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New NPC AI, how about no?

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Mund Richard
#221 - 2013-01-12 12:38:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Flying Apocalypse wrote:
:Because being able to hit is too mainstream:
http://imgur.com/a/Ce2iw#0

Suddenly, somehow the Gurista rats seem a lot easier now. Shocked
(and screenshot nicely shows how both optimal and falloff are crippled down by 90%)
Quote:
The drone change affects non drone boats more than it does drone boats, as drone boats fielding lights kill stuff faster, and have more drone hps, and any drone boat pilot with half a brain uses sentries to snipe frigates at range anyway.
Some non-drone boats are quite good at destroyin tacklers with their turrets/ect. Kiting Mach, Sleipnir, ect.
Heck, I even heard about a Raven pilot not bothering with drones anymore, just adding a bit more exp rad/velocity and one more TP.
Also, while your non-bonused drones hunt frigs, you can continue shooting a battleship without a notable drop in DPS, a Snake/Ishtar only makes battleships laugh while it's hobgoblins hunt a tackler.
Quote:
I do PvE because it's a PvE.
If I want to do PvP I won't be looking for it on missions or anything else.
THIS
Quote:
I can usualyl recal lbefore they die...But sometimes they just die in a second without even a chance of recalling.
And that is withOUT blinking!
Normally a human needs to blink every once in a while.
Plus, L4s are boring enough, that you might want to turn your head from the screen for a few seconds, and look at the GF/Wife/BF you just agroed by not paying attention.
Sure, paying attention to the game should be necessary, but accepting a mission shouldn't be requiring constant watching 5 small gray bars every second.

Heck, in other MMOs, I've played in solo and group situations while eating and having an eye on the TV, because I knew what will happen, or at least had a guess. Things sometimes went south, but usually not, and even then I had some time to react.
Here? Reaction time doesn't matter on a webbed drone.
There? it's not a biggie even if the whole thing blows in my face, rocks fall, everyone dies.

"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.
Jason13 Anzomi
#222 - 2013-01-12 14:38:13 UTC
What agro's me the most is the attitude that CCP has always exhibited. To wit, they know better than the players who pay CCP to play the game.

I paid to play a game that was interesting and challenging. I picked drones to invest skill points because I like that style of play. Then the rug is yanked out from under my feet leaving me with no way to deal with the L3's and L4's since I didn't have a weapon or ship capable of dealing with them. So I spent a month on skilling up on turrets in order to shift to a new style of play that I did not want to play in the beginning!

Then they start reducing the damage they did to the game play, but by then I'm committed to going in an entirely different direction. But guess what, they now kill game play with turrets because of a small bug in TD management. Now I go into an L3 with a turret ship, get TD's from 5-20 ships at once, which continues even when the NPC TD is not being done!

So what do we have? We have CCP making radical game changes which nullified my original game play style (drone boats), so I switch to a different (turrets) game style and then CCP screws up and kills that game style.

The reason being for these changes and bugs? Oh, we know better than you and want to make your PvE more like PvP even though the missions do not lend themselves to this change. Oh, and we know there was a bug and we fixed it - even though there are numerous screen shots showing that it is still broken. Oh, and if you just change to a third game style and use some other weapon everything will be fine.

Well CCP, I've got a an answer to your arbitrary changes ruining the game I (past tense) wanted to play.

F U CCP!
Freighdee Katt
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#223 - 2013-01-12 17:37:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Freighdee Katt
The supposed size bias is not working. Today I watched a Core Lord Admiral (battleship sized NPC) shoot at my Hammerheads continuously the entire time they were out. The stupid thing is, he was actually hitting them with ease as well, and I have Drone Nav IV + two DNCs on the fit. Apparently NPCs have magical guns that ignore sig radius and have infinite tracking. Cruiser sized rats were also happily blowing my Hobs out of the sky all through the same mission.

EvE is supposed to suck.  Wait . . . what was the question?
dexington
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#224 - 2013-01-12 17:49:22 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Having NPCs engage your drones if they are your primary source of damage is to be expected and we expect play styles to adapt in consequence.


