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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 1 post(s) |
Alxea
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Posted - 2009.05.25 09:35:00 -
[1]
Originally by: CCP Chronotis
NPCs have the general intelligence of a small gnat when it comes to strategy for now. So a small ship which can manoeuvre and avoid the majority of the damage due to its size is quite common. The same can be achieved in an assault frigate quite adequately for example without breaking a sweat though the bombers can definitely put out more damage against the battleships.
It is on our wishlist to eventually upgrade the old NPCs and not rely on the old trick of quantity over quality enemies. One day, they will be as smart as the sleepers if not smarter and compensate for your orbit at 50k and spam death shenanigans 
<evil cackle>Muhahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahahahahhaha</evil cackle>
So once NPC's in missions can be as hard as sleepers, is that another drone nerf? Looks like I'll have to go FOF missile then after this change. How bout you buff drones so they arn't so fragile and actually make them useful agenst sleepers instead of 15 mill worth of drones get insta pawned by them cus all they do is get webbed todeath and I lose all my firepower within moments. Keep in mind this is in a ishtar or dominix with heavy drones. Sentry drones can't even track frigates at point blank range.
Even worse for medium and small drones can't even be recovered after launched. They insta pop. Yeah nice going screw us drone users again. One nerf at a time. Looks like its time to start training for a fof missile golem for my missions. You make mission NPC's like sleepers is the day I take up mining or market trading for isk cus I don't have time to spend every sec at my keyboard pawning missions.
Turrets need some fof love too. But whats up with all the drone nerfs? Is it that the development team hates drone users or something? Its no big deal to lose T2 missiles to a mission rat, but come on drones cost 1000 times more. How bout we lower the price of their build cost then that will be a acceptable loss maybe if all my firepower didn't come from my drones. What dedicated drone user has gun skills, luckally I do.  Bigger drone bays, or more HP is needed on drones. Because I can't reload my drone bay when I have no drones to kill frigate rats and they have me perma scrambled to the mission cus all my drones where killed kind of scenario, nice a new way to partition being stuck. ROFL Nice going.
This is all if sleeper level AI is put into mission NPC's, currently I only have to pay attention to my drones if a new spawn comes and locks them. If they become like sleepers they will just always lock my drones and heres what I'll be doing half the time.
Launch/return to drone bay/drones lost/launch/return to drone bay/drones lost/launch/return to drone bay/drones lost/launch/return to drone bay/drones lost/drone bay empty/you can not warp, you are being warp scrambled and your warp drive stops fuctioning. Log off for about 15 mins and hope they stopped warp scrambling you or try to warp off as you warp back in and they rescram you cus your ship is too slow. File new stuck partition cus I ran out of ammo on my main weapon, my drones are gone. Nice way to play the game huh? Heres what we do when sleepers pawn all our drones. Self destruct ishtar because I'm perma warp scramed by 5 or 10 frigs, and have no drones. Before I had 20, 5 lights/mid/heavy/sentury. In all, now I have to pod myself cus I'm stuck in the wormhole otherwise. Luckally this doesn't happen in missions cus I'm in known space.
Wow what a rant. But the truth hurts to us drone users or even worse to dedicated drone users who only specialize in that one area of damage. Not everybody has skills across every weapon in the game sadly. So keep that in mind before you make npc rats as godly hard as sleepers. The slow deaths kill me. You tanked 300k of damage, and the only reason you died was cus you had to let them kill you cus you had no drones left to defend yourself with. >_>; Oh and the passive shields are funnyer, offline everything.
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Kepakh
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Posted - 2009.05.25 09:56:00 -
[2]
Maybe the only 'AI' change is that you won't be allowed do AFK missions any more?
I use my Arbi/Pilg for soloing sleeper plexes very often. I fight at close range, scooping the drones as soon as sleepers target them. I have couple of repping drones in bay and hull remote repper in high slot for after fight repair.
For Ishtar or Domi, I can't see anything easier than doing the drone work with sentries the same way, just you won't need to move that much.
Works well, imo.
Also take note, that MWD will be most likely possible to use on missions, soon(?). |
Alxea
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Posted - 2009.05.25 11:19:00 -
[3]
Edited by: Alxea on 25/05/2009 11:25:45
Edited by: Alxea on 25/05/2009 11:21:54
Originally by: Kepakh
Maybe the only 'AI' change is that you won't be allowed do AFK missions any more?
I use my Arbi/Pilg for soloing sleeper plexes very often. I fight at close range, scooping the drones as soon as sleepers target them. I have couple of repping drones in bay and hull remote repper in high slot for after fight repair.
For Ishtar or Domi, I can't see anything easier than doing the drone work with sentries the same way, just you won't need to move that much.
Works well, imo.
Also take note, that MWD will be most likely possible to use on missions, soon(?).
You got the easy sleeper spawns. When you find some real sleepers and all your drones are gone, and your forced to self destruct or eject and pod yourself and loseing 100's of millions because your stuck, ofcorse I can afford this, but not every time I jump into a wormhole and all I get is negitive returns. It was fun the 1st 5 or so times, but now its just old where I cross train for a nighthawk cus missiles are just better agenst sleepers.
