Open-Only in PP2.0?

[Jockey79]

Many would argue that both the developer's conceptualization of Power Play and it's implementation violate all sorts of things.

No, "many" wouldn't argue it, it's their game and their choice.
No one is forcing you to stick around and play it, if it's so bad it "violates" your sense of fair play.

No one is arguing that the use of the mode system in Power Play is unintended or against rules, just that it's varying degrees of problematic and undesirable. The entire premise of this thread, and all others like it, is that there is at least the possibility of something better than what is.

Actually, some have argued "unintended" and "problematic and undesirable" effects of the mode system (all being no soft targets).
When in reality, the only problem those people really have is it wasn't made for constant "pew pew" (CQC was though).
You do not need any PvP in PP to do PP, it is optional.

"better" is subjective, I think turning off all PvP in game would be a massive improvement to Elite and to Open Mode.

 

[Rubbernuke]

No, "many" wouldn't argue it, it's their game and their choice.
No one is forcing you to stick around and play it, if it's so bad it "violates" your sense of fair play.



Actually, some have argued "unintended" and "problematic and undesirable" effects of the mode system (all being no soft targets).
When in reality, the only problem those people really have is it wasn't made for constant "pew pew" (CQC was though).
You do not need any PvP in PP to do PP, it is optional.

"better" is subjective, I think turning off all PvP in game would be a massive improvement to Elite and to Open Mode.

Well it goes back to the old chestnut of having vast territories that are either patrolled by paper plane NPCs or F-22 players- its not consistent for a feature that has a strategy layer that requires opposition. In this way V1s solution was to simply make it all one mode, V2 mixes up where free ranging NPCs and players meet (since in V1 its only really in SC)- so hopefully that will be enough.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

I'm not sure how much you are aware of the early development, but the game was supposed to come with a single-player offline mode and it wasn't designed as an MMO at all. It was supposed to be just a standard multiplayer game, hence the instancing (at the time, without any tricks being used) would settle around 4 to 8 players if they all had really good connections.

Even then, they shipped the game with certain networking options turned off. This led to people live-streaming the fact there were loads of folks all in one system and not a single player could see another single player - at all. (it was hilarious tbh)

But Frontier did admit the networking choice was (in part) to keep the costs down, as a server-client config would require someone to constantly pay for it.
So I wouldn't call them "naive" at all. Misguided maybe, as they knew what they were doing. But they were not unaware of the consequences of the choice.

See this right here, you're dismissing a quote from David Braben, at the time the CEO of Frontier while name-dropping Sandro a middle manger Dev.
Sandro's comments were just as much throw-away comments, as he even said himself on a live stream after everyone got worked up about OOPP.
In the stream, he clearly pointed out nothing was in the works regarding it and then refused to discuss the topic further.

You cannot keep picking and choosing what quotes you accept and which ones to ignore.

TBH at this point in time I'm just sick of all the people banging on about the mode system.

However Frontier has always promoted the ability to opt in/out of the game's content. So where you got "not keen on", unless it was a typo?

The clan names may have changed, but a fair few of the player names are the same. And it's the same argument over and over.
It just gets moved from one aspect of the game to another, BGS, CZ, CG, PP.

People knowingly bought the feature for the reason of complaining about it.

Using the mode system doesn't "violate" anything at all - it was an advertised feature and the Devs said it was a perfectly valid way to play the content.
You can directly oppose people via the game mechanics, which doesn't require a G5 murder boat.

The fact you are an "open-only" player however is your choice. No one is forcing that on you.
If it is "riskier" for you, then you are choosing to partake in it - for your own personal reasons.

That does not give you the right to mess with other people's choices or game time.

I'd also point out that when I've been in PG's with other players, they tend to fly slower / more casually. The AI are no issue after all.
So I don't think people are zipping from A to B in a hurry (for any reason), the allure of Solo/PG's is you can play at your own pace, not someone else's.
When I am hauling in PP (which isn't very often anymore, granted) in my mate's PG, I'm not rushing around like a headless chicken. So I doubt many others are, a few maybe, but not enough to cause some major game imbalance - I think that's just a PvP boogie man.

As for Sandro and the flash topics - at the time, his boss said no, and his boss's boss said no. They were both around before him and long after him.
It's 2024 now, time to move on from an outdated and irrelevant topic from 2018 that his superiors already stopped.
If someone from Frontier, post COVID wants to throw some information our way (part from PP2.0 isn't going to be OO at launch - a somewhat vauge throw away comment), I'm all ears.