Adapt?... do you mean start flying ships with less bonus to drone damage and more bonus to guns, that is not adapting it's changing ship.


I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
Mund Richard
#225 - 2013-01-12 18:17:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Freighdee Katt wrote:
The supposed size bias is not working. Today I watched a Core Lord Admiral (battleship sized NPC) shoot at my Hammerheads continuously the entire time they were out. The stupid thing is, he was actually hitting them with ease as well, and I have Drone Nav IV + two DNCs on the fit. Apparently NPCs have magical guns that ignore sig radius and have infinite tracking. Cruiser sized rats were also happily blowing my Hobs out of the sky all through the same mission.

I still have no use for the drone nav thing, costs a mid slot, too expensive to fit. Roll

Could it be, that the drones were out when the good admiral spawned, or something like have their sigs bloomed under MWD?
Because as far as I can tell, new waves can target any drone like they have before, and drones were only made immune to the re-targeting part of the random AI.
Nor are they immune to proximity agro (also first target acquisition).
Furthermore, when a medium drone uses it's MWD, it's sig grows to the size of a large drone's, so that may also be the issue.

Or who knows.

"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.
Crash Lander
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#226 - 2013-01-12 19:03:13 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hello folks,

We have been (silently) following several threads about NPC AI changes deployed in Retribution and we wanted to let you know of our stance on this.
...
NPCs tracking disruption is too strong since Retribution

This is another bug which should have been fixed on December, the 12th. If you still are having issue with Tracking Disruption NPCs please let us know by filing bug reports with the implied NPC names.

Quote:

  • Corrected the chance percentage that an enemy NPC will use tracking disruption on a player's ship.
    • [/list]

    We hope that helps a bit.


    Dear CCP Ytterbium, no this doesn't help at all. I'm a dev and I work on large scale projects, this is really not how to handle a change like this.
    You or someone else @ CCP made a change/fix to tracking disruption and AI across the board likely to refactor/simplify/improve the code, so far great! Standard practice in this case is to regress all the affected code and content, which clearly wasn't done. What I'm guessing happened instead was a quick smoke test on a few missions/plexes and people called it done. Now you are asking your users to file bugs for you.

    Now the general feedback is:
    1) On Sansha frigate and cruiser heavy content (whatever it is) there is too much TD.
    2) TD has no stacking penalty so the player is crippled.
    3) Either the UI doesn't always show that you are being TDed, or there is a bug that TD on the player is not deactivating.

    I suggest you go and do what you should have done at the beginning. Regress the content and fix it. Not coming back after a month with a "it should have been fixed, if not file bugs for it".

    Regards,
    An almost angry customer
    Annunaki soldier
    Perkone
    Caldari State
    #227 - 2013-01-12 22:12:53 UTC
    it affects null sec as well. Those changes were done to get the content more intresting. I can understand that. But that content was never balanced to accept those changes. As for ccp devs , i dont believe they actually read all stuff. There are many reports on test forums that should have been concidered. Though we see things comming , reports being exactly the same , then going again back to fix things ..

    Ride hard, live with passion 
    Flying Apocalypse
    #228 - 2013-01-12 23:06:29 UTC
    Mund Richard wrote:
    Flying Apocalypse wrote:
    :Because being able to hit is too mainstream:
    http://imgur.com/a/Ce2iw#0

