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

[Pazmino]

stop pulling us into PP - beides that, I like this idea

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?

^^^ THIS! I like a lot (in general). I mentioned earlier on that I'm supporting a expanding minor faction. Nothing special about this specific faction but fun.
.
But why the need to play PP (yes, ... this is about PP)? If I'm taking missions for this faction and support it or sabotage other competing factions/parties why need a flag. If I'm out of the range of these minor faction e.g. 100 ly's away where other local powers are trying to takeover a system, I'm clean to them. Ok, if a corporation is present across the universe, and I'm entering one of their systems and they are hostile to me, so be it. This game needs more character and dangerousness. As player, make decisions and own the consequence!
.
Reg. PP, this sounds great, but the moment the PP pull and flag idea came up, naa... do this with out PP and I'll buy this feature.
.
and for god sake - don't call them freedom fighters - do they get paid in freedom fries?

 

[Pazmino]

Missions, Variety and Rewards[/B]
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!

Yes please, very much needed. The smaller changes sound good.
.
Love this game - and it drives me nuts sometimes because of some half-baked executed things (like I get attacked, returning fire, kill the guy, security forces attack me ... ?). And as always - keep up the good work.

 

[Pazmino]

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?

yes. if this feeds to the preparation list.

 

[Steve50]

I'm sorry devs but to me PP is just boring, I have no interest in it whatsoever as it seems more like a board/strategy game than Elite to me and it's really not my cup of tea.

How can you get me interested in it? I'm really not sure to be honest. Sorry

 

[DextersIndignation]

Here is my feedback. I am happy if the FD employees would read this as this are things I have been thinking about for a long time:

1. There should be, no matter the cost a way for people within a power to communicate with eachother. If the game architecture makes this hard to implement, please as a minimum make sum forum sections on this site where people within the same power could discuss strategies. The amount of facebook groups, and sub-reddit groups is evidence that there is a huge need for this. Honestly I cant understand why you would launch Powerplay without it.

2. Maybe some of the rank 5 perks should be permament. I am with Li Yong Rui and there is a 200% exploration data perk at rank 5. However, if I go out exploring for a descent amount of time, I loose the rank and also the perk when I get back.

3. Currently the way I make merits is by sitting in the station with my Type 7. I am waiting 30 minutes so I can add 25 more cargo in my ship (I am rank 4), and when I reach full cargo I deliver them. And this is what powerplay is to me, and you can add the strategy of the meta-game and thats basically what powerplay boils down to.

Powerplay should not restrict the variety on gameplay you do, but increase it. Therefore why cant there be merit-specific missions on the bulletin board where you get 300 merits for going out and exploring something, 500 merits to get increase influence of a minor faction, 200 merits for delivering an amount of some commodity to a contolled system, 100 for killing pirates in a expanding system. Or even do certain things inside enemy territory. And this doenst mean you have to remove the current way of getting merits at all.

4. Stop merit hoarding. Underminers are gathering thousands and thousands of merit vouchers to dump them down 1 minute before the cycle ends. The power that is being undermined have no way to respond to this by fortification in less than 1 minute. My power even lost some systems this way. Merits should be added instantly upon killing ships in another powers space somehow.

5. Why are there so many opposite power ships in my HQ system interdicting me non stop? My HQ system is Lembava and from the moment I reach Lembava and get to Goldstein, I am at average interdicted 3 times under 5 minutes. I do understand why you want them there, but could you tone down the interdiction mayhem a little bit? At least let us get more than 230 credits from killing them, they are infact representing their powers.

In my humble opinion Powerplay has a lot of awesome potential. But it seems like alot of key elements that should be there by default are missing. Like the ones mentioned which seem pretty obvious at least to me and many others I talk to on reddit at a weekly basis.

Most of this is good but....


1. Great idea, it could be done, it could even be done in ways that are not that expensive (Some sort of message system if not instant comms) But.... Not gonna happen! FD will use excuses, we have to accept its not what they want.

2. See my other posts, you picked the wrong faction, no matter how much I want to join Hudson it just not worth it. There is no way in hell that Li Yong Rui will ever get any love! Hudson at least gets shafted (lol). Do what the rest of us did and join ALD... Its IMP or your not gonna get anything! The exploration thing has been brought up time and time again (The fact that you chaps spend months in the unknown). The Devs will not even mention it (I suspect this may be policy)

3. I am shocked you still do that, it is soul destroying. Though I admire your patience (but you are an explorer so I guess you have a lot).

4. Working as intended, also its just more efficient to do it this way! You may be grinding 200ly away from where they can be handed in! Though I agree its a silly system!

