Almost every MMO I’ve ever played has an option to have your minions retreat when they’ve taken a certain amount of damage. I’m not sure why EVE doesn’t have this option for drones and I can’t think of a reason why it shouldn’t. I’d say that “when shield is gone”, “when armor is gone” and “when shield AND armor are gone” would be sufficient options for withdrawing to the bay. Considering how easily drones die and how NPCs seem to be way too good at hitting them, its seems like a reasonable thing to add. AFAIK, drones are the only main weapon that you can lose w/o overheating them to death, which seems a bit unbalanced. Players don’t really even care about drone damage from what I’ve read so I doubt it would make much difference in PvP. I could even support making this a function of a new drone module that makes your drones tougher…a “drone damage control” or the like.
Honestly, if your drone gets webbed to the point where it needs to retreat from massive damage it’s usually too late. Drone death usually happens quite suddenly and with little warning (there one minute, gone the next). Drones from Guristas, SoE, Gallente (etc.) will last longer but can ultimately succumb to the same fate.
There are definitely times where you’d want a drone to auto-retreat from those situations, but I can also see a lot of scenarios where bots (etc.) could really exploit this.
You’re not wrong about how quickly drones die once targeted but I think that only supports my argument. Also, when you say “bots” you mean player-run bots? I don’t really see how it gives them an advantage vs. any other weapon. In fact, bots can already do what I’m suggesting. All that adding a damage threshold would do is level the playing field between drones and other weapon types, giving you a chance to not lose them. I’ve been told repeatedly that players only use e-war drones in pvp anyway, and those are about useless in PvE. If your e-war drones retreat because they’re getting damaged then you’re going to switch to combat drones or just stop using them. Also, I’ve never heard of any Guristas or SoE drones.
Why don’t you just keep an eye on your drone window and pull them when they start taking damage?
It’s not hard.
From what I’ve read on the Forum, and elsewhere, drones are regarded as an extension of or replacement for gun turrets. In that sense, it’s understandable that although they should be and are repairable in space, the option to withdraw them once committed should rest solely with the pilot.
It stands to reason that a drone which has lost its shields and armour will, at best, be capable only of limping back to its parent vessel. I find this to be convincing game play. Pilot Inattention and the over-committing of drones in an encounter (whether intentional or otherwise) should be punished.
What you seem to be suggesting is a lowering of the risk associated with fielding these useful little blighters. So, I cannot support your suggestion.
Drones are already too much hands-off to the point that players can leave their ship in an anomaly for 20 minutes and come back to see it cleared by the drones.
I do not think drones need even more automation, if anything they need less of it. Drones are already the most autonomous weapon system in the game and make it possible to fight NPCs without being at your keyboard at all.
Regarding the anomaly, actually TRY doing what you say with drones. They’ll be wiped out immediately. I also don’t see how making a weapon system that is arguably the weakest on damage in the entire game require more micro while also being destroyable makes any logical sense. Its a complete imbalance.
What do you mean, try doing what I say?
I can leave my Ishtar spinning around a haven without input and my drones will kill the ships that spawn. Is that what you want me to try doing? Because I’ve already done that.
I’ve flown every highsec drone ship and you’ll rarely get away with that, and you sure as HELL won’t get away with it in 99% of missions.
Just buy loads of your favourite drones and treat them as ammo
can’t, your drone cargo is limited.
Try a forlorn hub.
Not being able to monitor everything perfectly is not “inattention”. It’s called, being a human.
Your choice of words is insulting and stupid.
You are saying that botting should be rewarded. (bot being required to not miss anything, and reward being the opposite of punish).
I think Havens pay better and it seems they require less drone input. I know some sites require more drone attention - the crimson harvest sites for example are almost undoable in drone ships - but I was giving an example of low attention drone gameplay, not high attention drone gameplay.
If you are playing EVE and find yourself in a situation in which paying attention will increase your chance of success (or reduce your chance of failure), it is clear that doing so is to be commended.
If you are AFK or not paying attention for some other reason, know that there may be consequences, and that they might not be pleasant. Being able to consider and understand such matters are abilities available to most mature and rational persons.
Slipping up is, indeed, only human, but being punished for such lapses might encourage the wrongdoer to avoid future disappointment.
I sincerely hope not, Stefnia.
Am I? You do know that ‘botting’ is the employment of coded scripts in order to manage operations, devoid of human agency? It shouldn’t be rewarded in EVE, and I have never written that it should be so.
Only certain types of people can pay attention ‘perfectly’. Monks are a good example. The rest of us do make mistakes in the application of focus - I am not immune from doing so. But I do try.
However, in EVE, if I don’t notice that my combat drone is taking damage and I therefore neglect to recall it in time, its loss is on me. i think that’s fair.
Drones should need ammo. And they should have really really slow shield recharge so they can’t “tank” damage. So you would have to recall them manually once every 2 minutes or so to “reload”, then pop them out again to attack.
