Prismatics must be taken out of the PP ranking system modules and become a standard module

[tolm]

Agree. I've done PP somewhat casual in the grand scheme of things (maybe one or two hours per week on average, mostly doing weeklies or going core mining), and I just got rank 91 and access to everything but the mining lance, which I should unlock this weekend. Remind me, 12 modules times four weeks is how long... I forgot. I got prismatics somewhere in the 80s from Kaine; choose your power wisely if you are after a specific module, but in general, it's not exactly hard anymore.

You’re doing better than me … I started doing that, got frustrated with the slow progress and bailed for a few months.

Logged in today to see if any balancing had happened / rares were working again … nope … FDev too distracted but the new shiny colonisation, I guess.

I did 3 / 5 weeklies and got one rank. Spent a least an hour just trying to do the “kill any rival power ship in an undermining system” because they don’t mean any power, they mean the controlling power … clear as ever! Not helped by that fact that none of the opposing power ships were marked as “enemy” and even if I waited for them to fire first I was still getting bounties against me which I then had to clear. No Notoreity, though …

I actually think I would have made more progress just collecting all of the wreckage components, black boxes, etc that were lying about in the dozens of signal sources I was searching for the right “any” power ships … but sadly my combat ship wasn’t equipped for such salvage operations.

I kitted out my Corvette for mass salvaging now so might take that out later and see how I get on.

 

[tolm]

P.S. For rank 34, you need roughly 260k merits. For the weekly tasks you get between 2000 and 3600 merits per task. With five tasks per week you can easily make 15k merits per week doing just the weeklies. And doing an hour of core mining made me up to 40k merits per load. Which means about 17 weeks if you only do the weeklies to gain rank 34. Is it instant? No. Is it a grind? Hardly. Except if all you care for is one aspect of the game and despise all other activities. Then you're crap out of luck.

Sorry, but 17 weeks to get the FIRST module absolutely sounds like a grind to me.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You’re doing better than me … I started doing that, got frustrated with the slow progress and bailed for a few months.

Logged in today to see if any balancing had happened / rares were working again … nope … FDev too distracted but the new shiny colonisation, I guess.

I did 3 / 5 weeklies and got one rank. Spent a least an hour just trying to do the “kill any rival power ship in an undermining system” because they don’t mean any power, they mean the controlling power … clear as ever! Not helped by that fact that none of the opposing power ships were marked as “enemy” and even if I waited for them to fire first I was still getting bounties against me which I then had to clear. No Notoreity, though …

I actually think I would have made more progress just collecting all of the wreckage components, black boxes, etc that were lying about in the dozens of signal sources I was searching for the right “any” power ships … but sadly my combat ship wasn’t equipped for such salvage operations.

I kitted out my Corvette for mass salvaging now so might take that out later and see how I get on.

First of all, the weeklies are raised to ten when you reach some rank in the 40s, to that makes them even more efficient. Sure, there's always one you can't or don't want to finish, but all in all the weeklies are a good start.

Sorry, but 17 weeks to get the FIRST module absolutely sounds like a grind to me.

17 weeks if you only do the weeklies. First: 17 is clearly not 30, as stated above, second: Powerplay was released on the 22. of October. I looked at my notes, I made Rank 36 on the 27. of November, and I took a break of a week and a half from the game in that time.

Am I lucky that my favorite activity, core mining, is one of the more efficient methods of raink progress? Maybe. But still, OP's claims of "grind" are full of hyperbole. If all you care for is PvP, then you might have a problem. But then again, ED is not a PvP centric game, so engaging in other activities might be seens as mandatory.

 

[BDelacroix]

You all are aware that you can get points for more than just the weekly tasks no?

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You all are aware that you can get points for more than just the weekly tasks no?

I am

 

[tolm]

You all are aware that you can get points for more than just the weekly tasks no?

Of course. 3 merits per ship scanned, 12 merits per billboard hacked, that sort of thing …

I can’t remember if you get merits for bounty hunting but if you do, I don’t recall it being very efficient. Which is a shame as that’s what I enjoy (and tend to do) most of.

Rares trading was moderately decent before they decided to disable it for reasons that escape me given people are still earning obscene numbers of merits from other means.

Likewise escape pod gathering so now only 1/2 the stuff you can gather at salvage sites count.

Large volume trading and mining ain’t my thing but I assume that’s what everyone who’s making 1 million+ merits per cycle is doing non-stop.

