Powerplay SNIPING in Powerplay

[yul7896]

I think this has been argued effectively in this thread and, on reflection, I do agree that sniping is a valid tactic in PP. However, it is too unrealistic to imagine that a power would not be aware of at least some enemy activity in its control systems - never mind the huge amounts of undermining which leads to a sniping merit bomb; which is why I think there needs to be some sort of local, or even global, need feed which can provide a partial 'heads-up' to highlight potential trouble spots.

Some might argue: why should a defending power have any help at all in combating sniping? Frankly, I'm interested in balance and realism, from a gameplay perspective. If sniping is truly the only effective way that a smaller power can combat a larger power, then maybe there needs to be an overhaul of the Powerplay system? Maybe both underminers and fortifiers need to have more options at their disposal? Merit bomb sniping is fast becoming the single path of least resistance.

I absolutely agree that there is a massive disconnect with Data Reporting, especially pertaining to any kind of realism. I mean, what would happen if every UPS truck didn't make it to their destination today? I really liked John Casey's idea of giving undermining data only while docked in the station of a Control system. I think this would be a great addition to the game because it would add something (the role of a Scout), rather than limit or take something away.

I don't think PowerPlay needs a complete overhaul, I think 5th columning needs a major look at, and people joining opposing Powers to undermine their own is becoming a tactic now too. I think these things need Frontier's attention far more than the Sniping/Merit Hoarding discussion.

I am hopeful that 1.4 will add some new dimensions to PowerPlay that will help balance the approach to undermining and fortification.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

An exploit is an exploit. All need looking at.

 

[Smurfprime]

Oh PLEASE no.

There is already a serious deterrent to doing this, and that is the fact that if you get destroyed, you lose all those merits.

Tonight, I was busy giving my enemy what for, and racked up just over 4000 merits in one system. I've just turned them in. If you decide that I can only earn, say 1000 before I have to turn them in, I'd have to make 4 trips back to controlled space, which means I simply cannot do undermining, it will take twice as long.

MAYBE you could have unclaimed merits expire after 24 hours, but setting a hard limit is a terrible idea.

Wow, only 1000 Merits per trip. That is still twice as efficient as fortifying in a Type-9, and when you fortify you buy the bulk of your merits instead of getting them for free and you are flying in a large, slow ass ship that maneuvers like a recalcitrant brick instead of a fun little fighter. Sounds like 1000 merits is too high to me.

How about making powerplay only relevant in OPEN PLAY. Then you actually have a chance to intercept CMDR underminers and fortifiers. As long as you can get in the same instance and they don't use some exploit on their router to block other people's IPs that is. At the moment it's all about solo actions. The only positive action you can take in power play is to out grind the other power in delivering leaflets.

That is all fine and good for the underminers in the fighting ship, but what is in it for the fortifiers in the trade ships? They have to pay for their merits and then put them at risk in their big slow trade ship. That is like paying to be the target at the shooting range, does that sound like a fair balance to you?

Uhm... Fortify your systems always and not only as required is quite effective I think.

If you're at war and you don't set up an appropriate defense, don't expect enemies to not take advantage of your weakness. Check any military history book.

Yeah that would make sense...unless you try to apply that logic to power play.

Underminers can attack at leisure and only have to grind enough free merits hit the trigger on a system or two in order to be effective.
And they can see which systems are actively being fortified so they can move to another target if they want.
And even if the system gets cancelled they still get a partial success. It is a win-win-win with no risk or downside.

The defending players on the other hand are working totally in the blind so they have to do at least 60+ times the work to hit the fortification trigger for each control system-- every week-- whether they are being attacked or not because there is no way to reliable way to tell the difference.
To add insult to injury they have to pay for the merits to do it and it takes more time that you could be using to do something that is actually fun or at least makes money and does not totally suck ass.

That is so grossly unbalanced that it beggars the imagination to think some of you guys honestly do not see why that is totally f-ed up.

 

[Smurfprime]

Consolidated posts.

 

[Apos]

Wow, only 1000 Merits per trip. That is still twice as efficient as fortifying in a Type-9, and when you fortify you buy the bulk of your merits instead of getting them for free and you are flying in a large, slow ass ship that maneuvers like a recalcitrant brick instead of a fun little fighter. Sounds like 1000 merits is too high to me.



