Powerplay Killing Powers from Within [SUGGESTION]

[ever]

There are players, who are pledged to one power and defect to another in order to hurt the second Power. They mainly nominate bad system for expansion and play in SOLO.

Please add some kind of mechanism to counter this.


Examples:

-make a community goal, where we can choose a player or a council of players, who have a veto right for nomination. If elections take place at the same time and only players, who are over 4 weeks pledged to that power are allowed to vote, the election should be pretty fair theoretically.


- make some PP activities possible if you only play in OPEN. If you would tweak the mechanics a little bit, i.e. get merits for doing missions (like go undermine for 1000 merits) that should be doable. At least I hope it is.

 

[GoodGorilla]

I like the idea for elections. But the elected officials may not be able to perform their tasks when they need to because of real life responsibilities. Sometimes it's obvious when a bad system is getting exploited, the devs should get a list of players who are doing it. Investigate the players with the ability to suspend them or ban them for repeated offenses. Sometimes it's obvious to everyone what is happening, and nothing is done about it. If a system like that is in place it would persuade people not to do it, if it was maintained.

 

[DNA-Decay]

If you do a search for "5C" or "fifth column" on these forums or on the Reddit Power forums you will find a LOT of existing discussion around this topic with many suggestions as to what to do about it.

We expect FDev will make some changes to PowerPlay at some point.

But since Fifth Column activities have real world parallels, and are used by real world governments - we expect that the mechanism will not be totally blocked.

Personally, 5C exploded for me back in Cycle 11 when Wolf 412 was pushed onto Mahon.
I know there were instances before and since - but that was ONE player tipping a POWER into Turmoil.

After that, Fifth Column activity has become a standard tool in the strategic arsenal of all powers.
Some use it more frequently, and some more openly, but all use it.

- And all revile it.
- And all curse their treacherous enemies who would stoop so low.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

As for any corrective actions to happen, we need some kind of griefers to be involved.
I doubt any mechanism to counter 5th column will be implemented...I even believe FD has officially answered that "it works as intended".

The only way to have things change would be for the biggest imperial power (Arrissa) to face severe 5th column activity during several cycles.
I might even defect right away if a group of players decide to coordinate their efforts and kill the giant from the inside...

 

[Backelaer]

Meh, I don't know. It makes sense there are spies, traitors, or whatever you want to call them. I don't think a deus ex machina attempt from Fdev through CG's to counter that would be desireable. If there are more spies than actual active members in a power, than clearly that power is just doomed to be eventually wiped out. And come on, how many players are out there actively countering their own power you think? Most of them are probably just people in for quick merits. Opportunists you might say. In real life, there are a lot of those too. I for one would like elite to represent that real life a bit.

 

[BeBoP]

I don't see what kind of fun it adds. I actually think it's causes more harm than anything else, considering how few people it takes to screw over the hard and organized work of many.

If it is to be a feature, then it should be compensated with an appropriate amount of risk. As it stands right now, PP induces zero risk for someone to become a saboteur. In fact, one could argue that by offering the Solo game-style, PP encourages 5C. In other words, it's OP.
Given the asymmetrical nature of the different factions (in terms of support), it exacerbates the perceived unfairness of the game as well as reducing its volatility. Both are big reasons why PP is felt like a mediocre element of the game.

 

[Fendalton]

List of who votes what, and a Vote to kick function?

 

[ever]

List of who votes what, and a Vote to kick function?

Well, my idea was that each rank 4 Commander, who has been pledged for 4 weeks receives 1 vote. The leaders of each group are known from Reddit. People would vote them and they will get a "veto" right. So if an unwanted system gets pushed, they could use the veto and stop the progress. So no more nominations for that system. You could vote every 4 weeks or so.

 

[GoodGorilla]

Well, my idea was that each rank 4 Commander, who has been pledged for 4 weeks receives 1 vote. The leaders of each group are known from Reddit. People would vote them and they will get a "veto" right. So if an unwanted system gets pushed, they could use the veto and stop the progress. So no more nominations for that system. You could vote every 4 weeks or so.

That sounds good too. Unless the commander just quits the game all of a sudden without telling anybody. Or if they are unable to tell anybody about their absence.

 

[Fendalton]

The leaders shouldn't have to be known in reddit, it should all be contained within the game in my opinion.

 

[GoodGorilla]

The leaders shouldn't have to be known in reddit, it should all be contained within the game in my opinion.

If it wasn't for reddit, or outside sources. Everybody would still be clueless as a player body.

 

[Shorn]

Powers have no player leaders

Well, my idea was that each rank 4 Commander, who has been pledged for 4 weeks receives 1 vote.

I would suggest 5 columnists are likely to stay for more than 4 weeks - and with the amount of credits earned from their actions would probably be rank 4 anyway, so they are likely to be able to vote in your scenario and negate any advantage that would gain, while alienating committed yet time restricted players.

