Powerplay proposal: split tasks to suit each mode, elaborates on Sandros last ideas

[Bashy81]

The devs in the past specifically mentioned they were only shining a spotlight on things players had repeatedly mentioned. Saying we need to stick in the box, when the box is player-made in the first place, doesn't make any sense. We have the power to create a new, better box.

You can imagine whatever fantastical form of game feature you want, but the OP is trying to keep it within the realm of possibility.

What the devs said was this:

"We’re considering a package of tweaks to Powerplay and we’d like your thoughts on them. Note that this is not a fait accompli, just something we’re investigating.

The concept behind these changes is not to completely change Powerplay, but address a few important issues as efficiently and nicely as possible. Some of these changes are subtle, others very significant. The idea is that as a whole they form a rounded update that provides improvements to the core experience of Powerplay."

The OP fits in with that scope, like I said.

Are you familiar with game design? Because you cannot 'design out' something that is essentially the very first natural result of a system. BEST case, you end up with an awful and convoluted system that still has plenty of exploits.

The only way to truly fix these problems is from the ground up.

I have not studied game design academically. I did study Political History, which isn't relevant right now, but more on that later. I am quite familiar with the design of this game. & I can also see you are going down an absolutist route where that is neither required nor desirable. There is no need to abolish 5C from first-principles, it just needs to be put back in its box.

However, I am curious as to exactly how you see 5C being "essentially the very first natural result of (Powerplay)" ? Dont worry, I may not have a game design portfolio, but I assure you I can keep up.

The incentives to 5C are, on the one hand, that the mechanics are biased mathematically in favour of their actions, and on the other, that there is a simple time-gate on receiving maximum vote allocation per account, that makes it minimal effort to exploit free multiple console accounts, and now Epic accounts. This allows 5C to gain a vastly disproportionate voting strength than the number of players involved in the 5C action, and essentially hijack an opposing Power. Typically, they attain little more than 25% of the vote, which is sufficient to force a single expansion system, taking priority over the 70%+ who voted against it. That is a further mathematical issue which is done away with in the OP, and the flash-topic.

By both removing these mathematical advantages, & strengthening Vote mechanics, by requiring consistent action per account eligible for Votes, (and by using a Trust mechanic as per the OP) , you go a long way to neutering the effect of 5C.

It is obvious to me how much of a difference all this would make to the overall landscape. & imo it is fixing these problems from the ground-up, in a thorough way that renders any objection-in-principle obsolete.

There is no difference between the two. Who defines catastrophic? There is no loss condition in this game, so everything is ultimately player-defined. Maybe two powers want to team up to take on a third, with one side accepting significant losses to take down the third faction, with the promise from the second faction to help them get it back later. Nope, can't do that anymore.

-150CC from a single system defines catastrophic. That is quite a lot more incentive to harm, than it could ever be without Overheads. And that is quite a lot of effort involved to achieve that, which you could have been putting to far more effect working for the Power you actually support, with the enhanced conventional attack impacts of the OP.
Regards the example you gave, I assume you're talking about Weaponised Expansions. With the support of a coordinated playerbase, they could still be achievable, but depending on how the mechanics are balanced, it may turn out they are a necessary loss, and also not required.

You're trying to predict good and bad decisions, when good and bad decisions are completely determined by the flow of the game. It's impossible.

When high CC is purely a benefit, many decisions about what is good or bad can be derived from that.

If a system has absolutely beneficial actions, those actions should not exist. Having them exist only reduces the complexity and tactical value of the game.

Of course, those actions pretty much can't exist, anyway, because there's always opportunity cost. You can almost always choose a better option, and 5C players would be very good at picking the worst 'good' option.

You are conflating two elements here. From the point of view of a Power, many beneficial actions would be poor choices, as there is a finite workload available from the playerbase each cycle. Since 5C contributions are extras beyond the natural playerbase, theyre simple beneficial additions. & unless the 5C want to be discovered & hunted down, theyd be wise to hide their intentions instead of pushing inefficient merits every cycle.
The dubious benefit of the end result of 5C, the considerable work required to enable it, the lack of voting strength to influence things.. The main benefits left would seem to be insider-intel & the morale effect on the playerbase upon eventual discovery. It's firmly in double-agent territory. Which is just fine.

