Bio Engineer Archive

• Crafting experimentation has been dealt with


• Resources are now much easier to aquire than they were a year ago, and the devs feel you should hire an artisan and scout


• Faction points for healing have been pretty much denied


• Heals are in the queue


• Money... well that is still an issue, but can be solved other was as being a master medic leaves you with free skill points...

So basically I want to update our issues list with what the community feels are the most important issues currently. Need to get some discussion going before I go insane!

Ok, for reasons I cannot elaborate on, I will be selecting what goes on the top 5 list.Please continue to make suggestions, but if they don't appear on my list, don't ask.

1. Healingrange / distance


2. Diagnose "Refresh" button and current damage values of pools to assist doctors in buffing)


3. Battle Fatigue notification


4. General Inventory Search for Meds


5. Target Friendlies keyboard shortcut

Other issues

1. Medical Content (Mission Terminals)


2. Groupmate Damage Beacon


3. Money for services


4. Faction points for healing

Ok if you know of any other bug or issue that can be reproduced reliably please make note of it.

Message Edited by MasterNerfSlayer on 10-11-2004 01:16 PM

Message Edited by MasterNerfSlayer on 10-14-2004 11:27 AM

Message Edited by MasterNerfSlayer on 10-19-2004 01:23 PM

Message Edited by Pahdbacca on 09-23-2004 08:22 AM

*prepares dead horse

give medics the full range of 'medicine use, medicine assembly, medicine experimentation'
give remove those skills from the doc tree altogether.. and replace with 'doctor use.. assembly and experimentation'

this allows for CM's to compete in the low end stim market.. and gives BE's more incentive to master medic to gain access to 'high turnover' merchandise

this also grants a wide enough range on the use skill that more expensive skillpoint requirements can be placed on those stim-b's so that there is a role for 'healers' in group composition due to less people willing to invest the extra required skillpoints

note: give doc's trade in option on their skillmod clothes to convert from medicine experimentation/assembly to doctor medicine/assembly


*prepares dead horse number 2

move the /healstate command from novice doc to master medic..

will also give more incentive for players to master medic.. as well as giving combat medics a useful healing ability in combat situation..

note: doc crafted stimpacks(anything with stimpack in the name.. including state stimpacks.. high level woundpacks should be kept within the doctor realm completely in my opinion) will still be required.. but will retain medical use (if dead horse 1 is implemented) thus doc's are NOT reduced to selling to their own profession but instead expanding their market

afterthought.. res kits too..

# about the author..
i consider myself a combat medic(MCM/partial combat profession/novice doc).. the sad part is that i'm seriously considering going jedi just to have adequate healing power and survivability on a battlefield.. these ideas i post are truly inspired by the fact that i rarely am wanted/welcome to actively group (not solo-group) with other players because they have no need for my multiple-thousand point heals(more people=bigger heal 8).. and that mindheal is so detrimental to the combat medic that i can't use it nearly often enough to justify the skillcost of my primary profession).. these 2 changes if implemented properly i feel would give both medics and CM's much more viability as a 'lifestyle'.. would increase all around usefulness of both professions.. without hindering the advanced profession of doctor..

%things to consider
the entire medical profession is in fact a crafting profession to an extent.. and quite possibly with the highest turnover rates from product made to product used
the artisan forest of crafting professions do not retain their basic experimentation on the elite trees within the profession.. eg: artisan experimentation has little to no effect when crafting droids/weapons/food/armor/structures
this is not the case for the medical industry

the doctor profession has alot going for it.. 6 stat buffs.. every cure.. 2 resist buffs.. res kits.. best wound treatement available.. and best damage healing capability on single targets.. all applied by 1 doctor..
that's great.. props to the docs
but the effects of that centrilization is that buffs alone render medics and combat medics healing abilities to 'extraneous'
and when comparing centrilization of ability.. doctor buffs typically have 1.75 times the duration of entertainer buffs.. and typically twice the power or better (entertainer buff stats vary depending on migrations/species).. the other comparison point of that is that you need 2 elite entertainer professions for 3 stats.. and 1 doctor for 6 stats.. this to me seems fundamentally skewed..

i realize that this could be construed as an anti-doc statement.. that is not how it's intended.. i'm not saying to remove any of the doc's abilities or nerf them in any way(i'll leave that for the entertainers).. what i am saying is that doc for the skillpoints invested.. has too much ability/utility/usefulness granted within the elite portion of its' skilltree.. and that i feel it would be better for the medical professions if this were distributed lower in the medic skilltree thus making all 3 medic hybrid/elite professions benefit.. and making those skillpoints for doctor itself actually tally with the abilities granted within the doctor tree..

and on that note.. anyone who decides to flame saying 'CMs are too powerful.. poisons need to be nerfed..'.. i have this to say..

"CM's aren't powerful enough.. and all DOT's need to be removed.. that includes your mind poison/fire pikes/lances/knives/geo's/etc as well"

but then again i'm an extremist.. many disagree 8p

-EDIT:
mental note: when using any HTML tags.. always 'preview post' first

Message Edited by somerandomuser on 10-14-2004 04:51 AM

"Heals are in the queue" DISAGREE.
I don't believe this issue is resolved. I have mastered the medic profession and even though HealDamage or HealState goes in the combat queue, sometimes it is activated before the heal timer has run its course, resulting in a "wasted heal round," for a lack of a better term. I then have to put HealDamage back in the queue and wait for the next round before the actual healing takes place, and these few seconds could mean the life or death of a player.

"Healing range / distance" DISAGREE.
I think the current system is fine. If you increase the range, it just cuts into the reasons for becoming a combat medic. (However, I am a combat medic and my personal opinion is that ranged healing is excessively cheesy, so I don't even use it. Heh heh.)

"Diagnose refresh button" AGREE.
Either have a refresh button, or make it automatically refresh. Another thing about the refresh window I'd like to see is have the default size of the window be large enough to display ALL of damage/stat/battle fatigue pools at once, or automatically filter out any pools/stats that don't need healing.

"Battle fatigue notification" AGREE.
This is the message where it says "your current battle fatigue is limiting your medicine's effectiveness" even though it's actually saying that YOUR PATIENT'S battle fatigue is causing the problem, right? I agree that this is a problem. I was rather confused the first time I saw that message.

"General inventory search for meds" NEUTRAL.
I always go into list mode, sort by name and then type. This way all of my meds are sorted alphabetically under "Misc., Pharmaceutical." But I see how a general "Medicine" or "Pharmaceutical" category would help sort things out easier, since Pharmaceutical is a HUGE part of the Miscellaneous category.

"Target Friendlies keyboard shortcut" DISAGREE.
I find that the difficulty in finding your patient on a battlefield is well representative of the chaos of combat. Yes, it's hard to run around and click on the guy that's dying, and if you prefer the CTRL-# method of targeting, yes it's hard to target the right guy especially since group members aren't numbered and you have a lot of people in your group. BUT, being good at both of these methods is part of being a good medic, no? Nobody said the job was easy.

"Medical content - mission terminals" AGREE.
I have never even thought of this before. When I started my character out, I got money from tips from healing and participating in group missions, but having medic terminals would be pretty cool. I remember coming across a show slew of Imperial refugees one time on Tatooine, and I think it would be pretty neat if I could accept a mission to go out there and heal them.

"Faction points for healing" DISAGREE.
I would be all for it if there weren't people use the tumbler or Pet/trick exploits. But since these issues have not been addressed (nor have I even seen them being called "issues" or "exploits") I assume that these exploits will continue to be tolerated by the game developers. Therefore, awarding faction points for healing would open the door to another level of exploits, which I'd hate to see.

Other issues:
1.) What exactly is the "Groupmate Damage Beacon?"
2.) I've suggested this elsewhere. Something like a "medic pack" would be useful. If I have this medic pack equipped (like a backpack), then my /healstate, /healdamage, and /healwound commands would automatically take meds from the medic pack INSTEAD of my inventory. If the pack itself had a distinctive look to it, it would serve to identify me as a medic - this would be useful if I was in a full Stormtrooper or Marine Armor outfit, for example. I know it's unnecessary, but it would be cool if something like this was added.

I hope to see feedback about my comments.
= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek

Message Edited by Jagii on 10-19-2004 05:52 PM

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Jagii wrote:
"Heals are in the queue" DISAGREE.
I don't believe this issue is resolved. I have mastered the medic profession and even though HealDamage or HealState goes in the combat queue, sometimes it is activated before the heal timer has run its course, resulting in a "wasted heal round," for a lack of a better term. I then have to put HealDamage back in the queue and wait for the next round before the actual healing takes place, and these few seconds could mean the life or death of a player.

