Combat Medic Archive

<<<<<<<<<< Fake SOE Patch notes >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We are proud to announce our first new class called "Shotguns"; The class has the following skills.

1. You get no experience for attacking with a shotgun
   
2. You get no faction points fo attacking with a shotgun
   
3. You can only use a shotgun at close range and have no other choice of weapon unless you use a weapon from a different class
   
4. The shotgun does not do damage once you "hit" forabout 10 seconds.
   
5. The damage being done by the shotgun can be cured unlike any other gun class.
   
6. The damage done by the shotgun after the first 10 seconds is 1/4 the damage done by a Riflemans mind bleed.
   
7. The shotgun class has no special attacks
   
8. If you use a shotgun you can not use another; well anything for 10 seconds.
   
9. Every attack you do with a shotgun reduces your mind pool and unlike other weapons you can not use weapon powerups to reduce the amount of mind pool used.
   
10. Shotguns are only craftable by the Shotgun class and can not be made by weaponsmiths, the resources needed to craft shotguns comes from multiple advanced planets and additionally are very rare spawns, nessestating days maybe even weeksof effort to collect the resources needed to build a shotgun. Once a shotgun is created you can only shoot it 25 times.
    
11. The shotgun class has a miss rate of only 75% until they get to master and get a bonus of only a 50% miss rate.
    
12. The shotgun class canmakeCEDF pistols to sellbut only have 5 experimentation points.
    
13. The shotgun does not damage lairs so you can't do destroy missions even if you happen to kill all the badguys at the lair.


14. You have to follow other poeple around andwatch them kill things in order for you to get experience yourself, only by helping others kill things can you get experience. This replaces the fact you can't get experience by using your shotgun.

and NOW SOE is annoucing a PATCH to "FIX" the shotgun class.

15. You can not incap anyone in pvp with a shotgun you need to switch to another weapon type that you do not have skills within the shotgun class to use to do the incap.

Woooo Hoooo; Lets all play shotgun class.

Does this shotgun class sound familar to anyone?

Actually, it did look familiar to me once I noticed the pink piece of paper in my manual marked Errata and Addendums:

1. You receive experience for an initial attack with the shotgun, but it is indeed not based upon the damage you have done. While somewhat unbalanced, an interim solution is our acknowledgement that even expert shotgun-ers can earn several hundred experience per durni (preferably in mob), unlike any other elite class.


2. We apologize that you cannot earn FP from merely using your shotgun. And while two wrongs don't make a right, we do currently acknowledge that you can use your shotgun to kill faction NPC enemies and they will never react to it. While we don't condone such riskless behavior per se, it should ameliorate this issue.


3. We would like to amend point 3 in the patch notes to recognize that close range is in the eye of the beholder. Yes to capital ships, 88m is close range.


4. Point 4 should make reference that in some cases (pt 2) your opponent will not react, and that in other cases you are free to use both range, potency and LOS to your advantage to effectively negate this 'inconvenience'.


5. Point 5 should read that mind damage cannot be cured by any other gun class...only shotgunners can cure mind damage.


6. We would like to amend point 6 as only being true for those shotgunners who are unwilling to look for quality ingredients or have the misfortune of being jinxed in by their galaxy's resource availability. The rifleman would also like to point out that the frequent ability of targets to exploit local wormholes and teleport to shooters has absolutely no bearing on your ability to land successful attacks, and does not ironically does not encumber shotgunners wtih the same melee modifier that frequently spells the end of rifleman.


7. Point 7 has been removed at the behest of our legal department, which stresses that the infliction of a state upon a target is a special attack, and therefore the entire arsenal of shotgunners are special attacks. Our development group is considering a double secret probation special for those of you who think our dial needs to be at 11.


8. Given possible network latency or clients going to the bathroom, we've left this 10 second delay artifically long for legal defensive purposes. That notwithstanding, we believe that the combinations of range, potency, and the use of some tactics that do not resemble Irish brawls in "Far and Away" or a Civil War reenactment should truly mitigate this modest delay.


