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Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 81 post(s) |
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CCP Gargant
C C P C C P Alliance
42
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Posted - 2012.09.20 11:30:00 -
[1] - Quote
The NPC pirate ships, generally called rats, will be getting a few upgrades to their... brains? CCP FoxFour has written a new dev blog about the plans to make our resident computer controlled entities just a little smarter.
It is available for your reading pleasure here.
Please let us know what you think of these upcoming upgrades in the comments section below. CCP Gargant | Community Representitive |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
468
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:10:00 -
[2] - Quote
ChromeStriker wrote:First
I hate you. :(
If you guys do end up getting on a test server to test these changes please post feedback over here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703 Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
476
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:21:00 -
[3] - Quote
ovenproofjet wrote:How is this going to affect the likes of Logistics ships in high end DED complexes? Are they going to get a lower target priority or are we going to have to roll even more people into the sites...
Logistics ships do generate a lot of threat as far as the NPC are concerned and will probably switch to them pretty quick. As for exactly how this will change your strategies, well that we shall have to wait and see. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
476
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:22:00 -
[4] - Quote
Chribba wrote:ME! HUNGRY!
And oh noes no more grabbing aggro and knowing my mining drones are safe!
Hop on Duality and come to High Sec. I believe there is a feast happening right now there. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
476
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:24:00 -
[5] - Quote
Bloodpetal wrote:Freakin Epic. I've been wanting this for years! Thanks for being awesome. :)
You're more than welcome. If possible we would love to get some feedback from people testing this on the test server. While we are working fast to make changes and we are testing this stuff internally there is only so much testing we can do. That and you guys always find ways to break our ****. :/ Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
476
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:24:00 -
[6] - Quote
ChromeStriker wrote:Did i mention how awesome you are? Edit: seems that i did
Even if you did, I will accept it again. :D Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
479
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:25:00 -
[7] - Quote
Louis deGuerre wrote:BRAIIIIIIINNNNNS BRAIIIINNNNSSSS This is going to be soooooo much fun. I can already taste the sea of tears
A sea of tears over this... you should have seen what else we wanted the NPC to do. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
479
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:26:00 -
[8] - Quote
Akrasjel Lanate wrote:Cool Quote:Other than that, all the NPC in the belts, missions, complex, navies, pirate faction, empire faction, and any others I can find will get the newer Level One AI. Only AI, you won't make them stronger like those that use Level One AI atm (sleeper and incursion NPC) ???
No. This is a one step at a time thing. To start making the NPC themselves strong as well would mean we would have to balance every mission and site one at a time. We don't have the time for that right now. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
479
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:33:00 -
[9] - Quote
Syn Fatelyng wrote:Fantastic.
Also, this means AFK drone ship pilots will have to view their drones as an "ammo expense" much like other combat pilots. If drone pilots are paying attention and managing their drones, than not really. It does however mean, as you stated, AFK pilots will yes. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
479
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:34:00 -
[10] - Quote
Migrator Soul wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:A sea of tears over this... you should have seen what else we wanted the NPC to do. Please, do it then. Hell, even the current sleeper AI is laughably easy.. I would love to see NPC AI become on par with player skill, therefore increasing the difficulty of missions..
Our ultimate goal is that PvP and PvE fits should be the same and a lot of the thought process should be the same. That is... a long way off though. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
482
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:36:00 -
[11] - Quote
Bienator II wrote:will FW NPCs receive special treatment?
Special in what way? Why would we? Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
482
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:40:00 -
[12] - Quote
Kaaletram Lothyrawir wrote:I suppose I will have to jump on the test server to see if this is true or not but here is my question. Will this mean that the NPCs will have an inverse targeting preference. Meaning that if a BS, BC, Cruiser, and Frig all warp into a site at the same time. Will the NPCs start targeting the frig first? Or will the targeting priorities be same class first then lower class if same class is not available? Like if there are no BC class npcs will the next target priority be a higher or lower class of ship?
I am interested to get on and play around with this a bit.
As I am sure anyone who plays around with this will find out it is based on signature radius, not ship class. Unfortunately due to how the system works they will all target whatever ship happens to land first, even if you all land at near the same time whoever shows up that split second earliest will get the aggro. They will however switch targets pretty quick to more appropriate targets. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
482
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:41:00 -
[13] - Quote
Akrasjel Lanate wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Bienator II wrote:will FW NPCs receive special treatment? Special in what way? Why would we? Maby they should kill low-Sp FW farming alts
While I can't say what, there are... other changes coming to FW so no need for use to special case that. So look forward to those. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
482
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:43:00 -
[14] - Quote
ChromeStriker wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Louis deGuerre wrote:BRAIIIIIIINNNNNS BRAIIIINNNNSSSS This is going to be soooooo much fun. I can already taste the sea of tears A sea of tears over this... you should have seen what else we wanted the NPC to do. What "did" you want to them to do?
Pods. Lots and lots of pod kills. That and I heard something about NPC's with cynos when someone bring a capital on the field. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
482
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:44:00 -
[15] - Quote
Simon Severasse wrote:Does the "attack ships of the same size as the NPC" apply to wh too?
No, I did not touch the sleepers. While it is true sleepers have the Level One AI, they have a version of it without any customization. The customization was added when we introduced Incursions. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:46:00 -
[16] - Quote
Sentient Blade wrote:On the point of Logi in DED complexes, again, this is just ramping up the amount of people you'll need in a site as one logi will no longer be enough, you'll need at least two, maybe three when neut towers, webs etc come into play, and don't get me started on level 4 missions where guristas can permajam a person for 10 minutes straight.
It forces people to work in groups, yes, but maybe it's reducing certain group work to lowest common denominator.
Hmm... not that I'm opposed to the idea, but it's going to make it a lot more difficult to bring newer players along on higher level missions. I remember a lot of my first involvement (and making ISK) in the game was running L4 missions with my corp, even though I could barely get through level 3s at the time, combined with the drake resistance nerf that's going to make getting into higher level missions a complete non-starter for a lot of newer players.
So yes, while it won't have that much of an effect on the solo mission grinder, it might actually run counter to introducing newer players. Gone will be the days of tanking a room with a Tengu while so a nooby corp member can get in and shoot at some NPCs in their first caracal or drake as they'd be insta-blaped by NPCs (presuming you don't have 2 or 3 other corp members who're also willing to come along in Scimis).
Be very warey. There's a lot of meta-play around current NPC aggression mechanics.
This is one of the reasons we are trying to get this out on the test server now and feedback on it. What we actually hope happens, due to ships wanting to kill ships of their own size, is that newer players can come along in frigates and deal with the frigate NPCs.
As for the Logi question, this will take a lot of testing. We were still able to complete missions internally with a single logistics ship, it took some effort but we did it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:47:00 -
[17] - Quote
Jackie Fisher wrote:Will they pod?
I tried man, I tried. :( Something about us losing subscribers or something about angering our players instead of making them happy. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:49:00 -
[18] - Quote
Lirinas wrote:I'm followed AI changes with some concern over the last couple years. Although my main can use just about every weapon system under the sun, I've always preferred drones because most people preferred missiles.
A little drone hate is nice to keep the drone pilots from falling asleep on missions, but too much drone hate completely invalidates them as a practical weapon system. That's why you see hoards of Drakes & Tengus and not many Ishtars/Myrmidons in Wormhole space.
