EVE General Discussion

Surely, another weapon is better in PvP than heavy drones, as well, so everyone should just use that instead of heavy drones. You see, the logic applies pretty much across the spectrum. If you advance the argument of "just use x because it is better than y," then you are saying that cookie-cutter, flavor-of-the-month play is the only way to go. Ergo, the only thing available should really just be the cookie-cutter, flavor-of-the-month equipment, so everyone will use the most efficient system, and no one will ever be upset when their preferred mode of [perhaps inefficient] fun is nerfed into uselessness in a particular corner of the sandbox.

I repeat: because sentries are not a one-size-fits-all solution. They are of very limited use in PvP, for instance, where you need to be on the move and where the enemy may fly intelligently to counteract them. For missions, with veeeery few exceptions, you don't, so sentries are the better option.

That uses up the 125Mbit bandwidh on your close-range brawler battleship? Nope. Sure, four more Neutron Cannon IIs would be swell, but unfortunately, they don't fit in the drone bay.

I suppose because I am so heavily specced into Gallente. My skill plan for the next 4 months involves training up projectile weapons and Minmatar ships for PVP at which point I may well abandon drone boats entirely for PVP purposes.

On the flipside though, something like the Dominix armed with a full rack of Neutron Blaster IIs and 5 Ogre IIs can push out 1400dps and still field a half decent tank. A non drone boat would be hugely more expensive to achieve the same stats.

Well, I did a lot of testing on Duality back on Saturday. The conclusion was, the change does help with drone massacre. I ran multiple missions without losing a drone, and without too much management. In fact, several missions could still be run AFK if you "downsize" the drones. That is, use one size smaller than remaining ships. And with 3x new DDA IIs, even lights will take out battleships rather quickly on a bonused drone boat with excellent drone skills. So, with this change, AFK drone missioning is very much alive. Just somewhat slower than before - you use smaller drones, but DDAs are better now, so it almost evens out in the end.

As such, I feel the AI update was a complete and utter failure. As it failed to address its goals - to make PvE more interesting and eliminate AFK missioning. It failed on both fronts.

And, obviously, drone boats weren't optimal for most things pre-Retribution. They're even farther from being optimal now. So there's little reason to use them over other ship types. This will remain so until CCP finally does a full drone review - including drones themselves, their AI and the UI.

"
NPCs will now only target drones in their size category.

◦ Elite frigates and cruisers NPCs will go for small drones and above.
◦ Frigates and Cruisers NPCs will go for medium drones and above.
◦ Battleship NPCs will go for large drones.
"
I haven't had a chance to look at this yet but if it means that only battleships are going to target large drones then large drones should survive longer since BS NPCs will have a tough job hitting them.

I am unsure if this means that sentries will become a bigger target or not.

This is a bit frustrating given that the changes appear to be happening quicker than I can adapt to them.

They never made afk non-viable. They even said in their tests, that afk drone boats were buffed. Not sure why that is so hard for people to realize, because it's been said in every thread about every AI change.

What "vast majority" are you referring to? If the drone issues was trully as bad as people like you make out there would be a threadnaught, there isn't. Some people are annoyed, some people were annoyed but have adapted and the majority of people don't care or enjoy the challenge. If you trully think losing 2 drones in 100 missions is good game design there is probably no hope for you.

This change will remove most of the problems in any case. The main problem large drones were facing was being webbed and so not getting back when recalled while taking full damage (webbed + mwd on = dead drone). With only bs hating them they won't get webbed as much, nor will bs rats be doing full damage like the cruiser size rats. The only real hurt that will come to heavy drones is one bs group sniping them from long range while they are attacking a second group, and that just requires tactical thinking. Sentries will take damage but they can handle it and are insta-scoop, so no real problem there.

Heavy Drones have always sucked, they are slow slow slow. I've always used lights and mediums, lights for frigs, mediums for everything else. I don't run missions so I can't really say I feel anyones pain in that regards, however I do run anoms and mining ops. I have noticed no significant drone loss in anoms in my domi. I fit guns on it, warp in, get aggro for about 2 minutes, kite away while shooting, and then launch drones to chew through everything. I have only lost a couple of drones since patch, but once I got used to the AI I haven't lost any. On mining ops when rats enter the belt my hulk launches drones, rats die, recall drones, they don't even get aggro.

