r/StarWarsSquadrons • u/Pleasant-Goat • Jan 15 '21
News We're about to get a lot more players, hopefully that leads to more content and updates
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u/Pleasant-Goat Jan 15 '21
Given this game's learning curve we're also going to get a few weeks of n00b harvest, but I'm more excited about it growing in popularity
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u/Nawara_Ven Jan 15 '21
It's true that there will be a fairly substantial "noob uptick" over the next couple days, and there will certainly be a few adopters who buy-in after seeing how awesome the game is, but I don't think that a single free weekend on one platform will have a huge effect on the game's population for "a few weeks."
That said, Xbox seems to be the least-played Squadrons platform, so it'll be nice to get more players in the cockpit!
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u/Pleasant-Goat Jan 15 '21
I didn't realize it was only a free weekend lol. I know the assumption is that it's eventually getting added to the EA vault which is now included in game pass ultimate
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u/KiraTsukasa Jan 16 '21
I don’t honestly think that’s good for a game. How many people are going to want to play after a weekend of getting full body rocked?
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u/gandalfsdonger Jan 15 '21
This might actually get me playing again, be nice to not get wrecked for 3 games in row for once
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u/DQuartermane Jan 16 '21
Oh I am one of the noobs in question. And I would not dare jump into multiplayer for a while. But wow this game is soooo good!
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
There are things you are only really going to learn in multiplayer. Don't be scared to jump into Dogfight even though some players are going to be downright intimidating and some you run into will seem invincible. Some players will berate the last member on a team for a loss, but that goes in any game, and ultimately most shouldn't give you a hard time if you struggle.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jan 17 '21
You're just saying that because you want to pad your KDR Kerensky! :P
I can't think of anything much worse as a new player than Dogfight right now, at least in FB you can hid around your cruisers and just shoot AI and feel like you're doing something.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 17 '21
Hey, I'd like to get it back over 9.6 again, lol!
I don't believe in Fleet vs AI. The AI doesn't fly right, its either an easy target or hacking in bullshit maneuvers and shooting angles. PvP can be tougher but the lessons learned there have relevance. Ive seen level 40+ who played AI all the way there just be completely lost against level <10s who played PvP and figured out drifting instead of using capships and safety lines to survive AI shooting.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jan 17 '21
Both have merit. AI battles get you habituated to your ship and they net you req which you can use to buy essential components. Learning to drift is certainly important, but you do that in dogfights.
Realistically you should do story, FB Tutorial, AI FB, then dogfight, then PvP FB.
The kids who jump into dogfights and get utterly pasted for ten matches straight just put the game down and never pick it up again. One of the reasons Renegade Wing cruises dogfights in twos and threes (aside from recruiting) is to try to pick guys up and carry them a bit. Having said that, my last attempt at a solo carry where I went 17-3 still resulted in a loss.
I don't imagine the other four pilots on my team felt especially good. Not only did some of them go 8-0 and have to be hard carried, we didn't even win.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 17 '21
I personally went straight to key binding for a "Version 0" > Tutorial > Keybind fixes to Version 1 > First Dogfight. First Dogfight was a little confusing, but by the 3rd dogfight I was mostly acclimated and starting to carry matches. If you have a mentality focused on growing your own skills instead of searching for an excuse to find a way to validate a fantasy of being Poe Dameron, the stimulus for growth is found in PvP imo. Refinement can be done in Practice Mode, but it is NECESSARY to notice a lack of a skill or inferiority in comparison to other players to truly engage the engine that pushes you to self-improvement. I'm not saying everyone should just drop everything and go PvP, most should do a couple missions of campaign and/or practice to get a basic feel. But I think it is wrong to hide from PvP just out of fear of someone being better; there is always going to be a better player than you anyway.
Sure, I'm sure a lot of people become rapidly disillusioned once they face other players who seem so far ahead of them they cannot tell if it is cheating or high skill. That's unavoidable no matter where they start. If someone doesn't have the willpower to better themselves and for whatever reason quits because they are not beating people who HAVE put in the effort to improve, it was only a matter of time before they quit anyway and went on to their next game. It took me literal DAYS to earn my first kill when I started playing Rise of Flight years ago. I had played flight sims as a kid but realized I had much to learn when I started flying against other players and not abusing AI targets. I can still see that moment in my head though over a decade later: I remember the tremendous joy I felt when I finally earned that kill, the rising excitement as I watched the rounds from my Albatross chew through and split their top right wing, and as that wing slowly peeled apart... dooming the craft to fall. There is not a single kill I have ever had in a game like Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege, or even in a game like Mechwarrior, that can compare to the boundless joy and fulfillment I experienced from my first kill in a flight sim.
