Hmm.... if powerplay is at least interesting for some people, i'm fairly certain others would step in to fill the gaps.
If this is indeed the mentality, that they are indispensible, it says to me that some people are getting too big for their boots.
Incrementally Improving PowerPlay - Make PowerPlay Open-Only
- Thread starter CMDR Foursyth
- Start date
Hmm.... if powerplay is at least interesting for some people, i'm fairly certain others would step in to fill the gaps.
If this is indeed the mentality, that they are indispensible, it says to me that some people are getting too big for their boots.
I support Open only Powerplay because out of what FD have shown us its the best option going to add anything new- in fact its the only option they gave us really. Weighting would be ineffectual, and unless FD rework the whole thing its going to languish in the shadow of CGs and the 3.X BGS.
So, if they are representative of the vast majority, surely the vast majority are already flying in open! Because the vast majority want open only! Surely people wouldn't be so hypocritical using PG/solo while asking for Open only!
And if the vast majority are already in open, then any change to open only wouldn't really have much of an impact. So, FD can save themselves some effort and not make the change!
First, people can disagree what is for the better. You think these changes are for the better, others might think different.
Second, some people might be interesting in playing powerplay if certain changes were made, but not these changes.
Third, i'm sure some will be concerned with the potential for "thin edge of the wedge". Once FD's position on treating all modes as equal is weakened it will be used as the basis for campaigns to add open bonuses or other features that are open only.
Fourth, there was a time when the open only crowd were shouting for many things to be open only and i think its only because of the huge pushback against it they have retreated into trying to get just powerplay made open only. I'd hazard a guess that a decent proportion of those fighting for OOPP actually don't give two figs about PP, they just want something that is open only.
Yeah, i've had a good chuckle at that on many occasions. People flinging poo at each other while claiming they are the only holy people.
I wonder how much poo flinging goes on simply because of matchmaking issues.
Not by the changes no. But powerplay does affect all players in a variety of ways, from the opening and closing of black markets, discounts at certain stations, and my pet hate, powerplay ship spawns in power controlled systems.
Which is why i'm strongly in favour that if powerplay goes open only, all traces of powerplay are removed from PG/solo. If something can't be affected from PG/solo it should have no right to affect PG/solo.
I'd also like FD then to delink the connection between Powers and controlling faction goverments, because powerplayers will try and flip systems, not because they care about the BGS itself and which faction is in control, but beause of their powers preference for certain governments.
No no Rob, didn't you get the memo? Every power claims all their people are playing in open already! Its only the other guys who are hiding in PG/solo, and of course those evil botters (that of course do not work for their side, only for the other side!). Their leaders have spoken, and they speak for a vast majority of people doing powerplay!
So you are mistaken in thinking there is anyone currently doing powerplay in PG/solo that would be affected, except for people like botters, who don't count!
Checkmate FUDster!
The key here is wings. Wings and friends lists are there to instance players with each other. Plus it’s very likely that the American and Australian players involved were using VPNs to spoof their location as local to Europe, in order to wing up with their friends. All it takes is one member of the wing to have a good connection with the instance host to anchor the rest.
Heck, I’m willing to bet you have players of opposing powers on your friends list...
Exactly. Your pinning your hopes on players playing sub-optimally, in order to have fun. Blockading capitals to prevent Fortification, or patrolling UM sites to prevent undermining, is very much a sub-optimal strategy if your goal is attack or defend a Power’s system. And yet one of the foundations of the Open-Only argument is that most players choose Solo/PG not because it’s fun, but because it’s the optimal strategy.
I know. I’m one of them.
As I keep saying, I’m a non-combat player who plays in Open. I played in Open hauling fortification merits for ALD when Powerplay began, and survived two successful interdiction attempts by opposing players. Two attempts over three months IIRC. After that, I did all my BGS work in Open, much of it while pledged to ALD. I briefly unpledged because I found the frequent NPC interdiction attempts irritating when I was Buckyball racing, and pledged again after I learned that Frontier had stopped those attempts when you’re not carrying merits.
I’m also aware than I’m a bit of an oddity as a player, much like actual PvPers are. I’ve been playing MMOs since MMO meant more than 16 players playing concurrently over a WAN, and everything I’ve experienced, all the papers I’ve read on the topic, and all the videos I’ve watched, all indicate the same thing: Open Only will kill Powerplay participation, leaving behind a tiny cohort frustrated by an equally small group’s “cheating” by “tricking“ the system into giving them their own instance.
I use quotes, because the majority of cases won’t be deliberate, but simply how instancing works if you don’t take steps in the other direction.
Absolutely game breaking
I helped run a power for two years. Its thankless work that eats into your play time- you are educating people (since FD never gave a decent manual for PP), planning, scouting, coordinating, diplomacy with other powers and PMFs....its exhausting and thats not even doing the actual flying or dealing with 5C.
