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[Ollie]

Disclaimer: Just brainstorming for most of this post. I realise that no-one here can change things directly, but maybe there's a few CCPers reading. Meh.

If the problems related to the game-mechanic boil down to:

• The Incursions are too easy.
• The Incursions are being farmed for lengthy periods until the status switches to 'withdrawing'.

... why not change the way the mechanic plays out?

For example, instead of a fixed system-wide penalty to defense/attack/trade/whatever why not have a penalty that increases in an exponential fashion dependent on how long the incursion continues? Start things off 'simple' and then, after a random period of time, have things start to get more difficult, then rapidly really difficult, then near impossible. And then entirely toxic.

Borrowing from Soter's theory that the huge bounties come from increased taxes applied by the Empires to their system populations, the increased penalties could be coupled with worsening bounty values (as those populations are bled dry), using the same exponentially decreasing scale. Potentially this would not only make prolonging an incursion an increasingly risky proposition but also a financially unsound one as well.

Finally, CONCORD could enact temporary changes to security ratings within constellations suffering through an extended incursion - perhaps dropping highsec systems into a lowsec range for a period of time, or lowsec systems into nullsec. Not sure if that can be done with existing mechanics, but it make for interesting dynamics if it could. It'd also allow pro-Sansha capsuleers to get involved, I think.

There's undoubtedly holes wide enough to fly a titan through in all of these ideas. I'll leave it to people more experienced with game theory and design than me to highlight them.

[Ghost Hunter]

Alright, lets see if I can do this

--

Incursion, from my understanding that developers may see it as:

Incursion's design principle was to offer public/private player pick up groups for raid-like PVE content. As a PVE expansion, it focuses near exclusively on the new PVE content its introducing so that it's solid for consumption. Make it profitable and fun for people to do with friends or strangers.

Incursion is deployed and players are initially baffled at the seemingly advanced AI logic and :fuckhard: NPCs. Players adapt, map out the AI logic and new ship types, and create the perfect builds for Incursion content. Incursion difficulty plummets as player understanding increases, significant ship losses to any extent are now a result of pilot error rather than NPC trickery.

Incursion system remains relatively unchanged aside from balancing to the system-wide influence levels. High sec incursions are farmed to the maximum length possible, providing wormhole-level ISK income in the safety of high sec. Low sec incursions see some activity from groups after the supercapital BPC, but are relatively ignored compared to high sec. Null sec incursions are generally only bothered when they arrive in the home systems of an alliance.

Design principle achieved: Incursions are used in player pick up groups as an alternatively fun ISK income mechanic, enjoying new content and different challenges. Incursion difficulty and ISK reward ratio may be skewed and in need of review: see wormhole-level ISK income in high security for near zero credible risk. There is a chance this may deincentivize the Incursion mechanic and thus undo achieving the design principle. Change is dangerous.

-

Incursion, from my understanding on how roleplayers may see it as:

Big Bad villain's storyline build up has hit a crescendo, and the Big Bad has unleashed its army upon the galaxy. Despair and terror as people race to meet the challenge.

Initial battles are confusing and dangerous as heroes fight the Big Bad's army for the first time. Enormous casualties on the heroes side, Big Bad sometimes repelled in the first series of battles. Heroes adapt, understand new Big Bad mechanics, and go at it again. Big Bad threat drops significantly as heroes understand what to do and what not to do. Big Bad remains unchanged in stark contrast to the build up period, where the Big Bad adapted to tactics with some regularity.

Heroes fight the Big Bad again and again, becoming better at fighting the new and unchanging army. Exact methods on how to counter every specific aspect of the Big Bad's army emerges, reducing the threat to almost child's play levels. Big Bad stops being a credible threat in the players' mind when the Big Bad's army turns into a resource farm, rather than a great enemy. There are those who are concerned about the Big Bad's influence on the civilian populations, but they are a minority.

