Ranger Archive

• First of all, this idea destroys TWO different proffessions. It takes away the identities of two distinct sets of players, both of whom are going to be trepedatious about any change like this. That means you'll have people in both proffesions complaining.


• Secondly, this will take time and effort that the devs are focusing on the JTL and Jedi Revamp and Combat Revamp. Thus, even IF it would happen, it wouldn't be for another 4 months that they started looking at it, and then another 6-8 months before they could even THEORETICALLY implement it.


• Third, it's really a bad idea, in my opinion. CH's are a distinct class. With a few minor changes, the Ranger could be too. Your point that "most hunters bring a companion" is actually wrong. You take an animal when you go SMALL game hunting, or Bird Hunting. That's why they call 'em bird dogs. It's actually DISadventageous to bring animals when hunting big game. They make noise, and scent, which drives away creatures or at the very least, alerts them to your presense and location. So no, you can't bring in the real world as an example. Even if you could, you're asking two proffessions to merge when they have very little in common in principle. Yes, we both have to get Scout skills, but the ideal Ranger is much different idealistically then the CH. We hunt. They collect, train, sell, tame wild animals. It's like saying a hunter might as well be training circus animals (no disrespect to the CH's, I'm just making a point about how different we are.


• Fourth, I don't want Ranger to become "uber". I don't want us to lose the unique identitiy we've been working towards. I like being a Ranger. If I wanted to be a CH, I would have chosen that proffession.

Ok I think I should speak on this topic. I just mastered CH the other day, and have been a Master Ranger FOREVER. Both professions are basically worthless for the skill points invested. My Master Commando/Novice Scout friend can kill more creatures and harvest more solo than I ever wish I could. CH pets cannot even compete against there wild counterparts with me shooting them. If I try to solo with one of my many rancors they get chewed up on the advanced planets and they take way too damn long to heal. In PVP anyone can kick my a$$ because they just kill me and then my rancor does whatever he wants after that it seems. I agree that CH was way overpowered before, but now it is just useless. Not just anyone can kill a rancor, even Luke (a jedi ) had a hard time if you remember. I do like the idea of a merger though. Only the resource bonus (and i say that lightly) should be a skill column and the camping line. The area tracking should be inherit with a Ranger. How you could be a ranger if you couldnt track. Stupid that it is actual skills. You should get Areatrack animals as a novice ranger and people as master or soemthing like that. Get rid of the trapping line all together and just load up the Scout trapping line. I would much prefer that Scout had 10 traps in there line. So if you get rid of the trapping line( which suck as is for ranger, and the tracking line) that give two that could easily accommadate 2 CH skill trees. The CH skilltree is just way to open, with stupid commands and garbage. How many times has anyone told there Rancor to patrol or set points or half of the other useless commands. I think CH merges perfectly with Ranger, and all of the CH's are complaining they are useless, and all the Rangers are complaining they are useless, well guess what ladies and gentleman, I am Master of both. And guess what, I am USELESS. Lets merge these two great professions and then we can focus more attention on getting mroe combat skills. That is the ultimate end isnt it.

Let me respond with no sarcasm included.

1. I believe that both professions are sorely hurting currently. I enjoy being both of them. I also believe they both have their roots in the Scout profession. Perhaps the reason why everyone in both lines thinks they are useless is that the developers tried to create two seperate profession when only one exists? I am never going to drop the Master Ranger title. However, for the way I like to play a merge is a good idea. If they never do that, I will also be very happy. I am just trying to throw out logical arguments, not just complaining.

2. I agree with you that I wish they would do something with Ranger. They should add all sorts of cool stuff to an already GREAT profession. The sad thing is , is that they are doing nothing. No plans anytime in the near future. They still have Squad leader and Smuggler ahead of us, and possibly more that we do not know about. Also with the big Space expansion coming, do you really believe anything is going to change with Ranger. We have all shown a great deal of patience and never taken the BH's method of getting things done. Once again, another reason I am a Ranger. See Outdoorsman proposal for everything that I would liek changed in Ranger.

3. This is a moot discussion. Ranger and CH are going to be this way for at least the next 6 months in my opinion.

4. I dont understand why everyone gets all upset when people posts ideas? Isn't this a message board where you post ideas? All I would like to do is stimulate conversation and ideas, so maybe just maybe the developers will read something and possibly implement something. And while I did say I am a master of both professions, I still love this game and going to continue to play it my way as it stands. Someday I hope to fill a bigger role in the GCW, but currently I just cant compete. So I will apologizeto the die hard Rangers out there that want to make this profession better, I have the same interest.

