Doctor Archive
Thread: CU: An explanation of Doctor Changes
Page 1 of 3
VemaGara
Mon Apr 04, 2005 7:51 am
#1
I will do my best to explain why certain changes were made to Doctor. Most of these changes make sense, and the problems have been issues with the Doctor community for a very long time.
1. No more buffs?
Buffs were broken. There is no doubt about that. First, they made characters too strong. Second, the perceived need for buffs caused players to waith 15min-hour for buffs in order to start playing the game. Finally, buffs trivialized the lower tiers of the game.
2. No more crafting?
Crafting has been move out of Doctor. Before the CU, Doctor was a hybrid profession. It had crafting, combat, and logistical support characteristics. Unfortunately, the class had no bonuses to go with most of these professions. They get no harvesting. They got no defense bonuses. Their only logistical service was buffing, which is discussed above.
With the CU, Doctor has become a combat profession and a support profession. Crafting, which is still supported in the medic line, follows the bio-engineer line. Bio-engineer becomes the clear medical crafting profession. This opens bio-crafting the possiblity of using dna-sampling and other bio-engineer abilities. In exchane, Docs get defense bonuses for combat, armor certs, and health-point increases, which only combat professions get.
3. Wound healing moved to Doc?
Wound healing has been moved to Doctor. Before the CU, doctors had four main activities: combat healing, wound healing, crafting, and buffing. With one box of medic, any character could use stim-b's to heal as well as a doctor and could wound-heal himself at his leasure. The two PRIMARY activities of a doctor were trivialized to novice medic. With buffs, no one needed these things anyway. That left doctors to craft and buff. With buffing being majorly altered and crafting moved out of doc, that made for a big problem: the novice medic profession gave the best skill-point to usefulness ration in the game! No other basic profession gives such an overwhelmingly good payback (except mining).
With the CU, wound healing has been moved to Doctor. Medics can still heal themselves and others in combat, but lose wound healing. Medics now heal far less than doctors. These moves were made to increse the value of the elite profession over the basic profession.
4. Why did we get "Magic" healing?
Doctors had too many meds. Our inventories were half-full. We kept asking for some sort of device or substance that would produce healing. Every new doctor ability required more schematics. This was a cumbersome mess for everyone.
With the CU, docs are a combat profession, have crafting removed, and healing is part of the combat queue and have warm-up and cool-down timers. The devs had a choice: doctors could get a healing items that they could equip like a weapon (along with the annoyance of switching weapons), or no item and never worry about having to switch weapons. They elected for the latter. In this new system, any medical ability can be used without de-equipping a weapon. This "magic healing" is a combat playstyle decision. They wanted healing to work well with combat, rather than be something struggled against in combat.
Doctors could have had an equipable item, but then healing becomes "magic wand" healing rather than "magic" healing. You've only moved the magic effect to a device. Given all the redesigning necessary in the CU, they chose to skip the new device and concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Later on, they can introduce a doctor's bag or medical device that gives a bonus to healing or allows healing outside of a camp. (This is to say, adding an item is easy, but subtracting one is not. And rumor has it, there's a Doctor's Bag in the TRE file on TC5.)
5. Changed medical requirement.
Before the CU, doctors required Master Medic to become a doctor. After the CU, they only need two columns. This is because all combat elite professions require two columns of a basic profession. Doctor, now a combat profession, has the requirements of a combat profession.
6. How do we make money?
In the early days of doctor, this was a big question. This was before buffing got to be a big thing.
It has been my experience that any buff is a good buff. With a few buff-A's, I could out-fencer a fambaa. That +200 health was all I needed. With the new buffs being percentage based, higher professions will get more benefit. A +30% for a double-combat master is +300 health points. A +30% for a new player is only +100. This makes buffs self-scaling. They get more useful as you progress in level. Buffd will no longer be necessary, but they will be valued. They can still be sold. They simply won't be as valuable as before.
With wound healing being relocated to the doctor tree, Doctors are well advised to start charging for wound healing. (Novice Doctor will become attrative to many self-sufficient templates for this reason.) This helps novice and master doc alike, as we all get wound-healing as a sellable service.
Doctors are also combat professionals. We can make our money like any rifleman or pikeman. We can join groups. We can pick up more combat abilities. We can become bio-engineers. We can become weaponsmiths. We can fly spaceships. We can charge for services. We can loot farm. We can buy treasure maps off the bazaar and hope to find a skill tape. The game assumes that we will mix professions.
