Medic Archive
Thread: SWG State of the Medic Report (Monday November 3, 2003)
SWG State of the Medic Report
It has been four months since SWG went live, and people are curious about how we (as Medics) are doing overall as a profession. In compliance with the New Community Rep., ThunderHeart's, requestfor a "State of the Medic" post here in a sweeping attempt to get a baseline reading of all professions in SWG, here is where we are and what we want (as compiled Mon. November 3, 2003).
It does not include Doctor, Combat Medic, or Bio-Engineer specific problems. Those professions have their own "State of" posts. It also does not include any undocumented fixes on Test Center as of the above date.
Medics, as a starting profession have a rough time. Like other starting professions (Scout, Entertainer, Marksman and Artisan) we are often passed through on the way to other professions, or taken in parts by people using up their few remaining skill points. It is very infrequent to see someone call themselves a medic, unless they are working their way onto something else.
This means our needs and issues are often combinations of Advanced / Elite profession fundamental systems ( in our case, we have the roots of both healing and medical crafting systems which extend to 3 different professions), and starting the game as new player "right off the shuttle."
Overall, Medics are in very good shape as a profession. Most of our systems work, and work as intended.
Starting as a medic
It is very hard to start as a medic. The medic as a starting profession has been a steep climb since Beta. A large percentage of medics start as an Artisan (and pay the 100cr for Novice Medic) because the free survey tools are such useful starting items for what essentially is a crafting profession. The 3 free starting medicines are not only different from every other medicine in the game ( in type, charges, effectiveness, and even in game system specific abilities [starting medics get a mind healing Damage Stimpack]
Add to this the "free heals" of /tendwound and /tenddamage, and the dubious /medicalforage, and the starting medic can be left in quite a daze – confused about what they are supposed to do next.
There are many debates over if medics should operate in the field, in medcenters, or wander the lands armed with a droid. Many Medics move on to Doc/CM and to a far lesser extent BE. All of these choices work, and the progression to these goals are not gated.
Known Bugs (in no particular order)
/dragincapacitatedplayer has trouble with "zonelines" this includes dungeons, house doorways, and outdoor zonelines.
/healdamage is not affected by medic speed rating when used on self (in process of being fixed... may be on TC?), but often counts down oddly due to server issues (you cannot use this for 1 second, 6 seconds in a row).
Server 6 meter location range makes it sometimes hard to Stim an incapped player.
Battle Fatigue "This will affect your healing" message seems to come at 300 BF, when in beta we were told it would be 200. Which one is right?
XP from factories inconstantly getting reported to character.
XP from usage of sold stims inconstantly getting reported to character.
Med modules on droids over-writing med center, house and camp heal ratings, even if the rating of the structure is higher. (if a droid with a bad med module is taken out in a med center to us a crafting station in it, it lowers everyone's chances to heal).
Server 6M variance on actual location of PCs and pets, causes us to get "out of range" errors, when we thing we are in range.
Healing is partially "In Queue" and "Out of Queue" with respect to when it happens in combat. (in process of being fixed).
Some B level meds can be made in a Food/Chem kit, some need to use a craft station as well.. this is not consistant.
Gameplay Issues
Problems with making money as a medic, outside of selling stim B's. No secure way to pay for healing. This is a problem, because Doctors can also easily outcraft us on stim B's, making our product hard to sell. Where is the money at?
/quickheal is not useful. It doesn't do anything worthwhile for a huge cost.
/medicalforage is not useful
Concern over the "pet stimpacks" that BEs make on the economy of being a medic.
Medical XP is very fast. Is this intended. Master medic is a very quick process (if you can find resources to craft). The slowest part is crafting XP, and that is not as badly skewed as Doc crafting XP.
Some medics feel they are not wanted in groups. With the ease of XP to get through medic, the proliferation of Doctors and CMs make the people that stay only in medic feel a bit inferior. Since medics are a field profession (no ability to /register in a medcenter) people are concerned about our role in the game.
The TEF system is getting a lot of medics killed. TEFs are invisible, and we aren't warned that we may "catch a TEF" from a TEF'd patient. (partial fix for invisible TEFs on TC).
When Covert medics are TEF'd, people "droid grief" our med droids.. pounding them into scrap. They are a valid target in the system, but are non-combatant and expensive to replace.
