Ranger Archive
Thread: Post your Logic Behind Keeping /conceal vs NPC, Here
NRaas wrote:
"What is the harm in this ability?"
The harm comes from the fact that it would follow the vision they have prescribed for the profession...
- That is why they are trying to pry the skill away from us, so that we have a consistent direction, rather than bits and pieces of various concepts and directions.
The Ranger profession was a late addition to the system, and apparently no one actually fully defined our role in the system...
- Once they did however, changes had to be made to fit that design.
Tomorrow, we will discuss this direction and see what we should do to make it work in our favor.
I think the question is, is the vision of adequate depth to meet a variety of gaming desires? Many of us want to play a Ranger, but at the same time feel we should have a role beyond hunting creatures, ie being involved in the GCW. Of course you cant please everyone, but where reasonable overlaps occur, such as camo kits, then why not take advantage of that?
I think most of my general dislike of the whole Dev position is that we constantly have it thrown in our face about how busy they are, how many professions there are, how everything takes time, how greenmarine is in charge of everything under the sun and I am sure piloting the mars lander in his free time, etc. They cant add to us, they cant fix anything, they cant even respond appropriately to our issues, but they can and will remove a mostly working feature because it doesnt fit their 'vision'.
If there actually is a vision why not give us that? Do they have any idea how much easier it is to swallow a change to one of our only working skills if we know how the changefactors into the bigger vision? My guess is that the vision is exactly what you stated 'creature hunter'. Thats it, nothing more, and thus they have nothing to report and we have nothing by which to measure if the change to camo kits is reasonable or not.
Sorry for the rant.
Cul
After much reflexion, i have a hard time finding how /conceal works in the great creature hunter scheme of things. Why? Because we are not great creature hunters. We are creature trackers. We can find them easy, hide from them, and with traps, hinder them. But we can't kill them. A Ranger is no creature hunter. He sure can harvest it once it's death. But Rangers hunt creatures using their combat skills from other professions. A Ranger/Medic cannot hunt big games. Must me rely on another profession to do our primary function?
Even with a +to-hit bonus in the tracking line, we need help or a combat profession.
Right now, best way to harvest creatures is NOT ranger. It's Scout + Master combat profession. The to-hit bonus does not compair to an elite combat profession. I harvest more then a commando... well, the commando kill stuff 2 times bigger, so in the end he harvests more. Traps help, but do not compair to elite profession specials like KD.
Where am i going with that? Simple, we are not creature hunters. We are wilderness experts. We survive in it, (camps, camouflage), we know it (creature knowledge, tracking), and we use it (forage, camps, traps).
In this sense, i always felt more like a guide then a fighter. I don't just kill... I help.
- To me, the Ranger is a guy that can say to 3 BE: come with me, i'll take you safelyto the Bull Rancor nest and make sure you can harvest it. I'll set up a great camp for you to experiment in.
- To me, the Ranger is a guy that can say to 3 CH: come with me, i'll make sure you find Graul Maulers and increase you chance of safe taming.
- To me, the Ranger is a guy that can say to 3 Surveyor: Come with me, i'll make sure you can search and survey this planet undamaged and plant your harvesters.
- To me, the Ranger can take a commando and say: You wanna do the Nightsister team-park? Come with me, i know Dathomir and the indigenous tribes. With me you might be able to enter the nightsister camp, as i know their customs.
- To me, the Ranger can take a hunting party to the great Dun See and say: we'll get Bantha hides. Just follow me, and i know how to keep Tuskens off our backs.
To do all that, we need conceal from NPC. All NPC, regardless of faction (right now, conceal still work very poorly on negative faction NPC). To be safe out there, and for our party to be safe, we need to be able to tune down aggro form creature and NPC. If not, what are rangers for?
Here's my question. Who would bother to use conceal if it only worked on creatures?
I know I wouldnt. Why should I bother crafting camo kits when I can just hit mask scent? With a +15 bio-enhanced piece of clothing I get just as much protection.
Without camoflauge against npcs Conceal becomes yet another worthless skill that no one will use.
"We can find them easy, hide from them, and with traps, hinder them. But we can't kill them. A Ranger is no creature hunter."
So the definition of hunt you are using must be synonymous with kill...
My definition of Hunting would entail actually locating the query as well as downing it, as it is most difficult to kill something you can not find.
As for the killing portion, improved bonuses for creature combat would enhance our chosen weapon skill to better down our prey.
But you are right...
- A Hunter templatewould bethe combination of a Ranger and some other Combat profession (whatever that piques your fancy).
Yes, to me, hunting =killing. A deer hunter kills the deer, when a lion hunt, he kills. Otherwise it,s called seeking, seaching, tracking. But enuff semiology. 
For one it is not a Bug. The post of "we are not different" stated that conceal kits were coming and where going to work against NPC people. So that is a Lie. This is a cop out for something else they are trying. If you are out doors then you get the benefits. We should be able to stealth vs People if it is a bug let people have something to detect stealth not get rid of it at all ...............
You dont get rid of the offense .... get a good defense. scanners, awaress as a skill, etc.
