Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Dear CCP,

Remember a few months ago when you first brought up the NPC AI changes and a bunch of us said "is this change going to screw people who want to hunt ratters?" and you guys said "no." Then remember when you put the changes on SiSi and we found that they screwed people who were trying to hunt ratters and we said "hey, you should fix this" and Foxfour muttered something about going and talking to the guy who coded it and getting it fixed? Then remember when you deployed the changes on TQ and they were still screwing people who hunted ratters?

Yeah, your terrible AI still sucks.

Please see about assigning somebody to adjust the way NPC aggro works so that rats don't immediately go into full "ratter protection mode" when a ship warps in and starts aggressing a ratter; it's really poor game design.

It shouldn't be hard to do-- just make NPCs prioritize things that are aggressing them or assisting an aggressor instead of automatically jumping all over the first ship that uses EWAR regardless of who or what it's used on.

This new AI change was clearly never tested in actual gaming. I'll share a quick story with you from a gank I did tonight.

I found a drake ratting in an anom. He'd been there for a while, killed all the cruisers. He was actively shooting the battleship rats, with drones out on them. I decloaked an Arazu near him and tackled him. Within seconds the majority of the BS rats were now shooting the arazu. I popped EC-600 drones and ordered them to attack the drake. Within seconds one of my EC drones was dead, to the rats. During this time I made no aggressive move towards the rats, and did not put drones on them.

From any perspective, gameplay or storyline, this makes no sense at all. The rats completely ignore a ship that has been actively shooting them for minutes, to go after a new ship or its drones. A ship that is taking no aggressive action towards the rats whatsoever. CCP has literally programmed the rat AI so it actively and aggressively -protects- ratters in anoms.

Yeah rats should have "carebear detectors" so they auto target the carebears making them easy prey rather than swapping to a new threat if it was weaker like any logical fleet would.

....seriously are you guys that bad at pvp where this matters?

if youre in a fleet shooting some 1mil ehp wtf tank ship, and a tiny little paper-fit "i hope i get kills" troll appears, you pop the paper thin thing then continue... they made the ai "ai", aka smart enough to do this.

Solution? STAY CLOAKED UNTIL THE RATS ARE DEAD OR BRING REAL PVP SHIPS. Your frigate isnt meant to be a godmode,

qq about it all you want. That's stil lgoing to remain a fact.

edit...

but ccp, please change it so the rats stupidly target the single aggressed ship like they used to. Makes it require FAR less clicks to run level 4s... (and maybe those who dont know pve can pvp again without losing their 400 ehp ships to big bad ratties)

You do realize that you can't often "choose" when to engage a ratting ship, right? Since they tend to run for the nearest pos shield / station the moment a hostile appears in local?

I find it funny that PvEer's complain all the time that a "PvE fit stands no chance against PvPers because they have to fit specifically for PvE," yet you apparently also think it's perfectly reasonable to ask would-be ratter hunters to fit a ship that can tank a PvE ship's dps, the rat DPS, and have slots left over to devote to tackle as well.

Basically, the day PvEer's can tell the rest of us to "fit better" is the day that you need good scan res, points and webs on your ratting ship to keep the rats from running away. When PvE ships need to make fitting sacrifices to do their job we can talk about having a more egalitarian NPC AI.

And for reference, its not just frigates that are suffering terribly under these changes-- cruisers get wrecked pretty fast by picking up half a room full of rat aggro as well. Keep in mind that they need to tank the ratter's DPS as well (which in the past was already quite a difficult thing to do in a lot of cases).

Your example relies on the following to be true:

1 - You did not provoke the rats.

2 - You were not a threat to the rats.

Here's the problem with your reasoning.

1 - Anyone near rats will be targeted and attacked without provoking them. Why should gankers be any different?

2 - Neither was the Drake pilot by your standards, unless he did fore first, but as I stated on point one, that's not required.

You were using tackle and probably had more DPS, while your drones were using ewar. If you were attacked by two ships, that drake and your own arazu, which would you have considered a bigger threat?

PvE fits will lose to PvP fits 99.9% of the time. You would have locked that drake down and he would be unable to fight back. A sitting duck. Is it fair that he has to gimp his PvE fit to stand a chance if he is attacked while carrying out his chosen activity? No more fair than you having to gimp your PvP for to carry out your activity.

Many have said, "Man up, grow a pair, adapt."

I say, make PvE more like PvP, that way were all on the same page from day one.

This forum is worse than my posting.

Rat AI aggros on ewar. Point counts as ewar.

Problem: You have a point fitted, your dangerous opponent doesn't, therefore, rats aggro you.

Solution: Don't fit a point. Your dangerous opponent isn't, why are you?

If both of you have points, rats aggro the guy who's been there shooting them longer.
If both of you have no points, rats aggro the guy who's been there shooting them longer.
If you have point and your dangerous opponent don't, he can't kill you.

You can't lose.

Oh wait, you were just looking for risk-free pvp. I have a better idea, why don't CCP just give you free km?

Apart from poor attempt to make light of the idea with the "docking up because a capusleer is in local" comment, I fail to see a problem.
Whats wrong with rats with a sense of self preservation?
Whats wrong with more waves coming in while rats have you tackled? They do that already.

Would you rather PvE require a modicum of intelligence to accomplish or would you have it remain brain-numbingly dull and totally at odds with PvP?

Eve has an unpredictable aggro system. The NPC rats don't follow the players' rules on aggro!



This is, I believe, the best reason for leaving it as it is.

For 9.5 years you took advantage of mechanics that allowed you to more easily gank real players. Some would call this an abuse of the game mechanics to gain an advantage over another player.

I feel that you need to change the way you are trying to take advantage of other players. Take the new mechanics into consideration and adjust your PVP tactics. All the PVE pilots had to adjust to the new mechanics. Please explain to us why you feel that you should not have to learn to adapt.

Let's restate this important aspect: Please explain to us why you feel that you should not have to learn to adapt to the new mechanics yet everyone else should.

Thank you.