"All the skills I get as Rifle are extensions (improvements) of the basis laid down by the Marksman skills that I have to get beforehand"
They arnt though, thats what im telling you. You learn to use a rifle yet can become a machine gunner, an anti-snipe specialist IF you go rifleman. Where did you get these skills from becuase they definatly didnt come from marksman.
If by your points you can only have improvements over your base skills then riflemen could only snipe, not counter-snipe, not machine gun, not develope into 2 of their main roles.
Anti-snipe and machine gunning are two unique roles that are not based on the skills you get in marksman, the are for rifleman only. Yes they use rifles but rangers still use traps (our weapon) and in the same way you use rifles (me too im a rifleman) we use traps in the recon set up, nothing has changed, only developed.
Please stop thinking of scout based professions as only creature orientated. Its like saying just because you learnt to shoot a bow against a target means you cannot shoot it at a person. CH's got it right, in their set up, scout skills are based around understanding attacks, understanding the behavior or creatures, they went into using creatures as their weapon against PLAYERS and NPCs. By your assumption this is either a mistake or an exception to the rule, both of which i would argue.
Rangers should also branch off in a similar way. Where CH's developed their scout skills to favour creature weapons and combat, rangers develope the survival, stealth, exploration, combat skills, trapping and support ideas into a profession of its own. If anything ranger should have much greater choice about it's direction because it covers so many areas.
Rangers 'shouldnt' be creature only, it shouldnt even come to mind when thinking about what a ranger should do. If you spent years mastering the arts of scout then its obvious to me you would take what you like and develope a profession in its own right, in this case moving your skills (hunting, trapping, survival, exploration, stealth) away from creature only combat into something that for one has greater range and secondly opens up potential for GCW applications. You should take the main qualities and develope them, not take the creature qualities and develope them.
I think the reason Recon was picked was to open up eyes to new possibilities for the Ranger profession. Possibilities that will allow us to fufill the roles we always expected to fill... but that never actually came to fruition (yet!). As a shock tactic I have no problem with the title - I don't THINK we are suggesting it actually appear in the tree (I'll have to look back over all the tier name suggestions). It is just the role we are presenting to the Devs in this document. The true role of Ranger will always be "Ranger." Before that is true, however, we need to get our skills to encompass everything "Ranger" should enable us to do. Which is be useful not only to hunt animal, kill animal, harvest animal - but also in group play, and in PvP and the GCW as a support/enhancement to our combat profession (or on its own if you have no desire to be offensive).
Paks Master Ranger/MasterCreature Handler -I support ATK play
I think the argument here has shifted more along the lines of defining military. In my eyes, this is the GCW its a damn war, you fight with the skills you have learnt. As a doc i can heal in combat, therefore i am a combat class, therefore if i participate for a side in the GCW i am a military unit. Now think to the future, i can sneak around and ambush, therefore i am a combat class, therefore if i participate for a side in the gcw i am i military unit.
Being in the military does not make one a combat class. In the present military (RL) two thirds of the forces are support. Thats logistics, medics, cooks, etc. They participate in the war but their MOS is not a combat MOS. Being in the military does not make one a combat class.
Military means Soldiers, Armies or War. By soldiers you can include militia, mercinaries, militants. They are all and of the same thing.
If i were a Ranger and fightig for the rebel force i would be a military unit, i would be fighting for an army, a side in the war a cause. If i were a ranger fightig for myself then i would be fighting for a cause, therefore i am a soldier and a military unit.
Yes. But you are making the incorrect assumption that your Ranger identity is dependent on being in said military. A Ranger is a hunter. There are hunters in the military. However that is seperate from their military identity.
In a game focused around war ANYTHING and ANYONE can be classed as a military unit so could we please stop using it as an excuse to not have recon as a role?
The GCW is just a small part. Both in game and in the movies, those involved in the GCW was a very small percentage of the overall population.
Recon role can be justified from scout skills, being military in nature has nothing to do with it. Advancing upon skills we already have and developing a new area of scouting not only seems justified but also what you would expect with developing the skills we gained at scout.
But you aren't advancing on skills you already have. Stealth isn't a Recon skill. If anything Tracking would be. Recon is about gathering information on the target. Tracking does that. It provides numbers, distance, and direction.
