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

[Matzov]

Having given it some thought, here is my feedback. Before doing so, I would just like to say that I am enjoying Elite, enjoying powerplay, and I appreciate the opportunity for us to proffer our thoughts.
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Favour: I like the Favour idea. However, I like the sound of Muetdhiver's 'stakeholder' idea more. Certainly there needs to be a better way to tie folks to a power than simply the modules. I don't have anything against the idea of decay, either merits or faction rep, although I do think it is on the harsh side at the moment.
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Freedom Fighter/Flag: I think the freedom fighter idea is sound. However, Kremmen is right when he talks about over-aggressive goon squads operating outside the law. This seems odd, and all fighters should be working Under the same 'law'. If I shoot someone who is not 'enemy' or 'wanted' I should get punished. If I am attacked by someone who is 'wanted' I should get local protection; if I get attacked by an 'enemy' and return fire in a 'home system' I should get local protection. The whole concept of getting wanted for returning fire when you are clean needs looking at: perhaps the flag system might help this, but I am wary of it being an on/off button, and I don't like on/off. It would be better to look at the underlying law as Kremmen has suggested.
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Voting: The up/down vote is definitely a step in the right direction, even if folks ignore it, it at least helps. Again, looking at Muetdhiver's idea about 'stakes' this could be linked and made more effective.
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Ethos: This sounds like it might give more nuance and another layer of gameplay, which is good. However, it is likely that, without direct personal reward, not too many would participate. Therefore, I would suggest this is where faction specific CGs or missions could come in to play: Accept a mission to try and flip a system, or push a minor faction to a certain level + get xxx merits for doing so. Would probably work better as a CG that only the pledged could see, so it can be done by many at once.
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Missions: this is really important I think. It would be so much nicer (even though it would not actually change much) if you accepted missions to carry out PP operations like deliveries, or kill x number of faction y ships, rather than sit and wait in 30 min blocks, or pootle off to a random control system and start firing off.
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Other general points: Tesshin is right when he mentions how it would be nice, at least, for power sub-forums, and easier communication. You could also probably get a lot by engaging with some members of groups who have begun to build up the storyline around their power, or have tried to bring existing storylines together to form a cohérant narrative in a central place. That would help build some depth and empathy for power leaders. Those storylines, working in faction created alliances or diplomacy, and putting it in a dedicated sub-forum could really build relationships and make the player base feel involved. Again, I think Muetdhiver is on the right path mentionnig power-specific decals etc.. which just give a little more personalisation, and make you feel a little more attached to a power. I agree with everyone who has mentioned the whole module balance thing, and the feeling of favouring Imperials. If lots of people perceive there to be a favouring, and gravitate to a power, or powers for certain modules - then something is wrong. Hudson may well have the biggest single amount of pledgers, but add Hudson and Winters, and then add ALD, Patreus, Torval and Aisling together - what is the balance then? (not that it should be evenly spread, but it certainly feels like space is full of Imps to a lot of people). Returning to Tesshin and others, some of the rank rewards would benefit from tweaks. As Tesshin said, a 200% bonus on exploro data looks great, but is almost impossible to actually use, given decay and the time taken to get merits. And on that note, re time/decay/casual players - Chero has hinted towards a daily limit on deliveries which I think would really help people with less time, rather than having to sit in dock for 30 min blocks, or spend money on speeding things up.
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A final word also for ElectricZ's interesting idea about general commercial activity determining CC. I think that is Worth exploring further. Also, a word in support of Kremmen's extended post on background sim integration, which sets out some very good ideas. Finally, my own pet-peeve is the PP UI: It would be nice to access it via the Galnet button, just as you can access Galnet from the 'Galactic Powers' link. Secondly, the 'distance from me' info would be better replaced by a 'distance from HQ' figure, as Jemy has suggested elsewhere, as well as being able to sort lists within the UI based on criteria like distance, cost, profit and so on. I appreciate this and other ideas may be more or less doable.
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thanks again for taking the time to seek our input.

 

[Montrala]

FAVOUR: I do not PP, mostly because I can not allocate enough time into it to see any gains, that would outweigh big aimpoint painted over my back. However with this mechanics in place...

