Doctor Archive
Thread: Dev Response to November Top 5 (12/18/03)
Well, let's see. First off it seems to me that you've actually disproven that sureyors would be harmed, asresource sellers specializing for Docs (a rarity, BTW, and I am sure the Docs on Intrepid greatly appreciate your services!) Simply by the statement you already made that the biggest resource buyers are Architects. I'd bet that would be quickly followed by Armor and Weaponsmiths as well. Of course they all have one major advantage over Docs... they sell thier products for profit. Everyone and their grandmother EXPECTS free heals.
Which leads to the rest of the process you mention, which is a pretty big part of why this is an issue for the Medical Professions at all. Money. Those are all great suggestions for folks to make money, but, there are several problems here. Unlike goods, services are not always expected to be paid for. Even the providers of the service, depending on their playstyle, personal values or Role-Playing reasons, do not always expect or sometimes even want money for the services they provide. Add Hologrinders into the mox who may have already made mountains of cash from previous professions, retiring friends, or PA connections and you end up with a bevy of folks getting into the Med profession driving the prices of Med-related resources far beyond the means of most of the folks who are Doctors because that's the profession they enjoy playing.
In other words the folks who could care less about being Doctors simply perpetuate raising the prices of the resources we need while giving away the services generated from those products for free. And I can't see a way to stop it.
No matter how you look at it, though, nobody want's to pay for our services what they would pay for a hot weapon or armor. No matter how much we save them in cloning costs, no matter how much time we save them or ability to improve mission payouts because they can survive so very much longer with us around,our servicessimply do not rate up there with tangible products. And if we tried to price at those levels (which I have been urging folks to do since back in Beta) we're laughed out as price gougers and nobody will buy, because there's always someone who will give it away for cheaper or free. Heck, there was a time when I could sell 35 charge/350 power Stim Bs for 1500 a pop. Now you're luck if you can sell those for 600 credits. And the resource cost to make those stims has increases six-fold, at least. The cost for what is needed to make top level 400+ power stims is easily 10 times more than it used to be, yet you can't sell them for more than 2k.
The Medical professions are barely profitable, actually I'd call it a losing proposition depending on how you define profitability. One of the only ways to stay afloat is to get your own resources or rely on having a non-service oriented set of skills to rely on for making money.
All of that aside there is still the simplest of issues on balanced gameplay. It is proper that the Artisan-based professions have a method in which to gain XP in their profession by being able to get a good bit of the resources they need, though /sample and /survey,in order to proceed in their chosen profession. It is proper that the hybrid crafter of Scout/Ranger can get a good amount of the resources they need, with /harvest, in order to succeed in their professions. It is fitting that even though neither Smugglers, for spice,nor Musicians, for instruments, can get their resources needs from skill in ther professions but that the resources they do need are small in quantity, do not have any stat requirements (they have nothing to experiment on) and are non-specific (in that they might need, at the worst, Copper, but NOT Dolovite Iron.)
And that is where the problem really lies. There is a basic disconnect in gameplay balance here that the Devs partially acknowledged back in Beta with the creation of /medicalforage, but then they changed the schematics and /medicalforage, barely able to fulfill that role anyway, became utterly useless. They acknowledged that we were not properly balanced to the way a crafting class is structured in this game, but then they gimped us again anyway, never bothering to go back to rectify the siutation.
So as it stands 2/3rds of all Doctors now lis this as one of thier Top 10 problems in the game that make playing a Doctor unenjoyable. Over half of the Doctors have listed it as one of the Top 2 Issues. That's freakin' huge! People can't seem to agree on anything, but this.... that's a really big majority that feel like they have been hampered out of balanced gameplay by this one issue.
Zarlor wrote:
Well, let's see. First off it seems to me that you've actually disproven that sureyors would be harmed, asresource sellers specializing for Docs (a rarity, BTW, and I am sure the Docs on Intrepid greatly appreciate your services!) Simply by the statement you already made that the biggest resource buyers are Architects.
Never sought to prove surveyors would be harmed. . . just wanted to make any bias I might have known from the start.