    Suddenly, somehow the Gurista rats seem a lot easier now. Shocked
    (and screenshot nicely shows how both optimal and falloff are crippled down by 90%)
    Quote:
    The drone change affects non drone boats more than it does drone boats, as drone boats fielding lights kill stuff faster, and have more drone hps, and any drone boat pilot with half a brain uses sentries to snipe frigates at range anyway.
    Some non-drone boats are quite good at destroyin tacklers with their turrets/ect. Kiting Mach, Sleipnir, ect.
    Heck, I even heard about a Raven pilot not bothering with drones anymore, just adding a bit more exp rad/velocity and one more TP.
    Also, while your non-bonused drones hunt frigs, you can continue shooting a battleship without a notable drop in DPS, a Snake/Ishtar only makes battleships laugh while it's hobgoblins hunt a tackler.
    Quote:
    I do PvE because it's a PvE.
    If I want to do PvP I won't be looking for it on missions or anything else.
    THIS
    Quote:
    I can usualyl recal lbefore they die...But sometimes they just die in a second without even a chance of recalling.
    And that is withOUT blinking!
    Normally a human needs to blink every once in a while.
    Plus, L4s are boring enough, that you might want to turn your head from the screen for a few seconds, and look at the GF/Wife/BF you just agroed by not paying attention.
    Sure, paying attention to the game should be necessary, but accepting a mission shouldn't be requiring constant watching 5 small gray bars every second.

    Heck, in other MMOs, I've played in solo and group situations while eating and having an eye on the TV, because I knew what will happen, or at least had a guess. Things sometimes went south, but usually not, and even then I had some time to react.
    Here? Reaction time doesn't matter on a webbed drone.
    There? it's not a biggie even if the whole thing blows in my face, rocks fall, everyone dies.



    Did you also notice in the 2nd/3rd picture(the 1st kinda failed) thamy tracking also got a gigantic hit? it went from 0.004 to 0.0004

    For some reason I can't delete my signature o.o
    Mund Richard
    #229 - 2013-01-12 23:13:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
    Flying Apocalypse wrote:
    Did you also notice in the 2nd/3rd picture(the 1st kinda failed) thamy tracking also got a gigantic hit? it went from 0.004 to 0.0004

    For the hell of it, I looked at the Relevation: 0,00287 tracking with Dual Giga Beam according to EFT?
    You were tracking almost 3 times worse than a Dread with no tracking mod installed?
    ...

    "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.
    Dzajic
    #230 - 2013-01-13 02:18:30 UTC
    dexington wrote:
    CCP Ytterbium wrote:
    Having NPCs engage your drones if they are your primary source of damage is to be expected and we expect play styles to adapt in consequence.


    Adapt?... do you mean start flying ships with less bonus to drone damage and more bonus to guns, that is not adapting it's changing ship.



    This. Only adaptation is not flying those ships. Silly thing is that my potato gets far less drone agro than Ishtar. According to that bit of dev wisdom its to be expected because shar gets larger part of its damage from drones. Way to adopt is... not fly ishtar.
    Flying Apocalypse
    #231 - 2013-01-13 03:14:17 UTC
    Mund Richard wrote:
    Flying Apocalypse wrote:
    Did you also notice in the 2nd/3rd picture(the 1st kinda failed) thamy tracking also got a gigantic hit? it went from 0.004 to 0.0004

    For the hell of it, I looked at the Relevation: 0,00287 tracking with Dual Giga Beam according to EFT?
    You were tracking almost 3 times worse than a Dread with no tracking mod installed?
    ...


    That might have been due to aurora ammo(0.25x tracking) with gleam it starts at like 0.05 I believe. But still insanely bad tracking after TD, not to mention no range at all...

    In game I explained it to some friends that trying to hit a battleship was like trying to hit a frigate with a revelation.

    For some reason I can't delete my signature o.o
    Funky Lazers
    Funk Freakers
    #232 - 2013-01-13 07:59:09 UTC
    I wonder why everyone forgot about Dampers.
    I mean you can't do Serpentis Blockade if you're not using Drone ship.
    Even in a drone ship you still have problems.

    Whatever.
    Flying Apocalypse
    #233 - 2013-01-13 10:52:47 UTC
    Funky Lazers wrote:
    I wonder why everyone forgot about Dampers.
    I mean you can't do Serpentis Blockade if you're not using Drone ship.
    Even in a drone ship you still have problems.


