Powerplay Maybe it's time to kill powerplay... to see it reborn after.

[Bard Voronwe]

As we all can see the powerplay is currently broken, but I must admit that even when it's not it has many flaws, expecially the "ethos" is cause of many inconsistencies in the administration of the BGS (for example, Zachary Hudson players that must push over mostly non-federation minor factions).

I would like to try and talk about this with all cmdrs from different powers, and try to elaborate a different mechanic to make the powerplay more than just the senseless grindfest that it is now, something more fun to play, expecially something that would let the cmdrs shape the Galaxy in a more consistent way.

Let's start analyzing the different Superpowers, Powers and the Governments possible to them.

FEDERATION

GOVERNMENTS
Anarchy - Cooperative - Theocracy - Corporate - Democracy - Confederacy

POWERS
ZACHARY HUDSON
Expansion & Control strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

FELICIA WINTERS
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

EMPIRE

GOVERNMENTS
Prison Colony - Anarchy - Feudal - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage

POWERS
A. LAVIGNY DUVAL
Expansion & Control strong with Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

ZEMINA TORVAL
Expansion strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

AISLING DUVAL
Expansion strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage
Control strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy

DENTON PATREUS
Expansion & Control strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

ALLIANCE

GOVERNMENTS
Anarchy - Feudal - Cooperative - Theocracy - Communism - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage - Democracy - Confederacy

POWER
EDMUND MAHON
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

THE INDEPENDENTS

GOVERNMENTS
Prison Colony - Anarchy - Feudal - Cooperative - Theocracy - Communism - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage - Democracy - Confederacy

POWERS
ARCHON DELAINE
Expansion strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship
Control strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy

LI YONG-RUI
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

PRANAV ANTAL
Expansion strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

YURI GROM
Expansion strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

-----

ETHOS & BGS

First thing you can see is that Zachar Hudson has great issues with the Federation itself: a well played Hudson BGS bubble will be a not Federal one. Moreover, many powers have issues with factions during expansion, but are favoured by them for control... another flaw.

The only conclusion is to drop all the ethos system, it simply doesn't work, even the very difference between the expansion & control is flawed by itself, it simply doesn't make any sense that some Minor Factions should be happy to be controlled after opposing to be conquered. Am I right?

A good system would be to have some desirable government, most neutral governments, and some undesirable to every single power, but I think that not only the government should be a variable in this, the superpower alligeance should be important too. This should apply on both expansion & control.

Let's make an example.

Zachary Hudson is the President of the Federation. He's a strong and military aggressive right-wing guy. Theocracy & Corporate minor factions should be happy to be under his influence, because for them this should mean much more security in their home systems, the other Federal governments should be neutral to him, most of the independents should be too (with some exceptions), different story about the Empire and Alliance minor factions, which should oppose strongly to him.

So every single power should have unique desirable, neutral and undesirable minor factions concerning their superpower and government, it would be similar to how it is now with the ethos, similar but better.

TRIGGERS

The actual system is a all-or-nothing thing, with just a normal, a doubled and a halved trigger: I think that a more "fluid" system should be better, with a maximum and a minimum trigger, and the actual trigger for the week calculated on the number of neutral, desirable and undesirable minor factions ruling the control & exploited systems. Every change of Government should reflect on a slightly change in the fortification/undermine triggers.

CONTSTED SYSTEMS

Right now these systems simply doesn't count. I think it would be interesting if these systems should be given to the power with the most desirable government. A contested system between Zachary Hudson e A- Lavigny-Duval should be assigned to Hudson if the controlling Minor Faction is a Federal one, or to Lavigny-Duval if a Empire minor faction is in control.

...AND FINALLY... A RESET.

These changes would mean a total re-think of all the Powerplay, considering that the Powerplay seems so broken right now, it would be a good idea to simply restart at all, with all the 11 powers, I know that many cmdrs have played it a lot, but I think that any of us would benefit to a better powerplay, with better mechanics, better interaction with the BGS.

What do you think about this?

 

[fergal]

All of the above is a good idea, like most of the "heres how we fix PP threads", the main issue as I see it is FDev don't want to commit any resources to making PP better.
PP was bare bones when it launched, everyone was waiting for the rest of the content to be added, it wasn't, and you would see player after player leave.

Before week 52 over 12 million merits were being done per week, it dropped to under 4 million after all those issues.

Now near week 99 its still under 4 million, if they wouldn't fix things back then, its hard to see them fixing it for 1/3 of the player base.

