Ranger Archive
Thread: [Focus Thread] Can Ranger be accepted versus creatures only?
My actual stance is that we should have a purpose for something other than economical gain.
If harvesting resources became easier (ie easier to kill creatures,) then there would be less of a focus on that aspect and more of a "Hey, we need a Ranger to come help us kill these new expansion creatures" usefulness in the game.
Harvesting is almost a solo aspect of our profession. Only non-solo-ness is the group bonus, and friends doing the exact same thing you are. If we make it easier to do, then it will no longer be the focus of our profession as far as non-Rangers are concerned.
BioEngine wrote:My actual stance is that we should have a purpose for something other than economical gain.
Then why would you say, and I quote:
"I think the creature harvesting tree should be moved out of Ranger.
It doesn't bring in the credits anymore, and I doubt that tree will be enhanced at all since the Devs feel that it is such a wonderful bonus to our profession that putting anything else in that tree will unbalance it / make it overpowered in comparison to the others."
If harvesting resources became easier (ie easier to kill creatures,) then there would be less of a focus on that aspect and more of a "Hey, we need a Ranger to come help us kill these new expansion creatures" usefulness in the game.
Why can't we be harvestors AND beneficial in combat? I think you might be a little too closed mind on this.
Harvesting is almost a solo aspect of our profession. Only non-solo-ness is the group bonus, and friends doing the exact same thing you are. If we make it easier to do, then it will no longer be the focus of our profession as far as non-Rangers are concerned.
Absolutely wrong. I never hunt solo for the better harvest. In no way can a solo Ranger outharvest a grouped Ranger (when the group is going after critters). The only reason outsiders see it as what we do is becuase IT'S WHAT WE DO! We Track and we Harvest; that's it, that's the list. There is no need to remove it to make us better know for other we might do well.
my take on it is this:
If Ranger costs the same as other elite professions (or more) it should be as usefull as those professions. If you cut us from 2/3rds of the game, be need to be 3x as powerful in that one area. Of course, that will never happen.
The second that Ranger becomes more powerful for killing creatures because of extra damage, etc, we will be theFOTM for alt accounts. You simply cannot make any one profession better than any other profession against certain enemies without imbalancing the game. But if you don't make Ranger more powerful but still restrict them, then the skillpoints still aren't worth it.
Harvesting is a creature-only skill, but we can think of it as an advanced form of looting. I won't loot many CA's/AA's off of critters, just like I won't loot much hide off of a Janta.
Basically, I don't think that with the system the devs have in place (the level-based systerm) that any profession can have "prefered enemies" becasue if you only have one profession like that, they either have to be compensated with lots of power, or be underpowered. The line is razor thin and I don't think it can be traversed.
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
BioEngine wrote:
My actual stance is that we should have a purpose for something other than economical gain.
Then why would you say, and I quote:
"I think the creature harvesting tree should be moved out of Ranger.
It doesn't bring in the credits anymore, and I doubt that tree will be enhanced at all since the Devs feel that it is such a wonderful bonus to our profession that putting anything else in that tree will unbalance it / make it overpowered in comparison to the others."
Geez, you really are pissed about that aren't you? I said that because we are a complicated mix of crafting and combat profession. Economical gain is the only purpose of the creature harvesting tree, except for the fact that we need to use those resources ourselves but not nearly as often or as much as the true crafting professions. Removing the creature harvesting tree would move emphasis from economics to fighting by opening up opportunity for a new tree. (Are you really going to harass me for that statement? I thought you said it wasn't worth the effort...) If harvesting resources became easier (ie easier to kill creatures,) then there would be less of a focus on that aspect and more of a "Hey, we need a Ranger to come help us kill these new expansion creatures" usefulness in the game.
Why can't we be harvestors AND beneficial in combat? I think you might be a little too closed mind on this.
If we are as good as combat professions and we can harvest, what's to stop them from saying "hey, we fight just as good as them, but they can make a big fat payoff from organics while we have nothing!" Because of this, if we are brought up to par with combat professions in the means of combat viability, then we will have more features that will probably be lessened to balance it. Riflemen's cover is restricted to a prone position, Rifles deal large amounts of damage but slower than others. They don't have tracking or camoflauge or creature harvesting, but we do. We cannot be a single profession with power equal to a combat profession without imbalancing our skills in comparison to those other combat professions. Either we fight creatures only, or creatures / npcs / players, but if we are restricted, then we need a significant benefit to balance against this restriction. Either great against creatures, or good against everything.
