Powerplay FD, Powerplay needs the merits sorted out ASAP. Surely this is being looked at?

[Miko]

OK, so a lot of people have talked about this and I've posted about this mid thread in other topics aswell.

I'd like to ask a couple of things and enquire why we're not being rewarded where appropriate with a greater sum of merits.

Let me use Hudson as an example since I'm aligned with him.

Powerplay as it stands serves to encourage the casual players to engage only in the activities that award the maximum amount of merits (powerplay) in the most engaging manner. This usually means combat. As a result of this, very few players contribute to the fortification aspect of the game properly. This creates problems for those who do care about Powerplay and their chosen galactic power.

We have systems very far away from the HQ that are profitable, but being so far away, few players commit to the fortification efforts. Why? Well because there are no additional rewards for doing so, and as such, a player is having to spend more of his/her own time in doing this when they could instead get the same reward for delivering them to a controlled system next door to the HQ. This is entirely messed up, no? Especially when those players might be encouraged to pay for their work by fast tracking at an expensive rate or wait 30 minutes each time for a mere 50 merits even at rating 5!

Remember this is a player with a now fully laden ship who must traverse a large distance to complete the delivery. He risks running into pirates or player killers. Then he must travel all the way back and wait another 30 minutes or fast track at his own expense yet again. These players should be rewarded for that!

Surely you could implement a setup where delivering to systems beyond certain distances increases the merits awarded to the player? This doesn't have to be huge, but let's say you travel 50 light years beyond your HQ to deliver fortifications, then your merits per tonne could increase by 10%. If you travel 100 light years to help sustain a system with fortifications, then your efforts could see you rewarded 25% more merits. 150 light years 50% increase. Why? Because the player who commits to that effort and makes that vital contribution deserves to be rewarded for it by his power.

Rating 5 should also allocate more than 50 power commodities every half hour too (just 50 merits worth). This is just my opinion of course, but I do believe that should be doubled since we're talking about half an hour real time. Anybody wanting to play the crucial role of fortifying their systems should be given more incentive to play this part and be rewarded well for it if they are patient enough and willing to travel huge distances to deliver the commodities. Nobody wants to fast track at 500k per 50 merits, really.

50 million is a good incentive for rating 5, but only for rating 5 and as such the rating has no bearing on the problem I'm speaking about.

Combat could pay 5 merits for a small craft, 10 for a medium craft and 20 for a large craft. I think that would be a neat combat related balance.

Anyway, you lot fire off your ideas, but I thought bringing this up has it's merits. (punny no)

 

[Jabezz]

Yeah you are correct here. I never understood why FD designed it that way with regards to the method of earning merits or the level of incentive for the different Power Play activities.

 

[Martin Schou]

I don't think it should be easier to maintain the distant systems than it already is. Mahon (my power) has by far the most distant systems, and the highest number of them, and making them easier to maintain would simply mean that we'd expand our already massive bubble even further than it already is. There are already ways of making it easier to fortify (reducing triggers) - if Hudson pledges wanted to make their distant systems easier to fortify, they could do so by taking advantage of that mechanic in the same way that Mahon pledges have. We rarely fortify systems that cost more than 6,500 merits to fortify, yet those systems are 120+ light years from our HQ.

The simple fact is that Hudson pledges seem completely unwilling to manipulate the background simulation in their favour. Mahon is almost always subjected to more undermining than Hudson, yet we do far far less fortifications. Not just because we have a better starting point, but also because we've put the effort into manipulating the background simulation in our favour.

That being said, I do find it rather moronic that every single power in PowerPlay appears to be run by a blood thirsty terrorist supporter who would rather pay you fifty million credits each cycle for committing acts of terrorism (undermining) than supporting their political ambitions (fortifications), but it does serve to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of player willingness to aid their power beyond selfish reasons.

 

[Miko]

I don't think it should be easier to maintain the distant systems than it already is. Mahon (my power) has by far the most distant systems, and the highest number of them, and making them easier to maintain would simply mean that we'd expand our already massive bubble even further than it already is. There are already ways of making it easier to fortify (reducing triggers) - if Hudson pledges wanted to make their distant systems easier to fortify, they could do so by taking advantage of that mechanic in the same way that Mahon pledges have. We rarely fortify systems that cost more than 6,500 merits to fortify, yet those systems are 120+ light years from our HQ.

The simple fact is that Hudson pledges seem completely unwilling to manipulate the background simulation in their favour. Mahon is almost always subjected to more undermining than Hudson, yet we do far far less fortifications. Not just because we have a better starting point, but also because we've put the effort into manipulating the background simulation in our favour.

