EVE General Discussion

I did some L4's last night, and they are a damn sight more enjoyable than the release drones and wait game of before.

It now promotes team play, some thought about ships and fittings, and just overall more engaging.

Well done CCP, this is a winner. (I also like the fact if you get caught ratting in low/null, you have a chance of the NPC's switching to the other guy and helping you out)

People, don't cry. At least NPCs don't shot down cruise missiles and torps launched at them. And don't try to catch bullets from autocannons.

Yet.

I like EVE. There are a few actual real issues with the expansion, but the mere fact that it's free puts it miles ahead of any other game on the market.

But I tend to find that the people who are prattling on about leaving or saying "what would EVE be without their player base" etc are pretty much just all talk. You can spat and tantrum all you want over your precious level 4s, but while you and a few others were doing that, me and some of my mates were out finishing the very missions you are complaining about.

Solo.

Yeah, they're harder. So we figured it out. Is it normal for people to just quit things because they get harder? Sure, actually, it is, but only if it's something they didn't already enjoy. See, the thing about EVE is, it has players that want to play games, and players that want to play EVE. It's the players that want to play EVE who are out solving the new problems that the expansion has presented us, and those that want to play games who are quite welcome to bugger off and play Super Smash Bros instead if they want "easy mode" and expect other people to solve their problems for them.

All I'm hearing from people is "waah my drones" or "wahh level 4s" and expecting something to be fixed as if it's broken - there are things broken, but it's not the AI, it's not your drones, and it's not your level 4 missions. All that's broken there is any sense you might have of being interested in the game, which can't be that much of an interest if a little AI patch makes you want to quit.

Seriously, EVE was never meant to be easy.

Because training for a tengu is just a trivial thing to do. Its not like it requires mastery in each subsystems focus, like ECM, cloaking, propulsion or whatever. Nevermind the time for the weapons systems or the t1 ship requirements. And laugh out loud to the low price they sell for.

Learn to read. I don't do missions, so keep "your missions" statements for yourself.
I *DID* missions and unlike you ambulance chasers *I* was demonstrating years ago L4 missions were too rewarding and needed nerfs. Just bother pulling up the old forums => missions sub forum and go for the most flamed threads: they were mine and another guy's. I also did the same for Incursions, before your character was even born.

I owe nothing to you newbs who pretend to know the game.





No, they are sh!ttier.

Harder would be having actual new content "L4 PLUS" missions where you get in and only find 2-3 ships that play like PvP.
Harder would be doing what Darkfall does: nasty NPCs you sweat hard to kill more than one.

Making people send drones, then recall them and then send again is NOT hard. It's as stupid as before except now you have to do two more right clicks.
WOOO you get easily pleased, eh?




I still find it p!ss easy and boring too. Hoped for a real AI buff not this bugged farce.

Also, it's a discriminatory farce, because if I fly a Tengu I auto-win and that's it.
If I fly two ships (easy considering I still have 4 mission characters and ships) it's still auto-win. Screw newbies with just 1 account.

But if I fly a tier 1 or Minmatar battleship with few mid slots (no EWAR / webs) like a newbie does, it'll be much harder and that goes against a learning curve.

If I fly a drone boat it's annoying and ripe for losses.


If EvE really was meant to be hard it'd be:

1) Impossible to multi-box missions.
2) All the races would have the same difficulty doing the content.
3) The AI would be a 2012 AI, not a 1980 AI. Or a 1985 AI in case of Sleeper AI.

They should have left L4 as is and just *added* proper challenge new missions with proper AI, where people who believe to be skilled enough can go in and get more reward in exchange for a much steeper difficulty.


As is it now, it's not hard. It's just a racist nerf. And I say this even if I don't have a single Gallente character (not even trade alt) over 5 accounts.

They made certain missions very annoying.

ECM from npc's: Where is the fun in being permajammed in a mission? It has always been annoying, but its even worse now because your drones will not be able to kill the jamming ships.
Solution: Bring another person or alt.

Trackingdisruption and sensordamps from npc's: A little bit less of a problem because you can still use drones to kill the scrambling frigs in case you need to gtfo. For the other npc's you'll have to burn into range to kill them. That is if you can tank the whole room while burning towards the rats for several minutes.
Solution: Bring another person or alt or Tengu.

