Rikti Raids as they SHOULD be.

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Will start out by saying that I have read the whole thread. I like the idea of improving the current raids to make them a little more interactive. Currently, it's a bore-fest when a raid happens; sirens sound, heroes clamor to the nearest "hill" in the zone, Rikti beam in, everyone begins seeing the "Rikti-Raid: PowerPoint Edition" version of the raid, everyone hits as many AoE powers as they can for 15 minutes, done. Blah. I did it for the badges once. That's about it. Same as the zombies.

But, your suggestion forces me into a game world which I have no control over the outcome. Why? Because I'm logged off, and the raids can occur, and no one is around to turn them away. When I login, I'm forced into a Rikti conquered zone with no end in sight (until server reset or folks take a proactive fight to reclaim the zones).

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If they're maintaining a server that's actually completely empty, then it ought to be shut down, if only for financial considerations.

Of course, I don't believe that would ever happen, so it's a ridiculous argument to say the raids couldn't be stopped.

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Mustering up enough folks to take on the raids is subjective and anecdotal at best. I've been on servers and at times where a raid occurs, and no one (READ: not a single hero) begins organizing groups or goes to the local "hill". It happens, it can happen and it will happen. It's not due to underpopulation. It can be due to timing (i.e. at 1:37PM when a majority of people are working, during the wee hours of the morning, during a national political speech that everyone is watching, etc.), it can be due to unwillingness or care to participate, etc. Saying that the probability is small is anecdotal with no fact to back it up, based solely on the fact that you are suggesting to implement a new mechanic that no one has: played, tested, re-tested, reviewed, etc. Just for an anecdotal observation, I was just logged in and was in Boomtown. Not a single hero, none. Does that mean the server should be shutdown? No, means the zone stinks and no one goes there. Making a mandatory participation Rikti event in a stinky zone doubles the stinkiness.

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And AGAIN, I tell you the raids would STILL be temporary, they would STILL be one zone at a time. You could STILL leave the zone temporarily until it was done while those interested could participate. NONE of these things would change. Only the implementation of HOW the raids are realized would change.

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Under all of your suggestions thus far, using the word "temporary" is completely false. Temporary implies that something is taking place and will cease to end at some point through no interaction of my own. Having the server reset being the "cease to end point" is not a solution though. The current implementation of the Rikti raids end within 15 minutes of start, whether I go out there guns blazing or sit in the CH toiling away. As someone else noted, they would need something as similar. Your statement of "temporary" hinges on the fact that someone else will come along and do it for me. That is not guaranteed, as said above and by many others. Granted, if this were to happen, in the beginning most likely all the raids would be jam packed, because most likely there will be some badge or shiny associated with it. After a bit, just like any other event in this game, it will lose it's luster and no one will want to do it. Then you fall into the scenarios as mentioned by everyone else; login, zone overtaken, "Ugh, now I have to spend the first 20 minutes or whatever of my night dealing with this. Sucks I only have an hour to play." I, and a large majority of the posters in this thread, don't want that scenario. This game is built around the concept of "casual play", meaning that if I only have 15 minutes to play, I can actually login and make some progress. You suggestion presents the possibility of denying me that.

Now, suggestions to be helpful... honestly, I like the proposed idea of the dynamic objective points and the in-zone NPC's helping (sidenote: what about zones without NPC's? Boomtown? Perez? Crey's?). Throw Vanguard assistance in to taste. The change I would make to have the suggestion meet what everyone else is saying is, if the Rikti successfully take the zone, they don't immediately move on to another. They remain in the zone for some amount of time (say 10-15 minutes like the current raid) with a couple objective points to allow some control by the players to retake the zone. If they aren't defeated in 10-15 minutes, the Rikti port out, their objectives disappear, the zone returns to normal and they move on to some other zone. That retains the feeling of a mass invasion in all zones, but gives the players who don't want to participate their way out as well. This makes it, as it currently is, a minor inconvenience to me if it's happening in the zone I need to do stuff in.

