The fundamental problem with making Powerplay Open-Only.

[DemiserofD]

FD set the scope of change with the proposal I linked. I argue for Open because thats the only real option (bar weighting) we have been given, and between the two offers much more depth to the feature. Everything else is formula tweaks, and extra voting- i.e., nothing new gameplay wise.

So its not loaded, its what FD themselves came up with. Until they say otherwise this is the scope that you have to build ideas round.

FD mention it because players repeatedly ask for it. Then you say it's the only option to ask for, because FD mention it. Classic circular reasoning.

That doesn't make it a good idea. The optimal ideas are improvements that can benefit all players, while simultaneously nudging them in a certain direction without being mandatory.

Many of these things aren't just good for powerplay, either. Systems of wing matchmaking, for example, would help open powerplay enormously, but would also extend far beyond that and help the game be better overall.

 

[DemiserofD]

Well thought out? Now that is just your opinion man. PP would need a complete revamp for it to be more than what it currently is, a time consuming delivery bucket filling mini game. OO, or open weighting, could possibly be a consideration in that. However, all I have seen in this thread is people explaining what they want to happen if OOPP is instituted, and ignoring what does happen when people are in open in any concentration. PKers show up, and then pew pew with zero context, and no consideration regarding what that pew pew means to the BGS/PP/CG/new players trying to get their FSD engineered.
And here is the kicker, I really don't see how OOPP would change the outcome. Too many ways to get the deliveries through, and fortification is meet the goal and done.
Uncap both fortification and undermine and you get something interesting for a week until people realize it's now a job, a job that bleeds credits. That might work for WOW, not sure it would for ED.
I don't have a good answer for how to fix PP, but throwing feces at the wall and hoping something sticks does not seem a constructive way to go about it. OO anything is pretty much a monkey feces idea in ED.

Quite right, well said.

 

[DemiserofD]

I feel there are two proposals here - one is change and the other is status quo. The changes you might like are what represent a huge change as you describe it. That's in terms of dev time, which is the real currency here, and we tend to assume it's unlikely they'll assign enough for that. Ergo status quo.

OO or open weighting (OW) of merits represents a small change, technically. Admittedly OO represents an upheaval for a section of the PP player base, but temptingly straightforward to do, OW less effective but also easy enough. There's a subtext here around the fear not of the phantom (in a PP context) of "ganking", but of losing, that that's the real upheaval feared. That's not a valid defence of status quo.

Would love to know what the devs are really thinking around all this.

This is omitting a third possibility; devs spend a minimal amount of time fixing things, only to make them even worse. That's certainly a possibility.

 

[Rubbernuke]

FD mention it because players repeatedly ask for it. Then you say it's the only option to ask for, because FD mention it. Classic circular reasoning.

That doesn't make it a good idea. The optimal ideas are improvements that can benefit all players, while simultaneously nudging them in a certain direction without being mandatory.

Many of these things aren't just good for powerplay, either. Systems of wing matchmaking, for example, would help open powerplay enormously, but would also extend far beyond that and help the game be better overall.

No, FD came up with it on their own - they even admit the feature suits PvP. Have they suggested anything else? Or has all that energy gone into the BGS?

Systems of wing matchmaking

Which happens now, via the structures that exist in and out of the game. Why waste time and energy when its already done? With Odyssey we might have that anyway, what with the talk of physical multicrew and more extensible wings.

At some point Powerplay has to choose what it wants to be, otherwise it can't have a focus in a feature crowded game and not simply replicate what already exists.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Well thought out? Now that is just your opinion man. PP would need a complete revamp for it to be more than what it currently is, a time consuming delivery bucket filling mini game. OO, or open weighting, could possibly be a consideration in that. However, all I have seen in this thread is people explaining what they want to happen if OOPP is instituted, and ignoring what does happen when people are in open in any concentration. PKers show up, and then pew pew with zero context, and no consideration regarding what that pew pew means to the BGS/PP/CG/new players trying to get their FSD engineered.
And here is the kicker, I really don't see how OOPP would change the outcome. Too many ways to get the deliveries through, and fortification is meet the goal and done.
Uncap both fortification and undermine and you get something interesting for a week until people realize it's now a job, a job that bleeds credits. That might work for WOW, not sure it would for ED.
I don't have a good answer for how to fix PP, but throwing feces at the wall and hoping something sticks does not seem a constructive way to go about it. OO anything is pretty much a monkey feces idea in ED.

