Powerplay Revert merit reward for Non-Open gameplay and other fixes

[Darth Ender]

Merits should be 1:1 for undermining and expansion for non-open gameplay until such a time as the AI in the game is sufficiently difficult to match the potential difficulty of interacting with human players. For fortification, it should be 2:1 (for every 2 fortification, you get 1 merit), with double the cost for fast-tracking.

This would not alter the triggers or system values, it simply alters the merit reward going to the player (your 2 fortification items would still be applied as 2 merits for the system for fortification, but only 1 merit for you). This balances the activities of players playing in an easier mode of gameplay than those who are playing in open.


Another fix needed is in regards to wings. Undermining or expansion support can still be equally shared to participating wingmen as it currently is, however, the benefit or effect to the system should not be multiplied. The server and game needs to differentiate between primary killer merits and assist merits. Only when the primary merits are cashed in, would the server apply those merits to the system. Assist merits can be cashed in but will only affect the player's merits, not the system in any way. A distinction can be made on the client side, or not, either way it would be in everyone's interest to all cash in to ensure the merits get applied.

 

[Cody]

This balances the activities of players playing in an easier mode of gameplay than those who are playing in open.

<sniggers>

 

[xondk]

Seems like these values are a bit weird, Especially that one thing that is rather easy, undermining. Is made easier then fortifying. Especially given that undermining is what happens most of late because it is the easiest way to get merits.

 

[Darth Ender]

getting 1 merit for a kill vs getting 30 is hardly making it easier. The act still requires you to interdict, kill, and repeat. While fortification is as easy as trading is - which is to say far far too easy. It costs money to fast track, which is why it's double in non-open modes, since money is insanely easy to come by - especially if you make it in non-open modes where the very easy means of making credits via trading is unopposed and the AI is so easy you dont even need to equip weapons to achieve your goals.

 

[JessieColt]

getting 1 merit for a kill vs getting 30 is hardly making it easier. The act still requires you to interdict, kill, and repeat. While fortification is as easy as trading is - which is to say far far too easy. It costs money to fast track, which is why it's double in non-open modes, since money is insanely easy to come by - especially if you make it non-open modes where very easy means of making credits via trading is unopposed and the AI is so easy you dont even need to equip weapons to achieve your goals.

Unless you are willing to spend lots of credits, Fortification isn't "easy".

You have to pick up Fortification Materials in the HQ system only.

You get limited numbers of materials per tick, meaning you can either take a small number, or wait, and wait, and wait, for enough to fill your cargo hold.

After getting said materials, you now have to travel to a system that may be 170+ ly away to deliver the materials, which means multiple hops. Even more so for players in smaller ships.

After delivering said materials, you now have to go back to HQ, another 170+ ly trip to pick up more materials.

Rinse/Repeat

Cargo Ships:

For casual gamers who do not have tons of credits to fast track, or ships with huge cargo holds, Fortifications can be an extremely limiting factor in their engagement in PP.

Players who have tons of cargo space, and want to fast track, should be hitting the furthest systems out from HQ (100+ly) to maximize the benefits to the PP faction. Unfortunately, this isn't what is happening, based on the over-fortification numbers that come in each week on the nearest control systems to HQ's.

Smaller cargo ships should be fortifying the closest systems to HQ (<50 ly). This will limit their jump requirements, while still maximizing their benefits contributions.

Medium range ships with cargo space should be hitting those mid-range systems (50-100ly from HQ).


Combat Ships;

Small ships should be working to kill Enemies in Control Systems or Undermining in the nearest enemy systems. If the PP Faction is a Combat Expansion player, they can also run combat zones to help with Expansions.

Mid range Combat Ships should be Undermining/Expanding into the middle range systems. Those systems that are 1 or 2 bubbles into the enemies territories or furthest away from HQ for Expansion systems.

Long Range Combat ships should be hitting the systems closer to the enemies HQ but on the same side as their own PP factions bubble.

Preparation Systems should be by vote only, not materials runs. This would allow for a nice voting set up for the systems, and would be far easier to vote down the bad systems and vote up the good systems, without running into issues where large cargo hold ships can flood a bad system to the point of detriment to the PP faction.

Nerfing merit payouts for Combat will really only hurt the smaller, casual player in the long run, and not the larger players, since those players most likely already have the larger ships and could just flip back to Fortification Runs with their 300+ tons of cargo.

