Ranger Archive
Thread: Results of Maskscent & Conceal
Set up:
Endor - 9/9/03
7pm PST, Intrepid Server
Master Ranger (me)
3 Novice BH's (all with Master Scout)
1 Scout with 4/4/3/3 (call them Scout A)
1 Scout with 3/4/3/2 (call them Scout B)
Note: Aside from the cost of Camo Kits (which is a whole other topic), I decided with the help of my group (PA members) to conduct some tests using /Maskscent and /Conceal (camo kits).
We all took missions to the East and Southeast out from the Research Outpost.
I /Concealed me, 1 BH and Scout A. The other2 BH's and Scout B I had use /Maskscent.
Leading the group out, I soon had a group of red (5) on my 128m Radar so I steered us so we would go within 70m of said mobs. Soon to discover it was a Merek Lair.
I got exp for my /Conceal on myself, the two others I /concealed got no exp. The three using MS got scout exp. As we traveled past the lair keeping 70m distance I got aggro... Meaning my /conceal "ubber camo" broke and the Merek Assassin "insta ported" right on top of me, so we killed it.
Re-/concealed myself and we went on our merry way... another lair, Gorgels (spelling and name) This time one aggroed on the Scout I had /concealed 6min earlier. The other three using Mask Scent got exp but did not have theirs break.
And so on went the night... in short...
1) /Conceal broke 4 times as often as Maskscent did. With creatures "insta" porting ontop of you even at 65m+ out.
2) Those on the lower level of Scout Line using /MS had a much higher average of successfully getting a "detection check" vs aggro mobs than those (me and the Master Scouts) did.
3) Where areas /conceal "hid" the group better vs NPCs aggro mobs (Pubam and Donkuwah), /conceal still broke 1 in 4 red aggro mobs, even keeping at a distance of 60-80m outside their range.
4) /Maskscent was 65% more effective vs Red aggro type creature mobs than /Conceal was.
5) By the end of the night, I was MORE effective using /Maskscent, than wasting the groups time, energy and resources on Camo Kits.
Personal opinion:
1) I would MUCH rather have /Conceal work 95% - 99.9% of the time than worry if I am getting UNNEEDED scouting exp.
2) There are much easier and more dependable ways to gain scout exp than worrying if /Conceal or /Maskscent is going to give me a "measly" 18 points of scout exp. I earned all my Scout exp through harvesting (alot of it solo). Would much rather have a dependable /MS or /Conceal than something that breaks 3/4th the time and give me something that is nominal and not worth much at all. The higher you go in Scout tree and Ranger tree, the less "significant" is the exp you gain using /maskscent or /conceal vs the issues with it.
3) Cost for Camo Kits (resources) vs the Time they last (10min) and how uneffective they are is way out of whack.
Endor
- 30 Insect Meat
- 40 Leathery Hide -
- 20 Avian Bone
- 20 Deciduous Wood
Average Kit I make (IN the field) is 2-3 charges. Average kit while "sitting" in town I can get 5-7 charges (depending on resource Overall Quality).
So to make any Camo Kit with enough "charges" I am being "forced" to sit in town at a crafting machine. Oh yes, I could make a camp and pull out a Robot with a crafting machine in it I guess huh? But then I am being forced again to sit by a "machine" to make something I should be able to make on the run in the wild...
Again, a whole other discussion, but resources for Camo Kits should be dropped by half if the "average" non-experimental kit is to have 2-3 charges. If the resources stay the same, then the AVERAGE "charges" per kit should be min. of five charges per kit.
With my group of six last night, I had about 20 kits made with an average of 5 charges each. I burned through all but 2 kits in an average night of 2 hours of testing and hunting. The resources we gathered back up was just a little over 1/4 of the resources I expended in making the Camo Kits.
Anyways, just my testing, observations and opinions, take it what you will... It's lunch time now and I am hungry 
~Cammie
The exact quote from the scout/ranger dev was that maskscent and conceal were supposed to "increase survivability" which has definately not been the case for me.
It may pass the "conceal check" 95% of the time, but the 5% of the time it fails (doesn't take long to hit 20 creatures) I also get the insta-warp mob right on top of me, and having a pet guarding ususally isn't enough to save me as I've already got the agro and my pet ends up getting DB'd soon after I do (level 23 GSP even). Works great against kreetles and such as the pet is able to draw the agro and kill it by itself, saving me all the trouble of targetting the critter, but it makes travel difficult.
