by Larian

The feedback from Mythic on the last Team Lead report generated a great deal of excitement, although nothing in particular has changed to the class as far as patches. A general web page is available at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page to consolidate player inputs and the Team Lead thoughts. Specific pages will be referred to in this report. There are many great ideas (as well as some not so great ideas) presented here. Hopefully the developers will be able to put the page to use in the future. One question that we as a community would like answered though is; "What is Mythic's vision of a ranger?"

1.) Group Desirability: This still remains a Top Concern. Many ideas and enhancements proposed on The Ranger Team Lead Web Page would go a long way to making rangers desired in groups. I urge you to consider adding these in as base class abilities and not use the forthcoming expansion as the platform to increase the Ranger's group desireability

Group desirability is something we're working on addressing for all stealth classes. I have nothing we're ready to talk about yet, however.

Larian: Since these reports are cumulative, does the community want me to keep pressing on this issue, or move things like LOS into the limelight? I still have many ideas to go over.

2.) Pathfinding Effectiveness: Buffbotts and the effectiveness of this spec line are still very pertinent points to bring out. As asked for in feedback from the last Team Lead Report, the players came up with a myriad of ideas to flesh out, improve, and revamp this spec line. At this point the list is a brain storming list and not meant to indicate that we want all these things added, but rather let the developers choose what fits in line best. The list is available at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page.

We want to do a review of pathfinding, but keep in mind we have 39 classes each with several spec lines, many of which need to have some things addressed. This is not something we're planning for 1.65.

Larian: Since these reports are cumulative, does the community want me to keep pressing on this issue, or move things like LOS into the limelight? I still have many ideas to go over.

3.) Melee Survivability: This was mentioned as an other issue in the last report, and the feedback indicated a missunderstanding. Rangers are not seeking a melee damage output increase, but rather ways to survive in a melee (since we are so often forced into melee). Skills such as parry, higher evade, better absorption, or more hitpoints are the most obvious answers.

Don't really see us beefing up rangers in this manner, sorry.

Larian: I am in major dissagreement about this issue. I think that rangers desperately need something in this regard, so I will continue to push this. Perhaps in a different guise, but I will push this!

4.) Stealth Subskills: There are still many skills that are not finished for archer classes. Stealth is one of the areas that these skills can be placed in. A look at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page can provide many ideas. Furthermore, a TL discussion is ongoing about increased speed while stealthed.

This is something else we are looking into, but this is a bit down the road.

1.) Recurve Bow: Many still perceive that this spec line is lacking in some utility. The Specialty Arrows suggested by the playerbase will go a long ways to solving this perception. Also, many wonder why do archers outright miss when taking the extra time to line up and concentrate on a Crit Shot?

This is something we can continue looking into, but we have no plans for this in the near future.

2.) Pathfinding: As asked for in feedback from the last Team Lead Report, the players came up with a myriad of ideas to flesh out, improve, and revamp this spec line. At this point the list is a brain storming list and not meant to indicate that we want all these things added, but rather let the developers choose what fits in line best. The list is available at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page.

3.) Stealth: Many of the missing skills for the ranger class can be placed in the stealth category. As it stands, there is very little motivation for rangers to even spec in stealth beyond whatever level the ranger needs to accomplish minor tasks. “Group or Melee Oriented” rangers go so far as to totally ignore this skill due to the lack of returns. Many suggestions can be found at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page on finishing this line.

4.) Celtic Dual: There is some concern about utility of this line, particularly for those rangers that use blades. As a blade user, they have no access to any stun styles and are furthermore limited by the lack of usable styles in blades. The effects of Celtic Dual need to complement both blades and pierce.

This is something we'll look at during the style review. If you think there are any issues here that need to be addressed before we can get to the entire review, bring them up in the TL forum discussion thread on this topic.

5.) Blades: Blades does not offer rangers many options in styles since most are reactive off skills the ranger does not posses (parry) or rarely (if ever) use (i.e. shield). Blades tend to be a popular desire for rangers since it is strong against the leather type armours that assassins use.

Outside the style review, no specific changes planned at this time.

6.) Pierce: The damage growth rate of the 4 style chain seems to be rather low (0.27 for step #2) in return for the difficulty of landing it. The same could be said of the effects this chain produces.

Again, this is a style review.

Larian: I sure hope the style review is a really good one!

1.) Shield Blocking Arrows: If one engages with a shield, it's supposed to cover a 120 degree front arc of the player with the shield. With the recent change in the defenition of the side area, did the 120 degree arc get messed up? Furthermore, if a shield user is guarding someone, then it doesn't seem to use the shield users 120 degree arc anymore. Many arrows get blocked while shooting at a caster being guarded, with the shield guy's back to the shooter. Is this 360 degree protection intended?

Do some testing on Pendragon using the new TL testing tools we've put in. If you are able to confirm that this is an issue, be sure and /bug appeal it on Live.

Larian: Okay folks, put on your testing hats! Screenshots, logs, log summaries, etc! Put the logs and screenshots here! So far I am getting two different types of 360 blocking, either based on the direction the person being guarded faces, or some sort of lag. Need your help tracking this down.

2.) Lack of a 9 second stun: Rangers (and Hunters too) have a lack of access to a 9 second stun. True, there is a 4-5 second variety available to pierce users after an evade, however, there is a disparity for these classes when compared to the myriad of 9 second stuns available to most other classes (especially other stealthers).

Style review, however not every class in the game is designed to have a 9 second stun.

