Powerplay Frontier, it's time to fix Powerplay.

[Mowerman]

Yeah... except alt accounts happen. And last time I defected they didn't send any ships as I was n-thousand light-year from the bubble.

The only guaranteed way to prevent 5C activity is by simply making it impossible by only allowing positive action.

It's so hilarious, the only reason 5C is even a problem is because they have more human and material resources.

What I find hilarious are the cries for open only. You do realize that 1/3 of the possible player base does not occupy the same game play as you right? And this is assuming that the back door politics going on happen when you are online to stop them. What if they are someone playing in Asia and you are in USA. 12+hours time difference. You will never get your chance to pew pew the traitors. Hard coded AI response is the only way to stop this. Make it take forever for turn around and give steep and hefty penalties. The bots will go away as a source of annoyance. The people that are simply pushing as much as they can into the closest system they can will also cease to be an issue. Nope, no 50 millions creditz for j00. Go actually help then we'll talk.

 

[kurush]

The only guaranteed way to prevent 5C activity is by simply making it impossible by only allowing positive action.

Indeed. The only way to fight 5C is changing the gameplay so that a power cannot make a strategic error. The result will be: Whoever grinds more wins. That will surely make bots go away /sarcasm.

 

[Interstellar Overdrive]

Indeed. The only way to fight 5C is changing the gameplay so that a power cannot make a strategic error. The result will be: Whoever grinds more wins. That will surely make bots go away /sarcasm.

That would require a kind of Turing test. Perhaps by introducing mechanics that only a human can perform.

 

[kurush]

That would require a kind of Turing test. Perhaps by introducing mechanics that only a human can perform.

Frontier would be the first who manages to pull this off then, considering that AI is kinda winning in all sorts of games now. "Enter these characters to dock, CMDR" And then some picture that no human can possibly read.

 

[Interstellar Overdrive]

Frontier would be the first who manages to pull this off then, considering that AI is kinda winning in all sorts of games now. "Enter these characters to dock, CMDR" And then some picture that no human can possibly read.

Yeah, like that

The real challenge would be making it both functional and enjoyable.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I see you conveniently left out the context of my reply. Allow me to remind you:

As I said, you're inviting everyone to spam FDev until you get your way. Smart move, that.

P.S. Thanks for playing.

Spam FD to get my way? You mean highlight the latest in a long line of 5c that is ruining PP, and that after 4 years of waiting enough is enough more like.

 

[tiddymun]

Squadron Leaderboards (thank you FDev) tell the true tale. 1.7+ million offensive merits earned against 1 power by 2 squads. You cannot be pledged to an enemy power and show merits to an affiliate squadron (ie; the 7th cannot earn merits as Felicia in an AD aligned squad).

We were simply smarter, and more driven than Winters. Period. You complained about snipes NOT turned in (on discord), as if that were 5c. No, that is your enemy evaluating and adjusting strategy based on your power's actions.

We were more driven, more focused, and simply put - better than you. But yes, please - FDev - Save them!! jeez, pathetic.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the amount of undermining has been extremely impressive, and many CMDRs have put in a lot of time, dedication and hard work.... This is how it should be... But if Winters had not seen their bad systems fortified, they would have been able to manage their turmoils, and not be completely wiped out.... As I said in my earlier post - it is this 5C forting of your enemies systems thats game-breaking... When Aisling did a scrap of 9 systems in November - Federation did not repledge people to go and mess... Same as Torval last cycle. In Shattered Prism, same again - it was Aisling's CMDRs forting all her systems so she lost good ones (and yes, many probably not on the slack so not taking orders - all powers have this issue of CMDRs trying to help, but not understanding strategy) - all we did was put in 1M merits several cycles in a row - just like you are..... Difference is, thats all we did - undermine. No 5C.


Anyway, at least the rivalry between Imps and Feds will never die! Drew Wagar will have much content for his next book in these threads too..

