Ranger Archive
Thread: A New Vision for Ranger
Nemo0 wrote:
Allowing a Ranger to choose between damage and states is what adding an extra combat profession should bring. If you want more combat options than you can get with only traps, you pick up a combat profession to complement Ranger. Otherwise you will get a jack of all trades and a master of none profession. As long as you can kill stuff that you should be able to kill with nothing more than your trapping skill (as is currently possible, a CDEF does the damage), you don't need more. Adding a pure damage option is likely to make the other skills less powerful so, if you do decide to pair Ranger with a combat profession, you are likely to lose out on the skills that matter. Those that don't choose to pair Ranger with another combat profession can still be effective but they lose out on some tactical choices. The skill system is there to give you another layer of tactical choice. If you want the tactical choice of doing damage or using traps, you pick up a combat profession. If you are happy with just the tactical choice of traps for combat, you choose whatever else you want to go with Ranger.
Nemo0 wrote:
Phenix1050 wrote:
Nemo0 wrote:
Allowing a Ranger to choose between damage and states is what adding an extra combat profession should bring. If you want more combat options than you can get with only traps, you pick up a combat profession to complement Ranger. Otherwise you will get a jack of all trades and a master of none profession. As long as you can kill stuff that you should be able to kill with nothing more than your trapping skill (as is currently possible, a CDEF does the damage), you don't need more. Adding a pure damage option is likely to make the other skills less powerful so, if you do decide to pair Ranger with a combat profession, you are likely to lose out on the skills that matter. Those that don't choose to pair Ranger with another combat profession can still be effective but they lose out on some tactical choices. The skill system is there to give you another layer of tactical choice. If you want the tactical choice of doing damage or using traps, you pick up a combat profession. If you are happy with just the tactical choice of traps for combat, you choose whatever else you want to go with Ranger.
A Ranger/Crafter won't be effective against anything more than chubba's if they don't havea damage-dealing option. The point of my comment about being unique is this: a Ranger applies the same states that other combat professions do. The only difference is that when they apply a state, they also do damage. So once you pick up a combat profession, you're no longer forced to choose. that's what unique. if you have that choice built into Ranger, we are unlike any other combat profession.
As for the part in red, my contention is that once you decide to pick up Ranger, you already have picked up a combat profession. You shouldn't have to pick up a second one if you want to do damage.
Why can't traps be effective enough to allow the Ranger/Crafter to handle much more than a chuba? I'm not saying they shouldn't do any damage but I don't want to see traps turning into something where you just stand there with autoattack going. And there are the basic damage dealing options available on top of that. It might take a while to kill something with traps and a CDEF now but why can't you have traps to bring up the CDEF to the level of a decent weapon?Some traps will make the target stay at range, other traps will make it easier to hit the target, others will increase the damage you do, others will make it harder for the target to hit you, and some will do a bit of damage (either combined with an effect or through an effect like a bleed). You won't kill stuff as quickly as a profession specializing in damage with only traps but you skills will be amplified significantly when used with another profession or another player. DPS is not the only way to make a profession that can kill effectively.
As for the part in red, I meant another combat profession. (look two sentences before that one where I phrased it correctly). Sorry for the confusion there.
CuchulainnDarklight wrote:
Nemo0 wrote:
Phenix1050 wrote:
Nemo0 wrote:
Allowing a Ranger to choose between damage and states is what adding an extra combat profession should bring. If you want more combat options than you can get with only traps, you pick up a combat profession to complement Ranger. Otherwise you will get a jack of all trades and a master of none profession. As long as you can kill stuff that you should be able to kill with nothing more than your trapping skill (as is currently possible, a CDEF does the damage), you don't need more. Adding a pure damage option is likely to make the other skills less powerful so, if you do decide to pair Ranger with a combat profession, you are likely to lose out on the skills that matter. Those that don't choose to pair Ranger with another combat profession can still be effective but they lose out on some tactical choices. The skill system is there to give you another layer of tactical choice. If you want the tactical choice of doing damage or using traps, you pick up a combat profession. If you are happy with just the tactical choice of traps for combat, you choose whatever else you want to go with Ranger.
A Ranger/Crafter won't be effective against anything more than chubba's if they don't havea damage-dealing option. The point of my comment about being unique is this: a Ranger applies the same states that other combat professions do. The only difference is that when they apply a state, they also do damage. So once you pick up a combat profession, you're no longer forced to choose. that's what unique. if you have that choice built into Ranger, we are unlike any other combat profession.
As for the part in red, my contention is that once you decide to pick up Ranger, you already have picked up a combat profession. You shouldn't have to pick up a second one if you want to do damage.
