Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Critter Resource Availability
Whrlwnd13 wrote:
You were very clear on stating the problem, however I see little regarding the details of the solution you are proposing to the Devs.
How much do you propose to increase the harvesting/trapping skills? Would the added benefit be at Master level only? Would this modification lower the current harvesting/trapping skills of non-masters? What will the Devs nerf to keep the balance? It seems to me that they are on a Yin/Yang directive and anything that is improved must nerf something else to maintain the balance.
All other professions rely on Skill tapes and Chef foods to gain bonuses (i think the devs intention is to make these mandatory to have an advantage in any profession) andI've seen creature harvesting skill tapes and chef foods. Do they not provide enough bonus to make their use worthwile?
We are not exactly proposing a solution. We have several ideas for what can be done but most of them require a bit more work than the Devs can probably spare right now. What we want here is just to have the effectiveness of the skill mod changed.As an example,we might want a Master Scout to have closer to double of what a Novice Scout and a Master Ranger to double that again. Currently, a Master Ranger doesn't even double a Novice Scout. This does not necessarily mean changing the spread of the skill mods or even the number of skill mods. It just means that we want to be able to harvest/trap a bit more for each point that we do get.
For trapping, let me give an example. Currently, I can solo a rancor unbuffed and unarmored. If the rancor were to hit me, I would probably be dead from one hit. Throwing a trap stops me moving and shooting for a few seconds. If I throw a trap at a rancor, I would be quite likely to miss. So, while I have a trap that would freeze the rancor in his tracks, using it is just as likely to let him close on me as it is to stop him. If I had a 95% chance of hitting that rancor, I would consider using the trap. But, with closer to a 50% chance to hit, I am likely to die from throwing it.
As for harvesting, we want an improvement for everyone. Novice Scouts would probably stay at the level they are currently at (we don't want any nerfs). Novice Scout takes 15 skill points to pick up. That leaves you with a lot of skill points to use for a combat profession. If the Novice Scout can kill creatures at twice the rate of a Master Ranger, they will outharvest the Master Ranger. With a PvP combat template, a Novice Scout can easily kill twice as much as a single combat master can (which is all you can get with Master Ranger). This can make a Master Ranger LESS effecient at harvesting resources than a Novice Scout. So, spending 125 extra skill points in harvesting related professions is worse for the hunter than spending them in combat ones. Not to mention that the combat ones are also useful in PvP and general game play. The same sort of argument can be used with a Master Scout although the skill point cost there is not quite as extreme.
On top of this, organic resources are needed in many craftables. The people who are happy harvesting can not keep up with the amount of resources needed. If I hunt for a full shift trying to get only a single resource, I have trouble supplying even one crafter. There are around 10 professions that need organic resources for crafting. There are 2 that actually harvest the resources. And, while you might have quite a few scouts (as it is a prereq for a lot of other classes), Rangers seem to be rarer than Jedi on most servers (I know more Jedi than I do Rangers). There is no real way for the Ranger and Scout population to currently supply the crafters. This is causing some crafters to offer 200cpu or more for resources (yes, 200 credits per unit). Those crafters are getting all the resources they want (as even people without scout will pick it up for those rates). Most other crafters are stuck trying to get their own resources. Demand far outstrips supply. People are doing things they don't enjoy in order to get to the things they enjoy. This defeats the purpose of a game. By letting Scouts and Rangers supply the economy, crafters are freed from having to hunt down the resources on their own.
I hope this helps a bit.
Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server
meroc wrote:
For what it's worth, you have my support.
I think doubling harvesting rates wouldn't hurt too much, though those people that are making a fortune from meat sales may not be too keen on the idea...
Message Edited by meroc on 04-07-2004 07:47 PM
But should those people be making a fortune on meat sales? As it is, demand far outstrips supply. Something needs to be done to level it out a bit. Recently on my server, Naboo Avian was selling at 200 cpu. A Novice Scout could go out and collect 5k of that during the shift (even if they had no marksman skills at all). They would need to put a bit of work into it but that would give them a million credits. That sort of turnover is just wrong. People complain about the inflation in the economy. A large part of it is from this. Crafters either need to spend a lot of time or a lot of money to get the resources they want. So their prices reflect this. A harvest increase would help level this out a bit.
