GSF Discussion: Friction Points

[DakhathKilrathi]

1. The controls are horrible. Anyone who is not used to this type of gameplay will barely be able to fly their ship. When they do try GSF for the first time, they will just flit around like a drunk bubble bee. Then its just BOOM BOOM dead. with no clue where it even came from.

 

2.There is no way to practice. In the non-GSF part of the game PvE is really a sort of practice for PvP. GSF has no equivalent. It just throws you in the deep end of the pool. There needs to be some sort of PvE version vs npcs. A PvE version also needs different difficulty modes. It needs an easy mode where the npc's hit like wet noodles. It should take the npc's , in the easiest level, to take 30-50 shots to kill a player. In the master level it should be 1-3 shots.

 

In fact a PvE version of GSF could be a real hit. Imagine a 16 man GSF raid where they have to destroy a few minor capital ships, a shipyard, and some sort of prototype super capital ship.

 

The potential is there. I just don't think there are the resources to make GSF an active part of the average players gameplay.

 

You know there's a tutorial, right? It's a bad tutorial, but you can practice flying there if nothing else. Access it by clicking the question mark icon from the hangar window.

[Pscyon]

• Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you ---- in?
  

 

It needs PvE for me to play it. A Star Wars game with no real ship combat is silly and when you finally did add it with Galactic Starfighter, it was exclusively a PvP thing. And it's not even very popular/frequently available judging by how people whine about the long queue times, so that makes it even less tempting.

[Anzel]

Reasons I don't play GSF:

 

1.) It's not really legacy wide. I have over 20 characters.

2.) It NEVER pops on Harbinger. Maybe I'm missing out but I don't ever see it pop.

3.) There is no PvE aspect to it. No exploration. No missions. No free flight. No transportation, etc.

4.) The ships don't have interiors that I can walk around in and explore. Invite friends, etc. (See JTL).

5.) There are no multi-player ships with turrets like JTL.

 

Space is supposed to be BIG. A little exploration would go a long way. Multi-player ships. PvE missions. You got me.

[HeatRacer]

Get rid of CC costs to convert ship reqs to fleet reqs. The income from this must be a relative pittance, while also making it more costly/penalizing for new pilots to shunt reqs to the ships they want to fix up.

[JamaicanCastle]

So I had a specific problem that made me stop playing GSF, and then when I heard there were changes a couple weeks ago I tried it and quickly remembered why I stopped in the first place. Basically, my experience with GSF goes something like this:

 

- Join the match. Fly towards an objective. Get blown up by a gunship.

- Respawn. Get blown up by a gunship.

- Respawn. Fly behind a rock this time so the gunship can't find me. Get blown up by a different gunship.

- Respawn. Attack a gunship that's busy blowing someone else up and dump rockets into it. At 30% health it boosts away. I get blown up by a different gunship.

- Rinse and repeat.

 

Now maybe this is just me being bad at GSF, I'd believe that. But it's very discouraging to think that, in any given life in GSF, I'm more likely to get blown up off the cuff than actually contribute to my team winning. In regular PvP, even when I die horribly, I usually can do something - guarding nodes, or running interference, or pulling people away so my team can hit an objective - to help the team. Failing that, I can at least point to a mistake on my part ("huh, one person attacking a point with three people there isn't a very good idea, who knew?"), whereas in GSF all I've been able to conclude is that I shouldn't be flying things that aren't gunships.

 

Compounding this, I find it very hard just to keep track of where my team is and what they're doing. Unless someone literally flies in front of me with an enemy on their tail, I have no idea where they are, or who they're fighting. It's a lot harder - again compared to regular PvP - to team up on people, or go where your group is, or otherwise make all these decisions that come smoothly in a warzone or arena situation.

 

Finally - I don't think gear progression belongs in any PvP system, but it's especially poorly suited for GSF, where there's not even the pretense of a rating system or matchmaking to keep you in games with similarly-geared people.

[inCelesphere]

A minor issue, and a superficial one at that, but it does put me off playing GSF on alts, which is a shame because of all the ships to master - customisation.

