Ranger Archive
Thread: What's missing from Ranger?
Here goes,
SCOUT
The Scout is an explorer who is capable of locating valuable resources, moving over difficult terrain quickly,a and trapping creatures. Perhaps the most balanced and versatile of all professions, Scouts are well suited to hit and run combat and long distance treks.
"The galaxy is full of big, wild worlds. Scouts have a knack for findin' their way around planets and avoiding trouble. Me, I prefer life in a garage, but scouts are always itchin to explore."
RANGER
Adventurer well suited to travel, tracking, defending others in combat.
ELITE PROFESSIONS
Elite professions represent focused training.
What is a Star Wars ranger? Are we merely scout 2.0? I know as a pistoleer i am not merely marksman 2.0, i'm waaaaaaaaay better than that. Is ranger way better than being a master scout? I and many others do not think so. For 140 skill points we really do not get much in comparison to other elite professions that cost less. I've noticed a trend here that most rangers are afraid to ask for anything that gives them any capabilit in the GCW, against players. They come up with really great ideas and then add in "for pve or creatures only", as if they are afraid to receive the same consideration all other professions get.
Pistoleer- PVE and PVP capability
Rifleman-PVE and PVP capability
Carbineer-PVE and PVP capability
Chef- yes again their skills effectPVE andPVP capability, food buffs work everywhere.
Creature Handler- Yep, you guessed it, they get both and they are as much a support class as we are, not a combat oriented class but they do excel in PVP and PVE.
Dancer- not yet but soon they will have buffs that will have a great impact on PVP. Their skills effect us all.
Doctor- Yes, they can heal in both PVP and PVE, making almost any profession twice as hard to kill in combat.
Droid engineer- Yes probots were made almost useless but their creations can still fight in PVE and PVP.
Fencer- PVE and PVP
Swordsman- Again both.
Tailor- yep they can make clothes with sockets that make you better in both PVE and PVP.
TKA- both
Weaponsmith- Yes their weapons kill animals and people and players alike. No restrictions here.
This goes on for every profession but ours, the RANGER profession. We are supposed to defend others, but can only do so in PVE, our traveling skills effect only PVE, our tracking skills effect both, fortunately this one skill line saves the profession to a degree.
How can we make us a more fully developed, well rounded profession? Here are the areas and some ideas. Keep in mind what is missing is we as a profession are not able to fully enjoy and partake in the entire game and that includes the Galactic Civil War(GCW- PVP) which is the real meat and potatoes of star wars. George Lucas didn't tell us stories about big game hunting on the correlian savannahs, he told us about a war of epic proportions, so big that it drew in everybody eventually. It affects us all, and we all have to make an impact in it. The ranger profession right now is a shell of what it could be. This profession costs more than any other elite profession, we should get a few extra perks.
Traveling- camps are nice, they do help. terrain modifiers help too, makes us more survivable. But we got these skills in the scout tree and the further improvements are not a significant improvement to justify the cost. Conceal now here's a nice add in, i love the concept but it's limited again to PVE. It could make us a very attractive profession if this had some use in the GCW and PVP. Traps again PVE only, a line of booby traps and thrown traps that would be useful in PVP would again make us a more attractive profession, right now people laugh at us. We are the only profession so limited. When mounts and vehicles go in our traveling perks will mean next to nothing.
Defending others- We have the rescue skill, it is nice for pve. Not really all that useful as you will most likely die by using it, do you really want a Giant Kimogila's attention? Has no use against humanoids and none whatsoever in PVP. Now if we could build defensible encampments, effective against people and creatures and this includes PLAYERS then we could be said to be have some defense value. A group defense bonus to ranged and melee attacks would be inline here as well. We know the terrain better than any, why not translate that into the group gaining some defense by our presence? Sabotage skills would also be in the spirit of the profession, trip wires that we could setup to alert us of enemy presence in the area. Booby traps that slow down, incapacitate,and immobilze the enemy would also be helpful in this defense role. We could be the profession people turn to when a bounty hunter is on their tail. It's well known in the star wars universe that one who has a bounty on his head avoids civilized systems, a ranger could provide a very needed service in this regard. Again this all needs to have PVE and PVP uses.
