Enough of Powerplay - Why I unpledge

[Sim Maker]

Was going to start a thread on this, but I will ask here instead.......
.
What actually changes, in the game/game play, because of all this?..........
.
So, we have a lot of players rushing around shooting this and that, trading like crazy and delivering propaganada and in the case of the alliance, "crap"............this all then gets thought about by the server side and then on a Thursday morning the galaxy gets updated.......all well and good........
.
But how does this actually change the game? (Using my imagination here) Are we seeing systems flip, stations getting cleared out by the victors? Stations damaged in attacks? Convoys of refugees fleeing the invaders? New stations appearing around expanded systems?..........If I take my ship out of the station and go fly in space, what has actually "changed" out there?

 

[Straylight0]

If it's any consolation, I was playing with numbers about going for rank 5, and I figured out (with a lot of provisos: if the manual correct, is the merit system working as intended etc) that grinding those 10,000 merits gives less credits/hour than you can trade with a larger general-purpose ship. So it's no loss beyond a badge if you just make rank 3 then do commerce.

 

[Commander Starcloak]

Is PP really endgame? I'm close to hitting Rating 5, and my most expensive ship is a semi-decently outfitted Clipper, I have 20 million credits in my account, and I'm not rated Elite in anything.

 

[_Flin_]

What actually changes, in the game/game play, because of all this?

The main things that change are that the passive bonusses of the powers get applied to their controlled and exploited systems.

e.g. if Hudson expands into a new system, all non-Federal exploited systems 15 ly around that system will get much less security.

 

[Dakron Nova]

Heh. Some people might consider 3-4 hrs/day quite a lot of time to put into a game, especially if only to hold position...

Spot on ... Im lucky if I get 3 to 4 hrs a week.

 

[PsychoFish]

There are indeed a lot of problems with powerplay:
a) It is unbalanced. Some factors might not even be inteded, but they exist. (Powerplay/Merit generation while undermining)
b) We don't know how it works. Some aspects (Merit decay - overhead!!!!!!) we cannot understand. Some aspects behave differently to what is said in the manual. A lot of PP is just guesswork.

I enjoy PP and hope the problems it has won't break my enthusiasm and will be fixed/dealt with.

 

[raok]

I think PP was waste of resources, or at least the focus was not in things that were actually needed. This of course is just my opinion.

Supporting a Minor Faction, which you selected from many to be yours. It could be that, that part should have had all PP features included. Or that people can build a minor faction, and form a new Power from it. You kinda buried MFs from the game.

Basically, MF vs PP are very similar things, but the other one was now forgotten and buggy, and the other one is a new toy. Like trashing the old one now.

Minor Factions, I assume these background simulator features are still bugged? At least when we started to build one of the minor factions it was bugged. If you had skipped PP and just fixed the background simulator, that would have been enough, at least for now. I assume that had been even less work.

My advice, fix the old toys before creating new ones. Right now you have many old toys that are broken, and the sandbox does not have sand. Please, no more new empty and grindy toys.

For 1.4, you have plenty of toys, minigames, broken features -> Just balance, fix, polish, add content. That will be enough to make this game come alive.
For 1.5, You really have plenty of toys, you can probably spend the rest of the year just creating more to do with the toys, and balancing those.
+ Anaconda paint pack, Not just plain colors pls. I promised to buy a paint pack when you get the base game fixed, and there is none for my ship atm.

 

[_Flin_]

Minor factions are working o.k.
There are still a few issues, like
- the conflict cooldowns cascading from the minor faction to the system
- balance issues regarding certain activities
- box being too black (you see things happen, but dont know why; states occur and you dont know why or how to fight them)
- single faction civil wars
- factions getting stuck on influence

But overall it is working as intended.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

A cool system would have been to have a Faction Growth system that can be influenced by players. When it reaches a certain size it becomes a major faction.

Faction growth could be based on systems affiliated and ruled by that factions majority

Affiliated Systems
1-5: Minor Faction
6-10: Moderate Faction
11-20: Large Faction
21+ : Major Faction

Faction warfare could then be done by players and bonuses from factions could be minor but influence followers.

These factions could then also challenge even Powerplay Faction.

 

[Mrjupp]

Well.. i don't want to burst your bubble there but it doesn't do much really. This last week i spent my entire play time trying to push a certain minor faction in a certain system to flip over control to them with 4-5 buddies of mine i am the only one who did missions exclusively and i play a lot averaged 3-4 hours a day, literally did hundreds of missions just by myself and all we achieved was one state change in one minor faction and we actually lost 15 percent influence. Now i know that you cant force the background sim and it has to take its time with cooldowns on states but it really doesn't feel like we are making a difference quite the opposite stuff goes the opposite way we want it to go and we can't do anything about it. FDEV really needs to publish something like how the background sim works.

Yes you can! We've created a bubble with 8 systems (6 under control, other 2 majority waiting) in the space of 3 weeks with one system changed in 96 hours and many of our members still did Powerplay. Saying that, Powerplay is Pants. I haven't joined it, many others haven't joined it and to be honest it's for the console Brigade as it's a similar game format. As for some organising what should be done for each Cycle, it's a Sociopaths wan*fest. Gives them something to rub themselves on.

 

[raok]

Minor factions are working o.k.
There are still a few issues, like
- the conflict cooldowns cascading from the minor faction to the system
- balance issues regarding certain activities
- box being too black (you see things happen, but dont know why; states occur and you dont know why or how to fight them)
- single faction civil wars
- factions getting stuck on influence

But overall it is working as intended.