Could you please stop using military as a discussion point please because it doesnt make sense. EVERYONE in the game CAN be military if they want. Even Riflemen arnt military unless they join the GCW or fight for their own cause. Ranger is no different, nor any other profession in game.
Recon is going to even be our name, so why is this even an issue. We are developing skills the go of scout that enable us to fit into a recon role if we want, thats it, no other meaning to it.
ok, I could go point-by-point but here is the bottom line: Make us as usefull as doctors, the pattern of our skills are mirror images. Do not do that and I leave. Docs have PvP value, so should we. End of story. Probably not of the debate, but should be. Now, to DO that we are going to have to have some combat value inserted, and the most Ranger-ish would be recon and/or stealth in PvP. Watering us down to glorified crafters and less then adiquate hunters is not going to do this profession justice.
Message Edited by Fred_Skinner on 12-23-200402:56 PM
Frederick Skinner Antarian Ranger, Ranger(0030), Master Rifleman, CH(4214) Ranger is not a profession. It's a lifestyle.
A Ranger is a hunter. That is just one of our many possible applications. It has become our main focus by default over time because tracking/harvesting is our one really useful skill. Now that our revamp is approaching we have a chance to open it up and encompass other aspects of the game. Woot! Finally!
Paks Master Ranger/MasterCreature Handler -I support ATK play
First Rifleman aren't really Snipers. Which also means they aren't Counter-Snipers. They are Gunners.
Rifle skills are extensions of the base skills because they based on the early Rifle using abilities. They are expansions on that premise of Rifle skills. Rifles have no skills that aren't Rifle based.
Ranger skills by the same need to be extensions of those base skills. They can be large extensions. But you should be able to trace their roots back to the base skills.
No Rangers should be creature only. But their PvP abilities should be able to trace their roots back to the base skills. You can trace a PvP trap back to the fact they have trap skills from Scout (and Ranger). You are extending the application of those traps. But they are based on that earlier base.
Camo is an extension of their Stealth abilities as shown by MaskScent.
The Recon you are talking about is a military application that can't really trace back to a base skill as an extension. The closest would be Tracking. Which does provide Recon in that it gives you intel. It provides numbers, direction, and distance.
But you are saying Recon is ability Stealth. It isn't. It's about Tracking. And that already provides the Recon.
Fred_Skinner wrote: ok, I could go point-by-point but here is the bottom line: Make us as usefull as doctors, the pattern of our skills are mirror images. Do not do that and I leave. Docs have PvP value, so should we. End of story. Probably not of the debate, but should be. Now, to DO that we are going to have to have some combat value inserted, and the most Ranger-ish would be recon and/or stealth in PvP. Watering us down to glorified crafters and less then adiquate hunters is not going to do this profession justice.
Fred,
Not disagreeing. I don't think the primary role of Rangers should be Recon however. That may be an aspect, but not the main role.
"They participate in the war but their MOS is not a combat MOS. Being in the military does not make one a combat class"
Erm Medics are noncoms?
My point was that when you are saying recon is military, that every other profession in the game could be classed as military. Being a ranger isnt going to force you into the gcw, just give you options to participate if you want to (afterall its the end game). Recon is simply an area of ranger that developes into most of the scout and ranger areas we already have, so it naturaly becomes the primary role. Not because every ranger will only have recon skills but because alot of our skills can let us play into the recon role more effectivelly.
Ok i hate nitpicking posts but:
"A Ranger is a hunter"
No hunting is 1 tier based of another SINGLE tier. If rangers were hunters then we would only have one tier pre-req (hunting). Problem is most people think we are hunters because its one of our only functional tiers.
"The GCW is just a small part. Both in game and in the movies, those involved in the GCW was a very small percentage of the overall population"
the population fighting for imps or rebs in the films could of been low, but it involved EVERYONE. And this is kinda the opposite of what the community has be demmanding for so long (hense the crackdown and the GCW revamp). The GCW in the films wasnt a small part, its was EVERY part. You didnt have to pick a side but you where in it. Yes you should be given this choice, im not saying you shouldnt but it should be a large part of the game and most likely will.
