Probably because we read the planned changes for us, and just got more depressed. It didnt seem like anything we would be excited about. I'll see about going over sometime and playing with them for bugs though.

Falker

Yeah... oh well. I tried.

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

<<Yeah... oh well. I tried.>>

Kodius please don't get too dispirited. Please understand we rangers have been through a lot of disappointments and disillusions. I can totally understand Falker's POV given our guild history. You and other GMs have been mightily helpful to your chosen guilds and that's great. But we haven't have a consistent GM helping us for a decade? Nearly so anyway.

Also, and I'm guessing on this but I figure I'm like a few folks in the ranger guild. I'm just not a good tester of stuff. Ask Pfanston, he tried to help me test stuff. I just don't have the detailed mind for it. I'm sure Pfanston will be glad to help test too, in fact he has already. But he is also kinda busy right now. I haven't seen nor heard from Hanryu in a long time but if he is around, he definitely loves to test and record data--he used to host a "what is your top 5 survival skills" thread every so often and post the results.

If you look through our post threads, you might look at the last date of posts. It's pretty depressing. This used to be a vibrant active forum but now it feels like spider webs on decaying leaves.

There is another factor, and that is there might be folks like me who STILL is a bit overwhelmed by the magic stuff and trying to get their magics up to snuff.

But please don't despair over us. Give us a chance. Thanks.

Zinaca and her full-grown raccoon, Shadow

I'm a little worried about you Kodius... your one man crusade to rewrite the entire game has stretched you thinner than graphene and seems to be killing your health. As much as we'd love the attention, your health and sanity are a bit more important.

That said, I did post over in the ranger testing folder over a week ago about two potential changes to spells for rangers that I had discussed with other GM's when testing first started... a week and a half with no response(on my post) along with the GM stated focus on only "game breaking" broken spells led me to conclude that after the initial week or two of testing yall were done with us/had more interesting things to work on.


Honestly, other than slot costs and a small spell tree reshuffling what has changed?


There's probably a laundry list of complaints and concerns about our spells but convincing rangers who've moved into other guilds due to the "perceived" lack of development to come back and talk about them...

I'm sure a list of specifics will show up soonish in any case.

_____________________________________________________________
Caution: may scream about HUGE DRAMATIC AMAZING SIGNIFICANT loss

>You come in and say rangers havent given any feedback, and I tell you why there is a lack of feedback.

No, you posted a passive agressive whine fest about how rangers (always) get the short end of the stick.

I never see a ranger post anything EXCEPT how ruined the guild is and how it's always getting screwed.

What I have not seen is any ranger post testing data in the 3.1 folder. No, hair pulling, shrieking, reactionary, posting to the announcement of something is not testing. Pretty much every other guild has some in depth testing done. But rangers...no, they just must suck SO MUCH that it's not worth testing.

Or they're so good all the testing was done when the changes were announced.

>You are more likely to get people from other guilds come in and troll, as already seen in this thread, than rangers posting.

Yes. People calling you on your self pity party BS sure is trolling.

Kodius, don't leave! What I would love from you is a post about what testing concerns you have about rangers? I truly don't know what to test. If you aren't after magic concerns, what are you after? Want us to test beseeches? What about combat manuevers? (What are they anyway...heh)? Since we haven't been testing, perhaps a short course in what/how to test might be helpful?

As an aside, last night during Ranger Night, Pfan has ask for those who want, to come to the Crossing pond Thursday night at 9PM EST to test. Can you "watch" or talk to us while we are there?

While we would love companions to be worked on, at least I and I'm sure others are very happy for any development you GMs do for us.

As for the pity party--well, we have to vent somewhere, sometimes. But please, we aren't after you or any GM, just well, forgive us if we can't see the forest for the trees...we tend to love our trees ya know.

Zinaca and her full-grown raccoon, Shadow

I've gone over and tested off and on and the few issues I've found were usually fixed by a GM watching us in testing.
I'll go down my list and see if any of them are still happening.

I've been posting on the 3.1 forums, but now that I see the article in Elanthipedia I will compile a list there.
I hadn't posted anything real important, more requests than bugs. I haven't run into any bugs in awhile.

Are there going to be any more days/times scheduled where you'll try to get a lot of people to login to test at once?
I missed the last one, unfortunately. There was still a decent crowd the next day when I logged in, with one or more GMs and we got some issues resolved.

