CUEmu - Thread Posts

Klif_Hangar

Tue Jan 27, 2004 3:56 pm

Takei_Urawaza wrote:

We've already written the new ranger but we're to scared to let go the old.

I disagree. To me, the "new ranger" (as defined in the Outdoorsman proposal) is in fact built on the foundations of the "old ranger" and its skills. For instance, we want to keep our areatrack ability (an "old ranger" skill) but also want to build on it and expand it to make it better (making /areatrack display lairs instead of individual creatures, adding /track, etc).In the same way,we want to keep conceal and terrain negotiation, but expand on it, we want to make our existing terrain negotiation mod translate into more functionality, we want to improve and enhance the camping tree to make it useful, and we want to make the trapping line more unique.

In short, the Outdoorsman proposal defines a profession that builds on our current implementation. If we got everything we asked for in that proposal (I can only hope), we would be able to do everything we currently do and more. Giving our current skills to other professions and then implementing the new skills would just cause the current skills to be duplicated in ranger and the other professions. We can't "let go of the old" because so much of the "new ranger" is built on the "old".

Thanks for reading.

Dyne Cloudskimmer
Antarian Ranger, Ahazi

Klif_Hangar

Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:29 pm

#15

Takei_Urawaza wrote:

When we come up with these ideas of how we want to see a profession evolve we naturally take what we have and we build upon it ..

I would say that 90% of what we have in the outdoorsman isn't original .. it's evolution. As you say it builds on what we already have.

But when it builds on those things, whatwe (the great unwashed),are building upon is the concept thatthat skill represents, when they come to code that change into the game they will have to rewrite whole systems of how the game deals with those new features, in some cases they can proably use existing systems (ie modular camps = modular droids ? the final product may not have wheels and go beep but the logic behind a module equating to a feature of the end product remains the same), but... in other cases you've got to change the basic way the games deals with the whole world (I'm thinking areatrack here, we're talking about changing the way the game deals with spawning mobs, something thats gonna be a universal constant, when you press a button), its the same when you talk about quality of harvests .. the resource that animal has when you skin it is set .. it's like steel or copper, to say that you want rangers the get better quality than scouts it's like asking for your own personal resource .. and if you do that .. who's to say that the quality will be the same on the next rabbit you skin..

you can't work the game like that it will become too complex and too time consuming.

Weneed to think logically and critically about any suggestion we make when offering these things up to the dev's (something I hope do when I make any suggestion's). You say it builds on our current implementation, I don't think thats quite right .. I think it builds on our current concepts.

Giveing our skills to another profession does not mean that we duplicate skills, different abilities come atdifferent levels ..we are placing a boundry in that skill that is in effect like sorting the men from the boys. Scouts can tell you adeer came by this path and headed east .. rangers will tell you it waspregnant and being stalked by another scout.It's that divisionwe need toemphasise clearly if we are to truely define The Ranger class and there is only 1 way into that class and it's through scout. Giving them basic area track is a good way to do that, but giving them the whole tree is wrong however. If scouts got at hunting 4 "/area trackcreatures" and at master scout got "NPC" and "direction" and then if ranger tracking went

Novice ranger : increase area track range + track nests

1: /track(ie: spawn me one I can hunt) + increased area track range

2: /distance (area track and increased chance of /track working for a harder monster popping at greater distance) + increased area track range

3: /PC + /track chance of bigger mob

4: (increased trackrange + track chance of bigger mob + area track range (now maxes @1000m) +

master ranger: can now have a chance of tracking krayts, dark jedi etc..

where have I duplicated any skill from scout ? I havn't, I've layed the foundation in scout for what tracking can become and I think everyone would agree that doing it this way encourages scouts to go for the carrot of master ranger.

Klif_Hangar wrote:
We can't "let go of the old" because so much of the "new ranger" is built on the "old".

Thanks for reading.

when I said let go the old I perhaps should have chosen my words a little better I mean to sugest that asking a developer to remove an ability of our class that we've grown used to and we consider an important part of our class is against our nature .. because it is akin to asking to be nerfed and since we don't know if anything in the outdoorsman class is even possible at the moment we are (as a comunity) unlikely to ask such a thing.

reading your posts I find like looking in a mirror, crystal clear and a perfect reflection of myself in you, the same wants and desires for the ranger class, but we are oposites and I suspect the same can be said of all of us.

Thanks for the reply Takei. Your post has certainly helped me understand your viewpoint much better. I guess my main problem with giving even basic versions of our current skills to other professions is that doing so diminishes the value of a Ranger even if all the new ideas are put in. For instance, giving scouts even the most rudimentary /areatrack abilities lessens the unique feel of the ranger, in the same way that giving a medic a rudimentary rez ability (currently a doctor only ability) would diminish the unique feel and purpose of a doctor.

