Artisan Archive

---

Guruweaver wrote:
The ranger /rescue is a reactive skill, not a proactive skill. The very first shot of the mob will likely hit the person they are guarding. If the ranger is quick off the mark, they can /rescue and pull the mob off.

I was conceptualizing a proactive skill/state.

Honestly, I'm not gunning after rangers, I'm just trying to find a happy place where we can enjoy our chosen playstyle.

I'm extremely open to suggestion as to solutions for this.

Although I really like the interactivity and role playing aspects of hiring a player body guard, I am doubtful that it is a job that many players would really want to do. Would you enjoy taking an hour of prime game play time to watch me survey for a good waypoint? Or fiddle with my harvesters across five planets? I'm thinking many combat/ranger players wouldn't want to do that on a regular basis.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Guru

---

This is what I suggest:

Is this not all solved by giving crafters a combat level? the damage from creatures will be mitigated no?

give them combat levels but with no weapon certs or any attack bonus..just the defence certifications.

Simple..is best.

Message Edited by Goldear on 05-18-2005 01:01 PM

Hence I would agree with you, I would wish this become a certification of tier4 of any artisan groups. Since novice artisan can be taken easily by many combatants to use this as advantage.

Till becoming tier4 of any artisan skills, it will be recommended to mine around safer places.

I like the idea of rangers being able to craft limited use items to protect players like mask scent kits or even some sorts of limited use clothing.

let us make outdoorsy equipment to camouflage(camo) and maskscent for the crafters. Be it mask scent kits or clothing that can be worn and decays a bit each time a creature tries to aggro(similar to maskscent scouting xp: each time a creature cons you the clothing item would wear down a percentage: this would make it effective for a duration of time and allow for more player interactivity)

---

Marven_Darkfly wrote:

I like the idea of rangers being able to craft limited use items to protect players like mask scent kits or even some sorts of limited use clothing.

let us make outdoorsy equipment to camouflage(camo) and maskscent for the crafters. Be it mask scent kits or clothing that can be worn and decays a bit each time a creature tries to aggro(similar to maskscent scouting xp: each time a creature cons you the clothing item would wear down a percentage: this would make it effective for a duration of time and allow for more player interactivity)

---

but then our profession would move further away from combat, and closer to crafting.

Actually, I like a combined droid and vehicle approach best of all. I think available vehicles are too dumb right now. I'd like to see vehicles that can be componentized in some respect like starships (but not as massively, of course). A droid mounted in a vehicle would be a great idea. Also, it woud be much more fun to see the droid in the vehicle pulling aggro from the mob and firing away madly while the surveyor (eg., me) redtails out of the area as fast as possible to stay alive. I guess this would be a droid tail-gunner or a droid riding shotgun, or something like that. The droidwould haveto be reasonablylikely to surviveuntil the surveyor (eg., me) recovered from incap.

I don't want to take away from the Rangers. As a matter of fact, i'm going tosuggest giving rangers exclusive one-shot solo kill potential on the biggest critters around. I suggest a ranger-only heavy weapon (big-game harpoon gun?) with a very slow rate of fire, that would require waiting in cover/camo/masked or approaching camo/masked stealthily. To keep things balanced and exciting, this would not be a sure thing, and if things did not go well, the Ranger would be in some deep doody. Maybe the harpoon/warhead type would be specialized to the class of critter.

Saego, Wanderhome

Message Edited by DND_Cas on 05-19-2005 10:48 AM

---

DND_Cas wrote:

---

Guruweaver wrote:
The ranger /rescue is a reactive skill, not a proactive skill. The very first shot of the mob will likely hit the person they are guarding. If the ranger is quick off the mark, they can /rescue and pull the mob off.

I was conceptualizing a proactive skill/state.

Honestly, I'm not gunning after rangers, I'm just trying to find a happy place where we can enjoy our chosen playstyle.

I'm extremely open to suggestion as to solutions for this.

Although I really like the interactivity and role playing aspects of hiring a player body guard, I am doubtful that it is a job that many players would really want to do. Would you enjoy taking an hour of prime game play time to watch me survey for a good waypoint? Or fiddle with my harvesters across five planets? I'm thinking many combat/ranger players wouldn't want to do that on a regular basis.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Guru

---

Alot of chosen playstyles have been messed with by the CU - in that regard yours is not special. Up until now crafters have been practically self sufficient whereas combat chars have always needed them - now the relationship is two way and you don't like it. Sorry very little sympathy on that front.

Having said that they need to implement a system, much like the vendor system for the combat->crafter side of the relationship that makes it easy to get people to help you. Shouting in colleria imo is not a good enough tool nor is posting on these forums to get help. They need something ala meeting stones from "that other game" that help players to group and find groups.

