Doctor Archive

It has been noted that some it may be helpful to have a listing of items that have been fixed since our September Issues List. Below is a listing of fixed, partially fixed and in test issues. If you voted for a completely fixed issues on the voting thread, please consider either amending your vote (just put a new one up, if I see a duplicate name on the the newest vote will be the one that counts) or if for some reason the item is still an issue for you or you feel it has not been fixed, or at least fixed properly, please be sure to let me know so we can see about updating the issue to being only a partil fix, instead of a complete fix. Botht he Mind Damage and First Aid Improvements issues have some annotation by me indicating some of the concerns already brought up about those issues and why they may not actually be "fixed" yet in the eyes of Doctors.

The numbers relate to the current Big List for consistency.

Summaries of the issues are as follows:
2.Mind Damage=
4.TEF Issues%
5.Enhance Packs %
8.First Aid Improvements =
10.Combat Queue Heals %=
11.Medicine Organization and Inventory Management %
12.Factory/Harvester Problems %
15.AoE Cure State Pack %
16.Crafting Schematics %
23.Damage/Stim/State Timer and Bug%=
27.Crafting XP %
31.Skill Enhancement Concerns=
37.Combat Medic Component Experimentation=
38.Schematic Trading=
41.Quickheal Uselessness =
45.Title Sticking=

Notes:
= - 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.)

Please note that items listed below 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.

2.Mind Damage

(In Test)

This appears to be a major concern amongst both Medics and Doctors (and Combat Medics, for that matter). It seems to be a fairly major issue discussed in multiple threads on multiple boards out there in the community and perhaps part of the problem is simple frustration in being the person everyone is counting on to keep them going when you can only watch helplessly as someone's mind is being damaged and there is nothing you can do.

Suggestions have ranged from leave it as is, since it is a balancing factor to keep combats from being too long to either letting Doctors or Advanced Medics or Combat Medics,(or all of the above) heal mind at a 1:1 rate or possibly better Although most admit that healing at a better ratio would be fairly exploitable since a medic could then stim their mind faster than they would lose it, even though once you hit Master, who really cares about exploiting Healing XP anyway, possible modifiers to that would be stims that are mind specific, are at higher levels (say Mind A becomes available when you would normally get Stim C) and can be used on others only, not for self-healing. However it could also be argued that even if the medic simply were not allowed to stim their own mind, two medics could help each other to heal indefinitely, but it has also been pointed out that this is, in effect, what a Doc or Medic already provides for combat (and entertainer) professions in allowing them to ignore their special costs by healing them so they can use their abilities endlessly. Giving mind stimming ability to Entertainers or Chefs or as a form of /rally command for Squad Leaders has also been suggested. Mind stimming only mind incapped players has also been suggested (a Doc could still never stim himself that way for any exploit purposes). Even the ability to create Enhance packs, of the usual Doctor skill ability, has been suggested as at least a better method of staving off the damage potential in a manner befitting what Docs are capable of compared to food and spice and entertainer buffs, even if that buff is not given to Doctors to make. One of the more popular suggestions is to simply reduce the amount of damage given with mind hits, or to reduce their frequency. Removing the ability to incap from Mind (you’d still be limited in not being able to heal more, etc.) and letting the “head shot” moves, such as those of the Rifleman, actually take large chunks of both Health and Action instead, have also been suggested, or not allowing Mind Damage incap to incur a Death Blow or not allowing Mind to incap at all. In all cases it is acknowledged that any form of Mind Healing would also require rebalancing the mind-damage-dealing professions.

While there may not be a consensus on the issue there does seem to be a HUGE amount of interest and concern on the topic and I am sure the community would at least like to get some feedback and or considerations from the Dev team on what they see as the balancing factors between mind damage, healing mind damage and perceived problems with nerfing the mind-damage-dealing profession.

I would suggest referencing the following threads to get the majority of the viewpoints involved, but should a tighter synopsis of these threads and their suggestions be needed, please don't hesitate to ask me for one. (I know, one of these is from the Medic forum, but there are a lot of Docs piping in on the issue, and one is from an outside forum that sees a good deal of traffic and interest from the Doctor community.)

