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Dev blog: Brains! NOM NOM!

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Urgg Boolean
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#941 - 2012-10-29 17:26:06 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Duality is back open for testing. NPC AI is on it. Come test and give feedback! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2099233#post2099233

I've been away from the game a while as I have been putting in huge work hours,

But Okay - tested and reporting in now.

Feedback: the fun factor using my normal missioning combo of Snake with Drones + Repper Domi with self-armor-repper + drones = suckage.

My previous strategy was:
1) warp in the Snake, deploy drones, establish aggro.
2) Warp in with Domi with an eye on SNake and drones. Deploy Domi drones. Rep Snake/drones/self as needed

Specific concerns:
1) I did not test one of the missions with the extreme damping. I cannot imagine how bad it would be if you can't maintain a lock on the rats, and can't leave your drones out to fight.

2) Other primary DPS cannot be targeted by NPCs. Guns and missiles are not damaged and taken out by NPCs. Yet, my primary DPS, namely drones, can be eliminated by the NPCs. This is righteously unfair for drone boats.

3) I MUST carry extras. This means that I cannot carry a compliment of drones designed for efficiency and/or that fit the exact needs as they arise. Example: an NPC that requires Kinetic DPS cannot be handled by the kinetc sentries at close range, you must be able to switch to Gardes. But if I need to carry extra due to loses, I can't have full fligfhts sentries with different DPS modes. Or at least, I have to make a lot more compromises than I ever had to before.

4) I have no meaningful or realistic tools for the tank ship take and hold aggro. I spend almost all my time pulling in drones, waiting for aggro to switch back the a ship, then deploy drones again. NOT FUN.



Bottom line:
1) profound loss of fun factor for me.

2) feels like a lot more work, emphasis on work, not fun. If I wanted that much keying/mousing activity, I'd play a 1st person shooter.

3) I am heavily discouraged from using my drone boats.

4) changes feel like they are selectively nerfing drone boats which affects my attitude about the game.

As usual, this feedback will be ignored and the changes will be put in place.
Misanth
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE
#942 - 2012-10-30 11:41:29 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
You know they're not really listening.


Funny story about that. We are. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703&p=12

Dismissing people's concerns outright is not listening. Namely I'm referring to how it makes no sense that NPCs would switch to a ship that's killing their previous target who was slaughtering them by the thousands. You didn't really address how several of us have stated that this makes things more secure for many players who run anomalies in nullsec for example, when this group certainly doesn't need an extra level of protection. I've looked through the tread and also haven't found anything addressing how this will make things significantly more difficult for new players who are trying missions with their more experienced friends, and significantly more difficult if not impossible for groups of players to tackle sites like Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point 3 without ALL bringing the tank required to survive the station aggro.

You're introducing a lot of problems for exactly what benefit? Can you honestly tell me what the actual benefit of this is besides "it might make things more interesting" which is itself rather doubtful?


Been wondering exactly the same.

All Guristas-anomalies and plexes will effectively help the PvE-guy by jamming the attacker. We'll need a blob of people just to get a tackle on.

DG Fleet Staging Point 3, the Maze, final part of Gurista Provincial HQ etc, all of those are usually tanked by a dedicated tank-ship, in first two cases you need to tank a station, in the latter you have a bunch of siege towers and alot of npcs to boot.

For example, me and some corpmate used to run the Maze with three ships. The tank having horrible damage output, but at least he took care of the station + whatever 30-40? odd t2 frigates. If you'd have to bring every-ship-fit-to-tank it, you'd have to scale up those three ships to nearly the triple. And then we havn't even touched the subject of people trying to attack you (kill your ship and/or fight over the plex) inside it, if they have to fit tackle it'll be even more ships. So you find these juicy targets running a plex, and now you need to wait for some ~10+ friends to show up in a specificly designed ship that you only use for these particular plexes, else you can't kill those players?

Like I posted earlier in this thread, it's really a major nerf to PvP, as well as it brings some unecessary bring-more-people-(with-gimped-setups) for PvE. Your last sentences sum it up well. CCP is introducing alot of problems, for exactly what benefit?

AFK-cloaking in a system near you.
Capqu
Half Empty
xqtywiznalamywmodxfhhopawzpqyjdwrpeptuaenabjawdzku
#943 - 2012-11-01 16:40:11 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
You know they're not really listening.