5. I suspect this is so that players that kill them feel they are helping in some way? EVERYONE asks this and wonders why you don't get 15M per kill, but we have not had a "DECENT" answer. It does seem odd there is little in the way of "Defence" but we can assume that the powers are too daft to protect the home systems?


PP could have been good, but it lacks depth and was not thought out in any real way!

It smells of a "back of a f4g packet idea"


I hope they can fix it but its so unlikely, some players do play it (If only for the extra credits) so leave it in! But failing a complete overhaul any band aids are wasted when that dev time could be better spent communication with the forum or fixing bugs!

 

[MasterOC]

If you are not allowed to discuss issue of balance, I understand.
I'm not happy, but I understand.


But surely if PP is to stay you need to give factions clear identities and reasons to exist.

I am pledged to ALD again I admit it is only for the MEGA OP benefits.

I feel that whilst this is the case many will only side with the faction that gives the best bounus's, the best toys and has the best safety nets.


I would love to fight for Hudson, but the payoff is silly...
You may get the same bonus to Bounties, but I lose out on weapons (The silly frag gun) and there is no way FD would have "FIXED" the turmoil issue if it was a FED problem.

I know many who want to be pirates
But Delain offers so little as for his weapon ... (Ask the players - they were not happy - How many quit pp over that one issue)

Perhaps and open discussion asking players (including he RP guys) what they would expect there power to offer and trying to supply that.


Someone earlier mentioned Hudson is the most popular which if I am honest does not seem to stack up to what I (or my buddies have actually seen), yet the claim originated from the same place that suggests the sidewinder is by far the most played ship???
Has someone got the numbers wrong?



EDIT
THE SIDEWINDER THING MAYBE DOWN TO ITS USE AS A BOOKMARK....
None the less does anyone actually play them?


If the numbers are right doe that mean there are 000's of players who play in a sidey for an hour or less then quit and never come back?

I agree with this, Ill say that I am also pledged to ALD because of the OP benefits.

I am also one of them who quit Delain and defected as soon as the "shield killer" weapon came out and its performance was determined to be less then a class 3 beam.

An open discussion would also be nice. Merit decay is one of the largest problems that exists today when playing the powerplay. I am not sure who's idea it was to go from 1500 merits at rank 4 to 10,000 merits at rank 5 with no regard for how much time grinding 5000 merits a week takes after 50% decay... Its a terrible idea in my opinion for the devs not to consider the merit grind associated with rank 5 versus rank 4.

The 50% merit decay is fine if your at rank 4, at rank 5 its a full time job every week and I have no time to enjoy the rest of the game. Not to mention the fact that if I stop grinding merits for the weekly decay then the grind to 10,000 again is very difficult.

 

[Lheim]

I like the idea of favour, too, but I do think it adds an unnecessary layer if it were put in in addition to merits. I'd blend the concepts, as others have suggested, and make an all-in-one capped-at-10k-or-whatever non-decaying currency for use in power control systems.

As for power flags - why not making it literal? Make power decals - they can be put on only in power-controlled systems and taken off in them too. Literally, then, you'd be flying a power's flag when engaged in work on their behalf. I for one would love to be able to pop the alliance flag on my vulture.

I posted this idea on reddit, but in regards to group play with PP.. use galnet and create 'newsgroups' or bulletin boards or something like that if mass real-time communication is problematic. I like the idea up/down voting, but a more direct camaraderie could be a powerful incentive to joint in with powerplay. Of course power-specific bulletin boards needn't be the end of this idea - why not ones for each profession, or for the major factions, or for forming player groups?

 

[Rubberboots]

One more quick note : killing enemy npcs in your system should give you merits, as everyone has said... But it should also count toward fortification of the control system (even if you're in an exploited system, the effect should be applied to whatever control system is exerting influence over the system you are in. This would give combat pilots a way to help fortify.

 

[Space Guru]

Since Sandro appears to continue to read this thread, I think I might try and help try to convey just why it is that PP isn't currently compelling. I thought of this while on my daily Ingress sabbatical.