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Atlas Park-6 (Gnome infestation)

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This suggestion of a gnome infestation has so much merit, it needs to be it's own post.

Meh 2 scents!

Have the ground troop attack with the ships as usual.

Instead of the entire zone becoming a danger zone do to one of the camps being over ran. Instead, split the areas the camps are in to becoming a possible Rikti danger area depending on which camp is over ran.

If an area is taken over the Rikti will build camps in that area with temporary structures. Which include the missle towers seen in the War Zone, landing pads for Rikti ships to arrive and leave to resupply the camp, and high tech Rikti mobile living quarters.

To get rid of the Rikti in an area that has been taken over, all of any one of the three types of structures would have to be destroyed to destroying a third of each type. Each structure of all types would be guarded by two mobile suit elite bosses. The living quarters if attacked would have Rikti teleport in depanding on how many player there are in proximity to the living quarters. In attacking a landing pad the ships coming and going would fire at the assailants dropping off a set number of Rikti each time one lands. Bonus: the ship can fire the tower missiles and select multiple targets with each missile attack. Anyone in the area of a missile tower will be fired upon. Bonus: The Rikti the crafty technological geniuses they are will have up graded their missile design to now be able to fire the ship beam. Bonus bonus: The tower can select multiple targets to fire at, hiting each target with a missile to firing all missiles at one target.

Bonuses can be take out if not plausible.

Other stuff: Escort civilian NPCs out of Rikti danger area for badge and bonus influnce and prestige. Not sure what to do with villains.

I don't want it to be villains kidnapping NPCs because no matter how it's explained the villains are still rescueing the civilians.

Villain: I have kidnapped you from a hazardous area to bring you to a much safer area! MWHA HA HA HA HA!

Civilian: Ohhhhh kay.

Villain: ...

Civilian: ... You suck as a villain.

Villain: Shut up! Stop saying mean things to me.

Area resets after an hour of being taken over if the area is unable to be retaken. Fusionette came in and killed all the Rikti and flew off on her magical Rikti monkey with standard A/C and installed sparkly trail.

Note: A Rikti ship have to land before being able to drop off Rikti at a landing pad so a strategy of destroying a landing pad would be to have a group attacking a pad and another group attacking the ships and destroying them before they are able to land. The ships will most likely come from multiple directions and it won't easily be able to tell which pad they are heading to. But, to give players a fair advantage which ship goes which pad will depend on a slightly complex pattern.

ex: Line 1 would head to Pad 1 start at the one that heads there than the 7th ship then the 4th ship then the 2nd ship then back to the 7th to restart the pattern. The idea is to have only one ship to arrive, land, take off, leave, and get a good distance before the next ship arrives.

To limit the lag in attacking the Rikti living quarters, it's best to have only two teams attacking each one at a time

The missile tower has a limited number of targets it can attack even with the added bonuses so it's best to attack each of them with alot of people.

Flipside:

Actually, there would be an end in sight if you entered a zone that had already been captured.

Even in the astronomically unlikely event that you were the only one in the zone, you could restore the zone AND end the raid (in whatever zone it had migrated to) simply by retaking the three defense points (whatever they may be). All you would have to do is defeat the rikti guards (I'd have guards beam in appropriate to the attackers, once the object is aggroed - such as three basic conscripts or infantry if it's a single hero of lowish level) and destroy the objects they're guarding.

You wouldn't even have to worry about troops beaming in, I've already dropped that part of the idea (though, it seems to me that it would be appropriate to replace the defeated guards periodically).


However, as I mentioned, you could also just ignore the whole thing and go about business as usual. The only thing you'd have to pay attention to would be the occasional rikti fighting with the local bad guys (meaning they'd likely ignore you unless you attacked them - unless they had defeated the reguloar spawn).


Encephalon:

Too complicated. I fear that your idea (while pretty neat) would be a big headache to make happen, both for the devs and the players.



