSF you clearly see what the other has that GSF don't and mostly those aret he things that this content is missing.

 

1st and last Obstacle

 

Newb/Rookie Nightmare

 

GSF isn't just press Start and Play, even the Ground PvP isn't that way but at least you know where/what are your abilities and what is your role.

 

For me the mental barrier is that i have to start from scratch and there is no other way like in Ground PvP when you can gear/prepare your stats, train and practice playing PvE activities. The whole vision that you will be flying target practice without any hope to shoot anyone down is just fun killer.

 

I think the bolster in this type of content wouldn't work so i got some things in mind that would help.

 

1. Buy the full or almost full upgraded ship with credits ( i was thinking that the top cost for me is 9 mln credits). So I could just start playing and having fun without the need of early death grinding. It would be also nice if you can exchange ship requisition to credits so you would one day get your 9 mln credits back( and no more so to eliminate credit afk farming) and purchase/unlock another ship

 

2. Some one mentioned that there is no fly text to show you what happened why you missed didn't done any damage ect. or can you see it from combat.log?

 

3. Any type of 'help' to targeting like some extra pointer that it will be showing you when you fire now with current enemy trajectory you will hit them or not( so to help to learn when not firing from obvious rear but from different angles and speeds)

 

4. Missiles firing them locking them was a pain and un penetrable barrier any kind of auto lock one click fire help for newbs? Just so people can master other things and then manually focus when and how fire an missile, maybe even auto fire option

 

5. Auto fire release.. for beginners it is so many new things to learn so having any help with firing or defenses would be an GREAT help or even flash tool tip(just like we have on ground ui when the cool down refreshes or there is extra damage ability triggered) that will newb that this is the good time to use this defense( or just simple auto fire/activation at the cost that it could be just waisted/not efeicent use but it is a good thing to show that when you hear you have missile locked you can use this defense)

 

6. Please make this part of the game easy to learn but difficult to master. Any extra tutorial even make that you win the 1v1 tutorial battle against scripted AI or so with this ship to even start queuing

 

7. This game mode is not only is in 3D space but is faster and more complex to handle from beginning. In ground PvP you slow down(no sprint while in combat=) so it is easier to fight in 'slow motion' position yourself lock the enemy.. so in other words the speed of space is to fast for a beginner not to mention you have to precisely target the enemy ship not like in ground pvp you target the enemy click button and the engine and rng do the rest. I understand that in proper realism time to kill in this mode should be very short comparing to WZ's(but if there is room for adjustment or tutorial)

 

8. Instead of legacy hangar why not the option to just transfer the ship from one rep/imp character to another in same faction for a cost( credits/ fleet/sahip requisition)

[Verain]

1. Buy the full or almost full upgraded ship with credits ( i was thinking that the top cost for me is 9 mln credits). So I could just start playing and having fun without the need of early death grinding. It would be also nice if you can exchange ship requisition to credits so you would one day get your 9 mln credits back( and no more so to eliminate credit afk farming) and purchase/unlock another ship

 

I mean, that pretty much deletes gearing. I feel the gearing is in great shape after the last buff. It was always reasonable to gear your ship. They've basically made it about 5-6x faster than at launch, and the most recent patch alone literally halved the cost of everything.

 

2. Some one mentioned that there is no fly text to show you what happened why you missed didn't done any damage ect. or can you see it from combat.log?

 

I don't think it is in a combat log when you misclick or your pilot misses either way.

 

3. Any type of 'help' to targeting like some extra pointer that it will be showing you when you fire now with current enemy trajectory you will hit them or not

 

This is literally how the game has worked from the start. In all cases, you must fire at the target that leads the enemy ship. It doesn't matter what they do after you click it- the hit/miss/crit is determined the moment you click the mouse.

 

4. Missiles firing them locking them was a pain and un penetrable barrier any kind of auto lock one click fire help for newbs?

 

what

 

5. Auto fire release

 

The tone changes when it is locked. You can release immediately at that point to fire the missile, or hold the lock as you close in for a closer and harder to evade shot, or hold the lock to threaten them to break the lock.