Powerplay doesn't compel me for the following, simple reasons:

• The powers don't feel alive. Nothing about the powers as they are described or implemented put me in the mind that any of this is real. I cannot suspend my disbelief. We have 10 different powers, all with different ethos and backgrounds and leadership. Some of them belong to the same macro-factions (Federation, Empire, etc). And yet, for some reason, they are all of them constantly at war with each other equally at all times. That doesn't make any sense.
  • Being in a state of war on 9 different fronts simultaneously would be absolute murder on your resources.
  • In every human conflict since the beginning of time, alliances form. People pick and choose who they think will win and support one cause or another for their own personal gain. This makes for compelling drama and interesting history.
  • The fact that the powers don't form alliances and engage in constant open war on every imaginable front dilutes the conflict and isn't realistic or even logical, which makes it boring.
• The powers don't make any attempt to connect with me. At no point is there any sense at all that the powers want me or need my help. I can choose to pledge to them, or not. Nobody asks me, nobody recruits me. When I do pledge, nothing happens. I'm given some optional work to do, but its all on my own time and there isn't much of a deadline. Nobody seems to care. If you don't care, why would I?
  • There's nothing more than a portrait for each power of the distant figurehead I'm pledged to. At no point does the power contact me. I'm never given anything resembling a human contact. There's no heart. It's soulless, and so I don't care.
  • The power doesn't reward my efforts. The weekly salary is a joke. The maximum reward is $5mil a week, which is a pittance compared to the money I could make directing that same effort elsewhere. I might consider donating my effort to the cause, but, as I've stated, at no point am I personally engaged on an emotional level. It's all done for it's own sake, so why bother?
  • There is a distinct sense that my joining, or leaving, participating or not participating in a power goes totally unnoticed by literally everyone except myself. I'm singing in the shower. Nobody cares. So why should I?
• The system is broken. So since there's no soul, let's look at the cold robotic mechanisms of powerplay. What's there, doesn't work.
  • I'm constantly being interdicted in the heart of my power's strength by ships I vastly outclass. That makes no sense and it's annoying.
  • There are no missions. There three options to participate in, which exist as variations on things you can already do in other aspects of the game. Conflict zones and cargo runs, for example. Only, doing those missions off the BBS or on your own tend to be a great deal more rewarding.
  • There's little to no in-game mechanism for communication. The up/down vote system proposed in the OP is a good first step but it nowhere near enough. There needs to be a robust mechanism for direct player communication on a macro scale and that mechanism flat-out does not exist.
  • Pledging shrinks your galaxy. What was once a wide-open possibilities-are-endless expanse shrinks to a small territorial squabble. The system counters and works against the game's primary selling strength. This is a disastrous oversight.

Here's how I would fix the above.

1. Give the powers life. Make them human.
   • Make the figureheads talk. not just in news bulletins, but in their own press conferences, or in messages addressed directly to their pledged commanders. Have those show up as letters sent directly to me. I'm just a guy in a ship among the stars, folks. Tell me what you want. Tell me why you want it and I might agree enough to care.
   • Make the powers form and break alliances as conditions suit them. Have one power use another to fight a common enemy. Make the alliances concrete by adding incentives for the allied powers to work together. The ebb and flow of alliances and rivalries are what make for compelling drama.
2. Have the powers engage with me by way of a mercenary contact or wrangler or agent.
   • This would be some NPC who works directly for the power. They contact me, personally, by name. They give me missions. I don't go to them... THEY come to ME, because MY time is what THEY want. Make me feel wanted, needed. Make me feel like I bring enough value to the table that someone out there is eager to employ me.
   • Give this contact a name and a personality. Let me like them. Adjust that contacts relationship with me as I complete missions for them. Maybe if I do good, prompt work they'll want to offer my riskier stuff. Give me an incentive to work with them.
   • Make the contact adjust to my playstyle. The contact should notice that I prefer bounty work or moral cargo runs, and should tailor the jobs he or she offers accordingly. Make it feel at least a LITTLE like an actual human relationship, and not some Magic 8-ball that hands out missions.
3. Fix the system's mechanical shortcomings.
   • The frequency and severity of enemy ships trying to interdict me should increase the further away from my power's base of strength they are. Fringe systems should be riskiest, core ones, safest.
   • The ships interdicting me should be close enough to my skill and ship level to have it make sense that they'd even bother trying.
   • Reward me for killing these ships. I did the work, pay me. Give me merits, favor, ANYTHING.
   • Start proving missions (see my 'contact or wrangler' suggestions above). Make the system feel more dynamic and alive by encouraging me to do different things more tailored to my smaller-scale playstyle.
   • Implement a communication channel for pledged commanders. Allow the community to elect, rank and prioritize their leadership.

These are just a few ideas, but they're what I care about the most. There are a lot of other problems (the actual in-game effect of the powers is nil, so it doesn't feel connected to the game at all, making it boring), but honestly, I wanted to prioritize what I felt were the biggest, most glaring issues.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Hello Commanders!

Just another update for you folk.

