Ranger Archive

I've noticed the "stalking" but they always go to the point they first saw me visually and loose me. It's almost dependable enough to use as a hunting techneque.

Mask scent xp, like it ever made a difference anyhow -wow a few pts here and there and who really cares.

Does it work -I think it does. When I remember to use it, I wander blissfully through mobs of red beasties, whomping lil crazed durnis on the head for wooley hides to sell, and have not been mob aggro'd once. When I forget to use it, not often, I was mobbed by the same crazed durnis and was almost forced to run for my life. TY Ardeth, great blasters you make - kisses and hugs - here, take my money - it is well spent.

I routinely check out red mob lairs before harvesting the creatures. As far as I can remember, once did it fail, and that was on canoids - they swarm and the momma is a bear to kill I can tell ya. And this is in literally hundreds of harveting missions.

My group partners put me on point for the simple fact I can go see what the lil red dots are before we get into combat with em. We then choose to engage or detour, depending on our mission, time constraints, and the xp challenge.

I like it, I use it, don't give a vrelts patoot if it gives xp or not. And when conceal comes out, I will be the invisible man.

JB

Currently sitting in the wilds of Dantooine, wondering if the sun will ever come up.

I guess if you expect to have mask scent work without fail all the time, then you might consider it broken. I would also imagine if you were grinding xp with this skill and are expecting a return to that "tactic" you might consider it broken.

I don't agree with either of those scenarios. Before the patch, you couldn't consistently run past a gnort group without it being broken. Now, I run with it on all the time. It rarely, if ever, breaks. No, I don't go strolling through a group of tusk cats expecting them to behave like a bunch of tabbys.And yes, there's been occasion when it agro'd a group of "yellow" cons.I'll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday compared to how it used to work. Now, having missions pop next to red-con agro mobs isn't an automatic invite to abort. Servicing harvesters in the middle of a pack of reds isn't an automatic trip to the cloner.Used with but an ounce ofcaution, this skill allows travel almost anywhere.

The main bug here with maskscent is that it does not report when it has been broken. What this leaves us with is some Rangers who don't see a problem with it (because it does not break) and others who do see a problem with it (because it DOES break but they never get a message, so they think it just does not work).

I've tested this dozens of times now. Even on Stalkers. The first time one starts traking me, I just Un-mask (by hitting the maskscent button) then re-mask again. Then I run through the group again. Whalla.....they ignore me.(usually...sometimes they break it again and I'm off to the races...again:smileyvery-happy Same thing while I'm fighting. With MS up I get a good 5 shots off before I'm noticed. Without it I get 2 off. So it's easy to see when it's not working and I just re-mask and everything goes back to normal.

I dont expect Maskscent to never fail. I dont even care about getting experience for using it (I've Never earned this fabled Maskscent experiance).

I do expect to be able to move through nests without being stalked at least SOME times. As of now, I have been stalked 100% of the time (if they are stalkers). I can move through kreetle nests and feral bantha herds just fine (most of the time), but when it comes to stalkers I am stalked and attacked every single time!

I do expect to get some sort of warning that my masking is working or not.

I do expect to be able to move around high level NON-aggressive creatures without fear of being detected and ATTACKED! Why does something that is normally docile decide to stomp me into the ground if it detects me with maskscent, but has no problem with my presence when un-masked?!

I am VERY happy that you are not experiancing these problems. Consider yourself lucky, but do not deny that maskscent is broken as it very obviously is.

I do not expect maskscent to allow me to move everywhere unmolested 100% of the time, but as a Master Ranger my ability to maskscent is more detrimental than beneficial!

Here is my theory. I was having the same problem with maskscent. Stalked all the time, attacked by non-aggro creatures. I stopped using it. Then, a while later, I started using it again. It has been very very nice to me. Not perfect, but highly reliable. Maybe I'm just lucky now... or maybe the levels I gained in Wayfaring are making the difference.

Does anyone have a counter-example with high maskscent skill being attacked by non-aggros?

I have an example:

A lone Master Ranger, running through the Eastern Dune Sea on his way to the oasis for alittle fishing. He crests a dune to see a herd of rontos milling about, lazily in the twin suns of Tatooine. As he feels safe strolling through the heedless herd of docile giants, out of nowhere he is detected and quickly thrashed to an incapacitated pulp by the herds bulls...

Those are the lowest level creatures to do such a thing to me. Must have been a very unlucky maskscent roll.

Guys,

Maskscent is now working properly on TC.

So this issue will finally go bye bye when its pushed to the live servers.

B

Guys,

I don't usually do this, but here's a snippet of a conversation that I had with the Scout dev about Maskscent a while back.

Me: "Personally, I'm of the opinion that it is a skill that increases your survivability in the wild. Thus, if you are consistently using it, you are going to be able to get around quicker, without having to divert around mobs
as much. You will get some XP, but the primary value will be in your overall survivability."