[*Z’s note: I don’t have patch notes for this, but Mind Damage Healing has been granted to CMs, preliminarily, on Test Center as a Level 4 skill in their Ranged Healing Speed line. This issue will be updated later to reflect that many Docs seem interested in seeing the skill being granted at around Master Medic level so Docs, CMs and Master Medics could benefit from the skill. The skill apparently works like the /tend commands, healing around 300 Mind Damage, but causing around 40-45 wounds to each of the healer’s mind stats and it is not usable on yourself, only others.]

4.TEF Issues

(Partial Fix)

(*Partial Fix*) Notification of when a TEF might be incurred to allow the Doctor to NOT heal a character that would give them a TEF in a potentially deadly situation and some representation for covert characters to know when they are under the effects of a TEF. Not to mention the additional problems of getting TEFs from inadvertently healing covert opposing faction members, which allow your own faction mates to attack you. Requests have been made suggesting that Med Centers be no-fighting zones. Perhaps medics/docs registered at a Med Center would not incur a TEF, but when healing away from there (or perhaps if not registered) they could incur a TEF as a possible solution beyond notification that may help the problem.
(*Publish Notes on 10/8/03: “No longer allow neutral players to help neutral non-players with enemy flags of any sort”)

5.Enhance Packs

(Partial and To be Fixed)

(*To Be Fixed*) Experimentation on Ease of Use on Enhance Packs makes them HARDER to use, not easier. Very frustrating for the lower level Medicine Use individuals who gains access to higher level Doctor Crafting in that they cannot use these packs in the same way they had gotten used to being able to use Stim Cs at a lower Pharmacology level.
(*Ben “Marvelin” Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Fixed experimentation on enhancement medicines so that skillModRequired is reduced, not increased.” As noted at the top the earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.)

(*Fixed*) Enhance pack radial menus also are bugged. As posted by Kamat (and tested on the Lowca Galaxy) “Selecting a target then going into inventory, selecting the item, and then selecting the enhance target always causes me to enhance myself. I cannot use this to enhance any target.”
(*Ben “Marvelin” Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Fixed the enhancement medicine radial menu so that target self actually targets self.” and relatedly, “/healState and /healEnhance no longer require an argument. It will automatically select a medicine if nothing is specified. This enables these commands to be used in the toolbar.”)

(*Fixed*) Enhance Packs have been related to a perma-incap bug, as well, since these buffs, in effect, allow you to take more wounds when buffed than the character actually has. Once the buff wears off the character is left with a negative wound level. (Logging may correct this problem to give the character at least 1 positive wound.)
(*Patch Notes on 10/8/03: “Fixed an issue where players could become permanently incapacitated in some cases where they had been buffed and were then cloned with many wounds.”)

8.First Aid Improvements

(To be Fixed, possibly already In Test)

(*To be Fixed*) Allow First Aid to be a skill that improves. For example if a patient is hit hard enough to bleed it may currently take a Medic with FA2 6-10 times to cure that bleeding, and a Master Doctor will take the same amount of heals to cure that bleeding. Perhaps once someone is into the Doc levels of wound treatment their skill would reduce the number of times needed to stop the bleeding to, say, 2-4 times or even less. As it stand CM Poisons (another form of bleed, really) can sometimes be cured in one application, but bleeds simply cannot and are far too overpowered in comparison to that. Providing better First Aid would greatly assist in alleviating that problem. Other suggestions are that this improvement top out with Master Medic, or that the improvement, being trauma related, be given to Combat Medics. A suggestion for a craftable bleed state pack, a Band Aid if you will, could even be created for this purpose to ensure a resource drain for the skill improvement.

(*Dev Response:
Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.)
[*Z’s note: it has been pointed out that some folks consider that this solution may not be enough, and that Doctors should be able to stop bleeding even faster than this. I think we should probably see just how well this works first, before making that decision, but it is a viable concern nonetheless.]