You have been fighting the little hacking sites and such, the equal to maybe a level 2/3 mission. Your recon wouldn't survive a sec in a fortress plex like a shield ishtar can but when the BS's come its like a level 5 mission and sometimes can make them look like a joke when your being hit with 3000 DPS spawns. LOL Thats like in the J2's I'm talking about but the J1 fortresses and bases are about 1000DPS max. I haven't been able to complete them because I lose all my drones pretty fast. You recall them and you lose 2 or 3 drones that cost 1 mill each in the process its annoying.
Unless I'm the only one that sleeper drones hate and they love my drones more then everybody else. Its not possible to use drones in these plexes from what I experianced, they just kill all your drones too fast for you to beable to kill anything. 2 year player here, I an't no noob. And you haven't gone into a serious plex before, like the cores, fortresses, bases, those are just evil I forgot that they are called, after the frigs and crusiers your drones are screwed if they get that far and senturies can't track the frigates. All my light and med drones are gone after the 1st spawn of frigs and crusiers. The battleships and the rest of the spawn pawn my heavy drones, then I'm stuck with senturies and I can't warp out. Plus the BS's do 2000+ hit damage on my senturies. Nice...
PS the sleeper sentury turrents are evil and the higher BS's.
15:31:19 Combat Sleepless Upholder hits you for 980 damage (Wrecking!)
15:31:24 Combat Orthrus hits you for 1031 damage (Wrecking!)
15:45:59 Combat Sleepless Upholder hits you for 2930 damage (Wrecking!) that was on armor and structure. LOL I insta poped after my shields went down. And that was 4 sentry's and like 5 BS's at the same time... Now that wouldn't be funny if mission rats there that powerful.
And thats agenst the fallowing tank, 14K shield HP, 154sec shield recharge with T1 purgers, T2's would be down to about 120secs, 55em and the rest natual shield resistances, or a inv field, that can give about a 800 to 1000 DPS tank with maxed skills overloaded. Overloading on one hardener even takes awile to burn out.
Victim: Alxea
Corp: Ori-Dragon
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Ishtar
System: Unknown
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 315471
Involved parties:
Name: Orthrus / Unknown (laid the final blow)
That was back on sisi some time ago. Its funny to see large chunks of your shields go slowly to hell every time they hit you when the BS's undock and pawn you. 
When they do that kind of damage to you run like hell. Cus if your still scramed your screwed in the actual bases where you see the normal sleepers. You want the fleet pawning sleepers go into a J2 base. :D I was only in a J1 base plex you know the ones you can just scan down in one sweep of a deep space prob scanner. Yeah... good luck soloing that. |
Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 11:50:00 -
[4]
Low level sleeper AI + A bounty boost by 5x and reducing missions to a few key NPC's, giving the actual AGENT REWARD a bit of a boost too.
Fix the AI so that drones are no longer instantly primary, (Though using RR's in highs should help) |
Lindsay Logan
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Posted - 2009.05.25 12:07:00 -
[5]
O nooes! I can afk a level 4 in my domi anymore! 
Seriously, I have used drones against sleepers, its not that hard fi you micro them a little. |
AncientLord
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Posted - 2009.05.25 12:15:00 -
[6]
Edited by: AncientLord on 25/05/2009 12:48:39
You are one noob! And you know why ? Becouse you realy on drones, instead of your ship.
LEARN TO PLAY OR DIE
Edit: Beter AI at lvl 3-4-5 missions, beter for us... which got brains. Evervody else will cry
Originally by: Blane Xero
Low level sleeper AI + A bounty boost by 5x and reducing missions to a few key NPC's, giving the actual AGENT REWARD a bit of a boost too.
Fix the AI so that drones are no longer instantly primary, (Though using RR's in highs should help)
Why fix ? You dont see the point.
AI will atack 1st. those that atack them, if the "healer" is doing a bit to much healing. They will atack the healer... etc...
But it seems you folks dont have a clue, how mechanics works. |
Sciencegeek deathdealer
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Posted - 2009.05.25 12:21:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Kepakh
Maybe the only 'AI' change is that you won't be allowed do AFK missions any more?
I use my Arbi/Pilg for soloing sleeper plexes very often. I fight at close range, scooping the drones as soon as sleepers target them. I have couple of repping drones in bay and hull remote repper in high slot for after fight repair.
For Ishtar or Domi, I can't see anything easier than doing the drone work with sentries the same way, just you won't need to move that much.
Works well, imo.
Also take note, that MWD will be most likely possible to use on missions, soon(?).
NO, i have to agree. I have spent a lot of time in whs ingame and on sisi. Drone pilots are getting screwed here because as soon as our drones go to attack sleepers, even if we have a gun on the sleepers to try to keep agro, the sleepers will engage the drones with webs and their scary accuracy & danmage.
I agree this is a drone nerf.
/signed |
Kepakh
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 12:22:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Alxea
Edited by: Alxea on 25/05/2009 11:25:45
Edited by: Alxea on 25/05/2009 11:21:54
You got the easy sleeper spawns. When you find some real sleepers and all your drones are gone, and your forced to self destruct or eject and pod yourself and loseing 100's of millions because your stuck, ofcorse I can afford this, but not every time I jump into a wormhole and all I get is negitive returns. It was fun the 1st 5 or so times, but now its just old where I cross train for a nighthawk cus missiles are just better agenst sleepers.