Stim B and its med use. Stim B was lowered to med use 5 to fix a gating problem with Schematic revocation in beta... When revocation was removed. Stim B was not put back.. This leaves 2 skillboxes a bit empty. In addition though, the counter is that Stim B's are the only thing medics can make money on... since everyone needs at least Novice Medic to heal PCs, raising Stim B's med use would kill this market.
Wishlist Items
Some medics want med Centers to be "no combat" Zones.
Some medics (usually Neutral) wish to heal anyone they want to (regardless of Faction Affiliation, PA affiliation and TEF) with out restriction, and without being attacked.
Medic mission terminals...
Medics want a mind heal.
Large varieties of medicines makes inventory management a pain.
Request to let med be used by hotkeys out of bags in inventory.
Clearer player side explanation of crafting and how it works... including why it seems to change every patch, even without patchnotes changes.
Secure healing trade window of some kind, or the equiv. Function.
Request for some kind of /survey and /sample functionality, so as not to have to take the expensive "Mandatory Novice Artisan Box" to get by. Stress added for the benefit of general medic Community sentiment on said box.
Request for Schematic sorting By Alphabet level of meds. The ability of craft tools to remember what section of list are compressed / open ... if at all possible, between logins as well.
Medicine schematics cannot be seen until after a medic reaches the level to make them... this isn't a galaxy-wide secret. Medicine requirements should be listed in the Holocron, or someplace ingame, so medics won't be surprised by the materials they need when they gain a level (true of all crafting professions) or have to resort to leaving the game to look these recipes up.
Request for public or even private Food/chem units in the hospitals. Not everyone has (or should have to have) a house or a droid. (In addition Lok has no food/chem, and Yavin IV's Labor Outpost has a private level station in the cantina).
Why must our inventory "auto-resort" on login... Why can't we arrange our own inventory?
Request for an easy way to select group members over 9. Ctrl 1-9 is all we have, and the bigger the group, the more important it is we have the ability to select quickly.
Inability to "Self-Target" without using Ctrl-1 or using up a macro slot with "/healdamage self" for example. Request to "click self" or other convenient UI shortcut.
Request for "Heal Over Time" meds... (though that would just be stat buffs right?)
Issues with titles, both with the actually titles themselves, and how they represent the individual branches, and the speed in which people get them. Many medics get all three non-crafting titles almost at the same time, and immediately move onto master Medic shortly thereafter. The 4 branch titles are almost never used.
Rebel Hideout on Corellia "medical room" has a medical theme, reported as not a med center. (Unknown if this has been fixed.)
Request to turn on/off "auto-retaliate" in combat healers often do not want to fight back.
Medics want extra XP for grouping with other medics.
Food and Chem factories Just called "Food Factory," confusing players on what factory to buy (often medics buy equipment factories by mistake)...(Has this been fixed?)
Request to remove /tends and /quickheal (and new CM mindheal) as "uinstarwarsy magic," replace with items /meds.
This is the stuff currently on my list. (Please note how much of it is wishlist).
Feel free to add to this thread if you think I have missed anything.
Please remember to keep Doc, CM, and BE issues on thier respective boards.
Thank You.
-T
Upcoming in the new patch, the following items are on TC that are specific to medics (not Docs, CMs, or BEs). This is not a total patchlist. Please see the Dev tracker and ThunderHeart's posts for full list.
Some of them correct issues in the above post.
1.) Increased the power of quickHeal and reduced its mind cost.
2.)Fixed a bug in AI which resulted in NPCs sometimes deathblowing players just for fun. (Gives us more time to heal, or /dragincap.)
3.)Fixed a problem with several healing commands using the default roundtimes and not the roundtime modified by skill mods. (This includes /healself.)
4.)Changed the queue delay on quickHeal so that it is modified by the Injury Treatment Speed skill mod.
5.)Reworked the dot mechanics so that dots no longer incapacitate the target. If a given dot pulse would reduce the target to less than one, the pool is instead taken down to 1. Because of this change, the dot grace period for being incapacitated has been removed. (More time to heal non-mind DoTs.)
6.)Decreased frequency of NPC targetted shots vs. mind, focus and willpower. (This will help vs. mind incap overall in PVE, CMs also get a Mindheal.. This may help to aleviate mid/high level uncontroled mind incaps, especially from mobs/NPC's that have mind targeting specials.)
7.)Guard and soldier-type NPCs will no longer attack pets, unless they are supposed to (e.g. the pet is attacking one of their allies). (This includes med-droids.)
8.)Added combat spam when you take wounds or shock wounds. (Now peoplr can gauge how beat up they are getting in actual numbers.)
