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[Winter] Changes to NPC AI

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Singira
Heffalumps and Woozles.
#481 - 2012-11-09 19:03:43 UTC
Ranger 1 wrote:
Jiska Ensa wrote:
OK I tried out the new NPC AI on Buckingham...I must say after a half-hour of trying to rat with both fighters and sentries, I never ever want to see drones again.

I had to babysit them worse than in wormholes. Seems every 5 seconds they're being shot, no matter what the carrier is doing to the NPC's.

Well, I guess you did say you wanted to nerf ratting carriers. Time to train something else. Oh well.

I don't believe the dialed back hostility to drones is on the test server yet.

Personally, I support ratting in carriers. They make excellent targets.


They used to at least.. Just don't bring small stuff anymore...What?
MadMuppet
Critical Mass Inc
#482 - 2012-11-09 19:32:52 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Because we believe that this change is an improvement.


Like the Unified Inventory was?

This message brought to you by Experience(tm). When common sense fails you, experience will come to the rescue. Experience(tm) from the makers of CONCORD.

"If you are part of the problem, you will be nerfed." -MadMuppet
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#483 - 2012-11-09 19:36:05 UTC
Singira wrote:
How hard can it be to base it on damage dealt rather than sig radius?

Seriously..

Sig radius..

How is this making PvE more interesting or challenging when it just means pull in your drones once or twice?
I fly a tengu, this will make things more interesting for me how?
At best it makes a mindnumbingly boring task a little more troublesome for some..

This fixes nothing but breaks a lot..




You are not putting all the pieces together.

Soundwave at Fanfest had a long interview with Ten Ton Hammer where he stated he would like to nerf PvE income in a big way, starting at 10%. He also stated that he wants a lot more ships to explode when Retribution hits.

Well, bottom line, Retribution is going to hammer PvE income in a huge way.
Every drone boat operator is toast, and all Drake/Tengu pilots are facing a 10% drop in Heavy Missile damage, along with a massive range nerf.
And as for wanting ships to explode, imagine what happens to a Mach when it is tackled by frigs, which are flying under its guns, and the Mach's small drones are insta-popped.

That is the just overt stuff.
Now factor in all the possibilities of bounty-griefing Incursion runners, miners, and people flying high end ratting boats.
The ability to make ISK is going to be massively affected by the changes some minority of extremists within CCP want to inflict. And of course, they are fully supported by the same minority within the player base.

When you have tons of ISK already, you don't mind if everyone else suddenly can't make any ISK in order to level the playing field.
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#484 - 2012-11-09 20:46:53 UTC
Interesting.

Once the defect is fixed I wonder how easy it will be to keep NPC aggression on your ship. All my drone setups have rather poor non-drone DPS. I'll need to find other reliable ways to keep NPC attention, but I'm not aware of anything reliable yet.

I also have the same concern regarding all ships under heavy Ewar effects. Often I've used drones to get around the fact that my gun DPS way effectively 0.

Going to need to see how this plays out.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#485 - 2012-11-09 20:58:16 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Hey guys, I have been a bit silent here and for that I apologize. An update on where we stand with the AI changes:


  • As it stands we are still going ahead with pushing the change to TQ.
  • While the change did not make it to the current version on Buckingham I have lowered the drone hate of the AI some more.
  • While we consider the fact that the AI will only shoot your first flight of drones (this is based on specific criteria such as sig radius) and not a second wave to be a defect, we are not publishing the fix with Retribution.
  • After Retribution we will be making a change to the AI so that they only consider damage being dealt to them as something to increase a targets threat. That way when you warp in to kill someone running an anomaly shooting the player does not make the NPC hate you.
  • Also after Retribution, and on the same topic as the previous point, we will be making it so that unless you do something like shoot the NPC or repair a player the NPC won't take your signature radius into account when evaluating targets. Even with the above change without this one frigates would still switch targets.

