Artisan Archive
Thread: Artisan Survey about Surveying
Now I don't have a problem with spending the skill points on Artisan, I'm a Master Artisan and I'm keeping it. However, the Devs aren't correcting the /medicalforage skill because they say in order to make it useful it would undermine the Artisan /survey skill. To give you an example of what /medicalforage is like compared to what Medics need, imagine you could only survey and sample minerals. If you want to get chemicals, floras, gases, etc... you have to get another novice profession or buy from them (assuming they look for your needs). I didn't start this tread saying that I wanted to steal /survey from the Artisans, I proposed a skill to replace our broken /medicalforage. If you could think of anotheroptionlet me know.
- Travin
That does not undermine the artisan tree at all.
I'll chat with Zarlor about this.
Message Edited by Vaedross on 12-24-2003 10:44 AM
PrincessThea wrote:
Would it be ok with the medical community if artisans were given the skill to heal themselves, without any medical skills. Ya i didnt think so.
Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that. There are some on the medical community who are very protective of the idea of healing being used anyplace else, however, there are quite a few of us who think that Stim As should be changed around so that they are useable by anyone. (Call it a Booster Shot instead of a Stim A, if you will.) It wouldn't be like giving the /healdamage skill away, but it would create a market for Medics that does not othwerwise exist. And it, frankly, wouldn't be anywhere near the capabilities of of a Medic using it, let along a Medic using a better stim. It would do in a pinch, though.
It should be noted, though, that Medics have already given up their healing abilities to a MUCH higher degree to every profession in the game. It's called the Pet Stim and anyone can use it. And it does something no Medic or Doctor and only a High Level Combat Medic can do (at least not without the rare Damage Stim loot drop)... it heals Mind Damage. And all of that is done on the primary tank for most combat groups.
Chef and Spice buffs perform a form of emergency healing as well.
So healing skills even now are not exclusive to the Medical professions.
All of that being said, though, the push on the Issue from the Doctor (or CM or Medic)side is probably a lot more complex than just getting some gimped from of survey ability. The problem is that Artisans currently do not really cater to Doctors. Some do, but it's really not enough to service the whole medicalcommunity. Prices on those resources that do get pulled up have gone through the roof with the Hologrinders, especially, and the Medical Professions, who otherwise have very limited forms of income, (heck, we don't even have mission terminals like artisans do, and let's not talk about tips) are having a very hard time of affording any of those resources. So most currently suffer though taking Artisan for the survey abilities even though it really messes with the templates pretty heavily.
The schematics are as complex, or moreso in some cases, than those of the artisan-based, or "true", crafters. So despite being a "hybrid" crafter the hoops we go through are just like those of the Artisan professions (and yeah, I've played several of them, including Mastering Artisan and Architect as well as dabbling in Chef, Merchant and Weaponsmith, just so you know I don't speak from a lack of experience.)
So the issue for the Medical professions is one of being shoved into the position of havingmany ofthe samerequirements of a true crafter, yet being lumped into the ring with the hybrid crafters who all can get their own resources for the majority (though not all, of course)of their crafting needs (Scout and Ranger /harvest) and/or have no need to worry about the stats of their resources because there is nothing to experiement on, their schematics use very general (non-named) resources and they use far less resources
than we do in thier crafting anyway.
So it's more of a question of strapping the profession with the burdens of the crafter but not given us the tools to actually perform our function. We havethe only novice professions where we cannot advance at all without turning outside of the profession. We need healing XP from other folks (nobody has any qualms with that, though, and the same is true for Entertainers on their healing line) and we need resources from Artisan and Scout skills in order tocraft anything that we need in order to do that healing to begin with (well, to heal at any decent level, at any rate, since there are those oddball /tend commands, the damage one not even giving us XP anyway.)
Now does that mean we should get /survey and /sample? No, not necessarily. Although that is seen as the easiest possible solution. However it is a pervasive problem for the profession that greatly hampers the enjoyment of the average player in that profession. (For the record, over a 2/3rds majority of Doctor players on the forumshave voted for this one issue as being on their personal list of Top 10 Issues, easily more than half of all Doctors had it in their Top 2. It really is an issue that is hurting us that badly!)
There are other possibilities to consider, though. As mentioned things like decaying survey tools, 1 shot survey droids, limited ranges, extrememly limited sample abilities or ability to only see certain stats (primarily OQ/PE/UT/DR and possibly Mal.) that are of importance to the Medical professions, a great reduction in specificity and/or quantities required of resources on our schematics. Many things could be looked at here, but it is definitely a huge problem for the medical professions and I just don't see it going away, I'm sorry to say. It's a question of balance, fairness and playability. Heck we were given that ability to some extent back in Beta with /medicalforage, but changes that made the crafting system more complex for Medics completely invalidated the usefulness of that skill.