"Stealth isn't a Recon skill. If anything Tracking would be. Recon is about gathering information on the target. Tracking does that. It provides numbers, distance, and direction"
What type of recon unit cannot sneak around, go unnoticed etc. to me this is part and parcel of what a recon unit it. the ability to gather intel without being seen/caugh. And most definatly in a military sense. What governments do you know that would allow everyday soldier in to look at their strike capabilities? NONE. Recon specialists are trained to not be caught, to reduced the chances of being caught. Stealth is very much a large part of recon.
I supose the main point here is that rangers will be rangers. Recon skills will not force them into the gcw, nor will they force them into pvp/pve combat. They will develope our skills into pvp usable, pvp functional and let us experience alot more of what the game has to offer.
Camo is an extension of their Stealth abilities as shown by MaskScent.
When this works in PvP, THEN we have equity. The rest of your arguements will not change us... and that is the problem. The "Super Scout" think has ALWAYS been the problem and most who played a Ranger has expected more from this profession (they usually leave after they figure it out). We compare directly with Doctor. Do you think of them as Super Medic?
If the tie to scouts is a problem, perhaps they should also be revisited till the final progressions do make sense. Why should we leave the current definition of scout and/or ranger alone anyway? It sure is weak as is. I want the 140 point use justified. I want folks to need a ranger as much as a doctor. Is that really so hard?
Frederick Skinner Antarian Ranger, Ranger(0030), Master Rifleman, CH(4214) Ranger is not a profession. It's a lifestyle.
Vorpaks wrote: A Ranger is a hunter. That is just one of our many possible applications. It has become our main focus by default over time because tracking/harvesting is our one really useful skill. Now that our revamp is approaching we have a chance to open it up and encompass other aspects of the game. Woot! Finally!
It's the main focus not only because of those two skills. But all the skills really point to that role as the MAIN one. Using camps allows you to heal in the wild without returning to town. That is a hunter type skill.
That should remain the main role. Rangers definately need help in making that role more useful and successful. Nor does that mean that can't also have skills that would work in PvP such as Stealth or Traps that work on PCs.
Making those hunting skills more versatile would open up others aspects as you state. But they would still be extensions of those hunting skills.
I see Rangers and BH as mirror images in some regards. BH are the hunters of people. But they have skills from that that can be useful against creatures. By the same, Rangers are the hunters of creatures, and some of their skills should be useful against NPC/PCs.
Waste, the role will be ranger, clear and simple. It always will be. The roles you see are developement roles, simply ideas that people should focus around to develope ideas in all aspects of the new ranger.
Dont think that rangers can only be recon specialist, we wont be, but it is something we should be hinting at all throughout our profession.
Would you expect BH to only be albe to weild carbines? Doctors only be able to diagnose people?
The answer is no. Scout is not just about hunting creatures, creature only combat is harsh for a basic profession, ten times more for an elite profession and even more harsh for an elite profession requiring the complete mastery of another profession in pre-reqs.
The skills you learn in scout:
Exploration
Hunting (the only area imo that justifies being creature only)
Trapping
Camping
Survival
Basic Stealth
1 area of a proffesion that needs to be creature only dictates the functions of the whole profession, this is wrong. Dont take all of these and make an elite profession based on only one of them. Make a profession taking them all into account, but most importantly moving off in their own direction. Creature only combat is the 1st thing that should go, its rediculous that a profession (let along an elite proffesion) can only hunt creatures.
Waste, the role will be ranger, clear and simple. It always will be. The roles you see are developement roles, simply ideas that people should focus around to develope ideas in all aspects of the new ranger.
Dont think that rangers can only be recon specialist, we wont be, but it is something we should be hinting at all throughout our profession.
That's fine. However you had Recon listed as the primary role. And to me a primary role is the main focus of the profession with the other skills devolving from there. Which is why I suggested 'Survivalist' as a better term as the main role with Recon as a branch from it. Our disagreement is mostly semantic. It's about the meaning of words.
I can understand why some may find 'Survivalist' offensive. So we can find another word. But Recon doesn't seem appropriate as the primary role defining term.
We are agreeing here. I don't think Ranger should be only creature interactions. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't or couldn't be the primary function.
In a game like this it makes sense to have a profession that is primarily about creature interactions (hunting, tracking, harvesting, etc). Based on the large amount of creatures and how common this type of combat is, it makes perfect sense.
But like you said. That doesn't mean that is their only scenario their abilities work in. PvP traps and stealth make perfect sense. But those are secondary abilities devolved from their primary focus.
