Ranger Archive

RANGER SKILL FEEDBACK

Well... now that we have the goods on what direction the Ranger is headed, I'd like to offer my feedback to the Ranger Dev on issues/suggesions on how these skills should work.

WAYFARING

/conceal

• This should stack with /maskscent


• Similar to /mask this needs some sort of on-screen message that it is working... (if this is handled by the xp message that works.. otherwise some visual way to know that our fail-check succeeded.


• Crafting Camoflauge Kits should provide the same craft xp similar to crafting camps/traps


• Camo kits should show visibly on avatar when applied (although how do you camo a wookiee?) as colored paint similar to the planetary colorscheme.


• This skill should also conceal vs NPC as well as Creature Mobs


• In PVP, this skill should work against Faction Pets but not against players (how could it? no ai to effect!)


• You should be able to remove the camo effect at will similar to /maskscent


• All xp here should be Scout XP

Terrain Negotiation

• Allow a longer burst run duration at 50+


• Allow crouched movement (if I can crawl 10mph, I should be able to run in a crouch - allowing movement in the kneeling position)

/Rescue

• This skill should fire instantly (remove the 1-2 second delay for animation)


• When grouped the creature should be forced to stay aggro to you for a set time (most critters re-aggro to next damage even after you rescue)


• Consider allowing this skill to prevent deathblows for a time period allowing a Ranger to actually "rescue" someone from death.


• Rescue skill points are unclear and need to have a scaling effect... ie... +10 Rescue vs +50 Rescue.. whats the difference? This should factor in to how much time you can maintain aggro on a critter or prevent deathblows.

FRONTIERING

/Forage

• Allow Rangers the ability to "target" forage for either food, water, or bait


• Add new foraged food items used in crafting CAMO /conceal kits so that you don't have to be an artisan and sample for the materials you need. (berries, sap, beans, ie.. stuff that stains and is specific to a planet)

Fishing

• Allow Rangers the ability to craft a fishing net that can be thrown similar to a trap to collect fish instead of using a pole. This net would yield random multiple items.

Camps

• Allow the HTFB to have a beacon that appears on the Planetary Map similar to a player vendor (with advertising).


• Allow HTFB the ability to stay up until the Ranger closes the base or it times out at 1 hour, forget the wilderness xp and allow us to set up camp and go fight without losing our base.


• Hunting Blinds should scale with skill and should allow 1 person in the blind at low level and up to 3 at high level.


• Please make hunting blinds look visually correct either in the form of a camo-netting... or a battlefield bunker... ora simple foxhole... or a sandbag brim.. or even a hoth-like trench.


• Hunting Blinds should offer defensive bonus more than attack bonus with a negative if the creature approaches to melee range.


• We should be able to craft an Entertaining Gypsy Stage that allows entertainers to perform in the wild. (think of those old traveling gyspy wagons.. something up to date and starwarsy but similar)


• Give us creature corals to allow for pet healing


• Give us a PVP Faction Based Defensive Platform Base


• Allow camps to not only repel critters... but fix the laser fence on the HTFB to actually fry critters level 15< that try to cross it.

TRACKING

Creature Bonuses

• Allow Creature-to-hit Bonus to work for melee as well as ranged


• Fix Examine Skill to show very detailed information about critters


• Balance the extra harvesting to make sure all resources (bone, hide, meat) are coming in bonus quantities (right now its inconsistent if you're getting your bonus)

/Scanarea

• Please allow a UI floater to stay on screen (similar to the new waypoint box) and show directionals (not chatbox /track like EQ.. yuk)


• Also please allow a filter to this so that we can filter what exactly we want scanarea to show (people, player, creatures) and if possible allow filters based on other criteria.


• Similar to survey tools, this skill should require a scanning device (even the imps needed a scanner to check the contents of the Falcon)


• Allow /scanarea to have a range that you can set based on skill

/Track

• Please allow this to be used to spawn unique creature targets that the general populace cannot find. This way a Ranger would be the supreme tracker... An example would be to allow you to /track for the "queen bee" of a species that normally does not spawn on the radar. This way, if you wanted to have a hunting party seek out some unique prey with unique loot.. the Ranger is the tracker that leads the way. This would encourage grouping as these spawns should not be solo-able.


• There needs to be some sort of /scanarea tie-in here that tells you what types of creatures can spawn in that location... this could be similar to the resource menu on the survey tools

ADVANCED TRAPPING

Heavy Claw Trap

• This trap should not only root creatures but reduce their action points significantly.

Lure

• Please ensure that this trap works properly and does not aggro more than one creature at a time. It seems very difficult to deploy something static near a lair and have only one creature attracted.. what if there are other lairs nearby.. will you get one critter from each lair? You should be able to target what you are attempted to lure, or select a creature type when you make the lure.