We all agree that PP needs attention. All of us have various suggestions for how this could be done.

FD needs to make Preparation/Expansion/Fortification nearly equal in gains, but not a cake walk for the players.

Their first step in that was to increase the Merit Payouts for Combat. Undermining went from 1 merit per kill to 30. It takes longer to undermine because of the steps required.

They increased Combat Expansions from 1 merit per kill to 10.

Fortification was not changed because they wanted to let the Kill Merits Payout change percolate for a while to see what type of impact it has on the content.

While we, the user, are not provided with the information, I would bet my Lifetime Membership that FD has an average target number of merits per hour that they are trying to work towards.

Maybe that target is 200 merits per hour per player, maybe it is more, maybe it is less. We, however, will NEVER be told this, and no Dev or CSR would ever admit to it, if they were even lucky enough to be privy to the information.

If their target is 200 merits per hour per player, then when they do release adjustments, whatever they do will try to align as close to that number as possible, even if we, the player/user think that the change doesn't make any sense.

I would guess that they took a look at the original numbers that were available after the initial 8-10 cycles of PP and saw that most merits were coming in from trucking materials, and to try to balance that, they adjusted the Combat payouts so those players who are more combat oriented were not being punished for their play style compared to truckers/cargo haulers.

Asking them to nerf the combat and tweak the fortification so that any "M per Hour" is even more off balanced than it originally was will probably never happen.

And since the most recent change was just a couple of cycles ago, I would also guess that any additional changes wont happen for at least another 5-8 more cycles so that they can crunch the newer set of numbers to see what, if any, additional balancing might need to be done.

 

[Darth Ender]

considering it doesn't take more than one player to undermine a system by themselves (from 0 to trigger), and that the majority of power play participation is done in solo / private because it's easier, a balance is definitely in order as it currently favors solo/private far more than open. Undermining, expansion and fortification are all balanced in favor of non-open modes currently.

Reducing merits in those modes will do one of two things (both of which work to fix this imbalance).

1. It reduces the effectiveness of using those modes to grind merits by reducing the number of merits you get per effort expended.
2. It drives some players into open where the interaction with humans either directly or indirectly limits easy grindability.

The problem isn't related to casual players at all it's related to how effective hard-core players are. If 1 player can fortify an entire system by themselves or 1 player can undermine one by themselves (talking over 10,000 merits to trigger in both cases) then you multiply that by who knows how many people and bonus, throw them in solo / private where they are completely unopposed by any meaningful deterrent but time and you have the entire PP mechanic being driven by a minority of players able to push a majority of effective effort.

I'm not just talking made up numbers here. I've undermined systems in a single evening by myself in open and I've fortified them practically by myself as well. Sure it costs about a hundred million to fast track 10,000 merits for fortification but I made that back in two days (and I only play during the day once during the weekend and a couple hours a night on one or two weekdays a week). That's doing it in open. It's obviously quicker and easier in solo / private mode and it's evident that most people have figured this out as that's where the majority of pp participation takes place. And since it's a race every week, it drives more and more players to follow suit or be at a disadvantage.

You can undermine roughly 1000 merits an hour by yourself, and currently the game multiplies that for any participating wingmen you may have (an incorrect behavior). 200 merits an hour is someone who isn't really even playing power play. Again, the problem isn't someone contributing only their free quota and possibly undermining 10 ships an hour. It's the power users who easily do many many many times that and do it with impunity in easy game modes getting the same credit as players who do it in a mode where there is at least a chance at meaningful opposition.

 

[JessieColt]

considering it doesn't take more than one player to undermine a system by themselves (from 0 to trigger), and that the majority of power play participation is done in solo / private because it's easier, a balance is definitely in order as it currently favors solo/private far more than open. Undermining, expansion and fortification are all balanced in favor of non-open modes currently.

Reducing merits in those modes will do one of two things (both of which work to fix this imbalance).

1. It reduces the effectiveness of using those modes to grind merits by reducing the number of merits you get per effort expended.
2. It drives some players into open where the interaction with humans either directly or indirectly limits easy grindability.

The problem isn't related to casual players at all it's related to how effective hard-core players are. If 1 player can fortify an entire system by themselves or 1 player can undermine one by themselves (talking over 10,000 merits to trigger in both cases) then you multiply that by who knows how many people and bonus, throw them in solo / private where they are completely unopposed by any meaningful deterrent but time and you have the entire PP mechanic being driven by a minority of players able to push a majority of effective effort.