7. XP and Combat Changes
Over the years, players have invented quite a few ways to get medical XP through grinds and loopholes. By limiting healing XP to combat, they limited the possible ways to grind empty XP. They changed the XP requirements so that all combat XP would be on the same scale, and all combat XP would follow the same XP rules/con system. XP for combat is now capped according to your level and the con system. To prevent characters engaging in overly powerful creatures and getting more XP by changing weapons, the cap on XP applies to all combat generated XP, no matter its source. This limits other loopholes in power grindng. Healing must be in a group, as healing can now cause aggro. To heal from outside a group, and escape the AI, would be inviting exploit.
In general, these changes are here to limit grinding and getting cheap XP.
1. No more buffs?
Buffs were broken. There is no doubt about that. First, they made characters too strong. Second, the perceived need for buffs caused players to waith 15min-hour for buffs in order to start playing the game. Finally, buffs trivialized the lower tiers of the game.
2. No more crafting?
Crafting has been move out of Doctor. Before the CU, Doctor was a hybrid profession. It had crafting, combat, and logistical support characteristics. Unfortunately, the class had no bonuses to go with most of these professions. They get no harvesting. They got no defense bonuses. Their only logistical service was buffing, which is discussed above.
With the CU, Doctor has become a combat profession and a support profession. Crafting, which is still supported in the medic line, follows the bio-engineer line. Bio-engineer becomes the clear medical crafting profession. This opens bio-crafting the possiblity of using dna-sampling and other bio-engineer abilities. In exchane, Docs get defense bonuses for combat, armor certs, and health-point increases, which only combat professions get.
3. Wound healing moved to Doc?
Wound healing has been moved to Doctor. Before the CU, doctors had four main activities: combat healing, wound healing, crafting, and buffing. With one box of medic, any character could use stim-b's to heal as well as a doctor and could wound-heal himself at his leasure. The two PRIMARY activities of a doctor were trivialized to novice medic. With buffs, no one needed these things anyway. That left doctors to craft and buff. With buffing being majorly altered and crafting moved out of doc, that made for a big problem: the novice medic profession gave the best skill-point to usefulness ration in the game! No other basic profession gives such an overwhelmingly good payback (except mining).
With the CU, wound healing has been moved to Doctor. Medics can still heal themselves and others in combat, but lose wound healing. Medics now heal far less than doctors. These moves were made to increse the value of the elite profession over the basic profession.
4. Why did we get "Magic" healing?
Doctors had too many meds. Our inventories were half-full. We kept asking for some sort of device or substance that would produce healing. Every new doctor ability required more schematics. This was a cumbersome mess for everyone.
With the CU, docs are a combat profession, have crafting removed, and healing is part of the combat queue and have warm-up and cool-down timers. The devs had a choice: doctors could get a healing items that they could equip like a weapon (along with the annoyance of switching weapons), or no item and never worry about having to switch weapons. They elected for the latter. In this new system, any medical ability can be used without de-equipping a weapon. This "magic healing" is a combat playstyle decision. They wanted healing to work well with combat, rather than be something struggled against in combat.
Doctors could have had an equipable item, but then healing becomes "magic wand" healing rather than "magic" healing. You've only moved the magic effect to a device. Given all the redesigning necessary in the CU, they chose to skip the new device and concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Later on, they can introduce a doctor's bag or medical device that gives a bonus to healing or allows healing outside of a camp. (This is to say, adding an item is easy, but subtracting one is not. And rumor has it, there's a Doctor's Bag in the TRE file on TC5.)
5. Changed medical requirement.
Before the CU, doctors required Master Medic to become a doctor. After the CU, they only need two columns. This is because all combat elite professions require two columns of a basic profession. Doctor, now a combat profession, has the requirements of a combat profession.
6. How do we make money?
In the early days of doctor, this was a big question. This was before buffing got to be a big thing.
It has been my experience that any buff is a good buff. With a few buff-A's, I could out-fencer a fambaa. That +200 health was all I needed. With the new buffs being percentage based, higher professions will get more benefit. A +30% for a double-combat master is +300 health points. A +30% for a new player is only +100. This makes buffs self-scaling. They get more useful as you progress in level. Buffd will no longer be necessary, but they will be valued. They can still be sold. They simply won't be as valuable as before.
With wound healing being relocated to the doctor tree, Doctors are well advised to start charging for wound healing. (Novice Doctor will become attrative to many self-sufficient templates for this reason.) This helps novice and master doc alike, as we all get wound-healing as a sellable service.
Doctors are also combat professionals. We can make our money like any rifleman or pikeman. We can join groups. We can pick up more combat abilities. We can become bio-engineers. We can become weaponsmiths. We can fly spaceships. We can charge for services. We can loot farm. We can buy treasure maps off the bazaar and hope to find a skill tape. The game assumes that we will mix professions.