 

6. Please make this part of the game easy to learn but difficult to master. Any extra tutorial even make that you win the 1v1 tutorial battle against scripted AI or so with this ship to even start queuing

 

It still won't make 3-space combat easy to learn. But if they did this, it would be a huge huge help. Better ways to queue against friends for testing or piddling AIs for testing is probably the most common request across these threads.

 

7. This game mode is not only is in 3D space but is faster and more complex to handle from beginning.

 

I really like the pacing of GSF. It feels much more realistic given that you are modeling something much faster than people.

[caederon]

1. Buy the full or almost full upgraded ship with credits ( i was thinking that the top cost for me is 9 mln credits). So I could just start playing and having fun without the need of early death grinding. It would be also nice if you can exchange ship requisition to credits so you would one day get your 9 mln credits back( and no more so to eliminate credit afk farming) and purchase/unlock another ship

I'm not opposed to this, at least on a surface consideration... though it would probably ignite 'pay to win' cries. Baseless ones, but nonetheless. I don't think it would actually help much, though. Players would still have no understanding of how to use the thing they just bought, so it would not equal immediate 'fun.' Forgive some wild supposition, but I suspect it would even increase the number of people crying out 'hax' when someone who knows what they're doing lights up someone who doesn't. That might frustrate people even more than getting blown up in unupgraded ships (which are easier than ever and faster than ever to upgrade now).

 

2. Some one mentioned that there is no fly text to show you what happened why you missed didn't done any damage ect. or can you see it from combat.log?

There is no flytext, and there ought to be. What you can do, though, is look on the after-match scoreboard and see your Hit %. That value does not count Evasion-related damageless shots as misses... so it gives a true account of how many shots you manually aimed in the proper manner.

 

3. Any type of 'help' to targeting like some extra pointer that it will be showing you when you fire now with current enemy trajectory you will hit them or not( so to help to learn when not firing from obvious rear but from different angles and speeds)

The targeting system that is there now tells you everything you need to know without much complication. It gives you a lead reticle to shoot at, colors it grey if it is outside your weapon's range, and colors it red if it is in range.

 

Watch the

from my Stock Ship series that illustrates this in action. (then watch the whole thing since it's packed with info)

 

4. Missiles firing them locking them was a pain and un penetrable barrier any kind of auto lock one click fire help for newbs? Just so people can master other things and then manually focus when and how fire an missile, maybe even auto fire option

I'm quite opposed to this. Missile locking is a skill pilots should master, despite its difficulties in the current environment. Cluster Missiles lock pretty easily, other missiles will get their lock broken in many ways that are non-apparent to the beginner... here's a

of this, with it all shown in action.

 

Holding a missile lock on someone without launching until the target uses their missile break, then re-locking and firing is a tactical skill good pilots will master. This is part of the game one must develop skill at.

 

5. Auto fire release..

...

6. Please make this part of the game easy to learn but difficult to master. Any extra tutorial even make that you win the 1v1 tutorial battle against scripted AI or so with this ship to even start queuing

Better tutorial resources in-game are 100% necessary and should be a top priority of the dev team. They should have been a top priority a long time ago. Outside resources are available at GSF School in the interim. (and after the interim, too!)

 

- Despon

[rylanadionysis]

I mean, that pretty much deletes gearing. .

 

That would actually be a good thing for GSF, really, considering all "gearing" is is committing suicide for about a month over and over to fully capped ships until you have enough points to make all your unlocks.

 

An the skill curve doesnt really even matter here, because a good pilot in a nearly bare ship would get destroyed by another decent pilot in a capped one. Only the strongest pilots can make these fabled "stock" ships accomplish these feats

 

Actual new players or middling learners, haha, no.

 

I see these videos posted of experienced pilots doing things like this, and does it never occur to them that they are literally the only ones able to do this because they are the best pilots in the game already?

 

Its quite silly, really.

