Herald of Valar concern

[Kvator]

Ideas for quick Ranger fix!

1 - Combine North and Ithilien skills together (so each ranger have spellcasting/sneaking skills from North and combat skills from Ithilien) and leave the choice of Company to pure RP reasons.
2 - Add minor damage to brawl aside from blinding/disarming

[Kvator]

If you compare those guilds to their evil counterparts (AA which have better sneaking/hiding than Rangers and much better combat capabilities to boost, or Necromancers which are pretty high on the power spectrum) they fall short and look rather pale.

Lets give AA buggy sneak raising cloaks that cover exactly everything too

Also, necromancers do NOT fall high on any spectrum as they have 1 REALLY usefull (runeshield) and a few sorta nifty spells Darkvision is hard to come by, aye, but darkness is easy to negate. Planetravel is nifty but takes a loooooong time to cast.

The valars need a recode, no doubt, that idiotic peace spell needs a serious looking at first of all. Mebbe make it resistable? Apprentices preventing myths from attacking is just silly and should and should be conquerable.

bonservant on higher levels is pretty cool (if you have items for mana regen)

[Arman]

If I may chip in to this discussion...

I find it interesting because many times I've been wanting to create this "Pure ME" character of sorts (be it Noldor or Dunedain), with Heralds of the Valar as my layman guild and Rangers as my occupational one. At various stages of different lives I lived in Genesis I've been a member of most guilds there are (I believe I'm missing 3 or 4 for the complete set) so I'm talking from experience here.

First of all, Rangers, despite being one of the most amazing guilds you could join for many reasons, are pretty much a joke in modern Genesis. They are full of supportive skills and abilities but nothing that could be considered a "main" thing that can carry your character through the perils of the world. They're more like a glorified layman guild when it comes to skills/spells/specials and while decent in teams you can't really do anything solo without the aid of an offensive layman guild (ever wondered why 99% of Rangers are Blademasters of Militia?). It might've been fine in the past, before heavy power creep came in, but in the modern days this concept is pretty much obsolete since you can't do much without some offensive power, which you won't find in the Rangers.

Anyway, back to Heralds, which have their own flaws - spells do little, cost a lot of mana and prevent you from using your special attacks so any potential gain is negated by the heavy costs. Now, add to that the fact that Heralds and Rangers have several spells that are pretty much the same (with Ranger versions being a bit more powerful obviously) and you end up in this conundrum where as a Ranger/Herald you're a member of two supportive guilds with duplicate functionality and very little impact, making you regret your RP choices instantly.

Just don't get me wrong. I think that both Rangers and Heralds are amazing guilds. I like them both very much, just not together. I'm also disillusioned when it comes to the flaws of those guilds, which I've pointed out above. I think both of them could be made workable with just minor adjustments. Some things that come to mind:
1. Shift Ranger focus from support to combat a bit more (better combat skills, perhaps another special that actually does some damage), you could take away their spells for example and make them work with potions alone.
2. Herald spells need some serious looking at (adjusted costs/effects) and perhaps some breath of fresh air in their spell department, like enchanting your weapon with the holy flame that does extra damage to evil/undead or something. As it is, some of their spells are either completely useless, simply not worth it or straight out OP (one spell everyone knows about).

If you compare those guilds to their evil counterparts (AA which have better sneaking/hiding than Rangers and much better combat capabilities to boost, or Necromancers which are pretty high on the power spectrum) they fall short and look rather pale.

And speaking of a spell problem many guilds have: Having to pay tax for a spell that summons a messenger that doesn't work most of the time is preposterous.

All of the above is just my personal, totally biased opinion from the player perspective and has nothing to do with the current wizard stance or policy of course.

Agree with all that. Rangers and Heralds need to be looked at.

[Draugor]

If you compare those guilds to their evil counterparts (AA which have better sneaking/hiding than Rangers and much better combat capabilities to boost, or Necromancers which are pretty high on the power spectrum) they fall short and look rather pale.

Lets give AA buggy sneak raising cloaks that cover exactly everything too

Also, necromancers do NOT fall high on any spectrum as they have 1 REALLY usefull (runeshield) and a few sorta nifty spells Darkvision is hard to come by, aye, but darkness is easy to negate. Planetravel is nifty but takes a loooooong time to cast.

The valars need a recode, no doubt, that idiotic peace spell needs a serious looking at first of all. Mebbe make it resistable? Apprentices preventing myths from attacking is just silly and should and should be conquerable.

bonservant on higher levels is pretty cool (if you have items for mana regen)

"Cool" barely decent damage and it drains your brain in an instant Its shyte, emoting and having it say stuff is however funny as hell

[Kvator]

then try it on high lvl with lots of guild exp - it's way more than 'barely decent' (but yes - it drains quite a lot)

[Dread]

Ideas for quick Ranger fix!

1 - Combine North and Ithilien skills together (so each ranger have spellcasting/sneaking skills from North and combat skills from Ithilien) and leave the choice of Company to pure RP reasons.
2 - Add minor damage to brawl aside from blinding/disarming

Unfortunately, I think this would be a disservice to a guild that needs full attention. Let's get them a complete recode and just as much power creep as some of the other recoded guilds have gotten!

I vaguely recall Gorboth saying something about their code being abysmal. At what point is sorting out that code just straight up worse than re-writing it wholesale. (Actually asking, I am not a coder.)

