That's wrong with PP (imo)

[Bragor]

First off, I think the basic idea of Powerplay is a great one. If you wan't your game to work you've to make it fun for the gamers. This only works with (kind of) player-created contend.

But you got a couple things royally wrong:

a) Standing/Bounty Mechanics
Some powers are taking over federal systems like they try currently in LHS 2150 (Torval attempting to expand). As I'm alligned to Winters, I move there and try to defend this Federation controlled bit of space .. and I'm the one being hostile there ? I furthermore collect a bounty to my head if I shoot Torval's ships ? Seriously ?!?!?!

b) Balance
You really had to create 4 imperial factions, 2 federal and a single Alliance one ? Even if the playerbase would spread equally, this is a mayor drawback for any non-Empire faction. ALD alone seems to outnumber the complete federal base of gamers. And now, with the Empire factions having kind of an agreement to leave each other alone, I fear the Federation is on the brink to collapse (which will make the empire guys happy)

Furthermore, the effects for being lower ranked are just so imbalanced, it's not even funny. So the people in ALD get, as she's currently ranked #1, 50% bounty increase in the systems she controls. Compared to the (if Winter would be #1) 25% Standing gain increase it's stupid. That makes ALD (and the others having the same bonus) alot more appealing than the rest for anyone just caring about that. Same goes with the modules.

3) Control
Sooner or later you'll have to give control over those factions to the players. Not sure if you should at first assign someone or let the members of a faction vote for the lead. There need to be mechanics/rules how to change leadership. Currently Winters is expanding into her own space, for a system worth a whole 3 CC .. no one with a sense of business or strategy would do such a move (I blame the newcomers not know what they do). Someone has to control such things.
We need some ingame board to post stuff (to at least have the impression of doing something not public).
As it is right now, we follow leaders we have just a vague idea who they are. You make a post on the GalNet about anything and it could change things drastically. So by that you control the factions, and that's no incentive to follow either. We need a person there, with a personality, someone we can actually blame if things go wrong, someone we can talk to .. that's important to feel attached.


Powerplay as it currently is, is just the same desaster you did with exploration. You throw something not even halfway finished at us, not very well thought through, and something you can't revert easily.


If you have anyone having played Achaea (some fantasy textbased MMORPG) among your people, ask him/her how you have your players in leading positions and make it work. There they got cities, guilds and orders (attached to various gods) led by players, building up tensions against each other and fight on multiple layers .. and if someone messes up royally, he'll get replaced.

 

[The Gael]

I suspect this will be merged.... I wonder why?........

 

[Drizzt Do Urden]

and this is just a portion of whats wrong with PP

 

[FuzzySpider]

There is absolute zero immersion to powerplay and it doesn't follow any logic of the Elite universe.

That's the fundamental problem. The stuff you've listed here are what (among other things) cause those problems.

 

[Cradle2Grave]

It's too "surface" and has no real depth nor, really, makes any actual difference to the individual player (imho).

In that respect, however, it's in keeping with the game.

 

[smiths121]

I agree with the in-balance observation, I just cannot see how moving to guilds would improve it, it would just make things worst.

 

[kilvenny]

Whilst I have no problem with ranking the Powers I think the bonuses should not be on something like the average amount of command capital per system and rank that, so its not based on size of power but on its efficiency.

Don't agree with moving control out to players, but what I would like to see is a Power voice comms channel and a Power command page so that commanders can assign themselves to to tasks and also exchange messages etc. The Power comms channel and command page only visible to members of that power. The power command page should also give the system location of pledged commanders and on line status.

 

[Derath]

I want to know whats gonna happen in several weeks time when much of the known populated universe is in one faction or another and theres a big difference between factions.

 

[Bragor]

(...)
Don't agree with moving control out to players, (...)

The actions of the various factions need to be controlled by some instance .. currently in Winters there seem to be people trying to put up tension between the federal powers by preparing systems on the border to Hudson, a move that doesn't make any sense, neither strategically nor economical .. it just boils up something .. I suspect some people having joined Winter for whatever reason but rather playing for a different power (doesn't matter if you call that 5th columning or meta gaming) and try to build up tensions. As the Winter bunch is rather unorganised and small, a few people doing that will have a mayor influence.

Playing that way will sooner or later pull the fun out of Powerplay, if whatever you do gets sabotaged. If you have someone, or a group of induviduals, making decisions that have an immediate effect in game (like dropping preparation numbers for undesired systems), you can effectively fight that sorta stuff.

