Ranger Listen

[Dunetrade55]

First, Zztri, I admire your approach to the game. I wish you luck, but sooner or later you will die, and die again, and you'll wish you had those skills back. You'll walk out of Morin's for a wonderful stroll, only to be blindsided a step or two down the road by a hidden, horned, clawed nightmare beast, and it will drag you back to its lair to feast on your bones. You may be swarmed by giant insects, or experience the rutting carru phenomena. You may get scrabbed. You may have invested several days played in this character, and think you're doing good, but at times, it will happen. And you will pine for the possibilities that exist just beyond your grasp, like Tantalus reaching for a grape... and then...

... the code-monster bites. It's venom sinks into your very soul. Suddenly, apprentice weapon skills will not do, oh hey, journeyman's nice, DOH! I must have MOOOORE POWER. You will have a strong lust for the parry skill, and despise the slog through the pits of tartarus for the brew skill. You will be, almost there... when disaster strikes. and someday, someday, you will realize that Merchants have all the fun with less of the heart-rending sacrifice.

Just, don't roll up a badass merchant, spar continually while working your merchant magic, and try to take on the known world. A few have done it. I have tried, a few times, but uh, I didn't get quite as far as I would have liked. Still, combat merchants are FUN, when they work, as part of a group.

Neadless to say this is an RPI so faster skillups balance out the cost of death from doing the risky things that make this game a pulse-pounding nightmare that will haunt your dreams with reel lock text and your HPs of your favorite character simply depleting for no discernable reason, no echoes, no idea how to stop it.

[Raptor_Dan]

zztri, don't pay Synthesis any mind. He's a code-junkie min-maxer, who wants us to believe that he sincerely feels that the code dictates the roleplay. I don't know if he actually believes this, but that's how he comes across, regularly - so I have to assume his presentation is intentional.

I admire your perception of the game and the code supporting it. It looks like I'm not the only one, and we're not talking about "oh innocence, le sigh" here. You're someone who roleplays his character's role, and uses the code to support that roleplay rather than putting together the character via the code, and then using roleplay to support the coded selections. Your way is how Armageddon should be played, in my opinion, whether the code allows us to play it that way or not. So here's to you, and have a Bud Light

+1 to this. Over a decade played, zztri, and though I like having nice skills, I'm more focused on the roleplay, and I do not regret the way I play. I play as much as I can as if I am in the char's mindset, and just like normal, real life humans, (we have some players that are of this subgroup), just like real people, my chars don't know they're not masters at a particular skill.

Please, please continue to play as you are, with newfound wonder, and a zeal for RP. If we can tip the balance between solo master-tanks that don't need anyone else for survival, and people who are deficient and imperfect that rely on other players, then conflict, mini-RPT's, and more RP will abound.

[solera]

That is an interesting perspective, Dunetrader, that it is possible to boss kryl or headbutt carru. It makes me realize that I play as a victim, and there are people out there that play like alphas.

[Dunetrade55]

That is an interesting perspective, Dunetrader, that it is possible to boss kryl or headbutt carru. It makes me realize that I play as a victim, and there are people out there that play like alphas.

If you think I play alphas.... Ohohohoho... no. I tend to play victims of "circumstance" (completely comprised of their own mistakes, no circumstance there)

I was trying to wax poetic about what kind of process infects the souls of the unwary with the dreaded "twink disease". I just like playing. Do I twink? Well, yes, mostly for utility skills, sometimes for combat if it suits my character's purposes, stealth skills? Essential for stealthy survival, it's the only reason to pick such a class, I want to be harry potter with an invisibility cloak, ok, that's humor but they can be very difficult to raise without getting called out. But like, usually I neglect it, and to my detriment, and somehow, that ONE or THREE skills I thought I'd never use, that I didn't bother with, my minds like, yeah, but if you would've been a twink-monster, you would've done this the whole time, and I'm like, shush you, help me think of a new character concept and help me get over my grief at Yet Another Locked Door Kill.

