GSF Has a Problem

[Ghostius]

Totally agree on this. GSF rewards are too good and give pve gear instead giving fleet comms only. Gear which doesnt matter in gsf.

[gregordunbar]

First off, don't assume anyone not making a move for a certain amount of time is afk. Some of us aren't that familiar with this part of the game, as the tutorial is not very explanatory and we are still on a learning curve.

 

You are only marked AFK if you do NOTIHNG for several minutes. Literally nothing. Not move (press a move button), di not fire and will not happen if you are defending a node. So it literally will only happen to someone AFK.

[YTTHYTTH]

Hey look, disagreement aside on the issue I'm sorry if I came off as a dick. I'm not trying to belittle you or anything, and props to you for sticking it out and getting better. I completely understand this is a very different game mode that takes getting used too, and people learn at their own speeds. I'm fine even with very, very, very slow learners I have 0 problem with that. I hate the people that feel entitled enough to ruin the experience for others by sabotaging the game, because to them is the best way to get what they want fast with the least amount of effort. It's incredibly selfish, and irritating.

 

And I think you’ve described the big problem with GSF. You really can’t tell if someone is trying and just can’t do it or if someone is trying to throw a game on purpose.

There are people in my guild that first couple of times in GSF all you saw was self destruct over and over while on discord we can hear people that are under a great deal of stress trying to figure it out knowing they are publicly screwing up.

So what happens in OPS chat? They get berated and harassed.

This expansion has been frustrating for so many.

[Tormen_Starwind]

Having been grinding on GSF after being away and not pvp'ing at all, it just isn't my thing normally, can say sometimes too having zero kills isn't about NOT playing. I'd rather someone with zero kills who caps and takes a damn satellite instead of trying to show off his e-***** dogfighting and not taking a satellite. Some people play bombers, and especially in a deathmatch sometimes the other team is smart enough to avoid their kill fields. Add in alts with low end ships not fully open, new players etc, yeah you will have strong and weak players. Maybe instead of wahing over weaker players try teaching. Enough have.

 

Now you want to talk a right issue how about those clearly outright hacking and just outright cheating that seems more prevalent lately. Or the toxic I'm not allowed to lose you are all crap attitude players. Those are more of an issue than anything else.

 

Now not saying there aren't those that show up spawn and literally sit and do utterly nothing. I mean seen it, and it sucks but honestly I can only control me and play it as best I can and hopefully get better. Should maybe consider you were once new too and not king of the spaceways in it either.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Maybe instead of wahing over weaker players try teaching. Enough have.

 

If only someone wrote a guide or compiled some more comprehensive video resources within that guide. And then maybe linked it in their signature, where it was easy to run across. If only someone would do that...

 

Now you want to talk a right issue how about those clearly outright hacking and just outright cheating that seems more prevalent lately.

 

Quoting myself:

No, what you're seeing isn't hacking.

I'm nearly 100% certain of this, but if you think you're seeing cheating/hacking/whatever, get it on video, upload it to youtube, and send it to me or one of the other forum regulars. We'd be happy to tell you what it is that you're actually seeing.

 

It's not hacking lol. In thousands of games (over ten thousand by now for sure) I have never once seen a case of hacking or cheating in the way you're describing. It *is* possible to glitch through some terrain but I haven't seen that in a while now and the people that do it don't actually influence a game in any way because they aren't contributing.

 

Now not saying there aren't those that show up spawn and literally sit and do utterly nothing. I mean seen it, and it sucks but honestly I can only control me and play it as best I can and hopefully get better. Should maybe consider you were once new too and not king of the spaceways in it either.

 

When I complain about leeches, I am complaining about the people who aren't even making an effort. As mentioned earlier in the thread, it's pretty easy to tell when people are trying and when they aren't. I promise, I really can tell the difference between someone who is just bad and someone who is throwing on purpose. I don't think anyone is out of line in asking for the devs to do something about the latter.

[DakhathKilrathi]

I've been playing GSF for 5 days now on about day 2 or 3 I got the basics down. Though there's still much to learn in the grand scheme of things I know that, and that's just the things I know I need to improve upon. There is probably a laundry list of things I don't even know that I don't know about.

 

I wanted to say thanks for this perspective. So many people think it's impossible to get the hang of it in the current environment, and while matchmaking doesn't make it easy, it's doable. I'm glad you're getting there and hope you don't feel too frustrated. If you ever have any questions feel free to DM me here on the forums or join us in the unofficial GSF Community Discord, linked in my signature.

