Hey everyone,
People are always asking for more information from devs and to get an insight into their thoughts about the game.
So it’s welcome news that Sandro Sammarco, Lead Designer, volunteered to go through a few ideas that are being considered at the moment in Powerplay and get your feedback! In addition there is also some detail on how merit decay works as that’s also been a pretty hot topic.
So grab a drink, have a read and gives us your thoughts.
Disclaimer: Please remember that these are just ideas and concepts and we can’t promise that they will make their way into the live game.
Enjoy!
==
Currently to stop a single power from expanding indefinitely, as well as an increasing cost based on distance from a power’s home system, we use an expansion overhead. Put simply, the more systems a power holds sway over, the more expensive its control systems are to maintain.
Seeing this in action, with live volumes of player activity, we feel that this overhead may be too potent in restricting expansion. The “brick wall” it’s creating, stopping powers expanding is occurring a little too soon.
With this in mind, we’re investigating ways to remove the hard wall to expansion by potentially changing the overhead algorithm so that as long as a certain (potentially large amount) of fortification is a achieved the power can continue to expand unless it has made some very bad expansion choices. We’d still hopefully get our expansion slow down, as more and more fortification (more player effort) would be required to keep expanding.
On a somewhat related note, we’re also considering the concept of introducing a “collapse” state for systems that are undermined massively. It *could* be something like: if you undermine more than a thousand percent (for example) more than the fortification carried out, the system enters collapse. Repeating this feat on a system already collapsing would cause it to revolt and become a free agent, even if its controlling power was not running a CC deficit.
We think that this ability could do a few nice things. Firstly, it would offer commanders the ability to directly choose flashpoint conflicts and offer clear, tangible results. Secondly, it might encourage much more interaction between the powers, and potentially commanders – something we really want. Thirdly, it would give meaning to over fortifying and undermining, creating interesting dilemmas, even out of otherwise unintentional effort by commanders simply seeking merits. Thirdly, it would create “open-ended” races meaning that fortification and undermining where always potentially useful. Finally, it might open up interesting dynamics in terms of expansion; if a system revolted through collapse, it would then be available for any power to prepare.
It’s important to stress that these are just some ideas we’re considering, nothing is set in stone and nothing is necessarily going to happen in the immediate future. But they seem interesting enough ideas to use that we feel it would be good to share them with you folk.
I’ve also just been asked to clarify how merit decay is supposed to work. Before I start, I want to point out that we’ve just discovered a potential quirk in the system which could have been giving some odd results, causing some of the confusion about this mechanic! Hopefully we’ll be identifying (and banishing) this gremlin if tracked down – keep a weather eye for updates.
So, here’s how merit decay should work, using an example of you being a Commander newly pledged to a power, who will be earning 10 merits per cycle from activities completed in each cycle:
At the end of the first cycle, you will have earned 10 merits. These merits are used to determine your Rating for the next cycle.
At the end of the second cycle, still assuming that you’re earning 10 merits for tasks each cycle, you’ll have 10 merits from activities in cycle two, and the merits you earned in cycle one will be added again, only at half value, meaning that you’d have a total of 15 merits (10 from cycle two and 10/2 from cycle one) used to determine you rating for the next cycle.
At the end of cycle three, you would be earning merits from activities from that cycle, plus merits earned from cycle two at half value, and merits from cycle one at a quarter value.
So if you earned 10 merits per cycle, in cycle three you would have 17.5 merits (10 from cycle three, 10/2 from cycle two and 10/4 from cycle one).
This trend continues; in its fourth cycle, merits are still awarded, only at an eighth of their original value. So, in our example, with 10 merits being earned each cycle, at the end of cycle four the merit total would be 18.75 (10 from cycle four, 10/2 from cycle three, 10/4 from cycle two and 10/8 from cycle one).
Merits are completely removed from your total on their fifth cycle, so in our example, merits earned from cycle one would be completely removed from cycle four, leaving us the same total of 18.75 (10 from cycle five, 10/2 from cycle four, 10/4 from cycle three, 10/8 from cycle two and zero from cycle one, as these merits have been removed).
The bug we suspect might exist would mean that the merit total isn’t being halved (or not always halved) on cycle two of its life span, instead being added again at full value. On cycle three it is being halved and on cycle four it is being quartered. It is still being completely removed on cycle five.
The upshot of this is that Commanders could be earning more merits than they should be: not the end of the world, but as clearly noticed, inconsistent and potentially confusing, it’s something we’re investigating.
