Development Cycle Archive

It seems like most of these posts are based on what people want for PVP. They are not designing a class as the Developers do: for PvE, PVP, the economy, cross-class support, and role-playing opportunities.

Many PVP CMs in here are trying to keep from losing their favorite power: posions and diseases. Many PVPers in here are trying to get rid of poisons and disease. This is an issue that is obviously bigger than this thread.

This thread is giving us the opportunity to work from the ground up and design the class from scratch. If you think the progression should be different (Eilte Medic only?), say so. If you think they should have mandatory weapon certifications, say so.

Use your creativity and let's get some real ideas out here. We shouldn't be saying "change this to this, tweak this, and we're good." We should be saying "A Combat Medic by design needs to have these elements, and some capabilites for this. let's hash out these further."

I am not a Combat Medic, and I don't PVP. I do however love this game and want every class to be fun and have it's place. We have a bunch of strong personalities in this thread already. Let's use that passion with creativity to rebuild this class to make it fun, balanced, cross-class supportive, and useful for PvE and PVP.

There have been lot of changes already pushed into Test Server.

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/recent_test_updates.jsp?page=In%20Testing

DoT seem to have gotten some changes done.

Chef gotten lot better, and some of new food/drink affect poison/disease

Decay from PvP is out

And we still haven't found out all the thousands of stealth changes they put in.

SO!

Lets see what have changed already then see if anything drastic need done.

Those who feel CM are support will never convince those who feel CM are frontline combat and vice versa, and doubt anything will get done with big steps so we can see how little change here, bit tweat there makes difference.

I'd say those who feel that strongly about this head on over to Test Server and see what rolls out. (whenever it comes back up)

What defines theCombat Medicrole in combat?

Healing groups and fighting - like the name already says! I like my CM and I am highly welcome as part of any task force (even in PvE). I am normaly behind the lines ready to heal my compagnons and applying poison and desease to my enemies.

If I am too close to my enemies (even to TKAs) then I will lost my life. Therefor it is good that I only can chose a reanged weapon profession.

What basic combat elements should they possess?

Poison and Desease. But: AreaPosion is to strong... there should be a better chance to resist Area Posion /Desease. I am playing a Cm and a AreaPosion is taking out a group of 5-6 people - solo! Change the way Posions is crafted - only high quality and rare ressources (and even then there must be 98% chance for my enemie, that he could resist the poison / Area Poison should be resisted by approx. 50% of my attempts).

Even so... I am behind the lines: I am throwing my poison at 56m and then keeping distance to my enemies... waiting till their mind is at 1 and then: Victory! This would also a good way to balance the CM: the chance to resist the Posion/Desease should raise with the range thrown... combined with the above mentioned... I guess this could be a very good way: I need high quality/unique ressources to craft highquality posion and I have to get closer to my enemies to poison them....

What offensive abilities?

Poison and Desease / 1x Ranged Weapon Skill

What defensive abilities?

Healing Groups and Poison and Desease! I often see - and fought fights by myself - with two CM in each group. After a few Minutes eversbody is poisoned and deseased and the fight ist nearly over!

But:

If I could apply poison and desease why I am not able to heal these again - this would make the fights more interesting - for both sides! A raid against a town or a base will never start without a CM in the lines - defending a base or a town also means to look for a CM... butit will be more interesting if I as a CM could also heal that damned (very good) poison/desease...

What unique abilities?

Applying and curing poison and desease (look above)

Should add what advantage or asset in group combat?

It is nearly perfect right now... the perfect group character.... healing the entire group but I am missing:

Area Cure Packs...

How could/should they interact with other professions?

What interaction / dependencies should exist with other combatants?

What should be their unique role in the Galactic Civil War?

? dunno...

