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PVE, Drones, The new AI and You

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Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#81 - 2012-12-05 12:45:56 UTC
Manes Avatarr wrote:
People, don't cry. At least NPCs don't shot down cruise missiles and torps launched at them. And don't try to catch bullets from autocannons.

Yet.

Well, some of them use .... DEFENDER missiles !!

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Manes Avatarr
Superfast
#82 - 2012-12-05 13:00:02 UTC
Alavaria Fera wrote:
Well, some of them use .... DEFENDER missiles !!

:-) Good point. Luckily it doesn't stop Caldaris in any way.
Imagine alite frigs speed tanking missiles locked at them! And NPC BS warping out for reps. That would be AI boost...

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Cozmik R5
Chez Stan
#83 - 2012-12-05 13:56:06 UTC
The main vibe I get from people whining about their drones dying to Sleeper AI is "OMFG I can't AFK L4 missions anymore !!!11!".

Well guess what whiners, this is as it should be. You have to actually PLAY the game instead of just having it running and grinding ISK while you watch a movie.

Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.
ashley Eoner
#84 - 2012-12-05 14:18:07 UTC
Alayna Le'line wrote:
In the very few L4 missions I've done so far in my Dominix drone aggro has barely been an issue. Then again I run missions ATK...

The only thing I've heard so far that could be problematic (but haven't experienced yet) is people getting full room aggro all the time, which could be slightly annoying (understatement) in missions with lots of NPCs. But this has been happening occasionally (for certain values of occasionally) on some missions since as long as I've been playing and so far I've managed to deal with it every time, I'm sure I'll be okay now as well.

Sure the new AI is slightly more annoying but I think I had to pull in my drones like 2 or 3 times extra during an Angel Extravaganza (my Garde IIs seem to tank Angel Battleships rather fine too, which is awesome). That said, if you don't use sentries you'd better be prepared to lose drones to frigs sooner rather than later as NPCs seem to focus fire a single drone (should be fun when there's loads of frigs...not).

Also I think this change is mostly going to really hit low level missions and low skill characters hard. Level 2s in a Vexor, sound like they should be "fun" with the new aggro mechanics with all the frigs around...

Slightly unrelated: my Dominix gained a bit under 50 drone dps, yay \o/

On a totally related note to all the those that think this change makes L4s harder: they don't. And it doesn't make them any less predictable (or boring) either. NPCs WILL aggro your drones, no exceptions, some faster than others but that's how it is and once you pull them back they won't aggro again, so after the initial aggro it's back to business as usual until the next group spawns or aggros... So you need to do slightly more effort in a predictable way...yawn?
According to CCP you're actually abusing a bug that results in the drones not gaining aggro like they are supposed to. That's probably why you're not having the problem others are having since we're not doing the exploit.
Alayna Le'line
#85 - 2012-12-05 14:20:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Alayna Le'line
ashley Eoner wrote:
Alayna Le'line wrote:
In the very few L4 missions I've done so far in my Dominix drone aggro has barely been an issue. Then again I run missions ATK...

The only thing I've heard so far that could be problematic (but haven't experienced yet) is people getting full room aggro all the time, which could be slightly annoying (understatement) in missions with lots of NPCs. But this has been happening occasionally (for certain values of occasionally) on some missions since as long as I've been playing and so far I've managed to deal with it every time, I'm sure I'll be okay now as well.

Sure the new AI is slightly more annoying but I think I had to pull in my drones like 2 or 3 times extra during an Angel Extravaganza (my Garde IIs seem to tank Angel Battleships rather fine too, which is awesome). That said, if you don't use sentries you'd better be prepared to lose drones to frigs sooner rather than later as NPCs seem to focus fire a single drone (should be fun when there's loads of frigs...not).

Also I think this change is mostly going to really hit low level missions and low skill characters hard. Level 2s in a Vexor, sound like they should be "fun" with the new aggro mechanics with all the frigs around...

