Small requests for PP, over fortifying/undermining lessen the chaos.

[rckstr]

I made up a few thoughts regarding to bring a little bit order into the chaos.
I was thinking about the (in my opinion) easiest way to implement things that will boost Teamplay and bring a bit of structure into the tasks involved in PP. Even now many people still get confused about the mechanics behind PP and the major player base has (without offending) no clue what they are doing. With the latest change to increase the effort by 5x to reach the trigger value this is getting even more important since the past cycles this fortify/undermine thing has been overdone by a huge amount. If this behavior remains it will just lead into frustration and more and more players defecting PP at all.

Faction wide chat would just bring up a big spamfest and maybe open a door for people/bots unwanted in every game so let's just dump this idea.

My suggestions are as following:

Fortifying or undermining a system:
Make a better use of the inbox in our top left comms panel.We already get notifications about our salary and treachery there- maybe a couple more that i haven't seen yet.
Just put in notifications in RP style to every cmdr acting in or H-jumping into the affected system or Station when the requirements are met. Depending on your allegiance you would get automated notifications.

• Threshold for fortifying/ undermining is reached. This system can still be undermined/ fortified by our enemy.
  • Further actions are not necessary.
  • Head over to the next station. You will receive instructions for your next tasks by our secret service
    • Bulletin Board mission appears containing a list of 2 or 3 systems that require assistance in fortifying/ undermining

• Threshold for cancellation met. The system will not change its value.
  • Further actions are not necessary.
  • Head over to the next station. You will receive instructions for your next tasks by our secret service
    • Bulletin Board mission appears containing a list of 2 or 3 systems that require assistance in fortifying/ undermining

Important note: Depending on Status the icons shown in the galaxy map change color or get crossed out to quickly identify the status without clicking through the powers screen.

In addition to this put in a barrier for the people that don't care and just want to grind merits.

• We have reached our goal and our sources here are depleting.
  • You are able to earn XXX more merits in this system.
  • After this you will be no longer able to earn merits in this system

or

• Our Mission here is done. We are leaving this system in XX hours.
  • After this you will be no longer able to earn merits in this system

Important note: Merits earned in that time can still be handed in after the timer expired, or you'll get a notification for reaching you limit of earned merits


Preparation of a system:
The current maths involved to determine a systems value are really confusing.

• Add more details to it so it is more visible and probably easier to determine if the chosen system is really worth to be prepared.
• Add a small voting menu with a threshold. When the threshold is reached the system will be highlighted as worthy/ unworthy for preparation.
  • After a second upvote threshold the system is highlighted with a "Help preparation request". If a system reaches this threshold you will get a BB mission pointing to that system at stations located in already controlled systems.
    • An Upvote can only be made if you have reached a small threshold by preparing this system.
      • After a vote you will loose 15% of your effort made.
    • A downvote can only be made if you have reached a small threshold by preparing a different system.
      • After a vote you will loose 15% of your effort made.
  • If a system reaches a certain threshold in both, upvote and downvote it might get highlighted as suspicous.
    • This would add advanced 5th column tactics on one hand but also help to identify those.
• Add a notification if preparing an unworthy/ suspicous system.

Expanding/ opposing expansions:

Depending on threshold show an indicator in the galaxy map that displays if your attempt in expanding/ opposing is ahead or behind. It also indicates how big the gap between both attempts is. An example could be arrows pointing up or down in different colors (green, yellow, red). This will help identifying systems without clicking through the Power screen and comparing each system.
​

Merits:

• Inside resistance pockets (etc.) scale the amount of merits received with the ship size and skill. A high ranked NPC will earn the doubled amount of merits than a lower ranked within the same size.
  • cmdr controlled ships hand out an increased amount inside those zones.
• Add earning (a low amount of) merits inside of controlled systems by killing hostile ships that started to attack you via interdiction. Interdicting hostile ships and killing them will remain like it is.
  • Hostile player controlled ships Hand out merits inside controlled and exploited systems of your Power. The amount of merits earned is higher than by killing hostile NPC's.
  • Attacking hostile ships outside of your Powers influence area remains as is.
• *edit* Don't let players horde Merits over a certain time span or amount during a cycle. Merits kept longer than XXX hours will decay fast until they are depleted to prevent last minute hand-ins. Additionally a Cap of maximum XXXX Merits is added. To earn more merits you have to hand in the already existing Merits.

