Doctor Archive

Sorry for the double-posting on part 2. I'd redo the whole thing, but the forums are being particularly slow and unkind to me today (hence the double-posting.)

Here is the listing of Balance Issues for the Doctor Profession. (These are from the old Big List of Doctor Issues, now broken out by category.) Please feel free to help me out with your comments and suggestions. Please list any new balance issues in a new thread. Any new issues will need an acceptable level of support from other Doctors to be considered for addition as a new balance issue.

Below is a summary of the issues to follow:

1.Medical Surveying*
2.Master Doc Benefits*
3.On Fire Cure*
4.Faction Points
5.Medical Harvesting
6.Mind Damage Healing for Doctors%*
7.AoE Cure State Pack and Poison/Disease Cure
8.First Aid Improvements%*
9.Money
10.Pet Stimpacks
11.Quickheal Uselessness=*
12.State Pack Persistence/Immunity
13.Medicine Use Skill Granularity
14.Pet Healing XP (or lack thereof)
15.Ease of Mastery
16.Crafting XP Speed Imbalance
17.Crafting XP from Complex Schematics –v- Components
18.Combat Medic Component Experimentation*

Notes:

* - Denotes Issue has had some change or addition made to it since last posting.

+ - Denotes New Issue since the last posting. (These will always be at the bottom of the listing.)

= - Denotes Issue is listed by Devs as being fixed in either this publish or the next (generally, 4-8 weeks.)

% - Denotes some part of Issue will be fixed in either this publish or the next (generally. 4-8 weeks.)

Please note that items listed as (*To be Fixed*) refer to the fact that the Devs have acknowledged the issue and expect that the issue will be fixed in either this publish coming up, or (more likely) the very next publish thereafter. In general this will probably mean a minimum of 2 weeks before such a fix will reach the Live servers but that it will more likely be closer to as much as an 8-10 week delay. Few of these items, if any, will rate a Hotfix so in order to ensure complete testing these kinds of delays are necessary. Be sure to check the date the statement was posted for a fix and add 8 weeks to it before considering if there is a problem with the fix not getting out. Please do not mistake the wording of a Dev that states “Fixed such-and-such” in these cases to mean that the item is actually fixed. It is simply a patch note method and the problem may not actually be fully fixed or even ready to go out in the next publish yet. Add the words “Will probably be” before that “Fixed” and you’ll have a better idea of how it should be read for now.

(*In Test*) refers to the next step where the issue has been placed onto Test Center for public testing. In general this means a 1 to 2 week test period before the issue will actually make it out to the Live Servers, presuming there are no undue problems. Again, please check the date of when the fix went to test before considering if there are any undue delays for getting the fix out.

(*Fixed*) Means the issue has been fixed and the fix is currently active on the Live servers. Items marked as Fixed will be removed from the very next issues listing if no further issues arise with the fix.

[Edit: Added date to title.]

Message Edited by Zarlor on 11-19-2003 12:21 PM

1.Medical Surveying*

(Added Dev Response)

Docs seem to feel the need to survey for their own resources and dislike the need to use skill points in Artisan in order to do so. Let's face it, anyone getting into the Doc level had to craft to get there, so the SWG version of a focused Doc is, in fact, a crafting profession and they want the abilities to self subsist in that capacity in the same way as Artisans do.

Since CHers seem to have been given the ability to heal pets without having to take Novice Medic to do so and that CMs have been given a basic scout skill in Terrain Negotiation, providing a partial form of /survey in the Doctor line would not too unreasonable according to many Docs. The other problem comes from the idea put forth previously by the Dev team that Doctors could always just buy their resource needs. However, Docs have many very specific resource needs (Dantooine Berries, Class 4 Liquid Petro Fuel, Avian Meat, Lokian Wild Wheat, etc.) that very few, if any, other professions, other than Medical Professions, truly need. Considering the prevalence of the Money issue for Docs, the market for surveyors to cater to the medic market is simply too small to be successful in comparison to what a surveyor could make catering to one of the artisan professions. In this way it could also be argued that rarely would Doctors be able to actually compete with Artisans on the resource market simply because their normal resource needs are not the needs of other professions. Worthwhile resources for any good medicines are just rarely found on the bazaar, unless that resource also overlaps with an artisan need, and then the price on such an item will be driven by the artisan ability to make far more profit on the item than the average medic pulls in.

Suggestions include providing survey only capabilities to increase with Organic Chemistry (the most common line for ALL of the Medical-based professions) or Pharmacology, much in the way it does for Artisan Surveying, but disallowing the sampling capability and perhaps with a smaller range. Others have noted that without some ability to sample (perhaps limiting Docs to only ever being able to sample 1 resource per sample tick, capping out resource samples so none are ever pulled up if there is more than our minimum, 8, or our maximum, I believe that’s 36, of a resources in inventory, or even just letting the survey tool show the resource values that only a Doc would use from those resources), to test the qualities of a resource if nothing else, the simple ability to survey alone wouldn’t be very useful. Suggestions have also included making the ability part of some kind of decayable survey tool made by artisans that let a Doc survey, ensuring a continued resource stream to artisans to compensate for those few Docs that try to make money as miners instead of as Docs. Or the use of a DE created resource seeker droid that might be able to locate a high concentration of a given resource within some given range and possibly provide either a single sample or at least some of the required stats for that resource, possibly even providing additional capabilities for those with the Artisan Survey skill.

For reference the following thread may be of interest:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1540
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=5233
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14251

(*Dev Response:
Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalforage on 6/29/03:
“This here is a proposal to tackle JUST one aspect of that. It felt a bit like we got overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas proposed for medics, so I want to present just two things (one of them based on suggestions from you guys during beta) so we can discuss them, before we move on to tackling other things.

OK, the first suggestion is this:

·Make medical foraging find small herbs/bacta globules/bugs/whatever (think: aloe and penicillin mold) that can be used to make medicines. Not resources, in other words. Because they are not resources, we do not need to worry about undercutting the surveyors and scouts.
·Make the A level stims and wound packs use ONLY these.
·Make higher level medicines use smaller amounts of these, so that profession interdependency increases as you go up.

