Powerplay Powerplay 2.0 - What is Power Play? What is Politics? Why Powerplay doesn't have either one...but it should.

[DemiserofD]

You started with a 6300 word post about a mechanic that fdev has shown no interest in for 6 years and almost certainly wont spend any time working on in the future unless it involves on-foot specific gameplay and a targetted discussion is long winded and nonsensical? Please. If you read thru the OP, then long winded obviously doesn't matter.

any discussion about powerplay like the one being made here is a fever dream that players have had for half a decade. It's not really about convincing players. It's about the imaginary convincing of fdev in the upside down version of the universe where they would actually do the things being discussed on the forum.

If you wanted it to be taken as a viable new idea and not just one of many that have been pitched and forgotten about powerplay, it would have all revolved around foot gameplay and how powerplay fits in there and left the existing space based powerplay alone - because fdev isn't changing that. But they might add powerplay stuff to on-foot gameplay to fill that out a bit and add some aspect of it to this new mode of playing that currently lacks it.

edit: but since it doesn't revolve around foot gameplay, it can only be taken as request to comment on someone's personal daydreams. My response to that request for comment is that this dream is not aligned to what powerplay was supposed to be and better belongs aligned toward basic bgs faction gameplay given how it's intended to work and how it rewards and such (minus some of the explict pp ideas). I dont find it as a means of improving powerplay directly, thought it might make the bgs manip aspect of what impacts powerplay better. I think it detracts and distracts from the root causes of powerplay's malignancy since it was launched and outlined what those things are and how those ought to function. Not as a competing daydream of powerplay, but just as a means of justifying why this day dream is not a good powerplay 2.0.

Being long-winded is fine. Being long-winded on your own idea, completely unrelated to the subject at hand, is not. You led off by saying that you disagreed with everything I proposed, and then leapt into something completely and utterly opposite in virtually every regard. I tried to be polite and debate the matter with you, but it quickly became apparent that you had no desire to talk about anything I've proposed, and were instead fixated on your own ideas, completely at odds and separate from the focus of the thread.

Again, if you want to make your own suggestions, feel free to do so in their own dedicated thread, where they can be discussed in greater depth by those who are interested. I, however, have not at all been convinced by your arguments, and at this stage, it's a complete waste of time to bother going through massive walls of text on a point-by-point basis, only dragging further and further from the point you will clearly never agree with on fundamental levels.

I believe your concepts will utterly destroy whatever is left of Powerplay, and would be a massive waste of time and effort to implement. I believe you have a flawed grasp of human psychology and motivations. You likely feel the same about me. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. But at this stage, seeing as nothing you can say will convince me, you would likely be ahead to post those ideas in a place where others might actually agree with you, as that will never happen here.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Powerplay is in a such stalemate they can randomly trigger expansions and turmoils without much of the player base having the least care of what's going on.

 

[DemiserofD]

Powerplay is in a such stalemate they can randomly trigger expansions and turmoils without much of the player base having the least care of what's going on.

I think a large part of that is the way results are so disconnected from action. You don't haul enough to one system, and you lose a completely different system on the opposite side of your Power? To a new player it makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense to an older player either, but at least they understand it. But you shouldn't need to read a book to figure out how to roll the dice, so to speak.

Getting new players to understand the basic aspects of the game is really important so they can get invested. That's why I'm particularly fond of the parts including showing on the map where powerplay-relevant BGS wars are taking place, and also just rewarding players and powers for doing stuff the power is focused on. I want miners to automatically want to join Zemina Torval, and then choose where to mine based on what would help the power the most, because they helps the players the most, too!

It should be this back and forth between the power and the player, each helping each other in direct ways, to encourage them to KEEP helping each other.

 

[Rebel Yell]

I think a large part of that is the way results are so disconnected from action. You don't haul enough to one system, and you lose a completely different system on the opposite side of your Power? To a new player it makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense to an older player either, but at least they understand it. But you shouldn't need to read a book to figure out how to roll the dice, so to speak.