You have been fighting the little hacking sites and such, the equal to maybe a level 2/3 mission. Your recon wouldn't survive a sec in a fortress plex like a shield ishtar can but when the BS's come its like a level 5 mission and sometimes can make them look like a joke when your being hit with 3000 DPS spawns. LOL Thats like in the J2's I'm talking about but the J1 fortresses and bases are about 1000DPS max. I haven't been able to complete them because I lose all my drones pretty fast. You recall them and you lose 2 or 3 drones that cost 1 mill each in the process its annoying.
Unless I'm the only one that sleeper drones hate and they love my drones more then everybody else. Its not possible to use drones in these plexes from what I experianced, they just kill all your drones too fast for you to beable to kill anything. 2 year player here, I an't no noob. And you haven't gone into a serious plex before, like the cores, fortresses, bases, those are just evil I forgot that they are called, after the frigs and crusiers your drones are screwed if they get that far and senturies can't track the frigates. All my light and med drones are gone after the 1st spawn of frigs and crusiers. The battleships and the rest of the spawn pawn my heavy drones, then I'm stuck with senturies and I can't warp out. Plus the BS's do 2000+ hit damage on my senturies. Nice...
PS the sleeper sentury turrents are evil and the higher BS's.
15:31:19 Combat Sleepless Upholder hits you for 980 damage (Wrecking!)
15:31:24 Combat Orthrus hits you for 1031 damage (Wrecking!)
15:45:59 Combat Sleepless Upholder hits you for 2930 damage (Wrecking!) that was on armor and structure. LOL I insta poped after my shields went down. And that was 4 sentry's and like 5 BS's at the same time... Now that wouldn't be funny if mission rats there that powerful.
And thats agenst the fallowing tank, 14K shield HP, 154sec shield recharge with T1 purgers, T2's would be down to about 120secs, 55em and the rest natual shield resistances, or a inv field, that can give about a 800 to 1000 DPS tank with maxed skills overloaded. Overloading on one hardener even takes awile to burn out.
Victim: Alxea
Corp: Ori-Dragon
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Ishtar
System: Unknown
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 315471
Involved parties:
Name: Orthrus / Unknown (laid the final blow)
That was back on sisi some time ago. Its funny to see large chunks of your shields go slowly to hell every time they hit you when the BS's undock and pawn you.
When they do that kind of damage to you run like hell. Cus if your still scramed your screwed in the actual bases where you see the normal sleepers. You want the fleet pawning sleepers go into a J2 base. :D I was only in a J1 base plex you know the ones you can just scan down in one sweep of a deep space prob scanner. Yeah... good luck soloing that.
How is this related to drones?
Level +4 wormholes are basically not soloable, what a discovery...
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AncientLord
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Posted - 2009.05.25 12:22:00 -
[9]
Edited by: AncientLord on 25/05/2009 12:26:00
Originally by: Sciencegeek deathdealer
Originally by: Kepakh
Maybe the only 'AI' change is that you won't be allowed do AFK missions any more?
I use my Arbi/Pilg for soloing sleeper plexes very often. I fight at close range, scooping the drones as soon as sleepers target them. I have couple of repping drones in bay and hull remote repper in high slot for after fight repair.
For Ishtar or Domi, I can't see anything easier than doing the drone work with sentries the same way, just you won't need to move that much.
Works well, imo.
Also take note, that MWD will be most likely possible to use on missions, soon(?).
NO, i have to agree. I have spent a lot of time in whs ingame and on sisi. Drone pilots are getting screwed here because as soon as our drones go to attack sleepers, even if we have a gun on the sleepers to try to keep agro, the sleepers will engage the drones with webs and their scary accuracy & danmage.
I agree this is a drone nerf.
/signed
Aahahahah, another one with no clue
Edit: Ever heard of agro managment ? |
Kepakh
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 12:39:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Sciencegeek deathdealer
Originally by: Kepakh
Maybe the only 'AI' change is that you won't be allowed do AFK missions any more?
I use my Arbi/Pilg for soloing sleeper plexes very often. I fight at close range, scooping the drones as soon as sleepers target them. I have couple of repping drones in bay and hull remote repper in high slot for after fight repair.
For Ishtar or Domi, I can't see anything easier than doing the drone work with sentries the same way, just you won't need to move that much.
Works well, imo.
Also take note, that MWD will be most likely possible to use on missions, soon(?).
NO, i have to agree. I have spent a lot of time in whs ingame and on sisi. Drone pilots are getting screwed here because as soon as our drones go to attack sleepers, even if we have a gun on the sleepers to try to keep agro, the sleepers will engage the drones with webs and their scary accuracy & danmage.
I agree this is a drone nerf.
/signed
Very odd I am fine running 1-3 plexes solo with my drone boat and you're not...
In fact, I love using drones to fight sleepers. They use no cap and you can devote all your slots to tank(any modules of my prefrence) while maintaining good DPS. The way sleepers cycle between me and drones also saves my cap and helps my tanking.
Is it so much effort for you to scoop your drones and adapt? |
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Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 12:39:00 -
[11]
Edited by: Blane Xero on 25/05/2009 12:40:13
Originally by: AncientLord
Originally by: Blane Xero
Low level sleeper AI + A bounty boost by 5x and reducing missions to a few key NPC's, giving the actual AGENT REWARD a bit of a boost too.
Fix the AI so that drones are no longer instantly primary, (Though using RR's in highs should help)
Why fix ? You dont see the point.
AI will atack 1st. those that atack them, if the "healer" is doing a bit to much healing. They will atack the healer... etc...
But it seems you folks dont have a clue, how mechanics works.
