There is a PMF near Harma that I'd always run across (actually two of them) so its not all Voodoo at all. Not sure what region they were from but I always had to tiptoe around them since I might have broken a few of their things.
Incrementally Improving PowerPlay - Make PowerPlay Open-Only
- Thread starter CMDR Foursyth
- Start date
There is a PMF near Harma that I'd always run across (actually two of them) so its not all Voodoo at all. Not sure what region they were from but I always had to tiptoe around them since I might have broken a few of their things.
This proposal still allows module shopping and getting to R5 for the salary in solo - those seem to be popular activities for people who don't actually want the competitive part of PowerPlay, they just want money and modules - which is fair enough. The difference is that this only affects the player, not the power. So in solo a player can prepare a system all they want - they get merits, but it doesn't affect the power in any way.
The idea that those interested in Power Play are already playing it is, frankly, wrong.
I have toyed with it. Ran cargo for the Federation for a while until I realized it's completely pointless. Sure, you can get a module, if you really want it, and a reasonable weekly credit allotment if you quit your day job to do it...but it offers nothing else to the player. Right now I'm waiting on week 4 with LYR to farm my 750 merits so I can unlock and buy 20-30 Packhounds. After that, I'm done. DONE. There is no other reason for me to participate, even though I would like to go back to flying for the Federation...if there was a point.
If it was changed into something that actually mattered...something with significant consequences that someone would expect when a major state takes over an area...something that actually rewarded the player for their efforts (like exclusive modules, ranks, ships, benefits, etc. that are only available so long as you are making the effort). If PP were changed to have such stark affects on the bubble, it would require either 1) Open-exclusive to participate (so you can be challenged) or 2) make NPCs far more dangerous and aggressive than they are now. And since either suggestion tends to mine mountains of salt...I guess I'll be leaving PP again after I have my Packhounds.
I have toyed with it. Ran cargo for the Federation for a while until I realized it's completely pointless. Sure, you can get a module, if you really want it, and a reasonable weekly credit allotment if you quit your day job to do it...but it offers nothing else to the player. Right now I'm waiting on week 4 with LYR to farm my 750 merits so I can unlock and buy 20-30 Packhounds. After that, I'm done. DONE. There is no other reason for me to participate, even though I would like to go back to flying for the Federation...if there was a point.
If it was changed into something that actually mattered...something with significant consequences that someone would expect when a major state takes over an area...something that actually rewarded the player for their efforts (like exclusive modules, ranks, ships, benefits, etc. that are only available so long as you are making the effort). If PP were changed to have such stark affects on the bubble, it would require either 1) Open-exclusive to participate (so you can be challenged) or 2) make NPCs far more dangerous and aggressive than they are now. And since either suggestion tends to mine mountains of salt...I guess I'll be leaving PP again after I have my Packhounds.
Let me address this specifically. There is of course no way to KNOW for sure because as you say instancing sucks. And PP being a hotbed of lies and fabrications, it's hard to trust anybody. But here's what we do know.
Let's say there's Power A and Power B, and Power B has two factions - C and D. They're pledged to the same power, but they tag their ships differently. It's not uncommon.
If you, a random player, were to go to a system that Power A was expanding you, and just kinda hung out, you would clearly see a regular stream of haulers going through the system, and the expansion would increase in rough proportion to the traffic. You're not going to see everyone, but a fair number. You will probably also see interceptors from Faction C and Faction D pop in and shoot at them now and then. All good.
If on the other hand you go to Power B's expansions, so will see haulers from Faction C and interceptors from Power A, and they will fight and all that good stuff. But no haulers from Faction D. And that's not because Faction D doesn't haul - the expansion totals are increasing at a rate that would require both C and D to haul. And yet... they are missing. So even with "instancing sucks" we're seeing a decent number of interactions. But one faction is mysteriously missing from one very specific part of the game.
The other question is - let's say it truly is all down to sucky instancing, and everybody is already playing PP in open. Which means OOPP has no effect, because we're already there. Cool! So nobody minds if OOPP is required, we all nod to this rules change, home for tea and medals! I would honestly love this to be the case.
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It's just another reason to clean current mess, those who are only interested in "rewards" get new content, so we can leave power play to veterans interested in pvp and higher level gameplay, of course power play need much more work than changing to open, but this is easier.
