Powerplay Why isn't defeating a PP opponent who interdict a you worth a merit?

[Rashhaverak]

So you are flying around your home turf, delivering supplies to a station your power controls, and some schmuck from the Kumo Crew interdicts you. You succeed in killing him, and all you get is a lousy 400 credits? You just defeated an enemy combatant in power play, so why don't you get any merits for it?

If I fly into enemy power territory and kill a person pledged to an enemy power I get 30 merits. If he kills me instead, shouldn't he get some credit and get 30 merits instead?

It makes little sense that you get nothing. After all, killing an opponent that is actively undermining a system is a significant contribution to the home power.

 

[vulkman]

Who are you pledged to?

I understand that it depends on your power. Some powers, I guess the combat oriented ones, do get merits for killing enemies in their control systems, others, i.e. the commercially oriented Felicia Winters, don't.

Still, I don't like it either, it just feels wrong that you get nothing for defending your control systems.

 

[Marra Morgan]

Because shooting down Kumo Crew is bad, okay!

Personal loyalties aside, I do agree that some merits should be awarded for keeping your home-space clear.
Not much, mind - otherwise it could easily be farmed and then no-one would be going out there doing the more useful things.

 

[Apos]

Because what you get by killing a player of a hostile power is to deny them of any merits they might be carrying with them or not handed in yet.

That's, potentially, a much bigger contribution than someone could imagine, but it's not direct to the player.

Although providing some fortification merits if you kill a hostile player in a control system might be a nice buff for open play PP. Not a lot though, otherwise it won't be long before we see it being exploited.

 

[MrFuddyDuddy]

I've also wondered this OP, what I find funny is that I'll get interdicted in my factions home system of all places, and like you said of course I kill the guy who interdicted me and get a measly 400 creds. Should at least give you 10 or 15, since we aren't actively hunting.

 

[dayrth]

I don't know. It should be.

As it stands though, you have to be in their system go get merits.

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

Agreed. It is pathetic the 400 credits you get, and not ONE merit. The merit system is unbalanced anyways, as the only activity worth doing is farming in expansion systems, even if there is no advantage to the power. My wing tired stealing those supply ships cargo to get merits, totally not worth the hassle for the same amount of time. Had I managed to get paid for all the faction ships who interdicted me this week, I would have had about 300 merits at least. Seems only fair..

 

[Rashhaverak]

Because what you get by killing a player of a hostile power is to deny them of any merits they might be carrying with them or not handed in yet.

That's, potentially, a much bigger contribution than someone could imagine, but it's not direct to the player.

Although providing some fortification merits if you kill a hostile player in a control system might be a nice buff for open play PP. Not a lot though, otherwise it won't be long before we see it being exploited.

I personally do not see how this could be exploited. It's not like every fifth contact you see in super cruise is an enemy power. It would take forever to make a living farming merits in such a fashion.

As for the benefit you describe, that's all the more reason to award the home player some merits for a job well done. I stopped the enemy from killing others, stopped him from turning in undermining, and helped make my power's system a safer place. Doesn't that deserve some merit?

Honestly, when I get interdicted now in PP I just evade, or submit and fast jump away, even if I'm in a Vulture. The reward for killing my opponent isn't worth the time the fight would take.

 

[Apos]

I personally do not see how this could be exploited. It's not like every fifth contact you see in super cruise is an enemy power. It would take forever to make a living farming merits in such a fashion.

As for the benefit you describe, that's all the more reason to award the home player some merits for a job well done. I stopped the enemy from killing others, stopped him from turning in undermining, and helped make my power's system a safer place. Doesn't that deserve some merit?

Honestly, when I get interdicted now in PP I just evade, or submit and fast jump away, even if I'm in a Vulture. The reward for killing my opponent isn't worth the time the fight would take.

Fortification merits would be exploited by 5th collumning to fortify faster. Right now the most you can do without paying for fast quotas is 100/hour and ONLY if you are Rank 5.

Let's say it's 10 fortification merits from each enemy player you kill inside a control system.

4 people wing up and go to the control system while pledged to an opposing power. They buy sidewinders there without shields there and have 1 person fall down in the same instance with them and kill them. They pay close to nothing to respawn in the exact same system and repeat the whole process.