9.)Advanced Resilience Compounds should be craftable.
10.)Increased the experience given for crafting advanced biological effect controllers so that it falls in line with other medicine craftables.
11.)Crafting can now make use of nested containers. (cargo pocket inside a backpack etc.)
12.)Fixed experimentation formula to use the correct range when determining how much an item attribute changes. The formula was supposed to be based on the resource max range, but was using the entire attribute range. A crit success experimenting with an attribute can push the attrib over the resource max value, but never over the item max attrib value.
(This means that poorer materials will make poorer items, even with master skills. Having good materials will get you the same meds, bad materials will get you much worse meds than before... this is a partial nerf, but it is also a fix for some of the crafting wackyness we have been seeing.)
13.)Made it so you can't delete a factory crate that's being used in a crafting session.
14.)Prevent old crates from being split. (I guess this was an issue... not sure what qualifies as "old.")
15.)Added new command, "/notepad", allows modifications to a text file that gets saved as "notes.txt" in the user's base profile directory.
16.)Added clientside mail saving with the /mailSave command.
17.) Moved the schematics for combat medical components to the combat medic skill tree. (this cancels out #9.)
18.)Increased the power of firstAid. It now reduces bleeding at a rate of 3 times the medic's injury treatment.
19.)Added 'Pets / Pet Supplies' and 'Medical Supplies' categories to vendor planetary map listing and area barking. (for vendors)
20.)Increased sale timer from 7 days to 30 days for player vendor sales. (for vendors)
21.)You can now wear a backpack with Grand Healers Robe, Grand Ball Gown, and the Luxurious Gown. Why you would want to desecrate such fine dresswear with a backpack is beyond us, but you can if you feel like it. (becasue we needto equip a backpack to actualyl cary anything
.)-T
(Ok I snuck a few non-medic ones in there, rememebr to read te full patch notes.)
Couple things I noticed.
I regularly use meds in a backpack as hotkeys. This has been this way since i first picked up medic over a month ago.
The healing range I am seeing is just over 7 meters.
When I have my surgical 3PO droid (Level 110) out in a cantina, I am given a message that I must be in a camp, or medical center to heal wounds.
Wishlist item:
A limited form of rez ability for master medics simulating the first four minutes of loss of body function that would allow us to rez newly dead (give us 30-60 seconds at the least) players and pets before a doctor is required to intervene. The grogginess of a medic rez should last much longer than the 60 seconds of the doctor's full rez or simply restore a player to an incapacitated state. Justification: How many paramedics perform CPR or other resucitative techniques without being full bore doctors? Have this ability linked to a trauma kit that has a limited lifespan before expiring.
7 m healing + 6m sever inaccuracy still leave a lot of times where people are out of range (live or incap)... Mostly when you are on the wrong side of the misreported person.
I'll add the droid problems (oh boy even more broken droids) and the wishlist item to the list when it gets recycled (I can't edit posts either).
Anyone else have anything?
-T
The droid in a cantina is not a bug, it's as intended. Disallowing medical wound healing in a cantina helps to keep a cantina from becoming a one-stop healing spot.
It's been this way the entire time the game has been live as well as in Beta.
-T
(too much blue milk for me).
It just seems like some stuff doesn't really ever change much. Didn't we go over most of this in beta too?
I'm starting a medic again (for the 5th time I think) on Chimaera, so most of this feels very familiar. Yeh... I just HAVE to play a medic/doctor.
I got a question about medicalforage earlier in fact.
Very informative. thanks i am glad to be brought up to speed with whats going down.
And i like Rorenikibi's idea about limited Res. ability.
We are masters, after all. there should be more than Stim D's in it for us.
Feel free to add to this thread if you think I have missed anything
the only thing i hate about medic is the /medicalforage who the heck will use 1 bean they pickup? Make it so we can pickup about 20 resourses (so we can use for most crafting) and it can be ANY random current resourse that is out there. think about it like this
walking along starport and i start to forage around and find some metal someone could have dropped / threw away. too others, its just trash but it wound up being 23 units of dolovite iron with 900 OQ!!
Hi there, everyone!
