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[Winter] Changes to NPC AI

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Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#221 - 2012-10-22 17:00:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Bugsy VanHalen
Rengerel en Distel wrote:


Now consider you have 750000 skillpoints doing level 1s in a nice 1 or 2 drone boat with crappy gun skills and being surrounded by 12 frigates. Normally, the drones are doing almost all the dps, but now they're gonna get destroyed and you're going to have to keep going back for new drones. Olders toons will have options, younger players will decide their option is picking non-drone boats.

edit: oh, and consider those same new players deciding they want to try out the logi cruisers and such. how much fun is that going to be when you want to play the "healer" but die all the time?


Exactly, This has not been fully thought thru. I expect it will solve a few issues, but create far more imbalance then it solves. Considering how many players have multiple accounts, and how I am seriously considering dropping two of my 4 subs as the same gang PVE I was activity doing will now not be possible. Those extra accounts will just be dead weight. there are many players with far more than 4 accounts. That guy Mittens insulted at fanfest apparently had like 70 accounts.

Also they have been putting a lot of work into making EVE more noob friendly in the past year or so. reducing the learning curve, expanding the new player tutorials, and adding incentives for existing players to bring friends into the game. Yet this change would seem to be something that may return the learning cure to the cliff it used to be.

EVE is a game where multi boxing is very popular, whether it be for mining, mission running, ratting, what ever. Many many players have multiple accounts. Based on my experience I would even go so far as to say there are more EVE players who muli box than there are who only have one account.

For arguments sake lets say 15-20% of EVE accounts are alt accounts used for multi boxing in much the same way I do. Mulit boxing is something I got into while living in null as almost every one in our alliance did it. So I would say 15-20% is very conservative.

If I am considering unsubbing two of my four accounts, due to this change making the activity I used the extra accounts for no longer possible. I would assume many others who multi box for the same purpose will likely do the same. If so then EVE could be looking at a loss of 10-15% of active subs. That is a huge potential loss in revenue that the developers bosses will not be happy with.

I like the idea behind these changes. Having smarter AI will reduce the gap between PVE and PVP. But they really need to look at every aspect of the game it will impact, and not just the impact they intend it to have. Tunnel vision when pursuing a new inovative idea is a problem shared by not only game developers, but many engineers as well.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#222 - 2012-10-22 19:54:05 UTC
Bugsy VanHalen wrote:
Well I did not get as much testing done as I wanted, But I did get on as much as I could.

LVL 4 missions seem fine. They are slightly more challenging but were way to easy before. So no issues there.

LVL 5 missions I ran 4 of them. Lost my logi 3 times. The amount of DPS that switched to the logi was insane. considering it is all NPC's that can actually hit it. Droping two shield reps and going with a more tanky fit on the logistics, and throwing some logi drones on another ship to rep the logi was not enough. Switching out all my drones on the other 3 ships was enough to keep the logi alive, but droped my DPS so much that it was almost impossible to finish the mission. It may be possible to complete them with 3-4 ships using a different strategy but based on my initial testing this change has made lvl 5 missions almost impossible for a reasonable small gang of 3-4 ships to complete. The same set up that could complete them easy before.

I did not test 6/10-8/10 plexes but did try to run a 9/10. It was a disaster. I used to run them with a heavy tanked BS with about 500 DPS, a DPS BS doing over 1200 DPS with a weak tank, a Smaller DPS ship to help clear frigates and cruisers(either a HAC or T3) with a balanced fit doing about 650 dps, and a logi orbitng the main tank. This was done mutiboxing 4 accounts.

between dropping some drones for logi drones to keep the logistics alive, and droping DPS on both DPS ships to give them enough tank, my DPS ended up being to low to complete the plex. I managed to stay alive but was not able to finish the plex in 3 hours.

It would seem to do the same small gang stuff I previously did with 4 accounts I will now need probably 6 accounts for. I will not be subbing two more accounts. If anything I will drop two accounts as the only reason I have 4 accounts is for muti boxing a small gang. I also use these 4 accounts for mining but have been doing this less and less in favor of less boring game activities. The changes to mining ships have made mining easier, but also more boring. It is almost to safe now. So if I can not run level 5 missions, and higher end plexes mutiboxing my 4 accounts then there is no point in having 4 accounts.

