So rangers...

[Voss]

 

But still... 1 of 20-odd kits for 1 of 5 games is pretty much the exact opposite of highlighting something. You could build an equally good archer (with none of the disadvantages) with Khalid, Mazzy or a random fighter in IWD.

 

lol. I think you've pretty much conceded with this statement.

 

By saying you can build a better archer archetype with something else and in 80% of cases you absolutely have to?  

No, that is the exact opposite of a concession.  It is me pointing out that your position is 99% completely untenable.  The ranger archer is one minor option amongst many (for a single character) in BG2, and completely non-existant in BG1, IWD, IWD2 and Torment.  I have no idea in the world how you extract the idea that you are correct out of those facts.  Next you're going to tell me that since I spent a  two week vacation in Japan, I've spent most of my life there.  

Edited March 18, 2015 by Voss

[rheingold]

I think the point is that rangers have been a big part of role playing for a long, long time and they have tried something different this time with the animal companion which is great. Yes it doesn't work well at the moment, yes, I'm not particularly interested in playing a ranger but it's irrelevant. Its very likely that the class will be fixed sometime, maybe just not by release date, and plenty of people do want to play one, so they are absolutely not a waste of time.

[DruidX]

see this thread too:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70801-best-animal-companion/

[Baleros]

see this thread too:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70801-best-animal-companion/

 

Thanks for that.  I am sorry to see that the ranger was not performing well.  Hopefully the animal companion issues will have been fixed on release. 

[Beodmar]

I am planning on rolling a ranger!

[Lephys]

I kind of wonder if it would've been better for the ranger's animal companion to simply function off of Ranger abilities. Functionally, the ranger would "cast" an ability that's called Animal Charge (for example). And would pick a ground target. The companion would then charge that spot. As if the animal companion were a persistent spell effect.

 

Kind of like how MMO pets work, functionally. Or some of them, at least. Your pet is an actual entity, but you don't have to select two individual people just to have your pet do things. *shrug*

 

Something like that that suggests the bond between them could be an interesting design.

[morhilane]

I kind of wonder if it would've been better for the ranger's animal companion to simply function off of Ranger abilities. Functionally, the ranger would "cast" an ability that's called Animal Charge (for example). And would pick a ground target. The companion would then charge that spot. As if the animal companion were a persistent spell effect.

 

Kind of like how MMO pets work, functionally. Or some of them, at least. Your pet is an actual entity, but you don't have to select two individual people just to have your pet do things. *shrug*

 

Something like that that suggests the bond between them could be an interesting design.

 

Have you played a MMO? Pets are dreadful in every MMOs I played for the simple reasons that you do not control them outside of simple commands like "attack". Pillars of Eternity does that part right, it's just another party member that the player is controlling.

Edited March 18, 2015 by morhilane

[aeonsim]

So in my current PoD play in the Beta the Ranger is doing rather well they have a nice modal that reduces the reload time of guns and crossbows by 50% and increases there rate of fire if you combine it with the Gunner talent they have a 70% shorter reload time for the Crossbows and Guns which is fairly nice.

 

They're not awesome but they still rather effective.

[Lephys]

Have you played a MMO? Pets are dreadful in every MMOs I played for the simple reasons that you do not control them outside of simple commands like "attack". Pillars of Eternity does that part right, it's just another party member that the player is controlling.

Yes, I have. And yes, in the ones I've played, they've been dreadful as well. Which is why I wouldn't design the pets exactly like they are in MMOs, but rather "kind of like" that, hence that exact quote in my suggestion.

 

You can't just imagine a pet design straight from an MMO, slapped straight into PoE, then evaluate that as the ultimate conclusion of any possible experimentation. In MMOs, you can't tell the pet where to go. JUST THAT would change things tremendously. I'm not even saying "the pet never gets its own abilities." I just mean, instead of simply "here's your ranger, and here's your extra character who also does things," it might be interesting to have a lot more focus on the collaboration between Ranger and Pet. One way of doing that is to have abilities (of an unspecified quantity) that involve your Ranger USING your pet to do something. A better example than the super-basic "charge a spot I choose" would be some kind of "BACK TO ME!" ability, that had your pet (if it was the right kind... like a stag maybe?) charge back to you from wherever it was, plowing down people in its path. That's interesting, because it's not just a "your stag has the ability to charge places." Your stag is not a whole 'nother character. He's half a character, as far as the class system is involved.

