Missions & Complexes

...Last time I had a part time job, with 12 hours at work, I earned enough for one PLEX I suppose.
That's like 600 mill?

Including the travel time, I can get more isk ingame for the same time spent.

I know, I should have gotten a real job while at the university still.
It is in the works.

Let's see those numbers in a few more months.
Well, let me rephrase that.

Login numbers are useless now, because there is an unknown amount of open beta Dust testers counted in the login number.
And that number is only going to climb.

The only thing that matters will be the Eve Online (not Dust) sub numbers.
And the full impact of the AI Armageddon won't be known for months, until people's 6 month/12 month subs slowly unwind.

R.I.P all drones that die due to this new AI.

Awww is some one cranky? Do you need a nap? Here let me explain it to you, many countries in Europe have equivalent if not highly superior minimum wage compared to America, yes some do have lower but I was going by what is called an average, do you know what that is? If I don't supposedly know what a kilogram is then you may not have heard of an AVERAGE. Forgive me please I did not want to go in to math on the subject for evrey country in the world separately.

Congratulations on implying all Americans are stupid and coming off like an angry little teenager, and Europeans say that we Americans are uncivil.

So what country are you from that I neglected to talk about?

I agree.

I know I'm a little slow on the uptake here, but I've been doing Incursions for a while, and I've only just done a mission today since the patch.

So, after the AI update the playstyle that I have skilled for is no longer viable. Only about a month ago I reached my goal of a Rattlesnake with maxed drone skills for doing missions, and now that the patch is out using heavy drones at range is now unfeasible.

The new AI doesn't provide any kind of new challenge, it just forces me to recall drones every couple of minutes, losing time during their transit and usually losing one or two drones, as even with max drone skills heavies don't move fast enough to get back before being killed. For drones that cost around 1,000,000isk each, losing 5 or 6 can halve your profits.

I've never had an issue with nerfs and balance in the past, but this time the ship and drones I have skilled for have been rendered almost useless for the purpose I trained them for. I have 6 million skillpoints in Drones that are now wasted. I 5'd all my drone support skills just for heavies because I enjoy using them, and now that's just wasted time, of course I wouldn't have trained a Rattlesnake if I didn't like drones, so that's another month or so of training time down the drain.

I've also lost quite a bit of Standing, since to complete the missions I accepted I would need to buy a new ship.

I do Incursions for money, I don't AFK in IVs, and wouldn't dare to in a Pirate Battleship, I do them for fun, or when I can't find an Incursion fleet. I can still PLEX and I'm not really losing money, since I can just do Incursions, but it's a real pain to have a few million skill points wasted.

If there were some counter-balance, it would be ok, maybe if the drones were made harder to hit, but no, in a split second ten Battleships can switch to them and they're down to hull in seconds. It's also now very unwise to bring along lower skilled Corpmates to get them standing and some money, meaning the IRL friend I've been training is now limited to Is and IIs until he can grind standing.

I think it's a very ill-advised patch that has sucked a lot of the fun out of the game for me and my friends, in what I feel is a very unfair way. One of the things I like about EVE is that it's Darwinian, I'm not a total carebear, I do PvP roams regularly and I spent some time in a nullsec Alliance (although 0.0 was a little hectic for my taste), however unless CCP lets me redistribute all my wasted skillpoints, all this has done is waste a lot of my time. If this had been done a year ago it would have cut off my cash flow entirely.

Sure I can just not use heavies and not do missions anymore, and sell my Rattlesnake, but I enjoyed playing with them and I can't get that wasted training time back.

CCP only needs to do one thing:

1. Drones of all sizes are not agressed by mission / belt / complex AI.

That's it, problem solved.

So if you are jammed, tracking disrupted or sensor disrupted you use drones as counter.

NPC's can still switch aggro between players.
So if there are two players that are doing a mission for example npc's will still switch aggro to players, just leave drones alone.

In fact, it would make afk soloing even easier, since not even new waves should go after drones.

"Which you know probably won't happen."

Then remove drones completely if they're such pain in the ass.
If drones were designed that way so you can do stuff while afk let it be.

The problem right now is that drones appear to be something CCP wants to make a consumable, like missiles for missioning purposes.

But they are a built in weapon system with limited capacity that makes them PART of their mothership. 2 things need to change if this is to be the new order of things:

1. Drone cost, this will have to be brought down to closer to where missiles are, not necessarily as low since they are not "theoretically" dead the first time they are launched, but under this new system their odds of survival are historically low now.

2. We need to be able to carry compliments of them similar to missiles, so their stored size will need to be significantly reduced, as well as have the ability to load more drones from our storage to our drone bays in space. A rattlesnake or domi without surviving drones is one in dire straits.

If these two problems were addressed almost no one here would have a problem with losing drones at an alarming rate, as long as the cost of losing them was in line with the cost of what a Tengu uses in missiles for the same mission.

If this is not the intention of CCP then I believe that the next best solution is to do what the majority is demanding, set back drones to not be agro switched to ONCE they have established agro on at least 1 player ship. Meaning they can agro drones when a wave spawns etc. so you have to pay some attention, but not when they "should be" being utilized as a combat mechanic.

Right now my Domi and Rattlesnake are on standby because the cost of using them is greater than the use of other vessels. Likewise I am also using a Tengu for exploration again instead of my (Icursus? The T2 frigate that looks like a Jousting frog with the big drone bonus.) My frigate is more fun to fly but cost of resupply on drones especially on what is sometimes a income neutral/opportunity cost negative venture already.

I just thought it would be prudent for me to weigh in on this as well as everyone else who has contributed to this 20 page long THREADNAUGHT. I encourage those of you reading who have not posted to also make a quick way in with a post to say that this is something that is also important to you.


ALSO.... this needs to be dealt with post haste in some fashion as well because it appears that more and more races are getting drone heavy systems (see amarr ships and new plans for the Prophecy.)