It was not designed as a consenual PvP system. It's designed as a dynamic influence system. Whether that be via pvp or pve.
Open-Only in PP2.0?
- Thread starter August Lagrange
- Start date
V1 I disagree with you, simply as how Powerplay was designed it left giant gaps of nothing outside the micron-thin PvE areas. We had explicit pledges, cargo, territory, uncapped merits, real time PP UI feedback- taken together it was very much set up with more in mind.
V2? We will have to see. From FU we have prep races between any number of powers (which might be an issue), you have devs talking about laying waste to factions to weaken power hold (which sounds old school BGS tactics, which has a multitude of niggles associated with it but the worst being not being able to stop it) as well as stronghold piracy UM (where unless there are adequate NPC defences will be exploited possibly like PG wing merits).
The short of it is NPC response and strength. If its too low and nebulous then you repeat V1s problems- the actual flying parts need to have some form of threat otherwise it makes a mockery of having ten other rival powers. If not, muting of influence from some activities in certain modes might even things out. Weighting could then be used as a reward for these solo PG muted jobs maybe.
From the FU livestream a lot of action was framed from a perspective of massive fights, if you detect other players attacking etc- the big question FD probably have is if its multi mode, will the base NPC level be enough to prevent V1 issues of having nothing threatening you? That, and things such as uncontested preparation of a system- if your power does not want it, but another does, how do you stop someone other than prep back? Without direct intervention you lose a strategic ability.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Noting that PvP in PPv1 is double consensual as it relates to PvP - there's no need to pledge and no need to play in Open once pledged.
Also noting that this statement was made about three-and-a-half years after game launch and about three years after the release of Powerplay as a pan-modal game feature - so the retcon regarding wanting Powerplay to be Open only to increase the frequency of PvP interactions (at the time of the Flash Topic that was clearly stated to be investigative and not a fait accompli - and where Sandro had to remind people in the thread a few times that Open only was only even being considered for Powerplay only and not for any other game feature [not that that stopped the "BGS open only when?" demands]) by effectively removing Solo and Private Groups from Powerplay was obvious.
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And this has always been one of my points, you give an inch and they'll take a mile. As we have seen in that thread, the moment some people thought they'd "won" the PP vs Modes fight they instantly jumped on trying to make more features Open Only.
In short, the people screaming for any content to be mode-locked, won't be happy until the entire game is either mode-locked or dead. And they've been screaming since before the game was released. And every time something new has been added, it's been the same calls for new content to be mode-locked.
Frontier should just go ahead and add a PvP toggle like Blizzard did with World of Warcraft. And put these people in their place once and for all.
I'm almost certain the words "consensual PvP" were used in the DDA information when PP was being designed.
And in either case, I'll spell it out slowly;
C-O-N-S-E-N-S-U-A-L.
Meaning, I get a say over you being able to engage me in PvP.
And I said no.
So if you want Open Only PP, I want a PvP/PvE toggle, so you cannot engage me in PvP. Otherwise, it isn't consensual.
Amen.
I felt it was more along the lines of: this feature is about attacking each other, given the reasoning is quite sound (i.e. direct outcomes for struggles).
But again, this stems from NPCs and the PvE being so thin its translucent.
True, but as I stated, every Powerplay proposal I've known about FD have asked the same.But this never happened it was pie in the sky
O7
The thing is PvP piracy was the Open weighting of its day- the problem was it was (along with the rest of the feature) designed poorly with many, many loopholes. And as time went on, it became clearer that as players became more powerful via engineering Power NPCs did not, qualifying the need for direct intervention.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Very probably because they are aware that some players can't accept that in-the-same-instance PvP is an optional aspect of the game that no player needs to engage in when participating in any in-game feature.
Noting Sandro's wording in the clipped part of the Flash Topic OP, is seems to boil down to "we want to see more PvP interactions in Powerplay" - which Frontier are, of course, free to desire - what they can't do is force any player to present themself as a target for PvP that they may not enjoy.
It would be interesting to see before and after data for Powerplay 2.0, if we had visibility of the number of players / average player hour per week data, how that would change if the feature were made Open only - as I expect that a not insignificant number of players would not bother continuing with it if it were made Open only. Although that may depend on the level of ARX / material rewards (which could be considered as coercive bribes to play in Open) when compared to the rewards for remaining pan-modal content.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
... and, as previously discussed, Powerplay piracy fell victim to totally predictable player collusion.
And I'd agree with you for the wider game.
The issue will always be making PP work for the modes, which means making a proper NPC response. V2 has a chance here given its per system, so its scaled correctly for 4.X NPCs. But the response has (at the top end for the Top 10 or so aces) got to equate to having player like NPCs, given a power would target such people.
Like I said with Jockey above- Open Only, weighting or any other method would not be required if the actual underpinnings were more responsive to players. The Thargoid sim for example does this really well, and would be an ideal template.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
If, for example, it were all mission based then both the risk / difficulty, reward and the opposition would be "baked in" - and the same in all game modes (well, apart from Solo where one can't wing up to mitigate risk / difficulty).
It did, because it was poorly implemented, and was also the only real way to manage systems for SCRAP. So in reality it was nested problems that fed off each other.
Yes, exactly. I think for most people this would scratch the itch and have a structure thats workable. Its why I said that having PP V2 at a system level means you have all POIs, NPCs, mission templates and 4.X BGS at your disposal.
In the end you could make it so that the top end of this dovetails into Open too. Its just a matter of getting that progression sorted out. If you did, everyone would win as everyone plays to the level they want and gets something back for being at that level.