Powerplay Has Frontier Quit PowerPlay?

[yul7896]

From Cadoc's final cycle analysis. This needs repeating, I'm really trying to enjoy PowerPlay, and I do, or I wouldn't participate, but has FDEV given up on it?

"Why should I convince them to join a Power that will offer them quite literally nothing at all of use, a pointless rank 2 bonus and a worthless unique weapon? Then it struck me - it has been 3 months and not only has there been absolutely 0 balancing between Powers, there is every indication that such balancing will not be coming in the foreseeable future. When I think about, say, Archon or Winters supporters putting in so much good, smart, organised work into the game and getting pretty much nothing for it, while an ALD supporter gets an amazingrank 2 bonus for 15 minutes of work, I genuinely get a bit angry, and I get angrier still when I remember that this is apparently working as intended."

 

[jacobking25]

From Cadoc's final cycle analysis. This needs repeating, I'm really trying to enjoy PowerPlay, and I do, or I wouldn't participate, but has FDEV given up on it?

"Why should I convince them to join a Power that will offer them quite literally nothing at all of use, a pointless rank 2 bonus and a worthless unique weapon? Then it struck me - it has been 3 months and not only has there been absolutely 0 balancing between Powers, there is every indication that such balancing will not be coming in the foreseeable future. When I think about, say, Archon or Winters supporters putting in so much good, smart, organised work into the game and getting pretty much nothing for it, while an ALD supporter gets an amazingrank 2 bonus for 15 minutes of work, I genuinely get a bit angry, and I get angrier still when I remember that this is apparently working as intended."

I think we just have to wait for the next major update, 1.4 before there will be any changes.

 

[yul7896]

I think we just have to wait for the next major update, 1.4 before there will be any changes.

In the fix log for 1.4 beta, PowerPlay was only mentioned 6 times, and there were not significant changes indicated.

 

[Darth Ender]

I think it relies too much on manual manipulation and content to be long-term sustainable.

 

[ROSS-128]

It wouldn't need to rely on manual manipulation so much if they'd get the system working.

Or they could leave the system all buggy and broken as it is, but automate the task of manual intervention.

 

[Kroy]

It's turned in to a war of attrition, with ALD zerg marching on unchallenged. There's no long-term sustainability for a matchmaking system that puts one team so far ahead of the others. As Cadoc also says, we haven't even seen any signs of power collapse. At least that would bring a bit of life in to the system. I'm quite prepared for my power (Winters) to be wiped out in the future, but it looks like such a slow and long painful death at the hands of ALD. Particularly as our coordinated defense is just so damned effective. It's a wonderful thing to behold, and be part of, even if it is just courier missions.

 

[Apos]

I don't know for how long the smaller powers will be able to handle the increasing population of Arissa's min-maxers.

Plus, it doesn't seem to matter. We got Mahon to #2, we organised our little populace better than anyone else. And our reward was having Lave called a new capitalist haven. Because we have the need to reduce our fortification triggers in order to be able to sustain our power long-term with a limited player count and it was FD themselves who assigned us with corporate as a favorable government. Why? Because they were too lazy to have favorable governments specifics to the power and they are tied to the ethos instead. So we have corporates instead of democracies and co-operatives and Hudson has feudals and patronages instead of corporates and patronages.

Meanwhile, Arissa players pat their own shoulders for reducing their fortification triggers. When having patronage as a favorable government. A government type which already controls 1/2 systems in Imperial space and most of their bubbles require the flipping of only 1-2 system to reduce the triggers.

I guess Delaine supporters must be really bad at flipping systems. I mean, confederacies and communist systems? Pfff, easy, step up your game boys.

If this is working as intended, then we might as well proclaim Arissa the winner already and shut the whole thing down. A game is not fun when you already know the final outcome.

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

They recently changed the merits from 1 to 10 for the resistance CZs. That was quite a rebalancing. I came back to playing after I read about that but I guess that depends on who you're fighting for as they're not all combat focused. Saying that, I've got to rank 4 in just 3 days of playing, whereas it took a lot of grinding before just to make rank 2. So it may still be a bit imbalanced - but at least it doesn't feel such a waste of time anymore! Looking forward to the 50m payout if I can get to rank 5!

