It is a strange choice really- no other part of the game is like it intentionally (fetch missions for example). You do the job, you should get paid accordingly. If that pay was in line with other parts of the game a run would pay for a rebuy.
Making Powerplay Merit Hauling Fun and Profitable
- Thread starter DemiserofD
- Start date
It is a strange choice really- no other part of the game is like it intentionally (fetch missions for example). You do the job, you should get paid accordingly. If that pay was in line with other parts of the game a run would pay for a rebuy.
The whole PP merit fast track is really just negative geared. I get that. And I'm fine with that. I pay for the privilege to fast track my merits.
If - however - one would like to earn the merits through combat, then they should be worth actual cash, like a combat bond - in which case I agree with you: Get paid accordingly.
For the other part of "pick up pamphlets and deliver to x", little to no pay, as - other than PvP - there is no risk involved.
The fast track aspect and merit decay is really FDs first foray into 'locking' people in, which annoyed a huge amount of people sadly.
"locking people in"?
As in: forced slow down gameplay?
Well you had to wait and be physically present to get the maximum amount of merits every 30 minutes or have to buy them (like many did).
Merit decay is similar to fleet carriers today with upkeep (although these days merit decay is much, much less of a problem), where the players progress degrades the longer they don't play.
Ah, fair enough. I haven't met anyone who was waiting 30 minutes to get their allotment of merits and didn't just throw a wad of cash at it.
With the difference of merit decay will not strip you of anything you gained so far, other than loss of rank with the Power. I see however this is a bit of a necessity, else people would grind their way to T4 or 5 and stay there, printing 50m per week. I know in today's terms it isn't that much when 1h of mining can net you 30-40m, but when it was implemented, 50m were a very nice payday.
If your carrier isn't funded, it will get decommissioned and you do lose 10% on the installed modules, which can be quite a significant amount. Also you can prop up a carrier with enough money for it to remain persistent for 5 - 10 years. (Mine is funded for 8.5).
Also - not sure about other - i've never stayed longer than 4 weeks with any power. I bought what I needed and left 2 minutes later.
Eh, I don't disagree with any of this except the idea that it incentivizes pvp. Most people who want to kill people don't particularly care who they're blowing up, all they care about is density of targets.
By contrast, knowing immediately what a target is carrying and whether or not it's valuable is very, very important to piracy. So I'd say that those things point it more in that direction than in the direction of pvp.
Eh, it's always gonna be a matter of statistics. In the modern world, for example, there's a reason the dictators make people 'disappear' rather than just executing them publicly.
If you follow that approach you'll never get anything done. Incremental improvement is far more realistic than trying to implement massive, sweeping changes. Especially since trying to do those massive changes will often have a thousand side effects you might not have accounted for. Better to change one small thing at a time and see how it ripples outward, that way you can sorta illuminate the core problems and work towards fixing them one step at a time.
It makes sense tactically as you know who is doing what and for what reason in that area. There will always be pledges who kill on sight, but for others it allows a certain context to frame what an opponent is or might do. When a power expands or preps, it gives a focus for players to attack.
In Powerplay its easy (or was) because anything was valuable (in merits, which were converted into rank 5 cash)- you did not need to know what it was.
For some powers its almost industrial.
Depending on what you start with, probably. Powerplay though is hugely interdependent with a number of tightly wound systems in play. For example, Consolidation was a great idea that had side effects that have made Powerplay very static. It all comes down to FD having a willingness to follow through with five or six Powerplay updates, each incrementally tested- if they are willing to do that, then fantastic. But so far they keep kicking the can down the road over and over, and opportunities are few (hence the need to at least see things holistically).
Eh, trouble is, you start running into problems like Yamiks' recent '100 questions' thread. You accumulate and accumulate ideas and suggestions until eventually you reach a point where there's not a chance they'll ever do anything about it. Better to keep your suggestions clean, simple, and not co-dependent, or what could be a few nice, simple, easy-to-implement suggestions instead become one massive wall of text nobody wants to even think about.
Anyways, regarding pvp, the fact that there are a significant number of people who already kill on sight regardless of reward or consequence means there's really no need to further incentivize that behavior. Frankly, the game doesn't need more of that. By contrast, Piracy is an activity that is currently almost extinct, and needs all the help it can get. While you're right about the old profitability of merit piracy, I think that system was unnecessarily separated from reward. Why bother pirating to get merits to get paid, when you could just pirate and get paid, and then get merits besides? Heck, you should be able to pirate merits even without being a pledge, and sell them for good profit and to help the power. You wouldn't get any merits for doing it, but you'd still get the cash, and it would mean even independent pilots might come and help a small power if a larger power is particularly spamming them with shipments.
