Bugs

1. Experimentation Issues %

(Partial Fix with Crit Failure Reduction in Publsih 7)

Experimentation does not seem to work correctly or consistently. Even with experimentation risks being listed as 0% there are still a great many critical failures, failures and only some moderate and standard successes. Wholly inconsistent with the 0% failure rating stated by the crafting tool. Having highly experimented crafting tools and stations do seem to alleviate the problem a little, but not by very much. Amazing successes appear to not produce as nearly drastic improvements as critical failures produce in reductions, a better trade-off is sought here. Even experimenting by 1 point at a time seems to produce the same results (with less risk) as using as many points as possible, which is counterintuitive to what most folks expect, where they expect that taking the greater risk should provide some greater reward other than keeping the complexity low enough on an item that it doesn't take quite as long to manufacture.

Part of the problem might come where some preliminary experimentation with the crafting system would suggest that a crafting tool with a negative rating (up to -14.99) is superior to a tool with a positive rating (+15). Others have suggested the same issue with crafting stations (where a -44.99 station would perform better than a +45 station would.) Apparently the values seem to be flipped for experimentation calculations, we think. We really would like more consistency and a more reliable, documented, experimentation methodology.

Of particular note would be schematics where experimentation on a single line affects more than one attribute. Once the resource max for any particular attribute is reached each EP used only produces a 50% improvement over what it would normally have done if it were not being held back by the secondary trait.

Further Malleability ratings do affect the difficulty levels of crafting an item, but this is not otherwise annotated anywhere, not even in the Advanced Guide on Crafting on the main SWG website or the Holocron, although the Knowledgbase does now contain this tidbit of information.. Better documentation for experimentation needs to be made available.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=22133

(*Dev Response: In response to the Doctor Top 5 issues on 12/18/03 Zarlor reported the following response: "The QA team is looking into the issues around experimentation to determine if there are any bugs in the code that need to be rectified. Outside of that we may also need to do a balance pass to ensure that experimentation is working to a proper degree."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=24681  

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response:  "The Devs and QA will be investigating the crafting system.  All of these issues have been forwarded to internal QA, along with several more issues that have appeared since this Top5 was submitted."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053

Publish 7 Patch Notes: "Crafting System Enhancements: One of the top concerns for crafters of all types was the issue of "critical fails". Critical fails are a risk that all crafters take when attempting to create an item. This basic dice roll function is the gamble crafters take as part of the risk of crafting, but as a resounding player concern, the developers looked at the system to see how the relationship of crafter and crafter-risk could be made to have a stronger relationship to the fictional act of crafting. Toward creating a stronger crafting experience, a new modified die roll model has been implemented to enhance the experience so that now, a crafter's raw ability will have an effect on how often critical fails occur. Crafting still works on the same risk/reward principle of a 5% critical fail chance, but is now modified with the player's assembly or experimentation skill. As crafters progress from Novice to Master they will have a reduced chance of a critical failure. "

Ref: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/recent_test_updates.jsp?page=In%20Testing )

2. Room/Dungeon Wound Healing Problems

Non-combat healing actions, such as Wound Healing and Enhancing, that would normally require a Droid, do not function within Caves/Dungeons when said droid is out. A recent situation where this has become most obvious (at least on Test Center) is with

3. Incapacitated Player Location Problems

Incapped players seem to always change location from where they, apparently, dropped down, even when you are on follow. As such the player who may not have moved since the last time you were close enough to heal them just a few seconds ago, is somehow no longer within healing range, even if they look like they are at your feet. Workarounds have included using the /dragIncapacitatedPlayer command to get them to you, but sometimes the location is so screwed up that even though the player appears to be at your character's feet, they are still outside of the 20m drag range. The issues seems to be most prevalent in indoor areas (such as caves/dungeons), “server boundaries” and areas oh steep slopes or odd geometry that may cause Line of Sight issues. A possible solution is using the same location algorithm for locating the "body" that heals were using on the live player (where the player WAS close enough) when they are incapped and allow the /follow command to actually work on incapped players and corpses to get us close enough to them to perform the required heal function.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=10449

4. Factory XP (or lack thereof)

Factories currently do not seem to be providing the 10% Crafting XP they are supposed to provide. We are uncertain if this is a problem with no XP being provided at all, or if there is a timing issue where the XP is being provided at an extremely slow rate. Several folks are trying to investigate the issue further.

5. Battle Fatigue Notification

The Battle Fatigue affecting your heal rate should be giving notification at 250 instead of 400, according to the latest clarification on this, done with some testing of the new non-variable Doctor Enhance packs. Please provide the notification.

By the same respect the player being healed should also receive the notification message, to encourage them to get the Battle Fatigue healed at the Cantina first before going to the Med Center and wasting the resources of the Medics there who are not healing to their potential because of this.

6. Skill Enhancement Concerns &

(To be Fixed)

Since it has been confirmed that the cap for Skill Enhancements is supposed to be +25 the UI on the Skills page needs to be fixed to reflect that maximum.

(*Dev Response: Dave "Keldarin" White wrote on the Correspondent forum on 11/3/2003 in regards to a question on if the UI is bugged or if the perceived +25 cap on skill enhancements is bugged:

"There is a UI issue there.  The highest bonus you can have to any one skill is +25.")

7. Rooms/Dungeons and /DragIncap

We'd like the ability to /DragIncap from a room or Cave/Dungeon.

8. Healing Negative Wounds Bug

There are situations, generally involving buffs and armor, where a player might have wounds that show up in the negative values. These negative values (previously responsible for causing more than a few problems with perma-incap situations) do not seem to be getting healed properly. Reports suggest that when healing a stat that has negative wounds that the Medic doing the healing is actually "hurting" the patient lowering the maximum value on their stat. For example someone who has -145 strength wounds and a 500 strength value when fully healed has that that -145 wound healed, their max strength drops to 355, until they clone. Please fix.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=20904

9. "Medical" Locations That Don't Allow Healing

There are many locations in the game, particularly in some of the "dungeons" and other static content locations, where a room in such a location has an obvious medical "theme" to the room. However such rooms never allow healing actions to be performed in them. Please fix so these locations act like any other hospital/camp/player building would for healing purposes.

10. Usage XP Inconsistencies

UXP seems to be quite inconsistent. Some preliminary testing suggests that UXP can often be had if the person using the item is right there with you when they use it, but of they are any distance away (possibly a server line issue) or if the Medic is logged off, UXP does not seem to be generating (even allowing for the possible 4 hour delay Holo once mentioned as a consideration for some earlier UXP anomalies being seen.)

11. Droid Med Module Rating Overrides Location Ratings

(Request commentary! Isn;t it the other way around now? The location overrides the droids?)

Droid med module ratings are superceding the heal rates in other locations, thus GREATLY reducing the heal capabilities of medics (or increasing on those rare instances an experimented Med 6 Module is on the droid in question). Please check to ensure that only the best heal rate is utilized.

This is also affecting the damage stim rates when they are out, greatly reducing what a stim would normally heal damage for with no droid around at all. While it would be nice to have a 10% increase with a well experimented Med 6 module, it is requested that droids either be taken out of the loop for heal effectiveness with stims, or that the greater heal rate of an area is also considered for stims, but where the standard heal rate is considered 100% irregardless of location (thus allowing for a 100 heal rate normally, but gaining the bonuses of a droid that has a higher rate if it is available.)