But I would still like all Powers to denounce 5C within their ranks - not only come out publicly to do so, but also to ban from their discords any CMDRs doing so. If every power did 5C, the whole thing would be a ridiculous mess, and we wouldn't have a game anymore.

 

[Interstellar Overdrive]

What I find hilarious are the cries for open only. You do realize that 1/3 of the possible player base does not occupy the same game play as you right? And this is assuming that the back door politics going on happen when you are online to stop them. What if they are someone playing in Asia and you are in USA. 12+hours time difference. You will never get your chance to pew pew the traitors. Hard coded AI response is the only way to stop this. Make it take forever for turn around and give steep and hefty penalties. The bots will go away as a source of annoyance. The people that are simply pushing as much as they can into the closest system they can will also cease to be an issue. Nope, no 50 millions creditz for j00. Go actually help then we'll talk.

It is not entirely clear to me what you mean here. Make fortifying even more annoying? AI is not really a threat, even if you give them reverb cascade lasers.

I think combat bots are feasible. I think a fortify cap would solve the problem of over-fortified nearby systems.

I do agree with the hilariousness of 'open only' suggestions because of problems instancing with others for a variety of reasons.

 

[Bashy81]

There is no doubt whatsoever that the amount of undermining has been extremely impressive, and many CMDRs have put in a lot of time, dedication and hard work.... This is how it should be... But if Winters had not seen their bad systems fortified, they would have been able to manage their turmoils, and not be completely wiped out.... As I said in my earlier post - it is this 5C forting of your enemies systems thats game-breaking... When Aisling did a scrap of 9 systems in November - Federation did not repledge people to go and mess... Same as Torval last cycle. In Shattered Prism, same again - it was Aisling's CMDRs forting all her systems so she lost good ones (and yes, many probably not on the slack so not taking orders - all powers have this issue of CMDRs trying to help, but not understanding strategy) - all we did was put in 1M merits several cycles in a row - just like you are..... Difference is, thats all we did - undermine. No 5C.


Anyway, at least the rivalry between Imps and Feds will never die! Drew Wagar will have much content for his next book in these threads too..

But I would still like all Powers to denounce 5C within their ranks - not only come out publicly to do so, but also to ban from their discords any CMDRs doing so. If every power did 5C, the whole thing would be a ridiculous mess, and we wouldn't have a game anymore.

The problem really is structural. Defense is overpowered, legitimate attacks are too weak and abominably grinding. The most effective solution is BGS attacks (which are hateful and ruin things for the PMF underlay) and 5c. Anything else is a mug's game. So when we end up in conflicts with other Powers, we do so in full knowledge we are fighting with an arm tied behind our backs because we wont indulge in these nefarious game-breaking acts.

As a result everything is gloves-on, and devalued. Every effective action is presumed to be exploiting, and the dedication and playerbase withers. We need structural improvements so people can push the limits of what's possible without resorting to the perverse and unconscionable acts of last resort that we have now.

Verbal agreement to not use the most effective strategies available, simply cannot work amongst a group larger than a small circle of friends, and would never be trusted in anycase. If you want 5c to stop, push and support changes to powerplay to make it happen. Sandro's proposals were all working together to disincentivise widespread 5c, and encourage legitimate competition. There were some issues, it was clunky, but was also the best set of proposals ive seen from anyone, by far. And im a 100+ week pledge to a power that stands to be very vulnerable to these proposed mechanics. The good of the game & its survival trumps petty rivalry, so get on board, if youre not already!

 

[tiddymun]

The problem really is structural. Defense is overpowered, legitimate attacks are too weak and abominably grinding. The most effective solution is BGS attacks (which are hateful and ruin things for the PMF underlay) and 5c. Anything else is a mug's game. So when we end up in conflicts with other Powers, we do so in full knowledge we are fighting with an arm tied behind our backs because we wont indulge in these nefarious game-breaking acts.

