Says the person doing exactly that.
The fundamental problem with making Powerplay Open-Only.
- Thread starter DemiserofD
- Start date
Says the person doing exactly that.
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Like I say, a total misunderstanding of the reasons behind it, from someone with no particular interest vested in the metagame. I'm speaking as one of the hapless "targets" you describe. I'm likely to resent that I am playing the game as intended, and showing up, co-operating as it were with my opponents (who are trying to shoot me) and my squadmates to create a meaningful activity, while haulers in other groups are in solo playing "number going up linearly with time go vwooosh!!!". It's inconvenient that us "targets" support OO I suppose? But anyone else reading the thread (poor souls) won't have the same incentive to sidestep that.
Again we can state that an overhaul that provides compelling gameplay crafted to solo/pg as well as open would be great, with no need for OO. Keep your lousy "targets", as it were. A radical hardening of PP NPCs might be enough to level the playing field significantly. Not multitudinous, but powerful NPCs, acting as gatekeepers and hauler defenders in hauling/UM situations, i.e. performing the role of players, impacting your effectiveness and requiring some skill and sense for you to maintain it.
But I think there's a correlation between the size of the majority that you please/keep happy/draw in, and the dev effort put in. It's up to Fdev to decide what balance they want to strike between effort, drawing in players, keeping existing ones, in the meta-game. If OO is just a flick of a switch, then that might be what we get.
Frillop Freyraum touched on something important IMO, in that you have an abstract system in Powerplay via solo rubbing up with a non abstracted system with Open- the NPC systems in Powerplay simply don't scale to Open levels, they can't by design really because a typical solo run will behave like a hauling mission with a decreased chance of NPC interdiction.
The problems with NPCs are they have no teeth, and no place to attack as we fly in non SC space. Start and end points (stations and surrounding drop zones) are 100% safe.
A previous suggestion of mine was this:
This in part forces haulers to find a location and drop to a semi random location that is potentially hostile for NPCs. But this is the limit of what I think is possible to get around the design issues in wider game that negatively affect Powerplay in non open modes. If applied to Open this change would take the Powerplay game loop even more perilous, because stations would not be all the end points of player actions.
Ages ago I flipped the issue around, and got this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...werplay-where-teamplay-means-survival.524174/
As it suggests, having a steady ramp of NPC difficulty based on effort would make teamplay much more important because beyond a point even one G5 ship would find it very difficult to do more.
But in the end, I think Elite does not need a second abstracted feature- an Open Powerplay strips away the need for one. You have the systems in place for it:
Explicit pledges (so you can instantly see who someone plays for)
Explicit territory (so you know where pledges belong or are trespassing)
Reduced cargo types (prep and fort). Once you see what they carry, you instantly know what they are doing based on location and pledge
Set activities: prep sites, expansions and fort/ UM- again focussed and a pledge can instantly know what another is doing based on the above
Almost 1:1 near real-time feedback: actions can be mapped to the PP UI almost instantly (based on servers
) - contrast that with the BGS where actions are aggregated anonymously
Separate C+P rules
The problems with NPCs are they have no teeth, and no place to attack as we fly in non SC space. Start and end points (stations and surrounding drop zones) are 100% safe.
A previous suggestion of mine was this:
This in part forces haulers to find a location and drop to a semi random location that is potentially hostile for NPCs. But this is the limit of what I think is possible to get around the design issues in wider game that negatively affect Powerplay in non open modes. If applied to Open this change would take the Powerplay game loop even more perilous, because stations would not be all the end points of player actions.
Ages ago I flipped the issue around, and got this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...werplay-where-teamplay-means-survival.524174/
As it suggests, having a steady ramp of NPC difficulty based on effort would make teamplay much more important because beyond a point even one G5 ship would find it very difficult to do more.
But in the end, I think Elite does not need a second abstracted feature- an Open Powerplay strips away the need for one. You have the systems in place for it:
Explicit pledges (so you can instantly see who someone plays for)
Explicit territory (so you know where pledges belong or are trespassing)
Reduced cargo types (prep and fort). Once you see what they carry, you instantly know what they are doing based on location and pledge
Set activities: prep sites, expansions and fort/ UM- again focussed and a pledge can instantly know what another is doing based on the above
Almost 1:1 near real-time feedback: actions can be mapped to the PP UI almost instantly (based on servers
) - contrast that with the BGS where actions are aggregated anonymouslySeparate C+P rules
The biggest mistake FD made was to lock some really tasty rewards behind a PP grind encouraging (forcing?) people to engage in PP who would have otherwise ignored it and if it's only the prismatics you're interested in you'll want the most effective way to obtain them. That means avoid PvP because it'll waste your time in other words play in Solo to rid yourself of all player based interference. Currently if you want the phat lewt you'll have to engage in PP and you'll have to switch sides if you want it all. (and who doesn't?)
Funnily enough they did a similar thing with the BGS except did time they ensured no one could play the game without interaction with it.
