Personally, I think you can't revamp Ranger unless Scout gets revamped at the same time. Why attempt to squeeze all these ideas in just the Ranger proffession when alot of should be used in scout instead. The way I think it should work is this. Scout is the proffession you should learn all the recon, stealth, survival, frontiering, exploration, tracking skills. Scouts should know all about living off the land and using recon skills like tracking while sneaking around the wilderness using camo and maskscent. Scouts, on the other hand don't know anything about traps, hunting, and animal biology. All they know how to do is aviod animals as they scout/recon. Rangers need scout as a pre-req. so they know all this scout/recon stuff already. Now they learn how to hunt these animals they've been avoiding as scouts and learn they're weekness. Rangers now learn how to use traps, and learn to be resistant to poison and disease. Basically scout is more Recon in nature with defensive skills to hide from animals whereas Rangers learn offensive skills to hunt the animals.
"Scout is the proffession you should learn all the recon, stealth, survival, frontiering, exploration, tracking skills"
Sorry but i hate this idea. Why go ranger when you get all those skills in a starting profession? I hate to sound sarcastic but wont it be fun everyone dabbling in scout to get our camps, our camo, our FORAGING!!! and our areatracking?
"Scouts, on the other hand don't know anything about traps, hunting, and animal biology" [Assuming ranger should get these]
So scouts become the stealthers, they become the survivalists, they become the trackers, they become the explorers and we become the most limited class in the game? No offense but that sucks big time. Creature centric is the worst and most limiting aspect about this profession, it keeps us from 80% of the content, limits our attractiveness to groups even moreso, reduces 150 skill points to a dead weight when fighting npcs and give us no involvement in the end/elder game (PvP).
How about scout stays as it is teaching basic understandings of:
- Stealth (mask scent)
- Intel Gathering (creature knowledge)
- Trapping
- Survival (foraging)
- Habbitat Engineering (camps)
- Exploration and Pathfinding (TN)
Then if you desire you take these concepts and move into a new profession, the ranger profession. This profession uses these basic concepts used in scout to base a solid and well defined profession on bringing them into the pvp and pvnpc environment.
Ranger developes into an advanced understanding of:
- Exploration and Pathfinding: Pathfinding (increased out of combat run speed), tracking, areatracking.
Id hate to see ranger stay as limited as it is, and even moreso if developed how you stated. This profession has to most potential out of any of the classes, yet has the least of this potential realised. This needs to change.
Again im sorry if my reply sounds harsh but i want ranger to move forward, something i (personally) dont think your suggestion does.
"Id hate to see ranger stay as limited as it is, and even moreso if developed how you stated. This profession has to most potential out of any of the classes, yet has the least of this potential realised. This needs to change.
Again im sorry if my reply sounds harsh but i want ranger to move forward, something i (personally) dont think your suggestion does."
Well I supose I could have flesed my idea out a little better for ranger. As a wrote it, I don't blame you for your reaction to it Owen. The idea was simply to aviod the "Super Scout" situation by continuing the same trees from scout. I'd rather get rid of most of the current ranger skills, increase the values of the scout skills and come up with 4 separate and unique skill trees for Ranger. I just didn't list the "new ones" in my post above, Just the ones that remained.
Ah i see. Yeah sorry for biting out its just i think this profession can be so much more, i dont like to think of things being taken away too much heh, even if we would still have them through scout.
Id hate to see ranger stay as limited as it is, and even moreso if developed how you stated. This profession has to most potential out of any of the classes, yet has the least of this potential realised. This needs to change.
We've had some great proposals in this 'ere forum in our time but I don't see any of them "moving us foward" in the direction I think any of us want - as in they don't move us on from what most of what we currently believe we deserve to be (not bashing those ideas they're great). Most of the stuff we want that sounds cool either:
treads dangerously close to squadleader territory
has little use outside of creature hunting
requires that SWG has some sort of "information" game (which currently it does not).
Personally I think the third point is the most important one to us. I really think we need to get together with the entertainers & smuggler communities and put together a plan for some sort of "information" game.
Personally I think the third point is the most important one to us. I really think we need to get together with the entertainers & smuggler communities and put together a plan for some sort of "information" game.
I'm curious... what kind of joint community information plan are you thinking of?
I'm curious... what kind of joint community information plan are you thinking of?
Rangers cannot be Rangers, in the sense of being a foward scout, with a mechanic to simulate that.
Anyone can walk upto an enemy base and say "here be an enemy base" and relay it to thier mates. Be nice if rangers could essentially put the co-ordinates of PvE & PvP enemy bases that they have scouted on factional terminals, or if neutral to sell to Jabba or Lady Valarian, so that the co-ordinates were avaliable for attack groups to find (only per planet tho).
