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

[wstephenson]

Good evening Sandro

General Comments
I fear that overall additive changes will make it too much like hard work to grasp. Have you floated these ideas to new users?
It's great to share your critical thinking on PP.

Favour
I'm a semi-casual player (father of two wee ones) but highly invested ED fan, I agree with your assertion that we make "a very reasonable argument that potential gameplay is locked from them based on arbitrary time limits rather than skill or something equally nice.". However, I disagree that adding a separate PP currency to spend to unlock what I will call volume-and-rate-of-play-gated features would improve the situation. It took me at least 3 evenings of 1.3 beta play before I felt that I had enough of a handle on PP to dare to stick my toes in the water and pledge, because I was afraid of making a mistake and pledging/fortifying/preparing the wrong things, based on where I was located in the galaxy and what I enjoy doing. I suggest you examine the barriers to entry and occasional participation in PP.

Side note: Have you any experience of the mobile game Ingress? I found it (aside from the X-Files knockoff lore) absolutely captivating to play as a territory-based game, and for the same reasons you love PP. However, it does not have any volume-and-rate-of-play gating (except that you can only act as fast as - when you reach a certain level (at your own pace) you stay there, but your level affects your agency within the game.

Side note #2: have you considered flattening Power ranking into an additional Elite ranking alongside Combat/Trade/Exploration?

Powerplay Flag
I didn't have a problem with the increased level of threat when I was pledged to a Power. Again, this would add another thing to think of. Have you considered re-examining the 'Commander Transponder' that was discussed pre-launch? Having an ability to hide your human status would encourage more players into Open whilst containing what is perceived as the major threat (PVP to the face) across PP play and other ED play.

Up/Down Vote
As a one-time routing protocol and instant messaging system developer I empathise with the difficulty of implementing broadcast real-time chat across a peer-to-peer architecture. My advice: don't aim for timeliness or reliability, clone Usenet! It's proven, fits with the HS comms lore and will create lots of interesting situations. Add an adjustable range filter to prevent pan-galactic spam. I like the idea of up/down voting as a low-bandwidth fallback, but I don't think democracy fits very well with being the minions of a Power. Find a good way to present it.

Freedom Fighters
Good idea, but please implement this as part of 'joining' a minor faction as presented as part of the Player Groups to Power ascendancy mechanism presented earlier in the week, rather than a separate mechanism. Simplicity and economy of design. This would allow you to act as a Freedom Fighter in multiple systems where your faction is present; is that so bad?

Ethos/Government Effect
+1 - simpler to play. Please also indicate ethos/alignment conflict on the Galaxy Map so we can see volumes of sympathetic/antipathetic space.

Missions/Rewards
Please look at Ingress for how rewards for activity are increased agency within the game, not simply external factors like cash or unique modules. If a certain degree of Fortification was only achievable with a number (scaled by system size) of players of a certain rank, it would encourage cooperation and coordination.

 

[Bakkster]

I like the idea of a Power Play flag, just like a PvP flag in other games. The simple solution for preventing abuse is to only allow it be set/cleared when docked at a control system. No using it to sneak across the galaxy to do some undermining or get out of a hairy situation by dumping your merits, no need for timers if you have a quick thing you want to do.

Not sure I like the idea of going back to a moving target for merit thresholds. Favour seems like a good idea, though. Don't forget to make sure it's possible to spend favour to jump just one tier (from 4 to 5, for instance) at an appropriate rate. I also think it would be interesting to be able to spend Favour instead of cash to fast-track your resource allocation (costing more than you earn, of course), which would allow players to support their faction with quick-reaction fortification if need be.

Alternatively, there could be a way to spend Favour so your PP allocation accumulates for X hours while AFK. Currently there are players who run the game in the background during the day, buy their allotment every 30 minutes, but never leave the station until their evening play time. I'd like to see a way for me to spend X Favour, wait a few hours, and be able to pick up all the resources at once (again, at a reduced rate, maybe earning enough favor to fast track 1/4 the merits).

Granularity to governmental ethos seems like a very good thing.

And, just to put my 2 cents in again, I would like to see PP AI increase their ranking/wing size as systems become more fortified/undermined. Both because it would help make the Solo game more interesting as instead of being a race across the finish line, it becomes a tug-of-war where each side's success inhibits counter action. It could also give an incentive to turning in vouchers earlier in the cycle, instead of at the last moment to surprise the other faction (though this could just as well be based on PP ships destroyed, rather than vouchers redeemed). It also makes for high and low intensity systems to engage in undermining/fortification, which is good for scaling the game.

Presumably, there would need to be some kind of rolling average over the course of the week so that Friday isn't always easier to do these actions than Wednesday.

