Didn’t stop you posting here though, did it ?
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Drones were my preferred weapon system. They will work to a degree without your input, but they are dumb as a box of rocks. They don’t always focus fire, even with the option set. They don’t always select the target annoying you the most.
I did most of my mining in the Endurance, so the only thing I’d personally miss is that drones would aggro within drone control range even if my ship couldn’t target out that far away for me to give the order to attack. Good for countering ships that apply damps, especially. NPCs will eventually close range, though and you can speed tank until they do. Moving in general is a good idea because it makes it harder for gankers to land right on top of you, and makes it harder for them to hit you with their weapons. I can’t think of a drawback unless people are not paying attention and fly off into the middle of nowhere after mining out the asteroid they orbit.
Also, I’m not sure exactly what about mining operations you’d be struggling with that would prevent you from locking and returning fire on an NPC target. If you ignore an asteroid for a time to engage a hostile it will probably still be there, or another one just like it.
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Blockquote Our goal is to make PvE activities with drones a more attentive player experience that relies less on low or no attention gameplay moving forward
Drones are supposed to be different from other weapon systems. They are the closest thing Eve has to pets / familiars. They are supposed to be semi-autonomous in some ways. The drawbacks being their travel time, and the fact that they can be destroyed. The auto-aggro function against NPC’s is very useful and makes sense both from gameplay and from the sci-fi setting and lore background of Eve.
When you took away the auto-aggression for NPC’s it made it more frustrating even for active players. I am happy you reverted back to the old system.
If you want to encourage more active gameplay there are definitely other options you could look at:
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After certain operational time they have to return to the drone bay to re-arm and re-fuel. This requires the pilot to relaunch them again and issue orders. It keeps the existing drone aggression mechanics the same both for PVE and PVP. It adds a small bit of realism, and also increases pilot attention required.
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You already have size-related targeting built into the “AI” of the NPC’s when they switch target to player’s drones. Why not use a similar principle for drones themselves? For example small drones will auto-target frigates and destroyers, medium drones will auto-target cruisers, etc. Auto aggression still works for both PVE and PVP as long as the target size matches the drones. If the target is smaller or bigger it requires the pilot to instruct the drones to attack.
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Drones can gain experience. This might be a lot of work and difficult to implement but it might be a really cool idea. Newly bought drones have for example -30% firepower and shields/armor. As they gain more experience in combat it increases. It can be kept as simple as +15% per level, with a total of 3 levels. (novice, experienced, elite) If they get repackaged they revert back to original state with -30%. It would encourage more attention from pilots and give them a reason to keep their drones alive - pull them back more often and choose targets more carefully… because losing a drone will have more impact both in terms of how it feels to lose a drone that took time to train, and it also reduces your ships firepower and efficiency.
Also, the drone management and drone window has looked and worked the same for many years… an improvement is long overdue and would be welcomed.
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Fedos are pets
People like me re-subbing is what keeps Eve… online.
Not people posting, telling others what they should enjoy, and how.
The first time I posted about this drone feature removal was while running a mission in a non-drone boat, trying to adapt, but getting terribly bored instead. I never had time for posting when I could still loot/salvage/manoeuvre/shoot while my drones did the mind-numbing busywork.
And if CCP hadn’t broken my Eve habit, I would be playing right now, not posting.
I sub, and I post and I play. When Eve changes something I’m in the habit of doing I change my own activities accordingly, and continue to sub, post and play. Guess which one of us is enjoying Eve more ?
Like you, I tried to adapt - but this change took the fun out of the game for me, and broke my habit.
So now I’m trying to adapt to that. I’ve been doing other stuff, and came here to see if CCP will undo the damage. If/when they do, I may get into my Eve-O habit again. I sure hope so, it was fun while it lasted.
Umm, they reverted the drone changes yesterday:
hello paradox glad the change was reversed ccp has had years to fix the bot problem since beta in fact rather then loading us down with useless bandaids actualy impliment a proper detection program to find the bot users and ban them like they should be i mean it’s been in the tos since the beginning no third party programs alloud but yet there still in use today this is completely rediculus and and dimunitive and harmful to a great game to keep hitting us with useless nerfs and un needed balance changes to fix a problem that shouls have been fixed a decade ago.
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I need a “its not about bots” meme
I as primarily a miner did not mind having to target the rats and engage them. It would however have been nice that after engaging the first target the drones would have auto attacked the next targeted rat. Maintaining targets isn’t too bad and I can still keep a few drones mining while dealing with the rats.
Hey that’s great that you are listening to us. So when are you reverting Quantum Cores and all the other recent Citadel changes? Resource Distribution definatly needs a second look, as well.
Personally, i thought the drone aggression changes were a good step towards combating Alpha Abuse.
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CCP Paradox. Why is less or low or no attentive game play such a big focus? This is exactly why people play the game because they can grind and relax at the same time. You’ve already killed null sec with the new BRM and ESS changes.
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This guy should be working at CCP and in charge of all drone content. Call youself “CCP Automaton” or something when you get the job bro, and don’t forget to list me as a reference 
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I unsubbed my 3 accounts I pay with cash - I dont even do ratting. But I am getting Destiny 2 vibes, where they add nothing new, but remove something that works perfectly.
What is going to be next - mining laser reactivation for miners?
I wish they spend resources on adding new content, or new ships and skills.
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The change was reverted this morning, btw
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Seriously?
This sounds as annoying as NPCs changing targets to your drones more often, and having to recall them to restabilish aggro.
If drones get a complete rework, then I’m not going to be completely against it, with maybe light drones having less ammo capacity, and medium, heavy and fighters getting more ammo hold, but if it turns out to be loads of micro management involved for no added benefits, then I’ll just use normal turrets instead.
Rather than this, it would be cooler if the player could install different AI scripts into their drones, so they could get whichever behavior they wish the most.
- attack frigates and only frigates unless commanded
- focus on anything that’s ECMing first
- return and orbit when reaching low health
This way, you can use drones as smart auxiliary tools while you are busy with other stuff, not being worried about them going to attack what you don’t want them to attack, and can change their behavior on the go by switching scripts, or simply having different sets of drones with different scripts prepared and ready to be deployed.
Worst possible suggestion.
Even the capsuleer doesn’t earn experience, to not force players to go out grinding levels.
Even if drones are like pets in other MMOs, having to grind EXP to make your weapon system deal more damage is terrible, considering the player can simply leave their skills training for every other system in the game.
Again, I’d just use turrets at that point.
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Why?
Those are ideas that impact on active pilots as well as afk pilots, and therefore miss the intended mark that this update was aimed at.
They might be ok ideas in general terms if you were just going “how can I redo drones”, but they don’t match the design brief, so for this particular project they are bad ideas.
Oh no, what have you done!? When I saw this, my mind conjured up image of a big guy in black suit sitting in his high castle, reading our posts. When he comes across yours, he’d be like:
This is a great idea! Let’s forget about drones. In order to make people more attentive, let’s make all modules be activated manually. We can disable the Auto-repeat feature for all modules across the board. Auto-repeat on modules will only work again players. Modules will now be required reactivation after each cycle for NPCs. Industrial miners will have to pay attention and reactivate their drills again rocks. Combat pilots will have to reactivate their guns against NPC ships. Not only this new change rewards attentive players and those who are good with their keyboard stroke, it will make inattentive game play impossible. Some MMO games like WOW also require players to smash their keyboards each time they want to cast a skill, isn’t it? It’s a proven working mechanics. This idea is genius, let’s have the dev team implement it tomorrow.
ZazZaz just doomed us all before he quit. Yep, we’re screwed…
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