If this (or something else drastically changing things) isn't going to happen, most of the non empire-factions will fail .. newly formed factions will fail again from the start, as they'll be vastly outnumbered .. in the end, we'll all hail Arissa Lavingny-Duval as the new empress of the empire (at least we get 50% in bounty increase all over populated space), accompanied by some senators .. and everything else will be history.

 

[Robert Maynard]

3) Control
Sooner or later you'll have to give control over those factions to the players. Not sure if you should at first assign someone or let the members of a faction vote for the lead. There need to be mechanics/rules how to change leadership. Currently Winters is expanding into her own space, for a system worth a whole 3 CC .. no one with a sense of business or strategy would do such a move (I blame the newcomers not know what they do). Someone has to control such things.

I expect that, if at all, it will be later rather than sooner.

In an interview yesterday with Arstechnica at E3, the interviewer includes this statement regarding his discussion with DBOBE:

More standardized online gaming conventions like clans or formalized player organizations aren’t in the cards, at least not for the foreseeable future.

If the discussion veers toward Guilds / Corps / Clans (i.e. player control) it will be merged into the Guilds in Elite Dangerous thread.

 

[persephonius]

I expect that, if at all, it will be later rather than sooner.

In an interview yesterday with Arstechnica at E3, the interviewer includes this statement regarding his discussion with DBOBE:



If the discussion veers toward Guilds / Corps / Clans (i.e. player control) it will be merged into the Guilds in Elite Dangerous thread.

I thought that this was already the case. Isn't that what the breakaway of Adle's Armada from Hudson to establish a new power is all about? Isn't this whole thing influenced by players in the first place?

 

[Demiga]

One comment - if you give control to players an entirely new system and set of rules has to be implemented to do it properly wont work. But I dont want this merged so I will comment on the other aspect. Yes, there are 4 imperial factions, and they seem to be playing nice, but what happens when they go to war with each other. Frontier wont let a massive imbalance stand for too long. And another note is that they specifically stated that they were only releasing 10 powers to start, with a max of 20. So im pretty sure they will be adding more fed and alliance factions soon.

I think the reason they started it this way is because of the galnet feeds leading up to PP. If you look at them, all the major players mentioned in the galnet feeds over the past few months have become the major powers. With the struggle of succession it made sense to add all 4 of them as powers. I think we will begin to see alot more from the alliance and federation regarding pp

 

[Robert Maynard]

I thought that this was already the case. Isn't that what the breakaway of Adle's Armada from Hudson to establish a new power is all about? Isn't this whole thing influenced by players in the first place?

A Power being influenced by the day-to-day actions of all players who choose, without restriction, to affiliate themselves with the Power is rather different from a Power being controlled by a single player or small group of players....

 

[persephonius]

A Power being influenced by the day-to-day actions of all players who choose, without restriction, to affiliate themselves with the Power is rather different from a Power being controlled by a single player or small group of players....

Adle's Armada is a player group which is what the next power is right?

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Lets not forget the dogfood dispensr timer.

The game tells me im eligible for X points every 30 minutes - if im online every 30 minutes and if i remember to collect it.

So if i want it FASTER i pay up, but i cannot get it SLOWER by waiting a whole day and pick up what they say i earn.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Adle's Armada is a player group which is what the next power is right?

If a group of players manage to boost a minor faction to a sufficient level to trigger its promotion to a Power, I would expect that an NPC figurehead would emerge and normal Powerplay will apply.

 

[persephonius]

If a group of players manage to boost a minor faction to a sufficient level to trigger its promotion to a Power, I would expect that an NPC figurehead would emerge and normal Powerplay will apply.

Well I am just going by what I read here:

http://imgur.com/a/VEnkq#0
.
I actually thought that this was a player group that decided on their own accord to become an independent power. I am not exactly sure how they would have achieved this though, so I am asking, what did they do to get this to happen?
.
Edit* It appears you already answered this question in the post you just made :S.. ok never mind

 

[Viajero]

It´s just a mock up. A very good one. Either way Maynard is probably right, no Power (player originated or not) is supposed to have any kind of social/meta restrictions for access control, other than the rules of the game.

 

[persephonius]

It´s just a mock up. A very good one. Either way Maynard is probably right, no Power (player originated or not) is supposed to have any kind of social/meta restrictions for access control, other than the rules of the game.

OMG! Really! All this time I was thinking that this was a great feature where players could control Power creations... it's all a lie :,(

 

[fademist]

It´s just a mock up. A very good one. Either way Maynard is probably right, no Power (player originated or not) is supposed to have any kind of social/meta restrictions for access control, other than the rules of the game.

only the groups with forums outside of the game can do that if they have the name of X faction ?;p