Domestic Bounty hunting:
To discourage assaults between members of the same Power

• Dormant bountys can not be re-activated on players of the same power.
• The displayed Bounty of a targeted cmdr of the same power is reduced by XX%.
• The current values for friendly fire on non targeted cmdr's are slightly increased. System Forces will not intervene and a cool down starts which puts you under attention. If the timer runs out without further friendly fire or a counterattack the present cmdr's remain as friendly. This should encourage the possibility to excuse and to forgive and forget without repercussions.#
• Killing a member of the same Power without reason will tag you as a traitor for the "victim" for XX days.
  • Killing several (amount to be determined) member of the same Power without a reason will tag you as a traitor to the faction for XX days.
    • Being tagged XX times as a traitor will result in defection with all repercussions and a high bounty.

Being able to show tolerance or even arrange a treaty with different factions has been talked about outside of the game and is welcome under certain circumstances.

• Add a tab with checkboxes inside the Power menu with different checkboxes, simple example:
  • Inside influence area (Power) (alliance [y] [n]) (peace [y] [n]) (tolerated [y] [n]) (enemy [y] [n])
  • Outside influence area (Power) (alliance [y] [n]) (peace [y] [n]) (tolerated [y] [n]) (enemy [y] [n])
    • This should encourage less attacks between Powers "working for the same goal"
    • On attack depending on your and the targets choice of states, rules of repercussions are applied from no repercussions up to same repercussion like attacking a member of the same power.
    • *edit* Add option on comms panel to manage states for single Cmdr's. This is required if you want to be allied/ hostile to just chosen Cmdr's not the whole Power.
    • *edit* Cmdr's in your friendslist but pledged to a different Power are set as allied by default.

Depending on your support for this and further ideas i will edit this post and add things below.


TL;DR
There is no TL;DR please read or ignore.

Fly safe!

CMDR rckstr

 

[MISCHI3F]

Pretty good! I like the introduction of more ways to interact with powers, treaties, alliances that sort of thing.

I'd like to propose another change to the Powerplay system:

Fixed allocation of 'packages', no fast tracking. This would effect Undermine/Fortify and Preparation.
The allocation could be per day or per cycle. If it's per day there could be rollover, or to avoid a last minute push no rollover.

There would still be increase with ranks, makes sense, higher ranks, greater influence in your power.

I want to participate in PP but I don't have time to get any meaningful rank progress, and honestly the gameplay is boring, it's fun until you realize you have to keep doing it a ridiculous amount to get anything, that's a grind and grinding sucks.

This way, your choice of where to bring your allocation matters, and you don't have to do it over and over.
It would also help with what you were talking about with the thresholds.

The thresholds should not be an interactive display of the futility of war.

Expansion systems though, that's a different story, and maybe the changes you outlined would be enough.
After all, they can be lines of conflict between players/powers so it makes sense not to limit that. Also IDK how you would limit it.

Thanks for your post!


EDIT: I know this would neccesitate changes to the rank system, and I welcome it.
Right now with the 5-6 hrs I can play a week, getting your progress cut in half every week is very discouraging and the reason I stopped playing PP.

 

[Frop]

Putting barriers on mindlessly grinding merits is going to face a lot of opposition, so your suggestion to provide alternatives is a very good idea. However, if the Powerplay activities were actually tied in to the existing Bulletin Board you could simply stop showing a completed activity all together (of course accompanied by a "GOAL MET" bit of information elsewhere).

 

[rckstr]

I have picked it that way because i think that the majority has expected that PP will actually work like this. Also it brings a bit of guidance into it which could be messaged as orders from your directives and helps everyone to get a clue what has to be done. Maybe even why it has to be done. All that without holding your hand and a big guide or tutorial needed. Also the player will be able to choose his favoured way of contributing.