Powerplay 2.0 “Open” Rewards

[Disemboweled Ego]

Rewarding playing in Open is a DOA pursuit.

Rewarding PvP has a lot of merit to it, but the challenges of Open (and the game's more broadly) implementation are what kinda railroad this activity.

Yeah your post sums up and goes more in-depth on what I was trying to say.

A lot of it comes down to how players feel the PvE competition isn't skill based and imagine ganking people in open would fix that somewhat. Another solution to that could also be harder human PvE content with exponentially greater rewards (something that's missing from the game anyway) or rewards for doing them well instead of doing them a lot (essentially time/combat endurance trials I guess). I doubt we'll be seeing much harder scenarios with the FC attack scenarios and much other new gameplay/scenario content like that otherwise.

 

[Ragnascot]

Frontline Solutions would be the perfect vector for engaging these activities

Excellent point

 

[Alec Turner]

Sorry if this has been mentioned here already (catching up after a holiday and only skimming threads) but one thing I'm kinda puzzled by is from this slide they showed.

If PP 2.0 wasn't Open Only (or at least Open strongly incentivised) then putting "Destroy Enemy Commanders" front and center of the things to do seems odd given that (and I'm not a PowerPlay player so forgive me if this isn't the case) surely most other players engaging in PowerPlay in such a system would be hiding in solo or another PG?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Rewarding playing in Open is a DOA pursuit.

Rewarding PvP has a lot of merit to it, but the challenges of Open (and the game's more broadly) implementation are what kinda railroad this activity.

As an example; I went and hit up one of the Titan's in Open as an experiment. This was Leigong during a peak of activity. I instanced with exactly 0 commanders on multiple occasions. So... under the OP consideration, I should get heaps more rewards than if I did exactly the same thing in solo right?

Yeah... nah. That's why incentivising Open is DOA.

But that instancing is a barrier to successfully incentivising PvP. one that will never get resolved. So the only really viable option is to go with a mechanism that enables structured PvP to occur... as a naive view, imagine if doing CQC in a specific system for PP was the "incentivised" PvP. You've got:

• A structured activity with some reasonable bounds for balancing the rewards against other PvE activities which are equally measurable.
• A hard-barrier transition where you could perhaps force instancing with others.
• A focal point for PvP to seek PvP, instead of fishing for people doing PvE in open who you might not even instance with anyway.

Frontline Solutions would be the perfect vector for engaging these activities

The other challenge is, if you make PvP all-or-nothing in terms of reward (either you win and get stuff, or you lose and get nothing) you'll never incentivise it. Games like CoD and such work because, even in failure, you are rewarded. So too would need to occur with any structured PvP activity in order to incentivise it... if I suck at CQC, why would I ever do it when I know I could just earn merits via PvE faster. But I would engage PvP if it meant I would get some reward for losing even if it was less than a straight PvE activity, because then the activity wouldn't be entirely worthless, and the incentive of maybe just slightly better rewards by being successful at PvP.

But make it a flat bonus for being in open? I won't do PvP. I'll do PvE in an environment where I'm highly unlikely to instance anyway, if at all.

Unless you can quantify it to calibrate the reward, then I agree because it rewards regardless of context.

Open in PP is really about the possibility of encounters and planning for that accordingly (in that, its a on universal constraint), because players go far beyond what an NPC can do. In V1 the bubble acts as a giant CZ spanning multiple systems- however NPC persistence and scope is really at a system level and no more. Beyond that scope its hard for NPCs to chase you, attack intelligently or escape. Having PP V2 system level in scope may help this aspect, but FD have to dial up NPCs.

Without constraints the feature can't really be anything, and thats the true issue. Its possible to do it all, but FD have to do it and make a choice.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Sorry if this has been mentioned here already (catching up after a holiday and only skimming threads) but one thing I'm kinda puzzled by is from this slide they showed.

If PP 2.0 wasn't Open Only (or at least Open strongly incentivised) then putting "Destroy Enemy Commanders" front and center of the things to do seems odd given that (and I'm not a PowerPlay player so forgive me if this isn't the case) surely most other players engaging in PowerPlay in such a system would be hiding in solo or another PG?

They could also mean PP NPCs, but my interpretation was hunt other commanders opportunistically (given they also stated high value systems would be focal points of fighting).

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Sorry if this has been mentioned here already (catching up after a holiday and only skimming threads) but one thing I'm kinda puzzled by is from this slide they showed.

If PP 2.0 wasn't Open Only (or at least Open strongly incentivised) then putting "Destroy Enemy Commanders" front and center of the things to do seems odd given that (and I'm not a PowerPlay player so forgive me if this isn't the case) surely most other players engaging in PowerPlay in such a system would be hiding in solo or another PG?

