Hello guys,
considering that there's been a lot of offtopic discussion in at least three different threads that basically were opened up to talk about different things, I decided to do a very stupid thing and open a thread especially dedicated to not what Powerplay is right now, not how to solve its intrinsic game mechanics flaws or anything else.
First of all I want to all people involved in discussion to please stay in topic and possibly consider that it doesn't exist just your way of playing the game, but multiple types of it, and to accept that, let's try to find a solution suitable to all the CMDRs, so there's no better or worse way of playing the game, just different needings; oh, and this is not a thread about botting or 5C or even instancing problems, because if you think about that CQC should have been botched from the beginning because of Elite Dangerous "particular" networking structure. Thank you guys, I hope we can stay civil and objective, at least for one time.
Let's talk about gameplay and for that I will express my opinions and my opinions only.
First things first, a little digression. Many other MMORPG games have a lot of different features, I've played (a little, to be honest) the elder scrolls online and the old republic, and I've noticed how PvE and PvP areas were present in those games, to make people have fun with different aspects of the game, being both interested in competition or just to spend a little relaxing time with their videogame they actually bought.
Such a thing is really difficult to accomplish in Elite Dangerous because of its nature: the Galaxy is one and paradoxally it isn't even enough inhabitated to justify the presence of a physical zone where people are exorted to play against each other as part of a game mechanic designed around competitive interaction between players and one designed around actions towards.
Even if we could identify Colonia (for example) as a "pve zone" and the old bubble as a "pvp zone", I don't think it's right to deny such great chunks of Galaxy to the amusement of one particular playstyle.
So, in some of the already mentioned gargantuan offotpic we all made everywhere else, Jockey79 had an idea I sincerly find intelligent (I hope you are reading this, because as you can see, I read what other people write and don't insult them when they express their opinions, especially when they can enrich the discussion): to make Powerplay a dedicated mode game, as much unrelated to the rest of the game as possible.
I say that this makes sense because if (and I repeat IF) an eventual Open Only Powerplay could become succesful enough to bring a lot of players in Open, we could have situations that interfere with the game experience of people that want to play in open but don't want to be bothered by Powerplay (I think about independent traders, pirates, bounty hunters, people playing the BGS etc).
So we'd have a Powerplay which should be somehow "disconnected" from the rest of the game, as much as it is possible of course.
First things first right now the BGS is a great part of Powerplay: it affects the fortification triggers and it brought conflicts between Powerplayers and people who were not involved in Powerplay. A first thing I think it should be done is to make the BGS not relevant to Powerplay: this would bring Powerplayers' attention somewhere else, and BGS players would be free to play their very own game in any mode they like as it should be).
Then another thing I'm not entirely sure about: right now Powers have some (indeed minor) effects over the exploited systems, like over black markets, security levels, demand/request of certain commodities etc, increase the effectivness of some superpower aligned minor factions (I can say it is very minor, considering my personal experience, I've been the "BGS guy" for my Power a long time), in some way they give much more variability to the Galaxy but it is still a direct effect that could be considered undesirable.
But most importantly: why even bothering to do all of this? My answer (and opinion about that) is to give people that enjoy another type of gameplay to play against each other, exactly how it already happens in CQC where there's no NPCs but just players, and all the ranking system is all considered by the interactions of the players engaged in the same game mechanic, with the difference that CQC is designed to make people only shoot each other, Powerplay would be the "whole game mechanics" in an environment where the possibilities to avoid player encounters are very limited.
This may be not for everybody's liking, but there's plenty of different game mechanics that people ignore because of that.
This may be considered too difficult and something that would exclude some players, but the very same thing happens with other parts of the game, like Thargoids, which are clearly an end-game challenging fighting-oriented game mechanic.
But the crucial thing in all of this "new Powerplay" is that we're talking about a different, parallel game that could be easily ignored by people who are not interested in dealing with other players, as CQC can be avoided the same way, or Thargoids for example. People who are interested but can't simply complete the tasks that this new Powerplay offers would be no different than the ones that attack a Thargoid Interceptor without the right amount of skills or the right outfitting: a risk taken facing possible disaster.
It should be no different than BGS for example, offering missions and a great variety of activities, only beneficial to the Power itself and not the minor factions that inhabit the different systems.
This could be "divisive" for somebody, but if you think about it is the kind of "PvE-zone/PvP-zone" some people ask for since always.
So to be the most schematic I can:
Again: let's discuss this by a gameplay point of view ONLY. If you even mention botting or 5C you're bad people. Just gameplay. Let's discuss.
considering that there's been a lot of offtopic discussion in at least three different threads that basically were opened up to talk about different things, I decided to do a very stupid thing and open a thread especially dedicated to not what Powerplay is right now, not how to solve its intrinsic game mechanics flaws or anything else.