What I keep wondering is if/when we'll start seeing some anti-missile systems aside from Defenders. There's Real-World examples of anti-missile systems, and numerous suggestions on the forums over the years. If all NPC's now are going to be more aggressive in targeting drones, then it's only logical they should be more aggressive with anti-missile defenses as well.
As for the drone hate: This is something we are keeping a very close eye on and have already tweaked several times. We are working hard to find the right balance between just killing all drones and drone pilots having to pay attention. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:51:00 -
[19] - Quote
Castor II wrote:Can you teach NPCs to suicide gank too? ty
Well right now on the test server they are just killing everything and if you fight back CONCORD smacks you. So we at least tried this. Turns out most our players don't like it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:53:00 -
[20] - Quote
Simon Severasse wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Simon Severasse wrote:Does the "attack ships of the same size as the NPC" apply to wh too? No, I did not touch the sleepers. While it is true sleepers have the Level One AI, they have a version of it without any customization. The customization was added when we introduced Incursions. Thank you FoxFour.
You can thank all of team Five 0 for this. We all worked hard on it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
487
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:54:00 -
[21] - Quote
MIrple wrote:I love the changes. I hope this is just one of several to the NPC AI as it is very much in need of an overhaul. I had put up a discussion about making a few sites out in null to be more like incursion sites to break up the boorishness of running anoms but this is a great first step.
While we are talking about Brains. Can any of you comment about the brain in a box idea talked about at fan fest will we be seeing this in the winter to at a later date.
Which brain in a box idea is this? I have heard of a few... Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
494
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Posted - 2012.09.20 14:56:00 -
[22] - Quote
Deathwing Reborn wrote:Ok, now that you are making normal NPC's more interesting. When are you going to finally make something that will make things fun for ratting in Capitals? There are plenty of people that rat in carriers in Null Sec, that are fighting waves of NPCs that can be taken out in a single battleship. When are we going to start to see NPC capitals on the field or new sites in 0.0 that will make things challenging for someone in a carrier again?
The horde sites in the drone regions used to be decent because you could pop all the bunkers and have enough NPC dps to actually threaten your carrier if you wernt careful. Now its just a joke. There are many missions where NPCs are building capitals but we never see them to shoot them. And for those who will moan at grinding NPC capital HP, you could always continue with the current easy mode sites.
To be honest we need to make our PvE content more enjoyable for everyone first. While this step will hopefully help, there is a lot more work to be done. Continuing the honesty I don't think the ratting capitals are our highest priority. Hopefully we can continue to make changes that effect most everyone though and not focus to much on one segment. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
494
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:02:00 -
[23] - Quote
Bienator II wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Bienator II wrote:will FW NPCs receive special treatment? Special in what way? Why would we? i suppose they have now jobs like defend the beacon, don't interfere with pvp etc while still being able to kill pve fitted sigtankers. or am i wrong? otherwise people will just use two alts to farm them. one to pull the npcs away and one to orbit the plex. (if they switch targets, switch jobs)
Right now they are really dumb and all just shoot the first thing they can. Even if there is PvP they will stomp right on over to the first target they can. That being said there are changes coming to FW from other teams that I can't talk about but can say to keep an eye out for. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
494
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:03:00 -
[24] - Quote
Roll Sizzle Beef wrote:What about sites like Dread Guristas Fleet Staging Point 3? There is a Guristas Fleet Stronghold that launches Citadel Torpedos every 30 seconds. It will obliterate any subcap support for the capital already required to tank it if it switches targets. Or is it expected some sites become cap only?
To be honest I am not familiar with this site and will have to test it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
494
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:03:00 -
[25] - Quote
MIrple wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:MIrple wrote:I love the changes. I hope this is just one of several to the NPC AI as it is very much in need of an overhaul. I had put up a discussion about making a few sites out in null to be more like incursion sites to break up the boorishness of running anoms but this is a great first step.
While we are talking about Brains. Can any of you comment about the brain in a box idea talked about at fan fest will we be seeing this in the winter to at a later date.
Which brain in a box idea is this? I have heard of a few... The one that was geared at our skill set causing lag when docking/undocking and jumping through gates.
Oh, that one. Not something that is even close to my area so cannot even being to say anything about it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
494
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:05:00 -
[26] - Quote
Nickabocka Glory wrote:What will happen to the risk reward balance of high, low and null sec NPCs?
Making NPCs harder sounds like fun but the extra time and effort required to kill them needs to be reflected in their value.
This should not really make them that much harder to kill, actually it is not changing their tank or DPS at all. So killing time should not change. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
498
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:16:00 -
[27] - Quote
Sturmwolke wrote:L1 AI in L4 missions? ... ahaha ... it'll be very bloody the first few weeks As for the drones issue, you have a mechanism to save them (by re-calling and re-launching) but it's too archaic/clunky/fidgety for extended use. Fix this and it'll alleviate some of the major issues facing drone boats. I propose an auto-recall function when drone hits a user specified amount of dmg but keep the launch/re-launch manual. Edit: This also looks like another indirect nerf to L4 income if it changes L4 missioning in such a way that it affects the avg pilot's completion time. The lessons from the incursion changes are still fresh in mind.
Shift+R recalls drones... I do agree though that system needs some work. We will be keeping an eye on the income generated from L4 missions as we do have graphs and statistics for this. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
498
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:19:00 -
[28] - Quote
Aethlyn wrote:Sturmwolke wrote:L1 AI in L4 missions? ... ahaha ... it'll be very bloody the first few weeks Why? IMO what makes Sleepers and (Incursion) Sansha more dangerous than the usual pirates are their stats: Speed, Health and Damage. That's nothing touched by just switching the underlying AI, considering most people run missions solo or in small groups only anyway. It might screw up people flying AFK drone boats, but at the same time it's something you shouldn't do anyway (why pay to play a game, when you don't even play then?).
To be honest one of my concerns is people abusing the target switching to take even less tank into the mission. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
498
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:23:00 -
[29] - Quote
Deathwing Reborn wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Deathwing Reborn wrote:Ok, now that you are making normal NPC's more interesting. When are you going to finally make something that will make things fun for ratting in Capitals? There are plenty of people that rat in carriers in Null Sec, that are fighting waves of NPCs that can be taken out in a single battleship. When are we going to start to see NPC capitals on the field or new sites in 0.0 that will make things challenging for someone in a carrier again?
The horde sites in the drone regions used to be decent because you could pop all the bunkers and have enough NPC dps to actually threaten your carrier if you wernt careful. Now its just a joke. There are many missions where NPCs are building capitals but we never see them to shoot them. And for those who will moan at grinding NPC capital HP, you could always continue with the current easy mode sites. To be honest we need to make our PvE content more enjoyable for everyone first. While this step will hopefully help, there is a lot more work to be done. Continuing the honesty I don't think the ratting capitals are our highest priority. Hopefully we can continue to make changes that effect most everyone though and not focus to much on one segment. That is a typical response that I would expect from CCP by this point. I received the same type of answer when the drone regions lost drone alloys and they were not replaced with anything at all. "Right now we have better things to spend our time on than spend 1 day to create or copy a loot table." Just one more instance of making a good iteration on something and then leaving it done half arsed. Capital pilots aside, since you are making changes to the AI again why can you not make an AI for NPC capitals and make some more interesting content? There are too few missions / complexes that require more that 1 person in a sub cap to complete.
Adding NPC capital ships is going to take more than copying a loot table. Just saying. Unless I am missing something else. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
500
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:27:00 -
[30] - Quote
Asuri Kinnes wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Nickabocka Glory wrote:What will happen to the risk reward balance of high, low and null sec NPCs?