That being said, I do find it rather moronic that every single power in PowerPlay appears to be run by a blood thirsty terrorist supporter who would rather pay you fifty million credits each cycle for committing acts of terrorism (undermining) than supporting their political ambitions (fortifications), but it does serve to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of player willingness to aid their power beyond selfish reasons.

What has any of this got to do with making it easier? It's about being rewarded in a logical and appropriate sense. The task would still take the same effort.

 

[r4pt012]

I don't think it should be easier to maintain the distant systems than it already is. Mahon (my power) has by far the most distant systems, and the highest number of them, and making them easier to maintain would simply mean that we'd expand our already massive bubble even further than it already is. There are already ways of making it easier to fortify (reducing triggers) - if Hudson pledges wanted to make their distant systems easier to fortify, they could do so by taking advantage of that mechanic in the same way that Mahon pledges have. We rarely fortify systems that cost more than 6,500 merits to fortify, yet those systems are 120+ light years from our HQ.

The simple fact is that Hudson pledges seem completely unwilling to manipulate the background simulation in their favour. Mahon is almost always subjected to more undermining than Hudson, yet we do far far less fortifications. Not just because we have a better starting point, but also because we've put the effort into manipulating the background simulation in our favour.

That being said, I do find it rather moronic that every single power in PowerPlay appears to be run by a blood thirsty terrorist supporter who would rather pay you fifty million credits each cycle for committing acts of terrorism (undermining) than supporting their political ambitions (fortifications), but it does serve to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of player willingness to aid their power beyond selfish reasons.

Hudson has the same 'good' and 'bad' government types as ALD. Problem is there are virtually no factions of those types in their space. They can't manipulate the BGS for that purpose even if they wanted to.

In any case, the increasing difficulty in maintaining distant systems is something that needs to stay. It's a good way of limiting overall expansion

 

[Miko]

I used hudson as an example because he has a combat orientated setup. Which results in people mostly attending strike zones and not contributing to the maintenance of the systems.

This thread has nothing to do with changing the difficulty of anything. It's about rewarding those players that spend a personal fortune being the backbone of fortifications. There's likely very few people who contribute, but those that do, probably contribute the majority of the fortifications. Someone travelling fully laden somewhere that takes over 10 jumps or more depending on your drive and then making that trip all the way back, after spending millions fast tracking the supplies deserves to see more than someone just nipping next door to oversupply the convenient nearby systems.

Increasing merits payout won't completely encourage those who still can't be bothered with this role into contributing, but it sure as hell won't lead to those who are playing this part into becoming discouraged. Right now it's a shambles that it doesn't pay more merits for harder work.

 

[r4pt012]

If you increase the amount of merits earned in relation to the amount of tonnes dropped, you are encouraging people to fortify less. People are just going to drop 2500T for their 5000 merits each week instead. Now the grinders are also saving money for their efforts, they're just grinding a distant system instead.

Further, people will go out and prep and expand into Maia, Robigo, Sothis etc. Why? Because now they can get 5000 merits off of 500T. Saving even more cash.

Distant systems SHOULD be harder to hold on to. Having less players willing to travel to fortify a system helps to limit the overall expansion of a power.

Look at a power like Mahon - They're so big they literally can't fortify many of their systems. The only reason they are so big is because no other power is attacking them. If some one actually undermined them they would have buckets of systems undermined. If you want to maintain a large amount of space while also sustaining attacks from your enemies you have to work extremely hard to maintain your systems. That's the way it works and it makes sense.

 

[Martin Schou]

Look at a power like Mahon - They're so big they literally can't fortify many of their systems. The only reason they are so big is because no other power is attacking them. If some one actually undermined them they would have buckets of systems undermined.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Seriously - you need to look up what actually happens to Mahon every single cycle. We typically get 30 systems undermined, typically end up being on the receiving end of more than a million merits worth of undermining, and very often end up being undermined for more CC than the regular bottom five have in income.

We don't need to fortify many of our systems because we've carefully built our ecosystem to be extremely profitable, and even if every single one of our systems hit their undermining triggers, we still wouldn't have to fortify a huge amount of systems.

As for Miko's suggestion - that's just going to backfire on Hudson. Quite a lot of fortifiers only fortify until they have 1,500 or 10,000 merits. His suggestion would result in fewer fortification merits being put into Hudson's distant systems, which would work counter to the intention.

 

[Ant_Solo]

The minor factions that would benefit Hudson are virtually unheard of in our systems not to mention that if we moved these factions in we would need to flip our systems away from Federation to Independent and Empire.

