Ranger Archive

1. Make it so traps always stick.


2. Turn traps into throwable weapons and use trapping mod as an accuracy bonus (similar to ranged accuracy etc).


3. Turn traps into grenade like weapons with range, effects, damage, speed characteristicsupon experimentation then add speed and accuracymods for these up the ranger tree.

1: Make it so traps always stick

Big kick in the teeth for rangers who invest skill points to advance in trapping and means we will see tonnes of phec dart novice scout trapping rancors and krayts resultingin the probableremoval of phec dart and ad mesh and placement in the ranger tree somewhere. Overall a bad solution, veryshort sighted and causes more issues that it solves.

2: Turn traps into throwable weapons and use trapping mod as an accuracy bonus (similar to ranged accuracy etc).

This essentially means that your hit/miss chance is first based off your cl vs the target and then enhanced by your accuracy (in this case trapping) mod. It will mean anyone can level trapping no matter what their level in trapping against targets around their own CL. In a similar way you get more accurate using a rifle as you progress, the same will be said about trapping. The more trapping you get, the more accurate you get and more damage you do (if we ever get offensive traps).

Infortunatly this still will not limit the number of people picking up scout up to phec darts to get a basic level snare which wont fly with the devs and quiet probly result in the move of phec and ad mesh from scoutto ranger.

3: Turn traps into grenade like weapons with range, effects, damage, speed characteristicsupon examination then add speed and accuracymods for these up the ranger tree.

In other words clone the grenade code making all traps grenade like in function and just change certs to match ranger and scout boxes.Give us speed and accuracy mods like commando does, place the certs in the ranger and scout trees using thesame resources and we are sorted. Trapseffectiveness will be determined by CL plus accuracy. Speed will also increase as you level ranger (possibly exclusively put speed mods inranger) meaning the more you invest in trapping and ranger thefaster you can throw traps.

Again with this idea, itstill wont stop people from picking up low level scout andsnare/rooting high level creatures meaning most likely the phec darts and adhesive mesh will be moved from scout to ranger as the devsfeel kds/roots/snares are too powerfull for basic professions and in ranged cases elite tiers.

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So what do you want to do? Please give me any alternatives you have because all the ones i can think of negatively effect the art of trapping and leave the door wide open for scouts getting the short end of the stick.

I have the opposite view.

Trapping is not broken, so leave it alone.

The people who get 1xp per trap are trapping below their CL. This has happened due to:

a. A respec in and they did not add any trapping, only the cool stuff like harvesting and TN.

b. Waiting to do trapping last. Not trapping during normal hunts.

Both choices, note I said choices, were on the part of the player. Said player even had the token respec to fix the trapping tree if he/she wanted to. I am guessing not many did this. Oh well, that was not smart.

I notice you get normal scout XP on all harvests, regardless of CL. Cool, as now 3 trees take scout XP. How many people do dumb stuff - like I did a long time ago in a game unburdened by CL and waited to do camping in one lump- and think they can do trapping last? Failure to trap all along leads to a long hard grind at one xp per creature until you get up to your CL.

Here is the rub:

Trapping is a combat skill and as such we get CL from Ranger/Scout boxes. Combat skill xp is dependent upon CL. We asked for CL based on our profession trees, we got it. Now it appears that some people feel that taking our one "combat" skill and making it dependent upon CL like everyone else's combat skillsis unfair. This argument is ludicrous and should be killed before birth.

We asked for something, we got it, and now are complaining about the consequences.

At the same point, people who decide to come into Scout/Ranger after mastering a combat skill are at a disadvantage also. Yes, it is unfair to them, but life is not fair. They can always drop some boxes, decrease their CL, and regain the combat class along with Scout/Ranger. An unpopular choice, but a viable option.

Trapping is working fine. I am sticking a fair percentage of traps. I know enough to be moving when trapping, not standing still. I am getting XP as I trap green cons to me. And am getting 1 xp when I trap grey cons. These are the breaks.

I agree the 3 options presented screw traps up, a lot. The fix is not to mess with traps. Let those people getting one xp per trap adjust their templates - they had how long in the initial respec and the token respec to do so. New people should be encouraged to trap from encounter one. If they do that they will not have many problems in trapping.

I am guessing we will agree to disagree, like Paks and I have.

JB

Great post JB, I agree.

Agree to disagree? Damn right hehe.

No person should be required to drop boxes to start training up in something else unless they want 1xp a pop, no person should be required to start 1 tier first or they cant progress at more than 1xp a pop. You said trapping is a combat skill, i agree and that means trapping needs to progress in line with the other combat skills.Trapping shouldnt be a special case and people shouldnt be essentially forced to put everything else on hold so they can level up trapping, they should be allowed to start trapping whenever they want to, just like every other skill in game.

Trapping progressionisNOT working as intended and needs to be fixed as its penalising people from wanting to pick up Scout trapping and progressing to Ranger.

JB, you have a right to your opinion and ill respect that but i do think that opinion is based off a false assumption.

