Doctor Archive
Thread: question for the Docs (long post)
Master Doc/Aspiring Combat Medic
First off, yes I agree Med Centers needs to be changed to be some how more beneficial then a Medical Droid. Suggestion for for rating change, of Med center being higher seemed to be quite bad for the DEs based on their forum. I've always suggested a base 100 Medical droid, and a base 100 Med center, but if you bring your own surgical droid, u get a 110 bonus or the such. Like bring your own tools to a public center, combo bonus.
Secondly on doctors being in med center in general. I played a Medic since the day SWG started, sometimes around june of 03. Not that this gives me any badges of work, or elevate me to a status of wisdom. This was just a time of fresh servers. When every one had nothing, and very few people knew what/how things worked. As Medic, we gathered at the med center. We talked about the game, we talked about our futures, we talked about everything. People out killing gnorts and Nunas would show up in the med center wounded, and it would take like 3 medics 10-15 min to heal one person. I think there was a time that us medics enjoyed sitting in the med center. I'm not sure why we all left, maybe it was the lack of a need for Medical XP, or the advant of tumble monkies, or even the non-tipping populace, or maybe it was just easier to get exp else where.
I think there was phase to the medical community. First there was the exploring medics. Then there was a period where Doc mad enough skills and resources, that the early Docs of the days all started venturing out, to do hunts, to join parties. I'll admit, its no fun sitting in a med ctr, if there's nothing to do. Hunting docs were the next wave of the original medic players. THen came the medical crafting docs, were a few famous Docs all started making medicine for sale. Not sure where i'm going with this.. but i think all the original Doc players all left the med ctr. Most of the hard core docs are part of some GUild or the other, and only heal/buff their friends. I'm closer to thsi now.
hmmm probably because the problem that the Doc barely fit into the non-existing end game of SWG. Sure u need a Doc to be on the field to heal disease and wounds. But usually some combat class ahs some Doc skills and that all u need. Doctors have no real need at one point. Sure in the beginning, after awhile of killing, getting some wounds heal is a nice thing. But now days, the demmend for doctors far goes beyond the number of real doc players. Real docs find no need to be sitting in med centers. Just as the days of old, where cantinas were cool places to socialize, now its just filled with grinders. There's really no point in sitting there and watch the AFKer do tghere thing around u. I do once in awhile go to Moenia, where i started, for some reason, thats still a ncie quiet hospital. Sometimes newbies show up, and u can still get a glimpse of the old days... Small towns seems to be the nice Med Ctrs. But again, when no one is around, its quite boring. Just as i asked, why bother with a med center in my player city, no one really use it. Anytime they want healing, they sent me a tell and we meet by thge water fountain. There has to be a need for med centers. I would like to see them as a gathering spot of the medical community as they once were. Not sure how this cna be done though. Maybe to the extreme of only being able to heal certain wounds, only in the Med center such as BF in the cantina... but this would be extreme.
But i think being a doctor class, u dont look for the glory or the reward. We are just here to help, we DID choose a support class. But that doesnt mean we are ur slave-bots. Not that i have alot of bad experiences with being treated as one. But i for one am nice to people who are ncie to me. And by no means does being a doctor mean I HAVE to do anything. Just as when i'm fighting some Night sister, where are you Commandos? how come u r not protecting me? isnt it your job to be killing these things? Not complaining here, just would like to point out a big issue that seems to be going around in these forums, People assuming you have to help. I read in another thread that the guy simply said, sometimes its about knowing a doctor is near by that can help, but wont, and that cause frustration. I understand that. Most of the time, if i can help i will, but as long as it doesnt effect the people i'm protecting, or my self. If i go off to rez someone, and die, how does that effect my party who depends on me being their doctor 1st?
I dont buff people for money anymore, i dont wear my doctor tags. But still enjoy being a doctor, even just for my friends. I still have fun, most of the time, i wear my Novice Medic tag and join groups for the fun of it, and use unarmlunge1. Sometimes, sometimes i go sit in a med center in moenia. And think of my younger days.
PadawanSlappy wrote:
I have a question for all the doctors around here. Why is it that 95% of all docs are either grinders or buffers?
I'll answer with another question. Why don't Elite combat types run delivery missions?
I'm not meaning this as an attack on docs. Buffing is an easy way to make credits, and beats relying on tips at med centers. Grinding brings in easy XP. Note: when I say "grinding" I mean those who either spend hours at the cantina healing dancers, or find a quiet place and have a friend tumble for them. So what I mean is, that it's easier to grind XP than to sit at a med center and wait for prospective patients to come in.
Exactly! Sit around and wait for a person to come in. It could be hours between patients, and you make better Medical XP outside with a droid healing damage. Unlike Cantina bound entertainers, Doctors, Medics and Combat Medics aren't chained to their Hospitals. In fact, being inside a Hospital actually LOWERS the amount of heals by 10% over a top quality droid. This is because Hospital and Camps override Droid effects.
The reason I ask this is that I'm becoming more and more irritated at going to the med center, and seeing several people waiting around hoping a doc comes in to heal their wounds, and a doc never coming in at all.
They shouldn't be waiting. A Doctor in his right mind would never come, except out of extreme generosity.We expend charges fromour Wound Packs. Granted wound packs aren't as hard as Enhance packs to make, but we almost NEVER get paid back for even that much in resources. I would do it if asked.. and I'm certain most Doctors would as well, but in all other cases, it's a huge pain.
Don't wait for a Doctor.
If one comes, then he/she is an veritable saint, and should be treated as such.