 

[KRISXR]

I had no clue about the mechanics when I started PP, I am still in the noob realm of its mechanics. I got to level 70 something when prismatics unlock in 3 weeks. I was doing alot of bounty hunting then from a stronghold system and cleaning up pirates in a reinforcing system of the same power. I did not do any weeklys until the second week, and then would only do 3-5 of the ten per week. Got 300-400 pledge points each bounty, plus the points for doing bounty hunting for an aligned minor faction. I was shocked at how much progress I had made from not understanding anything about PP. Every week since, I noticed the top PP players for the week are in the millions of PP points per week. If a player had their knowledge you could get to level 100 in probably just 1 week.

 

[CMDR 1936]

P.S. For rank 34, you need roughly 260k merits. For the weekly tasks you get between 2000 and 3600 merits per task. With five tasks per week you can easily make 15k merits per week doing just the weeklies. And doing an hour of core mining made me up to 40k merits per load. Which means about 17 weeks if you only do the weeklies to gain rank 34. Is it instant? No. Is it a grind? Hardly. Except if all you care for is one aspect of the game and despise all other activities. Then you're crap out of luck.

Again, you don't really read: I'm talking FEDERATION here, which is my point, not that it takes time but that hat it favors the Empire because Prismatics are the only module that you need to have (again, if you do PVP)., the rest being either nice to have or utterly useless, which is not good in a BGS sense. Fed needs 430'000 merits, devided by 15'000 merits. Simple maths.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Took me around a month of trying to unlock the first PP module which quite frankly is a massive improvement when you consider that's permanent so long as I stay with Delaine.

That and the fact I'm drowning in engineering materials tells me it's worth it.

 

[CMDR 1936]

I had no clue about the mechanics when I started PP, I am still in the noob realm of its mechanics. I got to level 70 something when prismatics unlock in 3 weeks. I was doing alot of bounty hunting then from a stronghold system and cleaning up pirates in a reinforcing system of the same power. I did not do any weeklys until the second week, and then would only do 3-5 of the ten per week. Got 300-400 pledge points each bounty, plus the points for doing bounty hunting for an aligned minor faction. I was shocked at how much progress I had made from not understanding anything about PP. Every week since, I noticed the top PP players for the week are in the millions of PP points per week. If a player had their knowledge you could get to level 100 in probably just 1 week.

To do that you need to get 73 bounties a day. Not impossible, but assuming 5 minutes per bounty, it means you played 6 hours a day, collecting bounties. Not really casual in my idea (just did the maths here).

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Of course. 3 merits per ship scanned, 12 merits per billboard hacked, that sort of thing …

I can’t remember if you get merits for bounty hunting but if you do, I don’t recall it being very efficient. Which is a shame as that’s what I enjoy (and tend to do) most of.

Rares trading was moderately decent before they decided to disable it for reasons that escape me given people are still earning obscene numbers of merits from other means.

Likewise escape pod gathering so now only 1/2 the stuff you can gather at salvage sites count.

Large volume trading and mining ain’t my thing but I assume that’s what everyone who’s making 1 million+ merits per cycle is doing non-stop.

If you don't want to grind, branching out is the key, and yes, it get's better depending on which power you are with. I started out with 5 merits per ship scan, right now I get 20. I scan every ship I come across, and it tends to add up. Grabbing Powerplay data from settlements gives quite a few merits too. Do some other stuff in addition to the weeklies, and you're golden.

Again, you don't really read: I'm talking FEDERATION here, which is my point, not that it takes time but that hat it favors the Empire because Prismatics are the only module that you need to have (again, if you do PVP)., the rest being either nice to have or utterly useless, which is not good in a BGS sense. Fed needs 430'000 merits, devided by 15'000 merits. Simple maths.

You didn't say anything about "ooh, I am Federation and don't want to pledge to the frog". That's goalpost shifting. Anayway, as I said, if all you care about is PvP, you're out of luck. If not, it's not exactly hard.

 

[CMDR 1936]

If you don't want to grind, branching out is the key, and yes, it get's better depending on which power you are with. I started out with 5 merits per ship scan, right now I get 20. I scan every ship I come across, and it tends to add up. Grabbing Powerplay data from settlements gives quite a few merits too. Do some other stuff in addition to the weeklies, and you're golden.


You didn't say anything about "ooh, I am Federation and don't want to pledge to the frog". That's goalpost shifting. Anayway, as I said, if all you care about is PvP, you're out of luck. If not, it's not exactly hard.