 

- The rest of the game has much more option to customise things to your character, so for example, I end up having very particular colour-schemed characters, and have no trouble finding vehicles, pets and colour crystals to go with them. Even eye colour and for the most part, hair colour.

 

- e.g. However, taking orange as an example, although the Republic can get a ship looking just right for an orange-themed character, for the Empire it's imposssible.

 

- e.g. Multiple gas canisters or engine reactors of very similar shades of one colour e.g. blues or yellows (that claim to be orange!) instead of actual variety.

 

- Need for a wider variety of colour options for paint jobs, reactors and canisters.

 

- Additionally, it is off-putting having to buy the above for each time for each character.

 

- It might be preferable if GSF could somehow be tied together with Legacy, if colours could be unlocked legacy wide and ships, and also Fleet Commendations.

 

(Just my thoughts, I don't know what's good for GSF or what's not! Thanks! )

[Transcendent]

• The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?
  

 

That's one of them for me personally, progressing on one character doesn't carry through the whole legacy. I mean if it was a legacy hanger as well as being able to use all characters to upgrade those ships? That makes things a little bit quicker by doing daily missions to earn the upgrades.

 

Also, I'd still like to point out that I would probably play GSF far more if it had controller support in-game without using third party programs. It's the one biggest gripe that I had with GSF from inception and still carries through to today.

[HaoZhao]

I really wanted to like GSF when it was released. I played it a few times but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I found that the tutorial didn't teach me how to chase moving targets (players) and that I wasn't having fun just being dead weight on my team.

 

I went back to regular PVP because I know what I'm doing there and I feel like I can contribute in a meaningful way. I'd love to try GSF again but I think the team really needs to buff up the tutorial. No one should have to watch YouTube videos for an hour to learn how to play your game with minimal proficiency.

[DakhathKilrathi]

So I had a specific problem that made me stop playing GSF, and then when I heard there were changes a couple weeks ago I tried it and quickly remembered why I stopped in the first place. Basically, my experience with GSF goes something like this:

 

- Join the match. Fly towards an objective. Get blown up by a gunship.

- Respawn. Get blown up by a gunship.

- Respawn. Fly behind a rock this time so the gunship can't find me. Get blown up by a different gunship.

- Respawn. Attack a gunship that's busy blowing someone else up and dump rockets into it. At 30% health it boosts away. I get blown up by a different gunship.

- Rinse and repeat.

 

Now maybe this is just me being bad at GSF, I'd believe that. But it's very discouraging to think that, in any given life in GSF, I'm more likely to get blown up off the cuff than actually contribute to my team winning. In regular PvP, even when I die horribly, I usually can do something - guarding nodes, or running interference, or pulling people away so my team can hit an objective - to help the team. Failing that, I can at least point to a mistake on my part ("huh, one person attacking a point with three people there isn't a very good idea, who knew?"), whereas in GSF all I've been able to conclude is that I shouldn't be flying things that aren't gunships.

 

Compounding this, I find it very hard just to keep track of where my team is and what they're doing. Unless someone literally flies in front of me with an enemy on their tail, I have no idea where they are, or who they're fighting. It's a lot harder - again compared to regular PvP - to team up on people, or go where your group is, or otherwise make all these decisions that come smoothly in a warzone or arena situation.

 

Finally - I don't think gear progression belongs in any PvP system, but it's especially poorly suited for GSF, where there's not even the pretense of a rating system or matchmaking to keep you in games with similarly-geared people.

 

Hey! Do you mind if I PM you? I can help with everything you've had trouble with, and I'd like to, if you're willing!

 

Don't feel too bad about dying a lot; everyone does at first. That's PVP for you.

 

I am not saying this as an attack, but yes, it is a problem in the way you're approaching things. That's not your fault; you don't have the experience necessary to know that yet, although it sounds like you already suspect that might be the case. In general, circle around outside of their line of sight and firing arc to pressure gunships from behind, but only do so in a ship with high evasion. Avoid being in the open for long and always have your escape route planned as you make your approach. Grab powerups if you can get them.

[Edwardsen]

Matchmaking issues

 

Not a single GSF game opened on Vanjervalis Chains in the last few weeks that I tried.

