Ranger Archive

I posted this in the general discussion thread, but felt that perhaps we Rangers should discuss this in our own forum. We really need a correspondent.... anyway here's my take and suggestion.

There's a growing suspicion that devs reduced the amount of harvested items across the board and that this 50% reduction, even while solo, is not a bug or mistake. It's because with the increase amount of harvested goods because of the 60% rule, SOE reduced the number of hides altogether, hence making a Hunt Master marginally better than a master Scout or Hunter.

In the time it took me to collect 300 tatooine wooley hides (from one camp) I can run at least 4 kill missions. There is no way I can sell 300 hides for the same amount I can make in destroy missions, especially with the supposed influx of resources. Therefore the reductions have effectively destroyed a viable profession in the game.. what was the Hunt Master.

I played my Ranger to fill the orders of crafters who needed specific resources for their crafted items. I'd travel to any planet and find the beast I had to kill in order to fill the demand. This was the character I chose to play and I'm not alone, but today I feel like I've lost my character for good.

But not to sound like I'm whining, I will offer up a suggestion.

Stage the amount of items harvested in a group and not 60% across the board and return the amounts to what they were. Have the first two levels of scout able to harvest 10% with 50% of the xp if they did it solo. The last two boxes in Scout harvest 40% with 50% of the xp if they had done it solo. The first box of Ranger (what was bioscience) gets 60 and 60, then 70 and 70, 80 and 80 and 90 and 90 for Hunt Master with Master Ranger getting 100% of their normal take.

I think this will reduce the amount of resources hitting the market, yet still not void out the Hunt Master. Also this will be based on level and not across the board.

I hear ya Japhy I'm getting a ton less resources now than I used to ... I'm seriously debating just deleting my Ranger skills . Pretty tired of waiting around for them to work . The only thing I did have going for me was the good harvests I was getting on the advanced planets .

Now I'm not even getting those anymore so what's the point ?

Think I'll be moving on soon .

I'm interested to hear the Dev response to the reduction in harvesting across the board , not just in groups .

I know exactly how you feel.. I am also a hunt master doing any kind of orders on meat hide and bone. Yesterday when I discovered the 50% nerf I just couldn't belive it. I haven't bothered playing at all today, since there's no point doing what I do. The only way I could keep on playing is if I more than double my prices. This is because of both the 50% nerf, and the combat-nerfs. And I don't think many people are willing to pay these amounts yet. On a second note it takes like forever to get a good amount of resources now. The last day before patch was my best hunting day ever, I think I might have gathered like 20-30k resources that day, or even more.. but of course, I was hunting big creatures ALL day.. now I might be able to 10k if I work really hard, and use ALOT of stims..

Well.. that was my whining. just had to vent it out.. My thoughts on the subject keep the values that used to be there, and instead of the 60%I have an idea. say there is a group of 5 people and 3 scouts/rangers. When any of the "harvesters" harvest the creature they will get one third of their usual amount (since there's three of'em) + 10%. This way there will be a bonus in group-hunting, and in the same time it won't be as abusable as the 60% system. Just imagine 20 scouts killing a krayt or something like that now.. they will get 12 times the base amount. The way it is now you need 3-4 equally skilled scouts/rangers to get the same amount as before. That's just too much.

Arees, the Wookie Hunt Master
Tatooine, Eclipse

WOOK!

The resource reduction was a nasty surprise to me as well, even more so when I discovered that my pets reduced my harvests even more!

Organic resources have never been as easy to get as minerals and chemicals, due to the fact that 1.) it requires you to pick up a combat profession to aquire them and 2.) we do not get static resource harvesters that can work 24/7.

I could stand this resource reduction if they would just give us some form of static traps (ie: resource harvesters). That would bring hand harvesting in line with artisan sampling.

Yeah I hear your pain. I noticed it when I was killing fambaas and getting 24 units of meat. LOL. For the people that depend only on hunting as an income it's going to be rough in the beginning. I am assuming that with less resources out there the prices will go up. I also agree static traps would be nice but so far I am not holding my breath.

Well, my initial reaction to this was disappointment. I thought, "well great, how am I gonna make money NOW?" But I've decided to wait and see. Perhaps the scarcity of resources will cause prices to go back up (in which case, the stockpile I was sitting on, will be worth quite a bit within the next week or two). Maybe this will help us out in the long run. Who knows? Let's wait and see what happens to the market for our stuff before we start whining for it to be changed.

I don't see how it can help us. In my group today, we killed a bunch of tortons. While grouped I harvest 14 meat and bone,andI have what used to be bioscience3,while my partner who at the most has hunting 4, got 11. That is terrible, it means we are hardly better than scouts, and I am 3 levels above him.

You guys should be cheering. Hoard all your high-quality organics for now. Hope you've been saving.

Then, when the scarcity becomes an issue, you'll really bank.

