Ranger Archive
Thread: Tracking the Elusive Vision...
I would say that a bonus to dodge would be to uber. It would stack with pistol and make pistoleer the clear companion profession, the two together making you nearly untouchable. Creature damage mitagation is bonus though. Trap launcher? eh, its ok I guess. What we have now is grenades not traps. I have said it before, traps are set, grenades are thrown. This is minor though, and I really would just like to see more, and functional traps. Modular traps and camps are a great idea.
- More forageable stuff is a must. Fix the bug that makes it so we discard stuff if we find more then one item.
- More camps! More variety! Different functions. Again, modular is great.
- Fishing. Do something here. We should be raking in the loot for fish, to bad we suck just as bad as everyone else at it. Maybe we should get 'fish traps.' they could function just like harvestors, only placeable in the water. I think someone suggested this a while back. Putting fishing in the game and not giving rangers a bonus to it, is like putting golf in the game and not giving doctors a bonus
well, ok seriously, this would rock. - Milk. Nothing more needs said. Totally insanely rare. Why? Why can't we get it?
- Simply use creature knowledge on a 10-1 ratio if we are going for better creature handling bonuses. Thusly we get +1 pet level per 10 points in creature knowledge. Maybe a +2 at master, i dont know... this takes a lot of thought to balance correctly.This is not enough to make a huge impact on creature handlers, but enough to help us out a little. The difference between a level 10 and a level 20 is significant. Give us only the most basic commands. Attack, and follow me. Store is pointless anyway since you can alwasy do it from your radial menu.
- The idea of letting us use some specials from mounts is cool. I am in favor of it.
- Any bonus to combat should be universal. Thus going to both melee and ranged. Critical hits, plus to hit etc. Resistances are great to. To damage outright(not as good as tka of coarse) and to stun/blind/etc. Most useful as many creatures have access to these effects.
Some random thoughts... didnt sleep again last night... ugh...
Sorry, I didn't read this entire post as it is absolutely depressing me. I did read a lot of great suggestions from you guys though. I have one suggestion, can we get tracking to give:
1. waypoint to lair/spawn
2. Can master ranger get knowledge to the organic shift, meaning as a master, I know exactly where the best avian/herbivore/carnivore meat is. What planet, what creatures, etc. Same with the other organics, bone and hide. This will at least save me time and money and get me in really nice with all the docs and crafters.
3. Can the range be extended, or maybe focused in one direction only for double range, eg. track 1000m in the North direction rather than 500m radius. Right now it is faster for me to spawn a mission than to try and track animals, even with my swoop.
Regarding terrain negotian, I second anyone that said we become faster. Since I can't track on mounts, at least improve my running speed, crawl speed doesn't help me.
Regarding maskscent/camoflauge...I don't even have the words to describe my disgust. I really don't like the direction the devs are going with this.
Regarding harvesting, I second the notion of harvesting all 3 organics at once, this is a great idea. Also, give me a damage bonus, not a to hit bonus. I don't like the idea of a new weopon just for creatures as that will be another weopon I will have to carry taking up space in my inventory which is only useful against creatures. I don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but how about a creature feature similar to sneaky shot that Rifleman get.
I don't know what to say about traps as I don't like them as they are now. If we could speed up the time to throw them and increase the range to 64m, I might get more out of them. As it is I need to get like ~45m to use a trap which usually will get me aggroed by every creature outside the lair. Plus the only one I ever found to be useful was the phenc dart, but even that one isn't that great since the snare effect lasts maybe 15sec.
Camping...hmmm. I like the idea of battle camps, awesome. That alone would made this skill worth the the 100s of hours it takes to complete this line. I say 100s of hours because I don't like grinding camps.
Okay okay, sorry for the lapse. I don't see a reason why we can't get a general ranged and melee bonus. I myself don't do melee. I never got a taste for it. But others do and that is good. I would suggest however to help balance these proposed bonuses that they should only be active in a non-urban environment.
As to creatures. Fine let them stack with CH but still stagger them so you can't just take one line of skills and run with it. Hell I think most skill trees need to be staggered. And I wantto have my own Ben.
NRaas wrote:
...
The Restrictions
Just when you thought it was going to be easy eh? Recently I have read some rather outlandish proposals, most of which sound like brand new professions entirely.
The developers have laid out a framework already. One with Camoflauge, Camps, Traps, and Tracking.
....
- We can not stray too far from the developers vision, otherwise we will not be heard at all.
- But I believe we can include their vision within our own without much strife.
I think that pointis very important...
We canNOT say we want to rob skills which belong to other professions, or skills that would require a whole new profession to be made,and stillexpect to be heard. As it is, I don't expect anything to be done about this "vision" thread any way. Do you?