This would make new medics trying to make medicines a lot better off, I think.

The second suggestion is based on beta tester ideas:

·Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans.
·Have it have charges.
·Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge.
·Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192

Holo wrote presumably as a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03:
“Healing tasks that aren’t making it in this update, but are on the list as high priorities:
…
·Investigate making /medicalforage more useful.”

Ref:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421

Holo wrote on 8/29/03: “We agree with many of the issues you raise, but most of them are not easy to fix. We'd rather fix medical forage than remove it, for example. The group bonus isn't that easy to do. And so on.” Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645

Ben “Marvelin” Hanson wrote on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum:
“I don't want to make it like sampling since I feel that undermines the artisan skill tree. If as a medic you want something that works just like sampling, you should grab novice artisan. So the trick is, that it needs to be different from sampling but not more efficient than sampling for the artisan (I don't want /medicalForage to become a staple skill for non-medics). If you have some suggestions pass them along.

You can tell the players that this is on the radar for a complete revamp. I'd love to hear their ideas given the restrictions that I outlined above.”

Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003:
“The SOE team is leaning towards adding a whole new set of items and such (medicines, components, and component enhancements) that can be yanked from the ground, sort of like scout, but with items specifically useful to medics. No final decision has been made, yet, but that's what they are considering at the moment.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )

2.Master Doc Benefits*

(Added Dev response)

The benefits of being a Master Doctor seem like a bit of a letdown to some. Suggestions have included moving Resuscitation packs to that level for creation and/or use and/or raising the Med Use requirements on that pack, others feel doing so would be a nerf to non-Masters and suggest only working with additional content in this manner. Other suggestions include Inoculation packs for some form of immunity or resistance to various states. Point-Blank (Doctor centered) AoE state cures have been mentioned as well, as has the ability to harvest creatures at a low level of ability. Mind Stims, especially since Master Docs could care less about any way of exploiting something like this for XP (generally speaking.), consolidated wound packs (also look at the Inventory Issue) or a method to convert Med or Med Crafting XP at Master levels to Experimentation points (since there otherwise no need for that extra XP) or some other purchasable schematics/items.

For a sampling of the discussion see:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=7596
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=8075
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10330
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14389
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14638

(*Dev Response:
Ben “Marvelin” Hanson wrote on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum:
“I'm open to ability ideas for master doctor.”
[Z’s note: I have passed on the ideas already listed in the above issue, not to mention those in the threads noted above.]

Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003:
“They really like many of the ideas for extra doctor abilities in the threads we listed. In particular things like AOE cures, dot resistances, multi wound packs, etc. All seem pretty interesting to work with. They do agree that the doctor could use another reason or two to get the master box. This particular issue may take quite some time to get to and code in, however.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )

3.On Fire Cure*

(Added Dev Response)

The ability to cure the “On Fire!” state created by several attack forms has also been requested.

More information can be found in the following:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=13565

(*Dev response:
Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003:
“They do not have a problem with adding some fire dot removal. Fire dots can get nasty on Tatooine where there are only two places on the map to put them out. Again this may take some time to get into the game, but at least it is being looked into now.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )

4.Faction Points

Docs are interested in seeing a share of Faction Points in the same way that we are getting Combat XP. It is considered inappropriate that a medic professional would be out in the field and, being unable to assist in taking out an opposing faction NPC or player (because they are healing those who are doing so), they will not gain FPs and so will progress much more slowly in faction gains, while providing at least as valuable a service as the person providing the offensive capabilities. Other considerations have included gaining FPs for healing Overt faction members, especially considering the dangers involved in gaining a TEF in this manner in a place that is known for finding unsuspecting TEFed characters (i.e. The Med Center, see TEF Issues).

5.Medical Harvesting

Some Docs are having issue with wanting to have some form /harvest scout skill and our need for meat requirements. The situation tends to revolve around the idea that scouts will make far more profit from catering to the Hide/Bone needs of Artisans than they will from catering to Medics.

6.Mind Damage Healing for Doctors%*

(In Test, added Dev Response and Test Center Patch Notes)

(*In Test*) This appears to be a major concern amongst both Medics and Doctors (and Combat Medics, for that matter). It seems to be a fairly major issue discussed in multiple threads on multiple boards out there in the community and perhaps part of the problem is simple frustration in being the person everyone is counting on to keep them going when you can only watch helplessly as someone's mind is being damaged and there is nothing you can do.

Suggestions have ranged from leave it as is, since it is a balancing factor to keep combats from being too long to either letting Doctors or Advanced Medics or Combat Medics,(or all of the above) heal mind at a 1:1 rate or possibly better Although most admit that healing at a better ratio would be fairly exploitable since a medic could then stim their mind faster than they would lose it, even though once you hit Master, who really cares about exploiting Healing XP anyway, possible modifiers to that would be stims that are mind specific, are at higher levels (say Mind A becomes available when you would normally get Stim C) and can be used on others only, not for self-healing. However it could also be argued that even if the medic simply were not allowed to stim their own mind, two medics could help each other to heal indefinitely, but it has also been pointed out that this is, in effect, what a Doc or Medic already provides for combat (and entertainer) professions in allowing them to ignore their special costs by healing them so they can use their abilities endlessly. Giving mind stimming ability to Entertainers or Chefs or as a form of /rally command for Squad Leaders has also been suggested. Mind stimming only mind incapped players has also been suggested (a Doc could still never stim himself that way for any exploit purposes). Even the ability to create Enhance packs, of the usual Doctor skill ability, has been suggested as at least a better method of staving off the damage potential in a manner befitting what Docs are capable of compared to food and spice and entertainer buffs, even if that buff is not given to Doctors to make. One of the more popular suggestions is to simply reduce the amount of damage given with mind hits, or to reduce their frequency. Removing the ability to incap from Mind (you’d still be limited in not being able to heal more, etc.) and letting the “head shot” moves, such as those of the Rifleman, actually take large chunks of both Health and Action instead, have also been suggested, or not allowing Mind Damage incap to incur a Death Blow or not allowing Mind to incap at all. In all cases it is acknowledged that any form of Mind Healing would also require rebalancing the mind-damage-dealing professions.

