Scout Archive
Thread: DEVELOPER RESPONSES Top 5 Issues from our State of the Profession
DeltaXi65 wrote:
Lore,
No no no no no no no no no no. There will be no nerf to terrain negotation.
That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here was the suggestion that we develop some means to restore the value of Terrain Negotiation now that Mounts and Vehicles are out. We suggested that Scouts be allowed to use their Terrain Negotiation modifier while mounted. That's what we're talking about here.
No worries - there's no need to nerf us because we are one of the very few balanced professions in the game.
B
I've got a Terrain Negotiation idea that would add a little realism and give back a little scout advantage that was lost to vehicles:
How about making certain terrain only negotiable on foot? I've never owned a vehicle, so I don't know if this may already be true in some fashion or another, but the other day I watched a speeder go bobbling and bouncing across a series of trenches and then disappear over a cliff into a canyon. To me, an observer, this just looked silly. Even if I've got a great off-road vehicle like a military Hum-Vee, I need to take it slowly over rough terrain. Granted this may be a little easier on a vehicle with repulsors (in which case the devs need to fix the silly bouncing I observed as the speeder object tried to follow the uneven terrain), but just nose-diving off a sheer cliff should be suicide.
Maybe even a swoop bike would be more versatile than a speeder bike, which is more versatile than an X34. I dunno. But if certain vehicles (and maybe pets not ridden by scouts?) had to find an easier way up a cliffside, that would make good, real world sense and also put a little value back into the scouts' Negotiate Terrain ability.
No. You guys are completely backwards.
1. Get RID of crafting. It's incredibly annoying to go into a crafting session each and every time you want to make a camp or a trap. It's pointlessly un-rewarding and a massive drag. Now honestly: is making a camp or a trap a challenge? No, not even marginally. So why make players go through the same annoying steps each and every time?
2. get RID of foraging. Honestly, what is this good for? To get a few quick resources? A few minor food buffs?
Now this where it gets interesting: why not remove these two and replace it with something that is USEFULL and FUN. Instead of crafting and foraging, you would have /camp. When the player wants to deploy camp, instead of crafting a camp kit and using it, he could simply use the /camp command. This automatically generates the camp with whatever resources are available to be forages from the surrounding area. So if done in a wooded area, a leen-to would appear. If done on a plain of some sort, you'd have an teepee made of animal bones, etc. In addition, this also generates a number of food buffs and traps. So a group now has yet even more uses for a camp -- as a source of buffs. These buffs would be mild, and grow in number along with the skill level of the scout (same with traps). You could just make them like tin mugs with a local broth using indegenous ingrediants over the fire pit which team members could pick up and drink. This also allows multiple scouts in a team to pitch multiple tents for everyone to get buffs. You would keep the same camp rules to stop macros.
So we do away with foraging and crafting in one shot, and replace it with something more useful and fun.
But... I like foraging! 
When I'm out hunting with my pets (Master Scout, CH) it makes me more self seficient in the field as I can grub up some food for my ever hungry companions without having to go back to base to get another factory crate of p-mon crunchies.
What I would like to see is crafting being more in-depth and usefull, rather than the token effort we have now.
I would love to be able to experiment on my crafted scout stuff to make better camps and traps.
So my master scout basic camps will be better than a novice scout basic camp, maybe with better medical rating or maybe we can experiment down the camp skill needed to deploy the more advanced camps?
Sylen Spiritunicorn (Bria)
Spirit,
These are all things that we have suggested to the Developers - not all of them are going to get implemented. Probably not half. But this is what we've asked for.
B
DeltaXi65 wrote:
3.) Forage changes
As I expected, we're making very little leeway on our forage arguments. If anyone has any ideas of what they'd like to see happen with foraging, the Devs would be interested in hearing it. A list of possible items that would be foragable would be excellent.
As a Master Chef and also a Scout (on different servers), I'm mixed on this. Perhaps one option would be for /forage to periodically have a chance of coming up with some special component that can be used by Chefs. With the re-vamp of the Chef profession, there seems like there might be a lot of room for something like this. It would allow for Scouts and Chefs to come to some sort of arrangement, perhaps, that would be beneficial to both... although the fact that /foraged components would be individual and, therefore, not useful in factory production would hinder things, since the majority of Chef sales are bulk sales.
Hakai wrote:
ah ha! bolas!!! would be funny to see a group of mounted scouts chasing an animal while swinging them around! (nah probalby not seriously but would be kinda funny)
I see one post on trapping NPC's then this post comes along as well. So to follow up the trapping NPC's post why not introduce Master Level Traps such as Bolas or Nets to use against NPC/PC's to slow movement rate. Bolas with a direct hit could reduce mind or action, as a DOT type damage. and NOT A LOT of damage mind you, lol just some. Or maybe just maybe something useable as a negative modifier to the victims weapons speed or movement rates. Make it master too so it means something. Only reason im a master scout now is holocrazing professions. as a CH i only need two trees and thats all i had, btw sony thank you for my holiday gift. without those two holos i would never have tried.
DeltaXi65 wrote:
Watching,
I've discussed the forage issues with TH and with Green on a number of occassions. The main problems as I understand them is finding a way to make forage useful that doesn't make it unbalancing - both to us (such as giving XP that is then easily macroable) or to other professions (making Scouts not need medic services, etc.). So I'm going to try and talk it up a bit more, and see if it goes anywhere. Any indepth, well thought out ideas on how to make forage better would be great. Maybe I'm missing something in my arguments.
As a suggestion to avoid treading on medics' toes too much, how's this for an idea... (When I say scout I mean scout or ranger 
)
Using forage, the scout whips up some roots, leaves, flowers, berries, etc. The scout can then use these with new schematics (*flutters eyelashes*) to create scout cures/teas/whatever you want to call them.
Now before a medic yell 'Ow! That's my foot!', my idea would be that these heal slowly rather than a whole load of points at once. So a medic can repair your HA bars or get rid of your wounds with a stim or two, but a scout can boost the regeneration of these pools/stats so you just heal up faster.
Now this may be something that gets saved for Rangers or maybe some low-power versions could be used with scouts. I guess that would be up to the Devs to decide.
I don't know how well this would go down, but having these things usable my non-scouts would seem sensible. There's no elaborate equipment to figure out, as with stims, and I don't think this will steal too much away from the market for med-crafted stims because these slow-acting heals wouldn't be much use in a fight.
Comments? Flames over there please ----->
i got dib's on Hakai's Twin Sun Sandstorm Tea!!
Much like Arizona's but with a little grit from the sun baked planet of tattooine! guaranteed to make Tattooineans everywhere feel right at home!
oooh. how about when you kill an animal and plant a camp next to it...you can harvest meat and have an option to cook it on the fire?! (yes i really do need to start getting more serious...but this board is just soo darn fun!)
Maybe i can get my monkey to turn the spit for me......
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*titter*
Hello DeltaXi65,
In regards to foraging, has it yet been mentioned about instead of getting the wimpy 1 or 2 items at a time. To increase the volume of items picked by hand, that can be tied to our "Hunting" skill tree. Since that determines how much we can harvest from creatures. It could also determine how much we harvest (forage)from the ground.
How about this, instead of "Artisans" having the ability to "Survey" for Flora. Have that be a scout specific skill tied to the foraging ability. Although artisans still get to be the ones to craft a flora farms.
How does that sound?