Elite Dangerous | Powerplay 2.0 Questions and Answers

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Yeah, and when you learn to play the Viper, you'll switch to a Sidewinder without engineers?

If necessary and, more important - fun: Sure, why not.

I don't think so, a game should have progression and you play it to achieve something higher.
In your case it will be boring to do the same thing without any progress, it's basically like deleting your account every month and starting over

No game offers endless progression. If you want to keep having fun (as opposed to meta-ing for the outcome) you need to find means to keep or bring back the fun. Also, your post implies that the Corvette is a "better" combat ship than a Viper. Almost every combat pilot worth their salt will fly circles around a Corvette. Larger doesn't mean better, or progression. In my opinion, it is more about personal and skill progression than gear progression. Sure, you can do your combat in a Corvette or a thousands-of-MJ Cutter, but then don't complain it's boring.

It's like mining diamonds but not selling them, just throwing them away and then mining them again. It's very bad.

I have loads of minerals in my carrier I couldn't be bothered to be sold, because I love the core mining activity, but don't need the credits. I've given away the stuff for free in the past, and if I needed the cargo space, I'd purge them. Case in point.

 

[Dragsham]

Oh granted (I'm not a skilled pilot I can't run rings around a vette using a viper or Lance, just not sufficiently skilled to do it) the skill of approaching a cz with a smaller vessel is admirable. Indeed against npcs using a railer Lance or PAs Lance I too hold my own. Albeit ammo issues but a few synths = job done.
But running rings around a vette isn't my strong point hehe. So yes if I'm spamming czs for the purposes of winning a weekly campaign I'll use a beamer vette cos it clears the cz quicker and allows me to hand in more cz bonds quicker.
High czs have the same ships the same capital ships etc. All I'm saying it is would be nice of there was more to it than just fragging 12 ships or more to win it.
I've sent the capital ship packing many a time after destroying the nodes.
Mostly solo.
In fact as a faction we each do a high cz solo (if there's more than 1) or medium etc to maximise bonds hand ins.
The point (if its being defended) is to hand in as many combat bonds as possible

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Based on what I think I remember, I don't think there is any PP 1.0 voting in PP 2.0. In PP 2 you "vote" by the actions you take in game rather than on a form.

By the looks of things on the draft interfaces, it's not even clear that it has distinct prepare/expand phases.

From everything they've said and shown so far, I'm expecting it to be Powerplay 2 in the same way that it was the Python 2: some superficial similarities but the absolute first pre-requisite is to stop expecting it to work anything like the P1. And in the same way that the Python 2 is "FDL, but deLacy, I expect PP2 to be more like "Thargoid war, but competitive".

(As with the Python 2, I do wonder if it would have been clearer if they'd said "we're replacing Powerplay with the new Ascendancy system for simulating the conflicts between the galaxy's most influential people" so that there weren't the expectations of it copying the worst misfeatures of Powerplay)

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Oh granted (I'm not a skilled pilot I can't run rings around a vette using a viper or Lance, just not sufficiently skilled to do it) the skill of approaching a cz with a smaller vessel is admirable. Indeed against npcs using a railer Lance or PAs Lance I too hold my own. Albeit ammo issues but a few synths = job done.
But running rings around a vette isn't my strong point hehe. So yes if I'm spamming czs for the purposes of winning a weekly campaign I'll use a beamer vette cos it clears the cz quicker and allows me to hand in more cz bonds quicker.
High czs have the same ships the same capital ships etc. All I'm saying it is would be nice of there was more to it than just fragging 12 ships or more to win it.
I've sent the capital ship packing many a time after destroying the nodes.
Mostly solo.
In fact as a faction we each do a high cz solo (if there's more than 1) or medium etc to maximise bonds hand ins.
The point (if its being defended) is to hand in as many combat bonds as possible

Well I certainly don't fly rings around other ships, because I am not a combat pilot worth my salt. My point was: Progression always has some kind of plateau, and if you want to keep having fun, you have to adjust. Always using the latest and greatest gear will make the game (any game) boring sooner than later. This was always my point in any grind debate: If you do an activity for the outcome rather than the activity, you get bored or burnt out.