The out of hours crafters are a problem but I do have a suggestion in dealing with that. Perhaps players could build up enough npc faction to buy npc bodygards from specific planets but it costs items rather than money to build up the faction.Rebels and imperials could spend faction pointsgained from this to get protection whereasneutrals could goto Corsec, Jabba et el to get thiers (planet specific perhaps).

Message Edited by DND_Cas on 05-19-2005 10:49 AM

---

/agree

I also like the highlighted idea.

---

DND_Cas wrote:

Alot of chosen playstyles have been messed with by the CU - in that regard yours is not special. Up until now crafters have been practically self sufficient whereas combat chars have always needed them - now the relationship is two way and you don't like it. Sorry very little sympathy on that front.

---

I never said that ours was the only playstyle impacted by the CU, nor did I say that it was the worst impacted one. Whether or not other playstyles were impacted is irrelevant to my argument. Sympathy for my playstyle's troubles is neither requested nor required. I also disagree that the relationship was one-sided. Why be a crafter without customers? If no-one bought our products, we'd have no reason to exist. It isn't that I don't want to interact with combat players, rather I feel that the bodyguard solution is fundamentally flawed. My belief is that combat players are combat players, in part, because they like the action and tactics of combat. Bodyguarding, in many cases, might be long, boring assignments with little to no opportunity for loot, faction, or XP. I also don't believe that the fees for bodyguarding can realistically be made at a level which would be competative with mission terminal destroy missions. Mission terminal: High pay (relatively), XP, chance for loot, chance for Faction (depending on the mission), guarenteed action. Bodyguarding: Possibly little to no XP (no promise that the mobs that attack the client will be the correct level to give good XP), reduced chances for loot, often no faction earning potential, no guarentee of action or fun. Maybe I'm wrong, it is just an opinion, after all. Couple that with the reality that it isn't currently possible for a bodyguard to intercept all attacks on the client and it doesn't paint a picture of success to me.

---

Having said that they need to implement a system, much like the vendor system for the combat->crafter side of the relationship that makes it easy to get people to help you. Shouting in colleria imo is not a good enough tool nor is posting on these forums to get help. They need something ala meeting stones from "that other game" that help players to group and find groups.

---

This is a decent idea. I remain doubtful that there will be sufficient supply of bodyguards to meet the demand, but I'm perfectly willing to give it a shot. The one-shot incap issue needs some addressing as well. Happily the CL boosting of group membership, plus a possible non-combat armor item, may be sufficient to address that issue.

---

The out of hours crafters are a problem but I do have a suggestion in dealing with that. Perhaps players could build up enough npc faction to buy npc bodygards from specific planets but it costs items rather than money to build up the faction. Rebels and imperials could spend faction points gained from this to get protection whereas neutrals could goto Corsec, Jabba et el to get thiers (planet specific perhaps).

Message Edited by DND_Cas on 05-19-200510:49 AM

---

Hrm. I'm not really in favor of implementing NPCs to fill a PC role, be it entertaining, crafting, healing, or battling. It sets a very bad precident. I would not support a solution for NPC Weaponsmiths or whatever, to provide weapons if the crafting community was not filling the role, I don't feel like I can support NPC combat goons to fill the combat role either.

We're not asking to be invincible, I'm not anyway, nor are we asking to have any ability to kill anything at all. We are not asking to be able to wander adventure plantes at will with no personal risk. We are asking for the personal threat level, especially on 'civilized' worlds (Corellia, Naboo, Tatooine) to be greatly reduced to allow us to perform the basic functions of our professions/roles/playstyles with out, in my opinion, unreasonably high risk of combat and death.

I regret that the ranger/scout community took exception to the vest proposal. I will freely admit that when I first read it, it didn't occur to me that it would mimic cammo kits in many ways, due to my personal lack of experience with the ranger playstyle. I apolgise. I took it forward, simply for comments and exposure, as another idea or possible solution for what I, and many who feel the same way, feel is a sharp downturn in the playability and enjoyability of the non-combat playstyle.

I expect many rangers saw this as an attempt by artisans to steal from a profession which has already suffered so much. It wasn't, at least not intentionally. I, for one, would not seek to take iconic skills/abilities from any other profession in the game.

I appreciate all feedback and commentary.
Take care,
Guru

This is a very good idea.

However its less useful for the pure crafting templates who cannot afford any of the survey branch and for pure crafting BE's who would still like to go out and sample without getting one-hit. Not everyone who uses factories and harvestors can pick up master artisan or survey IV. I agree that adding functionallity to the survey branch is a good idea, but not while leaving all other crafters in the dust.

Also, it would be nice if there was something we can do about NPC's. Its simple to survey and place harvestors away from NPC's today, but tomorrow that harvestor spot might be full of high level NPC's.


Chances are the devs will end up throwing something like this in in a less than fully thought out manner, so it would be nice if this helped as many professions as possible from the initial inception, since bugs tend to go unfixed for years and additional features and upgrades stay on the drawing board for just as long.