1. Drones are targeted.
The NPCs target drones and pop them in 2 shots, If you have a drone boat, good luck with that.
This is the most ridiculous “feature” in EVE: rats that target drones.
Drone boats are literally useless in this event, useless in sleeper sites, and in a few other circumstances.
So people that like drones can’t have fun, thank you very much for this.
2. Your loot can be stolen
It’s EVE, yes. However the risk (and time) vs reward for these events is pretty bad, first off the loot can be worth 5 mil, and then it can be stolen by a frigate that jumped the gates after you. So I should put myself in a frigate and steal people’s loot.
3. Hard to do solo
Due to the smart nature of this event, it’s hard to do solo as a battleship because of the neuts, web, and other stuff that can’t be dealt with as a BS with … no drones.
This is one of the worse halloween events i’ve ever played in an MMO. It looks designed to get your expensive BS popped (warp scrambler from frigates that destroy drones) so that eventually you pay for PLEX.
Man this is all fine and stuff since the game’s core business is people buying plex, but give them some fun out of it at least. This event is just frustrating and that’s it. 0 fun.
Also thanks for the lazy rewards of both parties having the same skins rewards, and the skins being a lot of dreadnaught. Really useless for most EVE players as we’ll never fly those.
Tell the business to step aside a bit and let the game designers do something fun for once in this game that already feels like a second job for the players.
Dont use a drone boat then. I think the goal there was to keep multiboxers from passively farming the sites with drone boats of their own.
Out of curiosity how do you figure the business side of CCP overshadowed the game development side for their annual event? Im not seeing the link here. Welcome to PvE, your battleship isnt invincible.
Thank you for welcoming me to EVE. I’ve been playing on and off since 2008.
I’ve spent a lot of money and time into guristas ships, worm, gila, rattlesnake. So how is it my fault that CCP can’t handle their multiboxers or bots that drone spam these?
And warp scrambling in an event where only expensive ships can go + drone targeting + neuting is a fast and dirty way of getting ships popped. The reward can be as low as a few million, but the risk really seems huge. Where is the fun in this?
Sorry man a lot of people who write very similar posts like yours GENERALLY tend to not look at it ever again. Like it’s a scientific fact if you read the stuff here.
Are you looking for reasonable targeted criticism? Or are you just attempting to get the fire going so this post gains traction and then you vanish within 2-3 days? While all of us just chill out here not even talking about what you posted.
I am having TONS of fun in this event and this event was the same as LAST YEAR’S event AND fits the event theme CCP does for nearly all events. FYI Yulai Christmas Event will be JUST like this one OP.
I am not having the trolling today OP. Into the dustbin of 2008 EVE you go. This is 2023 now in a radically changed New Eden.
I’m pretty sure the rats are not scrambling, but are pointing. But given your OP and subsequent elaborations, I would be surprised if you found this distinction meaningful.
Most of what you said was right, your conclusions, on the other hand, were a bit off.
It is a tough site. Yes, it is a challenge with the added concern of 3rd party thieves. They balanced it against the standard easy buttons (drones).
And the combat sites are NOT newbro friendly.
I soloed one yesterday and felt challenged and enjoyed it immensely (flying a vaga). I have seen others choose T3Cs and also seem to be having fun.
But the cool thing? Nobody HAS to do them. If this portion of the game is not for you? Fine, go do what you enjoy doing and let the people who like this sort of thing have it. The only way it will impinge on your gameplay is the little pumpkins in the overview icons.
Last year I stomped those poor man’s praxis with my faction launcher golem in the Christmas event. So yes, I will stomp that non marauder fit you have and take the loot and will not feel sorry. I will be doing this again during Christmas again.
I could have done it this year but meh.
Yup would also like to add that these sites have been the same for at least two years now and follow the same pattern that OP lays out of points, drone targeting, and E-war.
I would love to enjoy these sites myself as well. Even if they would be lower difficulty for less loot (as people mentioned my skills might be lacking, though i got no problem running any L4 missions).
I’d love to micro manage my drones too in there, but when they get popped instantly, and a gecko almost dies in 10 sec from a BS, then I think there’s a bigger issue with drone afkers.
They would still be hotly contested or just kill intrest for running the sites.
CCP does this to combat afk botters.
Don’t like the sites. Don’t do them. ALL events in EVE have been anti drones because of the botters. It will not change. The frustration comes from the lack of critical thought as this is pretty much known in 2023 EVE but you are from 2008 so I’ll cut you some slack. Now you know.
Ships are just tools and your L4 runner is not necessarily the correct tool for this job. You need a different tool.
See if you can put something together that doesn’t rely on drone DPS, and isn’t extremely sensitive to cap warfare. If you want to use a big ship, make sure it has a way to apply damage to smaller ships. You can also tune your resists instead of using an omni tank.
pls don’t be so angry on such a festive season! 
So yes, I will stomp that non marauder fit you have and take the loot and will not feel sorry. I will be doing this again during Christmas again. 