Ranger Archive

Here is what I've gathered so far:

1) Rangers have very little that differentiates them from scouts. Once Master Scout is reached, Ranger is essentially more of the exact same thing. The community is vehement about a broader range of skills and/or abilities that expand on the scout line, rather than repeating it. There is nothing valuable at all in the Ranger line towards being in a group or in PvP encounters. Ranger camps don't provide any significant improvements over scout camps, rescue is of very limited value, and without those, Rangers have basically nothing to offer. The profession does not fit the advertised description at all.

2) Wayfaring - maskscent is checked against non-aggressive creatures, which break mask scent more often than not, pretty much regardless of challenge level, and when successful, do not award xp. The community feels that checking the skill and then not rewarding success is unfair, and that the skill fails too often, even at the highest skill levels. The community is unanimous about bringing back the /conceal skill that was removed just prior to the end of beta. There is also a large voice that wayfaring only providing an increase to prone crawl speed isn't particularly valuable.

3) Frontiering - foraging of rare items is bugged. Foraging is too random in its results, and there is little value or market for foraged items. There is also some agreement that foraging single items that do not stack is a detriment to the skill. There are a horde of complaints about frontiering XP being too slow and tedious to gain. There have been reports that the Ranger camps do not repel aggressive creatures, and that the HQ Field Base Kit does not heal wounds at all.

4) Trapping - the 2 traps that Rangers get are bugged, and do not work at all. There is a large amount of disappointment that there are no new, enhanced traps, and that as trapping skill increases, trapping success does not increase with it - that trapping success is more dependent on the quality of the trap than the trappers' skill. Along those same lines, there is a unanimous voice that traps should be something that can be experimented on, both for number of uses and effectiveness. There has been an outstanding suggestion made that has received broad support - and that is lures, or devices constructed by the Ranger that lure creatures away from their herd/spawn.

5)Bio-science - the multiple harvests from a single creature that is advertised does not work. There is no significant increase in the quantity of the harvest over what can be done by a hunter. Creature Knowledge doesn't really tell Rangers anything they can't find out through more conventional means - examining a creature is really more of a parlor trick than something of real value.

If you feel that these aren't the 5 hottest topics, would like to correct or revise what I have said, or would like to add something, post it and I will see what I can do. Remember, this isn't a one time deal, this is a weekly thing, this is just what I have for the first week. I will be providing links to the good threads for discussion and suggestions as well.

Incidentally,

I have NOT made my report yet. I'd like to get some feedback on what I have before I send it in, so I can make any changes I need to make.

Generally good, a bit more emphasis maybe on Rangers being nothing more than Scouts as i think the lack of anything new to the Ranger line is probably the biggest concern to most Rangers ?

I know your report is probably meant to just list the concerns that are wrong with Ranger, but are you allowed to include suggestions to make us better ?

This sounds good...

All but one of my concerns are listed in the report, and that is the inability of traps to affect humanoids, although this may fall under the No Benefits for rangers in PvP section.

Thanks, and keep up the good work Mineras...

Qxl

Comments :

1) This my big thing. What is the Ranger's "Sthick"? Bounty Hunters are the "trackers" of Humoids, Squad Leaders are the "group coordinator"

2) The breaking of maskscent is not personaly a big issue for me. More often then not it is just timing out. This is with Wayfairing I and being a Bothan.

3) Anothermajor issue. Survial XP is boring to work on. For the most part, I can not realy work on any combat or scout/ranger skill while sitting in camp. I can craft or sample, but I dont need Artisian XP. I could dance/play music, but Entertainment skills are secondary at best, and will be gone when I get higher up the tree.

4) I agree and no extra comments

5) I dont see this as a problem. I am getting more units per harvest then a Novice Scout. Personaly, I would replace this issue with the "Creature To Hit" Modifer only working with Ranged weapons. Why does this not work with Melee weapons. Do I sudenly not know where the vitals are when I pick up a knife? Maybe add some creature defence bonus as well. (You would make the brawlers happy as well

-gustavef, the Fencing Ranger

Here's what I'd consider to be issues 6 through 10 if you want to shift some stuff around... /rescue is a much hotter topic than foraging imho since foraging is a scout/ranger hybrid skill.

6. /rescue should be renamed /suckrifice because it both sucks and usually ends in your death. If SOE wants Rangers to be "well suited for defending others in combat" then give us a skill or ability to actually be well suited for it... as it stands... all /rescue does is make you die first.... If you could make this more like a stun/enrage where you shift aggro to yourself and root the creature.. then I could see how that would work.... something like an "aggro phecnacine trap"... or "tranquilizer dart" that allows us to slow a creature down while it charges us instead.

7. Terrain Negotiation is a huge let-down... prone crawl speed? are you kidding me? why do I need this as a Ranger? Give us better run speed not better crawl speed. If Rangers are to be "well suited for Travel" did they mean we were going to crawl everwhere??? Give us a skill that makes us better suited to travel than a master scout please.

8. Camp No-Build Zones... why on earth can't I build a camp just outside of Cornet where the newbies hunt? This would allow me to get proper use out of a camp and teach new players the benefits of camping for a bit. It seems ridiculous that you can build a Guild Hall 250 feet from the Imperial Outpost Starport on Dantooine yet I have to run 6 miles out of town on Corellia to pitch atent. (exciting I know)

9. Why have you taken away /conceal? This is mentioned in the official guide, in the holocron and elsewhere.. and it was clearly a defining characteristic of the Ranger... where did it go and when is it coming back...

