Doctor Archive
Thread: TC Patch Info 11/26/03 (From Fencer Forum)
3. HAM Changes
The Developers are working on an experimental change to the way HAM is use for specials. They plan to bring it out in stages so each part can be examoined for validity. Just looking at any one part can lead to exaggerated expectations both positive and negative, so until the entire system is revealed it might be hard to see the end result.
Phase One:
Now the HAM cost from executing a Special Attack Move is not directly deducted form your current HAM pools. Incoming damage form an oppoent's attack still is, however. Instead, HAM costs are deducted from the maximum value of the HAM pools. If the cost of a Special Attack Move is greater than your current HAM pool's maximum, then it cannot be performed. This means that you cannot incapacitate yourself through the use of Specials.
Example: You begin with 1000 Health. You execute a special that costs 100 Health which reduces your maximum Health to 900. You are hit with 200 Health damage which reduces your current Health down from 900 to 700, but your Maximum remains at 900. You then execute another 100 Health special and it brings your maximum down to 800, but your current remains at 700. You execute another special (a big one) that costs 300 Health. This brings your maximum Health from 800 down to 500. Since 500 maximum Health is less than the 700 you previously had in current Health, your current Health mustobviously be dropped to the new 500 maximum.
What this accomplishes is the alieviation of both incomming attacks and performing specials to be eating away at your current HAMs in the same manner, and will permit you to avoid making yourself as vulnerable as the way HAMs used to work. ... this is a good thing.
Ok, now for the second part of the equation.Some of you will like this, and some of you will not. At this time I must reinforce the knowledge that none of this is set in stone, and subject to tremendous change as the need arises.
The "damage" (if you can call it that) to your maximum HAM pool size.... is NOT healable via Stimpacks. A Stimpack can still heal damage done to you by an attack, but only up to your current maximum. This is going to require a change in strategies for many of us that used the occasional Stimpack. (And any of you Doctor/Melees out there that were constantly boasting and bragging all over the place about how effective you were in melee combat... guess where that just got you?) In fact, part of this change was to allow us combat professions to be able to be effective without requiring a SWG PhD. Just a wee bit of Medic ability is going to take you a long way, since you won't we worrying about healing Specials costs.
Hold on... before you panic... that's not all. We aren't left this way. The maximum value of you HAM pool can be restored! In fact, it regenerates. Not at the same old creepy crawly rate that your regular healing regeneration provides. The damage from specials is on it's own timer completely independant of the regular regeneration rate. In fact, the damage form each special you perform is on it's own regen timer.
To find the regeneration rate, take the total HAM cost of your special (to that pool) and divide it by 25. This is the regnerate rate "per second." I put "per second" in parenthesis because the "ticks" may not be exactly on the 1second interval... but the total regeneration rate is the same. In short, regardless of how much HAM a special uses, it will be completely restored within 25 seconds of when performed that special.
This is a very significant regeneration rate... and the nice thing is... you didn't require Doctor buffs to have it.
The good: You no longer have to either BE a Doctor or have access to Doctor buffs to be a competant melee profssion. Yes, Doctor buffs will give you a larger HAM pool which helps. But by reducing the negative impact of performing special on your HAM, and the greatly accellerated rate at which it regenerates, we can last much longer in combat before requiring any healing.
The bad: You must now be more observant of the use and timing of specials. You cannot bring yourself down to a bare minimum HAM and pop a Stim to make it all better. When you get a reasonable ways down in maximum HAM, you will want to fall back on regular attacks for a few seconds to allow your maximum to regenerate. You will want to time the use of your big Stims to when you maximum HAM pool is higher rather than lower, and have some small Stims on hand for when your maximum HAM is lower. Not that big of a "bad"... we just have bene presented with a system that relies a bit more on strategy than it did before.
Impact on Doctors and CMs?
Neyland wrote:
Impact on Doctors and CMs?
Well, that depends. Let's take healing, first of all.
Consider you're out with a hunting group and you are the designated healer of the party. As each member of the party uses his/her specials, they're reducing their maximums, which you can't heal. You can still heal damage, but not the reduced pools from using specials. That means that there will be less healing for you, as a doctor/CM to do, but you're going to have to count on your comrades to be a little more intelligent about what they're doing. With such a system, it would be possible for someone to special him/herself into the ground to the point where their maximum pool values are so low that a doctor/CM can't do a thing to help them.
Does that mean there's going to be less need for medics? I don't really think so. People will be able to use specials more often but, sooner or later, they're going to need to back off and let their maxes regen a bit. That's when the medics are doing to be needed.
Now, let's think about buffs. This probably doesn't impact buffs much at all. I assume that the amount that is taken from the maximum for a special is still based upon a person's strength, quickness, and focus. Therefore, enhancing someone's strength will still allow them to spam specials shamelessly. 
As for the constitution and stamina buffs, I think this is a big hit to those. For melee classes, they'll still like those enhancements, but ranged classes that take damage less often won't care as much. I think this change really changes the focus of enhancements from the regenerative stats to the preventative stats.
That's the biggest change I can see.
Only one question.
Do secondary stats still affect ham costs and ham regen or is that gone ?
Just saw this in the update notes for TC today:
- Removed special move HAM changes. We will continue to use the old system to allow more time for balancing.
Thank god they removed that crap!
Correct me if I'm wrong.. but somebody could spam their specials all the way down to say 1 health (or action) and they can no longer pop a stimpack to recover?
I mean without even getting into WHY a special move would hurt you (**edit** were the devs smoking?)... they were going to nerf even further by preventing a medic to heal this damage?
The way to fix this is to put specials on their own seperate HAM bar with it's ownspecial timers. That solves not only spamming specials, but doesn't "kill" the player as he/she uses them.
Anyway, thank goodness they dropped this madness.
Well I certainly hope they figure out a better way to implement the specials, otherwise the doctors will become nothing more than portable defib. units on the battlefield. Buff prices will go down, the skies will rain nunas, chefs will become the number one profession, Jabbas and Valarianswill wed, IT WILL BE MASS DESTRUCTION AND CHAOS!!!!
seriously though, it will mean that as a doctor with no combat skills I will be very very bored during hunting. As it stands now, unless there are 4 or more people for me to heal i get to collect to the loot during the battle and divide it up after..... cause i time on my hands while everyone else is fighting.
just my 2 creds worth
Simoras Ewack
Doctor/Bio Engineer
This also removes the exploit of:
- Player 1 takes the worst HAM weapon he can find
- Player 1 spams specials against wimpy targets
- Player 2 heals HAM for XP