Medic Archive
Thread: Factioned Healing
My suggestion to you for now is to ask them to go to covert status, it takes an hour to revert back to covert but then at least you'll be able to heal them. I sympathize with you and have run into the same thing myself. I hope SOE/Lucas Arts will do something about it soon as I agree that its very nutty.
There seem to be two ways of getting around this. One would be to force the medic to align with the faction he is assisting. But that would negate the need for faction points. The other is the current solution, not allowing it at all. It seems to me that the reason the devs went the way they did is to make joining a faction both 1) the same for everyone and 2) require a conscious investment of time and effort.
Frankly, people, the term "neutral" does not mean "mercenary". The advantages of being neutral are that you *don't have to get involved at all*, not that you can help both sides. Think of Switzerland. They're been neutral and thus *uninvolved* in most of the major conflicts in the past 500 years. Mercenaries, on the other hand, will help out any side while belonging to none. There's a big difference.
I was going to reply with a different answer, but I see why they are doing this.(At least it makes plenty of sense to me.)
There are Doctors, Nurses, Medical Technicians, all around the world who help out in war zones. I imagine some of them are critized for there choices. Hopefully they want to do itbecause they choose the side of kindness/caring for your fellow man. It isin a way a huge moral dilemma.I would hopeif you were in need of medical attention you would be willingto recieve it from someone even though they may be aligned with another side.
However (with the simplistic way the game is setup) by helping someone from the other (faction)side, you are no longer neutral. You are in fact helping that cause.If we did help them I would think that it would either give us faction points or make us automatically become Rebel or Imperial.
Making it so we can not heal them leaves us very much neutral.
I dont think any medic would mind getting a TEF for helping a overt factioned PC, but my friends were covert and I still couldn't!
It could almost be used as an exploit to see who is of what faction, fair enough, its not that important, but it still defys the point of being covert.
Another situation is if I am a covert imp, and working in a hospital to get my Xp up, and a covert rebel asks for healing, I have to then turn them away and say "Sorry, but im a imp, but dont tell anyone cus im covert!"
Come on devs, us medics have been asking for pritty basic changes since beta 3, but not even medical forgage has been addressed. Im not complaining, just saying that little glitches really screw things up for us medics.
Ldwater wrote:
I dont think any medic would mind getting a TEF for helping a overt factioned PC, but my friends were covert and I still couldn't!
Are you saying that since I'm neutral I wouldn'tmind being a Imp or Reb temporarily?
You're quite wrong. I'm neutral for a reason.(Even though everything I'm explaining is OOC, most any other post(s) I make on Intrepid are from character perspectives) I am a smuggler, from a roleplaying standpoint, not profession the way it's setup now. Being a medic allows you to make many many contacts. The more people you help out, the more opportunities you have to make money.
Simply put is "The friend of my enemy is also my enemy".
Medics havea choice to heal players or not, if that player is overt and they heal them then yes, I beleive that they should get a TEF because they are helping the enemy. If you want to remain neutral, then dont heal them.
Without having a TEF this situation could be easily exploitable: PVP situation, both combatents are overt Imp / Reb, one player has a nutral medic and the other player has a overt medic. The overt medic can become a target while the neutral medic is essentially invincable but still able to provice the overt player with any medical attention.
Really its a medics choice, if they want to get involved in the GCW, then let them, no one is forcing them to, but I could quite easily see a Stormtrooper gunning down a medic for helping out a wounded rebel, and the same vice versa.
To me, this still kind of shocked me when it happened my first time. I still don't like it. Organisations like the Red Cross and Red Cresent do this exact thing in real life, yet no one ever thinks they are for or against the enemy, just one human being helping another. I take much the same approach in my hospital as many other doctors in real-life do. You can bring me that mass murderer who has been injured. You can do what you like with him, try him, convict him, even kill him, but while he is a patient in my hospital, he is an injured lifeform, and, IMHO, it is my job as a medic to help him.
Again, I see the in-game reasons for this. Maybe healing a certain faction should earn you small amounts of faction points (again, I apologize if I'm not understanding the faction system yet, as I'm still new) or enable him/her as PvP-able to the opposite side for a short time, which would allow you to attack that neutl medic healing your imp foe. Don't know if this would be hard to implement or not. Still, it rather upsets me that over half the patients that walk in my hospital are beyond my care.
Gaining faction points make more sense to me, than a TEF, but I also see where you're coming from with that too.
However what if you are a new player who does not know the system that well and just wants to help? Should it be fair that they get a TEF then are shot dead and are left with a WT-F expression on their face?
One must consider both sides of the argument and not forget the role playing aspect of it.
Neutral medics can heal anyone; because they are neutral, they do not have a political preference to either side, thus creating for them a healing benefit. They are able to heal anyone.
