GSF Suggestion: Stop counting suicides as a kill

[UlaVii]

Hi, I created a thread almost a year ago called Suggestion: Kick People Who Suicide x5+ In GSF. Of course those people who like to blame loot for their bad behavior got very defensive but some fairly said that kicking after 5 suicides would be a bad experience for new pilots. The reason I picked 5 was because that is 10% of the 50 kills needed to win in deathmatch so having 2-3 people repeatedly suiciding could still be overcome by the rest of the team.

 

A better solution which will not negatively impact new pilots:

 

• Update the way scoring works so that suicides no longer count as a kill for the enemy team.
  
• Update the AFK timer so it stops resetting on death.
  
• Update the AFK vote kick button graphic. Currently it's a little white circle that shows up next to their name and you have to hover over it to see the tooltip so most people don't even know it's there. Here's a screenshot.
  
• Auto-kick players who have suicided over 10 times. Give them a warning at 5, 9 and 10. This will counter the potential issue of players suiciding to deny a point to their attacker.
  

 

This way AFKers and suiciders will have to do something even if it's just flying headfirst into the enemy and firing blind since that will be the only way they can reset the timer and hide the vote kick button.

Edited April 11, 2022 by UlaVii

[elacourse]

People also use these matches to farm Conquest. Start match on one ship, crash, then switch ships, crash, on and on. This way they get all the Conquest points they can for the different ships in matches with the least amount of matches played, usually just the weekly missions.

[DeannaVoyager]

A better solution which will not negatively impact new pilots:

 

• Update the way scoring works so that suicides no longer count as a kill for the enemy team.
  
• Update the AFK timer so it stops resetting on death.
  
• Update the AFK vote kick button graphic. Currently it's a little white circle that shows up next to their name and you have to hover over it to see the tooltip so most people don't even know it's there.
  

 

This way AFKers and suiciders will have to do something even if it's just flying headfirst into the enemy and firing blind since that will be the only way they can reset the timer and hide the vote kick button.

 

I don't know if you've noticed how slow it is to fly back into combat after death, but that underlined part doesn't go well with that. A few times I managed to get AFK timer when I was trying to get back into combat from respawn, but every time I tried to shoot something, someone else in my team killed it before I got a single hit in. Then the AFK timer starts to scream and I'm out of energy with no way to stop the timer except flying into an asteroid. There is no way to separate bad pilots from someone suiciding deliberately as long as anyone needs to hit an asteroid to stop the timer.

 

So if you want AFK timer to stop resetting on death, it also needs to be a LOT longer.

 

Or they can just leave everything as it is. It doesn't seem to bother that many people. With the amounts of cq points and tech frags it's giving you guys you shouldn't be complaining. Just be happy it's one part of the game that didn't get broken with 7.0, unlike a lot of pve activities were.

[cjmarsh]

A better solution which will not negatively impact new pilots:

 

• Update the way scoring works so that suicides no longer count as a kill for the enemy team.
  
• Update the AFK timer so it stops resetting on death.
  
• Update the AFK vote kick button graphic. Currently it's a little white circle that shows up next to their name and you have to hover over it to see the tooltip so most people don't even know it's there.
  

 

There are issues with a couple of these suggestions. If suicides no longer work to count as a kill then it motivates dogfighters who are about to get killed to suicide and prevent their death from counting on the scoreboard. Also, making it easier to vote kick people generally leads to an abuse of the feature where experienced pilots start kicking new pilots.

[Sir-steve]

If you remove the kill count, people would simply adopt it as a way to deny the other team kills e.g. if someone is on my tail and has me down to 99.999% health I could just suicide and deny them the kill.

 

Unintended consequences:

- more matches that run the full 15 minutes and end with 0/0 scores

- more scoreboards with 0 kills

- fewer medals awarded due to lack of kills

[UlaVii]

making it easier to vote kick people generally leads to an abuse of the feature where experienced pilots start kicking new pilots.

I said to make the button easier to see and understand for new people. Not change it's functionality. What you wrote suggests experienced players gang up on new players to kick them like in other content but in GSF the vote kick button only shows up if someone has been inactive for several minutes and it is displayed next to the map where you can see the position of everybody on your team. If I see someone is sitting on the base ship or camped at the edge of the map long enough for the vote kick button to activate then I will click it. If I see they are active then I don't. Easy decision.

[UlaVii]

If you remove the kill count, people would simply adopt it as a way to deny the other team kills e.g. if someone is on my tail and has me down to 99.999% health I could just suicide and deny them the kill.

 

Unintended consequences:

- more matches that run the full 15 minutes and end with 0/0 scores

- more scoreboards with 0 kills

- fewer medals awarded due to lack of kills

Good point. My previous suggestion thread about auto kicking people after 5 kills could be incorporated. Since suicides wouldn't directly affect the score, the limit could be increased to 10. That's a pretty forgiving amount for new pilots and it limits how often/effective it can be abused to deny points.

