Adjustment to Powerplay Control Mechanics

[Justinian Octavius]

Well, too bad that we dont have access to the numbers.
IF more than 60-70% of the Powerplayers are doing it exclusively in open - then it could be interesting to make it open only. The other 30-40% might quit PP at all, but probably some of the will switch to open.

We do have the numbers actually since the majority of Powerplay activity is done through the organised community groups and we actually record who is doing what and over 90% of activity is in Open. The main exceptions are the 5C commanders & bots who deliberately use solo & PG to avoid being intercepted and the randoms flying around not knowing what they are doing whose activity is mostly background static.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[Justinian Octavius]

Dear FDEV, we really need step by step examples of these changes. I plan to try a powerplay in near future (I'm only 1yr into ED), so I wish to understand this correctly. Thank u in advance.

Powerplay is not for solo commanders. Decide upon the Power you wish to support then join the Powerplay Group for it and they'll happily teach you everything you need to know..

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[Northpin]

We do have the numbers actually since the majority of Powerplay activity is done through the organised community groups and we actually record who is doing what and over 90% of activity is in Open. The main exceptions are the 5C commanders & bots who deliberately use solo & PG to avoid being intercepted and the randoms flying around not knowing what they are doing whose activity is mostly background static.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

I will use a double affirmation to validate your over 90%

Yeah, right!

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

We do have the numbers actually since the majority of Powerplay activity is done through the organised community groups and we actually record who is doing what and over 90% of activity is in Open. The main exceptions are the 5C commanders & bots who deliberately use solo & PG to avoid being intercepted and the randoms flying around not knowing what they are doing whose activity is mostly background static.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

No idea how you made calculations that gave "over 90%" but without changes to instancing it doesn't really matter, i remeber one of latest Winters expansion where AD underminers died in open, only becouse game didnt instance fed pvp-ers with imp pvp-ers but instanced them with undemriners, patrols over systems are pointless as long as this rubbish netcode continue, and i m preety much sure instancing favour coop in some way, good example is having less instancing issues with enemies i was winged before, no instancing issues with north americans from my faction, even if i m EU, but constant problems with imp north americans.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Well, too bad that we dont have access to the numbers.

If you look at numbers each week its not far off saying 'proper' Powerplay pledges (i.e. non module shoppers) number less than a thousand.

IF more than 60-70% of the Powerplayers are doing it exclusively in open - then it could be interesting to make it open only. The other 30-40% might quit PP at all, but probably some of the will switch to open.

But if the percentage is the other way around... the PP will really be starving for commanders.

And i mean the real numbers, not the bombastic declarations and chest-thumping of We always play in OPEN. (if of course we are not in a PG already)

The only way to know is to do it. But going from two data points we do have (Obsidian Ants poll of 7K and the forum reaction) it would (on paper at least) be a worthwhile trade. OAs poll for example had roughly 50% wanting Open and an even split of 25% each for no change / weighted merits. So with these numbers you'd gain about 3.5k players at a theoretical cost of 300 or so quitting. And higher populations mean that 5C / player ratios drown out the idiots (as I think was originally envisaged).

It is FUN for some. For others it is obviously not - otherwise every single commander out there would be in Open and there will not be any mention of open only features since... no one would ever consider to start the game in PG/Solo
As i said, some simply prefer to fill some buckets. On their own or with some friends. In a Coop scenario and not in a Versus one.

People use the most efficient method, which ironically is the dullest since it removes any pushback or chance of failure. At least having open only would place some sort of rule on the feature, rather than having essentially none which leads to the anarchy we have now.

And Carriers will make it even harder since a single carrier can Jump 8 Cutters (*) full of merits in a System then back to the destination... in Open or in PG - it would make no difference since you cant possibly do anything since you will not have time to intercept them

(*) 8 in a single instance, but there could be more than one instance.

FCs in a multimode PP don't make much of a difference other than snipes. Open actually makes things more interesting, because you are essentially focussing a load of targets in one place in real-space (which is unusual). Since (in an Open only situation) everyone fortifies to the same place, you have cargo Cutters lifting off that are easy targets from FCs (that have blind spots) and Containment missile / reverb them to death as they try and fly away in straight lines. If wings have a Cutter with say, Couriers then the targets are mass locked, and easy prey for the fast Couriers. With uncapped UM this means doing this repeatedly, its risky.

