Ranger Archive
Thread: Can a Master Ranger save our Economy?
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tekniko
Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:39 am
#14
Gryshnak wrote:This idea was based on the fact that the only way a ranger is effective is if you have a fighting skill to compliment it. If you think about what is actually required to go out and trap, you do not need to be carrying a weapon.
Think about it again and you never need to fire a simgle shot.
Use maskscent and go exploring. You'll earn scouting XP.
Set up a camp and sit in it for a while. Go fishing. You'll earn wilderness survival XP.
Keep your vehicle handy, dismount, unequip your weapons, throw traps at large critters, mount up, run. You'll earn trapping XP.
A Ranger could be effective without any weapon skills. Not terribly exciting, nor quick to advance, but effective if effective means that said Ranger is earning XP.
Calculus_Entropy
Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:56 am
#15
I may be way off base here, but it sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it, too. You want to get free meat.
You know you can potentially work that out without taking away the combat side of Ranger. Many Docs have struck bargains with Rangers where the Doc provides buffs, wound healing, and stims in exchange for the Ranger to harvest the meat they need (all gratis, of course).
BTW, Rangers are trying thier hardest to be recognized as a combat related profession, so I doubt you will convince many of us that Ranger should be viable without combat.
xixi
Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:12 am
#16
I'm actually 100% for this--provided, of course--that the skill is limited to Master Ranger. Would be easy enough to do. Resource quality and experimentation points rewarded at master would determine max base extraction rate and storage... yada yada. Then we could deploy traps similar to the way we deploy camps. Put your harvestor in the wrong place, you'll get little or nothing, just like it works with every other resource.
(Just a practicality issue that came up while I was thinking about this... As it stands, we harvest to determine resource quality, which is equivalent to sampling in artisan.We'd need some sort oftool for the surveying aspect so we can locatequantity spawn points. That, too, might be granted at Master--the ability to craft and use such a tool, same as jedis crafting sabers.
Yes, I can hear the devs groaning at having to add another layer into the resource spawn arena. Sorry.
Also, make sure creature loot is not obtainable in traps. Could you even imagine the uproar if we could trap a krayt and get pearls and scales? /rofl
Hmm... on second thought, maybe that's not such a bad idea)
And to be perfectly honest, too much of my playtime isworktime, with so many profs dependent upon us for creature resources, my happy fun hunting time is limited to what I or they need. The same creatures over... and over... and over again.
Now, I don't mind giving upa couple hours here and there to help someone out. But in order to get enough resource to allow for factory runs--which, as was mentioned, is what our crafters truly need--we're talking about a pretty big time commitment.
If you're into that kind of thing, more power to you. But speaking for myself, I play this game to avoid work, not do more.
So harvestors would buy me some time to go beat up other things, maybe indulge in some content, and contribute to the demand side of the economy while(passively, for a bit) doing a portion of my supply-side duties.
At any rate, the next publish looks like nirvana for the instant gratification crowd with decreased waits for everything, and we've already seen the starport waits drop to 1 minute (THANK YOU!!!! /hug devs)
Our resource burden gratification wouldn't be instant, but it would sure put some playtime back into this character.
----Skip the rest if you're not interested in the economical impact----
So thanks, Tsiana. It's a great idea, and I'm behind it all the way. One of my toons is a doc, too, and I feel your pain, believe me. If you don't buy your buffs and sit outside the starport endlessly, you're pretty much guaranteeing yourself a life of poverty, with much of your time spent chasing obscenely expensive and elusive resources. (Or getting another account so you can have your very own harvesting bot)
I think most people here are very territorial on the resource issue because it's often their sole source of income, as they have a right to be. But as someone else suggested, we're sitting on a NASDAQ.com-esque bubble right now that's due to pop any second for most of us. And I think an idea like this would improve everyone's game experience considerably. Those rangers who prefer to hunt and harvest only by hand, so to speak, would be free to do so at a much faster and higher rate than those who'd supplement by harvesting--thereby retaining their value.
Meanwhile, more creature resource is available to all the dependent profs. Which, believe me, is a good thing, or we'll end up pricing ourselves right out of the market. There's a situation going on with ranged weaponry in this galaxy right now that should illustrate that point. TRY to find a decent pistol out there without paying millions. Go on. I dare ya. With the combat rebalance coming up, certain weaponsmiths are going to be very sorry they didn't keep things reasonable and allow people to purchase decent guns at decent prices when they had a chance. (Ranged weapons will have more value than ever before, only no one will have the credits to buy them once missions become much harder than they are now)
And we'll be sorry, too, if we don't find a way to meet demand without having to charge super-high CPU prices. Right now that's fine because we can kill pretty much anything we need, whenever we need it. That won't be true after the rebalance. Imagine what an asset harvestors would be then, when it will take us untold hours of our valuable playtime to kill and harvest in any marketable quantity. Not to mention, no one but the uber crafters will be able to afford our product.
What I'm saying is, that right now, our economy is ruled exclusively by the PvP supply side. Chefs, docs, WS, AS, looters can charge as much as they like because the PvPers have no choice but to pay it, or they can't win--which is the goal of their gaming experience, bless their hearts. And because of this, a small minority of crafters have the credits to buy up all the uber resources at outrageous prices, pepetuating a cycle that's brought us to the present state of our economy.