While there may not be a consensus on the issue there does seem to be a HUGE amount of interest and concern on the topic and I am sure the community would at least like to get some feedback and or considerations from the Dev team on what they see as the balancing factors between mind damage, healing mind damage and perceived problems with nerfing the mind-damage-dealing profession.

I would suggest referencing the following threads to get the majority of the viewpoints involved, but should a tighter synopsis of these threads and their suggestions be needed, please don't hesitate to ask me for one. (I know, one of these is from the Medic forum, but there are a lot of Docs piping in on the issue, and one is from an outside forum that sees a good deal of traffic and interest from the Doctor community.)
[Z’s Note: We do not have any patch notes for this yet, however a mind damage healing ability has been granted to Combat Medics at Level 4 Ranged Healing Speed. It works like the /tend commands in that is causes wounds to all of the mind stats while healing. There are suggestions that the current standard is for around 40 wounds to all stats for an average damage healing of around 300. It may not be used to heal your own mind.]
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1299
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=785
http://dynamic6.gamespy.com/~swgcraft/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1315
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=2177
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=3612
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6471

(*Dev Response:

I am uncertain if parts of this issue are addressed or not due to ambiguity and possible mistyping of a /healmind command in the Dev response to our issues, some recent threads suggest providing this is being looked into by the Dev team, but the manner is uncertain. Even in Holo’s own posts they cannot seem to agree, see below.

Holo wrote the /healmind command several time in a thread that was presumably a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03.
Ref:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421

In a thread of Holo’s PM responses on 9/4/03 regarding giving entertainers mind heals:
“We don't plan to allow medic types to heal mind, because it opens the door to lots of exploits for them, as you point out.

Your idea is interesting, but it does make entertainers more bard-like, which I am not crazy about (but perhaps some entertainers are?). The Squad Leader alternative is also interesting.

Frankly, this situation is a bit of a loophole in the design. We did not catch the medic exploit until too late, so we removed the mind pool heal from them, without creating an alternative. Mind is not supposed to be the determining factor in a combat.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=476570#M476570

Holo wrote in a separate thread addressing the above response on 9/8/03:
“We don't know yet. Several possibilities have been discussed. I've participated in discussions about:

·letting squad leaders heal it
·letting entertainers heal it in the field
·letting medics heal it, but take mind wounds
·letting someone heal it but slowly, so they have to stand next to the healee for a substantial amount of time (and need covered, etc)
·adding a new camp type that only heals mind pool

I'm sure there's even more ideas floating around.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=502726#M502726

Ben “Marvelin” Hanson wrote on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum:
“We are considering putting some sort of limited mind healing ability in the game. We're still hammering out the specifics so as to not make it overpowering. Suggestions are welcome.”

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Decreased frequency of NPC targeted shots vs. mind, focus and willpower.” and “Added the healMind command for Combat Medics. This enables the Combat Medic to restore mind pool damage at the cost of mind wounds to himself.”)

Doctors would like to have the /mindheal command made available to them. Suggestions have included having it be a Doctor-only command, perhaps even only available at Master Doc. However there seems to be a bit more consensus (a polling would need o be done to ascertain the exact degrees of this) towards giving /mindheal to Master Medic to provide a little something extra for those reaching MM level, as well as then providing the capabilities to both Doctors and Combat Medics. In this way the command is at least closer to being as available as healing of the other Bars is to maintain the proper level of balance for the medical professions. Some have also suggested that the command might also be well served to also go to Entertainers and/or Squad Leaders. Others suggest that that command should only go to Entertainers or Squad Leaders. Some of the threads below will offer more insights into the various viewpoints.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=16728
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17017
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=16865
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=18644

(*Dev Response:
Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003:
“It has been decided for now that mind healing is going to stay with Combat Medics. Combat medics have been in need of another unique healing ability, and they feel this fits the bill nicely.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )

7.AoE Cure State Pack and Poison/Disease Cure

It has been suggested that a counter is needed to the AoE poisons and diseases of CMs. An Area of Effect cure pack for each of those states would provide the proper counter. The argument could also be made for other states as well considering the AoE nature of some MOBs, such as a Kimogilla, that create those states on a group near them. Other suggestions to Poison/Disease counters include timers for how often a state can be applied to an individual, such as the new KD timers, or inoculation packs which would increase resistance to poison. Offering this skill to CMs instead, has also been suggested.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6476
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6618
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10727

8.First Aid Improvements%*

(Partial Fix In Test, added Test Center Patch Notes)

(*In Test*) Allow First Aid to be a skill that improves. For example if a patient is hit hard enough to bleed it may currently take a Medic with FA2 6-10 times to cure that bleeding, and a Master Doctor will take the same amount of heals to cure that bleeding. Perhaps once someone is into the Doc levels of wound treatment their skill would reduce the number of times needed to stop the bleeding to, say, 2-4 times or even less. As it stand CM Poisons (another form of bleed, really) can sometimes be cured in one application, but bleeds simply cannot and are far too overpowered in comparison to that. Providing better First Aid would greatly assist in alleviating that problem. Other suggestions are that this improvement top out with Master Medic, or that the improvement, being trauma related, be given to Combat Medics. A suggestion for a craftable bleed state pack, a Band Aid if you will, could even be created for this purpose to ensure a resource drain for the skill improvement.

There is some concern that the new First Aid improvements may not be enough. Some Doctors feel that First Aid should improve further as they move up in the Doctor Profession. Suggestions would be that by Master Doctor a Doctor should be able to completely remove a Bleed State in a single application of First Aid.

(*Dev Response:
Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.”)