In any case, I'm preparing a detailed revision to post. I'll post it when it's done.

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Actually, there would be an end in sight if you entered a zone that had already been captured.

Even in the astronomically unlikely event that you were the only one in the zone, you could restore the zone AND end the raid (in whatever zone it had migrated to) simply by retaking the three defense points (whatever they may be)

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However, as I mentioned, you could also just ignore the whole thing and go about business as usual. The only thing you'd have to pay attention to would be the occasional rikti fighting with the local bad guys (meaning they'd likely ignore you unless you attacked them - unless they had defeated the reguloar spawn).

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These two things make me vote against this idea due to the many things folks here have said already:
<ul type="square">[*]I don't want to be forced to do something I don't want to do.[*]It's impacting my* gameplay by having "out of normal" spawns. Now not only do I need to take down those 5 Hellions, but I also need to take down the 4 Rikti with them.[/list]* This is an "implicit" me, meaning "the player", not me personally.

Really, all you need to do is put in an end-of-life timer to the event and you've shored up all the holes.

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Encephalon:

Too complicated. I fear that your idea (while pretty neat) would be a big headache to make happen, both for the devs and the players.

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Too complicated? It's the most simplictic suggestion in the history of man kind. Destroy a bunch of Rikti structures or wait for the invisible timer to hit zero.

Other then having to design the flight pad and living quarters; giving the towers and ships each other's weapons and the ability to target multiple targets at once. With some some animation scripting and adding port Rikti to the living quarters argo field. It's mostly copy and paste; drag and drop.

Even changing the guarded areas to Rikti areas is a copy of Recluse victory except change the pill boxes to structures the Rikti attack. Getting a pill box doesn't change all of RV it only changes the area the pill box was in. Changing a guarded area to a Rikti area for a short period would be easier because nothing would really have to change, the structures would just be placed in already cleared areas.

Adding two power suit Elite Boss Rikti is easy as place structure place EB with structure.

Escorting civilians would be a mark civilians in Rikti area as escortable.

The timer to change the area back to normal is a timer to turn off the Rikti structures and Rikti.

The most complicated thing is more likely scripting the ships animation and route and giving the ships and towers the ability to target multiple things at once.

A way the ship to landing pad could be scripted, is to time how long it takes to get from the start of the route, land and leave. Once a ship a gets to a certain point to the pad the next ship is marked to start it's flight. And which Line goes to which Pad could be random rotation.

Line 1 to Pad 1, Line 2 to Pad 2, Line 3 to Pad 3, Line 4 to Pad 4.

Random routation 1-4: 2

Line 1 to Pad 3, Line 2 to Pad 4, Line 3 to Pad 1, Line 4 to Pad 2.

Random rotation 1-4: 1

Line 1 to Pad 4, Line 2 to Pad 1, Line 3 to Pad 2, Line 4 to Pad 3.

The ships and towers firing missles at multiple target would be a bit harder. Multiple invisible none targetable phantom NPCs in the space of the ship and tower; being scripted so they would fire one missile, one after the other only if the real NPC fires a missile. Turn off phantom NPCs when real NPC is defeated. What the are targetted would depend on damage done to it, taunt magnitude, distance, and obstruction.

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You may scoff, but as I said, for one of these raids, as I described them, to be unstoppable, there would have to be literally NO players on it.

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That logic has a big hole in it. There would have to be either no players on the server, or no players WHO WANT TO PARTICIPATE. You would do well to stop coming from the standpoint where EVERYBODY wants to fight Rikti Raids and it's only a matter of how many obviously willing people are currently on. That's a fantasy. Yes, you see a lot of people on every Rikti Raid. How many? 10? 20? 30? people? Out of 500 usually online, that's not a lot. What are the other 470 doing? Beyond "not fighting a Rikti raid," does it really matter?

