Doctor Archive

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

So, XP for wound healing is out, it's too open to exploitation.

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In the past.. people grinded this profession fast to become money making machines buff bots.. nowdays there is no point in grinding it fast.. but still Roleplayers would love to get some XP for their work healing others in hospitals..

The way devs now force everyone to fight is digging away ground under the feets of the roleplayers or those who simply loves a peacefull life..

Why did devs have to put docs into a combat role? they had Combat Medics for that....

Shadow

Message Edited by Shadow73 on 06-07-2005 12:14 PM

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QuarianRex wrote:

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

So, XP for wound healing is out, it's too open to exploitation.

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This it the thing that I cannot understand. This is the reason the devs keep giving for why they will not give xp for wound healing. From what I can see this statement is completely false. There is no way to "tumble" to get wounds. Even actual combat has a rediculously low chance of giving you wounds of any note. There is simply no way to get a steady enough supply of wounds for it to be considered an exploit.

As soon as the ability to get xp from healing wounds goes live, every powergamer will be looking to find a way to get ForceExperiencefrom it. It's sad but that's what happens. Eventually someone will find a way.

Add in a low enough xp gain for wound healing, say 1xp per 2 wounds (so that even a toon with 800 wounds, only realistically possible after multiple deaths in JTL, would only provide 400xp) and you have what everyone wants. A real, though minimal, ability to progress as a Doc that is immune to exploit. Why would it be immune to exploit? Because an entire day sof AFK wound healing would net you less xp than a single solo mission.

I doubt players would be happy with that kind of xp gain for wound healing, it borders on pointless. It would take you weeks to get a single box.

Those looking for an exploit would be hunting. Thoes who don't like to hunt would have hope.

Those looking for easy xp would be killing themselves over and over and healing their own wounds, if not theirs then an alts.

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QuarianRex wrote:

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

So, XP for wound healing is out, it's too open to exploitation.

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This it the thing that I cannot understand. This is the reason the devs keep giving for why they will not give xp for wound healing. From what I can see this statement is completely false. There is no way to "tumble" to get wounds. Even actual combat has a rediculously low chance of giving you wounds of any note. There is simply no way to get a steady enough supply of wounds for it to be considered an exploit.

Add in a low enough xp gain for wound healing, say 1xp per 2 wounds (so that even a toon with 800 wounds, only realistically possible after multiple deaths in JTL, would only provide 400xp) and you have what everyone wants. A real, though minimal, ability to progress as a Doc that is immune to exploit. Why would it be immune to exploit? Because an entire day sof AFK wound healing would net you less xp than a single solo mission.

Those looking for an exploit would be hunting. Thoes who don't like to hunt would have hope.

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I did come up with some ideas that I posted on the correspondant forum... cut and paste here for your perusal.

I think this all comes down tothe lack of content for non combat docs, previously they would sit in a med centre and chat with other players, craft some stims, heal wounds and damage for xp and have a nice social time while advancing in the medical trees.

It was great for roleplayers but now that medical xp can only be gained from combat so there is no content for non combat doctors.

The problem with xp for would healing is that it is too easy to macro, players will always find a way to maximise xp gain, either by getting themselves killed or killing an alt repeatedly to incure wounds, and infect wont always be broken.

I would propose the following:

• Wound healing out of combat only achievable in medical centres, rangercampor with a medical droid. Wound healing in combat is still instant but reduced efficiency or another /dressWound command for combat wound healing. Trying to /dressWound out of combat would tell the player to use /healWound.
  
• A mini game for wound healing with a droid, in medical centres or ranger camp that brings up an interface and requires user interaction and gives xp, failure to complete the mini game may cause more wounds or poison/disease the player. Completion could provide a "heal wounds over time" buff to the player.
  
• Register Location terminals changed to Medical Terminals that give medical missions involving the healing of sick NPC's and/or PC'sthat give medical xp and credits on completion. NPC's would spawn and walk into the medical centre and only be operated upon by the player that has the misison. Operatng on a PC would do more to move towards mission completion.
  
• Players able to request System messages when a doctor registers at a location, players able to request doctors help from the medical terminals and doctors can request system messages or "pager" requests.
  
• Doctors can be rated by the terminal and player bounty hunters can be called upon to address the issues of malpracticing doctors by selecting their misison from BH terminals. Doctors with excellent ratings will receive some perks including house decoration items and possibly skill mods and titles.
  
• Doctors can group up to get more difficult medical missions and operate on NPC's and PC's as a team.
  