 

Take away the gearing, and just let people learn to fly, period. Putting another level of difficulty, is just asinine, and given what I have gone through over the last year trying to get into this part of the game (and believe me, if not for my competitive pvp nature, Id have given up months ago) I can only come to the conclusion that many players wont even bother to consider queuing because they arent even given the tools to compete.

 

I can always flat out tell when I am up against another newer pilot, as they are struggling as hard as I am to fight me. The moment i am insta vaped more than once by the same guy in a match, even when i went to a completely different sat, it tells me that there are a crapload of so called "elites" that just want to get their jollies fishbarreling the undergeared/unexperienced. If it was deathmatch I saw this in mostly, I could "somewhat" understand that, but most of the time this happens, its some moron running a gunship near the spawn or just out trying to find the same 1-2 easier targets to one shot in a domination match. Its dumb, and really doesnt help foster requeueing.

 

(The crevice bombers get a special mention here, since the less experienced will only ever get them to target due to them picking a roid RIGHT by the spawn point, therefore always being the closest target, and will moth to flame just dying to mines over and over until they find the little tiny hole they crept into, i had to learn that hard lesson, and it took me something like 15 deaths that match to finally kill that bomber, once, yet they do it ALL THE TIME, its probably the biggest morale killer out there, who wants to bother with gameplay like that? I mean its either keep going to the obvious trap, or spend almost the whole match flying clear to the other side of the map where the real fight usually is)

 

What made that fight the most aggravating, is even when I got in there and blasted the hell out of the bomber, because I wasnt upgraded yet it took me ages to actually kill it. Nowadays, I can pick off those bombers fairly quickly but that is in a mastered ship. Whole different ballgame.

 

At least in ground you get a relatively level playing field there. There is still room for gear (especially augments) to matter, but everyone is at least at a minimum tier that has the capacity to function.

 

110k health vs 125k health is a far cry from having basically zero evasion vs being a fully kitted out scout, for example.

Edited July 13, 2017 by rylanadionysis

[rylanadionysis]

I'm not opposed to this, at least on a surface consideration... though it would probably ignite 'pay to win' cries. Baseless ones, but nonetheless. I don't think it would actually help much, though. Players would still have no understanding of how to use the thing they just bought, so it would not equal immediate 'fun.' Forgive some wild supposition, but I suspect it would even increase the number of people crying out 'hax' when someone who knows what they're doing lights up someone who doesn't. That might frustrate people even more than getting blown up in unupgraded ships (which are easier than ever and faster than ever to upgrade now).

 

 

There is no flytext, and there ought to be. What you can do, though, is look on the after-match scoreboard and see your Hit %. That value does not count Evasion-related damageless shots as misses... so it gives a true account of how many shots you manually aimed in the proper manner.

 

 

The targeting system that is there now tells you everything you need to know without much complication. It gives you a lead reticle to shoot at, colors it grey if it is outside your weapon's range, and colors it red if it is in range.

 

Watch the

from my Stock Ship series that illustrates this in action. (then watch the whole thing since it's packed with info)

 

 

I'm quite opposed to this. Missile locking is a skill pilots should master, despite its difficulties in the current environment. Cluster Missiles lock pretty easily, other missiles will get their lock broken in many ways that are non-apparent to the beginner... here's a

of this, with it all shown in action.

 

Holding a missile lock on someone without launching until the target uses their missile break, then re-locking and firing is a tactical skill good pilots will master. This is part of the game one must develop skill at.

 

 

Better tutorial resources in-game are 100% necessary and should be a top priority of the dev team. They should have been a top priority a long time ago. Outside resources are available at GSF School in the interim. (and after the interim, too!)

 

- Despon

 

K so, youve reached out to me in this thread earlier, and I watched a lot of these vids and all that, but one thing jumped out to me that is really bothering me.

 

The people the pilot (i assume its you?) is shooting at, are barely evading, they are basically being picked off with just pinpoint targeting, as if they are standing still. Especially in the scout parts with the reversing and all that. Speaking of which, where the heck do I get reverse, considering its not an option under ANY of my components, I checked.

 

Its never like that for me, everything is moving 10 times faster than I am seeing in these vids.

