Ranger Archive
Thread: Survival XP Changes: Your feedback
Almagill wrote:
Honestly, it's not about "we did it the hard way so everyone will have to", it's about taking a bargaining chip away from us, reducing the value of the camps themselves even further and setting Ranger/Scout up for a BH flavoured spanking later on down the line when folk ask for enhancements they no longer have the 'skills' for.
I think you just about summed it up here. This change will make camps *completely* pointless. The next logical step would be to remove them completely. This is something that IS NOT GOOD FOR RANGERS as a profession. What sort of Master Ranger with 'unequaled outdoor skills' can't even pitch adamn tent?!
Can anyone remember the reason we were given as to why aggro repellant camps could be used for griefing?
oh please! So if they are SO useful, then why is it that rangers are screaming so loudly for a ranger revamp, and bemoaning the frontiering line in particular as one that needs a serious re-vamping? Which is it? Are they something that is real useful and vital to ranger? Or are they not, and in serious need of re-working?
By the way... for those of you that are against this, I'd be interested in knowing how you leveled through frontiering without grinding camps or going afk, and how long it took you.
For me, when it took me around 2+ months to master ranger. I had the other 3 lines filled out the first month, and it took the rest of the other month to do frontiering alone. In the normal course of hunting I didn't really find the need very often to use camps that often, and when I did the stays in them were relatively short, so that experience came very slowly. I'd say that my experience breakdown was like:
10% using camps "legitamitely"
30% fishing
30% afk-camping
30% crafting (grinding).
And it still took me 2+ months to do.
Almagill wrote:
Camps are fairly useless. As with any piece of equipment or skill it's only as useful or useless as you make it.
Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 04-19-2005 10:56 AM
GoldMemberBria wrote:oh please! So if they are SO useful, then why is it that rangers are screaming so loudly for a ranger revamp, and bemoaning the frontiering line in particular as one that needs a serious re-vamping? Which is it? Are they something that is real useful and vital to ranger? Or are they not, and in serious need of re-working?
By the way... for those of you that are against this, I'd be interested in knowing how you leveled through frontiering without grinding camps or going afk, and how long it took you.
For me, when it took me around 2+ months to master ranger. I had the other 3 lines filled out the first month, and it took the rest of the other month to do frontiering alone. In the normal course of hunting I didn't really find the need very often to use camps that often, and when I did the stays in them were relatively short, so that experience came very slowly. I'd say that my experience breakdown was like:
10% using camps "legitamitely"
30% fishing
30% afk-camping
30% crafting (grinding).And it still took me 2+ months to do.
Almagill wrote:Camps are fairly useless. As with any piece of equipment or skill it's only as useful or useless as you make it.Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 04-19-2005 10:56 AM
Way to miss the point. I'm against the change from Wilderness Survival XP, obtained by investing time in working with camps, to get the Frontiersman line of Ranger to a general adoption of scout XP for 3 of 4 lines of the profession, not because "it makes it too 'easy' and us old timers went thru heck and back to get our HTFB so all players should suffer the same" but because itBecause it removes a negotiating point that could be used later (ie postCU) to get camps improved and made worth the investment.
OK? See, I'm actually saying that, as they stand, camps are NOT worth the toss. I'm also saying that it IS a heck of a grind to get thru the line (but I'll come back to that) and that the investment in player time is not rewarded sufficiently by what we get from the line.
Remember this, only those who have survival/frontiersman skills can place camps currently. Not only are you throwing out a negotiating point by going for scout XP for camps, but you are opening up the possibility of other scout XP earning professions being able to petition for their own unique camps. Not saying it WILL happen like that, but it makes it possible.
Okay, how did I get through Wilderness Survival? Well, 95% or more was ATK, either crafting traps, fishing, healing, providing camps for hunt parties to heal up in, using camps for guild meetings, putting a camp up while gathering hunt groups together.
I maxed out camp XP at least twice on one hunt trip to Dathomir alone. Instead of milling around mindlessly after a lair was taken down and we were sorting out which mission to go after next, I'd drop a camp nearby, msg the group that it was there and they'd head in to heal, call droids, bikes, etc.
Interesting point. It takes 15s for a doc to call his droid in the wild. It takes me a split second to pop a camp. Doc can get his droid running straight away in camp and be healing/buffing. Saves him time, gets me XP. Plus that healing and buffing helps too.
Then there's the speeder 'cascade'. The lair is down. People are milling about. Even now when we've got the waypoint of the closest mission you still have that 'hiccup' while folk run about harvesting etc. Then fred pops his speeder. He called it 15s ago. So bert and jim call theirs. Another 15s. Watch the next time you're in a large group and people are calling speeders, it takes a couple of minutes for everyone to get their act together. In that time you could drop a camp, they call the bikes, hey, if it still takes them a couple of minutes so what, it's all time on the meter. Only downside is that you're usually the last to leave camp as you need to disband.
