Ranger Archive

Thread: Organics Revamp- the Idea to End Mr. SuperScout- Please Read and Comment

WornTraveler
Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:30 am
#1

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=eclipse_trade&message.id=531150&view=by_date_ascending&page=1


That is a hunting contract on Eclipse for some of the best organics in shift atm. As you can probably see, even as a non-Eclipsian, most of these folks are just big groups of people who go out, mow down enemies and all harvest.


Whats wrong with that, you ask? The guy is asking for unlimited amounts, so what is the problem?


Well, I know many rangers will contest this and say that they want a US Army Ranger sort of thing, but that line of thinking is simply foolish- Squad Leaders and Commandoes, if anybody, are more suited for that than us. And let us assume at there will not be a revamp for a very, very very long time. In fact, let's assume it will never happen, and that the following proposal is the full extent of what we will ever get int he near future as far as a revamp.


If aranger is to be a hunter, who is better than everyone,t here needs to be either a drastic change to organics or to harvesting. Right now, these people should NOT be making good cash off of organics. Why is that unfair? Armor Smith's make armor, not any one else... and being able to make an infinite amount of armor won't do anything even if you can make it, because it will be crappy. So- why should anyone else be able to so easily take the ranger niche? We have invested 144sp into this... there ought to be SOME very visible benefit to this.


So... the harvesting revamp.


In this proposition, a new modifier would be added- the Harvesting Efficiency mod. This modifier would never go above 0, and for players with only novice scout would be a negative number. Basically, the modifier servers one purpose- to lower the quality of harvestable resources drastically, the less scout/ranger you have.


Let's take a hide with abaseOQ. Along comes mister super scout bounty hunter/commando, blasting poor little animal to shreds. Up he goes to harvest it, and of course being very unskilled in such matters, by the time he has removed the hide it has been hacked to pieces. Not only does he cut off a very small, insignificant piece, but it is just about worthless for anything other than the very basic uses.


The mod, at this point probably being -50 for a novice scout, has kicked in. For each negative number on the modifier, the rating for each stat on an organic drops ten. Thus, this guy has a hide with an OQ of 1 that could have been an OQ of 500.


Now before you get hung up on the drastic drop, that is just an example and I doubt it would be practical to drop more than 300 points or so. But moving on.


The scout would therefore still be able to use the hide for his needs- camping, trap making and maybe even some other crafting if he has the skills, but for a top-notch crafter this would be completely unnaceptable resources.


Also, another thing that would effect thestats of the hide is the weapon used to kill the animal. Lets bring back Mr. SuperScout- he uses, say, a flame thrower to kill a creature. He walks up to harvest, and what's this? My God, he's charred allt he hair off and the meat is already cooked! Grumbling, he tears off the worthless parts to get at the bone, the only unaffected material, but even then he leaves bis and pieces of meat hanging on the bones- very unnatractive to the armorsmith he's trying to hunt for.


Ever weapon would take away another few points from your mod, with something liek a flame thrower or rocket launcher taking up to twenty points off, while something like a laser rifle taking only ten. Melee weapons would be the least, taking only a few points off, and unarmed would not take any points off. This would give incentive to become a melee ranger, as well as open up posibilities for both a Master Ranger weapon and placed traps.


Placed traps/lures have been well thought out for the most part, so lemme focus on the weapon. It would be a rifle most likely (face it, no one wants to get close enough to a grizzly to hit him with a pistol, rifles=hunters for the most part). The damage output verses creatures would be decent, although against NPCs and players it would defitely need to be lower grade. The rifle would have the highest modifier of any ranegd weapon (read carefuly- when I say highest, that's good, as in a low negative number like -1 as opposed to -50... wait... never mind lol). Anyways, it would be the most efficient at killing a critter of any ranged weapon, and thus would be the weapon of choice for a master ranger.


Now, when grouping it could really work out two ways...


When an animal iskilled by a group, the mod will always be set by the worst weapon. that is, the flamethrowe in the group will really screw everyone esle up. This is not meant to mess commandoes up or anything, but it would also encourage rangers going soloor in small groups, as the spirit of the profession has always been a loner type of thing.