10.Combat Queue Heals

(Partial and To be Fixed)

(*To Be Fixed, Partial Fix*) There should be a graphic display of heals in combat queue. The fact that heals actually queue up in the combat queue already confuses a large number of Medics. Most Doctors have come to understand how heals do queue up, but it would be very nice to actually see at what position they are queued at. It has also been suggested that heals should always be considered a priority queue item that jumps immediately to the front of the queue to be the next action accomplished.
(*Publish Notes on 10/8/03: “Made /dragIncapacitatedPlayer visible in action list”)

11.Medicine Organization and Inventory Management

(Partial Fix)

(*Fixed*) A possible alleviator to this problem would also include the ability of the /healstate command to act like /healdamage does now, and simply use any Statepack required to cure the first state encountered on a selected target.
(*Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “/healState and /healEnhance no longer require an argument. It will automatically select a medicine if nothing is specified. This enables these commands to be used in the toolbar.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.)

12.Factory/Harvester Problems

(Partial Fix, To be Fixed and In Test)

(*Fixed*) Factories currently have a slider that only allows production of 100 items, although 1000 items are capable of being made by adding a 0 to the end of the 100. We would like to see the slider increment all the way to 1000.
(*From Publish Notes on 10/8/03: “Fixed crafting manufacture schematic UI limit to go up to 1000”)

(*Fixed*) The ability to split crates would be very helpful.
(*Stealth fixed)

(*Fixed*) There are times where if the factory does take some resources and/or items from a crate to begin making an item, but then fails to make that item, it will eat the resources/components and 1 item off of the schematic without producing anything. We would like to see a factory double check that it’s requirements for all items are fulfilled before it actually processes those items and the count down on the schematic.
(*From Publish Notes on 10/8/03: “Fix for missing components after crafting”, ” Send message to player if he loses a component during crafting due to his inventory being full.” and “Fixed issue that would cause manufactured components to be lost during crafting if you exit the assembly stage with more than one component in a slot.”)

(*Fixed*) There are times where a crate will not dump an item into inventory. The whole crate just seems to be stuck and will not give up anything.
(*Reports are less frequent of this happening, at least, but it still does occur. In some cases this appears to just be a server lag issue were a crate will take several minutes, or even tens of minutes, before it finally dumps the items removed into inventory. Recent postings by Holo suggest there are “new crates” and “old crates” and at the new crates are much faster.)

(*Fixed*) Consistency is also requested (and this applies to harvesters as well) between the maintenance interfaces and displays and the power interfaces and displays. Perhaps changing power to show in a days and hours format like maintenance does.
(*Stealth Fixed.)

(*Possibly Fixed?*) Schematic lists on factories seem to truncate by only showing the first 50 schematics that are in the Doc’s Datapad. Request that the listing be expanded to show all schematics that were created.
(*From Patch Notes on 10/8/03: “Guild member lists allow more than 50 entries.” This may also fix this 50-item limit. Could someone please check on this for me?)

15.AoE Cure State Pack and Poison/Disease Cure

(Partial Fix)

(*Fixed*) It has also been noted that the current CM poison strength, while now acknowledged as viable, does not have an acceptable counter in even a standard Doctor Cure Poison, in that it often takes a Master Doc with a similar Cure Pack to a CM’s Poison pack anywhere from 2-4 applications of the cure in order for it to take effect. Combined with the AoE issues above it would be utterly impossible for a Doc to even come close to countering a CM AoE poison. It has been suggested that at the very least the Disease and Poison Cure packs be boosted up a bit in capability.
(*Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the power of cure poison and cure disease dots to make them more competitive with the strength of high level dots.” and “Changed the effect of wound treatment skill mods on curing poison and disease. It now acts as a % increase to the base medicine value. This puts it in line with how these mods work with other healing actions.”)