 

 

I know theres practiced skill and muscle memory at work here, as well as prediction of movement, but I have never seen ships line up for me like that, and thats where the problem lies.

 

Whether its how I am seeing it, or something else, you make it look a lot easier than it ACTUALLY is. By orders of magnitude.

Edited July 13, 2017 by rylanadionysis

[phalczen]

110k health vs 125k health is a far cry from having basically zero evasion vs being a fully kitted out scout, for example.

 

You may say its nitpicking, but this is completely a misconception. The tier 1 scout starts out with 13% evasion, and gets to its resting cap of a mere 33% with 600 fleet req for the evasion crewmember (free if you have a imp agent or jedi consular) plus 3250 ship req for purchasing DF component and upgrading the stock Lightweight armor. The active ability of DF is useable, once upgraded to tier 2 with 1750 ship req, for six seconds every twenty, and gives an additional 35% (uptime of 10.5% extra evasion), but unupgraded is 27% for six out of every thirty (uptime of 5.4% extra evasion). You can get that amount of ship and fleet req from your first match, and have 88% of the evasion of a fully kitted out scout.

[Verain]

That would actually be a good thing for GSF, really, considering all "gearing" is is committing suicide for about a month

 

This was totally wrong before the patch, and is so wrong now that any other claims you make should be taken with this kind of hyperbole or filter in mind.

 

An the skill curve doesnt really even matter here, because a good pilot in a nearly bare ship would get destroyed by another decent pilot in a capped one.

 

If this is your take from all the stock play that you have seen, you are probably not going to be convinced by any other proof.

 

Gearing barely mattered before the patch. It's really not an issue on live.

 

Take away the gearing, and just let people learn to fly, period.

 

They've already almost done that. And you've already noticed that the skill level in the real barrier: the gear is just a minor piece after that.

 

I think Drako mastered a scout on a level 10 fresh character in 6 games on stream the other night. While a player would normally want to be less aggressive about such a gearing curve (he spent fleet as ship req, whereas normally you would buy the other ships instead), that's still a very damned small amount of time. It's not the "months" you are talking about.

 

This game mode has been out for years. In that time, not one upgrade has been taken away or made obsolete, in the manner of the intermittent level upgrades. If you bought a maxxed out burst laser cannon near launch, and simultaneously got some BiS-for-level-55 ground game gear, that piece went away several times by then- once during that expansion, and then multiple other times with other expansions.

 

they arent even given the tools to compete.

You yourself have noticed that the only tool to compete that matters is skill, and you only get that by practicing.

 

(The crevice bombers get a special mention here, since the less experienced will only ever get them to target due to them picking a roid RIGHT by the spawn point, therefore always being the closest target, and will moth to flame just dying to mines over and over until they find the little tiny hole they crept into, i had to learn that hard lesson, and it took me something like 15 deaths that match to finally kill that bomber

 

Why?

 

Why did you die to mines "over and over" until you found "the little tiny hole they crept into"? Just to "kill that bomber once"?

 

Was that helping your team? When someone parks far away from everything and deploys mines, he's not helping his team or scoring kills and will even be flagged as a non-participant. You literally don't need to go there. Why did you? Why didn't you go help your team, instead of blowing yourself up multiple times? Why did you willingly hurt your team's game state? If I had an ability that would teleport some bomber across the map and move his deployables with him, I'd use it all the time, and it would be wildly broken. The bomber in a tiny hole means your team is already gaining a huge benefit. Go kill the ships that actually threaten your teammates!

 

 

I mean its either keep going to the obvious trap, or spend almost the whole match flying clear to the other side of the map where the real fight usually is

 

"It's either go around my yard scooping up dog poop, putting it in some bread painstakingly made from a grain genetically engineered to taste horrible, then eating it, OR eating this ham sandwich I have in my hand. WHY MUST I GO AROUND THE YARD AND EAT THE POOPWICH???"

 

Just like... consider not doing the thing that makes no logical sense? Where would you even get that idea?

