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[Winter] Changes to NPC AI

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Capqu
Half Empty
xqtywiznalamywmodxfhhopawzpqyjdwrpeptuaenabjawdzku
#681 - 2012-12-06 09:45:46 UTC
So the changes are live now and I've had a chance to play with them some more.

Complete ****. Null sec ratters are 100% invulnerable to anything that isn't a battle-cruiser trying to tackle them, and even then the BC is gonna need backup fast.

A destroyer with an MWD on gets targetted by battleships and cruisers over a tengu. What? This is so dumb it's unbelievable.

Stealth bombers can't stay on field for longer than 15 seconds after pointing their target, no matter the anom and no matter the target.

Why did you deploy this again? Are you honestly proud of this steaming pile that no-one can say with a straight face was positive for the game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5tVbVu9Mkg
Mund Richard
#682 - 2012-12-06 09:57:12 UTC
Capqu wrote:
Why did you deploy this again? Are you honestly proud of this steaming pile that no-one can say with a straight face was positive for the game?

When carebears and beargankers agree, prolly something is wrong.

On the other hand:
1) CCP FoxFire said somewhere that they'll fix the SB bearhunter part, just not for the release (you know, as opposed to not releasing code faulty at several parts)
2) I'm starting to adapt to it (not the near-untackleable, the part affecting bears like agro swaps) , and it's going surprisingly well.
I was under the impression evil pirates always say when miner/bears whine that "EVE is a harsh place, learn to adapt".

...ok, that joke was uncalled for, this *is* a really stupid mechanism, but I just couldn't resist. Roll

"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.
Stormchyld
Trinity's Passing
#683 - 2012-12-06 10:07:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Stormchyld
Tiberizzle wrote:
I ratted anoms for a few hours today with a grip of sentry carriers and I see approximately ****-all came of tuning the aggro of elite cruisers.

I lost a total of 417 Garde IIs. That's four hundred and seventeen, not a typo.

Pretty much all of them to elite cruisers.

The elite cruisers immediately target a carrier's sentries, all of the elite cruiser target switches are to other sentries, and the damage from elite cruisers is so effective against sentries that they die from focus fire before it's practical to notice and react. That some whack-a-mole bullshit with the clusterfuck of a drone UI would be the only way to manage the aggro (because they seem to respond to nothing else other than the target disappearing) is complete ****.

On the whole this change, even if it didn't exacerbate a dozen different bugs (random split aggro, random aggro on untrackable targets due to the spastic cycling of ewar, and so on) in the drone AI, and wasn't so poorly tuned one wonders about the additive package of the particularly influential brand of gasoline whoever green-lighted this must be huffing, would be a goddamned abomination. But the fact is, it's so broken and buggy and off the charts poorly balanced you should be researching forms of ritual suicide so that you might approach the repentance due for inflicting it in its current form not ill-prepared.



If I had written a reply yesterday it would most likely have contained language such as in this person's post. I didn't lose that many drones yesterday but losing around 10 T2 drones had me plenty hot. (trust me on this, sadly I shut down corp chat for 4 hours with my 15 minutes of venting...... sorry corpies, but after playing 6 years... CCP does this... there is GOING to be some venting)

Instant aggro on first undocking.... really?? Even if the NPC rats have solidly locked onto one ship? Why don't you completely ban hotboxing CCP? Because while doing that when I had solid aggro from all frigs and undocked drones then tabbed to another account to salvage ..... when I switched back BOOM ... no drones or they were into struct. ... and if your ship can only hold 5 drones then drones are now completely useless. Why don't you just remove the drone bays from any but gallente or your new found lust for turning amarr ships into drone boats?
Also..... having a ship that has a large drone bay abandon some drones so a ship that can't hold many can scoop em and keep fighting getting a flag?? Seriously??

