What are the fact suronding Power play?

[Arry]

I have to say that I was becoming interested in power play and tinkered with it, a little with it myself, with the intention of making the extra effort to get myself to 3rd rank over this next cycle. I am still having issues with working out how to do what etc etc, but making the effort anyway. I have said before; I have pledged to a power, not sure what to do, but that is ok with me, I just kill everything that isn't from my power and I get a bonus at the end of the week. I have also spent, a little time, on moving stuff to prepare systems for my power; not a lot; again, because I am not sure what I am meant to be doing. Then this ALD fiasco happens and it makes me realise two things: 1, I know even less than I thought I did about power play mechanics and how I go about playing this part of the game and 2, the goal posts can be moved at any time, at the whim of FDs own expectations.

So; first: What are the facts? I ask this with the understanding that in a court of law, there are many 'sides' to the truth. You have the truth from the prosecution, the truth from the defence and then you have the FACTS. So, there must be players, not FD connected who have access to the facts. Understand that I am not saying that FD are just doing as they wish and then feeding us like mushrooms, but what I am saying is: Given FDs past game changing 'fixes' within this game, one has to question, their version of the truth.

Second: Considering that I play the power play side of the game, to enforce my chosen powers control and influence within the game and not for the credits or the new toys, am I wasting my time, if FD can and will come along and 'adjust' the numbers to fit their own long term game plan?

I waited for the end of cycle figures to come out and totally understand why ALD fell like she did. Which was basically due to player greed and lack of organisation, but I was not impressed by FDs intervention. Although after ploughing through reams of posts of the subject, it seems that FD did not really test PP enough at the beta stages and even if that had put more work into the testing, the results achieved may not have arisen, due to the limited numbers testing PP at the Beta stage. I have deliberately held my tongue and waited for the waters to calm before making any comments myself on the subject.

So, what are the facts and forgetting the toys and that credits, is it worth making the effort to try and make a difference within the power play structure as it stands today?

 

[ozrix84]

So, what are the facts and forgetting the toys and that credits, is it worth making the effort to try and make a difference within the power play structure as it stands today?

No, FD obviously don't want players messing with the Powers, but they do want to give the impression that they can.

 

[Arry]

Well, this is going well.

 

[Araviel]

is it worth making the effort to try and make a difference within the power play structure as it stands today?

this is for you to judge and not for anyone else to tell.
but since you are asking i can try and give you a few facts that might help you make your judgment.


Fact 1. FD had foreseen the potential problem and proposed a fix https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=163495
Fact 2. It happened sooner than FD had predicted and whit more severity than expected.
Fact 3. they decided to revert back and apply their proposed change as it was a problem they had foreseen and wanted to avoid in the first place.
Fact 4. in any dynamic system unexpected and unpredictable things will happen.
Fact 5. Game developers are not chaos theorists.

Speculation - will it happen again? possible and plausible. see fact 4 and 5.

Advise for the judge - play the game for the moment and don't worry to much about it. you might get hit by a truck when walking over the street tomorrow.

 

[Samosa]

No, FD obviously don't want players messing with the Powers, but they do want to give the impression that they can.

So, it's an accurate model of most real political systems, then.

<insert new Oliver Stone movie about the Military Industrial Complex here, starring Val Kilmer as Donald Trump>

 

[Brocktar]

Second: Considering that I play the power play side of the game, to enforce my chosen powers control and influence within the game and not for the credits or the new toys, am I wasting my time, if FD can and will come along and 'adjust' the numbers to fit their own long term game plan?

Short answer, for now you are wasting your time.

The long answer I put in some background:

I mostly joined up to PP mostly for the interesting RP potential it brought along. I wanted to be part of ALD's Shield of Justice and for the first 2 weeks of PP it did seem like I was contributing to the advancement of Imperial Justice spreading corruption reports to new worlds and claiming bounties on dirty pirates. It was interesting to learn along with everyone else how PP worked.

Or how we thought it worked.

Of course there were problems, merit grinders, solo/open, etc. but I could live with that for now in the hope that it would get better when the shinyness wore off and people got the weapons they wanted.

But over the last few weeks FD has reveled more of the system and it just does not make any sense from a fun gameplay perspective. Mostly the artificial overhead wall and its disconnection with the stated CC value. If they wanted systems farther away from the home system to have more upkeep, put that in the tooltip for the profit. That way a faction is still going to hit a "wall" if they keep expanding. You can get so large that it would be impossible to fortify all of your systems as every CMDR would have to spend all of there time fortifying and each expansion would be so far away from the capitol that it would be worth 0 or negative CC.

I think (hope) that FD is starting to realize this and is adjusting the overhead but they are doing it in the middle of the released module and adjusting it after the fact. Even as an ALD supporter I have to disagree with this. They need to announce these changes then implement them after the players have a chance to react to it. I would be very angry if I was a Winters supporter right now as they were dropped down after the week ended by FD.
FD has always been coy with how there game mechanics work so as a result the players are ill-informed, then FE try and "fix" it after the fact. It all feels very artificial and non-immersive.

