The point was thats what Sandro saw PP as when he wrote the proposal.
Make Open Play matter - Power Play and BGS should be influenced only in open
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The point was thats what Sandro saw PP as when he wrote the proposal.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Which suggests that his vision differed from that of those deciding how the feature would be implemented - which may suggest that elements of his May'18 proposal might suffer exactly the same fate.
Heh, i remember our debates well, its always been a pleasure debating with you.
You call it a thrill, i call it an annoyance, we won't see eye to eye on that one
But as i've mentioned before, if it went open only, sure, those flying shieldless type 9s will have to adapt or just quit. The knock on effect in either scenario is powers having to scale back (which i think you said might not be a bad thing IIRC?). It depends by how much. How many people continue to haul under and open only scenario. Too many PvPers get involved and not enough haulers and PP would simply die. Yes, there are protestations from a few people on the forums that they will haul under an open only situation, but we would have to see exactly how many, and how they feel about that if every time they enter a system they get chain interdicted by half a dozen players. That "thrill" might turn to "annoyance".
I know if i was interesting in doing PP, i'd be doing the deliveries in my Imperial Clipper. Fast and plenty of space. I can imagine that if it went open only you'd simply see most players flying Cutters. Its the logical ship for deliveries. Can't be mass locked except by other Cutters, solid shields, good speed. It would probably force the opposing side to all use Cutters as well or be good with grom bombs and other fast ships to keep up and keep them from jumping. There would be new metas born probably.
But skill? Skill becomes apparent when two players in simularly powerful ships go ahead to head. Sure, some skill in evading and running, but either you can or you can't. Those who can will get through most of the time, those who can't will simply quit.
And Zed?
Ah, but you seemed to be saying people hauling to every location. I was talking about intelligent hauling.
Now, if you are saying that you can achieve all your objectives, fortification, preparation, and expansion (those that require hauling) and have time left over to do other activities, then great, it means you power has spare resources. I presume that most powers do not meet all their objectives every week. If they do, then they presumably grow, meaning they need even more resources the next week. And so on, ad infinitum, until they can't meet all their objectives.
And this is why I think PP as its designed grows to the point of stasis.
Of course, your power might say, forget that, and focus on just maintining a reasonable level of control, as you mentioned, surgical strikes and carefully controlled borders.
But what for? Nothing is won, nothing is lost (i don't mean in terms of systems, those are battles, i'm talking about the war). Powers can't rise, powers can't fall. There hasn't been a single case of a power expanding to the point where they wiped out an opponent (took control of their capital). Do the game mechanics even support taking a capital? I don't think we can know, because i don't think it can be done.
What is the point of PP as a competitive game element if in the long run there is nothing to win or lose?
As i'm fond of saying, its a never ending game of Risk. Rimmer would love it.
I like your vision for PP; in fact, I'd hazard a guess that most people would love to see it work out that way.
My opposition is based solely on the fact that you've yet to present any ideas that would be attractive to the 'victim' class.
With the ideas you've presented do you actually imagine that you'd be running cargo?
How many times would you have to lose your cargo to meta-PvP ships before you'd abandon cargo runs and just do hunting?
Look, if you don't accept Sandro's statement about what Powerplay was intended to be in those proposal then this argument is moot.
But I'm still of the opinion that the only way to rekindle interest in PP is for it to go open only, remove the power bonuses from the BSG and the Powerplay modules moved to behind the tech brokers, because nobody is interested in playing it now.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
I don't doubt his design intent - however his was not the only voice in the decision making process.
When the lead designer (at the time) says that's what the intent was, you tend to believe him.
I would like to see a complete overhaul of the whole powerplay system. Burn it to the ground and reuse the good parts. Now for something completely different. A New Era perhaps?
Zed's dead, much like Elite: Dangerous!!!
Zed's dead, much like Elite: Dangerous!!!
Okay, that was his intent.... that wins the debate of "what someone wrote yesterday" but doesn't help at all with what we have right now and it offers no insight on how to proceed.
Victims classes don't exist- players swap roles and modify ships according to how things are going to overcome a problem. The fear of dying is whats the problem, of being someone elses 'content'. You can play alone, but with PP where do you start? By playing alone you have no direction and NPCs don't challenge you, its down to communication and teams.
