Neat

Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain,
And the stream that falls from the hill to plain.
Better than rain or rippling brook,
Is a mug of beer inside this Took.

How does it work for summoned creatures amd sunfist, bandit, or escort type activities?

Could you track a ki-lin, a bandit, a grimswarm warchief, or an SOS shaper's snake?

'member when 605 was the Tracking spell? I 'member.

I am happy to see rangers getting this ability.

before lich came around, I used whispering willow a lot. but in today's game it is pretty much useless.

>> I use 605 get get ahold of the lich people that can't be bothered with a crystal amulet.

This is pretty much me for any character that doesn't have a society ability to keep the thought net up. It isn't worth the additional effort to keep a supply of crystal amulets for my characters that don't have a society ability for this.

There is chatter 24x7 on LNet across multiple channels (even without using the actual LNet channel which is pure garbage). I talk to someone on the thought net maybe once a month.

-- Robert

>> A halfling magistrate picks up a small rock and throws it at a half-elven bandit in a valiant effort to subdue him.

"Do I have" some arcane piece of useless knowledge from a quarter-century ago?

Who do you think you're talking to, here?!?!

:)

.


Hues
Resist Elements
Forage
Skinning
Tracking [+]
Phaon's Strength
Sounds
Tree Door
Utterlight
Tangle Weed
Mass Hues
Whirlwind
Inner Wall
Imbue
Whispering Willow
Spike Thorn
Silent Moves
Mobility
Mass Calm
Tangleweed True
Nature's Healing [+] (625, after a spell gap)

[+] Not implemented as of 24 March, 1994.

Tracking has potential to eliminate the need for script hunting (the wandering part), at least for some players who might be on the fence about it. I agree, though, that the RT makes it a non-starter for most solo, open hunting situations, where getting hit with one maneuver or spell could end the hunt. The cooldown also seems awful long. 20 sec or less would probably be sufficient. Or, maybe it's a skill the ranger can get better at, like a guild skill.

>The absolute maximum for a successful track is 12 seconds, which is unlikely to ever occur with a modicum of survival training. You get extra RT for a failure, but a failure also puts you in an empty room so there's no immediate danger. You can reduce the RT with additional Survival training and by having your animal companion present to as little as 2 seconds (or 1 second with incredible enhancives). This ability is meant to encourage further training in Survival.

10s is the minimum I've seen. Do you actually have the ability to train enough ranks to get a reasonable RT before you are pretty high level if not post cap?

>>Well, it's nifty and all but it would be a lot cooler if we could track players too :) - you know, to bring them presents.

I second this. Maybe tying it into lore training or thresholds of survival/perception training. It wouldn't be game breaking since it would be limited travel and could lead to opening it up for usage in towns. Would be a great tool in finding deaders or assisting those calling out for help, RP-wise. Nothing is more rangerly than showing up via tracking to someone requesting aid while stuck in 10 seconds of RT and watching them die ;)

So far, testing it with a couple different rangers of varying levels (30 to cap), I'm overall quite happy with this new skill. There are definitely some hunting areas that benefit from it more than others - such as the Keen, with icy rooms and climb skill checks, or other terrain that has environmental hazards, mazes, etc. Probably my one real complaint is hopefully being looked at - that the AC does not immediately get dragged along with the ranger and is subject to the several second delay when it's prevented from entering a room due to specific mechanics and needs to re-locate its ranger. While that's not a huge deal at high affinity levels, I can see where it could be tricky for a lower or mid level ranger who is relying on the AC for a DS boost in a hunting area that swarms. Using it with a group in a swarmy area is nice, and it does make sense that all group members are subject to the same RT. I haven't had an opportunity to try it out extensively combined with hide or camo, but the accounts I've heard so far indicate that's another useful combo - though I am interested in seeing how often the thing tracked leaves the room before the track RT is up while hidden.

That said, I don't know how much I will use it outside occasionally tracking to a specific mob for a culling bounty. My main hunts in places that are easy enough to set up ;wander boundaries in, and while it might mean there is another second or two delay before I wander into a room with, say, a griffin, that's offset by me being able to attack it immediately instead of waiting for 4-5 seconds of RT to drop, where I am potentially going to be hit by more RT from one of its attacks. I expect that I'll probably use it with my other rangers of lower levels once they're in areas with environmental hazards, though again, it'll depend on other factors, such as how often things swarm, how quick their attacks are, etc.