It gives them exactly as much power as the participants give them. That's the beauty of democracy. If someone else wants power, they can talk to the members of the power and run themselves.

If you've got a problem with it, it's a problem with representative democracy, and as most civilized nations have discovered, while it may have its issues, it's still the best possible solution.

You might've noticed, a lot of Powers disagree with your idolisation of representative democracy, and the playergroups I know have structured themselves to suit . It would be a loss to the diversity of the feature, if a single structure of control & organisation was imposed over every Power, regardless of the politics and ideologies they represent.

 

[DemiserofD]

You can imagine whatever fantastical form of game feature you want, but the OP is trying to keep it within the realm of possibility.

It's a fallacy to define anything but what you want as 'fantastical' and 'outside the realm of possibility'.

Practically speaking, the list of features that have been requested to fix 5C are on the same level of complexity as a complete redesign.

So I'd very much prefer to see things rebuilt such that bandages aren't necessary in the first place. Fix the disease, don't just treat the symptoms. I don't think it's a stretch to say such a thing is a better solution.

By both removing these mathematical advantages, & strengthening Vote mechanics, by requiring consistent action per account eligible for Votes, (and by using a Trust mechanic as per the OP) , you go a long way to neutering the effect of 5C.

Again, these things simply wont work. For example, mathematical advantages exist for very good reasons, if you remove 5C from the equation; they weren't just added to make 5C stronger, after all. 5C wasn't even considered, I very much suspect. Votes don't exist for similarly good reasons; getting any significant amount of participation is hard enough already for even the most basic of things, and that's long before you start asking players to vote on whether or not to shed systems or block expansion. This leads to an intolerable degree of complexity and raises the barrier to entry. Throw in 5C voting and everything gets completely messed up, as the game cannot identify good choices from bad ones, which is why votes assigned per player are based on such simple things; because accurately determining how much power a player should have is impossible without a literal AI.

I think people often forget that this game isn't meant for JUST the hardcore players. It's meant for broad-spectrum participation, which means it needs to be simple and have a low barrier for entry.

But regardless, you can't patch 5C without sacrificing some or all of the fundamental aspects of the game that make it interesting. That's just the nature of restricting player choice. And one way or another, you need to sacrifice something. Your preferred method would result in a neutered game mode with heavily restricted player choice. Mine would result in one with just as much choice, but less players making those choices. Given that only a limited subsection of players carry out the heavy statistical burden of leadership anyway, that's really no sacrifice at all, so that's what I see as the ideal method, as it still allows the average player to participate just as much as currently, while still fixing the 5c implications, and without really changing who's making the decisions at all.

By contrast, your method would limit the game mode to ONLY the restricted playerbase, would reduce the depth of the game, and would not necessarily even fix the 5c implications.

-150CC from a single system defines catastrophic.

Says who? It doesn't need to be a high CC loss to be painful. It could be a slightly bad system closer to the home system, rendering it impossible to shed indefinitely. It could be a positive CC system next to an even better one, preventing more CC from being acquired for weeks or months. Maybe you WANT the CC loss system to allow you to shift your Power in a specific way. You cannot possibly tell without a system that can understand player choice, which is impossible.

What you really want is almost complete player choice to make meaningful decisions, to allow the maximum possible tactical decisionmaking. If a power wants to drop a system, they should be able to do so immediately with no questions asked. If they want to try to take a bad system, again, it should be possible immediately, no votes or debate necessary. But that's not possible when you need to go through a system of direct democracy every single time, despite most players have no idea what's going on.

The only real way to achieve that is to put the few players who actually know what's going on in direct control. Give them the tools and power to make those decisions, and you can get a truly interesting game.

You might've noticed, a lot of Powers disagree with your idolisation of representative democracy, and the playergroups I know have structured themselves to suit . It would be a loss to the diversity of the feature, if a single structure of control & organisation was imposed over every Power, regardless of the politics and ideologies they represent.

