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Dev Blog: Giving Drones an Assist

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Erasmus Phoenix
Avalanche.
#821 - 2014-04-08 17:57:32 UTC
Sgt Ocker wrote:

Quote:
we are expanding all universal drone bonuses from skills and modules to Fighters and Fighter Bombers.
Racial Drone Bonuses will affect Fighters and Fighter Bombers?
If so then;
Quote:
Fighters will find that with Drone Interfacing trained to five their basic damage returns to normal and all the other skills and bonuses from Drone Damage Amplifiers are pure additions.
Is not entirely correct. Or will the specialization skills add 2% per level above current damage?
Does this also mean the requirement of Drone Interfacing 5 is to be lowered for Fighters?


Fighters and fighter bombers are not T2 items, and the racial drone skills do not affect T1 drones. They are also not universal bonuses, since they affect specific drones.

There has been no hint that this requirement will be lowered.
True Sight
Deep Freeze Industries
#822 - 2014-04-09 10:48:47 UTC
Omnathious Deninard wrote:
Love it, one thing though.

Any chance on moving the bulk of the drone HP put of hull and evenly distributing it between hull, shield and armor?


This is actually a really nice quality-of-life request. if even only moved to Armor it would be fantastic. It's such a pig to repair your drone hull when they've been damaged, and so much nicer to top up armor.
Sgt Ocker
What Corp is it
#823 - 2014-04-09 12:28:41 UTC
Erasmus Phoenix wrote:
Sgt Ocker wrote:

Quote:
we are expanding all universal drone bonuses from skills and modules to Fighters and Fighter Bombers.
Racial Drone Bonuses will affect Fighters and Fighter Bombers?
If so then;
Quote:
Fighters will find that with Drone Interfacing trained to five their basic damage returns to normal and all the other skills and bonuses from Drone Damage Amplifiers are pure additions.
Is not entirely correct. Or will the specialization skills add 2% per level above current damage?
Does this also mean the requirement of Drone Interfacing 5 is to be lowered for Fighters?


Fighters and fighter bombers are not T2 items, and the racial drone skills do not affect T1 drones. They are also not universal bonuses, since they affect specific drones.

There has been no hint that this requirement will be lowered.

I would have thought; "returns to normal"

"Fighters will find that with Drone Interfacing trained to five their basic damage returns to normal"

Might be a hint that Drone Interfacing 5 would no longer be a requirement for fighters.
Alternately it is just a badly worded sentence and what it should say is - fighters will notice no difference to current damage but are able to increase it with Drone Damage Amps.

My opinions are mine.

  If you don't like them or disagree with me that's OK.- - - - - - Just don't bother Hating - I don't care

It really is getting harder and harder to justify $23 a month for each sub.
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#824 - 2014-04-09 17:35:11 UTC
So I compared the new basic damage stats to the old ones for sentry drones. I am deeply troubled. In this day and age, is it truly CCPs intent to buff all sentry damage by 25-58%?

example for Curator I:
old new
base multiplier spec result base multiplier spec result change

50 1.30 0 65 64 1.6 0 102.40 157.54%

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Promiscuous Female
GBS Logistics and Fives Support
#825 - 2014-04-09 17:48:18 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
So I compared the new basic damage stats to the old ones for sentry drones. I am deeply troubled. In this day and age, is it truly CCPs intent to buff all sentry damage by 25-58%?

example for Curator I:
old new
base multiplier spec result base multiplier spec result change

50 1.30 0 65 64 1.6 0 102.40 157.54%

that table did not translate well to a forum post

also yes they buffed the damage of t1 sentries

from the devblog:

Quote:

but instead of the current 20% increase in damage over T1, we will be increasing the base damage multiplier of Tech One sentries and limiting the Tech Two advantage to the 2% per level gained from the racial Drone Specialization skills that will now be required to use T2 sentries.
Morwen Lagann
Tyrathlion Interstellar
#826 - 2014-04-10 13:23:18 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.


Okay, I'm a little confused now. Instead of the much simpler version of "Combat Drone Operation M >> Light Drone Operation M and Medium Drone Operation M" which makes logical sense, you're using the higher of two different skills to do both?

Seems to me the devblog had the simpler and more sense-making version.Ugh


Semi-unrelated:

I think Combat Drone Operation (or rather, Light/Medium Drone Operation) and Scout Drone Operation (Drone Avionics) have their unlocks backwards.

Scout Drone Operation currently gives a 5km/level bonus to drone control range, but unlocks T1/T2 versions of the light and medium combat drones. Combat Drone Operation gives a 5%/level bonus to light and medium drone damage, but unlocks T1 and T2 Drone Link Augmentor modules.

Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't the skill that gives bonuses to control range for all drones (SDO/Avionics) unlock the control range modules, and the skill(s) that gives bonuses to drone damage unlock the drones it gives bonuses to?

Morwen Lagann

CEO, Tyrathlion Interstellar

Coordinator, Arataka Research Consortium

Owner, The Golden Masque
Erasmus Phoenix
Avalanche.
#827 - 2014-04-10 15:11:18 UTC
Morwen Lagann wrote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.


Okay, I'm a little confused now. Instead of the much simpler version of "Combat Drone Operation M >> Light Drone Operation M and Medium Drone Operation M" which makes logical sense, you're using the higher of two different skills to do both?

Seems to me the devblog had the simpler and more sense-making version.Ugh


Semi-unrelated:

I think Combat Drone Operation (or rather, Light/Medium Drone Operation) and Scout Drone Operation (Drone Avionics) have their unlocks backwards.

Scout Drone Operation currently gives a 5km/level bonus to drone control range, but unlocks T1/T2 versions of the light and medium combat drones. Combat Drone Operation gives a 5%/level bonus to light and medium drone damage, but unlocks T1 and T2 Drone Link Augmentor modules.

Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't the skill that gives bonuses to control range for all drones (SDO/Avionics) unlock the control range modules, and the skill(s) that gives bonuses to drone damage unlock the drones it gives bonuses to?


The problem with the first part is that it could leave people unable to use drones after the patch. Neither solution is perfect, but they have always gone with the philosophy of "can use before, can use after"


As to the second part, I entirely agree, and this is being partially corrected by having the unlocking of the drones moved to the skill which provides the damage bonus. However, there has been no mention of what skill will unlock the drone control range modules. I'd agree that it should be avionics.

The situation is further confused by the fact that the storyline drone link augmentor is unlocked by a totally different skill from every other meta of that module. Whoever added that appears to have put it in the logical place for it to be instead of with the rest of its kind.
Myrthiis
Boon Odd Ducks Bath Toys
#828 - 2014-04-11 00:09:04 UTC
Ok i'll try to be construtive here .

The devs stated that where are currently in a situation where Caldari and Amarr are "friendzoned" by the playerbase so to counteract this situation they come to us with a new policy "DPS vs SPEED" as u can see here http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/giving-drones-an-assist/ .

Well i'm sorry but it feel wrong as we are already in a situation where we have to choose between DPS vs SPEED ,and we make this decision each time we choose to embark light drone over medium ones ,or each time we choose to embark sentry over heavy .
So why should we make the same decision again between racial drone in the same category ,this not what i want to choose at this moment ....
When i choosed a category of drones to accomplish a certain task let's say i want to hunt frig with my drones,i'll embark light scout drone.Basically once a player choosed a category of drone over another ,he doesnt care anymore about tracking /velocity/orbit velocity etc.He already made a choice ,now he wants to choose a damage typer over another and eventually a resistance pattern (shield vs armor could be interesting).SImple as that Roll

So here is my proposition remove any numbers difference for tracking/damage modifier/maxspeed/orbit velocity in the same drone category a light scout drone should be one no matter the racial ,then adapt the resistance to match the racial lore and you re done :) u ll see people using caldari and amarr drone again .

P-s i won't talk about fighters as they are out of my league
Sgt Ocker
What Corp is it
#829 - 2014-04-11 01:32:54 UTC
Quote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.

I'm curious, does this mean if i have scout drone operation 5, drone interfacing 5 and combat drone operation 4 I will have a lower skill level?

My opinions are mine.

  If you don't like them or disagree with me that's OK.- - - - - - Just don't bother Hating - I don't care

It really is getting harder and harder to justify $23 a month for each sub.
Erasmus Phoenix
Avalanche.
#830 - 2014-04-11 04:26:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Erasmus Phoenix
Sgt Ocker wrote:
Quote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.

I'm curious, does this mean if i have scout drone operation 5, drone interfacing 5 and combat drone operation 4 I will have a lower skill level?


No... Number one, I have no idea why you're listing drone interfacing at all. Number two, you'll get both of the new skills to V because you have Scout Drone Operation to V.
Abigail Sagan
Skeleton Liberation Front
#831 - 2014-04-11 06:14:33 UTC
On one hand we have Dev Blog saying:
DevBlog wrote:
During the patch downtime, existing players with the Combat Drone Operation skill trained will receive both new skills trained to the same level that their Combat Drone Operation skill was trained to.


and on other we have Fozzie the Forum Poster saying:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.


Which one is the method CCP will be using? If it is the former, then Fozzie is spreading misinformation. If it is the latter, CCP should fix the devblog.

