Ranger Archive
Thread: Ranger: The Recon Unit (ranger role development)
Artistan
Wed Nov 10, 2004 7:45 pm
#40
Recon is exactly what I always saw as the role of a ranger, especially in pvp groups. Scouting ahead, spotting an enemy camp, setting up an ambush...that is war. Not this mob warfare in the streets. Like the shift somewhat away from critter hunter only-sometimesI want to do something besides shoot critters, critters, and more critters. Stealth is probably the hardest part due to tech issues.
Good job, keep it up. If only the people who write proprosals like this could get jobs with SOE...
Owen-Lars
Thu Nov 11, 2004 3:14 am
#41
/Pathfind - This skill gives you a burst of speed indefinatly until you turn the ability off. This is offset by the damage multiplyer. Basically it lets you burst run or there abouts with no downtime or recharge, it focuses all your energy on planetary negotiation.
/GatherIntel - Im open to any suggestions on this skill but i do think that it should come with some restrictions and negatives to combat, such as the delay. Maybe not a delay then but it should have something that highlights the fact your are relaying info back to the group about a target. Perhaps when used you get a chance at being exposed or even more than that you cant gather intel whilst stealthed. Personally i would much prefere the combat delay just so we dont spam the skill and instead pick our targets wisely and consider the effectiveness of the skill in a group situation.
I think the names for /conceal and /reconconceal could change, personally i dont have an issue with them but if others do then sure lets change em to something more suitable. Although i think swaping /conceal for /camo and making /reconconceal turn into /conceal is kind of confusing in itself. How aboutsimply calling /reconconceal /stealth and keep conceal as it is.
Calculus_Entropy
Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:43 am
#42
Owen-Lars wrote:
/Pathfind - This skill gives you a burst of speed indefinatly until you turn the ability off. This is offset by the damage multiplyer. Basically it lets you burst run or there abouts with no downtime or recharge, it focuses all your energy on planetary negotiation.
How about dropping the damage modifier and limiting it to non-combat situations...that is assuming it's intent is really for exploration.
Owen-Lars
Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:27 am
#43
Yeah a to hit mod could be applied to us, that sounds good.
The main points about /pathfind is that you get to run fast, like burst running but without the downtime or time limit. To offset this and prevent us from kiting creatures/npcs/players we get hit more often and for more damage (to hit and damage modyfier). I think its just fair and balances the skill out more.
It would mean the skill wouldnt be used for abuse by kiting npcs miles away from their spawn point without getting killed. We would have to watch out and avoid possible agro (benefits of camo) and overall allow us to run around at burst run speeds but at a cost of offense and defense viability.
I see it also being used to get out of situations, but it shouldnt be its primary purpose. Using this skill to get away should be a last resort due to the increased damage you take. What it does do though is save your burst run for this situation. So you can run around the planet in pathfind mode, find your target, get your arse kicked and /burstrun out of there. Other people may find they are "too tired to burstrun". We on the other hand would have a great possibility of having a fully charged burst run ability for certain situations. Aswell as a skill that lets us 'speed run' around to our hearts content.
Calculus_Entropy
Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:37 am
#44
Owen-Lars wrote:Yeah a to hit mod could be applied to us, that sounds good.The main points about /pathfind is that you get to run fast, like burst running but without the downtime or time limit. To offset this and prevent us from kiting creatures/npcs/players we get hit more often and for more damage (to hit and damage modyfier). I think its just fair and balances the skill out more.It would mean the skill wouldnt be used for abuse by kiting npcs miles away from their spawn point without getting killed. We would have to watch out and avoid possible agro (benefits of camo) and overall allow us to run around at burst run speeds but at a cost of offense and defense viability.I see it also being used to get out of situations, but it shouldnt be its primary purpose. Using this skill to get away should be a last resort due to the increased damage you take. What it does do though is save your burst run for this situation. So you can run around the planet in pathfind mode, find your target, get your arse kicked and /burstrun out of there. Other people may find they are "too tired to burstrun". We on the other hand would have a great possibility of having a fully charged burst run ability for certain situations. Aswell as a skill that lets us 'speed run' around to our hearts content.