 

[Rubberboots]

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

Most of the ideas sounded pretty good to me [Edit: especially up vote/down vote. PLEASE do this!], but I don't like this one at all. First of all, it would allow people to just hide their power play status and happily pass through enemy territory.
If you ally to a power, it should be dangerous to be in the territory of other powers. Allowing players to toggle off their "flag" defeats the whole purpose of "allying" to a faction, in my opinion. Players who want to undermine

What actually has to happen is that the prevalence of enemy ships in your territory needs to be decreased a little. When I'm right in the middle of my home turf, it's weird to see so many enemy NPCs flying around--and interdicting me with the same dialogue they use when I'm in their territory, as if they are defending their own turf!

If you do go ahead with this, at the very least a KWS should reveal the hidden flag.

 

[Monk]

The first two sections favour and flag address my issues with power play. I may try it for longer than a day if those are implemented.

 

[Rubberboots]

[...] The simple solution for preventing abuse is to only allow it be set/cleared when docked at a control system.

Even though I don't like the idea of toggleable flags, this would make it much, much better. Good thinking, CMDR.

 

[IronGremlin]

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.


Conclusion
It’s worth noting that these ideas are separate from more conventional number tweaking and balancing that we treat as an ongoing task (for example, the balance of success from different activities).

There are also any number of smaller changes that could pop up as well, like offering sanctuary from opposing powers at home systems that we suspect might offer reasonable benefits, but for this update, I wanted to cast a weather eye towards the horizon and chat a little more speculatively about what the bigger picture could evolve into.

I hope this makes our current heading a little clearer and (importantly) sparks some juicy, constructive feedback!

Thanks so much for this. The pieces of what I quoted here, most especially, are what most of the dissatisfied players out there need to hear.

If we can get more indications like this, that some content is considered as a stepping stone for more advanced and varied gameplay later on, then we'd be a lot less scared about the creative vision of the game falling victim to compromise.

I think most reasonable people can understand that sometimes it's important to have a basic piece of a feature or system in the game before you can build on it, but it's hard for us to tell what's foundational, and what's just considered "done."

Maybe this, in a weird way, complements Frontiers ability to polish even incomplete features, as nobody is quite sure what's going to get more involved as the game grows in scope and depth - if things were less polished, we'd just assume they were under construction from the get go, and you'd have a much different set of complaints

 

[Ervig]

It's awesome to see you guys have been listening to the feedback on these forums. Just wanted to post my appreciation and will post some feedback later on.

Good job!

 

[Quineloe]

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.

It didn't work for Blizzard in 2005, surely you heard of this. I'm sorry, it's like you did not listen at all

Unless you actually make this so it's very easy to maintain rating 5 with a no-pop power such as Antal - but I doubt that.

 

[SushiCW]

I like the upvote and freedom fighter ideas. The others I'm less sure of but not opposed to.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Very interesting to read that, im glad that you have listened to our feedback ^-^

I thought now might be a good time to take a look further ahead into the future, at Powerplay ideas we’re mulling over for potential deployment next year (as we’ve already rather a full calendar up to the end of the year!)

But this is also interesting, and i bet you are not allowed to tell us more

 

[Monk]

What about all powers being enemies with all other powers? It would make sense to me that powers of the same major faction with complimenting attributes would be neutral or even allies. Though contested systems and undermining would need to be approached differently...hmm

 

[CMDR Ash]

I loveeee the idea of having thumbs up or down votes because then we can finally have some organisation and work as a team so big "thumbs up" there

On another note I would love some more immersion to go with my powerplay experience, now I don't know about the cost or logistics of things but how about some rendered videos of our powers talking or sending messages in video, don't get me wrong galnet is great and I love there speeches but it would be amazing to watch our powers see them, and maybe when we get station walking, even see them in there home system! Just ideas to help me really feel one with my power and turn them into the celebs they should be they are powers after all

 

[Viajero]

Thanks for the ideas Sandro.

They all look interesting, although the flag seems a pretty terrible idea, there are already plenty options for a player to avoid Powerplay conflict if he/she so wish, starting with the fact that Powerplay in itself is optional. I can see that you are trying to lower the barriers for entry but by doing that you are diluting the very thing that makes Powerplay remotely interesting: The sense of belonging that a territorial game is based upon and the pros and cons that that entails.


Either way none of those ideas in your OP really address the 2 key issues that in my mind may be demotivating many players:


1 - At the moment there is no real incentive for players to hold a certain real state or to decide to attack / defend a specific system other than CC yields (which lets be honest, its not the sexiest of concepts). At the moment all systems are pretty much the same for us as players in terms of Power role playing and powerplay.

