The Powerplay discussion thread.
- Thread starter Matt
- Start date
You get 15 merits when you interdict enemy ships in hostile space, not in the cz thingies (where you get a measly 1 credit per ship).
Ok, in resistance pockets and their enemy space equivalants 'military strike zones' you will get 1 merit per kill.
The 15 merit per kill is for interdicting federal agents/support vessels for the specific power, and subsequently killing the agent/support vessel. These kills grant 15 merit 'vouchers' that must be redeemed in your powers control systems in the contact menu in station.
Of note some powers involve different requirements for these 15 merit vouchers, for instance Pranav Antal resistance requires you to not only attack the support vessels but also scoop up their cargo and return the cargo for merits.
The 15 merit per kill is for interdicting federal agents/support vessels for the specific power, and subsequently killing the agent/support vessel. These kills grant 15 merit 'vouchers' that must be redeemed in your powers control systems in the contact menu in station.
Of note some powers involve different requirements for these 15 merit vouchers, for instance Pranav Antal resistance requires you to not only attack the support vessels but also scoop up their cargo and return the cargo for merits.
Powerplay future
Okay so I find myself investing a lot of time and effort towards the alliance, and we achieved everything we could have hoped for, but instead every empire faction has passed us, and is facing zero adversity. Even more daunting is that I'm currently ranked lieutenant with the federation, saving my credits for the Federal Corvette, but both federation's powers are crumbling, they are both losing a great deal of their fortifications, and because of the systems set in place, the empire is pretty much untouchable.
My purpose of creating this thread isn't to complain, it's not even to bring awareness to the problems with the faction imbalance, but only to try to get an understanding of what changes are going to be made, or even what's being considered. As things stand right now there is no future for the federation, and if things continue, the Empire is going to focus their efforts towards the alliance and the rest of the factions, then at that point every non Empire player would be pretty much forced to throw his ideals and merits out the window and join the Empire, or give up on Powerplay altogether.
If there is a thread, a post, or some announcement from FD that explains their plans I'd love for someone to post it as I haven't found anything related to giving the Empire the kick in the groin that every other faction is undergoing.
Okay so I find myself investing a lot of time and effort towards the alliance, and we achieved everything we could have hoped for, but instead every empire faction has passed us, and is facing zero adversity. Even more daunting is that I'm currently ranked lieutenant with the federation, saving my credits for the Federal Corvette, but both federation's powers are crumbling, they are both losing a great deal of their fortifications, and because of the systems set in place, the empire is pretty much untouchable.
My purpose of creating this thread isn't to complain, it's not even to bring awareness to the problems with the faction imbalance, but only to try to get an understanding of what changes are going to be made, or even what's being considered. As things stand right now there is no future for the federation, and if things continue, the Empire is going to focus their efforts towards the alliance and the rest of the factions, then at that point every non Empire player would be pretty much forced to throw his ideals and merits out the window and join the Empire, or give up on Powerplay altogether.
If there is a thread, a post, or some announcement from FD that explains their plans I'd love for someone to post it as I haven't found anything related to giving the Empire the kick in the groin that every other faction is undergoing.
I don't even know what to tell you at this point. I was sure that the glaring imbalance, especially in perks and bonuses offered by Powers, would be obvious to FD and they would quickly address it. Well, here we are, almost a month later, and there's not even a word from Frontier. Personally I'm in until Pranav Antal falls, then I'm out of Powerplay, let Imperials have their "victory".
At some point they'll have to scrap everyting because PP is going to be a mess very soon. I'm not sure even they understand the rules they have setup, and they sure failed to predict gamer behaviour.
I hope it goes directly into the toilet.
I am with you on this one...
I saw a post showing David Braben with a Empire coffee cup or something and a comical post about him being a Empire fan, and I can't help but going back to that when I look at the power's page, when I see 4 Empire factions, the way the system is. I cannot imagine this being an accident.
Imagine the story writers, developers, and David Braben all at a conference table together discussing Powerplay, someone stands up and says there are going to be 4 empire factions all clustered together, we're going to put 2 beautiful women leading 2 of the powers, in strategically the best place, then the federation is going to have only 2 powers sandwiched between the Alliance and Empire. And after that horrible idea nobody says a thing, and lets it FD invest tens of thousands into this system.
You open up the map, and it looks like Germany(Federation) world war 2 vs Russia(the empire) and England, Canada and every other country fighting Germany representing every other faction, it's terrible, no other faction can touch the Empire so everyone just es on the Federation.
I feel like this has to be part of their plan and there is something in store but I need to know if I should even bother to keep trying to support a faction that's doomed.
Imagine the story writers, developers, and David Braben all at a conference table together discussing Powerplay, someone stands up and says there are going to be 4 empire factions all clustered together, we're going to put 2 beautiful women leading 2 of the powers, in strategically the best place, then the federation is going to have only 2 powers sandwiched between the Alliance and Empire. And after that horrible idea nobody says a thing, and lets it FD invest tens of thousands into this system.