12. Wrong XP on Some Schematics

Some items do not seem to be giving proper XP, such as experimented items, having a higher complexity, do not give more XP than their unexperimented versions.

It has also been noted that despite the increased complexity and resource requirements of something like an Advanced Liquid Suspension over a standard LS that the standard LS will still provide more XP (35 as compared to 25 for an ALS).

13. Radial Menu and Heal Options Bug

The Radial menu does not always provide the Heal options, even though the target is obviously wounded and/or the redial menu was just used to provide a heal. Please fix.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=18435

14. Multiple CRDM problem

Stimpacks that use multiple CRDMs do not seem to be reading the Power rating correctly. Preliminary suggestions seem to imply that the power rating from the primary CRDM is not being read at all. (For those Medics reading this, it should be noted that only the first of any multiple stack of components is supposed to be read for the stats, so having 2 CRDMS should be no different than only using 1, it should just be a direct add of the rating from one of the components.) Further, thorough, testing needs to be done, however. (Anyone wanting to help out on this front, please jump right in.)

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14087

15. Food Factory Deed

The Factory schematic for Food & Chem. Factories needs to be renamed. They currently state only "Food Factory" on the schematic and far too many medics, and far too many architects, get confused enough by the name to think that some other factory, such as the Equipment factory, is needed for making meds. Please fix to read "Food and Chemical Factory."

16. /dragIncapacitatedPlayer Issues +

There seem to be some inconsistent problems with using the /dragIncapacitatedPlayer command and.or Macro Key, particularly when used by Neutrals, even if they person they are trying to drag is themselves Neutral, in that they are getting the “Unwise” message as if that person had a TEF. For more details please see the link below.

Relatedly there are also some issues dealing with the ability to be able to drag at all in some places. The issues seems to be most prevalent in indoor areas (such as caves/dungeons), “server boundaries” and areas oh steep slopes or odd geometry that may cause Line of Sight issues.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=10257 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=10449

Gameplay Issues

19. Combat Queue Heals (or removal of) &

(Partial and To be Fixed)

There should be a graphic display of heals in combat queue OR complete removal of heals from being affected by the queue at all, just like posture change actions are now. The fact that heals actually queue up in the combat queue already confuses a large number of Medics. If they must be queued it would be very nice to actually see at what position they are queued at. It has also been suggested that heals should always be considered a priority queue item that jumps immediately to the front of the queue to be the next action accomplished. It should be noted that the preferred method for healing actions would be to treat them like non-queued actions, such as posture changes, so that they take place without any delay.

(*Dev response: Holo wrote presumably as a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03: "Healing tasks that aren't making it in this update, but are on the list as high priorities: •Look into making healing go into the combat queue 100%."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421

In response to the Combat Medic Top 5 issues on 12/19/03 Pahdbacca referenced the Medic Top 5 response (listed below).

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=18281

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response: "We love this, but its very difficult (coding-wise).  We don't know if this can happen, but we will investigate."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)

20. Target Friendlies Keyboard Shortcut

A request is made for a quick way, like Tab (perhaps a toggle to make Tab work through enemies or friendlies) for quickly scrolling through friendly (or at least non-aggro) targets. (Note: For those of you requesting this for groupmates, Ctrl-Q is already mapped to do this by the default keymap. You may reassign it to whichever mapping you prefer.) One suggestion was to have the /retell (/rt) command also target the person who sent the /tell if they are in range.

(*Dev Response:  On 12/22/03 KStarfire posted the following Dev response on the SWG Discussion forum: "We agree. Which key is left that you think we should use. Please test any suggestion against all current configurations."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=971494)

21. Medic Content

There is concern that there is a lack of Medic specific content, such as missions to craft medicines or to heal an NPC someplace or to go someplace to heal folks until X number of wounds have been treated and so forth. Other professions have mission terminals to facilitate some of this content and Medics are wondering where such terminals might be for them. Such missions could be construed as a method of alleviation of the issues concerning how Medics make money. (See the Money issue)

For reference: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14194 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14257 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14888

22. Mounted Healing

The /healDamage command does not appear to work when mounted. While at least some consider that it may be understandable why healing cannot be done for others while the Medic is mounted, we are wondering about having at least the ability to heal damage and/or states on ourselves while mounted. Please consider allowing these abilities as they may at least provide an otherwise support profession at least some ability to surviving an unwanted fight while trying to get away.

23. /medicalForage Uselessness &

Beyond some slight convenience offered in being able to sample random organics from a planet anywhere to see their stats (a still time consuming effort that barely saves the time it would take for a Surveyor to get to a spot to get those stats for you) /medicalForage serves no really effective purpose.

For reference the following threads may be of interest: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1540 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=5233 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14251 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=21399

(*Dev Response: Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalForage on 6/29/03: "This here is a proposal to tackle JUST one aspect of that. It felt a bit like we got overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas proposed for medics, so I want to present just two things (one of them based on suggestions from you guys during beta) so we can discuss them, before we move on to tackling other things.

OK, the first suggestion is this:

•Make medical foraging find small herbs/bacta globules/bugs/whatever (think: aloe and penicillin mold) that can be used to make medicines. Not resources, in other words. Because they are not resources, we do not need to worry about undercutting the surveyors and scouts. •Make the A level stims and wound packs use ONLY these. •Make higher level medicines use smaller amounts of these, so that profession interdependency increases as you go up.

This would make new medics trying to make medicines a lot better off, I think.

The second suggestion is based on beta tester ideas:

•Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans. •Have it have charges. •Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge. •Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192

Holo wrote presumably as a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03: "Healing tasks that aren't making it in this update, but are on the list as high priorities: … •Investigate making /medicalForage more useful."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421

Holo wrote on 8/29/03: "We agree with many of the issues you raise, but most of them are not easy to fix. We'd rather fix medical forage than remove it, for example. The group bonus isn't that easy to do. And so on."

 Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645

Ben "Marvelin" Hanson wrote on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum: "I don't want to make it like sampling since I feel that undermines the artisan skill tree.  If as a medic you want something that works just like sampling, you should grab novice artisan.  So the trick is, that it needs to be different from sampling but not more efficient than sampling for the artisan (I don't want /medicalForage to become a staple skill for non-medics).  If you have some suggestions pass them along.

You can tell the players that this is on the radar for a complete revamp.  I'd love to hear their ideas given the restrictions that I outlined above."

Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben "Marvelin" Hanson's response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003: "The SOE team is leaning towards adding a whole new set of items and such (medicines, components, and component enhancements) that can be yanked from the ground, sort of like scout, but with items specifically useful to medics. No final decision has been made, yet, but that's what they are considering at the moment."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920)

24. Droid Low Power Notifications

Droid "Low Power" messages are too obscure and difficult to read, often only appearing to pop up off of the droid itself or barely showing up in the communication box, which can be hard to read and especially difficult to notice if you aren't looking at the droid or text box directly. This is causing a great deal of confusion and a lot of folks are thinking their druids are broken when they only need to be recharged. Better notification of the "Low Power" condition, instead of the standard, "You must be in a camp, blah, blah, blah, to do that" message is needed.

