Doctor Archive

Hello,
There's been some discussion about the fact that Medical Professionals need some in-game support system for ensuring fair payment for healing. This is my proposal.

1)Allow players to negotiate a wound/cred exchange rate. Like 1 cred per wound, or 1 cred per 2 wounds, 2 creds for 3 wounds, whatever. Then, as a medic/Doc/CM heals that players wounds, the credits automatically get debitted from the patients funds (this would not charge 5% bank-transfer fee).

2)If the patient does not have enough funds, allow the patient's bank account to go negative (assume debt). All funds the patient then receives will go toward paying the debt until the debt is payed off. That is, if they receive creds by ANY means (/tips, trades, bazaar/vendor sales, missions), those creds will first be put toward paying off their debt. They will only be able to assume debt for paying for healing. There could be a cap on debt, like 2500 creds or something, at which point the player can no longer take on debt, and can go run some delivery missions until they pay it off (yeah, I know, without the ability to purchase shuttle tickets someone could be in debt for a very long time. Well, maybe allow them to take on debt to buy a shuttle ticket too).

3)If the player runs out of credit before they are fully healed, popup a confirmation when the doc goes to heal them saying "This patient is out of credit. Do you still wish to heal them?". At which point the Doc can choose whether to be merciful or mercenary.

As a Doctor, I find this idea absolutely absurd. When i choose the Doctor profession,I did not do it becauseI was looking to get rich. It is a profession that helps other people. The idea of charging for wounds is nonsense. If you are looking for profit, try another profession.

Need to make money? Run a few delivery missions, or just be nice.I find that the nicer I am, just by the way i talk, and offer my services, the better tips i recieve, If you complain when someone gives a 10 credit tip, you're an idiot.So its not easy to make money, so what? Its a helping people profession. It's not a helping yourself profession. Its not hard to pick up some combat skills and run destroy missions.

Try selling your stimpacks. You'll find they do very well on the market. Especially if they are of high quality. Heres another idea...Try selling your services. How about 5k for a medic to accompany you for 3 hours on a hunting trip? Its not very hard to do, and you'd be surprised by how many people are looking for medics to group with.

Basically, just stop the whining and complaining. I am not some uber rich Doctor with tons of friends supporting me. I just make do with what i have, and enjoy what i do, which is helping people. If that means sitting in the cantina for 3 hours, just healing the Entertainers, so be it. I don't do it for the xp, I do it because it helps them with their skills, especially if there are no other medics there. And amazingly, i find myself actually being tipped by the Dancers and Musicians! Imagine that, a profession who makes less money than us tipping me. When it happens, i return the money and usally tip them well for the generosity.

Jagent Drylan (Doctor of TIO)

Well, most of us Docs are looking to get rich. We just feel that we should be fairly compensated for our work. Yes, I can do destroy missions. I spent like 3 hours tonight doing destroy missions. Yes, I can heal for free. But DUDE, it's a game. And it's just as easy for those other players to go out and do destroy missions and pay for healing as it is for me. As a Doctor, shouldn't I be spending my time HEALING people instead of raising funds to run equipment I need for making medicines?

Also, no-one said you HAVE to charge for healing. I'm just saying, give Docs a good system to make it possible to charge healing. Anyhow, just because YOU feel that you want to heal for free, why does your philosophy have to get forced down every other Doctor's throat? I for one feel that if other players feel it's worthwhile to have me heal them, then they should feel it's worthwhile enough to pay me a reasonable fee. I spent quite a lot of time in the clinic as a young medic and most people never pay you. Why? Because they don't have to, if you don't make them. I've almost completely stopped spending time at the clinic. I would go broke VERY fast there using medpaks that don't get payed for.

Sure, an occasional nice person might tip 200 creds, or 500 creds. But most people don't pay you anything at all so you end up losing money on the service you provide other players of healing them. And losing money means that you have to then STOP healing to go do something else to subsidize the other players healing. I don't feel it's very fair to expect Docs to subsidize other players.

Darn I wish there was an edit/modify option for posts.

The first sentance of the previous post should read "Most Doctors are NOT looking to get rich."

Two comments. This issue IS on the first Top 5 list. I think it was #3, ways for DOcs to make money.

Second, free healers. There really are a lot of players who like playing a medical profession with the concept of being altruistic. It attracts thsoe os us who just like to help out, and often we do it for free. Unfortunately this greatly undercuts those who would like to make a viable business of healing for some amount of compensation.

