Turmoil - Power play - Discussion

[Roen Soul]

For every system you prepare must be above 100 CC / W, and every system lesser than that you need to let go of it. More you own high income systems, and less you own low income systems, the better your stand is. - How you get rid of bad stations is easy, give them to enemies.

 

[Jet Fusion]

Shoot down 'enemy' 's in 'Turmoil' systems for 15 merits per kill without gaining a criminal status to regain control of the system in turmoil.

Lavigne needs a decent system to counter The Kumo Crew against invasion of The Empire, but Patreus is again a typical shopping-bag with a brain the size of a walnut and countered the system during the previous expansion. Now the system needs to be defended against all other factions to regain control.

And to be honest... I doubt many people really understand what they are doing with Power Play. Many are spending merits for expansion totally blindfolded like throw in 5x as much when the expansion already has been triggered and succeeding without resistance. Picking the wrong systems for expansion that are simply bonkers on any CC profit. Voting on the wrong systems brought forward for expansion. Not properly react on defensive operations in systems that need it, because it involves shooting stuff instead of brainless 'fill cargo hold - move to station B - empty cargo hold' while complaining Power Play costs so much credits while you can do it all for free.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The whole powerplay system is very badly thought out; I don't believe that they ever played it out properly past the first couple of cycles.

I think the problem may be that they did play it out (and probably for several more cycles than have currently happened) but with the wrong set of assumptions:
- expecting far more serious undermining/fortification and expansion/opposition fights, of the sort that's hit Hudson and Winters but no-one else, making a good fraction of expansions fail and CC surpluses being generally lower
- a closer balance of activity between factions, rather than it being "people whose name includes Duval" outsupporting everyone else combined
- less player interest in PowerPlay overall than there was (raising the fortify/undermine thresholds by 5x - and saying then they might well rise further - strongly suggests that they didn't expect anywhere near as many players to spend as much time on it as they have - for all the complaints about it on the forums, Cadoc's activity stats suggest that it has been genuinely popular with the wider player base)
- much more inter-power aggression in general rather than (the Feds aside) most powers' active player groups signing peace treaties, memorandums of understanding, etc. all over the place like a bunch of space hippies. Even if undermining and opposition by Imperials against each other is discouraged, I think they probably expected to see many more inter-Imperial prep fights wasting resources precisely because they were all starting so close together.
- less strong organisation within powers (yes, even less than now!) so that "merit farmers picking negative income systems because they were closest" was a serious threat for more competent players to fight, rather than a mild inconvenience leading to a few suboptimal expansions.

I'm not sure there's much Frontier could have done about this in advance: the beta test looked a lot more like those assumptions, had a different set of power popularities - e.g. Hudson being the most-pledged power - and inevitably nowhere near as many participants. But the overall result is that powers have expanded much faster and more successfully than anyone expected: Antal's last cycle - one expansion opposed and abandoned, one successful, and one basically ignored - might be more typical of how powers were "supposed" to progress.

Turmoil was I think supposed to first happen a couple of cycles back when one of the big powers got about 500CC of systems undermined all at once and didn't have the organisation to fortify. Hudson last cycle had 9 fortified without undermining ... and 2 undermined without fortification cancelled that and more - so a serious undermining attack at the current sort of thresholds could really ruin a power's day long before overheads started to bite, if they didn't have the numbers and organisation to fight back.

Overheads were I think supposed to be the emergency brake on a runaway success to slow them down a little while everyone else regrouped, and a way to make the larger starting positions of Hudson, ALD and Winters not be an insurmountable advantage over everyone else -- not the inevitable result of existence.

So what now? I suspect now they have data about how players actually interact with PowerPlay, Frontier can start carefully tweaking the rules. But I think they'll take that slowly - both because it'll take at least a few cycles to see how any change actually works out, and because drastic rule changes every Thursday will get everyone angry. In the meantime, the bigger powers are probably going to have a rough few weeks - and their temporary retreat is probably going to be necessary to allow rebalancing to take place.

 

[Jet Fusion]

The problem is people themselves Ian Doncaster. Changing a system in rules, because people seem to do the wrong things does not seem to be a solution at all. The problem is where people get the required information, how they process this information and eventually do with the given information. When something goes wrong in even step one then basically everyone else that does get the information is doomed. People seem to be blinded by small rewards too by moving around insane amounts of merits that simply burns them out on it and completely miss out on the actual goal.

For the most part people don't really get the graphical interface in what really needs to be done to be successful as a faction and as a result don't really care as long as they get their little bonus after a cycle. The problem is interpretation and mentality.

