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Dev blog: Brains! NOM NOM!

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Alx Warlord
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#281 - 2012-09-20 20:41:21 UTC
So, the NPCs will switch targets and have a chance to target drones at random and kill them...

God.... noone will use gallente....

Please read these!

New POS system New SOV system
Spc One
The Chodak
Void Alliance
#282 - 2012-09-20 20:44:45 UTC
Alx Warlord wrote:

God.... noone will use gallente....

Yea same with missile nerf, no one will use caldari.
Big smile

This is getting funny.
So the only two options are minmatar and amarr.
aoeu Itonula
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#283 - 2012-09-20 20:45:03 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
agrajag119 wrote:
Bagehi wrote:
[
You should be able to range tank citadel torps though. That's what I've always done anyway. Pretty easy to keep out of range. Citadel Torps are really short range, and it shouldn't take a whole lot of effort to keep range on an outpost. It isn't like it is mwd'ing towards you.



That would work except the acceleration gate lands you within web range of the station. So you warp in and are immediately webbed down to about 3 m/s. So your initial tank will take that first couple torps, and then you'd have to pray the logi can burn out past the 60KM range of the stations torp before it gets target switched. All while somehow having the logic magically tank all the NPC's that will switch to it, who won't be able to be ranged tanked.


Of course this is doable, but now you come across the real kicker. You'll need 800-1000dps to break the tank on the station. Weapons systems with >60km range from one ship won't cut it.

I assume more pilots could do these sites. Maybe we just need to accept that like high end W systems and incursions, these complexes are fleet content.

If they do this, they need to up the rewards significantly or they'll never be worthwhile to run (with a baseline being afk ice mining in hisec)
Feldercarb
Shrouded in secret
#284 - 2012-09-20 20:47:04 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:
Feldercarb wrote:
Concord is attacking players? I mean come on this is pathetic. Creating bugs out of thin air for no reason. I don't see Soundwave's signature on this either.


When you're playing with NPC AI in what amounts to delta or alpha code on a test server, this isn't even unusual.

Now, if CONCORD started behaving that way on TQ, it'd be really funny a serious lapse on CCP's part.


Alpha code? Calling on players to test alpha code? I mean really? You can't be serious. And to the guy that said EVE was a small project in comparison, I fail to see how EVE is in any way a small project. This whole thing is just really looking sloppy, this is more of an in-house release still and a scary one at that. This is not on par with the set release goals of inferno or post inferno and is no where near any content foreseen to be released in the winter expansion with mining frigs and micro jump drives. I admire some initiative but this is not content creation this is a whole bag of worms. Its never a mistake unless you fail to correct it and I think chasing this path at this critical point in CCP's path for restructure and player base is just in a wrong direction.
Plotinos
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#285 - 2012-09-20 20:48:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Plotinos
How about adding a " fake explosion" skill that you can actively trigger (right click on the drone, trigger; or a button behind its hp bar) on a drone that is being targeted. The drone becomes incapacitated for two seconds or so but the rats will "think it's dead" and stop attacking it for a few minutes. This way it would be possible to keep your drones alive even against webbing frigates, but only if you're paying attention.
MisterNick
The Sagan Clan
#286 - 2012-09-20 20:48:57 UTC
Alx Warlord wrote:
So, the NPCs will switch targets and have a chance to target drones at random and kill them...

God.... noone will use gallente....


Gallente pilots have got used to everything being an effort, we'll be fine Blink

"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom."
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#287 - 2012-09-20 20:55:29 UTC
Feldercarb wrote:
Bagehi wrote:
Feldercarb wrote:
Bob Bedala wrote:
I've just realised something.

On large scale software projects, you have engineers dedicated to feature releases & sections of the codebase. But those features are specced by product owners who are experts in their fields, in this case game designers.

Do CCP really have engineers in effect doing game design with seemingly little feedback from game designers?

The latter are the people who should be in communication with the playerbase, not engineers -- unless it's digging into the details of a bug. Seems weird-as, to me, but explains a heck of a lot.


