Ranger Archive
Thread: Tracking the Elusive Vision...
"I am going to focus on PvP angle of outdoorsman"
Yes indeed... To deny the playerbase a remote chance of using /conceal in some form in the GCW would be a true shame.
"We are still visible, just not via radar."
This suggestion is as old as the /conceal command itself...
- Yet no one has defined a process to my satisfaction which would not allow for a client hack to bypass the radar restriction.
"Keeping the camo kits working on NPCs is also a help in PvP in that it lets a ranger and/or his group sneak past those pesky imp/rebel patrols."
That in itself is a chief balance issue that may have swayed the development team to abandon the idea in the first place...
- There are other proposals in the SotP regarding reduced Chance-to-Hit while combating Humanoids that attempt to remove that issue.
"So Outdoorsman it is then huh?"
It is the best option I can see that includes as much of the community and the developers under one roof.
"We need at least one humanoid trap"
We could possibly get away with a couple, ifthey were added to the Scout profession for use by BH as well...
- Namely becausethey get to use the creature traps available in the Scout profession, which is supposed to be our perview.
"We should have at least one trap that actually deals damage."
Hmmm... Thrown damage dealing devices seem to fall into the category of grenade which is the perview of another profession, that might be a tough sell.
"why not damage bonuses to animals, why not critical hits, why not specail weapons, poisons, etc. We should know what will hurt them the most."
Why not? It sounds very reasonable to me. 
The special weapon though would probably need to revolve around the trap system however to actually get it past scrutiny...
- So I suggest focusing onthe Trap Launcher idea described in the past, which could meld into the requests defined for the Ranger Weapon concept.
"My view of a ranger."
That is good stuff Amenrcks, that initial paragraph is a kicker.
I agree with everything said, except:
"make advanced camps which perhaps run on power and have perhaps clone centers, small turrets"
To me, that sounds like the perview of the Squad Leader.
"I believe a ranger should be able to control more powerfull creatures then the regular folk"
That could be made to fit within the Outdoorsman vision and is indeed creature-centric.
wOOt. My first time as having my post /bumped in another thread.
That being said, my ideas are discussed are in my own thread, which I try to keep alive by putting whatever ideas come through my rabid little head. Sorry if they are little bit of overkill.
So here's the low-down on what I think are the ideas that I (or others) have proposed and that I think are the most likely to be implemented or are the most reasonable (Deserve to be implemented).
-Camps: I still think my modular camp proposal is a good one. The fact we are able to craft such high-level objects and yet have absolutely no experimentation/control over them is unreasonable. I also think camps should have experimentation points that would make the camp last longer and provide better healing bonuses. Once again, at Master Ranger, having no ability to positively influence your camping experience is kind of unlikely. A Master Ranger should be able to make a better basic camp than a scout could. Having a modular system would also allow for camps to be need-specific. If a Master Ranger needs a general crafting station rather than a medical one, he should be able to.
-Traps: I think one of the best ideas out there (not sure whose it is) is the modular trap idea. This would allow for experimentation and would add a new product that Rangers could sell to other Rangers or Scouts. A Master Ranger could/should be able to make traps that are more effective and easier to use than a novice scout should. I think that a Master Ranger would be able to apply a DoT effect to ALL traps, even the novice Ranger ones. If we had a modular system, a poison effect could be added as an "upgrade" in the same way that Weaponsmiths can add upgrades to their weapons with special upgrades. The new trapping system would make it so that as you go up the Ranger line, you get new things that can be added in the modular system, including ahigh damageDoT and AoE poison at a Master Ranger.
-Tracking: add the /track command
-Wayfaring: increase our base speed rather (or in addition to)our increase to crawl speed. The idea here is that we've lived in the woods so much that we are in better shape than any other proffession. We have honed our bodies to perfection by living in harmony with nature. Also I think that we should get a bonus to speed on mounts. Because we know how to get up a hill quickly, we should (in theory of course) be able to lead a mount up the fastest routes.