• Medics can advance to doctor or combat medicby performing medical missions that do not involve wound healing but damage healing on NPC's.
  
• Going into combat and healing a group is still the quickest way to earn xp.

All feedback appreciated!

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The_Real_Che wrote:

But like Badger said, once there is XP gain from wound healing someone will figure out a way to exploit it so they can gain more fs XP, possibly by killing themselves, an alt, or their friend over and over and healing wounds.

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Message Edited by SioBabble on 06-08-2005 08:28 AM

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SioBabble wrote:

So, once again the devs have brilliantly locked the barn door far after the horses have left, probably to go stomp on chubas for combat XP. Yet they INSIST on taking away incentives for those who are trying to develop a medical support character that might spend some of his time in one of their developer provided medical centers engaging in actual healing of other players outside of combat.

Message Edited by SioBabble on 06-08-2005 08:28 AM

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

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SioBabble wrote:

So, once again the devs have brilliantly locked the barn door far after the horses have left, probably to go stomp on chubas for combat XP. Yet they INSIST on taking away incentives for those who are trying to develop a medical support character that might spend some of his time in one of their developer provided medical centers engaging in actual healing of other players outside of combat.

Message Edited by SioBabble on 06-08-2005 08:28 AM

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Did you read my last post? Constructive ideas are better than rants.

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Actually, I was composing as you were posting.

But given the crass unprofessionalism of the development team that is seen on a daily basis, "constructive criticism" is obviously not working with these guys. They have a very very poor grasp of cause and effect. I've seen this repeatedly, where they simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND the game they are working on, insisting that game mechanisms work in ways other than they actually do, passing off obvious bugs as working "as intended" and then stealth fixing them and claiming nothing has changed.

Med XP for wounds out of combat is a good example of how these guys find a way to punish most players for the activities of a few, and even then, as I've outlined in the rest of my previous post, it's addressing a problem that has gone away due to changes in the game.

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The_Real_Che wrote:

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QuarianRex wrote:

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

So, XP for wound healing is out, it's too open to exploitation.

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This it the thing that I cannot understand. This is the reason the devs keep giving for why they will not give xp for wound healing. From what I can see this statement is completely false. There is no way to "tumble" to get wounds. Even actual combat has a rediculously low chance of giving you wounds of any note. There is simply no way to get a steady enough supply of wounds for it to be considered an exploit.

Add in a low enough xp gain for wound healing, say 1xp per 2 wounds (so that even a toon with 800 wounds, only realistically possible after multiple deaths in JTL, would only provide 400xp) and you have what everyone wants. A real, though minimal, ability to progress as a Doc that is immune to exploit. Why would it be immune to exploit? Because an entire day sof AFK wound healing would net you less xp than a single solo mission.

Those looking for an exploit would be hunting. Thoes who don't like to hunt would have hope.

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That amount of XP gain is borderline pointless. The RP & Med Center Docs would still be hurt. I think it would make more sense to have the XP gain somewhere to the point where it would be faster to gain XP from hunting than healing wounds, but leave the wound healing as an option for those who dont like combat.

But like Badger said, once there is XP gain from wound healing someone will figure out a way to exploit it so they can gain more fs XP, possibly by killing themselves, an alt, or their friend over and over and healing wounds.

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The xp rate was more of a Dev-friendly suggestion to throw us a bone, not what I actually think would be reasonable. Even the pre-CU wound heal rate of 2xp/1wound would be disturbingly slow considering the vastly increased xp costs of the profession, not to mention the drastically reduced rate of wound accumulation.

Saying that powergamers would just find a way to exploit it is just paranoid scardy-crazy talkin' (yeah, you head me :smileywink. The only way to reliably get wounds is death. Even dying only gives you @100 or so. Even at pre-CU wound healing xp rates you would have to heal the accumulated wounds of a couple dozen deaths to get xp equivalent to killing a single creature on a hunt.

Saying that people would use alts for serial deaths is equally rediculous. Just the amount of time required to travel from the cloning facility to nearby death dealing mobs (even for a CL1 character running to tick off the local sleemo punks or whatever) would completely negate the bonus of getting xp out of combat. That makes this "exploit" a slow, disheartening, and suicidal form of grinding. Being repetitively suicidal in JTL adds in additional load times, mounting repair costs, and equipment decay to negate the increase in wounds.

The exploit of tumble grinding was dependant on the ability to provide a large amount of a grindableresource (health and action damage) at a high rate of speed (usually spammable faster than once per second) such that it was significantly more efficient to heal a tumbler than to heal allies in combat or anything else. Hence the Exploit. Suchscam is no longer possible in the CU. The game system itself no longer supports such a thing. You simply cannot make enough wounds fast enough for it to be equivalent to combat. You can't even come close. Not by a longshot.

