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So does anyone have ideas on how to reballance drones???
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Raw Matters
Brilliant Starfire
#21 - 2013-01-10 10:54:34 UTC
Nahkep Narmelion wrote:
If heavy drones are no longer feasible, then drones are imbalanced.

Pretty simple.

I am surprised how many people agree that drones now die a lot faster, some of them are situationally no longer usable and you need to exploit the AI using a target painter or ECM, but then still say this is fine.

I sometimes get this feeling that no matter how obviously something is wrong, there will be always someone saying "It is fine, just deal with it". I think it is because I am more of that problem-solver type than the problem-accepter type.
Super spikinator
Hegemonous Conscripts
#22 - 2013-01-11 09:42:15 UTC
Nahkep Narmelion wrote:
Ealric Sorden wrote:
I have no doubts about that. And it's exactly why it took me a single mission to decide there's no point in using heavy drones anymore. Which doesn't bother me at all, I have other options.

Like I said, some changes and tweaks are needed. But sending heavies out to 20 km is no longer a good idea. Use other options.


If heavy drones are no longer feasible, then drones are imbalanced.

Pretty simple.


So that means hybrid turrets are imbalanced because medium hybrid turrets suck more than a thousand stabbers named purdy.
Mocam
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#23 - 2013-01-14 17:10:58 UTC
Neville Smit wrote:
Mallak Azaria wrote:
There is nothing wrong with drones, you just have to adapt to the changes.

Exactly right - as a drone-boat L4 mission runner, I *like* the improved NPC AI - it makes missions a bit more challenging. It just takes some creativity to come up with new tactics. I've found this approach to be especially effective - I think someone suggested something similar earlier in this forum: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Drones_101#The_Stoneloon_Maneuver

I see no reason to "rebalance" drones at this time - we just need to rebalance our use of them.


For chars our age, these changes are simply 'interesting'. For returnees and newbies, many of these changes are game breaking.

I could give a rats ass about other vets hitting issues - they can adapt. It's the newer ones and returnees that have me muttering about the AI right now. For them, I think CCP needs to find some 'fixes' but not ones that trivialize the stuff for vets again.

PS: *ALL* the L4's are still a joke for those running multiple accounts. They aren't hard at all for those players. Only the ones running single accounts are catching it really rough.
Andracin
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#24 - 2013-01-16 10:41:10 UTC
Having ran missions in my HS days in a dominix, I am for changes in the drone tactics. I would drop ogres and come back every now and again to see if it was time to loot and salvage. No one combat system should be so effective with so little effort. I do think however CCP went a little overboard. I put out some warrior II's on an alt in a mission just to see what everyone what crying about and every frig in the room immediately aggroed them. Hammerheads died even faster cause it took longer to re-call them. My alt can't use heavies so I didn't get around to testing them. I think maybe it might be worth making it so npc frigs don't attack light drones. That means you would need to re-deploy diffrent drone sizes according to the rat size. It would keep people from afk'ing through missions but not reduce you to only being able to use remote repped sentry drones. Its just a suggestion, Im pretty indiffrent to the changes...my drones usually are too busy chewing on players to worry about npc's.
Ildryn
IDLE INTENTIONS
#25 - 2013-01-20 12:31:45 UTC
Everyone with high SP in Gunnery should not be having any problems. (Unless they are lazy)

Those with low SP in gunnery and low SP in Spaceship Command should ask yourselves.
"Did i start doing higher level missions before i was ready?"

The new balance to NPC ai was directed at afk drone running boats.
If it has totally broke your mission running ability maybe it's time you went back to lvl 3s or lvl 2s.

Balancing AI for NPCs is a logical step....don't believe this is the last of it.
Alx Warlord
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#26 - 2013-01-21 00:38:36 UTC
Corian Teranos wrote:
The new AI has brought with it a new Dilemma and that is the fact that they will always target drones even switching aggro from the players.

