Ranger Archive
Thread: APOCALYPSE NOW, MY REPLY TO JEDI
Although, I have now gone and read the Jedi thread and appear to have stopped laughing.
(I LOVE this thread title btw! The horror.....the horror.....)
*puts on the Braveheart paint*
They can take our homes!
They can take our lives!
But they can't take OUR HARVESTING!
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Hi - I thought that we as a forum are against petitions, esp. ones that use big fonts.
But I don't know how I feel about this -- would someone please summarize for me why we should object to jedi's harvesting (forgive me if I don't read the five pages offlames, rants, and incoherent babbleon the jedi forum -- that really is the worst forum on these boards).
On my server (Bloodfin), there are not enough people who are willing to harvest, so prices for all sorts of organics go through the roof (Cor. avian just hit 175 cpu). The newer crafters have to harvest their own stuff or do without, which reduces their ability to compete with more established crafters, etc.... More people who are willing to harvest wouldn't seem to hurt this situation any.
It seems to me that even on the slight chance that the dev even begin to begin entertaining the idea of jedi harvesting, they won't get harvesting skills that are that much above novice scout. Also it seems to me that the danger inherent in using a light-saber tokillthings (ie., tef + on terminals) will make it very difficult for them to harvest stuff. I don't see a jedi going out and hunting uber cor. avian meat (or even uber dat. herb meat) because it would seem to me that it would be very risky for a jedi to be seen harvesting these these things.
I suppose that we might have two objections:
- first, that an uber jedi will be able to out harvest us because he or she has better combat skills than us and can thus kill things more quickly and harvest more. OK - this is a good objection, but it applies really to all sorts of profs., as any uber combat char can pick up novice scout and in certain situations drastically out-harvest us.
- second, and this seems the most reasonable objection, is that we have invested skill points in being able to harvest, whereas jedi have not, so they are essentially getting one of our most prized abilities for free. Whereas our skill point investment acutally reduces our combat effectiveness, or, for that matter, our effectiveness as droid engineers or at anything else non-rangerish that we might want to do, the jedi now want harvesting tacked onto their skill set at apparently no cost to their other abilities.
Now, objection #2 does seem to be very compelling to me, so I think that we might want to stress this -- I don't think threats to hunt or harvest jedi are really going to change dev. minds (as if they will need changing). Ok - jedis maybe should be the all-time elite combat class, but there really should be a limit to their abilities, and I think thatdenying them the ability to harvest stuff would certainly be within this limit.
It seems really ironic that back in the olden days we rangers were so keen to help the jedis out, but now we all really hate them. Of course, now that most of us have dealt with the type of player that controls most (though not all) of the jedis, I can certainly understand this.
Iseult
Master Ranger / Mediocre Pistoleer
Bloodfin
-- double post sorry --
Message Edited by Iseult on 04-06-2004 09:13 AM
To the above poster... just to give you an idea of how much a jedi kills...
I typically kill right around 150 Rancors (of all shapes and sizes) per hour. Sometimes more... sometimes less depending on the spawns. How much does a rancor give in meat at Novice Scout? 70? 80? Let's say 70 for this demonstration.
That's 10.5K of meat PER HOUR.
I hunt typically 5 hours a day during the week. That's 52.5K a day. I hunt almost everyday. That's 262.5K a week. But wait... I haven't included weekends yet. On Saturdays I usually hunt for twice that much... from the time I get up till perhaps I go out and do something with friends or what not. On Sunday I usually go another 8 hours. That's another 190K
So... for the week... that's around 450K of meat. And I'm going to be killing those creatures whether I can harvest them or not. That's the sort of schedule you need to advance your jedi character.
Now imagine if say 20 jedi are playing on a server this much. That's an influx of an extra 10 million units of organic resources per week (or thereabouts). What do you think that sort of flood will do to the organic market? How much is available now in large stacks like that? And that's with 20 jedi who power level their chars.... that's a conservative guess at how many really grind their jedi.
Jedi having the ability to harvest doesn't REALLY affect a Ranger or a Scout. You can still harvest as much as you could before... but when your meat/hide is now only worth 5 cpu FOR THE GOOD STUFFbecause the market is flooded and supply has kicked demand to the curb... how are you going to feel then?
MatchstickNaritus wrote:
To the above poster... just to give you an idea of how much a jedi kills...
I typically kill right around 150 Rancors (of all shapes and sizes) per hour. Sometimes more... sometimes less depending on the spawns. How much does a rancor give in meat at Novice Scout? 70? 80? Let's say 70 for this demonstration.
That's 10.5K of meat PER HOUR.
I hunt typically 5 hours a day during the week. That's 52.5K a day. I hunt almost everyday. That's 262.5K a week. But wait... I haven't included weekends yet. On Saturdays I usually hunt for twice that much... from the time I get up till perhaps I go out and do something with friends or what not. On Sunday I usually go another 8 hours. That's another 190K
So... for the week... that's around 450K of meat. And I'm going to be killing those creatures whether I can harvest them or not. That's the sort of schedule you need to advance your jedi character.
