Encouraging and rewarding Powerplay offensive actions

[Jmanis]

Sorry, but imo this is not fundamental, it is just yours personal opinion. And it for sure do not apply for all players. The question is whether a player, or a group of players is able find RP reason for support chosen power.

Yup. And that's why i very carefully chose my words in saying:
"Powerplay lacks any motivating factors to do Powerplay", not "There are no motivating factors to do Powerplay". That is, as i said, there's no intrinsic motivators.

Players might do it for RP. They might do it because they're a game journo doing a review of it. They might do it because their mum told them to.

None of these motivators are any outcome of the implementation of Powerplay... which isn't really a slam-dunk from Powerplay.

And PP2 is for me personally much more enjoyable as it ever was PP1. The problem which I see is, that there should be better balance of which PP activities can player do for having similar effect vs needed time.

So, I'm fairly confident we've had this discussion before at some point, but my question is: What are PP activities?

I had a look through this: https://heatmap.sotl.org.uk/powers/refcard

... the only Powerplay- unique activity i can see there is "hack billboards". Surely this isn't the only unique addition of Powerplay?

Even Strongholds just seem to be Megaships by another name.

The only difference seems to be the reward structure around it.

If you as a single player do not see reason why to put some power in control of some system, it do not automatically mean that do not exists players which do not have such goal.

I'll rephrase this.

I, as a single player, when considering the chain of motivations that land me at playing ED, have a single relevant motivator here. To support and expand the Empire, and to disrupt and unseat the Federation as much as possible. I claim PP2 objectively does nothing to support that pursuit.

Before Powerplay, this was handily achieved through the BGS, which is the mainstay mechanism for representing the influence of a particular superpower in the galaxy; it creates wars which changes power, affects the economy of the impacted faction to create favourable or unfavourable circumstances, and allows the expansion of borders for a given superpower... and indeed colonisation , despite its shortcomings, allows the expansion of a superpowers borders.

Powerplay was, to the best of my knowledge, a direct response to unanticipated use of the BGS by players to shape the economic and political landscape of the game in an almost group vs group way. Now of course, that was never it's intent, thus, Powerplay, which magnificently misunderstood the enjoyment and motivations players satisfied through the BGS; the dynamic effects on the universe[1], and the diverse activities behind it which enable people like myself to satisfy the motivations for things like disrupting the Federation.

PP1 was coupled to the factions, indeed, it was intended to surface from supporting a faction. But the latter never happened, instead giving the static Powers we had today.

Factions were impacted in comparably minor ways... indeed they probably had more impact on Powerplay than Powerplay had on factions... it also reduced objectives down to single-activity grinds. But the biggest problem was the artificial coloured-dots-on-maps impact. That was the only outcome. How many coloured dots you have, and what points that gives the Power. Completely divorced from the actual game. Case in point... during my peak activity with BGS... I flipped from Powerplay influence on my systems being from Torval, to neutral, to Winters, to Aisling.... the hilarious part being that I almost didn't notice. That's how little it matters.

So PP1 provided no motivating factors for my pursuits as an Imperial loyalist and Federal antagonist. Achieving those outcomes was far easier by doing everyday activities which generate BGS effects that tangibly disrupt the Federation and supports the Empire. Considering PP seems to be all about political and economic influence over the galaxy, that seems to be a complete misfire.

And now we have PP2... which addressed a bunch of things related to diversity of activities and rewards, so now a bunch of otherwise standard activities give you merits and rank, as opposed to it being completely divorced from standard play. But as I understand, PP2 is even more divorced from the systems you do activities in. I just logged in, signed up with Patreus and had a look at the effects. As far as I can tell, I get fitting/rebuy discounts and such as rank goes up?

... ok... that doesn't help me usurp the Federation much? How about a stronghold. If I help build a stronghold, what's that effect?

.... oh. They give me better fitting and shipyard inventories, and... allow me to make more Strongholds? Seems like a lot of effort for substituting a run to SD?

And, well, I can't find much else.

