How do you think FDev will prevent collusion exploit in PvP scoring for powerplay 2.0?

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

It's well known that letting PvP actions score points in a game is potentially prone to exploits. In powerplay 2.0, will unscrupulous Cmdrs just kill their alts/friends pledged to the enemy power over and over in stronghold carrier instances to score points? No - of course FDev will design that out! But if they are going to implement PvP "points" having an affect on powerplay how do you think they have decided to deal with this? These are the viable options I can think of - have I missed any out?

1. Rapidly diminishing returns for killing the same Cmdr repeatedly in a given day/cycle.

2. Missions require killing Cmdrs from a specific finite list of enemy pledges - your alt/friend may not be on that list even if pledged to the enemy power. If everyone goes and has a big fight then points will be scored, but players won't control which kills count.

3. Tie the weight of the PvP points to a PvE task - so I have to do a balanced proportion of both in the same interval to get a good score.

4. PvP points will only be scored by players in open play who have no blocks against players currently in-system.

5. There will be more efficient ways of scoring PP points than PvP kill-farming. I.e. PvP points are a small bonus that partially compensates those that dutifully switch to a PvP role to protect the PvE point-scorers.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

If enemy CMDRs are worth the same points as NPCs then by the time your colluding friend has paid their rebuy and made it back to the instance you could have killed many NPCs.

It's only an issue is CMDRs are worth more for some reason.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

If enemy CMDRs are worth the same points as NPCs then by the time your colluding friend has paid their rebuy and made it back to the instance you could have killed many NPCs.

It's only an issue is CMDRs are worth more for some reason.

It seems the PP open only crowd has somehow now forgotten that NPCs and PvE exist. They have made it up in their head that PP will become completely PvP focused. Which it will not.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

It seems the PP open only crowd has somehow now forgotten that NPCs and PvE exist. They have made it up in their head that PP will become completely PvP focused. Which it will not.

The feature won't be purely PvP focused by any means. Naturally in open play PvP always remains a threat, but its underpinning is PvE. In fact that's how "organic" PvP emerges - you pursue a goal and other players try to physically stop you. So I'm reading that you'd be happy for an exploit that was admitted due to a strand of PP2.0 bringing in a direct PvP influence on outcomes to remain in the game and potentially overwhelm the other factors?

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

If enemy CMDRs are worth the same points as NPCs then by the time your colluding friend has paid their rebuy and made it back to the instance you could have killed many NPCs.

It's only an issue is CMDRs are worth more for some reason.

So that suggests option 5. Or option 5 becomes a quick fix if it's recognised as a problem.

It will, of course, be recognised as a problem if it becomes one. One assumes.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I don't think it will be prevented. There'll be maybe disincentives.

 

[Rebel Yell]

I didn't have made an opinion/idea about it... I'd say that a combination of various options may be required i.e. the 1) with "zero impact" killing same CMDR in same cycle, coupled with the amount of "merits/rank" of such CMDR (so low level/puppet alts will not work) etc.

Is that exploitable? Yes

Frankly, I wouldn't care... we'll play our game and keep Kumo booting/taking the blood when someone makes unfair things or exploits game features.

Keep clean our "home" is among our duties... as we did with ghosters, zombies, loggers, 5Cers etc etc

 

[Rubbernuke]

It's well known that letting PvP actions score points in a game is potentially prone to exploits. In powerplay 2.0, will unscrupulous Cmdrs just kill their alts/friends pledged to the enemy power over and over in stronghold carrier instances to score points? No - of course FDev will design that out! But if they are going to implement PvP "points" having an affect on powerplay how do you think they have decided to deal with this? These are the viable options I can think of - have I missed any out?

1. Rapidly diminishing returns for killing the same Cmdr repeatedly in a given day/cycle.

2. Missions require killing Cmdrs from a specific finite list of enemy pledges - your alt/friend may not be on that list even if pledged to the enemy power. If everyone goes and has a big fight then points will be scored, but players won't control which kills count.

3. Tie the weight of the PvP points to a PvE task - so I have to do a balanced proportion of both in the same interval to get a good score.

4. PvP points will only be scored by players in open play who have no blocks against players currently in-system.

5. There will be more efficient ways of scoring PP points than PvP kill-farming. I.e. PvP points are a small bonus that partially compensates those that dutifully switch to a PvP role to protect the PvE point-scorers.

In my head the 'value' of the kill would be based on the victims effort that cycle- so an alt who is just a punching bag has no value destroyed but someone who has done work for the power will register.

This means any alt would have to do work for the power to count, which nullifies the exploit because in theory they cancel each other out.

This could also be tuned with an s curve which would further cut out low end alts with little value.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Frankly, you guys are way to paranoid about who is going to "cheat" you how and "exploit" any loopholes of some made up rules.

