EVE General Discussion

WOW really - No more fire, forget, drink a beer, bang the wife and come back to a screen full of wreaks - Awwwwww

For people looking for a somewhat better discussion on how you can still run your missions (incl. using drones), might I suggest taking a look at the comment section in this blog: No Retribution For Old Drones

More so than the particular tips (centering on generating threat by using ewar and remote repping your own drones to make the AI switch back to yourself), the actual constructive tone of the discussion is what I'd like to emphasize most.

Whats my point? Sigh, as said, i was mostly pointing out the tone of the discussion and the approach to the changes rather than particular points.

I do not think that after a few days we really have a complete picture yet. But instead of testing the new mission AI and at least trying to adapt (and yes, i will use the word), people have immediately switched to arguing.

Mind you, if it turns out - in a week or two - that the concerns are justified, I am perfectly fine with asking for/discussing changes to the new AI. I do dislike jumping to conclusions though.

Also, I think that the new AI DOES improve gameplay. The rats are now more unpredictable, which makes the missions more entertaining, because things do not always go down exactly the same way (i'd prefer more randomisation of the waves and triggers as well).

Also, did you read the comment section? Your reply indicates you think I was only pointing to the blog itself - I was not. I wanted to draw attention to the comment section instead and how people there approached the issue.

Well, I'm with you on the tone thing. But you gotta admit, it's been well over a week since the patch, and we've gotten zero communication from CCP, despite there being tons of questions. The most pressing one being "are you planning to fix drones?" What we get is deafening silence.

Further, this change was known months ago. And same concerns were expressed, among other places in specific Test Server Feedback threads. They too were mostly ignored, except for one developer who did some testing and said it's good enough. But once again did not comment on the state of drones which has been pathetic for years.



You really don't need to test the new AI to know drones have issues.

Drone UI is sad. Can we agree it's sad? It's pretty sad, isn't it? I mean, think about it. You can fire all of your turrets and launchers by pressing F1. But to make drones attack, it takes 2-3 clicks to select the group you want and launch it, another click to see their HP, another click/hotkey to make them attack. All of this takes time. And then you add the travel time of drones themselves, and the time that elapses between you deciding to attack someone with drones, and damage happening, is almost an order of magnitude larger than with turrets. How can that be viewed as OK?

I don't think at this point with the new AI it's even possible to argue that drones are fine. So why test the AI, which specifically targets drones now, which weren't fine to begin with? It can't possibly be better now than it was. And it was sad to begin with.



Some folks did a months' worth of testing on SiSi. And the conclusion was - things need changing. It is a fundamentally unfair situation for drone users.

Further, remember that the "current" AI is yet incomplete. I can find you a CCP post saying they released it broken, knowingly. There's currently an exploit that allows to protect drones relatively well. They are however planning on closing that loophole soon. So what's the point in testing the AI we know is broken and awaiting a fix?



Eeeeh, in a way it is more unpredictable, yes. In other ways, it's about the same. You see, for multiple players inside the same complex, things are definitely getting spiced up now. But for a single pilot, flying a Tengu for example (and not using drones), the net change from the AI patch is zero. As in, no change. BUT, for a drone user, the change is significant. Sooo, how is this balanced? When ship A is totally unaffected, while ship B is heavily affected and requires tons of additional micromanagement?



Erm, if you ignore the trolls and fools and people who never touched a drone boat even with a 20-foot-long rusty halberd, the comments in the blog and here are largely the same.

Also, the comments don't really have a lively discussion. For example, consider the last comment about RR to keep drones alive? Now find a post of mine, probably right on this page, in this thread explaining how RR and drones is NOT a solution, because A) drones have travel time and can die en route to RR, B) loss of DPS from travel time and RR, and a number of other issues that do not make RR a viable solution in the long run. This kind of reply is absent in those comments, and thus the overall impression is a more positive and constructive one - but only because obvious pitfalls and counter-arguments are never presented, otherwise the illusion of universal agreement would be broken.

A very fundamental part of the game has been broken. And yes, it is a game breaking issue for most drone users.

Not only that, but an "entire race" has been nerfed out of proportion.

It is very similar to mobs breaking your projectile weapons or missile launchers each and every mission :(

Really, nothing much to discuss. It needs to be fixed ASAP.

Really depends on how often you lose a drone. Remember that hybrid and projectile weapons do use ammo.

I do have an ability to condence someones argument into a few words so we dont have massive walls of quotes.

No doubt it is inefficient. But it works tremendously well.

The walls are nicer.

You people know that reppers exist rite? and they actually work, RITE?