Any updates to PP need to be as cheap as possible, to have any chance to happening.

Something like declaring Mahon the winner of PP season 1, retiring him as a power, giving all his rank 2 or above players a "I helped Mahon rule the galaxy and all I got was this lousy decal" decal, and replace him with Mahons twin brother, drop all the powers back to their starting number of systems, or whatever simple balance start they want, like shifting the headquarters around a bit, and start season 2.
Or chop the furthest 20% of systems from all the powers.

 

[withnail]

I think it needs such a drastic rework to engage players and reduce the burden to fun levels that they should pause it for the time being.

Have a review, make tweaks and changes and then start it, possibly with a reset.

 

[SkUnimatrix]

I think it needs such a drastic rework to engage players and reduce the burden to fun levels that they should pause it for the time being.

Have a review, make tweaks and changes and then start it, possibly with a reset.

I said as much when I did a video on how I'd change PowerPlay. I'd just have an external threat (Aliens) invade and render the whole thing moot.

 

[sedilbur]

Hi CMDRs


I am not a big fan of the PowerPlay, and I started to play it in 1.3 ... then, I rapidly avoid it until 2.2.

The reason I left it are:

1° spamming interdiction by other NPC factions. (This is fixed in 2.2 I think).
2° No money incentive except RANK 5. The curve is like either you loose money or you win lot of money.
3° When you are on top. You have to keep your work week after week.
4° interdiction mini game was too hard in few release ago. (This is fixed around 2.2 I think).
5° No possible method to avoid 5th column to sabotage you. (With Fortification vote...I think maybe it can help)
6° the whole thing with sub faction and governments ... is too complicated.


My humble few suggestions (in addition with yours)

1° Rework the curve of reward on each rank.
2° Make the merit decay more easily to handle to give opportunity to casual gamer to actually enjoy the PP.
3° Make ALL the special module available to anyone involved in PP. That would avoid people to be forced to play into a power because they want to weapon/module. It's like a "global" reward for anyone pledged to a power.
4° Remove the whole 10, 20, 30 item / 30 minutes things...this is absolutely idi*t. Make triggers bigger I don't care. Just remove the 30 minutes limitation. This is really annoying.
5° Encourage people to act "careful" regarding the expanding ... make good actions more valuable than random merit grinding.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I think that the main problem about powerplay isn't in personal rewards: just like for BGS one doesn't play the PP to become rich, he does to support his favourite Power, just for the fun of it. Yeah, some powers are much more profitable than others, but if you think about it it's just fair and right that the three Superpowers main characters offer the best rewards because, well... they're simply the most powerful (theorically).

And I say it as a Archon Delaine pledged commander.

Balance is good, don't get me wrong, but if this game must be a non-sense just to be balanced... has it even a meaning to play it in the first place?

For example, as it is, I would like to see Archon Delaine be favoured ONLY by Independent Anarchy Governments, be neutral to all other Independents Governments, and only Superpower Anarchists, and be opposed by all other Superpowers government: because Archon Delaine should be the damned Pirate King, the head of the biggest and fracked up Cartel in the Bubble, and the Superpowers simply hate him guts. Powerplay should be the main force that brings players to shape the Galaxy, but right now we have the Hudsoninan that are forced to play AGAINST the Federation itself, and this is a MAJOR problem, not the all "oh god, PowerPlay is not a profitable credits charity", there's plenty of ways to make credits in the game, imho.

 

[JessieColt]

One of the biggest issues with PP is the ROI.

I created a thread in this area for PP options to suggest to FDev that they change from the current Merit based system to a system more like the Community Goals. One that gets wiped every cycle so that no one user is always the top, and more contributors get a better ROI for their time and dedication.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

As we all can see the powerplay is currently broken, but I must admit that even when it's not it has many flaws, expecially the "ethos" is cause of many inconsistencies in the administration of the BGS (for example, Zachary Hudson players that must push over mostly non-federation minor factions).

I would like to try and talk about this with all cmdrs from different powers, and try to elaborate a different mechanic to make the powerplay more than just the senseless grindfest that it is now, something more fun to play, expecially something that would let the cmdrs shape the Galaxy in a more consistent way.

Let's start analyzing the different Superpowers, Powers and the Governments possible to them.