The simple fact is that Hudson pledges seem completely unwilling to manipulate the background simulation in their favour. Mahon is almost always subjected to more undermining than Hudson, yet we do far far less fortifications. Not just because we have a better starting point, but also because we've put the effort into manipulating the background simulation in our favour.
.

 

[r4pt012]

I know you don't need to fortify. My point is that if you WANTED to, you would struggle to fortify every single system and many would be left 'Undermined'.

You a stretched thin but you are propped up by your profitable systems.

 

[Martin Schou]

I know you don't need to fortify. My point is that if you WANTED to, you would struggle to fortify every single system and many would be left 'Undermined'.

Our total fortification triggers add up to 502,683 merits. But since there's nothing to do with CC other than expand, we'd have to be absolutely insane to fortify every single one of our systems. If we did that last cycle, we would have had a surplus of about 1,500 CC.

If every single one of our systems are undermined, we'd need to fortify something like 350,000 merits to stay out of turmoil, and we're more than capable of doing that.

You may think we're stretched thin, but we're really not. But we don't get anything free of charge (like combat expansions), and we don't get to avoid wasting more than 1 merit on an already fortified system (unlike outbound fortifications), and we don't have bonuses that makes it ludicrously easy to make money in our space (yay for non-working bonuses for agricultural products and a 50% increase on profits on rare goods), so we don't want to waste our money more than we have to. This is why we only fortify as much as we need to and why we don't push hard on most of our expansions.

 

[Needmoreloot]

Interesting point here... immediately the thought of associated players in solo prepping extremely negative CC systems to exploit the mechanic before loading up on slaves to dump in the bubble.

Although I can see a game of thrones intent for the world (as it presents itself) I am at a loss how it works; I've exploited in anarchy systems for most of my merits

 

[Corrin Avatan]

Interesting point here... immediately the thought of associated players in solo prepping extremely negative CC systems to exploit the mechanic before loading up on slaves to dump in the bubble.

Although I can see a game of thrones intent for the world (as it presents itself) I am at a loss how it works; I've exploited in anarchy systems for most of my merits

I'm going to admit I don't understand the background simulation at all, nor the strategies that are devised by the players who care.

I joined Winters last week. Farmed 5,000 merits in Itsamenits (some anarchy system in Kumo Crew territory) because I thought I could handle being rank 5, but I had a business trip this week, so I won't have the 20 hours or so I need to farm 5,000 again. Was able to farm 800 before I left, so I'll be Rank 4 next week.

It does seem odd to me that in one hour of killing practically ANYTHING in a hostile system, I can make more merits than a level 5 even has the POSSIBILITY to do by doing fortification, unless they pay money. level 5, in an hour, can't even technically break 100 merits in an hour, as they have to at least travel to the nearest control from their HQ.

But how come it counts as undermining Kumo Crew, when I'm killing Patreus Sentinels or Sirius Agents or Shields of Torval? They aren't in control of this system...

Given that the Powers don't seem to have their own agendas in PP, this to me is just a small farming task to do to get an easy 5,000,000 credits. PP would be interesting if it was mini community goals, like "Hey, our Federation representatives in this system are having hard times financially, but we can foster their growth by selling X to them!" or "In order to build this new Capital ship, we need a crapload of Platinum, get on it miners!"

Honestly, if CGs were part of Powerplay (and the CGs were run intelligently) you could have much more of a week-to-week story with each of the Powers. Right now, outside of Galnet, they have no darn personality, and I only see them as a face I get a decent paycheck from.

 

[Miko]

It's funny isn't it. As you say with regards to gaining powerplay points (merits) for killing powers not aligned with the system you're in and yet if you kill the ENEMY agents undermining your HQ you get zero. How strange is that or am I missing something?

 

[Ant_Solo]

yet if you kill the ENEMY agents undermining your HQ you get zero. How strange is that or am I missing something?

Well, the first thing you are missing is that enemy agents can't undermine your HQ.

I should also add that for people that are rank 5 it is much easier to get your merits through fortification, it requires some management and maybe some credits but it is easier.

 

[Stahll Amatin]

IMHO the only real "issue" with power play is that the rewards are all over the place, Some are quite poorly explained (and issue affecting the game in general- having useful or relevant information tucked away in counter-intuitive ways or in some cases completely absent.) And that It's not inherently clear to someone who is just like 'hey cool im gona join up with this faction' what they actually should be doing in the grand scheme of things.

