A month ago I started a discussion about the Overhead formula and its history. Two weeks ago I broke down how the game presents Power Play lore to us as players.
I've read or skimmed several of the dozens of 'How to Fix Power Play' posts as much as y'all have. I imagine if FDev reads them, they're well beyond the point that some of us are reaching: 'please stop berating me' alongside 'oh gods, another pitch'.
So I'm not going to do that. I've done it before in chat, but I won't make an(other) epic post about how I think we should fix it. I want to examine the history of Power Play's mechanics and compare them to the easily apparent problems pervading the Power Play system. While I have followed Power Play for over a year, I can't claim to have an eidetic memory of every mechanic or change, so I'll appreciate notes alongside discussion.
Primarily, however, I want to make a point to remind everyone of what I think the biggest question FDev and us players all need to find our own answer to:
Rating-based bonuses:
As far as I'm aware, these have never changed from the start of Beta until now. Several of them were buggy, and, I believe, are finally fixed and working as intended.
Control Effects:
Once again, these have always been buggy, but the only effect which has changed was the addition to Delaine's influence legalising Slavery and Imperial Slavery.
Rating System and Compensation:
Throughout the Beta, there were no hard numbers delineating the Ratings system, nor was there a salary. The only compensation received was via the Ratings bonuses. Merit Decay existed, but Ratings were internally competitive: only the top 10% of pledged CMDRs the previous week would achieve the Rating 5 bonus, and only the top 50% would have access to the Power-specific module.
(Opinion): With no salary and zero guarantee of achieving Rating 5 bonuses, would there be any incentive for CDMRs who are not loyal to the Power to contribute? Yes, participation in Power Play would be lower across the board, but how is that different from what we're seeing now? Currently, CMDRs running logistics for the Power rarely make a 'profit' from their salary.
Undermining:
Undermining within a Superpower operated the same way, pirating fortification supplies, but only 1 merit was earned per ton. That change happened sometime between Cycle 10-20. Undermining non-allies via combat was also reduced, I believe 15 merits per ship destruction.
(Opinion): Merits earned were lower, with only 1 merit per ship destroyed in an Expansion Combat Zone. But, again, it's doubtful there was ever an expectation that CMDRs would deliver the numbers we repeatedly see every week.
Overhead:
Apparently, Overhead didn't exist until Cycle 2, and its original introduction limited Powers to somewhere between 700-800 exploited systems, depending upon their total Command Capital profits. Over several months, the Overhead formula changed to rely on the count of Control Systems, using an average count of uncontested exploited systems per control system.
(Opinion): The concept, of course, is that every exploited system costs a certain amount of political capital to influence but the current implementation makes it appear simply as an additional and unseen upkeep cost per control system.
If that doesn't cover all of the changes since Beta, please let me know.
So, what are the biggest problems and loopholes in the Power Play mechanics?
One of the most effective Power infrastructures suffered a near complete collapse because half of them were frustrated by FDev's inaction or failure to respond to player concerns. Clearly, when the meta-game layer of Power Play was conceived, it relied on the concept of collapse to lend the system some fluidity and variety, so the collapse of player organisations can be taken in stride. Thus, the 'salty' words from disaffected player groups have to be taken with a grain of salt, as the system was conceived with the potential for failure.
However, it's difficult to ignore that dedicated players have been burning out and fleeing from Power Play in droves. Add to that the evidence than a contingent of this organisation has pledged themselves to their former adversary in an effort to sabotage and destroy the Power from the inside, and it's a development that should be worrying anyone who still enjoys participating in Power Play.
Now, that we've seen how Power Play was originally designed, and the largest problems inherent in the design and exacerbated by the fixes, let's revisit that question:
As the headline improvement for patch 1.3, Power Play arrived at a time when CMDRs demanded more PvP content. It arrived waving flags and Power decals for spaceships, and highlighting combat. The mechanics allowed for heavy logistical contribution, and half of the Powers had no combat aspects outside of Undermining. And these mechanics also failed to encourage PvP activity, going so far as to discourage it. The best result a PvP pilot could achieve was 'merit denial' of the opponent, and the worst result would be the wiping of the past play session's effort.
The addition of collector limpets should have led to a spike in PvP piracy, at the very least around high traffic resource extraction sites, if those were used for mining.
So we have a system of colourful bubbles which still doesn't appear to have a clear reason to exist. Granted, it took player organisations at least a couple months to figure this out, and the rest of us are still sticking it out for the sake of the communities we've built and our obsessive natures.
If we don't know what FDev thinks Power Play should be for, we come back to the question that will drive any concept of fix, improvement, or wipe of the current Power Play system.
What do we think Power Play should exist for?
We have player group factions we can fight for and push to a greater galactic presence. We have communities which operate more for the larger gaming community than for the game itself. We have GalNet submissions forum to tell our personal stories, especially at the local level. And we even have assurances from Michael Brookes that the Naval Ranking Progression will eventually reach a state where it will feel more like a career than an XP bar. We don't need an abstract meta-game layer to the galaxy to meet those goals.
I've read or skimmed several of the dozens of 'How to Fix Power Play' posts as much as y'all have. I imagine if FDev reads them, they're well beyond the point that some of us are reaching: 'please stop berating me' alongside 'oh gods, another pitch'.