So maybe I'm wrong, but I presumed Powerplay was meant to be a competition between the powers for territory, in order for the powers to exert their flavour of influence over the region. A stronghold in that sense would have been the hub of that influence effect, in much the same vein as how during the Thargoid invasion, a Titan-occupied system for the most part was a mostly inhospitable place for anyone that wasn't a Thargoid themselves, while Alert, Invasion, Control scaled effects and impacts on the system and it's activities writ-large; being:
- Alert led into a generalised response to an imminent Thargoid threat, resulting in a hybrid of standard and Alert-response activies

• Invasion, leading to a significant pivot in activities focused on conflict zones against Thargoids, search and rescue and repair efforts.
• Control, leading to the shutdown of all human activities with a focus purely on unseating any Thargoid fortified presence;

Obviously, the Power effects should not and would not be that significant or crippling, but it would add gravitas to the presence and pursuit of a stronghold or fortified territory, to shape how non-aligned players interact with these systems, and the impact on unaligned factions... with players choosing to exploit the effects offered by the incumbent Power, or to engage the unique undermine activities directly related to Powerplay.... providing truly unique activities and not just a veneer of rewards on otherwise standard game activities.

But instead... Powerplay is apparently about having more coloured dots on a map and putting making more systems you can get cheap outfitting and better bounty payouts, by doing everyday things? I mean, if that's what motivates someone, I'm not gonna yuck their yum, but there's a pretty strong case for that being pretty objectively uninspiring. I'm certainly not sitting here going "Time to put the long haul in to make my home system a Patreus stronghold!".

This is what I mean by Powerplay not having any motivating factors to do powerplay.

Here's a counterquery... As someone who doesn't see any reason to do Powerplay, why don't I want, say, a Winters stronghold in my home system?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I, as a single player, when considering the chain of motivations that land me at playing ED, have a single relevant motivator here. To support and expand the Empire, and to disrupt and unseat the Federation as much as possible. I claim PP2 objectively does nothing to support that pursuit.

That's true, but equally on the BGS level there's not really any concrete benefits from having a system controlled by an Imperial corporation as opposed to a Federal one, say. Less non-cosmetic difference than the already small difference between Winters' and Patreus' passive system effects, I think.

I think "we support our Power and want it to be bigger" is always going to have to be the primary intrinsic motivator for Powerplay, since any quantitative reward is always going to run into diminishing utility eventually, and reach that stage much faster for the most dedicated players. If you want the Empire to be bigger, then the Empire's size can be represented in minor faction system control, or it can equally be represented in Powerplay control of Imperial-aligned Powers - neither is more "right" than the other.

That said, as a Kaine supporter, I get a bunch of benefits from Kaine being the controlling Power in systems I visit regularly:
- faster reputation gain with minor factions (with various BGS and personal uses)
- 20% extra bounty payout (mostly irrelevant at my credit balance but still better than not having it)
- up to 50% extra payout on mineral/metal trades
which I don't get if another Power (or no-one) is in charge. So all else equal, lime green is what I want the galaxy to be.

The thing I wanted to discuss / suggest to Frontier in this thread was slightly more subtle than that, though: given that I have found a motivation to improve Kaine's standing generally (which, yes, is mostly a RP one since I'm beyond the stage of the quantitative stuff mattering), where's my motivation (or to an extent, ability!) to do this by attacking Kaine's 11 rivals rather than just pushing Kaine out into the thousands of neutral systems well away from the contestable borders?

 

[madmongoose]

some two cents which seem to be missing, as someone who primarily plays the game to engage with Powerplay and also participates heavily in the social aspect of it:

1) Undermining is very problematic at the moment because it is heavily punished. Due to system strength penalties, almost all scalable UM activity being illegal, illegal activity merits like crimes scaling poorly and reinforcement having objectively better levers (1 ton trading, rares, bounty hunting). It is painful to undermine and not balanced at all. It arguably should be slightly harder to undermine otherwise powers will nuke each other into oblivion but current state is too far.

2) it's not instant acquisition that is needed, the problem is when a system is newly acquired, it starts out with a buffer of 4! control points. This means you have to put in about 500k merits just to see that destroyed by a passing breeze the next week unless you pour in merits to protect the system. So all acquisitions are really 600k-1million merits over two weeks just to ensure the system is protected. That uses up all the energy. If acquisitions had a better initial buffer that reflected the work put in the previous week (say 250k merits/60k something control) that would allow players to shift to more acquisition/free up resources for aggression. Fwiw i'm not sure thresholds need to be shifted too much as actually currently it doesn't take that many players to move systems it's just that the population of active powerplayers who know what they are doing is very small. If you make the thresholds 1/10 of what they are now a single commander could knock out a stronghold and I think PP should be more of a group effort than that.

