GSF medals not counting towards Galactic Season goal

[Tofu_Shark]

If you read the whole thread, I did. Here, let me show you, since it seems you decided to jump into the discussion and judge without any context. It's not like it's a 30 page thread.

I haven't noticed that defense and capture medals are only for certain tiers of each but I haven't been tracking that closely.

 

I agree, the criteria are ridiculous. It's pretty brutal, even for a vet. All medals count for Warzones. Assist medals should count, because if you're getting Assists, you're doing damage. I'm a GSF vet and a pretty damn good pilot, but I've never seen a medal for 40K damage from myself or anyone. The highest I've ever seen is 30K, and I consistently do more than 40K. That has to be a typo. If you get team deathmatch, the best you can do is three medals if you're good. Woe unto rookies. These objectives are made for vets with fully knowledge of flight tactics and upgraded ships, even though making the daily and weekly repeatable has shortened the upgrade time now.

 

In domination, it all depends on the flow of the match, if you're good and your team is not utter bantha poodoo, you could get three for damage and maybe two more for defense or capture. It all depends on how good or bad the enemy team is and how much satellites are contested. To get more than eight medals in domination is rare, to get more than ten is almost unheard of. I've gotten gold only a handful of times because the circumstances of the matches have to allow such domination. By rewarding just defending and capturing, you are incentivizing pilots to just hold position on satellites and do nothing, because there's no effort needed other than to hold the satellite, so even if the team is losing, they are guaranteed something. And if they go on the offensive (which you need to do if you only hold one satellite if you want to win), they actually risk losing medals that they were guaranteed if they just held their position defending. Losing teams should want to win and winning teams should want to do everything to secure victory. There needs to be more to motivate action in domination that leads to contesting satellites. I've already seen behavior changes to over half the team sitting on satellites for their medals in some matches. Making Assist medals count would encourage more activity in these matches because then you're not penalized for going on the offensive.

 

If BioWare is worried about abuse, we pilots are much more aware of kicking leechers than PvPers are, but the only action that a leecher could exploit is sitting on a satellite that isn't being contested for the Defense medals, which can already be done.

[Real_Dark_Lord]

Actually I did read it. If you go back to page 1, you'll see the 3rd post is mine. At that time is was confirming the bug.

I came to check for official responses and saw that the thread has drifted in a another direction.

 

Anyway, you missed my point.

Making medals the objective is ill considered , because the strategy to make medals is not the same strategy as when playing to win.

It doesn't matter which medals you count or don't count. That changes the Medla-farming strategy, but it will never be playing to win.

 

Example Deathmatch:

Strategy to win: Kill and stay alive.

Medal-farmin Strategy: do as much damage as possible.

Superficially that seems to be the same goal, but it's not.

 

Situation: I've damaged an opponent and he tries to get away

Playing to win: chase him for the kill.

Medal-farming: let him go, switch to the nearest enemy and deal more damage, instead of wasting time in a chase.

 

Situation: I get heavily damaged

Playing to win: try to get away and heal, to deny the enemy team the kill.

Medal farming: fire a few more shots and score more damage, die and respawn, instead of wasting time fleeing, and not progressing the Medal-score.

[DakhathKilrathi]

I didn't even realize that this was bugged until I saw people complaining about it.

 

If you're struggling to deal 20k+, that's a matter of taking the time to learn. I do think they should fix this, but until they do, consider checking out the resources available to you in the GSF forum, including the guide and unofficial Discord server in my signature.

 

I also highly recommend the

playlist from GSF School. Each of these videos is super short and within a very short time you should be able to hit 30k damage with relative ease.

 

Capturing an objective isn't too hard either, so long as you are paying attention and attack with the others on your team.

 

Rewarding medals is fine since it incentivizes actually doing something, but maybe it's worth making sure it works before it gets pushed to live.

Edited February 26, 2022 by DakhathKilrathi

[Martrakk]

What? The fact that humans are animals (rather even if they be rather sophisticated in some aspects) does not justify that kind of behavior in a GSF match by you or anyone. I can't tell if you're being sincere or mocking me in your response.

 

Kills aren't the medals that count, as much as I would like them to, they don't. Only damage and satellite captures and as you already know, sat defense medals count.

 

Neither am I mocking you nor justifying myself, if anything the complete opposite. Although maybe it's old-fashioned and nearly unheard those times, people can be genuinely sorry, knowing they are in the wrong, showing disappointment in their own behaviour.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Martrakk

[red_onion]

Personally, I have no objection to anyone sitting on sats and trying to get their GS points. That just means the noobs will be the ones guarding the sat and it's more likely to be taken. They have an incentive to protect it if they want their points.

 

I'll help them if I see they are in trouble but otherwise I just focus on trying to steal another sat from the opposing team and testing their noobs. lol There's more turnover on both sides if the match is anywhere near balanced but that can be fun too. Just need to adapt to the situation we find ourselves in.