They'll get over it, and a few irritated players over needing to slightly shift their style of governance is a small price to pay for fixing a fundamental flaw in the game's design. In any case, it's easy enough to make the controlling players simply the hands of the actual government. The key is that their power cannot be overwritten by a small party of hostile actors. Right now, damage can be done essentially instantly. This change would instantly fix that, with no convoluted 'trust' mechanics needed or wanted, and critically, no interpretation of player action required. It leaves the power in the hands of players; completely and absolutely.

 

[Asharyn]

You can defend your self from an undermining attack through the process of fortification.

No you can't no ammount of fortification lowers or stops the undermining progress.

These are the tools given to you by the designers of Power Play.

If that weren't true, threads like this wouldn't exist. This fact is the problem.

This is surly by design to provide a level playing field available to any and all Elite players should they wish to take part.

All powers mutially being able to attack and defend is still level and fair.

In short, calling it "countering" or "defending" doesn't matter, fortification is the only process available to the players to keep control of somewhere.

Alright, I'll use a different term. We need to be able to take preventative measures. We currently only have the ability to semi fix the dammage that is being done.

 

[DemiserofD]

All powers mutially being able to attack and defend is still level and fair.

Yes, but no better or worse. Why change things for no benefit?

Alright, I'll use a different term. We need to be able to take preventative measures. We currently only have the ability to semi fix the dammage that is being done.

See, this I can agree with, I just disagree that it needs to happen via pvp. They could add any number of new features to make it possible. Maybe you open a community goal type event where players need to mine and deliver a randomly-selected mineral to a selected system to over-fortify it, for example.

Heck, if you want, let one side pick pvp as their means of overcoming. For every enemy player they kill, undermining gets overcharged by X amount. But the other side wouldn't have any reason to cooperate, unless, of course, they pick the same thing for fortification. Or alternatively they could choose to over-fortify with mining or trade or passenger missions and play entirely in solo.

Ultimately it would be the players choice.

 

[Bashy81]

It's a fallacy to define anything but what you want as 'fantastical' and 'outside the realm of possibility

The devs said before a major redesign isnt on the table. Hence why outside-the-box thinking falls into fantasy-land.

Practically speaking, the list of features that have been requested to fix 5C are on the same level of complexity as a complete redesign.

Now that is a fallacy. Changing numbers and retooling existing mechanics may be complex but involves far fewer departments & dev-time than a complete redesign. The only new element was the Trust mechanic, and that just pulls exisitng player data from the game & involves some UI tweaking. Overall it's obviously far less work than say, the new user experience.

So I'd very much prefer to see things rebuilt such that bandages aren't necessary in the first place. Fix the disease, don't just treat the symptoms. I don't think it's a stretch to say such a thing is a better solution

The OP changes fix the causes of the disease. They arent bandages they change the conditions that created the disease in the first place.

Votes don't exist for similarly good reasons

.. they do exist already ofc, and if players can handle an obtuse binary vote system, they can handle a multiple choice tickbox. These are people who need to be able to fill in a vote-card in most cases, & plugged in their computer, made lunch.. give other people a little credit, theyre not imbeciles.

getting any significant amount of participation is hard enough already for even the most basic of things, and that's long before you start asking players to vote on whether or not to shed systems or block expansion

Um, what ? If players can work together to fortify collectively, fight against 5C expansions, turmoil themselves to shed systems, I think we can handle a few votes, dont you?

this leads to an intolerable degree of complexity and raises the barrier to entry.

It really doesnt increase complexity or raise any barriers. quite the opposite, as it makes those strategic decisions more plain.

which is why votes assigned per player are based on such simple things; because accurately determining how much power a player should have is impossible without a literal AI.

lol, are you really saying the game cant do a better job of allocating votes than by simply allocating 5 votes to anyone who pledges and does one haulage run after 17 weeks ?
Once again, things dont have to be perfect, to do the required job.

They'll get over it, and a few irritated players over needing to slightly shift their style of governance is a small price to pay for fixing a fundamental flaw in the game's design. In any case, it's easy enough to make the controlling players simply the hands of the actual government. The key is that their power cannot be overwritten by a small party of hostile actors. Right now, damage can be done essentially instantly. This change would instantly fix that, with no convoluted 'trust' mechanics needed or wanted, and critically, no interpretation of player action required. It leaves the power in the hands of players; completely and absolutely.

