Ranger Archive

I have been thinking... not so hard, brain isnt what it used to be. Given the ultimate creature hunter idea, if I was given a wish to redesign to what I think would be the best and not outlandish layout of our skills, what would it look like? I came up with the following, much of which is stolen from other peoples ideas and the SotP. Further I tried to avoid discussing bugs and other wishes such as stuff for PvP. There are so many great ideas that have come out I really just focused on a few that I felt would be the biggest bang for their programming buck. I appologize for length but I wanted to describe why it would fit with the creature hunter role.

The main problem as I see it is that our ranger skills dont let us do the killing, its our other professions that enable that and as such the experience of each person is going to be different and really draws into question, whats making us a creature hunter? Ranger or our fighting profession? Given that we are unlikely to get any great combat abilities in the ranger tree, lets focus on things that would just make life that much better.

Wayfaring:
At the moment really we get nothing but a glorified mask scent that you can also use on others, specially if the nerf to working against NPCs. Assuming the nerf goes through, and I personally hope it doesnt as I feel its a great use as far as hunting goes as you can avoid the unnecessary agro, I think things should be overhauled.

- Make it so that mask scent is the same if you were to use a camo kit at that level, as far as chance of being broken and duration. Then change the camo kit to be a group effect item, where everyone is given a mask scent that you are grouped with, with one kit.

- Make it so burst efficiency also decreases the time between bursts. Is burst efficiency a ranger skill? I am at work and cant check, forgive me if I screwed this up

- I would also like to see terrain nav improved so that we can actually move a bit faster, but I expect because of kiting concerns this will not happen. Another option would be to flatten terrain nav out over scout and ranger, so that you get less at scout and more in ranger, which might not be fair to scouts.

- Overall I still think wayfaring is lacking as far as points spent, but I am at a loss of how to improve it for creature hunting. Its potential for PvP is great, but I expect if we cant use it against NPCs the use against players is a dead dream.

Frontiering:
All in all this is a wow factor branch with little usefulness beyond what we get already in the scout line. I use my big camps for only two reasons. 1) I am soloing and going afk for a bit and want to heal some of my wounds while afk and 2) I am out with a BE friend who is sampling and he wants to mess with his samples and as such can use the crafting station. Course he has a droid as well that will do this, but thats besides the point. Yesterday I was hunting Bull Rancors with a group and folks kept getting diseased, so we kept putting up camps after every fight to get folks healed up after the disease ran its course. The reality is the camp I may as well have used the basic camp as the big ones because the healing was being done by the players not the camp (I assume the camp has no noticable impact on how much a wound pack heals for or what a dancer heals for? I have never noticed a difference). There is simply no added benifit to using the big camps.

- In order to make them more useful I think ranger camps should have double the duration and not disband if you enter combat or get to far away, etc. It will then be worth setting them up as a base that you can come back too. I found it super annoying that when the majority of the group is fighting I had to not fight in order to keep the camp up so that those healing could continue to do so. Others can fight, but I cant because..... I am holding up the tent poles?

- As far as creature hunting the only thing I can think of is adding a garage to the top camp. When you are hunting on Lok, Endor or Dath I found it a pain to have to go to some other planet to get my repairs done. A camp that you use just like a town garage, ie pay credits for repairs, would be a nice addition I dont see being super over powered. Sure a bit un-ranger like, but at this point I will take whatever I can get.

- Foraging could use a much needed boost and some ways would be nice and simple and make a lot of sense. Why cant I sample mollusk while standing in the shallows? Or Seafood? How about taking all of those 10 sec effect foods and make them worth using?

- I loved the idea of a premanent ranger dwelling that uses a lot but would be the only ones placeable on the adventure planets. Takes up a lot and maintenance say same as a small house. Good thing for master ranger in my opinion.

- I think there are some great PvP potentials for this line, specially the trench idea, but thats not really the point of this discussion.

Hunting:
Tracking is great, I like it alot and its one of the few lines I think are worth their weight in skill points. It would be nice if tracking worked better then it does, but in all honesty I dont think this is so much a tracking bug as its a problem with the spawn system in general and unlikely to ever truely be fixed.

- Solutions would be to extend its range and to include lairs (with a note on what will spawn from the lair).

- One other thing that would be nice to add is the ability to track a specific animal, basically a mission creator, only not a mission it just causes a lair (or just a group of mobs) to spawn of a given type. Lots of times we are hunting for a specific creature, for example the post on the boards about langlatches on Lok. It makes a great amount of sense from a master creature hunter standpoint. We should know the habitat a creature will like to be found, what its tracks are, its life history, etc. Who better to go out and find creatures of a specific type, rather than doing what we do now, wander aimlessly. I dont think this should apply to >60 levelcreatures, or creatures that drop loot, etc, but for the bulk of the creatures in the game this would be awesome.

- I think being able to harvest horn and milk from creatures, instead of hide/meat/bone would be a great addition.

- I would also like to see the idea of harvesting trophies added to this line. Be lots of art work to create and not something to expect over night, but the ability to get different heads/hides for decorating peoples houses would be a neat feature that adds a lot to the game without overpowering anyone.

Trapping:
This line is another that is just too little for the skill points spent. The best traps are scout traps, the ranger line could use atleast a couple more traps.

- The most useful in my opinion would be a AoE snare. Work the same as the Phecn dart, but effect multiple targets.

- A fish trap that you can leave in the water. Make it like a camp kit, limited duration and you can only have one out at a time.

- I really like the idea of being able to capture an animal/baby and send it to your datapad so that you can bring it out later for a CH to tame or a BE to sample. I am in a small PA with several CH's and BE's and lots of times I could be contributing to them by capturing a creater I find.

- Rescue needs a much needed overhaul. In my opinion SWG as a game lacks general agro control and Rescue, or some new renamed version, could be a good addition. Instead of getting the creature to agro me it would be nice if we could direct the agro to where we as a group want it. So to the brawler, to a pet, to someone you secretly dispise thats in your group, etc From a hunting standpoint it makes some sense that we could develope a chemical that would enrange creatures and cause them to attack a specific target. Obviously so its not griefed it would only be able to use on group members and have a duration like mask scent.

Those are my ideas. Overall I am personally dismayed at the idea that we will be ultimate creature hunters. Not that I dislike the idea, I just feel that Star Wars is about the GCW and each and every class needs to have a role in it. We as individuals can choose not to participate in PvP, but to provide us with no tools to use is wrong.

Cul

"Another option would be to flatten terrain nav out over scout and ranger, so that you get less at scout and more in ranger, which might not be fair to scouts."

Yes, the Scout lobby is significantly more powerful than our own...

• I would prefer to not disturb that beastie with reductions to skills they are already complaining about.

"Rescue needs a much needed overhaul."

Now now, I will have none of that. /rescue itself is good for what it does, there is really no reason to remove the command...

• Rather, we should ask for another command entirely, in addition to the command.

"Instead of getting the creature to agro me it would be nice if we could direct the agro to where we as a group want it."

/Herd perhaps? I like the idea. Elaborate.

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Everything else appears to have its place in the SotP already... Or did I miss something?