That is all fine and good for the underminers in the fighting ship, but what is in it for the fortifiers in the trade ships? They have to pay for their merits and then put them at risk in their big slow trade ship. That is like paying to be the target at the shooting range, does that sound like a fair balance to you?



Yeah that would make sense...unless you try to apply that logic to power play.

Underminers can attack at leisure and only have to grind enough free merits hit the trigger on a system or two in order to be effective.
And they can see which systems are actively being fortified so they can move to another target if they want.
And even if the system gets cancelled they still get a partial success. It is a win-win-win with no risk or downside.

The defending players on the other hand are working totally in the blind so they have to do at least 60+ times the work to hit the fortification trigger for each control system-- every week-- whether they are being attacked or not because there is no way to reliable way to tell the difference.
To add insult to injury they have to pay for the merits to do it and it takes more time that you could be using to something fun that makes money and does not totally suck ass.

That is so grossly unbalanced that it beggars the imagination to think you guys honestly do not see why that is totally f-ed up.

So you are now complaining about the undermining buffs instead? To prove what? That your power is in danger thanks to them? Yes, everyone's power had to fortify more heavily thanks to them.

Funny how neither you guys or Arissa commanders had any problem with the undermining buffs when you were busy walking in the valley of 0 undermining.

Where were you when Winters, Delaine and Mahon were getting sniped? Oh yes, you were the one doing the sniping, so everything was fine.

Where were you when Patreus and Torval were getting sniped? Oh yes, you were leeching the good systems they lost and telling them to suck it up, so everything was fine.

But it's only a problem now that your power is in danger. That's what really matters when it comes to changes, for them to favor your power.

And you got it wrong. We have to pay for the fortifications. You don't. Because you have the number of players to do it without fast tracking if you guys start from Day 1 of each cycle. If you are fast tracking in the middle of the week, you are doing it wrong.

Why don't you complain about the unfair imbalance between outwards and inwards fortifying instead? Or 5th collumning? Or bonuses/module imbalance?

 

[Smurfprime]

So you are now complaining about the undermining buffs instead? To prove what? That your power is in danger thanks to them? Yes, everyone's power had to fortify more heavily thanks to them.

Funny how neither you guys or Arissa commanders had any problem with the undermining buffs when you were busy walking in the valley of 0 undermining.

Where were you when Winters, Delaine and Mahon were getting sniped? Oh yes, you were the one doing the sniping, so everything was fine.

Where were you when Patreus and Torval were getting sniped? Oh yes, you were leeching the good systems they lost and telling them to suck it up, so everything was fine.

But it's only a problem now that your power is in danger. That's what really matters when it comes to changes, for them to favor your power.

And you got it wrong. We have to pay for the fortifications. You don't. Because you have the number of players to do it without fast tracking if you guys start from Day 1 of each cycle. If you are fast tracking in the middle of the week, you are doing it wrong.

Why don't you complain about the unfair imbalance between outwards and inwards fortifying instead? Or 5th collumning? Or bonuses/module imbalance?

I have complained that 30 merits is too high since day one-- hell I spent the first two weeks convinced that FD would come to their senses and tone it down a few notches because it made getting rank 5 a total cakewalk. But they didn't and I have been collecting 50 mil a week in easy mode ever since.

As for the rest of your rant, it appears you basically agree with me that sniping is a major problem because all factions have suffered from its abuse more or less equally and that every power has to bear the burden of extra fortification because of it. Thank you.

 

[Apos]

I have complained that 30 merits is too high since day one-- hell I spent the first two weeks convinced that FD would come to their senses and tone it down a few notches because it made getting rank 5 a total cakewalk. But they didn't and I have been collecting 50 mil a week in easy mode ever since.

As for the rest of your rant, it appears you basically agree with me that sniping is a major problem because all factions have suffered from its abuse more or less equally and that every power has to bear the burden of extra fortification because of it. Thank you.

Quite the argument there. Absolutely none other than trying to twist my own.

Deal with it just like everyone else has and does. If it was as devastating as you make it to be, everyone would be in turmoil every week. We aren't. At least not thanks to sniping.

The powers who have been suffering for the biggest amount of it are telling you it's fine, because they have learned to deal with it. Everyone invested time on how to deal with the issue at hand and found a solution. Your solution to the same problem shouldn't be from FD holding your hand.