FREEDOM FIGHTERS: It is also very interesting. I'm "invested" is some sad, cold and humid system in forgotten neighbourhood (like 13-20 CMDR visits per day). In case some big boys would try to put their oppressive boots there, I want to fight back in name of my Eeyeore's Gloomy Place.

No opinion on other ideas.

 

[Jericho]

PowerPlay Flag is a great idea!
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=164518
Finally some Privateering!


Implementing Favour and PP Flag alone would allow me to participate... +1 for those ideas.

The others I'm neutral on.


Thanks to FDev for continuing to make progress.

 

[dreadman2k]

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'm another intermittent Elite gamer who is very much against "success versus one's peers". I simply do not have the amount of time to dedicate to the game that will allow me to compete with several groups of players. I hate the idea of trying to get somewhere on an unequal footing.

Sure, it may take x gazillion kills to become combat elite, but I can take as long as i like to achieve it. Whereas making my standing in Power Play dependent on doing x number of things compared to the time it took Joe,Fred and Larry to do it throws out the level playing field. I can't get there over time. My allowed pace is linked to the pace other players can output.

Maybe i'm being overly sensitive and shouldn't stop others from enjoying a competitive race. There's some merit in that argument. But I have to say if you base my standing relative to everyone else's effort I will probably bow out of PP altogether. Enough of my life is spent in head to head competition with others, for much higher stakes. I come here to get away from that, not for another dose of it.

So the end result will be at least one less PPer. Maybe there will be more than just me who feel this way.

 

[Hydrino]

+1 for this post.

This is really a "direction of the game" response just not in its own thread but very clear to me.

Thanks for all your recent communication Sandro.

I am eagerly awaiting 1.4/CQC and Gamescom announcement!

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.

When I look at Powerplay, what I actually see, at its heart, is a part of the background simulation where AI is replaced with human Commanders. When you think about it in terms of its systems, that shouldn't be too much of an outlandish concept. And I hold that there's something pretty cool about this, for everyone, including Commanders who have nothing to do with Powerplay directly.

So yes, we want to work on the system to increase the fun factor, make the rewards for taking part more appropriate, but it's key to remember that this is only to keep interesting shifts in the backdrop for everyone.

I can understand the fear that Powerplay is all there is, simply because it's the most visible thing at the moment. That's because it's live, and because we feel it could benefit from changes (and this is why we're talking, right ).

There's other stuff coming, and I reckon, in time, people are going to realise that Powerplay is just another facet, another way to play the game, but certainly not the only way, and certainly not the "best" way.

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. The truth is, as long as Powerplay's interesting enough for *some* folk, it's working. But that shouldn't mean we don't try to maximize the number of folk who like it, surely?

In conclusion, for those folk who dislike Powerplay: that's fine, but there's no need to dislike it purely on the grounds that it is Elite. It's not. It's a bit of Elite, like trading, minor factions, the crime system etc.

We have an ongoing dev cycle for the game, for which I'm eternally grateful to the powers that be for, because it means we get to carry on making things better and better in this game I love. And part of that cycle is this bit, where we get to collect feedback from the folk who play the game, which, traumatic though it can be - I also love!

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander dreadman2k!


Don't worry, you're not alone, it seems. We're going to take a long, hard look at merits, and see what kind of fundamental changes we might want to make to move the system away from the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

 

[Szyslak22]

Hi Sandro,

Is it your stance that players should be interdicted 2 - 4 times every trip through a control system, and receive no compensation for destroying those ships of the opposing powers? I have to say this is one of the most frustrating parts of PP for me right now. Trying to fortify and getting constantly interdicted in the control systems is so annoying that it makes me wonder if your staff ever tries to fly it themselves. If it is working as intended, that would be good to know. Thank you.

 

[Jericho]

Dropping this here, in the "Ideas/Feedback" thread... as it's a better spot for it than its original location!



This would mean...

• No more Bizarro World 10-way mercenary galactic war. The Powers aren't at war... but if YOU kick one of them, they kick back.
• No more broken judicial system. Commit hostile acts against a rival Power, and THEN they pin a big bounty on you.
• "Newbie" pledges aren't automatically persona non grata in every rival power space. Only in the ones they've specifically annoyed in a big way.
• Hostile Agent interdictions can be seriously challenging. They only occur in response to serious, glove-off, "ENEMY inducing" missions you chose to undertake against rival Powers. Can't take the heat? Stick to leaflets and corruption reports.