There are a large number of ships where drones are the ONLY armaments and with the new system these become inneffectual in the PVE environment. the issue is how do you rebalanced drones so that they are viable in PVE without making them Overpowered in PVP.

it is easy to balance drones to survive in PVE by making their tanks stronger or allow the drone bay to automatically begin repairing docked drones but most of the mechanics that would be used to balance them would in turn make drones too overpowered in PVP where players need to be able to take them out quickly.

so does anyone have ideas how to make drones viable against the new AI




Reduce Drastically their signature and improve their AI... ( Give a prograing command to return if on fire/ locked/ damaged )

Please read these!

New POS system New SOV system
Mocam
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#27 - 2013-01-25 14:15:59 UTC
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:
Ealric Sorden wrote:
I have no doubts about that. And it's exactly why it took me a single mission to decide there's no point in using heavy drones anymore. Which doesn't bother me at all, I have other options.

Like I said, some changes and tweaks are needed. But sending heavies out to 20 km is no longer a good idea. Use other options.


Use other options...would you say "use other options" to a pilot flying a Hurricane in a L3 mission if CCP suddenly decided to obsolete autocannons and arties?


I still think you should go with the "defender missile" approach for a revamp comparison. The hue and cry from NPC's being given very powerful/effective defender missiles would be so loud...

Yet this is what was done with the NPC AI and drones. Making them less effective, more expensive and eliminating portions of your weapons systems from use as you game.
Ramius Castus
Deep Blue Research and Development
#28 - 2013-01-25 23:13:51 UTC
Drone babysitting the new AI bites. Since when is this considered fun: Launch drones, recall immidiatly since every singe npc targetted the same exact drone and insta popped it before you even knew it was being targetted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones, wait to get retargeted, relaunch drones, wait 30 seconds, recal drones. I dont consider that fun anymore.
Ramius Castus
Deep Blue Research and Development
#29 - 2013-01-25 23:30:39 UTC
Drones were bad enough before the stupid AI. several changed need to be made,
1. Drone targetting warning, some kind of warning that a drone is getting targetted, so that your first indication that a drone is being attacked isnt that all the shield and half the armor is gone.
2. Smarter drone controls for players. Options for auto-dock when targetted, attack smallest to largest, closest to farthest.
3. When drones are launched and you are already being attacked, dont have them just sit there all ******** like until you can target something and manually tell them to attack or fire a weapon. If you are being attacked, drones should never ever just be sitting around doing nothing.
If they are going to leave drone babysitting the way it is, then new skills, maybe a break target skill, allowing those tiny super fast drones to break a target, dock repair, where drones can be repaird while docked in the ship.
The way it is now went from weak to totally broken. Kiting for noobs is out, drones are useless when you are jammed by 5-10 ships at once and before you could rely on your drones.
Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#30 - 2013-01-28 03:23:32 UTC
Has anyone else noticed that everyone who says that drones aren't broken always talk about "Dominix + sentries" and nothing else?

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0
Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#31 - 2013-01-28 03:30:47 UTC
Raw Matters wrote:
There is a very simple fix to re-balance drones: prevent NPCs from targeting them.


Actually the real problem isn't that they're being targeted: It's that they're being insta-locked. I've seen light drones come under fire not two seconds out of the launch bay, and by cruisers no less. I've seen sentry drones come under fire in less time than the lag between my pushing the "attack" hotkey and them firing one shot. No player ship can do this!

25m signature = 0.1 second lock-on time? My ass. And once they get locked the rats never miss. My ass x2.

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0
Serina Tsukaya
Dropbears Anonymous
Brave Collective
#32 - 2013-01-28 13:31:07 UTC
The lock time should be looked at, and perhaps the tracking aswell, but for frigs to be effective at killing the larger drones isn't a large surprise at all.

Can I also point out the fact that when the drones use their microwarp drives, their sig radius explode? Just, in case you weren't aware.

One might want to have a look at the drones resists (assuming they vary racially) to figure out what to use. Alternatively, use them high slots for autocannons or blasters to blap frigs before putting out the drones.
Josef Djugashvilis
#33 - 2013-01-29 08:43:19 UTC
On the good side, CCP obviously recognized the massive demand form the players to do something about overpowered drones and decided to address it in a well balanced and nuanced way.

