The state of PowerPlay and PvP

[geoffrey.hdt]

Hi commanders,

It has now been a few months I joined one the most controversial/hated Powers, have been pretty involved, and have met exactly zero opposing player.
We even had a couple of very "active" contested acquisition systems, for which a lot of effort was invested on both sides (we, primarily at the Power space Conflict Zones, as well as raiding ground settlements) but nada, only pure PvE for us there.

I do know that ED playerbase is rather thin, and the bubble is huge. I also play late US Central Time after 9pm, but still...

How is it looking for the other Powers? Is PvP something usually not seen outside of the CG's? Are most Power activities done in solo? Or/and mainly using non-violent ways such as rare trading, etc..?

 

[Dragsham]

I do know that anything involving the glorious empire does definitely involve pvp. I've seen it been in it and been a victim of it, as well as blown a few of the oppositions up. So yes. If you look hard enough..
Try your enemy powers stronghold ships or capitals.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The underlying problem is that there's no wider motivation in Powerplay to fight other Powers at all, even asynchronously from separate instances at different times of the day, etc.
- systems being successfully undermined is a rarity (and even more so right now)
- contested acquisitions are likewise newsworthy events
- any effort put into either could generally get your power two or three other systems elsewhere
So most effort is uncontested acquisitions (where no other Power cares) and reinforcing systems in your own space (which no other Power is really trying to undermine) and there's no particular urgency to concentrate players together at all.

Add to that, killing someone from the opposite side in Powerplay is almost always a waste of time from a Powerplay point of view
- you get fewer merits than you'd get for taking out a much easier NPC target (and in certain cases none)
- depending on what they're doing, it might not even affect their own merit earning more than marginally (in the absolute best case you take out someone on their way to sell up after a mining run, but that's going to be very rare and you'll have spent a lot of time hanging out in supercruise waiting for them earning no merits at all; in the worst case you actually help them return to the station faster)

It's not really a PvP-encouraging feature, so your best bets for action are:
- find a system which is being heavily reinforced this week, hang out in that and blow up players. You'll have no meaningful effect on the end result whatsoever but at least you'll find targets (the CG system is obviously the best bet for that right now)
- hope your Power can get a contested Acquisition going with someone else (and that the other side continues to bother fighting it rather than deciding it's too much effort and taking three other systems elsewhere instead)
- actively start PvE Undermining a system and hope someone shows up to try to stop you (rather than quietly dumping a bunch of rares or bounties into the system and ignoring you even if they see you)

 

[Elpapo]

Powerplay PVP is organic and random as it is, and given that is constantly changing on weekly basis and almost entierly done via PVE by most of pledged cmdrs who bother with it, its no brainer that powerplay PVP "feels" rare to occur. Its quite diffrent that usual PVP hotspots or CG's, where PVP cmdrs are known to be there, by all the times.

Best bet I guess would be simply visit systems where respective powers are most active at time, and hope that there might be an cmdr from opposing power at open, and then, actually instance with such, and then, hope that cmdr is willing to fight for thier power directly, ship to ship, rather using PVE methods.

Problem with that, is there is too much of "hopes", better just visit usual hotspots, and ingore powerplay for a bit, if fancy for some PVP.

Because it can be really more difficult than it sounds, as already OP mentioned, playerbase is quite "thin" (given scale of bubble) and its already divided by modes, well as instancing itself does not guarantee, that both cmdrs can see each other, despite both being in same system at same time.

This is why, I think, most of pledged cmdrs who are PVP capable, simply go for usual hotspots, whenever they feel like doing PVP, rather wasting time to tryin find powerplay based PVP, when they are doing PVE powerplay things.

 

[Shurimal]

As a Kaine pledge, I saw and engaged a couple of opforce commanders when I worked in and around Maraudi (close to Tionisla and other old worlds). Even then it was a one-sided engagement, me in a bounty hunting setup, them in a hauling ship. Never saw any opforce combat ships. After moving my area of operations away to another side of Kaine's bubble, I've never seen even one opforce commander, even when that area is a "melting pot" where there are systems belonging to three separate powers close by

There really is no point in contesting a specific system in the age of colonization, unless for some very specific reason (historical significance, home system of a squadron, freshly colonized system that you want for your power). And even then, PvE is much more effective than PvP. Eg a single high threat wreckage/weapons fire signal can yield more than a thousand merits in salvage and destroyed opforce NPC-s, and I believe there are more effective activities which are more situational (eg not every system is good for mining). Theoretically Powerplay 2.0 is set up for encouraging PvP (reduced rebuys, PP CZ-s etc) but in practice there's little reason to ever engage another power in the first place, and even then PvP doesn't add much.

