Combat Medic Archive

Thank you for your work here Now let's hope we actually get a response..

It frightened and saddened me when SOE/Lucasarts asked the DOCTOR board what the problems with CMs were..

As promised, here is the Email I sent off to the correspondent email address in the stead of the now absent Cm correspondent. I will leave it stickied at the top of the forum so that when we do receive a response you will be able to cross reference the issue as it was sent with the Dev response, if you should need to.

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Obviously this is a tad late compared to the Doctor one, but the CMs have been without a correspondent, so I stepped in to make sure they at least got something in for this round of Issues. A bit of preference voting over there revealed these issues as the Top 5. Since most of these issues were not culled directly from forum threads, but specifically asked for, I have listed the two man threads where folks conveyed their issues along with the voting thread for the completed list as several people actual commented in that thread instead of just voting. So they are both their for your overall reference as those threads touch on all of these issues in some way or another. In a few instances some threads were readily available and their links are provided.

Reference consolidated threads with further commentary on most of these issues:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=6419

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=5473

1. Combat Medic Crafting/Schematics:

· 13 Chemical Release Duration Mechanisms are listed as required for Ranged Stim Es. Please fix this apparent typo.

· CM Med Use on AOE diseases list somewhere in the 700-900 range. Please fix this down to the proper level. (Looks like a misplaced decimal or extra zero in a formula to me, since it seems that 1/10th the CM Med Use would be about right.)

· Advanced Resilience Compound does not load. Please fix.

· There are some concerns that resource differences between servers cause some servers to have very powerful DOT's while other servers get very weak DOT's. Guidance on the issue is requested. The concern here is that while some servers may have CMs in line with the damage being produced by combat classes (using less skill points to get there skills, it should be added) other servers are hampering CMs from being balanced simply because the resource selection available will not allow them to be competitive and/or useful. There is simply no way for CMs to gauge each other’s ability or how well balanced they may be since all of their skills rely on the resources used to make their items.

· CM’s don’t get to carry over experimentation points into the CM crafting line, and cannot use CM experimentation points on medic sub-components, sub-components only used for CM products. Suggestions are to either allow CM Crafting to give experiment points to the current subcomponents (if possible) or to med crafting (if not), or to give CMs their own unique components created using CM Med Crafting.

· Change CM components to not use conductivity, etc when ingredients required do not have those stats.

· Way too many resources needed to function as a CM and/or way too many stat requirements are needed. A schematic pass is requested to help simplify things a bit on this front.

· CMs also request some form of Sample/Survey skill built into the medic tree

· Usefulness (or lack thereof) of "A" and "B" level CM Meds should be investigated.

· Weapon Medications like poison, that cause states like stun, dizzy, blind, etc., are requested for consideration.

· Clearer statements of what experimentation item does what, since Ease of Use, for example, also affects Potency on Poisons, or separation of those items for experimentation on their own (conceivably with a boost to how much each experimentation point does to make up for the fact that it no longer improves two stats.)

2. Combat Medic Support line

· A request is made for improving the skills set of the CM by possibly providing such things as defense bonuses, weapons speed and accuracy bonuses, accuracy while moving bonuses, special moves of a defensive nature, more Terrain Negotiation or even the addition of state attacks and/or schematics (such as a Stun or Blind grenade, or saleable chemical ammo usable by other professions).

· A better spread of skills throughout the tree, and not at just Master, is also requested, in order to provide a set of useful skills outside of only those available at Master CM.

· Look at adding more abilities for the CM to be geared towards PvE.

3. Lack of Communication from the Devs

· Combat Medics expect the same contact and treatment of their issues as other classes. We are currently without a correspondent and many feel left out in the dark. Please endeavor to increase communication with us so that we don’t feel left out. Increasing communication with us will keep more people interested in the game and subscriptions up. As it stands the initial correspondent issues were never addressed and no Dev response was given to those issues at all.

· Patch notes must be kept updated better. If something is changed regarding CMs it is important to inform us through patch notes. Altering the game mechanics without informing the players leaves them feeling violated, ignored, and worthless. Proper use of the patch note server will keep more people happy, playing, and paying.

4. DoT Problems

· Longer range on DoTs is requested.

· Resist rates across different servers needs to be examined.

· Examination of the AoE animations are also requested in order to better show the actual area affected by them if possible. Judging the area affected can sometime be difficult to eyeball and this would help.

· The usefulness of disease needs to be examined. Right now many people consider them useful for nothing but griefing. Perhaps alternate effects, such as preventing a player from being stimmed and/or healed while affected.

· Improvement of Doctor cures needs to be considered to bring them into line with CM poison/diseases.