OR, we could define a rangers role even further by making it the weapon with the smallest negative mod (either a TK or a ranger, and most hunting groups are ranged nowadays) setting the mod for everyone. NOTE: The rangers presence would not make a non-master rangers Harvesting Efficiency Mod any better, but the added (or subtracted, really) weapons mod would impact the final harvest quality less with a ranger in the group.


Finally, deciding how much off the mod is mitigated through ranger skills. I would think that, in order to prevent someone from just going up the hunting line of ranger to mitigate almost all of the mod, we ought to place it evenly, with a good sized portion being at the Master box. More incentive for people to grab all four lines and master, including camping, until the full revamp.


Overall, this would effectively push superscouts out of the way for good. if they want to make some good money makign armor, they can get master armorsmith. Weapons, master weaponsmith. Want to make some good cash hunting organics? Go Master Ranger. There could be something similar to CAs and AAs slightly mitigate the negative mod, like a hunting knife, but overall you simply gotta go ranger to be the best hunter in the galaxy.


Alright, lets hear it- what ya all think? I for one, would really, really like to see, if nothing else, ranger have a defnied role in the game, and this would most certainly set it in stone. Yes, it isn't THAT cool, but once again, assuming a revamp aint coming soon, it would at least make our current role clearer. I would LIKE too see this idea implimented WITH a full revamp, including new specials and abilities that further aid us as hunters.


-Gled



Gledako Fo'Kray- Retired Master Ranger
Encoded until further notice!
Proud Captain of the YT1300 Vasarian Escape- Confirmed Stats from Last Battle- at least 3 kills, 5 disables, 2 spacebombs to the rear shielding and 4 snubs to take us down. Go crew!
Current one-on-one win-loss ratio for the Escape and her Crew- 11:1

Gledako -- Mercenary Dog of Spice --
Starson
Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:56 am
#2
I am one of those that want the Army Ranger type, just a little so as our traps work on npc/pc's. I know this is just a pipe dream, that it will never happen. I have to agree with you on this one tho. As it stands they have given all of our skills away, so yes, we should get some love, evenif it is only as a hunter. Good idea all the way around.



Starrwalker, The Barefoot Ranger
MPilot/MRanger/TKM
Awing/Recon "First in, Last out"
Alliance Commander
Eclipse (LOK)
Eszra
Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:13 am
#3

So depending on the group, there would be different stacks of hide - all with the same name? So on a vendor, it wouldn't be enough to look at the name to know how good or bad a stack of hides/bones/meat is.


It would make things way to complicated.



Elder Ranger
"I was a Ranger. We walked in the dark places no others would enter.
We stood on the bridge and no-one could pass.
Our fire has gone out in the galaxy."

Creaturetaimer
Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:17 am
#4
yea but mr. super scout won't ever get too far from the dant MO and his/her precious Bol hunting groups. besides most people have never read the forums anyway.



Galik A. (main)- Master CH (Ret.) and Master Ranger, Master Bounty Hunter
Blowfin A. (craftbot with a soul)- Master BE and working on (Undecided)

"Once i handed a man a compass i was leaving in the woods alone to see if he could make it back to town. He told me "This compass doesn't work!!", and i replied "so?" "
Oreet
Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:51 am
#5




Eszra wrote:


So depending on the group, there would be different stacks of hide - all with the same name? So on a vendor, it wouldn't be enough to look at the name to know how good or bad a stack of hides/bones/meat is.


It would make things way to complicated.





This is my concern as well. I don't think anything like this would, or could ever happen because of having to completely reprogram the way organics are dropped, named, and have their stats assigned.



So lets say you've got a group of 6 rangers all grouped together going after Tatooine Wooly Hide. They are going to work together to get a large stack of wooly hide to sell to a local armorsmith, and split the cost.


Ranger #1 only has Novice Ranger
Ranger #2 has 0-0-1-0 Ranger
Ranger #3 has 0-0-2-0 Ranger
Ranger #4 has 0-0-3-0 Ranger
Ranger #5 has 0-0-4-0 Ranger
Ranger #6 has Master Ranger


They together, go out and kill Banthas for an hour, harvisting all they can, and end up with 100k hide total. The problem, is that this 100k of hide, that is sitting in 6 different stacks, cannot be stacked together, because each Rangers' stacks are different stats of the same current shift.