Slightly unrelated: my Dominix gained a bit under 50 drone dps, yay \o/

On a totally related note to all the those that think this change makes L4s harder: they don't. And it doesn't make them any less predictable (or boring) either. NPCs WILL aggro your drones, no exceptions, some faster than others but that's how it is and once you pull them back they won't aggro again, so after the initial aggro it's back to business as usual until the next group spawns or aggros... So you need to do slightly more effort in a predictable way...yawn?
According to CCP you're actually abusing a bug that results in the drones not gaining aggro like they are supposed to. That's probably why you're not having the problem others are having since we're not doing the exploit.


What you're not doing is reading feedback threads (though tbh it was buried in a load of crap in a stupidly long thread most of which got ignored anyway...). This "exploit" was left in by CCP on purpose, not using it is just making your own life harder for no reason at all.

Dev post.
Kagumichan
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#86 - 2012-12-05 14:42:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Kagumichan
Well... my complaint wasn't really with the drones being instantly shot at the moment I dropped them, it was more that the rats have been given this new AI but their ewar hasn't been rescaled to match it. Before, you could go into a mission with say... Gurista, and sure every now and again you'd get target jammed, but not constantly like the new AI does.
On top of that if there's a mission where you're meant to aggro one group at a time because they're huge groups with lots of ewar and damage... with the new AI, you immediately aggro everything in the room the moment even one enemy decides to target you. The only counter to that at the moment is to drop your drones and hope they live long enough for you to pop the ewar ships, and then, if you're using railguns, artillery, pulse lasers or beam lasers, you are left with no way to remove the scrambling frigates off you. If you're using blasters, missiles or auto-cannons then you may be able to if you have a webber fitted, but then if you can't and they have a web on you, you can't even chase down the ships that are jamming or dampening you if they're sitting out of your range.

So think about it like that, fly into a Gurista mission with any battleship, you get instantly target jammed, the frigates come and warp scramble you, and everytime you drop drones they get insta-popped, leaving you floating there completely unable to do anything. Even if you can perma-tank all their damage, you're stuck, and there's no way you can get unstuck from that situation unless you can get a buddy to come along and take the heat off you... that would also then mean your buddy will get stuck when they switch targets.

It doesn't make sense, some level 4 missions are still soloable, but some of them simply aren't possible with a single ship, and the only way to find that out is to fly to the mission and see if you get ganked to hell and lose a 200+ million isk battleship. Why turn something in the game that has primarily been soloable for so long into a case where some of them are and some of them aren't, and you don't know that until you get there.

As I said, the new AI is nice, it makes other level 4 missions much more fun and exciting, sure if you can complete the mission you have to spend all of the agents reward money buying new drones and the only money you can make is from bounty and salvage which would probably be netting you about 10 million+ an hour depending on the mission and loot, but they do need to drop some of the ewar.

On another note, I'd love to see exactly how many drones and battleships were lost yesterday.
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#87 - 2012-12-05 15:02:13 UTC
I did 4 missions with my Navy Domi last night. Lost a grand total of 2 light drones. I even got though Blockade L4 vs Serpentis with no losses. I use the "pull them in when they catch aggro" method. It works, the NPCs only evaluate targets and switch once every few minutes.

When damped an unable to target anything what I would do is watch the damage notifications to see what the drones were shooting. If they were shooting the trigger Id pull them in and re-deploy. The next damp to hit me would then be aggressed by the drones, and killed. In this way I cleared all the dampening ships.

In the last mission, Stop the thief L4, I had begun to get complacent, lost my focus, and 2 light drones got killed before I recalled them.