Everyone in Lavigne's faction now has a bigger clue on where to go to get things on track again, because they can't move around merits until the 'Turmoil' status is gone. But by having this block you still have the question if it might not be better to let the system go. The system under 'Turmoil' does not have to be a bad system at all and it might be better to let go of other systems with a crap CC rate. This is the point where you know nothing and also not know if any work on it will be wasted time. What the graphical interface also lacks is that you can't really see on what systems is being voted to get a better understanding on what the majority is trying to do without any communication. Some try to post a thread about a faction that is trying to do something, but when people are already too spongy on understanding an interface then you'll most likely won't find them on a forum to see if there's any form of coordination there.
The graphical interface must be way more clear about what is really happening in that very hour and where things are lacking attention or what is utterly pointless to invest time in. Allot of PP pilots are essentially aimless in a part of the game that needs good coordination and information. This is simply not present. The only indications are mainly how a bar is filling up by checking it during a certain period and what happens after a cycle. It's very hard to see who is putting too much effort where till it's too late. The fact that you can fill up a bar endlessly to 1200% to oppose 0,5% when the trigger was already at 40% seems bonkers to me. Most of these pilots simply don't care or are very proud that they reached 1200% without a scratch and think they did a great job.

 

[Titler]

This disaster shouldn't be any surprise to anyone who has followed game design over the years; indeed it's exemplified on the changes to the Civilization series, where the issue of how to deal with expansion is known as either the "Infinite City Sprawl" problem or "Tall vs Wide".

In Civ 1 and 2 the obvious tactic was to just take more and more territory as even a single square city brought some income in, so it was always a net positive. And as a consequence once you'd got a small lead it snowballed into a bigger and bigger one and made the end game extremely easy. This is what would be known as "Wide" Empire, covering everywhere.

The alternative in later Civ games was to make each city a drain that the rest of the Empire had to support, first with Financial Corruption (loss of gold, research) and later with Global Happiness. But quite apart from violating the "Power Fantasy" that is the main appeal of games, it lead to the horrendous situation where you were punished for your own success; indeed the AI would dogpile you when you appeared to be getting a lead (Even peaceful Ghandi became a warmonger when you were too far ahead on score!) so you not only couldn't fight back due a collapsing Empire but getting to that stage ensured you'd be fighting. So people started developing "Tall" empires, very few cities but extremely advanced ones... and then they abused the AI and game mechanics to ensure they won; in Civ 4 it would involve taking advantage of the poor negotiating skills of the AI or it's inability to plan economically as well as humans. In Civ 5 it just meant producing a few military units and abusing the AI's inability to fight well with it's own due to the 1 unit per tile rules.

Powerplay is using the "Tall" model. Whether from incompetent design that pays no attention to wider game experience, or because it's a deliberate attempt to stop anyone ever becoming a "Wide" empire, and thus leaving the grind to support it without any kind of completion or triumph, I don't know. But this was all obvious from the beta experience... Those who criticised it weren't doing so because they hate the game, but because this part of it really is badly designed and needs looking at again.

 

[jgm]

I think the problem may be that they did play it out (and probably for several more cycles than have currently happened) but with the wrong set of assumptions:
- expecting far more serious undermining/fortification and expansion/opposition fights, of the sort that's hit Hudson and Winters but no-one else, making a good fraction of expansions fail and CC surpluses being generally lower
- a closer balance of activity between factions, rather than it being "people whose name includes Duval" outsupporting everyone else combined
- less player interest in PowerPlay overall than there was (raising the fortify/undermine thresholds by 5x - and saying then they might well rise further - strongly suggests that they didn't expect anywhere near as many players to spend as much time on it as they have - for all the complaints about it on the forums, Cadoc's activity stats suggest that it has been genuinely popular with the wider player base)
- much more inter-power aggression in general rather than (the Feds aside) most powers' active player groups signing peace treaties, memorandums of understanding, etc. all over the place like a bunch of space hippies. Even if undermining and opposition by Imperials against each other is discouraged, I think they probably expected to see many more inter-Imperial prep fights wasting resources precisely because they were all starting so close together.
- less strong organisation within powers (yes, even less than now!) so that "merit farmers picking negative income systems because they were closest" was a serious threat for more competent players to fight, rather than a mild inconvenience leading to a few suboptimal expansions.

