Powerplay 2.0 “Open” Rewards

[DemiserofD]

Yeah, get rid of the requirement to do minimum-effort powerplay participation in order to access those modules and you get rid of a bunch of hangers-on who don't actually want to take part but feel forced to.

I'm reminded of a vid I saw recently about the fallout 76 leaderboards which were a fun pvp activity where a key feature was a marker showing you where the top ranked players were so you could hunt them down, but then the devs opened up pve stuff to it, a bunch of non-pvp players got involved and got to the top of the leaderboards, then got mad and started screaming for the marker to be removed because they wanted the rewards of the competitive adversarial gamemode but didn't want the risks.

Well, that kinda shows that you can either let pve players in or not. If you're gonna let them in at all, you need to accommodate their preferences. If you don't want to accommodate their preferences, it's better to not let them in at all.

If they want to make powerplay a purely pvp thing, then that's perfectly legit. In fact, you could make things a whole lot more interesting that way. Make it more of a capture the flag sort of thing, where attacking players only need to carry a few units of cargo and can otherwise kit out in full combat ships, and everything is concentrated into a handful of systems so people can find each other.

The problem is when you have a mode that's largely reliant on pve players to do the bulk work, but you also want to have pvp mixed in there; where you have two relatively contradictory things in the same space. You're always going to have someone complaining.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The problem is when you have a mode that's largely reliant on pve players to do the bulk work, but you also want to have pvp mixed in there; where you have two relatively contradictory things in the same space. You're always going to have someone complaining.

Its not that contradictory at all- the issue is that the roles can't overlap and must maintain separation or that the devs set the correct expectations beforehand. You can have explicit roles for modes (i.e. soloPG do actual PvE to generate cargo Open moves), have some activities muted in solo / PG (so only personal merits count) and so on- both are seamless and establish boundaries. Judging by what was said in FU#4 (from 1hr:07 onwards) this separation will be required unless NPCs can be a menace.

 

[Adam_Aster]

unless NPCs can be a menace.

I sure hope they are, weather open only or not. NPC have been feeling pretty weak as of late.

 

[DemiserofD]

Its not that contradictory at all- the issue is that the roles can't overlap and must maintain separation or that the devs set the correct expectations beforehand. You can have explicit roles for modes (i.e. soloPG do actual PvE to generate cargo Open moves), have some activities muted in solo / PG (so only personal merits count) and so on- both are seamless and establish boundaries. Judging by what was said in FU#4 (from 1hr:07 onwards) this separation will be required unless NPCs can be a menace.

I think I found the video in question. Worth a watch, I think; it really offers some historical context about what will likely happen here, too.

You'll have people doing pve content and suddenly running into the problem of needing to deal with pvp(one way or another), and complaining. I can see it now.
"Fdev, our team hauled 1000% more merits than they did, but because they're better at pvp than us they still won. This is , I'm quitting if you don't fix this."

Making pvp a necessary component anywhere just isn't going to work for the 90% pve majority. You can have pvp be something you can do, it can even have good rewards, but it can't be necessary to win.

 

[Rebel Yell]

All the complaining about the idea of open only anything is completely missing the part where powerplay is a completely optional, opt-in layer of the game and the solo-only crowd who treat pvp like a dirty word won't even let us have that.

Indeed, there's no requirement to be involved in powerplay at all... and, I agree on what you also said above, I bet that 99% of the peeps saying "no way" to open only (1% is our friend Darrack ) did look at powerplay for modules only (no, that's not powerplay at all).

 

[Rubbernuke]

I think I found the video in question. Worth a watch, I think; it really offers some historical context about what will likely happen here, too.

You'll have people doing pve content and suddenly running into the problem of needing to deal with pvp(one way or another), and complaining. I can see it now.
"Fdev, our team hauled 1000% more merits than they did, but because they're better at pvp than us they still won. This is , I'm quitting if you don't fix this."

Making pvp a necessary component anywhere just isn't going to work for the 90% pve majority. You can have pvp be something you can do, it can even have good rewards, but it can't be necessary to win.

