Ranger Archive
Thread: A new proposal Scout to Ranger.
We begin with the basic premise that in order to make Ranger worth the SP investment there need to be some tweaks to Scout to make it more self sufficient seperate from Ranger.
Rebuilding Scout:
The current state of the Ranger SP investment coupled with the need to make the profession worth the time and effort put into it requires that both it, and its pre-reqs be examined. To this end I've rebuilt the Scout profession to make way for more sweeping changes in the Ranger profession. Many people will ook at traps and say ... what happened to them? I've left them out in favor of the other great trapping proposals. I can't do those any better than they currently are.
That said, let me explain the way I'm thinking about traps now. As we know Terrain Negotiation is broken up between Speed while walking / running and speed while crawling. In order to better benefit the Ranger profession I thought it would make sense to break up the trapping mod in a similar manner. The first +50 to Trapping apply to creature trapping success. After the initial 50 it applies to NPCs and then 75 and up to PCtrapping. Namely ... until you break the +50 you can only trap creatures.
In order to really cement the harvesting skill within the Scout Profession I've split harvesting into three skills. I do this for a few reasons. First, by seperating things by bone / meat / hide we restrict the dabbling combat professions from being able to harvest hide and meat (the most commonly needed resources). This allows scouts to more effectively "own" the resources which they are providing to the economy.
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 04-03-2005 12:57 PM
Skills: /harvest bone - The simplest thing to get off the corpse. At this early level, because the scout is a novice all other resources are destroyed in the process of extracting the bones.
/forage - in order to make up for the change to the availability of hides, foraging can be beefed up to allow for harvesting of small amounts of "structural" organics. Palm leaves, low quality hides, or other small stacks that can be used in camps and traps to work in the place of hide requirements. This would be available at the lower levels of foraging and would later be added to with some more beneficial items with higher Foraging mods.
Exploration: I'm only really adding the comment about maskscent here. Otherwise I leave this tree untouched.
Exploration 1: Fundamentals
Exploration 2: Advanced Principles
- Skills: /maskscent - the player is now capable of concealing their scent from creatures in the area. They are still visible but are better able to sneak past creatures.
Exploration 3: Harsh Environment Training
Exploration 4: Burst Run Efficiency +20, Mask Scent +30
Trapping 1: Makeshift Design
Trapping 2: Refined Design
Trapping 3: Martial Design
Trapping 4: Elite Martial Design
Hunting: Probably what will provide a major source of controversy, I've broken up harvesting to prevent Novices and dabblers to harvest EVERYTHING. This early in Scout I'd seperate Meat and Hide out so that they become resources for more dedicated scouts. This also allows for the ability to harvest more than one type when the player reaches Master Scout.
Hunting 1: Civilian Methodology
Hunting 2: Trandoshan Methodology
- Skills: /harvest meat - The Scout has become more adept at accurately removing resources and can now successfully harvest both the bone and the meat from a creature carcass. The Hide is still destroyed in the process.
Hunting 3: Military Methodology
Hunting 4: Unconventional Methodology
- Skills: /harvest hide - The Scout is finally able to remove the hide without damaging the bone or meat in the process.
Survival: This is one of those skillsets I really haven't changed. The Modular Camping idea is already a good one so why change it. The existing skill mods would remain as is in my feeling. They don't start to change what they do until the Ranger Tree. Like Trapping, This skillset would also provide bonuses for Combat Level and increased Health. I put it here because I think it goes well ... better survival skills more health to reflect that.
Survival 1: Rudimentary Techniques
Survival 2: Advanced Techniques
Survival 3: Harsh Environment Techniques
Survival 4: Special Techniques
Skills: /preservecorpse - This skill allows the Master Scout the ability to harvest an additional resource from the corpse of its prey.