Offensive much? I'll explain to you the reasoning for my post, maybe even sell you a clue or two.
If mission rats suddenly got sleeper AI, most of the missions (Blockade, Extravaganza's, Pirate Invasion, Worlds Collide, Damsel in Distress, Stop the Thief, to name a few) Would suddenly make it impossible to use any drones other than Sentry drones. Any mission where you are fighting more than 5 webber frigates (Who already often trigger spawns that attack drones) or even cruisers, would make it suicide for ships specifically designed to use drones as a main offensive.
Remote repair ranges are about 6km tops on an un-bonused ship. Big. Freaking. Whoop. Most missions cover a 50-60km SPHERE of space. More if you are constantly moving. Right now the only Higher-Priority over drones sleepers have are substantial Remote Repping (And possibly covert ops ships, but I digress).
This would mean, in order for things to be survivable in the effect that any drones outside your immediate scoop range won't immediately get Webbed and Alpha'd, you need to reduce the amount of Mission NPC's you fight. This leads to us needing to increase the bounties per-rat, so that it doesn't just become a **** fight 5mill per mission. This allows us to finally buff the Agent Reward per-mission, so that it might actually be viable to take the Blitz Routes some missions offer.
My comment towards RR's was in direct of USING THEM TO DRAW AGGRO AWAY FROM DRONES. Shock Horror! I think you need to train "Reading Posts in Context" level 5.
So, Mr Lord. Caller of the "F'cking Noob" and commander of the "LRN2PLAY", why don't you buy a clue and use the brain you were given instead of automatically resorting to insulting posts before you even present anything that resembles a coherent argument. Then it wont backfire as much when you attempt to call someone an idiot when you obviously have no clue yourself. |
AncientLord
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 12:45:00 -
[12]
Edited by: AncientLord on 25/05/2009 12:47:29
Originally by: Blane Xero
Edited by: Blane Xero on 25/05/2009 12:40:13
Originally by: AncientLord
Originally by: Blane Xero
Low level sleeper AI + A bounty boost by 5x and reducing missions to a few key NPC's, giving the actual AGENT REWARD a bit of a boost too.
Fix the AI so that drones are no longer instantly primary, (Though using RR's in highs should help)
Why fix ? You dont see the point.
AI will atack 1st. those that atack them, if the "healer" is doing a bit to much healing. They will atack the healer... etc...
But it seems you folks dont have a clue, how mechanics works.
Offensive much? I'll explain to you the reasoning for my post, maybe even sell you a clue or two.
If mission rats suddenly got sleeper AI, most of the missions (Blockade, Extravaganza's, Pirate Invasion, Worlds Collide, Damsel in Distress, Stop the Thief, to name a few) Would suddenly make it impossible to use any drones other than Sentry drones. Any mission where you are fighting more than 5 webber frigates (Who already often trigger spawns that attack drones) or even cruisers, would make it suicide for ships specifically designed to use drones as a main offensive.
Remote repair ranges are about 6km tops on an un-bonused ship. Big. Freaking. Whoop. Most missions cover a 50-60km SPHERE of space. More if you are constantly moving. Right now the only Higher-Priority over drones sleepers have are substantial Remote Repping (And possibly covert ops ships, but I digress).
This would mean, in order for things to be survivable in the effect that any drones outside your immediate scoop range won't immediately get Webbed and Alpha'd, you need to reduce the amount of Mission NPC's you fight. This leads to us needing to increase the bounties per-rat, so that it doesn't just become a **** fight 5mill per mission. This allows us to finally buff the Agent Reward per-mission, so that it might actually be viable to take the Blitz Routes some missions offer.
My comment towards RR's was in direct of USING THEM TO DRAW AGGRO AWAY FROM DRONES. Shock Horror! I think you need to train "Reading Posts in Context" level 5.
So, Mr Lord. Caller of the "F'cking Noob" and commander of the "LRN2PLAY", why don't you buy a clue and use the brain you were given instead of automatically resorting to insulting posts before you even present anything that resembles a coherent argument. Then it wont backfire as much when you attempt to call someone an idiot when you obviously have no clue yourself.
Lol forum warrior, cool down. You made 1 block big post, but still didnt explained the correct game mechanics "why" sleepers atack the drones 1st. ?
Oh right... you donno.
As for "drone" based ships, are they flying naked around or ? Couse this is lol. I dont give a **** about my english, since its not my primary talk.
Edit: And learn to read a bit forum warrior, that "noob" word, wasnt meant to you. |
Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 13:26:00 -
[13]
Originally by: AncientLord
Lol forum warrior, cool down. You made 1 block big post, but still didnt explained the correct game mechanics "why" sleepers atack the drones 1st. ?
Oh right... you donno.
Sleepers attack the drones [in MOST cases] because drone users make no attempt to prevent doing so. But thats Sleepers. We're not Talking about sleepers, we're talking about importing their AI into normal Rats. Which people fight alone. In scenario's that are not intended to need groups. Yeah, definitely not the same as sleeper scenarios.
So, since you seem to know everything, is there something a solo drone user could do, who relies solely on drones as his DPS, to prevent the rats instantly webbing drones (Preventing their return) and them being alpha'd by the other ships? Oh yeah, There is remote reps. Which have a stunning max range of 6km~ meaning you either follow your drones about all day or you use sentries. Small drones would die before you could lock them, let alone rep them.
