Sadly Odyssey is not THAT update for us poor powerplayers, so I will be back to my usual old proposing and brainstorming hoping that a developer will read this and maybe will find some ideas useful for a possible hypothetical future major redesign of Powerplay, to make it the MMO game mechanic this game desperately needs.
In all these years of proposals (which many of them I do not consider that good myself now
) I've come with the conclusion that Powerplay should take the best features of game mechanics that already exist in Elite Dangerous and yeah, making them Open Only, even if totally optional for casual players that are not interested in the MMO Competitive side of the game.
In this proposal I will take for granted that whoever is reading is already familiar with current mechanics: incomes, upkeeps, triggers, how turmoils work etc, if you want to contribute consider this: you must know what you are talking about (and I hope, even if I have my doubts, that developers know what I am talking about. )
So let's start this, it's gonna be long and tedious, only Powerplay nerds allowed!
1. General Mechanics
One of the major problems with current Powerplay is how defence is highly advantaged over offence, mostly because fortifying a system usually means securing it from any kind of attack because triggers are not competitive and because even in case of turmoil those systems will never be one of the systems in danger to be lost. To solve this the fortification/undermining mechanics should be changed to competitive triggers, with single systems able to go to turmoil even if the CCs are not below zero, especially because one other big change would be to get rid of overhead.
I know it's a big change and apparently it doesn't makes sense especially considering the obvious surplus of CCs a Power would have at the end of the cycle, but I will talk about what to do with these CCs later, I promise.
So for now let's focus on that: no overhead, same income, higher upkeeps to somehow counter the absence of overhead and competitive triggers, with both the fortification and undermining trigger depending exclusively on the distance to the headquarter (no more BGS influence over triggers or consolidation bonus): a system would go turmoil if its neat income will be negative at the end of the cycle, making the formerly known as "canceled system" go turmoil too if their upkeep is higher than their income (it would be helpful to naturally shake off bad control systems or in case of weaponised). A system would be considered fortified if the fortification is +100% than the undermining, on the contrary a system would be undermined if it's +100% than the fortification: if the turmoil is confirmed the next cycle the system is lost. This would make the galaxy much more dynamic and interesting, with systems lost and conquered much more often.
Considering this new Powerplay it's obvious that the old ways to gain merits are not suitable anymore, as things like snipes (because defence in this case would be disatvantaged), powerplay themed missions would be required for both defence and offence (as it was originally designed by the way): ALL the game mechanics should be covered by missions, trading, combat, piracy, exploration and mining too, driven by missions that will give merits to the Power for trigger calculation and to the CMDR to measure their involvement and their ranks (I will cover this later too), these merits will be assigned in real time at mission completion, making clear to the players where their contribution is more needed for their Power.
2. Preparations and expansions
This part should basically remain the same, with the only difference that prepration would not grant any merits to the players: the process of preapartion (and subsequent expansion) should be something a player willingly decide to do, every preparation should be voted with a aye/nay system, closing them 24 hours before the tick to leve time to people to vote accordingly.
3. Powerplay and BGS
As I mentioned before Powerplay triggers should not be affected by BGS anymore in this way, but being Powerplay basically the macropolitics layer in the galactic bubble, it's obvious that it should have a major effect over BGS, aside the different peculiar effects over security, trading etc we all are already familiar with, Powerplay should favour heavily the minor factions with correspondant alligeance, to help shape the Galaxy in a congruous way: federal factions should be favoured under Hudson and Winters, same goes for Imperial factions under the Imperial Powers and so on, with different modifiers considering the alligeance (for example, influence doubled for the factions of the same alligeance in case of a Superpower, halved for enemy Superpowers and regular for independents, in case of Independent powers doubled for independent factions and regular for any Superpower aligned faction, this is to "simulate" how independent factions are somehow favoured over factions alligned to enemy superpowers and how independent Powers are less effective in countering factions backed up by the different Superpowers). These effects over influence should be present but not impassable, a organised PMF should be able to have its chances even in enemy territory, and with the mechanics described in point 1. they could even be able to try and free their systems from an undesired Power to chose any Power of their choice and try to make it its own ruler.
4. The role of PvP
Let's get this straigh, Powerplay should be an end-game MMO competitive game mechanic, Open Only is mandatory at this point, even more: pledged players should be forced to Open unless they decide to unpledge, and in this case the cooldown for it should be pretty long, like 30 days, before they can pledge again. Powerplay must become something a player willingly decide to engage with, considering the consequences: to do this we need to move Powerplay modules to tech brokers too, so module shoppers that are not interested in Powerplay at all can have an alternative way to obtain those modules (buying those with materials, as it happened with recent CG module rewards). PvP actions like blockades, escorts, patroling etc would make Powerplay even more rich and different from the rest of the game, giving PvP context. And yeah, we all know the instances issues and how ports can actually be blocked, but with the competitive triggers mechanics described in point 1. it would be mitigated, and as I always say, Open Only Powerplay is not about I want necessarily to attack an enemy, it's about that enemy being in the conditions to be attacked by somebody else. Finally: a pledged CMDR should be not able to block any other pledged CMDR, aside for comms.
