Ranger Archive
Thread: Ranger Revamp: The Proposal
LangaNor
Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:27 am
#131
two things:
1) I like the above statement about maps, kind of like a visual representation of AreaTrack.
2) I think Rangers should be handled the same way as Smugglers.
Smugglers have a combat role, and I believe they have a weapons tree in their skill set. I think Ranger should be disassociated from Scouting as much as possible. We shouldn't realy on a full basic prof to be Rangers (much like Smugglers, BH, CH, etc...).
1) I like the above statement about maps, kind of like a visual representation of AreaTrack.
2) I think Rangers should be handled the same way as Smugglers.
Smugglers have a combat role, and I believe they have a weapons tree in their skill set. I think Ranger should be disassociated from Scouting as much as possible. We shouldn't realy on a full basic prof to be Rangers (much like Smugglers, BH, CH, etc...).
FourthNail
Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:31 am
#132
I dissagree. I think the experience gained from working up the Scout tree is essential to learning how to hunt and operate as a Ranger. One of the main items mentioned in the Ranger FAQ about moving from Scout to Ranger is learning how to hunt in groups.
C'mon, how many of us actually hunt in groups when soloing the bigger beasties is more fun?
Plunk
C'mon, how many of us actually hunt in groups when soloing the bigger beasties is more fun?
Plunk
Ziege19
Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:25 pm
#133
Hi, Master Ranger on Ahazi here. I don't post much on the forums, but I really love the Ranger profession and care about the revamp, so here's my two cents on things that could be done to make the profession better:
I know it's been said a lot, but I must add my name to the list of people who think our SP cost needs to be reduced. There's nothing that I can see that justifies Ranger being the biggest SP sink in the game. Unless the revamp includes some glorious new powers (like CM's combo of "support" skills AND killer offensive capabilities, or full-on PVP combat abilities) they have to find a way to reduce it.
My other biggest concern is the classic. We need a weapon. I have never been able to get around the inherently illogical idea that the "ultimate creature hunters" have no way to kill creatures, and must get combat skills to do so. Crossbow would be my choice. The other night while cooking dinner, I thought of an idea. Since scouts are also supposed to be hunters, they kind of need a weapon of some sort too. There are only three trees in scout that lead to elite/hybrid professions; that means one would be easy to tinker with. Since the hunting tree is really no special abilities, only mods, and it goes hand in hand with trapping, what if the hunting and trapping branches in scout were combined? That would leave a branch left over. Then, the Ranger SP requirements could be changed to only need those 3 scout branches, and would put our SP requirements in line with the other SP-heavy professions. The leftover tree in Scout could be a weapon like a regular bow, useful only for creatures. Rangers wouldn't need it, but could pick it up if they wanted. Rangers could then get a weapon of their own; a crossbow, or one of the other great ideas people have had - usable on humanoids or even players. It might sound kind of radical but I don't think it is when you really consider that it takes care of multiple problems at once.
Camps: Grant camps a way to heal BF. I understand the devs want to make the cities a draw and keep entertainers useful, but I think there are other ways of making npc cities a draw, and really, who goes to player cities to heal BF? One of the proposals I read for entertainers was to allow them to craft holos of their best performances and sell them. Allow them to heal BF in camps, and you've made both Rangers and Entertainers a bit more useful and stimulated the game economy a little. Just a thought.
Besides being of limited use, camps never get used now because of the ubiquitiousness of time-limited buffs. NOBODY wants to sit around in a camp letting their buffs run out without a darned good reason. That might change after the CU, but I kind of don't think it will. Maybe a bonus to DR enhancements applied in camps? In RL, a camp is a place to rest, recharge and be sheltered. Why not make them that in the game? BF seems the logical way to do it in my mind.
Another good use for camps could be to provide a safer place to log. For a Ranger who spends all my time in the wilderness, it can be annoying to have to come back to a city to log or face logging in to aggro or death because a bunch of creatures spawned around me. Of course, mission terminals in advanced bases would be pretty awesome as well
Weird, brainstormy idea that I don't necessarily believe in 100%, but since it never hurts to toss out ideas: Decoys. Ranger can plant a decoys to lure specific creatures within tracking range. Maybe make them BE craftable, usable by Rangers, and corresponding to the BE's DNA templates. Discuss
Other ideas that I love but won't lenghthen this one post over: A Ranger hat, perform tracking and combat from mounts, improvement to the tracking interface, ability to set ambushes and improved traps.
