Scout Archive
Thread: BUG REPORT 4 SEPTEMBER UPDATE NEW BUGS ONLY!
Not sure why other people are having difficulties with /maskscent and /conceal. Both seem to work great for me. I have only tried it on Dathomir and I am a master ranger so maybe people that are having trouble are lower level and master makes a big difference.
/maskscent definitely breaks a lot more now (i.e. more then NEVER breaking like it was before, I think people are just spoiled) With just /maskscent on I was able to hide from almost all the Giant Baz Nitchs and rancors as long as I didn’t get too close. If I ran right through the center of their lair (like I could before the patch) then I would usually get attacked. But again, think about it people!!! You are masking your SCENT not becoming invisible. So yes even the lowliest mob should be able to see you if you get close. Even if it is a nort. /maskscent is only supposed to hide you from one of creatures’ senses not vision and hearing as well so you should still have to stay 20m or more away from things if you want them to not notice you. I don’t know if this is how it is working but I do know that I was able to get around past forty or so giant baz nitches without being detected if I made some effort to avoid them and stay outside 20-30m or so. (And I was getting a TON of XP from it)
/conceal worked waaaay better for me then /maskscent. It did not have it break even once for the duration of the kit. I ran past every creature/NPC I could find and nothing spotted me. I was face-to-face inches from a nightsister slaver that was aggressive to me and neither he nor his two buddies noticed me. I was running in circles around them and through them for five minutes straight. Not sure why it is breaking for other people. Maybe the Dath kit just works better or maybe master rangers bonus to conceal actually does something. I hope so because I’m not sure even master rangers should be able to conceal this well and I definitely don’t think anyone other then masters should be able to conceal anywhere near this well. (I got 9k XP in around 10 minutes with conceal on)
I haven’t tried applying my Dath kits to anyone else yet but if the work as well on others as they do on me then that will be very powerful. Not sure how the scouting XP will work for not being detected if someone else conceals you. If the person wearing the kit gets XP then this will be the easiest way to get master scout/ranger. Just have a ranger apply the Dath kit to you and you should be able to get 40k scouting or more per kit. Seems a bit overpowered to me. I really think they need to lower or drop the XP gain from /maskscent and /conceal.
Based on how powerful the kits that I made and used were I do not think that the resource requirements are too high at all. Yes I do think that rangers should be able to find wood and berries in the wild and no I do not think we should be able to mine metal and oil for our camps. But that is another issue. 90 or so total resources is not very much for 25 minutes of invisibility to all creatures and npcs that can be applied to anyone.
One quick side note:
JuCat said: “I am constantly getting aggro'd while inside my Field Base, also confirmed in High Quality Camp Kit. I would estimate that both kits fail to repel aggro's 90% of the time.”
Just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page concerning the difference between aggressive and aggro. Are you mainly complaining that aggressive things are aggroing you or that once they have aggroed you that they are able to get in your camp? I do think that camps are meant to repel non-aggro aggressive creatures and lower the chance that they aggro you. (although I have never noticed this to work) I do not think that they are intented to or that they should repel creatures once they have aggroed you because that would be a huge exploit. Just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. 
Happy Hunting everyone!
Manterion wrote:
Server: Starsider
Race: Zebrak
Ranger Levels: 1: 4: 3: 4
Maskscent, Works as originally intended by the developers. There is a chance that it would break. Before the patch It worked fine for me it rarely broke. I tested it out last night. 7 Times on Tatooine, it broke once and 12 times on Coerilla, didn't break once. I got about 500-700 xp that night.
Comments, I really love maskscent works great no complaints at all. I walk through red critters they don't see me, I love it! On the rare occasions it breaks so be it.
...snip...
Sorry, but this was not my experience. I walk through red critters they kill me. I am ONE box from master (fronteering). I walk through non-aggro (yellow on 'dar) with mask scent they sometimes kill me, they leave me alone otherwise (w/o using ms). I would have beenwilling to NOT get exp for reducing the "deathtrap" risk. This aggro on break thing is inbalancing.
Your experience was mine BEFORE the patch, however...
Typically I walk around "lairs" IG anyway and this has now proved so problematic I must make large deviations from my travel routes when the lairs are numberous.
