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[Winter] Changes to NPC AI

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CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#61 - 2012-09-21 18:00:01 UTC
Gary Bell wrote:
Gary Bell wrote:
My BIGGEST question is how is this going to affect the aggro in complexes like the maze? I understand what you are trying to do but this is really going to hurt complex runners. It takes a very specific ship to run the maze and be able to tank so I mean where does this leave us?

When I bring in my tank ship to grab aggro from your stupidly overpowered Citidel torp that can only be tanked by like 4 ships in game total and I going to have to worry about all the webbers switching to my Mach and popping it in one volley?

If that is the plan then I give this a thumbs down..

I think you guys really need to look into the 10 of 10s specifically because this is really going to hurt that type of PVE content..



SO can I expect to see an answer to this? Cuz i think this is going to be one of your biggest issues? If you have to fly three 4 Bil is t3s to complete the maze cuz the citidel torp changes aggro, or if I am going to have logi getting insta popped because all the web and scram frigs swap to my logi and alpha it?

This really needs to be looked at and answered?


Admittedly I have not played The Maze since making these changes. I do however have a list of 10/10's to test and this is on it. I hope to test them sometime next week. :)

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Witchking Angmar
Perkele.
#62 - 2012-09-21 18:41:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Witchking Angmar
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Gary Bell wrote:
Gary Bell wrote:
My BIGGEST question is how is this going to affect the aggro in complexes like the maze? I understand what you are trying to do but this is really going to hurt complex runners. It takes a very specific ship to run the maze and be able to tank so I mean where does this leave us?

When I bring in my tank ship to grab aggro from your stupidly overpowered Citidel torp that can only be tanked by like 4 ships in game total and I going to have to worry about all the webbers switching to my Mach and popping it in one volley?

If that is the plan then I give this a thumbs down..

I think you guys really need to look into the 10 of 10s specifically because this is really going to hurt that type of PVE content..



SO can I expect to see an answer to this? Cuz i think this is going to be one of your biggest issues? If you have to fly three 4 Bil is t3s to complete the maze cuz the citidel torp changes aggro, or if I am going to have logi getting insta popped because all the web and scram frigs swap to my logi and alpha it?

This really needs to be looked at and answered?


Admittedly I have not played The Maze since making these changes. I do however have a list of 10/10's to test and this is on it. I hope to test them sometime next week. :)



The 10/10's and other complexes with those absurd torpedoes are not the only ones to be made much harder and slower to complete by this change. While it doesn't directly make the lower complexes harder, it very much does so indirectly, in that all members of the group will be required to fit tank, and therefore the overall DPS is lowered considerably. The various 7/10's for instance consist of five rooms, each filled to the brim with NPCs. Running these sites already takes quite some time, even with a single ship tanking, and another fit exclusively to deal high DPS. I believe you should drastically decrease the number of NPCs in these sites, and as for the 10/10's and other such sites, removing the torpedo altogether would seem appropriate.



The other issue i have with this change is regarding a third party attacking a ratter. I talked about this, as well as the impact on complexes, in my post in the other thread here. This change will yet again make ratting safer, as the rats may well turn on anyone attacking the ratter. When the idea is to make NPCs more intelligent, this seems extremely counterintuitive.

So you're flying around your secret smuggling gate when suddenly someone in a Tengu warps in and starts to systematically exterminate all your friends around you while you're completely powerless to stop him. If a few minutes later someone else warps in and engages the Tengu, actually managing to deal some real damage to him, is your first instinct really to start shooting the second guy, who is in effect helping you?

Not only is this completely nuts, it's also a bad game mechanic. If there are two players in the vicinity of the NPCs, the one actually engaging them should definitely be so much higher on their priority list that they would not even think to attack the other one.
DrakenDD
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#63 - 2012-09-21 19:38:25 UTC  |  Edited by: DrakenDD
Well i did a bit of testing today with Anomalies, with ishtar and sentry drones and everything was fine as far I could see.

Now tried same with Carrier, and well experiencewas not fun.

2 our 3 tries all NPC swapped targets to fighters as soon as I launched.
I tried same with Sentry and same happened, and at one point had to keep recalling my drones upto 5 times after each launching them because all npc switch targets.

Brought in Tengu with carrier on field, and all npc swap over to that on warp in, drop drones and well npc went back.