7. XP and Combat Changes
Over the years, players have invented quite a few ways to get medical XP through grinds and loopholes. By limiting healing XP to combat, they limited the possible ways to grind empty XP. They changed the XP requirements so that all combat XP would be on the same scale, and all combat XP would follow the same XP rules/con system. XP for combat is now capped according to your level and the con system. To prevent characters engaging in overly powerful creatures and getting more XP by changing weapons, the cap on XP applies to all combat generated XP, no matter its source. This limits other loopholes in power grindng. Healing must be in a group, as healing can now cause aggro. To heal from outside a group, and escape the AI, would be inviting exploit.
In general, these changes are here to limit grinding and getting cheap XP.
Message Edited by VemaGara on 04-05-2005 04:53 PM
Chek
Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:08 am
#2
VemaGara wrote:
I will do my best to explain why certain changes were made to Doctor. Most of these changes make sense, and the problems have been issues with the Doctor community for a very long time.
6. How do we make money?
In the early days of doctor, this was a big question. This was before buffing got to be a big thing.
It has been my experience that any buff is a good buff. With a few buff-A's, I could out-fencer a fambaa. That +200 health was all I needed. With the new buffs being percentage based, higher professions will get more benefit. A +30% for a double-combat master is +300 health points. A +30% for a new player is only +100. This makes buffs self-scaling. They get more useful as you progress in level. Buffd will no longer be necessary, but they will be valued. They can still be sold. They simply won't be as valuable as before.
With wound healing being relocated to the doctor tree, Doctors are well advised to start charging for wound healing. (Novice Doctor will become attrative to many self-sufficient templates for this reason.) This helps novice and master doc alike, as we all get wound-healing as a sellable service.
Doctors are also combat professionals. We can make our money like any rifleman or pikeman. We can join groups. We can pick up more combat abilities. We can become bio-engineers. We can become weaponsmiths. We can fly spaceships. We can charge for services. We can loot farm. We can buy treasure maps off the bazaar and hope to find a skill tape. The game assumes that we will mix professions.
Players will have a great deal of difficulty 'unlearning' old habits. On my server, virtually no one, tips docs for heal. I also think the wound healing by docs is overrated. All you need to do is sit in a med center or a tent while planning your next adventure and let the med center or tent do the healing for you. It's free. I can hear the comments from other players when requesting a tip for a heal....
With the present skill tree, docs who keep their master medic skills will get a +20 to augmentations. I am not planning on giving up master medic until I've tested whether this bonus will have an appreciable impact on buffs.
I do agree that buffs will still play an important part in the combatants' game. With 3000 health, a 30% buff (+900) would be unlike anything we've even seen in the game. And I like the fact that the best abilities were moved into master doctor and other bonuses spread across all the trees, so that players won't just get the trees so they can buff or rez.
TarMangani
Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:16 am
#3
This sounds like in order to make money we'll need to do it based on another profession, not as a doctor. Is this true?
VemaGara wrote:
6. How do we make money?
It has been my experience that any buff is a good buff. With a few buff-A's, I could out-fencer a fambaa. That +200 health was all I needed. With the new buffs being percentage based, higher professions will get more benefit. A +30% for a double-combat master is +300 health points. A +30% for a new player is only +100. This makes buffs self-scaling. They get more useful as you progress in level. Buffd will no longer be necessary, but they will be valued. They can still be sold. They simply won't be as valuable as before.
With wound healing being relocated to the doctor tree, Doctors are well advised to start charging for wound healing. (Novice Doctor will become attrative to many self-sufficient templates for this reason.) This helps novice and master doc alike, as we all get wound-healing as a sellable service.
Doctors are also combat professionals. We can make our money like any rifleman or pikeman. We can join groups. We can pick up more combat abilities. We can become bio-engineers. We can become weaponsmiths. We can fly spaceships. We can charge for services. We can loot farm. We can buy treasure maps off the bazaar and hope to find a skill tape. The game assumes that we will mix professions.
toothlessviper
Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:35 am
#4
ok.. first off. anyone remember the name COMBAT MEDIC ? sorry but doctors are known for setting up rear area hospitals MEDICS are field agents to bring in the wounded. I dont know, i might just be to stupid for this upgrade, i quess i figured doctors worked on hight end of meds, new idea, surgury, and so on.
Heck i think we even had a show about this ? MASH anyone ever see it ?... Hmmm didnt the wounded come to the doctors field hospitals there ? and who was in the field with the combatants ? thats right MEDICS.....
Darksfallen
Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:59 am
#5
toothlessviper wrote:
ok.. first off. anyone remember the name COMBAT MEDIC ? sorry but doctors are known for setting up rear area hospitals MEDICS are field agents to bring in the wounded. I dont know, i might just be to stupid for this upgrade, i quess i figured doctors worked on hight end of meds, new idea, surgury, and so on.
Heck i think we even had a show about this ? MASH anyone ever see it ?... Hmmm didnt the wounded come to the doctors field hospitals there ? and who was in the field with the combatants ? thats right MEDICS.....