Making NPCs harder sounds like fun but the extra time and effort required to kill them needs to be reflected in their value. This should not really make them that much harder to kill, actually it is not changing their tank or DPS at all. So killing time should not change. And could lead to hilarity regarding ninja salvagers, canflippers and suicide gankers when the rats attack them... thusly making Hi-Sec safer yet? TIME WILL TELL!
Can flippers and salvegers will indeed need to be more careful when going into someones mission. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
500
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Posted - 2012.09.20 15:35:00 -
[31] - Quote
Taking a break from answering questions to participate in this event on Duality: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155467 I highly recommend you all come join us! I will be back after that to answer more questions. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
598
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Posted - 2012.09.20 20:35:00 -
[32] - Quote
I am back from that event and dinner. I have read through every single post since I was last here and will now begin trying to answer as many questions as I can. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
601
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Posted - 2012.09.20 20:55:00 -
[33] - Quote
Feldercarb wrote:Bagehi wrote:Feldercarb wrote:Bob Bedala wrote:I've just realised something.
On large scale software projects, you have engineers dedicated to feature releases & sections of the codebase. But those features are specced by product owners who are experts in their fields, in this case game designers.
Do CCP really have engineers in effect doing game design with seemingly little feedback from game designers?
The latter are the people who should be in communication with the playerbase, not engineers -- unless it's digging into the details of a bug. Seems weird-as, to me, but explains a heck of a lot. I have to agree here. Its like this team has to find something to do to keep a job instead of being assigned something to do by a game designer. Does CCP have game designers anymore? I am really beginning to wonder. I can testify first hand at the frustration of CCP breaking content. I am constantly getting more reasons to leave rather than more reasons to come back. I have been back approx 2 months with the notion that CCP finally listened to their players and were making the changes players have been asking for. To stop working on useless things and address the things players have been pointing out and to not waver from that goal. This is a waver from that goal. I had relearned all the stuff I had missed, I had finally settled into a role and learned all the new changes and and mods and started making a plan and a goal and working toward that goal. Now I am faced with a nerf that challenges my entire goal and makes me consider just leaving. I chose rattler pilot, wrong time to come back I guess. The new ancillary mod made rattler viable again, now this nerf sucks all the fun out of game play again. Suck me in with great new changes and a listening ear to player concerns, and then chase them away again with needless changes and failure to deliver on the promises used to lure players back. Soundwave is a game designer and he's been championing making PVE more like PVP. So, this looks like a step in the direction of what a game designer, the lead game designer, has stated as a goal for the game. ...and where were these stated goals in the release notes for Inferno? Where did it say we are going to release new mining changes, mods, fixes, and DRONE AI? This is deviating from the set goals posted in this release and creating new bugs and unforeseen consequences in HighSec PVE, null sec ganking, DED sites, Eve economy, and a direct impact on player count, and eve itself. Where are any of these changes helpful? I don't see a game designers hands on this at all, and much has been left unconsidered in the impact this seemingly small change is really producing. This idea should be completely scrapped and is taking way too much dev time away from serious issues. Concord is attacking players? I mean come on this is pathetic. Creating bugs out of thin air for no reason. I don't see Soundwave's signature on this either.
These changes are not for Inferno, they are for our winter expansion which has not been named publicly. Where did we say we are going from new mining changes, mods, fixes, and drones? Here right now.
Everything we do has the chance to create bugs, even fixing bugs has a chance to create bugs.
Where are these changes helpful? With changing up our PvE gameplay and moving it in a direction where we can continue to improve our PvE gameplay. The current AI that all the NPC use is not something we can really change. If we want to improve our PvE experience the first step is switching it to this newer AI so that we can make changes.
Not sure why you think no game designers touched this. I am a content designer, this is what we do. While our title is content designer we are game designers that just focus on content instead of gameplay features.
I am sorry you consider the CONCORD issue being pathetic, but we actually already had a fix ready before you saw this dev blog. It just happened to miss the deployment to Duality. This is exactly why we need to do this though. As I said before we can start making more changes to our PvE content we need to have the AI upgraded and deal with these problems. This must happen first. Along with the future better it leaves us with less code to maintain as we no longer need to maintain the old AI code. All of this is a good thing.
Again, everything we do has a chance to generate bugs. This all does have a reason and I hope this post helps bring some of that out. :)
Also, Soundwave most certainly did sign off on this as he does for all the design stuff. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
601
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:03:00 -
[34] - Quote
ergherhdfgh wrote:Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.
The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.
I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.
Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind.
We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
602
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:11:00 -
[35] - Quote
Alexander the Great wrote:You want to break current PvE so you can make it better sometime in the future?
No, please make all changes together so we can see why it is better.
Currently I see only broken gameplay for some groups of players and no improvements in making PvE fun.
What are we breaking? The missions are still more than doable, some things will require a change in strategy but nothing is being broken. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
602
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:13:00 -
[36] - Quote
aoeu Itonula wrote:Don't forget various 8/10s (Serpentis particularly), the escalation complexes (final stage of Fleet Staging Points, final stage of Military Complexes, etc), and so forth. It's not just 10/10s.
You are entirely correct and we are building a list of content to test. I will add these to said list. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
602
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:13:00 -
[37] - Quote
Jason Edwards wrote:so all this work to just get people to stop using drones.
The expectation is not that people stop using drones. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
603
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:24:00 -
[38] - Quote
Sugar Kyle wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:ergherhdfgh wrote:Do me a favor before you guys go live with this stuff. Run anoms in a drone boat and then run them in the racial BS that is best against the local rats and compare the bounty ticks. I would think that a Navy domi versus a Navy Apoc against Sansha / Bloodraiders for example would be a decent comparison.
The way things are now If you are a Minmatar pilot you can go to Angel space and do well. If you are Amarr then Bloodraiders or Sansha space is good for you. For Caldari obviously it's serpentis/guristas. Drone boat's however have no race that they do well at killing. The advantage currently is that they do decent at all of them.
I understand that the Gallente have Hybrids as well but the caldari are more rail focused and blasters really aren't any good for PvE. The amount of time you spend traveling to the target costs you more dps than if you could hit from further out. Projectile pilots have ships like the Machariel and Vargur to make AC's usefull in PvE and the Amarr have scortch ammo and the NApoc to make Pulses good. Heck even ships without an optimal bonus like the NApoc can do well with Pulses. Blasters however, I know of no ship that makes blasters a viable option for PvE when we are talking isk/hour or isk/tick as the judging factor.
Please experiment with isk/hour potential of Gallente and drone pilots versus everyone else. Other wise you are giving Gallente / Drone pilots a serious ass pounding. Isk per hour is the almighty equalizer of everything in game. If you make half as much that means you can afford to loose half as many ships which means you'll get half as much experience and be half as good as another pilot of a different race with the same amount of game time as you. Keep that in mind. We have been running missions with lots of different configurations. Including drone boats, logistics, missile boats, and other stuff. The one thing I really still want to test more is some of the 10/10 DED complex. This is one of the reasons we are doing this now though because it will be something coming out for our winter release. This means we have plenty of time to test it. Are you also actively trying to PvP each other? That's a part of it. Being hunted and hunting others.
