Make Solo Powerplay PvE dangerous (targeted interdcitions using existing mechanics)

@Rubbernuke said the change should not apply to Solo only, but to all the modes. So the thread title should be changed accordingly.

But i would love to see the backlash of having a pvp player and a wing of atr like npc on a T9 hauling merits :D
or a wing of atr like npc interfering with pp pvp...

I would too, mainly because then Powerplay is about proper gang warfare, and not that job you do before going off to the CG.
 
Not everyone shares the opinion that PvE is an "eternal, mindless harvest festival".

.... and, possibly, there are also players seeking a peaceful existence within the game and aren't looking for an adrenaline charged experience....

And so, why are you looking for peace in a competitive mode? Why bother having eleven powers at all? If you don't want to fight, don't enlist and pledge to a power and paint a target on yourself.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Rubbernuke said the change should not apply to Solo only, but to all the modes. So the thread title should be changed accordingly.
I know that - however it seems that it's a case of some players wanting to set the difficulty level for other players, in all modes, when they are only able to do so for those players they encounter in Open.
 
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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
And so, why are you looking for peace in a competitive mode? Why bother having eleven powers at all? If you don't want to fight, don't enlist and pledge to a power and paint a target on yourself.
While the feature (it's not a mode, per se) is competitive, it's a PvE driven competition with the difficulty level, for all players, set by the developer - with the ability to opt-in to PvP encounters for those who wish to do so. Not all competition needs to be about fighting.
 
I would too, mainly because then Powerplay is about proper gang warfare, and not that job you do before going off to the CG.

Powerplay is PVE. You dont win PP by killing other people.
So someone has to fill those buckets. Either by ferrying at least 5000 merits to maintain rank5 or to kill 500 ships for 10 merits each in a PP CZ.

Basically PVP has absolutely no meaning / merit in this game.
You dont do PVP to win something. At best you do PVP to make the other one lose something
Which incidentally i consider it the biggest flaw in ED PVP
 
But you could still buy a T9 for Powerplay, its just you'd have to upgrade it expecting trouble and not min/ max it for cargo.

Right, but you're still not addressing the fact that this requires some ships in the game to be impossible to win the interdiction minigame in, and that being terrible design.

If you're going to have a player skill based component to interdictions, player skill needs to always be the determinant between success or failure, there should never be a state where no amount of player skill can ever produce success at it.
 
wow. what a thread.

as i have dabbled with my tertiary account a bit, and can say it is totally possible to win a CZ unengineered (good old team up with friendlies, fly tactical, fly a low threat ship, don't bother with kinetics as those bullet sponges... but anyway ...)

how about the following?
- as you rank up with your power, the power wants you to fly their ships? and with increasing rank more stealthy?

so at rank 5 you fly an unengineered adder for li yong rui or an eagle for hudson.

basically match the npc spawn ingame.

npc will be a threat, challenge will be massive, and nobody is locked out.
 
Powerplay is PVE. You dont win PP by killing other people.
So someone has to fill those buckets. Either by ferrying at least 5000 merits to maintain rank5 or to kill 500 ships for 10 merits each in a PP CZ.

Basically PVP has absolutely no meaning / merit in this game.
You dont do PVP to win something. At best you do PVP to make the other one lose something
Which incidentally i consider it the biggest flaw in ED PVP

The whole point of making parts of power-play open only is to provide PvP players with a legitimate place to play. Unless they make notorious players trackable somehow, there's not a place where PvP'ers can really got for it and they'll will always be accused of being gankers or seal clubbers I've been playing in powerplay open only for the last six months and it is so much better than doing it private or solo. I've also had to change my build from a ship which could escape NPCs, to a ship that can escape other players. It's a whole different mentality when you're making a run and there are several hostile players in system. Most of the complaints I've heard normally involve other parts of the game. I.E. They've made Powerplay open only, that mean CGs are next, or the BGS is next. No, we don't want that

But increase in suggested difficultly is to get rid of the bots, min/max'ers and module shoppers. Heck, I'd be happy to make the powerplay modules available behind a tech broker with an equally long grind, just to remove their actions from the Powerplay back end.