-Harvesting: Simple. Let us harvest multiple resources.
once again, thanks for the support to my thread, welcome back NRass and, as always:
Peace, Love and Rangering
If we are to outdoorsman, then so be it. When I think of outdoorsman I think of the trapper hunter of old American folklore. Davey Crocket and Daniel Boone in the historical sense; Grizzly Addams in the fictional sense.(Okay that is really pushing it and dating me I know)
Okay so where am I going? Not sure but when I think of that genre of rugged individual I see they possesed many things that we do not. Crack shot with the rifle. Their lives and livelyhood depended on how much game they could down and how much meat/pelt they could harvest. In order to make this happen they had to be good with the gun, no better than good they had to be **** near snipers. Infact didn't the modern sniper develop from such outdoorsy types. But I digress. Give us more than just a plus to hit creatures, give the ranger some additions to the ranged tree that affect speed and accuarcy. Accuracy over speed mind you but still something. I would prefer it to be riflr since this is the vision I have, but a generic ranged attack bonus to accuracy and speed would be good enough. Don't limit it to creatures. If you can down a buck at 300 yards you can down a man just as easy.
THey had traps that they left for creatures to get... well... trapped in. They would then harvest that resource. Well why not give rangers the same thing in the form of a meat, bone orhide harvestor. We find an area that has a concentration of game that we are after and then we lay our meat/hide/bone harvestor (trap) and go about our business. Afew days later based upon the density of creatures in and around that area we can then collect the resources we gatherred. These trap harvestors should be made by us, maybe with the help of an artisan for cross-class dependency, and could either count towards our total lots or just be burned up. You lay it down you come back. There are either resources available or not, but either way it is used up then. Heck for a critical failure they could have an aggressive creature spawned that has been stuck in the trap and isn't too happy about it.
Our camps need to be safe from creature attack. And they need to quit going poof. While I like the log cabin idea, I really don't see what the difference between it and a small generic house that we just drop somewhere off-world and base out of it. Our camps are the things we use when working from that base. They don't need to be permanent, but they shouldn't dissapear as soon as I raise my weapon and pull the trigger. They should only dissapear when I tell them too, or when I log. ( or some other time limit is reached to prevent camp cities from forming.) Maybe they could degrade with every storm that passes through the area. I don't know.
Grizzly Addams had Ben. Why do I have to be stuck with a Spat? We should be able to use lvl 12 creatures with Novice Ranger. Then with each rank( up to 4) we add +2 then a final +2 at Master Ranger. In the end we would be able to use LVL 20 creatures... I am sure ol' Ben was LVL 20. Litter these bonusses throughout the 16 skills. You know Wayfaring 1 gives you plus 2 but tracking 2 gives the next bonus. Staggerring them out that way would reduce the amount of dabblers that just go in it for the CH like bonus. And we don't have to get all the skills the creature handlers do. I see our uase of pets as being much more basic. Attack; follow; guard; group; and Trick1 should be enough. Also I would suggest that our CH skills and bonuses be configured in such a way to not stack with the bonuses abd skill of the CH. If we are to be thier foil afterall.
Trapgun.. fine... whatever. Doesn't pull me in. Modular traps; like that one. Modular camps. Meh.Harvesting more than one class of resource from a single kill... Yeah, sounds... logical. If they need to limit it, limit it to when we are not with a group. Conceal working against NPC and PC's.. DUH. Have you seen snipers? Neither have I. Passing a bonus to a party that is out hunting with us. Sure, but only when we are the leader and it is against animals. (Don't want to step on those SL toes.)
Those are my opinions folks. Wish you all a good night. Me sleepy now. NRaas, keep up the good work. Ranger Community keep up the good work. Developers... well you done alot of work, but the job aint done yet. So in the words of my father, "Get to work!"
HAVE FUNALL!
Also this is an idea I came up with on the other ranger identity thread: cages. I would be willing to drop the camps or traps line entirely for this. I think there are several ways this could be implemented. In fact I'll seperate two ideas:
Crafting Cage: we already have some skills that in my opinion mark us as being "crafters"(to an extent) in fact THREE columns have skills that require crafting tools.
1) This cage would be experimentable, and it should require a lot of resources.