There's also the group interdependency issue. You say, "Scouts can tell you adeer came by this path and headed east .. rangers will tell you it waspregnant and being stalked by another scout." To continue this metaphorical example, how useful would a ranger really be to a group when the only advantage he provides over a scout/squad leader/bounty hunter/creature handler is the ability to tell the creature was "pregnant and being stalked by another scout"? Why include a ranger in a group when you can get someone with the basic skill to track who also provides much more firepower to help kill the creature? I realize this quote is not saying you want the ability to tell if a creature is pregnant to be the defining characteristic between scout and ranger tracking skills, but I believe my argument still holds if you give any tracking ability to a scout. Why include a ranger in a group if you can get some tracking skills AND more combat power by letting a bh or ch or squad leader in the group instead?

Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I do understand where you are coming from. My main desire is to see the Ranger class as a useful profession with unique skills (not just enhancements or derivations of skills given to other professions). I'm just worried that giving other professions versions of our skills (even rudimentary ones) would diminish the usefulness and desirability of the Ranger.

Dyne Cloudskimmer
Antarian Ranger, Ahazi

NRaas

Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:58 pm

#16

"For instance, giving scouts even the most rudimentary /areatrack abilities lessens the unique feel of the ranger"

Aye. The Ranger profession needs some "unique" draw that sets it apart from its Scout counterpart.

Continuing with the Medic-Doctor analogy...

ADoctor has the ability to Buff stats, Heal state effects, Cure Poison / Disease, Resucitate. These items still follow the Medical ideal, but there is no comparison to them in the Medic profession.

Similiarly in Ranger: we have the Tracking andCamoflauge skills, that follow the scouting ideal, but have no comparison in the Scout profession.

Of course, a Doctor also improves on the Medic line an addition healing Stim pack, andmore powerfulWound packs.

Similiarly the Ranger improves on the Scouting line with better camps and traps (they are better, even if no one uses them. ).

Ranger Threads
State of the Profession
The Outdoorsman
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Takei_Urawaza

Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:27 pm

#17

this is a kinda of klif and Nrass combo reply:

I thikn this is the right bit to quote from Klif

"Why include a ranger in a group if you can get some tracking skills AND more combat power by letting a bh or ch or squad leader in the group instead?"

ahh your taking the ranger class as it is now with out any combat skill benifits that would be an absolute nesesityif you wanted to make the ranger an "uber"creature hunting class, whats more because the tracking skills a CH or a squad leader would have, would be elementary and wouldn't really aid the hunting, they wouldn't even know which direction to head in unless they took the whole of the scout profession and mastered it, even then they only know direction not distance.

A BH would havemaster scout, yes,and would have good firepower to bring to a group , but remember the creature centric view point that we are still after with the ranger ? if we (the ranger class) gained through traps and through advanced combat bonuses (raw to hit/speed/damage mitigation/whatever)an equivelent strength to a BH's "firepower" when the ranger profession was coupled with an elite comabat profession (which points wise .. we'd not be that far off a BH'sand our bonuses would be focused more to hunting creatures remember not people)I feel a quite compelling arguement could be made for having a ranger in the group instead of one of the others because that ranger will probably have a few more points spare in other things (novice creature handler for an extra pet perhaps?)

and because we would have access to the /track skill as well and we'd have distance and a much wider area of effect in which we area track (like up to 1km as opposed to say 300/500m that the scout would have.

can you remember usingarea track when you first get it to help your group find things to kill ?

it's useless it tells you theres things around but not which direction or distance they're in .. you could get lost trying to find what your after. This of the time involved in searching a 500m square area to find that creature you were after when a ranger can turn round and say "ohh 300m north east, one sec I'll track it for you and waypoint it".

this is what I'm talking about when I say utility, you could give me the whole of the current droid engineer class in a single tree and I still wouldn't get it because it's a waste of points ... because it doesn't do anything except make dodgy probots. (which really annoies me .. droids should have been day one, 9:00am stuff allthe effort that creature handler had put in it should have been in droids)

which leads me to the final quote of Nrass

"Similiarly the Ranger improves on the Scouting line with better camps and traps (they are better, even if no one uses them. "

if they were better, if they were an improvment, why aren't we using them ?

I'll tell you why .. because they're not better and they're not animprovement. THEY HAVE NO USEand we don't use them .. and everyone I read about when they decide to drop ranger.. traps are the first to go along with camps followed by wayfaering, where as stim E's, Reses, stat buffs and other master doctor benifits are of use.

when you buy a new car you buy one with wheels and an engine, without those basic features it doesn't matter if it's a ferari or not your not going anywhere.

anyway .. I think I'vereached the end of my part in this discussion unless someone brings something up thats radically takes it in a new direction, I've said y bit and thank you Nrass and Klif for helping get this viewpointt across ina (hopefully) slightly clearer manner than the original "rant"

I couldn't have done it without you 8)

oh and out of interest I've written up a design of sorts for current ranger camps to just keep them how they are and make em usefull (as in at master ranger you'd still put down a high quality camp for a good reason rather than the look of it) I just need a way to make an excel spreadsheet translate well to this forum 8)

Takei Urawaza,

"Healthy people don't invent crutches."