5. CG-like rewards
So at this point we've got this surplus of CCs and players doing a lot of merits for their Powers, with a high risk of being sent to the rebuy screen, how can we reward them? The answer has always been there: Community Goals.
In CGs we've got personal Participation Rewards for the most contributing CMDRs which become higher reaching the higher Tiers, and it would fit perfectly to Powerplay: of course merits would measure the Participation (giving a personal bonus in merits to CMDR contributing where it's most needed, like defending systems being undermined, or reducing these personal merits in systems already fortified, same goes for already undermined enemy systems etc), and about Tiers is where Command Capitals would come handy, measuring for real how much that Power is healthy and can reward its players.
Basically the more the CCs the higher the rewards for the players, with the top tier powerplay bonus being available for a wider part of CMDRs for every tier reached. In this way people will be encouraged to play for their Power in the best way, because there's a personal gain in doing so in terms of credits and other rewards.
6. Advantages and disadvantages of this proposal
This Powerplay would have the big advantage to nullify 5C, it would make it free from its bonds with BGS (a little secret: we all powerplayers basically do BGS because we've got to do it for the triggers ), will help shape the Galaxy accordingly to macropolitics (no more senseless governments for Hudson and Aisling Duval) and will give Powerplayers the possibility to play the game in a more "complete" way, without focusing in just hauling and shooting at defenceless NPCs, it would make PvP meaningful for game mechanics, would make it completely optional for the casual player just interested in modules and let's me say that it would be much more funny to play. It would be easier to spot botters and cheaters too.
And what about the disadvantages?
Well I know that anything "open only" is very divisive in the community, probably some people are afraid that it would be the first step towards an open only mayhem where gankers can seal-club anything they want, spreading toxicity around the galaxy, but consider this: gankers will probably pledge to some Power at some point to have some fun, so it's a win-win situation for anybody who's not interested in MMO-mechanics at all. I know it would be a big change in the game, but at this point I believe it's time for Elite Dangerous to offer at least one organic way to play the game competitively, with basically no effect over the rest of the game.
Thanks a lot for reading until now and please share a comment, possibly some relevant technical discussions about game mechanics, let's not make this become the usual "flood-white-noise" thread by people only interested in defending the "all modes are equal" crusade, we do not gank casuals, we just want to have something organic to play with, competing with real, instanced people, not spreadsheets.
In all these years of proposals (which many of them I do not consider that good myself now
) I've come with the conclusion that Powerplay should take the best features of game mechanics that already exist in Elite Dangerous and yeah, making them Open Only, even if totally optional for casual players that are not interested in the MMO Competitive side of the game.In this proposal I will take for granted that whoever is reading is already familiar with current mechanics: incomes, upkeeps, triggers, how turmoils work etc, if you want to contribute consider this: you must know what you are talking about (and I hope, even if I have my doubts, that developers know what I am talking about.
)So let's start this, it's gonna be long and tedious, only Powerplay nerds allowed!
1. General Mechanics
One of the major problems with current Powerplay is how defence is highly advantaged over offence, mostly because fortifying a system usually means securing it from any kind of attack because triggers are not competitive and because even in case of turmoil those systems will never be one of the systems in danger to be lost. To solve this the fortification/undermining mechanics should be changed to competitive triggers, with single systems able to go to turmoil even if the CCs are not below zero, especially because one other big change would be to get rid of overhead.
I know it's a big change and apparently it doesn't makes sense especially considering the obvious surplus of CCs a Power would have at the end of the cycle, but I will talk about what to do with these CCs later, I promise.
So for now let's focus on that: no overhead, same income, higher upkeeps to somehow counter the absence of overhead and competitive triggers, with both the fortification and undermining trigger depending exclusively on the distance to the headquarter (no more BGS influence over triggers or consolidation bonus): a system would go turmoil if its neat income will be negative at the end of the cycle, making the formerly known as "canceled system" go turmoil too if their upkeep is higher than their income (it would be helpful to naturally shake off bad control systems or in case of weaponised). A system would be considered fortified if the fortification is +100% than the undermining, on the contrary a system would be undermined if it's +100% than the fortification: if the turmoil is confirmed the next cycle the system is lost. This would make the galaxy much more dynamic and interesting, with systems lost and conquered much more often.
Considering this new Powerplay it's obvious that the old ways to gain merits are not suitable anymore, as things like snipes (because defence in this case would be disatvantaged), powerplay themed missions would be required for both defence and offence (as it was originally designed by the way): ALL the game mechanics should be covered by missions, trading, combat, piracy, exploration and mining too, driven by missions that will give merits to the Power for trigger calculation and to the CMDR to measure their involvement and their ranks (I will cover this later too), these merits will be assigned in real time at mission completion, making clear to the players where their contribution is more needed for their Power.
