Jarnis McPieksu
Gallente
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Posted - 2009.03.09 22:29:00 -
[1]
Originally by: CCP Gangleri Edited by: CCP Gangleri on 09/03/2009 21:38:27
Originally by: Merouk Baas My only feedback is please keep in mind that good AI comes with a scale of "this NPC is dumb" to "this NPC is very smart", and that even PVP, most of it is fought with "stupid" so to speak. We aren't, all of us, aces of space flight.
So, yeah, the sleepers are "end-game content", boss-level NPCs, but at the same time, take a page from other MMOs and realize that they have entry-level raids and higher-tier raids, and the AI in the entry-level ones isn't as brilliant as the AI in the higher tiers.
Also, the NPC's do cheat: they MWD to range, they don't have the DPS/range limitations that players do, it's been mentioned above. And these things were put in place in order to offset the suck of the previous (dumb) AI.
Now that the AI is smarter, you need to remove these differences, otherwise fights aren't fun (in the same way that fighting someone who uses exploits isn't fun). I believe that's a very strong feeling in your playerbase, and I think you need to deal with this at a higher priority than you seem to currently give it.
Sleepers do not become more stupid in the 'shallow end' of wormhole space, they do less damage and appear in smaller gangs however. Which is also the progression of all the other PvE content in this game. We were not worried that players would lose because they were too stupid to figure out a way to win, we were more concerned with making the easiest encounters soloable. No matter how stupid you make the hardest Sleeper encounter you would still not be able to solo it.
Again I would like to point out that attributes of NPCs are not the same as the AI/controlling mechanism/intelligent agent. Your logic is also backwards when you use MWD'ing rats as an example, MWD was disallowed in deadspace areas because they made it very easy to 'outsmart' the NPC. If you find a wormhole plex that disallows MWD then please bug report it.
edit: spelling
I don't mind the harder AI - the normal rat spawns were dumb as a brick.
But harder AI combined with mass spawns makes small time fighting (1-3 person gangs) suicidal.
I'm fine with the theory that 1 BS against 1 sleeper BS should be a real fight. Problem is, the spawns I've found so far go like this;
5 cruisers + 5 frigates + 4 sentry towers 3 battleship + 8 frigates
etc.
One or two ships against spawns like this with non-dumb-as-brick AI is harsh. How about giving us some FAIR ODDS. Like 2-4 ship spawns instead of these 10+ ship piles. Old missions needed those piles because the stuff was a complete joke 1vs1 and now you have transplanted this mass spawn idea to the new stuff. It's not fun.
I'd love to try to fight against 1 or 2 sleeper battleships in a battleship. Or a sleeper BS plus 2 frigates. That would be a fight. 10+ enemies blobbing is just silly and requires considerable gang to take on.
It takes quite a bit of effort to organize such gangs, not to mention all the mess about sharing loot and/or sharing losses in case someone gets popped taking "one for the team", so to speak.
Better AI = good. Better AI + NPC blobs of 10+ ships = crap.
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