Doctor Archive
Thread: Big List of Doc Issues for September (Updated, Discussion)
I know, some of you are probably wondering what the heck is up with all these additions. Well I had a bit of extra time and wanted to make sure I wnt back and see what Dev responses I could dig up that were out there adressin out issues. Since the Devs won't give us the responses directly I guessI have to do it this way to at least give us some semblance of a general refeence of Dev views on our issues to work from. So all of the above responses will be consolidated into the Big List when I next post an update.
This way we will all have at least some frame of reference to work from and it may also make a difference come voiting time. After all, if we can see that the Devs said they were already aware of and working on a problem (like the CM component thing) then you may wish to give it slightly less priority than you may otherwise knowing that we at least something is supposed to be done about that issue.
3 posts up where I said Issue #20, that should read Issue #23.
Added the following to Issue #47, Pet Healing (and noI haven't bothered to word that issue yet, just givig you the Dev responses to date on it.):
(*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#M429220
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)
Well, I didnd have any money problems on Eclipse (Bestine , Tatooine). Always alot of patients, small but regular tips, and good sales of stimC and woundC, even non-advanced. Maybe on light-populated servers being a dedicated doc is a problem, but sure not on Eclipse or Bloodfin.
Considering resources - docs aren supposed to be miners in any way. So max they can be given is organic survey. I suggest that flora survey tool should be made usable by medics and medics only. No pure miners should be related with organic harvest. Maybe /megicalforage should be /medicalsurvey and so a very little fixes needed to current system. Also /medicalsample will do what it says. Again, docs cant and shouldnt survey or sample chem, metal and gases. That is pure artisan skill. (besides, i am master med, master doc, soon master CM and novice artisan with survey1 - a perfect set for a full support charwith self-supply, keeping novice artisan for surveying is sure ok). (still one problem - wood is on flora list, with no connect with medics).
Schematics can also been transfered through droid storage. Anyway it is a bug that they are untradable usual way.
Crated components are great. Removing them from schematics requirements will significantly ease a way to master doc/CM, and it is too easy now when you get /healEnhance.
Crafting XP should be gained when people use your stims. That is of main concern from my point of view, and thats how newbs should gain more XP with less resource waste. And factory 10% XP fix.
Huh? We need Gasses, Water, Metals... I use every single survey tool just to get resources I need as a Doc or a CM. A Flora tool just woudn't even come close to cutting it. And actually there are some situations in which I might use a wood as a Medic, particularly if my best PE component is a Radioactive, so I may want my organic to make up for the lack of a UT rating in that inorganic. To be an effective medic, we need every tool there is.
Now I would be all for a specific set of tools and /medicalsurvey (with NO /medicalsample, even) if the tools would list the basic qualities that a Medical professional needs, only. So let's say for Docs a tool that ony show the OQ, PE, UTand DR stats (yeah, we need DR for Enhance durations)of a resource. (You have to add more for CMs, but maybe they will get a simplifiying pass on their schematics like most of the Doc and Medic schematics got.) Then I couldn't compete with an artisan at all at hand sampling anything and couldn't even get to know all of the good stats the artisans would need. Without dumping a harvester to sample, we'd never know for sure if a particular resource was really worth it, and therefore we would have far less capability of being considered competetive with artisans or perceived as somehow stealing thier skills.
We ARE the same as artisans, though, in that we really are a crafting class with schematics as complex, moreso in many cases, than theirs and requiring things like factory components and specific resources all as an integral part of the ability to advance into the advanced professions of Medic. As such I definitely think we should have at least some form of surveying as an integral part of our professions.
That is where I must definitively disagree. The concept here is that the other professions which require crafting as a primary means in order to improve in thier profession (and we all know that crafting is the longest, hardest part about making it up into and through Doc and is a requirement for our profession) have a line in which they can provide themselves the means by which they can actually improve. Docs do NOT have that means. Period.
It doesn't exist.
There are ways around that, as you pointed out, but how many Docs can affor 20k for every spot they need just to make any kind of decent med every week? That would likely be 100k per week just for what I produce alone. And I'm lucky if I even make 100k a week. Let alone considering the situation for any kind of casual gamer.
THe monetary means isn't really the point, though. It's the standatd abilities that are provided for an Aretisan, the skills that an artisan NEEDS in order to succeed. It could also be arguedd that any Weaponsmith of Armoresmith does not NEED surveying either, but it is an integral part of the profession because it is often their primary method of gather the resources they require in order to make their products. Products which are often longer lasting and require less components and complexity than what we make as Doctors (or even try CMs for that matter).
I submit that fat too many Docs feel shackled by needing to have that Artisan skill in order just to do what every other class can pretty much do on their own, and this is to improve themselves. To improve where there aren't a lot of folks around, to improve when they are a casual gamer, to improve when their social skills aren't quite as good as some wheeler-dealer who can sweet-talk 12 different artisans into setting up a resource network for them, let alone doing so at any kind of resonable rate.
THe crafting line is our ball and chain in the entire cycle, and without surveying skills the vast majority of Docs would be out in the cold, heck they probably would have never made to to Master Doc and they sure wouldn't have much in the way of a decent product to sell or to use. I think that is why you will find that Issue as the #2 issue on the lsit right now, and more likely it's #1 since the primary reason factories was #1 appears to have been resolved.
With that many Docs feeling that strongly about being hampered by their resource needs and the need for Artisan I would say that you are, perhaps, in a priviledged situation compared to them. You may be in a position to afford to give up Artisan, both as a gemplay decision as well as monetarily. I think most of the Medical Professional simply do not feel they are even remotely in that kind of position.