FEDERATION

GOVERNMENTS
Anarchy - Cooperative - Theocracy - Corporate - Democracy - Confederacy

POWERS
ZACHARY HUDSON
Expansion & Control strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

FELICIA WINTERS
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

EMPIRE

GOVERNMENTS
Prison Colony - Anarchy - Feudal - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage

POWERS
A. LAVIGNY DUVAL
Expansion & Control strong with Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

ZEMINA TORVAL
Expansion strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

AISLING DUVAL
Expansion strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage
Control strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy

DENTON PATREUS
Expansion & Control strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship

ALLIANCE

GOVERNMENTS
Anarchy - Feudal - Cooperative - Theocracy - Communism - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage - Democracy - Confederacy

POWER
EDMUND MAHON
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

THE INDEPENDENTS

GOVERNMENTS
Prison Colony - Anarchy - Feudal - Cooperative - Theocracy - Communism - Dictatorship - Corporate - Patronage - Democracy - Confederacy

POWERS
ARCHON DELAINE
Expansion strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship
Control strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy

LI YONG-RUI
Expansion & Control strong against Corporate, weak against Communist, Cooperative, Feudal & Patronage

PRANAV ANTAL
Expansion strong against Communist, Cooperative & Confederacy, weak against Feudal, Prison Colony & Theocracy
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

YURI GROM
Expansion strong against Feudal & Patronage, weak against Dictatorship
Control strong against Feudal, Dictatorship, Communist & Cooperative, weak against Democracy

-----

ETHOS & BGS

First thing you can see is that Zachar Hudson has great issues with the Federation itself: a well played Hudson BGS bubble will be a not Federal one. Moreover, many powers have issues with factions during expansion, but are favoured by them for control... another flaw.

The only conclusion is to drop all the ethos system, it simply doesn't work, even the very difference between the expansion & control is flawed by itself, it simply doesn't make any sense that some Minor Factions should be happy to be controlled after opposing to be conquered. Am I right?

A good system would be to have some desirable government, most neutral governments, and some undesirable to every single power, but I think that not only the government should be a variable in this, the superpower alligeance should be important too. This should apply on both expansion & control.

Let's make an example.

Zachary Hudson is the President of the Federation. He's a strong and military aggressive right-wing guy. Theocracy & Corporate minor factions should be happy to be under his influence, because for them this should mean much more security in their home systems, the other Federal governments should be neutral to him, most of the independents should be too (with some exceptions), different story about the Empire and Alliance minor factions, which should oppose strongly to him.

So every single power should have unique desirable, neutral and undesirable minor factions concerning their superpower and government, it would be similar to how it is now with the ethos, similar but better.

TRIGGERS

The actual system is a all-or-nothing thing, with just a normal, a doubled and a halved trigger: I think that a more "fluid" system should be better, with a maximum and a minimum trigger, and the actual trigger for the week calculated on the number of neutral, desirable and undesirable minor factions ruling the control & exploited systems. Every change of Government should reflect on a slightly change in the fortification/undermine triggers.

CONTSTED SYSTEMS

Right now these systems simply doesn't count. I think it would be interesting if these systems should be given to the power with the most desirable government. A contested system between Zachary Hudson e A- Lavigny-Duval should be assigned to Hudson if the controlling Minor Faction is a Federal one, or to Lavigny-Duval if a Empire minor faction is in control.

...AND FINALLY... A RESET.

These changes would mean a total re-think of all the Powerplay, considering that the Powerplay seems so broken right now, it would be a good idea to simply restart at all, with all the 11 powers, I know that many cmdrs have played it a lot, but I think that any of us would benefit to a better powerplay, with better mechanics, better interaction with the BGS.

What do you think about this?

You are thinking too rationally.

 

[Cosmo]

Some interesting suggestions. I think PP also needs:

• Guilds to make it player driven (can be added instantly without someone from Frontier to manually add it)
• Guild territory control that is player managed
• Don't make people wait for rewards. Make credits optional.
• No or very slow rep decay
• No wanted status everywhere outside your power's bubble

For the sake of variety, because people complain that systems are too similar with few differences:

• The government type should add visual changes, decorations to stations, outposts and settlements
• Add special content to a system based on the government-type

 

[fergal]

One of the biggest issues with PP is the ROI.

I created a thread in this area for PP options to suggest to FDev that they change from the current Merit based system to a system more like the Community Goals. One that gets wiped every cycle so that no one user is always the top, and more contributors get a better ROI for their time and dedication.

During the Beta for PP the rating system was nearly identical to the community goal one.
Only the top 10 players in each faction got the rating 5 bonus, rating 3 was only for the top 50% of players in that faction.
And the merits were just for that week.

