The Powerplay discussion thread.

atak2

A
One serious gripe I have with powerplay is that every power is apparently hostile to every other power no matter where they are or what they're doing. No diplomacy, no nuance. I'm not holding my breath for either.

However, if hostile factions were hostile ONLY in contested systems, or systems undergoing some sort of power-based flux in some way, that might help get rid of one of the bugbears of playing in Open within a power. As it is no if you join a power you severely restrict yourself to one section of the universe.

That was the reason why I thought that there should be a multiplier for how many merits you get based on whether you are attacking enemy players on the frontline. Players should get more merits for attacking other players on the frontline and hopefully that would dissuade players going deep into enemy territory to attack unprepared players for less merits.

I am also hoping that players will eventually be able to vote for peace with other factions.
 
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Suggestions for Improving PowerPlay

It's too grindy and anyone doing anything risky does it in solo or group. PVP is too spotty.

So.. let's put up some suggestions in the hope that someone somewhere reads this nonsense.

These are mine.

1: Merits need to be less grindy. People in the Code are considering throwing themselves off tall buildings.

2: There needs to be 'Prize Systems'. These systems can either be distributed inside each power close to a border or just outside Power Space but close enough so that various powers can reasonably reach them. These 'Prize systems' would give some kind of bonus to whatever Power controls them above and beyond what you normally get. Alternatively, you could make control systems give something other than CC.

3: Powers home systems to be closer to borders for increased risk.

--

You. Ideas. Go.
 
i think atak is on to something and i would support it, it feels a little artificial though, but many other things in the game does that already.
and maybe we are starting to get to many modifers for players to to keep track off, i don't know if it can be simplified.

good brainstorm but im gonna have to put some business perspective into this.

you see elite needs to sell copies, and to do this they have to have options in the game. not everybody has good internet either do to money or infrastructure and we shouldn't punish them because they cant aquire good internet. and if you start selling the fact that this game doesnt have solo or solo is somehow worse than multiplayer then less copies will be sold. this is due to that fact that not everyone is the same and wants to play solo or can as explained before.

god damn this is so hard to talk about whitout going into the solo/open debate, but im going to give it a try and hope that i am not stretching it.

i really don't understand this notion that rewarding someone has to be a punishment for another.
in my eyes that mentality is just bowing to envy and jealously.

and from a business perspective far more people have a internet connection today than those who don't.
and making the experience as good as possible for the majority i think can be just as good or even better than catering to a minority.
 
The code people are considering throwing themselves of the build.

Frontier don't change a thing. Powerplay is on course to improve the game.
 
Third thread today and none have any replies. Im sure powerplay was discussed at length a while back.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159525&highlight=powerplay+suggestions
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159717&highlight=powerplay+suggestions

Either way im not having a go, just pointing out that there are a ton of people with similar thoughts. Latest I heard from Devs was that PP is meant to be for those in the high end ships wondering what to do with their credits and time.

I do agree its a bit grindy but then again most things in MMO's are... With prize systems and home systems, I don't think there needs to be boarder conflict just yet. Home systems and that will become threatened as powers expand and contract.
Personally I expect a huge melting pot that results in an all out war and total mess right before the Thargoids show up and are like "Hey guyz, we're here to simplify your conflicts. No arguments about who lives where when there are no houses left" :p
 
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Scudmungus

Banned
Makin it easia to meet folks inna Open widout PvP --> Easia to build social groups. More de merrier - numbers makin mons bold.

Group feel reddi? Group get into PvP. Group not/neva reddi? Notin lost - dey nevar gonna PvP anyway.

How wi makin it easier? Tuff one.. Gonna tink bout it an ged back to yuh.
 
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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I also like the piracy changes, there definitely needs to be a bonus for non lethal piracy, and a punishment for the lethal kind.

Those changes would probably be of benefit to the game in general rather than just in relation to Powerplay.

and from a business perspective far more people have a internet connection today than those who don't.
and making the experience as good as possible for the majority i think can be just as good or even better than catering to a minority.

You are basing that on an assumption that the majority of players have an internet connection (we must have one to play the game at all although some may struggle with anything more than Solo) and also which mode those players play in (we don't know that bit - only Frontier do).
 
Ok...since this is a serious topic...let's tear the bandage off the festering wound!

First...this game is designed with deviousness, sneakiness, and back stabbing not only as an option...but completely in the foreground, thus the design that everyone can affect everything, from anywhere. To say anything differently, is completely ignoring how the game functions at its most base level.

Second, by design, the idea of 'pew pew PvP' is a sideshow activity, with no relevance to the overarching gameplay. What is designed is a large amount of PvP activities between player groups that use PvE trophy gathering as the premise for destroying your most hated friends within the game.

