Rikti Invasions

[Ultimo]

So, tonight I was in King's Row for another of the Rikti raids, and again I'm thoroughly underwhelmed.  So, I'm going to outline a suggestion to improve the invasions.  I don't know if what I'm going to suggest is even possible, but the basic problem needs addressing, I think.

The problem as I see it is that the Rikti aren't DOING anything.  The ships fly around overhead and oneshot people here and there while being entirely impervious to attack.  Troops beam in around heroes here and there (sometimes, very often nothing at all beams in) and don't do much of anything except beat them up or get beaten up.  The Rikti have no OBJECTIVE.

My feeling is that the Rikti should have objectives in each zone that they will try to accomplish, and it will be up to the heroes in the zone to fight back and prevent them achieving the objective.

 

Each zone should have several structures designated as targets.  A command post (eg. Atlas Park might use the City Hall), a staging area (presumably where troops will gather to fight back), Anti-air defenses around the zone to fire on the attack ships, ground troops around the zone to combat Rikti invaders.  The heroes (and villains) in the zone would need to protect those targets all around the zone.

The Rikti ships should be made FAR less devestating with their attacks.  As it is, most heroes are being essentially oneshotted.  Ship weapons should be far less damaging and should have a chance to miss, like any other attack.  Ships would periodically beam troops down, which would then MOVE through the streets to the nearest targets.  Ships would also drop bombs, not as a separate phase, but as part of their attack.  These bombs should have HUGE areas of effect, and would do enormous damage (eg. the size of a city block, doing oneshot damage at ground zero, and less the further away you get.

Heroes would want to attack the ships, attack the troops and attack the bombs.

 

If nothing is done, or the heroes fail to defend the Rikti objectives, the zone will become "controlled" by the Rikti.  If this happens, ships will continue to patrol, but bombs will not be dropped.  The objectives now fall under Rikti control, and it will be up to heroes in the zone to recapture them.  Heroes in the zone will have Rikti troops beam in around them if they stay in the open, much as we have now.

While the zone is controlled, services in the zone will be suspended.  Characters to allow leveling, tailor shops, inspiration and enhancement shops... none will be available.  This will give the players an incentive to retake the zone.

If the zone is not recaptured after a set period of time (say, an hour), it will revert to normal.

As I say, I don't know if this is something that's possible, but as it is, the invasions are very lackluster, and rather boring.  I hope something like this can be done, for the Rikti, but also the other invasions (eg. Zombies).

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

The problem as I see it is that the Rikti aren't DOING anything.  The ships fly around overhead and oneshot people here and there while being entirely impervious to attack. 

To the best of my knowledge, the Rikti ships in the invasion are the same ship players fight in the Rikti War Zone. So they should be destructible. (And in testing, they were being destroyed by players.)

 

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

Troops beam in around heroes here and there (sometimes, very often nothing at all beams in) and don't do much of anything except beat them up or get beaten up.  The Rikti have no OBJECTIVE.

The Rikti actually do have an objective. Eliminate super powered resistance to the invasion. So they beam to where the players are, because we are that super powered resistance. (Why don't they beam down to characters under overpasses, balconies, or other obstructions? The same reason why they don't beam into the bases and buildings. Their mass teleporters are likely LOS without a portal to move through so they can't, and they don't see the player characters under the obstructions.)

 

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

The Rikti ships should be made FAR less devestating with their attacks.  As it is, most heroes are being essentially oneshotted.  Ship weapons should be far less damaging and should have a chance to miss, like any other attack.

So you want to take away one of the threats for the invasion? Why? A league, maybe even a high tier team, should already be able to take them down. They just have to watch out for the other ships in the invasion force while trying to do so. After all, it is an invasion.

 

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

Ships would periodically beam troops down, which would then MOVE through the streets to the nearest targets.

They are already beaming their forces down to their targets. If you know where your enemy is, why waste time dropping off forces nowhere near them and then instruct them to go find them? (Edit: Especially since that would mean they would then have to fight through any set up defenses, as opposed to popping in behind any such defenses and wiping out the defenders. If you want larger spawns? That would make sense. The consideration there is to keep it so that players can win still. As for why aren't the Rikti moving? Most likely they are holding the area they just took against any other supers that may be trying to get through the area.)