Just play the damn game.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Frqnkly, you guys are way to paranoid about who is going to "cheat" you how and "exploit" any loopholes of some made up rules.

Just play the damn game.

There is no harm in making things as robust as possible.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

There is no harm in making things as robust as possible.

There is making things robust, and there is seeing cheaters and exploiters everywhere.

 

[Rainbro]

Frankly, you guys are way to paranoid about who is going to "cheat" you how and "exploit" any loopholes of some made up rules.

Just play the damn game.

Tell that to the people who argue against Open because you can "just" exploit firewall settings/buy a VPN in Antartica or whatever. Obviously Frontier could never do something about exploiters, so better just give them an ingame button to do the same thing

 

[Weps]

They have made it up in their head that PP will become completely PvP focused. Which it will not.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the stream but even I seem to remember an activity in a screenshot, which was phrased something like “kill enemy commanders”. CMDRs is the designation for player characters IIRC, so it may be that FDEV have designed a PvP only activity. Or they just didn’t care about the wording.

Either way, I think it’s a topic worth discussing.

 

[Aris Tarkus]

I didn’t pay too much attention to the stream but even I seem to remember an activity in a screenshot, which was phrased something like “kill enemy commanders”. CMDRs is the designation for player characters IIRC, so it may be that FDEV have designed a PvP only activity. Or they just didn’t care about the wording.

Either way, I think it’s a topic worth discussing.

I actually interpreted that as kill commanders supporting other powers. Could be PC or NPC.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Frankly, you guys are way to paranoid about who is going to "cheat" you how and "exploit" any loopholes of some made up rules.

Just play the damn game.

That's what we do

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Frankly, you guys are way to paranoid about who is going to "cheat" you how and "exploit" any loopholes of some made up rules.

Just play the damn game.

So I take that as a "no I don't care" . If you'd engaged in powerplay (as a power supporter) at all over the last few years you'd know how bad things have been - unfixed - for those years. You also might care. But it's weird you have such a strong opinion on it - particularly that it should not be discussed - for someone who doesn't care, too.

 

[SlickPBW]

My opinion is that there should be increased advantages for doing PP 2.0 in open. Balancing would be difficult, and of course they won’t please everyone. The ideal goal would be to balance the risk, rewards, and fun of playing PP in open, while not making it mandatory, but making it desirable. Actually, if/when this is achieved, it could be implemented in the rest of the game.

An off-the-cuff example would be balancing a Solo player trading in a shieldless Cutter, with an Open player trading in open with an appropriately outfitted ship. The open player would obviously have less cargo space so the balancing should make it slightly more advantageous to do this in open. Both the effects to the Powers and benefits to the player should be high enough to make it desirable to play in open, but not prohibitive to play in solo. Balancing certainly would be highly debated, but one of my old bosses used to jokingly say:

“Since we can’t please everyone, when everyone is equally unhappy, it’s as good as it’s going to get.”

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

My opinion is that there should be increased advantages for doing PP 2.0 in open. Balancing would be difficult, and of course they won’t please everyone. The ideal goal would be to balance the risk, rewards, and fun of playing PP in open, while not making it mandatory, but making it desirable. Actually, if/when this is achieved, it could be implemented in the rest of the game.

An off-the-cuff example would be balancing a Solo player trading in a shieldless Cutter, with an Open player trading in open with an appropriately outfitted ship. The open player would obviously have less cargo space so the balancing should make it slightly more advantageous to do this in open. Both the effects to the Powers and benefits to the player should be high enough to make it desirable to play in open, but not prohibitive to play in solo. Balancing certainly would be highly debated, but one of my old bosses used to jokingly say:

“Since we can’t please everyone, when everyone is equally unhappy, it’s as good as it’s going to get.”

I broadly agree but this isn't really a thread about that. It's specifically about the dangers of introducing a direct impact on the game universe for completing a PvP encounter, and how we think FDev will mitigate them. They likely already have a design for this but I'm curious what people think it will be, and if in discussing it we might somehow help refine it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The other approach would be to not have Open provide any advantage to the power, but instead have immense rewards personally.

So you could have aces in hauling, hunting etc and each level has a reward, but also your bounty goes higher until its claimed.

In this way it means you are gambling against like minded people and reaping the rewards.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

In my head the 'value' of the kill would be based on the victims effort that cycle- so an alt who is just a punching bag has no value destroyed but someone who has done work for the power will register.

This means any alt would have to do work for the power to count, which nullifies the exploit because in theory they cancel each other out.

This could also be tuned with an s curve which would further cut out low end alts with little value.

Seems a little arbitrary but probably could have some head canon to it. The s curve would also limit how much even the hardest working Cmdr was worth. You'd want to limit the ability to "do work where it doesn't matter" to store up a "snipe" that could be enacted to create a sudden surprise attack.