These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Information Portal

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Dev blog: Brains! NOM NOM!

First post First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#121 - 2012-09-20 15:56:34 UTC
If this change applies to the npc stations and rats at the end of 10/10 and 9/10 complex, those plexes just became totally undoable. EVERY plex strategy in plexes with the "super torps" revolves around getting "boss aggro' to the one ship fit to tank the torp.

I can't imagine how you'd do a Blood Raider 10/10 now.
Junko Sideswipe
Love Squad
#122 - 2012-09-20 15:57:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Junko Sideswipe
Well that kills plexing for me.

Maybe if you gave escalations guaranteed loot drops they'll be worth it again.

EDIT: Also, thanks for killing ninja salvaging, a legitimate newbie profession.

PIZZA CEO
Il Reverendo
Forty Two
#123 - 2012-09-20 15:58:20 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Roll Sizzle Beef wrote:
What about sites like Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point 3?
There is a Guristas Fleet Stronghold that launches Citadel Torpedos every 30 seconds. It will obliterate any subcap support for the capital already required to tank it if it switches targets.
Or is it expected some sites become cap only?


To be honest I am not familiar with this site and will have to test it.


Please do. This is the only aspect of the changes that worries me. Target switching + high end escalations and 10/10's with massive burst dmg or citadel torps and you may find yourself making things unnecessarily complicated, forcing us to use so many people or such high value ships (look into the different tanking approaches and the other ships that they rely on and you'll start to see the inherent issues) as to render them nigh on pointless.

[before anyone mentions it, yes you don't need to use a capital to tank (forget capitals, they're immaterial to the point being made), can be done easily with a hac/t3/small fast etc but throw in target switching and it's still a problem since the tank generally has little to no dmg and requires remote repping...if every ship you take in has to think about target switching...which means things start to get silly]
Syn Fatelyng
Redanni
#124 - 2012-09-20 15:59:11 UTC
Jenn aSide wrote:
If this change applies to the npc stations and rats at the end of 10/10 and 9/10 complex, those plexes just became totally undoable. EVERY plex strategy in plexes with the "super torps" revolves around getting "boss aggro' to the one ship fit to tank the torp.

I can't imagine how you'd do a Blood Raider 10/10 now.
My ignorance is showing, but I'll risk the nudity:

Can defenders kill citadels? If so, that might suddenly have a use for the aggroed ship.
Liang Nuren
No Salvation
Divine Damnation
#125 - 2012-09-20 15:59:26 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Aethlyn wrote:
Sturmwolke wrote:
L1 AI in L4 missions? ... ahaha ... it'll be very bloody the first few weeks Twisted

Why? IMO what makes Sleepers and (Incursion) Sansha more dangerous than the usual pirates are their stats: Speed, Health and Damage. That's nothing touched by just switching the underlying AI, considering most people run missions solo or in small groups only anyway. It might screw up people flying AFK drone boats, but at the same time it's something you shouldn't do anyway (why pay to play a game, when you don't even play then?).


To be honest one of my concerns is people abusing the target switching to take even less tank into the mission.


Count on this. :)

-Liang

I'm an idiot, don't mind me.
Il Reverendo
Forty Two
#126 - 2012-09-20 15:59:30 UTC
Jenn aSide wrote:


I can't imagine how you'd do a Blood Raider 10/10 now.


It's easy, all ships just have to be able to tank the torp, deal dmg, rr and not be dependent on cap.

...oh wait....
l0rd carlos
the king asked me to guard the mountain
#127 - 2012-09-20 16:02:18 UTC
Syn Fatelyng wrote:

Can defenders kill citadels? If so, that might suddenly have a use for the aggroed ship.

