Tsubutai
August 30 2011, 10:34:53 AM
So now that we've had incursions for around 9 months, how could they be improved/updated/rebalanced? As far as I can see, there are several key issues
Site variety - OTA OTA OTA OTA OTA NCO OTA OTA OTA NMC OTA.... it gets rather repetetive. This is exacerbated by the fact that...
... Vanguards are ridiculously, completely, indescribably out of whack, to the point that most incursion people run them more or less exclusively. People are now sufficiently familiar with the sites and well skilled/equipped that even scrubby BTL Pub pickup fleets can reasonably expect to break 100m/hour before LP if they are at all selective; more exclusive groups can do substantially better. This has an unfortunate consequence...
...they're deeply hostile to newer players. Hitting those figures requires that everyone be in a good ship and know what they're doing. That means no room for the new guy in his Harbinger (and increasingly, none for the guy in a sensibly-fit T1 BS either). Hey new guy, want to try the headline feature of the last expansion? Well, FUCK OFF AND DON'T COME BACK UNTIL YOU'RE IN A NIGHTMARE, YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE SCRUB.
(the perennial cry) The risk-reward balance in highsec is ridiculous; highsec incursions do not offer appreciably more risk than L4s, but they provide vastly greater rewards.
CCP got a lot right with incursions on the first pass, especially in the way they get highsec bears socialising and working together, but I think all of the above issues need to be addressed. Site variety can be dealt with simply by creating a few new sites; the other three are interrelated and more tricky.
IMO, the solution is two-fold. First, the payouts on vanguards need to be nerfed; they're silly, as is the gap between Scouts and VGs. Bringing the payout per VG down to something between five and seven million (could possibly increase the LP payout a bit at the same time to soften the blow) would still provide good income, but not the ridiculous levels it does at present; it would also drive people towards the rather underused Assault and HQ sites.
Second, there needs to be a cap on the speed with which sites can be blitzed, possibly in the form of a delay in the spawning of new waves. As it stands, you want a highly optimized shiny fleet because every minute you shave off your site completion times drives your profits that much higher; this means no newbies allowed. With a limit, the need to min-max is reduced and so there's more scope for letting newer guys into the fleet without hurting the income of everyone else.
Site variety - OTA OTA OTA OTA OTA NCO OTA OTA OTA NMC OTA.... it gets rather repetetive. This is exacerbated by the fact that...
... Vanguards are ridiculously, completely, indescribably out of whack, to the point that most incursion people run them more or less exclusively. People are now sufficiently familiar with the sites and well skilled/equipped that even scrubby BTL Pub pickup fleets can reasonably expect to break 100m/hour before LP if they are at all selective; more exclusive groups can do substantially better. This has an unfortunate consequence...
...they're deeply hostile to newer players. Hitting those figures requires that everyone be in a good ship and know what they're doing. That means no room for the new guy in his Harbinger (and increasingly, none for the guy in a sensibly-fit T1 BS either). Hey new guy, want to try the headline feature of the last expansion? Well, FUCK OFF AND DON'T COME BACK UNTIL YOU'RE IN A NIGHTMARE, YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE SCRUB.
(the perennial cry) The risk-reward balance in highsec is ridiculous; highsec incursions do not offer appreciably more risk than L4s, but they provide vastly greater rewards.
CCP got a lot right with incursions on the first pass, especially in the way they get highsec bears socialising and working together, but I think all of the above issues need to be addressed. Site variety can be dealt with simply by creating a few new sites; the other three are interrelated and more tricky.
IMO, the solution is two-fold. First, the payouts on vanguards need to be nerfed; they're silly, as is the gap between Scouts and VGs. Bringing the payout per VG down to something between five and seven million (could possibly increase the LP payout a bit at the same time to soften the blow) would still provide good income, but not the ridiculous levels it does at present; it would also drive people towards the rather underused Assault and HQ sites.
Second, there needs to be a cap on the speed with which sites can be blitzed, possibly in the form of a delay in the spawning of new waves. As it stands, you want a highly optimized shiny fleet because every minute you shave off your site completion times drives your profits that much higher; this means no newbies allowed. With a limit, the need to min-max is reduced and so there's more scope for letting newer guys into the fleet without hurting the income of everyone else.