In the idea its financial with INF rewards for either completion or destruction (as it is in V2). The hauler gets far more since there are more variables.
CQC is fine, it just is a different animal (one that needs a bit of feeding).
If the skill floor for Powerplay 2.0 is too high in general and in Open in particular is too high then players simply won't choose to engage in it - which would mean that the long awaited major feature overhaul that all players have been awaiting for quite some time would be a bit of a damp squib for most players.
Probably. Interesting that nothing like it has been done in the over nine years since. Maybe that speaks to Frontier's understanding of the player-base as a whole.
There were so many things broken with that event that the outcome was pretty clear even before it started. Not that many players took part in relation to the player-base. Some still hail it as the greatest in-game event to date. The opinions of some others may differ.
People will do something if they feel they'll get something out of it. Making a mode or feature difficult but have corresponding rewards is simply common sense.
More than likely FD don't have the prizes and that they want more PR than keeping it in game. These days its all Twitter and Twitch, with decals and ARX in game.
You are not answering the question- would have NPCs been as effective? Could an NPC chase and shoot you down across the inhabited bubble like players do in PP?
Indeed - and if they feel that they're going backwards (as some no doubt did during the bugged NPCs of 2.1) then they won't play it.
NPCs could have been more effective than the players involved - completely unavoidable and posing an insurmountable risk to every player - Frontier don't choose to release them though. What I'm getting at is that for many that level of challenge isn't "fun", so it's likely not worth the development time.
The capabilities of the Elite (pun intended) should not be the baseline when considering what players are capable of broadly. The fact that some CMDRs can solo them doesn't mean they're not a threat to the majority. I can't take on Hydras solo, that's for damn sure. If I could, I might want to go into Open and test my mettle against other CMDRs that might provide more of a challenge to keep things interesting.
How could the NPCs been 'better'? Players plan and execute tactics outside of what an instanced NPC can do. Its been a long, long time since the same NPC chased me between two systems, let alone across half the bubble.
But we are not talking about them. We are talking about people looking at Open, seeing a small bonus for being in it and going 'I'll choose that'.
That was an extreme example, but at the same time there are no roving PP NPCs (or NPCs in general) that can actually effect the outcome of what is an objectives based feature like players can- thats the issue. In V1 every NPC is 2015 era. Something has to act on them otherwise it distorts the meta strategy game above it. V1 has no NPC opposition, V2 has in some places, but its players alone that raid other powers.
And if that rookie was in Powerplay, then its bad luck for them- they chose to be in Powerplay and that its actually a goal to kill others in Open, just as it is to haul or UM. Thats the risk you take, and thus why rewards need to be higher since you are taking everything on- NPCs, rival pledges as well as non pledges.
The problem is Powerplay has a strategic gain for not being in Open, just as PG and solo offer tangible benefits.
They seem to align just fine for me and many others over the years.
I can extend that logic to any feature that offers a bonus- is it fun? Whats in it for me for doing more?
NPCs, as part of the game, would know exactly where their target was at all times and are not subject to trivial limitations like jump range, super-cruise speed, etc., i.e. they can be spawned at need by the game anywhere. That NPCs don't hunt players down likely speaks to how Frontier understands their player-base, e.g. a mission NPC only makes one attempt to interdict a player if the player wins the interdiction. Thargoids interdict more often though.
How many of those players are there expected to be, noting that we've been told that "a lot" of players don't engage in combat at all even though we've been told that the majority (or possibly plurality, given how the word "majority" is abused in colloquial English) of players play in Open?
So how would they know where they were going? Did they have ships that were suited to attack? If these ships were damaged, did they magically repair themselves? The other aspect is that instanced NPCs are lacking context, trying to approximate player actions through abstraction. You hobble a pursuer they stay hobbled until fixed.
Its is as I said, people looking at the various modes, what they offer and choosing the right one for them. Until you offer it, how would we know? And if it was offered, what slight is it on other modes other than the perceived ones by you?
They don't need to.
They could have ships that players can only dream of.
It has been observed in the past that mission NPCs sometimes changed ships but kept the same name.
They won't be players, that's for sure.
For some, certainly. I doubt that all players play it that way.
A bonus for players in one game mode is functionally identical to a penalty for those players in the other two game modes - that's not "perceived", it's "identified". If the bonus is low then it's unlikely to attract those who don't enjoy combat in general or PvP in particular. If the bonus is high then it will encourage some players to make liberal use of the block feature to turn the Open that they fly in into something more palatable.
That however, is the core of what Powerplay is designed around.
So the NPCs were FDLs with actually destructive loadouts, or just Eagles and Vipers?
So if you went to the effort of damaging them, would they be consistent like players?
So then the effort expended by those being chased was fair for players?
There is no other way of playing PP in open other than doing exactly that. You do your task and avoid being shot down when players and situations merge.
In Open, certainly. Noting that those in Open are not all players.
No, in all modes- why do you think people want better NPCs too?
It was not a reference to what was but what could possibly be.
No. NPCs tended to get repaired on system change (possibly just instance change).
Who knows, they don't exist yet.
As already mentioned, in Open certainly. Noting that not all players play in Open.
Solo and Private Groups have no benefits that are not available in Open - other than fewer players - in a game where other players are an optional extra.
Which mixes what is with what might be.
NPCs are, I expect, highly unlikely to offer the level of challenge that some want them to to participants in general - especially when the benchmark for risk seems to be risk free players in G5 murderboats.