Left Tengu on field, dock carrier and then warp in a Ishtar, and all NPC swap targets to Isthar.
Drones drones on ishtar, and all 75% of npc swaped to Drones.


Conclusion:
single ishtar with sentry in anomaly seem fine
single Carrier with sentry or fighter, pain pain pain, to point of not playable, unpredictable.
multiple ishtar seem ok, but i didnt get to much time for test.
Don't ask what two carriers was like, felt i was playing pingball.
Alx Warlord
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#64 - 2012-09-21 21:08:01 UTC
Can you reduce a little the drone signature radius? so it can last some more against npcs and players?

Please read these!

New POS system New SOV system
Rengerel en Distel
#65 - 2012-09-21 21:15:20 UTC
I wonder if perhaps you can just have the npcs not target drones until they're atleast BC size. Ewar npcs should ignore drones altogether. If they don't target until BC size, that means most lower complexes and level 1 and most level 2 missions can be done by drone boats. They'd have to have more worry with level 3s, which is generally the same for all classes, as the damage increases all around.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.
steave435
Perkone
Caldari State
#66 - 2012-09-22 01:37:07 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Bubanni wrote:
I like where this is going... it might even get to the point where one might consider killing a few red boxes once in a while
sooooo... was thinking, when you decrease the number of red boxes eventually... could the amount of sec status gained for killing a strong single red box battleship be increased a lot? Pirate


When we eventually get there then yes I hope so.

That shouldn't be needed actually, since you already only get a single security boost/system every 15 minutes, based on the strongest rat you killed in that system during that time...so as long as you're still killing a BS every 15 mins, it won't matter how many BS there were in total.
It would take a bit longer to raise it by going from system to system killing 1 BS in each system, but you'll probably still be spending more time on traveling then on killing anyway, so shouldn't make too much of a difference.
Belthazor4011
Battle BV Redux
#67 - 2012-09-22 01:50:57 UTC
This is just a slap in the face for drone users. Anyone that doesnt rely on their drones for DPS isnt gonna notice this change at all. Seriously this has 0 impact on someone not using drones...
Siiee
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#68 - 2012-09-22 05:19:26 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:

I flew a Dominix into Angel Extravaganza,


Will the guristas version of that mission be changed so that the frigates which now must be killed first will no longer be the triggers for nearly every wave?
Dvd22
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#69 - 2012-09-22 11:47:34 UTC
DrakenDD wrote:
Well i did a bit of testing today with Anomalies, with ishtar and sentry drones and everything was fine as far I could see.

Now tried same with Carrier, and well experiencewas not fun.

2 our 3 tries all NPC swapped targets to fighters as soon as I launched.
I tried same with Sentry and same happened, and at one point had to keep recalling my drones upto 5 times after each launching them because all npc switch targets.

Brought in Tengu with carrier on field, and all npc swap over to that on warp in, drop drones and well npc went back.

Left Tengu on field, dock carrier and then warp in a Ishtar, and all NPC swap targets to Isthar.
Drones drones on ishtar, and all 75% of npc swaped to Drones.


Conclusion:
single ishtar with sentry in anomaly seem fine
single Carrier with sentry or fighter, pain pain pain, to point of not playable, unpredictable.
multiple ishtar seem ok, but i didnt get to much time for test.
Don't ask what two carriers was like, felt i was playing pingball.


So now solo carriers will be totally usseless in pve, for a ship with that isk and sp costs feels very unfair.

To kill a rat a turret boat user only has to target, press f1 and forget about it (if his ship has the proper tank).
In the other hand a droneboat user must put three times more attention for lower dps thanks to the travel time of his drones every time the rats switch target.

Solution:

Agrresive drones catch agro.

Passive drones dont catch agro.

It resolves the issue with afking in drone boats and dont hit active drone users.

Sorry for my englishRoll
Gary Bell
Therapy.
Brave Collective
#70 - 2012-09-22 12:00:14 UTC
CCP FoxFour wrote:
Gary Bell wrote:
Gary Bell wrote:
My BIGGEST question is how is this going to affect the aggro in complexes like the maze? I understand what you are trying to do but this is really going to hurt complex runners. It takes a very specific ship to run the maze and be able to tank so I mean where does this leave us?