Tripwire

• If you have to target what you want to tripwire... i'm not entirely sure how this will work... can you drop it while running? Can other players see this tripwire visually? Can they avoid it? I think for griefing sake, you don't want to make it so that ANYONE who crosses the wire will trip

Thats all... thanks for listening...

- Zarn

Most excellent post. Just a few things I'd like to touch on:

Allow crouched movement (if I can crawl 10mph, I should be able to run in a crouch - allowing movement in the kneeling position)

They probably don't have the animations for moving in the kneeling position, so this one might be low on their list. But if they can do it, all the power to them.

Allow Creature-to-hit Bonus to work for melee as well as ranged

Definitely agree with this one. I'm a TK and I am not granted a Creature-to-hit Bonus? Why?

Fix Examine Skill to show very detailed information about critters

I would love to be able to see which resources on a creature will return "Skinny" values. I hate harvesting a Fambaa just to get ONE hide off it, when I could have harvested the meat and get a 100.

Balance the extra harvesting to make sure all resources (bone, hide, meat) are coming in bonus quantities (right now its inconsistent if you're getting your bonus)

I do notice that versus the value I see on the Examine window, I harvest about double the resources. But how does that compare to the scout levels? There should be a bigger distinction between the levels, perhaps lowering the amount a scout harvests to make our levels look better.

I mean our profession is the penultimate Scout. Other people simply pick up scout for the other classes that require it. So they really don't need to harvest as many resources as us, do they?

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As for the rest of the post, it speaks for itself. Love some of those /rescue ideas, hope they get implemented

Regarding the running crouched animation... I've seen it on my screen.. it happens every-so-often when I go to run and it thinks I'm still sitting... i'm crouched down and running with my pistol in front of me... it may look a little strange.. but it looks like running crouched to me...

- Zarn

what about /conceal dropping us off radar?

I think dropping us from radar is great for faction pvp... however... does this mean that rangers can't see other rangers? ... plus are you considering the fact that you can /conceal others? Do you really want to see a mob of Imps appear out of nowhere because no-one is on radar?

I think its an interesting proposition... but there should be a way to break it so that people will show on radar if they fail a /conceal check.

-= Zarn

Excellent post Zarn....If we already did not have a Kick-arse Corespondant, I would push to have you set up as Ranger Scapegoat.....Corespondant.

I am personaly interested in the use of /resuce. It can have a lot of potential in PvP. Both as overt and Covert. The current "loop-hole" of using it to gain jump into faction battles is nice. I would not mind if it made us fully overt, or gave us a real TEF.

-gustavef

We won't see radar dropping. This would promote 3rd party packet sniffers to get around the issue, which is really the whole reason the radar was implemented.

What they could do however, is conceal our overt status, if we are factioned. We would simply show up as a neutral player on the radar. Tabbing would still work on us, but those who rely on the radar to warn them of the "red" dot coming their way would be in for a surprise.

I think /conceal in PVP needs very careful consideration.. expecially with the fact that you can apply it to others and it can last for 25 minutes...

A lot of the suggestions don't account for this fact and would be very painful in PVP... could you imagine an entire battle where everyone is not on the radar for 25 minutes?

In my mind... /conceal should only work outside of combat.... if you enter combat.. you should be instantly visible... thus if you went with the radar suggestion.... you may be able to sneak a force into an area.. but as soon as you enter combat, your radar blip appears.

Another problem with implementing /conceal in pvp is the fact that it simply will not work the same as it does in pve... because what /conceal actually does is it alters the critter AI to prevent it from aggroing or noticing you.

I just don't see how that could be implemented the same way in PVP... you DON'T want to make it so that you can't be targetted... and the only thing that would have the same effect with people is if they simply did not see you at all... because that's what the critter AI thinks.. you're not there.... and since BETA this was deemed to be very bad to have inviso chars... I don't think we'll see it again.

I'd just be happy if camo kits gave you an additional defensive bonus similar to a magical shield buff in other games... that is in essence what you are doing... even if it just gave you a good defense against To-Hit so that most weapons would have to close to melee like range to even have a chance to hit you well would be good for me.... because if you're close enough to stand toe to toe with me.. then you can definitely see me. (don't bring up the sniper in the ghillie suit argument..). This would be easier to implement as you are just altering your base combat stats for an effect.. and something that makes sense when you apply it to others. The net effect being... at range.. you are hard to spot due to your camoflauge and thus its harder to get long range hits in on you.

IF you make /conceal too good.. then it will become a requirement for PVP battles which is something you don't want.. because that isn't balanced. You want the skill to be useful but not gross.. if its gross.. everyone will be using it for every battle.. and while thats fun for rangers.. it just breaks things.

- Zarn, Mineras' right hand flunkie

My own ramblings based on guesswork since we don't yet know the inner workings of some of these things. These are in no way criticisms and hopefully, since it took me a while to think and type, not already discussed by the time I click submit!:

WAYFARING

/conceal

• Don't like the stack with /maskscent idea - if I understand you correctly, I would need to do 2 commands instead of just /conceal to get the most benefit? We already going to have to do extra work to use this command by having to craft a kit. I thought the /conceal is basically a replacement which is inherently better, kinda like bodyshot1 vs. bodyshot2 - has all the previous benefits plus more.
  


• The Camouflage kits should also be quality based such as other crafteditems are and could affect the success rate, duration and perhaps mob levelconcealment. For example, Master Rangers should, of course, be able to craftthe best kits that would have very high success rates, last much longer, and be effective against the highest mob levels. Having such a system would allow us Rangers to experiment (woohoo!) with kits and even though the market is small, actually have a way of making a little money on the side by selling HQ kits.
  


• Instead of camouflage on the face/body which would rule out wookies you say, perhaps the devs could use opacity which could scale easily with the skill. At top level and full success, you and your groupies would look like a bunch of shimmering clear bodies (think Predator) running across the screen. At lower levels, the amount of opacity (concealment)could be directly linked to theskill level.
  


• Re: PvP/Radar Dropping: Although this particular command is currently AI based, if sometime down the roadthis is implemented, you could counter the /conceal command by enhancing the /scanarea command to include the option of scanning for other players. If found they would be made visible. Obviously the success rate and range of detection would increase with skill levels similar to the survey command.

Terrain Negotiation

• In general we should be able to run faster than any other player. I hate it when I run into other players heading the same way and they can run as fast as me. If I can climb mountains much faster than others, then surely I should be able to outrun them on flatland? There should be an distinct difference in basic running speed when pitted against other players just as our crawl is. Obviously we shouldn't be able to outrun gurrcats or the like, but we definitely should be able to outrun lower skilled players.

FRONTIERING

Camps

• The HTFB should be fixed before we get new stuff.The first thingeveryone tries to do when they see our camps is go inside the bunkers and then theyget bummed when they can't. If the devs can add elevators to spawned mob camps, then surely they could have our little bunker doors open so we can walk in?
  
• The laser fence around the HTFB should actually fry beasties when they enter it, similar to a mosquito zapper. The success rate, amount of damage and possibly mob levelcould also be quality related - giving us another chance to experiment when crafting the base.
  
• The beacon on the planetary map should be optional. I may not want company!
  
• I'd like to have the HTFB stay while I go out in my Hunting blinds so the rest of the group (or whoever) can stay in the HTFB and heal, craft or whatever.
  
• If making Hunting blinds look visually correct is a problem, use the same opacity technique discussed earlier.

TRACKING

Creature Bonuses

• When using /examine, at master level, I should be able to see each type of resource name (and its qualities) that a critter might provide. After all, we are supposed to be the walking encyclopedia of beasties! Since even animal resources change, it would make tracking down a particular resource or quality easier.

/Track

• Alter the survey system - choose your resource (read mob) from the list andtrack it to its source. Again, the tracking range would be tied to skill level.

ADVANCED TRAPPING

Rangers should be able to experiment on the success rate, duration and quantity of all traps, even Scout traps. Again, making money on the side by selling quality traps (think stimpacks) would be nice. Like other crafting, the quality of the trap would be affected by the skill of the crafter and the quality of the resources.

Lure

• Since we don't know how it will be implemented, can't say much. I imagine something like targeting the mob from a distance,throwing the lure between you and the targeted mob and hope it falls for the bait.

I would like to be able to use traps and darts on other players and NPC's. For exampleit is illogical that we can't throw the glowjuice trap at a stromtrooper to make himmore visible.

Conceal should give a defensive bonus vs all enemies, to make it stand more apart from mask scent.

I also agree that higher level camps should not lose it's functionality when you leave it to hunt/fight in the nearby area. Make it so it will deconstruct if the owner travels to far from it. (500m perhaps)

I'll add some ideas too:

WAYFARING

/conceal

I agree with the former posters about conceal in PvP, it could very well become too powerfull so we have to be carefull here. However this skill is the obvious one to let Rangers play some role in pvp. IMO the right way to implement this for a PvP purpose would be to allow it to remove our radar blip, aslong as we stay out of combat. If a concealed player enters combat (or is attacked) the blip will appear. So any hostile action involving the concealed player would effectively make him/her visable on radar again. /conceal shoul NOT make players invisible, thats just too overpowering - however a removal of the overhead name/guild tag along with the radar blip might be an option. This would allow a concealed player to effectively sneak in on his enemies, giving PvP a new strategic angle and allow a ranger to play out the role of recon. This would also make prone crawl speed more valuable as a prone character is less likely to be seen then a standing/running one.