25. Auto-Retaliate

The ability to turn off auto-retaliate when fighting has been requested. The reason being that for healer characters the actual fighting process slows down their heals, and can sometimes cause confusion about who/what is targeted occasionally causing heals to go in the wrong place. Some medics prefer to avoid having any weapons in hand in an attempt to not have attacks being fired off from them that might slow down their ability to heal. The possibility of ensuring that heals get priority in the combat queue by going immediately to the front of the queue may help to alleviate this at least some.

26. Heal Targeting Persistence

It is requested that Heals that go into the Combat Queue remember who it was the heal was targeted at initially instead of trying to heal the current target.

27. Factory/Harvester Status Notifications

Requests have been made for more notifications from harvesters and factories. While the current notification when at 50% maintenance is nice, it would be far more useful to receive notifications whenever a harvester stops and for what the reason was, such as ran out of maintenance, ran out of power or the resource is no longer available. The ability to set notification when maintenance or power reach a certain level would also be a nice addition, but even a set rate, such a notification when harvester is down to 24 or 12 hours left on either of those would be useful.

28. Droid Crafter Rating

We'd like to be able to see the Food & Chem Crafter rating when a droid has one built into it.

29. TEF Notification and Getting Kicked Out of Med Centers

Medics are requesting notification of when a TEF might be incurred to allow the Medic to NOT heal a character that would give them a TEF in a potentially deadly situation. Not to mention the additional problems of getting TEFs from inadvertently healing covert opposing faction members, which allow your own faction mates to attack you. The addition of getting booted from a building for gaining a TEF further exacerbates the problem with concerns that a Medic might start a Med Center from their house or as a public Med Center in a Player City and then get booted out of it for 5 minutes healing an overt or TEFed faction member. Providing either a visual indicator of when a potential patient has a TEF, or at least a pop-up box stating they are TEFed and asking if we want to heal them anyway (as long as we can also turn off the box in case we are in a situation where we just need to heal fast) are some possible solutions.

Requests have also been made suggesting that Med Centers be no-fighting zones. Perhaps Medics "registered" at a Med Center would not incur a TEF, but when healing away from there (or perhaps if not registered) they could incur a TEF as a possible solution beyond notification that may help the problem.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=8267

(*Dev Response: Ben "Marvelin" Hanson suggested on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum that he would need to pass this issue on to the folks who would more directly work with and handle PvP issues.

*Publish Notes on 10/8/03: "No longer allow neutral players to help neutral non-players with enemy flags of any sort"

[Z's note: There is now a visual "flag" indicator for when you have a TEF.]

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response: "The Devs are currently monitoring the TEF issues across the whole game. Please report any TEF abnormalities using the in game /bug tool. A reminder that a player TEF flag has been added to the UI since this was written. Thanks Devs!"

It should also be noted that there are several other specific responses to some TEF situations which can be found at the referenced link below.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)

30. Healing Range/Distance

Heal range is annoyingly small. Just enough so that at the normal follow range healing simply cannot be done. Is it possible to increase the standard range just a smidge, to 7-8M, perhaps, or to decrease the standard follow range in order to help alleviate the issues we have had with lag and such, in the same way the melee classes have had their range issues alleviated?

(*Dev Response: The system designer in charge of combat, Dan, wrote in a thread regarding design issues and considerations for the combat professions on 9/18/03: "Melee Out of Range issue:

This is caused by the object on your client being drawn in a different location that it exists on the server.

The proposal to fix this is to increase the melee range of all weapons to a value that is closer to the margin of error between the client/server. This will make combat look a little funny as you'll be able to hit a target further away, but I think this is an appropriate tradeoff."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=565036

[Z's note: This should have fixed a few of the range errors caused in healing, but it seems that it still has not exactly addressed this specific issue. Indications so far are that it does not seem to have done anything for us.])

31. Power Selection for Factories/Harvesters

Power management on factories (and harvesters for that matter) is fairly annoying in that there is no way to tell the structure which power from inventory to use. It is not even possible to hide a power source you do not wish to have used (such as radioactives) in a container. Of particular annoyance here is that a radioactive, usable in some components, will be used preferentially over something like Solar Power, which has very few uses in med production.

32. Factory Identical Components

There has been a request to alleviate the requirement for factory identical components. It is possible this would not really be considered a problem if Medics had some decent ways to make money (see the Money issue) as then they might actually be able to afford a factory, or at least be a viable market for other Medics running factories to sell to them. Right now it is considered a rather non-productive market to sell to, primarily, other Medics (although a few are making it an acceptable market in this respect.)

33. General Inventory Search for Meds

We would like to see better management of medicines that are in inventory, such as allowing searches from the /healDamage command to search for a stim in packs if it cannot find it in upper level inventory.

(*Dev Response: Possibly addressed in part according to Holo's response presumably as a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03: "Healing tasks that aren't making it in this update, but are on the list as high priorities: … •Add smarter find medicine code."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421)

34. /diagnose Refresh

There have been requests for the /diagnose command to either have a refresh button added to it, that it automatically refresh at some interval (perhaps every 15-30 seconds or following the wound timer), or that reissuing the command will refresh the current window instead of opening a new one.

The window comes up rather small and it is not the easiest display to read. Perhaps something more like the Ctrl-C display or coloring the names base on their appropriated HAM section would help some. As would autosizing it to display all of the stats or at least remembering the size and position of the last /diag window used.

35. Heal Pack Selection Methodology Clarification

Many would like clarification on the methodology for heal pack selection from inventory when using, for example, the /healDamage command. Is it simply the last Stim in the inventory chosen? The strongest? The weakest? The one with most/least charges? Alphabetically? By Stim serial number? Could it be made to be more consistent and possibly follow one of the methods listed above, such as always using the pack with the least number of charges, or the highest base heal rate, or even intelligent selection choosing lower level packs for smaller heals and higher level packs for bigger heals. Perhaps we can at least try to sort our packs in the manner of pack selection, if nothing else, to try and order our meds so they will be taken in the order we would like to have them used.

36. Med Center Grouping

Grouping for Medical classes in the Med Center has been brought up. The consideration would be that healers could group, in much the way Entertainers do, for minor healing gains and/or minor XP gains or even for simply lowering the variability of heals as many would simply prefer some greater consistency there. The suggestion for auto-splitting /tips was also brought up in conjunction with this idea, perhaps with a /tipSplit or /groupTip type of command for the patient to use.

(*Dev response: Holo wrote on 8/29/03: "We agree with many of the issues you raise, but most of them are not easy to fix. We'd rather fix medical forage than remove it, for example. The group bonus isn't that easy to do. And so on."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645)

37. Crafting Schematics Clarification and Documentation

Crafting schematics do not seem to properly reflect exactly how they are utilizing their formulae. For example some basic testing has shown that a schematic states a Stim should get it's power rating though 66% OQ and 33% PE and it's Charges through 66% OQ and 33% UT. However, it appears that using an Inorganic with a PE rating does NOT yield additional power, as the schematic would imply. It would appear from further testing that like attributes from different resources are actually averaged, and not additive, which is counter-intuitive to a crafter's expectations. We would really like some better documentation of this (although it should be noted that some of our FAQs and findings on such situations have been added to the KnowledgeBase).

For those interested in what we do know of the crafting formulae take a look at the Doctor FAQ.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=5996

38. Target Self

The ability to target self when clicking on your own HAM bars or character, such as in a group, which would function in the same way as using Ctrl-1 would.