Getting new players to understand the basic aspects of the game is really important so they can get invested. That's why I'm particularly fond of the parts including showing on the map where powerplay-relevant BGS wars are taking place, and also just rewarding players and powers for doing stuff the power is focused on. I want miners to automatically want to join Zemina Torval, and then choose where to mine based on what would help the power the most, because they helps the players the most, too!

It should be this back and forth between the power and the player, each helping each other in direct ways, to encourage them to KEEP helping each other.

I don't know if it this the "complexity" or the slugginess... or lack of substantial long term rewards (except modules) compared to a requirement to stay committed to a loop grind for merits. May be that keeping things as simplest as possible could be the way out... who knows?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@OP:
I think i'd just be happier if they removed CC entirely, froze the control systems and bubbles as they stand, while removing any 5C overlaps and such.
And then you can fight over things.
There are problems when it comes down to players dictating terms to others though and not everyone will want to be part of a power, if they own a faction outside it..
I don't like the bonus system either because a smaller power will always struggle and if they are given perks to survive, it will be pointless and forum salty.
So, allowing a certain amount of change would be good, but allowing ppl to cause havoc, like 5C, on a much grander scale would be bad in any new system.
I don't mind if the game creates pvp environments fop ppl who like that but you also have to consider all playstyles.

 

[DemiserofD]

@OP:
I think i'd just be happier if they removed CC entirely, froze the control systems and bubbles as they stand, while removing any 5C overlaps and such.
And then you can fight over things.
There are problems when it comes down to players dictating terms to others though and not everyone will want to be part of a power, if they own a faction outside it..
I don't like the bonus system either because a smaller power will always struggle and if they are given perks to survive, it will be pointless and forum salty.
So, allowing a certain amount of change would be good, but allowing ppl to cause havoc, like 5C, on a much grander scale would be bad in any new system.
I don't mind if the game creates pvp environments fop ppl who like that but you also have to consider all playstyles.

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

You could probably get rid of CC entirely, but that still leaves the problem of motivation; many players need a reason to get invested in something like this. If you look at Eve online, and the big groups that they have there, those players are not in those groups for the roleplay; at least, not most of them. Rather, they work together because that is the only way they can achieve certain objectives, like getting the largest ships in the game. The same is true, in general, of most players in Elite; most simply module shop, rather than participating more deeply, which should be the primary goal of rewards such as PowerPlay modules. While some other system could be used to achieve this, CC already exists, so it seems practical to use it for another purpose, keeping it closer to the original version, at least aesthetically.

Here is my ideal state of the game; there will always be weaker powers, and stronger powers. Ideally, the players who want to play the power play aspect of the game will tend craft Powers whose bonuses are better suited to PowerPlay. Because of this, players who are interested in power play will tend to join these powers, and these Powers will tend to dominate that aspect of the game. However, that is not the only aspect of the game, and there are many players who might provisionally be interested in PowerPlay engagement, but are not interested in devoting full-time effort towards it.

On their behalf, you will have powers that are primarily filled with players who are less interested in power play. Which is not to say that wouldn't play at all-the idea is that the game would be enjoyable whether or not this is your focus- but they would spend more time on non PowerPlay activities, meaning they can afford to focus their Power bonuses more towards those activities, thereby drawing in the players who enjoy that sort of thing. Torval, for example, might focus more on mining bonuses, which are not directly relevant to PowerPlay.

Bonuses-again, ideally- would be progressively more difficult to achieve and sustain , similar to leveling up in an RPG; low levels come quickly, while higher levels take prolonged and sustained effort. While these lesser Powers will have less bonuses overall and than the more dominant Powers, per effort, they actually gain more.

Additionally, these lesser Powers could also serve important political and tactical duties, forming alliances with larger powers to attack other large powers, or just supporting others of their own affiliation, like independent, Empire, or Federation. Hudson might pledge to help Winters gain an additional bonus slot, if Winters attacks Torval to prevent her from being able to assist Emperor Duval.