The clear consensus is that a return to the old system of merit rating, even with the addition of favours, would not be wanted. So, going further down this line, I want to pose another question for you to consider: merit decay is present specifically to reward Commanders who put in more effort over time than their peers. This is true, even in the current implementation, even though you don't actually compete.

So my question is: 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.

Rewards linked to an "XP bar" will reward Commanders who put in more effort over time than their peers. Players who put in more effort will reap the rewards sooner, and for longer.

There is no need to take rewards away from players... especially given that most "rewards" currently on offer are thoroughly incompatible with continued PowerPlay activity (prime example: exploration bonus).

At present, the rewards themselves fight your reward mechanism, because of the "either/or" dichotomy, and because of merit decay.

<snip>
we'll certainly spend some more time going over options here (the great thing about brainstorming early is that we can look at all the angles).

Sorry, but I don't see how this is brainstorming "early".

Brainstorming early would have run the key drivers and mechanics of PowerPlay past your playerbase before coding it up.


Yes, technically, that would have "spoiled the surprise".

But, please believe me, the surprise was not a good kind of surprise. It was a bit like dropping hints to Dad about an awesome birthday present for three months... then gifting a pair of underpants that were the wrong size.


If you wanted a "marketing surprise", you could have withheld the Power figure artwork and "PowerPlay" name until release day. That would have given the online mags something to print... but the actual gameplay might have actually been fun.

As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, this is very similar to how the DDF worked.

Yes.

About that...


FD went off and added something to the game that sounds fine as a set of bulletpoints...

• Political archetypes, each with their own portrait, ethos, strenths and weaknesses
• Territorial control display on Galaxy Map, in 3D, with different colours
• Players can "pledge" to assist Power figures, earn rewards and income over time
• Additional combat risk from being pledged, as rival powers compete in populated space

...but the vital game mechanics involved in delivering these things were never discussed with the DDF, or with the current playerbase. Not in any shape or form.

This complete lack of dialogue resulted in an implementation that delivers poor moment-to-moment gameplay, is not much fun, gets boring very fast, and often "grates" with the established in-game mechanics people did like.


PLEASE think hard about the DDF. Think about the myriad decisions you'll face over the coming years.

I think you'll find that those decisions stand a better chance of hitting the mark if you revisit the DDF approach. Not just this one time, with the "How to make PowerPlay playable" fire-fighting effort, but for the ongoing Plan for Elite.

 

[Cheesemaster64]

I think PP can take the back burner as there a million other things that players would like to see first.
Like...
A revised mission system
A revised mission system
A revised mission system

 

[Asp Explorer]

PLEASE think hard about the DDF.

They thought hard about the DDF alright - and then they took it behind the shed with a shotgun.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

I posted this as its own thread, but after reading the proposals I still dislike the fact that PowerPlay is a separate strategy game attached to a space sim. It's supposed to be an optional play-if-you-want career at the same time as providing the basis for how power is defined through the galaxy which seems contradictory.

For those who feel like I do, Elite: Dangerous at its core is a spaceship sim. We play it because we want to pretend that we're Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds/Roj Blake, zooming around space making a living however we choose. PowerPlay was intended to give players another direction to follow, but instead it limits the options pilots have and in some cases works against the basic structure of the game.

So, If I am a trader, explorer, bounty hunter, smuggler or pirate, how do I participate in PowerPlay? From what I can tell, you can't. You basically have to give up your career as a pilot when you pledge to a PowerPlay Power and work specific tasks to get merits.

Merits and Control Capital have no real value in the Elite: Dangerous universe. Credits and Reputation are the currencies of the galaxy. Working towards one set hurts the other, or at least prevents advancement.

The PowerPlay Powers are not in line with the established Main Factions. Someone who is a Federation Post Commander can pledge to Senator Duval, and a Baron in the Empire can go to work for Zachary Hudson and no one bats an eye. Attacking or undermining a Power has no effect on reputation with the main faction unless you specifically attack one of their subfaction, but there is currently no tie between a Power who holds a system or the subfaction who controls it in the Background Simulator.

Rank in a Power has no tie to rank with a Faction. For example, being a top ranked member of the Federation gets you no sway with the Federation Powers, nor does ranking up with a Power affect your standing with the aligned Faction.

There are no permanent consequences to pledging to a power and quitting. There is a minor timed penalty for defecting, but Powers do not have a memory when it comes to treachery. Factions and subfactions keep track of when you wrong them and your reputation suffers, and if you continue your destructive behavior they will turn hostile and stop offering hiring you to hurt them.

