Powerplay: Ideas from the devs - Feedback wanted! #3

[Hellhawk666]

Thanks again, Sandro, for your responses and for continuing to accept ideas and constructive criticisms.

Now ...

... would you prefer to see the merit system mutate into something like the favour system, rather than have both active at the same time (I think something along those lines has cropped up a couple of times)? Before you respond, have a think about what would be gained versus what would be lost: the system would be simpler, but less dynamic. In essence, it would likely be a little more like a XP bar/resource.

If the choice is only going to be:

1. Merits with decay as now
2. Merits with decay + Favours
3. Favours instead of decaying merits

Then door number 3 for sure BUT does this not all just skirt around the issue? If you are willing to substitute favours that can be banked and spent later for the decaying merit mechanism, then clearly decaying merits can't really be that important to start with and are only there right now because you guys feel it is a "good thing" ... so if that's the only justification then why not just remove the decay mechanism? I get the distinct impression that you are trying to hold on to a complex system when simplicity is preferable.

Simply change it so merits do not decay. Offset the accumulation blow-out by increasing the number of ranks, and greatly increasing the threshold for each rank - just like combat, exploration and trade ranks. You do it there and it works - why not do it for Powers?

Also pretty unanimous is a desire for stronger connection to minor factions. Again, we're down with this. However, it's important to remember that A) powers and minor factions are on a different scale, and that B) both systems are pretty complex. But that's just a caveat, really - we'll certainly spend some more time going over options here ...

The statement that "powers and minor factions are on a different scale" is troubling. Many of us are saying that the divide in both mechanisms and dynamics between how minor factions operate and how Powers operate feels very artificial. It would be much more immersive if minor factions and Powers were two ends of a continuum instead of being completely different systems, and that interaction with one influenced (albeit indirectly) the other through the same mechanisms.

With the upcoming player minor factions and the possibility of their eventual evolution into Powers, doesn't it make sense to have both Powers and minor factions use the same gameplay instead of two totally different systems?

I'm not suggesting you ditch every part of Powerplay, but rather integrate bulletin board missions, CGs, minor factions and Powers into one system, and allow Powers to arise in a much more organic and chaotic fashion through that system.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Now you don't have to believe me, but we are working on lots of other stuff as well, equally important, and covering different aspects of the game, including the "core" experience, if you will.

Souvenir shop at Sag A* confirmed!

 

[metatheurgist]

So, I could be wrong, but I think an amount of the flak that the system is getting is down to this mismatch in perception of how important Powerplay is.

Er, not me. I like the concept of Powerplay. What I don't like is it's implementation. FD said no pointless PvP, then we got this mindless gangwar. How about some subtlety? How about people that work against you in your face, using entirely legal processes? You know they're your enemy but until you catch them doing something illegal you can't shoot them in the face. Ever heard of diplomatic immunity? What's with this new merit and CC system? What was wrong with the existing faction mechanics? Many players were already enjoying manipulating that, spreading factions, stifling others - it worked! (Well it used to work until 1.3). Why not just attach PP to those mechanics? How about an Aisling's Angel's faction? How about they run the system because they're the leading faction? How about I support Aisling by doing BH missions for her faction, trading at her stations, or selling them or their allies my exploration data? i.e. How about I do what I'm already doing in the game, but just connect it to a Power I'm supporting? There's already so much disconnect in the game. NPCs aren't persistent in space. There's no relationship between the spawns in a RES and the strength of the local pirate faction. And now we have another disconnected layer of CC and ferrying stupefying amounts of propaganda around.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Hi Sandro

One of the things that turn me off from PP is that it's a replacement to Elite, not a compliment.

If it was a compliment then the existing rules and laws would still exist and PP would end up being an overlay, whereas what we have now is that if you pledge then *zoik* you're transported into a new parallel universe where there are new rules and laws .. It just seems illogical, lacks consistency and feels very contrived.

Take Kremmens excellent summation on the situation:

And I'm asked to swallow the following...

• Every power has their own private Space Patrol. Not a "Federal Navy" or an "Internal Security Service", but a Blackwater-style organised mercenary mob.
• Any time a Federation Space Patrol comes across any other Space Patrol in their region, they ATTACK AND KILL THEM.
• Any time the Industrialist Space Patrol comes across a Federation, Imperial or Alliance Power Spacer Patrol in their region, they ATTACK AND KILL THEM.
• Ditto for every other Space Patrol, in their region. Kill, kill, killy kill.
• Irrespective of the local system Government or Allegiance, such attacks are 100% okay with the law. Nobody gets WANTED... except the victim, if they try to defend themselves.
• Each Power is busy printing thousands of tonnes of propaganda leaflets and corruption reports, presumably to inject enough "spin" to keep the local system populations from objecting to the psychotic frag fest going killing their sons and daughters in the space lanes, while the police do nothing.

