Powerplay How would YOU revive Powerplay?

[Martin Schou]

Perhaps you need to man up a bit. Spend a little less time getting your thrills from spreadsheets and a bit more time encouraging FD to make something more of PP than some bean counting, formula driven snore fest.

And do you have a few hundred thousand pounds to throw at FDev to do that? Because that's what that will take. Maybe you need to grow up and realize that FDev isn't going to make drastic changes to PowerPlay, because dratic changes requires resources, and they've made it perfectly clear that they aren't going to dedicate resources to something that isn't particularly popular.

You can , whine, cry, imagine strangers rubbing one out while staring at spreadsheets (which is a weird thing to imagine, but to each their own), complain, run around screaming your head off all you want - that's not going to change their priorities on how to develop the game. Some of us are grown ups up realise that we have to make do with what we're given - others decide to throw temper tantrums in the hopes that someone will give them exactly what they want.

 

[GoodGorilla]

I believe it needs to be scrapped and overhauled. The change would probably be to dramatic for anything less than an expansion in itself or leave it for the next elite dangerous sequel.

When I was enjoying PP the most, I assumed that everything worked correctly and the major factions were fighting for survival. On top of that I believed that PP should only be allowed in the open mode. If I had my way there would be seasons for PP that would reset about once a year or other conditions. Perhaps the allies conquered the others? There should be a sense of completion when playing power play. I enjoyed the real time galaxy news stuff like ADL becoming ruler, but I felt that kind of news wasn't implemented in the game correctly. Only if there was a way to make the forum resources obsolete rather than the go-to source for how the game works and what is happening. There needs to be more interfaces and everything needs to work right.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Completely overhaul it.

- Make each faction UNIQUE with actual UNIQUE gameplay to each faction - ALL factions have the same IDENTICAL mechanic instead of being DIFFERENT at the moment
- Integrate PP with the regular reputation system
- Have PP factions belonging to a major power that take control over another major power actually start WARS. If the imperial empress sends her goons to plant "evidence of corruption" in federal system it does not matter if those evidence are real, it's literally a hostile takeover by a foreign power, same with Patreus private fleets.

- Stop having factions wanting to murder each other the whole time unless their goals CONFLICT. Princess bluehair wants to liberate slaves, good, she has no problem with the Federation since they FORBID slavery and should rather fight against the old business slave hag who is also imperial.

- Have archon delaine control ONLY Anarchy system and NOT an area, ONLY the system.
- Have archon delaine earn money from OTHER PP faction system and neutral systems within his Anarchy system reach
- HIDE archon delaine's influence on the map from other factions
- ONLY allow other PP factions to find his Anarchy systems if they VISIT it to confirm his factions presence (he works from the shadows as a proper criminal)
- Archon delaine earns PP points by stealing it from OTHER PP factions and not from owned systems (hes a pirate right) so he gains passive points from OTHER factions system he is close to and any stolen materials from faction ships can be used to boost his own takeover of systems
- Faction members belonging to Archon Delaine who bring a system into civil war can install Archon Delaine's faction in that system. If they get majority control the system becomes Anarchy and controlled by the Archon

- Have PP reputation as a value like any other reputation with a faction but add it as a BONUS to minor factions for missions.
- Have the same bonus count as a NEGATIVE reputation when taking jobs within other factions

- Put faction bound equipment as something exotic and expensive and not behind a stupid reputation paywall, they are just equipment and not even very good, just make it far more expensive like +1000% cost for non-faction members.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

And do you have a few hundred thousand pounds to throw at FDev to do that? Because that's what that will take.

They lauded it as a huge expansion and it's VERY thin poorly designed MINI GAME that goes in direct conflict with the rest of the faction system in the game. They could not have spent much money on it considering the poor quality of said system.

- All factions functions mechanically the same
- All factions behave like murderous lunatics where you get points to murder other Pp faction members REGARDLESS if said PP faction is in any way an ENEMY (Princess bluehair and freeing slaves should have no problem with Federation powers since they forbid slavery and yet you get points for killing them)
- All factions forget you within a month
- All factions manage to hold on to technology an no other faction or indivudual has managed to replicate said technology that is ONLY a modified weapon at most (in a galaxy bubble of hundreds of billions)
- PP factions like the IMPERIAL EMPRESS can undermine a system by citing corruption and impose imperial law in a federation system without an all out WAR (It's LITERALLY a hostile takeover by a foreign nation)
- PP factions like patreus, an imperial SENATOR has a private FLEET to "liberate" systems with and no major power think's he's over reaching his power OR creating a diplomatic distaster.
- PP is not in any way tied into the rest of the universe except for at most giving us players a bonus of some kind and in many cases doing so in completely illogical ways (Imperial laws erected in Federation systems...)