Harvesting is almost a solo aspect of our profession. Only non-solo-ness is the group bonus, and friends doing the exact same thing you are. If we make it easier to do, then it will no longer be the focus of our profession as far as non-Rangers are concerned.
Absolutely wrong. I never hunt solo for the better harvest. In no way can a solo Ranger outharvest a grouped Ranger (when the group is going after critters). The only reason outsiders see it as what we do is becuase IT'S WHAT WE DO! We Track and we Harvest; that's it, that's the list. There is no need to remove it to make us better know for other we might do well.
No Jedi deals in absolutes. This is not restricted to Jedi. It does not take two people to kill and harvest a creature. Only one is necessary. I didn't say that it was a better harvest solo. Do I have a say in what is removed? Of course not. You don't need to convince me that you are right and I am wrong. We do a lot more than tracking and harvesting. We trap and we camp and we craft and we conceal. You should not be so hasty to generalize.
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
BioEngine wrote:
My actual stance is that we should have a purpose for something other than economical gain.
Then why would you say, and I quote:
"I think the creature harvesting tree should be moved out of Ranger.
I'm assuming whatever Bio's actual stance is, this is just to promote discussion. Phenix's thread was beginning to get bogged down in the age-old 'hunter or spec-ops military' debate. Hence this focus thread, if I'm understanding Bio's train of thought from one thread to another.
Personally, I think a separate focus thread for this issue is a good idea. Not only for its own sake, but to keep from hijacking Phen's thread as well.
al-djinn'i
Master Ranger
Temujin23 wrote:
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
BioEngine wrote:
My actual stance is that we should have a purpose for something other than economical gain.
Then why would you say, and I quote:
"I think the creature harvesting tree should be moved out of Ranger.
I'm assuming whatever Bio's actual stance is, this is just to promote discussion. Phenix's thread was beginning to get bogged down in the age-old 'hunter or spec-ops military' debate. Hence this focus thread, if I'm understanding Bio's train of thought from one thread to another.
Personally, I think a separate focus thread for this issue is a good idea. Not only for its own sake, but to keep from hijacking Phen's thread as well.
al-djinn'i
Master Ranger
This thread's purpose is to determine how to balance Ranger if it remains a creature-centric profession like it is now.
Topics could be skill point reduction and tree modification, but the main issue is how we could possibly be accepted in Star Wars Galaxies as the single most effective profession at killing creatures.
As has been said before, Phen, there is nothing stopping anyone from having an alt account. You know people bought alt Doc accounts when the buffs were uber, and you should suspect that the same will happen with entertainer professions and crafter main characters or, for an older example, Armorsmith mains with Ranger alts. There are many examples of players who can't have it all on one character, but it is their $15.00 a month to deal with and that is their choice. That doesn't necessarily mean that our profession will be tainted, unless you have a "Real Rangers aren't somebody's alt" attitude about it.
Heh, hijack away. My thread relies heavily upon our moving away from a purely creature role, but maintaining our connection to the wildernes.. If people oppose that, they can (and should) feel free tocritique my ideas because of those idea.
Temujin23 wrote:
Personally, I think a separate focus thread for this issue is a good idea. Not only for its own sake, but to keep from hijacking Phen's thread as well.
BioEngine wrote:
As has been said before, Phen, there is nothing stopping anyone from having an alt account. You know people bought alt Doc accounts when the buffs were uber, and you should suspect that the same will happen with entertainer professions and crafter main characters or, for an older example, Armorsmith mains with Ranger alts. There are many examples of players who can't have it all on one character, but it is their $15.00 a month to deal with and that is their choice. That doesn't necessarily mean that our profession will be tainted, unless you have a "Real Rangers aren't somebody's alt" attitude about it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be like "only current Ranger should be Rangers, no alts! I don't want to stop people from joining, but my point is this: people tend to flock to FOTM professions because they are overpowered. Consider what happened when the P-Dart bug was live-- lots of respec Rangers, and the devs took note and changed the game. The point wasn't "ewwww dirty dirty people! keep them away from Ranger!" The point was, lots of people will change their profession and one of two things will happen: the devs will balance Rangers, or they will balance creatures so that they're harder (look at the Feral Wookiee change for an example) making them harder for everybody else.
Anytime you have one profession that is universally better at killing stuff, you're going to have a bad situation. Why do people complain about Jedi in the GCW? Because they're generally very powerful in PvP (yes, it's debatable, but I doubt if Jedi were getting their butts handed to them that they'd be hated so much in the GCW forums). People complain about that-- a lot. And the game changes a lot because of the slight differences in power.
