Im worried Fd doesnt know that some of us enjoy powerplay.

[Krieger]

No need to worry. However, when Captain Hammer says, "FD are the only people who would have concrete proof that people like it," he's missing the statistics by which FD will be measuring the success. The correct barometer of success is new sales.

New sales is the barometer because that's the only significant way that FD makes money.
They look at their sales figures and say: "Has our rate-of-sales figure increased since we introduced Powerplay?"
The answer is undeniably, "Yes."

They can also go on to speculate:
"Would it hurt our sales to leave it there?"
"No."
"Would it hurt our sales to remove it?"
"Possibly in the short term. Who knows in two or three year's time."

So it stays. For now at least.

I don't like it. I don't play it. According to the poll, I'm one of the 4 out of every 5 that don't. But that statistic doesn't matter as long as they sell more and more games. The amount of people who moan doesn't matter if FD sell more games with Powerplay faster than they did without Powerplay!

So don't worry.

That is an interesting theory but we don't know the sales figures either.

I have a different theory. I think Powerplay is the pet project of a few senior developers. It is a type of game they personally like to play. But Powerplay sits in a totally different genre of games (3rd person view, serving a master) than Elite (1st person game, serving yourself). To convince the Frontier management I think they pitched the idea to use the Elite Galaxy as a common foundation for many Elite-themed games (Powerplay, CQC, Planet landings + FPS) as the long term business case for Elite: Dangerous.

A big disatvantage is that development effort will be stretched thinner when more games are added to the Elite Galaxy. More importantly, these games will start to interfere with each other via the common background. Powerplay does this already but it is explained away as "using commanders to drive the backgound simulation of Elite". They probably hope to establish some synergy between the games but that requires a solid overall design and a lot of testing. Especially if the game genres don't match a disrupting effect is more likely IMHO. I hope I'm wrong but I cringe thinking about the secretive "Next Big Thing" for Elite: Dangerous they have announced.

--update:
Thinking about it some more I wonder why they didn't create a second inhabited bubble for Powerplay on the other side of the Elite Galaxy. Call it the Delta Quadrant or so . That way there is no interference between two different genre games giving more freedom to both to develop further. And giving the added bonus for players to cross the Galaxy to visit truly different worlds governed by different game laws and masters.

Just my 2cr.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Take a deep look into the mechanics of powerplay and also towards the actual factions within the game.

Then look at the actions a faction is asking you to do and if the action seems logical.

The greatest problem is not merits and merit decay but rather the complete insanity behind the factions allowed actions towards each other.
Not to mention the difference in power.

Zachary Hudson is THE leader of the Federation and he tells his followers to go to ANY other faction and KILL THEM. Why? Why would he risk inciting intergalactic war by sending illegal combatants to another galactic nation to commit murder?

What does he earn by murdering the travelling salesmen of Li Yong-Rui?

Imagine if the British Labour party went over to the US to murder Apple employees by order of the Queen of England and the US is 'fine' with that.

Imagine Obama ordering drone strikes against IKEA employees and stores?

Powerplay is the cold war on trippy drugs where all the spies are wearing the flag of their countries fully visible.

 

[Kayweg]

I'm not sure why you would worry.

You think there's a chance FD could remove the center piece of the 1.3 update, content they've spent thousands of many man hours on ?

I wouldn't worry about that for a second.

PP needs a lot of work, that's the one thing FD needs to be aware of.

Judging by this thread, they clearly are:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=169489

If they manage to improve PP enough to draw more people in is a different matter, but i can't see a scenario where they'd simply remove it.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Take a deep look into the mechanics of powerplay and also towards the actual factions within the game.

Then look at the actions a faction is asking you to do and if the action seems logical.

The greatest problem is not merits and merit decay but rather the complete insanity behind the factions allowed actions towards each other.
Not to mention the difference in power.

Zachary Hudson is THE leader of the Federation and he tells his followers to go to ANY other faction and KILL THEM. Why? Why would he risk inciting intergalactic war by sending illegal combatants to another galactic nation to commit murder?

What does he earn by murdering the travelling salesmen of Li Yong-Rui?

Imagine if the British Labour party went over to the US to murder Apple employees by order of the Queen of England and the US is 'fine' with that.

Imagine Obama ordering drone strikes against IKEA employees and stores?

Powerplay is the cold war on trippy drugs where all the spies are wearing the flag of their countries fully visible.

Hes a war mongerer awarding something ethereal as MERITS to you for proof of action. Its not so strange really In fact All of the powers make sense to me. Lavigney roots out corruption, aisling is a media darling and uses her fame to free slaves, mahon is boring and all is as it should be! (that last part is hyperbole)

I think the complaint that there actions "dont make sense" is one of the weakest against power play. "But how does full on war not happen when the pres himself pays cmdr's to be a " Well you need only look at our world. All Putin has to do is take some patches off of the uniforms of his soldiers and then has them go mess stuff up and we still dont go to war. Why? well various logistical reasons truly and its the same here. Hell we have captured troops telling the UN that that is what they are doing and still we dont act apart from trying to isolate them economically which the feds and empire seem to be so yeah your seeing something im not.