It's almost as if FD didn't put too much thought into the whole multiplayer experience. Just call it a sandbox and be done with it...
(I imagine there would be a lot less opposition to Open only PP if the PP modules could be obtained some other way.)
Disclaimer: I do NOT have any PP modules as I don't want them badly enough to engage in thoroughly uninteresting gameplay.
Funnily enough they did a similar thing with the BGS except did time they ensured no one could play the game without interaction with it.
It's almost as if FD didn't put too much thought into the whole multiplayer experience. Just call it a sandbox and be done with it...
(I imagine there would be a lot less opposition to Open only PP if the PP modules could be obtained some other way.)
Disclaimer: I do NOT have any PP modules as I don't want them badly enough to engage in thoroughly uninteresting gameplay.
I thumbs up the linked post as I completely agree with the ramp up of difficulty as you become a more potent PP influencer. And the flipping of combat to emphasise a defensive vs an attacking role vs NPCs swivels the teamplay dynamic a bit towards PvE, so that PvP isn't the only show in town, evening things up between closed modes and open mode.Frillop Freyraum touched on something important IMO, in that you have an abstract system in Powerplay via solo rubbing up with a non abstracted system with Open- the NPC systems in Powerplay simply don't scale to Open levels, they can't by design really because a typical solo run will behave like a hauling mission with a decreased chance of NPC interdiction.
The problems with NPCs are they have no teeth, and no place to attack as we fly in non SC space. Start and end points (stations and surrounding drop zones) are 100% safe.
A previous suggestion of mine was this:
This in part forces haulers to find a location and drop to a semi random location that is potentially hostile for NPCs. But this is the limit of what I think is possible to get around the design issues in wider game that negatively affect Powerplay in non open modes. If applied to Open this change would take the Powerplay game loop even more perilous, because stations would not be all the end points of player actions.
Ages ago I flipped the issue around, and got this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...werplay-where-teamplay-means-survival.524174/
As it suggests, having a steady ramp of NPC difficulty based on effort would make teamplay much more important because beyond a point even one G5 ship would find it very difficult to do more.
But in the end, I think Elite does not need a second abstracted feature- an Open Powerplay strips away the need for one. You have the systems in place for it:
Explicit pledges (so you can instantly see who someone plays for)
Explicit territory (so you know where pledges belong or are trespassing)
Reduced cargo types (prep and fort). Once you see what they carry, you instantly know what they are doing based on location and pledge
Set activities: prep sites, expansions and fort/ UM- again focussed and a pledge can instantly know what another is doing based on the above
Almost 1:1 near real-time feedback: actions can be mapped to the PP UI almost instantly (based on servers
Separate C+P rules
I wonder if you could incentivise the same defence emphasis in open play to redirect some PvP towards other PvPers and away from haulers. The only thing I could think of was to award merits (or maybe mats) for close escort of a hauler from entering the system all the way to merit drop. Say 100 merits for staying within a certain SC time proximity, if the hauler is carrying 100 or more. You'd have to be in a combat ship (no PP cargo, weapons and interdictor equipped and some military internals). It's not how PP system defence works at all normally but it would make the combat pilot a target. Not so clear cut for wing attacks etc., and vulnerable to block abuse by the defenders, maybe. Except if you're going to block everybody, you might as well just haul and get merits faster, or switch modes.
Yep I think most OOPP advocates, and possibly committed PPers in general, would be overjoyed to divorce the two, or at least make it less of a shopping mechanic (i.e. stay pledged or the modules go). It's often integral to OOPP concept forum posts. PPers don't like having to repledge to get random modules to be competitive in PvP, say (I'm looking at you, prismatics).
A lot of people who want Open PP really want its simplicity really, because thats what it provides- by taking the roles on both sides with near real time features. Its just you going from A to B with something, and someone else who might come across you doing the opposite.
As far as your postulation, you could do it a number of ways, but they add abstraction sadly. You could:
Make merits worth more in Open
A certain percentage of a total has to be done in Open- for example fortifying can be done to 60% in solo, but the rest has to be done in Open
Simulate battle lines by making high CC systems fortifyable in Open only, while low earners in solo (this however makes 5C more of a problem)
This is the core issue for me- to accommodate everyone the rules get really abstract when what is required is simplicity (but not sacrificing the minute to minute gameplay).
[QUOTEI wonder if you could incentivise the same defence emphasis in open play to redirect some PvP towards other PvPers and away from haulers.][/QUOTE]
IMO you can't really, because fortifiers are a strategic goal for the opposition.
In the beginning I think FD envisioned Powerplay being played by lots of randoms attracted by bonuses and toys, and that through numbers it would even out (hence why there was no communication tools (even though they hinted at them in early promo videos). What happened in reality was the opposite- people formed tight groups that learnt the rules inside out, and due to numbers the averaging out of bad moves never took place.