I'm not sure there's much Frontier could have done about this in advance: the beta test looked a lot more like those assumptions, had a different set of power popularities - e.g. Hudson being the most-pledged power - and inevitably nowhere near as many participants. But the overall result is that powers have expanded much faster and more successfully than anyone expected: Antal's last cycle - one expansion opposed and abandoned, one successful, and one basically ignored - might be more typical of how powers were "supposed" to progress.

Turmoil was I think supposed to first happen a couple of cycles back when one of the big powers got about 500CC of systems undermined all at once and didn't have the organisation to fortify. Hudson last cycle had 9 fortified without undermining ... and 2 undermined without fortification cancelled that and more - so a serious undermining attack at the current sort of thresholds could really ruin a power's day long before overheads started to bite, if they didn't have the numbers and organisation to fight back.

Overheads were I think supposed to be the emergency brake on a runaway success to slow them down a little while everyone else regrouped, and a way to make the larger starting positions of Hudson, ALD and Winters not be an insurmountable advantage over everyone else -- not the inevitable result of existence.

So what now? I suspect now they have data about how players actually interact with PowerPlay, Frontier can start carefully tweaking the rules. But I think they'll take that slowly - both because it'll take at least a few cycles to see how any change actually works out, and because drastic rule changes every Thursday will get everyone angry. In the meantime, the bigger powers are probably going to have a rough few weeks - and their temporary retreat is probably going to be necessary to allow rebalancing to take place.

If they only ran it with one set of assumptions then I really fear for the future of powerplay. They should have run it with the corner cases to see how it worked out. The current situation is not what I would consider particularly unexpected.

I agree that minor tweaks rather than major changes are required, but they need to think about those tweaks carefully. They also need think hard about making the game fun to play, both short and long term, rather than the current system where once you hit the wall there's very little left to do except continual fortification for no real benefit.

 

[Jet Fusion]

If they only ran it with one set of assumptions then I really fear for the future of powerplay. They should have run it with the corner cases to see how it worked out. The current situation is not what I would consider particularly unexpected.

I agree that minor tweaks rather than major changes are required, but they need to think about those tweaks carefully. They also need think hard about making the game fun to play, both short and long term, rather than the current system where once you hit the wall there's very little left to do except continual fortification for no real benefit.

This is where things are misunderstood again. When everything is fortified enough then your brain should signal you to pick up a gun and start shooting stuff to set things straight in Turmoil systems and stop fortifying crap CC systems that are under Control, because they are the main reason why you run into 'Turmoil' in the first place. There's not enough CC profit to take a hit. Or doesn't this happen for u?

 

[jgm]

This is where things are misunderstood again. When everything is fortified enough then your brain should signal you to pick up a gun and start shooting stuff to set things straight in Turmoil systems and stop fortifying crap CC systems that are under Control, because they are the main reason why you run into 'Turmoil' in the first place. There's not enough CC profit to take a hit. Or doesn't this happen for u?

Overheads cannot be balanced with fortification, the numbers for overheads are far too large for that when your power becomes significant (>400 exploited systems).

 

[Jet Fusion]

Overheads cannot be balanced with fortification, the numbers for overheads are far too large for that when your power becomes significant (>400 exploited systems).

Oh boy... That's what i'm saying. The part that is missing is that you think it stops at "continual fortification for no real benefit". This where you need to stop being an auto-wash hauler and go and use guns.

 

[Fyrd Judge]

Please explain how to organise players pledged to a power within the game, as I must have missed that bit.

Reddit pages for factions is where the organisation is. Hundreds of commanders use them.

 

[jgm]

Reddit pages for factions is where the organisation is. Hundreds of commanders use them.

...which is a tiny fraction of the total players. Oh, and isn't "within the game".

- - - Updated - - -

Oh boy... That's what i'm saying. The part that is missing is that you think it stops at "continual fortification for no real benefit". This where you need to stop being an auto-wash hauler and go and use guns.

Could you explain what you mean here by "use guns"? Unless I've missed something there's nothing I can shoot that will result in a reduction of my power's overheads.

 

[Ben Ryder]

...which is a tiny fraction of the total players. Oh, and isn't "within the game".

- - - Updated - - -



Could you explain what you mean here by "use guns"? Unless I've missed something there's nothing I can shoot that will result in a reduction of my power's overheads.

Totally agree and reddit is terrible for organizing anything. Facebook would be better.

 

[Roen Soul]

Cost of fortification ect. + all new system preparations (10+) + undermining = overheads ( not sure tho. looks like it at least because I got the numbers matched, but i can not say it is )

You pay once for a successful preparation, therefore preparing systems which are far away from capital does not affect the overheads as much as some players want to claim.

