Ranger Archive

Actually, the High Tech Field Base NOT disbanding is a GOOD THING. Trust me. We just ahve not had a chance to advance the game to the point where this is seen. For example, in establishing new bases for factions or even new player based towns. The HTFB has a crafting station built into it. this allows for much mroe creation to happen ON site instead of building it then transporting to the site and opening it up. Think about it in the scale of a Space Expansion.

General Acbar assignes a group of Player Characters to the establishment of the Next base similiar to Hoth. Remote, in the middle of no where. how are you gonna do it?

The game world is player driven and the game is so new that this scenario will play out, maybe on Endor or Lott. It is only a matter of time and there is just so much stuff that one could bring with them. I can almost see the Imperials trying to figure out how to attack them.

Excellent points.

Wayfaring -

while camoflage appears to help in mask scent successes, the removal of concealment/ ability to hide from humanoid NPC's hurt the Ranger profession badly. This ability needs to be returned, and possibly enhanced at the wayfaring IV level to allow the Ranger to remove his blip from other players' radar.

Frontiering -

the Ranger camps provide increased healing rates and reportedly hostile creature repulsion. They also have a lot more eye candy. I don't really see a whole lot that needs improvement for this skill line; the one thing that hurts Rangers more than anything is the inability to engage in combat and maintain a camp. Should the creature repulsion of the camp fail, the Ranger should be able to defend his camp without losing it. It could be argued that allowing this would mean that players would use the regen bonus of the ranger camp during combat, but I don't belive the bonus is significant enough to warrant destruction of the camp should the ranger enter combat. If you can fool an animal into believing you are not there, you can most certainly fool a human.

Bioscience -

Is relatively pointless in its current state. The amount being harvested from any creature doesn't change - nor does it appear to have a significant impact on the quality of what is being harvested. The to hit bonus isn't significant enough to matter, and the creature knowledge, while it does indicate any weaknesses and any increased effectiveness of weapons, still isn't enough to make this skill worthwhile at all. I would suggest an ability at level 2 that utilizes this creature knowledge to do something like make a hostile creature non-hostile, or to cause a creature to migrate away from the ranger's position (not run away, just wander off in the opposite direction)

Advanced Trapping

Is totally broken. The 2 traps you do get don't work, are area effect, which makes their usefulness very limited, and provide effects that lower level traps already provide. This entire tree needs to be reworked to provide a wider variety of traps that combine the effects of lower level traps, and unlock the ability for traps to affect creature handler pets. Rescue, I hate to say, is totally pointless. If it worked where a successful rescue removed the target from the hate list, and a failure resulted in the ranger taking the targets place on the hate list, I think it would be a much more interesting skill to use.

Rangers as an elite profession do not really bring much to the table for a group, save camps. They have zero PvP abilities for the higher end game, and have no major advantages at all over a master scout. The profession lacks any real definition over the scout tree, and lacks any real appeal for a person even mildly interested in PvP or the GCW. If the profession had some abilities and skills at the high end, it would certainly make the profession more rewarding to pursue, and bring some value to spending 60% of your skill points to attain. Rangers only have 1 real mechanism for making money, and that is killing and harvesting creatures, which essentially requires taking up a combat profession as well. Following a combat profession to its conclusion uses up the majority of the remaining skill points, meaning the only thing a Ranger is really bringing to a group are camps and damage output. Several other professions take up survival from the scouting tree, which provides camps that ranger camps are only nominally superior to, meaning that in an average medium to high skill level group, a Ranger brings no distinct advantages to a group.

All this doesn't mean the Ranger is unsalvagable. They just need to be rounded out and have a little more value for groups (like traps that work, and a wider variety of traps to use), better stealth, and a reason to train bioscience, as well as camps that have a marked benefit over survival IV camps.

The only other thing I can say is that I do like foraging - I have been able to find some pretty impressive foods on some of the more, er, challenging planets.

Mineras

I dont know how good this would be, but its just a thought: since traps are basically just thrown grenades with other effects, maybe it would be cool to be able to set traps and have creatures/people walk into them.

For example maybe fire at a creature, as its running toward you a trap couldgo offand have the same effect as adhesive mesh, the advantagebeing that you can be at a much longer range then traps can be thrown from, as well as not having to spend time throwing a trap when you could be shooting.

Or possibly set onebehind youup in case you are over-powered, you could be running away, the trap goes off and captures then enemy, allowing you to escape and heal up.

I see the Ranger profession as the person who runs ahead of the combat group scouting out the creatures, the land and anything else that needs to be seen. I think the ranger should be able to survive on their own for long periods of time, but also should be essential to a group of players telling them what lies ahead.

