Pilot Archive

As some of you know, currently groups in the CU are restricted to 8 members. This is probably due to the level-based system: whether to keep group levels from getting too high, to cut back on the new sologrouping that's sure to arise, whatever. Doesn't really matter. Point is, it's in there for a very good reason or three, and we're unlikely to see 20-person groups on the ground again.

However, this is going to result in some problems for JTL. There's been a nice discussion in the JTL forum here, but it seems like something that should be brought over here as well, so I'm gonna try to distill most of that thread's contents and see what we all think.

First off, the way POB ships work is being changed so you can invite up to 30 people up to them at once, so that's not going to be a problem. That said:

Positives for 8-person groups in JTL:

- I honestly can't think of any. I don't think there's a situation where being restricted to an 8-person wing would be more beneficial than the option to have up to 20 in your flight.

Negatives:

- Communication. Even in PVE it can be pretty risky to break off in the middle of a fight to relay status or orders to other people in your group, and in PVP it can be downright suicidal. If groups in space are kept at 8 people, large-scale PVE or PVP is going to grow much more chaotic and inefficient as commanders will need to relay orders to 2-3 times as many squads, and reports from other flights relayed to them will see the same kind of trouble. I've had some experience with trying to coordinate multiple groups, and particularly in PVP it tends to result in a lot of dead pilots or a lot of people sitting around waiting for orders that can't be relayed due to other wings already engaged in dogfights. People sitting around means people aren't having fun, and that's bad mojo.

- Physical order and location. Right now, it's much easier to reform a scattered squad when you can check out your wingmen's location in the group UI. Cut down group size, and it'll be harder for groups to reform.

- POB ships. These things are a bit gimpy as-is, and if they're running a standard crew of four, that's taking up half a group's size right there. This makes them more of a liability and even less likely to be used in group combat than they already are.

Solutions and workarounds using available resources:

- Teamspeak/Ventrillo. I know a lot of good squads use this already and it would eliminate a significant amount of communications problems. However, needing to rely on a program outside SWG to be effective is far from ideal, and some pilots simply can't use these programs, be it due to hardware, being on dialups, etc. Also, this doesn't address the order/location issue.

- Dedicated chat channels. These effectively allow you to have groups of unlimited size all in the same channel (could be a limit, I guess, but it's definitely bigger than 8), but this opens you up to be spied on by the opposition. Not to mention chat channels are messy things that tend to stick around lots longer than they're wanted, and that you'd need to teach everyone in your flight how to use them and set up aliases for quick communication. It too wouldn't address order/location.

- Creation of aliases to send the same /tell to multiple people. A great suggestion by GrimBear to allow a commander to send orders to multiple group leaders. Unfortunately, you're going to need to alter these every time you've got new group leaders, and with the high casualty rate in space, most group leaders end up dying at least a couple times over the course of any serious battle, so you'd also need secondary aliases to send /tells to second-in-commands.. it just breaks down as soon as people start dying. Again, doesn't do anything for order/location.

Solutions and workarounds involving changes to the grouping system:

- Creation of JTL-only groups that members are disbanded from once they land. This one's from Imaridril and it's a great one. We're not likely to see game-wide changes to group size for aforementioned reasons, but since we're able to form groups in space, it might be possible to code up a system whereby you can form JTL groups that max out at 20 people but which people are removed from once they leave space. If done right, this would essentially maintain the status quo without messing with any necessary changes to the ground.


Any more thoughts on all this? I know space is kind of sparse for some players, but for those who engage in large-scale group events, this is a case where changes on the ground are going to have a major impact on the space game. That's something I'd hate to see happen, and if there's any way for us to find a way to work with the ground-based change to preserve the system we've got, I'd think it's well worth discussing.

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 04-16-2005 04:43 AM

Message Edited by Zeon_Zaku on 04-16-2005 09:08 AM

---

TomoRainer wrote:
That's sounding like a big relief. What happens when you've got a space group larger than 8 and you land? Does it make you disband? What testing have you done on group size in space? Found any other notes or changes worth mentioning?

---

I haven't tested it out. I'm just going by what others have told me, and by what Tiggs has said as well.

That's sounding like a big relief. What happens when you've got a space group larger than 8 and you land? Does it make you disband? What testing have you done on group size in space? Found any other notes or changes worth mentioning?

The 'invitation' is not to the group, it's to joining you on the ship. I can not recall reading anything from a Dev about the CU ground group size changes affecting the JtL dynamics. Hopefully this is something people can test on TCEP3 or either of the Conversion servers (for you Gorath and Bria players) or something that our new Corro, when named, can look into and clarify for us.

Shona

I'm trying to test this right now, though constant CTDs are conspiring to prevent me from learning how this stands. Any pilots on TC-Ep3 who'd like to help me please meet at Tatooine space station. My name's Tomo there as well.

After grouping up with a bunch of the usual suspects from Team Low Blow (thanks smuggler brothers), I launched into space and started combing the galaxy for pilots to attempt to invite. Despite constant CTDs from those on the ground, resulting in a few of them leaving and depleting my group, I continued to crawl across Corellia, Naboo, and Tatooine space at 367 speed searching for able-bodied pilots to join the crowd. Eventually I reached a group size of 8--at which point, when attempting to invite people to join, I was informed that I "may not invite someone while [my] group is full."

Now, from attempting to invite a POB earlier I learned that you get the same message when attempting to invite someone who's already grouped when you're in space, so I asked three separate pilots who had been unable to join for reasons of group size whether they were already grouped. They all said no.

