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A counter to NPC aggro switching in PVP situations
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Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#41 - 2014-10-01 02:04:45 UTC
I can understand the points made on both sides by the nul sec folks, we still seem to forget that the AI applies to all regions of space and the needs of all regions of space must be considered and balanced when changes are made. I am not saying the system is properly balanced but especially in high sec it is significantly more balanced than it used to be.

In nul you have intel channels, the whole concept of reds, blues and neutrals and let's not even go into the nearly empty systems that you rat in. High sec on the other hand is an entirely different matter there are no intel channels, there are no red, blues or neutrals there are simply players in ships. Sure some of them may have yellow flags as a suspect, or red flags as a criminal or for low sec status but there is no way to identify a potential threat in the way that you can in nul. When you combine all these factors plus the radically increased player count in an average high sec system and those high sec players face all of the same risks with none of the tools to help identify those risks.

Given all that must be considered and understanding the complaints of the nul sec crowd I say that until such time as the NPC AI is tailored to the specific region of space it is used in then this is a situation where the nul folks will just have to adapt to a system that is better tailored to the needs of the high / low sec segments of the game.
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#42 - 2014-10-01 05:26:11 UTC
Donnachadh wrote:
I can understand the points made on both sides by the nul sec folks, we still seem to forget that the AI applies to all regions of space and the needs of all regions of space must be considered and balanced when changes are made. I am not saying the system is properly balanced but especially in high sec it is significantly more balanced than it used to be.

In nul you have intel channels, the whole concept of reds, blues and neutrals and let's not even go into the nearly empty systems that you rat in. High sec on the other hand is an entirely different matter there are no intel channels, there are no red, blues or neutrals there are simply players in ships. Sure some of them may have yellow flags as a suspect, or red flags as a criminal or for low sec status but there is no way to identify a potential threat in the way that you can in nul. When you combine all these factors plus the radically increased player count in an average high sec system and those high sec players face all of the same risks with none of the tools to help identify those risks.

Given all that must be considered and understanding the complaints of the nul sec crowd I say that until such time as the NPC AI is tailored to the specific region of space it is used in then this is a situation where the nul folks will just have to adapt to a system that is better tailored to the needs of the high / low sec segments of the game.


This. In highsec suicide gankers don't get the option to "ally" with rats when trying to gank mission runners, incursion runners, miners, ratters, etc..... The rats are designed to shoot at anyone they see, they don't become your friend based on your standings towards them. Hence they quite properly target anyone on grid, instead of taking sides. Helping the "Sanshas, Angel Cartel, etc..." kill shiny mission runners in highsec is not something that the game is designed around.
Daenika
Chambers of Shaolin
#43 - 2014-10-01 05:34:37 UTC
Quote:
Hence they quite properly target anyone on grid, instead of taking sides.


The problem isn't that they'll shoot anyone on grid. It's that they'll preferentially target the ganker over the dude trying to kill them. I mean, why would any sane combatant prioritize the one effectively defending them over the one trying to kill them?

My suggestion was simple: hostile ship modules only generate threat if targeted at an NPC. Currently that generate threat regardless of their target. This simple change is all that's needed.

The NPCs will still engage the ganker once the gankee dies, and will still engage him if he attacks the NPCs, but won't instantly and automatically swap to the ganker simply because scrams and webs are high-threat modules, even when used in defense of the NPCs.
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#44 - 2014-10-01 05:56:48 UTC
Daenika wrote:
Quote:
Hence they quite properly target anyone on grid, instead of taking sides.


The problem isn't that they'll shoot anyone on grid. It's that they'll preferentially target the ganker over the dude trying to kill them. I mean, why would any sane combatant prioritize the one effectively defending them over the one trying to kill them?

My suggestion was simple: hostile ship modules only generate threat if targeted at an NPC. Currently that generate threat regardless of their target. This simple change is all that's needed.

