Doctor Archive
Thread: Doctor Surveying
Sence I've been Master Doctor I don't have to many issues With the Doctor profession, Except one. The ability to surveying resources is my main problem.I would like to see some type of surveying tools in the doctor skill tree with with a max of +50 to surveying like +25 in Novice Doctor and +25 Master doctor. The reason im asking for this is no matter what you guys do to medical forage it will never be used buy any Medic or Doctor even if its 200 units per forage. Its still not worth it because you'll never be able to target one resource. I would realy think this would be great for theDoctor profession of making some kind of income besides just buffing stats.
/Thinks to him self " a vendor in master doctor skill box great idea".
DEGA,
Shadowfire
/disagree
Artisans are the ones supposed to survey. The last thing we need is to have lots of different professions able to do the same things. Besides, that's the reason why you have 250 points, so you can pick up other skills to complete your character.
Yes I agree that we all have to make choices, but IMO it makes more sense for us to have surveying, rather than harvest - since we can "get by" without it to craft our maeds and xp grind, but we can not get by without "mined" resources (both inorganics and organics). If I recall it is animal harvest that they are thinking of giving docs/medics, rather than survey. Also I would add that the Devs must have intended for medics to have some sort of surveying capability ie, medical forage and the fact that doc IS a crafting class.
Anyhow if things stay as is I would get by with my novice artisan for surveying but 1) the buying it with skill points thing is no longer "a wash" with me - SOE has opened the door to cross class skill give aways - and I want one 
2) Docs were intended to have some sort of surveying abilty (ie, medical forage), it just happens to be acomplete joke. I dont think we are looking for something new being given to us, just the ability to do our trade as perhaps was intended. Actually I have always wondered why were not thrown a "retail" tree with vendors, artisan skills etc... - oh well
You guys have seen this issue on the lists, right? It's been the Top Issue on the Doc lists for the last 2 (or was it 3?) Top 5 cycles we did. It's easily voted as a Top 10 Issue by 2/3rds of all Doctors and is in the Top 2 for a simple majority of us. It was int he Top 5 for all 3 primary Medical professions (Doc, Medic and CM). And the issue does not deal with /medicalforage, even though the Devs sometimes seem to want to turn it into that.
So far the Devs are against it, but I am in discussions with them (well, kind of one-sided discussions at the moment until they start following up with me, which they have promised they will be doing). The whole point of it is to break down the issue.
Why do we need /sample at all? After all there are other professions that must rely on artisans for resources, like the upper levels of Scout and in Ranger, Smugglers and Musicians (instruments) do as well. Yet they are not saying they need this. They sure don't have /sample and yet they can handle their resource needs well enough within the constraints of the game.
Of course in their case it's because some of them can get the majority of their resource needs on their own (Scouts and Rangers through /harvest), they have far less quantities of resource requirements for their crafting, they have far fewer schematics, they have less specific resource requirements,they, in most cases, do not need to worry about resources stats because there is nothing to experiment on with their schematics, and all of them have some way of making more money in their profession than we (well, non-Master Docs or those who don't want to be pharmacists or Stim B machines) can.
Yet we are lumped together with all of these hybrid crafters. This says to me thereis a fundamental design flaw and game imbalance in the design of the Medical Professions in this respect.
So is /survey the answer? It's a possible answer, but not the only one. There are MANY other possibilities. Recutions in the complexities of our schematics, easing up on the resource and/or component requirements of our schematics, and providing more income-generating outlets for Docs to buy resources with are only some of the possibilities.
The important thing here is that I think we are very much going to hjave to think out of the box on this one. It's bad enough that Artisans who do not cater to us and will not sell to us at reasonable rates are insistent that we gain no such skill as would interfere in their basic skillsets. (They liken it to being akin to giving Stim As to everone, which I've pointed out there are many of us who actually support that idea.) The fact that the Devs, in effect, agree, despite our utter inability to even remotely compete with Artisans on the resource front. So while it is fine to come up with ideas that provide us with gimped forms of /survey and /sample, we may be better off turning out energies to other solutions instead.
Zarlor,
Many of your points are good. And the other crafters have the luxury of being based off the artisan tree si they have the points to take survey because on top of that they had to have taken the 15 point hit for novice artisan.
Personally I dont see a change in the quantity and specificity changing anything. Doctors would still need majority of organics which artisans dont mine because they cater to armor smiths, weapon smiths and architects which need far more resources than we do and is not a niche market.