9. As popular request, the rifleman, who ironically have a range shorter than your pump action shotgun, have madea standing offer to trade mind costs with the shotgunners if they don't like their current situation. If possible they'd like to bundle it with the shotgunner's ability to heal mind, since unlike some shotgunners, rifleman in general are quite happy to hunt in pairs or groups and will be more than willing to heal one another and act as part of a team.


10. We feel paragraph 10 needs to be amended. The resource requirements are onerous and admittedly a bit high, though we have no plans to change them soon. However, the issue of 25 cartriges are only for those of you who voluntarily choose to negate your warranty by modifying the muzzle to be a saw-off, short range area effect suicide shotgun. With proper care and diligence, not to mention developing even a modicum of regard for your own life and tryign to survive a battle rather than seeing how many you can take with you, charges of 40 or more should be easy to come by.


11. While we will consider amendments to miss rates at lower levels, we must remind shotgunners that at master level they have the ability to shoot with virtually 100% accuracy hitting either individuals or mobs, regardless of distance to target (as long as you're within range), stance (though some are gated) and movement. One will also see in the promotional brochures a footnote describign that no other class has inherent defenses to shotgun damage, and that currently existing loot attachments have no meaningful bearing on our accuracy.


12. A recall program for CDEF shotguns is currently being finalized and 10 point experimented shotguns will be coming to you very soon.


13. True as listed.


14. While some members have felt a sense of dependence with their shotgun, enclosed a series of testimonials from shotgunners who safari on Dantooine soloing force sensitive creatures and Dark Jedi masters on Dathormir. The general consensus from these weekend rangers is that if you're willing to use more than a couple function keys and think of a view varied strategies you will be just fine, even as a Masterjavelin-catcher / Master shotgunner. We deeply apologize to those shotgunners who feel life is not easy enough for them.

15 isn't even worth comment.

The more I read posts like this that lack any sense of objectivity or broad vision of the state of our class in relation to the other professions in the game, the more dismayed I become.This is nothing more than sound bite arguments, the vast majority of which leak like a sieve after 5 seconds of examination.

This isnt' even satire. It's propaganda from a highly myopic viewpoint with a narrow agenda.

As a class within an MMO we should be striving to find our rightful place within the game, not lobby for ways to dominate it and be above the game. There's plenty of box games that provide the ability to dominate. Those who lobby for it even tacitly within an MMO fail to understand one of the founding principles of the genre: an ongoing need for there to be real, effective balance.

Jacore MCM (temp retired MD), Tempest

Jacore Even though my post was meant as ironic sattire, your post has more holes, misinformation and propaganda then mine.

Kalten,

Then by all means let's discuss it, and I will admit to the points you can pursuade me of.

As a career MCM, there's very little about the self-nerf stace I've taken that could be spun as propaganda. I would be happy to be misinformed and admit to such if you can show that to be the case.

Jacore

Original post gets a 9.6/10 for high level of humor content and originality. .4 points were deducted for a few stretched inaccuracies and incomplete truthfulness on a few counts.

Rebuttal post receives a 9.2/10 for being fairly humorous and somewhat more accurate on certain issues. .8 points have been deducted for 'not getting the joke' and complaining about propaganda while being counter-propaganda in itself

Admittedly, this judge is slightly biased, being that I tend to agree with the original post re:shotgunners.

"As a class within an MMO we should be striving to find our rightful place within the game, not lobby for ways to dominate it and be above the game."

And who's to say that what we currently are isn't our rightful place in the game? Well, the Devs. Not me, you, bounty hunter X or even Joe Snuffy. I see so many posts saying we shouldn't be what we are, yet this is how we were designed. Perhaps we are MEANT to be suicide bombers, or Solo PvP extraordinaire, or whatever. Perhaps in exchange for being great at solo PvP it is made up for by a lack of being even slightly good in PvE. Without other skills or a different weapon other than poison a CM is useless at solo PvE, though I admit it CAN technically be done.