Lastly I think the intrinsic benefits of Powerplay is suddenly you're in an MMO with TEAMS but as an individual powerplayer, unless you join a community outside the game, and that community is well managed, you are somewhat divorced from all the social activity that defines the Power. Rather than large mechanical changes I think the social aspect is engaging in and of itself and should be doubled down on. It should be easier to organically coordinate inside a power and also target enemies. (Now, if attacked we have to guess who it could be and it's really hard without relying on spies and other out of game mechanisms). If you don't want large groups to control the narrative it would be interesting if Powers could randomly select Objectives which lead to mini-CGs that actually affect the map (say, Federal forces assault Zeta Tucanae, power CZ will now spawn and give double merits for reinforcement and UM) and bottleneck players to be fighting each other in ways that actually matter. The sentiment in my Power and others for the current CGs is there's no stakes. Whoever wins or loses doesn't affect the map and participating actually slows down powerplay activity. It shouldn't be like that.

i think the bones are there for something really great it's just missing meat on top.

 

[Jmanis]

That's true, but equally on the BGS level there's not really any concrete benefits from having a system controlled by an Imperial corporation as opposed to a Federal one, say. Less non-cosmetic difference than the already small difference between Winters' and Patreus' passive system effects, I think.

I would agree there aren't major concrete benefits... but as far as motivators go, there's more reasons to do regular BGS work than shape it around Powerplay... which is at the core of my problem here. Powerplay introduces nothing that benefits that pursuit and makes the outcomes of Powerplay worthwhile as an activity in it's own right. It's just a layer of hygiene.

EDIT: To be explicit, if a Federal faction wins a war for control over my supported Imperial faction:

• The major jurisdiction of the system changes. This may result in me being wanted if I have been criminally antagonistic to that faction.
• Assets will change hands between the two factions. This in turn may:
• Make different cargoes legal/illegal
• Change how the BGS generates missions in terms of what is now possible
• Deny me access based on Hostile reputation
• Expansion from this system is now curtailed until I can regain the necessary % to do so which, in most cases, requires reconquest of ownership.
• Denies a pathway for influence/economic gains for my supported faction via regular trade

But if Winters succeeds in putting a Stronghold up in this system... a by-product of the activity might be the system flips to Federal control, but that's purely a byproduct of actions that could have been undertaken regardless of pledging to Winters.

Regardless, once the the Stronghold is up it... does what? I don't know, does it change anything at all for me supporting my Imperial faction who may still be in power?

 

[Rubbernuke]

there's more reasons to do regular BGS work

This is where I disagree with you, mainly as plain BGS stuff really is PP2 but without a lot of the 'wrapping' PP2 has. For me PP2 adds what the BGS lacks, that is proper expansion mechanics, visible station changes, PP FCs in strongholds and clear winners / losers- in the BGS quite often its juggling factions in non obvious ways.

 

[Danieros]

Individual incentives: make some personally profitable ways to undermine, like reinforcing has - some or all of scans, bounty hunting, profitable trade, rares, or exploration should be enabled for undermining as a start.

I'm not sure adding more undermining options should be the priority, right now they really need to look at how balanced the current options are.

Nobody is going to lose a system due to holo-hacking, market flooding or even powerplay commodities when other reinforcement options are multiple times more effective even if there were no strength penalties.

Power kills and wreckage for undermining are horribly inconsistent. The power signal sources need WAY more content - currently it encourages similar relogging gameplay that plagued engineering for so long - kill 3 ships/collect 3 salvage cannisters then quit to desktop, repeat this for as long as the USS lasts.

Right now power data is basically the only competitive undermining, but really it's because each player can hold 200k+ merits and then snipe system(s) in the final hour. This comes from missing features from PP1 - you could snipe there but anyone docking in a station could see how many merits are being held against it, and they expired at the end of cycle. It's terrible how it wasn't completely impossible for Sol, reinforced all the way to its positive tug of war cap to get sniped in the final hours all the way down to its negative cap if enough players coordinated for it.

Strategic incentives: successfully undermined systems (including those lost through lack of supporting systems) should switch to the undermining power (if they have supporting systems in range, of course) without needing to be acquired separately.

11 powers can undermine a system, and the UI gives zero information of which CPs are coming from which powers. That seems very confusing to implement.

A simple way here seems to be giving acquisition CP proportionally to each power that participated (if in range). It wouldn't be an instant control change, but at least it'd cut down work, and allow for more contests.

Global effects: rebalance and document the passive effects of control so that there are disputes about which one is best but they're all worth having, rather than LYR giving amazing discounts and no-one remembering or caring much what the other 11 do.