So I'm not going to do that. I've done it before in chat, but I won't make an(other) epic post about how I think we should fix it. I want to examine the history of Power Play's mechanics and compare them to the easily apparent problems pervading the Power Play system. While I have followed Power Play for over a year, I can't claim to have an eidetic memory of every mechanic or change, so I'll appreciate notes alongside discussion.
Primarily, however, I want to make a point to remind everyone of what I think the biggest question FDev and us players all need to find our own answer to:
and
Rating-based bonuses:
As far as I'm aware, these have never changed from the start of Beta until now. Several of them were buggy, and, I believe, are finally fixed and working as intended.
Control Effects:
Once again, these have always been buggy, but the only effect which has changed was the addition to Delaine's influence legalising Slavery and Imperial Slavery.
Rating System and Compensation:
Throughout the Beta, there were no hard numbers delineating the Ratings system, nor was there a salary. The only compensation received was via the Ratings bonuses. Merit Decay existed, but Ratings were internally competitive: only the top 10% of pledged CMDRs the previous week would achieve the Rating 5 bonus, and only the top 50% would have access to the Power-specific module.
(Opinion): With no salary and zero guarantee of achieving Rating 5 bonuses, would there be any incentive for CDMRs who are not loyal to the Power to contribute? Yes, participation in Power Play would be lower across the board, but how is that different from what we're seeing now? Currently, CMDRs running logistics for the Power rarely make a 'profit' from their salary.
Undermining:
Undermining within a Superpower operated the same way, pirating fortification supplies, but only 1 merit was earned per ton. That change happened sometime between Cycle 10-20. Undermining non-allies via combat was also reduced, I believe 15 merits per ship destruction.
(Opinion): Merits earned were lower, with only 1 merit per ship destroyed in an Expansion Combat Zone. But, again, it's doubtful there was ever an expectation that CMDRs would deliver the numbers we repeatedly see every week.
Overhead:
Apparently, Overhead didn't exist until Cycle 2, and its original introduction limited Powers to somewhere between 700-800 exploited systems, depending upon their total Command Capital profits. Over several months, the Overhead formula changed to rely on the count of Control Systems, using an average count of uncontested exploited systems per control system.
(Opinion): The concept, of course, is that every exploited system costs a certain amount of political capital to influence but the current implementation makes it appear simply as an additional and unseen upkeep cost per control system.
If that doesn't cover all of the changes since Beta, please let me know.
So, what are the biggest problems and loopholes in the Power Play mechanics?
- Fifth column preparation targets which sabotage a Power's deficit.
- Grinders who repeat actions, unhelpful or not, to reach the 10,000 merit count for the Rating 5 bonus and the salary which comes along with it.
- Collusion piracy 1) to maintain the Rating 5 bonus as cheaply and easily as possible, 2) to control a potentially disastrous turmoil, 3) to destroy a Power from within, 4) to save a Power by undermining deficit-causing systems.
- Power Play mechanics encouraging a repetitive weekly 'grind' to maintain a CMDR's Rating status within the Power, or an uphill battle to derail sabotage.
One of the most effective Power infrastructures suffered a near complete collapse because half of them were frustrated by FDev's inaction or failure to respond to player concerns. Clearly, when the meta-game layer of Power Play was conceived, it relied on the concept of collapse to lend the system some fluidity and variety, so the collapse of player organisations can be taken in stride. Thus, the 'salty' words from disaffected player groups have to be taken with a grain of salt, as the system was conceived with the potential for failure.
However, it's difficult to ignore that dedicated players have been burning out and fleeing from Power Play in droves. Add to that the evidence than a contingent of this organisation has pledged themselves to their former adversary in an effort to sabotage and destroy the Power from the inside, and it's a development that should be worrying anyone who still enjoys participating in Power Play.
Now, that we've seen how Power Play was originally designed, and the largest problems inherent in the design and exacerbated by the fixes, let's revisit that question:
As the headline improvement for patch 1.3, Power Play arrived at a time when CMDRs demanded more PvP content. It arrived waving flags and Power decals for spaceships, and highlighting combat. The mechanics allowed for heavy logistical contribution, and half of the Powers had no combat aspects outside of Undermining. And these mechanics also failed to encourage PvP activity, going so far as to discourage it. The best result a PvP pilot could achieve was 'merit denial' of the opponent, and the worst result would be the wiping of the past play session's effort.
The addition of collector limpets should have led to a spike in PvP piracy, at the very least around high traffic resource extraction sites, if those were used for mining.
So we have a system of colourful bubbles which still doesn't appear to have a clear reason to exist. Granted, it took player organisations at least a couple months to figure this out, and the rest of us are still sticking it out for the sake of the communities we've built and our obsessive natures.
If we don't know what FDev thinks Power Play should be for, we come back to the question that will drive any concept of fix, improvement, or wipe of the current Power Play system.
What do we think Power Play should exist for?
We have player group factions we can fight for and push to a greater galactic presence. We have communities which operate more for the larger gaming community than for the game itself. We have GalNet submissions forum to tell our personal stories, especially at the local level. And we even have assurances from Michael Brookes that the Naval Ranking Progression will eventually reach a state where it will feel more like a career than an XP bar. We don't need an abstract meta-game layer to the galaxy to meet those goals.
- What do want out of Power Play participation?
- What do you think your fellow CMDRs want out of Power Play?
