Doctor Archive

I finally made it to MD about a month ago on Chimera. I am certainly not ready for coro starport buffing, but I have to say that I think 9-16K for a 2400-2500 buff is not unreasonable. Most players can make this amount back in 3 missions or less if they do it right. One thing I have not seen brought up in this discussion is how 'real' Doctors use buffs to support what has become a socialized health care system in SWG. Stat healing packs are not cheap to make or purchase. Most players consider stat heals a free service. Novice to master medics in the medical centers tend not to keep stat packs on hand, tending more towards stimpacks to spam tumblers. When working up the Doctor tree, I prided myself on always having packs on hand to help the wounded. I did get the occasional tip for my services, but for the most part it was considered a complimentary act of altruism on my part. Once again, crafting and buying this stuff is not cheap. Buffs provide me the ability to support my charitable works.

On the other hand, If I ever saw a doc in the starport asking players 30K for a buff I would sit down right beside him and start selling mine at 9K out of spite.

Unless of course he was an imperial buffing rebels, then I might let it go =).

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Reinoko wrote:

I buff 2500 for 3 hours for 11K-12K. The buffs cost me 4K each, throw in 1K for the bivoli per buff, and i still make 6K-7K per buff. If i buff 50 people a day, that's 300K per day profit. Anything more than that and it gets a little obscene, no flames intended. If i know 10 people whose worth is over 50 million and 8 of them happen to be docs, that tells me that buffs are overpriced in general. And that's not good.

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someone who actually docs like me, except i dont have the attention span to buff 50 ppl in one day 20 at the most, but thats still 120k profit which keeps me in business and gives me plenty of free time to kill things

I really hate it when people start commenting on greedy docs ect. It is a blanket label applied to any doc that they think is charging too much. I dont think 15k or even 20k is too much, and Im sure Id be called greedy for that, but keep in mind I do not publicly buff, at all. For any amount of money. There are two basic things that need to be looked at here:

1) A doctor, as an elite class that requires a secondary master, should be able to make the same amount of money as any other class combination that requires that many points. This would simply be called balance.

2) The amount of money described in #1 applies no matter what, as a minimum of money earned. If I can go do something and make more money, then why buff for money?

3) As the demand increases, the price goes up. This is a natural part of the economy, and happens with EVERY class in some fashion. Meat costs more, merchants price things higher ect. Docs are no different, and thus no more greedy than the rest of the people playing the game.


If I can buff 30 people in an hour (constant line, best case senario really) at 15k, that means I would make 450,000 credits. At the current cost of buffpacks, this means you would get abotu 300k-350k profit per hour. This is a best case senario that does not figure in the cost of bivoli. This seems to be a bit higher than a person would make doing combat missions, and is expected, given what I judge to be a low amount of supply for such a high amount of demand with buffs.

The reason I do not examine what profit is if you make your own buffs, is that it gets a bit trickier. How much time did you spend collecting the avian and herbavore meat for example? Profit margin per buff increases yes, but the time spent to do so also increases.

You also must consider, if buffing is such good money by so many greedy docs, why is it so hard to find a doc? You would think they would be all over the place with the supposed gold mine that bieng a buffing doc is.

Lastly, when you consider that crafters whose items sit on a vendor make quite a bit more money per resources involved, while at the same time not having to spend their time selling their product, doctors are by far the least greedy of people. If you compare the benifits of doc buffs, to chef food, and the profit level, chef is more profitable as a merchant, than a buffing doctor is by investing hours of time buffing people.

Of course, this is a free market, and if people dont want to pay for a buff, then dont. All it takes is that guy to open a line for 6k or whatever, and you to wait half an hour to get your buff, then problem solved right? Im all for people charging whatever they want to charge. If you want to charge 2k for a buff so be it, you wouldnt see me complaining.

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STLpMpNu wrote:

Im not arguing supply and demand i am arguing cornering the market place for what is needed is buffs.

Cornering the market? Buffs are not magical items that only the select few possess. Try putting in the time, effort and skill points that docs do and you can have it too. Or, sit there and whine aboutpeople not pricing theirpersonal time, money and effort the way you want them to.

And i think we all know chefs are very profitable but it takes a skilled chef

It takes 92 skill points to master Chef. It takes 140 skill points to master Doctor.

and lots of resources and time

I runcrafting and combat alts, and they includeboth a chef and a doc.

Resource-wise, chef is easier than doc. Components use any grind quality material that you can easily get. I buy 100k of 3cpu meats from the bazaar every 2 weeks that I use for BE enhancements (82 BSNs are good enough).I use easily havestable wood and non-specifc flora for the rest. For the final combine, the popular foods usually require broad categories like "Berries" "Fruits" "Vegetables" "Fungus" etc. I pay 15-20cpu for chef meats to my contract rangers but I can expect to pay at least 75-400cpu for avian meat for buffpacks.