The NPCs will still engage the ganker once the gankee dies, and will still engage him if he attacks the NPCs, but won't instantly and automatically swap to the ganker simply because scrams and webs are high-threat modules, even when used in defense of the NPCs.


Yes - exactly, you want to make it easier to suicide gank mission runners, incursion runners, etc... by having them need to tank both the rats and the gankers. In essence you want criminal suicide gankers to be ble to team up with rats to kill mission runners, etc... Thankfully the game is not designed like that. The rats don't take sides, they hate everyone....they are unthinking.....they just kill whoever is on grid. There is no pvp style team up mechanics in highsec, and that is a good thing.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#45 - 2014-10-01 06:47:40 UTC
Veers Belvar wrote:

Yes - exactly, you want to make it easier to suicide gank mission runners, incursion runners, etc... by having them need to tank both the rats and the gankers.

why not? It would even make sense. Rats want incursion runner dead, so do the gankers.
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#46 - 2014-10-01 07:10:46 UTC
Daenika wrote:
Quote:
Hence they quite properly target anyone on grid, instead of taking sides.


The problem isn't that they'll shoot anyone on grid. It's that they'll preferentially target the ganker over the dude trying to kill them. I mean, why would any sane combatant prioritize the one effectively defending them over the one trying to kill them?

My suggestion was simple: hostile ship modules only generate threat if targeted at an NPC. Currently that generate threat regardless of their target. This simple change is all that's needed.

The NPCs will still engage the ganker once the gankee dies, and will still engage him if he attacks the NPCs, but won't instantly and automatically swap to the ganker simply because scrams and webs are high-threat modules, even when used in defense of the NPCs.



Issue is iirc beside killing off certain dual box pve farm setups of choice (aff drone domi among them) was the intent to not have the pve'er at such a disadvantage. Non-shifting full rat aggro was a common, and somewhat legit gripe was some pve'ers would like to fight back....but when getting slammed by a triple pope and a player (or players) there was really no point.

Old scheme picking off a pve'er not the hardest of tasks....even if they wanted to fight back. Full rat aggro, mix in attacker(s) who if weapons allowed have the ammo keyed for the resists the ratter did not spec for...and if they failed to gtfo the story wrote itself, a murder story. This how on some roams we killed stuff outside our league. Ratter got greedy, did not gtfo, we landed and high grade kill with cheesy ships. Rats helped a lot on the kill.

Rat aggro shifts have it so the pve'er not as much up against the wall as before. If they want to fight, they have decent odds that say a 1-2 of that triple pope spawn they are on might go for their new friend who stopped by.

This imo a case where the fluff needs to put aside. In the interest of fair play. We had the old ways...and they didn't work out too well. Least it seems with the new way more pve'ers hang around to be targets. Better to have targets that may need more tank on your part than to have them rush off to safe pos as gtfo the only viable option and then you get no target at all.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#47 - 2014-10-01 09:23:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
whatever way you spin it, rats protecting the ratter is a dumb mechanic.
Rats helping killing the ratter was actually the reason why you could kill them with a "cheesy ship" at all without bringing a gang with you or a roaming battleship/BC (lmao).

Its how I put it before in this thread, ratters enjoy this mechanic a lot because it obviously makes 0.0 a safer place for them since you need to bring a heavy, easy to catch/blob ship into lions hole (0.0) nowadays if you want to hunt ratters.

Furthermore it encourages afk cloaky cyno play and hotdrops even more, instead of chill solo stealth bomber/recon/T3 roams, great job, well done CCP.
Maya Xadi
Deep Space Recreational Resort
#48 - 2014-10-01 09:46:18 UTC
Robert Caldera wrote:
whatever way you spin it, rats protecting the ratter is a dumb mechanic.


Lol. They are not protecting ratters, they just want to kill both instead. Big smile
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#49 - 2014-10-01 09:49:19 UTC
Maya Xadi wrote:
Robert Caldera wrote:
whatever way you spin it, rats protecting the ratter is a dumb mechanic.


