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Excluding amarr combat pilots ofc XD.

Hopefully never. I like my PVP ships cheap.

Remember the good old days when the Russians seeded our market with cheap drone minerals? *sigh*

^ I am not worried too much. I personally think your posts are more annoying then the AI they give to mission npcs.

Really, now? You have two content designers working on changes that have the potential to break large swaths of PVE, not to mention hurt the already anemic nullsec individual income. Do you have any plans about maybe raising null bounties or fixing loot tables, or are we supposed to be content with yet more "content" which further establishes highsec as having a far better risk/reward ratio than nullsec?

I think I'll have time ito test this Tuesday. I plan to compare missions with my impression of Worlds Collide as it is now as a bench mark. If it's no worse than that, we may be okay. If it's worse, then this is gonna suck for drone boats.

Philisophically, I don't understand two things:
1) Why devote two devs to adjusting drone behavior? I mean, it's a nerf for drone boats alone, rather racist. I don't undserstand why this needs the nerf bat.
2) Why make this a priority? I mean, there are many more creative ways for devs to spend their time. Like designing NEW missions, really creative missions. Instead of nerfing drone boats, they could be adding really cool content.

I guess I don't understand one more thing: who makes the decisions that direct the intellectual horsepower of the dev team? I think this effort is misplaced. I'll find out how badly misplaced during testing, or not. We'll see.

Improved AI is a good thing, since it will force people not following the missions guides blindly. It is more than welcome I guess for veterans and big farmers.

The side effect though is, I think, an increased difficulty for missions for newcomers, and solo becomes less and less doable unless you fly in shiny (in particular since the EWAR increase done in Inferno, which affected some L4 a LOT). Even if AI tries to match sizes, target switching may mean also being all aggro'ed in a group where formally you could count on an "anchor". Maybe one day logistics on L4's ...

/facepalm... stop poasting, m'kay?

I actually did testing, early in the wekend and my results were TOTALLY different from whatever test you did. But why post that HERE? Is this the testing thread and I just mis-read something? No, guess it isn't...

I parked a rattlesnake (totally passive without firing any missiles) and waited until I had aggro.

Then, I unleashed a flight of medium drones. They pulled aggro off every single rat and maintained aggro until they were all dead. It didn't happen instantly, but it surely did happen faster than I would have liked. I could have pulled them in, re-launched, etc, but this was a test of aggro mechanics (the thing that got changed?) and not mission mechanics (the thing that got ignored).

Then, I launched a flight of light drones. They pulled partial aggro, and one died, then the rats all swapped back. At no time did the rats say "wow, this new target isn't fighting back... maybe I should follow my new AI and do some more target swapping.
Then, I launched a flight of RR drones. Those got totally ignored. Figured that was odd, but :CCP:.
Then, I launched a flight of Garde's. Same as the light drones, they were up for a while before pulling partial aggro.

So the results of my testing show that medium drones are terrible under this mechanic change, and that my enjoyment of a clicky, boring aspect of the game is going to go down. Although I'm fairly certain that since these changes went into effect with almost all the NPC AI, that if anyone in New Eden ever has to escape from the faction cops all they need is to sacrifice a flight of Medium drones and they'll get off scot-free forever.

So my findings suggest that CCP has nerfed the faction police (likely a good thing) if you can carry medium drones, that for whatever reason they forgot to remember that RR drones exist (big shock there), and that drones don't really swap targets, so much as finding a new target and shooting THAT target until it's dead (another big shock).

It all tells me that they're going to implement another poorly thought out change with no real good reason, without thinking the consequences through, and that we'll have to deal with them for multiple months until someone rips them out / changes them / or actually gives us valuable content to accompany this change.

First, sorry if you're replying while I'm posting... I'm making minor edits as I go along. Also, I'm not really as angry as my posts or poasts might appear to be... but... you know... changes that are rife with unintended changes that can impact so many different aspects of the game aren't a good thing and should be made in moderation along with things to, you know, make those changes truly fun and not just 'more engaging'.

"At no time did the rats say "wow, this new target isn't fighting back... maybe I should follow my new AI and do some more target swapping."

So if someone I don't like appears on-grid with me, I stop shooting and let the rats kill them... forever until that person leaves and they all swap back to me (unintended change much?) And I understand what you're saying about RR drones... but I didn't actually target anything or ever send any of my drones to attack rats (wait, I lie... I think I attacked some BS's with my sentries towards the end of the test, but I don't remember that changing anything drastic aggro-wise).

Also not done testing changes, so I haven't posted in the feedback thread. But really, my ultimate point remains that it's not an enjoyable change. I just want to point out again, I'm not screeching "argh, bad change, die in a fire, I'm quitting, wtf CCP". But it's an engaging change in that it makes an already boring aspect of the game just a little more clicky / less enjoyable. L4 mission rats at least aren't actually worth the attention you have to pay to kill them... that's why most people carry a flight of light drones there. Less for the anemic DPS they push, and more because it's just not worth paying attention to the frigate rats.


In the feedback thread you state that "yes, there will be far fewer red boxes and a more enjoyable experience killing them.", if that change goes into effect NOW it'll be grand. But I fear it'll go into effect LATER and we'll just be stuck with the bad things for a while.

Why so mad?



That's what testing in different environments is about.



No but this one is :



I didn't see you posting there.

And my first response is thank you. Having this kind of feedback is really helpful to us so please keep it up.

Edit:



That was specifically said when talking about where we eventually want to get. That is not something we are doing for the winter release.

I am spending my afternoon today testing 10/10 complex so we shall see how that goes.