Adjustment to Powerplay Control Mechanics

[Tarkus Venius]

You will get bored in 2-3 weeks, then you will use the "open only" feature to hunt PowerPlayers... My estimates is PP will die within 6 months if it's made open only.
but that's another discussion.

If you actually played, you'd know that most of the powerplay community members are already flying in open, and have been since the start from what I understand. A majority of the people actually doing the activity want 'open only', a majority of the whiners who don't want any open only features aren't even participating. I'm not sure why FDEV even listens to their bleating sometimes, they certainly aren't in here helping me fort for the Empire.

We already hunt one another, and the fights are fantastic when we can actually instance.

Some solo-only players would quit, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Some might come to open and discover that escaping enemy interdiction isn't all that bloody difficult.

Most of all, we would all finally get to see who is doing 350K+ of bad 5C prep hauling for Aisling. Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[AbslomRob]

How do these organized groups track commanders in PG/ Solo? That's nothing but a declaration of an echo chamber here. You'll never really know their numbers...



Who says ED (or parts of it) are NOT for solo players? FDev would never dare to make such a bolt claim, for various reasons...

The people that you can see in open have friends lists that show the other members of their groups also in open. And we track the merits listed in GalNet vs the merits we have our members report, and it all adds up.

Now of course, if you're a crackpot conspiracy theorist that assumes that everyone is lying to everyone else and spending vast quantities of time building up the collateral to support their lies for the grand purpose of ... of ... hmm, not sure what the end goal here would be, but hey, it wouldn't be a conspiracy theory if it made sense, right?

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

"For one month, we're going to make Powerplay an open-only activity, just to see what happens."

 

[Oraki]

Alrighty... I can't find anything regarding this fix in the patchnotes. Did Fdev forget about it?

 

[Threeofseven]

If powerplay isn’t going open only then You’re wasting your time as it’s still a pointless grind only mechanic that only has negative effects on the bgs.

 

[Rubbernuke]

If powerplay isn’t going open only the. You’re wasting your time as it’s still a pointless grind only mechanic that only has negative effects on the bgs.

This is the issue, if Powerplay is a second rate BGS what is it for? All its mechanics are 5 years old now and hopelessly out of date.

 

[CMDR_Brantford of FLC]

This change does not appear to have taken effect with this patch release.

 

[SteveWithaD]

they didn't put it in, they were to busy making sure nobody could buy a fleet carrier in the fleet carrier patch.

 

[SigmarPrime]

@Rubbernuke
Hi, I do belieive this is my first forum post on FD forums, and it has been ages since i tried power play (played a wee bit when it came out). About this open only or not argument, honestly, there are merits for both sides, and as I said, I can't say much about current state of the PP because I don't know much.
Your proposed changes are an excellent compromise, and look like they would improve the activity and tie the players into a group rather than divide the PvP/PvE community.

But to pose a simple question: What about the game? The game I bought, and would like to have full access to, without PvP walls. Open Only argument, without any compromise to play in solo or group is taking away from the overall experience I got for myself, and I don't think a state of a purchased product should be subject to player base democracy (who, in this case, want to espouse a particular way of playing the game over all others, regardless of activity). Personally, I don't like PvP in games that have PvE options. I do not own a HOTAS, which I'm led to believe is a competitive advantage over mouse & keyboard.

In the changes you proposed, having a different progression speed is something that is brilliant. I did enjoy powerplay for the roleplay reasons, and since im getting back in the game over the last few months, I might go back to PP, for the same reasons I did before. But I wouldn't like to be forced to PvP for any reason, as much as you would't like to be force to play in solo (forgive the assumption).
Edited for minor errors

 

[Rubbernuke]

@Rubbernuke
Hi, I do belieive this is my first forum post on FD forums, and it has been ages since i tried power play (played a wee bit when it came out). About this open only or not argument, honestly, there are merits for both sides, and as I said, I can't say much about current state of the PP because I don't know much.
Your proposed changes are an excellent compromise, and look like they would improve the activity and tie the players into a group rather than divide the PvP/PvE community.

But to pose a simple question: What about the game? The game I bought, and would like to have full access to, without PvP walls. Open Only argument, without any compromise to play in solo or group is taking away from the overall experience I got for myself, and I don't think a state of a purchased product should be subject to player base democracy (who, in this case, want to espouse a particular way of playing the game over all others, regardless of activity). Personally, I don't like PvP in games that have PvE options. I do not own a HOTAS, which I'm led to believe is a competitive advantage over mouse & keyboard.

