Powerplay Why are Solo and Private Groups allowed to influence Powerplay?

[Woofington]

It seems like with power play you should have several goals. Obviously a person will gravitate to their preferred role, whether it be miner, transporter, bounty hunter, etc.

Power play is all about the interaction between both the player and the environment, PvE, and players versus other players, PvP. Obviously PvP is instanced and cannot be fully enforced but given enough time and a focused destination PvP interactions will happen and have an effect on things.

So to allow Private groups or Solo players to affect the outcome of Powerplays without directly involving themselves in PvP interactions seems really counter intuitive. You are basically letting someone vote on a war they will have seen no part of.

Furthermore it diminishes those players who wish to engage in power plays by involving themselves in PvP. By allowing other users to effect the outcome of a PP while subverting all instances of PvP means that players who are attempting to effect a PP through PvP are made useless. Ultimately it causes any instance of PvP to become pointless, something done only for preference but not for effect.

What is the reasoning here?

 

[Robert Maynard]

By design - every player experiences and affects the single shared galaxy state - regardless of game mode or platform. This core design point pre-dates the implementation of Powerplay by about two years or so - so Powerplay was implemented in accordance with it.

 

[Woofington]

Sure saying that it is something that is and always has been is an explanation, but it hardly addresses the key failings this implementation leads to.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If Powerplay had been meant to rely on direct opposition of other players, it would have. However, just like the game itself, direct opposition from players is optional - for all players.

 

[Nagual]

Powerplay affects all modes whether or not you choose to take part actively, so all modes can choose to participate or not.

 

[Asp Explorer]

I love the use of "instance" in this instance as that describes everything

 

[Woofington]

If Powerplay had been meant to rely on direct opposition of other players, it would have. However, just like the game itself, direct opposition from players is optional - for all players.

You can't claim that it is working perfectly because it was created that way. Game design is fluid and constantly changing, design changes, games are patched, things are reconsidered.

Powerplay affects all modes whether or not you choose to take part actively, so all modes can choose to participate or not.

Sure that is the way it is made, but that doesn't mean it is an appropriate choice, just that it was the choice that was made.

 

[Marra Morgan]

You can't claim that it is working perfectly because it was created that way. Game design is fluid and constantly changing, design changes, games are patched, things are reconsidered.



Sure that is the way it is made, but that doesn't mean it is an appropriate choice, just that it was the choice that was made.

Yeah, things might change - the devs have expressed an interest about introducing some sort of bonus for PP activities in Open, but never once have they entertained the idea of excluding Private or Solo.

 

[Robert Maynard]

You can't claim that it is working perfectly because it was created that way. Game design is fluid and constantly changing, design changes, games are patched, things are reconsidered.

I didn't - I suggested that it is working as designed.

As to the game design changing - the three game modes, single shared galaxy state and mode mobility have been core design elements since the game design was first published at the start of the Kickstarter - over three years ago. From the moment that some players realised that the freedoms offered to all players (as to how many other players they play the game with) might affect their preferred play-style there have been threads proposing / demanding that Open play be favoured at the expense of the other two game modes. There have been many, many threads regarding these features, as there have been regarding Powerplay with respect to them - Frontier have not changed the core game features (although they have acknowledged that some players don't like them)....

 

[Robert Maynard]

Yeah, things might change - the devs have expressed an interest about introducing some sort of bonus for PP activities in Open, but never once have they entertained the idea of excluding Private or Solo.

Indeed there has been a proposal, described as a "hand grenade" by Sandro when he posted it (and not confirmed as a change either) - a modifier to the total number of merits handed in in Open to a particular Power - seemingly designed to offset the lost merits associated with playing among other players. There has been no proposal to add a bonus to personal Powerplay earnings in Open though.

 

[Wescott]

You can't claim that it is working perfectly because it was created that way. Game design is fluid and constantly changing, design changes, games are patched, things are reconsidered.



Sure that is the way it is made, but that doesn't mean it is an appropriate choice, just that it was the choice that was made.

It doesn't make it wrong or not appropriate either as it is your opinion, not your design choice, make your own game if you have the talent, time and money and make it in your image then you will be deliriously happy. until you become bombarded by your forum critics.

 

[Woofington]

Hooo boy a whole lot of people take this personally. I laid claims why this design doesn't make sense, it subverts and individuals ability to engage in PvP while still affectnig the outcome of PP goals. If anyone has a refutation to that point other than "It's been this way forever", which isn't actually an argument its just a statement of facts.

I didn't - I suggested that it is working as designed.