Since "Maskscent isthe area ofscouts" (Words of the Scout Dev) any Ranger who is maskscented or concealed should be 100% safe from ever drawing agro (maybe not be able to play tag with the creature... there needs to be some limit based on creature level). As Ranger, we should only have to worry about drawing agro fromNPCs with camo (I've been at -5000 thug for a while now) as that is what it's supposed to add to our line. It does feel that they messed-up the formula and the higher in Ranger you go, the worse it works, but I can't be sure as I've been master ranger for weeks. I feel like all the the people who say mask isprotecting them perfectlymust be novice Rangers or something. I do have enough extra scoutXP to untrain down a box or 3 or 4, experiment, and retrain them later, but I shouldn't have to. I have limited play time now and don't want to waste it trying toprove a bug. The camo does feel like it works against NPCs better than it does against creatures, but I don't have enough play time to find all of the resources for some of these planets. When I tried Tattoine, conceal seemed perfect against mobs andcreatures, but I don't think I saw 20 of them to be broken by number 20. Mask would have gotten me killed several times if I didn't have my pet guarding (I didn't find any critters on Tat I had to worry about except the Krayts and I didn't have the resources yet for them).
Excellent, I could not agree more with you!
Making /MS and /Conceal work 99.5% of the time or more at MR is not completely unreasonable as the description says, if I remember correctly, that we are masters of the outdoors and all aspects of it, including creature behavior. I would gladly give up getting any XP from /MS or conceal for these 2 skills to work! It still bugs me that a kreetle has a chance to break a camo kit, just doesn't seem right.
I also propse something like this to the devs, make the skill level of the Ranger in camo the level of mob that can have a chance to break a camo kit or mask scent. So at 100, MR level wecan stay hidden from all but the rarest and most powerful mobs/NPC's, ie Kryats and Dark Jedi. But we should have a better than average chance to remain hidden from them as well.
We should also be able to stay hidden from swarming mobs as well. Maybe the mob we are attacking can find us, but his friends should be blind to our presense.
Just my thoughts......
This warp ontop of me have increased greatly with the 2 last patches, never had any problem with it before i could go prone and sneak up on NPC's aggro animals alike, and get a few kills/shoots in depending on the lvl of the mob. But after last patch, i've been warped by mobs that are out of my rifle range. Had 4 swoopers warp on me 4 times in a row, even after i killed them, 2nd time i didnt even loot all just to make sure they didnt insta pop, but they did and warped to me.And their spawn loc was over 150 meters from my position. They just warped to their corpses, 4th time i was incaped but they didnt kill me they just warped back to their spawn spot.
I tested it in a similar manner, and came to the same conclusion.
I use mask scent exclusively now, as for starters, I have to take novice artisan if I want to get some of the ingredients I need, and secondly, mask scent is leaps and bounds more effective.
I might also add that my Mask Scent broke 3 times as often as the mask scent of a pair of Master Scouts I tried this out with. I'm a MASTER RANGER. That's ridiculous that they're better at it, and that the conceal that I get which is supposed to be even better is nothing but an expensive waste of time.
I do use area track though! I thank you devs for at least trying, but criminy, do you guys test this stuff at all?
Maskscent aready goes from CL1 to CL60 threat mobs if you're crawling. It breaks against CL90 every time soI'd say that around CL70 things start getting unreliable but there's a gap in species that fall between 60-90 it would seem. Conceal is supposed to be enhanced version of maskscent, that doesn'ty mean is should just apply to NPCs as well because the fact is you should gain a bonus for hiding from animals as well. Conceal should fil lthe gap between CL60 and CL100 really meaning that only the really tough mobs will break it while your prone.
Does anyone can answer this question :
Is Conceal based on Camuflage Skill Level .... Or is it only a Certification and in this way not based on our Camouflage Skill ?
The same question can be asked for Traps ...
I am currently Master Ranger for few weeks ... And I really think these abilities are Certification and do not take Skills into account ... (I have 115 camouflage skill ... and Conceal do not seem to run better than you).
If someone can answer to that ? Thanks !
Hakbhar wrote:
Does anyone can answer this question :
Is Conceal based on Camuflage Skill Level .... Or is it only a Certification and in this way not based on our Camouflage Skill ?
That's another problem I've noticed. My camo skill is 80 my masked scent is 100. That might be why my maskscent is so much better than my conceal. That means that conceal is always worse than maskscent unless you are master ranger. The whole maskcent/conceal system should be progressive. Conceal needs to be added to your maskcent skill for animals.
I also think the penalty for runningshould betaken away or greatly diminished. When I'm running, I often get 'spawned upon' due to lag, and that's when we most need our conceal to work. Running has it's own penalties in that creatures are concealed from *you*.Of course, the 'warp attack' needs to go too.