Couple of things (as the browser I'm using won't let me break things into multi quotes)

Firstly, the "More Players are in Open" thing was a quotation from a Sandro Youtube video back in 2018, and is vague enough to be open to interpretation, which is why I wouldn't rely on it for anything, (for example, technically if 33.34% of players solely used open, it would be true), and there are just too many variables to be played with from such a statement to really use it for anything in terms of discussion points. I am not picking and selectively dismissing the quotation to suit my outlook, rhetoric or agenda (which ironically I would add, with your carefully curated wall of selective quotations you often do), merely highlighting that it is such a vague statement without any context, so it can't be used to substantiate anything or used as a cornerstone of a talking point, something I am fairly sure that if I was saying the exact same thing a few years back in a heavy debate with the few actual ganker types who posted here then who were using it as a basis for their arguments, you'd be spamming the like button on my post and backslapping me heartily for the stance.

Secondly, I feel you're going into full on entrenched 'whatever Haulerman says must be wrong' mode, as what I'm saying is regarding your desire to see PP shuffled off to its own server detached from everything else, that FDEV would probably be reluctant to do that seen as they integrate all of the various mechanics they implement into the same shared universe as best they can. Remember, even CQC is connected to the galaxy in a very limited manner.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

I'm not sure how much you are aware of the early development, but the game was supposed to come with a single-player offline mode and it wasn't designed as an MMO at all. It was supposed to be just a standard multiplayer game, hence the instancing (at the time, without any tricks being used) would settle around 4 to 8 players if they all had really good connections.

Even then, they shipped the game with certain networking options turned off. This led to people live-streaming the fact there were loads of folks all in one system and not a single player could see another single player - at all. (it was hilarious tbh)

But Frontier did admit the networking choice was (in part) to keep the costs down, as a server-client config would require someone to constantly pay for it.
So I wouldn't call them "naive" at all. Misguided maybe, as they knew what they were doing. But they were not unaware of the consequences of the choice.

See this right here, you're dismissing a quote from David Braben, at the time the CEO of Frontier while name-dropping Sandro a middle manger Dev.
Sandro's comments were just as much throw-away comments, as he even said himself on a live stream after everyone got worked up about OOPP.
In the stream, he clearly pointed out nothing was in the works regarding it and then refused to discuss the topic further.

You cannot keep picking and choosing what quotes you accept and which ones to ignore.

TBH at this point in time I'm just sick of all the people banging on about the mode system.

However Frontier has always promoted the ability to opt in/out of the game's content. So where you got "not keen on", unless it was a typo?

The clan names may have changed, but a fair few of the player names are the same. And it's the same argument over and over.
It just gets moved from one aspect of the game to another, BGS, CZ, CG, PP.

People knowingly bought the feature for the reason of complaining about it.

Using the mode system doesn't "violate" anything at all - it was an advertised feature and the Devs said it was a perfectly valid way to play the content.
You can directly oppose people via the game mechanics, which doesn't require a G5 murder boat.

The fact you are an "open-only" player however is your choice. No one is forcing that on you.
If it is "riskier" for you, then you are choosing to partake in it - for your own personal reasons.

That does not give you the right to mess with other people's choices or game time.

I'd also point out that when I've been in PG's with other players, they tend to fly slower / more casually. The AI are no issue after all.
So I don't think people are zipping from A to B in a hurry (for any reason), the allure of Solo/PG's is you can play at your own pace, not someone else's.
When I am hauling in PP (which isn't very often anymore, granted) in my mate's PG, I'm not rushing around like a headless chicken. So I doubt many others are, a few maybe, but not enough to cause some major game imbalance - I think that's just a PvP boogie man.

As for Sandro and the flash topics - at the time, his boss said no, and his boss's boss said no. They were both around before him and long after him.
It's 2024 now, time to move on from an outdated and irrelevant topic from 2018 that his superiors already stopped.
If someone from Frontier, post COVID wants to throw some information our way (part from PP2.0 isn't going to be OO at launch - a somewhat vauge throw away comment), I'm all ears.