Ok, so maybe that was more than two cents
Halu'don Karuna
Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi
I know it's been said a lot, but I must add my name to the list of people who think our SP cost needs to be reduced. There's nothing that I can see that justifies Ranger being the biggest SP sink in the game. Unless the revamp includes some glorious new powers (like CM's combo of "support" skills AND killer offensive capabilities, or full-on PVP combat abilities) they have to find a way to reduce it.
My other biggest concern is the classic. We need a weapon. I have never been able to get around the inherently illogical idea that the "ultimate creature hunters" have no way to kill creatures, and must get combat skills to do so. Crossbow would be my choice. The other night while cooking dinner, I thought of an idea. Since scouts are also supposed to be hunters, they kind of need a weapon of some sort too. There are only three trees in scout that lead to elite/hybrid professions; that means one would be easy to tinker with. Since the hunting tree is really no special abilities, only mods, and it goes hand in hand with trapping, what if the hunting and trapping branches in scout were combined? That would leave a branch left over. Then, the Ranger SP requirements could be changed to only need those 3 scout branches, and would put our SP requirements in line with the other SP-heavy professions. The leftover tree in Scout could be a weapon like a regular bow, useful only for creatures. Rangers wouldn't need it, but could pick it up if they wanted. Rangers could then get a weapon of their own; a crossbow, or one of the other great ideas people have had - usable on humanoids or even players. It might sound kind of radical but I don't think it is when you really consider that it takes care of multiple problems at once.
Camps: Grant camps a way to heal BF. I understand the devs want to make the cities a draw and keep entertainers useful, but I think there are other ways of making npc cities a draw, and really, who goes to player cities to heal BF? One of the proposals I read for entertainers was to allow them to craft holos of their best performances and sell them. Allow them to heal BF in camps, and you've made both Rangers and Entertainers a bit more useful and stimulated the game economy a little. Just a thought.
Besides being of limited use, camps never get used now because of the ubiquitiousness of time-limited buffs. NOBODY wants to sit around in a camp letting their buffs run out without a darned good reason. That might change after the CU, but I kind of don't think it will. Maybe a bonus to DR enhancements applied in camps? In RL, a camp is a place to rest, recharge and be sheltered. Why not make them that in the game? BF seems the logical way to do it in my mind.
Another good use for camps could be to provide a safer place to log. For a Ranger who spends all my time in the wilderness, it can be annoying to have to come back to a city to log or face logging in to aggro or death because a bunch of creatures spawned around me. Of course, mission terminals in advanced bases would be pretty awesome as well
Weird, brainstormy idea that I don't necessarily believe in 100%, but since it never hurts to toss out ideas: Decoys. Ranger can plant a decoys to lure specific creatures within tracking range. Maybe make them BE craftable, usable by Rangers, and corresponding to the BE's DNA templates. Discuss
Other ideas that I love but won't lenghthen this one post over: A Ranger hat, perform tracking and combat from mounts, improvement to the tracking interface, ability to set ambushes and improved traps.
Ok, so maybe that was more than two cents
Halu'don Karuna
Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi
Ziege19
Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:31 am
#134
Ok, so I thought of another idea. How about the ability to wear more than one wearable container? Or to store items in our mounts? More of those weird brainstormy kind of ideas, but it would make life a lot easier for Rangers, and fit in with the concept of them being the ultimate outdoorsmen (or outdoorswomen =]). It would make sense for someone who treks, explorers, camps and huts to carry a lot more than someone who, say, plays music for a living...
Halu'don Karuna
Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi
Halu'don Karuna
Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi
Arrabyn
Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:31 pm
#135
I have no idea if anything like this has been suggested, if so go easy I had no clue.
I thought an interesting path for revamping the traps for ranger(at least for combat) would be special traps that could be placed and left, each with a predefined area of effect. So targets could be lured into them and be stuck or stunned or snared in some manner. Each trap would vary perhaps inflicting damage or a larger area of effect(something along those lines). This would certaintly make ranger far more viable and interesting PVP and PVE as well as providing an interesting tactical element to the game. Your guild could practice luring the enemy into valleys or dips that have traps in them to slow them down or trap them for easier elimination. And in a solo role smart placement of traps prior to combat would allow a weaker character face harder creatures.
This would also allow the rifleman and ranger profession to be integrated and perhaps even BH. This would allow a rifleman who is weak in melee defense and combat to place traps around his position to better defend himself and slow down those melee pouncers. Obviously the ranger could be limited to perhaps 6 set traps at a time. Also perhaps enemy rangers could be given a counter skill to detect these static traps so that their could be a counter ability if you will to stop the traps from becoming the end all of combat.
