Combat Medic Archive
Thread: Correspondent Position!!!!
Any Correspondent must have the ideas of the public at heart, while it is true that the developers are going to do what they are going to do, it has been proven that they listen to the feedback of the correspondent. If I remember correctly it was Zarlor that suggested the +1 HAM as a fix for not being able to loot kills. Not that I am flaming Zarlor because I hold him in the utmost of respect and think he handles the correspondent position extremely well.
I remember another correspondent way back when thiswhole correspondent thingstarted that ignored the player base and the results were not pretty.
While Damuyean (whatever your name is) would probably make a very good correspondent, I would have to agree that you have to take the players concerns to the developers no matter how much you dislike the idea. It means that even if you think that out position is PvP is just fine, you cannot ignore what the players think. Since you have the ear of the developers there is always going to be a question as to whether you have everyone's interest at heart, or if you have your own selfish reasons.
That by the way, is what being a leader is all about. And frankly I don't think you have it, especiallyafter your "You all suck" post that you put up there.
I would love to do it, but I just do not have the time to get involved, maybe later I will but right now my work and music takes too much of my time.
I do hope we get someone good though.
Well it's not just distinguishing opinion out, the Corres are to a small extent something of a focus group, so opinions are sometimes asked for. It's just that some folks here have selective reading skills. For example I take full credit for coming up with the +1 HAM idea (especially since I needed to do that to take some heat off of Kavedawg who was brand spanking new in the position when he found that change for us and was beginning to get villified when all he did was report that he'd seen that change on TC.) But, I also fished on this very forum for feedback on that issue, and got some. Quite a bit that I agreed with that suggested that simply the +1 change, while it would fix the incap dance problem, was just not strong enough for what our poisons should do. (Plus I never realized the regen rate would still be in effect between ticks on these things or how hard it might sometimes be to just get 1 freakin' HP of damage, even on Health!)
I presented all the counters to the issue offered here, links to the posts where the discussions were taking place and I even offered a personal (and noted it as personal) suggestion that thw +1 HP wouldn't be good enough. Nobody reads that last part, though. They just see that I made the initial suggestion and go with that. 
So I get villified here a lot and there's just no way the CMs would trust me as the CM Corre, probably because we have just enough folks here who seem to have some trouble with actually reading the details. (Then again I probably am just too wordy, anyway. )
I remember well you getting the sharp stick for +1. I also have read enough of your posts to know that you clearly distinguish your opinion and your Correspondant duties. You seem to me be a capable Corre, and someone well versed in the world of SWG Healing, and Poisoning. I think you would do a great job.
And I don't blame you one bit for not wanting that job. 
Zarlor,
I never meant to imply that you pushed it through, in fact I went to great pains to try and keep that implication out of it. I said you were the one that suggested it, that is all. I don't hold you responsible for it at all. I also never had any reason to not trust you as a correspondent in either the combat medic side, or the doctor side, which I am master in both.
I think I clearly said in my post that I had the utmost respect for you.
The point to my post was entirely missed. The point was that the correspondent has a power. A power that the rest of us simply do not have. The correspondent has the ear of the developers and as such they should be a voice for the public. You were this voice. You provide the best feedback and references, I have seen your posts on what you collect from the public and you present all sides of the argument.
When you have someone such as Damueyeen that is so rabid in their thinking, there is going to be a question of whether they are representing the community or their own personal interests.
The sad thing about this is that the developers listen to the loudest majority in many cases. It has been proven already that if you cry enough about a profession the the developers will put out the nerf bat. It has happened with Bounty Hunters, Creature Handlers and Combat Medics. Now I know people will say that the +1is not a nerf.In my opinionANYTHING that weakens your class is a nerf. The devs threw a bone with mind heal at the same time they threw the nerf to placate the uproar of the combat medics.
The +1 change was an easy way out for the develoeprs. they saw an easy code that they could change to fix a larger problem that they cannot fix. Again I have to say that poisons are not broken, what is broken is an attack that cannot be healed effectively.
