Doctor Archive
Thread: Balance Issues (Voting Closed)
1) 9.Money
2) 3.On Fire Cure&
3) 4.Faction Points
4) 16.Crafting XP from Complex Schematics –v- Components
5) 8.First Aid Improvements
6) 7.AoE Cure State Pack and Poison/Disease Cure
7)15.Crafting XP Speed Imbalance
8) 2.Master Doc Benefits
9) 12.Medicine Use Skill Granularity
10) 1.Medical Surveying
Crafting exp is my new pet peeve. I quit grinding crafting after the third boc for doctor. Since I have and crafted HUNDREDS of poison/disease stim Cs, ranged Stim Es and enhance packs in order to tweak stats, test dropped components, etc. It seems that the experience I am getting for my 4th box has become a crawl. There is no way that making finished products should give as little exp as it does currently.
Balance Issues
1.Medical Resource Requirements
2.On Fire Cure &
3.Faction Points
4.Money
5.Mind Damage Healing for Medics
6.Ease of Mastery
7.Crafting XP Speed Imbalance
8.Pet Stimpacks
9.Medicine Use Skill Granularity
10.Pet Healing XP (or lack thereof)
11.Crafting XP from Complex Schematics -v- Components
Notes:
* - Denotes Issue has had some change or addition made to it since last posting.
+ - Denotes New Issue since the last posting. (These will always be at the bottom of the listing.)
= - Denotes Issue is listed by Devs as being fixed in either this publish or the next (generally, 4-8 weeks.)
% - Denotes some part of Issue will be fixed in either this publish or the next (generally. 4-8 weeks.)
& - Denotes an Issue or part of an Issueacknowledged by the Developers that should be fixed at some undisclosed time in the future.
Please note that items listed as (*To be Fixed*) refer to the fact that the Devs have acknowledged the issue and expect that the issue will be fixed in either this publish coming up, or (more likely) the very next publish thereafter. In general this will probably mean a minimum of 2 weeks before such a fix will reach the Live servers but that it will more likely be closer to as much as an 8-10 week delay. Few of these items, if any, will rate a Hotfix so in order to ensure complete testing these kinds of delays are necessary. Be sure to check the date the statement was posted for a fix and add 8 weeks to it before considering if there is a problem with the fix not getting out. Please do not mistake the wording of a Dev that states “Fixed such-and-such” in these cases to mean that the item is actually fixed. It is simply a patch note method and the problem may not actually be fully fixed or even ready to go out in the next publish yet. Add the words “Will probably be” before that “Fixed” and you’ll have a better idea of how it should be read for now.
(*In Test*) refers to the next step where the issue has been placed onto Test Center for public testing. In general this means a 1 to 2 week test period before the issue will actually make it out to the Live Servers, presuming there are no undue problems. Again, please check the date of when the fix went to test before considering if there are any undue delays for getting the fix out.
(*Fixed*) Means the issue has been fixed and the fix is currently active on the Live servers. Items marked as Fixed will be removed from the very next issues listing if no further issues arise with the fix.
Message Edited by Zarlor on 12-24-2003 12:15 PM
Message Edited by Zarlor on 01-06-2004 11:46 AM
Balance Issues
1.Medical Resource Requirements
Medics seem to feel the need to survey for their own resources and dislike the need to use skill points in Artisan in order to do so. Let's face it, anyone getting into the Doc level had to craft to get there, so the SWG version of a focused Doc is, in fact, a crafting profession and they want the abilities to self subsist in that capacity in either the same way as Artisans do or in the way that the other hybrid crafters do.
Several problems relate to this issue. One of them being idea put forth previously by the Dev team that Medics could always just buy their resource needs. However, Medics have many very specific resource needs (Dantooine Berries, Class 4 Liquid Petro Fuel, Lokian Wild Wheat, etc.) that very few, if any, other professions, other than Medical Professions, truly need. Considering the prevalence of the Money issue for Medics, the market for surveyors to cater to the medic market is simply too small to be successful in comparison to what a surveyor could make catering to one of the artisan professions, and this is especially true now with the Holocron craze driving up the price of resources to exorbitant levels. In this way it could also be argued that rarely would Medics be able to actually compete with Artisans on the resource market simply because their normal resource needs are not the needs of other professions. Worthwhile resources for any good medicines are just rarely found on the bazaar, unless that resource also overlaps with an artisan need, and then the price on such an item will be driven by the artisan ability to make far more profit on the item than the average medic pulls in.