Funny story about that. We are. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703&p=12

Dismissing people's concerns outright is not listening. Namely I'm referring to how it makes no sense that NPCs would switch to a ship that's killing their previous target who was slaughtering them by the thousands. You didn't really address how several of us have stated that this makes things more secure for many players who run anomalies in nullsec for example, when this group certainly doesn't need an extra level of protection. I've looked through the tread and also haven't found anything addressing how this will make things significantly more difficult for new players who are trying missions with their more experienced friends, and significantly more difficult if not impossible for groups of players to tackle sites like Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point 3 without ALL bringing the tank required to survive the station aggro.

You're introducing a lot of problems for exactly what benefit? Can you honestly tell me what the actual benefit of this is besides "it might make things more interesting" which is itself rather doubtful?


Sums up a lot of concerns well, please reconsider this change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5tVbVu9Mkg
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#944 - 2012-11-02 20:32:50 UTC
Capqu wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
You know they're not really listening.


Funny story about that. We are. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703&p=12

Dismissing people's concerns outright is not listening. Namely I'm referring to how it makes no sense that NPCs would switch to a ship that's killing their previous target who was slaughtering them by the thousands. You didn't really address how several of us have stated that this makes things more secure for many players who run anomalies in nullsec for example, when this group certainly doesn't need an extra level of protection. I've looked through the tread and also haven't found anything addressing how this will make things significantly more difficult for new players who are trying missions with their more experienced friends, and significantly more difficult if not impossible for groups of players to tackle sites like Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point 3 without ALL bringing the tank required to survive the station aggro.

You're introducing a lot of problems for exactly what benefit? Can you honestly tell me what the actual benefit of this is besides "it might make things more interesting" which is itself rather doubtful?


Sums up a lot of concerns well, please reconsider this change.

Don't you love the irony of this?

Me: "You're not listening!"
Them: "Yes we are! Here's a link to the other thread."
Me: "Okay, I posted in this thread and that thread. What's your response?"
No response.
One week later, still nothing.
December 4 approaches.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Wattkins
Sol Industries
#945 - 2012-11-04 06:24:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Wattkins
If you really want to forcefully push on new AI mechanics, which i don't think is necessary or even well supported by the game's interface, i would suggest two things:

1)Do not allow the NPC's to start shooting someone who did not initiated any aggressive action towards the said NPC. In other words, you can only be targeted by NPC's if you start shooting them or assisting someone who is already flagged hostile to them.(this protects ninja salvagers and PVE gankers)

I mean this also makes sense, why would they switch targets to someone who is neutral from someone who is slaughtering them? Also this stops NPC's from becoming a bodyguard to the person that's wiping floor with them when a player comes in to ASSIST the NPC in the first place.(they should actually show their gratitude to the ganker)

2)Do not let NPC's shoot drones, only other ships flagged against them. This creates equality between drone and non-drone ships. Not to mention a penalty for losing a drone is much greater than a turret boat ever risks. Why create such inequality?

I noticed CCP FoxFour called the NPC agro mechanics outdated and "in need of change". While it is true that compared to other games; EvE's AI is simple; but that's because in other games you have good and precise tools to manage agro. In EvE you do not have those and the penalty for mistake is extremely harsh. There is a reason this current AI has worked well for now and people where happy to have precise control over the agro mechanics. Now you want to take that away and replace it with some hidden system that no one knows any details about other that "you never really know when they will attack you". Again not sure why.

So when you start throwing this randomness into the mix, you are asking for trouble. And asking people to adapt without having their agreement that there was a need for change in a first place is... rather self-centered and bound to back-fire. We have been there before. Please do not underestimate how massive change this will have on your player base and how many people can/will quit over such a uncalled for disruption. And you know what's really aggravating? The "uncalled" for part.

While you are right CCP that people eventually adapt and find a new ways to do things, don't forget that this a game after all, not RL, and instead of being forced to "adapt" to your uncontrollable urge to disrupt what works, they might just move on to a different game.

Remember that sooner or later: common sense > elitism.
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#946 - 2012-11-04 12:05:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Adigard
Wattkins wrote:
Remember that sooner or later: common sense > elitism.


Unfortunately we've got a couple of issues going on here.

A) CCP likes to double down on this type of decision, stating it'll definitely be included, regardless of player outrage. We've certainly already seen that fact stated.

B) This Dev has moved on to other projects. I don't actually know if they're even bothering with this (or the test server) thread anymore.