Hopefully, this would result in a game that is dynamic, with both large and small Powers having their respective niches, and accommodating their Members own relative desires to participate in the overall game that is power play, on either a serious or casual level.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@mods
I'm pretty sure the edit button is broken.
Just a heads up, it's not deleting the original post.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@OP:
Motivation can be gained by a new reward system.
If you want this game to be EVE, go play it. It's a different game.
The sad reality is that if FD did, like they did before with new stuff to gain feedback, give better rewards to one and not all, the forums would erupt so
bad idea considering some will have a competitive mindset, even if it is not written on the tin.
I think when you break things down to what is more popular, then that is unbalanced as well as ppl shift thru wants and desires.
It's a human thing... and doing the same thing repeatedly is bad. Your plan forces that.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Another question...
How do lesser powers gain more?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

As for bonuses, so the little powers have to ask the bigger powers for help and hope they play nice, considering this community?
You seem to be giving great power to the bigger factions and asking others to beg for scraps... dunno how those involved will feel about that....

 

[DemiserofD]

@OP:
Motivation can be gained by a new reward system.
If you want this game to be EVE, go play it. It's a different game.
The sad reality is that if FD did, like they did before with new stuff to gain feedback, give better rewards to one and not all, the forums would erupt so
bad idea considering some will have a competitive mindset, even if it is not written on the tin.
I think when you break things down to what is more popular, then that is unbalanced as well as ppl shift thru wants and desires.
It's a human thing... and doing the same thing repeatedly is bad. Your plan forces that.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it should BE eve, just that you can learn a lot from what works in other games and what doesn't. EVE, Skyrim, Star Citizen, they all do some things well and some things poorly, and you can learn from all of them.

For example, most players are motivated by power. In Skyrim, players will delve the deepest, most annoying dungeon to get the sword of +3 awesomeness. If that sword were instead some mythical sword of elder scrolls lore, but which didn't actually do anything, it would be ignored. In Diablo 2, players will create an entirely new character to kill the Uber bosses just for the Hellfire Torch, the best skill booster in the game, but will completely ignore the Standard of Heroes, the lore-based reward for the victory, and just leave it lying on the ground.

Players like power. It's one of the best ways to get players engaged. Of course, you'd need to balance that power out, definitely! But that's all in the fine tuning.

How do lesser powers gain more?

Think of it like this: In Skyrim, it takes half as much experience to reach level 75 as it does to reach level 100. In Diablo 2, it takes half as much XP to reach level 98 as 99!

The weaker powers - IE, the 'lower levels' - get more per effort.

Example: Say you are thinking about choosing between joining Zachary Hudson, who is the #1 power, or Zemina Torval, who is the #10 power.

Hudson has 8 bonuses active, and it will take 10 million units of player effort to reach 9. Torval has 4 bonuses active, and it will take 100 thousand units of player effort to reach 5.

Hudson has bonuses to system defense, to merit generation, and to combat, and so on; things optimized for powerplay. Meanwhile, Torval has bonuses to limpet speed, mining speed, and mined goods prices, optimized to mining.

Now, which power do you join?

Despite the fact that Hudson is #1, if you're a miner, you're still might consider joining Torval, because she has more bonuses that are good for you. And, because Toval has an easier time getting more bonuses, it encourages those players to get deeper into the game!

As for bonuses, so the little powers have to ask the bigger powers for help and hope they play nice, considering this community?
You seem to be giving great power to the bigger factions and asking others to beg for scraps... dunno how those involved will feel about that....

Not exactly. They just could.

Think of it like this: Imagine you're a Torval player in the example above. You're a miner, and you don't really invest too much into Powerplay. It's there, and you do it on a cursory level for the benefits, but you're not really invested.

Suddenly along comes Arissa Lavigny Duval with a proposal; you go to war for a week, help us fight off Zachary Hudson, and we'll make sure you get the credit for taking some of his systems, even though we'll do the majority of the work. With the bonus merits, you'll be able to reach another bonus tier, and get enhanced performance for a month, just for a week's effort!

Pow, suddenly you're invested in Powerplay where you weren't before.

And that's what Powerplay should provide; a reason for players to get involved! And not just get involved, but stay involved!