 

 

110k health vs 125k health is a far cry from having basically zero evasion vs being a fully kitted out scout, for example.

 

This has been shown to be silly in the respondent post, but I want to emphasize that you can have a fully-evasioned scout on a level 10 character during your SECOND game, with over 10,000 fleet req left over.

[caederon]

The people the pilot (i assume its you?) is shooting at, are barely evading, they are basically being picked off with just pinpoint targeting, as if they are standing still.

Yes, I'm the pilot in all of the current GSF School videos with the exception of The Breakdown episode 04 with Sriia piloting the bomber match we analyze.

 

"Flying in a straight line while you're being shot up" is a classic trap inexperienced pilots fall into. Such pilots are not in short supply these days, but it may be that you're facing different opposition. With that said, though, there will be stretches of time when even very good pilots are flying straight-and-level... usually when they are engaged in attacking another target. That is the moment to get in range behind them and open fire.

 

Consider your target choice, too. If you're having trouble hitting scouts, find some non-scouts to shoot at. They move less erratically, turn more slowly, and generally present an easier target. Consider your attack angle, too. It is almost always better to be behind a target, traveling at a speed relatively close to theirs, when you're looking to consistently land shots on that target.

 

Especially in the scout parts with the reversing and all that. Speaking of which, where the heck do I get reverse, considering its not an option under ANY of my components, I checked.

Do you mean Retro-Thrusters? Those are available on the T1F (Star Guard / Rycer), T2S (Flashfire / Sting), and T3G (Condor / Jurgoran). They are tricky to get the hang of, and even experienced pilots will slam themselves into rocks when using them, but they can be pretty powerful in the right situation.

 

I know theres practiced skill and muscle memory at work here, as well as prediction of movement, but I have never seen ships line up for me like that, and thats where the problem lies.

 

Whether its how I am seeing it, or something else, you make it look a lot easier than it ACTUALLY is. By orders of magnitude.

It really does get better with practice, adapting to the speed of the game, and finding the right targets to shoot at.

 

Your other post comments on your perception that veteran pilots are singling out new pilots to pick on because they are easy kills. The reason they are easy kills is that they are putting themselves in vulnerable positions, and veteran pilots can identify a ship in a vulnerable position and dispatch it... which is important when you need the threat density in an area lowered before dealing with someone who will take you considerably more time to remove and will also be less effective without allied help. It's not 'ha ha, SMASH NOOBS' but rather a sensible approach to problem solving, particularly in Domination when a swarm of people around or near a node is always a problem, so preventing that is always a sensible course.

 

- Despon

Edited July 13, 2017 by caederon

[TW-Cool]

GSF is not ground PvP, and the systems that govern one do not automatically fit the other. Fully upgraded GSF ships are not akin to ground PvP gear. No form of bolster system is necessary, from a competitive standpoint or a game-design one.

 

...

 

The Fleet Requisition given is enough to buy every ship in your hangar that you don't start with (excluding Cartel variants which have no gameplay difference from their analogues in your hangar)... or you can spend it on upgrading any particular ship you choose. It can get a single ship directly into competitive shape, and only requires that you play one single GSF match (win or lose) to complete the quest.

 

Investing a little time into understanding which upgrades are key ones to get and playing a handful of matches will have your ship(s) in good shape very quickly. It is quite a lot faster of a process now than it has ever been. There is no appreciable grind.

 

...

 

Okay, but I would still like a GSF bolster system. Whether they made it faster to upgrade now... there still isnt an answer as to which upgrade to go with first. Do I want better weapons or shields, or whatever? I'm assuming they want us to just guess and trial and error it? (I dont know the names of the stuff, since I deleted my one GSF toon, that did like 20 matches when it first came out to re-roll the class for Dark vs Light last year lol.)

 

In ground PVP, expertise used to boost multiple things as you earned more PVP gear (DPS, healing, damage reduction), so the bolster system took care of that before, giving people a decent amount of expertise (unless they were over geared PVE people...). I guess I want the bolster system in place mainly just so that I dont need to think about upgrading my ship stats, if I choose to not focus on those details.