One other question for CCP FOXFOUR; When you run this content for your internal testing do you use a god mode dev character with all skills at lvl 5? If so to get a acurate feel of what most PVE players are facing you should be running them with a character with not more than 20 mil SP. I would guess the BULK of the PVE player base is in the 15-30 mil SP bracket. Most players with more than 30 mil SP have moved on from PVE. The difficulty of a mission is drastically different from 20 mil skill points to over 40 mil which is what my two main combat toons are at. I can only assume it gets even easier with over 100 mil SP as I still have much left to train on my 40 mil SP pilots.

Also keep in mind that a very large potion of the community is not active on the forums, and do not read developer blogs. They will be blindsided by this change.


May I ask what level 5 missions you ran?

I vary between 2 accounts. One that is all maxed out with all level 5 skills and one that I apply the needed skills to as I go and delete every so often.

@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
#223 - 2012-10-22 20:03:00 UTC
zer0t wrote:


As a heavy drone boat user, i hate these changes. They will make a drone users life harder without any benefits but he is right, from a developers point of view. He and FoxFour are the one who implement the Drone AI and all they have to care about is if their AI works or not. So i dont understand your hatred against them. It probably wasn't their decision to implement these changes. The decision probably was made from a game design team and i have no idea who' s responsible there. Maybe we should hear something from them how these changes suppose to influent Drone Boat users.




This was the decision of the content team, of which I am part of.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

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CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#224 - 2012-10-22 20:11:29 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Well, glad to see at least one other person has done some testing recently.

I am still grinding ISK on TQ for my plex. Actually swapped for fun to my Drone Proteus, since that boat will be obsolete in 6 weeks.

It is kind of fun watching my Ogres whiz around at 1700 plus m/s.
After New England destroys New Jersey Jets, I will probably get back online to test out a Mach and maybe this Proteus fit.

But fundamentally, if I can't get the AI to target my heavies, any testing has zero value.

As for CCP delaying this, forget it.
They have a long long track record of deploying broken code, over the screams of protests of testers (UI anyone?), and then using TQ as a testbed.

That is what is happening with the drone decimation.
Goliath has stated he has zero interest in knowing if this AI is "fair to drone users", and only wants this test window to show any bugs in the code. Fox Four, who actually built the AI, and should have the most invested in this, is persona non grata.

Taking it to the extreme, this could be the equivalent to CCP saying, "we are increasing all rats' EHP 10 fold, and increasing thier DPS 10 fold. But for for the purposes of testing, we ONLY want to see if there are any bugs in the new code. We really don't care if it makes most missions and plexes unplayable. We will release the bug-free code onto TQ, then deal with the fallout from the players, and scale back the impact , when there is enough screaming."

Oh, and one last thing. There is no way I can dig up the posts, but I have seen one interview from one dev, and read the post of another dev, and they both HATE drones, and wished CCP had never introduced the weapon system. That may give you some indication of why this is happening.


Sorry if you have felt we don't want your feedback. I can't speak for Goliath, but this thread is mine and this change is mine and I want all the feedback you guys have to offer.

I can't comment on what other devs have said about their opinions of drones and what not, but neither I or CCP Bettik (Betikk? Crap can't remember. /derp ) who are doing this change hate drones.

Other then that I don't see anything from your post that is feedback to this change so not sure what else to say.

@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
#225 - 2012-10-22 20:12:27 UTC
Adigard wrote:
Mund Richard wrote:
With drones, you accept that T2 ones cost half a mill a pop, but now you run the risk of them going pop. Increased risk of going them pop, and a higher chance of not getting back your investment (not to mention that non-drone ships may not have the luxury of being able to carry a second flight! Attention - most of us posting here use drone boats with 3-6 flights, but there are ships with 125/125 or 50/50, these changes affect them just as bad, only differently).
But any interface that would help to maintain drones in PvE, would make them harder to use in PvP, thus upsetting "balance", and that would be bad.