9.Money

This topic comes up very frequently on the Medic threads, but just as frequently, if not more so, on the Doctor forums. There is a lot of concern about how a focused medical character should be able to make money. By this I mean that we are talking about a character whose primary skills and interests are in the healing arts (which could include crafting of meds, for the Pharmaceutically inclined Docs) and not, necessarily, combat or resource management. The self-sufficiency of the profession does not really exist except in a few small methods, of which the primary one for making money IN the profession would seem to be the production and sales of Small Stimpack Bs with some income coming from the sale of the service of enhancing stats (not nearly as useful an income source until Master Doc is reached). There is a much smaller niche market for medical resources and components, but most Doctors seem to feel that resource gathering and sales, while obviously an integral part of the Doctor profession, is more of the realm of the artisan and such sales would be, in effect, making money as an Artisan, and not as a Doctor. Overall these markets are really on fully viable once Master, or at least Level 4 Doc Crafting, is reached.

The other methods of making money seem to be far less reliable, or are not well supported by the game. Tips for Doctors and Medics seems to be a small market except in a few locations or servers and medical professionals are often subjected to all manner of verbal abuse for suggesting payment should be made for the service. Primarily, for those interested in providing services such as Healing or Enhancing, there is no secure method of trade to ensure that the Doctor is paid for their service while also ensuring that the customer gets the service they are requesting.

Suggestions have included some form of secure trade window, like is done for normal trading, or having a Doctor’s healing actually use packs that the customer has on their person instead of the ones on the Doctor (and thereby the Doctor could sell the medicine to the player and then heal him with those), requiring or allowing some form of insurance, possibly whereby either the patients set a price they are willing to pay for healing that will be deducted from them if their healer accepts that rate or the Doctor sets a price they will heal for allowing the patient to accept, allowing A packs or stims only to be usable by anyone thereby opening the market for more pharmaceutical products that Doctors or Medics could then sell (for those who are more crafting oriented, although it should be noted that some recent controversy is beginning to surface over this idea, thread is listed below- Doc #11491 & Medic #6938.) Having Doc-specific missions, like the artisan or entertainer missions. Giving Doctors some sort of Vendor ability to encourage pharmaceutical sales. Paying Docs some rate simply for manning a place where they can /register. Some of the threads below show some of the solutions suggested in greater detail.

Again there is no true consensus on the issue other than that most of the Medic classes tend to rely on other methods of subsistence and take time doing those things that they may not be interested in or may not be fun for them (the usual, delivery/destroy missions, for example.) The issue is an important one amongst the player base and receives a lot of attention on the forums and in game from many of the medics and Doctors I have spoken with.

Of notable reference are the following threads:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1768
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1197
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1650
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6196
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10665
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11491
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6938
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14194
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14257
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14012
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14888

(*Dev Response:
Ood Bnar wrote on 9/24/03 in a thread about Image Designer UI issues:
“We talked about adding a payment option, but this gets into the bigger 'payment for services rendered' issue which I will leave to the designers. They are working on the problem now.”

[Z’s note: This may or may not imply anything, but it seems that there maybe some consideration being given for some methods of handling payments for services universally, if possible, opening part of this issue to a possible need for a wider solution which may provide assistance on this issues as well as for other service-related sales.]
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=image_designer&message.id=2796)

6.Mind Damage Healing for Doctors%*

(In Test, added Dev Response and Test Center Patch Notes)

(*In Test*) This appears to be a major concern amongst both Medics and Doctors (and Combat Medics, for that matter). It seems to be a fairly major issue discussed in multiple threads on multiple boards out there in the community and perhaps part of the problem is simple frustration in being the person everyone is counting on to keep them going when you can only watch helplessly as someone's mind is being damaged and there is nothing you can do.

Suggestions have ranged from leave it as is, since it is a balancing factor to keep combats from being too long to either letting Doctors or Advanced Medics or Combat Medics,(or all of the above) heal mind at a 1:1 rate or possibly better Although most admit that healing at a better ratio would be fairly exploitable since a medic could then stim their mind faster than they would lose it, even though once you hit Master, who really cares about exploiting Healing XP anyway, possible modifiers to that would be stims that are mind specific, are at higher levels (say Mind A becomes available when you would normally get Stim C) and can be used on others only, not for self-healing. However it could also be argued that even if the medic simply were not allowed to stim their own mind, two medics could help each other to heal indefinitely, but it has also been pointed out that this is, in effect, what a Doc or Medic already provides for combat (and entertainer) professions in allowing them to ignore their special costs by healing them so they can use their abilities endlessly. Giving mind stimming ability to Entertainers or Chefs or as a form of /rally command for Squad Leaders has also been suggested. Mind stimming only mind incapped players has also been suggested (a Doc could still never stim himself that way for any exploit purposes). Even the ability to create Enhance packs, of the usual Doctor skill ability, has been suggested as at least a better method of staving off the damage potential in a manner befitting what Docs are capable of compared to food and spice and entertainer buffs, even if that buff is not given to Doctors to make. One of the more popular suggestions is to simply reduce the amount of damage given with mind hits, or to reduce their frequency. Removing the ability to incap from Mind (you’d still be limited in not being able to heal more, etc.) and letting the “head shot” moves, such as those of the Rifleman, actually take large chunks of both Health and Action instead, have also been suggested, or not allowing Mind Damage incap to incur a Death Blow or not allowing Mind to incap at all. In all cases it is acknowledged that any form of Mind Healing would also require rebalancing the mind-damage-dealing professions.

While there may not be a consensus on the issue there does seem to be a HUGE amount of interest and concern on the topic and I am sure the community would at least like to get some feedback and or considerations from the Dev team on what they see as the balancing factors between mind damage, healing mind damage and perceived problems with nerfing the mind-damage-dealing profession.