Well I apologize for what I said about you. You certainly are listening.

So just to clarify: if I warp into an anomaly that another player is doing, the NPCs won't start shooting me until I shoot them? Or they're just much less likely to?

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Amarr Priest
Doomheim
#486 - 2012-11-09 21:04:48 UTC
I've been testing out 6/10 through 10/10 plexes and the target switching is rather aggravating. You now need even more people to keep you alive which cuts into profit. Like say for example a blood raider 10/10 plex, you could do it with 3 or 4 toons. A logi, tank and a dps. Now with switching targets your talking two logi at the very least.

I wish you guys would just switch plexes so that you don't have to kill hordes of ships but kill like 3 to 5 very leet ships. Make it like pvp where you have to use pvp setups to beat them. I really don't see no matter what AI you give the blobs how it can be fun. I hate missions and plexes but I do plexes for the reward and the thrill of a treasure hunt kinda thing. Now you're taking away profit because I will need more help with them.

My advice is if you implement this AI to tone down the higher level plexes 6 - 10.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#487 - 2012-11-09 21:06:12 UTC
Kan'loch Lacoud wrote:
Pros:

Makes nullsec pve much much safer
Makes nullsec pvp such as roaming, soloing and catching ratters nigh impossible
Theoretically increases isk generation in nullsec as ratters can afford to ignore hostiles and won't lose ships as often (or at all)

Cons:

NPCs kill drones much more now, costing hard earned pennies for each ratter using them


This is obviously a good thing because in a pvp centric mmo pve comes first and must be risk-free a-la WoW, right guys?

Did you read anything CCP FoxFour said at all?
If I understood correctly, they said that NPCs will not switch targets unless you start attacking them or assisting a player who is. They also said that they're going to dial back drone aggro more, and based on my latest testing on Buckingham drone aggro is fairly manageable as it is (Dominix with sentries and medium drones used for testing).

Having been one of the most outspoken opponents of this change I can say that it appears CCP is actually working seriously to address our concerns.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Singira
Heffalumps and Woozles.
#488 - 2012-11-09 21:07:18 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Hey guys, I have been a bit silent here and for that I apologize. An update on where we stand with the AI changes:


  • As it stands we are still going ahead with pushing the change to TQ.
  • While the change did not make it to the current version on Buckingham I have lowered the drone hate of the AI some more.
  • While we consider the fact that the AI will only shoot your first flight of drones (this is based on specific criteria such as sig radius) and not a second wave to be a defect, we are not publishing the fix with Retribution.
  • After Retribution we will be making a change to the AI so that they only consider damage being dealt to them as something to increase a targets threat. That way when you warp in to kill someone running an anomaly shooting the player does not make the NPC hate you.
  • Also after Retribution, and on the same topic as the previous point, we will be making it so that unless you do something like shoot the NPC or repair a player the NPC won't take your signature radius into account when evaluating targets. Even with the above change without this one frigates would still switch targets.

Well I apologize for what I said about you. You certainly are listening.

So just to clarify: if I warp into an anomaly that another player is doing, the NPCs won't start shooting me until I shoot them? Or they're just much less likely to?


They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..
Desert Ice78
Gryphons of the Western Wind
#489 - 2012-11-09 21:07:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Desert Ice78
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Hey guys, I have been a bit silent here and for that I apologize. An update on where we stand with the AI changes:

La la la la la

Herp de derp

Intrigue


Special request please: set of earplugs to be shiped with Retrubution. The screaming post the 4th will be......interesting.

I am a pod pilot: http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/DesertIce/POD.jpg

CCP Zulu: Came expecting a discussion about computer monitors, left confused.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#490 - 2012-11-09 21:08:41 UTC
Singira wrote:
They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..

How could you possibly know this?