Finally, because of the nature of the design, and that any of the designed PvP can occur anywhere, and that anyone can attack anyone the same way...the idea that people need to move to Open for any reason is moot. You want to play this game the way it was designed?

Learn to fifth column.....everywhere. Destroy everyone's work and play the way it was designed to be destroyed...in safety.
 
Those changes would probably be of benefit to the game in general rather than just in relation to Powerplay.



You are basing that on an assumption that the majority of players have an internet connection (we must have one to play the game at all although some may struggle with anything more than Solo) and also which mode those players play in (we don't know that bit - only Frontier do).

yes i am just making assumptions, but it was only to make my second sentence more clear.
FD got the true numbers and they ultimately decide.
 
Influenced by the the mod Viajero's thoughts in this thread I have some general ideas I think might work (but need fleshing out):

These ideas cover several topics but I didn't want to spam the forum with threads.

Powerplay - Merit Multipliers

Combat:

My concept involves a new temporary ranking for Powerplay activities called Valour. The idea revolves around a multiplier that temporarily increases the amount of merits you make based on how many enemy players you encounter in that moment. The more enemy faction players that are with you in the instance/combat zone the higher the Valour multiplier rises. As soon as the enemy presence decreases the Valour multiplier also decreases down to 0 if there are no enemy player threats around or if you die. This would hopefully give an incentive for players to go and seek out other players and the increase in merits recognises the risk of player interaction but does not give the risk bonus to players who are encountering just npcs like solo (as this would be unfair to solo/group players).

This would also reward players who are skillful. If they manage to fight off larger numbers they can gain enough merits to lessen larger numbers of enemy players activities (rather than an artificial bottleneck instance).

Also Valour could possibly have an extra multiplier based on whether the system is on the frontline of faction territory. This would hopefully incentivise the player to fight on the frontline and slightly dissuade players from attacking hostile faction ships deep within enemy territory.

AI Factional Capital Ships that spawn in a system where there has been constant large amounts of faction player combat activity. This would give a way for PCOpen/XboxOpen and various private groups to fight and counter each other. If an AI capital ship spawns all the faction players in that system that the ship belongs to gain a massive multiplier in merits. The other factions and instances would have to either destroy the ship (which would take a lot of concerted effort over the various game modes) or bring enough player numbers to spawn their own capital ship to fight the other capital ship. This needs more thought if anyone can weigh in on this.

Trading:

I think traders involved in Powerplay objectives (carrying Propaganda etc) also need a bonus multiplier. For this I was thinking of another temporary multiplier called Hazard Pay. The incentive here is that Powerplay traders get a bonus multiplier based firstly on the number of enemy player ships they detect in the systems they travel through. The traders would also gain bonus merits for every player interdiction or enemy player encounter they escape. As soon as the trader dies or completes their delivery objective the bonus multiplier resets.
EDIT - The trader delivering the propaganda would have to not be able to gain any other combat merit bonus as I think we would find a situation where combat players carry propaganda with no intention to deliver it. Maybe a time limit on delivering the propaganda as well. Any ideas on this would be welcome.

General Pirating and Trading

Pirating:

Much like my ideas with Powerplay I believe pirates should have temporary ranking multiplier called Infamy. The notion behind this is that pirates should get an infamy bonus at anarchy stations (such as better black market prices, reduced outfitting costs etc.) based on how many player traders they manage to successfully gain cargo from without killing. The infamy bonus would reset on player death.

The Infamy multiplier could also become negative (as you gain a poor reputation from killing players) until the player gains the status of Raider. This Raider status would be like an Ultra-wanted status where basically everyone is hostile to the Raider. After a certain amount of time (as long as they kill no more players) the Raider status would disappear. I'm not sure whether the pirate's death should reset this status.

Hopefully these ideas would incentivise a pirate to try and gain cargo from player traders without killing them. Npcs would not affect any of these multipliers/statuses.

Trading:

Much like the pirating concept I've also been trying to come up incentives for open trading based on the number of hostile players a trader encounters. Like my powerplay trading idea a multiplier based on how many enemy player encounters they have during a trading run. So far I have been unable to come up with a multiplier that is not immersion breaking (why would a trader be paid for avoiding pirates?). If anyone can come up with a good idea for this please state it.

One thing I have been toying with is that if a Trader is killed by a player Raider in a non-anarchy territory then they get no insurance costs to rebuy their ship as the system authority pays it as an apology for not being able to keep raiders out of their system.

One last idea was incentivising the use of pure trading ships. A trader in a large T9 etc could get some sort of small escape shuttle where they can fly back to a station and get their trading ship back at reduced insurance cost (as the insurance company doesn't have to recover their escape pod). The escape shuttle would be very small and incredibly hard to detect on radar so the pirates would not be able to find it easily/at all. A trading anaconda etc could also have this escape shuttle but would have to sacrifice cargo space and/or outfitting slots for it.