2. Preparations and expansions
This part should basically remain the same, with the only difference that prepration would not grant any merits to the players: the process of preapartion (and subsequent expansion) should be something a player willingly decide to do, every preparation should be voted with a aye/nay system, closing them 24 hours before the tick to leve time to people to vote accordingly.
3. Powerplay and BGS
As I mentioned before Powerplay triggers should not be affected by BGS anymore in this way, but being Powerplay basically the macropolitics layer in the galactic bubble, it's obvious that it should have a major effect over BGS, aside the different peculiar effects over security, trading etc we all are already familiar with, Powerplay should favour heavily the minor factions with correspondant alligeance, to help shape the Galaxy in a congruous way: federal factions should be favoured under Hudson and Winters, same goes for Imperial factions under the Imperial Powers and so on, with different modifiers considering the alligeance (for example, influence doubled for the factions of the same alligeance in case of a Superpower, halved for enemy Superpowers and regular for independents, in case of Independent powers doubled for independent factions and regular for any Superpower aligned faction, this is to "simulate" how independent factions are somehow favoured over factions alligned to enemy superpowers and how independent Powers are less effective in countering factions backed up by the different Superpowers). These effects over influence should be present but not impassable, a organised PMF should be able to have its chances even in enemy territory, and with the mechanics described in point 1. they could even be able to try and free their systems from an undesired Power to chose any Power of their choice and try to make it its own ruler.
4. The role of PvP
Let's get this straigh, Powerplay should be an end-game MMO competitive game mechanic, Open Only is mandatory at this point, even more: pledged players should be forced to Open unless they decide to unpledge, and in this case the cooldown for it should be pretty long, like 30 days, before they can pledge again. Powerplay must become something a player willingly decide to engage with, considering the consequences: to do this we need to move Powerplay modules to tech brokers too, so module shoppers that are not interested in Powerplay at all can have an alternative way to obtain those modules (buying those with materials, as it happened with recent CG module rewards). PvP actions like blockades, escorts, patroling etc would make Powerplay even more rich and different from the rest of the game, giving PvP context. And yeah, we all know the instances issues and how ports can actually be blocked, but with the competitive triggers mechanics described in point 1. it would be mitigated, and as I always say, Open Only Powerplay is not about I want necessarily to attack an enemy, it's about that enemy being in the conditions to be attacked by somebody else. Finally: a pledged CMDR should be not able to block any other pledged CMDR, aside for comms.
5. CG-like rewards
So at this point we've got this surplus of CCs and players doing a lot of merits for their Powers, with a high risk of being sent to the rebuy screen, how can we reward them? The answer has always been there: Community Goals.
In CGs we've got personal Participation Rewards for the most contributing CMDRs which become higher reaching the higher Tiers, and it would fit perfectly to Powerplay: of course merits would measure the Participation (giving a personal bonus in merits to CMDR contributing where it's most needed, like defending systems being undermined, or reducing these personal merits in systems already fortified, same goes for already undermined enemy systems etc), and about Tiers is where Command Capitals would come handy, measuring for real how much that Power is healthy and can reward its players.
Basically the more the CCs the higher the rewards for the players, with the top tier powerplay bonus being available for a wider part of CMDRs for every tier reached. In this way people will be encouraged to play for their Power in the best way, because there's a personal gain in doing so in terms of credits and other rewards.
6. Advantages and disadvantages of this proposal
This Powerplay would have the big advantage to nullify 5C, it would make it free from its bonds with BGS (a little secret: we all powerplayers basically do BGS because we've got to do it for the triggers
), will help shape the Galaxy accordingly to macropolitics (no more senseless governments for Hudson and Aisling Duval) and will give Powerplayers the possibility to play the game in a more "complete" way, without focusing in just hauling and shooting at defenceless NPCs, it would make PvP meaningful for game mechanics, would make it completely optional for the casual player just interested in modules and let's me say that it would be much more funny to play. It would be easier to spot botters and cheaters too.And what about the disadvantages?
Well I know that anything "open only" is very divisive in the community, probably some people are afraid that it would be the first step towards an open only mayhem where gankers can seal-club anything they want, spreading toxicity around the galaxy, but consider this: gankers will probably pledge to some Power at some point to have some fun, so it's a win-win situation for anybody who's not interested in MMO-mechanics at all. I know it would be a big change in the game, but at this point I believe it's time for Elite Dangerous to offer at least one organic way to play the game competitively, with basically no effect over the rest of the game.
Thanks a lot for reading until now and please share a comment, possibly some relevant technical discussions about game mechanics, let's not make this become the usual "flood-white-noise" thread by people only interested in defending the "all modes are equal" crusade, we do not gank casuals, we just want to have something organic to play with, competing with real, instanced people, not spreadsheets.
