Ranger Archive

I quote from the SWG manual:

"Ranger: Adventurer well-suitedto travel, tracking, and defending others in combat."

I see the traveling aspect, as Wayfaringhas enabled me to go mostly where ever I want... I see the defending others im combat aspect, as I can use my /rescue command, and take the aggro from another... But I fail to see the 'tracking' aspect of the Ranger profession. Shouldn't we have an ability to track a creature? The higher the Ranger's skill, the higher level of creature he can track, not unlike the EQ version of a Ranger.

Where are these so called 'tracking' skill I have? Or do the secrets of tracking come hand in hand with the secrets of the force?

Ironically the DAoC Ranger was mentioned in the manual as having "Tracking." What they received was "pathfinding" which had nothing to do with "tracking."

I think asking for tracking will be chasing the rainbow, and water-down what we should really persue. Viable Camps, Good Traps, Flawless Wayfinding, and Creature Knowledge/Harvesting that is far superior to a scout.

I cant say I have ever needed to track anything. Some creatures provide better hides, better XP, etc, but I cant say its ever been neccassary to track them. Its also a bit skewed with how the game works. Tracking in EQ was almost magical. You didnt need a trail, you saw everything in the area on a list and the tracking pointed you there on the shortest path.

As I said, I think its a mistake to persue this until more important issues are resolved.

No kidding...

SOE needs to officially decide what the hell they want a ranger to be instead of letting some joe in marketing come up with some glossy copywriting schtick to make rangers sound cool when really they are bantha poodoo.

- Zarn