Ranger Archive
Thread: Tweaks and additions to the profession(s) Foraging, traps, concealment, harvesting, etc.
Really excellent ideas - thanks for posting that link in the CH forum. These are the kind of ideas that really make me miss being a Ranger. And if they ever make Creature Handler a combat effective profession, these are the sorts of things that would bring me back to Ranger in a heart beat. (No matter what they do with CU, I'll never like it until CH- Ranger is once again a viable template).
I've just one comment as a CH on the Animal Calls.It's a great idea, but I actually think it should be a Ranger-only ability. The line betweenthe kinds of abilities a Creature Handler has and the kind a Ranger has is some times a blurry one. So, certainly a case can be made for CH having some sort of "animal calling" abilities.
However, I see CH as being the masters of taming &trainingcreatures (obviously), and we use our pets abilities to help us survive. Of course we have a knowledge of the wilderness, but we aren't experts.It's Rangers who are the masters of the wilderness. You want to know how to tame and control a creature, you come to a CH. But if you want to know how to track and fightthat creature in the wilderness, you get a Ranger. I think animal calling/mimicryis more of a wilderness survival skill than itis a taming skill, so it would be better suited to the Ranger profession.
Message Edited by DaBudo2 on 06-12-2005 05:06 PM
SioBabble wrote:
These are all great ideas, BioEngine. I'm all for Rangers getting some love, and if some of it spills over onto scouts and CHs, that's great too.
One thing I'd really like to see back, and you've mentioned it already, is creature knowledge displayed, particularly vulnerablities and resistances, the way it was prior to the CU. This is supposed to be in the workes, but I'd like to get full displays of creature specials and all other characteristics in my datapad for creatures I've tamed. Not ones in the wild, mind you...that should remain exclusively the province of the Ranger.
One of the things the CU inadvertently did, with the accursed level system, was to take away a master scout perk, the ability to see a creature's level in the wild. There's probably no way to get this back (and having that ability was one of the very few things the FS survival line was good for) but something needs to replace this very handy skill, something only the FS survival line or master scout confers on a player.
The Level System altered the levels of creatures that are spawned from mission lairs, but......
The wild spawns are still the same challenge level as their "difficulty level" implies.
DaBudo2 wrote:
Really excellent ideas - thanks for posting that link in the CH forum. These are the kind of ideas that really make me miss being a Ranger. And if they ever make Creature Handler a combat effective profession, these are the sorts of things that would bring me back to Ranger in a heart beat. (No matter what they do with CU, I'll never like it until CH- Ranger is once again a viable template).
I've just one comment as a CH on the Animal Calls.It's a great idea, but I actually think it should be a Ranger-only ability. The line betweenthe kinds of abilities a Creature Handler has and the kind a Ranger has is some times a blurry one. So, certainly a case can be made for CH having some sort of "animal calling" abilities.
However, I see CH as being the masters of taming &trainingcreatures (obviously), and we use our pets abilities to help us survive. Of course we have a knowledge of the wilderness, but we aren't experts.It's Rangers who are the masters of the wilderness. You want to know how to tame and control a creature, you come to a CH. But if you want to know how to track and fightthat creature in the wilderness, you get a Ranger. I think animal calling/mimicryis more of a wilderness survival skill than itis a taming skill, so it would be better suited to the Ranger profession.
Message Edited by DaBudo2 on 06-12-2005 05:06 PM
The reason that I believe the Animal Calls should include Creature Handlers is because the CH's are able to modify a creature's behavior. Granted, this is only done by taming a baby pet first, but I still think that they should have a knowledge of a creature's behavior that allows them to modify it in the baby's learning. This small amount of knowledge that is required to help a baby identify something they know with a command that the Creature Handler designates should be slightly extended to non-baby creatures, as a means of communication with creatures that are not a pet.
That's my thought on it, anyways.
Divvur wrote:
Some nice ideas, I do like some of the things you are saying.