Make instead that certain systems, spread around, stand out and be clearly special. Be it with above average trading profits for certain items, a couple certain ship types or module types exclusivity for a reasonably long LY radius (say, several hundreds LY at least), better than average mining grounds etc. The game has way too many concepts already that you can use to help differentiate and incentivize those special systems or hotspots a little more.

I believe the systems geography needs a bit more differentiation and impact to the player to make fighting for territory that much more meaningful. Players need to feel that they are winning or losing something more tangible and close to their hearts than just "CC".

In a territorial game you need to feel that you "own" or "lose" something tangible that you can almost touch.

2- Integration with the background sim: As mentioned above CC is still too abstract and too impersonal to feel really identified with the concept and fight for it instinctively. Make CC yields be linked to each system´s macro indicators: economy state, population, government type, security level. And make all those macro indicators susceptible to playing the background sym by players, and you have a winner combo.

 

[Tarman]

It's a lot of tweaks inside Powerplay itself, most of which actually look pretty decent for improving the Space Risk game (freedom fighters look especially interesting) but really nothing about the disconnect that occurs between the fluff and crunch, so to speak.

Pirate Lord plays like Waifu Freedom Princess plays like Business Mogul plays like Alliance Leader, even if you implemented all these changes tomorrow and not possibly next year some time. They have different colours on the map and different pictures, but they still may as well be named Powers 1-10 for how truly different they are. Their gameplay even with all this does little to reflect their projected characters, lessening the connection you can make to them outside of improved internal mechanics as just part of a strategic game.

That above all the internal workings is a huge turnoff for me personally; none of this is geared to making me care about the Powers as entities of themselves. I could pick one based on what my favourite colour is, and receive the exact same gameplay as any other. While the game of Space Risk may indeed turn out to be a worthy game of itself, it does little for what I guess is now sounding like previous-ED.

 

[CMDR.shArkh]

I am incredibly gratified from a backer-viewpoint with shart-knows how many hours in the game, that you're taking a better stance on the worries 1.3 brought.

Despite the idependents-work though, it's still nothing but more of the same on a different menu.

Blizzard struggled with this for a good long while. Nothing in PP is anything except kill 10 of this or deliver 10 of that. Same crap, different menu.

They solved it by varied phasing with progression and some puzzles. That "other" MMO space-game did it with ten squillion minigames. What is your solution?

 

[Goblin King]

All seem like good ideas and will hopefully really help add additional playability to Powerplay.

However what ever changes get introduced could I suggest a bit of a more detailed guide than is currently available - I only joined a faction recently due to an overly long run back from Sag A and I must have spent more time trawling through the various guides, official and non-official, forum threads, independent sites, Reddits and YouTube videos than actually playing power play just to find out the specific of what I can and am supposed to do. I have a couple of friends that won't join until I've learnt enough to can explain everything to them. They love the game but don't want to put too much effort into working out the mechanics as they only have limited time to play. Still trying to work out how to fortify a system in turmoil - and before anyone helpful thinks of posting a link, I've probably already looked at it, I'm hoping I've over thought it and it's actually very simple.

Instructions on what to do would really help.

 

[Kris]

Thanks for the ideas Sandro.

They all look interesting but none of them really address the 2 key issues that in my mind may be demotivating many players:


1 - At the moment there is no real incentive for players to hold a certain real state or to decide to attack / defend a specific system other than CC yields (which lets be honest, its not the sexiest of concepts). At the moment all systems are pretty much the same for us as players in terms of Power role playing and powerplay.

Make instead that certain system, spread around, stand out and be clearly special. Be it with above average trading profits for certain items, a couple certain ship types or module types exclusivity for a reasonably long LY radius (say, several hundreds LY at least), better than average mining grounds etc. The game has way too many concepts already that you can use to help differentiate and incentivize those special systems or hotspots a little more.

I believe the systems geography needs a bit more differentiation and impact to the player to make fighting for territory that much more meaningful. Players need to feel that they are winning or losing something more tangible and close to their hearts than just "CC".

In a territorial game you need to feel that you "own" or "lose" something tangible that you can almost touch.

2- Integration with the background sim: As mentioned above CC is still too abstract and too impersonal to feel really identified with the concept and fight for it instinctively. Make CC yields be linked to each system´s macro indicators: economy state, population, government type, security level. And make all those macro indicators susceptible to playing the background sym by players, and you have a winner combo.

Agree with both points.

 

[h347h]

Add additional ranks! Push rank 5 out to rank 6 or 7 and add in a few ranks for people who play a bit more casually. Rank 5(adjusted of course) could be 10 million weekly bonus and 6(adjusted) could be 20 or 25 million in rewards with slight increases supplies allowance and so for. This could give some people who want a nice in-between current rank 4 and 5. The gap is massive and there is hands down people who would like the sanity of being in the middle of that some where.