C) We've never seen any real promises for future content, beyond the "We had to do this for our own sake", so it's probably already an abandoned feature... before it's even been released. Which leads into

D) When was the last code change? A month+ ago when they disabled the new AI on torp. towers in DED complex? And if they have been sneaking code changes in they haven't let us know what was changed / had us test it. So I'm expecting we'll get the current bug-ridden code going live in a month.

But who knows, maybe they'll surprise us all and fix the 'sacrifice a T1 drone bug' and boats all across Eve will be blowing up on patch day because we lose our anti-frigate support.
HydroSan
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#947 - 2012-11-05 04:45:24 UTC
This is the dumbest Idea yet.

"If it works for wormholes and Incursions why not everything else?"

Too bad wormholes and incursions are not solo activities. These aren't even remotely comparable. Drones as a weapon class will be completely destroyed. You just gave drones a slight boost with DDA's. They still have some issues because of drone control range and travel time. This just closes the doors on drones entirely.

Don't even get me started on the massive economic implications of this change.
Mashara Dawn
State War Academy
Caldari State
#948 - 2012-11-05 05:34:41 UTC
With this Changes you steel me the Fun of the Game. Target switching is the worsest pain you can give me . I am Gallante pilot and now i can kick me in the Trash barrel. I take my Isk with plexing and with target Switch i can stop this. So if u take my fun and the Art how i play eve i take my Money and go. There are more funny Games in this Universe than Eve.
Ixius Del'Monar
Eternity Pavilion
Dracarys.
#949 - 2012-11-05 14:59:33 UTC
Even the guy with broken english took the time to write a paragraph stating the stupidity of this change, I have already unsubbed 3 accounts and this one is only on because I couldn't comment with a inactive account. I say put this to a vote and let the customer decide as this is a game changer for a lot of players.
Mund Richard
#950 - 2012-11-05 23:09:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Ixius Del'Monar wrote:
game changer

Could that be the intent?
Just hearing about these changes skyrocketed my skillpoints in missiles+guns....
That would make it easier to PvP in several fleet comps...
/me gets [Tinfoil Hat]


Joke(?) aside, can you really see what you proposed happening?
As in, with a realistic chance, not ideally.

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.
Ixius Del'Monar
Eternity Pavilion
Dracarys.
#951 - 2012-11-05 23:34:52 UTC
well i know voting is out of the question for alot of reasons. I just hate that ccp put so much time and money in this effort towards something i never had an issue with. Honestly i could care less about afk drone boaters, afk mining, afk anything. See thats the one thing i liked about this game, the amount of effort required depended on what i wanted to do. Heres the thing...i dont afk mine or mission, i run null sec complexes and this stops my game style for doing the sites. YES i could still do them with 2 accounts repping and 1 account applying dps but this would take too long due to the fact that ccp has nerfed drop rates of the sites i run so when i do get a drop it will not justify the time ive invested compared to running my 3 accounts in high sec doing lvl 4 missions. And the flipside to that is thats just me and my accounts, if i went with a group it would be even more worthless, so as a result you can make more isk mission running in high sec. This is what i propose change just the mission rats AI. Boom problem solved for me and that is all i care about.. : )
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#952 - 2012-11-06 00:10:56 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
Ixius Del'Monar wrote:
game changer

Could that be the intent?
Just hearing about these changes skyrocketed my skillpoints in missiles+guns....
That would make it easier to PvP in several fleet comps...
/me gets [Tinfoil Hat]


Joke(?) aside, can you really see what you proposed happening?
As in, with a realistic chance, not ideally.

It all depends on how the end result shapes up. We currently have issues with drone aggro being bypassed, the inability to manage aggro reliably and the affects of new mechanics on PvP against people doing PvE.

