Major Ideas for Scout & Ranger

Major Ideas for Scout & Ranger
This idea/suggestion is Open. You can respond to ask questions or discuss the idea and either vote it up or down if you believe it should or should not be implemented, respectively. Popular suggestions and ideas will be considered by the development team to become reality in-game.
Proposal
These are the suggestions I propose to add and change the scout & ranger class.

Scout

Novice Scout
Melee Defense +10
Ranged Defense +10
Trapping +10
Camping +10
Creature Knowledge +10
Creature Harvesting +10
Terrain Negotiation +5

Exploration I
Terrain Negotiation +5
Burst Run Efficiency +5
Movement Rate +1
Exploration II
Terrain Negotiation +5
Burst Run Efficiency +5
Movement Rate +1
Exploration III
Terrain Negotiation +10
Burst Run Efficiency +10
Movement Rate +1
Exploration IV
Terrain Negotiation +20
Burst Run Efficiency +20
Movement Rate +2

The exploration line of scout becomes a mini version of the squad leader movement speed buff, it is now a great line for Bounty Hunters to take and does not feel like a waste of points. Movement Rate is a new statistic that increases movement speed by 1% per 1 point, so having Exploration IV means you move 5% faster by base. This is great for Bounty Hunters and people who have to move around.

The new trapping line.

Trapping I
Trapping Efficiency +5
Abilities: Tangle Net
Effect: A trap that is used to lower the target's movement speed and knockdown resistance.
Trapping II
Trapping Efficiency +5
General Ranged Accuracy +5
Melee Defense +5
Trapping II
Trapping Efficiency +5
General Melee Accuracy +5
Ranged Defense +5

Trapping IV
Trapping Efficiency +5
Abilities: Improved Tangle Net
Effect: A trap that is used to lower the target's movement speed and knockdown resistance. This upgrade increases the radius of Tangle Net and has a small chance to knockdown.

Trapping Efficiency is a new statistic name that now similar to Bio-Suppression Efficiency from CM. It improves the overall de-buff effects of all traps.

New Hunting Line

Hunting I
DNA Harvesting +20
Creature Knowledge +10
Creature Harvesting +10
General Ranged Accuracy +5
General Melee Accuracy +5
Hunting II
DNA Harvesting +20
Creature Knowledge +25
Creature Harvesting +15
Abilities: Camouflage
Effect: Hides your character on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you per se, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect.
Costs: Heavy Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds until it runs out.
Hunting III
DNA Harvesting +20
Creature Knowledge +10
Creature Harvesting +10
General Ranged Accuracy +5
General Melee Accuracy +5
Hunting IV
DNA Harvesting +20
Creature Knowledge +10
Creature Harvesting +10
Abilities: Improved Camouflage
Effect: Hides your character on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you per se, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect. This version has decreased detection rating.
Costs: Medium Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds until it runs out.

As you can see, so far it is a total revamp, the idea is to add both unique and fun effects to all the lines. I even considered moving class requirements around to more use these trees.

New Survival Line

Survival I
Bonus Elemental Armor: +50
Poison Resistance +10
Bleeding Resistance +5
Disease Resistance +5
Camping +15
Survival I
Bonus Elemental Armor: +100
Poison Absorption +10
Bleeding Absorption +5
Disease Absorption +5
Camping +20
Survival III
Bonus Elemental Armor: +150
Camping +20
Fire Resistance +10
Bleed Resistance +5
Disease Resistance +5
Camping +20
Survival IV
Bonus Elemental Armor: +200
Fire Absorption +10
Bleed Absorption +5
Disease Absorption +5
Camping +20

Master Scout
Terrain Negotiation +10
Trapping Efficiency +10
Burst Run Efficiency +10
Creature Harvesting +10
Movement Rate +5
DNA Harvesting +20
Camping +15
Abilities: Advanced Camouflage
Effect: Hides your character, mount, and vehicle on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you per se, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect. This version has decreased detection rating and allows you to attack in combat without it breaking. This version can be used riding a mount or vehicle.
Costs: Small Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds until it runs out.

This is one of the most boring lines ever made, and I still am surprised it exists. This revamp changes it completely and makes it at least viable. Survival provides natural resistances to things you would find in the environment. I was also going to suggest Commando have it's requirements changed to this line from Brawler. This line passively reduces the damage taken from dots and other harsh environment effects. In addition, this line also provides additional armor against elemental damage.