The players behind the Heroes become disillusioned with the Big Bad when it remains a static, farmed enemy. Players no longer consider it a threat seriously, even though it is taken as one in the Heroes world. Apathy sets in and players adopt the general mindset that it's not worth while treating a farm mechanic as a serious threat, outside of mockery. Previous atmosphere of tension and danger from the build up phase dissipates entirely, leaving storyline impressions unexciting as anything other than 'just another day'.

Players begin to look into other areas for their tension packed battles and storyline, despite the fact the Heroes' world consider the Big Bad a mega threat. Dissonance begins to set in as players find ways to excuse their Heroes from involvement in the Big Bad, and non-roleplayer players become the majority involved in fighting the Big Bad. Some players remain in the conflict with their Heroes, but a large portion have removed themselves entirely from storyline interaction.

--

Incursion is, I think, from a developers' perspective a rather large success. CSM leaders also agree with this notion, and have cited Incursion as a positive feature that should be expanded upon. As a consequence, the design principle of Incursion succeeded and one could argue the developers' as a whole are pleased with it. The vast majority of their consumers either enjoy it or are of no negative opinion.

Then there is the roleplayers, us, who each hold negative opinions of Incursion for one way or another. We think it's too easy, too dumb downed, too farmable, etcetra. Our concerns all rest in the communal pool of storyline presentation represented in game mechanics. The fantasy world we live in has had its serious disposition slapped silly because the game mechanics presenting it are not consistent with the fantasy. If we, as players, cannot feel a credible atmosphere of tension and danger it is hard for most to translate that in character.

As a social group in the game, roleplayers are at the very bottom of the ladder. We have the capacity to exercise influence in the games' storyline when it is solely the storyline in question. When game mechanics are deployed, in either a global or minor scale, we are not part of the design process. One of the examples I have currently is the fact many have told me (on both sides of the conflict) they feel Big Bad supporters should be able to help 'officially' or through mechanics.

I like the idea, I really do. The truth is that Big Bad supporters are so small in number, that even looking at them with new mechanics for them is a ridiculous notion. You could argue that putting in mechanics to draw in more Big Bad supporters would be the ideal way, but it conflicts with the design principle. Incursion was designed to be PVE almost exclusively. No mechanics were introduced to enable PVP of any nature specific to itself. The only choice you have is the pre-existing system, which has no special modifications related to Incursion.

Consequentially, we have arrived in full circle back to the root issue. We are not part of the design process, and anything that may benefit us is by design most likely intended for the greater community. The particulars of what we enjoy about our involvement may or may not suffer as the developers add or modify game content. Incursion is not a representation of the great conflict going on in the game storyline. It is a PVE expansion designed to add new group content to the game, and the storyline has only modified what the generic NPCs and site environments look like.

Developers for the storyline may or may not feel Incursion has adequately represented the storyline's conflict, however. It may have provided exactly what they were looking for, or it may not have. In this respect, perhaps there are some in the development process who are not happy with how Incursion was designed. Regardless of internal opinions, however, there is evident discontent in the roleplayer community with Incursion's storyline.




tl;dr developers win, animality

edit; sentence clarification

[Merdaneth]

Great post Ghost.

[Arkady Sadik]

Very good post, yes.

[Graelyn]

\o/

[Lyn Farel]

Good post, Ghost. I would myself put the emphasis on the roleplayer syndrome when the "Big Bad" becomes the "Big Bad Laughting Stock of New Eden" (well, I am overexagerating on purpose, don't take it personnally :p). Which made me come to a new idea : in the roleplay world, when events tend to linger, it eventually becomes tasteless or overused. And, my conclusion is that the main issue ICly of this Sansha storyline is its epicness.

Why ?