No that is not something we have been doing. To be honest there are a lot of ways this could go and it all depends on what the two people are flying. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
603
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:25:00 -
[39] - Quote
Vincent Athena wrote:BTW the Mac version for Duality seems to be broken. It updates fine, gives you a "play" button. Pushing that results in no log-in window. The client just sits there using CPU. If you select "about Eve" from the menu you get the expected window, so its not locked up. But.. no log in window ever shows up.
Can you please post about this in the test server forum. I am pretty sure they are aware of it but it will help them to have more information. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
604
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:41:00 -
[40] - Quote
Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:Don't think that your work is not appreciated. Anyone having the game's best interest at hearth knows that pve needs to be redone because in it's current state it is quite laughable. However there are some things, which needs to be taken into consideration here. You are trying to redo pve, which will involve total redefinition of rats and redesign of sites. As you said AI is just a start. The problem is that the current site mechanics were not intended with 'smart' rats in mind. You were already made aware of some sites that will need some mechanics changed to a degree ( mostly high-end DEDs ). Another thing is ninja missioning/exploration and catching ratting ships. I haven't put enough thought to it yet but I'm wondering if this change won't eliminate those forms of pvp. About drones - I will just repost this here : Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:Few comments :
1) As was already stated you will probably need to adjust high-end DED sites where we have to deal with super torpedoes. With target switching capability those sites will become wasted content. It is already taking too much time to do them and if they will require over pimped fleets with full logi support we won't be bothering with them any more.already covered
2) About drones in general : Them drones love to use their MWD when webbed. drone + web == dead drone There is no way around it. No amount of skill or effort will allow you to save that drone.
Fun facts : Medium drones have bigger signature than frigates. Heavy drones have signature of a cruiser.
Now multiply that by mwd sig bloom, close-to-zero tanking capability and single-digit-IQ of that drone. There is a reason why there is no point in using drones in wormholes ( without gang ).
Heavy drones are already gimped in pve. This change will make them terribly inefficient ( even more than they are now ). Forcing all drone users to use only sentries will not be considered as good design.
Keep in mind that constant recalling/redeploying/reassigning drones is *not* fun game mechanics.
Proposition : - no webs on drones ( all other forms of ewar are fine ) - light drones targeted by frigates only ( no destroyers ) - medium drones targeted by short range cruisers only - heavy drones targeted by short range cruisers/battlecruisers - no more than 4 normal rats ( 2 elite ) shooting at single drone at the same time
We are fully committed to this new AI, not meaning we can't go back on it, but meaning if we find specific missions that are just not possibly any more or way harder than they are worth, we will balance them. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
606
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Posted - 2012.09.20 21:57:00 -
[41] - Quote
MisterNick wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:I am sorry you consider the CONCORD issue being pathetic, but we actually already had a fix ready before you saw this dev blog. It just happened to miss the deployment to Duality. This is exactly why we need to do this though. As I said before we can start making more changes to our PvE content we need to have the AI upgraded and deal with these problems. This must happen first. Along with the future better it leaves us with less code to maintain as we no longer need to maintain the old AI code. All of this is a good thing.
Close, FoxFour. But the correct answer was "It's on the test server and we obviously wouldn't release it to TQ with this (highly amusing) bug, so stop your pathetic whining" Ask Sreegs, he knows about proper forumming
Well MisterNick at least the CONCORD bug wasn't as pathetic as your post. So how about you go level up your posting while I go not talk to Sreegs.
My sincere apologies. You said I needed to improve and so here I am testing my new posting skills. How did I do? Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
610
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Posted - 2012.09.20 22:32:00 -
[42] - Quote
Ispia Jaydrath wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:We are fully committed to this new AI, not meaning we can't go back on it, but meaning if we find specific missions that are just not possibly any more or way harder than they are worth, we will balance them. How will you find them? How much dev time has been set aside for fixing them?
Between now and the winter release the new AI is the single biggest thing CCP Bettik and I are working on. We have a few smaller things to announce, along with out bug fixing, but this is by far the biggest thing and the thing taking up most of our time. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
610
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Posted - 2012.09.20 22:34:00 -
[43] - Quote
Soi Mala wrote:So will the rats in anomalies etc switch targets if you pounce on the carebear in say, a recon?
It kinda depends on what rats are there, what ship the carebear is in, and what ship the nasty evil pirate is in. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
613
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Posted - 2012.09.20 23:10:00 -
[44] - Quote
Iam Widdershins wrote:Hopefully I'm not late for the party, since I wanted to know that I now am in love with CCP FoxFour after this post. My main question was going to pertain to the usage of current rat ewar usage; the percentage of the time that any given rat will use its ewar (like tracking disruptors or ECM) etc. I'm just double checking to make sure, we're not going to have perma-jamming Guristas chasing people back into stations all across Caldari space? These changes and the direction you're taking them are awesome. I do however agree with the idea that pod-killing should be reserved specially for players, an honour that only we can bestow on our enemies if you will.
We don't actually have any plans for NPC to POD kill players. As for rats perma jamming you all the way back to stations, so far that has not happened in our testing so I think we are OK. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
613
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Posted - 2012.09.20 23:12:00 -
[45] - Quote
Ispia Jaydrath wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Ispia Jaydrath wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:We are fully committed to this new AI, not meaning we can't go back on it, but meaning if we find specific missions that are just not possibly any more or way harder than they are worth, we will balance them. How will you find them? How much dev time has been set aside for fixing them? Between now and the winter release the new AI is the single biggest thing CCP Bettik and I are working on. We have a few smaller things to announce, along with out bug fixing, but this is by far the biggest thing and the thing taking up most of our time. Pretend you miss something and a site or mission is broken at release. How will you learn about it, and when will you have time to fix it?
We specifically have a window of time after the release to fix things that are broken and made it into the release. So if we do miss something then we will have time right after the release to fix it. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
616
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Posted - 2012.09.20 23:21:00 -
[46] - Quote
Ispia Jaydrath wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:We specifically have a window of time after the release to fix things that are broken and made it into the release. So if we do miss something then we will have time right after the release to fix it. Will there be a reporting system? Also, you should add "murky ruins" to the list of sites to test before release as it is likely too obscure to generate a report.
I shall indeed add it to the list.
As for the reporting there are many ways: post in the AI feedback thread here https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703, file a bug report, EVE mail me, or yell loud on the forums under the test server feedback. We are watching that area really close. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
660
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Posted - 2012.09.21 18:02:00 -
[47] - Quote
Mabrjjcj Rojo wrote:The first 5 pages were interesting, but sorry for not reading all of them. I've seen you're changing sleeper activity, it seems in the context of Incursions. Would you address your impacts to the sleepers in worm-hole space?
We are NOT changing sleepers at all with this change. We are applying the newer AI, with some changes, to other NPC. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
677
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Posted - 2012.09.22 23:16:00 -
[48] - Quote
Hey guys,
I am still here but it is the weekend and I am refraining from responding until Monday when I can put the proper time into my responses.
Junko Sideswipe wrote:Did some testing on duality today.
Had my tengu alt sitting in a serpentis haven in fountain. Warped into it and tackled it on two different tests with a stilleto and a purifier. As soon as I warped in on both occasions ALL of the rats in the anomaly switched to the frigate who warped in.
In the case of the stilleto, I continued shooting the rats with the tengu. The rats eventually switched back to the tengu after about 20 seconds, and shortly switched back to the stilleto thereafter.
In the case of the purifier, the rats switched over immediately on warp in, the tengu shot no targets, and after over 2 minutes of tackling and torping ALL of the rats continued to stay aggro'd to the purifier 100% of the time.