Once again, your power has the population to deal with something like this easily and without investing any amount of credits. I'd say it's quite shameful to see one of the biggest powers in terms of supporters to complain for something like this, which they should have no problem tackling.

Seriously, even Arissa supporters stopped complaining about it after they realized how effectively they can fortify if they get their wits together for a second. It didn't go as good as they would have hoped, since they didn't shed the bad systems, but at least they realized what they can do and have to do. Good first try nevertheless.

There has never been such a thing as a power which doesn't fortify proactively with the exception of Arissa and Aisling for many cycles now.

 

[SNaomiScott]

I have complained that 30 merits is too high since day one-- hell I spent the first two weeks convinced that FD would come to their senses and tone it down a few notches because it made getting rank 5 a total cakewalk. But they didn't and I have been collecting 50 mil a week in easy mode ever since.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought originally you only got 15 merits per kill for undermining? I'm sure the 30 merits per kill was only brought in at the end of July; at least, that's what I get from this post by Sandro from 28 July.

 

[NavyBee]

Late to this thread, but I read through several pages and would like to add my opinion.

- Several other CMDRs already pointed out that more near-time in-game data about undermining activities is urgently needed. I fully agree.

- IMHO, limiting merit accumulation to max 500-1000, as proposed above, would not influence pp gameplay positively. As a result, long-range undermining would become much less attractive without a valid in-game reason given.

- Some CMDRs have raised issues about having to fortify blindly without knowing where the opponents will launch a "merit bomb", thus effectively over-fortifying lots of their powers' systems. Funny, but I always thought this was implied by FD who introduced the terms "fortifying" and "undermining". This is what historically happened quite often.


Just my 2c, though.

 

[yul7896]

Quite the argument there. Absolutely none other than trying to twist my own.

Deal with it just like everyone else has and does. If it was as devastating as you make it to be, everyone would be in turmoil every week. We aren't. At least not thanks to sniping.

The powers who have been suffering for the biggest amount of it are telling you it's fine, because they have learned to deal with it. Everyone invested time on how to deal with the issue at hand and found a solution. Your solution to the same problem shouldn't be from FD holding your hand.

Once again, your power has the population to deal with something like this easily and without investing any amount of credits. I'd say it's quite shameful to see one of the biggest powers in terms of supporters to complain for something like this, which they should have no problem tackling.

Seriously, even Arissa supporters stopped complaining about it after they realized how effectively they can fortify if they get their wits together for a second. It didn't go as good as they would have hoped, since they didn't shed the bad systems, but at least they realized what they can do and have to do. Good first try nevertheless.

There has never been such a thing as a power which doesn't fortify proactively with the exception of Arissa and Aisling for many cycles now.

Worth repeating.

 

[yul7896]

An exploit is an exploit. All need looking at.

I have not seen a valid argument that defines sniping/merit hoarding as an exploit. Maybe you could assist me?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

I have not seen a valid argument that defines sniping/merit hoarding as an exploit. Maybe you could assist me?

The Devs said they were gonna take a look at it.
It seems it can and is being exploited.
It's like 2 people playing Tennis, one has a raquet, one hasn't, is blinfolded and can't return.
Hardly seems fair.

It's in the hands of the Devs now anyways so not much more to be said until they maybe change things or not.
And just because everyone can do it doesn't mean it makes for a good game play mechanic.

 

[CMDR arti lectus]

The Devs said they were gonna take a look at it.
It seems it can and is being exploited.
It's like 2 people playing Tennis, one has a raquet, one hasn't, is blinfolded and can't return.
Hardly seems fair.

It's in the hands of the Devs now anyways so not much more to be said until they maybe change things or not.
And just because everyone can do it doesn't mean it makes for a good game play mechanic.

They have looked at it and at this discussion thread. So far noone is saying its a exploit. And so far nothing will be done to this so called exploit, because it will un balance it further. They only said that they were thinking of adding additional information, wich i'm not against.
And so far I havent seen a valid argument to why you think its a exploit.

 

[Smurfprime]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought originally you only got 15 merits per kill for undermining? I'm sure the 30 merits per kill was only brought in at the end of July; at least, that's what I get from this post by Sandro from 28 July.

You are correct. For clarity when I said, "Since day one" I was referring to the day they changed the undermining merits.