CCP just had to respond to the large number of players who threatened to quit if the all powerful drones were not nerfed.

Horrible drone UI and virtually useless heavy drones, nice work CCP.

Sigh...

This is not a signature.
Draek Andorii
Spiffo in Space
#34 - 2013-02-02 05:04:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Draek Andorii
It really is broken in a lot of ways. Granted, drones were kind of mind numbing dps in a lot of ways... but aren't all weapon systems kinda like that? Drones should take a small portion of my concentration, not constant staring and being afraid to blink (because if I do 5 million isk can be gone by the time my eyelids come back up).

I think that we certainly should be fielding the correct drones for the correct situation but the solution to that problem was not to make them evaporate when you aren't paying attention.

I'd also like to point out for some of the above posters and a lot of the forum trolls that just because *one* certain drone is viable 33.2 seconds into a fight if you're an armor tank on a friday in caldari space with 47.3% capacitor remaining doesn't mean drones are balanced. It means they have a ridiculously tiny niche and that's not what drones are there for.

There's no reason for me to be able to let my drones out to 65 km when I can rest easy at night knowing that even if I recalled them as soon as they got there, not a single one would make it back to my bay. Either take away my drone link aug or make it useful, please.

Small drones are vastly too squishy for the amount of aggro they generate and are overpriced.

Medium drones do proportionally bad damage, are *still* squishy, are overpriced, and are probably all dead by the time you notice they've been aggro'd and try to recall them.

The real people who are hurting are the big ships that *aren't* drone boats but rely absolutely on said drones to take out the frigates that are endangering their ship. I ran into a situation in my Raven in Worlds Collide (with the bug where the entire room aggro's) where if I pull out my drones they're instapopped, but if I don't I'm going to be warp scrambled into next month and I'm going to lose my ship. This very situation shows just how broken drones are in this regard players in big ships and *especially* missile boats rely absolutely on those Light drones to keep the frigates off of us, but when their damage is mediocre and they're killed instantly there's not much we can do but watch our ship get torn up by frigates and hope they all get bored of warp scrambling at the same time.

That said, i wouldn't mention all these problems without taking a stab at some solutions:

Make correctly sized drones meaningful by changing their damage rather than their durability. E.g. make sure light drones excel at frigates, but anything bigger than a bc and you won't notice the effect. The same for each other type of drone. That way it still stops people from afk'ing missions (a heavy could never take out a frigate, a light could never take out a bs) and it would also make drone use more engaging for drones boats (they'd need to pay attention and swap drones).

As mentioned above, lock on times for npc's targeting drones needs some fiddling. Additionally I think we would profit greatly from a little red aggression icon next to our drones that showed us when they were being target locked. It seems like a fairly simple thing to add and a pretty understandable request.

Aggression really does need some kind of change as well. I'd suggest having one or two boats per group that target drones of their size and the rest ignore them. As stated in CCP's blog post on the new AI, their AI is in templates so this wouldn't require a redesign or anything; just a new template.

Drones need to slowly repair inside your ship. It just needs to be that way. Not quickly enough that you can just swap them in and out mid battle and never have to worry about it, but quickly enough that they're at full health between missions.

This is my first post on the EVE forums and I apologize for the giant wall of text. I only post because I feel that this really needs a change (and hopefully before I lose my Raven because I've lost 15 hobgoblin II's trying to kill the frigates warp scrambling me).
Draek Andorii
Spiffo in Space
#35 - 2013-02-06 04:58:00 UTC
Did I derail this thread? I would have thought people would be replying.
Sedstr
#36 - 2013-02-06 16:07:45 UTC
I've lost a few drones since the change, its not so easy any more, not sure if its broken though, but certainly more difficult.

I don't see the point in making PVE more difficult, PVE needs to be made more like PVP, smarter AI, less is more...