They changed solo-content to multiplayer content. Not a good move imo. There is plenty of multiplayer content already. There should be something for the casual player. Lv 4's don't make all that much isk anyway compared to other pve. (Incursions, exploration sites, wormholes, yes even mining, ...)

This change will hurt newer players the most. They don't have access to top-of-the-line hardware and have to do these missions in T1 ships sometimes with meta-modules.

Not a good change.

In the very few L4 missions I've done so far in my Dominix drone aggro has barely been an issue. Then again I run missions ATK...

The only thing I've heard so far that could be problematic (but haven't experienced yet) is people getting full room aggro all the time, which could be slightly annoying (understatement) in missions with lots of NPCs. But this has been happening occasionally (for certain values of occasionally) on some missions since as long as I've been playing and so far I've managed to deal with it every time, I'm sure I'll be okay now as well.

Sure the new AI is slightly more annoying but I think I had to pull in my drones like 2 or 3 times extra during an Angel Extravaganza (my Garde IIs seem to tank Angel Battleships rather fine too, which is awesome). That said, if you don't use sentries you'd better be prepared to lose drones to frigs sooner rather than later as NPCs seem to focus fire a single drone (should be fun when there's loads of frigs...not).

Also I think this change is mostly going to really hit low level missions and low skill characters hard. Level 2s in a Vexor, sound like they should be "fun" with the new aggro mechanics with all the frigs around...

Slightly unrelated: my Dominix gained a bit under 50 drone dps, yay \o/

On a totally related note to all the those that think this change makes L4s harder: they don't. And it doesn't make them any less predictable (or boring) either. NPCs WILL aggro your drones, no exceptions, some faster than others but that's how it is and once you pull them back they won't aggro again, so after the initial aggro it's back to business as usual until the next group spawns or aggros... So you need to do slightly more effort in a predictable way...yawn?

These are the two points I was trying to make as well.

How can a change mostly impairing new characters be good?
How can be "differently boring" == "challenging"?

If NPCs would start to dodge missiles and bullets. THAT would be challenging.
I kill all frigs first and only problem would be situation when acc gate take me in a center of dozens of elite frigs which insta scram my BS.

I repeat - i havent use any drone on L4 since long time (Pirate Invasion, Scarlets, Angel Extra, Gone Berserk, Mordus Folly etc). Propably i will take some salvaging drones next time.
But i can imagine that if i would be drone boat pilot, extended micromanagment with drones would insta kill my nerves.

I don't know what it is that makes people think AFK-Missioning with drones was ever the usual playstyle.

Let's see what happened when I went AFK pre-patch.
- Light drones started shooting BS. Nothing they could ever pop.
- Heavies startet shooting (elite) frigs. Again, nothing they could ever pop.
- Ships got withing 20km of sentries. BS still popped. BC too. The rest didn't.
- Medium drones could deal with most NPCs but wouldn't be fast.

Thats why i didn't rely on drones for long (though i only AFK'd a hand full of missions).
So i built my trusty Blaster-Proteus with light and medium Drones to deal with frigates and cruisers that keep distance.
I didn't like the Tengu - everyone used that ship... And I am ready to sacrifice income to fly a ship I enjoy.

I needed to keep track of position, aggression, target and healt for both my ship and drones but i was okay with that.
It was a nuisance that drones stated to wander off to the worst possible target (drawing neutral NPCs into the fight) but that was manageable.

But with the new AI i'm at constant risk of losing a third of my DPS (more if you consider time spent flying into blaster optimal) and get quite a dent to my income at the same time while also losing the ability to quickly dispose of tacklers. And that with a ship that wasn't ever considered a Drone-Boat or AFK-able.

Yeah, a job well done.

Wisely forseeing, i trained for a HAM-Tengu some time ago. 500-600 DPS at 40km range, which work reasonably well against frigates, fielding a massive shield tank (depending on the Deadspace/Officer SB used easily beyond 1000hps) while capstable. And i get rid of managing Drones.

Can't say i like it, but Drones had enough disadvantages already.