I don't agree with this idea. Ranger and CH are completely different professions. CH is equivalent to training show animals or attack dogs. Ranger is about surviving in the wilderness. I'd like to see how long a Westminster Dog Show trainer would survive on Dath hehe (Or how long a Ranger would survive in the Westminster Dog Show! Nooooo!)

Theoretically if you were going to merge CH with anything it makes the most sense to merge it with BE. There are a lot more BE/CH combos than Ranger/CH combos. Heck there are probably a lot more CH/anything combos than Ranger combos lol! It would be extremely unfair to these people to make them Master Scout and Ranger in order to keep their CH skills.

CH is NOT a useless profession. It is BALANCED. After the combat balance comes out (the great nerf) people will no longer be able to solo con red creatures/NPCs. CH will become a LOT more popular again. I personally am a Ranger/CH. I love both professions for their unique characteristics. I would NOT want to see them merged.

For the people who say CH is useless you should really check out BE pets made by a good BE. I tanked a whole lair of Mutant Rancors with a single durni a few weeks ago just to show off. Durni had over 1100 HAM and 75% resist to kinetic. Only bad thing about durni tanks is that they are SLOW!
Paks: "Kill!"
Durni: Hop. Hop. Hop. Pause. Hop.

I got very upset when I read this post so don't be surprised by the negative responses. With the usefulness of our profession ANY destroying of professions would put our heads on the chopping block WAY ahead of any others. Your suggestion is like the voice of doom. Not to mention it is an invetation for every CH to come over here and flame us to hell lol!

We really don't need CH skills to make our profession useful, and they sure as heck don't need our skills! What we need is to have our existing unique abilities enhanced. So enjoy the Jedi revamp when it comes out, get ready to scream about the combat balance , enjoy JTL (I'm building up my faction - X-Wing here I come!!), enjoy the smuggler revamp (I am building a smuggler on Bloodfin just so I can try out all the new stuff!), before you know it Ranger will be changing. Hopefully for the best! Just in time for Christm... er, Life Day!!!

/salute

I know personally I was speaking from a complete theoretical standpoint. I don't expect this to happen, nor am I sure I want to. I don't see why it can't be discussed as an idea though.

No one seems to have noticed my suggestion to add additional lines. With that it would be possible to play Ranger or play CH as they exist today for the most part. No more of the four-lines to a profession and that is all you are capable of. It would set a radical precident that opens up a lot of possiblities for other profession if it was used. (One failing of this game might be that is has too many profession so there is little distinction between them.)

Your point that "most hunters bring a companion" is actually wrong. You take an animal when you go SMALL game hunting, or Bird Hunting. That's why they call 'em bird dogs. It's actually DISadventageous to bring animals when hunting big game. They make noise, and scent, which drives away creatures or at the very least, alerts them to your presense and location.

I did not say "most". I said it is common. There is a difference.

Bringing animals along for big game is also common. Dogs are used to hunt cougars and they are certainly not small nor timid. Dogs are used to find game or trail wounded game, often large game. We are also in a fictional world where that "dog" might be equal or more powerful than what you are hunting. Regardless, having an animal assist you in the hunt does not mean it is doing the actual killing.

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taloncard wrote:
I had suggested this a few months back but now with more information I can revise this proposal.

Facts:
Survival has become a useless skill tree
/forage has no real purpose
CH has been greatly weakened and is without a unique niche in the game

Proposal :Merge CH with scout and ranger

Why this makes sense:
Most hunters have a companion, a pet that flushes out prey or retrieves them.
Replaces a useless skill tree
Benefits BE’s who will now have a market for creatures again.
Would give Scouts and Rangers some combat ability.
Would require no extra skill points from current CH’s (master scout and 2 trees of ranger instead of 2 trees of scout and master CH)

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that's what I was responding to. I was pretty sure it said most lol.

anyway, i want to apologize for being a little "aggressive" on this topic. I just love Ranger, and I want to see it FIXED, not merged. I'm scared of losing the proffession I love and the community I've become a part of. If the CH/Ranger merge goes through, we'll lose that. We'll get more trollers, less constructive ideas and we'll lose the strong community we have. I think we are *this* close to a good proffession in my opinion, and if we keep giving ideas that are good to the devs, I forsee a happy outcome.

Hey look, that glass of beer is half full!!

