Ranger Archive

Preface: I am a master ranger with Camo bonus of +112 (+100, +12 scent neutralizer built into shirt)

I think the worst part about the current mask scent is that it is more of a liability than an asset. I was travelling with a group of 5 companions across Talus to investigate some Temple. Mobs that were on the edge of my radar would detect my mask scent then port on top of me and attack. The group would have to stop and defend me. In the meantime, other group members were weaving in and out of clusters of red mobs just fine. However, every few minutes my mask scent would get detected again and the creature would port to me, start attacking, etc. Finally the group asked me to stop using my Master Ranger concealment skills as they were really making it difficult to travel cross-country. ????

W-T-F? Is it really supposed to work this way. This makes me very sad.

I have had widely different results from concealment. At first, it just wouldn't stay up on Corellia. But then I tried it on Rori and it seemed not to break at all. I don't believe maskscent relies on any ranger skills at all now, I assume you're talking about conceal?

Couldn't be more opposite result for me. I can run through piles of reds ... stand there petting them sometimes ... and only about 1 in maybe 15 or 20 times am I aggroed. Granted, my character is Bothan, but I'm not a master ranger.

I, too, have the totally opposite experience. Usually all my friends are the ones getting agroed and I'm the one getting ticked off and begging them go get concealing skills. Of course, I still try to run around the agro critters and not through them. I know this is a long shot, but do you think their may be a bug with your shirt?

Walk/crawl up to a Voilent Krahbu starting from 70m slowly to 64. Sample of 50 times I have done this w/o conceal up and never get attacked. NEVER.Creature does not move. EVERY time I do this with conceal up the creature moves, WITHOUT FAIL. 5 times in 50 itattacks me.

If I was in a group they'd tell me to stop using it.

Iuse concealstill, because it actually DOES enhance my chances from getting detected by a NPC, which is nill without. It's the reason I even use it at all.

Right now Maskscent works about 99% of the time. So that means about 1 in 100 aggro creatures would spot me. Well passing 100 creatures is failry easy when looking for a hunting spot. And that 1% of the time can be very deadly since creatures that normally aggro at 20 to 30m now aggro on me at 65m.

Its not so much when Maskscent is broken, that I mind, it is now that creatures seem to be "upset" that I was trying to hide from them, and now will go out of their way to kill me, where as the person who was in plane sight can get closer with out them careing. (Are creatures offended by my lack of smell? )

-gustavef

Yeah, I dont mind that Maskscent is broken about 18% of the time for me. It could use some tweeking to make that 10% as a Master Scout.

It's that 70% of those breaks cuase me to be attacked, oftentimes having the creature warped to me! Two times I was warped to the creature while prone!!

Conceal works just as efficiently as Maskscent against creatures and has yet to work against a red NPC for me, and I am a Master Ranger!!

Simply put...

I do not use /maskscent anymore at all. It is far easier for me to do a bit of weaving around red MOB pockets, than have a creature 64m away aggro on me because my maskscent was broken.

The MOB would NOT have attacked me, nor would it have even taken notice of me at 64m if I didn't have maskscent on.

I've had some experience with this since the patch. I have started putting out harvesters on the likes of Yavin, Lok and Dantooine to gather medical resources as a means of making money. This weekend on the way to put down a chem. extractor on Yavin, I was aggroed on twice, once by a crystal snake and once by a Kliknik queen. Both these at over 60m. I then visited the same harvester this morning with no maskscent on and had absolutely no trouble getting to it, despite the fact that I had to weave through a sea of red mobs to get there.

Took a trip to Lok to visit the flora farm I put down over the weekend. Same thing, aggroed on twice on the way out. Got fed up, didn't put the on maskscent on the way back to the stronghold, and WOW, I was able to get there without any trouble at all!

Again, using /maskscent should never be a liability. I will not be using maskscent again unless/until it is fixed.

I haven't tried camo kits yet. I suppose I should use a couple of those harvesters to get some stuff for that.

Codak

Master Ranger / Mercenary

Somewhere I saw that they might have reversed the bonus for concealment so that it became less effective as you went up, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm a 1-3-3-1 Ranger, and crawled prone to within 10m of an aggro NPC before I stood and let it attack me. (this was on Naboo)

For the most part, I've had little trouble with /maskscent breaking. With it on, I knelt harvesting Lok flower food for upwards of two hours without once getting attacked by all the kuzaks and perleks hanging about, amoung other undesirables. I managed to even get within 20m of a giant.... dragon... thing (what the hell are they called) before it noticed me... it was being attacked by some people at the time, but I've never had an attacking creature not take a shot at my scent before.

---

Manae wrote:

For the most part, I've had little trouble with /maskscent breaking.

---

What I am reading here tells me this isn't the problem. People aren't complaining about it breaking a lot, what they are complaining about is that *IF* it breaks, it can aggro a creature that otherwise WOULD NOT HAVE ATTACKED ANYWAY

Premise: Mob Aaggros at 30m
Player X stands 40m away - End result, mob ignores them
Player Y (a ranger with /maskScent on) stands 60m away, Mob breaks maskscent (1 in 100 chance say)

Now the end result *SHOULD BE* nothing happens. Sure the mob breaks the maskscent but they are too far away to aggro anyway. HOWEVER they ARE aggroing from outside their normal range and teleport and kill the ranger, leaving the closer character alone

And on top of that, it seems that the chance for a creature to agro on you when they breakmask scent is 50% or more. It really is insane. I was on Lok the other day, and even though mask scent rarely broke, I ended up being attacked more than anyone else because I almost always got agro when it did break.

The problem with maskscent, and I wrote about this before, is that it is unpredictable. While walking around without maskscent you can depend on your own navigation skills to avoid mobs. While maskscent works, there is always a slight chance that an animal will attack you from outside its normal attack range. This affect also happens with conceal. The only difference is conceal does not break, usually. While it seems like the higher chance of aggroing a creature that passes the mask scent roll is a way of balancing the game, it is not, simply because players with good navigation skills do not get aggro'd. So while you and your friends are standing 40 meters away from Baz Nitches, the Ranger has a higher chance of being aggo'd than the non-concealed players.

The rule should be immediately changed so that a failure to pass maskscent on an animal does not make that animal attack. While it's nice to navigate through mobs unseen, the one that simply attacks you who wouldn't attack you with your mask scent on takes away a lot of the benefit. Especially if you're with a group and you're the only one who gets aggo'd, causing the group problems.

And in real life, if an animal suddenly detected a human far off, they wouldn't have any more reason to attack him just because his scent was suddenly apparent than they would attack a human who just walked in.

-- YP

On a run from Kov to Reb Base in Corrillea Mask scent broke 3 times and i got agro 3 times. I used my one Camo kit charge and it broke after a few meters, bring on the agro of a Flay slayer. Bad Luck i guess????

I too think that conceal is more of a liability as it stands right now.

So if a team of 20 is trying to stay a safe distance from a lair of reds WITH out Conceal there realy is no chance of anyone in the team getting agro.

BUT if there is a team of 20 all with conceal up and they too are staying a safe (say 90m) distance from a lair of reds there is NOWthere are 20 peeps all with a% chance that thereconceal will drop and AGRO one of the red mobs even tho the team is outside of there agro range.

Am i right?

Also i feel there should be a short say 3-10sec warning when maskscent or Conceal fail. This will give a person a small chance to get out of agro range. I have never liked the fact that PooF mask/conceal is gone.

Sigh hope they figure this out soon.

Indee

Ranger 4-2-2-4/Rifleman 2-0-2-1