- - - Updated - - -

They have looked at it and at this discussion thread. So far noone is saying its a exploit. And so far nothing will be done to this so called exploit, because it will un balance it further. They only said that they were thinking of adding additional information, wich i'm not against.
And so far I havent seen a valid argument to why you think its a exploit.

Head over to the bug report section. There is a thread regarding this exploit. Unfortunately, it got locked but you can at least read the important parts.

 

[Apos]

It's like 2 people playing Tennis, one has a raquet, one hasn't, is blinfolded and can't return.
Hardly seems fair.

Then Mahon, Winters and Delaine must be quite the awesome tennis players, because they have been in that situation for over 10 cycles now and have indeed returned the ball.

You can return. If you plan properly. This outcry is just an attempt to make the game even more streamlined and easy for those who don't want to organize themselves. It's a backstab that you can prepare for by covering your vitals.

And please don't bite on the story that it's that free to do. First of all, there is a point on how much you can snipe. Snipe too hard and too many systems and you are doing your opponent a favor by undermining bad systems which they will happily shed and thank you instead. It's not like you can snipe everything and call it a successful week. This is why fortifying the good systems is the way to counter sniping. Because anything more than that after you have fortified and sniping is actually beneficial to you. You are daring your enemies to help you at that point. (see Arissa's turmoil list for last week for example)

That bug report is Aisling players complaining that their opponents were smart enough to not undermine their bad systems essentially.

If she was in turmoil with bad systems, you wouldn't see any complaints right now.

In fact, Aisling has been left alone for so long, that she had enough time to shed off ALL of her bad systems by now that I think about it, if only they allowed controlled turmoils to happen when they were left alone. Instead they went ahead and openly threatened Winters.

So the problem is not sniping, but that Aisling can't handle sniping anymore. And that they haven't been in turmoil in the past and think it's the plague, even though at this point, controlled turmoils is pretty much the only saving grave they can take advantage of. I'm sure Sirius would have been happy to help with their SCRAP program, especially in the past weeks when they have been much more active in that regard.

 

[Martin Schou]

Given that Frontier's statement when they increased the undermining merits was "fortifying is too easy", I find it rather strange that they'd now consider changing how undermining works, just because the big Empire factions are suddenly getting undermined.

What FDev should do is have some of their developers spend time with organized groups from each of the ten powers, so they can learn how the game is being played. I honestly think they'd be blown away by just how their game is being played, organized and strategized - especially in the last day and hours leading up to a cycle change.

 

[John Adams]

Sniping whether you agree with it or not was not an intended part of the design of powerplay.

It's great that player groups can get organised and coordinate this stuff on Reddit, but it's not very inclusive to people who just want to play the game.

Any player should be able to see the situation and decide where their efforts would be most effective.

As a Torval player, when we were getting hit hard every week we knew we couldn't fortify everything, but it didn't matter as long as we fortified our most important systems in order.

Removing the ability to snipe makes the game much more dynamic as rather than mindlessly fortifying a list you actually get to make tactical decision in the cycle.

You also can try to reduce the amount of fortifying that needs to be done and end up with healthy CC reserves that are not out of control and the get explored by 5C players.

Power play needs to be inclusive to the individual as well as the organised group.

From a big picture point of view sniping is bad for every power in powerplay.

 

[Apos]

Just because it wasn't intended doesn't mean it has to be removed, since it emerged a new layer of strategic gameplay.

Strategic > Tactical.

There's plenty of things happening to force powers to adapt to the situation and have a tactical layer of gameplay. It's not like 100% of the systems are getting sniped. That's pure exaggeration.

And, of course, the sniping is tactical in nature in itself, since you have to pick a couple systems that won't get undermined by the end of the week. Your work could go to waste if someone undermines it while you prepare for a snipe.

 

[Apos]

This week, instead of getting sniped into turmoil, Mahon was sniped into a positive reserve from his 5th collumnists, so that we expand to Wolf 412 and suffer a permanent 72 CC damage.

Get your priorities straight FD. Turmoil doesn't do permanent damage.

Give the organised community better tools to dictate the direction of a power or allow us to influence the BGS more heavily so we can turn terribad systems to profitable ones. Either would suffice.

 

[John Adams]

Just because it wasn't intended doesn't mean it has to be removed, since it emerged a new layer of strategic gameplay.

One man's exploit is another man's emergent game play.

As I said above I believe that the decisions open to independent players are richer without the sniping.

I totally agree that 5C is a much bigger issue than sniping.