If someone engages inmindlessly repetitive behaviour that gains them less xp than hunting it is NOT an exploit. It's just a poor choice.

As far as mini-games go, it's not going to happen. We get no love as it is. The idea that the devs would take the time to make us Vascular Tetris or a game of Connect-The-Sutures is nothing more than a pipe dream. I would rather focus on things that have a snowballs change in hell of actually being implemented. And besides, you think wound healing takes a long time now...?

Remember, the intent here is not to develop a viable method of grinding Doc outside of combat. The Devs have already stated that combat is The way to level Doc. They are not going to give you a viable alternative. What I am looking for here is an alternative that is not viable. I'm looking for a reason to use my Doc skills outside of combat. A reason other than goodwill and brotherly love for my fellow man (er... toon). I'm looking for a sense (howerver deluded it may be) that I can be a better Doc just by healing people. That would allow me to sit in the medical center keeping the galaxy healthy and not feel like I am completely wasting my time.

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SioBabble wrote:

Let's be realistic here. The entire reason "free XP" became an issuse was the unlamented "grind every profession and unlock" system that the dev braintrust stupidlydecided to broadcast because players weren't unlocking as fast as the asshats of marketing wanted them to. THEN because the path was well known, and they decided to kill the permadeath system because the powergamers are crybabies, they secretly added on additional professions to unlock because the servers werebeing flooded with powergaming asshats wielding flashlights. That system has been gone for nine months, replaced with the new "grind your butt off and do bugged quests" system that was brought about to replace the grind professions system that brought us legions of AFK entertainers, tumblebots, crafting macros, an entire sub-economy devoted to rapidly grinding though crafting professions, and even afk combat macros so you could kill durnis or worrts while sleeping. All to unlock the flashlight slot.

Message Edited by SioBabble on 06-08-2005 08:28 AM

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Here, here! SWG's customer service skills are falling faster than their customer numbers. I was completely apalled at the rudeness of the splash screen the other day telling people if you missed your last respec, too bad - you will not receive any further help from us, no go grind. Losely translated. What I actually saw as "f*@kyou!" How nice, they reinvent the game and grant respec capability and because things don't work perfectly and people report it they get upset with the customer. I didn't even know there was an issue until I read that heated splash screen. What is SWG's management thinking? Someone get these hot heads in community/customer service under control. You *do not* attack upset customers back. You let them vent, calm them down, look for a solution, then keep taking their money... otherwise they take their money elsewhere.

We know the devs and community team are tired. Gotcha, understand. I have done much development in my day and on things far less complex than a game. It is hell. Get some people in the front lines with your customers that aren't tired when these guys need the space.

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SioBabble wrote:

But given the crass unprofessionalism of the development team that is seen on a daily basis, "constructive criticism" is obviously not working with these guys. They have a very very poor grasp of cause and effect. I've seen this repeatedly, where they simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND the game they are working on, insisting that game mechanisms work in ways other than they actually do, passing off obvious bugs as working "as intended" and then stealth fixing them and claiming nothing has changed.

Med XP for wounds out of combat is a good example of how these guys find a way to punish most players for the activities of a few, and even then, as I've outlined in the rest of my previous post, it's addressing a problem that has gone away due to changes in the game.

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Shadow73 wrote:

with interest I read the developers comments and answers from the fan fest. I found this particulary interesting:

We "WANT" the Docs in a group, playing with people, and buffing the players there rather then at the starport or whatever.

I don't understand why they want to force people into a special style of play. Isnt this a Role Playing Game? Where you have a certain amount of freedom regarding your playing style? So many of the other games has more or less a forced play style SWG used to be different. You had the option. You could really LIVE THE SAGA... Unfortunately that freedom is more and more limited.

I am not a doctor. I am a crafter myself. But I know many doctors, and many of them are like myself. We dont like to fight. The reason why I enjoy this game is because you dont have to fight. You can be a crafter and sit in your house and craft items and sell it to others. And those who enjyed healing and fighting became COMBAT MEDICS...

I know many docs that enjoyed sitting in the Hospital and the cantina. They found it very social. Some of them has left the game now, feeling that what they loved about this game, and what had been their style of playing for nearly 2 years were ruined by developers that wanted to tell then 'hey this is how you are going to play this game so get out and hunt!'

