I mean, maybe you want to activate a BGS state, or maybe you want to take control of a secondary station and need to lower your inf to trigger the war, etc.
Pull Your Fingers Out - Incrementally Improving PowerPlay
- Thread starter Edmund Black
- Start date
-
- Tags
- #powerplay fdev powerplay
Those choices are temporary. Usually they reverse course in under a week. Anyone seriously interested in the BGS will tell you a week is next to nothing. I'm talking about scenarios where a BGS group will organise a sustained effort against their own faction, and the only two reasons I'm aware of for that are diplomacy - e.g. ceding a system - or PowerPlay.
Disclosure: I'm a PvE enthusiast, a cooperative-not-competitive player, and have no interest in any form of PvP
And I think PowerPlay should be open only.
It was specifically designed as an extension of PvP, and billed as such, and involves direct opposed actions by players. Allowing it to work in Solo, or even in Private Groups, not only defeats the PvP intention of the feature, but it leaves the game vulnerable to the bots that have been shown to exist by numerous people on the forums who have provided evidence of such. They can attack, and the targets can not defend. That becomes a heck of a lopsided fifth column situation being exploited, and it's not fair to the people who play the game. And before anyone thinks to reply with, "Yes, but how does it affect your game? Why should you care?" I'll point out that shifting PowerPlay affects EVERY player, without exception, even in Solo mode. For example, if your home system of choice suddenly gets taken from Li Yong-Rui's control, all of a sudden that convenient 15% discount you've been getting for everything goes poof.
PowerPlay should be open only, and the modules that we currently get from PowerPlay should be relegated to some form of tech broker so nobody can complain that they're being "locked out of content" and/or "being forced to play in open."
Just because a game mechanic is of no interest to me doesn't mean it's somehow invalid or worthless. It's okay for people to like different things. And I think people should be allowed to enjoy the parts of the game they do like...including PowerPlay. And it's only fair that a PvP-intended feature should be maintained as a PvP feature. PowerPlay should be open only.
And I think PowerPlay should be open only.
It was specifically designed as an extension of PvP, and billed as such, and involves direct opposed actions by players. Allowing it to work in Solo, or even in Private Groups, not only defeats the PvP intention of the feature, but it leaves the game vulnerable to the bots that have been shown to exist by numerous people on the forums who have provided evidence of such. They can attack, and the targets can not defend. That becomes a heck of a lopsided fifth column situation being exploited, and it's not fair to the people who play the game. And before anyone thinks to reply with, "Yes, but how does it affect your game? Why should you care?" I'll point out that shifting PowerPlay affects EVERY player, without exception, even in Solo mode. For example, if your home system of choice suddenly gets taken from Li Yong-Rui's control, all of a sudden that convenient 15% discount you've been getting for everything goes poof.
PowerPlay should be open only, and the modules that we currently get from PowerPlay should be relegated to some form of tech broker so nobody can complain that they're being "locked out of content" and/or "being forced to play in open."
Just because a game mechanic is of no interest to me doesn't mean it's somehow invalid or worthless. It's okay for people to like different things. And I think people should be allowed to enjoy the parts of the game they do like...including PowerPlay. And it's only fair that a PvP-intended feature should be maintained as a PvP feature. PowerPlay should be open only.
At risk of me morphing into my wine gum forum moderator nemesis, its that to make the BGS Open only you'd have to essentially take it apart when its matured and works. For example, to police your territory you'd have to destroy any unknown player since you cannot know what missions they have, or the intention for trading, data they have or bonds held. You could make it so you can scan to find out, but even then you can never know intention and would need to play it safe. Powerplay sidesteps all that, you have outward pledges, defined territory and one of two cargo types, along with visuble real time (i.e. 1 unit of action = 1 instant mapped outcome in the UI) cause and effect. If I see a Patreus pledge in a Mahon expansion I know what he is doing- just as I know where pledges will be because activities in Powerplay are well defined. In the BGS you can never really know who has done what, because all activity is an aggregate over 24 hours- its the sum total that matters.
My point was more in the direction that when you see something change in BGS, you know a player did it. Which is an awful lot like PowerPlay. If something moves, then someone must have moved it. I see your point that in order to move something in PowerPlay, you must first carry around a giant blinking sign that says who you're ostensibly supporting.
