EVE Information Portal

Glad you joined us with your useful contribution.

Seriously though, drones are already a chore in some missions making them more of a chore isn't "harder" just "more annoying". That said CCP Foxfour raised some points that alleviate this concern somewhat at least as far as I'm concerned.

The other concern is low level missions, which I brought up because most posters seem to be mission runners mostly concerned with their income stream and there being no indication that any of this content has been tested with the new AI or that anything except "everything at 5" has even been considered (by CCP or other posters alike.

AKA workaround. You're giving up half your Domi's ship boni and 30% of her potential DPS that way.

Ship design vs. reality, 0:1. This will probably become the new standard for drone users.

ITT an AFK sentry Domi pilot whines that the fix that was targeted specifically at him has other people complaining...

I too love the irony.

Look, we all know this fix was created to nerf the hell out of your play-style... and, of course, we all knew this fix would do nothing to your play-style. Ironically enough it would enhance your play-style. We get that.

It's the people who are actually actively targeting rats with guns and things that are complaining that this fix is whacking them more then you.

It's the people who enjoy ninja salvaging who can no longer do that, because carebears get their own version of CONCORD assistance... from the very rats they're killing.

It's the people who enjoy smashing PvE ships in low-sec in missions or in null in plex's (not that that really ever happens), with exactly the same problems.

It's the new player's who enjoy fleeting up with the older player's and flying their cruiser's into L4 missions who can no longer do that.

Heck, it's the notion that now you can merrily escape the faction cops on gates by simply launching a flight of medium drones. That's actually a snazzy if laughable change.

There may be a few whiners in this thread who are QQ'ing about any change, but for the most part it's more like this "This is a dumb change that will not have it's intended effect, and will instead make life harder on people who don't gain anything from it."

It's the whole "Not gaining anything from this change today" that I'm complaining about... and if you want to translate that as a whine, feel free.

Talk about not getting it.

Like others have said, it's not about not wanting to adapt, hell this change would HELP someone like me. I don't use drones because the interface is horrible and drones die alot, not that I will be able to contral aggro, i'll be able to use drones and pour more forsaken hub isk into the game lol.

You simply miss the point Roime, many of us who like PVE want ccp to bring PVE into this century, but do it in a smart way, from the ground up like was done with wormholes and incursions (content designed with the AI in mind) rather than this peicemeal scatter shot mess.

We already see that CCP has to step back a bit from their original goal and leave some NPCs with the old ai, because like we've told them, the old content was not designed with the new NPC behaviors in mind. They were designed for the old stupid AI, which CCP compensated for by just piling in more and more, which is why you have missions like Buzz Kill and plexs like Blood Raider Naval Shipyard with it's 20 neuting battleships.

Imagine if wormholes had existed before the new AI was implemented, then one day, ccp came in and said, "sleepers are too easy, lets change the AI to be smarter, but didn't redesign the wormhole anoms and sites to reflect the change, which would me you find yourself warping in to 50 sleeper battleships, 20 sleeper cruisers and 30 sleeper frigates with the same kind of behavior as they have today.

We're simply asking ccp to be as smart about this as they were with incursions and wormholes, not asking for anything special.

This change isn't the end of the world, it's just poorly thought out and going to end in a wasteful situation for CCP, a situation they could have avoided with being smarter with how and when they change things.

Yes, it pretty much was, because when those plexes ended up being too easy, they added more npcs.



So the developers told you wormhole and incursions have fewer rats because of this? I recall when incursions were rolled out they specifically said "fewer but better NPCs", just like there eventual goal is with all pve content.



So we just imagined that we told CCP that high end DED sites would be a problem, they tested it and decided to hold off on adding the new AI to turrets and overseer structures?

The dev in question even admitted that she wasn't familiar with some of the content in question (Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point to be exact), you can go back and read dev replies yourself.

And no, if they do this the way they are saying (ie change npc behavior 1st then some time down the road revamp pve content to have "fewer rats", they aren't doing this as smartly as they did incursions and wormholes, which they built as complete systems from the ground up.

Look at history. They rolled out system upgrades, which made null space too "even", then nerfed that system, which made too much space worthless (causing the pve exodus from null sec to high sec incursions, missions and to wormholes), then came back and changed null anoms using their "EHP per isk" formula which was brilliant, but that didn't take into account multi-spawning monster anomalies such as forlorn hub , forsaken hub and forlorn rally point, which they then came back and changed to be (in the actual words of a developer) "less killey".

Some iteration is understandable, but if you go back and look, some of us urged caution about changes to the anom/upgrade system as well (on the grounds of the need for player level income and balance between null sec/high sec rewards among other things), which was mostly ignored...until it couldn't be ignored anymore and eventually got fixed right....when it could have been done right to begin with.