I'm not just talking made up numbers here. I've undermined systems in a single evening by myself in open and I've fortified them practically by myself as well. Sure it costs about a hundred million to fast track 10,000 merits for fortification but I made that back in two days (and I only play during the day once during the weekend and a couple hours a night on one or two weekdays a week). That's doing it in open. It's obviously quicker and easier in solo / private mode and it's evident that most people have figured this out as that's where the majority of pp participation takes place. And since it's a race every week, it drives more and more players to follow suit or be at a disadvantage.

You can undermine roughly 1000 merits an hour by yourself, and currently the game multiplies that for any participating wingmen you may have (an incorrect behavior). 200 merits an hour is someone who isn't really even playing power play. Again, the problem isn't someone contributing only their free quota and possibly undermining 10 ships an hour. It's the power users who easily do many many many times that and do it with impunity in easy game modes getting the same credit as players who do it in a mode where there is at least a chance at meaningful opposition.

The problem is, by trying to punish the "hard core" players that are stupid enough or insane enough to spend 100,000,000 credits just to gain 50,000,000 credits, the small/casual player will also be punished.

The smaller/casual player will be harmed far more than the hard core player who already has 500,000,000 million credits and 3,000,000 merits running in a fully loaded out Conda.

If I am a casual player, in a Private Group (see signature) I can easily make and maintain my Rank 4 standings every cycle during my few hours of game play. If everything is nerfed, it is going to take me longer and longer to try to maintain my rank, and PP will become a true merit grind, not allowing me to do anything else during my few hours of play other then try to maintain my Rank.

However, the hard core gamer can still make the same amount they do every cycle, just by running 1 or 2 additional trips in their Conda to a fortification system. So the proposal for the nerf is only an inconvenience for them, while for the casual gamer, it has a real impact on them.

It wont force the casual gamer into Open Play, it would probably force them to quit PP completely and PP will only end up with the hard core gamers that are still running their 2 or 3 runs for 10,000 merits in Group or Solo Play where they are not PvP cannon fodder.

The only thing nerfing the payouts would do in the long run is eliminate the casual players.

True and effective changes wont come about by punishing players, but by adjusting the mechanics involved in how systems are Fortified and Undermined.

The 2 biggest issues I personally see, and there are a LOT of complaints about, are over Fortification and no way to divest of bad systems.

Both of those could be resolved with a relatively simple change to the way Fortification and Undermining work. Although I have no clue how easy or hard it would be for the Devs to code the change.

Fortification/Undermining is currently a Race to Tie. Both sides try to hit their trigger for the cycle, putting the system into a Nul state with the controlling faction keeping the system.

This results in someone like ALD, with a very large player base, able to keep all of her control systems and at the same time, add 1-2 new expansions each cycle.

Instead of a Race to Tie, I think it should be changed to a Trigger + Overage with the Turmoil state changed to a per system instead of per Faction basis.

This would mean any system Undermined beyond 100% is not Fortified higher than the Undermining number would be considered Undermined.

As an example, let's use Lugh. Mostly because it is a system off the top of my head that I have heard of, and constantly has a battle for Fortification/Undermining.

If the mechanic was changed to Trigger + Overage, then whichever side had the highest number at the end of the cycle would "win" the battle. This would mean that if the system is Fortified to 300% and Undermined to 289% the system would be considered Fortified.

However, if the numbers were reversed, and the Undermining was 300% and the Fortification was 289%, then the system would be considered Undermined, and would drop into Turmoil.

The controlling faction would then need to win the battle during the next cycle, or risk losing the system completely.

If the system remains in the Undermined State for the following cycle, then the system is a loss to the Controlling PP faction and the system becomes Neutral/Anarchy/Uncontrolled for 2 cycles (cooling off period), with no system within 15ly of Lugh being available for Preparation. After 2 cycles, the system would become available for Preparation by any PP Faction.

This would result in a true Battle for the system, regardless if the player was in Open/Group/Solo mode.

It would allow for divesting of bad systems, by allowing the system itself to drop into Turmoil and be "freed" through Undermining.

It could also concentrate defending players into a limited number of systems, while allowing other systems to be challenged by factions with a smaller player base.

I think we would see large factions, like ALD, be hit with more challenges to their standing, in a way that could effectively whittle away at her control systems and force her out of the #1 standing.

