Ranger Archive
Thread: A Simple Harvesting Proposal
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JBMat
Mon Mar 22, 2004 5:47 am
#1
Ok, I have turned my wittle brain to what I perceive as problem 1 - Harvesting.
Preface - I am not a freaking math major, but I can do simple calculations, and I have also seen the results of Harvesting when done by rank amatuers and by professionals. Taking all that into account -
Novice scout - able to harvest X (the base amount) of any creatures resources. Being unskilled, the Novice wastes as much, if not more, than he harvests.
As the Novice increases in skill (more skill blocks in hunting) his harvesting yield increases incrementally. Let the devs figure what boxes and the percent of increase. Personally, I would tie in trapping and hunting - increases in both trees to an equal level means more harvesting, you will see why later.
At Master Scout the scout now harvests 2X, twice as much as a novice scout. Still not a great amount, but better than what we have.
Novice Ranger - no increase over Master Scout. Stop screaming, this is to deter dabblers. Basically most dabblers go for tracking anyhow, so why award that.
As the Ranger increases his skills, again I would tie in trapping (altho our traps are broken, our skills do increase with the Scout traps) and hunting, the harvest increases.
Master Ranger - 4X harvesting. That is 400% more, not 30% more, than a Novice Scout. To ease programming, no multiple harvests of resources, i.e. bone and hide, hide and meat, or all three, off one carcass.
Why this method -
1. easy to program
2. simple numbers
3. makes getting Master worth it, both in the terms of harvesting / financial gain, and quite frankly, bragging rights.
4. combining hunting and trapping stops dabblers from getting the full benefits, unless and until both skill trees are equally 'full" the new harvesting percentage does not kick in.
In my limited knowledge of programming (all programmers have 3 arms and live on warm diet coke and cold pizza - I am the hardware guy) this is not that difficult to do. I ran it by a wonk buddy, this is a simple fix. A lot simpler than the God-awful armor the wookies are getting as a hot fix.
I would ask that the correspondent wanna-bes look this over, and all the old time Rangers, you know who y'all are - oh yeah, whatshisnutz - Brisc, you evil Scout, scope this out too.
Flame away. With this proviso - KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. The easier we make this, maybe we can get it as a hotfix rather than part of a publish. No "this is stupid I don't like it" without reasons - please. And yes, it is unfair to dabblers, spozed to be, so no whining about fairness.
Yes TH, this would make many many Rangers happy. Simple economics says if the supply goes up, the prices go down, and the demand goes up. Selling more for less still equals more money. Maybe this will unbork the messed up by the grinders economies and get some prices back to where they should be.
submitted
JB
Enbow
Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:00 am
#3
Right now, I'd agree with anything that
1) Stops dabblers from thinking their hot stuff just because they're novice scout. I'd even go down as far as to make their harvests have critical failures. But I got yelled at for trying to nerf scouts. So lets skip this counter-flame.
2) Ties Harvesting in with another skill. I don't know how many real hunters are here.. but anyone will tell you, you hit a deer in the hindquarters with your rifle, and forget it. You're not harvesting much, at all, from your kill. Don't want to gross anyone else.. but the bladder makes a huge mess. Ever eat urine flavored vennisen? I certainly wouldn't.
3) Makes the trap skill even more useful. The hunters of old would actually prefer using items such as Bear Traps and the like. It saves trying to make a tricky shot- and yields a better result.
AgonThalia
Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:06 am
#4
Good idea
tying the harvesting mods to the scout tree insuring that master rangers get full harvesting benefits is a great idea. This is something that I could really go along with
tying the harvesting mods to the scout tree insuring that master rangers get full harvesting benefits is a great idea. This is something that I could really go along with
BaneShee
Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:39 am
#5
Agreed spread out harvesting making it incremental in all branches and increase the harvesting rate at master, the CH tree does the same thing and it does keep out the dabblers.
We need to be careful that we don't ask for small changes that could be perceived by the devs as profession fixes. I don't want to be sitting here in the same place six months from now and hear "Well you have had some attention, remember when we increased your harvesting rates?".
