Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It's a base game feature revamp that all players were waiting for as the unnamed "major feature overhaul" for quite some time.
Open-Only in PP2.0?
- Thread starter August Lagrange
- Start date
And how is repeating PP1s weak and unevenful hauling going to make it more popular?
Its like arguing that the Thargoids shoot at you- thats the point, they are enemies. Powerplay is the same- 12 powers, all vying for the top slot.
The NPC difficulty should be linked to effort (so the toughest NPCs are left for those who do the most) but even at the bottom of the scale that does not mean you face absolutely nothing. You don't like the heat, don't pledge- just don't blame the feature.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Not suggesting for a moment that PPv1's lacklustre NPCs should be repeated.
.... and one goes hunting for Thargoids in specific areas, not simply traversing the bubble engaged in whichever activity takes ones fancy.
We'll see in time whether the NPC challenge has been set at a level that is acceptable to those who have little or no interest in combat.
As to "don't blame the feature" - maybe not - we'll see how well it lands with the player-base as a whole, not just those who enjoy combat.
and that's a whole other kettle of fish since it ended up with a notoriously terrible C&P system that causes more problems than it solves for the vast majority of players, especially those who don't do pvp.
As I understand it, the powerplay NPCs no matter how dangerous will leave you alone in friendly space.
So you can run your shieldless hauler between friendly ports in safe territory all you want, which is... actually fine? I have absolutely no issue with that.
If people want to complain that they can't go into enemy territory and actively attack their enemies without consequence, then... well.
If you want to go out of your way to affect other people's experience, it's only fair that you be affected in turn. That's one of my primary issues with PMFs as the sandcastle-building-coop game layer - the fact that, because it's done through the BGS, they can be attacked completely anonymously or even if responsibility is claimed the person kicking over sandcastles might not even have a sandcastle of their own to kick back. If I were designing a basebuilding/territory game layer to exist on the squadron level, below powerplay, and attacking other people's stuff was on the cards, at minimum I'd have a requirement that the attacker not only be participating in that game layer, but have an asset in range that can be attacked in turn.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
When not hostile with local Factions every system is effectively friendly space. Powerplay 2.0 will make eleven out of twelve systems where a Power is present into hostile territory.
Some may enjoy that, or find the Powerplay rewards sufficiently compelling to stay pledged. The same can't be said of all players.
Again that comes down to whether these powerplay enforcers are "attack enemy pledges on sight" or "only go after you if you've actually been acting against their power", and exactly where they show up.
It's one thing to be just going about your business as someone who's pledged to a hostile power to wherever you are now but hasn't actually done anything, like you're just popping into Ray Gateway to do some outfitting, but if you've been actively undermining li-yong rui or you rock up directly to one of his stronghold carriers where you don't (and can't) have any peaceful business is quite another.
I just hope they use something besides the bounty system to do it. Powerplay bounties are about as anaemic as the rest of the C&P system.
Only because the Thargoids we on the edge of the bubble and isolated systems. Powerplay is the bubble. So don't like it, don't pledge.
I'm very happy to have graded NPCs, but at the same time it can't be zero, either. Otherwise, how would (say) LYR ships be allowed to get data to fortify with?
Like I keep on saying, Powerplay is defined by the threat of violence and those that don't like being shot at should realise that.
IMO it should be graded according to how much activity you are doing- the very lowest levels they'd give you a warning to leave (and then shoot) and at the top they hound you all over (like war aces).
But from whats been shown / talked about rivals are jumped on in strongholds, possibly in fortified systems, and that exploited and unoccupied you are more likely to be in fights to take the systems over.
personally I'd love to see them take the C&P system and actually make it mean something
Throw hot ships and hot modules in the trash (or at the very least have powerplay bounties not cause ships to be hot) so you don't wind up with these dumb cleaning fees for doing powerplay, then make powerplay bounties uncleanable regardless of notoriety. No handing in, no interstellar factors, but also no real penalty outside of powerplay for flying around with one. Maybe make them decay over time the way merits currently do.
Bam, now you have a system where people who've been doing the shady thing have every reason to have powerplay NPC cops shoot at you - as opposed to the current system where you can literally kill a thousand ships to undermine a few systems, incur a 10 million bounty, but then pay that bounty off at an IF immediately and become completely squeaky clean because PP kills don't incur notoriety. Oh, and then get paid a hundred million over the next couple of weeks because you scored enough merits to reach rank 5 three times over. Bounties are currently useless as a measure to direct NPC aggression because of how trivial it is to get rid of them.