As a result everything is gloves-on, and devalued. Every effective action is presumed to be exploiting, and the dedication and playerbase withers. We need structural improvements so people can push the limits of what's possible without resorting to the perverse and unconscionable acts of last resort that we have now.

Verbal agreement to not use the most effective strategies available, simply cannot work amongst a group larger than a small circle of friends, and would never be trusted in anycase. If you want 5c to stop, push and support changes to powerplay to make it happen. Sandro's proposals were all working together to disincentivise widespread 5c, and encourage legitimate competition. There were some issues, it was clunky, but was also the best set of proposals ive seen from anyone, by far. And im a 100+ week pledge to a power that stands to be very vulnerable to these proposed mechanics. The good of the game & its survival trumps petty rivalry, so get on board, if youre not already!

I totally agree with your assessment ... Many of Sandro's proposals would really make a difference - like the competition on a system by system basis for turmoiling a system if undermining is 100% more than fortification. It would bring new tactics and strategies - both for a power trying to lose a terrible system forced on them (or a system made terrible by a new contesting system from another power), and for attackers trying to "steal" a good system from a another power, and remove the extraordinary efforts (e.g. 1.7M merits noted above) to get your enemy to drop systems. The latter is partly due to the low numbers of CMDRs participating in power play - it was probably designed for 10 times as many participants.. 1.7M merits would then not be such a huge amount - more like 5-10k of merits per CMDR than 50-100k. If PowerPlay involved more than just shooting enemy ships and hauling things about, it would engage far more of the community. And many of Sandro's suggestions were along those lines.

But we have been waiting and waiting for revisions/enhancements to PowerPlay for so so long now...

5C preps destroyed Torval (and to be fair, if the Feds hadn't gone through with their Granny's Fallen and Cant Get Up campaign of a year or more ago, maybe their player base would have been bigger and more able to control 5C preps). Torval also called out to the Feds to help them against 5C - and it is to our detriment that we didn't respond to that call. We reaped what we sowed in that respect - this was a mistake. Of course the imperials could also have helped them It appears they weren't interested in doing so at that time. Once Torval officially gave up, the Empire then used Torval as a weapon against Winters (legitimate strategy of weaponised expansions, although this was not for the benefit of Torval, but it was in the Empires interest - an interesting strategy), and 5C forts have ensured Winters has lost as many of their best systems as possible, being left with mostly terrible systems. I have no doubt other Powers will also feel the force of 5C. As you say, the reason people are resorting to such tactics is structural - and the desire to beat their opponents using strategies and tactics available to them within the game.

so back to the OP... Frontier - it is time to make some improvements here!

 

[kurush]

The real challenge would be making it both functional and enjoyable.

Frontier 2020: In search of enjoyable captcha. It pretty much summarizes the debate. GL with that

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Indeed. The only way to fight 5C is changing the gameplay so that a power cannot make a strategic error. The result will be: Whoever grinds more wins. That will surely make bots go away /sarcasm.

There's a pretty big gap between "an action taken on behalf of a power can't harm the power" and "power's can't make strategic errors", though. If you're grinding at something strategically irrelevant you can win the battle and lose the war, without needing to explicitly lose points for whatever you were doing.

As for bots, it doesn't matter if they're grinding negative activities or positive ones - they're a problem either way. Making the Powerplay activities complex enough that bots and AFKers can't (efficiently) do them would go a long way to sorting that out.

 

[CMDR Quade]

Has FDEV ever officially stated that they disapprove of (consider it "cheating" or "exploiting") 5th Column activities like this?

Here's the only time I've seen an FD employee address the legitimacy of the presence of saboteurs destroying a power from within. This was part of the feedback discussion with Sandro about the addition of the voting mechanics.

Sandro Sammarco

Lead Designer- Elite: Dangerous

Hello Commander AreZee!

Yes, if 75% of the vote is for logistics consolidation, then no preparation can succeed and all CC will be used to increase the undermining success trigger in the following cycle.

