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in a test environment ! outrageous !

You're new to this game, right?



I found myself agreeing with elements of this statement... but not really sure I'd go so far as to equate it to fun. If the current version goes live (or if a modified version goes live without player testing) we'll certainly have to re-write the book on running certain missions... but some missions will be a lot less fun without tradeoffs (which won't make Eve PvE more fun). The frigate / elite frigate heavy missions won't be terribly enjoyable for drone user's, while not impacting the standard solo L4 mission runners... at all.

The new AI changes absolutely nothing for a solo player flying a drone-less HAM Tengu... while making life harder for drone-only users.

Although... if the test server is still up this evening I'll have to test a rattler with a shield RR module... but your findings seem to suggest the Dual AFK Domi is getting another unexpected buff from this patch...

I do not recall all of them as I did not write down the mission names, but Sansha Acquisition was the one I had the most trouble with. There were so many frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, which seemed to all target my logistics (a basilisk sharing cap transfers with the main tank.) and I just could not keep it alive without gimping its repair ability to the point where it might as well not even be there. I'm sure it can be done with different tactics, And I was able to warp out my BS's as the web/scram drones did not target them in time. But it was still very frustrating.

I also got the big sting mission chain. couldn't get past big sting 2 of 3.

It seemed to be working as described, but it was very frustrating to have everything cruiser and smaller going after my logi. This would be fine in other missions where there are not so many small ships, I actually did complete two missions fairly easy where most of the spawns were BC's and BS's. I know this can be worked around by having a T3 cruiser in fleet to pull and tank the agro of all the smaller ships. But these missions were much easier before and could be done with 2 BS's a BC and a logi.

I get the whole learning new tactics to counter the changes. perhaps the old full fleet of RR BS's will be the best way to deal with the new agro. But there are many players who run these missions that do not read the forums, or run on the test servers. These players will likely be blind sided by these changes. many players have rage quit for far less.

I apologize for my stubborn attitude. I have just been very frustrated at the amount of impact this change is having on my play style. I just need time to adapt, just like with the unified inventory. I personally enjoy a challenge and learning new tactics to over come changes. if nothing else it keeps the game from getting boring. This will be a major change. I expect a lot of rage when this goes live. I know several players who have rage quit after losing a CNR or Golem running missions. Do you really think there will be no rage quitting after losing a whole gang of 1/2 billion isk ships when their fool prof tactics suddenly no longer work? Sure it is there own fault for flying ships they can not afford to lose, and not adapting to the changes. But that will not stop them from rage quitting. Lost subs are lost subs.

Level 5 missions are barely doable now, with the issues of being jumped by pirates. Making the NPC's even more dangerous, although a welcome change in many other area's will not be a good thing for level 5 missions.

That being said however, An easy fix would be to move level 5 missions back to high sec. After all the reason they were moved out of high sec was due to the low risk for the big rewards they offered. This AI change will increase the risk, So they no longer need to be in low sec. After all incursions are basically equal to what level 6-7 missions would be, and they are in high sec. Moving level 5 missions back to high sec would fill the gap between solo level 4 mission running and 8-12 ship fleets needed for vanguards. PVE content for 3-6 ship gangs is all that is missing from high sec. If the risk of running these missions in low sec was removed, the added risk from the new AI would be much easier to accept.

This may not be the appropriate place but I'll throw it out anyhow. It sounds like what really needs to happen (of course it won't) is that missions and anoms need to be adjusted to account for the new AI. The old method to make these challenging with dumb AI is to simply add more NPCs. But that doesn't really work as well with the new "smarter" AI. Using Wormholes as an example, they generally have tougher NPC's with fancy AI, but far fewer numbers.

There have been numerous questions about what, if anything, we are going to do about how this change will effect certain gameplay styles outside of running missions or ratting. Things like hunting ratters, ninja salvaging, and playing content with your new friends.

For the most part our stance is that we believe you will adapt and find a way to do it. In some cases this may mean increasing the barrier to entry, but we have already seen players coming up with new ways to do the same stuff.

We do have a concern about the ability for experienced players to bring new players along with them on content. We are also looking into this. What effect any changes we make here have on those other forms of gameplay is not entirely certain yet.

One of the things we are looking at is increasing how much threat you need to generate before the NPC switch. The specific case we want to look at solving is as I said an experienced player in a Tengu bringing a new player in a Rifter along. If that new player is doing very little damage we don't want all 15 frigates to suddenly decide he needs to die.

If what ever change we make to help mitigate that effects the other gameplay styles as well, then so be it. Our stance however is that those that want to will find a way to continue doing those other activities.