 

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

If nothing is done, or the heroes fail to defend the Rikti objectives, the zone will become "controlled" by the Rikti.  If this happens, ships will continue to patrol, but bombs will not be dropped.  The objectives now fall under Rikti control, and it will be up to heroes in the zone to recapture them.  Heroes in the zone will have Rikti troops beam in around them if they stay in the open, much as we have now.

While the zone is controlled, services in the zone will be suspended.  Characters to allow leveling, tailor shops, inspiration and enhancement shops... none will be available.  This will give the players an incentive to retake the zone.

This was done in Firefall(?). It made the game impossible to play on many occasions. (Edit: As in players would just not play after seeing the area overrun, and wait to log on after the server was reset.)

 

Edit again:

What it seems to me the Rikti are doing in the invasion? Phase 1, bomb the area to sow confusion and panic, scatter enemy forces, and soften the enemy's defenses/weaken enemy force strength. Phase 2, locate remaining pockets of resistance or possible resistance. Teleport forces to pockets of resistance and eliminate them. Attacking force strength to be "sufficient" to deal with detected targets so other forces are available to deal with other pockets or a large enemy force. (That's why if you get a large enough group gathered, you start seeing bosses and EBs, as well as significant numbers of Rikti attacking the players.) Typical conventional forces have already been stated to be no match for the Rikti, so eliminating the super powered threats, the player characters, is a much higher priority than trying to swamp established human defenses.

 

Edited January 23 by Rudra
Edited to add "mass" and "without a portal to move through".

[Ultimo]

I remember how it was on Live and the fact is, Rikti ships were (and are) essentially unassailable... which is just no fun.  I have characters based on Superman, Green Lantern, etc. and it would be GREAT to be able to go fight these foes... but it's basically impossible when they take you out in one shot.  Needing 1000 people to take ONE on is just no fun either.

 

You say the purpose of the invasion is to eliminate resistance... but there's NO sense of that.  There's no sense that anything is going on in the zone at all.  The Rikti beam in for one purpose, to get beaten up.  It's very underwhelming.

 

I don't want to take away a threat from the invasion, I want to make it something players can DO something about.  It's no fun just hiding in a corner somewhere, let us engage the enemy.  As I said before, if it's going to require 1000 players to take on a ship, they're basically irrelevant.

 

Having troops moving through the streets means players can engage them more naturally, and potentially more strategically.  Having them just beaming in wherever you are makes it seem less like a troop movement than a game mechanic... if you see what I mean.  Also, giving the Rikti actual objectives means they don't HAVE to fight the superheroes.  From a strategic standpoint, the heroes shouldn't BE an objective.

 

Your last point, about a zone becoming unplayable, is valid.  I suggested an hour, some shorter period might be more appropriate.  The point is to have some consequence to losing the zone.  Perhaps some other consequence would work.

[Rudra]

31 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

I remember how it was on Live and the fact is, Rikti ships were (and are) essentially unassailable... which is just no fun.  I have characters based on Superman, Green Lantern, etc. and it would be GREAT to be able to go fight these foes... but it's basically impossible when they take you out in one shot.  Needing 1000 people to take ONE on is just no fun either.

 

I don't want to take away a threat from the invasion, I want to make it something players can DO something about.  It's no fun just hiding in a corner somewhere, let us engage the enemy.  As I said before, if it's going to require 1000 players to take on a ship, they're basically irrelevant.

The most it takes is 40 players. The Tankers and Brutes, especially any with high energy resistance, take the aggro while the rest of the league dumps everything they have into the ship. Just like they do in the RWZ. Then they can move on to the next ship in the line. The point is to get as many players involved as possible and make the players feel like there is a threat. You are complaining that the invasion is underwhelming, and then you ask to make part of it even less dangerous, thus even more underwhelming. (Edit: Oh, and I should point out that not only has Superman been one-shot by a single alien ship, so has the entire Justice League in a single fight. On multiple occasions. They even had their collective butts kicked by a single robot. Multiple times. Just in different stories/eras.)