Now imagine if say 20 jedi are playing on a server this much. That's an influx of an extra 10 million units of organic resources per week (or thereabouts). What do you think that sort of flood will do to the organic market? How much is available now in large stacks like that? And that's with 20 jedi who power level their chars.... that's a conservative guess at how many really grind their jedi.
Jedi having the ability to harvest doesn't REALLY affect a Ranger or a Scout. You can still harvest as much as you could before... but when your meat/hide is now only worth 5 cpu FOR THE GOOD STUFFbecause the market is flooded and supply has kicked demand to the curb... how are you going to feel then?
Well, I'm not sure I buy your figures -- 150 rancors per hour is, what, 2.5 rancors per minute? The last time I was on Dathomir, they didn't exist in that density. Now, maybe there is a place that I don't know about where you can just stand around and take out rancor after rancor (but what jedi in his right mind would do this), but it seems that just the need to find this many rancors to kill would neccessarily lower your kill rate. Now, would there really be 10-20 of these spots around at the same time so that every power-leveling jedi would be able to avail themselves of such spots. Wow- are we playing the same game?
But even if we do imagine some rancor-heaven where rancors spawn over and over again and 10-20 jedi can go and kill them simulatneously and no bounty hunter or imperial player with a grudge for jedi will ever think to visit the afore-mentioned rancor heaven, then there are still some obvious holes in your arguments:
1) You assume that all creatures drop as much as rancors -- erm, no, not really - in fact, not hardly
2) You assume that all creatures drop high-quality resources on a consitent basis -- erm, no, not really
3) You assume that the hardest creatures drop high-quality resources -- erm, no, not really -- in fact, most avian-meat droppers are puny creatures which give a relatively small amount of xp per kill even on the adventure planets (and Dant and Endor don't have avian droppers).
4) You assume that the combat capabilities that you described are not already in the game by non-jedi characters -- erm, yep, there are tons of people who have novice scout and can probably better what you have described below -- that is, of course, if they manage to stumble upon this magical land of continously spawning rancors
Now, if only high-level creatures like rancors and such dropped high-quality resources, and one could indeed find 150 rancors in close enough proximity to take them all down in an hour's time, then I might start to worry, but the fact of the matter is that high-quality resources are just as likely, if not more likely, to drop on the starter planets, wheremany creatures drop, say, 10-20, at most 50units of meat at the master ranger level, and significantly less at the scout level, and where many creatures are very difficult to find (and here I'm thinking specifically about corellian and rori avian).
Now, realistically, will you really spend that much time with your jedi hunting hard-to-find carrion spats on corellia or even easier-to-find anglers on yavin when 1) they really don't give you enough xp to contribute to your advancement significantlyand2) you will be hunting in areas where other players will be hunting as well (assuming you are after high-quality resources), so you are more likely to get ganked by some random imp or end up on a terminal (and get ganked by some random imp).
Furthermore, we all know that there are already combat-types in the game who can match or can better what you have described above (well - that is, if they were to stumble upon some endless rancor spawn somewhere), and they are just as capable of going out and harvesting the hell out of whatever uber resource spawn is in style for the week, and sometimes they do, but this really hasn't depressed the organics market yet.
Now you might argue thatuber leet combat typesdon't need the xp, so they have no motivation to go out and hunt stuff like jedi do, but, let's face it, jedi will not always need the xp either, so the coincidence of 1) a glorious spawn of 150 rancors per hour appearing 2) just when all 200 or so jedis on a server need it to get xp and 3) at the very same moment that the rancors are dropping some highly-valued resource would seem to be very unlikely -- yes, it could happen, but then it would only last for a week or two, and then we rangers might be royally screwed for those two weeks, but then after that we would just go back to hunting the carrion spats and anglers and pikets that we usually hunt to get the resources our customers want. In fact, I would argue that we already face this situation -- everytime really high quality stuff spawns on an adventure planet (at least on Bloodfin), we see an influx of uber-leet combat doods with novice scout harvesting the hell out of everything in sight (well, at least for an hour or so), but this really hasn't depressed the resource market at all.
Let's face it - there are two organic resource markets out there: there is the high-quality market, which most of us specialize in, and there are a lot more variables involved in mastering this market than sheer combat power, and there is the low-quality grind market, where type and quality of resources don't matter, and here uber-leet combat types will always reign supreme simply because they can kill more than we can.
Now, I myself oppose jedi getting harvesting, but not out of fear that the resource market will be flooded and I'll be out of work (hell, if that does happen, I'll just run missions for credits and go back to exploring the planets on my own -- that's pretty much what I do half the time anyway); I oppose it because we make significant sacrifices for our ability harvest, but the jedi don't seem to be willing to make corresponding sacrifices -- this to me seems like a much more compelling argument than trumped-up, special-circumstance, near-hysterical, slippery-slope examples ever will -- maybe these hold water onhte jedi forums, I don't know, but they don't hold water here, and they don't seem to me to be compellingenough objections to support our case.