To compensate, they automatically get repaired (slowly) inside the dronebay, their structure hp and resistances can be buffed and their “ammo” is free.
No more afk gameplay. And nerf drone assist. A lot.
Then don’t pretend OP want specifically to keep drones in a haven.
Yes, havens have the highest BS ratio, so the highest minimal signature meaning most rats will ignore your drones.
It’s literally the anomaly with the lowest drone hate - maybe some sanctum can be equal though
This is off topic.
You are the one saying that being a human is a problem.
Exactly what you are advocating.
No, only bots can - and that’s until there is a bug.
That’s not. There is no reason your drone would not come back automatically if you configured it before hand.
Just because that’s how it is now, does not mean it’s a good thing. You are confusing status quo and good.
This is the same idea of making the game better, that was grouping turrets. Or multi fitting. or mass purchase. Less actions required for the same thing, meaning you can actually focus on what is important.
If you have to manual pilot, handle the ammo switching / cap boosters / overheat, monitor dscan and overview, knowing that most actions require a 1s delay before being actually performed, a human can’t at the same time monitor drone window less than every 5s which is enough for a drone to die.
You saying that this person is bad because it’s not a bot is insulting.
I have never written what you state, above. Please refrain from making these ungainly contractions of my statements and using the results to manufacture absurd conclusions.
I have written only that inattention is likely to be punished in EVE, and that I find such a consequence wholly acceptable. If you disagree with that - fine. You are welcome to advance your own views - but not to adulterate what I have written until it has become quite unrecognisable.
Out of curiosity, I looked up your Corp (no fock given) on EVE-Who. This was the (partial) result, omitting your own character, as CEO:
Knowledgeable persons will recognise here the unmistakable taint of the bot-aspirant. Caught!
For the same reason your shield booster and armor reps don’t fire at the exact correct time to repair the amount of damage you have taken. It’s intended to allow you to make mistakes to increase the odds a battle will not simply be a stalemate.
You have.
You literally said they should be punished when this happens, and this happens when they are not a bot.
You call that “pilot inattention” but that’s just not being a bot.
People not being able to monitor everything at the same time is not “pilot inattention”, it’s being a human.
No, players should not be punished for failing a task that can only be performed correctly by bots.
This feature would objectively make the game better, even though just slightly and even though I don’t think it’s worth the dev time.
Your claim that making the game more punishing for human is better, is plain wrong. On the opposite, this makes the bots more useful in the game, as I said “more rewarding”.
Make the game less tedious, automate everything that can be, that’s required to have a game and not a chore.
Armor reps apply the heal at the end of the cycle, so you can’t heal the moment you need it : you need to heal before you need it.
What’s more you better have two (or three…) repairers and therefore being able to phase them out allows to have lower cap strain and better rep efficiency.
But yes, it would be also nice if the shield booster only activated when enough damage was taken. The question is then “what is the correct threshold ?” : 50% of the rep was lost ?
And how to deal when using several ancil SB ?
Ok. Baby steps, stefnia, so that you can follow easily.
i.e., I have never written ‘this person is bad because it’s not a bot’.
Yes, I believe they should be ‘punished’ for errors. Your addition is quite unnecessary. They are not being punished because they’re human, they are being punished because they f’cked up. Simply being human doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of your actions, I think.
Surely you can see the likely consequence of such a policy? Boredom - a fearsome foe of the MMO.
My addition is exactly why you claim is wrong.
This is not an error when you can’t do otherwise.
You require to punish them because they are human.
You call that an error because it produces a negative effect . So if that feature was added, it would not produce that effect, and therefore would not be an error. It thus would not require punishment in any way.
Your choice of terms makes it a cyclic argument, as the punishment is already what makes it an error. That’s why I said that “your choice of words is stupid”, FYI.
Nobody cares. Here it’s not the consequence of your actions, but of not being a bot. It’s not a choice you make ; it’s you being a human. There is no error when you have no choice in the first place.
Not at all.
Automating guns with grouping and repeated cycling does in no way make it boring. On the opposite, it makes it more enjoyable, because you can focus on your actual choices instead of fighting against the game interface.
What you call boredom is actually the definition on enjoyable. What you’re advocating for is actually tediousness, which is the opposite of enjoyment and only helps bots.
There are a lot of things in the game interface that make it tedious. For example, not being able to overheat module under gate cloak, or having to recall probes before exiting a system, or forgetting your drones when you warp off were making the game tedious, and it was a nice thing that they were fixed.
There are a lot more, and fixing them is just making the game better.
In eve echoes for example there was the auto attack next enemy, which as far as I tested it makes a lot of sense.
You (among others) fighting all those ideas to make the game less tedious is actually what makes the game painful to start.
I agree that some often required features like teleporting assets would be bad for the game, but your constant refusal of improvements just because you’re used to them is a nonsense.
You are making the game only good for bots. That’s all your arguments amount to. Try to realize it and understand why those people propose those features, without judging them first. Listen before you speak, and understand before you judge. Until then you are just making the game and the forum worse.