This caused a large amount of "feedback" from beta players, most of whom also said they didn't like the idea of PP and wouldn't play.
FDev listened to these people, who probably never ended up playing PP, and removed the top % requirements and put in the flat merits needed, and also implemented the current merit decay system, allowing previous weeks work to count for the current weeks.

So FDevs original plan was what you are suggesting, which I also think is a much better system.

*edit, there were also 0 credits rewards for PP.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Yeah, I know that I have this bad habit to be too rational

Anyway, I don't think that the actual reward system is flawed or anything, yeah there's probably much to be adjusted, but I see there only "minor" problems.

The real problem is that PP, as it is right now, it's too much of a separate game, which makes no sense at all. There are some cool things, like the effects of power in the territories which are controlled, but this is too marginal and, most of times, because of the ethos (which are really bad and make no sense at all), you don't "feel" to play in favour of that character.

Come on: we of Archon Delaine are in a constant fight AGAINST anarchist minor factions, Hudsonian against the Federation itself... and that's just stupid, there's no way to justify that.

Powerplay gotta be reviewed completely on its correlation with BGS first of all, then we can talk about personal rewards. I hate to repeat myself, but there's a whole bunch of different ways to make credits in this game, applying to PP and BGS is something a CMDR should do just for the fun of it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Perhaps devolving powers into a 'major' faction might help, so that instead of having influence bubbles you simply have systems (like what the Feds / Alliance and Imps have now). To expand you simply use the expansion state, and opposing means using BGS tactics to shrink opponents. You would then get more granularity with forcing retreats, expansions, without the need for the top PP layer.

All FD would need to do is seed a power faction and write 50 or so lines of lore, and watch as it grows organically. Instead of the PP tab you could simply have a filter like in the map that highlights that certain power to see its progress.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

The idea of a "super minor faction" simply would not work, going system to system? In what the powers would be different to any "normal" minor faction? No, it's too abstract of an idea, it's better to think about some improvements for powerplay with the same philosophy taht already has, with the "bubbles" in which we have different sub-rules for any different power, even the 1 week long cycle is good (when it works, of course).

Oh, if we can find a real problem I think that all the "snipe" mechanic is simply a non-sense. The counter should tick in real time, even if a CMDR don't cash his merits. The redeem of merits should be just a personal reward, any other action should count simply because it's been done, like killing ships in a system simplyworks for the BGS. I think that this way the PowerPlay would be MUCH more realistic. We all do snipe, of course, but I think that everybody here have to admit that's a totally unrealistic mechanic. It's not the "cashing in" that undermine (techincally) a system, is the killing itself that does.

I think that these few simple things should be easy to do and would improve the powerplay to many levels:

1- a totally new mechanic for desirable/undesirable governments, expecially considering the superpower alligeance of any minor faction (that's crucial), without difference between expansion and control, and a more dynamic method to calculate the triggers to undermine/fortify, counting the single systems, not the half of them
2- make merits count the very moment they are generated, not when they are redeemed
3- make the contested systems exploitable by different powers if they can impose one of their desirable governments in the system itself, imagine the BGS wars in there!

Well, it would be interesting to hear the opinion of the developers, maybe Sammarco is still reading this forum, time by time?

 

[Rubbernuke]

The idea of a "super minor faction" simply would not work, going system to system? In what the powers would be different to any "normal" minor faction? No, it's too abstract of an idea, it's better to think about some improvements for powerplay with the same philosophy taht already has, with the "bubbles" in which we have different sub-rules for any different power, even the 1 week long cycle is good (when it works, of course).

You'll find it makes complete sense really. Powerplay has too many flaws to make it truly accessible to everyone, while the BGS system has more to it that makes it interesting.

In my idea the only difference between a minor faction and a superpower is the amount of systems they control, so you have one ruleset that is consistent across the whole game rather than several different ones. From a single system to a thousand, the rules don't change.

Most people do not understand Powerplay at all as its very complicated: what you need is simplicity. A Powerplay bubble of systems is fixed; with everything at a system level instead you would get 'real-time' (i.e. tick level frequency) borders that dynamically expanded or contracted based on player input. The other benefit is that the BGS is mature and works predictably, and has many more aspects to it: boom, lockdown etc. Powerplay is limited to turmoil or no turmoil.

People hate the merit decay, hauling forts etc- all things that are not needed in my approach. My way has no 5c, and more importantly no need to have options like (the very useful) consolidation facility which as a side effect kills dynamism stone dead. To improve your power you do the typical ED missions and activities to expand from your systems- CZs, exploration etc.