(*Dev Response: In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response: "The issue here is with the 'targeting box' that would have to exist around the player, so we would have a place to click. This invisible box was in Beta, and people had trouble clicking on anything near themselves, without accidentally clicking on themselves.

The Devs pointed out that clicking on empty space in the world would functionally target ourselves, if we found the default hotkey item (CTRL-1) too cumbersome. This functionality can also be re-mapped to different keys then CTRL-1. It is also possible to use 'self' as an argument in'/ macros,' such as '/healDamage self' (without the quotes).

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)

39. Title (No Title) is Not Sticking

If you set your title to (No Title) on the Character Tab of your Personal Information Sheet (Ctrl-P) it will reset on the very next login to the last title you had set instead of keeping no title.

40. Medic Vision/Usefulness

Some medics feel they are not wanted in groups. With the ease of XP to get through medic, the proliferation of Doctors and Combat Medics make the people that stay only in the Medic profession feel a bit inferior. Since medics are a field profession (no ability to /register in a med center) people are concerned about their role in the game and are interested in seeing a Dev Vision Statement of where they feel our role is.

41. TEF Documentation and Faction Healing (including Neutrals)

(Received no votes in last polling)

Better documentation is needed to explain the TEF healing problems. Many neutral Medics cannot understand why they cannot heal a factioned player, or why they cannot heal an otherwise apparently unaligned player who had just been in a duel or some such. Some notification other than it being "unwise to heal such a person" would help to provide clarification. (Personally I like to see it as to heal a Rebel is to bring down the wrath of the Empire, while to heal an Imp would also bring down their wrath, since they only trust their own Medics. However you wish to explain it, though, the message needs to be clearer on why it is "unwise".) Other suggestions also include allowing the healing, but allowing the Medic to incur a TEF, even a stacking TEF, that they are notified of. So that if a Neutral Medic healed an Overt Imp player, they would gain a Rebel TEF, if they then turned around and healed a Rebel player they would ALSO gain an Imp TEF, thus being fair game for either side in the conflict, since being neutral could be maintaining non-aggression between both sides, or it could be viewed as equally aggressive to both sides. Some Medics have expressed interested in being able to expand their role-playing options by healing whomever they wish, even if there are penalties involved as long as those penalties are well known.

For some further suggestions can be found here in some of the comments: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11777 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=25047

(*Dev Response: Ben "Marvelin" Hanson suggested on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum that he would need to pass this issue on to the folks who would more directly work with and handle PvP issues.

Patch notes on 10/8/03: "No longer allow neutral players to help neutral non-players with enemy flags of any sort"

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response:

"The Devs are currently monitoring the TEF issues across the whole game. Please report any TEF abnormalities using the in game /bug tool. A reminder that a player TEF flag has been added to the UI since this was written. Thanks Devs!"

It should also be noted that there are several other specific responses to some TEF situations which can be found at the referenced link below.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)

42. Droid/Pet Change Concerns

(Received no votes in last polling)

Droids and pets seem to be undergoing some considerations for major changes, particularly the single pet limitations. Many Medics use Droids in many situations and wanted to pass along some thoughts and ideas about the Droid and Pet changes being proposed as they affect the Medic (and Doctor) Profession. As the ideas are quite diverse I only wished to list the links rather than try to attempt to summarize them at this time. So please see the links below for all of the concerns and ideas being expressed.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17437 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=18213

43. B-level Schematic and Crafting Station Requirement Inconsistencies

(Received no votes in last polling)

The B level schematics appear to be inconsistent as to their need for a crafting station or not. Many Medics feel that some of the crafting confusion could be allayed by making all B-level schematics not require being by a crafting station in order to create them.

44. tend Command "Magic" Problem

(Received no votes in last polling)

The /tend and /quickHeal commands seem to have too much of a "magic" feel to them for some players. They feel that removal or change to those commands to incorporate at least some form of component usage (perhaps linked to something attainable with /medicalForage) would help to alleviate the immersion-breaking aspect of using these commands.

(*Dev Response:  Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalForage on 6/29/03: " •Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans. •Have it have charges. •Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge. •Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192)

Message Edited by Zarlor on 03-25-2004 08:06 PM

Balance Issues

45. Medical Resource Requirements

Medics seem to feel the need to survey for their own resources and dislike the need to use skill points in Artisan in order to do so. Let's face it, anyone getting into the Doc level had to craft to get there, so the SWG version of a focused Doc is, in fact, a crafting profession and they want the abilities to self subsist in that capacity in either the same way as Artisans do or in the way that the other hybrid crafters do.

Several problems relate to this issue. One of them being idea put forth previously by the Dev team that Medics could always just buy their resource needs. However, Medics have many very specific resource needs (Dantooine Berries, Class 4 Liquid Petro Fuel, Lokian Wild Wheat, etc.) that very few, if any, other professions, other than Medical Professions, truly need. Considering the prevalence of the Money issue for Medics, the market for surveyors to cater to the medic market is simply too small to be successful in comparison to what a surveyor could make catering to one of the artisan professions, and this is especially true now with the Holocron craze driving up the price of resources to exorbitant levels. In this way it could also be argued that rarely would Medics be able to actually compete with Artisans on the resource market simply because their normal resource needs are not the needs of other professions. Worthwhile resources for any good medicines are just rarely found on the bazaar, unless that resource also overlaps with an artisan need, and then the price on such an item will be driven by the artisan ability to make far more profit on the item than the average medic pulls in.

In all it would seem that the schematics of Medics have requirements, complexities, resource costs and specificities that are only existent in the schematics of true Artisans. No other "hybrid crafter" has such complex and burdensome resource requirements as the Medical Professions do. This issue has simply forced any Medic "in the know" to not start characters as Medics, but to start them as Artisans. It has made the entire set of medical professions a lot less enjoyable than they could be.

Suggestions for fixing this imbalance include providing survey only or scout harvesting capabilities to increase with Organic Chemistry (the most common line for ALL of the Medical-based professions) or Pharmacology, much in the way it does for Artisan Surveying, but disallowing the sampling capability and perhaps with a smaller range. Others have noted that without some ability to sample (perhaps limiting Medics to only ever being able to sample 1 resource per sample tick, capping out resource samples so none are ever pulled up if there is more than our minimum, 8, or our maximum, I believe that's 36, of a resource in inventory, or even just letting the survey tool show the resource values that only a Medic would use from those resources), to test the qualities of a resource if nothing else, the simple ability to survey alone wouldn't be very useful. Suggestions have also included making the ability part of some kind of decayable survey tool made by artisans that let a Doc survey, ensuring a continued resource stream to artisans to compensate for those few Medics that try to make money as miners instead of as Medics. Or the use of a DE created resource seeker droid that might be able to locate a high concentration of a given resource within some given range and possibly provide either a single sample or at least some of the required stats for that resource, possibly even providing additional capabilities for those with the Artisan Survey skill. Further suggestions would include a greater reduction of the complexity of our schematics and the resource needs. Another suggestion has mentioned using the “junk dealers” as a form of price fixing institution by having them buy resources (based on quality) at certain rates, and selling them in quantity (based on what is sold to any of the junk dealers for availability) at a slight markup.

For reference the following threads may be of interest: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1540 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=5233 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14251 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=21399 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=25038 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=24681 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=25532 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=10451

 (*Dev Response: Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalForage on 6/29/03: "This here is a proposal to tackle JUST one aspect of that. It felt a bit like we got overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas proposed for medics, so I want to present just two things (one of them based on suggestions from you guys during beta) so we can discuss them, before we move on to tackling other things.