JB - I completely disagree with you. If a player chooses to climb the trapping tree last, this should not be made to be impossible for them. Novice scout is the pre-req for trapping - therefore, if you have novice scout, you should be able to get trapping trees.

Your comments essentially say that if people don't read the forums and talk to someone who knows about this problem, them scr*w them. Well that's just not right. If you're an elite combat prof and want to pick up scout, why in the world should you have to drop a bunch of hard earned skills to get your CL low enough to trap - I'm sorry JB, but that's just stupid.

Owen, to answer your questions - I think option 2 could work well with a few things in place:
1) Trap certs - that way you have to be higher up in trees to have access to better traps
2) Speed Modifiers
3) Accuracy Modifiers

... and that's IT. Keep it simple. I don't really see how this option would mean that anyone with novice scout could have access to everything. Sure they could throw a trap and land one on a krayt at novice scout - but they would be slow and inaccurate. Moreover, if I have novice marksman, I can still go shoot one, can't it? and if p-darts and adhesive mesh get moved a bit, so be it - they're the 2 most useful traps in the game and they're in the scout lines. Give one to Master Scouts and the other to Rangers.

Speed and Accuracy modifiers could start off REALLY slow so that you can't throw traps fast enough to have them perma rooted or always with a state. At my first thought, this seems to avoid some of the problems you talked about.

OK, so there are my initial thoughts. Owen, glad your taking the initiatives. JB, couldn't agree with you less.

How about:

1. Increase the xp per sucessful trap.

OR

2. Make trapping skill/xp = scouting xp, like they did with the camping line. I know it would create some hate and discontent, like it did with survival xp, but not a bad idea if we want to keep our trapping running along the same lines.

Just a thought.......

Orame Lightningdust

Master Ranger/ Master BH

Squad Leader 0/3/0/0

Biggest problem seems to be that because you are progressing through both scout/ranger AND a combat profession your CL can easily get out of synch with your TL. Get 10 CL's higher than the creatures you can trap and you've got a problem.

You could bank XP in the combat skill to allow you to keep your CL down, but then you are forcing people to handicap themselves by not taking the increase in accuracy/defence mods they've just earned. Plus, while that weapons XP is sitting waiting till you can train up, you're still increasing the XP you've got banked in scout.

That of course assumes the person is starting from a null base and is levelling up for the first time. For a CL80 player to take up scout it appears they'd have to drop ALL combat skills to get their CL and TL to match.

If you mapped CL and TL to be the same, the CL80 player would be able to trap pretty much everything that a master ranger could with novice scout. So maybe the answer would be to map CL/TL and introduce an accuracy modifier that increses % to hit/stick to the point were you would need to have progressed through the trapping lines to get a high success rate?

In theory that'd also stop the poptart abusers from mapping over at CL80, taking three boxes of scout with their spare SP and being able to immobilise all and sundry?

Number 1 - we don't want this to happen, without a failure chance traps will always have to be very limited in power.

Numbers 2-3 both seem like really good ideas.

I will even venture the idea that if traps we more like mines stat-wise we could lobby for a ranger-craftable "Trap-field" that we could add traps to and draw critters over.

Trapping is not "impossible" to master when you get a CL imbalance - it is a large pain in the butt, but not impossible.

Trapping is to Rangers/Scout what Combat XP is to everyone else. Think about it that way. It was camping, now it's trapping. Go figure people whine about the hard line to master.

I decide to kill only level 1-40 creatures (grey cons all) to get a load of scout XP. I get 1 weapons xp and no Combat xp. It's a choice I can make. A stupid choice if I am trying to master a weapon, yes. But a choice. Bad choices = bad results. Not trapping as a level 1 and continuing to not trap is a bad choice with bad bad bad consequences. Once again, life is not fair. How you choose now will effect your path later on.

Taking trapping xp and turning it into scout xp means I can master Ranger while never everharvesting a creature overCL 10. I can't agree with that, unless you want to take Scout xp and rank it with CL, which no one would like to see happen.

Hmm... interesting. We get full Scout xp for a harvest. Regardless of CL. I wonder if this is a bug? After all, we get CL based on those boxes don't we.

Food for thought.

JB

Wow JB, that sure is on tall horse you ar riding. Why shouldn't I be able to Level in Scout or Ranger is I have a high CL? THe point of combat skills that apply yo multiple weapons, as well as the general speed and accuracy mods ar to facilitate the easier levelling of aonter combat profession. Why shouldn't Scout have a similar opportunity. Have you actually tried to master Scout from scratch since the CU when you were already a master combat profession? This new, elitist attitude doesn't suit. Grumpy old Ranger was more your style.

To answer the question, in no way should (nor would the devs let) trapping hit 100% of the time. I think a good solution would be to have the trapping mod become an accuracy mod (I don't think they should be called weapons are treated as susch)so that you always have a chance to hit a mob. It wouldn't be unbalacing to allow a novice Scout to trap even a krayt, as long as it doesn't always stick. Another option might be to give half of the normal xp (you would have gotten) for a missed trap. It doesn't jive with the rest of the system, but neiter does the current state of affairs.