The leaders of each group are known from Reddit. People would vote them and they will get a "veto" right. So if an unwanted system gets pushed, they could use the veto and stop the progress. So no more nominations for that system. You could vote every 4 weeks or so.

This seems a common misconception - the leaders of the powers are NOT players. Some players are attempting to co-ordinate activities within their powers, and some player groups have aligned with powers (and some may even have common goals) - but that would appear to be the minority of players, and I (and I would guess many others) have never agreed to abide by agreements made between some random players, and I am certainly not going to vote in some arbritrary extra rights to other players.

While reddit does appear to be the most popular place for co-ordinating activities, it isn't clear to me how much of the player population actually visits and reads the information there. From the approximately 55,000 people subscribed to the sub-reddit it would appear to be a small (but still significant) proportion of the over 800,000 purchasers of the game. (I know neither of those figures is a true reflection (i.e. how many read the sub-reddit without subscribing, how many subscribers and/or purchasers actually play the game), but that looks to me like a small percentage).

If you really want to get involved in a player led faction, you could try one of the minor factions struggling to become a Power - although quite how that will play out over the coming months will be interesting to watch.

Shorn :S

 

[Fendalton]

If it wasn't for reddit, or outside sources. Everybody would still be clueless as a player body.

I agree. Imagine if there was a forum in-game where people could discuss things about the game, you could access it while you're docked at a station for full version, or a stripped down version when you're out and about.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

In an ideal world, which FD would never consider, 5th column activity could be fought by:

- Forcing open play.
- Being able to locate on the map where a specific player (assigned to your Power) is.
- In the preparation screen, display the names of the top 10 commanders which contributed to the system preparation, indicating the amount of prep packages they have delivered.

Then, let the hunt begin...oh that would be fun...unlikely to happen...

 

[lefty1117]

Yeah leaderboard for Prep, Fort and Expansion would be good. But I'd prefer really to make preparation something that has to be voted on with nominations ... so in other words, you can't just PREPARE a system, it has to be voted on in the previous cycle to be eligible for preparation. I think the merit grinding should confer more voting power via the ranks, and make it so there are more things to vote on that impact the power (prep systems, diplomatic relations with other powers, maybe vote in/out certain bonuses from a list, etc); then the payouts and unlocking equipment/benefits etc can be put on a linear progression.

 

[khemsa]

Preparation should be changed in a way that votes alone would dictate the systems place on the prep list. Competing with other powers would still be done by hauling cargo.

 

[xDreadnoughtx]

1. Preparation by nominations only gets my vote....and say it's only open to R4 and higher pledged for 4+ weeks.
2. Add an anti expansion mechanism. R5 only commanders of 4+ weeks pledge by vote to boot it off the list.
3. Address the fundamental issue of powers such as ALD being given entirely OP perks resulting in overwhelming numbers.

Atb

 

[yul7896]

1. Preparation by nominations only gets my vote....and say it's only open to R4 and higher pledged for 4+ weeks.
2. Add an anti expansion mechanism. R5 only commanders of 4+ weeks pledge by vote to boot it off the list.
3. Address the fundamental issue of powers such as ALD being given entirely OP perks resulting in overwhelming numbers.

Atb

Ahh, nice. You provide constructive points to address and fix these issues. I just whine and complain. Thanks Sir Poidsly! Great ideas here, except maybe #3, not sure how that would play out, as I firmly believe FDev wants ALD and Hudson to be 90% of the Player base.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Ahh, nice. You provide constructive points to address and fix these issues. I just whine and complain. Thanks Sir Poidsly! Great ideas here, except maybe #3, not sure how that would play out, as I firmly believe FDev wants ALD and Hudson to be 90% of the Player base.

You may give as many constructive idea as you wish, if FD decides not to do anything, nothing will change.
As per their official statement: "it is working as intended".
Facts: you can counter 5th column by putting more preps on the systems below on the list.
Reality: it's a pain in the a**, and unfair.

You remember the time where some players were ramming others in the no fire zone? This exploit made A LOT of noise and FD took finally some actions about that.
You remember the last time undermine snipping was used against ALD? FD then officially said that they are thinking of a way to avoid that.
The only way to make things change to 5th column is to have the favorite Power affected by that.

If a large group of players, from any other Power, defected to ALD and prepared 5th column systems for ALD on each cycle, you can be sure that FD would find a way to fix that in no time.

 

[GoodGorilla]

In an ideal world, which FD would never consider, 5th column activity could be fought by:

- Forcing open play.
- Being able to locate on the map where a specific player (assigned to your Power) is.
- In the preparation screen, display the names of the top 10 commanders which contributed to the system preparation, indicating the amount of prep packages they have delivered.

Then, let the hunt begin...oh that would be fun...unlikely to happen...

Yeah, that would solve more problems than just 5C.