Not gonna respond to a few things in here coz they're dead ends and off topic. If you feel I've ignored something pertinent please point it out.
Don't act like you had then. You said that every PP proponent doesn't want PP improved, yet you are not able to show one quote that proves that. Besides, as a PP proponent who wants PP further improved, I am living proof that you are wrong.
I also said "It seems like...". It wasn't stated (or intended to be stated) as a factual case, but an impression. Whenever a bunch of people start a thread saying "I don't like powerplay" there's always a few supporters of it who act all offended as if we're trying to take away their favourite toy just by not liking it. If you like it, that's great. There's a bunch of us that don't, and that's not so great. Considering the general level of discontent at the shallowness of the game, the "great saving grace that would add much needed depth and revitalise the game" that PP was apparently billed as being was a comparative flop in that it doesn't actually add any new gameplay and doesn't satisfy the desires of a large percentage (more than half) of it's players. Rather a lot of us feel betrayed by it because instead of improving the space game that we wanted to play as they've implied they would, they've added in an unrelated, half baked, poorly executed strategy game that noone had expressed an interest in. All the backslapping they've done since then in the dev update & newsletter and the complete silence from the devs regarding the large degree of criticism toward their ill-gotten lovechild is being taken as further insult.
My main concern is that the link between the powers and the rest of the game is too artificial, especially with the background simulation in mind.
I would go further and say that the link to the rest of the game is practically non-existent. It doesn't slot into and expand the game, it sits beside it as a separate entity.
For me the star of the game is the galaxy and everything that makes it richer is highly appreciated.
Nice sentiment, but this isn't Elite: Galaxy. It's (supposed to be) the fourth in a series which wikipedia described as "The Seminal Space Trading [and Combat] Game" (my inclusion of combat for completeness). Nowhere in that description does it say "the seminal space political soap opera" or "the seminal space strategy risk clone". Neither did they at any point mention an intention to diverge into a direction completely apart from all three previous games. Powerplay doesn't improve or add to the space trading/combat game that we bought, it takes it in a different (unannounced, generally unwanted) direction. Don't get me wrong - political intrigue is a fine thing to add (assuming it's done well and fits in well with the rest of the game, neither of which PP can claim) but at a time when there are so many players crying out for more content and basically "something to do" in the basic space-flight/galaxy sim/role play game, adding a half baked political strategy isn't going to calm the masses. Even if they'd outline a future direction or give us time frames for the promised expansions we'd be happier to sit and wait (or at least play something else while we wait) but without that we're left feeling that they've basically given up on expanding the space game and that the future lies with PP.
Uhmm... no? But maybe you could appreciate that others like it? There are many features in the game I don't like and therefore not choose to use.
Of course there's people that like it. How is that relevant in a thread about people NOT liking it? Are you trying to tell us we're "wrong"? Does a bunch of people not liking powerplay in some way diminish or threaten your liking of it? Basically, yes we know there's a bunch of people who like it... in fact roughly 1/3 of players like it if the poll's to be believed (this number would also be supported by the number of positive vs negative threads about pp in the forums btw) but basically
what has that got to do with this thread? It's nice that you like it, but... so what? We're here talking about how many DON'T like it and looking for ways to improve it.
So you don't want PP to be removed, but changed. How? As the boardgame is the core concept of PP, I would not assume that you would want to remove it entirely? If so, the change would qualify as removal. I don't know if I wanted to go that far. But I am always open for new ideas.
For a start I'm no games designer. Secondly I wouldn't have put it in the game in the first place so I haven't given much thought to how to FIX it. Third FD have a huge history of not listening to player suggestions anyway (their actions are in despite of their rhetoric on this). HOWEVER... off the top of my head... I'd look at trying to merge it more fully into the background political sim. Systems should be changing govt type with a change of power. Markets should move dramatically. Famines and excesses should appear (which would mean new trading opportunities) wars and rebellions should break out opposing new powers (combat opportunities), new discoveries of mineral resources (ie: new mining opportunities aka "gold rushes"), laws should change with a new power moving in. Another huge area of constant complaint is that PP isn't profitable - I've seen it described as "something to do when you've done everything else and you've got lots of money". Why on earth would the "powers" expect people to work for them for free? It's ridiculous to have a system that relies on constancy of effort for its rewards, but doesn't pay you for your efforts so that you HAVE to go do something else if you want to make some money, thereby making your efforts non-constant. Rep decay is another bone of contention - I'd tie that to your actions in game rather than the amount of time you spend OUT of the game. For instance if I have a high rep with faction A and I spend a lot of time in game working for faction B and ignoring faction A that is what should be causing rep decay. I shouldn't be losing rep because I have to go overseas for a few weeks, and I shouldn't be keeping rep with a faction because I have a lot of free time but choose to spend it supporting a different faction. It's a stupid, lazy system that rewards & punishes the wrong things, it's basically saying "if you don't keep playing we're going to punish you". There's lots more ways I could think of to improve PP, but that's not my job and it's probably be a wasted effort anyway. To find them all the devs have to do is troll through ANY of the numerous "I hate powerplay" threads.
I don't have a problem with the numbers, but with your logic conclusions. The poll is a pure joke and says almost nothing. If people were asked whether they liked the stations, the outcome would most likely be similar. But that could mean anything. Doesn't they like the lack of variety, the docking system, the speeding rules, the animations?
Now you're arguing poll design. Granted it's not worded the way I would have worded it, but it's also not the most biased, poorly designed poll I've seen here either. The OP has attempted to be unbiased and equal with it, at least. The conclusions are directly drawn from the numbers the poll gave, there's zero interpretation in them. It's difficult to interpret the majority of people answering that they're either opposed to or ambivalent about PP as being anything other than "the majority of people who answered the poll don't like PP in it's current form", in fact drawing any other conclusion from it WOULD be interpretation. It's simplistic, it needs a lot further research to get definitive answers about exactly WHAT parts of PP they do or don't like etc, but in and of itself it's a pretty clear result.
Maybe 80% of the people are totally fine with the boardgame stuff, but don't find the characters appealing or want a few more bonuses or don't care for politics at all (which means even the best implementation couldn't do anything about it)? How could you know?
There's no way you can know that from this poll. It didn't ask that question, and trying to interpret anything more than "do you like PP in it's current form" is impossible from this poll. If you want to find out what parts of PP they do or don't like you'd need to make another, much more extensive poll. BTW the more complex a poll, the greater the degree of error with it, so if you decide to go down that route keep it simple.
The thread discussion here says a lot more than the poll. My impression is, that many people don't get how PP works or what it is all about. It just doesn't seem very accessible as it is now, so many people gave up on it.
There's many reasons people don't like PP, it's not just one thing, the whole thing seems to be fairly broken. I wouldn't have included it in the first place coz I don't think it's particularly relevant to the game at this point but we can't put that particular genie back in it's bottle so lets at least make it work right. The only way we're gonna do that is A: prove there's a LOT of discontent about it so FD will feel a need to do something about it (which is what this poll is about), and then B: start detailing what we don't like and offering suggestions on how to fix it. If everyone who dislikes PP and is discontent with the rest of it too just stops playing ED and doesn't say anything FD are just gonna see people leaving... without the "squeaky wheels" there'll be no fixes.
