Missions & Complexes

I can only agree to dissagree on the case of nullsec anoms. Not in that nullsec sov and defense isn't an involved process, but considering the wide variety of benefits that yields it can't be argued that all that effort should accumulate to single people being able to go out and vastly outpace anything highsec has to offer by just shipping into a raven and warping to a spot detected by the onboard scanner.

Openness to PvP is ever present. People use it constantly against other players in highsec, incursion runners aren't off limits and the great thing is if you want to kill them you know what constellations they are in just by looking at the journal. Are the pimp fit ships not enticing enough? If you consistently tank action against then I'm sure their numbers will diminish. And lastly, I never stated high end earners should be considered, but rather that they shouldn't be the ONLY ones considered.

Edit: Has any thought been given to returning HQ/AS to closer to what they were pre-escalation and adjusting the highsec multiplier downward if they were thought to be paying highsec to much?

It's not about other not adapting. It's more of the reason being why they were doing incursions.
Most "private channel", they are doing incursions because of ISK.

Most people were doing incursions solely for the ISK. Only a rare few is doing because it is fun, community value, making new friends.

So when the patch hits, all those who were doing for ISK drops out. (which is like 70-80% of btlpub and random private channels)

I don't blame them for not adapting and putting effort into doing it.
C'mon, who will wanna waste their time making fleets when no one is there to x up?

A few of things :

* For highsec, more realistic distribution of incursion spawns in the ratio of the number of applicable constellations. Not a 1:1:1:1 ratio.

* A little more granularity to incursion status would be nice (instead of Established > Mobilized > Withdrawing) , ala WH.
This gives better estimation for players whether to commit or goto/wait for the next one.

* Easier/more intuitive lookup when someone wants to find out which are the Vanguards, Assaults or HQs systems in the constellation.
Best way is to put it on a dashboard in the journal. Currently pilots are resorting to : http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=IncursionConstelationLayout

* Transparent active ship fit lookup for fleet, available to FC/Wing/Squad leaders. This ensures a double-check can be done within fleet without resorting to ship scanners.

* Remote repair & energy transfer icons (as per ewar scheme). This makes it a little easier for pilots to keep tab on their status without having to resort to graphics-fu.
It also enables pilots to quickly identify any issues with logistics repair/ETs.

* Simple target capacitor state white bar (or bars) somewhere onscreen that pops-up when you use ETs on one/multiple targets.

* Adding an "All clear" broadcast to denote the pilot is no longer targeted/need assistance.

* General UI improvements to show ROF, range (optimal+fallout for turrets) and tracking (exp vel/rad for missiles) for the weapon's mouseover. The traditional "Show Info" is very clunky.

* Long term, a better, reliable and more robust EVE voice as the lowest denominator for VOIP. Some fleets run exclusively on TS3/others - which makes it a non-option for those that prefers more privacy or choose not to install the client for one reason or another. Incursion folks use to be on EVE voice a lot, until you stacked up the screw ups and issues for it from several patches. Just like the incursion nerf, people migrated to TS3/other options to keep the fleet running.

* Long term (mainly for PUG), a better way for active pilots/FCs to advertise their fleet, availability + available ships types - like a local mercenary BBS system or similar. Minimizes the need to spam the channel with fits every few minutes. Some just lurks until they see an FC asking for ships to x up. So, it can degenerate into a waiting game for both sides. Many of the regular pilots brings 1-2 other ships along for hot switching. Atm, there's no way to advertise for this non-verbosely except to spam fits or someone asking directly.

* Long term, some sort of effective ranking system (ala faction warfare), mainly for mainly for e-peen and immersion. It can also be utilized as a general gauge for the pilot's incursion experience. While this makes it easier to discriminate newbies/veterans, as a whole, it makes FCing less complicated when you know at least 50-75% of the fleet is reliable for a PUG fleet. It also encourages participation for a newbie to build up their reputation as an incursion pilot.