[UlaVii]

I don't know if you've noticed how slow it is to fly back into combat after death, but that underlined part doesn't go well with that. A few times I managed to get AFK timer when I was trying to get back into combat from respawn.

There is no GSF map where it takes more than 5 minutes to fly to the middle. Even on a fresh bomber with no upgrades or crew selected you can reach the middle in under 2 minutes on the largest map.

 

Or they can just leave everything as it is. It doesn't seem to bother that many people.

It does but they can't be bothered wasting more of their time on people who spoil the things they enjoy.

 

With the amounts of cq points and tech frags it's giving you guys you shouldn't be complaining. Just be happy it's one part of the game that didn't get broken with 7.0, unlike a lot of pve activities were.

GSF is broken because it's being spoiled by people who are afking/suciding through matches to get gear with no care about how it affects those who are playing it for fun.

 

Every time I tried to shoot something, someone else in my team killed it before I got a single hit in. Then the AFK timer starts to scream and I'm out of energy with no way to stop the timer except flying into an asteroid. There is no way to separate bad pilots from someone suiciding deliberately as long as anyone needs to hit an asteroid to stop the timer.

"Every time I run out of energy I suicide to give the enemy team free points"

 

You've posted more than once to try and justify afking/suiciding in matches but it's only now that you've explained about how you've been struggling to understand some basic game concepts. Don't worry though, I've got you sorted:

 

 

• GSF Screenshot: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/1003379/original.jpg
  
• It's one of my custom layouts but the various controls look the same as described below.
  
• The yellow bar on the left of the center ring is your laser energy.
  
• The purple bar on the right of the center ring is your engine energy.
  
• The little green picture of your ship represents your health.
  
• The green/blue rings around the picture of your ship represent your shields.
  
• ..
  
• The yellow bar goes down when you fire your lasers.
  
• The purple bar goes down when you press spacebar to boost your engines.
  
• Your ship health goes down as shots hit your ship or when you collide with objects.
  
• The green/blue rings turn yellow/red/none as enemy shots are hitting you.
  
• ..
  
• The three energy bars will recharge if you take a break from whatever is draining them.
  
• You do not have to suicide and give points to the enemy if you put a bit of thought into how you play.
  
• You can use the F1-F2-F3 keys to rebalance energy across Lasers/Shields/Engines which you can see on the 3 bars colored bars to the right of the center ring. Switching between the options lets you boost one at the expense of the other two. The boosted system gets a bonus and a faster recharge rate. You can switch the systems as often as you want. Once you get the hang of it and depending what ship you fly, you could be switching easily over 50 times in a single match.
  
• You can read more about the basics->advanced in Stasie's Galactic Starfighter Guide which is pinned at the top of the GSF forum: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222
  

 

You say the devs have forced you to do GSF to get gear that you want to use in other game content that you actually enjoy. The same concepts are used in that other content; your character has a health bar and an energy/force bar. As you take damage your health goes down. If you keep using energy/force abilities then that bar goes down. If you stop doing those things then the bars recharge. If you overuse or poorly manage your abilities the bar drains and you run out until it refills. If you keep taking hits or charge in carelessly and take unnecessary damage then your character will die. Hopefully my mini guide will help you stay alive longer so you can avoid spoiling the game for other players

[Sir-steve]

• GSF Screenshot: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/1003379/original.jpg
   
  

 

Whoa hang on, you can change the UI layout in GSF?! I was today years old when I learned that.

 

Gotta try that out, ty.

[BRKMSN]

I hate to admit it, but I'm not perfect. I take a lot of chances with retro thrusters, especially when at low health and will certainly die from the missile locked on me anyway. On top of that, I sometimes accidentally hit '3' with my clumsy fingers when attempting to hit '2' or '4'. Then there is the Iokath map that just has too many objects that don't always load on my screen before it's too late. Finally, you occasionally get the smoke cloud from a destroyed enemy that can be deadly for you up close to a satellite.

 

So on a bad match, I wouldn't be surprised if I ever hit 5 self kills, but in most cases, I will have made up for it offensively. For the reasons others have mentioned, self kills need to remain a point for the other team. But any system that would penalize a player for multiple self kills needs to factor in other things like damage and/or objectives.

[Pricia]

If you remove the kill count, people would simply adopt it as a way to deny the other team kills e.g. if someone is on my tail and has me down to 99.999% health I could just suicide and deny them the kill.

 

Unintended consequences:

- more matches that run the full 15 minutes and end with 0/0 scores

- more scoreboards with 0 kills

- fewer medals awarded due to lack of kills

 

Yep.

 

Sorry just not a good idea.