Originally by: AncientLord
As for "drone" based ships, are they flying naked around or ? Couse this is lol.
No. They are usually fit with a local tank, some drone control range mods, a couple of remote reps, and maybe a drone nav mod. But you know, what good is that gonna do when all his drones are dead, he is warp scrammed and webbed, he sure as hell aint gonna hit the crap scrambling him even if he fits some local guns, let alone put out enough actual DPS to kill them, without drones.
Just because drone ships can carry backup flights does not make losing them any less negligible, at 1mill~ a drone that's more than your average person pays for ammo for 2 missions. And when your looking at possible losing 2-3 drones per mission, its not acceptable.
You seem to be confusing "Fighting sleepers with drones" and "Fighting Current NPC's with Sleeper AI" a fair bit.
Originally by: AncientLord
I dont give a **** about my english, since its not my primary talk.
Never once criticised your spelling or grammar, only the offensive nature in which you used it.
Originally by: AncientLord
Edit: And learn to read a bit forum warrior, that "noob" word, wasnt meant to you.
So? That doesn't make my point any less relevant, whether you meant it to me or someone else, my point still stands. You prefer to set up insults and stick men than actually contribute to the thread by showing your opinion, instead you sit in your corner and say crap like "lol noob" and "your doing it wrong obviously" without showing any proof or concept that your opinion may have any actual merit.
Whether you insulted me or another person, that doesn't magically make it acceptable. |
AncientLord
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 13:35:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Blane Xero
So? That doesn't make my point any less relevant, whether you meant it to me or someone else, my point still stands. You prefer to set up insults and stick men than actually contribute to the thread by showing your opinion, instead you sit in your corner and say crap like "lol noob" and "your doing it wrong obviously" without showing any proof or concept that your opinion may have any actual merit.
Whether you insulted me or another person, that doesn't magically make it acceptable.
I dont need to show you any proof, why shoud i, every proff is already here ? As for drone only ships, it seems they got a problem with managment.
Its human stupidy which brings you to your knees and you cant say anynthing but an insult.
Dont be so high class, even you are flaming and talking stupid on these forums. Look a bit and youl see. So... lower your head a bit and dont look so high. |
Myra2007
Shafrak Industries
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 13:51:00 -
[15]
Don't know if you've ever been to w-space but as a matter of fact drones work fine. Actually the dominix is one of the best ships to have available there.  |
Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 13:52:00 -
[16]
Originally by: AncientLord
Originally by: Blane Xero
So? That doesn't make my point any less relevant, whether you meant it to me or someone else, my point still stands. You prefer to set up insults and stick men than actually contribute to the thread by showing your opinion, instead you sit in your corner and say crap like "lol noob" and "your doing it wrong obviously" without showing any proof or concept that your opinion may have any actual merit.
Whether you insulted me or another person, that doesn't magically make it acceptable.
I dont need to show you any proof, why shoud i, every proff is already here ? As for drone only ships, it seems they got a problem with managment.
Its human stupidy which brings you to your knees and you cant say anynthing but an insult.
Dont be so high class, even you are flaming and talking stupid on these forums. Look a bit and youl see. So... lower your head a bit and dont look so high.
Trolling? Debatable. Flaming? No. The difference? "I don't need to show you any"
There's a rather big difference between acting High-Class and deciding to be Mature and within the forum rules. You're choosing to both not contribute to the thread and resort to insulting people.
Whether the Original Poster is going overboard with the "Drones are dead" doomsaying or not, Drones ARE a valid concern when implementing sleeper AI into the normal Blobfest of NPC's, as it stands right now, against the lower level sleeper anomalies and complex's solo/small gangs do well with drones. Against the bigger ones less and less so, unless they bring substantial remote-repair ships to the point where sleepers disregard everything else.
Neither of these tactics work in missions unless you feel like making less Isk than soloing level three's. Whereas normal non-drone ships do fine alone. This is the argument being made by Myself, Balance. Non drone ships versus Drone ships. Drones come under non-drone ships and thats where some balancing is needed. |
Pytria Le'Danness
Placid Reborn
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 14:18:00 -
[17]
I'd welcome a bit more variety and challenge in missions, but simply slapping the Sleeper "AI" to current NPCs would certainly be a big nerf to drones, and one that needs to be carefully balanced.
I'm not so concerned about the fact that drones could get targetted but instead the sheer clumsiness of the whole situation.
- Drones have no local tank, and the range of remote reppers is too small to work in a mission
- Drones do not react to damage in any way
- There is no indication that drones are being locked. NPCs can still be inactive or happily blasting away at the drones, the pilot never knows
- The first indication that a drone is being locked is that it is taking damage. By that time it is often webbed as well
- If a drone is being targetted, the only way to save them is to recall them. Remote repping does not work due to range, and EWar is not feasible since it barely works on NPCs. Besides, the pilot has no way of knowing who is attacking his drones.
- Recalling a drone removes its DPS from the fight for the way back to the ship and, once relaunched, back to the target.
- To recall a single drone that is being targetted a right-click menu is required which is bad in laggy situations.
- Drones are the only weapon system that can be damaged (outside of using heat) and cannot be replaced in space. Launchers and turrets can run out of ammo, but you could reload from a can if needed.