How would undermining work in such a OOPP? I mean, if it's a bad (=expensive to fortify, for low CC) system, why would there be a single player fortification transport visit that system? And with no transport to kill, no merits to undermine the system. So it's totally in the hands of the defender to define the systems in which an attack can happens...And this is where I think you are spot on and simultaneously wrong
In Open the level of abstraction is low, because players do it all, and are not bound by basic NPC rules in what they do. In this respect its the interaction of players crossing paths that makes it work- in this case objective based PvP. Unlike the BGS you can map actions from start to finish, and see it as it happens- its as anti-abstract as it gets.
In solo and PG the abstraction is high, because the 'enemy' solely becomes the progress bar and vanishingly rare NPCs.
In OOPP as outlined by Sandro, rivals would focus on high earners because they can then negate fortifying directly, unlike today where once its 100% its pretty much safe. Low income systems (unless of strategic value) would be the last to be attacked- but then it comes down to a number of factors, how much CC a power has, does it need to fortify to generate CC (i.e. does it start in a deficit).
This comes down to a combination of unified fortifying direction and uncapped UM. If a rival wants to keep that system in play, they keep on attacking the PP NPCs in system, meaning the transport pilots have to keep returning to compete. For a hauler the risk would not be in that system but the capital where fort supplies are dropped.
Well I just gave a simple example where a PvPer adds fort merits by escorting a hauler
. It's aimed at expansions though, which is where open most matters under the current system (besides UM), and where CAP will be flying routinely - I guess something equivalent could be rigged for capitals with forting. It's artificial (but then so is the merit award for shooting an escort while UMing) but an attacker can reduce merit count by 100 by merely creating separation between hauler and escort - i.e. interdicting the escort. He can interdict the hauler instead, but the escort will drop straight on their beacon and intervene. Hence the strategic importance is shared between the hauler and the escort.It's an idea that could work with or without OO, but would aim to make OO more appealing to reticent haulers. Question for me is, is it simpler to get OO past objections or invent stuff that as simply as possible balances mode risk inequalities without it. Seems you may have been through the same thought process! (e.g. drafting in tough NPCs).
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Well I just gave a simple example where a PvPer adds fort merits by escorting a hauler
It's an idea that could work with or without OO, but would aim to make OO more appealing to reticent haulers. Question for me is, is it simpler to get OO past objections or invent stuff that as simply as possible balances mode risk inequalities without it. Seems you may have been through the same thought process! (e.g. drafting in tough NPCs).
I was speaking from a point of view of reducing abstraction really, and simplifying things down. The simplest 'level' is one player stopping another prevents that action, but I do get your idea for a PvP reward for a defined action instead.
In the end its up to FD to define what PP 'is'- what role does it play and what should it do. Since its introduction its drifted without a purpose, and I get the impression FD struggle with this question. Sandros proposed changes are really the ultimate evolution of what we have now, since NPCs don't affect outcomes of player actions.
I don't think they lose nearly as much sleep as I'd like
Look at what happens at CG's, II, Deciat, or anywhere you can reliably find players in open. PKers swarm the place. Pkers that likely don't care about PP in the slightest. They are just there to get their murder on. Do you honestly believe that would not be the case?
PP needs plenty of changes to actually work fairly, and prevent stagnation, but OOPP would do more harm than good.
OO is not going to fix PP for anyone, unless you just want more pew pew, and it is doubtful it will do all that much for even them. Or they somehow make PvP integral to the process, and game in general. Which is doubtful considering how far out their way Fdev have gone to make PvP optional, to the point of it being pointless outside of RP.
Divorcing modules from the PP process would do more good than OO.
At this point, 6 years in, I suspect this is all really just an academic argument anyway.
The main difference being in Powerplay you are part of a team, and that your survival is in everyones interests. With CGs you are just random noise- and in any case there is nothing to stop wings of players banding together to get through.
Without 'pew pew' there is no way to moderate how well a power can defend itself. NPCs can't do it, so the next best option is for players to do it and become that opportunistic encounter that NPCs should be.
It certainly feels like it.
Actually, the best way to moderate how well a power can defend itself is to balance undermining with fortification. There's really no need for any sort of direct combat.
Actually, I'm arguing against your hypothesis, so it's still you that needs to prove your idea works. After all, you can claim anything you want; if you claim there's a kettle floating in space, it's not up to me to fly up there and prove it's not there, it's up to you to prove the kettle is there.
And you've actively admitted that there's no way to know if your suggestions would work without trying them out, so you've admitted that you've got no way to know whether your changes would work.
And therefore your suggestion has no merit by default.
But you can't do that- the defender has a set goal of 100% and that system is 'safe'. The attacker has wasted the effort UMing and there is nothing that can be done to prevent that, not unless the power is asleep or its done intentionally. Its only fair that a defenders haulers is exposed to some opposition (be it players or NPCs) as well, otherwise its not much of a game for either side.
And yet, I explain them all in detail, and my reasoning behind them at every turn based on my years of experience playing the feature.
There's no logical connection between these two theories.