So the only thing I can envision is that this must be a big problem for mission runners, or perhaps a play style conflict. As always with EVE, it's adapt or die.

Let me take the question and flip it a little bit.

Do you think drone boats are fine? Are you fine with the fact that drones are the only destructible weapon system? Fine with them lacking an overheat mechanic? Fine with them lacking damage rigs (there's sentry rigs, but nothing for other drones)? Fine with there not being drone implants? Fine with T2 sentry drones being bugged (they neither require nor benefit from racial specialization skills, unlike literally every other T2 weapon in the game)? Etc., etc., etc. This is a very long list of very broken things about drones.

Based on all these, do you think drones, and by relation drone boats are fine? If you do, there's not much left to talk about, is there?

And if you don't think they're fine, what's the point in arguing on whether or not a "vast majority" is having problems with drones or not, when you yourself know drones to be broken and in bad need of a full review?



Yeah, that's fine and good. Now look at a new EVE player, who flies the new Tristan, new Algos, new Vexor, etc., etc. Guess what? In L1-L3 missions, most of the ships they will face will be frigates and cruisers, some of them elite. Which will attack the only two drone sizes (small and medium) that such a pilot would be using. Do you feel this complexity is in line with turret or missile-based boats, where the same newbie player would have to smash his face down on F1 button, and sit back and watch the fireworks? Do you feel this is balanced, in terms of sheer player effort and micromanagement required? Heck, do you think it's fair and balanced that Pilot A has to press 1 button, while Pilot B has to press half a dozen to achieve the same result? And Pilot A can sit back and relax, while Pilot B has to constantly watch additional 5 sets of health bars and micromanage? And lest we forget, unlike you and I, a newbie player will not have sentry drones yet. Probably no heavies either. So, for him, the only way to deal with all those frigs and cruisers (many of which will be elite) will be to use light and medium drones that those ships are *designed* to attack?

Are there solutions? Why yes, a player could fit an EWAR module. Though in my testing the TP did not prove totally effective (only partially reduced drone aggro). But lest we forget, drone boats have one less slot compared to non-drone boats of the same class. Remember that? And yet, these same drone boats MUST now fit EWAR to at least somewhat increase drone survival odds? That -1 slot was done to compensate for flexibility and damage projection of drone boats. Except, with the new AI, there's neither flexibility nor damage projection now. Why? Simple! Flexibility is gone, because you can't carry multiple drone types - you need to carry replacements of the same type now to compensate for drone loss. And damage projection is gone too - trying to send drones 60+ km away will very likely see none of them come back. So, no projection, no flexibility, -1 slot AND an additional slot (at least) being taken by EWAR module to help pull aggro off drones? Fair? Balanced? For a new player especially?

And finally, consider the fact (I say "fact", you can consider it an opinion, but I really think it qualifies as fact) that drone boats were never optimal or most efficient boats. Which is why I see way, WAY more Tengus and Machariels and CNRs than I see Navy Domis flying around. As such, and with all the arguments added above, do you think the situation is fine and dandy and doesn't require any further attention or discussion? Because honestly, I saw little reason to use a Navy Domi instead of a Mach for missions before. I see even less reason to do it now.

Well give us some time, we'll get there.

But seriously, this will never a be threadnought : the people who rely heavily on flying drones are only a (small?) subset of the whole population. It's pilotes that are still skilling up that are really screwed. All good and well to talk about Sentries II but you need to be able to deploy them.

So :
* pilots that rely on drones are not the majority. Even in Gallente space I see more non-drone boats then drone-boats.
* pilots that are completely skilled up on drones probably can adapt a bit
* pilots that have another weapon-system available probably switched and put their drones in a wintersleep.
* a big part the user community of every game, never bother to visit the forums.
* there are always those who act like Seraphims and shout "praise CCP" regardless of what they do.

For all those reasons, you'll never get a threadnought.

As for the loss-ratio, before all this, the only time I lost drones was when they got webbed, slowed, and shot to pieces. That was as it should be. The NPC's cannot shoot one of your guns to pieces ( = lowering your dps), so why should they be able to reduce drone dps consistently?