Yes, please - alongside the "war room" it's an entire tab of UI that hasn't been implemented yet. It's been very confusing to know which power effects from PP1 should still exist or not.

Underdog recruitment bonus: allow people to keep some of their rank if they defect to a Power lower in the standings than their own (further lower, more rank kept?) as a way to encourage balancing out of Power benefits take effect quicker.

This would be similar to PP1's "defect" button. With merits no longer decaying, it'd be a great way to get people to switch powers more often. And being limited to only lower-placed powers is a great idea to prevent the concentration going upwards.

Global rewards: give bonus payouts, rank benefits and other rewards to the powers that do the most successful undermining (or undermining+acquisition?) each week.

Seems this would need a lot more UI to work. Right now if it weren't for journals we wouldn't even reliably know which systems a power acquired, all we get in the UI are just system counts.

I fear this would just bully the powers last places (since "successful" undermining is part of the criteria) and not really achieve much against the top ones.

Maybe an undermining bonus (that actually affects CP) could be given against the top 3 powers. Not exactly similar to what you suggested, but it should help fight stagnation a bit so top 3 isn't just acquisition racing.

Speed things up: Reduce all the thresholds by 10x - it'll make no difference to anywhere seriously contested where "more than the opponent" is the goal, but get things being much more dynamic elsewhere and allow smaller groups to achieve more. At the moment barely 1% of systems change status each week.

I'm surprised they haven't done this to some extent already (not this much in one go though). Frontier loved switching thresholds in the thargoid war. But this might incentive reinforcement more than undermining, except for data sniping. 10x easier thresholds as long as held merits aren't known means even a single player could snipe a system that is 100% reinforced at exploited. But I don't consider it to be healthy undermining, it'd be just last hour hand-ins with no counter chance.

 

[Jmanis]

that is proper expansion mechanics,

what do you mean by that?

visible station changes,

BGS has visible station changes too

PP FCs in strongholds

Which achieve what?

and clear winners / losers-

What's that mean? Like, what's the key difference between a winner and a loser here? What is lost or gained? Is there more than dots on maps and points on leaderboards?

in the BGS quite often its juggling factions in non obvious ways.

I don't disagree with that, but to be clear, I'm under no illusions the BGS isn't perfect... i just don't see what it offers in terms of activities, outcomes or other aspects that can't be achieved without it, nor what impact achieving these wins or losses has on anything.

Edit: Just to be clear, all those questions are genuine. Stronghold carriers, as far as i can tell, are glorified fitting stations?

(To a suggestion you've heard from me before... Superpowers should be the main factional distinguishers... powers influence should be commensurate to very distinct "biomes" within the populated bubble, while factions thrive or suffer, depending on their alignment to those two things)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm not sure adding more undermining options should be the priority, right now they really need to look at how balanced the current options are.

Very true - but I think the existing ones are unbalanced in two separate ways.
1) As you say, they just pay terrible control/hour rates, so deliberate undermining is painfully slow. Absolutely needs fixing.
2) They mostly aren't things you'd do except for Powerplay, whereas a lot of the reinforcement options, if you're just doing stuff in friendly territory without particular care for Powerplay you'll also reinforce the system.

I'm more focusing here on fixing the effect which means that we have a CG in an ALD-controlled system, in which roughly 11/12ths of the PP-aligned participants are aligned to a different Power so would Undermine rather than Reinforce, and it's also one of the busiest systems in the game right now ... and the net result is that the system is at about a 10:1 reinforcement control ratio (or maybe 100:1 progress/player ratio!) in part because ALD pledges existing in the system grants reinforcement and other pledges existing in the system does nothing.

So part of the solution has to be to get "casual" presence in a hostile system to undermine it, in the same way that "casual" presence in a friendly system reinforces it, because there are a lot of those more casual Powerplayers about - and bringing in some standard trade/fight/explore triad activities to the undermining side is the only way I can think of to do that.

11 powers can undermine a system, and the UI gives zero information of which CPs are coming from which powers. That seems very confusing to implement.

Yes, some of these ideas would need some UI improvements. But knowing which powers are undermining seems important to add anyway.

A simple way here seems to be giving acquisition CP proportionally to each power that participated (if in range). It wouldn't be an instant control change, but at least it'd cut down work, and allow for more contests.

The need I think is to make "undermine + acquire" significantly more efficient in terms of control points spent than "acquire neutral". If all you get for a successful undermining is a 30,000 or even 120,000 CP head start on the acquisition, you probably still spent more than that on the undermine itself if it was contested. Being able to drop an isolated Fortified system and instantly flip most of its bubble to your Power suddenly gives a really good reason to try it.

