Ranger Archive

This is not a bad idea so long as:

• We can use them at the same time


• It works on creatures and humanoids including PvP


• The defense bonus is significant enough to matter. Another 10 points is not going to cut it.

I would hope they would not think this lets them off the hook as far as giving us some creature damage mitigation or reduction, because this only takes a currently sub-standard skill and makes it useful, but it is a step in the right direction. Good idea! Thats why you are in charge...

**edit**, that first one got posted... Sorry 'bout that... I was trying to reorginize my thoughts.

I like someone's Idea of Conceal vs NPC and PC not make you invisible but makes you untargetable........ I saw this on Anarchy Online when I use to play.......and the cool thing about that . is you can make the conceal kits more powerful or last longer depending on the experimentation....... If you go that route. And like the other guy said . You are not able to be targeted until you go into combat and My add on to it would be or unless a ranger with the (new skill) heighted sense to detect it. That goes back to my post of having a defense to go with the /conceal skill.

Asking for logic? Okay, I'll try that.

/conceal requires camo kits made from resources from the specific planet you are /conceal-ing on. These camo kits are made from various creature parts, theoretically because creatures themselves are the true masters of camouflage. The "gland" of one creature may mask your scent, while the bones and hide from others changes your outline and coloration to match the locale.

The logic behind keeping it vs NPC's is simple; camouflage is camouflage. While masking my scent may not work against a humanoid with a less refined sense of smell than a dragonette, making myself appear as part of the dune does, and /conceal always seemed to be the SWG version of the ghillie suit.

As a Ranger operating in the wilds of many planets, it may become necessary to conceal myself not only from the creatures I am hunting, but from others that may have less than friendly designs on my person. Pirates who are operating from a remote location to hide from authorities may need to be hidden from as I move past their location.

As a RL hunter, I can assure you that my scent mask compound doesn't work against my fellow hunters (who could only smell a deer if it were being grilled), but a ghillie suit and some face camo sure as heck will. And for anyone that has run across a Meth lab while hunting, having the skills to leave the area undetected can be a very good thing indeed.

Is that logical?

NisraB, thank you for bringing in a non-Star-Wars fiction example.

To go even further: I don't know if anyone remembers Babylon 5. The Rangers there were adept at spying and sneaking around, and could practice their work right under the very noses of the Shadows - the ultimate enemy for most. One of the reasons that I've been playing with the Ranger lines is because of Marcus, and wanting to "grow up just like him".

Now, using him and Arnold as the examples: It is actually far easier to convince a more sentient being that you are not you, than it is to convince a critter - and vice versa.

When I get out of the shower, my cat tries to cover me with his scent by rubbing against my ankles. My dog will be sniffing and giving me the "dumb dog" look. A little while later, they both "recognize" me because I have my scent back. Scout's mask scent is much the same. When Scent masked, the player stands among critters that notice him (see all the little question marks), but don't recognize him as a threat until he starts shooting. This is why the CH can sneak in and steal babies.

Now, sentient creatures have a different sense of smell, but all seem to see more into a visible range. Hence, our Ranger, who is adept at camoflauge of all kinds, is smart enough to realize that he can fool a smarter being, BECAUSE IT IS TOO SMART TO HAVE EVOLVED A SENSE OF SMELL. Observe that current real military is about changing the shape and sound of the person so that s/he is not recognized as a threat. Observe Arnold slapping on the mud. Observe Marcus on Babylon 5, wearing a cloak so that the people who would kill him in down below would think he was just another drifter. Further: police engage in a form of camoflauge when they dress like pimps and crack dealers to nab the bad guys.

The one thing that is common through all the examples is that the camoflauge is designed to fool a more sentient creature.

Therefore, camoflauge should be just that: camoflauge. When applied, it fools sentients. However, the only way that it should work against creatures is with the implication that there is some sort of scent masking involved. Hence, the requirements for meat from the native planet are a wonderful thing to include.

My 2 creds.

/bump

I know, we have many other options/proposals on the table now. But in light of some other things I have been reading on the threads, and changes being made that effect profession, with out any discussion with those professions from the devs, I throwing this back up.

It seems even though the devs say they want more communication with the players, with the new forums they have now, it seems in reality they are talking to us less, and making more changes.The new forums they have are not much good to the players, because we cant post our own threads in them anymore. There is no longer a place to talk about "game" mechanics. There are only server, profession, and GCW forums for us now.

So here is this information in hopes they take this information back to SOE.

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Squidwalker wrote:

The new forums they have are not much good to the players, because we cant post our own threads in them anymore. There is no longer a place to talk about "game" mechanics. There are only server, profession, and GCW forums for us now.

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I take it you have not seen the new Core Systems forum listed with the Profession forums? It is for general game issues and KStarFire presides over it. Its basically SWG Discussion sans the whining (ok, there is a little bit of whining there, but not nearly as much as was in SWG Discussion).

Hey Runsabre, check this info out.

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NRaas wrote:

"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?

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I Agree with that.

However only for neg to hit with ranged weapons as if your close enough to hit with a melee anyway your camo abilities should be completely negated.