While this might not be the biggest ordeal for the already hunt master or master ranger, this definately slows down advancement in the ranger profession dramatically.

I already am trapping master, ok we got more ways to raise our survival xp, but now scouting xp is so darn hard to raise. I'll probably be master survivalist fairly soon and still at level 2 in wayfaring and tracking at the most (I'm at level 1 of both those skill trees).

It practically makes me have to kill twice as many creatures to get where I wanted to be in the first place: Master Ranger. This is putting it at a crawl when it comes to advancement. Now I'm not even touching the resources issue. I'm someone who uses traps a lot (they really help with hunting if you use the right tactics) but now way I'm going to be able to provide myself with the hides, bones and meat I'm going to need to make my own traps.

It's also the end of being self sufficient which I thought our class was all about, except for the resources we can't get of course. I think they made a big mistake by lowering the harvesting revenue across the board. I could have understood this change if we would have had a drastic increase of xp gain through other means than harvesting, but ehm....... do they honestly think that through fixing mask scent xp gain (yes fixing it, not adding anything) we are progressing in a similar pace as other elite professions?

If they do, I'd like to get some more benefit of being a ranger myself. We already were an elite scout, now the elite is kinda gone. Being able to camouflage others and get survival xp through fishing and crafting camps doesn't really cut it in my mind.

Bring back the harvesting level for solo players to the level it was, and in groups, I can understand a small reduction but then let every scout/ranger in the group get 60-70% of the harvest. But don't screw over the solo player. They are killing them this way.

Kivech

You guys don't understand. This change doesn't destroy ranger, it destroys all the proffesions dependant on rangers. We could always charge more for our hide, bone and meat. But imagine this. You're a novice tailor, who's used to the prices of in-organics when you grinded artisan XP. Then you hit tailor, all your grinding materials now cost double, trippel or maybe quadruplethe amount you're used to, and you can't extract cheap for yourself. Most people will give it up pretty soon. And these proffesions aren't the most popular atm. This isn't that much a nerf to the Scout/Ranger. But the ones that will feel this in a few weeks is medics, doctors, tailors, chefs, bios, armorsmiths etc. etc.

Good point Hunt_Master. I agree with that one completely. Our lack of ability to get the resources the marked needs will increase prices, which will in turn increase costs for those that need them, with a market that already has less money to spend these days.

So ehm....

less resources = higher prices to buy = more expensive to craft = higher prices for crafted goods

Now, with people not being able to make money easily anymore (200 credit missions anyone?), no one is going to consider paying more for clothes or armor. Maybe armor, but definately not clothes since they are basically for show and looks only.

You might be pretty right on here. Tailors are already not very popular anymore, I guess them having to raise prices will make them even less popular. Or if they want to stay in business they don't raise prices but make stuff for the same prices seeing their revenues drop drastically. Which in turn will make them eventually give up on the profession also since running delivery missions will make them more money then selling their goods.

Anyway, in more ways than one, I really don't think the harvesting nerf is a good thing. It actually makes me wonder how good those people at SOE think about *impact* of changes for the player run economy. I'm inclined to think they don't even consider it properly.

Kivech

This is an easy fix for them. i'm going to wait it out and see what happens. The market will correct it is just going to take some time. Starve off the organics and everything else will fall into line. Just as a side note I spent most of last night on Lok and I picked up silly amounts of scouting exp just strolling around with mask scent on. This is going to help. I like the idea of Master Ranger being a challange if this game is too easy you'll burn out and walk. I see a lot of potential in it and I'm willing to give it time. The more I read these boards the more I start to believe that gamers are the pinical of the "I want it all and I want it now mindset". The game needs function and a viable economy. To be honest I don't group too too often mostly because I feel bad about being a exp / loot hog. Having moved out to the outer planets this may change.

Bera Bear'ano Ranger 2-0-3-4 Pistoleer 2-2-4-2 Valcyn

I think that I know why the devs reduced the quantity of harversted itens to 50 %.

When a scout/ranger is alonehunting he get 100 % of harversted itens. When grouped with non-scout/non-rangers, he get 60 %. But when he group with another scout/ranger, he get 60% from the corpse and the other scout/rangetr get too 60 % from the SAME corpse. Then, the net quantity of harversted itens is 60 % + 60 % = 120% per corpse.

You can see if you have more scout/rangers grouping that you will get bigger net quantities per corpsethat will flood the market. If you have 10 scout/rangers grouping to get a big creature (a Bantha, for example) and all they harverster the corpse to get hides, each one will get 60 % from the SAME dead Bantha, but the net quantity of wooly hides harverstedby these 10 scout/ranger from the same corpse will be 600% (or 6 X more).

IMHO, we don't will see that these organic components will disappear from the market. Maybe we find the inverse, that they will flood the market despite the 50 % reduction.