Ranger Archive

It's not really news to anyone here that rangers are little more than beefed up scouts. Compared to a master scout a master ranger doesn't have much that really makes him better. The big camps are often useless as you are fine of with smaller ones in most cases anyway. The traps can sometimes be useful, but it's still nothing compared to the abilities the real fighter classes get.

I had myself hoped that the extra harvest would make a ranger be able to survive just by selling hides/bones. But since scouts now can harvest quite much themselves the need for hides/bones is much less and the market is flooded with those resources by low level scouts anyway.

So, there’s a lot of fixes for rangers, but one that would fit very well with the profession, which also would help us a lot, is tracking.

-Tracking

Tracking would simply allow a ranger to either choose from a list with nearby animals, or from a list with animals that may spawn in the region. In the case the action is successful or there is a creature in range the ranger will get a waypoint to the animal or some other way to find his prey.

This would mainly make rangers invaluable to hunting groups. I’m sure most of you know how frustrating it is to go kimmo hunting and not find a single kimmo for half an hour. A group with a good ranger could then be much more efficient in their hunting and people would actually want us rather than see us as some beefed up scout that tries to steal their harvest.

It would also help soloing rangers a lot as you’re often looking for specific pretty when you’re out hunting. Either for a special kind of resource or cause they provide good XP. A ranger would be able to gather a specific kind of resource much faster than a scout would.

This could be done in two separate ways depending on how the server deals with spawned mobs. If the server indeed keeps track of a large amount of mobs around a player the ranger could simply get a list with the animals inside his tracking radius (the better ranger, the further he can track). He would then get a waypoint to the animal specified.

If the server instead (as I think it might do) spawns mobs when players get close it could instead present the ranger with a list of mobs that can spawn in the area. If the track is successful it would then spawn the specified mob somewhere close with a waypoint to it. If a creature normally is rare it would of course be harder to succeed with the track, but a better ranger would of course make the chance to succeed better.

Something like this is badly needed to make the ranger profession more interesting. Currently all other advanced professions provide much more new abilities to the player. All we get is rescue and a few traps and camps you almost never use anyway.

I hope that somehow this post could reach the devs.

I would like to see the Field Base and High Tech camps get a terminal that only people with Tracking skill can use. The terminal would generate lairs just like a missions term. Higher tracking skill = tougher lairs are added to the random mix.

Bravo! Yes Ranger improvements should have built in skills mods that actually work. For instance in harvesting - Armourers need high quality hides - Rangers should be the only profession able to harvest hide greater then an 800 overall quality. Just like going from a cdef carbine to an EE3. Or meat for medics & doctors to build better stims.

We should also harvest in larger quantities or able to harvest multiple products - Masters should get all 3 abilities bone meat & hide.

Tracking would rock, maybe when he gets close to a large animal such as a Kryat or Kimogila - a waypoint pops up or some sort of marker.

Just a thought!

TRACKING!! YES... I posted this one a while back too, but keep it up here. I don't understand why tracking wasn't implemented as a function of a scout/ranger. It seems blaringly obvious to me.

*bump*

I don't think that /track is that useful to be honest... the way the game is now... things aren't always where they are supposed to be and with mission waypoints and the fact that anyone can run around and find stuff.. there's just no huge demand (other than scouts) to find Kimas.

I think tracking should be exactly like Bounty Hunting, only with creatures....

You initiate a Tracking and it spawns a unique special creature that you then have to track down in the wild... killing this creature will yield some sort of bonus....

These creatures could be named versions of basic creatures... "Old Floppy Ears" - the crazed durni matriarch....and should be harder to kill than their normal bretheren.

In my mind, that is the only real way to making tracking fit the flavor of what a Ranger would actually use it for.

- Zarn

Quas that is a great Idea, and much like "surveying" for mobs. The chance to succeed in pinning down where a mob is(ie spawning it) would be based on challenge level, and chance that it would naturally spawn there. I am pretty sure there are spawn tables for each region, this would be a way for the players to get a glimpse into that table. The very high level creatures would require a Master Ranger and a lot of luck tofind. You could even make it require a device that requires tracking skill to use. Kinda like a survey tool.

XionLion, the idea with tracking would of course be to allow a ranger or a group with a ranger to find prey faster. Of course everything can be found by other players also, but I remember several hunts where we were running around for half an hour not finding anything we were looking for.

It's the same with soloing. At the moment you just run around randomly in areas you know have the creature you look for, but with a bit of bad luck it can take quite some time until you find it. Being able to run straight to the closest prey would really speed up hunting and harvesting.

I think tracking as you suggested would be VERY useful. I'm sure that most of us are ok with rangers not being a "power" class, but at least let us have some fun abilities that go along with what our perceptions of the class are.

Also that mission terminal idea is pretty snazzy : )

yea tracking would be really nice to have. it would be cool if we could use our traps on people too, it just kinda doesnt make sense that something that would blind a creature wouldn't blind a person.

Good ideas here guys. I just made Novice Ranger myself to try it out and compare it's usefulness (read fun) to Squad Leader. With the right changes there would be no question in this matter.

-We need to be able to harvest higher quality materials... maybe we could choose quality/quantity with a switch of some kind. Either get a larger load of regular stuff, or a novice-scout-sized load of superlative stuff.

-Tracking would be cool too. I'm still questioning whether it should be implemented as a terminal, a hand-held device, or just a skill. In real-life I'm a pretty good tracker (my dad is amazing) and we don't use anything but our own senses and know-how.

-I feel sorry for Commandos and Bio-Engineers. Not relavent, I know, but it had to be said.

-Some traps should be useable on people. Maybe like landmines, rather than grenades/tranquilizer darts though.

-NEFloyd, I love your sig. You rock.

--Thrush--

I have often thought that a ranger should be able to track, I mean come on thats what woodsmen, do we hunt and trap and track our prey not just run around mindlessly hoping we find something to kill.

Hehe, thanks

I would love the ability to track creatures, but i am a bit worried of how this would be implemented with the way mobs and lairs are spawned.