2) This cage should allow BE's to sample dna without risk to themselves, at a slower pace or with a decay rate (such as that wild animals can't simply be tamed and kept in a cage the rest of their life, they would eventually die or maybe escape?)
3) CH's could tame them while in the cage, without worry of its parents eating them.
Heres where the experimentation comes in:
1) experiment on duration of cage
2) experiment to increase the Clvl maximum for the caged; which should be capped (obviously this could be exploited; people camping at krayt graveyard or other locations 'stealing' anything that appears)
I think this would be balanced, because while you would make a LOT of money off of the caged animals (and should) it should also cost LOTS of resources to counterbalance.
Hunting Cage: Pretty much a glorified trap. Soloing pikets on dant and vorritors keep aggroing? Throw a cage over that annoying lizard.
In either version you would get stronger cages, such as wood cages to begin with and then metal cages. Anyway just an idea to toss around.
I have two ideas of what a ranger would be in star wars. A more Antarian Ranger type, familiar with the outdoors and support in combat (and protecting jedi! please!
). Otherwise a complete outdoorsman, tracker, master of pve.(I wish I could figure out how to get text tags to work on these forums
)
Alrighty then...
I have completed my reading of all the posts...
- I can rightfully say that there were definitely some emotional stirrings within our hallowed halls.
- But most everyone seemed to handle themselves very well considering the circumstances.
The first order of business to determine how we are proceed regarding this recent "revelation":
Most of the community seems in the moodto battle the developers on what they consider to be vision for our profession... I am with you.
So let us define the goals:
The Battle
The vision defined by the Developers does not sit well with the community. Most players consider it too constraining and limits many interesting future improvements that could be implemented with regards to Concealment.
We can not hope to battle the developers head on and win... At best we would be prolonging the inevitable, and the developers would simply ignore us and proceed anyways.
Rather, I propose we attempt to expand the vision provided to include as much of what we feel the Ranger profession should entail, without overgeneralizing and losing the focus entirely.
The Vision
The developers have stated the following: Rangers are "creature" profession
- This suggests we are being lumped in with the Creature Handler profession. Most likely as the foil to said profession.
As that was simply grammatically incorrect, I changed the phrase to be Ultimate Creature Hunter
- This in turn narrowed the focus of the direction given by the developers in a hopes of increasing our chances of receiving additional combat bonuses, traps, and effects.
Now while reading the posts over the past couple days, I suggest a "adjustment" of this direction. Not a complete reversal, rather a superset that can best include our much beloved concealment.
- I propose the vision of Ultimate Outdoorsman as that seems to fit a large portion of the communities concept of what the Ranger is, and includes the Creature Hunter ideal that the developers envision.
The Process
Whatbest describesan Outdoorsman is what we will discuss... I understand many of you have been discussing the vision over the past two weeks, and the forum is littered with threads regarding various ideas and essays.
What I would like to do is centralize those ideas here, and hash together a working version of our vision that can be relayed to the developers.
What I want from all of you, is adefinition of what the Ranger profession is. Someconcept that will sway the developers from their current path, and towards a more amiable vision of our future.
The Restrictions
Just when you thought it was going to be easy eh? Recently I have read some rather outlandish proposals, most of which sound like brand new professions entirely.
The developers have laid out a framework already. One with Camoflauge, Camps, Traps, and Tracking.
Those are what we have to work with to define a cohesive image of what the Ranger is in this game.
- I say this game, as many ideals of what a Ranger should be tend to be drawn from other aspects of literature and media.
We are being given the opportunity to define whatthe profession namedRanger is within Star Wars, with the provision that the developers have their eyes set on a creature-centric definition.
- We can not stray too far from the developers vision, otherwise we will not be heard at all.
- But I believe we can include their vision within our own without much strife.
The Resolution
I am sure we will be debating this definition for a while. But once we are complete, I hope to have the backing of a good portion of the community (I did not say all, as we will never all agree on one direction).
Once that definition is reached, I will sue for peace with the developers and hopefully receive their blessing on the design. If I do not receive the blessing, negotiations will begin in ernest to attempt to reach a compromise.
