Ranger Archive

This is a post I would like us to use to start posting the intelligent, logical, gameplay reasons why the /conceal ability should be left to work against NPC's. Please keep the rants and complaints, trollsing, flaming, name calling out of this thead, so they will actually bother looking through it and reading what we have to say. Trust me, I'm not happy about this at all, and said some nasty things about the Devs in the Tope 5 post. Delta seems to think that the decision was made by devs to remove the "bug" of /conceal working on NPC. So lets get past the ranting and give the devs some reasoning behind keeping it.

Keep in mind that we need to follow the path set by the Devs that we are "The Ultimate Creature Hunters". Now I will start this off with what Pharm1025 said:

#1 Stealth

This is not stealth against creatures, but stealth. Rangers regardless of the context are masters of blending into the backround in which they find themselves. They become invisible to and untrackable by any creature and yes man is included in this. (I would support going as far as making conceal work in a limited way in PvP maybe not invisible to radar, but untargetable by players for a period of time, but immediately attackable if they initiate combat, and please make the camo actually try and approximate the look of being camoflauged.)

The idea is that "RANGERS" are the masters of stealth in the outdoors. If we are to be the masters of the creatures hunting, then that means keeping hidden from the creatures we are hunting. A Ranger spends more time out the wild then not, and thus like an animal in the wild, becomes acustom to living conditions in the wild. The know where to go and where not to, what to do and what not to do, what to eat and what not to eat etc. If they watch the animals they are hunting they will see how the move, and how they stay away from their natural preditors. The the ranger goes and watches the preditors and sees how they hunt and what works for them, with staying hidden and attacking with surprise.

The ranger will use all this knowledge to hide their presence from their prey, the animals. This means using natural surrounds and materials to "blend" into the environment. Using musks to hide their "non-animal" smells. The things that you need to "camoflauge" are your scent, your visial appearance, and the noise of moving about. If you can hid those three things and "camoflauge" yourself into the environment, then the animals will not dedect you until it is to late.

Well if you are "camoflauging" yourself from those three senses from the animals, that means ANYTHING in the surrounding area will have a hard time seeing, hearing and smelling you. We all know that animals have a higher range of sences then the average humanoid. Especially a non-ranger humanoid that is not familiar with the outdoors. Thus if a ranger has the skills and techniques to hide themselves from sight, smell, and hearing of animals, there is a higher chance they will not be detected by non animals.

A ranger is out there hunting animals, and is the ULTIMATE creature hunter. That means the animals have almost no chance of surviving from a master ranger. In order to be an efficient animal hunter, you need to not draw attention to yourself. If somegang member, or worse yet, Tusken is nearby and sees you, they are very likely going to thwart your attemts at hunting the creature. Why? Because they will come after you and make you defend yourself and or run away. This means you are not hunting the animals anymore, but rather something much worse. You are fighting something you are NOT the Ultimate Hunter of, a humanoid. The prey may get a way, or get hunted by someone else, and may not be at top performance(damage to HAM) for the hunt. This all providing you actually survive the encounter with said Tusken etc.

So, with that said, any intelligent ranger is going to be sure they are detected at all against ANYTHING near by while hunting the creatures. They are there to hunt, and not bother with someone that might hunt them. Seeing part of that "camaflauging" from the animals, is to keep them hidden from the Preditor animals attacking them. A ranger also doesn't want to get attacked by some preditor animal, that might take it upon themselves to attack the ranger. Thus the Ranger will use their "camaflauge" skills to stay hidden from them as well. So if they are staying hidden from their prey, and their preditors, why would they do all that effort and not stay hidden from EVERYTHING while hunting?

Ok, now lets take the Aregorn, fantacy type ranger. I know you may say that this is not what we are, we are SW and its totally different. Well is it? A fantacy ranger is the master of the wild, stealth, and creature stalking/hunting. Yes they are skilled combatants also, but lets not focus on that. If you read anything about say Aregorn, or the ranger fellow from the Dragonlance series, or any other fantacy setting, say like DnD. The ranger is someone who can move very quitely, stay hidden and sneak up on pretty much anything they want. They are most always found in the wild, and prefer to be there. Their skills are at their best in the outdoors. They are able to track something, sneak up on it, and kill it efficiently. They will avoid detection from anything near by, so there is no alert maid to their prey. The same skill and techniques for hiding from animals are used against anything. It doesn't matter if the world is blaster and speeders, or bows and horses, the outdoors is still the same. Nature doesn't change, and staying hidden in nature is always the same.

So with my really long statement here, it seems that if a ranger can hide from animals of both prey and preditor, they will also be hidden from humanoids of both prey and preditor. A ranger is not going to make a special effort to only stay hidden from animals, and it will be pretty much impossible to seperate it. Animals have eys, nose and ears, and so do most humanoids, and the animal ones generally work better. Thus, a ranger can stay hidden from anything in his surroundsing, animals and humanoids alike.

Please give your thoughts on this for the devs to see and use in order for them to hopefully keep /conceal vs NPC.

/agree!

not a ranger any more but i loved it, and i plan to go back when this Holo-hell is done with, and camo vs NPCs was realy the one Great benefit to being a ranger. i couldnt bring myself to drop it untill after i heard about that particular "fix"

Many have already mentioned that it's much harder to hide from animals than from humanoids. Animals have keener vision, smell, hearing, etc. Any ranger that could fool a Rancor or Sludge Panther could surely fool a Meatlump goon.