Things that I'd like to be considered to further improve it:

1. Allow rangers to use TRACK SENSE to see what mobs are capable of spawning in a given room, similar to FORAGE SENSE. It'll help reduce confusion of where a player can begin using TRACK in a given hunting area, where there may be multiple rooms that are not set up for mobs to spawn in. It'll similarly reduce confusion for typoing a mob name when trying to track - and it'd also add the option for a point & click interface for those who rely more on it to navigate the game.

2. Allow rangers to use TRACK (player) under certain circumstances, such as if they are in the same region or location. Tie it into a skill check, an AC tracking the player first, Ascension system, something. This would be useful for going to corpses, catching up to a hunting party that moved on while the ranger is still in RT, or simply for the RP factor.

3. Allow rangers to use TRACK to go to summonable creatures, such as the Sanctum snakes, lich qyn'arj, or ki-lin. Allow tracking for grizzled creatures for someone with an active bounty (if they managed to slip away), bandits for someone with an active bounty, Grimswarm for Sunfist members, and (random) undead for Voln members. Make it tied to Ascension if needed.

4. Allow rangers to reduce the 60 second cool down through skills or the Ascension system.

Again, I'm pleased with this positive development for a couple of reasons. First, I like anything that can provide a core game system that reduces the need to rely on lich or third party scripting in order to make the game less tedious. Track absolutely accomplishes this. Second, Rangers have seen incredibly little of class-specific development over the past 10-15 years (with some notable exceptions like the introduction of using 620 on metal armor). As a class, rangers are so well rounded and balanced - on their own or compared to others - that they don't need much.. but being neglected from any kind of development still stings, and it's a very welcome change to finally have a bone tossed our way. I hope that this isn't a one and done type of deal and that we have more positive things to look forward to.

- Overlord EK

>You now regard Eorgina with a warm demeanor.

>Do you have any Survival ranks, because 10s is the minimum RT for 0 ranks.

1x in survival

As a test I used tracking at every opportunity (whenever unengaged and out of cooldown) in my last cyclops hunt from belled to fried.

8 failures (2 @15s, 4 @14s, 2 @13s)
2 successes (10s, 9s)

Cyclops being cyclops, a lot of the time there won't actually be an unengaged cyclops to find, so some proportion of the failures are probably down to that.

That it takes significant RT, I don't particularly mind, its that the whole time spent tracking is spent in front of the critter being tracked while it wails away at you feels really wrong from an immersion perspective. When something is taking 9-15s RT there's a lot of time to be influenced by the messaging and its not a consistent picture that it creates.

>Track RT is applied consistently with all movement between rooms that causes RT. That always happens after the move occurs. In fact, that's how (nearly) all actions in GS work. The RT is applied at the same moment the effect occurs and you have to wait it out afterwards. You don't type ATTACK, then wait 5 seconds and then see the attack resolve.

Even with 2-3 sec RT, players might hesitate to use it in a hunting area where the critter might spawn and hit them with a deadly spell or maneuver in its first action. This "consistency" is a big part of why scripts are needed, unfortunately. If I hunt manually and peer every which way, I might be a lot better prepared than tracking something using these mechanics. Fix the hunting grounds and I'm all for it.

<Since one of the actions that is coded differently is used very frequently by me (caliper measurement of locks) I'm well aware that the RT can be applied differently and it jars all the more.>

I had this pop into my mind as an example when I saw that NIR message as well.

Starchitin, the OG

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

I'm not sure if its intended or not, but tracking can move a companion into an area it normally wouldn't enter.

>It's not intended. TRACK should be respecting the room settings with regards to companions. Can you please BUG the room that you find that happening and mention TRACK in the bug report? Thank you.

I bugged one where it followed with TRACK and wouldn't have otherwise. There appears to be a check every few minutes that causes it to leave when it notices its somewhere it shouldn't be, so it wouldn't stay around for the whole hunt, but I could get it to attack the tracked critter.

The +5 sec RT penalty for a failed TRACK attempt has been removed. That was too punishing in addition to already failing and still being put into cooldown.

In addition, the baseline success chance for TRACK has been increased by 15. So, for example, if you had a 33% success rate before, you should see a 48% now.

If you find yourself failing tracking attempts frequently against like-level creatures, the primary recommendation is to increase your Survival training.

GameMaster Oscuro

I've gotten to play around with TRACK some more since the changes and it feels much better even at 1x survival. I actually do give it a shot anytime I can as it is fun to zip around and see if I find things.

I may actually bring my survival closer to 2x for the sole purpose of TRACK once I get enough CM for shadow mastery rank 5.

Thank you to the Dev Team for taking a look at this ability and seeing that it could use some adjustments.