Fozzie wrote that over a week ago and the contradiction has been pointed out to them about seven days ago too. CCP should realize that most people don't read the dev blog and even fewer people bother to read 40+ pages of comments from the forums. Therefore DevBlog has more readers than the forums and if DevBlog is wrong, CCP 'lies' to all those who read DevBlog. On the other hand, if DevBlog is telling the truth, Fozzie 'lies' to all those who do bother to read the forums. If they do nothing, CCP lies to some of us. Did their parents not teach them "Lying is no good!"?

CCP, if you read this, please fix the contradiction. It is for your own good.
PS: Nobody needs to remind me, that CCP rarely reads forum posts after a little while. I know that. However, there is still hope.
Erasmus Phoenix
Avalanche.
#832 - 2014-04-11 19:38:07 UTC
I'm inclined to believe the response Fozzie gave in the thread when people started asking...

But yes, they should change the devblog.
Bertrand Butler
Cras es Noster
#833 - 2014-04-12 11:52:15 UTC
I really like the changes to drones in the Summer, keep the goodness coming guys...C:

A couple of suggestions.

1. As already said in the thread, we really need something more for Amarr and Caldari non sentry drones to be viable. Right now, combat drones are judged on 2 main attributes. Speed and Damage. Minnie drones are the fastest, Gallente drones are the most damaging, and Caldari/Amarr drones fall somewhere in between those two.

A way to differentiate drones some more, while boosting Amarr and Caldari drones a little would be to add another two attributes to the rebalance effort, and that would be EHP and tracking. Right now, Gallente drones have the most EHP AND damage and Minmatar drones the best tracking AND speed.

For an arbitrary example, Gallente drones would be the most damaging, Amarr drones the most resilient, Caldari drones the least susceptible to tracking issues and Minmatar drones the fastest. A change like that will certainly NOT deal with all the problems, but its a start.

2. Another suggestion that might help while providing some more flavor would be to change around the armor resist profiles of drones, according to their race, like T1 hulls do.

Hope that helps, cheers...C:
Silivar Karkun
Doomheim
#834 - 2014-04-12 17:16:56 UTC
Tippia wrote:
PinkKnife wrote:
For a mix of the two. It is now easier to decide on the spectrum which is more important, speed or DPS. If you want only dps, go Gallente, if you want only speed go Minmatar, if you want mostly speed go Amarr, and if you want mostly DPS go Caldari.

Not that hard.
That's the problem: it's a mediocre mix of two things with no advantage in either. That is exactly what we already have and it is already not working. Making it not work more consistently and evenly doesn't fix the problem that it doesn't work.

The problem here is that they're trying to balance four drones with just two stats. That means that we will have two drones that matter — the ones that max out one of stats — and two that (still) don't — the ones that offer no advantage. To have that kind of difference-balance, they need more relevant stats so that the two irrelevant drones have an area to excel in. Fundamentally, the problem is this pretty silly notion that they must do different amounts of damage and that this notion ignores the fact that resistances and damage profiles already does that.

Amarr drones will be pointless against fast target — you'll want minny drones for that for the simple reason that if you pick too slow a drone, it doesn't matter whether it does the right damage type or not since it won't catch the target.
Amarr drones will still be pointless against EM-weak targets — resist weaknesses can only be relied upon against rats, and all EM-weak rats are also thermal-weak, so you'll still want gallente drones against those.
Likewise, Caldari drones will be pointless against tough targets — you'll want the most damage against those and that's still Gallente drones, and you gain no real advantage from getting to the tough target slightly faster.
And for kinetic-weak targets, it's the same problem with Caldari drones as for Amarr drones — it's only an advantage if you can reliably predict it, which means it's only relevant against rats and kn-weak rats will be thermal-weak anyway. Hell, even now, there's an actual advantage in using Caldari drones against kn-weak rats and look how popular they are as a result…
At no point will these weak drones offer any kind of compelling advantage or useful application over the two races that max out one of the stats. Middle-of-the-road mediocrity is not a convincing selling point over specialised excellence.


So as long as they keep that same wrong-headed design pattern, where four drones are squeezed into a two-dimensional continuum, two of those drones will always be meaningless. There's really no reason to separate the drones in damage output at all. Just make them do the same damage and let resists matter, and then find three other characteristics that can be used as a trade-off for speed, and where each drone race has its own distinct advantage. If they can't find three characteristics, then skip the speed differentiation as well, and just let the damage type be the only differentiator.