So the problem is there, it's just a question of making sure we delineate exactly what the problem is for the Dev team and then finding some kind of viable solution to that very huge issue. If /survey is the answer then I don't have a problem with that since I really don't see Surveyors getting hit too hard by any minor loss of Doctor business that might cause anyway. But it is a core issue that does need to find some kind of resolution. What the final solution will be, though, I just don't know. All I can say is that as the Medic Correspondent I will continue to see the issue through to work with the Devs to show them how this is a huge problem for us and to see if a solution can be found.
(BTW, if my title still shows Doctor Correspondent, I'd just like folks to know that Traigus is now the Doc Corre, I'm actually the Medic Corre now. And all of the above is my personal opinion and has diddley squat to do with my being a Corre. 
)
Just because you need it, it doesn't mean you should have it.
A marksman cannot make his own weapons.
Also, there are noreally useful or sell-able itemin the whole Artisan tree until you hit Master.
Resources from Surveying is pretty much the only form of incomefor Artisans untilthey hit Master and sell vehicles/subcomponents,or pick up one of the elite professions.
But without a weaponyou can be quite surethat they won't make ranged XP
For myself I like the idea of changing forage to something like sample as mentioned earlier in the thread. Heck a good player would quickly realise how to use the new and improved forage to locate likely spots for micro flora farms. Would it be as good as survey no but then again if you want to survey then take novice artisan and work on it. Also, were I to recieve a tell from a medic type looking for flora I'd be more than happy to go off looking for the resource. I might ask a small fee but it would be a heck of a lot more fun than running around doing survey missions.
Tmon wrote:
But without a weaponyou can be quite surethat they won't make ranged XP
Of course. And Medics would make virtually no XP without making those packs they use to heal with. We are both the soleproducer and user of our product. That's why the analogy simply does not work. Add in that the user of a weapon can directly gain monetary and faction point benefits from using that skill and they've quickly surpassed what a Medic is capable in the same realtive terms. The analogy just doesn't fit.
For myself I like the idea of changing forage to something like sample as mentioned earlier in the thread. Heck a good player would quickly realise how to use the new and improved forage to locate likely spots for micro flora farms. Would it be as good as survey no but then again if you want to survey then take novice artisan and work on it. Also, were I to recieve a tell from a medic type looking for flora I'd be more than happy to go off looking for the resource. I might ask a small fee but it would be a heck of a lot more fun than running around doing survey missions.
The problem there is that such a process would neither be quick nor simple and it only addresses some organic needs. We also need as much (or insome cases, indeed in most casesfor CMs, more) inorganics as we do organics.
Look at it this way. What if every artisan schematic required as much hide, bone and/or meat as they currenly do for at least one set of the resources required in there schematics currently? Sure there are some like that now, but not every single one of them. That is the case for every single Medical Profession schematic in the game to require at least one organic-type resource as well as at least one inorganic-type resource.
Zarlor wrote:
Tmon wrote:
For myself I like the idea of changing forage to something like sample as mentioned earlier in the thread. Heck a good player would quickly realise how to use the new and improved forage to locate likely spots for micro flora farms. Would it be as good as survey no but then again if you want to survey then take novice artisan and work on it. Also, were I to recieve a tell from a medic type looking for flora I'd be more than happy to go off looking for the resource. I might ask a small fee but it would be a heck of a lot more fun than running around doing survey missions.
The problem there is that such a process would neither be quick nor simple and it only addresses some organic needs. We also need as much (or insome cases, indeed in most casesfor CMs, more) inorganics as we do organics...
No it wouldn't, but I'd suggest that if you want a quick and simple solution theninvest the points in novice artisan and do your own surveying. It ispretty easy to buy inorganic resources from both the bazaar or other players. My understanding is that it is the organics that are difficult to find. Also, as I said I expect that any medic type can easily find someone who would be willing to do a little surveying for them. Once the spot is found you need no special skill to place a harvester.
Yet almost everyone has decided it to be worthwhile. Even scouts and the combat classes that want to pick up a little money on the side while they're doing combat missions.
I'd dearly love the ability to buff myself to the degree a doctor can. It makes things soooo much easier in combat. But the only one that can do that for me is a doctor. Heck, the only buff I can perform...focus and willpower as a musician...I can't even aim at myself. The best I can do is buy drinks or drugs...which by the way are from other professions.