You open up the map, and it looks like Germany(Federation) world war 2 vs Russia(the empire) and England, Canada and every other country fighting Germany representing every other faction, it's terrible, no other faction can touch the Empire so everyone just es on the Federation.
I feel like this has to be part of their plan and there is something in store but I need to know if I should even bother to keep trying to support a faction that's doomed.
Powerplay actually being exciting?!? (Some constructive feedback now that I actually played it)
Hey all,
I finally got a chance to try the Powerplay features of E: D in earnest. I made a video of my initial efforts to do so, under the guise of making another video of "Intense Moments:"
[video=youtube;4Db288jRGO0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Db288jRGO0[/video]
Now that I've provided the above video for context, I have some constructive feedback on what has gone right and wrong about Powerplay, at least for me.
Gone Right: There's a bit more incentive for players to interact with each other, as the interdiction in the above video has shown. I've been interdicted by other players before, but with Powerplay the occurrences have gone up. For me this is a good thing because fighting NPCs gets boring after a while.
Also, it seems like the promise of epic space battles has inched ever so closer to being a reality in E: D. The "Security Operations" for the faction I chose are certainly heart-pumping enough for me, at any rate. I'm not saying E: D shouldn't improve its space battles; quite the opposite. What I am saying is that this is a promising start for how to make space battles more epic.
Gone Wrong: Not much incentive. After I managed to go back into the aforementioned war zone in a later play session I didn't record, I managed to rack up some kills without getting killed myself. I basically did this by being opportunistic, killing dudes that were already being fired upon by friendlies. I got around 5 kills that time.
Imagine my utter shock that when I got back to the station, those kills added up to only 5 merits and 500 credits. Call me greedy, but don't I deserve a bit more than that when it comes to bleeding and dying for one's faction? It's not like I was drafted.
In short, Powerplay is a good start. But it's a start. I know many players lament it and say it shouldn't be implemented anymore, but if you ask me, this is the kind of feature that should be expanded upon and fleshed out. I'm not blindly praising Frontier Developments here. Rather, I'm saying that they should improve upon what works. They should commit to completing features like this, instead of leaving them to die to move onto the next player-requested feature.
I know Powerplay has been debated to death already...and that I'm a bit late throwing my hat into the debate ring...but I had to do it sometime.
Hey all,
I finally got a chance to try the Powerplay features of E: D in earnest. I made a video of my initial efforts to do so, under the guise of making another video of "Intense Moments:"
[video=youtube;4Db288jRGO0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Db288jRGO0[/video]
Now that I've provided the above video for context, I have some constructive feedback on what has gone right and wrong about Powerplay, at least for me.
Gone Right: There's a bit more incentive for players to interact with each other, as the interdiction in the above video has shown. I've been interdicted by other players before, but with Powerplay the occurrences have gone up. For me this is a good thing because fighting NPCs gets boring after a while.
Also, it seems like the promise of epic space battles has inched ever so closer to being a reality in E: D. The "Security Operations" for the faction I chose are certainly heart-pumping enough for me, at any rate. I'm not saying E: D shouldn't improve its space battles; quite the opposite. What I am saying is that this is a promising start for how to make space battles more epic.
Gone Wrong: Not much incentive. After I managed to go back into the aforementioned war zone in a later play session I didn't record, I managed to rack up some kills without getting killed myself. I basically did this by being opportunistic, killing dudes that were already being fired upon by friendlies. I got around 5 kills that time.
Imagine my utter shock that when I got back to the station, those kills added up to only 5 merits and 500 credits. Call me greedy, but don't I deserve a bit more than that when it comes to bleeding and dying for one's faction? It's not like I was drafted.
In short, Powerplay is a good start. But it's a start. I know many players lament it and say it shouldn't be implemented anymore, but if you ask me, this is the kind of feature that should be expanded upon and fleshed out. I'm not blindly praising Frontier Developments here. Rather, I'm saying that they should improve upon what works. They should commit to completing features like this, instead of leaving them to die to move onto the next player-requested feature.
I know Powerplay has been debated to death already...and that I'm a bit late throwing my hat into the debate ring...but I had to do it sometime.
I expect there will be a game lore update just when the Empire is the strongest causing a massive rift. Even having the biggest faction split into two conflicting factions.
On the one hand I hope the players can influence the world and effectively shut down a major faction since thats what was promised. On the other hand as above they can control an edit anything they want, all they need is a storyline reason to validate why. Im guessing #1 will be the emperor dying and the succession, one faction may even leave the entire Empire major faction...
On the one hand I hope the players can influence the world and effectively shut down a major faction since thats what was promised. On the other hand as above they can control an edit anything they want, all they need is a storyline reason to validate why. Im guessing #1 will be the emperor dying and the succession, one faction may even leave the entire Empire major faction...