I would suggest referencing the following threads to get the majority of the viewpoints involved, but should a tighter synopsis of these threads and their suggestions be needed, please don't hesitate to ask me for one. (I know, one of these is from the Medic forum, but there are a lot of Docs piping in on the issue, and one is from an outside forum that sees a good deal of traffic and interest from the Doctor community.)
[Z’s Note: We do not have any patch notes for this yet, however a mind damage healing ability has been granted to Combat Medics at Level 4 Ranged Healing Speed. It works like the /tend commands in that is causes wounds to all of the mind stats while healing. There are suggestions that the current standard is for around 40 wounds to all stats for an average damage healing of around 300. It may not be used to heal your own mind.]
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1299
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=785
http://dynamic6.gamespy.com/~swgcraft/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1315
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=2177
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=3612
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6471

(*Dev Response:

I am uncertain if parts of this issue are addressed or not due to ambiguity and possible mistyping of a /healmind command in the Dev response to our issues, some recent threads suggest providing this is being looked into by the Dev team, but the manner is uncertain. Even in Holo’s own posts they cannot seem to agree, see below.

Holo wrote the /healmind command several time in a thread that was presumably a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03.
Ref:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421

In a thread of Holo’s PM responses on 9/4/03 regarding giving entertainers mind heals:
“We don't plan to allow medic types to heal mind, because it opens the door to lots of exploits for them, as you point out.

Your idea is interesting, but it does make entertainers more bard-like, which I am not crazy about (but perhaps some entertainers are?). The Squad Leader alternative is also interesting.

Frankly, this situation is a bit of a loophole in the design. We did not catch the medic exploit until too late, so we removed the mind pool heal from them, without creating an alternative. Mind is not supposed to be the determining factor in a combat.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=476570#M476570

Holo wrote in a separate thread addressing the above response on 9/8/03:
“We don't know yet. Several possibilities have been discussed. I've participated in discussions about:

·letting squad leaders heal it
·letting entertainers heal it in the field
·letting medics heal it, but take mind wounds
·letting someone heal it but slowly, so they have to stand next to the healee for a substantial amount of time (and need covered, etc)
·adding a new camp type that only heals mind pool

I'm sure there's even more ideas floating around.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=502726#M502726

Ben “Marvelin” Hanson wrote on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum:
“We are considering putting some sort of limited mind healing ability in the game. We're still hammering out the specifics so as to not make it overpowering. Suggestions are welcome.”

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Decreased frequency of NPC targeted shots vs. mind, focus and willpower.” and “Added the healMind command for Combat Medics. This enables the Combat Medic to restore mind pool damage at the cost of mind wounds to himself.”)

Doctors would like to have the /mindheal command made available to them. Suggestions have included having it be a Doctor-only command, perhaps even only available at Master Doc. However there seems to be a bit more consensus (a polling would need o be done to ascertain the exact degrees of this) towards giving /mindheal to Master Medic to provide a little something extra for those reaching MM level, as well as then providing the capabilities to both Doctors and Combat Medics. In this way the command is at least closer to being as available as healing of the other Bars is to maintain the proper level of balance for the medical professions. Some have also suggested that the command might also be well served to also go to Entertainers and/or Squad Leaders. Others suggest that that command should only go to Entertainers or Squad Leaders. Some of the threads below will offer more insights into the various viewpoints.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=16728
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17017
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=16865
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=18644

(*Dev Response:
Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003:
“It has been decided for now that mind healing is going to stay with Combat Medics. Combat medics have been in need of another unique healing ability, and they feel this fits the bill nicely.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )

7.AoE Cure State Pack and Poison/Disease Cure

It has been suggested that a counter is needed to the AoE poisons and diseases of CMs. An Area of Effect cure pack for each of those states would provide the proper counter. The argument could also be made for other states as well considering the AoE nature of some MOBs, such as a Kimogilla, that create those states on a group near them. Other suggestions to Poison/Disease counters include timers for how often a state can be applied to an individual, such as the new KD timers, or inoculation packs which would increase resistance to poison. Offering this skill to CMs instead, has also been suggested.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6476
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6618
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10727

8.First Aid Improvements%*

(Partial Fix In Test, added Test Center Patch Notes)

(*In Test*) Allow First Aid to be a skill that improves. For example if a patient is hit hard enough to bleed it may currently take a Medic with FA2 6-10 times to cure that bleeding, and a Master Doctor will take the same amount of heals to cure that bleeding. Perhaps once someone is into the Doc levels of wound treatment their skill would reduce the number of times needed to stop the bleeding to, say, 2-4 times or even less. As it stand CM Poisons (another form of bleed, really) can sometimes be cured in one application, but bleeds simply cannot and are far too overpowered in comparison to that. Providing better First Aid would greatly assist in alleviating that problem. Other suggestions are that this improvement top out with Master Medic, or that the improvement, being trauma related, be given to Combat Medics. A suggestion for a craftable bleed state pack, a Band Aid if you will, could even be created for this purpose to ensure a resource drain for the skill improvement.

There is some concern that the new First Aid improvements may not be enough. Some Doctors feel that First Aid should improve further as they move up in the Doctor Profession. Suggestions would be that by Master Doctor a Doctor should be able to completely remove a Bleed State in a single application of First Aid.

(*Dev Response:
Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.”)

9.Money

This topic comes up very frequently on the Medic threads, but just as frequently, if not more so, on the Doctor forums. There is a lot of concern about how a focused medical character should be able to make money. By this I mean that we are talking about a character whose primary skills and interests are in the healing arts (which could include crafting of meds, for the Pharmaceutically inclined Docs) and not, necessarily, combat or resource management. The self-sufficiency of the profession does not really exist except in a few small methods, of which the primary one for making money IN the profession would seem to be the production and sales of Small Stimpack Bs with some income coming from the sale of the service of enhancing stats (not nearly as useful an income source until Master Doc is reached). There is a much smaller niche market for medical resources and components, but most Doctors seem to feel that resource gathering and sales, while obviously an integral part of the Doctor profession, is more of the realm of the artisan and such sales would be, in effect, making money as an Artisan, and not as a Doctor. Overall these markets are really on fully viable once Master, or at least Level 4 Doc Crafting, is reached.