PowerPlay expansion is governed through the application of Control Capital. Background Sim control is determined by faction status, economic and social strength which is altered by trading, exploration and combat undertaken by pilots who turn in missions, cargo and exploration data for rewards.

PowerPlay is purely opt-in, whereas all pilots in the game are bound by the Background Simulator and its Factions. It's very difficult to pretend that any of the Powers have true influence over the galaxy when as a group they can be collectively ignored.

Trading, exploring and combat represent the three main Pilot's Federation Elite rankings on which the core of the game itself is based, yet only combat plays a role in PowerPlay.

Those are the disconnects. Here are some suggestions.

1. Have profits from trade, exploration data, combat vouchers, and mission rewards generated in a system by ALL pilots, pledged or not, translate into Control Capital for the faction who controls the system. This would allow Pledgers to do something other than haul leaflets or garrison goods back and forth, or spend hours in protest zones as they can fill their cargo bays with other goods other than 10 tons of leaflets, so some bounty hunting or smuggling and make a little profit and help their Power at the same time.
   
   It also has a side effect of making non-pledgers a factor. An independent, non-aligned pilot who just wants to make a living can decide to follow the money, but in the back of his or her mind will always have to be aware that their money might be going somewhere they don't like. Therefore, a non-pledged pilot who still favors the Empire, for example, could trade freely throughout Empire factions without having to worry that they are helping the Federation. Factions could also attempt to lure non-aligned pilots to do business using the rewards which are already in place by the Powers. (Bounty hunting bonuses, trade bonuses, etc.) This would actually make those rewards more valuable, and give non-aligned pilots a reason to sell their soul for credits.
   
   
2. Make Background Sim Reputation and Rank carry over into PowerPlay. If you're hostile with the Federation, you can't pledge to a Fed Power. Hostile with the Empire? No deal. If you unpledge from a Power, no problem, but if you Defect that should be a hit to your rep that will take a LONG time to repair. Conversely, if you are ranked in that Faction's navy, or have a solid reputation, it should help you with the Pledged Power. Maybe this could be used to negate the effect of Merit Decay: if you are Friendly or Allied with the parent faction, Merit Decay slows or even stops, and give pilots an actual reason to stay friendly or allied with the main Faction.
   
   
   
3. Powers need to be aware when a player is trying to sabotage them. You can tank a subfaction's standing in a system by accepting and then failing jobs, but it hurts your rep with them and they eventually wise up and stop letting you hurt them. Powers need to have a memory, too. And just like the sub factions, you should have to work to get back in their good graces.
   
   
4. Something has to be done to give the Powers more character. Right now, they are fundamentally the same, outside of their portraits and description texts. Ethos just determines what kind of PowerPlay widgets you haul every 30 minutes based on your maximum allotment. Players should want to Pledge to a Power because it matches their play style more than anything else. Archon Delane should offer raid missions to destroy system authority ships and interdict trading. Mahon should be sending trade ships and courier missions to deliver envoys throughout the galaxy. Aisling Duval should be offering missions to free slaves, and destroy trade of places that allow the practice, etc. Even if these aren't missions offered through PowerPlay, the bulletin board missions should reflect the attitude of the controlling power, and the character of the Power should dictate what kind of pilots they are looking to attract.

So, TLDR; Integrating PowerPlay better with the space sim aspect of the game would give it broader appeal at the same time allowing pilots to play the game their own way and go a long way toward making PowerPlay seem less like a separate game.

This one here has some of the right ideas.

 

[atlas974]

Rewards linked to an "XP bar" will reward Commanders who put in more effort over time than their peers. Players who put in more effort will reap the rewards sooner, and for longer.

There is no need to take rewards away from players... especially given that most "rewards" currently on offer are thoroughly incompatible with continued PowerPlay activity (prime example: exploration bonus).

At present, the rewards themselves fight your reward mechanism, because of the "either/or" dichotomy, and because of merit decay.





Sorry, but I don't see how this is brainstorming "early".

Brainstorming early would have run the key drivers and mechanics of PowerPlay past your playerbase before coding it up.


Yes, technically, that would have "spoiled the surprise".

But, please believe me, the surprise was not a good kind of surprise. It was a bit like dropping hints to Dad about an awesome birthday present for three months... then gifting a pair of underpants that were the wrong size.


If you wanted a "marketing surprise", you could have withheld the Power figure artwork and "PowerPlay" name until release day. That would have given the online mags something to print... but the actual gameplay might have actually been fun.





Yes.

About that...


FD went off and added something to the game that sounds fine as a set of bulletpoints...

