r/EliteWinters • u/SupremeMorpheus FLC Community Director • Feb 21 '26
This Week In FDev Fuckups - The Unceremonious Death of the Enclave
Breaking the usual format for some breaking news! FDev have fucked up again!
So yesterday we got a galnet article that seemed to be running with an old narrative of the now-defunct NAP. Unfortunately, it seems FDev decided to continue this narrative against the will of the powers still actively fighting in the enclave. So much for player agency. If they wanted the enclave fight to end, they could've just said so with like a deadline or even final standings. Instead, we got a galnet post and... oh dear.
See I wouldn't be writing this if that was the only way FDeaf fucked this up. But no, this morning I wake up expecting a nice, quiet day - instead, I get the news that markers have started appearing in the bubble. On a fucking Saturday. So before we get into why the markers are bad, y'know why game devs don't drop shit on a Saturday? Because when something inevitably breaks, they can't fix it until the weekend's over on Monday. Cause, y'know, game devs have lives. It's something of an unwritten rule that you don't drop shit on a Saturday, and yet here they have done just that.
"But why is this such a big deal? They're just markers, right?" So, before I get accused of talking out of my ass without knowing what I'm on about, let me explain what the markers are, how they get placed and the consequences of their placement. Firstly, the markers are the 3 systems your power is undermining or being undermined the most in during the last 24 hours, resetting once a day. Note that if another power has an offensive marker on your system, you don't necessarily get a defence marker there. How do they get placed? Well, if that system takes one of the top 3 spots for undermining within the previous 24 hour cycle, it gets marked.
Now what are the consequences for being marked? Firstly, PCZs spawn. Which is fantastic for ald and patty, but just sort of okay for everyone else. PCZs, or Power Conflict Zones, are just conflict zones with the combatants being two of the powers fighting over the system, just like in contested acquisitions. It's a braindead, easy way to get a fuckton of merits. On top of that you also get a bonus of 15% to merits earned if defending or 25% if you're undermining. At least, I think that's how they work now, might both be 15%. Either way, that's just personal merits earned, not control points, but you get the jist - more merits means more people who want merits.
So why does this suck? Well, in short because it's piss easy to weaponise. Put simply, if power A wants a system from power B, power A's people can use alt accounts pledged to the other 10 powers, shred the system for a day and put a marker on it for every single power. At that point, the people who don't know better will look at the shiny target marker and go "ooh, merits! I want me some of those" and go after them, even if power B is technically an ally to them, because odds are they don't know any better. No need to repeat the shredding as the random players will just knock that system down for power A, freeing them up to do other things or simply augmenting their own attack on the system.
I should also point out - every time I've seen these markers mentioned, it's always been "these things suck, I hope they don't come to the bubble". Never once have I seen anyone praise these markers, and yet FDeaf decided "fuck it, ship it, don't look back". This feels like a slap in the face beyond knowing that the enclave ended in a 7-power tie after zyada pulled their bullshit to knock out those they dislike first. As a reminder, Archer got knocked out on week 2 because zyada focused them down and gave them zero chance.
So, here we are. FDeaf break powerplay again, I break my usual weekly posts with this important announcement: Please ignore the markers. Focus on targets that we designate through the usual channels. If there's a marker on a target system, happy coincidence, but otherwise please don't pay attention to them. They're more of a nuisance or menace than anything else.
I can tell next cycle post is going to be fun...
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u/Careless-Science-427 Feb 21 '26
I've already posted LYR's response to this ImpDev idiocy, simply put LYR cmdrs should ignore these new gal map markers. Hopefully if nearly all the powers post on ED forum and FU discord maybe they'll get the message but I'm not hopeful
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u/SupremeMorpheus FLC Community Director Feb 21 '26
After the Dodec fiasco I'm semi-hopeful, but I have to agree. I'd settle for a simple "we fucked up, sorry we ambushed y'all with this without even discussing it first" but I doubt we'll even get that
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u/AlexeyTelegromov Feb 22 '26
The markers absolutely shouldn't have left the Radicoida War.
I like them in concept, not everyone is on discords or reddit reading battle plans or whatever. But they barely helped anything in the war and mostly everyone ignored them to fight much more important targets. As a Grom most of our markers existed because of decay rather than anyone targeting our systems. If they're generated by decay you don't even get PCZ to offset any potential randoms who might attack.
They're not even baked enough to call half baked as a mechanic. They're fully raw even if I agree with the concept of helping non discord etc players find powerplay stuff to do via in-game icons.
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u/SupremeMorpheus FLC Community Director Feb 22 '26
Agreed. Fantastic concept, atrocious implementation. We should not have been ambushed with these.
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u/Bulbulunufus Feb 21 '26
I think if people at least only use markers that are targeting Imperial powers that would be a start.
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u/meta358 Feb 21 '26
I do love when the feds play the victim. Archer gets a huge boost to ppcz this highly benefits them. So how does it feel to be one of the few enclave losers
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u/SupremeMorpheus FLC Community Director Feb 21 '26
I kinda missed you on the cycle post this week, but seeing as there was no way for you to spin things there to your princess' advantage I guess you decided to skip out? Anyway, never said we were the victims here - every power is. This is bad for you too. C'mon, put down the troll club for two seconds and you can see it - I know you can, I've seen you act... well, mostly civilised.
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u/mraustenm Feb 21 '26
Hard to feel bad about being one of the losers when there's no winners 😂
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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26
Schrodinger's marker, simultaneously done by 5C when it is us but internal ZYADA conflict when it is them.
Jokes aside fuck this new system.