You cannot base an idea for an event on the assumption that everyone, or even most people, are going to like it, want to do it, and care to respond to it every time it occurs. I live in Europe. A lot of the time when I play is either the dead of night for the US folks or smack-dab in the middle of their work days. At these times, not a lot of people are on, especially villain-side, and of those people, I can't count on too many to respond to a raid. A week ago I decided to break habit and respond to a Rikti Raid. I went to the zone and there were all of four people there, not counting myself. Four players. That's half of one team.

Do not design your events assuming people will participate, and do not design your events with consequences if people don't participate. It doesn't matter how small those consequences are, if they're anything over purely cosmetic, don't even consider it. Don't ruin other people's game to improve your own.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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Do not design your events assuming people will participate, and do not design your events with consequences if people don't participate. It doesn't matter how small those consequences are, if they're anything over purely cosmetic, don't even consider it. Don't ruin other people's game to improve your own.

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This times 1000.

I don't think I can add anything else that I haven't been saying all through the thread.

You keep assuming that your gaming experience is the one true universal experience for all City players and that your idea of fun and the need for "consequences" is shared by the rest of us (or even a significantly large majority of the rest of us) and it isn't.

I'm not categorically against any attempt to change the current structure of raids. But your ideas still slap a "temporary" label on a mechanic that requires me to change my plans for the gaming session beyond moving to another zone and coming back in 15 minutes or so - or to rely on the actions of others to clear the zone. You still have not answered what happens if everyone on at the time just refuses to participate - are we all then SOL for using that zone until server reset? And then it spreads to the next zone and the next?

And you still appear to contradict yourself. In one place you say that is would be simple (paraphrasing) for the character in any particular zone - if caught there by him/herself - to clear the 3 (!!!) points before continuing on with whatever else they were doing. Then in another post you scoff at a low level character being able to optimize - your word, not mine, I asked you to share your tactics for said low level character - to be able to take on Rikti. Make up your mind - can the low level character take on the Rikti and clear 3 points or not?

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I'm not categorically against any attempt to change the current structure of raids. But your ideas still slap a "temporary" label on a mechanic that requires me to change my plans for the gaming session beyond moving to another zone and coming back in 15 minutes or so - or to rely on the actions of others to clear the zone. You still have not answered what happens if everyone on at the time just refuses to participate - are we all then SOL for using that zone until server reset? And then it spreads to the next zone and the next?

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He's been quite clear that if the raid isn't stopped it'd spread, so yeah.

He's also not against the idea that if a server can't stop the raid from spreading the server should be shut down, so that's an even bigger consequence.

It's so brilliant that I'm still at a loss for words.

The spread mechanic brings back the words "yellow dawn".

So, how about no?

An open letter to NCsoft

The paradigm here is that I'm pretty sure even those who HATE Rikti raids wouldn't object to them being improved. What's better for the game is better for the game. What I and others are objecting to is being FORCED into doing something we don't like based on what somebody else believes we should want to do, despite us not wanting to do it. And so we rail against the idea.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - give me an out of the event, ensure its outcome doesn't affect me, keep your hands off my gaming experience, and I'll endorse any change you propose. Anything better than "Why not?" usually gets an approval of me, because... Well, why not? But as soon as you start trying to tell me what I should be doing and how I'll have "incentive" to do it because otherwise I will be punished, then I'm already seeing plenty of reasons why not.

Rikti raids suck. If they were more interesting, maybe I'd participate in them more. Then again, maybe I wouldn't, and I don't want to bet my gaming experience on the offhand chance that I would.

P.S. This is a quick reply.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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I'm not categorically against any attempt to change the current structure of raids. But your ideas still slap a "temporary" label on a mechanic that requires me to change my plans for the gaming session beyond moving to another zone and coming back in 15 minutes or so - or to rely on the actions of others to clear the zone. You still have not answered what happens if everyone on at the time just refuses to participate - are we all then SOL for using that zone until server reset? And then it spreads to the next zone and the next?

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He's been quite clear that if the raid isn't stopped it'd spread, so yeah.