People like me spend hour upon hour doing pve for fun and isk, I've got 2 wormhole toons, 1 incursions runner with a shieny mach and shiney vincidcator, 2 toons for doing null anoms, a pirate faction mission toon and more, and we come to be very familiar with the content, sometimes in ways the developers themselves aren't (which is why they let players test things, we find ways to break what they built). sometimes we see things coming that they can't.

Let me ask you this Roime. If I and the others who are urging (at least) a bit of caution are right, this piecemeal change turns out to be not so good (i don't think it will be a disaster, but who knows), will people like you come back here and say "hey, you guys were right, maybe CCP should do things a bit differently"? I doubt you will.

Of course, we could be wrong (I HOPE we are) and it goes off without a hitch, but if we are wrong, nothing bad will happen and every pve player will be happy, if people like YOU are wrong, CCP has to then go back and waste time and money to fix things.

Hmm... don't really remember any, L3s are more fresh, but for those you need a BC anyways.
L2 Angel Smuggler Interception? I remember being "woooha" the first time I warped in, though supposedly spawns may wary. If you get a full room agro, might be fun with low SP.

Does anyone remember a mission with timed waves, and let's assume a new player warps out to rep or for a short break?
[edit:] Now I remember, it was in Dead Drift. Approached the ship, took some enviromental damage, didn't know what happened (log is off by default, right?), and started looking around. Waves kept spawning, I warped out. As luck would have it, warping back, I shot exactly the trigger.
EVE-Survival is considered a must for low-level mission running as well, I suppose?
Until this mission, Kill them all, worry about the text later worked.
[/edit]

Also, how about Mission of Mercy?
Sometimes you get full room agro, 6 cruisers 6 assault frigs or something the like? L2s are supposed to be doable in dessies... And they are mercs, just for the added 30km missile fun.
Stopped using Blasters and MWDs since then. All the ugly missiles hitting for full 5 times outside my range...
On the other hand, if I had used an AB Rail Thorax, with these changes I could just dump agro on some poor T1 drones, snipe the cruisers, and warp out.
Is this the intended use of the new AI, or falling into the "we will abuse the crap out of it anyways" part, I wonder?


Waiting for the test server to be up, and I *WILL* (hopefully) set the time aside to test stuff like Buzz Kill in a drone ship.
And a non-drone ship as well!
Preferably other missions too.
Let's just hope servers will be live long enough, my shifts are messy and long enough to let me only sleep until my day off.

Ah, it's the last gasp of the few remaining white knights who valiantly fight for every faint little promise from CCP.

Things will get better... someday.

Yes, yes... we all know that. It's the 18 months between now and then that we have to live with, ya know?

Why don't you go back to the original Dev Blog and point out exactly what promises CCP has made, that you're so quick to defend.



Why on earth do you imagine that any single person, whether paid by CCP or paying CCP... actually knows everything about a game this old and this filled with spaghetti code? Even the CSM has been proven on multiple occasions to not really have a firm grasp on the game, why would any single Dev have a better notion of how everything works?

To be fair the test servers weren't online very long before... and it's going to be a while until CCP brings them up again... so, yah. Most testing was highly limited by the short window of access we had.

Honestly, even posting feedback is fairly pointless... CCP has already stated their plans to double down on these changes regardless of how horribly implemented or how many unintended consequences they have.

We're definitely seeing a drift back towards the early days of the summers of rage... at least on the Dev side.

"No, screw you, we know this game better than you could ever know it..."

"It's not that our changes are bad, it's that we can't explain them in such a way that your little minds would understand them which is why you're mistakenly angry."

Well, I am starting to look forward to all the changes.
I will be buying a gunship and dumping my Ishtar since it will be garbage.....oh wait, I can't fly an expensive ship like a Mach or Vargur because of the bounties and suicide gankers suddenly making 20% off of a 1.5 billion ISK loss.

It will take months for the dropped subs to start showing up, probably March/April, but the forum rage will kick in fast and furious In December when the AI wrecks tons of people's income, plus the goons start targeting people to bounty grief out of the game, and the combination of the Bounty/Crimewatch changes show up in their full glory. I am loving the posts already showing up detailing the exploits for the Bounty system and killrights. And those exploits are the obvious ones. Wait until the really smart people start figuring out the the complicated, highly profitable ones.

Of course, CCP has a perfect track record of closing all loopholes before introducing a new mechanism.
I am sure I imagining the FW LP farmers, or the 3 goons that made trillions gaming the FW mechanics before they posted their operations. Yeah, I am sure those things never happened.

Or how the Inventory UI didn't only met with mild annoyance..yeah, that is the term, mild annoyance.

Yes indeed, CCP has a perfect record when it comes to new mechanisms.