People are always asking for more information from devs and to get an insight into their thoughts about the game.
So it’s welcome news that Sandro Sammarco, Lead Designer, volunteered to go through a few ideas that are being considered at the moment in Powerplay and get your feedback! In addition there is also some detail on how merit decay works as that’s also been a pretty hot topic.
So grab a drink, have a read and gives us your thoughts.
Disclaimer: Please remember that these are just ideas and concepts and we can’t promise that they will make their way into the live game.
Enjoy!
==
Currently to stop a single power from expanding indefinitely, as well as an increasing cost based on distance from a power’s home system, we use an expansion overhead. Put simply, the more systems a power holds sway over, the more expensive its control systems are to maintain.
Seeing this in action, with live volumes of player activity, we feel that this overhead may be too potent in restricting expansion. The “brick wall” it’s creating, stopping powers expanding is occurring a little too soon.
With this in mind, we’re investigating ways to remove the hard wall to expansion by potentially changing the overhead algorithm so that as long as a certain (potentially large amount) of fortification is a achieved the power can continue to expand unless it has made some very bad expansion choices. We’d still hopefully get our expansion slow down, as more and more fortification (more player effort) would be required to keep expanding.
On a somewhat related note, we’re also considering the concept of introducing a “collapse” state for systems that are undermined massively. It *could* be something like: if you undermine more than a thousand percent (for example) more than the fortification carried out, the system enters collapse. Repeating this feat on a system already collapsing would cause it to revolt and become a free agent, even if its controlling power was not running a CC deficit.
We think that this ability could do a few nice things. Firstly, it would offer commanders the ability to directly choose flashpoint conflicts and offer clear, tangible results. Secondly, it might encourage much more interaction between the powers, and potentially commanders – something we really want. Thirdly, it would give meaning to over fortifying and undermining, creating interesting dilemmas, even out of otherwise unintentional effort by commanders simply seeking merits. Thirdly, it would create “open-ended” races meaning that fortification and undermining where always potentially useful. Finally, it might open up interesting dynamics in terms of expansion; if a system revolted through collapse, it would then be available for any power to prepare.
It’s important to stress that these are just some ideas we’re considering, nothing is set in stone and nothing is necessarily going to happen in the immediate future. But they seem interesting enough ideas to use that we feel it would be good to share them with you folk.
I’ve also just been asked to clarify how merit decay is supposed to work. Before I start, I want to point out that we’ve just discovered a potential quirk in the system which could have been giving some odd results, causing some of the confusion about this mechanic! Hopefully we’ll be identifying (and banishing) this gremlin if tracked down – keep a weather eye for updates.
So, here’s how merit decay should work, using an example of you being a Commander newly pledged to a power, who will be earning 10 merits per cycle from activities completed in each cycle:
At the end of the first cycle, you will have earned 10 merits. These merits are used to determine your Rating for the next cycle.
At the end of the second cycle, still assuming that you’re earning 10 merits for tasks each cycle, you’ll have 10 merits from activities in cycle two, and the merits you earned in cycle one will be added again, only at half value, meaning that you’d have a total of 15 merits (10 from cycle two and 10/2 from cycle one) used to determine you rating for the next cycle.
At the end of cycle three, you would be earning merits from activities from that cycle, plus merits earned from cycle two at half value, and merits from cycle one at a quarter value.
So if you earned 10 merits per cycle, in cycle three you would have 17.5 merits (10 from cycle three, 10/2 from cycle two and 10/4 from cycle one).
This trend continues; in its fourth cycle, merits are still awarded, only at an eighth of their original value. So, in our example, with 10 merits being earned each cycle, at the end of cycle four the merit total would be 18.75 (10 from cycle four, 10/2 from cycle three, 10/4 from cycle two and 10/8 from cycle one).
Merits are completely removed from your total on their fifth cycle, so in our example, merits earned from cycle one would be completely removed from cycle four, leaving us the same total of 18.75 (10 from cycle five, 10/2 from cycle four, 10/4 from cycle three, 10/8 from cycle two and zero from cycle one, as these merits have been removed).
The bug we suspect might exist would mean that the merit total isn’t being halved (or not always halved) on cycle two of its life span, instead being added again at full value. On cycle three it is being halved and on cycle four it is being quartered. It is still being completely removed on cycle five.
The upshot of this is that Commanders could be earning more merits than they should be: not the end of the world, but as clearly noticed, inconsistent and potentially confusing, it’s something we’re investigating.