The other methods of making money seem to be far less reliable, or are not well supported by the game. Tips for Doctors and Medics seems to be a small market except in a few locations or servers and medical professionals are often subjected to all manner of verbal abuse for suggesting payment should be made for the service. Primarily, for those interested in providing services such as Healing or Enhancing, there is no secure method of trade to ensure that the Doctor is paid for their service while also ensuring that the customer gets the service they are requesting.

Suggestions have included some form of secure trade window, like is done for normal trading, or having a Doctor’s healing actually use packs that the customer has on their person instead of the ones on the Doctor (and thereby the Doctor could sell the medicine to the player and then heal him with those), requiring or allowing some form of insurance, possibly whereby either the patients set a price they are willing to pay for healing that will be deducted from them if their healer accepts that rate or the Doctor sets a price they will heal for allowing the patient to accept, allowing A packs or stims only to be usable by anyone thereby opening the market for more pharmaceutical products that Doctors or Medics could then sell (for those who are more crafting oriented, although it should be noted that some recent controversy is beginning to surface over this idea, thread is listed below- Doc #11491 & Medic #6938.) Having Doc-specific missions, like the artisan or entertainer missions. Giving Doctors some sort of Vendor ability to encourage pharmaceutical sales. Paying Docs some rate simply for manning a place where they can /register. Some of the threads below show some of the solutions suggested in greater detail.

Again there is no true consensus on the issue other than that most of the Medic classes tend to rely on other methods of subsistence and take time doing those things that they may not be interested in or may not be fun for them (the usual, delivery/destroy missions, for example.) The issue is an important one amongst the player base and receives a lot of attention on the forums and in game from many of the medics and Doctors I have spoken with.

Of notable reference are the following threads:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1768
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1197
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1650
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6196
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10665
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11491
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6938
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14194
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14257
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14012
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14888

(*Dev Response:
Ood Bnar wrote on 9/24/03 in a thread about Image Designer UI issues:
“We talked about adding a payment option, but this gets into the bigger 'payment for services rendered' issue which I will leave to the designers. They are working on the problem now.”

[Z’s note: This may or may not imply anything, but it seems that there maybe some consideration being given for some methods of handling payments for services universally, if possible, opening part of this issue to a possible need for a wider solution which may provide assistance on this issues as well as for other service-related sales.]
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=image_designer&message.id=2796)

10.Pet Stimpacks

Some Docs are incensed about the idea of giving pet stimpacks to anyone for healing Pets. (Not at the BE’s for making these packs, but that anyone can use them.) Something that was previously the purview of the medic classes. Letting some other class utilize stimpacks, even if it’s just for pets, seems like a slap in the face by giving anyone the ability to use an item that is otherwise exclusive to Novice Medic, when an integral skill required for Medics, Surveying, won’t even be considered for Medics because it would somehow interfere with Artisans (who already have far greater financial stability than the medical professions). Not to mention the ability of these new stims to heal mind damage on the fly when no other class in the game has this ability for use on player characters. Some clarification on the reasoning for this issue or some other form of compensation such as mind healing, a certificate system allowing Pet Stim A use by anyone, but higher levels only to be used by BEs and/or CHs, the removal of the mind heal component of the stim, removal of pet stimpacks altogether has been suggested.

11.Quickheal Uselessness=*

(In Test, added Test Center Patch Notes)

Some people have mentioned they would like to see the Quickheal skill actually be useful. The mind costs and damage accrued are too prohibitive for actual use, and would never be used as a “last ditch” method in combat, simply because by the time a last ditch effort is needed the Doc will already have too low a mind level to use the skill. Suggestions tend to be along the lines of greatly reducing the mind and damage requirements of the skill, but greatly increasing the BF and mind wounds accrued through its use to balance that out.

(*Dev Response:
Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03:
“Increased the power of quickHeal and reduced its mind cost.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Increased the power of quickHeal and reduced its mind cost.”

[Z’s note: IMHO, this fix will still need to be tested to see if it achieves the goal of making /quickHeal useful.])

12.State Pack Persistence/Immunity

Docs are wondering if it would be possible to get some level of persistence in Cure State packs. The states appear to be regained upon the very next hit by a MOB. For example, why unblind someone when they are just going to get blinded again before they can even get their own attack off. Some persistence in the state cure packs would provide some level of immunity to being afflicted with the state again immediately. Another possibility would be that state cures offer a temporary increase in resistance against that state.

It should also be noted that many states do not seem to have some very obvious effects and with the timer-related errors involved in state pack usage, few Doctors, or their patients for that matter, bother with State healing, apparently. Considering the defense bonuses now being fully applied to moving characters, getting to a character to apply a state cure is even more difficult (because they keep moving around in order to avoid being hit.) Clarification on the effects of various states, review of their effectiveness and review of their persistence on healing would be welcome.

Some discussions can be found at the following:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=10613

13.Medicine Use Skill Granularity

Many would like to see more granularity in the base Medicine Use levels for different meds, to encourage balanced increases in the Medicine Use skill. Possibly even reducing some medicine use levels so that Medics can use some Doctor created items, while others could be made more difficult to encourage purchasing of the usage skill levels.

Some discussion on the topic can be found in the following threads:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=646964

14.Pet Healing XP (or lack thereof)

The removal of Pet Healing XP has several Doctors a bit upset. Overall there seems to be some consensus that Pets are primarily being used as the main tank for a party instead of any standard PC class. As such there is now no method for gaining XP from healing the party tank since that tank will almost never be a PC.

Suggested solutions include singly or in some combination such ideas as giving no XP for ones own pets, but allowing full XP on other’s pets, providing reduced XP for any pet healing, capping the XP allowed to be provided from a pet on either a per heal or per combat session basis. Several other responses and suggestions may be found in Q3P0’s post regarding this subject below (#429220).

