Don't expect a 50 million CR a week bonus to be easy to get

[telperion]

Having seen that people are now saying that you lose 50% of last week's merits (for 3 weeks so 25% of the week before and 12.5% of the week before that one if I understand correctly) it's occurred to me that there seems to be absolutely no point in my participating in Powerplay. I'm going on a 3 week holiday in the summer so no matter how many hours I put in, no matter what rank I manage to get to, I'll be back to nothing by the time I get back from holiday.

I'm starting to see what a lot of people are complaining about now. When I thought it was 10% loss per week it seemed plausible. Now it just seems like a massive waste of time which is a shame because if it didn't feel like trying to push a boulder up a mountain it would actually be fun. What isn't fun is smacking your head against a brick wall which is what you might as well do instead of play Powerplay as in the end the results will be the same. You'll achieve nothing except a headache and a sense of frustration.

 

[hanks01]

Having seen that people are now saying that you lose 50% of last week's merits (for 3 weeks so 25% of the week before and 12.5% of the week before that one if I understand correctly) it's occurred to me that there seems to be absolutely no point in my participating in Powerplay. I'm going on a 3 week holiday in the summer so no matter how many hours I put in, no matter what rank I manage to get to, I'll be back to nothing by the time I get back from holiday.

Well if you're interested in helping support the chosen power that you want to follow then yes there is very much a point. If you're only interested in a cash reward and a big number after the word "rank" then yeah, powerplay probably isn't for you. That'd be a shame, as I'm sure your chosen power would've appreciated the help and you might have even enjoyed getting involved in the various tasks available. Still you can always use this time to get some money together and then throw yourself into a few weeks of powerplay joy on your return.

 

[Josepiphus]

I am going to say it again grinding is not gameplay, fdev need to realise this. The decay is just to keep you on the treadmill, the problem for fdev is the player base has woken up to this and increasingly annoyed at the lack of real gameplay

I understand that you feel like its a treadmill and agree that if we think of this bonus as an end game that it does indeed feel that way. That said I don't think frontier implemented this because they want you to grind.

I think they added this to add a touch of realism and consequence. If you worked a job and then didn't show up for a month then when you show back up your opinion won't be as highly valued as if you had been there every day.

These powers are not end game status symbols but living, breathing entities that can and will change over time regardless of your or my input.

Reading this thread I cringe at the thought of the threads we'll see when someone's power they have been grinding for is wiped from the face of the galaxy... See where I am going here?

This is not a static offline game. This is becoming the closest thing we have to an alternate reality. Would you rather they step away from that dev ethos and create yet another static game?

 

[Chance-]

I understand that you feel like its a treadmill and agree that if we think of this bonus as an end game that it does indeed feel that way. That said I don't think frontier implemented this because they want you to grind.

I think they added this to add a touch of realism and consequence. If you worked a job and then didn't show up for a month then when you show back up your opinion won't be as highly valued as if you had been there every day.

These powers are not end game status symbols but living, breathing entities that can and will change over time regardless of your or my input.

Reading this thread I cringe at the thought of the threads we'll see when someone's power they have been grinding for is wiped from the face of the galaxy... See where I am going here?

This is not a static offline game. This is becoming the closest thing we have to an alternate reality. Would you rather they step away from that dev ethos and create yet another static game?

I really like that you mentioned this isn't an end game. These are literally only bonuses for those that play a lot. You aren't being punished because you don't play as much you just aren't being rewarded as much. It's very simple really.

 

[maviasura]

i got rank4 10 days ago, and i can't get 5m cr bonus this week. Why? idk, if i got rank5 and i will not get bonus cr? than what is PP importance here? and i earned 1983 meredits 10 days ago. Now i have just 983 meredits, where is my 1000 meredits? maybe they want people must play 24 hours this game?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Maybe they should just make the Rank 5 reward of 50m a one shot deal, nerf the decay and let regular players eventually achieve it through time served.
Do the same with the 4th rank.
First 3 still maintain their bonuses and maybe flesh those out a bit by having some variety in the ways to Undermine / Control / Prep / Expand so other roles don't feel so neglected.

There's still plenty of ways to make money in this game and PP might be best suited to work with the rest of the game, by enhancing bounties etc.
Rather than as a standalone as it now seems to be.