Any constructive ideas and input is welcomed, please do not post if your only wish is to see our profession smothered and held back by pve, everybody can do PVE, i think the ranger profession deserves some PVP ability as well. Let's make ranger more than scout 2.0.
I wholeheartedly agree that Ranger should pick up where Scout left off.
Scouts mastered hiding from creatures and trapping animals. Now Rangers should expound upon that and begin effecting humanoids with our abilities.
They already went this direction by giving us camouflage that conceals us from humanoids.
Our new tracking ability gets progressively better untill we are able to track humanoids and players.
The next logical step is to start adding traps that effect humanoids and players as well.
I think we are already headed in the right direction as development has already announced that we will be getting PvP traps, so I am not sure what else we could ask for to include us moreso in the GCW.
I guess I could post my Ranger wishlist, PvP and otherwise:
Wayfaring:
- Revamp Terrain Negotiation
- Scout:
- Terrain Negotiation +0-25 (Slope Movement)
- Terrain Negotiation +25-50 (Crawl Speed)
- Ranger:
- Terrain Negotiation +50-75 (Slope Movement)
- Terrain Negotiation +75-100 (Crawl Speed)
- Conceal should disguise or remove us from the radar.
- Longer or quicker refresh on Burstrun ability.
Frontiering:
- Um... neat new bases?
- Highend single person camps.
- Defensive "camps" such as Watch Platform, Trench and Spike Barricade
Tracking:
- Could use tweaking to Creature To-Hit Bonus as well as applying bonus vs. pets.
- Anti-tracking bonus
- Animal calls/lures.
Advanced Trapping: Here is our Potential PvP line!
- Traps that effect humanoids and creatures alike. Be it landmine-style traps, "grenade-style" traps, or the Bow "trap" idea, we need some of these things to be effective against humanoids and players alike.
- Creature Harvester Traps... I still want em!
Master Ranger:
- Planet Specific Hunting Cabin
- A couple exeptional traps or a unique trapping ability.
- Hunting Special Attack that is devistating vs. Animals.
- Large bonus to base landspeed.
If we got all of those things I would be estatic and I'm not even participating in PvP yet. Note how none of those idea would hinder a PvE players ability to play solely PvE.
I'm not holding my breath for these changes, but I can dream...
"Traps that effect humanoids and creatures alike. Be it landmine-style traps, "grenade-style" traps, or the Bow "trap" idea, we need some of these things to be effective against humanoids and players alike"
Like that scene in the forest in FIrst Blood... Rambo anyone?
I really like the anti-tracking bonus. That is wonderful idea!
Rangers have the ability to track, so it is a small leap to suggest that we would have the ability to cover our tracks. This might seem to be a huge advantage for us in PVP, but when you take into consideration that we have few actual combat bonuses given to us, it seems to balance out.
I have to agree, the proposed changes to the profession seem to be heading in the "right" direction. I realize that is completely subjective, but I'm excited. Implementation is a lot different than conceptualization, but it has definitely caught my attention.
-- Elysa
"anti-tracking bonus"
Exactly what would such a skill be used for?
Would it be used to hide your name of /areatrack perhaps?
Is this sufficient reason for an entire new skill mod?
Anyone have any suggestions on other uses that might flesh out this skill?
NRaas wrote:"anti-tracking bonus"
Exactly what would such a skill be used for?
Would it be used to hide your name of /areatrack perhaps?
Is this sufficient reason for an entire new skill mod?
Anyone have any suggestions on other uses that might flesh out this skill?
This skill could be also used to stop stalking creatures. just a thought. I do know I would sure like to keep that plains hunter off my back. I could be a passive skill effected by both wayfar and tracking lines. of course everything is grand in theory.
but for other than stalking creatures/npc's I'm out of ideas
rs1990 wrote:
This would work just like maskscent/conceal, a check would need to be made against our covertrack skill level vs. their areatrack skill level. A tie should go to us covering our tracks most of the time in my opinion. But that would be kind of cool.
