Doctor Archive

Migosh's post set me thinking. I have pored through the entire post on issues with our profession which has been well summarized by Zarlor.

This is the way I look at it:

What is it that sets doctors in SWG apart from all other professions and what are the problems with these. These are what I would call real ISSUES.

1. WOUND HEALING: Doctors do it better than anyone else. I think this works fine. I have no problem with this

2. ABILITY TO ENHANCE STATS: This is a unique ability granted to us. There are major problems with the way it works now. These have been well summarised and I think this deserves a place in the top 5 as a class breaking issue

3. ABILITY TO CAST MEGA HEALS: Stimpack E. Needs expert doctor crafting. However, it is needed only where heals of 1k and above are required. For healing players Stimpack D is more than adequate. I believe this was designed so that we could heal pets who have huge HAM bars. This ability is being completely taken away from us and being given to Bioengineer/Creature Handler. This makes Stimpack E as useful as /medicalforage. In my opinion this is a huge nerf for us. Another major class breaker that deserves a place in the top 5.

4. ABILITY TO RESUSCITATE: This is hopefully still with us but I agree completely with Migosh when he says that this is far more important than making a Cure poison C stimpack. In my opinion this should be a master doctor skill. Raising someone from the dead should be something that is achieved only by those that have reached the pinnacle of the profession. I am sure there will be many who will flame me but this is my opinion. You may beg to differ. If this is to stay, at least give an advanced resuscitation skill to the master doctor that will allow resuscitation and a complete wound heal when casted by the master doctor.

Now my issues with the other issues:

There are 3 which are being mentioned repeatedly: Factory problems, making money and making doctors do the work of an artisan (sampling and crafting). While all 3 are major problems, I would call them irritants and not real class breaker. Doctors still make money, I still get good tips every now and then although I do have to run missions sometimes. Factories still make Stimapacks eventhough it is irritating to have to load more than a few hundred items manually. It does waste 10 minutes each time but is not a classbreaker. I have survey 4 skills and had many harvestors going but now I have only 1. You can buy resources from the bazaar now and if you make friends with surveyors you can find good spots to place harvestors. If you are a control freak as I was, you have the option of being a surveyor too.

These are my opinions and I welcome comments.

Please

For No. 3, I would have to disagree. What if we buff people so their stats are at 3k? A stimpack -E should just heal the person. That is why they were put in the game, to heal people who were buffed. I mean a Stimpack -C will get me a heal of what...700. That is not enough to keep someone going if they are at 3k for each stats. I think that you will need at least a Stimpack -D to keep that person going but eventually you will have to switch over to a Stimpack -E.

I don't get what you mean for your first issue. We can heal for a lot. Where's the issue there?

Enhancing stats is really bugged, and it should be fixed if we keep complaining. It's always in Zarlor's list so the devs will listen to us.

Reviving people is a very useful skill, and I think that is why most people go for Doctor. This can really save people out on the field and will allow them to keep fighting even more. I like the idea for the "Advanced Resuscitate" but I doubt we will see it implemented. It can make us too powerful. We will be able to keep people going on forever if we had enough rez kits. I think at the moment they are right. While I like the idea, I don't think it is needed.

Well since you asked me to comment, all I can tell you is what I keep trying to reiterate to folks here... This is not MY list. This is YOUR list.

The only control over the order of where things appear on this list thatI have is based on my personal opinion of how "hot", talked about, rated, etc... a particular topic is on these forums and through community membersI speak with. I cannot (well, should not, at least ethically speaking for the job I volunteered for, which amounts to a cannot as far as I'm concerned) rate topics based on how much more important I personally feelthey might be. If you want my personal opinions, read posts not related to the Issues and Top 5 Lists by me.

Otherwise, I'm just a playr like all of you guys who offered to be a glorified data collector and coallator. That gives me all of one thing the average player doesn't have, an email address to send a Top 5 list once a week of what the Docs seem to be talking about the most on the forums and in the community. That's it. It's not liek I have a Dev hotline, or anything. The only thing I've gotten back so far was an acknowledgement of receipt of last weeks Top 5 list.

So if those topics are hot topics to you post about them! (And yeah, your post above counts as part of that.) Get other people to resond to your posts about those issues that are important to you. Get folks to rank your posts higly using the forum rating system. All of these things are part of the tools I use to gauge how hot a topic seems to be in the community right now. That's just the bestI can do, sorry.

