Scout Archive
Thread: The harvesting reduction
But the way the system was before, you had a pretty heafty incentive to NOT group.My incentive to group is a further 40% reduction in resources? What? How is THAT going to make me want to group with, say, a Smuggler and a Doctor, neither of which even have the harvest command? No, I think you will find that this is a pretty hefty incentive to NOT group.
Now you've got a pretty hefty incentive TO group.
No, the "real" fix should have been to implement what was promised long ago. There are up to three harvestable resources on a creature. That creature can be harvested once for each resource type. A scout with harvest rights on a corpse can (SUCCESSFULLY!) harvest only once.
Thus, solo is unaffected. Up to three scouts in a group can harvest the corpse. The people after xp have their incentive to group, groups without scouts aren't screwed over by it. It fixes the LONG standing bug whereby attempting to harvest a resource from a creature without it renders the remaining resources unharvestable, without any message.
(If that's not a bug, it NEEDS a message saying you just ruined the corpse or some such. It certainly stinks of bug as it stands.)
The only remaining "issue" is the apparently game ruining increase in harvested resources. If there was too much coming in before this screwup, an overall reduction would be a sane approach. If there was no actual measurement of how much was coming in, any reduction is sheer stupidity. If there was a "just right" amount, a reduction should be done AFTER a measure of the total change is taken. The absolute worst thing to do is to just jump in and wildly start chopping zombie's heads off^W^W^W^Wreducing things by arbitrary amounts. You WILL get it wrong. You WILL piss everyone off. You WILL get backlash. Look at the T21 fiasco, or the Probot situation.
Guys,
How many Scouts here can solo WITHOUT A PET a Kimogila? How many can solo a Dark Jedi? How many of you can solo a nest of Krevols? A herd of Fambaas? A herd of Snorbals? A herd of Gurkatts? The Ewok Village?
When you are in a group you can kill things that are much larger and provide much more hide and bone than you can solo. Period. That's how it is supposed to be, that's how it is in every MMORPG out there, and that's the point of this. The 60% rule was to make the Scout want to go out and group. Grouping and socialization is a fundamental goal of Star Wars Galaxies. The other goal is to have fun.
Ekhben, can you please point out to me where it was promised to us that three Scouts were supposed to be able to harvest each type from each creature? What about from insects that only have one kind of resource? What about snakes and chubas that only have two? Are you talking about the between the screen message that says that multiple scouts can harvest multiple resources? We all know this isn't the case, and it hasn't been the case since Day 1 - I know, I was there.
Avezes, the answer to your "simple question" is that 1.) This is bugged, and we all know it now. 2.) It's been less than a week since the change was implemented - its going to take some time for people to adjust their playing styles to accomodate the changes.
There is a bug right now that is screwing up soloing. I know it. You all know it. The Devs now know it, and they WILL look at it. There is no reason why the reduction should be as much as it is, and I am confident that this will get resolved. We may be hurting for hides for a week or two, but it will get done. You need to be patient and figure out the best way to get lots of hide. I have already got all of PA Rangers and Master Scouts assisting me on Thursday night with a group hunt to get Wooly hide for our friend who is an Armorsmith. This would NEVER have happened a week ago, as we all wouldn't have wanted to rotate harvests as we'd get twice as much on our own then in the group.
For those of you who are having problems finding groups - you need to go out into the world, be nice to people and make friends. Join a PA. If you are nice, have the socialization skills that God gave gravel, and are relatively competent, you will find friends who will want to group with you, because the game is more fun with other people.
Look, I know you are frustrated. I'm frustrated too. I'm frustrated because of the bug, I'm frustrated because the internet is down in my office, and I'm frustrated because I too am hurting just as much as all of you are.
But that doesn't mean we should all start getting pessimistic, start dropping our skills, and start flooding the boards with whining posts (not that this is happening yet). We need to keep our chin up, develop new tricks and tips to maximize our hunting and trust that this gets fixed quickly.
We've gotten TWO posts from Holo in two days, and GreenMarine even took time off from his vacation to help us. Maybe you guys don't think this is a big deal, but I think its huge, and its a mark of respect - for me and for the entire Scout/Ranger community. They didn't have to do this at all (insert pithy comment about paying XXX to play here...). They could have waited even longer. The poor chefs have gotten NOTHING.
