Would be nice to have drones there for more than just Moral Support again 
OMG. How many bots players have decided not to log in so that you row back after just one day?
Well, crying helps after all.
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Not all players using drones with their old aggression settings are bots. I can understand wanting to make it so that active players are rewarded while botters are hampered in their game play but this change impacted negatively on active players too.
Thank you for deciding to change it back.
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I dont mind the Idea of drones not just auto aggroing everything in the site, belt, mission etc. What you guys should look into is how the old fighter mechanics worked where they player or the person who controls the assist had to actively aggress a target to get the drones to shoot it. I think this is a fine middle ground between combating AFK gameplay while not being overzealous with the APMs needed. Now yes there were people then that would abuse things like ECM Bursts but that isnt going to be an option everywhere and always lead to someone dying to friendlies.
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You point at several of the right things.
We knew there was further vectors for AFK abuse as you correctly identify, but there is perhaps other approaches/solutions to the problem. Which is where we arrive at for now with going back from this change and taking some more time.
Delegate control for the old style of fighters is one street for discussion that takes us down a different and interesting path for drones.
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I get the no afk intention, but glad you are rolling back. It was poorly effecting qol. At least allow players to trigger the drones with weapons.
I think the idea that drones won’t auto-aggro is stupid tech wise when you think where the game is at lore wise… but wherever no afk stuff. Really should make ratting worth more if you are going to make it ‘harder’ or more attentive. It is mind numbingly boring as is. After about 2-3 sites I can’t even be bothered to adm in a war if it isn’t afk ratting.
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they look down on pve players and care bears who are focused in producing ship and modules that they keep on losing. 
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not gonna lie, i like the idea of the drones being more player attentive. maybe have it to where every few minutes, the auto aggress stops, so players still have to be active. cause its kinda dumb that people can just afk it, then they arent actually playing the game
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And all it took was a huge group of new / single account players threatening to quit, victory?
I mean the only other time CCP rolled back a change due to player demand was Blackout, so I guess this is a victory for protesting for the little guy.
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Seems like you had achieved your goal… sigh.
Well, whatever you end up as a replacement I hope comes soon. The problems with low attention/no attention game play aren’t going away.
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I started playing in Jan or Feb this year. I specifically wanted to be a drone pilot because I have enjoyed tamers, beastlords, magicians, summoners, necromancers and so on in other MMOs.
I put about 5-6 months of skills in to drones first.
I’m still a long way from finishing Int, Mem plans.
I don’t have any other weapons systems that even has T2 open.
Not only would I have not put skills in to these new dumb-turret drones I quite possibly would not have felt attracted enough to Eve to try it.
People might not understand that, it’s not for me about pressing F on the 1 account I actively play, ol some seem to want to dismiss me as a liar trying to protect some krab-ratting empire in null or whatever it would be called.
But if a pet or companion or drone cannot be set to protect you or itself, it is no longer a companion, it is no longer a pet, it is no longer a drone.
Had I known I would have chosen differently.
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No, they required actual player data to consider stuff.
The changes were already on Singularity for testing, but CCP has mentioned multiple times now that they don’t get enough data from players there.
Checking on EVE Offline, Singularity seems to have a daily average of 100 players, which is minuscle compared to the 20k average of Tranquility.
Pushing the update to Tranquility even after the backlash of the original thread might have been simply to collect more constructive data, and see if this change would suffice to address what they wanted to address.
It’s good to see that the DEVs actually want to make a more definite system instead of simply putting on another bandaid on the game and call it done before moving on to the next thing, but I hope this new system actually works on release. 
At least I was still able to use my drones for the past few days. Still curious to see what they come up with.
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Thank you for letting us know 
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Thank you! Now I won’t have to lock on each tiny frigates and manually ‘F’ them to death during my L4 missions.
For those who keep complaining about low attention game play, what’s wrong with it? I go mining from time to time, and I think mining in highsec is supposed to be a relaxing activity as oppose to pvp or other activities in low/null. It’s a game, and I think I should be able to play it the way I like, not how you like me to play.
My semi-afk mining yield in highsec is miserably low. It doesn’t really make much isk. I can make +100m/hr running L4 missions. When I go mining, I make like 6m/hr. This is what the dev team should be using as a way to encourage high attention activities, simply make low attention gameplay low or not rewarding rather than disabling core features.
7 Likes
Dear CCP,
…just a couple of days ago I did pay for a year in advance… I love the game.
I like the absolute sci-fi aura and the complexity.
Im sitting in a ship what is almost my body…(what a great idea!)
But since a two days ago I just realized my drones are standing like a monument when they get hits from an NPC. I find this not really hi-tech if I can say on this way…and the bloody drone interface window is also the same like it was before when it was automatic…so its almost an exercise for my fingers to force it to work.
I understand you have huge losses for examle on data sites(DELTOE), where couple of players (Mainly russian named accounts) do 24/7 infinite war against pirates and the server just sending and sending the NPCs until the world’s end…
… And the miners of course.
I can imagine how much money they collect on this way with automatic drones - probably billions.
BUT its not my problem!
Im not sure this is the reason why you make my drones dumb, im just guessing.
(actually my father(63) also an enthusiastic player, working with drones most of the time…well I did not speak with him about this yet, but im sure he is fckn happy now)
—Please tell us why is this happened—
—please find out something—
Ps: Jita looks good
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muahaha (evil laughter and twisted humor)
pressing F with pleasure now, is that a wrong thing ?
p.s. thanks for reverting this
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Hi Paradox,
Thanks for such clear and open communication about things.
BWAAHAHAAHAHA.
Citation needed
There has been no more empty threats to quit in this thread than any other.
The great part about EVE is all that training is still relevant, even if they aren’t a pet they are still a weapon most ships have, and all the other training applies to non drone ships as well.
This is my main account. Created around 2013. Over 165M skill points. Thank you.
The best way to make player pay attention is with better NPC AI, not with nerf in drones itself. Hope your “fix” nail it better next time.
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So you mean ‘the way’ is to also hurt active players just as much right?
In other words, no, no it is not a good solution.
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