That is fine, and should work but, if the goal is to use it in combat, don't describe it as a skill to facilitate planetary exploration.
Piroa
Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:41 am
#45
I'd rather it not be used in combat at all. If we are running around in Pathfinder mode and get attacked it drops us out of /pathfind and we can't start it agin until we are no longer in combat. That would be more useful to me thanallowing me to use it in combat, but I get hit more often and for more damage.
Owen-Lars
Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:13 am
#46
That is fine, and should work but, if the goal is to use it in combat, don't describe it as a skill to facilitate planetary exploration.
No because its primary purpose IS exploration 
It increases your run speed, you can explore you can run across planets faster, search the farest reaches of the planets faster. Obviously there is bikes but you dont explore much on bikes, you travel on bikes. You dont get to see the true beuty of planets whilst on a machine.
Like i said though the main purpose is to enhance exploration possibilities, gives a pathfinding skills and let us scout ahead of groups if we want. There is a secondary use (as for most skills) which is getting out of combat but it isnt its primary.
Camps can be used for weddings, thats a purpose, not what they are described as because its not their primary 'described' role.
WildBil2Me
Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:47 am
#47
Hiccup....
Go ahead 2 posts.
Stupid forums.
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 11-11-2004 12:51 PM
Owen-Lars
Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:54 am
#48
Ah yes but consider its desirability compared to vehicular travel when out contract hunting or perhaps even just hunting random things, even tracking.
Instead of waiting 15 or so seconds to pop your bike out you could just activate pathfind and run to the next target. Im not saying bikes will be made redundant to rangers if we got this skill, just that on a normal runaround situation such as hunting or in pvp it would benefit rangers to be able to run fast indefinatly without causing serious kiting imbalances.
Im sure it wont make rangers give up bikes, i dont think anything would but i will enhance rangers when our hunting using /areatrack organic hunting. I supose it depends how you play your ranger, i dont mind hopping off my bike to run places, i think its more rangerish realy and when i used to go exploring, i loved nothing more than doing it on foot. Driving around on a vehicle visiting locations isnt my idea of exploration, getting from point a to point b without dying was my idea of exploration. Obviously since the uber armour+buffs+vehicles exploration isntrisky at all now, but it used to be and i think this would aid both in exploration (in the new system) and in hunting (none mission hunting)
Nemo0
Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:09 pm
#49
Make stealth unavailable on a bike. Then make pathfind available while stealthed. I can guarantee you that lots of people will use pathfind for scouting.
As for pathfind, it might be enough to just remove our ability to attack while using it and for a brief time after ending it. There really is no need for a damage multiplier and to hit bonus if we have to stop using it in order to attack. You might be able to kite something but you won't really do any damage (except through a bleed of some sort, maybe). You might also want to remove the ability to pathfind while in combat (you can continue to pathfind if you started outside of combat but you can't start it up while in combat--sort of like maskscent and conceal). This also means that you might be able to remove the combat downtime after leaving pathfind.
But this can still lead to NPC/creature kiting: use a bleed, /pathfind, kite target until the bleed wears off, repeat (the agro should end shortly after the bleed wears off). But warningshot sort of allows this now on creatures anyway.
My personal thoughts on how to limit pathfind:
- Only enter while not in combat for at least 15 seconds.
- No attacking while pathfinding.
- Can continue to pathfind if you get attacked.
- You can attack immediately after ending pathfinding.
The first two pointsare enough to prevent player kiting (if you hit a player with any attack, autoattack should prevent you from pathfinding [unless they are in combat with something else but then you wouldn't be like to kite them anyway]). NPC/creature kiting through bleeds is extremely slow now that they have nerfed bleeds (NPC/creature HAMs are large enough to offset most bleeds). The third point means that a random spawn won't easily knock you out of pathfind mode. The fourth point lets you defend yourself when an enemy catches up to you while pathfinding (like a gurreck probably could).