 

[Zizeemo]

BRILLIANT!!
Everything about this post is AMAZING. So many cool ideas to increase depth to the background sim and power play! It's post like these that make me feel PROUD to have my time and money invested into Frontier!

In regards about this proposal, I would like to comment on the Flagging system: If a pledged player's power was "hidden", this wouldn't necessarily "protect" them from other pledged players. Combat-focused groups may still interdict ANY commander, then Force-Pledge/Defect.
I'm not saying ALL groups do this. I understand that different groups have different agendas/procedures about approaching players, but here's just a thought that MAY be appropriate:

Let a pledged player "flag" themselves to claim "neutrality", but DON'T hide the pledged name.

This way, other players interdicting "flagged" commanders would "understand any consequence they might get into."

Some commanders may not care, and still commit to Force-Pledging, but other commander groups may not enjoy interdicting another commander trying mind their own business. I could imagine "Neutrality Flag Laws" could be implemented somehow (like fines/bounties for assault, using 1 flag etc).
This way, players have a better understanding of their OWN actions when approaching "neutral" commanders.

 

[DextersIndignation]

Bonjour (check me out with a little bit of French there!)

Over the past few weeks, Sandro Sammarco, Frontiers Lead Designer has been working with the community closely on the topic of Powerplay. He wanted to address some of the most pressing topics and discuss, at a very early stage, ideas that are being considered.

Once again, he would be delighted if you were able to have a look give your thoughts.

===

Hello Commanders!

Following on from previous discussions about steps we’re looking at, to address a few pressing issues with the core mechanics of Powerplay (such as powers expanding themselves into oblivion J), I thought now might be a good time to take a look further ahead into the future, at Powerplay ideas we’re mulling over for potential deployment next year (as we’ve already rather a full calendar up to the end of the year!)

And now, here comes the caveat: This is stuff we’re *considering*. It’s not yet planned or scheduled, and certainly not guaranteed.

That being said, we’ve a clutch of ideas that we want to float to see if we can’t rustle up some interesting feedback from you folk. Especially as I think these suggestions - at least to some degree - address a few of the more interesting issues we’ve already received via feedback (again, thanks for this – we do listen, even if we can’t always answer, or don’t always agree!)


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!


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?


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?


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?


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.


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.


Conclusion
It’s worth noting that these ideas are separate from more conventional number tweaking and balancing that we treat as an ongoing task (for example, the balance of success from different activities).

There are also any number of smaller changes that could pop up as well, like offering sanctuary from opposing powers at home systems that we suspect might offer reasonable benefits, but for this update, I wanted to cast a weather eye towards the horizon and chat a little more speculatively about what the bigger picture could evolve into.

I hope this makes our current heading a little clearer and (importantly) sparks some juicy, constructive feedback!

This may be against the grain but.....

Would the resources that it would take to do any of the above be better spent on other areas of the game?


I do actually take part in powerplay, but it is only for selfish reasons.

I find it hard to believe that many players take it that seriously (I understand there are some).

I see the above ideas to be improvements, but to what end?

For power play to work you need to have Characters and values...
But to many players see the faces and leaders as complete nobody's

Many have offered amazing back stories to them all but it has gotten no where.

For power play to work you need to have balance
I am pledged to ALD and I will be the first to admit that the game is so loaded to the empire that its not even funny!
Current gag (What IMP rank will you need for the FED Corvette)

For power play to work you need to have factions that mean something.
If Hudson and Winters gave credits for killing slavers and maybe freeing slaves. That would help!
If the FEDS had a power commodity like "Military hardware" to balance slaves.

If there was a reason to have anyone from the alliance other than Space Gordon Brown...


To be blunt, the changes you suggest would help...
But I would rather it was left as it was (for those that do play) and just abandoned in favour of bug fixing.

If FD "MUST" keep the PP for what ever reason it needs a whole lot more than you describe.

You have been given hundreds of idea's.
You have been offered help from the community.
You have been offered entire wings of commanders.
You have been told of issues that needed attention.
You have been told it all...

and yet EVERY single time FD just ignore it.


I saw the post asking for help, we even joked in TS about how much would be left out!

But the group I hand with still play, and many are actually pledged (most to ALD for obvious reasons MEGA OP). Though I sense that they just hanging on...

TLDR

If for the cost of implementing any of the above you could fix just one bug....
Fix the bug...

PP could have been great, in fact it still could, but what you suggest is like a drop in a bucket (a BIG bucket) ((Also the wrong Bucket))