I was voting for a PP Flag, but after reading CaptianKremmen's ideas I must admit they are more 'richly' developed and realistic.

A flag would be easy to implement and I think a lot of people would begin playing PP, but Kremmen's ideas would be so much more rewarding (however, more difficult to implement).

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Hello Commander dreadman2k!


Don't worry, you're not alone, it seems. We're going to take a long, hard look at merits, and see what kind of fundamental changes we might want to make to move the system away from the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

Thank you, it's especially damning during vacation as I need to earn enough merits one rank above the one I have so I dont have to grind my ass off a week from now.

My greatest hope would be to separate RANK and REWARD so I can earn a rank, keep it until I leave but instead have to work for the actual rewards.

Any chance you could make rank rewards more numerous and fun? That emty and useless rank 4 could need some fun (And no, Im not talking about the money, in my view the reward money should be scrapped)

Could we get rewards instead linked to our rank instead of money?

Li Yong-Rui : -1% to ship modules cost per rank and a -0/-5/-10/-15/-20% reduced module sale "loss" when switching modules.
Archon Delaine: +5% for illegal goods sold (Black market controlled) / -10% to fines and bounties per rank (Cops on the payroll)
etc.

Something linked to the faction available at EACH rank instead of rather extreme cash amounts.

 

[nrage]

...the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

This is it, exactly.

 

[Sealurk]

Hello Commander dreadman2k!

Don't worry, you're not alone, it seems. We're going to take a long, hard look at merits, and see what kind of fundamental changes we might want to make to move the system away from the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

That would be a very welcome change from my perspective.

I find myself conflicted with Powerplay - I want to get involved, but I can only put a few hours a week into the game at the moment. Because of the current system more often than not I find myself thinking "I don't have time to achieve the required merits before the cycle ends... eh, I'll give Powerplay a miss this week". I also don't want to directly compete against other commanders - I play Elite primarily for myself. I don't mind cooperation but I'm not in it for competition.

I like the principle of Powerplay, but separate layer or not it doesn't mesh all that well with the core gameplay - at least not at the moment. It's definitely good to know the devs are taking this onboard, engaging with the players and looking at how it can be improved to the benefit of nearly everybody. A more organic, realistic and natural-feeling approach to how the powers appear in-game and also to how we can support them (and gain from this suppoer) is quite high up on my wishlist, even if its a way off.

 

[nrage]

My greatest hope would be to separate RANK and REWARD so I can earn a rank, keep it until I leave but instead have to work for the actual rewards.

Exactly, like this (see Favour), right?

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Exactly, like this (see Favour), right?

Yup, more or less.

I dont want "freebies" with my rank and I dont want to be forced to work for my rank once a week in order to receive the freebies I never asked for.

-I have no problem grinding TO a rank
-I have a problem with LOOSING my rank every week unless I work my ass off.

The rewards should be suble and AID us in playing the regular game WHILE doing powerplay and not be the end that justifies the means.

While I dont MIND getting 5 million for doing a rather useless task I would rather forfeit the 5 million to just KEEP my rank so I have time to actually play ELITE and not exclusively POWERPLAY.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Exactly, like this (see Favour), right?

I see that we share the same views on the matter.

Keeping rank for cosmetic stuff could be cool.

On the matter of 5th columning, I think the following would 'solve' it.

• no salary, but favor to cred 1:10K
• favors cashed in at the start of a cycle for the activities of last cycle.
• No timer thing for free PP commodities. Maybe get a bit more money at delivery to compensate.
• the number of favors you receive for PP actions is tied to the sucess of said action (e.g. expansion of system X) and up/down vote on the task (from all downvote : no reward to all upvote : double reward)

An there it's solved : 5th columnist want to prep useless system X, needs 6K prep => 60M credits in PP commodities. Most players downvote system, gets no favors. no favors = no credits. The guy just took a 60M loss.
It might not solve the issue straight ahead, but for sure these players would go broke fast.

 

[vprenner]

1. Favour
While I see this as a potential solution to the presented problem, it feels too forced and artificial - something akin to buying extra lives in a shop I feel the better approach would be to make some rewards permanent and some rewards continuous effort based.

