A random thought I wanted to externalise before I forget it.
Problem: in Powerplay you have two 'phases' of play- merit earning in PvE zones and merit dropping (hauling, sniping etc).
In the latter you do not have effective opposition, or opposition that reacts to your efforts. This idea might alleviate that and promote team play as you engage more with the feature.
Base idea: Depending on merits, you will have a certain level of AI ships after you- so 1000 merits would be say, 5 Viper IIIs, 10,000 25 etc split into 5 wings. Each rank would also up the rating and engineering. So at the uppermost level you have very angry top end ships for example. The makeup of wings could be based on PP bounties, or random.
They spawn security style wherever you are after a certain amount of time in system based on your rank. So for example low end work would spawn a wing of 5 Vipers on you after 3 minutes. They would pursue you in SC or in realspace and at the top rank you'd have multiple wings chasing you. This AI would also be more crazy in that it would not automatically stop attacking if you are in a NFZ, or that they have LR weapons.
Killing them would grant a reprieve for a set amount of time before they come again. Perhaps dropping merits would make this faster. The main thrust being the more PP bounties you rack up or the more merits you drop, the more frenzied the NPC response. It means wherever you go you have limited time before these attackers turn up and force you to fight them or dodge them long enough to get the job done and escape.
If the AI threat is severe enough, it would then make team play more important because you would have to work together to withstand such a continual assault. So rather than players hunting players to restrict PP merits, it would be that players would need to form teams to deliver them instead. Solo players would be at a disadvantage as they would play alone only if they continue to deliver huge amounts of merits, and PG AFK would be impossible if you have multiple top end engineered wings attacking at the same time.
So, in short it makes PP a survival mode ( by inverting PvP) based on effort. Its logical because a power would want to target the most successful players, and it would test engineered ships and players by scaling AI response way beyond the top end of wing missions.
It has flaws but I have not thought it through enough.
Problem: in Powerplay you have two 'phases' of play- merit earning in PvE zones and merit dropping (hauling, sniping etc).
In the latter you do not have effective opposition, or opposition that reacts to your efforts. This idea might alleviate that and promote team play as you engage more with the feature.
Base idea: Depending on merits, you will have a certain level of AI ships after you- so 1000 merits would be say, 5 Viper IIIs, 10,000 25 etc split into 5 wings. Each rank would also up the rating and engineering. So at the uppermost level you have very angry top end ships for example. The makeup of wings could be based on PP bounties, or random.
They spawn security style wherever you are after a certain amount of time in system based on your rank. So for example low end work would spawn a wing of 5 Vipers on you after 3 minutes. They would pursue you in SC or in realspace and at the top rank you'd have multiple wings chasing you. This AI would also be more crazy in that it would not automatically stop attacking if you are in a NFZ, or that they have LR weapons.
Killing them would grant a reprieve for a set amount of time before they come again. Perhaps dropping merits would make this faster. The main thrust being the more PP bounties you rack up or the more merits you drop, the more frenzied the NPC response. It means wherever you go you have limited time before these attackers turn up and force you to fight them or dodge them long enough to get the job done and escape.
If the AI threat is severe enough, it would then make team play more important because you would have to work together to withstand such a continual assault. So rather than players hunting players to restrict PP merits, it would be that players would need to form teams to deliver them instead. Solo players would be at a disadvantage as they would play alone only if they continue to deliver huge amounts of merits, and PG AFK would be impossible if you have multiple top end engineered wings attacking at the same time.
So, in short it makes PP a survival mode ( by inverting PvP) based on effort. Its logical because a power would want to target the most successful players, and it would test engineered ships and players by scaling AI response way beyond the top end of wing missions.
It has flaws but I have not thought it through enough.
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