Which leads to the rest of the process you mention, which is a pretty big part of why this is an issue for the Medical Professions at all. Money. Those are all great suggestions for folks to make money, but, there are several problems here. Unlike goods, services are not always expected to be paid for ( . . . )Add Hologrinders into the mox who may have already made mountains of cash from previous professions, retiring friends, or PA connections and you end up with a bevy of folks getting into the Med profession driving the prices of Med-related resources far beyond the means of most of the folks who are Doctors because that's the profession they enjoy playing.
I HATE holo-grinding and what it has done to the game. Just trying to give solutions to reduce the damage they do as best I can. That being said, for every Holo-Doctor there should be a Holo-Ranger to drive the resource market back down and a Holo-Bounty Hunter that needs a buff. Grinders will pay anything to save time. . . by not only buying resources but also buying buffs and training. I KNOW its not working that way, but a big issue is communication, and we have to do what we can until changes are made.
No matter how you look at it, though, nobody want's to pay for our services what they would pay for a hot weapon or armor. No matter how much we save them in cloning costs, no matter how much time we save them or ability to improve mission payouts because they can survive so very much longer with us around,our servicessimply do not rate up there with tangible products.
Maybe the solution is to INCREASE decay on weapons so they become more disposable? Perhaps increasing the costs of Insurance and Cloning would work better than adding more skills to a specialized profession?
And if we tried to price at those levels (which I have been urging folks to do since back in Beta) we're laughed out as price gougers and nobody will buy, because there's always someone who will give it away for cheaper or free. Heck, there was a time when I could sell 35 charge/350 power Stim Bs for 1500 a pop. Now you're luck if you can sell those for 600 credits. And the resource cost to make those stims has increases six-fold, at least. The cost for what is needed to make top level 400+ power stims is easily 10 times more than it used to be, yet you can't sell them for more than 2k.
Wouldn't Holo-Docs pay you to make packs they could use? Don't know how the XP on your trees are set so I'm not sure if this is viable. I assume you cap off crafting faster than you cap off healing, but perhaps not.
The Medical professions are barely profitable, actually I'd call it a losing proposition depending on how you define profitability. One of the only ways to stay afloat is to get your own resources or rely on having a non-service oriented set of skills to rely on for making money.
Perhaps a viable solution would be to reduce the Med Use stats on your kits so you could sell them to CM's and Master Medics?
All of that aside there is still the simplest of issues on balanced gameplay. It is proper that the Artisan-based professions have a method in which to gain XP in their profession by being able to get a good bit of the resources they need, though /sample and /survey,in order to proceed in their chosen profession. It is proper that the hybrid crafter of Scout/Ranger can get a good amount of the resources they need, with /harvest, in order to succeed in their professions. It is fitting that even though neither Smugglers, for spice,nor Musicians, for instruments, can get their resources needs from skill in ther professions but that the resources they do need are small in quantity, do not have any stat requirements (they have nothing to experiment on) and are non-specific (in that they might need, at the worst, Copper, but NOT Dolovite Iron.)
The balance issue here isn't on the crafting side, but the effect of rampant buffing on combatif they make it too much easier. Another possible solution is paying a Surveyor for the WP to a concentration of Dolovite instead of buying the Dolovite itself. Each of my 4 employees are maxed out on Deed Placements and would be happy to let you build next to our harvesters for 25% of your take. I'd be willing to do it for 10% if the OQ was over 500.
And that is where the problem really lies. There is a basic disconnect in gameplay balance here that the Devs partially acknowledged back in Beta with the creation of /medicalforage, but then they changed the schematics and /medicalforage, barely able to fulfill that role anyway, became utterly useless.
There is a similar complaint on the Scout boards about /Forage. This NEEDS to be fixed. This is a keystone issue. Trying to get this fixed should be much easier than trying to get another profession's skill set.