As to the game design changing - the three game modes, single shared galaxy state and mode mobility have been core design elements since the game design was first published at the start of the Kickstarter - over three years ago. From the moment that some players realised that the freedoms offered to all players (as to how many other players they play the game with) might affect their preferred play-style there have been threads proposing / demanding that Open play be favoured at the expense of the other two game modes. There have been many, many threads regarding these features, as there have been regarding Powerplay with respect to them - Frontier have not changed the core game features (although they have acknowledged that some players don't like them)....

The obvious choice here would be to splinter the shard into a main open shard, and then another for solo/private groups. Since solo/private groups are largely PvE and Open is PvP is makes the most sense.

 

[Finbar]

... to allow Private groups or Solo players to affect the outcome of Powerplays without directly involving themselves in PvP interactions seems really counter intuitive.
[..] What is the reasoning here?

I imagine it is that way because PP as intended to be far more politically realistic than a purely pvp version would be.

Consider these examples from the last 10 years:

-China's selling more to the US than it buys from it,
-Other powers running an economic embargo against Iran until it gives up processes needed for nuclear weapon development,
-Turkey requiring visa-free access to the Schengen countries in the EU before agreeing to help stop refugees moving to Greece,
-China providing new railways in Africa,
-Russia reducing oil flows into Ukraine,
-Western powers providing arms to the new Libyan government,
-Western countries blocking transfer of key industrial technologies to other countries,
-Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA sharing intelligence information they deny to others,
-Countries cyber hacking to collect industrial secrets and to destroy crucial industrial plants in countries they oppose,
- etc. etc.

None of these moves involved direct military conflict but all are moves in the power play that goes on between nations, and they arguably have at least as much impact on which countries gain and lose as any purely military activity. The lesson of history is that building a nation's power for the long term needs a combination of industrial, commercial, scientific, diplomatic, cultural and military skills and resources, deployed together in varying mixes depending on the strengths and weaknesses of different opponents. It seems to me that PP is being developed to model that reality.

 

[Woofington]

I imagine it is that way because PP as intended to be far more politically realistic than a purely pvp version would be.

Consider these examples from the last 10 years:

-China's selling more to the US than it buys from it,
-Other powers running an economic embargo against Iran until it gives up processes needed for nuclear weapon development,
-Turkey requiring visa-free access to the Schengen countries in the EU before agreeing to help stop refugees moving to Greece,
-China providing new railways in Africa,
-Russia reducing oil flows into Ukraine,
-Western powers providing arms to the new Libyan government,
-Western countries blocking transfer of key industrial technologies to other countries,
-Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA sharing intelligence information they deny to others,
-Countries cyber hacking to collect industrial secrets and to destroy crucial industrial plants in countries they oppose,
- etc. etc.

None of these moves involved direct military conflict but all are moves in the power play that goes on between nations, and they arguably have at least as much impact on which countries gain and lose as any purely military activity. The lesson of history is that building a nation's power for the long term needs a combination of industrial, commercial, scientific, diplomatic, cultural and military skills and resources, deployed together in varying mixes depending on the strengths and weaknesses of different opponents. It seems to me that PP is being developed to model that reality.

But all of these things you are listing are things that are being allowed to happen without military interdiction. Just because the threat of PvP is real, doesn't mean negotiations for other forms of interaction, trade, alliances, etc, are automatically barred.

 

[firemane]

There is actually a good deal of PP related PvP. Particularly in central systems, as well as systems contested during preparations and expansions. That is easier to see close to the end of the cycle, and it is primarily composed of a spread of well armed ships. If you are a PP player with a combat focus you should have little trouble finding a level match.

Now, it seems to me that many Players are more inclined to hunt turkeys than falcons. Those are actually harder to find, even though I've seen a surprising number of commodity runners in open. Here is why...

Even if all the PP gameplay switched to open only, you'd be able to see a commodities runners in supercruise for all of 3-5 minutes per system in the whole cycle. If you take your average 4000 fortification system and split it in anaconda size bites (which is the most common commodity runner), that would give you a window of opportunity of 20-40 minutes spread semi-randomly in eight 3-5 minute chunks along a 10,000 minute cycle. That is all it takes to fortify a system. That leaves you with a very low probability (0.004%, I believe) of actually catching someone flying around in a fortification run for a particular system.