Why can't traps be effective enough to allow the Ranger/Crafter to handle much more than a chuba? I'm not saying they shouldn't do any damage but I don't want to see traps turning into something where you just stand there with autoattack going. And there are the basic damage dealing options available on top of that. It might take a while to kill something with traps and a CDEF now but why can't you have traps to bring up the CDEF to the level of a decent weapon?Some traps will make the target stay at range, other traps will make it easier to hit the target, others will increase the damage you do, others will make it harder for the target to hit you, and some will do a bit of damage (either combined with an effect or through an effect like a bleed). You won't kill stuff as quickly as a profession specializing in damage with only traps but you skills will be amplified significantly when used with another profession or another player. DPS is not the only way to make a profession that can kill effectively.
As for the part in red, I meant another combat profession
Traps are state effects my friend. The devs will NEVER give us traps that do significant damage, good state effects and work on NPCs and PCs. We have to prioritise what we need, and how likely we are to achieve it.
What kind of trap would you need to make a CDEF an effective hunting weapon?!?! One with a tactical nuclear device in it probably!
The main point is - we should have our own innate damage giving skills as we are the most skill intensive profession outside of the elite hybrids. We should NOT be forced to take a combat proffession in addition to theis skill sink, which makes us THE MOST skill point intensive profession with the least combat capability in the game.
To be an effective master ranger you must master -
1 tree of a begineer combat profession
1 Master combat profession
The Scout Profession
The Ranger profession
Leaving you with not enough skill points left to do anything else, including exploring your FS abilities.
Nemo0 wrote:
So we can get a weapon that can do significant damage but the traps can't? One should not expect a Master Ranger with no other skills to take on everything in the game. With a proper balancing of traps, it should be fairly easy to take on mid level targets with nothing more than a CDEF (I can currently manage rancors and such with a bit of work and those probably fall in the high level range). While Ranger is a skill point intensive profession (the most even without needing the extra combat profession, once you take the new CU docs the Devs recently posted on the public forums into account), that doesn't mean it should be able to do everything on its own. Specializing the traps will mean that they are that much more effective in a situation where a Ranger is not the only profession present (i.e. a group or a Ranger/other combat profession). Giving us a weapon to make up for weaker traps is a sub optimal solution.
CuchulainnDarklight wrote:
Nemo0 wrote:
So we can get a weapon that can do significant damage but the traps can't? One should not expect a Master Ranger with no other skills to take on everything in the game. With a proper balancing of traps, it should be fairly easy to take on mid level targets with nothing more than a CDEF (I can currently manage rancors and such with a bit of work and those probably fall in the high level range). While Ranger is a skill point intensive profession (the most even without needing the extra combat profession, once you take the new CU docs the Devs recently posted on the public forums into account), that doesn't mean it should be able to do everything on its own. Specializing the traps will mean that they are that much more effective in a situation where a Ranger is not the only profession present (i.e. a group or a Ranger/other combat profession). Giving us a weapon to make up for weaker traps is a sub optimal solution.
Nowehere did I say we shoiuld be able to do everything on our own - nor did I say give us a weapon inzxstead of traps.
Your falling into the old trap of "Give us better of what we already have!"
That will never work.
We need an innate ability to do damage as we are a combat profession, just as a rifleman has the ability to do damage, or a TKM has the ability to do damage. We need to have parity we other combat professions. We should never have to rely on others to help us in every situation. We should have our own combat style that lets allow to do certain things alone or be effective in a group on higher levels. Just because we get a weapon does not mean we will outdamage everyone else. We will be more effective at combat in certain situations tan others, and others will be more effective than us in some situations.
What could possibly be wrong with that.
Plus if we do get a weapon and you dont want to use - DONT.
We need to make ranger more open and rewarding for people to play, not, as in your idea, make it even more restrictive in the future.
Nemo0 wrote:
All characters have an innate ability to do damage. The marksman and brawler trees allow you to expand on doing damage with the standard weapons (i.e. pistols, swords, etc). A Ranger weapon along the same lines as a marksman or brawler weapon is not something we need to be effective. Giving us a weapon like that is definitely not giving us our own combat style. Making traps worth using in combat (even if you have another weapon skill) is a unique combat style. We might not get the damage per second (DPS) of a rifleman but we will be much more likely to survive if the enemy gets a chance to retaliate. But a combined Ranger/Rifleman would get a lot of damage output plus a high survivability level. Giving Rangers a standard weapon would not be giving us a unique role in combat. Expanding on traps can.
As for relying on others to help us, why would that be necessary with good traps? With the current traps (largely considered not all that useful), I can take on mid and high level creatures unbuffed and unarmored with no extra weapon skills in the current system. It takes longer than with a master weapon profession but it is perfectly doable. With better traps, this would become even easier. Traps are the Ranger weapon already. They just need a little work to make them as useful as the weapons in other combat professions. A Ranger weapon is a half hearted solution to our combat deficiencies--it makes us more like the other professions instead of giving us a unique, interesting, and useful role.