From a businessman's perspective, I can not logically charge less than what I can expect to get paid. Holo-grinding has promoted inflation, but I'd be a fool to sell you dolovite for less than the Jedi-quester will pay. Until the Dev's address this issue I would suggest making basic meds instead of advanced if the price for resources is too high. I'm not trying to argue about your core concerns. . . it is in my best interest to have several rich doctors to buy my resources. I'm just not sure that "borrowing" /survey or /harvest is the most logical or effective route in the long-term.
Tam Darkfell (Intrepid/Infinity) / Vendt Darkfell (TC)
President and Founder of Darkfell Delivery
VendtDarkfell wrote:
Never sought to prove surveyors would be harmed. . . just wanted to make any bias I might have known from the start.
Understood. I just wanted to point out that such an argument comes along a great deal, in fact is was one of the primary arguments the Devs have used since Beta, that Surveyors would be greatly harmed by such a change. I've always suggested that such would not really be the case.
I HATE holo-grinding and what it has done to the game. Just trying to give solutions to reduce the damage they do as best I can. That being said, for every Holo-Doctor there should be a Holo-Ranger to drive the resource market back down and a Holo-Bounty Hunter that needs a buff. Grinders will pay anything to save time. . . by not only buying resources but also buying buffs and training. I KNOW its not working that way, but a big issue is communication, and we have to do what we can until changes are made.
Just wanted to make clear that I'm notarguing just for arguments sake, mind you, I know I personally appreciate the debate.
At any rate, I think this is not strictly a communication issue of holo-Scouts/Rangers not /harvesting the resources we use. I think it has a lot more todo with holo-grinders in these fields not caring about the resources they are getting at all. They just want to go through the motions to get the XP. Selling the stuff for cheap makes sense, but since they don't care about the resource anyway, it's even easier just to click Destroy at the end of the day or to only harvest the hide and bone, and some meat, that they need for their own grinding needs in their other boxes.
Maybe the solution is to INCREASE decay on weapons so they become more disposable? Perhaps increasing the costs of Insurance and Cloning would work better than adding more skills to a specialized profession?
Interesting thought. Ifsuch goods were more disposable they may have a much lesser value. ButI'm not really too sure that would address the issue except to tick off a lot of the combat professions.
Wouldn't Holo-Docs pay you to make packs they could use? Don't know how the XP on your trees are set so I'm not sure if this is viable. I assume you cap off crafting faster than you cap off healing, but perhaps not.
They do buy from us to some extent, actually, but your assumption is actually WAY off. We finish out our healing lines MUCH faster than our crafting line. Healing XP isn't too hard to get, really, it's the crafting XP that's the hardest and it's probably the line that most Medical Professions hate the most. While crafting does provide a nice diversion and add some very interesting aspects to the game, the primary role is as a healer, and crafting, especially for XP, sometimes just gets in the way of that. It's the one line that many folks in Beta actually wanted to get rid of completely, but as it stands it's the bane of our existence just because it's so much harder and a lot less fun to go up than our healing lines are.
Perhaps a viable solution would be to reduce the Med Use stats on your kits so you could sell them to CM's and Master Medics?
We do that to some extent, already. Although most folks that Master Medic don't just Master Medic, they tend to move up from there. There's not much incentive to Mastering Medic, really, unless you are moving on up. That's not much incentive to go very far into Medic, actually, unless you are moving up way higher. Primarily the biggest seller for Docs is Stim Bs to those who took Novice Medic just to heal themselves in the field. Lowering Med Use levels wouldn't really help sales to CMs or Medics, though.
The balance issue here isn't on the crafting side, but the effect of rampant buffing on combatif they make it too much easier. Another possible solution is paying a Surveyor for the WP to a concentration of Dolovite instead of buying the Dolovite itself. Each of my 4 employees are maxed out on Deed Placements and would be happy to let you build next to our harvesters for 25% of your take. I'd be willing to do it for 10% if the OQ was over 500.
I'm not sure what you mean by that first statement. Rampant buffing on combat? As it is Buffing, alongside Stim Bs, is the top money maker for Master Docs who sit outside of starports hawking their wares like street vendors. Rampant buffing already exists, making it easier to make the packs would make no difference to that. Beside making an using a pack are two seperate issues, the skill of the Doc definitely plays a significant role in how good the buff will be, so no matter how easy it is to craft a pack, having the skills to use it well will still be required.
