Ranger Archive

Hi yes - I think we all pretty much agree with you (well, at least I do :> -- a droid or a pet shouldn't count as a group member; while a droid or a pet might help you kill stuff more quickly (well, maybe a pet will), it cannot harvest, so the harvesting reduction really doesn't seem to be warrented in these cases.

There is a work-around to this issue, though, and it is to not group with your pet. If you aren't grouped, you can still harvest even if your pet does all of the damage, but wou don't suffer the harvesting reduction.

Of course, this inroduces a new set of problems -- when you aren't grouped with your pet, it's sometimes difficult to keep track of its ham, esp. if it moves out of visual range...

oh and yes, the group penalty does really discourage grouping... here is a conversation that I'm having with increasing frequency:

[player] Hi! What are doing?
[me] Squishing bugs on Yavin
[player] o_O can I come?
[me] no, sorry it's hunt solo night again
[player] Oh no, are you sure you don't need help?
[me] Well, I'm buffed, so I can pretty much handle them on my own, and if I group with you, I get a 40% harvesting reduction. So, it would essentially take me twice as long to get the same amount if I just hunt them solo

Iseult
Master Ranger / Mediocre Pistoleer

Message Edited by Iseult on 04-07-2004 08:59 AM

This is a known issue. The fact is, though, you are grouped. They let you pull higher missions andthey let you kill harder stuff (there is nothing stopping you from picking up an elite combat profession and shooting in addition to your pets, although skill points become an issue). It is a balance thing. Pets can be used along with any other combat profession, increasing the damage significantly. While someone like a Master Ranger/Master CH might be using the pets as their only weapon, there is no way to be sure of this. And the higher level missions you can pull can easily offset the 60% harvesting.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

While I normally agree with balancing out people who are grouped with pets/droids/NPCs, I have to agree with the sheriff on this one: the 40% reduction was not implemented to punish people who used groups for hunting. Before there was a 40% reduction, only one person in a group could harvest from each corpse, and they implemented the change, allowing multiple people to harvest, in order to encourage people to hunt in groups. The 40% reduction was to avoid the unbalancing effect of producing upwards of 2000% (for a group of 20... a bit of an exageration maybe) of the normal harvest from a single corpse. In the case of somebody grouping with a pet, this is not a problem, since the pet cannot harvest.

However, I don't think CH's should keep using the "my pet is my weapon"complaint - while that may be true, a pet is also a lot more than a weapon; when the rest of us fight, our weapon doesn't take in all the hits for us, doesn't have its own HAM etc... and we can't do anything else while using it, ie attack at the same time.A creature may be a weapon for you, but it's a whole world of difference away from normal weapons, and those differences should be accounted for when considering issues of balance.

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Terinati wrote:

However, I don't think CH's should keep using the "my pet is my weapon"complaint - while that may be true, a pet is also a lot more than a weapon; when the rest of us fight, our weapon doesn't take in all the hits for us, doesn't have its own HAM etc... and we can't do anything else while using it, ie attack at the same time.A creature may be a weapon for you, but it's a whole world of difference away from normal weapons, and those differences should be accounted for when considering issues of balance.

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Terinati wrote:

While I normally agree with balancing out people who are grouped with pets/droids/NPCs, I have to agree with the sheriff on this one: the 40% reduction was not implemented to punish people who used groups for hunting. Before there was a 40% reduction, only one person in a group could harvest from each corpse, and they implemented the change, allowing multiple people to harvest, in order to encourage people to hunt in groups. The 40% reduction was to avoid the unbalancing effect of producing upwards of 2000% (for a group of 20... a bit of an exageration maybe) of the normal harvest from a single corpse. In the case of somebody grouping with a pet, this is not a problem, since the pet cannot harvest.

However, I don't think CH's should keep using the "my pet is my weapon"complaint - while that may be true, a pet is also a lot more than a weapon; when the rest of us fight, our weapon doesn't take in all the hits for us, doesn't have its own HAM etc... and we can't do anything else while using it, ie attack at the same time.A creature may be a weapon for you, but it's a whole world of difference away from normal weapons, and those differences should be accounted for when considering issues of balance.

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I'm not saying that the penalty is necessarily warranted. I'm just pointing out that using any sort of pets is a group. If the Devs implement something like the group harvesting off option that has been recommended previously here, then you have no problem. But pets do form a group. And removing pets from grouping is not as simple as it seems. People used to exploit ungrouped pets because the enemy AI will only bother with group mates when first attacking. This caused the Devs to change pets to always be grouped with their owner (as far as I can tell). The point of my argument? Try to get the "group harvesting off" feature. Arguing for that is more likely to work than arguing the way CHs have been for a while. Pets are and need to be part of your group. But you shouldn't suffer for choosing pets over some other weapon (at least any more than you do currently--I used to love CH until I started running into all the L33T players).

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:

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Terinati wrote:

However, I don't think CH's should keep using the "my pet is my weapon"complaint - while that may be true, a pet is also a lot more than a weapon; when the rest of us fight, our weapon doesn't take in all the hits for us, doesn't have its own HAM etc... and we can't do anything else while using it, ie attack at the same time.A creature may be a weapon for you, but it's a whole world of difference away from normal weapons, and those differences should be accounted for when considering issues of balance.

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So....Pets are just AI TKA's.

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No need for the A. We all know how much Intelligence the average TKA posseses.

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Terinati wrote:

"Try to get the "group harvesting off" feature."

Yeah, I definately agree. Not only for CHs, but for me when I'm hunting with my friends who don't even have Novice Scout so I'm the only one harvesting, and still getting only 60% just because I'm with my friends. That's pretty bunk, and definately discourages group activity.

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Really if there could be some sort of check on the "group" for harvesting skill... where if only one person has the ability to harvest at all, they get the "solo harvest amount".... that would be very, very nice.

After all if only one person in the group iscutting up the corpse to take meat/hide/bone, why would it be reduced?

Cressida

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Terinati wrote:
However, I don't think CH's should keep using the "my pet is my weapon"complaint - while that may be true, a pet is also a lot more than a weapon; when the rest of us fight, our weapon doesn't take in all the hits for us, doesn't have its own HAM etc... and we can't do anything else while using it, ie attack at the same time.A creature may be a weapon for you, but it's a whole world of difference away from normal weapons, and those differences should be accounted for when considering issues of balance.

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