PowerPlay: Proposed Ideas & Changes

[StarfireIX]

PowerPlay: Proposed Ideas & Changes


Hello everyone!


I'd like to bring up an interesting list of suggestions and ideas that would greatly open up the lore and gameplay with PowerPlay. These ideas I think would open up the scale and importance of the political war between superpowers like the Federation and Empire. So let's get started!


Idea #1 - Power Missions
• Power missions are Lore missions, giving players the chance to understand the history of the Character and how he/she rose up as a powerful force. As you progress through power missions, your reputation with that character increases and your enemies decreased. The more rep you gain, the more secretive missions, discoveries and rewards, and more personal conversations with people like the Emperor. In addition, power modules could be integrated as rewards for power missions to make things sense. For example, to unlock Imperial Hammers for a week you need to help the Emperor by delivering stuff to Gutamaya or system security. If the weapons are locked then you will need to start the progression to unlock again to do so. The time to unlock shouldn't take days to do, and every mission should feel fresh or different. To see power missions for a power you need to be pledged to that power and at the headquarters. Another idea with power missions is that they could be split into different types, such as:

• PowerPlay
• Lore & History
• Research
• Personal


Idea #2 - Power Attacks
• This is a nasty one, and can make the competition of PowerPlay more fierce. If you're at Rank 5 with one of the main superpowers, you will have 1 opportunity per 1-2 weeks to deploy a Power Attack. What this will do is order the Power to send a capital ship to the system, increasing triggers for the opposition that will make it harder to complete. The opposition can do the same, but both sides will reach a max of 3 capital ships per system. If they are deployed at Expansions, they may be seen at Crime Sweep (PP Conflict Zones) in battles to make things interesting.


Idea #3 - Picking your Rank Bonus
• So you have a favourite power? You've undermined a system and gathered thousands of merits, but the new cycle has ended and your new rank appears. This time, you will be given the opportunity to choose a bonus that is available for your rank. This is probably one of the most important PowerPlay ideas that will help give the player a choice, rather than siding with a power he/she hates but has no choice. For example, at Rank 5 Felicia Winters offers an influence bonus to BGS but Zachary Hudson doesn't have the option. If you give players the ability to choose a bonus, the battlefield of PowerPlay becomes balanced rather than a power2win scenario.


Idea #4 - PowerPlay is Open Only
• This'll probably be a popular one to discuss about. We all know about the Open, Private Group and Solo debate right? The reason I've brought this up is that Frontier has encouraged PvP engagements in PowerPlay. If you died to someone marked as enemy, it's consensual and has meaning to it. Some PowerPlay groups have rules to do PowerPlay in Open only. If a group is seen to do it in Private Group or Solo, they are given a bad reputation by surrounding power communities for doing so. We shouldn't have groups like these named and shamed for an issue that could go on forever. PowerPlay is where PvE/PvP action is at, so let's have PowerPlay an open only mechanic. This can be done by removing merit rewards in Solo and Private Group, such as setting a NPC worth as 0 merits. On a side note, enemy players should be changed from a 1 Merit reward to 10-30 merits.


Idea #5 - More PowerPlay Rewards
• This comes in with Idea #1. As you progress through the power, you will receive special items such as military uniforms, hats, pants, helmets, power ship skins, modules and weapons! This will of course take some time to do, especially in regards to creating the content itself. The end result would see a great variation and choice of where the player wants to go. In addition to Power Missions it will help rank progression to ships depending on the allegiance of that power. So let's dive into some ideas of what weapons or modules we could see. Here's a list of the following:


• Tractor Beam - Using Thargoid gravitational technology, the tractor beam produces a directional pull of an object towards the owner of the hardpoint. Due to the dangerous nature of it, the tractor beam can only pull small objects and possibly small-medium ships.

• Advanced Railgun (Large) - With higher damage than the medium railgun, this large railgun fires high velocity shots at the cost of more generated heat and distribution power.

• The Pillager (Huge Railgun) - The Pillager is a huge railgun and known to be one of the most dangerous and expensive weapons of the Galaxy. It emits a high velocity beam for a few seconds before reloading again. It's a very hot weapon and a single shot can drain the whole weapon's capacitor. It is rumoured to be a capital ship killer.

• Plasma Torpedo - The new weapon of the Federation. The plasma torpedo fires faster than a torpedo with higher damage than the huge plasma accelerator. Unfortunately like all other torpedoes, the plasma torpedo suffers a lack of ammo capacity.

• Implosion Bomb - Designed by Yuri Grom manufacturers, the implosion bomb is one of the coolest and frightening weapons today. Once deployed, the bomb creates an implosion and a damaging shockwave hitting all ships within a range of 2km. It's most effective on hull than shield.