I do like the trapping ideas, additional components coming from looting creature parts should be implemented (and creatures all across the galaxy doing the drops, not just Kash ones). It would be great if our poison darts could be more effective using shadevale poison or rancor bile, and sharp bone spurs with kwi teeth should be stronger than ones made with nuna leg bones. It would be nice to have some more trap types as well, especially deployable traps, some of which work against humanoids as well as creatures. I would also like a deployableEMPtrap which snares speeders of overt players, giving Rangers a half useful PvP ability, perhaps with artisan/weaponsmith components, but that may be asking for a bit too much.
Forage should also get useful items that can be added to traps, or eaten as food. However, this should be the poor Rangers alternative. Foraged foods should never be as useful as chef foods, but useful if you run out while you are out of town. Foraged components should never make traps more powerful than traps made using looted components. Bowls made by chefs are a wonderful idea.
Another thing which I would like to stress is planet specific. Foraged items should be planet specific, and items (foraged or looted) used to enhance camo kits or some kinds of trap should also be planet specific. I like the idea of adding quests to gain some abilities, after all, even a skilled Ranger will be at a disadvantage on a planet he/she is not used to.
Burst Run should be a toggle for everyone, constantly draining the action bar at a rapid rate. However, the Ranger mods should reduce this rate.
The animal call ideas are interesting, and perhaps a little complicated and confused. May I recommend instead having it as part of the rescue ability? There could be two different types of rescue, one gained at lower in the tree and the other higher. The first is a distraction style rescue, you throw a stone at it, shoot it or whatever. This acts as a taunt and will make the agro come towards you. This is good against lower level creatures but not against things that will kick your ass.The second higher is an animal call, designed to freighten the creature. If successful the creature will break combat and run away, if it fails the creature will instead attack you. More use against higher level creatures but risky.
The two things you do not seem to have covered are camo and concealment, which is heavily debated and poison resistance. I made a short post on the latter here which you may wish to incorporate some of into your ideas.
I guess I didn't mention this before, but something that will be done soon / eventually is the Planet Revamp. It is during this time that we can push for creature loot drops that do not have any significant value to armorsmiths or weaponsmiths, but can be used in Ranger / Scout traps, camo kits, and / or camp kits. To make it an equivalent benefit for both Scouts and non-Scouts, these creature loot drops should be sellable to junk dealers of some kind.
In regards to the EMP, I do not know how thatcan be interpreted. Valid professions that could also push for this as their ability are the Commandos, maybe Squad Leaders, and perhaps even Bounty Hunters. However, such an item could still be implemented into the game and more than one profession be given the ability to use them. However, I do not think that we should be able to craft such an item, unless you can explain a logical reason / explanation of how we can build such an item. I would think that Weaponsmiths should be able to craft it, to go along with the grenades, and that it should affect factional structures such as turrets (which will be taken out soon anyways) and vehicles as you mentioned above. However, it is also questionable if they should even be restricted to the GCW. This item could be useful against droid npc's as well, so it should not be restricted to our profession nor the GCW.
Your suggestions about the animal call would probably become more of a "special attack / ability," instead of an item, which was kind of what I was going for. One thing to remember about /rescue, is that it worked on creatures and npc's attacking the target player, not just creatures. Maybe there should be an alteration upon my suggestions for the abilities of animal calls, removing the ability to replace the rescue ideas you have above, and expand rescue itself as you have described. I am hoping that we can keep rescue, but so far the Devs don't have a way to keep us from exploiting it, so I don't know its fate and neither do they I take it.
Addressing the poisonresistance modifier, I do not think that creatures being able to poison more often will be accepted by the general community. However, there is also the fact that animals use bleeding attacks and poison attacks. Now, there is already aChef food that provides "poison resistanceand absorption," so it would be best not to step on their toes. However, this food is probably a common use in PvP against enemy Combat Medics. Perhaps making one forageable item planet-specific that cures poison would be a better solution, but then the Chef food would be replaced. So, as you had put it, we need a modifier to resist poisons. The facts behind poison as a biological ailment: Paralysis is countered with something that causes seizures, because Acetylcholine and Acetylcholinesterase are the two neuro-communicative chemicals that are thrown out of balance to create paralysis and / or seizures. So, having a natural resistance may sound a bit illogical, but I stil agree that we should have this modifier nonetheless, as many creatures we fight have poison attacks. However, we should not be completely resistance to becoming poisoned at Master Ranger. A better option would be to reduce the damage done when the poison "ticks," or to increase the "tick" time, as our modifier increases.