I have to agree here. Its like this team has to find something to do to keep a job instead of being assigned something to do by a game designer. Does CCP have game designers anymore? I am really beginning to wonder. I can testify first hand at the frustration of CCP breaking content. I am constantly getting more reasons to leave rather than more reasons to come back. I have been back approx 2 months with the notion that CCP finally listened to their players and were making the changes players have been asking for. To stop working on useless things and address the things players have been pointing out and to not waver from that goal. This is a waver from that goal.

I had relearned all the stuff I had missed, I had finally settled into a role and learned all the new changes and and mods and started making a plan and a goal and working toward that goal. Now I am faced with a nerf that challenges my entire goal and makes me consider just leaving. I chose rattler pilot, wrong time to come back I guess. The new ancillary mod made rattler viable again, now this nerf sucks all the fun out of game play again. Suck me in with great new changes and a listening ear to player concerns, and then chase them away again with needless changes and failure to deliver on the promises used to lure players back.


Soundwave is a game designer and he's been championing making PVE more like PVP. So, this looks like a step in the direction of what a game designer, the lead game designer, has stated as a goal for the game.


...and where were these stated goals in the release notes for Inferno? Where did it say we are going to release new mining changes, mods, fixes, and DRONE AI? This is deviating from the set goals posted in this release and creating new bugs and unforeseen consequences in HighSec PVE, null sec ganking, DED sites, Eve economy, and a direct impact on player count, and eve itself. Where are any of these changes helpful? I don't see a game designers hands on this at all, and much has been left unconsidered in the impact this seemingly small change is really producing. This idea should be completely scrapped and is taking way too much dev time away from serious issues. Concord is attacking players? I mean come on this is pathetic. Creating bugs out of thin air for no reason. I don't see Soundwave's signature on this either.


These changes are not for Inferno, they are for our winter expansion which has not been named publicly. Where did we say we are going from new mining changes, mods, fixes, and drones? Here right now.

Everything we do has the chance to create bugs, even fixing bugs has a chance to create bugs.

Where are these changes helpful? With changing up our PvE gameplay and moving it in a direction where we can continue to improve our PvE gameplay. The current AI that all the NPC use is not something we can really change. If we want to improve our PvE experience the first step is switching it to this newer AI so that we can make changes.

Not sure why you think no game designers touched this. I am a content designer, this is what we do. While our title is content designer we are game designers that just focus on content instead of gameplay features.

I am sorry you consider the CONCORD issue being pathetic, but we actually already had a fix ready before you saw this dev blog. It just happened to miss the deployment to Duality. This is exactly why we need to do this though. As I said before we can start making more changes to our PvE content we need to have the AI upgraded and deal with these problems. This must happen first. Along with the future better it leaves us with less code to maintain as we no longer need to maintain the old AI code. All of this is a good thing.

Again, everything we do has a chance to generate bugs. This all does have a reason and I hope this post helps bring some of that out. :)

Also, Soundwave most certainly did sign off on this as he does for all the design stuff.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#288 - 2012-09-20 20:57:57 UTC
aoeu Itonula wrote:
Vincent Athena wrote:
agrajag119 wrote:
Bagehi wrote:
[
You should be able to range tank citadel torps though. That's what I've always done anyway. Pretty easy to keep out of range. Citadel Torps are really short range, and it shouldn't take a whole lot of effort to keep range on an outpost. It isn't like it is mwd'ing towards you.



That would work except the acceleration gate lands you within web range of the station. So you warp in and are immediately webbed down to about 3 m/s. So your initial tank will take that first couple torps, and then you'd have to pray the logi can burn out past the 60KM range of the stations torp before it gets target switched. All while somehow having the logic magically tank all the NPC's that will switch to it, who won't be able to be ranged tanked.


Of course this is doable, but now you come across the real kicker. You'll need 800-1000dps to break the tank on the station. Weapons systems with >60km range from one ship won't cut it.

I assume more pilots could do these sites. Maybe we just need to accept that like high end W systems and incursions, these complexes are fleet content.

If they do this, they need to up the rewards significantly or they'll never be worthwhile to run (with a baseline being afk ice mining in hisec)

But, if you bring more pilots you can kill the site faster, maybe not in proportion to the number of pilots, but it may not be so bad overall. As CCP requests, test it and report.

