Anybody like powerplay?

Anybody like powerplay?

  • Yes, keep it

    Votes: 16 6.4%
  • No, get rid of it

    Votes: 42 16.7%
  • Yes, Just need a few tweaks

    Votes: 46 18.3%
  • No, needs a complete revamp

    Votes: 147 58.6%

  • Total voters
    251
  • Poll closed .
Revamp. The whole merit system needs to **ss off and be integrated into the BGS.

Not the exact wording I'd choose, but yes, this is essentially this the exact solution I'd like to see.

PP should grow organically out of the BGS allowing minor factions to ally with factions that match their Ethos and create larger scale groups with nested echelons of power.

What we have now is too abstract. If there was a political simulator equivalent of an "uncanny valley" then PP would be smack dab in the middle of it.
 
With the right kind of Overhaul, Power Play has the potential to be one of the best parts of the game, IMHO. A key improvement they could make is tying system control more explicitly to the State of that system (so that, for example, players can weaken a power's hold on a system by producing an economic bust, famine or civil unrest), as well as its security level & government type. Another key improvement would be to explicitly link certain powers to certain factions within a system. Helping a faction will sometimes help a power-& vice versa. Linking Powers to specific Engineers could be a huge improvement too IMHO.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
PP should grow organically out of the BGS allowing minor factions to ally with factions that match their Ethos and create larger scale groups with nested echelons of power.

What we have now is too abstract. If there was a political simulator equivalent of an "uncanny valley" then PP would be smack dab in the middle of it.

If Powerplay was fully integrated with Factions then players who enjoy working the BGS at Faction level and are allied with Factions would presumably have no choice but to be part of Powerplay. That would not sit well with me - especially as, roughly speaking, that would bring all Faction allied players into conflict with the other c.91% (i.e. 10/11ths) of the playerbase (as it is quite possible to become allied with a Faction without actually trying).

Powerplay is optional - I'd like to see it stay that way.
 
Owww a poll! Nice.

Get rid of it I say. The idea of a turn based strategy spreadsheet layer above the regular game just doesn't appeal to me.
I'd rather see they spend a lot more time on 'real conflict', like warzones at stations, realistic fleet movement, a true military profession including missions, etc.
 
Powerplay could've been great if they had tied it to the BGS. Instead, what we got was this repetitive gamelike THING that barely acknowledged the BGS.

The only thing I liked about it was that the government type of minor factions affected upkeep costs. This gives me a reason to ally with minor factions who might be sympathetic to the power I support. But actually pledging to a power? That turned out to be a distraction to the aspects of the game I enjoy most, and maintaining even a little bit of rank with that power WAS a grind.
 
The main issue is it doesn't influence anything. It's just like they are not even there. Usually players go there for the PP modules and weapons but not really to support a power. You can't really support something that doesn't exist. There is no difference between NANOMAM being the HQ of Zach or someone else or noone. People can still trade, bounty hunt, mine and tour there. It's not like there are new guidelines that allow for more gameplay or prevent something like imperial alligned players from docking. There are no patrols that actively prevent hostile NPCs and players from entering friendly space but most importantly the powers do not imteract at all, neither with the players nor with other powers. No diplomacy, no politics and agreements or law chamges happen. Basically nothing happens.

What it needs, as it is soley based on player support, is a possibility for players to form their own power like EG but not as a big one. Eventually becoming big and stuff. Furthermore every power should be ruled by a small group of players who support the powers the most (maybe the top 10 players who earned the most merits) which are able to declare war or peace with another faction. We are simply not all hostile to eachother. And last but nit least powers should habe an impact. Custom laws such as denying access to hostile players (no docking permission) or support of proeucing more weapons or ships or commanding NPC crews which then go fortify/undermine systems.

With all that, Powerplay would be awesome. Oh, and get rid of multiple exploited systems. The closest control system will simply get the benefit. Easy.
 
Oh the talks I've been involved in about Powerplay and the ways that would fix it. I voted overhaul it. There's like a thousand ways to fix it and if I listed even one of them I'd be here all day. But I really think they need to tie it into the BGS, working with minor factions like everyone does now and link everyone's gameplay to the powers, instead of the tacked on system in place now that most of the player base can ignore fully.

