Ranger Archive

Exactly right. Ive been arguing this point for months now, I feel to little effect sometimes.... This is why I never make a suggestion of a skill point reduction without also tying it in to vast profession enhancements. Ultimately I think theres only one progression that a revamp can take, and only by doing it this way is it due for success. That is

1. Definition of a role. This must come first above all things, even if it means that ultimately we have to give up some of what we do in order to focus on our remaining "core."

2. Restructuring of the ranger/scout trees. Once they know what we need to be skilled at, they can make the appropriate changes to both scout and ranger to make it happen.

3.Enhancements to the core ranger skills. The final filling in of the gaps to make sure our skills are worthy of an elite skillset.

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Phenix1050 wrote:

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BioEngine wrote:

You all do realise that if the developers cared about anything we typed here, they would post /munches on popcorn right?

They don't plan on doing anything with our profession. Just ignoring it for as long as they can. Right now, the main reason that I am sticking with Master Ranger is that it will be extremely difficult to regrind another profession with the xp changes they have made.

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Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

Message Edited by Phenix1050 on 08-18-2005 11:19 AM

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*yoink* Into my sig, that goes .

I must be very un-productive then...

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Phenix1050 wrote:
Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

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Remember that negativity can also be the catalyst of productivity.

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DaveG wrote:

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Phenix1050 wrote:
Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

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Remember that negativity can also be the catalyst of productivity.

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Not in a healthy corporate culture. Negativity leads to cycles of blame and excuse, where as a positive attitude leads to action and results. Even in social cultures, positive moves and attitude make more lasting and meaningful changes (peaceful sit-ins vs. terrorism).

That was a great analysis Nemo - I am really enjoying this thread! one of the ideas I toyed with and discarded during all the CU discussions was to make Ranger a total toolbox. Two lines of Scout necessary for Novice Ranger, but they can be any two you choose (similar to the FS system where you choose any six to unlock Jedi). Then every line after that would have the pre-req of the Corresponding line in Scout. For example, picking up exploration and hunting in Scout would allow you to train in Wayfaring and Tracking in Ranger. This would also have to come with a signifigant revamp to make the skill trees unique and powerful. Anyone who picked up all four Scout trees could master Ranger and have a large amount of diverse skills, or you could use "flavors" of Ranger to diversify your template.

Problems with this are 1) The problem with mods that Seriyuu pointed out. 2) Making sure the trees were balanced in usefulness so there would not be a FotM Ranger template (like Ranger 0030 is for most dabblers now). 3) The fact that it all hinges on a revamp first.

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:

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Phenix1050 wrote:

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BioEngine wrote:

You all do realise that if the developers cared about anything we typed here, they would post /munches on popcorn right?

They don't plan on doing anything with our profession. Just ignoring it for as long as they can. Right now, the main reason that I am sticking with Master Ranger is that it will be extremely difficult to regrind another profession with the xp changes they have made.

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Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

Message Edited by Phenix1050 on 08-18-2005 11:19 AM

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*yoink* Into my sig, that goes .

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Does anyone present any evidence here?

Fact: The Scouting forums have had more Dev attention in the last few months than we have in twice that amount of time. I.E. they posted there.

Fact: The Devs did not listen to our feedback regarding Survival xp, and did not even ask for feedback or notify our correspondent regarding the Camoflauge Kit being given out to everyone to use before they pushed it to Test Center.

Fact: The Devs did not address camoflauge or mask scent being more of a negative feature of our profession for the months after this "I have a higher CL than you, which means you don't attack me unless I am within 5 meters of you" stuff.

Fact: The Devs stated that Rangers / Squad Leaders / Smugglers were going to get revamps, then they stated that there would not be revamps, and instead would be mini fixes and additions "every so often," then they do Creature Handlers and Jedi and Bounty Hunters which weren't even scheduled for revamps. Squad Leaders will be getting something soon, but what is to say that some other profession won't get something after they do, pushing back any love we may or may not be getting further back to, say,4 months from now?

Your move.

We know all that BioE, I don't think we want to hijack Nemo0's thread rehashing it though. Even if hijacking is an old and Ranger tradition.

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Vorpaks wrote:

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DaveG wrote:

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Phenix1050 wrote:
Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

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Remember that negativity can also be the catalyst of productivity.