OK, the first suggestion is this:

•Make medical foraging find small herbs/bacta globules/bugs/whatever (think: aloe and penicillin mold) that can be used to make medicines. Not resources, in other words. Because they are not resources, we do not need to worry about undercutting the surveyors and scouts. •Make the A level stims and wound packs use ONLY these. •Make higher level medicines use smaller amounts of these, so that profession interdependency increases as you go up.

This would make new medics trying to make medicines a lot better off, I think.

The second suggestion is based on beta tester ideas: •Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans. •Have it have charges. •Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge. •Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands.

Refs: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920

In response to the Doctor Top 5 issues on 12/18/03 Zarlor reported the following response: "We have reservations about implementing such a change. The Surveying skill is considered integral to the Artisan profession and skill point expenditure is a basic challenge in the game and all professions have to make such choices.

However we acknowledge that the Docs feel some kind of problem exists on a root issue for this matter. As such a continuing discussion will be ongoing to ensure proper determination of that root problem and to hopefully find a mutually beneficial solution to that issue."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=24681

In response to the Combat Medic Top 5 issues on 12/19/03 Pahdbacca repeated the Doc response listed above.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=18281

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response: "This* would lessen the value of skill points spent by other professions.  Skill point costs are a major balance factor in the game... 'Skill point expenditure is a basic challenge in the game and all professions have to make such choices.' This holds true for medical advanced professions as well (See Doc and CM Top 5 lists). The Devs will continue to monitor this issue, across all medical professions."

[*Note that "This" in the first sentence above refers primarily to the suggestion of giving a form of the /survey skill to the medical professions, not necessarily the other solutions or the general situation outlined in the issue worded above.]

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053

Thunderheart was asked  in a thread about the "Droid Invasion" on 1/22/04: "So, other than combat, droids aren't actually becoming any more useful? No surveying droids?  Task-specific chassis?  Etc?"

To which Thunderheart responded: "We want to do that, but that's new development and it's going to take time.  These are just the first two passes."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=21228#M21228

[Z's note: This may or may not be an indicator that some kind of surveying droid may be under consideration by the Dev team which might help to alleviate part of this issue.])

46. Faction Points

Medics are interested in seeing a share of Faction Points in the same way that we are getting Combat XP.  It is considered inappropriate that a medic professional would be out in the field and, being unable to assist in taking out an opposing faction NPC or player (because they are healing those who are doing so), they will not gain FPs and so will progress much more slowly in faction gains, while providing at least as valuable a service as the person providing the offensive capabilities. Other considerations have included gaining FPs for healing Overt faction members, especially considering the dangers involved in gaining a TEF in this manner in a place that is known for finding unsuspecting TEFed characters (i.e. The Med Center, see TEF Issues).

(*Dev Response: In response to the Combat Medic Top 5 issues on 12/19/03 Pahdbacca reported the following: "This is an issue that will have to be done next cycle."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=combat_medic&message.id=18281)

47. Money

There is a lot of concern about how a focused medical character should be able to make money. By this I mean that we are talking about a character whose primary skills and interests are in the healing arts (which could include crafting of meds, for the pharmaceutically inclined Medics) and not, necessarily, combat or resource management. The self-sufficiency of the profession does not really exist except in a few small methods, of which the primary one for making money IN the profession would seem to be the production and sales of Small Stimpack Bs, for which the competition against Doctor made Stim Bs is extraordinarily stiff. There is a much smaller niche market for medical resources and components, but most Medics seem to feel that resource gathering and sales, while obviously an integral part of the Medic profession, is more of the realm of the artisan and such sales would be, in effect, making money as an Artisan, and not as a Medic. Overall these markets are really only fully viable in the Doctor or Combat Medic professions (and even then only at Master level).

The other methods of making money seem to be far less reliable, or are not well supported by the game. Tips for Medics seems to be a small market except in a few locations or servers and medical professionals are often subjected to all manner of verbal abuse for suggesting payment should be made for the service. Primarily, for those interested in providing services such as Healing or Enhancing, there is no secure method of trade to ensure that the Medic is paid for their service while also ensuring that the customer gets the service they are requesting.

Suggestions have included some form of secure trade window, like is done for normal trading, or having a Medic's healing actually use packs that the customer has on their person instead of the ones on the Medic (and thereby the Medic could sell the medicine to the player and then heal him with those), requiring or allowing some form of insurance, possibly whereby either the patients set a price they are willing to pay for healing that will be deducted from them if their healer accepts that rate or the Medic sets a price they will heal for allowing the patient to accept, allowing A packs or stims only to be usable by anyone thereby opening the market for more pharmaceutical products that Medics could then sell (for those who are more crafting oriented, although it should be noted that some controversy has surfaced over this idea, see the threads listed below- Doc #11491 & Medic #6938.) Having Doc-specific missions, like the artisan or entertainer missions. Giving Medics some sort of Vendor ability to encourage pharmaceutical sales. Paying Medics some rate simply for manning a med center. Some of the threads below show some of the solutions suggested in greater detail.

Again there is no true consensus on the issue other than that most of the Medic classes tend to rely on other methods of subsistence and take time doing those things that they may not be interested in or may not be fun for them (the usual, delivery/destroy missions, for example.)  The issue is an important one amongst the player base and receives a lot of attention on the forums and in game from many of the Medics I have spoken with.

Of notable reference are the following threads: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1768 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1197 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1650 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=6196 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=10665 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11491 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=6938 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14194 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14257 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14012 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=14888 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=22459 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=22671 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=8706

(*Dev Response: Ood Bnar wrote on 9/24/03 in a thread about Image Designer UI issues: "We talked about adding a payment option, but this gets into the bigger 'payment for services rendered' issue which I will leave to the designers. They are working on the problem now."

[Z's note: This may or may not imply anything, but it seems that there maybe some consideration being given for some methods of handling payments for services universally, if possible, opening part of this issue to a possible need for a wider solution which may provide assistance on this issue as well as for other service-related sales.]

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=image_designer&message.id=2796)

48. Medicine Use Skill Granularity

Many would like to see more granularity in the base Medicine Use levels for different meds, to encourage balanced increases in the Medicine Use skill. Possibly even reducing some medicine use levels so that Medics can use some of these items at more appropriate levels, while others could be made more difficult to encourage purchasing of the usage skill levels.  For example, Stim levels might be better placed so that their Med Use (or Pharmacy line, if you will) levels fall in line the Organic Chemistry box where it can be made or perhaps only a few points above the next lower Pharmacology box, allowing a Medic to experiment it down for other lower level medics to use, but at a loss of power.

Some discussion on the topic can be found in the following thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=646964 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9542

49. Crafting XP Speed Imbalance

Medics are feeling a bit hampered by the crafting requirements of the class. While there are a few who simply do not like crafting at all, many seem to feel that crafting is acceptable, but only if it improves on par with use. This is mostly more noticeable at the highest level of the Organic Chemistry line. A ratio of 3:1 would be expected for proper scaling of raising the skills evenly. In other words for every charge of a stim or wound pack used you would get 1/3 of the XP you got from making that charge so that the XP gained from using a pack is consistent with how many packs must be made to get that XP, so to speak. Admittedly compared to the time it takes to use those charges enough stims could be made to equalize that ratio, but it is requested that the metrics be looked at again, especially now that Factory XP is back to where it should have been (well, if it is supposed to be at 10%, even though factories are not giving even that now, but that I listed as a separate issue) and that self UXP in components has been fixed and also keeping in mind that there are folks who are just grinding the meds for these lines to catch it up to their other med levels.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=1383 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=2020

50. Crafting XP from Complex Schematics -v- Components

Despite the complexity of completed meds, such as stim or wound packs, these provide less XP, relatively, than grinding out components.