I'm surprised they haven't done this to some extent already (not this much in one go though). Frontier loved switching thresholds in the thargoid war. But this might incentive reinforcement more than undermining, except for data sniping. 10x easier thresholds as long as held merits aren't known means even a single player could snipe a system that is 100% reinforced at exploited. But I don't consider it to be healthy undermining, it'd be just last hour hand-ins with no counter chance.

Adjusting the thresholds is more for "when the balance is looking more healthy" definitely - doing it on its own would just lead to reinforcement/uncontested acquisition going 10x as fast - but I think is then needed (especially once passive/casual undermining works) so that it stops being a case of 10,000 systems but only a few of them matter each week.

I fear this would just bully the powers last places (since "successful" undermining is part of the criteria) and not really achieve much against the top ones.

Given that the "safest" powers face about a tenth of the amount of undermining as the most attacked ones even as things stand, this is certainly an area where Frontier has two choices.

1) Accept that any meaningful undermining mechanism is going to lead to some of the weaker powers going under, and actively embrace that as an opportunity to put new Powers into the game with better selling points. ("Defect downwards" is of course a key point to being able to introduce new powers and give them a chance of not instantly folding). It probably does need some sort of consolation prize for the pledges of the dying power, too.

2) Accept that any balancing point which allows the weakest power to still make net gains and prosper is one in which undermining is irrelevant, and therefore remove undermining and re-cast Powerplay as a more peaceful first-come first-served rivalry of expansion.

There should certainly be added incentives to hit upwards here nonetheless - maybe you get a much higher reward for successfully undermining powers above you in the standings, and very little for undermining ones more than a couple of steps below you.

 

[Greasetrap42]

The thing I wanted to discuss / suggest to Frontier in this thread was slightly more subtle than that, though: given that I have found a motivation to improve Kaine's standing generally (which, yes, is mostly a RP one since I'm beyond the stage of the quantitative stuff mattering), where's my motivation (or to an extent, ability!) to do this by attacking Kaine's 11 rivals rather than just pushing Kaine out into the thousands of neutral systems well away from the contestable borders?

I am also pledged to Nakato Kaine. The biggest problem I see with PP 2.0 is I have absolutely no sentimental attachment to her, her government, or her people. I continued the Powerplay activities beyond rank 100. I had even made two dedicated green Nakato Kaine ships for various activities. Still no Nakato Kaine Powerplay decal for my ships... kinda sucks[1]. Then gave up because there was no point to it. Especially when Frontier came out with Colonization which effectively moved me away from doing Powerplay activities. And then CGs that I participate in which are blatantly for different powers. And other activities that take me away even further from Nakato Kaine.

The main problem IMO is there is nothing that bonds me to the power I pledged to. And I have no sentimental attachment. I am going to simply drop Powerplay for whatever next activity comes along from Frontier. The overall big picture game is not designed for players to be singularly focused on a single powerplay power.



[1] An indicator maybe Frontier doesn't even care about Powerplay? Maybe it was just the update of the moment, now lets all move on.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

The problem I see is that in nature (and humans instinctively are no different) is that competition for space/ resources etc. occurs in 3 arenas

1. Scarcity - few conflicts as the effort of acquiring more territory and resources is never worth the gain (possibly could happen if FDev were to implement control point decay, so systems could fall out of control if not reinforced - obviously not desirable).
2. Balance - Conflicts occur because the effort of securing more territory and resources is exceeded by the gains made when you take over an area. (The ideal situation in terms of powerplay)
3. Plenty - few conflicts as there so much available to everyone that there's no point fighting over it. So there's no point fighting over stuff because either way, you'll have more than you ever need.

Unfortunately, the way the game works is we're right by option 3. The only reason people fight over stuff is because we can. What needs to happen is something needs to drive us to want to undermine. I don't think merits is enough either because eventually this only translates to more care packages which most of is already have enough of. Not entirely sure what that should be, but maybe if there was some power wide bonus you got for hitting a certain threshold of merits made by undermining (with bonuses if it resulted in a system being downgraded) as an invasion bonus, maybe that would get people more interested.

Either that or burn a whole load of systems to the ground to generate some scarcity.

 

[Rubbernuke]

what do you mean by that?

That to an end user expanding your power is less random and far more consistent than when factions expand / retreat- mainly as PP2 is about (or should / was) about territorial conquest.