Pretty much this. If you want to make PvE 60% more irritating then by all means, go ahead. It's already soul-crushingly awful. But don't go making ratter ganks even fewer and further between. It's already difficult enough to even get on grid with a ratter before they warp out, much less hold a tackle when they start lighting you up. If you take aggro as well based on the size of your ship and whether you use ewar or not then ganking ratters is going to be next to impossible.

It's already difficult to tank ratters long enough to kill them when you're flying the kind of ship that can catch a ratter (bombers, inties, HACs, recons, etc)-- ratters usually do quite a bit of damage. If you then add to that a significant portion of the PvE site's DPS as well there's no way solo players are going to be able to gank ratters anymore, not to mention the fact that NPC aggro potentially mitigates players ability to tackle the ratter at all (NPC jamming or sensor damping is not conducive to point-holding).

You need to find a way to make your AI not switch to players who aren't engaging the rats or otherwise assisting a ratter. Full stop.

Realistically the scenario mentioned doesn't have the NPC's evaluating if 2 pilots within their area of aggression are allied or not, just the amount of threat generated. So what benefits the allied new pilot in a rifter that isn't generating enough damage to trigger a switch also helps the enemy SB pilot since he isn't shooting the rats

Indeed, but the comment presented about the Rifter flying with a Tengu seems aimed at that very scenario. The Rifter is a frig so the NPC frigs should prioritize killing it but threat level evaluation prevents that (or perhaps just reduces the likelihood?) and keeps them focused on the source of the DPS threatening them. If this general idea is implemented to some degree I can't see how they would fix one without fixing the other.

To be more direct if threat generation is needed to get aggression then something that generates no threat gets no aggression be it friend or foe of the missioner/plexer/ratter/etc. The only question is how hard the NPC's will stick to that mechanic, but regardless PvP'ers will benefit more than PvE'ers since the latter will be trying to generate some threat to the NPC's while the former will be concentrating solely on the PvE'er and generating less, if not no threat to the NPC's.

The main problem for me isn't that I can't adapt but rather what is the cost of adapting.

I can adapt to run a spider tank that keeps my 3 characters alive, but with target switching the risk of bringing any new players in jumps dramatically. I can't really expect them to adapt rather they just need to learn a few new tactics before they can jump into missions. Maybe if I switched out my tactics to have 1 or 2 logistics I could count on being able to rep them but bringing two logistics doesn't make much sense in pve.

Two exceptions I can think of:
10/10 deds (but would you want noobs in frigates in them?).
fw plexes, I can see flying a pair of the new logistics frigates being a good strategy in the future for plexing gangs, it would even be funner and better training for a real pvp situation.

Other situations such as lvl 5's and lvl 4's which are where a lot of this noob brining in happens it seems to be a bad idea in.


We also have balance for lvl 4's vs 5's which affects me a lot as I love running lvl 5's. I've already thought up a couple of solid strategies to try out for new ai but will need to wait a few months for the required skills for those new strategies. There are also half a dozen other potential ways I could think of doing this but they'd be situational and often not as effective. If I was looking in terms of fun, difficulty or requiring to think lvl 5's might even be better in the future.

However I also have to look at isk/hour and risk/reward. Right now I can only barely justify the added risk of lvl 5's for the current fun factor over lvl 4's. In terms of isk/hour it's not all that much a difference, I've argued back and forth with a friend who runs lvl 4's in a mach over which brings in more isk/hour between our two choices. less risk ,no docking up to avoid pvp and ability to faction fit ships makes lvl 4's very profitable. It's pretty close in terms of isk/hour, I can manage my risk in lvl 5's decently but obviously it's much higher than lvl 4's and lvl 5's are just much more fun for me so I choose them.

After this patch I see lvl 5's losing a lot of their isk/hour potential that you could get by having tanks and pure dps ships. The new stragies that I'm thinking up will work but they are losing a large chunk of their isk/hour potential. I may be able to get similar to current isk/hour potential by dropping a carrier in them (even that I'll have to check) but the added risk for doing that is a hell of a lot.

Lvl 4's on the other hand will be easier after this patch, though slightly more annoying micro manage wise. dual boxing a pair of faction fit turret bs's who only use drones for anti frigate potential if the guns can't take em down before they get close. Switching targets just means the rat's can't focus fire and maybe the potential loss of some drones if I don't react fast enough.

tl;dr: this is a nerf to lvl 5's adapting to this means moving out of low sec and back to lvl 4's for my missioning needs

This is currently considered acceptable by the team working on the AI and it's entirely due to signature radius being prioritized over threat from what I can tell. This will absolutely cripple small gangs or solo players that prey on ratters.