Totally agree: apparently every action will be at worst useless but it will not hurt. Only way I can see something similar to 5C is player alligned to the Power they are trying to undermine using that pledge to hunt down other same aligned players, to avoid that I think they should do something like giving negtive merits (a lot) if you attack or kill an allied CMDR, and if you keep doing that going negative you are kicked out of the Power. I think it's a good compromise.
Powerplay 2.0 deep dive - Frontier Live 27th March
- Thread starter londonx
- Start date
There's another thing to consider (and I'm sorry for the double post but this a totally different concept).
Until now PvP has been an activity totally decontextualized from the "big game". Giving people a reason to do PvP that matters would make the game significantly better in the mid-long term.
And about block lists... well, a good solution could be to make them not "automatic" as they are now. A block list request should be temporary at first and then justified by good reasons (cheating, profanity, etc) to make it definitive. Using the Block List as a tactical advantage is simply wrong.
Until now PvP has been an activity totally decontextualized from the "big game". Giving people a reason to do PvP that matters would make the game significantly better in the mid-long term.
And about block lists... well, a good solution could be to make them not "automatic" as they are now. A block list request should be temporary at first and then justified by good reasons (cheating, profanity, etc) to make it definitive. Using the Block List as a tactical advantage is simply wrong.
I've spent hundreds of hours camping in enemy's HQs and except for Cubeo (where moreover was easy to distiguish "gankers" from powerplayers, as to harm the power, haulers must be destroyed as soon as they exit the station) I did never encounter a single "ganker" doing the same since 4-5yrs [it used to be different in the past] as the spawn rate is too low and they have far better options to farm kabooms.
Yes, like they have in expansion CZs- its 30 merits taken away for every allied NPC killed. Lose a tier or something.
But then why not just pledge to a rival? You then actually get rewarded
I guess for the lolz? AhahahYes, like they have in expansion CZs- its 30 merits taken away for every allied NPC killed. Lose a tier or something.
But then why not just pledge to a rival? You then actually get rewarded
It needs a coherent approach. And that is only possible if you let go of PvE and PvP in one bucket. You simply can't do both. Noone cries when a logi diver "gets ganked" in Foxhole, because logi is integrated activity in a PvP context. Logi calls out the enemy behind friendly lines and forces form to hunt them. Not because a logi player was touched violently and hurt badly, but because if logi can't supply the front, the front runs out of ammo and respawns. And without that, ground will be lost. that's how the war works. There is no PvE in Foxhole. It's all out war.
When the "peaceful" activity isn't bound into context of the power struggle in ED noone will bother protecting it. If nobody needs to bother about securing supply lines then "innocent" farmers will get "ganked" for no reason. And indeed there is not much reason other than to sour one's gameplay. If ganking transporters isn't meaningful in the game context it's just toxic game mechanics and behaviour. If ganking freighters was meaningful like attacking logi in Foxhole - different story. But that's no longer PvE, but PvP and FD have always been trying to sell the fairy tale of the game that can be both.
I understand what you mean, but a PvP only system is too exploitable in my opinion. I think that the PvE-disruption-by-PvP approach is the only available for a game as Elite Dangerous. You need some sort of overlay to measure the actual effects on the Galaxy, and the only thing the game has for that is completing some tasks, such as missions, traiding, bounty hunting etc.
Probably it would have been easier by making Powerplay "mission oriented" with dedicated Powerplay missions, too bad they didn't take that route.
And then there is the gear and equipment thing. You make it PvP and you'll have the players who grinded out engineers or grandfathered their duplicated cheat gear to the max. You'll either have players then race to competitive gear levels in no time, catch up to the "meta" or it would be an exclusive club of an ever dwindling player group.
And then we have the microtransactions that could help with the catch-up and earn FD extra money ...
And then we have the microtransactions that could help with the catch-up and earn FD extra money ...
Well, most MMOs have a continuous cycle of tweaking to avoid metas and make the game always as balanced as possible. As I wrote before, the Beyond phase should have been the perfect time to rebalance the game.
And talking specifically about engineering, we all know why engineering is so unbalanced: remember when we transitioned from the first engineering to the current updated one, with people mad because they would have lost their precious "god rolled modules" and then FDev basically gave god modules to everyone?
I remember.
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So... do you think guys we should expect a little bit more for the Frontier Undocked in June?
I'm not sure, I certainly hope so. There are aspects such as the changeover between V1 and 2 to go through. I expect more on T8 certainly.
Certainly there's a lot of questions to answer.
Just for those who are talking about being 'forced' to PvP, I'll just leave this from back in the glory days:
"Most important of all - it (powerplay) allows consensual PvP" - Sandro Sammarco (lead designer at the time)
(8:00 - embed link is a bit off for some reason)
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It's not about forced PvP ... it's about forced player interaction. I shouldn't HAVE to interact with other players to enjoy the game content. I've been enjoying my player free galaxy for years.
Please ignore/delete this post.
Up to this point, I have been able to take part in Powerplay in Solo. If that option is removed, and I have to play in Open, where other players can attack me at any time for any reason, then yes that is forced PvP. No two ways about it.
And thats fine until your non-interaction causes team based features to fall apart. If activities within Powerplay were separate (i.e. jobs for solo, jobs for PvP) there would be no problem- its the overlap where one mode has virtually no opposition at all (due to power creep and NPC limitations) allowing for an easier time that runs in parallel to a harder mode but both have the same rewards and value.
I seriously think suggesting that Solo players doing PP would cause Open player's team based features to fall apart is a long bow to draw.
Well it does, all actions have the same value. Solo has virtually no NPC resistance in it- the NPCs don't even have engineering and date from 2015. In Open you have players with the full gamut of latest modules and weapons- now tell me which mode makes moving cargo easier? The one with paper planes or the one with F35s?
Its entirely possible to untangle the situation- better NPCs, open weighting, separate jobs (solo makes cargo open moves), and so on.