Smartbombs can ;-)

Youtube Channel about Micro and Small scale PvP with commentary: Fleet Commentary by l0rd carlos
aoeu Itonula
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#128 - 2012-09-20 16:05:38 UTC
This is really bad for high-end DED plexes. Right now, because of terrible loot tables (especially the 8/10s), it's barely better isk/hr for a pilot to run around probing and doing DED plexes than it is to just anom or do L4s, not to mention how FW missioning outpaces it by leaps and bounds. With requiring every ship in the site to have a massive tank, completion time will go in the toilet, and isk/hour with it. Expect DED plexing isk/hour to plummet to the level of afk mining ice in hisec - which leaves no reason to do it at all.
colera deldios
#129 - 2012-09-20 16:07:39 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Louis deGuerre wrote:
BRAIIIIIIINNNNNS BRAIIIINNNNSSSS

This is going to be soooooo much fun. I can already taste the sea of tears Pirate


A sea of tears over this... you should have seen what else we wanted the NPC to do. Pirate


This should be excluded from DED sites and Exploration because it will remove solo exploration compleatley. For instance
right now i run Tengu for tank on my main and Proteus on my alt for DPS. While my Tengu tanks i can kill things with my Proteus
however if things are swiching targets to my no-tank proteus this whole idea is kaput.

On the other hand constant warping in and out will mean it will take me longer to do a plex giving nasty locals more time to respond to me.
aoeu Itonula
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#130 - 2012-09-20 16:07:40 UTC
I have some other questions too - if you insist on giving the AI behavior that targets drones, much like happens in PvP, will you be bringing other PvP damage avoidance behaviors to the AI as well? For instance, NPCs with MWDs that actually kite close-range ships, or NPCs that firewall incoming missiles, or even NPCs that spiral in to keep up their transversal instead of just MWDing straight towards the target then orbiting.
Lord Zim
Gallente Federation
#131 - 2012-09-20 16:11:52 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Nickabocka Glory wrote:
What will happen to the risk reward balance of high, low and null sec NPCs?

Making NPCs harder sounds like fun but the extra time and effort required to kill them needs to be reflected in their value.


This should not really make them that much harder to kill, actually it is not changing their tank or DPS at all. So killing time should not change.

Let's pretend I stopped caring about running beltrats or anoms in nullsec years ago because the effort/reward ratio made running L4s in hisec a better proposition. Why should this make it worth it, to me, to move my isk-making char back to nullsec?

Cyno's lit, bridge is up, but one pilot won't be jumping home.

RIP Vile Rat
Roll Sizzle Beef
Space Mutiny
#132 - 2012-09-20 16:12:25 UTC
l0rd carlos wrote:
Syn Fatelyng wrote:

Can defenders kill citadels? If so, that might suddenly have a use for the aggroed ship.

Smartbombs can ;-)


If you can determine exactly were the server thinks the missile is compared to what you see visually. Sure.
Though i think they should just rework the defender system.
Bloodpetal
Tir Capital Management Group
#133 - 2012-09-20 16:13:42 UTC


What really needs to come from this is a couple specific changes ::

---Webifying towers need to be less effective. They are too powerful in relationship to normal webs.

---All EWAR needs a good examination to ensure it's not overwhelming, because the NPC EWAR is not like PC EWAR.

There's a couple UBER structures in Exploration sites that get absurd effects and would become nearly impossible to do this without a reliable tank ship.

Where I am.
Lord Zim
Gallente Federation
#134 - 2012-09-20 16:16:20 UTC
Oh wait, what am I saying? L4s are so last year, this year it's FW farmville ahoy. Shouldn't be too long till minmatar or caldari hits L5 again so we can coordinate the cash out.

Cyno's lit, bridge is up, but one pilot won't be jumping home.

RIP Vile Rat
seth Hendar
I love you miners
#135 - 2012-09-20 16:22:39 UTC  |  Edited by: seth Hendar
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Migrator Soul wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:


A sea of tears over this... you should have seen what else we wanted the NPC to do. Pirate


Please, do it then. Hell, even the current sleeper AI is laughably easy.. I would love to see NPC AI become on par with player skill, therefore increasing the difficulty of missions..


Our ultimate goal is that PvP and PvE fits should be the same and a lot of the thought process should be the same. That is... a long way off though.

sorry to disapoint you, but this would probably never happen, unless you come up with a kind of npc we need to point / neut.

and ewar is only usefull against some sleepers actually, so unless you expand the usage among the regular npc, ewar drones / modules will remain unused.

so absolutely no way to have the same fitting :)
Despana
Perkone
Caldari State
#136 - 2012-09-20 16:26:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Despana
I can't believe so many people actually HAPPY about this changes....

How about you will turn on your brains before you post something in here and make CCP think they are on the right path?


