Missions & Complexes

Yes, I noted the NPC AI changes apathetically. I haven't touched proper missions in a long time. Ran a few L4s in Amarr, there doesn't seem to be any significant difference over the few missions that I'd finished.
The NPCs were slightly aggressive vs drones, but overall there doesn't seem to be much changes ... or so I thought.

Ok, so I ran an Amarr epic arc mission (Cowardly Commander). 3 pockets, in which you'll encounter roughly 18-24 elite frigates in total for those pockets. Dear god! These elite frigates will positively shred your drones to pieces. They'll switch target so quickly with no warning and ding one drone to 1/3rd armor before you could reel them in. Rinse repeat ad-nauseum, I can almost guarantee at least flight of drones going to heaven, bleeding from the paper cuts ... at minimum.

Any turret BS will be massively crippled from the almost endless TD untill the elite frigates are eliminated, so it becomes a chicken and egg situation. You can't kill the frigates with your turrets and your drones can't kill the elite frigates in a timely manner without dying. The only thing that will survive this intact (when you're flying solo) is a Golem with a remote armor repper to repair your drone's armor in the field. Heck, even with the Golem, I had to keep a very close watch on the NPC target switching lest I lose a drone. I had to resort to using torps + 2 painters to assist my drones doing their job. How pathetic is that?

So, CCP, can you dial down the notch a little on those bastards NPC AIs with regard to drones (at least for the epic arcs)?
Pretty please? *large kitten eyes*

sentry drones are your friends

Not possible in a Hac. Get a clue before making a fool out of yourself.

I know the mission he's talking about. The raw high tracking dps along with high hp neut towers will shred your hac long before it can kill the scramming frigs.

After the td and drone aggro changes, the best you can do is tengu. Stay at range, prioritize neut towers (it has quite a bit of hp) or tengu will die though. Use bonused kinetic scourage fury/faction scourage, not em missiles on neut. Ideally, you'll kill it before it drains you dry.

Sentry boat is tricky. You'll need micro jump drive, jumping out immediately after warping in before rats are on top of you, snipe the frigs then work on the neuts. Range on neut is unlimited anywhere on grid, so watch cap.

Depends on the age of the player. High probability, newer players (less than 6mon-1yr typically) may find it challenging or interesting.
To many EVE vets (I dare say), including yours truly, it's an annoying put-off that makes you reluctant to log in and run a few missions for the day between other activities.

The AI changes to drone aggro were implemented mainly to combat afk missioning and the multi-boxing metagame and also possibly to pave way for future code additions under the hood. From my perspective, it was never a content addition but instead a "fix".

With the above said, the epic arc drone aggro (as per OP) was simply too aggressive in switching targets to the detriment of a typical average active play. There's a fine balance between discouraging afk missioning/multi-boxi metagame and alienating the typical playstyles (which existed for years). I won't comment on L4 drone aggros since my sample size was too small.

I've been trying to make that point in every single npc ai thread I've seen since people started posting them.... oh well

It adds nothing except frustration and a large bill at the end of the mission replacing said drones. It is not a case of players failing to micro manage their drones, I'm in a Dominix it is all I pretty much do during a mission.

It slows the game to a crawl, the missions I was playing were not significantly harder I just lost more drones. If it continues my dom will end being a logistics ship as will have to repair the drones full time.

To be honest I am finding the level 4 mission running to be about exciting as mining with less of an income and more time spent. I just finished Angel Extravaganza and I want to end myself!