The joint information thing was really to spread this to smugglers and entertainers so that we weren't the only group able to get this sort of information. They're side is a little more complicated tho.
Entertainers would have a chance, while dancing or playing for other players, of "co-ercing" information about bases they have placed. They can then either put this on the factional terminals or if neutral sell it to a smuggler to take to Jabba/Lady Valarian. Once an entertainer has co-reced this information no-one else can co-erce it from that player.
Smugglers (possibly with the underworld line) would be be the only ones who could move information from planet to planet as anyone else would get caught. Anyone can buy off Jabba or Lady Valarian but only smugglers can move it to tatooine from other planets.
Here's one of my oldie but goodie ideas for Ranger. Everyone hated it before but maybe I can finally sell it this time. How about we can change Ranger into "PARK RANGERS" ....tada!
Here are the highlights.
A specail building called a Ranger station that we can set up as home base on planets. Dabblers will have to come here to purchase a hunting license to hunt in the area.
Vehicles will need to be feuled at towns so they can run out of gas in the middle of the desert so Rangers will have something to rescue from the scary creatures.
Rangers can stop anyone hunting and scan their inventories to see if they have more then the legal amount of certain organic reasources. If excess is found, it will be conficated immediately...and their vehicles, weapons, and armor. Then we'll impose a big fine which they can pay at the Ranger station.
We can offer safaris and hunting trips where we'll teach land conservation and responsible hunting to noobs. These can be paid for at the ranger station.
We can all wear smokey the bear style rangers hats so we can be easily identified as a Park Ranger.
Cigarettes should be sold so brush fires can be started. (gives us something to do)
Be nice if rangers could essentially put the co-ordinates of PvE & PvP enemy bases that they have scouted on factional terminals, or if neutral to sell to Jabba or Lady Valarian, so that the co-ordinates were avaliable for attack groups to find (only per planet tho).
I never thought of that idea. I like it. Reporting waypoints to the faction terminals. I'd love to see something like that implemented.
Well tonights Dev discussion makes it clear they still forsee us as park rangers and with no possibility of fighting skills. So you might as well stop posting all the things about wanting Rangers to be anything to do with fighting. They are not going to do it, thus we will not be a part of the GCW as far as they are concerned. So we need to discuss what we can be without any thought of the devs ever changing since it is obvious they have no concept of what a Ranger really is outside of park setting. They right us up as the greatest hunters in the universe but that certainly isn't the case unless you are willing to put lots of SP into a third master after you have already mastered scout and ranger. They only have one concept of what a ranger is, and it has nothing to do with killing, and that includes animals. They know if they really made us the best hunters in the game with the ability to take down the meanest nastiest creatures they would have a severe problem because we then would have the ability to take out any other so-called military professional, so they really can't make us powerful hunters either, unless they come up with the lame system of you can kill animals no matter how powerful and dangerous they are, but you can't kill NPCs or players. Yeah like that makes a lot of sense. It is also clear from this discussion they have no idea how to integrate us into the GCW in any way that is meaningful because they are still trying to figure out a way to do it. So it is going to be a long time before they are going to be able to do this because we don't have any priority in their minds.
The one creature they revealed in the new RotW expansion is a tree walking Bantha who isn't wooly. That has to be on heck of tree that can sustain an animal the size and mass of Bantha and it doesn't break the limb off from it shear size and weight and come crashing down to the ground. They did say they were planning at least 10 new creatures and that ones on of them. Well it isn't a new creature it is a variation on a current creature. Just like the new ones that just came out are not original at all. Yeah it is nice that they are in new places but they really are not new, they are simply variations of existing animals and in some cases the only real difference is size or age.
I hope they will be a little more original with the other creatures they are hoping to present on this new planet.
The comment in the dev chat should NOT be taken as a reason to stop thinking we will get GCW viability. In our current state we dont fit a GCW role, just like the dev said. However seeing as though our revamp hasnt been designed yet and most of the devs arnt even aware of our primary issue then i see no reason what so ever that we couldnt get GCW viability in the future.
It was sort of a weak answer and not even aimed towards ranger, it was addressing all the non-combat proffessions too.
I say dont get your heads down, this doesnt mean alot at all.
The one creature they revealed in the new RotW expansion is a tree walking Bantha who isn't wooly. That has to be on heck of tree that can sustain an animal the size and mass of Bantha and it doesn't break the limb off from it shear size and weight and come crashing down to the ground.
The giant wroshyr (sp?) trees of kashyyyk grow to be several kilometres tall and can contain wookiee communitees of several hundred thousan wookiee per tree. (EU) It's a BIG tree.
They did say they were planning at least 10 new creatures and that ones on of them. Well it isn't a new creature it is a variation on a current creature. Just like the new ones that just came out are not original at all. Yeah it is nice that they are in new places but they really are not new, they are simply variations of existing animals and in some cases the only real difference is size or age.