Ok, thought I would add a Second night of testing results:
Setup:
Ebdor - 9/10/03
6pm PST, Intrepid Server
2.5hrs of hunting
Master Ranger (me)
1Novice BH (with Master Scout)
1 Scout with 4/4/3/3 (call them Scout A)
1 Scout with 3/4/3/2 (call them Scout B)
This is the second night in a row we went to Endor. My main focus tonight was to test a Master Rangers /MaskScent vs Master Scout and other Scouts /MS. Also dabbled in /Conceal again (though not to the extent of the previous night, for the simple fact of lack of resources).
I ran "point" most of the night, as I use *HINT* the CNTRL + M (overhead map) pulled up. This allows me to see things "faster" as they pop up, not relying on the radar so much as the server and lag times, sometimes make this a more "broken" feature than it is helpful (to me at least). IMO the overhead map, "shows" spawns more quickly and farther out than the standard 128m radar.
So we all start off with /MaskScent going, successfully by-passing some Putrid Borgles (70m out). As we come up on a Merek lair, again staying around 65m - 80m out, my /MaskScent breaks and BAM! Insta-warp ontop of me. So we kill the Merek, heal me up and continue on our way. Do the first couple of missions as they are fairly close together.
So now we have to trek 420 SE to the next set of spawns... Everyone /Maskscents up and off we go... Alas, come across an Arachane lair and BAM! 75m out MY /Maskscent breaks... Master Ranger /maskscent, mind you... Ontop of me warps a Queen (oh Joy)... so after I am incapped, my pets (alas poor TK-456, for we knew him well) tank the Queen as the rest of the group kills her.
Heal me up... /maskscent again and on we went and so on went the night...
Results of using /MaskScent:
Master Ranger /maskscent applied34 times.... got broke and aggroed19 times.
Master Scout (the BH) /maskscent.... broke ONCE.
Scout A /maskscent.... broke3 times.
Scout B /maskscent.... broke 5 times.
Results of using /Conceal:
Using /Conceal (Camo Kits) on everyone 4 times each.... (Keep in mind, this was at the end and more or less us "testing" than actually out "hunting". We sought out lairs and ran back and forth "trying" to get /conceal to break. The CLOSEST we got was within 25m of aggro mobs and as far out as 85m.
Master Ranger /conceal applies 4 times.... Got broke3 times (once against Borgles and once against Pubam (npcs) and once against Spiders.)
Master Scout /concealed 4 times.... Got broke 1 time (against Spiders).
Scout A /concealed 4 times.... Never broke
Scout B /concealed 4 times.... Broke 2 times (both againstPubam (npc)).
Conculsion:
1) Maskscent seemed to work for the Master Scout (BH) and other scouts FAR better than it did for a Master Ranger.
2) Maskscent for a Master Ranger seemed to work FAR better than does /conceal. (After two nights of testing).
3) This is my test, may be variable for someone else, but IMO there is something backwards in the coding that is making a Master Scout more successful than a Master Ranger using /Maskscent or /Conceal.
4) Again, the cost vs effectiveness of /Conceal just isn't worth it.
In all seriousness, IMO /Maskscent and /Conceal both need to be looked at and tested more internally at the Development stage. There needs to come a fix, asap, as I am finding it MUCH SAFER to run aroundWITHOUT either on and just "avoid" aggro mobs.
Again, this are the tests of one person (with the help of my PA friends). Tests by others may vary, take what you will from this and use or discard anything.
Peace!
~Cammie
I just got Master ranger a fewdays ago and before i got it i could stand in the middle o 8 dewbacks without getting aggroed or it breaking. Now with master Ranger under my belt it seems that everytime i use maskscent it breaks on even the smallest creatures break it. I loved it before master ranger and now its awful. I never had this problem when i was a scout. I definitly think they got there wires crossed on this one and messed it up.this has to be something they need to look into quick. the camo kits should work better too on both creatures and npc characters. i think scince the nerf on harvesting and now the constant breaking of maskscent / conceal it really negates most of the updates they did give us . If i could have the harvest back and my maskscent to work again and had to postpone the update until it not only worked but did not get us killed I would take it. I weakens the efficiancy of a class that is supposed to at home in the wild. I dont even use either one now until it gets fixed. If it does anyway. Just thought i would give my explaination.And bye the way I do not make a habit of standing in the middle of a group of aggros. I was just testing the level of efficiency the new skills are. And by the way they are terrible as it stands now. I will not leave the profession because I love what it could be if things were working as they are supposed to .I will wait for the devs to clean up this mess. But not forever . I cant imagine playing another profession right now . As it stands I think I got worse off.