· (Fixed?) Diseases also need to be examined for the timer errors that allow a disease to continue even after a player has cloned. This bug makes the diseases look like a griefing tool and cause a great deal of concern among non-CMs. Bad press that CMs don’t want.

· CM’s don’t get anything in the way of Faction Points if the poison/disease is the killing factor. Same for loot or harvesting of any MOB killed by poison/disease. The system doesn't seem to recognize you as killing it unless you hit it once with a weapon.

5. PvE viability

· Poisons, the main weapon of a CM, are underpowered in PvE compared to other elite combat classes.

· No xp for the damage done by poisons, other than initial med xp.

Since I have already submitted my own Pet Peeve issue as the Doctor Correspondent (and interstingly enough that issue is #3 on the list above) I told the CMs that I would submit a Top 6 for them instead. So my Pet Peeve issue acting the stead of the absent CM correspondent, by preference vote, is

6. Combat Queue

· Would be nice if meds would visibly drop into the combat queue with the rest of our attacks, instead of using invisibly doing so mysterious timing system that is currently in place.

· Timers on heals and DoTs needs to be more accurate. Wait 4 seconds followed by 6 seconds of “you must wait” messages is not considered acceptable. Should the Diagnostics skill of the CM affect the actual delay (it seems to by the message) or does the message need to be changed so that Diag is not used when considering the time delay.

Thank you so much Zarlor!!!!

Very good top6 list.

As most of this looks good, I fear that some may lead to problems with nerfs down the road...

· CM’s don’t get to carry over experimentation points into the CM crafting line, and cannot use CM experimentation points on medic sub-components, sub-components only used for CM products. Suggestions are to either allow CM Crafting to give experiment points to the current subcomponents (if possible) or to med crafting (if not), or to give CMs their own unique components created using CM Med Crafting.

I think this is fine as it is now since Poisions/Disease currently hit for a LOT of damage per tick, and IF you want more you should hunt down a doc to make a schematic for you. Gives doctors a lil something else to do.

· Weapon Medications like poison, that cause states like stun, dizzy, blind, etc., are requested for consideration.

As cool as this idea is, i dont think it would ever help balancing issues in anyway, I can put these in many scenarios that would be for the offenseive, and basicly giving CM's godlike powers =D

· Longer range on DoTs is requested.

· Resist rates across different servers needs to be examined.

Both of these issues can be countered with better resources, and better experimentation. Should not be a concern for the DEV team. I can toss poisions at 50-60 meters easy, and with 90-100 potentcy i rarely get a resist.

Other than those few issues, i think it looks great, keep up the good work!

Arcx: as the Combat Medic and Doctor are both elite professions, I don't think it's right that as they both use the same subcomponents, Doctors are allowed to continue making better ones and CMs get stuck with the medic-level stuff. You shouldn't have to completely rely on persons of another class to make things for you that you use all the time.

Doctors should, of course, make better healing packs and wound packs, they already do that. But the sub-components should increase in quality through both elite classes.

Why not? I'm looking at this for how the game is standing now, you do not NEED any advanced components, or doctor level expiriments in order to make a 400 damage tick Poision that is gonna waste anyone.

However... if and when our damage gets nerfed and we need adv. components to be effective then ya it is something we probably will need to have independly.

It's not about "making do" with what we have, it's the principle of the thing.

If armorsmiths and weaponsmiths used the same subcomponents and weaponsmiths could continue to make better subcomps and get more experimentation points than armorsmiths you could bet your boots the armorsmiths would be smearing posts all across the general board.

I think it's only fair that elite classes that use certain subcomponents in theirprimary items that they use every day over and over and over should get better at making them.

What server are you on and whatreasource qualitiesare you using where you're able to make 400 damage per tick poison without using advanced components? On Chilestra I'm using high quality reasources (800 + OQ) and using mostly advanced compenents and I end up with 200 per tick poison MAX!

I'm not master so it's possible that I have yet to experience a few things, but my thoughts on CM are these:

Ranged stim/poision animations: are they meant to slow down the application time (poision/heal)?

Crafting: Should a CM have to go to a Doctor to get better components made? Do any other classes need to cross-class in order to get better components (basic, not advanced)? I think it would make better sense to add a mod or carry-over some medicince crafting between medic and CM.

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Maxinerdious wrote:

What server are you on and whatreasource qualitiesare you using where you're able to make 400 damage per tick poison without using advanced components? On Chilestra I'm using high quality reasources (800 + OQ) and using mostly advanced compenents and I end up with 200 per tick poison MAX

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I'll have to agree with you Max, I'm on Bloodfin andusing extremely high quality materials, everything being 900+OQ and along with using advanced components, I am barely scratching over 350 a tick. If you can throw over 60-65 meters, 400+ a tick, plus stick everytime, you must have 20 experimental points to get that type of result.