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Stop crying about new drone AI
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Anneliese Pollard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#41 - 2012-12-07 23:34:59 UTC
Like most have said.

Its not the new AI - its the full room agro.

Angel seems to be the only NPCs that I haven't had a real challenge with, despite that. AE was pretty standard for me.

The bad stuff are usually the Serp / Gurista missions where full room agro means you can't target 10k in front of you due to heavy damp and jam. Its in that point where the tanks are being stretched, and at you get around 1200 dps or so incoming due to NPCs reaching their optimals.

Heavy damp and jam - sounds like a really bad product located at the grocery store in the aisle with the peanut butter and jelly.
Nriz Barol
1IL
#42 - 2012-12-08 00:08:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Nriz Barol
Well, I must admit I have been a little wary bring my battleship to lv4 missions because of the new AI (I am not leet or major pimp fitted). One of CCP's goals was to make mission running closer to PVP so making them more challenging does in a small way bring it closer to that. No doubt if you look at forum posts people were asking for more engaging content. While CCP should always be wary of player backlash they should also seek to engage us, which I believe they are trying to do both in game and out.

The new AI is a good thing, and no doubt it will have bugs smoothed out and be iterated on in the coming months.

The old AI was bad, so very bad
Mund Richard
#43 - 2012-12-09 01:53:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Anneliese Pollard wrote:
Angel seems to be the only NPCs that I haven't had a real challenge with, despite that. AE was pretty standard for me.

The bad stuff are usually the Serp / Gurista missions where full room agro means you can't target 10k in front of you due to heavy damp and jam. Its in that point where the tanks are being stretched, and at you get around 1200 dps or so incoming due to NPCs reaching their optimals.

Heavy damp and jam - sounds like a really bad product located at the grocery store in the aisle with the peanut butter and jelly.
Angels not only not have zero annyoing EVAR (if you are slowboating in a BS), but AE has many wave each room (except bonus where they start far, and the only trigger is easy to avoid) instead of what many serpentis missions look like (I have no idea how someone can manage The Assault now solo low skilled in a T1 Battleship).
Nriz Barol wrote:
No doubt if you look at forum posts people were asking for more engaging content. While CCP should always be wary of player backlash they should also seek to engage us, which I believe they are trying to do both in game and out.

The new AI is a good thing, and no doubt it will have bugs smoothed out and be iterated on in the coming months.

The old AI was bad, so very bad
Well, I must admit, it made things more interesting.

But many folk were probably looking forward to new content, something like micro-incursions or sleepers for hisec (content designed for the AI), or perhaps L5s back to carebear land since the two previously mentioned before in more hostile space are supposedly more rewarding (or could be, with a bit of LP nerf for hisec L5s), and as thus L5s are no longer what they used to be.

Me?
I'd like some reworked missions myself, tested a while on Buckingham, now on live, and buisness got back to as usual for me.
The new AI didn't make things impossible. Just made me want to go for a Mach even more.

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#44 - 2012-12-09 02:12:33 UTC
Mokanor Lenak wrote:
I have to say this thread is hilarious.

I never knew mission runners can turn "leet" WoW style on others, just because they don't fly a mach / don't fly 3B ship / don't have 40+ million skill points toon.

L4 missions at least were meant to be run by pretty new toons, a few million skill points toons, mostly with T1 ships learning to manage aggro and triggers.
L4 missions were not meant to be flown by only only "leet" pirate or T2 ships with insanely expensive fits.
L4 missions were not meant to pop you where you stand 15 seconds from entering the dead-space unless you are aligned and run for your life the moment you landed on grid.

This is the issue. People with such "cool" gear like "L2P" WoW style, where they forget that this issue is seriously crippling new players. The learning curve went from L1->L4 pretty straight forward and pretty linear, to L1->L3 linear, and than a HUGE jump in the learning curve and skills needed to even survive a mission, let alone complete it.


You can thank the null sec dudes and their endless demands to neuter hi sec.

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Mr Pragmatic
#45 - 2012-12-09 08:35:45 UTC
Please share these awesome fits you guys have. I'm curious to see what can tank over 9000 DPS.

OP surely will deliver.

Super cali hella yolo swaga dopeness.  -Yoloswaggins, in the fellowship of the bling.
EvEa Deva
Doomheim
#46 - 2012-12-09 11:04:04 UTC
Got full room aggro in The Assault ( guristas ) by pulling out sentry drones.
Mund Richard
#47 - 2012-12-09 15:23:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Mr Pragmatic wrote:
Please share these awesome fits you guys have. I'm curious to see what can tank over 9000 DPS.