 

I know GSF is a "learn to play", and I guess I'll agree with others saying that we need a PVE learning environment where we can practice shooting at ships, not on a rail.

 

May I ask what is the best average all around ship to play? I used to just upgrade my gun ship when I played 3 years ago.

[caederon]

Okay, but I would still like a GSF bolster system. Whether they made it faster to upgrade now... there still isnt an answer as to which upgrade to go with first.

In fact there is an answer to that. That is a topic that has been extensively discussed for two years of a static game-state, so as much as anything in a game forum is debate-proof, there is broad consensus on that subject.

 

The certainty of what to upgrade and what to avoid is indeed so thoroughly documented and understood that it is indirectly the subject of considerable debate in the Ship Balance thread, simply because certain components work well, and certain components are very much underpowered, and a lot of us would like to see more diversity of viable builds.

 

A very short summary:

 

Strike Fighters are not good. Avoid them. Nearly everyone wants them buffed, and you can read literally hundreds of pages of posts about that if you are a glutton for theorycrafting or just like inflicting pain on yourself. They are a deathtrap for beginners, and not much more than that for experienced players.

 

Scouts...

• Make one of your first upgrades buying a new Primary Weapon. Light Laser Cannon and Rapid Fire Lasers are both bad. For the Type 1 and Type 3 Scouts, Laser Cannon is a great all-around performer. For the Type 2 Scout, you should choose between Burst Laser Cannon and Quad Laser Cannons. BLC is like a laser shotgun that often takes people some time to get used to but is very powerful once you do. QLC does a lot of damage if you keep your target centered.
  
• Another key early upgrade is deciding which engine maneuver you want to use, and getting the first upgrade level on it, making it cost less Engine Power. Choose between Barrel Roll, Power Dive, and Retro Thrusters. The first two will get you out of trouble (though a poorly aimed Power Dive will put you right back in trouble) and Retros are for more offensive-minded builds.
  
• Upgrading Minor Components (your Reactor, Armor, Capacitor, Magazine) early is a smart choice, as they are cheap to upgrade and cost very little comparatively. Don't bother upgrading Sensors until the very last thing you do, as they are largely useless. I recommend Large Reactor (for lots of shield pool), any of the Capacitors can be a good choice, and on Scouts, definitely get Lightweight Armor and upgrade that early for the passive Evasion it grants.
  

 

Gunships...

• Don't bother with the Type 2 Gunship, or its Fortress Shield, unless you like dying and being largely ineffective.
  
• For the Type 1 Gunship, you want to get a few things early...
  
  • Slug Railgun to tier 3, so you can quickly kill turrets and do damage to Charged Plating Bombers
    
  • First and second upgrades on Barrel Roll to get out of trouble
    
  • Regeneration Extender so your railguns charge more rapidly between shots
    
  • Ion Railgun to tier 4 for Area of Effect damage
    
  • Buy Burst Laser Cannon instead of Light Laser Cannon for superior close-range damage dealing.
    

  [*]For the Type 3 Gunship, things are probably a bit more open to personal choice

  • Slug Railgun to tier 3, so you can quickly kill turrets and do damage to Charged Plating Bombers
    
  • Get the engine component you like most and its first upgrade level
    
  • The first level upgrade on Cluster Missiles is very strong as it reduces the lock time
    
  • Minor components are always good to upgrade early.
    

 

I'll leave Bomber recommendations for someone else, though please consider running Hyperspace Beacon on your Type 1 Bomber, as it is so vital in Domination matches.

 

May I ask what is the best average all around ship to play? I used to just upgrade my gun ship when I played 3 years ago.

Type 2 Scout (Sting / Flashfire) will take some practice for you to learn, and you'll blow up a lot, but it has great capacity to deal damage and be mobile.

 

Type 1 Gunship is very good at team support with its Ion Railgun once you have the Area of Effect Damage upgrade. It will put out a lot of damage at range, and can hold its own in close if you are defending a node.