10. What is this "Tracking" that Rangers are supposed to be well-suited for.... why say that in the site description for a Ranger when it makes no sense in conjunction with our skills... anyone can "track" if thats the case.. you don't need a Ranger for that...

can we get a trap that actually traps?

i want to set a trap, and capture a creature (not to tame). then i can use it against another player or something by letting it out during PvP. imagine capturing an aggro creature, then letting it out against other players? theyd have to fight the aggro and you can nail em when they're distracted. i know this is similar to CH's, but we wouldnt have control over the creatures (meaning it could backfire on us). i just think this would be a cool thing to have.

1. Agreed. Although I don't think diversity in new skills is necessarily a problem (not sure what they'd add). I think the main issue there is that the abilities don't seem substantially upgraded.

2. Maskscent definitely needs to be upgraded. It's not like you can use it to get a horribly unfair advantage even if it made you all but invisible to NPCs (which master should be, IMO) if they still aggro when you attack them. I'd also like to see creatures' line of sight and stances playing a role with this (i.e. creatures have less chance of seeing you when you're crawling and behind them, giving the added movement-while-prone speed some usefulness). Maskscent should be checked against alertness, and most NPCs should not be alert. Alertness should appear under the examine option for master Rangers (making the Creature Knowledge skill more useful). Also, conceal against PCs would be great. I don't know how it worked during beta, but even if it was just while standing still, it would be worthwhile. A player with high perception or alertness might be able to detect a concealed player, or perhaps by using a probe droid.

3.Foraging is flawed in that food buffs are only useful if you're targeting certain stats, inventories fill up very fast, and characters don't have a need to eat. Perhaps if pets required food this would be more useful. Camps also need to be worked on, the repel monsters feature absolutely needs to be implemented. Furthermore, camp EXP should be almost solely UXP. There should be a trickle of EXP for time elapsed, but people healing and entertaining besides you should provide the majority of the EXP, and a lot faster than it does now.

4. Master traps need to have at least a 50% success rate of hitting all creatures, minimum, including deep reds (possible exception being force witches). I see a main ranger role being debuffs, but if you can never hit a creature that's worth debuffing, it's not really worth it. Perhaps upping the success rate can be combined with raising the amount of time between uses, or having a one trap per person per creature rule. Also, traps need to work against PCs and humanoid NPCs, even if to a lesser extent. There's no immersion or continuity reason as to why they don't, and traps are one of the Ranger's biggest draws in terms of combat.

5.A worthy complaint, but Rangers aren't hurting for hides, bones, and meat right now. I would replace this, as others have suggested, with to-hit problems. To-hit should have an increased effect and should be increased more often (even if it's just spread out over the five boxes including master). Furthermore, to-hit should increase your ability with melee weapons as well. It just doesn't make sense, and a lot of the ranger's skills are already very useful to elite brawler professions.

I agree with everything youhave there and I also think that a ranger should be able to set up traps that actually trap, as well as lures. Also I don't think camps should disband when you are in combat, I would like to be able to go out into the wilderness by myself set up a camp, and use this as a staging ground to set up traps around the area, collect resources from the animals they catch, and be able to lure specific animals into the area by having lures for the different types of creatures (herbivores, carnivores, insects..etc.). I also agree that the no-build zones for camps are WAY too large.

Dr-Wookienstein

Naritus

Novice Ranger/Rifleman

First off, Grats! Hope you do well. Luckily you're not the CH rep, who's prolly gonna get knocked around when the nerf bat comes, lol.

I agree with most of what's here, except in the Frontiering line. While I'm barely past Frontiering I, not particularly into macroing myself, I don't know for sure, but it's my understanding that NO camps allow the healing of Battle Fatigue. This should certainly change, either starting with High Quality camps at Novice Ranger, or at the Frontiering II camp (Field Base Kit, which mentions "other amenities").

i personally think only the top two ranger camps should heal BF. we are of NO value whatsoever in PvP.

this game was designed around groups and PvP. well, we are useful to groups becase we can make camps. and it ends there.

why would anyone need a ranger in their group or faction?

why cant the AOE traps affect players? youre telling me a flash bomb wouldnt stun a person? or any of the other traps for that matter. sure, make it have half the effect on people or something, but WHY cant they work on both players AND creatures? that just doesnt make sense.

Mineras, thanks for consolodating and articulating so well the issues facing Rangers. Here is my input:

1. The ratio of Survival XP gained from the higher level camps to the Survival XP needed to gain each Frontiering skill box - Ok in order to fulfill the Survival 4 in the scout skill tree, you needed to get full xp on 20 Improved Camps. If you are doing that alone, that is approximately 13 hours of game time. Now, in order to get Frontiering 4 you need 80K Survival XP. I have heard that the full xp value you can get from a Field Base Camp is only 1200 (if this is wrong, please correct me). At that rate, it would take more than 66 camps to achieve that which translates into about 45 hours of game time. I am not even factoring in what it would take to get Frontiering 3. It seems to me that the Field Base Camp should give you as much as 1500 XP. That would still make it a steeper grind than the Survival line in the Scout tree but not prohibitively so.


2. Nothing to add to what you have already outlined.


3. Foraging should give you a small amount of survival xp when it is successful. Even 5 xp would be acceptable, in my opinion. As far as the items stacking, I understand why this is impossible as the items you forage, while alike, provide different values of benefits. I would rather keep the randomness of stat benefit and forgo the ability to stack. However, at higher levels maybe it would be nice to find a stack of an item rather than just a single item or 2 different items.


4. All traps, no matter the complexity, should work better for a higher-skilled Scout/Ranger. I think if a Master Ranger is using the newbie trap, its effectiveness should be higher/stronger.


5. Creature Knowledge - I would like to see whether a mob will BAF, how hard a mob is capable of hitting, how many hit-points the mob has. These are things that could wait until, say, Bio-Science 4 or even Master Ranger is achieved, but it still would be nice to have this knowledge eventually.