• Political archetypes, each with their own portrait, ethos, strenths and weaknesses
• Territorial control display on Galaxy Map, in 3D, with different colours
• Players can "pledge" to assist Power figures, earn rewards and income over time
• Additional combat risk from being pledged, as rival powers compete in populated space

...but the vital game mechanics involved in delivering these things were never discussed with the DDF, or with the current playerbase. Not in any shape or form.

This complete lack of dialogue resulted in an implementation that delivers poor moment-to-moment gameplay, is not much fun, gets boring very fast, and often "grates" with the established in-game mechanics people did like.


PLEASE think hard about the DDF. Think about the myriad decisions you'll face over the coming years.

I think you'll find that those decisions stand a better chance of hitting the mark if you revisit the DDF approach. Not just this one time, with the "How to make PowerPlay playable" fire-fighting effort, but for the ongoing Plan for Elite.

Must find a way to rep you again

 

[Tesshin]

After reading the entire thread I do have more feedback Sandro. Please read. I would love you for it.

1. Concept of Powerplay

I do understand that Powerplay is a part of Elite and not the entire Elite. However I feel like the more I am doing powerplay, the more I am excluded with the rest of the game. So adding powerplay to Elite didnt make my experience of playing Elite bigger and broader, but more narrower.

Please understand that as being a Commander that doesnt like fighting that much my only way to do powerplay is to deliver contracts, industrial equipment etc. So my powerplay experience is basically sitting at the station and waiting 30 minutes to add more cargo to my ship. When I reach 200, I deliver it, and then back to station and repeat. If it wasnt for Netflix I would loose my mind. I may be misunderstanding the gameplay but is it good that you do powerplay by spending less time looking at the screen? Why cant powerplay interact with trading, exploration and combat?

2. Favour

Its better. However something is telling me that the rewards for such a system would be small. But I really hope not. I would like this change. However I think one should be careful overcomplicate the game. Still 1.3 and we are talking about 2 currencies for powerplay. An idea is to reduce the decay rate by a lot.

3. Flagging

I dont like it. It seems immersive breaking in my eyes.

4. Missions.

I really hope that the fact you didnt say much about this issue is reflective of your will to focus on this matter. Missions are critical the moment. There should be powerplay missions. Its a shame that when pledging to a power the only thing he does is wanting you to move cargo around. The power should interract with you and give you missions which would reward merits, credits and reputation etc.

Each power should have there own type of missions as well. If you are with Li Yong Rui for example, you get exploration missions etc.

Summary: I really love the idea of Powerplay but the alternatives for you to help your power is so few. One is to undermine. Here again there arent any merits for killing npcs in my HQ system. Why not? Another possiblity is to wait every 30 minutes to load up more cargo and move it around. Sadly I feel this is just not good enough. Someone made the point that doing Powerplay in it self should be rewarding. Currently it just feels like a grind.

If PP is not suppose to trespass on the territory of trading, exploration etc then state so. But I will assure you the majority (it seems to me) want Powerplay to be a part of the role they have chosen.

 

[Darrett]

Since Sandro appears to continue to read this thread, I think I might try and help try to convey just why it is that PP isn't currently compelling. I thought of this while on my daily Ingress sabbatical.

Powerplay doesn't compel me for the following, simple reasons:

• The powers don't feel alive. Nothing about the powers as they are described or implemented put me in the mind that any of this is real. I cannot suspend my disbelief. We have 10 different powers, all with different ethos and backgrounds and leadership. Some of them belong to the same macro-factions (Federation, Empire, etc). And yet, for some reason, they are all of them constantly at war with each other equally at all times. That doesn't make any sense.
  • Being in a state of war on 9 different fronts simultaneously would be absolute murder on your resources.
  • In every human conflict since the beginning of time, alliances form. People pick and choose who they think will win and support one cause or another for their own personal gain. This makes for compelling drama and interesting history.
  • The fact that the powers don't form alliances and engage in constant open war on every imaginable front dilutes the conflict and isn't realistic or even logical, which makes it boring.
• The powers don't make any attempt to connect with me. At no point is there any sense at all that the powers want me or need my help. I can choose to pledge to them, or not. Nobody asks me, nobody recruits me. When I do pledge, nothing happens. I'm given some optional work to do, but its all on my own time and there isn't much of a deadline. Nobody seems to care. If you don't care, why would I?
  • There's nothing more than a portrait for each power of the distant figurehead I'm pledged to. At no point does the power contact me. I'm never given anything resembling a human contact. There's no heart. It's soulless, and so I don't care.
  • The power doesn't reward my efforts. The weekly salary is a joke. The maximum reward is $5mil a week, which is a pittance compared to the money I could make directing that same effort elsewhere. I might consider donating my effort to the cause, but, as I've stated, at no point am I personally engaged on an emotional level. It's all done for it's own sake, so why bother?
  • There is a distinct sense that my joining, or leaving, participating or not participating in a power goes totally unnoticed by literally everyone except myself. I'm singing in the shower. Nobody cares. So why should I?
• The system is broken. So since there's no soul, let's look at the cold robotic mechanisms of powerplay. What's there, doesn't work.
  • I'm constantly being interdicted in the heart of my power's strength by ships I vastly outclass. That makes no sense and it's annoying.
  • There are no missions. There three options to participate in, which exist as variations on things you can already do in other aspects of the game. Conflict zones and cargo runs, for example. Only, doing those missions off the BBS or on your own tend to be a great deal more rewarding.
  • There's little to no in-game mechanism for communication. The up/down vote system proposed in the OP is a good first step but it nowhere near enough. There needs to be a robust mechanism for direct player communication on a macro scale and that mechanism flat-out does not exist.
  • Pledging shrinks your galaxy. What was once a wide-open possibilities-are-endless expanse shrinks to a small territorial squabble. The system counters and works against the game's primary selling strength. This is a disastrous oversight.

Here's how I would fix the above.

1. Give the powers life. Make them human.
   • Make the figureheads talk. not just in news bulletins, but in their own press conferences, or in messages addressed directly to their pledged commanders. Have those show up as letters sent directly to me. I'm just a guy in a ship among the stars, folks. Tell me what you want. Tell me why you want it and I might agree enough to care.
   • Make the powers form and break alliances as conditions suit them. Have one power use another to fight a common enemy. Make the alliances concrete by adding incentives for the allied powers to work together. The ebb and flow of alliances and rivalries are what make for compelling drama.
2. Have the powers engage with me by way of a mercenary contact or wrangler or agent.
   • This would be some NPC who works directly for the power. They contact me, personally, by name. They give me missions. I don't go to them... THEY come to ME, because MY time is what THEY want. Make me feel wanted, needed. Make me feel like I bring enough value to the table that someone out there is eager to employ me.
   • Give this contact a name and a personality. Let me like them. Adjust that contacts relationship with me as I complete missions for them. Maybe if I do good, prompt work they'll want to offer my riskier stuff. Give me an incentive to work with them.
   • Make the contact adjust to my playstyle. The contact should notice that I prefer bounty work or moral cargo runs, and should tailor the jobs he or she offers accordingly. Make it feel at least a LITTLE like an actual human relationship, and not some Magic 8-ball that hands out missions.
3. Fix the system's mechanical shortcomings.
   • The frequency and severity of enemy ships trying to interdict me should increase the further away from my power's base of strength they are. Fringe systems should be riskiest, core ones, safest.
   • The ships interdicting me should be close enough to my skill and ship level to have it make sense that they'd even bother trying.
   • Reward me for killing these ships. I did the work, pay me. Give me merits, favor, ANYTHING.
   • Start proving missions (see my 'contact or wrangler' suggestions above). Make the system feel more dynamic and alive by encouraging me to do different things more tailored to my smaller-scale playstyle.
   • Implement a communication channel for pledged commanders. Allow the community to elect, rank and prioritize their leadership.

These are just a few ideas, but they're what I care about the most. There are a lot of other problems (the actual in-game effect of the powers is nil, so it doesn't feel connected to the game at all, making it boring), but honestly, I wanted to prioritize what I felt were the biggest, most glaring issues.

Exactly right! This sums up the majority of what is wrong. The issue now though is that in order to change things they'd have to admit they were wrong, and that PP was poorly conceived and executed.

 

[Svartir]

I have been playing the game since around the 1.3 release and have not pledged to a power. Here is some specific feedback based on me looking at Powerplay from the outside and reading the criticisms on this forum (much of the more constructive criticism I have seen on this thread, I agree with).

Favour
The “holiday” or “leave of absence” suggestions I have seen on the forum sounds better to me.
Give each pledged pilot something like 1 weeks leave per 3-4 weeks pledged (as keep-able “leave“ tokens to cash in later).
Players can then apply for “leave” from Powerplay for a week minimum (or multiple weeks/cycles by cashing in a few months’ worth of “leave” tokens. While “on leave” players are still pledged but are immune from merit decay, and don’t get NPC attacks from other powers. These players on “leave” can then go exploring, trading on the other side of human-space or even take a worry-free break from the game!