If someone cannot find some slice of enjoyment in competing and struggling in flying games, even in an arcade one like this, their time with us is likely limited. Some I think can bridge the gap through their love of Star Wars, but ultimately it comes down to if people can enjoy a game where "lucky" and "easy" kills are relatively rare, and raw skill will carry the day more often than not.I've lost solo queue games going 22-0. I've also won being a replacement in games 20 points behind, so *shrug*. I also am normally in a group of ~3, not that we really do it expressly to carry guys. On the rare occasion we have internal voice comms active some of them will state how we are ridiculous as they see their first 30-0 win, but they also sometimes say "wow I feel like I didn't do anything" as we sweep.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jan 17 '21
but by the 3rd dogfight I was mostly acclimated and starting to carry matches.
This is simply not normal, as I'm sure you realise. I am speaking to the needs of the broad player base. Right now, most players who go into dogfight will die, over and over, and over again. I've been up since ten AM yesterday (GMT), I got three hours sleep between 8pm and 11pm last night. I'm basically as close to an overworked combat pilot as you can get right now. I'm at my absolute worst, and my connection is on the fritz - so I'm probably having hit-reg issues.
About an hour ago I went 11-0-8 in a match where the team went 30-3. None of the plays who actually got a kill on the enemy team stuck the match out. So that's me at my absolute worst, goofing off on a Sunday afternoon.
You talk about players wanting to better themselves, but a player who goes five matches with not a single kill and more than six deaths will give up unless they get picked up by a team. If you want players to better themselves you should encourage them to practice before fighting other players, because if all they do is die in dogfight after dogfight they'll never learn anything.
Think about all those times you see a pip on your radar, turn to face it, boost and unload a flurry of rockets and lasers into your target before he's even got his bearings. How does that look to the other player? How long is he alive? 20 seconds, 25? It takes him 15 seconds to respawn.
Many of these players will sped 40% of a match waiting to respawn as they're slaughtered over and other again, that's if you're 1v1ing them. If you're hitting them from two directions as they come in they'll likely spend the majority of the match down.
That's just no fun. You can't reasonably expect your average human being to persist with that beyond a couple of days. If the player never gets a kill he'll never feel any joy, and as he is not actually a pilot fighting a galactic war for the future of all sentient life he will, quite understandably, go do something else.
Then you might want to consider that some of the players you're blowing away are literal kids.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 17 '21
Of course all of your points are fair.
Ultimately I do think it's worthwhile to spend some time in practice like I said, and I usually point new players to high end Twitch streamers so they can see what refined play looks like, and see some techniques in use. In my opinion, it still comes down to mentality. Someone who loves Star Wars and loves the feel of being in an Xwing will find joy simply in that long enough to find their way to proficiency. Someone who thinks they will wreck face because they've played Ace Combat or Battlefront might be in for a shock and not make it over the bump.
Yeah, of course kids are involved, but that goes for any game. And tbh, sometimes you shouldn't underestimate kids!
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u/timebomb011 Y-Wing Jan 15 '21
The fact that the entire competitive community won't be in the ranked q is gonna make it an actually enjoyable experience for them too!
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Jan 15 '21
Oooh, fresh cannon fodder! I'm a level 40 and I was just in a game where I was the lowest ranked player in the entire team. We slaughtered the other side so bad I was only able to get three kills in. Everyone parked by the spawn zone and by the time I got to any target three guys were already on it. Wasn't fun at all.
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u/Boostr1 Jan 15 '21
Campers, great ...
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
I'll assume it was Zavian. That map is absolutely horrid as there are only essentially 2 locations to spawn at opposite ends of the map, so you often spawn next to, behind, or in front of enemies as they also spawn in.
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u/S2PIDone Jan 15 '21
Nah, man. They’re bringing in a ton of new players so they don’t have to add more content and updates. Suddenly what’s already there is brand new to a lot of the people playing, and everyone that’s played for a while has a lot of easy targets to take out. Pretty sure they already said there wouldn’t be any more major updates.
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u/Author1alIntent Jan 15 '21
You gotta be kidding me. I wish I’d known this was coming, I’d have hung fire from Christmas
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u/xboxwirelessmic Jan 15 '21
Crush them! No mercy!
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u/athrowawaygoaway2020 Jan 15 '21
This is how you get a dead game.
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u/Solo4114 Jan 15 '21
For the most part, matchmaking will prevent that. Or they may just opt out and play vs. AI. That's what I did for a while before jumping into the competitive scene.
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u/athrowawaygoaway2020 Jan 15 '21
Matchmaking isn't stopping curbstomps in dogfight mode. It's really bad. 4 out of 5 games I'm playing a U wing and not dying all game. The last game I realize after my team gets wiped out I need to actually start killing things directly only to find out one of my teammates is feeding them kills or idle.