- Drones are quite expensive, losing one is a much heavier blow than losing a bunch of missiles to NPC Defenders
- For many ships small drones are the only way to hit smaller targets like scrambling frigs. If the NPCs start targetting the drones of these ships the constant recalling will cause problems breaking the tank of many frigates and might cause a situation where the player cannot leave due to being scrambled, but cannot kill the scramblers at all.
- Drones are still a liability in many cases, causing aggro and not following the settings for "Focus Fire" et al.
On top of that, drone use in PvP seems to be relatively balanced, this it is not possible to simply go "OK, we add the new AI and in compensation all drones get 200% more hit points".
So in summary: better NPCs would be nice, but please be careful to avoid removing drones as a viable weapon system. |
Ausser
Cybertech Industrials Agency
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 14:24:00 -
[18]
Drones are not a 'Fire and Forget' weapon platform. You need to keep them alive in some cases.
If you want something to fly to your target and spank it while you dont need to care about, then try missiles. Nobody would try to repair his missiles just to reduce the effect of defenders.
You dont like missiles? Learn how to play with drones within the new scenario.
'Learn2Play' seems to be the point. Most things in eve have the property not to be suitable for all applications. Often this changes with large patches and rebalances. There is no warranty one concept will be working for ever. On the long term, players either adapt or skill for another platform.
The fact you have not the skillpoints to use other weapon platforms, which would be easier to handle for you, is no excuse. In EVE, you still can skill for them if you are not able to adapt.
Are ppl whining about dread guns are not suitable for killing npc frigs?
Are ppl whining about their drones die to smartbombs in pvp? Yes, some do. But who cares? They've used the wrong tool in the wrong situation.
The core message i can see in all the whining is: "CCP, give us immune drones so we still have easy-mode in missions like we had before sleeper-ai and dont need to bother with rr - cos rr does not work while afk". Do you really want this boring bot-friendly easy-mode? |
Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
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Posted - 2009.05.25 14:51:00 -
[19]
Originally by: Ausser
Are ppl whining about dread guns are not suitable for killing npc frigs?
Wow, winner of the terrible analogies award goes to...
Drones are a weapon system, Dread guns are a Weapon Size. People dont complain about dread guns not hitting frigs because they aren't intended to. Drones have three sizes (Scout, Medium, Heavy, Sentry) which are designed for different sized of ships (Small, Medium/Medium large, "Everything above frigates", and Large/Medium Large.) Drones are easily killed, but harder to maintain (Very, very easy to alpha, and if a Webber NPC catches one while its under fire, you've lost it whether you like it or not).
Drones are also Substantially more expensive than missiles, yet alot easier to kill (Though Missiles depend on skilled smartbombers or people actually fitting defenders wheras drones its a simple Lock-Fire) Drones frequently work in the 20-30km ranges from the ship, and occasionally further (40-60km). It is not possible without following drones absolutely everywhere, to keep them within remote rep range, And if you are close to a cluster of NPC's with a MWD on the minute they split aggro, your cap will die from your local reps and remote reps, you will lose your drones and probably die yourself. Recalling medium/heavy drones takes far too long and as it is now you can often lose them anyway even if only a couple of frigates are attacking them.
I'm not opposed to Some Pseudo sleeper AI being built into normal NPC's, but Appropriate balancing will be needed to ensure that it is still possible with effort to keep drones alive, while maintaining drone boats as a decent mission ship (and not just something people look at and constantly say "but turret/missile boat XYZ does the same for less hassle"). They have missile/turret boats to compete with, which have no problem keeping their "Dps" alive. Defenders are pathetic and tracking disrupters are negated with modules with no range restriction.
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Kepakh
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 15:03:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Blane Xero
Wow, winner of the terrible analogies award goes to...
Drones are a weapon system, Dread guns are a Weapon Size. People dont complain about dread guns not hitting frigs because they aren't intended to. Drones have three sizes (Scout, Medium, Heavy, Sentry) which are designed for different sized of ships (Small, Medium/Medium large, "Everything above frigates", and Large/Medium Large.) Drones are easily killed, but harder to maintain (Very, very easy to alpha, and if a Webber NPC catches one while its under fire, you've lost it whether you like it or not).
Drones are also Substantially more expensive than missiles, yet alot easier to kill (Though Missiles depend on skilled smartbombers or people actually fitting defenders wheras drones its a simple Lock-Fire) Drones frequently work in the 20-30km ranges from the ship, and occasionally further (40-60km). It is not possible without following drones absolutely everywhere, to keep them within remote rep range, And if you are close to a cluster of NPC's with a MWD on the minute they split aggro, your cap will die from your local reps and remote reps, you will lose your drones and probably die yourself. Recalling medium/heavy drones takes far too long and as it is now you can often lose them anyway even if only a couple of frigates are attacking them.
I'm not opposed to Some Pseudo sleeper AI being built into normal NPC's, but Appropriate balancing will be needed to ensure that it is still possible with effort to keep drones alive, while maintaining drone boats as a decent mission ship (and not just something people look at and constantly say "but turret/missile boat XYZ does the same for less hassle"). They have missile/turret boats to compete with, which have no problem keeping their "Dps" alive. Defenders are pathetic and tracking disrupters are negated with modules with no range restriction.
Use sentries if 'AI' is so much a challenge for you to deal with and you don't want to train for other weapon platform and/or refuse to adapt in any way.
Shut it off already, drones are fine... |
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Myra2007
Shafrak Industries
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 15:20:00 -
[21]
Obviously a turret ship has to kill frigates too. Now what do you think are they using? Exactly, their drones. Just that they don't have that 50% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints. And that huge bay for spares.
