What Happened to the Ye Olde Ranger of 'Ole in Our RPGs?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Remember way back when, the days when the ranger class in RPGs were light armored, cloaked swordsmen like Aragon, Tanis, and Drizzdt? When they fast melee fighters that jumped into the fray as swirling tigers?

Now, that archetype of play has disappeared, and rangers have become "Elf chicks with bows and a wolf pet".

Don't give me that "Oh, they've become rogues now," because Rangers weren't in any way rogues, and the only other melee class in our RPGs nowadays that don't use magic of any sort are those heavy armored warriors...

What happened to them? To our ranger class? Why can't we just be light armored, cloaked swordsmen anymore?

[Nenavn]

The "Ranger" hasn't gone anywhere, but the archetypes it represented were rolled into the more typical Rogue and Hunter classes in World of Warcraft's case.

[Calzaeth]

Most modern games either have a straight-up ranger, or allow you to build your rogue as one.

We're still around, friend

[Lothaeryn]

What happened to hunters not needing a Fucking animal at their sides 24/7 in order to play their class optimally? I think that's a greater question to ask. Seems like every rpg game that has a hunter/ranger class only allows for pets and no other optimal builds without them.

And no, lone wolf is not optimal, it has potential, but not as easily as Survival. Especially in PvP.

Can there be a single rpg where I don't have to play fetch with my pet in order to do optimal dps? What happened to just being a skilled marksman? It really pissed me off when even GW2 had the ranger class that could use melee abilities, yet still forced me to drag along a Fucking pet to do some of my abilities.

[Charge me Doctor]

Why then you don't just equip light armour on a warrior and utilize extra mobility and less penalties on movement? Is this example for some particular game that you play or what?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The "Ranger" hasn't gone anywhere, but the archetypes it represented were rolled into the more typical Rogue and Hunter classes in World of Warcraft's case.

Did you not read a hotdamn word I wrote?

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Most modern games either have a straight-up ranger, or allow you to build your rogue as one.

We're still around, friend

*sigh*

Why then you don't just equip light armour on a warrior and utilize extra mobility and less penalties on movement? Is this example for some particular game that you play or what?

In almost every MMORPG nowadays, that's simply not not viable. Yes; you CAN decide to wear leather armor on your warrior in WoW, but ultimately efficiency and optimization will always trump theme and experience. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear anything but plate armor (because everything else has weaker armor rating, and leather has agility which is useless to wars) and every reason to wear plate (because you get more stats all round due to baked in passives). This is usually the case with all other warrior classes in MMORPGs.

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Rangers are not rogues - we do not skulk in the shadows with knives and pick people's pockets. True, we take advantage of stealth when neccesary, but that is our only commonality.

Rangers are not hunters - we go in with the sword alone, using our prowless and immaculate skill of the blade to strike down our foes. We do not (or rarly) rely on animals, and we only use the bow as a secondary to pick off the enemy in certain situations.

Rangers ar not warriors - we don't lug around 300 pounds of paladin armor and a big ass hammer and swing with force. We need to be quick on our feet, evading and parrying, not being lazy and mitigating blows through armor. We use fineese of the blade, ot raw, untamed strentgh of what warriors do.

[Charge me Doctor]

Hunters used to have Survival talent tree and it was basically what you want, it was removed to ease itemization and confuse about class overall. Now you have combat Rogues to fill this spot. All MMORPGs are more MMO than RPGs, they care about balance more than about isometry and theme. Having, basically, poorly armoured but mobile warrior won't work, because you will have to limit movement of good armoured warriors and risk of them being constantly kited and CCed to death.

It's not an issue in single player games (NWN, pillars of eternity, X souls), you can have your lightly armoured agile warrior over good armoured warrior.