What are we?
We are "creature" [hunter] oriented profession. We are "crowd control" profession. We are "outdoors" profession. We are a creature "PvE" profession. - whatever you want to call it.
What do we have to work with?
Terrain Negotiation, Camo, Maskscent, Camps, Traps, Tracking, Creature Knowledge, Creature Harvesting, Creature Damage, Foraging, & Rescue.
That's a lot of skills to work with... we have a much better chance to improving the profession, and defining a "vision" for the profession if we stick to what we have.
We need SIMPLE changes that would make Ranger better (within the current system, not requiring a redesign of the profession). Otherwise, we'll prolly get NOTHING.
- Terrain Negotiation - run longer and faster (not just crawl faster) than a Master Scout. Mounts and vehicle have made burst run rarely needed for anything more than a short "get away", so it would nice if normal running speed got a boost to make us the fastest profession in the game.
- Camo - camo to work against NPC's still... A camouflaged person can hide better against humans than creatures anyway.
- Maskscent - maskscent to NOT break by the time we reach Master Ranger.
- Camps - camps to NOT"poof" until we disband them or log out. (It would be extra nice if camps were like a home away from home, like a cheap house, but without the options for residency or vendors).
- Traps - debuff, root, snare, & state effect **edit** near any creature by the time we reach Master Ranger.
- Tracking - /track (not just /areatrack) so that we can find/spawn lairs without going back to the city mission terminals.
- Creature Harvesting - harvest bone, hide, and meat from the same creature (even at a reduced percentage) by the time we are a Master Ranger.
- Creature Damage - do more damage to creatures (not just "tohit" bonus).
- Foraging - forage to return something more useful than the junk we get now.
- Does anyone have an idea how Rescue could be made better without a redesign of the profession?
I would urge everyone to try to puttheir ideas into the context of the existing framework for the profession.
(even then I doubt much will get changed, but I'm sure the devs will ignore any ideas that would require another redesign of the profession)
This suggestion is as old as the /conceal command itself...
- Yet no one has defined a process to my satisfaction which would not allow for a client hack to bypass the radar restriction.
What if we use the old suggestion that we still show up on radar, but you can't target using TAB? Just like some of the mission NPC you see out there, they show up on radar, but you can't autotarget, you need to get LOS and click directly on them. For this to not be heavily exploited though, they need to fix the problem of shooting through terrain. If they did that fix, then this idea for /conceal in PvP would be great IMO.
NRaas:
We could possibly get away with a couple, ifthey were added to the Scout profession for use by BH as well...
- Namely becausethey get to use the creature traps available in the Scout profession, which is supposed to be our perview.
Umm, giving NPC traps to scout.... NO, and heck NO. How could you sell us out like that NRas? The scouts already have 10 traps to our 2, that no one even uses as it is. I see your point about the BH and agree, so the simple fix is make the trap fall into both the BH profession, and the Ranger profession. The BH already has the scout abilities to throw and make traps, so just put these NPC traps in both Ranger and BH, that we both get to use them and make them. And since we are the Elite profesions, it's only fitting for us to get it.
Trap launcher idea is cool. Personally I don't think Ranger needsspecial weapon. Just give us some defence and damage mods against animals. Done.
CavemanGamer wrote:
We canNOT say we want to rob skills which belong to other professions, or skills that would require a whole new profession to be made,and stillexpect to be heard. As it is, I don't expect anything to be done about this "vision" thread any way. Do you?
Does anyone have an idea how Rescue could be made better without a redesign of the profession?
Okay valid points. Including those that I did not quote. Okay how rescue should work. Hmmm well we select a PC, hit rescue, all aggro value they have accrued or a portion of aggro based upon our rescue skill should be transferred to us and maybe doubled or tripled depending on our level again. We become the bright shiny chew toy.
Another option would be a one time use or timed use of a scare/spook command.We hit rescue/spook and all aggro creatures have a chance of running for a few cycles depending on our skill.
Just a couple idears.
I still want my bear named Ben though.
And BTW Multipass
I like the idea of environment affecting things. Maybe rain and sandstorms and stuff should have negative effects on movement and combat and stuff, but rangers have the ability to resist those negative effects.
Also, if we can run faster and crawl faster, why can't we swim faster? Swimming sucks.
I would love to see that!!!! I like the idea of damaging storms, but be careful not to imply that there should be species specific issues, as the devs will most likely not want to tackle that big of a change. I.e. everyone should be damaged by storms, based on their TN, BUT a fish should not dry up on Tat (though the should).
JumboFett wrote:
One thing that might make us more useful would be if the terrain actually needed negotiating.
