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FW: rebalancing NPCs and you

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Kuehnelt
Devoid Privateering
#41 - 2012-05-29 05:26:57 UTC
Hrett wrote:
The rats are necessary to prevent farming now. The problem is, they are unbalanced across the races.

Here is the best example I can think of - last night one of my corpies chased off a solo condor that was speed tanking a gallente major. I have seen km of these ships in the past, and many of them dont even fit guns - just an overdrive or two.


http://aretr.thelegionofshadow.be/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=26560

Rifter, no guns, small shield booster, oversized afterburner, two nanofibers, cap/fitting mods. Solo contesting an Amarr major at the button. A Dramiel can solo an Amarr major at the button without so much trouble, and get out easier if a defender comes.

If the NPCs had to be destroyed for a plex to be taken, much of the problem of NPC balance would go away.
X Gallentius
Black Eagle1
#42 - 2012-05-29 11:40:10 UTC
Kuehnelt wrote:

If the NPCs had to be destroyed for a plex to be taken, much of the problem of NPC balance would go away.

+1.

CCP ought to also spend time in plexes against diffferent races to be able to judge how to handle e-war/dps differences between the different rats. Everybody's opinion differs. My experience:
Caldari E-war - Painful, Not as bad as before. Need eccm.
Galletne E-war - Painful for long range ships. Need shorter range ship (not ultra long sniper), or sensor boosters.
Amarr E-war - Only painful if another pvp'er is in plex, or if you are pure turret boat. Need Missile Boat, then drone boat.
Minmatar E-war - ?? No experience. TPs + Missiles are probably very devastating to small ships.
Condor Amarr
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#43 - 2012-05-29 15:23:18 UTC
X Gallentius wrote:
Kuehnelt wrote:

If the NPCs had to be destroyed for a plex to be taken, much of the problem of NPC balance would go away.

+1.

Minmatar E-war - ?? No experience. TPs + Missiles are probably very devastating to small ships.


You've nailled it with this mate. The TP's make it impossible to do what the Minmatar are able to with soloing plexes.

As many people here have now stated, forcing a player to kill all the NPCs would do away with a lot of the hassles and force people to close the plexes the way I am sure CCP originally intended.
Kade Jeekin
Masuat'aa Matari
Ushra'Khan
#44 - 2012-05-29 16:14:13 UTC
The NPC EWAR is balanced with the NPC ship strengths - this balance has been fine tuned for non-FW missions over the years.

Minmatar is geared to damage enhancing, range controlling EWAR but with light ships

Amarr are geared to slugging it out, damage reducing EWAR, with heavy ships,

Gallente geared to close range brawling with heavy ships

Caldari long range, damage reducing but lighter ships

But, because you don't need to eliminate the spawns to cap a plex, the slugger factions (Amarr and Gallente) don't get to use their strengths
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#45 - 2012-05-29 17:20:02 UTC
I think the minmatar npcs are pretty difficult to deal with. Running a major plex with them requires more than a typical pvp battlecruiser.

Seriously I wish CCP would do something so we didn't have to shoot npcs. Maybe have an alarm system that you have to apply x amount of dps to over 20 seconds or the npcs will spawn. That way a smaller ship won't be able to blow up the alarm.

Or just remove the npcs altogether and let the players know where plexes are being taken so we can defend our territory - you know pvp.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815
Dynast
Room for Improvement
Good Sax
#46 - 2012-05-30 01:19:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Dynast
Morwen Lagann wrote:
A common and recurring complaint I hear from friends in FW is summed up pretty easily in two words: NPC EWAR.

More specifically:
Amarr Militia: "OMG my frigate is suddenly a stationary battleship because the Minmatar NPCs have hax webifiers and target painters!"
Caldari Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Gallente NPCs are damping my targeting range down to 5km!"
Gallente Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Caldari NPCs are permajamming me!"
Minmatar Militia: "OMG I can't hit anything because I was already fighting in falloff and the Amarr NPCs are tracking distrupting me!" (alternatively: "lol, tracking disruption doesn't work on stealth bombers, n00b NPCs")

What this guy said. The EWAR is the crux of the problem, on two accounts. One, because a lot of it is frustrating as all hell, and two, because some races EWAR is much more powerful than others giving one side an unfair advantage in plex capping and PvP.