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#491 - 2012-11-09 21:11:00 UTC
Singira wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Hey guys, I have been a bit silent here and for that I apologize. An update on where we stand with the AI changes:


  • As it stands we are still going ahead with pushing the change to TQ.
  • While the change did not make it to the current version on Buckingham I have lowered the drone hate of the AI some more.
  • While we consider the fact that the AI will only shoot your first flight of drones (this is based on specific criteria such as sig radius) and not a second wave to be a defect, we are not publishing the fix with Retribution.
  • After Retribution we will be making a change to the AI so that they only consider damage being dealt to them as something to increase a targets threat. That way when you warp in to kill someone running an anomaly shooting the player does not make the NPC hate you.
  • Also after Retribution, and on the same topic as the previous point, we will be making it so that unless you do something like shoot the NPC or repair a player the NPC won't take your signature radius into account when evaluating targets. Even with the above change without this one frigates would still switch targets.

Well I apologize for what I said about you. You certainly are listening.

So just to clarify: if I warp into an anomaly that another player is doing, the NPCs won't start shooting me until I shoot them? Or they're just much less likely to?


They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..

The changes mentioned say that in the future they will not, and those changes aren't on the test server. So all you have is FoxFour's word saying they won't. You will have to wait and see how it turns out.
Singira
Heffalumps and Woozles.
#492 - 2012-11-09 21:12:23 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
Kan'loch Lacoud wrote:
Pros:

Makes nullsec pve much much safer
Makes nullsec pvp such as roaming, soloing and catching ratters nigh impossible
Theoretically increases isk generation in nullsec as ratters can afford to ignore hostiles and won't lose ships as often (or at all)

Cons:

NPCs kill drones much more now, costing hard earned pennies for each ratter using them


This is obviously a good thing because in a pvp centric mmo pve comes first and must be risk-free a-la WoW, right guys?

Did you read anything CCP FoxFour said at all?
If I understood correctly, they said that NPCs will not switch targets unless you start attacking them or assisting a player who is. They also said that they're going to dial back drone aggro more, and based on my latest testing on Buckingham drone aggro is fairly manageable as it is (Dominix with sentries and medium drones used for testing).

Having been one of the most outspoken opponents of this change I can say that it appears CCP is actually working seriously to address our concerns.


" After Retribution we will be making a change to the AI so that they only consider damage being dealt to them as something to increase a targets threat. That way when you warp in to kill someone running an anomaly shooting the player does not make the NPC hate you. "

Key word beeing *After*
Singira
Heffalumps and Woozles.
#493 - 2012-11-09 21:13:54 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
Singira wrote:
They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..

How could you possibly know this?


Log on the buckingham server and try for yourself...
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#494 - 2012-11-09 21:15:33 UTC
Singira wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
Singira wrote:
They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..

How could you possibly know this?


Log on the buckingham server and try for yourself...

My point was that you're discussing an iteration of the AI that's not on the server yet.
You do have a point about the after Retribution part. This is something that needs to be done when the AI is implemented, not afterward.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Singira
Heffalumps and Woozles.
#495 - 2012-11-09 21:19:26 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
Singira wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
Singira wrote:
They will start shooting at you, especially if you dare to use a point or scram on the guy who was in the anom first..

How could you possibly know this?


Log on the buckingham server and try for yourself...

My point was that you're discussing an iteration of the AI that's not on the server yet.
You do have a point about the after Retribution part. This is something that needs to be done when the AI is implemented, not afterward.


It does indeed need to be changed before it goes live...
Otherwise it will actually mean increased safety and ISK generation from PvE in 0.0..
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#496 - 2012-11-09 21:21:40 UTC
Singira wrote:
It does indeed need to be changed before it goes live...
Otherwise it will actually mean increased safety and ISK generation from PvE in 0.0..

