upgrade to hunters

[solar]

If there's an upgrade-tune to the current hunting system (like something that is not automatic hunting, but manual tracking and such (I've heard vague rumours concerning this one) ), it would be in my opinion great to have individual masteries for each terrain type there is, like (OK, the names are made up without any though put into them, so feel free to change them )

Glacier mastery!
Tundra mastery!
Swamp mastery!
Hills mastery!
Forest mastery!
Meadow mastery!
Plains mastery!
Lake mastery!
and so on.

Also, these are likely to be included:

Mastery of tracking (makes it easier to find animals, tracking-mode takes less ep and so on.)

Master hunter (improves damage dealt with the initial attack, makes the skins worth more, has a positive impact on the size of hunted animals (weight, not exp value), acquired solely by the number of kills done while hunting)

Unfortunately, rangers have all those nice terrain/animal thingies already, so they might want to keep them for themselves...

Oh, and it will take time to raise all those terrain masteries to 100, so I can't see why our eternal hunters (players that like to hunt 24/7) wouldn't like them to be added.

And as always, these masteries don't have to be uber great, just something to separate the dedicated from the whimsical hunters, something to brag about, nothing too good, to make this subguild special enough to be joined, since some just raise the necessary skills by doing.

I posted this one here and not into the Ideas, since this guild already exists.

[felgand]

These are good ideas overall, but let me add several comments. Instead of having 8+ terrain masteries that basically give the same bonus, it might be interesting to condense the different terrain-types into five-odd categories. A hunter would choose to specialize in one of the terrain-types and gain the use of the mastery. This choice would be binding and only could be changed with a reincarnation. Rangers and shapeshifters would be able to specialize in two terrains, being the master (or mistress?) of their element.

Hunting definately needs more user input as the system now is both tiredly repetitive and open to abuses, which has been seen in the past. Perhaps several commands could be added during the course of a single hunt. These would include:

Flank: Attempt to maneuver yourself into a better position of your prey.

Isolate: Attempts to isolate an animal from a pack (this can only be used on animals that travel in packs, obviously). A successfully isolated animal would be more susceptible to getting hit with a thrown weapon, only available during party hunts. This command can also be used in party hunts to harass larger prey into a more beneficial position...of course larger prey might take a swipe at you instead.

Ambush: Attempts to ambush your prey with your chosen weapon, the chance of a good ambush is determined by your luck, how well you've tracked the animal, and associated skills.

Stalk: If you don't want to ambush the animal you found, just wait for another.

Track: Increase your chances of successfully landing a good ambush by tracking the moments of your prey.

Mounts might also be coded to have different success rates in certain terrains if Belannaer is interested...so that it might not always be the best idea to drag out that wyvern for another go. *innocent*

[solar]

Great ideas concerning the commands one could use while hunting.

Also, it should/could be made to support 'hunting parties'
The current system lets the one with highest skill ambush while the others just try to chase animals to him/her, so the 'chasers' would have to work manually in the new system, right?

And each ambusher gets to try and attack the animal from their hiding places with bows/spears before the combat starts, while the chasers do not?

[artic]

Good ideas from Felgand. Especially the part about having to choose a limited number of envirments to master. It makes sense that one that has spent a lot of time studying the animals in one enviorment, would know next to nothing of the animals living in a completely different enviorment. And if you want to be a master of all anviorments, well then it would make sense leaving the system just like it is.

About hunting having to be more interactive, i must agree. Hunting a nd fishing are rather interesting at first, but after about 10-20 hunts/fishing's you have seen almost all the different descriptions and it gets boring immediatelly. More player-interaction would give a better feeling of control and offer a much more wider field of possibilities.

[felgand]

The way I imagine it, anyone in the hunting party may ambush an animal. Their chance of success would depend on the party's work in isolating the animal, their own work in tracking the animal, their own hunting/hunting-associated skills/masteries, and the position of the animal relative to themselves.

[solar]

About the limited number of terrains... why? And before you ask 'why not?', read my point of view:

When they all are available, there would still be those who specialize in a single terrain type, no?
And for those who want broader range of masteries, they could have them - it will take multiple times the effort to raise them high, so it would not be 'too overtune'.

This way one would really have to spend a lot of time to master them all, but it _could_ be done. Something for our eternal hunters to aim at, right? Being forced to reinc to change these 'specializations' would not be nice, since learnable by doing skills will lower from the values they have risen to...

[artic]

A way to solve the conflict of how many masteries/enviorments one could have would be to have a certain amount of choises, plus one: general hunters. So a hunter could choose to specialize in one terrain, or they could become a general hunter, with the ability to specialize in all terrains, but with slight penalties such as lowered maximums or longer times to raise.

[solar]

And should we want to make the system even more complex, we could have a 'direction of wind' factor, that could alert animals of the hunters' scent, and it would take some training (skills and/or masteries) for the hunter to get info regarding it, for example, knowing how to stay under the wind and so on.

Also, scent removing oils and camouflaging salves could help hunting a bit.

[artic]

Also, scent removing oils and camouflaging salves could help hunting a bit.

