Missions & Complexes

I think methods could be implemented to compensate for this, and fits can be altered. Perhaps modules or rigs for large boosts to drone durability and/or MWD speed. (this might even bring about some interesting PvP possibilities)

Realistically, though, the AI needs to change because right now the default AI is absolutely pathetic. It's boring, and boring hurts Eve.

This will definitely make the high end DED complexes more interesting. Any ship on the field is going to have to be able to tank those ridiculous citadel torpedoes. Gurista complexes will be particularly... er, interesting, since their torpedo does EM damage.

I don't think you're making an effort to understand what it's like for non-drone users, even with my patient attempts. Cheers, I think we're done here.
I agree with most of your content, and thought you might enjoy knowing that the module Drone Navigation Comuputer exists, and with two of them can nearly double the MWD speed of heavy drones (and almost triple medium and light drones).

horrible changes, really.

i can understand buffing plex ai, but lvl4s? currently lvl4s have crap payouts, crap loot, crap salvage and are boring as hell. yet its the only way to get standing with corps besides midless courrier missions.

the real question is why? why doing it? how does having NPCs swich targets affect people blitzing on machariels or nightmares? no change at all. how does it affect noobs in dominixes? how does it affect a small fleet of noobs doing lvl4s?

it only makes an already crappy and boring "job" even crappier.

we know why they are doing this, its becuse plex farming, so why changing lvl4s? lvl4s dont respawn and CANT be farmed, and any change of this sort only affects newbs and people who arent familiar with the game. so why doing it?

its really beyond me, specially on a game like eve that should at least pretend to be welcoming to new players. if when i started years ago i would have to face one of this new lvl4s flying my trusty old brutix with 1600plates (LOL) and some other newbie from my corp flying a thorax with remote reps i would just call it quits. and yeah, that did happen, and it was fun.

and yeah, if you dont believe me just go to any lvl3 or lvl4 agent and scan some of the 4 month old characters and youll see why this is bad. this game is really complicated already even when facing mindless ai, notions of active tanking, effective reps, resistances vs buffer, speedtank - sigtank, are really hard to explain or see for oneself. if CCP expects newbs to suddenly figure them out while under fire, they are wrong.

let one newb sit on a dual rep dominix playing "tank" while some other dude flyes around in a frigate have their fun please, and buff only the plex ai. this will only make it harder for new players to get into the game. specially now that the "gamers" get into new games in groups of friends irl or from other game, you can see this on any new or old title.

lvl5s are the ones that need a buff in difficulty and a far greater one in payout.

Mission farming is actually very common. Setup 5-6 agents with the Big Missions (World's Collide, Dread Scarlet, etc) and so long as you don't kill the trigger for each mission it will fully respawn after DT. Easy ISK, and it's something I used to do at 70-80m an hour (bounty+reward+salvage+loot+lp@900ISK/LP).

Then, just before the mission fails (7 day timer), you turn them in and repeat.

So instead of 1 tank 1 dps, it will take 2 tanks to slowly grind down highend nullsec plexes? Should raise prices on deadspace loot I suppose.

yep, ccp tempting the Gods of Unintended Consequences yet again lol.

Biggest risk for non-drone boats is losing your light drones to NPC drone hate and getting perma-webbed/scrammed by NPC frigates.

i dont think you have an idea of what the plex exploit is. what you are talking about requires you sitting at the pc and doing something, the plex farm would work while 100% afk.

Fixed.



Wouldn't it be great if the AI modifications also included NPCs treating all primary weapons system as disposable? Just fit another one and rack it up to 'weapon system cost' And eh. This'll make things interesting. I do hope pilots decide to willingly sacrifice their ecm/web/etc ohsit saviours.

Well this will make the 'maze' and a few other 1010's very interesting. Your gonna need a logi to rep the logi. Just means more team work. :)