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@OP:
I've played skyrim for thousands of hours and there is nothing worse than making the game too easy for yourself. It takes the fun and challenge out of it because there are shortcuts but it makes the game very stale and boring. It's the same with op weapons(which they nerfed) or smithing/ enchanting if you play enough..
What is a game without challenge....
In a game like elite, it is always a game that lasts. It doesn't lead you by the hand or tell you what to do. 3rd party sites may do but they're not official so it's a choice, like skyrim.

As for power in this game, what happens when someone dies when they come up against someone better.
Kinda rare but the noob farming still happens...
It's all about the easy win bar a few who are dedicated.

You're still missing the point that you're saying to compete in your system, that all torval should be miners to gain a bonus.
That restricts player freedom. That is bad.

 

[DemiserofD]

@OP:
I've played skyrim for thousands of hours and there is nothing worse than making the game too easy for yourself. It takes the fun and challenge out of it because there are shortcuts but it makes the game very stale and boring. It's the same with op weapons(which they nerfed) or smithing/ enchanting if you play enough..
What is a game without challenge....
In a game like elite, it is always a game that lasts. It doesn't lead you by the hand or tell you what to do. 3rd party sites may do but they're not official so it's a choice, like skyrim.

As for power in this game, what happens when someone dies when they come up against someone better.
Kinda rare but the noob farming still happens...
It's all about the easy win bar a few who are dedicated.

You're still missing the point that you're saying to compete in your system, that all torval should be miners to gain a bonus.
That restricts player freedom. That is bad.

Absolutely, the bonuses would need to be balanced to not make the game too easy, I agree 100%. But then, isn't that true of any game?

Re: player freedom, though; it's the players who choose what their power does, and what their bonuses are; this gives them almost perfect freedom to craft their Power as they see fit, and will help them find other like-minded players, who want similar things.

If players want to redirect their Power, all they need to do is play Powerplay and then vote! That's the magic of it!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Confirmed: @DemiserofD is @Rubbernuke alt!

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Confirmed: @DemiserofD is @Rubbernuke alt!

I doubt that because there's been no mention of the meat, lego and a distinct lack of memes.
Especially Torval ones... who he secretly yearns for...

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Absolutely, the bonuses would need to be balanced to not make the game too easy, I agree 100%. But then, isn't that true of any game?

Re: player freedom, though; it's the players who choose what their power does, and what their bonuses are; this gives them almost perfect freedom to craft their Power as they see fit, and will help them find other like-minded players, who want similar things.

If players want to redirect their Power, all they need to do is play Powerplay and then vote! That's the magic of it!

Bit of a goal post moving going on but i guess you got what i was saying.
It's just feedback, devoid of doom, it's been a while...
I may return later.
Formulate a plan on how it could work.
I like ideas, prolly not the only one either..

 

[QueensPawn]

Setting aside that I doubt Frontier is invested enough to put in a full redesign of powerplay at this late stage in the game's life cycle, this is a really neat idea. I'm sure I could find flaws with it if I dug deep enough, but the overall concept is quite sound. I doubt that it would completely eliminate 5C. Pushing the CC vote to make sure that a faction picks the least synergistic bonuses still seems like a thing that people might do. But as a BGS person, I do think that if we're doing a mental exercise on what an ideal total redesign would look like, while we're at it it would be cool to fix the problem where some powers are inhospitable to factions of their own superpower, which has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Part 8c: BGS Synergy​

On top of this, the range and power of fortification could be adjusted by the BGS factions and states within the Power. This would be similar to the current system of synergistic BGS factions. Each Power should prefer certain governments for Control systems(which would match their ethos), and other systems for Exploited systems.

If I had my choice in the matter, I would lift the restriction on certain government types from belonging to certain superpowers. But if we're limiting ourselves to redesigning powerplay alone, it would be good to at least see factions of the same superpower as the power that governs them have one higher tier of synergy than they would normally have for their government type in this ruleset.