So we can earn several hundred weapon xp hunting durni's. Yay? And this while everyone else is hunting Grauls or whatever for xp. It may be safer, but it sure isn't funner.

"Then by all means let's discuss it, and I will admit to the points you can pursuade me of"

It's very clear to me at least that there will be no persuasion of either side. Seems like everyone has taken a stance and nothing will change anyone's mind. Basically, we're all talking and no one is listening. I've been willing to give on certain points that made sense, such as capping poison range. Those on the other side have given in to NO points that we have made.

And come to think of it, I'm not sure about the range thing anymore. Whoever said that 64m is some kind of hard cap for range in the game? Perhaps, just perhaps, the devs INTEND for us to have longer range than anyone else. I don't know and neither do you. But at least in the game we have that ability. Is it such a stretch to believe that *maybe* we are supposed to have it?

Well Bender I believe that we have an ultimate common ground on the basis that we'd both like to hear the dev's answer, and yes it would be the final decision. It has not come, and lord knows when it will.

I think that you will find in my previous posts a similar willingness to concede. What I am becoming increasingly frustrated wtih is a purely 1-sided proposal of weaknesses and flaws without regard to others in the game.

The true problems of our class are indeed range and accuracy, neither of which is fully fixed with a +1 HAM fix. However, those who wish to proclaim an 'End of Days' vision of us if we actually have to do 1 point of damage to solo I think are showing a rather rigid vision. We can and will adapt.

Jacore

Oh certainly we will adapt. I have no doubt of that

That "Vision (tm)", or rather the lack of one, is really at the heart of what all the discussion and disagreement is about.

Not necessarily that some think we should be 'uber' or that others think we should be 'support only'. There are just so many varied player's visions of what this class should be that it really is hard to find a common ground on which we can stand together.

If the Dev's really feel we should be much much more of a support class, then the +1 change is a good thing, IMO. If they feel we should be a more combat-oriented class, then it's not. If we only knew what they want us to be, then we could all go about being that. Or not being it, if it's not we we're looking for from either side.

I picked up the strategy guide at the same time as the game and read through the profs (started playing within a week after game went live). Based on the only description available to me of what a Combat Medic is I chose to go for this class. I'm going to quote a passage or two from the book, so you can understand best where i'm coming from in my "Vision (tm)" of the CM prof.

"Able to dole out life with one hand and death with the other, the Combat Medic is perhaps the most respected unit in any battle."

"But perhaps the most insidious and deadly ability in the Combat Medic's repertoire is the concoction and use of poisons. These slow yet persistent agents can be administered from afar, and require advanced medicines to counteract. A few well-placed ampoules can be devastating to an opposing force."

The concept of the CM, as I saw it from that guide, is that of one of the best combat-oriented classes in the game. I saw a profession that uses a nasty attack from great range and not easily counterable. And I saw a profession with the ability to stand off a "force".

This is the first MMO i've played where I wanted to try PvP. Ultima and EQ PvP just didn't interest me. I've never liked the idea of 'dueling'. Walk 10 paces turn and shoot silliness. In this game, with this profession, I saw the ability to be part of a military force, with myself being the member who busts up raids or throws the first deadly blow for my side in an attack. Or being the lone Rebel terrorist bringing mayhem to the Empire. I had little interest in fighting 'monsters' any longer, I wanted to fight in a WAR!

And from the beginning the profession has lived up to what I expected of it. The ability to 1v1 was not something I had thought of, since I had little interest in dueling. But the ability to 1vMultiple was something that appealed to me, even if it came at the cost of my own life, though I would prefer to survive of course. Call it Suicide Bombing, but does that make it a non-valid tactic in what is ostensibly a 'war'? I saw it (in an RP sense) more as laying down my life to help rescue the galaxy from the tyranny of the Emperor.

