Ranger Archive
Thread: Holo's post on the Scout forum for your convenience
This specifically did not answer the question of the reduction in resources while being solo. In fact, I can imagine the grin on the devs face as he avoids the question.
DeltaXi65 wrote:Question is. Is the reduction happening while solo, and does it happen while grouped with only a pet.And the reply was,
The reduction happens if you are grouped. There's no check to see what you are grouped with.
Creative Director--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reminds me of a Simpsons episode:
Bart: Homer, are you licking toads again?
Homer: I'm not not licking toads! *lick*
"This specifically did not answer the question of the reduction in resources while being solo. In fact, I can imagine the grin on the devs face as he avoids the question."
- I agree. The answer was a little vague. 
- Either way, they do know of the issue.
- Once GreenMarine returns fromvacation, I'm sure it'll all be worked out, or we'll be set straight regarding the adjustment.
- I'm pretty sure that top quality resources still sell pretty well at the bazaar (I've been on Lok since the Patch, so I haven't checked the market lately 
).
-Anyways, on what do you guys actually use all that money?
- I have only my helmet and VK to replace every month or so, and I pull enough off roaming gang members to pay for those. 
"Travel expenses, cloning and tipping. I switch planets almost daily, and most of my traveling is to adv. planets (specially Lok). Since I am an un-armored mon calamarian rifleman, I get pretty beat up when the mobs manages to get within melee distance, so updating the clone and tipping entertainers & medics is a must. When I do manage to save some cash it goes on a new rifle."
- Ah, then its mostly a gameplay style that mandates the higher revenue.
- I stay on a single planet for a week or longer. I walk between towns rather than shuttling (if I do happen to be in town that is... frequently I'm not even near civilization).
- I travel with a Doctor (a real life friend of mine). So I don't concern myself with clone wounds (his packs heal 400 wounds a pop, sweet stuff). He also happens to be a Musician, so that eliminates the wait for Mind and BF healing.
- My VK do wear out pretty fast, but I have the best there is (not much choice, as there is only one TK weapon ).10k/month to replace thatweapon.
-Helmets don't seem to wear out as badly as body armor does. But that's 10k/month per helmet (I have a Chitin and a Composite depending on the battle conditions).
- I do set up harvesters on the planet I am if there is some special resource there, so those do cost a bit.
- But otherwise, my income vastly outweighs my expenses.
Guys,
Here's Holo's latest post from the Scout forum, and my two responses (so you see I'm not sitting on my ass here. )
B
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OK, I investigated a bit more, thanks to the fact that GreenMarine is a fool who came into the office during his vacation. 
He says that getting hit with the reduction when grouped with a pet is a bug, and that he'll fix it shortly.
He also says that the solo results were decreased a bit, but not by 50%,
to offset the fact that now you can now get resources in a group, which means there are a lot more resources in the world.
I'll point him to this thread so that he can comment further--just be aware that he IS on vacation, so he may take a while.
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Holo,
Thanks for the update.
Please have him check some of the threads here, as well as on the Ranger forums, because the drop in amounts was fairly significant. Some of them have more details than I have provided to all of you.
Thank him for coming in on his vacation, too!
B
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Holo and Green,
One more thing before I get pelted by the Scouts.
Please, please, please - in the future, when making an across the board reduction of this type, make sure that it makes the Update notes.
It may not seem like a big deal, but its been a headache for me and the other Scout/Rangers trying to figure out if this was a bug, a nerf, or a mixture of the two. Not only that, we have some very, very astute players who will instantly notice a change like this, and not knowing about it ahead of time spawns all kinds of conspiracy anti-Dev type theories. I don't like those, and I know you don't either.
We value your communications with us, and hope that they continue.
B
Delta are you having any communication with Green at all today? I know he's on vacation, but he is in the office 
Seriously, I'm just hoping he was able to check the math and let the other devs know to adjust the numbers so we can get back to normal or something close.
I'm feeling pretty good today though because I really do think there's light at the end of this tunnel and that it was a mathmatical error somewhere in the code or something like that. I guess lobbying really does work. woot!
Davidjp1234,
Majical transformation of my post withyour "better solution" See, somthing good did come out of it, now mybothan furfinally feels like it has stopped burning
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ranger&message.id=8166&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
Question that is sure to come up: Is it 5 harvests per creature total, or 5 per resource? (hide/meat/bone).
Another solution that just came to me after reading your excellent post (at the risk of starting my fur on fire again... mabye I should post in that one instead of here). This solution would build off of a bunch of code already in the system.