I expect non-drone boat drone user's will just have to accept the fact that their drones will be lost. If CCP implements the current "Sacrifice a single T1 light drone to buy drone safety for the rest of the mission" then all boats with more than 25m3 of drone room will start carrying that single T1 drone.

Rengerel en Distel wrote:

You can't compare drones to ammo, they compare more to weapons. So it would be like if 7 frigates swarming around you suddenly all targeted your turret and destroyed it before you could do anything. Now you're down a gun, and the only thing you can do is go dock up and replace it, or take the dps hit for the remainder of the encounter.
Some indication that a drone is being targeted doesn't upset any pve/pvp balance, as it's something that should have been included with drones on day 1. If they really do plan on a drone UI upgrade, it should simply come before this change goes live. If the AI change has to wait for the spring expansion, but it's really polished, I don't think anyone is going to mind.


I seriously doubt CCP will delay unleashing the AI on us for... well... much of anything. Conversely I expect in 18 months when tiericide finally hits BS's and faction BS's will all have more drone bay space than we'll know what to do with. Of course, again, it's the time between now and then that's likely to cause some pain.


tiericide?

@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
#226 - 2012-10-22 20:21:19 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
I have had time to create this post in the time I have had to wait for Duality to strip a shield hardener off a mid slot.
Then I figured out that, the "Unfit" button in the ship fitting window does not work.
I can "manually" drag it to inventory, but that is the only way.

The "fit to active ship" mechanism works.

You know CCP, if Fox Four was actually refitting ships to run different missions, that "unfit" mechanism not working would have been flagged REALLY fast. So what was Fox Four running all these missions in, if Fox Four did not pick up on this mechanism being broken?

And where is Fox Four. I realize this is a weekend, and Fox Four may be hung over after the CCP party last night, but given there are less than 3 days left in this test window, and if this AI is so important to CCP's future plans, I would expect the dev responsible for it to be around.

If not, why open up Duality in a time frame where 3 of the 4 days the dev responsible is not around?


Things like the the unfit can be broken and fixed in a matter of hours. I didn't even notice it at all as by the time I got back into the studio it was already fixed.

As for where I was over the weekend I was on the test server helping people and focused on that. I asked everyone I saw to post their feedback here so that today I could go through it all, collect it, and arrange a meeting with the others involved once I had it all together.

I know some people would like me responding to feedback through out the day but most of the feedback I can't say much to except that I have read it. After that I need to collect as much information as I can and talk to others at the office about it.

@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
#227 - 2012-10-22 20:25:23 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
It appears that any testing of the AI is utterly broken since I can't get the AI to shoot my Heavy Drones.

I have run 5 missions, and in all cases, against Merc, Rogue Drones, and Sanshas, my Heavies have suffered no damage.
My Lights are getting insta-popped, and my Sentries take almost immediate damage, so I know the AI is functioning to some extent.

And before the fanbois start spouting off about "RNG", consider those 5 missions equates to several hours of heavy drones out in the rats' faces game, and over who knows how many AI decision cycles, the Heavies appear to be never even targeted.

And just now, I grabbed all the aggro for Sansha Recon level 4, room 1, then started speed-tanking in an Ishtar, let go my Ogres, and GASP!!!!!......for all intents and purposed went AFK!!!!

If you want people to spend time testing new game mechanics, how about ensuring they actually work.
This is not some trivial issue, but a fundamental part of the AI.

You release new code to Duality on a Friday (late I might add), then have the dev's all take Friday off for a corporate event, then have CCP Goliath infer that the devs are pretty hungover on Saturday, so not many around on the Saturday.
Now we are looking at Sunday, maybe Monday, before any responses from the dev's responsible for coding this mess.

CCP, if you want to show some professionalism, why not introduce the code on a Monday or Tuesday, when the dev's are available, and not hung over?

I am done wasting time with this test until I get some answers from a dev on what is going on.


I tested this as well and agree there appears to be something wrong with them targeting heavies. Which is really odd because early last week I lost an Ogre II. Shall dig into it and see if I can figure out what the hell is going on ASAP.