It tramples on Lore, playergroup identity, and player agency, and still depends on the integrity of votes. But it's representive democracy and that's infallible so I guess youve delivered freedom and democracy then yeah? Mission Accomplished.

 

[DemiserofD]

lol, are you really saying the game cant do a better job of allocating votes than by simply allocating 5 votes to anyone who pledges and does one haulage run after 17 weeks ?

Essentially? Yes.

Any system with hard-coded rules incapable of discretion can be gamed. The best way to ensure a rigorous process of player integrity is to put that process in the hands of the players themselves. Even that won't be infallible, but at least it will have equal brainpower on both sides.

It really doesnt increase complexity or raise any barriers. quite the opposite, as it makes those strategic decisions more plain.

Not really. Someone decides they want to unlock a powerplay module, and haul 2000 merits to a nearby system. That system happens to be worth a negative value. The player is promptly kicked from the power for sabotage.

Either that, or the players who know what they're doing lose the ability to make tactical choices. There's always going to be a sacrifice, here.

they do exist already ofc, and if players can handle an obtuse binary vote system, they can handle a multiple choice tickbox

I'd argue the exact opposite, actually. Most players have no idea what voting does or what it's for, and that's with a very simple system already. Any additional complexity will make it completely unintelligible.

Changing numbers and retooling existing mechanics may be complex but involves far fewer departments & dev-time than a complete redesign.

That's by no means true. It's akin to putting another stick on top of an in-progress game of Jenga, versus setting up the game for the first time. Achieving balance in a complex and interlocked system can and often is much more difficult than just starting over.

Sure, you can throw together a quick fix, but chances are it won't work anywhere near what you actually want to happen, even assuming it doesn't knock the whole pile down.

They arent bandages they change the conditions that created the disease in the first place.

What caused the disease in the first place is the fundamental nature of the game. Patching the errors without fixing the fundamental nature of the game is hard to see as anything but 'bandages'.

The devs said before a major redesign isnt on the table. Hence why outside-the-box thinking falls into fantasy-land.

Where's that quote? I've never seen it before.

Even if that's the case, a good argument for a redesign is far more likely to succeed, imo, than a poorly-designed hackneyed patch job, which is more likely to leave it in a state of limbo, just as it has been for years.

It tramples on Lore, playergroup identity, and player agency, and still depends on the integrity of votes.

Lore? Not at all. Most politicians have legions of political advisors. Even dictators have generals.

Playergroup identity? If their identity is strong enough, they can set up their own systems that utilize the new mechanics with little change.

Player agency? The only agency being denied is the agency to make decisions that go against the group will of the Power. All strategic and tactical depth is fully preserved.

And lastly, unless the 5C group outnumbers the main group itself, the votes will have more integrity than ever. If they do outnumber the Power, the power is lost already. But hey, that's politics!

 

[Asharyn]

Yes, but no better or worse. Why change things for no benefit?


See, this I can agree with, I just disagree that it needs to happen via pvp. They could add any number of new features to make it possible. Maybe you open a community goal type event where players need to mine and deliver a randomly-selected mineral to a selected system to over-fortify it, for example.

Heck, if you want, let one side pick pvp as their means of overcoming. For every enemy player they kill, undermining gets overcharged by X amount. But the other side wouldn't have any reason to cooperate, unless, of course, they pick the same thing for fortification. Or alternatively they could choose to over-fortify with mining or trade or passenger missions and play entirely in solo.

Ultimately it would be the players choice.

The benefit is the solution of the problem. Why make a convluted PvP point system? Just make powerplay activities only take effect on open and you can shoot down the underminer. Done, simple, easy.

 

[Bashy81]

Any system with hard-coded rules incapable of discretion can be gamed.

Yes, in absolute terms. But youre not Morpheus, and youre not trying to groom some dumb kid into freeing themselves from the shackles of their artificial reality to become fodder for a war against The Machines.

This is gaming. And effort vs reward is what determines whether players try to game the system with sufficient efforts & impact to be problematic.

Whether anyone bothers to 5C depends on 1) the impact they can have by doing so. 2) the impact they could have had by doing something else 3) the lengths they have to go to. 4) salt.