I do like the idea, but I think its a bit of a double edged sword.
Given that you can undermine handing in exploration data (IIRC from the livestream), trade etc Power ships can't really ignore them either- given they are still going against other powers. Its like ignoring the supply freighters supporting a war effort. Its why I see total effort as more representative, given Powerplay now is more than shooting.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
No disagreement there - hence the observation that it's entirely possible that many won't pledge for that reason. Noting the lack of pledging to v1 with its anaemic Powerplay NPCs.
It was (partly, since there were many, many other issues) down to wafer thin PvE to begin with. There is only so many times people will A to B haul where nothing happens, given other Powers contextually should be saying hello once in a while.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It was also likely due to the fact that players aren't scripted like NPCs are - so being pledged at all may have been used, by some of those playing in Open, as a target identifier whenever a player pledged to a different Power was encountered (noting that no player needs to even be aware of any diplomatic arrangements and agreements between player groups) - which will have put some players off the feature as it paints a permanent target on their ship while pledged.
The same may well occur in 2.0.
Put differently: while Frontier know how many players are actually pledged to Powerplay v1 (and for how long they are pledged to their latest Power) we can only guess. INARA stats (with the usual caveats regarding subset of players who use it and no guarantee it's up to date) indicate that only about 4 in 9 players are currently pledged, with about 1 in 5 players (or 42% of those pledged) pledged to a single Power. For Frontier to pick a game feature for a major rework and commit significant development time to that rework it would be surprising if they were aiming it at only about 45% of the player-base - it would seem reasonable to assume that their expectation is that more rather than fewer players will pledge. If the day-to-day interactions (to those players who eschew combat in general and PvP in particular) relating to Powerplay aren't their sort of fun then they are less likely to play in Open in particular or pledge in general.
If Power removal were to be a thing then the least worst choice for such a player might be to pledge to the largest Power and help it systematically remove the others - increasing the friendly space volume each time. I doubt that the number of Powers would be allowed to fall significantly though, if Power removal is even possible.
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Eh, I dunno about that. They put thargoids in the game as solo encounters and going by the AXI ranks (which require you to kill one solo outside of a CZ) about 85% of players even in that discord haven't even killed a cyclops solo, never mind a basilisk, medusa or hydra.
And frankly, I don't see "the majority of the playerbase don't do it" as a worthy indicator of whether or not a feature should be added. If anything, dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator would be a terrible idea. Imagine what the state of AX would be if the devs went "wow, only 5% of players can kill a hydra, let's nerf them so the median player can take them on".
PP1 was dull, repetitive, had a real time feedback system (for the PvE and consequently PvP) bolted onto a maths driven abstracted strategy layer, was punishing players with time gates (several times over), was wildly inconsistent in mechanics and rewards, punished players for not playing at the same time (decay) and as time went on the rewards became redundant for the effort put in.
Powerplay 2 needed to solve the above, but also actually have an identity and reason 'to be'. We already have a neutral 'don't shoot me guv' feature, and thats called the BGS- which is the default environment everyone is dumped into. Making a Vanilla as possible PP2 with a vanilla BGS is just silly. It makes having no go areas, exclusive stronghold FCs or just having territory pointless.
Done right it would allow players to grow with the feature long term- something that won't happen if everything is low level continuously. If FD are particularly sharp it could rebalance PvE gameplay against engineered ships at the top end.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Indeed - noting that Thargoid content is effectively geographically opt-in in terms of where they might possibly be encountered - they don't pervade every populated system (which is very likely by design so as not to put off players who don't enjoy AX combat from playing at all).
Powerplay 2.0, on the other hand, will expand to fill as many populated systems as it will have players to drive it - so might reasonably be expected to cover the whole bubble - ultimately resulting in eleven from twelve systems (assuming even system distribution between Powers) being hostile to a pledged player.
If only a few players can achieve or are interested in something it makes the business case for development of that thing more challenging in terms of $/user engagement perspective.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Only to an extent - as different players will reach their skill plateau at quite different levels - and that's independent of their inclination to improve skill in the first place.
From a game design perspective, adding an activity where only 5% of players succeed is closely tied to player retention and engagement. It’s highly likely that for the 5% who succeed, along with a certain percentage still trying, you’ve effectively extended the endgame mechanics. This keeps players invested, as those who succeed gain a sense of accomplishment and mastery, while those still striving are motivated to continue playing, improving their skills, and engaging with the game over time. This creates a deeper commitment and prolongs their overall involvement. I think about thargoids as one of the smarter elements added over the years.