Paying for WPs is also something some Docs do, but.... you have to find someone who would do that, and it's not an easy proposition because except for the very, very small number of surveyors who cater to the medical profession, nobody is looking for the resources we need. And we still can't afford it in the same way a true crafter could anyway, for the most part.
There is a similar complaint on the Scout boards about /Forage. This NEEDS to be fixed. This is a keystone issue. Trying to get this fixed should be much easier than trying to get another profession's skill set.
From a businessman's perspective, I can not logically charge less than what I can expect to get paid. Holo-grinding has promoted inflation, but I'd be a fool to sell you dolovite for less than the Jedi-quester will pay. Until the Dev's address this issue I would suggest making basic meds instead of advanced if the price for resources is too high. I'm not trying to argue about your core concerns. . . it is in my best interest to have several rich doctors to buy my resources. I'm just not sure that "borrowing" /survey or /harvest is the most logical or effective route in the long-term.
Well, if you read the issue closely you'll see that simply giving /survey or /harvest to Docs is only one small possible solution. The argument often gets distilled out that Docs want /survey and /sample, when what we really want is to have a core imbalance rectified. /sample and /survey are an easy target to look at because those are currently the skills we use to rectify the problem. In reality, however, the offered solutions are far more in-depth than that. I would say that full /survey and /sample abilities are actually pretty far down on the list of viable solutions. More properly, assuming schematics are not changed, we've suggested decayable survey tools or survey droids we could use or have to be certified for that would perform some form of the survey function. We've suggested that sampling is only needed in order to look at the stats of a resources, but in reality there are only a certain set of stats that we even need. The ability to only ever sample a single sample of a resource would fulfill that requirement, or the ability to have a that survey "tool" simply tell us only the OQ/PE/UT/DR and Mal ratings of a resource would be more than enough.
Other possibilities include greatly simplifying our schematics and crafting requirements. Obviously some of it must stay, since we appreciate the ability to granulate out markets by crafting differing quality meds and some of the crafting process and experimentation is kind of an enjoyable diversion from our primary healing skills. So any change of that nature would have to take into account allowing the similar variability of meds that we have now, but also still provide us with the same general power, especially on the high end, that we are used to now.
Yep. That's the club I'm in too. Government has the day off. Us contractors, however, either come in or take vacation time.... suffice to say I like my vacation time too much to give it up for one day.
IlyaMasool wrote:
[snip of all the good stuff and details of how we make money from crafting but can't seem to do it with our primary skill of healing, just so I could make an inane comment on the following...]
(Wow! you are at work where no one else showed up and you got nothing but time on your hand to write long dragged out posts
*The /healmind command
* Novice scout level of /harvest
*Consolidated Wound packs (such as a Body Pack A that heals Health, Strength AND Stamina with one application, or one Master Wound Pack A that will provide heals to all physical wounds.)
* The ability to "sell" excess Healing or, likely more appropriate, Med Crafting XP for a pool of extra Experimentation Points, such as getting 1 extra EP that can be used in one crafting session for every 10,000 or 40,000 XP "sold back, or for some other purchasable special schematics or components. Similar to how Smugglers can sell FPs for credits.
* A "cure" for spice downer to eliminate or reduce the downtime from the condition.
* A "called shot" ability, since Docs should be great anatomists, providing a reduced chance to hit but providing increased damage and/or allowing a particular pool to be targeted no matter the weapon used. ·
* Improved Bleed and/or /tendwound healing abilities.
* Special "Master Doctor Only" clothing (obviously made by Tailors and possibly with BE components) that provide stat boosts to the Mind stats.
*Some for of /survey and possibly /sample ability. (Obviously this would tie into Issue #1 above, but limiting it further to only Master level whereas that issue is meant for more levels of Docs and/or Medical professionals.)
* Rebalance the Med Use levels of enhances so that secondary Enhance Ds (which come available at Master Doc) start off with a Master level Med Use level.