No matter how many players are in her faction, it would be nearly impossible to guarantee that she maintains control over all of them beyond a Trigger + Overage state.

It would ensure that systems that are lost are done in a strategic manner, while not harming the power to the point of annihilation in 2 cycles by divesting them of their most valuable systems and forcing them to keep the worst ones.

Turmoil would make sense to anyone at that point. If you do not properly fortify a system, you can lose it. Right now, if you do not fortify enough systems, you may keep the non fortified system, and lose one you DID fortify. This makes no sense.

That would be like the US going to war in Iran and suddenly finding that they lost the military bases in Texas.

Numbers wise, yes it makes sense. You lose the highest upkeep cost system, but that system may also be the highest income generator too, which means you just lost the income you could have had that would get you back out of Turmoil.

Powers are basically punished for having high value/cost systems that contribute positively to the base, while being forced to keep systems that harm them.

 

[Darth Ender]

The problem is, by trying to punish the "hard core" players that are stupid enough or insane enough to spend 100,000,000 credits just to gain 50,000,000 credits, the small/casual player will also be punished.

The smaller/casual player will be harmed far more than the hard core player who already has 500,000,000 million credits and 3,000,000 merits running in a fully loaded out Conda.

Hard core PP players do not spend a 100 million credits to just reach rank 5 and get 50 million credits. They do it for the actual power play system. They want their power to "win". You dont need to spend barely any credits to maintain rank 5, it's easy if that's all you want to do. You can do it undermining no-problem. It's rather easy to do in a single day and then maintaining it is easier. 3-4 hours a week to rack up another 5k merits. Builds your combat rank at the same time. Nets you 50 mil that you wont spend barely a fraction of repairing due to interdictions.

No, hard-core PP players are out to shift the power they're playing for and hurt those they are against. The easy modes of solo and private group needs to be patched up so that these players are faced with the actual potential of a challenge to their massive sway in the game. And it is massive. NPC's currently do not pose even a particle of a threat to mitigate power play activities.

So what is the casual small time power play player to do? They can continue playing easy mode and gain merits. If they're fortifying, there would be no difference at all to them unless they're trying to fast-track. If they're undermining they'd get less merits than they currently do. Or they can go to open mode where they risk opposition from that power's cmdr's and undermine for 30 merits a piece. I dont see that as a deal breaker to the casual player, it's just right-sizing the reward considering how inept the NPC's are at producing a challenge.\

If I am a casual player, in a Private Group (see signature) I can easily make and maintain my Rank 4 standings every cycle during my few hours of game play. If everything is nerfed, it is going to take me longer and longer to try to maintain my rank, and PP will become a true merit grind, not allowing me to do anything else during my few hours of play other then try to maintain my Rank.

You can hit up open to undermine / expand for high value merits. If what you're doing is fortifying using your quota then that wont change at all regardless of mode. If you want to fast-track it'll cost twice as much in non-open modes. This is to offset the fact that you wont ever come across the possibility of other powers' cmdrs undermining your system that you're fortifying so if you're mass-fortifying it should not be treated the same as those who do have that possibility. Though if you're mass fortifying you're probably not a very casual pp player.

Another somewhat unrelated note is that really it shouldn't be considered "easy" to maintain high ranks. Rank 4 and 5 should not be the realm of casual couple hours a week play. Though nothing in this thread is intended to fix that aspect of power play.

However, the hard core gamer can still make the same amount they do every cycle, just by running 1 or 2 additional trips in their Conda to a fortification system. So the proposal for the nerf is only an inconvenience for them, while for the casual gamer, it has a real impact on them.

The purpose is not to nerf merits it's to right-size the merit awards for non-Open gameplay because of the lack of any real opposition to your activities in power play. Players are seeking solo / private mode for grinding power play because it's easier to do so. Since it's easier to do so, it shouldn't be rewarded the same as those playing in Open. Having the rewards being the same is leading to a feedback loop where players are looking for the most efficient means of achieving a goal, which means solo or private groups to avoid possible cmdr interference which in turn causes their opposition to do the same to be competitive and so on.

This leads to the modes becoming an instrument to exploit game mechanics rather than being a choice on how you want to play. It gives solo / group modes an obvious competitive edge in power play that should not exist.

It wont force the casual gamer into Open Play, it would probably force them to quit PP completely and PP will only end up with the hard core gamers that are still running their 2 or 3 runs for 10,000 merits in Group or Solo Play where they are not PvP cannon fodder.