Its almost as if you forgot to read the last 14 pages of comments.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Well thought out? Now that is just your opinion man. PP would need a complete revamp for it to be more than what it currently is, a time consuming delivery bucket filling mini game. OO, or open weighting, could possibly be a consideration in that. However, all I have seen in this thread is people explaining what they want to happen if OOPP is instituted, and ignoring what does happen when people are in open in any concentration. PKers show up, and then pew pew with zero context, and no consideration regarding what that pew pew means to the BGS/PP/CG/new players trying to get their FSD engineered.
And here is the kicker, I really don't see how OOPP would change the outcome. Too many ways to get the deliveries through, and fortification is meet the goal and done.
Uncap both fortification and undermine and you get something interesting for a week until people realize it's now a job, a job that bleeds credits. That might work for WOW, not sure it would for ED.
I don't have a good answer for how to fix PP, but throwing feces at the wall and hoping something sticks does not seem a constructive way to go about it. OO anything is pretty much a monkey feces idea in ED.

Again no insight from the person who's never done it, and it doesn't ring true with those that have. Some recent very busy PP cycles are my evidence - where our job was made much harder by being opposed while not being able to oppose back (only their PvPers in open). I'm sure we're not the only group feeling this. It was all structured, tactical PvP. You will ignore this response I expect. Wrong narrative.

I've recently done CGs - they are often rammed with random murderers. Interestingly less so in the Fed vs Imp conflicts, echoes of PP there. Anyway, I can confirm to anyone reading, It's different.

Btw engineering systems are not PP systems.

 

[DemiserofD]

No, FD came up with it on their own - they even admit the feature suits PvP. Have they suggested anything else? Or has all that energy gone into the BGS?

Who said anything about who came up with it?

Which happens now, via the structures that exist in and out of the game. Why waste time and energy when its already done? With Odyssey we might have that anyway, what with the talk of physical multicrew and more extensible wings.

At some point Powerplay has to choose what it wants to be, otherwise it can't have a focus in a feature crowded game and not simply replicate what already exists.

I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it was already done!

I think wings are in about as good of a state as powerplay, to be honest. Works great well enough for older players with a full body of resources to cover up all the flaws, stinks for anyone else(personally, I can't even find friends online to give away wing mission rewards to!). But oopp, and improving powerplay at all, isn't about the older players; they're already there, doing powerplay in open. It's about getting newer players involved, opening the door wide enough to get them involved. I mean, if you reversed your opinion, I could argue that we don't need a galaxy map, just the Navigation terminal, because there are maps of our galaxy on the internet.

That doesn't mean the game isn't made profoundly better for having the galaxy map, y'know?

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

This is omitting a third possibility; devs spend a minimal amount of time fixing things, only to make them even worse. That's certainly a possibility.

And here was me thinking you were an optimist

The worst would come in my view from a hamfisted attempt to stretch those minimal resources to try and find something that pleases everybody, and fail to please anybody. Hopefully they have the courage to avoid that.

Anyway my view is to carry in playing the way that we enjoy in my team, and see what happens, happy even if we lose since we enjoyed it and know we flew with some "honour" as Worf might say.

o7

 

[DemiserofD]

And here was me thinking you were an optimist

The worst would come in my view from a hamfisted attempt to stretch those minimal resources to try and find something that pleases everybody, and fail to please anybody. Hopefully they have the courage to avoid that.

Anyway my view is to carry in playing the way that we enjoy in my team, and see what happens, happy even if we lose since we enjoyed it and know we flew with some "honour" as Worf might say.

o7

And I support you wholeheartedly in that goal! That's the great thing about having the choice between Open and Solo, you can pick and choose to find the way you enjoy the most!

Perhaps I am being pessimistic, but if your starting assumption is 'there isn't enough time to make a good change, so lets take what we can get', it doesn't exactly inspire great optimism, y'know?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Who said anything about who came up with it?

You did, you said it was in response to people asking for it, this proposal came out of the blue and was in response to nothing other than FD thinking about what they thought Powerplay was.

I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it was already done!

I think wings are in about as good of a state as powerplay, to be honest. Works great well enough for older players with a full body of resources to cover up all the flaws, stinks for anyone else(personally, I can't even find friends online to give away wing mission rewards to!). But oopp, and improving powerplay at all, isn't about the older players; they're already there, doing powerplay in open. It's about getting newer players involved, opening the door wide enough to get them involved. I mean, if you reversed your opinion, I could argue that we don't need a galaxy map, just the Navigation terminal, because there are maps of our galaxy on the internet.

That doesn't mean the game isn't made profoundly better for having the galaxy map, y'know?

Look at the PMFs, Fuel Rats, Hull Seals, Powers, Merc Groups- they don't have issues and use whats at hand. I can remember people from my power having a channel just to ask for people who want wing rewards at the time. Works just fine.

And I'm all for new players, but why do you assume new players want what you think they want?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Open and Solo

And if they were actually functionally equivalent I'd agree, but they are not and have led to what we have now. The game feature thats run its course because its too hard to attack and too easy to defend without consequence.

Provide solo with the potential dangers of open and you solve the problem.

 

[DemiserofD]

You did, you said it was in response to people asking for it, this proposal came out of the blue and was in response to nothing other than FD thinking about what they thought Powerplay was.

