Ranger Archive

Thread: Now that all this merger business has died down: my thoughts on future revamps

Balrozgul
Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:14 am
#1

Greetings fellow rangers,


I am glad to see that we all came to a general consensus as a community where the merger ideas were concerned. Once again rangers have proven to be the most unified of all the various elite professions. I stayed quiet on the whole issue myself because, while there were a lot of things both positive and negative about the idea of sl/ranger, there was something deeply disturbing about the implications. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Ultimately we came to the right conclusion for this simple reason: SWG is about mixing and matching skills from various professions to suit your individual playstyle. You pick up supplemental professions to either add to your natural strengths or eliminate potential weaknesses. That is ultimately what caused me to hone in on the real problems facing our upcoming revamp.


The standard that was set in the combat upgrade was to improve your "base" skills with things that were ultimately complimentary in nature. For instance amaster rifleman might also pick up master pistoleer in order to improve his ability to inflict states and to gain solid useable specials. Also a master swordsman might pick up master pikeman in oder to improve his defenses, apply more states and just generally come out as a better melee overall. Melee skills have been made to compliment and improve other melee skills, and ranged skills have been made to improve other ranged skills. However the same cannot be said of scout skills. There are very few reasons why we would even think about complimenting our scout professions with another scout profession. This needs to be addressed as the revamp occurs. Consider the following "what if" proposals for potential skills to bring our four professions together:


What if a high end ranger box included a +10 creature level mod? A ranger with no other skills would end up with a very respectable cl20 pet, but if would also give a creature handler a solid reason to want to dabble in ranger, so he could control a cl80 pet instead of the cl70 he's currently stuck with.


What if rangers were given the ability to defuse mines and/or remove enemy traps? Or maybe the tracking skills could be updated to something of a cross between a survey device and the radar to make tracking enemy movements on the battlefield much easier on the fly. Rangers would gain immensely from this on their own, but it also would give squad leaders a very good reason to want to look at picking up a little bit of ranger as well.


What if rangers could actually trap players and be the only class to actually be able to see through concealment techniques? Bounty hunters would be a lot more interested in looking into ranger skills if that were the case.


These are not meant to be solid proposals for the revamp, but rather "food for thought" as to what could become of our various scout communities. Ive only included additions to ranger because I dont believe it is my place to post suggestions for adding to the other scout professions as to why we would want to dabble in them. This is in concern for the ranger revamp, and I believe that is fitting, because of the fact that we spend the most skill points of any of the scout professions, Rangers must be considered the central pivot of a scout-centric revamp.


The last thing I want to say about this is, that we spend 140 skill points to master ranger, there is no longer any reason why we cannot be both the ultimate game hunter as well as army ranger style frontline soldier. Rangers need to be considered for the GCW, laying and defusing traps, scouting enemy positions, and hampering enemy movements, but as well they can also apply the same (or similar skills) in the wild against creatures.



Bal Rozguul
(Proconsul of Sentinels of Banir)
Master Ranger ::: Master Pistoleer
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." : Qui-Gon Jinn
Balrozgul
Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:05 pm
#2

I agree there are many similarities to other ideas floating around out there, I just threw out ideas off the top of my head. The main gist of the argument is that scout professions should compliment each other in ways that are not necessarily similar but equal to the way melee or ranged professions compliment each other. This is something that we need to keep in the back of our minds as we approach the revamp, especially considering that two of the revamps due are for scout professions, ranger and squad leader.



Bal Rozguul
(Proconsul of Sentinels of Banir)
Master Ranger ::: Master Pistoleer
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." : Qui-Gon Jinn
BioEngine
Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:01 am
#3

Hehe, reminds me of D and D when I'd always try to get an Animal companion and beef it up with Divine feats.



There are two things this links to: Creature Handlers, and the "sidekick" idea of Smugglers.



Those are the groups that would have to OK this suggestion, but that doesn't mean that you still can't suggest it.





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Stamina
Ackehece
Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:23 am
#4


Am totally for master rangers getting the ability to see rifleman in the conceal state.... would add something to the game and not be unbalancing In fact during the CU I suggested that Master Rangers be the ones who could hunt down Concealed Rifleman. I can't speak for Jedi cloak - but maybe rangers should be able to see a fuzzy distortion where a Jedi is cloaked... kinda like seeing their footprints but not them... noticing the little things that are wrong with the illusion.

of course ... this is my personal opinion and may not be that of all rifleman.

Message Edited by Ackehece on 06-21-2005 09:24 AM



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Ackehece - Eclipse | Tife - TestCenter




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Encoded as per Garva




lammergeier
Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:26 am
#5



Ackehece wrote:
Am totally for master rangers getting the ability to see rifleman in the conceal state.... would add something to the game and not be unbalancing In fact during the CU I suggested that Master Rangers be the ones who could hunt down Concealed Rifleman. I can't speak for Jedi cloak - but maybe rangers should be able to see a fuzzy distortion where a Jedi is cloaked... kinda like seeing their footprints but not them... noticing the little things that are wrong with the illusion.
of course ... this is my personal opinion and may not be that of all rifleman.

Message Edited by Ackehece on 06-21-2005 09:24 AM





you can already see the particle effects generated by a cloaked or concealed player... nothing like a blue streak sizzling along the starport floor as a cloaked jedi forceruns past me.