Our corp operates on giving our newbies free T1 thrashers to go out and learn some basic PVP skills by hunting anom runners and belt ratters through the use of the dscanner. All of our PVP concerns finding ratters to shoot, we don't just roam around looking for fights, our purpose in the game is to hunt down ratters and kill them. If nobody can go out and solo ratters in small cheap ships, or a stilleto can't keep point on a target long enough for the gang to jump into system and warp to him, our corp probably won't be around anymore come winter. Please think about how these changes effect the brand of PVP we enjoy, you always talk about "farms and fields" that smaller groups should be able to come down and burn. Ratters in anoms are the farms and fields, and I doubt if NPC pirates had half a brain they wouldn't be shooting the group that came into their anomaly to kill the dude in the tengu wiping out their fleet.
That being said since you are in the thread now and I don't want this to get lost may I ask what plex this was in? I would like to do some testing. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
678
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Posted - 2012.09.22 23:28:00 -
[49] - Quote
Junko Sideswipe wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Hey guys,
I am still here but it is the weekend and I am refraining from responding until Monday when I can put the proper time into my responses.
That being said since you are in the thread now and I don't want this to get lost may I ask what plex this was in? I would like to do some testing. :) It was a serpentis haven. The thing with serpentis rats are that you can pretty much speed tank them in smaller ships, but even with my purifier with NO dps from the tengu I was in 1/3rd shield in the first minute, fitting an MSE. If this were delve or period basis, which contain blood raiders, I would've been dead already from neuts and better tracking from lasers. We find most of our ratters in sanctums, havens, and forsaken hubs. Many ratters use forsaken hubs now because they have no frigate rats (and thus can never be tackled) and are easily speed tanked in T3 battlecruisers, which hugely reduces the risk. Nagas in fountain are popular, as are oracles in delve and period basis. Thank you very much for reading my posts, I've been really worried since these changes were announced.
Not a problem. Please keep in mind that these changes are coming for our winter release, we have two content designers working on this, and as far as the two of us are concerned this is our big thing for the winter release. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
694
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Posted - 2012.09.24 11:15:00 -
[50] - Quote
Adigard wrote:Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:If you did at least some testing you would have seen that drone hate of new AI is MINIMAL. In all of my tests with Dominix I had to recall drones only a couple of times ( light drones to be specific, heavy drones were never targeted ). /facepalm... stop poasting, m'kay? I actually did testing, early in the wekend and my results were TOTALLY different from whatever test you did. But why post that HERE? Is this the testing thread and I just mis-read something? No, guess it isn't... I parked a rattlesnake (totally passive without firing any missiles) and waited until I had aggro. Then, I unleashed a flight of medium drones. They pulled aggro off every single rat and maintained aggro until they were all dead. It didn't happen instantly, but it surely did happen faster than I would have liked. I could have pulled them in, re-launched, etc, but this was a test of aggro mechanics (the thing that got changed?) and not mission mechanics (the thing that got ignored). Then, I launched a flight of light drones. They pulled partial aggro, and one died, then the rats all swapped back. At no time did the rats say "wow, this new target isn't fighting back... maybe I should follow my new AI and do some more target swapping. Then, I launched a flight of RR drones. Those got totally ignored. Figured that was odd, but :CCP:. Then, I launched a flight of Garde's. Same as the light drones, they were up for a while before pulling partial aggro. So the results of my testing show that medium drones are terrible under this mechanic change, and that my enjoyment of a clicky, boring aspect of the game is going to go down. Although I'm fairly certain that since these changes went into effect with almost all the NPC AI, that if anyone in New Eden ever has to escape from the faction cops all they need is to sacrifice a flight of Medium drones and they'll get off scot-free forever.
If you were not firing you were not generating any threat, your drones would have been. Also explains why your RR drones didn't get shot, because they were not active (at least you don't say anything about a second ship so I am assuming here).
When you guys are testing these things can you please let me know specifics like what mission you were doing, what ships, and all those fun details. :)
Edit: Sorry I miss read the bit about light drones. The rats also take into account signature radius so if they were light drones and the rats were not frigs the chances of aggro are lower. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
694
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Posted - 2012.09.24 12:02:00 -
[51] - Quote
Adigard wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:If you were not firing you were not generating any threat, your drones would have been. Also explains why your RR drones didn't get shot, because they were not active (at least you don't say anything about a second ship so I am assuming here).
When you guys are testing these things can you please let me know specifics like what mission you were doing, what ships, and all those fun details. :)
Edit: Sorry I miss read the bit about light drones. The rats also take into account signature radius so if they were light drones and the rats were not frigs the chances of aggro are lower. First, sorry if you're replying while I'm posting... I'm making minor edits as I go along. Also, I'm not really as angry as my posts or poasts might appear to be... but... you know... changes that are rife with unintended changes that can impact so many different aspects of the game aren't a good thing and should be made in moderation along with things to, you know, make those changes truly fun and not just 'more engaging'. "At no time did the rats say "wow, this new target isn't fighting back... maybe I should follow my new AI and do some more target swapping." So if someone I don't like appears on-grid with me, I stop shooting and let the rats kill them... forever until that person leaves and they all swap back to me (unintended change much?) And I understand what you're saying about RR drones... but I didn't actually target anything or ever send any of my drones to attack rats (wait, I lie... I think I attacked some BS's with my sentries towards the end of the test, but I don't remember that changing anything drastic aggro-wise). Also not done testing changes, so I haven't posted in the feedback thread. But really, my ultimate point remains that it's not an enjoyable change. I just want to point out again, I'm not screeching "argh, bad change, die in a fire, I'm quitting, wtf CCP". But it's an engaging change in that it makes an already boring aspect of the game just a little more clicky / less enjoyable. L4 mission rats at least aren't actually worth the attention you have to pay to kill them... that's why most people carry a flight of light drones there. Less for the anemic DPS they push, and more because it's just not worth paying attention to the frigate rats. In the feedback thread you state that "yes, there will be far fewer red boxes and a more enjoyable experience killing them.", if that change goes into effect NOW it'll be grand. But I fear it'll go into effect LATER and we'll just be stuck with the bad things for a while.
And my first response is thank you. Having this kind of feedback is really helpful to us so please keep it up.
Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
700
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Posted - 2012.09.25 14:41:00 -
[52] - Quote
Konrad Kane wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote: If you were not firing you were not generating any threat, your drones would have been.
Sorry just to clarify this bit please. At the moment if I take an Ishtar in and wait a while I'll pull all the aggro in the room. I then launch drones. Are you saying under the new system I have to shoot the rats from the Ishtar for the whole mission to pull aggro otherwise the drones will attract all of it?
I am saying that is one way to threaten them. They really hate ewar and logistics as well. They should actually hate ewar the most I think. Followed by logistics. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
700
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Posted - 2012.09.25 14:43:00 -
[53] - Quote
Chi'Nane T'Kal wrote:Midori Amiiko wrote:RE:Caldari favoritism "Internally we started with just changing all of the Gallente and Guristas NPC. This allowed us to run missions for the Caldari and go up against the new AI." Suspicions confirmed. Ironically the Tengu is the most prominent ship which will be COMPLETELY unaffected by this change. So testing with Caldari would certainly have been my first instinct too...NOT.