Personally, I don't usually bother with any of those things, I just know what happens and I have been the badass that saves the day sometimes. Saying Merchants have all the fun isn't an insult, I actually enjoy merchants, when people aren't trying to kill me, which they always are, or are just shy of. I like mastercrafts, I like more tame RP, I like heartfelt moments, pauses, at a location that reminds me of something, and I like to tell stories. I love merchant PCs. Most of my PCs are pathetic weaklings at the hands of fate, trying to run from, as I said, things they did to themselves. Other merchant PCs, I guess, are more, what's the word, savvy than I, to particular scenes.

I once rode out and tried to raid people with a day 1 merchant, you can guess how interesting that was. Honestly, Merchant is my favorite guild... I like typing skills combat, and getting back, you suck, and being like, ok, I'm fine with that, let's go bother someone for no good reason. I'm not downing anyone, my previous post was partially facetious due to Synthesis's obsession with MASTER and thinking everyone wants this. I don't think so. If I didn't want a real challenge to overcome, I'd just enjoy casual gaming. I just want to be semi-decent in a well-rounded manner without epic hosery to get there.

Am I alone? Anyone? I know sacrifices are made at race/guild/subguild choice... the grind gets to me though, it's like, ugh, again. I mean, how many times have we been over this over the past god knows how many years? The branching grind is the worst of it, to be anything beyond a meatpawn in a combat role requires a huge investment..

For a merchant with a non-combat subguild? OMFG? I've gotten TWO to T'zai Byn Trooper rank. Only one was actually able to fight, the other had a poor strength score so may as well have been two-handing a feather duster. But by Drov, he did it, with tenacity and cleveness, and that's what the merchant role is about, is thinking with your head and not your bonesword. It's really a great role, I'd reccomend it to anyone.

[Synthesis]

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[zztri]

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[solera]

Twinks and flowery Mushers and boring longlivers in between. We all enrich our game and I wouldn't want to be without any one of you. I've lived some great stories thanks to you.

We all dislike the present listen branching?

[manipura]

It always seems strange to me that a ranger usually has to a) tavern sit to effectively improve listen, or b) find someone to sneak around them so they can 'train'.  If I'm a typical ranger and my thing is hunting critters...it's awkward for me to decide to try listening/spotting/taking notice of a person sneaking around me.  And with the whole tavern sitting thing, it's just awkward if you're trying to play the self-sufficient wasteland-type ranger who spends as little time as possible in civilized areas.  I think the self-sufficient wasteland type is also far less likely to have some sort of boss who they're going to approach and request a 'sneak partner' from.

I think one of the important points of the thread, besides a bit of questioning just how things worked, was just to point out that there's a bit of an imbalance in how easy it is to improve listen as a city-based character versus a wilderness-based character. 

Realistically, there would be tons of noise going on in the wilderness and your character would be hearing plenty of things.  But it appears that unless your character is in a room where something is sneaking (or critters start whispering to each other) you're just not improving nearly as effectively as anyone in the city, because city-folk can go to a bar and plunk themselves down and not do anything other than let people around them talk.

To me, ranger listen is one of those wonky sort of skills where there aren't a lot of rangery uses for it, but what it branches is absolutely useful to the typical ranger character concept.

[RogueGunslinger]

Just load more sneaking rats into the city and give Jozhals a wandering sneak script.

At least, that's what I would do.

[manipura]

That's one solution.  I wouldn't limit it to just the area in and immediately around Allanak though.  Because of those rangers who actually, you know...ranger 

I always wished there were actual listen echos in the wilderness, not just the opportunity to 'hear' a sneaking animal. 

Code Select Expand

From the south you hear a rustling in the scrub.

Nearby you hear the snapping of dry twigs, then silence.

Something like that.  It doesn't even have to be for an actual animal in the room, it could be representing all the virtual wildlife that presumably is present in the environment.

[Lizzie]

I play a lot of rangers. My experiences with them: Listen/scan come organically, though they take awhile if you go the organic route. I *supplement* the organic route with visits to the bar, which makes sense for any wandering ranger to do now and then. I don't go to the bar to work on listen/scan. I go to the bar because my character's been out of the city for a couple of days, has stuff to trade, so comes into the city, does her trade, then heads to the bar to relax and have a grog and enjoy the company of other sentient beings for a few hours. Even in that,  I try to do it organically.