He's also not against the idea that if a server can't stop the raid from spreading the server should be shut down, so that's an even bigger consequence.

It's so brilliant that I'm still at a loss for words.

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I NEVER freaking said this. NEVER.

I was told that there are servers that can't stop a raid as I described it. I said I doubted it, and that a server that has so few people shouldn't be running, since it must have NO ONE on it. That's because if even ONE player was on the server (and was interested in stopping the raid - that point was well taken, though again, I've never seen less than 50 people, even on QUIET servers), ONE SINGLE PLAYER could stop the raids.

I think they should improve the raids, but not how you suggested. I personally don't find any flaws in your idea but I don't find anything exceptional and worth the resources to change the current format.

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I'm not categorically against any attempt to change the current structure of raids. But your ideas still slap a "temporary" label on a mechanic that requires me to change my plans for the gaming session beyond moving to another zone and coming back in 15 minutes or so - or to rely on the actions of others to clear the zone. You still have not answered what happens if everyone on at the time just refuses to participate - are we all then SOL for using that zone until server reset? And then it spreads to the next zone and the next?

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He's been quite clear that if the raid isn't stopped it'd spread, so yeah.

He's also not against the idea that if a server can't stop the raid from spreading the server should be shut down, so that's an even bigger consequence.

It's so brilliant that I'm still at a loss for words.

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I NEVER freaking said this. NEVER.

I was told that there are servers that can't stop a raid as I described it. I said I doubted it, and that a server that has so few people shouldn't be running, since it must have NO ONE on it. That's because if even ONE player was on the server (and was interested in stopping the raid - that point was well taken, though again, I've never seen less than 50 people, even on QUIET servers), ONE SINGLE PLAYER could stop the raids.

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You didn't? It sounded like it with

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If they're maintaining a server that's actually completely empty, then it ought to be shut down, if only for financial considerations.

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that.

You said that if a server couldn't stop the raid then it must be empty and therefore should be shut down. Unless I read it wrong, which is a distinct possibility.

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I'm not categorically against any attempt to change the current structure of raids. But your ideas still slap a "temporary" label on a mechanic that requires me to change my plans for the gaming session beyond moving to another zone and coming back in 15 minutes or so - or to rely on the actions of others to clear the zone. You still have not answered what happens if everyone on at the time just refuses to participate - are we all then SOL for using that zone until server reset? And then it spreads to the next zone and the next?

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He's been quite clear that if the raid isn't stopped it'd spread, so yeah.

He's also not against the idea that if a server can't stop the raid from spreading the server should be shut down, so that's an even bigger consequence.

It's so brilliant that I'm still at a loss for words.

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I NEVER freaking said this. NEVER.

I was told that there are servers that can't stop a raid as I described it. I said I doubted it, and that a server that has so few people shouldn't be running, since it must have NO ONE on it. That's because if even ONE player was on the server (and was interested in stopping the raid - that point was well taken, though again, I've never seen less than 50 people, even on QUIET servers), ONE SINGLE PLAYER could stop the raids.

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You didn't? It sounded like it with

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If they're maintaining a server that's actually completely empty, then it ought to be shut down, if only for financial considerations.

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that.

You said that if a server couldn't stop the raid then it must be empty and therefore should be shut down. Unless I read it wrong, which is a distinct possibility.

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What you seem to be insinuating however is not what ultimo was saying however. He ment that if a server doesn't have the population to defend against this that the server should probably be merged with another.

That being said I would assume that ultimo would agree that some form of cap to the invasion would be prudent. I think such ideas as this would not only be much more immersive, but or going to be needed for COh to compete.

May be, but what Ultimo doesn't seem to understand is that there's a difference between not having the population to fight back against the invasion and not having the population of willing people to fight back against an invasion.

At any given time in this game, there are more people in missions than outside in the world. As such, there is a smaller population available for this kind of thing. If one zone gets taken over, and you need to do something there, you may have an uphill battle getting people interested in taking it back.