Lol. They are not protecting ratters, they just want to kill both instead. Big smile


Ganker warps in, puts a point on the bear, rats go berserk on the ganker. I would say they effectively
ARE protecting the ratter.
Maya Xadi
Deep Space Recreational Resort
#50 - 2014-10-01 09:57:24 UTC
Robert Caldera wrote:
Maya Xadi wrote:
Robert Caldera wrote:
whatever way you spin it, rats protecting the ratter is a dumb mechanic.


Lol. They are not protecting ratters, they just want to kill both instead. Big smile


Ganker warps in, puts a point on the bear, rats go berserk on the ganker. I would say they effectively
ARE protecting the ratter.


Well, it's quite common thing to kill weak ships first.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#51 - 2014-10-01 10:12:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
Maya Xadi wrote:

Well, it's quite common thing to kill weak ships first.


you might invent some silly reasoning why rats would want to kill a weaker ship which is not threatening them at all and even helping, but it is still a terrible mechanic which basically gets the rats to protect the ratter from other players engaging him in sites.
FT Diomedes
The Graduates
#52 - 2014-10-01 13:18:59 UTC
Obviously, I completely agree that rats helping ratters is a stupid mechanic, which option do you think is the best way to fix it? I am going to assume that CCP have "reasons" not to give us better NPC AI.

CCP should add more NPC 0.0 space to open it up and liven things up: the Stepping Stones project.

Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#53 - 2014-10-01 13:24:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
FT Diomedes wrote:
Obviously, I completely agree that rats helping ratters is a stupid mechanic, which option do you think is the best way to fix it? I am going to assume that CCP have "reasons" not to give us better NPC AI.


maybe rats shouldn't engage players who apply ewar to someone with aggro to the NPC just for that?
Take assisting actions into equation somehow, for example a rule like "engage players who assist player with NPC aggro" (by remote reps, shield transfer, cap transfer etc.) would fix the evil tank/logistic pattern for whose sake CCP started tampering with NPC aggro mechanics.
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#54 - 2014-10-01 14:55:16 UTC
Robert Caldera wrote:
Maya Xadi wrote:

Well, it's quite common thing to kill weak ships first.


you might invent some silly reasoning why rats would want to kill a weaker ship which is not threatening them at all and even helping, but it is still a terrible mechanic which basically gets the rats to protect the ratter from other players engaging him in sites.


Ah here we have the common misconception about rats and who and why they shoot at players.
News flash dude rats shoot you because you are in their space not because you are attacking them.
Here is some proof for that.
Why do rats attack miners in a belt? Yes I know the miner is stealing their resources so I ask where are the rat miners?
If you warp into an area in a shuttle a ship that has no weapons of any kind why do the rats attack you?
If you warp into a mission pocket but do not target or shoot anything why do the rats attack?
The same holds true for virtually every other PvE activity where rats are involved, you warp in you get attacked no matter what type of ship, or what you are or are not doing.

Rats are an equal opportunity killer, they will attack anything that is in their space and it has always been this way. The only thing the changes to the AI did was give the rats a little bit of a brain, instead of shooting the first thing in their space they now assess EVERYTHING in their space and adjust targets accordingly.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#55 - 2014-10-01 15:01:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
question is not why they attack a solo player but why they switch target resulting in such a stupid behavior as when rats basically start protecting the ratter.

You cant explain it by roleplay, you cant it by gameplay perspective either this mechanic does make sense from neither position.