OP surely will deliver.

If we tone down the sarcasm to 1300-1500 while using an only T2 fit on a T1 battleship that can realistically tank as long as to apply it's dps to reduce incoming fire, somehow work around EWAR (ofc not in angel space), all the while able to clear scramming frigs in case things go south, there's a point there.
Oh and a semi-low SP player alone. Since I could run L4s with a domi before around 2-3 mill SP. Not that it was effectively done.

Tough the 1500 dps is partially due to a bug.

OMG, I corrected someone else's sarcasm.
Need to take my meds. Or is it because I already took them?

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Mr Pragmatic
#48 - 2012-12-09 16:37:55 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
Mr Pragmatic wrote:
Please share these awesome fits you guys have. I'm curious to see what can tank over 9000 DPS.

OP surely will deliver.

If we tone down the sarcasm to 1300-1500 while using an only T2 fit on a T1 battleship that can realistically tank as long as to apply it's dps to reduce incoming fire, somehow work around EWAR (ofc not in angel space), all the while able to clear scramming frigs in case things go south, there's a point there.
Oh and a semi-low SP player alone. Since I could run L4s with a domi before around 2-3 mill SP. Not that it was effectively done.

Tough the 1500 dps is partially due to a bug.

OMG, I corrected someone else's sarcasm.
Need to take my meds. Or is it because I already took them?


Still waiting for a battle clinic load out or it written down here.

Please do share. Big smile

Super cali hella yolo swaga dopeness.  -Yoloswaggins, in the fellowship of the bling.
Mund Richard
#49 - 2012-12-09 17:10:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Mr Pragmatic wrote:
Still waiting for a battle clinic load out or it written down here.

Please do share. Big smile

Oh, I might have put it wrong.

When I started the game, it was doable, since full room agro didn't happen (not often at least, did get it once maybe due to sentries shooting automated, lost the ship, learned from it).
Back on what you said, correcting the criteria for what I posted, waiting for a loadout for each race myself. Roll

Hmm...
Well, in all honesty, with cap boosters, it's prolly doable against preferred enemies.
(Amarr : armor tank against laser EM/Therm, 3 different hulls to choose from - though TD and Neut hell, not quite convinced...
Caldari : Shield tank against kinetic, cap boosted, Raven's scourge cruise, TP both to boost missile damage and to taunt from drones, new sensor comp skill... - there was a good starter Raven on BC last time I checked
Gallente : 1 TP Dominix against serp, as long as you don't shoot the triggers... - With the cap booster the only question is how many DDAs. And if you like drones (as Gallente...), and how much the AI does not.
WINMatar : Maelstrom with shields against angels and their mainly explosive damage, should be the easiest with the shield's 50% base exp resist, hull-based boost amp, and no annoying EWAR)

Now how fun and efficient those are to play (if at all really doable in the amarr case in current state of TQ), and how well it fits your preferred style...

...specially in Drake threads, I often find myself giving the advice "fly something doing more dps, and go back to L3" What?

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Matt Hurricane
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#50 - 2012-12-10 07:24:34 UTC
Flurk Hellbron wrote:
If L IV missions are to hard for you, stick with the L III's.


I actually like my L3's at the moment. :P

On-topic:

When I first warp into the mission area, i let them all target my domi and let them pound me, 10-20 seconds after I would release my drones. At this time some of the enemies start targeting my drones and killing them.

My second mission I did the same thing again, but this time as soon as they started targeting my drones I pulled them back immediately. Then 20 seconds later (or after they had all started hitting me again) I pulled them back out again, from then on my drones were not attacked for the rest of the battle.

I'm still new to the game, but that is what I've found out so far, and it has been working quite well, but using that method with real people may be harder..
Mund Richard
#51 - 2012-12-10 11:32:53 UTC
Matt Hurricane wrote:
My second mission I did the same thing again, but this time as soon as they started targeting my drones I pulled them back immediately. Then 20 seconds later (or after they had all started hitting me again) I pulled them back out again, from then on my drones were not attacked for the rest of the battle.

Congratulations, you may (or maybe not, who knows) have found the defect that has been known, and CCP left it in game - FOR NOW - so drone user hisec carebears don't lash them with the whip of a thousand posts (although we do see quite a lot nonetheless) until they remove the new AI.