* Move Resuscitate to Master. (Pretty controversial)
____________________________________________________
Those are such good ideas I can hardly stand it. I love the consolidated wound pack/ pool target/ improve bleeds/ cure downer, ideas the best. I can only hope and pray and some (if not all) of these make it.
I'm one of the people that got stim A's made harder to make (yes it was very important to do so)... to defend myself I also told them to remove /medforage.. but hey... 1/2 fixes were the call of the day in the rush.
Honestly. Until Holocrons came out. I could be a doctor, or master medic (dunno abotu CM since release) easily without any survey skill, buying off the open market.
Holos wrecked everything.
Meat on my server(any kind) goes from 13-50 credits a unit right now (if you buy on the market, it averages around 30)... Unless you have a PA, a lot of friends, or your own materials extraction business, it is getting insane.
It isn't the fault of the game, it is just greed.
The same people that don't pay for heals / buffs are the same people who are wearing million credit gear, with million credit guns, and who buy million credit holos (before X-mas)...
Anyone that heals / buffs for free, has no right to complain about cost. We were told over and over since beta... charge for service.
None of my characters are pure healers (all have some combat skills). Though my mostly healer characters could break even, or make a small profit (pre-holocrons).
I didn't even charge a lot. The key was using mediuim grade materials. With the huge variance on heals/buffs... holding out for the best stuff (and the best stuff prices, by miners in the know) is a bad move.
Good medium-grade stuff let me do pretty well for myself.
Now though, it is all shot to hell... I can't even afford to buff myself. ;p
-T
I'd add a new feature:
* Doctor/Combat Medic ImprovedDiagnose
It would be great for the Doctor to be able to see information about a target's buff status (like when that old buff will expire so they know how long to wait or which ones they've already done when they're waiting for a different heal cycle to finish). To some extent it would be nice for a Combat Medic to see information about poisons they've applied on targets, too.
I'll also add the comment about surveying -- I don't mind hunting the universe to find organics and chemicals. But what Imiss isthe ability toharvest meat. I will agree, the economy is based around needing to hunt for this stuff, but it's practically not available right now. I have already dropped Combat Medic to which I will add Novice Scout so I can get the basics I need to make the buffs everyone expects.
I'll also add that the forage command could be boosted to provide more than one resource so Master Doctors could actually get something useable with this command (maybe an indication of what could be surveyed).
Bad_Bad_Leroy wrote:
Are you joking? A decent fighter (barely into novite elite combat profession) can harvest 100+ resources from a single kill. From a lair of 10 creatures, that's already 1000+ units in 5-10 minutes of combat, plus they get XP for killing and harvesting. 2-3 avian / 1-2 herbv meat is WAY too easy to come by for an advanced enhance pack that sells for 1000 per charge used in a buff.
I finally had to drop combat medic to take scout cause I got fed up with begging friends, and paying 30-100cpu when I was lucky enough to find decent avian meat on the zar (bria). Herbivore meat on bria is really tough to find too, if you are lucky you can pick it up for 15cpu. I am a only level 3 harvesting in scout, but it seems unlikely that any of the birds (esp when decent reasource are on n00b planets) would ever drop anything close to 100+ units. I get around 20, but I have not been doing it very long. Maybe it's just bria, but I begged my scout friends and people in my guild to sell me meat at double or quadruple what I would pay for any other resource, and I could never get them to do it. From my experience, it's 1000x harder to get these resources than it is to get Lokian Wild Wheat. I would gladly trade any "hard to find" resource I had 3-6/1for avian/herbivore meat of similar quality.
Maybe it's just my perspective, or maybe it's just bria, but I don't think so.
UzeDaFarce wrote:
Bad_Bad_Leroy wrote:
Are you joking? A decent fighter (barely into novite elite combat profession) can harvest 100+ resources from a single kill. From a lair of 10 creatures, that's already 1000+ units in 5-10 minutes of combat, plus they get XP for killing and harvesting. 2-3 avian / 1-2 herbv meat is WAY too easy to come by for an advanced enhance pack that sells for 1000 per charge used in a buff.