16.Crafting Schematics

(Partial Fix, To be Fixed and In Test)

(*Partial To be Fixed*) There are also several schematics that use resources that do not have stats required by their schematic. In particular, the Infection Amplifier and Advanced Infection amplifier use Reactive Gas and Aluminum, neither of which has a PE rating, 33% of the Power for that component. Dispersal Mechanism and Advanced Dispersal Mechanism Use Liquid Petro Fuel and Inert Petrochemical, neither of which has a Conductivity rating which affects the Range and Area of Affect on the component. On the final schematics for all Enhance packs other than Action the schematics require Avian Meat and Reactive Gas, neither of which have UT rating which affects the charges available. The same is true for the top-level Cure Disease and Poison packs.
(*Response by Ben “Marvelin” Hanson to Kavedawg, the CM correspondent, suggests that in the November or December publish all CM-related schematics will be switched to rely only on Overall Quality and Decay Resistance to help simplify those schematics and the resource requirements.)

(*Fixed*) Despite the increased complexity and resource requirements of something like an Advanced Biological Effect Controller over a standard BEC the standard BEC will still provide more XP.
(*Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the experience given for crafting advanced biological effect controllers so that it falls in line with other medicine craftables.”)

(*In Test*) The schematic for Advanced Resilience Compound will not load into the crafting tool at all.
(Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Fixed some problems with advanced resilience compounds. They should now be craftable.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.)

23.Damage/Stim/State Timer and Bug

(Fixed and To be Fixed)

(*Fixed*) A timer on these like we have for wound packs to let us know when we are ready to heal Damage or a State again would be very helpful. As it stands now we simply have to continually hit the appropriate method of healing or attempt to keep an internal track of times between heals.
(*Stealth fixed.)

(*To Be Fixed, possibly In Test*) Relatedly the State packs (and when a Doctor stims themselves) seem to ignore Diagnostics level in that they notify the Doctor that he must wait, say 3 seconds before healing again, but after three second it continues to give a command stating you must wait before you can do that to what would appear to be the full delay of someone who had no Diagnostics skill at all, or about 6-9 seconds, in effect doubling the delay rate. Please fix.
(*Ben “Marvelin” Hanson responded on the Correspondent forum on 9/24/03 with an indication that this will be fixed in the November Publish.)

27.Correspondence Response

(Partial To be Fixed)

(*Partial To Be Fixed*) Many Doctors feel slighted by the lack of direct response to our correspondent issues. We are most interested in providing what input we may into improving the Doctor profession, and the game in general, by whatever means we can and since the correspondence program is the most official method provided, it is felt that a more timely, and thorough response to the issues the correspondent forwards is needed. Such responses should be public and posted directly to the forums and address the issues as presented. Without proper input on Developer considerations on the issues we cannot provide better feedback in the continuing development processes.

[*Z’s note: A private correspondent forum was created on 9/18/03 to facilitate communication between the Developers and the Correspondents and this step may at least partially address this issue. You may note that some of the responses from there have already been added to some of the issues throughout this list. On 9/30/03 we actually received a full response on the Top 5 Issues, further indicating that this issue is being worked on. On 10/14/03 the Assistant Community Relations Manager, Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl, who is supposed to help facilitate the communications issues started work.])

27.Crafting XP

(Partial Fix)

(*Fixed*) BEC will give 36XP in Practice mode while an Advanced BEC (using a total of 13 more components) is giving less than that
(Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the experience given for crafting advanced biological effect controllers so that it falls in line with other medicine craftables”)

31.Skill Enhancement Concerns

(Fixed)

(*Fixed*) There have been concerns raised that Skill Enhancing Attachments (SEAs) and BE enhancements (once fixed) will give a serious advantage to a non-dedicated Medical professional. For example, someone could get to Novice Doctor, take 2 levels of Wound Treatment and, with the proper Med Usage tapes be instantly capable of using D-level Enhance Packs. The concern suggests that certifications exist in other professions to prevent this same thing from occurring, as well as having special commands, so having the skill without the command is, in effect, useless. Solutions have included some kind of certification system for differing levels of meds or utilizing a few extra commands to granulate the levels of which meds can be used at what levels so they are not strictly dependent on a skill level. (Med Usage and Combat Med Usage tapes will no longer be craftable by BEs and any Med Use skill enhancements that existed before will not work
(*Publish Notes for 10/8/03: “Bio-engineer - Tissue Engineering: Removed Medicine Use from new crafted tissues. (Existing tissues and clothing crafted with those tissues will still report the Medicine Use modifier but they will not be counted for determining the level of medicine to be used.)”

