Ranger Archive
Thread: Post your Logic Behind Keeping /conceal vs NPC, Here
Thank you for a great post. It is entirely logical to assume that the "ultimate creature hunter" (the devs' apparent vision of the ranger profession) would, in the process of becoming the ultimate creature hunter, become well-versed in the arts of concealment -both sentient means (camouflaged clothing,face-painting, etc.), and animal means (you mentionedthe emulation of predator strategies for hunting). It isalso logical to assume that these expertconcealment strategies could be used to camouflage oneself from NPCs. If this is a bug, it's a good one, and one that should actually be coded into the game. I'm not so sure it's a bug, though, because if you look at the ranger skill tree in game, and select "/conceal", it actually states something about camouflage against both NPCs andcreatures.
In any case, in the interest of profession balance, this is one perk that rangers should have. There's just not that much else positive about the profession, and considering the amount of skill points invested, and the strengths of other professions with similar skill points required, it's a much-needed skill.
Raab
Our radar can somehow identify the difference between a fellow player (Blue or purple dots), a vehicle or an interactable item (white dots) and animals/NPC or otherwise attackable MOB's (Yellow or red dots) and a group member (green dot). Now, I argue that our /conceal skill simply fools the radar into identifying us as something other than an attackable player. So an aggro NPC, who must be constantly checking their personal radar for something to stray into their range to attack, would see a player with /conceal on as maybe just a non aggro animal (yellow dot) that they would ignore.
Whats even better about this arguement is that it gives us a possible way to use conceal in PvP. At increasing levels /conceal made by a ranger has the effect of changing the color of the blip we generate on other player's radar. Maybe when outside city limits, a player with /conceal on at level one appears on radar as a yellow blip, at level two a white blip, at the highest level the ranger can choose what color to make the /conceal to appear as so we can be trixy and scare the noobs away by running around as red blips
I like that alot, I mean it sure throws the personal radar argument out the window, plus its the best idea for getting Rangers into PvP I have ever seen. It would be interesting as if we were a yellow dot, then a player may target(tab) us but then think we were an NPC. And ifa white dot, as I posted about Jedi, we would only be targetable by actually clicking on us, and most would dismiss us as a pet or somekind of non-attackable NPC.
Very nice idea, i like that idea alot.
Dremvek wrote:
I've never pictured the radar as something that my character holds, but rather something to make up for the senses, such as smell and sound, that I don't have in the game. Let's say there's a torton lair 30m behind me. I can't see that lair, because, well, it's behind me. However, it's likely I'm going to hear, and probably smell those tortons, thereby knowing those tortons are there. This is what the radar is for - to make up for my missing senses that cannot be conveyed via the PC.
Nah, the radar shows items in towns that are behind walls and behind hills that you would never see or hear to be able to identify its exact location and numbers and types of targets. and everyone has this ability from noobs to masters, rangers to dancers. no one's senses are that good to be able to identify and target an exact item that's behind a wall before you even see it. Sure if you have seen it, that might be a different story, but the radar shows all things within like a 128m radius and excatly what they are and where they are.
It seems the devs may have implimented their vision of conceal not working on NPC's already in a stealth nerf so let's keep the fire stoked on this issue so the devs know we don't want this.
If you simply agree with these ideas but have none to offer, just /sign this post so the devs hear us.
If you went out camping and you brought along some sort of radar device that let you see what creatures were in the area, would you be staring at it the entire time you were out there? No, because then you wouldn't be camping, you'd be out in the wild staring at a radar screen, and I think everyone agrees that would be no fun. You might check it every once in a while to make sure that nothing was getting close to you, but otherwise you wouldn't much care what was running by you 50 meters away because it was just carrying on its merry little way.
Why would this be any different for NPCs? If you find a camp of any NPCs that will let you walk up to them, you'll see them doing a variety of things, from talking to dancing and from sitting down to just staring blankly into space. None of these seem particularly alert to me so why should it be so tough to walk by them at 64 meters out without them noticing? They certainly aren't looking at radar screens or checking the area for enemies, not that I've seen anyway. This tells me that they are not very attentive to their surroundings and would therefore be easy to sneak by. This would be true while you're in plain view and would certainly be true when you were camouflaging your movement, scent, and appearance. Even with the most attentive commandos, it is still possible to sneak into their midst for a surprise attack and who is most suited to doing that? Bounty Hunters? No, they're strictly shoot first ask questions later. Commandos? No, they're even more gung-ho than Bounty Hunters and go into a situation with guns blazing. Creature Handlers? TKs? Swordsmen? No, no, and no because again, none of them really rely on stealth to get the job done. The closest non-Ranger profession in this game to have the stealth that we have is Smugglers, but only in the sense that they want to keep a low profile to get their goods where they want to (whenever something like this comes along for them, that is).
cam·ou·flage, n.: A means of concealment or a disguise that creates the effect of being part of the natural surroundings. (The American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd Edition)
The only logical choice for any profession to have the ability to sneak by NPCs is Rangers, at least in the wild, because we have made ourselves "part of the natural surroundings" by honing our senses and our skills to get us by where non other could (with the exception of Scouts, which all Rangers are also). And as so many before me have already mentioned, this was the original intention of Rangers, based on the actual descriptions of our skills and abilities. So if we can't sneak by NPCs, who will they give the ability to? Chefs?
Wow, I was quoted in another players post. That is arare honor.
Mykel Syen
Radiant
This is good folks, keep the good ideas coming here.
Veran, I totally agree with you, and if you read one of my posts in the original form NRaas, I call the devs some nasty names. I vented there my frustrations. I started this post to "play their game". I have always had good success in this tactic in all aspects of my life, and we have seen it happen here in SWG and specifically the Rangers. So if they want us to tell them why we should be keeping this skill, that makes sence, then lets give it to them. It's a really easy thing to do, and as you can see many of us have done so with out much thought. That's because it's logical for us to be able to /conceal vs NPC.
Now as for the radar thing, sorry but I agree with what someone else said. It's there as a "GAME" device to help make up our lost sences. This personal radar does not exist in the SW universe, and thus is not part of the argument. Period. It doesn't exist to characters of SW, and thus is not something the NPC have to detect us. So lets not worry or discuss that.
If the devs truely really want to ATTEMPT that argument, then we ALL will only show up as yellow dots on their radar. Why? We are attackable, targetable mobs to the NPC. We are not nessasarily agro to them, and so we will not show up as red dots. Just as we can't tell what each yellow or red dot is until we target it, the NPC can't. That means we could be an animal, another opposing gang member, or a player. No way to tell. But it's totally not valid anyways, so don't worry about it folks.
Keep the good ideas flowing here. It looks like we may have to take these ideas to some new part of the forums for their new communication channeling. Good things.
Top reasons to keep /conceal working on NPCs:
1) the ingame references all say it should work on NPCs so the 'it was never intended to work on NPCs' seems... well incorrect.
2) there is no imbalance. The benifit to rangers of the ability of camo from NPCs isnt something thats going to generate massive complaints from other players or make us 'uber'. What is the harm in this ability?
3) without NPCs it becomes a longer lastingmask scentthat you can also apply on others. Is this worth 14 skill points when added to faster crawling and some burst efficiency? Many would agree that it isnt.
4) there simply is no real reason that it should be removed
Cul
/bump
NRaas are you back my friend? Welcome to the carnage of what has become the Ranger(and other) profession forums.
