Ranger Archive

Alrighty then...

/conceal is foremost on our minds and the main reason that I am pushing for a definition of Ranger in the other thread.

Here, we shall discuss the skill itself.

I made the following suggestion in another thread:

Perhaps /conceal should be completely revised to simply be a "negative to-hit" modifier across the board and drop the invisibility idea entirely.

• Leave /maskscent to completely hide from creatures.
  
• With that we could even ask for the ability to use both skills at the same time.

The new skill would have the advantage of being usable against Creatures, Humanoids, Players, Pets, etc.

I want to know what everyone thinks about a fundmentally change to the way /conceal is handled.

If enough of the community is in favor, it will be added to the treatise as the alternative to the developers idea of limiting /conceal to creatures.

How should the skill work when applied to other players? With the new approach, those players without /maskscent will no longer reap the benefits of invisibility from creatures.

• Perhaps /conceal should produce a /maskscent as well on the target player.

Comments? Large gaping holes in my logic? Further enhancements to make it more favorable?

NRas...you never cease to amaze me. I like the idea as long as we are able to mask the scent of non-scout types. That was one benefit that made the conceal a big hit to begin with as well asa marketable skill. But all in all you are one smart cookie.

I will play the devil's advocate on this... I have changed my mind on the /conceal working against NPC's and PC's idea. Here's why...

I am a humanoid in this game. I have a radar on my screen that shows me MOB's, PC's, and NPC's. Its not an unreasonable assumption that all humanoids, including NPC's would not have the same. This IS Starwars for goodness sakes. Crafting a pack of goo from bones, hides, and meat is not going to block someone's radar.

Your idea of a negative to hit modifier DOES have some merit however. Perhaps because even though you can see me on radar, you can't see me very well to shoot at me? Maybe?

I think that Rangers should be able to "maskscent" on other people. And if we keep "conceal" do that as well. Think about it... I have hunted in real life, and all masking your scent involves is putting some other scent on to cover your own. As Rangers we should be able to apply that knowledge to others as well. "Conceal" is a little more involved as it requires more skill to make yourself hard to SEE, but it also should be one that we can apply to others that don't have the skill.

Here is a fundamental problem that I see with this game... if you have a really good skill that can aid a hunting or warring party... then it will get nerfed down to where is almost a waste of time. There is no middle ground. Give us a good "conceal" with negative-to-hit modifiers and if its effective at ALL, then someone will complain or hundreds of people will "dabble" just for that skill and then it will get nerfed back to where its just like "ho-hum, conceal = no-big-deal".

I am interested to see where this goes.

"Perhaps /conceal should be completely revised to simply be a "negative to-hit" modifier across the board and drop the invisibility idea entirely.

• Leave /maskscent to completely hide from creatures.
  
• With that we could even ask for the ability to use both skills at the same time.

The new skill would have the advantage of being usable against Creatures, Humanoids, Players, Pets, etc."

I will say that this idea (versus invisible one radar) has a MUCH greater chance of being acceptable to both the Devs and the other profs. BUT, for it to work, it needs to be a large negative modifier (as someone boefre had stated). I will ask, does the check still happen with this proposal? Is there still a chance that it will break, and there will not be a negative mod? That would make it more interesting, that's for sure.

Sheesh, I also want to ask if we want the ability to maskscent others to be in the realm of the Ranger? I would assume so.

Great idea NRaas - Hope the Devs go for it.

So my wish list is now that /conceal gives neg to hit and still maskscents others and that Rangers (and CH) only get the ability to milk herbivores.

Hope I'm not asking for too much

Kharr Khomak
Master Ranger
Master Creature Handler

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As far as balance goes, there is a special us rifleman use that we do not talk about for fear of "nerf" cries but essentually, it kills all talk of this being unbalancing.

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That's an interesting point. You're absolutely right.

These are great ideas, surely the devs would consider this. Good job, NRaas and others.

/sign

OUT-FREAKING-STANDING IDEA

nuff said, run with it NRass

JB

While I dont per say have issues with the idea, I think the result would be something thats far less usefull than what we currently have. A negative to hit modifier while nice doesnt really help what most of us use /conceal for. Tell me when I am hunting for meat on Dath that the negative to hit modifier is going to be even remotely useful against a force wielding nightsister who one shots me with a choke?

I guess in the end I dont want another form of conceal, I want what we have now and I think its worth fighting for instead of giving the Dev's another version.

Having said that in the spirit of trying not to be overly bitter what about /conceal kits reducing the agro range of an NPC? The main problem with NPCs in general and the thing that made /conceal so nice is that they agro almost exactly at 64 metersand they are the most likely thing to spawn on top of you as you are walking along.If /conceal could reduce the range allowing concealed characters to slip around a group of NPCs then its still somewhat useful.This makes a huge amount of sense as far as the outdoorsman idea in that rangers would know how to use the landscape to their benifit.

Cul

Anything new would be welcome as conceal right now sucks. First you have to jump through hoops to get the right ingrediants and then it works for like 30 seconds on other people. Boy was that embarrassing. I was so excited when I first heard that we could mask other players, but what a letdown. Nraas, I'm all for you doing anything to improve conceal.

I would submit to this post two things that I feel are fact, or coarse I could be wrong but I feel these things to be true. They are as follows:

1. The Dev's will NEVER put any sort of invisibility in the game. It is my feeling that asking for such a thing is a waste of time. It is better to leave this idea behind and shoot for something more productive.

2. Fighting for /conceal to work the way it did before is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot. It really did not work all that well. It was bugged to begin with, hard to make, and sometimes impossible to remove short of logging off and back on which is a waste of time.

I like this new idea, and I do not think the nightsister issue will be a big deal if this new idea is done correctly. The idea of camo is that it breaks up your outline, thus making you harder to target. It should in theory work against any sort of attack; ranged weapons, heavy weapons, force powers, lightsabers, creature attacks. Think about the Arnold movie with the alien thing with the cool camo(what is that movie called, i have not turned on a television in close to a year, please forgive my ignorance :smileywink It is not that you could not see it, it was just hard to see it, and thus hard to target. Of coarse this ability would be much cooler if the Dev's actually put some work into it and made a graphic representation of the /conceal ability but it is not necissary. A simple message that pops up when they miss that says: 'you are having difficulty targeting *insert toons name*' would get the idea across. I think the negative to hit mod has definite merit. Good job NRaas.