We ended up to not have missions for the minor faction, or very very rare.
We probably hit the bug where influence gets stuck. This is really annoying, and probably it is still there.

When the influence gets stuck, it is kinda show stopper? Pretty much makes you annoyed just because of all wasted hours for no influence change. I would not say this to work ok, but maybe critically buggy? I admit, I have not tested this in a while. If someone really knows about this, I would be interested to know?

They could have fixed/improved the MF system, but now we have PP. I would have wanted to pledge myself for that tiny-tiny minor faction, and to work for it to glory. Would have been a lot less development hours to fix the old. If I remember correctly, people where asking that the minor factions could offer some boons for people who are working for those. I suppose a duplicate from the same thing was needed, in form of PP.

Have to admit that I would like to join these so that minor faction grows to be a power etc. That way everything would join together once again.

I suppose I repeated myself here, it happens.

 

[Roadblock]

Heh. Some people might consider 3-4 hrs/day quite a lot of time to put into a game, especially if only to hold position...

Indeed, I'm also married, with two small children and I'm lucky if I can get in about 30-45 minutes before I leave for work in the morning. Occasionally, I have a little time to play just before bedtime, but not often.

Spending 3-4 hours after work playing a game would necessitate not spending any time with my family, which isn't really acceptable to me. To each his own, I guess.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Indeed, I'm also married, with two small children and I'm lucky if I can get in about 30-45 minutes before I leave for work in the morning. Occasionally, I have a little time to play just before bedtime, but not often.

Spending 3-4 hours after work playing a game would necessitate not spending any time with my family, which isn't really acceptable to me. To each his own, I guess.

It would really have been better if they had added a reputation system with ranks and used a faction specific bulletin board.

just take the Imperial Ranks.
14 ranks based on reputation grind for missions

Let your rank be the multiplier for mission reward instead of a weekly payout. Mission gives 10K? You now gain 140K at rank 14.

And add a slow faction decay or a more powerful penalty when you fail a mission but no -50% standing per week.

Add rank voting points per rank earned for powerplay expansion.

A rise in a faction rank gives you negative reputation to all opposing factions.

Now we have gameplay already anchored in the basic game.

 

[_Flin_]

When the influence gets stuck, it is kinda show stopper? Pretty much makes you annoyed just because of all wasted hours for no influence change. I would not say this to work ok, but maybe critically buggy? I admit, I have not tested this in a while. If someone really knows about this, I would be interested to know?

If influence doesn't move for one faction you should send in a bug report immediately. It's a show stopper and won't move again until the server team kicks the minor faction around a bit. Furthermore... at least that's my impression... all influence generated for the minor faction during the stuck time is lost. We did quite some missions once for a faction and it stuck and all was lost in the void.

 

[medwyn]

Powerplay was an addition I was very much looking forward to. But today, after 3 turns, I'll unpledge.
I am not happy with Powerplay and think it doesn't add anything positive to my game.

My main reasons:
...
(All you wrote)

I pledged Mahon too and I'm not interested in the fed or empire philosophies at all so PP is literally over for me. Just like ED for another few months until the next patch.
At least the new "overhauled" missions should have been there to stay for but that's smoke and mirror too.

I hate cigarettes, never smoked but maybe on the very day when ED evolves to a standard keeping me engaged I will light up a cigar!
C'mon, FD, I'd like to feel the threat

 

[Gormadoc]

Power Play is not for the new player, this has been quoted by David Braben. Its a game for the super rich, as in real life, never seen a poor politician. I thought I was fairly well of until I saw that most people are spending millions on fast tracking merits.
Come back to power play when you have about 10 billion spare, until then enjoy what the rest of the galaxy has to offer.

I have 6 million credits on my bank account and iam rank 4.
You dont need to be super rich to play PP.

The only thing you need is either a vulture or a type 6 transport.
Then you are good to go.

 

[Quineloe]

I really wished PP wouldn't overwrite the legal status of the entire game. I am a Federation post commander, allied with the federation, yet if I fly through Gliese 868, it is legal to attack me as if I were a wanted criminal.

 

[slashgoh]

Powerplay was an addition I was very much looking forward to. But today, after 3 turns, I'll unpledge.
I am not happy with Powerplay and think it doesn't add anything positive to my game.
...

Me too.
I'm currently pledged with the guy from Sirius Corp (I don't remember his name, it should be useless anyway), but the merit system and all PP stuff is so boring and unappropriated that I leaved civ space with my ASP, waiting for a better Space Sim.
Currently the emptiness of deep space is better than managing merits, votes and repeated missions for the PP characters.
ED could be a spectacular game if only, after 1.2, the developers had followed the hundred of thread pages where players asked for contents. They prefer to give us a bunch of useless characters to be pledged and a boring game mechanic to simulate a board game into the space sim. And when the forum becomed full of disappointing feedbacks... they released cqc... and promoted this at E3, like a big improvement...
I want my money back!

 

[Crash1099]

I left because i wanted to trade without having a kill me sign for supporting a power. I get bored just doing one thing. Now i can trade and do combat. I put the vulture to sleep. Sorry Hudson.

 

[Apos]

I'm going to really hope you haven't done that yet, OP. Just one more week plus working up to rank 3 will get you access to your power's special module. Wouldn't you want to secure one first, then unpledge?

We don't get prismatic shields, thus there's no reason to weep over the module.