Additionally - and this isn't so much a LOGICAL reason - we've got very little in the way of usefulness as it is. Being able to conceal against NPCs only gives you the ability to get past them without being attacked - it isn't used to magically kill top-level MOBs like Tusken captains and such.

Thanks Squid.

That's what we needed.

B

Look at the cost of concealing. Look at the 140 skill points to Master Ranger, what do we get for it? Lastly, I've held MR sense ... what ... October? I wouldn't be when this gets dropped, no need to use conceal, and I got plenty of other worthier things to use the skill points on. Is this what they want? All ranger dabblers and no masters?

For Petes sake they need to get a clue...

Thanks for the everyone. Lets keep it coming here. We need as much data to give the devs. I thought of another point that goes along with previous Dev statements. Like when mask scent was canceled in combat, and GreenMarine said it just wasn't fun, same thing can be said for /conceal.

If they removed the ability to /conceal vs agro NPC it will make running around a planet and hunting the creatures not as much fun. The ranger is more suited for hunting on the advanced planets such as Dath and Endor, where about 90% of the mobs there are agro. Both NPC and animals alike. I have lead many a hunting parties there, mostly scouts and rangers, but we use camo to protect those lower scouts, or ones with no mask scent at all. If we tried hunting on one of those planets with being able to hide from the agro NPC it would reduce the fun factor greatly. We would be getting "jumped" a lot more "By NON-ANIMALS" on our way to hunt the animals. Thus not being as efficient a creature hunter, and taking much longer to travel around hunting for the animals. This would make hunting much less fun, especially on the advanced planet, where the rangers are supposed to shine.

Another good gameplay reason: the way that it is described by the game itself. When you use camo, it says "you are concealed from view by complex camoflage".Now is it just me, or does it seem reasonable that a "master of the wilderness" using "complex camoflage" should be able to sneak by those who aren't adept at wilderness exploration. I realize that many people say that "oh well the npc's would have radar", but this has never been established by SOE as a fact. I doubt any Tuskans or such would have Radars, or that a meatlump would be able properly use one. Because arguments over which NPC's should/shouldn't have Radar is pointless and a waste of time, it would be more useful for us to simply say that since Rangers are the "Masters of the Wilderness", if they try to hide in wilderness, they stay hidden. I believe the game (i am not playing right now, can't check) says they are "unrivaled" in the wilderness. Thus, we should be exactly that: unrivaled, by both players and NPC's.

"Masters of the Wilderness"

I like that better than "ultimate creature hunter"

---

the way that it is described by the game itself

---

Highlight the conceal icon to get the description. Clearly says it works for NPC.

Good job devs on changing your minds.

Please try to keep the anti-dev flames to a bare minimum, especially if you're not adding a "gameplay" reason that we should keep this skill. This is not my thread, but I think you should respect squid's request that you not flame/whine/troll, etc. This is supposed to be a constuctive thread, not a whiny "why us?" thread. I agree that we should keep the skill, but I think this is no time to get all pissy towards the devs.

I'm sure they're reasonable people, if we can offer them cohenrent, logical reasons why we should keep this skill, not rants or stuff like that. Just a general thought. I've also thought of a new reason why rangers should have /conceal. We are the masters of our surrounding, blending hunting skills with mastery of the wilderness, correct? We get the ability to crawl faster than any other proffession, which should, in theory, represent our ability to get to and attack from good positiions. What use is this if we can't use it to hunt? in addition to this, i agree with the idea that if we can hunt animals like rancors and such, there is NO reason that we shouldn't have SOME bonuses against humanoids.

I understand that, and i'm sorry.

But i don't see why we debate about Why it should work. We should ask the devs to justify why it does not anymore.

I do NOT beleive the it was never intended part. Why? Two reason:

1- this is the exact in game text that appears when you put your arrow over conceal in the skill tree menu:

/conceal: this cpmmand allows you to apply a camouflage kit to become far less detectable by NPCs and creatures alike while in concealed state. This can be used on other players.

2- this is the ingame desciption of teh wayfairing 1 box:

Basic concealment further develops the Ranger's camouflage techniques. The Ranger is now capable of completely disguising his presence, allowing him to escape notice of creatures and NPCs using special camouflage kits. He can also conceal other, to a lesser degree.

So it was intended. Why they wanna remove it, that is the question.

Hmm, logic to why conceal should work against NPC's. I got an answer, because if it doesn't it is the same as Mask Scent. I have a friend with mask scent of 120 with bio-clothes, why would you need conceal if you could get mask scent that does the same thing.

The logic is this. The Game describes rangers as being masters of the wilderness types. If we are not safe in the wilderness(from NPCs) then how can we be masters of it? Planets like Dathomir are crawling with NPCs, and alot of them are a good deal more dangerous than the animals, plus they are almost always in groups. I have found areas on Dath where there is almost a wall of NPCs, forcing you to go around. I am the master of these wild lands, why should this hinder me.

As a Ranger I often hunt alone, and I don't have alot of combat skills, I cannot deal with the kinds of NPCs that spawn on some of those planets by myself, if we don't get some bonuses against NPCs than I should be able to sneak past them.