Ranger Archive

Ok, we have sat in our leaky camps too long now and patiently watched as we got overlooked and simply ignored update after update after update.

Well, no more!

The Ranger profession is severly lacking in ALL areas. We are nothing more than glorified scouts (and the term glorified is used loosly).

I'm assuming that the Dev's probably won't even read this post because there must not be any developers that play a ranger. But I am hoping that maybe a friend of the sister of a developer's neighbor's uncle will read this and pass the info on.

Something (anything) must be done soon to help make this profession worth the time and points it cost to become a Master Ranger. ALL the rangers I know of (and that have remained one) ONLY remain a Master Ranger for RP reasons only.Not one - I repeat - NOT ONE of them has remained a ranger for the skills we get. We can't wait another 3 months minimum to hear that we might be getting some of the stuff we were promisedseveral months ago.

There are many threads on this subject and they are increasing quickly in frequency. I hope this continues and that you realize that WE NEED YOUR HELP. You can't tell this right now, but I'm down on my knees begging forsomething that will keep people from dropping Ranger or even starting it up. I understand that you cannot get a complete ranger revamp done in the next few updates but there must be some little things that can be done to give us hope that we have not been forgotten.

Just a quick recap of our ranger skills:

Camps - 4 skill levelsand3 new camps - both provide no real benefit over scout camps other than a little quicker healing and a crafting station or two. The do not keep out the aggros as they state they do.

Traps -4 skill levels and 2 new traps - both are not as effective as scout traps and all are useless on larger mobs

Area Tracking - 4 Skill levels and ability to locate animals (except triggered spawns), npcs, and people (not inside buildings) in a 500m radius telling us distance and approx direction.

Terrain Negotiation - 4 Skill levels and we get to crawl faster than a Master Scout.

Foraging - We supposedly have a better chance of foraging wild food that no ones uses.

Creature to hit bonus - Master Rangers get a small bonus to hit creatures - accompanied with a Master Combat profession, does this really help?

Rescue Ability - another one of those abilities that either doesn't work or not worth wasting a hot key on.

Camo - No longer needed since it's just easier to out run mobs using a vehicle. And since you no longer need to setup a camp to pull a bike, it makes it all the easier. And before vehicles, for those few people that did not have the scouting skills to maskscent themselves, camo broke way too often making. Not too mention that camo was "fixed" not to work on NPCs. Animals with their keen scense of smell and sight couldn't see us but the average joe talking with his buddies could spot us with noproblem.

Maskscent - I don't know about everyone else, but mine breaks just as often as a scout with 2 boxes in the exploration column. And I wear +25 Camo/Maskscent clothing. The only real benefit I see is that I can reapply it faster than a scout when it breaks.

And our only skill that is close to worth it:

Harvesting - We can harvest more than a scout as long as that scout is not also setup with a combat template in which case they can probably match us if not do better than us because they have the points to customize their character to do the most damage and have the best defenses.

Now, that's our current state and here's some ideas (although many more are given throughout this forum) on just a few simple ways these can be improved:

Camps - Fix the leaks, Allow them to remain standing during combat, up the healing factor, add mission terminals, add cloning centers, allow entertainers to heal BF, even add an in-game version of holo-chess that can be played between two people.

Traps - Add more traps - Lure Mobs, Better Roots, Better Slows, AOE Dizzy, etc... Allow them to work on people/npcs

Area Tracking - Allow for specific mob tracking, waypoint added to a selected target, show triggered spawns if possible

Foraging - Make there something to forage that only Rangers can find and have it worth something

Creature To Hit Bonus -Maybe up the bonus or add a CriticalHit chance for Rangers attacking creatures.

Rescue Ability - Make this work by targeting the mob and have them drop the aggro on the other person and come after me.

Camo - Work against NPCs, Doesn't break as often, and making it work against other players would be nice but I personally don't think that might be the best idea.

Maskscent - Either leave it the way it is or maybe decrease the chance for mobs to break it.

Harvesting - Greatly increase the yields a Ranger gets over a scout and possibly allow us to harvest all three types at Master Ranger.

There's some ideas to choose from (and as I said, there are many more out here). I'm not expecting all of them to be implemented, but one or two would certainly be a good start.

Thank you for your time reading this,

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Kharr Khomak
Master Ranger - since Dec 14, 2003
Teras Kasi Master - since Mar 28, 2004
Member of the Antarian Rangers
Ex-Master Creature Handler - Dec 16, 2003 to Mar 9, 2004
Playing since Sept 7, 2003

This is nice, doesn't say anything we haven't had 1000 times already, but nice anyway. Basically almostevery thread on this board has some form of this, or very specific parts of it. Still, nice to see a concise simplfied version of it. At least one factual error though, we get 3 newcamps, not 2, and they do help healing and have a crafting station. Despite any improvements we want (and all the ones you listed are very good), saying they're not different to scout camps isn't 100% true, and just makes us look like we're not happy with anything!

You have my support, and the support of every other ranger, but will it help... ?

Sorry, forgot the one at Novice Ranger. (but to my defense, it's been a long time since I created one.)