Ranger Archive

- uhh that was damb you.. nothing else. hehe

"I would like to see a bow or any other "Hunting Only" weapon"

- That has been suggested and is in the list as the Ranger Bow

"With a house and 6 various extracotrs,a minefield plus a factional scanner (for those pesky rebels) I have no more lots. With my bonus to harvesting, I can pull up 2Kresources in an hour, solo hunting. A 6 land plot harvester idea would almost be useless to me"

- The idea doesn't seem to fit into your game play style.

- The restrictions on the harvester are to stop mass harvesting on the scale that you seem to be suggesting.

- It is intended to improve the quality of life of the more casual players, who would like a more steady income from harvested resources, but don't have a large amount of time to play.

- I doubt a player would be able to make a "killing" (so to speak) off harvester traps, but it would supplement those Rangers who have the lots available.

Love the list NRaas, keep up the good work!

I would like to weigh in on the issue of a bow for Rangers. I love the idea and do not agree that it is ‘out of genre’, nor do I agree that it turns the SWG Ranger into an EverQuest type character. Bows are not hunting devices from a former era, they are still widely used for hunting. I guarantee you that in real life more people hunt using bows than hunt using pistols. I also have great confidence in the artwork team that they will be able to come up with bows that look right for SWG.

The one thing I would like to avoid, however, is a bow that can be used to great effect against animals, but which bounces harmlessly off a player character. I think the bow could be designed in such a way that its very nature made it so that it would be used sparingly in PvP, but would still be highly effective in PvE.

First, the Ranger should be able to remain hidden while using the bow. This, by its very nature, will only be true when hunting animals. Players who are hit with a bow will immediately scan the area and spot a Ranger standing with a bow, animals will not. The ranger using a bow should also be able to attack a creature who is normally social without alerting its buddies.

Second, the bow should be very slow. If a rifle has an average speed of 5-10, the bow should have an average speed of 10-15. This works well against animals, especially if the Ranger remains concealed. I don’t care if it takes me a while before I can fire again, as long as the target isn’t tearing out large chunks of my flesh. Player characters will immediately start blasting and pummeling a Ranger with a bow, so it becomes counterproductive for him to use the bow in PvP.

Finally, the bow should be very accurate against a stationary target and exceedingly inaccurate against a moving target. This forces the Ranger to stalk his target and wait for it to settle down before shooting it. This allows PCs an easy way to negate the ranger’s bow in PvP while simultaneously adding more strategy to the Ranger’s hunt. Combined with the first and second points above, and assuming that getting hit with an arrow will cause an animal to move around a bit, it allows the Ranger’s hunt to feel more like hunting and a little less like open warfare. I think this also opens up other strategies for the Ranger, like using an adhesive mesh to root an animal so the bow can be used.

I think the bow also allows for some cool effects based on types of arrows. These arrows could be crafted by the ranger and the schematics for them would fit best (in my opinion) in the trapping branch. Just off the top of my head I could see the following arrows

• Hunting Arrows (Bleed effect, same as real-life hunting arrows) (Novice Ranger)


• Explosive (Area of effect damage, immediately de-stealths ranger. Most effective against lairs/structures) (Traps 1)


• Drug Delivery arrows (no direct damage, but drug effect)




• Hallucinogenic (Dizzy effect) (Traps 2)


• Mild Tranquilizer (Slows) (Traps 3)


• Poison (delivers a ranger harvested poison and applies its effect) (Traps 4)


• Heavy Tranquilizer (Roots) (Master Ranger)

In my mind, this is a better solution than a weapon that can only be used against animals.

"First, the Ranger should be able to remain hidden while using the bow."

- This has been suggested as the Silent Shot, if you are concealed, as a way to avoid assistive creatures from rushing your position.

"Second, the bow should be very slow."

"Finally, the bow should be very accurate against a stationary target and exceedingly inaccurate against a moving target."

- Sounds a lot like the Rifle profession.

- I'm fine with the bow being used against humanoids, if we are given the same melee penalty as Rifleman incombat. There must be some disadvantage to offset the power of the bow.

