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Drones and aggro management with the new NPC AI
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Miskra Sands Hilanen
The New Eden Order of the Black Rose
#1 - 2012-12-25 00:08:03 UTC
I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but with the new AI, NPCs in missions are targeting drones, even if you've already drawn aggro to yourself. This has been making combat missions extremely irritating and difficult for me as a droner, and I'm sure I'm not the only one having problems with it. I feel that this brings the value of drones as a weapon down far below the other weapon classes, and should be addressed.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#2 - 2012-12-25 00:52:25 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
Someone didn't read the DEV blogs. Or skim the forums a week after the expansion came out.

NPCs switching targets is intentional (more than intentional, that was one of the bigger features of the expansion). Targets can include drones. Drones are still usable, they just require more fineness and less afking.

My advice? Slap a Target Painter on your ship. Not only does it help drones apply damage easier, but the NPCs rate Ewar as a "bigger threat" and will thus primary you.

How did you Veterans start?
Miskra Sands Hilanen
The New Eden Order of the Black Rose
#3 - 2012-12-25 01:02:55 UTC
Using one of my mid slots for a target painter is a significant hit to my tank (I fly a Rattlesnake), and therefore still a disadvantage. Whether intentional or not, I feel this is unfair, and that is why I brought it up.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#4 - 2012-12-25 02:08:14 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
My alt uses a Rattlesnake too. Trade in an Omnidirectional Tracking Link. The Target Painter will provide most of the same benefits except for range.

Also bear in mind that drone ships gain a wide range of benefits compared to turret or even missiles ships.
- you don't use any ammo or capacitor to deal damage, allowing your ship to operate relatively independent.
- with sentries you can change your engagement range faster than it takes for a hybrid gun to swap ammo (see: pull in one set of sentries and deploy another).
- you have versatility in what ships you can engage (e.g. lights for small ships, heavies for battleships, sentries for range).


edit: also... your claim that this change is "unfair" was already discussed to death WEEKS, even MONTHS ago. It still went through.

How did you Veterans start?
Lin Gerie
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-12-25 21:02:09 UTC
The solution to this "problem" will likely be addressed in the next year or so with some kind of revamp of how drones are used. That is my guess anyways, CCP did say that a drone revamp was high on their priority list.
Lykouleon
Noble Sentiments
Second Empire.
#6 - 2012-12-26 22:45:37 UTC
Oh no, you actually have to pay attention in missions now with a drone boat instead of warping in -> get aggro -> launch drones -> watch Netflix. The horror!

Lykouleon > CYNO ME CLOSER so I can hit them with my sword
Raw Matters
KRAUTZ IN SPACE
Macabric Trick
#7 - 2012-12-28 09:15:46 UTC
I just came back to Eve after a long break, and this drone change is by far the worst thing that has ever been done to the game. Was this done by team Super-Not-Fun or what?!

It was already annoying that you couldn't fight sleepers with drones, which kind of rendered an entire skill tree useless, but now you can't even use them properly anymore in missions. As it stands currently, this change does not add even the slightest to the game. It isn't even adding any challenge, as all you need to do is watch the targeting of NPCs and hit retreat once you are no longer locked. And buy an occasional new drone if you had lag.

While before I was strategically playing a mission, I now sit there and watch my drones.
Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out.

Totally NOT FUN at all!
Miskra Sands Hilanen
The New Eden Order of the Black Rose
#8 - 2012-12-28 23:02:28 UTC
For everyone saying that I just need to pay attention, I'd like to clarify, I do not afk during missions very often. In fact, I use my drones in passive mode so that I can choose my priorities for them to attack and try to better manage the aggro. No matter how I handle them, since the Retribution release, I'm losing drones every mission, because they can't get out, kill a ship, and get back in the bay before one of them dies. I've had to go back to using my Raven, and I'm STILL losing drones when I need them to take out elite fast frigates.
Knorkor
Ministry of Silly Walk
#9 - 2012-12-29 09:42:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Knorkor
I came back from a break and was well aware of this change.
But right now it is a bit too harsh imho.
No, I am not afking, but while my Hobs II are trying to shoot down an enemy frigate that is dampening and scrambling me, I lost 2 in a few seconds due to many enemies targeting it since I was unable to shoot anything because I could not target anything.
At the end of the mission I had 1 Hob II left.
I really don't want to think about my next Blockade where I am mostly constantly jammed...

As a Gallentean, I don't really like this change. TwistedEvil
RC Mine
#10 - 2013-01-08 11:08:42 UTC
Raw Matters wrote:
While before I was strategically playing a mission, I now sit there and watch my drones.
Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out. Drone in. Drone out.

Totally NOT FUN at all!


Totally agrees with you.. This change suck so much I cannot find words..
If the afk farmers are the problem, change the missions / complexes / anomalies so you have more freqvent spawns that initially go after the drones instead of having the npc switch target so often.

