First Aid/Armor Patching XP

I'm not really sure this counts as a combat skill since you don't equip it to the main hotbars, but definitely not a trade skill :p

Anyhow, this post is about earning experience in First Aid and Armor Patching. Currently the system works that if you've used any first aid ability in the last certain amount of time (i think it's 60 seconds), any kills you get will have their xp value applied to First Aid (Armor Patching works similarly).

This encourages using the skill in situations where there is no risk and spamming the cheap kits.

I think to make it a more interesting skill to train, we should earn xp instead based on the value we heal, with a penalty if we are at high health and a bonus if we are at low health. Then you could earn xp even if you are saving yourself from hypothermia, for example. It would incentivize using the skill in more life-or-death situations and possibly make it a bit more exciting.

Thoughts?

I didn't realize first aid/armor patching xp was based on the level of mob killed - I thought it was the level of kit used as long as you were in combat within 60 seconds. Your description of the way it actually works now makes me want to spam level it ... ;)

I like the idea of it working based on actual healing done but it's pretty easy to lower your health yourself without any risk. There's drinking fuel oil, and even easier, you can switch from a naked loadout to a fully-geared loadout - for a few seconds there, you'll have a lot of health and armor to regain.

Maybe if xp was based on actual healing done as long as you were in combat? Although I do like the idea of getting xp for healing hypothermia...

First aid and armor patching could certainly use something to make them more exciting, just not sure what. I do like it that the chance to use up a kit has gone down to 10% in the latest patch - as a frantic hoarder, this makes me far more likely to actually use the abilities naturally, rather than just when trying to level them or when I'm about to die.

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Originally Posted by Tagamogi

I like the idea of it working based on actual healing done but it's pretty easy to lower your health yourself without any risk. There's drinking fuel oil, and even easier, you can switch from a naked loadout to a fully-geared loadout - for a few seconds there, you'll have a lot of health and armor to regain.

Maybe if xp was based on actual healing done as long as you were in combat? Although I do like the idea of getting xp for healing hypothermia...

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Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

Probably should only count for xp in situations where your health is -- i'm not sure if this is the right term but -- 'passively decreasing'. Basically, if you were afk you would die. There still are some abuse situations, like letting yourself drown and using first aid kits as you get low. But as long as we can limit the "exploits" to where it's more tedious/expensive than actually just leveling the skill normally it shouldn't mattter :p

I don't think the skill is bad the way it's implemented, i just see some room for opporunity and improvement.

On some level I like this idea. My concern is that if it was setup as described, to train people would just stand deep enough in water or stand in one of the cold zones and let their health run down low and just use kits to stay alive till they reached the level of First Aid they wanted. If it was combat only, then it seems it could work. But it makes leveling First Aid and Armor Patching more difficult to do and more complex to understand. A bonus xp value labeled as such, if you save yourself in battle from the brink of death might achieve some of what you are trying for. Also I can see people getting angry in certain cases, for example a player uses first aid on the tank person during a Manitcore run but get nearly no XP even though the tank was down to near 0 health, but others in the group saw the tank needed help and applied various healing abilities, and are awarded the right % of xp for the amount they healed. But it be difficult to tell who did the healing, and a player might assume they didn't get what they should get. So it is a timing issue. Or someone tries to help you out in a fight by healing you and messes up your XP because you are at full health when you apply first aid, wasted kit.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

On some level I like this idea. My concern is that if it was setup as described, to train people would just stand deep enough in water or stand in one of the cold zones and let their health run down low and just use kits to stay alive till they reached the level of First Aid they wanted. If it was combat only, then it seems it could work. But it makes leveling First Aid and Armor Patching more difficult to do and more complex to understand. A bonus xp value labeled as such, if you save yourself in battle from the brink of death might achieve some of what you are trying for. Also I can see people getting angry in certain cases, for example a player uses first aid on the tank person during a Manitcore run but get nearly no XP even though the tank was down to near 0 health, but others in the group saw the tank needed help and applied various healing abilities, and are awarded the right % of xp for the amount they healed. But it be difficult to tell who did the healing, and a player might assume they didn't get what they should get. So it is a timing issue. Or someone tries to help you out in a fight by healing you and messes up your XP because you are at full health when you apply first aid, wasted kit.