Ok, Im going to try and stay as objective as possible in this post. I have been a MCM for several months, focusing mainly on PvP. The first thing I have noticed is that there is a large perception out there that a combat medic is supposed to be a support class only. This perception perhaps comes from the image of the medic in combat from old World War II movies, of the stricken shoulder yelling "medic", in the hopes of some help. However, This is not the role of the CM as described inSWGs game guide. According to SWG a Combat medic "is able to dole out life with one hand and death with the other", "has lethal talents", "the most deadly and insidious ability in the CMs repertoire is the ability to poison", "the combat medic is perhaps the most respected unit in any battle", "a CM can be devastating to an opposing force"

Now, for me "death, devastation, lethal talents, and respect in battle", do not sound like descriptions of a mobile hospital...it sounds a lot like a combat class. Because it was meant to be. On the other hand, I can agree that before the first nerf, Combat medics were overpowered, they were able to incap an entire force with an area poison. That has been remedied, not necessarily the way i would have liked to see it remedied however. But this simply is not possible anymore. Everyone seems to hate CMs and cry nerf more than any other profession because poison makes you suffer for awhile unless there is a doc nearby. Uhhhh, wouldnt poison do that. Cms are at a disadvantage most of the time in Pvp. and I'll list off why.

1) we are the only combat class whose primary weapon will not incap, never mind DB

2) we are the only profession whose primary weapon can only be used with a major mind cost. (im not talking specials, im saying for me to use my basic weapon i sustain an injury)

3) we are the only rangedprofession who cant use their weapon from a mount.

4) we are the only profession whose primary weapon can only be made by that profession and can only be used 25-45 times. We require the same amount of skill points as a master commando, and only a master BH requires more. But could you imagine the outcry if a commando needed to craft subcomponenets, and find rare resources in the hundreds to craft a flame thrower with only 25 shots....well, this is what a cm endures, there should be a reward for this time invested in the final resultin battle.

5) the skill points used to get get MCM, makes it difficult to pursue much else, which would allow you to be "lethal"

6) The mind costs to all of my usefulness, whether it be heals, mind heals, poisons or diseases are extraordinary. If im unbuffed,i can throw a poison and 2 heals, and then im a sitting duck, with no mind. So to be effective in combat i need to eat fishak, glucose pate, and drug myself. very expensive as well as the downer.

OK, now that i rattled off some reasons why the CM is not the uber class that some would have you believe, as well as clearing up that misperception that a CM was not intended to be a combat class, Ill flip and state what i believe are some of the problems with the profession in PvP.

1) mind heal, should not be a CMs, it should be a doctors as a counter to the damge caused by a mind poison. Their profession is solely based on healing and unique healing abilities should be theirs.

2) the biggest problem that causes the outcry in PvP is the area poisons, because a doctor can not get to everyone in time, giving the CM an unfair advantage. This can be solved in 2 ways, either a doctor could have the ability to have an AOE anti-poison/disease. Or chefs would be able to make an item that has some poison resistence to it, allowing players to prepare for battle against a cm, as well as involving the chef profession a little more in the game.

3) good poisons work too quickly, being poisoned should be a slow painful process. A cm should not be able to knock a player down to +1 HAM in 10 seconds. However, if poison were to be made slower, they should reinstitute the incap that goes with them.

Finally, I think most of the outcrys that happen for nerfs, whether they be the commandos flame,BHs eyeshot,the TKMs knockdown,or the MCMs poison; is not due to that professions abilities, but more because of the lack of other professions abilities to counter those attacks. The feeling of helplessness, because nothing can be done. The answer is too balance, not nerf. CMs have already been nerfed to death, however there are other professions that could use a boost to balance. This would make for more interesting game play, forcing more strategy in PvP, without alienating an entire profession.

Well, theres my 2 cents...i know it was long, but thanks for the read.

Egoe

MCM, shadowfire

How about a compromise? How about CMs or Doctors can create vaccines or antidotes that can slow down or heal disease and poison that any joe blow can use. Then leave the DOTs the same in PvP. So if someone gets poisoned or diseased, if they can't stop it themselves, its their own fault and they can no longer whine. Make the vaccines/poisons have a pretty high HAM cost to use and be pretty expensive (at least as expensive as disease or poison would be to make) *waits to be flamed*

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obijkenob1 wrote:
How about a compromise? How about CMs or Doctors can create vaccines or antidotes that can slow down or heal disease and poison that any joe blow can use. Then leave the DOTs the same in PvP. So if someone gets poisoned or diseased, if they can't stop it themselves, its their own fault and they can no longer whine. Make the vaccines/poisons have a pretty high HAM cost to use and be pretty expensive (at least as expensive as disease or poison would be to make) *waits to be flamed*

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You know what I would agree with that, with some changes though.