 

31 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

You say the purpose of the invasion is to eliminate resistance... but there's NO sense of that.  There's no sense that anything is going on in the zone at all.  The Rikti beam in for one purpose, to get beaten up.  It's very underwhelming.

So, the Rikti popping in near to the players does not give a sense that they are trying to eliminate you? Instead you want them to work like mission ambushes, and run from some random location to where you are, while you are most likely moving, instead of taking advantage of their technology and dropping their assault teams on your head? If you want more difficult spawns, such as larger groups, fine. The desire to not have the Rikti take advantage of their technological superiority however? Makes no sense. Especially since outside of invasions, the Headman Gunmen are most known for their teleporting.

 

31 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Having troops moving through the streets means players can engage them more naturally, and potentially more strategically.  Having them just beaming in wherever you are makes it seem less like a troop movement than a game mechanic... if you see what I mean.  Also, giving the Rikti actual objectives means they don't HAVE to fight the superheroes.  From a strategic standpoint, the heroes shouldn't BE an objective.

Again, it makes sense for the Rikti to pop in near their targets. Why should they fight humans on our terms? They have space ships with high power beam weapons. They have mass teleportation technology. Humans don't. Why give humans a chance to set up defenses and then have Rikti forces charge headlong into them when the Rikti have the ability to bypass it and negate any such human strategies? And why should the Rikti care about other objectives? In the first (two?) Rikti wars, they overwhelmed and annihilated human resistance. It was the super heroes that stopped them in their tracks. (Mostly because of the magic heroes and the team sent to the Rikti homeworld.) From the Rikti point of view, the supers are the only objective. Everything else can be dealt with easily after the primary (and only real) threat has been dealt with. That is mentioned in the Rikti arcs and the Praetorian arcs. The supers are the only threat, and so the supers are the only real objective.

 

Look, I am very much for making the various invasions feel more threatening. The best way to do that in my opinion is by spawning larger than normal spawns. This will have the benefit of causing supers fighting in the invasion to congregate more to support each other, thus causing even larger spawns such as players try to force with their invasion leagues, which would also be larger than normal and make it feel more threatening to the players. The problem with that is what we already see in the invasions when leagues get going. The lag and server's inability to deal with the load. (Edit again: Oh, and the near constant Judgments being triggered wiping out Rikti faster than they can be spawned.) Having bosses be allowed to spawn even against lone players can also have that effect. The added objectives though? Just make no sense for the Rikti since they don't need to hold city hall or any other building. They need to eliminate the only threats that have ever proven capable of fighting them, the player characters.

Edited January 23 by Rudra

[Doc_Scorpion]

53 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

While the zone is controlled, services in the zone will be suspended.  Characters to allow leveling, tailor shops, inspiration and enhancement shops... none will be available.  This will give the players an incentive to retake the zone.

If the zone is not recaptured after a set period of time (say, an hour), it will revert to normal.

 

None of those things are unique to any zone though.  (And only tailors are significantly limited.)  If I can't level (etc...) in King's Row because the Rikti currently occupy it, I'll just go to one of the many other zones that offer those services.  Heck, Atlas Park and the RWZ offers all everything I could ever want and are never subject to invasion.  (And that's not even mentioning my base is available if I ever get around to finishing it.)
 

 

6 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Also, giving the Rikti actual objectives means they don't HAVE to fight the superheroes.  From a strategic standpoint, the heroes shouldn't BE an objective. From a strategic standpoint, the heroes shouldn't BE an objective.

No offense, but you neither understand strategy nor the nature of the Rikti war.  Heroes are not the primary threat to Rikti supremacy - they are the only threat to Rikti supremacy.  Therefore any strategy that doesn't prioritize nullifying that threat does not advance their overall goal.

Similarly, their operations and tactics are defined by their technology.  They have the ability to teleport, and thus traveling on the surface is counterproductive - it consumes time and troops that could be better spent directly attacking the primary only threat. Ditto attacking targets that aren't superheroes.  Teleporting directly to pockets of superhero resistance is far more efficient.