In the changes you proposed, having a different progression speed is something that is brilliant. I did enjoy powerplay for the roleplay reasons, and since im getting back in the game over the last few months, I might go back to PP, for the same reasons I did before. But I wouldn't like to be forced to PvP for any reason, as much as you would't like to be force to play in solo (forgive the assumption).
Edited for minor errors

First up, welcome to the forum here

Powerplay has a unique problem in that it straddles too much of the underlying game to really know what it is. The other problem is that broken down, ED have applied the same gather / drop mechanic too many times- Powerplay at its most fundamental is no different from CGs or IIs, and to an extent the BGS. Its a withered feature that sits in the shadow of much more advanced features despite being older than most of them. To me that suggests a level of duplication in features that is in need of diversification- and the only way to do that is via Open or at least at part of it.

In my proposal at a functional level (i.e. what you do) there is no difference between solo PG tasks and open tasks at a playable level. You still fly, dock, land, shoot etc- the difference is that rather than expecting everything to work as a homogeneous 'lump' you ringfence aspects so they provide focus- by splitting solo PG from open it allows a focus on missions for the former (which scales well to the NPC AI) while open (which is delivery / shooting, i.e. the same just moving to somewhere different) the AI is replaced by players. But both are needed to make a power work (so its not an exclusion).

 

[SigmarPrime]

First up, welcome to the forum here

Powerplay has a unique problem in that it straddles too much of the underlying game to really know what it is. The other problem is that broken down, ED have applied the same gather / drop mechanic too many times- Powerplay at its most fundamental is no different from CGs or IIs, and to an extent the BGS. Its a withered feature that sits in the shadow of much more advanced features despite being older than most of them. To me that suggests a level of duplication in features that is in need of diversification- and the only way to do that is via Open or at least at part of it.

In my proposal at a functional level (i.e. what you do) there is no difference between solo PG tasks and open tasks at a playable level. You still fly, dock, land, shoot etc- the difference is that rather than expecting everything to work as a homogeneous 'lump' you ringfence aspects so they provide focus- by splitting solo PG from open it allows a focus on missions for the former (which scales well to the NPC AI) while open (which is delivery / shooting, i.e. the same just moving to somewhere different) the AI is replaced by players. But both are needed to make a power work (so its not an exclusion).

Thank you

I do like the operational differential of the changes, as you said "ringfencing". The entire premise of an armed conflict having "tip of the spear" players that would play in open, and I think should have higher rewards for much higher risk involved, is realistic. Realistic, as in common sense, should be easy to incorporate into activity mechanics, as it would:
a) make sense (hopefully)
b) make the activity that much easier to understand for newer players.

Would having to achieve a certain rank with the power, as well a certain rank in respective Pilots Federation rank to switch from solo or PG to open in PP address some of the issues? Also, reduce the influence the pledges have over the PP mechanics so new pledges cant undermine their own power and then defect, along with the proposed Trust mechanic?

To continue in the same vein, non open players would still have an impact, but it would be more along of supporting roles ("branches of the power's navy" if you want) to make open more dynamic for open players (reducing ability to rearm and deploy ships, increase time to transfer ships to station, even removing the ability to repair and restock ships if enough NPC hauler ships are destoyed in PG/solo, reducing system NPC security forces number and increasing response time to intrusion if enough NPC combat ships are downed, etc).

Something in that direction would make PP feel like an armed conflict, with a lot of different layers to it that anyone in any role can participate and make a difference, I'd think.
Interested in your thoughts on this.

 

[Vurrath]

a few / some of these aren't bad, although there's been similar propositions to Frontier many-times before.

this one stood out though ;
" In practice with 5C "

oh come on - this just demonstrates a clear intent to-not play the game secularly / honestly in terms of HOW the pledging system is supposed to work - Frontier's made comments & requests before about WHY they want players to only act in PP honestly, as in , acknowledging they didn't put enough mechanisms in to try to prevent 5C,

and here some of you are, openly pretending as though it's something everyone does / trying to normalize it. wrong. you're not going to get Frontier to sympathise when you're openly flaunting DISREGARDING their requests that players do not 5C, and to REPORT players who do it.

talk about asking-for-it.

when making a proposition that needs to be going to work AFTER you impliment it, you've got to try to imagine both how it could be used properly, and how it could be used IMproperly - trying to validate current-improper mis-use ... is not trying to fix the system.

how about more mechanisms in-the-minutia , that can help them make what they-WANT, THEIR-game ... to be?
it's not ours, it's theirs.