Missions & Complexes

I've been leading fleets recently of EVE University students who are often newer to Incursions, so these are my thoughts from that perspective.

- Shiny fleets don't hack in OTAs, but when your fleet is half drakes, hacking makes a notable difference. Moving the towers closer such that the hacker can keep within rep range of logistics is something to consider. This could help kitchen sink fleets without pushing the top tier fleet profitability beyond your targets. Hacking also introduces a useful role for a really new player who otherwise wouldn't be able to participate in Incursions yet.

- I'm mixed regarding removing the Mara or making it an optional kill. Amusingly enough, in a kitchen sink fleet it gives the Drake something helpful to do. Maybe moving the Mara orbit range in a tiny bit so missile supports at III can reach it consistently. A kitchen sink fleet has an extremely difficult time applying enough dps to the Mara to punch through the OTA rep tower, but in conjunction with a hacker we've been able to take the Mara down before the next wave with only a couple longer range ships. I kinda like that dynamic actually, so I think I'd be in favor of keeping the Mara but making hacking a little easier.

- Backing out the 10% pay reduction sounds like a good idea if you feel that doesn't move the upper pay bounds beyond your targets. Honestly I don't find the 10% paycut a big deal, but I think the psychological effect of the 'double nerf' as some folks have put it was noticable.

While it's unfortunate to see the drop in participation, I think it was a necessary byproduct of balancing incursions. The EVE University missions channel was practically dead for months because Incursions paid so much more in comparison. I now see people in both channels choosing which content is better aligned with their interests.

Hi Soundwave.

Thank you for your willingness to continue to review incursions. I'm speaking from an almost exclusively HQ fleet FC point of view and only occasionaly an AS FC point of view...my knowledge of the VG folks is mostly anecdotal.

One of the things coloring the feedback from the changes made last week is the fact that either due to fewer VG fleets running or changes to the Sansha Influence mechanic (or both), the Sansha Influence has been an order of magnitude harder to move since the patch. While we have the ability to compensate for running at high levels of influence in the HQ fleets and to a lesser extent in the AS fleets for longer periods of time, the VG's have been hit harder by this than anticipated I think. With fewer fleets running (Incursion local on the Shields side has been running at 50-75% of the pre-patch levels if that) it takes longer to run the sites, and with the bar being perceived to be not moving as fast as before, I think there may be some pilot frustration causing attrition. It's one thing to nerf the income, and make the sites perhaps more difficult...but stacking the higher influence for hours and hours longer than before is like a 3x affect rather than a 1-2x that you may have been aiming for.

As to the AS sites specifically, the Assaults appear to be only slightly more attractive to pilots and FC's since the patch. The changes to date do not at this early stage appear to have been sufficient to attract and sustain a new core or community of dedicated AS pilots and FC's in the long term. So I do applaud your interest in reviewing them in terms of making them more attractive to pilots either through further site refinements or even perhaps still meddling in the rewards. Again, at higher levels of Sansha influence, the longer run times of the AS sites make them even less attractive. We (The Valhalla Project HQ and AS Shield community) have been able to run AS fleets to date mainly as overflow from a full HQ fleet, and again only as a stepping stone into building a second HQ fleet. One of our long-term AS FC's returned from break and ran for a couple of days but didn't seem overly excited, and appears now to have returned to break. So HQ's remain far more attractive to all but a very small sub-set of pilots and FC's, again, not large enough to sustain a dedicated community.

I do not think this was an intended consequence of your changes.

You didn't ask specifically about the HQ changes. But I'm going to give feedback anyway. Only one site (NRF) was changed at all. It takes a bit longer to run and is no longer blitzable...no biggie. The sites take 50% or so longer to run at high influence, ok, we can work with that. And we have to now pay a little more attention to feet composition both due to the NRF changes and Influence levels (horrors...paying attention is so wrong). So, we've actually seen a small amount of growth in the Shields HQ community due probably to our stability and proven ability to cope with the patch changes. This growth however comes probably largely at the cost of both the VG fleets and potentially at cost of the Armor AS/HQ community who may not be able to afford those losses long-term.