Which of course may be a problem with a system like PP that requires constant merit collection to be successful. You have to find a balance, because, as you said, out-tanking your task in a Corvette or Cutter is boring and soul crushing. On the other hand, doing it in something that is more fun or challenging or whatever may be detrimental to your success quota... it's the old grind debate over and over.

 

[Rubbernuke]

High czs have the same ships the same capital ships etc. All I'm saying it is would be nice of there was more to it than just fragging 12 ships or more to win it.

I certainly hope to Brabus CZs are the new type for PP V2, simply as it breaks the AFK merit machines in V1.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Yeah, and when you learn to play the Viper, you'll switch to a Sidewinder without engineers?

Speaking personally, if the Sidewinder is a lot of fun, and I feel like I've mastered the Viper, why not? In a skill based game, I want to develop my skills, as opposed to relying on equipment I've spent an eternity grinding to acquire.

I don't think so, a game should have progression and you play it to achieve something higher.

Again speaking personally, I think a game should be fun, and I play them to make interesting decisions. Eternal power-creep is antithetical towards keeping decisions interesting. It's why I tend to bump up the difficulty of single-player games to the point where I'm failing regularly. Frontier failing to keep the day to day decisions I'd make interesting via increasing income, as opposed to rightly addressing their exponential cost curves, is one of my the greatest sources of disappointment in this game.

In your case it will be boring to do the same thing without any progress, it's basically like deleting your account every month and starting over

I usually play Iron Man mode in single player games, because the early game is usually far more fun than the so-called "endgame," thanks to power-creep being an issue in the endgame. Who cares about retaining meaningless stuff when the game is no longer fun anymore? Especially when it comes to survival game, where the fun is seeing how far I can get before getting killed, rather than building massive structures due to not having anything better to do with my massive amount resources.

Heck, I roll on this site every time I get destroyed, just to keep the stakes high enough to be interesting. The only caveat is that if I'm in Open Mode, I won't reset my commander upon permanent death. I have no issue losing a ship (especially these days, when the most valuable items, effort wise, are the engineering done on my modules) to a player-killer. But I won't do perma-death in an environment where that player-killer isn't playing by the same rules.

Plus Frontier kind of trashed the early game by increasing income, rather than reducing their exponential cost curves.

It's like mining diamonds but not selling them, just throwing them away and then mining them again. It's very bad.

Once again speaking personally, this game was at its best when credits were scarce enough to make the decision on what to spend those credits on meaningful. Do I invest them into a larger ship, premium modules, or to progress my BGS goals? Do I take this mission to progress my BGS goals, or that mission for the credits? Do I fly this ship to keep operating costs down and rely on my skills, or that ship with higher operating costs, but require less skill to accomplish the same goal?

 

[Rubbernuke]

By the looks of things on the draft interfaces, it's not even clear that it has distinct prepare/expand phases.

Its a bit of a grey area at the minute- in FU -4 at about 6:00

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZgiIfs4os4


The devs talk about general PvE but with actions that match your powers 'thing' (they talk about finance) that is like a mini CG. If this is into a Power unoccupied system that automatically becomes 'exploited' and improvable to more established states that push increasing influence radii outwards.

What is a bit confusing is they flash a slide that has only one task although thinking about it thats between powers fighting it out.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Dude, it's written in the web page: every Power will grant access to ALL modules by staying pledged and grinding up to top rank, the order will change of course but you can have all of them by staying with your Power of choice.

Oh sorry, I apparently have missed that, thanks!

 

[nemolomen]

Oh sorry, I apparently have missed that, thanks!

TBF its the very last question/answer...easy to miss, I did too...

 

[Rubbernuke]

TBF its the very last question/answer...easy to miss, I did too...

To the Powerplay invested guys every pixel was analysed and run though extensive tests

 

[aRJay]

Are the changes in Powerplay 2 sufficient to regain lots of players and keep them playing for a long time. I think PP 2 needs content updates post-launch. Such as more variety for the PP activities.

I think that it is too soon for this, maybe next month when it has actually launched and we have some real first hand information we can answer it. Before then it is just people dream scaling.