[Pricia]

I wanted to say thanks for this perspective. So many people think it's impossible to get the hang of it in the current environment, and while matchmaking doesn't make it easy, it's doable. I'm glad you're getting there and hope you don't feel too frustrated. If you ever have any questions feel free to DM me here on the forums or join us in the unofficial GSF Community Discord, linked in my signature.

 

I'd add to that - if you're in a losing match, you can take advantage of it to learn a new ship etc. Just switch as soon as you die. Nobody will care if you're just failing as you're all losing anyway...

 

I've done so many matches and I still get confused about which way I'm going and have to use the little red arrows and the A, B and C cursors to orient me.

[AelaSunjammer]

Did you quote the wrong person? I was defending most of the people being attacked...lol...and that post you quoted cannot be mistaken for attacking noobs because the ONLY WAY to get flagged as AFK in GSF is to do NOTHING for several minutes.

 

This is actually not true. I’ve only started playing gsf (3 weeks now)and suck at dogfights so I naturally gravitated towards bonbers where I could go in and lay a sweet minefield where I have bombs and heals and the game marks me as AFK because my drones haven’t fired a shot at an enemy ship for a minute or so but my healing drone has healed 10 friendlies as they flew by.

 

My guildie and I were vote kicked when we were both in bombers even though we had a sweet minefield with three gunships parked inside raining holy terror on the other team and our bombs were keeping the baddies away. We were kicked from the group for going “afk” with no warning. Low and behold the members on my team were then whining in fleet chat about 5 minutes later when they lost.

 

Point is, know the class of ship and if they’re on a bomber and showing as afk they MAY be in the middle of laying a minefield or waiting to plant a new bomb because bombers are prime targets and dont dogfight worth crap many times. I’ve been marked afk AS I’m laying a minefield and every time I start a match I start with I’ll be laying a minefield with heals at x location. Please dont kick me for going afk as I’ve got my field and heals out. Many times people are surprised when I say thay and ask why they would kick me.

 

But you bet your bottom dollar those nasty comments and behavior stuck with me when I was contributing in the best way I know how.

Edited March 14, 2022 by AelaSunjammer

[DakhathKilrathi]

This is actually not true. I’ve only started playing gsf (3 weeks now)and suck at dogfights so I naturally gravitated towards bonbers where I could go in and lay a sweet minefield where I have bombs and heals and the game marks me as AFK because my drones haven’t fired a shot at an enemy ship for a minute or so but my healing drone has healed 10 friendlies as they flew by.

 

My guildie and I were vote kicked when we were both in bombers even though we had a sweet minefield with three gunships parked inside raining holy terror on the other team and our bombs were keeping the baddies away. We were kicked from the group for going “afk” with no warning. Low and behold the members on my team were then whining in fleet chat about 5 minutes later when they lost.

 

Point is, know the class of ship and if they’re on a bomber and showing as afk they MAY be in the middle of laying a minefield or waiting to plant a new bomb because bombers are prime targets and dont dogfight worth crap many times. I’ve been marked afk AS I’m laying a minefield and every time I start a match I start with I’ll be laying a minefield with heals at x location. Please dont kick me for going afk as I’ve got my field and heals out. Many times people are surprised when I say thay and ask why they would kick me.

 

But you bet your bottom dollar those nasty comments and behavior stuck with me when I was contributing in the best way I know how.

 

Boy am I getting a lot of mileage out of my old posts today. Here goes.

 

If you find that you're getting flagged, you need to change something about what you're doing. Please.

 

It's incredibly difficult to kick the persistent leeches we see in some games. And yes, leeches. See my previous lengthy post including screenshots of one such case.

 

It is actually impossible to abuse vote kick in GSF. Impossible. You can't be kicked if you're participating. You can not be kicked if you are participating. I have said this a hundred times and I'll say it a hundred more if it gets the point across.

 

Are you flagged? Then you're not participating! That's the game telling you that you are getting something fundamentally wrong and giving you a chance to fix it. Most players - myself included - are not going to kick someone the first time we see them flagged, and yes, we generally remember who gets flagged if it happens frequently.

 

If you're getting flagged in every game I see you in though, for most of the duration of a match? Yeah, I want you gone. It means that not only are you not helping, you're ignoring the message that lets you know that you're not helping. I can only assume it is intentional at that point, and I'm so grateful for a mechanism that allows us to kick people who intentionally try to throw games.

 

And make no mistake: if you ignore the message that tells you that you are not contributing, you are actively throwing. The game is telling you that you're getting something wrong. Instead of stubbornly insisting that it is the game that is wrong about how the game works, ask for help! Every server has a gsf channel you can join to ask for what you can do differently.