I'm sorry, but no.

In my case, when (briefly) pledged to Denton Patreus, I was attacked in a Federation Power "region", but in Imperial Minor Faction Jurisdiction. The Imperial "Internal Security Service" sat there, doing nothing, as I was attacked. And I was an ALLIED reputation Imperial Earl

When I defended myself, I became WANTED... and the Imperial Internal Security Service ships attacked me.

The main thing that struck me was that if I am CLEAN and defending myself then why would the local police force not come to my rescue if I am attacked ? I understand the reasoning given (you're in a foreign powers system) but I have to ask : are these powers above the law ? Are they higher than the Federation / Empire / Alliance ?

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]FD said no pointless PvP, then we got this mindless gangwar. How about some subtlety?

[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]That's the thing - I was very excited by PP and returned towards the end of 1.2 to continue playing in anticipation. When PP Beta was launched I tried it and found it to be some what lacking. Since then I have not played PP and worse left ED altogether.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]One of the questions that many of us asked and were [/FONT]very [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]disappointed by FD's response was if PP would bring players together - a reason for PvP and PvE players to get together in harmony and work towards a common goal .. to give the community a reason to care about each other, including the stranger carrying the same power flag .. the answer was no. Feel free to blow up your fellow power member as illogically the power doesn't care [/FONT]

 

[Tarman]

And? Still it's decision of commander. People pledge to powers voluntary. These powers have enemies. Now, I personally would like to see less 'total war' feel in PP, granted, but overall that's really not that difficult to grasp. I want a chat a bit about how powers are doing, I will stay and chat.



It doesn't turn into anything. Don't pledge and it is same old Elite. Pledge, and you take part into high stakes game, where, yes, there are actual enemies (not only pirates) to kill....or reason with. It's still *your* choice.

Does it feel like people don't like *effects* of PP, than PP itself?

Oh my god you almost had an insight.

Practically no-one is saying Powerplay is a bad concept. It's a great concept. Politics can make for fun and extremely involving games, when the politics make sense. Crusader Kings for example is a brilliant political game. Mechanically Powerplay can be improved, yes; also undisputed even by the devs. So far you're on the same page as the rest of the playerbase.

What cannot be repaired by fixing the INSIDE of Powerplay mechanics, is how those mechanics do not match any of the Elite narrative and even many other mechanical effects previously established by FD themselves. Yes, I know you haven't even tried Powerplay, but do it for perspective's sake. Go play for Archon for a while. Then go play for Winters. Then go play for Aisling. They ALL play exactly the same mechanically. Exactly the same. One exception; they do have different side effects on their influenced systems and those are felt by all pilots, which honestly is the only part of Powerplay that interacts sensibly with the rest of the game.

If every Power has exactly the same methods and abilities, that is not politics; that is Space Risk, the Optional Boardgame. Pure wargaming for territory, quite heedless of the supposed political situation of the galaxy at large. The leaders' gameplay as part of Powerplay is not tied even remotely to their established characters, most likely in the interests of "fairness", which is part of the boardgame approach. The gameplay of Powerplay is not sensibly connected to galactic politics or laws on a number of fronts. The good Captain has an excellent breakdown of the whys and wherefores of the breakdown.

The effects of that glaring disconnect are jarring at best, and game-breaking at worst. You're SO close to understanding.

 

[Flin]

General feedback then specific feedback on the new ideas.

I don't get how the PP mechanics tie in with base mechanics.

General Feedback
Let's use Star Wars universe in the Clone Wars era as an example. You got the Republic, Separatists, and emerging Galactic Empire among the major fractions. You got minor fractions like Jedi, Sith, Trade Federation, criminal orgs, etc. You got visible and hidden powers such as Palpatine, various senators like Bale Organa, Vader, Fulcrum, etc. Essentially, you got a lot of layers of organizational and individual "powers".

If you are familiar with the Force Unleashed games, you'll understand that your actions can 'fortify' or 'undermine' the objectives of various 'powers'. For example, Vader is aligned with the Emperor, but the complex strategy employed by the Emperor gave rise to the organized resistance. Vader used this to advance his goal of defeating the Emperor and take over.