 

Death match would be tricky, best advice is to just stick with the group and stay out of site of gunships. Attack those chasing your teammates. As mentioned in a previous post, grab the into to GSF mission and at least you can build up one ship if you don't want to buy a fleet with all the points you get for completing that.

 

My personal strategy in most of those matches is to play more of an assist role where I use ion cannons and wreak havoc on as many ship's shields as I can and leave it to my team mates to finish them off. It works for me because I like flying around dogfighting and being a general nuisance with multiple ships chasing me at once... any time I get an engine overload I harass the other team's gunships.

 

 

 

I didn't even realize that this was bugged until I saw people complaining about it.

 

Many just want the Galactic Season reward, they don't care about learning the game in a game which is fine by me as long as they are doing anything other than intentionally throwing matches by crashing, changing ships, crashing again, etc. Or crashing ten times just to get a match over with, which is even worse.

 

You weren't paying attention if you didn't notice until you saw complaining.. I noticed and submitted a bug report right away. It was never a personal concern for me as I average 10 medals in a match but it was easy to notice the medal count and the progress for the Seasons objective were out of sync. I also knew this was going to be a major obstacle for a lot of players and I sympathize with that.

 

I hope they do learn the game and stick with it, as I enjoy it and I enjoy faster queue during GS but they are going to need to get their feet wet and want to seek out guidance on their own... at which point, solid advice to watch the youtube videos. Swtorista has a great basic intro video and GSF school covers the basics beyond that. Last Galactic Season is actually what brought me into the fold.

Edited February 27, 2022 by red_onion

[Tofu_Shark]

Actually I did read it. If you go back to page 1, you'll see the 3rd post is mine. At that time is was confirming the bug.

I came to check for official responses and saw that the thread has drifted in a another direction.

 

Anyway, you missed my point.

Making medals the objective is ill considered , because the strategy to make medals is not the same strategy as when playing to win.

It doesn't matter which medals you count or don't count. That changes the Medla-farming strategy, but it will never be playing to win.

 

Example Deathmatch:

Strategy to win: Kill and stay alive.

Medal-farmin Strategy: do as much damage as possible.

Superficially that seems to be the same goal, but it's not.

 

Situation: I've damaged an opponent and he tries to get away

Playing to win: chase him for the kill.

Medal-farming: let him go, switch to the nearest enemy and deal more damage, instead of wasting time in a chase.

 

Situation: I get heavily damaged

Playing to win: try to get away and heal, to deny the enemy team the kill.

Medal farming: fire a few more shots and score more damage, die and respawn, instead of wasting time fleeing, and not progressing the Medal-score.

Exactly, you didn't have much to say.

 

Is that what you think, or are you saying that's what a rookie will think? I haven't seen a rookie just be concerned with only doing damage. They should be satisfied with that, but they want a kill. And that can be used against them, because chasing is usually a bad idea. An experienced pilot will exploit your bloodlust and lead you into their wingmates to take you out or keep you occupied so you don't actually make use of that Damage Output you just picked up. Aces don't care so much about kills, as there are always more to rack up, usually flying right past you in the furball you're caught in the middle of. There are of course exceptions but the general rule is "don't chase." Rookies need to exercise patience, knowing that eventually they will land that killing blow, especially as their skill improves. It's not all about upgrades, but they certainly help.

 

BioWare actually made the right call in the case of TDM by making only damage medals count instead of kills. Even if all they do is some damage, if they're going to do that much, they tend to want to improve their skills. It's the leeches that spoil matches, which is why there were more last week, because they could in theory do nothing and work towards the GSF objective as opposed to this week.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Tofu_Shark

[Real_Dark_Lord]

Is that what you think, or are you saying that's what a rookie will think?

 

I'm saying this is the reasoning of a player who doesn't usually play GSF, isn't really interested in it and only comes for the Season score. They don't try to learn and improve their skills, they just want the season-points and be done with it. And let's face it, currently the majority of players in the GSF-queue fall into this category.

 

Sure, the season severely decreases the queue-wait-times, but it also impacts the quality of the matches - especially if those players are given an Objective that is anything else than "Try to win".

[Pricia]

I'm saying this is the reasoning of a player who doesn't usually play GSF, isn't really interested in it and only comes for the Season score. They don't try to learn and improve their skills, they just want the season-points and be done with it. And let's face it, currently the majority of players in the GSF-queue fall into this category.

 

Sure, the season severely decreases the queue-wait-times, but it also impacts the quality of the matches - especially if those players are given an Objective that is anything else than "Try to win".

 

Not just the season, but the fact that GSF is what seems to give the most CQ points too.

 

But the problem isn't just rookies, it's how god awful the ships are before getting upgrades and how long it takes to upgrade them. It's so painful. CQ has forced me to play GSF with more characters, and those characters will basically be dead weight for the next month or so...