 

 

And because I mention a previous lengthy post up there, I'll include it as well for reference, because it was relevant to the subject and it's relevant here.

 

[...]

I don't kick people who are learning. It's pretty easy to tell the difference.

 

Let's look at an example (names removed so as to avoid getting a warn for "name and shame" because that's not the point here):

 

https://i.imgur.com/HDXetzY.png

 

 

Okay, so, in this example, you've got players at pretty much every skill level. But only one leech/SDer, and they're easy to spot: 0 kills, 1 assists, 17(!) deaths. 650 damage, and most tellingly: 0% accuracy. This player spawns in, drifts forward in a bomber while dropping mines and drones along the way, and may or may not boost into a wall. Judging from some of the timestamps, there was a lot of boosting into walls:

 

https://i.imgur.com/Fi3Ywoe.png

 

I missed a few, but those are most of this player's deaths in the game. Again, censored so you can't see the player name but you can tell it's the same player. There's no way you self destruct that much unless you're doing it on purpose.

 

Let's compare with the players who had a similarly poor performance.

 

11 deaths player had a bad game, but they still had 2 kills and 2 assists with 10.7k damage and 36% accuracy. That's pretty solid accuracy, actually! They were trying, but probably out of position all game. This is fine, and even if they got flagged (which they wouldn't with this performance) I wouldn't try to get anyone to kick them.

 

What about the next lowest damage player? 0 kills, 4 assists, 7 deaths. 4% accuracy. This is a player who was trying but isn't very good at hitting their targets. They were trying though, and again, the scoreboard tells the story.

 

Next lowest damage on my team? 0 kills, 6, assists, 4 deaths and 3292 damage with 5% accuracy. Similar to the player above: trying, but not very good yet. It's likely that neither this player or the previous one understands that you have to aim at the lead reticule when in range, but they can still manage to contribute.

 

I have more examples, if we need more.

 

You know what else is bad for a game, though? Ask yourself what happens if I wasn't in this game. Self-destructor's team doesn't stand even a tiny chance, in that case. As it was, even with me in it, it was a narrow win. Had I messed up or been a bit less lucky with RNG, that's a loss when it shouldn't have been.

[...]

 

PSA: the shield half of that upgrade tier on repair drone does nothing. Nothing at all. The shields it regens are tiny, and will not save you or your teammates if they are under fire. If they are not under fire, then it's a waste, since their shields (and yours) will regen naturally anyway. The ammo option is better in every regard. Shields regen on their own, ammo does not.

 

Edit: I missed this before, but it's important.

 

 

 

This tells me a lot. Here are some tips:

 

Bombers have blasters for a reason! You should use them more. If you hit someone with a blaster, you're automatically counted as contributing and cannot be flagged or kicked.

 

[...]

 

If someone is telling you that bombers should be moving instead of ticking, they aren't wrong. Yes, it is harder at first, but you'll contribute more in the harder games if you aren't free DPS for the other team.

 

For anyone who doesn't already know: fly under the sat and either use a gunship or lock on with proton torpedoes, the latter of which will ignore the fact that they're exploiting by hiding on top of their own mines and drones so they're harder to hit. Bonus if you do it with the Pike/Quell, which can also have EMP missiles which work very well against bombers as well.

 

In TDM, it's even easier: bombers are about area denial, and ticks don't like to move. Just don't bother with them, because they're probably in a bad location anyway. Either they get kicked or they do nothing. Either way, they won't help their team.

tl;dr if you're getting flagged as a bomber, your positioning is bad and you should improve it. Move closer to the action. You've got blasters for a reason and should not rely on your drones to do everything for you. Heavy laser cannon is really good!

[AelaSunjammer]

How am I not doing something when I’m keeping 3 gunships safe and alive? I do my part and for the most part people have said they’ve enjoyed queueing with me. When I get in matches with toxic people complaining about me flagging afk for literrally 30 seconds in a 10+ min match then frankly I’m happy to get out of that match and into one with a better group. I suck at dogfights and cant fly to save my life so I choose a ship that allows me to contribute in the best way that is not going to end up with me being killed a dozen times while trying to evade.

[DakhathKilrathi]

How am I not doing something when I’m keeping 3 gunships safe and alive? I do my part and for the most part people have said they’ve enjoyed queueing with me. When I get in matches with toxic people complaining about me flagging afk for literrally 30 seconds in a 10+ min match then frankly I’m happy to get out of that match and into one with a better group. I suck at dogfights and cant fly to save my life so I choose a ship that allows me to contribute in the best way that is not going to end up with me being killed a dozen times while trying to evade.