YT-2000
Fri Jul 15, 2005 6:37 am
#6
Interesting ideas. I agree that something needs to be done about the SuperScouts but I feel we would have to give something back to the novice scouts.

Unfortunately scouts have almost the exact same problems as rangers, in fact it's even worse for them. A fully templated combat character at CL80 won't be able to use any of their traps against the creatures they are killing. There's also the bigger issue that the requirements from scout for other elite professions is, for the most part, totally unrelated to what they do and doesn't give them any benefits. However, if you take any other novice profession you'll find that the requirements are more like stepping stones, building on their skills that they'll need for their chosen elite profession with each box. Armoursmiths might be the only people who can make money from crafting armour but at least the requirements from artisan give them a +100 skill mod for armour customization, along with the other basic crafting skill mods and even the certs to make bone armour. Then take let's say a creature handldler. Their requirements give them +40 terrain negotiation, +70 mask scent, +45 creature harvesting, +40 creature knowledge (probably would help but doesn't work anyway), +5 trapping, +5 camping, +10 creature-to-hit bonus. Now is any of that relevant or even helpful to a creature handler?

So I'm in no way suggesting that the SuperScouts should be making money from harvesting, but once we take that away what will be left for them from scout? In reality it's just the ability to run up hills and take the risk of using maskscent. The SuperScout role is probably the only thing that justifies the scout prerequisites for most people. The only way around it that I can see is to bring more aspects of their professions into scout along with a harvesting revamp (and I really have no idea how that could be done).

-Hebi (darn, where's that zabrak smiley )



Hebi Aepam
Retired Hunter - Creature Expert
Once a Ranger, always a Ranger
pykescylla
Fri Jul 15, 2005 6:52 am
#7

Oreet wrote:

Eszra wrote:
So depending on the group, there would be different stacks of hide - all with the same name? So on a vendor, it wouldn't be enough to look at the name to know how good or bad a stack of hides/bones/meat is.
It would make things way to complicated.


This is my concern as well. I don't think anything like this would, or could ever happen because of having to completely reprogram the way organics are dropped, named, and have their stats assigned.

So lets say you've got a group of 6 rangers all grouped together going after Tatooine Wooly Hide. They are going to work together to get a large stack of wooly hide to sell to a local armorsmith, and split the cost.

Ranger #1 only has Novice Ranger
Ranger #2 has 0-0-1-0 Ranger
Ranger #3 has 0-0-2-0 Ranger
Ranger #4 has 0-0-3-0 Ranger
Ranger #5 has 0-0-4-0 Ranger
Ranger #6 has Master Ranger

They together, go out and kill Banthas for an hour, harvisting all they can, and end up with 100k hide total. The problem, is that this 100k of hide, that is sitting in 6 different stacks, cannot be stacked together, because each Rangers' stacks are different stats of the same current shift.



From the end user point of view, this is the main problem with the idea. You'd basically be generating a huge number of new and unique resources. And since we need identical components for factory schematics, it would be tough on the crafters to manage all these different types of organics

HOWEVER, if what you are suggesting is that the game stop spawning harvested organics and basically let the ranger create the resource, well that's more interesting. Basically, a master ranger would kill a huurton and produce Dant wooly that is 900+ across the board while a novice scout would produce something in the double digits.

Well, then the elite crafters would only want master rangers harvesting for them so that definitely makes the master badge a moneymaker. I get the feeling though that this would be very difficult to implement in the current resource and crafting system. It still sounds like I would only be able to use the hide harvested by one individual ranger at a time, meaning that another master ranger would have generated a completely different type of hide. I think you all will get hats before they could pull something like this off.



Pyke Winoda
Retired Master Armorsmith w Reformed Smuggler w Former Mayor
Twelve-Point Smith w RIS Certified
DREADNOUGHT Armor w Saldara, Dantooine 6690 -4626
TomedNor
Fri Jul 15, 2005 6:56 am
#8
I don't think it'd be possible to implement due to the reasons mentioned by others....

... and this would lock us into a PvE hunter role. Not that I have anything against that (in fact, it's my prefered play type), but I want the option to due more if I want to.