You mentioned something i have spent a long time to hear: 'camouflaging salves'. I fail to see why we do not have them already. Salves that would add a temporary bonus to all hiding related skills- hunt, 'ranger hide', shadowdance, maybe even move silently (If your camouflaged you are harder to spot- it does not make you more silent however.)

Also some animal lure oils would be nice too. Like to cover the hunter smell and the lure a specific animal you could apply to yourself something like 'oil made of the urine of a female manticore in need' - that oil would explain why them manticores ar always swarming after me!

[felgand]

The reason I'd like to see people specialize in different terrains instead of letting everyone have access to all the masteries is simple. If you allow folks to improve in every mastery...then you'll have a bunch of cookie-cutter hunters that are basically all the same...and your masteries would have to be weaker to compensate for the fact that you can choose them all. By forcing people to choose a certain terrain (or two terrains in the case of rangers and shapeshifters), people would have to make a conscious choice as to which terrain they would want to master. Now, this doesn't mean they couldn't hunt in other terrains...they just won't be nearly as good as someone who has chosen to specialize in it and has a good mastery percentage.

For a system like this to work, the huntable animals would have to be reviewed and balanced according to terrains in terms of weight of the animal, scarcity, value of fur/meat, medicinal purposes, and exp value. These values could even be made dynamic...as more people hunt the same terrain...these animals would be more scarce and less valuable.

As a middle ground, it may be a possible for a hunter to change their preferred terrain after a certain time has elapsed (something like 2 months from their reincarnation time, perhaps). By changing their specialization, the hunter will no longer gain any skill in their previous specialization...and it will slowly dwindle back down to 0 skill per reboot to reflect a change in the hunter's mindset.

[suron]

I would like to see some newbies used as bait when hunting for more dangerous animals/beasts.
You could tie a rope around the newbie and nearby tree or something so that the unfort...fortunate bait would not wander around. This would greatly increase the chances of hunting bigger animals.

The initial attack would determine if the newbie would survive or not. If the animal gets stunned from the initial attack then the newbie would have enough time to climb the tree and not be part of the fight. As we all know the newbies are helpless without proper encouragement (in this case it would be the dangerous animal) so they would not be able to climb into the tree or free themselves otherwise without outside help or encouragement.

You could improve your hunting chances even further by sticking the newbie a couple of times with a pointy stick or knife so that it would bleed a little. The smell of blood would increase the chances of attracting even more dangerous animals, but unfortunately damaging the bait would result in lowered chance of climbing into the tree in time, but that is a sacrifice the hunters are willing to take

You could replace this newbie with willing player or even party member if necessary.

(And while the most parts of this post are clearly meant as a joke the main thing is that a BAIT would really rock while hunting)

[arkady]

Do animals in the out world eat like mounts?

If so we should find bears hovering around the piles of meat, hearts, and fish we all find while walking. Meat type food EQ would make great bait for meat-eating animals. we could try to lure mammoths with piles of hay.

Baiting sounds awesome but if it uses meat then animals like the moose should be excluded, since then it would be the ultra-rare vampire moose.

Maybe Mateing 'calls' could be introduced along with 'bait'

[artic]

Makes sense to me, that if i lay a huge pile of meat on the ground a pack of hungry wowlves might show up. And instead of just attackin gthe wolves, it would be nice (you know more of a sneaky way) to poison that meat, and see if any of those wolves eats it.

However currently it seems, poisoning food or drink stuff does nothing. So we are a Long way from poisonin bait and lureing some animals with it.

Also i thik 'calls' is a nice idea. I would also like to see animal call making eq, such as the duck-whistle. Like if you have that in you inventory you can: 'Use hunting with <weapon> and <instrument>'. So you would try to hide and make duck sounds with that whistle, until you see a duck and than you could fire at it with you crossbow. Seems logical. Seems like a nice addition to our current hunting system.

[felgand]

Piles of meat would rarely attract wild predators as they generally prefer fresh kills instead of week-old rotten meat. Suron's idea of more suitable bait is interesting and could be expanded upon though...I'd like to see bait as being a more difficult to obtain item or at least limited so that it's more of an extra bonus that folks can take advantage of, not the standard.

[artic]

Piles of meat would rarely attract wild predators as they generally prefer fresh kills instead of week-old rotten meat. Suron's idea of more suitable bait is interesting and could be expanded upon though...I'd like to see bait as being a more difficult to obtain item or at least limited so that it's more of an extra bonus that folks can take advantage of, not the standard.

Actualy a lot a animals don't eat their meat unless it has started to rott. Like bears bury their kills and way until the meat has rotten a bit before they start to eat it.
But i see you point. Bait should be a bit harder to accuire than simple meat. How about having to 'hunt to capture' first. Like in fishing, first you catsh the small fish and than you se tham as bait for the big ones. Would be same with hinting. You hunt down a young deer calf,try to get it alive, cut it maybe to make it bleed, than use it as bait. The screams of a hurt calf should attract all sorts of predators. And trying to catsh something alive would be reasonably difficult. Maybe even more difficult than recruiting newbies