 

Needs game modes with lower number of pilots to increase likelyhood of a match starting.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You need maybe 30 games to gear a ship right now. I feel like that's more than reasonable. You still need to play CXP if you want to gear up your ground PVP alts, so how is this any different? The power difference between mastered and stock (with the right components) is small, and you need only a few games to get the low tier upgrades. A stock ship can and does perform well in the hands of someone who understands what's going on.

 

It's not a gearing issue; it's a player issue. Someone who has played six thousand games is going to annihilate someone who has only played two.

 

With that said, I wouldn't mind making gearing even easier if only to end arguments like this one.

 

I think it's stupid in PVP also. I'm offering my personal opinion on the state of GSF and why I personally hated even endeavoring to try it.

But hey, if the GSF community want to keep the status quo and only have changes that directly help them with how they currently play GSF instead of making it more accessible for everyone else well then have fun playing with the other 10 GSF players.

Just don't complain when you still get no new content because BWA is never going to develop content for such a small, niche playerbase.

 

Seems to me the purpose of these topics is clearly to get feedback on what would get more people playing PVP than making those already playing more comfortable.

[Verain]

The single biggest change you could make that would help is to add some flytext or color change to indicate when:

You miss due to evasion/deflection/RNG.

Your damage is reduced because of damage reduction.

 

Posting in COMPLETE agreement.

 

The miss from a bad shot versus the miss from to-hit roll absolutely MUST be included. The combat roll is a huge part of GSF, and separately, so is the skill-shot. The player MUST be told this distinction immediately. I truly cannot express how important this is. This is one of the biggest problems a new player faces, and I hate it every day as a long time GSF fanboy. Fix!

[casigarian]

Suggestions:

1. Learning Curve: We need some sort of area to go to with "friend" to test on ships and learn to fly similar to dueling could be limited to 4 flyers
   
2. Ship Imbalance: GSF should be about flying ie strikes and scouts as the main ships too many matches become a chess match with teams flying 5 gunships, and 1 or 2 bombers and a single strike or scout...Reduce the range of gunships weapons from 15k to 10k...limit the number of gunships and bombers allowed in a match
   
3. Remove the box from the deathmatch map
   
4. Make all ship requisitions and fleet requisitions legacy and convertable (some fair conversion rate 10 ship to one fleet)...GSF is the only aspect of the game that requires one to pay for conversion or you have ships like one of my ocula's that has over a 500k ship req points just sitting their, and Legacy Hanger would be nice
   

[harmonichonda]

Simple solution to GSF woes:

 

1. Cross-Server queues, folks need to get flight time to improve and level their ships. Waiting hours to go against oriented and coordinated teams stinks for newer players.

 

2. Additional game modes, possibly even using existing maps:

• a. More objectives for those who just stink at pvp objectives to participate and help their teammates.
  
• aa.. IE: In death matches, each 4 powerups collected do something for the team for 60 seconds, this would also benefit counter-camping teams.
  
• ab. IE: in 3 cap map, a resource gatherer added for defenders to be doing something while just sitting around, and for those who stink at combat to be able to run to someplace and collect something and bring it to starting area or the a/c cap points for added defense or points. This would keep folks moving throughout the game and again counter-camping efforts
  
• ac. IE: new map where there are pve objectives while pvp still being the higher point collector, get all ppl who play the game engaging in GSF and moving into comfort with it. Every successful, if we're honest, pvp arena game/match/map in mmo history has pve objectives in addition to all out combat because all involved must be doing something.
  

[Belgalen]

"Is the learning curve too steep to get into?"

There is no learning curve, you have new players that do not know how to play and vet players that will kill them with glee because they are free points, if the new player is feeling masochis enough, it will go to google an look for guides that will tell you that it does not matter what ship you like to fly you need to go bomber, gunship or maybe a meta scout and then suffer the process of gearing it out, while you try to get geared you still need to suffer to learn how to fly It because a youtube video isn't gonna be as good as your own painful experience.

"Is ship balance preventing you from playing?"

Its not preventing me for playing, but since the only ship i like to fly is strike fighter i find myself mostly useless in deathmatchs and only marginal useful in dominion matchs (a fully upgraded strike fighter can get one shoot by a medium gunship, been gunned down by bombers heavy lasers or destroyed in two seconds by meta scouts)

Make deathmatchs strike figthers only map.

