Well, what we're seeing is a number of player groups (which may or may not also be Factions) making an interpretation of a Power's Ethos (which may or may not be the intended one, and may or may not match the one that is written on the screen in front of them) and then going out into the Galaxy and throwing their weight around.
I'm honestly not sure the weightings brought to bear by the Ethos system actually, um, outweigh, the "weightings" brought by the number of players in any given Discord or what have you, and all these cross-Power Alliances are something you'd naturally expect to see in a political system, but again, they probably outweigh anything in the game mechanic.
And of course some PP activities are STILL nerfed and of course shooting shizzle still seems to be the way if you are a large player group. So I think PP 2.0 is much much better brain candy but I ain't convinced there is an ultimate aim, or if there is, it's not actually present in the as-implemented system here in late December 3310.
Yeah that's 100% accurate.
Its really a question on a higher level (concept wise) and one that honestly (shockingly) PP1 did better in that you have bonuses for being in the top 3, and that (conceptually) penalties for being in the bottom 3. PP2 does not have anything driving conflict at all that would break power blocs.
Then the KALE alliance is yet another manifested problem.
Mechanically it kind of tries. To be fair.
For example: I (Kaine) cannot assist a friend (Mahon) reinforcing his stuff.
Not directly.
Sure I could fill a carrier for them to use. I could undermine their enemies etc..
I can perform indirect assistance like recon etc.
But powers cannot directly assist each other anymore.
This bleeds badly into BGS now, hence a lot of EKs concerns .
BGS however is of course a whole different can of worms, given how badly PP2.0 broke it.
But do you forcibly take Mahons systems? As in, do you attack without warning?
That explains why we are all Green...
And as we know, it's not easy being green...
Yes. Kaine And Loving Edmond.
Nope. But within the Alliance Green on Green is a Taboo.
Do Archer forcibly take Winters?
That simply not true though. It's just people being opportunistic and trying to still claim the moral high ground. All the other powers are aligned on the outer rim of the bubble, surrounding the Federation. Most can't even touch each other or are even superpower-aligned. So everyone is going the easy route and attack inwards towards the Federation because they are probably too busy to defend on all sides to defend a system somebody else might try to take.
In lore the Federation would have been the biggest Power with the strongest military force. In PP it's just the biggest target with a fraction of the player support.
People said it would be funny if AD got Sol, I think it would be funnier if they failed, after they've been pretty much been gifted a penalty by the ref.
This is exactly my problem with the system- blocs exist. ZYADA, FUC and KALE should have told FD to simply make one Imperial, Federal and Alliance power because the separate powers don't fight between themselves as they should. In PP1 it led to puppet weaponized powers, in PP2 its made separate powers pointless.
With Sol, you guys really do have my sympathy. I mean that.
I firmly and truly believe it to be an Fdev mechanics test for the next inevitable wave of bugs.
The rest is just your perspective.
I wouldn't call what we are doing opportunistic, rather we have reasons for doing it. You don't agree with those reasons which is fine. Therefore conflict.
Which is also fine and you know what? Actually intended in the game!
Perhaps.
Certainly we Alliance types enjoyed Mahon being our only superpower representation. That's exactly why Old Ed rose to the top.
And its why all other powers should be attacking Mahon to knock him off, or that ALD puts her mouthy blue goblin cousin in her place.
Because if you are not doing that, whats the point of having power leaders, or powers for that matter?
And that's an opinion that is frequently voiced by many.
With Mahon it's a longstanding code of "Green on Green is forbidden".
That's just how the Alliance is.
All else, at least from EKs point of view is "direct problems first". We only have one direct problem.