These are the suggestions for ranger.

RANGER
Ranger has gone a full revamp, instead of being a poor class that sets camps it has now advanced combat skills. Ranger now requires x44x Scout.

Novice Ranger
General Ranged Accuracy +10
General Ranged Speed +10
General Melee Accuracy +10
General Melee Speed +10
Ranged Defense +10
Melee Defense +10
Trapping Efficiency +10
Guerilla Warfare +10
Abilities: Advanced Tangle Net
Effect: A trap that is used to lower the target's movement speed and knockdown resistance. This upgrade increases the radius of Tangle Net more and has a bigger chance to knockdown.
Hiding & Concealment I
General Ranged Accuracy +5
Abilities: Camouflage Group
Effect: Hides you and any grouped character near you on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you persay, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect. This also adds small amounts of bushes around you to help conceal you and your group.
Costs: Heavy Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds.
Hiding & Concealment II
General Ranged Accuracy +5
Melee Defense +5
Abilities: Ambush
Effect: This is a special ranged attack that deals damage and camouflages you for a short period, this special version of camouflage makes you like predator (can see, still target but much harder to see) and drops the enemy's target from you, so the enemy has to manually click you again. Shares a cooldown with Assassinate.
Hiding & Concealment III
General Ranged Accuracy +10
Abilities: Improved Camouflage Group
Effect: Hides you and any grouped character near you on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you persay, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect. This also adds small amounts of bushes around you to help conceal you and your group.
Costs: Medium Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds.
Hiding & Concealment IV
General Ranged Accuracy +15
Melee Defense +5
Abilities: Improved Ambush
Effect: This is a special ranged attack that deals damage and camouflages you for a short period, this special version of camouflage makes you like predator (can see, still target but much harder to see) and drops the enemy's target from you, so the enemy has to manually click you again. This version deals more damage and lasts 1 second longer. Shares a cooldown with Assassinate.

As you can see, the concealment line is all about well, concealment. It is mostly for ranged attacks and the ranged part of the line.

Stealth Line

Stealth & Subterfuge I
General Melee Accuracy +5
Stealth +5
Abilities: Stealth
Effect: NGE Stealth from the Spy profession. Your movement speed is lowered by 50%, and you cannot use this ability near any entity. Any damage recieved or attacking breaks it.
Costs: Large Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds. Unlike Camouflage, tab targeting and /target CAN target you, and you are not hidden on the map. The idea is to use both camouflage and stealth, stealth is more for sneaking in after you get closer with camouflage.
Stealth & Subterfuge II
General Melee Accuracy +5
Stealth +5
Slicing: Terminals (Or GCW Bases)
Abilities: Paralyze Dart
Effect: Paralyzes the target in a daze for a long period, they can't do anything, but any damage breaks this effect. Lasts 15 seconds, and CAN be used in stealth.
Stealth & Subterfuge III
General Melee Accuracy +10
Ranged Defense +10
Stealth +10
Abilities: Improved Stealth
Effect: NGE Stealth from the Spy profession. Your movement speed is lowered by 33%, and you cannot use this ability near any entity. Any damage recieved or attacking breaks it. Unlike Camouflage, tab targeting and /target CAN target you, and you are not hidden on the map.
Costs: Medium Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds.
Stealth & Subterfuge IV
General Melee Accuracy +15
Abilities: Assassinate
Effect: A very damage high melee attack that deals damage and bleeds the target, must be camouflaged or in stealth to use, can be used not in stealth but deals half the damage. Shares a cooldown with Ambush.
Secondary Effect: Surprised! (cannot use stims or heal for 10 seconds, only works when activating from stealth.)

This was fun to design and come up with concepts for, and I love the idea of a ranger sneaking up and gutting someone, or paralyzing someone who wasn't paying attention to get around or shut down a base.

This is the next line.