 

[Mohrgan]

This has ever been the complaint. People have to make PvP work, the Devs can't fix it for you. When FDev offer the perfect environment for PvP, create a meta game that rewards it, and those practitioners still complain there is no game, you have to take stock in what is the real issue here. FDev creates a world, the players decide how to use it. It isn't hard to argue that FDev have done all they can within the confines of their design. PvP is cool, but not required.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

This has ever been the complaint. People have to make PvP work, the Devs can't fix it for you. When FDev offer the perfect environment for PvP, create a meta game that rewards it, and those practitioners still complain there is no game, you have to take stock in what is the real issue here. FDev creates a world, the players decide how to use it. It isn't hard to argue that FDev have done all they can within the confines of their design. PvP is cool, but not required.

The idea that system is as good as it could be regarding PvP is not even in the ballpark. From the perspective of Fdev's minimum viable product do as little as possible philosophy, maybe. But from a game quality stand point? Not even close.

 

[Aashenfox]

This has ever been the complaint. People have to make PvP work, the Devs can't fix it for you. When FDev offer the perfect environment for PvP, create a meta game that rewards it, and those practitioners still complain there is no game, you have to take stock in what is the real issue here. FDev creates a world, the players decide how to use it. It isn't hard to argue that FDev have done all they can within the confines of their design. PvP is cool, but not required.

At least you're a little more tolerant of PvP existing nowadays

To the OP and others, I noticed this week that my pledged power has sent me on an assignment to a specific system. I couldn't help wondering if the opposing ppower's assignments had anything to do with this. This is certainly one way to encourage PvP, and it could even be taken a step further, by adding some bonus goals, one of which could be to shoot a certain number of player cmdrs, but not necessarily kill, as the gap in pvp tends to be large, it's rare that two players of equal skill fight in organic, so the requirement to kill would put people off. Rewarding for simply engaging would be very fun and also go some way to offsetting a few rebuys and keeping the less skilled player coming back to learn.

As you say Mohrgan, pvp is not required, but it could certainly be better encouraged. <3

 

[Cheese Helmet]

At least you're a little more tolerant of PvP existing nowadays

To the OP and others, I noticed this week that my pledged power has sent me on an assignment to a specific system. I couldn't help wondering if the opposing ppower's assignments had anything to do with this. This is certainly one way to encourage PvP, and it could even be taken a step further, by adding some bonus goals, one of which could be to shoot a certain number of player cmdrs, but not necessarily kill, as the gap in pvp tends to be large, it's rare that two players of equal skill fight in organic, so the requirement to kill would put people off. Rewarding for simply engaging would be very fun and also go some way to offsetting a few rebuys and keeping the less skilled player coming back to learn.

As you say Mohrgan, pvp is not required, but it could certainly be better encouraged. <3

Adjusting the 5 weekly pp missions is certainly a good idea. Setting the system up so it sets one UM and one Reinforce weekly mission, and make sure those conflict with other powers missions directly. So your UM mission is in the same system as a neighbor powers reinforce mission. For example.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I couldn't help wondering if the opposing ppower's assignments had anything to do with this.

Not at the moment - if it picks specific systems, it picks those which are near your current position.

I think it would be controversial if the Assignments allocation deliberately tried to create inter-power flashpoints - what if the Unofficial Official Powerplay Community didn't want that system attacking or defending this week? - but it might focus things a bit more.

(That said, before doing that, they'd need to fix a bunch of the bugs with the specific system missions: quite a few of them do not check hard enough that the mission is actually possible to complete)

 

[Aashenfox]

Not at the moment - if it picks specific systems, it picks those which are near your current position.

I think it would be controversial if the Assignments allocation deliberately tried to create inter-power flashpoints - what if the Unofficial Official Powerplay Community didn't want that system attacking or defending this week? - but it might focus things a bit more.

(That said, before doing that, they'd need to fix a bunch of the bugs with the specific system missions: quite a few of them do not check hard enough that the mission is actually possible to complete)

Bummer.

Well, they could still play in solo or PG. Anyway, yeh, you get the idea, some things would need to be tweaked, but strictly optional flashpoints could be great.

 

[SlickPBW]

This is not intended to divert the conversation to open vs PG vs solo so please do not take the conversation there.

I’ve posted about this before but my thoughts are that there should be a measured advantage to playing PP in open and also with/against other players. However, this measured advantage should be carefully balanced to prevent completely nerfing PG and solo players who do not want to be forced to engage. Perhaps this is impossible, but I think PP2 is the perfect gameplay part of ED to gently nudge players to do this activity in open. It’s very sad to me that PP gameplay doesn’t require/allow players to defend against the actions of other players. I realize that this same argument could apply to many (or all) other gameplay loops, but maybe it’s time for a short test case to evaluate the effectiveness and impact.

 

[GroG79]

The problem is with player numbers. Not with the game.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

This is not intended to divert the conversation to open vs PG vs solo so please do not take the conversation there.