I can deal with the fact that the caldari field command ship is now useless because it's hvy missle range is pitifully short (just remove it from the game... it's screwed) .... but messing up hotboxing is extremely short sighted and nothing short of idiotic.
Anneliese Pollard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#684 - 2012-12-07 00:01:31 UTC
Tiberizzle wrote:
I ratted anoms for a few hours today with a grip of sentry carriers and I see approximately ****-all came of tuning the aggro of elite cruisers.

I lost a total of 417 Garde IIs. That's four hundred and seventeen, not a typo.

Pretty much all of them to elite cruisers.

The elite cruisers immediately target a carrier's sentries, all of the elite cruiser target switches are to other sentries, and the damage from elite cruisers is so effective against sentries that they die from focus fire before it's practical to notice and react. That some whack-a-mole bullshit with the clusterfuck of a drone UI would be the only way to manage the aggro (because they seem to respond to nothing else other than the target disappearing) is complete ****.

On the whole this change, even if it didn't exacerbate a dozen different bugs (random split aggro, random aggro on untrackable targets due to the spastic cycling of ewar, and so on) in the drone AI, and wasn't so poorly tuned one wonders about the additive package of the particularly influential brand of gasoline whoever green-lighted this must be huffing, would be a goddamned abomination. But the fact is, it's so broken and buggy and off the charts poorly balanced you should be researching forms of ritual suicide so that you might approach the repentance due for inflicting it in its current form not ill-prepared.


That's a lot of Gardes! I have nothing productive to say regarding this.
Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#685 - 2012-12-07 00:13:59 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:

So, for all intents and purposes, I AM playing WoW submarines in space.

As a point of interest, I have never, ever managed to go completely broke in EVE. Just...never happened. However, there was a time in WoW in early 2005 when I was raiding Molten Core, where I would walk off with 20-25g repair bill (back when repair costs were based on armor HP, and thus plate armor repair costs were insane), and that DID break me. Luckily as a main tank, the group chipped in a little bit and kept me and the two offtanks repaired. By ourselves, there was no way in holy hell we'd have been able to afford 20-25g for a night of raiding, that took days, perhaps as much as a week to farm. And unlike EVE, you couldn't even P2Win and just sell a PLEX for ISK, now THAT was harsh! So when people compare "cold and harsh EVE" to "carebear WoW", I remember vanilla WoW (the first 2-3 years) and chuckle, because by comparison EVE is laughably easy and forgiving.


quoted for truth and nostalgia.

in other exciting news: drone aggro.
my .02 ISK on it are as following: the problem with the current mechanics is that drones are not seen as expendable ammo. they are too expensive at first glance and your drone bay is often not large enough to replenish lost drones in a reasonable manner. furthermore, losing your drones can mean losing your shiny mission ship, a prospect most mission runners dread, and rightly so.
i understand CCPs desire to work against afk missioning but having to watch your drones is an annoying and tedious ordeal, especially in combination with the stage aggro bug. now, eve is not exactly known for its user friendliness (industry jobs, POS management etc.), so i am willing to let it slide. but. you should consider what this change does to ship balance in pve. many a space potato will become a hangar potato and some players got their ability to make money reduced severely, while others hardly even notice the change (i'm looking at you MWD machariels).

the other relevant topic is EWAR. now, I am not against the tracking disruptor change in general, as it briings the 'annoyingness' of TDs in line with dampeners and ECM. but. if you decide that npc ecm is supposed to be annoying, you should make it so across the board. right now, angel space is a paradise (pun intended) for missioners. the only reason to mission anywhere else is not having the skills for a machariel/vargur/navy raven. if you want to keep npc ewar, you should think of something for angels that actually increases mission times the way ECM, dampening and TDs do. (btw, blood raider neuts are not as bad as sansha tracking disruptors but potentially more dangerous because they shut down your tank, so i am fine with them.)
aside from the faction imbalance, my personal feeling is that in the current state, ECM, damps and TDs are a little stronger than they should be. in many missions, you can lose up to 30 minutes if you can't manage to snipe the right NPCs fast enough. sometimes it's even faster to repeatedly warp off and then come back in to try and alpha the ewar ships rather than dealing with the ewar on grid. i can deal with it if i have to but it seems somewhat clunky.