1: The everyman stim should only halt the damage done by the poison for a period of time. This could be expiremented up of course. I think the period of time could effectively be 5 minutes. At the end of that five minutes the poison should start ticking again. It would not be a heal, but kind of a way to halt the advance. This would still require a doctor to heal it.

2: If repoisoned, then the inoculation would cease to take effect. A booster must be taken to counter this new poison.

3. It would require Novice Medic to use. Face it, to even use Atropine correctly you have to have some basic medical training.

4: It should take a considerable amount of mind to be used.

I think it is a really cool idea though.

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Travixius wrote:
RhenGordon

That wasnt a flame, but a good arguement I appreciate it

I can see your point, but at the same time look at mine honestly. I am not saying take away the posions/disease totally. But on our server at least (Kauri) it is hard enough to find a doctor, let alone a CM. What I am saying is that the fun part of PvP is the raiding of cities. You can't tell me that it is more exciting to have one abrubtly ended do to the arrival of a CM.

wow, though i do agree with your argument that poisens should be a bit easier to cure (or at least halted for a period of time), however what cities have you been raiding? i know that i hardly ever have trouble finding a doctor. And as for a CM taking out an entire team, the first and easiest solution is to not be clumped up in a group (adv comps are not easy to find, and w/o them my psns/diseases only go to 17-20m AoE if i get really lucky). Your second option is to make sure to have a doctor with meds on hand to heal you, and a third would be to take down the CM as fast as possible. Unless that CM is a Master Elite of another class they do not have a ton of firepower behind them and should not present a terrible problem for you.

Just last night there was a HUGE imperial raid on AH (not sure if you were there or not-lots of fun for both sides) and despite my AoE psns and diseases, i really don't think they were noticed in the overall battle. Sure psn and disease can be a pain, but if you are prepared they are easily counteracted. I know at least 3-4 CM's were there with each side, and some of the best on our entire server. (cough-cough-grou'din-cough-cough)

I mean you guys can through a poison or DOt and wipe out an entire team! No other profession has that power not even the commando or BH. I do agree with you that one answer would be to allow master medics to at least cure posions. I am working on Doctor now, and for the explcit reason of buffing and healing my team. But there has to be some kind of balance soon when it comes to PvP. I have soloed against a CM before in anchorhead and taken out a CM a number of times, just so he could continue to run from the cloning center and continue to keep dropping disease and posions on me. That just is not balanced. That is annoying. After taking him down 3 times finally he kills me.

Um, as for the "enough power to take out an entire team" and "more power than a BH or commando" statements, 1) BH is getting a revamp-people have found ways to take them down quickly, and so yes i would kinda have to agree with you here...but then again lots of other classes can take them down too... 2) I don't think i know of a CM who has single-handedly taken out an entire team before, save one or two(ahem-grau'din) who did it before the range cap was put in place. and for power? i feel as weak as a nuna. for the 1 db i got last night i also died 10-11 times, and even then that db was arguably stolen from a friend. My poisens did the majority of the damage that i was able to do in PvP, and even then they were hardly effective.

In regards to the statement about the cloning center thingy, what happened there was that the CM was probably grouped with overts or someone who had a TEF and was fighting, and even then the CM could only target those who had TEF's. And you do realize that you DID kill him 3 times to your 1 death...no offence, but i would say that you almost got the better end of that deal.

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Oh and grau'din, just wanted to say thx in adv for being my punching-bag example for the time being. You are honestly one of the most amazing CM's i have ever seen.

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Travixius wrote:

Actually I missed that raid but wish I hadn't I recently decided to go imperial, and have been working on negative faction. Finally made it to imp last night, so I hope to be in some PvP action soon hehe. Though I am sure after the comments I posted here, every CM is going to post a bounty on my head

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Hmmm, it just might be worth going rebel again....or i could just pay off grau'din to do it for me lol.