So how exactly is this "unfair"? As a matter of fact the turret user has less micromanaging but greater chance of dieing to scrambling npcs on a bad day.
Not to mention ccp will most certainly alter the mission spawns anyway once they deploy the new ai to the old npcs. |
Claudius Atropos
Amarr
Imperial Academy
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 15:35:00 -
[22]
Blane you're fighting a losing battle I'm afraid. You're trying to combat ignorance, stupidity and stubbornness with reasoned arguments and the "drones are fine" crew will have none of that. They prefer to stick to straw-man arguments, memes and the other bastions of the small-minded.
Let's just hope that if CCP decides to try grafting Sleeper AI onto the standard mission NPCs that they'll listen to guys like you rather than the "you suxorz, noob, lrn2play" boneheads. |
Kepakh
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 15:57:00 -
[23]
Originally by: Claudius Atropos
Blane you're fighting a losing battle I'm afraid. You're trying to combat ignorance, stupidity and stubbornness with reasoned arguments and the "drones are fine" crew will have none of that.
Yeah...ignorance, stupidity, stubborness - they all do great to fight whinebags :) |
Blane Xero
Amarr
The Firestorm Cartel
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 17:20:00 -
[24]
Originally by: Kepakh
Use sentries if 'AI' is so much a challenge for you to deal with and you don't want to train for other weapon platform and/or refuse to adapt in any way.
Shut it off already, drones are fine...
You think I'm arguing because my sole trained weapon platform is drones? Christ I almost coughed up a hair-ball laughing. Sometimes people fight for balance because, y'know, balance is a great thing. Not because a particular change would kill their playstyle.
Please, for your own benefit, don't assume one opposes a change just because it will have a direct effect on them. To assume, is to make an ass out of u and me and all that.
Turret ships have no problems killing the warp scrambling frigates that hover around the 10km mark. Webbers are awesome y'know?.
Large T2 remote reps (Shield, Armor, Hull) have a 8.4km maximum range (7.5km on Hull). That means, if using a Non-sentry drones, you would have to stay within roughly 7km to keep drones relatively safe (if you compensate for orbital distances) and even so if a considerable amount of NPC's decide to aggro them, you have a high chance still, of losing them (Meds/Lights mostly).
If CCP just threw the sleeper AI at the current NPC's, under current mission scenarios drones would die before reaching the targets. Why? I'll try and spell it out for you, Mr Sleeper Solo-er. Missions and Wormhole space are fundamentally different on several levels.
Wormhole space, revolved entirely around group play. You fight against a limited amount of powerful NPC's (As opposed to the missions current form of a Vast amount of Limited NPC's). You can control aggro much, much easier in wormholes due to the simple "Two domi's local resist tanked + remote reps" and sleepers will happily ignore drones completely, with the odd fresh spawn initially shooting your drones before suddenly realising "OMFG RR's KILL".
Missions? Revolve almost in their entirety of being a solo effort. The closest thing to a group mission is a main and his alt. You might have a salvage guy running behind, but he's not going to be in any room with fighting going on. You fight a Blob of dumb NPC's, which at best, occasionally trigger to attack the drones when killing certain Webber frigates. That's fine.
Now, lets look at it this way, I have been arguing against just importing the AI with no other changes to missions (as you will see, in my first post in this thread before i had to get into a debate with Mr Lord). That is what i will continue to argue about and you can attempt to say i am arguing otherwise all you want, so here i go;
Normal missions with Sleeper AI, and no number/bounty/reward tweaks will result in drone ships being (almost) completely dropped. People will not tag up to do the RR trick because why should they when a turret ship works fine?. The turret ship can kill the stuff that would usually nuke the drones with ease, and then use their own medium drones to kill frigates once the main danger for drones is out the way. Meanwhile drone ships either have to rely on a second primary weapon system (Blasters/Hybrids) to kill the cruisers/battlecruisers/battleships (In which case, whats the point of using the drone ship when you hardly use them anyway, srsly). Remote reps and then a Microwarpdrive to stay close to drones and NPCs themselfs.
Whereas a turret ship needs its primary weapon system (Turrets/Missiles), a couple of damage mods, a webber and ONE FLIGHT of medium drones. That's it. It'll cruise through the same missions on its own, with no hassles or having to constantly pay more drones.
Now, if you modified the rats to be lightly harder by themselfs, cut out alot of the crap from missions, buffed the Per-Ship bounties, and buffed the Per-Mission reward/bonus to account for this, whilst reducing the number of enemies you fight and increasing the difficulty of each one, it would be balanced. Turrets would find it a little harder, drone ships a little harder, but neither impossible. |
Ausser
Cybertech Industrials Agency
|
Posted - 2009.05.25 17:54:00 -
[25]
The numbers of npc's in mission will not stay the same when ai changes. So no blobbing up npc's and no plex-fitted pve ships to counter them. No need to talk about.
Problem with drones is: The drones will be anihilated most time as soon as they start to mwd arround the grid. But that's under the control of the pilot, and his fault when it happens. Exactly the same would happen in pvp in the same situation too.