I use a droneboat as you probably understand and while some sites / missions etc is not to bad some are horrible.. combined with the nerf I have seen in faction loot / bpc many of the hard, good and rewarding sites I did before I actually don't find worth doing anymore.

In some sites, my dps have probably been cut with 50-70% since I have to refit armor rep in highslots and even then constantly pull drones in and out during the site.. In some sites I cannot even target the drone to rep it before I have to pull them in. OFC using sentries.

Using my old ratting ship is not fun anymore.. it actually make me not want to play..
Ease up on the drone aggro and change the sites with more frekvent spawns instead that is my 2 cents..
Michael Loney
Skullspace Industries
#11 - 2013-01-08 16:39:34 UTC
We need some better understanding on why they switch targets.

I know there was an update to what sizes of NPC will target what size or drones ( frigate = light etc )

Understanding what types of E-War or remote rep will draw aggro away from the primary will make a big difference for us.
Raw Matters
KRAUTZ IN SPACE
Macabric Trick
#12 - 2013-01-08 18:58:50 UTC
RC Mine wrote:
Using my old ratting ship is not fun anymore.. it actually make me not want to play..

Same issue here: I have this 1.2 billion ISK Gila and had a lot of fun with it the last year, and this single change rendered it almost useless, and I am this short from hitting the quit button.

Quote:
Understanding what types of E-War or remote rep will draw aggro away from the primary will make a big difference for us.

This is already known: target painters and ECM seem to have a much higher aggro, keeping NPCs on you. But if A is bad, and B nullifies A, then this is not a solution for A, but more a kind of an exploit for a badly implemented feature. A target painter or ECM is not supposed to save your drones, it is supposed to increase your damage/reduce incoming damage.
Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2013-01-09 07:27:02 UTC
Raw Matters wrote:
RC Mine wrote:
Using my old ratting ship is not fun anymore.. it actually make me not want to play..

Same issue here: I have this 1.2 billion ISK Gila and had a lot of fun with it the last year, and this single change rendered it almost useless, and I am this short from hitting the quit button.

Quote:
Understanding what types of E-War or remote rep will draw aggro away from the primary will make a big difference for us.

This is already known: target painters and ECM seem to have a much higher aggro, keeping NPCs on you. But if A is bad, and B nullifies A, then this is not a solution for A, but more a kind of an exploit for a badly implemented feature. A target painter or ECM is not supposed to save your drones, it is supposed to increase your damage/reduce incoming damage.



And a target painter does increase your damage and ECM does reduce incoming fire.

Adapt or Die. Everyone must agree that pre retribution NPC AI was terrible. It wasn't actually intelligent. Now it's a little more challenging. It's no longer a warp in, get aggro from group 'A', wait till drones kill all the things, get aggro from group 'B', let drones kill all the things, etc.

Change your fitting. Fly differently. Fly in groups. Adapt to the new NPC AI.

TheGunslinger42
All Web Investigations
#14 - 2013-01-09 10:40:15 UTC
Miskra Sands Hilanen wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but with the new AI, NPCs in missions are targeting drones, even if you've already drawn aggro to yourself. This has been making combat missions extremely irritating and difficult for me as a droner, and I'm sure I'm not the only one having problems with it. I feel that this brings the value of drones as a weapon down far below the other weapon classes, and should be addressed.


Pretty sure the entire point was to make npcs more intelligent, have them switch targets, kill your drones, etc

i.e. working as intended

We've dealt with this in wormhole space for years, and mission npcs are nowhere near as difficult as sleepers so... whats the problem?
minerboob
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#15 - 2013-01-09 11:58:56 UTC
1000% agree with OP. I am losing 1-2 drones per mission and I do not AFK -at all- Sometimes I drop drones and lose one within seconds.. Totally lame. Honestly I feel for any drone boat pilots. I will not be training drones from this point forward. I will also be only using drones I loot from missions as replacements for my lost ones.
Raw Matters
KRAUTZ IN SPACE
Macabric Trick
#16 - 2013-01-09 17:24:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Raw Matters
Quote:
We've dealt with this in wormhole space for years, and mission npcs are nowhere near as difficult as sleepers so... whats the problem?

That I spent 6.214.415 Skillpoints on training drones, which have just been rendered useless by a single patch.
As I have a solid amount of skill-points in gunnery and other ships than drone ships allows me to switch to my Vargur and kill them the other way, but someone who doesn't have that much skills and completely focused on a drone ship is now pretty much screwed.

Spugg Galdon wrote:
Adapt or Die. Everyone must agree that pre retribution NPC AI was terrible.

You are implying that all of CCP's changes are final and they never make mistakes, which is both - luckily - not the case. I consider this change a mistake and so do many others, and a mistake needs to be fixed.