Thanks for the support.
Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server
You should really post this over in the BE forum as well. Personally as a Chef/BE I go through 5x the meat as a BE than I doas a Chef. I realize that the average BE will usually have more combat skillsthanthe average Chef (having had to pass throughScout)and I realize this applies to all harvested organics not just meat,but still, sounds like you can use as many potential allies as possible.
The only thing that you need to think about is what happened to Chef class.. when the class was revamped they were flooded with "FoTM" people who impacted the class in many adverse ways (the jury is still out on if this was ultimatelygood or bad and I will not go there again). If Ranger (or to a certain extent, Scout) gets revamped to provide the undisputed master organic harvesting ability, allowing your average Master Ranger to pull in more resources than anyone else, you could be looking at the next FoTM.
I guess my point is, consider ALL options carefully, not just the ones you are comfortable with. The reality of how it plays out could potentially be very different from what you think
KaiRaene wrote:
There is an ongoing debate of the needs/wants of the Ranger Community. The Outdoorsman Proposal goes through many great ideas similar to sciguyCO's. sciguyCO's ideas have been considered and most of the Ranger's(if I remember right) didnt like the idea of farming animals. In essence that idea goes against the notion of Rangers being masters of the wilderness and always on the move. A small point but one that the people who role play arent quite liking. Not flaming your ideas either. Just discussing and freebumping.
As for your replicator idea I think the best way to remove any opportunity for double stacking everything like you mentioned would be to lower the quality of the yield abit. Perhaps by 20%. That would increase meat output but would also not allow anyone to constantly hoard that one giant stack til they never need anymore. Also perhaps putting a stress limit on the mother stack of meat so that if its cloned too many times it loses quality or outright gets destroyed in the process.
From what Calc has been saying in the Ranger forum TH has been responding to his threads in the Correspondent forums and is asking for clear and concise reasons for why we need an increase and what could be the downfall of it. Flooding the market and what not. We Rangers would love to have the support of our customer professions to get this going. For us what it comes down to is spending hours on end trying to get one 20k stack for one customer and its just boring and its not anyway to play a game..especially this game.
I have no clue what goes into being a Chef but I think it would be nice to know the basic needs of chefs in general for what that have to create. How much meat do you need to make however many crates of food/drinks. This info could help us argue out the details of needsvstime harvesting.
Thanks, Kai
A few extra comments here:
Dedicated Rangers/Scouts are far outnumbered by the crafters who use organics. I actually know more Jedi on my server than I do Rangers. And, as it is currently,a Master Ranger can't even supply a single crafter with all the resources they want. And that is when hunting to the exclusion of most other activities. Something needs to change.
Any sort of static harvester devalues the current skills in the Ranger and Scout profession. I have no harvesters at all and yet I have no lots free. If organic resource harvesters are put in, it would kill any ability to gather resources. A single heavy harvester on a resource seems to be enough to supply a crafter with plenty of resources. There is no way a Ranger or a Scout could keep up while still being able to enjoy the game. Even if it was a Scout/Ranger only ability, it would force us to use harvesters. This would make us more of a farmer than a hunter. Something more along the lines of tanning or curing might be a better approach. Let the hides/meat/bones come from normal hunting. But let there be some process to improve the resources. Then the actual hunting is still extremely useful but you have the OPTION of going through another stage. If the output of curing gave something like a cured meat component that could replace some amount of meat in a schematic (with higher stats) then you would be introducing an optional enhancement. The original meat is still useful in such a situation. If you have some way to just magically double the stack then the original resource drops in usefulness. You might as well just make the original harvester pull twice as much to start with.
Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server
Of course... this is totally seperate from my belief that SWG butchered the concept of a "ranger" from the very beginning.
-Nah-
20k meat for 50 cpu = 1 mil credits
or
50k meat for 20 cpu = 1 mil credits
The harvesting boost would lower prices and increase your resources. The net price paid would probably not change, however, what you receive in trade would definately be better
Ok.. just because I CAN I am going to add this final thought it. While I personally feel that some balance can be applied to creature harvesting I am also pretty certain that the price of organics is in no way related to the current imbalance in harvesting among rangers/scouts.
