Doctor Archive
Thread: Proposal for healing payment system.
I'll be honest. I'm not playing a medic to get rich OR to "help people". I'm doing it so I can heal, buff, and resurrect eventually. This is a particular -- and necessary -- role in the game system. It's about how I want to play the game, not a reflection of my personal beliefs.
I wouldn't accuse someone who played a bounty hunter of being a closet cold-hearted killer, or an artisan of being a greed-consumed jerk. By the same token, doctors who prefer compensation aren't bastards, and doctors who do it for free aren't nice guys.
With that said, I think the topic of this thread is a great idea. There needs to be a better system for compensation than just crossing your fingers. Until SWG has universal health coverage, I think thewound cost negotiation system sounds like a good fix.
Most other classes have a way to get credits by doing things that get them XP. I think that's all the doctors are asking for.
How about if healing in the med-center paid credits. I mean, doctors in my local hospital get a check every month, why shouldn't doc's in swg. Evey time you drop a wound-pack on someone in the vicinity of the Med Center, you'll have some credits put into your bank. The payout will be adjusted so it will be in line with whatyou could make doing missions, so you won't "get rich" doing it.
Shuey, even you have to agree that this will solve the problem. I know you enjoy running delivery missions, but who is healing your patients while you're off delivering love letters.
Let's face it, very few people tip these days, and it's getting worse. It's bad enough we all have to take artisan just to get the resources we need. We shouldn't have to be fed-ex as well.
(still mad about that 30 credit tip I got the other night)
Shuey, I am at a loss as to your position. You seem to be saying that the bread-and-butter of the medical profession - healing wounded individuals in or out of a medical center, the only thing for which medics and doctors are technically necessary - is somehow not work deserving of compensation. The problem is not that medics have a "I want to sit in the med center and have everything handed to me" mentality, the problem is that in my experience, between 50 and 75% of non-medics <i>do</i> have that mentality. Every time I heal someone in a med center, I expend valuable resources. I don't think I'm all that far off when I say that to sit in the med center for an hour healing wounds probably requires about that much time outside the med center gathering resources and crafting medicines. The crafting part is unavoidable, since only we can do that. But if, as you suggest, medics and doctors primary focus should be on "helping people," then it makes perfect sense to ask for some way of being financially able to do that. There is absolutely nothing contradictory about wanting to "help people" and wanting to be compensated for it. I'm not asking for enough to go buy three houses and maintain half a dozen harvesters, but enough to be able to stay in the med center doing what I enjoy doing. I enjoy working and talking with wounded individuals. I like talking to them about their exploits and hearing what beastie got to them this time. I enjoy it so much that I don't want to have to go all across the blasted wastelands killing rats.
Fighters get paid to do what they do best: blowing stuff up. Medics on the other hand, generally don't. And yes, I can go run some missions of my own, but that means that I'm less of a medic and more of a basher. It doesn't make sense on an intiutive, financial, or role-playing level to force doctors to not be doctors so they can be doctors.
As long as you have other medic/docs healing for free this will never work. This isn't something like entertainer healing. We actually control who we heal and don't. If you want tips. Ask for them before service. If there's a ninja healer in there healing everybody, try moving to another hospital.
Hey all..I may as well throw my two cents in.
I'm a Doctor on Lowca aka Blowca at times. First of all, I do think its a nice idea to get tipped for the healing power. What one fails to see is that players on each server act differently from others. I spend a ton on getting my resources to make my supplies and time sampling for the rest. Do I care if i do get paid, not really. I get mega medical experience from healing so its a nice trade off.
It does hurt my income but I am also a Master Artisan, Novice Architect, and a Gunsmith so if i really want credits its trivial. Not all are in my shoes and I don't flame the ones that want credits. I understand. I spent alot of time healing a player that had all his stats down really low and I used a ton of stuff on him. I was the only one there to heal him and all he said was thanks. It did kinda piss me off. I just saved his sorry hide to he can go fight for more credits. Its a two way street here. If the Doctors, medics, and Combat medics all banned together and said, "Screw you if you are getting a single heal till you learn to pony up."
How long would there be melee's in the game? I bet it would cause alot of problems. I mean, we heal them so they can FIGHT more. You can only go so long before you need a Doctor's touch. Its common courtesy to tip even if its 10 credits. Its 10 credits I didnt have before I start. Medical profession jobs can be very costly if you don't do missions because the majority won't tip in which they should for the time that is saved on them.
I truely enjoy being a Doctor but really hate the cost of maintaining my harvestors so that I can heal or the costs to move the **edit** things to a better resource site. Anyone on Lowca and Radiant will know what the resource roll-overs is like and everyone knows about it on the server. I usually won't go to the Medical Center anymore after some of the heals I've done and don't even get thanks for healing me. That bugs me more than no tips at all. I will be found in the Cantina healing the Entertainers who tip me daily and also get me resources. I like this method. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.