...
Dyvim Slorm
Coven of the Morrigan
#37 - 2013-02-08 14:26:17 UTC
Sedstr wrote:

I don't see the point in making PVE more difficult, PVE needs to be made more like PVP, smarter AI, less is more...


Can't say I agree, pvp is combat whereas pve is a way to grind ISK like mining or trading. Personally I found the AI changes just made missions even more tedious than they were before, rather than challenging.

I did like the suggestion earlier in the thread, to remove the AI change but make drones manually controlled.

Before the AI change you had to manually control them a lot of the time or they had the habit of wandering off rather than targeting as a group, so just make all drone targeting manual and that also removes any issues of afk missioners.
Tauranon
Weeesearch
CAStabouts
#38 - 2013-02-15 07:56:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Tauranon
Katran Luftschreck wrote:
Has anyone else noticed that everyone who says that drones aren't broken always talk about "Dominix + sentries" and nothing else?


Post patch I have used.

myrmidon + sentries - ded 4s and vigils - this was a refit from a rails/mixed drones fit that worked terribly post patch, and is now better than it was prepatch in terms of completion times.
vexor with sentries - ded 4s in blood space (this never worked with mobile drones!).
ishtar with sentries - ded3s, 4s, 5s all over the place, as well as various unrateds, high and low.
vexor with blasters, heavies, meds and lights - ded3s, ded4s, vigils and associated escalation - serp space.

dominix with sentries, L4 agents in amarr and gallente space.
navy domi with shield tank, sentries and 425s L4 agent gallente space.
navy thron with blasters and 5 heavies, L4 agent in gallente space.

In most cases, simply being at sentry range allows me to fit 1 more damage mod.

The 'thron does >1000 turret dps and thus 5 heavies go unnoticed against its royal facemelting, but be aware of the dangers of sending the heavies on a mission unless you are royally facemelting a whole bunch of something elses at the same time. Don't send them 30km away whilst you are still mwding towards targets yourself.

The blaster vexor is the hardest to use, but its most common job is a close orbit on the serpentis phi overseer, where it subsequently holds aggro long enough to kill the only important ship in pocket. The drones survive individual frigates - which usually go to the hammers and not the ogres or the hobgobbie. No other pocket gives any problems with drone aggro, and the vexor often nearly gets pasted - routine for me to overheat the tank doing that.
Jalxan
EVE University
Ivy League
#39 - 2013-02-23 00:35:49 UTC
Here's a simple thought; re-balance the shielding resistances on the four different racials of the existing drones, based on their damage type?

For example, Hammerhead II's have a default resistance of 60% exp / 40% kin / 20% therm / 0% em. With the changes, since the Hammerhead does Thermal damage, it should have base resistances of 60% therm, with the others determined by both relativity to existing NPC tanking amounts, and relative to their historical prejudices.

Proposed Resistances:
Amarr (EM): 60% EM / 40% Kin / 20% Therm / 0% Exp
Caldari (Kin): 60% Kin / 40% EM / 20% Exp / 0% Therm
Gallente (Therm): 60% Therm / 40% Exp / 20% EM / 0% Kin
Minmatar (Exp): 60% Exp / 40% Therm / 20% Kin / 0% EM

This change would affect how these would be used in PVP, but most importantly, this would give a huge boost to drones and their ability to resist traditional missioning NPC's damage toward drones. This will mean that if you're facing Caldari NPC's, they'll be dishing out and be receiving mostly Kinetic damage, and thus your kinetic drones will be more effective against them.
Canthan Rogue
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#40 - 2013-02-27 10:27:11 UTC
I'm still pretty new but my experience so far is that when I do level 4 missions and bring out my light scout drones to kill frigates, the frigates will immediately switch targets to the drones. I can then order them back into the drone bay but that defeats the purpose of using them to counter frigates. I'm not saying those drones aren't effective but it's almost inevitable that you will lose some drones in a mission with lots of frigates unless you have crazy micro-management. I think if CCP wants us to think of drones as being expendable like ammo, they should bring the price/cost of production down a bit.
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