Powerplay Needs an Overhaul

[Aldric Anuin]

This is an open letter to the development team and Frontier about certain issues within power play that I know many people from all different factions would like to see changes on. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below with other things you feel need improvement. First off we will start with a couple of bugs that should be addressed first.

1. The galaxy map/pp overlay does not show the correct cc values for profit and upkeep as it omits the cc overhead as well as not displaying the potential system overlap for prep/expansion systems which also contributes to correct cc values for the control systems that are overlapped.

1. You should not be able to expand or prep a system that will give a negative cc value. No real person be it king, queen, emperor, or president would ever willingly choose to buy/take control of something that loses them money so why would an in game character chose it.​​ It also causes to much internal damage as players/spies in solo can just prep these negative cc systems with no consequence and as a bonus get paid to do it.

Here is a list of my suggestions to solve certain issues within power play:
​

1. At the very least please please please fix the galaxy map so that it displays the correct cc values and includes overlap calculated into those cc values and displays the overlap.

1. One solution to the internal problem(spies or 5th column as they are sometimes referred) is to reduce the effects/rewards of power play in solo mode by half. Since the groups cannot police themselves due to power play being allowed in solo mode something has to be done especially now with the release of the cutter. I mean 700 preps just for 1 person and 1 trip. Even 5 can be very damaging to the several player groups that do work hard to support their respective powers though from my own experiences it has been upwards of 10 with people deliberately prepping/expanding bad systems. Once again taking out the negative prep/expansion will mostly cut there power but there is also self undermining people can do so that we would fail an expansion in solo/private group that player created factions cannot police.

1. Add a pvp element into power play as well by possibly giving merits for killing other players aligned to factions you are trying to undermine/compete against.

1. Make sure the explanation of power play includes the bad effects of control system overlap as well as the cc overhead as these are completely left out of the original explanation.

​​Thank you for taking the time to read through this open letter. I would strongly recommend taking a look at power play as a whole and think it may be time for an overhaul even as busy as you are with horizons because a lot of players who do play the game at some point or other usually end up involved in power play in some aspect and I believe the overhaul would even help to attract more players to the game or back to the game.

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

1. You should not be able to expand or prep a system that will give a negative cc value. No real person be it king, queen, emperor, or president would ever willingly choose to buy/take control of something that loses them money so why would an in game character chose it.​​ It also causes to much internal damage as players/spies in solo can just prep these negative cc systems with no consequence and as a bonus get paid to do it.

I would replace this with a mechanic to IMPROVE CC value through the local BGS or some such mechanic.

Oh heck. This is getting long, I will post in a separate thread.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

This is an open letter to the development team and Frontier about certain issues within power play that I know many people from all different factions would like to see changes on. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below with other things you feel need improvement. First off we will start with a couple of bugs that should be addressed first.

1. The galaxy map/pp overlay does not show the correct cc values for profit and upkeep as it omits the cc overhead as well as not displaying the potential system overlap for prep/expansion systems which also contributes to correct cc values for the control systems that are overlapped.

1. You should not be able to expand or prep a system that will give a negative cc value. No real person be it king, queen, emperor, or president would ever willingly choose to buy/take control of something that loses them money so why would an in game character chose it.​​ It also causes to much internal damage as players/spies in solo can just prep these negative cc systems with no consequence and as a bonus get paid to do it.

Here is a list of my suggestions to solve certain issues within power play:
​

1. At the very least please please please fix the galaxy map so that it displays the correct cc values and includes overlap calculated into those cc values and displays the overlap.

1. One solution to the internal problem(spies or 5th column as they are sometimes referred) is to reduce the effects/rewards of power play in solo mode by half. Since the groups cannot police themselves due to power play being allowed in solo mode something has to be done especially now with the release of the cutter. I mean 700 preps just for 1 person and 1 trip. Even 5 can be very damaging to the several player groups that do work hard to support their respective powers though from my own experiences it has been upwards of 10 with people deliberately prepping/expanding bad systems. Once again taking out the negative prep/expansion will mostly cut there power but there is also self undermining people can do so that we would fail an expansion in solo/private group that player created factions cannot police.

1. Add a pvp element into power play as well by possibly giving merits for killing other players aligned to factions you are trying to undermine/compete against.

1. Make sure the explanation of power play includes the bad effects of control system overlap as well as the cc overhead as these are completely left out of the original explanation.

​​Thank you for taking the time to read through this open letter. I would strongly recommend taking a look at power play as a whole and think it may be time for an overhaul even as busy as you are with horizons because a lot of players who do play the game at some point or other usually end up involved in power play in some aspect and I believe the overhaul would even help to attract more players to the game or back to the game.

Well, I don't know if this will make you happy or not, but this is what Michael Brookes had to say around mid-December of last year

Powerplay was another highlight release for me, although it does seem to be a bit of a marmite feature! For me it works on two levels. There’s the more obvious level of working for and against the powers, but there’s also the second benefit of the dynamism it brings to the galaxy on a grander scale. There are benefits to being in certain regions as well as downsides.



It’s also a high level framework that we can develop further and here there are two approaches that I see as strengthening Powerplay. The first is on a personal level to make interacting with the powers more interesting and more diverse, adding powerplay missions is an example of this. The other is building more of a connection with the galaxy simulation both in being able to resist powers and developing minor factions into powers.

Now I could be mistaken, but that first improvement sounds like they plan to bring Bulletin Board style missions into the Power Play mechanic. It also sounds like you're on the same page with the interaction between the BGS & the Power Play Factions.

 

[Aldric Anuin]

Well, I don't know if this will make you happy or not, but this is what Michael Brookes had to say around mid-December of last year



Now I could be mistaken, but that first improvement sounds like they plan to bring Bulletin Board style missions into the Power Play mechanic. It also sounds like you're on the same page with the interaction between the BGS & the Power Play Factions.

This would make me happier if it allowed you to improve the cc for systems as there is currently no game mechanic to do so. Bgs is mostly used to increase or decrease fortification/undermining triggers.

The first is on a personal level to make interacting with the powers more interesting and more diverse

Also another issue though is I think that in addition to the local channel maybe they could introduce a powers channel as well for better communication within each respective power. This way if you are in a prep war with 5c, you do not have a bunch of people who have no idea what they are doing and do not know about the reddit for each power prepping random systems. Merit grinders are included but if you give them a good trade route to use to prep the system then most will help.

 

[Aldric Anuin]

Also sorry for the long post I had originally typed this up in another program and the formatting got screwed up.