 

You aren't keeping them safe and alive if no one follows them into the nest you've set up. Again: if you are getting flagged, it is because your positioning could use some improvement. GSF does not have a healer role as such and that's why healing alone will not flag you as participating; you're supposed to do more. You don't need to go dogfight, you just need to move up a little bit.

 

Would it help if I recorded some games in a bomber demonstrating how this should work? I realize that there's some nuance to it.

[AelaSunjammer]

You aren't keeping them safe and alive if no one follows them into the nest you've set up. Again: if you are getting flagged, it is because your positioning could use some improvement. GSF does not have a healer role as such and that's why healing alone will not flag you as participating; you're supposed to do more. You don't need to go dogfight, you just need to move up a little bit.

 

Would it help if I recorded some games in a bomber demonstrating how this should work? I realize that there's some nuance to it.

 

Actually yes it would thank you. I am trying to learn and like I said I've only been doing GSF for maybe 3 weeks I think, but I do have my bomber mastered so I'm trying to learn to help better. The first few times I tried going out and fighting it was a disaster of epic proportion. the last match I did, I actually moved out of my nest and made a field around an asteroid and suddenly I got some kills with my drones but I also got smoked a few times too so that's a learning curve for sure.

Edited March 14, 2022 by AelaSunjammer

[DakhathKilrathi]

Actually yes it would thank you. I am trying to learn and like I said I've only been doing GSF for maybe 3 weeks I think, but I do have my bomber mastered so I'm trying to learn to help better. The first few times I tried going out and fighting it was a disaster of epic proportion. the last match I did, I actually moved out of my nest and made a field around an asteroid and suddenly I got some kills with my drones but I also got smoked a few times too so that's a learning curve for sure.

 

Might be a day or two but I'll definitely try to get something up soon. Which server do you play on, btw? I'd be happy to drop by for a few games sometime too, and I've got alts on a few servers.

[AelaSunjammer]

Might be a day or two but I'll definitely try to get something up soon. Which server do you play on, btw? I'd be happy to drop by for a few games sometime too, and I've got alts on a few servers.

 

I'm on star forge. My mains that I'm playing GSF on are aeladarkstar, blueberrystalker and killpril

I'm going to be starting on my healers korendurron and deia'neira next

and I'd enjoy that!

Edited March 15, 2022 by AelaSunjammer

[gregordunbar]

This is actually not true. I’ve only started playing gsf (3 weeks now)and suck at dogfights so I naturally gravitated towards bonbers where I could go in and lay a sweet minefield where I have bombs and heals and the game marks me as AFK because my drones haven’t fired a shot at an enemy ship for a minute or so but my healing drone has healed 10 friendlies as they flew by.

 

But you bet your bottom dollar those nasty comments and behavior stuck with me when I was contributing in the best way I know how.

 

Are you serious? You lay bombs/drones and sit there and not shoot in deathmatches?!?

 

Then you should be flagged as AFK and kicked because what you are doing is no different than a person in a group for a flashpoint/Ops only contributing once in a while...like a melee'er saying they wait for something to come to them to do damage otherwise they are just standing there doing nothing...or a ranged saying he didnt attack the boss because the boss was out of range.

 

Gunships literally HAVE TO sit far out from the conflict because the bulk of their damage comes from extreme long range weapons, many times the "group" they are in constantly push the enemy out of their range and have to move FORWARD to get into range to do any damage...and they DO. If you just SIT still hoping someone comes within range you are being useless to the team.

 

Team. You either work together/contribute or you are a waste just like in every single other aspect of the game.

 

And no, you are not keeping gunships alive while doing this because most ships can shoot gunships from far outside the range of your drones/mines.

Edited March 15, 2022 by gregordunbar

[GweedoBane]

I fully agree with this.

 

Sorry OP, but while i have seen groups of people chaining self destruct, most of the numbers you show are not from feeders/throwers. Those would be all way past 10 deaths and would not even try to hit something; much less have assist or even a solo kill.

 

I remember the 1st time I played GSF and I thought I would love to just have an area where I can roam/test things and from memory I don't think the tutorial allowed this so had to enter matches really not knowing wth to do but also not even up to par with controls etc. Kind of like throwing some guy in a ship that's read a few pages of a book about flying then suddenly I'm in the Battle of Britain kind of scenario fighting for my life lol.

 

I think this is the case for most newbies to the game. Recent match there was one guy that I destroyed again and again, the poor sob was trying to fight me off ie wasn't afking or just flying in a loop - he just had no chance to practice/train other than getting wrecked in this match. I genuinely felt sorry for him and left him alone after 4 or 5 times.