No, because PvP is a moderator of PvE activities in PP (and where NPCs should fill in for Solo).

To quote FU #4 dev: "if you are a trader, dodge the fights but show them you can still trade (like crazy) in this scenario". Another: "You basically get to have a fight with them [another power]...go and kill the other power members, go and kill their ships, and stop them doing anything."

In short unless NPCs are viable, PvP is the next best thing.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Making pvp a necessary component anywhere just isn't going to work for the 90% pve majority. You can have pvp be something you can do, it can even have good rewards, but it can't be necessary to win.

Actually I think elite and PP are a really good example of where this does work. If PvP pressure is too great, pick another target - there are plenty! Or use teamwork, or have PvPers of your own. And it becomes a challenge of how long you can keep that PvP dominance up. It favours teams over individuals but the same goes for the Thargoid war, BGS or even PP1.0 in solo. And the right info in-game could really help individuals choose where to apply themselves. You will, however, always have people complaining, yes. No matter what you do.

 

[DemiserofD]

No, because PvP is a moderator of PvE activities in PP (and where NPCs should fill in for Solo).

To quote FU #4 dev: "if you are a trader, dodge the fights but show them you can still trade (like crazy) in this scenario". Another: "You basically get to have a fight with them [another power]...go and kill the other power members, go and kill their ships, and stop them doing anything."

In short unless NPCs are viable, PvP is the next best thing.

Same exact thing could be said about Fallout 76. Didn't matter. Ultimately, it seems like the majority of players are simply uninterested in PvP.

 

[DemiserofD]

Actually I think elite and PP are a really good example of where this does work. If PvP pressure is too great, pick another target - there are plenty! Or use teamwork, or have PvPers of your own. And it becomes a challenge of how long you can keep that PvP dominance up. It favours teams over individuals but the same goes for the Thargoid war, BGS or even PP1.0 in solo. And the right info in-game could really help individuals choose where to apply themselves. You will, however, always have people complaining, yes. No matter what you do.

True, there will always be complainers. But PVE players outnumber PVP players 9 to 1. Creating a system that satisfies pvpers at the cost of PVE is not exactly a winning strategy from the standpoint of diminishing complaints.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

True, there will always be complainers. But PVE players outnumber PVP players 9 to 1. Creating a system that satisfies pvpers at the cost of PVE is not exactly a winning strategy from the standpoint of diminishing complaints.

The assumption of a division here, for Elite specifically, is moot. Most players don't specialise. Overall the ratio you quote has little weight, even it it had any solid statistical grounds (it doesn't). I'd say most players aiming to influence the galactic map are "PvE with a little PvP". A good feature in which PvP plays a balanced part (not the whole meal, but available to taste, tuneable via in-game activity choices) stands to make any such division highly plastic. Even now, you would call me a PvPer (because I've experienced PvP without vomiting?), but I would steadfastly call myself a PvEer (beacuse my main aim logging in is to perform PvE). I just think it's an unhelpful, artificial, divisive concept. Powerplay currently is the place where it becomes sort of meaningless compared to games where there's a hard division. This is why Elite is such a good example of it working - there is no hard division. And one Elite USP is the blending of both without one overwhelming the other. PvE can be regulated by PvP. But PvP can only do so much to stop PvE.

 

[DemiserofD]

The assumption of a division here, for Elite specifically, is moot. Most players don't specialise. Overall the ratio you quote has little weight, even it it had any solid statistical grounds (it doesn't). I'd say most players aiming to influence the galactic map are "PvE with a little PvP". A good feature in which PvP plays a balanced part (not the whole meal, but available to taste, tuneable via in-game activity choices) stands to make any such division highly plastic. Even now, you would call me a PvPer (because I've experienced PvP without vomiting?), but I would steadfastly call myself a PvEer (beacuse my main aim logging in is to perform PvE). I just think it's an unhelpful, artificial, divisive concept. Powerplay currently is the place where it becomes sort of meaningless compared to games where there's a hard division. This is why Elite is such a good example of it working - there is no hard division. And one Elite USP is the blending of both without one overwhelming the other. PvE can be regulated by PvP. But PvP can only do so much to stop PvE.