The only thing nerfing the payouts would do in the long run is eliminate the casual players.

No, it wont eliminate casual players since casual players likely fortify only their quota which wont change regardless of mode. Relying on undermining / expansion to garner massive amounts of merits easily can still be done in open mode.

What it will certainly do is destroy the benefit of using solo / group modes for the hardcore pp players - which will drive them into open to remain effective. Which is the point. The idea is to make sure anyone with a massive effect on power play is equally at risk to warrant being able to have that much sway.

True and effective changes wont come about by punishing players, but by adjusting the mechanics involved in how systems are Fortified and Undermined.

players aren't being punished. The rewards are being right-sized based on the risk comparison between modes. This wouldn't be needed if FD focused on making the npc's vicious enough so that people didn't look at solo mode or group mode as easier game modes - simply different ones. Unfortunately that's not the case currently.

The 2 biggest issues I personally see, and there are a LOT of complaints about, are over Fortification and no way to divest of bad systems.

Part of the issue with the idea that there are "bad" systems is that people aren't able to collaborate easily to discuss strategy. I thought for the longest time that someone was sabotaging Utopia when I saw we had expanded into a system far away from the rest of our systems and it wasn't even making a profit. Then eventually I learned that this was part of an actual strategy and it is quite effective.

Some of the reason over-fortification occurs is because the way the server updates the fortification / undermine values is not realtime.

Both of those could be resolved with a relatively simple change to the way Fortification and Undermining work. Although I have no clue how easy or hard it would be for the Devs to code the change.

Fortification/Undermining is currently a Race to Tie. Both sides try to hit their trigger for the cycle, putting the system into a Nul state with the controlling faction keeping the system.

This results in someone like ALD, with a very large player base, able to keep all of her control systems and at the same time, add 1-2 new expansions each cycle.

Instead of a Race to Tie, I think it should be changed to a Trigger + Overage with the Turmoil state changed to a per system instead of per Faction basis.

This would mean any system Undermined beyond 100% is not Fortified higher than the Undermining number would be considered Undermined.

As an example, let's use Lugh. Mostly because it is a system off the top of my head that I have heard of, and constantly has a battle for Fortification/Undermining.

If the mechanic was changed to Trigger + Overage, then whichever side had the highest number at the end of the cycle would "win" the battle. This would mean that if the system is Fortified to 300% and Undermined to 289% the system would be considered Fortified.

However, if the numbers were reversed, and the Undermining was 300% and the Fortification was 289%, then the system would be considered Undermined, and would drop into Turmoil.

The controlling faction would then need to win the battle during the next cycle, or risk losing the system completely.

If the system remains in the Undermined State for the following cycle, then the system is a loss to the Controlling PP faction and the system becomes Neutral/Anarchy/Uncontrolled for 2 cycles (cooling off period), with no system within 15ly of Lugh being available for Preparation. After 2 cycles, the system would become available for Preparation by any PP Faction.

This would result in a true Battle for the system, regardless if the player was in Open/Group/Solo mode.

It would allow for divesting of bad systems, by allowing the system itself to drop into Turmoil and be "freed" through Undermining.

It could also concentrate defending players into a limited number of systems, while allowing other systems to be challenged by factions with a smaller player base.

I think we would see large factions, like ALD, be hit with more challenges to their standing, in a way that could effectively whittle away at her control systems and force her out of the #1 standing.

No matter how many players are in her faction, it would be nearly impossible to guarantee that she maintains control over all of them beyond a Trigger + Overage state.

It would ensure that systems that are lost are done in a strategic manner, while not harming the power to the point of annihilation in 2 cycles by divesting them of their most valuable systems and forcing them to keep the worst ones.

Turmoil would make sense to anyone at that point. If you do not properly fortify a system, you can lose it. Right now, if you do not fortify enough systems, you may keep the non fortified system, and lose one you DID fortify. This makes no sense.

That would be like the US going to war in Iran and suddenly finding that they lost the military bases in Texas.

Numbers wise, yes it makes sense. You lose the highest upkeep cost system, but that system may also be the highest income generator too, which means you just lost the income you could have had that would get you back out of Turmoil.

Powers are basically punished for having high value/cost systems that contribute positively to the base, while being forced to keep systems that harm them.