Anti-Personal Devices & Traps I
Melee Defense +5
Guerilla Warfare +10
Abilities: Spike Trap
Effect: A trap that causes damage to both the health and mind pool when standing in it, and slows the target, and is similar to tangle bomb from NGE Bounty Hunter. This ability costs mind to use, instead of action.
Anti-Personal Devices & Traps II
Ranged Defense +5
Guerilla Warfare +15
Abilities: Razor Net
Effect: A trap that causes heavy bleeding and slows the target, and is similar to the trap from NGE Bounty Hunter. This ability costs mind to use, instead of action. shares a cooldown with Tangle Net.
Anti-Personal Devices & Traps III
Melee Defense +5
Guerilla Warfare +20
Abilities: Improved Spike Trap
Effect: A trap that causes damage to both the health and mind pool when standing in it, and slows the target, and is similar to tangle bomb from NGE Bounty Hunter. This ability costs mind to use, instead of action.
Anti-Personal Devices & Traps IV
Ranged Defense +5
Guerilla Warfare +20
Abilities: Improved Razor Net
Effect: A trap that causes even more bleeding damage and slows the target, and is similar to the trap from NGE Bounty Hunter, this version also lowers the target's bleed absorption. This ability costs mind to use, instead of action. shares a cooldown with Tangle Net.

Guerilla Warfare is a new statistic that works similar to Medical Warfare Efficiency. It improves the damage over time effects of all traps significantly. This line is very fun and shares similarities to other classes.

And finally...

Pursuit & Countermeasures I
Trapping Efficiency +10
Movement Rate +1
General Ranged Speed +5
General Melee Speed +5
Abilities: Detect Camouflage
Effects: Detect Camouflage This skill allows you discover hidden people and objects in your immediate area
Pursuit & Countermeasures II
Trapping Efficiency +10
Movement Rate +1
General Ranged Speed +5
General Melee Speed +5
Ranged Defense +5
Melee Defense +5
Abilities: Decoy
Effects: Produces a decoy character that looks exactly like you and deals no damage, giving you a special stealth that lasts 2 seconds.
If you hold ranged: it runs opposite of you and fires at the target.
If you hold melee: it runs towards the target and attacks them.
Pursuit & Countermeasures III
Trapping Efficiency +10
Movement Rate +1
General Ranged Speed +5
General Melee Speed +5
Abilities: Improved Detect Camouflage
Effects: Detect Camouflage This skill allows you discover hidden people and objects in a wider area.
Pursuit & Countermeasures IV
Trapping Efficiency +10
Movement Rate +2
General Ranged Speed +10
General Melee Speed +10
Abilities: Improved Decoy
Effects: Produces a decoy character that looks exactly like you and deals no damage, giving you a special stealth that lasts 3 seconds.
If you hold ranged: it runs opposite of you and fires at the target.
If you hold melee: it runs towards the target and attacks them.

I took tons of inspiration from different sources, for example this took inspiration from the mesmer class in gw2.

Now to Master Ranger. Finally. I can sleep soon.

Master Ranger
General Ranged Accuracy +10
General Ranged Speed +15
General Melee Accuracy +10
General Melee Speed +15
Ranged Defense +15
Melee Defense +15
Trapping Efficiency +20
Guerilla Warfare +75
Movement Rate +5
Abilities: Advanced Decoy
Effects: Produces a decoy character that looks exactly like you and deals auto-attack damage, giving you a special stealth that lasts 4 seconds.
If you hold ranged: it runs opposite of you and fires at the target.
If you hold melee: it runs towards the target and attacks them.
Abilities: Advanced Stealth
Effect: NGE Stealth from the Spy profession. Your movement speed is lowered by 25%, and you cannot use this ability near any entity. Any damage recieved or attacking breaks it. Unlike Camouflage, tab targeting and /target CAN target you, and you are not hidden on the map.
Costs: Small Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds.
Abilities: Advanced Camouflage Group
Effect: Hides you and any grouped character near you on the map, masks your scent from aggressive creatures for a short time and makes you translucent and harder to see. Does not stealth you persay, but also removes your name. In addition, the /target command also does not work on you. Breaks when you attack or in combat. This also works for humanoids as it makes you harder to detect. This also adds small amounts of bushes around you to help conceal you and your group.
Costs: Small Mind Pool Drain; it drains slowly every 3 seconds.
This was a literal nightmare to come up with ideas, but I hope that these will inspire senators and devs alike with a flame of inspiration.
Justification
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Now that I am more awake and got sleep, I will say that the skills and Ranger itself has never been on-par with any class. When designing these abilities I took great care to think of how they would affect the game and other classes. If you notice they have certain effects that go against the meta to further add to gameplay and make it fun to play but also not frustrating and seemingly un-killable like spies in NGE.

