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[Ghost Hunter]

Original Post

Hello,

Incursions are a curious subject in the EVE storyline. The repetitious attacks by Sansha's Nation exist in a state of limbo - although clearly possessing of advanced techniques/technology, game design restrictions hobble the over all 'world ending threat' to a 'nuisance' level. Incursion had a powerful feeling at the start of it, but as farming mechanics settled in its threat presentation evaporated.

What I propose is a face lift of Incursions, shifting it away from Sansha's Nation and to the Rogue Drones faction. This can enable a much smoother integration into the EVE story and help preserve the 'threat' value of future Big Bads in the EVE world. It also makes use of a faction that players can happily settle into as a farming mechanism.

For those unaware, Rogue Drones are semi-autonomous machines that act of their own interest and will. Most behave as extensions of a Hive Mind, but a few have something akin to true sentience. Their driving motives are difficult to discern, but we mostly see them collecting resources and violently propagating themselves in space.

Rogue Drones are every where in the New Eden star cluster, and they have different Hives spread out in space. Each Hive may be independent by itself, or in alliance with others, how they cooperate internally is not clear - equal sources point to one Hive Mind, or many local Hive Minds.

If we were to take Rogue Drones and face lift Incursions towards 'Outbreak', we can take what the Rogue Drones already do and fit it right in. The setup would be along the following lines :

A Rogue Drone Hive, or collection of Hives, begin a massive mobilization effort in a constellation. Enormous Hive fleets begin assaulting civilized space, consuming resources both raw and human. Stations are taken over, asteroid belts are stripped in record time, planets become harvesting grounds for their resources, etcetra.

No special trickery is necessary, no unique technology or otherwise has to be injected into the storyline. The motivation of the drones is all that changes - 'the why' becomes the story center piece. What caused these machines to up the ante? Whats their master plan?

At the end of an Outbreak, if it survives and 'ends', there's a couple options. The Drone Fleets can simply disappear into unknown parts of space, or be tied into another Outbreak else where. Conversely, if players 'finish' an Outbreak, they end up destroying the primary Hive(s) responsible - thus killing that strain entirely. There's definite room for there to be a 'oh they got away and things are worse now', and 'good work their over all effort has been reduced'.

This approach would enable a clean transition while still preserving the core game play players enjoy from Incursion. But wait, there's more! By using the Rogue Drones in an Outbreak environment, the planets they attack can be the ones where Dust Players do their NPC matches on. Cross connectivity can occur at this point: Dust Players can ask help from Outbreak runners on planets with orbital strikes, etcetra.

The net result is that in the storyline, players engage an enemy who fits the 'endless numbers' stratagem quite well. Although Sansha's Nation was built up to have this ability, players perceive that an end 'has to come'. The Sansha storyline can't truly progress while its stuck providing the material for a feature game mechanic. Rogue Drone cleaning up, however, may never have an end - the little buggers get every where like rabbits. Perhaps there is no grand plan to them, and all that has happened is we have taken their story habits and made it realized in the game world.

I hope you enjoyed my suggestion

As a final thought, there is something to be said about Incursions from different factions (angels, guristas, etc). I am not certain how feasible that would be in the game programming, and how much work would be involved custom tailoring that many Incursion settings. Rogue Drone Outbreaks to me seem to be the simplest means possible that can continue the 'global attack' capability.

Thank you for your time.

discuss

[Katrina Oniseki]

Saw this thread and OP format, thought it was a repost of a devblog or devpost, peed a little..... realized it isn't and changed underwear angrily.

[Ghost Hunter]

Saw this thread and OP format, thought it was a repost of a devblog or devpost, peed a little..... realized it isn't and changed underwear angrily.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I love this idea, tbh. I want to hug it and have babies with it.

[Saede Riordan]

noo, my poor droneses.

[BloodBird]

Nice idea, I like it. However the issue, the problem that makes the incursions seem like such a 'meeh' thing and being the farm-ground that it is, is game-mechanics, players and the fact EVE online is a game. No-matter who is the big bad of the incursions/raids/infections/whatever players will eventually get around the less than-finite game-mechanics and farm them for what they are worth. Half a year from any changes we will be back in the same boat we are in now, only with slightly different skin-tones than the old one.

This makes me a sad, sad panda because as much as I would like to do Incursions for RP reasons I don't have the gear (pirate faction BS etc, even if this would be very easy for me to get) for fleets and I can't get past the overly elitist attitude incursion running gives me. I may not even be right in my assessments of it's 'requirements' because of this. Also, the feeling that the enjoyment will wane really fast and I'll feel like I'm running a mission with other people. Other people who are not in corp (not all of them) and thus not anyone I may feel to overly inclined to trust.

My personal feelings aside, I do wonder if anything can be done to mitigate or remove the issues I've mentioned here? Can incursions be made to really feel threatening and real etc. without permanently harming the game's overall functions? We can't very well let the Sansha/Drones/whoever permanently alter any system they arrive in as a penalty for letting them win, or beat them to the point where the players have permanently defeated them, thus ending the game-mechanic.

Or can we?

[Lyn Farel]

I like the idea, it would be really neat. I mean, we wouldnt have the same immersion issue with drones continuously invading systems, rather than Sansha.

But... will drone motherships still loot revenant blueprints ? :p

[Natalcya Katla]

I support this "stuck" petition for Sansha's Nation.

