Think hard.
There are no such entities in the game.
If an NPC jams you, you can lock the jamming NPC.
If an NPC damps you, you can just… move closer.
Yeah, but again, CCP never said anything about intending this change to impact botters. So no idea where you’re getting this nonsense from.
You can for example match the drone size to the size class of the ships applying ewar to you.
Making changes to how NPCs agro drones and afk players would be a way to achieve the stated aims. This change is clumsy, simplistic and badly thought out. It downgrades 1 weapons system by introducing a potentially long delay to it alone, and it voids certain tactics against NPC ewar by removing all of the limited autonomy of drones.
It does however fit the ongoing theme of downrating all income sources apart from PLEXing.
What?
Ok, you are unable or unwilling to understand how adding a potentially long delay to just 1 weapon system before it starts working affects game balance, introducing a new problem. You are unable or unwilling to understand how removing drones limited autonomy makes various npc ewar situations quite different, introducing a new problem. I just don’t know how to help you. Enjoy your evening.
Fit a grappler, laugh.
To be fair, the damp+web super combo is just as annoying in PvE as it is in PvP. And does need solving in some way, it’s not fun.
It’s the same delay everyone else ALREADY HAS. Drones were previously an OP weapon system in some fields of play because of the lack of lock time required.
yup.
well that was offset by drone travel time no? - now drones get both lock time and travel time, changing their effectiveness by a fair margin in many situations.
I also think it’s a bad change. It makes life worse for certain PvE scenarios in an active play style.
When doing lvl4 missions in any battleship (not drone focussed), normally small drones clear the small stuff while I can focus on large and medium targets with the battleships main weapon like launchers and turrets. Now I need to micro manage small (hard to lock) targets in addition. Why?
I also liked how sentry drones auto engaged targets one after another, it was just a fun play style.
For me, the whole point of drones is their autonomy. Removing this removes fun and appeal from the game.
How is their effectiveness “changed” in “many” situations?
This ONLY impacts PvE.
They still do the same dps.
They still do the same volley.
They still allow for selectable damage type.
They still allow for tracking adjustments via drone sizes.
The only thing this adds is a couple of seconds extra to lock onto an NPC rat to assign drones, if that’s the first thing you’re planning on doing. Otherwise, your drones will automatically aggress the target you’re already cycling offensive modules on.
A Rattlesnake with no actively attacking drones targets an NPC battleship with Cruise Missiles = Drones will automatically engage the NPC battleship together with your Cruise missile launchers. If anything, this helps you focus down NPC targets faster since your Drones aren’t just doing their own thing and working together with your active weapon.
The thing that made drones, drones was their limited autonomy. If you are unable or unwilling to understand that - I just can’t help you.
Grab a battleship, go clear some groups of npcs including frigate sized ewar - like with ecm, web, damps etc.
This change hurts active playstyles.
Inactive playstyles may switch to something else, or may switch from semi-afk droneboats to fully scripted botting.
It’s a clumsy and ineffective change that hits a lot of things it wasn’t aiming at.
Drones also have selectable damage type, & high tracking for their class. And in many cases do comparable DPS to a standard fit (Yes ok, there aren’t polarised officer drones, but lets not get stupid)
It’s so clumsy & ineffective that every single other idea suggested misses the mark by a much wider margin.
i.e. It’s a great change that does EXACTLY what CCP wants it to do. There are one or two niche cases that hurt yes, but that is true on any change ever done.
In all seriousness, why not change npc agro for drones/afk ships - it’s vastly more elegant than removing the limited autonomy that is a big part of drones identity as a weapons system.
Because that hammers active players as well?
I mean seriously?
You can tailor those changes to not apply to recently active ships, not hammering active players at all.
BWAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA.
Yeah, that’s about all the respect that idea deserves.
Its not a problem where your alliance and your blues are operating because its so far away from places where BLOP’s can operate from.
No, they are yet again dodging the real problem of changing the PvE content.
There have been so many nerfs to drones and drone boats. The Dominix already got nerfs to its attributes. Drone damage amps got a nerf. Carriers got shifted to completely new mechanic, supers were so powerful after the change they’ve been nerfed more times than almost any other platform and before that, the Ishtar got 3 nerfs in a row in an effort to shift it out the the premier fleet meta of the era. CCP already did a huge nerf of the VNI to shift it to a PvP orientated role.
All CCP had to do was change the PvE, yet instead all these other changes were made instead? It cannot just be due to ‘old pos code’ excuses, its just silly to nerf the same ships over and over again.
Typical, defending AFK gameplay that is broken, not impacting your members directly while highlighting another CCP failing to implement Observatory structures that were promised as part of the citadel lineup.
Free intel, which according the the horde of whiners during blackout is responsible for space being too safe and depriving them of the PvP they believe they deserve handed to them.
On that note, find out what the hell happened with Observatory structures. Despite the fact a number of star systems were just repurposed for a whole new region, its frustrating that CCP had dev time to burn on it while other things are get %80 finished and then abandoned.
Naw, that’s just due to low sec gate guns being underwhelming.
The ESS and DBS are not doing any favours to your line members. How much harder is it going to be to keep ADM’s up in the systems of Fortress Delve 2.0, where the DBS has dropped to %30 ? Or are you so unconcerned with the sustainability of your alliance that as long as someone else does to work for your SRP, everything is all sunshine and flowers?
Pathetic.
I will forever be disappointed at the sheer amount of mental gymnastics kids these days will go to play the victim card each time CCP pushes out a change. It doesn’t matter what the change is, it’s suddenly the end of the world to them.
They could put all that effort into coming up with a way to adapt (or like, not needing to adapt because this change does almost nothing), but they’d rather spend hours on the forums whining about it.
If bounties is the problem - go after bounties.
If botters are the problem - go after botters.
If semi-afk’ers are the problem - go after them.
This change is untargeted, badly thought out, and indiscriminately applied.
They have, your idea on how to is worse.
Spamming the same thing is not going to change anything when they have done exactly what you are spamming.