GSF Discussion: Friction Points

[Darthural]

100% agree with you ICY! What were they thinking to even consider a Space Combat game mode without a Joystick? The Devs of that day were very far removed from the gaming community when GSF was released. I had already made my post for this thread from the Dev Tracker page. I didn't read any posts here first. I propose that we put it on the test server and give it a go.

To Devs: please don't try to say that it is not possible to give joystick support. The joystick is just another mouse on the programming end. It was easy to give mouse and joystick support for windows 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP, and so on. Also, you've already separated the Key bindings for GSF from other game modes, so the game engine already recognizes the GSF controls as a separate entity.

 

I disagree you need a joystick for two reasons

 

1. You need to buy a controller! Current is fine because every one has a keyboard and mouse

 

2. Just practice, practice and practice. I needed 3 weeks with nearly daily games to learn flying and several times in tutorial to adjust key binds to my needs and comfort. But the main problem still is, you have to learn to imagine where are you and in which direction you move the mouse to make the right turn to your target. That is possibly easier with joystick, but can be done with mouse too.

 

And, yes of course I played X-wing vs Tie-Fighter and X-Wing Alliance!

[UlaVii]

The fact that GSF is character based and not Legacy?

 

Legacy wide hangar would be great and fits in with the alliance story. Why not let us fly Rep ships on Imp side and vica versa. I mean the same ships so if I level a bomber on Imp Character #3 then if I log to Imp Character #4 or Rep Character #2 I can fly the same ship with the same unlocks and component selections/crew.

 

It's great that you are doing things to help new pilots but there is nothing for those of us that have been flying for ages (besides new people to train/kill). I stopped popping the requisition tokens a few months ago since they were just pointlessly racking up requisition on ships that are already maxed out

 

http://s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/977758/original.jpg

 

If it's too difficult to merge our current hangars so we can access the same ships across our legacy then how about changing the ship requisition tokens to be legacy bound instead of character bound? Lots of us fly on both factions to help balance matches out and being able to transfer the requisition grants would help us expand our hangars over there.

 

Something else that would help with cross faction flying is a fix for the ship components bug that affects several pilots, myself included. If I fly on any of my Rep side ships and then relog to my Imp there is a good chance that at least one of the components will have it's tree options deselected. You can see that in the screenshot below, note how the bottom two tiers are not highlighted:

 

http://s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/935972/original.jpg

 

If I load into a match like that I will not have either of the those tier abilities. Having to check my entire ship loadout of every ship on my selection bar every time I switch factions really puts me off flying Rep side. This is the main reason I've only been flying my Imp gunship for the past few months, I just can't be bothered going through the component tree of every ship each time I relog.

[JamaicanCastle]

I think there's also a certain amount of betrayal of expectations going on. In a Star Wars context you say, "starfighter battle," and the typical first reaction is X-wings and TIEs in a dogfight. GSF presents itself in a way that caters to that assumption. So when you get into GSF on a sever where there's a lot of stacking and discover a game that's basically "bombs and sniper rifles" there's a very good case to be made if a new player says in effect, "this is not what your ad was selling me and this is not what I signed up for, refund please."

I think this is ultimately how I feel about balance. Maybe in isolation GSF is balanced and has a deep meta and whatever, but it's definitely not the game it was presented as being, and frankly it's not a game I'm very interested in. (If I wanted PvP dominated by campers and turrets, I'd go play TF2 again. At least they don't make you grind for 5% damage boosts.)

[MaximilianPower]

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.

 

I'm still wading through this exploding thread, but I wanted to respond to this.

 

Objectively, DakhathKilrathi is correct. Veterans have demonstrated that stock ships, piloted well, will decimate a team of mediocre but fully-upgraded opponents.

 

That said, this fact is incomprehensible to new players. Gear IS a barrier, even if its impact is largely psychological. If a player steps into his first GSF match, gets annihilated repeatedly, and blames this result on gear - then gearing is actually (if indirectly) a real problem. With that in mind - I would be completely on board with eliminating the grind. Unlock all components, all tiers, for all pilots. Just take this perceived issue off the table. Extinguish the notion that new players can't compete because they're lacking the right upgrades. If this adjustment encourages a single pilot to stick with GSF, then it's a change worth making.

 

so, emphatically: NO, as a member of the GSF community, I don't want to perpetuate a situation that discourages people from playing. I'm on board with anything that will get new folks into GSF, as long as these changes don't wreck the core gameplay.

