So... we had a focused feedback, we saw the community split in two groups (I don't wanna say which of them was larger, really: I do not care) about the open only matter, but after Zac Antonaci's announcement there's one thing is for sure: any change in Powerplay will not happen soon.
I really do not wanna rant about it, but consider this: it's almost two years that Powerplayers have to struggle with a lot of issues in Powerplay, bugs, bots etc, and 5C is the worst one, what's happened to the Kumo Crew the last few months and what's happening now to the Alliance is simply too much, it's crystal clear that we need some hot-fixes.
But I understand that FDev as a company has some other priorities too of course, so what I ask in here is for a compromise, some really easy to do fixes tha would solve a lot of problems in Powerplay (and would eventually make 5C irrelevant), without changing anything in game mechanics.
1- NO MORE OVERHEAD, HIGHER UPKEEPS
Overhead how it works now is one of the main weapons in the hands of 5C to jeopardize a Power's health and stability: a very bad system with high overlap on already exploited systems will result in a really high neat loss of CCs, and considering the turmoil mechanics that system will stay where it is without any possibility to lose that. Control Systems should then have higher upkeeps, much higher for far away systems, making it mandatory to fortify them to avoid the usual CC loss in upkeep.
2- CHANGE THE PRIORITY ON EXPLOITED SYSTEMS
Right now older control systems have the priority over already exploited systems: when 5C successfully prepare and conquer a system very close to your headquarter (with a really favourable trigger for 5C itself because of how close they usually are), this new Control System has even a lower income than it should, because it can't exploit systems already exploited by an older and farther control system, which is harder to fortify (because of the worse fortification trigger). I think that closer systems should exploit as many systems they can first than farther ones, this would be more practical, and we would have more systems (and consequentially income CCs) covered by lower upkeep and fortification triggers.
3- COMPETITIVE UNDERMINE AND FORTIFICATION TRIGGERS
Right now you can basically deal with a system at the beginning of the cycle and leave it like that without touching it anymore, this is one of the many things that contribute to keep PP stagnant, my proposal is, after the triggers are reached of course, to make the fortification and undermining competitive: if one of the two is 100% higher than the other, the control system will be considered fortified or undermined, making focused attacks possible.
4- VOTES
Right now 5C votes are the most complicated thing to counter: a relatively small group of commanders can turn the tables easily, and some things like the fact that Elite Dangerous has been sold to a very low price and the fact that console players can virtually have infinite accounts (and infinite votes). Even the access to votes doesn't help: 100 merits to have votes permissions are too low, and the votes being weighted on time more than efforts exploits this situation. This time I've got a double proposal about that.
- end preparations a couple of days before the tick and make people votes yes or no about every single preparation in the top 10, of course the ones with more merits have got the priority other the others if the "yes" votes win
- weight the votes differently: after 4 or even 8 weeks people will be able to vote, but only people with rating 3 or above will be able to do so, with rating 3 CMDRs' votes weighted 1, rating 4 weighted 2, rating 5 weighted 5 (becuase to keep rating 5 is frankly more difficult)
This would make, again, 5C pointless
5- POWER MODULES TO TECH-BROKERS (ok, this is optional)
I don't say you've got to simply get rid of Power Modules: but you can at least made them available by Tech-Broker present in certain systems, even HQs systems of every single Power. People would be able to Module-Shop as usual if they want, but give us another way to gain those modules. And yeah: you should unlock every single class of Prismatic Shields, because it shouldn't be easy, but there should be the possibility to do so.
And: that's all. No Open Only (even if I'd love to have that). No Powerplay missions, or overhauls. Simply some tweaks to make 5C useless, to make this game more fair. I'd love to have some response from the Developers this time, Powerplay community endured a lot, we've been patient over any possible reasonable limit, but this single time, please, at least consider this proposal.
I really do not wanna rant about it, but consider this: it's almost two years that Powerplayers have to struggle with a lot of issues in Powerplay, bugs, bots etc, and 5C is the worst one, what's happened to the Kumo Crew the last few months and what's happening now to the Alliance is simply too much, it's crystal clear that we need some hot-fixes.
But I understand that FDev as a company has some other priorities too of course, so what I ask in here is for a compromise, some really easy to do fixes tha would solve a lot of problems in Powerplay (and would eventually make 5C irrelevant), without changing anything in game mechanics.
1- NO MORE OVERHEAD, HIGHER UPKEEPS
Overhead how it works now is one of the main weapons in the hands of 5C to jeopardize a Power's health and stability: a very bad system with high overlap on already exploited systems will result in a really high neat loss of CCs, and considering the turmoil mechanics that system will stay where it is without any possibility to lose that. Control Systems should then have higher upkeeps, much higher for far away systems, making it mandatory to fortify them to avoid the usual CC loss in upkeep.
2- CHANGE THE PRIORITY ON EXPLOITED SYSTEMS
Right now older control systems have the priority over already exploited systems: when 5C successfully prepare and conquer a system very close to your headquarter (with a really favourable trigger for 5C itself because of how close they usually are), this new Control System has even a lower income than it should, because it can't exploit systems already exploited by an older and farther control system, which is harder to fortify (because of the worse fortification trigger). I think that closer systems should exploit as many systems they can first than farther ones, this would be more practical, and we would have more systems (and consequentially income CCs) covered by lower upkeep and fortification triggers.
3- COMPETITIVE UNDERMINE AND FORTIFICATION TRIGGERS
Right now you can basically deal with a system at the beginning of the cycle and leave it like that without touching it anymore, this is one of the many things that contribute to keep PP stagnant, my proposal is, after the triggers are reached of course, to make the fortification and undermining competitive: if one of the two is 100% higher than the other, the control system will be considered fortified or undermined, making focused attacks possible.
4- VOTES
Right now 5C votes are the most complicated thing to counter: a relatively small group of commanders can turn the tables easily, and some things like the fact that Elite Dangerous has been sold to a very low price and the fact that console players can virtually have infinite accounts (and infinite votes). Even the access to votes doesn't help: 100 merits to have votes permissions are too low, and the votes being weighted on time more than efforts exploits this situation. This time I've got a double proposal about that.
- end preparations a couple of days before the tick and make people votes yes or no about every single preparation in the top 10, of course the ones with more merits have got the priority other the others if the "yes" votes win
- weight the votes differently: after 4 or even 8 weeks people will be able to vote, but only people with rating 3 or above will be able to do so, with rating 3 CMDRs' votes weighted 1, rating 4 weighted 2, rating 5 weighted 5 (becuase to keep rating 5 is frankly more difficult)
This would make, again, 5C pointless
5- POWER MODULES TO TECH-BROKERS (ok, this is optional)
I don't say you've got to simply get rid of Power Modules: but you can at least made them available by Tech-Broker present in certain systems, even HQs systems of every single Power. People would be able to Module-Shop as usual if they want, but give us another way to gain those modules. And yeah: you should unlock every single class of Prismatic Shields, because it shouldn't be easy, but there should be the possibility to do so.
And: that's all. No Open Only (even if I'd love to have that). No Powerplay missions, or overhauls. Simply some tweaks to make 5C useless, to make this game more fair. I'd love to have some response from the Developers this time, Powerplay community endured a lot, we've been patient over any possible reasonable limit, but this single time, please, at least consider this proposal.