51. Mind Damage Healing for Medics

Medics would like to have the /mindHeal command made available to them. Suggestions have included even just having it available as a Master Medic perk. In this way the command is at least closer to being as available to healers as healing of the other Bars is to maintain the proper level of balance for the medical professions. Some of the threads below will offer more insights into the various viewpoints.

(*Dev Response: Zarlor passed along the following summation from Ben "Marvelin" Hanson's response on the Correspondent forum on 10/28/2003 in response to a Doctor Issue: "It has been decided for now that mind healing is going to stay with Combat Medics.  Combat medics have been in need of another unique healing ability, and they feel this fits the bill nicely."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17920

[Z's note: The combat revamp that is in process for the next few months will also remove the primary reason for not having mind damage healed by standard stims. With the removal of that exploitable condition it is very likely that mind damage healing will be returned to stims and that mind damage will be just like health and action damage are now. We have also seen further indicators from the Devs that some more readily available form of mind healing should become available.])

52. Ease of Mastery

Some have suggested that perhaps Medic is simply too easy to Master. I am still uncertain whether this is intended or not and whether or not it is really balanced enough compared to possible speed of gain rates for other professions. It may be a situation where, as Holocron has told us before, the game simply does not start until you completely allocate all of your skill points and that philosophy being somewhat counterintuitive to how many other MMORPGs are played. Or if this is truly a valid concern that having Master Medics within the current time frame is unbalancing to the game. Perhaps guidance of the Dev thinking on the issue is needed, or the rate of gain should be adjusted. The crafting requirements will definitely need to be more balanced, however, in most players' experience, some suggesting either making it easier, or making the rest of the line harder or somewhere in between.

53. Pet Healing XP (or lack thereof)

Overall there seems to be some consensus that Pets are primarily being used as the main tank for a party instead of any standard PC class. As such there is now no method for gaining XP from healing the party tank since that tank will almost never be a PC.

Suggested solutions include singly, or in some combination, such ideas as giving no XP for ones own pets, but allowing full XP on other's pets, providing reduced XP for pet healing, and/or capping the XP allowed to be provided from a pet on either a per heal or per combat session basis. Several other responses and suggestions may be found in Q3P0's post regarding this subject below (#429220).

(*Dev response: Q3P0 wrote on 8/27/03: "We've been tracking your discussions regarding the recent change to remove XP from healing pets. This post is to explain why we did the change and to let you know what we are thinking of for the future (based on some of your suggestions).

The exploit was a person could sick their pet on a creature that it cannot kill but does a decent amount of damage, sit behind the pet and heal it over and over and gain experience 10x faster than normal. Our solution was to eliminate XP for healing pets.

You've brought up great points about this and we are reconsidering how best to handle the exploit. Assuming you agree that the above exploit is valid. How about healing your own pet gives no medical XP (just like healing yourself)? Healing someone else's pet given less XP than healing another player but still gives some. This will make healers still valuable in groups with tank pets, but won't allow you to gain XP faster than you would with players.

If we go with this, it will take several days to code and probably some decent time on Test Center to test."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=429220

Holo wrote on 8/29/03: "Med XP from healing pets was seen as an exploit because of the hugely high rates of gain it provided. Do you guys not see it that way or agree?"

 Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=443645#M443645

[Z's note: So far there has been no further word on this issue, which would be counter to the timeframe Q3P0 would seem to suggest above.])

54. Pet Stimpacks

Some Medics are incensed about the idea of giving pet stimpacks to anyone who wants to use them for healing Pets. (Not at the BEs for making these packs, but that anyone can use them.) Especially since this was something that was previously the purview of the medic classes. Letting some other class utilize stimpacks, even if it's just for pets, seems like a slap in the face by giving anyone the ability to use an item that is otherwise exclusive to Novice Medic, when an integral skill required for Medics, Surveying, won't even be considered for Medics because it would somehow interfere with Artisans (who already have far greater financial stability than the medical professions). Not to mention the ability of these new stims to heal mind damage on the fly when only high level CMs have this ability for use on player characters. Some clarification on the reasoning for this issue or some other form of compensation such as mind healing, a certificate system allowing Pet Stim A use by anyone, but higher levels only to be used by BEs and/or CHs, the removal of the mind heal component of the stim, or removal of pet stimpacks altogether has been suggested.

Wishlist

55. Component Crate Size Increase

Some Medics have requested an increase in crate size for components to allow a full 1000 run to go into a single crate. This would allow making completed items easier by only requiring a single large crate to be used instead of forcing us to carry and load multiple crates for final product runs and make sorting and organizing them much easier. (Especially if combined with the ability to combine crates as suggested in another issue on this list.) Not to mention it may also help to alleviate the ever-present DB size issues the Developers are always mentioning.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=21502

56. Crate combining

The ability to combine crates in inventory would be a welcome addition.

57. Universal Stim As

There have been requests for making some form of universally usable stimpack similar to a Stim A. In effect a stimpack that, like pet stims, anyone could use, but that would be limited to the power levels of a Stim A, or lower, in the hands of someone who does not have any injury treatment skill modifiers, in other words fairly low on the base heal amounts and with a long recovery time between heals. Medics feel that this would finally give them a product that they could make and sell, since Doctors pretty much have the Stim B market sewn up tight. Stim As have such a low experimentable range that a Medic could find a competitive market there alongside any Doctors who bothered to get into that market as well. Some medics feel that this would not infringe upon their healing skills since someone with actual Medic skills will still be a superior healer and have the ability to use the better stimpacks.

It has been noted that it may be possible for Doctors, especially, to still dominate such a Stim market and some have suggested that this may be a situation where schematic revocation would be appropriate. Suggestions have been to revoke  the schematic at the upper levels of Organic Chemistry, Master Medic, or at the Novice levels of Doctor, CM and BE.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9069

58. Heal Over Time Meds

Some Medics like the idea of having HOT (Heal Over Time) med packs. (It should be noted that, in essence, this is what secondary stat buffs already do by providing a faster regeneration rate and that inclusion of such a n ability at the Medic level may be unbalancing to Doctors.)

59. Factory Speed

Some suggestions have been made to speed up the rate of production in a factory. This may be more noticeable for medicines than some other items where the absolutely lowest complexity on an item is 10, meaning it would take 80 seconds (not quite a minute and a half) to produce 1 item in a factory, whereas by hand crafting the same items they can often be produced faster when using multiple crafting tools. It has been noted that factories do allow for a more consistent product run (as well as being an alleviator of the tedium of hand crafting) and that factory components are practically a requirement for upper-level meds, so the current rate may have been considered acceptable in that manner. Considering the requirement, in many ways, to have a factory some increase of speed would generally be appreciated (or perhaps just the lowering of the complexity ratings on many meds and their components).