The optimal system is one that incentivizes a wide variety of gameplay styles in the simplest possible manner. It's like Checkers; you basically only have like three rules, but it creates a game with a huge variety of possibilities.
There is very little in Powerplay thats simple
FD have made small and simple changes years ago that have broken the game today, when if they at least considered everything together they might have avoided it by thinking a bit harder. Examples: after House of Cards the overhead curve was changed, which kept big powers big, and kept small powers small....that was just one small change in isolation.The game at large needs a place to provide tactical reasons to kill (such as trespassers) or strikes (UM) via Powerplay. In this regard its providing structured PvP, via piracy or killing.
I can't argue there.
If you make Powerplay cargo free at collection (i.e. you can't buy it) then that would work, because it breaks collusion / the ability to buy more cargo and you can then make it valuable (and a reason not to kill on sight).
I can't argue with that- my bone of contention is that you punish for killing, when for me it should be an option- if you know you are stuck you can eject the cargo and hope that distracts since its valuable.
There is very little in Powerplay thats simple
Honestly, that's a big problem with the current design of powerplay. It's got a load of very complicated dynamics underlying an overall system that ends up being far less complicated than the sum of its parts.
That's another reason I prefer this idea; you basically could get rid of Overhead entirely, replaced by the galactic supply of the commodity in question.
Eh...why?
I think reasons to kill should be mostly reserved for actual wars, not just standard powerplay conflict. In this case you should be more directed towards defensive pvp, protecting your traders from pirates, or fighting off said defenders. That gives more than enough pvp/reason for pvp in my mind, while focusing on something entirely different.
But that's because piracy isn't profitable.
The odds of disabling a ship properly are fairly low. In order to pirate something, you have to avoid blowing the ship up. And after that, you are presented with goods which are then purchased at a fraction of the actual market value. Plus you are likely to have a bounty on your head, which then eventually cuts again into your profits.
I'm all for making it a viable option.
Its not that complicated once you know its bits- whats good about it is that unlike the BGS all moves (expansion / prep, fortification) can be seen and predicted on the map. Once you know what you are looking at you can see moves in context. Its FD not labeling things, or even explaining them (for years the map showed wrong numbers, and still does not explain the consequence of a move).
If you remove overhead (and Sandro proposed making this flat) how would that moderate Power size? Powers could expand as much as they liked (which is not a bad thing in some respects, but gives powers more CC) but it then makes a known quantity (a simple escalating number) and plugs it into something (IMO) too volatile (that would need a lot of testing to see its long term flow). If the material is ubiquitous, what limitation is there?
If that was the case, then I'd like to see some sort of benefit to the power for nicking other goods- maybe it adds to a global amount that determines weekly rewards. Pirate enough as a group and you all get a larger weekly allowance maybe (although I'd have to think about the consequences and potential gaming of the system).
Removing the Overhead would make Powerplay more easy to understand as it would behave more like the majority of players expect it to. You'd limit the size Powers could grow to by changing the Upkeep algorithm to make systems more expensive across the board.
CMDR Justinian Octavius
Galactic supplies of commodities are by no means unlimited. Just look at Palladium, for example.
Smaller powers would have an essentially unlimited supply, but larger powers would exhaust the supply and be forced to resort to mining/other sources, which would more or less cap their progress, especially when in conflict with other powers. Basically the same effect as overhead, just tied into a different mechanic people already understand(more or less).
I can't disagree that the current rewards are certainly uninspired. Not sure what a good reward would be, though. The privateers themselves would get the cash from the stolen commodities, of course, plus the potential 50m/week from the Power.
Smaller powers would have an essentially unlimited supply, but larger powers would exhaust the supply and be forced to resort to mining/other sources, which would more or less cap their progress, especially when in conflict with other powers. Basically the same effect as overhead, just tied into a different mechanic people already understand(more or less).
I'm still not convinced with having something tied to the BGS in that way, but if it was shown in testing it did what it did then cool, really
PMFs in the past have resented Powerplay, and you'd need to strike a balance to make sure you are not draining things to annoy others, or that you really could run out (and thus fortification). I went the other way in having Powerplay missions that rewarded Powerplay cargo in that regard.I mean in that you have a clear group incentive/ objective to pirate over the cycle- so you could kill, but you'd not have such a good reward. It could be tied to a powers rank bonuses, that at certain levels unlock for the next week (or not) because that power drew too much attention (in the context of your idea).