Powerplay Thanks. I'm so done with Powerplay

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I told myself "I will help Archon and I will grind for that fifth rank" and spent three days in Resistance Pockets.
This is just a pure annoyance. A total waste of time.

1. All the enemy ships focus on YOU - no matter how many piles of Kumo Vultures and Pythons are in front of that enemy Python - the Python always locks on YOU.

2. Ten merits per kill? I need to get 1000 kills to reach rank 5? Also, Archon's undermining sucks and is unfair comparing to other faction, for example with Lavigny they give you PP for simply killing enemy ships. For Archon, you must collect some containers (that spawn RANDOMLY) and bring them back to controlled system, which by the way isn't even REMOTELY that profitable and powerful for Archon's faction as undermining for Lavigny. It's just underpowered.

3. All of my work in those three days - gone. I was rammed by FRIENDLY Python from behind and I lost 80% of hull of my Clipper and died, losing three days of work.

4. Let's not forget the insane rank decay, but that was already talked about a lot and we all know that it's simply ridiculous and needs to be toned down.

Screw powerplay. This needs SERIOUS rework. Cut down the amount of merits needed for rank 5 to half or less and completly rewamp the war zones, they're utterly broken garbage.
This all makes me so sad. Who the hell designed THIS? Who's work is all of this? Can't you see it's bad? Was this even ever tested?

oh my god I was so in love with this game week ago, and now it's GONE



[/vent]

Just make the fifth rank cost half less merits and fix your damned war zones.

EDIT: Oh, did I mention that we are actually LOSING the war in that system? How is that even possible, I spent half a day in the warzone and the only players were my mates from Kumo Crew. Why are we suddenly losing even though there isn't anybody from enemy side?
Oh wait, now I know. The SOLO cowards.

 

[NickDupree]

You only need 10k merits at the end of the cycle.

Yes so if you start from 0 and you want to get to rank 5 in one cycle you need 10k, but you could have chose to build up and you will only need around 5400 to maintain rank 5 the next week.

3 days without turning in your merits, is your mistake. Unless neccasary as part of a snipe Id always want to save my work before then its all to easy to make a stupid mistake, not to mention the odds of an npc or if in open another player doing something unexpected.

How is it possible to lose? Do you stay online 24 hours a day, people play in multiple time zones... Not to mention instancing... Just because you didnt see them didnt mean people werent being in open. Besides powerplay wasnt just released for open. Your side can and probably does work in solo as well. That doesnt make it any more or less fair for the different sides.
Yes it has many faults but these arent new and the info is openly available on how it works, if not from frontier on players sites I dont see why it needed your 'vent'.

 

[Tataboj]

I think you looked at undermining of another independent faction. If you look at, for example, Empire power, just killing enemy ships is enough. I think you can also interdict and kill enemy ships, rather than fight in resistance pockets, and you get 30 merits per kill.

 

[ever]

it's sometimes frustrating, don't give up!

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I will try Tataboj's advice. I would love to participate in PP more since it gives me the immersion and goal feeling, but things like this are just no no. The grind and unreliability make me want to vomit. I will probably try again, but no more warzone in that particular system as it's probably lost already, looking at the current expansion standing.

 

[EUS]

There's no other way to say it, PP rating 5 is for players with time on their hands.

 

[guido1205us]

There's no other way to say it, PP rating 5 is for players with time on their hands.

Exactly - rank 5 may be less grindy in a wing, but solo grind sucks. And the instant aggro/focus on you in crime sweeps/miltary zones when plenty of other targets around is rediculous.

 

[Cmdr Basskicker]

I will try Tataboj's advice. I would love to participate in PP more since it gives me the immersion and goal feeling, but things like this are just no no. The grind and unreliability make me want to vomit. I will probably try again, but no more warzone in that particular system as it's probably lost already, looking at the current expansion standing.

I would recommend checking out the Kumo Crew Subreddit and Discord. It's a great place to help you find wingmates to earn merits with, which goes much much faster than trying to do it solo.

Don't give up. Powerplay can be some of the most intriguing and immersive gameplay EliteDangerous has to offer. Especially when you are part of a group and see your actions have an effect on the overall state of Powerplay. That being said, it is certainly nowhere near perfect and can be downright frustrating at times, and the burnout factor is something that must not be ignored.

 

[lefty1117]

I really hate #1. We need to jump in with a little distance from the combat so we can pick and choose how to engage. Far too often I jump into a military strike and immediately am set upon by 3 ships.

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I picked it up again and tried the undermining as @Tataboj suggested. It's indeed not as I expected, the description for undermining is misleading. I don't need to bring any documents or anything to control systels, I get merits for kills just like with any other faction (except Archon only accepts killing freighters). Even better, the freighters spawn constantly and it's easier than I tought.
But I don't feel useful for Archon when undermining. I stick to expansion efforts for now, but on a different front than the one which I mentioned in the OP.