Thanks for reading and let me know if you can expand any of my ideas to make them work better.

I'm giving this a +1
Not because I agree with anything, but because atak2 you are the first person out of the dreaded mega thread to actually try and come up with a well thought out and structured idea to try and improve the game in a way you think it needs improving.
So many just wander into the mega thread (as you've seen), spout a load of complaints, argue for a while and leave it. You at least are trying and I wish you all the best with this idea and the effort you are putting in.

Jockey.
 

atak2

A
Ok...since this is a serious topic...let's tear the bandage off the festering wound!

First...this game is designed with deviousness, sneakiness, and back stabbing not only as an option...but completely in the foreground, thus the design that everyone can affect everything, from anywhere. To say anything differently, is completely ignoring how the game functions at its most base level.

Second, by design, the idea of 'pew pew PvP' is a sideshow activity, with no relevance to the overarching gameplay. What is designed is a large amount of PvP activities between player groups that use PvE trophy gathering as the premise for destroying your most hated friends within the game.

Finally, because of the nature of the design, and that any of the designed PvP can occur anywhere, and that anyone can attack anyone the same way...the idea that people need to move to Open for any reason is moot. You want to play this game the way it was designed?

Learn to fifth column.....everywhere. Destroy everyone's work and play the way it was designed to be destroyed...in safety.

Quite right. I have also learned, especially with the Xbox players joining us that there will always be hidden players countering our efforts. I am trying to embrace that now and I included a part about AI capital ships spawning in the opening post (but that needs a lot of thought). Its my hope players from all instances and modes can indirectly go to war with each other by spawning either a capital ship (or possibly a finite number of factional AI fighters) across the modes based on the number of players from each faction present in the system.

You have a lot of knowledge on 5th columning tactics. Can you see any way my ideas could work with tweaking?

Edit: One other idea I just thought of is what if a player ship presence "inspires" the AI ships from their faction and those faction AI ships go up in rank across the modes based on how many faction players there are across the modes in that system? I think it was in Warcraft 3 you had hero units that gave morale to all the other units. What if faction players caused something like that to AI faction ships across the modes?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm giving this a +1
Not because I agree with anything, but because atak2 you are the first person out of the dreaded mega thread to actually try and come up with a well thought out and structured idea to try and improve the game in a way you think it needs improving.
So many just wander into the mega thread (as you've seen), spout a load of complaints, argue for a while and leave it. You at least are trying and I wish you all the best with this idea and the effort you are putting in.

Jockey.

Thanks I repped you too.
 
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Powerplay killed Elite:Dangerous for me.

This isn't intended to be one of those petulant posts where someone posts their griefs and expects the rest of the community to rally around them with a big group hug and tell you it's okay. I know many people will just flame this post and I couldn't care less if they do. My intent is to convey to FDev why my enjoyment of and participation of Elite: Dangerous has steadily declined since the release of powerplay. I don't expect anything to change, it's just customer feedback.

I was really enjoying this game up until powerplay. When the wings update came out it made the game so much better, I joined a player group, was having a tonne of fun playing with other people.
Then powerplay came out, and I had no idea what I was doing. The whole system seemed very complex and convoluted. Eventually I figured out how it worked, and now I couldn't care less.
I used to love Elite because it made me feel like a spaceship pilot. Now it feels like this big persistent political strategy game which isn't the kind of game I enjoy at all, I hate politics and none of the powers are interesting to me.

The pressure to commit to the whole powerplay cycle has taken over this game, I feel guilty for not being able to participate, especially when my chosen power loses another foothold.
I realize powerplay is optional, and not intended to be the main priority, but it sure feels like it is. Everyone seems to be min-maxing the crap out of the system every day, and so there feels like there is all this pressure to commit to it. Also, there is -all for rewards for participating.

Also, even though I know how it works it's confusing. Why is the Hudson's HQ in Independent controlled space? It feels like the minor factions have nothing to do with the powerplay struggle so what's the point? I go to a military strike, and it looks like I'm getting combat vouchers, but I'm not because I didn't choose a side, and it doesn't even give me the option to choose a side, and it looks like the two sides fighting are both federation minor factions... so as a Hudson supporter why am I fighting other federals? It feels broken.

I feel like my efforts to help my power in open play are undermined by people who play in solo. Solo players can do whatever the hell they want without consequence (aside from NPC's which, let's face it, aren't really a challenge after you get somewhat proficient), so I'm left wondering why I should even bother playing in open at all.

Lastly, before powerplay there was an enjoyable aspect of roleplay, some really interesting groups formed with various agendas that fit nicely into the whole fantasy of Elite. Now however, all these groups seem to be hard locked into what feels like overly rigid powerplay goals and the fantasy is replaced with people gaming the system. It's a bit like as if we were all playing D&D and then overnight we all started playing Monopoly instead.