I had one incident with another Doctor. I asked him if he could train me in some skill. I can't remember what it was now and he said to me. "How much you have?" I hate to say it, but that is just pathetic. I usually have to pay trainers to get trained since the Doctor's like to go under some other title from all the ingrateful players. I understand why too with what it costs.
Well, if you don't like your class, switch. If you don't want to heal, don't. No one forces you to heal or make you play a Medical Profession. SO for the ones bitching at other players that want to get some credits, please stop because not everyone gets more tips that can pay for harvestors in a day.I know, I have 17 harvestors I have to pay for and my tips in one day doesn't even pay for a small harvestor for a day. hehehe!!! This coin can go either way. I agree with tips and disagree with flaming the ones that want tips. i can support my own corporation either way so I can care less.
Just be grateful that you can heal, do missions, and do whatever you want. =)
Take care and take it easy,
Ceniela, Lowca Server!
Ok, I am not against having a way for people to pay Doctors to get healed. What I am against is forcing people to pay to get healed. I believe that is downright wrong.
Instead of forcing players to pay us, why not institue a method, (like already suggested) Where we are paid for being in the Medical Center and healing. It shouldnt be anything grand, but it should be enough to keep the Medics going. It would also work for Entertainers as well. Another reason to keep the payout low is to still encourage tips. If people know that we are getting paid to heal them, they are going to treat us like trash.
Okies. Here is an idea. Healers fix players up so the can fight to make credits and won't tip. If melee wouldn't be healed, they can no longer play. And Medical need to pay for harvestors. Here is an idea that would work great if SOE/LA would pull the thumb out of their butt.
If you are a Medic, Combat Medic, or Doctor, your harvestors shouldn't have to be paid for or powered up daily. Since in EQ items was no drop, make the resources you can use in making stimpacks and what not, not tradeable so this could prevent it from being abused. So you can't trade them nor sell the resources. Only be used in medical supplies and once build, they can't be sold either or traded. Then NO one could whine they are not getting credits to pay for the harvestors and players wouldnt have to tip to be healed. hehehe!!! This would only apply to the harvestors that had no cost attached to then, If one wanted more harvestors, have the option of buying them and paying maintaining them and power. Unfortunately this will never be implemented so its a mute point unless it can be heard.
Ceniela
PS "I normally don't read forums because of players whining, flamming, and everything else. Calling for nerfs and whatever else trip their triggers."
What I think most of you are forgetting is that being a Doctor does not mean you have to sit in the med center. I have people begging me to go on hunts with them. When I hunt with others I do notattack anything, I am there to heal. I get exp and money from playing my role.
Doctors were intended to be played on the battlefield or else they wouldnt have the revive skill. If you are not wanting to leave the Med center maybe you arent playing your class the way it was designed therefore you arent reaping the rewards of your class.
You do not have to be involved in combat to do destroy missions. Find a group, make some money and get some exp =)
Also, the idea of instituting a way of paying medics without having those credits come from players creates an inflation problem. Already there is a source of infinite credits: missions. I remember when I toyed around with Anarchy Online and was dismayed to see that a basic shirt that offered no actual protection in combat cost about 8k. Missions offered a few hundred to a thousand, but because everyone was doing it, the amount of credits constantly increased. Galaxies has done a good job of avoiding that by not instituting NPC vendors and creating a way for credits to exit the economy: harvesters. I think the balance is good as it is, and making the med centers a source of infinite credits could have a devastating effect on the economy.
I love this idea. Make it a trade just like an artisan would use the trade screen for selling a gun, so should we for selling our service. Also to reply to a quote from earlier
"As a Doctor, I find this idea absolutely absurd. When i choose the Doctor profession,I did not do it becauseI was looking to get rich. It is a profession that helps other people. The idea of charging for wounds is nonsense. If you are looking for profit, try another profession."
Exactly what part of asking for paymentupfront is "not helping people"? You claim you went doctor to help people. Explain to me how making money interferes with helping people? When you can do that, you will have a valid argument, until then, you are a moron. Imean its not like we ask them for20k for a gun like theweaponsmith who hasa million credits in thebank(albeit there is also nothing wrong with that). So many medics have to do destroy missions just to be able toafford to continue making packs to heal with.Nobody said anything likebeing a millionaire, but it sure would be nice if the amount of money received from players actually covered the cost of the medpacks used to heal them, andgod forbid maybe even a little extra.
Also your argument fails miserably in thesense department as it would certainly not be mandatory to charge a patient. Youcould still go on about your happy dayhealing people for tips.Thisoption however would be great for those of us who would like to actually break even or even make money onour service, WHILE helping people I'd liketo add. **edit** you socialists.