Simply changing the system from a race to a tie to a race to having the highest number wont change how players are abusing the game modes for an easy mode to grind the PP mechanic.

It also means that you basically have which ever power has the most cmdr's will win. Since the way you win is just by dumping assets. Currently this is mitigated by having triggers like the game currently does. With your method power play would be over rather quickly and that's not FD's intent.

Power play is still far from complete, there are no missions, no real strategy other than half-planned expansions to really mitigate the "we got more cmdr's than you so we win" factor. Powerplay should be more like chess, however there are no game mechanics in ED currently that allow it to be played as such.

I do, however, agree that the systems you lose should be the systems that are undermined or haven't reached the fortify trigger when the time comes for turmoil. Fortify triggered systems should not be losable that cycle. What should happen is the trigger should increased significantly for those that would have gone into turmoil for the next cycle, making it exceedingly more and more difficult to fortify those systems while you are running a deficit.

Basically, for how much you are in a deficit you have the most expensive systems in turmoil currently even if they were fortified. Instead, if they were fortified, they would remain like normal but now instead of needing like 8000 merits to fortify, it would need 16000 merits to fortify, undermining trigger would remain the same. If the system is again undermined triggered, but the fortify trigger is unable to reached, the system would enter turmoil.
Also, during turmoil the salaries should be 1/10th the normal rate until the turmoil is over. This can be justified as to why even though the power is running a deficit, it didn't lose control over the systems that were fortified, since it diverted funds to maintain minimal control.

So then, only systems that are undermined and not fortified can be lost.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Oh god not this again...

 

[BDelacroix]

Hard Core vs. Casual. Shows up in every game, ever.

 

[JessieColt]

<snip excellent information>

The only part I really disagree with is how the casual player engages in PP. I consider myself a casual player. I do not participate in any Preparation other then spending my "vote" on a high income system. I don't truck.

I am currently working my combat rank so the only thing I do in PP is crime sweeps and I pretty much only do enough to maintain my Rank 4 standings with ALD, who I am currently pledged to.

By nerfing merit per kill's, I would be impacted more than the hard-core gamers because it would take me 10x as long to earn enough merits to maintain my Rank 4 standing.

10x as long means I would not have enough hours in game time to earn enough merits to maintain my Rank 4 standing. Telling me that I have to switch to Open play in order to keep earning 10 merits per kill means that there is a very strong chance that I would never earn merits, because I would be PK fodder. And you loose your vouchers when you are killed.

So I could kill 5 NPC's, for a measly 50 Merit voucher, then get killed by another player, and lose that voucher.

It would now take me even longer in Open Play to try to earn enough merits to maintain my Rank 4 Standing because I most likely would be killed constantly by other Players, not only losing my current voucher, but also my ship, costing me insurance.

No, thank you.

I would, at that point, stop participating in PP completely, because it would negatively impact my game play time too much to be worth the hassle.

I don't think anyone who engages in PP believes that the current system is working. We all agree that it needs changes. Please remember though that some of the changes that are suggested by players may have a seriously negative impact on the wrong types of players.

There are dozens and dozens of other options that could be suggested without negatively impacting the non hard-core players. Instead of Preparation and Expansion materials being a set limit per 30 minutes with Fast Track, they could set a hard limit per 24 hours with no way to fast track at all.

They could set the Rank offerings at something like 200/400/600/800/1000 per 24 hours. You could then pick up your 24 allotment, if you have the cargo space, and truck the full amount in 1 run to one system. Or if you have limited space, hit your allotment over a couple of runs. But once you hit the 24 hour allotment, you would not be able to haul any more materials.

This would prevent the hard-core gamers from trucking thousands of tons of materials to systems in a short period of time, while not negatively impacting the casual player. And in fact would even help the casual player by allowing them to pick up as much as they can, up to their allotment, instead of having to wait 30 minutes or more to get more materials.

I don't think that the answer to the issue is by nerfing the merit gain, which would directly impact the small/casual players without making a big enough difference in the hard-core players, but by changing the mechanic itself, as in my example above to prevent the lopsided issues that are currently happening.

 

[Brimstone]

Oh look, another Solo vs Open thread.

 

[CMDR Cillian Raynor]

time and time again the devs have made it clear they would not change the way the game works for solo players vs open ones and yet every single day still someone posts their suggestion as to how solo players need to be punished for not playing in open.

 

[louthelou]

Yet another thread whining about about how private play is "easier" than open? Ugh.