By pretending all players are equal for rats you just confirm how dumb the current implementation of rat aggro really is.
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#56 - 2014-10-01 15:10:09 UTC
Of course it's "dumb" - why would rats automatically attack capsuleers with positive standings towards them? If anything, they should be working together as allies! But that's the design of rats, they don't distinguish between friend and foe...they just shoot everything....they don't care who is "helping" or "hurting" them, because they are just mindless killers. For them to care about who is shooting them or not means they need to care about a whole lot of other things, like relative standings towards them, etc.... and CCP isn't really looking to create fw style alliance mechanics with belt and mission rats.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#57 - 2014-10-01 15:18:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
well then CCP should change it, because pre-Retribution the AI wasnt that dumb and didnt spoil ratter kills so much - this is the whole subject of this topic.
If everyone is equal, as you say, and NPC dumb as you say, they could as well stay on target they were already shooting all time.
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#58 - 2014-10-01 15:40:00 UTC
Robert Caldera wrote:
well then CCP should change it, because pre-Retribution the AI wasnt that dumb and didnt spoil ratter kills so much - this is the whole subject of this topic.
If everyone is equal, as you say, and NPC dumb as you say, they could as well stay on target they were already shooting all time.


It's not that it was not dumb, it was only never changing target at all no matter the situation. Now the rats check what is on field and choose a target based on that. A stealth bomber is an easy kill so they go for it when there is one on grid. Why would they keep shooting at a target which has been succesfull in tanking all their damage for what probably amount to a few minutes without breaking? Might as well try to kill the new guy who just arrived, maybe they will finally destroy something. You want them to continue doing something that didn't work for a few minutes in the hope that a capsuler might help them when the vast majority of capsulers prefer to kill them. I wonder how "dumb" this is...
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#59 - 2014-10-01 15:52:55 UTC
Frostys Virpio wrote:

It's not that it was not dumb, it was only never changing target at all no matter the situation. Now the rats check what is on field and choose a target based on that.

wait a second.. so suddenly they arent dumb anymore as others were telling the whole thread long?

Frostys Virpio wrote:

A stealth bomber is an easy kill so they go for it when there is one on grid. Why would they keep shooting at a target which has been succesfull in tanking all their damage for what probably amount to a few minutes without breaking?

why would they try to kill a new guy, who might be helping them to break the battleship who slaughtered them for hours?

Frostys Virpio wrote:
Might as well try to kill the new guy who just arrived, maybe they will finally destroy something. You want them to continue doing something that didn't work for a few minutes in the hope that a capsuler might help them when the vast majority of capsulers prefer to kill them. I wonder how "dumb" this is...

I too rush to break something unrelated after failing on my true goal. very smart indeed.

btw. this isnt primarily about the lore but rather about the gameplay mechanics. Rats spoiling player kills arent right and bring too much safety into 0.0.
Steppa Musana
Doomheim
#60 - 2014-10-01 15:53:34 UTC
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Robert Caldera wrote:
well then CCP should change it, because pre-Retribution the AI wasnt that dumb and didnt spoil ratter kills so much - this is the whole subject of this topic.
If everyone is equal, as you say, and NPC dumb as you say, they could as well stay on target they were already shooting all time.


It's not that it was not dumb, it was only never changing target at all no matter the situation. Now the rats check what is on field and choose a target based on that. A stealth bomber is an easy kill so they go for it when there is one on grid. Why would they keep shooting at a target which has been succesfull in tanking all their damage for what probably amount to a few minutes without breaking? Might as well try to kill the new guy who just arrived, maybe they will finally destroy something. You want them to continue doing something that didn't work for a few minutes in the hope that a capsuler might help them when the vast majority of capsulers prefer to kill them. I wonder how "dumb" this is...

The NPCs are not looking for killmails. The missions are tasked based, there is a storyline and a lore around it.

When an aggressor warps in and attacks the enemy of the NPC - the PVE player -, there is little logical reason for them to stop shooting the PVE player who is fighting against their objective, and to start shooting a new arrival who is in turn helping them defend themselves.

From a purely logical standpoint, NPCs should not be attacking the person who comes in to kill the ratter. Quite the opposite, they should be recruiting him.

With that said, an argument can be made that game balance is better achieved by having rats attack the PVPer, thereby promoting players to feel a bit safer to PVE which ultimately leads to more content on a non-solo scale. It's not an argument I'd agree with, but it is one I guess.

Hey guys.