Missions & Complexes

I've run countless L4's post patch, including Assault, Vengeance, Extravaganza and World's Collide, and this "My drones got instapopped" is a complete myth to me. They do not instantly target your drones the split second they deploy them, they do not systematically go through your entire drone group popping them one at a time.

The absolute overdramatics of some posts here just ridicules any point you're trying to make.

So far I've lost 3 drones in total. Because they were webbed down by a tackle frigate, and instead of just finishing that frigate off I chose to recall the squad. Most of the time a single webifier on the Drone's target holds aggression.

I'm seriously holding the opinion that there are people in this thread who blame CCP for their inability to pay attention for all their drones mysteriously dying. There are multiple options available, fit a micro jump drive, mission in a group (which is usually better for new characters anyway due to low SP) but treating missions as you did prepatch where you could fire and forget is going to lead to drone death.


Once the insta-aggro bug is fixed, a lot of the urgency people will have with regards to their drones being used will go down.

I've replied to a few threads on this board, but I figured that I would headline one myself to give some depth to the viewpoint of a newbie player who is now dealing with the recent mission NPC AI and tactics changes. This post is unapologetically long, but is intended more as feedback to the EVE development team than an open discussion -- though I certainly do encourage discussion if anyone actually reads it.

By "newbie" I am of course speaking of myself: a ~8mil SP pilot who doesn't have the capability to fly Tech 2/3 ships or fit a lot of Tier 2 equipment yet -- and is mostly confined to the ships of a single race. In my case that means I'm flying Minmatar ships with most of my skills at 4/5 except for a few core skills (1x or 2x multipliers) at 5/5 and a few important skills (4x or greater multipliers) at 2/5 or 3/5.

To further perspective: I played EVE for a good bit of 2010 before life got into the way and I had to take a break from gaming. I decided to come back after reading about the Retribution changes. I have a good hanger of Minmatar ships, including a Hurricane and a Maelstrom, but inflation since 2012 has made my 200mil ISK wallet not go anywhere near as far as it did then (when I acquired my Maelstrom for ~90mil ISK); just putting insurance on my Maelstrom cost me 54mil ISK!

When I returned to the game I was near Rens in a Level 4 mission station in High Sec. Running missions seemed like a good way to brush up on rusty skills and pad my wallet, so I accepted a Level 4 one, checked my fit, re-insured my ship, and headed out.

In 2010 I could solo Level 4 missions with difficulty. Being in a Tier 1-fit Maelstrom meant that I needed to understand kill orders and mission triggers, and be ready to warp out of things went sideways. I had learned to manage drones and minimize traversal to land hits. I understood capacitor and shield recharge rate and how to manage both. I still remember this stuff.

None of that helped on warp-in. The entire room aggroed me as soon as I landed from the A-gate, with everything screaming towards its optimal range and throwing a slew of webbing, scramming, and EW at me. Figuring that I had done something wrong with the triggers I aligned to warp out and threw my drones at the scramming Frigs -- only to find them immediately targeted and annihilated by pretty much every ship in the room. A lucky shot at the last scramming Frig (that by all accounts should NOT have landed) allowed me to warp out with <10% armor on a shield-tanked Maelstrom.

What we have here is a "perfect storm" of changes from a newbie perspective:

1. Everything aggros me on warp-in. It may be a bug, but it's a hell of a bug!

2. The increased use of EW devalues my already sub-optimal skills.

3. The aggressive targeting of drones dramatically reduced the effectiveness of a Battleship's primary answer to Frigates.

4. I don't have the DPS to three-shot opposing Battlecruisers and Battleships because I'm in a Tier 1 meta fit.

5. I don't have the skills trained to fly a different race's ships.

6. I'm combat-trained and don't find mining, trading, manufacturing, etc. all that interesting.

My roadmap was to spend the holidays in High Sec building up my bank account and re-learning "how to play" then joining a 0.0 Corp or a mercenary outfit as a combat pilot. However, my primary source of income -- AND FUN -- is no longer available to me. I tried dropping back to Level 3 missions, but not only are they much less rewarding than the Level 4 versions they can actually be just as dangerous.

Furthermore, even after the "Full Aggro" bug is fixed I'm still not sure I will be able to deal with the missions. I understand that the mission AI is designed to better approximate the AI of Sleeper ships, but I've seen Sleeper sites and they aren't swarming with incoming enemies like missions are.

All that kinda kills the fun for me.

It also leaves me with the question of "What do I do now?" I spent the last few days running the newbie Epic Arc for the Sisters, but that's over with now and while it was interesting it didn't really generate much money. I'm not really in a position to contribute to a corporation at the moment (time constraints), and I specifically came back to EVE because I enjoyed running a few missions a day during the week then heading out for some PvP on the weekends to spend the money I made during the week.

Expecting me to do something I don't enjoy is right out. EVE is a game; the activities should be fun. I run missions to finance my PvP because I find both activities enjoyable; expecting me to mine or manufacture -- which I don't enjoy -- so that I can PvP will do nothing but leave you disappointed. I'm not going to participate in a leisure activity that I don't enjoy.

TL;DR:

As a new player I cannot fly missions anymore. This isn't likely to change after the "aggro bug fix".
"ADAPT!" ...How? I have 8mil skill points.
"Fly a different ship!" ...I can't because I have 8mil skill points; I'm pretty much stuck to a single race's Battleships.
"Mine/manufacture/etc." ...I'd rather just not play.

NPCs don't actually scramble, despite the "x has started to warp scramble you!" message they only warp disrupt. You can MJD the same way you can use an MWD.

No worries, I only recently really tested this one out when I started using MWD fits instead of AB. It's just one of those tooltip errors that never really got fixed.

I dont mean any disrepect to the OP or any newer player but my feelings on this are pretty simple. You shouldnt expect to not have problems with lvl 4 missions at 8m sp. Yes I know thats 4-5 months of training but in a game like EVE youre pretty much an infant still at that point.

I have a 35m sp nearly perfect Tengu pilot that has had to warp out of several of these missions post patch at 50% armor where as before I could solo them in my sleep.

I think anyone could agree that lvl 4 missions were not challenging enough and too easily accesible in their previous incarnation. Bottom line, if you are struggling with lvl 4 missions at 8m sp its because you should be. Take it back down to lvl 3 and work on your skills.