1. divide drones into 2 types inside their own classes:

-attack drones: high speed, low damage
-combat drones: high damage, low speed

for sentries that would be

-brawler sentries: high damage, high tracking, low range
-sniper sentries: low damage, low tracking, high range

this should mirror the turret types

2. drones get racial attributes:

-gallente drones have more hull and have the same optimal and falloff relation as hybrids
-amarr drones have more armor and have the same optimal and falloff relation as lasers
-minmatar drones have equal shield and armor and have better speed, optimal and falloff relations as projectiles
-caldari drones have more shield, use missiles this time, code similar(if not the same?) to FiBos, rate of fire and other specs similar to those of missiles, still do only kin damage
Sgt Ocker
What Corp is it
#835 - 2014-04-13 02:36:15 UTC
Erasmus Phoenix wrote:
Sgt Ocker wrote:
Quote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.

I'm curious, does this mean if i have scout drone operation 5, drone interfacing 5 and combat drone operation 4 I will have a lower skill level?


No... Number one, I have no idea why you're listing drone interfacing at all. Number two, you'll get both of the new skills to V because you have Scout Drone Operation to V.

Maybe because, information given by a Dev I have little faith in, has given a different answer to what is in the official Blog on the subject.
Quote:
During the patch downtime, existing players with the Combat Drone Operation skill trained will receive both new skills trained to the same level that their Combat Drone Operation skill was trained to.

Funnily, you gave exactly the opposite answer to the blog as well.

So excuse me if there is a little confusion.

My opinions are mine.

  If you don't like them or disagree with me that's OK.- - - - - - Just don't bother Hating - I don't care

It really is getting harder and harder to justify $23 a month for each sub.
Sgt Ocker
What Corp is it
#836 - 2014-04-13 04:03:12 UTC
Erasmus Phoenix wrote:
I'm inclined to believe the response Fozzie gave in the thread when people started asking...

But yes, they should change the devblog.

Fozzies response would be the preferred option for those just training into drones. Simply train Drones 3 then combat drones 5 and save yourself a few days training. You can then train the new Drone Avionics at your leisure, you would already have light and medium drones to 5.

And I agree the dev blog should contain easy to understand, accurate information.

My opinions are mine.

  If you don't like them or disagree with me that's OK.- - - - - - Just don't bother Hating - I don't care

It really is getting harder and harder to justify $23 a month for each sub.
Dave stark
#837 - 2014-04-13 12:38:27 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Sorry for the delay in answering some of the skill questions guys.

As many of you have suggested, we'll be giving pilots the same level in both Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation as the highest level they have in either Scout Drone Operation or Combat Drone Operation over the patch downtime.

The Light Drone Operation skill will be rank 1, the Medium Drone Operation skill will be rank 2.


considering this was posted nearly a week ago, and the devblog hasn't been updated to reflect it...

i suggest you do that before people waste time, as i almost did.
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#838 - 2014-04-14 19:03:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Soldarius
Promiscuous Female wrote:

that table did not translate well to a forum post

also yes they buffed the damage of t1 sentries

from the devblog:

Quote:

but instead of the current 20% increase in damage over T1, we will be increasing the base damage multiplier of Tech One sentries and limiting the Tech Two advantage to the 2% per level gained from the racial Drone Specialization skills that will now be required to use T2 sentries.


Yeah, sorry, not much I could do about the formatting. CCP forums have no table formatting options.

I am aware of the change you quoted. But the 10%/lvl removed ....

10% per level

I see my mistake now. I should have figured damage including all relevant skills, not just base stats and drone interfacing + specialization. Thx.

So, I have it now as using the Rattler with all 5s, 3x DDAIIs, and not considering missiles:

  • Garde IIs: 751 -> 700
  • Curator IIs: 610 -> 659
  • Bouncer IIs: 657 -> 618
  • Warden IIs: 563 -> 577.


If you want to include missiles, it would be +889 dps with bonused faction torps in T2 launchers and 3x BCSIIs, +645 w/ equivalent cruise missiles, or +740 (not inc reload time) w/ equivalent RHLs.

So ~1500 dps can be had post change if my math holds up this time. Seems like a nice boost.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Flyinghotpocket
Small Focused Memes
Ragequit Cancel Sub
#839 - 2014-04-14 19:23:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Flyinghotpocket
spliting up combat drone operation into 2 seperate skills is ********. whats next? racial heavy drone operation ?

can you make advanced drone interfacing not useless on every ship except carriers?

also this needs to be moved into F&I

Amarr Militia Representative - A jar of nitro
Ace Northmen
Sanctuary Reapers Holdings
#840 - 2014-04-16 20:24:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Ace Northmen
So i have trained Scout drone operation and combat drone operation to level 5

And now those who have trained Scout drone operation to 5 and never bothered to inject combat drone operation which is 11 days from lvl 1 to 5 , will get the same skills as me . Straight

that's not fair , people investing time in training both skills are the same as people who never bothered to inject 1 skill will get the same skills . Straight