Wow...
great post Squidwalker and here is my response

The Ranger makes his/ her living by going out into the wild and hunting either solo or in groups the animals, one of the things that aids the ranger is the camo and stealth abillity. In this game, there are different types of camoflague, mask scent is the masking of your odor by a natural musk, this is usually sufficient for most animals, whose olfactory senses are usually much higher than sentient species.
The picture I get is in the wild, the Raner has a vial or small bottle of musky essence that they apply to themselves to disguise their natural scent, however, the Ranger is still visible.

Conceal is much different
During Army basic training and then for the rest of my Army career, I used face paint camoflague, the purpose of this was to darken the areas of the face that reflect the most light, lighten the parts of the face that reflect the least light, and create a neutral reflective surface, combined with the camoflague pattern that breaks up the pattern of the face (which is easily recognizable), along with the camo BDU's this further breaks up the shape of the human body into the environment. Obviously this would not prevent an animal from seeing the soldier, this attempt is to hide or CONCEAL from the human opponents.

This is how I see conceal.
Conceal is the active use of camoflague to break up the recognizable pattern of the face and body to hide from the visually based senses of NPC's and (PC's i could only wish) combined with the musk to hide from the more olfactory based animals.

This is why maskscent and conceal should be different, this is the main difference between the two abilities, otherwise its just overkill with both conceal and mask scent, they need to be separate and distinct

Thanks for everyones great responces and fantastic ideas, and information. I will once again perform a shameless bump on this thread. And plan to contintue this until we get some kind of responce from the Devs on NRaas' Outdoorsman proposal, and we know where the devs are taking this profession, and our abilities.

Thanks Rangers.

Like it was already stated a majorproblem is drawing a line between Players and NPC "humanoids" concerning the effects of camo-kits. None of the posted suggestions do this in a satisfying way (side remark: is it possible at all? I dont think so).

"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."

I actualy really dont like the "negative to-hit" modifier idea at all, because the way it is now Camo can,though it is bugged, avoid combat with npcs (the reason I chose it), while the modifier only works when in combat (which I try to avoid). There are enough Combat modifiers.

The game isnt realistic and the goal isnt to simulate the "reality". Other professions and skillcontradict reality too (i.e. Food and armor). So just leave out the problematic aspect of camouflage against PC.

Here's my opinion as someone new to the Ranger profession (hologrinder, sorry lads), for what it's worth - I suppose there's at least some degree of objectivity to my post as I don't feel any sense of attachment to the profession but regard it with the view of an outsider as it were.

Rangers in my estimation lack any defining skill, as I see it there is very little in ranger that isn't already in scout, sure, ok there's tracking, that's not bad as I understand it, but it's an awful lot of skill points to master scout and then tracking just for that purpose.

Rangers appear to us outsiders as little more than glorified scouts, they're a little too "Everquesty" at the moment, a little too Olde Worlde as a profession, they need to be brought up to date really (ok, so they have a couple of high-tech looking camps, but frankly that's just graphics isn't it ?)

Rangers *should* be more like army rangers, experts at blending into their surroundings, /conceal shouldn't be nerfed but rather made MORE powerful, although with some provisos, it should act like real camouflage.

Here's my thoughts on /conceal and camouflage in general;

/conceal should work against NPCs and Players alike, if it works on one there's no reason it shouldn't work on the other, on a player radar a /concealed ranger should either appear as a yellow dot, or not at all (were a ranger to appear as a yellow dot, I think it would be nice if they appeared visually as some form of native wildlife - imagine a master rifleman/master ranger disguised as an indiginous creature - "a gnort uses mind shot on you for 823 points of damage!" ).

Auto targeting (hammering the tab key) should not be able to target a /concealed ranger unless they've given away their position by attacking you.

/conceal shouldn't work on anyone mounted or on a vehicle, yes, the creature won't smell you but you're riding a jet turbine and the sound of that's going to aggro any creature within 200 yards, /maskscent should work on people riding mounts, but again, not on people riding vehicles - give people a reason to use mounts again and add more of an element of risk to anyone using vehicles (it also puts an end to the maskscent and bombing around dathomir gaining scout points tactic, which doesn't strike me as anything like realistic, even though it's going to make things harder for grinders like myself).

Lastly, /conceal and camouflage should grant a negative to-hit *RANGED* modifier for other players that's more effective the slower the ranger moves as well as when being prone - finally a use for terrain negotiation over 50, a crawling camouflaged player should be a lot harder to hit than an upright sprinting one in bright red clothing. Camouflage is rather less effective when the person is upright and running, but when prone and slowly crawling like a sniper in a ghillie suit, the player should be almost invisible and so become a LOT tougher to hit (by a ranged fighter that is - if I'm standing over you with my power hammer you're going to get hurt).

I think it's worth noting that Rangers have NO combat abilities, none whatsoever, it's a support class, like Doctor, but it currently doesn't enhance the primary combat class in any way other than being able to harvest more meat from a target (and quite frankly that just means you get to kill more things to get the same amount of meat).

Remember I'm not looking to play a ranger, I'm also not interested in PvP, but I think that each class should have it's own defining trait and should make people want to play them for different reasons, I personally prefer the doctor/melee route (swordsman/fencer, rather than TKA, too many of them in my estimation) and play mostly for PvE, yes I got Ranger as a holo profession, and even with these changes I wouldn't still stick with it, because it's not the style of character I want to play, but I think it needs a lot of changes for those poor souls who choose to stick with it.