In all it would seem that the schematics of Medics have requirements, complexities, resource costs and specificities that are only existent in the schematics of true Artisans. No other “hybrid crafter” has such complex and burdensome resource requirements as the Medical Professions do. This issue has simply forced any Medic “in the know” to not start characters as Medics, but to start them as Artisans. It has made the entire set of medical professions a lot less enjoyable than they could be.
Suggestions for fixing this imbalance include providing survey only or scout harvesting capabilities to increase with Organic Chemistry (the most common line for ALL of the Medical-based professions) or Pharmacology, much in the way it does for Artisan Surveying, but disallowing the sampling capability and perhaps with a smaller range. Others have noted that without some ability to sample (perhaps limiting Medics to only ever being able to sample 1 resource per sample tick, capping out resource samples so none are ever pulled up if there is more than our minimum, 8, or our maximum, I believe that’s 36, of a resource in inventory, or even just letting the survey tool show the resource values that only a Medic would use from those resources), to test the qualities of a resource if nothing else, the simple ability to survey alone wouldn’t be very useful. Suggestions have also included making the ability part of some kind of decayable survey tool made by artisans that let a Doc survey, ensuring a continued resource stream to artisans to compensate for those few Medics that try to make money as miners instead of as Medics. Or the use of a DE created resource seeker droid that might be able to locate a high concentration of a given resource within some given range and possibly provide either a single sample or at least some of the required stats for that resource, possibly even providing additional capabilities for those with the Artisan Survey skill. Further suggestions would include a greater reduction of the complexity of our schematics and the resource needs.
For reference the following thread may be of interest:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1540
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=5233
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14251
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=21399
(*Dev Response:
Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalforage on 6/29/03:
“This here is a proposal to tackle JUST one aspect of that. It felt a bit like we got overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas proposed for medics, so I want to present just two things (one of them based on suggestions from you guys during beta) so we can discuss them, before we move on to tackling other things.
OK, the first suggestion is this:
•Make medical foraging find small herbs/bacta globules/bugs/whatever (think: aloe and penicillin mold) that can be used to make medicines. Not resources, in other words. Because they are not resources, we do not need to worry about undercutting the surveyors and scouts.
•Make the A level stims and wound packs use ONLY these.
•Make higher level medicines use smaller amounts of these, so that profession interdependency increases as you go up.
This would make new medics trying to make medicines a lot better off, I think.
The second suggestion is based on beta tester ideas:
•Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans.
•Have it have charges.
•Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge.
•Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands.
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920
In response to the Doctor Top 5 issues on 12/18/03 Zarlor reported the following response:
“We have reservations about implementing such a change. The Surveying skill is considered integral to the Artisan profession and skill point expenditure is a basic challenge in the game and all professions have to make such choices.
However we acknowledge that the Docs feel some kind of problem exists on a root issue for this matter. As such a continuing discussion will be ongoing to ensure proper determination of that root problem and to hopefully find a mutually beneficial solution to that issue.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=24681
In response to the Combat Medic Top 5 issues on 12/19/03 Pahdbacca repeated the Doc response listed above.
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=18281
In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response:
“This would lessen the value of skillpoints spent by other professions. Skillpoint costs are a major balance factor in the game... ‘Skill point expenditure is a basic challenge in the game and all professions have to make such choices.’ This holds true for medical advanced professions as well (See Doc and CM Top 5 lists). The devs will continue to monitor this issue, across all medical professions.”
[Note that “this” in the above refers primarily to the suggestion of giving a form of the /survey skill to the medical professions.]
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)
2.On Fire Cure &
(To be Fixed)
The ability to cure the “On Fire!” state created by several attack forms has also been requested.
More information can be found in the following:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=13565
(*Dev response:
Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003 as a response to the Doctor Issue regarding this:
“They do not have a problem with adding some fire dot removal. Fire dots can get nasty on Tatooine where there are only two places on the map to put them out. Again this may take some time to get into the game, but at least it is being looked into now.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )
3.Faction Points
Medics are interested in seeing a share of Faction Points in the same way that we are getting Combat XP. It is considered inappropriate that a medic professional would be out in the field and, being unable to assist in taking out an opposing faction NPC or player (because they are healing those who are doing so), they will not gain FPs and so will progress much more slowly in faction gains, while providing at least as valuable a service as the person providing the offensive capabilities. Other considerations have included gaining FPs for healing Overt faction members, especially considering the dangers involved in gaining a TEF in this manner in a place that is known for finding unsuspecting TEFed characters (i.e. The Med Center, see TEF Issues).
(*Dev Response:
In response to the Combat Medic Top 5 issues on 12/19/03 Pahdbacca reported the following:
“This is an issue that will have to be done next cycle.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=18281)
4.Money
There is a lot of concern about how a focused medical character should be able to make money. By this I mean that we are talking about a character whose primary skills and interests are in the healing arts (which could include crafting of meds, for the pharmaceutically inclined Medics) and not, necessarily, combat or resource management. The self-sufficiency of the profession does not really exist except in a few small methods, of which the primary one for making money IN the profession would seem to be the production and sales of Small Stimpack Bs, for which the competition against Doctor made Stim Bs is extraordinarily stiff. There is a much smaller niche market for medical resources and components, but most Medics seem to feel that resource gathering and sales, while obviously an integral part of the Medic profession, is more of the realm of the artisan and such sales would be, in effect, making money as an Artisan, and not as a Medic. Overall these markets are really only fully viable in the Doctor or Combat Medic professions (and even then only at Master level).
The other methods of making money seem to be far less reliable, or are not well supported by the game. Tips for Medics seems to be a small market except in a few locations or servers and medical professionals are often subjected to all manner of verbal abuse for suggesting payment should be made for the service. Primarily, for those interested in providing services such as Healing or Enhancing, there is no secure method of trade to ensure that the Medic is paid for their service while also ensuring that the customer gets the service they are requesting.
Suggestions have included some form of secure trade window, like is done for normal trading, or having a Medic’s healing actually use packs that the customer has on their person instead of the ones on the Medic (and thereby the Medic could sell the medicine to the player and then heal him with those), requiring or allowing some form of insurance, possibly whereby either the patients set a price they are willing to pay for healing that will be deducted from them if their healer accepts that rate or the Medic sets a price they will heal for allowing the patient to accept, allowing A packs or stims only to be usable by anyone thereby opening the market for more pharmaceutical products that Medics could then sell (for those who are more crafting oriented, although it should be noted that some controversy has surfaced over this idea, see the threads listed below- Doc #11491 & Medic #6938.) Having Doc-specific missions, like the artisan or entertainer missions. Giving Medics some sort of Vendor ability to encourage pharmaceutical sales. Paying Medics some rate simply for manning a med center. Some of the threads below show some of the solutions suggested in greater detail.
Again there is no true consensus on the issue other than that most of the Medic classes tend to rely on other methods of subsistence and take time doing those things that they may not be interested in or may not be fun for them (the usual, delivery/destroy missions, for example.) The issue is an important one amongst the player base and receives a lot of attention on the forums and in game from many of the Medics I have spoken with.
Of notable reference are the following threads:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1768
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1197
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1650
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6196
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10665
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11491
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6938
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14194
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14257
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14012
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14888
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=22459
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=22671
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=8706
(*Dev Response:
Ood Bnar wrote on 9/24/03 in a thread about Image Designer UI issues:
“We talked about adding a payment option, but this gets into the bigger 'payment for services rendered' issue which I will leave to the designers. They are working on the problem now.”
[Z’s note: This may or may not imply anything, but it seems that there maybe some consideration being given for some methods of handling payments for services universally, if possible, opening part of this issue to a possible need for a wider solution which may provide assistance on this issue as well as for other service-related sales.]
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=image_designer&message.id=2796)
5.Mind Damage Healing for Medics
Medics would like to have the /mindheal command made available to them. Suggestions have included even just having it available as a Master Medic perk. In this way the command is at least closer to being as available to healers as healing of the other Bars is to maintain the proper level of balance for the medical professions. Some of the threads below will offer more insights into the various viewpoints.
(*Dev Response:
Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben “Marvelin” Hanson’s response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003 in response to a Doctor Issue:
“It has been decided for now that mind healing is going to stay with Combat Medics. Combat medics have been in need of another unique healing ability, and they feel this fits the bill nicely.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920 )
6.Ease of Mastery
Some have suggested that perhaps Medic is simply too easy to Master. I am still uncertain whether this is intended or not and whether or not it is really balanced enough compared to possible speed of gain rates for other professions. It may be a situation where, as Holocron has told us before, the game simply does not start until you completely allocate all of your skill points and that philosophy being somewhat counterintuitive to how many other MMORPGs are played. Or if this is truly a valid concern that having Master Medics within the current time frame is unbalancing to the game. Perhaps guidance of the Dev thinking on the issue is needed, or the rate of gain should be adjusted. The crafting requirements will definitely need to be more balanced, however, in most players’ experience, some suggesting either making it easier, or making the rest of the line harder or somewhere in between.