It might be that destroying Enemy Commanders gets you the most boost for your power. The question is how do you persuade other CMDRs to risk their powerplay ships in open in order to get that bonus

 

[Rubbernuke]

It might be that destroying Enemy Commanders gets you the most boost for your power. The question is how do you persuade other CMDRs to risk their powerplay ships in open in order to get that bonus

Thats the question- rewards could be higher, and mesh with the 'Aces' leaderboard. IIRC the stream alluded to that, with the top 10 commanders.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

If PP 2.0 wasn't Open Only (or at least Open strongly incentivised) then putting "Destroy Enemy Commanders" front and center of the things to do seems odd given that (and I'm not a PowerPlay player so forgive me if this isn't the case) surely most other players engaging in PowerPlay in such a system would be hiding in solo or another PG?

Might just be placeholder text.

Open in PP is really about the possibility of encounters and planning for that accordingly (in that, its a on universal constraint), because players go far beyond what an NPC can do. In V1 the bubble acts as a giant CZ spanning multiple systems- however NPC persistence and scope is really at a system level and no more. Beyond that scope its hard for NPCs to chase you, attack intelligently or escape. Having PP V2 system level in scope may help this aspect, but FD have to dial up NPCs.

Without constraints the feature can't really be anything, and thats the true issue. Its possible to do it all, but FD have to do it and make a choice.

The issue here is that no amount of prep will let you win against a gank if you want to do hauling, you can maybe only get away and that's still a loss for both sides with time wasted.

The solution is to only let people use prebuilt ships for powerplay that are balanced into classes so PP gankers are weaker than actual gankers and traders etc are stronger than what people normally use to do BGS stuff. Everything would be perfectly balanced and people who buy or rent the better premium powerplay prebuilt ships for arx will win.

 

[Alec Turner]

The question is how do you persuade other CMDRs to risk their powerplay ships in open in order to get that bonus

Exactly!

They could also mean PP NPCs, but my interpretation was hunt other commanders opportunistically (given they also stated high value systems would be focal points of fighting).

They could, but then why say "Commanders"? I feel like they have in their heads (while designing PP2.0) this idealised image of commanders fighting hand to hand over contested systems, which probably won't happen in practice if all modes are treated equally.

 

[Alec Turner]

Might just be placeholder text.

Also a highly likely possibility of course.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

I'd have no problem with the open/ pvt / solo options if the NPCs were up to the task of being an effective counter to player activates. However, in PP1, they're not. I do feel that any PP would have benefitted from a more weighted system were open players have more effect in the Powerplay Background Sim than players in pvt or solo. Everyone gets the same rewards for doing their activity but if you want to get you power more influence, then do the activities in open.

Stop flying overly engineered ships, and see then what happens.

Btw. I have for a long time thought whole engineering stuff as ridiculous. Mainly because of advantages it gives out. For any kind of "realistic" tech it is just ridiculous. Only way it could be kind of realistic would be manufacturers selling stuff that is really really tuned down. In real technology be it engine, weapons, computers whatever yeah you can tinker and add power to certain point, usually reliable gain is quite small. Over that certain point...well reliability goes out fast. You might get 700+ HP from 1.5 liter engine, but then you get engine that might even allow you to drive about 200 km without MAJOR rebuild. You might overclock your computer to 6ghz, with liquid nitrogen cooling, but uptime goes dramatically down. You might 20% more power from rifle by loading it with very hot ammunition...it might on other hand blow on your face, or rifling is gone in 200 shots...

Something like G5 tuned ships should be sort of jury rigged things that might kick you in face suddenly and without warning. Powerplant suddenly running away or shutting down, FSD jumping you somewhere randomly or giving up ghost, weapons malfunctioning and damaging your ship. And so on.

 

[marx]

Sorry if this has been mentioned here already (catching up after a holiday and only skimming threads) but one thing I'm kinda puzzled by is from this slide they showed.

If PP 2.0 wasn't Open Only (or at least Open strongly incentivised) then putting "Destroy Enemy Commanders" front and center of the things to do seems odd given that (and I'm not a PowerPlay player so forgive me if this isn't the case) surely most other players engaging in PowerPlay in such a system would be hiding in solo or another PG?

Good catch. I do hope that's WIP that they're going to change, because there are two obvious problems here:
1. If killing other Commanders counts the most, then arranging collusion kills will be the best way to undermine.
2. It's easy to hoard exploration data, so say hello to "exploration bomber" alts.

If exploration data contributing to PP 2.0 (especially undermining) will be specific to LYR only... yikes.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Might just be placeholder text.


The issue here is that no amount of prep will let you win against a gank if you want to do hauling, you can maybe only get away and that's still a loss for both sides with time wasted.