Two incidents that have happened to me lately have brought on this irritation. The other night I was hunting with friends on Endor. At one point we got diseased. It was getting late and our buffs were close to wearing off, so we decided to camp and log out. And of course, when I logged in, I had one big black health bar. I figured that surely there would be a doc in the Theed med center that could patch me up, so I headed there. When I arrived, I found 3 others waiting there as well, with varying degrees of wounds. No medic in sight, and nobody healing. I wanted to get some more hunting in, so I decided to hit the bazaar and ended up buying every health wound pack available. I went back to the med center and started the healing process. Quick note: up until last night, I was 3-0-2-0 Medic. The packs kinda sucked, so it took me about an hour to get myself healed up. During that time, more walking wounded came in, looked for medics, found none, and left. One doc came in soliciting offers for training, but never offered to patch up any of those waiting. After getting patched up, I hit the cantina to get rid of some BF. What did I find? At least 3 docs in there healing entertainers. After that, I ran to the spaceport and found 4 more docs buffing (including the one who was offering training earlier). I wasn't a happy camper.
Last night essentially the same thing happened. After getting diseased on Dathomir, I headed to Coronet for more healing. I found a doc and asked if he could cure my disease; he couldn't (didn't have a cure pack, nor the materials to make one). I ran to the med center and actually found a few docs willing to heal me, but they couldn't cure. So I ended up running about 2k out of town to commit suicide to get rid of the blasted disease. Cloned in Coronet, ran to the healers, and got patched up (and tipped the lady pretty well; I definitely reward acts of kindness).
Lots of people are Doctors... but you needed a Master Doctor. The recipe for dabbling in Doctor is 0/(2 or 4)/4/0 and that doesn't include disease healing. Most Doctors simply can't heal those things. PvP doctors are only going to go up to Advanced Wound Treatment Speed because in PvP, Poison is king even though Disease is much more difficult to cure. That's part of what is broken with Doctor.
Take what you will from these stories. I'm sure I'm just one of many who've had them. And I'm not attacking docs, just trying to figure out (A) is something broken in the system, and (B) if so, how to fix it?
confession time: I'm a former Master Doctor. I grinded it for my 2nd holo. So by no means am I going to attack those who are essentially doing the same thing I did just a few weeks ago. To those "true" docs, those ones who actually hang around med centers and heal us non-docs up, I offer a heartfelt "Thank you", and I wish there were more of you.
To me, there are some underlying problems with the system that can be derived from these experiences.
1. Disease. If you get it, you're closed to screwed. Cure packs seem to be non-existant; I couldn't find any on the bazaar last night, and now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing any on the vendors I buy Stim B's from. Docs often don't carry cure packs, it seems, or the materials to make them. Why that is, I don't know. For MD's I'm assuming that every cure pack (or materials) carried is one less available slot in the backpack to carry profitable buff packs. The best cure for disease is DYING. How backwards is that? My solution: make disease a temporary affect, like poison. An addition possibility is putting a cap on the max amount of wounds a single disease "infection" can inflict.
2. The holo system has made Doc (among other profs) a temporary profession for most players. Again, I'm guilty of this. Not sure what to do about this one. Buffing is more profitable for Master Docs than relying on tips. Those that are grinding are probably like me: they're self-financed, and have enough credits from other professions to buy their way up the trees. They don't need tips; they're just looking to get thru it ASAP and move on to the next holo.
3. Well, I had a 3rd point, but I've forgotten it. Curse my old age!
Anybody have any other thoughts? Is is possible this is not as big of a problem as I'm making it out to be? I can usually find a doc to patch up health wounds on those occasions when I don't mind zipping from city to city, planet to planet, and waiting forever at the shuttleports. But the disease aspect of it, I think, is something that needs to be looked at.
There needs to be a much larger reward for being a Master Doctor to prevent dabbling from being the preferred method of being a Doctor, and to encourage people to be a serious Doctor.Doctors need to know clearly how much they are benefitting their group in combat. Difficulty to acquire a skill should be reflective of the power and nature of the skill. Lastly, there needs to be a Secure method of trading for medicalservices.
(1)Enhance-D packs should have a Medicine Use rating of 100, no matter what the quality of resources used.Quality resources would only help when experimenting the Enhance down, resulting in Master level buffs being much more powerful than something with Medicine Use 90. I know this is a nerf to non-Master Doctors, but I think it's important that Masters be better then Dabblers in our most valued skill.
(2) States such as Stun and Blind and Intimidate need to state EXACTLY what they are doing. If you are being slowed in attack speed by 34% because you have a Stun, you should know. This encourages Doctors to participate in PvE and PvP activities by letting them know how much they contribute. Area of effect State Cures should also be considered for Combat Medics, perhaps with a risk of failure to balance it against the 100% effective single target Doctor state cure.
(3) Disease needs to be more powerful and effective than Poison if it's up on top of the Wound Treatment Speed Tree. Right now I would suggest switching the two because it's easier, but this problem effects Combat Medics too.
(4) There needs to be a reason for Doctors to bother healing wounds.. there needs to be a reward or incentive because it's not currently competitive with any of the other method of gaining XP, and player tips are always lacking. I'm in favor of a tab system whereby a person can see how muchsomeone has beenhealed by other peoplevs. how muchthey have tipped in return. Secure trade works great for crafters, but poorly for service oriented professions.
Cash you get from it = 000000
people rarely tip
Buffing people at starport
cash you get from it= 250k an hour or more (been the only doc there kept my macros grinding and a well organised system, I got a few tips beyond my fee for "awsome buffs")
Selling meds
you need a vendor
you need people to come to your vendor
can make 300K in a few min or few weeks