I see in comments that power play need real rewards in various topics about PP, and i agree with this, but those rewards in open power play will be hidden behind walls, and it's not gonna change becouse game is too grindy, so power play is naturally designed for veterans/ pvp oriented players, for rest it doesnt really matter how it will look as long as current benefits (very limited for newer players imo) will be avaible for everyone
Some powers currently fortify inwards, some currently fortify outwards. I don't remember if it was specifically Sandro's proposal, but a lot of the comments kicking around at the time were for all the powers to be made equal, so we'd all prep and fortify the same direction. IIRC the consensus was that prep should be outwards, while forts should be inwards. This means the haulers actually carrying cargo would be concentrated in one spot (the prep system for preps, the HQ for forts) and promote larger battles.
This this this this. Folks keep saying that PP is fundamentally unfixable because instancing sucks - it's simply not true. There have been some amazing multi-hour multi-day battles when people have thrown "win at all costs" out the window and just decided to Have Fun With Other People. Sometimes PP is amazing - it is completely possible even today. The goal of OOPP is to make it more amazing more of the time, and to remove the lure of dropping into Solo when you're losing. It's not intended as a punishment - it's to save us from ourselves.
This doesn't sound right. Instancing sucks, but it doesn't suck THAT much! Typically if I hear reports of Enemy X patrolling in a system, and I jump into that system, I'll see them well over 50% of time - I'd guess around 75% of the time. Sure, sometimes I'll jump in and there's nobody there - and it's hard to know if that's crappy instancing, or if they're shooting at someone else, or they've gone to re-arm or whatever. 75% isn't perfect, but it's enough to kick off some big multi-wing battles.
As I've said elsewhere, we have had some amazing mass experiences in PP - it is completely possible in a technical sense. I have screenshots of 20+ people in the same system all kicking the crap out of each other - that's awesome! But these experiences don't happen often enough because people see another lower-friction path to Winning At All Costs, and they're only human, so they take them.
I think that Capo video has worn a patch in Youtube.
You know, this is why I didn't like it when the Powerplay Community vanished en-masse behind private discord servers. It used to be easy to keep up with the latest happenings throughout the entire community, not just your tiny slice things. It made the game feel alive, and that you were a part of something bigger.
It really says something when the public information available about this newsworthy event is from 2017 at the latest...
I play in Open, but I mostly play outside my local-prime time. My typical play window, for the most part, coincides with European prime time. When Sandro claimed that the majority of players played in Open, I was so certain he was either lying or using statistics, I actually spent a week at a CG, keeping track of the comings and goings of players. That's where I got the 2% figure from... which was consistent with what I predicted the number would be if "the majority of players play in Open" was true. Boy was my face red when I had to admit that I was wrong.
Since I had the opportunity to think about this during the long drive home in the snow, it really shouldn't surprise me that our experiences differ so greatly. If my experiences in other games are any indication, the PvP community tends to be... hyper-competitive. (duh) They tended to have better computers, better peripherals, and of course better internet connections. The quality of the connection makes difference in who you are instanced with, all things being equal.
As you know, CG stands for "Constant Ganking". They are prime seal-clubbing spots. And that means most people who do them stay in Solo, even if most of the other times they stay in Open. CGs and Engineers are the two places that swapping to solo is a perfectly reasonable idea unfortunately.When Sandro claimed that the majority of players played in Open, I was so certain he was either lying or using statistics, I actually spent a week at a CG, keeping track of the comings and goings of players. That's where I got the 2% figure from... which was consistent with what I predicted the number would be if "the majority of players play in Open" was true. Boy was my face red when I had to admit that I was wrong.
There were some memorable fights in Capo, it was so much fun the first 2 or 3 days of the cycle but then the imps disappeared for the rest of the week. We spent a lot of time sunbathing and watching Winters haulers passing by to drop their cargo, but you wouldn't expect what happened next... One hour before tick the imps dropped a big merit bomb, 700k merits iirc. It wasn't enough for them to win but it was close. So yeah, that week in Capo is the perfect example of what PP could be and how it turns into a dumb merit grind when one side decides to hide in Solo.
Here's the vid:
I was reading my way through this thread oh, but I had to stop and comment on this; never have I agreed more with something in my life. This is, one hundred percent, absolutely, the problem with PowerPlay as it currently stands.