Because basically, you have two rules to my eyes :

- The first one I stated above : the more a RP event linger or lasts long, the more it becomes repeatitive and... unchallenging. Thus, boring. It is not totally true, though (cf my second point).
- The second one : the more a RP event is epic, the faster it tends to get tasteless. It is the same thing in every narrative process : events with lower intensity usually can last longer, stretch themselves over the timeline or just be a background storyline. But when you put such a big drama and intensity behind an event, like it is the case with Sansha the big bad invading the galaxy with countless zombies and an unknown advanced tech (and all), it is in itself what we call a climax. And a climax does not last long for the sake of the storyline's sanity. If everything stays epic forever, the whole narration gets totally dull and even more, tends to turn ludicrous. It would be the exact same thing if in cinema a movie would be constituted only of close-up shots. Damn dull, you lose the power of the shots in question after 2 or 3 of them.

=> Very epic things HAVE TO BE the shorter possible. But powerful but less intense storylines can be long, especially in the background. This is why I would like to see other pirate factions doing incursions, but not with such a dramatic setup.


Edit : which makes me think there is also something else. Everytime CCP went for "full epicness", it was for Empyrean Age for example. It tends to simplify a little to much storylines if badly handled. Everything gets less complex and in the case of Sansha, instead of having multiple factions and sub factions, you basically end up with 2 sides.

• The Incursions are too easy.

I agree with the rest, but I don't think Incursions are too easy. I do not know the current statistics, but iirc a lot of ships, including logistics ships are usually wtfpwned in incursions. Not when they are perfectly handled ofc, but are we asking that even in these cases, players have nevertheless to go in shiney blue explosions everywhere even if they did everything correctly ? And also, its almost the case in Kundalini Manifest sites from what I have seen, logistics tend to be one or two shot by the fighter bombers + remote ECM burst combination.

[Ollie]

Incursion is, I think, from a developers' perspective a rather large success.

Yup, that's the crux of it. Roleplayers are the minority and their ability to influence anything in game design due to that fact is also minimal.

In addition, it's hard to combine storyline with PvE content - that's true in any MMO. There's only so many IC justifications and explanations you can make for why there's 20000 copies of Krull's DNA in your hangar or why he continually seems to pop back up in the same mission from your agent even when you've blasted his ship to space dust multiple times that day.

PvP seems to be where the storytelling in EVE happens.

• The Incursions are too easy.

I agree with the rest, but I don't think Incursions are too easy.

It's not my personal opinion that incursions are too easy - I should have made that clearer. More a fast/loose summary of some of the thoughts in posts I'd read in the preceeding two pages.  From what I've heard, logistics do tend to get the short and pointy end of the stick as you've suggested.

[Lyn Farel]

But yeah, maybe they are little too easy in the sense they are predictable. Like in WHs, and like in missions, thats always the same sites with the same ship composition inside, with the same triggers and the same everything. This is mostly what makes people farm them like that. Now imagine what they would be like if the stuff inside was variable, but still controlled to meet the DPS/whatever requirements of each site size.

[Arkady Sadik]

- The second one : the more a RP event is epic, the faster it tends to get tasteless.

This, this and this.

Edit : which makes me think there is also something else. Everytime CCP went for "full epicness", it was for Empyrean Age for example. It tends to simplify a little to much storylines if badly handled. Everything gets less complex and in the case of Sansha, instead of having multiple factions and sub factions, you basically end up with 2 sides.

This! THIS!


Er. To add a bit of content to this post:

It would be quite possible to "fix" the Sansha story arc without changing current incursion mechanics. You just need to bring the story to a logical conclusion where the Sansha end up being one of many threats - maybe the biggest threat of all the NPC pirate factions, but not "THE ONE HUGE BIG THREAT." That settles the RP storyline and keeps the current mechanics around.


I would prefer if the incursion mechanic would operate slightly differently than now, though. Specifically, make it so that constellation control does not diminish anymore after it's up, and also make it so that once it hits 100%, all sites but the mothership site vanish. This might need a bit of tweaking of exact underlying numbers still, but it would remove the "we'll wait until they're leaving" kind of silly gameplay.