I would recommend waiting before becoming heavily involved in PP until after they have decided what they want to do with it.

I have personally gone off on a long overdue exploration run and will wait and see what they do with PP.

 

[Arry]

this is for you to judge and not for anyone else to tell.
but since you are asking i can try and give you a few facts that might help you make your judgment.


Fact 1. FD had foreseen the potential problem and proposed a fix https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=163495
Fact 2. It happened sooner than FD had predicted and whit more severity than expected.
Fact 3. they decided to revert back and apply their proposed change as it was a problem they had foreseen and wanted to avoid in the first place.
Fact 4. in any dynamic system unexpected and unpredictable things will happen.
Fact 5. Game developers are not chaos theorists.

Speculation - will it happen again? possible and plausible. see fact 4 and 5.

Advise for the judge - play the game for the moment and don't worry to much about it. you might get hit by a truck when walking over the street tomorrow.

Thanks for the well thought out and constructive answers.

So do you believe that FD will only make adjustments for, 'technical' issues, rather than the game play they want to see?

 

[ozrix84]

So, it's an accurate model of most real political systems, then.

<insert new Oliver Stone movie about the Military Industrial Complex here, starring Val Kilmer as Donald Trump>

As funny as this is, I can't bring myself to laugh at it in context.

 

[andyraptor]

too much time on your hands ...........

 

[Arry]

Short answer, for now you are wasting your time.

The long answer I put in some background:

I mostly joined up to PP mostly for the interesting RP potential it brought along. I wanted to be part of ALD's Shield of Justice and for the first 2 weeks of PP it did seem like I was contributing to the advancement of Imperial Justice spreading corruption reports to new worlds and claiming bounties on dirty pirates. It was interesting to learn along with everyone else how PP worked.

Or how we thought it worked.

Of course there were problems, merit grinders, solo/open, etc. but I could live with that for now in the hope that it would get better when the shinyness wore off and people got the weapons they wanted.

But over the last few weeks FD has reveled more of the system and it just does not make any sense from a fun gameplay perspective. Mostly the artificial overhead wall and its disconnection with the stated CC value. If they wanted systems farther away from the home system to have more upkeep, put that in the tooltip for the profit. That way a faction is still going to hit a "wall" if they keep expanding. You can get so large that it would be impossible to fortify all of your systems as every CMDR would have to spend all of there time fortifying and each expansion would be so far away from the capitol that it would be worth 0 or negative CC.

I think (hope) that FD is starting to realize this and is adjusting the overhead but they are doing it in the middle of the released module and adjusting it after the fact. Even as an ALD supporter I have to disagree with this. They need to announce these changes then implement them after the players have a chance to react to it. I would be very angry if I was a Winters supporter right now as they were dropped down after the week ended by FD.
FD has always been coy with how there game mechanics work so as a result the players are ill-informed, then FE try and "fix" it after the fact. It all feels very artificial and non-immersive.

I would recommend waiting before becoming heavily involved in PP until after they have decided what they want to do with it.

I have personally gone off on a long overdue exploration run and will wait and see what they do with PP.

Again, thank you for a very well thought out and constructive answer, so you believe that FD will not make adjustments for the game plan that they may want to see?

 

[Brocktar]

Thanks for the well thought out and constructive answers.

So do you believe that FD will only make adjustments for, 'technical' issues, rather than the game play they want to see?

From the Devs

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.

Sounds like gameplay to me

 

[Arry]

too much time on your hands ...........

Err.... over the course of a week, I spend less than 2 hours a day playing.

 

[Araviel]

Thanks for the well thought out and constructive answers.

So do you believe that FD will only make adjustments for, 'technical' issues, rather than the game play they want to see?

well, when i design my games i always have a vision of how the game play should be and i try and balance after that.
and i think thats important to have if you are a game designer, if you don't have such visions you are not being very creative.
and i do think FD has such visions to and that we will see many balance passes along the road,
but do i think they have a favorable side or that they are trying to balance they game in a specific direction?
my answer to that is no, since i think as soon as you start making games that has a predictable or definitive outcome then you stop being a game designer and you become something else.

 

[ozrix84]

well, when i design my games i always have a vision of how the game play should be and i try and balance after that.

Daydreaming is dangerous. Remember your advice about trucks running people over.

 

[Arry]

well, when i design my games i always have a vision of how the game play should be and i try and balance after that.
and i think thats important to have if you are a game designer, if you don't have such visions you are not being very creative.
and i do think FD has such visions to and that we will see many balance passes along the road,
but do i think they have a favorable side or that they are trying to balance they game in a specific direction?
my answer to that is no, since i think as soon as you start making games that has a predictable or definitive outcome then you stop being a game designer and you become something else.

Understood. Thank you for your advice etc.

 

[Araviel]

Daydreaming is dangerous. Remember your advice about trucks running people over.

are you still living in the 50's?
recent and not so recent studies have shown that daydreaming is a very healthy thing.