THUS: Actions in Elite, even the simple action of a space trucker, should be tracked and factored in the advancement or detraction of each and every faction/power tracked in the simulation.

Now if you are pledged to a faction/power, there is a various level of visibility of that pledge. As a super secret agent, maybe only the highest tier leaders are aware of your pledge. This means you might only get a limited set of benefits, but also limited hostility.

On the other hand, you aren't pledged to a particular fraction/power; but your actions are in line with the objectives of a few factions/powers, so you gain 'merits' (e.g. what have you done for me lately) with them (albeit at a slower rate than if you had pledged). Over time you might be recognized (e.g. haven't done much but my reputation precedes me) as an combat ace, blockade runner, humanitarian, etc. and gain 'favors' (e.g. I'm going call in that chip in the future).

THUS: Pledging has in this context: rate of visibility and rate of gain/decay of merits, reputation, and favors. Merits gain/decay relatively fast. Reputation gain slowly, but also decays slowly unless actions that cause reputation hits. Favors aren't easily gained, but don't decay and value may scales with strength of the fraction/power. Hitting certain merit level will contribute to reputation. Hitting the top x% of CMDRs in merits in a given cycle may yield a favor. Reputation and favors can be gain other ways of course.


Specific Feedback
Favor
The overall mechanics need to factor all the dimensions of working for a power. Merits for doing things required now, Reputation for the actions you sustain over time, and Favors for very specific objectives achieved. Describing how the whole scheme work together avoid making it sounds like a tacked on game mechanic.

Powerplay Flag
This ties in to being a visible or hidden agent of the pledged power. There is a whole lot of rich gameplay that can be developed. Being visible obviously will increase the level of hostility or friendliness. Being hidden acts in opposite, but allows for subterfuge gameplay. A counter to visible/hidden is reputation. You might go hidden, but your reputation will precede you regardless.

Up/Down Vote
This is all about given leaders a voice in the faction/power. However, some factions/powers are autocratic/dictatorial so shouldn't expect to offer CMDRs a say. However, CMDRs can influence direction and actions. So allow CMDRs to spend or invest their accumulated attribute values (merits, reputation, favors, credits, votes, etc.) according to the ethos of the fraction/power.

Freedom Fighter
Good idea to add. However, this tag is gained by action which is amplified by pledging, visibility of the pledge, etc. The decay of this tag is conversely sped up by not being pledge.

More Powerful Ethos versus Government Effect
Need to give this more consideration, but more granular effects and thresholds is generally better than a digital switch.

Missions, Variety and Rewards
See my comments above. But I think what's needed is a rewrite of an one-pager framework about the layers and types of factors/powers and the actions that they engaged in to achieve their aims. Then map it against established rich universe like Star Trek or Star Wars to see what mechanics are need to model the fraction/powers and activities they engage in.

I appreciate all the comments so far. It shows people are interested in speaking about this topic.

Hope you appreciate and consider the above.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Having had a moment to process the proposed changes, I now want to submit my feedback on it. Let me preface this by saying that I have not read a single post in this thread other than the OP...for what that's worth.

The current biggest complained with the rewards system of PowerPlay is merit decay and the grinding required to earned and maintain rank. Favour has been proposed to help alleviate some of this (because they do not decay, you spend them when you want). The Favour system is a slight improvement, but it functionally is the same thing as the current merit system if your goal is to maintain a certain rank week after week.

In the current system, you earn merits to reach the threshold for your desired rank. Each week, these merits are automatically spent and you have to re-earn a number of merits to maintain that rank. Herein is the grind: the need to earn a large number of merits every week to maintain one's rank. This wouldn't be a big deal if the number of merits required wasn't so large. With Favour, the only difference is that you choose when to spend your points. However, if your goal is to maintain a given rank each week, that's not much of a choice, because you are going to spend those points anyway. More troubling is that Fdev has indicated that the costs when spending Favour will be greater than the current costs for spending merits, meaning that the grind is actually increased.

Another problem I have with Favour is that it adds additional complexity to an already complicated system that really has no need to be complicated to begin with. Having two currencies for PowerPlay that behave differently but are used for the same thing is just unnecessarily confusing.

Here's what I proposed as an alternative system: divide the rewards players currently earn between those you can earn through accruing a number of merits that week (i.e. activity) and those that you earn just for being pledged for a threshold period of time (i.e. loyalty), and those you earned for relative contribution to you power's goals (i.e. weekly community goals).