We need to get the resources with extractors and not /medicalforage. Who would want to spend all their time forraging and not having fun. If doctors were forced to sit and forage all day doctors would justy quit being doctors because it would not be fun.
Now when CH's had skill point issues on mastering a third profession because they had to take novice medic in came the "pet stim" to save them.
Also if all the resource requirements are changed that will make all of us that have spent months aquiring resource that is valuable all of a sudden have a a bunch of resource of no value and many doctors will be mad and SOE will probably lose more gamers.
The specificity of the requirements is not at issue with me. The medical components are powerful to the game and all powerful components SHOULD be hard to get.
Since Artisans dont go after organics and they will not even if the specificity changes something needs to be done IMMEDIATLY. Unless we are to make meds form ore, gemstone, steel,copper and such which would not make sense.
Now the devs have been sitting on this with a purist attitude that does not reflect what is really happening in the game and it is frustrating.
Adding limited survey also addresses money issues with doctors because they will be able to master a third profession like everyone else that can assis them in making money.
Now we can talk about redesigning doctor crafting all we want. But the reality is that is too big of a task for the devs to consider and that will never get done. They are moving people from main development to the space expansion so they will not have the resoures to redsigne a profession. They need to do something about this now so lets not waste time on solutions that will take so many development resources that they will say no. I know how that works, I am a software developer.
Unlike harvesting the class that could sell their skills wont. Rangers and such hunt and harvest and hunting is fun so it is much easier to pay for someone to harvest, but since surveying accross a world is not fun Artisans are not selling their skills and mining for the majority. Heck I would do the same thing.
It is time for a quick save for us like what happened with the "pet stim" for CH's and give us relief. This has been on the top 5 issues since the game started and nothing has been done. It is time for the devs to do something. I know of 7 master doctors on the valcyn server that stopped being Master doctors soley because of this issue. It ruins game play and needs to be dealt with.
BTW Zarlor sorry for the rant.
I know you agree with many of my points and I wanted to make sure that you knew I was just ranting and did not think I did not think you were in disagreement.
Sorry for ranting agin on this but it is a very frustrating subject
Scoooter wrote:
Now we can talk about redesigning doctor crafting all we want. But the reality is that is too big of a task for the devs to consider and that will never get done. They are moving people from main development to the space expansion so they will not have the resoures to redsigne a profession. They need to do something about this now so lets not waste time on solutions that will take so many development resources that they will say no. I know how that works, I am a software developer.
I would have to disagree with that. They are completely redesigning the combat system from scratch, and doing the same with the entire Chef profession. So redesign is not out of the question, necessarily.
That's not to say that I'm not continuously pushing to a response and to work with the Devs to push this issue and all of the solutions prvetned, including the overall popularity and support for the forms of /survey that have variously been suggested. The problem comes in the extreme resistance they have always presented on that particular solution. I'm almost convinced that if the see the word survey in the post, they're ready to dismiss it out of hand.
I would say that if changes to schematics would be a concievable option for them, then obviously consideration must be made, strongly, for already obtained resources and to maintaining a consistent level of power and ability with what we currently have. All of that will have to be taken into consideration, as I have said before on this issue.
But as you state, something really must be done. Our biggest hindrance, however, is that we are an otherwise working profession, far better off than many others. Those who get into our profession are more likely than many other professions to Master it. We have a decent level of popularity for professions taken. All of that would suggest that the priority of getting something like this fixed for us will likely be low. I hope it's not, and I push for it not to be, but I fear the reality of the situation suggests otherwise.
So all we can do is push for the issue and try to find all the holes in their arguments. But so far just getting acknowledgement that this even IS an issue, that there is a fundimental design flaw here that hampers the Medical Professions, just isn't happening. The last Dev response we got to this issue was the farthest we have EVER gotten on the issue.Just the fact that they've stated they'll be willing to discuss the issue with the Correspondents is akin to Niel Armstrong stepping on the moon, IMHO. They've stonewalled us in every other facetwith thisissue and I'll push wherever I have to to finally get something broken in on that wall and start getting a dialogue actually occuring.
If that means stepping around the /survey ability, well I'm going to do it.
Oh, I don't take it personally.
Scoooter wrote:
BTW Zarlor sorry for the rant.
I know you agree with many of my points and I wanted to make sure that you knew I was just ranting and did not think I did not think you were in disagreement.
