Medic Archive

Philosopher, our pistoleer correspondent, wrote this in the Pistoleer Forums

2) HAM SYSTEM CHANGE TO COMBAT SPECIALS: This is a MAJOR change, and is something you should all try to test if you have time to head over to TestCenter. The change is that all ham costs for combat moves are no longer damage. With the old system, you would spend 100 points and it would be identical to damage. With the new system, the HAM points are removed from maximum value, not the current value -- so your HAM bars will actually shrink as you use specials but you won't actually be DAMAGING yourself. The ham costs have a SIGNIFICANTLY accelerated regeneration rate -- it's much faster than healing.

I tested this a bunch and here's what I found: with 950 Health/Action/Mind (400 in all secondaries but Willpower) I was regenerating around 10-11 HAM per second, which is much faster than I ordinarily regenerate. It seemed like this rate was dynamic and would get even faster as my action bar got small, because my bars never got super low,but I'm not sure -- I was fighting at the time and kept getting booted every few minutes, which was annoying. As a practical matter I found that 1) it was much easier to spam specials WITHOUT having medic because the specials wouldn't actually cause damage to me and I recovered fully within a super short amount of time but 2) healing is less important because you no longer need it in order to spam specials.

This means that more than likely you will not be able to heal pseudo-wounding caused by weapon specials. Your people in your group will not be taking damage that is healable by your stimpacks (from the sounds of it), and therefore you will only be healing actual combat damage.

The CH nerf will potentially see more medics involved in healing PC tanks = more XP for medics.

This particular change (nerf?) will mean that you will not be able to gain XP off of people using specials. It will also mean that stimpack sales will decrease, as people will need to use them less becuase they aren't actually taking damage from using their specials.

Those that are fighting-medic types this a semi-decent blessing as you won't have to heal yourself both from combat damage and combat special costs. However, it also means that you cannot regain full health just from a stim alone, you will also have to wait until your specials' pseudo-damages decrease.

Those who are pure medics, it means that you will probably be healing less.

Those who are also doctors and buffing people, it means buffs may decrease in importance, as people won't be damaging themselves. At the same time, however, people may want buffs just as often now becuase they can spam them longer without having to wait for the specials to recharge.

Mixed blessings....we'll see if it comes live and how it does so. I'm mostly speculating but it seems logical that if it works the way Philosopher says it did, then it's going to affect medics greatly.

One nice thing is... it would get rid of the medic xp exploit... but personally I dont like it... it doesnt sound good, medics will be needed even less, as if we arnt already not needed... hmmmmm

This sounds like an awesome idea (being a doctor/carbineer).

What I'd like to see to keep doc buffs important is this special bar increasing with the size of the buffed attribute, if that isn't already the case... I'll have to log in to TC and find out I guess.

lol welcome to the world of riflemen boys and girls !!!! wooo cooo!!!

now you can all play liek us

I can talk about this now that it has hit TC.

This is the first move in te "weapon/combat pass" that they are working on.

This is not the final form, but a rough test (no UI changes etc.) it may also never go live at all.

It kills off a ton of exploit type XP gains, and also allows them to rebalance specials.

Basically ,we get 2 bars per current HAM bar, one for specials and 1 for getting hurt.

If we are hurt, we have less points for specials.

If we use specials we don't get hurt.

Overall, this is a great start fro making combat more fun overall.

Yes, people don't get hurt by using specials, but neither do Mobs, so battles even out actros the board (though PC's tend to use more specials). So stim sales won't plummet, but they will drop off some.

The main advantage is that the devs can now make some specials cost a ton and do a ton of damage, and not kill anyone by [just] using that 1 special.

Spamming will be a little less common, by default, so people will actualle take more regular damage (rather then the special use damage)... so you won't lose 100% of the damage usually used for specials...

Also note, that if this works well, they will consider moving it to other systems. (Say liek medic.. if it isn't like that already on TC)... and that means we don't hurt our mind by healing... it becomes a special move.

With this system separating mind damage from mind skill use, we can do more as well.

I'm about to run off to TC and play with this... From the posts I have seen, it is going to be a major improvement to the current system, once everything rolls out.

Everyone give it a chance.

-T

Message Edited by Traigus on 11-26-2003 03:30 PM

It seems that main bar buffs are just as effective as before. Second bar buffs still make special cost lower. Currently third bar buffs don't add to special bar regen (still add to damage regen though).

This may be jsut an effect of the way it is currently implimented. Zarlor and I are waiting for clarification of what should be happening in the more advanced versions of this plan.

-T

so in something like cantina healing, will my heals affect they're special bar? or do I now have to camp at the med center and wait to heal someone before a novice doc. can get to them?

At the moment, it is only for combat. Dunno if it will ever go live in the form it is in, or at all.

If it speads to all systems, you won't be able to heal entertainers... But med center isn't your only other choice.. Damage healing in combat woudl be good too.. better in fact for XP then wound healing.. always has been.


-T

According to Philosopher, this was yanked from TC for rebalancing (apparently it was making some combat professions way too powerful, such as brawlers).

It was in the TC patch notes that it was removed.

It was naver intended to go live the way it was. It was just a test.

We'll probably see it again after it has more work done on it.

-T