I apologize for the tone of this post. I know its a depature from my norm coolheadedness, and I don't want any of you thinking less of me, but I really would like everyone to think globally here for a little while and try and see things from an objective perspective.
I know we can work through this- we've worked through worse.
B
Here, here, many thanks to Holo and the devs for coming through so quickly on diagnosing the problem and letting us know somethings being worked on. Though I'm always one to throw out ideas I'm also one to appreciate the hard work they and Delta are putting in. For now I'm just gonna enjoy the higher costs of hides on wanderhome... I'm making some decent money suddenly so I can't argue.
Thanks for the attention,
-wb
Solo harvesting is down over 50% and i can prove it with hard data.
Have him log on and play next to me and then say it wasnt a stealth nerf
an example before patch 105 after patch 39--umm hello thats more than 50 %
and who asked for the scout grouping thing anyway--ill tell ya who its the people who want to twink lower characters they kill mob and lowely scout gets uber scout xp--yeah ok that makes alot of sense
How many Scouts here can solo WITHOUT A PET a Kimogila? How many can solo a Dark Jedi? How many of you can solo a nest of Krevols? A herd of Fambaas? A herd of Snorbals? A herd of Gurkatts? The Ewok Village?I can't solo a Kimogila with a pet. Currently, at 1/2/1/3 in CH, I do better without a pet out, because I don't have to worry about it charging in and dying, I can rely on my own wisdom to tip a fight's balance in my favour. Maybe that will change now I've got a fully grown pet or two, or after I work up my Training and Taming lines, or if I become an Imperial and buy an AT-ST.
When you are in a group you can kill things that are much larger and provide much more hide and bone than you can solo. Period.True. But you get 60% the resources. If, say, your Large Mob (LM) provides 200 resources as a solo kill, it provides 120 resources to you while you're grouped. Let's say it takes 15 seconds to kill. That's 8 resources per second. Now, step outside of town, and kill a Newbie Mob (NM), that we'll say has 8 resources total. Also 8 resources per second.
But you can't use pointblankarea1 on LM. You'll need to have used stims or petstims to survive LM, probably put up a campsite too. I don't know about you, but I don't need to pause when killing NMs, I can just do laps around a city going from clump to clump.
That's how it is supposed to be, that's how it is in every MMORPG out there, and that's the point of this. The 60% rule was to make the Scout want to go out and group. Grouping and socialization is a fundamental goal of Star Wars Galaxies. The other goal is to have fun.It may be how it's supposed to be, it may be how it is in every other MMORPG out there, but the 60% rule does NOT make it true. I still group when I want company, but if I'm after hide, bone or meat, I don't and won't group, and this change reinforces that.
Ekhben, can you please point out to me where it was promised to us that three Scouts were supposed to be able to harvest each type from each creature? What about from insects that only have one kind of resource? What about snakes and chubas that only have two? Are you talking about the between the screen message that says that multiple scouts can harvest multiple resources? We all know this isn't the case, and it hasn't been the case since Day 1 - I know, I was there.That loading screen is exactly what I am referring to. What are those most highly visible information screens for, if their information is neither true, nor ever going to be true, nor ever updated? We stare at those things every time we log on and every time we board a shuttle.
If you reread my post, you might notice I use "up to" everywhere, and acknowledge many creatures don't have all three resource types, and suggest fixing the bug where attempting to harvest the wrong resource type silently makes the corpse unharvestable. I've been on the boards since before beta was a gleam in the masses eyes, and in game since late Beta 3, so what?
As far as I can see, the only way this change is possibly good is if you get a group consisting largely or entirely of scouts. Unfortunately, this change affects ALL groups. Discounting grouping with pets, which I understand was acknowledged as a bug and might even get fixed, this still means your average small group with only one Scout/Ranger is getting screwed. And that's a Very Bad Thing, because I know I group with non scouts much more than I group with other scouts. Or, used to.
Look, I know you are frustrated. I'm frustrated too. I'm frustrated because of the bug, I'm frustrated because the internet is down in my office, and I'm frustrated because I too am hurting just as much as all of you are.I'm frustrated because every change seems over the top, untested and poorly thought out. I'm frustrated because the bugs the bulk of us have to work around every day are passed off with flippant remarks and "that's low priority." I'm frustrated because overboard changes that try and fail to fix exploits suddenly start directly affecting my gameplay. And I'm frustrated because my experience since launch suggests this won't get fixed anywhere near as fast as it was broken. It may not even be accepted as broken at all. Holocron even trivialises these forums as the unhappy minority.