Your right Squidwalker, I do tend to stray off topic (as I tend to answer the little questions and further skew the thread)... I'll try to behave myself. 
As you were saying: Why should concealment work against NPCs?
It is logical that if the camoflauge is considered "complex" and reasonably high tech, it should conceal us from:
- dumb animals with great senses and
- smart humanoids with limited senses.
The main issue I see arising is whether complete concealment against humanoids might be considered far too unbalancing...
- It might be necessary to describe a method of concealment against humanoids that uses the "negative to-hit modifier" approach.
- Of course, if we do that then the effect could also be easily applied to a future PvP implementation as well using the same logic.
Namely:
When it comes to humanoids, they can still see you, but their accuracy would instead be severely reduced.
- This approach ensures that a concealed army can not simply walk through an faction base's defenses (one without turrets) with no problem.
- As well, it removes the primary issue of the developers dislike for invisibility (as our concealment would not make us invisible, just harder to hit).
Even though the game message says "complex" it doesn't really need to be. I can, with my limited Boy Scout and general outdoors experience go camoflauge myself with natural surrounds. I can garuntee you, that no human would be able to find me. What do you think modern Army Rangers are doing? They don't have anyhting fancy, other then some convenient holes in the uniform to stick branches.
All it takes is some branches, vines or grass or palm leaves, mud, fruits, and some creativity. Wohlah, instant hidden Teranus. Not complex, not anything. And with just that, I would be able to stay hidden from humans way easier then any wild animal. Animals would actually take some more time and creativity.
soooooo, basically if we are using camofluge we will be hidden from NPC just as animals. Personally I'll be happy if it's just left the way it is now. Now if they add some PvP function, the TO HIT modifier would be a good way to "represent" being camoed.
"Now if they add some PvP function, the TO HIT modifier would be a good way to "represent" being camoed."
Myself, I more interested in the logic of the system.
Why should Humanoid Players be considered differently from Humanoid NPCs with regards to /conceal?
- It's an artificial constraint that does not really need to be there.
- Though I'm sure someone is going to note the artificial distinction between Creatures and Humanoids (but that I'm going to answer with "creatures are dumb and humanoids are smart"
)
Anyways, I said previously, the imbalance of being able to sneak past Faction humanoids might be one of the reasons the developers backed down on /conceal vs. Humanoids.
Come to think of it... What about Faction Pets?
We run into a huge issue here if the Player could attack, but was unable to issue commands to his Humanoid troopers to attack.
Similiarly an issue arises with CH Pets... The Player can see us, but the Pet can not, or how would that work?
Perhaps /conceal should be completely revised to simply be a "negative to-hit" modifier across the board and drop the invisibility idea entirely.
- Leave /maskscent to completely hide from creatures.
- With that we could even ask for the ability to use both skills at the same time.
Comments?
OK just read through some of the latest posts. Lets try to keep this on topic. The use of /conceal vs NPC. There are some great ideas here on that, so lets see some more. I'm keeping this thread alive even though NRaas has his main one on our vision. Because, this thread is focusing on small part of that vision, and osmething that has already been said by the devs. I'm trying to avoid another "Mask Scent cancels in combat" fiasco.
Some of you have said that a lot of the ranger skills are not worth the skills points. I agree. I'm master and hope to be for long time, but I want to try some other stuff. If it were me, I would drop the trapping line first. Completely worthless, with both no real good traps and no real applicable bonuses.
From NRaas above.
The ability to define Friend or Foe simply based on Hearing, Smell, Taste has not been adequately rationalized yet.
Clear that one up for me without the use of some form of high technology and I would be most grateful.
Umm, I can't because that was something the Devs just decided to put into the function of the radar. We are getting off topic with this kind of thing. The radar doesn't matter as we have agreed doesn't exist in SW. So get back to the fact that /conceal wll hide you from anything with eyes, ears or a nose. Thats' what its hiding you from. And it doesn't matter what has those eye, ears, and nose, because the same techniques work the same on the level of physiology. Now yes some species see at a different spectrum of light, or even heat. And there are ones in SW that do. BUT, none of those species are in this game. Not as Player Characters or as NPC.
My two cents on the pet issue, faction pets could be an issue, but ch pets are animals and shouldn't have the same advantages.
My two cents on the friend or foe issue, people can lie! They can train themselves, and be trained to fake body language.
NRaas wrote:
"Now if they add some PvP function, the TO HIT modifier would be a good way to "represent" being camoed."
Perhaps /conceal should be completely revised to simply be a "negative to-hit" modifier across the board and drop the invisibility idea entirely.
- Leave /maskscent to completely hide from creatures.
- With that we could even ask for the ability to use both skills at the same time.
Comments?
This actually kills two birds with one stone. It solves the /conceal issue, and gives us a much needed boost to defense. So long as we could use both at the same time, this is not altogether a bad idea. The bonus defensemust besignificant enough to matter, another 10 points is just not going to cut it. I am down with this idea. I know a lot of people will object to losing the invisibility, but think of it this way, at least this way it will be useful. I just do not see them changing their mind on this issue so it is better to cut our losses early and shoot for something semi useful.