 

Type 3 Gunship has a great distance weapon (Slug Railgun), great close range weapon options (Cluster Missiles, BLC) and great Engine component options (Power Dive, Retros). It does not offer Ion Railgun, though, which is essential for combating Bombers and removing their mines.

 

If you like shooting things, these are the ships you probably ought to consider first.

 

- Despon

Edited July 13, 2017 by caederon

[TW-Cool]

If you like shooting things, these are the ships you probably ought to consider first.

 

- Despon

 

Thanks for the detailed reply! Now whenever the queues get more popular and start popping again, I might just have to go back in there.

[Graygorij]

The learning curve is steep since it is really its own game. Also, I play swtor mostly with a keyboard and a little bit on the mouse -- but GSF feels really mouse intensive to me... to the point where my mouse hand cramps up.

 

GSF has always looked really cool and fun to me -- but I have never bothered to get into it due to those two issues.

[Drakkolich]

First off I wanted to thank you guys for taking the time to ask us our feedback on the game, it gives us hope that you're looking to improve it and if you do plan to improve it please keep us informed and if you plan to make adjustments to Ships/Components please do so gradually and not all at once!

 

I think one of the biggest challenges is trying to explain to a new player why he's doing so little damage or why he's dying so fast. I do a lot of teaching to try to get new players up to speed and while the UI does convey a lot of great information there are some things that can be just so frustrating for new players.

 

- 1: Evasion or Missing do to accuracy. This one comes up so much when I'm teaching, they always tell me "I have the cursor over him but I never seem to do any damage, how do I aim better". It's pretty hard to tell if that player is talking about his own manual aim or if he's missing because of high tracking penalty reductions and/or evasion. I think one of the best things you could do to help the new player learning curve is to add in somekind of text that pops up when you actually manually hit the target but lose the evasion/accuracy roll. Something like Miss for accuracy shots or Evade for shots that lost to Evasion, if tracking both those is too much to ask then simply a Miss for everything that isn't just you shooting into space.

 

-2 : How did I die? Often players complain that they "got 1 shot" when in fact it's usually a combination of many attacks/abilities hitting all at once. If there was anyway to communicate to the player what attacks/players did to them to make them blowup that could tremendously useful. While I know this would be an entire new feature I just thought I'd bring it up here anyways.

 

-3: A place to teach/Practice. I'm sure you've noticed this one is probably one of the number 1 requests out there. For me it would let me teach new pilots how all of these systems work 1 by 1 in a no stress environment. Some kind of tutorial space that more then one player could enter would be huge for teaching purposes, however even just the ability to enter the current tutorial space (minus the pop ups/timer) with the ship of your choice could be a great starting point. That way I could talk them through their abilities and aiming on the ship they want to play.

 

 

From here I'll just talk a few friction points for me.

 

- I would love an actual number for my shield and health totals during the game. Not know exactly where my health is really urks me. If I knew that I was one Slug railgun away from dying because of Shield penetration I'd definitely play differently however that is really hard to know under the current UI. Shield numbers would also really help know just how much your shields are regenerating and/or your abilities are helping. It's currently super hard to figure out how the power setting affect shield regenerating abilities.

 

- Debuffs/buffs on enemy ships your targeting. Often if a ship is far away and you target it you don't get any information on their buffs/debuffs, this is incredibly annoying. Knowing a Gunship has Distortion field active or the Wing man copilot ability absolutely change the decision your going to make and how to engage that target. As a quick aside to this point, being able to make the icons on your UI for both your buffs/debuffs and your opponents bigger would be a nice quality of life adjustment too!

 

- Nowhere in the hangar does it tell you what the power settings actually do. I think with how important those settings are the game they should definitely be somewhere. My suggestion would be that in the window where you would normally hit the Queue button it displays all of your ships stats. It would be really cool if at the top there was a little toggle to show your ships stats in each power setting. So you could see exactly what your max shields might be in power to shields or how much engine power you'd regenerate in power to engines.

 

 

Well I think that's enough for now, Thanks again and I hope to keep hearing from you guys!

Edited July 15, 2017 by Drakkolich