Owen-Lars
Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:15 pm
#50
Sounds good Nemo, nice ideas, i can agree with then all.
Just one question though:
"Only enter while not in combat for at least 15 seconds. "
Does this mean we cant go into pathfinding mode for 15 seconds after combat? Would this be needed? I think it would be cool that if you kill one animal, barely making it out alive, you can simply turn on pathfinding mode and sprint out of there before the others arive/attack. Also a 15second delay after combat would bring it in line more or less with vehicles, will this negatively impact on the skill's attractiveness?
Nemo0
Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:52 pm
#51
Owen-Lars wrote:
Sounds good Nemo, nice ideas, i can agree with then all.
Just one question though:
"Only enter while not in combat for at least 15 seconds. "
Does this mean we cant go into pathfinding mode for 15 seconds after combat? Would this be needed? I think it would be cool that if you kill one animal, barely making it out alive, you can simply turn on pathfinding mode and sprint out of there before the others arive/attack. Also a 15second delay after combat would bring it in line more or less with vehicles, will this negatively impact on the skill's attractiveness?
I don't like it much either but it's there to prevent one type of griefing that I thought of:
20 Rangers/Riflemen pathfind in, target the same target, headshot3 once, pathfind out before any serious retaliation. It would be the hit and run attack that could destroy any group of players with enough lag. The 15 second delay would allow for a bit of a lag response. You can still get in quickly and probably get off the first attack but you can't leave before the other players can respond.
I personally don't like the 15 second delay. I actually put it in after typing out the rest of the stuff. But I believe that we will either need one at the start or at the end. At the end puts us at a quite large risk from random spawns and removes the ability to use it as a suprise attack sort of thing (sort of like /retreat can be used now).
The advantages over a vehicle would still be there. The skill wouldn't cost money to use (vehicles decay), you would be harder to see when stealthed/camoed, you'd be faster than a bike on hilly terrain (I can keep up with a swoop on a steep hill now--I'd be going twice as fast with this), and you'd feel more like a Ranger. If the delay really starts to annoy you, you could use some of the burst run food to get going and switch over to pathfind when that wore off. It definately would be better to not have the delay but can you overcome the above situation (or a similar one) without it?
The getting out of a bad situation quickly would still belong to burstrun. If you bite off more than you can chew, you still have your /burst all ready to go.
The delay does make the skill less attractive and less useful. But, without it, you might end up with a potential grief method using the skill. Can you think of a way to remove the grief potential while also removing the delay? I'm not even sure a damage penalty or enemy damage bonus would cover it as long as we have the ability to enter and leave pathfind as we wish.
Nemo0
Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:55 pm
#52
WildBil2Me wrote:
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Now THAT is more like what I had in mind! Those stipulations remind me fo something.....hmmm....
Nemo0 wrote:
My personal thoughts on how to limit pathfind:
- Only enter while not in combat for at least 15 seconds.
- No attacking while pathfinding.
- Can continue to pathfind if you get attacked.
- You can attack immediately after ending pathfinding.
Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 11-11-2004 01:42 PM
I think those are pretty cool.
Did we get a comparative speed for /pathfind over other abilities or options?
Personally, I'd like to see it based of the Terrain Negotiation mod. Something like (1.0 + TN/100)*normal_speed. Master Ranger should then probably get +100 TN (instead of +95 like now) and the skill should cap at 100 TN (unless you the extra +60 group TN from SL to make it a bit ugly--I'd be happy with it but it would be really fast). This would double our speed when using the skill at Master. I'm not sure how fast the force run skills are but something on par with them seems fair (maybe force run 2 speed at Master? But with full TN). That's just my thinking, though.