The Open v Solo v Groups thread

[Northpin]

Ofc it may happen in all modes, but solo/PG modes ensure that it will not be directly opposed (except for vote, as that's not being influenced by game modes) and may not spotted in time under certain specific circumstances (i.e. scrap turmoils).

5C can be intentional work from the opposing powers (and it's fine IMO)

But it can also be this hypothetical situation where player X playing the PowerPlay as they see fit, disregarding the "leaders" of PP player groups. And there can be lots of such players creating a "buzz noise" that sometimes may cancel itself while other times may look like sabotage.

I mean (still hypothetically) who made you a PP leader? Not me. And you cannot dictate me how to play my own game.
And if my playing is not aligning with your idea/direction of how PP should go, you may label me as a fifth columnist.

IMO, it's not a good idea to design a system where multiple player factions have to work together and have all of them coordinating to pull the the sledge in the same direction.
It works for BGS where usually it's a single faction/squadron and a single leader, but it's not that easy when many factions and many Egos have to align together.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I mean (still hypothetically) who made you a PP leader? Not me. And you cannot dictate me how to play my own game.
And if my playing is not aligning with your idea/direction of how PP should go, you may label me as a fifth columnist.

Obviously there are players out there who think they are PP leaders and entitled to telling other players how to play the game. My general perception is that commited PP and BGS players and groups feel incredibly entitled, owning "their turf" and being allowed to tell others what they do in "their backyard". And those usually also feel entitled to constantly demand open only (be it for PP or in general), because only their way of playing is the right way, and those who don't play by their "house rules" need to be punished.

I find this all very silly. Even without the issue of instancing, time zones are a thing, and so is the block list. Oh wait, those demanding open only of course want to nerf blocking, too.

 

[Shadowsnog]

IMO, it's not a good idea to design a system where multiple player factions have to work together and have all of them coordinating to pull the the sledge in the same direction.
It works for BGS where usually it's a single faction/squadron and a single leader, but it's not that easy when many factions and many Egos have to align together.

thats what makes social mmos fun. some people just seem to be able to do that. enjoy, even...

Obviously there are players out there who think they are PP leaders and entitled to telling other players how to play the game. My general perception is that commited PP and BGS players and groups feel incredibly entitled, owning "their turf" and being allowed to tell others what they do in "their backyard". And those usually also feel entitled to constantly demand open only (be it for PP or in general), because only their way of playing is the right way, and those who don't play by their "house rules" need to be punished.

i cant say that ive experienced this behaviour in pp. quite the opposite actually.

 

[Rebel Yell]

5C can be intentional work from the opposing powers (and it's fine IMO)

I hear the sound of hands climbing on mirrors all powers have been "victims" of 5C and all powers despise 5C but no one will ever admit that made/makes use of it.

Well... after all the mess happened years ago, we have officially stated that we (as Delaine PP) don't do 5C and it's been forbidden by our house rules that everyone must accept (I'm in Kumo since 5yrs, 4yrs in deputy leadership and roughly 1yr on the helm and can witness that no one ever issued a 5C order to Kumo Crew or its allies).

But it can also be this hypothetical situation where player X playing the PowerPlay as they see fit, disregarding the "leaders" of PP player groups. And there can be lots of such players creating a "buzz noise" that sometimes may cancel itself while other times may look like sabotage.

The "noise" is manageable... and all powerplay groups deploy their resources to contain/address such "noise" (including the BGS-5C Dramaturgists).

On the other side, 5C requires some well organised and coordinated effort to be successful.

I mean (still hypothetically) who made you a PP leader? Not me. And you cannot dictate me how to play my own game.
And if my playing is not aligning with your idea/direction of how PP should go, you may label me as a fifth columnist.

There's plenty of lone wolves... powerplay communities do their best to keep players aligned to their order-line but it's definitively not easy. Most happens out of the game (Discord, etc) as a consequence of a very poor (in terms of information provided) menu/interface for the powerplay activities... but yes, we label all of them as "potential 5C" but in the funny way, not as a real harm to the power itself.