But AS we've said before. There's been no movement or changes to Powerplay for almost three years. The player numbers are well down on what they were before. It makes me wonder if frontier have any plans for this mode in the future at all.
 
I've been playing in powerplay open only for the last six months and it is so much better than doing it private or solo

If you say it's so much better, I have no doubts that for you it actually is.
But it's a long way from your choice to do so, to either force everyone else in open or to impose penalties for the ones that dont, isn't it?

And we get back to everyone else should play my way...
 
But i have a different idea...
Why not make PowerPlay a pure PVP thing?

Put the PP modules under some sort of grind unaffiliated to PP and make them available to Tech Brokers.
And make PP merits come only from PVP kills of the PP pledged players.
Also allow leaving a power at any time, but increase the timer to pledge to another power to 4 weeks.
Give like 100 merits for each PP kill - or whatever - adjust the value so it makes sense - eventually scale it with the rank of the player (Combat / PP rank combination)
Also change the Fortification, Undermining and Expansion to work with the PVP merits gains.


See how it goes... since it will be a pure open only pvp thing. And PVP will actually have a meaning.
See if PP will endure, or all them Powers will get in turmoil and in 2 months they will have only a couple systems.
Or maybe there will be 1-2 powers that will steamroll everything in their way.
Who knows?
 
That really should be what it is, yes. It should be the PvP mode for Elite, and all of its progression and rewards should be geared around doing PvP, and largely separate from BGS/PvE activiites.
 
While the feature (it's not a mode, per se) is competitive, it's a PvE driven competition with the difficulty level, for all players, set by the developer - with the ability to opt-in to PvP encounters for those who wish to do so. Not all competition needs to be about fighting.

And that should actually involve some sort of peril, PvE and / or PvP.

Not all competition needs to be about fighting.

Even when every power has to blow each others ships up (UM) or via combat expansions?
 
Powerplay is PVE. You dont win PP by killing other people.
So someone has to fill those buckets. Either by ferrying at least 5000 merits to maintain rank5 or to kill 500 ships for 10 merits each in a PP CZ.

Basically PVP has absolutely no meaning / merit in this game.
You dont do PVP to win something. At best you do PVP to make the other one lose something
Which incidentally i consider it the biggest flaw in ED PVP

Open Powerplay would replace NPCs with players, its the direct opposite of this idea, where NPCs copy as best they can, players.
 
Right, but you're still not addressing the fact that this requires some ships in the game to be impossible to win the interdiction minigame in, and that being terrible design.

Some ships will be tubby, are you expecting an aircraft carrier to outmaneuver a torpedo plane? Why should every ship be interdiction proof in Powerplay? Then it becomes a trade off between cargo capacity and survivability.

If you're going to have a player skill based component to interdictions, player skill needs to always be the determinant between success or failure, there should never be a state where no amount of player skill can ever produce success at it.

In an ideal world, but I'm finding it hard to reconcile the image of everything being interdiction proof- it seems FD have nerfed it into irrelevance and people are now assuming 'thats normal'. You are also forgetting defensive flying, where you assume attacks from NPCs and adjust accordingly, rather than flying in straight lines.
 
Some PvE peril, yes - how much is the question. PvP remains an optional extra.

Well anything is better than what it is now, which is practically zero peril. And all this thread is about is PvE and exactly that.

In some cases, certainly - not in all, hence "not all competition".

Thats Powerplays reason to be; its a permanent CG like feature done eleven ways and encourages you to trip up your rivals.
 
It seems to be clear that the amount of peril sought by different players differs quite dramatically.

Hence "why it scales with effort"- you know, this bit:

Rank selects how difficult your opposition will be:

Rank 1: no engineering

Rank 2: (up to) G1 engineering

Rank 3: up to G3 engineering

Rank 4: up to G4 engineering

Rank 5: up to G5 engineering

Merit count dictates how often these NPCs will spawn (mixed with RNG). This would also influence wing size.
 
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