7.Crafting XP Speed Imbalance
Medics are feeling a bit hampered by the crafting requirements of the class. While there are a few who simply do not like crafting at all, many seem to feel that crafting is acceptable, but only if it improves on par with use. This is mostly more noticeable at the highest level of the Organic Chemistry line. A ratio of 3:1 would be expected for proper scaling of raising the skills evenly. In other words for every charge of a stim or wound pack used you would get 1/3 of the XP you got from making that charge so that the XP gained from using a pack is consistent with how many packs must be made to get that XP, so to speak. Admittedly compared to the time it takes to use those charges enough stims could be made to equalize that ratio, but it is requested that the metrics be looked at again, especially now that Factory XP is back to where it should have been (well, if it is supposed to be at 10%, even though factories are not giving even that now, but that I listed as a separate issue) and that self UXP in components has been fixed and also keeping in mind that there are folks who are just grinding the meds for these lines to catch it up to their other med levels.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1383
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=2020
8.Pet Stimpacks
Some Medics are incensed about the idea of giving pet stimpacks to anyone who wants to use them for healing Pets. (Not at the BE’s for making these packs, but that anyone can use them.) Especially since this was something that was previously the purview of the medic classes. Letting some other class utilize stimpacks, even if it’s just for pets, seems like a slap in the face by giving anyone the ability to use an item that is otherwise exclusive to Novice Medic, when an integral skill required for Medics, Surveying, won’t even be considered for Medics because it would somehow interfere with Artisans (who already have far greater financial stability than the medical professions). Not to mention the ability of these new stims to heal mind damage on the fly when only high level CMs have this ability for use on player characters. Some clarification on the reasoning for this issue or some other form of compensation such as mind healing, a certificate system allowing Pet Stim A use by anyone, but higher levels only to be used by BEs and/or CHs, the removal of the mind heal component of the stim, or removal of pet stimpacks altogether has been suggested.
9.Medicine Use Skill Granularity
Many would like to see more granularity in the base Medicine Use levels for different meds, to encourage balanced increases in the Medicine Use skill. Possibly even reducing some medicine use levels so that Medics can use some of these items at more appropriate levels, while others could be made more difficult to encourage purchasing of the usage skill levels. For example, Stim levels might be better placed so that their Med Use (or Pharmacy line, if you will) levels fall in line the Organic Chemistry box where it can be made or perhaps only a few points above the next lower Pharm box, allowing a Medic to experiment it down for other lower level medics to use, but at a loss of power.
Some discussion on the topic can be found in the following thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=646964
10.Pet Healing XP (or lack thereof)
The removal of Pet Healing XP has several Medics a bit upset. Overall there seems to be some consensus that Pets are primarily being used as the main tank for a party instead of any standard PC class. As such there is now no method for gaining XP from healing the party tank since that tank will almost never be a PC.
Suggested solutions include singly, or in some combination, such ideas as giving no XP for ones own pets, but allowing full XP on other’s pets, providing reduced XP for pet healing, and/or capping the XP allowed to be provided from a pet on either a per heal or per combat session basis. Several other responses and suggestions may be found in Q3P0’s post regarding this subject below (#429220).
(*Dev response:
Q3P0 wrote on 8/27/03:
“We’ve been tracking your discussions regarding the recent change to remove XP from healing pets. This post is to explain why we did the change and to let you know what we are thinking of for the future (based on some of your suggestions).
The exploit was a person could sick their pet on a creature that it cannot kill but does a decent amount of damage, sit behind the pet and heal it over and over and gain experience 10x faster than normal. Our solution was to eliminate XP for healing pets.
You’ve brought up great points about this and we are reconsidering how best to handle the exploit. Assuming you agree that the above exploit is valid. How about healing your own pet gives no medical XP (just like healing yourself)? Healing someone else’s pet given less XP than healing another player but still gives some. This will make healers still valuable in groups with tank pets, but won’t allow you to gain XP faster than you would with players.
If we go with this, it will take several days to code and probably some decent time on Test Center to test.”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=429220
Holo wrote on 8/29/03: “Med XP from healing pets was seen as an exploit because of the hugely high rates of gain it provided. Do you guys not see it that way or agree?”
Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645
[Z’s note: So far there has been no further word on this issue which would be counter to the timeframe Q3P0 would seem to suggest above.])