Scoutdev: "It is a skill to increase survivability. There is an additional goal of trying to hook in more gameplay around sneaking up to creatures. Creature Handlers use to get close to prospective marks ...I'd like to come up with more ways ot make mask scent useful in combat or in normal gameplay."

So there's what maskscent is all about from the eopie's mouth.

Maskscent shouldn't make us invisible, but it also shouldn't be a liability either.

B

what i have noticed about stalking mobs is this they seem to go after the location you were in when they notice you. If you keep moving they follow for a bit and give up, if you stop for any reason they creep up and attack eventually. Also some mobs seem to be broken and ignore MS completly. Choku on yavin are one that comes too mind. And alot of insect mobs are like this as well. But it works great most of the time. stood in the middle ofa pack of grauls on dath for 25 mins and moved around while taming 6 baby grauls. didn't get aggroed once.

I would really like to hear the dev's definition of how it's supposed to work. I am of the opinion that most of the time it's working the way it's supposed to and would even go so far as to say it is giving us some of the abilities we've been asking for such as "lure" as I've spent whole days on Dantooine using maskscent to lure huurtons into bol pack lairs and such. Granted, it sometimes takes me hours to complete a mission this way for a measly 10k that I could have earned 3 times over and I end up with little or no hide to show for it, but it's fun. Using the staking creatures, waiting till they turn towards you but obviously aren't agroed yet, just curious, then "lead" them into he middle of a pack of their enemies where a fight then ensues. Sometimes the mask breaks but if you have them close enough to the bols, then the bol might start attacking and draw the agro from you or you just burstrun. If you "assist" the bols against the huurtons or voritors, then you'll get combat, weapon, and trapping xp with little chance of drawing agro yourself (hence no damage, battle fatigue, any negatives at all except using up resources and degrading your weapon). If you're lucky you might even get to harvest from the corpse. Of course, you can do bleedshot and sometimes wounds on the bols too, but you had better be far enough out of range when the hurrton goes down because then the bol's are coming after you. I've even had them break from combat and come after me, so you should probably only attack the one the huurton is attacking. The biggest problem I often have is figuring out that distance that is most likely to get them to get interested without drawing agro, but still interesting enough for them to keep following. Of course, if I stand still and they get enough interest, they will come up and attack me (and no, the cologne doesn't wear off just because one creature attacked me), even through death sometimes. This is exactly like I would expect it to work. There may be times it didn't work, but that's the whole idea of having a camo skillmod.

I guess Ive been fairly Lucky, I am 4-3-4-4 on the Ranger tree and when I use Mask scent I can run next to to Mottled Wrix's, Sludge Panthersall of these guys are RED aggro and fairly difficult to fight. It will occsionaly break with bird style creatures but thats it. I also just looked it up on the HOLOCRON in game, and although they tell us to go their for info it still says good for beast and NPC masking. hehe its never worked the latter for me, but maybe conceal will when it comes. Personaly I Love this skill and now at this level it must last like 20 minutes or so never really timed it. At lower levels say below level2 Ranger tree it did break often, just keep climbing the tree guys it gets much better at Lvl 4. Tks and good hunting to all.

Last,

Here's why maskscent is broken, from my perspective:

1.) No XP - Prior to the big update, we were getting XP from creatures. I have been on every single planet since the update, and have fun around the lowest level aggressive critters, like Hermit Spiders, to the highest level aggressive creatures, like Kimogilas. I have not gotten a single point of XP from Maskscent since the update. Maskscent is supposed to grant XP on a successful sneak. The trade off for having it work more often and break less often was a decrease in the amount of XP you get per sneak, not a decrease in the amount of times you'd get the XP.

2.) Very rare "Despite your camo..." spam - I can count on one hand the times that I've gotten the "despite your camo..." spam. And that was around groups of yellows. This isn't supposed to happen. We may be great in PvE, but even we are going to get detected by the odd Rancor or Kimo. The fact that we're never getting detected isn't right. Plus, we should get detected much more often if we are running past the creature, because of the running penalty, than if we are walking or crawling. Right now, there's no difference.

3.) Random aggro - We're getting aggrooed by random creatures at random times with maskscent up. I was hunting Snorbals on Lok...they're big, they're yellow. And every once in a while, I'd get a random attack from one of them, always with maskscent on. When I dropped maskscent, it didn't happen. We're not supposed to be randomly attacked - only when maskscent is broken and this is only possible with reds, not yellows.

4.) Low level scouts are being massacred - While we're getting the good end of the stick with Maskscent making us almost invisible, lower level Scouts are being constantly aggroed by EVERYTHING because they don't have the camo bonus we've got. So they've stopped using it all together to keep from turning into an animal magnet.

Maskscent is supposed to work like this: You throw it up, and you have a pretty good chance of skirting around a creature at a mid level range, and you get XP for it. The closer you get running, the more likely it breaks. If you slow to a walk, you'll last longer. If you get down on your face and crawl, you'll be able to sneak up on them and sample DNA or tame them if you are a CH from relative safety. And all of this is based on your level as compared with the level of the critter you are going after.

Hope this clears this up.

B