Plexes are simultaneously a little to easy to speed-tank and cap, while some of them are frustratingly hard to clear. Caldari and Minmatar NPCs have missiles (and webs/TP) which make them harder to speed tank, while speed-tanking Gallente and Amarr plexes is a breeze. Clearing Caldari and Gallente are tiresome because of the constant damping and ECM, while clearing Minmatar can be difficult due to TP, and clearing Amarr is more or less a breeze as long as you didn't bring a turret boat. And clearing should be encouraged in general, because it makes for better (more even) PvP in plexes. Speed-tanking just leads to people warping off instantly the second a hostile comes on grid.

PvP wise, getting ECM'd and Damped by NPCs both suck horribly, with TDing and webbing/painting being not as bad but still a pain the arse. The extra DPS is already an advantage for the defender, it needn't be so large.

My suggestion is, remove all FW plex electronic warfare NPCs, and add a spider drone or two to each wave. If there's gonna be EWAR in the plexes, make the players bring it. if the difficulty of the plexes is deemed too low with that removed, up the ship types/numbers, those are much less unpleasant to deal with than ECM, Damping, and the like.

Edit: Also, as has been said in this thread, consider requiring all NPCs to be destroyed to cap the plex, but only if the ewar is evened out.
Dynast
Room for Improvement
Good Sax
#47 - 2012-05-30 01:34:54 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
  • What about the standing mechanic that govern NPC attack behavior? When do you feel they should engage you? Low standings? Capturing a complex?

FW Plex NPCs should immediately engage all ships that are not members of a friendly militia. i.e., Gallente plex NPCs should shoot anyone who is not in a corp that is in the Gallente or Minmatar militias. There's no reason they should ever decline to shoot based on something that can be manipulated like faction standings, or should allow neutrals or pirates to futz around or harass friendlies at a military site.
Alticus C Bear
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#48 - 2012-05-31 11:09:53 UTC
Having had a chance to run some plexes the the NPC’s at the moment seem an inconvenience rather than a challenge or deterrent.

  • I run them in active tanked semi PVP fits neither optimised for both.

  • I use up ammo and cannot now resupply

  • Potentially use up cap boosters especially in the larger plexes. Cannot resupply these either.

  • Face periods of heavy jamming.

  • I will prob warp/gain extreme range if a war target enters while in the majors. It’s too much to face the NPC's and another ship.

  • With no rewards for defensive plexing they normally get bored and leave.

  • All in all it’s not fun and it does not encourage PVP
  • The NPC’s should have a point to them.


I would not suggest doing away with NPC’s altogether especially in the larger plex sizes they should consist of a few light squadron waves that are fast and web, this potentially deters speed tankers.

Crazy idea “End of level Boss”Warning may be a rubbish idea

This NPC spawns at the end of the timer and only where no militia pilot friendly to the plex has accessed the timer in the latter half of its countdown. In this case some form of PVP engagement has likely taken place and the plex is completed as normal.
It may have a few light allies but is a much more challenging NPC both tank and damage wise think of it as an officer NPC.

This NPC has to be destroyed to complete the PLEX.

This sounds silly but the point is to provide a reward and challenge where no PVP has occurred.

It could have a bounty or drop faction ammo, boosters.

This might need to de-spawn after a time to prevent it being gamed by being left hanging around, or could lock the gate just those in the plex face the spawn and it scales with ship numbers, can’t beat it and have to warp out plex closes and counts as defended.
Axl Borlara
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#49 - 2012-05-31 16:59:59 UTC
Any chance of a Dev posting to say you are still reading this?

Having just read the entire thread, it seems an easy and fairly universally agreed first step would be to require killing all npc's to cap a plex.
Speed tanking will work to count the timer down, but you still need something else to cap it.

Do that first and see what people think afterwards. *cough*iterate*cough*
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#50 - 2012-06-01 00:08:36 UTC
Axl Borlara wrote:
Any chance of a Dev posting to say you are still reading this?

Having just read the entire thread, it seems an easy and fairly universally agreed first step would be to require killing all npc's to cap a plex.
Speed tanking will work to count the timer down, but you still need something else to cap it.

Do that first and see what people think afterwards. *cough*iterate*cough*


Probably not, but I assure you the feedback isn't going unnoticed. The dev's are busy with the CSM summit, and the Faction Warfare session is tomorrow morning, I'm sure this subject will come up and I'll certainly pass on the community feedback!