After a period of adjustment people will soon make ships that are survivable. Its only those who refuse to adapt that would become frustrated thinking slow, minimally defended vessels should get though 'because'.
The issue is Powerplay should be about the experience of working in a near as real time team v team game. Multi modes don't do that, they insulate players from each other and coddle them into laziness with extreme min max builds. These builds then make hauling or fighting easy and uneventful, which is not good for player retention.
And yes, as I said before I'd do anything thats needed, just as my powers players do all the time. Each week there is a plan and its executed as best it can be- if there is a problem or intruders etc its flagged and roles swap. With pan mode PP this just does not happen, its a plan of two gears where you solely grind. In the end the only way to gauge if it is popular is to do it, even if its for a few months. Then you can see if its worth it, in comparison to what we have now which through player numbers and feedback is not working.
There is no way to proceed unless frontier makes changes to the mode. Due to 5C and bot networks, the perception of Powerplay is the crippled old yeller, just waiting on the shotgun (oops, spoilers). The only serious proposal was from Sandro over a year ago and There has been nothing since then apart from this constant debate from a new thread from time to time. When asked, the vast majority of Powerpay players (although numbers are dwindling), say yes to those changes and there is a great no from people who don't play Powerplay because they think that is means the whole game is going open only.
Heh, i remember our debates well, its always been a pleasure debating with you.
You call it a thrill, i call it an annoyance, we won't see eye to eye on that one
A radical downsizing would work wonders because then PP would always have systems worth fighting over. There is nothing worse than fighting endless wars over the same system because its the only one left, which happened for months. Again, until you do it, you'll never really know what will happen. What we do know is that the galaxy is essentially full, with only rubbish left over that is ideal 5C food. If the proposal went ahead, good systems are weighted better than bad, but with no good systems it would be meaningless.
It would make for interesting builds. Couriers would make ideal interceptors / interdictors, while fast Cutters would indeed slip through- but, if they have all cargo then they can be phased by high DPS ships- a wing of PA phasing Phantoms would be nasty unopposed.
I counted how many keypresses I did hauling. Its about 40 from taking off to landing, with no interdictions or anything to challenge me. Thats not gameplay, especially since it can be automated. I wonder how many he does?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9AWV_BWo0
Plus, ED should sometimes be a game of skill, not trucking, and that pledging is a risk not a given.
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You haul where you want to defend (high value systems), to generate CC (if your power is in turmoil, or if your balance is low to prevent attacks). The levels will change depending on the situation.
Again, average days are not like that. You have daily, weekly and monthly plans that involve attacks, BGS flipping, defence, forting, scouting.
Its in stasis because originally you had to expand. If your power did not expand for 3 consecutive turns (and was in the bottom 3) you were at risk of collapse and removal. However, collapse never made it in, and, with consoldiation and other changes made defending and holding territory too easy. Without huge amounts of effort and good luck its impossible to really hurt a power. So you have powers that are easy to keep large and hard to really cut down.
A number of powers had intentionally downsized because of the work involved.
Collapse was supposed to be a lose state, but was never included. Due to players not using the feature, you have zombie powers now that are sock puppeted.
A bit like the game really. This is why the experience counts, where the day to day moments count. PP currently does not generate them, and those I've had have come from Open conflicts, hence my support here.
That it is.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
As I said, I do.
However between design and release there is development and decision making - which includes those with more seniority than the Lead Designer. The fact remains that between Sandro's design and the implementation it became a pan-modal feature with doubly consensual PvP.
![[VR] M4st0d0n](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/182/182772.jpg?1569064854){kind=avatar}
I would definately play on a dedicated server moderated by GMs, with people from the same timezone in a reduced, symetric, ensemble of systems, with a set number of weeks to win.
If Sandro had said that PP was designed as a PvE activity, would you be so eager to quote him?
There is a serious disparity between the statement and what was implemented though, i think we can all agree on that?
The fact that Sandro moved onto other things could indicate Sandro was not happy, perhaps higher ups blocking him from what he wanted or that the higher ups were not happy with Sandro. Alternately, maybe his moving on had nothing to do with any of this and both FD and Sandro are happy with the situation.
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