"Matchmaking issues?"

The limited number of players may this almost a moot point, i would love to see tiers and matches were only solo players can join (to prevent pre-made slaughters, something that ground pvp should also have) and leave pre-mades fly against each other.

"The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?"

This is what bother me most, my main has all ships with all upgrades maxed out, my main ship have more than 400k requisitions stacked with nothing to use then in, since requisitions are comms they should be a way to transfer them to other toons, like gruond pvp used to have when it was comm based.

 

Also the kick system really needs a serious rework, pilots can go afk and move the ship every couple of minutes or kill themselves the full match and you cant kick them, but if you are in a deathmatch and have 5 ships on you trying to kill you and you are just skilled enough to prevent them to kill you but if you ever stop to aim are dead (so no damage done for your part) you get the kick warning for doing no damage.

 

May not be the place but what really annoys me with pvp in general in this game is that players can quit a game and suffer no penalty at all, while a pve player that quit or is kicked out of a group get 15 minutes lock out on group finder. even if they kick you because they want a guildy in their ride team an you have the bad luck to be on the top of gf queue list. So a player that quit a game should be penalized as well.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Belgalen
after through

[Verain]

1.) It's not really legacy wide. I have over 20 characters.

2.) It NEVER pops on Harbinger. Maybe I'm missing out but I don't ever see it pop.

3.) There is no PvE aspect to it. No exploration. No missions. No free flight. No transportation, etc.

4.) The ships don't have interiors that I can walk around in and explore. Invite friends, etc. (See JTL).

5.) There are no multi-player ships with turrets like JTL.

 

I think the devs will find your post important, but I have to say that your point (2) is not objectively true. Harbinger GSF pops quite frequently. I can queue morning, evening, and night, and get pops regularly, or very fast if I am in a group. Harbinger GSF is probably the most active GSF queue in the world.

[hesfalcon]

I would love to play it but it makes me seasick after about 10 minutes. Then I need to take about 2-3 hours off before I can look at a computer screen again. Many others have said the same. It's too much of a first person perspective compared to all other aspects of SWTOR. If you had more of a third person perspective, I might try it again.

[dscount]

Here is my feedback - I hope it helps change things.

 

• Is the learning curve too steep to get into?
  Not really - The tutorial does a pretty good job at explaining it, but I get the feeling people don't bother. Clearly when we see folks just flying around doing nothing it seems.
   
  
• Is ship balance preventing you from playing?
  Yes - someone already listed a LONG detailed listing of ship issues/changes suggested. 100% agree with them.
  Stock ships by default are sort of lame. Have to change several default parts/pieces to get BiS. Example: Large Reactor is default for nearly most builds folks run with today.
   
  
• Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?
  I'd love to play more, but most matches are either (a) get butt handed to you by a premade or (b) you are lucky enough to be on a premade team and get to rack up the points. See "Matchmaking Issues as my #1 not playing reason.
   
  I've also a hard time playing GSF on my characters that don't have all the ships unlocked. (Most of them)
   
  A couple new MAPS would do wonders as getting the same ones more than once in a row needs some QA.
   
  
• Matchmaking issues?
  YES 100% of issues I've seen - I've mentioned this many times and I'll say it again. Balance/Matchmaking is terrible to have a level playing field in GSF (No bolster). If you SOLO que and see a premade that is in voice comms I just leave. (Looking at a specific streamer) Having FOUR ACE players with fully mastered ships and voice communications is plain dumb against solo qued new players and some VET GSF players. In PVP we have a slight "leverage" with Bolster, but in GSF nothing sucks more than being wasted over and over again. I rolled a new character (Even using the new 25k first time quest) and still didn't compete very well until several weeks later of daily and weekly points.
   
  IDEA 1: Bolster / Buff model. You take all the REQ points from the respective individuals ships on quick bar (Five). Say average ship has 50k points into mastery + the other four also at 50k. You take that 250k and it's a baseline. Average your TEAM out (250k + + + / Count of people). The difference between teams gives the underdog a BUFF on all ships (Shield/Damage/Engines) that lasts entire match.
   