First of all I want to all people involved in discussion to please stay in topic and possibly consider that it doesn't exist just your way of playing the game, but multiple types of it, and to accept that, let's try to find a solution suitable to all the CMDRs, so there's no better or worse way of playing the game, just different needings; oh, and this is not a thread about botting or 5C or even instancing problems, because if you think about that CQC should have been botched from the beginning because of Elite Dangerous "particular" networking structure. Thank you guys, I hope we can stay civil and objective, at least for one time.
Let's talk about gameplay and for that I will express my opinions and my opinions only.
First things first, a little digression. Many other MMORPG games have a lot of different features, I've played (a little, to be honest) the elder scrolls online and the old republic, and I've noticed how PvE and PvP areas were present in those games, to make people have fun with different aspects of the game, being both interested in competition or just to spend a little relaxing time with their videogame they actually bought.
Such a thing is really difficult to accomplish in Elite Dangerous because of its nature: the Galaxy is one and paradoxally it isn't even enough inhabitated to justify the presence of a physical zone where people are exorted to play against each other as part of a game mechanic designed around competitive interaction between players and one designed around actions towards.
Even if we could identify Colonia (for example) as a "pve zone" and the old bubble as a "pvp zone", I don't think it's right to deny such great chunks of Galaxy to the amusement of one particular playstyle.
So, in some of the already mentioned gargantuan offotpic we all made everywhere else, Jockey79 had an idea I sincerly find intelligent (I hope you are reading this, because as you can see, I read what other people write and don't insult them when they express their opinions, especially when they can enrich the discussion): to make Powerplay a dedicated mode game, as much unrelated to the rest of the game as possible.
I say that this makes sense because if (and I repeat IF) an eventual Open Only Powerplay could become succesful enough to bring a lot of players in Open, we could have situations that interfere with the game experience of people that want to play in open but don't want to be bothered by Powerplay (I think about independent traders, pirates, bounty hunters, people playing the BGS etc).
So we'd have a Powerplay which should be somehow "disconnected" from the rest of the game, as much as it is possible of course.
First things first right now the BGS is a great part of Powerplay: it affects the fortification triggers and it brought conflicts between Powerplayers and people who were not involved in Powerplay. A first thing I think it should be done is to make the BGS not relevant to Powerplay: this would bring Powerplayers' attention somewhere else, and BGS players would be free to play their very own game in any mode they like as it should be).
Then another thing I'm not entirely sure about: right now Powers have some (indeed minor) effects over the exploited systems, like over black markets, security levels, demand/request of certain commodities etc, increase the effectivness of some superpower aligned minor factions (I can say it is very minor, considering my personal experience, I've been the "BGS guy" for my Power a long time), in some way they give much more variability to the Galaxy but it is still a direct effect that could be considered undesirable.
But most importantly: why even bothering to do all of this? My answer (and opinion about that) is to give people that enjoy another type of gameplay to play against each other, exactly how it already happens in CQC where there's no NPCs but just players, and all the ranking system is all considered by the interactions of the players engaged in the same game mechanic, with the difference that CQC is designed to make people only shoot each other, Powerplay would be the "whole game mechanics" in an environment where the possibilities to avoid player encounters are very limited.
This may be not for everybody's liking, but there's plenty of different game mechanics that people ignore because of that.
This may be considered too difficult and something that would exclude some players, but the very same thing happens with other parts of the game, like Thargoids, which are clearly an end-game challenging fighting-oriented game mechanic.
But the crucial thing in all of this "new Powerplay" is that we're talking about a different, parallel game that could be easily ignored by people who are not interested in dealing with other players, as CQC can be avoided the same way, or Thargoids for example. People who are interested but can't simply complete the tasks that this new Powerplay offers would be no different than the ones that attack a Thargoid Interceptor without the right amount of skills or the right outfitting: a risk taken facing possible disaster.
It should be no different than BGS for example, offering missions and a great variety of activities, only beneficial to the Power itself and not the minor factions that inhabit the different systems.
This could be "divisive" for somebody, but if you think about it is the kind of "PvE-zone/PvP-zone" some people ask for since always.
So to be the most schematic I can:
- Powerplay actions engaged into the same game mode, if a player change mode with a task on hold, that task fails immediately
- no effects from the Powerplay mode to the BGS, only Powerplay in that mode
- Powerplay missions and scenarios
- no BGS effect to Powerplay
- BONUS: minor effects from Powerplay to the game as it is today or now? I'm talking about effects over Black Markets, Security Levels etc
Again: let's discuss this by a gameplay point of view ONLY. If you even mention botting or 5C you're bad people. Just gameplay. Let's discuss.