Activity Rewards - you earn merits each week and gain the rank for the following week respective to the number of merits you earned.

• Rank 1: 0 merits, 0 nominations, 5k salary, 10 commodity limit
• Rank 2: 100 merits, 2 nominations, 10k salary, 15 commodity
• Rank 3: 250 merits, 5 nominations, 50k salary, 20 commodity
• Rank 4: 500 merits, 10 nominations, 100k salary, 25 commodity
• Rank 5: 750 merits, 15 nominations, 500k salary, 30 commodity
• Rank 6: 1000 merits, 20 nominations, 1 mil salary, 35 commodity
• Rank 7: 1500 merits, 25 nominations, 5 mil salary, 40 commodity
• Rank 8: 2000 merits, 35 nominations, 10 mil salary, 50 commodity
• Rank 9: 3000 merits, 50 nominations, 50 mil salary, 75 commodity
• Rank 10: 5000 merits, 75 nominations, 100 mil salary, 100 commodity

Loyalty Rewards - earned automatically contingent upon being pledged for a threshold period of time. I'll use Lavigny-Duval bonuses as an example.

• Level 1: 2 weeks, 10% bounty bonus
• Level 2: 3 weeks, 25% bounty bonus
• Level 3: 4 weeks, faction weapon
• Level 4: 5 weeks, 50% bounty bonus
• Level 5: 6 weeks, 100% bounty bonus,
• Level 6: 7 weeks, faction decals, paint job, and Lavigny dashboard bobble-head.
• Level 7: 8 weeks, 200% bounty bonus

Power Community Rewards - weekly community goal that rewards players for their relative contributions within the power on preparation, expansion, and fortification. A parallel goal for opposition and undermining. This would function just like a normal community goal but tailored towards supporting your power or opposing other powers, and would award credits depending on your level of relative contribution each week. Additionally, the scaling bonus players earned for their power being in the top 1/2/3 ranks could also be applied here and further scale with your weekly relative contribution.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

The main thing that struck me was that if I am CLEAN and defending myself then why would the local police force not come to my rescue if I am attacked ? I understand the reasoning given (you're in a foreign powers system) but I have to ask : are these powers above the law ?

Are they higher than the Federation / Empire / Alliance ?

Yes, FD did, in fact, say as much. The Power figures supposedly override local laws in their regions, allowing their agents to attack and kill rival agents without penalty. 100% correct and intended in the "new parallel universe" of PowerPlay, as you so astutely put it.


I can't imagine why FD would do such a thing as part of the PP implementation. Perhaps they thought it would suit trigger-happy pilots who needed an excuse to attack someone or something (not that proper trigger-happy pilots need an excuse ;. Perhaps the person who proposed the idea didn't know the Elite legal system concepts very well, or they just didn't think game-world inconsistencies were a big deal. Perhaps it was just easier to code.


I just can't see why such care was taken to implement and defend the hard decisions, like the way friendly fire makes you WANTED... but then they go and make this HOSTILE/ENEMY stuff, where pilots can't legally defend themselves in some other gangs' patches. Whu...?

 

[Stanis]

.
All these moments will be lost in the superficial mediocrity of PP and rushed artificial game mechanics, like tears in the rain...
.
...time to die.

This is a little bit excessive...

The Power Play is a very good background. But to be exciting, it really needs true missions, true quests and "sub-stories".

 

[Lheim]

I think what PP needs is a bit of inspiration from the great space 4X style games - Moo2, Gal Civ.

What do you do in those games? You play as a particular galactic power, obviously.. you choose how to develop your systems, where to colonize, who it would be beneficial to trade with or to be aggressive against, or try to manipulate other factions to weaken them and strengthen yourself. You spy, you try not to get caught, you decide who it's worth the risk of getting caught to spy on, even. You try to come out on top. It sounds like a dead ringer for what PP wants to be - and seriously, if Elite can create that kind of experience from a first person pilot's perspective? Freaking awesome, is all I'd say.

But what grand political games need is nuance; it just ain't what PP got. PP is all-out grindy frag-fest, right now.

What it needs is:

 

[GNThrone]

Re: more powerful ethos vs government

It's a good idea and all but from the perspective of a pilot supporting Aisling Duval, the social control ethos is strong against Communism, Cooperative, and Confederacy. Those three are not present anywhere in our territory and when they are present, they never come aligned to the empire.

To maximize this in the current situation we have, we need to flip systems to independent or federation. That's something that isn't right, we're an imperial power.

