Ranger Archive

This thread has seriously shaken my faith in the development team. If I ever turned in code that did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do, I'd be fired --especially if my gaffes were immediately and instantly detected by 275,000 of my customers.

I know this has been asked so many times it's a cliche, but does anyone at Sony actually test this software before it goes out? Is there a QA team of any kind? Or do they make changes, slap them on test server and figure if no one complains, everything's okay?

And cliche question number two: Does anyone on the development team actually play this game? Ya know, even for little 30 minute test runs to see if code tweaks are doing what they were intended to do? How can you release code that has a Bounty Hunter 34 times as effective as a Master Ranger at a Master Ranger speciality skill?

Now, problems I can understand, I'm a programmer, too. Unexpected things happen, especially in something as complex as this undertaking. But if you can't even be bothered to see if game design changes are executing as expected, what can you be relied on for? I mean, how long did it take to document that maskscent works exactly opposite as intended? 30 minutes? Sheesh.

Needs corrospondent attention!

Seems right. I do get better results depending on creature, but then a few are actually worse (but then I do NOT hunt them using MS or conceal, not even close to efficient). I've done it enough to think the species of creature might have an effect... I have only been testing this for 2 nights so I'm not yet committed ot that.

I agree with some of your concerns. I have not found any time difference between my maskscent and conceal. In fact, the game now constantly gets them confussed. What I mean is I used /conceal and after it wore off I then went to maskscent. The program started telling me I could not use /maskscent and /conceal at the same time (Since /conceal has a scent masking element to it already presumably), but I wasn't suppose to have any /conceal left on me, thus the need to re-apply one or the other. This is a little frustrating because I don't want to use these costly camo kits everytime, and apparently you have to after you use it once because the program thinks you're still using it.

I agree they do not seem to take a characters advancement in their profession to heart when programing these things. If maskscent is earned by scouts and the camo kits are a more all over and advanced version giving you even more protection then it should not break. It is rather crazy that you are masked to the animal you just attacked but if they are pack attack critters all the rest of the pack suddenly zeros in on you like you had the biggest bulleye painted all over you, which makes using these skills for hunting almost useless when fighting a pack attack group. The whole group not only should not be able to find you as well, but this should throw them in a flight mode to get out of the area and away from their wounded companion. The animals in this game do not react like animals in the real universe at all. They have no self preservation instinct at all. Now it makes it so you don't have to go chasing down the rest of them which is nice, and if you are attacking them at their lair/nest then obviously aggresive territorial animals would not go that far, but they still try to save themselves when they can't discover where you are.

If we apply /conceal to our buddies then they should not get the experience points for their successful non-detection but rather the person that applied it to them. Their the ones that made it work since you can not sell these kits and be able to use them if you do not have the skills to make them yourself. There is where the person should earn some of those points is if they have the skill to apply it even if given the kit or they buy it, but other wise the player is having it applied to them by your expert skills not theirs.

I also do not see that duration of /conceal or /maskscent should have anything to do with gaining scouting exp. points. Granted for Master Rangers there isn't a lot of need but they still should get it. Who knows if they will eventually surrender master to acheive something else and then decide they want to go back. If they can't gain points in this area anymore then they are sunk.

Just my opinions on the subject.

Jolandir

LRI,

I'm paying attention the maskscent side of this, but the problem is that I can't wrap my brain around it.

There are too many conflicting reports, people with different perceptions and ideas about how Maskscent is supposed to work and their basing it off of three distinct time periods that are blending together.

I'm going to ask GreenMarine about this when I see him again, but until then, I'm just trying to figure out what the common, consistent issues are and where some patterns might emerge.

B

Too many conflicting reports? Well, I don't know. It seems that there are a "few" who don't seem to have a problem with maskscent, and they should consider themselves blessed, but there are a LOT more who have problems with it. I so far have not met a person in game who doesn't want to know why maskscent doesn't work. I've been threatened to be put out of a group if I used maskscent until we actually get to what we're hunting. Maskscent has cause my group of 6 on Endor to get wiped twice. Nobody else had maskscent and then I'm aggroed and then, well more spawns.......

All I'm saying, Delta, I'm glad this is working for you and for the few others, but for most of us, it's a royal pain.

Ahhh the joys of telling guild members, I'll take you out bantha hunting, then to get everybodykilled by a group of YELLOW dewbacks you're passing by. I'm still embarrassed about that. My Ranger Pride is failing me. If I did not have maskscent on, they would not have bothered.

Other classes get by without maskscent somehow. Isn't this supposed to be something that helps us? Well, for most of us out here, if we want to be safe, we do not travel with our "special ability" anymore.

Thank you for taking the time to test this! My gut was telling me the same thing, so it is nice to have a study backing it up.

Camo kits need to be cost-effective. Rangers, and particularly master rangers, need to be the least frequently aggroed players in the game.

Personally, I have found the resource difficulty of the camo kits to be excessive in terms of the advantage they present. They do seem to work better against NPCs than against creatures, and most of the camo breaks have been on creatures not NPCs.

I have seen that the camo kit does NOT work like MS in that if one creature detects you while you are Camo, it isgone.I have been detected by one creature only to have the MS work just fine against others.

My experience with MS has been good on Dantooine and Lok the past few nights. The only creatures that have a decent chance of breaking MS are the grassland voritor hunters (cl 55). Which I find to be expected. I can generally 80% of the time get past them while prone with MS. Conceal generally breaks far before I get to any CL55 creature, and on much lower CL creatures such as the savage quenkers (CL 24 or so).

I can accept the idea that MS/camo WILL break...and sometimes at ridiculous times (kreetles) but they do seem to need to be balanced more properly. I don't know how much the +15 Bothan bonus really helps since I'm experiencing the same weakness that others have expressed with conceal breaking very easily.

Kraki, Wanderhome

Ranger (4 3 2 4)

Rifleman(3 3 2 2)