Here's the thing, though. Even in Open, your risks vary wildly, based on where you go in the game, what time you play at, and where you are located on this planet.
Until recently, my typical play windows were during weekday global peak players on days I worked, combined with weekday global minimum players, on days I didn't have to work. My risk was practically non-existent, since I was playing outside of my local prime time.
Thats true to some extent
now for some people. Others who fight in expansions or get caught UMing / forting might say otherwise, since (at least for the two powers I worked / work for now) the geographic spread is quite even, although it favours EU / US slightly. And when things get fraught players / die hards (delete depending on view) become more and more active as the cycle reaches its close.
The other is that the new proposal significantly reduces the places Powerplay ships need to go. Capitals are the hubs and will always have traffic of some sort traveling to stations due to inbound forting. Expansions and prep are also places that will have traffic- taking an extreme case, a million merit prep in a hotly contested system will have to be transported somehow.
My hub, Harma always has someone loitering for example. Unlike today where a bubble has 15 systems you could be in, in the proposal only the control system matters, reducing possible player areas down from 15 to 1.
Back then, should I have been rewarded as heavily as those who were playing during global peak players, which roughly corresponds to European Prime Time? On paper, my risk was greatest at that time, but in reality, due to how instancing "works" in this game, my risk was about as great as it was during global minimum: almost nil. Should the players in Tokyo, Japan, who were playing during their local prime time, have been rewarded poorly due to playing during global minimum players, despite their much greater risks?
And should the player who still connects via dial-up through AOL be rewarded as heavily as the one with the fiber optic connection, even though they're playing in the same city at the same time?
That's the problem with rewarding mode choice as opposed to rewarding actual risk. An Open player would get the same results, regardless of whether their risks are the same as those who are in Solo/PG because they play outside of their local prime time, or as great as the European Prime Time Player who is facing three times the number of players as the East Asian Prime time player.
And you really can't reward actual risk either. Once you start taking player actions into account, you inevitably get collusion between players, or between a player and their alt account(s).
If you take that risk according to those rules, then yes. While no system is perfect its the best we have. I understand what you are saying, and I do agree with it that direct PvP needs some form of recognition- however unless FD tell us this is happening its not a consideration, and instead we have an imperfect passive system instead.
And should an experienced Buckyball Racer flying a blockade runner fit for purpose be rewarded as heavily as someone who insists on following the "forum recommended Supercruise technique" in an unshielded Type-9?
If you live and drop your cargo then thats worth the reward. In this feature death is the filter, not the ship you fly.
That's why I'm not fussed about the fact that all modes are rewarded equally. I'm absolutely fine with that. My reward for playing in Open is a more interesting game. I don't care that I'm flying under a self-imposed handicap, because I've also got other self-imposed handicaps above and beyond playing in Open, such as the pilot ejection rules. Should I get an even greater reward for that, compared to an Open player? Of course not.
But for those who fully engage in Powerplay its a frustrating experience. Some powers play in open because it allows a better game experience / requires more skill, while others attack them in open but fort in solo. One is harder to do than the other, but not rewarded at all. Some might say
play in kind but then that stratifies the game into a boring haul-em-up and 'sort of shoot them in expansions maybe'. It can't be all things to everyone because people will choose. Its a bit like being in a war and choosing who can shoot at you. Ultimately the two extremes are either make it all solo or make it all open.
I want an Open that is fun to play in, with as many players as possible, with as little cheating and toxic behavior as possible. To me, the best way of getting that is ensuring that everyone who is in Open is there voluntarily, free from coercion, whether that coercion takes the form of gating gameplay people enjoy behind a PvP-wall, or simply bribing them to play in that mode. It won't eliminate it entirely, but for a PvE/PvP hybrid, Open Mode Elite Dangerous is a far better environment than others I've played in the past, and Powerplay better still in my experience.
Powerplay or not, toxic players will always exist and so will cheating sadly. If Powerplay is moved to open you opt in and hopefully be told what it involves. And if thats too much FD can weight merits which keeps everything as it is and softly encourages people into Open but keeps the choice of modes (at a cost).
