Creature Handler Archive

Sky, like you I have been locked out of the forums most the day. Most the Rangers are posting on the other thread. So far it is a big NO GO. The biggest fallacy I am seeing is CH are not scouts. I am afraid we are. The correct argument is Rangers should loot more than others. I am a little unsettled by the fact they seem to thing ranch harvesting is perfect for them. They allude to the fact we are not true harvesters but turn around and believe they are true creature handlers.

At this point, with the line being drawn in the sand by Rangers, I suggest we move on. Rewrite it. Breeding and milking seems the next logical step. We are still scouts. I am not sure that Rangers get a bonus for milk. The idea of Box Traps and Dart, with Ranger interaction can be postponed. A lot like CH they are in a pivotal state where it is meaningless to be Master.

I do sort of see the Rangers' point. Other than really spiffy city-camps all they have going for them is the bonus in harvesting creatures. We have scout skills, but they had to master scout. So for now I'll conceed they should be harvesters. We dabble, they made a career of it. Then again, we dabble probably because we can't make money any other way.

I am concerned that breeding seems to be the sort of thing you would expect from a BE, though. I recall in the pre-beta days when BE were called Farmers and creature breeding was supposed to be part of their template. I don't know that I agree entirely, but I can see where thoughts of breeding might inspire thoughts of a BE before a CH.

So we get back to the age old question: what really is our role? Just to train a pet and then we're done? "Thanks, Mr. CH. Now go back in your hole until the big, important BEs need you to make their uberpets useful." Oh wait, half the BEs have at least novice CH anyway. That's what started this thread in the first place. What is it that we should be able to do that makes CH fun/useful without stepping on other professions toes?

Face it, folks. We may be feeling the hurt. But we can hardly claim to be the only people that feel like we've been nerfed to uselessness. True or not.

I don't see breeding as being a BE thing. BE's do stuff in the lab, they're scientists. CHs go out in the field, where BEs would go "ewwwww, dirt!" (Yes, I know they have to go in the field to get DNA samples). We're the ones who would take care of a ranch, or have a breeding program, tend to the animals, etc.

I'm a Master Ranger on Eclipse.

Out of all the ranger skills/schematics/abilitieswe've spent theskillpoints on only 2 are usefull. The creature harvesting mod (atm only 30% more then scout) and /areatrack (buggy as it is it still is usefull from time to time). We're divided on the effectiveness of camo-kits but most of us agree they're not worth the skillpoints. The effect of traps is too small and shortlasting to help us kill creatures and our camps are nice to show off outside coronet but useless nevertheless.

This proposal hurts us in the one area where we currently only have a 30% advantage that's why most rangers shoot it down at first sight.

The comment about high priced resources and lack of grinding resources : The current prices for resources may seem high but we have to put a lot of real time into it to aquire a decent stack size. We're currently making a top 5 priority list with harvesting at the top. Wewould likebetter yield to a kill and the ability to harvest more then one resource of a kill. This will create a bigger supply of high quality resources, thus lowering prices and the extra resources we can get of the same kill will provide the market with much needed grind resources at grind prices.

Personal opinion: When ranger is fixed in more of it's trees I wouldn't mind seeing this idea implemented as part of a Farmer profession (which was afterall originally planned).

Final comment: The structures should be limited by C/L, not number of creatures. 10 rancors fitting in the same spot as 10 durnis? (I know, C/L isn't always related to size but harvested yield is)

Ive been both Master Ranger and Master CH and i thoroughly loved them both. I intend to go back to both of them if they ever recieve the love they both deserve.I realise the CH profession needs a lot of sweetening, however this i feel would impact far to much on the one realistic source of income the Ranger has.

The CH may be just as poor in recent times but in all honesty the CH has spent less points to be a master and has more Combat ability at the same time. Where a Master CH can get nice paying missions, a Master Ranger cannot. Even if you bring thier secondary (Combat)skills into play the CH still has more points to spend on them.

Meat, bone and hide are the Rangers only true sources of Income and this proposal effectively removes one of them. I know your talking about JUST wooly but JUST wooly is the one hide that brings in the most Credits for a ranger.

Without reading everything posted, I just want to make a few comments from the Ranger side of things. I noticed a few other Rangers being a bit unwelcoming on the Ranger boards. Part of that is because of how many times threads like this have been showing up lately. If what I am going to say here is already known, sorry. But it does need to be said.