Overt/Covert medics can heal only their own faction; because they have aligned themselves with that political power. Rememer that the Empire and the Republic (or soon to be known as) are at war. Rebels hate imperials, imperials hate rebels. You must understand that this is about galactic war as much as it is about personal character development and roleplaying. You must play the game within the setting determined for you. A war. Where one side hates the other side and is in constant battle for everything.
Now ive seen comments about 'the red cross' or whatever. Well i could understand if they developed something like a medics guild where you could join and you would be able to heal anyone you want but not join a political power (imp/reb) because you are only interested in healing people. But people who join the Imps/Rebs must understand that that is saying you are a part of that specific political power because you believe the other to be wrong and immoral.
For my solution i suggest this;
Should a politically aligned medic wish to heal someone of the opposite faction, they should have the option with a penalty. By showing compassion to 'the other side' they should gain faction points for healing them and lose their own faction points. This would stop people from being rebels and healing imperials. For those medics who feel that they are healing for the sake of healing, well if thats the case, your political alignement shouldnt matter, so whats a few factions points in light of someones health... if you truly care that is, or if your just using that as an easy argument 
So remember the setting people, this is a galactic and racial war to the death, where loyalties sometimes go as far as your credits can take you... look out for yourself, and if you dont want to get involved, stay neutral!
I do, howeverm think that you should be warned that this will occur.
It is easy to miss the fact that someone is aligned, and you could end up in a whole heap of trouble.
I think the message you already get is fine, but it shouldn't prevent you from healing.
The message makes no sense in that case.
OK, I know it's unwise, but I still want to do it.
The message should either be change into something like
"You cannot heal that person because of their faction alignment", or you should get the same message with a yes/no box that healed and gave you a TEF if you decided to go ahead.
I understand all of those who wish to heal anyone without penalties as I'm one of you too. The exploits need to be preventable though
Alarain Sherril - Tyrena, Corellia - Eclipse
All you arguments based on reality are valid arguments for why neutrals should be able to heal anyone. However, the issue here is not reality, but how to prevent exploiting this.
As many people have mentioned, you cannot heal overts unless you are overt or covert. Coverts getting tags for healing. This is all to prevent exploitation. If neutrals could heal anyone, then there would never be a need to join a faction for a medic. Furthermore, this could be exploited so that neutral could go on raids with overts and heal wihtout fear of death.
The problem with idea of neutrals getting TEFs for heaing overts is that so what. Being neutral with a TEF and getting killed loses you nothing except a trip to a clone center and maybe a few wounds. Factioned players lose faction points when killed by enemy factions, hence there is a risk to getting a TEF. If i could PvP and not worry losing facton points by staying neutral I would most definately do that with my overt friends. So all in all even with a TEF, its not a huge deal for neutrals.
As for coverts healing enemy coverts...the thing is you'll never "know" if the other person is a covert. If they are covert without TEF, there is no way of telling them apart from another neutral player. The only way you would know was if you knew the person to be a rebel, I.E. you've seen him overt. So the whole issue of im a covert and ur a covert of the enemy faction is moot, cuz you'll never know...
The final point remains the issue of perks for joining factions. Join factions offers certain perks. Even more if you are overt. Don't think of being not being able to heal overts as a neutral to be a nerf. Just consider being able to heal a overt as a perk of being covert/overt.
Thanks for the replys all, hopefully the devs will take note.
I have to agree with Muran about the conformation to heal message, just so that the medic is sure they want to heal and include in the message that they will become a target for the opposite faction for a short while, but again, only if they are Overt, the whole idea of being covert is pretending that you are neutral.
I still feel that if I was a covert imperial, I should be able to heal a covert rebel, because in theory, we dont know each others alignment. Not wanting to blow their cover they would heal, even if they were aware ofeach others faction. Im not sure about a covert imperial healing an overt rebel, maybe that player should also get a TEF for helping the rebel when they are imperial (and still take damage from fellow faction members), as like I said before, 'pretending' they are neutral.
If the concequences of knowing a covert imperal / rebel were more important (eg, you could attack them) then this would be a major expliot to see who is a covert.
The whole issue boils down to choice. A medic should have the power to choose who they heal, regardless of faction. If they aren't your faction, its your choice to heal, and not to be prevented from doing so.
Sigh...Did you even read my post?
Coverts imperials can heal covert rebels and vice versa as long as neither of the coverts have TEF.
The thing is you'll never know who's covert...
And as for not having to worry about overts, its easier to keep your cover...if neutrals could heal overts, then youd have to let coverts heal overts as well..and not just same faction overts but enemy overts as well. Cuz if neutralscould heal overts and coverts could not...then covert covers would be blown as soon as the doc said sry i can't heal you. Then the patient would know that the doc wasn't a neutral and was really an enemy covert...
if you just stop and thinking about these things logically for a sec, they make total sense...