Powerplay Maybe a little, very little hope for anything Powerplay related...?

[Bard Voronwe]

Hello fellow Powerplayers!

Some days ago this news took my attention:

Rackham Reveals Presidential Manifesto - Elite Dangerous: Odyssey

Trillionaire entrepreneur Zachary Rackham has launched his campaign to be elected as Federal president in the forthcoming election. He outlined severa...

www.elitedangerous.com

Seeing a new player in the federal political scenario, and as a candidate for presidency as independent furthermore, somehow makes me wonder if that could be a candidate as a new Power in a future/possible/I-feel-stupid-to-still-have-hope and improved Powerplay.

Do you think that the devs are cooking something for us or I am just being too hopeful?

 

[Rubbernuke]

It really comes down to how Powerplay would cope with new Powers. Right now there is no space using the current design, but its plausible that a more BGS led PP might abandon the 'control / exploited' bubbles and instead treat all systems as control systems. If they did, it would free up space for more Zachary action as powers would be more like factions.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I always said that a new Powerplay should first of all re-equilibrate the number of Powers between the 3 Superpowers (2 more for the federation, 3 more for the alliance), considering different rules smaller Powers should probably represent the better choice.

But the real question is: do Frontier Developments really have any plans for Powerplay?

 

[Rubbernuke]

But the real question is: do Frontier Developments really have any plans for Powerplay?

Considering they are running a beta version of a BGS PP in the GoidWar and need to make PP more self sufficient (i.e. make a complete game loop unlike PP today which is half finished) I expect FD are planning something.

 

[Rebel Yell]

I wish PP be disjoined from BGS to spare powergankers from all that useless critter management and pest control.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Considering they are running a beta version of a BGS PP in the GoidWar and need to make PP more self sufficient (i.e. make a complete game loop unlike PP today which is half finished) I expect FD are planning something.

We both expect something is slowly running but it's been what... 6... 7 years?
It would be wonderful if @Bruce G @Paul_Crowther or @sallymorganmoore would read this and spontaneously decided to tell us something... anything actually. Even the good ol' "we cannot say if something is or is not actually cooking, you gotta be patient", so I could answer "I've been patient for years".
And I think about how the game is actually getting old... there's less and less time to see anything in a meaningful time span for the natural life of the game.

I wish PP be disjoined from BGS to spare powergankers from all that useless critter management and pest control.

You know too well how much I agree about that.

 

[Tarkus Venius]

I always said that a new Powerplay should first of all re-equilibrate the number of Powers between the 3 Superpowers (2 more for the federation, 3 more for the alliance), considering different rules smaller Powers should probably represent the better choice.

But the real question is: do Frontier Developments really have any plans for Powerplay?

I’d rather some powers get removed from the game. There are too many powers and not enough players supporting them. In the past that’s led some to weaponize abandoned powers on top of others (remember Grom?), in ways that were clearly not intended. It was difficult and near impossible to fix the damage, it literally sat for years.

The weekly grind was just too much, especially having to prep race saboteur bots because not enough people voted consolidation that week. Low participation foisted even more grinding on fewer people, which made the whole gameplay even less appealing. I don’t have an answer to this one, but expansions your power initiates shouldn’t be able to utterly devastate your power, only improve it (or at worse, leave you even.) The upkeep and overhead system was just plain broken.

Lastly, I don’t know who took the PVP out of the PVP conquest mode feature, but it made the gameplay tedious and repetitive without it.

I’m watching to see if they actually fix powerplay, however I don’t have high hopes that anything meaningful will change. At least not enough to convince me to do it again.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I wish PP be disjoined from BGS to spare powergankers from all that useless critter management and pest control.

To be honest I want FD to make PP the human mirror of the Thargoid war- brutal, merciless and unrelenting for PP 'aces' who push the most. Being in a Power really should make you sit up and take notice whatever you do, rather than the 'Tesco shopping day with mum' it currently is.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I’d rather some powers get removed from the game. There are too many powers and not enough players supporting them. In the past that’s led some to weaponize abandoned powers on top of others (remember Grom?), in ways that were clearly not intended. It was difficult and near impossible to fix the damage, it literally sat for years.

