Scout Archive
Thread: DEVELOPER RESPONSES Top 5 Issues from our State of the Profession
Scouts,
Here are the responses to my State of the Profession and Top 5 requests from the developers. This will give you a better idea of what is going on with the future of our profession.
First of all, we have a tough path ahead of is. Scoutingis considered the best profession in the game, so the Devs have decided that any changes will have to really be something special. And, as I've been saying for a while, we're a novice profession, so most of the development work that is going on is for the Elite Professions.
But the Devs are still listening, so put on your good scout thinking caps, and keep up the good work.
1.) Burst run efficiency
The Devs are adamant that no player should be able to outrun a vehicle or a mount using burst run. The Devs recognize that we want this skill to be useful, and that vehicles and mounts do dilute it a bit, but they believe that the better solution is for us Scouts to get vehicles and mounts, instead of adjusting Burst Run.
Thunderheart has told me that the best thing for us to do on this issue is to wait for the upcoming HAM changes to combat and see if they affect burst run. If so, we can assess the real balance issues there and move forward.
To recap, this is one issue that may not get a lot of forward motion, but is not off the table, either.
2.) Terrain Negotiation changes
The Devs believe that the Terrain Negotiaton skill is one of the defining characteristics of the class - one of our primary draws - and they are loathe to make major changes.
I brought up the idea that we get a bonus for using mounts on terrain, and they felt this was an interesting idea, and possibly something that we could have added to the Master Scout bonuses we receive.
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.
4.) Harvested/Unharvested Creature Notification
The Devs love this idea and are working to develop a means to implement it.
5.) Traps on CH Pets
The Devs don't disagree with this, but they are trying to determine whether or not this is going to be a Ranger or Scout function. I am working with N'Raas and Thunderheart on these issues right now.
Well, folks, that's all she wrote. I know it's not a lot, but we don't need that much tinkering. Please keep the good ideas coming in, and I'll keep bringing them to the Devs attention.
Thanks again for all your help these last few months. We've done a lot together to make this profession the best in the game, and I hope we can keep up the good work.
B
Squib,
Not yet, but I think I'm going to add that in as a Top 5 issue either when Creature Harvest notification goes in orI decide to quit slamming my head against the forage brick wall.
B
SquibII wrote:
Any word from the devs on the idea of a richer trap crafting system? IE, experimentation on effectiveness, duration, etc?
Traps are tough, but we are willing to listen and we want to include your ideas. Basically, since Player Cities, Vehicles and Mounts are in the game, we're revisiting things. If you have great ideas, get them to Delta and he can get them to me
Thunderheart wrote:
SquibII wrote:
Any word from the devs on the idea of a richer trap crafting system? IE, experimentation on effectiveness, duration, etc?
Traps are tough, but we are willing to listen and we want to include your ideas. Basically, since Player Cities, Vehicles and Mounts are in the game, we're revisiting things. If you have great ideas, get them to Delta and he can get them to me
Some things that could be experimented:
Effectiveness: Similar to weapon accuracy, bonus to be applied against a creatures defence vs blind/stun etc.
Duration: Self explanatory.
Number of charges: As per chef food, medic stims.
Looks like enough options to me.....
-Randomnon trap userfollowing dev tracker.
Thats actually a painfully small amount of information. So much is left to interpretation that things you are thinking might be lost in translation. What I am hoping is that you and the Rifleman community puts together a strong document so that klaw can bring it to me an I can act on it...
Thunderheart wrote:
Thats actually a painfully small amount of information. So much is left to interpretation that things you are thinking might be lost in translation. What I am hoping is that you and the Rifleman community puts together a strong document so that klaw can bring it to me an I can act on it...
Rifleman community? You mean Scout Community?
