Ranger Archive

Just /AOLing and saying that what Thortac / Owen said is what I'd have said If I was more eloquent.

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Ailsa wrote:

Heh, if they think we are the Master Harvesters, they haven't played a Ranger - ever.

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I have played a ranger, and still do.

And I think we *are* the master harvesters *if* combined with the right(tm) combatprofession (rifleman) and not denying yourself all the things that enable you to maximise harvest/time (buffs, armor, high-end weapons etc).

If you compare yourself with the harvest of the fotm combat templates compare yourself on even ground, with full buffs, 90% robocop-armor etc .

I found defense mods very overrated for any kind of PvE (working in the low end part but not really needed there, completly pointless in high-end PvE due to insanely high mob to-hits) in the world of buffs and 90% composite.

Note here: Pikeman is the melee profession taking the most damage of all existing melee professions in swg at master level, so if a mere Master Pikeman/Master Ranger can handle any (harvest-typical) creature PvE without the faintest problem, a master swordsman/master ranger can do this even better, counterattack with center of being up alone helps to prevent most hits, if you actually get hit the much better toughness will do the rest.

Not to mention the Master Ranger/Master Rifleman that can kill everything worth hunting for ressources just camo'ed/maskscented, prone and with a couple of headshot3 before the target knows what hits it.

I do however agree that the minor advantage of a master ranger above a tracking iv ranger is a bad joke :/.

(And I very likely will fall back to tracking IV again, however not for better potential in creature pve as I feel no need for this, eepeam will be history soon and so kope will be changed to swordsman and for hunting nightsisters and other (non-creature) high-end PvE some more medic skills are a quite good idea, so it'll be master swords, tracking iv, medic 2040 and the rest in some fs boxes which definitly will include the combat prowess line for melee speed and then some other stuff when I made up my mind ).

Message Edited by darmokVtS on 08-20-2004 04:40 PM

• Masters of environment


• Expert at infiltration, evasion and escape


• Excellent pilots. Yes my friends, and I repeat: Excellent Pilots.


• Survivalists

Currently, SW:G gives usthat last aspect only. Lets not give into "in the [MMO] box" thinking, shall we?

Message Edited by Fred_Skinner on 08-20-2004 09:58 AM

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:

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Owen-Lars wrote:

Ultimate creature hunters. And our response will be, but we arnt.

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Bingo....

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You know, its sad when our own corr says it like that. That should ring some big freaking bells for the devs. /sigh

Creature hunting is a massive part of what a ranger is but there is no doubt in my mind that rangers should be more than just creature specialists

I can see us getting this eventually. Offense/defense, traps and /track to suppliment /areatrack. I think this is one of our primary purposes. Masters of the wilderness is something i think about everytime ranger is mentioned and under this title i think of the other things such as stealth, hunting, survivaland pathfinding. I see these other points that come under this title because i believe they come as a result of being master of the wilderness. For example:

Your years in the wild have learnt you how to adapt to various environments, minimise your exposure and perfect the art of camoflague. You can move without being seen, you can infiltrate the most secure facilities and relay information back to allies (stealth).

Living in the wilderness and at one with nature has allowed you to perfect and develope hunting skills far beyond that of any other humanoid. You know how animals move, how they fight (defenses), how to best take down an animal (ranger damage modifyers). You know how to avoid blows and how to minimise the damage taken from animals by playing to their weaknesses (creature toughness). You can remove the defenses of an animal and make it much easier to take down though the use of ingenius traps (trapping). Through your years of hunting you have also learnt how to harvest a creature with minimal wastage giving you a much greater yeild than that of a non ranger (harvesting rates).

You have also avanced in the complex skill of tracking.You are able to scan the area using visual clues to gain a clear picture of what creatures are in your region and their location from yours (/areatrack). Through your extensive knowledge of creatures you have learnt what signs to look for in order to track down individual and specific animals to their lairs (/track). Many years of tracking on various planets has enabled you to adapt to different environments using its advantages and disadvantages to your benefit. From this you can traverse the landscape at a much faster pace than others (/pathfinder mode) andyou can climb steep cliffs in even the most thinest of atmospheres without trouble (TN).

The ranger's apreciation for the environment has learnt him how to use it to his/her advantage. The ranger can fassion great tools that can be used in various ways to further his/her abilities. Spectacular habbitats can be constructed and be enhanced in many ways to provide various situational benefits (modular camps) such as hunting bonuses, safty and protection, entertainment centers, medical outposts, evacuation sites and factional assault launch sites. There is no limit to the potential usefullness of the rangers survival skills and this also covers the collection and consumption of foraged flora and herb to highten the rangers senses and ability to perform certain tasks (/forage systems).

