Doctor Archive
Thread: Dev Response to Recent Enahancement Med Use Issues (12/02/2003)
Avra,
You can also look at your subtractive and additive things another way:
1. If subtractive, the game keeps its overall balance as intended by the devs. Obviously, tweaking still needs to be done, but that's the reason.
2. If additive, suddenly buffs are better than they were supposed to be. So, now the content is easier and will also need to be strenghtened, etc.... The list can go on from making one simple additive change.
It makes sense sometimes to nerf things. Otherwise they would have to change every system in the game because they decided to add something.
I'm sure this would be easier for us all to understand if we knew as much as the devs, but unfortunately, we are not the devs and have to trust their judgement. I do not believe they would do something just to make us mad, it would not make sense. It would do them no good. They are looking at long-term effects while players like to look at short-term effects.
In the low 80s??
As it is, if you use good resources, you only need to spend one experimentation point to get the med use down to 89 or 90. I just made a batch of packs today -- after using 9/10 points, the base was 860. Now, with the variability what it currently is, there is very little difference between a master doc and a x-4-4-x doc -- sure, the Master Doc's averages will be higher, perhaps even 25% higher (although I rather doubt it is that much), but when you think aboutthe enhancementin terms of percentage increase from normal, it is still huge, and not vastly different. (e.g. my average buff of 2250 or so is roughly a 210% increase over typical health/action stats, but a 405% increase in secondaries -- using 1k health/action, 500 secondaries for reference)
Unless the devs were asleep when they thought up buffs, they didn't intend for every person on the server to have a full set of D buffs on each and every time they attempted to kill something. Ds make the game too easy. I still carry a set of 4 secondary Cs around that I use on myself from time to time... I can still wear my armor, my mind is still my fastest drain when I use specials -- by far when wearing armor --, they still last until I get sick of hunting, and I can still kill stuff. For that matter, even Bs are pretty cool. If you're just out killing baz nitches or pikkets or whatever, use Bs. They're cheap.
As it stands now, with 90-use Ds so easy to make and use, the only time Cs are useful is when you're still grinding xp to get that last box of knowledge. The only reason to be a master doc is because you like crafting and selling buffs, not because you can buff yourself slightly more effectively.
I want to see 96 or 97 use Ds for the secondaries, 92 or 93 for health and action. Cs should be a little higher too, to space it out. 
Alright, I think I'm done now. 
Ledao Bohi
Master Doctor, Valcyn
All professions get added skills at Master. The types of skills they get varies, but the Master box DOES have specific things that ONLY a Master has yet some skills leading up to Master can and are capped or the best they can get, before master in a great many of the skill trees.
We can craft enhance D's for instance. I don't understand why people think that anyone being able to USE d's at 4-4-4-4 is so terrible.
Using the argument "Well at Master doctor we should have something that defines us". If you want to look at it like that, then of ALL the skills Doctors get, the one that would make the most sense to ONLY have at master Doctor is Revive. If you elite and snobby master Doctors (the ones that have the nerve to call anyone not a MASTER Doctor, a dabbler) really want to fight for something "class defining", then this is what you should fight for. But you won't because you know it will never happen, so you just rub your hands in glee that at least they nerfed (yes, it's a **edit** nerf no matter how you look at it) enhance D's.
Letting a 4-4-4-4 use Enhance packs that he can MAKE (health and action) is a no brainer and anything less is ridiculous. I also believe that allowing sub stat D's to be used, without experimenting them down SHOULD be allowed at 0040.
BTW I am a Master Doctor. I just don't happen to be one of those people that feels the need to keep the peons down in their lowly place to make myself feel more powerful.
This was a BS fix.
I guess if we follow this mentality then Poison C's should take 90 Combat Skill points to use. Oh Wait a second, no they only take 75 which is what the original D packs took.
Again the Devs show how utterly stupid they are about coding their own game.
First they code the whole thing in reverse, next they say well 90 is where it always was supposed to be get over it.
This was totally a nerf, no other way to put it, don't tell me that they could not have gone in and coded the D packs to have whatever skill use they wanted them to have. That is a ridiculous statement. They could have made them all be 75 or 100 probably as easily as changing one line of code.
The truth is they wanted D packs to have a higher med use, because of all the doctors whining about not having a reason to master the profession. So they changed it.
I am scared to death right now to log into this game after the latest series of patches. There is no telling what is all jacked up now. I guess I better go and make sure that my house has not turned upside down on me, or perhaps all of my household goods are now floating 200 meters above my house or some other stupid crap.
Obviously I am also of the "Med Use should be at the same level you can make it" crowd (as attested by my chart earlier in this thread.) But so far it seems to me that when it comes to the Master level the Devs have agreed that making Master really tempting, "it's only one little point, after all" seems to be something they agree with doing. Just take a look at the response we got previously onthe Master Doc Benefits issue.
I think it should be something of a trade-off. While it might be possible to make some really great templates that do a lot of picking and choosing of different professions, it should also be a temptation to focus the templates. Something to make folks go, "You know I could get some decent abilities, like buffing, by just doing this much in Doc while improving my damage dealing abilities with this much TKA or Pistoleer (or whatever), BUT if I Master Doc I get these really cool abilities, but I won't be able to dish out the damage I really wanted from picking up that other template. What to do? What to do? Fret, fret, fret."
So I think that is the design intention overall and where I think the Devs would like to push things overall in the changes they have made so far. (This does not really apply to this Med Use discussion, because as I mentioned earlier in this thread the Med Use change wasn't a "change" per se, because they didn't realize it was flipped around to begin with, so their original design for Docs always had Med Use at where you are seeing it now.)
I don't see it as either pro-Master or pro-Dabbler, really. Just a game design to force a player to make a tough decision because of their being tempted to make good template design decisions for their character and preferred playstyle.
Zarlor wrote:
Something to make folks go, "You know I could get some decent abilities, like buffing, by just doing this much in Doc while improving my damage dealing abilities with this much TKA or Pistoleer (or whatever), BUT if I Master Doc I get these really cool abilities, but I won't be able to dish out the damage I really wanted from picking up that other template. What to do? What to do? Fret, fret, fret."
I'd love cool abilities if they were additive, like better consistentcy inbuffs. Butscrewing around with the med use is taking us down the road where the tradeoff is "Do I wantthe ability to usemy D buffs, but only do buffs all day versus do I want mediocre buffs but be able to play the game? Fret for about 2 seconds." Do you think this is the right direction?
As for "design intent",I point to the example ofMask Scentstaying on during combat.After they changed it, they realized the game was better the old way and reverted it back. Sure, they could have hauled out the old excuse of "design intent", but reason prevailedand the game is better for it.
The game was better and more fun for many playersbefore the change to med use and that the correct course of action is to revert the change and come up with new, additive cool abilities for Master Doc.
I don't really think the game is better for having enhance Ds with a Med Use in the 70s, though. I think they should be granular so that you get certain enhances at differing levels of ability that match climbing the Doc tree. The change has actually created a market for Enhance Cs now where there was none before. It give more levels to buff that just did not exist before, and that to me makes things more balanced overall. It may have been a step back for some, but I think for most it was a step forward (or I would never have seen so many votes for the Med Use Granularity issue before.)
It does look like they are looking into cool stuff for Master Docs, though. Some of them are listed in the Master Doc Beenfits issue and the Dev responses we have gotten on that issue so far.
So the Med Use change may have been inadvertent, but I personally think it is closer to where it should be. (Then again, if you look at my chart earlier you'll see where I think they should actally fall, which does men reduction of Med Use on some packs, but a raise for others from where they are now standing.)
Zarlor,
I wuld agree with the med use on secondaries being higher, since you cannot make them until you hit master anyway, that is fine with me. The health and Action should be lower though. At every other layer, as soon as I can make the item, I can use it at the same tier level. Unless I am missing one of them. I can do this without having to expirement the ease of use down.
Basically I personally view ease of use as a way for me to advance in my creation of items when my skill level is not high enough to use them. But the minute I hit a comparable skill tier, I should have that item fully open to me. That is what they ended for us.
I also think it is lame the argument that to be truly good at something you have to be a master at it. While this is true to an extent, it should not be the defining point of a character. The idea of being a dabbler was built into this game from the beginning, why change it now? Because a few Creature Handlers found a way around it?
Zarlor,
I would argue that there is no other template (other than Creature Handler) that gives the kind of bonus at Master that would do what you are talking about.
You know since you are playing a combat medic, that there is nothing at the Combat Medic master to make that anymore lucrative. yes you can make C poisons, but you don't have to be master to use them. My poison Cs seem to be coming out at 75 skill use, I am not sure if maybe the Areas are more I have not looked in a while but if I remember right they are around 75 as well. which by the way I have found a huge market selling C poisons to "dabblers" in the combat medic line.
I would challenge anyone to come up with another profession that has such a high value placed on being a Master. (again other than creature handler). Most of the other professions get an added skill bonus, maybe as in the case of TKA they get an advanced manuever, but there is no "defining" skill that sets the Master apart from the "dabblers".
That has been my argument forever. The doctors that come in here and claim there needs to be something "special" for getting master forget that the game was not meant to be that way. Due to players crying about it, it is morphing into that and it is a shame. One of the things that drew me to SWG was I could create whatever type of character I wanted to play. I was sick of the EQ and DAOC classes that said/ "Your a cleric, you're a healer, there is nothing else in the game you can do other than heal." I liked the fact I could be a good healer, a good pistoleer and have some scouting ability if I wanted to.
AS the SWG team makes these changes though, they are weakening the character that spends as many skill points as another character, but has no clearly defined profession. That person should be able to perform maybe not as well, but pretty darn good if they wanted to.
RhenGordon wrote:
Zarlor,
You know since you are playing a combat medic, that there is nothing at the Combat Medic master to make that anymore lucrative. yes you can make C poisons, but you don't have to be master to use them. My poison Cs seem to be coming out at 75 skill use, I am not sure if maybe the Areas are more I have not looked in a while but if I remember right they are around 75 as well. which by the way I have found a huge market selling C poisons to "dabblers" in the combat medic line.
Area C Poisons/Disease require Master CM to use. Med use on an Area C is in the 90's
Alright enough aruguing i still think that med use should be in the low 80's i have said why, and in my point of veiw my arugments have not been refuted. Ther is enough points of view here for the devs to make an informed choice.
Can we get an awnser from the devs. I think that not knowing is much worse because it leaves people in limbo with regard to skill choices. Lots of people have posted that they have not played since the nerf, that has been a month now. CAN we get an awnser!!!!!!! I am not asking for them to tell us when they will fix it what i am asking is for them to make a decision and tell us!!
Is it too much to ask for them to say "The med use will be ____, we don't know when we will be able to fix it but it will be ____ eventually".
The last thing i want is for the devs to change it and suddenly a whole bunch of us are stuck with lousy buffs or ones that we can't use again!!!!