 

[SpaceYeti]

My thought on separating the rewards between activity and loyalty rewards is stems from the idea that you should be allowed to take a break and go exploring or something else, and retain your rewards for being a loyal supporter. However, there should also be rewards that you can only get through being an active supporter, and those rewards should be the sort that are directly related to your efforts in PowerPlay itself. Nominations, power commodity, and credit salary all stand out as the sort of rewards you should earn based on your active contribution to the war effort. The others (and these are the ones people get most upset about losing anyway) are the perks you get for being a loyalist.

Those are my thoughts at least. To me, it doesn't make sense that Lavigny-Duval would pay me for being absent while exploring the black (which I currently am, incidentally). Rather, she would pay me for what I did for her lately. She should still recognize me as a loyal supporter to the cause however, even when I return months later from the void. The only drawback I see here is that players may pledge to a power, leave for a long exploration trip, and come back having not really engaged with PowerPlay at all but still get all the loyalty rewards. I'm personally not worried about that, but I could see others being sore about it. In which case, it could be stipulated that its X number of weeks with at least 15 merit contribution that count for loyalty (or something like that).

 

[Raf von Thorn]

Here is feedback from Emperors Grace. We have been discussing proposed changes and thats what we gathered:

Favour- very good concept.

Powerplay Flag- NOT a good idea. One of the best perks of powerplay is the ability to fight "enemy", without trying to figure out if that particular person is not a "good guy" by a chance. It will lead to killing everyone, who wears "no faction tags", paradoxally making the galaxy more dangerous to everyone non pledged.

Also, it is our experience, that most of the powerplay work is being done in private/solo. Just for example, we have been opposing a powers expansion in a system. They have gathered over 5000 points (combat ethos), but we have only encountered 3 commanders in the open, both in SC and combat areas. Also, most of powerplay activities are more effective in private group/solo.

But ultimately, this is our position. We engage in PvP very often and we fill that this activity is not supported enough. You guys have to think about the whole community.

Up/Down Vote- completely irrelevant. People dont fortify the "bad" systems because they dont understand. They do it, because all they care about is their own profit. They will not care about "up or downvotes"

Freedom Fighters- This is VERY interesting. You see, the powerplay is designed to be a grind. A group effort of thousands of commanders. As well organized player group can definitely make change, its not good for the groups well being to make its members grind cycle after cycle. Thats the reason behind most of player groups quiting powerplay.

Im going to speak for Emperors Grace: we have started the group to help ingame EG minor faction. We enjoy the complexity and pace of background simulation, we have a lot of succes with it (and frustration, of course) and we would rather stay where we are. Creating our own bubble of space, calling it home and work for it is much more appealing than creating a power and keep on expanding god knows why. Ideally, a "freedom fighter" would be pledged to a minor faction and be able to eradicate any power from a system controlled by the faction (with a lot of effort). That could be a great place for player groups. Power mob vs organized commanders, its definitely appealing to lot of us.

Think of "city states" of Civilization V. Pledging for the minor faction, expanding it, removing power from its systems, fighting against powers trying to expand there again- that sounds great!

More Powerful Ethos versus Government Effect- yes, its a great idea. BGS and PP should much more connected. It would also go very well with the freedom fighters idea.

Missions, Variety and Rewards- I dont think anyone would be against. Thats exactly what the game needs right now.

Conclusion: player groups (I speak for one, therefore I put gravity to our perspective) look for a bit different experience. Members are gathering to do fun stuff together, its usually a planned operation. Single player can change his plans in the middle of activity, he knows that his contibution is just a fraction of the larger effort. He is not as responsible for the final outcome. A group, that supports a power, needs to limit "fun" and focus on "work".

Powerplay is bad for groups, because it burdens them with a LOT of responsibilty, especially in less populated powers. That makes player groups constantly push their members to the extreme, maybe even succeed at a task, but at the cost of members freedom and pleasure from playing. Its not military, its the best way to lose people, both from player group and the game. It remains to be seen, if a player group can create a power and work for it (we are willing to be a "test subject"), but massive group quiting on powerplay should be a warning. "Freedom fighters", ethos changes give me hope, that a "middle layer" could be created. Let groups become "minor powers", with perks, their own minor factions and their own unique ethos, especially the ability to fight the powers in their own area. Then they can become powers if they wish and put a lot of work into it.

To summarize: we think that proposed changes are step in the right direction. We keep our fingers crossed .

PS: Please look into "combat expansion ethos" of current powers. There is a reason why the powers that utilize it are at the bottom of the list, both in pledged player count and the power rankings.