All I'll say is if the factory problems are a minor irritant to you, will you comebaby-sit my factory for me so it can create the stimpacks I'm trying to make? I'm tired of starting it and heading off to do something only to get an email 20 minutes later saying the factory completed it's job, even though it has more then enough components to run for hours.

actually the factory issue is huge...

first of all u are totally limited on how many packs u can make a run...

not only that since everytime u do a run the factory basically eats one unit of items, everytime u have to load a factory u are losing 1 unit of items...

spread that over a few hundred runs like i have and you will see that its a problem...especially when using advanced components...

Yeah, for my personal take on the Factory issue, I think it's a huge issue as well. After all one of he big ways to make money as a Doc is to sell highly experimented Stims to those folks who pick up novice medic for healing in combat. Factory slow-downs is a HUGE hamper to that. So in a way the money and factory things have a certain inter-connect. (Although Money wouldn't be one of my personal Top 5 issues.)

heh .. something tells me i need to get a factory. I'm almost through master doc (like 6 or 7 boxes left i think) and I don't have a factory yet.

What kind of factory do I need? hehe I keep hearing about them ...heh...

Your joke about the factory crate bug not mattering isn't funny...you WERE joking, right?

I do agree that continually putting 'making money and crafting less' on our top list of issues will just make the devs think that real, fixable bugs like the HAM buff bar bug aren't really a big deal to us. This backfired on us in beta to some degree as well (though we did get med charges and volume fixed). Buffing is one of our 3 unique class-defining abilities (Rez, Buffs, State fixes) and it is a huge issue. Maybe in a few months it will be time to talk about all the crafting and money issues, but I guarantee when you get a working factory and finish Master you'renot going to care as much about those anymore.

I agree with Braindocs #4. The abillity to bring people back from the dead should be something only a master doctor can do. As it is now, a Master Medic can spend an additional 20 skill points to be able to bring people back. At the same time they'll be much more effective at wound healing.

It does not require any skill points in Doctor Medicine Knowledge to operate a Resurscitation pack afaik.

So I too think the skill should be moved up a notch on the skill tree.

Regarding the factory bug. It's not a big problem for us doctors that doesn't own a factory

Factories are a NECESSARY part of the Doctor profession. All medical products above the C level require a factory. Maybe you don't haveone -- butSOMEBODY has to have one, or you can't make your stims and buffs and rez packs. And the odds are that this somebody doesn't do much in the gamebesides craft, and use that factory, so that you don't have to.

The factory issue is more than just an "annoyance". To dismiss it as such is, frankly, an insult to those of us who have pursued the "pharmacist" style of Doctor play.

Sorry to be blunt -- but it gets me p.o.'d when I see a series of bugs to a critical game system, which have made me almost put my fist through my CRT in frustration at times, dismissed as "annoyances".

I did not wish to trivialize the factory bug. Sorry if it came out that way. In my opinion it's much more important to fix bugs first and then make gameplay changes afterwards.

I just wanted to show some support for the 'Make rez a Master Doctor ability' wish. My factory comment was meant to be casual remark. Not a protest.

While I see the problems with a lot of what you are saying, I have to expressly disagree with making Revive a Master Doctor skill. In fact there is little evidence for it to be that way.

Anyone that has been trained in a defibulator (spelling? who cares!) can potentially bring a patient back from cardiac arrest, EMTs do it all the time. Now I am not making a move to say then give all master medics that skill since that would not be good, but I do not think you need to master the complete doctor tree to get this skill.

The only thing making Revive a master doctor skill would do, is give all master doctor's a false sense of importance in the grand scheme of a group. IN truth the more people that get this skill, the better it is for the game in general in my opinion. Doctors are already characterized as being able to enhance attributes something combat medics cannot do, and it is no small feat to get the skills needed to perform revive.

I started off thinking I was going to be a combat medic, but unless you are a PvP player, which I really am not, there is little benefit to doing it. I might persue the doctor tree more, though ranged healing seems very interesting.

My vote would be to leave revive where it is, it is not going to take the defining characteristic of your class away from you. Doctors are going to still be very important.

I totaly agree that Resucitate should be moved to master doctor. This is the supreme skill in the entire tree and there is so little to gain by gaining the title anyway.