60. Med Center Crafting Station

The Medics would like to see a Public Food & Chemical Crafting Station placed in city Med Centers. The inconvenience of having to leave the Med Center to craft more packs for patients who want healing "right now" to both the Medic and the Patient seem a bit much for such an easy fix. (It should be noted that many Player City Med Centers have provided players with the convenience of a Private Crafting Station there.)

61. Groupmate Numbering

Additionally it would be helpful to list a number next to all of the group member names making it easier to know which one is associated with which Ctrl-#.

62. Factory Crate Size Selection

We'd like to see a slider or box that allows adjustment of the factory crate sizes produced. While 50 is a decent size for some things, many times it would be nice to make 10 crates of 10, instead of 2 crates of 50, for example.

63. Factory Completion Timer

Requests has also been made for some kind of Time-To-Completion timer being added to the factories radial menu, or even in an email sent at production start. Obviously game time is not always going to be accurate, but an estimate at the beginning of production would still prove useful, nonetheless. The only current workaround is to know the duration formula and to remember the complexity of the item (I believe this is only shown during crafting, but making it visible on examine would help for this part, at least) and set an alarm for it. For those who may not know, the formula is (Complexity*8 seconds) for how long it will take to make 1 item.

64. Medic-looking Clothing

There is a white coat, but other types of red, white, or white with red patterned-clothing for medics has been requested.

65. Factory Email Notifications

Factories currently, when sharing or providing admin rights for another player character to use the factory, sends all email about what is happening at the factory to the factory owner only, not including whomever loaded the schematic and pressed the start button. Is there some way to grant this notification method? Continuing to notify the owner is fine, but adding in the individual doing the crafting is also very much needed.

66. Medical Bag/Inventory Search for Meds

It has been suggested that some kind of equip-able Medic Bag exist that would allow a Medic to put all of their medicines (and only medical items) in that allows sorting and that would also be searched, alongside of top-level inventory, for the purposes of finding medicines with the use of some medic-related commands. Presumably this would be in addition to the wearable Travel Pack. Another possibility was mentioned of consolidating med-packs into single types. Like having a Healpack-C instead of one pack each for Action and Health. This last suggestion may also help the Developers in greatly reducing database bloat. Even changing the naming conventions of Medicines to a more standardized form so that all Med Packs and Stims, and so on, can at least be sorted better alphabetically. Shorter names wouldn't hurt either (after all, why are there Small Stimpacks, when there are no Large Stimpacks? Why waste putting the word Small in there?) Stacking of meds in some way or putting things back into crates has also been suggested as being of possible assistance for this issue.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=9797

(*Dev Response: Possibly addressed in part according to Holo's response presumably as a response to our initial Top 5 issues on 8/22/03: "Healing tasks that aren't making it in this update, but are on the list as high priorities:  … • Add smarter find medicine code."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=394421)

67. Schematic Sorting

Medics would like the ability to sort their schematics in different ways, for example, such that they could lump all of their A or B-level schematics together.

68. Window Persistence

We'd like to see persistent windows and persistent sorting. Far too often we can set up our multiple inventory windows just the way we like/need them, with items sorted in a particular order so we know exactly where to look for them in a hurry (and we ALWAYS need them in a hurry, it seems) but as soon as we clone, log or take a shuttle all the windows close down and the sort order is completely lost. We have to go through the trouble of reopening all the windows and resorting everything in order to be useful again instead of jumping right back out there. Please provide some method of persistence.

(*Dev Response: Response by Holo on 9/13/03 to some UI issues: The question asked was: "Organize/reorganize the inventory window, so that you can keep things where you want them, instead of the seemingly arbitrary and random method that's currently used. This might be done by use of a 'Lock in place' radial menu addition to any/all UI windows, for example. or How about a grid system for this where we can simply place the item in any square of the grid?"

And Holo responded: "-- I could swear that at one point we were working on this, and I don't know what happened to it. I'll inquire for sure."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=533754#M533754)

69. Factory Input Hopper Access During Operation

A request has been made to be able to open the input hopper during a factory run (to add resources if needed, or remove crates, or at least see how much have been used). This would be a big help and provide some ease of mind that things are working as they should be. (It should be noted that the Output hopper can be opened, and is refreshed automatically, simply by selecting the Option item from the radial menu, and not selecting the sub-menu, on a factory during the run.)

70. Schematic Listing in Holocron

Medics would like to be able to see the full schematics for items they will be crafting at higher levels of Organic Chemistry in the Holocron so they can better prepare for further requirements without having to exit the game, to hit one of the external sites or SOE forums that carry such information, to do so.

71. Correspondence Response &

(To be Fixed)

There is concern amongst the Medic community that response and communication between the correspondents and the Devs is still not up to par. While there have been improvements and some responses have been forthcoming, there remains a rift in getting a dialog going concerning some of the most pressing issues in the profession. Nobody is expecting a quick fix, or even that our suggestions will be fully accepted, but we would like to know that our position is known, understood, debated and given due consideration. At this point it feels as though some of our issues have simply been dismissed out of hand. Further clarification and discussion on the reasons for these dismissals is very much needed, in our opinion.

72. /diagnose Damage Level Display

Adding in the HAM Damage levels (not wound levels, but damage levels) and the max level of a stat (to make it easier to check buff status) to the /diagnose display has been requested.

73. Groupmate Highlighting

It has also been requested that a selected group member be made to stand out more than with just a blue box outlining them and their blip on radar. Something like a flashing name and/or radar dot in order to better locate the targeted individual in a clumped up group would help.

This section requires a bit of explaining. Most of the issues here are actually duplicates. The process I've been working from has it that if an issue has not been voted on in anyone's Top 10 list, then it is possible that such an issue is no longer an issue and therefore may not belong on the listing anymore. For the moment the issue stays in the normal spot it has on the main listing, but it also gets listed in this seciton as well. If the issues does not get voted on a few more times then it will be completely moved into the section.

Pretty much anything in this seciton is up for commentary, not voting. (If you want to vote on anything other than the first issues listed here, use the number from the listings above.) Are these isses still issues at all? Do they deserve to be on this list? And if it is an issue that should be on the listing perhaps you should start up a thread on it to garner some interest and be sure to vote for it. Although it should be noted wtih only 10 votes to work from there are likely to be some issues that are still issues, but they just don't rate being a Top 10 issue for folks. So be sure to make those kinds of comments on these issues if you like.

Possible non-Issues

74. Droid Recharge Rate =

(Fixed? This issue is listed here only in that Publish 7 provided us with a doubling of the time a droid will hold a charge. The question is, however, was that enough to resolve this issue for us?)

Droids seem to need to be recharged every 20 minutes. We'd like to see batteries lasting longer, at least an hour, but something like 2 hours would be far more appropriate (keeping it in line with the length of an Entertainer Buff, for example.) This would improve droid viability in the field without making it unduly cumbersome for Medic's to use their droids. Another proposal for consideration would be to allow multiple charges to be stored in the droid, like putting quarters in a parking meter allowing it to last longer that way. Adding in the ability to see what the charge rate currently is on the droid would also be of great assistance.

(*Dev Response: Publish 7 Patch Notes: "Droid Battery consumption rate halved (enabling them to last twice as long)"

Ref: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/recent_test_updates.jsp?page=In%20Testing

[Z's note: We'll need to see this in action to see if the increase in battery duration helps to alleviate this issue enough.])

