EVE General Discussion

Yep, bleak.

This change really feels like one giant "frag you" to all drone users. I mean, as is, drones have been virtually unusable in most facets of the game. They're certainly not the most efficient way of doing anything, require more work, have shoddy AI and UI, etc., etc. In PvP, practically nobody flies drone boats based on ship kills. But instead of, god forbid, fixing the drone issue, they're doing this AI stuff that will only complicate matters.

And like someone said earlier, the fallout of this won't be felt on Dec 5th. It'll take until the fix to the AI goes live. Which is another joke in itself - they KNOW the AI is bugged, they even said so, but they're going to push it out anyway. So much for not releasing broken content...

I don't know, for some reason I feel very pessimistic about this change. Just seems like a silly way of doing it. Even though I wholeheartedly support the end goal - making PvE more interesting and feeling closer to PvP. I just feel the game is so broken in so many places (drones, etc.) that need to be tackled before anything drastic like AI change is even contemplated.

See, I don't even consider AFK drone thing a problem per se. I mean, let's face it, it is NOT the fastest way of doing missions or farming. And people wouldn't be doing it in the first place if PvE in this game wasn't so ludicrously boring. At worst, it is the symptom, not the disease.

See, this is the same issue Darkfall developers faced. For those who don't know, in original Darkfall (Darkfall 2.0, a total reboot, is coming this week, by the way), your character "grew" or "leveled" based on things you did. If you hit someone with a 2-handed sword, your 2-handed sword skill increased. Same with magic. To run faster and longer, you had to run, or swim, for a very long time. And what happened? Macroing! Heck, not even that. People just put their character in the corner, put a weight down on their W key and went to work, or went to sleep. There were macros that would click (attack) every X seconds. And 2 people would face eachother, activate the macros and go do stuff, while their characters "leveled" AFK. Why? Because no sane human being would consider doing that in anything but AFK mode. Incidentally, Darkfall was also the only game where harvesting was almost as dull as mining in EVE.

Bottom line, if AFK anything, drone or otherwise, really bothered CCP, they should have looked at WHY people feel the need to AFK while doing it. And change that. Instead of fighting the symptoms and allowing the disease to continue to spread and fester.

Most drone ship users I would imagine already watch their drones. They have the fact that those ships have most ofl their DPS vulnerable to being destroyed has that affect on anyone not making a totally AFK fit.

Sig tanking drone cruisers with sentries looks to be effectively dying, as is range for drone using cruiser hulls to a degree due to recall times potentially meaning lost drones. The Ishtar and Gila are taking quite a hit due to that.

Larger hulls won't have as much of an issue with sentries, but they suffer the issues of lost DPS when recalling. Travel time exasperates this with non-sentry drones.

It's not just a matter of paying attention but rather a hit to the efficiency and effectiveness of primary DPS drone use and possibly drone use for dealing with NPC Ewar and targets which present tracking/damage application issues.

So missions might all get real hard. Sort your lives out and adapt.

If drones are no longer right for the situation, use something that is. Quit complaining about the game not staying an AFK fest. Use your brain and think about how to solve the problem instead of complaining that it's happening.

I and many i know use drones fine against Sleepers who are more dangerous to drones than the new mission rats are likely to be. You literally just have to pay some attention and maybe lose one or two every now and again.

Boo Hoo, man up.

How unusual for CCP to continue with a plan which players have shown to be flawed.

New inventory system anyone?

I do not normally criticize CCP, but it does seem that they are very good at not learning from past mistakes.

It something is not ready and working properly, do not release it until it is ready and working properly.

Easy really.

Every time i tested the new AI, the drones got killed....you send drones to 2 frigs orbiting you at 8.5km. Drones get webbed and killed. Cant even recall them in time. Missions with more frigates equals more ships taking one drone primary.

Aside screwing with the AI, and playing on AI aggro exploit, as it is now Galente and drone ships are hit hard. Skills for durability and stuff wont help for more than 1 sec. Bigger ships cant kill frigs with guns at close range, and when you run out of drones...well, its not gonna be fun for the ship owner.

On top of my head I can think of a few frig heavy missions, you get webbed and scrammed, and in all of them there are dozen frigs on field. Good luck killing them with 5 drones.

Edit - Merged this thread with an existing thread about Drones and AI changes. ISD Suvetar

I stopped playing EVE Online a little more than a year ago. Since then, on my desktop, I keep a note with a list of the reasons that I quit playing EVE.