Message Edited by BaneShee on 03-22-2004 06:01 AM
Fred_Skinner
Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:42 am
#6
Works for me...
fyi:
Actually, Harvest one or Harvest all is easy to program. Harversting 2 of 3 or first one then the other one is harder. Has to do with adding more flags on the next pass.
Nemo0
Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:21 am
#7
Fred_Skinner wrote:
Works for me...
fyi:
Actually, Harvest one or Harvest all is easy to program. Harversting 2 of 3 or first one then the other one is harder. Has to do with adding more flags on the next pass.
Very true on the fyi. As for the above idea, there are a few other considerations. Namely Veghash and Trandoshan natural abilities. The only way not to nerf those is to ensure that the total harvest mod stays the same. In the Novice Scout vs. Master Ranger Havesting thread, I made the recommendation that the following formula be used: (Harvest Mod/13)*base harvest amount. This makes Novice Scouts stay at the same level of harvesting (1.15 * the base harvest). Master Scouts get (3.85* the base harvest), about a 3.34 times increase over Novice Scout. Master Rangers get (7.69 * the base harvest) for a 6.69 times increase over Novice Scout and double what a Master Scout gets. This is a strictly linear increase. The only difference here is that the slope is much higher than what the devs currently have (it appears to be (1.0 + harvest mod/100) * base harvest) and gives someone with 0 harvesting mod 0 resources rather than the 1.0 times base they currently get (you need -100 skill mod under the current system to get a 0 harvest rate). Such a change is even easier than restructuring the skill tree (potentially adding moremod points) because it ONLY should change the harvesting rate and not touch any related skills (if there are any). Also, have a look at The million Monkey Posts post for an idea of how we can actually get the devs to agree to do this (make sure to read through a large part of it as the idea morphs a bit throughout).
Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server
darmokVtS
Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:39 am
#8
The proposal makes sense, but proposals making sense are not our problem... we need to get dev attention :/.
Calculus_Entropy
Mon Mar 22, 2004 8:00 am
#9
I like the idea of spreading the mod over a couple trees;not to keep the dabblers out, but to keep them from gaining too much of a benefit without Mastering. As someone said, look at CH. They didn't kill the dabblers completely, just made it so mastering meant something.
Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 03-22-2004 11:03 AM
Seiryuu
Mon Mar 22, 2004 10:40 am
#10
Just to be picky, the CH balance did pretty much kill dabblers. CH is a strange profession to balance though. Most other professions would probably benefit from a similar treatment.
The balance problem with CH in a nutshell: With no supporting combat skills, a CH is only slightly more useful than a non-combat Ranger in a fight. With near-master combat skills creatures are unnecessary. With a good pet and novice combat skills the character's power is closer to a master elite than a pure handler (although much slower at killing). It is this synergy that makes it necessary to remove dabblers from CH.
If weapon damage is greatly reduced with the combat rebalance then this might no longer be the case, but we will have to see how things go with Publish 8+.
(Sorry to hijack the thread; back on topic)
"/harvest all" would be very easy to implement as Fred said. Even if they had to modify the function calls in order to reduce each component harvest it would not be that involved.
The balance problem with CH in a nutshell: With no supporting combat skills, a CH is only slightly more useful than a non-combat Ranger in a fight. With near-master combat skills creatures are unnecessary. With a good pet and novice combat skills the character's power is closer to a master elite than a pure handler (although much slower at killing). It is this synergy that makes it necessary to remove dabblers from CH.
If weapon damage is greatly reduced with the combat rebalance then this might no longer be the case, but we will have to see how things go with Publish 8+.
(Sorry to hijack the thread; back on topic)
"/harvest all" would be very easy to implement as Fred said. Even if they had to modify the function calls in order to reduce each component harvest it would not be that involved.
TalKurgan
Tue Mar 23, 2004 11:18 am
#11
I support the big harvests for masters and the spreading out of the modifier to supress dabbler harvesting.
To show my approval, I will go and kill a swampful of rasps! Blasted little ... peckers. (Can I say that?)
Note that 4x as much as a novice scout is 300% more. I am a freaking math major. 
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