Starting with the positive - I do want to emphasise that for me the positives of Powerplay are great and the negatives aren't personally a big deal in terms of having fun playing Powerplay on an hour-by-hour level.
As far as the moment-by-moment gameplay goes, I think it works well for me, it adds options, it adds a bit of extra interest to normal trading/combat/exploration - though the hostility of enemy systems could be higher - I didn't even feel like enemy Strongholds were threatening; below that is basically "well, it says Hostile and that's as bad as it gets".
There's a good mix of old and new activities - and even better, there's a niche for combined cargo-combat ships which is more effective than a single-role build. Planning how to do multiple scoring activities in a single trip and it being possible and effective is a great touch!
So for something to do in Elite Dangerous, it's great, and while there's obviously some balancing and bugfixing to do this is a really solid foundation for what might be the game feature I was least excited about on its initial announcement.
As expected, all the major flaws of Powerplay 1 - opacity of how to do stuff, it being possible (and easy) to harm your own power while doing the obvious things, the necessity for all productive action to go through a single coordinating player group, the encouragement of superpower-wide alliances, etc. - all that is completely gone and the strategic layer is a vast improvement. If you want a system, you take
it, if you want your enemy not to have a system you attack it, all pretty clear and doesn't need a giant spreadsheet.
But does it work as a bubble-wide battle?
So the strategic layer is also really good in general and obviously gets rid of the multiple major flaws of Poweprlay 1 ... but I think there's a slight balance issue - subtler than just "activity A is faster than activity B" - which should be looked at in the longer term.
As seen in the Thargoid War and the Political BGS, players collectively tend to prioritise defence over attack, all else equal, and try to avoid taking big risks/losses even if there's more to gain - and so we see in Week 1 - not very many systems have changed state, but what has, has generally changed to strengthen rather than weaken, with almost all powers improving their net position, most significantly. (And the main exception, caused by Antal losing control of Maia, is unlikely to be a regular occurrence)
It already doesn't take much to encourage players to "defend first" and Powerplay 2 takes things a lot further that way by making defensive actions easier and more profitable.
Fortification (and mostly also Acquisition) actions are commonly things players might do anyway and often intrinsically profitable even before the PP payouts: scan ships, profitable trading, bounty hunting, exploration (if it comes back!), mining ... even the more PP-specific ones which didn't do that much before like rares trading, search and rescue, fixing holo-projectors, etc. are generally things which are legal and the local minor faction will give you rep or money for. Even if you're not "playing Powerplay" so long as you're hanging around your own Power's territory you'll be gradually building up merits for you and reinforcements for the system
(Also, a lot of the higher-rank Powerplay bonuses to payouts only work in your own space, further encouraging sticking to it - especially if those bonuses boost merits!)
Undermining actions are generally deliberate and often personally costly in rep or money or both - low-value trades, illegal kills, various Odyssey settlement operations, sabotaging holo-projectors, donation missions. Someone just passing through another Power's territory - or even doing a bit of trading and bounty hunting there - will probably get no merits at all for it.
(it doesn't help in this respect that Mining and S&R activities for Undermining are either buggy or have some obscure undocumented condition)
So all of the 'passive' traffic is going to be pretty one-sided. But it's also of course easier to rank up and get merits through Fortification rather than Undermining, three of the five weekly tasks in Week 1 were Fortification and the same is true for me in Week 2, no-one wants to lose a key Stronghold/Fortified system and all its Exploited systems with it, etc.
Without more incentive to attack than defend - and combined with there being thousands of unoccupied systems which can be Acquired without a fight, there's a strong likelihood of most borders becoming walls of Fortified/Stronghold systems which would be an incredible slog to attack (and still easier to defend), and a de facto 12-way truce arriving because it's just easier not to.
Suggestions
I could of course be entirely wrong, and I certainly expect that not all of what I've said above would hold up if I made a similar post next week or next month - and "seeing how things turn out for a couple of months" once the most obvious imbalances are fixed would be sensible - but it doesn't seem like there's enough to encourage inter-power conflict. So, some thoughts about how that might happen...
I'm guessing that the current ultra-high thresholds to move a system are deliberate in the early balancing phase to stop overpowered actions destroying (or fortifying) the entire bubble. But hopefully once the balance between action types is in a good place, that will come down a bit. (Or the few currently fast actions are intended to be that fast, so the average merits/week count will go up a lot, perhaps). But on its own, this won't stop that extra pace being used to reinforce faster rather than attack faster.
There needs to be a lot more in the way of "passive" undermining actions that a player just wandering through an enemy system playing the game in a non-Powerplay way will do. They don't have to be the most effective per hour, of course, but something which puts a general "default" pressure on systems might help prevent stagnation. Things like the weekly bonus goals should also strongly encourage attack over defence, and it might be necessary to add some power rank bonuses which apply when attacking/in enemy territory too. (Reduced rebuy doesn't count)
There needs to be some strong encouragement to fight: perhaps a declaration that a list of N systems (positioned to ensure fights) are strategically important, and so whoever holds those systems on X date (which would need to be a few months away) will get a substantial bonus for everyone pledged to that Power for each key system held? I don't know - just something to encourage players to fight over the 9000 systems already in scope rather than gradually take the other 11,000...