[dipstik]

im not a big fan of pvp, but gsf reminds me of xwing vs tie fighter, which was one of my favorite games, so in that regard, it is very good... i would love to be able to group with guildies and have a pve experience with it.

[DarthScruffy]

Legacy hangars would be welcome especially with the collapse of queues.

[Verain]

With that in mind - I would be completely on board with eliminating the grind. Unlock all components, all tiers, for all pilots. Just take this perceived issue off the table.

 

Like, this has often been the endgame of the "gimme gear for free" guys. It doesn't matter HOW EASY the gear is to earn- they want it for free. It doesn't matter how little difference it makes- they want it all immediately.

 

I feel that the current state of GSF gearing is probably a dash too generous, but only a dash. When it was new, the grind really did feel pretty rough at times. Back then, you earned at 1x the rate if unsubscribed and 2x the rate if subscribed, Ship tokens were 750 req. Today you earn at 2x the rate if unsubscribed and 3x the rate if subscribed, and ship tokens are 1200 req and all gear is half price forever. Additionally, the gear you grinded up in December of 2013 is still totally relevant today. You didn't have to regrind it for level 60 and again for level 70. Your mastered burst laser cannon from launch is still just as relevant today as then.

 

I feel that requisition has mostly only been an excuse. There are legit problems involving trap components, but even those are much more reasonable now, with a stickied thing telling you not to pick rapid fire lasers, and gear being about 4-5x easier to buy than at launch.

 

If you added all things unlocked for free, you might gain a few players who think they are getting owned because of gear, for exactly as long as it takes for them to decide that everyone is hacking. Once you link them streams of them being owned without hacks, then they decide that the problem is premades. Once you own them solo then they decide that the problem is player skill and no-lifers who chain queue. There's no end to the complaining from complainers.

 

Meanwhile, when you remove the gear grind from a system where that is meant as some kind of motivation, you actually really DO lose some players who were there for that. I'm not sure how many, but I can't imagine it will be many compared to the gear whiners who actually and meaningfully would stay and play. There's been time to run all ships to complete, not just mastered, like five times over since launch. The gear has never been reset, and new tiers have never been added.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Verain

[AlrikFassbauer]

Is the learning curve too steep to get into?

 

I'd call that far more than an understatement. In my personal opinion, the learning curve is hgorrible - up to the point that Newbies are nothing mere that cannon foder to veterans, or what I call "the fifth wheel of the car" as well.

 

In the current state of heavily veteran dominated GSF, I personally don't believe that Newbies belong to GSF anymore. But that's just my personal opinion (for which I'll surely get heavily critizised).

 

There should be at least 2 brackets : Newbie & Veteran, whereas Veterans should somehow get forced to not be able to play with Newbies.

Edited July 7, 2017 by AlrikFassbauer

[AlrikFassbauer]

The introductory experience is fairly brutal though, because if you don't seek out resources the GSF community has created, is sort of like giving someone who has never swum before or even seen someone else swimming a 30 second look at a pamphlet covering the crawl and breaststroke and then tossing them overboard in the North Atlantic during a Nor'Easter with 80 knot winds and 60 foot seas. If they survive they'll probably develop a love for swimming, right?.

 

Good picture.

 

Yes, any kind of practice area with bots fighting back would be nice. Why didn't the devs take the tutorials of the X-Wing series ?

 

"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.

 

That's how I felt myself against better players. There is not even any kind of "gentlemmen's agreement" like "let him score a few points, too !"

 

Instead, it's like killing Newbies as often as possible to make them learn from that.

Edited July 7, 2017 by AlrikFassbauer

[starbuckone]

the real problem is that GSF doesn't feel to most people like GSF. What Star Wars Galaxies had is the most iconic form of what people feel is GSF. This is a discussion that we have had since closed beta and this is a fact that has always fallen on deaf ears. Until this issue is rectified expect a huge lack of people sticking with your GSF system. when people think of Star Wars space battles they don't think of bird on a wire mechanics, or battles in a tiny area with ships that are unballanced and hard to control. Bioware needs to go watch the star wars movies to get a clue about what space battles are. Until then I will play the SWGEMU I currently play as they have the epic space battles that actually go with a star wars game.

[JamaicanCastle]

the real problem is that GSF doesn't feel to most people like GSF. What Star Wars Galaxies had is the most iconic form of what people feel is GSF.

Maybe I'm unusual, but that is absolutely not what I feel GSF "is" or should be. I don't care about the JtL mechanics people rave about, like open space flight, walking around inside ships, multi-crew ships and turrets, or whatever. I just want to hop into my totally-not-an-X-Wing and shoot down people in their totally-not-TIE-interceptors or vice versa.

