Warfare & Tactics

So CCP have been working on making NPC's "smarter". Stuff like they prioritize your drones sometimes, NPC's of a certain size attack player controlled ships of the same size, etc. Fine.

One of my favorite activities in EvE used to be getting a couple of beers and going out on a solo roam. There are a lot of people who also used to enjoy this part of EvE Online.

So earlier today, I fitted an Incursus with the new armor repair module, put in like a 120 jumps of waypoints and went into nullsec to hunt some ratters or smaller ships that would decide to chase me.
I caught a Drake in a belt, he was shooting 2 NPC battleships, he had already killed the other NPC's of that spawn. I started to scram and web him and he started to melt. I was pretty pleased with myself.
Like 10 seconds into the fight, the NPC's stopped shooting him, and started to lock and shoot me instead. WTF????????

1.: I was in a frigate, these were NPC battleships. There was a BC shooting them, so apparently I'm not the closest in size.
2.: If NPC's are supposed to be "smarter": how smart is it to stop aggroing the battlecruiser that is actually trying to kill you with relatively good DPS and start shooting the ship that is shooting him, i.e. is on your side in this battle??? Why was this change even implemented?

In my opinion, this is a bad thing. I realize that some ratters and botters are happy with this change. No doubt. But apart from this being just plain stupid and illogical, this change removes an element from the game that quite a few players found fun: hunting ratters in enemy space (obviously you can still do that in a bomber, but where's the sport in that?).

Thanks for your time

Getting 300 dps off the field in 10 seconds rather than shooting a brick BC is not stupid.

I fully support the change in AI you demand.
I'm another one of those guys that enjoyed the solo hunting you explained in your post.

May you recieve many likes and this change request at least gets looked at.

Whats interesting is that this is no where near the first thread on this subject and no one from CCP has chipped in to any of these dicussions.

Clearly they do not care or see it as an issue.

Before PVE means you consent to any possible pvp

Now PvP in PVE area means you automatically consent to a little "PVE". Nothing wrong with this in concept, really.


I will admit aggro mechanic (got myself full room aggro trying to gank a raven in guristas space the other day e.e) is a bit on the extreme. They could adjust it to perhaps 30-60% chance npc will switch aggro instead FULL ROOM SWITCH .


Ratter hunting still possible. Bring a better ship with better fit if you are having trouble tanking rats. Some situations are no longer possible for this even with better ships, but nothing is preventing you from wrapping away safely and look somewhere else.



I my self is just a "casual" player. The whole process of landing on grid and give the ratter a lil scare it self is fun enough for me, (I've fitted with civilian blasters and you should have seen the reaction I got firing it off after smacktalk boasting how I will DESTROY his ship. ah, good times ) being able to blap someone in the end is just one type of icing on the cake.



Of course, if you are just dead set on blaping the guy and getting that KM and ignore all other fun you could have gotten out of the whole process, this will be tough on you then.

Eve has AI?

yeah, next AI release will also smacktalk in local and post whine on the forum

Nice one!

Confirming that OP is cut up about AI being so stupid that they managed to take him off the field in a few seconds.

So maybe rats should never attack frigates? That would result in some interesting approaches to missioning.

EWAR pulls NPC Agro. Your scram and web is what got you shot despite the other considerations.

When a non-blue fast tackle comes on grid and starts locking something down, you shoot it too before it has a chance to get under your guns. That sounds pretty "intelligent" to me. The "artificial" part is where it took them 10 seconds to do it.

So if your in a gang and some super tanked mother takes out a few of your friends but you can't defeat his tank, if a nuetral then came on scene and started cracking said supertank you'd shoot them?

Don't get me wrong I'd still consider them a target but my priority would be cracking the guy that just killed part of my gang and has been attacking all my mates for the last half hour.

maybe he had good standing! lol