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Alua Oresson
Aegis Ascending
Solyaris Chtonium
#88 - 2012-12-05 15:04:09 UTC
For the PVEing that I do, I find that the change to drones actually makes things easier for me. If you do the right kind of content you don't have to deal with frigates. And seeing as frigates seem to be the only thing to agress sentry drones, I don't even have to recover my drones between waves anymore. Win Win for me.

http://pvpwannabe.blogspot.com/
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#89 - 2012-12-05 15:05:32 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
I did 4 missions with my Navy Domi last night. Lost a grand total of 2 light drones. I even got though Blockade L4 vs Serpentis with no losses. I use the "pull them in when they catch aggro" method. It works, the NPCs only evaluate targets and switch once every few minutes.


Again, that is something ccp is going to fix.
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#90 - 2012-12-05 15:08:36 UTC
Alua Oresson wrote:
For the PVEing that I do, I find that the change to drones actually makes things easier for me. If you do the right kind of content you don't have to deal with frigates. And seeing as frigates seem to be the only thing to agress sentry drones, I don't even have to recover my drones between waves anymore. Win Win for me.


i do Forsaken Hubs too, this change means MUCH more dps for me, I used to use mach/tengu now it's mach rattlesnake.

Then i went and tried a Haven, it was a nightmare at warp in range. I refit the mach for artillery and warp my ships in at range and it was just blap blap blappity blap. The change isn't a game ender, just poorly thought out imo.
Alua Oresson
Aegis Ascending
Solyaris Chtonium
#91 - 2012-12-05 15:26:50 UTC
Jenn aSide wrote:
Alua Oresson wrote:
For the PVEing that I do, I find that the change to drones actually makes things easier for me. If you do the right kind of content you don't have to deal with frigates. And seeing as frigates seem to be the only thing to agress sentry drones, I don't even have to recover my drones between waves anymore. Win Win for me.


i do Forsaken Hubs too, this change means MUCH more dps for me, I used to use mach/tengu now it's mach rattlesnake.

Then i went and tried a Haven, it was a nightmare at warp in range. I refit the mach for artillery and warp my ships in at range and it was just blap blap blappity blap. The change isn't a game ender, just poorly thought out imo.


Vindicator with Sentry drones is just insanity DPS wise.

http://pvpwannabe.blogspot.com/
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#92 - 2012-12-05 15:28:52 UTC
Jenn aSide wrote:
Alua Oresson wrote:
For the PVEing that I do, I find that the change to drones actually makes things easier for me. If you do the right kind of content you don't have to deal with frigates. And seeing as frigates seem to be the only thing to agress sentry drones, I don't even have to recover my drones between waves anymore. Win Win for me.


i do Forsaken Hubs too, this change means MUCH more dps for me, I used to use mach/tengu now it's mach rattlesnake.

Then i went and tried a Haven, it was a nightmare at warp in range. I refit the mach for artillery and warp my ships in at range and it was just blap blap blappity blap. The change isn't a game ender, just poorly thought out imo.


You mean to say that this AI change is a direct blow to L4s (in hi-sec) and makes ratting in null easier? Gasp! We totally did not see this one coming, what with CSM being wall-to-wall nullbears and all. Big smile
Erazar
D-Tox
#93 - 2012-12-05 15:53:57 UTC
hmm

ok heres my findings about the drones..

seems to me theres no change with aggro?

i ran about 7-8 L4 missions yesterday in my CNR, did what i usually do, get aggro, release drones on frigs & they didnt get aggro once, which i was suprised at as i was expecting to?

dont know how alot of people are getting aggro, releasing drones too early maybe before you get aggro? all i know is i ran the missions exactly same method as i did pre-patch & there seems like no change ?
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#94 - 2012-12-05 15:56:34 UTC
Erazar wrote:
hmm

ok heres my findings about the drones..

seems to me theres no change with aggro?

i ran about 7-8 L4 missions yesterday in my CNR, did what i usually do, get aggro, release drones on frigs & they didnt get aggro once, which i was suprised at as i was expecting to?

dont know how alot of people are getting aggro, releasing drones too early maybe before you get aggro? all i know is i ran the missions exactly same method as i did pre-patch & there seems like no change ?


