Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have been running incursions for a very long time. I ran them for almost a year, from when incursion were live events, until I took off to null sec for a while. I came back after a year and have spent a year again running incursions. What I have seen is what Incursions were, what they are now, and where they are going.

Incursions can't simply be removed from the game. They are the only source of meta 2 capital modules and 6% implants. These items could be moved to other LP stores, or another method of earning CONCORD LP introduced, but these are time consuming projects that I believe are not worth the effort.

When Incursions were new, we all had a lot of fun grinding the influence bar down, forming a mothership fleet out of Incursion local, and moving on to the next incursion. It was great fun, and we all earned a lot of isk when we were flying. An effort was made to consolidate all the small groups together into larger communities, based around BTL, and TDF, for shield and armor fleets respectively. Groups began running headquarters consistently, and more and more people came into incursion communities. Even when Headquarters communities became a thing, the incursion population was small compared to it's current size.

Fast forward to the present day. There are several headquarters communities, and a vast number of vanguard communities, and almost no one runs assaults because they're still kinda broken. Even null sec corporations will form up vanguard fleets and make isk on occasion.

When incursions first started it took several hours to fight down the influence. Most of the communities that did this came together to clear the incursion, and moved on to the next. There were so few of us running that we seldom ran out of incursions. There are now so many players running incursions that when a fresh incursion spawns if no others are up, the bar is fully blue in less than 2 hours. There are usually 4, sometimes 5 fleets running headquarters sites in the EUTZ, and 2 or 3 in USTZ. If all the communities are in a single incursion, the system respawns and the rate at which they respawn can not support the fleets running without contests occurring. I am not saying this needs to be changed, I am simply stating fact.

Incursions are no longer about fighting the sansha, they are about fighting the clock, and fighting other communities. When one of the headquarters fleets gets mad at another, they close the mothership, and shut the isk making down. Incursions are about printing isk as fast as possible, they have been figured out to the point that a fleet can carry several players who should not and could not be there when incursions first started. Some incursion runners invest so much in their ships that their fits are more expensive than the fit on my mothership. All of this is done in the name of clearing sites as fast as possible. This was not what incursions were about in the beginning.

I recently ran a null sec incursion with my alliance. it took over a day to blue the bar, and we lost more than a few ships. However, we all had a good time, and when the bar was blue, we formed a mothership fleet, cleared the incursion, and everyone cheered. It reminded me of the days in the beginning. The influence was something to be fought and an achievement when cleared. The bar is a formality now, with many communities not even forming until it is clear.

Some communities as of late have taken to closing incursions as a way to 'penalize' other communities, often for simply contesting a site. Contesting is a valid game mechanic. As a community that takes non-shiny ships and new players, I have been on the losing end of more than my share of contests. However, I do not believe that they are broken. Contests, while frustrating, are in essence the only form of combat between two high sec communities. What I do feel is broken, is that since the bar is almost always blue, a simple fleet can go and kill the mothership, ending the incursion for all players in that incursion. The real victims, in my opinion, are the vanguard communities that often have no warning or reason why the mothership is killed. While headquarters fleets can finish the sites they are in, or put players on beacons to hold them open and run sites for an hour after the mothership is dead, vanguard communities finish one 5 minute site and are forced to stand down.

I feel there are ways to address many of these issues, while keeping incursions from simply being farmed and printing isk.

First, a list of problems as I view them.
1. Incursions are now too easy.

I have heard time and time again that incursions are to be the end-game of high sec carebearing. While I am fine with this and find it to be largely true, I do not feel the difficulty is in line with this. As long as the bar is fully blue, a drake fleet can run headquarters. This hardly seems like end game to me.

2. Incursions are too easy to farm.

Incursions can be farmed in thinly tanked high damage ships making isk per hour that is unheard of in almost any other area of the game. Players no longer worry about losing ships, as the sites without influence must be easy enough to clear when the influence is 100%. A player can form a fleet simply saying 'shiny ships only' and run around making an isk / hr ratio even above most incursion fleets.

+1

+1 indeed

+1 I agree completely

+1 indeed. Make them difficult and interesting again.

I think the real issue is, ccp never separated Low sec incursion sites from high or null, the only real difference is the payouts. While most changes or designs is focused on with the high sec incusions in mind. The live events were great fun.

People wanting to make crazy isk and have fun at one point move to low sec and even groups on null sec alliances ran low sec incursions to grid down the blue bar to take the mom in the hope that they got the Rev bpc. Low sec incursions should be reset to the "good old blitz days" when an armor t3 fleet could blitz and battleships could ddd through. This would take alot of preasure off the newer communities and two different groups of players would harvest low incursions for thier needs, carebears for the isk.

Where there are carebears and isk; there griefers trying to steal it or steal hard won tears. Make adjustments to high sec while adjusting low sec down, bc its not the npcs that want to kill there. Everyone would be happy. Griefers would have a place to farm kills and uber carebears would always be temped to move to lower sec to make easier isk. Supplying economy with much needed rig mats, and kills.

******edit I think this change to low sec incursions would bring back the live event feel and change the uber fits back to basic ones at lease in low sec. It would be great fun without killing DEVs :(. (DEV pods are the best one to kill and loot)*****

I agree with all the suggestions. I would like to see incursions be harder and more in line with the 'end game' they were designed to be. I would also love to see a way to delay the spawning of the mothership therfore removing the cry babies from ending the incursion. Although, back to reality. This is Highsec stuff and CCP ain't gonna give two ***** since this doesn't involve nerfing Titans and Supers, but it never hurts to wish.

Mom?

All Mom's, All the Time :)


But seriously, this is a great idea. A community could at best hold incursions hostage for a few hrs.. then they would go to bed and everything would calm down.. and even if it didn't there would still be incursions to run.

At the minimum, it would be worth a shot, I mean they are broken as it is.. almost everyone agrees, most communities, and CCP for sure. Something needs to be done.

+1

+1