    I fly in amarr space, and sadly only encounter serpentis 1 in a 100 missions :|
    the mission I had to do was quite, irritating, as well for lack of a better word. I couldn't lock further than 18km and locking a frigate took 100 seconds...permanently...

    For some reason I can't delete my signature o.o
    Marillio
    Fairlight Corp
    Rooks and Kings
    #234 - 2013-01-13 13:17:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Marillio
    *snip*
    Charlie Jacobson
    #235 - 2013-01-13 14:09:14 UTC
    The only thing I really want changed is to have a hotkey to launch a group of drones. I hate all the extra mouseclicks I have to do when the keyboard would be so much faster.

    I support James 315 and the New Order of Highsec
    Mund Richard
    #236 - 2013-01-13 14:34:03 UTC
    Charlie Jacobson wrote:
    The only thing I really want changed is to have a hotkey to launch a group of drones. I hate all the extra mouseclicks I have to do when the keyboard would be so much faster.

    6 different flights of drones in a Domi I used to have.
    Just handling the window alone when recalling one flight and launching another (both expanded) was annoying, and took up quite a bit of screen-estate.

    "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.
    Caldari Citizen20121206
    Great Eastern
    #237 - 2013-01-13 14:51:27 UTC
    Mund Richard wrote:
    Charlie Jacobson wrote:
    The only thing I really want changed is to have a hotkey to launch a group of drones. I hate all the extra mouseclicks I have to do when the keyboard would be so much faster.

    6 different flights of drones in a Domi I used to have.
    Just handling the window alone when recalling one flight and launching another (both expanded) was annoying, and took up quite a bit of screen-estate.



    To be honest this topic isnt about annoying windows and lack of commands that would help easier drone usage. Its more about reviving the PVE from its current state which is bad. No offense, but keep it close to the original topic, please.
    Mund Richard
    #238 - 2013-01-13 16:35:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
    Caldari Citizen20121206 wrote:
    To be honest this topic isnt about annoying windows and lack of commands that would help easier drone usage. Its more about reviving the PVE from its current state which is bad. No offense, but keep it close to the original topic, please.
    ...
    Well, then, assignable hotkeys for different flights, or let them predictably go alphabetically, so I can have a "aaaarghh"-named flight that's hotkey I can faceroll on, when I am in a general state of panic?

    Still not PvE enough, just user ease, and off topic.
    I'll let you solo bump the thing.

    "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.
    Guer
    Komm susser Tod
    #239 - 2013-01-13 17:10:24 UTC
    CCP PvE design:

    1. Put a single player ship against dozens of NPCs.
    2. NPCs are stupid and and various tactics exist to exploit their weaknesses. Mission design and payouts balanced along these lines.
    3. Unhappy that NPCs don't behave more like players, as if this was ever some kind of goal.
    4. Make NPCs behave more like players. Explode drones, stronger ewar.
    5. Don't adjust npc spawn numbers, don't adjust npc ewar chance, don't implement stacking penalties for ewar or webs.
    6. Expect drone users to play the tank-dps-healer game without any aggro management tools.
    7. Tell players to enjoy their more interesting gameplay.
    Tauranon
    Weeesearch
    CAStabouts
    #240 - 2013-01-13 23:03:38 UTC
    Guer wrote:
    CCP PvE design:

    1. Put a single player ship against dozens of NPCs.
    2. NPCs are stupid and and various tactics exist to exploit their weaknesses. Mission design and payouts balanced along these lines.
    3. Unhappy that NPCs don't behave more like players, as if this was ever some kind of goal.
    4. Make NPCs behave more like players. Explode drones, stronger ewar.
    5. Don't adjust npc spawn numbers, don't adjust npc ewar chance, don't implement stacking penalties for ewar or webs.
    6. Expect drone users to play the tank-dps-healer game without any aggro management tools.
    7. Tell players to enjoy their more interesting gameplay.


    Most of the PVE predates rigs, marauders, strategic cruisers fixes to T2 ammo, tieracide etc and is IMO fairly underwhelming even with drone aggro.