It is possible to run from Wayfar to Takai on Tatooine without breaking so much as a blister. The sand storms of Tattooine are legendary, yet they have no effect in this game. The swamps of Dathomire are supposed to be riddled with disease, but they're not. For the most part, PC's see the only use of camps as a place to call their vehicle or pet. Add exposure as a factor. Wookies running around the Dune sea should burst into flames, Mon Calamaians should dry up on the desert planet.
If the populace is FORCED to seek shelter from the elements, then they will start seeking out Rangers.
Let me start by saying great thread. Lots of great idea, and I pray that this gets a long hard look by the devs.
The first thing I would like to throw out here is the "back and forth" about stepping on the toes of other classes. I see alot of talk about "can't do that, its BH" or "that is the realm of SL". But... one simple fact remains, and thats is these professions all STEM from Scout. What does that mean? Some "cross-over" abilities should be expected.
Some are saying that "Player trapping" is BH territory. What gives a bounty hunter his trapping abilities? Scouting, same as a Ranger. Both at master level even. Furthermore, we have an entire line DEDICATED to traps, but amazingly enough we are unable to use them on NPCs or Players. How silly is it to say that an adhesive mesh trap is capable of slowing down an Enraged Rancor, yet it is usless to slow down a Rodian Swordsman?
If we can't have things like player trapping, or the like.... why should we have conceal? Isnt that a Sniping ability? Why have a +crawl speed? That is also a rifle skill. Combat medics have +terrain negotiation WITHOUT a scout requirment. My point here is simply that having "like abilities" of other classes should not be rulled out. The game is filled with like-abilities of unlike-classes that make less sense in a logical sense than, say, allowing an Adhesive Mesh trap function on a Player.
All this being said, I am not trying to argue that Rangers get the specialty skills that make other professions unique. But allow the abilities that we do have to holdsome basis in logical thinking.
Know I'm a little late jumping in the threads, but I thought this post was incredible. A+ for creativity! Wish I could come up with stuff like that. Let's hope the Devs think so too!
Khyron2k wrote:
How about camps for multiple situations?
- Acamp for NPC combat. IE : An entrenched position, like with sandbags and barbed wire and stuff... that gave +10 ranged/melee defense for everyone in it. Cannot use it to heal, cannot summon pets or bikes or whatever, but stays in combat. Gives low EXP.
- Acamp for healing between battles. IE : High healing bonus, high buff bonus for doctor buffs, and you can heal BF in this camp... can't summon pets or bikes, vanishes in combat. Gives low EXP.
- Acamp for hunting creatures, like the hunting blinds - maybe allows more shots before the creature aggroes or something
- Acamp for survival purposes. IE : Our current ones. Heals slowly, can pull out bikes and pets, vanishes in combat, but provides best camping EXP.
I agree with almost everyone who's already posted. Nraas, you're definitely an awesome correspondent, and we hope you're able to use our backing to convince the devs that we are a tiny and dwindling class with much love needed.
That said, here are my main suggestons for Ranger, in no particular order:
We MUST be able to camo against NPCs. Someone mentioned the idea of this only working outside of cities - that's fine with me, Rangers don't hunt in cities!
We need a damage output bonus against creatures. At master level, I should hit for double what anon-ranger hits for *except with heavy weapons* - I cannot stress this enough, commandos already do insane amounts of damage to everything, I want to at least tip the scales a little when I hunt with my friends. As it is, I can sit back at the camp (which I often HAVE to do, just to keep it up!) and the fight doesn't take any longer without me.
On that last note: at least the HTFB needs to be "permanent." It shouldn't disband until I choose to disband it, log outor leave the planet.
We need a creature damage mitigation bonus. Creatures should find it very difficult to hit us - after all, we know exactly what to expect from them, being masters of the hunt and wilderness. I'm especially fond of this one because I'm a Wookiee, so 1-2 hits knocks me on my butt every single time.
More trap variety is needed. Dizzying a creature is useless, because they don't stay knocked down - I've tested this repeatedly over the last few days with my smuggler and TKA friends. No luck. As mentioned, we really need area root/snare traps.
/rescue should confuse the animal, not make it attack you instead. Again, this is mostly a Wookiee bias. We get a +10 to rescue, but we're the weakest member of the group at an elite level.
We need extended tracking, AND tracking while mounted so that we can compete with hyperactively caffeinated swoop gangs on Krayt hunts =)
Special attacks while mounted (not on bikes, but on creatures) and terrain negotiation bonuses while mounted.
In general, I feel like 75% of our effectiveness has been squished lately, before we even got a chance to shine. The camo is still nice if you have BE friends, but the rest is kind of useless =(