Perceived unfairness, or how to make people angry.

[SteveLaw]

Right, so the latter. Not a game. Thanks for clearing that up.

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That sounds incredibly attractive. And here was me thinking I was playing a game for entertainment purposes, as some kind of break from working my fingers to the bone in the real world rat race.

Instead I'm being offered to the opportunity to "work really hard" to "craft a narrative" and "add to the story".

An opportunity you don't have to take up.

Listen, I'm not a fan of PP by any stretch and I've more or less stopped playing ED completely but come on, there's no need to hammer every single thread with your bitterness.

 

[GluttonyFang]

I don't hate Archon! I think he's cool (in a villainous sort of way).

The reason we have made changes we did right now is simply because the issue was pretty severe so we wanted to address it sooner rather than later.

Hope this info helps a little.

Ah... that's why you gave Archon the Cytoscrambler...

So giving one of the absolute worst weapon to Archon was because...

What again?

 

[Snarfbuckle]

If you want your power to do well, then you need to work hard and encourage other Commanders to join you. Powers will live and die by the support of their Commanders and the actions of their enemies; you may not succeed, but regardless, you're always adding to the story.

Hope this info helps a bit.

Ok, I'll bite.

Work hard, yes, we work hard to just KEEP our ranks and we have a payment per week that is either abysmal for the work we do or ASTRONOMICAL.

With the current setup its a weekly race to keep a rank and if we fail we are forgotten in a month.

I understand that POWERPLAY itself needs to be a weekly thing but should not ranks be something slow, methodical and rewarded by being loyal instead of merely hardworking.

The rank system could really be fleshed out and expanded with hundreds of ranks combined with time pledged.

A thought there could be to add a certain amount of Merits for each week pledged as a weekly reward.

Example: If we say 10 merits per week a player with a faction would gain 520 merits per week after being loyal for a year.

A faction should not be a grind, a faction should be a way of life and loyalty to that faction should be rewarded.

 

[DextersIndignation]

Hello Commander CMDR Malkov!

We'll make sure that Archon does not suffer destruction because of any issues that the system experiences.

Hello Commander iAmLegion!

I can sympathize with the sentiment of your argument, but the fact remains that we (developers) do not want a system where players are able to unwittingly destroy their own power in such a short time, regardless of who the power is.

This really does not have much to do with power-to-power interaction - if your fellow supporters act more cohesively and with better strategy than those of Arissa's then you should still get the appropriate benefits.

At the end of the day, the powers were never going (or meant) to be completely fair in distribution and strength, it would make no sense. If everyone flocks to join the ranks of a single power, then that power is going to have the potential to dominate human space and crush smaller powers. This isn't a given though; effort and strategy play their part.

Make no mistake, there are a *lot* of supporters of Arissa Lavigny-Duval, making her a force to be reckoned (she certainly didn't climb the galactic standings of her own accord), but I know for a fact that Senator Torval's supporters, though much, much fewer in number, have been (so far) very effective, letting her "punch well above her weight".

Powerplay was created to support three ideas: character-based, larger scale interactions (this is additive - it does not replace the minor faction interactions), which is driven by players, and that has dynamic effects for all players to experience.

That supporters can, through sheer effort, strategy or brute force, change the outcome of these power struggles, is a pretty cool concept. And there are personal rewards for doing that, which we'll be keeping an eye on. But past this, what supporters of Powerplay are doing is defining a narrative that everyone potentially experiences, as all powers have various control effects.

Because in reality, power movement and interaction is dictated by Commanders, so Powerplay is, to a greater degree, simply a reflection of the ideals of the player base.

If you want your power to do well, then you need to work hard and encourage other Commanders to join you. Powers will live and die by the support of their Commanders and the actions of their enemies; you may not succeed, but regardless, you're always adding to the story.

Hope this info helps a bit.

Dude,

I would love to support the Feds and kill slavers but that is never gonna happen. I understand that, so I got with the program and joined ALD!

When will we be awarded more stuff for choosing the right faction?

I can see many are upset that they choose the wrong one, I admit I am lucky that I did not sign up with Hudson.

But,
Perhaps we (ALD guys) can get access too more PP weapons the cool missiles and maybe the magic shields and even the pulse disrupter (But we would like em gimballed). I feel this would real help us out!
It might sound cheeky....

But I did pick the right power!

Go ALD etc....