I don't think you have much basis for that statement. While it's true that most players will occasionally do most activities, that doesn't Translate into them being willing to do so on a larger scale and a more serious basis.

For example, there are plenty of players - the majority by far, in my experience - who will willingly participate in CQC for an hour or two, but will never go into open and risk dying in their actual ship.

This is especially true of the more serious players, exactly the sort we would expect to participate majorly in powerplay. There is a reason why even former PVP groups like axi have hard 'no non-consensual PVP' limits on their private groups.

I myself very much fall into this category. I will happily do some cqc, or the occasional PVP tournament, but being interdicted and killed in my trade ship is completely unengaging to me, merely a waste of my time - regardless of whether I escape or not

Force me to deal with that in order to participate in such a large scale thing as powerplay, and I will complain every day all day all the year long until they change it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Same exact thing could be said about Fallout 76. Didn't matter. Ultimately, it seems like the majority of players are simply uninterested in PvP.

I never knew Fallout 76 was about galaxy wide conquest.

 

[Rubbernuke]

There is a reason why even former PVP groups like axi have hard 'no non-consensual PVP' limits on their private groups.

The problem being Powerplay intrinsically involves conflict- with either players or (hopefully) souped up NPCs. Unlike the rest of the game you opt into Powerplay and that aspect.

 

[DemiserofD]

The problem being Powerplay intrinsically involves conflict- with either players or (hopefully) souped up NPCs. Unlike the rest of the game you opt into Powerplay and that aspect.

One could make the same claim about Fallout 76. Heck, the game mode in question literally had PVP boards as a central(heck, some might say ONLY) engaging aspect.

Once they added PVE, then people preferred to 'conflict' with each other via farming PVE points. Despite the claims by the pvp players that, by playing on that server, they were opting into pvp, the pve players nonetheless continued to protest until that was changed. Not only that, they preferred it so extensively they actively campaigned for PVP features to be limited to facilitate their ongoing PVE activities.

Because to them, 'conflicting' via counter-grinding is fun, while pvp...wasn't.

Really, give the video a look, it's worth a watch. Excellent case study in human behavior.

I never knew Fallout 76 was about galaxy wide conquest.

Frankly, the exact locale is pretty much window dressing. If anything, one could easily say that Fallout 76 is BIGGER than Elite. It takes about 80 minutes - over an hour - to traverse from one side of the map to the other.

Now, obviously the entire galaxy is substantially larger than that, but the bubble is where all powerplay is going to happen, and you can cross that in about 5 minutes flat. With SCO drives even large systems are now substantially smaller than that.

In practical terms, Fallout 76 is now bigger than Elite. Theoretical size doesn't matter much when most of it is empty space.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I don't think you have much basis for that statement. While it's true that most players will occasionally do most activities, that doesn't Translate into them being willing to do so on a larger scale and a more serious basis.

For example, there are plenty of players - the majority by far, in my experience - who will willingly participate in CQC for an hour or two, but will never go into open and risk dying in their actual ship.

This is especially true of the more serious players, exactly the sort we would expect to participate majorly in powerplay. There is a reason why even former PVP groups like axi have hard 'no non-consensual PVP' limits on their private groups.

I myself very much fall into this category. I will happily do some cqc, or the occasional PVP tournament, but being interdicted and killed in my trade ship is completely unengaging to me, merely a waste of my time - regardless of whether I escape or not

Force me to deal with that in order to participate in such a large scale thing as powerplay, and I will complain every day all day all the year long until they change it.

