With the news that some merit earning methods being suspended again. I think there is an overlooked issue with powerplay that needs addressing.
PS: I know this suspension is about fixing exploits too, which is obviously a needed fix. But this post will focus on something else.
To me it seems like there exists 2 popular approaches to powerplay in the games community.
1 - The people who pledge to a power and participate in PP mainly because they like the playstyle it promotes, the character of the power themselves, or to engage in galactic conflict with other powers and expand their powers territory.
2- The people who participate to get the rewards they find most lucrative and useful, such as credits bonuses or powerplay modules.
Some people may like both approaches to powerplay and grind their way to rewards in the way that benefits their power the most. But many people lean heavily towards only one approach. The people who participate in powerplay to support their power may not worry too much about the rewards, and the people who participate only for the rewards may not care about strengthening the power they pledged to.
Now these approaches also impact the approach to actively grinding merits.
With most merit gaining methods being quite slow, especially for the casual players, it only makes sense that some players who follow approach 2 would want to gain as much merits as fast as possible to get their hands on powerplay bonuses and modules.
On the other hand some of the players who follow approach 1 will want to do the activities that will allow them to acquire/reinforce/undermine systems as fast as possible to expand their own power's influence as much as possible.
Now here's the obvious outcome: Both of these player groups will be doing the same activities for different reasons and affect each others experience.
This will impact followers of approach 1 especially hard, as we see on the forums in the last few days many people have been calling for immediate nerfs to many merit farming methods, whether they include exploits or not, because the rate at which other powers gain merits affects their own experience. Which is definitely fair, losing a system you worked hard to acquire to an unfair "merit farming seesaw" that leaned heavily towards the undermining side would be very frustrating.
But the people who are following approach 2 do not intend for this to happen, they just want to get shiny modules and helpful bonuses. So the call for nerfs from the other side, while they're struggling to make reasonable progress with the time they spend on grinding, feels outrageous and crushing.
To me, this does not look like a good balance. The system, in its current state, is dividing the playerbase. Because they want different things from the same system.
And right now, after talking about all this... it seems like there's an solution that would make both sides happy.
Separate the rewards one will get from their power, from the expansion progress for that power.
Let me know what you think. Hopefully, this will get some traction and we can discuss about the future of Powerplay and Elite Dangerous in a productive manner without diminishing the topic to just nerfs
PS: I know this suspension is about fixing exploits too, which is obviously a needed fix. But this post will focus on something else.
To me it seems like there exists 2 popular approaches to powerplay in the games community.
1 - The people who pledge to a power and participate in PP mainly because they like the playstyle it promotes, the character of the power themselves, or to engage in galactic conflict with other powers and expand their powers territory.
2- The people who participate to get the rewards they find most lucrative and useful, such as credits bonuses or powerplay modules.
Some people may like both approaches to powerplay and grind their way to rewards in the way that benefits their power the most. But many people lean heavily towards only one approach. The people who participate in powerplay to support their power may not worry too much about the rewards, and the people who participate only for the rewards may not care about strengthening the power they pledged to.
Now these approaches also impact the approach to actively grinding merits.
With most merit gaining methods being quite slow, especially for the casual players, it only makes sense that some players who follow approach 2 would want to gain as much merits as fast as possible to get their hands on powerplay bonuses and modules.
On the other hand some of the players who follow approach 1 will want to do the activities that will allow them to acquire/reinforce/undermine systems as fast as possible to expand their own power's influence as much as possible.
Now here's the obvious outcome: Both of these player groups will be doing the same activities for different reasons and affect each others experience.
This will impact followers of approach 1 especially hard, as we see on the forums in the last few days many people have been calling for immediate nerfs to many merit farming methods, whether they include exploits or not, because the rate at which other powers gain merits affects their own experience. Which is definitely fair, losing a system you worked hard to acquire to an unfair "merit farming seesaw" that leaned heavily towards the undermining side would be very frustrating.
But the people who are following approach 2 do not intend for this to happen, they just want to get shiny modules and helpful bonuses. So the call for nerfs from the other side, while they're struggling to make reasonable progress with the time they spend on grinding, feels outrageous and crushing.
To me, this does not look like a good balance. The system, in its current state, is dividing the playerbase. Because they want different things from the same system.
And right now, after talking about all this... it seems like there's an solution that would make both sides happy.
Separate the rewards one will get from their power, from the expansion progress for that power.
- Implement a new way to get powerplay modules, payout bonuses, discounts for services etc and somewhat separate it from what you have to do to move the acquisiton/reinforcement/undermining progress bar.
- Make it so the payout bonuses you gain from ranking up do not increase the rate at which you do acquisition/reinforcement/undermining (this makes no sense anyway, why would a higher ranking player contribute more than a lower ranking one for doing the exact same thing)
- An on/off switch making your merits go to either ranking up or moving the progress bar on a system
- Special missions you have to do to that give you more rank progress but not as much expansion progress
- Diminishing returns on expansion for repeatedly doing the same thing, but constant rewards for ranking up.
- Getting powerplay modules not by ranking up, but by doing something else like blowing up power ships that have that module as their first module, "sneaking" into opposing power settlements or stations and stealing them, or some other special mission or task.
Let me know what you think. Hopefully, this will get some traction and we can discuss about the future of Powerplay and Elite Dangerous in a productive manner without diminishing the topic to just nerfs
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