And finally, concealment. We should, as I have seen someone put it before, sneak a taco past Jesus, even if he is really hungry, at Master Ranger. The original post I saw this in was actually related to Smuggling; I just wanted to keep the same basic principle that we should be able to do amazing things at Master Ranger with our camoflauge. We should not be detected by factional turrets. We should not be detected by anything below our level. We should not be attackable by anything equal to or lower than our level without making a concealment check. We should be able to, at Master Ranger, move through mobs of enemies 10 levels above our own without having to worry about it breaking, if this new level-based non-aggro publish 18 stuff is to allow us to be necessary anymore. I mean, my camo was broken and I was attacked by a CL 5 Giant Gubbur yesterday. This isn't supposed to happen. If a creature does attack us while we are camoflauged, they should have a significant debuff to their attack modifiers, both melee and ranged, because they know we are therebut will definitely have a hard time seeing us in the midst of battle. If the Devs think that it would be so unbalancing to allow us Radar Concealment and visual concealment, then why not make it quest-based as well? I mean, they haven't given it to us, yet gave it to two other professions that didn't even ask for it? That does not instill much confidence in our ability to obtain this skill as well.
Message Edited by BioEngine on 06-13-2005 11:40 AM
Gah, double post. It said "This page cannot be displayed," so.....
Message Edited by BioEngine on 06-13-2005 11:33 AM
BioEngine wrote:
- Animal Calls (Ranger and CH, perhaps Master Scout. This is not final, and is certainly open to discussion or suggestions.)
- Dathomir - Predator-mimicry: A Nightsister asks you to kill a creature which has actually beentaking the lives of their precious Rancors. Kill it, and return with its tooth to receive the predator call, which will repel creatures outside of combat or cause them to retreatfrom combat. Retreat is new to me, but I believe I have never successfully damaged a retreating creature / npc yet.
- Naboo - Prey-mimicry: A Gungan Kaadu-tamer asks you to kill the Plain Tusk Cats that claim the lives of their Kaadus. The Prey-Mimicry animal call would attract creatures, but cause them to initiate an attack against you if they successfully break your camoflauge or mask scent. In combat, it would act as /rescue, drawing creatures off of the players near you though instead of one player. It is also an option to have this effect only one creature, or act as a true rescue and apply to all creatures attacking the target player.
- Endor - Companion Mimicry: The Ewok elder which you get this mission from will ask for you to milk an aggressive creature, which spawns as an enhanced or altered version of a creature already present. Return the milk to receive the animal call. It serves as a boost to camoflauge / mask scent success while remaining in close proximity to creatures in the area you used the animal call, and allows a higher yield of milk when obtaining it from a creature.
- There is a warm-up timer of 5 seconds, and a cool down of 15 seconds. The companion call cannot be used in combat, but the Predator and Prey calls can be used in both combat and out of combat. The buff timer should be 10 to 15 minutes for some of these calls.
- It must be equipped to use.
As a Creature Handler, I have no problems with the Animal Call suggestion. Good job, btw, on all the suggestions; it may make me want to actually take one of my character back into the Ranger profession again. Anyway, I have no problem with new features or skills in this vein as they apply to "NPC" creatures but, these abilities (Predator Mimicry.) could have some interesting PvP ramifications to player pets. Ideally, in PvP, maybe a Ranger should be a good counter to a CH with pets out, if our pets were actually worth anything in PvP. However, if it is a case of Rangers countering Creature Handlers, might I suggest that a contest between the Ranger's ability score be contested against a CH's max pet level (or non-CH's default DL10) score or something along those lines (Taming skill is more variable for us, BE mod & tape-wise), for effectiveness against player pets.
TuskenJedi wrote:
As a Creature Handler, I have no problems with the Animal Call suggestion. Good job, btw, on all the suggestions; it may make me want to actually take one of my character back into the Ranger profession again. Anyway, I have no problem with new features or skills in this vein as they apply to "NPC" creatures but, these abilities (Predator Mimicry.) could have some interesting PvP ramifications to player pets. Ideally, in PvP, maybe a Ranger should be a good counter to a CH with pets out, if our pets were actually worth anything in PvP. However, if it is a case of Rangers countering Creature Handlers, might I suggest that a contest between the Ranger's ability score be contested against a CH's max pet level (or non-CH's default DL10) score or something along those lines (Taming skill is more variable for us, BE mod & tape-wise), for effectiveness against player pets.