[Creep]

I support this "stuck" petition for Sansha's Nation.

This.

[Morwen Lagann]

But... will drone motherships still loot revenant blueprints ? :p

Just drop drone mods and blueprints, tbh. There's plenty of decent modules and such out of the drones now that they have proper officer spawns.

[Silas Vitalia]

Sufficiently randomizing these encounters to make them actually dangerous will cause so much tears from carebears as to be rescinded immediately.

Permanent negative effects on highsec for failure to rid incursions will cause so much tears as to be rescinded immediately.

Much of the playerbase wants to farm their "missions" with 0 risk in the min/maxed ships they can read about on mission wikis.

Those that don't are off doing other things.

:/

[Ghost Hunter]

Nice idea, I like it. However the issue, the problem that makes the incursions seem like such a 'meeh' thing and being the farm-ground that it is, is game-mechanics, players and the fact EVE online is a game. No-matter who is the big bad of the incursions/raids/infections/whatever players will eventually get around the less than-finite game-mechanics and farm them for what they are worth. Half a year from any changes we will be back in the same boat we are in now, only with slightly different skin-tones than the old one.

This makes me a sad, sad panda because as much as I would like to do Incursions for RP reasons I don't have the gear (pirate faction BS etc, even if this would be very easy for me to get) for fleets and I can't get past the overly elitist attitude incursion running gives me. I may not even be right in my assessments of it's 'requirements' because of this. Also, the feeling that the enjoyment will wane really fast and I'll feel like I'm running a mission with other people. Other people who are not in corp (not all of them) and thus not anyone I may feel to overly inclined to trust.

My personal feelings aside, I do wonder if anything can be done to mitigate or remove the issues I've mentioned here? Can incursions be made to really feel threatening and real etc. without permanently harming the game's overall functions? We can't very well let the Sansha/Drones/whoever permanently alter any system they arrive in as a penalty for letting them win, or beat them to the point where the players have permanently defeated them, thus ending the game-mechanic.

Or can we?

Random mechanics that copy player behavior - ganking and hotdropping, would fundamentally shift how Incursion site running is done. Not so eager to run your multi-billion fleets for 10 minute vanguards when you might get capitals dropped on you, eh. Over all I agree, the threat of Incursions is hobbled by the needs of game design. Hence, the change to an enemy who isn't a major storyline villain (yet?).

Rogue Drones don't do anything special in the storyline, as I've mentioned in the thread. The purpose of shifting Incursions towards Outbreak is to essentially acknowledge the fact it will be farmed - make the enemy someone understandably farmable. Local Hives go bonkers and a massive Drone Outbreak occurs, CONCORD sends people to clean it up. No fuss, no muss - the Drones do this regardless already, it's just not represented correctly.



As to the question of where Shadow and Revenant BPCs will come from ... That I haven't considered yet. It would be easy to have some Incursions operate still if Outbreaks replaced the bulk of their activity. A more thorough look by game design would be necessary - I would think something like a multi-step exploration chain that uses Incursion content could be a solution.

[Lyn Farel]

Sufficiently randomizing these encounters to make them actually dangerous will cause so much tears from carebears as to be rescinded immediately.

Permanent negative effects on highsec for failure to rid incursions will cause so much tears as to be rescinded immediately.

Much of the playerbase wants to farm their "missions" with 0 risk in the min/maxed ships they can read about on mission wikis.

Those that don't are off doing other things.

:/

That makes a lot of sense. I, myself, wouldn't want to see my little farming source of isk suddenly become dangerous and hazardous. Eve is a game where isk is needed for almost everything except RP, maybe. Isk is valued in time. Time takes effort and dedication.

Thus, if you start to lose your ships to vicious and hazardous PvE, it's time lost, sometimes hours, or even weeks of farm depending of the ship lost. Making money is only a mean to make interesting things in that game. It is boring as hell and definitely not interesting. And tbh, I do not think we will see one day a real, true pve experience enjoyable enough to make farming them continuously, day after day, actually fun and interesting.

But in any case, make farming dangerous and suddenly a lot of people will stop to do it because it's too painful or hazardous (meaning you can actually lose a lot in a few seconds instead of gaining a lot in days of sweaty work). And they will not be able to make the money needed for pvp anymore, or any other activity they actually enjoy.

I understand it works for some people, and so much the better since they like farming, mining, etc, but that's not the case for everyone.

That's one of my main griefs with that game : most fun activities for me, and a lot of people, are the ones that serve as isk sinks. Even farming FW complexes does not mean pvping, quite the contrary as far as I understand.

But... will drone motherships still loot revenant blueprints ? :p

Just drop drone mods and blueprints, tbh. There's plenty of decent modules and such out of the drones now that they have proper officer spawns.

But but but... Who will drop the Revenant blueprint ?

Ghost Hunter ?

[Lyn Farel]

As to the question of where Shadow and Revenant BPCs will come from ... That I haven't considered yet. It would be easy to have some Incursions operate still if Outbreaks replaced the bulk of their activity. A more thorough look by game design would be necessary - I would think something like a multi-step exploration chain that uses Incursion content could be a solution.

Or just looted somewhere in W-Space. After all, Sansha likes hiding in holes I hear.

[Morwen Lagann]

Local Hives go bonkers and a massive Drone Outbreak occurs, CONCORD sends people to clean it up.

Idea: Tie it into the number of missions taken and completed against rogue drones in a given area.