 

[Pazmino]

^^^ This, pretty much is how I think about it too.

 

[Mu77ley]

Hi,

Before getting to my responses I'd like to lay a little ground work about my experiences with Powerplay.

I do love the overall idea of Powerplay, and it does add a certain amount of shape and territorial information to human space, but other than a little during the Powerplay beta and the first week after it went live, I've not actually done anything of note in Powerplay.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly there was not a power that I was particularly drawn to from a roleplay point of view. Some of them look nice, but overall I didn't feel the desire to support any of them. This is probably more down to me than the actual powers chosen, as I tend to prefer "going it alone" rather than blindly following some supposed superior.

Secondly, when I did align with a power temporarily to try things out, I found that participating disrupted and had a negative effect on my goals in the game, as it seemed you really needed to go all in to get much out of it. This clashed with my usual role of wandering bounty hunter / smuggler with a bit of exploration thrown in and is ultimately why I left the power.

Thirdly, the actual work required to support the power seemed very limited, with little to no story or motivation. I think it would work better for me personally if the scope of support you can give a power were widened to include all the various roles people play, and also tied in to the existing mission system. For example, Explorers could enter enemy territory and perform spying or surveillence missions. Mercenaries / Bounty Hunters could get missions for protecting systems or taking out high profile enemy targets. These could work in a similar way to current missions, but earn merits alongside (at a reduced cash reward level) or instead of the usual cash reward. This would add some much needed context, and as you travelled around systems you could just check the bulletin board to see if your adopted power had any work in the local area.

Favour
Part of Powerplay is about rewarding effort, which is why the merit system works as it does. However, there has been lots of feedback from Commanders who perhaps don’t have much time to devote to the game, let alone Powerplay; they make a very reasonable argument that potential gameplay is locked from them based on arbitrary time limits rather than skill or something equally nice.

Whilst I think it’s fair to suggest that time paid in can be considered effort of a sort, it got me thinking: perhaps there might be a reasonable compromise. The result: “Favour”.

The idea behind this suggestion is that each time a Commander earns a merit, they also earn a favour. However, favour does not decay – it’s a permanent resource (well, permanent as long as the power remains active, of course).

At any time during a cycle, a Commander could “spend” favour to trigger a an individual rating’s benefits until the next cycle. The cost of triggering a rating’s benefits would likely be significantly more than the merit total required to activate them, keeping merits as the “supercharged” currency of Powerplay.

Such a system would mean however, that Commanders would not necessarily have to put large amounts of constant effort in to taste the benefits a power might offer, instead building up their rewards over time in a piecemeal fashion and choosing when to execute them.

With such a system, I believe we could also consider reverting the way merits rewards are calculated back to the more competitive allocation method we started with, where rating requirements are based on success versus one’s peers as opposed to an arbitrary threshold. I know that this proved less than popular in the first instance, but I’d be interested if folk might reconsider its value if coupled with a favour system for the less competitive power supporters. Don’t worry if you strongly disagree, just say so!

I like this idea, mainly as it would suit my playing style more than the current merit system.

Powerplay Flag
I make no bones about my personal support for Powerplay: I love it. Grand scale power-struggles, driven entirely by Commanders, with special supporter rewards and legible, dynamically altering system rules that affect all Commanders, not just supporters.

But of course, I would say that J.

However, looking at the feedback, I observed an interesting theme: Commanders upset by the perception that once pledged to a power they felt “locked in” and unable to enjoy the freedom the game normally offered them because of the extra dangers they faced.

Again, whilst there are reasonable counters, we had a think to see what kind of options we might employ to directly address this concern, because it is a legitimate one: in general you are at significantly greater risk when pledged. The coolness of space geography offered by Powerplay does come with this increased, potentially oppressive, danger.

After a lot of furrowed brows and sugar-filled cakes, we have a suggestion that I’d love to get feedback on. Again, remember, this is just us brainstorming. We’re not locking anything in, we just want Commander opinion.

The suggestion is, simply enough, giving the ability for a Commander to toggle their Powerplay status to be active or hidden.

Now, an ability as powerful as this would absolutely have to have some pretty iron-cast rules to prevent exploitation and to keep pledging as an important decision. We’re talking within the realms of having significant enforced cool downs when hiding your powerplay status before you get the benefits (e.g. when you switch to hidden you lose all Powerplay benefits and the ability to affect Powerplay immediately, but remain visible as a target for a significant amount of time. In addition, perhaps you can only cycle this flag when docked at a starport or outpost in one of your power’s control systems).