Suggestions have been made to resolve some of these but none have seen public testing yet or even firm commitment that they are going to be created. So as things stand now, yes, it's a game changer for many. Will it be the same on 12/04? v0v
Mashara Dawn
State War Academy
Caldari State
#953 - 2012-11-06 09:58:39 UTC
Ixius Del'Monar wrote:
well i know voting is out of the question for alot of reasons. I just hate that ccp put so much time and money in this effort towards something i never had an issue with. Honestly i could care less about afk drone boaters, afk mining, afk anything. See thats the one thing i liked about this game, the amount of effort required depended on what i wanted to do. Heres the thing...i dont afk mine or mission, i run null sec complexes and this stops my game style for doing the sites. YES i could still do them with 2 accounts repping and 1 account applying dps but this would take too long due to the fact that ccp has nerfed drop rates of the sites i run so when i do get a drop it will not justify the time ive invested compared to running my 3 accounts in high sec doing lvl 4 missions. And the flipside to that is thats just me and my accounts, if i went with a group it would be even more worthless, so as a result you can make more isk mission running in high sec. This is what i propose change just the mission rats AI. Boom problem solved for me and that is all i care about.. : )



Full Agree.

I do not want to play EVE just as CCP wants. I want to play EVE without me to constantly adapt to their modifications.
Johan Civire
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#954 - 2012-11-07 17:51:46 UTC
Epic love some brains in the AI Big smile
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#955 - 2012-11-07 19:51:08 UTC
Johan Civire wrote:
Epic love some brains in the AI Big smile

Roll

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#956 - 2012-11-08 14:47:41 UTC
Normally, I would be very positive and supportive of this change. But only if all missions and complexes were completely overhauled. Plus drones fixed, because as CCP admitted in recent blog, drone mechanics are terribly outdated. But doing it the way you're currently planning to - just change AI, don't alter anything else - is a huge mistake IMHO.

What really irks me about this situation is that it is EXACTLY like the Unified Inventory feature of the last expansion. Nobody really wanted it. It really didn't improve much of anything for most people. Things that took 2 clicks now take 2 clicks + Shift, which is actually worse than before. You were told this, and yet you pushed the new UI anyway. The result was a lot of people being very unhappy. And the UI is still being worked on even now, and it's still nowhere near where it should be.

This AI situation is the same. Nobody really wants it. It won't really improve gameplay much. In fact, it'll be severely detrimental to many current mechanics, as has been pointed out over and over in this thread. And yet you guys strapped on a set of blinders and are still pushing it, no matter what.

Now, I understand how it can improve the game. If AI began to behave like players, there'd be no more PvE fits and PvP fits. Which is great. Also PvEers would be more prepared for PvP, and thus maybe more likely to engage in it (debatable, but fine, let's assume that it's true), just from PvE practice against player-like AI. Makes perfect sense. But this is not something you can iterate starting with the AI. If you do, you'll make many things either unplayable, horribly painful or downright broken. Case in point, I've seen many reports of drone users saying the L4 experience becomes absolutely painful. Is this something you want to inflict on your player base?

Another thing worth mentioning is new players flying new drone frigate, new drone destroyer, etc. Light drones in missions very heavy on frigates and destroyers? My guess is, it won't go very well. Is this something you want a new player to experience within hours/days of starting the game? Remember, Ytterbium did say drone mechanics are terribly outdated. And yet you're changing the AI to specifically switch targets and possibly target drones - something the AI in this game has never done, except for Sleepers (WHs and Incursions). BUT, WHs and Incursions are NOT solo content, nor are they newbie-friendly.

Bottom line, my gut is telling me this change will likely cause a major upset. Think about when and how you want to implement it. Personally, I would fix the problem issues first (drones, shield vs armor and active vs passive tank issues), and then review the missions and push the AI. Pushing the AI without changing every mission in the game to be more reasonable I feel might even make many no longer soloable, at least not without high or perfect skills. Old hands won't be harmed by this much, but it'll devastate new and beginner players' experience. Which I find ironic, after so much time was spent to improve new player experience (tutorials).
Ixius Del'Monar
Eternity Pavilion
Dracarys.
#957 - 2012-11-08 21:23:01 UTC
I don't see why ccp wouldn't fix the drone boat exploit by either removing the drone aggresive button completely so drones would have to be reactivated like turrets/missiles after target destruction or just making them non aggresive towards npcs so they have to be activated on each target or something along the thinking of this concept because this approach that ccp is taking fixing something that is not in need of fixes : ) I know this thread was made for feedback for testing but ccp you need to understand this game belongs to us-the players aka customers....and good business ethics state that the customer is always right. I could understand if you were trying to fix something but the npc AI has been this way for as long as I have been playing and I've molded characters around it.......bought more accounts for it and I'm capped out at 4, I will not be getting anymore. I'm really surprised that their hasn't been any devs posting on this for the last few days and that makes me think that either you are ignoring this or you are actually thinking of a way to fix my and others like me issues with this idea. Hopefully the later. Anyways I do like the rebalancing of the ships-great stuff.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#958 - 2012-11-09 13:43:00 UTC
An update on this topic: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2158421#post2158421