If I'm a doc, nothingbut the best avianmeat and specific raw materials (like Lokian Wild Wheat, Tatooine Fiberplast, Dolovite Iron, Class 4 LiquidPetro, etc.)will do when crafting buffs.Because I know that buffing docs often get griefed for not having the "uber" buffs. But my chef customers buy even the non-enhanced foods that I regularly make with leftover materials.

Stats on foods do not matter as much as they do on buffpacks either. Try selling a 860 buffpack when the server average is 900 and you will know what I mean. Average Food/Drinks made with average raw materials will still sell as long as the price is not ridiculous.

Also, everyone can eat and drink but very few can buff with D packs so a doc's customer base is a fraction of the chef's. And if you aren't at least a 11-pt doc, forget about crafting themed use 90 packs thatare indemand.

to maintain a vendor and have good foods.

It takes both professions vendors to get the food & drinks/buffpacks to the end-users. Neither has an advantage.

Time vs money Starport docs are the highest paid aside from crafters and then looters then starport docs.

Combatprofessions are the highest paid with cash and loot with the least effort and cost required. Even after the solo-group changes. I have 2 combat/ranger alts and they can start grinding out cash within a day of starting (leave them outside coronet with a macro and makea loadof easy cash while you're at work). Try earningcash as a new crafter and I'll see you pay out of your nose for quality materials. That, or investcraploadsin harvesters/factories and wait 3 months for thematerialsto spawn.Think aboutthe weapon+combat FS xp + loot +meats/hides that combat profs get just from grinding and it's not difficult to understand why almost everyone has a combat profession.

Starport buffers are the biggest targets forwhiners simplybecause only they have to announce their earnings out loud in spatialfor all to see. Ever hear a terminal spam out "YOU JUST MADE 30,000 CREDITS FORREPEATEDLY HITTING YOUR SPIN ATTACK HOTKEY AT A JANTA BBQ PIT" each time you did a mission?

Does anyone care ifa buffdocspams "I pay xxx in costs and spent xxx time and xxx credits gathering resources, crafting, running factories, grinding skills and gave up exploring other professions because I needed 140 skill points to feed your addiction"?

Ever notice how the SP buffdocs never stay the same? Why? Because public buffing is a stressful andtiring process. It's not bad if you do it once in a while when feeling altruistic, but do it day in and day out for months and you deserve /worship each time you are spotted. Don't believe it? Do doc andbe a buffdoc everydayfor 3 months, I dare you.

Running missions all day is easy enough, but the people who go "xx credits every xx minutes multiplied by 5 hours" have obviously never been in the shoes of a regular buffdoc. Highest paid, time vs money? Why are people constantly screaming for buffdocs instead of the other way around, even after solo-group reductions?

There is minimal looters out and about compared to the other proffesions.

You should take aquick look at any of the trade forums. They don't even include themajority that getnon-sellable loot, keep the stuff for themselves, give to the guildor don't use the forums at all. They just learn to use guild doctors or buffbots who can't stand public buffing any longer. I should know, I provide medical services to my city and guild and the looters and combat grinders among us are still very much alive and kicking.

It is a viscious cycle as people say but the prices on buff packs are not going up at least on starsider. But buff prices still contiue to rise.

Go back a few months on this forum and check out how long this has been brewing and why. It's a dead horse.

There isn't money to throw around with new players and in result these doctors are hurting them. Saying i cut the new players a break i dont' think is good enough. Most will see 15-30k and be like how they spend a week or two just to save up enough for composite armor.

Buffs are enhancements, not necessities. Get that right. A pistol is a necessity for someone grindingPistoleer, a20million credit Krayt-enhanced super pistol is not. If you play to the level when it becomes almost anecessity, then you eitherearn enoughto pay for it, or you drop your play level to where you can afford to play. Not giving new players something theycannot afford is NOT hurting them. Ever wondered why the developers don't start everyone off witha million credits to buy uber weapons, armor, buffsand food??

The players that had to learn the basics of the game stay longer and contribute more than those who had "uber" stuff thrustat them from the get go. These "fortunate" playersoftenend up complaining that there isn't any content because they just don't know anything else but to loot camp andgo "Anyone wanna duel? No DB!"in SPs.

Try joining a guild that invests time and effort to take its newbies out on hunts and missions, give lessons on crafting andgroup combat,instead of simply throwing equipment at them to compensate for time and effort.

Btw, the dastardly WS who doesn't sell T21s for 3k apiece or the AS who wontdo a full suit of composite for 30k or the chef who won't sell the Vasarian Brandy for 10k a crate are all guilty of "hurting the new players" too. Why single docs out? Because you actually SEE (and easily target) the doc that you paycredits to, instead of just transacting with a vendor for the rest??

Drop the act its jus doctors are trying to take advantage of the economy before everything devalues

This final statementis the only reason why I bothered with such a long post. My apologies to those who had to read through this.

There are always people in all professions who take advantage of anything that they can. To single an entire profession out becauseyou have very little idea of what other classes go through, and to hit out at the people who affect your personal gameplay is just plain moronic.

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