[Ultimo]

I'm not here to argue military tactics.  The point I'm getting at is that the "invasion" is really nothing of the sort.  The ships appear and fly around.  No heroes around (and sometimes even if there are), there are no invaders either.  No resistance.  What then do the Rikti do?  Nothing.  They just fly away again, because the whole point of their appearance is to be targets.  There's no sense of urgency, no desire to defend anything or anyone.  They don't attack the NPCs they don't do anything except beam in to be beaten up.

 

There's a problem when the "invasion" can be completely ignored with no effect.  There's just no engagement.

 

So let me ask you, who are condemning this suggestion:  How is this worse than what we have?  You're telling me you wouldn't WANT the invasion to be more involving?  You wouldn't WANT some kind of purpose?

[Uun]

This is what the Rikti do: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Rikti_Invasion_Mechanics. The invasions have a more noticeable impact in more populated zones. 

 

I was part of a group that took down a drop ship on live (in Talos), so it is definitely doable.

[Doc_Scorpion]

4 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I'm not here to argue military tactics.

If you didn't want to discuss tactics, then you shouldn't have made them an issue in the discussion in the first place.
 

 

4 hours ago, Ultimo said:

The point I'm getting at is that the "invasion" is really nothing of the sort.  The ships appear and fly around.  No heroes around (and sometimes even if there are), there are no invaders either.  No resistance.  What then do the Rikti do?  Nothing.  They just fly away again

Um, that's how military operations work.  If there's no opposition to fight, no valid targets to engage, then no combat happens.  Combat requires two to tango, and if your playmates don't show up you go home and call it a day.
 

 

4 hours ago, Ultimo said:

So let me ask you, who are condemning this suggestion:  How is this worse than what we have?  You're telling me you wouldn't WANT the invasion to be more involving?  You wouldn't WANT some kind of purpose?

You haven't really proposed anything that makes it more involving or more purposeful.  You've just moved where combat occurs and introduced weightless "consequences".

And I already have a purpose - make the Rikti die for their alien dimension.

[Rudra]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I'm not here to argue military tactics. 

Then why are tactics and objectives part of every post you made on this thread? It is the largest part of your post, making the Rikti fight like they are human soldiers fighting a conventional human battle. Which they are not on both counts.

 

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

The point I'm getting at is that the "invasion" is really nothing of the sort.  The ships appear and fly around.  No heroes around (and sometimes even if there are), there are no invaders either.  No resistance.  What then do the Rikti do?  Nothing.  They just fly away again, because the whole point of their appearance is to be targets.  There's no sense of urgency, no desire to defend anything or anyone.  They don't attack the NPCs they don't do anything except beam in to be beaten up.

The point of an invasion is to defeat the enemy, drive them out of an area, and seize that area for yourself. Attacking random civilians is not what a disciplined army does. So why should the Rikti beam down and attack the roving NPCs? They are not a threat to Rikti forces or Rikti plans. Why should the Rikti attack anything if there are no supers, the only threat to their conquest, present? They either already wasted resources with their bombing or the bombing was more effective than anticipated and there is no opposition left to deal with. Doing anything else is a waste of resources and time. There is no disciplined army that will go into a town and then just start shooting the buildings because they were expecting a battle but the opposing force was not there. You conserve your resources for the actual fighting needed to accomplish your goals. (Edit: And if you need to engage the enemy and they are not where you were expecting to find them? You move on. Even if the enemy was there and you fought them? When your munitions run low as the attacker? You withdraw and regroup. If you drive the enemy out? You regroup and move on. The Rikti have one objective in their raids. Find and eliminate the only threat to them. Everything else can be dealt with later.)

 

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

There's a problem when the "invasion" can be completely ignored with no effect.  There's just no engagement.

Welcome to MMO video games.

 

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

So let me ask you, who are condemning this suggestion:  How is this worse than what we have?  You're telling me you wouldn't WANT the invasion to be more involving?  You wouldn't WANT some kind of purpose?