The ratio of CC/W is far more important factor than how far the system is from the capital.

 

[jgm]

cost of all upkeep (fortification ect.) + number of controlled systems + number of undermined systems = overheads, ( not sure tho, but looks like it )

No, overheads are proportional to total exploited systems^3. For most factions you divide that by 74000, give or take, to reach your overheads figure.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If they only ran it with one set of assumptions then I really fear for the future of powerplay.

It wouldn't surprise me if somewhere in Frontier's unreleased codebase are a bunch of powerplay AIs to allow them to run hundreds of PP games, with a range of tactics.

Perhaps they found that given some powers peacefully expanding and some aggressively assaulting their opponents and only lightly expanding, the aggressive ones always won (thereby encouraging everyone to start being aggressive, which I'm sure is how it's "supposed" to be played). The idea that tens of thousands of players might collectively solve the Prisoner's Dilemma and all (approximately) pick the peaceful path ... well, how likely was that?

And given how "this is a terrible idea, no-one asked for this, give us {feature} instead" the forums were during PP beta, it's perhaps not entirely surprising that they underestimated how much time people would put in to it - it's basically a massive set of mini-CGs, and CGs generally get a few thousand people contributing, most of those fairly lightly. Split that down ten ways between the powers and again between the individual objectives? Again, how likely was it that they'd be massively more participated in than CGs?

(All speculation, of course - but I'd be very interested in a "the making of powerplay" article from the devs describing how they set up the rules, what their expectations were, etc. It might well have to wait for it to be settled in a bit more, to avoid giving too much away, though - but that sort of "why we're designing it this way" piece has been much less common nowadays, and was always the sort I found most interesting in the early days)

 

[jgm]

(All speculation, of course - but I'd be very interested in a "the making of powerplay" article from the devs describing how they set up the rules, what their expectations were, etc. It might well have to wait for it to be settled in a bit more, to avoid giving too much away, though - but that sort of "why we're designing it this way" piece has been much less common nowadays, and was always the sort I found most interesting in the early days)

You're very much of the "and they have a plan" mentality, and I'm more of the "that sounds like a good idea let's do it that way" suspicion. Regardless, now that Powerplay has met reality they'll need to work their way through the pathological cases and tighten the whole thing up. Let's hope that what comes out the other side is engaging and involving enough to keep everyone interested for a long while to come.

 

[coolruningc]

I am going to be honest I tried Power play for a couple of weeks and got very board very fast its like a game of Chess but with space ships, to me elite has all ways been about Exploring Hunting Trading. The idea of playing Chess with space ships is well hum why? Why would I stop my self from entering some parts of known space because another faction is now in control of that system?, Why side up with this one faction when a week later the other faction you could change to will make more credits? So I would love it if Frontier tried to fix Power play but as posted in the news letter there adding pvp areas in the game for example death math capturer the flag and so on witch will make Power play seam pretty pointless after this up and coming patch. So hear is a Idea let the Devs install the new pvp options on the main menu remove Power play all together and then work on may be something like lading on planets so we could have later on in the game something like dust 514 wear we have capture the base of the faction But unlike Dust 514 we fly there and walk to the fighting area on the ground? or planet mining!? With the long missed MB4 miner good post and +1 for it

 

[Roen Soul]

Facebook... I tried and got fried.

 

[Roen Soul]

No, overheads are proportional to total exploited systems^3. For most factions you divide that by 74000, give or take, to reach your overheads figure.

Does not match the given data but is close to it. - I just took the numbers given inside the game as costs of something and summed them up. I don't get why it would be some y2k with 74000 while there are clear numbers to sum it up... Even tho that y2k is quite close too.
However this even more enforces the point that distance of a system from capital has not any meaning to overheads. Expanding to good systems is then the best option while leaving the bad systems behind.

Flaming the good systems to expand is absurd. The CC/W has absolutely more affection to power than how far some system is from the capital system.

 

[jgm]

Does not match the given data but is close to it. - I just took the numbers given inside the game as costs of something and summed them up. I don't get why it would be some y2k with 74000... Even tho that is quite close too.

It really is. There's a whole thread on it: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159305. It has graphs and everything.

However this even more enforces the point that distance of a system from capital has not any meaning to overheads.

I'm not sure anyone said it did. Distance from HQ does determine upkeep, however.

Expanding to good systems is then the best option while leaving the bad systems behind.

The difference between a "good" and a "bad" system is largely irrelevant when you have more than 400 or so exploited systems. "good" systems just send your power in to turmoil faster.