Considering we have ranged or melee defenses to each and everyone of our Doctor boxes, I think this is intended to change.
While mash is a good example it's a bad one in addition. If any one of the Docs could do in MASH what they could do with in SW (healing in seconds and so on.) and not need cots, machines, IV stands and no on, you can bet your but they would be in combat healing.
TarMangani
Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:19 am
#6
toothlessviper wrote:
ok.. first off. anyone remember the name COMBAT MEDIC ? sorry but doctors are known for setting up rear area hospitals MEDICS are field agents to bring in the wounded. I dont know, i might just be to stupid for this upgrade, i quess i figured doctors worked on hight end of meds, new idea, surgury, and so on.
Heck i think we even had a show about this ? MASH anyone ever see it ?... Hmmm didnt the wounded come to the doctors field hospitals there ? and who was in the field with the combatants ? thats right MEDICS.....
MyT Chicken set me straight on this one. In Iraq surgeons were in the field with the combatants. The way we're thinking is reflective of the 40's and 50's, not necessarily today...
TibbitRabbit
Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:31 am
#8
I'm sorry if I totally missed this...
but what happens to my buffs and meds that are in my inventory now? o_O
TarMangani
Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:55 am
#9
TibbitRabbit wrote:
I'm sorry if I totally missed this...
but what happens to my buffs and meds that are in my inventory now? o_O
Buffs will most likely be converted to enhancers, the other meds either stims or something similar...
VemaGara
Mon Apr 04, 2005 1:46 pm
#10
One change that I can't explain yet is Medical XP changes. Those don't seem to be working as envisioned. I hope that they can get that straightened out. Many things on TC aren't working perfectly, and will change, so don't get up in arms about things. *DO* state calmly and rationally what the problems are and why. The devs may not listen, but if you scream, the devs definitely won't listen.
Most of my comments came from reading this forum for almost two years, remembering points that docs were unhappy with, and connecting the dots.
Doctors making money from doctoring is the oldest and most persistant problem in the Doc field. Only Docs and Squad Leaders *must* interact actively to earn XP. Docs need to heal, and those clawing for the top will heal for free. Squad Leaders need a group. Entertainers interact passively and have their own problem. In general, the entire service sector tends to have problems in the game.
Most of my comments came from reading this forum for almost two years, remembering points that docs were unhappy with, and connecting the dots.
Doctors making money from doctoring is the oldest and most persistant problem in the Doc field. Only Docs and Squad Leaders *must* interact actively to earn XP. Docs need to heal, and those clawing for the top will heal for free. Squad Leaders need a group. Entertainers interact passively and have their own problem. In general, the entire service sector tends to have problems in the game.
Darksfallen
Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:08 pm
#11
Current Exp is equal to exactally what the Combat people get for a kill this seems intended. We've always been able to level faster than anyone else in the game. I hope this is correct and not a bug.
Rimmick
Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:37 pm
#12
toothlessviper wrote:
ok.. first off. anyone remember the name COMBAT MEDIC ? sorry but doctors are known for setting up rear area hospitals MEDICS are field agents to bring in the wounded. I dont know, i might just be to stupid for this upgrade, i quess i figured doctors worked on hight end of meds, new idea, surgury, and so on.
Heck i think we even had a show about this ? MASH anyone ever see it ?... Hmmm didnt the wounded come to the doctors field hospitals there ? and who was in the field with the combatants ? thats right MEDICS.....
TarMangani wrote:
MyT Chicken set me straight on this one. In Iraq surgeons were in the field with the combatants. The way we're thinking is reflective of the 40's and 50's, not necessarily today...
___________________________
Um, no they aren't. I've been a combatant in Iraq and never once did we have a surgeon with us. Combat medics accompany soldiers into the field. Their main purpose is to keep a wounded soldier alive long enough to get them to a field hospital or triage center of some sort. Its a rare thing that the doctor is in the thick of it treating wounded soldiers. I guess you could look at it in the sense that doctor's are more valuable than us grunts. You can' t waste them by putting them in the line of fire. This might not have much to do with the thread but that irritated me when I saw it.
Obeewana_Doobie
Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:48 pm
#13
To put it bluntly, this sucks. I bought a second account to craft meds and support my first account. I actually like crafting. I have spent millions upon millions of credits gathering the best resources my server has to offer, and I still have a boatload of them. Not to mention finding and paying hunters. If I wanted to be a BE, I already would have been one. My doc is also a master artisan and a merchant, totally non-combat and thats the wayI like it. What happens to my 40 million credit +20/+20 doc clothes? Sorry folks, but the Doc changes REALLLLLY anger me.
I hate to use a forum cliche, but SOE can kiss one of my accounts goodbye.
Page 1 of 3