They shouldn't make everything open-only, just certain objectives. If they add some Open-only objectives there would be stats of how many players do that vs PVE-only. I think it will be less than PVE, but more fanatical players. It should increase the number of active players in PP.

I like your idea that they should have PvP only and PvE only objectives so we can get a direct comparison of popularity. I just don’t think it would settle anything.
What will increase the number of active players at first is that it will be new, what will keep them is if it is fun.

Will the new powerplay have only the human race, or will there be other races as well, besides the Thargoids?

Not at launch.
Maybe if we can find and not turn them into the next candidate to want to exterminate the menace to the galaxy that is humanity. But PowerPlay is basically politics so they would need to be an interacting society.

 

[aRJay]

Of course that's dull. Every game activity gets dull when you use OP equipment. Or do it just for the result, not the activity.

This is why I stopped flying large ships years ago - doing combat in a Corvette is just boring. Doing a high CZ in a frag Mamba, or even in my (not combat optimized) Viper 4 - now that's just pure fun. You take the fun out of it when you optimize the activity for ease of outcome.

I have avoided the problem by so far avoiding using the overly buffed fixed weapons, a certain lack of skill flying also helps make fights less of a sure thing.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I have avoided the problem by so far avoiding using the overly buffed fixed weapons, a certain lack of skill flying also helps make fights less of a sure thing.

I have pretty decent flying skills, in my humble opinion. It’s in the pip management department where my main area of improvement lies. I know the rules intellectually, but translating those rules into action continues to elude me. I simply don’t get enough practice to burn the necessary actions into muscle memory, and a general disinterest in the combat aspects of the game ensures I likely never will.

That and finding time to play this game continues to be a source of frustration. If only this was a single player game…

 

[Markov Chaney]

essentially making PP a more active top layer of the BGS.

Honestly every time I see this description of it (which is accurate) I still have to mentally add "which is what is was supposed to be in the first place in any rational world with a rational developer"

 

[Rubbernuke]

Honestly every time I see this description of it (which is accurate) I still have to mentally add "which is what is was supposed to be in the first place in any rational world with a rational developer"

Back when PP was new I think FD wanted PP to be the 'action' part, only for the BGS to get the love and slowly overshadow it (PP). The BGS in 2015 was very rudimentary, whereas now its very fully featured except for faction expansion and visual representation- so everything has gone full circle.

 

[Darrack]

They could add both PVE and PVP objectives. Some could be PVE-only, others Open only.

Nice idea but wont work as the PVE stuff can still be done in Open only so an advantage being able to do both.
HOWEVER
Having PVE and PVP missions on a station board would be very doable, but good luck finding anyone for the PvP.

O7

 

[Darrack]

We will never know the true numbers of how many want it vs how many don't.

Im guessing Fdev do, hence why no rush for Open only

O7

 

[Darrack]

Will the new powerplay have only the human race, or will there be other races as well, besides the Thargoids?

I doubt it, there was only one Elite game (2?) with other Alien life forms, they weren't in the following one (3)
It doesn't fit the Lore except for some indigenous creatures etc still detailed within ED.

O7

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I doubt it, there was only one Elite game (2?) with other Alien life forms, they weren't in the following one (3)
It doesn't fit the Lore except for some indigenous creatures etc still detailed within ED.

O7

Aliens were in all versions, at least in lore.

However, there was the whacky Elite plus i think it was, where every system had cat headed, insect headed, etc aliens. I think it was the same version that had the funny descriptions of the inhabitants like "The people of XYZ are well know for their love of soap operas"

 

[Darkfyre99]

Back when PP was new I think FD wanted PP to be the 'action' part, only for the BGS to get the love and slowly overshadow it (PP). The BGS in 2015 was very rudimentary, whereas now its very fully featured except for faction expansion and visual representation- so everything has gone full circle.

I would say that 2015 BGS was better developed but had a serious design flaw, while the current BGS is the more rudimentary one. FD unnecessarily removed most of the depth in BGS manipulation when they fixed that flaw. The advantage BGS manipulation had over PowerPlay was the rich panoply of activities to engage in, vs PowerPlay’s two.