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Do not design your events assuming people will participate, and do not design your events with consequences if people don't participate. It doesn't matter how small those consequences are, if they're anything over purely cosmetic, don't even consider it. Don't ruin other people's game to improve your own.

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I very much agree.

If you want people to participate in an event, the event needs to be compelling; people should want to join it because it's attractive to do so. What you have described is a punitive motivation for people to join - if they do not, it gets worse. This is one of the worst possible ways to motivate your players in any multiplayer context, be it a MMO or a tabletop game with a game master.

Aha, found it. I kind of lost the thread when the forums moved. Anyhow, how's this sound?


The raid would exist in two parts. First, the invasion, second the occupation.

The invasion would function as I already described. When the siren sounds, three defense points appear in the zone, and Rikti will begin spawning at the zone entrances and will start moving toward the defense points in order to destroy them. At the same time, ships will appear in the skies and start dropping bombs, with the same objective.

NOTE that the ships must be substantially weaker. They should be soloable by individual powerful heroes (ie a L6 with hover shouldn't be able to beat one, bu a L40 should). They should be no tougher than EBs, and should move at the speed of unslotted hover. The damage of their weapons should be reversed so the rays do significant endurance drain and minor damage, while the bombs do serious damage.

There would be a time limit on the invasion, and a limit to the number of troops available to the Rikti. If the time limit expires, or they run out of troops, the invasion will end. I suggest 15 minutes and 1000 troops might be appropriate.

If the Rikti destroy a defense point, they will gain back 5 minutes and 100 troops. Thus, even if the heroes defend only one point, the raid would last a maximum of 25 minutes.

If the Rikti destroy all three defense points, the zone becomes occupied, and the invasion will move to an adjacent zone, where it will behave in the same fashion.

If the invasion forces are defeated in any zone, it will end the raid, and return occupied zones to normal.

Occupied zones will function normally with two exceptions. First, three Rikti bunkers will appear in the zone. They will be defended by beaming in troops appropriate to the attackers (not unlike the current raids). If the heroes destroy all three, the zone returns to normal. Second, Rikti troops will spawn in the same locations as regular mobs, who will also spawn there (meaning there would be double spawns at all spawn points). The Rikti would likely attack the local mob, leading to fighting in the streets.

It should be noted that this should not interfere with travel, as mobs would be busy fighting each other, and would leave heroes alone unless they draw attention to themselves.

If three zones become occupied (which would be astonishing, but whatever), then the signature heroes will step in and attack the Rikti bunkers in the occupied zones. Once the Rikti bunkers are destroyed, the zone returns to normal.

Note that restoring an occupied zone will not stop the invasion fleet, but stopping the invasion fleet will return the zones to normal (stopping the raid in its entirety).

An example:

The sirens go off in Atlas. Three defense points appear, a triage center at the Hospital, a Logistics center at the Police Station, and a bunker at City Hall. Rikti troops enter the zone and begin moving toward the targets. Rikti ships appear in the air and start moving toward the targets.

Heroes assemble to defend the three targets (note that this means not everyone in the zone is in the same place, hopefully reducing lag issues). Being closer to an entrance, the Hospital comes under attack first, before a large enough group of heroes has assembled there, and the triage center is destroyed. The Rikti now have 5 more minutes and 100 more troops to work with.

1) The heroes defend the other two sites, preventing the Rikti from destroying them for 20 minutes (the original 15+5 for the hospital), and the raid ends.
2) The heroes inflict 1100 casualties on the Rikti before the timer expires, and the raid ends.

3) The heroes fail to stop the Rikti and the other two targets are destroyed. The raid then moves to a random adjacent zone, we'll say Steel Canyon, and Atlas becomes "Occupied."

Occupied Atlas spawns three Rikti facilities, a Teleport hub at City Hall, a Barracks at the Police Station and a Conversion Facility at the Hospital. Additionally, Rikti troops will spawn alongside the local thugs, and they will begin to fight (in Atlas, the thugs will likely lose. this is not as certain in other zones). Note that if this had happened in Founders Falls, the Rikti troops would not fight the local rikti mobs.