 

[Kroy]

" it's Arissa's absolutely insane Expansion values that skew the data so badly that I need to start looking at ways to present it differently. Not only was she the first Power to break the 2 million merit barrier, she might have reached 3 million, given how close she was 2h before the end of the Cycle. As it is, Arissa sees more activity than all the Federation, Independent and Alliance Powers put together. In asking Frontier to buff combat expansion we have created a monster"

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3huotj/powerplay_activity_analysis_cycle_11/

 

[JessieColt]

Fdev hasn't given up on PP, even if you do not actively see what they are/might be working on.

ED isn't only PP. It is CQC and Xbox 1, in additional to all of the other activities and maintenance that is going on.

Patch/Release Notes only contain what is ready, not what is in the pipeline.

Arissa is in the #1 spot not because most people care about her, but because at PP Rank 2 she is kicking out 100% bounty rewards increase for her #1 spot.

CZ's, Bounty Hunting and Enemy Faction NPC's (In Controlled systems), all reward 50% bonus to payouts if you are rank 2 with her faction. Which is easy enough to get.

If you are combat focused and happen to hit Rank 5 with her, you not only get 50,000,000 credits a week, but a 100% payout to Bounties.

This contributes a lot to why some people are pledged to her.

She is getting maybe 1-2 Expansions a cycle, but the focused pledges are making sure that the systems that are prepared and expanded into are high CC income systems, which helps to cover overhead and undermining costs.

AD has/had an issue that Winters also had. Systems over 54CC could not be prepared, even if the Power had 200+ CC available. This caused a huge problem with a bunch of systems being picked up that are loss generating, instead of income generating.

The only way to overcome this without a reset by FD is to target the higher income generating systems each week and work hard to keep from picking up more loss generating systems.

Just because FD isn't resetting all PP factions back to HQ only, doesn't mean that PP is a loss. Instead of asking for help from FD to "make things fair", work with whomever you are pledged to in a way that benefits the Power in the maximum way possible.

 

[Apos]

snip

Arissa and Hudson are bugged and their bonuses stack multiplicatively.

Arissa reaches 480% increased payouts in bounties and warzone due to her #1 spot.

It has been reported for many cycles now and even that hasn't been fixed yet.

An anaconda kill in a CZ for an Arissa rank 2 pledger is almost as much as 1/2 the profit a good trade route that doesn't involve Imperial Slaves will give.

This also means that Arissa supporters are swimming in credits. Which only makes fortifying easier if they are in an urgency.

Everything is beneficial towards Arissa, from any standpoint.

 

[JessieColt]

" it's Arissa's absolutely insane Expansion values that skew the data so badly that I need to start looking at ways to present it differently. Not only was she the first Power to break the 2 million merit barrier, she might have reached 3 million, given how close she was 2h before the end of the Cycle. As it is, Arissa sees more activity than all the Federation, Independent and Alliance Powers put together. In asking Frontier to buff combat expansion we have created a monster"

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3huotj/powerplay_activity_analysis_cycle_11/

This goes directly to my other reply.

Her Expansion values are so high because Crime Sweeps pay out 50% bonuses if you are Rank 2+ and 100% bonuses if you are Rank 5 with her.

Crime Sweeps pay 10 merits per kill. But the that isn't the main story behind the huge increase. The main story is that Bounty Payout increase. If she were down at Standing 4 she would not be paying out that much to so many people, because while normally one would see a 20% increase in payouts, because of her 1/2/3 standings those numbers increase.

It is far easier to work a Crime Sweep, earning both Bounty Payouts and Merits, even though they pay less than Undermining Merits at 30 per kill.

Any other faction that has Combat Expansions can hit the same numbers, but do not, only because of that Bounty Payout Bonus.