Nice work as always, Delta. I really thought we were on to something with the foraging ideas ala, interrupting spot checks, 'targetable' items, etc. And I'm kinda confused... Terrain negotiation is supposed to be one of our defining characteristics, but then they turn around and tell us to pick up a mount or a vehicle. The two positions seem to be contradictory. /shrug
As for trap experimentation, there've been a ton of nice ideas. I'd go dig up some of the old threads if I wasn't so lazy... How about if we were able to experiment on a trap with a specific critter or type of critter in mind? Not sure what sort of classifications the system's aware of - be nice if we could focus on 'flying' types vs. 'arachnids'. Or maybe it would have to be something as simple as triggering them by supply type - say I want to hunt for some herbivore meat. I'd create traps that would specifically target critters with that type of meat and we'd get a boost of a certain percentage depending on quality of materials and training.
Basically, anything that brings traps/camps into line with practically every other craftable item in the game would be great.
I'm thinking that must have been a miss-post on TH's part. I didn't think the trap experimentation options already offered were vague at all. I would also suggest experimenting traps for ease of use, sort of how high level stims are. That way, maybe someone with a low trapping skill might be able to use an adhesive mesh trap, but it wouldn't have the duration or effectiveness as that of an adhesive mesh trap usable by higher level Scouts.
Thismight also create further mon(k)ey making opportunities for high level Scouts and Rangers,since they'd have the experimentation points to be able to sell a greater variety of traps. I think the problem now is that most Scouts trying to sell their craftables end up trying to sell them to other Scouts that could just go out and make the traps themselves. On the other hand, a low level scout wouldn't buy a crate of phen darts because he can't use them anyway.
If there were a greter variety of traps, not necssarily in their function but in their individual properties, then it would make things more interesting. We get a peek at the potential for this with Ranger camo kits. At Master I have 10 experimentation points to put into the quantity of camo kits, so I can get 15 uses per kit for the same amount of resources. When I was a Novice, I'd be lucky to get 7 uses. That seems to me to be a real improvement, and I think that to have that level (or greater, hopefully) of depth in trap crafting would providean incentive to Scouts and Rangers to hang on to their trapping lines and consider them a real benefit.
For traps, I always (since Beta) wanted to see them work on NPCs and possibly even PCs (for PvP). Now, these wouldn't be ALL the traps, but a few of them would work. The traps the would work only on low intelligence creatures wouldn't work on humans of course. But the things like the glow juice trap that paints the target, I dont see why this can't be used against humanoids.
Camps are another issue. I've caught a bit of the thread about pulling mounts and such out without the camps. I really don't see this as an issue. As the camps are now, that's all they're usefull for. What's so special about this? It's more degrading that everyone that wants pets and can spend 15 skill points has novice scout. Someone asking me to drop a camp just so they can pull their pet out makes me feel used rather than helpful.
Being part medic, I have a medic droid, so it's drop camp, pull droid, destroy camp since droid is better than camp. Nerfing the droid isn't an option since that would affect DE's (and they need serious loving as it is).
So, for camps, make them a base of operations that will stay up through combat and me leaving it for 5 seconds. At least then, maybe they would useful to use for something other than pulling pets.
Thunderheart wrote:
Thats actually a painfully small amount of information. So much is left to interpretation that things you are thinking might be lost in translation. What I am hoping is that you and the Rifleman community puts together a strong document so that klaw can bring it to me an I can act on it...
Then offer what you think it means, so I can tell you if you got it or not. (OR, "What part of 'experiment on duration' didn't you understand?")
I don't know how you know I'm a rifle user 
, nor do I know how I can be any more clear in those suggestions. I'll try again though.
Effectiveness experimentation could operate exactly like a weaponsmith's accuracy experimentation. The values would range from -x to +y to be added to the roll 'to hit' for the state to stick. Pick some qualities for the components, perhaps OQ and SR, some values for x and y.
Duration experimentation would work like chef food or doc buffs. Again with a x minimum duration for a 0% experimented trap (crit fail) and y maximum. The current duration would be somewhere in between. Select x and y and component qualities - maybe OQ and durability this time - again.
Stack size experimentation would work exactly like stim charges. This time maybe OQ and UT for the qualities. The current default stack size would be somewhere between the minimum and maximum experimental values as above.
Finding values for the xs and ys is left as an exercise for the dev team.