Ranger Archive
Thread: Identifying creatures that will swarm
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Sise
Thu Aug 26, 2004 5:04 am
#1
A question for the guru Rangers amongst the board members...
Is there any way or a specific level of Ranger/Scout or even a piece of information I am not reading correctly, that will identify a creature as a 'swarmer'?
What do I mean by this is...best I use an example that I know of...Ronto's on Tatooine. If you have a2 Ronto's, you can knock the stuffing out of one of them and the otherone will sit around munching grass. However if you have2 Bull Ronto's and you attack one, the other one automatically agro's and it's on for young and old.
So is there any way of telling which ones do this? I have tried looking at the example above, but it could be I am not of sufficient level to see the information yet.
Thanks 
Owen-Lars
Thu Aug 26, 2004 5:17 am
#2
Most animals in the game now ARE 'social' which means they will attack if they notice you attacking their mate. Back in the day almost all creatures never used to social gang up on you, until the devs pushed a patch the increased the movement speed of creatures such as baz nitches and jaxx. Anyways back to your question:
Most animals in the game are now social or semi-social. Ronto's for example are semi-social, so are pikets on dantooine. If you attack a piket female when there is a piket longhorn in pack or enaraged etc you WILL get attacked by the males. So from this if you are uncertain or new to hunting a certain type of creature, it is best to identify and work on the males of the group first as females tend not to attack unless confronted directly.
Another example of this is also Kaduu on Naboo. Attack the males, the females do not attack, attack a female when a male is around and you get attacked by the male.
Hope that helps
Fodder650
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:06 am
#3
Also on swgcreatures.com you can look up the creature and it will be listed as social/non-social. Of course if you want them to swarm just smack the lair
Almagill
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:12 am
#4
That was one thing that was introduced recently that I really liked, the way creatures in gme now act more like, well, creatures. If you watch how they behave there are pack hierarchies there. Real simple ones, mind, but they are there.
Watch the calves stick to their mothers, the mothers get between danger and the calf, bulls charge down a threat. You'd almost think that somebody had put some thought into this
Another thing I've noticed is that if you have a pet out some creatures that don't usually group up, such as worrts in the yard trash areas, will aggro on you as soon as the pet attacks one of theirs. Fun, if a little embarrassing when you'r ejust 'testing out' a new capture and find yourself incapped by lil critters.
Watch the calves stick to their mothers, the mothers get between danger and the calf, bulls charge down a threat. You'd almost think that somebody had put some thought into this
Another thing I've noticed is that if you have a pet out some creatures that don't usually group up, such as worrts in the yard trash areas, will aggro on you as soon as the pet attacks one of theirs. Fun, if a little embarrassing when you'r ejust 'testing out' a new capture and find yourself incapped by lil critters.
Fodder650
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:17 am
#5
That last change you mentioned came as part of the big CH updates/nerf. You could have your pets attack the target and it would never aggro you only your tank. It was really nice. Then they taught the creatures to see who was sending the pets commands, i mean you are shouting them after all, and go hit them. It really changed the nature of CH more then anything else
As for the way the creatures act in the wild i agree completly. When i wasa BE sampling i learned a lot about all the different beasts in game. And since BE's end up waiting for the right moment to deathtouch I saw a lot of their patterns. And it was really interesting to see the amount of time and love that went into the programming of that piece. Mostly people just bike up kill the lair and move on. So they wont notice it. But for those of us who have noticed we appreciate it
Owen-Lars
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:27 am
#6
That last change you mentioned came as part of the big CH updates/nerf.
Hmm im not sure if you mean the same update as i am. It was the patch about a month into live. There servers went all laggy whilst we were on dath doing the baz money maker missions then we all lagged extremely bad, servers went down, then when we logged back in, baz's were all agro (reds, used to be yellows), they were faster and socialed. We then went to endor i believe to hunt jax. These things were super slow and you could grind lots of easy money out of the system. The next week these and nearly all the other slow moving animals, including Thunes and Snorbals could all run much faster, and also some went agro.
This was very early on in the game, i forget when exactly but not long after the first month.
I thought the ch nerf came much after that because the poke wars begun a long time after that speed/social/agro patch.