Not grindy? Assuming you play Federation and do all your weekly chores every week it would still take you 30 weeks to get them, i.e. 7.5 months...

What about "assuming you play Federation" to imply that I'm talking about Federation here?

 

[Dillon Fallon]

To do that you need to get 73 bounties a day. Not impossible, but assuming 5 minutes per bounty, it means you played 6 hours a day, collecting bounties. Not really casual in my idea (just did the maths here).

That's then topped up with other stuff, which can be as simple as scanning 10 ships in a system. There's 2400 merits for pretty much nothing. Then say you have a task to go blow up 10 enemy ships. There you go, 300 merits per kill + 5400 merits for completing the weekly. It all adds up.

 

[KRISXR]

To do that you need to get 73 bounties a day. Not impossible, but assuming 5 minutes per bounty, it means you played 6 hours a day, collecting bounties. Not really casual in my idea (just did the maths here).

I did stay up way past my bed time... since probably November! lol Weekends I was able to really put the time in. 3-4 hrs a week night probably. And good math by the way, I have been playing the mess out of this game. I think there must be much better players than myself, how in the world can a player get into the millions of points a week. I just wanted to paint a picture that if a noob can do it in a few weeks, anyone can do it.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

A median Powerplay contributor gets about 15,000 merits a week, which would be about 2 ranks a week.

25th percentile is more like 30-40,000 merits a week - 4-5 ranks a week - which is probably the limit of what might be termed "casual". Someone consistently doing top 25% since Powerplay began would therefore be around rank 70-80 by now.

Obviously it's possible to go faster than that if you focus on getting merits and have the spare time, but it's certainly not "typical" or "casual" interaction with the feature at that point.

 

[Darrack]

Now that we have new ships on a regular basis, we will at some point run short of the Prismatics we have in store, and to get new ones we will basically have to register either with Aisling or the very least another Imperial. Ok, that has always been the case, but it used to be easy and of no consequences, alas now it is, as PP got more important as a gamplay and climbing ranks is now much longer. Other modules, it's ok, they're nice to have, if you don't have them it won't put you at a disadvantage, but Prismatics are different, they became an absolute necessity for anyone involved in combat, so they should not be a rank module anymore, as they create a clear imbalance in PP and for those not aligned with Imperials.

edit: I realize I wasn't precise enough, my apologies: I'm talking PVP here, if you don't care about that and don't care about Prismatics, then yes, this post might not seem relevant. However, Aisling has always been by far the most sought after affiliation, that should tell you something about the importance of Prismatics as not everybody indulges in PVP (I know, now it is Edmond, but because he is the fastest way to get the Concord Cannon, only module veterans didn't have. That won't last.).

You don't need to do PvP for PP, therefore you don't need Prismatics.
Just like every other PP module you have to earn it like everyone else.

O7

 

[BackToTheMud]

Would be better to just remove them alltogether.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

A median Powerplay contributor gets about 15,000 merits a week, which would be about 2 ranks a week.

25th percentile is more like 30-40,000 merits a week - 4-5 ranks a week - which is probably the limit of what might be termed "casual". Someone consistently doing top 25% since Powerplay began would therefore be around rank 70-80 by now.

Obviously it's possible to go faster than that if you focus on getting merits and have the spare time, but it's certainly not "typical" or "casual" interaction with the feature at that point.

Looking at time though, it didn't seem ideal when I built my Cutter with pacifiers, hammers and a prismatic shield in PP v1.0 either.

Yes, most of that was spent doing nothing, but I rather like the idea that the game pushes engagement with a feature instead of just waiting. There was always going to be a trade off for a permanent unlock especially since that includes everything eventually now.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

but I rather like the idea that the game pushes engagement with a feature instead of just waiting

Agreed there. Even someone interacting at a median rate will get access to all 12 modules faster in terms of clock time than they would have in PP1, while someone at top 25% rate will get all 12 in the time needed to get maybe 5.

(If only all 12 were worth getting, of course)

 

[Finn McShane]

I don't know about the other powers, but for ALD I get 4400 merits for completing the "scan 8 megaships" weekly task, plus ~1800 merits for each of the ships that I scan, for a total of 18,800 just for completing that one task. And doesn't take too long to find/scan 8 ships if you focus on the task, or alternatively just scan them opportunistically throughout the week and you hardly even notice that you are doing any "grinding" whatsoever.