• Force Disruptor - Another fine work of Thargoid technology. The force disruptor creates a large and noticeable bubble around the person's ship, disrupting all frameshift abilities inside the bubble within a 3km radius. Due to side effects of the weapon, your ship will automatically slow down while it's activated.



I hope you guys like some or most of these ideas, as I'm really confident that these changes will make not only PowerPlay but the whole game more exciting in various ways. Feel free to discuss your thoughts and opinions on this.



Fly Dangerously, Commanders!


- CMDR StarfireIX

 

[CMDR_Brantford of FLC]

Regarding the Open Only proposal for Powerplay. I can say from a Federal Liberal Command perspective we always encourage our players to do PP in open. It gets very frustrating though when the Empire powers sends their PvP'ers to try and stop us from hauling in open or opposing their expansions, yet they do their own expansions and such in private group or solo. It is simply not fair that we have no opportunity to stop them, yet because they know we play in open.. they'll send their fleets to try and stop us.

I would say if Frontier doesn't want to completely play PP in open.. to at least make the merits earned in Open worth a lot more.. to acknowledge the risk these players take by playing in open. (and to encourage the people playing in PG or solo to play in open if they aren't getting as many merits or earning as many)

Sandro is on record as saying PP was never intended to be played in PG or Solo.. that it should be consensual PvP. I would ask Sandro and Frontier to please re-visit this issue and put that sentiment into actions.

 

[Grey Seattleite]

I had to create a forum account just for this topic. For Frontier's consideration, Re: #4 and "Open Only," I have a pair of complementary, easy-to-implement ideas that would fix the awful loopholes that could ruin "Open Only" before it could even get off the ground:

1. As others have suggested, don't allow merits to be added to your total from kills while not in Open. The code for it is extraordinarily simple (just check the client mode before awarding merits for the kill), and the only thing stopping a robust PowerPlay interaction would be instancing failures... which hey, all of us already deal with day to day, so we'll live with it. Someone tries to undo your work by sitting in solo or PG in a crime sweep, or on a nav beacon, in their AFK turret boat while they go watch Netflix? No merits earned, and your active play matters more than it does now.

2. Turn the FSD off in any mode but Open if, and only if, you're carrying unredeemed PowerPlay Cargo or Merits. Again, this is a simple check to make - if the held combat merits or powerplay cargo types are > 0, and the mode != Open, FSD is locked out. Nobody gets to haul merits in solo, or turn in anything without a chance of being seen. Pad blocking? No problem, just log to solo and fly in to land once you're at the station. Someone station camping/griefing using a weird loophole or bug? Same deal... log to a mode where you can land or take off in peace, then log to Open to go into supercruise or high-wake.


As a result, we'd see a pile of positive things:

1. We'd see more players actually interact in a system meant to promote competitive interaction.

2. We'd see more strategic grouping. If instances fill up and "split," which they do now routinely, you'd want to add your underminers and haulers to bigger wings in hopes of protecting them, or maybe even preventing them from seeing enemy players.

3. Fortification haulers actually would be in danger. Fighting in enemy capital systems would matter, as would blockading systems you wanted to prevent being fortified. The only things stopping you from affecting Power Play would be time and instancing. On this note, being able to chase down fleeing players (between systems using wake scanners) would begin to matter a whole lot more.

4. Expanding by hauling could become less money-intensive (depending on the target system), and expanding by combat at 10 merits per kill could become less painful, as a direct result of UMing at 30 merits per player per kill in infinite private groups ceasing. (A wing of 4 in PG currently gains up to 120 merits per kill, very easily surpassing 7,200 merits per hour per wing, with no counter-play.)

5. Systems with large numbers of Resource sites to UM would become bigger hotspots and more difficult to expand to, while systems with only a nav beacon would become far more difficult to oppose. Regardless, the focus would go back to hunting other players in PvP for "merit removal" rather than pure PvE farming races.

6. PowerPlay systems would become more active in general. Players looking for full-on PvP fights could flock to any active PP location on the map, rather than hovering around a CG, and be guaranteed to have some action. Being told they would get hundreds of PvP interactions a week could even encourage more currently uninterested players to pledge to a faction in PowerPlay, rather than just camping whatever zone has been labeled with "haul materials for the faction of the week." If players currently seen as "griefers" were drawn to a more appropriate PvP environment, this would greatly improve the player experience in CG systems, and in the long-term, get more people to play in what could be a safer Open mode (outside of active PowerPlay areas).


Please, Frontier, consider these two changes for the longevity and health of the PowerPlay community as we begin a brand new expansion/patch cycle!