Another aspect. I as a pilot, came from many spacefights badly wounded. I always went to a PC hospital or cantina and found docs?.. Isnt it the most natural thing in the world? to find docs in a hospital? Now I cant find them... Aaargh.. Hate the fact that it is more likely to be healed by a Jedi then by a doc....

... btw regardnig buffing. Okay... buffbots and stuff. but it was a machinery. It was a important part of the economy. So many Fighters and hunters made their credits hunting for medical crafters... So many players made money on selling other resources to medical crafting.

This game was so much richer before when it came to freedom and the ability for each player to play the game in their prefered play style. It was a GEM!..

Unfortunately whats happening to MMORPG games is what happened to Hollywood movies.. make a template that works for everyone and follow that receiption.. all the games now are nearly the same. Does not matter if your weapon is a light saber, a sword or a t-21.. they are all the same... Out and fight and grind your xp dude!

*sigh*

Bottom line.

Making doctors.. combat medics and forcing them to group and fight is in my opinion a major mistake and a short minded way of thinking. It reduces freedom a lot.. and it is a part of making one playstyle that fits many players but not all. In my opinion this is poor game design.

Shadow

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I have also been in medicine since I started in 07/2003. I am also biased because I am not much of a role-player. But when you really think about it, just about every profession in this game in some way or another ties back to combat. The only profession that's really not very linked that I can think of is Architect.

But what can you expect from a frachise known as "Star Wars?"

I have spent my fair share in the old medical center/cantina of coronet and anchorhead. I enjoy healing others and being able to revive the dead, and being referred to as "Doc!" I was an asset to any group. But my biggest compromise however, was being the first to die due to a lack of combat abilities, not being able to PvP, or even stand a chance in high-level content like the new dungeons that were added. It wasn't that I was a casual player and had nothing mastered; I was Master Doctor/Master Pistoleer. But all those skill points required for Doc prevented me from picking up more combat and provided no defense mods. So, I chose to remain in medicine and not pursue my holo profs in hopes that one day I could make Jedi from a profession I enjoyed.

The irony is that I dropped Doc soon after the CU. The ability to heal and rez are my main concerns and now that CM can do both in addition to some offensive skills, it was my ideal choice. Nevertheless, I am not bitter about anything. I guess I just have less resistance to change than most. Personally, I would like to see even more Doctors and CMs in hunting parties.

Having a good conversation and keeping busy is my favorite part of this game. If I wanted to sit in some room to simply talk and wait for responsesfrom people, I'll log on an instant messenger hehe

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BadgerSmaker wrote:

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SioBabble wrote:

So, once again the devs have brilliantly locked the barn door far after the horses have left, probably to go stomp on chubas for combat XP. Yet they INSIST on taking away incentives for those who are trying to develop a medical support character that might spend some of his time in one of their developer provided medical centers engaging in actual healing of other players outside of combat.

Message Edited by SioBabble on 06-08-2005 08:28 AM

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Did you read my last post? Constructive ideas are better than rants.

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So because of one profession (Jedi) ... and the inability of the Devs to stand up to and tell them to "Deal with what we gave you", other professions have to change their playstyle to accomodate? To come up with "mini-games" in order to get back to enjoying playing the profession?

I guess I'm trying to comprehend why,nearly two years after release, are we trying to come up with "constructive ideas" for how this profession should be played? Are they just now getting around to it? Has the FotM for Docs these past 24 months just been a way for the Devs to pushDocs off until "they get around to it"? It seems like every 6 months there's a new way that you're "supposed" to play the Doc profession... and I'd bet if you login 6 months from now there'll be a new way to play Doc.

Amazingly, we're not the only ones... I'd bet you can find similar rants on the Smuggler forums.

It'd be nice to get the game back to where we were in Aug/Sept of '03... before the Jedi madness set in.

So to at least provideoneconstructive idea (instead of this just being another rant), how about SOE take the current game engine, and create a new game. Rename all of the planets and cities, move all of the Jedi OFF of "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" and onto the new one. Make the game Jedi ONLY... you login, *poof* instant Jedi! They could call it: "Star Wars Galaxies: KotOR" (although "Star Wars Galaxies: Jedi Cricle-Jerk" would be more apt) It'd be a win/win situation for SOE: they get to keep the revenue from Jedi accounts, use the "Station Pass" to generate more revenue between the two SWG games, and everyone who doesn't want to play a game where the Jedi population runs amok is satisfied.

(feel free to cut 'n paste my idea to the correspondent forums... but you'll have to dress it up a bit, play the "revenue realization" angle... seems that gets their attention faster than anything)