[Zhar]

Ideas for quick Ranger fix!

1 - Combine North and Ithilien skills together (so each ranger have spellcasting/sneaking skills from North and combat skills from Ithilien) and leave the choice of Company to pure RP reasons.
2 - Add minor damage to brawl aside from blinding/disarming

Unfortunately, I think this would be a disservice to a guild that needs full attention. Let's get them a complete recode and just as much power creep as some of the other recoded guilds have gotten!

I vaguely recall Gorboth saying something about their code being abysmal. At what point is sorting out that code just straight up worse than re-writing it wholesale. (Actually asking, I am not a coder.)

As a programmer IRL I can tell you that working with monolithic legacy code is a nightmare.

Anyhow, recoding the Rangers is probably going to be a very daunting task (I've never been ME wizard so I can't speak about their code quality or anything). Even judging it from just the player perspective it's astounding how large of a project this guild is and how intricately immersed with the entirety of ME it is.
I can't say much without revealing any guild secrets, just trust me when I tell you that you can spend months as a member of the guild and not even scratch the surface of its secrets. Just thinking about its full extent is mind-boggling and I give high praise to anyone who made it real.

The problem with changing such complex systems with plenty of tie-ins to the others is that it's hard to predict all the possible side-effects even a minor change to one part can have on the other parts. Finding all the dependencies and possible interactions between components is a momentous task itself.

And on top of all that, you'd probably have to wait for the global stealth fix anyway

[Drazson]

Shouldn't the stealth fix be an easier task being a universal thing and thus probably not as dependant on other parts of the code, relatively to how messed up a guild recode could get? Is someone actually working on it, by the way?

[Dread]

Ideas for quick Ranger fix!

1 - Combine North and Ithilien skills together (so each ranger have spellcasting/sneaking skills from North and combat skills from Ithilien) and leave the choice of Company to pure RP reasons.
2 - Add minor damage to brawl aside from blinding/disarming

Unfortunately, I think this would be a disservice to a guild that needs full attention. Let's get them a complete recode and just as much power creep as some of the other recoded guilds have gotten!

I vaguely recall Gorboth saying something about their code being abysmal. At what point is sorting out that code just straight up worse than re-writing it wholesale. (Actually asking, I am not a coder.)

As a programmer IRL I can tell you that working with monolithic legacy code is a nightmare.

Anyhow, recoding the Rangers is probably going to be a very daunting task (I've never been ME wizard so I can't speak about their code quality or anything). Even judging it from just the player perspective it's astounding how large of a project this guild is and how intricately immersed with the entirety of ME it is.
I can't say much without revealing any guild secrets, just trust me when I tell you that you can spend months as a member of the guild and not even scratch the surface of its secrets. Just thinking about its full extent is mind-boggling and I give high praise to anyone who made it real.

The problem with changing such complex systems with plenty of tie-ins to the others is that it's hard to predict all the possible side-effects even a minor change to one part can have on the other parts. Finding all the dependencies and possible interactions between components is a momentous task itself.

And on top of all that, you'd probably have to wait for the global stealth fix anyway

Sounds like a nightmare. That is kinda what I was talking about though. Since there exists so much interdependence between ME and the Rangers, wouldn't be easier write a new guild from scratch alongside the old? That way you don't run the risk of breaking anything, and once the new guild is complete and migration occurs, the old ranger code can be decommissioned as time/testing permits. Keep in mind, I am purely asking for information, I am not a programmer and I could be purely spewing rubbish here. I have grown up surrounded by programmers, including both my parents and most of their friends, and quite a few of my friends as well. They all seem desperately bitter about their career choice, which is the primary reason I avoided it!

[Kvator]

Ideas for quick Ranger fix!

1 - Combine North and Ithilien skills together (so each ranger have spellcasting/sneaking skills from North and combat skills from Ithilien) and leave the choice of Company to pure RP reasons.
2 - Add minor damage to brawl aside from blinding/disarming

Unfortunately, I think this would be a disservice to a guild that needs full attention. Let's get them a complete recode and just as much power creep as some of the other recoded guilds have gotten!

I vaguely recall Gorboth saying something about their code being abysmal. At what point is sorting out that code just straight up worse than re-writing it wholesale. (Actually asking, I am not a coder.)

As a programmer IRL I can tell you that working with monolithic legacy code is a nightmare.

Anyhow, recoding the Rangers is probably going to be a very daunting task (I've never been ME wizard so I can't speak about their code quality or anything). Even judging it from just the player perspective it's astounding how large of a project this guild is and how intricately immersed with the entirety of ME it is.
I can't say much without revealing any guild secrets, just trust me when I tell you that you can spend months as a member of the guild and not even scratch the surface of its secrets. Just thinking about its full extent is mind-boggling and I give high praise to anyone who made it real.

The problem with changing such complex systems with plenty of tie-ins to the others is that it's hard to predict all the possible side-effects even a minor change to one part can have on the other parts. Finding all the dependencies and possible interactions between components is a momentous task itself.

And on top of all that, you'd probably have to wait for the global stealth fix anyway

lol sounds like you want to fix things that ain't broken
secrets, hidden places, funny stuff - leave it as it is

combat abilities (usefulness) needs recoding/balancing

and only this