First I've heard of it not working. I'll keep my ears open, but until it can be reproduced reliably then it's just like my post publish 9 lightsaber that dismantled itself and recovered 2 of the 4 pearls and told me about it: It's just a one off that can't be reproduced and therefore is not worth dev time hunting down.

"Healing range / distance" DISAGREE.
I think the current system is fine. If you increase the range, it just cuts into the reasons for becoming a combat medic. (However, I am a combat medic and my personal opinion is that ranged healing is excessively cheesy, so I don't even use it. Heh heh.)

Stim healing is the prime ability of our profession. The ability to heal damage of players not in combat (ie tumblers / entertainers) is going away with the combat balance, which effectively leaves only healing in combat for us to gain experience points. The current max range of 7mis too short toresulting in the "Target not in range" message all too often. Melee professions had their range increased to 15m, and the devs said they'd increase ours at the same time, but didn't. Without this increase, Medic will be a useless hard to level profession after the combat balance.

Keep in mind that our damage healing capability (read: Stim B) will be balanced in the CB along with other things.

"Diagnose refresh button" AGREE.
Either have a refresh button, or make it automatically refresh. Another thing about the refresh window I'd like to see is have the default size of the window be large enough to display ALL of damage/stat/battle fatigue pools at once, or automatically filter out any pools/stats that don't need healing.

"Battle fatigue notification" AGREE.
This is the message where it says "your current battle fatigue is limiting your medicine's effectiveness" even though it's actually saying that YOUR PATIENT'S battle fatigue is causing the problem, right? I agree that this is a problem. I was rather confused the first time I saw that message.

The message is supposed to be given to you when your patients BF is 250, not 400 (confirmed by the devs).

"General inventory search for meds" NEUTRAL.
I always go into list mode, sort by name and then type. This way all of my meds are sorted alphabetically under "Misc., Pharmaceutical." But I see how a general "Medicine" or "Pharmaceutical" category would help sort things out easier, since Pharmaceutical is a HUGE part of the Miscellaneous category.

It's not that. If you have meds in your backpack, the heal commands wont look there for them, and we want them to.

"Target Friendlies keyboard shortcut" DISAGREE.
I find that the difficulty in finding your patient on a battlefield is well representative of the chaos of combat. Yes, it's hard to run around and click on the guy that's dying, and if you prefer the CTRL-# method of targeting, yes it's hard to target the right guy especially since group members aren't numbered and you have a lot of people in your group. BUT, being good at both of these methods is part of being a good medic, no? Nobody said the job was easy.

Nobody said it was easy, but the devs said it was meant to be fun. It's not something you have to use, but some of us find the actual act of keeping players healed the fun bit, not trying to actually click on them.

"Medical content - mission terminals" AGREE.
I have never even thought of this before. When I started my character out, I got money from tips from healing and participating in group missions, but having medic terminals would be pretty cool. I remember coming across a show slew of Imperial refugees one time on Tatooine, and I think it would be pretty neat if I could accept a mission to go out there and heal them.

"Faction points for healing" DISAGREE.
I would be all for it if there weren't people use the tumbler or Pet/trick exploits. But since these issues have not been addressed (nor have I even seen them being called "issues" or "exploits") I assume that these exploits will continue to be tolerated by the game developers. Therefore, awarding faction points for healing would open the door to another level of exploits, which I'd hate to see.

A number of exploits will go with the CB, and some others may remain. The devs have said it's most likely not going to happen, but that doesn't mean we can't keep looking for a way to grant them that can't be exploited.

Other issues:
1.) What exactly is the "Groupmate Damage Beacon?"

Some kind of highlighting to identify patients that really need your healing hand. Something I doubt you'd like

2.) I've suggested this elsewhere. Something like a "medic pack" would be useful. If I have this medic pack equipped (like a backpack), then my /healstate, /healdamage, and /healwound commands would automatically take meds from the medic pack INSTEAD of my inventory. If the pack itself had a distinctive look to it, it would serve to identify me as a medic - this would be useful if I was in a full Stormtrooper or Marine Armor outfit, for example. I know it's unnecessary, but it would be cool if something like this was added.

Basically what the General Inventory Search for Meds is all about, except without the specialised pack. The specialised pack would be neat though.

I hope to see feedback about my comments.
= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek

Message Edited by Jagii on 10-19-2004 05:52 PM

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• Heals are in the queue

Having them in the queue makes sense. But there is a delay before, and a delay after the heal actually fires. Plus we also have to contend with the use timer. I tested this in live yesterday, and if I didn't time it just right, the heal in the queue fired before the use timer had reset, so that heal (with the associated pre-use delay) was wasted. The heals that misfires clears the queue imemdiately if it doesn't get used due to the use timer, so that part is OK. But on a mis-fire, you have to content with a pre-delay again when you retry the heal. THAT is the killer. I think if they removed the pre-use delay and tacked the whole delayonto the end, it would solve this problem for me. The conflict between the queue (and the delays there) and the use timer is maddening, especially when members of your group are counting on you to keep them on their feet.

So, keep it in the queue. It should be there, I agree completely. That makes total sense. But either disable the use timer when in combat, or move all the delay for the heal to the end. That pre-delay and trying to time it right against the use timer is just nuts.

[Edited to correct typos]

Message Edited by Chaosium_451 on 10-21-2004 12:23 AM

Aha, I see. I guess I like the Medic profession as it stands, even if it is harder than the Medic you propose. So hurray for me while it lasts.

Replies to comments:
- Heals in the queue:
Okay, I can dig it if what I'm experiencing isn't reproducable. It's not a big game-breaker anyway, but if I do find a reliable way to reproduce this bug, I'll let you know.

- Healing Range:
I suppose the healing range can be extended for fairness sake, but as I've stated, I'm happy with the way things are. I typically only get the "Target out of range" message when the guy I'm trying to heal is running around like a maniac, and I'm sure we can all imagine how hard it would be to heal a guy that's running around. I always tell people not to run away when they're dying, but sometimes the message doesn't settle in. They do eventually learn the lesson anyway (by either heeding my words or dying). It's a fun learning experience either way.

- Battle fatigue notification:
Whoa, so the problem is not the typo but something else altogether? I'm out of the loop.

- General inventory search for meds:
Thanks for clearing this up. Having something like this would certainly help.

- Target friendlies keyboard shortcut:
Heh heh. I'm tempted to assert that this is not something worth pursuing, but I know that a guy like me is not representative of the majority of medics. Have fun with this shortcut, if you ever get it. It would be very helpful.

- Exploits:
Too bad they won't probably won't be fixed. What really disappoints me is when a new medic asks for some stimpacks, and after I've provided him/her with a couple they use it to heal tumblers, despite my instructions not to. Can't have everything, I guess.

"- Groupmate Damage Beacon?"
Some kind of highlighting to identify patients that really need your healing hand. Something I doubt you'd like "
Ah, you already know me too well.

= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek

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Hiroku wrote:

i think healing with stims (of any kind) REALLY needs fixing, like i have novice medic, and 1 box in first aid, so i can keep me alive, and help who is grouped with me, but i go and i buy some really good stim Bs, they have a base healing of like 430-450 usually. The problem is, that healing is SO random, sometimes i will heal like 250, and my BF is really low or 0, so there is no reason for it, it can really effect the fights, something really has to be done about that.

Thats my big beef, but thats mainly cause im not a crafter, so i dont run into the other issues.

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EotchajCrestingcloud wrote:

I guess, for me, the one think I'd like to see is a compelling reason to have Master Medic - other than as a prerequisite for something else. Earlier in the thread there was a suggestion to put the ability to heal states in Master Medic... very nice. Maybe the ability to do mini-buffs without meds - similar to what TKA haswith PowerBoost.

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MasterNerfSlayer wrote:

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EotchajCrestingcloud wrote:

I guess, for me, the one think I'd like to see is a compelling reason to have Master Medic - other than as a prerequisite for something else. Earlier in the thread there was a suggestion to put the ability to heal states in Master Medic... very nice. Maybe the ability to do mini-buffs without meds - similar to what TKA haswith PowerBoost.

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States are delivered by elite professions, and therefore should stay healable only by an elite profession (personally I think it should be combat medic, not doc).

Marksmen can land states with the carbineer tree withouthaving mastered theprofession.

TKA is an elite profession, medic is not. For us to get an ability like that without being an elite profession would be grossly unbalancing, like Stim B's currently are.

I don't agree that a few hundredboost points to one primary stat for 5 to 7 minutes would be unbalancing, as long as the cost to do it was significant enough that the medic couldn't just throw it like candy. Having Master Medic along with any other profession, even Entertainer, would then be very desirable (dancers could boost their action, for example).

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