I've stated it before in other threads, but what I want is something more akin to Davy Crokett, primarily the mountin man, hunting type, but more than capable of leading troops if he had to, even though it wasn't his primary job (well, not at first anyway, but since this isn't a history leason..... ).



---------------------------------------
See you around, and happy trails,
- Tomed Nor
*walks off into the forest*
Corbantis ~ Master Ranger, Master Rifleman, CorSec Ace Pilot
WornTraveler
Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:11 am
#9




Eszra wrote:


So depending on the group, there would be different stacks of hide - all with the same name? So on a vendor, it wouldn't be enough to look at the name to know how good or bad a stack of hides/bones/meat is.


It would make things way to complicated.





Ok, I hoped I didnt have to go into the details of the system, but only a few things would have to be augmented... You retain the original name, but then there is a "variant". This includes a name and number- So lets take a resource, base drop for OQ of 500. Name is.. Fiver. Then you get five different "variants". Each one, starting with say... variant oopgloop is just a base 100 down from original stats. So lets say the spawn Fiver has the following....


oopgloop


mooproop


roopgoop


ewpoop


and moufpoop


(lol) Anyways, they are each variants, all with the OQ being within a range of 100. So now you get it like this....


oopgloop - 500 and below


mooproop - 400 and below


roopgoop - 300 and below


ewpoop - 200 and below


moufpoop - 100 and below


That way, even with a 1000 OQ base drop, there will only be a max of ten variants.


Finally, after each variants name is a number. That number is EXACTLY how much the stats are below the base of the variant. oopgloop is anything above 400 and below 500, so oopgloop-10 is 490.



OK, so it is ALOT changed. I know it is dumb, but really I am just throwing things out. It is very complicated, and vendor search may be hell, but really, it's pretty much a classification lesson- Kingdom Phylum Class sort of thing. If anyone would have a better way of doing it so that crafters could still be able to say "I need this <weird name> hide" , please just throw it out.




Gledako Fo'Kray- Retired Master Ranger
Encoded until further notice!
Proud Captain of the YT1300 Vasarian Escape- Confirmed Stats from Last Battle- at least 3 kills, 5 disables, 2 spacebombs to the rear shielding and 4 snubs to take us down. Go crew!
Current one-on-one win-loss ratio for the Escape and her Crew- 11:1

Gledako -- Mercenary Dog of Spice --
Phenix1050
Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:14 am
#10
I've said it before and I'll say it again.


Harvesting should not be our focus. It limits us from the rest of the game. Focusing on harvesting as our main skill will only make us seem more creature-oriented, which is the opposite of what I think we should be looking for.


This idea has come up before and every time, I see it, I think "man...that'd probably be really tough to implement. Plus, it's not really fair to crafters. Some of them have some scout so they can see what the quality of the stuff is, etc. If we're the only ones pulling the best stuff, the organics market goes kaput and we'll see a buncha people respecing to Ranger. FOTM all over again, which isn't good for anyone.


We need, in my opinion, to get away from the "Rangers are the best harvestors" mindset, because you can't harvest NPCs. Harvesting has no part in the GCW. It's very narrow, very creature-centric. It just seems to me that this change would only increase our role as mobile harvestors...and that's just not what I want to be.


Mind you, this isn't a flame, I'm just trying to explain why I wouldn't really like this idea to be implemented.



PHE'NIX ANTARUS
BOTHAN ELDER RANGER
BEST LOOKINGSPY EVER--FOUNDER OF SATGWNIWNU
BURNING H*TPANTS SINCE 2003

This is horrible! I return to find my new title on the forum is "Jedi". What's up with that? If they wanted to confer that I'm rare and learned, they'd make my title RANGER. and then make it camo colored.
WornTraveler
Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:14 am
#11




Oreet wrote:




Eszra wrote:


So depending on the group, there would be different stacks of hide - all with the same name? So on a vendor, it wouldn't be enough to look at the name to know how good or bad a stack of hides/bones/meat is.


It would make things way to complicated.





This is my concern as well. I don't think anything like this would, or could ever happen because of having to completely reprogram the way organics are dropped, named, and have their stats assigned.



