Is Starfighter Poppin...? Anyone?

[Gebrakstkasten]

I was looking at some SWTOR doom and gloom threads all over the internet and noticed an obvious shortcoming with the aerial combat in SWTOR. The films each have major plot points centered around space combat. The Death Stars and Star Killer Base were epic space battles. Most Star Wars themed video games have some type of flying mission(s) that are central to game progression. I didn't count, but feel free to look at these titles for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_video_games. So my question is what's wrong with SWTOR's aerial combat and could it be positively impacted: or should it? So I played some Galactic Star Fighter (GSF) to see for myself.

 

I went on the fleet and asked, "... is Starfighter Popping?" or "any GSF guilds recruiting?" Got lots of strange and humorous answers to the effect that no one plays GSF anymore. I persisted and eventually was able to complete a couple weeklies. Surprisingly, I found it a great game and really enjoyed it. The GUI and flying were intuitive and precise. The maps were truly 3 dimensional and the controls were really straightforward. I even got a dizzy flying in and around the space box shield things. So pretty good game in my opinion. On another point, no one called me out with LTP or anything like that and the atmosphere was pretty casual. So why don't more people play?

 

I think the barrier to entry is a bit high. Unlike Warzones, you cant just take what you know from PvE and use it in PvP. For example, if you know how cooldowns work and have a well practiced rotation, you can pretty much immediately contribute in a Warzone. In GSF, there is nothing to build on. You start at the bottom skill wise and equipment wise. I contributed very little and kind of felt like apologizing after most of the matches. There is a lot of options with ships, weapons, co-pilots, engines etc. and I'll be honest I don't understand it. Its nothing like managing the 14 armor slots. To continue, I would need to watch some tutorials and grind a bit more to get the right equipment. It really is a completely different game, but a good game.

 

One thing that comes up in various chats are incorporating the GSF with regular gameplay. Imagine doing a FP like Boarding Party where you actually had to fly and fight your way to the next ship to get to the last boss. Or imagine a Heroic like Rogue One where you had to fight your way through shields, land, dismount, than fight with light sabers and twin blasters etc. to get the end. I think combining these game aspects would be a good way to take advantage of some of the best aspects of both ground and aerial gameplay. Players could passively build "space currency" by doing these combo/crossovers and eventually purchase something close to a BiS spaceship. Mixing space and ground combat could go a long way to greatly reduce the barrier to entry on GSF.

 

Here are some scenario suggestions:

 

PvE should have some Heroics and FPs that involve flying your way into a place where your can enter a landing sequence and go into ground fighting. Star Wars Battlefont II Classic did this really good. If you were killed in space you respawned and jumped into another ship and took off. Once you destroyed the enemy guns, you landed, killed some mobs, than completed the objective.

 

Replicate the battles in the films. There have been a number of games with the Hoth Battle where you fly against ground and air at the same time. Same thing on Rouge One where there was a mix of ground an aerial combat at

the library.

 

PvP could have some really cool new Warzone crossovers. For start I would have a Civil War-type scenario where you would have to capture 2 out of the 3 capitol ships (maybe bombarding a set of planet bases). Use the same game mechanics as Battlefront where your goal is to safely get out of your ship and fight through to capture

and CAP. For a Voidstar-type PvP battle your could fly and fight your way through planetary shields, take out guns on the ground to land, capture end objective on foot. So in this case you could have a ship vs ship, a ship vs land, than a land vs land three stage scenario. Repeat offense and defense like Voidstar.

 

These are just ideas. I don't think I'm saying anything creative here, I just think not having aerial combat integrated into the fabric of the game is a huge oversight and missed opportunity. A very large part of Star Wars is about the space battles and it seems like the primer Star Wars MMO has missed the mark.

[Storm-Cutter]

The studio tried to monetize GSF when it launched, and after 1 update and a couple of minor tweaks, left it in the wilderness for many years. It also provided a rather crude practice mode that didn't teach a player how to fly, just move and blow up a few static objects.

 

It was down to the comminuty to keep GSF alive - But with no support even when there were some glaring imbalances it dwindled down to a few hundred people who kept the faith.

 

Now GSF is on the list of things that need love and money and attention. - Unfortunately most of the rest of the game is also on that list, so us remaining devotees will probably have to wait another 4-5 years before getting anything new - and some predict that the game will be ended by then anyways.

 

Shame, coz GSF is fantastic, and could have been so much more.

 

I can't see there ever being a crossover with ground PVE - people have suggested it many times. It could have been a game-changer if it was introduced earlier in the life of the game, but alas, a lot of games overtook it and do it much better.

 

Best bet for getting pops is to join the GSF channel and make friends that way. - They're a bunch of really nice people 99% of the time.

 

Probably post your server /char names as well, then people flying GSF can keep an eye out for you.

 

GL

[Ardrossan]

OP, as you note, it's got a steep learning curve. I played perhaps three matches when it first came out, then I never played it again. Storm-cutter's point about it not being monetized I think has a big impact, it just doesn't seem to connect much with the rest of the game, and your suggestions sound really great, I just...idk. It'd be nice if there was a baby mode for people who've never done it before.

 

One of the odd things about GSF is that unlike FPs, PVP, Ops, and on-rail space missions, GSF doesn't [to my knowledge] have a weekly cap for pref or F2P. You can play as much of it as you want to, but in my case, that's zero. The experience boosts that you use in combination with them are even more difficult to sell than the old space missions boosts are, I had a couple I picked up somewhere, and for weeks I tried to sell them, without even thinking once that I could just use them myself and play it. I eventually stuck them in my guild's bank, where to my knowledge, they're sitll there.

[ImmortalLowlife]

I've tried on a few different occasions to play gsf, but I can't get with the "chase the cursor" control scheme. I came to the conclusion that If I could use a controller....I'd play. But the game wasn't designed with that in mind. (And just mentioning controllers or joystick will get you 100 follow up post about why it can't be done. )

 

But if you enjoy it, there's a great group of people who enjoy helping new players in the GSF section of the forums. I'm sure they could point you to guilds who focus on that as well as events they organize. They've also put together comprehensive gearing guides and videos to teach you not only the basics, but advanced tutorials.

[DarthCasus]

I've tried on a few different occasions to play gsf, but I can't get with the "chase the cursor" control scheme. I came to the conclusion that If I could use a controller....I'd play. But the game wasn't designed with that in mind. (And just mentioning controllers or joystick will get you 100 follow up post about why it can't be done. )

 

But if you enjoy it, there's a great group of people who enjoy helping new players in the GSF section of the forums. I'm sure they could point you to guilds who focus on that as well as events they organize. They've also put together comprehensive gearing guides and videos to teach you not only the basics, but advanced tutorials.

 

I actually read every one of those threads back when the forums were more active. Probably 2 years ago. I didn't do it because I was interested in the game mode. It was pretty and sort of fun when both sides were equally bad but I read them because the passion was real and genuine.