@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
#228 - 2012-10-22 20:37:39 UTC
So after the reading the feedback there are a few immediate things I am going to look into:

1) First and foremost this heavies not taking aggro while flying an Ishtar. They take aggro while flying a carrier. So that needs to be looked into.
2) Elite cruisers and frigates.
3) The ability to release drones, have NPC target switch, and recall the drones immediately, and just leave the NPC in a state of not really shooting anything.
4) Salvage drones doing ewar effects and causing NPC to swtich. Again, a cheap way to keep the NPC from ever shooting anything.

If anyone has any questions let me know. Still here. :)

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
DJ P0N-3
Table Flippendeavors
#229 - 2012-10-22 20:42:37 UTC
Tippia wrote:
The only question is whether the drones being left alone was due to the AI forgetting about them when they were recalled, or due to my ewar tagging me as a bigger threat…


A friend and I mucked around in some missions using a Myrmidon and Thrasher, and we could pretty reliably sling all the frigate aggro onto the Thrasher and keep it there by letting the drones be aggroed, recalling them, and relaunching them. The frigates never seemed to care about drones once they noticed the Thrasher. This also works even if the Thrasher isn't doing anything or if it's only bothering the Myrmidon instead of the NPCs.

Pointing the Myrmidon instead of the NPCs seemed to elevate the Thrasher's threat level to the NPCs, even though the Thrasher hadn't aggressed the NPCs and had no pre-existing NPC aggression timer.

All in all, the cruisers preferred the Myrmidon and the frigates preferred the Thrasher, so that part seems to be working out all right. One weird thing we noticed is that missions with rooms that historically aggressed by group (i.e. one group aggresses on warpin, another one aggresses only if you poke it) now all aggress on warpin. Is this intended?
Melina Lin
Universal Frog
#230 - 2012-10-22 20:53:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Melina Lin
I ran a couple of mission in drone boats (Ishtar w/Heavies, Sentry Rattler) today, I cherry picked some of the harder missions like AE, Pirate Invasion, Worlds Collide. This was mostly un-eventful and aggro was easy to manage. Too easy actually, I think something might have been borked. The exception was "Vengeance". This mission puts you into the middle of a blob in the first two pockets. Elite web frigs are present and pretty much everything is in range. Missions like this should be approached with some spare drones in the bay and you must watch drones like a hawk, or you'll be crying. Still, losing the odd drone once every ten missions is hardly worth complaining about.

I did try running some ewar and remote repairs but did not notice any benefit. Drones were still aggressed. Needs bigger sample size I guess.

With the help of CCP Foxfour I was able to get my greedy hands on almost all the empire Blood Raider exploration content (DED 3-6/10 and some of the unrated stuff) The Highsec stuff was done in a solo Pilgrim, without problems. If you are actually at the computer you'll be fine.

The lowsec sites were dual-boxed. Didn't lose any drones, good, but I noticed that new arrivals on the grid are pretty much tested every time. This is bad news for cloaky ratter hunters and also is a bit exploitable. Utilizing sensible positioning of the ships I was able to create a NPC shredder zone, with the rats stuck between a rock and a hard place. The NPCs switched between targets, but I was range tanking them. They had trouble to decide which target to go for and where just aimlessly running back and forth. Smile

In closing I'd like to point out that the drone control interface needs work, because it's bad. Cool
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#231 - 2012-10-22 21:01:07 UTC
Melina Lin wrote:
In closing I'd like to point out that the drone control interface needs work, because it's bad. Cool


As someone who uses drones on a daily basis... dear god yes.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#232 - 2012-10-22 21:02:34 UTC
Did the drones droping group bug get fixed?

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#233 - 2012-10-22 21:04:06 UTC
Salpun wrote:
Did the drones droping group bug get fixed?


I believe so but I will double check on it first thing tomorrow morning.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#234 - 2012-10-22 21:06:00 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Salpun wrote:
Did the drones droping group bug get fixed?


I believe so but I will double check on it first thing tomorrow morning.

Thanks even a swap drone with a health one button would do wonders.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Typhado3
Peraka
#235 - 2012-10-22 21:13:49 UTC
Please try this in lvl 5's in subcapital t1/t2 ships before you implement this

lets take prison break (it's got the highest dps of any lvl 5 and the frigs don't scram, unless you've changed that since I last did it) it should be good for testing how the new AI goes in missions, hopefully I can test it on the weekend. I see changes like this just requiring people to use carriers or t3's for these sorts of missions as trying to use groups of lower ships against spawns of 30 concord bs's spamming em torpedoes at you is going to require you fitting heavy tank and large groups for spider repping ships.