BGS has visible station changes too

It does, but they are far more subtle than having the various stages PP expansions go through or the graffiti that pops up (which itself is a bit too subtle IMO). The most visible changes are really when stations change industry types, or (IIRC) anarchy.

Which achieve what?

They act as a locus for further expansion and act as visible symbols of your power- the issue with them is they are not 'full' FC / MS with interiors to act as PP clubhouses. Strongholds were supposed to be hard core systems but were dialed back sadly, so would have been like high sec PP wise.

What's that mean? Like, what's the key difference between a winner and a loser here? What is lost or gained?

By losing territory you (once thresholds are met) go down the leaderboard. If you lose a stronghold you risk losing dependent systems. On the flipside some people / squadrons / groups want a power with them and want to be #1.

Is there more than dots on maps and points on leaderboards?

No, because like most of ED in the end its 'worth' is defined by those who interact with it. Its why I say PP2 is like a layer on the BGS, because it provides context to a much underdeveloped aspect of the BGS (territorial conquest). Don't get me wrong, FD could do a lot here and it is threadbare.

I don't disagree with that, but to be clear, I'm under no illusions the BGS isn't perfect... i just don't see what it offers in terms of activities, outcomes or other aspects that can't be achieved without it, nor what impact achieving these wins or losses has on anything.

Edit: Just to be clear, all those questions are genuine. Stronghold carriers, as far as i can tell, are glorified fitting stations?

And I agree with what you say, because one of my complaints regards PP2 is that it lacks a real 'point' to it, and why I describe it as BGS +.

(To a suggestion you've heard from me before... Superpowers should be the main factional distinguishers... powers influence should be commensurate to very distinct "biomes" within the populated bubble, while factions thrive or suffer, depending on their alignment to those two things)

Indeed, thats how it should be- however like a lot of ED the s.power / power / faction relationship has really developed out of order (like C+P) and iterations retrofit ideas over the old layers. One of the complaints many had re PP1 was that factions were at the mercy of powers, and FD seemed to take that feedback and sever the connection- so we have two similar systems that overlap uncomfortably.

 

[Martind Forlon]

@Jmanis it's actually not very difficult. I was engaged in ED's BGS during almost last 10 years (and in group of players which were really good in it). PP1.0 had quite simple and uninteresting mechanism and mainy there was no other way, as switching Powers, for getting theirs stuff (some of PP things are quite usefull). There was therefore not much reasons (for me) to engage in it, especially when BGS had complicated, but well enough working mechanisms which allowed very solid level of control about chosen minor faction(s) presence in system(s).

With introductions of PP2.0 and Colonisation things have changed fundamentally. First brought issues with BGS mechanisms and the second has completelly and irreversibely destroyed the control about spread of minor faction. That brought me (beside other things) to need to look more closely at PP2.0. Involvement have solid visual presentation in game, progress is displayed in galaxy/system map and mainly more activities, which I before do not had a reason to do, are now rewarded within PP2.0. For example: surface stuff collecting, mining, settlements rebooting, rares hauling. And some of global efforts like for example battle over control of LTT 198 was quite epic. BGS position has changed, it had major role, but now is (or maybe better to say "can be now used") usable as supporting activity for PP2.0. Is not needed, but can have significant boost towards effectiveness of PP activities. This all together offers me much more small daily activities, sometimes supporting progress in my architected system, sometimes helping other, sometimes helping in "old" BGS. There of course can be done improvements in PP2.0, but imo right now it offers wide range of activites. This is a reason why I disagree with purely negative views related to PP2.0 ... especially when player did not tried it yet personally (various reasons).

And one side note: with PP2.0 active, I returned playing in open most of my play time ("loses" are very reduced for players at high PP ranks). This however is change only on personal level, other players may have very different views

PP activities, next thread have enough info: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/powerplay-2-0-activities.629227/

Thinking about this quote

Obviously that initial change hasn't had any noticeable effect at all, so some suggestions for things which might be more effective. I'm focusing on Undermining, as with the massive neutral territories opened up by Trailblazers, Acquisition barely counts as an offensive action and meaningfully contested Acquisitions are extremely rare.

To be fair, I personally prefer to "defend" what once was acquired. Therefore rewarding more offensive activities (and putting defensive in disadvantage at the same moment) is not my personal favourite course of actions ... on the other side I understand that exactly this may some players like. Imo there should be equal result for attack and defense vs needed time. There should be different incentive to support attack ... winner should be more efficient bcs skill/knowledge/tactics and not because system will make defender effort weaker.