I was hoping there was some kind of skill that provided a beacon on the group's radar. I know you could simply tell them the waypoint, but I was hoping for some kind of skill whereby you could aim a laser or something ahead and 'mark' that position for the rest of the group to see. This way you could say, for example, 'there is a camp of Maulers up at this position *beacon*... would be best for you all to approach it from this direction *beacon*'. Or something like this.

Maybe also an ability to see creatures from further away. So you could sit ontop of a hill and see exactly what lies ahead, instead of stumbling apon it.

Even though the profession seems a little broken, I am looking forward to playing at least a master scout, but hopefully a ranger if I can find the skill points.

ShamadConde ... good suggestion! I try to do that right now when escorting a crafter friend through hostile terrority to pickup resources from harvesters.

I try to stay about 100m ahead of him but spawns sometimes theydon't "load" until you are almost right on top of them ... and that doesn't help when it's a pack of humanoids (mask scent is worthless here) ... I think the exploration line for Rangers should increase the "populated" radar range 100m per skill level. With this type of feature, Rangers would have the ability to navigate through very trechorous terrain without drawing aggro of any sort!

I am a Ranger / Pistoleer who has done MUCH hunting and am kinda dissappointed with Ranger skills. I will try and outline some improvements, some have already been mentioned and some I disagree with but hopefully this will be more complete. It almost seems like it doesn't pay to take this profession besides more hides per harvest.

Wayfaring Skill
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Wayfaring supposedly gives you better terrain negotiation and Mask scent skills. While mask scent works very well against creatures, isnt a master of the wilderness able to hide from anything else? You would think mask scent could be used as a conceal or at least grant an additional conceal ability here. Terrain negotiation really does improve but there are no burst run bonuses... there should be. I have fought binayre pirates that can keep up with me as I run away without burst... up hill and they are BLUE..... WTH is that?

Frontiering Skill
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First and foremost, this foraging / food issue needs to be dealt with. Surveyors get points for surveying and foragers, who MUST move around... don't get diddley. Also, the items foraged although very cool at times... are VERY filling and miraculously after eating 2 fruits you are full for about 70 hours. Shorten the food / drink times guys... PLEASE!

Now, I have never found a "rare item" when foraging... but given the outlook on the rest of this profession, I am betting that rare items are VERY rare and probably are along the lines of "Wow... I found a pen... I found a broken holodisc" I am praying that this rare foraging is something WELL worth all the deficeincies of ranger.

Ranger camps are fine and done well!

Field-Bioscience Skill
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PROBLEM
Harvest more hides... Great! Information about critters... Great! Better damage when shooting them... Great! Now, if the Ranger is so good with killing animals... how come he cant kill humanoids? That being said... Rangers have no advantage when it comes to selling hides. They should at least harvest "better" quality instead of just more quantity. We will never make any cash if our main talents can be duplicated by any scout at low levels... All he has to do is kill 1.5 of what we do!!! There should be some benefits here!

Advanced Trapping Skill
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PROBLEM
My BIGGEST problem with ranger is the trapping arena... Here we get the special ability "Rescue" where the fearless ranger can get someone P'ed off at them so they get attacked instead of their friend... Hmmm... What then? We certainly aren't a "combat" class so unless we are "rescuing" friends from critters... We basically are saying "Hey, dont kill him... kill me!"

The traps also really BLOW! A ranger without any sort of posion or traps that can cause animals to bleed stats. I have mesh that roots a creature for 10 seconds!!! Oh, did I mention that the very same mesh that can hold a tortor bull in place cant even slow up an NPC human?

I think since we are talking trapping, there should be some other types of traps that could be made as well as "Animal Harvesters".... You know... Like a pit with spikes that you dig and every now and then, like a harvester you check your traps and harvest resources.

OVERALL: Rangers need some fleshing, otherwise a bounty hunter or any master scout class can do pretty much the same thing. Also, what about PVP or Faction Wars... Maybe they can help with enemy creature handlers but thats about it! And please, please, please... If the hardest skill in the game to build... yeilds FRUIT or PENS when I find a "rare" item.... I will simply go postal

SUGGESTION TO IMPROVE/FIX
Remove the Rescue skill. Rangers are not "tanks". Give them something better, like maybe "Frighten Creature" and make the thing run away instead; the last thing I want is something that is mauling another player to starting beating on weak-old-me. Rangers need traps ... LOTS of traps. Lots of variety. Rangers should get at *least* twice as many traps that are available to Scouts.