How can you balance Rangers to be more powerful than any other profession without imbalancing PvCreature combat? Simply put, I don't think you can. The very fact that Rangers would be more powerful would make them imbalanced in that area of the game, and the point of the Combat Upgrade is that every profession should be balanced. A level 80 toon should have a fair fight with a level 80 mob. The second you make Rangers more powerful, you lose that vision, and PvCreature has to be rebalanced to account for Rangers.
and as optimistic as I am, I don't think the devs would attempt to completely revamp the entire creature level system to account for a more powerful Ranger. it's must easier to simply make Ranger another balanced level 80 toon in all aspects of the game.
I have understand all of the arguments I see.
I just feel that if the Devs can't look at the players' point of view on this subject then it will not be addressed "when they get around to it."
They need at least a little pre-change player feedback before they discuss a change at all.
Or to put it in simple, CL terms... if what Phen says is true, and a ranger limited to 1/3 of the game would therefore in balance terms tend to be approximately 3x "better" than any other character in that 1/3 we were limited too... that's like saying for everyone else fighint krayts, they are CL80 to the krayts CL88 or 90-something, but for Rangers, it's like the Ranger is CL240 vs the krayt being still CL88-92 or whatever they cap out at. Massively and completely unbalanced, and actually not all that fun for us Rangers. A big part of the thrill for me personally is using my skills to win a tough fight (against stuff like the Gorax, krayts, kimos, etc) - I don't want to have a CL-induced "1 shot kill" since I'm so massively overpowered in the PvCreature game that *nothing* can challenge me. I know that's not exactly how it would end up being implemented, but if we WERE forced to be the only profession even remotely related to combat that was forcibly gimped into only being viable in 1/3 of the game, making us so much stronger for that 1/3 to make the cost to Master Ranger (or even dabble in it) would be massively out of whack.
I'm very much opposed to having Ranger continue to be forcibly limited to only PvCreature. I'd much rather at least see our skills be applicable in ALL facets of the game. Phen's post on the "combat enhancer" sums up very nicely how I guess I've thought about Ranger for a while... the Ranger part of me supplements the <insert combat mastery of choice> side of me and lets me do more damage, more precisely, when and where *I* decide to. His latest concept just really fleshes that out, a lot. And with the SL changes really pushing them into a very active, literally leading the troops into the middle of combat role, there's a lot of space for Ranger to pick up a complimentary "role" in the game that revolves around stealth, enhancing combat and toughness to set traps and scout areas in advance of those squads, etc. There might EVEN be some Master-level synergy that allows a MR to camo a squad and concel the whole squad from radar or something, but all of those skills and mods should go to making the Ranger one tough, stealthy and hardy mofo... NOT an uber tanker necessarily, or a nuker or anything like that... but someone who has the master level skills, then uses Ranger to enhance them, either making the skills a little stronger / hit a littler harder (by applying states w/traps) or by being a little bit tougher than your average person wandering about in the wild, and able to withstand just a little more punishment than the average person.
If it comes to pass that Ranger is "redone" yet still bears the limitation of skills that only working against creatures, I'd be much more likley to move to SL or CH or BH or Smuggler, keeping some scout, and live the Ranger lifestyle, since that is not likely a profession that I'd want to continue to play over the long term (unless they make it so ONLY Rangers can loot the good stuff - pearls, tissues, scales, etc). And that will never happen. 
My take?
Creature orientation is the worse thing about this profession and the most limiting. It makes us the same effectiveness as a single combat mastery template as soon as we get attacked/attack an npcs or player and this is just plain and utter crap.
I dont think we can ever become the best at hunting creatures without throwing things out of whack and making the profession new and exciting to play beyond the first month. If the devs choose to revamp us into big game hunters then i think its a shortsighted decision on their part and ultimatly a failure most definatly resulting in an abandoned suscription from me.
I dont mind hunting creatures now and then, its fun. But to be reduced to a single combat mastery everytime i want to do anything but kill creatures is just rediculous. Moving away from creature specific and focusing on the survival aspects of the profession is the way to go allowing us to explore both creature, npc and pvp content with a full template.
I have no desire to have my templatehighlighted even moreso than at presentas limited. They can give us x, y and z creature only skills but the end of the day, you cant polish crap, and thats all a creature orientated revamp will be doing. The rot will still be present, justbrieflyslowedby a couple of sparkly bits.
I think you getthe picture 