Mind should never have been made to incapacitate if you cannot heal the damage done. That makes an otherwise simple attack a very powerful one. If they took away mind poison and disease from us, then Rifleman would be the next to be complained about. How many times do you hear someone crying because they had their health or action poisoned and diseased? I never hear that complaint it is always about mind, and that is where the problem is.
Search your feelings you know it to be true!
RhenGordon wrote:
Zarlor,
I never meant to imply that you pushed it through, in fact I went to great pains to try and keep that implication out of it. I said you were the one that suggested it, that is all. I don't hold you responsible for it at all. I also never had any reason to not trust you as a correspondent in either the combat medic side, or the doctor side, which I am master in both.
I think I clearly said in my post that I had the utmost respect for you.
You did. I didn't mean to imply that youwere suggesting otherwise, necessarily, only thata lot of selective reading occurs where my posts are involved. Not necessarily by you, only that my thinking of the idea in the first place is the first thing that comes to the minds of many CMs, not the rest of how the process of my involvement in it is concerned, let alone my pushing for something other than just the +1 implimentation. It wasn't a criticism directed to you, only that the fact that I even had such an idea is taken in such a negative connotation here by many and it is what many seem to remember my name for.
I'm sorry if I implied otherwise because I really didn't mean to be critical of you at all.
The point to my post was entirely missed. The point was that the correspondent has a power. A power that the rest of us simply do not have. The correspondent has the ear of the developers and as such they should be a voice for the public. You were this voice. You provide the best feedback and references, I have seen your posts on what you collect from the public and you present all sides of the argument.
When you have someone such as Damueyeen that is so rabid in their thinking, there is going to be a question of whether they are representing the community or their own personal interests.
The sad thing about this is that the developers listen to the loudest majority in many cases. It has been proven already that if you cry enough about a profession the the developers will put out the nerf bat. It has happened with Bounty Hunters, Creature Handlers and Combat Medics. Now I know people will say that the +1is not a nerf.In my opinionANYTHING that weakens your class is a nerf. The devs threw a bone with mind heal at the same time they threw the nerf to placate the uproar of the combat medics.
The +1 change was an easy way out for the develoeprs. they saw an easy code that they could change to fix a larger problem that they cannot fix. Again I have to say that poisons are not broken, what is broken is an attack that cannot be healed effectively.
I wouldn;t completely agree with the reasoning here, though. The +1 change really didn't have anything to do, primarily, with poison strength. It had to do with the incap dance. Some of the side-effects of it may have been considered a positive change by the Devs, but they really were not the reason. And I would hope they would realize that it isn't exactly working out the way it was envisioned (and as we let them know early on it might be a problem.) I do agree that despite reccomendations to the contrary that they took the easiest coding path, though.
Mind heal was not exactly a placating gimme, either. It had been talked about for long before the +1 HAM thing had been, actually. It was being pushed for back in Beta and the Devs were already looking to impliment something more on the healing side of abilities for CMs. So /healmind was already in the works and realy had nothing at all to do with the +1 HAM thing.
Mind should never have been made to incapacitate if you cannot heal the damage done. That makes an otherwise simple attack a very powerful one. If they took away mind poison and disease from us, then Rifleman would be the next to be complained about. How many times do you hear someone crying because they had their health or action poisoned and diseased? I never hear that complaint it is always about mind, and that is where the problem is.
Search your feelings you know it to be true!
Agreed. We've known that since Beta and were begging for mind healing since then. I think the current implementation of it sucks, in fact, and I, Kavedawg and Pahdbacca have all said so. (I think Pahdbacca has, at any rate. PLEASE let me know if I'm mistaken, Pahd!)
However, wehave a two revamps in the works to be completed in the next 3-5 months, the combat revamp and the DoT revamp. I very, very strongly suspect that with the HAM changes involved in the combat revamp that since mind healing would no longer be exploitable (by our healing the primary pool we use to perform our actions from) that mind stimming will be put back into the game. I also suspect that it will be put right back into stims where it belongs so that any kind of stims heals all 3 of the pools, just likethey're supposed to do. And so Mind Damage will no longer be any different from any other pool and we can just toss that whole problem right out the airlock.