As you can see i love almost all the ideas of what a ranger is and how we can be made better and we should not be just focused on creature hunting with nothing else. Whilst i dont think we should be directly involved in damaging players in player vs player combat i do believe that we should be able to impact on this type of combat in a very substantial way though the use of stealth, pathfinding and spying (place new discussion thread here). We should be able to be recon units, spies and infiltrators using stealth, this is our role in the galactic civil war. We can scout ahead of our assault team, find out the numbers they have andhow they a set up, possibly uplink with squad leaders to give them a 'map' of the area showing all the units etc so they can find a weakness and direct the assault team. The main role of a ranger in the GCW should be advanced pathinding, recon and infiltration in my eyes.

Being able to use a /spy command that takes a 'picture' ofeverything within 128m of the ranger in recon mode would be great. This would show up as a sort of overhead map screen capture. It would identify factional npcs, players, turrets, lay of the land, factional equipment and could be used in conjunction with a module in a ranger camp. The ranger would set up camp, the sl would install the forward recon module and recieve 'tender' from the ranger. The ranger(s) would then go into recon/spy mode, perhaps becoming invis or apearing as an overt member of the targets faction with another fake name and infiltrate the assault site/target. The ranger would then use /recon to take a snapshot of 128m around the ranger and this snapeshot would stored on a datadisk in the datapad. To send the intel back to the camp the ranger would either have to go back to the camp itself or 'uplink' with the camp. Whilst you are in uplink mode you can be tabbed and attacked by the enemy, however you still show up as a member of their faction until attacked. This would allow the ranger to find a quiet corner to uplink, allow the data to be sent to the camp and not be attacked by the enemy.

Once the data has been uploaded to the camp the squadleader and the gorup can access it and the SL can show on the map the route the unit must take, where to strike, objectives to take and meeting points etc. This can be done by allowing the sl to place wps on the map that all others can see so they know what to do.

I cant imagine something more perfect to advance rangers, squad leaders and the gcw itself than this collection of systems. It would make sl vital to assault groups, rangers have a key role and allow groups to plan an attack with visual intel to work with.

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BlakkStar wrote:

it was 140 sp.

I'd collect 100k tat avian for 20 sp...

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Message Edited by Squidwalker on 08-20-2004 09:20 AM

I think we just need tocreate a very well thought out and presented idea on our various roles. We shouldnt just have one. We need to highlight our roles in the GCW, our roles in creature hunting andgroups.Then later we can advance on those with our hundreds of proposals we have at our disposal.

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BlakkStar wrote:

Our class should be geared towards having specials skills for PVE and PVP. SW universe has a varied role of the ranger and for 140 SP, SWG ranger should reflect that.

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Bingo.

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Owen-Lars wrote:

Hey if he says it that way then at least that acknowledges we aren't yet.

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TH has played a ranger in some form so i bet he knows how badly we are atm. As he lurks around on the forums i bet he has even seen this post and the responses we have put forward. I think even after our role has been defined in its current form we just need a sign to say "we understand where you are coming from and hope to move ranger forward in a very unique way in the future."

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COME ON TH, give us a sign you understand our worries, even if its a "i understand" response

I know you are lurking around here somewhere, dont be shy hehe

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I think we just need tocreate a very well thought out and presented idea on our various roles. We shouldnt just have one. We need to highlight our roles in the GCW, our roles in creature hunting andgroups.Then later we can advance on those with our hundreds of proposals we have at our disposal.

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Here in lies my big problem with this. We already got our role defined for us back last Aug by Q3PO. Master of the outdoors and master hunter. What happened then? We got /areatrack and camo kits. Woohoo. Not. Those are nice but it didn't define us, and it didn't give us any real edge.

So I ask you answer me this. If they define us again now today, even though it's already 1:20PM PST, what will that mean? I say it doesn't mean crap unless they start implementing game mechanics to make it so in the next 3-4 months. That is actually putting stuff into LIVE in 3-4 months. Not starting to work on it at 3-4 months. Why do I make this bold statement? Because if they wait a year, AGAIN, to start working on how they defined us, they might have changed their minds or something, or some other big changes in game, that make that year old definition invalid and pointless.

So I challenge TH, to give us a roll definition, AND tell us we will start getting some actual development towards it SOON. Otherwise don't waiste your breath TH.

A lot of my online friends have left this game, and they have all been playing since day one like me. I'm still playing because I'm stuburn, and there is nothing else out that interests me. But if my friends get into some other MMO like EQ2, and I don't see some serious changes here, bye bye. I like this game, note I don't say love anymore, but facts is facts. Make changes devs. Player desired changes.