The OP ensures that 1) the negative 5C impact possible is minimal. 2) the positive impact if pledged to the power the player is actually loyal to, is far higher. 3) That the barrier to gaining votes means a large amount of positive actions have to be taken, likely greater than the negative imapacts. 4) salt is not a variable in this equation : 5C is a sodium-based life-form.

Not really. Someone decides they want to unlock a powerplay module, and haul 2000 merits to a nearby system. That system happens to be worth a negative value. The player is promptly kicked from the power for sabotage.

Then they would have been chronically uninformed (...) Fortunately, the mechanics would have saved them from further embarrassment. It's like this:
Why would they haul 2000 merits when the unlock requirement always only needed one run in a cutter or T9 ? Why would they be pledged to a Power at all for a module unlock when the same OP that introduced the Trust mechanic you cited, also moved modules to techbrokers ?

Fortunately the unpledge mechanic saved them from being inadvertently blown-up for having 'Opted-In' when in fact they were just intending to go shopping & couldnt give a 4x.

I'd argue the exact opposite, actually. Most players have no idea what voting does or what it's for, and that's with a very simple system already. Any additional complexity will make it completely unintelligible.

As above. Module shoppers and those with no idea how to interpret a multiple choice questionnaire, and no inclination to contact their team for advice in a teamgame.. Need Not Apply. You can keep those guys in the Solo/PG master-race, grinding the BGS, or simulating selfies.

What caused the disease in the first place is the fundamental nature of the game. Patching the errors without fixing the fundamental nature of the game is hard to see as anything but 'bandages'.

No. You like the term 'fundamental nature' but its a nonsense in this specific context . What caused the disease was the peculiarities of how all the mechanics interact to create a 'perfect storm' of incentives to 5C.
Ive outlined the details, explained the principles, in so many ways. Im starting to think, is this The Matrix ? Am I arguing with a sub-AI forum bot, designed to create the impression of a debate but in fact incapable of understanding the topic whatsoever and merely falling back on a library of generalities to keep me typing?

Either that, or the players who know what they're doing lose the ability to make tactical choices. There's always going to be a sacrifice, here.

No, you can maintain tactical and strategic options as you always have to determine how best to ration your available time & efforts. It is nothing but a good to remove appalling & appealing-to-5C expansion lossmakers by removing overheads or setting 'if net control system income < 0 : System income = 0'
I quite like that last option (not my idea) as it doesnt make weaponised expansions so hard.

That's by no means true. It's akin to putting another stick on top of an in-progress game of Jenga, versus setting up the game for the first time. Achieving balance in a complex and interlocked system can and often is much more difficult than just starting over.

Sure, you can throw together a quick fix, but chances are it won't work anywhere near what you actually want to happen, even assuming it doesn't knock the whole pile down.

No. Its changing certain variables within a system where you already know how those variables interact & know how players interact with them.

It is the whole new system that contains the greater uncertainty and is more unlikely to hold unforeseen bugs an outcomes.
The game is still built on the old spaghetti code, less you forget, unless your nebulous Powerplay redesign is going to rewrite all the background code as well ?

What caused the disease in the first place is the fundamental nature of the game. Patching the errors without fixing the fundamental nature of the game is hard to see as anything but 'bandages'.

I just had deja-vu

Where's that quote? I've never seen it before

Youve never read the Powerplay Flash Topic huh? figures.
I'll link you my post from yesterday that includes links to the flash topic, and also quotes the sections that relate most to this 5C issue.

It tramples on Lore, playergroup identity, and player agency, and still depends on the integrity of votes

Lore? Not at all. Most politicians have legions of political advisors. Even dictators have generals.

Youre talking about imposing a Fedneck voting system on the Empire Powers' playergroups, and thats just for a kickoff. The corruption & hypocrisy that spawns from Representative Democracy (your description) is the reason that many of the Powers exist in Lore in the first place. They will all push back far harder than any Open-Only objectors, I can assure you.

Playergroup identity? If their identity is strong enough, they can set up their own systems that utilize the new mechanics with little change.

