Doctor Archive
Thread: Zarlor do you have any info on these new healing droids?
Like I wrote earlier I like your ideas. I had to destroy about 15 medic items yesterday just to take off my "healers robe" to retrieve my back pack from my safety deposit box on Naboo. I am speculating when I say this - but I think that you would agreewith me when I say that if the DE's would like to provide us with better droids then why not come to us FIRST (the consumer) with what we would like to see in a droid, rather than come up with ideas of what they would like to provide to us. It is this "the DE's wanting to provide more usefuldroids to the general population" that I have read on their forum thread as beingone reason for the possible introduction of ahealing droid. What I would really like to see is Zalor take your suggestions back to the DE correspondent and see if they can work something out.. that is if the general consensus agrees with your suggestions, or at least the general principles behind them.
Cidem_Relaeh wrote:
Right well, I did see that, but I didn't take it as some groundswell support for it. If it were on the TC, I'd be a bit nervous. Right now it's just one of many many ideas, and effectively probably one of the worst to me (sorry Z =P).
No need to apologize to me. That wasn't quoting me as much as it was me quiting Sintrosi's post in teh DE forum based on what the Devs told him. At any rate that particular section says that those are things they are considering, which tells me absolutely nothing is set in stone.
Getting thoughts from folks here is good, but it also depends a lot on implementation since these are pretty unclear.
For example, droid stimming. Wuld this just be for Medics only so that a Medic's droid will stim right along with the medic, doubling their capabilities? Will they work for anyone, but require a supply of Stim As to work and they would only be able to stim every 40 seconds (2x worse than a Novice Medic) and with no heal modifiers or even with negative modifiers, like a driod with say a35 rating med module would? Or will they work for anyone and not need "charging" with Stims and will be abel to stim as well as a Master Medic using Stim Ds? I just don't know and I think the specifics of it make all the difference.
So when offering your thoughts, broaden your horizons and make no assumptions about the specifics, but instead offer them op. Would the second scenario be good for you? Or only the first? And so on.
1.) Devs are adding AI that tagets healers.
2.) Droid healers become target.
3.) Droid healer goes boom!
4.) New med droid costs lots of credits.
Also realize.
1.) only 1 pet out, including droid.
2.) ony 1 droid out for non-highlevel DE
3.) pets still limited on where they can be put in and out of storage (which may change, but will enver be "anyplace").
4.)limited droid storage space in datapad.
5.) med droids will be PVP targets of choice (free kill).
6.) and more stuff, but I only came up with this list in 30 secs... need more time to come up with more.
It isn't all a free heal bed of roses. They will be expensive and tough to maintain (or keep alive).
-T
I fail to see any real value in this idea. Its either going to hurt medics or be useles due to the "1 pet at a time nerf".
1) In a solo situation and you are incapped you are either dead or waiting for the timer the bot has little payoff.
2) In a group situation somebody can stim you up. If nobody bothers to stim then you need to find a new group.
3) In pvp its going down to the firstvolley of aeattacks (so you just blew a load of cash for no payoff)
4) This could hurt docs immensely if it is available to dabblers or non-medics. A medic bot equipped with good healing (super b's or even d/e's) would turn the class into nothing more than vending machine suppliers. I actually took up the class to heal not to tend shop and sell supplies to novice medics.
Overall, I see little potential gain and lots of potential losses here, we need to treat this idea carefully.
like lvl 1 droid can only use stim a or so and woundpack a, etc..
Highest level droids could use stim e and buffs and ress packs etc...
Zarlor wrote:
So when offering your thoughts, broaden your horizons and make no assumptions about the specifics, but instead offer them op. Would the second scenario be good for you? Or only the first? And so on.
I guess then I am with what most people here seem to want.
That is droid that complement the profession, depended on the skill level of the owner,as well as use as additional storage.
I do not like the idea of droid that has capability INDEPENDENT of the owner.
IlyaMasool wrote:
Zarlor wrote:So when offering your thoughts, broaden your horizons and make no assumptions about the specifics, but instead offer them op. Would the second scenario be good for you? Or only the first? And so on.
I guess then I am with what most people here seem to want.
That is droid that complement the profession, depended on the skill level of the owner, as well as use as additional storage.
I do not like the idea of droid that has capability INDEPENDENT of the owner.
The two worst things the devs could do to the elite healing professions right now, in my opinion, would be 1) Enable medic dabblers to heal more effectively than they already do 2) Enable those same dabblers to drop novice medic but somehow (auto-stim healer droids, no med use required stim A's, etc) still be able to heal, for any amount.
Here's my considerations for a possible med droid, albeit largely repeating other people's ideas:
1) Make the use of med droids a certification! This really makes an enormous difference to the consequences of the droids. With certifications, the droid should serve only to make medic professions more useful to the group, rather than if any player were allowed to buy one. The last thing the Doc profession needs is rich BHs and Commandos just buying a brand new, top notch healing med droid and a crate of stims, all for a fraction of the gains from their last hunt. If higher spec droids are only available to high level docs, parties will want a high level medic around.