There is nothing really wrong with the proposal as suggested from a technical point of view. The problem I have with it is that it kills the role of the hunter (i.e. Ranger). Rangers are meant to be the ones supplying the organic resources (even if our skill set currently gives us almost nothing to do this--the harvest rate of a Master Ranger is only about 1.75x that of a Novice Scout). While you might say that such an idea leaves us with most of the harvesting still needing to be done, it is not entirely true. I have almost never collected bone for anyone other than myself (I need it for camps). And, if you get this ability, BEs will probably want to be able to grow some sort or synthetic meat (or some similar idea). If we support you in your push then one would expect the same treatment for BEs. This would leave us harvesting only bone (which is essentially pointless). There is no real way a player can keep up with a static harvester (even with all the extra problems thrown in). This sort of idea will kill the current form of the Ranger (we are currently incapacitated, this would be the Deathblow). The Rangers are hunters. We enjoy going out and hunting. Taking any sort of harvesting from us would severly reduce our purpose (and trapping creatures is not nearly the same and has little chance of occupying nearly as much time). As for having CHs collect resources, there is nothing stopping you now. You have Scout Hunting 4. Go out and harvest. If you don't want to bother with that, set up inorganic resource harvesters. The idea of a zoo, on the other hand, I would fully support. My current house is a bit on those lines but with BE pets only. I used to wish to be able to put my CH ones on display (when I was a Master CH--I dropped it because no one in my groups seemed to care about my pets and it led to too many arguments).

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

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EvilNerf wrote:

Id like to comment on the idea I've seen on the ranger board, the idea of rangers capturing babies and selling them to CHs to tame. For most CH's the idea of rare/valuable pets is not about combat ability (a mediocre BE pet is better then the rarest natural pet). Rare pets are about the search and the taming. Anyone who has a bull rancor doesnt even use it, and only keeps it and show it as a testament to the work put into both the search and the danger (and it is dangerous) of taming a baby while it is among its parents. If this idea is implimented, most CHs would not choose to use it and those that do would just bring the esteem value from those who tamed the rares themselves.

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Message Edited by RoboFish on 04-09-2004 12:37 AM

Pluto, very nice and detailed!! But, I dont' think the hide idea will fly to high, I mean how fast does a coat of wooly hide really take to grow on an animal, hmmmm. Anyway, I love the milking idea, and I think this could actually benefit the Rangers, you see a Ranger should have some kind of trapping skill anyway, one that traps the animal for capture not the one they have now, and then they can sell whole animals to the ch who can then use them for a zoo (as was mentioned above), which you can then raise them in the "zoo" and sell them, or keep them on display for others to see, for an entrance fee of course. Also I like the breeding idea and the cross breeding, very much so, but I think for the carnivores you should have to feed them small herbivore animals as food instead of regular pet food (I just can't see a Rancor chomping down on some grain), therefore this gives the Ranger more to do, because you'll be needing alot of smaller animals (that only they can catch "full grown"), and therefore another means for a Ranger to make some money and have more purpose!! A creatures difficulty level should be taken into consideration for a Ranger's trapping ability like it is for a ch to tame. And one last note, cross-breeding should only be able to be done with the assistance of a BE, that way they get some more purpose as well, and I think maybe of having to have regular doc visits or your creatures will deteriorate health wise. Just some thoughs!!!

What I'm suggesting is that we can make money, either by miking (herbivores), displaying (zoos), or butchering them for resources!!

So the Ranger on the previous posts, you won't get scalped, you will gain!!

Just for my perspective as being a Master Armorsmith; I buy Lots of hides - as a matter of fact, my other character is a Ranger...

I dont really like the idea of giving the CH a way to get hides/animal resources.. This right now is the ONLY thing rangers/scouts have going for them -- as a matter of fact, most people take the baseline scout harvesting for nothing else but getting hides for themselves..

Wouldn't a CH prefer some improvement in the ablity to tame and use pets? I dont see how harvesting hides would help the class as a whole -- To be a CH you have to have creature harvesting IV in the scout line, anyway - so you DO have the ability to collect organic resources.

If organic resources were easy to get as minerals, then that would hurt alot of the only income rangers/scouts have.. if more people have the ability to collect them, price will go way down.

I understand that you are all looking for improvements in your class (I know we sure are) but I dont think this answer would be great as a whole.. Very neat idea, I admire the thought going into it.

--Please note! I have NOTHING against CH's at all

Ok, drop the harvesting if we have to. Keep the milking with a bonus to quality because of the conditions the milking would be done in. Add breeding....great idea. Have Rangers be the only one that can catch adult creatures in some sort of trap for resale/trade to a C/H to then add to corral. Have the C/H only be able to add babies? Love the idea of having a droid with a maintenance module and a milking module? Keep B/E sampling, with limitations on how many samples taken in a time frame and/or creature. This is realy a great idea.