Each set of kills would take around 5 minutes between each other. This equals to (4 ships) x (10 merits) x (12 times in an hour)=480 fortification merits per hour regardless of ranking. Insane. So in fact scratch that idea. It's even worse than I initially thought.

So instead let's do this: You leech the amount of merits of the person you killed. Those merits count towards nothing other than your rating at the end of the week, with the exception of combat ethos expansions where it goes both ways as expansion/opposition. (because in this case it's fair game and the PvP crowd would enjoy this.) This leech is split between wing members in equal shares.

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

I personally do not see how this could be exploited. It's not like every fifth contact you see in super cruise is an enemy power. It would take forever to make a living farming merits in such a fashion.

As for the benefit you describe, that's all the more reason to award the home player some merits for a job well done. I stopped the enemy from killing others, stopped him from turning in undermining, and helped make my power's system a safer place. Doesn't that deserve some merit?

Honestly, when I get interdicted now in PP I just evade, or submit and fast jump away, even if I'm in a Vulture. The reward for killing my opponent isn't worth the time the fight would take.

Especially given there are zones setup for players to farm merits. Ever seen a wing or two in a Crimesweep? It is like wolves chasing a chicken. Not good imo. I think they need to up the rewards that can be found in supercruise, as right now it is just a distraction on the way to a res/cz/cs

 

[Arry]

The game encourages the combat pilot to fly right outside their comfort zones. For me (an Empire pilot) to earn merits, I have to travel over 150lys to undermine, which is a bit silly to me. The defence of the HQs etc, should be a priority and rewarded as such. But then this is Elite.

 

[xondk]

Yeah, it is kinda odd that you don't get merits for taking out enemies in your own powers systems, I mean you are defending the systems, even if it doesn't fortify the system, it should give merits?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

So, say you gave 5 merits for each kill, and it has to be yours (no sharing). Would this not help boost fortification a fair bit as it's the most unrewarding of all the tasks at the moment?
There would be more merits for those undermining and expanding so they aren't really gonna see the value in hanging around their own control systems if a short journey got them to much greater rewards.

As not all players, especially the newbies, can go into their Power contact and buy more, patrolling a system may give them something while they wait.
It would be a "job" to do without having to do much with the game. Fortification is the most laborious thing, even if you do BB missions in between.
Patrolling a system would be a lot more fun, all you'd need to do is manage your toys.

One thing that could be added could be how fast enemies spawn in the system due to player activity. This, in turn, would probably make Nanomam (for example) far more hospitable but also make the more outlying control systems more difficult to get through unchecked, unless it has become a focal point of opposing powers and there's a lot of activity from all players.
I would feel that this would make the game more realistic.

Fifth Columnists are a part of the game. It would benefit the main players just as well. The balance is well off between Expansion / Undermining vs Fortification and that's what primarily needs fixed.
When you start changing any game because you're afraid of what others may do then you've already lost.
The main balancing would be how things are as equally rewarding, so all things are done. If one thing is forgotten because it doesn't pay as well and it destabilizes the whole thing, because that's where we are now and it's not good.
This mainly deals with how "players" are rewarded.

There are separate balancing issues regarding how it affects the game which FD could do, like raise the levels of fortification required, I'm just saying they are like wizards and can pretty much balance things how they want but what a player receives is only part of the whole picture.

Just thoughts.

 

[Apos]

When you start changing any game because you're afraid of what others may do then you've already lost.

True, but even in retrospect and without taking in account the abusers I find the idea of leeching someones merits much more appealing for what Open is all about: Player interaction.

This is a higher risk/higher reward that actually promotes the interaction between players instead of the abuse, on top of potentially being much more rewarding for the player.

5 fortification merits for a kill is not as much rewarding as knowing that you just removed 1500 merits of undermining if you ask me and having them added in your tally towards your next rank. This is exceptionally true if it applies for both sides in combat expansion powers. Those warzones would finally come alive.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

The 400cr is the bounty he gets for opening fire at you.

What you can do is let your opponent kill you, to increase his bounty by 5000cr, then come back to kill him.
You may of course let him kill you as many times as you want to increase the total bounty to 10800cr, 16200cr, etc...and get very rich in no time!