This thread will stay open and available even after the summit until we actually see a pass at NPC rebalancing, I'd imagine. That's the point, Ytterbium wants your specific input on what to tackle (no pun intended). You prolly won't see many posts just to say "we're listening" though, its implied especially since it was a Dev that opened the thread.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary
Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#51 - 2012-06-01 04:40:54 UTC
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
... its implied especially since it was a Dev that opened the thread.

So all (as in OMG Dev SPAM!) the Dev threads from F&I (or was it TSF) that were opened just prior to the forum change and never re-created are still being consulted/read?
Meditril
Hoplite Brigade
Ushra'Khan
#52 - 2012-06-01 15:11:24 UTC
Here are my proposals:

  1. Remove e-war entirely from NPC in FW missions and plexes. Reason: e-war makes the game too unbalanced for different factions.
  2. Give the NPCs the sleeper AI. Reason: This will make the "one is tanking the other is providing damage game" not that easy.
  3. Make NPCs faster, frigates should use MWD and they should hit at least 2000 m/s if they are going for a target. Cruisers should go for 1000 m/s and battleships 500 m/s. Without this, the change above has not much effect.
  4. NPC should stop spawning once defender (friendly pilot) is in plex.
  5. Keep the damage output and tanking ability of NPCs as it is.
Muad 'dib
State War Academy
Caldari State
#53 - 2012-06-01 19:09:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Muad 'dib
as per many whine post by me:

I love the changes overall even dont mind the dip in LP from sov occupancy and upgrade.

I feel we would get alot more done faster and more fun without the lockouts.

It already takes a very long time with alot of players to take systems and upgrade them, ontop of the pvp - the lockouts should go, even if just few a few weeks to try it out.

Cosmic signature detected. . . . http://i.imgur.com/Z7NfIS6.jpg I got 99 likes, and this post aint one.
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#54 - 2012-06-02 20:35:52 UTC
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
... its implied especially since it was a Dev that opened the thread.

So all (as in OMG Dev SPAM!) the Dev threads from F&I (or was it TSF) that were opened just prior to the forum change and never re-created are still being consulted/read?



Well, I obviously can't speak to the activity of every single developer, I just know in this case that Ytterbium's following the thread and taking notes, he doesn't usually post something up unless he really cares about the feedback he receives on that particular issue.

I would say that's *most likely* true for other recent threads as well, the ones that are older may be less likely they're being followed only because CCP has made such a pointed effort in recent months to engage the community because of all the feedback that they weren't doing so in the past.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary
Kuehnelt
Devoid Privateering
#55 - 2012-06-03 19:07:18 UTC
http://a7th.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13549183

Dramiel, deadspace AB, EM/Thermic shield resist amplifiers, MSE, no guns.

This is 91mil loss is just another example of... um... wait... is there any way that you could make this the only viable plex farming fit? Thanks.
CCP Ytterbium
C C P
C C P Alliance
#56 - 2012-06-04 13:56:01 UTC
Hey folks,

It's not because we aren't posting anything that we aren't following such threads Blink

As a quick update, we first want to remove all EW from FW NPCs (starting with complexes, FW missions would not be affected for now). This should go out as soon as possible (working on it as we speak).

However, the proper way of fixing this on the long run would be to totally revamp the NPCs though, and that's something we highly consider for this winter as it is extremely difficult to do on its own (current NPCs are used in missions for example). There also are good points mentioned here that we will definitely consider when iterating on this further.


Many thanks for your time and ideas so far!
Dynast
Room for Improvement
Good Sax
#57 - 2012-06-04 22:06:00 UTC
How costly would it be to make killing the NPCs required to finish offensive FW plexes? That would at least somewhat even things out between the militias, particularly in terms of nerfing the one day old afk speed-tank alt that currently works for some races but not others.
Dopified
Black Eagle5
#58 - 2012-06-04 23:57:24 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hey folks,

It's not because we aren't posting anything that we aren't following such threads Blink

As a quick update, we first want to remove all EW from FW NPCs (starting with complexes, FW missions would not be affected for now). This should go out as soon as possible (working on it as we speak).

However, the proper way of fixing this on the long run would be to totally revamp the NPCs though, and that's something we highly consider for this winter as it is extremely difficult to do on its own (current NPCs are used in missions for example). There also are good points mentioned here that we will definitely consider when iterating on this further.


Many thanks for your time and ideas so far!


I like that you guys are looking at this and guess i just did not come over here to see that it was being talked about when I posted the new thread over in warefare and tactics. I am sorry for that can of worms.