Ekh,
"I can't solo a Kimogila with a pet. Currently, at 1/2/1/3 in CH, I do better without a pet out, because I don't have to worry about it charging in and dying, I can rely on my own wisdom to tip a fight's balance in my favour. Maybe that will change now I've got a fully grown pet or two, or after I work up my Training and Taming lines, or if I become an Imperial and buy an AT-ST."
Technically, the long-term goal of the Devs is that NO ONE will be able to do this, even witha pet. They want to make grouping an important part of the game. It's their goal, and I understand it. There really isn't supposed to be any profession that is 100% self-sufficient. We're as close as it gets.
"True. But you get 60% the resources. If, say, your Large Mob (LM) provides 200 resources as a solo kill, it provides 120 resources to you while you're grouped. Let's say it takes 15 seconds to kill. That's 8 resources per second. Now, step outside of town, and kill a Newbie Mob (NM), that we'll say has 8 resources total. Also 8 resources per second.
But you can't use pointblankarea1 on LM. You'll need to have used stims or petstims to survive LM, probably put up a campsite too. I don't know about you, but I don't need to pause when killing NMs, I can just do laps around a city going from clump to clump."
Not really. I've been the solo Scout in a group of 7 people. We were killing Fambaas on Naboo in less than 20 seconds. I was getting 200 hide off each, and about 400 XP. What I was doing with the group was much faster than lapping around the city because:
1.) No downtime, as I wasn't tanking.
2.) No need for stims or camps, because I wasn't getting any damage other than from my specials
3.) You are always going to have downtime running around the city trying to find newbie mobs and lairs. Being in a group negates this, because the speed vs. XP/hide amounts negate it. Granted, with /areatrack it cuts down on the time some, but not by much.
4.) If you are in a group with Scouts who don't need the hide/bone/meat, you can get more for yourself than solo. Some of you claim that you've never been in a group like this - maybe that's true. But I've been in groups like this all week. You just need to find them.
"It may be how it's supposed to be, it may be how it is in every other MMORPG out there, but the 60% rule does NOT make it true. I still group when I want company, but if I'm after hide, bone or meat, I don't and won't group, and this change reinforces that."
The change is still bugged, Ekh. There shouldn't be ANY penalty (or a very small one) to going solo now. It's obvious that this has taken place.I don't get why you continue responding as ifthis isn't abug andwas something planned?
"That loading screen is exactly what I am referring to. What are those most highly visible information screens for, if their information is neither true, nor ever going to be true, nor ever updated? We stare at those things every time we log on and every time we board a shuttle."
That doesn't make them right - MMORPGs change daily. The stuff that's in the manual isn't true any more. The stuff that's in the Prima guide is so laughably wrong now that I can't believe anyone still reads it. Theres no way to keep the documentation up-to-date in a game like this. That's why I answer tons of questions and never refuse to help a noob. If you look carefully, they have the "harvest resource" commanding under the "loot corpose" menu in the radial. Should they put that back too? 
Which would you rather the Devs do - work to make sure the game isn't bugged, or fix all of the screens that refer to out-of-date skills and information? I know this is an oversimplification, but that's not the point.
"If you reread my post, you might notice I use "up to" everywhere, and acknowledge many creatures don't have all three resource types, and suggest fixing the bug where attempting to harvest the wrong resource type silently makes the corpse unharvestable. I've been on the boards since before beta was a gleam in the masses eyes, and in game since late Beta 3, so what?"
My question was simply were you speaking from experience in Beta that this is the way it was, or from the screens. How was harvesting handled in Beta? The same way it was until the last patch, or the way the transition screen says it was?
"As far as I can see, the only way this change is possibly good is if you get a group consisting largely or entirely of scouts. Unfortunately, this change affects ALL groups. Discounting grouping with pets, which I understand was acknowledged as a bug and might even get fixed, this still means your average small group with only one Scout/Ranger is getting screwed. And that's a Very Bad Thing, because I know I group with non scouts much more than I group with other scouts. Or, used to."