* The change to per wave mechanics made incursion more bland/boring than previously. The only good thing that came out of it was basing primary focus on NPC ship types + most damaged ship, rather than the old follow the tag routine. Situation shifts like water, depending on what spawned - which is good. Now, up the ante and make the waves group random. For example, NCOs, randomize the last all frigate spawn into the 1st/2nd/3rd wave. Swap those wave groups around.

* Preferably, incursion payout should be paid only to those pilots that are on grid. Prevents abuse (especially in larger groups) by people sitting at the acceleration gate - idling, ninjaing and etc. Any quick disconnect/re-connect shouldn't be affected as the pilot would warp back to grid upon re-connect.

* NMCs needing to mine Lyavite looks nice on the design paper, but absurd in practice. No regular incursion fleets will waste time mining them. They are sourced in two major ways - alt mining or buy from contracts. The need to supply/account for this Lyavite directly goes into extending the logistics behind incursions - with very little reason for it. Preferably, you want to design it very similar to OCF for just-in-time quick pick ups, with a little bit of spare. Any future site designs should keep the above in mind.

* As for some comments on spawning the Mara closer, it's not going to make a whole lot of difference to kitchen sink fleets with low dps. The default orbit is 60km, it'll just burn away and you'll have fun trying to chase it even further away from the fleet. If you're planning to make it slightly easier, reduce the default orbit to 40km - which is ideal for med Scorch (on bonused hulls) and reasonably reachable with large ACs.

Thanks for the feedback :) The issue of what CCP see Incursions as - I answered on page 2 :)

That is why I am also on the forums - reading everything and replying. I am only 1 person, I cannot possibly talk individually to every single person in the Incursion Community but I have spoken to quite a few and am making myself available on the forums and anyone is welcome to EVE mail me. I think you could benefit from reading through the thread again to see that we are aware of the issues and we do plan to do something about it.

Keep the discussion on topic - short term fixes

900k lp?

avg was around 300k for the top earner and 100k for the avg joe, i'd rather see isk pwned and lp go up as they drain isk out of the economy rather than adding

Just posting a point to make sure it's clear:
There's no advantage and several issues with making an FC or Fleet Boss bonus payout.

In my experience the people in these positions in the fleet are there for mechanical reasons. The FC will be someone with leaderships skills to pass the bonuses, often also the off grid ganglink ship, and an alt of someone who may or may not be currently flying in sites. The boss is often the true FC and who's formed/sustained the fleet as well as calling their actions atm, but this can change if multiple people are helping, and if they disconnect it goes to someone random.
If your booster or waitlist members are afk in system, you don't want everyone to immediately have to drop fleet just to correct the boss position, losing fleet join & chat history, and ganglinks until they can rejoin fleet.

In the blitz group I ran with, we tried to make a community point of tipping the FC, the booster alt, the ore-dropper on an hourly rate. I see no real issue with leaving this as a social problem for people to handle, rather than attempted to be enforced by game mechanics.

If people aren't willing to tip, they can be noted by those in receiving positions, and suffer player-driven consequences.

Also how to chose a pay rate? In very public fleets, the FC may be doing far more work to keep alive and get the most from his inexperienced members. In well-oiled fleets, many are capable of taking the FC role and are acting mostly without instruction when not, and advising on things like contests vs specific compositions & wreck counts. Again, using fleet join time mechanics and the thing almost runs itself/as a group effort.

1. Reduce the NCN pockets from 3 to 2 and allow Command ships into both sides of the acceleration gate.

2. Make hacking despawn Mara's and Niarja's also make it mandatory to complete OTA's (or continuous waves spawn after the 3rd wave is down) and move the Logistics Array to within 50km of the warp in point of the site.

3. Move the warp in point on NMC's 20Km deeper into the pocket so it's closer to the station and Asteroid as well as the NPC.

4. Reduce the number of Romi in OCF from 4 - 2, most fleets don't kill all the Romi anyway, once the cans dropped for the Civi's the rest are left. It seems just a pointless waist of time to have so many Romi, to kill and hope the can spawns.

5. Move the gates in the TPPH sites 10km closer together and remove all armor and structure hit points on the station.