So lets say you've got a group of 6 rangers all grouped together going after Tatooine Wooly Hide. They are going to work together to get a large stack of wooly hide to sell to a local armorsmith, and split the cost.


Ranger #1 only has Novice Ranger
Ranger #2 has 0-0-1-0 Ranger
Ranger #3 has 0-0-2-0 Ranger
Ranger #4 has 0-0-3-0 Ranger
Ranger #5 has 0-0-4-0 Ranger
Ranger #6 has Master Ranger


They together, go out and kill Banthas for an hour, harvisting all they can, and end up with 100k hide total. The problem, is that this 100k of hide, that is sitting in 6 different stacks, cannot be stacked together, because each Rangers' stacks are different stats of the same current shift.






Well, would make crafters only want master ranger stuffat least



Gledako Fo'Kray- Retired Master Ranger
Encoded until further notice!
Proud Captain of the YT1300 Vasarian Escape- Confirmed Stats from Last Battle- at least 3 kills, 5 disables, 2 spacebombs to the rear shielding and 4 snubs to take us down. Go crew!
Current one-on-one win-loss ratio for the Escape and her Crew- 11:1

Gledako -- Mercenary Dog of Spice --
WornTraveler
Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:24 am
#12




Phenix1050 wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again.


Harvesting should not be our focus. It limits us from the rest of the game. Focusing on harvesting as our main skill will only make us seem more creature-oriented, which is the opposite of what I think we should be looking for.


This idea has come up before and every time, I see it, I think "man...that'd probably be really tough to implement. Plus, it's not really fair to crafters. Some of them have some scout so they can see what the quality of the stuff is, etc. If we're the only ones pulling the best stuff, the organics market goes kaput and we'll see a buncha people respecing to Ranger. FOTM all over again, which isn't good for anyone.


We need, in my opinion, to get away from the "Rangers are the best harvestors" mindset, because you can't harvest NPCs. Harvesting has no part in the GCW. It's very narrow, very creature-centric. It just seems to me that this change would only increase our role as mobile harvestors...and that's just not what I want to be.


Mind you, this isn't a flame, I'm just trying to explain why I wouldn't really like this idea to be implemented.




But if we aren't hunters... what are we? I, personally, dont think anything is ever going to change the devs idea that we are critter only. Think about it- our profession, ranger, is riduclously focused. Rifleman can shoot anything. Smugglers can shoto anything. Squad Leaders can shoto anything. Our is the only profession like it- smuggler is clearly a combat/crafter hybrid, BH is clearly combat, As is clearly crafter... but what the hell is a ranger?


What I am saying is that if we get revamped like a lot of people are hoping,we are going to end up with some ugly, FOTM profession that everyne hates because it isn't anything like it used to be. I am assuming, like I said in the original post, that we are never ever ever going to get a revamp. Our role is always going to be hunters, and if thats the role I am stuck in then I damn well and not going to see some group ofl33t bounty hunters or bored rifleman do it better than me. This is the only way to make sure that no matter how much more they harvest we will always be better. People are not going to switch to ranger just to harvest organics, but if we get all the cool stuff that everyone's hoping for, what do we really think is going to happen?


I dunno what I am saying Phen, but what is the revamp you are hopign for? I mean, you have to be specific- if you dont want to be a critter huntert han what do you want to be?




Gledako Fo'Kray- Retired Master Ranger
Encoded until further notice!
Proud Captain of the YT1300 Vasarian Escape- Confirmed Stats from Last Battle- at least 3 kills, 5 disables, 2 spacebombs to the rear shielding and 4 snubs to take us down. Go crew!
Current one-on-one win-loss ratio for the Escape and her Crew- 11:1

Gledako -- Mercenary Dog of Spice --
JBMat
Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:25 am
#13

Ok, backwards sorta.


What if the shift of resource has a certain set of stats.


Novice scouts harvest at those stats. Novice rangers get a 10% boost to all stats. Master Rangers get a 25% boost to the stats. No numbers go over 1000 obviously.


We could take a mediocre resource and turn it into something decent. A good harvest in a very good and a great into something truly awesome.


When we go to sell, we inform the sellers what we have and why it is better than Joe Novice's. A win win situation all around, and it penalizes no one, but rewards those investing the SPs.


JB


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