Elite Dangerous | Powerplay 2.0 Update

[Ian Doncaster]

Before you guys take nerf bats to everything, from what I can tell, those top out at about 8k, to maybe 10k an hour, or about 1 rank.

That's because you're doing them in the intended and fair ways, rather than exploiting things which are obvious bugs which can get several times those rates.

Unfortunately it seems that Frontier doesn't have a way to restrict merits at this stage by "did they cheat to get them" rather than "what type of merit is it" ... and the impact of the few players exploiting it must have been adding up to more than that of the thousands of people using them fairly.

And yes, hopefully they can fix it quickly enough to get the fair ways of using those methods back into normal operation soon.

 

[Kailoren]

There was a literal duplication exploit

Are you referring to instance resetting by relogging? Because that's been a thing since Horizons. Or are you talking of something else i'm unaware of

 

[Ezekil n Amai]

SLFs on strongholds is now the last stand of normal merits gaining, the last stand before PP 2.0 turns into "korean grind" game.

Oh, forgot to say. Because now there are no activities for reinforcement that can be equal to SLFs... Expect a decrease in the number of strongholds. STRONG decrease.

 

[Kailoren]

No, the goal of game design should be to protect players from bad gameplay and direct them to good gameplay if eliminating the bad gameplay entirely isn't possible.

There's a fix here that keeps rares the same but forces the better gameplay on people by making the respawn times longer and preventing carrier storage (rare allocation amount checks your carrier inventory).

This fix will just stop people from doing that gameplay loop because it's not worth the time investment to fly around gathering as many as they can to hand in. Not to mention the frequent interdictions meaning you need a combat build that sacrifices internal storage capacity for hull/module reinforcements to prevent your 1-2hr loop from turning into a rebuy screen

 

[vanFace]

Are you referring to instance resetting by relogging? Because that's been a thing since Horizons. Or are you talking of something else i'm unaware of

Not the author of the comment you are referring to, but judging by your question you seem to be one of the few players that is still unaware of the exploit.

 

[Cmdr Hbomb]

Why does this always happen in this game? Rather than bring other aspects up to meet the levels of efficient methods you guys nerf things down to unplayable levels for normal people. There are already daily complaints about the level of grind and 3-400 hours or more required of unengaging gameplay to reach level 100. Nothing in power play is engaging enough to warrant this time commitment. Those that want levels shouldn't be forced into a system they don't enjoy for that long, they will just quit and play something fun, and those who enjoy power play will stick around regardless.

Rather than make combat and bounties and other entertaining aspects of the game worth more merits you nerf the only efficient methods available and kill the fun yet again. These are lessons already learned...combat used to be worthless then after years of complaining it was buffed (while killing mining). Now a new system is introduced with all the same problems and terrible solutions. Just let the game be fun and let players finally enjoy themselves. I've spent 40-50 hours trading in rares, I dont enjoy trading but nothing else is as profitable, but it does take a lot of time. Why can't I enjoy the reward for my dedicated hours rather than being nerfed again? I ran the leesti blockades of other players in open for days sometimes barely surviving the onslaught of frag cannons. It's the most fun I have ever had trading in this game and now it gets nerfed...

If there were exploits that's sucks and needs to be addressed, but so do the abysmal levels of merit returns for combat, exploration, and mining. Bonuses should also be applied for playing in open. You have commanders really getting into pp and defending their systems from invaders seeking rare goods, if I'm running goods in open, or if you're killing my trade ship in open we both deserve a bonus for taking the increased risk. You will never make pp open only so at least give a bonus to those willing to take the extra risk.

TlDr: learn from past mistakes and buff systems rather than nerfing everything players enjoy before you kill this power play too. Try to make the game fun rather than a second job. Reward open players for the increased risk.

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

...casual gameplay 2-3hrs a day...

...casual player who only plays for an hour~ish a day...

I think it's a very hard balancing act for Frontier here. While I'm quite active on these forums (in work breaks), and this is my favourite game, these suggested casual playtimes are often higher than what I'm able to achieve regularly. Some weeks I'm lucky to get on at all. I don't mind a long term goal, but if that swings from "maybe one-day" to "not a hope in hell" when the balance pass is finished, then it's going to hurt more players than it helps. I'd argue 2-3 hours of anything a day is more than "casual".

We've got to remember that on these forums we represent a very small proportion of the player base, and generally the community here will ere towards the top 1% in what each individual is capable of achieving. I'm well aware I'm nowhere near that and an outlier, but balancing the game towards that 2-3 hour a day plus type gamer will leave a much higher proportion of players frustrated at how glacial the progression is, not just from an unlocks perspective, but to how much influence they're having on the systems they're working in. If you can't make a noticeable difference in a one hour session, then it'll dissuade more than encourage.

 

[Rebel Yell]

On that basis they should ban combat merits - with a Haz Res you don't even need to relog ...