Fodder650
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:43 am
#7
Yeah we're talking about two different patchs. I remember the baz nitch fix. And the one im talking about came because of two creatures the graul maul and the cowardly gurreck. It seems silly now that a cowardly gurreck with 3000 ham and no kinectic resistance seemed overpowered. Since now we have 8k/4k/2k kin60 CL10's in game that the devs said wont be fixed/adjusted until the combat revamp (oh thats a good one). Use a good BE Chef made felbar and your CL10 is now 8k/4k/4k. So tell me why i have a lot of points in CH?
Then there was the graul mauls. Light 75% to kinectic and huge groups of teddy bears everywhere. I used to walk around with 3 nearly full grown ones all the time. i was one of the offenders.I think had the super tank been a quenker with those stats CH would have never been changed. It was because the two pets that were effecting us most were large. The graul maul is among the bigger creatures in game. And the cowardly gurreck is physically, why why why?!, largerthen its full CL50 cousin. I use a CL43 light 60 kin gurreck with 11k HAM now. How am i any worse off then i was with the graul mauls? My gurreck doesnt run like a scared baby everytime something attacks.
/rant off
Seiryuu
Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:20 am
#8
There is a really simple way to find out which creatures swarm... shoot one. 
Unfortunately you just have to learn which are which. With the rare exception, most creatures over CL 10 will. Some of the sub-types will not (dwarf gronda, sharnaff, piket), but again you have to learn those.
If in doubt, consult swgcreatures but keep in mind that the data there regarding behavior is less solid than the numbers. If you can get two creatures isolate from the rest of the herd, you can test it that way without bringing all of them down on you, too.
Unfortunately you just have to learn which are which. With the rare exception, most creatures over CL 10 will. Some of the sub-types will not (dwarf gronda, sharnaff, piket), but again you have to learn those.
If in doubt, consult swgcreatures but keep in mind that the data there regarding behavior is less solid than the numbers. If you can get two creatures isolate from the rest of the herd, you can test it that way without bringing all of them down on you, too.
Ailsa
Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:31 am
#9
For ranged combat professions, I found that if you use /maskscent and stand max distance away to shoot at the mob, you avoid the adds. Sometimes the mob you are shooting doesn't even know where to go. Unfortunately, if you begin your combat with a trap instead, they make a beeline to you LOL.
I do remember way back in the early days of the game that Rangers had requested another line of info in the Examine window: Social - yes or no. But since most all mobs are social now anyway, there doesn't seem to be a point in that anymore.
Sorry if this is common knowlege, I have only been back playing for a few weeks now and am still re-learning the ropes.
Calculus_Entropy
Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:56 pm
#10
Seiryuu wrote:
There is a really simple way to find out which creatures swarm... shoot one.
I agree completely! I know what I know based on just hunting them!
JBMat
Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:41 am
#11
Back before all the creatures would BAF (bring a friend) it was easy to know what would, as the list was short.
Now, the trick is knowing what to shoot to not cause a BAF. Bull rontos will always bring along the herd. Matriarch banthasmay or may not come along for the ride, but shoot mom and the crowd gets really unhappy. Babies seem to follow ? mom/dad ?.
Pistoleers with maskscent can use the tried and true, healthshot, theotherhealthshot, stopping shot...peace method and usually, I say again usually, not draw a crowd. Does not work on over level 90 lairs most of the time - trust me on that.
Short of writing it down someplace, assume all bulls/matriarchs when engaged bring friends.
Anyone else got anything different?
JB
Sise
Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:43 am
#12
Thanks for all the info people, it's hugely appreciated.
In particular Seiryuu and Calc - that's how I learned about the habits of the creatures on Tatooine, shoot first and discover the reactions from a pool of my own blood lol. But I guess to an extent it means I must be doing something right, as I know pretty much which creatures will react what way on Tatooine and learned without realising it "wasn't always so" (the ignorance of being a new recruit...) the 'heirarchies' and 'social behaviours'.
As I have now moved on to Corellia now, and have advanced somewhat in the Ranger profession, I thought there might be an aspect I was overlooking that would help with this. But you're right, I'll learn the hard way with Corellia, then move on to the next planet
Thanks again to all.
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