Now, seeing as it is an exploit, and they will fix it at some point (I have no idea how long it could take, my bet is on two months, coincidentally in that time you could be sitting in a Tengu). So don't get too comfortable, even if it ain't part of the exploit, CCP is on it's way to "tweak" the AI, and may just affect this way of doing it.

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#52 - 2012-12-11 14:00:21 UTC
Mokanor Lenak wrote:
Bugsy VanHalen wrote:

Making missions take longer was not the right way to reduce this isk faucet. But it was a clever way of hiding this nerf to the isk faucet without hurting the null sec dwellers. Reduce the isk/hr of high sec mission runners while the isk faucet reduction will benefit the null sec dwellers. I believe this was the real reason for this change.


I don't think mission runners were any real issue as an isk faucet.

The ISK is only decent, not "omg billions of ISK falling into my lap just by pressing F1". It was pretty easy, but not a faucet.
The people who AFK mission, didn't do as much ISK/Hour anyway, and the people who farm missions in 2-3B isk ships, would barely be hurt by the change if at all once the triggers on the buggy missions get fixed.

Well that is where you are wrong.
It is true that the isk from missions is not to much, but when you consider how many mission runners there are it really adds up.

I am not saying mission rewards are to high. I think the payout is very reasonable. The isk faucet issue is that the majority of isk from missions is from bounties. Bounties are probably the biggest isk faucet in the game. Not the biggest isk an individual player can make. But when you consider the majority of isk obtained by every mission runner and ratter is from bounties it really adds up to a huge amount of isk. The majority of null sec players use ratting to support their PVP. The majority of high sec players run missions. Considering that approximately 75% of the 400,000 active accounts are used for either ratting or mission running, that is a huge isk faucet from bounties.
decaneos
Casalt Corp
CAStabouts
#53 - 2012-12-11 14:32:32 UTC
I had done WC both sides with out any real issues in a navy fit domi O.o, yes they took me down to about 50% amour but then it stablised and went back up once i killed a few more..... sry but dont see the issue here.
Caellach Marellus
Stormcrows
#54 - 2012-12-11 14:45:53 UTC
No mission does 9k DPS even with full room aggro, quit with the overdramatics.

Taking out Battlecruisers and Destroyers first, paper tanked ships with high DPS, will drastically reduce your damage intake.

When your gut instincts tell you something is wrong, trust them. When your heart tells you something is right, ignore it, check with your brain first. Accept nothing, challenge everything.
Anneliese Pollard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#55 - 2012-12-11 16:46:48 UTC
Caellach Marellus wrote:
No mission does 9k DPS even with full room aggro, quit with the overdramatics.

Taking out Battlecruisers and Destroyers first, paper tanked ships with high DPS, will drastically reduce your damage intake.


If missions were doing 9K DPS... The idea of that is just insane.

Don't forget cruisers that get right up in your face < 10km. A bunch of those can really hurt. Mordus Headhunters comes to mind when I think about that. 27 cruisers and battlecruisers (at least 3/4 of them in your face) plus 10 BSes hitting you at their optimals.

A MJD probably would have been the best thing on that mission. I tried to hero tank it in my rattlesnake. I will say this - 900 dps tank wasn't enough there.

I think I'm just going to dual XL ASB from now on.
Mund Richard
#56 - 2012-12-11 17:24:37 UTC
Anneliese Pollard wrote:
If missions were doing 9K DPS... The idea of that is just insane.

Don't forget cruisers that get right up in your face < 10km. A bunch of those can really hurt. Mordus Headhunters comes to mind when I think about that. 27 cruisers and battlecruisers (at least 3/4 of them in your face) plus 10 BSes hitting you at their optimals.

A MJD probably would have been the best thing on that mission. I tried to hero tank it in my rattlesnake. I will say this - 900 dps tank wasn't enough there.

I think I'm just going to dual XL ASB from now on.

Come on, the guy was exaggerating two days ago over that, and I replied with a slightly more realistic number right off the bat, don't really see why it had to be dug up days later... Straight

Rattlesnake... I did try tanking that room in one with only T2 modules, was passive, worked fine.
It was pre-DDA times, so the damage would be even more pathetic now, but I think with two DDAs and two omnidirectionals, it should still work quite fine with a good mix of hardeners recharger and extender in the mids.

Now as for the rest of the ships of new eden, that cannot tank like that... Roll
As I've been pointed out rats do not disable the MJD, so a new era of mission sniping BS fits has come?