Okay, I have some things I would like to say on these issues, as this Profession is my main Profession right now. First off, I have been playing this game for almost 3 months, a couple times a week, and I am still not at Master Medic. I personally found it to be far easier to get my crafting XP up than anything else, and I am constantly crafting those Stim B's. And using them on everyone!!! Sometimes it seems like I am the only Medic in Mos Eisely!!! I am on my way to Doctor, but running into the problems of not being an Artisan and yet I need things like Talusian water, Dantooine Berry Fruits, etc. I don't mind this so much, except that I have been lucky enough to have a friend who wanted to play one, and now that I actually have a couple of harvesters to place so I can get these rare materials, I am having a hard time placing them because the areas are so freaking dangerous!!! I took a group of6 (2 Riflemen, 1 Swordsman, 1 Dancer/new Medic, 1 Artisan, and me, a Stimpack Chemist/Scout) and got killed over 3 times before we were able to place the harvester to get the Lokian Wild Wheat!!!
So, I would have to say that if we have to get these rare materials to make our better meds, we should see some of these things on the bazaar, if need be, placed there by the developers! Medics, Docs and CMs are the easily the most expensive Professions, and it is too hard to get these things, especially by people like me, who play the game but don't want to join a PA right off the bat, or at all. OR, are in a PA that doesn't have the resources to help out the Medics in their group obtain these hard to find or recover, materials.
Additionally, I have HUGE problems with the fact that the Liquid Suspension picture looks just like the Biological Component, and the Solid Delivery Shell looks like the Chemical Release Mechanism, etc. Can't we have a different color for these things, at least??? With all the colors the Tailors have to play with the clothing in SWG, you can't tell me that a game developer can't change the code on Liquid Suspension to be blue instead of red!!! It would help those of us who sometimes put the wrong component in the wrong slot when we are tired or can't quite read the words because they are just off-screen.
Ok, let's talk about Med Centers. WIth all the Dancers and Musicians who are leaving the game or changing Professions (I myself know of 3 on the Tarquinas server) I think we need something to compensate.....I understand that the CM's have a Mind Heal. And Docs get drugs that are good buffs. Can Medics get small mind healing? I personally think that wouldn't take too much away from the Dancers/Musicians. The problem is this....frequently in the early day or late evening (Central Standard Time) I haven't been able to find a Dancer/Entertainer on much of Tatooine except for Anchorhead! And on Corellia, you can find them in Coronet, but not on Tyrena or anywhere close to Lok or Dathomir!!! And with more and more Entertainers threatening to leave over the poorer economy, the perception that they can't become Jedi unless picking up a combat Profession, and having too little to do in the game, we Medics need something to help fill the void.
And let's talk about the poorer economy..... Remember when I said that this is an expensive Profession? Now that you have to spend at least the initial 15 points to pick up Medic, Stimpack B's are about the only things we CAN sell. I would like to see more things that we can sell to others for credits. Yes, my inventory is constantly full because of all the crafting supplies and medpacks and stimpacks I am forced to carry around *groan* however, our actual ability to make any credits is exceedingly limited. What about drugs to combat the "downer" effects of a Doctor's Buffs or things like Neutron Pixie and Muon Gold? These could be very helpful, and if they are usable by anyone, would be good sellers.
Okay, now let's talk about backpacks and cargo pockets. Yes, I want to be able to use nested containers. But I want to be able to craft from my nested containers!!! And I would like to see my medicines NOT be damaged when this whole "you get slain and cloned and your stuff looses effectiveness" patch happens. It is hard enough to make all the medicines and gather resources without all of it going KABOOM because I have managed to get yet another TEF that I can't see, but some silly PvPer has and reads Stimpack Chemist over my head....which in PvP translates to EASY TARGET. So, please developers, at least think about making crafted things like medicines not be subjected to this loss of effectiveness patch.
Also, and I promise this is my last request....for now....could we have more clothing that identifies us as Medics? There is the Doctor's Robe....where is the Medic's? A flightsuit sort of thing with cool pockets might be nice, something that looked like EMT wear.....that starting white jumpsuit reminds me too much of my babysitter's going dancing jumpsuit in the 80's (horrible flashback).
Okay, I think that about sums it up for me. Oh, and I LOVE the idea of Medical Terminals. Especially if when you go to heal the NPC, you get interesting info about their lovelife, their family, the current storyline, etc. How funny would it be to have someone say they need healing but when you get there, if you spoke to them in the right way, they turned out to not any healing at all, just a sympathetic ear? That is, after all, true to life, too.
Take care,
Morella
Stimpack Chemist, Novice BE, Will I ever get to Pistoleer?
Tarquinas Server
Nested Container craftingis in the Big Mount/Playercity Publish.
---Crafting can now make use of nested containers.
Coming SOON (TM).
-T