 

[CMDR Mini]

Doesn't make my points any less valid. These weapons are also able to be used by everyone and not just the few that can afford the largest ships with the biggest hard points. At the end of the day power play isn't about grinding to get a module, the module is a bonus.

Speaking of big hardpoint, when will you add more choice for Huge hardpoint ?
Actually, Huge hardpoints are not usefull, and most of the people use Large weapons in them.

 

[Brucolac]

...
Powerplay was created to support three ideas: character-based, larger scale interactions (this is additive - it does not replace the minor faction interactions), which is driven by players, and that has dynamic effects for all players to experience.

That supporters can, through sheer effort, strategy or brute force, change the outcome of these power struggles, is a pretty cool concept. And there are personal rewards for doing that, which we'll be keeping an eye on. But past this, what supporters of Powerplay are doing is defining a narrative that everyone potentially experiences, as all powers have various control effects.

Because in reality, power movement and interaction is dictated by Commanders, so Powerplay is, to a greater degree, simply a reflection of the ideals of the player base.

If you want your power to do well, then you need to work hard and encourage other Commanders to join you. Powers will live and die by the support of their Commanders and the actions of their enemies; you may not succeed, but regardless, you're always adding to the story.

You have not provided any way in game to either co-ordinate or organise players efforts to support their powers. We are limited to an overview screen and the map, neither of which is accurate.

The PP system only reflects which merits can be obtained by the fastest means, while making some money on the side. There are many people who put a great deal of effort in to try and organise their Powers, but there's no help for them in-game at all and in the end there's nothing anyone can do against the mass of players taking the easy routes.

 

[Deadlock989]

Makes sense really

"Craft Your Own Narrative" is more a less a euphemism for "Blaze Your Own Trail"

Where can I access this "narrative"? Is there some kind of novel generator churning out episodes? "It was a dark and stormy night. Commander QTPie furrowed his brows as he collected his 5000th rat corpse."

Or is there only that player who took his own time to make the statistics timelines?

Because that's not a narrative.

That's a spreadsheet.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Powerplay was created to support three ideas: character-based, larger scale interactions (this is additive - it does not replace the minor faction interactions), which is driven by players, and that has dynamic effects for all players to experience.

That supporters can, through sheer effort, strategy or brute force, change the outcome of these power struggles, is a pretty cool concept. And there are personal rewards for doing that, which we'll be keeping an eye on. But past this, what supporters of Powerplay are doing is defining a narrative that everyone potentially experiences, as all powers have various control effects.

Because in reality, power movement and interaction is dictated by Commanders, so Powerplay is, to a greater degree, simply a reflection of the ideals of the player base.

If you want your power to do well, then you need to work hard and encourage other Commanders to join you. Powers will live and die by the support of their Commanders and the actions of their enemies; you may not succeed, but regardless, you're always adding to the story.

That's the theory and it's brilliant!

Now, the theory meets reality and a train - wreck occurs, largely due to the fact that we have 3 game modes all funneled towards one purpose with neither game modes knowing, or more importantly, caring what the other mode/group does.

They frankly don't give a damn. Why should they? It's not like there are any incentives to work together and even if there was, the infrastructure currently does not exist in any manner, shape of form to coordinate cooperative gameplay amongst one group, never mind three.

And even if said infrastructure did exist, the very existence of Solo, Group and Open play 100% successfully undermines any meaningful attempt at cooperative Powerplay mechanics.

Fact.

You can stick your head in the sand and attempt to ignore it, but that will unfortunately always be the case.

In all honesty, it's probably a lot easier attempting to herd a pack of rabid feral cats than it is contemplating cooperation

Are FD aware of this hiccup and are steps being taken to try and address the issue?

 

[GluttonyFang]

The power play weapons were always meant to be alternative weapons with unique traits that were not objectively better, just different. From a pure statistical point of the view the DPS and effectiveness of them have been tuned to ensure they're in line with similar sized normal weapons. I think the biggest gripe is that these weapons are actually on the smaller size which was by design. If there were large and huge versions of these things then I bet there wouldn't be such a backlash but then we'd also be making horribly game breaking weapons of god like proportions because their unique traits become too powerful at that level.

Greatly, admitting you have done little to none player testing/practical testing on them, no wonder...

Like... does no one know the difference between theoretical balance and pragmatic balance? Are we playing the game in our imagination? Should I start imagining the Cytoscrambler being actually useful?