When your character for testing has every skill in the game, including some dev skills you guys can't get, we can fly anything. Meaning we can fly drone boats even when running missions for the Caldari. Just saying. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
700
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Posted - 2012.09.25 14:54:00 -
[54] - Quote
So more information to come soon but it sounds like we will have Duality back up this weekend for testing. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
702
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Posted - 2012.09.25 15:46:00 -
[55] - Quote
Lydia Schmidt wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Konrad Kane wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote: If you were not firing you were not generating any threat, your drones would have been.
Sorry just to clarify this bit please. At the moment if I take an Ishtar in and wait a while I'll pull all the aggro in the room. I then launch drones. Are you saying under the new system I have to shoot the rats from the Ishtar for the whole mission to pull aggro otherwise the drones will attract all of it? I am saying that is one way to threaten them. They really hate ewar and logistics as well. They should actually hate ewar the most I think. Followed by logistics. So, if I were to fit a target painter to my Ishtar, then I could pull all of the NPC aggro and leave my drones to do their thing? This change is gonna be slightly less annoying if that's the case.
Experimentation my good sir! :D Check the test server Duality this weekend. I will have more information soon. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
723
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Posted - 2012.10.01 16:19:00 -
[56] - Quote
So I just ran The Maze with two RR Domis and had absolutely no problem. In total I lost 3 light drones, but that was primarily because I was not paying attention. If I was I could have done so without a single drone loss.
To be honest, I actually think this change makes it to easy. If one of my tanks was failing because I got distracted I could activate the remote reps or ewar on my other ship and then they would switch to it. Yay for actually being able to control aggro! :D
Once we have a date for getting Duality back up I will let you guys know and you can test it for yourselves. Back to testing more missions and PLEX. :) Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 17:35:00 -
[57] - Quote
They were not dev hacked domi's. They were T2 fit.
For the final room: I warped both in at the same time, activated a smartbomb on both killing all the frigs within range, and then I released two flight of light drones to kill off the ships that were still just outside of my range. I then sent one flight of light drones in close to base, even if they were not really doing any damage. Turns out the citidal torp has a low signature and likes to shoot things that are also low sig. Hence it spend the entire time shooting my light drones and doing jack **** while my other domi killed the other stuff.
I was not able to fully tank the full room, but was able to get the room to switch targets by activating specific modules that they don't like when one tank got low.
What was really hard was the room with jamming rats. That hurt. :( Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 17:36:00 -
[58] - Quote
I also just realized I had an empty mid slot... Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 17:42:00 -
[59] - Quote
If this is not obvious the ability to tank that final missile tower with a couple light drones is probably going to be changed as that is a bit too good. My point however was that it was possible and I am sure you guys will find ways to break this. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 18:45:00 -
[60] - Quote
Joker Dronemaster wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:So I just ran The Maze with two RR Domis and had absolutely no problem. In total I lost 3 light drones, but that was primarily because I was not paying attention. If I was I could have done so without a single drone loss.
To be honest, I actually think this change makes it to easy. If one of my tanks was failing because I got distracted I could activate the remote reps or ewar on my other ship and then they would switch to it. Yay for actually being able to control aggro! :D
Once we have a date for getting Duality back up I will let you guys know and you can test it for yourselves. Back to testing more missions and PLEX. :) A few questions about your setup. *All of these are assuming identical fits on both ships* 1. Which drones were you using to deal DPS? Sentries or heavies? 2. Were turrets also a part of your setup? If so blasters or rails? 3. What was your DPS per ship? Drone and turret separate please. 4. What was your cost per ship? IE are we talking T2 fits or A / X - Type deadspace? I ask this because while I am relieved that it is still possible to run with that setup I am still not convinced that it didn't require a fairly significant DPS sacrifice and/or massively increased cost point. And secondly it sounds like this setup is heavily reliant on active fits, which shouldn't be possible for the people unlucky enough to live in Sansha / blood raider space.
It was an entirely T2 fit Domi, minus rigs which were T1. Also no implants.
Basically it was as follows: 2 large remote armor reps, 1 large smart bomb, 3 large energy transfer cap rechargers and an empty mid slot 4 damage specific hardners, 2 large armor reps, and I can't remember\
I had two sets of sentires, Wardens and Gardes, a flight of light drones, and then some spares.
Not sure on cost of DPS. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 18:46:00 -
[61] - Quote
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:If this is not obvious the ability to tank that final missile tower with a couple light drones is probably going to be changed as that is a bit too good. My point however was that it was possible and I am sure you guys will find ways to break this. Congratulations, you have just explained how to do ONE plex. Explain how you will handle neut towers. Oh, and if the jamming hurt so much, how did you get past it? Oh, and also, please elaborate on how successful you were running say, the Sansha Blockade with a solo mission boat. And while you are at it, please give us your fit and tactics for dealing with the Veteran Gallente Domi's and Mega's as a solo boat in the Gallente epic arc.
How did I get past it? When one tank was breaking I gave the rats a reason to shoot my other domi instead. Then they switched targets. Also, drones are nice because even though I was jammed all 10x sentry drones were still dealing DPS.
Handle neuting towers with a different strategy? Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 18:47:00 -
[62] - Quote
Joker Dronemaster wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:If this is not obvious the ability to tank that final missile tower with a couple light drones is probably going to be changed as that is a bit too good. My point however was that it was possible and I am sure you guys will find ways to break this. You do realize that if you change the only thing that allowed you to survive the final room it completely invalidates your previous test right? Could you re-run the maze without using your light drones to tank the torp chucker then come back and present your results?
If we change how the tower works and we can't complete the PLEX then we will obviously have to change something else as well. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 19:05:00 -
[63] - Quote
Joker Dronemaster wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Joker Dronemaster wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:If this is not obvious the ability to tank that final missile tower with a couple light drones is probably going to be changed as that is a bit too good. My point however was that it was possible and I am sure you guys will find ways to break this. You do realize that if you change the only thing that allowed you to survive the final room it completely invalidates your previous test right? Could you re-run the maze without using your light drones to tank the torp chucker then come back and present your results? If we change how the tower works and we can't complete the PLEX then we will obviously have to change something else as well. A dev reply! /faints....... If I promise to buy you a round of beer this weekend, will you put duality online for us. Pretty please?
Unfortunately that is not something I have control over. I have requested access to it as soon as possible to get these changes out for you guys to test and give feedback on. Shall try and keep you updated on that. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
725
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Posted - 2012.10.01 23:35:00 -
[64] - Quote
That is very similar to what I had. I didn't load all my rigs with large CCC, but close enough. I have not personally run The Maze on TQ and so don't have a base line to compare to except what people here and at the office have told me.
When I ran the mission today and landed in the final room the Overseer didn't immediately aggro me. I had been told this was because you need to draw it's aggro by doing something. When it did not aggro immediately I therefor assumed this was normal behavior. We have a test server internally that runs the TQ build. I will run the final room on that and compare. It is sounding like the behavior of this weapon has changed.
Shall attempt to test it ASAP. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
731
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Posted - 2012.10.03 09:28:00 -
[65] - Quote
Adigard wrote:darkness 4 wrote:Has any testing been done with carriers using both fighters and senturies ? It would be nice to know if we are still going to be able to use them for rating. The answer given that I remember (probably from the feedback thread) was that carrier ratting or fighter-assisted ratting in a Tengu is gone... it's virtually impossible since everything swaps to fighters full time. Someone should probably run some tests whenever the test servers come back online because I only recall one test. Lfod Shi wrote:Easy solution: Stay ATK (Attached To Keyboard). Ya know, the way the designers intended the game to be played... or whatever. You know... the Dev's specifically tested the dual AFK Domi fit, and discovered it was even easier than before this change was implemented... So no, not at all. This change apparently specifically buffs AFK drone play, while punishing folks who actually do pay attention and try to fit DPS on their ships.