As @galahad2069 wrote, it may be also the merits/pod amount which is under investigation. I've just supposed it's for the visitor beacons and the high amount of pods released by tourist ships wrecking.

 

[Cmdr aRadish]

Why do this in the middle of a cycle. All those contested/unoccupied systems now have no tool to counter an acquisition. why not just do this at the PP tick, so everyone has the same advantage for the whole tick. Basically the PP Tick just happened. A lot of SHs will fall now rares are suspended, as its one of the only ways to defend in large volumes. Fix the SH FC problem should be top of the list

 

[DragonIan]

I am becoming convinced that we are part of some experiment designed to see how long we will put up with a game that over and over again makes the same mistakes with the same results and regularity that could have been avoided, (Management? Developers? The Illuminati?).

Is this game some sort of test of how long can or will i put up with a toxic relationship?

Anyway time to stop the experiment and publish the results and move one me thinks.

 

[Kailoren]

Not the author of the comment you are referring to, but judging by your question you seem to be one of the few players that is still unaware of the exploit.

I just looked it up on the issue tracker and yeah that is a straight up exploit that needs to be nerfed. But my intial comment was that a lot of people throw the term "exploit" around because its a faster way of getting something. Finding a high value item and buying a lot of it to turn in for merits isn't an exploit, but duplicating something repeatedly absolutely is

 

[Vandaahl]

BGS fix wen?

 

[Rebel Yell]

If that's the case then I'm very very very puzzled as to why Frontier wouldn't think about this before, considering they are 100% aware of relogging usage to respawn stuff since the dawn of time Elite Dangerous.

It's a niche one, may be they didn't consider... tourism (because tourists' ships drop a lot of pods) + anarchy resulting in the combo, as no bounty/no notoriety.

 

[galahad2069]

That's because you're doing them in the intended and fair ways, rather than exploiting things which are obvious bugs which can get several times those

Afaik there was a grand total of 1 exploit (some on-foot dataport-related issue I never even bothered to look at as I tend not to disembark my ship unless it's absolutely necessary, but I digress).

OK, fix the exploit, problem solved.

What I don't understand is what the hell that exploit had to do with everything else. Why did they feel the need of nerfing escape pods, rares and whatnot?

 

[Kailoren]

Afaik there was a grand total of 1 exploit (some on-foot dataport-related issue I never even bothered to look at as I tend not to disembark my ship unless it's absolutely necessary, but I digress).

OK, fix the exploit, problem solved.

What I don't understand is what the hell that exploit had to do with everything else. Why did they feel the need of nerfing escape pods, rares abd whatnot?

Escape pods will be getting nerfed because of instance relogging to respawn the pods at megaships, or the tourist beacons in anarchy systems letting you farm orcas/belugas for a lot of pods without any bounty/notoriety for doing so

 

[galahad2069]

As @galahad2069 wrote, it may be also the merits/pod amount which is under investigation. I've just supposed it's for the visitor beacons and the high amount of pods released by tourist ships wrecking.

Yes ofc there has always been a better source of escape pods than power USSes. It was a constant struggle with the dying transaction server (limpet bug) to begin with, but at least it paid well. But it's not worth it anymore for a 15 merits/pod reward.

BTW the game has had way bigger problems since Ascendancy than too fast merit progress. Can we expect some bugfixes as well, or the nerf hammer is the only tool known to fdev?

 

[Catyusha]

Bugfixes? Can't have that. Have some nerfs instead.

 

[sn0wman]

This game is awesome Frontier ! it would be great to see you get your grindy stuff together, before releasing it. But after almost 10 years of playing Elite and putting real time, efforts and money into this weird "hobby" - nothing changed. As a player you have to go through every stupid grind, buff and nerf - this is just painful. Elite is a banana-game. It will be never a good or great game, it´s just this or this.

 

[yianniv]

Why not disconnecting the personal merit progress from the Power progress? let those players that want to increase their level do it, don't keep them hostages in PP. If they're passers by, let them leave with a smile, not frustrated. Focus on the Power progress and limit it.
You've annihilated the exploration gained merits, it was a very abrupt reaction. Exploration takes time, it's not instant win. So what if a player after 2 years of exploration gets to level 3,000,000,000? Install diminishing returns on the Power progress and everybody is happy. Again, disconnect player progress from their Power's. It's the better way.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Yes ofc there has always been a better source of escape pods than power USSes. It was a constant struggle with the dying transaction server (limpet bug) to begin with, but at least it paid well. But it's not worth it anymore for a 15 merits/pod reward.

BTW the game has had way bigger problems since Ascendancy than too fast merit progress. Can we expect some bugfixes as well, or the nerf hammer is the only tool known to fdev?

Nerf is not the way... we all have seen what happened to mining.

Mining nerfed -> mining died.