Combat Medic Archive
Thread: 6/3/04 Question and response
Without an answer to guide us, we've each chosen our own approach, taken our own paths, and made our own role. Some have tried to use the profession for pure healing, yet our healing abilities are far below that of our Doctor counterparts. Some have taken the role of chemical warfare agents and use their abilities to infect others with poisons and diseases, even though our offensive capability is extremely lacking in certain areas while somewhat overpowered in others. With the Combat Rebalance on the horizon, and all the major changes that entails, the Combat Medic community would like to know what role our profession is meant to play in the grand scheme of things after all is said and done.
What is the developer’s vision of the Combat Medic Profession, post Combat Rebalance? Are we to be Combatants with a bit of healing ability or Healers with a bit of combat?"
-------Response -------
The developer’s vision of Combat Medics is to be exactly that - - medics that have abilities to heal players in combat. Optimally, the player should have the choice to make that decision to be “be combatants with a bit of healing ability or healers with a bit of combat” and this is another great example of something the correspondents and I will want community input on during the testing while the CB sandbox is up.
jfang wrote:
Just to overanalyze, the devs said that combat medics are "medics that have abilities to heal players in combat". Does this imply that other medics (meaning "medics" and "doctors") do not have the abilities to heal players in combat, and thuswill have healing restrictions placed on them?
Oh, and while our answer was kind of wishy-washy, at least it was better than the Pikeman's. They asked basically the same question, but got a much less useful answer.
The 6m range of other classes is a big healing restriction. I particularly noticed this the other day playing my medic with a new player who kept running around when near incap. Couldn't land a heal on a running character. Of course, with a skilled group it is less of a problem.
I read into the answer an emphasis on healing, with attacks left in for those who want them, but likely to be nerfed in the combat balance. I don't like it, and want to keep the nuke. If they need to downgrade it for PvP, perhaps they could make it more useful in PvE with skill based increase in the tick rate and some decent defenses. Those 10 seconds seem to take forever!
Message Edited by Haruspex77 on 06-03-2004 01:25 PM
Alright, I'm home and have access once more. So, here's what happened.
Monday we were told that the questions would be delayed, which I was happy with. Then, today after being semi-incommunicado the past few days, I see that they were going to answer our questions this week. Someone was kind enough to come here and find our question for us, since I was away, and get that question asked to the devs. That's why it's the original question and not the reworded one.
I saw the answer, I ranted, it got reworded to what you see here. It isn't the straightforward answer I had hoped for, but it's something at least.
As far as the answer itself and where that leads us, to be completely honest I have no idea.
If it means we'll be the only in-combat healers, well, we'll definately get flak for that.
If this means we get a shot at molding our profession to a role that we decide, then I'm all for it. And if asked, I'll be going off of the posts from the 'Combat Medic Role' thread(so post there if you have a role you want us to play).
All in all though, it's at least a better answer then the cynic in me thought we'd get, but it's not nearly the answer the optimist in me hoped for...
Gnuut wrote:
I've said it before many times and I'll say it again. CMs should be the only profession able to heal while in combat. Medics and Doctors are not trained to deal with the battle stress the way we are. They should be forced to /peace out and exit combat completely. A Novice Medic using Exceptional stim Bs or Doctor Buffed Regen rates make the CM class less valuable on the battlefield. This would also make ALL our poisons and diseases more valuable for use in PVP. This would make those Doctor dabblers take their healing roles seriously instead of as an afterthought.
Heh, I can hear the out cry now.
Some day I'm going to come home from the pub and forget what I am and am not allowed to say from being a former corr.....
jfang wrote:
The way I'm reading this is that "we the devs want combat medics to be primarily healers, but aren't willing to type cast your profession that way." Anybody else have any thoughts?
jfang wrote:
Moved to a new thread to prevent clutter in the original thread (which is now no longer relevent).
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Since the start of the game, Combat Medics have debated amongst themselves as to their role in the game. Are we to be the best battlefield healers? Are we to be the offensive crowd/control juggernauts? What part did the devs have in mind for our profession in the overall design?
Without an answer to guide us, we've each chosen our own approach, taken our own paths, and made our own role. Some have tried to use the profession for pure healing, yet our healing abilities are far below that of our Doctor counterparts. Some have taken the role of chemical warfare agents and use their abilities to infect others with poisons and diseases, even though our offensive capability is extremely lacking in certain areas while somewhat overpowered in others. With the Combat Rebalance on the horizon, and all the major changes that entails, the Combat Medic community would like to know what role our profession is meant to play in the grand scheme of things after all is said and done.
What is the developer’s vision of the Combat Medic Profession, post Combat Rebalance? Are we to be Combatants with a bit of healing ability or Healers with a bit of combat?"
-------Response -------
The developer’s vision of Combat Medics is to be exactly that - - medics that have abilities to heal players in combat. Optimally, the player should have the choice to make that decision to be “be combatants with a bit of healing ability or healers with a bit of combat” and this is another great example of something the correspondents and I will want community input on during the testing while the CB sandbox is up.
Morganite wrote:
Allow me to translate:
We have no idea what their role really is, we just code the game, we dont play it...
these dev's are pathetic, they swear this combat rebalance is going to be the holy grail for this game. How can you predict something is going to fix a problem when you cannot even itemize the problems to begin with? Asking for community feedback on something means they have zero vision on this (and many other things obviously pertient to this game).. This proves even more their only vision for this game involves a vision of dollar signs. A balanced game that people can enjoy is the least of their concerns.
Imagine going to your mechanic and telling him your engine makes a strange noise, so he fixes it by replacing the engine instead of finding out what is causing the problem in the first place! That is what SOE is trying to do with this combat rebalance.....
I used to be an optimist about this game, no longer...
A mechanic that does blanket repairs of parts is no mechanic, he is a parts changer.. The problems with the game all stemmed from community feedback.. Instead of working out a proper system of determining creature levels, they nerfed all pets to the level of patheticness so nobody would be a ch anymore, thus following feedback from people that they didnt like seeing everyone with 2 GM's. How do you determine that a "combat rebalance" is needed when half the professions that are to be involved in combat are broken and/or useless in combat?
They need to have a vision of what the game is supposed to be like, and create that game, then remove the bugs from it, you know, like any/every other video game. Then you make adjustments to said game from community feedback. As it stands right now, they have made adjustments without actually getting to that vision. If you read back thru posts from people with red names, you can clearly see there is no vision, as there are tons of contradictory posts on topics. Re-balancing something that was never balanced in the first place is a fools task. Re-balancing something that was indeed broken is a flat out lie. As the dev who answered the question quite clearly stated, he/they have zero vision for the entire CM profession. How can you balance something when you have no idea what you want it to so in the first place?