Doctor Archive

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SlowNStoopid wrote:

I've been a doc for 7 months now. I'veharvestedalmost every single resource that I use for 5 months by myself andI'm small-time, cranking out just enough to buff myself and friends/guildies/newbies and sell a coupla packs now and then. But I love it and the fun stuff I can do with it.

Myproblem began when I realised that I was playing several hours a day (sometimes for days on end) for more than half a year but yet still not being able to afford the med experimentation tapes that was being snapped up on the trade forums. Thought about it for days and realized that it was my mindset that doctors were supposed to be earning our living from crafting pharmaceuticals and buffing/healing/rezzing only (usuallyjust the first, hardly anyone tips for the other two) and that we would get really rich and successful doing it (which some have). That wasn't happening and I was only slowly coming around to realizing that I subconsciously had this mindset.

I have mastered 4 combat professions and it was all through hunting for the animal resources that I needed. I always thought that my job was to help the hologrinders and solo-groupers (nothing against them either) do their thing and if I worked really hard, I would make a crapload of credits from 8-10k per buff. LOL. Reality check was really painful for me. But instead of raging against every single combat monkey who whined about buff strength/duration/price, sending me non-stop tells with demands that I "do what a doc was supposed to do", etc. etc. while making millions ,looting cool stuff and then making even more millions from the subsequent auctions with the help of thesame buffs that I crafted from scratch through months of work, I became one. Yes, a combat monkey doc. And dang, it felt GOOD.

I started out as a novice fencer and worked myself up to master fencer in a week running solo janta missions on Dantooine. During that time, I timed my own missions and found that I could do at leastfour 27k missions every 15 minutes (including selecting missions) and even more if I rushed myself. I made a total of 300k in my first 3 hr session (I took a nap halfway through... LOL) and I think everyone already knows the stats on how much combat monkeys (like me now) made. Instead of being exhausted, harassed, and feeling like I needed a break, which is usually the case when buffing the public (which I sometimes did when I needed the credits),I was well-rested, richer, and raring to go again.The next 3 hr session netted me more than a million credits and a healthy amount of loot.

Why was I free? Not because of the easy credits (but it sure felt good though... hehe). But cuz I decided not to be restricted by conventions and by my own mindset. To do "what doctors are supposed to be doing". I don't ever buff the public anymore and I don't think I ever will in the near future. Nothing against those that do, but having started from the bottom up(from making Enhance A packs to 940 Enhance Ds with my own materials andfrom charging 5k to 10k a buff), I can personally say that the rewards are very rarely worth the pain, unless you have economies of scale or simply enjoy crafting like I do.

I can, and still do, the "doctorly" stuff like buffing friends and guildies and travelling to rez/cure them and I still enjoy doing it a lot (nothing like scrambling across no-man's land to kick the life back into a friend before decay took 'em ), but I don'twear my"abuse me pls, I'm a buff vending machine"tag anymore. And I personally feel that 10k is way too low to charge for a buff, but instead of getting upset about it, I freed myself, did something about itand have neverlooked back. For those of you who feel that charging 5k a buff is great and undercutting the doc (buffdoc wannabe or not) next to you who is "over-charging" with 12-15k is even better, it's your personal choice and your right in a player-run economy. For those who think that asking for 25k a buff is more than reasonable, more power to you too.

But for those of you who want to do neither of the above but still want to do something, free yourself and try out being a combat monkey doc.It's great fun and you'll learn toenjoy the gamein a different way. Even if you don'tearn millions from them, the freedom more than makes up for it.And if enough of us do it instead ofcarrying on doing the 10k a pop while still whinging about it, maybe people will realise the true value ofenhancements and the economy will adjust itself to reflect the true value of the packs, the people who make them, and the ones who apply them. We can all dream, can't we?

I am not an economist or someone who claims to know how everything functions in SWG, heck, I'm not even prescribing to anyone what to do. I'm just sharing with those of you who feel frustrated like I did, abouthow you can actually take control of your game and learn new ways to love it again. It probably isn't a new idea but it's helped me heaps and I hope there're docs out there who will be helped by this too. Thanks for patiently reading my longass post.

-slownstoopid

(my next char will be named "bob" or "rob" or anything with 3 letters and below. LOL. Ouch my fingers. )

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then I found out that I can earn more cash hunting (I prefer enraged rancor missions on dath)

So still enjoying myself and killing lots of stuff hehe