Doctor Archive
Thread: Dev Response to Recent Enahancement Med Use Issues (12/02/2003)
Here is the response you've all been waiting for. I know it's not what everyone wanted to hear, necessarily, but the intricate nature of the problem really has left the Dev team, and us, in a bind on this one. At any rate, here is their response:
One of the issues that had been affecting the Doctor profession for some time had been the inability to experiment down the Medical Usage requirements on Enhancement Packs. When Ease of Use was experimented on it would actually raise Med Use, so instead of being easier to use, these Packs were actually made harder to use. This was an obvious bug that needed fixing.
Unfortunately the process of fixing this bug involved fixing how the final Med Use rating was determined on these packs, because it was obviously reversed. In reversing the formula used, so that it was determined correctly again, it also reversed how the Medicine Usage level was determined. In other words EnhancementD Packs are now showing a base Medicine Usage level in the 90s, instead of in the 70s. This is where the Medicine Usage level should have always been on these packs to begin with. So in implementing the fix for experimentation, in effect a fix to the proper Med Usage levels was also introduced.
This entire formula is also utilized when an item is pulled from a crate. So in effect where a previous Enhance Pack may have shown a Med Use rating in the 70s with no experimentation done on it while it is in the crate, pullingit from the crate applies the correct formula on the item, forcing the change to put it back to where it should be when it had not been experimented on, giving us an Enhance Pack with Med Use in the 90s.
The most unfortunate situation here is that these formulas are inextricably linked. The current Med Usage ratings that are being formulated for these Enhance Packs is exactly where they should have always been. There simply must be a proper level of balance to further differentiate at what skill levels you can use these very powerful items.
While it is never the intention of the Developer Team to “nerf” items that were previously created, especially not ones which display a specific rating, there is simply no way to keep the fix in and keep Med Usage levels where they should have been without affecting these crated items. A rollback of the code would only delay the inevitable.
However, a review of the Med Use ratings on the Enhance packs will be started to ensure that the levels are where they properly should be to maintain a good balance and level of granularity between the different types of packs and when a Doctor should be able to use them.Should there be a decision to changethe Med Use ratings in this manner such a change will only apply to newly crafted items. As such it would not fix the current problems for items in crates. (Or else such a method could have ben utlizied for a fix.) An estimate of when this can be accomplished cannot be given at this time, we are sorry to say, but rest assured that it WILL be looked at and we will let you all know about the outcome of that review.
Message Edited by Zarlor on 12-02-2003 06:00 PM
"In other words Enhancement E Packs are now showing a base Medicine Usage level in the 90s..."
Ooooooh, give me an Enhance E pack!!! 
I've been looking for these.
-Bel (Master Doctor/Master Pistoleer)
My personal opinion on this is that I think it is unfortunate that the old stuff effectively gets nerfed by this. At least it wasn;t intentional, jsut an unfortunate side-effect of something they were actually tring to fix for us.
However, the new Med Use levels really do look a lot more like where they should have been. In fact Med Use Granularity has long been on the Issues list for Doctors. They should have been spread out a bit more like they are coming in now and now that we know it was a bug that made them so low to begin with we can see where things really should have been.
Of course now they may be a tad too high, I'm not sure. But if we can get a new listing on exactly where all of the enhance packs now seem to be coming in I think that would help. And is there a differenct in Med Use levels between H/A enhances and the packs for the H/A secondaries? (I think there should be since we get them at different crafting levels anyway.) If we can come up with the figures for the Devs on this maybe we can help them in making sure those enhances have a good gradiation in Med Use levels so that they fit in where they really should be.
Zarlor wrote:
If we can come up with the figures for the Devs on this maybe we can help them in making sure those enhances have a good gradiation in Med Use levels so that they fit in where they really should be.
Zarlor,
I went ahead and got some of those numbers for you. In case it matters, I used ABECs (that's all I had made), regular CRDMs and SDSs. I used average resources for each required slot.
Action: A 57, B 66, C 75, D 92
Health: A 57, B 66, C 77, D 93
Const: A 57, B 66, C 75, D 93
It looks like to me the other three types will be roughly the same. Anyone want to confirm?
As for the changes, I like them. It does suck for those that had them in crates and can't use them. But, overall the change is best.
At the A/B/C levels, using only advanced components I generally had roughly 2 points lower med use prior to experimentation, which meant I could usually drag it down to usable one 'level' earlier than the skillmod gave it to me outright (instead of having to wait for med use 80 (expert doctor knowldge?) to use a C enhance, I could do it at 70 by burning some of the experimentation into reduction.
The components shouldn't make a diffeence to the Med Use level, on the resources used (presumably OQ & PE & Mal, I think, and Mal only because it should increase the possibility of a better success in the initial combine).
My thinking is that it would make the most sense to have an enhance pack that is gernally balparking in at one or 2 points above the Med Use level of the Med Use line 1 below the pack. In other words it would solidly be in the same MedKnowledge level as the Doc Crafting level you got it at, but it would be experimentable down easily to 1 MedKnowledge level lower.
For Example at level 1 Doc Crafting we get H/A Enhance As. I think our Med Use rating at level 1 Med Knowledge would be 60. So Enhance H/As should actually come in at around56 or maybe 57. Allowing them to be experimented down to Novice Doctor where our Med Use rating shoudl be at 55.
So I'm thinking it should look like this:
- H/A A: 56-57
- Secondariies A: 61-62
- H/A B: 61-62
- Secondariies B: 71-72
- H/A C: 71-72
- Secondariies C: 81-82
- H/A D: 81-82
- Secondariies D: 91-92
So in all I personally think that shome of these should probably be coming in lower than they currently seem to be. I'll pass it along and see if the Devs have any comment on that line of thinking.
Zarlor hit on exactly what I was going to suggest - which saved me a lot of typing, hehe. Thanks, sir! If you think about the way the Stimpacks work (you can experiment down a C to be usable at Knowledge III, and a D to be used at IV) there is already a precedent in place for the “be able to make it one chunk lower,” theory.
Zarlor wrote:
So I'm thinking it should look like this:
- H/A A: 56-57
- Secondariies A: 61-62
- H/A B: 61-62
- Secondariies B: 71-72
- H/A C: 71-72
- Secondariies C: 81-82
- H/A D: 81-82
- Secondariies D: 91-92
So in all I personally think that shome of these should probably be coming in lower than they currently seem to be. I'll pass it along and see if the Devs have any comment on that line of thinking.
And, according to your chart, some should be coming in higher. I 100% agree with how you have it set out here. Thanks!
I think Enhance D's should be in the domain of Master Doc, should be med use 90+. There has to be the carrot (and income stream) at the end of the road for Docs...
However at the high end of the profession it is simply ludicrous that a Master Doc can use an Enhance D and get 2.7 K buff on one guy and 0.7k buff on the next use.... it'sabsurd 
I humbly suggest the variability is a larger issue...