I will add the caveat that the actual numbers for the benefit might change if they turn out to stifle undermining too much (in conjunction with other changes).

The primary function of logistics consolidation is to allow Commanders to reduce the risk of bad system preparation, so if need be we could turn the undermining prevention bonus off altogether.

Hello Commander bigity!

So, if it turns out that the majority of pledges for a power are actually saboteurs, then it kind of means that the power is simply not supported enough to survive.

Hello Commander Mengy

We actually have some ideas about making Powerplay less work intensive with regards to its benefits, but we feel that we first need to make sure that the core rules are as robust as we can make them first.

Hello Commander h347h!

Yes, the concept of using time spent as a mechanism for effectively control rewards is quite compelling, and definitely something we'd like to investigate.​

Emphasis added.

Now, Sandro is not working on ED anymore so who knows what they think now? My guess is, they don't think about powerplay much, if at all.

I think it is worth reading Sandro's PP overhaul proposals. Part 1. Part 2. Keep in mind, these were proposals based on the state of the game in May of 2018 and Zac indicated that there were no plans to update PP with the closing of horizons. In another recent thread, Will said they're looking back at these olds posts as part of an "ongoing investigation." Whatever that means.

There's also some really interesting reading back on the archived PP Beta forums (from May of 2015). It appears that Hudson may have suffered from a 5th C style attack (more here, even more here) during the beta and others outlined exactly the kinds of tactics needed to combat 5th C. I share this to indicate that it's a problem originating in the design of PP. It's a problem that FD have been told about and that has been demonstrated in the mechanics for almost 4 years. They've done just about nothing besides the introduction of the voting mechanics. As we've seen, that wasn't enough.

I am left with the assumption that, going back to Sandro's statement, FD are in favor of 5th Column style activities. What remains to be seen is, will FD pursue balance changes, like those outlined in the PP Proposal of May 2018? 5th C is too powerful and outweighs the efforts of loyal commanders far too often. Even when powers can cope with 5th C, for example Mahon's clever management of their CC to a total of 1 each cycle for weeks on end, it's a large and tiring task. Fighting 5th C leads to burnout, frustration, and animosity between players which extend far beyond the power vs power conflicts in game. I know this because my power fights large 5th C efforts on a regular basis. We have to routinely out haul saboteurs who put over 100k merits into damaging and unwanted preps. When attempting to SCRAP or fighting off turmoils, we've watched our worst systems getting fortified. The only course of action we're left with is pledging players to neutral powers so they can turn around and attack us. Think about that! The best way for players to support their power is sometimes to leave it and then spend time attacking it. FD have known this since the PP beta and haven't made any meaningful changes. With the vast majority of ED's developers moving to work on the post 2020 releases, I'm not sure we have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the attention we deserve.

 

[Mowerman]

It is not entirely clear to me what you mean here. Make fortifying even more annoying? AI is not really a threat, even if you give them reverb cascade lasers.

I think combat bots are feasible. I think a fortify cap would solve the problem of over-fortified nearby systems.

I do agree with the hilariousness of 'open only' suggestions because of problems instancing with others for a variety of reasons.

What I am referring to here is slowing the bots down. No you can not defect today, come back next week, and do it again. If you defect, you can not come back for at least 30 days. If these are truly bots, the in game AI should have no issue dealing with them, especially in large enough numbers. Maybe even cause some special AI defect killers that can lock down ships through team play. One with weapons to block FSD jumps, one with shield busters, one with hull cutters. Get enough of them together and even ships being run by players will start to have issues. You start trashing those 250 to 500 million credit ships and they will stop playing stupid games.

Reading the post above, this sounds familiar to language you get from devs in games have multiple servers and they are about to consolidate. I would not be surprised in the near future to see powers that have low long term support values get terminated.