 

[IronGremlin]

If some poor sap wants desperately to sink that much of his time into the saddest piece of game design in an otherwise great game, by all means, give him a substantial reward.

Honestly, the reward for rank 5 and/or the relative time investment required to achieve it are vastly less significant than the simple fact that earning merits is hands down the least interesting gameplay system available.

Seems like energy would be better spent trying to beg FDev to replace that terrible time sink with something that was remotely interesting - maybe you'd care less about the reward if earning it was actually fun.

 

[h347h]

If some poor sap wants desperately to sink that much of his time into the saddest piece of game design in an otherwise great game, by all means, give him a substantial reward.

Honestly, the reward for rank 5 and/or the relative time investment required to achieve it are vastly less significant than the simple fact that earning merits is hands down the least interesting gameplay system available.

Seems like energy would be better spent trying to beg FDev to replace that terrible time sink with something that was remotely interesting - maybe you'd care less about the reward if earning it was actually fun.

Some people actually enjoy it though... Just because you have an opinion about it does not make it fact to be waved around like its a bad game design.

 

[Ginrikuzuma]

Let's see I can make about 3-3.5m credits an hour (I'll say 2m for the sake of simplified math). I can either spend 25 (realistic about 17-ish) hours and I make 50m trading.

Or I can spend an entire week hoping I'll mainain my 50m paycheck by the end of the week.

 

[Mugshot]

Glad I read a good many posts prior to adding because initially I couldn't get my head round the we play less but want the same problem lmfao, was too deep for my little brain

So,
Change the system to a purchase reward system.
Weekly 10% decay (or no decay doesn't matter)
1 purchase / week allowed
Purchase Clears? or halves? your merit balance

Casual players only get effected by the 10% drop / week
Gamers continue being able to achieve maximum rewards every week.

Problems ?

 

[Time Streamer]

Here's the thing... a lot of people don't have 4-5 hours to spend in the game at a given time.
When you are logged out, your rating decays.
Right now, while I'm at work, my rating and reputation is decaying.

The point of this is... it is rewarding players who have the time to spend hours upon hours a day in the game, while punishing those who have real life responsibilities.

Haha.. Touché. I absolutely agree with your words. I think that to myself everytime I think about Powerplay: Since i have an 8 hour job (thankfully) i could never reach such Powerplay rating. It's the same problem with exploration. Some people get rich with one or two months in the black, while 3 weeks gave me 9 millions. NINE! I can do that with perhaps half day in a RES site.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Some people are upset about the rank system being to hard to get.

First of all 50% rollover every week and doing multiple tasks will get you powerplay points quicker.

Someone who doesn't play often WILL NOT get to rank 5, that's how it has to be, only the most hardcore players will get rank 5.


They ARE NOT going to pay you a bonus equivalent to a new python every week if you just an average player.

Ranks 1-3 will be for average players and they are relatively simple to get over the course of a month.

The main problem is that Rank 5 should never bee about the money. And for those players where it is about he BONUS and not the money, well, they are shafted.

A Li Hong-Rui faction member at rank 5 can forget about the 200% exploration bonus because he will be too busy farming merits to KEEP the rank 5 in order to have the 200% exploration bonus that he will never have adequate time to USE.

Explorers - How many of you have time to grind merits AND explore the ass-end of the universe at the same time?

EDIT: How much LESS merit cost would the ranks have if we removed all the money?

 

[maviasura]

that sucks, i want to know where is my 1000 meredits! (10 days ago i earned 1983 meredits now i've 983 meredits) i'll not going to rank5 bcs i can't farm meredits all of my time.

 

[nrage]

How did you come to that?

Someone who has all day/ week to play, can invest all that time in getting to Rating 5. Earning themselves 50 million credits a week for the time they invested.
Someone who doesn't have the luxury of playing video games all day, every day will not get to Rating 5. Even Rating 4.

The amount of credits required far outweighs what you get in return, if you don't hit that 50 million mark.

I got to rank 4 playing 1-2 hours an evening. I did invest some cr in fast-tracking to be fair, but then I suspect part of the purpose of PP was to give us something to spend credits on.