Heroes can now restore Atlas to normal by destroying the three Rikti targets. As heroes attack, Rikti troops will beam in to defend the targets (this is so the heroes are fighting troops appropriate to the number of heroes there - one hero will face 3-4 Rikti, but if everyone in the zone attacks, you'd get a battle like we see in the current raids).

If the heroes destroy all three targets, the zone returns to normal, though the invasion would continue in Steel. The zone would ALSO return to normal if the invasion in Steel is stopped.

The Rikti capture Steel and it becomes Occupied as well. They move on to the Hollows, and capture that, too. They move on to Skyway (I think it's connected?). There are now three zones occupied by Rikti: Atlas, Steel and the Hollows.

If the invasion is stopped now, the three zones will return to normal, so the signature heroes assemble and stop the invasion in Skyway.

In the extraordinary event that no one takes part in the event (for whatever reason), and this extremity is reached, the whole thing would take a bit over an hour, to an absolute maximum of 100 minutes (25 minutes for each zone).

Ok, this is much the same as before. The only big difference is the cap of three occupied zones.

Now, if this is STILL unacceptable to you, offer a suggestion. I'm trying to refine this so it would work, so I'm interested in hearing ideas.

Just saying no, you don't like it, isn't going to help me. Saying it intereferes with your play isn't going to help. I'm looking for suggestions, not merely criticism.


By its nature, the raid WILL ipose itself, as it does now. This is unavoidable, it is an invasion, after all. The actual invasion will be an imposition to some degree, but occupation will not significantly affect people in the zone that want to ignore the whole thing. They will still be able to go to contacts, go to missions, or what have you. Only street hunts might be disadvantaged to any deegree, and they might even find themselves at an advantage, as foes they're trying to defeat might have been weakened by Rikti.

Either way, the whole thing would likely be over in a matter of minutes.

I have three comments on the newly revised idea:

1) Reducing Rikti Invasion ships to the point where any single hero could take them down would be a application of the word 'nerf' in it's original definition. It's replacing an army of Axe wielding Mongols with a single anemic five year old with a foam bat, and still expecting the invasion to be taken as seriously. It's like trying to take over a city in a Volvo and a $5 bag of fireworks.

Suggestion: Leave the ships as they are, stats and travel paths. They can be considered 'carpet bombing' or 'cover fire'. That way, there is still a realistic seeming threat to the actual city.

2) To be absolutely clear, any one invasion can take over no more than three zones before it is automatically stopped, and the zones reverted?

3) In your example the Hospital gets taken over, does this mean players loose access to it? Is the same true about the stores, trainers, and other amenities in an occupied zone?

(typos)

I think the reason for suggestions like this is that raids seem to have a lack of direction or purpose. If the raiders actually attacked something, perhaps we would feel like there was a point to interacting with them other than xp or a badge. If they caused real destruction and chaos, we would be more enthusiastic about them.

Trues, sometimes it is appropriate, but the Rikti ships are the very reason this is actually considered a real threat, rather than just another Founders Falls, where Rikti spawn on city streets normally. The Ships are the threat of the invastion, and removing them like you suggest makes a Rikti raid as much a threat as the Hellion fires in Steel.

And yes, I consider a nerf severe enough to reduce them from a zoneevent to a single player smack to be congrouos to removing them entirely. Right now they are about the same difficulty as Hamidon Himself. It requires several dozen heroes working in tandem, and the one entity can wipe out entire teams with ease, either by the massive damage it puts out, or by the -Recovery component in the attacks that causes heroes to drop out of the sky.

In order to make it soloable, it would have to be reduced to somewhere between Boss and Elite Boss status, which would make the entire Invasion threat a laughable concept. These ships are the reason the Rikti are capable of mounting a city wide smashing, and they're no more powerful than anything that's come before?