I keep seeing this as the most recent thread with new posts all the time, and by Randomius, 61 pages, that's crazy. Surely it must have been realized by now that powerplay should exclusively happen in open mode? Powerplay screams for competitive, multiplayer aspect of the game, with all the crazy stuff players can do in the game, like interdicting commanders of opposing factions, for a valid reason. It's like if CQC was solo mode. Does Sea of Thieves or other competitive multiplayer games kids play these days have solo mode? What is the content in that? What really is lost if powerplay was open exclusive?
PLEASE MAKE POWERPLAY IN "OPEN ONLY"
- Thread starter CMDR KOBAL
- Start date
FALSE - you seriously do not have any real solid grasp of what you are comparing, the end effect is NOT comparable and you are seemingly deliberately ignoring the various indisputable facts that have been spelled out to you by various individuals over the course of this thread.
The outcome is far from being the same thing.
Please, just go back and read 60 pages of discussions to get answers to your questions.
When you where reading these 61 pages, you must have missed the sections, that explained, that solo and PG players would no longer have access, to it. That is what will be lost.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The outcome may be the same, but it's a false comparison.
There's no technical reason why any game feature should be limited to a single game mode.
It is indeed up to Frontier to decide whether it is reasonable to remove base game content from players who don't or can't play in Open - in a game sold to all as not requiring any player to engage in PvP to engage in any game feature (insert standard caveat regarding the out-of-game add-on that is CQC/Arena).
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
They've spoken of it twice in the four years since it was implemented.
Whether it is a problem, or not, rather depends on one's preference regarding PvP - and Frontier know that everybody bought a game with no requirement to engage in PvP to engage in any game feature (except CQC/Arena, of course).
It's been a cyclical discussion from the outset - players realise that there's no requirement for any other player to play with them (which may affect their chosen play-style) and want any players engaged in particular features to be available to shoot at. That's been ongoing for six-and-a-half years, i.e. since the design was published at the start of the Kickstarter. Frontier went ahead and developed their game according to their design - ignoring the prophecies of doom from those who insisted that the game "will die" if Solo / Private Groups were implemented or if they affected the shared galaxy state.
Here we are, four-and-a-half years after launch, still with three game modes and a single shared galaxy state - now shared with two more platforms (that don't support cross-play).
Weighting may be a reduction in the demand from those seeking Open only - however both Open only and weighted are simply losses to those who don't or can't play in Open - there's no upside for them. It's an all take and no give situation.
There is no solid indisputable reasoning that could justify doing so - when it comes to adding NEW functionality there is more latitude but FD need to be careful when implementing mode exclusive functionality due to their own expressed commitment to all modes being equal.
FD choose to trim players through choices they make- technical or otherwise to make ED be more popular (and thus make them more money) from the franchise they have invested in. On balance FD chose that losing 32bit / Mac made development easier and thus more cost efficient, and that on balance the loss of palyers is outweighed by the gain, just like the aborted offline mode.
FD have the same choice to try and make Powerplay popular, thus making all that development effort pay in attracting more players, turning a net loss into a gain. They have to balance the loss of players who choose not to play Open Powerplay with potential gains. Its the same outcome- player retention. If you have people engaged in the game they spend money in the game keeping this game as a service going.
Which over its lifetime is a huge thing since until recently it had no profile at all.
And yet FD have stretched a thin concept even thinner across modes that satisfies no-one (hence the popularity?). Since things like NPC wingmen and other automation has not been forthcoming the only dynamic force is player interaction. Having one mode that has dynamism mixed with two that promote mindless grind is silly.
Well, they don't need to prophesie doom because Powerplay shows the limits of applying the three modes to a feature that really does not fit. Out of all of ED its you opting in. Its not random like elsewhere, you know the rules when you press the button.
So dividing Powerplay into 9 slices, rather than 3 with Open only.
But does keeping a broken feature broken justify that if FD won't do anything?
So in essence a small, underdeveloped and dying part of ED that no-one cared for at all suddenly becomes the most precious jewel in the game because it would be 'taken away' by the baby eating monsters in Open... even though the prime reason a lot of people pledge is to get the modules (which would be moved to tech brokers) or that Open PP would still influence the galaxy (even though people don't care enough to join powers anyway).
In short Powerplay will sit there and die because a) FD won't put in the time to sort it properly and b) some players view mode equality above making features work better (admittedly potentially).
I'd only support open-only powerplay if they also completely removed it from any real effects in the game, including both story-related stuff (so it wouldn't be allowed to be associated with galactic powers any more as they are story-related) as well as mechanical things (like affecting BGS and module prices as well as giving perks and modules to those that participate in it). As long as it remains completely divorced from being able to affect those that don't play open, whether in absolute or relative terms, then I'm okay with it going open-only.
With that in mind, rather than stripping powerplay out from all the other systems and lore it is connected to (causing a bucket load of missing gameplay and development opportunities), it would make more sense to simply make a copy+paste of powerplay then strip that out of the entangling related systems and rename it to something like "shadow conflict" to represent the powers using privateers against each other rather than the normal powerplay's enlisted agents; creating an open-only clone of powerplay lets adversarial players have their game of massively-multiplayer risk without affecting the rest of the galaxy, while those that don't want an explicitly PvP experience still get the full spectrum of gameplay and influence over the galaxy that they currently enjoy.