As far as the moment-by-moment gameplay goes, I think it works well for me, it adds options, it adds a bit of extra interest to normal trading/combat/exploration - though the hostility of enemy systems could be higher - I didn't even feel like enemy Strongholds were threatening; below that is basically "well, it says Hostile and that's as bad as it gets".
There's a good mix of old and new activities - and even better, there's a niche for combined cargo-combat ships which is more effective than a single-role build. Planning how to do multiple scoring activities in a single trip and it being possible and effective is a great touch!
So for something to do in Elite Dangerous, it's great, and while there's obviously some balancing and bugfixing to do this is a really solid foundation for what might be the game feature I was least excited about on its initial announcement.
As expected, all the major flaws of Powerplay 1 - opacity of how to do stuff, it being possible (and easy) to harm your own power while doing the obvious things, the necessity for all productive action to go through a single coordinating player group, the encouragement of superpower-wide alliances, etc. - all that is completely gone and the strategic layer is a vast improvement. If you want a system, you take
it, if you want your enemy not to have a system you attack it, all pretty clear and doesn't need a giant spreadsheet.
But does it work as a bubble-wide battle?
So the strategic layer is also really good in general and obviously gets rid of the multiple major flaws of Poweprlay 1 ... but I think there's a slight balance issue - subtler than just "activity A is faster than activity B" - which should be looked at in the longer term.
As seen in the Thargoid War and the Political BGS, players collectively tend to prioritise defence over attack, all else equal, and try to avoid taking big risks/losses even if there's more to gain - and so we see in Week 1 - not very many systems have changed state, but what has, has generally changed to strengthen rather than weaken, with almost all powers improving their net position, most significantly. (And the main exception, caused by Antal losing control of Maia, is unlikely to be a regular occurrence)
It already doesn't take much to encourage players to "defend first" and Powerplay 2 takes things a lot further that way by making defensive actions easier and more profitable.
Fortification (and mostly also Acquisition) actions are commonly things players might do anyway and often intrinsically profitable even before the PP payouts: scan ships, profitable trading, bounty hunting, exploration (if it comes back!), mining ... even the more PP-specific ones which didn't do that much before like rares trading, search and rescue, fixing holo-projectors, etc. are generally things which are legal and the local minor faction will give you rep or money for. Even if you're not "playing Powerplay" so long as you're hanging around your own Power's territory you'll be gradually building up merits for you and reinforcements for the system
(Also, a lot of the higher-rank Powerplay bonuses to payouts only work in your own space, further encouraging sticking to it - especially if those bonuses boost merits!)
Undermining actions are generally deliberate and often personally costly in rep or money or both - low-value trades, illegal kills, various Odyssey settlement operations, sabotaging holo-projectors, donation missions. Someone just passing through another Power's territory - or even doing a bit of trading and bounty hunting there - will probably get no merits at all for it.
(it doesn't help in this respect that Mining and S&R activities for Undermining are either buggy or have some obscure undocumented condition)
So all of the 'passive' traffic is going to be pretty one-sided. But it's also of course easier to rank up and get merits through Fortification rather than Undermining, three of the five weekly tasks in Week 1 were Fortification and the same is true for me in Week 2, no-one wants to lose a key Stronghold/Fortified system and all its Exploited systems with it, etc.
Without more incentive to attack than defend - and combined with there being thousands of unoccupied systems which can be Acquired without a fight, there's a strong likelihood of most borders becoming walls of Fortified/Stronghold systems which would be an incredible slog to attack (and still easier to defend), and a de facto 12-way truce arriving because it's just easier not to.
Suggestions
I could of course be entirely wrong, and I certainly expect that not all of what I've said above would hold up if I made a similar post next week or next month - and "seeing how things turn out for a couple of months" once the most obvious imbalances are fixed would be sensible - but it doesn't seem like there's enough to encourage inter-power conflict. So, some thoughts about how that might happen...
I'm guessing that the current ultra-high thresholds to move a system are deliberate in the early balancing phase to stop overpowered actions destroying (or fortifying) the entire bubble. But hopefully once the balance between action types is in a good place, that will come down a bit. (Or the few currently fast actions are intended to be that fast, so the average merits/week count will go up a lot, perhaps). But on its own, this won't stop that extra pace being used to reinforce faster rather than attack faster.
There needs to be a lot more in the way of "passive" undermining actions that a player just wandering through an enemy system playing the game in a non-Powerplay way will do. They don't have to be the most effective per hour, of course, but something which puts a general "default" pressure on systems might help prevent stagnation. Things like the weekly bonus goals should also strongly encourage attack over defence, and it might be necessary to add some power rank bonuses which apply when attacking/in enemy territory too. (Reduced rebuy doesn't count)
There needs to be some strong encouragement to fight: perhaps a declaration that a list of N systems (positioned to ensure fights) are strategically important, and so whoever holds those systems on X date (which would need to be a few months away) will get a substantial bonus for everyone pledged to that Power for each key system held? I don't know - just something to encourage players to fight over the 9000 systems already in scope rather than gradually take the other 11,000...
. I didn't have any contact with PP1, and I am not to deep into the happenings and mechanics of the political struggles and such. I am just a simple mercenary wanting to do stuff, so I got into PP2 with somewhat fresh eyes.