  IDEA 2: FIX the number of specific ships that can be in flight at once. Having all gunship standoff is silly as well seeing six bombers covering two nodes you can't even touch. If you have 9 players then limit 3 of each ship flying at a time. REZ - you can change if max not on field. This will also get people to accept the QUE pop a lot faster and pick ship.
   
  
• The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?
  Absolutely! Please fix this! If it's truly "Galactic Star Fighter" then I should have access to all the ships I've unlocked. The price point is horrible at 1400cc per ship per character. (I just unlock on my "GSF" character on each side)
   
  IDEA: Give us Legacy wide ships or at least let us unlock account wide with Credits or coins.
  

[santafaye]

Hey folks,

 

This week, we are creating three separate forum threads for GSF discussion. You can head to this thread to get links to each of them.

 

Galactic Starfighter, like all group content, is a system that we want to see being used by as many players as possible. This thread is to discuss the friction points that you see in GSF. Whether it stops you from playing frequently, or from playing at all, we want to understand that friction.

 

Here are some things to consider to get the conversation started:

• Is the learning curve too steep to get into?
  
• Is ship balance preventing you from playing?
  
• Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?
  
• Matchmaking issues?
  
• The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?
  

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

i dont play because its boring and i would rather do story ,opps, FP's .as BW claims to be story driven PVP has no story's and i hate being forced to do something i don't like .like getting the companions pierce and forx im forced to do PVP if i want them companions

[JulianAjax]

Thank you very much for asking for feedback on this.

 

I agree with much of what has been said so far. Being a new player is brutal. On our server the queues pop at a reasonable rate but there is almost always a pair of fully geared ships. If it is TDM, and they find a new player it is gut wrenching to watch. A fully geared ship can kill a new ship in 1-2 shots. A new player wouldn’t even have time to react.

 

As others have said, a repeatable tutorial with scaling difficulty on targets could help bridge the learning curve. Maybe even through in some comms to get a few tier 1 upgrades. A tutorial on ship upgrades could help too.

 

I dread starting over in a brand new ship on new characters. It would be nice if there was a character transferable benefit to help jumpstart things. Maybe if a ship is mastered it gets commendations to start out on a new toon throughout the legacy

 

A possible ‘outside the box’ idea would be allowing ‘insta-pop’ queuing for a group. Think of it similar to a duel. Everyone in the group or ops group pops into the tutorial map as a free for all. . They are able to play with their actual ships and current upgrades, but NO XP / Comms are earned. It would give the opportunity to play with friends, learn the game, coach new players, and practice strategies.

 

It would be great to have tiers based on legacy achievement but that would make the queue pops come to a grinding halt. Additionally it would be bad to penalized the most dedicated players with reduced pops because they have too many achievements. Balancing the group is awesome, but not at the expense of extended queuing times.

 

This next suggestion is really off topic, but I am putting it out there in the hopes it spawns more outside the box thinking. I would LOVE to have a GSF/PVP combined mission, A map with two capital ships attempting to board one another. Round 1 GSF/TDM. Round 2 Voidstar with the GSF winners as the attackers. Doll it up with sidebar objectives. (GSF fighters have to knock out turrets before they can board or something) It may seem off the wall, but it would add a dimension to GSF with already existing maps.

 

Again, I appreciate the opportunity for feedback!

[Monumenta]

There are not enough connections with the rest of SWTOR.

 

Like ground missions to steal the other factions ships and/or special modds, crew, paint jobs, etc.

 

Likewise, there should be more ground game stuff gained from flying, like GSF crew should be available as regular companions with comms.

 

Also more game modes and the ability to select which modes you want to play.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Monumenta

[frosttj]

I personally found the combat disorienting more than anything. I appreciate what was attempted, just don't think it appealed to my MMO mind set. Also I didn't feel like grinding out a set of gear would result in any ultimate success and was feel justified in that since there was never any significant reason to be good at GSF. The only time I really felt like I needed to do it was when conquest was competitive, and even then, the instructions if you werent good were to crash into rocks.

