Ranger Archive
Thread: in need of a Ranger's point of view
DFH wrote:
There's no shortage. Players can't get as much as they want -- that's intentional.
Exactly. Where would be the point of a system with shifting ressourcequalities if everything is made out of top quality stuff anyway. I consider the fact that it until now turned out to be that way as a designflaw of the system and recent changes (and probably upcoming) might sooner or later turn this system to what it was meant to be, players having to deal with shifting qualities for the products they use instead of the current way 'stockpiling all you can get of the single good shift and use this for month'.
This idea is a non-starter.
The resources are there, tons of them. Except half the freaking game is grinding and not harvesting. Those who can harvest are using the stuff to grind camps and/or other stuff to max out whatever. Thats 50%, easy. 20% are into PvP and couldn't harvest if they wanted to. 70%.
20% are crafters. That leaves 10% to harvest. Out of that 10% maybe 5% can harvest, and of that 5% less than 10% are Rangers.
It's not that the resources are not there, it's the fact no one is harvesting. I harvest my azz off, facing danger at every turn on Dath for avian. Then some Doctor insults me by offering 15 cpu for OQ 995 meat. Kiss my *!!. ( I got 60 cpu in 1 minute at a starport, the Doctor was semi mad, I got over it quickly. 10k of meat he never saw)
You start these stupid farms, yes stupid, cause if you have to spend skill points on them, no one is gonna do it. Even if free, I am not gonna do it, my harvestors are bad enough now.
Harvesting is hard, dangerous and takes time. I can't afford your buffs, I can barely afford stims. And you wonder why no one is harvesting??
JB
To JBMat (and everyone, I guess)
I really did come in for opinions, as I was concerned for the ranger profession.Personally, I don't have an opinion on the idea of a meat farm. I would like to assume, as this was to be a friendly conversation, that the "you" used in your post was the generic you and not me, specifically. Just in case I am mistaken in this, I offer the following post I made last week. It was in the chef forum with regard to the issues that were occuring between chefs and bioengineers.
Pardon the length, but I thought it best to post it in its entirety
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Actually, Fellstaff, the major problem can be summed up in one word. Meat. The other dependencies don't have the bulk meat (or any other single animal harvest) requirement that this particular pairing Chef/BE does. The closest I've seen is doctor enhancements with a full set (based on the BCE requirement) taking about 10k meat. Heck, try a heavy enhanced bivoli - you'll need about 60k for that one. Looking through the other professional forums today, I've come to realize. The chain goes something like this:
Customer: I want the Best!!!!
Chef: Well, that will be bioenhanced, and tissue is hard to get it takes a lot of time and/or money, and that's IF I can find a willing BE/schematic/alt/skill points to get them made
Bioengineer: I'd gladly sell it to you but there are a thousand other things I can do with my time that are much more profitable than supplying you, and it won't take me/my friend/my contractor/my alt forever to come up with 20k stacks of high quality meat.
Ranger: 20k stack? If I have time... between you the doctor, the chef (who wants meat for other things), the architect, your other order, the armorsmith, the weaponsmith (special drops), The two of us (me and the other ranger on your server) have been pretty busy.
-- Admittedly, the above may be 'slightly' exaggerated, but I stand by the fact. A meat farm would make all of this go away. Either that, or give the rangers something to make the profession more desireable. Even at 100 cpu, credits are not the be all/end all - especially for a Master Ranger.
Just my opinion,
Misterie
Message Edited by PBN on 03-09-2004 03:19 PM
I don't necessarily see this discussion as a bad one. I think a serious consideration needs to be brought out. This isn't a discussion of how this will affect one class or another. It is more, for me anyway, a question of limitations of resources. It comes in two parts.
- Is there a need for higher quality resouces or are the resources themselves available?
- Is there a problem with the current means of resource collection?
In my opinion, the answerto both of these questions is no. In the first point, as has been illustrated by my collegues, there is an abundance of meat, hide and bone out there for the collecting. I don't think this is in dispute, but I say so for the completion of the arguement.
It is the second point that is the sticking point. The current means of resouce collection for these resources is indeed personal non-automated effort and labor by a character in the game. It is often, in my experience at any rate, rather unrewarding work when it is easy and gets very dull very fast. When it is hard ... it can be very expensive. I dislike from a playing standpoint spending a week of "seek out, kill, harvest, repeat" evenings to get some really increadible ammount of money that I don't really need (being somewhat of a minimalist) other than to tip docs and performers, or to buy some other upgrade for a gun that I may or may not use.
But from a game economy standpoint, I think that the current system is well established and run. Now admittendly I would love to have an animal farm because the idea appeals to me. But not for the harvesting portion. It appeals to me because I want a farm. But that is me. I think that it is, from an economic point of veiw a wonderful reality of life. No one is prevented from gathering resources on their own. It is a choice. Once you become dependent on another for something then you are subject to that dependence. If there are very few supplying that dependence then you are in a bit of a bind. Those resources become rare. Those things needing those resources become likewise rare.
I like that.
It is not wanting farms that I disagree with. I want one myself for different reasons. I see, depending on how they are implemented, it being quite an opportunity for the Ranger class, if devs handle it with that in mind. But I do disagree with the feel for an essential need for them. They are a luxury. Nothing more. And they are a luxury who's demand has come from a desire by other players to make their world a little less difficult.
Perhaps it is me, but I enjoy the difficulties that I find in my limitations. Limitations are good. The game concept was that no one can do everything. That is not limited to skill set. If the resources are not available, then the one needing them is out of luck. Work around it. This methodology is well demonstrated in resource shifts. It just so happens that in the world of organic resources, there is a second limitation, one that the players have imposed through their lack of willingness to take on the task themselves.
This is not a bad thing, merely a hurdle the one in need of the resources needs to overcome. Asking the devs to "fix" this problem by creating a new element changes the ballance of something that I do not think is "broken" nor needs changing.
So yeah, I would love a Bolma Ranch on Endor ... but as far as the system goes, I don't think the creation of ranches would be a benefit to the game.
There are challenges in life. It is how we deal with them that defines who we are.
An opinion, nothing more.
I'm sure he was just a little heated up because of the current state of the game. The idea of organic harvesters is actually one made by Rangers as well. However, we would like to see a static snare used only by Rangers, not just anyone who has a lot and can pay maintenance.
The lack of people harvesting is what's causing the shortage, not the lack of ability to acquire the goods. Also, people can sometimes expect to get massive amounts of organics from a ranger that are very unrealistic. It takes a relatively long time to gather even a K of meat when it's corellian avian and all you have are rasps for a few units and carrion spats for 30. You want Dathomir Carnivore meat? no problem, how much was it you said you needed, 100K? Sure thing, I'll have it for you in two days, my pleasure. But there's a reason avian meat is used in advanced stuff, because there's no planet that has a good supply of it. Just low-level stuff that gives you a few units. And THAT's usually the kind of meat people are looking for.
A solution to the problem is static harvesters, but that takes away the income the few rangers that are left still have, so it's a no go. The other solution is to get more harvesting done, either by encouraging more people to harvest or giving the harvesting people more harvest per harvest if you still follow 
I'm personally all for the latter. The 30% difference is a laugh considering the nature of our profession and the limited other benefits we get (and especially how useful, or not, those are).