Powerplay supporting of systems far away from main system should give higher amount of merits

[moonsword]

Supporting Systems that are far away from the main system should give a higher reward to those players who help to support the system by bringing let's say "marked slaves" to that system.
Why should I bring "marked slaves" to a system several ly away that is undermined if I may support a system close by (which is not undermind) but give the same amount of merits to me?


Therefore my requirement 1

Those players who support a system that is X ly away from the main system should get more merits as they would get if they supporting systems that are closer by the main system. If they deliver the supporting items to that system the game pays them a higher reward.

And my requirement 2

The support for those systems which are in danger of being undermind should give players a higher reward than bringing power-related support items to systems which are not undermind.
--> so this means that the reward for those players who "really" support their power and not only bringing support items to systems to get their merits is bigger

 

[Apos]

Why should I bring "marked slaves" to a system several ly away that is undermined if I may support a system close by (which is not undermind) but give the same amount of merits to me?

Because you don't want your power to hit turmoil seems quite the compelling argument if you ask me.

 

[Midnight Sun]

Because you don't want your power to hit turmoil seems quite the compelling argument if you ask me.

5000% over-fortifying suggests that's not a very compelling argument.

 

[Apos]

5000% over-fortifying suggests that's not a very compelling argument.

So you want the mindless farmers to do the work for you just because you have broken bonuses that make them flock to your power instead?

Ye, that's what I'd call a step forward.

Anyway, this would change nothing in that regard. Instead of having your nearest system fortified to 5000%, you'd have your furthest fortified to 2000%.

 

[moonsword]

So you want the mindless farmers to do the work for you just because you have broken bonuses that make them flock to your power instead?

Ye, that's what I'd call a step forward.

Anyway, this would change nothing in that regard. Instead of having your nearest system fortified to 5000%, you'd have your furthest fortified to 2000%.

If you fortify a system above 100% (which makes no sense for the gameplay) than you won't get the same bonus for it as you would get if it is benath 100%...
You would get a higher bonus if the system is below 100%, or it's more far away than the other system
So of course it will change manything...

 

[Apos]

If you fortify a system above 100% (which makes no sense for the gameplay) than you won't get the same bonus for it as you would get if it is benath 100%...
You would get a higher bonus if the system is below 100%, or it's more far away than the other system
So of course it will change manything...

So that' would be even one more change towards making the powers with many mindless farmers completely invincible then.

Why? Why should direction be spoon fed to the masses? Especially when that direction is available through common sense to anyone who actually cares to think for a second instead of shutting down their brain in any function more complicated than how many merits they need to maintain Rating 5 again?

I'm all for making fortifications more engaging, but providing a bigger carrot in order to provide the incentive for people to be efficient is not the way to go.

 

[moonsword]

Înstat of critizing my two offers by a criticism that lakes of tracability why don't you bring up any helpful ideas?

I would call it fair if these players who fly plenty of lightyears more than others because they want to support their power should get a higher reward.
Especialy if their effort helps their powers much better than the farming playstyle of others (by 5000% fortification for a system close by).
The farming playstyle is one of the reasons why the changes I mentioned (or similar) should be included.

 

[Apos]

Înstat of critizing my two offers by a criticism that lakes of tracability why don't you bring up any helpful ideas?

I would call it fair if these players who fly plenty of lightyears more than others because they want to support their power should get a higher reward.
Especialy if their effort helps their powers much better than the farming playstyle of others (by 5000% fortification for a system close by).
The farming playstyle is one of the reasons why the changes I mentioned (or similar) should be included.

I have proposed changing quotas to active missions in the past. I can't go around repeating my proposals every week.

Your proposal doesn't take into account two things:

a) The commanders who fly many light years in order to support their power do not do it for their merits. Most of us reach 16.000-20.000 merits/week. Do you think it makes any difference whether we will get any more merits? They are not what motivates the active and caring commanders, it's the power's well being itself that is the reward. Merit increases only motivate the mindless farmers, the organised communities have little problems with them.

a2) Unless you mean that long range systems will also end up being easier to fortify, which nullifies any weakness to getting a far away system.

b) The farming playstyle is a problem, which is exactly why we shouldn't embrace and try to polish it, but instead provide more active alternatives to the mater.

 

[moonsword]

I have proposed changing quotas to active missions in the past. I can't go around repeating my proposals every week.

Your proposal doesn't take into account two things:

a) The commanders who fly many light years in order to support their power do not do it for their merits. Most of us reach 16.000-20.000 merits/week. Do you think it makes any difference whether we will get any more merits? They are not what motivates the active and caring commanders, it's the power's well being itself that is the reward. Merit increases only motivate the mindless farmers, the organised communities have little problems with them.