Kaltorax wrote:*************************************
LecheHombre wrote:
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I believe this is a big issue. I have a friend that is a master CH/master ranger. He can have out up to 3 pets so if he is killing mobs that are the same as his 3 pets finding them to heal them or call them out of battle is an issue. Him having no weapon skills, he only has his pets to fight for him... so its not a matter of them assisting him. Pets don't get to harvest and shouldn't be counted in the equation. It is in the programming of the game due to the fact of all the past issues with group bugs (mission payouts is the biggest). Having the pets in his group is vital to his survival and it shouldn't matter if the pets are in his group killing or if they are out of the group killing they still killing the mob and one way he gets 60% and the other he gets 100%... this don't make sense and is a bug with programming.
Excellent point, and one that I hadn't really considered. You got me to change my tune...
So as I understand it, right now it is supposed to reduce harvest amount by 60% if the animal was killed by a group (seems like it may be reducing it by 60% whether grouped or not, which is definitely a problem). Sounds like the consensus is that it should only do this *if and only if* there is more than one player in the group that has the ability to harvest (ie, at least novice scout). Precedent in favor of showing that this is workable include non-player members of a group not getting a cut of mission payouts, as Kaltorax noted.Again, correct me if I am wrong, but the intended idea is for each person harvesting to get 60% of the amount that they would normally harvest solo if they killed the creature in a group (with our changes, only if in a group containing multiple scouts). Not something like each person gets normal_amount*.6^(number_in_group), where you would get a bigger reduction for bigger groups. Assuming it is the first, remember that 60%+60%>100%; so if your group contains two scouts, you will be actually be getting a fair bit *more* resources total that pre-patch. However, I now agree that if a group contains only one scout (or only 1 player), they should still be harvesting 100% of what they would have before.
Now, let me throw in my 2 credits again about Mask Scent and Conceal. I too have noticed that the effectiveness of Mask Scent has lessened. I expected this, as from what I understood, the new patch was going to have maskscent and conceal rely on *different* mods. Mask scent, being in the realm of scouts, would improve as you increased your exploring skills and got boosts to "camoflauge", and would be at maximum effectiveness once you reached master scout. Conceal, on the other hand, would not use your "camoflauge" mod that you gained from scout, but an entirely new mod, maybe just simply "conceal", not sure. As such, I expected my skill and results when masking scent to drop down to what they were back when I was only a master scout. I think that this is probably the case, but am certainly not positive. Anybody have a firm feeling on this?
Finally, I also agree that the xp rewards for successful mask scent and conceal checks are definetly less important than having the skills themselves be more effective, and are probably giving *way* too much xp as it stands. I agree with what others have mentioned regarding decreasing the xp for successuful checks as you increase through the explore and wayfaring lines. In other words, no xp payout for mask scent at explore IV in scout, and no xp payout for conceal at wayfaring IV. I really hope that this doesn't bring thoughts of "look at that master ranger, sure *he* doesn't care about getting more xp, he doesn't have to worry about it anymore" to your head, but think about it honestly: at high levels wouldn't you rather have your concealment skills be very effective than work just allright and contribute some xp that you might not even need anymore?
Thanks for all the good posts, folks -- I think that this thread is just what we need to make our voices heard and get things polished up as quickly as possible.
Overall I get the feeling that a caculation or two broke when they changed the Tracking (Formerly Bioscience) tree. It seems I'm hitting, harvesting, camo-ing at Scout levels of ability...
Just a silly thought...
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I think that any level of conceal should clearly be better than master scout level mask scent, at least for the rangers that use it on themselves. One way I think this could work is by having the camo from your kit not be eliminated entirely if you are detected. Once applied, conceal would last a certain amount of time based on the skill level of the ranger that applied it, guaranteed. It can be broken, just like mask scent, but it is only broken for the specific mob that detected you (and any nearby helpers if it is social). Once you have dealt with that mob or group, any new creatures/npcs you encountered would still have to make a detection check against you, until the timer runs out. I think of this like a health or action boost that a doctor can apply -- your max pool is increased for some amount of time, and even if you take damage, you can regen up to the new amount until the buff wears out. I would like to see conceal last for an hour or more at master ranger level, just like doctor buffs can last for a *long* time. Whether or not the camo should be as effective on other people that a ranger applies it too is another topic that we should discuss further.