We're not robots, or sub-AI forum bots . I suppose the playergroups can look on the changes as a new strategic challenge. How do we maintain our playerbase whilst we deal with an imposed C&C structure that makes a mockery of everything we represent? We've been insulted in the past, and survived. We've been passively slapped in the face by the devs for years, and now we get a big, deliberate, kick between the legs. Yes, im sure a strong enough identity should suffice to swallow the bile & not uninstall en-masse. no u cant haz my stuff

player agency? The only agency being denied is the agency to make decisions that go against the group will of the Power.

In my playergroup players choose for themselves which recommended activities they do and where according to their own minds. If they dont agree with a cause, or a target, they dont participate, as is their right. If they prefer other targets, they put them up for discussion & do as they will. If your voting system only puts recommended markers on the map, what benefit against 5C is that if anyone can do what they want anyway? We already put target recommended systems up every cycle anyway. Many Powers post weekly objectives on this forum too. If however that system forces players to contribute as directed, that takes the direct democracy we all have currently, and puts it behind a wall of elected reps. If the incentive is payment/bribery, distributed from on-high.. what an appallingly corrupt cluster that would create. Im sure those Playergroups would appreciate the irony of becoming the very worst of the thing they exist to escape from. FGS, fix the mechanics that cause 5C, dont create despots for no reason.

And lastly, unless the 5C group outnumbers the main group itself, the votes will have more integrity than ever. If they do outnumber the Power, the power is lost already. But hey, that's politics!

& what about the free multiple console accounts & now Epic store giveaways ? Do you even have a clue why votes are such an issue with 5C ? How can you say so blithely..

Again, these things simply wont work

.. when you dont have the first idea what issues these proposals are seeking to address. You seem perfectly capable of grasping the issues at stake, you certainly manipulate principles freely enough to understand. So why not engage with the content & context we're actually discussing, instead of falling back on oversimplified & misapplied base-principles that have no relevance nor meaning in the context .

 

[Bashy81]

Where's that quote? I've never seen it before.

Youve never read the Powerplay Flash Topic huh? figures.
I'll link you my post from yesterday that includes links to the flash topic, and also quotes the sections that relate most to this 5C issue

So why not engage with the content & context we're actually discussing

..(See Below)..

Not many are going to be so foolish as to say 'No'. But there are a number of factors that serve to reduce the incentive to 5C, and in combination they likely drive it to near-extinction. Low-level situational-5C is an accommodatable part of a conflict between factions, IF the mechanics that enable it are suitably balanced.

TL;DR: Yes.


Background:

At the moment, in-game, every single element is inadvertently biased towards benefiting 5C. It is always far harder to oppose it, than to do it. Other forms of attack do require more prep, more manpower, more grind, are more uncertain to succeed, and have nothing like the lasting impact. 5C expansions are extremely difficult to undo, and if they are even possible, often require a wider community effort, with cooperation or at least taking advantage, from enemies, in order to shed them. It is fair to say that shedding bad systems requires a Power to ritually disembowel itself by self-underming & turmoiling itself. It has to do what it's enemies have always been trying to do. Shedding 5C systems, is more like ritually hanging-drawing & then quartering yourself, because those 5C systems are so far down the order of systems that will shed. Devising a strategy to achieve that, and fight your way out of the resultant mess.. You can see why 5C has far too much incentive at present.



This is inevitably gonna be TL;DR but you better read it cause you did ask. xD

Rubbernuke's proposals are built around Sandro's Flash Topic from May 2018, so i'll start there..

"Vote to veto preparation

• Each player can vote to veto or support each preparation
• If a preparation ends the cycle with more veto votes than support votes it is removed from preparation
• Voting requires minimum, rolling time spent pledged and active for a power, somewhere into rank 2

Reasoning: these two changes in tandem are meant to make it easier to prevent bad systems from being prepared with minimal effort. Rather than use consolidation, which must be chosen blind in terms of both the final preparation for systems and the final resting place for the consolidation marker, here Commanders are voting on a fixed list and can choose precisely which systems they want to attempt to veto.

Profitability modifier applied to votes and preparation successes

• A system’s base profitability modifies preparation votes, withdraw votes and preparation successes
• Votes and successes for profitable systems are increased by a factor of 10

Reasoning: we think this modifier acts as another barrier against internal sabotage, forcing the saboteurs to work many more times harder to get the same effect as a Commander who has the power’s interests at heart.