It's because people are generally greedy by nature and especially in a game such as this one, people will try to bilk the last red cent out of their neighbor for the plain and simple reason that thay CAN.
If the availability of organic resources was really affecting the prices, by this logic, harvested flora and mineral would be 1-2 cpu right? No. It's not like that at all, tho. True 5-6 cpu for mineral is not the exact same as 50-60cpu for meat but the principle behind it is the same. People are greedy as **edit** by nature. It's partially the *perception* that meat/milk is rare that fuels the prices even higher.
-Nah-
Nahualli wrote:
You should really post this over in the BE forum as well. Personally as a Chef/BE I go through 5x the meat as a BE than I doas a Chef. I realize that the average BE will usually have more combat skillsthanthe average Chef (having had to pass throughScout)and I realize this applies to all harvested organics not just meat,but still, sounds like you can use as many potential allies as possible.
The only thing that you need to think about is what happened to Chef class.. when the class was revamped they were flooded with "FoTM" people who impacted the class in many adverse ways (the jury is still out on if this was ultimatelygood or bad and I will not go there again). If Ranger (or to a certain extent, Scout) gets revamped to provide the undisputed master organic harvesting ability, allowing your average Master Ranger to pull in more resources than anyone else, you could be looking at the next FoTM.
I guess my point is, consider ALL options carefully, not just the ones you are comfortable with. The reality of how it plays out could potentially be very different from what you think
-Nah-
This was meant to be posted on all the crafting boards that use organics
. As far as being a FotM, it is a bit less likely to hurt us. More supply means lower prices. Right now, organic resource demands far outstrip supplies. If people end up taking Ranger (or Scout) because of this change, supply will end up outstripping demand. The price of the resources will drop to really low levels and the FotM people will realize the futility of their actions. And, if the supply doesn't outstrip the demand, then there is no problem with having a few extra Rangers/Scouts around. Right now, Rangers seem to be less common than Jedi on my server. I know that when /areatrack was first implemented, Rangers became FotM (at least the newly renamed tracking tree did). It didn't change much. And, given the skill point cost of a Master Ranger, most people probably won't bother going above Scout Hunting 4 (or Ranger Tracking 4). While the overall effect might be bad, it can't be that much worse than being almost entirely useless. Right now, the skill point cost of Master Ranger really ends up hurting my ability to harvest. And it doesn't really give me much else. Any profession that ends up getting a fix has a chance to become FotM. But we need the fixes either way.
Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server
would you rather have:
20k meat for 50 cpu = net price paid by the CM 1 mil credits.
or
50k meat for 20 cpu = net price paid by the CM 1 mil credits.
The influx of quality resources inevitably will lower the prices for the items made by the crafting community because there will be a higher amount of quality products made by the CM community, increasing quality, competition and spreading the wealth.
thats just my theory
Dragula99 wrote:ummm....
yharvested resources sell for a premium because they are a pain in the butt to get. period.
Respectfully,
take this in consideration, a while ago on Lowca, corellian avian meat was absolutely amazing, however, the most a Master Ranger could harvest from a carrion spat averages around 15 to 20 units.
Rasps drop even less.
I hunted for 3 days and harvested about 10k units total. I had doctors offering me up to 150 cpu for the meat. I was already under a contract so I turned down the extra money and continued with the contract.
True, the quality of resources play a major part in pricing, however, if I was able to harvest a lot more units in a lot less time, then the availability would be higher, and prices would drop.
Remember when holocrons sold upwards of 5mil credits? Now they are down to about 200k because of the influx of "gift holos".
Secondly we are a support class, however, the amount of support that we can provide, we believe, is inadequate for the demand present. I have mastered several combat professions and some are better suited to the way I play. With the harvesting boost, I would be able to provide the highest quality resources, without nerfing another profession, in bulk to support the crafting community.
Rangers have been asked about static harvesters before, and we enjoy hunting, thats why we are rangers...to change us from a hunting profession to a gatherer profession would diminish us in my opinion.
Thanks for the post Dragula99. I hope this clarifies things