Know a Frozen fan? Check this out

Frozen fanfiction
Josef Djugashvilis
#289 - 2012-09-20 20:58:19 UTC
I run level 4 missions solo in a Navy Dominix to pay for lo-sec pvp.

Looks like mining may have to be the new career 'choice' for me.

Bah.

This is not a signature.
MIrple
Black Sheep Down
Tactical Narcotics Team
#290 - 2012-09-20 20:58:20 UTC
I don't think the changing of the AI will be as huge a change as people make it out to be. There are a few issues people have brought up that will need looking at. The high end DED plex are one and drones getting attacked to often are another.


What I think would be interesting would be to give all rats a point value. Say figs have around 5 point cruiser 10 points BC 15 BS 20. Then you would assign a Point Pool the the Spawns in a Mission pocket. So the first spawn has a total of 200 points. That would give you a random Mission every time and make missions more interesting. This would also make things more dynamic as you could put in % of a Faction ship to spawn but take up more points say 30 for a faction BS. Missions could still have goal to them but most are just about clearing the rooms. But you would have to think each time you warped into a room and asses what ships you are fighting.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#291 - 2012-09-20 21:03:14 UTC
ergherhdfgh wrote:
Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.

The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.

I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.

Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind.


We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Scoto Timta
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#292 - 2012-09-20 21:03:44 UTC
I am in full agreement with the goal to improve the AI and make it more pvp-like. I've run my share of Sleeper sites (1000+), so I can and will adapt to drone-hater rats. But it makes me sad to think that my favorite ship for running exploration sites (sentry Ishtar) is gonna be crap. If we are understanding the proposed changes (I have not tested it), there will be no way to use sentry drones with an Ishtar.

If I sit still next to my little buddies (like a Domi can do) so I can insta-recall, I will be blasted to bits.

If I orbit at 500m I am moving too slowly to mitigate much of the incoming damage.

If I orbit at 1000m, at least 1 (usually 2 or even 3) are outside immediate scoop range, depending on where I am in the orbit path, and I'm still moving too slow to truly be speed-tanking. If some of them start to take damage, and I hit my group recall key, I might be well out of scoop range for the one(s) getting hit. To scoop them I may have to turn around and fly back to them, bringing my speed back down to zero at least momentarily. So much for speed tank.

Any orbit that allows me to speed-tank a majority of the damage means that my sentries will die. They are doing 95% of my dps, thus (in theory) being high on the AI threat list and being immediately targeted by the rats.

Remote rep the drones??? Perhaps. I haven't tried to develop a fit for doing that. But optimal range for a T2 medium armor RR is only 6km, so I'm still gonna be forced into a fairly tight orbit. And now I need to keep 5 drones targeted in addition to the rats? It certainly ain't afk any more. :)
Alexander the Great
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#293 - 2012-09-20 21:06:07 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Feldercarb wrote:
Bagehi wrote:
Feldercarb wrote:
Bob Bedala wrote:
I've just realised something.

On large scale software projects, you have engineers dedicated to feature releases & sections of the codebase. But those features are specced by product owners who are experts in their fields, in this case game designers.

Do CCP really have engineers in effect doing game design with seemingly little feedback from game designers?

The latter are the people who should be in communication with the playerbase, not engineers -- unless it's digging into the details of a bug. Seems weird-as, to me, but explains a heck of a lot.


I have to agree here. Its like this team has to find something to do to keep a job instead of being assigned something to do by a game designer. Does CCP have game designers anymore? I am really beginning to wonder. I can testify first hand at the frustration of CCP breaking content. I am constantly getting more reasons to leave rather than more reasons to come back. I have been back approx 2 months with the notion that CCP finally listened to their players and were making the changes players have been asking for. To stop working on useless things and address the things players have been pointing out and to not waver from that goal. This is a waver from that goal.

I had relearned all the stuff I had missed, I had finally settled into a role and learned all the new changes and and mods and started making a plan and a goal and working toward that goal. Now I am faced with a nerf that challenges my entire goal and makes me consider just leaving. I chose rattler pilot, wrong time to come back I guess. The new ancillary mod made rattler viable again, now this nerf sucks all the fun out of game play again. Suck me in with great new changes and a listening ear to player concerns, and then chase them away again with needless changes and failure to deliver on the promises used to lure players back.