 

[Northpin]

Never happen in Elite, Endor battles will. Yes, hmmm.

 

[Northpin]

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...

They recently tried with Carriers

 

[Drelthar]

Errrrrrr...

SURE!

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

In short (I think, I'm a bit knackered from gardening to think right) it will alter cost of potential expansions according to the factions present around your target.

...same as before... I'm still clueless but I'm sure that someone will take advantage from this, at least that's my hope

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Ok so it's another powerplay thread that's become a "open only anything sucks just because" useless discussion.

Really guys: do you have some way to track every time somebody has the boldness to say "open only" and just come here and make any powerplay thread the usual tedious discussion between people that know what Powerplay is and people that pretend they understand what they are talking about?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Greetings Commanders!


Today, we wanted to share with you a bit more detail about a small adjustment to Powerplay we will be implementing in June following your feedback about how the 'control' and 'taking control' mechanics are working in the live game.


After a change in the January update, the current control systems' ethos calculations would limit its search for controlling minor factions filtered by star systems within 15LY and those that are exploited by the same power as the control system. Previously, the calculations considered all nearby star systems.

In June, we will be adjusting those calculations once more to include the governments of nearby star systems that would become exploited if an expansion action by the same power succeeded. This change will be in addition to the previous one from January, thereby adjusting the limitation on which systems are interacted with.


This change will be coming with the Fleet Carrier update to the live servers in June, so we hope that this information helps you plan ahead for your future Powerplay plans.


o7 Commanders

A practical example of what it means please?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Ok so it's another powerplay thread that's become a "open only anything sucks just because" useless discussion.

Tutte le strade portano a Roma...
All roads lead to Rome (Italian proverb)

or maybe it's more appropriate:
La lingua batte dove il dente duole.
The tongue always beats on the painful tooth (is that right? - I'm so bad at translating proverbs...)

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'm not talking about perfection, it's all about whether it will work or not. In my opinion: it won't. It's just one of the many things that are (o-ton Sandro) "desirable". You base your assumptions on your experience, OA's poll and a good portion of wishful thinking which is pretty much irrelevant as it doesn't show the hidden numbers. And that is something only FDev can know for sure due to telemetry data only they have access to.

Each week you can count how many merits each power moves, and from which groups and work out numbers. You can do the same, and use 750 (a Cutter or T-9) as a unit of movement and divide effort generally.

I also know from being on the inside what a pledge can do, as well as account for credit inflation and how thats affected the feature. Unlike the BGS where effort is obfuscated via the tick you can directly see what a Power is doing 1:1.

OAs poll, and responses on this forum are as good as any as to intention because they are not silent and actually real. You can't say 'the silent majority' want something one way or the other because there is no way to tell. Its just as likely they won't care, or might actually like it.

We can only speculate that the reason for their decision why we still don't have OOPP might be based on this data and not anything else. Or what would be your reasonable explanation, maybe because they just want to exasperate their player base? Or what else is it what you have in mind?

My understanding? The latter half of Beyond was a total planning disaster and the Powerplay update was a casualty of it.

Long ago I sent a message to Sandro regarding the misery of 5C and would FD do something about it; very kindly he wrote back and stated FD were aware and looking into the problem but don't expect a specific update soon due to development schedules- so its 'ETA' was about a year- which in this would have arrived between Xmas 2018 and mid 2019. Note around the same time we almost had fleet carrier topics and exploration, but never did. Flash forward two years and we are only now seeing fleet carriers and the latter half of the Beyond updates were a total mess. This suggests to me that any possible Powerplay update will be New Era, its why I'm waiting for it.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

How do these organized groups track commanders in PG/ Solo?

It says on the friends list what mode someone is in and what system they are in and it says on the Powerplay GUI the status of the Control & Expansion systems. It's actually quite easy to track what commanders in your Power are doing plus there is also the filing of merit reports by them.

Ok so it's another powerplay thread that's become a "open only anything sucks just because" useless discussion.