How is it worse? You are asking for an enemy to be weaker so you can fight it. (The ships.) You are asking for Rikti to spawn and roam rather than make use of their technology and attack us where we are. Which like you said, will make it easier to fight them. Especially when a league gets going and instead of the Rikti being able to concentrate their forces on a sizable super presence, have to wait for wandering spawns to find their way there piecemeal. The only thing I see the OP doing is making the invasion even easier than it is, rather than making it more engaging, while making the Rikti act like conventional human forces instead of the advanced sci-fi race they are. As for purpose? As has already been stated multiple times, there is a purpose. You just don't like it.

Edited January 23 by Rudra

[Ultimo]

Everyone seems to be missing the point.  The Rikti aren't DOING anything in these "invasions."  They have no objective they can achieve that requires us to stop them.

 

The point is, however you choose to characterize their tactics, to make the invasions FUN and ENGAGING.  As it is, they're NOT.  99% of the time, you can't fight the ships, so their presence is irrelevant  Maybe they're just there for atmosphere, and aren't supposed to be fought.  Fair enough.  Waste of a cool opportunity though, which I why I suggested making them possible to fight.  That requires making them do less direct damage, so people aren't being constantly onshotted by them.  Yes, it makes them "easier," but it makes them more fun and engaging.  Defeating the bombs does nothing.  Defeating the troops beaming in does nothing.  LEAVING the bombs and troops unopposed does NOTHING.  There's no reason to engage in the "invasion" at all, because nothing happens if you don't.  My suggestion is simply to give them a purpose, some goal we can OPPOSE and some consequence for failing to do so.

 

The tactics are beside the point, and are just rationalization to explain why the event is even going on.

[Rudra]

15 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Everyone seems to be missing the point.  The Rikti aren't DOING anything in these "invasions."  They have no objective they can achieve that requires us to stop them.

 

The point is, however you choose to characterize their tactics, to make the invasions FUN and ENGAGING.  As it is, they're NOT.  99% of the time, you can't fight the ships, so their presence is irrelevant  Maybe they're just there for atmosphere, and aren't supposed to be fought.  Fair enough.  Waste of a cool opportunity though, which I why I suggested making them possible to fight.  That requires making them do less direct damage, so people aren't being constantly onshotted by them.  Yes, it makes them "easier," but it makes them more fun and engaging.  Defeating the bombs does nothing.  Defeating the troops beaming in does nothing.  LEAVING the bombs and troops unopposed does NOTHING.  There's no reason to engage in the "invasion" at all, because nothing happens if you don't.  My suggestion is simply to give them a purpose, some goal we can OPPOSE and some consequence for failing to do so.

 

The tactics are beside the point, and are just rationalization to explain why the event is even going on.

The Rikti aren't doing anything. Except showing up in force, bombing the zone, and sending troops to fight the supers. Yep, I see your point. No invasion has ever occurred where the invading force only showed up in force and attempted to defeat the defending force. No invasion has ever run across an area they were looking to fight an opposing force at, find the opposing force not present to fight, and then move on to locate the opposing force or fall back to figure out what happened in case it is an ambush. No invasion has ever occurred where the invaders were stopped because they needed to resupply or regroup. No invasion or attack has ever occurred where the attacking force moved in, attacked the defenders (if they could be found), and then withdrew. I don't know why I never saw it before. Oh yeah, that's why, because that has happened many times throughout history.

 