Ah, my bad. I guess no one read my first post after all. ^^;

I can understand the fear of losing the community, but the CH community proper is very concerned about their profession. We lost the abusers months ago and even trolls don't find much fun in picking on the underdog. Most of them would probably react the same way...

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Seiryuu wrote:
1. No one seems to have noticed my suggestion to add additional lines. With that it would be possible to play Ranger or play CH as they exist today for the most part. No more of the four-lines to a profession and that is all you are capable of. It would set a radical precident that opens up a lot of possiblities for other profession if it was used. (One failing of this game might be that is has too many profession so there is little distinction between them.)

2. Bringing animals along for big game is also common. Dogs are used to hunt cougars and they are certainly not small nor timid. Dogs are used to find game or trail wounded game, often large game. We are also in a fictional world where that "dog" might be equal or more powerful than what you are hunting. Regardless, having an animal assist you in the hunt does not mean it is doing the actual killing.

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1. Very true. But I would still rather have a master elite profession than a master novice profession for the skill points. This game has evolved so much in a year, I am excited to see what the next year brings. You are correct that currently our skill set is rather weak but I think the groundwork is solid. I want to keep my Ranger survival tree in the hopes that modular camps will be added and I want to keep my wayfaring line in the hopes that they add some stealthy ability. Combine those two into one line and less would be added to it during the revamp, if anything. Currently CH might not be much of an elite profession but it has potential. I hope I have the patience to wait for that potential to be developed.

I guess my main argument for this part of the idea is that it gives us skills that already exist in the game rather than giving us new skills. Merging the professions reduces the chance that either will be enhanced with new, exciting, unique skills. I like too many options. With development these professions will hopefully become more unique through additions. Merging rather than adding reduces the potential options for the future.

2. Also true. I guess I was thinking more of my own playstyle when I mentioned the dog show. I am so shallow lol. Looks do it for me everytime. I have a Graul that is the ultimate tank, but I use the narglatch because he is prettier hehe. I won't even go into the durni again! I definitely use my animals when I hunt, but not as often as I use my friend Eka the defense stacker hehe. CH needs to stay an elite profession so that it can get the attention it needs to improve pets into adequate tankers. Or the combat balance will nerf Eka to the point where it makes more sense to use the pets again. I also would like to see some options for CH BEYOND tanking. Ranger has a bunch of diverse skills. I'd like to see CH get the same.

Another thing that makes me leery of this idea is the whole balance issue. BHs and Commandos would be happy because they only have to take the two extra scout lines (assuming they make it so BH's dont need the whole scout tree) to get a much higher creature level ability. The other elite combat professions would have to spend the 15 points for novice scout as well as the two lines. This would give BH and Commando a huge advantage, but also open them for potential nerf or "balancing." Since they have the potential to have much more powerful tanks their combat ability would likely be reduced. Many people just plain old do't like creature handler and don't want to consider it as an integral part of their profession. They also don't want to give up their other potential skills or take reduced damage because they have the ability to control pets now.

Bleh. Sorry for the long redundant post! Work kept intruding!

Are there variations on this theme we can create without getting rid of a whole profession? Maybe give each profession a command that is useful to them. Somewhere in the Ranger tree there would be a /CHtrackanimal command. If you are a Ranger/CH combo you could teach this command to your pets. BH would get a /CHtrackpeople command and so on so forth for each profession. You could only use these commands if you are a CH combo. This is a totally thoughtless suggestion and probably has many flaws lol. Just trying to come up with ways to implement your idea with out getting rid of CH. It would be a kind of "modular pet" lol! Maybe for Ranger it would be better to have a /CHrescue command that wouuld get everything to attack the pet instead of the Ranger. I can think of all osrts of wacky ideas. Entertainers could have /CHsoothe so your pet could add its voice/antics to your performance to increase your BFhealing ability. Maybe I've just been at work too long!!

Anyway I'd still rather have modular camps and stealth then /CHrescue though hehe. I need beer.

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Phenix1050 wrote

Hey look, that glass of beer is half full!!

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I hadn't even read that when I posted!

Hmmmm... I just read back one of my posts... did I almost say "wait for the combat balance???" Nooooo! I've been TAINTED! Someone beat me unconscious quick!!!

Maybe I should wander over to the CH forum. I've been a MCH almost as long as a Ranger and I never realized there were worries about the profession. I love it! Especially since the BE changes. I need to pay more attention.

I also need to edit my last post to simply agree with what Phenix said hehe.

Message Edited by Cafa on 06-15-2004 02:27 PM