It's poorly thought out, designed, presented and at best a RISK game with IDENTICAL mechanic within each faction of Kill, Deliver X or Deliver Y, added some weak mechanics that in no way affect the larger universe.
Perhaps a bit of window dressing to make a turd look sparkly.

And if they could not spend enough money to make it any good they should not have spent money on it at all.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

As a complete PP noob here's what i would do;

•Adjust the decay, so that it decays slower, if your participate regularly, even if not for very long. Decay increases for every week you remain inactive. (Adjust merits required for rank to compensate)
•Add PP missions as a new way to gain merits. These can just be the same as regular missions, that pay in merits or credits, or both. Including passenger missions. But are generally targeted according to PowerPlay.
•Add PP conflict zones as a new way to gain merits steadily. (Less merits per kill to balance constant flow of targets)
•Add lots of helpful tool tips to explain more. I still have no idea what I'm doing, i just know that if i kill certain ships, i get merits. And those merits equal Packhounds in several weeks. Lol
•Off of my first point, I'd allow access to PP weapons after 4 weeks at rank 3. So no more loitering for 3 weeks, then grinding the required merits in one week.

Anything good in there?

 

[Caliber_az]

I have a life and it isn't PP.

When I lookup forum articles about PP and the background, even the simple ones have massive huge pages. I am not looking to earn a college degree here just play a great Space game/sim. Honestly I am not sure sure why we need both PP and factions such as the Alliance. I have yet to find a short enough summary tl/dr that helped me grasp this whole part of the game.

It seems I can carry on doing everything I want in this game and not ever have to concern myself with PP, so why bother. I suspect the majority of commanders in this game are of the same mind set. Right now PP seems so disconnected as to not matter for the average player.

My 2 cents worth, YMMV
Caliber_az

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I have a life and it isn't PP.

When I lookup forum articles about PP and the background, even the simple ones have massive huge pages. I am not looking to earn a college degree here just play a great Space game/sim. Honestly I am not sure sure why we need both PP and factions such as the Alliance. I have yet to find a short enough summary tl/dr that helped me grasp this whole part of the game.

It seems I can carry on doing everything I want in this game and not ever have to concern myself with PP, so why bother. I suspect the majority of commanders in this game are of the same mind set. Right now PP seems so disconnected as to not matter for the average player.

My 2 cents worth, YMMV
Caliber_az

Same here.

I really have no idea what I'm doing. Lol

There's seemingly no "short guide". So i just make it up as I go.
I tried moving the "things" from one place to another. Didn't understand that, or why i was only allowed 10 of them, unless I spent several million credits to fill my cargo hold.

So now i'm in LYR, and I've been "undermining" in Wuru. Why Wuru?
Because the other systems I tried didn't give me merits for murdering their PowerPlay NPC's. Wuru worked, so that's where I went. What have I achieved? No clue. Except an excessively large bounty on my head.

I'm only taking part of pack hound missiles, and they better be fun!
Then I'm off to annoy another power in to giving me goodies. Or i may just go and play the better part of the game. Lol

 

[Captain Undercroft]

I think I agree with the people who think that Powerplay should be more involved with the BGS and Mission board. In fact, I think Powerplay factions should work the same as minor factions albeit on a bigger scale.

For example, lets go with Delaine for an example.

Step 1.
Enter the system and strive to put the system in lock down via the conventional means. How easy this should be should be determined by the type of system you're trying to prep. Small Anarchy and Independent systems should be easier than big Federation, Imperial or Alliance systems.

Step 2.
Powerplay Lockdown leaves the Mission board open. Powerplay faction now offers missions in addition to the existing factions in the system. This activates a CG style tier system where the number of missions completed determines if the PP faction is successful in gaining influence over the system. Missions completed for existing factions would have a negative impact on the the PP faction's gains allowing "resistance" to the PP faction. Should the system be in dispute, two CG style events take place - one for each PP faction.

If the PP faction successfully completes this phase, it becomes a control system and the largest minor faction in the system converts to match the PP faction.

