Drones always taking aggro since update

PvE Gameplay Center Missions
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Hi,

Since the winter update (and its rollback on drone behavior), I’ve noticed a HUGE increase on drone aggro from Serpentis.

My late evening started with a Serpentis Sanctum followed by a Serpentis Haven that went like hell. I’m used to do those sites with my ishtar, I’ve done them many, many times. Yet tonight, my drones kept getting aggro ALL. THE. TIME. Every damn single time they were out for more than 20s they would get shot at. Getting Serpentis BS orbiting at +30km was horrendous, as they would always aggro my drones before they could even reach it. I lost 2 heavy drones within the first hour. I usually lose 1 every 2 days or less (I’m not afk while doing my sites, I do a lot of manual targeting).

During the (rock) Haven, I did a couple tests and ended up not being shot at for 3 WHOLE waves. I killed all frigates and cruisers and let the close range BS aggro my drones. As they were stacked and my drones didn’t need to MWD, they didn’t receive any damage. The drone kept all aggro for 3 full waves, until the end of the Haven. I have never seen that before. Ever.

After that, I did 4 DED in Guristas space, and everything went very well. Drone aggro was as usual : not too little, not too much.

Finally, I decided to give it another try and went back in Serpentis space, did another Sanctum, and again, drone aggro was off the charts. I had instances where, while the pocket was red square on me, they would instantly switch aggro right after I dropped my drones in space (especially frigates). It took me around 4x as much time as usual to do the sanctum. I had to recall my drones every 20-30s and go run after BS.

I finished the Sanctum and stopped there. This was the most painful and tedious PVE experience I had in EVE in the last 5-10y.

Has anyone noticed anything or am I seeing things ?

EDIT : Ok so after DT today I did 4 other Haven and 1 Sanctum and everything seems to be back to normal. I really doubt I’ve been unlucky on 2 Serp haven, 2 Serp sanctum and a Serp DED all in a row, so maybe something was temporally broken.

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Heavy drones will take more aggro, switch to light, and they shouldn’t gather as much aggro…

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My experience suggests that’s not true (could be wrong. Haven’t used drones much in a quite a while and well, updates, gaaaaah). I lost a light drone for this same issue, except I think it was Angels.

In my case (and I was farming a mission to increase sec status) getting the NPCs to focus on my ship was enough and they would not go after my drones from there. But I had to get within like 30 km for them to react to my ship first.

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That is the trade off for using a weapon system that can get shot, maybe try using a different weapon system if you don’t like managing drone ehp. NPC AI is going to keep getting better as time goes on and it seems kind of logical to shoot drones it will only get worse from now on so it might be time to stratagize and think of solutions rather than complaining to ccp.

RAT’s hate e-war if you want to pull aggro off your drones you need to draw it off by sensor damping/ tracking disrupting or ecming the npc’s, they will switch to you, like tanking in any other mmo.

You can also micro manage your drones and pull the one being shot to your ship and leaving it orbiting at 500m while you remote rep it from your own ship.

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Presumptive and condescending. Literally no one voiced clear words of complaint. We were just commenting on the current situation, which may or may not have even been intended by CCP. If it is as the OP says, and its only certain drones and a certain faction, I highly doubt CCP intended that.

So it might be time to read more carefully and not accuse people of things they didn’t do.

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That is a lot of Caps and Bolding for someone that is speaking neutrally? I think you are mistaken Ridley.

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Ridley is right. I’ve used drones for a long time, and never had issue with casual aggro on them. I’ve been playing Eve for 10y so nothing new for me. But as the title suggest, since the update, something seems to be wrong. The caps and bolding is to insist on the unusual nature of those aggro. It’s no question of being lazy or anything : what I experienced rendered the drone unusable in Sanctum and gas Haven. I didn’t even try lower tier anoms as they have even more destroyers and frigates, which would have resulted in the loss of all my drones.

Using Ewar could maybe work indeed, but as Ridley stated, chances are this is abnormal, considering I didn’t have the same issue in Guristas’ DED. I didn’t try Guristas Haven/Sanctum tho’. I also did a Serpentis DED and had abnormal aggro too.

One of the difference I’ve spotted is that usually, BS never switched aggro on drones unless frigates/destroyers/yellow box were around. Now, they keep switching to drones even if they are the only one remaining. As drones switch target from one BS to the other, they MWD and get a huge signature. I had to run to the BS to retrieve the drones before they switched target so they didn’t get poped. This is beyond stupid.

EDIT : Ok so after DT today I did 4 other Haven and 1 Sanctum and everything seems to be back to normal. I really doubt I’ve been unlucky on 2 Serp haven, 2 Serp sanctum and a Serp DED all in a row, so maybe something was temporally broken.

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Apparently there has been a bunch of unintended consequences from the drone changes and ccp is going to roll the changes back. So… there’s your answer. It probably has to do with the drone changes and it will likely be fixed soon™.

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Drone changes were already rolled back at DT yesterday (before the OP posted this thread. But it is possible it was related.

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Good call

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The OP is not happy but I think you are taking emphasis a bit too negatively. A true complainer would be insulting CCP and probably threatening to rage quit. Just looked like the OP was justifiably annoyed but still controlled enough he was not really complaining.

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Sure I might have went a lil overboard

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