Today I saw an all too familiar sight; three T5 pilots in Warden’s Outpost running for the warp gate as soon as the Bios showed up.
The reason they ran is simple; Invasion is badly designed, poorly implemented and utterly at odds with the rest of the game. In any other mode those pilots would have grouped together and fought back, and their mixture of Engineer, LRF and ECM, with a second Engineer on standby, would have easily won out.
Yet they ran, because Invasion doesn’t encourage teamwork.
So what has to change? Well, the first and most important change is that Invasion MUST be brought into line with all other modes.
This means…
- Teams.
All players of the same faction should automatically be teamed up. They should count as allies, share sensor range, be unable to damage one another (even in PvP areas) and be able to heal and buff each other.
This is important because every other mode does this; players are assigned teams by default. The lack of auto-teaming causes Invasion’s focus on solo play. The argument of ‘you can squad up’ isn’t valid - people don’t squad on the fly.
- PvP isn’t the focus of Invasion. Accept this.
I regularly fly through PvP sectors without incident, even in weak ships. When I do engage in PvP, the other player typically asks me to stop attacking them. There are players who want PvP in Invasion, but they are the minority; the bulk of Invasion’s players want PvE.
- Looting and Rewards should be instant.
One of the issues with Invasion is the fact you can spend a great deal of time farming for loot, only to die and lose everything. No other mode does this; there should be rewards offered to pilots who die with loot in the cargo bay.
I already know there are players who will argue against this and claim this would ruin Invasion, but anyone who flies around observing player behaviour will know the hardline ‘no rules’ open world touted by the hardcore players is diametically opposed to what the majority want and expect from this mode.