I finally had to drop combat medic to take scout cause I got fed up with begging friends, and paying 30-100cpu when I was lucky enough to find decent avian meat on the zar (bria). Herbivore meat on bria is really tough to find too, if you are lucky you can pick it up for 15cpu. I am a only level 3 harvesting in scout, but it seems unlikely that any of the birds (esp when decent reasource are on n00b planets) would ever drop anything close to 100+ units. I get around 20, but I have not been doing it very long. Maybe it's just bria, but I begged my scout friends and people in my guild to sell me meat at double or quadruple what I would pay for any other resource, and I could never get them to do it. From my experience, it's 1000x harder to get these resources than it is to get Lokian Wild Wheat. I would gladly trade any "hard to find" resource I had 3-6/1for avian/herbivore meat of similar quality.
Maybe it's just my perspective, or maybe it's just bria, but I don't think so.
It's not server specific (although one server may feel more or less lucky than anotherfor good resource shifts).
No, you won't find many 100+ harvests on newbie planets, you gotta go hunt or tag along with the big boys (believe me wise hunting parties always invite a doctor, even if you only bring along some good Stim-B's) to Dantooine or Endor or someplace.
Harvesting amountsvary by:
- Creature Difficulty (harder, more you get)
- Creature Physique (randombut usuallyconstant ina given lair). "The creature was fat & healthy / of medium size/ skinny" means you geta better, average of lower yield for that mob.
- Whether you're in a group or not. If you're in a group, even with just your pet, you will harvest only 60% of what you'd get if not in a group (I think... may have to verify some more)
Experiences may vary :-) But when I say you can get 100+, I'm thinking of my char on Lowca who is recently novice TKA with average vibro knucklers, and average ubese armor (~60% kinetic resist). When I fight quenkers (on Dantooine), which take about 2-3 minutes each, and I harvest them, I get at least 100 units of meat, although it's not avian meat. I'll try to figure out which birds yield the best quantity vs. difficulty and time and let you know.
Spats is about it on Corellia (22-25?) per bird for giants IIRC. Missions are currently bugged on my server for spat lairs on corellia). the non- missions lairs spawn more anyway.
Best starter planet avian is naboo w/ peko peko albatross. Which aren't too hard to find in some areas... but yuo never know how good the meat is... Not 100 per though.
I haven't kileld an avian flyer on Dath forever and a half.. Dunno what they harvest at, but they aren't the easiest spawns to get to most of the time.
But it depends on what you are doing.
Talus is hip deep in rasps. I can kill eleven million of them very quickly and grab 9-11 units each from them. Very fast. I got 1k+ avian meat off of them for a friend in a few hours running only rasp missions (around CL 1-12 missions... novice advanced comabt level) while also killing any rasps and vynoks I found on the way. It wasn't really great stuff, but she was completely out of avian... I also made 1500-2000 cr per mission as well. This was walking btw, it woudl ahve been more if I ahd a mount or vehicle.
This was roughly the same amount of meat I got in the same time period range offa huff duns, which are much bigger, but have a lot more downtime for me and my pet (ungrouped). which have about 35 meat per criter.
-T
Bad_Bad_Leroy wrote:
Are you joking? A decent fighter (barely into novite elite combat profession) can harvest 100+ resources from a single kill. From a lair of 10 creatures, that's already 1000+ units in 5-10 minutes of combat, plus they get XP for killing and harvesting. 2-3 avian / 1-2 herbv meat is WAY too easy to come by for an advanced enhance pack that sells for 1000 per charge used in a buff.
Well thats all interesting. And it might be all true. I've harvest my own meat for 99.9999% of meats I used (or traded my meat for similar meat on 1:1) and it is okay depending on what you do.
But if what you say is true, then it is 1k meat per 10 min. 6k meat an hr
and considering that avian meat go as low as 20cr per and as high as 35 - 50, lets say on avg 25cr per all across server.
So we have WAY to easy way of making 150k an hr.
And there is never lack of buyer.
So why aren't Avian meat which is so easy to get and you can make so much credit selling it so hard to find?