I did the math on economy in my early doc carier. Even uber packs require only 250 res, and they sell for 2500cr. So buying all res for 5cpu is more than affordable as long as you know what to make and where to sell. Maybe it isless money than training pistol, making missions, buying harvies and self-supplying, as I did, but it still a way to go. And definetly casual docs can buy res for 5cpu for themselves. So artisan isnt that needed.
Look, almost all crafters are either doc branch, artisan branchor scout/ranger. Artisans need much many different res than medic. Architects require a few res, but tremendous quantity. Weapon/armorers need a **edit** huge variety of res if they want to keep all things in stock, andalso DE, so they are nativeminers/surveyors. I dont know much about chef/tailor, but i think they arent based on survey at all, and they are happy. And BE toodont need half list of minerals in the galaxy. Scout/ranger is almost self-supply.
And now we look at medic/doc, assuming we arent running business, so we want best stim and wound availible only for our med use level. Base components are piece a cake to make, general res needed, so its not the problem. All advanced components need 7 minable resources. For medic it is over - no avian or eleton gas is needed. For doc maybe maximum 4 additional needed - for best stims, enhances and woundpacks. So total 11 res to make all range of uber packs. Do you know how many components required just in one personal shield ?Ten ! Or maybe in a suit of composite ? Or how much ore is needed for heavy harv ? Or T21 ? Complaining about not being able to buy 500 units of each 11 resources is, well, silly, comparing to armorers/weaponsmiths needs (we do not talk about availibility of them on whole server. If there is no dolovite, artisan wont help you at all).
So talking about resources is just lack of creative thinking and willing to work. Maybe situation on light-populated servers is so bad, but on Eclipse every currently inshift minable res is availible, 10cpu any time anywhere or 3-5cpu if you know whom to ask.Making the way from novice medic to master doc willteach you dealing with res. So from my point of view those whinners are just not docs in their souls or have chosen terrible servers to play.
Another problem is long outshifted res. We had no dolovite for 4 weeks, and i was so happy i bought 5k for grindong in my early novice medic days, and didnt use it. But it is common problem for everyone, any doc survey wont help you.
So i agree on survey tool. We cant sample (and we dont need to do it) , but we see stats in survey tool. And i think weshouldnt get a concentration, just we know what res we need and then ask an artisan for making waypoint.
I still disagree. Even scouts have the ability for self-sufficincy in this respect, being able to harvest the resources they need to at least advance in therr profession. (I won't speak to ranger, as they are in something of the same boat as we are in that respect, but their non-harvestable resource requirements are a lot lower, at least, or to smuggler as they are also in that situation, but their resource requirements are also small and the stats are unimportant for them, at least at this time.)
In this respect we have no such luxury.
Suggesting that someone chose a "wrong server" to play on... well, I don't know what to say if you cannot see the problem with that argument. Everyone should have the option of having a viable profession, IMHO, no matter their server.
And you also mention in your post 5cr/unit. Sure, if you want garbage. And nobody in their right mind, even on Eclipse, sells Advanced component resources for under 10cr/unit, as you point out, often more.
Some of those components are usable by artisans and they tend to pay more and buy more than we do, putting us into the unenviable position of not being a lucrative market for surveyors to market to.
You seem to be speaking from the position of the Master Doctor, and while it would bne nice to ahe such skills at this level, I can gree that it is not a true requirement for us. I probably could afford, if I want to spend more time than I do with my factories instead of enjoying the game, to make enough money to be a lucrative market for a surveyor. However I would suggest that Medics and Novice Docs are more often in a far less enviable position. They are desperately in need of more assistance at those levels than what the game affords them, the simple ability to survey for the resources they need.
Personal harvesters are generally affordable for these folks, finding someone to find a concentration for you is far less so, IMHO.
Dunno if it's already been added or not, but I'd like to add into the mix about crate stacking/splitting. If they can do the coding with resources to allow you to drop one on another and they effectively become one item, they should be able to do it with factory crates.
I'm tired of having to babysit my factories so that I can create specific crate amounts for my stims/meds [not everyone wants to buy a 50 crate of stim Cs...] Being able to split and stack would greatly help reduce the stress indoing mass creation runs for a large order, or restocking a vendor.
*nod* I think that's it... ya, sounds good. Zarlor, yer doing a badass bangup of a job as our correspondant. 
Thought I had it on this version, but maybe not. It is on my current list that I have, though. Well, except for the joining part.
Split the crate? As opposed to this why not have a factoryoptionto produce crates in specific sizes, ranging from 10-50. Use a slider system similiar to the schematic slider.
Yes some added benefits to being a Master Doctor would be nice, perhaps a Mind Heal Stimpack that use very rare resources.
/tell Zarlor
5cpu if you know whom to ask. I was sitting for weeks in Bestine med, i was chatting, healing for free, i helped newb with schematics and was making free stims for novice surveyours in exchange of ~500 res they bring to me. I made friends, and now i'm happy with them.Now i can buy outshift dolovite for 6cpu or inshift fuel4 for 3cpu, for personal use, 10-20k. It is not luck, it is not powergaming. It is command work and social life.
And you want make docs and medics 100% self-supplying and solo players. I see no point in this. I like SWG mainly for great class system, everyone need everyone togain most fun. It is command game, far more social than anything, except maybe Planetside 
Do not try to push SWG intoone morei-am-super-puper-uber-solo-powerplayer UO.