After taking a break from the game i came back to basically nothing (merits wise)

in one day i've made 1,900 merits by doing the "kill federal couriers" undermining goal. mind you on a week-day, After work. Over the weekend i wouldn't be supprised if i break the 10k mark and secure my 50mcr paycheck. On top of this it will open up T5 allotment of Power play comodities making fortify goals using my trading python much more practical.

tldr;
-No need for it to be 'easier'
-No need for rewards to be 'higher'
-Rewards and bonuses should be explained more clearly. Inastead of Relying on players to spend an evening Google-ing each power and what the benefit all mean in gameplay terms, whats the pros, cons, and stats of the unique modules are, etc this information should be easily available IN-Game. the overview tab is a good start, just flesh out the information on the other stuff.
-Rewards and bonuses that go direcly hand-in-hand with the sort of play styles that power would favor (while not being useless in gameplay terms). This already applies mostly, maybe some tweaking could be done.
-Better "at-a-Glance" overview of what I can do right now to help my power advance or secure our position. The control and expand tabs in the power view are quite confusing when your first starting. Even now, if your not heavy into how the background sim works (Im not) its really awkward to discern what would help us the most. Instead im presented with a bunch of numbers and jargon. Let us have a sorting opting on our fortify goals by distance or by upkeep so players can easily target the most valuable systems to fortify. simple tools and explanations in here that make it easy to figure out what i should do to have the biggest impact with the time i have.

 

[Miko]

Well, the first thing you are missing is that enemy agents can't undermine your HQ.

I should also add that for people that are rank 5 it is much easier to get your merits through fortification, it requires some management and maybe some credits but it is easier.

Yeah, well that's true, but you know what I mean regarding killing Enemy in your own territory.

As for the merits being made quicker through fortification at Rating 5, I don't get how that makes any difference. You pay the same overall costs and can accumulate the exact same commodity count as someone at rating 1. Yeah. OK, the first batch is free, but it's hardly significant. It's 500k every 50, 250k every 25, etc. So all comes to the same price. It would take 10 hours to gain 1000 merits at the rate we're issued these commodities at Rating 5. 50 hours to get 5000 merits and that doesn't include the time invested to actually deliver them.

The setup is warped and needs looked at I reckon.

 

[SHEPR0N]

As for the merits being made quicker through fortification at Rating 5, I don't get how that makes any difference. You pay the same overall costs and can accumulate the exact same commodity count as someone at rating 1. Yeah. OK, the first batch is free, but it's hardly significant. It's 500k every 50, 250k every 25, etc. So all comes to the same price. It would take 10 hours to gain 1000 merits at the rate we're issued these commodities at Rating 5. 50 hours to get 5000 merits and that doesn't include the time invested to actually deliver them.

At ranking 5 you get 50 million salary a week. That's enough to sustain your rank 5 indefinetely (with a decent trade ship) by fast tracking fortification/preparation goods. You'll still have our 100% bounty bonus though. So yeah, to keep rank 5 is quite easy with fortification

 

[Miko]

As for the merits being made quicker through fortification at Rating 5, I don't get how that makes any difference. You pay the same overall costs and can accumulate the exact same commodity count as someone at rating 1. Yeah. OK, the first batch is free, but it's hardly significant. It's 500k every 50, 250k every 25, etc. So all comes to the same price. It would take 10 hours to gain 1000 merits at the rate we're issued these commodities at Rating 5. 50 hours to get 5000 merits and that doesn't include the time invested to actually deliver them./QUOTE]

At ranking 5 you get 50 million salary a week. That's enough to sustain your rank 5 indefinetely (with a decent trade ship) by fast tracking fortification/preparation goods. You'll still have our 100% bounty bonus though. So yeah, to keep rank 5 is quite easy with fortification

Yes, that's a valid point, but it goes against the principle of that 50 million credit appeal. Obviously it's true you can cover the expense, but only if you lose 5000 merits. I lost almost 6000 last week due to the decay. That'd be an additional 10 million in expense if I paid to cover the costs of fast tracking.

We can make these points all day, but why can we not agree that those who do more work and make more effort deserve to receive additional merits for their contributions to the power? It doesn't make sense that one jump pays the same as 20.

 

[PeachSlices]

If anything, undermining is not something that should naturally be rewarded more highly than fortification on a time cost basis JUST because it is harder.

Branding fortification as "cheap" and "too easy" is frankly wrong, on so many levels.

Reason:
Protecting your faction has a lot more natural "moral" merit. (see what I did there)

Solution:

If anything fortification/preparation is significantly UNDER rewarded, there should be a 6th or a 7th Tier where fort/prep merit rewards are perhaps 2 for large amounts of merits gained through diligent fortification where the fortification/preparation is done properly and toward profit making enterprises, so not toward loss making expansions, loss making control systems.

This would rely on FDev providing baseline upkeep (the 62.1) missing fron the stats and providing this information in Control View and Preparation Summary.

This would reward the loyal and assist in combatting 5c with a simple solution.