Let us begin.
"In order to make this happen they had to be good with the gun, no better than good they had to be **** near snipers. Infact didn't the modern sniper develop from such outdoorsy types. But I digress. Give us more than just a plus to hit creatures, give the ranger some additions to the ranged tree that affect speed and accuarcy. Accuracy over speed mind you but still something. I would prefer it to be riflr since this is the vision I have, but a generic ranged attack bonus to accuracy and speed would be good enough."
Well I don't think this would bode well with melee rangers. Then every ranger would have a rifle. The more diverse the players are the better. Instead there should be a universal advantage, not one that only compliments one play style.
My thoughts. First I'd like to say that I became a ranger for the stealth aspect, I consider stealth a weapon of rangers and we should gain advantages in battle from the ability to /conceal ourselves. I can remember in the movies that many of the characters such as han solo and even obi wan used stealth at one point peaking around corners and sneaking around the ships and such. So stealth, to me, should have a bigger role in-game at least outdoors. The system as of now doesn't really make sense. First of all, the idea of /concealing oneself is to conceal things that combat the creature or npcs senses. So camo is for vision, mask scent obviously for smell, but what about sound? Currently we can camo ourselves RUN up to a creature or npc and play a freakin instrument if we wanted to. Also /concealing ourselves and then entering our vehicles doesn't make sense either. Vehicles are loud, they're flashy, and I'm sure they have some kind of smell that creatures wouldn't like. It would make sense if we had a stealthy vehicle which we could camo, then it could be justified.
So I would say that /conceal needs to be a combat feat for rangers. We would hide for the advantage of gaining a surprise attack like a /sneakattack command. Also we should be able to /conceal ourselves and run, but only if we are at a distance. I think they should add a sneaking animation, one that is slightly faster than walking and increases speed as we gain terrain negotiation and we could only /sneakattack while sneaking. Obviously sneaking would be to combat the creature or npcs hearing which is not taken into account currently in-game. Anyway, as far as other ideas concerning camps, tracking, and traps: keep those ideas coming.
/Standingstillor /prone=notdetectable/Sneaking=small chance depending on skill Running while /concealed=medium chance of being detected depending on skill
Anyway, just my take on things.
What does it mean ... outdoorman/creature hunter? I say, this man can survive for 2 weeks in the wilderness without any help from other people. And he should be the best creature hunter in SWG. Ok, lets put the things together.
Wayfaring
- make us a little bit faster running
- make us a little bit faster burst running
- let us burst run a little bit longer
- let us burst run in shorter times after getting tyred
Tracking
- let us find lairs
- let us /track animal
Hunting
- let us harvest everything from a creature
- let us harvest a trophy
Trapping
- let us make more specialized trapps
- let us have much better trapps
Camping
- give us 2 Master Ranger Camp Schematics
Medical Camp: it heals wounds and BF
Research Camp: crafting experimantation bonus and the opportunity, to choose the crafting station
- let the master ranger camp standing until the ranger disbands it (and i hate the people who leave there camps without disbanding it, thats probely the problem with it, when there are several camps within 500 meter)
Conseal
- maskscent belongs to the scouts, let it like it is
- make the camo unbreakable for 60 minutes
Combat
- give us a Combat Ranger Attack, that hits the creature like no other attack in SWG, but we can use this attack once in 120 sec.
- give us a much higher creature to hit Bonus
Ranger House
- give us a Ranger House. We can build it just in No-Build-Area-Zones. We can have only one of this. This house has a "highstand" (we call it so in Switzerland). Its something like a little tower, where we can go up and sit and shot on animals. In this Ranger House we can let lairs spawn from creatures, who spawn there regularly anyway. This House can be attacked by the animals, so its the rangers problem/fault if he spawns to many lairs or put this house in the middle of rancorland. To fix the house the ranger needs resources and not just credits and it takes time to fix it. If the ranger disbands this house, he has to wait 1 day until he can create a new one.
Forage
- let us forage what we need for crafting a camp, camo kits and trapps (maybe you forage max. 3 Steel)