Perceived unfairness, or how to make people angry.

[Herik]

Some pigs are more equal than others.

Edit: The changes are reasonable. Nevertheless other powers get punished for playing by the rules and trying to play good and in a strategically meaningful way.

Another one of those 'patience things', Flin.

- - - Updated - - -

The power play weapons were always meant to be alternative weapons with unique traits that were not objectively better, just different. From a pure statistical point of the view the DPS and effectiveness of them have been tuned to ensure they're in line with similar sized normal weapons. I think the biggest gripe is that these weapons are actually on the smaller size which was by design. If there were large and huge versions of these things then I bet there wouldn't be such a backlash but then we'd also be making horribly game breaking weapons of god like proportions because their unique traits become too powerful at that level.

I like this,.. GOOD. +1; giving a rep despite not needing one.

 

[Herik]

Doesn't matter. If the "game" goes in a direction that FD don't like they'll just move the goalposts anyway. How the board was arranged at the start is irrelevant when no-one can predict next week's rules.

Doesn't matter if its PP or some other game feature; It's all about game play and not destroying other players game. Expect it.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The brick wall crash was because of the player distribution. Most of the players went with ALD and Aisling, and because they are both Imperial Powers they can't really fight each other the way the in game mechanics work.
ALD has been able to expand and grow at the maximum rate, while Winters and Hudson have been attacked by the larger number of Imperial players and not been able to expand very fast.

Because the overhead formula cubes a number, it just suddenly becomes massive.

Resurrecting ALD was the right thing to do, but the method used is seen to be (and I think) unfair.
They had 0 money, so went into turmoil and lost 2 systems. But at the same time the game allowed 7 new systems to be expanded into.

The overhead cost of these 7 new systems caused the massive deficit. All that needed to happen this week to fix it is not allow the 7 expanded systems to be added to their total.

One of the devs has already said thats how it will work from now on, they should have just done that and not made a separate cheaper overhead cost just for ALD.

No plan survives contact with gamers.

We need a leaderboard of who has pledged to which power.

Then, hey presto, suddenly next week, Princess Kardashian will have assassinated all the other Imperial leaders, and there will be one Empire.

The Red And Blue States will meet in the Appomattox system, sign a peace treaty until the 2016 *ahem* 3302 elections to deal with the anime cartoon menace.

Let's Make A Deal will then get to engineer a hostile hedge fund buyout of Dunkin Doughnuts, because he has better stuff (15% discounts on everything, and no starving the local populations).

The Slurpee Pirate Biker Lord will have been revealed to creating the Utopians as a distraction, so he can stay off the #10 spot. Additionally, all the Utopians are secretly Pirate Droids.

 

[Daffan]

Powerplay is rigged anyway.

It should be more emphasis on players and less on nPCS

 

[Martin Schou]

I don't see how the 'resurrection' was unfair

Resurrecting her wasn't unfair, the way it was done is. She was resurrected by changing the overhead calculations, but that change only affects her. That's unfair to all the other powers (especially Hudson, who's the closest rival and almost as large). Additionally, but lowering the overhead calculations after she lost two systems to revolt, there's a chance that those two would have stayed with her, had the change been done before the cycle started.

That's the unfairness I'm talking about. Changing the rules for one participant is inherently going to be perceived as massively unfair.

 

[EUS]

Any other faction, or leader who suffers the same issues will not drop 9 spots either. The limits are in place for all leaders.

 

[spullara]

But to be clear: we're not interested in evenly distributing Commanders amongst the powers or having a completely equitable set of options. It's not up to us to make them choose, or choose their level of involvement.

You don't seem to understand game theory. If the powers aren't balanced then you won't get a distribution that reflects the beliefs of your player base. Your players will choose factions that are unbalanced in their favor, thus subverting the narrative. People act in their own self-interest. You are in effect crafting the galaxy in the image of your choices not the choices of players. The reason ALD is the biggest baddest faction is because it got the best bonus and the best weapon. Not for any narrative reason. If you believe otherwise, you are deluding yourself.

