PLEASE MAKE POWERPLAY IN "OPEN ONLY"
- Thread starter CMDR KOBAL
- Start date
I believe you are being overly dramatic and making too many assumptions - I do not neceesarily object to "universally applicable" improvements that do not breach the "all modes are equal" ethos, but I strongly object to restricting ANY existing PvE gameplay to Open or biasing of it for Open. Similarly, if any Open specific mechanics were added without removing existing options they should not have ANY impact on gameplay for those that do not choose to participate regardless of mode choice.
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Am I? Most negative reactions to Open only come from people who don't play Powerplay and never will regardless of changes made- the 'slippery slopers' who simply hate PvP players througout the game and the forum. We know the limits of what FD will do to begin with, which is not very much- so huge ideas while entertaining to read and write are not likely to happen. Supporters of Open only are simply being realistic in what can be done.
For example, here is one I typed out while doing some ED stuff: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/index...play-ideas-mission-based.513569/#post-7827847
Its fun to do (and is about the 10th I've written), but I know FD will never do it.
This can be applied to people who say Open / PvP is evil as well, assuming the silent majority don't want these changes because in reality no-one knows. My assumptions are based on seeing 209 cycles of Powerplay and following each one- I know how powers and groups react so my assumptions have a basis in reality and what the changes would most likely do.
However, a lot of people who oppose base assumptions on fear and bias of Open itself, thinking Harry is coming to spank them all day every day. There are downsides to Open, but hinging that argument on misguided emotional fear of a mode they read about and a feature they don't use is absurd.
There is one key flaw in your assumption, another is that the objections are somehow personal in nature.
[EDIT]ED is not sold as primarily a PvP game and you assume that any objections to changing existing PvE gameplay to be more PvP oriented is some kind of hate crime against PvPers in general - I respectfully suggest you take a closer look at what you are proposing and how it may affect others rather than assuming it is some kind of attack.[/EDIT]
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
While there are no doubt negative reactions from those who don't currently Powerplay, there's no guarantee that those players would not engage in Powerplay if it was improved.
Characterising all opposition as "hate" is inaccurate - we all bought a game where there is no requirement to engage in PvP to engage in any feature (except CQC/Arena, of course) - some players want to take an existing feature that forms part of the base game bought by all players and place it behind a PvP-Gate, with scant regard for those who would be adversely affected by that change (i.e those who don't or can't play in Open - in a game with entirely optional PvP).
.... that some of the players supporting PvP-Gating the existing content then complain that there is opposition to their demands seems to suggest that they'd quite like it if the opposition just rolled over and let them take the feature for themselves.
Yes, Frontier put forward Open only as one proposal in their investigation started by Flash Topic #1 - then they re-introduced the mode weighted merit fallback position (that failed to fly in 2016) - then the Dev who seemed to be the main proponent of Powerplay left the project. How committed to Open only (or mode weighted merits) the Devs currently on the project are remains to be seen - the results of the investigation are yet to be announced.
Some may even engage in PP even with it as-is. Engaging in PP is currently on my CMDRs bucket list - I know what is involved but it does not suit my current activities at this time. From my CMDRs current in-game stand point I have avoided PP because of a desire to stay neutral - However, I can see the CMDR engaging with PP as-is on an intermittent and temporary basis at some point.
^^^
This.
The problems with Powerplay are systemic, not mode related.
Mode mobility, if anything, encourages more players to play in Open, both in Powerplay and in the main game, than forcing players to choose between a PvP environment and a PvE environment. People don't like playing with jerks, and PvP gives jerks a disproportionately viable (not to mention visible) platform with which to be jerks. As jerk-like behavior increases, player retention decreases rapidly. This has been a well known phenomenon for over forty years. Enforcing harsh penalties on adversarial behavior doesn't slow it down. Jerks are willing to endure "hardship" if it means ruining someone else's game. What slows it down is gating PvP behind a software wall, so that it can't effect most players.
It turns out that something else also slows it down: allowing players, on a session by session basis, to choose who they want to play with. Those most sensitive to jerk-like behavior will choose other modes, leaving a player base in Open which either tolerates jerk-like behavior, or views jerks as their content. The jerks don't like this. They want others to be their content. They don't want to be the content of others. So they go find something else to do.