People who run powers deserve your respect because they do it week in, week out and are invisible to FD and people at large.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It's also noteworthy that some players who, like all other players, bought a game where specific game features don't require the player to play in a multi-player game mode, where PvP itself is an optional extra (that Frontier are "well aware" that the majority of players don't get involved in, even if, according to another Dev, the majority of players play in Open (at least some of the time)), have continued to petition Frontier to PvP-gate parts of the game since the game design was published - and don't seem to care that PvP-gating specific existing pan-modal game content would adversely affect players who engage in it in Solo or Private Groups and would remove it completely from players who don't have premium platform access on their console (which is not a game requirement to engage in those features even if those players are only permitted to play in Solo).
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
They do for the effort they put in, certainly. Not so much for their apparent support for taking content away from players who don't share their optional play-style preference.
Nope. I have exactly five people on my friends list. Maybe I was lucky.
The only people on this list as my old Utopians, Kumo and a few others.
Er- no. If a power does not have to fortify much and can strike an enemy they will. The Kumo did this several times to Grom, and to Utopia. Powers are opportunists.
It guarantees efficency because you'll never get attacked by someone who can stop you- by its very nature it breaks the feature because its easy to defend.
Not trying to be rude, you don't come across like one.
I don't agree- but the only way to find out who is right is to do it in anger for a month or two so it can find its feet and meta (if any) found.
Well, they are the people that know players who join and the motivations better than you, thats for sure.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Of course - that does not confer any authority over the player-base as a whole though, nor over which content should be accessible in which game mode.
They don't have to convey anything, they know who gets attracted to Powerplay and for what reasons- its like FD looking to influencers, they know the audience.
Interesting suggestion. I don't think you are going to save PP by making it open-only, though. It's a half-baked feature that was left behind by FD along with the BGS system. The effects on the game world is mostly limited to price modifiers and text boxes in windows, even less than the BGS where you at least get to change the mood lighting on the stations and have fun debates in the RP forum on how your player faction's space ideology is better than that of the other faction's space ideology.
If you want to save PP, maybe the rewards should be inflated to the same hilarious amount that other 'updated' game features get. Then, the beginner player can join Li-Yong-Rui or whatever and fly some Sirius boxes to a system for a few hours, and then when the PP cycle happens they can get enough money for their A-rated Anaconda, look at pretty planets for a while, and stop playing permamently 10 gameplay hours later because 'there is nothing to do'.
Okay, I am sounding really whiny today, so I'm going to try to end this post on a lighter tone: I totally think these features can be salvaged. There is a lot of interesting things that can be done. I think the starting point is answering two questions:
- Is PP/BGS going to have a significant impact on the actual game world? Is it going to change things in a way that will cause CG's and GalNet articles to happen? Is it not? If not, it should not give off the false impression that it will do. If Frontier are not ready to deal with the consequences of Arcturus, a significant Federal core system, defecting to the Alliance because commanders propped up a fringe political faction, then it should not be possible for Arcturus to defect to the alliance, because of commanders propping up a fringe political faction.
- What is an adequate solution to the Open debate which has raged since before the release? In my opinion, such a solution will:
Squadrons that are instrumental in aiding a PP faction can be awarded a governorship in a system. This system then acts as a HQ for that squadron. Further expansion into nearby systems are possible (including ejecting other player governors), allowing squadrons pledged to a PP faction to build little fiefdoms inside the PP faction's sphere of influence. The rewards for this is a significant portion of the dividends from the aligned systems going directly to the squadron rather than being shared by all power-aligned players, and recognition: squadron name, maybe logo if possible to implement in a good way, visible on PP-related (not ordinary or political) maps and interfaces. To me this gives the best of both worlds: you can have player-player conflicts, you can have map painting territorial conflicts, you can have drama and internal conflicts, and at the same time you can have a consistent universe where systems don't flip-flop between edgy player factions and randomly generated corporations that got all the influence because their station was closest to the hyperspace dropout point.
Reset political map (superpower allegiance and governments) to the way things were back when they were sane in 2015 (except for actual government changes from events, like Lugh). Active player factions that have carved out their little empires in the BGS can be given a headstart, being in control of those systems on the soft-power layer where possible.
Give powerplay factions a long-term agenda. Not just map painting or credit rewards: If Sirius Gov did well this month, maybe they can put their surplus resources into colonizing a frontier system (of course establishing a sirius-aligned corporate state). If the Kumo Crew succeded in furthering their cause, maybe time to raid an enemy system and cause some mayhem. Have these events generate CG's! Then you can get non-PP-players involved on both sides. This suggestion could be considered separate to what I wrote above. It could even work when implemented into PP as it is today!