Burst Run Efficiency: 50
Creature Harvesting: 55
Creature-to-Hit Bonus: 10
Mask Scent: 100
Trapping: 50
Camping: 50
Creature Knowledge: 50
Foraging: 50
Terrain Negotiation: 50
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 04-03-2005 01:41 PM
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 04-03-2005 02:25 PM
Dark_0ne wrote:
just a thought - without being able to harvest hide at novice scout, they won't be able to make camps ...... unless we change the way camps are built ?
You're right ... shoot. Such a basic flaw haha let me think about that.
Do you think spreading out the harvesting is a good idea though ... assuming that the trapping and camping schems can be altered in some way .
You know what? I was looking for a better implementation of foraging ... what if we could forage items that would be used for making the lower level camps? Forage for a "shelter" component that would replace hide for building camp.
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 04-03-2005 02:12 PM
Foraging for items might be a good idea too.
I can't help thinking that novice scouts should get issued with some bright orange canvas and some metal tent poles ....... like I used to have when I was a Real Life Scout lol.
Make them use that until they can get to the next level of camping maybe ?
I never liked the idea of throwing away a camp once it had been used - you ought to be able to use them a number of times really, and maybe repair them using harvested or foraged components.
anyway - I'm hijacking your ideas ...
Yeah ... I patched that up by putting forage into novice scout and suggesting that players be able to forage items that could be used in building the lower level camps. Either substitues for the "Hide" or something similar.
frightwig wrote:
This also goes for traps too, so the scout would be unable to build certain traps until he can harvest meat.
Then again, why not change camp schematic ingredients to be "creature structural" (either bone or hide) until later in the camping tree. Or switching hide to Harvest 2 and meat to Harvest 4?
Although it might seem "unrealistic" to craft a camp entirely of bone (creature structural), how realistic is it to craft our HTFB from a small amount of hide, bone and metal? (The two crafting stations inside that camp each require far more materials for an architect to craft, and we get them free).
So again, why not just switch low level camp schematics to "creature structural" if creature harvesting was split between skill boxes?
WildBil2Me wrote:
Dark_0ne wrote:
just a thought - without being able to harvest hide at novice scout, they won't be able to make camps ...... unless we change the way camps are built ?
You're right ... shoot. Such a basic flaw haha let me think about that.
Do you think spreading out the harvesting is a good idea though ... assuming that the trapping and camping schems can be altered in some way .
You know what? I was looking for a better implementation of foraging ... what if we could forage items that would be used for making the lower level camps? Forage for a "shelter" component that would replace hide for building camp.
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 04-03-2005 02:12 PM
This also goes for traps too, so the scout would be unable to build certain traps until he can harvest meat.
Then again, why not change camp schematic ingredients to be "creature structural" (either bone or hide) until later in the camping tree. Or switching hide to Harvest 2 and meat to Harvest 4?
Although it might seem "unrealistic" to craft a camp entirely of bone (creature structural), how realistic is it to craft our HTFB from a small amount of hide, bone and metal? (The two crafting stations inside that camp each require far more materials for an architect to craft, and we get them free).
So again, why not just switch low level camp schematics to "creature structural" if creature harvesting was split between skill boxes?
JBMat wrote:
Good ideas, but with one glaring major flaw.
Scout is a basic profession and the Dev's are loath to mess with the basic professions.
They will take the advanced professions and tinker, as in being able to make Doctor and not be a Master Medic (quite retarded IMHO) or the change they made to appease the BHs and drop basic profession pre-requisites. The Devs are pretty much leaving the basic professions alone and concentrating on the elite. Granted, weapon certs are moving from basic to advanced - but that is not a major change in how the basic works.
What you are proposing is a major revamp. Not that I don't like it, I do. With tweaks and some holes plugged here and there, it would work well (example - no hide harvesting at Novice is a non-starter. Just make the amounts rather small and reduce the amounts needed to make basic camps). What I am saying is the Dev's wouldn't go for it at this point in time.
JB
An issue that I'm aware of for sure. It is my hope, that after all the changes that have been made to Medic, Brawler, and Marskman this might be justifiable.