3.) Lots of Ideas: The ranger community was greatly encouraged by the last Team Lead report and the feedback. As such, many have suggested new ideas and abilities. Again, it's all at the The Ranger Team Lead Web Page: Just a short compilation of skills with little explanation and implementation ideas. That is left to the developers:

• Scavange - An ability to gather more loot off a monster.
  
• Set and Dissarm Traps - Set small traps like snares and pitfalls.
  
• Bow Stun - A melee ability preformed with the bow.
  
• Safe Fall - We are often on the walls!
  
• Disengage - A better way to get out of combat with an enemy.
  
• Ability to walk with an arrow nocked.

We'll keep these in mind as we look to add more cool abilities down the road. Tho don't hold your breath for bow stun.

1.) Lack of “To Hit” Bonus for Bows: Stated that it's something you are looking at for expansions. Please don't use Expansions to fix a class.

We have no plans to change the to hit chance of bows.

Not sure what you mean by not using expansions to fix classes, so be sure and explain your concerns here via PM or a TL Forum post.

Larian: Okay, did the PM thing and talked a bit with Mike. Basically it was a bit of a missunderstanding between the reports (his feedback to the June report and what I said here. Basically the additional feedback on this said: Okay, we have no plans to fix overall to hit, although we do plan on looking into adding some special bonuses via TOA or the RvR expansion, but this is to add utility, not to address an imbalance issue.

2.) “Neo” the Shade: This item is staying open from the last report. A TL Forum discussion is open.

3.) Bring Back Sitting Damage Bonus: If someone is daft enough to just sit around the enemy frontier, they deserve to get hit hard (assuming we actually hit)!

This only serves to penalize classes who need to sit to regen power and we have no plans to add a bonus here.

Larian: Basically the issue here that we can attack from range. Classes that attack from range do not get the bonus, hence why we don't any more.

4.) Specialty Arrows: Well, you asked for it! A nice list from player feedback is located at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page. Please feel free to use any and all!

We'll review the idea of specialty arrows.

5.) Can’t do anything with loss of endurance: In reply to last report's feedback, many casters still have a great deal of endurance left to sprint with, whereas archers are painted into the "must melee without endurance" corner after shooting their bow for a while.

Not something that is likely to change.

Larian: Again, I see a need for something to change here, so I will continue to press for this.

6.) The Do Nothing Archer: Please introduce special animations for Volley (and longshot as well). Too often it seems we do nothing while using these skills. As a matter of fact, many players wish to see a greater variety in many animations.

Noted for the art team.

7.) Volley Arrow Count: There are situations where archers will start to volley, take the time to set up the shot, but the stack they are drawing from only has 4 or less arrows in it. Volley will only fire the arrows remaining in the stack, and shoot less than 5 arrows without "grabbing" arrows from the next stack.

Hmm. Bug appeal this, however I suspect it's going to be something that is non-trivial to fix.

8.) Line of Sight: There are still many issues with line of sight and how it is determined. This becomes particularly apparent during keep sieges and in hilly terrain. A more detailed discussion is at The Ranger Team Lead Web Page.

For the most part, it looks like the RvR expansion will be when we can really try and address the LoS issues.

Larian: With this reply, I see LOS moving up to a Primary Concern! Please post screenshots and logs of all LOS issues At This Board!

9.) Missed Arrows: When an arrow misses (true miss, damage totally absorbed by armor, or bladeturn) it sticks in the target exactly like a hit. There is a plethora of ways to discover where hidden archers are, so this nonsensical sticking in the target should be removed in the case of a true miss if not in all three cases.

No plans to change this. It's really a limitation of where we can draw the arrow. If it missed, it would still hit the ground or a nearby tree, giving the victim an idea of the archer's direction.

10.) Critical Shot: It has been asked why archers completely miss their targets after spending extra time lining up a shot. While making critical shot work 100% of the time isn’t right, there are suggestions that if the critical shot misses, it should do normal damage instead of being a miss (unless bladeturned or all damage is absorbed by armor); in other words, it should never completely miss the target.

Do some tests against a level 50 opponent with competitive gear (use the TL test room to equip them) and get some logs that show the hit/miss rate of crit shot. If it's missing more then we intend it to, we'll try and fix it.

Larian: Again, I am not sure they totally understood what I was driving at here. I would like to have you all post logs, summaries, and screenshots At This Board and let's see if we can get some loving!

1.) More versatility in Switching Bows: Even with the recent addition of Rapid Fire, many rangers still switch bows to utilize the greater range of the Recurve, while still having the higher damage Heavy bows (this is a rehash from the previous report to include the question from Mythic in the feedback).

Will note this as a possible interface change. No idea if/when it will be able to be addressed.

2.) Quivers: We appreciate the feedback from the last report on this, and wish to keep this on the scope. Especially if there are specialty arrows introduced, archers will need more tools to manage their ammunition.

Yes, I wish I could give you a time line as to when we'll look into this but I don't have a firm idea on it yet.

3.) Stylin’: Every rogue out there wears unrelieved black because of the way the shadowed stealth code works. I don’t claim to understand the process at all, other than it seems to have something to do with the way negative film works. Would it be possible to somehow treat all stealthers as if their armor were black when they were stealthed, but actually have the armor be able to be dyed whatever color the rogue desired for appearances when not stealthed? I know that not much can be done about items with emblems.

As of this time, it doesn't seem like there is anything we can do. We're aware of the concern tho and will keep it on the white board as an issue.

Bow Delve - When delving the information for bows, there really should be some documentation on the range. Just a thought.

Noted for item team.