Soundwave is a game designer and he's been championing making PVE more like PVP. So, this looks like a step in the direction of what a game designer, the lead game designer, has stated as a goal for the game.


...and where were these stated goals in the release notes for Inferno? Where did it say we are going to release new mining changes, mods, fixes, and DRONE AI? This is deviating from the set goals posted in this release and creating new bugs and unforeseen consequences in HighSec PVE, null sec ganking, DED sites, Eve economy, and a direct impact on player count, and eve itself. Where are any of these changes helpful? I don't see a game designers hands on this at all, and much has been left unconsidered in the impact this seemingly small change is really producing. This idea should be completely scrapped and is taking way too much dev time away from serious issues. Concord is attacking players? I mean come on this is pathetic. Creating bugs out of thin air for no reason. I don't see Soundwave's signature on this either.


These changes are not for Inferno, they are for our winter expansion which has not been named publicly. Where did we say we are going from new mining changes, mods, fixes, and drones? Here right now.

Everything we do has the chance to create bugs, even fixing bugs has a chance to create bugs.

Where are these changes helpful? With changing up our PvE gameplay and moving it in a direction where we can continue to improve our PvE gameplay. The current AI that all the NPC use is not something we can really change. If we want to improve our PvE experience the first step is switching it to this newer AI so that we can make changes.

Not sure why you think no game designers touched this. I am a content designer, this is what we do. While our title is content designer we are game designers that just focus on content instead of gameplay features.

I am sorry you consider the CONCORD issue being pathetic, but we actually already had a fix ready before you saw this dev blog. It just happened to miss the deployment to Duality. This is exactly why we need to do this though. As I said before we can start making more changes to our PvE content we need to have the AI upgraded and deal with these problems. This must happen first. Along with the future better it leaves us with less code to maintain as we no longer need to maintain the old AI code. All of this is a good thing.

Again, everything we do has a chance to generate bugs. This all does have a reason and I hope this post helps bring some of that out. :)

Also, Soundwave most certainly did sign off on this as he does for all the design stuff.

You want to break current PvE so you can make it better sometime in the future?

No, please make all changes together so we can see why it is better.

Currently I see only broken gameplay for some groups of players and no improvements in making PvE fun.
aoeu Itonula
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#294 - 2012-09-20 21:09:32 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
ergherhdfgh wrote:
Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.

The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.

I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.

Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind.


We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it.

Don't forget various 8/10s (Serpentis particularly), the escalation complexes (final stage of Fleet Staging Points, final stage of Military Complexes, etc), and so forth. It's not just 10/10s.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#295 - 2012-09-20 21:11:43 UTC
Alexander the Great wrote:
You want to break current PvE so you can make it better sometime in the future?

No, please make all changes together so we can see why it is better.

Currently I see only broken gameplay for some groups of players and no improvements in making PvE fun.


What are we breaking? The missions are still more than doable, some things will require a change in strategy but nothing is being broken.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
MIrple
Black Sheep Down
Tactical Narcotics Team
#296 - 2012-09-20 21:11:45 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
ergherhdfgh wrote:
Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.

The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.

I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.

Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind.


We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it.


I am sorry you are stuck in the PVE of this game you should try the PVP side its way more fun.
Jason Edwards
Internet Tough Guy
#297 - 2012-09-20 21:12:27 UTC
so all this work to just get people to stop using drones.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#298 - 2012-09-20 21:13:21 UTC
aoeu Itonula wrote:
Don't forget various 8/10s (Serpentis particularly), the escalation complexes (final stage of Fleet Staging Points, final stage of Military Complexes, etc), and so forth. It's not just 10/10s.


You are entirely correct and we are building a list of content to test. I will add these to said list.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#299 - 2012-09-20 21:13:43 UTC
Jason Edwards wrote:
so all this work to just get people to stop using drones.


The expectation is not that people stop using drones.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Sugar Kyle
Middle Ground
#300 - 2012-09-20 21:14:18 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
ergherhdfgh wrote:
Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.

The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.

I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.

Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind.


We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it.


Are you also actively trying to PvP each other? That's a part of it. Being hunted and hunting others.

Member of CSM9 and CSM10.