2) Make the droid a passive, or severely restricted, healer. The droid should complement, rather than replace, a medic. I know it's irritating for players to find an empty med center, but possibly this is better addressed in a manner other than droid staffing. As a passive 'assistant healer', the droid could add speed and efficiency bonuses to heals rather than stimming players on it's own. The initiator of the healing should actually be the Doc, not the droid. Also, by being passive, the droid is less likely to attract the attention of aggros - I know my current med droid follows me everywhere and hardly ever gets attacked in PvE.
3) Please, please, please allow us to store our meds in the droid and use them from it's inventory. This goes back to the inventory management and black bag on the wish list. I am sick and tired of trying to juggle space from my crafting resources, crates, stim and med packs. I am lucky to ever have more than 4 or 5 slots in my inventory at any one time, and to top it all I have to dig around to find the right stims if they're not in the top level. This, above anything else, would make me forgive any other impact.
4) Grant the ability, at Master Doc (and Master of other elite professions, to be fair) to pull one extra pet. As has been suggested for the CHs, where Masters gain a +1 to the number of allowed pets, allow Master in other professions to pull their *own* specific droid as well as another pet. In our case, it may mean that Master docs could have a mount and a med droid pulled simultaneously. To maintain parity, this would mean that a master chef could pull a mount and a, err... I guess... oven droid.. simultaneously.
Just to clairfy, this would work for me the way I play, so I'm sure others will find it doesn't suit them. I hardly ever PvP and try to PvE in balanced groups where I take the medic role. I just don't know how it's possible to stop a pulled med droid being a target for a cheap shot in PvP, but it would definitely happen, and definitely suck.
Maudlin
Sistere wrote:Hey - just thought of another.
How about a droid that creates other droids
- well maybe not the advanced ones we would want to save those those for the DE's, wouldn't want them to think that someone was trying to sneak into their profession.
*sarcasm start* IT IS THE SW universe after all - I remember watching that one SW movie - you know - the one where Anikan is a young Jedi.. the one where he kills all the Sandpeople.. ya that one.. In that one droids were building droids (like 20mins of it).. in fact saw a heck of lot more of that in that one movie than "healing droids" throughout the entire series. *sarcasm end*
Your sarcasm is wasted on me. A droid that made other droids would be a great idea, actually. Especially if we just loaded it up with components or schematics and then gave it the resources. For one thing, it would be the only way we could get User Experience for anything we make. There are a lot more droids doing all sorts of things in the movies than we can see any human medics or doctors, for that matter. This isn't constructive, so we can move on.
I don't ever remember seeing a post about a problem with camps. Well guess what? They heal wounds over time as you sit in them. Maybe you can go on a campaign against them, since they are doing something a player can. Not to mention that TKA's can heal thier own wounds, stop poison, stop disease, and stop bleeding. Is that making the game unbalanced?
Is it really a matter of skill points? I have plenty left over, so I can take up a bit of scout AND medic, so that way I won't have to pay you diddly squat. I could make my own Stim B's and woundpacks. Does that suit you better? Thank you so much for aiding your profession and mine.
SinjenRandall wrote:
I don't ever remember seeing a post about a problem with camps. Well guess what? They heal wounds over time as you sit in them. Maybe you can go on a campaign against them, since they are doing something a player can.
Actually, we did rail against that in Beta 
Wanted to add my two creds into this discussion as well. Nothing too in-depth mind you, just two creds worth 
IF the droids will be autonomous healing machines, then that will effectively reduce a Player Healers usefullness in group situations.
IF the droids will be certed to Master Medic/CM/Doc then that would be a good thing for US, as well as DEs as it will give them more customers(not much probably, but some).
But the thing here is that the post in the DE forum was nothing but 'things we're thinking of doing..maybe' ideas, nothing concrete or set in stone. No real 'meat' for us to dig into and tear apart as we try to find out how it will effect us. And, really, until that time we can't debate the pros or cons of these proposals until we get the facts.
And I'm sure if anyone hears about it first, it'll be our Correspondents. So Z, Kave, Traig...keep an eye open over there on the Corre Board...or, if y'can, pin down TH and force some info out of him
also, just wanted to say about my previous post, the issue in beta wasn't that camps healed, it was that they healed too quickly. That was taken care of, obviously.
My Kingdom for an Edit button.
Anyway, that healer-targetting AI is also out there. Here I am doing Act 2 with my noncom character and her cowardly gurreck (yay devs for killing noncom!), and she's stimming this thing to hell. Well, one of the NPCs gets a clue, turns, and pops her with a bleeding shot.No constant aggro, just turned back to the gurreck, but definitely a distracting shot.