From then on, it behaves the same as the minor faction system but if the PP faction ceases to be the dominant faction in the system for any of the standard BGS reasons, it ceases to be a Control System.



Not saying that the above is perfect or wouldn't have it's own problems but I'd personally have more fun with this than the existing system.

 

[Gully Foyle]

What do you think would "revive"/improve powerplay?

And are you currently in a PP faction and doing PP work?

Take the time limits off your PP faction rank.

Yes and yes.

 

[Seishiroa]

(...) and doing PP work?

You soooo hit the nail on the Head there... simple really. Make it feel less like a Competetive Grind (i.e. Work) and more like an actual story.

Also: SP content.

 

[krylite]

PP has 2 types of activities: combat and hauling. Having jumped back into PP after leaving it long ago, I did some initial math to see how much time I'd have to devote to hauling in order to get to Rating 3 for those highly sought after prismatic shields. I must have been so ignorant my first time at PP that I didn't realize the idiotic time commitment for a new PP player who prefers hauling over combat. As someone stated above, hauling is the most important activity to undertake (specifically fortifications).

10t every 30 minutes. That's 20t per hour (1t = 1 merit).

Rating 3 requires 750 merits. 750t X 1hr/20t = 37.5 hours (not counting travel time to deliver the goods).

Given it can be reduced by reaching Rating 1 in week 1, then Rating 2 in week 2 and maybe Rating 3 in week 3 would reduce it a bit, I discard this strategy as "blazing my own trail" since that is a recipe for "how to play the game."

If anyone at FDev truly believes that expecting a player to devote 37.5 hours in a single week just doing PP hauling is a good or even acceptable game design, I think they need their head examined.

If you have a big enough ship that can do > 200T hauls and about 50 million leftover you can quickly get to rank 5 in 5 weeks and maintain it with fasttrack. Being a hauler for PP merits only, I did it the hard way at first until I finally learned fasttrack was faster effectively since the weekly power salary matches the costs of maintaining rank by fasttrack and also making it much easier to meet the weekly tick deadline.Then you can maintain rank 5 each week within 3 to 7 hours depending on your ship and cargo capacity size which is how most of the rank 5 haulers maintain rank and do the big PP efforts for their power.

I agree PP could have more impact on the BGS and perhaps make some permanent changes to systems, like creating or destroying stations and outposts or affecting the news on galnet and the lore of current ED events.

 

[iFred]

Basically by adding it into the game and implement consequences for everyone, even the non-participants. Otherwise it will be ignored. Like CQC.

That´s the price of "freedom" in this game.

 

[SciTrekker]

If you have a big enough ship that can do > 200T hauls and about 50 million leftover you can quickly get to rank 5 in 5 weeks and maintain it with fasttrack. Being a hauler for PP merits only, I did it the hard way at first until I finally learned fasttrack was faster effectively since the weekly power salary matches the costs of maintaining rank by fasttrack and also making it much easier to meet the weekly tick deadline.Then you can maintain rank 5 each week within 3 to 7 hours depending on your ship and cargo capacity size which is how most of the rank 5 haulers maintain rank and do the big PP efforts for their power.

I agree PP could have more impact on the BGS and perhaps make some permanent changes to systems, like creating or destroying stations and outposts or affecting the news on galnet and the lore of current ED events.

3-7 hrs is still a good chunk of time for players with limited time to play or want to play other games. It's also a big range, I guess based on how one plays. I was giving an example, and you've mostly agreed as several others have, that "PP could have more impact on the BGS" or in other words, make it part of the game and not a separate activity like CQC is. I'm also a proponent for bringing CQC into the game. I'd be more interested in it then.

 

[Caliber_az]

Ok, I admit I know nothing about PP. I am not a noob either, I have way over 1000 hrs of playing time am almost elite in explorer and entrepreneur in trade. Like I mentioned in a previous post, every time I started to get interested in it all i could find was these huge walls of info.

Also since we have already have Feds, Imperials, and Alliance as apposing government structure, what purpose does PP serve. I have no idea why a PP leader could rule (over oversee, not sure what they do) possibly systems of all 3 factions. Anyone have a cliff's notes on this subject?

Give players a reason to care or a way of understanding without needing a degree in political science. So maybe someone can create a 2 minute idiots guide to power play.