Why is Stealth and Camouflage different?
- Stealth is vision invisibility but does not prevent them from being targeted and found or even spotted on the map. Think of this like predator, you can "barely" see them and only see a small shimmer if they are moving.
- Camouflage is radar, tab targeting, /targeting prevention. You can still target someone manually and can still see them (though they are just a little harder to see (think of what players see if they used stealth in NGE)

When I played spy and used it, if you use your brain your pretty much impossible to take down. With the reduced TTK ratio of restoration Stealth on it's own would be too powerful, thus the need to separate it. By doing this you add more counterplay as well and add more fun to the game.

Why Ambush and Decoy?
Mesmer ability, loved Mesmer, loved gw2 before they fired all the original combat developers.

Why Assassinate?
I loved operative in SWTOR, this ability functions like it. Leaving an enemy surprised is also a unique effect I came up with today.

TL;DR version is Ranger needs a ton of help. These are merely suggestions as I said, and pointed out. I started typing this up at 11 and it's almost 4 am, so have a good night.
_
Motivation
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Over the past few days I have seen many suggestions but I thought it would be a great idea to not only put my own suggestions but many i've seen thrown around the channels. These are suggestions not only to make Scout and Ranger feel like their own class, but suggest balance improvements overall for the entire game. As usual, I will go over these changes mechanically. These changes make the scout lines more combat-focused like other professions.
 
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Lot of good potential options here, and a very large amount of information.

Personally I don't agree with any form of stealth being in the scout tree, as a basic profession. If they go the stealth route, I think that should all be in the Ranger tree, to keep it unique to ranger.

Giving some utility like the move speed buff in the SL line of scout is some potential, but what you described can potentially be pretty strong. But I do agree there needs to be a change, as right now the only reason to have the tree is to get SL, or going for Ranger.

Personally, I'd love to see some kind of symbiotic relationship with camps for ranger, without being a detriment to architect. I believe in discord the idea of camps vs "outposts," was an idea. With outposts being the architect camps as they are bigger, more equip, etc.

I do also agree with Ranger getting stats for both melee and range given it a hybrid feel that I think is warranted. It also makes builds a lot easier because of the inherent nature of the heavy point investment that ranger is.
 
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as a general note we try to stick to one idea per player voice; we're pretty aligned on the concepts of what Ranger will be, that is, focused on camouflage/stealth, subterfuge, traps, gorilla warfare, etc - we'll be sharing a dev diary in probably March or April about what to expect with Ranger
 
Lot of good potential options here, and a very large amount of information.

Personally I don't agree with any form of stealth being in the scout tree, as a basic profession. If they go the stealth route, I think that should all be in the Ranger tree, to keep it unique to ranger.

Giving some utility like the move speed buff in the SL line of scout is some potential, but what you described can potentially be pretty strong. But I do agree there needs to be a change, as right now the only reason to have the tree is to get SL, or going for Ranger.

Personally, I'd love to see some kind of symbiotic relationship with camps for ranger, without being a detriment to architect. I believe in discord the idea of camps vs "outposts," was an idea. With outposts being the architect camps as they are bigger, more equip, etc.

I do also agree with Ranger getting stats for both melee and range given it a hybrid feel that I think is warranted. It also makes builds a lot easier because of the inherent nature of the heavy point investment that ranger is.
I can understand movement rate seemingly too powerful but you have to understand I use relative balance when I create things. For example, 4xxx scout should be similar power to 4xxx brawler. I feel that 4xxx brawler, because it has CoB and a bunch of ranged, melee and defense with your weapon that even though this *seems* much more powerful, it isn't. This is because I compared this ability to the squad leader's mobility which is compared to the squad leader's defensive buff. Mind you, relative balance wise... this is actually a lot worse still due to just how powerful brawler can be.

I want to play a Bounty Hunter, but I hate it when classes and skills are just not fun, and not only not fun just feels like a waste of points. I also disagree that scout not get camouflage because camouflage isn't stealth, rangers get stealth but scouts can and should get the option to be able to camouflage because that adds more fun to lower level characters. I dislike the idea of the game starting only at higher levels as that is the bane to many MMOs. The scout tree should provide a test course to the profession you are playing especially if it the only line that leads to it. There is a reason why more successful MMOs like FF14 give a lot of starting cool abilities early so that people can learn and play them, its a change I think was better for the style of game.

The survivor line is an interesting one because it was pretty useless before, by adding something unique to the class and honestly if you look at the numbers on TC its about 20 damage off all the dots, which isn't much considering the damage still even after the nerf. The elemental armor bonus is akin to less then 1.5% extra damage reduction on basic armor, it really looks bigger than it actually is.