Everyone relies on everyone else. It's unfortunate that a doctor can find it hard not to rely on others for materials but, even if you didn't, you'd rely on others to get any experience at all, save for crafting of meds. Fact of life. If they made stimpack A's useable by everyone, I suspect you'd see far fewer people in med centers, except when horribly wounded. You might make a few credits on Stim A's but guaranteed you'd make less than people are currently charging you for materials.
Again I say: why are they charging 10cr or more for materials? Because they can, and because if you don't pay they'll find another doctor who will. If that is worth 15 or more skill points to you, then use them to survey and sample.
I also agree that /medicalforage should be fixed. I think I was the first one in this thread to suggest they change it the way that has been mentioned a few times since, that it be a mini-sample and give you a few units of something actually found where you are, including the stats of the material. That way, you can decide to drop down a harvester.
Remember that. Harvesters require no profession, no skill points, not even any surveying. Drop one, pump money and energy into it, and go. If you know the material you want is on the spot, just not what percentage, then that makes it at least a little more valuable to you.
Ok, let me reiterate something here.Folks seem to suggest or think that giving some of the medical professions full /survey and /sample capabilities is what is being asked for. While for some people this is true, the vast majortiy are NOT asking for that.
They are aksing for a solution to a core problem dealing with something that every other profession has a solution to, the acquisition of resources needed to perform their basic function.
For Artisan-based professionsthat answer is /survey and /sample. For Scout-based professions the answer is /harvest (and BE's pick this up from them as well, plus they have their own DNA sampling ability) as well as lesser resource requirements. For Musicians and Smugglers they are compensated with very small resource requirements and no need to worry about experimentation or resource stats, as well as wtih non-specific resource requirements and the fact that since they are not novice professions they should have acquired at least some monetary savings with which to purchase those minor resource requirements.
The medical-profession answer to this, originally, was /medicalforage along with somewhat easier schematics at the low level. The schematic requirement was changed and /medicalforage became useless.
So what the medical-professions are looking for is what every other crafting profession has. Some method for making what they HAVE to make with the skills they are given.
Ignore /survey and /sample if you must, because those are not the real issue. Those, and other ideas based off of those, are only possible solutions to the problem.
BTW, for those suggesting that these kinds of abilities on the medic trees would seriously hinder your resource sales, ask yourself this. Who is your biggest resource buyer? I bet the answer isn't Medics. I bet it's another profession that already has /survey and /sample. I bet it's either an Architect, a Weaponsmith or an Armorsmith. Their having the ability hasn't hurt your resource business any, has it?
Well, then let me turn that around. Why would any of the artisan professions need that ability at all? Why would Scout or Ranger need the /harvest ability?
Perhaps the answer then would be to move all of the resource gathering skill into a seperate profession so that artisan and scout skills can be on the same footing as the Medical professions stand on? I'm not fond of that solution, but it would be a soluition.
As for the just aksing every artisan you meet for waypoints... have you tried that? Most of them could care less what resources medics need because it's not lucrative enough of a market. Instead those that do bother to search waypoints do so for Armor/Weaponsmiths and Architects, primarily, because they can make far more profit from the practitioners of those professions. All of that is even assuming you can find an artisan that bothers to survey at all, anymore, for anything other than their own or their PA'sneeds. It's even rarer to find those that even bother to move harvesters as much as we all used to, keeping things more for pulling up whatever decent comes along. It's neither and easy nor comfortable process most of the time.
You could ask folks for waypoints, but getting them, and getting them at an affordable price for a focused support profession, is extremely difficult.
Actually I think you'll find a fair amount of support for a miner type profession on these boards. As far as the whole topic goes it seems to me that your argument as to the reason medical types should be able to survey is that it is inconvenient to work under the current system. I don't find that a very compelling argument myself. But you have given me an idea or two about ways I can make a little cash from this so thank you for that.
Inconvenient?I suppose one could view it that way. But again, only in the same way it would be inconvenient for an artisan to be unable to acquire the resources they need in order to advance in their profession. It's a question of simple ability to perform ones profession.
The only difference is that, except for the Hologrinders, those who had inheritances, those in a well connected PA or those with really nice and giving friends, Docs and CMs tend to be downright poor compared to other professions in the game. I've even played an Entertainer and THEY make more money on tips than Docs and CMs do (well, except intwo very specific instances of Stim B sales and selling Buffing services, both of which pretty much require Master Doc, while CM and Medic have no such abilites at all.)
Of course I'm not looking for sympathy here or anything, only explaining, clarifying and hoping to better define the actual issue that was brought up here.