Open is badly skewed towards the hunter. If you want to see more unarmed or lightly armed Commanders in open you need to give them a chance to actually run a blockade. That would entail things like discarding the "kill me" sign that is the open icon and actually forcing the hunters to do a more detailed scan of the target in order to identify it as a player. Add a higher number of NPC's traversing the systems and then Commanders may feel confident enough to risk a run in open. As it is, it is suicidal for the prey and hardly a challenge for the hunter. Try it yourself. Do a commodities run into an expansion system on the last day of the clock in a lightly armed, lightly armored ship. I'm betting it won't be fun from the point of view of the little guy.

That is, in the end, what drives people away from open. It is just not fun for someone who wants to do something other than adversarial PvP.

You also have to consider the aspect Finbar mentioned above: PP is more than just combat. It is not a direct game that you can solve with just one tool. It is Galactic Risk, rather than MMA. There is a lot more to the moves being made and the fact that a good deal of it remains out of direct reach has forced some of the brilliant plays we've seen in the last year. Making everything solvable with just combat would be a shame and it would simply drown the smaller groups. Some of those, like Mahon and Delaine, are actually able to stand up to groups that have a humongous player count (Hudson and ALD, for example) through sheer dedication and strategy. That keeps the game alive.

So, if you want real PvP, look in the right places (expansions and Preparations), specially towards the end of the cycle. If you want PvP to decide Power Play... well, that would only make for a very short game. If you want more people in open, talk to FD to balance that aspect and give the non-combat ships a chance. Better yet, start offering free escorts to the ones you find.

 

[X-Terminator]

I've said about this countless times. They should make SOLO/GROUP have no Rank Progression but add to that PowerPlay Infuence as I don't play that nonsense.

 

[Arvel Yael]

Solo players should be able to participate in power play because the effects of power play affect solo players .

The experience of having some random cmdr come hammering at me with his lasers while I (zero bounty) am trying to complete a cargo run made solo play look more appealing. Complaints from pilots in Erevate about experienced players pouncing on harmless player sideys kinda sealed the deal. I enjoy open and it's nice to see felow cmdrs about, but it's also nice to keep my cargo/exploration data/gathered bounties out of some bloodthirsty cmdr's reach .

 

[Tataboj]

A lot of people feel the way you do, mě included. Sandro has expressed that he would want to add some mechanism that makes influencing PP in Open more influential (although personal merits and profits would be the same in all the modes).

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Solo players should be able to participate in power play because the effects of power play affect solo players .

Multiplayer part of the game affects (very little) solo players. If you want to change some effects, you should get in that multiplayer part.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Multiplayer part of the game affects (very little) solo players. If you want to change some effects, you should get in that multiplayer part.

That's not how the game has been sold though. From the outset, Frontier have given all players the opportunity to affect a single evolving galaxy:

FAQ- Elite: Dangerous
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How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?

The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.​

How does multiplayer work?

You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.

You will be able to save your position in certain key places (probably just in space stations, but possibly while in hyperspace too, if we feel it is needed). A save-and-quit option will be freely available at those points, as will the subsequent reload, but there will be a game cost for a reload following player death. Your ship will still be intact in the condition it was when the save occurred, but there will be a game currency charge (referred to as an insurance policy) for this. This is to prevent the obvious exploit of friends cooperating and killing each other to get each other’s cargo. If you can’t pay, then it will accumulate as an in-game debt, and the police may chase you!

There are no multiplayer lobbies, and the game will be played across many servers, augmented by peer-to-peer traffic for fast responses. Session creation and destruction happens during the long-range hyperspace countdown and hyperspace effect (which is a few seconds only), so is transparent to the player.

We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will, though it will be possible to be banned from groups due to antisocial behaviour, and you will only meet others in that group.
​

Frontier *could* have designed and pitched an Open-only PvP focused game - however they chose not to in favour of a game where players can choose how many other players to play with on a session by session basis.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Hooo boy a whole lot of people take this personally. I laid claims why this design doesn't make sense, it subverts and individuals ability to engage in PvP while still affectnig the outcome of PP goals. If anyone has a refutation to that point other than "It's been this way forever", which isn't actually an argument its just a statement of facts.

It's not the first time a proposal has been made to change the game with no regard for the players that it would affect. There's no real need for an opposing argument - we all bought the game with these features in place - presumably, if a player felt so strongly about particular features they would choose not to buy the game (rather than buy the game and propose / request / demand that core game features are changed to suit their chosen play-style).

The obvious choice here would be to splinter the shard into a main open shard, and then another for solo/private groups. Since solo/private groups are largely PvE and Open is PvP is makes the most sense.

It's an obvious choice - if Frontier are prepared to introduce a hard split in the player-base. However, the fact that all players can choose which game mode to play in on a session by session basis would probably open up the game to exploitation of divergent galaxy states.