Medical code overhaul

[Synthesis]

Bandage success is probably already affected by how badly the target is injured.  (And I don't mean in the trivial "he's too fucked up for you to even try" sense.)

It might just be confirmation bias on my part, but that's my suspicion.

As far as comparisons with real life go:  I prefer to think that there's some cosmic Vivaduan background radiation that causes everyone to heal up spontaneously, rather than attempt to explain such ridiculous nonsense in purely mundane terms.

[BlazinDayz]

I think it should be easy to bandage wounds around 80-100% of your max, and continually harder the closer you are to 0%.

Like in real life. Right Synthesis?

Yes.

[tortall]

I think it should be easy to bandage wounds around 80-100% of your max, and continually harder the closer you are to 0%.

Like in real life. Right Synthesis?

Yes.

Exactly. So, starting out, you can only bandage minor things. Makes sense. I've had first aide classes and such. I can bandage a sprain, stop the blood flowing, and such. But if someone was half dead? My n00n bandage skill wouldn't work.

Only Nyr said the bandage skill works as they intended it. I'd like to hear more feedback on WHY they intended it that way though. Everyone's ALWAYS trying to make things more realistic.... Why not this?

[Synthesis]

1. The level of injury you can successfully attempt to treat is affected by your skill.  (known)

2. Your chance of success is affected by a) wound severity and b) your skill.  (strongly suspected)

What else are you asking for?

[musashi]

Why you can't patch up smaller wounds, I think.

My main problem with bandage, as has been said by others before, is that you end up acting like a crazy person trying to work it.

>bandage self

You don't have the skill to bandage a wound that great!

>sleep

>wake

>bandage self

You don't have the skill to bandage a wound that great!

>sleep

>wake

>bandage self

You don't need to bandage those wounds, they aren't that serious.

GARKTAHT!!!!

[Synthesis]

Fortunately, getting injured is fairly easy, so you can always try, try again.

[Fathi]

Why you can't patch up smaller wounds, I think.

My main problem with bandage, as has been said by others before, is that you end up acting like a crazy person trying to work it.

>bandage self

You don't have the skill to bandage a wound that great!

>sleep

>wake

>bandage self

You don't have the skill to bandage a wound that great!

>sleep

>wake

>bandage self

You don't need to bandage those wounds, they aren't that serious.

GARKTAHT!!!!

Hm!

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,37109.0.html

[Eyeball]

For more input, look here:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,15804.0.html

That was four years ago. It isn't going to change now, I'm sorry to say.

[tortall]

For more input, look here:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,15804.0.html

That was four years ago. It isn't going to change now, I'm sorry to say.

Yes, I read that as well. I was hoping ti bring it up again to stir things up and hope that maybe the imms would see that someone with a n00b bandage skill not being able to do ANYTHING unless they're half dead was a little crazy... But apparently I'm one of few who think that. Carry on with your lives, since few have any wish for change here.

[BlazinDayz]

Yeah, there could be a major bandage code overhaul to make it more 'realistic', but I don't see where all the strife is coming from. The bandage learning skill is very steep, but there are non-jarring ways to practice. My two medic-oriented characters both learned about how to bandage people very fast. I even think the bandage skill may be the quickest skill to increase. And once you are finally successful with it, you can really work wonders with bandage.

What I'm saying is yeah the bandage skill could be better, but for now, it's pretty good as it is.

[Lizzie]

I'm glad to see so many people feel this is a problem. Though, we -could- just emote the part out of healing someone (or ourselves), why bother having a skill, in that case? I mean, you don't need the coded skill to emote bandaging who codedly doesn't need bandaging. But if they are 20 hps down, why don't they need a stitch, or a bandaid, or a kiss on the booboo to make it feel better, or SOMETHING? Why won't the bandage skill work at all, if they're 20 hps down? That's a lot of hps. I mean, even if someone is "bleeding heavily" from a fresh wound, often that isn't "bleeding badly enough" to warrant a coded bandage? C'mon. That's nuts. If someone is bleeding badly enough to be "bleeding badly," then he's bleeding badly enough to benefit from a coded slap of an ace bandage, or a poultice, or some sawdust, or leeches, or something.

[tortall]

I'm glad to see so many people feel this is a problem. Though, we -could- just emote the part out of healing someone (or ourselves), why bother having a skill, in that case? I mean, you don't need the coded skill to emote bandaging who codedly doesn't need bandaging. But if they are 20 hps down, why don't they need a stitch, or a bandaid, or a kiss on the booboo to make it feel better, or SOMETHING? Why won't the bandage skill work at all, if they're 20 hps down? That's a lot of hps. I mean, even if someone is "bleeding heavily" from a fresh wound, often that isn't "bleeding badly enough" to warrant a coded bandage? C'mon. That's nuts. If someone is bleeding badly enough to be "bleeding badly," then he's bleeding badly enough to benefit from a coded slap of an ace bandage, or a poultice, or some sawdust, or leeches, or something.

Lizzie, we both feel passionate about this. And we agree. Clearly this means the imms are just laughing at us, thinking we're both just fooling them into THINKING we get along.

Thus, nothing will happen....





Or We could keep this thread going until they finally give in. I'm glad other players have figured out how to master bandage so quickly. Too bad you can't share that knowledge.