 

[Arry]

You don't seem to understand game theory. If the powers aren't balanced then you won't get a distribution that reflects the beliefs of your player base. Your players will choose factions that are unbalanced in their favor, thus subverting the narrative. People act in their own self-interest. You are in effect crafting the galaxy in the image of your choices not the choices of players. The reason ALD is the biggest baddest faction is because it got the best bonus and the best weapon. Not for any narrative reason. If you believe otherwise, you are deluding yourself.

The guy is the 'Lead designer'! FD didn't give him that job for nothing. So before you make totally off the wall remarks, have a look at who you are talking about.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

The whole seems to lie upon a Power over expanding beyond their means to the point of collapse.
This generally seems to have happened for three reasons:

Those Merit farming the closest systems. ALD was by far the worst for it.
No efforts made to contest (undermine) ALD's systems.
Big efforts where made by them to expand only.

IF FD want to see how PP works without the merit farming, cap the point where it is fortified and allow no more "supplies" or whatever to get through. Then, they may have a clearer picture as to what the real game balance is like. Need only be for a short period of time and once they have the information they need then they can let it loose again. This may also teach some players that once fortification level has been reached, there is no need to continue fortifying the same system as some may just not know any better.
I am aware FD were thinking about that if a system was overly undermined, they may do something but let's not run before we can walk. That could be announced later.

Second point I don't have an answer for because ALD's systems are too far away as a Hudson guy. And this makes me wonder why all the Fed and IMP systems are grouped together, pretty much forcing them to stand on each others toes.
I'm more concerned with defending than anything else because everyone seems to hate poor Zac. Yet, how can you not love Federation related shenanigans like Star Trek and Starship Troopers...

Might be some kinda Imperial Alliance, who knows...maybe there could be a news story in that if that was the case. All I know is if you played a word association game with me and said Empire, I'd say Evil...except the Great British one. That's probably open for debate though and not for this thread please.
As a ZacFed, I have a lot of work to do and it keeps me going, albeit in my casual style of playing the game. Gives me a good run of bounties in a system a wee bit off and sorry, money first, merits walk...

As for the third point. Some have suggested that the game decides where to expand but I find that far to constricting. I feel that if efforts where made to encourage communication between all those of a similar faction, then proper progress could be made. It might only take FD to open a side forum dedicated to it, as a point of "contact", for it to work, not so much open to other powers reading. Where it goes from there could be very interesting as players group together.
One thing that doesn't work is for anyone's efforts to be publicly available as is currently now. What you'll get is players being very able to see the oppositions efforts and nerf them before they even happen.
But, by giving a point of contact, then the onus is on the player to make up their mind who they trust because not all will be honourable probably and I like that mechanic of possible treachery. So, it should kinda be like do you wanna fly with this wing or whatever. The more "pro" will have TS so it's gonna be pretty private what their intentions are, some are already formed and may never be infiltrated. The more open will be prone to being infiltrated.
Some may open a free website with maybe a PW. Those who solo will just casually do what they do as they read the PP scenario or maybe read public broadcasts from associated groups so the lone players can let the specialist wings go cause havoc somewhere else by picking up the slack as such.
Loads of ways to do it basically...as long as there's a means to communicate because that will be essential.
But leave it up to the players, just provide the basic means for them to organize.

Just thoughts.

+1 Dev feedback in this thread, nice.

 

[Jason S]

This is the same mistake Gordon Brown made with the banks...have we learned nothing?

Powerplay, too big to fail?

True, but one just effect entertainment of a few hundred thousand and the other effects the logistics, wealth and future well being of millions.

 

[fergal]

Those Merit farming the closest systems. ALD was by far the worst for it.
No efforts made to contest (undermine) ALD's systems.
Big efforts where made by them to expand only.

ALD was not the worst for farming the closest system. We were the best at preventing it. Having said that, merit farmers were not the cause of the problem.

Your second point is fairly true. In the first week Aisling and ALD had a massive preparation war for one system. Aisling won, and after that the majority of players seemed unwilling for it to happen again. There was no more competition between ALD and Aisling for the next 4 weeks.

Only Panceinses was really contested after that, and this was by both federation and the alliance Power. The 3 of them together just don't have enough players. Perhaps they don't have enough combat focused (I don't mean they are bad at combat) players. ALDs expansion method is earning 1 merit per kill at a combat zone. Its a very poor return for your time compared to delivering cargo for the fortification and preparation missions.

Efforts were made to undermine ALD, but with the change to fortification, making it 5 times harder, this helped ALD and Aisling, because they have the player numbers to absorb the massive changes. Winters and Hudson had to dedicate more time to their now massively increased fortifications, which gives them less time to undermine.

I don't know what you are talking with the last point. There is no easy way to not expand. You only need 100 points for a system to be prepared. The minimum amount of preparation that ALD had for number 10 on their list was usually over 20000.

ALD started with more systems than Aisling, so this happened to her first. Aisling was running exactly 2 weeks behind. Aisling is just as unopposed, and would have hit the same wall in 5 days time.
As long as ALD and Aisling wont, or can't attack each other, there will be a massive imbalance in the game against them.

Mahon is flying at the same wall at an even faster pace.

Saving ALD may seem like favoritism (I don't think it was) but it will also save Aisling and Mahon from the same fate.
The guys at Torval did an excellent job (either accidentally or on purpose) of slowing their expansion and not being in Turmoil right now.

In week 2 ALD had a CC surplus of 1500.
After expanding to profitable systems, the CC went to 1400. Alarm bells should have been ringing at this point.
10 more profitable systems were expanded into, and the next week our CC was down to 1000.
Thats when I realized something was rotten in Denmark.

The forums had guys who had already figured out the overhead formula a week earlier. I used it and saw we would be in Turmoil the next week.
The only way to stop it was to not expand, all our systems were expanded, there is no mechanism to stop your own expansion, even though it was known it would hurt us.
So we went into Turmoil. And the game then allowed the next set of 8 systems to be expanded, while ALD was bankrupt and in Turmoil.

Not understanding the Overhead formula led to the problems, but the issue that caused the meltdown was allowing a bankrupted Power to expand and go further into negative CC.
The 7 (one didn't expand) systems all had a profit in game. They were all green, these 7 pushed the overhead cost so high not one system could be afforded anymore.

If there are changes made to the game, the costs need to be actually shown in the game. You can't have this system where there is no form of communication between the players, and every player is expected to understand that when they see a systems has a profit of 100cc, they have to actually calculate the overhead expense and take that away from what the game calls "profit", to see the actual profit.

Thats the simpler answer to what happened. What the game calls profit isn't. What it calls profit is income minus upkeep costs. But there is also an overhead cost, the game should subtract both costs from the income and call that number the profit.

 

[spullara]

The guy is the 'Lead designer'! FD didn't give him that job for nothing. So before you make totally off the wall remarks, have a look at who you are talking about.

It proves my point. Almost nothing has been balanced well.

 

[Arry]

It proves my point. Almost nothing has been balanced well.

No disrespect, but nothing ever is; balanced. In space, fulcrums don't really work anyway, they need gravity.

You are right though: This game has nothing to do with, 'Balance' it never has and I don't believe it ever will.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The problem is a power needs players. Players are attracted by perks and modules. If a power has poor perks and modules it's not going to be popular.

Said power is destined to die.

At some level powers need to be equal, if not in number of systems but in actual perks. Without that balance you will always know the outcome, in essence what we have now.

 

[hems303]

In conclusion, all I can say is: we do listen, we can't always please everyone, but we're all after the same thing: the best game we can make and enjoy.

Hope this info helps.

Hi Sandro
Many thanks for your answers and input to the forum in general. It is MUCH appreciated that you are prepared to still take time out of your busy schedule to interact with a sometimes "toxic" forum. As I'm sure you are aware; a good percentage* of the "negativity" and "toxicity" derives from misguided assumptions such as; "forcefully" presented opinions will somehow sway the makers of the game we all love. (*inevitable trolls excepted).
.
Thanks again