You may already know all this, but this is also an explanation for others too. It is why I also wanted to push the requirements to commando being xxx4 scout instead of 4xxx brawler, due to the class identity the developers have and want for them. "Survivor" line sounds very commando.
 
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I can understand movement rate seemingly too powerful but you have to understand I use relative balance when I create things. For example, 4xxx scout should be similar power to 4xxx brawler. I feel that 4xxx brawler, because it has CoB and a bunch of ranged, melee and defense with your weapon that even though this *seems* much more powerful, it isn't. This is because I compared this ability to the squad leader's mobility which is compared to the squad leader's defensive buff. Mind you, relative balance wise... this is actually a lot worse still due to just how powerful brawler can be.

I want to play a Bounty Hunter, but I hate it when classes and skills are just not fun, and not only not fun just feels like a waste of points. I also disagree that scout not get camouflage because camouflage isn't stealth, rangers get stealth but scouts can and should get the option to be able to camouflage because that adds more fun to lower level characters. I dislike the idea of the game starting only at higher levels as that is the bane to many MMOs. The scout tree should provide a test course to the profession you are playing especially if it the only line that leads to it. There is a reason why more successful MMOs like FF14 give a lot of starting cool abilities early so that people can learn and play them, its a change I think was better for the style of game.

The survivor line is an interesting one because it was pretty useless before, by adding something unique to the class and honestly if you look at the numbers on TC its about 20 damage off all the dots, which isn't much considering the damage still even after the nerf. The elemental armor bonus is akin to less then 1.5% extra damage reduction on basic armor, it really looks bigger than it actually is.

You may already know all this, but this is also an explanation for others too. It is why I also wanted to push the requirements to commando being xxx4 scout instead of 4xxx brawler, due to the class identity the developers have and want for them. "Survivor" line sounds very commando.
I understand, mobility in this game where there isn't a lot mobility given outside of specific buffs, can be a very powerful thing. You have ranged picking up movement speed in scout, and now you have a mobility creep that can cause more complications for melee. It's a very fine balance of things. So I will say I disagree still with a flat out movespeed buff in a basic profession tree.

I understand where you are coming from, but stealth/camouflage has a lot of potential power in SWG, opening that skill into a basic tree can cause a slew of balance issues for multiple areas. I think comparing SWG to any other MMO, is a hard comparison because SWG is extremely unique and IMO, the strive to copy aspects of other games is what one could argue was the start of the downfall of the live servers. On a server were spinning a full retemplate can be done extremely fast, the argument of a skill in an advanced profession being "end game" is a bit of a moot point, no offense.

I do agree that survival line needs some kind of love, especially with its skill modifiers.

Having something else besides SL branch off of the tree would be nice. IIRC Commando and SL had 3 pre reqs during CU, but I'm not 100%. But I could understand moving the commando pre-req out of brawler.
 
I understand, mobility in this game where there isn't a lot mobility given outside of specific buffs, can be a very powerful thing. You have ranged picking up movement speed in scout, and now you have a mobility creep that can cause more complications for melee. It's a very fine balance of things. So I will say I disagree still with a flat out movespeed buff in a basic profession tree.

I understand where you are coming from, but stealth/camouflage has a lot of potential power in SWG, opening that skill into a basic tree can cause a slew of balance issues for multiple areas. I think comparing SWG to any other MMO, is a hard comparison because SWG is extremely unique and IMO, the strive to copy aspects of other games is what one could argue was the start of the downfall of the live servers. On a server were spinning a full retemplate can be done extremely fast, the argument of a skill in an advanced profession being "end game" is a bit of a moot point, no offense.

I do agree that survival line needs some kind of love, especially with its skill modifiers.

Having something else besides SL branch off of the tree would be nice. IIRC Commando and SL had 3 pre reqs during CU, but I'm not 100%. But I could understand moving the commando pre-req out of brawler.
I can get where you disagree, I think it's fine myself because it's only 5% and that is comparable to other professions 4xxx abilities, as I think even like 4 in brawler and marksman give a lot. If run speed was king, then everyone SL would be running 2xxx instead of x2xx. I can get the worry of power creep, but if that is a worry... just put diminishing returns on it.

Plus, I would like Bounty Hunter itself to have melee options, but that is another discussion.

If movement speed is too much, what can you add to it that compares to other classes and makes sense? It needs a buff in my opinion or just needs to have it's point cost halved.
 
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