Powerplay flags
Providing free power-specific decals and paintjobs to loyal pledges is what I think of when Powerplay flags are mentioned and this would be a good addition to encourage Powerplay participation as others have mentioned.

As for having a break from inter-power hostility the “leave of absence” suggestion could fix some of those “loss of freedom” concerns. Players “on leave” are no longer counted “lawless” targets for inter-power hostility (they could be flagged or unflagged while “on leave” to other players, as long as they are treated crime-wise the same as an unpledged player).

I also like that Powerplay diplomacy suggestion (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=166246), where the pledged players vote for things like inter-power non-aggression treaties and declarations of war. Pledged players could then fly safer in friendly powers territory and know what other regions of space are going to be actively hostile.

Up/down voting
I don’t have a strong opinion on this type of voting. More in-game intra-power communication, co-ordination and decision-making sounds like they are needed for Powerplay to work well.

Freedom fighters, power ethos and more interaction with the background simulation factions
Yes there should be more of these interactions. However, I am not sure that making independent “anti-power” pilots pledge to a minor faction or system is the way to go as some of these pilots are unpledged specifically because they want to remain independent (although they might want to occasionally help drive away or slow the expansion of a power they don’t like).

Maybe make each minor faction in a power controlled/exploited system have an opinion of the current ruling or expanding power (displayed in their faction box in the system status tab). This would be based on major faction alignment, government type and their compatibility with the ruling power . Examples for minor faction opinion labels “Supportive of Hudson”, “Neutral to Hudson”, or “Hostile to Hudson”. Any players supporting the “Hostile to [insert power here]” minor faction will be effectively acting as freedom fighters by doing any missions for that faction, increasing that minor factions influence and destroying power-aligned ships. A “rebellion” status (sort of like war status) for the anti-power faction could trigger an opportunity to “shake off power control” and drive the power away. Maybe have the rebellions as a week-long mini CG-type event (were pilots pick a side at the bulletin board) and based on which side destroys the most enemy ships or has the largest combat bond value cashed in decides the fate of the rebellion. Like trying to flip a system normally there will be different ways of supporting a minor faction and some of them might make you wanted and others will not. You could give unpledged pilots a friendly to hostile rep with each power (I think I can live with 1/10 of the coloured blobs being places where I might be attacked on sight if I help drive a power from a system).

If powers started charging extra taxes (such as landing fees) in controlled systems then there might be more reason to oppose powers as an independent pilot (currently Powerplay for me is just occasionally watching to see if coloured blobs are slowly changing shape/size on the map and going to Sirius Corp systems for a 15% outfitting/ship discount).

I might add another post with some other suggestions for deeper changes to Powerplay that I think would make it more appealing to join a power and participate. These would fall in the general category of ‘give the powers more soul/character and allow them to seriously change human-occupied galaxy’.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Yeah I agree. It's an outdated concept that lacks imagination.

Perhaps the timing was off? PP might have been nice down the road when far more important sim related functions were properly taken care of.

I'm not saying that the team isn't working on that stuff too, but PP should have been on the back burner instead of the other way around.

Give us freedom fighters and watch the powers fall. As long as you make the playing field even I know there are about 800 cmdrs on this forum who would like to see the powers gone with.

Sorry, but that sounds like - I want some cool stuff first, don't work on something you can deliver in reasonable time frame and what's required for other things to be added down the road.

What's the problem with adding PowerPlay and tweak it going down the road? Some people don't like it, totally fine, but some people claiming it changes game so much they can't play anymore? Huh?

This reasoning alone should indicate gamers never should be charge of putting schedule of the game.

 

[Tarman]

Sorry, but that sounds like - I want some cool stuff first, don't work on something you can deliver in reasonable time frame and what's required for other things to be added down the road.

What's the problem with adding PowerPlay and tweak it going down the road? Some people don't like it, totally fine, but some people claiming it changes game so much they can't play anymore? Huh?

This reasoning alone should indicate gamers never should be charge of putting schedule of the game.

The Sword of Condescension swings its mighty arc! Bolstered by the Armour of Holy Faith; the most powerful combo move yet seen.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I understand what you mean. PP has had an equally chilling effect on CMDR to CMDR chat. Before PP I regularly had chats with other CMDRs I met when roaming around. Since PP was released most CMDRs immediately hyperspace away when they see other CMDRs for fear of being attacked. I blame the unrealistically high level of aggression of Powers towards each other throughout the whole inhabited bubble.

Last time I checked it was commander decision attack or not to attack another commander.