So, TLDR. I think the Influence could afford to be looked at. At least in the context of it being a greater nerf than perhaps intended in the greater Incursion context. I also think AS's need to be again looked at to see if there are ways to increase the attractiveness to both pilots and FC's...however I don't know if that will take reward changes or site changes.

nomatech.

i second that, this is more or less my point of view too no need to say any more. only thing is with these new harder vg sites pilots have begun abandoning incursions, they are not attractive. is your point realy to nerf things so much people wont do them? i would think u want people to enjoy your game. and people was sitting for hours on end with vanguards. contesting almost every site. nowadays i have been contested once since the patch, and that was just bad luck, 5 open sites in system and 2 vg fleets. rethink your strategies ccp. u want people to like the game? then dont kill the parts that people like. thats just unlogical. supply and demand is the key here. i could go on explaining why but i think nova here did some of the work for me.

true, building communitys are what the game is about. and incursions are a meeting point for all players where alliance and corp politics are left at the door. this should be harvested by ccp. this is what will make players come back day after and jack in to new eden.

after all people ae making farming more difficult by taking the mom out only days after the incursions is established.

Again I totally agree with what is asked here.
-The NCS's were nerfed so they take longer to complete. I'm still scratching my head how in the world you could have thought doing what you did with them made them any shorter?
-The OCF's actually have more ships in them ( many augas which were not thier before patch ) I'm still scratching my head how in the world you could have thought doing what you did with them made them any shorter or more attractive?
- The NCNs were watered down in number of ships inside. I honestly don't think this watering down made them significanly shorter and they still take the longest to complete and the form up for them has not shortened at all Even though now T1 Battle cruisers can now go through both sides.

To reiteriate : " Well Lying or not posting correct information isn't a good start to Inferno. "

Direct quote from http://community.eveonline.com/en/inferno/features
"Incursion Iteration
The rewards and challenges of Sansha invasion fleets in Incursion content have been revisited to better balance challenge and reward. Vanguard invasions will now take a bit longer, while the time to complete an Assault invasions will be reduced some."

PVE Fleet Commanders really !!! the troll is a really strong with this thread. ..... ........ ..... Wait you're serious that's funnier.

Hi sound wave,

Please consider treating lowsec incursions (and to a lesser extent - nullsec incursions) differently than hisec. It takes a lot more organization and has a lot more risk involved. Due to this, please ensure that whatever you do with hisec incursions, lowsec should end up paying more to make them al viable pre experience again.

Thanks

I completely agree with this post. If your intention was to break Incursions to the point that they are no longer worth our time to do, you've succeeded completely. The CFC had an internal community of several hundred pilots that specialized in running Lowsec Incursions that has literally shut down overnight due to the Incursion changes. There were some compelling numbers produced by them in a series of tests, I'll go try to find the person who did them and encourage them to post right now. In my opinion, which seems to be shared by many others here, group PvE is >>>> solo PvE and should be encouraged in every way possible. I've conducted several experiments in 0.0 space since the virtual disbandment of our Incursion groups and nothing I can come up with can even scratch solo ratting in an active tanked Tengu in a Forsaken Hub from an isk/hour point of view (except maybe plexes, but more people in those = split payout, so they don't scale well). Incursions were literally the only group PvE option available.

If it wasn't your intention to have this effect, please take a close look at the changes you have made and consider tweaking accordingly.

To me, even if they were 10x better, I wouldn't go into low / null. But that is just me.

However, when low / null sec corps work to get their sec status good enough so they can do high sec incursions "pugging" from high sec channels, that, is a problem, and that was happening before.

For how much isk is on grid the payouts across the board for Incursions is a joke, ~60-70M isk an hour for Vanguard, Assaults I don't know, ~30-45 isk an hour for HQ. A shiny Vanguard fleet can have 20B isk easily with 10-12 pilots on grid. Overall Incursions are safe ONLY if you fly with competent and/or trust pilots.

Scout sites are pointless and need to be adjusted to make it worth doing. Maybe something for small T1 cruisers/BC fleets?

Vanguards over all are pointless and a waste of time to do for how long sites take and pay out. ~60-70M isk an hour with a good fleet (maybe others get better isk/per hour) and then finding replacements is hard to impossible at this point since all PUG channels are dead.

OTA - Hacking the site is fine, get an alt in a very fast ship and fit a cloak on it. But honestly you should be able to finish the site with 1 hack if your fleet is good. Hacking the site does more then just make the Mara easier to kill. As far as the Mara goes though, a closer orbit range would be good. When i fly a nightmare i can barely hit it with Scorch.

NCO - Don't really have a problem with them.

NMC - Closer orbit range on Mara.

Assaults, I've never ran them so don't know.

HQ's payouts are BAD. The sites payout is so low you make on average around ~30-45M isk an hour with people leaving between sites and having to find replacements. Need's a buff for payouts to make it worth doing for more people. Might as well run L4's, you would make more Isk for sure.