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I like this and tought this would be how they would were going to work. If they are going to keep the resources needed as they are(but make rangers able to get them ALL) this is a great idea. Make it timed, and if broken only by the craeture/NPC that broke it. Not lilke mask scent. The resources needed for these kits are Waayyy to outragous for one time use, that can be broken in 5 minutes or less. They made it so we can use them on others, but to conceal a hunting party of say 5 ppl, the resources are way to extreme, just for one dose.
The problem with the test center is, if you want to test things for advanced professions, say Ranger for example. You have to play all the way up through scout just to get there. What they need to do is make it so you can customize a character with what skills and professions you want, and start at what ever level you want.
I admit, I have have never logged in. But the above is the reason why. I'm not going to spend as much time playing a temp character that can get whiped, as much as I play my main character, just so I can test something that will be live 2 weeks anyway.
Someone should have thought of that before. Not to sound snobish or leet or what ever, but I could have told them things like that had they actually asked me to be in beta as I signed up for. Someone who plays games all the time, know SW very well, and has beta tested software in the past, would have been helpful. OH well, their loss.
Then it is just as I feared!
- 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.
It doesn't say that if group has more than 1 scout then you get 60% of normal resources. It says group kills yields 60% their normal resources ... that means all groups even those that has only 1 scout. So it sound like it's intended ... but I think it's wrong. If it's not intended then it's badly thought out ... badly presented ... and badly implemented in-game.
I can too confirm that I got less resources when harvesting last night. Normally I would get8 hides or bonesfrom rills or worrts in Tatooine, but last night I got only 6.
And well since I'm already posting ... everything I'm crafting has 0% quality even though I'm using same resources than day before.
- Camp xp accumulation rates have been increased.
I'm not sure about what this means ... does it mean we should get more exp in shorter time ... or the opposite? Because I'm getting less exp from camps in same time than I used to day before. Now I need to keep the camp up bit longer.
I think that's it for now.
Not exactly sure if this is new or not, but since the patch notes said it was fixed i figured i post it here. When calling an aggressive *untrained* (no commands at all) pet with mask scent up you get scouting exp for it.
Khel - Flurry
1. Maskscent is useless now, other than for getting TONS of exp. Walking across Yavin, I was attacked about every 1 minute by something breaking my mask scent. However, I liked the decreased cooldown at higher levels, made it make more sense.
My suggestion: nerf the xp, and remove the "aggro when broken" from it. The fact that you have a cooldown before you can reapply it provides a reasonable chance for you to be attacked when it breaks. The auto attack that you currently get makes it better to just walk through the jungle yourself and walk around the red.
2. Conceal seems to not work at all. I spent two hours on Yavin gathering materials for a camo kit. When I made one, I applied it with mask scent. A minute later, I get aggroed due to my mask scent breaking. So I think "oh, you're supposed to use it by itself." I tried that. I passed through three red mobs, getting aggroed 3 times, once by each, then encountered a group of NPC thieves near some Death Star wreckage. I approach them. They aggro me, and kill me.
My suggestion: Other than the fact that it doesn't seem to work AT ALL, there needs to be some sign so that the player knows it is active and doing something to protect them. Add a symbol to the HAM bar area, similar to the mask scent nose symbol, that shows the player it is still active. Also, add the exp Rangers are supposed to get for successful mask scent checks. Although it might be difficult to do, I think a Visual Appearance change (perhaps something along the lines of a Ghille Suit)would also be helpful, both so players know that their conceal is active (and other players can see this), but would also be EXTREMELY USEFUL from a roleplaying/immersion standpoint.
3. Area Track isn't useful in its current state. Although the ability to find store signs in the surrounding area is rather useful for shopping purposes, It's rather annoying when you are trying to find something to hunt. Also, snooping into what's laying on the floors of people's houses is neat too, but annoying when you are trying to hunt. Distance on players seems to come up as -1 about 50% of the time, and creature directions are vague.
My suggestion: Make some way to filter out what you are seeing. Perhaps an ability to do /areatrack durni or /areatrack krayt dragon so that you can look for a specific thing. Increase the effective distance of it. Perhaps this could be scaled to increase as the player's tracking skill increases, similar to how Surveying distance increases. Either add the ability to see what you are tracking on a map screen (similar to Surveying) or add the ability to get an instant WP to what you were searching for (once again similar to Surveying).