Biggest powers have many leaders sitting on different activities (BGS, fortifications, undermining, PvP, etc.) small ones may be way less organised and have to rely on priority lists, dispatched to all affiliates, supporters etc. lot of communication is required to keep things together.

IMO, it's not a good idea to design a system where multiple player factions have to work together and have all of them coordinating to pull the the sledge in the same direction.
It works for BGS where usually it's a single faction/squadron and a single leader, but it's not that easy when many factions and many Egos have to align together.

That's the problem of all organisations... and that's also the reason why some powers have failed to "pull the sledge" and became someone's else muppets.

 

[Darkfyre99]

5C can be intentional work from the opposing powers (and it's fine IMO)

But it can also be this hypothetical situation where player X playing the PowerPlay as they see fit, disregarding the "leaders" of PP player groups. And there can be lots of such players creating a "buzz noise" that sometimes may cancel itself while other times may look like sabotage.

I mean (still hypothetically) who made you a PP leader? Not me. And you cannot dictate me how to play my own game.
And if my playing is not aligning with your idea/direction of how PP should go, you may label me as a fifth columnist.

IMO, it's not a good idea to design a system where multiple player factions have to work together and have all of them coordinating to pull the the sledge in the same direction.
It works for BGS where usually it's a single faction/squadron and a single leader, but it's not that easy when many factions and many Egos have to align together.

The difference between 5th column activity, and good old fashioned “We ARE struggling together,” isn’t simply a difference of opinion in preparing and then executing between to two good expansion targets. It’s the difference between a good expansion, and one that is so obviously, spectacularly, and maliciously bad, that even my grandmother understands what a bad move it is… God rest her soul.

I enjoy occasionally doing my own analysis when it comes to my Power’s activities. There’s a wealth of offline information out there. It’s every easy to spot 5C from simple differences of opinion. 5C is the PowerPlay equivalent of joining an online PUG with an alt and sniping your own team, so your actual teammates can have an easy win.

 

[Northpin]

The difference between 5th column activity, and good old fashioned “We ARE struggling together,” isn’t simply a difference of opinion in preparing and then executing between to two good expansion targets. It’s the difference between a good expansion, and one that is so obviously, spectacularly, and maliciously bad, that even my grandmother understands what a bad move it is… God rest her soul.

I enjoy occasionally doing my own analysis when it comes to my Power’s activities. There’s a wealth of offline information out there. It’s every easy to spot 5C from simple differences of opinion. 5C is the PowerPlay equivalent of joining an online PUG with an alt and sniping your own team, so your actual teammates can have an easy win.

Well, i did dabbled in PP for some 4-5 months - keeping meself at max rating.
And in the beginning i did watch the forums (not a discord user) and tried to fortify targets in the order they advised or undermined the targets they advised.
But then, quite early actually, i didnt care at all anymore and decided to go like i didnt knew organized PP ever existed - so i went all out doing whatever i wanted to.

I have no idea if my actions did anything good or bad (most probably not had any influence whatsoever - hopefully) since i never checked that section of the forums and i only stopped when i got exploded and lost a 50 millions voucher.
I'm not that special to consider myself unique when it comes to gaming, so certainly there were some other people that may have gotten themselves involved in PP like i did
No idea, just speculations pretty much like hypothetical scenario from the post you did quote.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Well, i did dabbled in PP for some 4-5 months - keeping meself at max rating.
And in the beginning i did watch the forums (not a discord user) and tried to fortify targets in the order they advised or undermined the targets they advised.
But then, quite early actually, i didnt care at all anymore and decided to go like i didnt knew organized PP ever existed - so i went all out doing whatever i wanted to.

I have no idea if my actions did anything good or bad (most probably not had any influence whatsoever - hopefully) since i never checked that section of the forums and i only stopped when i got exploded and lost a 50 millions voucher.
I'm not that special to consider myself unique when it comes to gaming, so certainly there were some other people that may have gotten themselves involved in PP like i did
No idea, just speculations pretty much like hypothetical scenario from the post you did quote.