We *think* this might give a couple of fairly strong benefits: It would hopefully reinstate to a greater degree the freedom for Commanders to choose how they spend their time.

It might also tempt more Commanders to sign up to a power, feeling a little safer in the knowledge that they would not necessarily have to swim with space sharks *all* the time thereafter.

We also think that the Powerplay flag idea and favours work well together, as they both support more freedom without taking too much away from the importance of pledging to a power.

So, such an ability as the Powerplay flag would need to be carefully controlled to prevent it from undermining Powerplay, but do you guys and gals think it would be worth the effort?

I'm not so sure about this idea.

Maybe if there was some kind of scanner you could use to discover the political allegiance of the Commander in question if they have their status hidden, similar to the KWS?

Up/Down Vote
We understand that Commanders want to be able to communicate with their own power’s supporters in game. Because of Elite’s architecture, creating large scale communication is very challenging. That’s not to say that it can’t be done or that we aren’t going to look at it, but there are significant issues and costs involved that would need to be overcome.

Putting that to one side for a moment, we want to float a simpler concept that, whilst not trivial, might offer a surprising amount of bang per buck and is almost certainly doable.

This suggestion is the idea of being able to “up vote” or “down vote” a system involved in Powerplay action. Other Commanders from your power would see this data, and we think it might function as a very clean, contextual communication of ideas.

For example, if you looked at one of your power’s control systems and saw that it had a tremendous amount of “down votes”, you could clearly infer that many supporters considered fortifying this system would be a waste of time.

Similarly, lots of “down votes” on an enemy control system would indicate that undermining it would not be appreciated by lots of folk. Importantly, you’d be able to see totals for both “up” and “down” votes for systems involved with Powerplay.

This voting is different from that used in preparation: in that instance, your votes represent your ability to influence your power’s decision process. However, up/down votes could be rationed in a similar fashion, with more being allotted to supporters of a higher rating. I guess that at the end of a cycle all such votes would be removed, ready for the next cycle’s strategy to form.

Take a moment to chew on this one. I have a feeling that it could be deceptively effective. Your thoughts are?

This could definitely be a good first step in helping Powerplay participants coordinate better.

Freedom Fighters
Some of the feedback we’ve collected has been from Commanders that do not wish to pledge support to any power (which is totally fine, of course!), instead wanting to remain as champions to minor factions/systems they have adopted.

In general the idea of having more dovetailing between minor factions and powers is something we’re interested in, beyond the government versus ethos effect that currently exists (and that we might consider buffing significantly).

One concept that’s currently acting as a chew toy for us is the idea that Commanders could pledge to a system under the yoke of a power’s control, becoming system “freedom fighters”, ready to push back against the invader.

As a freedom fighter, a Commander would be able to take part in undermining and opposition for the system they had pledged to, effectively working with opposing powers to weaken the controlling power’s presence (and if you’ve been reading some of our other posts on Powerplay, you’ll note that we’re also considering allowing massive undermining to force a system into collapse, allowing it to shake of power control without the power being in a CC deficit – personally, I see possibilities...)

Clearly, such courageous/dastardly behaviour would not be without *substantial* danger: we’d consider freedom fighters to possibly be valid targets in any system controlled or exploited by any power that shared a major faction with the one being attacked by the freedom fighter. We’d also likely want to limit Commanders to support one system at a time, with maybe a cool down before being able to pick a new one (or perhaps some mission to “wipe” their status clean?)

I think that such a feature would require the use of Powerplay flags, discussed earlier, to prevent the role of freedom fighter being a permanent death sentence across massive swathes of human space. I also think it offers a new way to enjoy Powerplay, without being beholden to organisations you might not approve of. What do you think?

I LOVE this idea. Several popular haunts of mine have come under the influence of one power or another, which is kinda annoying when you've been working at trying to help them expand for quite some time.

It feels like the new kid in school has barged in and taken your favourite seat in the classroom, and he's much bigger than you.

Some way of making life difficult for them without having to sign up with an opposing power would be much appreciated.

More Powerful Ethos versus Government Effect
This is another idea to increase the interaction between minor factions and powers. Of all the suggestions, it’s possibly the smallest change, but I think it has enough potential for change to be called out.

Currently, you can affect the success thresholds for expansion and fortification by flipping systems so that they align or with, or against, the ethos of the power involved. The way this works is that if more than 50% of exploited systems are aligned (either for or against) then the threshold is raised or lowered by a set percentage, around 50%. Flipping the control system in question gives an additional effect.

