Doctor Archive

We were having this discussion on a forum dedicated to the medical professions in SWG and someone suggested it be brought up here to get a wider range of opinions on the subject. To an extent this applies to CMs and Medics too but particularly concerns Doctors. Basicallythe key question is:

My opinion on this is that Doctor is not and should notbe a crafting profession. At the moment Doctor doesn't have enough of a customer base to be a crafting profession, in that all of the items a Doctor can make can only be used by Doctors. Allof thecraftingprofessions such as Weaponsmiths and Tailors can sell to a wide variety of characters who will each want different things. Doctors also lack the variety of products that crafting professions have in that they can only produce buffs, stims and a few cure items while crafting professions are able to create a variety of goods for a variety of customers.

The reason I don't think Doctor should become a crafting profession is that it would be difficult to give us a large enough customer base without invading the territory of other crafters. For example, if we could craft a variety of buffs that could be carried around we'd be heading into chef territory. If we could give out cures useable by anyone it could easily unbalance combat further, especially in the case of PvP where Combat Medics would lose the usefulness of their poisons and diseases and if we could give stims anyone can use (and we almost can because of the Stim B situation) it would defeat the point of having a healer in the group. If not these things then what could Doctors craft and who would use them? I think all of the crafting needs of characters are pretty much covered by the current crafting professions and I see no need to add a new one.

In my opinion, Doctor is a bit of an undefined class. By this I mean that we can do a variety of things but have no clearly defined role and while we may have a number of abilities we seem to be less than the sum of our parts. For example, Doctor crafting involves difficult collection of ingredients, which will often mean waiting months for a very good quality spawn of the rare resources that we need to make the best items. This is the same as for crafting professions but with a few important differences/disadvantages. As mentioned, we don't have the large customer base so any sales are restricted to those of our own profession. We also need the items we can create to use any of our abilities effectively, so if we can't craft good items then our skills will suffer whereas crafting is the main ability and role of the crafting professions. The fact that we need avariety of the most rare resources is restrictive because it means that we will often be forced to spend vast amounts of our time not using any of our medical skills while trying to acquire these resources, especially in the case of meat resources. This is especially strange since we end up doing almost as muchresource gatheringas a craftingprofession despite the fact thatour profession is not a crafting profession and most of our abilities have nothing to do with crafting (3 trees of abilities and only 1 crafting). So Doctors are forced to go through the challenges and difficulties that a crafting profession faces, without the advantages they recieve, just in order to use ourmedical abilities.

Now at this point some of you are thinking "just buy the equipment you need from other Doctors" or something along those lines and while a valid point there are a number of problems with the idea. As I mentioned earlier, Doctor isn't a crafting profession and as a result thereare notmany Doctors who craft and sell high quality equipment, which makes sense because most Doctors took Doctor for the medical abilities. Aside from the reasons mentioned above it is difficult to run a Doctor crafting business because of the skill points it can take. Master Doctor takes 140 skill points which leaves you with enough to master an elite combat profession (such as Fencer) and take either Artisan or Scout tohelp you collect resources. For maximum crafting efficiency it would be helpful to have improved survey skills and in some cases improved scout skills, which is why most crafting professions have Artisan as a prerequisite and plenty of spare skill pointsto take survey 4, some scout skills if needed, a combat profession to allow you to effectively collect scout resources (scout alone isn't much use if you can't kill anything) and even some left over to get vendor skills. Doctors on the other hand have only 110 skill points to spread between these (including scout which not all craftingprofessions need)and will have to sacrifice effectiveness at some to gain in others. Some people would suggest that you could make a deal with a merchant to get vendor space but there is no in-game method of ensuring the merchant doesn't cheat you and it would require quite a complicated effort from both parties so thiswould certainly beless than perfect. Another problem is that those Doctors who do run a crafting sales business (often through the use of out of game methods such as additional characters) will often run out of stock very quickly and there would not be enough to meet the demand if the majority of Doctors decided not to craft. It seems clear that we were intended to create our own equipment to use our abilities but ironically this restricts the time we have to use those abilities.

Crafting isn't the only problem in defining the Doctor profession though. Another issue is that we havefield abilities as well as abilities for use off the field. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem because it would allow us to use some abilities for before missions etc. while also giving us a role to undertake in the carrying out of the missions. Unfortunately our abilities don't work like this, mostly because our field abilities are not considered valuable enough and the only ability most people care about is the buff ability. With the Combat revamp this could change but someone pointed out to methat most of the abilities Doctors do have in the field are overshadowed by those of Combat Medics. This is true since Doctors cannot heal as effectively as CMs since they can only heal up close and one person at a time, so Doctors only have the advantages of curing states and poisons (both rarely needed in PvE, with state cures having the flaw of allowing the state to be instantly re-applied) and resuscitation which most people hope to avoid needing and under the current system they usually succeed, with the 60 second count-down and need for re-buffingresuscitation isn'tmassively useful in a battle anyway.