 

Scope issues aside (and given the choice between trying to do what you're describing with the resources they have, and just giving up, I'd much prefer they not waste their time implementing a good idea poorly), I just don't really care about being in charge on a big ship when I could fly, you know, a starfighter. In galactic starfighter. That doesn't seem too weird, does it?

[caederon]

the real problem is that GSF doesn't feel to most people like GSF. What Star Wars Galaxies had is the most iconic form of what people feel is GSF. This is a discussion that we have had since closed beta and this is a fact that has always fallen on deaf ears. Until this issue is rectified expect a huge lack of people sticking with your GSF system.

A great many people stuck with the 'GSF system' until it became apparent that there was no new content on the horizon. There was great excitement leading up to what everyone presumed was the imminent release of the Infiltrator class ships. At that time, even servers like BC had three concurrent matches running and it was not at all hard to get a match pretty much whenever you wanted one. Then the fog lifted, and it was clear that through the many upheavals the dev team has seen, any plans for continuing GSF development had been shelved. A lot of people drifted away over time because nothing new was added to the game. It had a solid player base that was excited to keep playing.

 

People like you who wanted GSF to be a thing that it was never intended to be are not going to be satisfied by any change other than 'new game, plz.' You wanted a traditional space sim and instead they developed a tactical squad based arcade space shooter.

 

One of many reasons they didn't develop a traditional space sim with the joystick support many people clamor for is that expecting someone to buy a new peripheral to play a game-in-a-game where the host game (SWTOR ground stuff) uses mouse and keyboard would have instantly cut off a massive amount of the player base from trying it.

 

I have played plenty of joystick-based space sims. XW:A, Wing Commander IV & V, Starlancer, Tachyon: The Fringe, lots of others. I also played Freelancer, which very successfully used a mouse and keyboard system that is remarkably similar to GSF. It's a fine control scheme. Some people don't like it, and I can't tell them they do or should but there is nothing objectively 'awful' or wrong about GSF's controls. They work well, and the game is structured around them.

 

when people think of Star Wars space battles they don't think of bird on a wire mechanics, or battles in a tiny area with ships that are unballanced and hard to control. Bioware needs to go watch the star wars movies to get a clue about what space battles are. Until then I will play the SWGEMU I currently play as they have the epic space battles that actually go with a star wars game.

Good, I hope you enjoy your time there. There's room for more than one kind of gameplay experience. Different people enjoy different things, and you aren't everyone. The 'areas' in GSF aren't tiny (nobody would call Denon tiny) and the ships are very well balanced with the exception of strike fighters, which need help. If you're going to toss out opinions at least have some kind of rational argument to support them with.

 

What 'space battles are' isn't up to you to decide. Are they endless hairballs like you get in Battlefront? Are they slow tactical engagements ship to ship requiring lots of micromanagement like you might get in Elite? Are they massive strategic clashes of fleets like EVE presents? Are they fast paced, squad sized engagements with a variety of ship roles like GSF?

 

All of the above. They all can (and do) exist. Don't trash the game for not being something it never aspired to be. The goal of this exercise is to find ways to improve the game that exists, not to remake it into a wholly different game. GSF has a very strong game in place to work with, it needs some help, better means for getting new players comfortable with the game concepts, and active development to grow.

 

- Despon

[kjarnage]

Making GSF legacy base not a good idea. You get to the top way too fast as it is. Making it personal to a character adds a bit of character to the toon. Toons that hate flying will suddenly become aces, do not want it! Keep it special!

 

The low populated servers or off hour other servers have problems getting gsf to pop. How about special queues for solo and 4x4s, or allow death matches with bottom limit on ships as one as in pvp 4x4. The choice can't be random or it will get stuck on non-death matches and never pop. This is a really big conquest disadvantage on low

population servers. Ditto for pvp.

 

It would be nice if the scenario furniture had a few more options or maybe just an ion cloud to disrupt things.

 

Advance tutorial would be nice to cover all the features by ship or maybe some intro pve missions.

 

Player balance is a problem as it can be with pvp teams. Maybe in same faction simulations based on win/loss, last game damage or something.

 

Maybe even reduce the healing rate of satellite defenses and stop them altogether if they have all 3 until an opposing satellite defense comes on line.

 

In all scenarios let the capital ships fire at opposing ships, mines, drones... that get too close. Ditto for chicken pilots that hide there. Give multiple targeting missile lock warnings.

