Doctor Archive
Thread: Okay, here's my big proposal for Medic/Doctor. It's all I have for now...
I apologize for the lengthy read, please go along with me for a little while 
There are quick a few issues presented on the behalf of Docs. Some are bugs, some are other quirks that need fixing, and some are cries for balance by adding new things into the profession. There are two I'll discuss: Surveying and Harvesting. Doctors require resources for their drugs, and those have to be gotten somehow. I'm going to suggest an answer to one of these.
I think that surveying for Docs is a problem, but for nowthere isa quick, cheap fix. Either spending 15 points in Novice Artisan, or getting someone to give you a waypoint for your harvesters, so I won't address that here.
I think a large problem is the acquisition of Meats, especially specific types (avian, herb, etc).
Picking up Novice Scout isn't a fix to this. The harvest ability of a Novice Scout is not that great at all, so harvesting would be very slow. Not only that, but some combat skills would be required. So, buy spending 30 points for Novice Scout and Novice <combat prof> you can very slowly spend a great length of time gathering meat.
Buying meat from Master Ranged is a much quicker fix, but since armorsmiths could pay more for Hides and Bones, this leaves the meat market either dry or costly. Since the Doctor by itself is not a money making profession, this isn't a viable option for most.
So, I think that I've established that it's much harder to gather meat on your own than mined resources. Meat is much more costly in either time or money, and one could argue that they are one in the same.
Now, I could suggest that Docs should have the ability to harvest themselves, at an somewhat enhanced rate. I mean, they are knowledged in the body, and would know what sections provide more meat, but that could remove some class inter-dependency, which I think is not only healthy, but needed. I'm sure there are some that would like this idea as it makes sense, and a Doc would still need to kill the animal in some way, but I'd rather there be new content added.
Here's my proposal:
Open up the Farmer and Miner classes as an elite profession from the Surveying branch in Artisan. I'm going to focus on Farmer for the purposes for Doc..
The farmer as I image it would have several branches as follows... Flora, Fauna, Land Alteration, Knowledge...
The Knowledge is the typical stat mods that would amount to 75 with the extra 25 at master.
Land Alteration would give the ability to clear/add trees and flowers on 'their land' which would take up lots.
Flora would allow the experimentation of in cycle plants to increase the stats of 'seeds' that could be planted.
Fauna, the point of this thread, would allow the tending of animals breed by the farmer, tamed from the wild, or genetically engineered from a BE. At each level of Fauna, the farmer could gain new materials. Eggs at one level, milk at another, and then eventually meat.
DEs can make droids (that speak Binary for Uncle Owen). The architects could gain new schematics, like the 'slaughter house' and make the farm's little set up. The farmer gets his animal from a CH/BE, and then the farming begins! They could breed great animals with more great ones to ensure that there are at least decent meats in cycle instead of leaving it always to the fates. Then, they could take these animals and get the meats to sell to doctors.
I have to return some videos tapes (American Psycho line), so I'll continue this later. Please post any counters to this idea. I think it's a very fun solution and should be well received. It promotes classes to work together and doesn't take away from anyone, at least as far as I see. Please let me know what you think.
What's Star Wars without the farmboy on Tatooine? I tell you, it's not Star Wars at all.
There were supposed to be farmer in the game originally. Apparently they could not find enough for them to do.
They want all the professions to depend on each other, so they do not see any problem with doctors having to buy meat from rangers, and scouts. If the cost to the doctor goes up, so does the price he asks for his stims and his enhancements.
To say that being a doctor is not a money making proposition flys in the face of the evidence. Sure a doctor will not get rich healing people in the med center. But there are plenty of doctors who manage to make a very comfortable living, even having to buy most of the resources that they use.
Graeme wrote:
To say that being a doctor is not a money making proposition flys in the face of the evidence. Sure a doctor will not get rich healing people in the med center. But there are plenty of doctors who manage to make a very comfortable living, even having to buy most of the resources that they use.
I'm not so sure I would agree with that statement. Of course we have no hard numbers or metrics to work from on this, but I would say that the issue of money has come up so often to me both on and off of this forum that it suggests to me that at least a significant number of Doctors (even if it is a significant minority, mind you) do have trouble making money, especially before reaching Master. I'd say this one is a close call and I wouldn't be willing to bet money on either Docs being sufficiently in the black monetarily or not.
I spent 110k on Stims yesterday and another 50k on Pet stims... Docs can make money if they try.
Only reason I didnt buy more is because I had to pay for harvesters yesterday, so I didnt want to spend 235k on meds.
Advertise!!! Get your name out there and you will be surprised. I dont want to spend hours gathering resources to make a bunch of different meds when i can just buy them.
Graeme wrote:
There were supposed to be farmer in the game originally. Apparently they could not find enough for them to do.
They want all the professions to depend on each other, so they do not see any problem with doctors having to buy meat from rangers, and scouts. If the cost to the doctor goes up, so does the price he asks for his stims and his enhancements.
To say that being a doctor is not a money making proposition flys in the face of the evidence. Sure a doctor will not get rich healing people in the med center. But there are plenty of doctors who manage to make a very comfortable living, even having to buy most of the resources that they use.
I know that there was suppose to be a Farmer, it's mentioned in the Artisan's description upon character creation.
When you say that "they do not see any problem with doctors having to buy meat from rangers, and scouts. If the cost of the doctor goes up, so does the price he asks for his stims and his enhancements," I have trouble believing you since I've been an architect. I had to buy resources from others (and since ore was hard to buy in bulk, and never was that cheap, this made it difficult to find) and I tried to have prices reflect that. I couldn't sustain myself like that because people would buy from architects who sold for less because they got their own resources.