Scouting is the second most popular starting profession (next to Marksman, and according to a post from Holo a long time ago). The odds are that every group you go into will have someone with Novice Scouting. Just ask.
"I'm frustrated because every change seems over the top, untested and poorly thought out."
These changes weren't over the top. They were exactly what we'd been asking for - a means for multiple scouts to be able to harvest in multiple groups. They may have been poorly tested, but that's a structual issue that SOE is working on. As for the poorly thought out, here's the exact back and forth between me and GreenMarine, the Scout Dev, on exactly our motivations and thoughts behind the implementation of the 60% rule.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ranger&message.id=12088
I don't think you can call this "poorly thought out".
"I'm frustrated because the bugs the bulk of us have to work around every day are passed off with flippant remarks and "that's low priority." I'm frustrated because overboard changes that try and fail to fix exploits suddenly start directly affecting my gameplay. And I'm frustrated because my experience since launch suggests this won't get fixed anywhere near as fast as it was broken. It may not even be accepted as broken at all. Holocron even trivialises these forums as the unhappy minority."
First of all, 90% of the bugs that occur are small and are merely annoyances. They aren't major breakdowns in the game. THOSE bugs, like the factory bug, etc., are generally handled fairly quickly - like a day or two. The Devs have a responsibility to fix exploits before they totally destroy the fabric of the game - sometimes this does mean hitting a fly with a sledgehammer, but if it keeps the game enjoyable for most people, it's the right choice. There's not a single profession in this game that doesn't need tweaking. And we can't all get what we want immediately. And while these changes appear to happen "overnight", they weren't - the changes were up on Test Center for over two weeks before they got pushed to live. I believe that they will be fixed sooner than that. In any event, when the lifetime of SWG is measured in years, what's a week or two?
Holo rightfully trivalizes these forums as the unhappy minority. Not even Mos Eisley is filled with as many wretched folks. Almost every forum here is filled with the most pathetic whining I have ever seen in my entire life. The Scout and Ranger boards are, in my opinion, an oasis on the boards - a place where the Devs can expect reasoned, mature posts, and I think that because of that, we've been rewarded.
I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass - there's a lot of things that need work. But this bug isn't the end of the world. We'll get through it.
Maybe my idea was a pile of crap. But I believe that the majority of Scouts (maybe not Rangers, but this was a Scout proposal) are behind this new rule.
B
The idea was a nice one, but was implemented horribly. I cringe at each patch simply because it seems with each one that no testing is done whatsoever and the people who make the changes have no hands on knowledge of what their code does. I would love to know that the developers at least log into the Test Center and check out what their coding change does. I swear if they did, it would be a different game. A better game. When I see statements from the actual person who made the change say that the reduction was slight and not near 50%, I know that that person is out of touch with what is going on in the game and that is very disappointing and disheartening.
An overall reduction of the amount harvested from a mob you kill solo is a bad idea. Plain and simple. There are not more resources in the world by a long shot. Look at the bazaars, the amount of hide/bone/meat is dwindling fast.
Implementing a group harvest idea is only good if it takes into account who is capable of harvesting or even who will harvest - perhaps having a group leader set exactly who will. That will make the change make a tad bit more sense. Having all the people in a group count against the total yeild is silly because it means a large group hunting on Endor, Lok, Yavin 4, Dantooine or wherever is going to get hardly anything when they harvest. Ive experienced it firsthand.In the end, it makes me wonder why this idea made it to the light of day. Harvesting less hides means the scout exp you get is less. It seems more like a babysitting technique because people in groupsjust cant take turns. Scout exp is not even hard to get, well until this patch hehe.
I'm glad that at least its was mentioned that pets counting as a harvester in a group is a mistake. Yes they said it was a bug, but its really a bad programming mistake. Bad untested programming mistake.
I realize that this all sounds pessimistic, but to be honest, there hasn't been much in the last few patches that inspires much confidence. I truly hope that the way things are tested is improved, because it severely needs to be. Testing is good. Dont blame the amount of people on Test Center, blame the techniques used to test.
Yes, I understand the excessive solo reduction is a bug, and it will get fixed in due course. I may be getting cynical about what "due course" really means, but that's a separate issue.