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Balrozgul
Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:44 am
#6


Thanks for the support Ackehece, its good to know that there are riflemen out there who wouldn't mind this idea. Im positive that jedi will not feel the same way, however I feel it should still apply equally to them. Not only are rangers adept at studying the details of the wilderness to discern "whats wrong with this scene," but they are also ever on the alert, their minds sharpened by years of wilderness survival training. Keep in mind that jedi cloak is based on the entire premise of "the force can have a strong influence on the weak minded," and you'd be hard pressed to call a ranger that. Not that the other professions are either but, consider that most people are just going about their daily lives, they dont want to see anything out of the ordinary and so they dont. Im positive however, that the reason the devs are hesitant to give rangers this skill is not because of the jedi, its because they fear we will give away the positions of the csrs, dont worry guys, your secret is safe with us.



Bal Rozguul
(Proconsul of Sentinels of Banir)
Master Ranger ::: Master Pistoleer
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." : Qui-Gon Jinn
Temujin23
Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:14 pm
#7


There's one thing I'd like to see in this post-CU galaxy-- a trap that slows or stops creature health regeneration. We have a couple of decent traps (p-darts will still be invaluable when they get fixed. Well, until snares get ruined entirely), but none that address some aspects of post-CU combat. Also, from what I can tell, blinding a creature seems to have no effect on their accuracy. A blind creature tends to beat on me as much as an unblinded one.


A recon role (or any role, really) in the GCW would be nice. Seriously, while BE's being involved is base takedowns used to make sense, sort of, from a technial aspect, requiring a non-combat class to participate in what is very much a combat role is pretty lame. SOE took it upon themselves to draw the line and make crystal clear what's combat and what isn't,but they've gone and leftsome people on the wrong side of it.


Not sure how force cloak works exactly. How are jedi using it brought out of that state and made targetable? I know it's not just a proximity thing like with rifleman.


Mods. General speed and accuracy mods, and defense mods. We need these. Hell, even if we got this, and only this, making a viable template that included master ranger would be so much easier. Some specials would be nice, though.


al-djinn'i


Master Ranger





Wake up! Time to die.
Balrozgul
Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:49 pm
#8

Id definitely like to get modifiers, improved trapping etc. I dont think there is any doubt that we will get those things... but is that enough to justify spending 140 skill points on a single elite mastery? I dont think that it is. We definitely have to address our central role amongst scouts. I believe that in order to do that, we have to give other scout professions as much reason to dabble in ranger as we ourselves would have to dabble in them. Ranged helps ranged and melee helps melee because those professions share many modifiers amongst them. This isn't true for scout professions, and it needs to be, and/or giving the various professions roles and jobs that would also benefit a seperate profession.


A squad leader as an example, has no reason to really want to invest skill points into ranger right now. Sure they benefit from the ability to track, but as it is right now, tracking is something that takes time, and time is usually not a luxury afforded on the battlefield. Steramlining the way tracking works would make that line immesurably more valuable for an infantry commander, and as such might cause the SL to take an interest in possibly investing in that line. Trapping has a lot to do with mine laying, so what if the rangers were the class to call upon for defusing enemy minefields and (hopefully) enemy traps? A base assaulting squad leader might be interested in dabbling in a little bit of ranger then. Even better, what if the high tech field base really became the true definition of a forward outpost, with relatively strong gun emplacements and strong minefields meant to defend a position by a few people. Sounds ideal for the squad leader in the field then.


Problem is I think, that a lot of people hear the word scout and start to think about the weekend hunter. This is a way of thinking that needs to be altered. The idea of scout in swg, from the very first novice box, smacks of the kind of wilderness survival training that is done by the military today. Its not the classes that are teaching you how to shoot or fight, these are best described by rifleman/carbineer, etc. But its the classes they give to teach survival in the field, either in the idea of guerrilla warfare or of basic survival if trapped behind enemy lines.


What is the long term future of the GCW? For me I see only one real option for them to take: an entire world dedicated to the war effort. Each side with an established HQ on opposite sides of the world, space that will be hotly contested as transports attempt to bring in more troops, and most importantly, fluctuating lines of control with the very borders of the conflict marked by ranger vs ranger warfare. Call me a dreamer if you will, but I think that this (or at least part of it) will become the future of the GCW conflict in this game.






Bal Rozguul
(Proconsul of Sentinels of Banir)
Master Ranger ::: Master Pistoleer
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." : Qui-Gon Jinn
SioBabble
Wed Jun 22, 2005 12:45 am
#9






Balrozgul wrote:


Thanks for the support Ackehece, its good to know that there are riflemen out there who wouldn't mind this idea. Im positive that jedi will not feel the same way, however I feel it should still apply equally to them. Not only are rangers adept at studying the details of the wilderness to discern "whats wrong with this scene," but they are also ever on the alert, their minds sharpened by years of wilderness survival training. Keep in mind that jedi cloak is based on the entire premise of "the force can have a strong influence on the weak minded," and you'd be hard pressed to call a ranger that. Not that the other professions are either but, consider that most people are just going about their daily lives, they dont want to see anything out of the ordinary and so they dont. Im positive however, that the reason the devs are hesitant to give rangers this skill is not because of the jedi, its because they fear we will give away the positions of the csrs, dont worry guys, your secret is safe with us.





This is no secret.


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