(*Dev response:
Q3P0 wrote on 8/27/03:
“We’ve been tracking your discussions regarding the recent change to remove XP from healing pets. This post is to explain why we did the change and to let you know what we are thinking of for the future (based on some of your suggestions).

The exploit was a person could sick their pet on a creature that it cannot kill but does a decent amount of damage, sit behind the pet and heal it over and over and gain experience 10x faster than normal. Our solution was to eliminate XP for healing pets.

You’ve brought up great points about this and we are reconsidering how best to handle the exploit. Assuming you agree that the above exploit is valid. How about healing your own pet gives no medical XP (just like healing yourself)? Healing someone else’s pet given less XP than healing another player but still gives some. This will make healers still valuable in groups with tank pets, but won’t allow you to gain XP faster than you would with players.

If we go with this, it will take several days to code and probably some decent time on Test Center to test.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=429220

Holo wrote on 8/29/03: “Med XP from healing pets was seen as an exploit because of the hugely high rates of gain it provided. Do you guys not see it that way or agree?” Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645

[Z’s note: The testing time would likely force such an update into the November Publish at the earliest. No word yet on when that publish way be scheduled for, but it will certainly hit Test Center first and I will update you all then if it was able to make it. If not then they MIGHT Hotfix Patch it in, but more likely it would get held off until December Publish. That’s assuming they even go with Q’s suggestions above at all.])

15.Ease of Mastery

Some have also suggested that perhaps Doctor is simply too easy to Master. I am still uncertain whether this is intended or not and whether or not it is really balanced enough compared to possible speed of gain rates for other professions. It may be a situation where, as Holocron has told us before, the game simply does not start until you completely allocate all of your skill points and that philosophy being somewhat counterintuitive to how many other MMORPGs are played. Or if this is truly a valid concern that having Master Doctors within their time frame is unbalancing to the game. Perhaps guidance of the Dev thinking on the issue is needed, or the rate of gain should be adjusted. The crafting requirements will definitely need to be more balanced, however, in most players’ experience, some suggesting either making it easier, or making the rest of the line harder or somewhere in between.

16.Crafting XP Speed Imbalance

Docs are feeling a bit hampered by the crafting requirements of the class. While there are a few who simply do not like crafting at all, many seem to feel that crafting is acceptable, but only if it improves on par with use. An example pointed out on the forums was that a Stim E will often heal for 1500-2500, or about 600-700 Medical XP a heal. That 1 stim E provides about 500 Crafting XP. Since there are 41 charges on a stim E that means a difference of 41*700=28,700 Medical XP, as compared to that 1 stim providing only 500 Crafting XP. A ratio of 57:1 instead of the 3:1 that would be expected for proper scaling of raising the skills evenly. (Actually it has been noted that those numbers are probably a bit off, but the ratio is still approximately valid). Admittedly compared to the time it takes to use those charges enough stims could be made to equalize that ratio, but it is requested that the metrics be looked at again, especially now that Factory XP is back to where it should have been (well, if it is supposed to be at 10%, even though factories are not giving even that now, but that I listed as a separate issue) and that self UXP in components has been fixed and also keeping in mind that there are folks who are just grinding the meds for these lines to catch it up to their other med levels.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1383
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=2020

17.Crafting XP from Complex Schematics -v- Components

Despite the complexity of completed meds, such as stim or wound packs, these provide less XP, relatively, than grinding out components.

18.Combat Medic Component Experimentation%*

(Partial In Test, added Test Center Patch Notes)

The experimentation points and availability of components that are only usable by Combat Medics has caused some confusion. Having them in the Doc tree provides Doctors with an unfair advantage to experimenting on an item they do not use, while Combat Medics who have not taken any Doctor skills can only make those components at a reduced ability. It has been suggested that while increasing Medical Crafting through Organic Chemistry in the Medic field, that, even though it will be unused at first, Combat Medic Crafting also be raised. Or that crafting apply to combat medic crafting as equally as it is to Medic/Doc crafting. This may make a Doc/CM have an incredibly massive number of experimentation points (presumably 15), but then again they end up using so many skill points to get it I can see how that could easily outweighed the advantage that would bring.

(*Dev response:
Holo wrote as an answer to some PMs on 9/4/03:
“I'll ask about the status of these, if you can tell me which typos they are exactly. (Yes, I know that I can probably read the CM forum for a few hours and find them, but if you tell me more specifics here, I'll both read it sooner and have more ammo to beat a designer about the head with). ”

Then later in the same thread on 9/5/03:
“
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elimanning wrote:
Holo, the info you request re: CM crafting has been posted, thanks for looking into it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, and we're on it.”
[Z’s note: It is likely such an update would not occur until the November Publish. No word yet on when that publish way be scheduled for, but it will certainly hit Test Center first and I will update you all then if it makes it into that round of fixes.]
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=481241#M481241

Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response to Kavedawg on the CM’s Top 5 Issues List, paraphrased by Kavedawg:
“Combat medic components will be moved to the CM tree.”
Ref:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=12195

[Z’s note: This implies only that CM components will be moving to the CM tree. Medical components will still have this problem associated with them, however.]

Test Center Patch Notes on 11/3/03:
“Moved the schematics for combat medical components to the combat medic skill tree.” and “Combat medical components now use combat medic experimentation and assembly for crafting purposes.”)

Thanks Zarlor!

A few comments on some of your points...

1) Medical Surveying -- I agree that this is one big issue with Doctors. By the time we make it to the Doctor profession, we are more than likely running out of skill points. Spending extra points in surveying only encourages profession-dabbling. I really like the idea of 'specialized' medical surveying tools (crafted by artisans) which would be used 'solely' by medics/doctors, and that would focus 'only' on those resources that are crucial to us (Dolovite Iron, Dantooine Berry Fruits, etc). I am more hesitant to include a sampling ability, as that would completely (perhaps) undercut the artisan-surveyor. Perhaps after using this 'specialized' survey tool we can either hire a surveyor to mine the area, or put our own harvesters.