Really guys: do you have some way to track every time somebody has the boldness to say "open only"

They probably have multiple google alerts set

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[Justinian Octavius]

The only way to know is to do it. But going from two data points we do have (Obsidian Ants poll of 7K and the forum reaction) it would (on paper at least) be a worthwhile trade. OAs poll for example had roughly 50% wanting Open and an even split of 25% each for no change / weighted merits. So with these numbers you'd gain about 3.5k players at a theoretical cost of 300 or so quitting. And higher populations mean that 5C / player ratios drown out the idiots (as I think was originally envisaged).

Asking people the vast majority of whom don't play Powerplay, and never have any intention to, to voice their opinion on how Powerplay should work isn't helpful imho. Most don't understand how Powerplay works or its problems and a vocal minority will simply try to sabotage any proposal that features 'open only' for fear of it then spreading to other game mechanics (see this thread ).

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Remember my "two galaxies, two CMDRs, one open only, the other one hybrid as this one" proposal? We really just want to play different games. We should.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I can't and neither can you. But FDev can, that's the difference.

And at no point have I claimed so- unlike you- but unlike you I actually have some figures to base what I say on. You can't hide numbers in Powerplay because none of it is abstracted, and you can map effort over time very easily.

The only 'silent' pledges in Powerplay are module shoppers who do nothing until the last week and dump 750 merits.

I wouldn't hold my breath - if you love your life. I'm also under the impression since Sandro's 'departure' he hasn't any more saying in design decisions. You might be betting on the wrong horse. But if he has managed to keep players like you on line he might have done a great job, from a marketing aspect at least.

I'm not betting on anyone, just being open with what I know. What was said at the end was that FD have a set of changes they are happy with that if they get the opportunity to do, they will- which fits my estimation that Powerplay is on the radar to change, but is not a high priority and was a casualty of development problems.

 

[Rubbernuke]

This may (and should) be the case at some point, but I bet my fully engineered cutter that it will have nothing to do with "open only".
I really wish they would dare to do that sometime, if only to convince the last skeptic about how and why it can't work. I'm just not sure if you really want to, because it would mean the end of your dream...
In case you're wondering why I'm so sure: This would put the finger on the weakest link in their PvP implementation. No, not the modes that basically hide that weakness and don't just reinforce it, as you might think.

Unless FD enact Open only, then they are not introducing anything new with the proposed changes. Plus, most of them only make sense in an Open context and some make things worse without Open (uncapped UM). The rest is voting, ethos changes and weighting- if FD go this route (i.e. safe) then they really will kill Powerplay because they have done nothing to change its formula.

From a gameplay perspective there is nothing stopping it working- enacted in full it would make an 'anti' BGS with conflict front and centre, what a lot of people want.

Blocking rules are rules that can have exceptions and changeable leaving P2P.

But what about cheats? Well, just with 5C if enough people play it legitimately the ratio will drown out exploiters. Instance balancing and overloading is down to design and weighting again, which not only improves Powerplay but also the wider game.

The only way to know is to try it in a large scale and see how it works (or not)- while P2P is flaky, at the same time it can provide smooth large scale events:

Plus, you are wrong about modes- NPCs in ED scale to the mission level (i.e. the temporary bubble of that instance) but do not scale up to Powerplays scope at all. This means in solo you have no structured opposition outside of merit gathering- while in Open, the threat is very real (depending on where you fly). This leads to an imbalance that applies downward pressure to force others into solo and grind to compete, or go AFK turretboats in PG. At least with open there is a chance that you can be stopped; in solo or PG the chance is zero.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

It takes two to be on someone's friends list, right? While the PP status is too unspecific to track down specific players.

Well it's not since we know who is doing most of the fortifying and undermining because it is organised by the Powerplay Groups; people are actually told to go and attack system X. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but having every Powerplay thread constantly derailed by people who do not participate in it nor have any understanding of how it works or is organised is rather frustrating.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[Rubbernuke]

It takes two to be on someone's friends list, right? While the PP status is too unspecific to track down specific players.
By the way, one of the reasons I usually decline friend requests is because I don't want to be trackable.

Powerplay has very specific defined areas- preparation, expansion, UM and fortification. Since you can see this happen in the PP UI tab you don't need to be friends to know something is going on.

Plus, PP is not CQC- its not 1:1 arena combat but opportunistic.