An equilibrium is reached that results in a much larger cohort of players willing to play in an open-PvP environment than a hard-coded barrier would allow. Some will stay to test their skills, when normally they'd turn PvP-off. Others will stay because it tests their "courage." Yet others may tell themselves, "I can always go to Solo/PG if it gets bad enough," and find it never does get bad enough.
We don't need to run this experiment again. It was run during the first months of Powerplay, when the player base, eager for new content, flocked to Powerplay. The results were that players left Open in droves. If some are to believed, most Power Players don't play in Open, which is the exact opposite of the player base in general. Personally, I believe that the perception that "everyone's hiding in solo" is because the Power Player base is too small, and thus too diffuse, to interact with each other in Open except under certain rare conditions like combat expansions.
Either way, running this experiment again won't produce different results. It'll produce the exact same results, only instead of players leaving for other modes, they'll quit Powerplay entirely. Encourage players to play in Open by introducing new Open only features for Powerplay, rather than gating an existing feature behind a PvP-wall, or bribing players into Open by rewarding hypothetical risk. If botting or AFK play is a problem, fix the actual problem.
I'd much prefer if Powerplay was made to make more sense contextually and be more comparable across modes instead. It's the meta of the thing that I mostly have an issue with. Naturally those Commanders who progress and tune their ships and their approach toward the meta will pose more of a potential risk or challenge – that's not inherently a bad thing either; of coarse Commanders will want to accomplish the most that they can toward their own ends. Just find ways to make this less of a prevailing factor in the meta by balancing game-play (risk, reward, consequences and alternative approaches regardless of mode) better in Powerplay, and what mode you choose to Powerplay in won't matter as much and people can get on with enjoying the game features the way they might otherwise prefer to.
In other words, offer optional comparable challenge to PVP combat (this doesn't necessarily even need to be PVE combat, though it's probably the most obvious) as well as other less challenging but less rewarding alternatives. This could potentially also make use of an under-the-hood dynamic weighted system of force multipliers in both combat opposition and other challenges, and incentivizing rewards for balancing intended Powerplay game-play roles across the spectrum. That being said, I could see how such a system could be manipulated by Commanders to change how effective various roles and activities are, though that's not necessarily a bad thing, if accounted for by design.
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There is not one single good reason to back that premise.
Go and read the entire Flash topic and then tell me the proportion that talk more about gankers and how ED should never listen to the shouty ones (despite shouting themsleves), and then actually about Powerplay objectively. Most do not care about Powerplay in the slightest, never will but hate the idea PvP style players might get something.
I believe FD were at least considering implementing (if not have actually implemented) a tighter linkage to the BGS thus what you are considering may have an impact - not sure of the level though.
They left when they realised Powerplay was half finished, grindy and that modes bypassed any way of direct confrontation, leaving glorified CGs that in the end were meaningless because Powers could not die. As time has gone on, PP has drifted with no real place, slowly filling up and being abused by 5C- all the while the BGS caught up and overtook it.
Again with the assumptions, of course if some are vocal in supporting a contentious idea some will counter that with equal or greater zeal. Ultimately, this is not a matter of a generic PvP v. PvE debate but rather one about removing options from PvE players or biasing against them with no good reason to do so.
The BGS link would shrink, because only control systems would have any influence over fort triggers, or power influences. The favours system appears to be a way to spend merits helping top up prep, expansions etc. To what extent was never fully explained. These would presumably be missions from the Powerplay tab, and not from BGS factions.
The good reason is to make something of Powerplays corpse. Unless there is a way to do what you want as cheaply, I'm all ears. Sadly I can't think of a way that does it by only changing the underlying formulas like the Flash Topic does, and add a style of game that ED does not currently have.
Currently no. The only effect the BGS has on PP is making a bubble a majority favourable to your Power, which either lowers or raises the level of fortification it requires.
Unless NPCs in Solo and PG can stop you in a fair way and impede your progress, then by definition its easier. In Open you have the same inept NPCs plus the real threat of players on top who can have every weapon avaialble, engineering and be able to dynamically chase you about (unlike NPCs that give up, thats if they have an interdictor to begin with).