Alliance, Federation, and Independent Factions could knock her out of the #1 spot if they made a concentrated effort to Undermine all of her High Income/ High Undermining cost systems each cycle.

She is barely running at 200 CC credit which is keeping her Expansions low.

Concentrated undermining could force her into Turmoil each cycle enough that she begins to lose some of those systems and starts falling in the standings.

 

[Apos]

Alliance, Federation, and Independent Factions could knock her out of the #1 spot if they made a concentrated effort to Undermine all of her High Income/ High Undermining cost systems each cycle.

Arissa was the target of just basic undermining 2 cycles ago for once.

Her supporters freaked out.

Her small organised populace still had enough credits to cancel everything by the end of the week with no sweat. Broken bonuses means credits to spare in fortification when needed.

No, she can't be pulled to any meaningful deficit. Because in order for that to happen ,everyone else has to lose 10 system because we suffer 1.3 million merits of undermining each and that won't stop from her merit grinders if we take offense. We don't have the luxury to both attack and fortify.

We would have to lose 6-10 systems each in order to get Arissa to lose 4. How is that in any way "effective"?

And how long will it take before Arissa supporters are starved out of their insane amounts of credits they have thanks to her broken bonuses and become unable to cancel everything? Oh yes, it's a perfectly fine idea for every other power to lose 25 systems in order for Arissa to lose 10. That's the definition of pushing her against the wall.

So please, let's get back to reality. This casual "it's easy to oppose Arissa" mentality is a bit annoying. Let's not pretend that everything is fine and it's everyone else's fault for not opposing Arissa.They can't. They don't have the numbers to do it. They don't have the credits to fortify their own systems in distress by paying for merits. They don't have the bonuses to make those credits.

 

[yul7896]

Just because FD isn't resetting all PP factions back to HQ only, doesn't mean that PP is a loss. Instead of asking for help from FD to "make things fair", work with whomever you are pledged to in a way that benefits the Power in the maximum way possible.

No one is asking to have a full reset. Literally 0 zero 0 balancing has been done to account for ALD's insane bonuses that no one else sees. Thank you for listing them for us.

Concentrated undermining could force her into Turmoil each cycle enough that she begins to lose some of those systems and starts falling in the standings.

False, the math does not work, it is currently impossible because ALD will fortify every system, so the best we can hope for is to cancel those, and this will not cause enough harm to create Turmoil.

And finally, you must not have seen the Fortification numbers we put up in Winter. We run extremely efficiently and are well-coordinated. We continue to improve with a tiny player base comparatively, we receive literally nothing for it, but more expansions inside of our space that are literally impossible to counter in any way given the current game mechanics.

 

[Mikalus]

I guess Delaine supporters must be really bad at flipping systems. I mean, confederacies and communist systems? Pfff, easy, step up your game boys.

.

We get the most opposition most cycles with one of the smallest player bases, although it's increased a little the last few weeks. Until recently we weren't focussed on flipping systems. Then when we did a lot of the time they were bugged and nothing changed. We still had to haul just as many slaves to fortify.
Add to this that we are on the outter limits of space - there are a lot less confedracy and communists than you think.

 

[GJ51]

[h=2]

Has Frontier Quit PowerPlay?[/h]
They might as well.

Everyone else has.

 

[Apos]

We get the most opposition most cycles with one of the smallest player bases, although it's increased a little the last few weeks. Until recently we weren't focussed on flipping systems. Then when we did a lot of the time they were bugged and nothing changed. We still had to haul just as many slaves to fortify.
Add to this that we are on the outter limits of space - there are a lot less confedracy and communists than you think.

I was being ironic.

Communist and Confederacies are among the rarest. Literally 4/5 of your systems will be impossible to lower their trigger values without expanding the factions needed into the systems in their clusters. And that's assuming there's enough systems in the cluster with space to accept factions.

More or less, with the current cooldowns, you guys would need around a year if not more to get from 1/5 to 2/5 clusters being reducable. And that's only if RNG was favorable to you and the expansions didn't end up outside of where you wanted them.

