Scout Archive

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telamonides wrote:
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).

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Nah - I was mainly pointing out that I'll be able to safely 'milk' the MS exp from a lair until I've gotten every one of the critters to give up their MS exp. As long as I stay more than 40m away, it won't matter a bit how many times I fail the MS check. /shrug Obviously not that big of a concern... Thanks for responding, though.

This is supposed to be a game, not real life....why is maskscent breaking in combat being changed?

Before this, I had never heard that this was a problem. Why change something that is helpful? As it is, you are going to seriously hurt the solo players who roam the more dangerous players.

Someone needs to take a break and look at this from a fun perspective and not a realistic approach. I agree that realisticly, when I initiate combat that everything around would see/hear me. But as I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of times when I am hunting, my missions will be surrounded by other aggro lairs and mobs. As is, even if I were to somehow lure just the critters from my current lair and kill them all, if I go engage the lair directy, I am running a very serious risk of being attacked and killed by the other animals in the area.

I am a Fencer for petes sake, this is really, really going to bite. I would like to know who the person was who decided this was such a game breaking issue that it had to be changed this late in the game? I like to group with friends, but I enjoy pushing myself solo and seeing how I can do. It causes many trips to the clone center, but if this change pushes live, I will be forced to group to hunt some of the larger critters, and I am speaking CL 20ish here, I can't solo much higher at the moment unless I want to be a snack.

This is to me a fun factor change and it is going to force me to change how I hunt. And that is my biggest concern. I am not a superhuman, I can't kill everything I see, I have to run a lot, and I take many clone center vacations. I just don't see how this was a problem.

Cud,

I'm not exactly sure how this is really going to affect you that much - typically, if you have gotten in close enough (asa fencer) to start hitting one of the creatures, you've already checked successfully against the other creatures nearby. So if you drop mask scent then, you shouldn't have a more likely chance of getting aggroed.

You kill the critter, and remask your scent. And keep doing it.

I would be interested in seeing exactly what happens when this goes live - if it really does affect your gameplay.

I've been playing my character on Test Center as a TKA, and I've not noticed a major difference with the change.

B

I understand the reasoning, but the trade-off seems wrong. The extra aggression was given to us during a period where at high-levels, maskscent virtually never broke. Are we going back to that level of effectiveness? I doubt it, so why are we getting a penalty that was a compensation for when the skill was better than what it is going to be? At the very least, reduce the percentage of the increased aggression to balance the increased detection.

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

This is not the case though unless dealing with high ferocity creatures. As an example, a group of us were hanging out near a mountain squill lair (30-40 meters). It usually took over 30 seconds for anyone to get attacked.

Were we moving through instead of standing there, none of my members would have been aggroed. Had I maskscent on and was detected (I am moving, so -15% penalty), I would have been instantly attacked. Why? Is this really considered a benefit?

Since maskscent/conceal now drop upon engaging in combat, their primary use is obviously to benefit travelling without being attacked. Yet travelling increasing my chance of failing, so it increases my chance of drawing aggressive creatures. This is totally backwards.

(Yes advanced classes such as Creature Handlers or Bio-engineers benefit from maskscent, but I am looking at this from the perspective of a Scout as it is their skill.)

Would you rather there be some kind of HAM or movement speed penalty?

Definately not a movement penalty. When mounts and vehicles are out, why bother with maskscent at all then? I can go slow and be safe or I can just outrun everything in my speeder and still be safe. Our speed benefits are already in danger on this front.

A HAM cost would be fine with me. Since every other skill that provides a benefit uses HAM, why not ours? Of course I am assuming a reasonable cost, say equivalent to forage, not the cost of an unarmed knockdown while wearing vibro-knucklers and armor...

If there must be an increased chance of attack, scale it by range. Having a strict cut-off of 40 meters is illogical, especially given that it makes it more dangerous for me to approach creatures than non-scouts. A simple solution is to start at the current increased percentage as a base at zero meters, and for every meter beyond it is reduced by one. (I use +40% as an example. I have no idea what the real value is.)