Wait though! This is a video game, so if we don't fight the Rikti, shouldn't they seize control of the invaded zone? Here's the thing about enemy controlled zones in video games. Even in MMOs like CoX. In any game I've played where enemy forces can seize and hold territory? (Which I admit was just two such games.) Players cannot even spawn in the controlled zones. So if they logged off in said zone and an invasion happened, taking the zone away? They are instead spawned in the nearest still friendly zone even if said zone is above their ability to fight or survive in. And the enemy seized zones? Have better than hazard zone size spawns to show that the enemy is there in force rather than just the vanguard forces or recon forces the players had been fighting up to that point, with enemies being spawned in impossible numbers when a player or a team fights any of the spawns in the seized zones. Requiring leagues to form and take back the zones. (And it does take a full league to get into those zones and survive long enough to get anything done.) So if invasions happen during a low point in game population? Such as when the Rikti invasions are triggered without needing a LGTF run for a week? Or the Halloween zombie invasions? Or the Nemesis invasions which can also happen frequently, even simultaneously, during the week they are active? Congrats, all zones that can be subject to invasion are now no longer available. There is a reason why players in the other games would just log off when they see the map overrun and wait for the server to be reset and clear out enemy control of the zones.

 

You want consequences for players not defending the zones? What consequences can be instated that can't either be ignored by simply going to another zone or rendering the game unplayable until the server populations get large enough to take back each of the zones in turn (or a server rest occurs to restore player control)? Oh! That's right, you said they would only hold the zones for 1 hour. Maybe less. Because that obviously isn't just a game mechanic like you have been complaining about so far. Why did the Rikti choose to abandon the zone(s) they had control of? No players drove them out. No NPC supers either. It was all just a game mechanic, and all we have to do is wait out the timer so we can just go back into the zone. What exactly are you proposing that will change anything you are complaining about? You want to solo a Rikti drop ship because you are playing Superman or Green Lantern or some other high tier character? Then figure out how to do so. Make a build that can soak that ship's attack. Carry a whole hell of a lot of large green inspirations and/or orange ones. When Superman or Green Lantern or any other super runs into an enemy, like an alien ship, that they can't fight on their own? They look for new tactics to make fighting them possible. Or they call in the Justice League for help. Or they call in the rest of the Lantern Corps for help. I have seen nothing in your proposal that will do anything you claim you want other than make you able to solo Rikti ships.

 

I'm ranting now. So I'm dropping out of this conversation. I don't expect the devs to implement your suggestion because it contributes nothing to the invasion. Keep calling for the change though. Who knows how far persistence can get you.

[Ultimo]

And again you're missing the point.

 

You want an example of what I think it should look like?  Go watch THE AVENGERS (2012).  What were the Chitauri doing?  What were the heroes doing?  The invasion was in INVASION, with enemy troops dropping in everywhere.

 

The big space worm things were very like the Rikti ships.  What happened with those?  Iron Man took them on solo.  Thor took them on solo.  Hulk took them on solo.  They were big, intimidating and presumably very dangerous, but the heroes were ABLE to fight them.  The Chitauri soldiers were all over New York... taking civilians as prisoners.  Blowing stuff up.  Yes, they fought the heroes too, but they were doing other things the heroes needed to STOP them doing.

 

THIS is the kind of thing I want to see from these invasions.  Heroes doing heroic things, fighting off the enemy, whether solo or in groups.  Saving the people.  Stopping the bad guys.

 

Right now the so-called invasions are dull and lifeless.  THAT was my point.  I offered a suggestion I thought might rectify the matter, but no one seems interested in that.  So, how about suggesting something else to make the invasions more engaging... more FUN?  You don't like my ideas, fair enough.  What's YOURS?

[Laucianna]

I think there's a bit of confusion on what the Rikti are actually doing in these invasions, they're not invading to destroy or occupy cities, they are trying to rush whatever Super powered beings are in the zone and kill them as like mentioned, Supers are the only threat to the Rikti so supers are all they care about killing. Granted they are rubbish at killing the Supers which I agree with you can defo be worked on to make it harder more then an afk fest.

In addition I do think they are rather anti-climatic since it just sort of fades out, maybe if there was an option to push back and fight the leader of the current invasion (Like a GM for 6 merits and during ToT Banners where the GM spawns) that might make it a bit more interesting. But sadly without either a TON of work by the devs to make a bunch of stuff for almost every zone there's only so much engagement they can make out of it 😞 But I 100% get your disappointment 

[PancakeGnome]

Yea, I'd love to see zones taken over by enemy groups until the heroes can take them back again. Make it an open world mission, with objectives and quests and all sorts of things. It would be a lot of fun