I do not think that we should start a PvP affinity with countering the Creature Handler profession, as they have a hard enough time in PvP without a Ranger, an equally difficult profession to use in PvP, being able to specifically counter their abilities. It would make sense, though, but I just think we should start in a general PvP ability, and then perhaps become more counter-profession-specific.
It would not hurt, though, to enable their use against non-CH, non-droidpets. Theremay bea few people who use their CL 10 BE'd "uber(?)" pets in PvP, though.
BioEngine wrote:
I do not think that we should start a PvP affinity with countering the Creature Handler profession, as they have a hard enough time in PvP without a Ranger, an equally difficult profession to use in PvP, being able to specifically counter their abilities. It would make sense, though, but I just think we should start in a general PvP ability, and then perhaps become more counter-profession-specific.
It would not hurt, though, to enable their use against non-CH, non-droidpets. Theremay bea few people who use their CL 10 BE'd "uber(?)" pets in PvP, though.
In any event, what do you think about making AC (Animal Call) a level based skill rather than an all or nothing quest prize? Master Scouts could get the base skill and the Ranger profession increments it. Dabblers would get diminished returns. The skill would be realistically scaled back from being a get-out-of-jail-free-card against the more powerful mobs out there.
TuskenJedi wrote:
BioEngine wrote:
I do not think that we should start a PvP affinity with countering the Creature Handler profession, as they have a hard enough time in PvP without a Ranger, an equally difficult profession to use in PvP, being able to specifically counter their abilities. It would make sense, though, but I just think we should start in a general PvP ability, and then perhaps become more counter-profession-specific.
It would not hurt, though, to enable their use against non-CH, non-droidpets. Theremay bea few people who use their CL 10 BE'd "uber(?)" pets in PvP, though.
In any event, what do you think about making AC (Animal Call) a level based skill rather than an all or nothing quest prize? Master Scouts could get the base skill and the Ranger profession increments it. Dabblers would get diminished returns. The skill would be realistically scaled back from being a get-out-of-jail-free-card against the more powerful mobs out there.
I think that it should be available to scouts, but in a limited number than CH's and Rangers.
I will have to develop this idea more thoroughly. In the meantimel, let me know what you think of "Fog of War," underneath the Camoflauge / Concealment section.
BioEngine wrote:
The wild spawns are still the same challenge level as their "difficulty level" implies.
Ah, but the issue here is ANYONE can see the level now. Prior to the CU, all you had to go on, unless you were a master scout or a had enough scout and the FS survival line, was the /con of the creature. You couldn't explicitly see the level of of the creature. That was a perk that many CHs thought they were entitled to, and I strongly disagreed with them.
Something needs to be given back to master scouts (and of course, by implication, rangers) for taking this perk away from them and giving it to anyone.
SioBabble wrote:
BioEngine wrote:
The wild spawns are still the same challenge level as their "difficulty level" implies.
Ah, but the issue here is ANYONE can see the level now. Prior to the CU, all you had to go on, unless you were a master scout or a had enough scout and the FS survival line, was the /con of the creature. You couldn't explicitly see the level of of the creature. That was a perk that many CHs thought they were entitled to, and I strongly disagreed with them.
Something needs to be given back to master scouts (and of course, by implication, rangers) for taking this perk away from them and giving it to anyone.
Yes, I agree this was taken away from us and handed out to the masses. It is wrong and should be justified, but it seems the Devs are trying to make choices worth next to nothing in this game.
What I cannot understand with this new level-based aggro AI system is this: What level of a creature am I intended to be able to avoid with Camoflauge if I am a Master Ranger? Regardless of skill level, although they would argue that is has something to do with my CL from Ranger I bet.
They need to explain what / why changes were made to our concealment and creature knowledge abilities. I haven't even seen a "known issue" statement about concealment or creature knowledge, so I don't even think they known it exists. 