[Verain]

I mean, I'm also sick of the posts that are like "my friction point is that GSF isn't an entirely different game with PvE like X-Wing from the 90s, or an immersive thing like jump to lightspeed". That's not a "friction point". It doesn't answer questions that were asked, like "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?".

 

Instead it is "please make an entirely different game, or, given that I know you won't, feel very bad about yourselves for not making this other unrelated game".

 

How is that helpful lol.

 

I mean, some of this is just a natural result of the devs linking in from the genforum. But it gets tiring if the thread is like, just so much of that.

[Hudlar]

I'm mostly a solo player, so it's possible that I wouldn't get into GSF no matter what changes you made. However, I have thought about giving it a try, so I've played through the tutorial several times, read the very helpful starter guides on the forums, and watched swtorista's introductory video. I ended up deciding that it wasn't worth trying a real match unless there was some way to figure out what I was doing without the pressure of an enemy team constantly blowing me out of the sky.

 

In other words, I agree with the people asking for a much more extensive tutorial (or a whole PVE mission, but I suspect there aren't the resources for that).

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Don't trash the game for not being something it never aspired to be. The goal of this exercise is to find ways to improve the game that exists, not to remake it into a wholly different game. GSF has a very strong game in place to work with, it needs some help, better means for getting new players comfortable with the game concepts, and active development to grow.

 

- Despon

 

Well said. The equivalent of some of this stuff is asking Battlefront to become a flight simulator or something, because you can fly stuff there, too. Asking a game to be something completely different than it is makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Now if someone wants to work with what we have, like just add joystick support over and above the keyboard and mouse setup (which I don't see as being impossible), or work with the components we have to tweak the game that's here, then that's fine and dandy.

[Deewe]

In regards of SW JTL, please allow me to point out the X-Wing serie was globally superior.

.

Couple of highlights:

• Better Flight dynamics
  
• Better Power management
  
• Better UI, especially the dynamic combat map
  
• Better dynamic sound system (i-muse)
  
• Better designed missions
  

 

The space ship customization, crafting and turret management were indeed better in JTL though.

 

As reference:

//

 

Now regarding the arcade genre, Battle Front has more epic space battles than GSF.

[Verain]

...SW JTL,...X-...Battle Front

 

Your "friction point" with GSF is that it is not instead three other unrelated games. Super conducive to discussions. It's not F-Zero X either, which, while that is a shame all games must bear, is equally useless to observe.

[Icykill_]

Actually....I'm more of the old "Jedi starfighter, pilot wings, wing commander, or my favorite....Rogue Squadron" type player. I'm primarily a console gamer and I'm better with a controller.

 

There is no reason for it not be added to the game too... although this is PC and not console...

I think this is the contentious point because GSF feels more console than PC and it actually makes sense too have a console type controller for it.... this is why Joystick fans are also pissed off at lack of joystick support because GSF should have been more PC space/flight sim and less console like.

If I had to hazard a guess I would say they either had intentions or wanted options of making a swtor console version down the track (they better not) or the people who made GSF had never played a PC space/flight sim before and only played or designed console type ones.

[Icykill_]

I disagree you need a joystick for two reasons

 

1. You need to buy a controller! Current is fine because every one has a keyboard and mouse

 

2. Just practice, practice and practice. I needed 3 weeks with nearly daily games to learn flying and several times in tutorial to adjust key binds to my needs and comfort. But the main problem still is, you have to learn to imagine where are you and in which direction you move the mouse to make the right turn to your target. That is possibly easier with joystick, but can be done with mouse too.

 

And, yes of course I played X-wing vs Tie-Fighter and X-Wing Alliance!

 

No one is saying remove keyboard and mouse... only to add joystick support

[Stncold]

the real problem is that GSF doesn't feel to most people like GSF. What Star Wars Galaxies had is the most iconic form of what people feel is GSF. This is a discussion that we have had since closed beta and this is a fact that has always fallen on deaf ears. Until this issue is rectified expect a huge lack of people sticking with your GSF system. when people think of Star Wars space battles they don't think of bird on a wire mechanics, or battles in a tiny area with ships that are unballanced and hard to control. Bioware needs to go watch the star wars movies to get a clue about what space battles are. Until then I will play the SWGEMU I currently play as they have the epic space battles that actually go with a star wars game.

 

GSF was never going to be like JTL and it never should have been.

 

Also there's nothing hard to control about GSF but if your comparison for control is JTL then I can see why cause I'm pretty sure I could stick a two week old kitten at the helm of a JTL ship and they'd master it in a day.