Finally, I always kept at least half a dozen basic scout camps in my pack and linked to the toolbar. Why? I want to get out of Dodge fast before the rank bad guys spawn again and incap my sorry ass. It'll take 15s to call that speeder they could be here by then, my bike won't call in combat...
or.. macro switches to toolbar6. Calls camp, calls bike, mount speeder. Am gone. Even that gets me a few XP.
So, I'll stand by may argument that camps are only as useless as you make them. The grind is only as long as you make it. (If the only way you can find to get thru wilderness survival is to pop a camp on a macro every n minutes and you find the progress is slow, well, that's a situation you're creating for yourself)
Oh yeah, and the 5% or less that I was AFK? Well, you got to go get a coffee once in a blue, take nature breaks, catch up on mail and the forums on the other screen... I did most of my guild admin sitting in camp, admiring the view, watching the fish in the river or watching the newbs outside Espa working thru their first boxes of scout and marksman.
ANOTHER way to get that XP, btw, pop your camp just outside the no build zone. Not on a traffic route in and out as people get hissy about that, but nearby. Then target newbs who are doing the CDEF/skin a wortt bit withtheir green droids, shoot them a tell saying you can heal wounds if they head over to the camp or you can give them training and save them the walk back into town... Do that for an hour and you rack up a LOT of visitors, make a few good contacts and you seem to get more 'passers by' stopping in because you aren't in their way.
This mail was brought to you courtesy of Scout Survival III on a new toon.
Message Edited by Almagill on 04-20-2005 09:46 AM
GoldMemberBria wrote:
By the way... for those of you that are against this, I'd be interested in knowing how you leveled through frontiering without grinding camps or going afk, and how long it took you.
Well, I'm not against this entirely, but to answer your questions...
I mastered Ranger in about 1.5 months. I leveled Camps entirely at the keyboard and it was the first line I mastered. How? Ummm...I used them. all the time. I didn't have buffs or armor, so I tended to get wounded a lot. I was also a Rifleman back in the day of the 2.5x damage rule (man that was interesting...). I camped after every set of two lairs as I usually had at least a combined total of 30 wounds.
It really isn't that hard to level camps if you use them. Ranger is a great example of the way professions with multiple XP types should work. People that level each one seperately are riding the short bus. If you use traps in combat, and camp after missions, you'll get all three types of XP, plus weapons and combat XP in the same trip. I was getting6 types of XP every single time I went hunting with friends. Combat, Rifles, Scouting, Trapping, Medic and Survival. They all are complimentary so if you have any idea what you're doing. Not really that hard.
Phenix1050 wrote:
GoldMemberBria wrote:
By the way... for those of you that are against this, I'd be interested in knowing how you leveled through frontiering without grinding camps or going afk, and how long it took you.
Well, I'm not against this entirely, but to answer your questions...
I mastered Ranger in about 1.5 months. I leveled Camps entirely at the keyboard and it was the first line I mastered. How? Ummm...I used them. all the time. I didn't have buffs or armor, so I tended to get wounded a lot. I was also a Rifleman back in the day of the 2.5x damage rule (man that was interesting...). I camped after every set of two lairs as I usually had at least a combined total of 30 wounds.
It really isn't that hard to level camps if you use them. Ranger is a great example of the way professions with multiple XP types should work. People that level each one seperately are riding the short bus. If you use traps in combat, and camp after missions, you'll get all three types of XP, plus weapons and combat XP in the same trip. I was getting6 types of XP every single time I went hunting with friends. Combat, Rifles, Scouting, Trapping, Medic and Survival. They all are complimentary so if you have any idea what you're doing. Not really that hard.
I did the EXACT same thing. with the exception of getting the survival tree done first. It was last for me, but I was at the keyboard for all of it. I did by being out with my friends all of the time grouping before we knew what buffs and armor were. I did all of rifleman in a spec ops duster and camo pants, which I thought rocked.
Camps meant something then. It was before medical droids and you actually recovered in them, healed regrouped, rearmed, repaired weapons and armor, and even crafted. I want camps to mean something again, and I think this change to all Scouting experience will make that possibilty even less.
Hey Phenix as long as we're talking about the 2.5 melee modifier remember the prone warping bug too? rofl 
Phenix1050 wrote:
Rancorrider4 wrote:Hey Phenix as long as we're talking about the 2.5 melee modifier remember the prone warping bug too? rofl
hey you wanna talk warps? How 'bout the old "sit in a camp chair, warp to 0,0" bug. That was always fun...especially back when we had corpse runs
man...I'm feeling old...
Bug? I thought that was a feature. Scouts are meant to explore, right? What better way to explore than to be put in the middle of the map instead of leaving you near the starter city?
The people that oppose this change seem to be the "old timers" whose opposition to it is on the basis that "I went through hell to get it, therefore others should too", and I just don't agree with that line of reasoning.
I'm an "old timer" and I never "went through hell" to get survival xp, as I told, survival was the first line I get to IV because camp was USEFULL and I often hunted with group, so I set up camp about after each fight.
with the CU, group will come back more often, so is Dev just tell "you can no longer call med droid with out camp" and you'll see how fast you'll get survival xp!