The weekly grind was just too much, especially having to prep race saboteur bots because not enough people voted consolidation that week. Low participation foisted even more grinding on fewer people, which made the whole gameplay even less appealing. I don’t have an answer to this one, but expansions your power initiates shouldn’t be able to utterly devastate your power, only improve it (or at worse, leave you even.) The upkeep and overhead system was just plain broken.

Lastly, I don’t know who took the PVP out of the PVP conquest mode feature, but it made the gameplay tedious and repetitive without it.

I’m watching to see if they actually fix powerplay, however I don’t have high hopes that anything meaningful will change. At least not enough to convince me to do it again.

The problem with weaponisation is intrinsic in smaller Powers becoming almost impossible to turmoil, that's a direct consequence of the whole "turmoil" mechanic to lose systems. With a direct Powerplay approach (and what we are seeing now with thargoid wars could be an acceptable compromise) a less supported Power (not talking about sheer number of players, I think that dedication could be a great way to counter numbers) would become smaller as a natural consequence.
About the PvP factor... I agree, but I am afraid of even talk about that because you know... the forums pvpeers could storm in a different kind of conversartion and make another thread basically impossible to read as they usually do so... Let's keep the PvP factor outside of this for now.

 

[Tarkus Venius]

The problem with weaponisation is intrinsic in smaller Powers becoming almost impossible to turmoil, that's a direct consequence of the whole "turmoil" mechanic to lose systems. With a direct Powerplay approach (and what we are seeing now with thargoid wars could be an acceptable compromise) a less supported Power (not talking about sheer number of players, I think that dedication could be a great way to counter numbers) would become smaller as a natural consequence.
About the PvP factor... I agree, but I am afraid of even talk about that because you know... the forums pvpeers could storm in a different kind of conversartion and make another thread basically impossible to read as they usually do so... Let's keep the PvP factor outside of this for now.

Unfortunately dedication doesn’t count for anything, just consolidation votes. Dedication won’t make up for dozens of five vote accounts voting “prep” at the last minute. It barely helps when someone is scripting prep deliveries day and night. Without people, your power is expanding somewhere you don’t want it to, into a place that you will likely never be able to leave.

The whole framework is a terrible design. The overhead and upkeep system needs an overhaul. There needs to be a way to withdraw from a sphere.

Lastly: Minor BGS factions from the same superpower should never hurt your power. Why should a Fed democracy hurt Winters? Why should a loyal Imperial corporation hurt ALD or Aisling? They shouldn’t, it’s stupid. Today you have Aisling supporters fighting to install a Federation confederacy while the FUC Feds fight to support an Empire faction. Tell me how that one makes sense?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Unfortunately dedication doesn’t count for anything, just consolidation votes. Dedication won’t make up for dozens of five vote accounts voting “prep” at the last minute. It barely helps when someone is scripting prep deliveries day and night. Without people, your power is expanding somewhere you don’t want it to, into a place that you will likely never be able to leave.

The whole framework is a terrible design. The overhead and upkeep system needs an overhaul. There needs to be a way to withdraw from a sphere.

Lastly: Minor BGS factions from the same superpower should never hurt your power. Why should a Fed democracy hurt Winters? Why should a loyal Imperial corporation hurt ALD or Aisling? They shouldn’t, it’s stupid. Today you have Aisling supporters fighting to install a Federation confederacy while the FUC Feds fight to support an Empire faction. Tell me how that one makes sense?

This is why I'm almost 100% certain Powerplay 2 will be BGS led, because it then makes every system a control system and everything is hyperlocal / decentralised- so if you, as an Imperial stooge wish to push ALD at a certain spot you can but it does not wreck some other ALD pledge / group doing something elsewhere.

Today you have Aisling supporters fighting to install a Federation confederacy

Its because Aisling still pines for some Rochester sugar, that and Aisling going out of her way to be the special one.