--> You should not critizies those players who may have another play style as you! These players are not mindless! You should not think that you know how to play this game. Not everyone wants to play like you do. They may have another aim they try to reach but not the same aim as you may have.

a2) Unless you mean that long range systems will also end up being easier to fortify, which nullifies any weakness to getting a far away system.
-- > ?? If you have a military duty to do which is harder to fulfill than others, the reward is bigger in general... take what you want.. medals, expatriation allowance, prestige... more merits..

b) The farming playstyle is a problem, which is exactly why we shouldn't embrace and try to polish it, but instead provide more active alternatives to the mater.

Last one agreed... but this won't get hurt by my offers..

 

[Apos]

You should not critizies those players who may have another play style as you! These players are not mindless! You should not think that you know how to play this game. Not everyone wants to play like you do. They may have another aim they try to reach but not the same aim as you may have.

Last one agreed... but this won't get hurt by my offers..

I don't call other people mindless. Just understanding the importance of further systems getting fortified removes someone from that category. At that point it becomes a matter of priorities for that said individual. But if someone understands the importance of those actions and the impact they have regarding their power, why do the need more merits since they are already over the point where merits is all there is to a power?

Additionally, would that actually benefit or harm powers? Because if it's a drag for someone to bring 5000 merits to fortify a further away system, who's to say that they won't leave the system half-fortified when they get their 5000 for bringing over 2000 tonnes instead?

In the end of the day, it all boils down to whether someone cares about their power or about the merits.

And on top of that, noone is forced to do it. Someone can perfectly communicate with the organised community of their power that they will take care of a system which is not that far away, but not one of the 5000% ones, so that he allows other commanders to focus on the further ones more effectively.

It's all about the organization a power demonstrates. Not everyone is obliged to have the same responsibilities.

 

[ShimEnki]

Înstat of critizing my two offers by a criticism that lakes of tracability why don't you bring up any helpful ideas?

I would call it fair if these players who fly plenty of lightyears more than others because they want to support their power should get a higher reward.
Especialy if their effort helps their powers much better than the farming playstyle of others (by 5000% fortification for a system close by).
The farming playstyle is one of the reasons why the changes I mentioned (or similar) should be included.

Agreed, there are ever so many that instead of taking the time to comprehend ones idea and working WITH the OP towards mutual understanding ..they just vomit all over it. Pretty lazy and lame, but so it is...

 

[Apos]

Agreed, there are ever so many that instead of taking the time to comprehend ones idea and working WITH the OP towards mutual understanding ..they just vomit all over it. Pretty lazy and lame, but so it is...

And others who will hide their obsession with merits behind ad hominens.

Did interdiction get too hard and now you want to get your 50M paycheck within 4-5 anaconda trips instead?

I have already explained that this change would make Hudson and Arissa impossible to harm due to numbers alone and giving a directive to the farmers. It throws away any strategy and organization out of the window. Excuse me, but those two are more important to me than your paycheck. They are already able to fortify almost everything with their organized population, they don't need any more help and the smaller powers don't need people getting lazy by half-fortifying far away systems and calling it a day.

If your priorities are first maintaining your perks and then helping your power, this doesn't mean that it applies to everyone. We shouldn't have had such broken perks like the Arissa bonuses in the first place anyway.

So no, there's no need to make Rating 5 even easier.

The 5000% is obviously an Arissa example anyway. No small power has their close systems reach those values.

The undermining buffs caused the space of smaller powers to be flocked with underminers and they barely benefited from it themselves. Buffing fortifications on top of that only means that a portion of the fanatic underminers will fortify the furthest systems of the bigger powers as well, which means that they will have everything covered by default.

Not to mention that it makes 5C even easier, since it will be that much cheaper for someone to defect and acquire Rating 5 for the next week. On top of it, farmers fortifying systems means an excess amount of CC, so easy introduction of bad systems in the preparation list.

I'll pass. We're already getting riddled with 5C and we aren't even a big power.

 

[Martin Schou]

I have to side with Apos in this discussion.

The reason that Mahon is capable of supporting more than a dozen systems that are more than 100 LY away (17 to be exact) is that our commanders aren't concerned about the distances. We took those systems because they are valuable, and we maintain them because they are valuable. The moment it becomes easier to fortify distant systems, the difficulty of fortifying them goes away. For example - Antal has a control system (Takurua) that is several hundred light years away from their head quarters. It's difficult to fortify (as it should be) and in reality it's nothing but a vanity system for them. It's a way of saying "*we can afford to take the hit*", because it currently takes something like 37,000 merits to fortify.

Why should it become easier to fortify?

Any argument that contains "otherwise it won't get fortified" is already useless to my mind, because then we would simply start seeing powers trying to expand in to very distant systems far away from their core, because now it's easy to fortify. Instead of having a relatively homogeneous blob of systems, you'd have nothing but random spots.

Any argument that contains "to make the grinders work for the power" also useless to my mind, because that just moves the responsibility for a power from organized players to randoms. It no longer becomes about strategizing, it becomes about having the biggest player base.