Let's take the 10% player-interdicted in the last month stat. I'm a typical open-only powerplayer. I log in every second day for 2 or 3 hours, maybe more, always play in open and do PvE with some PvP inevitable. I'd say if everyone was like me but randomised in time, the stat would come out as about 66% based in my experience. Now let's assume that a more average player spent only 50% of their time in open. That stat becomes 33%. Now let's assume that the average player is a little more casual, they only log in evey fourth day. It becomes 16.5%. Then let's assume they spent 50% of their logged in time exploring or trading in random, empty systems. That drops to 8.25%. I tend not to do CGs so you could bump that up, but I would expect most players to be more likely to do CGs in PG/solo than general activities so I'm not going to put much weight on that. Maybe call it a round... 10%?

It's pretty easy to get close to the actual statistic without any conjecture that "most people fly in solo and hate PvP like I do". Rather what it means is "most people don't just do organic PvP daily and nothing else".

 

[DemiserofD]

Let's take the 10% player-interdicted in the last month stat. I'm a typical open-only powerplayer. I log in every second day for 2 or 3 hours, maybe more, always play in open and do PvE with some PvP inevitable. I'd say if everyone was like me but randomised in time, the stat would come out as about 66% based in my experience. Now let's assume that a more average player spent only 50% of their time in open. That stat becomes 33%. Now let's assume that the average player is a little more casual, they only log in evey fourth day. It becomes 16.5%. Then let's assume they spent 50% of their logged in time exploring or trading in random, empty systems. That drops to 8.25%. I tend not to do CGs so you could bump that up, but I would expect most players to be more likely to do CGs in PG/solo than general activities so I'm not going to put much weight on that. Maybe call it a round... 10%?

It's pretty easy to get close to the actual statistic without any conjecture that "most people fly in solo and hate PvP like I do". Rather what it means is "most people don't just do organic PvP daily and nothing else".

You're really stretching the numbers, so far they are meaningless. What is that, 5 assumptions? Kinda pointless, no?

But we can base our views on previous studies done on players. For example this study: https://www.researchgate.net/public...yer_and_Player_Versus_Environment_Video_Games
Attempted to discern whether pvp increases or decreases enjoyment over pve.

Conclusion
This study makes a meaningful contribution to current knowledge on the process
of enjoyment of video games. This study shows that enjoyment is not necessarily
dependent on winning or losing (although winning certainly helps), playing with
others or alone, or the genre of the game. The negative emotions potentially produced
by losing the game did not increase or decrease enjoyment. It could be argued that
metaevaluations of the game experience allowed players to enjoy the game despite
losing. However, the CEM (Vorderer et al., 2004) argues that negative emotions can
even positively affect enjoyment of entertainment. The results of this study suggest
that, in at least some cases, this assertion is incorrect. PvP players experienced greater
hostility, which significantly reduced their enjoyment. In all other situations, hostility
did not affect enjoyment at all. This study does show that in some situations, negative
emotions detract from enjoyment of playing video games, while in other situations
negative emotions do not hinder the enjoyment of games to a great extent. This study
does not support the argument that negative emotions lead to greater enjoyment
(Vorderer et al., 2004). It is important to note, however, that there are a number of
specific negative emotions that were not measured in this study, and further study is
certainly needed.
This study joins the many others that seek to provide a deeper and more complete
understanding of the entertainment process. Our knowledge base is growing, yet there
is much still to do. As technology advances, and as more of the world’s population
become gamers, our need for understanding about how games affect and enrich our
lives has never been greater.

So from this we can conclude that adding greater pvp elements to other aspects of the game would reduce or maintain levels of enjoyment, but not increase them.

Also, Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types, which concluded that about 80% of players are social players, with only 1% being of the 'killer' subtype. That doesn't infer that only killers enjoy pvp, but it does give a strong indicator of what direction the average player will lean under pressure. As I said prior, there are plenty of players who will engage in casual pvp given the chance, but very few who are willing and able to participate in pvp to a serious degree.

This is worsened by the inherently discriminatory nature of pvp, leaning towards the top. PVP can broadly be translated into ELO scores, and if you do an analysis of elo scores, a tiny portion of players tend to win a large majority of matches. This is called the Pareto Principle, and it's universal across basically everything from star sizes to wealth inequality to pvp rankings. 20% of pvpers win 80% of matches, and of that 20%, 20% win 80% of THOSE matchups; in simple terms, 4% of players will win 56% of fights.