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Miss Tranquility
PandemicRage
#959 - 2012-11-13 15:42:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Miss Tranquility
Great, so droneboats did much worse then gun/missile boats to begin with. Why they would now get the killing blow is beyond me. Most missions already prevents the afk mission runner by having rat spawns attack the drones, and killing them incase of the said afk pilot. Now making the npcs kill them even if you are there will completely ruin ships such as the Dominix. Even if I sit there active and ready, these drones will pop like popcorn before I can make them return to me.

But let's sit down and think they would not die, but just nearly die. It would still mean I as a droneboat pilot would lose a huge percent of my damage output due to drones being slow as **** to move back and forth. (not interested in the "use sentries duuuh duuhh" comments as they would only mean that all other drones would be thrown out the door. I doubt that is CCP's intentions.

Again, gun/missile boats are already superior, why would you make the gap even wider?
Idgarad
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#960 - 2012-11-14 20:26:54 UTC
Here is the question I am hearing:

Sansha Anom

From what I have read so far this is the usual scenario:

  • CNR warps in, grabs agro. Few frigs start warp scramming and webbing.
  • CNR deploys light drones and they eat up the frigs.
  • Life carries on.


The change people expect:

  • CNR warps in, grabs agro. Few frigs start warp scramming and webbing.
  • CNR deploys light drones. The rats suddenly target the light drones and eat them alive.
  • CNR dies a horrible death since it can't use it's drones to take out the frigs.
  • Sad Panda ensues.



I offer this concern:

  • CNR warps in, grabs agro. Few frigs start warp scramming and webbing.
  • CNR's buddy\corpmate\alt warps in his scimitar to help rep.
  • Rats target the scimitar. He's now warp scrammed\webbed with little to no recourse.
  • CNR trys to assign drones to eat the frigs but the rat cruisers are eating them alive ignoring the CNR.
  • Scimitar goes boom. If he\she\it is lucky they warp out.
  • Scimitar spends the rest of the anom playing warp-tag.
  • Scimitar pilot gets frustrated and stops flying a logistic ship to help.
  • Everyone switches to T3 cruisers and we even fewer logistic pilots who, by the way, still get the big "FU" on kill mail since they didn't do any damage.




We ran into this in WH with sleepers and random target switching. It just punishes actual logistic pilots that are trying to earn some isk or get some practice. Effectively CCP says "If you going to fleet up, you'll need at least 2 logistics ships rather then one. One logistic pilot to rep the dps'ers and another to rep the repper. But then you'll need a repper to rep that repper. And another repper to rep the repper that is repping the repper repping the dpsers.... etc."

Then on top of that, any actual drone pilots are effectively going to have to be logistics pilots since they'll have to rep all their drones. As if dealing with the existing aggro management wasn't enough having to dock\undock scout drones. Kiss sentries drones goodbye. Which looking at a lot of drone boats how many of them can fit 5 reps to keep their 5 drones going ON TOP of trying to maintain a tank and have some dps that is not drones?

So looking at a Domi you have what 6 turret mounts so you have to load up now on 5 reppers potentially leaving you a single turret for DPS? Wait you'll need that last one. Then to feed the cap how much tank on the domi itself are you losing? And now you have missions with BS's out at 60 km with a single high for a drone link so you can get out to what 55km? Imagine being a newer player < 30 mil skill points as a drone pilot trying to do a level 4 to scrap some cash together...

My fear is the real impact of this is going to hit lower skill point pilots more then higher skill point pilots.

Repping concerns need to be addressed or we'll just end up punishing them or making it a 30+ mil skillpoint only club. If drones are going to be like ammo then we'll need bigger drone bays to store up extra drones.

"We ran X missions and only lost 2 drones." That means nothing. I fly a Loki and have never lost a drone. Of course I only launch them against frigs then they go back in the box. Now CCP go run X missions in a Rattlesnake or Domi and tell us how many SENTRY drones you lost. How many scout drones. etc. I'd like to know how, specifically, drone boats fair against the new AI or is this going to be in hind site the "Punish the Gallente" expansion.

I fear this is just going to turn afk drone pilots into afk spider tank\fof pilots.