What I tested was dual Dominix but I had to stay at the keyboard managing drones and the tank of my both my Dominix. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
732
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Posted - 2012.10.03 10:58:00 -
[66] - Quote
darkness 4 wrote:Has any testing been done with carriers using both fighters and senturies ? It would be nice to know if we are still going to be able to use them for rating.
Any suggestion for what content should be tested with a carrier? Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
743
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Posted - 2012.10.04 11:43:00 -
[67] - Quote
Adigard wrote:Rommiee wrote:darkness 4 wrote:Running anoms and lvl 5 missions should also be checked using subcaps with fighters assigned from a carrier that's sitting at a safe. This Sadly we'll probably have to wait until the server's come back up (someday we hope?) else the answer may be something akin to: "We ran the first room of the Score, L4, in a Tengu with fighter assistance. It was fairly easy, but we lost two fighters to rat aggro. We're okay with this."
Wait, so fighters are required in a L4 mission now? No, I am not testing that. Please stop. If you honestly have a mission or anomaly or something like that you want me to test please let me know and I will. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
744
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Posted - 2012.10.04 11:59:00 -
[68] - Quote
Cross posting this here from the other thread. What I should have done was posted this here and put a link on the other thread. Sorry.
Quote:Hey guys! So if you don't know who I am I am the guy that is making this change. Just to be clear the dev blog about this can be found over here and the feedback thread for it can be found here. I have been attempting to follow that feedback thread primarily and I apologize for not reading this thread and commenting on it sooner. I would prefer if you had additional feedback that you posted it in the feedback thread above. Now, down to business. I have read a good portion of the thread, if I don't answer your question directly sorry. I will however try and answer as many questions as possible. I have read a few posts stating that devs don't play the game, or that we don't play a specific area of the game such as high sec PvE, or null sec PvE. I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are. Just in the game design department alone we have people who play both of those areas and much more. This is also not a change we just willy nilly said "well we have nothing else to do so letGÇÖs throw darts at a board and pick something random." This is a change we really feel is needed and really believe in. As most of this thread is focused on the concerns of drone users letGÇÖs start with them. I don't think I made this entirely clear when I posted the dev blog, but one of the factors that go into an NPC picking a target is the sig radius of both the NPC and the target. The NPC prefer to shoot things matching their own sig radius. This means that if you are in a BS with drones, the cruiser and BS sized NPCs will much prefer to target you while the frigates will probably prefer to switch to your drones. In other words; even when the NPC decide to shoot your drones they don't die nearly as quickly as when you accidentally kill the wrong trigger and a whole new wave spawns shooting your drones. Is that a buff to drones? I donGÇÖt know, but it sure is a change. I also don't think I made it entirely clear as to how much threat generation matters to this new NPC. One of the really cool things you can do is take two ships with less tank than is currently required, when one tank is failing do something to generate a lot of threat and have the NPC switch to you. I know, this whole concept of managing aggro is new to EVE but other games have been doing it for a long time. With how smart you guys are, I have faith you will quickly come up with ways to beat the new AI far faster than we can. One of the things I have been doing is using a flight of light drones to kill the frigate NPC and then going with sentry or heavy drones because once the light drones are dead the cruisers and BS basically don't care about drones. Also, a smart bomb is nice for dealing with large numbers of frigates in close. I am actually currently of the opinion that these changes are making missions two easy in some cases. With how the NPC acted before, all you had to do was bring one tank that was good enough to tank them for the entire time. Now all you need a tank enough to survive until you get them to switch targets. I have seen people run missions/PLEX with dual rep Dominix and maybe a bit of RR on a second one. You can now do the same with 0 local rep, some RR, and replace the local reps with drone damage mods. The result? More DPS from you primary form of DPS (your drones) and this fantastic ability to control aggro. People in wormholes and Incursions have been dealing with this new AI for some time now without much of a problem. I have seen wormhole setups that use drones be of great success. The NPC I am giving the new AI to will have a lot less hate towards drones than the ones in Incursions or wormholes. This means drone setups should be even more viable than in either wormholes or Incursions. So drone users, please hold on for just a bit and as soon as our test server is up with these changes I will let you know. Once you have had a chance to test it, died/failed miserably, and tried a new setup I would love some feedback. To give you an example of how these changes have made things too easy in my opinion. I tanked the final room of The Maze, specifically the citadel torpedo launcher that does something like 180k EM damage, with a single flight of light drones. o_O That will probably change, but my point stands. There are plenty of options still out there for drone users. Admittedly for those that solo missions in a ship that has no drones this change means nothing at all. It has the largest impact on drone users and groups of players. Think about this. If we had this AI in from the beginning and came to you and said "hey, we want to swap the AI out to something that will pick the first target it sees and never changes" I am pretty sure we would be laughed at... a lot. Are there going to be people that die to this change? Yea, especially to that crazy citadel torpedo launcher that exists at the end of The Maze and other anomalies. Just like how peopled died to it when we first introduced it. What I advise is that players take extreme care when they are doing any PvE content in which they previously did with more than one ship and/or with drones. Don't trust the guides online, don't trust what you know. Approach it as new content. If you are aware of any specific content in which you fear will be unplayable after this changes please bring it to my attention. I am playing through and testing as much content as I can get my hangs on. What other things are being brought up as concerns? Null sec ganks of people running PvE content. This does have an effect on that no doubt. To be honest yes this means you will no longer be able to do this solo in a stealth bomber. I however just tested it and was able to tank six frigate NPC in my nemesis long enough for another character to jump into the system and warp 73au. I might be wrong but with the amount of EWAR that comes from frigates, and their hatred of drones, most people usually shoot them first when running these. The cruisers and BS never even looked at my Nemesis while I ganked the Raven. I also made sure the Raven was only running local tank so as not to generate any extra threat. If you want to be able to gank these guys solo, then yes it is going to mean you will need to bring something bigger. If there are a lot of frigate NPC on the field, well that will be difficult. We have accepted that as OK. I have read a few posts that state having a way to control aggro is essential to group PvE. I agree and that is why the NPC don't just switch targets at complete random. Things such as EWAR, drones, signature radius, logistics, and more all g...
Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
744
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Posted - 2012.10.04 12:00:00 -
[69] - Quote
Witchking Angmar wrote:I have previously asked twice about this, and so have many others, without any answer or acknowledgement from CCP. What is your opinion on the fact that this change will inevitably make killing ratters much much more difficult? Nullsec is already far too safe. My preferred solution would be to have the rats focus on players who have aggressed them, or players who aid those who aggress the rats.
As for the high level complex issue, you say you managed to run The Maze in two Dominixes, and while it is good to know it is still possible, it is clearly a bad mechanic if two Dominixes is the only way to do it outside of bringing a dozen people to run it.