[Tofu_Shark]

The repeating weeklies and dailies have made the upgrade time significantly less though. I remember how slow it was when you just had your daily and your weekly.

 

 

I'm saying this is the reasoning of a player who doesn't usually play GSF, isn't really interested in it and only comes for the Season score. They don't try to learn and improve their skills, they just want the season-points and be done with it. And let's face it, currently the majority of players in the GSF-queue fall into this category.

 

Sure, the season severely decreases the queue-wait-times, but it also impacts the quality of the matches - especially if those players are given an Objective that is anything else than "Try to win".

If the objective was based on wins, it wouldn't improve things. You'd still have people queuing and doing nothing. It takes about 24 hours of constructive flight time to become a skilled pilot. People don't understand it takes time to learn GSF. They didn't learn their classes in a day...unless these are the players that cried there were "too many abilities" and just use a handful of abilities, the ones that finally got their way with 7.0, along with the PvPers crying about TTK.

 

The first season actually drew in a not insignificant amount of players that became GSF pilots, so not all are coming to contribute as little as is required to get the objective done. Some learn about a great game mode they never bothered to try all these years.

[Takanudo]

Hi folks,

 

Thanks for your reports about the GSF medals.

 

Our team is aware that some medals are not counting toward the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective. Here is the list of the events which will count toward progress:

• Deal 20,000/25,000/30,000/40,000 Damage to Enemies
  
• Capture 2 Objective Points in a match
  
• Capture 3 Objective Points in a match
  
• Defend a Control Point for 4 minutes
  
• Defend a Control Point for 8 minutes
  

Note: PvP medals are not counting toward the progression of this objective.

 

For visibility, I'll add this bug to the known issues list:

• Some medals are not counting towards the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective.
  

 

At the very least, in the future please add the list of the events which will count toward progress to the mission description. Right now it just says "Earn Capture, Defensive, and Damage Medals in Galactic Starfighter by capturing and defending objectives or damaging enemies." I came out of my first match with a "Capture 1 Objective Points in a match" medal, a "Defend a Control Point for 1 minute" medal, a "Defend a Control Point for 2 minutes" medal, a "Defend a Control Point for 4 minutes" medal, and a "Defend a Control Point for 6 minutes" medal. I thought I would end up with 5/25 points. When I only saw 1/25, it was disheartening. I assumed it was a bug based on the description.

 

I think adding the "Capture 1 Objective Points in a match" medal and the "Defend a Control Point for 6 minutes" medal would be nice. That way you are not encouraging everyone to abandon defense to get another capture.

 

I have never been great at accumulating damage. I had to abandon my normal game play to switch over to a bomber so that I could drop rail guns and seeker mines in order to get the occasional 20K damage.

 

This season objective felt more punishing than others I have tried. Day four of the week and I am only 16/25 despite having to dedicate way more time to GSF than I would have liked.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Takanudo

[Takanudo]

Hi folks,

 

Thanks for your reports about the GSF medals.

 

Our team is aware that some medals are not counting toward the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective. Here is the list of the events which will count toward progress:

• Deal 20,000/25,000/30,000/40,000 Damage to Enemies
  
• Capture 2 Objective Points in a match
  
• Capture 3 Objective Points in a match
  
• Defend a Control Point for 4 minutes
  
• Defend a Control Point for 8 minutes
  

Note: PvP medals are not counting toward the progression of this objective.

 

For visibility, I'll add this bug to the known issues list:

• Some medals are not counting towards the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective.
  

 

By the way, looking at SWTOR Galactic Season Objectives: March 8th - April 5th, I see that, for Week 6 (March 22nd - 29th), there is a similar medals mission for warzones called Decorated Combatant with a description of Earn Warzone Medals (1 point per medal). Earn an additional progress point for becoming 'Highly Decorated' by earning 8 Medals in a single match.

 

Can we get the exact list of the events which will count toward progress before that week starts so people are not confused when they earn a medal but do not get any points toward the season objective progress? That might help to avoid bug reports for what is just a poorly defined game mechanic.

[Pricia]

Hi folks,

 

Thanks for your reports about the GSF medals.

 

Our team is aware that some medals are not counting toward the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective. Here is the list of the events which will count toward progress:

• Deal 20,000/25,000/30,000/40,000 Damage to Enemies
  
• Capture 2 Objective Points in a match
  
• Capture 3 Objective Points in a match
  
• Defend a Control Point for 4 minutes
  
• Defend a Control Point for 8 minutes
  

Note: PvP medals are not counting toward the progression of this objective.

 

For visibility, I'll add this bug to the known issues list:

• Some medals are not counting towards the total of the 'Stay on Target' Weekly Objective.
  

 

FYI this is not ok. At all.

 

10k damage should count.

Defending for 2 minutes/3 should count.