Whilst these are fairly solid mechanics, I can a potential issue: flipping over half of the systems exploited by a control system is a *very* big ask. Yes, it’s a simple concept, but perhaps in this case it’s a little too simple. Also, the success threshold modifier, being a static value, can potentially become irrelevant if lots of Commanders take part in the Powerplay expansion/fortification.

Our proposal would be to have the benefits and penalties of ethos versus government scale per exploited system rather than at a set 50%. This more granular approach would mean that Commanders could affect change without having to commit to such a large amount of work as flipping half the systems. It would also allow us to increase the overall range of effect – so that Commanders who did manage to flip loads of exploited systems could impose a much larger benefit/penalty. Also, this change would add another dynamic to space geography: areas of densely populated space would fundamentally have the potential to be affected more strongly than sparse areas.

Do you think this is a worthwhile idea, or do you believe it would be a waste of time! Thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

This sounds interesting, but one concern I have is that right now after observing for a few weeks, is that it seems far too easy for powers to expand currently.

Missions, Variety and Rewards
I add this section for the record, even though I don’t have much to add apart from: yes, we will be looking at these aspects, simply because feedback has been clear and I want to emphasise that we have been listening. As usual, no ETA, but truth be told, this stuff has always been on the agenda.

As I mentioned in my opening, I think this is very important to mesh Powerplay into the rest of the game.

Overall I think Powerplay has a lot of potential if you guys get the balance right.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Use the bulletin board to offer missions for any faction to every player. Once you accept the mission, you are working for that faction for the time of the mission. This means that if you are carrying goods or any other mission type, you are a target for other factions. Your standing with each faction would go up and down depending on what you do, just like local factions.

The trick I think is to keep it simple.

ScruffyBee ...........

Ps. Please spend more time on missions. My ideas above would fix a lot of this problem as well.

Best suggestion I've seen yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Hello Commander Raist!

Don't worry, I'm not going to try to force you to like Powerplay . But I do have a few comments you might find interesting.

Firstly, and importantly, Elite will not "become" Powerplay. It kind of can't, really. It's an addition to the background simulation, nothing more or less. Now you don't have to believe me, but we are working on lots of other stuff as well, equally important, and covering different aspects of the game, including the "core" experience, if you will. Elite is still about the actions you take as the Commander of a space ship.

We want a photo of the whiteboard.

 

[faluc]

Er, not me. I like the concept of Powerplay. What I don't like is it's implementation. FD said no pointless PvP, then we got this mindless gangwar. How about some subtlety? How about people that work against you in your face, using entirely legal processes? You know they're your enemy but until you catch them doing something illegal you can't shoot them in the face. Ever heard of diplomatic immunity? What's with this new merit and CC system? What was wrong with the existing faction mechanics? Many players were already enjoying manipulating that, spreading factions, stifling others - it worked! (Well it used to work until 1.3). Why not just attach PP to those mechanics? How about an Aisling's Angel's faction? How about they run the system because they're the leading faction? How about I support Aisling by doing BH missions for her faction, trading at her stations, or selling them or their allies my exploration data? i.e. How about I do what I'm already doing in the game, but just connect it to a Power I'm supporting? There's already so much disconnect in the game. NPCs aren't persistent in space. There's no relationship between the spawns in a RES and the strength of the local pirate faction. And now we have another disconnected layer of CC and ferrying stupefying amounts of propaganda around.

This is how I feel as well, too many disconnected features that should be integrated into the background sim. Tweaking PP rules does not help with the fundamental problem.

 

[Sylow]

But in a scenario where we have ongoing cycles of actions being undertaken, if one commander does not put in any effort for a sustained time, why should their Power continue to recognise their past efforts, if those past efforts have long ago expired?

Yea! Why do nations give credit to veterans and heroes? They have not fought for years! Take their walking sticks and send them back to the frontline!

 

[Nonya]

Yea! Why do nations give credit to veterans and heroes? They have not fought for years! Take their walking sticks and send them back to the frontline!

Heh. I lol'd at this one. Then I remembered it took 7 YEARS for the VA to even mail me my ID card, much less provide me any care. <sob>

 

[Privata]

One thing I would love to see is ; a lore reason to how a faction like say the alliance can own 60 or so fed systems and said fed systems stay federal , should they not be part of the alliance? how does that work? because thats a bit like if england was being rulled by say russia but without england being officialy declaired either allied nor part of russia.