(*Fixed*) At the same time it should be noted that SEAs do not currently seem to be working correctly. There are issues with having to socket them only when the clothing is not worn, that tapes cannot be removed from clothing once socketed, that clothing must be removed before logging out, or the tapes will actually prove to be penalties instead of bonuses, and there is also concern that beyond +100 the are utterly ineffective, thus providing that Novice Doctor, in the example above, the means to be as good as a Master Doctor with a +100 Wound Treatment, but that the Master Doctor cannot get better since +100 seems to be a practical limit. (Although this may just be an anomaly of SEAs not working properly to begin with, I am getting conflicting reports about SEA tapes working or not working above and below +100.)
(*Publish notes for 10/8/03: “Make adding a Skill Enhancer to an equipped socketed item update your skill bonuses correctly.” and “Bio-engineer - Tissue Engineering: Fixed all tissues skill modifiers to work correctly. (Existing tissue and clothing made with those tissues that report a modification also work, with the exception of the removed skill modifiers.)”)

37.Combat Medic Component Experimentation

(In Test)

(*In Test*) The experimentation points and availability of components that are only usable by Combat Medics has caused some confusion. Having them in the Doc tree provides Doctors with an unfair advantage to experimenting on an item they do not use, while Combat Medics who have not taken any Doctor skills can only make those components at a reduced ability. It has been suggested that while increasing Medical Crafting through Organic Chemistry in the Medic field, that, even though it will be unused at first, Combat Medic Crafting also be raised. Or that crafting apply to combat medic crafting as equally as it is to Medic/Doc crafting. This may make a Doc/CM have an incredibly massive number of experimentation points (presumably 15), but then again they end up using so many skill points to get it I can see how that could easily outweighed the advantage that would bring.
[*Z’s note: I don’t have any patch notes for this, and I am not positive if this is even on Test or not, but at the very least Kavedawg, the CM Correspondent, has been told that CM components will be moved out of the Medic lines and into the CM lines instead.]

38.Schematic Trading

(Fixed)

(*Fixed*) Allow or fix trading of schematics. There could be a possible market for this outside of the Bazaar or on Vendors. Currently the only method of transferring schematics is through a vendor or a factory where both individuals have administrative rights. Both methods are really only a workaround for the much simpler method of being able to trade schematics directly in secure-trade. Some folks have suggested that they could trade schematics, but that the schematic was not visible in the trade window. (I have noticed this when trading a few other things from the Datapad, like pets, as well.) Rectifying the invisibility problem may be enough to rectify the entire situation.

(*Apparently Stealth Fixed.)

41.Quickheal Uselessness

(To be Fixed, possibly In Test)

(*To be Fixed*) Some people have mentioned they would like to see the Quickheal skill actually be useful. The mind costs and damage accrued are too prohibitive for actual use, and would never be used as a “last ditch” method in combat, simply because by the time a last ditch effort is needed the Doc will already have too low a mind level to use the skill. Suggestions tend to be along the lines of greatly reducing the mind and damage requirements of the skill, but greatly increasing the BF and mind wounds accrued through its use to balance that out.
(*Ben Hanson response to correspondent on 9/22/03: “Increased the power of quickHeal and reduced its mind cost.” The earliest we can probably expect to see such a fix would be in the November Publish.
[*Z’s note: this may already be available on Test Center, but I haven’t been able to confirm it yet.])

45.Title Sticking

(Fixed)

(*Fixed) The (none) title does not save on logout.
(*Stealth fixed, well it worked for me the last time I checked, anyways. Confirmation would be helpful)