I'd go into way more detail but honestly at this point I don't even care anymore what happens with Powerplay. Frontier are just gonna wait forever to do anything at all to it anyway and it still won't be worth the time, wait forever again and then do another slight change to get it closer to a worth while thing then leave it for a long while again. I'm very patient with waiting for new content, fixing existing content however, not so much. Powerplay hit a point with me that I'm not gonna care now regardless of what happens to it. You took to long to fix it
 
I think Powerplay could be come good with some small tweaks and great with a re vamp.

I like the idea of Powerplay and fighting for systems can be a fun mechanic (I didn't do alot of transporting, but if the cost was removed I probably could).

The tweaks I think would make it good would be:

- Stop Powerplay from ruining the rest of the game (dropping into a res site and having no wanted targets just Powerplay ruined it for me)
- On the system information make it clear what you are doing when you jump in (i.e. fortified to x% we need more fortification or We are successfully undermining attack enemy ships) type messages that could even just be displayed at the Powerplay contact.
- Remove the half hour cool down / costs for the preparation and fortification activities.

This for me would let me enjoy a different type of game play without having to commit my life to if like I would have to now.

However some of the revamps mentioned here could make it great especially linking it to the BGS.

That said if you asked me if I would prefer:

A. Powerplay to be tweaked to make it ok (as per my thoughts) and space legs to come sooner or
B. Powerplay to be revamped and made great but space legs to take longer

I would pick A every time.

Of course just my thoughts.
 
PP was a whole lot of fun during the land grab early phase. While it was new and white hot it generated a whole lot of gameplay and stories, intrigue and skullduggery inside and outside the game. It inspired new player groups and interactions and community. It added a wonderful sense of geography to the bubble that is far more apparent that the actual superpower based geography.


That said, it settled into a monotonous grind fest. The mechanics are not appealing.
 
I think my entry to powerplay was bad and it put me off

At the time I was fairly new to ED and didn't have a clue as to what was going on.. I saw these superpower things in the menu, chose the prettiest one (lol) and pledged my allegiance

Soon after got destroyed by the opposing faction and decided it was all too much and left the superpower

Haven't looked back yet but I would like to eventually
 
Can I say "Yes" I really like it.

Its an essential part of what Elite Damgerous is.

But it also needs a complete overhaul.

There's lots of good ideas floating around.

Hopefully, it will be revisited once Yuri Grom settles in and starts swinging his weight around.
 
My option is missing so did not vote. I ignore it, and not involved in it at all. So to me it is a non issue. Perhaps add that option.
.
Calebe
 
The idea of powerplay factions within the Superpowers is really good.

But: All I do now is sit in a spacestation and waiting for the 30 min cooldown on preparation commodity until I filled my entire cargo hold with the stuff. And I have to do this for the entire week to keep up my rating.

Solution:
Instead of doing these clearly linear grind waits, let us do extremely dangerous and covert missions for our power factions.
Such as: Take control of a planet from an opposing faction, literally. Go there with your ship and start firing those beam lasers onto fortifications, hangars, warships and turrets and clear the areas one by one on the surface. Each such area cleared and fortified by friendly forces will turn it green, enemy territories could be red. Once the entire planet has been cleared, mission is successful and I can get one thousand powerplay points for that, filling a big part of the weekly quota I need to keep my rating.

Simpler missions for low level players: Go and find enemy hidden bases on our controlled planets, report the locations once scanned. Award: 50 p.
A bit harder: When finding a location, go into the location with your SRV and scout detailed positions and information about that location. Report this information which can result in the above planetary invasion mission as a follow up. Award: 150 p.

Etc etc. you see the missions link onto each other like a story being told:
Search hidden stuff -> investigate hidden stuff you just found -> get support for a massive operation to handle the problem -> monthly showdown.


This way we have something else rather than just sit and wait or just go hunt faction ships all the time.

To maintain the immersion, there should be a weekly story for each faction, which leads to an ultimate showdown each month or so, like a community goal, but on faction level.

I want a real life announcer on the Galnet news reporting on these things every day. FD can find lots of interested fans that can apply to do the voices. Just reading the news statements. OR FD should invest in a really good voice reader application which can simulate a real news reporter, even in the field!

Now that is immersion.
 
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For it work, it really must, and always should have been BGS based.
I appreciate at the time of starting the PP project, BGS was an unmitigated pile of horse doodoo, and while it has improved tremendously, it still has some fundamental PP killing flaws (like single state)
Sort out BGS, even if it needs a bootstrap, then use THAT for PP. It wont even end up as 2 separate entities.
 
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