I will take a wild guess and say you used Target Painters? If yes, that's why. AI hates EWAR much more than drones.

Trouble is, drone boats have -1 slot compared to equivalent boats, and squeezing in an EWAR is hard. Not to mention it competes with Omnis AND Navigation computers (which should really be merged into a single module).

Bottom line - congrats on doing it the right way.
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#95 - 2012-12-05 16:34:31 UTC
Well if the idea is for forcing alt accounts, then that too is going to be bad. The reason is this: people who don't foster a sense a Stockholm Syndrome and convince themselves that they like everything bad are going to see this "you need more accounts" thing as a scam and move on. It's the same thing with PVP: you need an indy alt, scout alt, mission alt.... you get the picture. "Outsiders" - meaning potential subscribers - don't think like subscribers. They have an open mind and have not already invested time for SP. If you need a second account for anything, you also need to pay 100 percent more. Sure there is a PLEX system but that does not hide the sense of having a slot in front of you with a sign saying "you want to do more than just be a noob, keep sticking money in the slot".

This does not affect me much but I am thinking of the mindset of people coming from other places. Even those who are more akin to the concept of F2P/P2W will find this odd and a little scammish.


Perhaps there is a vision of people working together over L4s? I imagine so, and that would be good - but the average age of the player base should be indication enough that people simply lack the time (it's not greed, carebearism, and other such things that the moral superiority crowd claims) for forming fleets. Yes a pack of 15 year olds can pull it off because they got all afternoon to do one thing but if I had a dollar for every time I gotta wait for an hour because "looks like the wife could not get out of work early enough to pick up the kids - I'll be right back!". An hour is all that a lot of players have these days.


Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#96 - 2012-12-05 20:29:34 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Jenn aSide wrote:
Alua Oresson wrote:
For the PVEing that I do, I find that the change to drones actually makes things easier for me. If you do the right kind of content you don't have to deal with frigates. And seeing as frigates seem to be the only thing to agress sentry drones, I don't even have to recover my drones between waves anymore. Win Win for me.


i do Forsaken Hubs too, this change means MUCH more dps for me, I used to use mach/tengu now it's mach rattlesnake.

Then i went and tried a Haven, it was a nightmare at warp in range. I refit the mach for artillery and warp my ships in at range and it was just blap blap blappity blap. The change isn't a game ender, just poorly thought out imo.


You mean to say that this AI change is a direct blow to L4s (in hi-sec) and makes ratting in null easier? Gasp! We totally did not see this one coming, what with CSM being wall-to-wall nullbears and all. Big smile

Dinsdale Pirannha, is that you (jk)?

Looking forward to finally having time to try the RS for the first time after the change tonight. Does RR work well for grabbing aggro back? Or TP's? Also should I just take the heavy's out? And notable increase in mission completion times due to frequent recalls?
ashley Eoner
#97 - 2012-12-05 22:22:07 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Erazar wrote:
hmm

ok heres my findings about the drones..

seems to me theres no change with aggro?

i ran about 7-8 L4 missions yesterday in my CNR, did what i usually do, get aggro, release drones on frigs & they didnt get aggro once, which i was suprised at as i was expecting to?

dont know how alot of people are getting aggro, releasing drones too early maybe before you get aggro? all i know is i ran the missions exactly same method as i did pre-patch & there seems like no change ?


I will take a wild guess and say you used Target Painters? If yes, that's why. AI hates EWAR much more than drones.

Trouble is, drone boats have -1 slot compared to equivalent boats, and squeezing in an EWAR is hard. Not to mention it competes with Omnis AND Navigation computers (which should really be merged into a single module).