The solution is to only let people use prebuilt ships for powerplay that are balanced into classes so PP gankers are weaker than actual gankers and traders etc are stronger than what people normally use to do BGS stuff. Everything would be perfectly balanced and people who buy or rent the better premium powerplay prebuilt ships for arx will win.

What about SCO? HW has always worked too, unless you fly into a cloud of opposition and even then organised help is on hand. The other is not gambling with lardy traders and having some speed.

One morning I went engineering with Broo and two Patty Boys chased after me and frankly it was a lot of fun, much more than simply hauling cargo in predictable quotas.

 

[DYSEQTA]

I had some thoughts regarding scoring (leaderboards).

In CMDR vs CMDR combat situations what if the score was calculated as some base amount for defeating a CMDR that is then modified based on the difference in rank between the two. So if a low rank CMDR defeats a high rank CMDR the bonus would be increased by an appropriate amount and if a high rank CMDR defeats a low rank CMDR then the score would be proportionally lower (effectively subtracting from the base score due to the difference being negative). This would naturally incentivize going after the big fish as a matter of priority and kind of discourage seal clubbing.

Also for activities where it's more about evading destruction rather than causing it I think it is equally as important to ensure appropriate scoring is applied. So say delivering exploration data is a thing then a CMDR that successfully delivers the data and evades three CMDR interdictions on the way then their score would be increased proportionally based on the ranks of the CMDRs they evaded. Therefore rewarding the skill of the CMDR in question, not just some value derived soley from the quantity of their delivered data.

 

[Rubbernuke]

all modes are treated equally.

As I've stated many times, this is not the case. Because how PP is set up with weedy NPCs its always the most efficient mode where its almost impossible to be destroyed, not unless you either fall asleep or fly an E rated biscuit tin. If anything Solo needs harder opposition.

 

[huehnerfaust]

The blocklist plus the bad instancing would cause more frustation then it is now.

I rather would like to have power play connected to cqc, via new scenarios. Instead to enque for an ffa or tdm you enlist with the power here navy. There you have to fly escort mission for merrit transports for example. Or try to intercept them, or fight against the new carrier fleet or deploy troops to ground combat zones etc. pp. There would be lots of possible scenarios where then two or more players could battle it out.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Stop flying overly engineered ships, and see then what happens.

Btw. I have for a long time thought whole engineering stuff as ridiculous. Mainly because of advantages it gives out. For any kind of "realistic" tech it is just ridiculous. Only way it could be kind of realistic would be manufacturers selling stuff that is really really tuned down. In real technology be it engine, weapons, computers whatever yeah you can tinker and add power to certain point, usually reliable gain is quite small. Over that certain point...well reliability goes out fast. You might get 700+ HP from 1.5 liter engine, but then you get engine that might even allow you to drive about 200 km without MAJOR rebuild. You might overclock your computer to 6ghz, with liquid nitrogen cooling, but uptime goes dramatically down. You might 20% more power from rifle by loading it with very hot ammunition...it might on other hand blow on your face, or rifling is gone in 200 shots...

Something like G5 tuned ships should be sort of jury rigged things that might kick you in face suddenly and without warning. Powerplant suddenly running away or shutting down, FSD jumping you somewhere randomly or giving up ghost, weapons malfunctioning and damaging your ship. And so on.

Engineering destroyed a lot of the game- C+P was another casualty where sec fly cardboard lawn darts.

 

[Rebel Yell]

who interdict me in order to ask whether I like pineapple on pizza

Do you like pineapple pizza?

 

[galahad2069]

the biggest flaw of CQC has always been that it pays terribly and doesn't matter. If they'd change that, it'd be far more popular.

How much it pays is absolutely not the biggest problem of CQC, that's just simply not true. Not even the 10th biggest one.

Organized PvP (wingfighting in rings) has always been pretty popular, and it pays literally zero. CQC, too, would be popular if it was anything resembling good.

But it's not. It's not a proper wingfight, and you can only fly a very limited selection of bad loadouts of bad ships, in a braindead, low skill 'where is the powerup' scenario.
It's an entirely separate game and it is not even remotely comparable to the live game where you can fly actually good builds.

 

[Jack Winter]

Given that FD seem to be making life easier and more combat friendly (IIRC there was a comment on one of the rewards in V2 being free rebuys) it really comes down to changing block lists to block / filter language since player conflict is then expected.

You'd have to make it so wings of unpledged inherit pledged rules though. It might actually help the P2P code given its screwed up by trying to mesh lists.

They could conceivably disable block lists for pledged players? But that won't change the situation with dodgy instancing, time zones, mode switching and/or playing tricks with the networking.