11.Crafting XP from Complex Schematics -v- Components
Despite the complexity of completed meds, such as stim or wound packs, these provide less XP, relatively, than grinding out components.
2. 10
3. 9 - I think some meds (Bs) are too low med xp, although I'm not sure if I'd say Cs are too high. There's too many dabblers in the medic tree anyways and the ability to heal damage is way too common.
4. 2
5. 1
I wouldn't say that the crafting XP is taking too long though for the CM/Doc lines seeing as how people are grinding up the lines in 3-4 hours compared to the time it takes to gather all of the Medical XP.
1. 2
2. 3
3. 2
4. 2
5. 2
Medics putting out Fire is a great idea!
A few comments, because I can't believe they are even up for a vote: Master Medic is NOT too easy to reach, if you don't grind. It is actually a lot slower than combat XP, or crafting XP. It's just that there are so many ways to cooperatively heal (cantinas, bleeding pets until last patch, tumble macros). Wait until the changes to HAM occur before they make Master Medic more difficult to reach.
With no XP from Pet Heals, pet stims going to everyone is okay (my opinion only)...But make the same thing for Droids.
Tied to the money and resource issues is Medical Forage...It's on several of your vote threads, Zarlor. But I would rather see that be useful than some of the other changes here.
Those are my only comments. Nice job again!
Well you may have noticed that Ease of Mastery isn't even on my personal list to vote for. I don't have a problem with it. If anything I think the crafting line needs to be lowered down to the speed of the healing lines. Unfortunately I expect something like the opposite to happen. The HAM change may, in effect, do that, though. We'll just have to see how it all pans out.
As for Droid "stims", it's definitely a GREAT issue that I think really needs to be addressed, but not by us. I'd suggest bringing it up over on the DE forum.
Well, /medicalforage specifically is listed up the Gameplay issues (#26,/medicalForage Uselessness), as you know since I see you voted for it. 
The Resources issue, while related, just like the Money issues could be said to be related, specifically does not mention /medicalforge in the describing text for the very reason that the Devs kept perseverating on that one specific mention I had of that skill in that issue (obviously I just culled these issues not just from here and Traigus' list, but from the Doc and CM lists as well, where the issue is relavent for Medics.) So I yanked it out. I want it to be seen and responded to as a completely seperate issue. One that wasin the Top 5 on ALL 3 of the primary Medical Professions on the last cycle, and that for over 2 cycles in a row was voted a Top issue by 2/3rds of all Doctors. In congress that's enough to overturn a presidential veto. 
At any rate, on the On Fire Cure, I'm sure you realize and were just joking around, but just so you know in case there is any issue with it, I've listed your #1vote as a votefor Issue #2 and your #2 vote as a vote for Issue #3. (Giving Issue #2 10 points in the scale and #3 gets 9 points in the scale. The duplicates don't count because the voting scale is already weighted based on your placement in the listing.) Votes for #3-#10 are listed as no vote for any of the other issues, which means you feel all of those other issues should be put onto the non-issues listing for eventual removal.
I love the voting system, Great idea. I assume issues like 2(on fire cure) dont need to be voted for?
- 1Medical Resource Requirements
- 7Crafting XP Speed Imbalance
- 9Medicine Use Skill Granularity
- 11Crafting XP from Complex Schematics -v- Components
- 8Pet Stimpacks
De_Mon: If yo udon't vote for it, it won't make it into the Top 5, however... In the case of issues where the Devs have stated the Issue will be fixed (like the On Fire Cure) I would suggest that voting for it, at least in the Top 5 or so, would probably be a waste of time. I mean even if it does make it into the Top 5 what would the Devs say? "Yeah, we already said we agree and will fix it... geez." Then again putting it there could also be construed as a statment that even though we know it is supposed to be fixed we still think it's a very important issue and that we just want to remind them of that. It's all up to you.
I wouldn't leave it off your list altogether, though, if you otherwise don;t have 10 issues you want to vote in. The reson would be that issues which receive no votes get placed on a possible non-issues list and we all know that one isn't a non-issue.
The following3 interest me.
2.On Fire Cure &
3.Faction Points
4.Money
Not so sure how On Fire Cure can be implemented, but I don't mind it being reserved as a CM or DOC skill. Faction point re-distribution would be nice, but I'm not sure how they would be able to factor ina formula for such. When I was a lowly novice medic, it was tough to earn money and it would be nice to see 'Defend the Camp' missions and/or medical crafting/delivery missions.