Iseult
Master Ranger / Mediocre Pistoleerz
Bloodfin
While I can understand your skepticism about the volume of kills a jedi does, i.e. some "rancor heaven", please let me assure you that such places do in fact exist. And yes... they can and do support several jedi. I bump into them from time to time. And yes... Imperials and Rebels seeking out Jedi to comb the area... I bump into THEM from time to time as well.
As you stated that's about 2.5 per minute. I can kill an Enraged Rancor with default attacks in 15 seconds on it's own. That takes care of most of the Rancors... and when the lairs begin to just spit them out like crazy and I'm surrounded by them... I can take out however many are within 8m of me in around 5 seconds. The only reason it's not more like 5 per minute is because you do have to walk about 30-50m to the next "pile of rocks". Make no mistake... Jedi has NO equal in PvE combat. In short bursts, Rifleman and TKM's can produce similar damage output, but that's spamming specials to do what Jedi do on auto-attack. And even WITH specials... Jedi are not burdened by HAM costs. The only thing that affects our HAM is damage received.
And that 150 hour isn't a guess. I keep many metrics about my leveling. As of this post, I am a 4-1-2-1 Jedi Apprentice. It's taken a hair over 10 million Jedi XP for me to get to this level. Only 23 million more to go. 
And remember... that's combat XP. Even with the the use of Force Powers for Jedi XP bonuses, 75% comes from just killing creatures. At this level I get 600 Jedi XP per Rancor. I do around 120K Jedi XP per hour.
If you aren'ta Jedi, and you're applying your non-Jedi combat experiences, these numbers seem outrageous. And in fact they are... but that doesn't keep them from being true.
You do makea valid point about the specialization in acquiring specifice high quality meats vs. just sheer quantity of meats. And the higher level of Jedi you are, you are pretty limited in where and what you can hunt. Once you get Apprentice it's a steady diet of Rancors. But at the Initiate level (which is where the majority of all Jedi are still at, and will likely always be at) you can hunt pretty much anything anywhere for decent XP as long as it's secluded.
We're pretty much arguing semantics at this point... we both agree that Jedi have no business harvesting creatures. But I wanted to convey to you some metrics on what it would actually do, since it appears to me you are underestimating what the impact would actually be.
Just as a side note, when I play, I have two computers running at once. My Jedi on one, and my Doctor/Combat Medic on the other grouped and on /follow. I made a macro to use /ui action cycleTargetOutward and /ui action cycleTargetNext in conjunction with /harvestResources meat. I was able to get MANY large stacks of a whole variety of meats in a few days on Endor while using this "autoharvest" macro with my Doc only having Novice Scout. I'd still be doing it now, but I dropped Novice Scout with that char once I could call bikes and pets without a camp. Needed the SP elsewhere.
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
I thought Jedi opened their FSCS on the same server as their main character. If that is the case, why can't they make money with their main char and tip themselves?
They can and do. The crux of arguments such as these is that it really detracts from any RP experience to have to turn your main into some sort of cash cow when a Jedi shouldn't really NEED money to survive. Or at least not the millions and millions they currently do. Successful Jedi just do what needs to be done... it's a harsh world so to speak.
Perhaps the Jedi need to focus on free money and not taking other profs skills
MatchstickNaritus wrote:
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
I thought Jedi opened their FSCS on the same server as their main character. If that is the case, why can't they make money with their main char and tip themselves?
They can and do. The crux of arguments such as these is that it really detracts from any RP experience to have to turn your main into some sort of cash cow when a Jedi shouldn't really NEED money to survive. Or at least not the millions and millions they currently do. Successful Jedi just do what needs to be done... it's a harsh world so to speak.
. Just my uninformed opinion (I will go to the Jedi forum shortly after I move to Coronet and I ain't going to Coronet until the spammers die off).Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 04-06-2004 03:39 PM
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Perhaps the Jedi need to focus on free money and not taking other profs skills
MatchstickNaritus wrote:
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
I thought Jedi opened their FSCS on the same server as their main character. If that is the case, why can't they make money with their main char and tip themselves?
They can and do. The crux of arguments such as these is that it really detracts from any RP experience to have to turn your main into some sort of cash cow when a Jedi shouldn't really NEED money to survive. Or at least not the millions and millions they currently do. Successful Jedi just do what needs to be done... it's a harsh world so to speak.
You're preachin' to the choir. I really like being a Jedi. I'm getting fairly close to Jedi Knight. Being able to wield a lightsaber and have that title over my head is something very cool to me. However my profession is filled to the brim with children with no concept of responsibility or accountability.
If you do decide to be brave and visit the Jedi forums, bring some Desitin, diaper rash is prevelent among many of the patrons.