If you want to save PP, maybe the rewards should be inflated to the same hilarious amount that other 'updated' game features get. Then, the beginner player can join Li-Yong-Rui or whatever and fly some Sirius boxes to a system for a few hours, and then when the PP cycle happens they can get enough money for their A-rated Anaconda, look at pretty planets for a while, and stop playing permamently 10 gameplay hours later because 'there is nothing to do'.
Okay, I am sounding really whiny today, so I'm going to try to end this post on a lighter tone: I totally think these features can be salvaged. There is a lot of interesting things that can be done. I think the starting point is answering two questions:
- Is PP/BGS going to have a significant impact on the actual game world? Is it going to change things in a way that will cause CG's and GalNet articles to happen? Is it not? If not, it should not give off the false impression that it will do. If Frontier are not ready to deal with the consequences of Arcturus, a significant Federal core system, defecting to the Alliance because commanders propped up a fringe political faction, then it should not be possible for Arcturus to defect to the alliance, because of commanders propping up a fringe political faction.
- What is an adequate solution to the Open debate which has raged since before the release? In my opinion, such a solution will:
- Encourage community through player-player interaction
- Discourage players that prefer Open from turning to Solo in some situations, when it offers a gameplay benefit (often because of player-player interactions which are not beneficial to the subject, but without such interactions, there can be no risk from player interactions)
- Still include option of entering solo at any time. I consider this extremely unlikely to ever change, and so this must be a part of any realistic suggestion. However, it is possible that some features may be considered to be 'multiplayer-oriented' and only possible to affect when playing in open.
- Include features that, through in-game means discourage griefing and griefer-adjacent behaviours like random killing of innocent pilots, especially in high-security regions. This game still hasn't managed to implemented proper consequences for criminal behaviour. It needs to do that. (it also needs better reward for profitable criminal behaviours like piracy or smuggling, but that's another discussion for another time)
If we want to get really radical... remove PP. Remove conquest/expansion aspects of BGS, outside of FD events, either from story or from inspiration by player actions (like the Lugh war). Create a new system, a layer reusing PP assets (it can even be called Powerplay, no need for a new name). Here, the PP actors fight for soft power in the galaxy by aligning factions to their power. Factions with the compatible superpower allegiance and government can be directly aligned, tributing some of their economy to the PP faction. This income is then spent on rewarding the pledged pilots and also invested in strengthening the faction.Squadrons that are instrumental in aiding a PP faction can be awarded a governorship in a system. This system then acts as a HQ for that squadron. Further expansion into nearby systems are possible (including ejecting other player governors), allowing squadrons pledged to a PP faction to build little fiefdoms inside the PP faction's sphere of influence. The rewards for this is a significant portion of the dividends from the aligned systems going directly to the squadron rather than being shared by all power-aligned players, and recognition: squadron name, maybe logo if possible to implement in a good way, visible on PP-related (not ordinary or political) maps and interfaces. To me this gives the best of both worlds: you can have player-player conflicts, you can have map painting territorial conflicts, you can have drama and internal conflicts, and at the same time you can have a consistent universe where systems don't flip-flop between edgy player factions and randomly generated corporations that got all the influence because their station was closest to the hyperspace dropout point.
Reset political map (superpower allegiance and governments) to the way things were back when they were sane in 2015 (except for actual government changes from events, like Lugh). Active player factions that have carved out their little empires in the BGS can be given a headstart, being in control of those systems on the soft-power layer where possible.
Give powerplay factions a long-term agenda. Not just map painting or credit rewards: If Sirius Gov did well this month, maybe they can put their surplus resources into colonizing a frontier system (of course establishing a sirius-aligned corporate state). If the Kumo Crew succeded in furthering their cause, maybe time to raid an enemy system and cause some mayhem. Have these events generate CG's! Then you can get non-PP-players involved on both sides. This suggestion could be considered separate to what I wrote above. It could even work when implemented into PP as it is today!
On, that, at least, we agree. Good luck convincing Frontier's lead dev of it. Personally, I think powerplay missions are far more likely to happen than that.
continues slowly making her way back to the bubble, doubtful that Powerplay missions will ever be a thing
And to be honest- I'd like that as well, what underscores all of this is FD actually giving a damn and doing it. Its sad that as time has gone on, those who are involved with Powerplay cut down ideas to the bone in the hope they'll get included. Most of these ideas (including FDs) are so bare bones its shocking.
Lets hope EDO actually brings something to the table. I spotted a Powerplay logo in the second dev diary so we can at least know Powerplay is still in the game.
Yes yes, very good. Nobody claimed it was game breaking. They key word was "affect".
And it can be annoying when you are bounty hunting and ever second ship is a powerplay ship instead of a pirate.
Its a position people take voluntarily in a computer game. If they want my respect, they can go volunteer at the local Oxfam.
Hey, i run a player group. People should respect me! RESPECT ME!!!!!