 

[kurush]

One of the biggest mistakes of Sandor's proposal was that he came up with this notorious Open only idea. From this point on it (OOPP) got so much attention that all other proposals in his post were more or less ignored - which is a pity and wasn't a very clever move from a psychological point of you. For someone knowing his community anyway...

That's simple to explain. The gankers, who surprisingly didn't get chased away from ED space by 5 years of combat logging, decided to control this debate. Many people pointed out why it would be a silly proposition considering the game architecture, but hey, those are gankers... They don't necessary need a high level of comprehension to be what they are.
On the other hand, there is a chance rebalancing the mechanics where it would be easier to hurt a power from the outside may work. I.e. that Sandro's proposition to allow undermining of 100% fortified systems by still undermining them to a higher % value. I think if you can efficiently play for your power while being pledged to it, the 5c issue should go away.

 

[kurush]

There's a pretty big gap between "an action taken on behalf of a power can't harm the power" and "power's can't make strategic errors", though. If you're grinding at something strategically irrelevant you can win the battle and lose the war, without needing to explicitly lose points for whatever you were doing.

Frankly, I don't see any gap at all. What is a strategic error in this context other than a combination of actions that managed to hurt the power? One thing Frontier can do here though is scaling down internal damage or scaling up external so that 5c just no longer make sense from the time spent perspective.

 

[Rubbernuke]

One thing Frontier can do here though is scaling down internal damage or scaling up external so that 5c just no longer make sense from the time spent perspective.

The problem is, how do you do that, when the game sees a 5C player equal to a normal player? You are asking to make playing more difficult in general. Sandros proposals are about as advanced as you can go within the confines of whats available without a redesign, because they all loosely revolve around straightjacketing voting (which is the problem).

If the redesign could be done, 5C would be easily designed out, but if not you'd then have an ethical dilemma as to the reason for Powerplay. In 1.3 Powerplay was pretty much 10 prototype squadrons with extra BGS style layers- now, in 3.3.0x the BGS is much more advanced and rounded; where does that leave PP with the changes?

I know there are people who loathe the Open Powerplay idea, but in the context of the above, what role does Powerplay function when alongside an advanced BGS? If it sticks to the old model the effort expended keeps the PP experience essentially static- while taking Open PP, plus tug-of-war UM beyond 100%, plus focussing PP to fewer, more important areas actually tries to craft a different experience.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Frankly, I don't see any gap at all. What is a strategic error in this context other than a combination of actions that managed to hurt the power? One thing Frontier can do here though is scaling down internal damage or scaling up external so that 5c just no longer make sense from the time spent perspective.

For an abstract extremely simplified example:

Case 1: powers can take actions worth -3 or +3
Case 2: powers can take actions worth +1 or +7

The gap in effectiveness is exactly the same - a power in case 2 which does +1 actions when its rivals are doing +7 actions is making a serious strategic error and is going to lose out as a result. Their *strategy* harms the power - but on an operational level, their actions are still (marginally) beneficial.

In case 2, 5C attacks are impossible - if you sign up en masse to a power and do +1 actions for it, it's still benefiting the power. Whereas in case 1, if a block of people grind the -3 actions, the power is harmed even if all its genuine supporters are making the optimal +3 actions. The difference is that not only are strategic errors possible, but so are operational errors.

 

[Andalyn]

https://media.giphy.com/media/3JiCZP9I0gAvK/giphy.gif

 

[kurush]

The problem is, how do you do that, when the game sees a 5C player equal to a normal player? You are asking to make playing more difficult in general. Sandros proposals are about as advanced as you can go within the confines of whats available without a redesign, because they all loosely revolve around straightjacketing voting (which is the problem).

Sandro proposals were good enough actually. In fact if you just provide a power with a mechanics to get rid of those bad systems, it will probably solve the issue without other changes. But given the Frontier track record with multiplayer content we unfortunately should expect whatever they add to be exploitable and likely to make the medicine worse than the disease itself.