00m - +40%
10m - +30%
20m - +20%
30m - +10%
40m - normal

It is simple to calculate and maintains the risk when getting close but doesn't make us draw aggro significantly more than other players at the edge of some imaginary line. As an additional bonus, those other professions that use maskscent to get close instead of using it for its intended purpose of travel have the most risk. Two birds killed with one DNA sample.

Delta,

Are you telling me, that if I move around the specific area that a few aggro lairs are close to my mission lair, that if I make my check against those aggro critters, when I start combat for my lair and my mask scent drops, I will not get aggroed on by the other critters around?

If I am to understand all the changes that are being made, then if I am within 40m of an aggro critter without mask scent, I am going to get jumped, unless I had made a successful mask check against it before I started combat and it dropped?

I understand that all the creatures from my mission lair will aggro me regardless of mask scent, which is fine and dandy. I am just still concerned with being able to kill a mission lair with other hostiles around and mixed into the area of my mission.

Cud,

What I am saying is that you are no worse off with this change than before it.

"I will not get aggroed on by the other critters around?"

I won't say you won't. I'll say that you have the same liklihood as any non-Scout out there doing it.

To be honest, I don't know of that many places that spawn aggressive only lairs so close that you will be within 40m of that lairs spawns while attack another lair - especially since you're not a rifleman attacking at range.

I have been testing this out on Test Center as a Master Scout and novice TKA, and I've not been getting nailed by other critters when mask scent drops because of combat.

B

Hello fellow Scouts, It has been my expierience as a Master Scout that I can walk into almosat any Mob on the STARTER PLANETS with no problem at all 98% of the time.. I've even had my mask sent beat while in the middle of a Red Con mob and have had no problem reingaging my mask sent and it's buisiness as usual...however on the explorer plantets say like Yavin and Endor I've had my mask sent broke 60% of the time by the high level Red Cons... so this leeds me to belive that the chance of you being dicovered is direcly linked the the fereocity level of the mob in question....higher level ferocity meens they are constantly and actively looking for intruders into thier comfort zones...wich meens that you will be discovered more often and attacked just as often...just my thoughts..

Del'Faan

Master Scout.

Bria.

I vote we wait until the changes take place before we discuss further. I'm interested to see what they are like. I will put in another plug for increased burst run efficiency/duration though. That is what really saves me in the wilderness. I just use maskscent for scouting xp. Wouldn't mind having maskscent give wilderness xp either... but that would make it too easy! (whistles innocently while sitting in her camp)

- Paks

ok so have they added a box in examine for "social" creatures yet? if not im completely shocked. maybe by "stalker" they mean "social," as in the friends of the mob you are hitting will "stalk" you meaning that they will all aggro on you. if they are just using "stalker" as what it seems to be, as in this mob might follow you around for a while, what is even the point? that would just be one more piece of USELESS info in the examine screen.

avon

ranger

sunrunner

Kerd,

No - no social screen yet. The Rangers are still working on it.

"Stalker" is one of those creatures that will follow you around, but won't attack you, but if you get incapped, they'll DB you. Cats are like that.

On the Maskscent front - it looks like the kreetle issue has been resolved, and I've got the screenshots to prove it.

B

The 'stalker' attribute on creatures seems to be a fairly uncommon one, but I HAVE seen what appears to be 'stalking' behavior.

Mostly on Yavin, some creatures seem to pick up my scent from whatever path I was leaving, and following me. While this was not usually a problem, there WERE times when I would be attacking a lair and defenders, and a creature seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind me. Problems with creature warping aside... after this happened several times, I was able to watch creatures moving up along my trail, well outside of their lair range.

I'm thinking of chokus in particular, but giant crystal snakes seemed to do this as well.

Once this change is in, we'll be able to test it (I tried starting a TC account, but it ain't workin for me).