Caliber_az

 

[krylite]

3-7 hrs is still a good chunk of time for players with limited time to play or want to play other games. It's also a big range, I guess based on how one plays. I was giving an example, and you've mostly agreed as several others have, that "PP could have more impact on the BGS" or in other words, make it part of the game and not a separate activity like CQC is. I'm also a proponent for bringing CQC into the game. I'd be more interested in it then.

Yeah, my 2nd paragraph was in response to the thread on my thoughts on how to improve powerplay based on my time in powerplay for half a year where I helped my power consolidate and fortify and we've managed to get our power in 3rd place and 2nd place occasionally which isn't bad considering Mahon had an overwelming amount of systems before expansions got tight. Well sure, pp requires some devoted time and choice on how to play ED where it's like another role and there are hundreds of devoted pp players according to the specific power rosters or traffic at headquarters systems. I can cut my rank 5 maintenance time to 3 hrs and use the rest of the time flipping systems for my power which involves doing missions to help factions that are conducive for my power in reducing fortification threshold triggers. The first part was pointing out you don't have to spend 10x more hours each week if you're equipped for powerplay. You could even get by with rank 4 maintenance on less than an hour a week with consolidation vote privilege if time for ED gets tight.

 

[SciTrekker]

Yeah, my 2nd paragraph was in response to the thread on my thoughts on how to improve powerplay based on my time in powerplay for half a year where I helped my power consolidate and fortify and we've managed to get our power in 3rd place and 2nd place occasionally which isn't bad considering Mahon had an overwelming amount of systems before expansions got tight. Well sure, pp requires some devoted time and choice on how to play ED where it's like another role and there are hundreds of devoted pp players according to the specific power rosters or traffic at headquarters systems. I can cut my rank 5 maintenance time to 3 hrs and use the rest of the time flipping systems for my power which involves doing missions to help factions that are conducive for my power in reducing fortification threshold triggers. The first part was pointing out you don't have to spend 10x more hours each week if you're equipped for powerplay. You could even get by with rank 4 maintenance on less than an hour a week with consolidation vote privilege if time for ED gets tight.

PP needs more motivation to play it - like crime & punishment needs to be added too, but that's for another thread. I don't care about the flipping of systems and whatever nonsense unless there's an impact to my actions, I can participate in PP by playing all aspects of the game (not just hauling & combat) and earn my merits, I get merits for killing enemies in my PP major faction's controlled, maybe even exploited systems, and there's a time-respected reward for me to do it. At the moment it's only Rating 3 for me. I'm glad ED offers others the motivation to get and maintain Rating 4 or 5, it's just not there for me.

I appreciate the tips krylite, but I was well aware of them - I just don't consider the current iteration of PP to be a fun or motivating activity. I do think PP as it is today is only a [weak] foundation and needs a large amount of attention to make it enjoyable and motivating. I also think FDev needs some new blood at the design helm, but that too is for another thread.

 

[Soopyyy]

No merit decay. Absolutely atrocious game design.

 

[EXE Sasser]

Powerplay is something id love to try as a different way to play the game in my opinion. However, like all NPC ships within the 2.2 Update regardless of their combat rating there's still this feel of "God Mode" within them which really... really puts me off bounty hunting and general PVE.

For me, its the simple step of building a ship that more than combat worthy, and I know for a fact I don't have the materials and stuff to engineer the ship. So, even if I attempted killing a ship for Merits for the chosen power, knowing my luck id walk away with like 20% hull just after one ship.

Saying that, 30Million Credits to spend. Got a Type 7 cargo fitted with a SRV bay for Planet missions currently in the Vega System doing missions to increase Fed Rank.. any suggestions as to what ship I can use for Powerplay?? Was thinking about a vulture.

 

[MarcusKross]

Redesign it completely.

Give every power their own characteristics which influence the choice of power for players. Make the gameplay fun and meaningful and reward players according to their success and loyalty. Connect it with BGS in such a way that doing missions for or against powers are a viable option to prepare/fortify/undermine.

Basically make it a worthwhile path to pursue with lots of fun gameplay possibilities, not a lifeless and dull experience; but of course to achive this the game needs to have solid core mechanics... so not gonna happen.

 

[kilvenny]

Players give allegiance to a faction and each faction belongs to one of the powers. The mission board shows missions for your faction that support the powerplay activities and these feed into the powerplay system. For a full restructure I would remove the powers and just simply have factions and do the power play activities at the faction level.