Hidden (or visible to Scouts) HAM-type (mhb - meat/hide/bone) bar for each creature that can be pulled byany scout in the group.
Each harvest attempt pulls some resources off of themhb based on what's left and your harvest bonus along with a bit of randomness, and maybe pulling hide "wastes" a bit of meat and bone, etc. doing /harvest pulls a semi-random amount of each, or doing /harvest hide pulls hide with a slight decrease in the bone and meat mhbs and a bit more time added to the re-cycle timer. The amount of each pulled could still put a max number of harvests on the creature of say 5.
Using special tools could have bonuses such as less waste of non-targeted resources, re-harvest timer modification, or amount per pull bonuses without affecting the overall mhb of the creature. Sure, if you're number 5 to try to harvest, you may not get much if any, but if you are too slow at attacking in a big group or send your pet in too late, you're out there too.
Does this not sound like an almost exact copy of current combat and/ormediccode retooled to use different "ham"s? Either do it like healing where you have to apply it once per shot (no auto-attack) or you copy brawler code where you can just stand there and /harvest (read /attack) and hit all 3 randomly and automatically, or you can add in "special moves" to target a special pool(at a ham cost? ouch I feel the flames now). Different weapons (read knives, laser scalpels, etc) modify timers, wastage, etc but you don't have to. It's not like the creature isgoing to get back-up if you don't get all of the hide in time, though it may "bleed mhb to death" before you can get it all. This is where the skill modifier comes in. A master scout can1/4 of theMHBbefore it bleeds away, and a master ranger can get 1/2 the total resources (if they are solo-harvesting... assuming doubling the totals MHBs over pre-patch)
Optional: The creature could start a bleed of the mhb poolssome time afterit gets killed, maybe after the first harvest attempt or a timer whichever comes first, and the corpse goes away after it'smhb is gone rather than just a simple death-timer... after-all, it's drying-out or getting chewed up by bugs sitting there unharvested, so don't take too long or it will dry-rot away and if you harvest all the hide/meat/bone then there should't be a corpse left.
Japhy,
I've not emailed GreenMarine anything- I'm letting him enjoy his vacation.
I've been PMing Holo directly.
B
I have said this before and I will repeat this here. I do not believe more resources are now available. The reason is most people level what they need in Scouting and stop harvesting. They don't want to anymore.
Think about it this way...everyone can place harvestors, but they dont. If they did,resources would have no value. Butmost peopledo not run harvestors, even though you can make money doing it,because they do not want to mess with it (it being collecting or selling or trading or whatever). In essence, the resource has no value- what you are paying for is the services of someone torun the harvestors. Same goes with harvesting for skins.Previous to this patch, every scout in the game could, if they wanted to, go out and collectskins and sell them by the 1000s. Did they, no. Yes, everyone in a groupcan now harvest, but they don't. The old system was far superior. One person could harvest and pass off organics to those that need it. Those that wanted to harvest could and those than don't want to could let others do it for them. Now, everyone has to harvest just to break even. People who don't want to deal with it need to be convinced to harvest.
I think its a huge huge nerf of Rangers/Scouts that harvested for a living in order to compensate for a few ninja looters. That's a joke.
Nova,
For the thousandth time: it's not a nerf, it's a bug.
B
incorrect delta. They have stated that they intended to reduce solo harvesting as well.. that is a nerf.. the ammount they nerfed it was a BUG.
"They have stated that they intended to reduce solo harvesting as well.. that is a nerf.. the ammount they nerfed it was a BUG."
- Agreed. This was the impression I received from the Dev Posts as well.
- Possibly the harvest reduction is more reduced than they intended...
- But they did intend to reduce harvesting levels across the board by some amount.
Delta wrote:
It may not seem like a big deal, but its been a headache for me and the other Scout/Rangers trying to figure out if this was a bug, a nerf, or a mixture of the two. Not only that, we have some very, very astute players who will instantly notice a change like this, and not knowing about it ahead of time spawns all kinds of conspiracy anti-Dev type theories. I don't like those, and I know you don't either.
Devs: Even if NOTHING ELSE is learned from this, please take note of this. This is one of the most important things to this community, being informed of what's happening and why. Nothing is more frustrating than not knowing whether something was intentional or not, and having to wait for 4 or 5 days (or more) to even find out if it was. Although many like myself are patient enough to wait for a response before passing judgement, many players do not do this. Many get pissed off and frustrated (and perhaps rightly so) in the time it takes for a response to be put out. Sometimes, this is made EVEN WORSE when the response, when finally given is somewhat ambiguous, and players STILL don't know for sure whether the change was intentional or not.