 

[DemiserofD]

Setting aside that I doubt Frontier is invested enough to put in a full redesign of powerplay at this late stage in the game's life cycle, this is a really neat idea. I'm sure I could find flaws with it if I dug deep enough, but the overall concept is quite sound. I doubt that it would completely eliminate 5C. Pushing the CC vote to make sure that a faction picks the least synergistic bonuses still seems like a thing that people might do. But as a BGS person, I do think that if we're doing a mental exercise on what an ideal total redesign would look like, while we're at it it would be cool to fix the problem where some powers are inhospitable to factions of their own superpower, which has always rubbed me the wrong way.


If I had my choice in the matter, I would lift the restriction on certain government types from belonging to certain superpowers. But if we're limiting ourselves to redesigning powerplay alone, it would be good to at least see factions of the same superpower as the power that governs them have one higher tier of synergy than they would normally have for their government type in this ruleset.

Yeah, removing CC on its own wouldn't completely eliminate 5C, but I do believe that changing merits/ranks to be based on mere playtime would.

Right now, you only want to invest part of your time into powerplay, and there's a cap to your rank, so everyone can get the same ranking, more or less. A 5C player can put in an hour's work every week and be just as important in voting as someone who plays 50 hours. And if they're particularly motivated, they can run 50 alts and get 50x the voting power with the same effort.

With the new system, the people who just play the game regularly will have the most voting power. Yes, someone could join an enemy power and play extensive to boost their voting power, but it would prohibit playing on their main account for another Power, would give the hostile Power CC just by playing, and they couldn't sustain an army of alts. At that point, even if they vote for a poor bonus, they probably only got the bonus because they participated in the first place!

At that point, 5C is basically impossible. Even in trying to hurt them, they'll only end up helping. The only thing I could see maybe happening is something like, expanding to vulnerable systems and then letting another power take them to kick off hostility between the two powers, but that's exactly the sort of thing that should happen!

If I had my choice in the matter, I would lift the restriction on certain government types from belonging to certain superpowers. But if we're limiting ourselves to redesigning powerplay alone, it would be good to at least see factions of the same superpower as the power that governs them have one higher tier of synergy than they would normally have for their government type in this ruleset.

My goal in this is in part aesthetic. If I enter Utopian space, I'd love to be able to know without even looking, because there's Theocracies everywhere. If I enter Archon Delaine space, I want it to be anarchies by the truckload with the occasional dictatorship to shake things up.

But I'll admit, this is by far the trickiest part of making Powerplay enjoyable. But there needs to be a strategic element based around changing the playing field(so that the game can be fluid and change as time passes), and BGS seems like a good way to do it.

 

[QueensPawn]

Yeah, removing CC on its own wouldn't completely eliminate 5C, but I do believe that changing merits/ranks to be based on mere playtime would.

Right now, you only want to invest part of your time into powerplay, and there's a cap to your rank, so everyone can get the same ranking, more or less. A 5C player can put in an hour's work every week and be just as important in voting as someone who plays 50 hours. And if they're particularly motivated, they can run 50 alts and get 50x the voting power with the same effort.

With the new system, the people who just play the game regularly will have the most voting power. Yes, someone could join an enemy power and play extensive to boost their voting power, but it would prohibit playing on their main account for another Power, would give the hostile Power CC just by playing, and they couldn't sustain an army of alts. At that point, even if they vote for a poor bonus, they probably only got the bonus because they participated in the first place!

At that point, 5C is basically impossible. Even in trying to hurt them, they'll only end up helping. The only thing I could see maybe happening is something like, expanding to vulnerable systems and then letting another power take them to kick off hostility between the two powers, but that's exactly the sort of thing that should happen!

I wish that were all that needed to be worried about. However, we're pretty sure that the 5C that's hitting Aisling right now is largely botted, so play time for them is not particularly a deterrent. Which, I realize that botting is an entirely separate issue with its own complications and solutions. But something to keep in mind since it's a problem that does exist and should be accounted for.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

I only say that any interventions into ship capabilities via powerplay is a no go, as this would mean ALL pvp-ers pledge to 1 power that offer this, we already have this happening, as Prismatics shields are hard requirement for any reasonable level PvP