I do not mind the fact that EW is being taken away i guess for most that will fix the problems such as ammar with target painting and such but the problem of damage dealing for the gallente will remain. Would a quick fix be possible to give all the complexes missiles spaming rats that do the damage type accordingly to the different militia's. This in turn will take away the speed tanking the Caldari and Minmatar have and in turn level the playing field for a short time for all. The only reason i say this is that the gallente are being outplexed at such a high rate. I just believe it would cut down on Brand new low sp alts running all plexes in a single system and yes it matters that all three can be run so easy and not just 1 or 2. This makes a difference. With all my rambling i am asking would this be considered for a short term solution just in the complexes? At least until you have your long term solution.

I am not concerned about lp market as much as system control we will simply be limited by what we can do and where we can go if we lose our systems as a whole. And as you see with the numbers we are working hard at trying to combat this on our own. Great job with the expansion it really did achieve the goal of making faction warfare awesome on the pvp front. We have action beyond what i thought it would have brought.
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#59 - 2012-06-05 09:34:52 UTC
Although I have never done faction warfare on TQ, I have tried it out on SiSi. I am sorry to see EWAR go away. No military force in its right mind would deny itself the use of such weapons if they were available.

The problem is that the various types of EWAR are not balanced. This is irrespective of FW. Rather than covering up the problem by removing the offending issue, try fixing it.

All factions should web and scram. These are the basic EWAR needed to hold an enemy down and destroy them.

Minmatar get TP (for their bungholes) to increase damage.

Caldari get ECM do reduce incoming damage.

Gallente get damps to force players to work at close range where their weapons do the most damage.

Amarr get neuts to reduce an enemy's ability to tank damage or even escape at all at close range. Tracking Disruption should be focused on optimal/falloff reduction to force players into close range where neuts are effective.

I also support the idea of having to destroy the defending NPCs to capture an installation. Flying around in space while cloaked or with no weapons for 15-20 minutes and calling ti captured is just not within the realm of believability. It utterly destroys all immersion.

Additionally, I would like to see better AI for faction NPCs. Given an enemy fleet, targets at close range obviously do not need to be range damped. The snipers do. High value targets like logistics, EWAR, and other support ships should be targeted regularly. Target switching should also be possible. The current targeting algorithm is too predictable and completely illogical.

In short, a single player in a frigate should not be able to capture a plex of any kind without some serious effort.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Dynast
Room for Improvement
Good Sax
#60 - 2012-06-06 00:21:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Dynast
Soldarius wrote:
Although I have never done faction warfare on TQ, I have tried it out on SiSi. I am sorry to see EWAR go away. No military force in its right mind would deny itself the use of such weapons if they were available.

The problem is that the various types of EWAR are not balanced. This is irrespective of FW. Rather than covering up the problem by removing the offending issue, try fixing it.

All factions should web and scram. These are the basic EWAR needed to hold an enemy down and destroy them.

Minmatar get TP (for their bungholes) to increase damage.

Caldari get ECM do reduce incoming damage.

Gallente get damps to force players to work at close range where their weapons do the most damage.

Amarr get neuts to reduce an enemy's ability to tank damage or even escape at all at close range. Tracking Disruption should be focused on optimal/falloff reduction to force players into close range where neuts are effective.

I also support the idea of having to destroy the defending NPCs to capture an installation. Flying around in space while cloaked or with no weapons for 15-20 minutes and calling ti captured is just not within the realm of believability. It utterly destroys all immersion.

Additionally, I would like to see better AI for faction NPCs. Given an enemy fleet, targets at close range obviously do not need to be range damped. The snipers do. High value targets like logistics, EWAR, and other support ships should be targeted regularly. Target switching should also be possible. The current targeting algorithm is too predictable and completely illogical.

In short, a single player in a frigate should not be able to capture a plex of any kind without some serious effort.

These sort of PvE centric changes (with the exception of clearing the plex to capture) really aren't appropriate to FW. They don't add anything of value for the people who have joined FW looking for PvP, and that's what FW is supposed to be about: PvP along faction lines. The tougher the plexes get, the less PvPing in them makes sense -- if you have to spec for PvE, you pretty much always get destroyed in PvP. At which point.. why even try engaging? It's no accident that the lion's share of plex pvp is in and around the minors, which can effortlessly be cleared by destroyers.

There are other places to go for players who want enhanced PvE experiences, such as incursions and wormholes. Take it from someone who's in FW for real: this is not what we need, or want.