Sorry for ranting agin on this but it is a very frustrating subject
Believe me I share much of the same frustration on this issue. I've pushed on it quite a bit. So I know it affects a whole lot of us, rather passionately so. I'm just always up for a good debate. 
Zarlor,
I did not mean to imply that you are not pushing the issue. I know you are, the problem I have is with the dev's and how they will not address it. And how long they have taken to acknowledge it. I did not mean it to sound like I was "shooting the messenger". You are doing a great job and you have pushed all major issues.
You should not have to push as hard as you do for an issue that doctors have had since day one. A light bulb should turn on in the dev's minds that says "wow we keep hearing about this it mist be a problem and we need to find a way to resolve it".
And since it has been an issue for so long I am a bit impatient and my pessemistic statement on the redesign is simply from how long it has taken them to redesign other issues in the game and fix the bugs they have now. A redesign would mean several months more of this at the earliest, and given that a redesign will probably not exclude organics we will still have issues with survey since Artisans are busy making loads of money from the other artisan based crafters mining minerals.
A redesign could also make all the valuable resources I have gathered (and it has been a rough task) worthless. Because like I said before anything powerful like the advanced components are should be tough to get, but not impossible and sacrificing balance in the process. The issue of what we need for advanced medicines are not at issue with me given the power they have. But like you have said we are crafters without the skills to do our craft. And since the class interraction is not working something needs to be done to allow Doctors to be like everyone else and master that third profession and still have the tools to stay doctors.
Don't worry, I didn't think you were implying I wasn't pushing. I didn't mean it to come out sounding like that. I only wanted to toss around the reasons why hitting the issue from other angles might be more productive for us and to offer assurances to others who might be reading about the differences in what my personal opinions of things might be and what things actually get pushed to the Devs from me.
And just to say I'm with you when it comes to the frustration level of this issue. Heck it hasn't just been an issue since we went live. I mentioned many times in Beta 3 that this would be an issue and why. We never got a response then, either.
And here we have another thread starting asking about this issue by folks unaware of how long we've been fighting this particular fight. We see this very thread crop up almost weekly. All of which says to me that we are not just talking about a 2/3rds majority from some vote of folks on this forum, but there are a lot of other folks out that that haven't voted that think this is a pretty big issue. Unless you're an Artisan, of course, in which case if you've never played a Medic you are quite likely to disagree that there is even a problem.
Well I would just like to add that I am a Master Doc with Survey IV and I make a nice living with both professions. I mine in huge quantities for myself (medical harvesting) and in the down time I make a killing harvesting for architects at 3cpu. With the money I make I can then buy all of the avian meats and herbivore meats I want.
I've tried selling Talusian Water, Lokain Wild Wheat, Domesticated Oats, Dolovite Iron, Reactive Gas, High Quality Organics, etc. The problem is that I only mine the HQ versions of what we as Docs need. The HQ versions of a resource always go for a lot more than 3cpu and most Docs refuse to pay more than 3 cpu. If there's a market for lower end Advanced Sub-Component resources, just say the word and I'm sure there are many out there that will mine it. I certainly would.Since I'm a doc and I know the value of resources, I'm going to charge accordingly, but a miner with no knowledge or care what he/she is mining, will usually mine for a flat 3 cpu on a contract basis if they're told what to mine (you can get this info from SWGCraft.com)
Let's come out with a reasonable price structure that we would pay for our resources. Grind level for 3cpu (dont negate the fact anyone can mine ore for 3cpu and sell it terribly easily so you've got to start at 3cpu). How does the price rise from there?
Now with that said. There are miners out there that will gladly join into a mining contract with a doctor or twoout there. If they'll do it for 3cpu for architects, then they'll do it for docs too. With the money they make, they'll go out and buy floral harvs...just post a mining contract to the forums...we're out there. I saw the benefit to owning different harvestors. I've got an order being filled for6 of each type of heavy harvestor atm. As the ER's have changed, I've upgraded all of my harvestors. If I, as a Doctor, am willing to do this, spend the money to do so,and can see the benefit, there's no reason why a miner wouldnt also see the same benefit.
So either go out there and support the economy yourself by buying your own harvestors and spending your skill points on Survey or support miners who will buy the harvestors and use their Skill Points. It's a trade off. If it makes meds more expensive, so be it. Stim D prices on Eclipse are collapsing on top of Stim B prices anyway. We could all do some good to ourselves by raising the prices that we charge.