Right now I run lvl 5's using a tank command ship from my hauler alt with low/no gun skills and 2 char's in dps bs's with a couple of rr in the highs. I'd also try to bring along any friends I could pull in in a bc or cruiser. This change blows this strategy out of the water, I can see myself changing to triple spider tank or something in a few months time but even if I get my 3rd characters weapon skills up I just still see any new strategies I use being far slower and less effecting probably a drop of say 30% efficiency and a very large increase in risk. I also will be a lot less inclined to bring any friends along to help train them as they will be at great risk in these missions.

To me this is gonna be a very serious nerf to the ability to run lvl 5's and a strong push towards lvl 4's. Without the ability to have dedicated tanks I'm better of sticking with lvl 4's much less risk and the rewards are about the same at the moment (better in lvl 4's after the change) as I can focus on dps more not needing as heavy a focus on tank or spider repping. I can also fit out faction fit macherials/nightmares etc. which are another large jump in dps bringing in more isk/hour where as iin low sec I stick to t1/t2 fits to avoid huge losses.

Unless there is some way of making a dedicated tank work under the new AI I see this being a massive nerf in areas where it seriously wasn't needed.
Vatek
Rents Due Crew
#236 - 2012-10-22 21:18:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Vatek
Foxfour:

Has there been any further discussion or iteration regarding PVP and NPC behaviour? I spend a lot of time soloing in a bomber and it is extremely disconcerting that ratters (who already enjoy a very risk-free experience if they are actually at the keyboard paying attention) are essentially going to have the very NPCs they are destroying protecting them in anomalies, asteroid belts or missions. Even if I upgrade to a larger ship as you have suggested in the devblog thread, that just means I am aggroing cruiser or battleship NPCs onto myself and have to contend with their dps and EWAR as well as the intended victim's. Why is turning NPCs into bodyguards for ratters considered acceptable?

These changes will be the death of one of the few solo career paths for nullsec pilots and make it significantly more difficult for gangs at the same time. Attempting to go after a pilot or group of pilots running some of the higher level exploration plexes would be downright suicidal for most small gangs.

It concerns me immensely that posts related to PVP in this thread are being virtually ignored, especially Capqu's excellent posts that illustrate the issues better than I could explain them. I understand that these changes are far from final but coming out and saying that destroying an entire playstyle is "OK" is really not OK. We need to know what is going on with the PVP side of this as it has a far-reaching impact on any PVP activity where NPCs are also involved.
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#237 - 2012-10-22 22:56:47 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
tiericide?


Ship balancing?
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#238 - 2012-10-22 23:22:09 UTC
Adigard wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
tiericide?


Ship balancing?


Game of Drones? Oh, the death of tiers and movement towards roles. Sorry. I didn't get that. /derp Sorry. I get it now. My brain went to trying thinking that was supposed to be a team name.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#239 - 2012-10-23 02:29:48 UTC
I see Duality is still up.
Is there a channel to talk to other people testing.

There are 37 people on Duality now.
I want to test a Mach in some of the tougher missions, plus try Buzzkill L4, and it seems the dev's can hand people specifc missions.
Planktal
Kenshao Industries
#240 - 2012-10-23 02:31:31 UTC
Did some more testing, some lvl4s as well as some lvl1s and lvl2s, in the new destroyers. Sweet rides by the way, bear to fit tho. More often than not as soon as lights were launched they were targeted and destroyed like Sleepers do, meds and heavies... nothing, just like on TQ. Once I had aggro I could release meds or heavies and the rats would ignore them, they would swap between my logistic alt and myself but ignored the drones unless they were lights or sentries.
If the new AI is going to come to TQ your really going to have to look at how missions/deadspace sites spawn/work. Beefing up NPCs and removing some is one way to help balance things, fewer targets but stronger ones.

Here sanity, nice sanity.....THWOOK Got the bastard