With that in mind, rather than stripping powerplay out from all the other systems and lore it is connected to (causing a bucket load of missing gameplay and development opportunities), it would make more sense to simply make a copy+paste of powerplay then strip that out of the entangling related systems and rename it to something like "shadow conflict" to represent the powers using privateers against each other rather than the normal powerplay's enlisted agents; creating an open-only clone of powerplay lets adversarial players have their game of massively-multiplayer risk without affecting the rest of the galaxy, while those that don't want an explicitly PvP experience still get the full spectrum of gameplay and influence over the galaxy that they currently enjoy.
Not really - the technical issues are not a matter of choice in essence, there is an end effect they wish to achieve and if there are intractable technical issues (e.g. Mac GPU API limitations and 32-bit environment instruction set and/or resource allocation limits) preventing that goal then there is nothing they can do but cut support for the associated environments. It is a fait accompli - not a choice.
There are no such hard restrictions that can justify making existing gameplay like PP either Open Only or Open Biased.
+Rep - That is where I was coming from with my earlier proposal that has been seemingly dismissed/ignored.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
.... or, twice in four years from a Dev who has since left the project - and nothing has happened in the three and one years, respectively since.
Making Powerplay more attractive to the whole player-base would be a better bang-for-buck than PvP-gating it such that only a sunset of the player-base will engage in it.
They prophesied doom for the game as a whole - they were as wrong then as they would be now.
It's more than 9 - as there are as many Solo instances as players in Solo and there can be as many Private Groups as there are players with access to multi-player.
I doubt that they will do nothing.
I suspect that they won't necessarily implement all of the proposals contained in Sandro's first Flash Topic.
A question was asked: "What really is lost if powerplay was open exclusive?" I answered it, as it seemed the poster, was unaware of the consequences; or as you seem to do. Simply ignoring said consequences, of open only power play.
It doesn't matter how many times, or how you say it: It will never make it right, or compensate those who will lose out; if this option is taken up.
One small thing: You want to make power play better, with a greater number of players taking part; because they will all be in the same mode. However: If you put the modules into 'tech brokers', so that they are available to any one, just to go and buy them, without taking part in power play. Then the 'prime reason for pledging' will be taken away and so those players who just want the modules, will not be taking part.
How logically, is that going to improve power play and bring more players, into that part of the game?
And as I keep on saying, its about what you lose compared to what you gain to make it work better. If making the change brings in more players than it loses, then its a good change. More people = more dev time, and so on. Keeping it dead only seals its fate in FDs eyes.
There is no right answer given a full overhaul, which is likely never to happen- we know this because of the proposals scope (maths changes) which are small. In the end its not about compensation, its about what works well enough to bring in fresh blood who want to try something different to the rest of the game.
Because modules make people pledge for the wrong reasons, and do so en masse. You should be pledging to play the feature and improve the power, not sit there for three weeks doing nothing then do 750 random merits. LYR for example has the Packhounds which throughout its history caused it no end of problems this way.
Remove the module, and players can keep long standing pledges, regular players who have no interest in Powerplay get what they want.
Well, presumably if you want to partake in an open only Powerplay for that sort of gameplay and challenge.
Thats out of a whopping three tweaks in Powerplays lifetime.
No one knows what the numbers are- you don't know and neither do I, however FD would not suggest it in a vacuum. Plus, FD are (to my knowledge based on past events) not willing to expend much effort on a mostly dead feature.
But I'm not suggesting doom if it does not happen, its already happened with Powerplay.
With all of them having innefectual NPCs, unless you have a total bucket of a ship.
.... or, twice in four years from a Dev who has since left the project - and nothing has happened in the three and one years, respectively since.
A bit contradictory? From Day 1 FD have shunned Powerplay. They left in Galmap bugs, you had Cycle 52, you had combat expansions that could not be lost, so Powers grew exponentially (ruining them) while FD did nothing for months on end. They abandoned the player groups, and Powerplay itself was the unspoken shame of ED. I had to get about 4 infractions (posting Powerplay memes in a Powerplay thread) to get FD to even acknowledge what was going on with it after the feedback. I've pretty much spent two years on this forum campaining for any dev time for Powerplay, or even for Will to actually say the P word voluntarily. Thats why when a dev actually comes up with something that has a chance of being better than what we have, I go for it because I know from day 1 of Powerplay what FD are willing to do. Barring a miracle (which I want) FD will only commit to the same level of change as we see in the proposal. Now, if you can improve Powerplay for everyone in every mode tweaking just 6 formulas and a few menus, please say so because I'll support it.
If they implement only the anti 5C parts Powerplay will still be the same, just as it was when consolidation was brought in. All you are doing is plugging the leaks, and not fixing the engine.
Other than trying something new in an old feature that has no real place in ED. Unless FD tackle the underpinning issues like AFK in PG, or the lifeless grind in Solo that has proven so popular, weighted merits or Open are the only way to go- because thats what FD asked us to consider as thats the solution they came up with four times in a row.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
That's as may be - however those two stirrings of the player-base have, as yet come to nought.
You're right, we don't know - however I suspect that Frontier chose not to ignore the persistent demands for Open only Powerplay when preparing the list of proposals for the first Flash Topic.
Doom would be shutting up shop - that hasn't happened to either the game or Powerplay.
Frontier set the challenge posed by NPCs - for all players, not just those with access to Engineers or those who prefer PvP..
Not really - Will posted that they are considering some of the proposals from Sandro's first Flash Topic.
PvP-gating is not "fixing" - it is removing content from some players and giving it to other players - when all players bought the content in the base game.