[Zennan]

Not going to respond point-by-point here since most of my sentiments align with those presented by DakhathKilrathi.

 

I would like to add that in general, there's a (possibly huge?) friction between the GSF community and the I-played-GSF-once-or-for-conquest-week community, and within the GSF community itself.

 

Across the GSF and non-GSF community, the chasm stems from the game having a steep learning curve as a result of multiple smaller issues such as the lack of a good tutorial, the lack of good UI feedback etc. Other sentiments generally include "GSF PVE", where GSF players would happily play a PVP game, whereas SWTOR, being firstly an MMO, has a class of players who prefer playing PVE content.

 

Within the GSF community there are usually two schools of thoughts: 1. The current meta consisting of the Scout - Gunship - Bomber triumvirate is balanced. 2. Ship class X is broken. I personally belong to the former camp, having flown many flights and have a twitch stream dedicated to GSF, as do most veteran pilots that I know of who produce content for GSF. There are multiple reasons I can think that causes GSF-ers to belong in the latter camp:

• Perceiving/Desiring GSF to be a platform for space dogfighting. This group usually decry Gunships for their long-range damage potential.

• Unfamiliarity with ships of other classes. Even with hundreds of hours under ones belt, it is possible to not fly another ship class at all. Bombers complaining that scouts can kill them in one-two seconds don't realize that the opposite is also true. A scout wondering into a minefield can be plucked out of the sky if it sets of mines. Similar things can be said about gunships crying about scouts, or scouts about gunships etc. GSF is an unforgiving game in that in two-three seconds you can get 100-0, regardless of your ship type and regardless of what ship type the opposing ship is.

• Unfamiliarity with game mechanics. Unless exposed to or extremely observant, a pilot won't realize certain important mechanics of the game such as Strafing, Crit, Damage Overcharges on TDM and what they do to a Scout/Gunship's damage output, and Evasion.

• Imbalance of queues. A new pilot going against a veteran/ace pilot is like a new chess player going against an Expert. When a scoreboard lists a player as having 30+ kills out of 50 in a TDM, some pilots will default to questioning the ship class' overpoweredness.

[TheMeshkin]

Add an actually good tutorial and make it mandatory for the love of god. I see so many new players try jumping into the action totally unaware of what they are doing let alone the controls for the ships. They jump in, get completely crushed by veteran players and go "welp, never playing this gamemode again." I've seen it happen way too many times.

[Exly]

Hey folks,

 

This week, we are creating three separate forum threads for GSF discussion. You can head to this thread to get links to each of them.

 

Galactic Starfighter, like all group content, is a system that we want to see being used by as many players as possible. This thread is to discuss the friction points that you see in GSF. Whether it stops you from playing frequently, or from playing at all, we want to understand that friction.

 

Here are some things to consider to get the conversation started:

• Is the learning curve too steep to get into?
  
• Is ship balance preventing you from playing?
  
• Are you not playing because you feel GSF needs something new to bring you back in?
  
• Matchmaking issues?
  
• The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?
  

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

Yes to all of your questions.

 

The truth is that I want to like GSF, but because of all of the reasons that you already have stated, it is not something that I am even contemplating doing. I would like a flight simulator in game where I free flight was possible, and I could learn to maneuver the different ships, and to be able to do simulated builds with different weapons, shields and etc. so that I could practice without having to be cannon fodder for those that have already mastered the game.

 

I know that you already have a tutorial, but it is frustrating to use because it interrupts all attempts to get a good feel of how the ships operate, and does not allow me to learn at my pace. Instead forces a pace that does not allow me to get actually learn from what I am doing, so after a couple of attempt at trying to us the thing I just gave up and stopped trying.

 

Even last year during the DvL event, I did not want to waste time on Starfighter, but did create a level one character that I named in a way that made it obvious I was there to afk my way though the matches. I did not enjoy doing this, and I did not like the idea of using others like I did just so that I could complete the event, but I was able to justify what I did by telling myself that they would be angrier with you for requiring me to do GSF for the event, and they would understand why I did what I did.

 

One last thought. PvP, whether ground based or space based, is more fun when teams are balanced. To that end, a good matchmaking system is always a good idea.