I thought an interesting path for revamping the traps for ranger(at least for combat) would be special traps that could be placed and left, each with a predefined area of effect. So targets could be lured into them and be stuck or stunned or snared in some manner. Each trap would vary perhaps inflicting damage or a larger area of effect(something along those lines). This would certaintly make ranger far more viable and interesting PVP and PVE as well as providing an interesting tactical element to the game. Your guild could practice luring the enemy into valleys or dips that have traps in them to slow them down or trap them for easier elimination. And in a solo role smart placement of traps prior to combat would allow a weaker character face harder creatures.
This would also allow the rifleman and ranger profession to be integrated and perhaps even BH. This would allow a rifleman who is weak in melee defense and combat to place traps around his position to better defend himself and slow down those melee pouncers. Obviously the ranger could be limited to perhaps 6 set traps at a time. Also perhaps enemy rangers could be given a counter skill to detect these static traps so that their could be a counter ability if you will to stop the traps from becoming the end all of combat.
HuntingOhioan
Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:33 pm
#136
I love every one of these posts. I often thought about what a ranger should be able to do, then it occured to me that we're playing in the future...err..long time ago..whatever. A futuristic ranger came to mind. Thinking of all the neat crap we would be able to use. A vibro fillet knife. A lightsaber bowie knife. A fishing rod that vibrates to attract the fish. A rifle that could drop a Ronto in one shot. You ever play with a 5 guage slug? Why not make most of this stuff for NPC. Dont get me wrong, I'm MBH and love the pvp, but our role is to make anything from nothing to help survive in the wild.
Militarily, as our Ranger from across the pond pointed out, We clear the path, make the way. This sounds like we should be able to get into and out of areas without being noticed until we want to of course . Recon. This only comes to fruition if it involves players. One day out n about hunting my jedi, I came into the wooded area my droid said he/she was. Nothing. Was it my droid? Not this time anyhow. I looked at my map and realized I had three blue dots around me. Never saw them. Of course this is the occasional glitch that happens of invisibility, BUT WHAT AN IDEA. Camo that worked. I should point out that I made a fool of myself by first screaming WHERE ARE YOU #!@#$%????, then asking everyone I knew if Camo conceled from players. This points been made before, I'm driving the point home. Sure, snipers should have it as well, but comon, make it at least recon capable. Not able to shoot without blowing your camo cover etc with snipers getting two shots in. Hell I just on the history channel not to long ago of camo that acted reflectivly with little cameras or something projecting whats on the other side. We're developing this now and Star Wars doesnt have something like it?
Militarily, as our Ranger from across the pond pointed out, We clear the path, make the way. This sounds like we should be able to get into and out of areas without being noticed until we want to of course
. Recon. This only comes to fruition if it involves players. One day out n about hunting my jedi, I came into the wooded area my droid said he/she was. Nothing. Was it my droid? Not this time anyhow. I looked at my map and realized I had three blue dots around me. Never saw them. Of course this is the occasional glitch that happens of invisibility, BUT WHAT AN IDEA. Camo that worked. I should point out that I made a fool of myself by first screaming WHERE ARE YOU #!@#$%????, then asking everyone I knew if Camo conceled from players. This points been made before, I'm driving the point home. Sure, snipers should have it as well, but comon, make it at least recon capable. Not able to shoot without blowing your camo cover etc with snipers getting two shots in. Hell I just on the history channel not to long ago of camo that acted reflectivly with little cameras or something projecting whats on the other side. We're developing this now and Star Wars doesnt have something like it?
CuchulainnDarklight
Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:10 pm
#137
Yeah your right about the little camera camo - you see it in the last Bond movie on his Aston (though its nowhere near that sophisticated - think on a parallel with todays bionic eyes which have something like a 8x8 pixel resolution!).
But to be honest high-tech stuff is cool for the well supplied frontline fighter, but the idea of ranger is to be able to survive and fight with the use of what materials are readily available as well as using the environment to your advantage.
We all know Star Wars has space ships and blasters, but ole George based his ideas on old technology, samurai swords - lightsabers, old sailing ships - smugglers doing the kessel run and shaving more time off on a more dangerous route, spitfires and Me109s - wings and TIEs, Droids - slaves and tbh most of the settings in the films werent exactly hightech, i mean i wouldnt want to live in most of them.
So you have to fit the rangers outdoorsy selfsufficient style to a high-tech dangerous world with old values, it is kind of tricky!
Message Edited by CuchulainnDarklight on 04-05-2005 10:25 AM
HuntingOhioan
Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:09 pm
#138
oh yeah, I'm not looking for anything shiny space age realy. I just meant an evolution of certain tools. I think we can all agree that the two best things GL did in the first sets of movies was to have the parallels of WW2 and make things look lived in and used. I was just thinking about the improvements of the basics. Still a basic tool, still did its job. The iron fryin pan, but now made with anonized alum. That sort. At the very least an option.