I should buy an Ishtar.
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#686 - 2012-12-07 00:20:46 UTC
Daniel Plain wrote:
i understand CCPs desire to work against afk missioning but having to watch your drones is an annoying and tedious ordeal, especially in combination with the stage aggro bug. now, eve is not exactly known for its user friendliness


It should be fairly obvious this AI change was never really about stopping AFK missioning. CCP Fox Four tested the AI himself a few months ago with a totally AFK domi, and actually found missions to be EASIER than on the live servers. So no, not so much... if this had been about stopping AFK missioning they had plenty of time to go back to the drawing board.

I expect this was about something different.
Mund Richard
#687 - 2012-12-07 00:33:14 UTC
Adigard wrote:
I expect this was about something different.

No idea what it was about, but the way rats work, now I'm as safe as never before in null.
The stealth bomber trying to kill me earlier did not approve Twisted

"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.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#688 - 2012-12-07 11:20:27 UTC
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Zor'katar
Matari Recreation
#689 - 2012-12-07 13:37:36 UTC
Daniel Plain wrote:
aside from the faction imbalance, my personal feeling is that in the current state, ECM, damps and TDs are a little stronger than they should be. in many missions, you can lose up to 30 minutes if you can't manage to snipe the right NPCs fast enough. sometimes it's even faster to repeatedly warp off and then come back in to try and alpha the ewar ships rather than dealing with the ewar on grid. i can deal with it if i have to but it seems somewhat clunky.

Agreed. I'm sure it's tough to balance EWar between PvP and PvE when one is based on similar numbers and the other based on one vs. many. But I think something should be done... warping out shouldn't be a necessary step to finishing a mission. (For the record, although the "make PvE more like PvP" idea sounded interesting at first, I'm against it on the grounds that we don't need to be reducing the playstyles available in the game. Sometimes you just want to blow large quantities of stuff up.)
Capqu
Half Empty
xqtywiznalamywmodxfhhopawzpqyjdwrpeptuaenabjawdzku
#690 - 2012-12-07 13:57:06 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.


PVP implications included?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5tVbVu9Mkg
rodrivaz
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#691 - 2012-12-07 17:44:20 UTC
I am very disappointed with the changes of the npc AI. If you want to give a big nerf in capitals, fine. But with these changes ccp is cutting the legs who uses Gallente ship and miners.
And to the pvpers, Eve is not just pvp, moon mining or PI.

And yes, I do pvp too!

Just my five cents

Fly safe o/
Mund Richard
#692 - 2012-12-07 23:07:35 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.

Now I know why I felt a sudden chill run down on my spine earlier today...

"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.
Mhari Dson
Lazy Brothers Inc
#693 - 2012-12-08 05:44:58 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.



So is this just going to be a maybe we'll fix it with the summer release or perhaps some actual swiftness?
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#694 - 2012-12-08 06:29:49 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.

Now I know why I felt a sudden chill run down on my spine earlier today...


I am back from a mandatory 2 week stint in a CCP / null sec zealot re-education camp.
Fortunately, the doctrine didn't quite take hold.

I imagine that cold chill you are imagining is how "enjoyable" missions will be when Fox Four and friends institute phase 2 and "fix" the defect, and then we will have "NPC's loving drones, all the time".

As I and many other have already discussed, just imagine the squeals of delight as someone's Mach evaporates when all their drones are gone and the NPC frigs have them scrammed. Yes, that Mach pilot will clearly be enjoying the game at that point.
Turelus
Utassi Security
The Curatores Veritatis Auxiliary
#695 - 2012-12-08 09:36:26 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.