2. Powerplay flag
I don't like this idea at all. The option is already there - leave a power if you don't want to be allied to one and trade away freely throughout the galaxy. For me this would make powers look like bonuses. Turn it on when you like it, turn it off when you don't - zero sense of commitment. The best thing about Powerplay is getting the feeling of roaming your own home turf and feeling the danger of crossing into an enemy one. If you ask me, joining a power should be even more restrictive than it is now. For example if you are under Aisling and get scanned with slaves or narcotics on board, you expelled from the power and hunted. I feel that constraints lead to new, inventive forms of gameplay (you can call it emergent behavior).

3. Up/Down vote - sounds nice, but would be totally worthless. People will still undermine the systems nearest to their current location and fortify/expand the systems with the best trade deals (in the opposite direction). It would be good if the number of merits earned scaled with the number of upvotes/downvotes. This would maybe even make some systems stop giving merits. This would better simulate the will of the masses and it would actually "persuade" players to do the things the majority voted for. What I really would like to see is to receive some kind of orders/wishes from Aisling Duval about where to expand next, whether we are at peace with someone or not. This would make the most sense, but would be of course in the hands of FD. I personally would love for FD to tailor a Game of Thrones like story about which power wants to expand where. Us players could determine whether a certain move was successful or not.

4. Freedom Fighters
Sounds interesting and it's an extra option so why not, but I don't see it being very popular.

5. Ethos / Government
Great idea, the more ways there are to affect powerplay the better.

6. Missions - god yes!

 

[NeilF]

Hello Commander dreadman2k!


Don't worry, you're not alone, it seems. We're going to take a long, hard look at merits, and see what kind of fundamental changes we might want to make to move the system away from the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

If you guys actually take a cold hard look at Powerplay, and actually have the round-appendages to give it a huge kick to:-

- Get rid of the player controlled (board game) aspects of it.
- Instead make Powers decide on their own best goals/objectives/agendas.
- Players can help with those goals/objectives/agendas via more traditional missions.
- Why not tie it into the local Factions? eg: If system is exploited by a Power, then a local Faction is available offering task/missions to help them. Keep it simple so no merits required or the like. You earn reputation/rank and/or CR.
- Offer modules when you've been affiliated with a Power long enough, and/or done enough tasks for them to be promoted up.
- And most importantly, the missions (tasks) are more varied and deeper. Let's try and introduce those convoy escorting/defense mechanics. Or blockage mechanics? Wing friendly missions. PvP promoting missions.​

...I'll personally fly a T9 filled with pizza over there!

Please give it a cold hard look, because it just seems too unnecessarily complex , and missing the opportunity to make something truly interesting out of it at the moment. I'm sure it could fit into the existing ED Universe far more simply, while still offering the benefits of players being aligned against each other, and system dynamics/economics changing slowly over time.


ps: I'd even dare suggest, run any proposed big changes past the community?

 

[Fost]

I can't put my finger on why but the powerplay on/off thing just doesn't sound right.

Possibly because I've always had an aversion to anything that sounds a bit too 'gamey' (trying not to use the term 'immersion-breaking' )

"You can't shoot me now because I toggled a switch" is kind of odd. Maybe there's a better way to explain it into the world?



Sorry for such a vague comment!

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I can't put my finger on why but the powerplay on/off thing just doesn't sound right.

Possibly because I've always had an aversion to anything that sounds a bit too 'gamey' (trying not to use the term 'immersion-breaking' )

"You can't shoot me now because I toggled a switch" is kind of odd. Maybe there's a better way to explain it into the world?



Sorry for such a vague comment!

You mean more immersion breaking than the leader of the federation ordering his followers to hop into their ships and go over to that green guys area and shoot traveling salesmen because he did not get the discount he wanted?

 

[Fost]

You mean more immersion breaking than the leader of the federation ordering his followers to hop into their ships and go over to that green guys area and shoot traveling salesmen because he did not get the discount he wanted?

Discount lol!

 

[SnugglySocks]

Hello Commander dreadman2k!


Don't worry, you're not alone, it seems. We're going to take a long, hard look at merits, and see what kind of fundamental changes we might want to make to move the system away from the current ethos of "requires participation" to "rewards participation" (that's the best way I can describe the worries with merits as it stands).

As long as your changes are thought out and ran though enough scenarios to be sure that as many unforeseen events as possible don't occur, then pretty much any change is fine with me. But these changes should never ever ever be made mid cycle.