CCP FoxFour wrote:Null sec ganks of people running PvE content. This does have an effect on that no doubt. To be honest yes this means you will no longer be able to do this solo in a stealth bomber. I however just tested it and was able to tank six frigate NPC in my nemesis long enough for another character to jump into the system and warp 73au. I might be wrong but with the amount of EWAR that comes from frigates, and their hatred of drones, most people usually shoot them first when running these. The cruisers and BS never even looked at my Nemesis while I ganked the Raven. I also made sure the Raven was only running local tank so as not to generate any extra threat. If you want to be able to gank these guys solo, then yes it is going to mean you will need to bring something bigger. If there are a lot of frigate NPC on the field, well that will be difficult. We have accepted that as OK. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
744
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Posted - 2012.10.04 13:34:00 -
[70] - Quote
Rengerel en Distel wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Adigard wrote:Rommiee wrote:darkness 4 wrote:Running anoms and lvl 5 missions should also be checked using subcaps with fighters assigned from a carrier that's sitting at a safe. This Sadly we'll probably have to wait until the server's come back up (someday we hope?) else the answer may be something akin to: "We ran the first room of the Score, L4, in a Tengu with fighter assistance. It was fairly easy, but we lost two fighters to rat aggro. We're okay with this." Wait, so fighters are required in a L4 mission now? No, I am not testing that. Please stop. If you honestly have a mission or anomaly or something like that you want me to test please let me know and I will. The ISDs are telling people the changes are on Buckingham, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Can you let us know one way or another?
Buckingham has a custom DUST build right now, it does not have the Winter release. I would love to give a timeline for when Duality will be up, but the best I can do is before the end of the month. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
748
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Posted - 2012.10.04 14:31:00 -
[71] - Quote
Hey guys, I promised to keep you updated and so I am.
I have been running some more missions and we have found a problem. The missile batteries and other turrets (such as the one at the end of the maze, stasis towers, cruise missile towers, etc.) are under certain circumstances having problems with the new AI. We are currently evaluating our options but we may end up reverting the AI from those turrets and leaving them how they were for a few reasons. One of them being that we believe missions involving the station gun from the end of the maze are not as balanced as we would like.
I will be spending this afternoon testing it some more as well as testing it with the towers using the old dumb AI. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
748
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Posted - 2012.10.04 14:50:00 -
[72] - Quote
Warde Guildencrantz wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Hey guys, I promised to keep you updated and so I am.
I have been running some more missions and we have found a problem. The missile batteries and other turrets (such as the one at the end of the maze, stasis towers, cruise missile towers, etc.) are under certain circumstances having problems with the new AI. We are currently evaluating our options but we may end up reverting the AI from those turrets and leaving them how they were for a few reasons. One of them being that we believe missions involving the station gun from the end of the maze are not as balanced as we would like.
I will be spending this afternoon testing it some more as well as testing it with the towers using the old dumb AI. While you are at it can someone make towers not have completely useless drops? 100 T1 ammo is not worth shooting it in the first place.
Sorry, that will be a bit beyond the scope of this project. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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ISD TYPE40
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
1428
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Posted - 2012.10.04 16:18:00 -
[73] - Quote
Dinsdale Pirannha wrote:Jenn aSide wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Hey guys, I promised to keep you updated and so I am.
I have been running some more missions and we have found a problem. The missile batteries and other turrets (such as the one at the end of the maze, stasis towers, cruise missile towers, etc.) are under certain circumstances having problems with the new AI. We are currently evaluating our options but we may end up reverting the AI from those turrets and leaving them how they were for a few reasons. One of them being that we believe missions involving the station gun from the end of the maze are not as balanced as we would like.
I will be spending this afternoon testing it some more as well as testing it with the towers using the old dumb AI. Thank you for looking into our concerns. This highlights our concern that While this is to me (as an explorer) a bit of welcome news, there is still the issue of the REST of the NPCs in the final rooms of High End Plexes (erm, by the way, plexes, not "missions", missions are soooo Empire). For instance, Blood Raidern Naval Shipyard. 20 neutiing battleships plus the torp chucking structure. It takes almost a dedicated logi to rep even a loki enough to keep it alive in full aggro. The 20 BS switching target off the "tank" is not as bad as the torp switching off, but, since a logi is also cruiser sized, it would be a toss up as to who the neuting BSs aggro right? Not an insurmountable problem, if the "tank" can hold torp/overseer aggro, the players could just use spider tanking BS feeding each other cap as well as reps. But even then it could be way more iffy, and if top end plexes become too "ship-killerish", peolle will simply not do the plexes until you go back and fix them. This just recently happened with Forsaken and forlorn hubs after the recent buff, you guys had to turn around and change spawns on them yet again because (in the words of the developer, whover it was) they had become "to killy" lol. Still, glad you are listening to our concerns. I'm sure many of us still feel that given how complex, widespread and interconnected this portion of PVE is, it would be better to do a few things ,like redesigning a fair bit of the sites and missions, like Blood Raider naval ship yard, the mission "buzz kill" that is frig heavy and many others. Also like doing something about that god-awful drone control interface. But at this point I'll take whatever consideration we can get lol That's right, make sure that null sec income is not hit, but screw high sec.
Please stop with the rumour posting, it is not productive and adds nothing to the conversation. If you wish to discuss these changes, please do so in a sensible fashion, thank you - ISD Type40. ISD Type40 Lieutenant Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
748
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Posted - 2012.10.05 10:59:00 -
[74] - Quote
OK so I have confirmation that Duality will be open on October 19th, less than a month from now :P.
See CCP Goliath's post here for more information. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
748
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Posted - 2012.10.05 13:18:00 -
[75] - Quote
Rommiee wrote:Rommiee wrote:CCP FoxFour wrote:Adigard wrote:Rommiee wrote:darkness 4 wrote:Running anoms and lvl 5 missions should also be checked using subcaps with fighters assigned from a carrier that's sitting at a safe. This Sadly we'll probably have to wait until the server's come back up (someday we hope?) else the answer may be something akin to: "We ran the first room of the Score, L4, in a Tengu with fighter assistance. It was fairly easy, but we lost two fighters to rat aggro. We're okay with this." Wait, so fighters are required in a L4 mission now? No, I am not testing that. Please stop. If you honestly have a mission or anomaly or something like that you want me to test please let me know and I will. I was not referring to Level 4 Missions. Please can you check anomalies like Forsaken Hubs which are frequently run with a subcap and fighter support.. Thanks Did you try this yet ?
Not yet sorry. Trying to get to it today, but I am busy with a few other things and getting ready for my trip to GDC Online next week in Austin.
Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
774
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Posted - 2012.10.17 12:42:00 -
[76] - Quote
NPC AI changes will be on Duality this weekend!
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2058105#post2058105 Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
795
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Posted - 2012.10.23 11:58:00 -
[77] - Quote
James Amril-Kesh wrote:You know they're not really listening.
Funny story about that. We are. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=155703&p=12 Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
847
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Posted - 2012.10.26 16:06:00 -
[78] - Quote
Duality is back open for testing. NPC AI is on it. Come test and give feedback! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2099233#post2099233 Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
852
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Posted - 2012.11.09 13:43:00 -
[79] - Quote
An update on this topic: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2158421#post2158421 Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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CCP FoxFour
C C P C C P Alliance
1122
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Posted - 2012.12.07 11:20:00 -
[80] - Quote
Imuran wrote:Quote:Q) Does this change things like spawns or range activation? A) No. When the NPC decide to start hating you is still based on the individual mission.
I am seeing reports of whole room aggro in some missions now as opposed to staged aggro - so this no longer appears true
You are correct, that is a bug, fix is incoming. Content Designer | Team Five 0 @regnerBA |
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ISD Suvetar
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
1187
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Posted - 2012.12.09 00:29:00 -
[81] - Quote
Hi,
We respect peoples right to criticize but please do so in a constructive manner.
Thanks. ISD Suvetar Captain Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department |
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