I mean im sure there are captured pilots that can attest that they have merits to there faction but it doesnt say how on the screen. Sure the pilot claims its for killing imperials but who's gonna take his word on it or hell even still act on it?

 

[Sandmann]

Im worried that with all the negativity going around that FD doesnt know that alot of people really do enjoy powerplay.

I shouldn't worry too much if I were you. FD have exact numbers for just how many people play PP regularly, and even if not there's a poll that'll show them. Roughly one person in five, plays it, and given that many of them only intend to do so until they get their favourite bonus item then will quit, it's fair to say that the number of people who ENJOY it is significantly less than 1 in 5.

I doubt that it'll disappear though, the devs worked too hard on it to publicly admit that it's a flop. Even now they are throwing good development money after bad trying to "fix" it, when they would be better served by putting those resources into developing core features.

 

[FiddenUK]

I think that most people really want to like it but in its current state its simply not worth bothering with.

I'm sure its future is safe, they are not going to trash it.

Its more a question of how will it evolve and how many participants will it win back.

Hit the nail on the head! +rep

 

[Sire]

Im worried Fd doesnt know that some of us enjoy powerplay.

Don't worry, they for sure know that about 18% of forum users still love PP.

 

[jadefriendly]

I'd have no problem with Powerplay if it wasn't for the fact it seems to be the top priority for FD, while many things that were claimed in the Kickstarter / DDFs - and that most people have been asking for since launch - are still not sorted. And I don't mean planetary landings / first person.

Background sim, working economy, passengers, crews, missions, variation on assets / station interiors, NPC AI / 2nd tier NPCs, USS system, etc.

I'm sure they are all being worked on, but the focus and chatter from the devs seems to constantly revolve around PP

anyways. It's still an ace game. I'm still playing. I still love it.
But I do look at X-BTF / Darkstar / Frontier II First Encounters / Privateer etc. - there are so many examples that could be followed to hugely enrich the playing environment for all - PP's and regular CMDRs.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

No need to worry. However, when Captain Hammer says, "FD are the only people who would have concrete proof that people like it," he's missing the statistics by which FD will be measuring the success. The correct barometer of success is new sales.

New sales is the barometer because that's the only significant way that FD makes money.
They look at their sales figures and say: "Has our rate-of-sales figure increased since we introduced Powerplay?"
The answer is undeniably, "Yes."

They can also go on to speculate:
"Would it hurt our sales to leave it there?"
"No."
"Would it hurt our sales to remove it?"
"Possibly in the short term. Who knows in two or three year's time."

So it stays. For now at least.

I don't like it. I don't play it. According to the poll, I'm one of the 4 out of every 5 that don't. But that statistic doesn't matter as long as they sell more and more games. The amount of people who moan doesn't matter if FD sell more games with Powerplay faster than they did without Powerplay!

So don't worry.

I suspect that they are not really in a position where the choices are 'kill it' or 'keep it'. Or, rather, there is at least one more alternative, which is 'fix it'. So on the sales discussion, the much more interesting question is "We have X resources available to work on stuff before now and a release on Y. Will we sell more if those resources fix power play, or built feature Z".

For many of us, work on power play is much less important than work on a long list of features.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I suspect that they are not really in a position where the choices are 'kill it' or 'keep it'. Or, rather, there is at least one more alternative, which is 'fix it'. So on the sales discussion, the much more interesting question is "We have X resources available to work on stuff before now and a release on Y. Will we sell more if those resources fix power play, or built feature Z".

For many of us, work on power play is much less important than work on a long list of features.

The question is how far they are willing to go in order to fix it.

Powerplay is a good IDEA but the implementation is horrible.

 

[Tarman]

Im worried that with all the negativity going around that FD doesnt know that alot of people really do enjoy powerplay. For me I just make sure to not do it a whole lot. Im not rich so I do what I can to support my power after making money as a trader or bounty hunter. I dont grind and I dont care about reaching rank 5, Usually I just go for rank 3 or 4.

What do you guys think do you think the devs know that we dont all hate it? How bout the devs that frequent the forums let me know so that I wont have to worry.

I should add that I do want improvement to powerplay just that i dont think its "trash" or needs to go away.

If you've read the devpostings in the three separate Feedback threads on PP you'll know it's not going anywhere any time soon. That's quite separate from the massive debate of its worthiness. It's a bit triage room in a warzone hospital feeling, but so far no horse-doctor rifle to the head even remotely discussed from FD's end.

 

[Winterwalker]

For me PP represents the barebones basics of something very cool.
Needs work, possibly a facelift, but the background of the idea? I like.

 

[Zmaj od Bosne]

Im worried that with all the negativity going around that FD doesnt know that alot of people really do enjoy powerplay. For me I just make sure to not do it a whole lot. Im not rich so I do what I can to support my power after making money as a trader or bounty hunter. I dont grind and I dont care about reaching rank 5, Usually I just go for rank 3 or 4. What do you guys think do you think the devs know that we dont all hate it? How bout the devs that frequent the forums let me know so that I wont have to worry.I should add that I do want improvement to powerplay just that i dont think its "trash" or needs to go away.