When I bring in my tank ship to grab aggro from your stupidly overpowered Citidel torp that can only be tanked by like 4 ships in game total and I going to have to worry about all the webbers switching to my Mach and popping it in one volley?

If that is the plan then I give this a thumbs down..

I think you guys really need to look into the 10 of 10s specifically because this is really going to hurt that type of PVE content..



SO can I expect to see an answer to this? Cuz i think this is going to be one of your biggest issues? If you have to fly three 4 Bil is t3s to complete the maze cuz the citidel torp changes aggro, or if I am going to have logi getting insta popped because all the web and scram frigs swap to my logi and alpha it?

This really needs to be looked at and answered?


Admittedly I have not played The Maze since making these changes. I do however have a list of 10/10's to test and this is on it. I hope to test them sometime next week. :)



Please post here when you try to run this. You don't have any idea how much it will make me laugh to hear a dev running the god awful site known as the maze lol. When you run it build your own ship don't look on the fourms for a fit so we can laugh and you can see how hella stupid that plex is. The guristas fleet staging point 3 is pretty crazy to and you literally have to use a capital to run it.

To my knowledge there is only like 5 subcaps that can tank the Maze solo and alot with a logi to rep it but if the aggro swaps to the logi it is going to go from a 2 or 3 person thing (Alts) to like an 8 man fleet to run it.

But please let us know how your test goes so I can laugh
Charlie Jacobson
#71 - 2012-09-22 15:09:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Charlie Jacobson
Belthazor4011 wrote:
This is just a slap in the face for drone users. Anyone that doesnt rely on their drones for DPS isnt gonna notice this change at all. Seriously this has 0 impact on someone not using drones...


My drones are worried as well. Is there a hotkey for launching drones from drone bay yet, btw? Right clicking them and selecting "launch" from a menu feels really cumbersome.

EDIT: http://i.imgur.com/z9Vf2.png <- no hotkey for launching on live. Can anyone check on the test server?

I support James 315 and the New Order of Highsec
Crazy KSK
Tsunami Cartel
#72 - 2012-09-22 20:28:35 UTC
Charlie Jacobson wrote:
EDIT: http://i.imgur.com/z9Vf2.png <- no hotkey for launching on live. Can anyone check on the test server?


there you go http://i.imgur.com/nhLpe.png

Quote CCP Fozzie: ... The days of balance and forget are over.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#73 - 2012-09-22 22:46:53 UTC
DrakenDD wrote:
Well i did a bit of testing today with Anomalies, with ishtar and sentry drones and everything was fine as far I could see.

Now tried same with Carrier, and well experiencewas not fun.

2 our 3 tries all NPC swapped targets to fighters as soon as I launched.
I tried same with Sentry and same happened, and at one point had to keep recalling my drones upto 5 times after each launching them because all npc switch targets.

Brought in Tengu with carrier on field, and all npc swap over to that on warp in, drop drones and well npc went back.

Left Tengu on field, dock carrier and then warp in a Ishtar, and all NPC swap targets to Isthar.
Drones drones on ishtar, and all 75% of npc swaped to Drones.


Conclusion:
single ishtar with sentry in anomaly seem fine
single Carrier with sentry or fighter, pain pain pain, to point of not playable, unpredictable.
multiple ishtar seem ok, but i didnt get to much time for test.
Don't ask what two carriers was like, felt i was playing pingball.


This is good to know. I have on my plate testing the higher end plexes with a carrier this week. I will look into what exactly makes the NPC hate fighters so much more than drones, and drones in general when you are in a carrier. Shall attempt to get back to you ASAP.

Thank you very much for the feedback. :)

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Gudrun Ellecon
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#74 - 2012-09-23 00:10:43 UTC
Could we get you guys to bump the military index of XZH-4X? It's really hard to find anoms and such, and it'd be a lot easier for us to test if you could fix that.
Bilaz
Duck and Finch
#75 - 2012-09-23 12:31:01 UTC
Please do not make ratting any safer. Unless ship is shooting npc's or remote assisting someone who does, npc should not reagro on him/her.
Becouse if they have 1 miligramm of brain they should embrace any help they can get, not just shoot random stuff like they dont care .