- - - Updated - - -

that sucks, i want to know where is my 1000 meredits! (10 days ago i earned 1983 meredits now i've 983 meredits) i'll not going to rank5 bcs i can't farm meredits all of my time.

To maintain a given number of merits i.e. 1500 you need to make X=1500/1.875 or 800 merits per week. 800 merits is 54 kills undermining, assuming 1 kill every 2 mins this will take you 107 minutes (1hr 47mins) **PER WEEK**. This is easily manageable even for a fairly casual player. Rank 4 gives you 5 mil salary, so as long as you don't spend more than 5 mil killing those ships you're making a profit. However, it's a fairly paltry profit TBH so if you're after cr then PP is not the way to get them.

 

[nrage]

The main problem is that Rank 5 should never bee about the money. And for those players where it is about he BONUS and not the money, well, they are shafted.

A Li Hong-Rui faction member at rank 5 can forget about the 200% exploration bonus because he will be too busy farming merits to KEEP the rank 5 in order to have the 200% exploration bonus that he will never have adequate time to USE.

Explorers - How many of you have time to grind merits AND explore the ass-end of the universe at the same time?

EDIT: How much LESS merit cost would the ranks have if we removed all the money?

The exploration bonus is a prime example of the system not quite working. Now, if instead of merit decay and ranking we had a system where you had to spend merits for bonuses then perhaps you would be able to earn enough merits for the exploration bonus, go away for months exploring, come back and spend the merits for the bonus, and profit. I mean, why should your contribution to your power have a time limit on claiming the reward, makes little/no sense really.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

The exploration bonus is a prime example of the system not quite working. Now, if instead of merit decay and ranking we had a system where you had to spend merits for bonuses then perhaps you would be able to earn enough merits for the exploration bonus, go away for months exploring, come back and spend the merits for the bonus, and profit. I mean, why should your contribution to your power have a time limit on claiming the reward, makes little/no sense really.

Exactly.

Why did they not have a much lower Merit ceiling and tiny rewards for each level AND they could keep the decay. Or at least let us choose to exchange weekly profits for keeping our rank and merit level.

Rank = Rank X 1000 Merits
Removed Weekly Cash
Decay = 50% of TOTAL merits per week

Reward per rank: A faction oriented bonus from Rank 2 to Rank 5 (see rough examples below)

Li Yong Rui = 00% / 50% / 100% / 150% / 200% to exploration rewards
Arissa Lavigny-Duval = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Bounty Bonus
Denton patreus = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Combat Zone Reward
Archon Delaine = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Stolen Goods and Black Market Price Bonus
Etc...

 

[nrage]

Exactly.

Why did they not have a much lower Merit ceiling and tiny rewards for each level AND they could keep the decay. Or at least let us choose to exchange weekly profits for keeping our rank and merit level.

Rank = Rank X 1000 Merits
Removed Weekly Cash
Decay = 50% of TOTAL merits per week

Reward per rank: A faction oriented bonus from Rank 2 to Rank 5 (see rough examples below)

Li Yong Rui = 00% / 50% / 100% / 150% / 200% to exploration rewards
Arissa Lavigny-Duval = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Bounty Bonus
Denton patreus = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Combat Zone Reward
Archon Delaine = 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% Stolen Goods and Black Market Price Bonus
Etc...

Have a look at this topic, and my reply (Mal Reynolds):
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3dyjih/i_thought_of_a_way_i_could_actually_enjoy/

I think no decay, plus merits as a currency is just a far better system. Plus there are a number of improvements to be made like BB missions for merit etc. And, a number of powerplay incentives which would make a load of sense IMO.

 

[Mikey2305]

I like doing my bit for my power when i am around and not exploring. I combine it with a bit of trading in my python. I think i had about 130 merits carried over and have shifted about 100 more this week. I certainly have to intention of busting my rear end to get to 50m, neither the time nor the inclination...

 

[maviasura]

hmm how decay is working? (u said that "decay = %50 total of meredits") so for rating 5: i must earn 5000 meredits per week for decay?

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

Somemay be able to religously bang out the merits required to stay afloat in T5... But im not one of them. I dont see those people doing it very long either before getting completely burned out. Ive said it before and ill say it again,"powerplay added grind, not gameplay".