You don't need to worry since FD love Power Play more than anything. It is clear that there is a small minority of players who enjoy PP, but it seems to the rest of us that FD is devoting 90% of development resources on something that 10% of players actually enjoy. From what I'm reading it might be even less than 10% since most people playing PP only do it to get the rewards and than they are out. A lot of players feel that FD is not working on improving the game but instead working on adding more half baked features that nobody asked for. That is the reason for all the negativity.

- - - Updated - - -

No need to worry. However, when Captain Hammer says, "FD are the only people who would have concrete proof that people like it," he's missing the statistics by which FD will be measuring the success. The correct barometer of success is new sales. New sales is the barometer because that's the only significant way that FD makes money.They look at their sales figures and say: "Has our rate-of-sales figure increased since we introduced Powerplay?"The answer is undeniably, "Yes."They can also go on to speculate:"Would it hurt our sales to leave it there?""No.""Would it hurt our sales to remove it?""Possibly in the short term. Who knows in two or three year's time."So it stays. For now at least.I don't like it. I don't play it. According to the poll, I'm one of the 4 out of every 5 that don't. But that statistic doesn't matter as long as they sell more and more games. The amount of people who moan doesn't matter if FD sell more games with Powerplay faster than they did without Powerplay!So don't worry.

If this Power Play debacle continues it will hurt sales in a major way come expansion time.

 

[babelfisch]

You don't need to worry since FD love Power Play more than anything. It is clear that there is a small minority of players who enjoy PP, but it seems to the rest of us that FD is devoting 90% of development resources on something that 10% of players actually enjoy. From what I'm reading it might be even less than 10% since most people playing PP only do it to get the rewards and than they are out. A lot of players feel that FD is not working on improving the game but instead working on adding more half baked features that nobody asked for. That is the reason for all the negativity.

- - - Updated - - -

If this Power Play debacle continues it will hurt sales in a major way come expansion time.

The negativity you are talking about is there since alpha and it doesn't matter if it is about CGs, speed limits, offline, crime system, FF, shared galaxy, Xbox, mac, cqc or whatever. Talk about stuff hurting sales is also there since release and so far it didn't happen.

 

[CMDR Mansoul]

I'd have no problem with Powerplay if it wasn't for the fact it seems to be the top priority for FD, while many things that were claimed in the Kickstarter / DDFs - and that most people have been asking for since launch - are still not sorted. And I don't mean planetary landings / first person.

Background sim, working economy, passengers, crews, missions, variation on assets / station interiors, NPC AI / 2nd tier NPCs, USS system, etc.

I'm sure they are all being worked on, but the focus and chatter from the devs seems to constantly revolve around PP

anyways. It's still an ace game. I'm still playing. I still love it.
But I do look at X-BTF / Darkstar / Frontier II First Encounters / Privateer etc. - there are so many examples that could be followed to hugely enrich the playing environment for all - PP's and regular CMDRs.

Don't forget the bl**dy ship names. A feature so trivial to implement, it's boggling the mind how we can not even name our ships.

 

[LeetNoob]

You don't need to worry since FD love Power Play more than anything. It is clear that there is a small minority of players who enjoy PP, but it seems to the rest of us that FD is devoting 90% of development resources on something that 10% of players actually enjoy. From what I'm reading it might be even less than 10% since most people playing PP only do it to get the rewards and than they are out. A lot of players feel that FD is not working on improving the game but instead working on adding more half baked features that nobody asked for. That is the reason for all the negativity.

Yup, ED love time sinks so much they created a time sink for their developers.
The power play update reminded me of that morning everyone woke up to find U2's new album in there iTunes. No one asked for it, and now it's here, very few want it.

 

[Evil]

Im worried that with all the negativity going around that FD doesnt know that alot of people really do enjoy powerplay. For me I just make sure to not do it a whole lot. Im not rich so I do what I can to support my power after making money as a trader or bounty hunter. I dont grind and I dont care about reaching rank 5, Usually I just go for rank 3 or 4.

What do you guys think do you think the devs know that we dont all hate it? How bout the devs that frequent the forums let me know so that I wont have to worry.

I should add that I do want improvement to powerplay just that i dont think its "trash" or needs to go away.

Its ok, its here to stay, they just updated the formula to ensure that its on track for whatever their internal needs for PP are.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

i dabbled, have decided to backburner it for now and come back to it one day. I am glad its in there however (although whether or not I would have preferred to them have gotten more DDA mechanics in 1st and added PP later is a different discussion )

either way, I think it is fair to say, love it, hate it, or do not care, PP is unlikely to be going anywhere.

 

[Angus]

Take a deep look into the mechanics of powerplay and also towards the actual factions within the game.

Then look at the actions a faction is asking you to do and if the action seems logical.

The greatest problem is not merits and merit decay but rather the complete insanity behind the factions allowed actions towards each other.

Yes. Powerplay is not narrative driven, its process driven.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Yes. Powerplay is not narrative driven, its process driven.

Which really sucks if one is a roleplayer or at least chose to follow a faction due to it's ideals.

If the ideals are never followed why are we even asked to be interested in a faction.