This, too, tends to drive out the more 'casual' of pvp players; see CQC for reference. This tends to lead to stagnation. See Age of Empires 2, for example, where top players are so dominant they have to age out of the game rather than face any sort of meaningful competition, and a grand total of 2 players have been dominant for the past 15+ years.

As players master the game, they become dominant and drive out the less-competitive players. Nobody likes dying over and over. As this happens, the players slightly better than them end up in the same scenario; being at the bottom of the heap is never fun, and nobody rational is going to let themselves be killed over and over with no hope of victory. Eventually there are too few players to sustain a viable playerbase, and the remaining expert players quit as well.

It's just common sense, if you think about it. Nobody will play a game where they're the worst and always lose. But there always needs to be someone at the bottom. If you constantly chop off the bottom, soon there will be nobody left.

This is why other games have elo systems, or implement alternate modes that allow for simpler or fairer competition.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Because to them, 'conflicting' via counter-grinding is fun, while pvp...wasn't.

The exact opposite in PP then.

Frankly, the exact locale is pretty much window dressing. If anything, one could easily say that Fallout 76 is BIGGER than Elite. It takes about 80 minutes - over an hour - to traverse from one side of the map to the other.

Now, obviously the entire galaxy is substantially larger than that, but the bubble is where all powerplay is going to happen, and you can cross that in about 5 minutes flat. With SCO drives even large systems are now substantially smaller than that.

In practical terms, Fallout 76 is now bigger than Elite. Theoretical size doesn't matter much when most of it is empty space.

And in a game where you defend and attack systems in real time why would you want to have to crawl across space?

 

[Rubbernuke]

You're really stretching the numbers, so far they are meaningless. What is that, 5 assumptions? Kinda pointless, no?

But we can base our views on previous studies done on players. For example this study: https://www.researchgate.net/public...yer_and_Player_Versus_Environment_Video_Games
Attempted to discern whether pvp increases or decreases enjoyment over pve.

So from this we can conclude that adding greater pvp elements to other aspects of the game would reduce or maintain levels of enjoyment, but not increase them.

Also, Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types, which concluded that about 80% of players are social players, with only 1% being of the 'killer' subtype. That doesn't infer that only killers enjoy pvp, but it does give a strong indicator of what direction the average player will lean under pressure. As I said prior, there are plenty of players who will engage in casual pvp given the chance, but very few who are willing and able to participate in pvp to a serious degree.

This is worsened by the inherently discriminatory nature of pvp, leaning towards the top. PVP can broadly be translated into ELO scores, and if you do an analysis of elo scores, a tiny portion of players tend to win a large majority of matches. This is called the Pareto Principle, and it's universal across basically everything from star sizes to wealth inequality to pvp rankings. 20% of pvpers win 80% of matches, and of that 20%, 20% win 80% of THOSE matchups; in simple terms, 4% of players will win 56% of fights.

This, too, tends to drive out the more 'casual' of pvp players; see CQC for reference. This tends to lead to stagnation. See Age of Empires 2, for example, where top players are so dominant they have to age out of the game rather than face any sort of meaningful competition, and a grand total of 2 players have been dominant for the past 15+ years.

As players master the game, they become dominant and drive out the less-competitive players. Nobody likes dying over and over. As this happens, the players slightly better than them end up in the same scenario; being at the bottom of the heap is never fun, and nobody rational is going to let themselves be killed over and over with no hope of victory. Eventually there are too few players to sustain a viable playerbase, and the remaining expert players quit as well.

It's just common sense, if you think about it. Nobody will play a game where they're the worst and always lose. But there always needs to be someone at the bottom. If you constantly chop off the bottom, soon there will be nobody left.

This is why other games have elo systems, or implement alternate modes that allow for simpler or fairer competition.

How can you apply that to a mode that is random and not matched up, though? One day you could indeed come across a PvP master, the next someone less or equal- that and be able to be on teams of your own or one day be caught out.

