Scout Archive

Guys,

Wolf posted a similiar thread with all of the changes for Scouts and Rangers, but I wanted to just post the Scout changes and sticky them - check the Ranger forums for the Ranger changes.

I have added two comments below that are in italics. These are my comments, and not in the update.

Rest assured that myself and N'Raas will be testing the heck out of these changes, the Mask Scent changes especially, once Test Center comes back online.

(I told you they were paying attention! )

B

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Profession Changes:

Scout: Mask Scent / Conceal is now properly removed when you initiate combat.

Scout: When examining creatures, the "Aggressive" trait will now be correct.

Scout: A novice scout can now examine a creature to determine if it is a "Stalker."

Scout/Ranger: Non-aggro creatures will not attack you when mask scent or conceal breaks.

Scout/Ranger: Aggro creatures will only attack you when mask scent or conceal breaks if you are within 40 meters. (This is a great change and should fix the problem that people are having with Mask Scent causing animals to aggro them no matter what they do.)

Bug Fixes

Fixed a problem with creatures breaking mask scent/ conceal when scouts and rangers left their interest radius.

(Another great change - it appears that the reason why we saw what appeared to be increased Mask Scent failures was that each creature was checking you TWICE - once when you entered their interest radius (governed by ferocity) and once when you left. That doubled the odds of you getting discovered.)

Changes look great, except for the 40m thing... That just confuses me. Won't that set up an extremely exploitable situation, where I find a nice bunch of mean red critters that are 65m away and just walk back and forth over that first MS checkpoint? Just seems really weird to me.

Looks great. Thanks for sticking with these things, Delta.

What do "aggressive" and "stalker" mean?

"Scout: Mask Scent / Conceal is now properly removed when you initiate combat."

Can someone explain this to me? I didn't know this was a problem. Does this mean that as soon as you initiate an attack on a creature that your maskscent drops totally?

When we attack a lair, if the creatures are aggro/socials you get all in the "aggro" range as is. this is going to make it a beast for me to solo as I usually do, when I have other aggro lairs surrounding my missions. I might as well trek the 2k or more back to town to get a new mission and pray that not other aggro lairs are around mine or i run the risk of being "ganked" by other creatures in the vicinity.

Please tell me I misunderstood what was actually said here, or please enlighten me as to how this will be beneficial at all, except for the large groups?


Durney Kova - The Entertainer - Lowca

P.S. We have 2 other accounts in my house and I have a Master Scout / Ranger / Creature handler / Fencer that I regularly run.

I'm with Durney here. What does the combat breaking maskscent mean?

watchingone: it would but i believe you only get maskscent xp for a creature only once so you cannot simply keep going back and to obtain ( i hope this is what you were getting at? because i can see no other possible exploit that you are talking about).

gelain: it makes sense that your maskscent would break when you attack a creature because you have essentially given away your position by firing on them. they do not need to smell you at that point because they could see you AND hear you. seems logical anyway.

Guys,

The way that Tela is reading this is right. Once you have made your presence obvious, you lose the benefit of having masked your scent.

Remember, the Devs goal is not for mask scent to be used to make you able to attack creatures better, it's there to make you survive longer in the field. (I know what the counter argument to this is, butI hope that you guys can see the dicthotomy.)

IB

Scout/Ranger: Aggro creatures will only attack you when mask scent or conceal breaks if you are within 40 meters. (This is a great change and should fix the problem that people are having with Mask Scent causing animals to aggro them no matter what they do.)

This doesn't thrill me all that much.

Currently if maskscent breaks there is pretty much a guaranteed chance of being attacked whereas not having maskscent on at all has a fixed percentage chance. I don't care what the radius is, if maskscent fails we should have the same chance at being attacked or ignored as anyone else. (Or at the very least there should be a chance that even aggressive creatures are spooked and run instead of attack.)

As it is stated here, it still means my non-scout group members are still safer from agressive mobs than I am when within 40 meters.

Seiryuu,

Actually, it doesn't. There were other issues that were causing mask scent to break more, namely the double check bug.

I'm testing Mask Scent right now (as I type this), and it's working much, much better.

I'll provide more info when I'm done with tonight's testing.

B

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DeltaXi65 wrote:

Seiryuu,

Actually, it doesn't. There were other issues that were causing mask scent to break more, namely the double check bug.

I'm testing Mask Scent right now (as I type this), and it's working much, much better.

I'll provide more info when I'm done with tonight's testing.

B

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Are enimies detecting you right when you open up fire on them? Please let me know how this aspect has changed for you. Thanks!

Delta, I am not talking about the increased chance of breaking. I expected that to be fixed and (hopefully) it is.

What I am talking about is the fact that when maskscent breaks, there is an increased chance of a creature attacking. This was added a few patches back and is the real reason why creatures seem hyper-aggressive with our current patch, otherwise they would ignore us like every other member of our party that wandered by.

Maskscent breaks - creature almost always attacks
No maskscent - maybe attacks, maybe not

All I am saying is that when maskscent breaks, we should be treated like any other player that does not have the skill as opposed to an instant aggression.

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Sei,

The reason why the "higher chance" for attack was added was to make mask scent a trade off - you have a good chance of getting past the creature, but if he finds you, you're going to have to deal with him. It makes using the skill risky, and requires you to think about whether or not you should use it, depending on the situation.

Now, granted, it was breaking more often and that was because of a bug, which looks like it has been resolved, based on my testing from last night.

Think of it this way:

Regular player -Usually willget aggroed if they get too close to a creature.

Scout w/maskscent - Usually will not get aggroed will maskscented if they get too close to a creature, but if the creature detects them they WILL get aggroed.

If this is still a problem after the fixes to maskscent are live, I'll bring the issue of the increased aggression up, but I think that the spirit of the idea is right - there is no skill in this game that doesn't cost something.

Would you rather there be some kind of HAM or movement speed penalty? (That's a legit question, not sarcasm).

B