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Caellach Marellus
Stormcrows
#57 - 2012-12-11 17:27:37 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
Anneliese Pollard wrote:
If missions were doing 9K DPS... The idea of that is just insane.

Don't forget cruisers that get right up in your face < 10km. A bunch of those can really hurt. Mordus Headhunters comes to mind when I think about that. 27 cruisers and battlecruisers (at least 3/4 of them in your face) plus 10 BSes hitting you at their optimals.

A MJD probably would have been the best thing on that mission. I tried to hero tank it in my rattlesnake. I will say this - 900 dps tank wasn't enough there.

I think I'm just going to dual XL ASB from now on.

Come on, the guy was exaggerating two days ago over that, and I replied with a slightly more realistic number right off the bat, don't really see why it had to be dug up days later... Straight

Rattlesnake... I did try tanking that room in one with only T2 modules, was passive, worked fine.
It was pre-DDA times, so the damage would be even more pathetic now, but I think with two DDAs and two omnidirectionals, it should still work quite fine with a good mix of hardeners recharger and extender in the mids.

Now as for the rest of the ships of new eden, that cannot tank like that... Roll
As I've been pointed out rats do not disable the MJD, so a new era of mission sniping BS fits has come?


Considering the range of Autocannons and Pulses, and the significant benefits of Rails over Blasters, I think snipe setups already exist.

When your gut instincts tell you something is wrong, trust them. When your heart tells you something is right, ignore it, check with your brain first. Accept nothing, challenge everything.
Mund Richard
#58 - 2012-12-11 17:33:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Caellach Marellus wrote:
Mund Richard wrote:
a new era of mission sniping BS fits has come?


Considering the range of Autocannons and Pulses, and the significant benefits of Rails over Blasters, I think snipe setups already exist.

As far as missions go?
Shield AC Vargur/Mach with 70km falloff?
Lolscorch Abaddon (you know, since it cannot mount a full rack of two out of the three T2 large beams with any kind of tank or a MJD without fitting mods Roll) with an optimal of 45 before any modules, and 62 on an Apoc? (Second one 80km with two TCs, that would be pretty much ideal to MJD around and snipe, if not for TD on EM-weak rats)
All the while having a lot better tracking to hit anything?

Gun-based Gallente battleships surprisingly I have little experience with, so I'll trust you are right on that point.

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Anneliese Pollard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#59 - 2012-12-11 17:59:45 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
Come on, the guy was exaggerating two days ago over that, and I replied with a slightly more realistic number right off the bat, don't really see why it had to be dug up days later... Straight

Rattlesnake... I did try tanking that room in one with only T2 modules, was passive, worked fine.
It was pre-DDA times, so the damage would be even more pathetic now, but I think with two DDAs and two omnidirectionals, it should still work quite fine with a good mix of hardeners recharger and extender in the mids.

Now as for the rest of the ships of new eden, that cannot tank like that... Roll
As I've been pointed out rats do not disable the MJD, so a new era of mission sniping BS fits has come?


I know he was exaggerating.

Pre DDA yes the damage was pathetic, but you also did not have full room agro in every mission. One could easily pick which group to pull and take them out. Plus, if you passive tanked, the DDAs were replaced with T2 BCUs or faction.

I tried 2 DDAs and 4 Shield Power Relays, and despite the increase in regen, rooms still ate away at the tank. I wouldn't recommend going further than that.

The dual XL-ASB requires 2 co-processors, but I can let the shield get to 50%, run one until its out of charges, and I'm back to 100%. If I get back to that, just do it again on the other. So far, it seems to be more effective than passive in the fact that the period of time the shield gets from 100% to 50% increases as I remove NPC DPS, and I have 2 in case I'm not downing stuff fast enough.

My biggest challenge is figuring out what the hell kind of rigs to put on the ship when its setup that way.
Sammybear
Pyke Syndicate
Solyaris Chtonium
#60 - 2012-12-11 18:07:02 UTC
Mr Pragmatic wrote:

Still waiting for a battle clinic load out or it written down here.

Please do share. Big smile



Maelstrom:

Domination 800mm Repeating Artillery x 8

Shadow Serpentis Tracking Computer
Dread Guristas Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Dread Guristas Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Gist A-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Heavy Capacitor Booster II
Pith A-Type Shield Boost Amplifier

Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilize

Large Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard I
Large Projectile Burst Aerator II


1176 dps tank vs angels, would be higher but im only an 11m sp pilot, with 2-3m of that in industrial.