NRaas

Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:42 pm

#18

"ahh your taking the ranger class as it is now with out any combat skill benifits that would be an absolute nesesityif you wanted to make the ranger an "uber"creature hunting class"

That is correct. Creature combat bonuses would definitely be required to achieve the "Ultimate Creature Hunter" design goal. In doing so, we would have another unique advantage of the Scout profession.

"because they're not better and they're not animprovement. THEY HAVE NO USEand we don't use them"

That is correct.

However, that does not mean they will always be that way. We have suggested ways of improving both branches,noting many new traps and gadgets.

The developers have even showed interest in learning what benefits we want from camps.DeltaXi65 and Iprovided the modular camp proposal, as well as highlighted the individual elements (such as non-disband, healing BF, defense bonuses) if they were only interested in seperate ideas.

Ranger Threads
State of the Profession
The Outdoorsman
(please refresh once you arrive to receive the latest version)

Rhyeal

Tue Jan 27, 2004 9:08 pm

#19

as i see it, the outdoorsman is the ranger foundation, with the things we have wanted for months now. Personally, I use the /areatrack almost every day, and a /track command would be even better. Tracking players of the opposite faction in your city, /track, and go /cityban them. Great combo. Give me good camps, such as garages in them. Citizens on dant have to go to corellia to repair their swoop...but if we got the modular camp kits, I just pop it up, and the vehicle is back at full. Another mod possibility is a cloning center...most expensive along with the evac shuttle, and would clone you with 1/4 the wounds at 1/2 the cost(500 cr). THis way, the docs still have a reason to hunt with us, and you dont have to run/swoop 4km to get back to ur hunting group.

Rhyeal Shadowblade :: Egone Thale :::: Riflemen :: Rangers :::: Ranger is a Lifestyle, Live it!
"No, I'm not a combat profession, I don't do that anymore."

Telephius

Wed Jan 28, 2004 12:33 am

#20

"you said "novice" Professions as welll .. bear in mind that the "novice" part is box number 1 we're talking about "master" and rank 4 abilities here just becuase you have to get through the profession first to get to an elite one doesn't mean you should just devalue the profession.. " Takei_Urawaza

I should have said Start professions because I think thats what they are technically called. Please to not say that I am devalueing the starter professions when I am not, they have worthwhile skills but they are the basic version of each category they represent. Medics have first-aid which I hate because alot of people can stop their own bleeding, scouts have maskscent, marksman have bleeds and HAM shots, I forget what bralwers have I know they have some nice damage hit plus all that defensive stuff. However an Elite profession that builds off the basic one is still better than the basic one alone in the area of interest(Logically if an elite profession builds off a starter profession then it adds stuff making it more powerful).

I have nothing against starting professions, at certain points in my gameplay I just took starter professions in certain areas without thinking about going into that particular elite field(I was close to mastering medic once and for awhile I only dabbled in marksman without going to an elite range profession.)

I have contributed to the discussuion on the hot topics of the Ranger profession I do think if alot of The outdoorsman is implemented that would be a big carrot for us however it makes that big carrot smaller if you give part of the unique abilities to a starter profession.

One point of having special abilites held off from the starter/basic professions is it entices people to choose what skillset they want more and adds more variety of specialization to a game. If every profession that needed scout as a template plus those that just choose to master scout had tracking animal/npc/direction as well as passing down the lesser versions of other Ranger abilities that would just muddy the water making the unique beneifts of ranger not as important as if they stayed in Ranger.

"I'll tell you why .. because they're not better and they're not animprovement. THEY HAVE NO USEand we don't use them .. and everyone I read about when they decide to drop ranger.. traps are the first to go along with camps followed by wayfaering, where as stim E's, Reses, stat buffs and other master doctor benifits are of use." This you also said Takei_Urawazahowever shouldn't we focus on trying to get them to have a use otherwise we are just throwing in the towel and then giving Scouts our trash? If took offense to me calling Scouts a novice profession why are you wanting to give them stuff that has no use, it seems like alot of reworking of the skill trees(which you would have to do programming and test for balance) just to give another profession our leftobers.

Like Doctors are to medics we are to scouts, we are the uber version and that doesn't have to mean they get everything we have just at a lower effecientcy(sp?) it can mean that we excel and thrive at a field where they are merely efficient. Being a elite doesn't just mean have add-ons to skill midifers to abilities already in place it means that we get new abilities that help us in what we already did be it heal, surive in the wild or beat things up(or craft).