 

[Darth Ender]

rank 5 is not supposed to be easy to attain nor maintain. Grind or not, the solution should not be to make it quicker and easier to be rank 5.

It's hard to get behind criticism of powerplay when it comes off as just whining about wanting everything to require less effort, be faster and attainable within whatever your particular game playing schedule allows for. That's not how you improve real problems that exist with powerplay. That's just just pandering and there is enough of that already.

Fixing AI so they dont magically single you out in a crowd is one thing.
Fixing the gameplay so it's not all about grinding is another good thing to address.

But solving these problems shouldn't be done for the sake of making the rewards easier to attain. They should be just as frustratingly hard to achieve and maintain, just done in a more intelligent less grindy way. In other words, if we pretend that ranks came out to follow a bell curve, then the solution to complaints would solve the problems without altering the bell curve, if 10% of powerplay players are rank5 now, there would still be roughly 10% after. By virtue of the difficulty of getting it, vs the time-boredom barrier currently in use.

I spend a few hours every saturday morning maintaining rank 5. The rest of the week i can do whatever else I want. In it's current state it's not an insurmountable wall. It's really way too easy.

 

[guido1205us]

I spend a few hours every saturday morning maintaining rank 5. The rest of the week i can do whatever else I want. In it's current state it's not an insurmountable wall. It's really way too easy.

What are you doing? I was using my battle cutter to slosh around at crime/military zones and the kill rate was good at first, about 500/hour or so with a good "npc wing". For the lutz I outfitted a Corvette to see if I could up my rate. Either I got a good instance or the Corvette is just that much better, because I was melting practically everything in sight. Vultures/FAS that that took a little while with the Cutter now are half the rate with the Corvette. I think I ground about 1000/hr last night. Maybe it was the instance. Regardless, I may stick with PP now.

I think its the A8 distributor which allows me to melt NPCs. The Cutter's A8 Shields allow for bit more protection but takes longer to burn down NPCs with the A7 distributor. Big difference I noticed from the Cutter Vs Corvette - no drift and with FA off the Corvette has got great turn rate.

 

[Darth Ender]

I dont rely on combat merits unless i'm winged up. If you're winged up, you can accumulate merits very quickly and it's fun. Probably the most fun you can have at the moment in the game with powerplay.

If i'm not winged up, i truck for merits. It all depends on what the power needs more of at the moment.

 

[MUSKETEER]

The end of this cycle for me... 50 Million CR weekly pay is not my goal though. Rank 5 is easy to maintain once you have it.
I usually follow the ZH sticky, but recently Archon Delaine seems to be my target

 

[Fendalton]

Lol you stayed there for 3 days and didn't hand any in? You took that risk so that's entirely your fault because you can't be bothered going back to your own space to hand in the vouchers. Sorry that PP farming isn't the same as credit farming.

The only reason anyone joins a power in PP is for the trade bonus with Mahon, or for the weapons.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Things are a lot easier if you coordinate and wing up! In a wing, you share merits, don't split them. If you haven't already, join our discord channel and reddit! Check here and use the link at the top of the page https://www.reddit.com/r/kumocrew

A lot of our players were distracted by a cute attempted snipe of 60% of our control systems that we crushed utterly, so not so much attention was paid to expansions this week (still won the one we wanted though), normally there's a whole bunch of us hanging around in expansion systems

 

[Tataboj]

Lol you stayed there for 3 days and didn't hand any in? You took that risk so that's entirely your fault because you can't be bothered going back to your own space to hand in the vouchers. Sorry that PP farming isn't the same as credit farming.

The only reason anyone joins a power in PP is for the trade bonus with Mahon, or for the weapons.

Or because, you know, you share the goals with that power.

 

[Blackbird]

. The SOLO cowards.

Oh, get a life ... it's only a bleeding game. I play solo to get away from such inane venting.

 

[SCSkunk]

Lol you stayed there for 3 days and didn't hand any in? You took that risk so that's entirely your fault because you can't be bothered going back to your own space to hand in the vouchers. Sorry that PP farming isn't the same as credit farming.

The only reason anyone joins a power in PP is for the trade bonus with Mahon, or for the weapons.

Fail. Utterly.

 

[Cori]

Lol you stayed there for 3 days and didn't hand any in? You took that risk so that's entirely your fault because you can't be bothered going back to your own space to hand in the vouchers. Sorry that PP farming isn't the same as credit farming.

The only reason anyone joins a power in PP is for the trade bonus with Mahon, or for the weapons.

Or the blue hair.