Scout Archive

Sak,

Now there are three of you.

B

LoL, Touche!! Of course it made it onto your list so that's saying something

I was grouped with my scout friend. We killed 5 Banthas (fat and healthy) and collected a total of 88 hides together. They day before I was solo'ing banthas and getting around35 hides per kill. That's a difference of 140 vs 88. Plus my scout friend HATES having to ever have to harvest again. I have to keep asking her to harvest because she's not used to it.

I haven't played today so I don't know if the numbers have been fixed, but even solo the numbers are down. I'm hoping that the devs fix the numbers to what they were. Harvesting is the primary reason I wanted to be a Ranger. It's really all I care about for the most part. To me, it's like a huge waste of my time knowing I'm not getting nearly as much as I should be getting or was getting. Maybe that's my Northeast mindset, but time is money and my productivity has been severly undercut due to circumstances out of my control.

quick correction.. we killed 4 banthas, not 5.

If you're grouping with pets, simply make a macro to ungroup them all (if they have different commands for group), then harvest then regroup. the Group pet command will cause them to leave your group if they're already grouped.. I've been doin this forever to loot NPC corpses. As for the grouping with a friend gives me 60% less hides.... how many hides would you get if you didn't have that friend around to help you kill stuff? I'd assume it would only be 50%, if that, considering some mobs would be tough or impossible solo but easy when you have a friend or 3..... if it was something you could solo before, why don't you move up to something thats a challenge for the group?

Yes, I did see that comment about the reduction... just didn't sink in when I read it. 60% across the board reduction because of the influx of resources from grouped scout/rangers harvesting, which by the way is crap, most of the input is from rangers, and how many of you group regularly, esp with other rangers or scouts?

"Each scout in a group with loot permissions for a corpse may harvest from the corpse. Harvested group kills yield 60% their normal resources and xp, but may be harvested by each scout in the group. "

1) Three times in two sentences indicates it was intended to effect groups. What you seem to recall was the patch rollout notes which indicated the group efficiency would make up for the reduced harvesting in the group context, i.e. each person would harvest less per animal, but all could harvest and group efficiency at killing should make up for the difference if you were in a "good group. hehe" iirc.

2) Total resources harvested by groups was increased. Two harvesters in a group get 120% of the pre-patch resources from one kill, three get 180%, etc. This argues against a "reduction of resources entering the economy" intent.

3) The intent to reduce resources entering the economy was not expressed prior to the patch, at the time of the patch or in any post-patch communication by the devs. This argues against a "reduction fo resources entering the economy" intent. (Reduction of credits from missions to reduce credits entering the economy was clearly communicated to us.)

It seems apparent that a reduction to 60% harvested resources by ungrouped players was an unintended result of the new code, i.e. a bug. The disappearing missions lairsintroduced in tandem with the reduced timer on lairs spawning on dwellings is another example of an unintended across the board application of code which was introduced with the patch. Every patch has bugs and these were two of them.

My biggest problem is that I would like a "Hunt Master" to be able to harvest significantly better than a Master Scout or Novice Ranger. The new changes minimize the accomplishment of working your way up the skill tree, in my opinion. As someone said earlier, I used to harvest 10 more than a novice, and now I harvest only a few more. It seems there are better ways I could have spent my skill points, in that case.

Moreover, I don't evergroup with other rangers/scouts, so the grouping reduction hits hard. My regular group is a doctor, a smuggler, and myself. I have to constantly disband to optimize my harvesting since they don't harvest anything at all.Thus, I've just been soloing a lot more lately.

I completely agree with a change that benefits groups with multiple scouts,in cases when there are multiple scouts in a group. But when there'sonly one ranger--me--I'm harvesting less than I would if I were hunting without a group. I probably wouldn't mind it so muchif I could harvest all three resources at the reduced rate when I'm the only ranger in the group. But as it is currently, grouping is completely unappealing, since I will always harvest more solo.

Personally, in my group, we never had ninja looters. Nine times out of ten Iam the only one harvesting, and I alwayssplit the harvest with anyone who wanted it, or just give it to whoever needs it. When I hunt for an order (get me wooly hide, get me dragonette bristly hide) I go solo. Cutting the overall individual harvest of an animal, but making it so everyone in the group gets almost as much hide as if they skinned it themselves makes no kind of sense, and I like my games to be at least logical. What, the creature magically spawns hide?

Also, there has never been a lack of resources on ANY market that I've noticed, and for the past 1.5 months I have been an expert on resource pricing on Starsider markets on Tatooine, Naboo, and Coronet, because I sell all the time. For me, cutting down the resources meansa commenserate drop in my income, and it was a little disappointing. For example, wooly hide is an important income to my Ranger. Where one Bull Bantha previously gave me 42 units of wooly hide, I now get 24.

The amount ofresources on an animalshould have stayed the same, it should have just been equally distributed in that group. Hell, if the change had to go through to stop ninja looters, which I never had a problem because I don't play with those types - selfish jerks, then it should be optional like it is in EQ.

Not that I'm highly upset about a game, just making a point about gameplay.

One more thing. My groups specializes. I am the Ranger, and the only other scout is a Creature handler with no harvesting skills.I am relied onto harvest avian and herbivore meat for our medics. It now takes me twice as long to get the meat I used to give him. Overall, I think this change was not a success.

I suggest putting it back to the way it was, and then allowing a scout or ranger to harvest all threeresources off one animal. There is no way a true hunter would kill an animal and leave two-thirds of it to rot. This practice is neither ethical nor economical.

-- YP

Went with my PA group to hunt in the Squill cave tonight. I'm a Hunt Master and I got 19 bones/hides/meat per Hunter Squill (roughly equivilent to mountain I believe) and the 2 Master Scouts were getting 15. So let's see that's 1 extra per box up the Ranger tree.

I too believe that the new group rule is fine, but we're only getting 60% of the new 50%... which equates to significantly less.

I wanted to grind camping xp last night.. I ended up buying stacks of bones and leather on the Bazaar because it would have taken me a long long time to get a few k of each. Tonight any stack that was of 300 was 3000cr and there were no bones except for stacks of less than 50 in Anchorhead.

Dwarf-Tosser, newbies like you are filled with scouts. But in elite groups with skill points maxed out, we have one or two rangers and the creature handler and bounty hunter have scout. The doctors don't have it, the TK master doesn't have it, the weaponsmith / pistoleer doesn't have it. The group relies on the Ranger to provide avian meat and herbivore meat to make stims. Have you seen how much those stims use? Now the Ranger's effectiveness to the group is cut by 50%.

Please get a clue before you open your mouth and start swearing. Restoring the harvests to previous level and simply adding an on-off toggle for group harvest would fix the new problem and take care of ninja-looters.

-- YP

Skill trees need rewards - It should take you longer as a novice scout to gain harvest & resources then a Master Ranger.

Novice scouts should get 5% - up to 50% for Master Scout

Novice Rangerss should get 60% up to 100% for Master Rangers.

There needs to be a reward system for all the hard work that is done leveling up in these classes.

I am not saying nerf the XP - keep that the same, just cut back the amount and maybe the type of resources that can be harvested.

Or if it is kept nerfed allow Master rangers to harvest all 3 available resources. 60% for first - hide meat bone,

30% for the second and 10% for the last - still giving 100% total harvest.

Same when you group and share harvesting - 3 scouts or harvesters break it into thirds. 30 / 30 / 30 leaving the other 10% to rot in the field while people are starving on Rori.

/bump for Holo who's perusing the boards somewhere.