They will use the same, or v similar artwork for different creatures, tag them with different names, different resists and behaviours. That reduces the size of artwork files that need to be downloaded to each and every player and also helps cut down, a little, on server loads. It's a trade off between 'reality' and efficiency and is common in pretty much all games where there is a lot of content.
A variation on an existing creature, if it is not already in game, is new material whatever way you look at it.
I hope they will be a little more original with the other creatures they are hoping to present on this new planet.
Let's wait and see, eh? You might be pleasantly surprised.
"The comment in the dev chat should NOT be taken as a reason to stop thinking we will get GCW viability. In our current state we dont fit a GCW role, just like the dev said. However seeing as though our revamp hasnt been designed yet and most of the devs arnt even aware of our primary issue then i see no reason what so ever that we couldnt get GCW viability in the future.
It was sort of a weak answer and not even aimed towards ranger, it was addressing all the non-combat proffessions too.
I say dont get your heads down, this doesnt mean alot at all."
Thanks Owen-Lars, I appriciate your encouragment. I not going to hold my breath, but it is good to hear that it isn't totally a non-possibility. I was pretty discouraged by their comments I must admit. I got over it, I just had to blow steam.
It is inconcievable to me that anyone can have the concept that even a scout is a none combatant when if you know anything about military history, you know that scouts have always been a vital part of military capabilities and special forces (not just commandos) of all kinds of variety have been used by militaries through out history. Yes they haven't always been called commandos or rangers, but the concept is very much there. The same actually is true in the case of Creature Handlers. Althrough history they have been vital special forces that have often tilted the tide of battles and sometimes wars, and this is obviously a deep part of Star Wars from just the movies alone. I guess you could say the same for DE's who can't make battle droids and sell them or program them for special situations in warfare, and yet it is very clear that these people had crucial impact on the Star Wars universe. Cloning is a major theme in the present tide of Star Wars history and not just animal cloning.
We all hear more and more about how much they want us all to be important and ingrafted into the GCW, but then we see and hear comments like this and it is as if they one spokesperson never communicates with the other spokesperson. It is important if they want all players and all professions to be more involved in the GCW, including civilians which can take a more neutral stance, that they stop thinking of any profession as non-military. Even you merchants are vital to warfare directly not just indirectly. If they were aligned with say the Empire they could be vital to make and collecting materials for all kinds of equipment and bots that would sustain the Imperial forces, if Rebel then for them to remain viable.
There is just so much possibilities for this game, we all, they included, get frustrated that we are not closer yet to that ideal.
The giant wroshyr (sp?) trees of kashyyyk grow to be several kilometres tall and can contain wookiee communitees of several hundred thousan wookiee per tree. (EU) It's a BIG tree.
I am very aware of the size of the trees, but trying to get an elephant up a tree and not have it do damage is quite a trick. I am sure you are aware of the size and mass of a Bantha, and there wasn't any comment that stated they were pigmy Bantha's. Then add the anatomical make of a Bantha it is definitely not designed for climbing trees even with neat nifty little claws on their toes.
They will use the same, or v similar artwork for different creatures, tag them with different names, different resists and behaviours. That reduces the size of artwork files that need to be downloaded to each and every player and also helps cut down, a little, on server loads. It's a trade off between 'reality' and efficiency and is common in pretty much all games where there is a lot of content.
A variation on an existing creature, if it is not already in game, is new material whatever way you look at it.
I understand the reason for trying not to do a lot of new stuff, but this is a totally new planet which is a totally new design, with totally new vegatation, city, camp graphics, and other art work and animations for them. So it is not unreasonable to desire to see a little broader creativity in the animals.
Let's wait and see, eh? You might be pleasantly surprised.
I am obviously willing to wait an see since I am excitted about this expansion, but the last new batch of animals you can't possibly think were creative in anyway other than possibly size differentiations. At least I am assuming as a ranger you have gone out looking for them already, and know what they look like and how they differ from what is out there already. I like the new size changes, and added different names, but beyond this very little is different other than possibly location.
let's remember folks-- there are several layers of the trees according to what we know about the planet. They may or may not code it such that there are several levels. The Bantha may live in the shadowlands.
PHE'NIX ANTARUS BOTHAN ELDER RANGER BEST LOOKING SPY EVER --FOUNDER OF SATGWNIWNU BURNING H*TPANTS SINCE 2003
This is horrible! I return to find my new title on the forum is "Jedi". What's up with that? If they wanted to confer that I'm rare and learned, they'd make my title RANGER. and then make it camo colored.
Here's one of my oldie but goodie ideas for Ranger. Everyone hated it before but maybe I can finally sell it this time. How about we can change Ranger into "PARK RANGERS" ....tada!