Good to hear, I know a lot of people have been having a horrible time as they really enjoyed PVE in EVE.
No need to make it easy, just not on extreme mode :)

Turelus CEO Utassi Security
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#696 - 2012-12-08 13:18:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Adigard
Turelus wrote:
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Just as a heads up guys you should be getting a post from one of us soon giving some details about what plans we have for the AI going forward. Sorry we have been so quiet, we have been trying to nail down a few things and figure out exactly what changes we want to make.


Good to hear, I know a lot of people have been having a horrible time as they really enjoyed PVE in EVE.
No need to make it easy, just not on extreme mode :)


CCP FoxFour's statements leading up to this going live were "If you enjoyed PvE before, you'll adapt", so I'd recommend getting busy on the adapting and worry less about what CCP is going to do. You found it fun before, you'll find it fun, in their opinion, regardless of how horrible it is. So get to on it.

If you're like a lot of Eve player's and you simply do PvE to fund other activities and you find it a rather boring grind to get at the more enjoyable things... then you've probably got a valid axe to grind.
Mund Richard
#697 - 2012-12-08 14:04:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Mund Richard
Adigard wrote:
CCP FoxFour's statements leading up to this going live were "If you enjoyed PvE before, you'll adapt", so I'd recommend getting busy on the adapting and worry less about what CCP is going to do. You found it fun before, you'll find it fun, in their opinion, regardless of how horrible it is. So get to on it.

If you're like a lot of Eve player's and you simply do PvE to fund other activities and you find it a rather boring grind to get at the more enjoyable things... then you've probably got a valid axe to grind.

Or worry about what CCP may do, and overheat your pre-adapting modules and learning implants.

And experiment with new ships and fittings.

"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.
Adigard
RubberDuckies
#698 - 2012-12-08 14:34:15 UTC
Mund Richard wrote:
And experiment with new ships and fittings.


I expect my adaption will be simply to use CCP FoxFour's totally AFK Drone Sentry fit. And just go totally AFK. It's obviously not in my best interests to be at the keyboard in missions anymore, so might as well go the way the Dev's suggested.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#699 - 2012-12-09 09:57:42 UTC
Adigard wrote:
Mund Richard wrote:
And experiment with new ships and fittings.


I expect my adaption will be simply to use CCP FoxFour's totally AFK Drone Sentry fit. And just go totally AFK. It's obviously not in my best interests to be at the keyboard in missions anymore, so might as well go the way the Dev's suggested.


I started doing Incursions again 2 nights ago.
Today, I did not even bother as the amount of people in the Incursion local channel had doubled to over 500.
People are stampeding away from missions to Incursions again, but there is no way the amount of Incursion sites can handle even a fraction of the mission runners forced to abandon L4's.
C0ATL
Renegade Stars
Stellae Renascitur
#700 - 2012-12-09 10:48:56 UTC  |  Edited by: C0ATL
It is not about adapting. I have seen many here say "ADAPT!". or that "Oh this has shown how many missioners CANNOT adapt."

No. It is easy to adapt. It is easy to get a missile boat like a CNR to replace a Rattlesnake or a Dominix.... or say "Guys I need help with a mission." in corp chat. It is not that people >cannot< adapt, but rather that they are unwilling to. On a game that emphases and promotes freedom of choice, versatility and "play your own way" kind of game-play... being FORCED to swap ships or start doing things the way CCP asks you to is just deplorable.

I have done all of the above and still am able to do missions just fine. Got a CNR the 2nd day after the expansion, when I noticed how CCP took a massive dump on all drone boats, and have been making ISK with missile ships.... My problem is not enjoying the game-play as I used to and being forced to dance on CCP's tune.

