Ships & Modules

A couple of ideas here for CCP to think about.


The key problem with Incursions is how such a wide scope ( going out to fight the Sanshas ) has been reduced down to ISK/hr. You sit there, do what you are told, are not allowed to think because Doctrine is god, and collect some money.

Assuming you can get a spot on grid, as there might not be enough FC's.

So, as well as it being pretty dull ( you aren't allowed to do anything different after all ), there aren't enough spots on grid too.

The dullness of being told you can only fly 3 different ships is not exactly useful. That monotony alone is a killer. And if you don't get on grid either? Indeed.

So....

We need more Fleets. And more variety. As the current fleets are so hard work at times that you are now doing a day job instead of playing a game.

I like a challenge in my game, but I do not pay CCP to be someone-else's wage-slave.


Yes, fine, the money is good in Incursions, and pays for ships for PvP ( where you are more likely to be podded too ); but... The monotony is soul-destroying. From said Incursion Fleets banning so many ships, right the way down to giving people stick for being a paltry 2% out on something or another, the whole Incursion community has pretty-much collapsed. Due to what can be described in Psychological terms as a kind of Gold Fever.

As in: Who cares about the game play. We just want the ISK.


What about those who wanted the game play? Who aren't obsessed with ISK? We have simply been squeezed out. There is nowhere for us to fly.

We can't try new things, like a couple of Battlecruisers, if we're verboten. And the heart of the problem is that the Insurance ( Ship Replacement Funds ) are player controlled. And that is how Doctrine can be used to crush the life out of a Fleet.

And, so far, no-one can afford to self-fund a new Fleet ( it hasn't happened has it ). So Incursions are pretty much gone for anything community-based, because of this ISK/hr obsession.

So...


T2 ships are fun, and also useful, but... There is no major Insurance Cover for them.

A T1 fleet will lose against a T2 fleet in a challenge. Generally speaking this is true.

Apparently there is still significant resistance to giving T2 ships full cover like T1, due to how T2 ships are battle-winners in PvP. Fair enough; but T3's are now on the rise, so that game dynamic is changing.


So...


I suggest that new Insurances be made available for players to buy in the usual places; that are tied to the hull, but give insurance payouts tied to the killmail.

- Anti-Sansha cover. That only pays if a Sansha kills you. That alone would fix the Incursion issue and allow us to make new Fleets that are more about gaming than 'mining'. Yes, fine, if we're in Low-Sec duffing up some Sanshas then Bomber's Bar may track us down & kill us for the loot we drop; but at least our hulls will be replaced. I don't mind losing a bit of profit for that.

- Anti-Gurista Cover, or Anti-BloodRaider cover, for those who Low-Sec rat etc. You can still be jobbed by the Locals unless you pay them off, but you are at-least able to cover a loss from a Rat.


See my point? It's helping the Empires, by taking out the Rats that trouble said Empires; so why would said Empires NOT pay out a bit more to help? Especially with the Tech-base now changing ( the rise of the T3 ).

In game Insurance can be fixed, so that PvE comes back to life.

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Much as I like a good Fleet if the FC is a control-freak you might as well not bother. If the bad FC can be by-passed then that is this awful in-game bottle-neck removed. The bad FC's end up seriously lonely, regardless of how Rich they are in-game; as us players have created a new more-fun fleet next door. Because we can.

Bottlenecks suck, and the Incursion Bottle-neck is a pain in the aft. For those of us not so obsessed with ISK and 'optimisation' there needs to be a way out.

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Make Incursions great again! :)

When I played C&C years ago there were 100 different maps to try, against 2 different major computer-controlled enemies ( 3 with Yuri's Revenge factored in ). In space, with a few mates on the comms, and a couple of brewskies, that would be some great gaming. I'd pay for that, instead of being someone-else's wage-slave, any day of the week.

I have no problem with farming. It's when a whole branch of the game is shut down, due to said Farmers controlling everything, that it goes wrong. Hence my desire for more fleets & variety.

PvE with more inter-connection, as you describe, could be a lot of fun.

PvP is supposed to be the higher-end of the game. Maximum risk for maximum reward. What if you want a little risk, and a more chilled thing?Say, you're tired after a hard week, and just want to fly something easy. Incursions could be that, if the Efficiency Grinders could be by-passed.

Efficiency Grinding means only 1 crowd getting rich in the long-term. The owners of the corp that runs the SRF. And, as ISN found out, if someone then robs said SRF you have a major problem. Yup, farming the fleet of farmers.

