Elite Dangerous | Ascendancy Update 1 - Thursday 21st November

Paul_Crowther

Senior Community Manager
Frontier
Greetings Commanders,

Powerplay 2.0 has been out for a few weeks now and we are really grateful for all the feedback and reported issues you have shared.

Our intent with our balancing is to ensure a diversity of gameplay activities are viable within Powerplay 2.0, and that no activity feels significantly weaker than any other. We are continually closely monitoring for any activities which could be disproportionally more advantageous to undertake than any other, potentially creating a meta that players feel forced to play in order to rank up or participate in the conflict.

Following prevention of several exploits we will now be in a position to improve balance on the overall experience of Powerplay 2.0. We will be closely looking into:
  • Significantly reducing the amount of time/effort required to earn early modules
  • Significantly reducing the amount of time/effort required to increase ranks
In the meantime we are releasing Ascendancy Update 1 (19.01) on Thursday 21 November.

Release Schedule (All times in UTC)​

  • 07:00 - Servers offline for maintenance
  • 11:00 Servers back online and Update available
Please note these are approximate times and are subject to change.

Update Notes​

Powerplay 2.0
  • Fixed an exploit where Powerplay Data could be downloaded multiple times from the same Data Port (Issue ID: 67329)
  • Aisling Duval's Powerplay systems now correctly flag Imperial Slaves & Narcotics as illegal. Crime does not pay.
  • Archon Delain Powerplay systems now correctly open Black Markets if they are not already present. OK...here crime might pay.
  • Pranav Antal now closes Black Markets in Fortified/Stronghold systems.
  • Merit awards for destroying Ship Launched Fighters have been reduced.
Ships
  • Adjustments made to Flight Tutorial combat drones reducing their damage output.
  • Type-8's collision has been adjusted so that the "arms" now have correct collision.
Galaxy Map
  • Resolved a crash when using VR Power Play strategic view on Galaxy map
  • Filters on the Galaxy Map are no longer auto selected when you hover your mouse over them
Thank you for all your continued feedback and reports!
 

Purrfect

Purrfect
Will this also increase the merits for exobiology and exploration data back to what can reasonably be earned by doing other activities per hour? It's been nerfed into the ground, and is not worth the time invested. Even sitting in a station and doing donations gives more merits per hour than exploration or exobiology.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Paul_Crowther said:
  • Aisling Duval's Powerplay systems now correctly flag Imperial Slaves & Narcotics as illegal. Crime does not pay.
  • Archon Delain Powerplay systems now correctly open Black Markets if they are not already present. OK...here crime might pay.
  • Pranav Antal now closes Black Markets in Fortified/Stronghold systems.
Click to expand...
In Powerplay 1, you could see the effects like these which Powers had on systems through the in-game documentation, and it doesn't seem to be listed anywhere in Powerplay 2.

Updating the in-game documentation is of course a bigger task, but would it be possible to have a forum post saying what benefits (or otherwise, depending on point of view...) a Power brings to the space it controls, please?

This is of particular interest to me as a Kaine supporter, because I can't just dig out some old PP1 screenshots and assume it's supposed to be the same as that!
 

Markov Chaney

M
Thank you for the update!

I do think the biggest issue has been the lack of information around any of the nuances, so in addition to addressing the issues themselves which require attention from senior developers... could I humbly suggest the team outside of the code-cutters spend some time putting together a FAQ or something similar - this would close down a LOT of the noise very quickly.
 

Sorxas

S
rootsrat said:
Thanks Paul. I'm going to repeat my question from the previous update thread: are you going to remove the merits and progress gained by Commanders exploiting the data duplication bug or are they going to get away with it?
Click to expand...
I would also like to know if they're going to punish those of us that grinded using rare trading by reseting our merits
 

Bard Voronwe

Bard Voronwe
Paul_Crowther said:
Greetings Commanders,

Powerplay 2.0 has been out for a few weeks now and we are really grateful for all the feedback and reported issues you have shared.

Our intent with our balancing is to ensure a diversity of gameplay activities are viable within Powerplay 2.0, and that no activity feels significantly weaker than any other. We are continually closely monitoring for any activities which could be disproportionally more advantageous to undertake than any other, potentially creating a meta that players feel forced to play in order to rank up or participate in the conflict.

Following prevention of several exploits we will now be in a position to improve balance on the overall experience of Powerplay 2.0. We will be closely looking into:
  • Significantly reducing the amount of time/effort required to earn early modules
  • Significantly reducing the amount of time/effort required to increase ranks
In the meantime we are releasing Ascendancy Update 1 (19.01) on Thursday 21 November.

Release Schedule (All times in UTC)​

  • 07:00 - Servers offline for maintenance
  • 11:00 Servers back online and Update available
Please note these are approximate times and are subject to change.

Update Notes​

Powerplay 2.0
  • Fixed an exploit where Powerplay Data could be downloaded multiple times from the same Data Port (Issue ID: 67329)
  • Aisling Duval's Powerplay systems now correctly flag Imperial Slaves & Narcotics as illegal. Crime does not pay.
  • Archon Delain Powerplay systems now correctly open Black Markets if they are not already present. OK...here crime might pay.
  • Pranav Antal now closes Black Markets in Fortified/Stronghold systems.
  • Merit awards for destroying Ship Launched Fighters have been reduced.
Ships
  • Adjustments made to Flight Tutorial combat drones reducing their damage output.
  • Type-8's collision has been adjusted so that the "arms" now have correct collision.
Thank you for all your continued feedback and reports!
Click to expand...
Well to be perfectly honest we (Kumo) used to have narcotics, slaves and weapons legal anywhere too but... happy to see you are putting back some of the effects of the different powers on the galaxy.
There's another thing about data that makes me wonder: they are basically the only thing that can be accumulated and deployed to the very last time. Why don't make data and items grant merits in real time by taking them instead?
 

FrankXjr[G911]

FrankXjr[G911]
Players complained about farming, then Frontier fixed engineers mats farming. Now players want to farm ?
Capture d'écran 2024-11-20 174026.png
 
Last edited:

tolm

tolm
Thanks for the update!

So sounds like:

1. The lower merit gains / hour is intended to control the main PowerPlay flow for galactic influence. All activities have already been reduced to the same - low - rate in support of this.
2. Separately, the merits --> ranks/modules rate is going to be reviewed now that merit gains are more consistent

I'm prepared to wait and give FDev the opportunity to deliver on that.
 
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