I think I've done more "non-organic twinkery" type stuff with scan than I have with listen; listen seems to always do what it needs to do in a reasonable amount of time, without forcing it. Scan's slower, but once it gets momentum it's pretty reasonable. So I might twink it a little more at the very beginning, to give it that momentum. And then I back off and just let the roleplay direct how the skills will improve.

[Dunetrade55]

I sit on the listening ledge and eavesdrop on Synthesis pining for the good old days.

[manipura]

I sit on the listening ledge and eavesdrop on Synthesis pining for the good old days.

Listening ledge...stop...

[Riev]

I know there is a creature that is, or used to be, in the grasslands that basically is impossible to see even with max ranger scan, and half the time you'd only know its there because it assists other animals in a fight.

Maybe more things like sandrats, or sneaking raptors, or something. I'm still a fan of zone-echoes like those in the Red being listen-checks.

[Dunetrade55]

I sit on the listening ledge and eavesdrop on Synthesis pining for the good old days.

Listening ledge...stop...

"Why does that guy over there buy ale so slowly?"

"Because he's twinking haggle, now shaddup and get me a beer, dumbass."

[lostinspace]

I get to master listen mostly by making sure I'm always listening, I reflexively type "listen on" every 3-4 minutes. It's much harder in the sands, because most the sneaking creatures RUN away from you, they don't sneak away, so you have to wait for a creature to sneak up on you, which can be very dangerous. Player characters and humanoid NPCs are your best bet for leveling the skill.

I wouldn't be against some creatures occasionally making some noise that can be heard from a room away with listen, in fact I'd love it, because I would be able to hear them even if I can't necessarily locate them.

[nauta]

I get to master listen mostly by making sure I'm always listening, I reflexively type "listen on" every 3-4 minutes.

Did you know you can do 'listen status' (and 'scan status')?  There's still a post delay, but it's not quite as crushing as the post delay in scan and listen.

Although, usually I just learn my max levels in stun on a character, and figure it out from there, e.g., if usually I have max 100 stun, when listen is on it is at 95 or whatever.

Funny story: guard also lowers your max stun, which I never realized.  I hardly ever use guard and was this time, just for RP reasons.  But I forgot, and I see my max stun is lower than it should be, and I (the player) start panicking about how to interpret this as a character -- would this be evidence of a mind worm?  is it just a headache?  do I feel like the guy from Flowers for Algernon now?

[bardlyone]

I get to master listen mostly by making sure I'm always listening, I reflexively type "listen on" every 3-4 minutes.

Did you know you can do 'listen status' (and 'scan status')?  There's still a post delay, but it's not quite as crushing as the post delay in scan and listen.

That just makes me wish listen/scan/watch status could be a part of your prompt somehow, so you would know to restart it, since you don't exactly get an echo but if you watch your prompt a lot, it will tell you the moment it dies.

[lostinspace]

I get to master listen mostly by making sure I'm always listening, I reflexively type "listen on" every 3-4 minutes.

Did you know you can do 'listen status' (and 'scan status')?  There's still a post delay, but it's not quite as crushing as the post delay in scan and listen.

I did know that, I just prefer 'listen on' because if you are listening nothing happens, and if you aren't you start listening. Everything I want in one simple input. I often alias listen to 'listen on' for this exact reason. Having it in the prompt would be nice as well. I think it might show up in stat, but I don't remember for sure, and am at work. If it is available inside of stat, then you're only 1 client trigger away from having it in your prompt

[Lizzie]

Yup I use "listen on" for the exact same reason as lostinspace. If it's already on, it doesn't do anything at all. If it's not on, it turns it on.

[Shoka Windrunner]

I kinda always thought that Listen/scan should be swapped with what the branch on a ranger.  It sort of made more sense to me.  Listen at least.

For a hunter, it would be a lot more beneficial to learn the other way around.