Ranger Archive

Ok I was doing some shopping and purchased a nice +17 mask scent undershirt. I proudly put it on masked scent and walked out of the store I was in and had my mask scent broken by from what I could tell a level 3-4 creature. This disapointed me greatly and I started to wonder about my new shirt so I look at my skills and mask scent is labeled as 100/__ Now Im concerned. So I mask scent and walk over to a humbaba in less then 2 minutes my mask scent wore off. I may be paranoid but has anyone else had maskscent seem to loose ability when you raise it above 100?

Message Edited by Nemo0 on 09-09-2004 06:20 PM

I've had this happen to me, and my current Maskscent is at 100+117 (I too have a shirt with +17 ), and I found that while tracking the Pirates for the Hero of Tatooine, my maskscent would be constantly broken by sevorts, whomp rats, heck... even kreetles.

Then I found myself walking around a few Juvenile Krayts without the slightest problem, and running by bull rancor lairs (one of which had a couple ancient bull rancors).

After observing this bizarre behavior, I went back to Tatooine to run some tests, and I was able to maskscent around kreetles, whomp rats, bocats, and other low and high lvl mobs, as long as I was NOT around the spawn area for the Pirates. Needless to say I already bugged this. I don't think it has to do anything with the Pirates per se, but something bogus is happening in that general area, at least in Corbantis.

So, what I'm trying to say is, don't be disapointed, that shirt was a great buy and you'll find it very usefull in lots of areas.

On a side note, my Camo modifier is 115+140... gonna run some tests with /conceal around the same general area, see if it still gets broken.

when I'm not wearing my maskscent clothing (base skill 100), it takes about 15 seconds to reapply after the maskscent is broken.

when I wear my clothing (+25), it takes about 5 seconds to reapply.

maskscent is more likely to be broken:

when standing (prone is better)
when running (walking is better)
vs high CL/ferocity aggro critters
vs MANY creatures, rather than singles (it rolls a check for EACH, increasing the overall odds of failure)

in addition, if you get a 'stalking' message, the creature that is stalking you can easily walk up behind you and attack, even if you re-mask your scent. if you're being 'stalked', don't stay where you are unless you're looking for a fight.

if your maskscent is listed as 100/___, there could be two reasons... your UI might not have room to display +100/+117 (try resizing the skillsheet, or hover the mouse over the stat to see if it displays) OR you could be horribly bugged.

Wasn't it at one time theorized that the higher the Maskscent mod, the more likely you were to get an error in the check (i.e. the number was turned ito a negatice when compared to a low level creature, which causes an insta-break)?

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Wasn't it at one time theorized that the higher the Maskscent mod, the more likely you were to get an error in the check (i.e. the number was turned ito a negatice when compared to a low level creature, which causes an insta-break)?

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never heard of that. but that is a problem. yet another one that no one on the dev team seems to care about. /sigh

But I have about +125 MS and it gets broken. But I'm still getting the problem of getting agroed by agro creatures and my mask didnt actually break. No message of it breaking and the nose symbol still there.

But I believe it was stated once that since there has to be a chance to have mask broken, once you go past +100, it just makes it last longer before "worne off".

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Ranger_Nizzle wrote:

anyone know if MS is a level based skill mod? i.e., 130 MS mods mean you can hide from L130 mobs? this doesnt seem true though because mine is 117 and i cna pass krayts.

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I don't believe that is the case.

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Squidwalker wrote:

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Wasn't it at one time theorized that the higher the Maskscent mod, the more likely you were to get an error in the check (i.e. the number was turned ito a negatice when compared to a low level creature, which causes an insta-break)?

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never heard of that. but that is a problem. yet another one that no one on the dev team seems to care about. /sigh

But I have about +125 MS and it gets broken. But I'm still getting the problem of getting agroed by agro creatures and my mask didnt actually break. No message of it breaking and the nose symbol still there.

But I believe it was stated once that since there has to be a chance to have mask broken, once you go past +100, it just makes it last longer before "worne off".

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I think I postulated that theory. It would depend on the equation for checking.

If they use something like this: d100 > (base chance + char mod - creature level) : success

Let's see if we can guess at what base is. Creature levels are, I beleave something like 1 to 75 (is there a single mob > 75?). This would be insta fail to normal folks so lets take a guess at some midpoint:

BC = 50, d100 > (50 + CM - CL) : success

lets add a ranger bonus in:
d100 > (150 - CL) : success

Now if that number is stored in an 8-bit, signed memory location (150 - CL) then we can get the following:

150 - 22= 128. Why this number? in a computer it becomes 80h. It will be interpreted as -128 instead. from CL=23 on will be normal behavior but CL=22 and less will be insta fail. Obvoisly this is not the case so maybe BC is more like 35...

135 - 7 = 128. So CL 7 and less are insta fail. This looks more like what I see. Remember, CL>=8 will see standard behavior:
CL=8, d100 > 127 : always success, CL=7 flips to -128 and always fails
CL=40, d100 > 95 : small chance
CL=60, d100 > 75 : one in 4 will fail

Now get your camo and Bothan mods out...
d100 > (155 - CL)
CL=10, d100 > -111 : no chance, and this continues upthrough CL=27
CL=40, d100 > 115 : always success
CL=60, d100 > 95 : small chance to fail