To answer your question, nothing happened, you still can have your melee ranger without animal to run with in RPGs, but MMORPGs are not classic RPSs, they don't give you that amount of freedom to customize your character, you have to deal with it in the same way as if you would wanted to drive a tank in call of duty multiplayer

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Rangers ar not warriors - we don't lug around 300 pounds of paladin armor and a big ass hammer and swing with force. We need to be quick on our feet, evading and parrying, not being lazy and mitigating blows through armor. We use fineese of the blade, ot raw, untamed strentgh of what warriors do.

Arms warrior. Imagine plate armour to be leather armour, done.

[Mirishka]

Plenty of games have a 'true' ranger style of gameplay. Maybe go play one of them, instead of wasting your time (and ours) bitching about it?

[Charge me Doctor]

Rangers are not hunters - we go in with the sword alone, using our prowless and immaculate skill of the blade to strike down our foes. We do not (or rarly) rely on animals, and we only use the bow as a secondary to pick off the enemy in certain situations.

Aragorn used a fucking bow, he also was a freaking necromancer, he also carried daggers with him. Rangers do not care about themes, they care about surviving in the wild and be as efficient as they can with what they have at their disposal, not a single ranger wouldn't take a bow with him if he has this ability

[Shelly]

Try playing Neverwinter Online. The Hunter Ranger class is melee/ranged which can switch at the tap of the tab.

Also, I am kinda glad "The Ranger" has gone.

They were a bunch of filthy racists.

Their classic class description involves them having bonus damage to specific enemies of whichever race. They were basically drunk skinheads looking to run into a minority.

Oh, and Drizzt sucks. You know, obligatory.

Double oh, Strider/Aragorn is a Ranger, but not in the classic D&D term. More in the "Hey, I'm a member of a paramilitary organization called Rangers!" kinda way.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Plenty of games have a 'true' ranger style of gameplay. Maybe go play one of them, instead of wasting your time (and ours) bitching about it?

Perhaps you could be helpful and name some?

[Charge me Doctor]

[QUOTE=Valyrian Stormclaw;33096701]
Rangers are not rogues - we do not skulk in the shadows with knives and pick people's pockets. True, we take advantage of stealth when neccesary, but that is our only commonality.
/QUOTE]
If we are still talking about WoW for some weird reason, you don't need to pick anyones pockets and carry daggers, there is some limited options without hindering your gameplay like if you would want to be leather-geared warrior

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Double oh, Strider/Aragorn is a Ranger, but not in the classic D&D term. More in the "Hey, I'm a member of a paramilitary organization called Rangers!" kinda way.

Agree, and i doubt that these personas would limit themselves to specific weapon types, like, say, paladin would.

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Perhaps you could be helpful and name some?

any actual RPG with decent customization, NWN, Icewind Dale, baldurs gate

[jackofwind]

Perhaps you could be helpful and name some?

Fucking The Witcher series, for one. Geralt is 100% oldschool ranger.

But seriously, Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, Elder Scrolls, any RPG with customizable classes. I question whether you even play games.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Fucking The Witcher series, for one. Geralt is 100% oldschool ranger.

But seriously, Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, Elder Scrolls, any RPG with customizable classes. I question whether you even play games.

i thought I made it clear I was talking about MMORPGs. Quite clearly I didn't.

[Charge me Doctor]

i thought I made it clear I was talking about MMORPGs. Quite clearly I didn't.

The thread name is "What Happened to the Ye Olde Ranger of 'Ole in Our RPGs?" and first sentence is "Remember way back when, the days when the ranger class in RPGs were light armored", there is literally nothing states about MMORPGs (which is completely irrelevant to RPGs in most cases because it lacks customization of your character), if you want a comparison, imagine playing NWN only with pre-made character types, without ability to create your own one and all your skills are learned automatically, yeah, that's MMORPG.

You are trying to apply standards of one genre to another, which won't, obviously, work

[Herecius]

i thought I made it clear I was talking about MMORPGs. Quite clearly I didn't.

Not only did you not 'make that clear,' you keep moving the goalposts for what would satisfy you. Not much point even trying to argue with that.

