Doctor Archive

Docs aren't really a solo class to begin wtih. You don't make XP by healing yourself (or your pet anywmore, either.) So only by doing giving us self-XP would that really make us a solo class anyway.

That being said, I understand that many folks seem to feel there is "no point" to a MMO without required grouping and socializing, that simply is not always going to be available or simply not amenible to the playstyles of some folks. Those who wosh to be more social and are adept at doing so, will be no matter what the case me byand they will make the kinds of friends you mention, although doing so can certainly take time. Time in which you are forcing a Doc to be stuck with scrapeing and scrabbling for the meager scraps of what they can come up with to advance.

Add in the casual gamer, who even if they do make good friends or contacts in this respect will still not always find those folks available during the times they play.

I guess this revolves around a basic tenet of playstyle. Some folks are very social and want a game like this to do everything possbile to force that playstyle. But there are many other folks out there who, for may varied and sometimes very good reasons, simply are unable to do so. Some folks don't seem to have a problem getting into any old group that comes along, others get extremely furstrated doing so. You can make some good friends in the Med Center, you can also meet the worst dregs of society who are inthe game and simply wish to treat others like absolute dirt. Some are adept at handling these kind of folks, others have their self-esteem smashed into the ground every time they must deal with the situation. You are asking these folks to live with a situation that is painful and horrible to them by insisting they be more social. You are telling them that they must suffer horros that they are taking personally, that you or I may have never had to deal with in such a manner because our psychological make-up is simply different from that.

In my opinion, it is one thing to encourage grouping and socializing in the game, but to force it is an injustice to many. Add in that often the folks who do take on support class roles are the kinds of folks who tend to be a bit more altruistic, who like to try and help other people, these are often the same kind of people who are simply too easily "walked on", even in real life. Some people will and do take advantage of them, with no further thought to it than some might give to stepping on a bothersome insect. And you are asking these same folks to put themselves into situation where they may well get stepped on even more.

There are real people behind those avatars. Real people with real feelings that are just as easily hurt even by glowing bits of information on thier screen as they would be if they had to confront some of these monsters face-to-face. And as such I simply cannot accept the requirement of forced social gaming on such folks. For some these kinds of a games are a way for them to adjust and learn to deal with these issues. Thrusting them headfirst into such situations does not help them, though. It only makes it worse.

If you wish to punish the true solo player, for some reason, go find some way to force the combat classes to do so. That is where your true solo capabilities already lie.

I do not see that providing medic classes with a simple ability that every crafting class of any comparable complexity to ours has would be some great unbalancing issue. As it stand the Devs did agree with us in Beta that some level of self-sufficiency in this respect was needed and useful, and thus we got /medicalforage at a time when at least Stim As could be made with any 3 organic materails (inorg was not required.) It had at least a tiny level of usefullness in this respect at the time. It is no longer a relavent skill, however. I feel something of true usefulness needs to replace it and it should not be limited to only getting your first box or two in Novice Medic.

I still miss the point of such decision. If we are talking about novice medics - well, artisan skill costs 1k and small harvi 500cr, more than affordable to self supply. Ihave currently survey1 and it is fully enough to find spots and place harvies. If we talk about ppl with all 250SP used - dont you think that if they are whinning about surveying, they simply wantpowerchar ? Being a mastered medic, miner, bounty hunter and a merchant all together ?

Well I would suggest that it's not about the cost, either in credits or SPs. It's about basic class design choices and concepts as they exist within SWG. Each profession has some level in which they can provide themselves with a certain amount of self-sufficiency. THere are only two-professions that cannot do that due to the nature of those professions, Medic and Entertainer, in that those professions need other people in order to heal them for XP. Miedic is further flawed from that basic design, however, by also not having an ability to gather needed resources.

It would seem that the Devs agreed that they screwed up when they created /medicalforage as a patch to fill that hole. Unfortunately we all know how utterly useless that particular patch is. We have the skill already, or at least the premise for having the skill, it was simply never fleshed out properly to do the job it was supposed to do for providing that basic level of sel-sufficiency for Medics.

It's simply a desgin/balance decision, really, that effects Medics all the way through their entire profession lines. It's not asking for something Medics don't already have. It's asking for what they have already been given to work in a useful manner.

Well, it's just that when that issue comes up, many folks seem to bring that up along with it. It seems to be an important aspect of that issue for them. Thata pet stims heals mind, where a normal stim cannot. And it could be argued that trick is a non-comabat healing method, while pet stims are an in-combat method (I know, with 2 pets, even trick can be used in combat, but you see the point.) Overall I think the idea revolves around how Medics could not do anything similar for a PC tank in a combat situation, but that skill has been given to every player in the game with no prerequisite other than to buy something (and have a pet to use as a tank.)

The issue with the mind heal that most bring up is that you get the medic to heal the fighters and pets for action and health. Then you get the entertainer, squad leader, or other medic (lots of ideas on who should get the ability) to heal the medic so his mind never runs out. With that type of setup you can effectively run forever. I think this is a really poor arguement. I play a Mon Calamari Medic/Combat Medic/Doctor, I have my Mind, Willpower, and Focus maxed (this leaves my other staus very low, but I can cover that with enhancements no sweat). With my stats like that I was able to be in a party of about 10 (and about 5 pets) I was throwing stims non stop, using buffs and healing wounds between battles and generally healing with very few breaks for about 3 hours straight and we never really needed to stop, we did so the party could regroup and get organized. The lack of downtime can also be avoided by cycling out the tanking person (be it a pet or a player). So if you really wanted to strip out all combat downtime its already possible.

/reply Zarlor

Smugglers cant self-supply. Bio engineers cant. Scout/Ranger cant 100%. We are not alone. There are crafters from Artisan branch and others branches. Those from artisans can be called lucky for their "native" survey. It doesnt mean all other have to have same ability. Making medic full power survey/sample will just ruin the classidea. Making some part-decision like current random /medicalforage or hypothetic survey with stats but without concentration numbersare senceless. Want easy life - play wookie brawler/TKA. Want to be self-supplied, wealthy and respected doctor - chose a way of artisan in addition.

Smugglers don't require anywhere even remotely close to the variety or complexity of the resources we need. They don't even use resource stats at all. ANY resource of the type they need will do, and those resources are generic. I don't consider them to be even close to a comparison for Medical professions.

Ragers/Scouts are self-supplied for a majority of their resource needs through use of the /harvest command. A smaller level of their needs ARE supplied through some fairly generic surveyed resources, but again the stats of the resources are unimportant. Again, not comparable, IMHO.

BEs ARE a Medical Profession, so I've always included them aspart of this entire discussion and just as deserving of being provided this ability.

And I don't consider such a skill "making life easy" just finishing what was already started with /medicalforage. And I have not been discussing "full power survey/sample". Please read my discussions more carefully. The consideration is for some kind of lower-powered /medicalsurvey and only possibly a very gimped version of /medicalsample (max of 1 resource per tick, or possbily a max of from 8-36 of that resource anywhere in inventory.)