Bottom line - congrats on doing it the right way.
On my rattlesnake I use TP and RR yet no matter how many catches and releases I still end up with a dead drone or two if I try to actually rep them.
Kagumichan
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#98 - 2012-12-05 22:23:08 UTC
Actually just thought of a way to make these things soloable even with the ewar. Get a ship with long range guns (Beams, Rails, Artillery etc.) and fit a microjumpdrive. When you enter a pocket, if you get scrammed, let out a drone or two to get the scram off you long enough to MJD 100+k away, then snipe everything.
Sleeper AI will approach straight at you before switching to orbit, so their transversal is practically none-existant, making it easy for artis, beams and rails to hit direct and pop even the smallest of frigates with minimal tracking enhancement, and also avoids ewar, damage and various other nasty things. If they get close again, MJD further out. It'll make salvaging a bugger afterwards but hey, you'll be perfectly safe popping mission rats.

Sneaky way of showing off your new module CCP! Very sneaky indeed! Blink
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#99 - 2012-12-05 22:26:15 UTC
Kagumichan wrote:
Actually just thought of a way to make these things soloable even with the ewar. Get a ship with long range guns (Beams, Rails, Artillery etc.) and fit a microjumpdrive. When you enter a pocket, if you get scrammed, let out a drone or two to get the scram off you long enough to MJD 100+k away, then snipe everything.
Sleeper AI will approach straight at you before switching to orbit, so their transversal is practically none-existant, making it easy for artis, beams and rails to hit direct and pop even the smallest of frigates with minimal tracking enhancement, and also avoids ewar, damage and various other nasty things. If they get close again, MJD further out. It'll make salvaging a bugger afterwards but hey, you'll be perfectly safe popping mission rats.

Sneaky way of showing off your new module CCP! Very sneaky indeed! Blink

I was thinking about that. With link augmentors and long range sentries....

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
ashley Eoner
#100 - 2012-12-05 22:27:36 UTC  |  Edited by: ashley Eoner
Alayna Le'line wrote:
ashley Eoner wrote:
Alayna Le'line wrote:
In the very few L4 missions I've done so far in my Dominix drone aggro has barely been an issue. Then again I run missions ATK...

The only thing I've heard so far that could be problematic (but haven't experienced yet) is people getting full room aggro all the time, which could be slightly annoying (understatement) in missions with lots of NPCs. But this has been happening occasionally (for certain values of occasionally) on some missions since as long as I've been playing and so far I've managed to deal with it every time, I'm sure I'll be okay now as well.

Sure the new AI is slightly more annoying but I think I had to pull in my drones like 2 or 3 times extra during an Angel Extravaganza (my Garde IIs seem to tank Angel Battleships rather fine too, which is awesome). That said, if you don't use sentries you'd better be prepared to lose drones to frigs sooner rather than later as NPCs seem to focus fire a single drone (should be fun when there's loads of frigs...not).

Also I think this change is mostly going to really hit low level missions and low skill characters hard. Level 2s in a Vexor, sound like they should be "fun" with the new aggro mechanics with all the frigs around...

Slightly unrelated: my Dominix gained a bit under 50 drone dps, yay \o/

On a totally related note to all the those that think this change makes L4s harder: they don't. And it doesn't make them any less predictable (or boring) either. NPCs WILL aggro your drones, no exceptions, some faster than others but that's how it is and once you pull them back they won't aggro again, so after the initial aggro it's back to business as usual until the next group spawns or aggros... So you need to do slightly more effort in a predictable way...yawn?
According to CCP you're actually abusing a bug that results in the drones not gaining aggro like they are supposed to. That's probably why you're not having the problem others are having since we're not doing the exploit.


What you're not doing is reading feedback threads (though tbh it was buried in a load of crap in a stupidly long thread most of which got ignored anyway...). This "exploit" was left in by CCP on purpose, not using it is just making your own life harder for no reason at all.

Dev post.

At your link...
Quote:
While we consider the fact that the AI will only shoot your first flight of drones (this is based on specific criteria such as sig radius) and not a second wave to be a defect, we are not publishing the fix with Retribution.

Defect aka BUG which when utilized is an EXPLOIT. Thank you come again.

The fix for this bug could be published in any future patch.