Hopefully the DoT revamp will not be a nerf, but a change for us. I suspect we will see "nerfs" occur in DoTs, like the addition of resists for them in Armor or skills that doen't exist now, the range to be capped at 64m, like was supposed to happen this last publish, and things that would generally bring DoTs in line with other comabt forms. I suspect that may also mean that they will have to be revamped to fall into line with other combat forms in terms of stopping power as well, so possibly their potential power will be increased to bring them in line with the DPS of other weapons (we have a low DPS now compared to most, that's for sure, even when they suffer a 75% reduction in PvP.) Getting incap back into DoTs might be another possibility, things like that. I don't know for certain that we won't get more nerfed than boosted, though. I HOPE we generally get more of a boost, which in many ways I think we need. I just don't know, though.
Well correct me if I am wrong, but isn't resist something that is built into th manufacture of the poison?
I know myself my poisons get resisted about 50% of the time in PvE. I have not been able to tell all that much in PvP since most of the fights are over so fast. Plus I really don't watch what is going on, I am more about healing my group and tossing a poison when there is nothing else going on.
It seems to me though that unless no one ever resists a poison in the game, that a 50% success rate would equate the a pretty good resist system as it is. If this is not the case, then I would agree with raising resists, though I think they should be based on buffs or items and not inate abilities.
I agree that the docs should have an area of effect cure. They should also have resist innoculations. You want to make it really cool, make the resist innoculations take combat medic components to create. This kind of **edit** for tat would make the two classes diametrically opposed in combat, but would require them to have to work together for the better items.
Anyway Zarlor I think you have donea wonderful job. I hope you remain an correspondent and keep posting to the message boards.
I want this corrs job, can anyone say how you apply for the position?
Zarlor, your vilified correctly. I think it would be less so if a CM came up with the idea instead of you mate, but what are the odds of a CM asking for a nerf such as you suggested get implimented. Don't cry "why me", you deserve it. Your a fantastic correspondant, but your a prime example why you need someone who plays the class to be the correspondant. The CM correspondant here needs to be very experienced and I think needs be a big PvP player.
I'd like to have the position, I think I can safely say I've done everything possible with a combat medic, and I play one all the time. I'm a CM/DOC and I pvp constantly. I'm willing to listen to the COMBAT MEDICS, and pass their information on in whatever way I can. I however can rely on information found in the game through much playing time, both hunting and mostly PVP against every other class in this game.
I am by far the best and most experienced combat medic in this game. I think I would make a fine correspondant. Now how to apply for the position is the question...
Silverchair wrote:
Zarlor, your vilified correctly. I think it would be less so if a CM came up with the idea instead of you mate, but what are the odds of a CM asking for a nerf such as you suggested get implimented. Don't cry "why me", you deserve it.
Um, I am a CM. In fact I've now been a CM for longer than I've been a Doc. Read what I've said, It was a thought to address a very specific issue, the incap dance, and when presented on this forum for further ideas on that issue it was quickly modified.
Having an idea and supporting it are two different things. I may have had that idea, but I did not fully support it because I felt other options presented would have been preferable.So you see, I always get read wrong here.
And I should add that I was not the only long-time (I've been a Master since probably 4 weeks after Live, mind you) CM to not think the idea was completely without merit, either. Feel free to search up and get the history on it. My suggestion would be to make sure you understand the facts and all sides of an issue before you can honestly say that you would have the background knowledge and foresight to fulfill the role.
Silverchair wrote:
Zarlor, your vilified correctly. I think it would be less so if a CM came up with the idea instead of you mate, but what are the odds of a CM asking for a nerf such as you suggested get implimented. Don't cry "why me", you deserve it. Your a fantastic correspondant, but your a prime example why you need someone who plays the class to be the correspondant. The CM correspondant here needs to be very experienced and I think needs be a big PvP player.