Hence the need for more CCP involvement. It's just stagnant at present.

i dont understand whats stopping you and however many friends you need to run incursions in whatever fleet you want

Flying uninsured. Much as Sansha won't pop your pod if you get a damage spike or late Logi ( human error ) ships can die.

And that can be a touch pricey.

Losing a bil is something not many people can stomach, which is why Ship Replacement Funds are preferred.

But it's the SRF providers who force you to fly the same 3 boats over and over again, and that is the dull bit. What if you want some variety, or to try something new?


This is why whole FC Trees needs to be avoidable Because if all the fleets do the same thing, like with what has happened with Incursions, then there is no 'chilled-fleet' ( as someone will constantly moan about the lack of optimisation ).

If the Incursion Fleets ran more than 1 style of Fleet things would be different, but they don't. They all efficiency grind, and after a hard week at work I don't want a hard evening ( and won't pay for that either ).


More Fleets means more variety in styles of gameplay; and that is what a number of us players are looking for ( and can't find with the current fleets ).

Complains about there not being enough FC's

Complains about FC's being picky with their fleet setups.

The solution is to FC your own fleet. Then you can accept any ship/fits you want. If you don't want to do that because of 'effort'. Well, you are your own problem.

Why don't you post this in Player Features and Ideas Discussion? If I remember right the DEVs said that they look into it on a regular basis and it was the best place for new ideas.

While I can understand where you are comming from I think the problem is more of a general kind and can't/won't be fixed with a single change. I think EVE's PVE is even more boring and grindy than other MMOs because it is a Sandbox and not a Themepark MMO. The Developers focus is not on PVE, more like PVP with some PVE attached. To make any PVE great CCP had to switch their focus onto PVE and I don't think that will happen. Because Themepark MMOs die like flies when they get older (no one likes old and outdated themeparks) and EVE is a VERY old game. I would like to see far more randomness in all parts of PVE and I am sure random rats, distances, E-War and objectives would make incursions fleets less uniform and running them less boring.

You do realize that you can make close to the same ISK (or even more) by blitzing L4s and Burner missions in high-sec, yes?

The reason why doctrine is god is because that's the most efficient way to do it, and a large amount of PvE content is done because people want money, not necessarily because they enjoy it.

This sounds like an entirely personal issue you have with the playerbase. Be the change you want to see in the world. Start your own incursion community. If you don't have the money to offer SRP, then don't. Incursion ships die really rarely anyway.

Your insurance idea sounds incredibily silly. It won't make people more likely to take risks in incursions, because they generally are packing shiny modules. If you extend insurance to cover modules, I promise you I'll make billions by jacking up the price of a module and then suiciding my frigate fit with them into the Sansha. Also, if you plan on removing insurance for dying to a player, people are going to be pissed. Oh, and lore quibble, the empires don't pay out insurance, Pend Insurance does.

Lastly, I recommend you try out Warp to Me incursions. They don't require certain fittings, just that your fit stays within certain parameters so you don't die.

So, your problem is that players are making choices in organizing their groups that you don't agree with? Easy solution: create your own incursion group, kill the people who are currently farming it, and farm it yourself. Problem solved, no game changes needed.

All I see is, for the most part, the usual stuff saying something like "incursions need to go" "low risc" and so forth.
From what I have seen incursion losses and incursion runners fits account for a significant part of the trading in all trade hubs. without them many items would have significantly lower prices and keep in mind that the vast majority of these "blingy" items is farmed in null including the "optimal" ships used in incursions like Machariel, Vindicator and Nightmare.
As for the OP my opinion is that you are only ranting about the communities but you don't know much about incursions, with this said i have to elaborate a bit.
Yes for HQ communities doctrine is God. The reason is that it took them quite some time to finalize and make them work efficiently, in fact TCRC alone took almost a year (if i remember correctly) to come up with a working solution. So its only natural that they stick to it. However before running HQ sites all incursion runners were limited to just Vanguard sites and even made a lot of money with those as well in fact this is STILL a viable option and tou don't need fancy SRP's or even so blingy ships and a lot less numbers (can be down to 10-11 people) provided that you KNOW what you are doing. In vanguard sites you can also use less tanky ships and even create doctrines with t3 or t2 ships that can perform equally well or even better in some occasions and even the isk/hour factor can be comparable, again, if you know what you are doing.
I am not the one say if incursions need to be somehow changed or whatever but there is one thing I can say: incursions have helped a lot of people to understand quite a few things like fleet management and discipline,trained lots of logi pilots and yes helped a lot of people to make isk and understand a few game mechanics.