You need to stop thinking PP Open is CQC, because its not, nor is it matched- its just you and whoever you come across based on what you think needs doing.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

You're really stretching the numbers, so far they are meaningless. What is that, 5 assumptions? Kinda pointless, no?

I'm applying some, I think, plausible assumptions to demonstrate that the number doesn't mean what you think it means, that without proper constraint you can't use it for anything, that conclusive use of the statistic is likely to require additional work. You've applied only one assumption - "this number means what I'd like it to mean".

But we can base our views on previous studies done on players. For example this study: https://www.researchgate.net/public...yer_and_Player_Versus_Environment_Video_Games
Attempted to discern whether pvp increases or decreases enjoyment over pve.

So from this we can conclude that adding greater pvp elements to other aspects of the game would reduce or maintain levels of enjoyment, but not increase them.

Also, Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types, which concluded that about 80% of players are social players, with only 1% being of the 'killer' subtype. That doesn't infer that only killers enjoy pvp, but it does give a strong indicator of what direction the average player will lean under pressure. As I said prior, there are plenty of players who will engage in casual pvp given the chance, but very few who are willing and able to participate in pvp to a serious degree.

This is worsened by the inherently discriminatory nature of pvp, leaning towards the top. PVP can broadly be translated into ELO scores, and if you do an analysis of elo scores, a tiny portion of players tend to win a large majority of matches. This is called the Pareto Principle, and it's universal across basically everything from star sizes to wealth inequality to pvp rankings. 20% of pvpers win 80% of matches, and of that 20%, 20% win 80% of THOSE matchups; in simple terms, 4% of players will win 56% of fights.

This, too, tends to drive out the more 'casual' of pvp players; see CQC for reference. This tends to lead to stagnation. See Age of Empires 2, for example, where top players are so dominant they have to age out of the game rather than face any sort of meaningful competition, and a grand total of 2 players have been dominant for the past 15+ years.

As players master the game, they become dominant and drive out the less-competitive players. Nobody likes dying over and over. As this happens, the players slightly better than them end up in the same scenario; being at the bottom of the heap is never fun, and nobody rational is going to let themselves be killed over and over with no hope of victory. Eventually there are too few players to sustain a viable playerbase, and the remaining expert players quit as well.

It's just common sense, if you think about it. Nobody will play a game where they're the worst and always lose. But there always needs to be someone at the bottom. If you constantly chop off the bottom, soon there will be nobody left.

This is why other games have elo systems, or implement alternate modes that allow for simpler or fairer competition.

Your argument here seems to stem from a complete misunderstanding of PvP in Elite and its role in powerplay. I'm not saying there's nothing in it - a feature has to give breathing space to PvEers and lower skill players (like me), but... Elite does that. Powerplay leverages PvP more, but still does that.

 

[DemiserofD]

How can you apply that to a mode that is random and not matched up, though? One day you could indeed come across a PvP master, the next someone less or equal- that and be able to be on teams of your own or one day be caught out.

You need to stop thinking PP Open is CQC, because its not, nor is it matched- its just you and whoever you come across based on what you think needs doing.

Statistics is all you need, honestly. If you're at the bottom of the pile, everyone you meet will be better than you. Which makes pvp frustrating no matter who you meet, which means you quit. Which means the guy who was just above you is now worst, so HE quits, and then the guy above him, and the guy above him, and so on and so forth. Any freeform pvp mode eventually becomes dominated by a small number of players.

As for how I know people will quit? Because I've been that top player. If I don't intentionally play nicely and allow others to participate, then they quit very quickly. Indeed, they even did this study with rats; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5074863/ / https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0149763484900058

Larger rats will play with the smaller rats. But if the larger rats don't let the smaller rats 'win' about 30% of the time, the smaller rats stop playing.

The exact opposite in PP then.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

I want a Powerplay that helps me meet other players of similar affinity to me, and we can go do stuff together. Like mining. And if we mine enough, we can have our efforts represented as political dominance. That'd be fun for me.