Marksman and Brawler trees, youve kind of lost the plot! Ranger is an ELITE combat profession. Better traps will do nothing for us - unless we take up an ADDITIONAL combat skill, i.e a second one as well as Ranger. This is completely wrong. You are very limited in your thinking here - why do you insist on just traps being a ranger weapon here. You have to think on a whole new level. Its not about DPS - its about making ranger a FAIR, EQUAL, REWARDING, and FUN profession. Just because chucking traps at a creature for an hour is fulfiloing and fun for you personally does not mean it is for every other player out there. A ranger weapon would not make us like other profession as we would have our own unique weapon and fighting style (which uses our weapon in conjunction with the other skills we gain as a ranger - just as another elite profession uses all its skills, not some for one thing and some for another!). If we dont have our own weapon and combat style then we are forced to pick up another comabt profession to do our jobs. Now you say this makes us unique? Wrong, it makes us like everyone else. A ranger/rifleman combination is primarily a rifleman with a few extra helpful skills that arent worth the SPs, a ranger/creature handler is just a creature handler with a few extra helpful skills that arent worth the Sps spent on them. The way you propose makes us just like everyone else, our profession becomes our damge dealing profession and ranger is pushed aside as just some helpful skills.
Uniqueness is being DIFFERENT to everyone else.
Traps are not a weapon they are tools - what is rewarding about a fighting style that allows you to do nothing but throw things over and over at a creature, you need variety as well.
Traps on their own our not worth the SPs, a Ranger who can deal damage with his ranger combat skills, chuck traps, use cover and concealment would be truely unique. And players templates would diversify a lot more, as players do not have to take a combat profession to work as a ranger, they are free to try other professions like shipwright or medic or whatever. The possibilities would be (nearly) endless. We would be unique as a profession and rangers would be unique to each other. What you suggest forces the majority of ranger to fit toa certain template to actually access most of the game and this is patently unfair to the players, especially those who dont necessarily want to spend ALL their time killing things.
Message Edited by CuchulainnDarklight on 03-29-2005 08:52 PM
CuchulainnDarklight wrote:
Nemo0 wrote:
All characters have an innate ability to do damage. The marksman and brawler trees allow you to expand on doing damage with the standard weapons (i.e. pistols, swords, etc). A Ranger weapon along the same lines as a marksman or brawler weapon is not something we need to be effective. Giving us a weapon like that is definitely not giving us our own combat style. Making traps worth using in combat (even if you have another weapon skill) is a unique combat style. We might not get the damage per second (DPS) of a rifleman but we will be much more likely to survive if the enemy gets a chance to retaliate. But a combined Ranger/Rifleman would get a lot of damage output plus a high survivability level. Giving Rangers a standard weapon would not be giving us a unique role in combat. Expanding on traps can.
As for relying on others to help us, why would that be necessary with good traps? With the current traps (largely considered not all that useful), I can take on mid and high level creatures unbuffed and unarmored with no extra weapon skills in the current system. It takes longer than with a master weapon profession but it is perfectly doable. With better traps, this would become even easier. Traps are the Ranger weapon already. They just need a little work to make them as useful as the weapons in other combat professions. A Ranger weapon is a half hearted solution to our combat deficiencies--it makes us more like the other professions instead of giving us a unique, interesting, and useful role.
Marksman and Brawler trees, youve kind of lost the plot! Ranger is an ELITE combat profession. Better traps will do nothing for us - unless we take up an ADDITIONAL combat skill, i.e a second one as well as Ranger. This is completely wrong. You are very limited in your thinking here - why do you insist on just traps being a ranger weapon here. You have to think on a whole new level. Its not about DPS - its about making ranger a FAIR, EQUAL, REWARDING, and FUN profession. Just because chucking traps at a creature for an hour is fulfiloing and fun for you personally does not mean it is for every other player out there. A ranger weapon would not make us like other profession as we would have our own unique weapon and fighting style (which uses our weapon in conjunction with the other skills we gain as a ranger - just as another elite profession uses all its skills, not some for one thing and some for another!). If we dont have our own weapon and combat style then we are forced to pick up another comabt profession to do our jobs. Now you say this makes us unique? Wrong, it makes us like everyone else. A ranger/rifleman combination is primarily a rifleman with a few extra helpful skills that arent worth the SPs, a ranger/creature handler is just a creature handler with a few extra helpful skills that arent worth the Sps spent on them. The way you propose makes us just like everyone else, our profession becomes our damge dealing profession and ranger is pushed aside as just some helpful skills.
Uniqueness is being DIFFERENT to everyone else.
Traps are not a weapon they are tools - what is rewarding about a fighting style that allows you to do nothing but throw things over and over at a creature, you need variety as well.