Shuey, since you mention my name specifically in your post I can only assume your usage of the word you implies myself directly. I can see I am being quite unclear because this is, in fact, NOT the way I play the game at all. I *personally* find other ways to make money and I *personally* don't mind making the money I want or need in those ways. So all I am trying to do, apparently very poorly I might add, is to clear things up for the way some other folks would like to play and enjoy the game, esepcially for those folks who cannot/do not seem to understand the benefits of seeking compensation outside of doing what their chosen profession does, heal.
You say you have alwyas gotten great tips thos times you were healing in the med center. I am saying that in the med centers I have been into and the general experience of most of the healers I have spoken with show the consensus is that while some places do provide great tips, the majority do not. And, hence, doing what we are supposed to do for this profession is not sustainable.
Artisans make product that they sell.
Scouts harvest product that they sell.
Marksmen & Brawlers do destroy mission for money.
Entertainers & Medics are left to, generally, rely on tips. (Entertainers far moreso that we, but they also have no REQUIRED expenses, beyond the occasional new instrument for musicians, and to do have Entertainer specific mission they can take.)
So that leaves Medics with a very obivous money sink in resource requirements and crafting time, but no income method. (It's not even like Medics have missions available to them, like Artisans/Surveyors and Entertainers do.)
You say you have no monetary conrcerns, and I sayt that's great! Bully for you! My monetary concerns aren't too bad, either, and I know the ways to make more when I really need it. So the system could stay exactly the way it is now for both of us and it really won't afect out playstyle. Ok, no problem.
Now if some other method were implimented to put Medics in-line with the income producing potential of the other professions, how would that hurt you? How would that so destroy your playstyle that it would be a BAD thing for you, because somebody else beneffitied. beneffited in a wy that would actually provide you with another opportunity for income as well, if you needed or simply desired it.
And to suggest that these Medics don't "work" for their money (money which, as I point out, most do NOT seem to be getting anyway) is a bit short-sighted. How much "work" is it to do destroy mission? Where a fighter simply gets paid to do their "job" of just going out and blowing things up, then going back to get more misions. Pretty staightforward. You wanna call that work, fine. You know full well that a Medics job is to heal, yet in order to do that job they often learn how to survey for resources, ways of gathering those resources, crafting medicines and finding out how and which resources to use to improve those medicines all of which obviously takes time away from healing, whether in the med center or in a group. So those Medics do WORK to spend what time they can to sit in the med center and help people get back on their feet to go out and make money a lot faster then if that medic wasn't there. To suggest otherwise is rather degrading to them, and to yourself considering your own achievements within the profession.
Now I'm not saying I ahve the answer to this dilemma. I only wish to suggest that there IS a dilemma here. And perhaps one that should be looked at and considered within the greater context of the design of SWG. If something can be done to make the game more enjoyable for a select group of players without unbalancing or harming any other group of players while maintaining an acceptable level of challenge to the game, then where is the harm? Why actively work to prevent it just because it does not affect you?
Of course going back over your post we obivously have a large point of misunderstaing here. You state that if it makes sense to me that Medics should not have to be beggars to be Medics then bully for me. But it seemed to be a position you did not understand. So you think Medics should be beggars if they want to be Medics? Should Marksmen be beggars if they wanted to do destroy missions? Should they do them for free? Should artisans give away their products for free as well? I'm just not sure I understand where you are coming from here.
Poster 1: I charge for healing because...
Poster 2: I don't charge for healing because I have good bedside manner and talk to people.
Look at this thread and you can see this format. It is getting a little old and I can see why SOE may never do anything about it because we as a profession cannot make up our minds on the issue. The simple fact is that other professions have missions or other means of making money that also give them xp. So the arguement that I am not going to pay you for healing because you get xp is a little off. A combat profession can do destory missions to get xp and money. An artisan can get xp and money from selling and crafting their items. As for entertainers I don't know anything really about their profession or scene so I won't comment on them (I honestly don't know anything about them, they may be in the same situation as us, I don't know). The medics however do not get xp and money for doing destory missions or delivery missions. They get combat xp not medical xp. The simplest way to fix this (if we a medical community make up our minds) is to have the game, not the players, pay us for healing in the med center. I think 1cr per wound and 1 per 5 points of damage is acceptable. For example, I heal 60 health wounds and 50 action wounds on a player. The player can still tip me if he/she likes my bedside manner and the game pays me regardless 110 credits. This would only go for healing in the med center because a medic can make xp and money doing destory missions in a group, which is what I do to make money. It just makes sense that the game should pay medics for doing their job just like the game pays other professions for doing their job. Okay, artisans are a little different than the combat professions but I don't heal too many artisans for doing their job.
Ogolave
Master Medic/Doctor
Ahazi