I have no idea if my PowerPlay BGS related activities had any impact either, especially given how little time I have to devote to this game. I did find it curious that the proverbial “balance of power” along the ALD/Hudson border, BGS wise, swung so heavily from being in ALD’s favor, to about even when I departed on Distant World’s 2.

I like to think my tendency to ignite the fires of revolution against the Evil Galactic Federation kept Hudson’s BGS team occupied while ALD’s BGS team concentrated on promoting favorable factions. But I suspect that something about how BGS 2.0 changed things is the culprit.

 

[Darrack]

to be more elaborate, it's when people try to undermine a faction from within, i.e. join it and then work against its interests.

This has been part of warfare for century's.

O7

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

The difference between 5th column activity, and good old fashioned “We ARE struggling together,” isn’t simply a difference of opinion in preparing and then executing between to two good expansion targets. It’s the difference between a good expansion, and one that is so obviously, spectacularly, and maliciously bad, that even my grandmother understands what a bad move it is… God rest her soul.

I enjoy occasionally doing my own analysis when it comes to my Power’s activities. There’s a wealth of offline information out there. It’s every easy to spot 5C from simple differences of opinion. 5C is the PowerPlay equivalent of joining an online PUG with an alt and sniping your own team, so your actual teammates can have an easy win.

Well said. Yes the 5C people talk about in powerplay is game (or rather feature) breaking stuff unfortunately, not a fun way of doing something sneaky. The generic gaming term is "collusion exploit" I think. So it's like farming bounties off your friends using a wing multiplier, except that instead of credits it's universe-shaping involving the destruction of potentially years of legitimate gameplay work by the side you're sabotaging, often more or less irreversibly.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

I hear the sound of hands climbing on mirrors all powers have been "victims" of 5C and all powers despise 5C but no one will ever admit that made/makes use of it.

Well... after all the mess happened years ago, we have officially stated that we (as Delaine PP) don't do 5C and it's been forbidden by our house rules that everyone must accept (I'm in Kumo since 5yrs, 4yrs in deputy leadership and roughly 1yr on the helm and can witness that no one ever issued a 5C order to Kumo Crew or its allies).

Well what actually prevents anyone doing such? Even for Delaine?

 

[ethelred]

Well what actually prevents anyone doing such? Even for Delaine?

Nothing does.

Is that good design though?

 

[Rebel Yell]

Well what actually prevents anyone doing such? Even for Delaine?

We have our methods, no idea about what other powers do.

 

[Shadowsnog]

it's like farming bounties off your friends using a wing multiplier, except that instead of credits it's universe-shaping involving the destruction of potentially years of legitimate gameplay work by the side you're sabotaging, often more or less irreversibly.

Well what actually prevents anyone doing such? Even for Delaine?

federal and imperial ethos side by side

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I couldn't possibly comment.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

federal and imperial ethos side by side

For those honest and honourable commanders. Sadly all are not such kind..

 

[Rebel Yell]

I couldn't possibly comment.

So you're leaving me alone against all ???

 

[heathenlamb]

I think it should be suggested that maybe the Thargoid War, background narrative and even PP politics, are simply not as engaging as FDev think.

In so many ways it always feels like a distant, disconnected story. Perhaps that plays into people not engaging in PP because it simply has nothing that some of us percieve as necessary and/or essential to our game loop.

 

[SteveWW57]

We have our methods, no idea about what other powers do.

You have your own version of the Inquisition? You put heretics to the rack?

Steve

 

[TobiasFuzz]

Such drama. PP, PvP, open only, 5C...
I am really starting to think about doing some of this 5C stuff to powers i dont like (all of them). Of course in solo Just to make a point. As long as non consensual PvP in open is legimitate gameplay, so is non consensual PP. Or whatever it should be called. It is not a cutthroat galaxy? And suddenly it is important to play "honorably"? I dont buy it.

 

[Rebel Yell]

You have your own version of the Inquisition? You put heretics to the rack?

Nah, they have to hear me crying for hours screaming "why did you do it?"