Tarrain Negotiation

There are a few ways to let this skill be more then just a prone crawl mod. I offer you 3 options:

Increase the speed of the player
Increase Burstrun duration
Decrease time between burstruns.

I would mostly like to see a general speed increase, but if this can't be done or is deemed too powerfull (it might be in pvp, believe me AO was all about runspeed in pvp) the other 2 options are a possibility. Both options would allow the Ranger to utilize burstrun as a means of travel (which is what I use it for atm). I'd personally like a decrease in time between burstruns, as the way it works now burstrunning for an extended time can be quite hazardus due to creatures spawning ontop of you, popping out of thin air right in fornt of you (or is this a map/radar update issue ?).

FROMTIERING

Camps

There are some new camps comming, so i'll wait to comment on new camps till we have a better idea of what is in store. There are still some issues that can be brought up with the "old" ones. " things reign highest on my list: Camps disbanding and BF healing.

Camps Disbanding: IMO the top ranger camp shouldn't disband in combat and it should have a duration of 12-24 hours before it auto disbands. Look at that camp - it looks like a small village, and that is what it is for - it is meant as a semi-permanent outpost or base of operations and shouldnt be dependant on the ranger actively being present in the camp. A Ranger should be able to set up this camp for his group as a base of operations, a rally point etc. Groupmembers should be confident that the camp will remain there regardless of what happens. I don't care that all the other camps disband during combat, but let this one serve it's pupose. To prevent top lvl Ranger camps from crowding the countryside make the ressource requirements extreme! It's only fair - this is a big freaking camp, it should be very expensive to put up. This would force Rangers only to utilize the top camp when it's really needed - for big group hunting and pvp faction battles etc.

BF Healing: The top ranger camp should heal BF, it is quite a drag going to an advanced planet and have no way of healing BF. No there won't be an Entertainer sitting in the OP tavern waiting just for you - granted an experienced group will bring 1 or 2 entertainers, but having these walk all the way back to the OP just to BF heal a dude is too much to ask, and no the entertainer won't just sit in the OP waiting for his groupmembers to spill in, unless he's getting a really good pay - and even then it's just boring game play, which should be avoided. Allow the top Ranger camp to heal BF, mabe at a slower rate or what ever - just make it possible! I believe this to be the benefit of entertainers aswell, instead of having to AFK in a cantina, they can now actively go out with the big hunting groups and have a purpose.

ADVANCED TRAPPING

Traps

New "stationary" traps: We are getting a new trapping system: "Instead of throwing their traps at a target like Scouts, Rangers will deploy their traps on the ground". We have to think a little about this. As we all know battles in SWG can be quite hectic. More often then not you will be running back and forth, left and right, guns blazing - will these new traps be impossible to use "in-combat" ?(as opposed to pre-combat i.e. setting up the trap, then proceed to attack a mob and lure it into the trap.). I'm sure it will be possible to develop tactics that will utilize these stationary traps, but i would just like everyone (including the Ranger designer) to keep in mind that combat is mostly moving around all the time and if these traps are meant to be used during combat this should be factored in. I can imagine how putting down one of these new traps will be: You kneel, fiddle a little with the trap, getting it set up and then stand again, trap ready. Now this could be VERY lethal during a fight - the mobs will be all over you if the action of setting up a trap takes longer then the current traps. IMO the current 2 secs delay on traps are fine - it forces the scout/ranger to make a cost/benefit assessment - "is it worth getting pounded on for a few secs to trap this creature?", "do i have time to trap this creature before it can get to me?" etc. Now if the action setting up one of these new traps is much longer then the current traps they will be near to useless "in-cambat", they might be intended to work as a pre-combat preparation, if so be it - fine with me, but if they are intended to work "in-combat" plz keep these things in mind.

Traps and PCs / Pets: Making traps work on PCs during a pvp fight might be a bit over the top - it will completely change the way pvp works today - mabe this is a good thing ? To any extent, making traps work in pvp against players will be VERY powerfull - imagine rooting/snaring a Taras Kasi - they will be crying believe me - i'm not really prepared to speak much about this - but my intuition tells me that this would not be a good idea. Now making traps work against PC pets is another matter, and i believe traps should work here, mabe only the Ranger ones (yes give us all the good stuff not the scouts ), this would prevent everyone and his mother from being able to handle pets - you would need to bring a ranger if the pet threat is really high. CHs should then be given some sort of counter - a stim, a "wriggle" command - something like that - atleast so the Pet owner has a chance to "un-trap" his pet.

My two cents worth, keep up the good work ppl.

/D

Good post Xion.

The one thing I would like to add...when you say :

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Fix Examine Skill to show very detailed information about critters

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I would like to see either Pack hunter, or Herd. This is listed in the SWG guide that I picked up when i bought the game...but it isnt in the game. When we see PackHunter we know they will BAF. When we see Herd we know they will break apart when engaged.