As you said Doctors add-ons are usefull, doesn't that mean that ours just need to be changed to be useful?

Telephius Surtalga
-De Oppresso Liber *DOL* Sunrunner.
-Rebel
-Master Ranger, Rifleman 4/3/3/3 Marksman 4/0/0/4

Takei_Urawaza

Wed Jan 28, 2004 1:39 am

#21

"Ignore it."

Agreed.Or post a constructive reply about why the idea has no merit.

actually with all the changes that the ranger comunitys suggested for the class I can't understand why people havn't embraced the (karl) Marxist philosophy that this view point comes from.

ok I havn't read the original post but SERIOUSLY weigh this over in your mind a second folks ..

Why shouldn't the bulk of the _CURRENT_ ranger abilities go into scout ? and thus leave a NEWRANGER class to take form thats actually the propper Ranger class that we want anyway ?

Increased crawl speed .. fine let them have it @ master scout. Give us the run speed, burst run speed/ swimming and combat mods instead.

Camoflage won't work on NPC's in the near future so may as well just say mask scent can go up to 98% and let ranger camo become a better, propper Creature hunting/NPC/PC/ viable hunting skill (sincethe ranger boards have already come up with about 3 better working versions)

Current ranger camps serve no true purpose over basic scout ones and we've already come up with a much better modular camp system anyway that the devs are looking at but impliment it just for ranger (and squad leaders) and not scout.

Current ranger traps aren't used .. let them have those at master scout. We've already come up with an advanced trapping system anyway impliment that just for ranger.

Give the current lower level tracking abilities to master scout (animals/direction) and keep the higher tracking abilities (distance/ NPC/PC's) to Ranger but have it enhanced for greater range/tracks spawn points/nests& propper /track command. (as they've already told us they're "looking into")

Keep our increased harvesting and add the ability to harvest multiple times. (personally I see this as perk of the class not a defining feature it's not center stage usefull it's just a "neat trick" you get on the way to something else, and add something else to the tree that helps with the actual killing of the creature (critical strikes anyone ?)

Give us a load of melee/creature mitigation and a few combat mods spread through the whole class to buff up the melee/range combat skills we have against creatures and bobs your uncle, fanny's your aunt and everyone's happy. Since to be a ranger .. we'll be a scout anyway...

Because if you actually think about it the only thing the original guy said wrong was "get rid of the ranger profession to make way for droid handler" .. why not just rebuild the ranger class from the ground up to the outdoorsman / wilderness hunter ideal that we've all pretty much agreed on, buff the scouts in the prosess and just add another new class .. you don't have to delete anything !

as for xp .. you wouldn't have to change a thing. just keep it exactly how it is.

Takei Urawaza,

"Healthy people don't invent crutches."

spoff

Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:02 am

#22

IF RANGER IS REMOVED FROM THE GAME, I AM CANCELLING MY SUBSCRIPTION........

Simple as that

Spoff

Post NGE Force sensitive and proud of it!

Takei_Urawaza

Thu Jan 29, 2004 7:16 am

#23

I think it's fair to say that if the profession is removed compleatly there would not be alone is leaving the game, considering that the profession made it this far though,I would say that it's compleate removal is not only unlikely but totally just not going to happen.

Rhyeal: "Personally, I use the /areatrack almost every day..."

This may be true but I see from your sig your a master ranger .. the utility of areatrack at master ranger is much different from it's utility at novice ranger. Personally I also use area track everyday ... but I use the direction & distance features over the knowledge of whats in the area feature everytime.Knowing whats in the area is useless to me if I don't know which way to start walking and how far it is.

Telephius : As you said Doctors add-ons are usefull, doesn't that mean that ours just need to be changed to be useful?

hmm actually yes, this may be a better note to finish on..

My original post stemed from a belief that there was so little that was "right" with the profession that to consider any changes to the profession as "changes" was a misconseption. Too much needed to be "fixed". So it's that old problem .. how far does something have to go along the road of "being fixed" before it becomes "being replaced"

a quote from "trigger" in "only fools and horses" comes to mind that explains what I mean really well actaully

"This is the same broom I've had since I joined the company, 13 new heads and 8 new handles... but it's the same broom"

you say it'sthe ranger profession just needs to be fixed.. I say we need to get a new broom

Takei Urawaza,

"Healthy people don't invent crutches."

Puck_Starfire

Fri Jan 30, 2004 2:46 am

#24

Wow. I love posts that are a chapter-length long and talk bout the same thing.

Some good points, but falls on deaf ears here anyway. I love the Ranger. The only thing better would be adding in certain abilities from the "Outdoorsman" profession. Other than that I can say I'm happy. See?

Puck_Starfire

Fri Jan 30, 2004 4:19 pm

#25

Oh wow, someone one-starred me LOL. So childish.

"Mommy, he disagrees with me! Make him stop!"

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