Also, there qould be no need for ranks either, as you decide yourself what effort to put in- no artificially imposed decay. Rank money is pointless when the game pays so well, so that would go too. In essence, to help your power you do missions for it, to hurt another you pirate / kill etc like the main game.

From earlier livestreams PP has to operate within data limitations, so instant feedback is not possible; if everything was BGS based then this problem instantly goes away.

Unique modules are for some powers a curse, while power bonuses either don't work or are very opaque in operation. While its a novelty to have them, unique modules need to be treated like rares and sold in particular places rather than via ranking which encourages destructive behaviour.

The above changes would lead to a more open, easier to understand and most importantly dynamic game that would not force dull repetitive actions on players.

 

[Arkadi]

I am not sure but I believe that Frontier is holding back a surprise for powerplay. I think something along the lines of a new alien power being added opening much new and needed space to be conquered and cotested.

 

[xondk]

All of the above is a good idea, like most of the "heres how we fix PP threads", the main issue as I see it is FDev don't want to commit any resources to making PP better.
PP was bare bones when it launched, everyone was waiting for the rest of the content to be added, it wasn't, and you would see player after player leave.
.

Well the 'problem' is that there's a difference in opinion on what people think is a good idea. So yeah.

This idea doesn't really seem to solve the proble, just shift it around, the general problem seems to be two folds though.

work/reward - People want to not feel what they are doing is a chore, and at the same time want a 'good' reward for it, which yeah, is very subjective, and unfortunately, often previous experience with other games, set people's expectations.
no "you win" - Currently you can't really 'win' powerplay, it isn't an ever evolving thing, this seems to leave many people unsatisfied, and this one I generally don't know how you would solve, because if you add a 'win' situation, power play leader assassinated and is out of the game, you would run dry eventually or need to create more 'factions' constantly, that then would be significantly worse off compared to more established powers, while realistic, it doesn't solve the problem people have with the lack of win situations.

 

[DCLXVI your God]

Power Play was sort of born dead.
It just took a while before we recognized it for the corpse it is.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and difficulties when people try to speak about powerplay. I read only of criticism about the personal rewards and, to be honest, that's quite disappointing, because I think you are losing focus on what powerplay really is.

First of all, RANK 5 powerplay is in fact profitable if you only aim to reach the 10.000 merits weekly. You recieve 50 M once a week and even grinding your way to the 5000 merits only delivering pp commodities, you have 1 M left of those 50 M of salary. Always thinking about "subtract" fromthe initial 50 M salary, we can say that every kill in undermining is worth 300.000 cr, and every kill in PP conflict zones are worth 100.000 cr (where you can gain around 90.000 cr from a Corvette/Cutter in normal conflict zones), for every kind of ship, hell, 100.000 cr for a stupid eagle, and PP is not profitable enough? Yeah, you have to make a great investment first, and it's absolutely fair, because of the great rewards you gain after.

So, can we please stop talk about that and look at the real problem that's how PP lacks in immersion?

First of all: what it is powerplay, for real?

Powerplay is just a set of sub-rules that applies to systems under the influence of that power. Players can let that influence grow or oppose to it, after they pledge to a certain power. And that's all. And that's the funny part of it, because Powerplay is a great way to shape the Galaxy politics.

Well, it should be, anyway.

Players should choose to simply play their game, if someone simply doesn't like it (as doesn't like combat, or trading, or exploring) there's simply NO WAY to make it funny for him, there are tons of ways to play this game.

Let's make an example: a group of players support a independent PMF, and it's all good on the horizon for them, but one day finally a Power alligned to one of the three superpowers expand to a system near them and they find themselves under the influence of such power. This will mean problems for them, because a superpower, well, it's SUPER in its very name, and maybe the players pledged to that power will start to back another minor faction, because it's more favourable for their power. I find these mechanics intriguing and very immersive, because it's simply realistic that a small minor factions should have great difficulties against a Power.

We need to make PP the main fuel to Galaxy Politics, I know that many players here simply have no interest in shaping the Galaxy and would like just another simple way to gain credits (because we don't have enough, right?), but that's how the powerplay would die for good.

 

[Rubbernuke]

We need to make PP the main fuel to Galaxy Politics

This is the paradox of Powerplay in relation to ED- ED was supposed to be driven by players (via CGs etc) and currently we have had many mega wars and attacks in PP that have not been mentioned at all in the lore of the game. For example, where is Grom in all the latest news? ZAYDA, etc? Its like we play in a different universe of FD.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

If I remember well they used to do something like that months ago...