Also, both Tera and LotRO have sword or bow-using classes that do not utilize a pet, but I'm sure you'd find reason to not be satisfied with either of their representations either, since as it was pointed out, Aragorn himself did not exclusively use a sword.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Damn it all.

Rangers in MMORPGs - the likes of Tanis Half-Elven: carrying a longsword (rogues dual wield), light armor (arms are stuck to plate), and doesn't give a damn about magic! (No, your not a ranger Geralt). I vividly remember EQ and LotRO having these, and then from then on they disappeared from the genre altogether, only seen in the singleplayer CRPGs the likes of BG.

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Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but how could such a unique, fleshed out class with it's own lore and history and everything suddenly become forgotten in the world of MMORPGs? War has no favorites, and when your at war with Hordes/Dragons/Evil Wizards/Whatever, you don't give up just because you only have a little blade to poke with and a cape to get soaked in the rain.

Where'd it go?

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I feel like I'm the only person on this site who evens remembers them. Am I that old?

[jackofwind]

i thought I made it clear I was talking about MMORPGs. Quite clearly I didn't.

LOTRO has the Champion class which unsurprisingly fits within the Aragorn ranger archetype

RIFT has soultrees in the Rogue class that fill your wishes (Swashbuckler etc)

TERA has the Warrior class which is like a dual-wielding sword-using acrobatic melee combatant

ArcheAge has a more open class system, but the Battlerage tree allows for light-armored non-stealthed melee combat proficiency

ESO is Elder Scrolls so you can do whatever the fuck you want and be whoever the fuck you want to be

Rangers in MMORPGs - the likes of Tanis Half-Elven: carrying a longsword (rogues dual wield), light armor (arms are stuck to plate), and doesn't give a damn about magic! (No, your not a ranger Geralt). I vividly remember EQ and LotRO having these, and then from then on they disappeared from the genre altogether, only seen in the singleplayer CRPGs the likes of BG.

Geralt uses what are described as "simple spells", or signs - and these are down a skill path that you don't even need to take. You can play Geralt completely like a ranger if you want to, without regard for signs.

If you mean magic items, I would point out that Tanis wields a magic sword and also gets a magic bracelet from Tasslehoff - so he does actually "give a damn" about magic. Further to the point, Tanis is by definition not a ranger, he is a fighter as described in 2nd edition DnD - a fact which calls into question what your concept of the ranger archetype is anyways.

[Charge me Doctor]

Damn it all.

Rangers in MMORPGs - the likes of Tanis Half-Elven: carrying a longsword (rogues dual wield), light armor (arms are stuck to plate), and doesn't give a damn about magic! (No, your not a ranger Geralt). I vividly remember EQ and LotRO having these, and then from then on they disappeared from the genre altogether, only seen in the singleplayer CRPGs the likes of BG.

So, basically, arms warrior with exception of imagining your plate being leather (which is not that hard, the difference between plate armour and leather armour is about 15% reduction)? Or you expect MMORPG to have a whole spec to be basically arms warrior with leather armour? Or should they have even more mobility than warriors in this case (which would be OPed)? Or it should be just combat rogue with two-hander? You either look for very-very niche role, or a game that isn't MMORPG, Rangers just do not work in MMORPG, they are either useless (multiple classes do same things better), or OPed (they do same things than other classes, but better). In case of WoW, there is no reason for rangers to exist. There is no reason a warrior would hinder himself by wearing leather instead of plate, they just doesn't fit in WoW. In case of other MMORPGs, i'm sure ESO and LotR have similar class.
The heck, even dark souls is better at "making" rangers (weak armour and two-hander), because more armour actually hurts your mobility (which is not the case in many MMORPG, including WoW)

[Herecius]

I find it amusing that you reference both Aragorn and Drizzt, who both used numerous other weapons AND magic (in particular, Drizzt is famous for dual wielding scimitars and having a panther companion, and was also steeped in magic{also, Drizzt is stupid}), and yet insist that you will settle for nothing less than... man with longsword wearing a cape? I guess? You're way beyond nitpicking.