I realize I have a choice to abandon my power and not participate at all, but powerplay seems to have saturated every aspect of the game and soured the experience for me.
So I guess I'll be taking a break from this game. There are a bunch on new games coming out that I want to play anyways. Maybe I'll be more excited to play after a while and I'll be more stoked, but for now I just can't be bothered.
 
To Salad: Forget your posted reply to my Op (thanks)... but have +1 Rep for your excellent sig and sig comment. Nice!
 
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The two types of players that need to be encouraged to join open are traders and explorers.

1. Traders and explorers are not primarily interested in interaction with other players.
2. Traders have almost nothing to gain in open:
- most interaction will be negative
- there is much higher chance to lose progress
- combat is totally one sided and not fun for trader
- even if they "win" (run with cargo), they lose time
- even if they "win", they can be interdicted again and lose more time
- meaningful security or law is non existent (from trader PoV)
- even if they destroy pirate, progress loss for pirate is minimal - comparing to possible trader losses insignificant
3. Pirates want interaction with traders.
4. Griefers want interaction with traders.
5. Bounty hunters want interaction with pirates and griefers.

Penalizing Solo players by making traders&explorers grind more to unlock faction benefits will not make them seek player interaction.


What could be done:

1. Lower the "fee" for traders:
- different ship&cargo insurance basing on system security level
- different ship&cargo insurance for unarmed traders
- different ship&cargo insurance for clean players
- trading ship on PowerPlay missions could have insurance fully covered by the PP faction (some resource system that could add another layer to PP?)
- "non-lethal" weapons for pirates to disable the trader instead of having to cause damage
- killing clean/unafilliated players should be penalized - so less players will destroy traders&explorers
- hired AI for protection, security forces response
- make interdiction encounter longer but single event only

2. Lower the risk for explorers returning to civilized space:
- no scanned data loss on death?
- data delivery drones?

3. Improve PvP Bounty Hunting:
- add PvP mission system that influences matchmaking
- allow BH "wing beacon-like jump" to a trader attacked in the same system - and share part of the bounty with trader (!)
- advertise pirate location if spotted in high-security system
- collected bounty should be less than 100% of the insurance paid by the pirate (to protect against printing money) - pirate death could lower the bounty just by this amount

4. Improve the crime system:
- the space is big enough to ban pirates from stations where a bounty is set by a minor faction
- make the fines and bounties survive a ship destruction, just as trader's money loss "survives" ship destruction - lower the bounty by paid insurance only
- make the insurance more costly for pirates (e.g. 10%)
- make piracy more profitable if "done right"

5. Add separate layers without changing the Open/Solo balance:
- add new combat ranking like "Valor" you proposed, but make it an Open-only ELO-like rating
- automated "protect convoy" missions with matchmaking, allowing PvP players to play escort scenarios - with "destroy convoy" mission autogenerated for other side
- add additional PvP possibilities (CQC)
 
When I can pledge to the Federation as a all, and not to a president I didn't chose, or a random lady I never heard of before, yeah sure, i'll help.

Until then, i'll just keep bounty hunting and do merc jobs independantly, freely, anywhere I want.

Oh and I almost forgot : i'll keep shooting on sight anybody aligned with an Empire faction wandering in federal space.
 
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This is why private intra-faction comms are a must. I previously proposed an in-game reddit style system that would be limited in scope to concepts essential to coordinating a power's actions effectively and efficiently in a language-agnostic manner, requiring no moderation. Of course, it will never be implemented. But if you don't ask, you don't get, right?
 
Important, Still unable to rank up (Empire) after 1.3 Powerplay release

It has been nearly a month, and much to my dismay I have yet to enjoy any Naval Ascension missions. I have been stuck at Serf since the release of the patch.

I have done everything suggested, Bounties, Missions, Assassinations, Trading. You name it. Nothing

I'm sitting at nearly 30 million including a completely decked Vulture. Id love to test out an Imperial Clipper, or the Imperial Courier.

I have even sent in a bug report and a support ticket for this issue and have yet to hear back in nearly 3+ weeks!

Is anyone else having this issue? and if so, there needs to be more importance on this issue!
 
questions about powerplay

when you complete a certain set of merits to warrant merit level 2 should i be at that level instantly or does it only get upgraded weekly.

the other question i have is if once i reach level 2 and 3 in merit does that mean i will continue to get those "weekly credits" for the faction or does that only last for a few weeks?
like if i reach to the merit level where i can get 5 million a week is that going to be my salary as long as i am in that faction?
 
I think you need to wait until the next week. And I also think the salary is weekly, although merrits you accumulated go down slowly and you need to keep earning them.
 
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