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Not in a healthy corporate culture. Negativity leads to cycles of blame and excuse, where as a positive attitude leads to action and results. Even in social cultures, positive moves and attitude make more lasting and meaningful changes (peaceful sit-ins vs. terrorism

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Seems we have different interpretations of the terms then. "Negativity" can be healthy, to a point. To me, zero-negativity means corporate yes-men who don't know thier arse from their elbow (actually don't get me started on corporate culture. Edit: IMHO, "A healthy corporate environment" is a contradiction in terms!). Comparing peaceful sit-ins versus terrorism is a little over the top, especially when most terrorists are either violent criminals or religious zealots - both camps being completely populated by fruit-cakes. However, The people who do peaceful sit-ins are "negative" in as much as they aren't afraid to say something needs changing. Ergo - Negativity is fine as long as it's qualified in the first place.

Message Edited by DaveG on 08-19-2005 11:12 AM

Everyone in this forum is negative...the issue is with those who are never anything other than negative.

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Everyone in this forum is negative...the issue is with those who are never anything other than negative.

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I'd say the issue is with people who are either positive or negative without having a good reason to be.

Anyway, now that Calc has been pwned at the cryptic sniping game, back to the topic.
(/target calc; /wookieehug)

FWIW, I broadly agree with what Phenix said above, regarding the analogy to the current medic/doc/cm/be model.

I've spent a lot of time thinking where 'we' can go with Ranger, and more often than not, I've come down thinking that a workable solution would be to split the profession into two, each needing two lines of scout as a pre-requisit (has the virtue of making master scout optional). Having said that, I think it's clear that we're not going to get anything like that done in the near futuer by virtue of what Tiggs told everyone.

I think that Ranger is in such a position that there are no fundamental "quick fixes" for us, and in that respect we're not going to be revamped/upgraded/changed for quite sometime, despite previous promises we were given.

On the other hand though, we all know our beloved profession is riddled with little bugs, and IMHO this comes under the remit of "bug fixes", which is what the devs have pushed back all the profession revamps for. So, I think that for now, we ought to just push for the little bug fixes to get done. That way, we may not be getting our revamp because of this back-logged bug fixing period, but at least we can get something out of it.

(There you go, this was an example of qualified negativity. )

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DaveG wrote:
(There you go, this was an example of qualified negativity. )

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and that makes all the difference.

Listen, getting slapped in the face and saying "thank you" is not my style. In a situation like that, you can point to a specific incident and say that it was bad. You can judge it negaively. That's not the problem. The problem is when you take that slap in the face and start saying "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, i'll never have a friend, etc.". It's that absolute (and unqualified negativity which is completely useless for getting change accomplished. A yes-man who never says something is wrong is useless as well. But given a choice between an overly negative person and an overly positive person, I'll take positivity, because while they both may accomplish nothing, the positive person at least has a good attitude. Whiny people get hard to listen to...fast.

In the end, we must all use our judgement. Are there things wrong with Ranger? Of course...but everybody knows that. There's no need to re-hash it. and when we turn our broken skills into wildly outlandish statements like " the devs don't care what we think" and stuff like that...well, we start to sound like a lot of the kids on the Jedi forum. Not my idea of role models. Nobody is saying critisism is bad. Looking at the game in an open-minded manner often neccesitates a bit of negative reaction. Such as "this system is foolish" or "this skill was broken in the last patch, please fix it." You can look at this game and go "from their history, SOE is likely going to have us wait for our fixes. That's a whole lot different than saying "the devs don't care about us, they're never going to fix us.

Absolutes are rarely (if ever) right. So yes, being positive can be bad. But if a person can objectively look at the situation and see the problems, positivity is more effective. I'd rather work with a guy who can see the problems and says "together, we can fix this" than work with a guy who sees all the good things but still says "we're doomed, we'll never fix it."

Thats's what I meant by Negativity is the antithesis of productivity.

Yes indeed, Phenix.

With regard to the Jedi-whining comparisson. There is an interesting observation to be made, as long as I choose my words carefully. Whether the devs really care about Ranger or not, I believe it is fair to say (to them) that they have, at least, given the impression of apathy towards rangers (in fact there are numerous examples which go beyond apathy). Furthermore, all those less-than constructive Jedi-whiners, do indeed seem to get more attention. Coincidence or consequence? I don't know, but I do know where the devs have directed their efforts, and it does seem to set a precident, one which is unfortunate for many professions, including us.

All I'd say to the devs is that their decisions have formed, and reinforced, a certain impression of their priorities. If we are incorrect in the impression that we have formed, then will they please do something that would prove us wrong.

The devs have said on multiple occassions that their first priority is addressing whatever is at the top of Customer Service's complaint list. Whether whining is involved or not is irrelavent. That hoards of whiny people are more likely to make use of CS resources than well-behaved, improvising, mature adults is not...

We aren't the squeeky wheel. Or at least not the squeekiest.