At the top of the list is HULKAGEDDON. Nothing else needs to be said. Grind and grind for hours a day for weeks to be able to afford the 200million ISK Hulk, and it is destroyed in a flash by a 2million isk ship! In a supposedly PVP game there is a completely defenseless ship, preyed upon by a large portion of the player-base, and the owner of a destroyed Hulk can’t even get revenge, because the gankers never log in. I know, I used to keep the gankers on my Watch list, until I realized how futile that was.

However, Hulkageddon was only 1 of the reasons I quit. The other 8 reasons all involve Missions, and the mission system.

Allow me to illustrate with my most recent experience with the mission system since re-subbing this month.

I pick up a mission and fly there in my Navy Megathron. I get to the mission site and begin flying toward a group of enemy rats. This takes time. This time, time spent flying toward enemy rats or structures in a mission, is one of the reasons listed on my “Why I quit EVE” note. As I attempt to engage the rats, they all “_____” on me, and in no time at all, I’m well into Armor. Meanwhile, I haven’t killed any of the rats because they are all staying well outside my turret range. I have Blasters on my Navy Megathron, and have a range (optimal + falloff) of about 15km. So, I warp out, and decide to get another ship which has guns with a longer range.

I get my Tempest and fly back. It isn’t long before I am well into armor and I notice that the rats are now staying inside my range, so that I still cannot hit them! Just as I align my ship, two Warp-Scramblers begin jamming my warp. I send my drones after them, but it is all too late. My Tempest is destroyed.

I un-subbed.

Now, the point of my post was to discuss the proposed changes to Rat AI. If indeed such changes have been proposed. I hear this discussed a lot by players, but I really don’t know if its actually going to be implemented.

As I understand it. Once this change is implemented, Rats will target the largest DPS source, which means they will agro on Drones if drones are the largest or only source of DPS.

I would definitely have had a hard time imagining anything that would make the EVE Online mission system any more nightmarish than it is, however, this particular change, if its true, would definitely make an already nightmarish system even more nightmarish!

Imagine! There you are, in a mission being permanently jammed by Rats with ECM, and they are ripping your HP away at their leisure. You attempt to use your Drones to kill the jammers, but, NO! They target the largest DPS source, make short work of your drones, and they go back to perma-jamming your ship!

What about all those other mission situations? When the Rats are staying outside or inside your Turret range, and you attempt to use drones to compensate…not any more… since your guns are doing nothing but missing, the Rats will now target the largest DPS source, and of course make short work of your Drones.

I don’t want to over-analyze, however, this is probably how the mission system became such a nightmare in the first place. Instead of looking at the whole, the Devs changed a small part at a time, the changes seemed logical at the time, after all, Why would Rats fly at your ship’s optimal range??? Why would Rats target a ship that isn’t doing any damage??? The result being a nightmarish monstrosity that’s even worse than being griefed and bullied by other players.

Of course, I think the DEVs should stop and look at the whole for a change. Is this a good system? Are players having fun with this system? Would anyone imitate or recommend this system?

1) The mission system is worse than being griefed.
2) Flying 100km toward a group of enemies than back another 150km toward another group, consumes vast amounts of time. Time in which the player is doing absolutely nothing. And becoming bored.
3) Rat AI is already Insane. They stay outside your range, if you chase them, they fly further, and the only recourse you have are drones.
4) Constantly given missions you don’t want to do. Decline one faction mission, you’ll only be given another one in a few minutes. Meaning the player’s play time will either be stopped cold, or he’s forced to take a mission he doesn’t want.
5) The mission system is the biggest reason I quit playing EVE.

ITT someone who is bad at EVE tells us that he quit because he was bad at EVE.

Not quite. They will target whatever is considered the biggest threat at the moment. Damage certainly scores well on that scale, but things like remote reps that makes the enemy unkillable and ewar that makes the poor rats' weapons useless will also raise their ire. You can use these facts to ensure that they are more in a frothing rage about something other than your pitiful drones.

Oh, and yes, of course there will be ships with less armament in a PvP game — they'll just be specialised in a different sort of PvP than the shooting kind.

Your poor choice of strategy does not make anything insane or bad. Well, maybe if we go by that old “do the same thing, expect different results” adage.

Did you even read my op? It was entirely about discussing methods for adapting to the changes. No complaining.

Instead of skim reading and making sweeping judgments, perhaps you could share your pearls of wisdom with us lesser beings?