CCP took an AI that was created for Sleepers (which are 90% of the time done with fleets of people) and crammed it into missions that players have been accustomed to solo... all of this while stating in patch notes that "this has the role of >slightly< increasing mission difficulty". Wether if was for lack of time or just not giving a damn, CCP did not work at all at this and the result is a lot of people getting pissed off and quitting. I myself regret having extended my subscription just 2 days before the expansion, and will not give CCP any more cash after my 2 accounts expire. Also seen a lot of people following the same route. My corp alone lost billions in ship-worth since the expansion was released and we are just a handful of people.

The punishment drones receive in missions (at least 4s, since those are the ones I have done since Retribution was released, and I will not speak for other missions) is disgusting. A lot of people that do not use drone-boats are here spewing out non-sense about adapting. To them I say this: Take a lvl 4 mission, and while destroying ships, start overloading 1 turret/launcher at a time, until its blown up...then start with the next...and then the next..and the next. Eventually you will understand how a drone-boat user feels. It was enough that drones could be destroyed pre-Retribution by NPCs if you were not careful... but given that I do not see mission NPCs targeting and destroying people's launchers and turrets, I see no real reason why CCP made it so that drones will be targeted and destroyed with impunity within seconds of being released from the drone bay. (not including the exploit that one HAS to use to get any efficiency out of a drone-boat).
It is simple: a drone-boat without drones is like a missile boat without launchers.... so why this hate for drones? Oh..because CCP wanted to bring some more content for the masses to be pleased at a long patch-notes list, by implementing an AI that was designed for an entirely difference scenario.

Comparing a Rattle with a CNR:

Rattlesnake: Launcher DPS = 155; Drone DPS = 500-600ish (depending on drones)
CNR: Launcher DPS = 526 ; Drone DPS = 145
And all this with having 5.5M SP in drone skills, while having less than 3.5M SP in missile skills.

Even non-drone boats have to suffer from this, given that a CNR's torps or cruise missiles are a waste of ammo and time when hitting high-end NPC frigs that keep you scrambled and webbed, and given that medium drones already took a considerable amount of time to kill one of those 30k bounty frigs... with them being targeted and blown up it will be even harder. And really... one moment of your attention being missplaced and you lose a drone. Without using the exploit people have been pointing out and debating, you basicly spend more time taking them out and putting them in your drone bay, than you do with them in combat.

QUOTE FROM CCP DEV BLOG:

Q) Will the NPC's switch targets now?
A) Yes, yes they will.
(Fair enough. We were warned.)

Q) Will the NPC's choose a targets of the same size, so npc frigates will first target player frigs.
A) Yes, the NPC will try and pick targets matching their own size.
(Bullshit. Cases of Frigs speed-tanking 4s have been sprouting out all over the Eve-verse, while BS class ships were not even fired upon through the whole mission)

Q) Will NPC's kill my drones?
A) Yes, but they don't hate them nearly as much as sleepers. I ran 9 level 4 missions and lost 2 drones. It does mean you need to pay more attention though. We can adjust their hatred of drones though which is why we are asking for feedback when this hits a test server.
(I'm sorry, Mr Developer, but were you doing these missions in a drone-boat or another type of ship? To test drones use a drone-boat...just as to test missiles, a missile boat is recommended, no? And bullshit again, because feedback has been given and nothing changed.)

Q) Will NPCs do any new ewar?
A) No. Their actual weapons and effects will not be changing.
(Bullshit. New AI, although not using >different< E-war, had a substantial increase in the quantity of the E-war used, with 0 warning to players)

Q) Does this change things like spawns or range activation?
A) No. When the NPC decide to start hating you is still based on the individual mission.
(Bullshit. As with a lot of new missions, the new NPCs happen to "start hating you" the moment you warp in a room, while immediately letting their friends know, so that they can "hate" you as well.)



Keep the E-war buff on mission NPCs...keep them able of switching between player ships...but take out drones from their lists of targets to switch-to and it will be fine. Missions will still be harder, but without confining people's choices and preferences when playing the game.


Maybe CCP will listen... but most likely wont, so the only way I can affect them (even in a small way) is to stop paying for their product when they ruin it for me.