[HectorCasan]

Hi, I created a thread almost a year ago called Suggestion: Kick People Who Suicide x5+ In GSF. Of course those people who like to blame loot for their bad behavior got very defensive but some fairly said that kicking after 5 suicides would be a bad experience for new pilots. The reason I picked 5 was because that is 10% of the 50 kills needed to win in deathmatch so having 2-3 people repeatedly suiciding could still be overcome by the rest of the team.

 

A better solution which will not negatively impact new pilots:

 

• Update the way scoring works so that suicides no longer count as a kill for the enemy team.
  
• Update the AFK timer so it stops resetting on death.
  
• Update the AFK vote kick button graphic. Currently it's a little white circle that shows up next to their name and you have to hover over it to see the tooltip so most people don't even know it's there.
  
• Auto-kick players who have suicided over 10 times. Give them a warning at 5, 9 and 10. This will counter the potential issue of players suiciding to deny a point to their attacker.
  

 

This way AFKers and suiciders will have to do something even if it's just flying headfirst into the enemy and firing blind since that will be the only way they can reset the timer and hide the vote kick button.

 

Would not work, everyone would just suicide when about to be taken down, or just straight up flight to enemies (suiciding)

[UlaVii]

Would not work, everyone would just suicide when about to be taken down, or just straight up flight to enemies (suiciding)

I think if they made "suiciding to avoid being killed" one of their primary tactics then it would be a hard habit to break so it's likely they would get themselves removed from the match by going over the 10 limit. I think it's more likely they'd do it say 7 times and leave 3 as a safety margin for accidental deaths. It won't be "everybody", at most it will be a small number and the amount they can suicide will be restricted.

 

It's not perfect but it's still much better than what we have now where a match with 16-24 people can be spoiled by 1 suicider or multiple AFK team members.

Edited April 11, 2022 by UlaVii

[UlaVii]

I added this screenshot of the current AKF vote kick button to the first post in case anyone was unsure how it looked:

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/1034607/original.png

[Khelben]

If you remove the kill count, people would simply adopt it as a way to deny the other team kills e.g. if someone is on my tail and has me down to 99.999% health I could just suicide and deny them the kill.

 

Unintended consequences:

- more matches that run the full 15 minutes and end with 0/0 scores

- more scoreboards with 0 kills

- fewer medals awarded due to lack of kills

 

Add a mechanic / debuff - if affected by "Enemy Damage" prevents suicide for - 60 seconds, timer refreshes when damage taken.

[DeannaVoyager]

There is no GSF map where it takes more than 5 minutes to fly to the middle. Even on a fresh bomber with no upgrades or crew selected you can reach the middle in under 2 minutes on the largest map.

 

I specifically said "they die before I get to hit them". So even if I manage to get in time where combat is, it's possible that I may not be able to hit anything before the afk timer hits. Some maps also have a lot of obstacles: you can shoot as much as you want but nothing hits the target because they are always behind something or too far.

 

 

You've posted more than once to try and justify afking/suiciding in matches but it's only now that you've explained about how you've been struggling to understand some basic game concepts. Don't worry though, I've got you sorted:

 

 

• GSF Screenshot: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/1003379/original.jpg
  
• It's one of my custom layouts but the various controls look the same as described below.
  
• The yellow bar on the left of the center ring is your laser energy.
  
• The purple bar on the right of the center ring is your engine energy.
  
• The little green picture of your ship represents your health.
  
• The green/blue rings around the picture of your ship represent your shields.
  
• ..
  
• The yellow bar goes down when you fire your lasers.
  
• The purple bar goes down when you press spacebar to boost your engines.
  
• Your ship health goes down as shots hit your ship or when you collide with objects.
  
• The green/blue rings turn yellow/red/none as enemy shots are hitting you.
  
• ..
  
• The three energy bars will recharge if you take a break from whatever is draining them.
  
• You do not have to suicide and give points to the enemy if you put a bit of thought into how you play.
  
• You can use the F1-F2-F3 keys to rebalance energy across Lasers/Shields/Engines which you can see on the 3 bars colored bars to the right of the center ring. Switching between the options lets you boost one at the expense of the other two. The boosted system gets a bonus and a faster recharge rate. You can switch the systems as often as you want. Once you get the hang of it and depending what ship you fly, you could be switching easily over 50 times in a single match.
  
• You can read more about the basics->advanced in Stasie's Galactic Starfighter Guide which is pinned at the top of the GSF forum: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222
  

 

 

Thanks but not necessary. I'm playing this game because of pve. If I wanted to learn a space shooter MMO, it wouldn't be GSF. I don't have time or interest for GSF because it requires gearing up and knowing what to do, but as long as I don't get the same rewards from the content I want to play, I'm gonna continue to get carried in GSF.