Let me tell you why I will quit this game if this changes will go live:

I play eve since 2004 and I am not a big fan of gangs, fleets etc.
Because this game is sandbox, it gives us free choice what to do. My choice is SOLO, period, and here's why it will kill 95% of my fun:

I do fly Assaults and other small ships ships in null / low sec. to catch belt, anomaly, mission hunters on small ships and then kill them when they don't pay enough attention to local and d-scan. Now, killing drakes, ravens, dominixes and other hunter will be impossible on small ships, because I won't have enough time to kill them before NPC's will trim me off.

Covert OP bombers? Forget about it. We barely could orbit tank ships without NPC's attacking us, now - no chance at all.

Basically, killing people while they are doing their hunting will be impossible on small and even medium ships.


By any means, killing solo pvp will NOT make people happy.
Hakaru Ishiwara
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#137 - 2012-09-20 16:26:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Hakaru Ishiwara
Lord Zim wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Nickabocka Glory wrote:
What will happen to the risk reward balance of high, low and null sec NPCs?

Making NPCs harder sounds like fun but the extra time and effort required to kill them needs to be reflected in their value.


This should not really make them that much harder to kill, actually it is not changing their tank or DPS at all. So killing time should not change.

Let's pretend I stopped caring about running beltrats or anoms in nullsec years ago because the effort/reward ratio made running L4s in hisec a better proposition. Why should this make it worth it, to me, to move my isk-making char back to nullsec?
There is zero incentive unless the bounties or faction / dead-space loot drop rates improve.

Idea Now, if CCP would re-introduce the drop of faction (OR dead-space) towers and POS module BPCs (which we lost with the Tyrannis expansion over two years ago), then you might generate some serious interest in exploration.

The faction POS tower or module BPC drops could be phased in on a CCP designed schedule so as not to flood the market and to continue to generate interest in exploration over the long-term.

Additionally, if / when CCP revamps the POS system, they could introduce new and fancy faction POS elements via BPC drops.

Trust me, explorers love this class of loot drops. Pirate

EDIT: And POS owners love to buy up the built faction modules / towers. Talk about an ISK sink when your 1B+ faction tower gets reinforced and blown up. CCP is always looking for ways to remove ISK from the game, right?

+++++++ I have never shed a tear for a fellow EVE player until now. Mark “Seleene” Heard's Blog Honoring Sean "Vile Rat" Smith.
Captain Surprise Sex
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#138 - 2012-09-20 16:27:34 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Sturmwolke wrote:
L1 AI in L4 missions? ... ahaha ... it'll be very bloody the first few weeks Twisted

As for the drones issue, you have a mechanism to save them (by re-calling and re-launching) but it's too archaic/clunky/fidgety for extended use.
Fix this and it'll alleviate some of the major issues facing drone boats. I propose an auto-recall function when drone hits a user specified amount of dmg but keep the launch/re-launch manual.

Edit: This also looks like another indirect nerf to L4 income if it changes L4 missioning in such a way that it affects the avg pilot's completion time.
The lessons from the incursion changes are still fresh in mind.


Shift+R recalls drones... I do agree though that system needs some work. We will be keeping an eye on the income generated from L4 missions as we do have graphs and statistics for this. :)


Drone boats desperately need a way to launch drones with a hotkey. And not just a "Hey CCP pick some random drones and throw them into space! Heavy armor maintenance I's and a EV-900? Solid choices!" crap shoot like you get executing "Launch" on the root of the drone tree, but the ability to assign different hotkeys to different drone groups.

This is something that should have been done years ago, but being as we're apparently dead set on making cycling drones an exciting new facet of the engaging PvE experience a new flavor of tedium in a never-ending, soul-crushingly dull grind I'd say it now rates as pretty critical.
Arline Kley
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#139 - 2012-09-20 16:28:59 UTC
I approve of this AI system upgrade.

I've been wondering when it would of been implemented on the rest of the game, since Sleepers/Incursions are awesome.

"For it was said they had become like those peculiar demons, which dwell in matter but in whom no light may be found." - Father Grigori, Ravens 3:57
Alexander the Great
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#140 - 2012-09-20 16:38:12 UTC
Do you really think this will make PvE more fun?

Most PvE is done solo so this won't make any impact at large scale.

You are making it harder to use logistics and take new players to high level missions so they can have fun.

You are making us do the same thing but in harder way, which I can't call fun.