I’ve posted about this before but my thoughts are that there should be a measured advantage to playing PP in open and also with/against other players. However, this measured advantage should be carefully balanced to prevent completely nerfing PG and solo players who do not want to be forced to engage. Perhaps this is impossible, but I think PP2 is the perfect gameplay part of ED to gently nudge players to do this activity in open. It’s very sad to me that PP gameplay doesn’t require/allow players to defend against the actions of other players. I realize that this same argument could apply to many (or all) other gameplay loops, but maybe it’s time for a short test case to evaluate the effectiveness and impact.

I actually had a nice organic PVP wing fight yesterday. Powerplay combat zones had spawned, so a wing of us went to grind merits since it's most efficient in a wing. We encountered other enemy power commanders! Huzzah! Well we won, but the reward for doing so merit wise was meager to say the least. Maybe tie some additional merits to pp player kills? Then you at least have a merit incentive.

Logical limitations would be that at least one person in that interaction needs to be in a defensive pp position. So if your UMing, you're in a enemy power's system. So the limitation is only someone from that power can kill you in that system for merits, and if you kill them you get the merits, since that "1 side is a defender" prerequisite is filled. For acquisition, same thing just your power needs to be above the conflict threshold and then it counts for your power to fill the prerequisite.

 

[Aashenfox]

The problem is with player numbers. Not with the game.

I think it's a combination of that, plus the fact the game play area is the biggest in gaming, then add the fact that two of three main menu gameplay options are not conducive to organic pvp. There are many healthy pvp games with lower numbers than Elite, which leads me to believe that the main problem is the player types and by extension then, the game.

I'm sure you've heard the term carebears, to describe those who are vehemently anti-unsolicited-pvp, and I totally get that this type of player of Elite exists and has a right to play the game as they please, but as others have said, if a little more effort were made to make people push open at the main menu, get some extra power rewards (if not actual power goal progress, cos optional content), it would go a long way, so really, it's the game, or at least, it's the fact that the game has always been played by a somewhat less confrontational, more mature gamer (don't ask what went wrong with me ) and never given them any encouragement to do anything else.

I do think there are lots of people who think they don't want pvp who would enjoy it in small doses, while I am also sure there are others that would hate it even more after trying it. There only needs to be a few of the former though, to make the galaxy a little richer. <3

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Logical limitations would be that at least one person in that interaction needs to be in a defensive pp position.

This is already how it works for killing NPCs - if you're reinforcing or acquiring you get points for any enemy, if you're undermining you only get points for the system's current power. I expect it's identical for players.

The problem is with player numbers. Not with the game.

It's a bit of both.

Certainly there aren't enough people interested in Powerplay that spread across 10,000-30,000 systems (depending on if you count Acquisition candidates or not) you stand much chance of meeting an enemy player (or even a friendly one) without an appointment.

On the other hand, there's no automatic reason that Powerplay needs to have 30,000 systems in scope. That's in practice not just bad for the limited potential for in-instance PvP but for the whole concept of Powerplay as a competition between players at all. The previous version of Powerplay had about 1,000 systems actively in scope (though exactly which 1,000 they were changed from time to time), for example, because the whole "Exploited" layer of it was all automatic.

(Whether Frontier solve this easily by reformulating Powerplay as the cooperative endeavour it's currently closest to, or by making substantially bigger changes to encourage at the very least indirect competition between Powers, who knows. Frontier have a stated intent and their most recent changes have had the effect of moving it in the opposite direction to that...)

 

[SlickPBW]

Maybe even give a small combat boost if a player shoots another player with his/her aligned PP weapon???

 

[Cheese Helmet]

This is already how it works for killing NPCs - if you're reinforcing or acquiring you get points for any enemy, if you're undermining you only get points for the system's current power. I expect it's identical for players.

True, just make players way more valuable compared to NPCs

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

I actually had a nice organic PVP wing fight yesterday. Powerplay combat zones had spawned, so a wing of us went to grind merits since it's most efficient in a wing. We encountered other enemy power commanders! Huzzah! Well we won, but the reward for doing so merit wise was meager to say the least. Maybe tie some additional merits to pp player kills? Then you at least have a merit incentive.[...]

I wish I was there... :-(

Not sure why a PP player kill does not reward with more merits.
At a regilar space CZ (such as what is happening at the CG now), I noticed that a ranked commander usually gives up to 500k to 1 million credits.

On one hand, CG's are so much PvP fun, but with zero impact to the player or the storyline. It does not matter what side you pick, and what side wins.
On the other hand, PowerPlay is where the player actions do matter, shape the bubble, but with practically zero PvP.

 

[aRJay]

Maybe even give a small combat boost if a player shoots another player with his/her aligned PP weapon???

True, just make players way more valuable compared to NPCs

First thought is this sounds so exploitable.