 

Not that I'm ragging on JTL. It was good for its time and I enjoyed it, but ship control was a joke and don't act like there were these grand space battles over territory like happens in the movies and EVE. Usually it was just two or three people running around ganking everything they saw.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Stncold

[Icykill_]

im not a big fan of pvp, but gsf reminds me of xwing vs tie fighter, which was one of my favorite games, so in that regard, it is very good... i would love to be able to group with guildies and have a pve experience with it.

 

Might I suggest you go back and play Xwing and then play GSF again... they arent even remotely similar.. the only thing they have remotely in common is they are linked to SW.. but GSF is only loosely related because it's in this game.. there is nothing remotely SW about it.

[HiddenPalm]

From what I gathered through the years. Players want a GSF flashpoint and a GSF operation. They want something revolutionary similar to what is seen in BF, where the fight begins in space and ends up in the ground or inside a space station and vice versa.

 

New maps, would of course always be welcomed. As playing the same maps over and over again can fatigue players.

 

Regarding the learning curve. It would be extremely helpful to allow a player to duel another player in one on one GSF matches. This will allow veteran players to teach new players how to play and also allow players a chance to try out new components without having to test them in a group match, which can cause a team to lose because of new players not knowing how to fly their fighters or use its abilities. So many players quit after being farmed by veteran players who don't let them learn how to use their starfighters. This would help ease that and level the playing field.

 

Also, a way to target your teammates would be awesome, this way you can find them and support them easier. This will make it easier for players who come in feeling alone even though they queued in as a group, to not be alone. Its easy for a Scout to leave group to take down a distant enemy gunship, leaving his/her teammates open to attack.

Edited July 8, 2017 by HiddenPalm

[Yezzan]

I don't play GSF because I do not understand it. I think the learning curve is too steep.In PvP ,you can totally ignore objectives and kill other players ( and still win). There is nothing "new" to learn per se, and for the most part, you can learn on the go. I mean attacking the player with the ball or attacking the player who is trying to capture a node isn't rocket science; you already know your attack abilities and what most of them do, by virtue of playing your class from level zero.

 

With GSF, you have to maneuver your ship. I don't know what the objectives are, I don't even know how to fly the darn ship; it's not equipped. I don't know what my attacks are; I'm sure there is a convoluted tutorial but not interested in reading it. The enemy players are too tiny. I don't really know if I am successfully attacking them or not; and it's hard as hell to maneuver the ship.

 

I don't know if there are GSF guides, like how people do PVP guides for each class and spec ( I never really cared to find out anyways - - but that would help). I can't remember if there is an abilities bar, but that would help if it displayed the number of each weapon that you have and cool down timer on recharge.

 

I think there should be a simplified interactive tutorial that sensitizes new players to GSF in terms of ship maneuverability, outfitting your ship, attacks, objectives, targets, etc. If there is already a tutorial then my bad. Maybe you could make it as simple as possible, like press the right arrow key to move your ship to the right, click the target marked X and and press 2 on your quickbar to fire your EMP on target X..... something like that.

 

I'm sorry, I tried the GSF a few times and it was just too much. I had no idea what I was doing and learning on the go ( like PvP ) didn't seem possible. And if you think that maybe I shouldn't play GSF; I'm not. but I would like to, some times.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Yezzan

[AlrikFassbauer]

The enemy players are too tiny. I don't really know if I am successfully attacking them or not;

 

Thios is a point which irritated me extremely in the beginning. I was sure I never actually hit because I couldn't see it because the starships are too tiny. And they flew away from me too fast, too.

 

I still to this day have no real idea how to tell whether I have hit or not, apart from Gunships.

 

Regarding the learning curve. It would be extremely helpful to allow a player to duel another player in one on one GSF matches. This will allow veteran players to teach new players how to play.

 

Always pessimistic, I'd add : It would also allow malicious veterans to farm Newbies.

I'll never forget trhat ground PvP quote that Newbies "deserve to be farmed" because they were just that . new in the game.

 

Regarding the learning curve. It would be extremely helpful to allow a player to duel another player in one on one GSF matches. This will allow veteran players to teach new players how to play.

 

Why duel ? Why no cooperative gameplay ? Like 2vNPC ?

Or will I hear that "cooperative gameplay teaches people the wrong things = not being competivive" ? In the field of board games, cooperative board games are THE big trend right now !

Edited July 8, 2017 by AlrikFassbauer