Open only

• Powerplay contacts are only available to players in open
• Powerplay vouchers and commodities are destroyed if a player enters solo or private groups

Reasoning: We’ve saved the biggest change for last, as making Powerplay Open only goes way beyond the remit of a tweak. We’ve seen this topic discussed many times and we think it’s time we addressed it directly to get as much quality feedback as possible.

Powerplay is fundamentally about consensual player versus player conflict. We think that pretty much all of the systems and rules would benefit from being played out in Open only, as it would dramatically increase the chance of meeting other pledged players and being able to directly affect the outcomes of power struggles."

Source:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/powerplay-proposal.426940/

Frankly, depending on the details of the final implementation, I think those measures provide an elegant simple solution that would be sufficient regards 5C.

In Rubbernuke's (most recent) proposal (linked in the OP), the above "Vote to Veto prep" and "Open only" elements are modified, but do not reduce anti-5C measures at all. Overall it is a belt & braces, cast-iron Anti-5C list.


TL;DR : 5C got curb-stomped.

TL;DR : After curbstomp, 5C got a blood-eagle. (can't be too careful)

TL;DR : 5C carcass got burnt, sealed in a lead-lined box & dumped in a deep-sea trench.

(this is because the Solo/PG part of Powerplay is focused on the BGS of each Control System, providing all the haulage merits without which nothing can be hauled in Open, plus providing modifiers to make the activities in Open more effective.)

Cumulative result : Heavy Overkill.

The other aspect that tackles 5C from 'the other end' is buffing the standard means of attack. This serves to reduce the incentive to 5C passively, simply by making normal attacks more potent. These are again from the Flash Topic (source linked earlier)

"Guaranteed undermine if 100% more than fortification

• A control system that is undermined by 100% more than the fortification value will be undermined even if the fortification trigger has been successfully met

Reasoning: We feel that Powerplay rules tend towards stagnation and status quo, which is not something we intended. Despite all the effort in the world, a power that fortifies enough, against values set by the game rather than in opposition to attack, can remain safe. This change allows sheer force of effort (or numbers) to guarantee systems end up being undermined, making deficit more likely. And to stop this happening, a power must directly compete against its enemies.

Overhead removal and slight increase to distance cost modifier

• Overhead upkeep costs are removed making a system’s base profitability static
• Distance modifier to upkeep is increased to maintain some sense of expansion “gravity”

Reasoning: Overheads are a way to prevent rampant expansion of powers. However, the cost is very high, as they cause an unavoidable amount of uncertainty when calculating CC at the cycle change, as well as just being another level of complexity. We think it would be better to remove them, increase the distance modifier to upkeep a bit, and live with powers that can expand more, as with the other changes in this package we hope that the result will be much more direct attack and dynamism caused by powers fighting each other."

Ultimately, it all ensures that anything someone may be able to do to damage a Power from within, would almost always be time far better spent attacking it directly from without while pledged to an opposing Power. It puts 5C back in the realm of Psi-Ops; extravagant hi-risk efforts to cause confusion & doubt in the ranks of an enemy. But once it has played it's hand & surprise has passed it holds little ability to cause further damage itself. & that is the traditional role of 5C where it has appeared in conflicts historically.
So that's alright then.

 

[Gasert]