So, I have three options. One, I put in the time to find a harvesting group, which is unappealing, since I generally prefer to play solo or with known friends, and rarely get more than 90 minutes a sesson. Two, I just shut up and accept the 40% loss. Three, I don't group if I'm after resources.
As an example, our Architect reached Master on the weekend, and needs Endorian Wooly Hide. My Smuggler/Artisan friend and I set off for Endor. On the way, we picked up a Doctor/Dancer we met at a starport. One person in that group, me, can harvest. We got about 250 units of EWH. The servers went down with that unannounced outage, and when I returned (much) later I was alone. I soloed a few more kills, and picked up another 300 units, in about the same time. We would have initially been better off being together, but ungrouped, though of course that would have made knowing when to apply stims harder.
You see why I'm so irritated yet? This is another thing that is effectively forcing me to not group. Just another thorn in my now thoroughly perforated side. Maybe the majority DO prefer this change, in which case I'm just one of those trivial people Holocron doesn't give a hoot about. Lovely.
DeltaXi65 wrote:
"I'm frustrated because every change seems over the top, untested and poorly thought out."
These changes weren't over the top. They were exactly what we'd been asking for - a means for multiple scouts to be able to harvest in multiple groups. They may have been poorly tested, but that's a structual issue that SOE is working on. As for the poorly thought out, here's the exact back and forth between me and GreenMarine, the Scout Dev, on exactly our motivations and thoughts behind the implementation of the 60% rule.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ranger&message.id=12088
I don't think you can call this "poorly thought out".
I went and read this post. Basically, GreenMarine said that trying to predict player economies is tricky. He mentioned that he coded the 60% change, but they didn't know if the market for organics would crash because there would be way too much. Your response was "This is PERFECT."
So, it appears that the developers put a lot of thought into it, and realized that they didn't know the answer. But your response was not well thought out, even though due to your position the developers considered it to be the definitive answer from someone who knows about the reality of the economy.
There was no discussion of potential exploits. (Large "scout-only" groups can easily flood the market if they want.) GreenMarine DID make a comment that he wasn't sure that tons of extra resources would be bad, as long as there were new things for scouts to spend them on. There was no discussion about changing harvest rates for solo harvesting. There was no discussion of increasing the resources needed to make things.
Based on your post, it appears this change was made for 1 reason:
"Stop problems caused by ninja-harvesters"
This entire situation could be fixed by putting things back the way they were, and making it so group members get a system message whenever someone harvests a corpse. In fact, GreenMarine said that he would prefer if we could police this ourselves. Give us the tools to police it ourselves, and we will!
Rolling back the changes, and putting in a system message when a group member harvests will provide us with GreenMarine's prefered solution, set the economy straight again, get rid of all the bugs, AND it won't have any potential exploits such as 20 scouts getting over 2500 hide from a single durni lair.
It seems that the Devs thought things through, but rather than consider potential changes with the scout/ranger communities, you spoke on behalf of everyone without getting any feedback.
I'm not trying to make a personal attackhere. Certainly, I just started posting within the last day, and I have no seniority or reputation, while you've been around a long time, and have worked hard for scouts and rangers. I'm just calling it as I see it in this case. I hope I'm not offending you.....
-Ariror
-Tempest
Granted I am being sarcastic, and I am pretty sure they will fix this, but right now this is how the game works for a Ranger. (Wish I could be 100%). But how on earth does a huge mistake like this make it into production? I realize that it's hard to have Master Rangers on the Test Server to verify things like this, but what about your internal Master Ranger testers? Did they test this patch even once? Do you even have internal testers with Master Elite Profession titles? If not, why?
So many questions, so few answers.
I just can't believe this kind of "whoops" can make it onto live servers. Perhaps you should let your coorespondants for each profession have a pre-made Master character on the Test-Server. Then they could properly test these things out and hopefully catch mistakes like this before they go live next time.
One last thing and then I am done. Most are saying that this was a double reduction, but it was actually a triple reduction when you figure in the higher costs for scout/ranger camps, traps and camo kits.
Reduction #1: Base harvesting on everything SOLO or group is down 40%+.