What PowerPlay truly needs, is a system of rewarding players for interacting, even if that only translates to surviving. Heck, even if you don't survive.
Here's the fundamental disconnect I think. Everybody who plays PowerPlay for real - and those folks are pretty easy to spot in this thread - talk about how it's a community, how you strive for the common goal, how it sucks when people take shortcuts, how they want to promote big space battles where lots of people kill each other all the time. Dying? Yeah you die all the time, it's just rebuys. Credits? I have 348 rebuys on my Cutter so I'm good. Merits? I forget - obviously rating 5 - I'll pick up merits as we play the game.
The folks in this thread who don't play PowerPlay talk about how dying is scary. How making them come out of solo to earn the salary is mean. How there's not enough rewards for them to play PowerPlay because it's dangerous and they might die. Or how fancy ships and engineering are expensive.
The fact is, once you're in a group of 50+ folks who know how Elite works, all the in-game currencies vanish. When you work together, merits and credits and rating are all secondary. Your primary focus is on the big tactical game and working as a team and coordinated action. And if you focus on those things, all the other stuff just comes along as part of the deal. PowerPlay played right is its own reward - making friends and influencing people (with lasers). Nobody should have to bribe you with credits to play it - that's not the point, but sure here have some credits whatever.
The problem comes when all your planning fails, when you're not going to manage to win, and there's a simpler more seductive path to victory. Drop into Solo. It's not as fun, but you're more likely to win. Do you take it? Well that depends how badly you're losing and how much you want to Win At All Costs versus Have Fun Trying. Some people are weak, and they take that easy option, and then the amount of fun drops for everyone - including those who chicken out. This proposal is just trying to turn off that easy path, so everyone can have fun, even when they're not winning.
If you're still hung up on credits and modules and ships and wanting Elite to hand you a reward for playing it in the form of currency, then you're doing PowerPlay wrong. Hell, you're doing Elite wrong. Come to one of the Powers' Discord servers and find out the right way to play it. The victory in PowerPlay is the friends you made along the way. I'm totally serious.
If you make powerplay only about the top players who have more money than they could ever possibly need, you're by nature excluding 98/100 players. And why should that be the case? Why shouldn't someone ,who can only play on the weekend for a few hours between their second job and their kids, participate? If your entire fundamental premise is based on ignoring the majority of the game in lieu of emotional or roleplay rewards, you've stopped actually playing the game, and I see no reason why your desires should be considered, especially not over the desires of the people who are actually using those gameplay system.
All I'm seeing here is massively uncontrolled elitism. You've been so encouraged my people with similar viewpoints you're incapable of considering those who dont have more money than god, who don't have a fully engineered pvp ship and the skill to use it.
If someone wants to haul in solo, who the heck cares? Outhaul them, don't whine that you can't blow them up instead.
Again you misunderstand me. If you play PowerPlay right with the community, even for a few hours a week, you learn how to become wealthy. That's the nature of a tight community all working together. We lift each other up.
Nobody here cares about folks like this. Except that we'd like them to come join us and have a lot more fun than playing on their own, of course. Probably half the people in Winters are exactly these people, and we love them. All the OOPP proposals are not aimed at those people! That would be a waste of everybody's time and energy. These folks are absolutely not the problem in PowerPlay - of course they're not, how could they be? It's the people who do play intensively, in a community, but decide to slink out into Solo and avoid the conflict, because it means they can Win At All Costs.
Strawman.
You're making the ridiculous assumption that everyone who wants to play Powerplay wants to be slung up to massive wealth/have their experience stolen from them by getting the best tactics from experienced players.
That's a terrible way to play a game as diverse as Elite. Probably the worst possible way to play Elite.
Besides which, if someone doesn't want to engage you in pvp, you're not going to force them to engage in pvp. All you're going to achieve is driving them out of powerplay entirely. And that means forcing out the vast majority of players. Do you want powerplay to become as dead as CQC? Because that's what you'll get.
Sorry dude, but this suggestion is, and always will be, absolutely terrible.
As for your whining that people go to solo when you gank them until they stop enjoying open?
Get over it.
I don't think you understand anything at all about PowerPlay. Not one single thing. I guess that's why you don't play it. In which case why are you even replying?