- Perhaps the bow can only be used as a first strike weapon.

- You shoot it to start the combat, and after that you must rely on another weapon to get the job done.

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Fred_Skinner wrote:

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
I agree that personal creature harvesters are a bad idea. If I have a havester getting suplies for traps and camps, why do I need to make traps and camps? I will not need to heal or protect myself, because I will be sitting in mt guild hall getting fat. If I need help getting to the harvesters, I just get some buddies to abk me up. This could possibly cause another decrease in animal resources like we saw when the 60% rule went into effect. Ifa bunch of rangershave something collecting resources all the time, won't that flood the market with resources? I think the whole idea goes against the idea of being a ranger.

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Depends on implimentation. Perhaps one/two trap(s) only (how thats done can be debated), one targetanimal in the area (requires you to actually scout around looking for the animal, must be a natural lair and NOT a mission lair), perhaps a class-level limit (high enough NOT to work on high level planets: traps for bunnies make sense but not for elephants), and only one resource on the animal (I guess that could be debated too).

Egad, did I really make that one sentance?

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"I suppose if implemented, like you discussed it could be OK, BUT what are the odds that will happen?"

- We can merely suggest possible solutions and concepts.

- Beyond that,it is the developer who must determine what is possible in the given amount of time (our patience is only so long ), and given the constraints of the current game system.

-However... Areweworse off for suggesting the ideas?

"I have a very difficult time in PvE combat with a rifle"

- Yes... Rifle appears to be more of a group support combat profession.

- With the melee damage adjustment, Riflemen are relegated away from the front lines...

- However they are supposed to do some punishing damage from behind the defense of a good tank.

- Rifle is definitely not a soloers first choice (unless you have a combat droid, or pet to keep the nasties away).

Great Work Nraas. That post was one of the most construcitve and thourogh I have ever seen. Here are my priorities.

-Fix the isssues with maskscent and conceal
-Increase the harvest rates of rangers well over scouts
-I would like to see a nice bonus from creature-to-hit. The critical hit isa great idea.
-Fix the HTFB so it repels creatures, stays up in combat, blocks rain...etc.

Once these issues are properly delt with i would really love to see:
-Ranger specific hunting houses.
-A ranger specific weapon. I have to use all my remaining points in a weapon profession to be a proficient ranger without using creatures or large hunting groups. The bow is a good idea, but it needs to be high tech and Star Warsy enough.

***side note, Pax is not my only character. I just don't list them both in sig.

PaxRomma

"Here are my priorities."

- Your choices have been noted.

Btw... anyone ever talk to you about your liberal use of "-" and bulliting every sentance with it?

(sorry, couldn't help it )

Ok, if the bow had a negligable amount of damage, but could apply status effects on creatures and humanoids I could support that.

• It should do some damage, but not enough to pose a threat to anything.10 - 50 damage with a 5.0 weapon speed?


• This does kind of remove the idea of explosive arrows, unless we are allowed to have one damaging arrow that can effect humanoids and creatures alike... Maybe the explosive arrows can only be crafted by a Weaponsmith?


• We would then be able to craft poisoned arrows (dizzying and / orblinding), signal arrows (distracting or luring?), weighted blunt arrows (stunnning), infected (diseased), etc...


• We could create the arrows and load them into the bow the same way bait is "loaded" into a fishing pole.

"We would then be able to craft poisoned arrows (dizzying and / orblinding), signal arrows (distracting or luring?), weighted blunt arrows (stunnning), infected (diseased)"

Actually it's suggested the Poisoned arrows actually cause... well...Poison.

We already have trapped that do blind and stun... So we really don't need to reiterate those.

However... Perhaps we should ask for the current traps to be rolled into the Bow idea.

Leave the "traps" concept to stationary items, and roll the throwing traps into the Bow...

Any thoughts? Do you think we are asking too much? I only want the Moon, and a couple stars.

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I will make some adjustment to the wording of the Request and see if we come to a consensus on the idea.