Now, an argument that goes "to keep the grinders from hurting their power" is a much more compelling argument. For example, if we can keep grinders from forcing powers to expand into horrible systems, that would be quite a boon for powerplay in general, but I'm not seeing the harm in grinders just fortifying the closest systems.

 

[moonsword]

I have to side with Apos in this discussion.

The reason that Mahon is capable of supporting more than a dozen systems that are more than 100 LY away (17 to be exact) is that our commanders aren't concerned about the distances. We took those systems because they are valuable, and we maintain them because they are valuable. The moment it becomes easier to fortify distant systems, the difficulty of fortifying them goes away. For example - Antal has a control system (Takurua) that is several hundred light years away from their head quarters. It's difficult to fortify (as it should be) and in reality it's nothing but a vanity system for them. It's a way of saying "*we can afford to take the hit*", because it currently takes something like 37,000 merits to fortify.

Why should it become easier to fortify?

Any argument that contains "otherwise it won't get fortified" is already useless to my mind, because then we would simply start seeing powers trying to expand in to very distant systems far away from their core, because now it's easy to fortify. Instead of having a relatively homogeneous blob of systems, you'd have nothing but random spots.

No it would still be as simple or hard as it was before... this would not be changed. But the player himselft gets a higher reward for it. I haven't written that if you let's say 100 merits to a close system the system gets fortified by x% and if the same player fortifies a system that is far away the system won't get more than the X% than the first system. But the player himself should get a better reward if he does more and more useful activites for his power than others. This is one of the reasons why most players, if they have the choice to support a system that is close by the main system or a system that is ar away, but which is more precious for the power, they support the first one. This results to systems that are fortified by 1000% and more.

Any argument that contains "to make the grinders work for the power" also useless to my mind, because that just moves the responsibility for a power from organized players to randoms. It no longer becomes about strategizing, it becomes about having the biggest player base.

Now, an argument that goes "to keep the grinders from hurting their power" is a much more compelling argument. For example, if we can keep grinders from forcing powers to expand into horrible systems, that would be quite a boon for powerplay in general, but I'm not seeing the harm in grinders just fortifying the closest systems.

Indeed, perhaps the amount of merits a player gets, who fortfifies a system which has a value lower than 0 for his power, should be lowered too...
Perhaps then the player may notice that is would be more useful to change the leading fraction in that system towards a fraction that is "better" for his supporting power.... and when he has changed the leading fraction of that system, also to benefit from the reigher merits he gets, because the system he has won for his power is far away from the main system but precious for his power (because he lowered the maintenance costs of that system for his power )

 

[Bradford Paul III]

Why would anyone over-fortify? Merits don't quite pay for themselves when you fortify, do they? Money doesn't make sense as a motivation. Powerplay is about supporting a Power and it should stay that way.

 

[Midnight Sun]

Why would anyone over-fortify? Merits don't quite pay for themselves when you fortify, do they? Money doesn't make sense as a motivation. Powerplay is about supporting a Power and it should stay that way.

It's for the bonus not the salary. I keep Rank 5 with Hudson as I like bounty hunting. The most efficient way in terms of game time would be to fast-track and fortify the nearest system to HQ. But then I also prefer Hudson being in the top 3 so I try to make my efforts count which takes a lot longer.

 

[L'Espion]

A few thoughts:

-After hitting 100% in a system close to the core, stop adding merits for further fortification.

-Make the trigger higher depending on the distance from the core of power, so a system on the other side would require 1000% to fortify.

Would represent the hardship in holding onto a large empire, and even spread the playerbase a little more, since the people grinding would pledge to leaders where they can get their merits easier.

 

[Apos]

A few thoughts:

-After hitting 100% in a system close to the core, stop adding merits for further fortification.

-Make the trigger higher depending on the distance from the core of power, so a system on the other side would require 1000% to fortify.

Would represent the hardship in holding onto a large empire, and even spread the playerbase a little more, since the people grinding would pledge to leaders where they can get their merits easier.

Do you want Arissa's, Aisling's and Hudson's fortification to start at 100% at the start of the week with that change? Because why prolong the inevitable after all.

 

[Martin Schou]

A few thoughts:

-After hitting 100% in a system close to the core, stop adding merits for further fortification.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Keep in mind that some powers fortify by bringing goods from a control system to their head quarters, and thus have absolutely no way of avoiding overfortifiying systems.

-Make the trigger higher depending on the distance from the core of power, so a system on the other side would require 1000% to fortify.

The fortification trigger already increases as a function of the distance to the head quarter. That's why Antal has a system that requires 37,000 merits to fortify.

It's always good when people join in and offer up suggestions, but it's better if they've taken the time to look into the game mechanics that they're suggesting changes to first.

 

[L'Espion]

Oh.... I gotta read the manual first.... Oh wait..... There's none

I'm catching up though