Couple of things (as the browser I'm using won't let me break things into multi quotes)

Firstly, the "More Players are in Open" thing was a quotation from a Sandro Youtube video back in 2018, and is vague enough to be open to interpretation, which is why I wouldn't rely on it for anything, (for example, technically if 33.34% of players solely used open, it would be true), and there are just too many variables to be played with from such a statement to really use it for anything in terms of discussion points. I am not picking and selectively dismissing the quotation to suit my outlook, rhetoric or agenda (which ironically I would add, with your carefully curated wall of selective quotations you often do), merely highlighting that it is such a vague statement without any context, so it can't be used to substantiate anything or used as a cornerstone of a talking point, something I am fairly sure that if I was saying the exact same thing a few years back in a heavy debate with the few actual ganker types who posted here then who were using it as a basis for their arguments, you'd be spamming the like button on my post and backslapping me heartily for the stance.

Secondly, I feel you're going into full on entrenched 'whatever Haulerman says must be wrong' mode, as what I'm saying is regarding your desire to see PP shuffled off to its own server detached from everything else, that FDEV would probably be reluctant to do that seen as they integrate all of the various mechanics they implement into the same shared universe as best they can. Remember, even CQC is connected to the galaxy in a very limited manner.

 

[Darkfyre99]

A lot of powers simply don't fortify unless they have to- depending on how much CC they have they can do the bare minimum.... sometimes 5C do it for them on occasion to get certain places to drop. And remember this is also in addition to open ended prepping races that go on which dump massive amounts of merits, or expansions that eat up time. Many powers in deficit fortify as well to gain CC because if they don't its turmoil.

Seems kind of odd to me. Both Arissa and Aisling still have a fortification first strategy to the best of my knowledge, and a BGS strategy that minimizes Fortification costs.

peeks at Aisling’s fortification goals

Yep, everything is fortified well in advance of the tick.

Many people over the years had programs to automate the 30 minute merit allocation- they'd wake up and haul what they had and fast track the rest.

And any decent MMO team would’ve banned such obvious use of automation!

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

And any decent MMO team would’ve banned such obvious use of automation!

Important to rembere as well is that they tacitly endorsed that kind of automation when back in early game times, Devs would happily sit on and in streams or podcasts where folk talked about making various bits of automation, such as the old 'Selling Pages of Exploration Data' tool that was doing the rounds at release, and for a fair while.

 

[Jockey79]

Couple of things (as the browser I'm using won't let me break things into multi quotes)

No worries, I hate using my mobile to post as I find it awkward.
I'll try to keep things simple so it's easier for you to respond and not do my normal breakdown.

Firstly, the "More Players are in Open" thing was a quotation from a Sandro Youtube video back in 2018, and is vague enough to be open to interpretation, which is why I wouldn't rely on it for anything, (for example, technically if 33.34% of players solely used open, it would be true), and there are just too many variables to be played with from such a statement to really use it for anything in terms of discussion points. I am not picking and selectively dismissing the quotation to suit my outlook, rhetoric or agenda (which ironically I would add, with your carefully curated wall of selective quotations you often do), merely highlighting that it is such a vague statement without any context, so it can't be used to substantiate anything or used as a cornerstone of a talking point, something I am fairly sure that if I was saying the exact same thing a few years back in a heavy debate with the few actual ganker types who posted here then who were using it as a basis for their arguments, you'd be spamming the like button on my post and backslapping me heartily for the stance.

Secondly, I feel you're going into full on entrenched 'whatever Haulerman says must be wrong' mode, as what I'm saying is regarding your desire to see PP shuffled off to its own server detached from everything else, that FDEV would probably be reluctant to do that seen as they integrate all of the various mechanics they implement into the same shared universe as best they can. Remember, even CQC is connected to the galaxy in a very limited manner.

I'll take this in reverse order;

[1]
I'm sorry I've given you the impression that I'm entrenched against you personally. I assure you I'm not, you've been one of the most level-headed people I've seen for a while. What I am entrenched against is meddling with the mode system or weighting a mode based on the fact someone makes a personal choice to play Open.
I could make the same argument PG and Open can have wings, so Solo should get a special bonus - the whole idea is ridiculous.

[2]
As for PP going into its own mode suggestion, for the most part (75%) it's me being facetious. While I wouldn't honestly expect it to happen, I wouldn't be upset if it did.

[3]
And for the quotes, if someone could guarantee I'll never see "but Sandro said" ever again (while somehow forgetting he recanted), I'd be happy to forget the WoI exists.
That wall of quotes was not only a nightmare to maintain when it was current information, but I've started tracking the post to fix the links and OMG is it tedious.

