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If they're going to dial back the drone-hate, then I maintain restrained pessimism, rather than overt cynicism :) It's a step up. "Cautiously reserving judgement" is about as high as I go in life, after all :)

I could've told you the NPCs were defected.

What kind of idiots keep shooting at the same target!!

Please note all the threads on the General Discussion forum about hammering high sec income. Do you think it is purely co-incidental that there has been a massive campaign on the forums attacking high sec and these AI changes occurring at the same time?

Remember, when Eve started it was a bloodbath, and much more cutthroat than now. The people that harken back to that time want high sec wiped out. Also remember, a good number of people who wrote the code of that bloodbath are in positions of power now at CCP, or actually went to CCP from null sec alliances (Soundwave did the goon presentation at Fanfest not that many years ago).

The relationship between the null sec alliances, via the CSM, and the CCP dev's, is very close.
Looking at these things, I urge you to connect the dots.

Edit: Here is the link of Soundwave doing the Fanfest presentation.
I particularly enjoy the part when he said he was a director responsible for spying, and agrees when someone in the audience comments he has no honour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1sdTzj9iac

While that's most likely true, reducing high sec income is perfectly fine - low risk should equal low reward and promote lowsec and nullsec as greener pastures for players.

The problem is that a laid-back playstyle is tossed into the bin (God I wish I hadn't gone gallente now), and that it fails to prevent the 23/7 AFKers that seem to be a large part of the income problem. Having to check up on drones every 20 seconds instead of every 3-4 minutes breaks any possibility of doing anything productive while playing.

We havent asked any harder rats. We havent asked any changes on rats. Changing rats AI is direct isk income nerf in your face and thats why we complaining. Stupid people makes me sick. You make sick and you are seriously starting to **** off the majority of eve community on your own words.

You are absolutely correct when you say 0.0 will be impacted.
I cannot deny that.

The HML Tengu, a platform of choice for many nullsec PVE pilots, is getting hit, with the overt 10% Heavy Missle damage nerf, plus the less quantifiable nerf to range.
And there is no doubt that solo Drone boat operators in null sec are just as hammered as high sec players, assuming CCP does not do any more catering to them than they already have (plex structures don't use he new AI).

But high sec is devastated far more than null sec. Allow me to explain.

When I lived in null sec, the bulk of people made their ratting income from running plexes (including escalations) and farming belts.

So a couple things:
Farming belts:
a. Mostly done in missile/gun boats, since light drones (too little damage) and heavy drones (travel time makes them inefficient, and never fun when a red shows up in system and your Ogres are 30 seconds away). But yes, people going out to have some fun in an Ishkur in a belt are done.

b. Running plexes: Solo drone boat operators trying to do 5/10's. or 6/10's alone are finished, no doubt. But in reality, most plexes are run in groups, and you never try a 10/10 solo. I have flown all 3 class of ship in the Maze, and I know that the drones will have a much better chance of survival than in a high sec mission. A logi pilot will be now targeting 2 other ships, and 10 drones. Further, he may be also targeting a second logi.
I can certainly see a situation where instead of the traditional tank/gank/logi trifecta, where the buffer tank goes in first, we will see situations where people fly 3 RR Domi's, or possibly tank/gank, and 2 logi's.

Ultimately, you are correct that null sec will be impacted. But in the vast majority of null sec PvE, it makes PvE more difficult, not impossible. In high sec, a solo player in an L4 is done, unless he is flying a missle boat that can hit fast moving NPC frigs. Even a solo Mach pilot needs his light drones to nail tackling NPC's that get under his guns, and when they are instapopped, that Machariel is dead.

Oh yes...
So dualboxing just for the sake of being able to kill frigs?
Think I have a Cyclone somewhere for my indy alt, "need" to train BC to V anyways, will come guns ablazing to the rescue of my main!
(hahaha, we all know he'll be in a Drake)


Been said before, but...
It's not (just) the change itself that is bad, it's how the current content wasn't designed for it. At all.
If they were redoing the missions, or adding new content and only activate the AI for those, specially if for increased rewards, it would be AWESOME.
(... oh wait, that's incursion and WH I'm talking about now?)
CCP does not want to be awesome at the time, maybe in some point in the unforseeable future, but until then, we have what we get.
Missions that are not less repetitive, but possibly more random/dangerous for definitely no increased reward.

There are people in nullsec who rely on drones to kill frigates as well. That doesn't make PVE impossible, just a lot more difficult.

I've tested and had varying results ranging from no aggro on drones to perma drone aggro. Not really sure how to control it or even if it's just oddities in single missions.

When I was doing my test missions, in one L1 mission the NPCs did switch to my drones more than once. It was a drone mission, maybe they are not bugged?

In W-space the rats do switch to drones over and over. The method I use:

Launch drones. Keep them close.
Wait for drone aggro, pull them in.
Wait just a few seconds, just enough for aggro to switch to you. Then re-launch
You now got about 2 minutes before you got to worry about drone aggro again.

It seems like the NPCs (at least once the bug is fixed) are on a 2 minute cycle. Every 2 minutes they re-evaluate if they want to change targets. If there is no other target to swap to, they remain primed, ready to swap. If a new target shows up at that point, they swap right away. (New ship warping in, drones that just got deployed). This means if you pull in your drones then wait 2 minutes and re-deploy, they will catch aggro right away. So dont wait.

In W space we have noticed that if you got 3 ships in the fleet, drones rarely get aggro. But with one ship when the NPCs want to swap the only thing available is your drones. Be prepared to pull them in and re-deploy on that 2 minute cycle.