For your information, the +1 cap was bought up here on the CM boards. There was no one speaking against it. Why? Because of a few reasons;folks were tired of not being able to loot kills in which they used only poisons, folks were tired of the incap dance.
The issue was brought forth here and no one spoke up. And so it was sent in as a Suggestion. The devs simply ran with it.
Is that Zs fault? No. He simply offered up an idea. If you're so against it, then I'd have to ask...where were you to oppose it when it was brought up? Hm?
Here are some threads about this topic. I went through the entire message board.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=10621
This thread was the first time I ould find anyone bringing up the +1 HAM change to the public. In this forum the change was being talked about SOLELY because PVE. I quote:
>Targets killed with a poison only attack give no xp or faction and can not be looted. Damage caused by >poisons should be considered for proper dispersal of xp andfaction when solo or grouped in a PVE or PVP >battle. Some suggestions were to have a Token 1 point of normal damage done to the target to fix the loot >problem. Also the damage could be scaled depending on the poison pack used A's would cause little initial >damage where C's could cause a higher amount of damage when applied.
This was presented to the community as a fix to PVE NOT a fix to the incap dance. On this forum most people said they liked the list. Of course I think most people were agreeing that the 5 items that Kavedawg had listed here were the top 5 items that CMs as a whole wanted fixed. I don't really think they were agreeing so much with the change.
I feel this way because the new discussions that followed were profoundly negative.
When they finally released the change to the test server the outcry about it was enormous but it fell on deaf ears.
So basically people did complain when it was talked about. Many different people complained about it and the change was put through anyway. Many of the problems with the change were identified when the change was on the test server and those issues were not addressed.
Now we have a totally redesigned combat system to deal with, this is going to be very interesting when it goes live, I wonder just how bad that is going to mess up everything.
That's not the first mention of it. First mention was on 9/23/03.Look here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=8848&highlight=#M8848
and on 9/24:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=9013&highlight=master+cm#M9013
Having been the one to see the initial request from the Dev for ideas on this situation (he asked me about it on the Correspondent forum) those were my methods of trying to fish out more ideas, becasue I could not really ask outright. Note that there were some dissenting opinions on the idea, good ideas about the problems involved. It was those 2 threads that got sent to the Devs and my final reccomendationthatno-incap was NOT enough. The Dev decided to take the easy way out and just impliment no-incap as the fix. And it did fix multiple things, but while I don't think the +1 thing is BAD, per se, I do still think it's not enough. It's certainly not how I though it would be (since regen does occur and sometimes it seems almost impossible to get the 1 hp of damage.)
At any rate, the situation the Dev was specifically looking to fix was the incap dance problem. I know because that's what he told me. So there you have it from as close to the source as you can get on the public forum.
Yes Zarlor you are correct, but those were not the official public correspondence, on the threads you presented those were idle conjecture threads like we are having here. They were not presented in the Combat Medic top five in the fashion that you originally posted them.
You see the point is that while you were correct that the idea was brought up before the post I referred to. This was the first time it was brought to the public or the community as part of an official fix for the problems. This is when the change was being looked at seriously by the community, though the correspondents and devs may have come to the decision to do it before it was ever presented to us as part of a list.
There were also other fixes thatcould have worked too, (which you talked about before) these other ideas where never presented to us as a community other than in that thread. I have no doubt that you presented them to the devs, (you were filling in as Correspondent at this time if I remember correctly)but there is always going to be that question if they were are not. I am assuming that those other ideas were rejected out of hand because they were too hard for the developers to implement. The +1 had to be just the easiest quickest fix to placate the whiners both on the Combat Medic side and the non CM side.
This was supposed to just be a rebuttal to Zarlor about the +1 and when it was being talked about. The first time it was officially presented to the public was outlined in my post above. Maybe by omission of the word "official" was a mistake on my part in my post.