Now, suicide bombing isn't necessary of course. And I can understand them finding a way to limit or eliminate that idea. But the ability to be raid busters or raid starters is a good one I think. Why shouldn't there be a class that excels at that?

We need that "Vision (tm)" desperately. If it is indeed the Devs intent that we should be a more support-oriented class, then I can accept what you put forth Jacore in regards to what should be done to our class. If we are to be a more combat-oriented class, then I must stand against those ideas.

If we are to be more support-oriented, then I may seek another profession unfortunately. CM was to be the combat portion of my template and I would need to find something else to fill that slot. Not that I want to be 'uber', or 'dominant' or anything like that. Simply because I want part of my character to be the guy that goes to battle when the call rings out. If after 169 point expenditure I am to be no more effective than a basic elite combat profession, then I would rather take that elite profession and keep Doctor for the support aspect of my character

Ora damage nerf on AOE's. Right now, an AOE doing 80% of the damage of a single target is not good. In the end, the effect is the same - if you take away 15 potency you basically have shifted 2 experimentation points from effectiveness to potency so you will have reduced damage for area poisons.If Ithink I can only get 1 poison off, I would prefer to have to make a choice - do I single target the doctor in the back (or the opposing CM) or do I just throw an area? Right now, it's a pretty easy choice when up against a group - just throw the area, since it's almost as good as the single target poison.

Now we are talking tactical balancing changes, which is good. I think the game is approaching the point where all the big rebalancing/nerfs will be complete and the remaining changes will be tweaking values here and there.

Exactly Happy.

But the nice thing about putting say a 15 pt reduction on potency of AOE is it empowers the CM with the choice of whether to take a damage cut or a cut in potency to knwo you'll get everyone.

The last thing our class really needs is a plain vanilla nerf, but ratehr targeted changes that force us to make effective and sometimes painful choices.

Jacore

Bender,

Welcome to Tsunami's bandwagon

Least I think he was the first to start clamoring for a statement of the dev's vision. I think most on this forum agree that it's critically needed.

This is also the first game in which I've wanted to PvP...mostly because of the promise and possibilites of tactical detail in it. I want us to be a very combat ready class, of that I think some have me misunderstood.

I just wonder how that's possible the current makeup. What I want to see are tactical engagements...group PvP. Yes you can solo, but a well rounded group can mop up ANY soloist, and PvP with sufficient tactical depth such that a tight, cohesive group of say 10-12 can absolutely wreak havoc on a rather thoughtless mob of 20-30.

That's the vision I want to see for us in the game...for the entire game. And it's just not there yet. And we're more of a problem than a solution to that right now. I want CMs to not merely be 'support'...that's a plain vanilla term...but rather tactical specialists in mass healing and mass damage.

The unfortunate aspect of it right now is that there is little reason for us to be in a group and to be in part of a factionalwar as opposed to a demolition derby. The reason is because we have a logner range and better accuracy than any other class when realistic assumptions are applied. The reason is because there's no real defense to our weaponry and there are strong incentives to throw AOE through/around walls/underground. I think that a PvP state for the game in which groups of people struggle against one another can never be achieved when any class can singlehandedly bust a raid.

I think the game is better off when a group of 15 storm a city and it takes a group to knock them out...not one MCM.

I think anytime a planned battle ends at the cloning center where the aggressors proclaim "well no use in going back, they have an MCM"...the game isn't right. Our place within the game isn't right.

We should shape battles. We should obliterate groups that don't bring a doc, and while we do now, we obliterate groups that do, and that's not right. I think we like all other classes should be somewhat viable in a solo context (and anyone who thinks we're not right now is out of their mind). However, I also strongly believe, like in basically every other MMORPG, grouping should be encouraged. We should be better within a group. I think we should be forced to make real choices in our crafting and we're really not.

Right now any MCM can bust a raid of 10 attackers about 90% as easily as a group of 5-10 defenders can. That just is not right. Sure SWG is fun (especially for the CM) in those times...but there is such a richer experience in the crumbs that are being left on the table.

Jacore