My only real response to anyone who has a problem with people playing by themselves/in private groups is, "Bite me."

Why should players be penalized for avoiding the idiocy that is found in open play by choosing to play privately (a choice presented in-game)? Answer: they shouldn't.

If you don't like that someone is having an easier time than you by playing in non-open play, the problem is not them - it's you.

 

[Darth Ender]

Why should players be penalized for avoiding the idiocy that is found in open play by choosing to play privately (a choice presented in-game)? Answer: they shouldn't.

If you don't like that someone is having an easier time than you by playing in non-open play, the problem is not them - it's you.

If it is easier then it shouldn't be worth the same. Period. You aren't helping your position.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

If it is easier then it shouldn't be worth the same. Period. You aren't helping your position.

The moment they stop using a peer to peer PvP solution and add a proper anti-cheat system I'll be in open on day 1.

The ONLY reason im not in open are due to PvP ats who simply shoot people for "fun" and cheaters.

I backed the game as an advertised single player game with ADDED multiplayer and not an MMO.

The problem lies not in Powerplay being "easier" in solo mode but rather that Powerplay is badly designed from the ground up.

 

[lefty1117]

I'd go farther and say that you can't pledge to a power or contribute to a power or earn merits if you're not in Open. Solo fortifying, going solo to avoid patrols, going solo to undermine dumbs Powerplay down and takes away any sort of interdiction response. The stated goal of powerplay is to encourage player conflict, but what is happening is it's just a rat race. Who can fortify faster than the others. Is there enough manpower to fortify all the undermined systems. Is there enough manpower to out-grind (typically in solo) the opposition on an expansion attempt. It's not player conflict, it's a grinding race.

 

[JessieColt]

I'd go farther and say that you can't pledge to a power or contribute to a power or earn merits if you're not in Open. Solo fortifying, going solo to avoid patrols, going solo to undermine dumbs Powerplay down and takes away any sort of interdiction response. The stated goal of powerplay is to encourage player conflict, but what is happening is it's just a rat race. Who can fortify faster than the others. Is there enough manpower to fortify all the undermined systems. Is there enough manpower to out-grind (typically in solo) the opposition on an expansion attempt. It's not player conflict, it's a grinding race.

And yet ALD has fallen into turmoil this week and dropped to the #3 position in the standings without interference from FD and without "forcing" players into Open Play in order to participate.

As for your comment about the "stated goal" of Power Play being to encourage player conflict, I am unable to locate that on the ED Powerplay page, located here:

https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/powerplay

While player conflict might be one of the factors of Powerplay, it clearly isn't the only reason that it was introduced, and it certainly isn't even the primary focus of PP.

If players would spend less energy trying to force PP players into Open Play, I am sure they would have more energy for actually engaging in PP and seeing their contributions have a real impact on the standings, like what has happened this week.

 

[Darth Ender]

And yet ALD has fallen into turmoil this week and dropped to the #3 position in the standings without interference from FD and without "forcing" players into Open Play in order to participate.

As for your comment about the "stated goal" of Power Play being to encourage player conflict, I am unable to locate that on the ED Powerplay page, located here:

https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/powerplay

While player conflict might be one of the factors of Powerplay, it clearly isn't the only reason that it was introduced, and it certainly isn't even the primary focus of PP.

If players would spend less energy trying to force PP players into Open Play, I am sure they would have more energy for actually engaging in PP and seeing their contributions have a real impact on the standings, like what has happened this week.

not sure about the guy's post you're replying to...it was kind of beyond the scope of the topic of the thread.

The thread's goal wasn't to suggest that people should be forced to open. It's to remove the incentive to jump into solo to do the same activities for the same reward as open. The justification of which is because non-open modes are easier to do those activities.

The evidence is not just the reality of players able to directly oppose cmdr's in the act of undermining or fortifying but in the continual admission of players choosing to go into solo mode to avoid the potential snag of meeting such opposition - allowing them to min-max their setup (like max cargo and jump by running without guns ...etc ) to be most efficient for what they happen to be doing - which the race to meet triggers and quotas per week then forces other players in other powers to do in order to keep up.

The game modes aren't meant to be mechanisms to circumvent difficulty but that's how they're being used in powerplay to achieve the highest efficiency for the same reward. It's an abuse of why the modes exist, not the reason why they exist.

 

[smiths121]

Should this not be moved to the general open verses solo thread?