4. Camo Kit Crafting is pretty hard to gather materials for. I spent two hours on Yavin, just to get enough materials to make ONE camo kit. It only had 2 charges on it. It would take a whole day to gather enough materials to repeatedly conceal a small hunting group of 5-10.
My suggestion: Make these a LITTLE easier to make. Not too easy, but not impossible either. I agree with the native flora thing, althoughI think the stuff should probably be forageable. Perhaps limit the planet-specific components to just the flora, and maybe one of the other items. As it is, if a Ranger wants to be able to make kits for any planet he goes to, he needs stockpiles of 9 X 4 = 36 different resource types, 9 of those which can't be obtained with any of the inherent Ranger skills. Few will be willing and/or able to truck all of that around. If it were only the flora that had to be planet specific, it would be only 9 + 3 = 12 resource types to haul around. This seems more reasonable. Also, at least if Rangers will need to dabble in artisan to gather their flora through surveying, make it so that camo kits can be experimented on to get more charges out of them. Spending two hours to gather materials for a camo kit that has only two charges on it is just ridiculous.
Cammo Kits:
Not able to make any of the new cammo kits as Im no longer an artisan and cannot /sample for the unique flora resources required for each planet, I see this a bug/problem.
I would like to suggest that the flora requirement be swaped for a polymer, Or... allow rangers to /forage for floral ( read branches, weeds, grasses, etc) used for /conceal.
Myself I equate the cammo kit making to creating a Ghillie Suit matched to the enviroment. let me pass on a URL with instructions on constructing one http://www.geocities.com/stalker217/ghillie/ Its a shame that the /conceal skill requires a concertive effort to make, and not a inate skill learned by hard won experence and enhanced with proper clothing ( tailor made base ghillie suit? )
Ranger Camps:
As Im just able to make the Field Base camp, I can only comment on it and the prior kits. I was ok with the old resources used in constructing the Field Base camp, after all, it was described as a high tech setup, and clean enought to facilitate and enhace healing. the earler scout camps were dirty primitive affairs made with bone and animal hides, prehistoric. The pre-patch resources to create a Field Base camp, metal ( for support rods, chair legs, food/chem crafting station
, and polymer ( polymer fabric tent covers, seats, and cots ) were not riped from the corpses of the beasts that I killed, but from chemical and mineral harvesters. I resigned myself that i would need to aquire the metal and polymer from artisans, or aquire a few harvesters and plant them next to other working harvesters and gamble. the gample payes off for chemical and menerals, but wont for floral, unique floria for the cammo kits.
post-patch requiremts for the Field base camp and bone, hide, and a small amount of metal. This seems wrong to me, this is back to the stone age or at most bronze age. sure, it gives us one less resource to buy from other players (technicaly ) but that is also offset by the cammo kit requirement for unique flora resources, that will be tough for artisans to come by on the high end planets, ( dont mind me Mr. Ewok, its just a floral farm )
Bone and Hide = low tech, dirty
Metal and polymer = high tech, clean
If the resources were deemed, by some game formulamonkey, to need increasing, I would think addinga resource that kept in line with the 'clean' and 'high tech' formula would have been... perhaps fyberplast?
/ultralatenightearlymorningramble off
Ranger 4-3-4-3, TK 2-2-3-3, Marksman 0-4-0-3
Tssr'ct Misso
Spoiled or no, it works out better for me not using it AT ALL. How can this be right?
LecheHombre wrote:
davidjp1234 wrote:
Not sure why other people are having difficulties with /maskscent and /conceal. Both seem to work great for me. I have only tried it on Dathomir and I am a master ranger so maybe people that are having trouble are lower level and master makes a big difference.
/maskscent definitely breaks a lot more now (i.e. more then NEVER breaking like it was before, I think people are just spoiled)
...
I tend to agree that we are probably just expecting maskscent to work like it did before the patch (ie, complete invisibility to creatures at master ranger). Again, I think that as rangers we should be expecting maskscent's effectiveness to now be capped at what is was like when we were master scouts only. Having max level conceal work like pre-patch maskscent (with the addition of working on humanoids) sounds good to me, possibly even *too* powerful, as you suggest.
...snip...