So I havea few suggestions for possible improvements or solutions to the problems of Doctor:

Firstly we'll deal with crafting. The best way to do this in my opinion would be to get rid ofmedical craftingentirely. There are a number of advantages to this system. It would mean that novice medics would no longer be able to use super powerful Stim Bs and with healing hopefully becoming more useful for difficult missions in the Combat Revamp this should help to give serious medics a role. It would also make the medical professions more accessible, in that people wouldn't have to be rich or collecting resources for months before they can use their medical skills effectively. As I mentioned it would help define the role of the profession since it would no longer have what is essentially a far inferior yet equally difficult form of crafting to that of the crafting professions and could instead get on with using medical abilities. This would also solve all of the problems with medical crafting that I mentioned above.

There are a few possible issues with removing medical crafting but I think the benefitsjustify the difficulties. For one thing those players who have been in their profession for months and have gone through the effort of stockpiling good resources to create good quality items would find all of that effort was essentially a waste (though not entirely). This is a fair point but in the long run everyone would benefit and this would only be a short term problem. These players would still reap the benefits of being able to get on with using their abilities (which will have been why they went to the effort of stockpiling in the first place) and would not have to go through the process of stockpiling any longer, whilenew players wouldn't have to go through the same difficulties that previously put many people off of the professions. Another possible issue is that because buffs would be cheaper to produce (that is, free) people wouldn't be willing to pay so much for them. This makes sense but isn't necessarily a problem. The main reason Doctors charge what they do is that buffs cost a lot of time, effort and money to provide and they should be paid back plus profit for that. If we remove crafting then the time and effort spent creating buffs would be gone and as I mentioned the time and effort was a little demanding considering it used no medical skills so as a result Doctors could charge very little for buffs but be able to do them any time and anywhere without having to worry about any resource qualities. If you don't think it would be fair that Doctors could make money without having to go through the effort of crafting then I might remind you thatImage Designers and Dancers provide a service without having to craft whilemusicians do the same with very limited crafting, once per instrument, with no experimentation or rare resource concerns and they can all make money from this. If you think this might make things too easy for Doctors, remember that there are allready limitation methods in place such as timers and the use of the mind bar. The Combat Revamp should help with this too since it will prevent buffs from giving free ability usage (meaning there will always be a cost and recharge time) and if they do create a specials bar then this could be used to restrict the amount of times a medical ability can be used without recharging in the same way it would for normal combat abilities. It could also be said that if you remove crafting from Doctors they wouldn't have enough to do and while this may be true I see it as a seperate problem with the Doctor profession that should be dealt with seperately from crafting (I'llcome back to this a little later).

If the complete removal of medical crafting seems too extreme (though if you think about it, it really makes sense) then there are alternative alterations that could help relieve the problems crafting creates. For example, removing experimentation would have a similar effect to the complete removal of crafting but with a few differences. There would still be some need to collect resources but since the requirement for very high stats would be gone it would be much easier for those who are new to their profession to get started. It would also mean that the developers wouldn't have to come up with a replacement for the crafting trees (which I'm sure they'll like). It would still standardise our abilities but I see this as a good thing since it would mean every Medic, Doctor and Combat Medic would be equally useful and ableto be effectivewithout having to have been playing for months collecting the best resources. The disadvantage wouldbe that you wouldn't really beable to bebetter than any other person of the same profession even if you had played for months but the same could be said for the combat professions and it would be equally innaccurate since you would have learned new and more effective ways to use your skills and become more adept at putting these into action. A good argument for this would be that it works fine for scouts and rangers who have to do some crafting to use some oftheir abilities but can easily acquire the resources (which are not rare even at high levels)sincethe ability to collect the resources is included in their skills and they do not have to worry about quality of those resources. While not as good as the complete removal of crafting, removing experimentation would be a good way to improve the professions and would make a good stepping stone to the removal of crafting.

The other main problem I mentioned was the lack of definition in the Doctor profession. There are a few ways this could be dealt with. If people really want Doctor to be a crafting profession then this could be done, it would mean the conversion of Doctor into a full crafting profession though and all that would entail. In order to do this effectively the first step would be to get rid of the non-crafting abilities and replace them with abilities that will truly flesh out the crafting. So themedical abilities of Doctors would have to either be converted into saleable products (buff packs useable by anyone for example) or moved to other professions. Perhaps the best idea would be to move cures and resuscitation to Combat Medics since they already have the other field abilities and this would add to their role as field healing and support. Wound healing is already partly included in the Medic profession so it would be a simple matter to improve their highest level wound healing up to Doctor standards (if this would really be necessary). The problem of course would be that this wouldn't leave much for Doctors to craft and even if all of the Doctor abilities were turned into craftable items there still wouldn't be much variety (especially when you consider that some Doctor abilities are already available from chefs). You could give all crafting for Medics and Combat Medics to Doctors but the schematics would have to change to allow for them to not be too expensive and not prevent Medics and Combat Medics from being able to use their skills, which would be difficult to balance. This couldn't be all that Doctors would do though since they'd still have the problem of a small customer base but if you could overcome all of these problems then it could work. It might also be a good idea to change the name of Doctor, Apothecaryor Pharmacist were a couple of suggestions I thought sounded good. If this was the way that Doctor went it wouldn't be so bad since you could still do healing etc. with Combat Medic and Medic and at least Doctor would have a clearly defined purpose.