Sometimes i wonder why npc wont set off system-wide emergiency beacons when they are clearly getting raped by capsuleer(s) in low/zero sec. Then i remeber that they exist only to die horribly at our hands - not to imitate some human-like actions. And i think that ways of making npc better lay in making them smarter not by changing agro and stuff (which is also a good thing if properly done), but to change the way they behave on a more grand scale - make them warp out, call for help, get backup, surrender and such.
Cygnus Cypheon
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#76 - 2012-09-23 14:31:38 UTC
Not had a chance to hop on test yet, but i'm really hoping you do something for the drone boats themselves, like add in a new remote-rep module with higher range but drone-target only? maybe even set it so you can only fit one at a time so you still have to pay attention to which drone to rep up, rather than just rep all 5 and still go afk. anything like that in the works?
bassie12bf1
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#77 - 2012-09-23 16:58:28 UTC
I haven't tested yet but is EWAR gonna be actually useful against NPC's now? like right now i remember most EWAR being pretty useless against them.
Drotes
Perkone
Caldari State
#78 - 2012-09-23 19:26:32 UTC
You know this is so sad .... ccp is becoming a joke at the very least ..... my reasons for believing this is because things i have seen them do, the way they are trying bring new stuff to the table but will not use there heads to think things through, and a few other things i see coming that need to be discussed elsewhere.

My experience as i log onto the test server was WTF!!!! .... first i have not used a drone ship for awhile so i don't have one setup. Figuring i could just look on the market really fast and get what i need to get something going just to see only frigates and a few destroyers. I am now at this point wondering why i should even bother but i don't like to give up easily. I grab a ship i have that has a flight of drones and set out to try something out. Warping to the first gate i find that i can not get through the gate took like 6 tries before i was able to get through. At second gate as i landed at 0km concord immediately webbed, scrammed, and locked me out of the gate. Needless to say that ship died, as did the next 2 i tried.


My experience on the test server was really bad as ccp has failed to create a environment for us to properly test the changes. Mark my words this is just going to end up being another inventory fail.
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#79 - 2012-09-23 19:33:10 UTC
Drotes wrote:
You know this is so sad .... ccp is becoming a joke at the very least ..... my reasons for believing this is because things i have seen them do, the way they are trying bring new stuff to the table but will not use there heads to think things through, and a few other things i see coming that need to be discussed elsewhere.

My experience as i log onto the test server was WTF!!!! .... first i have not used a drone ship for awhile so i don't have one setup. Figuring i could just look on the market really fast and get what i need to get something going just to see only frigates and a few destroyers. I am now at this point wondering why i should even bother but i don't like to give up easily. I grab a ship i have that has a flight of drones and set out to try something out. Warping to the first gate i find that i can not get through the gate took like 6 tries before i was able to get through. At second gate as i landed at 0km concord immediately webbed, scrammed, and locked me out of the gate. Needless to say that ship died, as did the next 2 i tried.


My experience on the test server was really bad as ccp has failed to create a environment for us to properly test the changes. Mark my words this is just going to end up being another inventory fail.


The Duality test server has been put specifically in it's current state so that we can encourage players to test the new frigate and destroyer changes that are coming.

We are still working out a specific time frame but Duality will be coming back with a fully seeded market so that players can test these changes. It is still only September, we have plenty of time to test these changes.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
MotherMoon
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#80 - 2012-09-23 19:46:25 UTC
Drotes wrote:
You know this is so sad .... ccp is becoming a joke at the very least ..... my reasons for believing this is because things i have seen them do, the way they are trying bring new stuff to the table but will not use there heads to think things through, and a few other things i see coming that need to be discussed elsewhere.

My experience as i log onto the test server was WTF!!!! .... first i have not used a drone ship for awhile so i don't have one setup. Figuring i could just look on the market really fast and get what i need to get something going just to see only frigates and a few destroyers. I am now at this point wondering why i should even bother but i don't like to give up easily. I grab a ship i have that has a flight of drones and set out to try something out. Warping to the first gate i find that i can not get through the gate took like 6 tries before i was able to get through. At second gate as i landed at 0km concord immediately webbed, scrammed, and locked me out of the gate. Needless to say that ship died, as did the next 2 i tried.


My experience on the test server was really bad as ccp has failed to create a environment for us to properly test the changes. Mark my words this is just going to end up being another inventory fail.


fqace palm

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1206/scimi.jpg