But I would like to remind you once again that some PowerPlayers pledge to a Power explicitly for the purpose of destroying its economy. Whether it's people or as someone above suggested, maybe bots, is irrelevant. Just as you can work against a BGS faction while claiming to support it, and even while doing actions that ordinarily would be considered "support" (like pushing it to expand from a certain system, locking it out of expanding from a different system more in the faction's interest), PowerPlay's design is also so poorly executed that the most effective way to destroy a Power is to first pledge to that Power (and then, much like BGS sabotage, expand it to systems that ruin its economy).
Every PP article gets people replying "nobody cares about PP" and what they mean is THEY don't care. Because PP is not a "mode" it is difficult to track exactly who is and is not actively playing rather than just module-shopping. One reason PP folks are not more "visible" is because they spend a lot more time on private power-specific Discord/Slack servers, rather than discussing things openly on the official forums. Fairly obvious why - PowerPlay is competitive, and you can't discuss tactics and strategies in open.
Probably the best guide to how many folks are involved in PP are the leaderboards. I added up the top 15 PowerPlay squadrons last season - total of 10 million merits earned from UM and forts. So we're missing a bunch of PVP players that don't bother to earn merits, and folks who do BGS in order to influence PowerPlay (which is a lot of time in the cockpit), but oh well. But because I'm only looking at squadrons, we're also probably not counting the randos that grind out merits just to get the modules. So it should be reasonably informative. Anyway, 10M merits earned by players in last season, which is 8 weeks, so 1.3M merits per week.To put that in perspective, that's the same as 260 CMDRs earning 5000 marits a week to preserve rating 5. Of course some people do way more than that, but plenty do less as well. But either way you slice it, that's a lot of CMDR-hours put into PowerPlay!
Probably the best guide to how many folks are involved in PP are the leaderboards. I added up the top 15 PowerPlay squadrons last season - total of 10 million merits earned from UM and forts. So we're missing a bunch of PVP players that don't bother to earn merits, and folks who do BGS in order to influence PowerPlay (which is a lot of time in the cockpit), but oh well. But because I'm only looking at squadrons, we're also probably not counting the randos that grind out merits just to get the modules. So it should be reasonably informative. Anyway, 10M merits earned by players in last season, which is 8 weeks, so 1.3M merits per week.To put that in perspective, that's the same as 260 CMDRs earning 5000 marits a week to preserve rating 5. Of course some people do way more than that, but plenty do less as well. But either way you slice it, that's a lot of CMDR-hours put into PowerPlay!
Forget about everything else, and let's talk changes that need to happen now. Let's discuss a few things FDEV could do TOMORROW and make the game better.
1. For superpowers, same superpower factions are always good for you. imperial corporations and dictatorships should be good for Patreus. There are NO Federation governments that are good for Hudson, that needs to be fixed because those are the people that presumably elected him (or rather, voted no confidence in the other person).
2. We need to fix the mechanics of powerplay so that working FOR your own power is more profitable than signing up for an enemy to work AGAINST them from within. We have to do something about 5C, the only way to do that is to make playing for your own team not only better, but necessary. Fortifying should be a race to either undermine or defend, remove the cancel option. Attacking or defending is all hands on deck.
3. We need to rebalance some of the math that makes systems profitable or not. Distance calculations. Overheads. These could be improved to reduce the penalties of nearby loss-making spheres and the values listed made accurate in the game. Again, I'm going for making 5C irrelevant. If the system is close and favorable, it doesn't hurt you.
4. Give people a reason to powerplay. Give the powers some definable, useful, and tangible BGS effect, not "5 percent more demand for goods". Come on, you can do better than that. Hudson could make twice as many Federation cops show up when a crime happens, oh, and the Hudson cops are engineered to the teeth. Antal could make all conflicts elections, since factions in his space are too high to fight. Use your imagination and make it fun, give people a reason to want Patreus, Winters, or Torval to take one of their BGS systems. Give people a reason to sign up for a power. Right now, they don't care.