2) Mind Damage Cure -- I am a little disappointed with the new /healMind command being a CM-only command. It may fit the bill just fine for those who are CM, but in essence a Doctor and a CM are BOTH healers, it seems contradictory to prevent a Doctor (healer) to heal one of the stat bars. Additionally, it is extremely sad to feel so impotent when you see a friend go down in combat from mind-incap, be next to him able to do nothing at all. Why not move the /healMind command to the Doctor tree (maybe at master level), AND add an AoE /healMind to the CM skill tree (which would fit nicely with the CM's unique ability to use area-of-effect commands).

3) First Aid -- Glad to see it has been improved. Will have to test it though.

4) Quick Heal -- To be honest, I don't think that the command will be useful at all even with the proposed change. I don't know, it may be that it is so completely useless now that I have never used it and have learned how to live without it.

F

---

tanhauser wrote:
Thanks Zarlor!

A few comments on some of your points...

1) Medical Surveying -- I agree that this is one big issue with Doctors. By the time we make it to the Doctor profession, we are more than likely running out of skill points. Spending extra points in surveying only encourages profession-dabbling. I really like the idea of 'specialized' medical surveying tools (crafted by artisans) which would be used 'solely' by medics/doctors, and that would focus 'only' on those resources that are crucial to us (Dolovite Iron, Dantooine Berry Fruits, etc). I am more hesitant to include a sampling ability, as that would completely (perhaps) undercut the artisan-surveyor. Perhaps after using this 'specialized' survey tool we can either hire a surveyor to mine the area, or put our own harvesters.

---

In part that is wahy it is listed as a seperate capability. The big problem, though, is that the inability to at least check OQ, PE, UT and possibly Malleability(and DR for Enhance-related resources) on a resource severely inhibits the usefullness of such a skill to a Doctor. We really NEED to see those traits and dropping a harvester or having to go find a "miner" is a very expensive proposition. And for a profession that lists Money as an issue that constantly crops up, doing either of those is not particularly feasible when it may prove to be a complete waste of time and money. Being able to sample only a very small amount, or even only 1 sample at all, period, would prove to be of far more usefulness and not be competetive with Artisans.

---

[snip]

4) Quick Heal -- To be honest, I don't think that the command will be useful at all even with the proposed change. I don't know, it may be that it is so completely useless now that I have never used it and have learned how to live without it.

---

I don't think the change will make a difference either. For all intents and purposes the intent of the command would appear to be a last-ditch command used to heal when needed at the last moment. The problem is that if it's alrady at that last ditch moment, the chances are extremely high that the Doctor (or Medic as the case may be) won't have any mind left to use the command anyways. Perhaps if it were changed to something like one of the innate skills, such that it could only be use once every 30 minutes, or something, but not use Mind or only use a minimal amount of mind, then it would be useful.

But, for now they've made a change so I'll leave it as In Test (then Fixed) until we've really had a chance to see if the changes do make it useful for anything.

Fantastic posts Zarlor, you're doing the Doc's proud

Personally i have to agree with with Tanhauser,

Mind damage heals should do to Docs, with CM getting a ranged variation. We are still a healing class and we should be viable in the field (healing diseases, poisons and revives) yet it seems we wont be able to heal something as vital as mind.

Your list seems great, personally i'd like to see the heal on fire cure implemented, it sucks watching someone burn away on tat knowing that chances are they'll incap 3 times and need to clone. The anti CM ideas sound good to, although we don't want to go rendering CM poisons/diseases useless. The resists sound a good idea (as long as it's not 100% resist, more a granted chance to shrug of the poison/disease), but i'm not so sure about the AOE heals, which would in effect make AOE poisons useless (a CM uses a poison, a doc immediatly cures it). Why not increase the time it takes for a CM to throw the AOE poisons or something like that. Finally first Aid needs some balancing, why at Master Doc should i have to use first aid to treat a particulary bad bleed, when a Master medic could do exactly the same thing. Great list, lets hope some of them get implemented soon.

Why should we doctors be able to survey? That is someone else's job. We are doctor's, not miners. That just sounds rediculous. Do you carry a pistol? Perhaps we should be able to craft are own weapons as well.

---

Gredo151 wrote:

[snip]

Your list seems great,

---

Not MY lists, really. All of this stuff is just the things that all of the Docs on this forum have brought up as being issues. You guys are also the ones, through the voting process, that determine the priority and ordering of these lists.

---

personally i'd like to see the heal on fire cure implemented, it sucks watching someone burn away on tat knowing that chances are they'll incap 3 times and need to clone.

---

At least we've had that one acknowledged in this last go around. So it looks like they'll be working on it sometime. We just don't know when or even if the Docs will get that cure or not.

---

[snip]

Finally first Aid needs some balancing, why at Master Doc should i have to use first aid to treat a particulary bad bleed, when a Master medic could do exactly the same thing. Great list, lets hope some of them get implemented soon.

---

Well, as noted, First Aid is getting an overhaul. The difference now will be that your scenario is absolutely corect in that a Doc will heal bleeds as well as a Master Medic. But at least we will finally heal bleeds better than as a 2/0/0/0 Novice Medic.

Nice approach to organizing the many issues Zarlor. Wow, there are a lot, eh?

I want to discuss one of those issues: I really want to accent our request for the ability to /innoculate against disease and poison. Not only does this serve as a partial counter to the CM abilities, it also provides another set of buffs to market.

Currently these two capabilities are contained in the larger category called Master Doctor Benefits. To be balanced, perhaps there should be a gradual increase in ability with level, with the best innoculations reserved for master doc. - Along the lines of Innoculate Disease Pack A, B, C, and D?

Is there any support for splitting them out into a separate issue/request?

Johaan, MD & CM (4,4,4,1)

Actually the categorizations are Thunderhearts. I'm just following his format out.

As for Immunity, it already IS a seperate issue. A Balance Issue, #12, State Pack Persistance/Immunity.