I live in NYC the home of convience and Glam, but I lived in the North Country of NY for 7 years, so I stll carry a pocket knife and have an axe 5 feet away from me. When I'm in Central Park and see all the damn squirells, I'm thinking of nothing but lunch and how I can sell the Tails to Rebel luer and they send back 3 rooster tail leuers.
I live in NYC the home of convience and Glam, but I lived in the North Country of NY for 7 years, so I stll carry a pocket knife and have an axe 5 feet away from me. When I'm in Central Park and see all the damn squirells, I'm thinking of nothing but lunch and how I can sell the Tails to Rebel luer and they send back 3 rooster tail leuers.
CuchulainnDarklight
Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:01 pm
#139
Bethya wrote:
Just to remind everyone of something that has been said a number of times before:
We will never get Camo that takes us off radar or makes us invisible to other players. Apparently, it's something that can be worked around by 3rd party software (I don't understand the technicals of it) and thus SOE have firmly set their face against it. No point asking, it's not going to happen.
HEHE, just say this and thought id bring it forward, hmm?
agent156
Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:36 pm
#140
Ya people dont' seem to understand that if the dropping off the radar happens at the server level not the client level there is nothing for a 3rd party program to do.
If I remember right the devs said some thing like "to drop people of the radar in a secure way we would have to recode the radar."
Well I guess they recoded the radar.
If I remember right the devs said some thing like "to drop people of the radar in a secure way we would have to recode the radar."
Well I guess they recoded the radar.
CuchulainnDarklight
Sat Apr 09, 2005 1:50 pm
#141
Ninhor, you are joking arent you?
A HORTICULTURE skillset and CORRALS. you want ranger to be a farmer/garderner!
He could start his own guild called GGP - GalaxyGreenPeace
Ninhor
Sun Apr 10, 2005 6:05 am
#142
CuchulainnDarklight wrote:
Ninhor, you are joking arent you?
A HORTICULTURE skillset and CORRALS. you want ranger to be a farmer/garderner!
He could start his own guild called GGP - GalaxyGreenPeace
Actually, I'm very serious. I appreciate the humor though. :-)
It seems that most people are viewing the "Ranger" profession as an elite combat class (akin to an Army Ranger). I personally believe this to be a misconeption. If you really look through the skill tree for Ranger, you'll realize that most skills are those you would associate with a Park Ranger (knowing about animals, trapping, camping, etc.). Therefore, in a Ranger mindset, one would be about protecting the nature that one calls home.
It still makes him a very strong support role in a group setting, and a lonely yet rewarding one as a solo.
Someone had mentioned that the devs should watch Rambo about 15 times to understand what a ranger is. I suggest they watch Yogi Bear. If you want your Ranger to be an elite combat type character, then I suggest you go for a combination of Ranger/Commando.
Until then, I'll continue filling my corn feeders. Just kidding! :-)
Thanks,
CuchulainnDarklight
Sun Apr 10, 2005 7:25 am
#143
Ninhor wrote:
It seems that most people are viewing the "Ranger" profession as an elite combat class (akin to an Army Ranger). I personally believe this to be a misconeption. If you really look through the skill tree for Ranger, you'll realize that most skills are those you would associate with a Park Ranger (knowing about animals, trapping, camping, etc.). Therefore, in a Ranger mindset, one would be about protecting the nature that one calls home.
It still makes him a very strong support role in a group setting, and a lonely yet rewarding one as a solo.
Someone had mentioned that the devs should watch Rambo about 15 times to understand what a ranger is. I suggest they watch Yogi Bear. If you want your Ranger to be an elite combat type character, then I suggest you go for a combination of Ranger/Commando.
If you say a star wars ranger is not an army ranger, then you must conversely say he isnt a park ranger either. I would hazard a guess that you are the only person who wants to play a park ranger chasing after the ewoks who stole the picnic baskets (they are smarter than the average ewok!). There is nothing in the star wars universe that points towards ranger equating a park ranger, far from it in fact. There is odles of different rangers who are parts of paramilitary units who have great wilderness skills. A ranger is not a fuzzy wuzzy creature loving character. He is a Hunter. He tracks animals, traps them, kills them and skins them! He is a HUNTER. And those hunting skills hould be able to work against all creatures in the game, from animals to zabraks. If you want to do something good for animals then there are a multitude of volunteer organisations you can join to follow this in RW. Unfortunately this is meant to be an enjoyable game and enjoyable for the majority doesnt mean treating injured aniumals, releasing them back into the wild and replanting the cut down non-collidable flora!