The argument with the orbit range of npc frigs and the range of rr is valid. When it comes to close combat, and your sentry drones dont hit any more, and the target is out of t2 webber range, then there should be a way to increase rr range to keep the light drones alive. Maybe some kind of module to give 15km extra, e.g. mini-triage for drones only. Of cause it should still be far too weak to keep your drones alive while they mwd arround. And it really should work only on drones. |
Alxea
|
Posted - 2009.05.26 01:31:00 -
[26]
I see a lot of drone haters who don't use drones here. Atleast some of you know what I'm talking about, I'm glad to see there are not all drone haters here. And btw...
Current skills: 235 (skill points: 31,258,467) I prob have more SP and skill books then half the people who ran their mouth off about how noob I am. Theres nothing wrong with my skills, and I been useing drones since the beginning of when this character was created so don't think you know me or how experianced I am with the use of drones. Because you don't.
The problem has been stated pretty clearly in some posts that have been said and I already pointed out. It sounds like half of the people here that are agenst drones haven't actually ran a REAL sleeper plex. Or even read any of what I said. Maybe afew lines... but oh well. We will see what ccp does about drones when everybody has this prob in regular mission spawns.
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Alxea
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Posted - 2009.05.26 01:33:00 -
[27]
Originally by: Pytria Le'Danness
I'd welcome a bit more variety and challenge in missions, but simply slapping the Sleeper "AI" to current NPCs would certainly be a big nerf to drones, and one that needs to be carefully balanced.
I'm not so concerned about the fact that drones could get targetted but instead the sheer clumsiness of the whole situation.
- Drones have no local tank, and the range of remote reppers is too small to work in a mission
- Drones do not react to damage in any way
- There is no indication that drones are being locked. NPCs can still be inactive or happily blasting away at the drones, the pilot never knows
- The first indication that a drone is being locked is that it is taking damage. By that time it is often webbed as well
- If a drone is being targetted, the only way to save them is to recall them. Remote repping does not work due to range, and EWar is not feasible since it barely works on NPCs. Besides, the pilot has no way of knowing who is attacking his drones.
- Recalling a drone removes its DPS from the fight for the way back to the ship and, once relaunched, back to the target.
- To recall a single drone that is being targetted a right-click menu is required which is bad in laggy situations.
- Drones are the only weapon system that can be damaged (outside of using heat) and cannot be replaced in space. Launchers and turrets can run out of ammo, but you could reload from a can if needed.
- Drones are quite expensive, losing one is a much heavier blow than losing a bunch of missiles to NPC Defenders
- For many ships small drones are the only way to hit smaller targets like scrambling frigs. If the NPCs start targetting the drones of these ships the constant recalling will cause problems breaking the tank of many frigates and might cause a situation where the player cannot leave due to being scrambled, but cannot kill the scramblers at all.
- Drones are still a liability in many cases, causing aggro and not following the settings for "Focus Fire" et al.
On top of that, drone use in PvP seems to be relatively balanced, this it is not possible to simply go "OK, we add the new AI and in compensation all drones get 200% more hit points".
So in summary: better NPCs would be nice, but please be careful to avoid removing drones as a viable weapon system.
This states pretty clearly the problems drones have. Thank you very much. I couldn't have said it any better or clearer.
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Allen Ramses
Caldari
Typo Corp
|
Posted - 2009.05.26 01:36:00 -
[28]
If not for the fact that drones are an absolute necessity to take out elite frigs, I'd support this kind of action fully. However, I don't want to send my drones to kill off an Angel Viper, only for them to get thoroughly beat by said viper and his buddies, leaving me with no way to warp out of the mission.
____________________
CCP: Catering to the cowards of a cold, harsh universe since November, 2006. |
Alxea
|
Posted - 2009.05.26 01:47:00 -
[29]
Edited by: Alxea on 26/05/2009 01:51:10
Edited by: Alxea on 26/05/2009 01:49:12
Edited by: Alxea on 26/05/2009 01:48:51
Originally by: Allen Ramses
If not for the fact that drones are an absolute necessity to take out elite frigs, I'd support this kind of action fully. However, I don't want to send my drones to kill off an Angel Viper, only for them to get thoroughly beat by said viper and his buddies, leaving me with no way to warp out of the mission.
Another good example, because the change would make vipers web your light drones to a crawl. And your drones get insta pawned. No matter how fast you recall them, what if your amarr and your drone bay is only 25 say on a command ship. Oh look all your drones died or you don't have the drone dps to take you a viper any more cus your down to 3 or 2 drones. Nice... specially when med guns can't track them.
So your stuck... and webs aren't what they use to be.
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Cyberman Mastermind
|
Posted - 2009.05.26 15:26:00 -
[30]
Edited by: Cyberman Mastermind on 26/05/2009 15:34:00
Edited by: Cyberman Mastermind on 26/05/2009 15:31:56
You're still relying on drones? Time to switch, drones are about to become exctinct. Though I think they got a slight boost with the probe changes (i.e. not acting as beacons anymore).
Unless you mean the deployed guns (i.e. sentries).
I'm sure it'd be fun using drones in a heavy mission - as soon as they get aggro, they're dead. Because you can't see they have aggro until they're hit. And likely webbed, so calling them back is useless.
Of course, we could stay close to the drones and micro-manage them. But why should we? They're drones - they're supposed to be somewhat independent. (Not "kill everything while I'm afk", but "go there, do stuff", without us hovering next to them.)
If we'd at least see when they get aggro. But I guess drones are about to die anyway, CCP doesn't seem to like them. Guns are faster anyway, unless you're really close range. |
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