If Doctor's start charging 3k per stat, instead of the popular 1k per stat, then people won't pay it, they'll wait for a doctor that charges 1k. I've been in that situation for an Architect.
Also, if Doctors have no trouble getting meat in large quantities and of suitable quality from rangers, then this wouldn't be an issue. Since it is an issue, I've come up with an alternative solution.
Stated in the State of the Doctor for Nov, Docs aren't doing so hot financially, and make most of their money from being Pharmacists. Since a majority of Doctors aren't making a lot of money right now, the kind of money that could buy a ranger's time over an armorsmith's bid for hides, there needs to be a new way for Docs to get meat.
I like my idea because [1] I'm biased and [2] it adds new content to the game.
Any other thoughts on this? I truly do love discussion, although I'm too tired to carry anything on right now...
Graeme wrote:
To say that being a doctor is not a money making proposition flys in the face of the evidence. Sure a doctor will not get rich healing people in the med center. But there are plenty of doctors who manage to make a very comfortable living, even having to buy most of the resources that they use.
No starting or mid-level Doc can compete with a well-entrenched MD. One who has been an MD since launch and has already built a customer base. An MD who has the resources and a full set of 10 experimentation points to craft the 'uber' stims. It just doesn't happen.
I've seen novice docs trying to sell their stims on the bazaar. These stims are less powerful and with less charges then what I normally make, and yet these novice/mid-level docs either try to sell really high or really, really low.
If they sell it really high, no one buys because they can get a better stim for less. If they sell really low they end up either breaking even(if they're lucky) or in the hole(most common).
So, yes, even though there may be a few docs who are making a comfortable living at it(myself included) that doesn't mean EVERY doc is or can.
Okay, this derailed a little bit. It's been established that Docs, for the most part, aren't rolling in the money. At least not enough to make Rangers the permanent solution to our meat needs.
Back to my idea. How many of you would like there to be a Farmer profession? What would be the pros and cons of such a profession and the relationships to other professions (Docs in particular)?
I think it would be nice since it would allow meat (along with other things) be constantly harvested at about 1cr/unit like minerals and chems are. That way Rangers only have Bone and Hide to worry about, and Docs get to buy their resources like every other crafting class.
So please, let's discuss this whether it's a simple "cool idea" to a long drawn out "this would never work..."
Thanks
NinjasLovePirates wrote:Back to my idea. How many of you would like there to be a Farmer profession? What would be the pros and cons of such a profession and the relationships to other professions (Docs in particular)?
So please, let's discuss this whether it's a simple "cool idea" to a long drawn out "this would never work..."
Thanks
I have to say that it should never work.
Notice I didn't say it wouldn't, I said it shouldn't.
Reason? Entertainers.
Entire Entertainer/Dancer/Musician got started with some bright idea during Beta with "wouldn't it be great if..." and got blown into what it is today. They added BF so they had some purpose but it never stopped, complain on top of complain got piled on so now we have /setperform /denyservice and entertainer buffs.
It would be nice to have a "pet" profession that would be on doctor's back-n-call but I just don't know if we can go thru another round of it.
But I gotta say I like the idea tho'
Well, I think the answer as to why it may not be feasible is already listed above. I beleive in Beta a Farmer whas pretty much what the BE was going to be. Obvisouly there were some problems and a big change of vision and, I think in part, just not enough folks seemed to be interested in it. And that may be the biggest problem right there. If not enough folks are intersted the class may simply be too diluted to be overly wothrwhile to take all the extra time and expense to code it in.
Outside of that consideration, it's sound fine to me. 
It sounds like what you want is a rancher, not a farmer. I think we already have farms in the form of flora farms and moisture vaporators. Just someone to raise livestock and slaughter it when the time comes.
The idea soundsneatto me. But how about we stick this into a tree in the chef profession? I mean, they need meat, eggs, milk etc. anyway.
Ballistic_Zero wrote:
It sounds like what you want is a rancher, not a farmer. I think we already have farms in the form of flora farms and moisture vaporators. Just someone to raise livestock and slaughter it when the time comes.
The idea soundsneatto me
Well, livestock was intended as a branch. There would be a Flora/Moisture branch and a Land Alteration branch (both just suggestions).
I personally think that Harvestersshould require certifications that could only be gotten in the Survey/Miner/Farmer trees. Personals in Survey, Medium and Large in the elite trees. That's another discussion though.
So, other than the Devs removing these because 'they weren't fun enough' in Beta, this sounds like an okay idea? I mean, all they had in those trees were modifiers, not content. I have a bunch of ideas for both professions, but I think that Farmer would help out the Docs a lot.
I guess I could start another thread on how to make the Farmer fun, but since this is the Doc board...
How do you think the Farmer profession (if there was one) would help the Doctor profession?
But there would be the issue of cutting into scouts/rangers... maybe only if it did the rare stuff.
eggs, milk, seafood, etc. etc.
One of my characters sells giant piles of meat often (only has novice scout as well). My medic character (on another server) buys meat regularly.
I can get most stuff on the bazaar without a lot of effort (Dolovite iron is a pain).. As people lear what others are willing to buy, it shows up.
Also.. People are starting to lock their structures in place (waiting for cities, or just lazy). A lot of our stuff tends to come up for sale, simply because it is the biggest concentration where the harvestrs are parked.
This doesn't affect meat, but I honestly never have had a problem getting it in volume. Quality...ehh... sometimes I'm lazy and don't search around as much as I should (I tend to buy whatever tends to be on corellia ATM).
People constantly undersell.. The funny part is, the guy thaty won't give you money to buff, just spent 3 million on a Holocron.
-T