Traps on their own our not worth the SPs, a Ranger who can deal damage with his ranger combat skills, chuck traps, use cover and concealment would be truely unique. And players templates would diversify a lot more, as players do not have to take a combat profession to work as a ranger, they are free to try other professions like shipwright or medic or whatever. The possibilities would be (nearly) endless. We would be unique as a profession and rangers would be unique to each other. What you suggest forces the majority of ranger to fit toa certain template to actually access most of the game and this is patently unfair to the players, especially those who dont necessarily want to spend ALL their time killing things.
Message Edited by CuchulainnDarklight on 03-29-2005 08:52 PM
Nemo0 wrote:
Why can't better traps do anything for us? Right now, a CL 25 creature cons white to a master weapon profession. I can easily use traps and a CDEF to take down CL 25 creatures. It takes me a bit longer than it would for a Master Pistoleer to do the same thing but I can do it. Combining the two makes it even easier (just ask JBMat). This is the sort of situation we should be aiming for. Just Master Ranger is enough to do what you want but adding an extra combat profession makes it even easier.
You almost make it sound like you want a Master Ranger to be just as effective at killing things as a Master Ranger/Master Weapon User. That goes against the whole purpose of a skill based system. Even if you want the weapon to be weak, it goes against the spirit of a skill based system. This is not a class based game but a skill based game. One profession should not give you everything. Giving us a weapon is the same sort of idea as giving the weapon professions traps or harvesting or terrain negotiation--it would help out the other profession a great deal but it is basically giving away the usefulness of one profession without learning the skills. Traps can bring us up to an appropriate combat level without an extra weapon. In the end, a Ranger is unlikely to be as powerful as a Master Weapon Profession in straight combat but we have lots of other skills to make up for that (tracking, harvesting, concealment, camping, terrain negotiation, etc). No one profession should be completely self contained (although a profession should have all the tools necessary to be at least partially effective). A Master Ranger/Master Musician will not be as effective as a Master Ranger/Master Rifleman at hunting (nor should they be). Trapping alone can and should be enough to allow the Master Ranger/Master Musician to do some hunting, though.
If you read my posts I make it quite clear over and oaver and over again that i do not want Ranger to be the same as another combat profession, this is just a stupid arguement as no 2 combat professions are the same - you have to approach different combat situations (or avoid them) depending on your style of combat.
Giving us a hunting weapon that we can use for combat doies not make us capable of doing anything - it just makes us capable of doing what we are supposed to do - use our wilderness survival skills in combat!
Why shouldnt we be as powerful as any other combat profession, but with our own unique manner of combat utilising our other skills?
Why shouldnt a Master Ranger/Master entertainer be pretty much as effective at fighting in aRanger combatstyle as a master rifleman/master ranger. After all a master rifleman/master entertainer is just as effective rifle combat as a master rifleman/master shipwright or master rifleman/master pistoleer?
You say we have lots of other skills that make us combat effective. What ones - our camo that breaks all the time and doesnt work on NPCs or players and is lees effective than mask scent, perhaps, you mean our camps which arent needed for calling pets, droids or speeders anymore. Do you mean our tracking abilities which let us see which creatures are nearby that we should avoid, or, our trapping abilities which do state attacks and which are only useful in groups or if we have secondary combat skills.
I have never advocated that Ranger should be a fully self contained profession (though with the skillpoint cost it could be argued it should be) just that it allows us to enjoy the whole of the game in whatever way we wish to, not just a small percentage of it.
You even say yourself - a profession should have all the tools necessary to be at least partially effective. Why then do you argue that we should limit ourselfs to just traps and having to take out more and more combat skills the more effective we wish to be in hunting (and in the rest of the game as a whole)?
I am a Master Ranger/Master Pistoleer but I do not say that everyone else should be forced to follow my way of doing things, I am trying to think of those hundreds (thousands) of players who wish to take ranger but dont want to be restrained or forced into avoiding the majority of the content of a game they pay a regular subscription for.
Perhaps you could explain HOW traps could be improved in the manner you envisage, rather than just stating traps should be improved and thats all we need?
And please try and truncate your quotes a little so we dont totally hijack Phenix's thread. Sorry Phenix!
Message Edited by CuchulainnDarklight on 03-29-2005 09:48 PM
Nemo0 wrote:
The current state of the game is going out the window with the Combat Upgrade. No single combat mastery will be as effective as a double combat mastery (assuming all the balancing goes as it should). A Master Rifleman/Master Pistoleer should be a lot more powerful than a Master Rifleman/Master Armorsmith in the new system (have a look at the new documents posted by the Devs in the In Development forum). Stacking professions will be encouraged.
Good post.
Thanks. You know, being without a computer that plays this game has made me actually think about the game more, like in terms of what works and what doesn't, and looking towards the future. Turns out the best way to help this game is to not play it and just think about balancing it.
KaiRaene wrote:
Good post.