[4]
We are in a post-COVID world, Sandro is on another project, Michael Brookes is doing something else now, and David Braben OBE isn't the CEO any more.
If people want to keep the discussions on up-to-date information, then I'm happy to do that.

[I've numbered the sections, I hope that helps - so you can just start with a number corresponding the section you want to refer to?]

!! Edit: I was unaware of what happened to Michael Brookes at the time I wrote this post, it deeply saddens me to know he is gone, he was a great guy and a great Dev.
I apologise to anyone who may have been affected by me bringing his name up. I'll leave the original post untouched, as it was an honest mistake and I don't want people to think I've been underhandly editing my posts !!

 

[Darrack]

However I hated the quiche.

We upgraded our canteen

O7

 

[Rebel Yell]

We upgraded our canteen

O7

We got rum!

 

[Darrack]

We got rum!

We got hot chocolate!
PP2.0 is your chance its a free transfer!

O7

 

[Morbad]

No, "many" wouldn't argue it, it's their game and their choice.

Anyone that would do something differently disagrees with at least some of Frontier's choices, and I'd wager that's just about everyone. This is so completely self-evident that I'm not really sure where the disagreement could even be.

Maybe 'violate' doesn't mean what you think it means?

 

[Rubbernuke]

We got rum!

The thing is being brutally honest, Utopia lost its USP as the crazy gang. In the early years it would do silly stuff that pushed the 'what the fudge' buttons with players and devs.

For example expanding to Maia, almost Sothis, Takarururururua (or however its spelt), Peregrina, almost finding out what happens when Utopia 'owns' Jaques Station when it jumps. We'd be getting DMs from devs asking what was going on and if we had found some bug. Only very occasionally would it get angry and start hitting stuff, and once it had flipped every system Pranav positive it was coasting- all in a game about screwing over others and being as gittish as possible.

The issue with PP is that it has twelve powers with only a few really being what players 'know'- if it were Fed, Alliance and Imp, which is the reason why those are the largest.

 

[Arioch]

peeks at Aisling’s fortification goals

Utter. Filth.

 

[Jockey79]

Anyone that would do something differently disagrees with at least some of Frontier's choices, and I'd wager that's just about everyone. This is so completely self-evident that I'm not really sure where the disagreement could even be.

Maybe 'violate' doesn't mean what you think it means?

Disagreeing with Frontiers choices is fine, it still doesn't "violate" anything, however.

Glad to see you went straight to someone else being wrong without even considering you are the one using the word incorrectly;

Frontier made Power Play to work within the advertised "Play your own way" / "Experience the alone in Solo or across the connected galaxy" and "We have the concept of groups.... players will start in the all group, but can change at will".

Changing content to be locked or weighted to a single mode, would "violate" the advertised product I and everyone else paid to play.

 

[Rubbernuke]

*

Seems kind of odd to me. Both Arissa and Aisling still have a fortification first strategy to the best of my knowledge, and a BGS strategy that minimizes Fortification costs.

peeks at Aisling’s fortification goals

Yep, everything is fortified well in advance of the tick.

Thats just how it is with some powers that are combative in Powerplay, because if they don't groups like FUC will catch them out. But its not the only way to do things- if you scout well enough you can easily see when someone is UMing you for a snipe (via station reports) allowing you to do other things (such as UMing). If you see a problem building you then fortify, if not, you don't. And for ages Aisling had to fortify because it was in deficit IIRC, and that every weaponsied expansion forced powers to fortify to pay the lost CC.

EDIT: for completeness sometimes overforting causes issues too- such as 5C. An abundance of CC makes expansions easier and if you are not in control of your vote 5C will prep like crazy.

In the past too it would go that other powers would watch and wait to see if others stopped or lesened fortification allowing for a snipe window in a game of endurance.

All powers do BGS work, its been like that for years (my old power was the first to flip everything and it made fortification far easier).

And any decent MMO team would’ve banned such obvious use of automation!

Any decent design would have not time gated it to begin with, or get players to buy the cargo to move.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well it goes back to the old chestnut of having vast territories that are either patrolled by paper plane NPCs or F-22 players- its not consistent for a feature that has a strategy layer that requires opposition. In this way V1s solution was to simply make it all one mode, V2 mixes up where free ranging NPCs and players meet (since in V1 its only really in SC)- so hopefully that will be enough.

As territories grow bigger, then supporters will be spread thinner, so i see your point about wanting stronger Power NPCs to offset that.