 

[crazyjayp]

im all for open powerplay. and mechanics put in place to render powerplay less "stale" Let PvP count for something. Tie powerplay into bgs wars, let us duke it out in combat zones instead of shooting npcs for merits.

 

[k3z1a]

OPEN only PP, financial incentives for hauling powers

OPEN PP ONLY: 10/10 for the comments above about PP in open only or heavily incentivized. Powerplay simply dies when people immediately run to solo or PG and it disrupts the basic strategies for offensive and defensive operations. We already have to battle enough with instancing that when combined with a sometimes majority of enemy operations done in PG is just incredibly frustrating and discouraging. PP shouldn't just be a race of PVE on both sides, it should involve participation from all playstyles within a power and mix up PVE and PVP in fun ways.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR HAULING: Powers such as ours (Winters) that are forced to haul for expansions end up spending billions of credits often for nothing, while powers such as ALD that expand through combat actually make money. This does not create an even playing field and could be changed by simply adjusting up the powerplay bonus CR received when dropping aid. While its a great idea to be forcing different powers to do different things this needs to be changed, so that haulers actually receive something for their contributions.

COMBAT LOGGING: More than 50% of my encounters with an enemy result in a combat log or desync, the others actually resulting in a fight/death/wake. Increase the menu logout timer. Actually investigate and punish videos for combat logging. Most of us in the PVP community are convinced that you all don't enforce this at all.

 

[Pakhuis1973]

Many fantastic ideas for longtime Powerplay and 3 answers solely about open play. Suggest we close this thread.

 

[Uridium242]

There's simply no good reason to be able to influence PP whilst in solo or PG.
Power Play merits should only be earned whilst in Open or at the very least at a substantial higher value for doing so.

 

[Grey Seattleite]

Any discussion of PP has to come with a discussion of what's currently hurting it most. Don't be shocked to see Open Only as the biggest part of the current conversation. [smile]

Rawner135 has a pile of really interesting ideas, particularly for new rewards, and ways to make the power move visible via powerful NPCs (rather than total push-overs) with the "Power Attacks." I even don't mind the idea of picking rank bonuses for balance purposes, but from a flavour angle, I can see how it could be controversial giving every faction access to every bonus. There are a lot of mechanics potential in the original post, and I agree that everyone would like more rewards. What's being suggested would lead to more creative builds and mechanics (and hell, things like tractor beams would be a whole different kinds of support ships to help big ships get kills).

But those new mechanics and guns could all exist, and PP would still be on life support. Without solving the pg/solo problem by going to Open Only (his point #4), this is all for naught.

 

[Soulsbane]

Strongly agree with the main intentions of this thread.

1. PowerPlay should be completely or at least strongly incentivized to be in Open and not PG/Solo. Shifting to PG/Solo while earning or carrying merits should result in a elimination or significant reduction of those merits.

2. Provide better balance between differing methods of expansions (combat vs hauling).

3. Provide a better mechanic for PP commanders to locate and engage opposing commanders holding merits. Make holding large amounts of merits for a snipe a much riskier proposition. Maybe even a merit decay for held merits over 24 hours?

Definitely in favor of all of these that help move PP actions into the open and allow for more direction competition between PP pilots.

 

[Serin Vickers]

I don't want to derail the thread by posting lenghty own ideas that spawn equally lenghty replies and distract from your ones but from what you mentioned #4 is the only one I agree with, albeit with a slight modification: Fortification, undermining and preparation should on be doable while in Open Mode (and logging to solo or group mode removes the hauling goods/currency you carry so you can't cheat by doing part of the way in open and then switching).
The rest I don't see as sufficent to fix the shortcomings of the current system or enhance the experience as it rides on the same flaws the current mechanics have.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Strongly agree with the main intentions of this thread.

1. PowerPlay should be completely or at least strongly incentivized to be in Open and not PG/Solo. Shifting to PG/Solo while earning or carrying merits should result in a elimination or significant reduction of those merits.

2. Provide better balance between differing methods of expansions (combat vs hauling).

3. Provide a better mechanic for PP commanders to locate and engage opposing commanders holding merits. Make holding large amounts of merits for a snipe a much riskier proposition. Maybe even a merit decay for held merits over 24 hours?

Definitely in favor of all of these that help move PP actions into the open and allow for more direction competition between PP pilots.

For #1, I could have sworn such a measure was implemented in either 2.3 or 2.4.......or am I remembering that wrong?