I'm not sure either, what to tell you ..
The way pp is currently working, I don't fear for the federation though. I'm pledged to Winters myself and feel the heat everytime I look through the windscreen. It's imbalanced and goes more and more grindy (the latest increase in fortification values was a direct slap in any federal face, considering the numbers of players we have). I could think up a bazillion changes to make that mess better, but I don't think FD is listening to their customers anymore.
One last thing. In some diplomatic talk between Feds and some Alliance guys, someone stated, that no faction would reach out for more than 150 ly, not on a million years .. and that the Alliance is pretty safe as no empire faction would go against them. Well, AD is going to controll 2 systems, ~170 ly out, and they're about to prepare 2 more of those.
The current game mechanics don't allow a power to go entirely down unless there's some real effort of opposing powers to make this happen (a power would need to go down to the last 3 spots and any further growing would be needed to be unseccessfull .. I personally don't see that happen).
In it's current state it's rather frustrating and just the cool guys in Winters make it fun .. but not the game itself.
The way pp is currently working, I don't fear for the federation though. I'm pledged to Winters myself and feel the heat everytime I look through the windscreen. It's imbalanced and goes more and more grindy (the latest increase in fortification values was a direct slap in any federal face, considering the numbers of players we have). I could think up a bazillion changes to make that mess better, but I don't think FD is listening to their customers anymore.
One last thing. In some diplomatic talk between Feds and some Alliance guys, someone stated, that no faction would reach out for more than 150 ly, not on a million years .. and that the Alliance is pretty safe as no empire faction would go against them. Well, AD is going to controll 2 systems, ~170 ly out, and they're about to prepare 2 more of those.
The current game mechanics don't allow a power to go entirely down unless there's some real effort of opposing powers to make this happen (a power would need to go down to the last 3 spots and any further growing would be needed to be unseccessfull .. I personally don't see that happen).
In it's current state it's rather frustrating and just the cool guys in Winters make it fun .. but not the game itself.
You also fail to mention that the Clipper was the ship to get !! (of the two factional ships) - prior to PP release. They even had a sale on the Clipper which caused a mad rush.
So alot of people ranked up in Empire to get it... I know I did.
Once people work up a faction ranking many continue their allegiance.
In Beta I was keen to play alliance but in the end there were no benefits at all, and I wanted a Clipper.. (Still my fav ship in the game.)
It does seem extremely over balanced, but I believe any kingdom that over extends it's practical reach usually collapses.
It's still early days, be interested to see how this all pans out.
So alot of people ranked up in Empire to get it... I know I did.
Once people work up a faction ranking many continue their allegiance.
In Beta I was keen to play alliance but in the end there were no benefits at all, and I wanted a Clipper.. (Still my fav ship in the game.)
It does seem extremely over balanced, but I believe any kingdom that over extends it's practical reach usually collapses.
It's still early days, be interested to see how this all pans out.
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Ah yes, the trigger increase. It's actually a great example of a good change made bad by horrible timing. Right now the majority of the playerbase is in the Empire. Aisling and Arissa in particular have a lot of support compared to other Powers. Those big Powers weren't really affected by the trigger increase, while those who struggled before (Pranav Antal, Hudson, Winters) just received a huge slap in the face. I'll wait until my end of cycle analysis before I make any definite judgement, but it certainly appears that the trigger increase reversed the trend of the Empire Powers finally receiving some undermining and opposition, as their opponents are too busy scrambling to hit their triggers to attack.
I actually think this is a wider problem than just PowerPlay because despite comments by DBOBE along the lines that the Empire was modelled on Germany, people still choose to side with them. It's probably not helped by Empire technology looking cooler than the Fed stuff (which is a hangover from Frontier and FFE days).
Obviously PowerPlay exacerbates the issue but there is the argument that they are only satisfying the implied demand.
Edit: there was a word before Germany that got filtered out. Let's just say they were in power between 1936 and 1945
Obviously PowerPlay exacerbates the issue but there is the argument that they are only satisfying the implied demand.
Edit: there was a word before Germany that got filtered out. Let's just say they were in power between 1936 and 1945
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Inevitable I think.
I could also see the Princess getting into position and defecting. (*giggety)
I left Aisling and joined with Arissa (simply for some variation on mission types) Went from one Duval to another, and they still tried to kill me.
No love in that family.
PowerPlay is making me stop playing the game. I hate every piece of it.
FD is not really telling us their plans about anything, so there is no thread that the OP is looking for.
Based on how they've balanced the rest of the game over time, I would expect that PowerPlay will not be fixed at all.
FD is not really telling us their plans about anything, so there is no thread that the OP is looking for.
Based on how they've balanced the rest of the game over time, I would expect that PowerPlay will not be fixed at all.