That is pretty much how I envision it, also. As you progress up the tracking line, you get additional modifiers for it. I'd like to see the last modifier come at Master level. When someone attempts to track you, there is success roll. Perhaps two individuals with the same covertrack/areatrack skill level would have a 50/50 chance of tracking one another. Numbers are not my forte though.
Now, don't some critters track also? Those voritor trackers on Dant have an uncanny ability of finding people... I've been thinking pcs, but if animals track, I'd like to see it applied there too. 
"This skill could be also used to stop stalking creatures."
The skill could hinder the ability for creatures to attach to a Ranger.
- Once a creature is attached to someone, it will start moving towards the character in an attempt to get into its aggro range.
However... This ability already exists in /maskscent and /conceal.
- Stalking critters will ignore you entirely if you successfully conceal against them.
- If the creature didn't initially break your concealment, you can apply /maskscent to stop a creature that is already stalking you.
I am a Ranger / Rifleman = not so great pvp. So far I have found with my ability to track players I can be very effective at hunting them when I need something to do other than hunt animals. Haved dropped 8 Imps around Bestin in under 30min without losing a battle. But, the other skills are just not significant enough. I am 1 box from Master, I will hold that title for maybe 1 month or a little more. If we do not get some of these great ideas implimented by then I will probably eliminate 2 of the lines and apply those points elsware, they really do little for us currently.
I want all current ranger traps to have the same effect on all huminoids, player and NPC. Even in the scout line descriptions they mention military training, or it did anyhow. Why not let the Ranger use the military skills and advance them. Hitting a comando with a Pheno style dart would be more than a little cool, it would be devestating! In a group fight imagine a Ranger tossing sticky traps at all the imps, and then hitting them with AOEstun and blind traps. Again this would make us mostly support but it would give us something to do with the skills that would have meaning. Another trap, that I think is in the works, would be the trip wire type trap that would knock down a chasing oponent, but I think that is on the docket already.
We need the ability to leave at least the base camp for maybe 30 min. This would make it usable in PVP and PVE in that we can engage in the fight and then return to the camp afterwords.
Need our stealth abilities to be improved and made effective against people. As I see it, we apply /conceal and we can then become a yellow dot on the Radar. Even if Overt we should become a yellow dot. And maybe if we stand still we disapear all together from the radar but when moving we become yellow again until it wears off or breaks. The Ranger would also be the one to have the higher chance of breaking another Rangers conceal.
Have our Player vs. Creature to hit bonus apply to all, not just creature. BH can stack pistoleer bonus, so this is not unheard of but would once again give those skill points some purpose other than PVE creature.
Master Ranger should be able to harvest more than one resource. This would not flood the market because even with these improvements most people will not Master Ranger; Commando, CH, and BH will still be far more powerfull.
Feild base should give defensive bonus based upon the level of the camp and we should be able to fight in them, even the Ranger that put it up, atleast with the most advanced camp.
Master should have a tranq trap that would have a chance of completly putting a creature to sleep for a period of time and breaking off its attack.This would be theonly Ranger trap that would not effect players, it would be too powerful. Its sleep effect would break after that creature was attacked or after a matter of maybe 30sec. This way if you are being attacked by a group you could have a chance of disabling several so that you could actually win the fight. Maybe even make it AOE.
Hmm, none of this would make us Uber, but it would give us more of a reason to stay a Master Ranger and to not just join the ranks of the BH. For a BH, CH and Commando are really all better hunters than us anyhow really.
I love the idea of the Ranger and I truly hope they continue down the path they have, we truly do have hope and I hope they do not disapoint us. The original poster is correct, they should offer us a little more, would not take a terrible amount extra to make us a whole lot happier and to attract a few more people to us so that this game can become a little more diverse.
Well, thats my 3 cents.