There are better options though. Improvements and additions to the current non-crafting abilities of Doctors could help make them a good support profession, with abilities that compliment Combat Medics in the field and/or make them more useful off the field. Onepossible improvementwould be to add a system of special buffs to Doctors. These could be short term effective combat buffs used in battle to give allies a boost in things other than HAM stats. For example, an accuracy buff would be useful against a particularly agile foe, especially for those combat professions that rely on damage more than accuracy. Another buff could perhaps increase damage for a time and there could even be particular resistance buffs (thinking damage)in addition to the poison and disease resistance buffs. A few things like this could help give Doctors more of a reason to be on a battlefield which would improve the field abilities they already have since they would have more to do during the battle and more reason to be on the field. It would also mean that they would have a clear role for both on and off the field without either feeling much less developed (as they do now). Alternatively, these buffs could be longer term and give Doctors more options for off the field support than just HAM buffs and thus make them more dedicated to off field support. If Doctors went for a fully off field role then it would be best to give their field abilities away, as mentioned previously, thus allowing them to concentrate on staying off the battle field while still allowing someone else (CMs would be the main choice) to provide these potentially useful fieldabilities.

Another possible improvement would be a system of de-buffs that could be applied in combat. These could be along the same lines as the buffs mentioned above but instead of improving the abilities of allies they would weaken the abilities of enemies. These would also compliment the abilities of Combat Medics as well as the combat professions and would give Doctors a very useful role in the field in the same way as above.Themainthing though is thatthis does sound like the sort of thing Combat Medics would be doing butyou couldalways give it to CMs while Doctors get the buffs mentioned above and inthat way improve both professions.

While most of these ideas would best be done as part of the Combat Revamp I think they are certainly worthy of consideration as ways forward for the medical professions.If they were included inCombat Revamp it would mean the Combat Revamp could be seen as a very good thing for the medical professions as well as for the Combat professions instead of the current attitude of indifference or fear that it might make things worse that seems common. Regardless, I'd be glad to hear any opinions, possibly ways to improve on these ideasorbetter yetcompletely new and brilliant ideas of ways to improve the medical professions. After all, the improvement of the medical professions should be a goal we always strive for along with the improvement of any other professions and the game as a whole.

Dawgy Cancelled

As I said it's a matter of opinions, but what I've found is that a lot of people wont do the medical professions because of the crafting involved despite the fact they like the idea of using the abilities. To me this would suggest that the crafting has become more important than the medicalabilities and this seems to be supported by the fact thatmost Doctors spend a fairly large portion of their time pursuing resources andsome people do Doctor with the intention of treating it like a crafting class and using it to create items for sale without being too interested in the medical abilities of Doctors. It doesn't make sense to me that crafting should be as important as the medical abilities of Doctors let alone more important. Perhaps it would make more sense if Doctor was a full crafting profession rather than presenting the idea that they are a medical profession but still making crafting as important (if not more so) and difficult as it is for crafting professions.

Remember that I was suggesting changes taking the Combat Revamp into account, so while Buffs are practically all of combat at the moment this should be changing so that heals are necessary or at least very useful for some of the more difficult battles. This means that Combat Medics will probably be the choice for providing these heals since they are in the position to do it the most effectively.

The fact that Doctors can make Stim Bs for novice Medics has disadvantages for the medical professions and I don't think it was intended that Doctors sell items but instead that they make money by being in groups for missions or by selling their services. While the idea of being in a group for money from missions is unrealistic under the current system this should hopefully be changing at the Combat Revamp too so if Doctors do have a field role then they could make money in this way and if they had a more developed off field role then they could make money from that instead. So crafting isn't essential to Doctors in order to make money it's just a result of the current system that people have been trying to make money in that way.

For those Doctors that do focus on crafting, they could easily move to a proper crafting profession. That way, they still have the challenges and fun of crafting but they have a wider variety of goods and a larger customer base to make money from. Or if Doctor became a full crafting profession they would benefit from these things and could really focus fully on crafting. Either way there will still be crafting in the game so this one very limited form of crafting could beremoved (or fleshed out) without preventing people from enjoying crafting.

As for putting all Master Doctors (or whatever level) equal to each other I don't think it would detract from the game, you didn't really become a Doctor to try and be better than every other Doctor did you? Some people may say that they want to make the best buffs in the game and I can understand that but Doctor isn't a complete craftingprofession so the goals for the profession shouldn't be about crafting. Or as I mentioned Doctor should be a complete crafting profession where the goals and challenges are about crafting so that any confusion could be avoided. Basically the way I see it Doctor is somewhat torn between those who took it for the medical abilities and those who like the crafting but rather than being able to seperate them players have to deal with both whether they like it or not and in a lot of cases players simply put up with the part they don't like despite the fact they could be focusing entirely on what they enjoy if Doctor was a complete and defined profession (even if that meansgoing toanotherprofession such as Combat Medic or Weaponsmith).

Creb - Doctor, Swordswookiee (SRA Master of Medicine, Sunrunner)
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