75. TEF Documentation and Faction Healing (including Neutrals)

(Received no votes in last polling)

Better documentation is needed to explain the TEF healing problems. Many neutral Medics cannot understand why they cannot heal a factioned player, or why they cannot heal an otherwise apparently unaligned player who had just been in a duel or some such. Some notification other than it being "unwise to heal such a person" would help to provide clarification. (Personally I like to see it as to heal a Rebel is to bring down the wrath of the Empire, while to heal an Imp would also bring down their wrath, since they only trust their own Medics. However you wish to explain it, though, the message needs to be clearer on why it is "unwise".) Other suggestions also include allowing the healing, but allowing the Medic to incur a TEF, even a stacking TEF, that they are notified of. So that if a Neutral Medic healed an Overt Imp player, they would gain a Rebel TEF, if they then turned around and healed a Rebel player they would ALSO gain an Imp TEF, thus being fair game for either side in the conflict, since being neutral could be maintaining non-aggression between both sides, or it could be viewed as equally aggressive to both sides. Some Medics have expressed interested in being able to expand their role-playing options by healing whomever they wish, even if there are penalties involved as long as those penalties are well known.

For some further suggestions can be found here in some of the comments: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=11777 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=25047

(*Dev Response: Ben "Marvelin" Hanson suggested on 9/30/03 on the Correspondent Forum that he would need to pass this issue on to the folks who would more directly work with and handle PvP issues.

Patch notes on 10/8/03: "No longer allow neutral players to help neutral non-players with enemy flags of any sort"

In response to our Top 5 issues on 12/20/03 Traigus reported the following response:

"The Devs are currently monitoring the TEF issues across the whole game.  Please report any TEF abnormalities using the in game /bug tool.  A reminder that a player TEF flag has been added to the UI since this was written.  Thanks Devs!"

It should also be noted that there are several other specific responses to some TEF situations which can be found at the referenced link below.

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=9053)

76. Droid/Pet Change Concerns

(Received no votes in last polling)

Droids and pets seem to be undergoing some considerations for major changes, particularly the single pet limitations. Many Medics use Droids in many situations and wanted to pass along some thoughts and ideas about the Droid and Pet changes being proposed as they affect the Medic (and Doctor) Profession. As the ideas are quite diverse I only wished to list the links rather than try to attempt to summarize them at this time. So please see the links below for all of the concerns and ideas being expressed.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=17437 http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=doctor&message.id=18213

77. B-level Schematic and Crafting Station Requirement Inconsistencies

(Received no votes in last polling)

The B level schematics appear to be inconsistent as to their need for a crafting station or not. Many Medics feel that some of the crafting confusion could be allayed by making all B-level schematics not require being by a crafting station in order to create them.

78. tend Command "Magic" Problem

(Received no votes in last polling)

The /tend and /quickHeal commands seem to have too much of a "magic" feel to them for some players. They feel that removal or change to those commands to incorporate at least some form of component usage (perhaps linked to something attainable with /medicalForage) would help to alleviate the immersion-breaking aspect of using these commands.

(*Dev Response:  Holo wrote in a thread on /medicalForage on 6/29/03: " •Make tending use a small device. This device lasts a long time but does eventually break, and is made by artisans. •Have it have charges. •Each item that you can medical forage up gives it a charge. •Take out the current wounding/battle fatigue effect of the /tend commands."

Ref: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=medic&message.id=192&highlight=#M192)

Wow can't believe nobody has voted yet.

30

2

22

26

38

51

55

56

59

sure, thats my vote, i got through an eighth of that list and skipped the rest, so i dont know what number it is, but is there any way for a medic to make cash if that is their only prof?

It's the Money issue, but I don;t remember the number and I normally don't bother to look them up if the folks voting won;t vother to do it for themselves. Sorry, gotta draw the line somehwere since it's all volunteer time anyway. /shrug

As for ways to make money, why through tips, of course... 

The main problem with medic is that by itself its got no rewards.

I look at Medic as kind of a Nurse, since its the class needed before Master Doctor.

There should be some major benefits between being Novice Medic and Master Medic, one such thing I think would help improve this is allow low level cures to be used by a Master Medic. Like a Cure poison A, Cure disease A, Cure Dizzy A, etc.. while they might not be as effective as a Doctor's level they would give usefulessness in actually mastering medic profession. (Nurses can apply shots afterall just don't do surgery ).

Another major issue is the TEF regarding healing. It should not boot a person out of the building of which they are healing, but rather able to carry on their healing while being flagged.

Another thing in that same boat, is not being able to Heal another person of an opposing faction. At the risk of being TEF'd to your own faction you should be entitled to heal an opposing faction member. That way your own peers can 'punish' your action should they choose too, but would enable the medical profession to choose at their discretion who they heal.  As well as warnings prior to this which should be like the 'ok' box on crafting. You can choose to turn that off, or keep it on so that way you don't suddenly get flagged by not knowing they were TEF'd or Overt.

The main problem with medic is that by itself its got no rewards.

I look at Medic as kind of a Nurse, since its the class needed before Master Doctor.

There should be some major benefits between being Novice Medic and Master Medic, one such thing I think would help improve this is allow low level cures to be used by a Master Medic. Like a Cure poison A, Cure disease A, Cure Dizzy A, etc.. while they might not be as effective as a Doctor's level they would give usefulessness in actually mastering medic profession. (Nurses can apply shots afterall just don't do surgery ).

Another major issue is the TEF regarding healing. It should not boot a person out of the building of which they are healing, but rather able to carry on their healing while being flagged.

Another thing in that same boat, is not being able to Heal another person of an opposing faction. At the risk of being TEF'd to your own faction you should be entitled to heal an opposing faction member. That way your own peers can 'punish' your action should they choose too, but would enable the medical profession to choose at their discretion who they heal.  As well as warnings prior to this which should be like the 'ok' box on crafting. You can choose to turn that off, or keep it on so that way you don't suddenly get flagged by not knowing they were TEF'd or Overt.

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Emmers wrote:

The main problem with medic is that by itself its got no rewards.

I look at Medic as kind of a Nurse, since its the class needed before Master Doctor.

There should be some major benefits between being Novice Medic and Master Medic, one such thing I think would help improve this is allow low level cures to be used by a Master Medic. Like a Cure poison A, Cure disease A, Cure Dizzy A, etc.. while they might not be as effective as a Doctor's level they would give usefulessness in actually mastering medic profession. (Nurses can apply shots afterall just don't do surgery ).

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Well there is nothing currently on the listing for that. If you wanted it, though, I would certainly encourage you to post it in a seperate thread on this forum and see if enough other medics will support the idea to get it added to the list.

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Another major issue is the TEF regarding healing. It should not boot a person out of the building of which they are healing, but rather able to carry on their healing while being flagged.

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Now that one is oon the list. You'll have to list the number for it if you wanted to vote for it for the next TOp 5 listing, though.

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Another thing in that same boat, is not being able to Heal another person of an opposing faction. At the risk of being TEF'd to your own faction you should be entitled to heal an opposing faction member. That way your own peers can 'punish' your action should they choose too, but would enable the medical profession to choose at their discretion who they heal.  As well as warnings prior to this which should be like the 'ok' box on crafting. You can choose to turn that off, or keep it on so that way you don't suddenly get flagged by not knowing they were TEF'd or Overt.

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