[number13]

When a player chooses 'physician', he's looking to be either an herbalist (which works out fine at char gen) or a healer. Usually, the intent isn't to play a gimpy healer-in-training.  Sadly, it one of those professions you have to put a significant time investment into before the PC is better than worthless.  Consider, a 10 day PC is 240 hours played, which is 200 hours longer than it normally takes to completely explore a typical console RPG.

I can sort of understand starting everyone off as terrible combatants. You don't want kamikaze PCs zerging other PCs. Skills like bandage/bandage-making?  There should be a standardize method of starting the skill at a useful level, be it a karma option or starting a character with an advanced age or (my preference) as a wisdom-scaled bonus of the physician subclass. 

Slightly off-topic, but the problem isn't so much how bandage works (though it does severely stretch suspension of disbelief) -- it's the time investment common to nearly every skill before they work as expected.

[Cerelum]

I agree that Bandaging is all jacked up, but I really don't think they are going to waste time coding it differently for this incarnation of Arm.

I personally am just going to hope and pray that Arm2 has better systems in place.

And if not, I'll riot!

[BlazinDayz]

Alright, so you guys are asking if we can bandage characters with increased percentage level of their health. Instead of 50% maybe 65%, 75% or so. I'd be down with that. Additionally, when in the higher hp range, bandage gain/loss should be significantly decreased.

[tortall]

Alright, so you guys are asking if we can bandage characters with increased percentage level of their health. Instead of 50% maybe 65%, 75% or so. I'd be down with that. Additionally, when in the higher hp range, bandage gain/loss should be significantly decreased.

Yes! This. I'd settle for just 65%. I dunno about you others, but I usually FLEE and get the FUCK OUT OF THERE once I get even CLOSE to 65% of my HP. So unless you wanna play unrealistically and be half dead a lot.... Or find people who are willing to almost die for you... Then you'll never even get to use bandage.


I'm not asking for the to recode the whole thing. Just shift that one number that says what the HP loss has to be.

Granted, I will say I know NOTHING of the coding, so it COULD be more complicated than that.

[Lizzie]

I'd just like it to work like most other skills work, in the most simple terms. Examples:

Combat - piercing.

If you fail, you get a failure message, and a chance (not guarantee) to improve.
If you succeed, you succeed with varying degrees, each of which comes with its own message.

Kick:
If you fail, you get a failure message, and a chance to improve. Critical failure could result in the opponent pushing you down.
If you succeed, you succeed with varying degrees, each of which comes with its own message.

Crafting:
The item you want to work with is either craftable, not craftable to you because you don't have that specific skill, not craftable because you're not skilled enough, or not craftable.

I think the bandage skill is most closely related to crafting...

Notice in crafting, there's no "the item you want to work with is not craftable to you because it's too easy."

That's the part of bandaging I take issue with. The part where the echo says "he's injured, but not injured *enough*." "This piece of bone could be turned into a dozen things, but ten of them are too easy for you so we'll only let you make two." "Your opponent is too weak, so we won't let you kill him." "The sparring dummy is too stupid to fight back, so you will be incapable of trying to kick it."

I don't like, that you can't TRY to bandage someone who IS injured, simply because they aren't injured enough, no matter how well or poorly skilled you are.

Like foraging...remember they had to take kindling out and make it its own segment of foraging for wood, because once you got good at foraging wood, you never found kindling, and sometimes you WANTED to find kindling? Well this bandage issue is the same thing. Yes, I can heal a mekillot sawed in half, but no, I can't put a poultice on a guy with razor-burn?

[5 day lifespan]

I would say that yes, you should be able to bandage at any hit point damage, because if I want to spend 100 sid on a bandage for 10 hps that will get healed on their own in a few seconds anyway, then why not let me?  Bandage, like crafting, requires a monetary investment to get good at, but also in this case requires people to be nearly, but not quite, too hurt to continue on.  It seems that some injuries heal more slowly outside than they do in cities.  This means that being 30% down can be detrimental outside.  Why should I do the unrealistic thing of sleeping to restore those HP's instead of having my ranger friend slap 200 coins worth of materials on my arm.

Are we worried about abuse?  It is a lamentable fact of games utilizing systems that abuse is going to happen.  As an RPI MUD, we discourage such behavior, and I say that due to the associated cost with bandaging, there should be no reason why we can't train it up like any other skill.

As a proposal, I might add further modifiers for the heal skill based on environment.  If you are in the middle of a sand storm, it should be much harder to apply critical care than if you are inside in a quit room.  Thus, the code as it is written (for success and failure) should be sufficient to be the balancing force.

It seems obvious to me that people above 50% would have a higher success rate, and thusly skill ups will require your target to be closer and closer to death, also meaning that you are as likely to kill as to cure them.  First aid should be easy to get the basics of (it is) and harder for you to pull off trauma surgeon type heroics.

I would even be amused to see a scenario in the Byn (or similar units) where all troopers and above are issued one bandage, and anyone with the medical ability uses that bandage on them in the field in case of emergency (just like in the US army, each soldier has a personal supply of bandages that is to be used on them first in case of emergency to avoid the depletion of the medic's supplies as much as possible).

It's good to know I am not the only person curious about the difficulties with this skill and wanting to talk about it.