Conclusion: While you may well be able to invite 30 people up into your POB ships, you can't form an actual group of more than 8 in JTL.

Recommendation: See whether this is intentional, and if not, whether it's possible to restore the 20-person group size in JTL only.

Thanks to all the people who helped me, particularly TLB and pilots Mankind and Toll.

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 04-17-2005 01:57 PM

The only possible positive I can see from it is that, overall, it's extremely difficult to keep a group of 20 all in order and focused on the same mission. Keeping the number down to 8 allows for smaller groups with tight communication, all working together to acheive the same result.

If groups are kept at a maximum of 8, I can see the maybe implementing the formation functionality, because 8 ships can form up, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to have a group of up to 20 fly in formation.

If groups are no more then 8, you'd need to have multiple groups working together, with each squad leader communicating together to make the groups work as one. Kinda cool tactically maybe.

Honestly? So far I'm not seeing a particular reason that this is a major problem for us, but I could be missing it.

I'm on TC-EP3 all the time as either BMeenan or Glitch. Happy to help ya test whenever I'm about. (Will be in tonight - after east coast sunset - for sure). I'll drop you a /tell tonight if you're on.

Even if some people find it easier to coordinate multiple groups of different pilots than to work with one big group, is that a reason to intentionally limit the size of groups? I would think that, if it's not going to destroy anything to restore JTL groups to size 20, it would always be better to have the option to go with a large group if you think it will work better.

I know this probably won't affect many people, but in my experience with grouping and JTL, it's much easier to coordinate one group than many. Even 20 people are relatively easy to work with once they're used to giving and taking orders and working together; our PVP group gets roughly 20 people each week, and despite having anywhere from 10-40% of those being new to the group each week, they learn quickly and communicate smoothly due to the discipline of the others. Creating that discipline in a multitude of groups is difficult, and coordinating movements and tactics between 3-5 groups is exponentially more difficult than it is with just one or sometimes two, though even two can get rough.

Maintaining our present group size is thus very important to those of us who do a lot of grouping now and those of you who may end up doing so in the future--you can bet that JTL coming bundled with RotW is going to increase the number of people in space, and that combined with the people who take to space to avoid the inevitable tweaking of the CU may result in a real space renaissance. How many people were you grouped with when you first killed the Vette? How fun was that? If there's the chance of participating in that kind of group dynamic in the future, and if we can maintain it without hurting the CU, I think it's a lot wiser to work to save what we have than to let it go just because we're not using it much now.

Besides, I don't like the idea of ground-based changes affecting space. If we can find a way to prevent that precedent from being set, I think it's important we do so.

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 04-17-2005 02:16 PM

---

TomoRainer wrote:
Even if some people find it easier to coordinate multiple groups of different pilots than to work with one big group, is that a reason to intentionally limit the size of groups? I would think that, if it's not going to destroy anything to restore JTL groups to size 20, it would always be better to have the option to go with a large group if you think it will work better.

I know this probably won't affect many people, but in my experience with grouping and JTL, it's much easier to coordinate one group than many. Even 20 people are relatively easy to work with once they're used to giving and taking orders and working together; our PVP group gets roughly 20 people each week, and despite having anywhere from 10-40% of those being new to the group each week, they learn quickly and communicate smoothly due to the discipline of the others. Creating that discipline in a multitude of groups is difficult, and coordinating movements and tactics between 3-5 groups is exponentially more difficult than it is with just one or sometimes two, though even two can get rough.

Maintaining our present group size is thus very important to those of us who do a lot of grouping now and those of you who may end up doing so in the future--you can bet that JTL coming bundled with RotW is going to increase the number of people in space, and that combined with the people who take to space to avoid the inevitable tweaking of the CU may result in a real space renaissance. How many people were you grouped with when you first killed the Vette? How fun was that? If there's the chance of participating in that kind of group dynamic in the future, and if we can maintain it without hurting the CU, I think it's a lot wiser to work to save what we have than to let it go just because we're not using it much now.

Besides, I don't like the idea of ground-based changes affecting space. If we can find a way to prevent that precedent from being set, I think it's important we do so.

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 04-17-2005 02:16 PM

---

/agree

I really would hate to see the devs limit us to groups of 8 in space. Coordination is way more difficult, for one. At the very least our minimum group size in space should be twelve.

I do hope that, if they go with the group limitation of 8, they don't make all the passengers on a POB count towards the group limit, as they do now. If so, POBs will be almost worthless, since no one will want to group with them and eat up precious group space.

• Add a new chattab and modify it


• highlight the public channels section


• choose the create channel option


• name it something short, lets say "RS" for example


• make shure that private is selected


• hit OK

Gratulations, you created a private channel.

How do I get people in here?

• with "/chatroom invite <playername> <channelname>


• example "/chatroom invite luke rs"


• now the invited player has to use "/chatroom join <channelname>" to join the channel


• example, luke uses "/chatroom join rs"

You can now modify you tabs to let the channel update in any tab you like.

How to talk in this?

• a simple "/<channelname>" works fine, if you did everything right


• example "/rs"

How to remove someone from the channel?

• The command to do this is "/chatroom uninvite <playername> <channelname>"


• this is currently bugged and doesnt work... (I'll test with some of the other commands and update)

---

Jaguarrr wrote:

I'll let you know about a little "secret" of mine... the art of using private channels.

---

I'd see this as an issue *if* there was actually something present in JTL where a force of more than 8 ships would be necessary, the issues around chatrooms which are mentioned above are minor at best ...

Message Edited by darmokVtS on 04-18-2005 07:27 PM