 

So, I just feel like that type of ability is one way to make it a lot more "this animal companion is part of my Ranger class," and not "I just made one character that's really two characters." I mean, if you summon something as not-a-Ranger, does it feel any different, commanding that around, than it does as a Ranger commanding around your animal companion? If not, there be problems. 8P

[rheingold]

The class needs some tweaking, I just don't think it's as bad as people say, it has some nice passives for range weapons and the animal companion is nice for role playing and it's a fairly unique take on how they work. Frankly I was getting tired of two weapon Rangers, now that never made any sense. Can't remember if it was d&d 2or 3 when that happened, but whoever came up with idea that rangers would use 2 weapons (and only in light amour) must have been either very bored or desperate.

[morhilane]

Can't remember if it was d&d 2or 3 when that happened, but whoever came up with idea that rangers would use 2 weapons (and only in light amour) must have been either very bored or desperate.

 

*cough*R.A. Salvatore*cough* 

 

Although, you can make one in Pillars Of Eternity still, but not panther for you, you'll have to deal with a none-black lion.

[Eurhetemec]

 

 

 

Class concept is 'Rangers were a thing in d&d, so we have to have one. Box checked, moving on.'

lol

 

But, on a serious note, the class concept for the Ranger is simply a warrior specialized at ranged fighting, which uses a pet to run distractions, which is a fun and interesting playstyle. Either way, the game is not worse for having more classes, even if some classes are esoteric.

 

I'm going to disagree with you entirely.  The class concept for the ranger has changed randomly over time (from, basically an Aragorn and Jack the Giant Slayer mashup, to ridiculous maniac waving two scimitars around, to dude with a second body that occasionally bites people instead of the actual dude swinging a sword).  And sometimes uses a bow, and every so often remembers there is a nature theme clumsily attached, so has is contractually obligated to utter Captain Planet dialogue.    The pet mechanic is, at various points during all this, non-existant , woefully overpowered or woefully underpowered to the point of being entirely sad.  At no point was it fun or interesting, and 'non-existant' was definitely the most common case.    And definitely worth pointing out that the computer games PoE is intentionally aping do *not* highlight rangers as a ranged class or having a combat pet.

 

And yes, wasting time on terrible classes (not esoteric ones, since all are straight up out of D&D even if the bard and psion use different mechanics) does hurt the game.  The time and effort could have gone to something worthwhile instead.

 

Also, I was entirely serious.

 

Additionally... time immemorial doesn't mean what you think it means.  I was there for the first cRPGs.  The ranger usually wasn't, 

 

They actually were in most of the earliest CRPGs, I'm afraid.

 

Moria, from 1975, for example, had Rangers. As did Rogue, Angband and so on. These games are from 1980 or before. So what games are you talking about? By the 1980s, I can't think of many CRPGs that don't have "ranger-like" characters, even if they didn't have classes or the like. So given 40 years, and predating home computers, "time immemorial" seems very valid.

 

I agree that "what a Ranger is" varies wildly, but the same is true of many other classes - Priest/Cleric, or Bard (Chanter in Eternity), for example, so that's not unusual. I also agree that this whole obsession with "rangers as a pet class" is a bit crap. We can blame 3E for that, though - it was the first edition to make it a mainstream part of the class (cutting the wider follower pool of 2E), and ever since then it's become more and more common (esp. as MMOs have gone that route).

[Lord Wafflebum]

The problem I found with the ranger is that, unlike most of the other classes, they're only viable with very particular builds. As Luckmann was saying, sword and board is the way to go. Build the ranger like a fighter and take perks that either synergize you with your critter or support your role as a fighter.

 

I took the wolf companion and used him primarily as a scout, for which they excel at greatly. I would then make wolfy hang back when combat started, and once engagement kicked in I would have wolfy flank whoever my ranger was fighting. Using that tactic allowed me to deal with pretty much every threat I faced. 

 

I still may use a ranger for my initial playthrough. I've narrowed it down to paladin, monk, or ranger.