Tell me what "god-like proportions" will the Cytoscrambler become even with a Class 4/Huge? Can't target accurately, can't shoot more than 500m, eats capacitor like no tomorrow, worse than a Beam Laser in practical damage (if we include range, then burst/pulse/beam are better to begin with).

Have you tried using these weapons against actual players? Have you done extensive player piracy? If you did, how do you justify the Cytoscrambler, just how?!

 

[Cadoc]

Make no mistake, there are a *lot* of supporters of Arissa Lavigny-Duval, making her a force to be reckoned (she certainly didn't climb the galactic standings of her own accord), but I know for a fact that Senator Torval's supporters, though much, much fewer in number, have been (so far) very effective, letting her "punch well above her weight"..

Would you agree that there is an issue where some Powers (Torval, Sirius) are able to "punch above their weight" because they have a Finance Expansion ethos, but others (Antal, Archon, Patreus) cannot, because they are stuck with the much less effective Combat or Social ethos? Is that something you're looking to tweak in the future?

Because in reality, power movement and interaction is dictated by Commanders, so Powerplay is, to a greater degree, simply a reflection of the ideals of the player base..

Ideals and mercenary attitudes both, I would think. Are you planning to tweak the perks and bonuses which are widely seen as sub-par, as is the case with Winters, Antal and Archon, for example? That would certainly help re-distribute population amongst Powers a bit more evenly.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Doesn't make my points any less valid. These weapons are also able to be used by everyone and not just the few that can afford the largest ships with the biggest hard points. At the end of the day power play isn't about grinding to get a module, the module is a bonus.

Bonus?

You mean minus?

Please tell me how is Cytoscrambler a bonus to a player who commits to piracy, please.

Tell me how people can't afford ships with at least Medium Hardpoints, then try again.

All you made people do is to grind for the meta weapons (Prismatic/Hammer/Plus), if you truly did not wish for people to faction defect and chase after the meta, you would balance the weapons, but you did not, and have no intention to.

All that does is encourage faction-hopping even further.

 

[EUS]

Be thankful your faction isn't the one with the mining weapon.

 

[Cadoc]

Be thankful your faction isn't the one with the mining weapon.

It doesn't really matter if you have Torval's heat beam, the mining laser, Cryotoscrambler or the Enforcer Cannon. All are useless, and if you're not going to fit a module to your ship anyway, whether it's slightly more useless or not... who cares?

 

[fergal]

Ideals and mercenary attitudes both, I would think. Are you planning to tweak the perks and bonuses which are widely seen as sub-par, as is the case with Winters, Antal and Archon, for example? That would certainly help re-distribute population amongst Powers a bit more evenly.

I wouldn't compare Winters with Antal. Its the same perk, except Antal is 5%, Winters (and Aisling) are 10%.

Archons perk is quite poor, its a financial bonus for when you die, under specific circumstances. I'd say its actually closest to the 5% insurance discount Sirius gives.
Its quite difficult to quantify what 20% reduced fines works out to, but it must be worse than a 20% increase in bounty hunting money, or 5% increase in trade money.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Be thankful your faction isn't the one with the mining weapon.

But people knew it was not going to be impressive, it is a mining laser, in the end, and at least it can still mine.

Then we have the Cytoscrambler, oh god...

Can't hit anything outside of 500m, laser resembles a shotgun disco ball that can't hit anything in that 500m range. Damage is less than a beam unless at point blank range... Literally a kick in the face by FD. I wonder what kind of trolling should I expect next...

 

[Poseidal]

Speaking of big hardpoint, when will you add more choice for Huge hardpoint ?
Actually, Huge hardpoints are not usefull, and most of the people use Large weapons in them.

I think it would be more useful with some tweaks to the design ethos of some weapons.

If the projectiles were faster (meaning it is harder to jink/dodge them), and gimbal lasers didn't damage (or couldn't target) subsystems so well, projectile weaponry like Cannon and Plasma Accelerators would be a lot more attractive.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I wonder what kind of trolling should I expect next...

Frag Cannon ammunition reduced to 3 rounds total due to being OP.

 

[SteveLaw]

Literally a kick in the face by FD.

Literally?

 

[GluttonyFang]

Literally?

Literally good sir, literally...

 

[SteveLaw]

Literally good sir, literally...

Well then ouch. I'd sue.