Test Server Feedback

The UI

I have zero complaints about the new UI. It looks slick, futuristic, it's easy to use and understand. It's overall very attractive and catches the eye. It's the kind of thing that might make a potential new player look at a YouTube video of EVE Online and think "wow, that looks really good, I'd like to try this game". 10/10 on it!

The New AI

This is where I'm seeing a problem that needs ironing out IMO. I just did some Angel Extravaganza, and put simply, drones cannot be used...pretty much at all. From what I read and understand, there is a bug right now with the code that once your drones get targeted and attacked by the NPCs (which happens immediately upon their launching), when you recall your drones and launch them again, they aren't targeted. This is the only way I was able to use drones. If the NPC's behavior toward the initial drones' launch is any indication of how they will behave once this bug is fixed, drones will be impossible to use...and any type of ship that uses drones as primary offense is going to become useless when retribution goes live.

This is the only problem I really noticed. Other than the drone issue, everything was smooth. And I'm not going to pre-judge or freak out because I know it's still in development. Just letting you know CCP, that drones can't be used with the current AI behavior once that bug is fixed. They get immediately targeted and practically insta-popped upon their launch. This can present a big problem in missions that have scrammer frigs.

If this is indeed (not assuming, just speaking hypothetically) how AI is intended to behave toward drones from now on, I think a good way to balance this issue is to reduce the materials needed to manufacture drones by maybe 80% or so, and increase the drone bay size of all ships with drone bays by about 400-500%. Or decrease the m3 size of drones drastically, so that losing drones constantly won't rack up massive profit losses and so new ones can be re-deployed repeatedly. Not a perfect idea I know, and would probably need some important details ironed out, but...that's all I can come up with. That, or fix the drone hate problem, heh. Either way, it is a problem that I believe needs dealing with.

So far I'm loving most of what retribution is showing to be though. Awesome!

New Explosions

I'm not sure if I should give feedback on this yet as it appears very unfinished. If I were to assume the current effects are the final product...I'd be speechless as to the lack of effort put into them. But judging by the quality of other new things in Retribution I've seen so far, I very much doubt the current explosion effects are anywhere near finished, so I'll update this part of the thread when they are finished and available on Buckingham.

Yeah it was Angel Extravaganza. I was doing this mission on Buckingham around 16:30-19:00 (don't remember exactly but it was between those hours) on 2012.11.19 server time. Those times are assuming Buckingham's time is synched with TQ's time.

My fit was a Raven that I threw together that would be good enough to handle a L4 to test the AI (typical mission Raven). The fit was:

Highs: Cruise Missile Launcher II (x6); Drone Link Augmentor I

Mids: Large Shield Booster II; Shield Boost Amplifier II (x2); Explosive Deflection Field II (x2); Kinetic Deflection Field II

Lows: Ballistic Control System II (x3); Capacitor Flux Coil II (x2)

Rigs: Large Capacitor Control Circuit I (x3)

Drones: Hobgoblin II (x5); Hammerhead II (x5)

Ammo: Nova Cruise Missile

Thanks for replying.

Trust me, I've been running L4s for a long while now, and this drone problem is out of hand with the new AI. With a little patience you can keep from losing any drones with the current system. This new AI system makes the rats jump on your drones like a fat man jumps on twinkies.

The change to the AI means my rattlesnake days are over mission running since its impossible to use heavy drones without losing them to the drone hating AI. The drone hate really needs to stop! But my real income has always been trade and invention so not really a problem I will miss. T2 heavy drones 50km out will not get back to the drone bay in time. Lose at least 1 drone and several heavily damaged before they make it back. Never really had the time to missionrun anyways manually. Gets old fast. The only thing your doing is forcing drone boat users to use other ships that they have no skill in when drones are their main weapon system. Not a problem for a 100mil SP character but is to drone lovers who ONLY have skills in drones who are at a low SP skill level say 10 or 20mil with only skills in droneboats and no turrets or missile skills..

Making the AI smarter and letting drone boats remain viable choices for pve are two goals that cannot possibly be reconciled. If you are fighting a ship that is tanking your damage, your obvious smart move is to kill its drones to reduce incoming damage. Not doing so is stupid. So any smart AI must neccessarily screw over drone users.

One possible remedy for pve is to provide ways to keep your drones alive without pulling them back, but making this possible would render drones totally overpowered in pvp so this can't happen either.

Given the alternatives, I prefer a smarter AI that invalidates drones as a primary weapon in pve over the current dumb AI. Training drones as the first primary weapon as a new player is a bad choice even now anyway.

Ive run L4's on Bucky with a Navy Domi and not yet lost a drone. I deploy, wait for aggro, recall, wait for aggro to return to me, re-deploy. A process that must be repeated for each wave.

But I had practice in W-space.There the NPC is not broken and will aggro drones over and over. I got quite good at not losing drones. It will still be possible to use them, just a bit more work.It also helps to use Warriors for lights, as they are fast and return to your bay quickly.

SO CCP can you tell us why there's so much drone hate? Why can we no longer use them for PVE??? This will not go well with drone users. This has been a feature for years and you suddenly want to change it? Great way to make enemies of the drone community.... "If you want to make enemies, try to change something!" :P Deus Ex Human Revolution saying. lol

Actually, it becomes rather evident that CCP wants the ability to use drones as a primary weapon, even now. The introduction of at least 3 dedicated drone boats in the next update (Tristan, Algos, Dragoon), and yet another one (prophecy) in the BC adjustment update seem to make that obvious. They do not seem to like the idea of 'pure' pvp and pve boats (Marauders being the exception), so that angle does not work either.

Which leaves it down to poor AI design or unintentional by product of the design. They can do things about it (lower pve ai aggro vs drones for example), as it is PVE rats, and not other players. I am sure they can come up with other ideas as well, but as it stands, the already awkward to control, and tricky to keep alive drones will be come 3x harder to keep in one piece. In particular Large and Medium drones will pay the price due to their slower speeds.

~Z

My concern about the BS new AI isn't about my drones persay but rather fleet mates and logistics alts. Will non-violent fleet mates be considered 'dangerous' targets according to this "fantastical innovation" of an AI change? Haven't tested this on test server but I might as well try.

Im not sure are you talking about new agro which comes when new wave spawns? Or are you saying that current npc rats will switch agro on your sentries when npc's allready agroed you? I havent run missions with sentries but i have run anoms with sentries and i can say 100% fact that current npc ai wont target switch on TQ. The problem is new and caused by new npc ai. Drone agro as you used to know it will be gone and replaced with drone and fleet member destroyer ai.

But its just not only drones that will be harmed by this. Fleet pve with traditional tanking ship will be gone aswell. Meaning every fleet member or alt have to have enough tank to solo sites by them own.

I like other stuff in rertibution. But this npc ai thing is awfull imho. It will destroy so much from eve. Including multiboxing pve, drone boats and pve fleets as we used to know them. Sure there might be pve fleets in future but they will have to got multiple logistic ships or either whole fleet have to fly something like rattlesnakes or tengus etc. But again if rattles cant use drones...


Sure it might be intended by CCP to get rid of afk missioning, multiboxing pve and semi afk drone alts. I get that but i think its wrong way to do it.. Alltho i dont have solution for it..



Edit:

Just wanted to add that im really waiting for retribution theres so much cool changes i like. I appreciate work CCP done. But i dont like new npc ai. Alltho its supposed to be good for me if someone makes less isk afk. But it also means that i cant solo 8/10's with my alt anymore...

More to add (ive done only buckingham testing):

- i love the UI
- Explsoions what are those? (i didnt know theres new splosions and didnt notice difference)