Astisans suffer this to a far lesser degree, generally because the folks looking to be altruistic in that sense are generally just givning away product for the XP, but it is otherwise expected of artisans to sell product. So generally it will only be low level product that is just given away in this manner. That doesn't hold as true for medics because there will wtill be Master Docs and Master CMs who will heal for free. (Less so for CMs, I would think, since they will most assuredly be doing the majority of their healing out in the field, usually while on Destroy missions and making money that way.)

So think that implementing would probably work, but it may not work as effectively as we might like it to.

Still a pretty good idea, though, that has been bandied about since Beta. We'll just have to see.

I dont charge for helping people and never will charge. If you want to get rich go do missions instead of trying to find ways of getting someone elses money.

Shuey, please don't degrade the topic into a "getting rich" discussion. Many medics are not into "getting rich". They just want to be fairly compensated for the cost of gathering resources and making medicines. SInce most medics are taking a pretty big financial burden doing that, how are they getting rich? These folks are not asking to get rich, they are asking to not go broke and lose money by performing thier chosen profession. That's not the same as wanting to get rich.

Im a doctor. I have to make my money doing missions.


I like this idea.

TREE-MENDOUS idea. I'm all for it, 100%.

PLUS - it would work for entertainers, too, giving them the denial-of-service option they've been clamoring for.

Just a great idea. Too bad the first "top 5" list already went in..

To each his own, if you feel the need to charge for helping people then go for it. I chose to play a Doctor because I like helping people. In SWG if you want to make meds you need to find resources which means either paying alot for them from the bazaar or paying alot for harvestors. To afford this I do destroy missions with my friends so I get cash and EXP.I have made alot of friends who are artisans by not charging them for doing what I enjoy, they give me free resources for compensation.

This topic was degraded when people decided they should charge for helping others. If you want to make money I would suggest the artisan class and branch off from there to businessman. The money is in the game for those who put forth the effort to get it. Complaining that people aren't paying you enough for what you do is not putting forth the right effort IMO.

Maybe I am just lucky, I don't know. I am trying to understand the problem people are having but night after night I end up with more money from tips I get in the hospital than I spend on my 16 harvestors I have going. Last night I had to turn down a guy offering 5,000CR just to buff him because I ran out of enhance paks.

The money is there, just be considerate to others, dont demand payment and you will be surprised how much nicer people respond to it.

Well, let me just say that your experience is something of a unique one, then. The opic comes up so often ,it seems to me, because there are plenty of medics out there, all nice folks (I've met LOTS of them) all happy with the idea of helping others and quite a few of them who want to be focused Medics. That means their primary interest int he game is playing a Doctor in the Star Wars Universe, or the like.

So they perfer to work on their bedside manner (which in many cases is quite good from what I have seen) and heal in the hospitals and med centers. They don't want to HAVE to run destroy and delivery missions or maintain a ton of harvesters and a factory just to be able to do that. And in trying to play their profession in this manner they are finding that the are not getting enough money in tips to be able to afford to make the things that they must make in otder to do what you so altruistically stated above... help people.

Instead they do make friends, and their friends do give them a leg up when needed but not everyone can swallow thier pride so easily and feel happy living the life of a beggar simply because they choose to help other people. THey are NOT getting the kinds of tips you are claiming to make and it may very well be because they just play on a different city, planet or even galaxy fro you and the cultures in all of those places can vary widely. Maybe you got lucky in finding a place that actually happens to tip well. From all fo the folks I've spoken with, this is not the usual situation.

So fine, you have found the niche you like in SWG. And I say that's great! That's awesome! But why would you want to degrade those people that are not having so easy a time of it by, effectively, calling them greedy, money-gurbbing pigs? They haven't been as lucky as you to have to friends you have made or to play in the same great environment you seem to have been blessed with in the place where you are getting all those great tips. You are priviledged. So why rain on their parade?

I just dont understand this topic.

I get tips more often then not from players ranging from 20 credits to 5000 credits.

I find that as they come in if you /say Greetings "XXXXX" have a seat someone will get to you as soon as they can. When you get to them start a conversation wow rough time out there "XXXX" what got you? Every now and then I make comments mmm need to head out soon to get more resources so that I can make medicine to keep healing and you know what I am asked what do you need and I am givin resources.

I only have one chem and one water harverster and I help a friend with the upkeep on his other 4 we sell the extra resources on the bazaar and I have never been hurting for funds. I even had one guy that had no funds that said would catch me later he did and gave me a 5k tip.

Perhaps it just the server I am on Tarq who knows yes there are times when no one tips but life goes on. Then again I am close to Master Doc and getting ready to begin Combat Medic I dont spend much time in the med centers more exp out in the field.

I am not here for the cash I am here for the enjoyment.