That was an advice from the Kumo Crew

EDIT: more seriously, this, as well as many other unbalanced things in Power Play, was discussed many times...but since people are still participating in Power Play anyway (because, as imperfect as it is, it is still cool), the answer from FD is "it's working as intended"... :-/

 

[Rashhaverak]

Fortification merits would be exploited by 5th collumning to fortify faster. Right now the most you can do without paying for fast quotas is 100/hour and ONLY if you are Rank 5.

Let's say it's 10 fortification merits from each enemy player you kill inside a control system.

4 people wing up and go to the control system while pledged to an opposing power. They buy sidewinders there without shields there and have 1 person fall down in the same instance with them and kill them. They pay close to nothing to respawn in the exact same system and repeat the whole process.

Each set of kills would take around 5 minutes between each other. This equals to (4 ships) x (10 merits) x (12 times in an hour)=480 fortification merits per hour regardless of ranking. Insane. So in fact scratch that idea. It's even worse than I initially thought.

So instead let's do this: You leech the amount of merits of the person you killed. Those merits count towards nothing other than your rating at the end of the week, with the exception of combat ethos expansions where it goes both ways as expansion/opposition. (because in this case it's fair game and the PvP crowd would enjoy this.) This leech is split between wing members in equal shares.

Your logic and math don't match.

Four people who try to exploit in the manner you describe will, at best, earn 120 merits per hour, per player. You yourself said that they can earn 100 merits per hour, per player, just by normal fortification. The additional 20 merits per hour is hardly what I'd call an exploit. Not to mention that they can already perform the "exploit" you describe in any enemy system with the same minimal consequences.

On the other hand, your proposal to transfer merits from a defeated opponent to the victor seems much more open to abuse and exploitation and sounds like a bad idea.

 

[Apos]

Your logic and math don't match.

Four people who try to exploit in the manner you describe will, at best, earn 120 merits per hour, per player. You yourself said that they can earn 100 merits per hour, per player, just by normal fortification. The additional 20 merits per hour is hardly what I'd call an exploit. Not to mention that they can already perform the "exploit" you describe in any enemy system with the same minimal consequences.

On the other hand, your proposal to transfer merits from a defeated opponent to the victor seems much more open to abuse and exploitation and sounds like a bad idea.

If it takes you 15 minutes to get out of the station with a sidewinder then my math are not an issue. They would have docked in that station so they would respawn there, paying minimum insurance. And I included a total of 5 people. 4 winged up in sidewinders and 1 doing the killing.

12 times per hour is the times ONE person would die. That's indeed 120 merits. If it's 4 people doing it, then that's 4 times 120.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

If it takes you 15 minutes to get out of the station with a sidewinder then my math are not an issue. They would have docked in that station so they would respawn there, paying minimum insurance. And I included a total of 5 people. 4 winged up in sidewinders and 1 doing the killing.

12 times per hour is the times ONE person would die. That's indeed 120 merits. If it's 4 people doing it, then that's 4 times 120.

So, how many merits can you get by undermining in one system in an hour?

 

[Apos]

So, how many merits can you get by undermining in one system in an hour?

I'd say around 500-800 depending on NPCs.

But that's irrelevant since undermining is supposed to be easier, otherwise no power would ever go in turmoil, ever. The week when Arissa was undermined for the first time is a testament to that. Not sure which federal groups decided to do it instead of backstabbing Sirius, but they were good at it. Then the Arissa supporters just threw credits from the huge piles sitting there from their insane bonuses and avoided turmoil.

Now imagine if fortification got a buff. Everyone would be Arissa. I imagine Hudson finds himself in similar position, with his supporters having some nice piles sitting, ready to hasten quotas. Although, admittedly, they are brought to using them more often, since the Empire is attacking them but they don't reply back properly.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

So, how many merits can you get by undermining in one system in an hour?

With this, about 500 merits per hour:
http://edshipyard.com/#/L=702,7u57u54wt4wt01Q01Q,2-4s6Q6Q5K4s5K6k,7Re4-O9tu7e87e87e8

With this, 700-1000 per hour:
http://edshipyard.com/#/L=703,5TP5TP7u57u501Q01Q0_g0_g,2-9i9Y7_8S9Y8S6k,54E7UJ7gy7gy7fE9sK12G12G

The latter is boring and make it feel like a turkey shoot.