Quote:
It wasn't actually intelligent. Now it's a little more challenging. It's no longer a warp in, get aggro from group 'A', wait till drones kill all the things, get aggro from group 'B', let drones kill all the things, etc.

There are several ways to fly missions, you are describing the drone-AFK version, which is easy if done right, but has the drawback of costing a lot of time. If you calculate the ISK/h flying a drone ship vs a gunship, that gun-guy will make twice or three times as much money, so the drone-afks are already penalized by having a lower income. I don't see a need to "fix" that any further.

Besides: all you need to do is to stare at the targeting and hover your hand over the 'drone recall' button. This isn't challenging, this is just tedious. And whether or not your drones survive depend solely on factors like lag and drone reaction, unless your personal reaction time is incredibly low.

Quote:
Change your fitting. Fly differently. Fly in groups. Adapt to the new NPC AI.

If NPCs tomorrow stop targeting Minmatar ships and instantly kill every other faction's ships as soon as they enter a mission, would you still say the same?
Lin Gerie
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2013-01-09 20:29:02 UTC
Quote:

That I spent 6.214.415 Skillpoints on training drones, which have just been rendered useless by a single patch.
As I have a solid amount of skill-points in gunnery and other ships than drone ships allows me to switch to my Vargur and kill them the other way, but someone who doesn't have that much skills and completely focused on a drone ship is now pretty much screwed.


He just said it's not useless nor a problem. I'm a drone pilot and I fly in WH space. It isn't always about keeping an eye on your drones as much as it is knowing when to launch them and what target to attack with them. Through my time in WH space (nearly a year) I've lost maybe 20 drones to sleepers.

In addition you can tip the scales to your side with almost any kind of Ewar. If you can spare a slot for almost anything like remote reps, web, a warp disruptor, target painter ect it will give you targeting priority over your drones.

That being said, if you launch 5 drones and there are 15 frigs, 10 cruisers and 8 BS on the field you are probably going to lose one or more of them. Now if you remove most if not all the frigs then launch drones there is less of a chance of them getting quickly destroyed.
Tarunik Raqalth'Qui
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#18 - 2013-01-10 04:36:48 UTC
Lin Gerie wrote:
Quote:

That I spent 6.214.415 Skillpoints on training drones, which have just been rendered useless by a single patch.
As I have a solid amount of skill-points in gunnery and other ships than drone ships allows me to switch to my Vargur and kill them the other way, but someone who doesn't have that much skills and completely focused on a drone ship is now pretty much screwed.


He just said it's not useless nor a problem. I'm a drone pilot and I fly in WH space. It isn't always about keeping an eye on your drones as much as it is knowing when to launch them and what target to attack with them. Through my time in WH space (nearly a year) I've lost maybe 20 drones to sleepers.

In addition you can tip the scales to your side with almost any kind of Ewar. If you can spare a slot for almost anything like remote reps, web, a warp disruptor, target painter ect it will give you targeting priority over your drones.

That being said, if you launch 5 drones and there are 15 frigs, 10 cruisers and 8 BS on the field you are probably going to lose one or more of them. Now if you remove most if not all the frigs then launch drones there is less of a chance of them getting quickly destroyed.

Confirming that this is a big kerfuffle over almost nothing. If you aren't sentry-range-dependent, simply swap an OTL for a painter as mentioned earlier. Also, remote reps are good at getting the attention of the Sleeper AI, too.
Diabhal Dunmharu
Doomheim
#19 - 2013-01-10 14:04:47 UTC
Raw Matters wrote:
RC Mine wrote:
Using my old ratting ship is not fun anymore.. it actually make me not want to play..

Same issue here: I have this 1.2 billion ISK Gila and had a lot of fun with it the last year, and this single change rendered it almost useless, and I am this short from hitting the quit button.

Quote:
Understanding what types of E-War or remote rep will draw aggro away from the primary will make a big difference for us.

This is already known: target painters and ECM seem to have a much higher aggro, keeping NPCs on you. But if A is bad, and B nullifies A, then this is not a solution for A, but more a kind of an exploit for a badly implemented feature. A target painter or ECM is not supposed to save your drones, it is supposed to increase your damage/reduce incoming damage.


This doesn't even matter. I ran The Assault mission level 4 today with a target painter and remote repper on one of my senties and had to keep recalling them over and over because targets still switched to them. I would like to be able to use heavies again and regular drones, but I don't think that is a good idea at this point which is sad because I just got done training for these.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#20 - 2013-01-10 20:57:37 UTC
Lykouleon wrote:
Oh no, you actually have to pay attention in missions now with a drone boat instead of warping in -> get aggro -> launch drones -> watch Netflix. The horror!


Well, to be fair mission really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really suck. Took me forever to get level 4s and that was simply so I could get jump clones. Now I never do them, just too damn boring.

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