Reduction #2: When grouped 60% of the new base harvesting level. (or 40% of what we were getting solo pre-patch/nerf) This new amount takes effect no matter how many or how few players have the ability to harvest. So, yes if groups made up of 20 Scout/Ranger start appearring all over the galaxy you MIGHT notice an increase in resources. Wow, good thing the code was setup to head-off something so common and everyday as that! (o.k., o.k., I'll try to stop with the sarcasm).
Reduction #3: Most if not all Scout/Ranger crafted items now require more resources to build which in essence REDUCES the amount of resources available for market.
I am sure the hard-working DEVS will realize that a triple-reduction in resources was a very harsh nerf for something that wasn't very common-place (groups of 10-20 scouts/rangers). Please, please, next time double, or even triple-check before something like this goes live. Thanks.
OK, here you go Holo and Delta. Someone else did this, and Delta liked it.
Bothan: Bria - Master Scout, Ranger 1.0.1.2, Artisan, Medic, Entertainer, Marksman, Pistaleer, Brawler
I don't have a problem with the group reduction at all. Makes sence. As they said, if you're in a gruop, youy can kill things faster, and thus harvest faster. Even if there is only one Scout/Ranger in the group, the reduction is OK. Again you can kill faster. I know this because I have been going on Bantha hunts, and we go through about 50 of em an hour. I could never kill anything close to that many in an hour solo. Making multiple scout harvests helps us for groups. Great.
Here is my suggestion. Leave the solo harvesting as it was, with no reduction. Or maybe if they raised the bonuses to the Hunting and Frontiering disciplines, for creature harvest. Make them a bit higher, and maybe the higher you go with that, the bigger the spread of the bonus from lower leves. This would make it so the higher your skill in harvesting, the more(and more difference) in resources you can get.
Even though we are more vialble for groups, we still solo. I totally enjoy my epxerience or just being out in the deep wild, all alone, and hunting with purpose, or just exploring, and killing specific things I encounter. That was one of the reasons I chose scout, and enjoy it so much, is I can go out exploring the entire planet, in relative saftey and actually be productive.
After thinking about this, I realized that I no longer harvest enough to sell AND craft my needed traps, camps and camo kits. I used to, with mostly soloing mind you, be able to get enough for me and the bazaar. You can really only sell stack of at least 100, 300 and 500 sell better and are preferred by crafters. With the solo reduction, there is no way a scout/ranger can get enough to craft his own stuff, and supply enough to sell on the bazaar. I think that might be the big problem the community is having. It's hurting us in having enough for selling AND crafting with. And with the added camo kits for Rangers, we need even more resources. This is why I made suggestion of raising the bonuses for frontiering higher. To make it so the higher you are you can actually get enough to craft all your stuff and to sell.
Hope this helps, and is constructive for the Devs.
Uhrdeth wrote:"Yes, being grouped with a pet is like being group with any other player with all of the advantages and disavantages that the status entails. You get less in the harvest in exchange for an easier kill. END OF STORY. I don't see why this is such an issue for people."
I think the issue for some people is the fact that CH's use pets to suppliment the fact that they are not master pistoleers, riflemen, etc. And now, though they are using the weapon their class has access to (large pets), they are penalized during hunting...all the while, the master pistoleer can spam his attacks all day, kill just as fast as a CH and get even more resources from the harvest.
All they have done is forced CH's to not group with their pets all the while, non-ch scouts are still raking in the material goods because they do not depend on creatures/droids at all.
I'm still not seeing the problem. A pistoleer's weapon is his pistol. A creature handlers weapon is his creature (and probably a pistol or other armament too). Both can still solo and reap a full harvest, both can still group with other players and have an easier time in combat in exchange for a reduced harvest. As I understand it, a CH can choose to group or not group with his creature, but he / she can still attack with it. Is there a penalty for not grouping with your creature? The situation you describe above sounds, to me, like (possibly) one of the down sides of being a creature handler. The upside is YOU CAN GET A RANCOR. Or something else just as big and vicious. Using your creature resulting in a smaller corpse harvest is no different than a rifleman getting his ass kicked in melee against a decent brawler: it's just one of the inherant weaknesses of a class with many other strengths.
Frankly, I think that the only people who have a right to be ticked are actually, Scout is my primary class, Scouts. They group up and loose part of their harvest to CH's and Marksmen and Brawlers and Medics that are dabbling in scouting skills. But this is an improvement over True Scout treatment in groups before, so....
Chris