I think you misunderstood me, then. I said that Fdev mentions it because people keep mentioning it. It has nothing to do with who mentioned it first, it's a recursive cycle. Fdev mentions it once years ago, or maybe players mentioned it first? I'm sure people were hankering for open-only long before powerplay came to exist. It doesn't really matter, the point is that you can't use fdev mentioning it to actually mean anything.

Words are just that: Words.

Look at the PMFs, Fuel Rats, Hull Seals, Powers, Merc Groups- they don't have issues and use whats at hand. I can remember people from my power having a channel just to ask for people who want wing rewards at the time. Works just fine.

And I'm all for new players, but why do you assume new players want what you think they want?

Because I've been a new player. I wrote fairly extensively of my experiences back then, and it wasn't great. I quit for quite some time.

I'll reiterate; should the galaxy map not exist because we have maps of the galaxy on the internet?

You're arguing against features that will only help retain newer players and have no possible downside. Think about that for a moment. You don't need to disagree with these ideas just because I'm the one saying them.

And if they were actually functionally equivalent I'd agree,

If they were functionally equivalent there would be no point in having both. I think that's what you fail to grasp, here.

 

[EUS]

POOP can't happen with the current powers & their rewards for the player, best example is Li Yong-Rui.
Even in solo it's an abysmally structured power.
Player manages to get to level 5 to take advantage of the increased explo payout.
Has one week to go explore and race back to sell data before 50% depreciation.
Has to now do this in open. Day 6 gets back to "civilization", loses it all to pew pew man.
GG.

 

[DemiserofD]

POOP can't happen with the current powers & their rewards for the player, best example is Li Yong-Rui.
Even in solo it's an abysmally structured power.
Player manages to get to level 5 to take advantage of the increased explo payout.
Has one week to go explore and race back to sell data before 50% depreciation.
Has to now do this in open. Day 6 gets back to "civilization", loses it all to pew pew man.
GG.

That's a good point too.

 

[TheGrimCorsair]

POOP can't happen with the current powers & their rewards for the player, best example is Li Yong-Rui.
Even in solo it's an abysmally structured power.
Player manages to get to level 5 to take advantage of the increased explo payout.
Has one week to go explore and race back to sell data before 50% depreciation.
Has to now do this in open. Day 6 gets back to "civilization", loses it all to pew pew man.
GG.

The explorer could just learn how to configure their ship and fly it so as not to explode.

Probably asking too much of players that'd think flying a crate made of balsawood through a volcano and having it catch fire is unfair, though.

 

[Quantis Trap]

So the OP's fundamental idea in that wall of text is to say that powerplay should be fundamentally fun instead of mental? Is that the gist? Wow, mind blown!

Fun is kinda subjective. Does Frontier do fun?

 

[Elliot Coleman]

Does Frontier do fun?

How dare you question the keen player-perspective of our glorious and beloved developers! Have you no shame!? Get back to your menial tasks and stop spreading such cancerous thoughts! Away with you!

I'm obviously being sarcastic...just in case that wasn't apparent enough. Now I have to put disclaimers on every post...

 

[gorankar]

Again no insight from the person who's never done it, and it doesn't ring true with those that have. Some recent very busy PP cycles are my evidence - where our job was made much harder by being opposed while not being able to oppose back (only their PvPers in open). I'm sure we're not the only group feeling this. It was all structured, tactical PvP. You will ignore this response I expect. Wrong narrative.

Your Pkers chose to battle their PKers while the haulers continued to work. It sounds like it worked as it should then. Imagine if you all just skipped the PKing and hauled cargo instead. Or were you the one trying to undermine? Has it occurred to no one that PP has as much inertia as it does for a reason?

I've recently done CGs - they are often rammed with random murderers. Interestingly less so in the Fed vs Imp conflicts, echoes of PP there. Anyway, I can confirm to anyone reading, It's different.

Large congregations of cargo haulers in open would draw random PKers. I don't believe you actually think otherwise.

Btw engineering systems are not PP systems.

No, they are not, but again, cargo haulers in open draw random PKers. Guaranteed prey in open draws random PKers. You can pretend otherwise if you like.
I don't see middle ground between us here. So, I am just thankful that Fdev is likely to ignore your wants. Can't even get them to fix the PWA or address how badly broken piracy is, something as difficult as trying to completely rebalance PP, is unlikely to be addressed in our lifetime.

 

[gorankar]

Its almost as if you forgot to read the last 14 pages of comments.

It's almost as if you think the last 14 pages were not the same wishful thinking over and over again. OO is not your savior. It's not the panacea you and your compatriots are making it out to be. It would not be better for anyone except the rando PKers, and even then, only for a short while. In the end the cargo/merits would keep flowing.
We are unlikely to convince each other, so I'll leave you to your OO fantasy.

 

[Underhook]

The entire game should be open only. The only thing we have to lose is our insured ship. No base to lose. Our cash reserves are safe.