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Good points. I don't think it necessarily makes it harder to level FA/AP. There's no reason the XP:HP/armor ratio has to be 1:1. That could be tweaked to make leveling as difficult/easy as desired. As far as it being more complex to understand, maybe that's only because you're used to the current system? For me it's very unintuitive that i can get xp for using a kit at full/near full health, but then when i'm running away with a DoT on, use a kit to save myself, and manage to escape i get none. What did killing that orc have to do with learning to bandage my wounds?

The spam cases (underwater etc) are a concern but i think that would just be time inefficiently spent when you could be leveling combat at the same time.

The grouping issue is more of a concern. I don't have a good answer to that right now.

Also side note/question: does Treat Disease give any xp? What about using first aid on other people? I hope so.

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Originally Posted by alleryn

Also side note/question: does Treat Disease give any xp? What about using first aid on other people? I hope so.

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I don't think Treat Disease gives any xp. I am pretty sure healing other people gives xp if you win the fight you are in, same amount of xp you would get if you heal yourself and win the fight.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

I don't think Treat Disease gives any xp. I am pretty sure healing other people gives xp if you win the fight you are in, same amount of xp you would get if you heal yourself and win the fight.

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Ah, okay. A lot of times if i'm running through a dungeon i'll heal/patch people who are low on health/armor. What about this situation where i'm not really in the fight?

I find these skills really hard to level at the moment since most of the time i only use them when i'm in trouble and in those cases i often die.

I'm not sure my proposed solution is good, but i would like to see some thought put into this to make it feel more satisfying to level, instead of just "buy kits, put skill in sidebar, use whenever possible just for the xp".

Well it has improved some, earlier you didn't even need to be in fight. You just used the skill and got xp, so you only needed to wait for the cool down. Citan didn't much like people training First Aid standing at the well all day.

hmm, I don't know about healing and not being in the fight. I would hope it would sort of automatically put you in the fight. I know you get quest rewards for kills that you are just standing near or running away from :-| but think you have to be near for the kill.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

Well it has improved some, earlier you didn't even need to be in fight. You just used the skill and got xp, so you only needed to wait for the cool down. Citan didn't much like people training First Aid standing at the well all day.

hmm, I don't know about healing and not being in the fight. I would hope it would sort of automatically put you in the fight. I know you get quest rewards for kills that you are just standing near or running away from :-| but think you have to be near for the kill.

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I actually thought about getting first aid and armor patching leveled by just standing in one spot and spamming after cooldown. Man, that was so boring. I did it like 4 times and said to heck with that plan. But it was possible back then. I think I tried that at the end of 2014 beginning of 2015.

For what it's worth, Treat Disease does give First Aid xp as long as you use it in combat. It's going to give exactly the same amount of xp as using a first aid kit to heal yourself - based on the level of the mob you are currently fighting. (Many thanks to the friendly bridge ogres in the yeti cave for giving me ample test opportunities by breaking every bone in my body.)

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Originally Posted by Spiritfingers

I actually thought about getting first aid and armor patching leveled by just standing in one spot and spamming after cooldown. Man, that was so boring. I did it like 4 times and said to heck with that plan. But it was possible back then. I think I tried that at the end of 2014 beginning of 2015.

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Yeah, when I started I spammed armor patching as I was running around since I really wanted to get to 25 and learn blacksmithing. After that, I was so used to spamming it that I guess I just kept on doing it till I was maxed.

Interesting.

I was trying to figure out how xp was earned by using Healing. This is kind of a weird mechanic because it's not based on actually using the skill. The skill just sets a timer and you then blaze through as many mobs as possible before resetting the timer.

Does First Aid xp come in addition to your hotbar skills or instead of certain skills? I would assume the former.

I like the idea of requiring combat in order to heal, but I think the formula should be reversed; xp should be based off of your heal on a combat timer rather than kills during the heal timer. Total amount healed should be the determining factor for how your skill is increased so as to not allow people to use a bad kit or spam heals at full health during combat timer. That way, overheals don't count to the overall healing skill up.

Haven't done group combat yet. If you haven't attacked the mob and your teammate has, does that put you in combat? I think it would be important to seeing how healing others is affected during battle.