It does have to be done right though and well balanced. If all NPCs are flying the equivalent of gankmobiles, then that will just turn a lot of players off. Nothing more boring than plinking away at something with a bajillion HP/shields and a ton of SCBs.

Its one reason i don't bother with High CZs any more. I can clear like 3 medium or low CZs in the time it takes me to clear a high, simply because of the insane HP of ships you get in High CZs, along with the "event" NPCs such as correspondents or captains. And don't get me started on Pythons in High CZs.... those things have a ton of SCBs that they constantly use.

 

[Rubbernuke]

As territories grow bigger, then supporters will be spread thinner, so i see your point about wanting stronger Power NPCs to offset that.

It does have to be done right though and well balanced. If all NPCs are flying the equivalent of gankmobiles, then that will just turn a lot of players off. Nothing more boring than plinking away at something with a bajillion HP/shields and a ton of SCBs.

Its one reason i don't bother with High CZs any more. I can clear like 3 medium or low CZs in the time it takes me to clear a high, simply because of the insane HP of ships you get in High CZs, along with the "event" NPCs such as correspondents or captains. And don't get me started on Pythons in High CZs.... those things have a ton of SCBs that they constantly use.

We will have to see how thin or thick it gets, mainly as V2 goes from V1s rigid control / exploited bubble to bubbles you can make as tough or as vulnerable as you like.

My worry is that it will be too easy to make everything a stronghold, which then makes it very much like V1s static situation.

If all NPCs are flying the equivalent of gankmobiles, then that will just turn a lot of players off. Nothing more boring than plinking away at something with a bajillion HP/shields and a ton of SCBs.

This is very true- what V1 got wrong was you had squishy NPCs for merit gathering (like in PP CZs) but the same squishy ones outside too where they need to be scary.

 

[Morbad]

Disagreeing with Frontiers choices is fine, it still doesn't "violate" anything, however.

Glad to see you went straight to someone else being wrong without even considering you are the one using the word incorrectly;
View attachment 403558

Frontier made Power Play to work within the advertised "Play your own way" / "Experience the alone in Solo or across the connected galaxy" and "We have the concept of groups.... players will start in the all group, but can change at will".

Changing content to be locked or weighted to a single mode, would "violate" the advertised product I and everyone else paid to play.

I didn't use the word incorrectly. You are apparently unable to apply the definition you just cited in any but the most obtuse way and are violating my assessment of your reading comprehension abilities in the process.

The simple fact that someone disagrees with Frontier's choices might mean those choices violate their expectations; it pretty much always means it violates their wishes, desires, or ideal vision for the game. You can break, infringe, and/or contravene any of these things simply with a difference of opinion. This is an entirely legitimate use of the word violate, a word which does not need to have whatever connotations you've assigned to it.

Personally, I think the most flagrant violation of Power Play, as it currently functions, is with regard to the premise that all modes are equal. Applying the same mechanisms to all modes equally has long a source of inequality between them, because there are implicit advantages and disadvantages to each mode. Some sort of incentive or content bias could create balance.

It does have to be done right though and well balanced. If all NPCs are flying the equivalent of gankmobiles, then that will just turn a lot of players off. Nothing more boring than plinking away at something with a bajillion HP/shields and a ton of SCBs.

That's a problem with the combat mechanisms, not the NPCs. Poor NPC quality should not be used to mask underlying balance issues.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

That's a problem with the combat mechanisms, not the NPCs. Poor NPC quality should not be used to mask underlying balance issues.

I wouldn't say the mechanisms. The core flight mechanics are good. It was the HP inflation that started with SCBs, SBs, HRPs, and was then dialed up to 9000 with engineering.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I wouldn't say the mechanisms. The core flight mechanics are good. It was the HP inflation that started with SCBs, SBs, HRPs, and was then dialed up to 9000 with engineering.

The issues really stem from PvE weakness inherited from the wider game.

For example in Powerplay the only places players and NPCs really mix in an emergent way is SC. You do have NAVs and CZs but these are really forced merit collecting zones which really would suffer with chonky NPCs. Hauling in PvE (in PP) is very empty.

Players take off in safety, fly in safety (since NPC interdiction evasion is easy) and drop down into a stations protection making all NPC pursuers break off (or drop through stations).

In this case having beefy NPCs would not help, whats needed is to change how NPCs interact with players and wider PvE that V2 has should help this. The danger is though that PP hauling still exists in V2 as well (in certain phases IIRC such as UM) so it will be interesting to see how things shake out.