But, obviously, Arissa supporters are the master flippers. Because the Empire does everything best by having it set up easy for them from the start.

 

[Kroy]

Concentrated undermining could force her into Turmoil each cycle enough that she begins to lose some of those systems and starts falling in the standings.

No. PP has been designed like a board game but it is stacked in favour of numbers like any war is. All that is left now, if all remains equal, is a war of attrition. Either ALDs players get bored and go and pew-pew in CQC and ALD overstretches, or we (winters et al) end up with our space being whittled away slowly and surely by the oncoming zerg.

ALD is more than 50% of all the PP activity. Think critically about what this means for the game as it stands. Don't just spue out a story. Apply some thought to what it means to PP long-term. Look at what people are saying about PP and what can be done to make it more FUN for more of its players, to stop people from leaving on all sides. At the moment, the only thing propping up the powers opposed to the ALD-zerg is a want to use the time to get better; think harder; fight harder. This doesn't stop the war of attrition from happening, but it does mean that as it happens, each of us are able to walk away with something better than just being another mindless drone in the zerg.

PowerPlay is unsustainable in its current form from a player's perspective, there's no harm in each of us wanting to take away the most we can from it and use the time to have fun alongside players we've learned to respect over the weeks, but we need a unified voice from all sides of the game for F Dev to take another pass at dealing with what is becoming a slow painful slide in to early-age senility for PowerPlay, a flagship release of the Elite Dangerous universe.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

I guess Delaine supporters must be really bad at flipping systems. I mean, confederacies and communist systems? Pfff, easy, step up your game boys.

Hi Apos,

Would you mind to elaborate? How to flip so easily/efficiently our systems to the right government?

Especially taking into account that:
- Archon pledgers are not as many as pledgers from the other big Powers.
- Most of us enjoy fights, and it is already hard to dedicate some time to haul Power Play commodities to fortify our systems.
- We are one of the most undermined Power (if not the most of all, taking into account our small size?) and must spend a lot of time, each cycle, on fortifying.

I mean that any time dedicated to hopefully flip a system, would not be spent doing other tasks.

Your answers would be highly appreciated.

EDIT: OK, i got your answer...oh, well...

I was being ironic.

Communist and Confederacies are among the rarest. Literally 4/5 of your systems will be impossible to lower their trigger values without expanding the factions needed into the systems in their clusters. And that's assuming there's enough systems in the cluster with space to accept factions.

 

[ROSS-128]

This goes directly to my other reply.

Her Expansion values are so high because Crime Sweeps pay out 50% bonuses if you are Rank 2+ and 100% bonuses if you are Rank 5 with her.

Crime Sweeps pay 10 merits per kill. But the that isn't the main story behind the huge increase. The main story is that Bounty Payout increase. If she were down at Standing 4 she would not be paying out that much to so many people, because while normally one would see a 20% increase in payouts, because of her 1/2/3 standings those numbers increase.

It is far easier to work a Crime Sweep, earning both Bounty Payouts and Merits, even though they pay less than Undermining Merits at 30 per kill.

Any other faction that has Combat Expansions can hit the same numbers, but do not, only because of that Bounty Payout Bonus.

Alliance, Federation, and Independent Factions could knock her out of the #1 spot if they made a concentrated effort to Undermine all of her High Income/ High Undermining cost systems each cycle.

She is barely running at 200 CC credit which is keeping her Expansions low.

Concentrated undermining could force her into Turmoil each cycle enough that she begins to lose some of those systems and starts falling in the standings.

Wait, seriously? The ships in ALD's expansion events have BOUNTIES on them? Seriously, FD? She already has the most overpowered bonuses in the entire game, and you also let people earn bounties while farming her expansions?

Hudson doesn't get jack squat besides merits when he expands. Neither does anyone else, for that matter. Putting bounties on ALD's expansion targets would be like letting Hudson collect combat bonds in his military strikes, or letting Mahon's PP cargo count as a rare good that "sells" for something like 10,000/ton plus a merit.