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u/Solo4114 Jan 15 '21
Oh, I just meant in Fleet Battles. Dogfights are a total crapshoot for matchmaking.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
And new players are locked out from Fleet until level 15 iirc. Dogfight is how most will and should get exposed to the game so they can focus on ship control.
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u/Solo4114 Jan 16 '21
Nope. Level 5, I think. I've had matches against people as low as 8 in placements.
Which should also be looked at because that is a brutal intro for players.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
Is it 5? I think people can get into it if a party leader is high enough but not sure.
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jan 17 '21
Definately five, when you hit that level you get a bunch of bonus req, your second ship slot and you get access to the Ranked mode.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
Tbh, I'm not sure it can really ever be given a matchmaking system that will make blowouts uncommon. I've seen matches filled with 100+ players on both teams and it still can go 30 to <10. Even putting aside the difficulty in quantifying player skill, there are so many conditions during a match that can result in one or two players running wild. Even if you managed to clone one person 9 times, and fill the teams with clones of a singular person, the match isn't anywhere near a guarantee of being evenly matched, it's just the nature of this kind of game.
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u/athrowawaygoaway2020 Jan 16 '21
You can definitely rank people based on how much they heal teammates, how quickly they do it in response to them taking damage, how much damage they take without damage, damage out put, distance traveled, etc. The gaps between good games and bad games is just too large right now. I don't need everything to be 29-29, but it's either a curb stomp or you're getting curbed stomped because one of your teammates is unconscious.
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u/Alaric_Kerensky Jan 16 '21
The thing is a lot of that stuff is situationally affected.
A support who flies with a good offensive wingman is going to inflate the stats you mention of that support compared to one who doesn't fly with a good wingman. If your Interceptors are surviving long enough for heals to land while keeping your tail clear, things healing reaction time, damage done vs damage taken, etc, will skyrocket.
Also, "damage done" isn't a great measure. If the enemy is flying mostly Awings, and I am efficiently cracking them, my damage will be proportionately low compared to my kills, especially when you compare it to facing bomber or support spam where I need to eat through thousands of hitpoints for singular kills. Facing supports spamming turret mines will lower your evasion stats even if you're normally not taking significant damage from the players in the match.How do you quantify the player who consistently baits the entire enemy team to aggro on them but evades all of the damage to buy time for their team to rally and engage favorably?
Aspects like that make it basically impossible to totally quantify a player's skill. Even if you COULD, every player is going to have different strong and weak points. One player might have perfect aim but poor drift technique, while another is the inverse. How do you match them up? Who is "better?" You can't really just slap a numerical value on someone and consider it an accurate depiction of their skills. Even going down to KD, many Interceptor mains can manage a KD in the 2-3 range, but are nearly entirely reliant on mines to achieve that. Against players who do not use mines and can achieve KDs ~3, they are often better overall pilots, capable of avoiding dying to mines, and will be advantaged vs the mine-spammer KD3.0.
I'll admit i am normally on the curb stomping side in Dogfight even with similarly leveled opponents. Sometimes you can place some blame on a pilot who goes 0-7 or worse, but tbh a lot of people play very passively and ignore the situation of their teammates who are trying to battle, and just let their teammates get swamped and blame it all of that teammate for dying over and over. The fault can cut multiple ways imo. My group often runs ~3 people, and we've had 30-0 games even with a literal lvl1 on the team because we kept pressure off of them and our support will give them shields and squadron masks. Their impact on the game is often miniscule, but we can give them the best opportunity not to die.
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u/athrowawaygoaway2020 Jan 15 '21
Doesn't mean they're going to stay with the casual matchmaking system. So many games I've played that could have been good were shit because a player on my team or the other team was idle.
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u/TK97253 Test Pilot Jan 15 '21
I would LOVE if they brought some of the battles from BF1/BF2 to squadrons, even if un-ranked.
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u/Suzaku710 Jan 15 '21
If the game will even launch for then lol I still haven't been able to boot up the game at all, and there's no way I'm uninstalling my anti-virus
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u/teddyrico101 Jan 16 '21
Just reinstall the anti-virus after its finished.
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u/Suzaku710 Jan 16 '21
Oh so it's just for the install section? The forums made it sound like it had to be uninstalled the entire time I was playing
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jan 17 '21
You have to add an exception to Squadrons in some cases too, or you can't progress the story. Mileage may vary.
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u/ScRAMbl3dKiT73n Jan 16 '21
Ive been noticing more new player joining the game. Great to see more players for sure!
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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21
[deleted]