Since we last reported on the Incursion Interdiction, the loose association of pilots determined to destroy the Sansa Nations forces in Hisec have struck twice, killing three Motherships the first outing and one the second time. There were several periods within the last week that there were no Hisec Incursions to be had in Hisec and one period when there were none in Hi or Lowsec. This led some of the people who would “prefer that their Moms be left alone, thank you” to form up and do something to protect their farmland.
Game On! Incursion Bears Strike Back at Incursion Griefers
Tonight a fleet formed up to kill Sansha Motherships. The capsuleers who were in fleet were many of the same names and same corps that are normally seen: Skunkworks, Kill It With Fire, and Brick Squad in addition to many recognizable figures recruited from the forums and ingame channels.. There was one noticeable figure not present: the groups leader Krissada. He was absent for the formation and coordination of the fleet, but this did not seem to hamper the efforts of those intent on ending the Sansha’s reign of terror on civilians living in Hisec.
As the fleet set out to Ohide (quite a suitable system name for what was to come) the numbers were a little thin, and constant calls for more Logis went out to all reaches of New Eden were reported by those monitoring the situation. A shield fleet came to contest the site, but after much time had elapsed, went back to farming. At that point the interdiction fleet activated the star-gate and then things started to get interesting.
Right off the bat logi chains were activated, only for the pilots to discover that they had shared aggression without a Pop up asking if they wished to continue, many pilots had aggression to over 15 corporations at a time. The order was given to continue the attack, despite the greater risk to the fleet by having hundreds of individual pilots having rights to shoot the participants.
As the first wave of deadly fighter-bombers spawned, the Incursion farmers started trying to suicide jam the logistics pilots with limited success. One of the organizers had heard wind of the Bears plans and had ordered ECCM to be fit on many of the Battleships midslots, to fortify the sensor strength of the logistic ships.The interdiction fleet suffered some losses, with many pilots reshipping as the fight went on. Riverini himself was among the logis that were forced to reship. With the constant jamming by the Blackbird fleet as well as the ECM from Npc’s on top of the Motherships Remote ECM Burst-the fleets logistics pilots were facing a daunting task to keep reps up as cap chains were never very reliable. The coalition lost several ships early on due to the tremendous damage output of the NPCs and some novice pilots failure to broadcast early on when primaried.
The interdiction fleet comms which are open to the public,and included many spies, became a minor issue midway through the battle. At one point the comms were reduced to a cacophony of guttural sounds as spies who had gained access tried to disrupt communications within the fleet. The fleet switched to Eve Voice after a few minutes, and order, although never completely disrupted, was restored. Those who were in charge of the timing on the comms disruption were right on the money. They coordinated their attack with the Blackbird fleet just as waves of bombers spawned. The resulting chaos and then calm, left many in fleet laughing and giving props to the Bears for trying to defend their way of life.
Although the interdiction fleet did take some losses, most were not related to the Blackbird attacks or other methods employed by the farmers. As many as 40 Blackbirds were reportedly used in the attacks. Now many active griefers have killrights on those involved, because they were later killed by the NPC bomber waves after the pilots tried jamming them. It will be interesting to see how many of those killrights will be used on the notoriously shiny fleets typically used to farm the sites.
Due to attrition and the fleets organization taking much longer than normal, in addition to recently broken aggression mechanics, the interdiction fleet was left with only 5 logistic ships and a MS to kill that was still at 50% shields. The battle-tested logi vets were able to stem the tide of losses and managed to keep the rest of the fleet alive for the duration of the encounter. Typically 12-16 Logis are used in the MS fleets, so it is no wonder the pilots were singing the praises of the Logi that remained on the field. The fleet was able to down Mom and end the incursion despite having only 27 pilots. The logistics pilots received a Heroes welcome and although there are rumors of losses by logi being reimbursed, but ISK has yet to be sent. The fleet did get a Nightmare BPC that was scooped by Lead Farmers that is said will help fund the reimbursement.
The fleet stood down at the next incursion site due to time zone issues with many of the European players that took part and the extended duration of the OP. Both sides are claiming victory as only one of the MS was destroyed-still leaving two Hisec Incursions active. There were many GF’s and GC’s (good contest) in local as the Sansha sites de-spawned..
As CCP has recently started a thread about “Incursion fixes/feedback” many of those involved in ending the endless Sansha farming are claiming Strategic victory, and believe that with official interest will come a re-balancing. CSM Darius III has said that he wishes to see incursions rebalanced as well as changes to the mechanics that allow a relatively small group of pilots to end all incursions and remove content from the player-base, even if only temporarily. He is alleged to have shared the sentiment with leaders from BTL and TDF who were skeptical if not outright disbelieving that he would push for the of nerf a mechanic that has gathered him so much publicity. When asked for comment he deferred to Krissada , the groups leader, for an official statement. Krissada was not able to be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Some leaders from BLT/TDF were allegedly spotted in the in-game channel “Merc Contracts” making inquiries about war decs. It has been confirmed that Brick has at least one active war stemming from their part in the interdiction coalition. The Priesthood, recently of The 0rphanage, were brought in, allegedly by carmelos53 paying a very high contract price. Insiders say that the war shouldn’t have much impact on the effectiveness of the group, as Brick was at war during the killing of the first Four Moms that fell to the coalition.
While initially this story looked like a flash in the pan, now that the bears have decided to take a stand to protect their right to endlessly farm the Vanguards, it seems that there will be no end in sight to the hostilities. Now that the Bears have taken to suicide tactics, and are actively employing mercenaries, we can only be left to wonder how much more this conflict can escalate before someone loses an eye.
- JoeyVegas
Addendum
Editor’s note: c/p of Krisada’s reply to the afore mentioned thread, I feel it shows his overall feeling:
Hi,
I’m making this thread on behalf of CCP Bettik, who is a very shy and retiring dev and doesn’t like to post much on the forums
As mentioned in the CSM minutes, we’re looking into making various adjustments to Incursions in the coming months.
This thread is primarily to collect suggestions for “little things”-style fixes we can make to Incursions to make the user experience better.
Additionally, if you have any especially well thought-out feedback about the feature as a whole, and particularly about specific things you feel are wrong with the current implementation, go ahead and share those too!
CCP Bettik will be reading every single page of this thread in the coming weeks, but he doesn’t like to make the posts – don’t worry if there’s a lack of visible dev presence in the thread, your opinions will be heard regardless
Thanks for listening,
-GreyscaleThank you, CCP.
Deploy incursion fixes in batches of two (the first being able to be applied quickly).
1. Reduce vanguard payouts by 15-20 % and boost assault and headquarter payouts by 20 %.
2. Do everything you discussed in the CSM minutes.
3. Include a more “battlefield” sense in the incursion constellation. Make it much more insecure than it is already.
Have all systems continous respawn of rats on gates/stations/planets on a set timer much like rats in an asteroid belt.
Have these rats scale with the difficulty of the system.- I am aware you currently have Sansha spawn on the gates at the beginning of the incursion, but please make them respawn.
Yours truly and again thank you for listening to us,
-KrissadaPS: Payout balancing cannot happen soon enough.
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