 

[Marc_Hicks]

The one idea I keep repeating, as it seems the easiest to implement, is this one:

Within each system, you'll have 1 or more Factions that are affiliated to a Specific Power. Corporate Factions might be more likely to be affiliated with one of the two Federal Powers, Feudal or Patronage Factions will be more likely to be affiliated to Imperial Factions....etc etc.

Once you pledge to a Power, a filter will be applied to the Mission Board & Passenger Lounge UI to show which factions, if any, are affiliated to which Powers. Missions which undermine the influence of a Faction will undermine the influence of the affiliated Power, & vice versa.....but only if the mission is done by someone who is Pledged to a power. Likewise, certain Regular & PAX missions would have the Power Play Logo next to them, indicating that these are missions that will have a strong impact on the standing of one or more Powers in the system, & gain the player merits as a result.

The other upshot of this might be that it will be much harder for a pledged player to be friendly with *all* factions within a system, due to Power Play based antagonisms.

 

[Pakhuis1973]

A power could use it's spare CC to buy a capital ship, or some other kind of megaship, this could:
1. Increase a systems security, or change it's triggers. Or the ship itself could be fortified/undermined (read sent back).
and/or.
2. Could function as a secondary headquarters, an alternative/supplement to preparation, opening up further colonialization elsewhere, at a cost ofcourse.
3. Each headquarters could have a dock for such a ship.
4. This ship can have specific powerplay missions: hauling for new base/station building, PR missions to win the poulation, etc.
Depending on whether the power already owns the system, or is in some kind of hostility.
5. The ship could also colonize uninhabited systems outside the bubble, at a significant cost and effort.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

Idea #1 - Power Missions

They need to fix the lore & characters first Torval is pro solving matters by diplomacy so why is she carting off all her political opponents to prison camps etc? & as for Aisling… well…

There should be medals for Powerplay; getting 40,000 merits, term of service, something like that & possibly a Rating 6 with other perks.

Idea #2 - Power Attacks

Unfortunately I have to disagree with this considering how unbalanced Powerplay is it would just mean Winters having a field day against the Empire & the crippling of the smaller powers some of which are only kept afloat by dedicated commanders pumping 100s of millions of credits into fortification each cycle.

Idea #3 - Picking your Rank Bonus

That could cause balance issues imho due to the other bonuses (not that it is balanced now as some Rating 5 bonuses in particular are comparatively garbage). What needs to happen is FDev re-evaluate all the current Power Bonuses, Power Weapons, & Exploitation Impacts to create a more level playing field imho.

Idea #4 - PowerPlay is Open Only

Can't happen due to XBox & PS4 players & the fact that you can't define what a Powerplay activity is due to the link between Powerplay & the BGS. If I go in solo & UA Bomb a station is that Powerplay?

Idea #5 - More PowerPlay Rewards

Medals, uniforms, more power modules & more ratings - 100% behind you on the principle of this.

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

It doesn't matter what they do with powerplay, as long as its not open only it will never work. You can't make a competitive mode and then allow to opt out of competition with absolutely no penalty or anything, then you end up with a broken mess with basically no playerbase like you have now. Imagine a football match, except players can make themselves invisible at any time and kick the ball around all by themselves with no goalkeepers or anything. How does that even make sense - same for powerplay outside of open.

Open play only or bust.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

It doesn't matter what they do with powerplay, as long as its not open only it will never work..

Because of the trigger reduction mechanic the only way to make Powerplay Open only is to make the entire game Open only & that's not going to happen.

 

[k3z1a]

Because of the trigger reduction mechanic the only way to make Powerplay Open only is to make the entire game Open only & that's not going to happen.

You are confusing BGS related activities, which influence triggers, with basic powerplay activities such as fortification / UM / expansions, etc. The latter would be simple to implement as open only while maintaining connected BGS activities for PG/solo.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

You are confusing BGS related activities, which influence triggers, with basic powerplay activities such as fortification / UM / expansions, etc. The latter would be simple to implement as open only while maintaining connected BGS activities for PG/solo.

No, sabotaging rivals Fortification triggers is an important part of Powerplay that significantly makes fortification more difficult forcing more ships to be diverted to ferrying Power Commodities. If it wasn't part of Powerplay, Powers wouldn't do it.

 

[k3z1a]

No, sabotaging rivals Fortification triggers is an important part of Powerplay that significantly makes fortification more difficult forcing more ships to be diverted to ferrying Power Commodities. If it wasn't part of Powerplay, Powers wouldn't do it.

It is clearly part of powerplay, but per your original post it appears your argument is that it's so important as to keep the rest of powerplay from being open-only. BGS work is incredibly impactful but the most important change imo would still be having all direct merit related activities forced in open. Both would be fantastic, but could see it being tricky.