Gotta say, I like how the most common argument against this thread is "people who bought the game had an option to use this feature in solo and it would be unfair to fix it now". I bought the game, because it was the best multiplier space sim to cater to my wants. If I was looking for a singleplayer space sim, I would go back to X3, which being ages old, still has more features, options and inteligent AI. Also it has a story campaign as singleplayer games tend to have. Not gonna lie seing the Solo option the first time I logged into Elite "Dangerous" was quite a disappointment by itself, but alas. All off that is just my opinion and ED does have its advantages, the design and exploration is unrivalled.
That being said my first weeks in the game were quite sad, as playing a massively multiplayer game in which you dont meet any other players can be. Also "Dangerous" is a very misleading title as the most dangerous thing I encountered was gravity. I got tons of money and supplies quite quickly and the repetitive missions with no story or no valid goal besides getting more money was not really up my alley.
By that time I found a nice community centred around PP. Not only did that give the game a purpose (working towards a common goal), but it also promissed a multiplayer experience (finally). I don't understand how such a prominent feature promising a seemingly infinite content could be so overlooked by devs. The community gave incredible thought to simple actions. Unfortunately the MP experience was mostly limited to allies. The PP got me hooked for a few months, actually encouraging me to buy the DLC. However the initial promise of player interaction fell short as meeting any opposition was very rare.
Now to be perfectly honest, in my ideal world the Open would be the only mode to play in, but that would be too much to ask. However PP being basically a war of player factions seems very weird they would be fighting by avoiding any opposing players. As mentioned there is already a feature only available in "open" - CQC. I dont see a reason why PP couldn't be a second one.
BGS would benefit from more players in open as well, however it would make little difference due to the vast variety of missions with variable stations for quest giving and quest targets, therefore I wouldn't mind leaving BGS alone. PP however is often more predictable and in situations such as expansion race, would lead to a much more strategic approach, should there be actual players in open. Whole communities are tied to the game only for PP and due to the lack of attention to it, they are falling apart with more and more people leaving (myself included).
While new DLCs might attract new people, just a fraction of that time spent on PP would help keep the current playerbase.
I understand you can't cater to minority, however I do think that PP update is wanted by majority of the players, who give a damn about PP. There is nothing easier than to host an ingame poll to see the general opinion (especially for such a controversial topic).
The reason why a simple OOPP is so popular among PP players is mostly because it would be so simple to implement. Players feel like devs do not give a damn about the current playerbase, so they are trying to promote as simple fix as possible.

Any fix would be welcome, but actually listening to players could change everything. Oldschool Runescape is a version of a game which exist only due to popular demand of players and continues to be popular for their dedication to playerbase (every single update is subject to a poll, only 75%+ positive updates go through).

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

 

[DemiserofD]

The reason why a simple OOPP is so popular among PP players is mostly because it would be so simple to implement. Players feel like devs do not give a damn about the current playerbase, so they are trying to promote as simple fix as possible.

I think that's a fundamental misconception; it seems simple, but it really isn't. Some powers can swap between open and solo and be much safer than others, just as one example among many, due to the direction merits need to be hauled. You need to completely rewrite blocking and instancing. You need to solve the different country problem. Defending players need to stay online 100% of the time. Undermining players are difficult to find even in Open. And so on.

There are both gameplay and technical hurdles to overcome, and through all of it, there's no guarantee it will work. We have no proof that oopp would even fix anything!

Far more likely that players will simply do things exactly the way they currently do; there are currently 'open only' pp groups that are still impossible to actually find, because they do all their hauling at obscure hours, or they live in areas of the world where instancing with them is impossible.

The only people who would really suffer are the honest newbies, who would get gunned down en-masse by experienced players, while behind the scenes, nothing changes.

---

The fact that the game was sold for all three modes is just one small aspect of the many, many problems with the idea. I personally believe that it's a waste of dev time to code something like this that still wouldn't work, because the fundamental gameplay of powerplay is borked, and has been since the beginning. Fix that and oopp most likely wouldn't even be necessary, because players would come to Open because they want to do so, not because they're forced to do so.

 

[Drelthar]

How about variety in tasks, unique power play only tasks.

Instead of.... Move some cargo, or shoot some ships. The lamest of the missions.

Why aren't we shutting down surface bases, taking out/robbing megaships, and hunting down important members of related factions?

 

[Hydrino]

My own addition, which I think would enrich the entire PP idea and game:

• Be sure PP is integrated in the BGS; everyone doing missions for a faction should be affecting the Powers the faction aligns with
• Extend PP map and some mechanics DOWN to the minor faction / player faction level
  • Each system map would have a Power Play view / political control and heatmap similar to the galactic map to make it more clear how minor factions are affecting the BGS in a system and not just across multiple systems and the bubble, enhance squadrons and player minor faction play and just institute another cool map feature (that's been a long time outside the horrible UI re-do of Odyssey), particularly if this was done in a logarithmic or full-scale orrey view that was easier and prettier than the current one.

I could expand on that a bit but those are my two main "really, really would love to see" in addition to various PP specific tweaks from OP/Sandro Focused Feedback post.