Exactly my concern. And I say this as someone who does a lot more ratting in 0.0 than ratter-catching.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Amarr Priest
Doomheim
#497 - 2012-11-09 21:27:39 UTC
I just did a Angel 8 of 10 plex today on the test server and the second you warp a new ship in they aggro that one. I had my tengu tanking it and the second ship I warped in all the frigs and battleships switched to that one while the battlecruisers stayed focused on my tengu. So they insta switch don't matter what you do. I tested this several times, I didn't even target anything. I really don't care about drone aggro. Though yeah if your doing a plex in a drone ship, you lose a drone you will have to surrender the site to someone else cuz you can't kill the structures if you lose dps.

That's why it needs to be toned back a bit. To afford the loss of a drone and to not have to add more people to the equation. Is kinda nice if someone come to kill you though as most of the entire room switches to the person who just entered regardless of action.

I don't care who said what in what blog, I'm just stating what I have seen when I test.
Ixius Del'Monar
Eternity Pavilion
Dracarys.
#498 - 2012-11-09 22:08:26 UTC
Ranger 1 wrote:
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
So Fox Four, you are pushing forward with broken code.

What a surprise.
I can't imagine the last time this happened....wait.

So drone boats get a reprieve, at least for a short period.
On Dec 4th, we just take a hit in our income generation while we have to sacrifice a T1 drone or do a release/get aggro/call back/release dance with our drones for the 1st wave, and of course subsequent spawns. But you still are forging ahead planning on trashing drones as a PvE platform. When you do fix that issue where the AI will go after drones at any time, it is game over for them.

It was also so nice to see you saved the poor null sec pilots by altering the code so they can maintain their current tactics for running high end plexes. We must never, ever impact null sec income, right?

And I would love to see you list the pros and cons of this new AI, as others have also asked.
A precise list. Not some nebulous "it will make shooting NPC's more enjoyable".
I would like to see what you envision the direct impact will be on players, and what is a pro, and what is a con.

Not that you will, or can provide such a list. Even if you were willing to try, I am sure your bosses will not allow you to.

Oh, and one last thing...are you guys truly serious, that you have now moved off Duality for testing, and forcing us to do this crap all over again on Buckingham. Wow....just wow.


Actually, you know whats amazing? The incredible amount of complaining, nit picking, and general whining because CCP is finally doing what we have been asking them to do for years. That being to make the AI more challenging, more intelligent, more dangerous to all concerned.

... and then people like you entered the picture, tears flowing profusely down your checks, complaining that dangerous NPC's will be too hard... Going after mission runners will be too hard, actually having to be at the keyboard to use a drone boat in a mission is too hard... aggro changing to other targets in general is too hard.


Frankly you people are beginning to make me sick.

Either man up or find an equally easy way to make your isk, mining comes to mind, but quit trying to undermine attempts to make it more difficult to milk NPC's with no challenge or risk involved. You are seriously beginning to **** off the majority of the EVE community.



Ive never asked for this!!! Ive never surfed or posted on the forums much until I saw that they were changing the npc AI, and then i started posting on the forums because it is utterly useless, they have yet posted how this is gonna be fun and fulfilling!!! I mean show me where 40k players asked for this sir!!! And btw imagine this game without carebears and miners, = no pvp for you, so before you post about crying think about how this will effect you. This isnt about stuff being hard, we all know it can be done, but it comes down to risk vs reward, MISSION RATS AND BELT RATS ARE NOT AS PROFITABLE AS INCURSIONS OR WH SITES..THEREFORE IF YOU MAKE THEM SMARTER YOU NEED TO INCREASE THEIR BOUNTY SO THE RISK IS JUSTIFIED BY THE REWARD!!!! but if you do that you will make missioning in high sec more profitable then null sec ratting/plexing...............wait it will already be after this expansion due to the fact that running a complex will be more difficult to do unless you have 4 or more people. And if no one understands this and cannot figure out why then i will tell you if need be.
ZhaoMin
Tennyson Court
#499 - 2012-11-09 23:14:32 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Hey guys, I have been a bit silent here and for that I apologize. An update on where we stand with the AI changes:


  • As it stands we are still going ahead with pushing the change to TQ.
  • While the change did not make it to the current version on Buckingham I have lowered the drone hate of the AI some more.
  • While we consider the fact that the AI will only shoot your first flight of drones (this is based on specific criteria such as sig radius) and not a second wave to be a defect, we are not publishing the fix with Retribution.
  • After Retribution we will be making a change to the AI so that they only consider damage being dealt to them as something to increase a targets threat. That way when you warp in to kill someone running an anomaly shooting the player does not make the NPC hate you.
  • Also after Retribution, and on the same topic as the previous point, we will be making it so that unless you do something like shoot the NPC or repair a player the NPC won't take your signature radius into account when evaluating targets. Even with the above change without this one frigates would still switch targets.


Now as I am sure many of you are wondering why we have been silent in this thread it is because we found a defect with NPC, nothing to do with the AI, that we decided needed to be fixed. After fixing it and realizing exactly how broken things were we decided to remove the fix until a later date when we can properly balance the content to account for this fix. We have spent the last few weeks attempting to fix the defect, figure out the risk of it, and figure out if we should delay it or the AI changes. In the end we decided to go ahead with the AI and delay the defect fix.

So yea, there is the update. I should hopefully have the lowered drone hate tested enough to put on Buckingham with the next update and will let you know when we do.


I must say I'm grateful for your response, while what's been mentioned isn't entirely appealing to a lot of players (brings in a lot of rage already eh?) but trust me, it is better than you staying silent completely on the matter, an update progress like this already helped your fellow players to start preparing and considering of possibilities and alternatives (you see the amount of ppl that hopped on to test server right away to try things out, perhaps without reading too?)

Keep this up, like every 3 or 4 days, doesn't even need to be this detailed, it just need to be able to assure the players that you are actively making progress no matter how fast or slow, just don't stop and stay silent.
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#500 - 2012-11-09 23:56:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Adigard
Ranger 1 wrote:
That being to make the AI more challenging, more intelligent, more dangerous to all concerned.

Wow... you're bad at this sort of thing, right?

So the AI that's currently being deployed it so easily broken that, in order to disable it, you launch a single T1 drone... let the rats kill it, and then the AI turns off.

That's challenging and intelligent? You set the bar on intelligence a bit low there mate.

Or did you mean some fantasy future implementation down the road? That hasn't really even been hinted at? Even the changes that FoxFour mentioned in his more recent posts don't make the AI seem more intelligent nor dangerous. Turns out a solo Tengu pilot will never notice the difference. So it's not any of those things. Or did you just read the Dev Blog that those things were the expected result of this fix... and take off on a wild tangent from there?

Ranger 1 wrote:
Going after mission runners will be too hard, actually having to be at the keyboard to use a drone boat in a mission is too hard.

Did you know that FoxFour tested and posted that a totally AFK Sentry Domi actually has an easier time with this AI? So... guess not so much on that one? So this fix punishes casual drone user's, while apparently rewarding the hard-core AFK'ers.

Ranger 1 wrote:
Frankly you people are beginning to make me sick.

I don't know what makes you sick, but I'm pretty tired of ignorance.

James Amril-Kesh wrote:

Did you read anything CCP FoxFour said at all?
If I understood correctly, they said that NPCs will not switch targets unless you start attacking them or assisting a player who is. They also said that they're going to dial back drone aggro more, and based on my latest testing on Buckingham drone aggro is fairly manageable as it is (Dominix with sentries and medium drones used for testing).

Having been one of the most outspoken opponents of this change I can say that it appears CCP is actually working seriously to address our concerns.

If you read everything said, did you hear a when? Other than "After Retribution"? Don't forget, this isn't exactly a priority for anyone. They're pushing the code regardless of the bugs, and I can't imagine CCP has pulled FoxFour off the new project he's working on.

So it's probably a fairly low priority issue for everyone at CCP.