Oh, and make it so that there is (at least) one incursion in each faction's space. It's incredibly annoying having a month of incursions in Amarr space where you can't go to, and then luckily one incursion only 30 jumps away in the Federation. <.<

[Lyn Farel]

I have to admit that considering the sheer size of the Amarr Empire (and pets), Incursions tend logically to drop more often in there...

[Victoria Stecker]

I would prefer if the incursion mechanic would operate slightly differently than now, though. Specifically, make it so that constellation control does not diminish anymore after it's up, and also make it so that once it hits 100%, all sites but the mothership site vanish. This might need a bit of tweaking of exact underlying numbers still, but it would remove the "we'll wait until they're leaving" kind of silly gameplay.

That's a neat idea. Or maybe tweak the numbers so that once the mothership is out, the profitability of the other sites drops off like a brick. It'll still give non-mothership capable fleets something to do while encouraging the more powerful fleets to clear it and move on.

[Rok-Yuni]

ayup, pretty much.

I didn't learn about that particular tactic until a month or two after launch. It's hilarious because the Sansha Incursions achieve whatever the fuck they're doing over the days their vat-grown fleets are killed, and when they're done the Capsuleers finally punt them out.

THIS ^^

This is, and has, since they began it, been my biggest issue with the current non-RP incursion running fleets.

Their response to IC requests that people assault the Revenant before their chosen time (started at 'mobilising' and has recently changed to 'withdrawing') is to either temporarily or permanently ban the character from the channel(s)

or to say that taking down the revenants as quickly as possible A) hurts people's isk making, and B) is against what CCP want for incursions... both points i feel have no place on the battlefield.

A) it's not about ISK. it's about war.
B) if CCP want to extend the incursions, let CCP fix it, don't force everyone to deal with incursions that last a week instead of a few hours.

fortunately the characters who have tried in the past to justify the farming IC have mostly fallen silent now, but the farming continues, and imho, it's going to continue until CCP either change the way incursions work, or end the story arc.

it's somewhat irritating how many people left the RP element of the story arc as soon as it became more profitable to do things in an OOC manner. and how many non-RP'ers left low/null to come do highsec incursions because it was better isk than they were making ratting, and safer.

all that said, it was CCP's first attempt at making the incursion mechanic work, and it almost worked. for the first couple of months, while the primary place people were gathering to fight nation was an IC channel (SYNEPublic) ...

as ever though, things changed, OOC channels began to appear, and people left the RP aspect behind as the live events tailed off the first time.

fast forward to the second batch of live events, and the fleets that once numbered in the hundreds that used to form to expel actor led incursions, dwindled to 50-80 pilots, and that's on a good day.

**sigh**

let us hope that CCP learn from this farce. making the incursions as profitable as they are, made them exceedingly popular, and they are less risky now than nullsec ratting, as people have learned how they work, and countered the threat.

currently, my best suggestion, make them withdraw in 2-3 days instead of a week, or make the number of sites that spawn slowly drop off after the revenant appears. this will in the end mean that both sides of the coin (RP 'kill sansha' and OOC 'moar isk pls') get some degree of what they want.

TL:DR

imho, incursions are broken, and the sooner the sansha arc ends, the better for the game as a whole.

also: EvE is an MMORPG... why do so many people ignore those last 3 letters. 

[Victoria Stecker]

There's been some recent drama over one of the main incursion FCs "going rogue" and popping Moms as soon as they show up, generally pissing everyone off. Has anyone heard if there's an IC motivation behind that or if it's just one guy being a dick?

[Katrina Oniseki]

There's been some recent drama over one of the main incursion FCs "going rogue" and popping Moms as soon as they show up, generally pissing everyone off. Has anyone heard if there's an IC motivation behind that or if it's just one guy being a dick?

I can assure you that was very much OOC drama. There was nothing roleplaying about it, though the thought may have crossed his mind as a 'lol' moment.

[Julianus Soter]

Most roleplay conflict is very much OOC drama.