Excuse me. Had a slight socialist moment there, didn't I? Sorry, but with this rebalance coming up, we'll have an even bigger separation of the classes than we do now. And it's already hard enough for a newb to get established and contribute (and have ANY fun at all) the way it is, thank you very much.
I'm sure there was a reason for NOT making harvestors for creature resources possible. Okay, it made people like me buy more accounts so I could be more self-sufficient, so they sold product. Great. But other people are fleeing in droves and cancelling their accounts because it's dang hard to get established. So the scarcity of creature resources has contributed mightily to our present ganked-up economy.
Time to re-think this, please.
Thanks--
X
ForceFielding
Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:38 am
#17
The only thing that will save our economy is a 1.5% tax on all credits in the game every week ... they already figured out with the solo credits nerf that once everyone has 2 billion credits that credits would be meaningless. They forgot to add a credit sink to go with it however.
There is just too many credits otherwise the economy is fine. Docs pay 200 cpu for avian meat cause they can flip it for 100% profit.
Sorry but this idea is not good for the economy. It's basically the same reason why if everyone was allowed to have 5 characters per account per server then they would just make 2 mains and 3 mules and never have to buy anything from other players ever again (going in that direction .. is worse than inflation)
GrigsOnia
Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:45 am
#18
Biggest problem I see is you will have tons of crafters getting alt characters just to harvest. You are taking away the need to spend time harvesting, which will kill the meat market for the people who need it most, the rangers.
frightwig
Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:53 am
#19
Calculus_Entropy wrote:I may be way off base here, but it sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it, too. You want to get free meat.You know you can potentially work that out without taking away the combat side of Ranger. Many Docs have struck bargains with Rangers where the Doc provides buffs, wound healing, and stims in exchange for the Ranger to harvest the meat they need (all gratis, of course).BTW, Rangers are trying thier hardest to be recognized as a combat related profession, so I doubt you will convince many of us that Ranger should be viable without combat.
QFE..
Cryos_Merovingian
Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:56 am
#20
Bassnet13 wrote:
I know everyone plays a different style of game - but if you've got a few friends with combat skills, you as the Ranger don't have to do the killing. A while back when I was tagging along with some Padawan friends who were grinding on Rancor lairs, I decided to start harvesting. All I can say is too bad that meat wasn't uber, because I got a TON of it and I never fired a shot.
QFE
This is especially true given the advent of the FS grind. Lots of combat players running around killing stuff and just leaving them there for waste. Get a friend who's grinding FS xp and hopefully he'll kill the stuff you need!
now that's an MMORPG
Alpha_Cluster
Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:26 am
#21
Gryshnak wrote:
I just did.
What affects will this have on SWG?
1) Master Ranger will be more desirable.
Why does that matter? I mean there are already rangers and the current number is ok why do you say we need more?
2) Players will no longer be required to have a fighting skill in order to harvest their own creature resources if they don't want to.
Doesn't matter ppl already have fighing skills anyways or go with a group!
3) Higher supply = lower demand = lower prices to doctors = cheaper buff prices? = players stop complaining.
Shut up about buff prices 10k is a ok price for it i make tht easly unbuffed and if buffed its likemaybe one mission!
Since the solo group nerf, players do not have as much money and will not be able to pay these high prices too much longer anyway.
Oh no now you have to WORK to get 1 mill see how much i care i currently have 70k and i dont care!
Let me know your thoughts.
ubb
Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:16 pm
#22
Well I do think the economy needs to bechanged but I am not sure it should be forced on us. I mean we as players turned this economy into what it is so we as players should change it. Maybe resources should be made a lot more abundant at times and less at others sort like in RL. I feel bad at times charging the prices I see so with certain customers I drop prices from whatever they are asking (now that I can afford to do that). This is just from my own exp but because of these high prices for everything it made me interact with other players a lot more, even joining a great guild.Right now because I have a little cash in the bank I dont mind the situation but Iam for any idea (mostly player based)of some kind of reform but it would have to be across the board for all profs. I would hate to have nice 12pointer get in my crosshairs and my gun jams because I couldnt afford a new t-21. Just my 2cents.
Hobbytla
Fri Feb 04, 2005 6:32 am
#23
I'm not sure if I understand why it's so important that the killing is done with combat?
The only difference would be that the player could actually choose how to spend their skillpoints and not be forced into a specific template just because they want to be a ranger which is a big commitment in itself of skillpoints.
However - the trapping would need to be done as the other scout/ranger trapping - ATK.
This would not take anything away from a combat/ranger, effect prices or anything, only add a feature which would mean that a master ranger could actually have a choice in how to spend the remaining skillpoints and not be forced into a specific template.
And as long as the master ranger would have to be ATK to hunt, who cares what method would be used?
What about being able to first temporarily blind the animalby one of the lower level traps, so the ranger cansneak up and put out the "harvest trap" and if successful is then able to harvest. Or make use of burst run in case of failure 
Or possibly be able to put out a trap and then lure an animal into it... or ... well... something like that.
About a doc now being able to also harvest - last time I checked being a master doc and a master ranger would require you to have 280 sp to spend. So the danger of a doc having an alt as a ranger mule is just about as big as it is today.
I don't however support an AFK trapping/harvesting feature. 
I am just one of those people who would enjoy being a ranger and choose how to spend the "few" remaining skillpoints. Because 140 points IS a lot. I don't think that takes away anything from the people who want to be combat/ranger anyway though.
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