Thanks for the details and ooooo those maneuvers sound great! I see Friday is supposed to be a big test day so I will be in there testing with all my little might (so will Shadow, my raccoon so if the game breaks, blame it on her!).

Zinaca and her full-grown raccoon, Shadow

Ive done testing but there are things I cant check anymore with me alone, my skills are way to high for some things now.

I have a concern that athleticism is not boosting very good skill wise.

Now how to test this. First you need someone who can max the spell and someone with low athletics. One example I can use is as follows: I'm trying to find out just how much our spell boosts the climbing skill and the swimming skill. I suspect it boosts them equally and a lot less than Spider climb used to do. This part of the pedia http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Climb lists some climbing skills for various areas. If you look at the top of the east gate there are 2 spots and it says 85? Well the one (embrasure) at the top of the stairs is actually right around 80 (might be 78 but 80 will work for this test). Having someone with 50 skill and a 109 power (which cant be cast in town mind you) athleticism spell on them and see if they can climb it. My preliminary testing indicates that a 109 cast spell is only boosting somwhere between 25 and 30 skill. If the person cant climb it from 50 with 109 cast spell then that confirms the spell boosts around 1/4 of the power used. Then with someone with a bit more skill say 55 and check with the same cast and we get a ballpark figure for what the skill is boost with the spell at full power. Then I would like to figure out what a low level cast of say 5 power boosts the skill. It does make a difference.

In my opinion I think the skill boost is so low the spell is only useful for low level folks and certainly not for folks that can cast it at 109 power. But that is what I need to see. And I need to see the difference between low level cast and high level. Ive got some data that shows someone with 423 skill was boosted enough to barely climb something at 450 skill but at 420 I could not boost them high enough. I also think the boost may actually taper off at 90 power, meaning 90-109 gives the same boost (this is also right around the cut off point where the spell does not give more duration). Keep in mind that this is casting with spell stance at 100 100 100 just to find the basic boosts.

Also all you testers going into test to try debil and TM spells should probably use at least 130 (potency) 100 (duration), 70 (integrity). It will work a lot better that way. But when you cast your buff spells I would actually shift it back to 100, 100, 100.

Anyway there are a lot of things like this I am trying to check. HOL I think used to buff skinning better than it is now. But again its hard to test on critters that can wipe the floor with you and anything else I skin rather too easily. How much of a boost are we getting to skinning? So yes there are things you people can help figure out and if some of the boosts are too low maybe we can get them fixed now.

Ranger Pfanston and his soggy pup.

<<Skill buffs are standardized. A capped in-sphere buff will always be +20%, while a capped out-of-sphere buff will always be +15%. When you cast Athleticism on someone with only 50 athletics, that means +10 ranks.>>

Well that means casting it on bigger folks with a lot more skill they should be getting more than must 25-30 ranks. Example 423 X .2 = 84.6, which would be 507 at least. But when I cast it on someone with 420 they dont get to 450 skill to climb a certain item. And yes its exactly 450 to climb that item.

Ranger Pfanston and his soggy pup.

I've actually been testing it, I think most of us are just burnt out.

Keep working it Kodius, it doesn't seem nearly as clunky as 3.0 did as a whole when it came out. Some things i still see as iffy... like manhandling wyverns in 1 hit w/ dual load snipe. (which i posted in 3.1 test / combat, but hell i've posted the same hit VIA drake on the regular forum)

~Nefidyne

>
Kssarh gestures at you.
Two Ranger journeymen materialize out of the surrounding trees and begin to whisper to Kssarh as they escort him out of the area.

Other than the athleticism comments, any other thoughts on my prior questions?


And yes, athleticism and lockpick/disarm took a hit due to the change in bonuses. You used to be able to get a 9,000x multiplier bonus at circle 1. Now it is capped at 10x (I think the min bonus is 10 ranks). Looking at those two numbers, hopefully you can understand why a 90 rank bonus at circle 1 might be a bad idea... If we ever get the help, it probably makes sense to re-evaluate how some of these non-combat contests function.


My prior questions were:

* Are any spells not behaving properly?

* Can you effectively train across all skill levels and all skills?

* Do any spells not train correctly?

* How effective are your SvS spells?

* Lastly, in terms of spell changes, does anything seem out of whack? Do you have any concerns over what your capabilities are in 3.1?

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes