Ranger Archive
Thread: A viewpoint on the profession.(Rehashing..Maybe, but still valid)
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think the developers need to realise that while the ranger community as a whole is very patient, they need to come forward with atleast 1 of the purposed additions or fixes that have been offered both by their team and by our community.
Given how publishes have gone in the past and the incidents of having to go back to correct current features that have been broken due to new code, I believe that we are looking at longer "sorting out" period for bugs as the major new restructoring takes place. I feel save in saying that we should not expect any major attention to be devote to this profession till possibly publish 15 or possibly even 17. This would put us deep into 2005 before any serious attention is turned our way. I simply do not see the majority of established rangers waiting that long till any improvements are added to our profession. Patients is all well and good, but the simple facts of playing a profession that even the most optimistic of us believes simply an expenditure of skill points that could be better utilized somewhere else, makes any serious delays a death knell for our community.
I would say that most of the rangers falling in the mid to master ranger are holding onto their titles simply for prides sake. There is a certain amount of tragic appeal about the long suffering gamer that stubbornly holds onto the template he invisioned for his character. But that must also be balanced with the reality that what can be accomplished with the profession can just as easily be accomplished with Master Scout. This would also allow you skill points to use in another line that has applicable ingame use now.
I too plan on holding onto my Master Ranger title. I ground it out back in the day when it was more of a chore. I felt great pride in Mastering it when everyone else avoided it like the plague. I held on to it during the constant heckling and peer pressure applied by my gaming comrades when they tried to tell me that I would enjoy the game more in another profession and find more usefullyness for myself as an added benefit. It has come down to just being plan stubborn about holding on to it. But I find even my resolve cracking when i think of the further delays and projected time tables till we see improvement.
I fear that by the time revamp comes around the ranks of the rangers will be thinned to the point of obscurity, and that even with new options and content few will want to come back to a profession that has been shown such lack of concideration. As it stands now, we are a mildly amusing footnote on the path of the hologrinder and a source of bitter disappointment and mounting frustration for the truely devoted. 15 a month seems a steep price to prove your resolve and your ability to find usefulness in an otherwise useless class.
If you take the time to read this post and disagree with any of my concerns, please feel free to post a response.
I would truely like to know if I am simply fear mongering or if I have managed to find the pulse of this community in regards to our concerns. I realise that many are frustrated. If you agree with me on these concerns, just signify with an "aye" if you do not want to post an indepth discussion. But if you feel that I am mistaken in my thoughts, please take the time to reply back. I would dearly love to find a reason to become reenergised about this class again.
I was talking to a friend of mine online, she has a combat stacked character and novice scout. She never gets hit, she hits for 90% of the damage, she has soloed some of the strongest, toughest critters in the game. And thats how she has fun.
I however, am a Master Ranger. I have fun because I am a Master Ranger, my pride and my fun comes from the intangible and ineffable experiences of being a Master Ranger.
You have some very valid points, especially about the general mood here in the ranger boards, and the type of people who are rangers.
Thanks
I just mastered fencer today, and I didnt even really care to display the new title... using one-handed weapons is merely a means to an ends for me.
In a week or so, I will try out pikeman... should be fun. For now, I will stay a Master Ranger, not for what it can do, not for what it may in the future be able to do, but because I have a hellova lot of fun being one.
I think another problem, aside from low numbers, is that most of ranger works. Tracking works (more or less), traps work, camps work (if redundant), and harvesting works. So if everything works, even if it could be better, or is redundant, we'll get put behind some of the massively broken professions. Smuggler basically has 50% worthless skills after they revamped chef. Commando has a clone skill line (acid rifle) that is inferior to flamer, and grenades are only used on lairs. Not to mention ineffective, expensive disposable weapons that most smiths won't even make (rocket launcher is the most complex weapon to make in the game, or so i was told). TKM, CM, Fencer, and possibly Rifle need to be addressed sooner or later, as they are making the GCW miserable. DE just got brand new shiny toys, many of which don't work. Pistoleers, Carbineers, and Swordsmen have redundant or broken specials. And BH's ... well they just want the world.
So in the face of unbalanced or broken classes, Ranger is easy to shuffle to the side. Its like that one tire on your car that's a little too bald and a little too low, but there's nothing wrong enough with it to warrant you fixing it ASAP.
Sleed wrote:I think another problem, aside from low numbers, is that most of ranger works. Tracking works (more or less), traps work, camps work (if redundant), and harvesting works. So if everything works, even if it could be better, or is redundant, we'll get put behind some of the massively broken professions. Smuggler basically has 50% worthless skills after they revamped chef. Commando has a clone skill line (acid rifle) that is inferior to flamer, and grenades are only used on lairs. Not to mention ineffective, expensive disposable weapons that most smiths won't even make (rocket launcher is the most complex weapon to make in the game, or so i was told). TKM, CM, Fencer, and possibly Rifle need to be addressed sooner or later, as they are making the GCW miserable. DE just got brand new shiny toys, many of which don't work. Pistoleers, Carbineers, and Swordsmen have redundant or broken specials. And BH's ... well they just want the world.
So in the face of unbalanced or broken classes, Ranger is easy to shuffle to the side. Its like that one tire on your car that's a little too bald and a little too low, but there's nothing wrong enough with it to warrant you fixing it ASAP.
Saying Ranger works is like saying Kreetles aren't a menace to the world.
Tracking works? How many Rangers have had this happen: Go out in the middle of nowwhere, hit areatrack, see nothing on the list. Walk about 100m and see several large families of creatures waving and laughing at you (ok, so I made up the waving & laughing part).
Traps work? How many Rangers actually use the *Ranger* traps? On a regular basis? And not just as part of a nice party or fireworks show?
Camps work? Yep, they sit there all nice and pretty until someone or something pops in, walks up, and slaps you. Then they go *poof*. Creatures aren't repelled by camp functionality, but I sure am.
Harvesting works, I cannot with that.
Good thing you didn't mention camo, or I would have thrown a Kreetle at you to prove my point.
I really believe the camo/areatrack development work did more harm than good. With that done to us, we've "had our time" in the light, so to speak. And we aren't about to get in the light again anytime soon. I almost wish we hadn't been touched since release, and if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak.
What really burns me though is the fact we were told of work that was being done to our profession (look at the lovely stickied post here) and the tone of the post was some of that work was a "done deal" - it just neeeded a bit more tweaking to be put into the game. Nothing ever came of that. There hasn't even been an explanation as to what happened to that stuff. Was it just smoke & mirrors? Who knows.
GCW is miserable because mind cannot effectively be healed/buffed. If mind could be buffed *and* healed as easily and effectively as the other stats, a lot of the common gripes I hear would vanish. No doubt, all new gripes would take their place, but still...
I like the tire analogy, except in my version the tire is about to go completely flat due to neglect and I'm just before riding on the rim. When JTL hits the sparks will start flying!
I agree even a little lovin' would go along way to restore faith against patience that is wearing thin. Say, some added combat utility in the Combat Revamp - not to make us hardened combatants by ourselves, but enough to add usable (and preferably distinctive)utility the combat professions that most Rangers also hold. Then maybe increased harvesting as a correspondents issue.
The entire skill line then requires a drastic overhaul, but I appreciate that such major work is a long way off. Something well-thought out and positive, even if minor is desperately needed.
As a further thought, I would question the thought that we are not a combat profession. What makes you think that we are not? We are the only profession other than Bounty Hunter that is required to kill something to fullfill our profession function. We are hunters, that is what we do. Unless we can all of the sudden strip the bones out of something without killing it or skin it and release it back into the wild, it still comes down to killing. That my friends is combat. Not Galactic Civil War Combat, but combat all the same. Given that the GCW is a joke to most gamers, that puts and even greater light on PVE hunting.
So, it makes since for us to have combat related skills. Wether they be bonuses to creature hit, special weapon certs or any number of items that fall within a combat related profession. Too many people think that Rangers are combat support specialist, this is nothing but rot. Pistoleers, Carbineers, Riflemen, Swordsmen, Fencers, TKA. Are all merely specializations of true combat professions. The only true GCW Combat Profession is Commando. Why, because all of his skills are marked for fighting other players and the faction bought equipment that comes with taking part in the GCW. Combat Medics would be better given the label of Combat Support Specialist, since from a logical viewpoint their skills have not practical reason to exist outside of the Galactic Civil War or PA Faction Wars.
So, the break down is... For the Galactic Civil War the Commando is the top of the food chain and only true Combat Profession. They are the professional soldiers...
Rangers are the top of the food chain outside of the GCW and the only truly Combat Profession. We are professional hunters. Regardless of the type of weapon you choose to master to do said hunting.
It's time the Ranger Community changed how it views it's self.
Message Edited by Serraphin on 11-11-2004 08:25 PM