1. For superpowers, same superpower factions are always good for you. imperial corporations and dictatorships should be good for Patreus. There are NO Federation governments that are good for Hudson, that needs to be fixed because those are the people that presumably elected him (or rather, voted no confidence in the other person).
2. We need to fix the mechanics of powerplay so that working FOR your own power is more profitable than signing up for an enemy to work AGAINST them from within. We have to do something about 5C, the only way to do that is to make playing for your own team not only better, but necessary. Fortifying should be a race to either undermine or defend, remove the cancel option. Attacking or defending is all hands on deck.
3. We need to rebalance some of the math that makes systems profitable or not. Distance calculations. Overheads. These could be improved to reduce the penalties of nearby loss-making spheres and the values listed made accurate in the game. Again, I'm going for making 5C irrelevant. If the system is close and favorable, it doesn't hurt you.
4. Give people a reason to powerplay. Give the powers some definable, useful, and tangible BGS effect, not "5 percent more demand for goods". Come on, you can do better than that. Hudson could make twice as many Federation cops show up when a crime happens, oh, and the Hudson cops are engineered to the teeth. Antal could make all conflicts elections, since factions in his space are too high to fight. Use your imagination and make it fun, give people a reason to want Patreus, Winters, or Torval to take one of their BGS systems. Give people a reason to sign up for a power. Right now, they don't care.
Guilty as charged LOL. I will be going back to Aisling Duval after I finish my shopping spree though.
Ok, playing for years now, and I just joined a faction for a module, for the first time.
It's not interesting to me, because it's too static. In order for the factions to continue, nobody can ever win. It is just a perpetual elongated stalemate.
Same with the "Thargoid War." That isn't an actual war. It's a curated event. It's a themepark. Nothing we do actually matters. It's Westworld, where we are the androids.
It does seem that Powerplay exists as a framework for a team sports version of PvP, which is fine. Just not my cuppa. But it should be in open, after trying it out.
Nevertheless, I am interested in seeing what other players think about Powerplay. Will read the thread.
It's not interesting to me, because it's too static. In order for the factions to continue, nobody can ever win. It is just a perpetual elongated stalemate.
Same with the "Thargoid War." That isn't an actual war. It's a curated event. It's a themepark. Nothing we do actually matters. It's Westworld, where we are the androids.
It does seem that Powerplay exists as a framework for a team sports version of PvP, which is fine. Just not my cuppa. But it should be in open, after trying it out.
Nevertheless, I am interested in seeing what other players think about Powerplay. Will read the thread.
Here's the biggest problem with PP for me - if you don't like a power, there's nothing you can do to stop their spread without signing on with another power. If you don't like PP at all, there's nothing you can do about except join it! Brings a new meaning to the phrase "If you can't beat them, join them". There was talk of "Freedom Fighters" a while ago, a way to fight PP without signing on and that was the only part I was interested in. It didn't get implemented but it'd be funny it was because that'd be a handy way for people to vote with their feet and someone didn't want to see the poll results.
As long as it doesn't devolve into that dumb open only idea
......... takes deep breath , rubs ribs Coming real soon a official FD response .
You do know a player moved it: but as I said the BGS makes it impossible to know who moved it- even in an Open only context you can never know what people are truly doing unless FD changed it so you could see all data, bonds, cargo, pledge / allegiance etc.
Powerplay is intrinsically set up so you can 90% know exactly who did what- if I move 700 fort materials, you can see me take off with them, travel with them and hand them in and see that occur in the UI to the second. If I UM 10,000 merits in a Patreus system, the local station tracks this loss, and displays my bounty. In short cause and effect are linked in Powerplay, while in the BGS they are not. Outwardly they are similar but diverge considerably.
They do, as in 5C. I have various solutions to that as well- the most obvious via a redesign (as seen in my first post) but also I have ideas that would fix it (or make 5C very, very hard) in what we have now, without the need for more votes. When Thursday pops up I'll post that proposal as per your instructions.
Open only (or a portion) would go some way to providing that, mainly as it allows you to act as mercs / hired help to bog down / molest a target power. Its not as direct as signing on (and with the proposed mega UM) ripping into your opponent, but you have the advantage of not being under a time constraint like your enemy is- slow them / stop them enough and they go into turmoil / drop systems.
